Strickland Goes Begging Again
Thursday, June 11th, 2009 By Marc KilmerGovernor Ted Strickland returned to Washington, D.C., to beg federal officials to spend more money in Ohio. You can’t really blame him, since his begging earlier this year helped result in the federal “stimulus” bill that allowed him and the General Assembly to (largely) escape dealing with Ohio’s budget problems. Of course, this trip’s begging was to try and convince the feds to allow a passenger rail system to be built in the state, something which would likely exacerbate Ohio’s spending mess.
The governor says it’s “intolerable” that Ohio doesn’t have much passenger rail service. That’s like saying it’s intolerable that Ohio doesn’t have a vacuum tube industry or that there aren’t enough Calecovisions being played in the state. The fact is that people have chosen through how they spend their money not to take passenger rail, whether in Ohio or around the nation. Passenger rail is a relic of days when there wasn’t low-cost and reliable air transportation, many people lived in cities instead of suburbs, and cars were more scarce. Today, though, passenger rail makes little economic sense. Those who do use it are heavily subsidized by those who don’t. But politicians love it because there is a romantic notion in our nation about “taking the train” (even though most of us never do so).
The Buckeye Institute will be releasing a report soon about the folly of high-speed rail plans. Keep checking back for a detailed analysis of why this infatuation with passenger rail is just a waste of taxpayer dollars.
June 11th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Apparently you do not realize that outside of the US, in Europe and Asia, high speed rail is a way of life, and a HIGHLY economical way to travel.
America would benefit from high speed rail, trains from DC to Baltimore are packed on a daily basis, if we had a reliable system connecting our large cities, we could expect the same amount of traffic. After all, for the resources of around 10 automobiles, you could potentially transport over 200 people, twice as fast.
Your reference to outdated technology sectors (perhaps you should read your references, because vacuum tubes are still very much in use in modern society), isn’t justified because you have utterly no consideration for modern rail technology.
The unfortunate reason that rail will not work in America, unlike the rest of the world, is because of people like you, that still drive solo in to work everyday in a gas guzzling overpowered cars and SUVs. We like our luxuries and privacies, and hate travelling on group transit. It’s the American way.
June 12th, 2009 at 7:56 am
High speed rail outside the U.S. is, in fact, not a highly economical way to travel. Our report coming out this month will dispel that myth.
And I’d be careful before getting too judgmental about “people like me.” Considering that I neither drive to work nor own an SUV and that I have used passenger rail far more than the majority of Americans, I’m happy to compare my transit lifestyle with yours. However, trying to prove who is more “transit friendly” in their personal lives is pretty worthless as a policy debate.
But let’s discuss an area where I know something due to my personal transit usage. I used to live in Washington, D.C. I took Amtrak between DC and Baltimore, Wilmington, and New York quite often. As you say, it’s packed (most of the time). It’s a nice ride, sure, but it’s also expensive. I also used to take a bus between DC and New York City. It was a fraction of the cost of rail and it got me there only about a half-hour later (from what I recall). If you are holding up the DC-NY corridor as an example of how passenger rail can work, it’s a pretty bad example. The cost is high, for one, meaning that it won’t be available for many people. And there are few other areas in the nation that have major cities that close.
Furthermore, rail works well for people who want to go from one big city’s downtown to another big city’s downtown. I lived in downtown DC and I wanted to go to Manhattan. But what if I lived in Bowie (a DC suburb) and wanted to go to White Plains (a NYC suburb). Yes, you can do it by rail, but it involves taking the MARC train to Union Station, then the Amtrak to Penn Station, then the subway to Grand Central Station, and then a commuter train to White Plains. And if you don’t live near the train station in Bowie and are going to somewhere in White Plains that isn’t near the train station, you’re taking a cab on both the front end and back end of the trip. All of a sudden, your pleasant rail experience is a big pain (and a costly one, at that).
People like driving cars because cars give them independence. You can go wherever you like whenever you like. Outside of the East Coast corridor, wherever passenger rail is tried in the U.S. it suffers from a lack of ridership because people don’t want to pay the costs of it (either the monetary costs or the opportunity costs that come from rail’s inconvenient nature).
I’m not against rail transportation per se. I’m against paying huge subsidies to support it. If rail can pay for itself, then let’s have rail everywhere. If it can’t, then let’s give up on this delusion that the masses are somehow waiting to ride the rails from Cleveland to Columbus.
June 14th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
Marc: I’m half with you on this. Rail will never pay for itself, but all other forms of tranportation get subsidies too. The government builds roads, and the highway trust fund is empty while costs continue. The government also builds airports and operates the air traffic system (and security, etc…).
The question is something more to do with comparing relative subsidies, and overall cost/benefit analysis. For example, in the Eastern Corridor, trains may or may not pay for themselves (I would guess “not,” but I don’t know). Still, that area could not function without trains–it’s hard enough to drive there now–could you imagine the traffic if there were no trains? Yikes! So the overall economy of the region prospers even if the trains are subsidized, and it is worth it.
OK–so trains can still be worthwhile even if they are subsidized. Nonetheless, that does not mean that any and all subsidized trains are worthwhile, eh?
People will take trains when they are cheaper and easier than driving. It is really not very daunting to drive from Columbus to Cleveland, or very expensive (compared to say, commuting through the Lincoln Tunnel and then paying to park in Manhatten?) In a few years, cars will be required to get 39 mpg, so it may even get cheaper to make the drive. So subsidy or not, I wonder (actually, I doubt) if sufficient numbers of people will ever take this train.