Tonight, the Antiplanner will be in Rochester, Minnesota to address a proposed high-speed train between Rochester and Minneapolis. I’ll speak at the Rochester International Event Center, 7333 Airport Drive SW, at 7 pm.
The Minnesota Department of Transportation is going through the process of preparing an environmental impact statement for the “zip train.” I suspect there is only a tiny chance that the train could be funded, but MNDOT wants to be ready in case money for high-speed rail falls out of the sky as it did in 2009 when Congress passed the stimulus bill. Not surprisingly, Parsons Brinckerhoff is also behind the effort.
The response to a request for comments on the scope of the planned EIS produced so much opposition that MNDOT is taking longer than it expected to produce a final scoping document. Among other things, MNDOT has decided to include a “no-build” alternative in the EIS, the absence of which would have been reprehensible. After all, the no-build alternative was found to be the environmentally preferred alternative in the EIS for the Tampa-Orlando high-speed train (see p. 2-38).
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(The second article cited in the previous paragraph also says that opponents “hired” the Antiplanner to speak in Rochester tonight. In fact, I volunteered to come. As so often is the case with these megaprojects, the supporters who stand to make millions if the project is funded try to besmirch the opponents even though the opponents will make no money at all, other than possibly saving a few tax dollars, if the project is not funded.)
There is precious little real information about the proposed train other than a 2003 feasibility study that made no effort to estimate demand. Rather than project demand, the study simply assumed that 65 percent of the train’s seats would be filled. My own back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that the cost of the high-speed train would be enough to fund 8,000 airline round-trips between Rochester and Minneapolis per day, forever, which is more than are ever likely to ride the train. The presentation I’ll give tonight will be a slightly updated version of the one I gave in August in Zumbrota, MN (18-MB PDF).
“After all, the no-build alternative was found to be the environmentally preferred alternative in the EIS…”
Is there a major capital transportation project of any modal typology where the no-build alternative isn’t the environmentally preferred alternative?
The Antiplanner wrote:
Among other things, MNDOT has decided to include a “no-build” alternative in the EIS, the absence of which would have been reprehensible. After all, the no-build alternative was found to be the environmentally preferred alternative in the EIS for the Tampa-Orlando high-speed train (see p. 2-38).
It has long been my understanding that the federal environmental statutes (in particular the National Environmental Policy Act, NEPA for short) requires that a “no-build” alternative be included in the analysis leading to a draft environmental impact statement (DEIS)?
It’s funny the things people say to support a project. Awhile back when the Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad was pushing for their loan from the STB ( aka subsidy ) to build into the Powder River Basin, officials in Rochester lead opposition to the loan and project. Out of it came this strange oxymoron of a claim that the city would be plagued by dangerous high speed coal trains.
In the meantime the city has been ignoring a very serious fat tail in the form of an ethanol unit train accident. If one were to derail in town, especially near downtown, it would force the Mayo Clinic to evacuate patients Instead of working with the DME and now CP Rail to route these trains around town, -addressing a real problem, that is – they’ve taken to pushing for . they’ve taken to rallying behind Zip Rail which solves zero problems.
Looks like someone’s gone to some of Mr. O’Toole’s talks and written a letter to the editor.
http://www.winonadailynews.com/print-specific/columns/mary-a-cichanowski-high-speed-rail-not-worth-the-cost/article_0132ef10-d92b-5343-a184-282a3a04757e.html?comment_form=true