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Anderson Cooper has exposed the $800 million worth of ARRA projects on the Cascades line as part of a $12 billion HSR boondoggle. Unfortunately the report on the Cascades has a few facts wrong.
First, the ARRA money has been allocated but most of the projects are still in the design phase. Construction won't be complete until 2017, so the running-time reductions and additional trips haven't happened yet.
Second, ten minutes might not sound like a lot of time savings for $800 million, but that isn't the only goal of the projects. The goals of the Cascades ARRA projects are to create more track capacity for passenger and freight trains, provide 2 more Cascades round trips and greatly improve system reliability. Nobody promised 110 mph bullet trains for $800 million.
Third, the idea that it's cheaper and sometimes faster to take a Greyhound bus between Seattle and Portland is the result of decades of massive investment in the highway system and neglect of passenger rail. That mindset completely ignores the cost of operating, maintaining and preserving the infrastructure to support bus trips that are sometimes faster than a 79 mph train. I could spend a few hours digging through the WSDOT website and total up the amount of money spent on operating, maintaining and improving I-5 between Seattle and Portland and then try to calculate the amount of future expenditures that will be needed to preserve the 3 hour and 30 minute bus trip between Seattle and Portland and compare that total investment to the money needed to build and operate a 110 mph rail corridor. Once the true costs are known, what would look smarter: investment in a multi-modal transportation system that includes a 110 mph passenger rail corridor or only investing in the 70 mph highway system?
Mike Smith Member # 447
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You forgot to mention the Greyhound seats are about 1/2 the size of the Amtrak seats, and Amtrak has food available.
Tanner929 Member # 3720
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While the federal and state governments spend massive amount of money on studies and research looking into HSR projects, MEGABUS, BOLT has provided cheaper fares then Amtrak understand about subsidies but the government is basically in competition with themselves.
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