While high-speed rail has struggled to secure adequate financing in the U.S., in Britain, the government has given the green light to begin construction on the country's second bullet train. The U.K. government's decision to move forward with the controversial project offers important lessons as the U.S. pursues its own high-speed rail corridors in California and the Northeast.
High-Speed Rail
Report: High-Speed Rail: International Lessons for U.S. Policy Makers
Report: High Speed Rail in America
A Phasing Plan for High-Speed Rail
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Commentary by Osman Dadi
Accommodating high-speed rail trains in the San Francisco peninsula has been a contentious topic because of potential noise and visual impacts on the surrounding communities. Recently, the California High-Speed Rail Authority announced its support for a "blended approach" that would utilize the existing Caltrain corridor. But what if a solution could be found that ensures grade separation between trains and automobiles while also opening up dramatically enhanced commuting options for bicyclists?
Accommodating high-speed rail trains in the San Francisco peninsula has been a contentious topic because of potential noise and visual impacts on the surrounding communities. Recently, the California High-Speed Rail Authority announced its support for a "blended approach" that would utilize the existing Caltrain corridor. But what if a solution could be found that ensures grade separation between trains and automobiles while also opening up dramatically enhanced commuting options for bicyclists?
The concerns that were voiced at the hearing missed the point of this critical program -- which is not only to build new high-speed rail corridors, but to expand and improve service on existing passenger rail corridors -- by focusing excessively on whether funded projects are truly "high-speed." What could have been an opportunity to hear firsthand from state leaders about the progress of passenger rail projects in Washington, Illinois, North Carolina, Maine, Connecticut, Michigan, and others was largely wasted. (A hearing focused on California is scheduled for Dec. 15.) Only Joan McDonald, New York Transportation Commissioner, was there representing a state with a passenger rail project funded by the program.
The California High-Speed Rail Authority has released a business plan for California's statewide high-speed rail program. The business plan makes significant refinements to the previous ridership and revenue projections and cost estimates. The Authority also updated the phasing plan and overall timeline, and established a new funding plan that shows the feasibility of substantial private financing to pay for the design, construction, operation, and maintenance of various segments of the project. The aspect of the business plan that is certain to attract the most headlines is the project's new price tag, which has grown from $43 billion to 65.4 billion in 2010 dollars, or $98.5 billion when accounting for inflation over the life of the project.
The business plan also includes a detailed analysis of what it would cost California to accommodate the same amount of growth in travel without high-speed rail - $171 billion over the next 40 years to pay for 2,300 lane miles of new highway capacity, 115 new airport gates, and 4 new runways. With high-speed rail in California, the business plan estimates that the system's construction will generate 100,000 jobs within the first 5 years, and 1 million jobs over time.
On November 1 the U.S. Senate voted to approve a "minibus" bill that
combined transportation, housing, and other spending bills. The minibus
bill included $1.48 billion for Amtrak and $100 million for the
High-Speed Intercity Passenger Rail Program (HSIPR) in the Fiscal Year
2012.While the $1.48 billion for Amtrak falls short of its $2.2 billion budget request, the Senate bill avoids the drastic cuts proposed by the House that would cut operating funding by 60 percent and shut down the state-supported lines that serve approximately 9 million passengers in 15 states - almost one-third of Amtrak's passengers - with negative impacts on the communities served by these corridors. Amtrak just posted its most successful year ever, serving 30.2 million passengers in the 2011 fiscal year.
High-speed rail has been adopted throughout the world, and is now being planned and developed in the United States. Over the past 50 years, U.S. transportation spending has heavily favored the development of interstate highway and aviation systems. In the meantime, countries such as China, Japan, Spain, France, and Germany have been investing in modern, high-speed rail systems to satisfy the travel demands of their current and future generations. As the United States embarks on the High-Speed Intercity Passenger Rail Program launched in 2009, it can learn from the experiences of other countries in planning, constructing, and operating high-speed rail.
This long-term perspective, discussion of benefits, and recommendations for making high-speed rail work in the United States is presented in a new report released today by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, called "High-Speed Rail: International Lessons for U.S. Policy Makers" (PDF). Written by RPA authors Petra Todorovich, Dan Schned, and Robert Lane, the report documents lessons from over four decades of international experience in high-speed rail in Europe and Asia, applies them to the U.S. context, and recommends a fresh approach that creates new, accountable, rail management structures, brings in the private sector, and concentrates for now on California and the Northeast.
Last night, President Obama gave an impassioned speech to a joint session of Congress, outlining his $447 billion economic package to put Americans back to work and provide economic relief to businesses and families through comprehensive tax cuts and unemployment insurance benefits. While critical details of the plan have yet to be released, including the all important question of how to pay for it, the broad concepts are sound. The nation's transportation system will be affected in the following ways:
President Obama's plan, the American Jobs Act, includes an investment of approximately $50 billion in federal funds for transportation projects around the country. According to the fact sheets posted on the White House's website, the funds are intended for transportation infrastructure projects that modernize our nation's highway, public transit, intercity rail, and aviation systems. The President cited necessary upgrades to our air traffic control system, which a recent RPA report, Upgrading to World Class: The Future of the Regions Airports, recommended in order to expand capacity at the New York metropolitan region's heavily congested airports.
In order to fund major transit and rail transportation projects, the President's economic package also calls for investing about $5 billion to expand the U.S. DOT's Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant program and FHWA's Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) credit assistance program to help leverage federal resources. An additional $2 billion would be spent on improving our nation's intercity passenger rail service (presumably going towards another round of grants for the federal High-Speed Intercity Passenger Rail Program).
The American Jobs Act would also establish a National Infrastructure Bank to help build a wide range of infrastructure projects of national and regional significance by leveraging private and public capital, and capitalize it with $10 billion in seed money. To speed the delivery of these infrastructure projects, and create jobs and achieve their benefits faster, the President would follow up on a Memorandum that was recently issued that set forth a plan to streamline time-consuming environmental review and permitting processes.
Download the Fact Sheet: American Jobs Act (PDF)
Download the Presidential Memorandum - Speeding Infrastructure Development through More Efficient and Effective Permitting and Environmental Review (PDF)
This interactive Google map, created by America 2050's Dan Schned and originally posted on the Business Alliance for Northeast Mobility's website, depicts the full alignment of the Northeast Corridor in great detail, as well as all of the stations that are served by Amtrak trains. There are many other stations along the corridor, not shown here, that are only served by commuter trains. Below are some basic facts about the Northeast Corridor.
Vital Statistics:
Total mileage = 457
Total annual passengers = 259,539,000
Total annual passenger miles = 4,990,390,000
Average daily passenger trains = 2,272
Average daily freight trains = 50
Ownership:
Amtrak = 363 miles
Connecticut = 46 miles
Massachusetts = 38 miles
Metro-North Railroad = 10 miles
To find out more about the Northeast Corridor, visit the Business Alliance for Northeast Mobility's website.
In the coming weeks, America 2050 will be adding more information to this map, including the location of major state-of-good-repair needs, such as the Baltimore and Potomac Tunnel and Portal Bridge, and projects currently underway, such as major upgrades to track and overhead wires between New Brunswick and Trenton, NJ and improvements to the Harold Interlocking.
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