Dear Mr. Hawthorne and the Honorable Justices of the Supreme Court:

I am a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a non-profit think tank founded on the principles of individual liberty, limited government, free markets, and peace. My own focus is on transportation and land-use planning, and I have spent 47 years reviewing a wide variety of transportation plans, including plans by federal agencies, state departments of transportation, metropolitan governments, cities, and private companies. I’ve reviewed highspeed rail plans, highway plans, conventional intercity rail plans, urban transit plans, and bikeway plans. For the reasons explained below, I believe the Court should grant review of Mr. Miles’ petition. I have paid all costs and fees incurred in preparing this amicus curiae letter.

Recently, I reviewed several private high-speed rail plans in the United States, including Respondent Texas Central’s plan, Brightline in Florida, and the Desert Xpress between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Of the three, the only one that was possibly viable was Brightline, partly because it isn’t true high-speed rail and therefore will cost much less to build and partly because the Miami-Orlando train has a market of 10 to 15 million cruise ship passengers a year landing in Miami and Ft. Lauderdale, many of whom will want to go to Orlando to visit Disney World and other attractions. If the coronavirus pandemic greatly reduces cruise ship traffic, however, Brightline will fail.

Neither the Desert Xpress nor Texas Central have similar potential markets. As true high-speed rail proposals, they will be very expensive to build. As such, they will be unable to compete with air travel, which requires much less infrastructure and therefore can offer higher-speed transportation at much lower fares.