A supposed “analysis” of a proposal for high-speed rail between Vancouver, BC and Seattle is full of “glaring and frequent errors” and is more of a “promotional brochure” than a serious analysis, says transportation accountant Tom Rubin in a report published last week by the Washington Policy Center. Rubin’s first clue that the so-called analysis was more like political propaganda was that it was proposing not just any old high-speed rail but ultra high-speed rail — a term, Rubin points out, that has never been previously used but that is defined in the analysis as trains going more than 250 miles per hour.
The second problem Rubin found is that the trains in the proposal didn’t meet this definition, having actual top speeds of 220 miles per hour. Rubin speculates that the company doing the analysis used the term “ultra” to try to distance its proposal from the California debacle, even though that plan was also for trains going at a top speed of 220 miles per hour.
The analysis was prepared by a company called WSP, which itself has earned $666 million on the California project and could reasonably be expecting to earn more if Washington decides to build a high-speed rail line. Rubin suggests that maybe this indicates that the company has a conflict of interest when preparing this analysis.
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A map shown in the report claims that, with the high-speed rail line, someone in downtown Portland could reach downtown Vancouver in under 2 hours. Yet a table in the report says it would take 2 hours and 45 minutes, thus showing that the map is misleading.
The real question is why is the Washington Department of Transportation hiring groups like WSP and (as noted here last week) the Boston Consulting Group to present highly flawed analyses to the public. Departmental staff have to be aware of these flaws, and the only explanation is that they don’t care about the problems and only want to enhance the agency’s budget and prestige by promoting ridiculously expensive white elephants that have an aura of environmental respectability.
What they fail to take into consideration, is what stops will they build along the way. California High speed rail fell into the proverbial ditch when they started offering train stops to hick towns in the middle of nowhere.
Ultra high speed rail? Oi!
Another trick out there being used in St. Paul. Some zealots want to build a light rail line on West 7th between downtown and the airport.
A push for LRT on Wsest 7th failed years ago. It’s a corridor still full of mom and pop businesses. They saw how LRT on University Ave, the Central Corridor, decimated the mom and pop busineses there. They want nothing of the sort for W 7th.
So they elite in St. Paul have taken to calling thier proposal a modern streetcar and insist it’s not Light Rail. That’s depite that it’s vehicles have the same weights and capacities as LRT and has the same $2+ billion price tag as light rail.