Imagine boarding a train in Seattle and being swept to Los Angeles in under twelve hours. That is what President Obama wants you to envision as he injects about $13 billion to undertake High-Speed Rail (HSR) improvements across the United States.

The President visualizes “no racing to an airport and across a terminal, no delays, no sitting on the tarmac, no lost luggage, no taking off your shoes. Imagine whisking through towns at speeds over 100 miles an hour, walking only a few steps to public transportation, and ending up just blocks from your destination.”

As policymakers here in Washington state prepare to apply for a piece of the pie, will $13 billion accomplish the blissful picture the President promises and will High-Speed Rail effectively compete with airlines and other forms of travel?

The answer: No, it won’t.

Calling it a “down payment,” the President knows $13 billion will not cover the full costs of creating a national high speed rail network. Amtrak currently has almost three dozen lines spread across the country and some estimates show that upgrading to a true high speed system would cost nearly $400 billion. California voters recently approved a partial payment on the beginning of an HSR system. Officials there estimate the leg between Los Angeles and San Francisco alone would cost $45 billion.

While $13 billion will not come close to creating a European-style system of bullet trains and seamless intercity connectivity, the President’s announcement presents the chance to discuss just how inefficient rail travel has become.

Today, Amtrak passenger rail service from Seattle to Los Angeles takes 35 hours and costs about $150. A round trip takes three days and costs around $200. Improving speeds would certainly make the trip more attractive, but would it be enough to compete with airlines, as the President says?

A flight between the same two cities costs about $70 and takes two and half hours. A roundtrip flight would take five hours and cost about $130. Even if an HSR system could be built to achieve an average speed of over 100 miles per hour, the trip would still take a full day to complete. And the capital expenditure for the improvements would drive ticket prices far out of reach of passengers who want to use the service regularly.

Traveling by HSR might be attractive for tourists and family vacations. It is true that everyone who visits Europe is delighted by how easy trekking across the continent has become with HSR. But studies show that rail’s share of travelers has fallen steadily in Europe since 1980. Despite Europe’s high population density, which is the single most influential factor in attracting transit ridership, technological advances in air and auto travel are allowing consumers other choices that are faster and cheaper.

The data shows that intercity rail is more novelty than a serious travel alternative.

Undeterred, HSR advocates say taxpayers should subsidize these services to keep prices low in order to generate artificially high demand. Indeed, Amtrak is already heavily subsidized by taxpayers, as are most forms of public transportation. But using public taxes to artificially shift demand from an efficient sector of the economy (airlines) to one that loses money (HSR) does not make sense.

Shifting demand from airlines to an HSR network ultimately harms the economy by creating competitive disadvantages. In this region, that shift in demand would harm major economic engines like Boeing and Alaska Airlines.

By unfairly subsidizing a HSR system, the government would be choosing its winners and losers and unfortunately, Washington state would be a big loser.

Even with taxpayers footing the bill, prohibitively high price points and long travel times mean HSR will never attract enough voluntary users to justify the extraordinary capital costs or even its annual operating expenses.

Furthermore, expanding a passenger rail system that cannot financially sustain itself also could obligate cash-strapped states like Washington into funding future maintenance and operations.

At the end of the day, everyone would be paying for a multi-billion-dollar rail network that relatively few people would use.

By not fully funding an HSR system, the President seems to understand HSR’s poor performance, but he is now able to claim an important victory with a number of political constituencies.

“$13 billion gets you almost nothing,” says Dr. Ron Utt, a transportation expert at the Heritage Foundation. “This is sort of like a concession to the rail buffs—that now we’ll pretend we’re going to build them.”

Across the country, transportation spending decisions are too often tied to political agendas and the wishes of influential constituencies, not objective measures of public need, such as safety, traffic congestion relief and economic development. Any hope of implementing a comprehensive regional strategy based on cost-effective mobility goals and accountability is ignored, as public officials simply hand out (or take away) special favors.

Instead of throwing away billions on an HSR vision that will never materialize, transportation spending should instead be tied to specific performance measures.

Given rising congestion levels, the resulting negative economic impact it causes and massive transportation infrastructure deficits in most every urban center in the United States, can’t we find better ways to spend our limited transportation tax dollars?

Michael Ennis is transportation director at Washington Policy Center, a non-partisan independent policy research organization in Seattle and Olympia. For more information contact WPC at 206-937-9691 or washingtonpolicy.org.