Search Results for: rail

Latest High-Speed Rail Grant

By | | Follow up, News commentary, Transportation
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Secretary of Immobility Ray LaHood announced yesterday the latest–and possibly last–round of high-speed rail grants, this one from redistribution of the $2.4 billion rejected by the state of Florida. As the Antiplanner noted in March, LaHood could have given the entire $2.4 billion to California, sending a signal that the administration remains serious about building a true high-speed rail network.

Instead, LaHood gave only $300 million to California high-speed rail, and instead gave the lion’s share–$800 million–to Amtrak and several eastern states for the Northeast Corridor–a corridor that wasn’t even on the original high-speed rail list until LaHood added it in March. Most of the rest of the money went for minor improvements in track to allow trains to run slightly faster than they run today, or for stations, locomotives, passenger cars, and similar facilities that will pretty much operate at conventional speeds.

California expects to use the $300 million to build another 20 miles of rail line in the state’s Central Valley, on top of the 65 miles or so that are already funded. The Central Valley is the least-expensive portion of the planned 420-mile route that includes two mountain crossings and more than 100 miles through urban areas. Since the state has little more than 10 percent of the money it needs to complete the San Francisco-Anaheim route, giving it $300 million is not going to help it complete the project. Yet California politicians claim they are thrilled with the grant.

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High-Speed Rail Is Out of the Budget

By | | News commentary, Transportation
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Early Tuesday morning, Congressional leaders agreed on a 2011 budget package that zeros out funding for high-speed rail and rescinds $400 million in 2010 funding that remains unspent (transportation begins on p. 404). The package has the support of Senate Majority Leader Reid, House Speaker Boehner, and House Appropriations Committee Chair Hal Rogers.

The budget plan, now more than six months overdue, also cuts Amtrak’s budget by $80 million and rescinds 2010 highway funds that remain unspent by the states. But the federal government will continue to spend money on highways, transit, and Amtrak. The real significance is that the budget plan is probably the death knell for Obama’s ambitious plan to spend more than $500 billion extending high-speed rail to most major American cities.

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Dead or Not, States Want High-Speed Rail Money

By | | News commentary, Transportation
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High-speed rail may be dead, but numerous states would be happy to get some of Florida’s $2.4 billion in rejected high-speed rail funds. Yesterday was the deadline for applications for this money, and some of the applicants include:

  • California, of course, would like it all, even though that would still leave it $50 billion or so short in completing the first leg of its high-speed rail dream.

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High-Speed Rail Hearings

By | | News commentary
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You know that Congress is serious about getting the facts about high-speed rail when it holds a hearing on high-speed rail in Grand Central Station. Rail advocates proposed to extend the Northeast Corridor rail system to Springfield. Videotaping is often discouraged at Congressional hearings, but fortunately the Antiplanner was able to obtain the video of this hearing shown below.


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As noted in this advertisement for a rail system in North Carolina, the arguments for high-speed rail and urban rail transit are much the same: the costs are really, really high (“jobs!”), the transportation is convenient (if you happen to be going to one of the few places it goes and are willing to walk when you get there), and it is very affordable (provided you have billions in “stimulus” money).

More on China’s High-Speed Rail

By | | Transportation
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An American blogger in China makes some interesting points about China’s rail system. The country’s existing rail network is currently being used to capacity by freight (mainly coal) and conventional passenger trains. In fact, the number of passenger trains has pushed a lot of coal traffic onto trucks and highways.

The high-speed rail network was supposed to get passengers off the conventional rails, in turn allowing freight trains to get coal and other freight off the highways. But the high-speed rail fares are so high that ridership is low and the vast majority of rail riders are sticking to the conventional trains. The result is a surplus of passenger capacity without alleviating the shortage of freight capacity.

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Virginia Light Rail Woes

By | | News commentary, Transportation
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The city manager for Norfolk, Virginia, has been forced to resign due to allegations that she knew about light rail cost overruns but failed to inform the city council. The senior vice president for development of Norfolk’s transit agency, Hampton Roads Transit, has also quit in response to allegations that her mismanagement led to the cost overruns.

When Flickr user DearEdward took this photo in July, 2008, Hampton Roads Transit was promising to start operating Norfolk’s light rail in December, 2009. Now it has postponed the opening to late in 2011.

They follow the transit agency’s previous general manager, who was forced to quit a year ago when the cost overruns first came to light. Meanwhile, Hampton Roads Transit has announced that the light-rail line is not only $106 million over budget, it is at least 16 months behind schedule. The most recent scheduled date for opening the line, May 2011, has been postponed indefinitely because of delays in delivering and installing safety equipment.

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Norfolk Light Rail Scandal

By | | News commentary, Transportation, Urban areas
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When the light-rail line in Norfolk, Virginia, went nearly 50 percent over its projected cost, the general manager of Hampton Roads Transit resigned in disgrace–but they gave him $300,000 in severance pay. Now documents have come to light that agency officials knew the line was going to cost more than their published projections but kept the true cost secret from the public and the Federal Transit Administration when they were seeking funding for the project.

Norfolk light rail under construction.
Flickr photo by DearEdward.

On top of that, the state has found that the transit agency broke contracting and bidding laws when it gave contracts to favored consultants and “preferred individuals”–no doubt ones who would low-ball the cost estimates and not reveal the true costs until construction was well underway. The transit agency’s current CEO is talking about bringing criminal charges against the now-departed officials who were in charge when the line was being planned.

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High-Speed Rail = Low-Quality Planning

By | | News commentary, Transportation
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High-speed rail advocates are psychotic, says the Boyd Group, an aviation planning firm. Psychotics, notes the company blog, suffer from “confusion, disorganized thought and speech, mania, delusions, and a loss of touch with reality”–all of which describe rail nuts.

“If you really want to see psychosis,” adds the Boyd Group, “log on to the DOT’s website. Instead of providing hard, accurate information, it’s now a shoddy trumpet for politically-correct schemes pushed by the hobby-lobby that’s running the Department.” Displaying the DOT’s 2009 map of proposed high-speed rail lines, the blog says “high-speed rail isn’t infrastructure; it’s political correctness” and the administration’s plan isn’t a “vision,” it’s “corruption.”

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LaHood Redistributes High-Speed Rail Funds

By | | News commentary, Transportation
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Rather than fight the plans of governors-elect Kasich and Walker to cancel high-speed trains in Ohio and Wisconsin, Secretary of Immobility Ray LaHood has preempted them by redistributing the $1.2 billion in federal rail grants to those states. Not surprisingly, most of the money is going to to California ($624 million) and Florida ($342 million). Washington state will get $162 million, Illinois $42 million, with smaller amounts to other states.

That brings the total of federal grants to California’s project to $3.2 billion. With state matching funds, it now has about $5.5 billion, or slightly more than 10 percent of what it says it needs to build the proposed San Francisco-Los Angeles line. Of course, the actual cost is likely to be much greater.

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More Overbudget Rail Projects

By | | News commentary, Transportation
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The planned Honolulu rail line is likely to go at least 30 percent over its projected costs, and ridership is likely to be 30 percent less than forecast, according to a new report commissioned and released by Hawaii’s governor. The report cost $350,000, which means it commands more respect than if one of the Antiplanner’s faithful allies had written it for free. (Actually, one of the Antiplanner’s faithful allies, Tom Rubin, did help write the report–but not for free.)

The report says the rail line, which the city projected would cost $5.5 billion, is likely to cost at least $1.7 billion more. While local voters approved a sales tax increase to pay for the line, the report projects that tax will be insufficient to pay for the rail line. Over the next 30 years, “The total capital and operating subsidy paid by local taxpayers” on top of the sales tax “is estimate to range from $9.3 billion . . . to $14.5 billion.”

“Transit system usage and fare revenue are likely to be substantially lower than is project,” adds the report, “since the Plan’s projection would require an unprecedented and unrealistic growth in transit utilization for a city that already has one of the highest transit utilization rates in the country.” Update:The full report is downloadable from a state web site. Continue reading →