Jonathan McDonald is executive consultant at Raul V. Bravo + Associates and a board member at the Commuter Rail Coalition.
As a longtime veteran and advocate of the U.S. rail industry, I, like many, am frustrated by our inability to deliver high-speed rail. Despite the United States’ reputation as a leading economic power and technological innovator, our attempts at developing HSR have been expensive, underwhelming and ultimately unsuccessful.
Achieving real HSR in the United States requires a new approach that leverages the capabilities of the federal government, state governments and the private sector. By taking advantage of the benefits that each party brings, we could achieve a national HSR system with no new taxes. But more than this, it would initiate an economic boom that could transform many static areas of the U.S. economy, improve quality of life for millions of Americans and bring the country together in a way no other technology can.
The challenge
Building high-speed rail typically involves either private industry deciding there is a profitable business opportunity or government deciding HSR is needed and seeking voter approval for funding.
These approaches don’t work in the U.S. for one simple reason: In the U.S., unlike most other countries, private companies own the vast majority of the rail lines — about 136,000 miles versus just 530 miles of public track, which are owned by Amtrak. The main business of those private companies is transporting freight.
The freight railroad industry opposes HSR on its property. High-speed tracks must be grade-separated from existing freight lines, and freight trains can’t use these tracks because heavy loads damage them. Cost is another factor: It takes 15-20 years to build a single HSR line at a cost of more than $100 million per mile.
Governments are often the other high-speed rail developers, but state and federal governments in the U.S. are not prepared to efficiently operate profitable businesses. The net effect is that voters are reluctant to approve the funds and related taxes for high-speed rail.
The solution
We must change how we think of rail. Governments should move from taxpayer-funded projects to partnering with private industry to build infrastructure and operate businesses over high-speed rail corridors. Any successful plan must also ensure that no stakeholders — from freight railroads to Amtrak to organized labor — are worse off as a result.
Here’s how it works: First, Congress would create a National Railroad Infrastructure Bank. Its purpose would be to own, manage and maximize the economic benefit of national rail infrastructure assets, but it would not operate or maintain any assets. It would start by taking ownership of Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor. Over time, it would add assets in different corridors. It would issue long-term public-private partnership contracts with open access to all service providers.
The program would rely on states to add new assets and reduce local risks that traditionally deter private participation. States wanting a new high-speed corridor would conduct feasibility studies, identify a business case and select a locally preferred route that meets congressional requirements. States could further entice developers by covering certain costs, adapting policies, assuming key risks and providing guarantees like ridership support or limits on competing routes.
The program would engage private industry in two critical ways. It would contract a private infrastructure manager to develop the asset, using the National Railroad Infrastructure Bank. The manager would be encouraged to build the maximum capacity for maximum profits. That could include rail usage and associated property development. This structure protects taxpayers from delays and cost overruns, while such contracts would help shield projects from disruptive political cycles.
To ensure fair and open access, the developer would be prohibited from passenger or freight operations. It would lease capacity to operating concessionaires such as Amtrak, state-supported operators, freight companies or new private players. Both the developer and the concessionaire would be for-profit companies. Finally, the system would inspire and enable new business models, technologies and exponential growth in a long-stagnant sector of the economy.
Pragmatic steps to progress
High-speed rail in the United States is achievable. But to reap the immense benefits of HSR, we need to build it.
The model proposed here offers a practical path to overcome the barriers we’ve faced trying to build HSR. It creates an environment where each party does what it does best and takes on the risks it can best control.
Federal and state governments effectively clear the path so private industry can build and operate high-speed rail profitably at reasonable risk without burdening taxpayers. In the end, everyone benefits, including the public.
Facts Only
* Jonathan McDonald is an executive consultant at Raul V. Bravo + Associates.
* Jonathan McDonald is a board member at the Commuter Rail Coalition.
* The author expresses frustration regarding the inability to deliver high-speed rail in the U.S. despite the nation's economic standing.
* Building HSR typically involves either private industry finding profitable opportunities or government seeking voter approval for funding.
* In the U.S., private companies own approximately 136,000 miles of rail track, compared to 530 miles of public Amtrak track.
* The main business of private railroad companies is transporting freight.
* Freight railroads oppose HSR on their property because high-speed tracks require grade separation and cannot accommodate heavy freight loads.
* Building a single HSR line costs between $100 million per mile over 15-20 years.
* Governments are often the developers, but state and federal governments in the U.S. are not prepared to efficiently operate profitable businesses.
* A proposed solution involves Congress creating a National Railroad Infrastructure Bank to own, manage, and maximize assets without operating them.
* The program would use public-private partnerships where states add assets and provide incentives for private development.
Executive Summary
Jonathan McDonald, an executive consultant at Raul V. Bravo + Associates and a board member at the Commuter Rail Coalition, advocates for a new approach to building high-speed rail (HSR) in the United States. The author expresses frustration with the failure of past HSR attempts, which were often expensive and unsuccessful. The proposed solution involves a partnership structure where federal and state governments leverage private industry to develop and operate HSR corridors, avoiding new taxpayer funding for construction.
The core challenge identified is that traditional methods—either private industry pursuing profitable opportunities or government initiating projects—do not work in the U.S. because private rail companies focus on freight transport, which conflicts with HSR development needs. The proposed solution centers on establishing a National Railroad Infrastructure Bank to own and manage national rail assets, starting with Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor. This bank would use long-term public-private partnership contracts, allowing private infrastructure managers to develop assets, provided they lease capacity to various operators. States would facilitate this by conducting feasibility studies and mitigating risks to attract private investment.
The framework seeks to achieve HSR by structuring the process so that federal and state actions clear the path for private sector development, ensuring stakeholders like freight railroads and labor are not negatively affected. The mechanism involves contracting a private manager to develop assets, with capacity leased out to service providers, thereby creating profit incentives while safeguarding public finances from cost overruns and political cycles.
Full Take
The narrative constructs a clear tension between the existing structure of U.S. rail ownership—dominated by freight interests—and the goals of modern infrastructure development, proposing a radical systemic shift in governance to resolve it. The underlying pattern involves framing a perceived failure of decentralized governmental action as an insurmountable structural barrier, then presenting a highly specific, centralized institutional solution as the only viable path forward. This relies heavily on positioning the private sector as inherently capable when properly structured, suggesting that the primary impediment is political will and organizational structure rather than technical feasibility.
The implied assumption driving the proposed model is that concentrating asset ownership and risk management under a quasi-governmental body (the National Railroad Infrastructure Bank) can overcome the inherent deadlock between competing interests (freight, passenger service, public finance). The mechanism of outsourcing development to private managers while maintaining regulatory oversight suggests a pattern of delegating complex political negotiation to economic incentives. The potential manipulation lies in the degree to which "public-private partnership" language masks a transfer of control and cost responsibility away from direct democratic accountability.
The structure uses contrast—the failure of traditional government/private approaches versus the proposed bank model—to suggest inevitability. This moves beyond simple fact presentation to argue for a specific paradigm shift where economic utility dictates infrastructure development, rather than political consensus. The implicit question remains: who ultimately controls the "open access" mandate within this framework? Does empowering asset management through economic incentives fundamentally alter the balance of power in an established system?
Sentinel — Human
The text presents a well-structured, passionately argued proposal for achieving high-speed rail by restructuring public-private partnerships, exhibiting strong human advocacy rather than synthetic pattern matching.