New Geography

Tag: high speed rail

  • A Train to Nowhere: Not A Train Through Nowhere

    In expressing its opposition to the California High Speed Rail line, Washington Post editorialists noted that critics of the now approved Borden to Corcoran segment have called the line a “train to nowhere” (“Hitting the breaks on California’s high speed rail experiment“). The Post call this:

    …a bit unfair, since some of the towns along the way have expensively redeveloped downtowns that may now suffer from the frequent noise and vibration of trains roaring through them.

    What the Post missed, however, is that a “train to nowhere” is not a “train through nowhere.” There is no doubt that the high viaducts and the noisy trains have potential to do great harm to the livability of the communities through which it passes. This is one of the reasons that the French have largely avoided operating their high speed rail trains through urban areas, except at relatively low speeds. Stations, except for in the largest urban areas, are generally beyond the urban fringe and towns are bypassed. Yet, one of the decisions not yet made in California, for example, is whether the town of Corcoran will be cut in half by the intrusive, noisy line.

    There would be nothing but grief for the towns through which the California high speed rail lines would pass, but not stop (this is not to discount the disruption the line will cause even where it would stop, such as in Fresno). It may be a train to nowhere, but it is a train through places that people care about.

  • Skepticism About High-Speed Rail Is Growing

    “Spend first, answer questions later.” So concludes a critical editorial in the January 12 edition of the Washington Post, commenting on California’s proposed $43 billion High-Speed Rail program. The Post editorial, along with a January 11 article in the New York Times (both of which we reprint below), are emblematic of the increasingly skeptical press and public opinion concerning the fiscal and economic soudness of the Obama Administration’s high-speed rail initiative. “It’s unclear that the public benefits attributed to high-speed rail…would outweigh the inevitable operating subsidies,” observes the Washington Post, confirming the conclusions already reached by the states of Wisconsin, Ohio and Iowa.

    Other states and their freight railroad partners seemingly are having similar second thoughts, judging from the parties’ lack of progress in reaching cooperative track-sharing agreements. Conspicuous among them is the state of Florida which has been promised a $2.4 billion federal grant to build an 84-mile “high-speed” line from Tampa to Orlando. That line, by all evidence, is too short to produce any meaningful time savings over car trips along a parallel interstate freeway. Moreover, as the New York Times article points out, the proposed line has scored among the lowest in terms of projected ridership in a study of the nation’s high-speed rail corridors recently published by America 2050, a national urban planning initiative (www.America2050.org). Its authors cited the low population and employment density of the cities at either end of the line (and a lack of internal transit distribution systems, we might add) as the reason for low ridership estimates and the line’s low score. The article notes that “the report represents another blow to the Florida high-speed rail network after a report from the Reason Foundation found the project could cost Florida taxpayers $3 billion.”

    As the Washington Post editorial observed, “The president has a vision of a national high-speed rail network almost as grand as the interstate highway system. We have our doubts about the ultimate feasibility of this vision, in part because in much of the country passenger rail can’t compete with car travel by interstate highways.” The editorial could also have noted one other fundamental difference. Pres. Eisenhower’s ambitious plan for the interstate highway system was placed on a sound fiscal basis by being backed by a user fee (aka the gas tax). Mr. Obama’s high-speed rail vision, on the other hand is funded by a one-time $8 billion federal stimulus grant with no visible source of continued support. Indeed, the high-speed rail initiative faces little prospect of sustained congressional funding, it has yet to show evidence of attracting private capital, and it exposes the taxpayers to continued operating subsidies,as Amtrak experience suggests.

    No wonder Pres. Obama’s vision is increasingly being questioned, even by the mainstream media.

  • Trying to Keep Hope Alive: High-Speed Rail in Illinois

    Despite the rejection of high-speed rail in many states, Illinois is trying to revive it. The Illinois Department of Transportation recently made a cooperative agreement with Union Pacific and Amtrak to fund passenger rail improvements for its line from Chicago to St. Louis with a $1.1 billion federal high-speed rail grant. The project, to be completed in 2014, would make transit more efficient between the two cities, but as many other states have realized, the numbers indicate that this efficiency is not worth the cost or the trouble.

    The high-speed trains set to carry passengers 284 miles from Chicago to St. Louis would do very little to drastically change the commute experience. When the Illinois Department of Transportation first applied for this grant one year ago, they claimed that the trains would cut travel time between the cities from 5 hours 20 minutes down to 4 hours 10 minutes. However, current estimates now put the trip time at around 4 hours 32 minutes. As with every high-speed rail proposal, it seems, planners set the bar too high and end up either spending more than the public bargained for or overestimating the benefits of these billion dollar projects. How efficient will high-speed rail be if it costs more than people can afford and does relatively little to enhance the commute?

    Union Pacific’s terms in the agreement are not settling for riders either. According to CEO Jim Young, the company’s priority is “to protect Union Pacific’s ability to provide the exceptional freight service our customers need and expect,” and not necessarily passenger rail operations. Not only that, but there are no consequences stipulated in the agreement for if the railroad fails to meet on-time performance standards for passenger service, stipulations withdrawn from the initial agreement by the Federal Railroad Authority. High-speed rail was advertised to the public who would be paying for it with tax dollars and the divergence of their tax dollars from the state’s other pressing needs, but those developing the system do not seem as concerned with this large pool of customers.

    Local governments all over the country are recognizing the flaws with high-speed rail projects and are starting to act. The incoming governors in Wisconsin and Ohio have cancelled plans for a high-speed rail line while Florida governor Rick Scott doubts the cost effectiveness of what Michael Grunwald of TIME magazine calls a “glorified Disney shuttle.” Many inside and outside of California have also vehemently voiced their opposition to the “railroad to nowhere,” a line that would connect Corcoran and Bakersfield and would be the first costly step in its overall plan to connect San Francisco and Anaheim. Since projects are stalling in many other states as well, it might be worth it to take a second look at the necessity of high-speed rail at the present time.

    The influx of Republicans into Congress along with this local opposition may pressure the Obama administration to cut back funding for high-speed rail and work on fixing the deficit. However, this high-speed rail grant for Illinois shows that the federal government is not about to abandon the pipe dream yet.

  • A Billion Dollar Federal Grant to Reduce Travel Time by 48 Minutes

    The Illinois Department of Transportation has reached a cooperative agreement with Union Pacific and Amtrak that will permit the release of a $1.1 billion federal high-speed rail grant to the state of Illinois to fund passenger rail improvements between Chicago and St. Louis. The agreement was proclaimed by state and federal officials as “historic” and hailed as “one giant step closer to achieving high-speed passenger service between Chicago and St. Louis.” But stripped of its rhetoric, the announcement only reveals how inadequate and cost-ineffective the Administration’s “high–speed” program is turning out to be.

    The billion dollar program of improvements to be completed under the Cooperative Agreement will enable “higher-speed” trains to travel between Chicago and St. Louis in 4 hours and 32 minutes, cutting present trip time by 48 minutes when the planned improvements are completed by 2014. As the Springfield Journal Register pointedly observed, that is 22 minutes longer than the trip time of 4 hours and 10 minutes promised in the original grant application. A four-hour trip time was also pledged in the White House press release announcing the project last January.

    Currently Amtrak operates passenger service between Chicago and St. Louis at an average speed of 53 mph. The announcement is silent about the expected improvement in the average speed when the project is completed but our calculations suggest that the planned improvements would increase average speeds only by 9mph, to 62 mph. Of the 284-mile Chicago-St. Louis route, a total of 210 miles of track will be ready for 110 mph operation under the present grant. Upgrading the remaining 74 miles of the line, between Dwight and Chicago, would have to await further federal aid. The State of Illinois originally requested $3 billion to complete the total project.

    From what we can read between the lines, Union Pacific drove a hard bargain as a condition of signing the cooperative agreement. “Our priority in working out this agreement,” the company’s CEO, Jim Young said in a prepared statement, “was to protect Union Pacific’s ability to provide the exceptional freight service our customers need and expect. … This agreement allows us to deliver on those customer commitments.” The message is clear: UP’s freight operations will take precedence over passenger rail operations. The route, we are told, is expected to accommodate as many as 22 freight trains a day ultimately.

    Union Pacific also seems to have won out on another contentious issue. The cooperative agreement is silent about any penalties the railroad might face if on-time performance standards for passenger service are not met – a condition that the Federal Railroad Administration had insisted upon in its initial (and later withdrawn) guidelines concerning the terms of the cooperative agreements.

    The announcement, released on December 23, barely two weeks before a new Congress takes office, was meant to give a boost to a program that is barely limping along. The record speak for itself. Two major high-speed rail projects — in Wisconsin and Ohio — have been cancelled by the incoming governors because of the cost burden the operation of the new rail services would impose on the state taxpayers. The Florida Tampa-to-Orlando high-speed line is still in doubt as Gov.-elect Rick Scott ponders its cost and economics. The California high-speed rail program, with its starter line in the sparsely populated Central Valley, has been ridiculed as “the railroad to nowhere.” And several HSR cooperative agreements remain stalled in contentious negotiations. It’s not surprising that the Administration would be anxious to show progress and refute the widely held impression that the program is on its last legs. This is not how it was all supposed to end.

    Whether the program will, indeed, come to an untimely end will depend on the next Congress. To the incoming Republican lawmakers, eager to make good on their promise to cut federal spending, any unspent HSR funds will present a tempting target for rescission. In addition, future appropriations for the program will have to compete with other urgent transportation priorities amid pressures to trim discretionary spending and Congressman Mica’s announced intent to revisit the program and refocus it in ways that, in his words, “makes sense.”

    It is not a scenario that offers high-speed rail advocates much cheer in the New Year.

    Ken Orski is a former senior U.S. Transportation Department official and publisher of Innovation NewsBriefs, a transportation newsletter now in its 21st year of publication.

  • Beyond Grassroots and Into Congress: California High-Speed Rail

    While most of the substantial opposition to high-speed rail in California previously came from local government leaders and citizens, primarily in the Bay Area, Congressmen are now taking the issue to the entire country for debate. House Representative Jerry Lewis, R-Redlands, introduced H.R. 6403, also entitled the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Rescission Act,” which would allot the remaining $12 billion in uncommitted stimulus money to the US Treasury to help relieve the national deficit of $1.3 trillion. At least half of that $12 billion is set to go to various high-speed rail projects across the country.

    Although the divergence of money to the US Treasury would not have a significant impact on the national deficit, it would greatly affect California’s high-speed rail plans. The project, now estimated to cost $43 billion, relies heavily on federal money because it will only receive voter-approved state bonds on a matching basis. No federal money, no bond money. So far, it has gotten $2.25 billion from Washington, $200 million of which has already been spent on planning. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Rescission Act would halt the development of the largest high-speed rail project in the country.

    Lewis and 27 other Republicans in the House are pushing for this bill, not necessarily because they think the Democratic Senate or President Obama will let it pass, but because they want to start a movement to stop wasteful government spending. Whether or not anything comes of Lewis’ efforts, he is forcing his fellow members in Congress to consider how high-speed rail fits into national economic priorities.

    President Obama will not abandon high-speed rail anytime soon- he has invested too much into it at this point. Therefore, if the federal government is going to put any kind of controls on funding poorly planned projects like California’s high-speed rail, it will have to come from Congress.

  • HSR Just Doesn’t Fit

    According to many economists, including the well-respected Robert J. Samuelson, the federal government’s effort to fund high-speed rail lines is like trying to fit a round peg into a square hole. If one really breaks down the numbers, the Obama administration’s goals of reducing green house gas emissions, traffic congestion, and oil consumption with these rail lines are idealistic to say the least, and this idealism may cost states more than their budgets can handle right now.

    The administration wants to build rail lines in 13 urban corridors throughout the nation, 12 of which span distances of less than 500 miles. High-speed rail in these areas would compete with car and air travel, but statistics indicate that this would not save a significant amount on energy costs. Assuming daily air passengers, about 52,934 people in the 12 corridors in 2007, switched to high-speed rail, the result would amount to only a 2.5% drop in air passenger totals. Driving is even less likely to decrease seeing as 85% of the 140 million Americans drive to work each day. If you take the example of the Northeast corridor with 45 million commuters, only 28,500 of which take Amtrak, high-speed rail will not divert enough drivers to cut the amount of energy costs that the administration claims it will.

    However, they use high-speed rail models from Europe and Asia to justify spending upwards of $10.5 billion on this infrastructure of the future. The problem with this is that the successful high-speed rail lines, the most successful of which are the Paris-Lyon and the Tokyo-Osaka lines, are located in densely populated urban areas. The United States became heavily suburban in the past half century and the percentage of the metropolitan population living in central cities dropped to 32% in 2000. As a result, jobs spread out to the suburbs and more Americans are even working from home. Rail service to big core cities will be even less useful as this trend continues.

    Washington will end up footing most of the bill for these high-speed rail projects, especially in states like California that have massive budget woes and few interested private investors. In fact, California is asking for $19 billion for its now $42.6 billion project. That’s almost twice as much as the administration has paid for all the high-speed rail projects in the nation combined (currently $10.5 billion). If this starts happening in every state waiting to get high-speed rail, even if it is on a smaller scale, the federal government will have little money to address the country’s more pressing needs, such as education.

    Some state governments are starting to wise up. Not wanting to waste money on unfruitful high-speed rail lines, they are simply rejecting federal money for these projects because they would not be able to spend the funds on things they really want, like better roads. Obviously, the federal government won’t be able to force high speed rail on Americans for long.

    There is no doubt the Obama administration has good intentions for high-speed rail, but good intentions don’t always translate to success. Rather than try to wedge its idealistic vision of a new transportation infrastructure into the realities of recession-ridden America, it should evaluate what the country truly needs.

  • California’s Cities Should Look to Oxfordshire

    California, now in the midst of a heated debate on high-speed rail, could learn a thing or two from a few small villages in England about consolidating their opposition. Residents from five villages in Oxfordshire created the Villages of Oxfordshire Opposing HS2 (High-Speed Rail 2) action group to voice their concerns about the proposed project.

    HS2 would link London and Birmingham by 2025, going through Finmere, Mixbury, Fingford, Fulwell, and Newton Purcell in north Oxfordshire. Not only would the rail line greatly alter the countryside landscape, but it would also create an immense amount of noise pollution. Trains would run through these villages at 250 mph about every three minutes. On top of that, rail authorities are giving out little information to citizens who are growing frustrated.

    The Chairman of Villages of Oxfordshire Opposing HS2, Bernie Douglas, wants the group to influence rail authorities to route the line away from the area and raise awareness about the detriments of a high-speed rail line in the countryside. He has certainly succeeded in the latter goal. The group’s meeting in April drew more than 80 people from an area with only 100 homes. However, their efforts for the former cause have been largely in vain. Transport Minister Phillip Hammond and HS2 Ltd, the company behind the project, have not responded to the group’s letters.

    There is hope for Oxfordshire, though. A spokesman for the Department of Transport claims that “No final decision will be made on whether to proceed with a high-speed rail line or on its route until any scheme has undergone a full public consultation.” If this is true, it is almost certain that the rail line will not run through Oxfordshire.

    Cities on the Peninsula have similarly started to band together to oppose the California Rail Authority, who has decided against using the much preferred trench system to cut costs, but opposition remains scattered throughout many different groups. Lawsuits from a few cities and organizations have driven the authority to reconsider the trench system, but the project seems like it will continue to progress, much to the dismay of many unhappy California residents.

    Palo Alto, Menlo Park, and Atherton, who are at the forefront of the opposition, need to gather support from other cities on the Peninsula to truly affect the future of high-speed rail in the state. It is easy for the California Rail Authority, backed by Governor Schwarzenegger, to defend its position from a few cities, but a united Peninsula coalition would be a tough obstacle to overcome. Maybe Burlingame, San Mateo, and their neighbors should take a page out of the book of Oxfordshire and use collective action to more effectively voice their concerns.

  • 60% of GDP Too Much for High Speed Rail: Vietnam National Assembly

    In a surprise move, the Vietnam National Assembly rejected plans proposed by the government to built a high speed rail line from Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) to Hanoi.

    Some opponents expressed concern that the line would not be competitive with air service. The 900 mile route, which was to operate at up to 186 miles per hour, would take between five and six hours to make the trip between Vietnam’s two principal cities. This compares to the current two hour trip by air. Concerns were expressed that this travel time, combined with fares that would need to be competitive with those of airlines would be insufficient to make the line a viable economically.

    But the strongest objections were expressed with respect to the context of such a large expenditure in a developing nation. The high speed rail line would have cost an amount equal to 60% of Vietnam’s gross domestic product, even before the cost overruns that have typically plagued such projects. This is akin to spending $8.5 trillion on high speed rail in the United States (more than $25,000 per capita).

    National Assembly member Nguyen Minh Thuyet told the Agence France-Press that some children in the Central Highlands can only get to school by swinging on a cable across a river because they have no bridge, questioning the validity of such an expensive project in light of the nation’s low income.

    Photograph: Ho Chi Minh (Saigon)

  • University of California Report Calls Cambridge Systematics High-Speed Rail Ridership Forecast Unreliable

    A just-released report by the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California-Berkeley finds that the ridership projections prepared by Cambridge Systematics (CS) for the California high speed rail system are “not reliable.”

    Authors Samer Madanat (director of ITS-Berkeley and a professor of civil and environmental engineering), Mark Hanson (UC-Berkeley professor of civil and environmental engineering) and David Brownstown (chair of the Economics Department at UC-Irvine) essentially reported that the projections had such large error margins that the system could either lose a lot of money or make a lot of money:

    … the combination of problems in the development phase and subsequent changes made to model parameters in the validation phase implies that the forecasts of high speed rail demand-and hence of the profitability of the proposed high speed rail system-have very large error bounds. These bounds, which were not quantified by CS, may be large enough to include the possibility that the California HSR may achieve healthy profits and the possibility that it may incur significant revenue shortfalls.

    Biased High Speed Rail Projections: Given the overwhelming history of upwardly biased ridership and revenue projections in major transport projects, it seems far more likely that reducing the margins of error would produce projections with much smaller ridership numbers and major financial losses. Major research by Oxford University professor Bent Flyvbjerg, Nils Bruzelius (a Swedish transport consultant) and Werner Rottenberg (University of Karlsruhe and former president of the World Conference on Transport Research) covering 80 years of infrastructure projects found routine over-estimation of ridership and revenue (Megaprojects and Risk: An Anatomy of Ambition). The evidence is so condemning that Dr. Flyvbjerg has referred to the planning processes for such projects as consisting of “strategic misrepresentation” and “lying” (his words) to advance projects that might not otherwise be implemented.

    Broad Concern about the Reliability of California High Speed Rail Projections: The University of California report joins other reports that have questioning the veracity of the Cambridge Systematics projections. During the run-up to the 2008 statewide bond issue, the California Senate Transportation and Housing Committee, chaired by Senator Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach) indicated concerns. Illustrating continuing concerns, the committee commissioned the University of California study.

    Doubts have been expressed by the California Legislative Analyst and the California State Auditor. The Reason Foundation Due Diligence Report, authored by Joseph Vranich and me in 2008 estimated the ridership projections to be at least 100% high (see High Speed Rail: Untimely Extravagance presented at the Heritage Foundation last week in Washington).

    Investment Grade Projections Far Lower: The Cambridge Systematics ridership projections publicized that were used in the statewide bond election were more than 150% above the “investment grade” projections that had been produced by Charles Rivers Associates for the California High Speed Rail Authority a decade ago. Even “investment grade” projections can be high, as the recent bond default and bankruptcy of the Las Vegas Monorail indicates. In that case the “investment grade” ridership projections were 150% above the actual achieved average, nonetheless bond holders lost their investments. (Our 2000 report accurately projected the Monorail ridership).

    Undermining GHG Emissions Reduction Claims: Meanwhile, the California high speed rail proposal has come under criticism with respect to its environmental claims. The high speed rail line has been promoted as a means for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the state. Yet another recently released University of California report indicates that it could take as long as 71 years to save enough GHG emissions by attracting airline passengers and drivers to cancel out the emissions produced in constructing the project. More defensible ridership projections could lengthen this period considerably.

    Response to Criticism: The body of the University of California high speed rail study is 10 pages, followed by approximately 40 pages of comments and response by Cambridge Systematics and a letter from the California High Speed Rail Authority requesting that the University of California authors to consider the comments. This review is performed by the University of California authors, as they reject virtually all Cambridge Systematics criticisms in the final four pages of the report.

    Photograph: Cover of Megaprojects and Risk: An Anatomy of Ambition

  • Curbing Euro-Envy

    Times are tough in the newspaper business. For example, The New York Times used to have a robust fact-checking department. Either the staff has been laid off or maybe they can’t keep up with the errors, either of which could explain the op-ed piece “Europe Energized.”

    Hill’s piece is classic cheerleading. He would have us believe that Europe has significantly reduced its reliance on oil, as its governments have enticed the citizenry out of cars and into mass transit and planes. Starting with the contention that Europe has the same standard of living as the United States, he indicates that Europe has made much greater progress in reducing energy use and carbon emissions.

    In fact, Europe does not enjoy the same standard of living as the United States. In 2009, the gross domestic product (purchasing power parity) was approximately one-third less ($14,000 less). For most households in Europe and the United States, that is a not an inconsequential amount of money. One reason for Europe’s lower rates of energy consumption is its historically lower income levels.

    Hill claims substantial reductions in oil consumption relative to the United States. However, Europe has not sworn off oil. Indeed, according to International Energy Agency (IEA) data, Europe’s oil consumption per capita dropped only marginally more than that of the United States between 1980 and 2006. Nor has Europe done a better job of becoming more energy efficient. Measured in tons of oil equivalence, the United States has reduced its per capita energy consumption more than Europe since 1980, again based upon IEA data. It is, of course, easier to reduce oil consumption with near static population growth.

    EU data indicates that mass transit’s market share in Europe has been declining for decades (like in the United States). Further, despite all the new high speed rail lines, cars and airplanes have accounted for the greatest travel increases. In 1995, airplanes carried a slightly smaller volume (passenger kilometers) than passenger railways, including high speed rail. By 2008, airlines were carrying 37% more passenger kilometers than rail, despite a huge expansion of high speed rail. Since 1995, at least 15 passenger kilometers have been traveled by car for every additional passenger kilometer traveled by rail, high speed or not. Meanwhile, Europe’s truck dependent freight system is less fuel efficient than America’s, which relies to a greater degree on freight railroads.

    None of this is to suggest that Europe does not lead the United States in some fields. There is no question that cars get much better mileage in Europe. By 2020, new cars are scheduled to achieve more than 60 miles per gallon, which is near double the US expectation. Europe is leading the way in automobile fuel efficiency and is demonstrating the massive extent to which improved fuel efficiency can accomplish tough environmental goals.

    Yet, curiously, no interest has been expressed by the Euro-Envious to implement European highway speed limits. Recently, Italy raised maximum speeds on some roads to 93 miles per hour, France, Austria, Denmark, Slovenia and others have 81 mile per hour limits and there are no speed limits on much of the German autobahn system. No US speed limits are this high.

    Having happily lived both within the pre-1200 (AD) boundaries of Paris and the urban fringes of four major US urban areas, it seems that both sides of the Atlantic have their strengths and weaknesses. Detailing them requires getting the facts right.