By Yoav Hagler, Associate Planner, America 2050
and Petra Todorovich, Director, America 2050
The $8 billion appropriated for high-speed rail projects in the American Recovering and Reinvestment Act earlier this year hangs like a honey pot from a tree, luring states and regions across the country to get rail projects ready for potential funding.
Proposed projects are coming in all shapes and sizes. From the proposed brand-new, 220 miles per hour, high-speed rail system in California ($45 billion price tag) to a proposal for new siding in McNeil, TX, ($6 million price tag) to improve freight and passenger interactions and everything in between, the Federal Railroad Administration now has the task of sifting through hundreds of very different types of funding applications from across the country.
The FRA has outlined specific transportation, job recovery, project readiness, and other public benefit criteria on which to judge these applications. Impartial criteria are critical to ensuring that funding is distributed to only the most worthy projects, in keeping with President's Obama's transparency and accountability goals for ARRA.
A new report released last week by America 2050 argues that while the FRA's project selection process has many strengths, it provides no mechanism for judging projects across corridors to determine where the greatest demand for high-speed services exists. The criteria, for example, give too little weight to regions with the most existing demand -- and thus the most readily achieved future demand -- for high-speed rail.
The new America 2050 report provides its own analysis of which corridors would most benefit from federal investment in high-speed rail. These include the Northeast, the Great Lakes region, California and others, which are described in more detail below.
Defining which corridors are most appropriate for high-speed rail development is critical for the long-term success of this nascent federal program. The $8 billion "down payment" for high-speed rail in the ARRA legislation is only a small fraction of what will be necessary to fully construct an American high-speed rail network.
Although there are many promising projects in smaller travel markets that should be part of a fully constructed network, these will be better positioned for success if the initial $8 billion are invested in projects that can achieve the greatest travel benefits for the largest numbers in the shortest period of time. The projects that are most likely to succeed in the near term are those in corridors with the appropriate density, economic activity, and existing travel markets to support strong ridership on these new services.
To determine which regions are best to focus this federal high speed rail funding, America 2050 undertook an analysis of all the potential corridors to assess the potential passenger demand. The analysis created an index based on six criteria: city and metropolitan area population, optimal distances, connections to transit, economic productivity, auto congestion, and whether the corridor was in a megaregion--networks of metropolitan regions with shared economies, infrastructure and natural resources. The study analyzed 27,000 potential corridors, or "city pairs," and ranked them according to a weighted average of the six survey criteria.
Each of these criteria is integral to assessing the potential success of high-speed rail corridors. As observed in Europe and Asia where this technology has been successfully deployed, high-speed rail is most successful connecting major population centers between 100 and 500 miles from each other with vigorous economies, and supporting local and regional transit systems. Further, the most successful systems connect a constellation of networked cities rather than isolated city pairs. The goal of this analysis was to identify the American regions with the network of cities that could form the basis of a national system of high-speed and intercity rail.
The New York to Washington, D.C., market was the top pair of the 27,000 pairs analyzed. In many ways this city pair typifies the ideal corridor for high-speed rail and shares similar attributes with successful existing corridors around the word. Population density in the Northeast megaregion is higher than anywhere else in the nation, is higher than almost anywhere in Europe, and is similar to densities in Japan. Both cities have extensive transit and regional rail systems to complement intercity rail traffic. Both cities have productive economies and have an extensive existing travel market. And the two cities are separated by just over 200 miles with two major cities in between, Philadelphia and Baltimore. This corridor shares many of the characteristics with the most successful (in term of ridership) high-speed rail corridor in the world, Tokyo to Osaka, which is similar in distance, density, existence of supportive transit systems, and major intermediate cities
Looking beyond the top spot, city pairs in three regions rose to the top of the rankings, the Northeast, Midwest and California. Each of these regions is anchored by a dominant world city, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles respectively, and contains multiple major regional population centers. These three regions also contain cities with high levels of auto congestion and major airport hubs that are burdened with hundreds of daily short-distance flights. Corridors in these regions have the best chance of achieving high ridership, relieving congestion on the regions' highways and airports, and recovering the immense capital costs that are required to build quality rail.
The report recommended that the first phase of a future national network include corridors in these three regions. First, upgrades to the Northeast Corridor to boost speeds between the cities of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C. Second, the first three legs of the Chicago Hub system in the Midwest connecting Detroit, St. Louis and Minneapolis (via Milwaukee), to Chicago. Finally, the first phase of the California high-speed rail system from Los Angeles to the San Francisco Bay Area. This system will be the nation's first "HSR Express" service on a dedicated right of way.
Although investments in "mega" infrastructure projects are necessary to accommodate future population and economic expansion, they are inevitably fraught with risk because of the sheer scale of these investments. Each of these high-speed rail systems will cost tens of billions of dollars of upfront costs to build the infrastructure before a single passenger pays a fare. The FRA's focus on project readiness, local matching funds and organizational capacity will help ensure that the first round of federal funding is awarded to agencies that are capable of delivering the projects on time and on budget. These limited federal resources should also be concentrated in corridors with sufficient population, economic activity, supportive transit, existing travel markets and high levels of congestion in order to maximize the benefits and minimize the financial risks inherent in such large scale projects.
@RegionalPlan
Your article right on. KCI has been working with the Maryland DOT on a FEIS on 250MPH Maglev service between Baltimore and Washington DC . Projections show that fare box revenues will cover all O&M costs and 2/3 capital costs. Extensions to NYC and Boston expected to be self financing.This shows the potential for high speed rail along the Northeast.
High speed rail works well in Europe for the same reason that it would work in any highly concentrated population area, but it has many draw-backs. High speed with steel wheels an steel tracks requires a very stable roadbed. The pounding that steel wheels deliver to the track causes them to misalign. The Japanese tell us that they employ 3,000 workers who make inspections and adjustments on the tracks every night. That is simply unsustainable. And because of the track abuse, there will never be high speed freight trains. And frankly, that's where the money is. Passenger travel is heavily subsidized.
A better idea is MAGLEV. MAGLEV works on the principle that opposing magnetic fields holds the vehicle suspended over the guideway, while a linear synchronous motor pulls the vehicle forward.
MAGLEV has virtually no impact on the roadbed and because of that, can carry very heavy freight loads without damaging the guideway. Freight will be profitable, and will need no subsidies.
In passenger service Maglev would have a less heavy burden of subsidies then conventional High Speed rail.
There is no mechanical friction and therefore the energy consumption is much less than HSR.
In addition, it is quiet, creating a comfortable ride for the passengers and an unobtrusive neighbor where it operates.
These are the benefits as openers, but there more.
I agree with the above writer on Maglev over general high speed rail. I find it strange that we have not followed the Chinese and the Germans on such lines, and having had a small role on the Acela see this as a viable move for saving energy and an invigoration of our own transit system.
I just read the paper about where high speed rail works best. I am very excited about the momentum developing toward a comprehensive high speed rail system and applaud the research.
I did have one question for the authors regarding phase 1. The plan shows phase 1 connections from Chicago to the the twin cities and Chicago to St. Louis which together total about 700 miles of rail line. With construction of 700 miles of rail line, you could alternatively (assuming equivalent costs) connect in phase 1 Chicago, Toledo, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia (and the northeast corridor line)
A C,T,D,C,P,P line brings many more top 50 pairs such as Chicago-Cleveland, New York-Pittsburgh, Phila-Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh-Wash, Cleveland-Phila, and Detroit-Phila relative to Chicago-STL and Chicago-Minneapolis. Connecting high speed corridors creates additional pairs and synergy.
Any thoughts on why a C,T,D,C,P,P line connecting to the Northeast line would not be prioritized and moved to phase 1?
-Jeff
(Baltimore)