(The following editorial appeared on the News Journal website on May 30.)
WILMINGTON, Del. — A high-speed train between New York and Washington sounds like an exciting idea. But do we have the required $14 billion to spend on it? And if we did, should we spend it on commuter rail?
America’s infrastructure is seriously deteriorating. The Government Accountability Office gathered estimates of our national needs and put the price tag in the hundreds of billions of dollars. This is just to keep the ports open and the highways from caving in.
Still, the proposal that has come out of the U.S. House of Representatives shows progress of sorts. It got of out committee. The fact that the bill’s sponsors got Democrats and Republicans to agree on something has to be considered a success. Democrats have been pushing for a reauthorized Amtrak for years, but Republicans opposed it. Republicans, for their part, have been pushing to privatize Amtrak for just as long. This bill would combine both philosophies. Amtrak would get a congressional boost and a crucial update would be done in the private sector.
But will it work? As the history of Amtrak and the Acela train show, the government is not good with designing, planning or executing big projects. On the other hand, a $14 billion project for the private sector brings up scary memories of the industry-government alliance rebuilding Iraq.
But U.S. Rep. John Mica, who was in Wilmington on Wednesday to push the project, rightly notes that building another lane on I-95 would require many more billions. The Florida Republican said our major airports are closed to being maxed out. There’s isn’t enough room for enough new runways to relieve congestion. In the long run, building new tracks on the Northeast Corridor’s rail line would make the most economic sense.
However, we will withhold our complete endorsement until a national transportation and infrastructure strategy is in place. That strategy should be based on methods outlined by the GAO and other responsible agencies. It would have to include clear goals, a transparent and established system of accountability for every government dollar, a well-thought-out plan to get a return on the taxpayers’ investment, and a method to ensure fiscal sustainability.