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A subcommittee of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee met Wednesday to discuss intercity passenger and high-speed rail. Members on both sides of the aisle largely voiced support for high-speed rail, but some Republicans questioned the Los Angeles-to-San Francisco project as over budget and behind schedule by upon its completion.
“I’m on the record supporting high-speed rail,” said Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, adding, “I like the idea of this rail line between Houston and Dallas.” But Nehls said in his opening statement that the California project “has been plagued by a lack of accounting for true costs,” along with construction delays and land acquisition issues. “California’s high-speed rail project shows the failures of poor planning and government incompetence,” he said.
Lee Ohanian, an economics professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, testifying at the hearing, answered Nehls’ questions about the challenges facing the California project. “California HSR began life with $10 billion in voter-approved bond financing, but no legitimate business plan,” Ohanian said. “Some of this reflects failures in management and accountability, but it also reflects the failure to identify and mitigate risks and uncertainties with projects of this size.”
But there’s another California high-speed rail project both parties like: Brightline West’s plan to connect Las Vegas and Southern California. The project is being led by the same company that established 125 mph train service in Florida, a 235-mile line connecting Miami and Orlando with cities in between, built largely with private sector investment.
“The HSR private sector is incentivized to find routes where there is substantial demand, which is what we all want, and they are also incentivized to build efficiently, which is what we all want,” Ohanian said. “This suggests significant potential for private-public HSR partnerships.”
Nehls also questioned Austin, Texas Mayor Kirk Watson about passenger rail and the proposed Texas Central HSR project to link Dallas and Houston. While Watson denied that he knew much about the high-speed rail project, he said, “I would say the Texas Triangle is the lowest-hanging fruit in the country for improving intercity passenger rail service.”
Referring to the fast-growing metro areas of Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Austin and San Antonio, Watson said, “Projections show that the development of passenger rail service in this triangle will produce a robust audience with an investment of relatively modest capital because of the population. , the density of that population, the economy and the demography”.
Democrats, led by Rep. Donald Payne of New Jersey, took the opportunity to criticize Republicans for trying to cut Amtrak funding by about $1.6 billion in the fiscal 2024 budget. “Fortunately, these drastic cuts were too to pass the House, allowing the Senate to pursue a more balanced bill aligned with the successful bipartisan infrastructure bill,” Payne said. House Republicans have also tried to pass legislation that would block any federal funding for the LA-San Francisco California project.
Republican Rep. Doug LaMalfa of California, a longtime opponent of California’s high-speed rail project, asked witness Stacey Mortensen a hypothetical question about whether he would abandon the project. Mortensen is the executive director of the San Joaquin Joint Powers Authority, which oversees passenger rail service in a region of California that includes the area where the high-speed project is under construction.
“I think at some point you have to take a step back,” he replied. “I know there is extreme pressure on the High Speed Rail Authority to keep moving forward, to keep solving the problems, to keep finding the money.”
The California High Speed Rail Authority and Brightline West are competing for a share of the $4.6 billion that will be available through the Federal Railroad Administration’s Federal-State Partnership grant program for projects to subsidies outside the Northeast Corridor. Sources tell Smart Cities Dive that a decision from the FRA is imminent.
