This month the president revealed his vision to “transform the nation’s transportation system” by rebuilding existing rail infrastructure and developing a comprehensive high-speed intercity passenger rail network through a long-term commitment at both the federal and state levels. But will it work?
Under the American Recovery and Investment Act, high-speed rail would receive an initial investment of $8 billion, plus a requested $1 billion a year for five years in the federal budget.
The Obama vision identifies 10 high-speed rail corridors as potential recipients for federal funding. The states and cities in those areas are urged to form cooperative agreements to plan sections of high speed rail to compete for funding. In addition, the Northeast Corridor from Washington to Boston would be able to “compete for funds to improve the nation’s only existing high-speed rail service.”
I’m a big supporter of rail transportation, and high speed rail transportation in particular. I ride Amtrak regularly in the Northeast Corridor, and south to Richmond, Virginia. In the next few weeks I’ll be riding on Acela and the Auto-Train.
My vision is that if appropriately well-planned, rail travel often makes more sense than car travel, and high speed rail, if appropriately well-planned makes more sense than even air travel.
While Mr. Obama’s vision of rail transportation as outlined in Vision of High-Speed Rail in America is like a breath of fresh governmental air, it’s still myopic.
The High-Speed Rail Strategic Plan talks about the fastest trains (Express HSR) traveling at “top speeds of at least 150 mph.” Maybe it’s nitpicking, but I would have preferred to see the plan talk about trains going at top speeds in excess of 200 mph. The TGV train from Paris to Avignon (359 miles) hits speeds as high as 199 mph to average 159 mph. Amtrak’s Acela was designed to travel up to 150 mph. It seems we’re visioning ’90s technology in the 21st century, instead of 21st century technology.
The vision shows some understanding of the infrastructure requirements of HSR by discussing the need to include completely grade-separated, dedicated rights-of-way except of some shared track in terminal areas. I would have preferred to have seen other critical criteria mentioned too, such as right-of-way height and width requirements. One reason Acela averages only 72 mph is the tracks are sometimes so close together, Acela can’t tilt enough on turns to maintain speed.
The biggest problem with the High-Speed Rail Strategic Plan is money. The President promised an $8 billion federal investment in high-speed rail, plus $5 billion more over the next five years. That’s just $13 billion in all. That’s to be split among as many as 10 different rail corridors, plus maybe the Northeast Corridor. While it won’t be split evenly, that would come out to be a median of about $1.2 billion per corridor.
To give you an idea about how inadequate $1.2 billion is over 6 years, repair to the existing Baltimore Harbor train tunnel was estimated to cost at least $1 billion a year ago.
In 2004, the State of Florida estimated building a 320 mile HSR project from Tampa, Florida, to Miami, via Orlando would cost $25 billion. Many experts pegged the cost at more than $50 billion.
According to rail experts at the Reason Foundation, an HSR project for travel between Los Angeles and San Francisco would cost between $61 billion to $81 billion.
President Obama’s vision promises express trains running at speeds rivaling some of the Japanese bullet trains, the French TGV, and the Spanish AVE. The vision intimates such trains could be running anywhere in the 11 rail corridors mentioned in the report.
Steve Heminger, Executive Director of the (Bay Area) Metropolitan Transportation Commission agrees with the President about how to fully fund HSR projects. He wrote about California’s HSR project,
The $35 billion project hopes to secure at least $15 billion in federal funds, $3 billion from local agencies and about $7 billion from the private sector in addition to a $10 billion state bond measure. In other words, the federal investment would leverage another 130 percent of funding from other, non-federal sources.
At this point, experts peg the minimum California HSR project cost at $50 billion, and more likely $70 billion. That would mean California would need about $30 billion in federal funds, $6 billion local, $14 billion private, and $20 billion from California.
California needs 230 percent more federal funds than Mr. Obama’s allocated for all 11 potential corridors put together. Not just that, but at this point, where are states like California going to find as much as $20 billion for rail projects?
I’ve got to admit, the idea of an American TGV traveling between Washington and Boston in about two hours, city center to city center, or traveling between Philadelphia and Manhattan in about 30 minutes excites the hell out of me, but the cold reality is exactly as Ron Utt, a railroad expert at the Heritage Foundation has said,
In the real world of high-speed rail, $13 billion gets you almost nothing.
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Great article. I’d love to see a corresponding return to glamour come back with train travel. I have a 4 year old that is in love with trains. With Americans falling in love all over again with everything else nostalgic in these hard times, it would be great to travel the US by sleeper car if it were fast, convenient and cheap enough.
That $13 Billion is even more paltry when you realize it probably does not include by the land where these new tracks are supposed to go. I can’t imagine that $13 Billion would even come close to buy the land in NYC that would be needed for the new tracks.