GOP must stop Edwards rail boondoggle power play

Perhaps it’s merely a reflection of a fantasy, or more seriously a last-gasp effort to stamp an agenda about to be washed entirely out to sea, but playing like tomorrow doesn’t exist Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards announced high-speed passenger rail service between Baton Rouge and New Orleans would commence sometime in 2027.

Edwards said the state had agreed with Amtrak to start this up with a once-daily roundtrip between the two cities. By then, presumably an extensive upgrading of 80 miles of tracks will have been completed, supposedly costing $250 million. The state would have to put up $50 million for the upgrades.

Actually, it doesn’t have to come up with just under $20.5 million of that amount. Not long after the 2023 Regular Session of the Legislature closed after allocating that amount of money to pay off the federal government to zero out the 2005-era hurricane disaster Road Home program, the federal government said the state could keep the money if it used it for disaster preparation. Eschewing any alternative use, and to the displeasure of some Republican legislators on the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget who had to approve reprogramming the money who pointed out more cost-effective uses, the Edwards Administration steered that towards the state match for high-speed intercity passenger rail. The JLCB approved only because Edwards negotiated the whole deal beforehand and then presented it as an accomplished fate that if not approved would scuttle the swap.

However, Edwards didn’t mention where the other almost $30 million would come from, and that grant has yet to be awarded. Nor did any discussion occur about if and when the upgrades happened how the state would fund the ongoing enterprise, with Amtrak only saying its contribution would be determined in the future.

That is a many millions of dollars question. A study nearly a decade ago produced some dismal numbers, forecasting a combined government subsidy of $44 a ticket given ridership and total costs, including those amortizing an estimated 30 years of life for infrastructure – and based upon ridership and revenue numbers historically optimistic and downplaying costs. Further, it would do little to remove vehicle traffic from the corridor – not even a two percent reduction, and that as well was an optimistic guess because data show typically a rail service has to be at least 200 miles in length to become more cost effective than driving. And for people without access to a car, Greyhound currently advertises one-way bus service between $14-16 – all without taxpayer subsidy and comparable to the predicted rail ticket price.

Edwards ignored all of this and prattled on with bogus talking points about how much environmental degradation could be avoided and how this would spur economic development – even though research into how intra- and inter-city rail stimulates that shows this stimulation occurs only at far higher passenger volumes than the contemplated 250-375 passenger round trips a day, according to the latest study from this year. In fact, for at least the first year Edwards indicated only one round trip a day would happen, driving average daily ridership down to fewer than 125.

The latest reports reiterates the fact that state and local governments would have to kick in operating subsidies for this to work. Disregarding the 30-year amortization costs, under the two roundtrips forecast after expected federal subsidies cease in seven years after operations start, state and local governments after a decade would be on the hook for $7 million annually, or almost $78 per ticket (this assumes ridership doesn’t increase and is a mixture of roundtrips from all points, not just from the endpoints) or four times the average cost to a rider.

Further, the $250 million cost may be low. A scenario for buildout just for the single round trip pegs the cost at $281.2 million. Go all the way to four and it crests at $413.2 million (this assumes construction actually begins in 2028 rather than next year, so inflation is built in, but at 3 percent this underestimates that, so these probably are pretty close forecasts if building soon).

Because of the Edwards power play reprogramming the seed money, the state may well have to come up with the remainder and do the upgrades. There is one half-sensible reason to pursue that, one increasingly fronted by Edwards to try to drown out the criticism of this as a boondoggle – use of the rail corridor as an evacuation mechanism for New Orleans. It would be an incredibly expensive one – much more than alternatives that JLCB Republicans pointed out – but you can’t put a price on lives.

Except it would seem to have limited utility as an evacuation mechanism. The trip on high-speed rail would take without stop 75 minutes between endpoints, but less than half that to LaPlace, although of course would require a trip back. And fewer than a dozen passenger cars typically would be available. Of course, all hands could come on deck and additional locomotives could be pressed into service and people loaded on freight box cars, but these would have to move much more slowly. In sum, even if this took place over something like an eight-hour span, it seems unlikely that more than a few thousand people could be moved out of harm’s way.

So, when Edwards alleged that “The costs are not exorbitant, in terms of the benefit that’s going to be delivered,” even with his track record of mendacity this was a bold unsupported assertion. And one that shouldn’t be allowed to be tested.

Because with Republican Atty. Gen. Jeff Landry ascending to the governorship with Republican legislative supermajorities to back him up, they have every means by which to stop this nonsense. Although some Republicans who have districts along the route might be tempted to hit up taxpayers to put the boondoggle in action, Landry should make clear to them now he will veto any state subsidy to operating that passenger rail. If the federal government (perhaps as part of efforts to restore New Orleans to Mobile passenger service) and/or local governments want to fund it, fine, but state taxpayers need not have their money wasted on such an extraordinarily high cost, low benefit activity.

By announcing this now, Edwards may have thought he could bum rush the state into that future commitment. Landry and Republicans need to show him otherwise.