As reported in the Wall Street Journal:

BEIJING--China will begin forcing its growing fleet of high-speed trains to operate at slower speeds, the country's railways chief said in an interview with state-run media, in the latest sign of trouble for the country's most vaunted transportation project.

This is a big deal in China, and it should be watched by high-speed rail ideologues in America, where high-speed rail has become a prohibitively expensive and favorite project of President Barack Obama and many starry-eyed greens.

Some of the problems that China is experiencing:

Experts have questioned the safety of China's high-speed railways. An executive at a non-Chinese high-speed train manufacturer said running trains above speeds of 330 kilometers an hour poses safety concerns and higher costs. At that speed threshold, wheels slip so much that you need bigger motors and significantly more electricity to operate. There is also so much wear on the tracks that costs for daily inspections, maintenance and repairs go up sharply. That's why in Europe, Japan and Korea no operators run trains above 320 kilometers (200 mph) an hour, the executive said, adding that above 330-350 kilometers an hour it is safer and possibly cheaper to float the trains magnetically.

And:

Improving energy efficiency in high-speed trains is one reason for the change, Mr. Sheng said. Trains operating at 350 kilometers an hour require twice as much energy as those operating at 200 kilometers an hour, he said.

And:

Tickets for high-speed trains can be twice as expensive as the highest-class tickets on regular-speed trains. A high-speed rail ticket between eastern China's Wuhan and Guangzhou, for example, costs 469 yuan, or about $70. That is prohibitively expensive for many Chinese, and has resulted in at least some trains operating almost empty, industry experts say.

So, let's see, high-speed rail is expensive not just for taxpayers but also prohibitively so for many passengers. It is a large consumer of energy. It poses safety risks. 

Remind me again why high speed rail is so great. 

Will or should the next mayor carry on the fight with United and American airlines over the expansion of O'Hare Airport? Will or should the new administration cave into the airlines and give up fighting for the completion of the multi-billion-dollar project?

One must assume, that in the absence of any candidate saying "nay" to further expansion that the city, no matter who is elected, will continue to battle the airlines in the courts to make them pay for additional runways that they don't want--at least not now.

Daley obviously is trying to nail in the final expansion phase before he leaves office in May. The mayor has invested so much energy, money and raw political clout in the project that this--more than anything else he has built--will become his legacy. At least that's my guess. So, how can he leave office with his dream hanging in doubt?

But this is far more than a personal matter for the incoming administration.

(Tribune archive photo / March 6, 2002 ) Gov. George Ryan and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley testify before a House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee on Aviation in Washington about expansion at O'Hare International Airport. This was after Ryan had made a firm campaign promise that he would oppose expansion.

Billions of dollars--ultimately provided by airline passengers and taxpayers--are involved. If the airlines are forced to finance what they view as unnecessary runways--raising the fees they must pay the city to use the airport to uncompetitive levels--will they take their hubs and go elsewhere, depriving Chicago of one of its biggest economic engines? How long would the new administration be willing to carry on an expensive and perhaps futile court fight, especially against one of its strongest economic partners? Is this a wise investment of the city's time and money, especially when a virtually no-cost new airport was available in the southern suburbs?

Billions of dollars are at stake. Whether Chicago will be saddled with a white elephant of an airport that its opponents and some aviation experts agree is a costly, ineffective and unsafe extravagance certainly seems, at least to me, a more substantive issue than many of the other issues (e.g. is that labor union guy anti-Semitic?) that have occupied the media.

When I was a consultant to expansion opponents some years ago, I was baffled by the media's inattention and indifference to what was designed to become the Machine's largest source of patronage, jobs and contracts. How could the Chicago media, which relishes its reputation for its hard-hitting investigative journalism, so easily accept the argument that a 1950s, 7,000-acre airport could be magically transformed into a 21^st Century behemoth that would solve all its built-in problems.

Apparently, the media's indifference will continue right up to election day next Tuesday.

So, as it stands today (Thursday, Feb. 17, 2011),  "intense" negotiations between the airlines that went into the early morning hours, has produced nothing. The airlines' suit against the city, seeking to halt the second phase will proceed.

And Daley, on Thursday blasted his one-time airline allies for having the audacity to suggest that rushing to complete the mayor's self-defined "vision" is not a good idea. In a telling remark, Daley said:  "If you live in China, this airport would've been built today." Someone remind Daley that America isn't China and he's not Chinese President Hu Jintao.

Got to hand it to him, for being the first to get out a video of him pushing a car out of the snow. Of course, he's not the first to do it. Newark Mayor Cory Booker did the same thing about a month ago. Political stunts? I suppose so, but kudos for getting out in the mess.

Alex Clifford receives congratulations from Metra's board after he is appointed the rail agency's new executive driector Tuesday. (José M. Osorio, Chicago Tribune / February 1, 2011)

>My nomination goes to the new exectuive running Metra, Chicago's commuter rail system. Alex Clifford was introduced to everyone the day before the blizzard hit. So, here he comes to us from Los Angeles and the next day, he had to watch entire lines of his system shut down (Here and here). Not his fault. But it happened the day after he vowed to make passenger satisfaction ("a customer-centric operation") one of his top goals.

Welcome to Chicago, Mr. Clifford.

I'm sure there are a lot of people who were a lot more unlucky than Clifford. But you, dear reader, will have to supply them.

“Few of the [stimulus] projects are transformative,” said Joseph Schofer, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Northwestern University.

Not all of them were supposed to be, of course. Given the economic crisis that attended the passage of the stimulus package, tensions were bound to surface between putting people back to work quickly and building a lasting framework of public works. The construction of such a framework was always one of the animating ideas behind the package, officially known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

With congressional Democrats crafting the measure, it funded a grab bag of tax cuts, jobless benefits and other measures. Infrastructure is just one piece of the sprawling piece of legislation and by no means the biggest one. The American Society of Civil Engineers puts the bill’s infrastructure spending at $71.8 billion, or less than one-tenth of the package. And, as a look at Obama’s home state of Illinois reveals, much of the money being spent is simply fixing existing infrastructure rather than building a new framework.

Read more at the Chicago Tribune

Blood-sucking politicians from Illinois wanted $4.5 billion of that, but had to settle for only $1.23 billion, for a ridiculous plan to shuttle a few hundred passengers each day between Chicago and St. Louis, at only 30 m.p.h. faster than now.

Oh yes, starry-eyed train fans will point out that eventually the trains will reach speeds of those bullet trains in Japan and Europe, but not for years and not without tons more billions.

Mind you, this money is coming from last year’s controversial stimulus package, which you’ll recall was meant to jump-start America out of the recession. No way the money can be spent quickly enough to meet that definition, but never mind, we’re going to spend it anyone.

This, friends, is an example of earmarks run amuck. Everyone condemns those packages of favors for special interests that are snuck into bills without anyone’s knowledge or public vetting. The only difference is that Obama is trying to turn this goofiness to his advantage with self-glorifying public pronouncements of how wonderful it all is. Still, when was the public congressional debate over this extravagance? Was it contained in an authorization bill? I doubt it; Congress gave the executive branch a free hand in deciding how to spend the money. How does that conform to the fundamental idea of separation of powers?

For if you want to see stupid, check out what the $1.23 billion ultimately will get, according to the Chicago Tribune:

o $1.1 billion to construct tracks, install signals, build stations and buy some locomotives and passenger coaches for 110 mph service between Alton, Ill., near St. Louis, to Dwight, Ill.
o $133 million to build the Englewood flyover bridge near 63rd Street in Chicago. The flyover is intended to reduce delays by separating Metra Rock Island commuter trains from Amtrak and freight trains on one of the most congested rail junctions in the U.S.
o $1.25 million to conduct an environmental impact study on a proposal to build a second set of tracks between Chicago and St. Louis to accommodate 110 mph trains.

For me, the flyover bridge is the only cost-effective idea in the bunch. Cost-effective? What the hell does that matter when you can’t be allowed to waste a recession to cash in on a dreamy idea that will never pay for itself? Remember, these billions are only the capital expense. What happens when the trains fail to generate enough passenger revenues to break even? There will be federal operating subsidies required as far as the eye can see, and the next generation will be left to wonder how the federal budget got so out of hand.
Not to pick on Illinois, the plans for the other states are equally loopy. Wisconsin is in line for $823 million for a Chicago-Milwaukee-Madison “high-speed” line. I can catch a bus that will whisk me between Milwaukee and Madison in an hour and 45 minutes; the high-speed rail will get me there—what?—20 minutes sooner? Of course I’ll be told that the route is just one segment of a line that would get me to Minneapolis in true high-speed time.

But, at what cost? I’m no fan of the airlines, but they offer more flexible schedules, and I’d be willing to bet when you include the cost of subsidizing high-speed rail construction and operation, more cost effective too.

But why should anything so rational count when your mind is made up that we’ve got to ape Europe and Japan—whose high-speed rail system operates, incidentally, a lot more economically because those countries are more densely populated? The only thing denser is Obama’s giveaway.

**
Dennis Byrne is a regular columnist for the Chicago Daily Observer

image Illinois Central’s Green Diamond cruised at over 100MPH in 1936.