As we already know, most of the federal ARRA stimulus funds for high-speed rail are going to Amtrak passenger rail upgrades. These have little to do with actual high-speed rail even though they are being called high-speed rail improvements. Amtrak is the sole provider (with a very few exceptions) of passenger rail service in the US.
That means, we need to see what's going on with Amtrak so that we can anticipate what the outcomes will be wherever actual high-speed rail is to be constructed. Like in California.
Here's a good article that gives us a clue to what Amtrak is about. Until recently, the Northeast Corridor (NEC) from Boston to Washington, DC, the most heavily used transit corridor in the US, had no way of competing for the federal high-speed rail dollars. The individual states couldn't do it. The Senators of all those individual states complained. President Obama heard them and gave the DOT marching orders.
The DOT designated Amtrak to be the umbrella organization for the potential high-speed rail NEC. Next thing you know, they are about to receive $800 million.
For high-speed rail? Not actually. Mostly for regular Amtrak upgrades and rebuilding of barriers that obliged lower speeds for the Acela. A reminder: Acela is not a true high-speed rail line, it is a very fast passenger rail service that shares existing rails and corridors with regular Amtrak and freights.
The discussion in this article is interesting. True high-speed rail requires its own dedicated tracks and corridor. Amtrak estimates the cost for that in the NEC will be $117 billion. (Double it, I always say.) They are talking $50 million per mile. You should ask what that includes and what it leaves out.
The article also refers to the California "true" high-speed rail intentions. Amtrak would like to operate that as well. Yet, Amtrak is under heavy Congressional fire as inept and a persistent drain on federal funding; an inadequate service costing the taxpayers far too much per seat. That makes it a safe bet that if Amtrak becomes the HSR operator, it will be mis-managed in the same way.
There are a number of people on the Peninsula in the Bay Area who keep talking about "doing it right." Those include our State Senator and other elected officials. From the look of it, nothing we are doing about passenger rail is being "done right."
What makes anyone think that there will suddenly be a conversion to "doing things right" with passenger rail both in California or in the entire United States? Where's the evidence for that?
Let me interject the central argument of this blog. This discussion here is about the trains. However, the federal funding upon which all these passenger rail developments depend are not targeting the components of a passenger rail system in the US in any comprehensive way. These dollars are being spread around because they are actually political pork, and transportation issues are secondary.
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Will $795 Million Help Turn Around Amtrak's High-Speed Rail?
By Katherine Tweed, InnovationNewsDaily Contributor
17 May 2011 1:13 PM ET
The Northeast Corridor just can’t win.
Most people would agree that the congested stretch between Boston and Washington, D.C., badly needs better high-speed rail. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood responded to that problem last week by handing the region $795 million of the $2 billion federal dollars for high-speed rail recently rejected by Florida.
Yet due to Amtrak's failure to effectively run their supposedly high-speed Acela line, not everyone is so sure that the money should be put in the hands of Amtrak, which currently runs the service.
“The right thing is that the money should be allocated where ridership is heaviest and demand for service is the greatest,” said R. Richard Geddes, associate professor in the department of policy analysis and management at Cornell University. “But what we’re talking about is slightly higher-speed Amtrak.”
Geddes is not the only one who feels this way. Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, has argued that the money should go to public-private partnerships to run new train services in crowded corridors like the Northeast — but said the money should not go to Amtrak.
“We need a comprehensive, responsible plan for the Northeast Corridor, and Amtrak – our nation’s Soviet-style passenger rail service – is incapable of carrying out a project of this scope and significance,” Mica said in a statement about the reallocated funds.
Geddes agrees that Amtrak is a part of the problem. However, a fully separated track for a public-private run system would cost upward of $50 million per mile, he told InnovationNewsDaily. Amtrak was unwilling to build separate tracks for the Acela when it was first built in the Northeast, which is one factor that prevents it from running at high speed.
California also received a good deal of Florida's money, and so far, Amtrak is not involved. The true high-speed line received an additional $300 million to extend the Central Valley project, which is the backbone that will eventually connect San Francisco and Los Angeles. Of the 22 projects that won Florida dollars, this was the only one not associated with Amtrak.
It will be the first true high-speed train in the U.S.: fully grade-separated and running at 220 mph. It could also be the first passenger rail to challenge Amtrak, as the Capitol-Corridor region is the third most traveled Amtrak line in the U.S. However, the scope of the project will take years and an estimated $40 billion to complete. So far, the proposed rail system has accumulated about $6 billion, said Rachel Wall, spokeswoman for the California High-Speed Rail Authority.
“It’s a testament to the fact that high-speed rail is going to be a viable transportation alternative in the future,” Wall told InnovationNewsDaily. She noted that Amtrak had expressed some interest in being the operator of the service once it gets going, but added that there has also been initial interest from more than 30 other private companies.
It is unclear how much of this money will truly lead to faster, more reliable service, however. Many Amtrak routes, including the Northeast, share track with freight trains and cross over aging bridges, so the problems go far beyond what this round of money can address.
Although some lines claim they will be “high-speed,” the reality is that the average speed will still be around 60 to 70 mph, rather than the 110 to 150 mph top speeds that are advertised. However, even just getting trains to a much-needed, steady 80 or 90 mph service — barely high-speed — seems elusive, despite the funding.
“In some sense, this is a bait and switch,” Geddes told InnovationNewsDaily. “I don’t understand why everyone is focused on the high-speed when there’s such a demand for reliability.”
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