High Speed Rail - High Cost

Given that high speed rail has been the topic of several of my blogs, most recently: "Let Wisconsin Voters decide if we want a light rail choo-choo" (2/1/10), I was pleasantly surprised to read an article supporting many of the key points I have been making all along regarding this total boondoggle and waste of taxpayers money. 

Of course, in regards to my earlier posts on the topic,  the usual liberal suspects chimed in, claiming  that high speed rail in Wisconsin "wouldn't cost taxpayers a dime" (a quote from livinglakecountry.com blogger Andy Kristensen) and saying that "this one line from Milwaukee to Madison will add 10,000 sustainable jobs" (from liberal blogger Dustin Klein).  These statements don't pass the smell test and are just not true.  High speed (not really) rail is nothing more than a "want."  A "want" by a few who simply want a choo-choo so they can wear their "green" badges proudly.  Yet,  few of the rail groupies are willing to admit the facts. 

 The $823 million dollars Obama is "giving" to our state for high speed rail is not a gift.  It is not "free" money.  The high speed rail dollars are really coming from - take a guess (and no,  it's not from Obama's "stash!") - the Stimulus Bill.   Follow the bouncing ball - where is the "Stimulus Bill" money coming from?  Washington D.C.?  The government?  Obama?    No.  Could it be....... the hard-working people of America and our state who have a portion of their earnings confiscated by the government year after year? To "spread around' as they see fit?  The American taxpayer?   Bingo. 

And guess what?  Recently I posed a question to the high-speed rail advocates.   I asked the choo-choo cheerleaders what I thought to be very direct, easy question:  

"Can you give me one example of where high speed (not really) light (not really) rail has made money? Where the ridership actually meets projections? Where the taxpayers aren't paying for it? In other words, give me one example in the United States where light rail came in at what was budgeted, met it's ridership projections, and didn't continue to sap taxpayers after it was up and running. Just one."

Guess I didn't figure on the degree of difficulty in answering such a simple question.  I did not get a response.  Nothing.  Nada.  The crickets were chirping.

 Could it be because high speed rail has been a proven bust - a money-loser in every state?  A constant drain of taxpayer money?  From the get-go, high speed rail cost estimates are low-balled, then come in waaaaaaay higher than ever estimated.  Ridership numbers prior to start-up are always inflated -  for some odd reason.  In a few cases, once rail goes in, ridership actually does begin on a  high note, then tapers downward when the novelty wears off.  And operational costs soar.  And the cost of a ticket to ride on high speed rail is kept low, only because taxpayers are subsidizing the real  ticket costs.  Most Wisconsinites - who will never ride these choo-choos, nor do they even have an interest in doing so, will be paying for the tickets of the very few who do.

And then I came across the following article by Patrick McIlheran of the Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel.  Patrick is kind of in a league of his own, since he is one of the few conservative writers employed at the newspaper.  He is not on the pro- rail bandwagon that the majority of Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel staffers have enthusiastically jumped on, with little thought.  Mr. McIlheran's column reinforced many of the same ideas I have been writing about for the past few months, but he added even more insight, facts, and figures than I had done.  I wrote to Mr. McIlheran, asking permission to re-print his article in it's entirety to share with my readers. He quickly responded, giving me his permission - saying that he was flattered for the request.  Thanks, Patrick! 

YOUR BUS ROUTE WILL BE SHORTENED BY $9.6 MILLION

By Patrick McIlheran of the Journal Sentinel
Feb. 23, 2010

Suppose for a minute that the $810 million that it supposedly will cost to spiff up tracks to Madison for middling-speed train service really were cash that fell from clouds like rain. Suppose it’s free, rather than borrowed from your kids by the feds.

Then the train will cost a mere, what, $8 million or so a year in taxpayer subsidies to run. Not to sound jaded, but $8 mil is loose change in government these days.

But let’s break it down. The figure is plausible, by the way. Right now, taxpayers subsidize the far more sensible Amtrak service from Milwaukee to Chicago at about $26 per ride. That is, passengers’ fares pay less than half the actual cost of their travel; taxpayers fund the rest, according to the liberal-leaning Pew Charitable Trusts’ SubsidyScope.

The state guesses that the trains to Madison (as distinct from the ones to Chicago) will carry about 372,000 passengers a year at start-up. As Madison has far fewer people than Chicago, we might guess that each locomotive is going to be pulling fewer people that Amtrak’s existing Chicago trains, but we can be charitable and pretend that the new service will still lose only $26 per passenger.

That’s $9.6 million a year that will have to be made up by taxpayers.

Where might this money come from? Probably from the state transportation kitty, largely filled with gasoline taxes (the haul from which has been stagnant lately). Those taxes even now are scarcely able, we’re told, to keep up with the maintenance of the state’s highways.

And they, along with federal gas taxes, fill the pool from which the state also subsidizes public bus systems around the state.

So we will have the spectacle of people riding a train to Madison, each one of them dissipating $26 taken from the pot that funds city buses in Wisconsin. Figures vary, but $26 subsidizes quite a few city bus rides.

But, say backers of the train, we need such rides for the carless. We’ll have lots more old people who won’t want to drive. We’ll need the transport option.

Though, as pointed out elsewhere, people who don’t want to drive already can take any one of 10 buses in each direction from Madison to Milwaukee every day, at journey times comparable to the train and at lower fares. Taxpayers, by the way, do not subsidize those tickets.

It is then said that buses have an image problem and that trains alone have the panache so desired by, say, the discriminating biotech entrepreneur dashing from innovation in Middleton to his banker in Milwaukee. Only a train will get the discretionary rider out of his Audi.

Suppose that were true. What we’ll then have is the spectacle of well-to-do people riding the train, consuming $26 each of state money that cannot then go to subsidize city buses doing the more humble work of carrying cashiers to work at ShopKo.

Why, again, does anyone think this is a good use of taxpayer money?

By the way: Yes, I know roads are expensive too. I know, what’s more, that gas taxes aren’t enough any longer, though, as I’ve pointed out for years, there are ways to remedy that.

Still, roads’ costs serve many more passengers. The 372,000 riders a year on the trains to Madison (if the figure is honest): That equals a little more than just one week’s worth of Milwaukee-to-Madison passengers on I-94 through Jefferson County.

Or take I-94 south to Illinois, about to be rebuilt expensively for $2 billion. It’s a half-century old, so a rebuild is about on time, and while critics complain that it’s being widened, that widening amounts to only about 11% of the project’s cost. Most of the price is just for rebuilding.

And that project costs what? Right now, the road carries about 85,000 to 107,000 vehicles a day. Engineers usually figure about 1.4 people per vehicle, and let’s presume traffic won’t increase at all over 50 years, as assumption utterly at odds with history.

That rebuild, then, comes to about 83 cents per ride -- paid, chiefly (though not yet exclusively) with a gas tax on that very travel.

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Remember how the pro- rail people always are quick to criticize  the costs of roads?  The evils of the automobile?  The fact that because the government helps pay for the infrastructure of roads and bridges (via tax dollars) means it should be AOK for the government to pay for high-speed rail, too, because....... well because that is fair thing to do!   Well, looks like the $26.00 taxpayers will have to pay to subsidize EACH one-way high speed rail ticket is 32 times more than the 83 cents per rider to maintain a road.

And let us not forget that a projected ridership of 372,000 riders between Madison and Milwaukee via light rail for an ENTIRE YEAR pales in comparison to 372,000 riders traveling by car between Madison and Milwaukee during ONE WEEK.  To easily summarize - millions  of people own cars, drive cars, and are constantly using  the roads throughout our country.  Daily, weekly, monthly, yearly.  Millions of people love their automobiles and traveling by automobile.  And they drive - often.    Millions of people do NOT ride high-speed rail, nor do they even want it. 

In today's current economic downturn, with over 10% national unemployment, and  no end in sight - do we NEED a  guaranteed money-loser like a choo-choo?   

And when all is said and done, Wisconsin will have 55 permanent jobs created due to high speed rail.   55. That's it.   And high-speed rail WILL follow in the steps of Amtrak -a money loser every year since 1971!!!   (Would any business in the private sector still be in business at this point?)  Amtrak loses  money decade after decade!   Amtrak is only able to continue to operate because of government subsidies -which translates into taxpayer dollars.  All the facts and examples out there lead to the logical conclusion that high-speed rail in Wisconsin will emulate Amtrak -or worse.

Is this insanity or what?