Iowa City Passenger Rail Project

[Daniel]

With Governor Branstad electing not to fund the operating costs for this proposed service, how come we don't hear of the $230 million in federal funding being redistributed to other states like we hear about in Ohio, Wisconsin, and soon-to-be Florida?

 

[John Bredin]

1) Illinois firmly supports the new service as far as the Quad Cities -- Moline, to be specific -- and IIRC most of that $230 million is for the service between Chicago and Moline, including new train sets which will be needed whether or not the trains cross the Mississippi.

Also, the Wisconsin, Ohio, and Florida projects approved in the stimulus law are wholly within each state, so that state rejection kills the project. Chicago-Quad Cities-Iowa is different. With one "parent" still sponsoring it, it isn't an "orphan".

To put it in political terms, Illinois' pro-rail Gov. Quinn should not be deprived of a victory by Gov. Branstad's intransigence. Or to put it more humbly, half a loaf (actually, three-quarters or more of a loaf) is better than none.

2) Don't write off Florida so soon. On the state side of things, Florida legislators support the HSR program even if the governor doesn't. On the federal side, the ongoing willingness of DOT Sec'y LaHood to work with Florida rather than to cut them off at the knees on the governor's say-so alone is striking. I get the impression that either LaHood or Obama, or both, has decided to, as much as it is within their power, say "this far and no further!" on the rabid-rightwing rail rejection routine.*

If Florida accepts the HSR stimulus funds, and builds and operates HSR to the approved plan, then perhaps the spread of the Walker-Kasich red flu** can be stopped. The meme of the anti-rail Republican faction is that HSR, and indeed any improvement to passenger rail, is wholly Obama's baby, foisted on the nation from on-high in the ivory tower of Washington DC. In this version of reality, the fact that various states had to have rail plans on the books and had to request the money before they could get any is discounted by the fact that the successful applicant states have generally been Democratic. A solidly-Republican state government accepting HSR funds for a major HSR project (and though Iowa service is a worthy project, it isn't really major) refutes that meme quite handily. More succintly, the anti-HSR meme is that HSR is partisan, and Florida HSR would make HSR undeniably bipartisan.

*Alliteration intentional. Absurd things deserve absurd names.

**Public unions that can't strike sometimes resort to sick-outs, the "blue flu". Considering their anti-public-union stance, I find it ironic that Walker and Kasich are depriving their states of needed public works projects, and throttling the flow of federal funds back to their states, by petulantly pulling a Bartleby ("I would prefer not to").

 

[Eric S]

Well put. All of it.

 

[AlanB]

The meme of the anti-rail Republican faction is that HSR, and indeed any improvement to passenger rail, is wholly Obama's baby, foisted on the nation from on-high in the ivory tower of Washington DC. In this version of reality, the fact that various states had to have rail plans on the books and had to request the money before they could get any is discounted by the fact that the successful applicant states have generally been Democratic. A solidly-Republican state government accepting HSR funds for a major HSR project (and though Iowa service is a worthy project, it isn't really major) refutes that meme quite handily. More succintly, the anti-HSR meme is that HSR is partisan, and Florida HSR would make HSR undeniably bipartisan.

Actually none of this is Obama's plan; he's just the first President to actually call for funding the plans already put down.

Currently there are 11 HSR corridors identified by the Fed. The first 5 corridors were decided upon and announced by Republican President George H W Bush's White House. The other 6 corridors were announced by President Clinton's White House, however it should be noted that Mr. Clinton was given permission to do so by the Republican controlled Congress when they passed TEA-21.

And then of course as you note, each and every state that was initially awarded money, drew up plans and filled out a multi-page application so that they could be considered for funds. And in Ohio's case, the plan that was awarded monies now rejected by the Gov Kasich, was a plan written by a Republican working for a Republican Gov at the time, and it was approved by the Republican controlled State Senate.

So any claim that HSR is all President Obama's plan is patently false!

 

[John Bredin]

Actually none of this is Obama's plan; he's just the first President to actually call for funding the plans already put down.
Currently there are 11 HSR corridors identified by the Fed. The first 5 corridors were decided upon and announced by Republican President George H W Bush's White House. The other 6 corridors were announced by President Clinton's White House, however it should be noted that Mr. Clinton was given permission to do so by the Republican controlled Congress when they passed TEA-21.

And then of course as you note, each and every state that was initially awarded money, drew up plans and filled out a multi-page application so that they could be considered for funds. And in Ohio's case, the plan that was awarded monies now rejected by the Gov Kasich, was a plan written by a Republican working for a Republican Gov at the time, and it was approved by the Republican controlled State Senate.

So any claim that HSR is all President Obama's plan is patently false!

Right, but because huge sums of money weren't on the table at the time, most of the non-political-wonk population wasn't paying attention when earlier federal administrations designated high-speed corridors or earlier state administrations prepared rail plans. Outside of states with active rail programs (California, Illinois, North Carolina, and the like) where people are actually riding trains and actual train frequencies were increased by state action, the general public's eye did not turn to the issue of passenger rail until the stimulus bill came out with $8 billion for HSR and other passenger rail. Like the old line about used cars, HSR is new to them.

Thus, to effectively refute the anti-rail "forcing it down our throats" meme, a prominent example of a Republican state administration supporting improved rail and accepting stimulus money must occur now that people are actually paying attention, which is to say now that real money is at stake.

Walker and Kasich ran on anti-rail platforms with no regard to the support of earlier Republican governors for improved passenger rail. Similarly, the fact that Obama's health care reform proposal was cribbed in great part from the Republican counter-proposal to the Clinton health-care plan of the 1990s didn't stop most prominent Republicans from calling it Obamacare. "We have always been at war with Eastasia." :wacko:

 

[Ryan]

]So any claim that HSR is all President Obama's plan is patently false!

Tell that to all the rabid right wingers that oppose it! (of course, they don't seem to be that rational, so that doesn't really matter)

EIther way, Obama is the first President to give the plans any serious chance of being built, so while he may have pulled them off the shelf from prior administrations, I think that it's not inaccurate to refer to them as "Obama's baby".

 

[afigg]

With Governor Branstad electing not to fund the operating costs for this proposed service, how come we don't hear of the $230 million in federal funding being redistributed to other states like we hear about in Ohio, Wisconsin, and soon-to-be Florida?

The $230 million for the Iowa City service is FY2010 funding, so the funding has a longer time frame before it has to be spent than the FY2009 stimulus funding. The announcements of the FY10 grants were made just last October. As already noted, this new service extension is shared with Illinois which is willing to proceed. So, LaHood and the FRA are presumably taking their time before forcing the issue with Iowa. As I understand it, Gov. Branstad is not saying a "no way" to the Iowa extension, but is stalling because the operating funding is an issue. LaHood made an offer to Walker in Wisconsin for the federal government to pick up a large part of the operating subsidy for the first few years. If he has not done so, maybe LaHood is planning to do the same for Iowa to help nudge the project forward?

If Amtrak ridership and revenue continues to grow over the next few years as it has, the amount needed for the operating subsidies of many of the corridor services is likely to be a lot lower than the current projections. The December, 2010 Amtrak monthly report is interesting because it shows the Acela, Northeast Regional, Hiawatha, Washington-Lynchburg, Washington-Newport News, Kansas City-St. Louis, and the Adirondack (!?) services at positive fully allocated contribution per passenger or seat mile in one table. The Vermonter, Downeaster, Carolinian, Maple Leaf are operating with small loses per passenger and seat mile. I believe these are before state subsidy contributions. The revenue and ridership increases are reducing the operating loss margins for many of the corridor services. If they can get the Iowa City service going in 3-4 years, Iowa may well find that the operating subsidies will be much smaller than anticipated if not needed at all.

 

[Anderson]

With Governor Branstad electing not to fund the operating costs for this proposed service, how come we don't hear of the $230 million in federal funding being redistributed to other states like we hear about in Ohio, Wisconsin, and soon-to-be Florida?

The $230 million for the Iowa City service is FY2010 funding, so the funding has a longer time frame before it has to be spent than the FY2009 stimulus funding. The announcements of the FY10 grants were made just last October. As already noted, this new service extension is shared with Illinois which is willing to proceed. So, LaHood and the FRA are presumably taking their time before forcing the issue with Iowa. As I understand it, Gov. Branstad is not saying a "no way" to the Iowa extension, but is stalling because the operating funding is an issue. LaHood made an offer to Walker in Wisconsin for the federal government to pick up a large part of the operating subsidy for the first few years. If he has not done so, maybe LaHood is planning to do the same for Iowa to help nudge the project forward?

If Amtrak ridership and revenue continues to grow over the next few years as it has, the amount needed for the operating subsidies of many of the corridor services is likely to be a lot lower than the current projections. The December, 2010 Amtrak monthly report is interesting because it shows the Acela, Northeast Regional, Hiawatha, Washington-Lynchburg, Washington-Newport News, Kansas City-St. Louis, and the Adirondack (!?) services at positive fully allocated contribution per passenger or seat mile in one table. The Vermonter, Downeaster, Carolinian, Maple Leaf are operating with small loses per passenger and seat mile. I believe these are before state subsidy contributions. The revenue and ridership increases are reducing the operating loss margins for many of the corridor services. If they can get the Iowa City service going in 3-4 years, Iowa may well find that the operating subsidies will be much smaller than anticipated if not needed at all.

What page is this on? I can't find it in the pile of charts, but that may just be me looking in the wrong places.

 

[afigg]

What page is this on? I can't find it in the pile of charts, but that may just be me looking in the wrong places.

Pages 64 to 66 of the December 2010 Monthly Report. What the exact differences are between several of the financial performance tables or how state subsidies figure into these tables, don't know. Amtrak's ticket revenue is up 12% and ridership is up 5.9% for the first 3 months of FY2010, so Amtrak's strategy appears to be to maximize ticket revenue as much as possible. Which helps with the bottom line.

 

[Iowa Resident]

For this simple reason the funds aren't being re-distributed. Iowa doesn't need to pay until 2013. So they don't even need to budget for it yet. So technically its not dead. And if Lahood offers some CMAQ funds to operate it, I bet Iowa will pay for their share without complaining.