{"id":1132,"date":"2009-02-14T19:15:48","date_gmt":"2009-02-15T01:15:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/?p=1132"},"modified":"2009-02-14T19:15:48","modified_gmt":"2009-02-15T01:15:48","slug":"high-speed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/?p=1132","title":{"rendered":"High Speed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cato is off again<\/a> on high-speed rail systems.<\/p>\n

Over the past two decades, U.S. cities have wasted close to $200 billion on high-cost, low-performance rail transit projects. But that will nothing compared to the plans rail nuts have for high-speed intercity rail.<\/p>\n

Last November, 52 percent of California voters approved $9 billion in funding for a San Francisco-to-Los Angeles high-speed rail plan. The total cost of the plan is expected to exceed $45 billion, and California expects Uncle Sam to pick up at least half the tab. If it does, Florida, Illinois, Texas, and a few dozen other states will all want federal funding for their own high-speed rail plans.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

Based on the projected costs of California\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s system and the length of high-speed rail proposals in the rest of the U.S., I estimate that a national high-speed rail network will cost the U.S. well over $500 billion. By comparison, the Interstate Highway System, adjusted for inflation to today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dollars, cost $450 billion.<\/p>\n

What will high-speed rail do? As my Cato policy analysis reveals, studies in California and real-life examples in Europe shows that its main effect will be to put profitable airlines out of business. It will only take about 3 or 4 percent of cars of the roads in rail corridors. Though costing more than interstate highways, a national high-speed rail network will never carry even a fifth as many people as the interstates, and virtually 0 percent of the freight. High-speed rail operations might save a little energy, but the energy cost of construction will more than wipe out any long-term operational savings.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m sure there are other studies that claim the opposite. I happen to think the issue is not that simple. A high-speed rail system in the Northeast might make sense. But then again, if it did, private contractors would be all over it, no?<\/p>\n

I do know that Austin was exploring light rail while I was there, which was insane. No one is going to use light rail in Austin except a handful of University people. In Austin, I could get to the airport in 15 minutes. There was no way I would ever take light rail.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cato is off again on high-speed rail systems. Over the past two decades, U.S. cities have wasted close to $200 billion on high-cost, low-performance rail transit projects. But that will nothing compared to the plans rail nuts have for high-speed intercity rail. Last November, 52 percent of California voters approved $9 billion in funding for … Continue reading High Speed<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BzKF-ig","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1132\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}