Posted on 02/08/2010 2:03:29 PM PST by SeekAndFind
High-speed rail has emerged as the Obama administration’s signature transportation initiative. While advocates hail the project as a long-overdue commitment to the nation’s passenger-rail infrastructure, in reality it reflects a remarkable marginalization of the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) at a time when bold federal leadership is crucial. The administration has chosen to elevate an expensive program targeted at an extraordinarily narrow segment of the traveling public over programs that could provide meaningful relief to tens of millions of travelers on a daily basis.
The last twelve months have shown convincingly that transportation issues can’t compete with signature Obama initiatives such as health-care reform, climate-change measures, or economic-recovery plans, even as our annual infrastructure deficit balloons into the hundreds of billions of dollars. More than one year into the Obama administration’s tenure, federal transportation policy languishes, a stepchild to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and the victim of half-hearted attempts to promote mass transit as an alternative to the more nimble automobile.
Until January, the DOT served as little more than a spigot for federal dollars to fund a dubious jobs program. While the department justifiably bragged of its ability to get dollars out the door, many of these projects were low-priority — they had already been passed over by state transportation departments for higher-priority projects. No attempt was made to distinguish projects that might improve traffic speeds or reduce congestion from make-work curb replacements on local roads.
The administration’s high-speed-rail initiative is at least conceived as an actual transportation program with a goal of improving mobility between cities. But the plan’s stunningly narrow impact disqualifies it as a marquee program. Intercity rail currently accounts for less than 1 percent of all travel in the U.S. It will compete primarily with short-haul (less than 500 miles) air travel, but all air travel, including long-haul trips, accounts for just 10.8 percent of all travel in the U.S. Even if the project is a success, business travelers and well-heeled tourists will reap most of the benefits.
Meanwhile, despite the recession, the far more pervasive and economically debilitating problem of urban traffic congestion continues largely unabated. After brief retrenchment in 2008, congestion began to creep up again in the top 100 metropolitan areas in 2009. By 2030, the Reason Foundation estimates, 42 percent of the U.S. population will live in urban areas with severe congestion problems. Yet congestion barely registers on the national-policy radar screen, a holdover from the more aggressive leadership under former DOT secretaries Mary Peters and Norm Mineta.
Even if the DOT shifted gears to dramatically bolster urban mass transit, its chances of making a meaningful dent in traffic congestion outside of New York City and certain corridors in Chicago would be small. Mass transit accounts for just 1 percent of travel overall, and about 5 percent of commuting.
The Obama administration’s focus on narrowly targeted programs with a veneer of glitz and glam deflects policy discussion from trenchant challenges and game-changing reforms that could determine the course of the nation’s economic competitiveness. This is a potentially devastating outcome for the U.S. economy.
For example, the focus on intercity travel ignores festering problems that add significant costs to American businesses. Freight bottlenecks in Chicago disrupt the distribution of goods and services nationwide. Nearly $350 billion worth of goods travel by rail to, in, and from the Chicago region each year. By some estimates this activity accounts for nearly $5 billion of economic activity and $1 billion in output annually nationwide. Moving goods from the Port of Los Angeles to Chicago can take two days, but moving through Chicago can tack on two more.
Perhaps even more troubling is the Obama administration’s apparent unwillingness to tackle seriously our dysfunctional approach to funding the nation’s deteriorating infrastructure. Our nation needs to spend $170 billion per year more than we currently do simply to maintain the existing transportation infrastructure, and nearly $30 billion more than that to improve it. The gas tax, our principal means of financing our roads and bridges, is increasingly untenable: The inflation-adjusted value of the gas tax has fallen by one third since 1993. As hybrid and non-gasoline-powered vehicles take the road, the gas tax will become even less reliable.
Thousands of earmarks and outdated funding formulas have bred inefficiency, and two national commissions have outlined strategic blueprints for managing our way out. The DOT, however, is nowhere to be found in this debate or discussion. Indeed, the White House forced a time out so it could decide what it wants to do on its own schedule. The result is a “hold” on critical initiatives.
For example, the National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission argued that drivers should pay a fee based on the distance they drive rather than the gas they consume. This would tie revenues to road use while creating a framework for moving our funding system to a more transparent user-pays approach. The technology is not quite off the shelf, but a national system could be implemented by 2020.
Local businesses in Chicago have partnered to identify specific regional projects that would resolve the freight-bottleneck issues. Major regional transit and road projects capable of being financed with private funds through public-private partnerships, leveraging scarce public resources, are languishing from uncertainty over federal rules and priorities.
Shepherding these initiatives and reforms through the process won’t be easy, and they are not quick fixes. They require knowledgeable and bold leadership. But they are crucial for putting U.S. transportation policy back on track.
After wallowing in political Never Never Land for more than a year, it’s time for federal transportation policy to move forward. Unfortunately, this won’t happen as long as the Obama administration continues to marginalize the DOT with low-impact projects that sidestep the major transportation challenges of the day.
The White House should cut transportation policy loose and let the DOT work with state departments of transportation and others with a vested interest in the transportation system’s success to identify challenges, prioritize policy responses, and develop proactive policy solutions to our nation’s challenges.
We can’t afford to let the DOT sit on the sidelines as Congress and the White House play out a tug of war over higher-profile issues and policy priorities while our national infrastructure languishes.
— Samuel R. Staley is Robert W. Galvin Fellow and Director of Urban & Land Use Policy at the Reason Foundation
“There has to be a reason to go from point A to point B...”
You don’t want to take the Terror Train from Chicago to Detroit?
Privatize,Privatize,Privatize,Privatize,Privatize,Privatize,
Privatize,Privatize,Privatize,Privatize,Privatize,Privatize,
Privatize,Privatize,Privatize,Privatize,Privatize,Privatize,
and if any projects actually go forward beyond permanent study status,
Cut the red tape,Cut the red tape,Cut the red tape,
Cut the red tape,Cut the red tape,Cut the red tape,
Cut the red tape,Cut the red tape,Cut the red tape,
In Orange County Calif:
“Mass transit” means buses and that is wealth/income redistribution, hiding behind other attractive words.
The routes are designed to service the lives of poor people, at rates that don’t begin to cover the cost to the county.
or Chicago to MPLS...
High-speed Chicago-to-St. Paul rail line gets first federal grant for planning
http://www.twincities.com/ci_14290152
More union jobs.
More government jobs.
More govermental oversight.
More government everything.
Progressives hate cars because cars represent freedom and individuality. Trains, on the other hand, represent mass conformity.
I’m still struggling to make sense of this Florida boondoggle. If outside people want to see Disney, they fly to Orlando or drive down rt. 95 or 75. I live near groves in the middle of no where so I have to drive to Disney. That leaves all you Tampa folks to support the High Speed Rail. Is there enough of you flocking to Disney 24/7 to support it?
I do know we don’t have enough money to support our schools and other quality of life issues which would be a far better use of our tax money than the current fixation that Charlie Crist and the Tallahassee special interests have with choo choo trains of all sorts.
“. . . there has to be a vast transportation network to get you to where you want go head to. . .”
This is absolutely true, as was the balance of your post.
I would like to add, however that in addition to those things - we have a very developed and fairly competitive airline industry. In a country as large as ours, with the efficiency and flexibility of air travel - it seems impossible that fixed rail will ever be able to replace (or even compete with) our network of air / auto transportation.
It would be great if we had another effective means of mass transit, but I don’t believe that rail will ever prove to be competitive in any than a few isolated routes.
...and brought to us by the same gub’ment technocrats and politicos who brought us the Big Dig.
That might be true, but means nothing. We have a love affair with what works. It was horses once, then folks loved the railroads, and now it's cars. Lots of folks just still love horses and railroads, but they still drive to work when that's the best way to get there.
It has more to do with where we want to live, than the fact that the auto lets us live there. The elites have a love affair with cities, and want to have the rest of us living in apartment buildings, and taking the subway to work. Stuff that, I hated living in apartments.
The call of the American West was a call to space and freedom, and the car gives that.
HSR is a waste of revenue, it works in Japan
and Europe because of over population and the short distances involved.
Let me just ask, how is Amtrack doing today?
Now if Obama was to come up with some sort of
high speed Freight system, I’d be for it, releave
the congestion and wear on our interstate system
at the same time. Long haul interstate rail is a
non starter that only competes with airlines for a
shrinking share of the travel market.
Or to put it another way...
High speed Rail is the type of
transportation that would be used
by Nanzi Pelosi and Joe Biden sitting
in the reserved first class section.
“...Why is the USA not like Japan or Europe?...”
-
Because the USA is not like Japan or Europe.
Look at the size of the landmass and geographic concentration. Japan and Europe as smaller and more concentrated; hence, there is an argument for a high speed train in those areas.
The only place where high speed rail makes sense is the DC to NY to Boston corridor. But even then, it takes 3 hours on the Acela train from DC to NY. We want to spend billions to cut the ride to 2 hours?
None of this makes sense in the USA. Just political bribes and taxpayer rape.
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