A “Good Business Decision”?
Tuesday, February 17th, 2009 By Marc KilmerFrom the Columbus Dispatch:
Rep. Ross McGregor, R-Springfield, asked Transportation Department chief Jolene Molitoris whether the state should spend money on rail service at a time when an I-90 bridge in Cleveland is too dilapidated to carry trucks.
Speaking in a finance committee hearing on the state transportation budget, McGregor called trains “quite a romantic notion” but perhaps not the most practical thing in a recession.
Molitoris, a former federal railroad administrator, disagreed.
“I would call it a good business decision,” she said. “The whole romantic notion is really not one I would apply to this at all.”
Molitoris acknowledged that the passenger rail line would lose money and require a public subsidy. That’s true of all passenger rail systems around the world, she said.
So let me get this straight: a state bureaucrat thinks that a “good business decision” means you operate your business at a loss and require taxpayer subsidies to remain viable? No wonder the state is in such a fiscal mess. Of course, I shouldn’t be too hard on Ms. Molitoris. With all the farmers, auto executives, and other “businessmen” (in less politically-correct times we’d call them welfare recipients) who only maintain viable businesses through government subsidies, I guess it’s easy to see where Ms. Molitoris got her ideas on sound business practice.
I mentioned a Reason Foundation study in a post last week that illustrates the folly of government investment in passenger rail.
Tags: budget, transportation
March 10th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
[...] Let’s take the passenger rail plan first. The governor wants to reintroduce the service from Cleveland to Cincinnati by way of Columbus and Dayton. Urban planners and government bureaucrats love passenger rail. They see a bright future where all citizens will behave just as planners desire and ride trains instead of driving. Of course, people being individuals, they behave differnetly than planners want. There is no possibility that the cost of passenger rail will be supported by those who ride it. Massive federal and state subsidies (read, money coming from the taxpayer) will be necessary. Governor Strickland’s transportation chief does not dispute this. [...]