Top story in the New York Sun today: Congress Eyes a Rocket Train To Washington.

A two-hour rocket train between New York and Washington is the goal of new legislation that cleared a key hurdle in Congress last week, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

[...]

If passed, the legislation would require the U.S. Department of Transportation to solicit requests for proposals from private developers to create a two-hour “door-to-door” high-speed rail service.

Rep. Michael Castle, a Republican of Delaware who co-authored the legislation, said gaining the support of Mr. Mica, the ranking Republican on the transportation panel, was key.

“I think he understands the congestion we have in the corridor. There are a number of concerns here and he realizes that Amtrak can’t resolve the problem,” he said.

Mr. Castle said the surging price of gasoline and the increased hassle associated with air travel make it ideal timing for a high-speed train alternative.

“If you can get it to two hours, or even close to that, you are going to see that many more people shifting to this usage. There is just an enormous amount of traffic out there,” he said. The legislation calls for an appropriation of $14 billion over five years.

That’s fourteen billion dollars over five years, and, as everyone knows, the price tag for projects like this rises exponentially as time passes. For what? To create yet another way of getting from Washington D.C. to New York City and back. Who needs this? Oh, that’s right: the power players. The elite. The ones, in many cases, who will be voting for it.

“It’s a little late in the game, but we need it,” the chairman of the political science department at Touro College, David Luchins, a longtime adviser to Senator Moynihan, said yesterday in an interview. “It’s important because of the cost of oil, its important because of the environment, and it would be great for the economy — I see no downside. It is the most economically sound way to move people from New York to Washington.”

Mr. Luchins also said that the job of generating political support could be eased by the disgruntlement of lawmakers who must deal with the rigors of shuttling between New York and Washington.

If the idea of a high-speed train service between New York and Washington has something of the sound of deja-vu to you, it might have something to do with the fact that such a service was just launched by the heavily subsidized Amtrak in the year 2000, eight short years ago, to great fanfare and at enormous expense. The Acela high speed service runs the length of the Northeast Corridor from Washington D.C. to Boston. As mentioned in this article, the scheduled trip time between Washington and New York City on the Acela train is two hours and forty-five minutes.

Fourteen billion dollars (the starting quote) to build new tracks and new trains in order to reduce the travel time between Washington D.C. and New York by forty-five minutes, for those who just can’t stand the hassle of taking an air shuttle. That gentleman from the political science department, Mr. Luchins, quoted above, sees “no downside.” No. What downside could there possibly be?

This is definitely one to remember the next time someone in Washington is talking about the need to raise taxes.

...................
Share this!

PERMALINK

Posts which might be related to this one based on a mysterious algorithm:

• OH NO
• Odds & ends
• Welcome to Modern Times
• Slow Train Chuggin’