What happened to high-speed rail in President Obama’s new budget? You will recall the president sweeping down to Florida after his State of the Union address to announce $8 billion in federal stimulus awards for rail projects that, he promised, will spark jobs and prosperity. Vice President Biden described the awards as “seed money” for developing a high-speed passenger rail system throughout the country.
That was last week. This week the administration unveiled its 2011 budget, which includes a miniscule $1 billion for high-speed rail (HSR). There are several ways to think about this request:
What’s going on? Timidity appears to have struck the administration as it moves from soaring promises to hard decisions about how to develop and finance a major civic work that could take decades to complete.
To get high-speed rail up and running, PPI has advocated a program that focuses on two or three corridors with dedicated rights of way. We specifically recommended funding the Tampa-Orlando line as a demonstration project of the speed and convenience of modern trains operating at twice the speed of conventional Amtrak service.
Although the administration did give some stimulus funds to Florida ($1.25 billion), it did not give enough ($2.6 billion) to fund the construction cost of the 88-mile Tampa-Orlando segment. Florida DOT is now trying to figure out how to plug the gap, which also threatens private investment in the project.
Instead of concentrating on a few select corridors, the administration sprinkled rail stimulus grants across 22 states, mostly for new sidings and signals that will marginally improve passenger train speeds on shared track with freight railroads.
One could argue that spending money on such upgrades would lay the groundwork for later HSR corridors, but the administration hasn’t bothered to make such a claim.
Rather, in its budget report to Congress, the administration blithely states that $1 billion of HSR spending will “sustain large-scale, multi-year support for high-speed rail” and is sufficient “to fund promising and transformative projects.”
That’s bunk. Most experts believe that developing a high-speed rail infrastructure serving key intercity corridors in the Midwest, California, the Northeast, and elsewhere will cost $200-300 billion over the next 30 years.
This would require a funding source of about $7 billion to $10 billion a year, with contributions coming from federal, state, and local governments, together with private investment from companies seeking to service and operate the lines.
Last year, Congress realized that developing high-speed rail requires more than the administration’s lowball figure. That’s why the House and Senate rejected the White House’s $1 billion request for high-speed rail in the 2010 budget and instead authorized $2.5 billion in spending.
The additional rail funds represented one of the few times last year that bipartisan support was found in Congress. One would think that the White House would take the hint and request at least $2.5 billion in the new 2011 budget.
In our HSR policy memo, we wrote that “the administration needs to remain engaged, proactive, and forward-thinking in shepherding high-speed rail to completion.” It’s frustrating that the administration is not exerting leadership in this vital piece of infrastructure-building that promises the very thing that’s at the top of voters’ minds – jobs.
