All Trains Considered

This afternoon I can be heard on your local NPR affiliate, or right now at this link, interviewed on All Things Considered as part of their series on high speed rail. I was preceded by a story about the Chicago Hub HSR plan, and I talked about comparisons between HSR plans in the US and those in Europe and China.

I've done my share of TV and radio and have learned to live with the fact that they usually never give you enough time to discuss the issues in any real depth. And this was no exception. We didn't really get into the details of why the US is proposing the kind of patchwork plans we are, how we've neglected HSR and passenger rail for decades, etc. We did discuss how we sink billions into roads and freeways and how that cost is higher than the cost of building an HSR network, but that was cut from the final broadcast.

Would have loved to give my "Spain's success shows CA HSR will work" spiel, but no time for that either.

Still, I thought it went well, and I was pleased to have had the opportunity.

So feel free to praise or bury me in the comments. And enjoy your Labor Day weekend.

USDOT Announces HSR "Pre-Applications"

by Robert Cruickshank

California has some competition - 39 competitors, if you're counting by state. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood made that statement at a press conference in Las Vegas yesterday:

On Monday Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced that 40 states had submitted 270 high-speed rail pre-applications seeking to qualify for stimulus money.

A total of $93 billion has been preliminarily requested. The Transport Politic offers a great overview of the state applications. California represents $22.3 billion of that total:

Caltrans met the Friday deadline to submit preliminary applications for $22.3 billion in passenger and high-speed rail projects in three main corridors: San Francisco-San Jose (which includes improvements to San Francisco's Transbay Terminal), Los Angeles-Anaheim and the Central Valley.

Many of these applications were for "regional" multi-state projects, such as the New England and the Midwest.

Nevada also submitted a multi-billion request, entirely for the maglev project:

Neil Cummings, president of the American Magline Group, the private consortium of firms that would develop the maglev line, said the commission proposed building the first, 40-mile segment between Las Vegas and Primm. The cost would be $1.6 billion.

The group also submitted a second application to the Transportation Department for planning money to continue developing the line to Anaheim.

DesertXpress, for its part, didn't put in an application for HSR stimulus funds, but intends to make use of the planned national infrastructure bank program to finance up to 70% of the estimated $5 billion cost, according to the Las Vegas Sun.

I confess I would be surprised if maglev got much money out of this. Ray LaHood has previously said that California and Florida are in the lead for HSR funds, and although that doesn't guarantee a thing, we've always anticipated CA could get as much as $3-$4 billion of the HSR stimulus funds.

As far as I can tell that should remain the case. The Midwestern application has its issues, including what Ray LaHood has described as a lack of leadership. New England's application is interesting but as they already have the Acela, one might expect USDOT to spread the money around a bit.

We'll find out later this fall what the USDOT's final decision is.

PS: Apologies for the spotty posting of late. I came down with the flu while in LA last weekend, and I'm only just now coming out of the worst of it.

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.

Questions for Senator Alan Lowenthal

I have to admit that after reading Senator Alan Lowenthal´s op-ed I am unconvinced that he has actually answered the charges leveled in the original ModBee editorial. And I remain convinced that the evidence shows Sen. Lowenthal does not support the HSR project that a majority of Californians approved in November 2008.

If he wants to ensure transparency and responsibility in how the funds are used, he can do that without messing with how the funds are allocated - including but not limited to the Central Valley maintenance hub.

These are separate matters. But Sen. Lowenthal has chosen to conflate the two, using concerns about "fiscal responsibility" as his cover to gut the system as he has always intended to do.

Since June 2008 this blog has tracked Sen. Lowenthal´s desire to gut the HSR system by turning it into a method to fund merely incremental commuter rail improvements in the Bay Area and SoCal. Nothing in Sen. Lowenthal´s apologia disproves that conclusion about his intentions.

Sen. Lowenthal has shown himself to be quite willing to distort the situation and leave out relevant facts to make the CHSRA look bad. This includes his refusal to mention in the op-ed that the 2008 Business Plan was delayed because of the 2008 state budget crisis, which left the CHSRA without the funds to pay for the business plan.

The report from the Legislative Analysts Office that Sen. Lowenthal requested earlier this year provides further evidence of his desire to cut the Central Valley out from the overall project.

Using "fiscal responsibility" to attack HSR is an old game, as we have also tracked at this blog for quite some time. It is distressing to see Sen. Lowenthal playing that game in order to undermine the HSR project. If Sen. Lowenthal wanted to truly and effectively defend himself, he would answer the following questions (I will give him space on this blog to do so, and will post his replies unedited):

1. Does he support the HSR project as approved by voters in November 2008 - which specified a 220mph train to connect SF to Anaheim via the Central Valley?

2. Will he refuse to be a party to any efforts to tear the HSR system into pieces?

3. Will he admit that the 2008 Business Plan would have been produced on-time had he and his fellow Senators approved the state budget by the constitutionally mandated deadline of June 30?

4. Will he apply his "fiscal responsibility" goals to the Peninsula portion of the project, namely the efforts by a small group of NIMBYs to force the CHSRA to build an tunnel that will cost many more billions of dollars than the business plans currently anticipate for both the Peninsula section and the project as a whole?

5. Will he promise the people of California that his efforts to ensure "fiscal responsiblity" will not jeopardize the state´s chances at winning billions in federal stimulus funding this year for the HSR project?

6. Will he commit to lobbying Congress to pass a Transportation Bill that fully funds the HSR Strategic Plan, and will he acknowledge that this would be sufficient to fully fund the HSR project as laid out in Prop 1A?

We await the Senator´s response.

Sunday Afternoon Open Thread

I'm headed to Portugal for two weeks this coming Thursday and am spending the day getting my preparations done. Our trip will take us all over the country, from Porto to Coimbra to Lisboa to Faro and the Algarve (where I'm hoping it won't yet be totally overwhelmed with British tourists). Not only will it be representative of the various regions of Portugal, but it's a trip that can be done via high speed rail. Comboios de Portugal operates the Alfa Pendular, a tilting train of the pendolino family. The trains have a top speed of 220 km/h (136 mph) which isn't exactly TGV or AVE speed, but certainly qualifies as a kind of HSR. It connects Porto to Lisboa (the nation's two largest cities) in about 2 hours. So I'll get to see the Portuguese HSR system in action, although before the planned upgrades of the Porto-Lisboa line to 300 km/h (to be completed by 2015) and before the HSR link from Lisboa to Madrid is completed (due in 2013).

Anyhow, enough about me. Two brief HSR items for this Sunday afternoon:

• The FRA presentations from the Sacramento meeting have been posted online (h/t to Matt Melzer). Haven't yet had a chance to look these over, but if you do, be sure to offer your thoughts in the comments.



• The Bay Area Council Economic Institute has proposed $7 billion in infrastructure stimulus for the region, including HSR-related projects such as upgrading Diridon Station.

Joe Biden: CA Well Positioned For HSR Stimulus

I'm here in Washington, DC for the week for other business, and unfortunately I wasn't invited to the big HSR confab that Joe Biden and Ray LaHood held today with state leaders. But the outcome was further evidence that California's HSR project is in line for a big windfall this year from the HSR stimulus:

Though California is in the throes of a budget crisis, Vice President Joe Biden said Wednesday that the state's high-speed rail project is well-positioned to compete for a significant share of the $8 billion that the Obama administration set aside in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for rail lines.

..."The reason why California is looked at so closely -- it's been a priority of your governor, it's been a priority of your Legislature, they've talked about it, a lot of planning has been done," Biden said in a conference call with reporters.

The vice president said the administration wants "to get shovel-ready projects out the door as quickly as we can. . . . So California is in the game," he said.

This reinforces Ray LaHood's previous comments that CA is going to get a ton of HSR money from the federal government. Again, we don't quite know how much, but the amount is likely to be significant.

There was some debate back in 2008 and early 2009 about whether the promised federal commitment to HSR would actually materialize. Clearly, it has. Obviously that needs to be an ongoing commitment, and that is where the battle over the 2009 Transportation Bill will become so important. But with Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Ray LaHood, we seem to have the right team in place to ensure that the feds will follow through on HSR.

Review of Yesterday's FRA Meeting in Sacramento

Thanks to Matt Melzer for attending and compiling these notes (with help from Ryan Stern) from yesterday's FRA meeting in Sacramento on high speed rail. Lots to chew over here! -Robert

Besides presentations from the feds, there was one from Amtrak's VP Policy and Development, Stephen Gardner, who emphasized that Amtrak wants to be THE national HSR operator. He also said that expanding state partnerships is "Amtrak's future."

Will Kempton, Mehdi Morshed, and Bill Bronte acted as the regional presenters, making the public case for California to receive stimulus funds based on the obvious success and maturity of California's passenger rail programs. Their PowerPoint also had nice maps showing CAHSR integrated with each existing Amtrak California corridor, as well as all three. Yet, there was no illustration of long-distance routes, regional rail systems, or Thruway motorcoach connections. So the visualization severely minimized the true reach of the state passenger rail network.

The Surfliner route north of LA looked like an errant finger, with San Luis Obispo positively orphaned. This, of course, has no relation to reality, with the existing Thruway connections to Hanford and the Bay Area, as well as the Coast Starlight and the future Coast Daylight. It's this lack of emphasis on statewide connections on the part of the HSRA that leads to situations like Pete Rodgers of SLOCOG opposing Prop 1A supposedly because he didn't think there was anything in it for SLO. Even if the $950 million for feeder rail and transit improvements didn't exist, he'd still be wrong.

After their presentation giving an overview of the federal HSR Strategic Plan and Next Steps (to which I'll refer readers to previous posts regarding details), Karen Rae (FRA Deputy Administrator), Paul Nissenbaum (FRA Director, Office of Passenger and Freight Programs) and Gardner engaged in Q&A. Some of the juicier questions:

Representative of LA County MTA: With the billions of dollars LA County voters approved for new transit projects in Measure R, why can't MTA use future HSR connectivity benefits as part of cost-effectiveness calculations for FTA New Starts applications? Why aren't FTA's criteria more holistic?

Rae: "We've talked more with FTA in the past 6 months than [we probably did] in the past 15 years." FRA and FTA are aware of such issues and will discuss them more moving forward.

Jason Lee, San Francisco MTA: With so much focus on cost, won't HSR grant applicants cut corners and shy away from key projects like the $1 billion Transbay extension?

Rae: We're "struggling" with how to handle such megaprojects, of which there are many across all modes, that demand huge resources concentrated in very small project areas. Some of these issues could be addressed in the transportation reauthorization bill. Criteria for numerous federal transportation grant programs could conceivably evolve.

Representative of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers: Union Pacific is grappling with Positive Train Control, which system is best, and how to implement it. Shouldn't the feds lead the charge for one interconnected PTC system?

Rae: FRA and the Rail Safety Advisory Committee are working to support the federally-mandated effort for a national PTC standard. We hope that PTC will be as interoperable as other standard railroad equipment.

Gardner: Interoperability is in the law (S.294, the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act [PRIIA], the Amtrak/passenger rail reauthorization and rail safety bill that passed last year). Train control will be a critical issue as we develop corridors that exceed 79 mph.

IBEW Rep.: UP gave the impression that they didn't know about the interoperability requirement!

Paul Dyson, President, Rail Passenger Association of California and SW Division Leader, National Association of Railroad Passengers [Disclaimer: I, Matt, serve under Paul on the NARP Council]: There's a lot of talk of partnerships today. Look at the three providers of passenger rail in Southern California: Amtrak, Metrolink, and Coaster are crummy partners [along the Surfliner route], with passenger-unfriendly schedule coordination. Who's to say states like Arizona or Nevada would ever be willing to work with California as regional "partners" in HSR development, as FRA is encouraging states within regions to do?

Rae: "It is not an easy conversation." But there's nothing like competitive grants to provide an impetus for partnership. "There's not nearly enough money to go around," but best practices in multi-state compacts will emerge from this process.

Representative of Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen: Amtrak is mandated to be profitable; will HSR operations be?

Nissenbaum: Capital subsidies will be required, but it's the responsibility of applicants to account for operating expenses. Amtrak or other operators will seek assurances so that they're not exposed to any risk of operating losses.

Gardner: The profitability clause is gone from Amtrak's mission due to PRIIA, which did stipulate that Amtrak must still minimize the need for federal coverage of their operating losses. States must also cover the losses of any new services.

Rich Tolmach of California Rail Foundation (and plaintiff in the lawsuit seeking to invalidate CHSRA's EIR): Will the same FRA safety standards still apply to new high-speed equipment?

Nissenbaum: Absolutely, yes. We will need to create new standards for equipment that operates about 150 mph, since they don't currently exist.

Rae: FRA Administrator Joe Szabo isn't here today because he's touring European HSR equipment, seeing how they achieve both efficiency and safety.

Ryan Stern, State Representative, National Association of Railroad Passengers: Given the moribund state of the domestic passenger rail supply industry, how do we create an environment that allows for ongoing production of rolling stock, so that cars can be purchased quickly and affordably?

Gardner: This falls under the work of the PRIIA-mandated Next Generation Corridor Equipment Pool Committee [which is developing national standards for various types of passenger rail cars]. But we do have to live in the world we have now.

Rae: The White House is in active talks with our domestic industrial manufacturers to retool underutilized production capacity.

Matthew George, Caltrans: Do Amtrak's agreements with host railroads provide for HSR?

Gardner: They apply at any speed, hypothetically. But we'll work collaboratively with our partners and not just "show up" with high-speed passenger trains intermingling with slow freights.

George: How much can you rely on those agreements?

Nissenbaum: You can't; there must be operational agreements specific to each service. But "master agreements" can be a starting point.

Beverly Mason, AECOM: What is FRA's policy on adapting European and Asian HSR trains to domestic use?

Rae: "We will not compromise our safety record." But new technologies are being explored. Sealed HSR systems especially could support more exotic equipment.

Lastly, there was one hour of breakout groups to address the following three sets of questions, which we randomly called upon share with the whole audience at the end. At least a good 60 percent of attendees stayed for this, whereas crowds had apparently thinned considerably in other cities' workshops. Rae emphasized that FRA is taking all feedback seriously, since the entire national HSR effort is a nascent work-in-progress. The questions were:

1. What does success from a national perspective look like in 2 years, 5 years, and 10 years? How do we measure success?

2. What factors are critical for implementation of the program? What is the role of the federal government, states, and others?

3. What does your region need to succeed, in the short or long run?

All groups wrote their ideas on worksheets, which were ultimately collected. The FRA is expected to make the presentations given at the meeting available on the web "at some point in the future."

-Matt Melzer

Two Thursday Meetings

Tomorrow, Thursday May 28th, will see two meetings on the high speed rail project. I can't attend either of them, but hopefully you can!

First up is an FRA meeting in Rancho Cordova (Sacramento suburb) from 1PM to 4:30PM:

FRA’s High-Speed Intercity Passenger Rail Workshops
Start May 20, To Tour Nation

Dear Stakeholders:

As we begin to implement President Obama’s vision for developing a cohesive national intercity and high-speed passenger rail network. This vision was set forth in FRA’s Strategic Plan for High-Speed Rail (HSR) announced by President Obama, Vice President Biden, and U.S. Transportation Secretary LaHood, and sent to Congress that same day on April 16, 2009.

The workshops will be led by FRA Deputy Administrator Karen Rae or myself. Through these workshops, FRA is reaching out to the rail community in seven regions across the country to seek your input on the Interim Guidance we are required to issue on or before June 17, 2009, for the $8 billion in grant funds provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) for the high-speed rail corridors program, intercity passenger rail grants, and congestion grants. The workshops will enable FRA to discuss the HSR Strategic Plan with key stakeholders such as state departments of transportation, regional planning authorities, metropolitan leaders, associations and labor groups (under the ARRA, these workshops exclude the participation of lobbyists).

We seek your input not only to provide us with your regional vision of high-speed and intercity rail networks, but to enable stakeholders to focus on the critical factors that will make this program a success for generations to come.

The goal of the workshop is to take the first steps toward determining how we can best partner together to make the Strategic Plan a reality. During the workshop, you will have an opportunity to share experiences, raise concerns, provide insights, and make recommendations on several key issues and questions, as well as hear those of your colleagues and representatives from a regional perspective. The workshop schedule will include the following:

Introduction 10 minutes
Overview of FRA strategic plan and next steps 30 minutes
Amtrak presentation 15 minutes
Q & A 35 minutes
Regional presentation 30 minutes
Break 15 minutes
Working group break-out 1 hour
Wrap-up 15 minutes

The workshops will be held 1:00 p.m. 4:30 p.m. on the following dates and locations:

California Corridor: Sacramento May 28; Sacramento Marriott Rancho Cordova, 11211 Point East Drive, Rancho Cordova, CA 95742

In addition to participating in the workshop, I am inviting you and other members of the public to submit written comments to FRA by June 5, 2009, on issues that should be addressed in the Interim Guidance and specific recommendations on the criteria to be used in evaluating grant applications. FRA has created a public docket (Docket No. FRA-2009-0045) for the receipt of written comments. Please visit FRA’s Web site at: www.fra.dot.gov/us/content/2236 for information regarding the various ways in which you may submit comments to the public docket.

Please note, additional sessions to aid states with the mechanics of applying for ARRA funds will be scheduled after these workshops, as will informational sessions for industry, labor, intergovernmental and other interested parties.

I look forward to working with you over the coming months to ensure the grant programs funded by ARRA are implemented successfully.

Sincerely,
Joseph C. Szabo
Administrator
The Federal Railroad Administration

The other meeting is in Atherton at 7PM:

The meeting is open to the public, and will be held at the Jennings Pavilion in Holbrook-Palmer Park, 150 Watkins Ave. in Atherton.
Atherton officials, and many of the town's residents, have grave worries about the local effects of the state plan to run high-speed trains along the Caltrain corridor that bisects the town. If the high-speed rail line can't be rerouted to avoid the town, Atherton officials would rather have the train run through a trench or tunnel, instead of on an elevated berm.
The scheduled speakers at the meeting are: Mike Garvey and John Litvinger, public outreach consultants working for the California High Speed Rail Authority; John Townsend, executive vice president of Hatch Mott Macdonald, a leading tunnel-engineering and construction firm; Duncan Jones, Atherton's public works director; Gary Patton, attorney and former director of the Planning and Conservation League; and Jim McFall, who will present a digital model of elevated high-speed rail tracks going through Palo Alto.

I'm really curious about this "digital model" that will be shown. Is it going to be an accurate representation of what an elevated solution could look like, or is it going to be a biased depiction of some kind of Berlin Wall? I hope that the CHSRA has been able to generate some more accurate and realistic digital images of their own.

Update: Thanks to Clem in the comments who links to Jim McFall's video - videos that put the worst possible spin on this, making the HSR grade separation look like an Orange County freeway.

Additionally, I'm curious what the tunneling exec will have to say. Will he explain the price tag of a tunnel? Will Atherton residents have their checkbooks and credit cards ready to go to pay the multi-billion cost of such a tunnel? Only one way to find out - go to the meeting!

If anyone does attend, and wants to write up their impressions of the meeting(s), I'll be happy to post it here unedited.

Amtrak, HSR, and the Need for Speed

by Robert Cruickshank

Joseph Boardman was in Chicago talking to Illinois lawmakers about high speed trains, and threw cold water on hopes of implementing a California-style HSR system in the Midwest:

Introducing ultra-fast passenger trains to the Midwest is less important than the need for more frequent service between cities, reliable schedules that beat the time spent driving and rail connections that permit travel across the United States, Amtrak's chief official said Monday in Chicago.

True high-speed rail clipping along at 200 m.p.h. or faster would be prohibitively expensive to build on the scale needed to serve the U.S., and such systems work best only when the number of stops are limited, Joseph Boardman, president and chief executive officer of Amtrak, told Illinois lawmakers at a hearing in the Thompson Center on the passenger railroad's agenda.

"It's really not about the speed. It's about reduced travel times and more frequency," he told the Illinois House Railroad Industry Committee. "The competitive advantage is with the train."

Boardman said plans in the Midwest for trains traveling up to 110 m.p.h. on corridors stretching over nine states make more sense. He said the immediate focus must be on modernizing infrastructure to increase train speeds in the Chicago area that currently are as slow as 5 m.p.h. because of freight-train congestion and antiquated track and signaling equipment.

Getting up to even 40 m.p.h. on stretches between Chicago and cities less than 50 miles away, such as Joliet, would be a big improvement, Boardman said.

"One hundred and ten is double the national speed limit" of 55 m.p.h. on highways, noted Boardman, who was administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration during several years of the Bush administration.

To which Yonah Freemark at the Transport Politic offered a strong reply:

I hate to point out the obvious — something I’ve had to do in the past — but reduced travel times can only be achieved through (a) reducing the distance traveled, or (b) increasing the speed of trains. Since I’m assuming Mr. Boardman wasn’t suggesting that customers simply start taking shorter trips, the only way you can reduce travel times is by increasing speed. So it really is about the speed. Sorry, Mr. Boardman.

Mr. Boardman used this argument to inform the committee that it was infeasible to build true high-speed rail (that is, “HSR-Express,” as we’re calling 150+ mph service these days) at the scale needed for the United States because of its high cost, and said that speed improvements to service at 110 mph were more realistic.

I have no problem with steadily improving train speeds, nor of course with increased frequency. But we should be investing in much faster speeds along the country’s most important corridors, like San Francisco-Los Angeles or Washington-Boston. Those lines, among others, deserve the same level of rail service as is provided in European and Asian countries, and there’s no reason to think that the U.S. is simply incapable of building them. Whether or not some trips taken by Americans are transcontinental, the fact is that the majority of long-distance trips are made by people traveling between cities 100 and 600 miles apart. Those distances are ideal for high-speed rail.

Boardman believes that improvements in Chicagoland can increase speeds from 5 to 45 mph, and that if you can get trains to accomplish 110 mph, you can bring enough people to trains to make it worth your while.

But that's the key issue here - "worth your while." Sure, you can get more people to ride a train from Chicago to St. Louis at 110mph, but as much as would drive or fly? And would a 110mph train change travel habits as much as a 200mph train would?

If you look at Spain you might get a sense of the answer. Madrid and Barcelona have long been connected by fast trains operated by RENFE above 110mph, but it was only when the AVE was completed to Barcelona-Sants in early 2008 that you started to see a big shift in travel habits away from the airlines and towards the train. Of course, there's about 100 miles difference in the distance between the two cities (Chicago-St Louis is about 300 miles; Madrid to Barcelona is about 400 miles) and that might make some difference.

Still, there does seem to be a solid case that true high speed rail - above 150mph - really does make a big difference in terms of ridership. I think Boardman should not be so prejudicial in his comments against that kind of HSR in Illinois or the Midwest, and I hope he doesn't wind up having any influence over the decision about which HSR projects get funded - because here in California, we ARE going to have trains going over 200 mph, and it's the right thing to do.

West Coast High Speed Rail?

by Robert Cruickshank

I'll be honest, I never expected to see this story this soon. From The Olympian (based in Olympia, the state capital of Washington):

Washington state and California officials have held preliminary discussions about a high-speed, state-of-the-art rail line that would connect San Diego and Vancouver, B.C., with trains that could travel in excess of 200 miles per hour....

But Scott Witt, director of the Washington state Department of Transportation’s rail and marine program, said that though he and others are focused on the “here and now,” high-speed trains running nearly the length of the West Coast aren’t just a fantasy.

“They would go like a son of a gun,” he said.

This topic has come up every so often when discussing either long-term HSR planning, the California and/or the Cascades HSR corridors, or when we're sitting around with nothing better to do than draw lines on a map and say "wouldn't it be neat if...?" (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

Objections to a border-to-border HSR route are several. The first is that numerous studies have shown that HSR is only competitive with airlines when the route is around 400 miles or so. Beyond that, the travel times tend to be off-putting for many passengers, who prefer the convenience of flying. Of course, that's given present conditions, and spikes in oil prices and other events that could make flying undesirable or costly might change the calculus.

The second issue is the geography. Vancouver to Eugene and Redding to San Diego is pretty easy. Eugene to Redding is not. There are a lot of mountains in the way, and the easiest route - the current Coast Starlight route, over Willamette Pass, parallel to US 97 through Klamath Falls, and through the Shasta Lake region - almost totally misses the population centers of Southern Oregon.

Both issues contribute to the third, which is cost:

Constructing a truly high-speed West Coast rail corridor wouldn’t be easy. It would require entirely new rails and a new corridor that smoothed out grades and corners. Picking a route and deciding where the trains would stop would be politically bruising. And the cost could be astronomical.

The 1,500-mile line, by some estimates, could cost between $10 million and $45 million per mile to build. Witt said he has been talking with his counterpart in California for about three weeks.

“It’s very, very preliminary,” Witt said. “But it makes a lot of sense.”

An alliance with California and perhaps Oregon would make it easier to leverage federal planning funds, he said.

The Olympian didn't do the math, but at $27.5 million per mile (the midpoint of the estimates) that comes to $40.5 billion. Which is about the cost of just building the CA HSR project (SD and Sacramento phases included). So I am not confident in that estimate.

Still, as the above quote shows, these conversations ARE happening. As far as I can tell it may be part of an effort by Washington State, which recently cut passenger rail staff at WSDOT, to get a more favorable position regarding the federal stimulus and longer-term federal HSR planning for the Cascades corridor by allying with Oregon and California. Show USDOT that the California project is part of a wider vision for the West Coast, so let's fund stuff in the Pacific Northwest too!

I'm all for helping fund HSR along the Cascades corridor. It's a perfect place to implement HSR - most of the Northwest's population lives there, the stations are in the city centers, and in Portland and soon Seattle will be linked by a robust network of local rail and transit.

And I'm not opposed to upgrading the West Coast passenger rail corridor. Upgrading the Eugene-Redding corridor where possible to allow for some higher speeds could make it possible for an overnight connection from Eugene to Sacramento, and someone could get from Seattle to LA in about half the amount of time it currently takes via rail.

One of Washington's US Senators, Patty Murray, suggests we take this seriously:

“This is real stuff about moving people, creating jobs and reducing greenhouse gases,” Murray said.

As for a high-speed San Diego to Vancouver run, Murray said not to dismiss it out of hand.

“Obviously it would be in the future and it would be great,” she said. “But if this (stimulus spending) can lead to that, it would be amazing.”

Patty Murray is fantastic, and if she says to not dismiss it out of hand, I won't. But I'm going to remain highly skeptical.

Especially since I'd be a frequent user of a West Coast HSR route. I just came back from a weekend in Seattle, and as someone with friends and family in that town and in Portland, I'd love a faster and more reliable way to get there and back via train. But I'm not convinced this is a particularly high priority for us right now.

My own conclusion is that my views all along have been right: that we must first focus on building HSR in the key corridors, and then work on upgrading passenger rail between states and regions. A Eugene-Redding HSR line would come at the end of a national passenger rail project and not at the outset. Something I'd envision for 2050, not 2030.

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.

Obama's HSR Plan (Mostly) Lauded - But How To Pay For It?

Thursday's announcement by President Barack Obama of the HSR Strategic Plan got a lot of attention in the media and on the blogs - which is just what California's project needs at this time. Obama's high-profile leadership for HSR should help focus our state, especially those involved in the contentious debates over how to build the trains along the planned corridor, on the big picture and the need to move forward quickly and effectively in building the high speed trains that are so essential to our nation's future.

Yonah Freemark at The Transport Politic offered this assessment of the plan:

But I think the report’s basic outlines of the kinds of projects the federal government wants to fund with rail money are demonstrative of the administration’s seriousness in undertaking this project. By arguing that high-speed rail is most applicable for corridors between 100 and 600 miles in areas of moderate to high density, we can be assured that the government won’t be funding just any project with the limited funds available for rail. It’s good to know, in other words, that a line between El Paso and Phoenix isn’t going to get money over the connection between San Francisco and Los Angeles.

He also noted that a new National Rail Plan will be prepared and published in October. That plan may revise the list of HSR corridors, last updated in 2001:



This map includes such outdated concepts as an HSR corridor along the Coast Route from San Jose to LA via Salinas and SLO (not that I'd personally mind such a corridor, but it was rejected in the CHSRA's 2002 plan and isn't being considered for anything other than some upgrades to enable the Coast Daylight to operate) or defining Dallas to Tulsa as a vital HSR corridor but not Dallas-Houston.

One of the most common responses to Obama's announcement was the all important question of "how will we pay for it?" That's the question the LA Times tackled in yesterday's editorial:

High-speed rail networks might very well be the "smart transportation system" of the 21st century, as President Obama declared Thursday. The trouble is, we're using a very 20th century method to pay for them....

"Now, all of you know this is not some fanciful, pie-in-the-sky vision of the future. ... It's been happening for decades. The problem is, it's been happening elsewhere, not here," Obama said, referring to countries such as France, Japan, Spain and China that have impressive bullet-train networks. But there was something he failed to mention: With the exception of China, whose government can spend any way it likes, all of these countries impose steep taxes on gasoline. The taxes have the dual purpose of providing the funding to build public transit and encouraging people to ride it because they make driving prohibitively expensive. Gas taxes in the United States are minuscule in comparison.

Instead of raising the money to pay for his vision, Obama proposes to fund it with debt. So does the state of California, where voters last November approved nearly $10 billion in bonds for the San Diego-to-Sacramento train Obama aims to support. That's all well and good, except that the California train alone is expected to cost in excess of $40 billion. Obama's $13 billion over five years won't go far in building a national network that would cost hundreds of billions. So where's the rest of the money going to come from?

The LA Times is basically calling for a higher gas tax to be part of the upcoming transportation bill, and to fund passenger rail - including HSR - through that mechanism.

I strongly support that concept. I don't oppose using debt to build trains - long-term infrastructure projects are the best use of debt there is, and it's hard to make a case against spending $50 billion or so on a national HSR network when over $1 trillion has been spent to bail out well-connected Wall Street bankers - but we DO need a higher gas tax, and it ought to be used solely for improving mass transit, with passenger rail at the center.

A higher gas tax would also help provide long-term stable funding for high speed rail, just as the federal gas tax provided the funds to build out the Interstate Highway System (which took nearly 40 years to complete), instead of making HSR projects dependent on a highly unstable annual funding appropriation from the Congress. The moment Republicans take control of Congress or the White House back from the Democrats, which is a distinct possibility over the next 10 years, HSR funding would be in serious jeopardy.

President Obama is likely to tread very carefully and cautiously here. Despite the cries of "socialist!" from his right-wing opponents, Obama is a moderate Democrat who has tried hard to avoid alienating swing voters. His tax policies are designed to cut taxes for the lower and middle-class while raising them for the upper class. That's the right move for income taxes, but the moment he proposes a gas tax increase, he risks the possibility of giving fuel to the right-wing attacks and pissing off swing voters.

A higher gas tax is a very smart and necessary policy for this country. But it's also a political decision that the president is going to weigh with an eye to the 2012 election. I'm far from convinced Obama will support it, but it's something he ought to do.

Obama Announces HSR Funding Plan

Today President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood announced the DOT's high speed rail strategic plan. You can find the full details of the plan at the USDOT website.

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It's an important announcement and contains some long-awaited policy changes that will help make HSR a reality across the nation. It's not yet clear how this will impact the California HSR project, but the way the funding allocation categories are set up appears to be quite favorable to us here in California.

First, I want to quote from both President Obama and VP Biden - these guys get it when it comes to HSR. It is a sea change from the last 25 years of refusal to speak openly and honestly about our nation's transportation needs.

“My high-speed rail proposal will lead to innovations that change the way we travel in America. We must start developing clean, energy-efficient transportation that will define our regions for centuries to come,” said President Obama. “A major new high-speed rail line will generate many thousands of construction jobs over several years, as well as permanent jobs for rail employees and increased economic activity in the destinations these trains serve. High-speed rail is long-overdue, and this plan lets American travelers know that they are not doomed to a future of long lines at the airports or jammed cars on the highways.”

He nailed it. This quote has it all - energy independence, job creation and long-term economic growth, and relieving congested airports and freeways. Joe Biden's quote is equally as good:

“Today, we see clearly how Recovery Act funds and the Department of Transportation are building the platform for a brighter economic future - they’re creating jobs and making life better for communities everywhere,” said Vice President Biden. “Everyone knows railways are the best way to connect communities to each other, and as a daily rail commuter for over 35 years, this announcement is near and dear to my heart. Investing in a high-speed rail system will lower our dependence on foreign oil and the bill for a tank of gas; loosen the congestion suffocating our highways and skyways; and significantly reduce the damage we do to our planet.”

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I don't know who was writing their speeches, but they clearly understand the case for HSR.

That case is made strongly and powerfully in the HSR strategic plan document (PDF, 3MB). It is one of the best arguments for HSR that I've ever seen. This administration is serious about HSR. The plan includes a good overview of the history of rail funding in America, explaining that we have spent over $1 trillion on roads and airports in the last 50 years but have starved rail - even though, as the report makes clear, high speed rail is one of the best methods to move people over distances from 100 to 600 miles:




The report also recognizes the need to update the FRA's regulations to make HSR more of a possibility in this country (this should be music to Rafael's ears):

While most high-speed systems overseas have a good safety record, usually on dedicated track, U.S. railroad safety standards are designed to keep passengers and crew safe in a mixed operating environment with conventional freight equipment, which is much heavier than comparable
foreign equipment. The advent of Positive Train Control (PTC), crash energy management, and other advances provides the United States with an opportunity to revise its safety approach in a manner that accelerates the development of high-speed rail while preserving and improving upon a strong safety regime. This will be a challenge for the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) as it seeks to administer its critical safety responsibility and facilitate high-speed rail development. The systems approach required to ensure safety of new HSR corridors will necessitate consideration of additional changes in several regulations, including equipment, system safety, and collision and derailment prevention.

The heart of the document is a three-pronged approach to funding HSR projects. I'll include the full text of the "tracks" below for folks to peruse:

1. Projects. Grants to complete individual projects eligible under Sections 301 (IPR projects) and Sections 302 (congestion projects) described above, for the benefit of existing services. Eligible projects include infrastructure, facilities and equipment. In order to qualify, these projects must: (a) be "ready to go" (i.e., environmental work required by law (National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA) and preliminary engineering (PE) are complete), and (b) demonstrate "independent utility." For projects that meet the independent utility test but have not yet completed NEPA and PE, funding is available to conduct NEPA and PE work to make projects ready to go and, therefore, eligible under a subsequent grant solicitation. For rolling stock proposals, DOT will encourage acquisition of new, standardized, interoperable equipment
that incorporates modern safety features. Under this track, funds would be obligated for successful applications under standard grant agreement terms and conditions, including ARRA oversight and reporting procedures.

2. Corridor programs. Cooperative agreements to develop entire segments or phases of corridor programs eligible under Section 501 (HSR) and Section 301 (IPR), benefiting existing or new services. In order to qualify, these corridor programs must: (a) be based on a corridor plan that establishes service objectives and includes a prioritized list of projects to achieve those objectives; and (b) have completed sufficient corridor/ section/phase programmatic or project environmental (NEPA) documentation and sufficient planning to provide reasonable project cost and benefit estimates. For corridor programs that do not qualify under (a) and (b) above, funding is available to complete this work and make corridor programs eligible for subsequent solicitations. Under this track, funds for selected applications of a corridor program phase and/ or geographic section would be set aside at the outset, and provided at pre-specified milestone approval points. This approach would involve a higher level of Federal oversight and support than under even the
heightened scrutiny inherent in standard ARRA grant agreements.

3. Planning. Cooperative agreements for planning activities (including development of corridor plans and State Rail Plans) eligible for funding under Section 301 of PRIIA, using non-ARRA funds. This third track provides States an opportunity to prepare themselves for any funding remaining in subsequent rounds of ARRA, and/or future year appropriations. It is intended to help create the pipeline for future corridor development needed to build out a national HSR/IPR network.

As I read this, California's project is eligible for all three tracks. Of course, so would many other states. The plan also recognizes distinctions between what they call "HSR express" which is a California-style system that can achieve 150 mph or above; "HSR regional" which can achieve speeds of 110-150 mph; "Emerging HSR" where new corridors of around 90-110 mph are to be built, and "Conventional Rail" which is basically Amtrak outside the NEC. I hope that as the only true HSR express project on the drawing board (the NEC is in a somewhat different category as it already exists) that will give us a big boost, as other states fight over the rest.

So overall I think this is a huge boost for HSR, even though it does leave some things unclear as to how exactly our own project will fare. The DOT will be making the first project funding announcements later this year, for tracks 1 and 3 - track 2 will be announced toward the end of 2009 or in early 2010.

This announcement has gotten a lot of reaction around the blogosphere, but I want to single out for criticism Matthew Yglesias's take on the announcement:

My take on this is that the most promising projects on the merits, from a federal point of view, are probably those that upgrade the existing Northeast Corridor (where we know demand exists) and those that connect to the Northeast Corridor since the existing passenger rail corridor extends the utility of the new link. The Chicago Hub Network and the California Corridor concepts strikes me as very important for the long-term future of their regions, but for it to be useful will take a lot of time and money. I assume that the relevant state-level politicians for the Gulf Coast and South Central Corridors aren’t going to be interested in ponying up the sort of state funds that would make these projects competitively viable, and that may be for the best since I think those corridors may be a bit ill-conceived. It seems strange to build so much track in Texas and not manage to link Houston with Dallas.

This is a pretty flawed way to look at things. What Yglesias proposes is in fact the model Clinton eventually adopted. In 1993 he proposed a broad national HSR plan, but by the late '90s he decided to just focus on upgrading the NEC and rail was left to wither around the country.

Yglesias is wrong to say that we should prioritize the NEC and connections to the NEC. Significant improvements in speed and carrying capacity can be made in the Midwest with a few billion dollars, and the California project need federal cash infusion now to ensure completion by 2018. All of those will revolutionize rail transportation in America to a much bigger scale than upgrades to the NEC. Too much focus on the NEC is one of the primary reasons for the lack of passenger rail upgrades and improvements around the country. It's time we took HSR national.

And with President Obama's plan, that is exactly what will happen. Now, to make sure this all gets funded...

UPDATE: Rafael's comments:

Nothing particularly new here, except that USDOT will be sticking with the 11 already designated corridors (incl. the NEC). Disneyland to Las Vegas, the Texas T-bone and other hopefuls are not mentioned. So far, the President is talking about the $8 billion in the stimulus bill plus a measly $1 billion for each of the next five years. That's enough to get started, but not nearly enough to leave a legacy.

On the plus side, he mentions the need for long-term commitments from states. Presumably, that translates to a preference for those willing to put some serious skin in the game, e.g. California.

California's much more ambitious bullet train network would presumably fall into the second "track" but it's unclear if there will be anything left in the kitty at that point. Still, given the increasing amount of political capital the President is investing in HSR, it seems likely that future bills will increase the total amount available once USDOT has put in place a suitably technocratic process for evaluating grant applications on their merits. Washington being what it is, the notion that political considerations such as swing state status won't matter is probably more pious hope than realistic expectation.

In particular, additional federal funding for planning and development of additional HSR corridors will be sought in the context of the regular surface transportation bills. In plain English, that means rail proponents will have to duke it out with the highway lobby. Fortunately, the principle that transit projects will be eligible for up to 80% federal funding, putting them on par with highways, has already been established. Note that those regular bills would also be the appropriate place to make adjustments to the map of eligible corridors. The current one dates back to 2002.

In addition, FRA will need some additional funding for drawing up rules enabling mixed traffic on rapid rail routes as well as bullet train operations at speeds exceeding 150mph. The various HSR allocations do allow USDOT to retain a small fraction of the total grant volume for its own operations in support of HSR implementation.