U.S. bullet train proposals shun public funds, favor private cash

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

World | Thu May 5, 2016 7:58am EDT

U.S. bullet train proposals shun public funds, favor private cash

BY ROBIN RESPAUT

It took years of lawsuits and political battles for California to finally break ground last year on the nation’s first bullet train, which aims to connect San Francisco to Los Angeles by 2029.

High-speed rail advocates had hoped the line, supported by more than $13 billion in state and federal money, would inspire similar government-financed projects. Instead, its many delays have left rail groups wary of accepting public funds for projects they are proposing in three other states.

Companies in Texas, Minnesota and Nevada all plan to tap private cash from investors globally, with help from foreign train makers and governments eager to export train technology. The projects would rely on partnerships with Japanese or Chinese firms that face saturated train markets at home.

“The United States is the Holy Grail of deployment for Japan, China, France, Germany and Spain,” said Tim Keith, Texas Central CEO.

California's example shows that taking taxpayer money opens the door to political and legal challenges that can drag out planning, bidding and approvals for years, private rail advocates said. Companies now see a quicker - even cheaper - path by largely avoiding such headaches.

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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-rail-idUSKCN0XW0AY

[KamaAina]

1. Cheaper for them, maybe

Fares will be off the charts.

[happyslug]

2. Transportation of Passengers have NEVER been profitable.

Adam Smith in his "Wealth of Nations" made that observation over 235 years ago, and is as true today as it was then. In the days of Rail passenger service, no one built a rail line to haul passengers, the line was built to haul freight and States REQUIRED the trains to haul passengers in exchange for the right to use eminent domain to take land for the rail line. Thus when Planes and cars came into wide spread use, the Railroads were glad to end passenger service and turn it over to the Government in the form of Amtrak.

Streetcar lines were as bad, much cheaper to built do to electric drive (which can takes curves and grades no steam locomotive could) but most streetcar lines were built to take people to housing developments, the profit from the housing development helped pay for the Streetcar lines (and when it came time to rebuilt such lines, most lines failed and were taken over by whatever municipality they were in). Buses filled a niche, but without the use of free use of paved highways (that the buses did not have to pay for) none of them would have been profitable (and Greyhound is marginal to this day, if it was not for cities building bus terminals Greyhound would be out of business).

Planes are the most subsidized, both by the Federal Government in the form of building runways for Jets Fighters that can also be used by passenger planes, AND by local government building the infrastructure for the air port.

Thus, unless these foreign companies can convince they home government to subsidize building high speed rail in the US (and that is NOT an impossibility, many of these companies they home government do NOT want to fail, thus such subsidizes to keep the companies running are already part of their "profit structure&quot , none of these programs will get beyond planning.