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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
Tags: cahsra, high speed rail, media, obama,Fast Track to Lazy Analysis
Friday, September 16, 2011
The worst thing about having a President throw their Administration’s support behind your cause is all the presidential politics it injects into what should be a discussion about good policy.
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Don’t get me wrong; we here at NARP are grateful to finally have someone in the White House who understands the benefits of trains, and the transformative potential of a truly world class passenger rail network. But it certainly has lead to a lot of head-scratching analysis.
Take Charles Lane’s recent post “Fast track to nowhere”, hosted over on the Washington Post’s politics blog. Lane criticizes President Obama’s American Jobs Act proposal, which calls for investment in the modernization of our transportation network. In an address before a joint session of Congress, the President argued that transportation projects can create jobs immediately, and increase U.S. competitiveness in the long term:
“Building a world-class transportation system is part of what made us an economic superpower. And now we’re going to sit back and watch China build newer airports and faster railroads? At a time when millions of unemployed construction workers could build them right here in America?”
Posted by NARP
Tags: american jobs act, cahsra, california, chris lane, high-speed and intercity passenger rail program, high-speed rail, obama, politics, washington post,Jet Blue’s CEO sees benefits of high-speed rail
Friday, September 23, 2011
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| Image: Examiner.com |
In last week’s response to Charles Lane’s “Fast track to nowhere” on the Washington Post’s politics blog, I took issue with Lane’s slapdash transportation policy analysis. Particularly, his fuzzy thinking about the modal relationship between passenger airlines and passenger rail:
“It’s a bit odd that the president wants simultaneous investment in air transport and high-speed rail, since they are competing modes of travel.
I argued that air and rail should be complementary, with shorter-distance travel (around 500 miles and less) handled primarily by passenger trains, freeing up airport capacity for longer distance trips where airplane’s superior top speeds can provide a significant savings in total, door-to-door trip time.
Well, an article in the Boston Business Journal quotes David Barger, Jet Blue’s CEO, making much the same case:
Asked after his address whether the Obama administration’s focus on high-speed rail would hurt JetBlue, Barger said better rail service between cities like Boston and New York, both of which are important to the airline, actually would be beneficial.
The airspace around New York is full, Barger said, with too much of it “wasted” on planes carrying only a few dozen passengers. “I think high-speed rail would be very, very helpful.”
Barger also spoke about being eager to expand Jet Blue service Rhode Island’s T.F. Green airport, which has just added a rail connection. When you remove the political baggage that pundits attach to projects—based on which politician is supporting what—policy becomes a lot less binary.
Because whatever Barger’s own political leanings, he’s also responsible for a business that moves people. And that means looking for mobility solutions in whatever form it presents itself.
Posted by NARP
Tags: airlines, cahsra, california, central valley, high-speed rail, jet blue, king's county, palmdale,With new report, Los Angeles to San Francisco high-speed rail corridor stays on the boil
Thursday, January 05, 2012
The battle over the Los Angeles to San Francisco high-speed rail line continues to boil, with a new report issued by the California High-Speed Rail Peer Review Group which criticizes the projects funding structure, adding heat to the argument.
The California High Speed Rail Authority responded immediately with harsh condemnation of the group’s study, questioning their fundamental understanding of how high-speed rail systems are built throughout the world.
California Law AB 3034 mandated creation of an eight-member Peer Review Group with a different California official responsible for appointing each member; the group currently has six members, two slots are open. The document’s central criticism seems to be that the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CAHSRA) has failed to secure funds to cover the projects $74.5 billion final cost:
We cannot overemphasize the fact that moving ahead on the HSR project without credible sources of adequate funding, without a definitive business model, without a strategy to maximize independent utility and value to the State, and without the appropriate management resources, represents an immense financial risk on the part of the State of California.
CAHSRA was quick to point out that no large project of any stripe—rail, road, or otherwise—is held to this strict standard. They argued that the plan created by the Authority was in line with best practices for high-speed rail systems built around the world.
Roelof van Ark, chief executive of CAHSRA, wrote, “It is unfortunate that the peer review committee has delivered a report to the Legislature that is deeply flawed in its understanding of the authority’s program and the experience around the world in successfully developing high-speed rail. As someone involved in many of the successful high-speed rail programs internationally, I can say that the recommendations of this committee simply do not reflect a real world view of what it takes to bring such projects to fruition.”
There was also the implication that this report could be a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more doubt that legislators cast upon their willingness to go forward with the project, the more skittish the U.S. Congress and private investors get about supporting the project. Another peer review committee commissioned by the Authority to review its work—made up of engineers, transportation planners, and economists—had in fact already deemed the ridership model a solid foundation for project planning just this summer, with this to say about CAHSRA’s business plan:
“We are satisfied with the documentation presented in Cambridge Systematics, and conclude that it demonstrates that the model produces results that are reasonable and within expected ranges for the current environmental planning and Business Plan applications of the model. We were very pleased with the content, quality and quantity of the information.”
As for the political implications of the new peer review group study, Robert Cruickshank has this to say over at the California High Speed Rail Blog:
There’s no doubt that the lack of secured, full funding is a problem. The question is how does one resolve it? Do you assume that the federal government will never spend another dime on high speed rail again and call it a day? Or do you press onward and build what you can, working to change Congress’ mind while also hoping that the initial construction can itself act as a spur to win more funding?
…
There’s no doubt this report will be used by HSR critics in Sacramento and Washington to argue against spending the bond money. But they’ll have to fight Governor Brown, President Obama, California’s Democratic Congressional delegation, and the California Labor Federation.
Mr. Cruikshank may well be right, but we’d be remiss not to come up with a full tally of the opponents lined up and ready to fight this project. You can be certain that when an issue becomes as politicized as high-speed rail has—and when a project is as big as this one is—there will no shortage of willing combatants.
None of this is to say the legislature should not be closely involved with the project; overseeing the prudent investment of public funds is one of the highest responsibilities of government officials. But there is an inconsistency in the way the Los Angeles to San Francisco rail corridor is being treated, as compared to other transportation expenditures. And the legislators involved are certainly on the hook to consider the cost of the alternatives: the cost of more congestion, more roads, and more airports and runways. The current estimates put that cost at as much as $171 billion, for an additional 2,300 lane-miles of highways, 4 runways, and 115 airline gates.
Posted by NARP
Tags: cahsra, california, california high-speed rail peer review group, high-speed rail, los angeles, robert cruikshank, san francisco,©2010 National Association of Railroad Passengers | » NARP website
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