America's Coming High-Speed Rail Financial Disaster

The Heritage Foundation ^ | March 19, 2010 | Ronald Utt, Ph.D.

[Reeses]

Little or no difference in passenger mobility or environmental quality

The most unbiased test for greenness is cost. If something costs substantially more than an alternative, it's because it is consuming substantially more of Earth's resources and creating more total pollution. Trains for passenger travel are not green, and high speed trains more so.

[indthkr]

A similar Heritage Foundation study of US airlines and Highway subsidies would need to be included in this discussion.

The bottom line would be that ALL forms of human transporation lose money, and require a government subsidy of some sort. The important question is which mix of systems makes the most sense for the US.

[Wuli]

“HSR” is fast becoming EVERY nations’ “Le Concorde”; and not to be outdone in generating a system in need of perpetual government subsidy, Obama can’t wait to make it part of his legacy.

[TheMole]

The Pacific Northwest section shown in those maps is not a vision, it’s a pipe dream. High-speed trains indeed need “a secure and exclusive roadbed built to precise standards and tolerances” as the article says. That means that the existing rail line, originally built in 1874, needs to be straightened out and levelled out in a major way. It would need to be much straighter and much more level than any existing American railways. This would have to be done in a mountainous eathquake zone. An enormous anount of real estate would have to be taken from its owners and we are talking about west coast oceanfront, or at least ocean view, real estate. The cost here is mind-boggling. I don’t think $50 million per mile (as suggested by a commenter, probably for high-speed rail in other areas) would come anywhere near to covering the costs of a Vancouver-Seattle-Portland line.