Amtrak Envisions World Class High-Speed Rail

News Release can be found here: http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/BlobServe ... t_Plan.pdf

A Vision for High Speed Rail plan found here: http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/BlobServe ... 2810LR.pdf
Fair use quote:

PHILADELPHIA – A Next-Generation High-Speed Rail service could be successfully developed in the Northeast with trains operating up to 220 mph (354 kph) on a new two-track corridor resulting in a trip time of about three hours between Washington and Boston cutting in half or better the current schedules, according to a concept plan released today by Amtrak

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To me, it looks like a total pipe dream. Would it be nice if this entire plan was instituted? Yes. Will it happen? Probably not... I just don't see this country putting forth the money to do it.

The reality will be more like "Tea Party envisions World Class Pony Express Service".

Given that the population is expected to double in the northeast by mid-century, I could see massive infrastructure projects as our existing, aging infrastructure becomes inadequate. But I think we're looking so far into the future that there are too many variables to make meaningful predictions.

In the meantime, let's focus on speeding up the NEC, installing new catenary, building new tunnels, bridges, etc.

I found several things about the presentation interesting. First, when (if?) it's finished by 2040, I'll be 88 years old and (if I'm still alive at all) probably in a nursing home, so I won't be riding.

Second, I find it astonishing that they even considered study alignments that bypassed Philadelphia. Philadelphia is the third-largest traffic generator in the NEC, bigger than Boston. Amtrak would have to be insane to skip Philly.

Finally, I think it's interesting to note that since 1970, air travel has grown five-fold while rail has hardly budged. And lest people on this forum start talking about "government subsidies" to air travel, I will point out that:

1) Big-city airports are generally self-supporting
2) Only three new ones have been built since 1970 (Kansas City, DFW, and Denver)
3) Airlines have lost all the money they ever made since Kitty Hawk, twice, yet they're still flying (and traffic is growing)
4) Amtrak, by contrast, carries fewer riders than traveled by rail in the late 1960s

I think, though, that the "studied alignment" makes a lot of sense. In New England, they more or less follow the "air line" route, but with a diversion to Hartford and Waterbury rather than via New Haven. Interestingly, back in the dark days of the 1960s, when planning began for HSR in the NEC, the "air line" from New Haven to Boston was the originally selected alignment. But one major obstacle stood in its way: Senator Claiborne Pell, who was from Rhode Island. So there was no way Providence could be skipped, which of course is a big reason for the slow timings between NYP and Boston. Besides five movable bridges, there are also a bunch of 50- and 60-mph curves, not to mention the 25 MPH through New London. That railroad is really pretty, but hopeless for high speed.

Planning is well underway for a new tunnel to replace the B&P tunnel in Baltimore, but this "vision" of Amtrak's would involve an entirely new route through the city. I'm not sure that's ever going to happen.

It should be interesting to follow what, if anything, develops from this.

And Jersey Mike, lay off the political snark. This is a democracy, after all, even if you don't agree with the electorate. And I will point out, yet again, that the only big cuts in Amtrak service have occurred when a Democrat was president. (Talk is cheap; I look at results).

Can't complain that their vision is not ambitious. Shades of the recent UPenn proposal here, if not lifting from it. A 5 mile tunnel under Baltimore to a new Charles Center Station. A 7.5 mile tunnel under Philly to a underground station at Philadelphia Market East. A 11.8 mile tunnel under NYC stopping at both Penn Station and Grand Central. A possible Inland route corridor through Connecticut, starting at New Rochelle to Westchester Airport to Danbury to Hartford to Woonsocket MA to Route 128 for a radical shift of the northern half of the NEC.

I, too, would not expect the proposal to get that far, but it might change the conversation about how to upgrade the NEC to implement some parts of this, especially the tunnel through Baltimore for the southern end, better & faster access through NYC through something less ambitious than a 11.8 mile tunnel (!), and an inland route through CT. Ignore the current political climate when reading this, this is for a longer term game of years of debate - for which the political climate will change as the US economy recovers.

NellieBly wrote:
And Jersey Mike, lay off the political snark. This is a democracy, after all, even if you don't agree with the electorate. And I will point out, yet again, that the only big cuts in Amtrak service have occurred when a Democrat was president. (Talk is cheap; I look at results).

True, though in '05 GWB proposed zero funding for Amtrak.

Wow, if it was still January of 2009, this plan would have been relevant. Heck, if there'd been a proposal of this sort ready in January of 2009, the early phases might have been funded. Instead, HSR became a mere catchphrase and Amtrak will only get the blowback from the controversy, despite getting frozen out of the now infamous $8 billion. This plan is not too little, but it sure is too late.

It might very well be a good plan, or it might not, but the merits just don't matter at this point.

It's definitely an interesting plan. If Amtrak can build this and SNCF implements its proposed Midwest rail plan, we'll have a Chicago to East Coast rail network with both High and Higher speed rail elements. Now all we need to do is scrounge up a few hundred billion dollars.

As a note, the SNCF plan I viewed was 200+ pages. They clearly are interested in putting the time and effort required to operate HSR in this country. Perhaps that is why Amtrak is starting to be such an HSR booster.

afiggatt wrote:Can't complain that their vision is not ambitious. Shades of the recent UPenn proposal here, if not lifting from it. A 5 mile tunnel under Baltimore to a new Charles Center Station. A 7.5 mile tunnel under Philly to a underground station at Philadelphia Market East.

afiggatt wrote:A 11.8 mile tunnel under NYC stopping at both Penn Station and Grand Central.

A possible Inland route corridor through Connecticut,

It only took 30 years to get the Empire Service trains out of Grand Central and into Penn Station.

afiggatt wrote: starting at New Rochelle to Westchester Airport to Danbury to Hartford to Woonsocket MA to Route 128 for a radical shift of the northern half of the NEC.

Why is Amtrak so in love with Westchester Airport? Mystery of mysteries?

The route north of NY to Boston seems to be designed solely for the sake of novelty. It's is very creative.

afiggatt wrote: I, too, would not expect the proposal to get that far, but it might change the conversation about how to upgrade the NEC to implement some parts of this, especially the tunnel through Baltimore for the southern end, better & faster access through NYC through something less ambitious than a 11.8 mile tunnel (!), and an inland route through CT. Ignore the current political climate when reading this, this is for a longer term game of years of debate - for which the political climate will change as the US economy recovers.

Sure the Baltimore tunnel, in some form, makes sense. However, some other features seem to be deliberately provocative. Perhaps it's an attempt to start a public debate more than a plan.

The real problem is that this plan would take hundred of billions to implement and amounts to a replication of existing infrastructure.

goodnightjohnwayne wrote:The real problem is that this plan would take hundred of billions to implement and amounts to a replication of existing infrastructure.

But absolute costs are not the problem, it's the net benefits that count. If they are projecting a $1b annual operating profit, then monetary wise (nothing else considered), the profit will eventually pay for itself. But only looking at the financials ignores all the other secondary effects of what a new high speed rail corridor would provide.

First off, the Northeastern US currently has a population of 50,000,000 (17% of total US population) located on just 2% of the nation's land area. It has an incredibly high population density, almost two to three times the population density of most European countries with HSR networks. But by 2050, the population of the Northeast is expected to grow by another 30,000,000 people. With current suburban-based development patterns, the amount of land required to contain this population increase will be approximately the same size as Massachusetts.

But with "super-commutes" of two or more hours already beginning to become common, the strain this development would put on our highways is unthinkable. Think current traffic is bad? Imagine a 60% increase in the number of cars on the highways. To meet these demands (without expanded light/heavy/commuter/intercity/high-speed rail service), it would stand to reason that we'd need approximately 60% more highway capacity.

Now this wouldn't be that bad of a problem had the original freeway network plans from the 1950s and 1960s been built as originally conceived, as we'd have about 2 to 3 times as many highways as we currently have. (Taking a drive through Connecticut you'll find a ton of highway exits that are actually the stub-ends of planned freeways that were never built.) But in the Northeast, many of those highway projects got shut down in the 1970s due to community opposition from people who didn't want their neighborhoods bulldozed and environmentalists who questioned the sanity of running so many highways through drinking water reservoirs. But whatever the reason, these highways currently do not exist.

The estimated costs to build these new highways now are unbelievably high: $500m per mile through developed land, and $250m per mile through forested/undeveloped land. The estimated cost to finish Route 11 in Connecticut through mostly undeveloped land is already over $1b and is currently on indefinite hold. Other projects, such as replacing a single highway interchange or major bridge cost several billion each.

So whether the Northeast decides to cope with the increase in population (and economic output) by building more highways or by building a dedicated high-speed rail line, you'll quickly see that the difference in costs between the two options aren't really that great. So we have to compare the projects on other criteria.

If the "build more highways" route is chosen, it would also be expected that there would also be an increase in the number of passenger air flights between the cities of the Northeast. Business passengers and travelers simply do not have the time or patience to cope with Northeastern highway traffic. They need to get to their destination fast. So a fast transportation option is needed between the major cities of the Northeast.

Without high speed rail, it would be assumed that air travel in the Northeast would rise at the same rate as a population increase. But right now there exists a problem. The major airports are already running at or near maximum capacity, and trying to deal with a 60% increase in population will only mean two things: better utilization of "smaller" airports (like CT's Bradley) and runway and terminal expansions at the major airports. Now let's consider airports like JFK, LGA, Newark, Logan, etc. Where is there room for additional runways? Think NIMBYism for trains is bad, just wait until you mention airport expansion.

Thus, expanding airport capacity will be difficult. Probably as difficult as building Amtrak's or UPenn's NE Corridor plans. But even if the airports can handle the expected increase physically in flights, can our skies deal with a 60% increase in short-haul flights? Do we have enough spots along the "skyways" to maintain the minimum separation of planes to avoid having one plane fly in the turbulent wash of another plane? Can the air traffic control systems handle this increase?

So now let's say the joint highway-air plane was chosen instead of expanded rail service. Now while expanded highways along would have been along the same price range as the HSR plans, now they have massive upgrades of the air infrastructure added on top of this... The price could easily start rising well into the twelve-digit range.

But on the other hand, the expanded HSR (as well as expanded commuter/intercity rail service along with rapid transit) can absorb much of the new growth in the region, creating a new infrastructure that allows both local and express service. The HSR service would also greatly expand the commutable distance from the city downtown cores, thus allowing "stagnating" cities like Hartford to absorb growth from cities like Boston or NYC. The HSR would greatly expand economic development potential of the region, thus allowing for new thousands of new jobs and businesses.

Now for those who suggested more gradual steps to improve the existing system, that's exactly what Amtrak proposed in their study. The study says suggests that Amtrak could invest $4.7b annually in the corridor, slowly improving the service over a 25-year timeline. Instead of one big lump sum, the project could be built in much more manageable chunks, with some of the most pressing additions (like new tunnels under the major cities) built first.

All in all, I think this is a wonderful project idea, and one that harken's back to the days when America would set their minds on very difficult projects and then see them through to reality. The first transcontinental railroad, rural electrification, Manhattan Project, Interstate highways, and the Apollo moon missions were all the epitome of the American Spirit. Right now we need a new project that goes beyond generations, that inspires all of us that hard work and sacrifice yields long-term success and rewards, one that shows both this country and the rest of the world that Americans are still capable of doing great things.

I don't get what's so aggressive about this proposal. They're talking about implementing it a few decades from now. if they were talking about an opening date of, say, 10 years from now, I'd call it 'aggressive'.

And I think Amtrak SHOULD be that aggressive. The northeast is the ONLY proven rail market in the US, where HSR is a no brainer. It might work in California, it likely won't work in Florida, it might work in Texas, it's silly in flyover country.

What Amtrak's proposing is what they should have proposed 20 years ago.

kancamagus wrote:The study says suggests that Amtrak could invest $4.7b annually in the corridor, slowly improving the service over a 25-year timeline.

Now where precisely is that $4.7 billion per year going to come from? Congress. Does anyone really think that sort of funding is going to be forthcoming, year in, year out for a quarter century? Nope.

kancamagus wrote: Right now we need a new project that goes beyond generations, that inspires all of us that hard work and sacrifice yields long-term success and rewards, one that shows both this country and the rest of the world that Americans are still capable of doing great things.

This proposal won't inspire anything? What's inspirational about building a HSR line between Hartford, CT and Westchester Airport? Yes, Westchester Airport?

Forget Congress. Since the vast majority of the benefits of this project are to locals and visitors to the NEC, that's who should pay for it.

My solution is both gas taxes and that the airports (BWI, PHL, Trenton/TTN, EWR, Westchester/HPN, Hartford/BDL, BOS) be hooked up to the system, and, in return contribute billions from their Passenger Facility Charges (the same way that Dulles/IAD is paying for the Metro to be extended from DC).

Airports (even Westchester are great places to run railroads, not just for the parking, rent-a-cars, and transit, but also for the rail-to-air connections.

Westchester has about 1m passenger boardings per year...same as Islip..and even if it weren't an aiport, I see it is a good place to put a "Route 128" style suburban station (which New Rochelle...as a downtown...isn't).

Good rail connections would make it possible to run larger (but equally quiet) new jets into Westchester and deliver passengers to NYC. LGA passenger facility charges *should* be used to fund rail service to HPN and TTN since there's nothing left that can be done to make LGA work better, except offload its projected growth elsewhere.

Right now the law says that Airport PFCs cannot be spent on non-airport owned projects. I'd change that to be: must be used on airport-connected projects. (It's a basically good rule: it keeps local politicians from raiding the airport piggy bank for local patronage projects). A good/bad example of this is Chicago where the mayor spends much of his days planning ways of bulldozing whole suburbs with his PFC piggy bank (it was a 3rd airport at Peotone, now its OHare runway reconfiguration).

The reality is that the cheapest way to add capacity to most airports *used to be* adding a runway, but with no more runway space, the best way to add capacity now is shifting local traffic to rail (as has happened at London and Paris). That's essentially the justification at Dulles: National Airport can't grow. The best way to add downtown-connected capacity is to connect Dulles to downtown.

Same here, on a regional scale, benefiting the region, and so most appropriately paid for by the region and its visitors.

I think this study is a good first step in a strategic plan for bringing European- or Japanese-style HSR to the northeast. It presents an idealized plan for what would be built without political, economic/financial or geographic constraints. Should there ever be the political will to try to build a true HSR system, this document would be a starting point on how to do so. That does not mean that the final product would match what is presented in the report. The world would intrude, and the plan would have to be adjusted to deal with political, economic/financial and geographic realities. That could mean changes in alignment, speed, equipment, etc. Thus, the concept that is presented here is probably more important than the details. (Although, this topic show that the details are already being squabbled about.)

That said, I agree with Nellie Bly that the route options that bypassed Philadelphia were simply not believable. I wonder if they were noted solely so that Amtrak could say "see, we're already considered alternatives."