High-Speed Rail Money Should Be Spent on Actual High-Speed Rail

A disturbing trend has emerged in the debate about how to spend the billions of dollars that the stimulus package dedicates to high-speed rail (HSR). The trend is towards spending the money on marginal improvements to existing routes rather than true investment in new high-speed ones. For example, a recent panel of witnesses before a House Appropriations subcommittee argued that the money “would best be used on incremental speed increases for current routes.” The general reasoning behind this argument is that HSR is costly, takes years to build, and the returns are relatively uncertain. Therefore, improving existing train speeds from say 79mph to 90mph is the better way to go. If this is the route chosen, the money might as well not be spent at all.

The general concern about HSR is that it may not be the most cost-effective way to spend transportation money. That argument is, for now, irrelevant; the stimulus money is going to HSR in some form regardless. The more important issue at this point is, we could argue, more political: if the public is told that billions are being spent on HSR but all the money gets frittered away on marginal improvements to existing lines, the broader goal of actual high-speed rail will be tarnished. A marginal improvement to existing train service is not game-changing, and would do little to reinvigorate the mode. Moreover, true HSR offers travel, business, and quality of life gains that marginal improvements will never provide.

While it is true that HSR will not be seen within the next few years, that’s not a good reason to avoid making investments in it. Recognizing that stimulus money is intended for shovel ready projects, it may not be possible for all of the $8b allocated to be spent on HSR; but surely a significant amount can, and the priority should be to spend every dime that we can on actual HSR project development. Whatever money is left over can then be prioritized to more marginal improvements in select corridors with an eye to the future.

HSR can likely provide significant benefits in select corridors, and those corridors have already been generally identified. One corridor that is moving forward with HSR is the California route between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Investing the stimulus money in this corridor (or in real development of another corridor like the Northeast or Chicago) is one way to make sure that in the not too distant future the country actually has a viable example of truly high speed 220mph trains, not Amtrak trains that can go 90mph instead of 79mph.

In other circumstances and for other transportation modes the argument to make marginal improvements might be the prudent one. But when it comes to HSR, the bold course is the right one.

-Daniel Lewis