This morning (coverage here and here), President Obama announced his plan to spur the creation of a high-speed rail network across the country. With $8 billion allocated for high speed rail corridors from the recovery package, this move would both upgrade existing rail corridors to accommodate high speed travel and establish new corridors to bring rail service to previously un- or under-served areas.
High speed rail is defined in this country as trains traveling more than 90 mph. The European Union standard is above 125 mph. This investment into high-speed rail will upgrade our national system and eventually create a national corridor between larger cities connecting communities and serve them at a speed similar to those in Europe (avg 133 or above) and Japan (180mph).
The plan highlights ten potential high-speed intercity corridors, including California, the Pacific Northwest, the Midwest, the Southeast, the Gulf Coast, Pennsylvania, Florida, New York and New England. This map from the Department of Transportation shows some of the proposed corridors. According to the Associated Press:
Appearing with Vice President Joe Biden and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, Obama said the country cannot afford not to invest in a major upgrade to rail travel. He said he understands it necessarily will be “a long-term project” but said the time to start is now.
The fact that this investment comes in two parts is absolutely critical. It provides for the immediate work in upgrading existing rail corridors and creating jobs this year while also investing in long-term transportation infrastructure. And for a little perspective, travel by train is approximately 3 times more efficient than travel by car and six times more efficient than travel by airplane. So not only does it create jobs, reduce congestion and traffic hassles, but it cleans the air and enables affordable transportation between urban centers.
While these funds are available for states to apply for, the projects will be funded based on the likelihood of success, coordination with Amtrak and other rail providers and the proximity to high population areas. What this means though is that the state governments need to show leadership in requesting and preparing projects for funding. The Department of Transportation is looking for a commitment from state leadership (both in state funding and preparation) as criteria for funding.
In particular in we need state leadership to request funding in places like Iowa, Nebraska and Missouri so that they do not miss out on this opportunity to connect with existing rail hubs like Chicago. For those of you who live in Iowa like I do, please urge the state legislature to allocate state funding towards high speed rail. This will make it all the more likely that we will receive federal funding to fully connect Iowa to the Midwest High Speed Rail Network.
For those of you not in the wonderful state of Iowa, write your legislator and local news urging your state to invest in high speed rail.
Passenger rail died out in the US because people prefer driving their cars (I certainly do). I don’t want to take a cab or rent a car when I get to my destination. While the airlines would be the main competitor to high speed rail, for this to be successful at all, the train stations need to be integrated with the airports and have decent prices. Sure, I could take Amtrak to Chicago, but it’s cheaper to drive. Is the station any where near the airport or does it provide any form of shuttle service to the airport? In my city the answer to both questions is no. In fact, I don’t think there is even a car rental place near the Amtrak station. Outside of the Northeast, Amtrak is for when people want to take a novelty trip. They could put in 200mph trains, but as it stands now, not very many people would ride them because of the hassle and expense involved.
@kws
I tend to agree. I’m a student in champaign and I frequently take trains up to Chicago. I actually prefer trains to driving, but the fact of the matter is that I’m not willing to pay more than $45 round trip to ride a train.
What you have in the US is a road infrastructure that is too good, not enough population density (in most places) to support nationwide consumer rail and not nearly enough demand. Anyone who thinks that consumer rail is a good idea in America is ignoring the facts and available data (I hate posting links, but it’s not hard data to find). I don’t understand why Obama thinks he knows more than congressional subcommittees on transportation.
What the nation needs is to remove passenger rail and allow more free corridors for freight. That would actually help our economy. Trains work in a lot of places (like cities). Amtrak should not be used to subsidize rural transportation interests or to politically pander to low income and rural americans (who tend to support the idea of public transportation).
The thing I hate the most about Obama is that he pretends that he is international, so he goes off about how everywhere in the world is better than America. His motto seems to be “Yes we can, be like someone else…”, but here in America we are fundamentally different. Talk to an engineer or a economist and they will tell you the cost of implementing this high speed rail plan is not economically sensible.
(By the way…. public cars make sense (a European idea)…. I’m not a public transportation hater or a xenophobe…. I love public transit…I think that other countries have great ideas that can work in the US… when it makes sense)
For all this money the time saved from Chicago to St. Louis will be one hour or 4 hours with stops. They never mention that the stops along the way remain. This has been talked about here for years.
You can drive to St. Louis in 5 hours on Interstate 55. A better route would be something like Chicago to Denver With a couple stops in Iowa and Nebraska each. Also these trains will be nothing like the ones you see in Europe or Japan.
Obama makes me proud! This is another example of him going after the right thing and representing our values. We’ve been talking about the need for high speed rail in the Northwest for years now. Myself personally, if we had high speed rail up and down the 1-5 corridor I might be able to hold off buying a car for another few years, or perhaps indefinitely. Using this type of rail system would save me valuable time and money. I couldn’t be more happy to see my tax dollars at work developing this system. KWS and someguy, I think you two have valid points in regards to the need for these new trains to be affordable in comparison to alternatives. However, I strongly disagree with the notion, someguy, that the demand isn’t there for this service.
If you’re interested in seeing where the Obama Administration is proposing these 10 potential high speed corridors, check out the map at the bottom of this Grist article: http://www.grist.org/article/2009-04-16-obama-high-speed-rail/
Hey, do these hi-speed rail things really make money on their own like everyone says? And, if they do, why are we waiting? Or is it illegal now to build a transportation system that doesn’t require public funds??
We have already tried the train idea, over and over and over with our hard earned tax money. It’s called Amtrak, and it’s a total joke. Always has been. Huge black hole of federal bailouts over decades. They even added high speed (not bullet) express trains on the East Coast to attempt to add life to Amtrak. Still a dead loser.
Want to talk about bailouts? Amtrak wrote the book on that, and gets Federal bailout money each and every year. Under Bush they got 900 Million a year. Amtrak asked for over a billion in 2008. Think GM workers are overpaid? The pay is $54,000 per year plus tips for Amtrak snack car workers. Compare that to your job and it should sicken you.
People simply ignore facts and never learn. We are not Europeans or Japanese. Great ideas that work “over there” have been proven over decades not to work here. We cannot afford to continue rail service in America, much less expand it.
Why do CNN and MSNBC have to use dirty offensive language ” TEA-BAGGING ” when discussing a subject they do not agree with?
Perhaps Obama was inspired to live up to THIS campaign video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJW67YfLWgs
Total gold.
To respond to the critiques above, the ‘faults’ in high-speed-rail travel that you identify are more ‘challenges to be overcome’ than fundamental flaws with rail.
To me, there are two the great benefits of rail travel compared to air (aside from the lower carbon emissions (and zero carbon if we use 100% renewable electricity).
1. For most journeys less than the 5 hour mark between major cities, the city-to-city travel time is faster because the train stations are *right in the middle* of town – and they connect with local public transport extremely well. Think of how long it takes to get to most airports – especially if you’re stuck in traffic. If this is an issue with the Amtrak stations, then they need to redesign the lines so that they do take passengers to central stations – we shouldn’t throw out the whole fast-rail system because it’s poorly designed. We should improve the design.
2. You can work on a train. It’s awesome for business travel. In Europe, you can access hi-speed wifi internet and power on trains means that you can still do effective work on your laptop. And you can make mobile phone calls at normal rates. It’s like a traveling office.
So if you have a choice between a 4 hour flight, plus all the transfers to get to and from both airports, security etc, and you can’t work during all that time; OR, you have a 6-7 hour train ride without the hassle, with great scenery, and with all the benefits of an office, I know which one I’d choose. We just need to have trains with those facilities.
Also, airports (and airlines!) are currently subsidised, much like the fossil-fuel energy generators, at ridiculously high levels, which is why they deliver services at relatively low cost. Without these subsidies, airline travel would be heaps expensive.
I’ve just travelled from Singapore to Poland by train – it was amazing. http://ayd.aycc.org.au and check out the blogs, or look for the Facebook group “Australian Youth Traveling Overland to the UN climate talks”