while he does not question the merits of high-speed rail or inter-city passenger rail in general, he has problems with the way the administration “has gone about imple- menting its nine billion dollar initiative.” Orski’s criticism came in two categories:
A) Misleading representations; Some pro- jects were not high-speed at all even though they were so labeled. B) Lack of a focus in pursuing the HSR initiative. Rather than scattering effort and resources at the outset, better to focus on the Northeast Corridor. Regarding the question of a private partner- ship, the rail publicist took issue with the administration’s claim its plan will provide 80 per cent of Americans with access to high-speed rail in 25 years. It “will do no such thing,” he opined. Joan McDonald, Commissioner of the
New York State Department of Transportation testified her state and the federal government “must invest aggressively in high-speed rail.” “The service we have today is not enough
to meet the future needs of our region and nation,” she added. “The corridor is already congested in many locations and demand for rail service is growing,” The third panelist was NARP President
Ross Capon who warned against focusing on the Northeast Corridor to the exclusion of a national network. “With the steady erosion of the short-distance aviation market,” the passenger train consumer advocate said, “thousands of communities will be unaccept- ably isolated if the national passenger inter- city market is neglected.” Capon noted that neglecting the rest of the
nation for a focus only on the 18 per cent of Americans who live within 25 miles of an NEC station would mean a diminished “support and enthusiasm on the part of the nation at large. Toward the hearing’s end, the panelists
were asked to say whether they thought Am- trak should undergo considerable reorgani- zation. Only Capon voted no and he qualified that with a notation that he was not catego- rizing Amtrak as a perfect organization.
“Snail speed?” 3) A few days later, the Mica committee held a hearing specifically focused on California’s HSR problems, with the huge price tag then within easy striking distance of $100 billion, according to recent estimates. Chairman Mica despaired that the
planned “first segment” is in the middle of a highly rural area “that doesn’t serve any people — it’s mostly cows and vegetables . . . rather than riders.” Further, he noted, the electric components that would enable the service to be truly “high speed” won’t be in- stalled at the outset. “So what we’ll have is another snail-speed train with extremely ex- pensive infrastructure costs,” according to the chairman.
But The Alternative But Rep. Don Costa (D-Calif.), pointed out that the L.A./San Fran stretch is “the busiest air corridor in the nation.” For every four flights,” he contended, “one is delayed by an hour.” To address that, the congressman con-
tended, “we would need 115 new airport gates, four new runways, and 2300 miles of new highways. That’s at a cost of $170 bil- lion,” compared to the HSR project at $97 billion, a lower price tag factored in for in- flation over 30 years. Rep. Jeff Denham who (as noted above)
expressed misgivings at the previous hear- ing, actually had started out as a supporter the rail initiative as a state senator when it was on the ballot in 2008. The promises made to the voters when that measure was presented to Californians, he said (i.e. no on- going subsidies, guaranteed funding and guaranteed investors, no impact on the state’s farmland) had not been kept.”
California and the NEC: Either/Or? Rep. Laura Richardson (D-Calif.) noted the “Next Gen” HSR plan for the Northeast Cor- ridor (outlined in depth by this column last year) at $117 billion is more costly that the west coast effort. Said she: “I didn’t hear many people talking about how we’re going to pay for the cost with the Northeast Corri- dor, so why the sudden concern and attack with California?”
Well, Now . . . Note: Not to contradict the congresswoman or even attempt so much as to tip-toe toward an analysis of the relative merits of the Cal- ifornia and Northeast rail plans, but we sus- pect that if the NEC plan were further along in the talking stage or backed by a ballot ini- tiative (as is the case in California), the bet- ting here is that there would be every bit as much a pushback on Capitol Hill as we’re hearing today on the west coast uproar. The NEC has its own problems, as for ex-
ample, a decades-long project that seeks to bring back the glory days of Penn Station by moving Amtrak’s New York City calling point out of the glorified and overcrowded subway stop beneath Madison Square Gar- den and shifting it across the street into the old Farley Post Office Building whose grand architecture was erected a little over a cen- tury ago by the same firm that built the orig- inal (RIP) Penn Station. The current poor excuse for a major train station is the most congested passenger transportation facility in North America (according to a 2010 New York State report), with a traffic flow that exceeds that of all three of New York City’s airports combined. The new facility is being built in two phas-
es so that once again, America’s largest city will have a welcoming rail depot of which it can be proud. But . . . er, um — there’s just one little factoid getting in the way: You see, this big station is very expensive and — uh — well, passenger rail has been getting some budget axe signals from Congress lately, and even absent that, Amtrak can’t afford to ac- tually move into its marvelously expansive new station if the price approaches anything beyond a “modest increase” in operating costs. Rent-free anyone? And to think we’re talking about a $117
billion HSR project in the Northeast mowing down political support for the California fast railroad?
Troubles at Amtrak? At the (above reported) congressional hear- ing on the California HSR, one congressman started to ask DOT Secretary LaHood about “problems at Amtrak.” To which the secre- tary said he had nothing to do with Amtrak’s management and that “I have enough on my plate” as it is. Just hours before the deadline for last
month’s column, we had received the follow- ing information from a source that there was considerable unhappiness at Amtrak headquarters over management’s decision
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