The Tunnel At The End Of The Light Rail

Trump’s infrastructure plan has some huge holes in it

- Nicole Stone Goodkind

NEW YORK TO CHICAGO BY TRAIN IN UNDER five hours. It’s not science fi ction; it’s possible with tunneling—a critical, albeit still speculative part of President Donald Trump’s infrastructure plan. Supporters say it will cost the federal government virtually nothing, although experts say all the deregulation needed for this approach has hidden costs that could be a huge handout to Big Business.

The plan calls for high-speed rail lines deep underground between Washington, D.C., and New York City, Los Angeles and San Francisco, and downtown Chicago and its airport—similar to the line under the English Channel, the Chunnel, that whisks travelers from London to Paris at up to 186 miles per hour. Tunneling “is so superior and quick that you can do this relatively cost effi ciently, and most importantly, you can do it without a dollar of government funding,” Trump’s chief economic adviser, Gary Cohn, said in December. “The funding to do this in the private sector is there. We just need to deliver them the access and rightsof-way underground.”

But Cohn’s casual talk of “access and rights-of-way” masks a complicated reality that involves a lot more than just digging. The government can take privately held land under its power of eminent domain—as long as the land is used for a public benefi t, like a road or hospital. But eminent domain is controversial; many on the right consider it a government overreach, and many on the left say it benefi ts private corporations at the expense of the public.