High Speed Rail...High Speed Cost...Low Speed Service...Extremely Low Speed Benefit

Not So High-Speed Rail in North Carolina and Raleigh

Noteworthy:

Most newspaper accounts of this new rail system mislead readers by reporting that the train will go 110 mph. This is the maximum speed possible on some limited routes. The average speed in North Carolina due to track conditions and stops is far from 'high-speed' because it averages only 55 to 75 mph, about the same as auto travel on interstate highways.

...North Carolina’s state and federal taxpayers are not only on the hook for building the expensive system, they will be stuck with the nearly $25 million in operating subsidies every year. What is the benefit of these high costs? The average North Carolinian will take one round trip on these trains only once in every 27 years

...With all of these negatives, who does support the system? Who benefits from it? Average taxpayers who will be paying the multibillion-dollar bills certainly are not benefiting. Since the rail lines are designed to connect center cities, the beneficiaries are wealthy business and government elites — lawyers, bankers, and bureaucrats — who live or work downtown. They see an advantage to traveling center city to center city, rather than using faster air travel and then renting a car to drive to meetings downtown. And they are not shy about sticking us with the bill for personal convenience."

Not that any such facts will move the political and social "elites" from their steadfast belief that somehow, someway, High Speed Rail is "good for us."

The reality is that it's only good for them, and their special interests.