Edit post

Edit your reply below.

Post Body
Enter your post below.
The article stirs several thoughts: 1.  Why does the country need a 220 mph passenger railroad in the NEC or anywhere else for that matter? With a top speed of 160 mph, as I understand it, the running time from Philadelphia to New York will be cut to 62 minutes, with a corresponding cut, presumably, in the Washington to New York market.  The Acela competes favorably against commercial air. If we can believe Amtrak's numbers, it has the lion's share of the rail/air market today. 2. Stretching out the investment makes sense, but it also increases the risk of getting the revenue, cost, and ridership projections wrong. Seriously wrong! The proponents of the California High Speed railway project have had to revise all three number sets several times. Their estimate of the cost, even after the recent pull back, is nearly double the original cost. 3. "Amtrak says the costs of building the new rail system would be offset by 40,000 construction jobs a year for 25 years, 22,000 new permanent jobs, and increased revenue and productivity for East Coast employers." I would like to see the studies that came up with these figures. Ultimately, the cost of the 40,000 construction jobs will be capitalized. An investor owned business would have to earn a return on the capital investment as well as cover the operating costs. The numbers for a variety of high speed projects as reported by the GAO, as well as my review of several overseas operator's financial statements, shows that there is little likelihood of recapturing the capital costs through the fare box.  Moreover, developing the correlation statistics to prove a relationship between improved passenger rail in the NEC and a corporation's financial results attributable to higher productivity would be a huge challenge. 4. Each year I download the President's proposed budget from the OMB and place the key numbers in a spreadsheet. Based on my experience in corporate planning, amongst other things, I don't believe that one can project data for more than five years with any degree of accuracy. Each year I test the variance between the five year numbers. That is to say, how much did the five year projections change between 2010 and 2011, for example. I have been doing this for seven years. The median variance is 18 to 22 per cent from one year to the next for the rolling five year blocks, which says amongst other things that the OMB, with its small army of economists, accountants, etc., cannot get it very accurate for more than one year let along 28 years, which is the time frame for some of the projections as per the Philadelphia Inquirer article. 5, No, I am not anti-passenger rail.  If I were I would not participate in these forums. I am for improving corridor services where feasible, as long as there is a clear way forward to pay for it. I question the need to go 220 mph, especially given the incremental cost to achieve these super high speeds. If one needs to go really, really fast, there are jet airplanes. I also question the assumptions that are presented by various interested parties on how the projects will be funded.  In a nation with a federal, state, and local debt of more than $19 trillion, we ought to be paying some serious attention to this issue.
Tags (Optional)
Tags are keywords that get attached to your post. They are used to categorize your submission and make it easier to search for. To add tags to your post type a tag into the box below and click the "Add Tag" button.
Add Tag