California’s Central Valley is huge — 450 miles from North to
South. North of the capital, it is called the Sacramento Valley;
south of it, the San Joaquin. It is in the southern part that the
California High Speed Rail Authority plans to build a 54-mile-long
railroad between two small towns, Borden and Corcoran (collectively
known as Nowhere).
Train zealots, such as Ray LaHood, U.S. Secretary of
Transportation, want us all out of our cars and riding trains,
buses, or walking. LaHood see this as the first segment of a
glorious system that will link California’s largest cities. Its
cost: $4.3 billion.
In 2008, California voters unwisely passed a ballot
initiative to fund $10 billion of the total of $42.6 billion for a
statewide system that would be completed by 2020. The $10 billion
would come from the sale of bonds. Californians have a distressing
habit of thinking such proposals are “progressive” and thus good,
without paying attention to the fact that the state is already
over-burdened with bonded indebtedness which adds many millions of
interest payments to its budget every year.
There is no assurance this project will not end up as a
pig-in-a-poke. No rapid transit system in the United States has yet
come in on budget. This one will rely heavily on federal funding.
Roelef van Ark, executive director of the CHSRA, was quoted the
other day as saying, “It’s without any doubt that we need funding
from the federal government.” That may be a thin reed on which to
lean. Despite LaHood’s obsession with rail, it is unlikely the new
Congress will give a sympathetic ear to the administration’s
requests for new money — given the history of such projects
(Amtrak, after 40 years, still runs in the red.)
The ostensible reason for the first high-speed link
between two obscure towns is that it will provide a testing ground
for high-speed locomotives. It is true that if the entire project
were to fail, such rails could become part of the existing freight
lines in the valley. The real reason to get started, however, may
be to create inexorable pressure on state and federal governments
to keep funding LaHood’s dream.
While California’s high-speed rail enthusiasts continue to
whistle in the dark, their project will get a $624 million federal
windfall, thanks to LaHood’s obsession. The source is funding he
had allocated to Ohio and Wisconsin for high speed lines linking
Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati, and Milwaukee and Madison,
respectively. The incoming Republican governors of those states
campaigned against those projects and the voters agreed
with them.
Neither of those projects could charitably called high
speed. Cato Institute scholar Randal O’Toole estimates the Ohio
line would average 38.5 miles per hour and the Wisconsin line 59
mph. Dizzying speeds.
Wisconsin’s Governor-elect, Scott Walker, asked the Obama
Administration to let them use the allocated $810 million to make
badly needed bridge and road improvements. Ohio’s Governor-elect,
John Kasich, said “no” to the federal “gift” of $385 million and
asked that the funds go into the U.S. Treasury to help reduce the
deficit.
No, said LaHood. He said he was sure other states would be
happy to divvy up the nearly $1.2 billon in federal funds. Sure
enough, California stepped to the head of the line. The
Weekly Standard’s Stephen
Hayes
said LaHood’s message, in effect, was: “If you don’t want to
waste our money, we’ll find someone who will.”
What the Messrs. Walker and Kasich know and California’s
officials either don’t know or don’t care is that once such a
system is built — if it ever is — operating losses (and they will
be large and persistent) must be paid by the states. When that
happens, the sound of tin cups rattling on Capitol Hill will be
deafening.
