Progressives love passenger rail projects — both local and intercity — but rail projects generally don’t love them back. In the United States, rail transit projects usually take too long and cost too much, are expensive to operate, and frequently produce disappointing ridership totals — especially in the aftermath of COVID-19.

For example, in New York City, it cost $4.6 billion to add three stations and 1.7 miles of track to the subway system under Second Avenue. According to NYU researchers, the project’s cost per mile was between eight and 12 times greater than comparable projects in Europe.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority spent another $12 billion to connect the Long Island Railroad with Grand Central Terminal on Manhattan’s East Side. But because the new LIRR platforms are 15 stories underground and a few blocks north of the original station, it is taking commuters eight minutes to reach Grand Central’s subway station, cutting into time savings and thus potential ridership gains from the project.

Not to be outdone by the Empire State, California is running its own costly rail projects. State legislators recently learned the state’s High-Speed Rail project is going to be more expensive, take longer to complete, and carry fewer riders than previously expected. Approved by voters in 2008, HSR is expected to begin service sometime between 2030 and 2033, after $33 billion has been spent. The starter system is expected to add fewer than 10,000 daily train trips compared to existing Amtrak service.

To link San Francisco with Los Angeles and Anaheim, the High-Speed Rail Authority expects to require an additional $80 billion to complete the project. And, because the San Francisco terminus is just short of the downtown core, a local transit agency is planning to spend an additional $6.7 billion for the last 1.3 miles of track to the Salesforce Transit Center, recently completed at a “modest” price tag of $2.2 billion.

Existing California transit systems such as Bay Area Rapid Transit, Caltrain, and LA Metro are facing steep fiscal cliffs once federal COVID support runs out. The first two of these systems, formerly serving Bay Area programmers who now work from home, have suffered steep ridership declines that are only now being slowly reversed. Some commuters are reluctant to return to transit in California due to crime, open drug use, and squatters on the trains. After 2025, California transit operators face projected annual operating shortfalls aggregating to about $2 billion statewide.

And the challenges transcend New York and California. The District of Columbia spent $248 million to build a 2.2-mile streetcar line east of Union Station. After reaching peak average daily ridership of about 3,000 in late 2017, ridership declined before COVID and then cratered after the pandemic hit, with only about 1,000 passengers using the streetcar on an average day in late 2022.

In Honolulu, 13 years of rail transit construction costing over $5 billion has yet to result in any passenger service. Managers at the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation hope to begin partial service later this year and complete the full 19-mile project in 2031 after spending a total of $10 billion. If the current timeline and budget are achieved, the full project will be 11 years late, $5 billion more expensive, and one mile shorter than originally planned.

With billions of congressionally mandated infrastructure dollars burning a hole through the Department of Transportation’s pockets, the temptation to throw money at trains is going to be strong. But before throwing good money after bad, federal funders should take a hard look at the record of rail projects.

Marc Joffe is a federalism and state policy analyst at the Cato Institute.