Chugging Into the 21st Century

By Jon Davis

After decades of proposals and pining, high-speed passenger rail got its biggest boost in the U.S. in 2009, when President Barack Obama launched both a new strategic plan and the High Speed Intercity Passenger Rail Program — and backed it up with $10.1 billion.

That money — $8 billion from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and $2.1 billion over two years via the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act — was meant to jump-start U.S. high-speed rail development and begin catching up to Europe and Asia, where such service is par for the course. Conventional wisdom says the 2010 midterm election derailed that plan as conservatives took over the U.S. House of Representatives and state capitols around the nation. New governors Scott Walker, John Kasich, and Rick Scott forsook $2.4 billion of high-speed rail funds slated for Wisconsin, Ohio, and Florida, respectively, effectively killing the Obama administration's first round of passenger rail showcases. And we all know what's happened in Washington, D.C., since then with budget matters.

But outside the spotlight, plans for U.S. high-speed rail service are moving forward — nowhere more than in California, where a true high-speed rail system is close to breaking ground. "It all comes down to California. Because of the real high-speed rail projects, California is the one," says Rick Harnish, executive director of the Chicago-based Midwest High Speed Rail Association.

Most of Amtrak's trains operate at a top speed of 79 miles per hour, which is about half the speed of most European and East Asian passenger trains (and even slower than many pre- and post-World War II streamliners here at home). Most of the current federally funded passenger rail improvement projects fall under the heading of "higher speed" rail, meaning speeds of 110 mph to 125 mph rather than "true" high-speed rail, which operates above — sometimes well above — 150 mph.

Only Amtrak's Acela service hits 150 mph, and that for only 28 miles along the Northeast Corridor between Boston, New York City, and Washington, D.C., although Recovery Act funds are being used to upgrade tracks and catenary wire between Trenton and New Brunswick, New Jersey, which should allow 150 mph operations along an additional 20 miles.

The basic idea for high-speed rail development dates back to the 1980s: Incremental improvements from current conditions to speedier service will attract more passengers while bolstering regional economies, and build the political will and support necessary to take the final steps to true high-speed service. The idea is still sound because proponents of true HSR won't get the public's or politicians' support for doing it all at once, says Steve Schlickman, executive director of the Urban Transportation Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

"The incremental approach brings them along gradually to see why it's a good investment," he says. "Practically speaking, I think that's the only way you can do it."

Money talks

If you measure response to the ARRA, the idea is plenty popular. For the federal government's $10.1 billion in available funds, 39 states and D.C. submitted $75 billion worth of project applications, according to the Federal Railroad Administration.

The FRA website lists 52 construction projects worth $2.7 billion under way or already completed across the country, and an additional 12 projects worth $1.4 billion about to get going. Some are simply (in the context of this article) station improvement work. Others are state passenger and high-speed rail plan developments. Many are track capacity expansions, new bridges, grade crossing safety improvements (including outright closures), the separation of both rail-rail and rail-street crossings at grade, and signal upgrades to higher speed service.

Also, $268 million was allocated for purchasing seven new locomotives and 48 passenger cars that will replace those dating back to the 1980s and earlier on Midwestern routes. Those locomotives and cars are designed to run at speeds of up to 125 mph.

California first

Of all HSR programs, public or private, California's is the only one about to break ground — assuming a recent state court ruling doesn't derail the project's funding scheme.

Created in 1996, the California High-Speed Rail Authority is in charge of building a new 520-mile, $67.6 billion system that will link the Los Angeles basin and San Francisco Bay areas by 2028, offering trains in excess of 200 miles per hour and trips of less than three hours versus the approximately five-hour, 37-minute drive along I-5 cited by Google Maps. Future extensions will expand service to Sacramento and San Diego, creating an 800-mile link between the state's major population areas and serving them with up to 24 stations.

Construction of the first leg, the 300-mile, $31.2 billion "initial opening system" from Merced in the fast-growing Central Valley to Palmdale in Los Angeles County, is scheduled to begin later this year and start providing one-seat service (meaning passengers don't have to switch trains) by 2022. Service will be added in stages: Extensions to San Jose and the San Fernando Valley are scheduled to open in 2026, followed by the full system by 2028.

The CHSRA authorized the first design-build contract in August 2013 for 29 miles between Avenue 17 in Madera south to East American Avenue in Fresno. Two months later, the authority issued a request for qualifications for the 60-mile segment from Fresno south to a mile north of the Tulare-Kern County Line (north of Bakersfield). The authority received five replies in January and expects to award that contract, worth between $1.5 billion and $2 billion, later this year.

California is also unique among U.S. high-speed rail projects for its funding source. In 2008, voters approved Proposition 1A, authorizing $9.95 billion in bonding authority, to kick plans into high gear. That helped the state get another $3.3 billion from the ARRA (including some of the money surrendered by Wisconsin and Florida) for planning and environmental work.

Gov. Jerry Brown's proposed 2014–15 budget offers a further $250 million in HSR funding from the state's carbon cap-and-trade program, along with $50 million for urban, commuter, and other intercity rail projects — one of which will be electrification of the Caltrain Corridor between San Jose and San Francisco by 2020. That will not only pave the way for HSR service to downtown San Francisco, but also will benefit rail commuters on the peninsula.

But on November 25, 2013, Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Michael Kenny ruled the CHSRA cannot tap the voter-approved bonds for construction. As the Los Angeles Times reported, Judge Kenny ruled that the funding plan violates state law and that "state officials made key errors and failed to comply with legal requirements as they moved the project toward a long-awaited groundbreaking."

The state's supreme court in January 2014 ordered an expedited review of Judge Kenny's rulings by an appellate court, and ordered that written arguments be completed by February 10. The CHSRA had asked the supreme court to block Judge Kenny's rulings by March 1, warning of indefinite delays otherwise.

Judge Kenny ruled on March 4 that the CHSRA can be brought to trial in a separate lawsuit filed by Kings County and two residents there alleging the authority's financing plan violates the original Proposition 1A. The CHSRA appealed that decision on March 6; at press time, the suits await rulings in California's Third District Court of Appeal.

Pending the legal process, Jeff Morales, the California High-Speed Rail Authority's CEO, says the agency is proceeding toward breaking ground sometime this spring.

Routes

The initial California system will be a blended one, meaning that rather than build a dedicated HSR-only right-of-way from terminal to terminal, it will mix with existing freight and commuter rail lines into San Francisco and Los Angeles. A blended system is cheaper to build from scratch, and can be upgraded in later years as passenger demand requires. Such was the French model when TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse, or literally, train of high speed) service began in 1981 between Paris and Lyon, Schlickman notes.

The authority's draft 2014 business plan, an update of the 2012 plan, released on February 7, 2014, for public comment, estimates not only a lower startup cost ($67.6 billion versus $68.4 billion in the 2012 plan), but also greater ridership and economic rate of return.

Its "medium" forecast projects 10.4 million annual riders along the initial segment by 2025, 32.1 million annual riders by 2035, and 38.5 million by 2060. Over those same years, the medium scenario projects revenue from fares at $578 million, $1.5 billion, and $2 billion, respectively.

It also identifies a way for high-speed train sets to be made in the U.S. (a point affecting the proposed XpressWest service between Palmdale and Las Vegas; see below). In January 2014, CHSRA and Amtrak issued a joint request for proposals for train sets that can operate up to 220 mph for both California and the Northeast Corridor.

Morales says the CHSRA also aims to build a ready base of riders by working with cities where stations will be located to encourage local transit links and transit-oriented development.

Nor is the authority intending to rely on fare box revenue alone. Taking a cue from the Japanese HSR system, which develops up to 40 percent of revenue from non-ticket sources, including ownership stakes in nearby real estate and revenue from in-station retail, Morales says the authority is studying what could be done here.

Stations, he says, can be much more than the terminals of 20th century railroading lore. Modern HSR stations in other countries are places where people go not just to take a train, but to meet, shop, or dine — essentially shopping malls with very fast trains.

"We see around the world examples for economic development — and they're huge," Morales says. "We want to make sure our stations are not just turnstiles, but economic hubs."

California laws mandate both sustainable development and reducing greenhouse-gas emissions — both of which help boost TOD — and where HSR stations are to be sited, Morales says. "Our station locations are pretty much laid out in law. ... in some cases we're providing funding to help them with their own planning efforts. We're also investing in local transit services that would then connect in to our system," he says.

While the authority doesn't have "a flat-out mandate" to require local transit connections, "we are working to encourage them in that direction," Morales adds.

But in addition to the ongoing legal challenges, political opposition remains. On February 6 (one day before the CHSRA released its draft 2014 business plan), the Sacramento Bee reported that Republicans in the state assembly proposed a referendum asking voters whether to redirect $8.5 billion in Proposition 1A bond money to "local transportation infrastructure projects," meaning roads. Democrats remain in control of the assembly and governor's office, so this idea is not likely to get on the ballot, but it illustrates continuing political opposition to high-speed rail.

Midwest hub

Passenger rail plans for the Midwest have long envisioned Chicago as the hub of a regional system, with spokes extending to the Twin Cities, Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and beyond. Both good news and bad has followed since 2009.

The bad news: Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker returned $810 million in ARRA money that was slated for extending Amtrak's popular Hiawatha service between Chicago and Milwaukee to the state capital, Madison. This was also supposed to be the first step toward improved, higher speed service between those cities and Minneapolis–St. Paul.

The money included funds to purchase new train sets from Talgo — the Spanish company that supplies equipment for Amtrak's Cascades service between Eugene, Oregon, and Vancouver, British Columbia — for the augmented Hiawatha service that was to have begun last year.

Talgo, which had established a factory in Milwaukee to build new trains for Hiawatha service, sued Wisconsin for $69.5 million in November 2013, alleging the state breached its contract for two trains built but never turned over to the state. The company also alleges the state reneged on its 20-year maintenance agreement for the trains and has defamed Talgo's professional reputation.

In Ohio, Gov. John Kasich rejected $400 million in ARRA funds, killing the state's 256-mile "3C" passenger rail plan that would have linked Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus, and Cleveland.

Some of those states' funds went instead to California.

The good news: Trains in Amtrak's Wolverine service between Chicago and Detroit and Pontiac, Michigan, are already running at 110 mph on a 97-mile stretch of Amtrak-owned track between Porter, Indiana, and Kalamazoo, Michigan — the first place outside the Northeast Corridor where trains do so (that began in February 2012). The state used $346.5 million in federal HSR funding to buy another 135 miles of track from the Norfolk Southern Railroad and upgrade it to allow 110-mph running speeds between Kalamazoo and Dearborn.

The service upgrade is already boosting ridership and revenue. According to Amtrak, ridership jumped 5.2 percent (from 484,138 passengers to 509,100) and revenue 9.6 percent (from $17.7 million to $19.4 million) on Wolverine service between Chicago, Detroit, and Pontiac from FY 2012 to FY 2013.

The Chicago–St. Louis spoke is nearing full 110-mph service, as well. Trains began running at that speed in November 2012 along the 15 miles between Dwight and Pontiac, Illinois. Plans call for full 110-mph operation between Dwight and Alton by 2016, and to Joliet by 2017.

So far, $1.3 billion has been spent or allocated to improve the corridor, while another $1.25 million has been allocated for a Tier 1 Environmental Impact Statement analysis to double-track the entire corridor.

And even though construction has affected Lincoln Service trains between Chicago and St. Louis, Amtrak data show ridership surged 9.7 percent from FY 2012 to FY 2013 — from 597,519 passengers to 655,465 — as revenue soared 22.7 percent, from $13.35 million to $16.4 million. Little wonder, then, that Harnish says "we're on the cusp of something really big here in Illinois."

Schlickman agrees that "it's very important for Illinois to complete" the Chicago–St. Louis 110-mph upgrade. "It's going to be an eye-opener to a lot of people, and I hope it will serve as justification for further investments like that here and throughout the country," he says, "because we don't have a lot of examples to point to.

"That will hopefully become the poster child for better passenger rail service. People in this country still don't know, for the most part, what it means to have better passenger rail service," Schlickman says.

(In October 2013, the Illinois Department of Transportation also released a $1.2 million study showing a true high-speed rail route between Chicago and St. Louis via Springfield and Urbana-Champaign, where the University of Illinois's flagship campus lies, is feasible and could be profitable but expensive — at least $20 billion; up to $50 billion if branches to Indianapolis and St. Louis's Lambert International Airport are included.)

Neither is the notion of passenger rail in Ohio completely dead. The Northeast Indiana Passenger Rail Association is spearheading an effort to create a new, higher speed corridor between Chicago, Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Columbus, Ohio. The group's business plan, released in January 2013, envisions 110-mph service to start, bringing Chicago and Columbus within three hours and 45 minutes of each other, with eventual upgrades to 130 mph. Compared to Google Maps' estimate of approximately five hours and 30 minutes (and that's if traffic is light on Chicago's infamously jammed Dan Ryan Expressway), the travel paradigm-shifting potential for this corridor is clear.

The group is currently raising money for design work and a Tier 1 EIS. "This is so important to them that so far, they're doing it on their own," Harnish says.

Elsewhere in the Midwest, Illinois also received $177.3 million to restore passenger service between Chicago and Moline, while Iowa has a Tier 2 study in progress to expand service from Moline to Iowa City. (A Tier 1 study of the Chicago–Omaha corridor has also been completed.)

Almost $71.4 million has been allocated to uncork rail bottlenecks in northwest Indiana. In Minnesota, the proposed Northern Express service between the Twin Cities and Duluth got $5 million in federal funding for a Tier 2 study, and a Tier 1 study of the Twin Cities–Rochester, Minnesota, corridor is under way.

Other noteworthy projects

Of myriad other proposed high-speed rail projects, one is close to breaking ground, while another is claiming to be America's Bullet Train.

The privately owned XpressWest (formerly DesertXpress) would link Palmdale, California — where it would connect to both the California high-speed system and Los Angeles's Metrolink — and Las Vegas via the I-15 corridor with 150 mph trains. The company's website suggests hotel check-ins, dinner, and show reservations could be handled aboard the trains.

According to the company's website, all state and federal permits are in hand. XpressWest opted to forego federal grants to avoid the federal "Buy American" requirement for its trains. Not without reason; there is currently no capacity within the U.S. to build true high-speed rail rolling stock. The site's "American Manufacturing" page details its own plan to encourage manufacturers to locate and build equipment onshore.

For funding, XpressWest applied in December 2010 for a $6.9 billion loan from the federal Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing Program. It says another $1.4 billion will come from private capital.

Schlickman says he's not convinced that Las Vegas as a destination is enough to make a successful project. "They need to show they've done a good ridership analysis," he adds.

The Texas Central Railway is a private enterprise envisioning a high-speed link ("America's Bullet Train," says its website) between Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston, offering 90-minute trips at speeds above 200 mph, using off-the-shelf Japanese train sets, within the next 10 years. The Central Japan Railway Co. (JR Central), which operates Japan's Tokaido Shinkansen bullet train between Tokyo and Osaka, is involved, so this one may bear watching.

Even so, Schlickman cautions against comparing the U.S. to other countries' HSR systems or programs. With different geographies and different transportation systems, U.S. planners can learn from other countries' efforts, but not everything they did will be applicable here, he says.

"We have to not worry about how other countries did it," Schlickman says.

Jon Davis is a freelance journalist in Chicago.

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Resources

Images: Top — By 2029, passengers on California's high-speed rail will zip from San Francisco to the Los Angeles basin in under three hours. All told, the system will stretch 800 miles with 24 stations. The vision includes major investments in local and regional transit connections. Bottom — California's depots could offer so much more than high-speed rail: Shopping, dining, and meeting places are options. Renderings courtesy hsrca.gov.

California High-Speed Rail Authority: www.hsr.ca.gov

Chicago–Columbus, Ohio, Corridor Study: http://niprarail.org/2013/06/passenger-rail-corridor-study-released

Federal Railroad Administration's HSR Overview Page: www.fra.dot.gov/Page/P0060

Midwest High Speed Rail Association: http://midwesthsr.org

Texas Central Railway: www.texascentral.com

XpressWest: www.xpresswest.com