MSP to Rochester High Speed Rail

[RailBaronYarr]

I think that's a pretty broad comment, and not even sure how to address it. Do you want the tracks & stations to be publicly owned? And/or the trainsets & operating agents? We have public airports where private airlines provide operations services, seems to work out okay. We have public trains running on private railroad tracks, seems to work out maybe less ok. I hate that I'm typing these AynRandian words, but I think passenger airlines would be worse if the state just nationalized them all, not better. Deregulation of both freight rail and air travel were major wins for consumers.

I'm skeptical this whole thing is a ruse given the timing of Garofalo's bill, etc. The conspiracy theorist in me wants to believe it's just a setup to prove passenger rail just can't work (ignoring subsidies for roads, of course). But it's likely that these people are sincere in their belief it can work (whether they have the financing/partnerships to pull it off is another story). It wouldn't be at all terrible if MnDOT or whoever builds/operates this thing, obviously. But I don't know why we'd want to spend taxpayer money on it if it could be done privately. Wouldn't you rather the gov't spend tax-free money on less-lucrative regional rail lines like NLX, etc by saving $2-4bn on ZipRail? Ideologically, wouldn't you rather have the only example of private, profitable infrastructure in our state be a choo choo boondoggle to cram it down the road lobby's throats?

[phop]

The problem is that this service is not going to exist in a vacuum. Whenever our region can get its act together and finally develop the MSP-Chicago high-speed rail corridor, this segment is going to get a hard look as the final leg to MSP. If the private alternative ends up being a subpar connection from a regional perspective, we're going to be paying for its short-sightedness for decades.

[David Greene]

Private infrastructure that gets built is better than public infrastructure that never gets built.

Not always. Both private- and public-owned infrastructure can be managed badly.

When there's a public good there should be direct public accountability. We need to be able to maintain control over who it serves, how it serves and how it changes over time.

[David Greene]

I think that's a pretty broad comment, and not even sure how to address it. Do you want the tracks & stations to be publicly owned? And/or the trainsets & operating agents?

Yes.

We have public airports where private airlines provide operations services, seems to work out okay.

*guffaw*

I think passenger airlines would be worse if the state just nationalized them all, not better.

How can you know that? I don't know whether it would get better or worse. But I do know we'd have public control over what happens to our critical infrastructure.

Deregulation of both freight rail and air travel were major wins for consumers.

In some ways for some groups. For other groups it got much worse.

Ideologically, wouldn't you rather have the only example of private, profitable infrastructure in our state be a choo choo boondoggle to cram it down the road lobby's throats?

No, I don't care about that at all because buying into that argument just entrenches that ideology further into our societal mindset. The Commons does not exist to make a profit.

[RailBaronYarr]

The Commons (an actual public good with open access and near non-rivalrous nature 98% of the time) is completely different than a train that can (and will) charge passengers money to ride and has limited capacity.

Maybe you can be more specific: what benefits do you hope/propose a publicly run (or owned) system would provide relative to a private HSR line?

[David Greene]

Maybe you can be more specific: what benefits do you hope/propose a publicly run (or owned) system would provide relative to a private HSR line?

The public can adapt it to future needs when necessary. The public doesn't have to be constrained by profit. The public can decide how the services it uses are managed.

[grant1simons2]

Many of the federally owned companies today were started as private organizations.. just saying.

[mplsjaromir]

I'm drawing a blank. What's a well known federally owned company that started as a private organization?

[grant1simons2]

US postal service is probably one of the most well known

[Silophant]

Amtrak is the only one I can think of. It's a pretty relevant example for this discussion, though.

[mplsjaromir]

The establishment of a postal service is mentioned in the constitution, not sure when the USPS was private.

Amtrak might be a good case. But Amtrak is more or less assuming functions of many private companies that they deemed not profitable.

[Silophant]

FWIW, the Wikipedia list of companies that have been nationalized in the US isn't very long.

[grant1simons2]

Well that's good to learn. I was under the impression that the US government has acquired many smaller companies, or that a nationalized system was grown out of a private idea.

[mulad]

There are more examples at the state and local level, a mix of businesses created by or taken over by governments -- things like public transit, electric and natural gas companies, and cable/phone/Internet providers. Of course, governments are involved in the creation of virtually all companies, though the amount of involvement and oversight varies a lot. Public utilities are heavily regulated even when they're provided by private companies, but they're often natural monopolies.

[RailBaronYarr]

Amtrak and large utilities are good examples for what can happen with natural monopolies. Utilities right now are facing major competition from renewables & distributed generation. They're entrenched (with very high fixed capital investment) and not very flexible. As a result, they're very much fighting policies that allow for a more rapid shift to cheaper, cleaner energy. I'm not one to rail on Amtrak, but if you "*guffaw*" at airlines you could at least admit that system-wide Amtrak has worse performance numbers than the airline industry over the last 30 years.

I'm not saying publicly held services like transit or national rail lines can't be effective. SNCF proves you can do it quite well, and I'm obviously in favor of a fairly regulated system if it's private (helping integrate service to local transit, airline flights/ops, etc), perhaps even throwing some additional money to make the service better from day 1 (ex. extending it to Mpls).

Our public process has given us some pretty great rail transit (Blue/Green lines) and some pretty terrible transit lines (Northstar, Red Line). I'm at least a little worried that the typical public process will add a couple stations in the middle of nowhere with expensive parking ramps that slow the train down an extra 5-15 minutes, all because some exurban/rural legislators threaten to block the project without access. I find it hard to ignore the value in saving $2-4bn public construction costs that could go toward, what, 3-4 other regional rail lines? Given an up and running ZipRail, those other lines benefit hugely from network effects. I guess I just don't see it so black and white that "infrastructure" should be 100% public in all cases. Just like I disagree with those that really believe $500m was a good use of state/local money because there's some public benefit to having a multi-purpose stadium in Minneapolis.

[cowboyjones]

SNCF does do well as a national company. However, I would argue Japan Rail does well as a private corporation, perhaps even better (though it does do as well as it does partly because it was started publicly and privatized, allowing a lot of accounting write-off of usable assets). Even here, TCRT was a privately owned company, and did well until it began to have competition from cars. Which brings me to another point; as long as there are different ways to get places, other than just a single rail line (ex. cars, planes, other trains), a private company will price its services competitively with those other modes, so I have no worry that a private company wouldn't charge a fair price or run frequently enough. It will offer service to be competitive to those other modes, as much as possible, as long as doing so is possible. And it is always possible for the state to step in if it fails.

[acs]

Zip rail backers gave a presentation in Washington this week. Olmstead county rail adviser Chuck Michael said they would focus on the growing number of commuters between the twin cities and Rochester with 225 MPH service. He also said it would connect in Minneapolis either at the International Airport or the Mall of America on the north end and at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester on the south end. To cut down on costs, the point-to-point system from the Twin Cities to Rochester would offer no intermediate stops.

http://www.postbulletin.com/news/local/ ... aa83c.html

[mattaudio]

That's a disappointing development. I would much prefer SPUD (with future Mpls extension) terminus with an intermediate Dakota County stop rather than MOA/MSP terminus.

[acs]

^Ditto. A Bloomington terminus leaves it completely disconnected from our future regional and commuter rail system. So much for the planned high-speed connector between SPUD and target field.

[mattaudio]

I fully understand why, but it is frustrating that there seems to be such little coordination between ZipRail and MWHSR planning to at least have a shared vision. This is similar in a sense to how we plan transit as lines rather than systems, and miss easy opportunities to make our investments more forwards-compatible with future network or service additions and enhancements.