CNBC Looks at New Intercity and High Speed Rail Grants

Thursday, January 28, 2010

In a report broadcast today, CNBC’s Brian Shactman gave a brief overview of President Obama’s intercity and high speed rail program. While briefly acknowledging the national scope of the effort, Shactman was quick to focus on the three states that will receive the lion’s share of the money—California, Florida, and Illinois.

This focus is perhaps inevitable, and I think it shows the wisdom in the Administration’s choice to spread the $8 billion around the country instead of throwing it all into one or two corridors. $8 billion is not nearly enough money to build even a single high speed rail line—and the spokesman for the California High Speed Rail Authority admits that their line won’t see significant construction until 2012. An incremental ramp-up to high and higher speed passenger trains will allow people (and media sources) around the country to see new jobs, steady decreases in trip times, and steady improvements in on time performance. And this will give transportation officials something to point to when preparing requests for the second round of funding.

The fact that the CNBC anchor introduces the piece by asking “is [high speed rail] a magic economic bullet?” tells a lot about the kind of yardstick the media are using to judge this program. But it is important for rail and transit advocates to keep this in mind, because these are the people who will be telling the general public whether these projects are successes or failures—and CNBC anchor Erin Burnett’s alluded-to labeling of the program as “rail to nowhere” gives a sense how eager some commentators are to write American passenger trains off.

See the video below.

-Sean Jeans-Gail
Communications Director
NARP

Posted by NARP | (2) Comments

Next entry: Near-Term Rail Upgrades are Excellent Job Creators Previous entry: Flag Stops: Informed Decisionmaking (Or Lack Thereof)

Comments

I think the commentator is quite right that this will be HSR to nowhere.

It would have been far better to have used the $8B to restore the several routes that have been cut or truncated and which are now vitally necessary for their respective
sections of the country. Once that was done, and people were once again receptive of rail for their trips, there would have been a huge demand for HSR or VHSR trains and this would have provided the political will to do it. As it is, I still can’t ride a SUnset Limited to Texas, Nobody can ride a Pioneer from Denver to Seattle, nobody can ride a Floridian from Chicago to Florida, or a NorthCoast Hiawatha and the list goes on.

J. H. Sullivan

Comment by Jerry H. Sullivan on 01/30 at 02:17 PM

I think overall the project choices were very good. The danger is that Amtrak proper will be underfunded again. For example, Florida has serious regional transportation needs. That said, in a few years with SunRail up and running and other light rail and basically visitor-friendly transportation projects in the works, where will the long-distance trains be to get them there?

We have an aging population, many of whom can no longer drive or fly realistically. They will need long-distance trains. HSR serves a regional purpose, greasing the wheels of commerce and improving quality of life. These are complementary modes but they mesh in terms of medium-speed rail (95-125mph) using shared infrastructure as part of a long-, mid- and local-distance network.

Comment by Mary Frances Folz Donahue on 02/11 at 02:52 AM

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