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  • CNN Not Impressed with Vermont’s “High-Speed Rail”0

    • January 28, 2013

    Vermont officials are proud that a federal high-speed rail grant allowed them to take 29 minutes of the Vermonter schedule between New York City and Burlington. This is quite a bit less impressive than it sounds, as the speeded-up train still takes 9.5 hours for an average speed of 38 mph. By comparison, Megabus does […]

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  • Taken for a Ride0

    • October 25, 2012

    Here is a 20-minute news report on the California high-speed rail project in four parts. I can think of several lessons people should learn from this fiasco. First, don’t vote to partly fund a project. The government agency in charge will spend all of the money even if there is no chance to get the […]

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  • Will They Ever Learn?0

    • October 18, 2012

    Arizona Shuttle offers 19 buses a day between Tucson and Phoenix. Greyhound offers at least eight. But that’s not good enough for some people, so the state is spending $6.3 million studying the idea of running passenger trains between the two cities. The state’s first guess is that the start-up cost would be a mere […]

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  • Bloomberg: Taxpayers Gouged by Transit0

    • August 30, 2012

    Bloomberg News, or at least a writer named Stephen Smith, has discovered that the transit industry is gouging taxpayers with its schemes for high-cost rail transit and high-speed rail. Smith says there are two causes for this gouging. First, “agencies can’t keep their private contractors in check,” and instead hire “consultants who consultant with consultants […]

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  • Because $117 Billion Wasn’t Expensive Enough0

    • July 27, 2012

    In 2010, Amtrak proposed to spend $117 billion to upgrade its Boston-to-Washington high-speed rail corridor. This idea was so unrealistically expensive that the Antiplanner called it “gold-plated high-speed rail.” Apparently, Amtrak wants platinum plating instead, as its 2012 update to the proposal has raised the cost to $151 billion. This includes some additional bells and […]

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  • California Rail Follies0

    • July 16, 2012

    The California legislature based its approval of the sale of billions of dollars of bonds to start construction of high-speed rail partly on claims that the rail line would help revitalize California’s economy. But now a study from UCLA finds that Japan’s high-speed rail line, one of the most popular in the world, failed to […]

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