VP Biden hosts High-Speed Rail round-table with state leaders today

I'm looking forward later today to a round-table conversation on high-speed rail hosted by Vice President Biden.  

President Obama has already made it clear that high-speed rail is part of his plan to transform the American transportation system. And there has been a great outpouring of political will around rail that tells us America can build and operate effective high-speed service.

Last week, I had the great pleasure of learning more about high-speed rail. I rode the AVE from Madrid to Zaragoza with Spanish Development Minister Jose Blanco. Do you know the Spanish have a goal of establishing high-speed rail stations within 30 kilometers of 90% of all Spaniards by 2020? Now, that's ambition.

I also rode the TGV in France from Paris to Strasbourg. And, at a conference in Germany, I was able to talk with German Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee about Deutsche Bahn high-speed rail.  

You have never met a group of people so proud to talk about their rail systems, the environmental benefits, the mobility benefits, the job-creation benefits.

Several governors who are interested in establishing high-speed corridors in their regions will be at today's round-table with Vice President Biden. I'm very interested in hearing their vision of what high-speed rail can do in the U.S.

As we begin these discussions about the future contours of American high-speed rail, we'll have a lot to talk about. It's a conversation this Administration is ready to host.

Comments

[Stephen Van Beek]

Those are great systems Mr. Secretary. One attribute that they have that we should aspire to is to have rail systems better integrated with our metropolitan airports. Unfortunately, current FAA rules discourage this integration by restricting airports' from using their own revenue on rail infrastructure on airport property unless it is exclusively used by airport passengers. Mr. Oberstar has a good provision (section 113) in the House's version of FAA reauthorization that would begin to change this (at least for 5 airports and their use of PFCs). FAA policy could follow this example and be changed to modify exclusive use to a pro-ration of airport passengers.

Hopefully USDOT will encourage FAA and FRA to work together to provide HS Rail proponents with the incentives to have their systems integrated like those in Spain, France, the Netherlands, and other nations.

Steve Van Beek

[Andrew]

I'm in favor of high speed rail as long as the individuals cost is subsidized to remain within the pocket book of low income Americans. That might involve applying for a swiper pass card that gives you a discount based on whether your disabled, on a fixed income, poor etc.

More importantly though I'd like to see light rail connecting suburbs and outlying communities to the inner city. The same type of swiper card would be involved perhaps provided through application, retirement offices, Doctors offices, schools etc. Make the application process easier by allowing the office that placed you on disability supply it, or the doctor or the IRS. I'm tired of trying to explain my disability to a secretary and I cant write anymore. Then there's the online form fill out that tosses you off the site if you make a mistake, losing all your data so you have it all to do again.

[Jed]

Please consider top speed as well. I know overall speed increases to the 90-150mph range will do wonders to our network, but we should be thinking bigger.

We put men on the moon, invented the internet, and thought big with our highway system. We should have the best trains in the world.

[Design New Haven]

Transit will only work if the transit stations are efficiently connected to communities with attractive walking and cycling routes. Bicycles should be allowed on the trains as well.

Otherwise, you might as well forget about the potential of HSR to revitalize our communities, economy and public health.

Hope that you can bring up at the meeting the fact that pedestrian and cycling infrastructure/planning is grossly underfunded in this country.

[Jesse]

High-speed rail is fantastic and well worth the investment. California desperately needs rail travel as the state is far too dependent on automobiles. What will happen to California citizens when gas prices rise to $4.00 or *gasp* $5.00 a gallon. It's inevitable and rail is a great solution. Not only is it good for the environment, it will generate economic growth and improve human connectivity as well as density patterns.

Rail travel received $8 billion this year thanks to Obama. But that's pennies compared to the $42 billion highway fund.

Obama, please correct this inequity and fund rail at the same level you do for roads and highways.

[Jesse]

Europe, Japan, and China have impressive rail systems. It's about time that the United States catches up.

[CHristopher]

We so desparately need high speed rail. NOW is the time. After World War 2, in record time we helped reconstruct the rail and infa-structure of Europe. Lets do it here
at home. It is long over due. Mr.
Secretary with the VP, make it a national mandate and fast track high speed rail. Please don't forget us in the west!! We need it the most.

[Palle R Jensen]

A new and exciting kind of high speed rail is being developed in Denmark and will be demonstrated at the Climate summit in Copenhagen in December 2009.
It is a dualmode monorail system where all the vehicles can use a monorail for the fast part of the trip and leave the monorail to drive the last mile via the normal roads. It is called RUF (Rapid Urban Flexible). www.ruf.dk
See also:
www.ruf.dk/qa.pdf
www.ruf.dk/recommendations.pdf

[Greg Cohen]

Will DOT be doing a cost/benefit analysis of the plan? It is critical to understand the full costs, subsidy per passenger, subsidy per passenger mile, % of trips that will take place on rail and comparable alternative investments. Without a full analysis, it is hard for taxpayers to know if the money is being well spent. Also, what is the source of revenue for the program? Highways & aviation are funded through a trust fund paid by users of those modes. Will the rail program also have a similar trust fund paid by rail users? Thanks!

[Paz]

Glad to see you guys being so proactive. Let's see some trains zipping through the midwest!

[equity trading]

This is a great example how public policy priority and funding has shifted. A high speed rail will be a long term advantage to our economy and quality of life. It is about time.

[Richard Campbell]

High speed is the only form of long-distance transportation that does not face a shakey, uncertain future. The airline industry is not profitable, has no proven alternative to oil, and is becoming an increasingly miserable experience. Gas prices are certain to rise and the world's oil supply will run out sooner or later, leading to the end of gas powered automobiles. in a world where wages where stagnent even before the recession, it is uncertain that electric cars will ever be an affordable alternative even if technical and practive hurdles can be overcome.

Even if by some miricle the problems facing flying and driving can be overcome, high speed rail is still a faster, more affordable, greener and more comfortable form of transportation for trips between 100 and 500 km. Compared to the trillions of dollars we collectively spend on flying and driving, the cost of high speed rail is a relative bargin. By not building high speed rail, we risk our economic future.

[michael willis]

"M-497"
"On July 23rd 1966 the New York Central Railroad unveiled something radically new ... a railcar with a pair of jet engines taken from a US Air Force bomber and a long sloping nose. The M-497 rolled out of the New York Central Railroad shops to prove what the French could do in the way of speed tests with existing equipment could be performed elsewhere, as for example, on the flatlands of Ohio and Indiana."
"It sounded like a jet aproaching in the sky, to the residents living near New York Central tracks between Butler, Indiana and Stryker, Ohio. It was a jet all right, but it wasn't in the sky. Along the HIGH IRON whooshed the M-497 like a fighter plane, leaving a solid trail of dust and trackside spectators taking cover along the way. It also left something else...a new rail speed record in the United States of 183.85 miles per hour!"
"The tests of the M-497 proved that conventional equipment and track could be used for high-speed-rail service after all."
What would have seemed like a QUANTUM LEAP INTO HIGH SPEED RAIL IN THE USA was not to be...a few weeks after the high-speed-train demo...
"The New York Central Railroad announced during a press conference for abandonment of all existing passenger train services-(probably with the hope of)- replacing the existing rolling stock with-(hopefully fairly subsidized like the highways)-newer high-speed shuttle-train service between 80 cities paired for this type of service. The service would be frequent, and the speed would be eminently competitive with- (taxpayer-subsidized)- air and highway competition"---How in the world could the tax-paying US Railway industry compete with a taxpayer-subsidized air/truck-highway-oil triclops" Its like Little League taking on Major League Baseball! Have the ambulances on standby...
President Obama identified 10 high-speed-rail corridors, does Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood have any historical information regarding the 80 high speed corridors listed by the New York Central Railroad?
Quoted: Courtesy the New York Central Railroad, American Railroads in Transition-author Robert S. Carper, 1968 A.S.Barnes & Co, Inc. ISBN: 0-498-06678-9

[Walt Brewer]

Lest we forget, urban rail systems were discarded decades ago for the vast majority because they do not provide the on demand flexible doorstep to doorstep direct transport to random destinations modern productivity and social interactions require. Speeding up trains and buses is not a fix. The RUF type of personal rapid transit comment above is a far more practical and useful approach to real world urban needs. HSR has some applications in very dense inter-city corridors. But attempting to extend it as the article,and especially comments imply, to the flexible personal transportation the vast majority need is counterproductive.

[Nathanael]

Excellent! I'm glad to see you're learning about high speed rail. Priority one is revising our antiquated FRA safety regulations; Europeans don't build trains to be heavy so they're "crashworthy": they make them light and fast (with crumple zones of course), and then they build signal systems to make crashes nearly impossible.

We should adapt one of the functional European high-safety signalling systems (all with 'positive train control') rather than reinventing the wheel. And install said system nationwide.

Meanwhile, can we please get a third, passenger-dedicated track on the Empire Corridor, a pair of passenger-dedicated high speed tracks from Chicago Union Station to Indiana, and some of the other fully-designed, shovel-ready plans to prepare for NY-Chicago high-speed rail (benefiting all of those along the middle of the route)?

It's funny that your blog is called "The Fast Lane" and has a big highway picture up at the top. It doesn't encourage me to expect any good news about trains. Have you considered changing it? Now, if it were called "The Express" and had a picture of a racing Acela....

[BruceMcF]

Its also critical to sort out the regulatory deadweight at the FRA. The problem is not so much that the heavy freight rail standards are designed the way they are ... but that they are the only standards in place. We need a set of standards for Express HSR, and we need a set in the middle for Rapid Freight rail / Emerging & Regional HSR. As it is now, unless it is designed to inter-operate with heavy freight rail, its a thicket of case by case waivers and exceptions, and that is no foundation on which to rebuild a US manufacturing base in this area.

[Hawaii Solar]

Yes, I totally agree that we need high speed rail, especially now, in the 21st centery. I just so tired of slow rails.

[John N]

I'm looking forward to the results of the computer modeling -- like already used to justify FTA New Starts investments -- that will forecast the High Speed Rail ridership in 2030, and thus reveal how much traffic congestion and greenhouse gas emissions will be reduced.

[John Webb]

The development of high speed rail systems in the US is a welcome and long overdue priority.

That said, what plans are in the works to improve the longer distance (transcontinental) services that presumably would not be high speed rail? How would the proposed HSR system impact current long distance Amtrak services?

Hopefully planners are at works on this.

[Peter Muller]

High speed rail provides faster service when it has fewer stations but provides better accessibility when it has more. This dilemma can be solved by integrating a personal rapid transit (PRT) collector/distributor system into the rail system. The cost savings of the rail stations that can be eliminated could go a long way to paying for the PRT system and the combined systems will provide a much higher level of service with wider coverage, thereby enticing a higher ridership.

The Swedes are ahead of us on this concept and are seriously investigating PRT last-mile service between commuter rail and downtown business districts. The UAE has started construction of an auto-free city dependent on PRT for internal transportation. The British have a PRT system about to go into public service at Heathrow. We need to start catching up!

[railwayist]

"THIS IS THE LAST WORD IN RAILWAY TRANSPORTATION"!
The Olympian electric locomotive #10254 built by ALCO-GE (American Locomotive Company-General Electric) in 1919 was equipped with 12 BI-POLAR gearless motorized bogies. At 76 feet in length and weighing 521,000 lbs, it "afforded MILWAUKEE ROAD passengers the smoothest and most comfortable riding in the history of railroad travel"!
"This is the last word in railway transportation" observed THOMAS A. EDISON in 1919 when he inspected one of the BI-POLARS, but Mr. Edison was "unaware that even Milwaukee's 660 route-miles of electric cantenary lines across Western mountains would be shadowed by diesels"
THAT WAS 90 YEARS AGO... What do you think Mr. Edison would have to say about the OIL SLURPING TRANSPORT SYSTEM in the U.S.A. today?
What kind of surface transport system would be in place in the U.S.A. today if electric railways continued to flourish for the last 90 years?

quoted: Some Classic Trains by Arthur D. Dubin, Kalmbach Publishing Co., 1964 Library of Congress #64-14749

[railwayist]

MICHIGAN TECH/IBM GLOBAL RAIL INNOVATION CENTRE PARTNERSHIP:
The Michign Technological University Rail Technology Program(mtu.edu) is close to 2 years old and the IBM Global Rail Innovation Centre(ibm.com) opened up last week.
What does this tell you?
That the RAILVOLUTION is gaining steam...so it's time for more of America's businesses, industries, schools & colleges, citizens & media to hop on this train as it departs the station---or be left behind---this is the TRAIN OF THE FUTURE!
There is no passenger railway route to Houghten, Michigan the home of Michigan Technological University (MTU), but there is plenty of high-speed rail service to & from Beijing, China the new home of the IBM Global Rail Innovation Centre.
How about convincing IBM to go (PPP) Public-Private-Partnership to manufacture -in Michigan- a 'BIG-BLUE EXPRESS RAILWAY' connecting the isolated city of Houghton, Michigan to the rest of the U.S.A.? Students attending the Rail Technology Programme should have the option to travel to & from the university by rail.

[railwayist]

"See America now by Pullman-Lowest Rates in History!"
"EXCITING NEWS! As a feature of "Travel America Year" The Pullman Comany(in association with America's railroads) is offering a sensational travel bargain...the Pullman 1st class "Grand Circle Tour Plan". Make Pullman your traveling home while touring the country! Numerous combinations of routes! Big savings on rates!"
"Under this plan you can tour the entire country, at the lowest rates in history. You can see both Coasts. You can choose fro many available combinations of routes---with extraordinry stopover priviledges. And---you go in air-conditioned Pullman comfort, with Pullman's famous safety and dependability. You have plenty of space by day, and complete privacy at night. You enjoy a wide choice of accommodations, including berths, sections, various types of private rooms...No other form of transportation offers equal service, comfort, convenience."
"If you live on a "through" route you can take part of your trip, then complete the balance later, so long as you finish the entire trip within 60 days. No matter how many days and nights your trip takes, the Pullman "Grand Circle" charge is only $34.50(for a minimum accommodation)---or $17.25 each if two people occupy this same accommodation. On a long trip, the railrate is only 1&1/3cents a mile...which is less than half the standard point-to-point rate. Taken together, the Pullman and rail rates can save you up to 50% or more on usual rates(compared to point-to-point tickes bought at local rates)."
"Enjoy comforts you cannot get in other forms of transportation at any price! Make it a trip to be remembered. See friends and relatives you may not have seen for many years. Visit famous vacation spots. View landmarks in thehistory of this country...Now is the chance to see America. Now is a chance to enjoy a travel 'bargain' that may never be offered to you again."
copyright. The PULLMAN COMPANY. 1940

[DPuthoff]

If somehow (though we cannot) we could instantly build a 300 mile TGV line in an urban area in the U.S., people would beg for more. Most U.S. citizens have never experienced U.S. 1940-1950's conventional rail travel, let alone the smooth ride of a French TGV at 200 mph.
We now have several generations of train-deprived travelers. Many equate rail travel to what they have experienced at an amusement park or on a tourist railroad. They likely associate high speed land-based travel to bumpy rides they have experienced when jetting down a runway.

[Jeremiah]

I have three comments.

First, I am an undergraduate student of civil engineering. I was appalled to find the opportunities to learn about railroading were all but nonexistent. This is very important to understand when we talk about railroad technology. The deficiency of railroad education in academia reflects the professional railroad skill our nation possess. This is a nation that has built incredible air and auto systems, but has all but forgotten about rail. We need to renew the railroading curriculum in the universities; it is far too important of an industry to institutionally forget.(See TR News July-August 2008; Building an Education Infrastructure for Railway Transportation Engineering: Renewed Partnerships on New Tracks)

Second, I believe that if high speed rail (HSR) is to be successful in a country built around the auto we must fundamentally shift our approach to transportation in terms of planning, financing, and policy making. I do not believe that we can expand the highway system to meet demand and develop a successful HSR system. (After all, this is not a sustainable practice.) We must commit to HSR in terms of new development and expansion in transportation infrastructure.

Finally, a short study in the history of railroading would prove that the railroad galvanized industry, employment, economy, technology and education. There is every reason to believe that HSR would bring the same benefits in today’s more sophisticated society.