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John R. Smith: Buses, lower-emission autos and regional airlines better options than mass rail transit

In South Florida, the future of passenger rail is far more costly and fiscally irresponsible than local rail bureaucrats are willing to admit.

Since all rail transit systems must be subsidized by taxpayers, the real task for us lowly tax donors is to measure the net social welfare benefits of our local rail transit system against its net cost to taxpayers. Tri-Rail fails to impress when we crunch numbers.

Recently I heard a presentation by Robert Poole, a transportation expert from the Reason Foundation. For starters, using some of Bob's numbers, let's see if the bureaucratic claim is correct that high-speed rail reduces greenhouse gases and reduces our reliance on oil.

Heavy research in life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions, or GHG, shows high-speed rail is not as "green" as roadways, once you include GHG construction impacts. A University of Califronia-Berkeley study shows that air transportation, including runway construction, adds 31 percent to the carbon footprint; for highways, construction GHGs add 63 percent. But rail construction adds 155 percent to GHGs, a huge increase in footprint. It would take 71 years for high-speed rail to offset the GHGs released by its construction.

Does passenger rail reduce our oil dependence? In truth, the carbon footprint per passenger mile of intercity buses is much less than intercity rail. And 80 percent of current federal rail projects are diesel-powered trains burning oil. The potential for high-speed rail to reduce oil dependence is very small, because today only 0.1 percent of intercity travelers go by train. Even if pumping tens of billions of dollars into the rail black hole increased rail traffic by a factor of 10 times, it would only be 1 percent.

Why are the feds holding up Europe as a model for rail validity? Europe is very different than America. Gas taxes there are three to five times greater than here, making gas far more expensive. Most major highways there are toll roads. Europe has heavy population and job concentrations in its downtowns, but Florida does not. Air fares in Europe are much higher than here. So, Europeans pay through the nose for flying and driving, which means rail may make more sense for them.

The feds did a study on intercity transportation to determine which modes of travel were supported by their users compared with federal taxpayer subsidies. Here's the result: The taxpayer subsidy for highways was a negative $2 per thousand passenger miles, or TPM, because the feds receive more from highway users than they spend. Airline tax subsidies were $6 per TPM. Intercity rail was $186 per thousand passenger miles.

In short, rail is a subsidized enterprise, almost never a business. A risky public investment, it does not support itself anywhere in the world.

The alternatives to outrageous rail costs are three:

Intercity buses, which now serve over 3,000 cities, that are undergoing a renaissance with reserved, leather seats, free Wi-Fi, and long-leg room. They use express lanes, and usually they are self-supporting.

Tomorrow's cars with lowered emissions, combined with additional highway lanes in Florida's flat terrain, provide relatively cheap transportation compared to rail. The GHG impacts are less, and the tax subsidy is far less.

Short-term regional airlines use quieter turbo-prop engines and shorter runways. Routes can be changed easily and don't require moving rail lines or highways.

The need for European style, pork-barrel intercity rail will evaporate if we do these three things.

John R. Smith is chairman of Palm Beach County's BizPac and owner of a financial services company. Respond to this column at

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