DYSPEPSIA GENERATION

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One of the candidates for president in this November’s election is known by the nickname, “Amtrak Joe.” The Democratic-controlled House wants to triple federal funding for intercity passenger trains. A member of Congress from Massachusetts has proposed spending $205 billion on high-speed rail.

Given the growing momentum behind these ideas, it is instructive to take a look at how well the last frenzied spending on intercity passenger trains worked. In 2009 and 2010, President Obama persuaded Congress to dedicate $10.1 billion to high-speed rail projects around the country. To this was added at least $1.4 billion in other federal funds and at least $7 billion in state and local funds. After ten years, some of those projects must be working, right?

Of course not. Outside of Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor, there are still no trains in America that could be called high-speed trains by any definition. Trains in the Northeast Corridor are, if anything, going slower than they were before. Most corridors where high-speed rail money was spent see trains going no faster and no more frequently than they were before the grants were given out. Aside from new service to two small towns in Maine, a modest speed-up of trains in Vermont, and the addition of two daily trains between Raleigh and Charlotte, the nation has little to show for more than $18 billion in the federal and state spending.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 21st, 2020 at 05:20 and is filed under Dystopia Watch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.