Are Private Trains the Answer to Highway Congestion?

The question was asked in a Today segment earlier this month with NBC's Kerry Sanders reporting.

The short answer is No.  Yes, trains are the answer to highway congestion, in fact they are the answer to highways, and are replacing cars for this century.  We predicted this in 2005 on BBC worldwide radio.

Private trains will operate on the tracks, but the tracks will be owned by the people, the government, the public sector.  Just like the government owns the highways, airspace, airports, rivers, and ocean. 

Here's why:

1.Competition.
Can you imagine only one train company operating service between two major cities?   Really? Can you imagine only Delta owning the plane route from Chicago to New York?  No, you can't.

Can you imagine only Carnival cruise ships allowed in U.S. off shore ocean space?  No you can't.

2.Low income passengers.

The Brightline CEO has already, in a Chicago speech covered by NineShift, said that he doesn't run a social service and he has no intention of having low fares so maids can get to hotels during rush hour if he can sell higher priced tickets (he can).  But hotels want their maids to get to work, you and other hotel guests want maids to get to work, and in fact all of society wants low income workers to get to their jobs.

So only with regulation will that happen. And regulation only happens if the government owns the tracks. 

3.Tracks are not profitable.
Nobody makes money on the river, ocean, airspace, airport or even highway.  They make money operating on the river, ocean, airspace, runway and highway.   Tracks will cost so much, and the need for eminent domain so great, that only government will be able to afford, and pay for (bonds) the tracks. 

4.American history.

This is our history (with the exception of train tracks)- - the public owns the space, and the private sector runs the routes.  The Big Switch (instead of Amtrak running on private tracks, private train companies run on public tracks) hopefully comes in the next 10 years. If it comes later than that, the U.S. will really be behind the rest of the world economically.