Obama Railway

">President Obama arrived in Tampa today with federal taxpayer cash to build yet another railway that no one will use and cost far more than any benefits derived.

"Speaking at the University of Tampa, Obama called high speed rail "building our infrastructure of the future… We want to start looking deep into the 21st century. There is no reason why other countries can build high speed rail lines and we can't."

Well, we can build it but that doesn't mean we should. Rail projects like this have been built all over the country and have almost invariably suffered from low ridership and have required massive subsidies (federal, state and local) to keep them running. The main reason people don't ride them is population density.

Mass transit works in older, densely populated, vertical cities that came of age before the invention of the automobile e.g. Boston, New York Chicago. Much less track is needed to conveniently reach the amount of people required to make those systems viable. Not so in cities that have experienced most of their growth in the last century. The automobile allowed people to live further apart and on more land. Tampa, Orlando and most of Florida falls in that category and no rail system here can efficiently have enough stops conveniently close to make it an attractive alternative. Simply put: If you drive your car 10 miles to the Tampa station and ride to Orlando, what do you do when you get there? How do you get around that sprawling metropolis?

As for other countries with high speed rail, population density and other factors make them poor comparisons. Robert Samuelson explains:

"What works in Europe and Asia won't in the United States. Even abroad, passenger trains are subsidized. But the subsidies are more justifiable because geography and energy policies differ.

Densities are much higher, and high densities favor rail with direct connections between heavily populated city centers and business districts. In Japan, density is 880 people per square mile; it's 653 in Britain, 611 in Germany and 259 in France. By contrast, plentiful land in the United States has led to suburbanized homes, offices and factories. Density is 86 people per square mile. Trains can't pick up most people where they live and work and take them to where they want to go. Cars can.

Distances also matter. America is big; trips are longer. Beyond 400 to 500 miles, fast trains can't compete with planes. Finally, Europe and Japan tax car transportation more heavily, pushing people to trains. In August 2008, notes the GAO, gasoline in Japan was $6.50 a gallon. Americans regard $4 a gallon as an outrage. Proposals for stiff gasoline taxes (advocated by many, including me) go nowhere."

The only way to get people into trains they don't want to ride is through a combination of bribes through taxpayer subsidies, and force through heavy taxation of gasoline and air travel.

There's a reason why no private concern has ever proposed a project like this: It's an inefficient loser. If no one is willing to risk their own money on these boondoggles, then why should taxpayers do it through government force? This is just one more reason why government spending doesn't stimulate anything other than politician's careers.

More on this subject: American Thinker, Cato Institute, Reason.