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A Field Guide to False Anti-Train Arguments
- Details
- Published Date
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 407
Thursday, January 12, 2012
If you’ve been reading this blog, getting NARP emails, or following the debate surrounding passenger train development, you’ve surely heard the worn-out, cliched barbs that defenders of the status quo repeatedly throw at proposals to ramp up investment in trains. If you’ve sometimes found yourself at a loss for short, effective, fact-based rejoinders, then you’re in luck.
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| Image: PennDesign- Government spending by mode |
Our partners at the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) have developed a handy document called Inventory of the Criticisms of High-Speed Rail with Suggested Responses and Counterpoints. These can be applied not just to “true” high-speed rail projects like California’s, but also to as-important undertakings to make existing trains faster, more reliable and more frequent.
The common theme found throughout the document—one on which NARP and all our partners have been focusing our rhetoric—is that, while rail projects may look costly now, it will cost a lot more to accomplish (or leave unaccomplished) the same mobility and economic development goals later by other means later on. Remember: the purpose of transportation systems is not to be profit centers on their own, but to serve as the the bloodstream that keeps the rest of the economy going.
Criticism of passenger train development tends to focus on the fact that it won’t be profitable and will require ongoing subsidies. The returns on investment in modern passenger trains won’t be seen in the form of profits for their operators, but rather in the form of increased economic activity and profits for other businesses in the areas the trains serve—not to mention a cleaner environment, a better quality of life, and easier, safer, more affordable mobility for the people living in those areas.
Posted by Malcolm Kenton
Tags: apta, balanced transportation, cost of inaction, economic development, federal transportation investment, high-speed rail, passenger train development, sustainability, train opponents
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