Another critique of what high-speed rail is supposed to offer

High-speed rail plan on track to Nowheresville - BostonHerald.com

High-speed rail plan on track to Nowheresville
By Guy Darst
Sunday, April 19, 2009 - Updated 1d 15h ago



Ah, the eternal allure of fast trains.

President Obama painted a glowing picture last week in what he called his plan for that $8 billion in stimulus money reserved for high-speed rail. Alas, he repeated several myths that aren’t supported by the facts.

Actually, it’s not so much a plan as a statement of intention to plan and to finance planning. The only money being released (no amount specified) will be for shovel-ready projects (including purchase of equipment and infrastructure) that have completed preliminary engineering and all environmental review. It’s doubtful there are many like that.

Truth be told, high-speed rail is mind-bogglingly expensive; the European trains so praised by the president all eat large subsidies (about $88 billion per year overall). The $8 billion in stimulus money and the $1 billion a year (which isn’t much!) proposed in the president’s budget for the next five years wouldn’t pay for even a third of the $45 billion line California wants to build to connect the Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay areas.

The president said high-speed rail would relieve highways and airways “clogged with traffic.” Despite their splendid trains, Europeans drive almost as much as we do. If congestion is the problem, Obama ought to focus on renovating some of the freight railroad bottlenecks. That would draw many trucks away from truly clogged highways at a reasonable cost.

High-speed rail is supposed to produce fewer earth-warming gases. This is hard to believe - unless the trains are to be powered by electricity generated from nuclear reactors and hydroelectric plants. Amtrak and private automobiles emit about the same amount of carbon dioxide per passenger mile.

Travelers have been sold this rug over and over. Remember the claims for Acela? It ambles from New Haven to New York City (about a third of the journey from Boston to New York) slower than the best trains of 1951.

We await projects showing reasonable costs and subsidies. Such projects will be few and far between.
Guy Darst is a former deputy editorial page editor at The Boston Herald.