The race is on for states that want to build high-speed rail routes to whisk passengers hundreds of miles from city to city without the hassle of flying.Congress sounded the starting gun by offering $8 billion in stimulus money to promote faster passenger rail service. Applications for the money, which likely will be parceled out all over the country, are due Aug. 24. But there already are two clear front-runners, offering contrasting approaches.
California dreams of bullet trains that could speed the 432 miles from San Francisco to Los Angeles in little more than two and a half hours. The European-style trains would cruise on all-new track, hitting 220 mph in places. California voters in November approved spending $10 billion to start building the new network, but it wouldn’t be finished until 2020 at the earliest.
The other chief competitor is a coalition of nearly a dozen Midwestern states betting that slow and steady wins the race. The Midwestern trains would reach top speeds of 110 mph, faster than the 79-mph limit of most Amtrak trains today but only half as fast as those on the drawing board in California.
Proponents of the Chicago-based network, though, boast that their plan could get the first trains up and running in as little as four years once states have enough money in hand. The Midwestern trains would use existing tracks with improved signals, wider turns and safer road crossings.
There is another major difference between the top two contenders: A train whisking along from Sacramento to San Diego would cover 588 miles but never cross a state border. In the Midwest, a passenger boarding at Chicago’s Union Station could end up in one of nine states once the entire network is upgraded.
Of 10 high-speed rail corridors designated by the federal government that are best-poised for the $8 billion in stimulus money, most are like the Midwest initiative and would involve regional cooperation and teamwork among states. Only Florida has an entire route contained within its borders. (The federal government even expanded the California corridor in early July to include the possibility of a spur to Las Vegas.)
Chances that the stimulus could favor the Midwestern effort are buoyed both by years of planning and a lucky turn of political events.
For more than a decade, Midwestern states have quietly worked on a plan to build a high-speed rail network centered in Chicago and sprawling for 3,000 miles.
“The Midwest has been planning for so long, it’s in a very strong position,” said Laura Kliewer, the director of the Midwest Interstate Passenger Rail Commission, which promotes passenger service in the region. She noted that the states already studied how often trains would run, how much time they’d save and how many people would use them.
For example, a trip between Chicago and St. Louis would go from more than five hours to fewer than four, even though the diesel-powered trains would not be quite as fast as Amtrak’s electric-powered Acela trains between Boston and Washington, D.C.
The Midwest rail initiative also benefited when Barack Obama, a Chicago native, won the White House and made high-speed rail a priority when crafting his economic stimulus package.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, a former Illinois congressman, has made clear that the Midwest rail project is a priority for the White House.
“This is the president’s initiative. I mean he and (White House chief of staff) Rahm (Emanuel) personally saw to it that Congress included $8 billion for high-speed rail. And I don’t want to answer to the president why we’re not doing something in the Midwest,” LaHood told the Chicago Tribune.
A letter (PDF) signed by eight Midwest governors to LaHood also pointed out that high-speed rail would be “greatly beneficial” to Chicago in its bid to host the 2016 Olympic Summer Games.
The first stage of the plan would be to connect Chicago to St. Louis, Detroit and Madison, Wis. Later, the faster trains would reach Omaha, Neb.; Kansas City, Mo.; Minneapolis; and Cincinnati.
The $8 billion to create new high-speed rail routes is 10 times as much as Amtrak’s nationwide passenger system spent on building projects last year. And it’s far more than supporters expected.
“We were trying to get half that,” said Kliewer.
But coordination remains an issue, both to get the stimulus money and beyond. First the Midwest states must determine whether a single entity will lead the effort to get federal money for different pieces of the network. LaHood told Chicago business leaders in May that there should be a single Midwest “rail czar” to coordinate the effort.
Minnesota may spearhead the effort to pay for environmental studies of a route between Madison, Wis., and the Twin Cities. Wisconsin, meanwhile, would focus on fixing tracks and crossings between Chicago and Milwaukee and replacing parts of an abandoned line between Milwaukee and Madison, said Ron Adams, the chief of harbors and railroads for the Wisconsin Department of Transportation.
And Illinois asked the federal government just last week for money to study a speedier alternative to the 110-mph trains. In early July, the Midwest High Speed Rail Association, an advocacy group, released a study calling for 220-mph trains between Chicago and St. Louis, which would make the trip possible in just two hours. Now Illinois wants to further evaluate that option.
Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn (D) is trying to organize a meeting of Midwestern governors in late July to plan their approach. Quinn also met with Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon (D) in late June to sign an agreement between their states regarding a Chicago-to-St. Louis route.
The stimulus money wouldn’t be enough to complete the Midwest’s plans, which would cost $9.6 billion and take 10 years to complete. The remaining money likely would have to come from a highway bill Congress is now working on. The first draft of that law (PDF summary) includes money for high-speed rail for the first time, with a $50 billion effort over six years.
Contact Daniel C. Vock at dvock@stateline.org.
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By David Nice on Jul 16, 2009 6:15:33 PM
The earlier comment has a grain of truth but stretches it a bit too far. A number of US rail routes cover population densities similar to many parts of Europe. I don't think many people expect 50,000 miles of bullet train routes in the US--at least not in the foreseeable future.
The long term issue facing our transportation system is the oil problem. Our own reserves have been declining for years, and our dependence on imported oil is proportionally rising. Worldwide oil demand has risen rapidly with the growing economies of China, India, and other countries. Since 1969, the US economy has been rocked by three oil shocks, all of which triggered significant recessions (not necessarily single-handedly.) With proven technology, trains can operate without oil fuels. We have also fought two wars in the last 20 years because of oil; those costs, including the lives lost, are part of the cost of our current transportation system.
The midwest plan is based on the premise, supported by the experiences of California, the Northeast Corridor, and some other regional rail routes, that incremental improvements can lead to significant increases in ridership at a comparatively modest cost, particularly in areas with traffic congestion problems.
One other long-term dynamic of importance is the increasing age of the average American. The accident statistics of elderly drivers indicate that the oldest elderly have significantly higher accident rates, but many of those people still want to travel. Many of them find the increasingly cramped accommodations of airliners difficult to manage.
We can't afford high speed rail on every imagineable rail corridor, just as we can't afford Interstate highways on every imagineable road corridor. We can,however, afford targeted improvements in passenger rail service.
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One-Note Media Slow to Show HSR Plans are Financially Unsustainable
By Johnny Springfield on Jul 16, 2009 11:06:23 AM
This article continues the media's lack of analysis and balanced reporting on the hot topic of building out high-speed rail in the US and the real cost of doing so. Again, it only repeats the talking points of government officials, who have little hard facts to back up the need for HSR based on ridership, and completely avoids the thornier topic of sharing slow freight tracks with freight trains, not to mention critical issues like global warming, reducing road congestion and being environmentally friendly.
Some reporters are starting to understand the new HSR king has no clothes. Eight billion isn't nearly enough to do anything for even one system -- Chicago to St. Louis is "estimated" to cost a minimum of $9.6 billion -- let alone anything substantial for the entire nation.
The California HSR plan, the most advanced among states and the one likely to grag a healthy slice of the $8 billion, needs billions more from Washington the private sector. Otherwise, the LA-SF run becomes plan that will will only produce income for high-paid HSR consultants.
Topics to cover: should cities and system users pay for them? Why should no users pay for them if they don't have access to them?
Real high speed rail in the US, like we images we are shown of French or German trains, will bankrupt us all because our distances here, unlike distances in Europe, are terribly long and the costs of HSR per mile -- upwards of $100-150 million per mile -- are simply exorbitantly high. When the mantra uttered by fiscal conservatives is not to increase taxes, their willingness to grab the gold of HSR, as if this were transportation's version of the Oklahoma Land Rush where the fastest to the cite get the gold regardless of the wisdom of that effort, reflects total political hypocrisy.
Further, why should the public sector pay the freight for upgrading the tracks of privately held freight companies? This is another land grab of sorts, as it justifies corporate welfare but under the cover of connecting otherwise long-distance destinations to each other that buses, planes and cars can connect now.
The only tried and true method of funding transportation projects is the federal Highway Trust Fund, which as we know is running on empty as drivers drive less due to a long list of reasons, from job loss to rising costs for carbon-based fuel. Congressman Oberstar's futuristic bill, now stuck in his committee in the House, has everything in it but a way to pay for it all. Obama and Transportation Sec. Ray LaHood have ruled out raising the federal gas tax. Tolls and user fees, however, are being looked at as the way to fund existing or future systems.
Regardless, HSR, while it sounds visionary and sexy in theory, would become just another sink-hole to pour tens or hundreds of billions of dollar into.
Moreovere, as someone who loved trains as a child and who is nearing retirement age, plans for 2020 or 30 or 50 don't work for me. Americans turned their attention to cars long ago. Unhitching them from that dream is a long, hard and costly slog.
The state I live in just let its transportation department spend $506 million on 781 consulting firms and more than 167 consultants. Feeding at the trough of government largess is why we'll still be talking about HSR decades from now. American's love for their cars will be hard to break, especially as our growth patterns are totally disconnected from transportation priorities. I'm betting all this sound and fury will turn into so much mishmash as the dollar figure needed to actually construct HSR become simply insane (Ref: Florida)
Meanwhile, real technological alternatives to HSR exist. Technology concepts like Monomobile, or Personal Rapid Transit or Tubular Rail are waiting to receive a tiny fraction of the money being proposed to be spent on HSR. Why bother if the future is going to look like the past? HSR trains need HSR train tracks. They are purpose drive and horribly expensive. Incremental upgrades don't cut it.
The real irony of reform in transportation, rail or otherwise, is that the biggest obstacle to reform comes from all the minions who control the system, from planning groups to local or state or federal sources. They can only see the past. The cardinals of the status quo will fight to keep their consulting paychecks rolling in.
Maybe the media, maybe Stateline.org, will do what the media is supposed to do: give alternative views so the public can learn and understand the dynamics of this conversation so they can make informed decisions on who they vote for, what fees they are willing to bear and the full scope of what they are being asked to endorse or fund. Until the media breaks away from being a ward of the state, we will all be that much poorer in receiving true information on such a hot and important topic.
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