GDOT drops dreaded four-letter-word: R-A-I-L

Georgia’s Department of Transportation doesn’t generally grab headlines, but when it does, it’s often bad news. When I read the latest from GDOT, I could hear a collective groan from government watchdogs as GDOT dropped the dreaded four-letter-word: R-A-I-L, presumably of the publicly-funded variety.

“By the middle of the next decade, Georgians may be able to travel between Atlanta and Savannah by high-speed rail, avoiding traffic and expensive air fares,” reports the Capitol Beat News Service. “The state Department of Transportation has launched a study of the feasibility of connecting the two urban centers with an intercity passenger rail line.”

At first glance, this may sound like an exciting proposition for anyone who travels to Savannah from the metro Atlanta area. I am not a fan of long road trips, and even when there is no traffic, that is about a four-hour drive. If you’d rather fly, it generally costs around $200 with Delta Airlines, although it can reach over $400.

A high-speed train that cruises at over 125 miles-per-hour and bypasses traffic congestion seems like a viable alternative, and it sounds like GDOT has already made up its mind, regardless of the feasibility study’s findings. “[Director of GDOT’s Intermodal Division Clement] Solomon said the DOT likely will opt for high-speed rail as the preferred technology because that’s what the public wants,” according to the Capitol Beat News Service.

How Solomon knows what the public wants when the first stakeholder meetings have just begun is beyond me. I’d venture to say that when the public learns how much this will cost and how terrible the implementation has been elsewhere in the country, it will be clear that the public has no appetite for publicly-funded high-speed rail.

For starters, nobody knows how much this will cost and where the money will come from. “[GDOT] hasn’t identified funding sources for the project, beyond $10 million in planning money for the study – an $8 million grant from the Federal Railroad Administration and a $2 million state match,” the Capitol News Beat Service explained. It is mind-boggling and an utter waste that this study will cost taxpayers an astounding $10 million dollars, but never mind that.

If Georgians want to know what a publicly-funded high-speed passenger rail system might look like, then consider California’s miserable experience. “Voters first approved a high-speed rail proposal in 2008 that would connect Los Angeles to San Francisco by 2020,” writes the Los Angeles Times.

“That end date has changed considerably over time. There is no set timeline for when anyone will be able to ride the entire 494-stretch from Anaheim to San Francisco. The current focus centers on the Central Valley, where officials estimate the 171-mile line from Merced to Bakersfield will be finished between 2030 and 2033.”

Will it ever be finished? Californians should hope not based on the price alone. “Officials estimate it could cost about $35 billion to finish the first line from Bakersfield to Merced and roughly $100 billion more to complete the route from Los Angeles to San Francisco — about $100 billion more than what was originally proposed years ago,” reported the Los Angeles Times. In short, Californians are paying for a Porsche but received a broken down Pinto.

Perhaps the Peach State will fare differently, but no matter the cost, I can’t imagine that people from Newnan to Augusta and Rome to Valdosta will want to pay for a service that doesn’t benefit them. There’s also the problem of whether the proposed passenger rail system might hurt business and impede freight trains servicing the Savannah port.

Savannah Area Chamber of Commerce chief Bert Brantley even warned, “It’s not the no-brainer people might assume […] We have to be very careful. We don’t want to create a benefit that comes at the expense of jobs, growth, and new investment.”

Despite my criticism of publicly-funded passenger rail proposals, I don’t oppose passenger rail in concept. In fact, I like it and have used it many times in Europe where there is an extensive, in-demand rail system that services millions of people. It connects just about every sizable city and even competes with air travel—helping to drive prices down—but Georgia and Europe are very different places.

It will be years before GDOT completes its over-priced, taxpayer-funded feasibility study on an Atlanta-to-Savannah high-speed rail line. When it is done, I am sure the report will talk about the miracles of such a development, and if the line is somehow privately funded, then I am fully in support. However, if officials want to build it using taxpayer money, then they ought to remember California’s ongoing experience.

Since this is a family-oriented newspaper, I will refrain from using any four-letter-words to sum up my feelings on a publicly-funded high-speed rail system and simply stick with three letters: U-G-H.