Open letter to Hon. Sean Duffy, U.S. Secretary of Transportation:
Re: USDOT F.R.A.’s Notice of Proposed Determination 6-4-2025
In my opinion, the reason for the failure of the CAHSRA’s high speed rail proposal is its reliance on the public sector model of transport funding as seen in the nation’s history with Amtrak and other public sector transit boondoggles.
Despite “efficiency” appearing four times in the national transportation policy, long before creation of a federal department of governmental efficiency, in practice we seem dependent on taxpayer funded forms of transit to the detriment of the taxpayers, e.g., motorists paying gas taxes, who are expected by the government to pay 102% of our transport costs.
Over the decades, state and federal transport funding experts have recommended that we fund our transport with user fees, that is, fares by the patrons. The Highway Trust Fund has been diverted to subsidize public sector transit systems. So, we don’t even follow our own experts’ advice for transport funding.
In 1970, during debate on creation of the National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak), congressmen stood on the floor in the House and proclaimed, “It will be self sufficient in three years.”
By Sept. 11, 2001, when the terrorists took down the World Trade Centers, Amtrak’s subsidies, in a stack of $100 bills, were taller than the World Trade Centers had stood, as reported by Traffic World. Today, Amtrak’s subsidies would make Lenin blush.
In 1920, we enacted the Transportation Act and reversed the nationalization of the railroads that had been done by the Wilson Administration during WW1. Why? Private sector rail was, and is, far superior to socialist rail. Today, our Class Ones are the envy of the world.
In my opinion, we are giving the wrong answer to the late honorable Norman Y. Mineta, who in 1995 at the Institute at SJSU that now bears his name said, “The crucial question in transportation today is: What should government do, and what should it leave to others?”
Secretary Mineta was right then; and he’s right today, God bless his soul.
As I said to HSRC before it became an “authority,” if we put enough UPS, Fedex and Postal Service tonnage on the High Speed Rail, then we would not need to ask the taxpayers for a dime.
We ought to learn from our history. Wells Fargo added U.S. Mail and bullion to their passenger stage coaches to offset their losses moving passengers.
We filled the bellies of the jumbo jets with high value freight and U.S. Mail to make those flights more profitable. Even the land grant railroads added Railway Express Agency freight to cars added to their passenger trains to make those runs profitable.
The north-south tonnage flows on I-5, US-101, and CA-99 have sufficient volumes that, if diverted to TOFC & COFC intermodal service, we could offset the losses of moving passengers-only HSR in California.
I sent Secretary Duffy a copy of Granville Dodge’s “How We Built the Transcontinental Railway,” in which Congressman/General Dodge relates Lincoln’s rejection to his urging at the White House in 1864 that the transcontinental railroad be government owned. In my opinion, we ought to be following Lincoln’s advice for the private-sector solution to the nation’s transportation.
Voters in California voted in 2008 for private sector HSR. We did not vote for another Amtrak, public sector transit boondoggle.
California taxpayers cannot afford to subsidize the transit boondoggles that we already have. Let’s give the right answer to Secretary Mineta’s “crucial question.”
Joseph P. Thompson
Fresno
Editor: Here’s my reply of June 12th:
Dear Michael,
Again, for some reason (bad E-Mail Address of sender), my comment (below) was rejected.
Your readers may be interested in a responsible opposing viewpoint to that expressed in your Article.
Thank you.
Joe Thompson
(408) 848-5506
REJECTED COMMENT FOLLOWS:
Dear Friends,
What good is a Marxist-Leninist transport policy to the taxpayers who are the “stakeholders” never at the table for discussion of what our transport policy ought to be?
Powerful vested interests, as the late honorable Don Gage mentioned to me years ago, who not only are at the table, but who control the cards that are dealt out, are rewarded for the fraud, waste and abuse at our so-called transit agencies (unelected governance spending our money without the consent of the governed).
While the National Transportation Policy has “efficiency” in it four times, and long before the creation of a department of government efficiency, in practice we do just the opposite, while we reject the advice given by experts both State and Federal that transport be funded by “user fees.”
VTA and its ilk give the wrong answer to the late honorable Norm Mineta’s “crucial question,” which he stated in 1995 at the Institute at SJSU that now bears his name: “The crucial question in transportation today is: What should government do, and what should it leave to others?”
I repeat what I said in my letter published by Mark Derry many years ago—government watchdog committees at VTA are shameful hypocrites to their core.
Unless we get real change, gas taxes will continue to increase so that empty bus & train & lite rail & Bullet Train seats can be transported empty almost 100% of the time, while transit agency brass back-slap themselves silly crowing about “SUCCESS,” when the truth is just the opposite.
Refer to my testimony before the Assembly Transportation Committee in 2010 in support of legislation to defund the CAHSRA’s supermassive black hole, and my many letters published by Editor of Dispatch during past 30 years.
Lenin would be so proud of VTA, COG, etc.
Caveat viator.
Joseph P. Thompson, Esq.,
Past-President 1999-2001, 2006, Gilroy-Morgan Hill Bar Assn.;
Past-Chair, Legislation Committee, Transportation Lawyers Assn.,
Charter-Member, SBCCOG Citizens Transit Task Force;
Charter Member, SBCCOG Citizens Rail Advisory Committee;
Post-doc student, transport law & policy, Norman Y. Mineta International Institute for Surface Transportation Policy Studies, SJSU; Transportation Research Board, Georgetown U.; and Library of Congress;
408-848-5506:
E-Mail: Tr******@*****ll.Net
cc: Secretary Duffy