The Heartland Institute has done a great service by making widely available a reprint of a feature article on China’s faltering high-speed rail adventure (increasingly misadventure). The article, “Fast Train to Trouble,” is from Caixin Weekly (April 4, 2011 issue), a business magazine focused on China’s economy and financial markets. The entire eight-page article is well worth reading, not so much because of its criticism of high-speed rail as the problems that seem inevitably associated with high-profile megaprojects, including the massive squandering of public resources, a lack of transparency during implementation, and the inadquacies of politically-based (rather than market-based) accountability.
For additional skepticism about China’s high-speed rail investment, see an earlier blog post here.
Rather than the crown jewel of China’s transportation network, high-speed rail is on track to become a boondoggle and a white elephant.