Slow Down on High Speed Rail
Wednesday, August 5th, 2009 By Marc KilmerOn the Freakonomics blog, UCLA transportation scholar Eric Morris writes:
once [government officials] have started spending money on a project they find it very hard to stop, no matter how disastrously it may be proceeding or how dim the benefits are starting to look.
This is why we should consider the administration’s high-speed rail (HSR) network carefully before construction commences, as I advocated here. The $12 billion that has already been allocated may just be the tip of the iceberg; once the dirt begins to fly, the public may be irreversibly committed to the capital and operational support of this program in perpetuity, no matter how much construction costs may spiral out of control or how disappointing ridership might be.
He also links to the blog of Edward Glaeser, a Harvard economics professor, who is looking into the economics of high-speed rail. The work being done by these two, as well as the Cato Institute’s Randal O’Toole for us, illustrates why high-speed rail is unlikely to live up to the promises of backers such as President Obama and Governor Strickland.
Many pro-rail people love to dismiss Mr. O’Toole as being biased against high-speed rail and on the payroll of the anti-rail industry (I’ve had a few conversations with people like this, even if I’ve never been able to figure out which industry is really opposed to rail). Dismiss O’Toole if you want, but Glaeser and Morris essentially support his conclusions. High-speed rail won’t live up to the hype.
