Secretary Pete wants fast trains. He will have to succeed where Obama failed.

Secretary Pete wants fast trains. He will have to succeed where Obama failed.

by

American transportation investments are dominated by automobiles, as hundreds of billions were spent to build the Interstate Highway System in the 20th century. But Buttigieg, repeating his boss, President Joe Biden (who is sometimes called “Amtrak Joe”, thanks to his habit of traveling by train between his home state of Delaware and Washington) spoke recently about updating the American railroad.

“We need to take things to the next level,” said Buttigieg on MSNBC last week. “I think we have a real opportunity to do that, especially with the bipartisan appetite for real investment that lies ahead of us this year.”
Buttigieg has a different history of thinking about transportation. As mayor of South Bend, Indiana, he led an effort to reorient the city center around pedestrians and cyclists, rather than drivers. Now he is working on a bigger stage and will try to succeed where others have failed.

America had the fastest passenger trains in the world in 1959, according to Amtrak, but now 18 countries are faster than their fastest speed option, Acela, which operates between Boston and Washington DC.

“We were asked to accept less in this country,” Buttigieg said in an interview with MSNBC. “I just don’t know why people in other countries should have better train service and more investment in high-speed train service than Americans.”

A decade ago, Biden and the Obama administration pushed for high-speed railroads across the country, but lacked the necessary political funding and support.

In 2010, the government revealed an initial investment of US $ 8 billion, in addition to US $ 5 billion to be invested in five years. For comparison, Amtrak generally receives less than $ 2 billion a year.

Obama’s initial funding was a significant increase in rail funding, but only a small step towards paying for a national network.

Biden will need to invest a lot more to respond to Buttigieg’s speech to lead the world. A plan by Democratic Congressman Seth Moulton to build a national high-speed rail network required $ 205 billion over five years. (For contextual purposes, the US spends about $ 50 billion a year on highways.)

Obama’s speech on faster trains was not well received in Republican-led states. Governors in Wisconsin, Ohio and Florida declined billions in federal funding, sinking high-speed rail projects in those states.

“A huge, huge disappointment,” was how Ray LaHood, who served as Obama’s first transportation secretary, described Florida refusing $ 2.3 billion to build high-speed railways in 2011, in an interview with CNN Business this month .

LaHood said the project was ready to go, but Florida Governor Rick Scott declined funding. Scott, now a U.S. senator, said in a statement to CNN Business that he rejected the funding because Florida taxpayers would have to pay hundreds of millions for the bill.

Instead, the Obama administration found an interest in California. Construction is underway to connect San Francisco and Los Angeles. But initial construction is limited to central California, away from major cities in San Francisco and Los Angeles. The project has been chased by challenges, including increased costs, extended deadlines and funding cuts from the Trump administration. Additional funding will be required to connect major cities.
Brian Kelly, CEO of the California High Speed ​​Rail Authority, expressed optimism that the project will attract funding from the private sector once major obstacles are overcome, such as environmental approvals and land to build. The private sector has shown an increasing interest in high-speed rail in recent years, with projects underway to connect Houston and Dallas, as well as Las Vegas and greater Los Angeles.

Proponents of high-speed rail believe the Biden government is better positioned to succeed, given what was learned at the Department of Transportation during the Obama years, when there was less experience with high-speed rail projects.

“Many people had to learn a lot of things very quickly. They did the best they could,” Rick Harnish, executive director of the High Speed ​​Rail Alliance, told CNN Business.

LaHood believes that more US governors would accept funding now and estimates that up to half would accept funding. He feels that the biggest obstacle is whether the Biden government will get Congress to finance high-speed rail.

That path will be challenging, according to Moulton, who introduced his bill last year to invest billions in high-speed rail.

“There will be many lawmakers who just want to fix their local holes or old bridges, instead of investing in 21st century technology,” Moulton told CNN Business. “We cannot afford to waste a generational opportunity by investing in the latest generation infrastructure.”

.Source