Vegas Maglev Supporters Strike Back

On the heels of months of favorable publicity for the DesertXpress steel-wheel HSR project, crystallized by Senator Harry Reid's shift of support away from maglev and toward DesertXpress, the backers of the SoCal-Vegas maglev project have countered with a op-ed in the Las Vegas Review-Journal by Richann Bender, executive director of the California-Nevada Super Speed Train Commission, criticizing DesertXpress's claims and arguing that maglev hasn't been given a fair shake:

Construction on the first segment of the maglev train -- the fastest train in the world -- can begin in 2010 and would be built entirely in Nevada by hard-working Nevadans.

The backers of the high-speed, conventional-rail DesertXpress would like to "reprogram" this guaranteed $45 million away from Nevada, and instead expect us all to just wait five years for their privately owned train to nowhere to get taxpayer-backed loans. This is not in the best near-term or long-term interests of Nevada jobs or Nevada's economy.

Bender isn't starting off on a good note. The op-ed suggests that the maglev project is really about connecting Las Vegas to a proposed airport site at Primm (along the CA/NV border), undermining the claimed benefits of a train to bring people from Southern California to Las Vegas.

Worse in my mind is Bender's embrace of the deeply misleading anti-rail frame of a "train to nowhere." In fact, it was the Vegas maglev project that led Congressional Republicans to adopt that term during the February debate over the stimulus. While I can understand Bender's desire to undermine the rival DesertXpress project, employing this kind of framing is a monumentally stupid move, for it will merely fuel its usage - which will come back and bite the maglev project, especially when they go to Congress looking for more funding. I don't like to use the disparaging "gadgetbahn" term that is sometimes used to attack maglev, partly because I don't like using phrases and frames that are designed to serve an anti-rail agenda.

Bender lists some other claimed advantages of maglev - it's faster; it's a success in Shanghai; and:

Maglev is also greener than traditional forms of ground and air transportation, and unlike DesertXpress, it complies with all state and local land use and environmental regulations.

I would be curious to see substantiation of this claim. Obviously it's difficult to provide in-depth evidence in a short newspaper op-ed, but that kind of charge does need supporting evidence.

The heart of the op-ed are three points designed to raise fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) about the DesertXpress project: lack of connectivity to SoCal urban centers, costs, and public funding. First up is the issue of the route:

The maglev project also addresses the primary reason for constructing a high-speed rail system: congestion on Interstate 15 throughout the region, connecting Las Vegas to the heart of the population and business centers in the Southern California Basin.

DesertXpress' proposed ending of Victorville, Calif., falls well outside of congested highway areas.

This isn't a fair criticism for two reasons. Number one is that ending at Victorville actually does include many of the primary congested highway areas on the trip to Vegas - where Interstate 15 narrows north of Victorville is where most of the traffic delays on the trip to Vegas commence. So a terminus of Victorville would do much to avoid most of the worst congestion, even if the rest of the journey into the SoCal metroplex won't yet be covered by DesertXpress.

But that journey could well be completed if DesertXpress built an extension westward across mostly empty desert to link up with the California HSR project at Palmdale. This has been discussed by the two projects, and while it would be fair to criticize this as being no guarantee at all of a future connection, neither is it right to exclude that possibility.

Next up is cost:

Second, maglev costs about the same as traditional high-speed, steel-wheel-on-rail trains. DesertXpress supporters have repeatedly cited a nonexistent $40 billion price tag as a reason for not building the maglev project. A March 2009 Government Accountability Office report lists the true estimated cost of the Las Vegas to Anaheim maglev project as $12.1 billion.

In fact, the Federal Railroad Administration also estimates the cost of traditional high-speed, steel-wheel-on-rail trains at $30 million to $50 million per mile, which would mean DesertXpress could cost up to $9 billion for the Las Vegas-to-Victorville route (far more than the $4 billion reported on the organization's Web site). If you put the two projects side by side, this puts maglev in the same cost per mile range.

There's been a lot of debate about the FRA's cost estimates. Certainly any project built in the desert between Victorville and Vegas would be on the low end of those estimates (once you go from Victorville into the SoCal megalopolis those costs will rise significantly). But maglev's history on costs is just not favorable. Consider the fate of Munich's maglev:

Plans to build a magnetic levitation train from the center of Munich to the airport were trashed on Thursday after construction costs almost doubled from €1.85 billion ($2.90 billion US) to €3.4 billion ($5.33 billion US). This is a major disappointment to Siemens, the company who exported the maglev to Shanghai, China, but cannot build a commercial maglev system within its home country.

And the Shanghai maglev has had ridership problems - running trains that are 80% empty, unable to recoup any part of the enormous construction costs.

Part of the problem in Shanghai was that the maglev system route isn't ideal - it doesn't connect the highly traveled corridors. This would seem to be a problem with the proposed Vegas maglev route. As noted above, the initial segment would run from Primm to Vegas - not exactly a high-traffic route. If/when a new airport is built there to relieve McCarran, then perhaps there will be high ridership on this maglev route. But without firm plans to build the entire line from Vegas to Anaheim, it is still much too likely that the costs on this first segment will balloon and kill the rest of the route, leaving Nevada with something of a white elephant.

Finally there is the issue of public funding:

Third, and perhaps most important, from the beginning maglev has made clear that it intends to use a combination of both private capital and government funding. To date, no high-speed rail project in the United States has been constructed solely with private capital.

This didn't stop DesertXpress from actively selling the idea of a privately funded train. In fact, advocates of DesertXpress have for years cited the "private" element as one of the primary reasons their project deserves support.

As recently reported by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, however, their focus has now shifted to seeking taxpayer funded federal loans to cover the majority of financing for the project.

I never thought it was good or beneficial that DesertXpress made a virtue of being privately funded, given the extreme unlikelihood that they would be able to keep that promise. That being said, the reason Bender mentioned this is to sow doubt about DesertXpress's claims and plans. There's nothing wrong with seeking federal funding for HSR or maglev, but the mere fact that DesertXpress has shifted its plans doesn't imply any inherent problem with their project.

It's a typical line of attack for critics of passenger rail - anytime the details change, they use that change as supposed evidence that the project is not viable, is being mismanaged, should not be trusted, etc. As with the "train to nowhere" frame, Bender is playing with fire here, especially since the op-ed hasn't offered any actual reasons or explanation as to why DesertXpress made the shift.

It's a shift that makes sense. It's become much more difficult to raise billions in private capital for anything, as banks hoard their funds and as the recession continues to deepen. That's not the same as being impossible to raise those funds, and private investors are much more willing to get involved with something that has federal financial involvement, as will the California HSR project. A good project with sound management will change parts of their plan when conditions warrant, instead of plowing ahead with an obsolete model. DesertXpress's shift is in itself not a bad thing, and shouldn't be taken as such.

I can understand why the Vegas maglev project feels the need to strike back at the DesertXpress project, which has all the momentum these days. Maglev backers have a much tougher case to make, particularly on the cost angle, and they are in very real danger of seeing their project fall apart. I'm all for a close comparison of the two plans to link California to Nevada, and all for criticism when the evidence supports it.

But Richann Bender and the Vegas maglev project haven't made that case here. Instead they have used anti-rail arguments to undermine a rival without offering solid evidence to back up their claims. It's an unfortunate and desperate move that isn't necessary and isn't welcome.

SoCal to Vegas to Become Official Federal HSR Corridor Today

This image is about to get a makeover:



That's the map of the USDOT HSR corridors. One corridor that's not there is Los Angeles to Las Vegas. That is changing today:

The U.S. Transportation secretary will announce today the designation of a federal high-speed-rail corridor between Las Vegas and Southern California, a major assist that enables the long-imagined train route to compete for $8 billion in economic recovery funding and other federal support, the Las Vegas Sun has learned.

The announcement comes as two proposed fast trains are vying to connect Las Vegas and Southern California, a race that has intensified since President Barack Obama unleashed an unprecedented investment in high-speed rail as part of the stimulus bill approved by Congress.

It is unclear whether today’s announcement will favor one of the competing projects over the other. However, the federal designation improves the chances that a train will be developed between the two regions by opening the door to federal aid. Analysts think only one train system will be built.

DesertXpress has not as of yet planned to seek federal aid. I suspect that will have to change. Vegas is in the middle of a severe downturn, which means there's going to be much less private money available to fund it. The maglev is still alive, although with Sen. Harry Reid having switched his support to DesertXpress, I don't see the maglev plan lasting a whole lot longer. Some of its remaining backers include Bellagio CEO Bruce Aguilera, but the Bellagio and the other Vegas resorts are going to have their hands full riding out the recession.

I expect DesertXpress to be the "last project standing" along the Vegas HSR corridor. Whether it gets built, of course, is another matter entirely.

Harry Reid Abandons Maglev for DesertXpress

Some VERY welcome news from the LA Times:

U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader and an ardent supporter of high speed rail systems, said today he no longer favors construction of a maglev -- or magnetic levitation -- train between Anaheim and Las Vegas.

Instead, the Nevada Democrat said he now favors a conventional high speed train between Victorville and Las Vegas -- a privately funded venture that is farther along in the planning process and cheaper to build than the maglev proposal, which has been studied for almost three decades.

“I”ve been working on this for 30 years," Reid said. "We’ve gotten nowhere. Maglev projects have been abandoned around the world. It’s time to stop talking and start doing something.”

One year ago today I posted one of my first criticisms of the maglev project, and in the 12 months since I have frequently called for Reid to abandon the maglev project and throw his considerable backing behind the much more realistic DesertXpress steel-wheel HSR proposal - which the Senate Majority Leader has finally done. Reid cited financial reasons for his decision:

Citing a recent Government Accountability Office study, Reid said he had lost confidence in the maglev project, which the report stated could cost up to $40 billion -- far more than originally estimated.

“Maglev is not a priority for me anymore,” Reid said. “We need to get people moving. The I-15 is not working.”

After the Republicans hammered him for asking for HSR stimulus funds for the train, Reid had a lot of incentive to drop the insanely expensive maglev plan. Now he is well-positioned to direct some (although probably not more than "some") HSR funds to the DesertXpress project.

This doesn't mean the maglev project is completely dead. It's just mostly dead. The Southern California Association of Governments still backs maglev, but I am doubtful how long that'll last. With Harry Reid switching to DesertXpress that means the Nevada political establishment will as well. And SCAG will be left alone in backing a maglev project with 20 years of history but no future at all.

The US needs a rail modernization project, not a great leap forward into the technologically and financially unknown. Until we've got steel wheel HSR up and functioning on the key corridors in the USA, maglev is going to have to remain a dream.

Can DesertXpress Break Ground Next Year?

That's what their execs are saying:

Construction crews could begin work on a proposed high-speed rail line to Las Vegas as early as next year, executives with the company behind the project said.

"The strong need for the project is clear and obvious," said Andrew Mack, vice president of Las Vegas-based DesertXpress Enterprises.

The devil is in the details of course. DesertXpress sees their financial plan as using ticket revenues to pay the costs of both construction and operation:

DesertXpress reports that construction and other start-up costs will total $3.5 to $4 billion. and that the line could be built in four years. The midpoint fare price is projected to be about $50.

If that pencils out, then this would be a pretty damn ideal solution. The $4 billion question is "will Southern Californians drive to Victorville and hop a train to Vegas?" and DesertXpress is confident that their ridership studies prove the answer is "yes." For everyone's sake I hope they are correct. My gut says they are - the ability to avoid the massive traffic jams on Interstate 15 on holiday weekends like this would be compelling. People would like the ability to relax on the trains, maybe get some work done as they approach their Vegas vacation, etc.

DesertXpress is also thinking ahead:

If DesertXpress happens, Mack said the most logical city to expand to would be Palmdale, where he said the train could link to the proposed California High Speed Rail system...

Victorville mayor pro tem Tom Rothschild, a Desert XPress supporter, said a high-speed rail line can be built in the near future. He thinks Maglev, which uses magnetic force to levitate and propel trains, is not yet practical.

"Maglev is great, don't mistake me. I think it's the greatest technology for the next half of this century," Rothschild said.

That being said, maglev still has support from Nevada politicians:

Yet for some reason maglev in the U.S. has yet to be widely embraced. It can be understood why this is the case in Europe, given its intricate, interconnected network of traditional and high-speed passenger trains with maximum speeds of 180 mph. In this country, however, we have the advantage of starting fresh.

We can paint the high-speed rail picture any way we want to. And, given the lack of a preexisting passenger rail infrastructure and great distances between U.S. cities (especially in the West and Midwest), the advantages of safe, environmentally responsible and state-of-the-art 300-mph maglev technology should be obvious.

The California-Nevada Interstate Maglev Project, which our administrations helped spearhead through local public-private partnerships, is one such effort that deserves the nation’s support.

I'm no expert on Nevada politics, so I don't quite know what influence former governors Kenny Guinn and Bob Miller still have in the state. But combined with Senator Harry Reid's big push for maglev, it suggests that while DesertXpress seems to be the more financially and technically viable solution, maglev still has the key political support.

Which is a ridiculous situation. Maglev isn't going to get built on the LA-Vegas corridor. *If* the US were to ever embrace maglev I cannot imagine it would happen on that low-population, low-importance corridor. I could see it happening in the midwest or on the Acela route. Not here.

The sooner Nevada's political leadership can line up behind the DesertXpress plan, the better we will be.

Tough Decisions Loom for Vegas HSR

In the wake of the recent scoping meetings for the DesertXpress plan, the Las Vegas Sun has offered a interesting overview of the status of Vegas HSR plans. Despite the silly "train wreck!" framing (really? are LV Sun editors the first people to ever think of that for a story on passenger rail?!) the article actually does a decent job of laying out some of the issues the scoping process has revealed.

Although the skeptics have good reason to question whether passengers would make the drive to Victorville to board a train, it is the best place to put a train station when you’re on a budget as DesertXpress is.

The developers are no dummies. They know it would make more sense to take the train line into the Los Angeles Basin. But the cost of taking the line down Cajon Pass is as steep as the highway grade and the company is content to finance the route to Victorville and expand to L.A. later.

The draft environmental impact statement has independent ridership studies that say Southern Californians would drive to Victorville to board a train to Las Vegas. The independent analysis was ordered because they, too, were skeptical about that.

I can't say I am terribly familiar with this independent analysis. Given the long travel times that can be experienced on Interstate 15 during the weekends, a high speed train would be a compelling option even if you had to park at Victorville. DesertXpress's logic that once the train is open and ridership grows, there'll be money and interest to connect it to the LA basin strikes me as sound. The article didn't mention the possibility of a cheap and easy extension of the DesertXpress route westward to the California HSR station at Palmdale, but that would pretty easily solve the problem of how to get people to the DesertXpress trains.

Meanwhile, there’s the maglev. The technology is in use in China and American Magline Group, a Los Angeles-based company, wants to introduce it to Americans between two of the nation’s greatest tourism destinations, Las Vegas and Disneyland in Anaheim.

Because millions of people visit Las Vegas and Disneyland every year, they would be able to see tomorrow’s train transportation today.

That’s one of the reasons there’s even a conversation about using federal stimulus money to move the project forward.

Because there’s possible government money involved, maglev developers aren’t as concerned about costs and are making plans to take the line all the way to Los Angeles.

But the maglev environmental impact statement is running behind the DesertXpress proposal. A meeting similar to the one that took place last week probably won’t occur for at least a year. By then, DesertXpress could have permission to move ahead with design and construction.

The maglev and DesertXpress technologies aren’t compatible, but they both want to use the same right-of-way.

I will go out on a limb - a low, thick, sturdy limb - and predict that the maglev proposal will be dead as a doornail by summer 2010. The costs are absurd. The federal government will not be in a mood to fund it, especially since no maglev project has ever been successful on this scale. If there's any chance that spending on the maglev could negatively impact federal funds for the SF-LA train, maglev will be tossed out the window quicker than you can blink. Further, DesertXpress will be closer to a shovel-ready position. Not even Harry Reid, one of the most incompetent majority leaders in the history of the Senate, will be able to save maglev by that time.

At which point another competitor to DesertXpress will make its voice heard: the airlines:

Count on the airline lobby to oppose federal funding for high-speed train transportation. Funding for a next-generation air traffic control system is so far behind that some wags are calling it a “now-gen” instead of a “next-gen” system. Airline lobbyists resent that tax money is being considered for trains when a satellite-based air traffic control system that would make air travel safer and more efficient languishes.

A US Airways executive recently asked me about the public sentiment for high-speed trains between Southern California and Las Vegas and when I told him there seemed to be some renewed interest, he told me the airlines would probably put up a fight.

He added that US Airways in particular would fight a Las Vegas-Los Angeles train because his company flies that route. The company wouldn’t mind so much if high-speed rail were considered between Dallas and Houston (where rival Southwest carries most of the air traffic) or Chicago and New York (where competitors American, Delta and JetBlue battle for market share).

I would caution taking this statement too broadly. Southwest no longer opposes a Texas HSR project, and no airline has raised an objection to the SF-LA project. In fact, as we chronicled extensively here last year, the big airlines are looking to get out of some of the short-haul routes. US Airways could fight a Vegas HSR line, but they're not exactly one of the most beloved or profitable airlines, so I'm not sure that their opposition alone is going to sink this.

If DesertXpress does become the primary candidate for Vegas HSR, which I think it will, then it would be a positive development for the SF-LA HSR project. It would create demand in Southern California for getting the SF-LA project done, especially to Palmdale, in order to link up with DesertXpress.

Barstow Bypass?

by Robert Cruickshank

One of the, shall we say, "interesting" features of the Draft EIS for the DesertXpress HSR project is a lack of a station in Barstow. As revealed at Wednesday night's scoping meeting in Barstow, this has locals rather upset:

During a public comment session in Barstow Wednesday night on a proposed high-speed rail line that would run from Victorville to Las Vegas, city officials and residents remained critical of the project’s lack of plans for a stop in Barstow and the potential for the route to encroach on development in the city’s industrial park....

Barstow’s City Council unanimously voted at a special meeting Tuesday to approve written comments that criticize the environmental document for failing to analyze placement of a station or maintenance facility in Barstow. The comments also highlighted the potential impacts on development from a proposed route that would cross diagonally through the Barstow Industrial Park.

The article explains some of the back-and-forth between Barstow and DesertXpress - DX claims the city didn't get in touch with them until too late in the EIS process; Barstow claims DX had heard their concerns but never followed up on them.

As pretty much the only major settlement between the edge of the SoCal megalopolis (in this case, Victorville) and Vegas, Barstow probably deserves a stop. It could add riders from the Central Valley and the SF Bay Area - if I were driving to Vegas and had an option of parking in Barstow and riding a train the rest of the way I'd probably take it, and I suspect many others would as well.

Not everyone in Barstow is sure about the HSR concept, however:

Other commenters questioned whether the train project would be viable and whether it would really relieve congestion on Interstate 15, when people would still need to drive up the Cajon Pass from the Los Angeles Basin in order to board the train in Victorville.
“(Californians) love their cars, and they’re not going to let them go to come to Victorville to go to Vegas,” said Barstow resident Carmen Hernandez, who also sits on the city’s Planning Commission.

Ah, the "Californians love their cars" canard. Whenever a viable alternative has been given to them - subways, light rail, commuter rail - Californians have proven over and over again that they will take it. California's "love affair" with the automobile more closely resembles an arranged marriage. I love driving through Big Sur as much as the next person, but give me a train to SF or LA or Vegas any day over driving there.

I also wonder if Hernandez and others are concerned about the impact of a train on Barstow businesses. Barstow has always existed as a waystation for travelers. First for the transcontinental railroads, and then for folks driving to Vegas. Most of the city budget comes from sales taxes on traveler spending.

Still, if Vegas HSR is going to happen, it'll be on the DesertXpress model, and Barstow would do well to get in on the action. DX should include a study of a Barstow stop, and the city should unite around the steel-wheel HSR solution and quit daydreaming of a maglev train that is NEVER going to be built.

DesertXpress EIS and Public Meetings

by Robert Cruickshank

DesertXpress, the company that proposes to build high speed rail from Victorville to Las Vegas, has a Draft EIS ready on their project, and are scheduling some public meetings this week to discuss it (details below). From the DesertXpress press release:

Operating at speeds of up to 150 mph on exclusive tracks along Interstate 15, DesertXpress trains will make the 180-mile trip between Las Vegas and Victorville, California in an hour and twenty minutes. According to the EIS, DesertXpress is forecasted to carry over 10 million people per year by 2015 and over 16 million people by 2030. Ultimately, the system will have a capacity of more than 60 million people per year....

"The project is estimated to reduce up to 360 million pounds of CO2 emissions in the Interstate 15 corridor by greatly reducing automobile travel and replacing it with energy-efficient mass transportation in one of America's most congested transportation corridors," Rogich said.

They believe they can break ground "early next year", which strikes me as a tad bit ambitious. DesertXpress is also aggressively (and in my opinion correctly) pushing back against the concept of building a maglev train on the LA-LV corridor, citing a study for the SoCal Logistics Rail Authority that suggests maglev's costs are going to be too high to afford:

"Maglev has been a thirty-year study of a system that only operates in one other area in the world, which is Shanghai. And we believe the reason it hasn't been further developed in other parts of the world is that according to the BSL Study, the latest cost estimates by public authorities in Germany and the United States put the cost of construction for a Maglev line in the range of $60 million to $199 million per mile - which would bring the cost of the proposed 260-mile Maglev line to US $16 billion to $52 billion - making it the most costly transportation project in U.S. history. On the other hand, the DesertXpress project is estimated to cost from $3.5 to $4 billion, and high speed rail lines are a proven commodity and are successfully operating all over Europe and other parts of the world," said Rogich.

There will be three public meetings this week on the DesertXpress EIS:

Tonight: Las Vegas
5:30-8:00 pm
Hampton Inn Tropicana
4975 Dean Martin Drive

Tomorrow (Wednesday): Barstow
5:30-8:00 pm
Ramada Inn
1511 East Main Street

Thursday: Victorville
5:30-8:00 pm
Green Tree Golf Course Club House
14144 Green Tree Boulevard

Of course, ANY Vegas HSR project, no matter the details, is going to run into opposition from Congressional Republicans who like to use the proposal to criticize federal stimulus spending and trains more broadly. But as the Huffington Post reports, that criticism is usually hypocritical:

While the stimulus was being debated in January, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor called a group of reporters into his office to outline the GOP's objections. As we filed in, we walked past a giant poster ridiculing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) for allegedly pushing for high-speed rail connecting Disneyland and Las Vegas.

On NBC's "Meet the Press," Cantor called that project an example of "waste and pork-barrel spending."

Yet one man's pork is another man's prudent investment in transit -- and sometimes the same man's.

Asked about high-speed rail at a recent local event in Virginia, Cantor was all thumbs up. "If there is one thing that I think all of us here on both sides of the political aisle from all parts of the region agree with, it's that we need to do all we can to promote jobs here in the Richmond area," Cantor said of the high-speed rail.

One can hope that Senator Arlen Specter's switch to the Democratic Party today will provide a 60 vote majority for HSR funding and render moot idiotic claims like Cantor's.

Is Vegas HSR Out of the Obama HSR Stimulus Derby?

When President Obama announced his HSR Strategic Plan last week, the USDOT report that accompanied the announcement included this map of HSR corridors, based on the 2001 map:



One route you don't see on that map is LA to Las Vegas. Does that mean the project, which right-wingers tried to generate controversy around back in February, is ineligible for the HSR stimulus money? That's the topic examined in an article in the Barstow Desert Dispatch:

The Obama administration’s strategic plan for spending the $8 billion in stimulus funding allotted to high-speed rail projects makes no mention of a proposed rail line from Anaheim to Las Vegas that would stop in Barstow.

Project proponents are still hopeful that some of the funds may come their way.

The plan released Thursday by President Barack Obama and U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood lists 10 designated high-speed rail corridors where projects are eligible to receive funding, none of which include the Anaheim to Las Vegas route.

So does this mean that the map shown above really will determine HSR funding priorities? Well...maybe not:

Lori Irving, a spokeswoman with the U.S. Department of Transportation, said projects that are not located in the existing corridors may still be eligible to compete for some of the stimulus funds.

And the backers of the maglev train are optimistic:

Bruce Aguilera, chair of the California-Nevada Super Speed Train Commission, which is tasked with moving the Anaheim to Las Vegas train project forward, stated via email that the project proponents still plan to file a request for stimulus funds and expect to be eligible.

“We have a plan and (are) moving fast to have the first leg built during the president’s first term,” Aguilera wrote.

Of course, unless they suddenly abandoned the maglev plan in favor of Desert Xpress and are planning to break ground this afternoon, I'm having a hard time seeing how they'll have the first leg built by the end of 2012.

I wouldn't be surprised if the LA-Vegas corridor got some amount of startup funds, to complete environmental design work - perhaps as much as $100 million or more (but certainly no more than $500 million). But with so many other corridors also looking for funds, with a much more developed and realistic plan - and sorry folks, maglev on this scale really is gadgetbahn - I am hard pressed to see how Vegas HSR is going to get very much out of the USDOT process.

The more I look at this, the more I think that if Vegas HSR is going to happen, the state of Nevada is going to have to take the lead in stepping up to fund a big chunk of it. If Obama is somehow able to create a stable funding source for HSR then that could put Vegas HSR in the pipeline - but it could also take 20 more years to bring it to fruition. If Vegas interests (that would be the casinos) want it to happen sooner, they'll need Nevada to help accelerate the timeline.

That will eventually raise the issue of how much California wants to spend on Vegas HSR. In the 1980s and 1990s there was a long standoff between Caltrans and NDOT over widening Interstate 15 between Barstow and the state line. California did not want to spend money on that project which benefits an out-of-state interest, especially with so many other road projects around the state clamoring for money. Eventually NDOT agreed to help pay and the widening projects were undertaken.

With Vegas HSR, Nevada and the feds could reasonably argue that California should put up more of the money since the route would serve California residents for in-state trips (especially if they use a Cajon Pass routing - Victor Valley residents would have a way to commute to and from jobs in the LA Basin). I'm not sure that's a high priority HSR corridor for this state, and I would be wary at this time of committing California to funding Vegas HSR. Ideally we could revisit the matter around 2020. But Vegas' timeline is much more aggressive, and I am betting we'll see Nevada leaders pushing California for financial commitments much sooner.

Something to keep in mind.

Hooray For Victorville!?

Remember that whole Las-Vegas-to-Disneyland maglev concept that Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev) is still pushing because it's supposedly "more Vegas"? While he's been making waves in Congress, private investors have quietly pursued an alternative based modern non-compliant multiple unit trains trains running on dedicated tracks. Diesel-electric option would run at a top speed of 125mph, whereas an electrified version could run at 150mph (top speed is currently limited by the lack of FRA rules, not the available technology). Note the faint overhead catenary in the above picture, with nary a pole in sight. Or a second track, for that matter, but perhaps that is only needed at one or more points along the route.

The big idea is to relieve congestion on I-15 and at McCarran airport in Las Vegas so folks in Southern California have an easier time getting to Las Vegas. The investors had become disillusioned with prospects for public funding for a fast a rail link. The hardest part is securing a viable ROW through Cajon Pass, which is heavily used by rail freight and includes a crossing of the San Andreas fault. Therefore, the current plan simply calls for the line to terminate at a giant new parking lot northeast of Victorville. Southern Californians would drive there, park and take the train the rest of the way.

This then is DesertXPress. FRA has announced the closing date for public comments on the draft EIR/EIS: May 22, 2009. Before then, there will be three more public hearings on the project.

1. Las Vegas Area
   Tuesday, April 28, 2009
   5:30 – 8:00 p.m.
   Hampton Inn Tropicana
   4975 Dean Martin Drive
   Las Vegas, NV 89118
   
   
2. Barstow Area
   Wednesday, April 29 2009
   5:30 – 8:00 p.m.
   Ramada Inn
   1511 East Main Street
   Barstow, CA 92311
   
   
3. Victorville Area
   Thursday, April 30 2009
   5:30 – 8:00 p.m.
   Green Tree Golf Course
   14144 Green Tree Boulevard
   Victorville, CA 92395

From the California point of view, there are a number of pluses and minuses here:

• PLUS: private companies are funding an HSR line (standard gauge steel wheels)
  
• PLUS: final nail in maglev coffin (at least on the California side)
  
• PLUS: congestion on I-15 should ease quite a bit
  
• PLUS: diesel trains require far less fuel than cars at the same occupancy rate
  
• NEUTRAL: SoCal-Las Vegas not part of federally designated California HSR corridor
  
• NEUTRAL: no stop in Barstow (limited water to support population growth)
  
• MINUS: project not integrated with California HSR
  
• MINUS: project not integrated with Pres. Obama's smart electrical grid
  
• MINUS: tracks (and OCS, if any) not designed for operation at 220mph
  
• MINUS: max. gradient 4.5% (vs. 3.5% for California system)
  
• MINUS: only limited relief for McCurran airport in Las Vegas
  
• MINUS: requires people to drive out to Victorville and park there
  

IMHO, there would be a lot of value in getting SoCal-Las Vegas included in the officially designated national HSR corridor for California as soon as possible. Sure, the Republicans would have a field day (for a day) but it's still the smartest thing to do.

First, it would establish that HSR out to Las Vegas shouldn't be a completely separate project, even if the tracks won't join up right away. That would give USDOT (i.e. Ray LaHood) some leverage to force integrated planning.

Second, the designation would make the tracks through the desert eligible for federal HSR dollars, which could fund the wider curves and tighter geometry tolerances required for future operation at 220mph. The DesertXPress sidesteps the thorny issue of the endangered Desert Tortoise by hewing close to I-15 east of Barstow. Nevertheless, some opposition from at least Indian gambling interests in California is likely, though siting the western terminus at Victorville makes the train less of a competitive threat.

Third, early electrification of the line would make a whole lot of sense if phase 2 of the project included a nearby HVDC power line to carry renewable electricity from the Mojave desert and Nevada to population centers in (Southern) California. But please, don't put a big solar farm and a relief airport next to one another.

Fourth, an early connection to the California network would do more to relieve McCarran airport, since 30% of its flights are to or from California cities that will be served by California HSR. At peak times, e.g. during major conventions, Las Vegas could leverage Palmdale as a relief airport, provided LAWA doesn't hobble it with a solar thermal plant right next to the runways. At 200mph cruise speed, travel time would be just over an hour. Fully leveraging California HSR and Palmdale airport would eliminate the need for a new Ivanpah Valley relief airport between Primm and Jean in Nevada, not far from the BrightSource's Ivanpah solar thermal power plant on the California side.

Sixth, project integration would permit both sides to pool both political clout in Congress and purchasing power.

The tricky part is figuring out how to integrate the projects. A spur off the SF-LA-Anaheim starter line at Mojave would make a lot of sense, but DesertXPress may not be interested in going anywhere but Victorville. A connector from there to the phase II spur between LA and San Diego is theoretically possible and would give San Bernardino an HSR station. We'll see.

Early electrification of the DesertXPress line would be excellent but it's something their web site has not previously mentioned. Note that CHSRA is currently planning its own, electrified test track in the Central Valley (part 1, part 2), which will become part of the starter line and spur to Sacramento.


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Arnold Schwarzenegger + Jim Gibbons = Maglev to Vegas?

So claims the Las Vegas Sun:

For over 20 years, boosters have dreamed of and lobbied for a train that could travel from Southern California to Las Vegas at 300 mph.

The proposed magnetic levitation train line linking Las Vegas and Anaheim, Calif. — attacked by critics as a multi-billion dollar pipe dream — has gained new life.

Near the bottom of a news release detailing Gov. Jim Gibbons’ meeting last month with President-elect Barack Obama was the announcement that Gibbons and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had agreed to move ahead with the high-speed train project.

“Arnold and I agreed to jointly work together on the project,” said Gibbons, who is planning to travel to Sacramento to talk with Schwarzenegger about it.

The train, Gibbons argues, should be a candidate for federal economic stimulus money.

The rest of the article goes on to discuss "pork" in the stimulus bill and how infrastructure stimulus should emphasize projects with lasting value. We agree, of course, and HSR is one of the best possible examples of infrastructure that provides both short-term stimulus and long-term economic value.

The question here is, does Harry Reid's maglev from Anaheim to Vegas count toward that goal? Maglev is a notorious form of vaporware on an intercity scale - the cost is enormous and no project to build intercity maglev has gotten off the drawing board. That hasn't stopped Reid from getting $45 million from Congress to study maglev to Vegas, even though a competing firm has a more realistic plan to build conventional steel-wheel HSR from Victorville to Vegas. Reid dismissed the Desert Xpress plan:

Reid has criticized that project because he doesn’t think people will drive from Los Angeles to Victorville and then board a train to Las Vegas.

What Reid apparently doesn't realize is that it's a mere 50 miles from Victorville to the planned HSR station at Palmdale Airport:



So wouldn't it make sense, Senator Reid, Governor Gibbons, and Governor Schwarzenegger, to link a Vegas HSR line to our existing HSR plan - using the Desert Xpress model, merely extended west across the flat Antelope Valley desert from Victorville to the Palmdale Airport station? That would solve the cost issue, provide a direct train connection from LA to Vegas, and even could help logroll both Nevada's and California's HSR needs into a single plan.

I have to confess I've never believed that HSR to Vegas is a particularly high priority for either California or the United States as a whole - there are other corridors that have a greater need for HSR. But if Nevada and their powerful Senator are bent on HSR to Vegas, let's do it the smart way, the right way, instead of wasting millions on a maglev train that will never get built.

Reid Gets $45 Million for Maglev

The transportation bill was signed by President Bush last week and it included $45 million for Sen. Harry Reid's maglev project to link Vegas to Anaheim:

Derided by critics as pie in the sky, the train would use magnetic levitation technology to carry passengers from Disneyland to Las Vegas in well under two hours, traveling at speeds of up to 300 mph. It would be the first MagLev system in the U.S.

The money is the largest cash infusion in the project's nearly 20-year history. It will pay for environmental studies for the first leg of the project.

It doesn't make much sense for the US government to be proceeding with maglev studies. It's an extremely expensive and untested technology that isn't even necessary to provide high speed rail service on that corridor - off the shelf technology can accomplish speeds that would cut the drive from SoCal to Vegas in half (and cut it by 3/4 on the busy weekends).

Even a revival of Amtrak's Desert Wind train would be sensible. It was killed in 1997 due to "low ridership" during the cheap oil era but as Trains4America points out that rationale might not hold today.

Still, at least Reid took the lead in securing federal money for a Nevada-California HSR project, even if we here at the HSR blog believe it would be wiser to link a non-maglev HSR line to the California project at either Mojave or Palmdale Airport. Why haven't California's powerful senators, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, worked to provide similar federal funding for our project? Even $45 million for studies would not only help the CHSRA's work, but would be a signal that the Congress really will help pay for the cost of our HSR line. That would ease the "financial risk" concerns the State Senate and others have pointed out. Senators Boxer and Feinstein could also play a key role in brokering an agreement between Union Pacific and the CHSRA on ROW.

Once again political leadership is absent, seemingly blind to the crisis of high energy costs and unserious about providing affordable, sustainable alternatives.

Harry Reid Moves on Maglev to Vegas

Nevada Senator and Majority Leader Harry Reid is pushing the maglev from LA to Vegas plan, proposing a $45 million appropriation to conduct additional studies and planning for the project. Reid was down on the Desert Xpress plan and believes maglev is the solution to Southern Nevada's traffic woes:

“If it’s going to be really done in a big way, a Las Vegas way, the magnetic levitation would be the way to do it,” Reid said. “We could bring someone from L.A. to Las Vegas, and vice-versa, in less than an hour,” he said. “If we can get this done, it will be the showboat of the world.”

Reid scoffed at DeMint’s advocacy of a competing, private company’s plans for a regular train between Las Vegas and the Antelope Valley, in the desert some 85 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles. Reid questioned whether tourists would drive through the traffic of Los Angeles to Victorville to take a train the last 200 miles.

Unfortunately even $45 million is raising right-wing hackles - apparently it's perfectly legitimate to spend limitless amounts of money on an endless war, but god forbid we attempt to address our infrastructure needs. The current argument in the Senate is that the maglev money is "pork":

As the bill came to the Senate this week, Republican anti-earmark crusader Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina cried foul. DeMint said that the train was a speculative venture. “If we were asking members of the Senate to invest their own personal money in this project… none would reach for their wallet.”

President Bush signaled he is not pleased in what he sees as extra spending in the bill.

What we're seeing is an attack on efforts to do something about our transportation, energy, and environmental crisis in the name of fiscal conservatism. HSR opponents realize they won't win by attacking the system's merits, so they trot out "pork" and "subsidy" in hopes they can scare voters and Senators into opposing HSR on those grounds. They would prefer we did nothing and saved a few bucks today instead of spending some money now to save us from greater costs and problems in the future.

The irony is that much of the transportation system we use on a daily basis is the product of earmarks and subsidies. And the desire to hold down government spending will accomplish little other than the worsening of the transportation/energy/environmental crisis. By not spending money now, we will face a far higher cost down the line of dealing with peak oil, global warming, and collapsed infrastructure. It is an inherently short-term view that puts immediate savings over long-term investment - sacrifice the future for the sake of the present. Is $45 million really too much for the US Senate to handle? We spend that much in one second in Iraq. Surely it can be spent on America's own economic future.

LA to Vegas: The Other High Speed Rail Project

The California High Speed Rail plan is not the only high speed rail project being considered in our Golden State. Two proposals are in the works to link LA to Las Vegas via high speed trains. From a recent Riverside Press-Enterprise article:

A group of private investors is proposing to finance and build a $3.5 billion electrically powered passenger train called the Desert Xpress, running along Interstate 15 from Victorville to Las Vegas.

At the same time, a commission of California and Nevada officials is seeking to build a maglev train that uses magnetic forces to silently propel cars at 300 mph along a route from Anaheim to Las Vegas.


The Desert Xpress, which would average 100 mph, is undergoing an environmental study by the Federal Railroad Administration. The study will be released next year and used by various federal agencies to analyze the project.

The maglev train also is under environmental review, although the study is two to three years from completion. The idea that travel to Las Vegas -- a trip that 12 million Southern California residents make annually -- would be more attractive by train than by airplane and car has enticed promoters for years.

Growing up in Orange County in the 1980s and 1990s, I remember hearing almost once a year about a high speed train to Vegas. So these plans ought to be taken with a few grains of salt. Still, this is a corridor that could definitely use HSR - the traffic jams on Interstate 15 are epic.

The Desert Xpress project seems the closest to actuality. They claim to have conducted focus groups that show Southern Californians would be willing to drive to Victorville to catch a train to Vegas, and met with economic forecasters who suggest the plan is viable. $3.5 billion is a lot of money, but it's not outside the realm of possibility - especially if some of the Nevada casinos could be convinced to put up some of the funds.

The reason the train would run only from Victorville to Vegas is that it's much cheaper to build to Victorville. Construction through the Cajon Pass would be extremely expensive, and since Victorville is where I-15 currently narrows, it seems a logical place to put the route's southern terminus.

Still, not everyone thinks the Desert Xpress plan is viable:

Norm King, an associate at Cal State San Bernardino's transportation center, doubts either project is economically feasible.

If Desert Xpress is entirely self-supported, investors will seek to recover their investment from fares, said King, a former executive director of San Bernardino Associated Governments, the county's transportation planning agency.

"I just can't see that fares can even approach something that will pay for it," King said.

The maglev plan, by contrast, is promoted by a coalition of governments in Southern California and Nevada. They prefer to use the promising but extremely expensive magnetic levitation technology, which could provide speeds of nearly 300 mph to connect Anaheim to Vegas. The cost is tentatively put at $12 billion, and Congress is planning to provide $45 million to study the proposal further.

Obviously maglev has a lot of promise, despite its cost. But it is going to take federal investment to build this - neither California or Nevada are likely to be in a position to build it themselves, especially if our LA-SF high speed rail plan is approved by voters this November.

Personally I think a good solution might be to pool some federal dollars with private investment and money from CA and NV to get the Desert Xpress built and extended across the relatively flat desert to Palmdale, where it could share a station with the California high speed rail line. That would enable folks from LA to simply transfer at Palmdale, sparing them a long drive to the High Desert.

Or Amtrak could revive the Desert Wind, which was closed in 1997 due to Republican budget cuts. An overnight train from LA to Vegas would likely be popular, especially with weekend visitors.

In any case, this blog will continue to watch these plans and report on whatever develops, even as we maintain our primary focus on the LA-SF high speed route.