An optimistic report that foresees high-speed rail systems driving high-dollar growth and jobs in hub cities nationwide -- including Orlando -- is being assailed by one national critic as "absurd" and skewed.

Wendell Cox, an Illinois-based transportation and urban planning expert who served on the Los Angeles Transportation Commission and national Amtrak reform council, doubts that the proposed high-speed rail systems will benefit such hub cities anything like as much as claimed by the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

The mayors' report, now 2 weeks old, is being touted in Florida as evidence that a planned high-speed rail system will reap big benefits for Orlando, generating thousands of jobs and billions of dollars for the city. If operated at top speed with lines extending from Tampa to Miami, the rail sysetm could produce as many as 27,453 jobs, $1.15 billion in wages, and $2.94 billion in increased sales of goods and services by 2035, the report asserts.

If the Orlando train is running at a speed of only 168 to 186 mph by 2035, it could still generate 19,935 jobs, $883.5 million in wages, $2.1 billion in new sales, the report claims. An additional benefit of $1.2 billion in Gross Regional Product (GRP) results from subtracting the cost of materials and labor from the total sales value of goods and services, the report asserts. If the system is running at peak speed of 220 mph, it could generate 27,453 jobs, $2.93 billion in sales, and $1.7 billion in value-added GRP.

Gains in hub cities will be relatively modest in the early years, the report concedes, But it claims these will increase  as mixed-use development near train stations occurs later. The rail systems also will offer an efficient mode of travel for commuters, boost business efficiency, and help expand tourism and labor markets, the report asserts.

Those are unreasonable expectations, insists Cox. Residents and developers are not going to pay for mixed-use development just to be closer to a train station, he said. The report claims that such development will be of particular benefit to the Chicago-based high-speed rail line that will link to St. Louis and other midwestern cities.

“This is something that has never happened anywhere,” Cox said.

Nor do high-speed rail systems sufficiently save time or money for commuters, Cox said. It takes time for commuters to get to stations, purchase tickets, and wait for trains. When compared to travel by car, trains do not save time, he said. What's more, commuters often use cars to get to and from a station, he noted.

Still, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer and other mayors appear unprepared to put the brakes on the high-speed hype machine. The Conference of Mayors' report, produced by the Economic Development Research Group and sponsored by Siemens, an international corporation that builds trains and light rail systems, boasts that high-speed rail networks serving the hub cities of Los Angeles, Chicago, Albany, and Orlando could generate a total of $18.7 billion for businesses, $7.8 billion in wages and 145,500 new jobs by 2035.

“I think that the numbers the report put forward are pretty solid,” said Dyer, a Democrat who has been a vocal supporter of high-speed rail and a related Central Florida commuter rail approved last year.

Dyer said that the high-speed rail, based at Orlando International Airport, may not inspire more development, but the commuter rail will.  The high-speed rail will help with infill development in Ybor City in Tampa at its other end, he said.

“It will certainly save them time and convenience,” Dyer said. Since the high-speed rail is to be based at the airport, it will make the trip between Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area more palatable to tourists, he added. The trip will take 54 minutes on a high-speed rail, but it takes 1.5 hours by car.