Where to build high-speed rail

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I don’t harbor much hope that our $13 billion commitment to high speed rail ($8 billion now and $1 billion each of the next five years) will be spent rationally. The Federal Railroad Administration is analyzing applications for more than $50 billion in projects. Because there will be more losers than winners, political log-rolling is almost guaranteed.

But wouldn’t it be nice to put the money to work where it would do the most good? In that regard, Eugene Skoropowski has a great idea. Skoropowski, executive director of the Capitol Corridor Joint Powers Authority that runs Amtrak service between San Jose and Sacramento, Calif., recent wrote this to friends:

“Forget population, forget density, forget distance. If there is a large travel market between two major endpoints, then rail ought to be looked at seriously. Then the ‘art’ will be determining the technology/speed necessary to capture a substantial portion of that travel market on rail and the most cost-effective level of investment to capture that market (very high speed, higher speed, conventional speed etc.).”

A great suggestion, Gene, and It turns out that the data exists. A “national household travel survey” in 1995 (updated in 2001) lists the most heavily traveled city pairs. Here are the 10 busiest, and my comments:

Los Angeles-San Diego — Already served by more than a dozen Amtrak round trips a day.
Las Vegas-Los Angeles — Planning for a high speed train using private funding is already well along.
New York-Philadelphia-Washington — Amtrak desperately needs new catenary to support 150-mph speeds, plus new high speed tunnels in Baltimore.
Los Angeles-San Francisco — California is already committing $9 billion toward this corridor.
Sacramento-San Francisco — Amtrak’s spectacularly successful Capitol Corridor needs more cars, trains.
Dallas-Houston — Talk about a crying need! This market is totally forgotten by Amtrak.
Portland-Seattle — A budding state-supported Amtrak corridor could use more investment.
Norfolk-Washington — Virginia is missing an opportunity by emphasizing a Raleigh, N.C.-Richmond corridor.
Los Angeles-Phoenix — Another market Amtrak ignores.
Dallas-San Antonio — The Texas Eagle hardly qualifies as high speed rail.

So these are the places people really travel. It seems to me that California (the state we all love to hate) deserves some credit and federal support for putting $9 billion on the table. Amtrak does, too, if it will replace the 70-year-old catenary that holds down speeds between New York and Washington. The Las Vegas-LA people aren’t asking for federal dollars, to my knowledge. LA-San Diego and San Francisco-Sacramento already are served heavily by Amtrak.

That leaves, among the top ten city pairs, five forgotten or underserved rail markets: Dallas-Houston, Portland-Seattle, Norfolk-Washington, Los Angeles-Phoenix and Dallas-San Antonio. Along with LA-San Francisco and New York-Washington, these five city pairs offer the most opportunity for getting the biggest bangs for the taxpayers’ bucks. When the grants are awarded, supposedly early next year, let’s see whether my cynicism was warranted.

Published Oct 27 2009, 10:14 AM by Fred Frailey

Tags: Amtrak, California

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	prk166 said: I don't blame you for your cynicism. Already we're seeing all sorts of routes proposed that will require lots of resources and yield few passengers. October 27, 2009 1:16 PM
	Victrola1 said: It makes sense, but...... How do you keep Harley's Hornets from stinging it to death? October 27, 2009 3:42 PM
	jeaton said: I used Amtrak schedule miles or Mapquest to get a rough idea of the total mileage of the routes you suggested. Excluding Washington-New York, the other 9 routes total around 2300 miles. Estimated costs I have seen start at $50 million per mile. That is for electrified double track capable of 200-250 MPH, free of grade crossings and including tunnels and viaducts to minimize speed restrictions due to curves and grades. If we use the $50 million per mile figure, and I will admit we would probably be lucky to bring it in at that price, we are looking at $115 billion total for the 9 routes. Of course, this back of the envelope excercise excludes any calculations for the entire Midwest High Speed Rail proposals and many other routes that are no farther alond than lines on a map. My guess is that even staying with markets with routes 500 miles or less, we could easily be looking a cost number of $500 billion. I am not going to get into the arguments as to where the money could or should come from, but I think it is worth noting that the full blown system would probably be a 20 year project and accordingly the annual cost would be in the $25 billion range. However, I would like to offer a potential benefit that would accrue to automobile drivers. I haven't dug up latest numbers, but I believe that current annual US Gasoline consumption is running about 130 billion gallons. The recession has reduced demand from what was forecasted to be at an annual rate of 140 billion gallons. Unless one believes that petroleum companies reduced prices fro $4.00+ to the current $2.70 just because they were making too much money, it has to be concluded that a drop in demand for gasoline was the big factor in the price drop. So I pose this. Is it possible that an extensive high speed rail system would allow a sufficient shift from automobiles to trains to reduce gasoline demand to a point where the cost of the rail system would be offset by saving for gasoline expense? As it is, 25 cents a gallon would do the job. October 28, 2009 10:53 AM
	PhillyDave said: I'm surprised Philly, DC or NYC to/from Chicago isn't on the list. No other inter-region point-to-point is either. October 28, 2009 7:43 PM