High Speed Rail in Texas

[CMStPnP]

Looks like they are making some headway but still a little early in the game:

http://impactnews.com/dfw-metro/grapevine-colleyville-southlake/rail-plans-moving-faster-this-year/

[Anonymous]

Here is a link to Texas Central Railway's web page. http://www.texascentral.com/about-texas-central

Two things strike me from reading the railways web page.  It is long on platitudes and short on facts.  Also, most of the leadership team appears to have been pulled together because of their ability to pull the right political levers in Washington and Austin.  This is important.  However, if I had a dog in the hunt, I would like to see some engineers in the leadership team.

The DART Board did not have any engineers in leadership positions.  As a result, the board members did not even know what technical questions to ask let alone evaluate the answers that they got. This is still the case as far as I can determine from the DART bios.

According to the article in Community Impact, the cost of the project is estimated to be $$7 billion. The article did not say whether this included the cost of the equipment. In any case, when debt service is tacked onto the cost of the project, the total will be well north of $7 billion.

The project will have to borrow money in the capital markets, as opposed to using government funds, although it might be able to qualify for municipal financing. The average yield on Friday (Bloomberg) for investment grade bonds was 4.03 per cent.  If the project were funded at this rate, the cost of the project over 30 years would be $12.034 billion. This assumes that all the debt would be issued today, and paid back over 30 years. These assumptions are not realistic, but they show that the total cost of the project, assuming no cost overruns, will be north of $12 billion.

If the train takes 90 minutes to get from Dallas to Houston, it is likely to take longer to get from Fort Worth and Arlington to Houston.  Southwest Airlines currently fly's from Love Field to Hobby Airport in 1 hour flat, thereby beating the proposed train by 30 minutes.  Of course, the train would not be competing just with airplanes. Its major market may be the people who drive.

I would be keen to see the detailed proposals for the project, including how it is to be financed. I would also like to know how the proposals will be audited (tested) for veracity.

 

[V.Payne]

Step 1, Call it a Highway and get a Federal General Fund transfer for the capital...

Well seriously, seems like with the SNCF's consulting arm also doing the study of this route and finding that it would cover operating costs and a portion of capital cost the question of the macro demand between the two MSA has been covered by two independent groups with real world experience.

As to micro demand, or travel time savings versus air or automobile, I would suggest something along the lines of the Metro Flyer concept from Martland and Lu of MIT. Remember though that the perception or utility of time is the key question not the total time, but even the total time would probably be less than air if this layout was adopted.

www.mit.edu/~uic/TRB-handouts.ring.8.1.pdf

Essentially, the arrangement seeks to maximize the in vehicle time/single seat time without the disruptions of transfers by creating large loops around the terminal metro areas. So how much do you value your time sitting in I-635 trying to get to DFW or Love? Yes, that guy really did forget to put air in his tires, hence the blowout,  as you were wondering for the last 30 minutes while you were crawling along. Do you really enjoy the parking shuttle stop bench seat in the middle of an 10 acre asphalt parking lot at DFW in a Texas summer?

So at both Houston and Dallas/Ft. Worth, there would be three branches, a east, west and north/south from downtown, with each branch going 15-30 miles away from downtown in a loop. Along the loop would be stations at 5 mile spacing and of course airport stops. So the entire metro area now feels like it has a mini-airport right next door, within a easy drop off by a co-worker, friend, spouse, or cheap taxi trip. The volume generation of this type of arrangement is immense. No, none of the plans that I am aware of have added such a feature.

This also explains the wisdom of not terminating those short haul rail corridors downtown only, but extending them to form as long chain of origin destination pairs as possible, hopefully with perpendicular route connections. I have a few other ideas on capital coverage but they are political (change of current funding silos)but isn't everything.

[CMStPnP]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=k6igUibrfwc

[V.Payne]

Capital:

I just realized that not everyone knows that Texas already has a legal mechanism to pay for the Capital as a Pass-Through toll/fare (Shadow Toll), it just has to be compared to a highway's non-user funding objectively and found to be better and then inserted into the future year budget, which is where negotiations occur. A pass-through toll is where the government takes money from a fund, either fuel taxes or other taxes, and directs a portion to a project on a variable measure for financial discipline where the user would not be willing to pay for the benefits (due to our expectations set up by the leveraging of the Interstates IMO off excise taxes on local roads). I am sure there would be some other major political questions for such an expenditure. I think P3s are still on hold though in Texas. Those of you in Texas probably know something of the toll road blowback that happened with the Trans-Texas Corridors.

 

ftp.dot.state.tx.us/pub/txdot-info/tta/ptf_guidelines_2011.pdf

 

Transportation Code, §222.104(b) authorizes the Texas Department of Transportation to enter

into an agreement with a public or private entity that provides for the payment of pass-through

tolls to the public or private entity as reimbursement for the design, development, financing,

construction, maintenance, or operation of a toll or non-toll facility on the state highway system by the public or private entity….

 

Transportation Code, §91.075(b) authorizes the department to enter into an agreement with a public or private entity that provides for the payment of pass through fares to the public or private entity as reimbursement for the acquisition, design, development, financing, construction, relocation, maintenance, or operation of a passenger railway facility or a freight railway facility by the entity. This subchapter prescribes the policies and procedures governing the department's implementation of these statutory provisions…

 

In establishing the level of pass-through fares or parameters within which the department may

negotiate the level of pass-through fares, the commission shall consider whether:

 

(i) the project's estimated benefits to mobility warrant a pass-through fare at a

level that is more or less than the department's estimate of project costs;

(ii) the project will result in a significant economic gain or loss to the entity

responsible for its development;

(iii) the public or private entity proposes to share in the cost of the project; and

(iv) the state or the public or private entity will benefit, and to what extent, if the

project is built sooner than would be the case in the absence of a pass-through agreement.

 

(B) Limits on pass-through fare levels.

(i) The commission will not approve payment by the department of a level of

pass-through fares that exceeds the department's estimate, except as permitted by this

subparagraph. The commission may approve the department's payment of a level of pass-through

fares that exceeds the department's current estimate, but only by the difference between the

department's current estimate and the department's estimate for the time when the project would

likely have been completed in the absence of a pass-through agreement.

(ii) In determining the level of pass-through fares, the commission will not

consider any financing cost incurred by the public or private entity.

 

(2) Payment schedule and method.

(A) Payment schedule. The schedule of pass-through fare payments will be calculated

based on the department's traffic projections for the railway and a number and frequency of

payments to be negotiated between the department and the public or private entity. The payment

schedule may include a maximum and a minimum periodic amount to be paid annually or in

total.

(B) Variable payments. The pass-through fare may vary on any basis that reasonably

reflects the value of improvements, the nature of the railway traffic, or benefits to the highway

system, including:

(i) number, type, and class of passengers;

(ii) type of freight;

(iii) tonnage of freight;

(iv) number or type of cars;

(v) mileage traveled; or

(vi) characteristics of track.

(3) Allocation of risk.

 

(A) Cost overruns and underruns. Unless otherwise authorized by the commission and

incorporated in a pass-through agreement by the department, the department's liability under a

pass-through agreement shall be neither increased nor decreased by cost overruns or underruns.

Pass-through fare payments by the department shall not be increased if there is a cost overrun or

decreased if there is a cost underrun unless an adjustment is specifically authorized by the

commission and incorporated in a pass-through agreement by the department.

 

(B) Traffic volume. If traffic volume exceeds or falls below expectations, the pass-through

fare will not be adjusted. Payments shall not exceed the maximum annual amount

specified in the pass-through agreement and shall not be below the minimum annual amount

specified in the pass-through agreement….

[V.Payne]

Some recent news ... "This project is among the most viable in the U.S., according to previous rail studies... The D/FW area’s population is expected to grow from around 7 million now to 12.6 million by 2035. Houston’s is expected to grow from 6.4 million today to 12 million in 2035....

But with that growth comes continued congestion. TxDOT predicts the 4 hour drive time between Dallas/Ft. Worth and Houston will increase to 6.5 hours by 2035." Good night, more than 50%.

The airfare is a relatively short stage so the per mile average airfare is quite high from 2012 USDOT data at about $0.65/passenger mile.