Obama Calling For $53B For High Speed Rail

Antisyzygy writes "President Obama is calling for $53B to be appropriated for the construction of high-speed rail in the United States over the next 6 years. Assuming Congress approves this plan, the funding would be spent on developing and/or improving trains that travel at approximately 250 miles/hour, as well as spent on connecting existing rail lines to new developed high speed lines."

Comments

Its not the speed that is the problem.

[suso]

It doesn't matter if it goes 250mph if it sits on the track for an hour waiting for right of way. Granted, this is just one experience, but from reading up after it happened, it seems to be the norm. Back in 1999 I decided to take a leisure trip out to Arizona from Indianapolis and I decided to take a train for fun. Instead of a speedy ride up to Chicago, we ended up waiting for an hour on a side track to get right of way. On the way from Chicago to Flagstaff, AZ, at one point we sat on the tracks during the day for 3 or 4 hours waiting again for right of way. On the return trip the train was 5 hours late getting back to Chicago and I missed my connection train back to Indianapolis.

Sure, you can build a high speed train, but if its run by Amtrak and exists in this countries rail system mentality, it will quickly become worthless. Fix the real issues.

Re:Its not the speed that is the problem.

[icebike]

Amtrak runs on commercial rails. They've always been a second class citizen.
But I agree you can't run passenger rail on freight tracks and expect either high speed or prompt routing.

But you needn't worry about it, because this is never going to happen.
Someone should point out to Mr. Obama that he already spent all the money. We couldn't possibly afford this now.

Re:Its not the speed that is the problem.

[VirginMary]

Yes, I had a similar experience to you: The rail connection between San Diego and Los Angeles is also just a single track for part (most?) of the way. Two major cities not far apart and they can't even put in two tracks. As a European living in the US, I find this mindboggling. I bet that most emerging countries don't have this problem! Truly pathetic! I often tell my friends in Europe that the US is a weird mix between a 1st and a 3rd world country. And don't even get me started on health insurance here!

Re:Its not the speed that is the problem.

[suso]

High speed rail would need its own right-of-way.

Well of course, but we're not just talking about upgrading the northeast passage are we? We're talking about upgrading the entire infrastructure. One that's been built over 150+ years and includes many tunnels, bridges and cuts over large areas of land. Most likely they are not going to build a second set of tracks. Someone down the line will say "Hey, we can cut the costs in half if we just upgrade the existing tracks" Perhaps they will build new tracks, but that's probably going to cost a lot more than 53 billion. Its likely that they will build such a set of tracks so that they are dual use for both passenger service and freight, so we're right back in the same boat. And because they are politicians and don't have to deal with the details of their plans, they will just make token changes that seem to solve the problem, but really don't.

To really have something like they do in France or Japan, we have to really want it and there has to be a generation of people who want to really make it great and support it, and I don't think we have that anymore. In Japan, a 3 hour rail ride across country doesn't sound so bad when compared with a 45 minute plane ride plus 45-60 minutes waiting in an airport + 30 minutes parking, etc (about 2 hours). But in the US it would be a 12 hour rail ride cross country (even at 250 mph) vs. a 4-5 hour plane ride.

Re:Its not the speed that is the problem.

[somersault]

For what it's worth, I used to enjoy walking to work. I still ponder ditching the car from time to time, it would save me money overall. I used to be all about "faster" too, but when I was forced into walking (lost my license for three months a few years ago) I found I enjoyed it, relaxed, and actually ended up feeling I had more time because I had more time to think, and I stopped wasting so much time watching TV etc, because I actually started going for walks in the evening as well. The exercise of course helped me to feel better too, so I've made sure to keep up with it. So many people say they have no time, when it's just a matter of stress and tech addiction making them feel that way. It's so easy to piss away the hours checking for messages on Slashdot, Facebook, gamng, whatever..

Re:Its not the speed that is the problem.

[LeRandy]

Indeed you are right. Over the kind of commute distances in the USA, and given the vast urban, suburban and semi-rural sprawl that characterises large parts of the US, it's very true. Mass transportation doesn't work in large parts of the USA, due to the low densities of housing. Unless you count Aircraft. Which seem to work fine as a mass transit system (see later!)

High speed rail (and by high speed I mean anything that goes at 100mph+) can help with shrinking the sprawl effect though. If you do high speed right, you can co-ordinate express commuter and long distance high-speed trains. The Japanese do it on the Shinkansen. The British on their High Speed routes. The Germans... need I go on.

I used to commute about 20 miles (in each direction) every day, from a commuter village near a small city to a business park in a much larger city. That involved a 10 minute bus ride, followed by a 12 minute train ride, followed by a 5 minute metro ride, followed by a 10 minute walk. That journey took an hour, including all changes, door-to-door. In rush-hour traffic, you're talking about 50 minutes drive. So, despite all those changes - what kept the journey time down? Spending those 12 minutes on the train at (or near) 100mph. It meant I could do 16 of those miles in 12 minutes. I tried going the whole way on the (more frequent) bus. Add 30 minutes.

So High Speed rail can help in the daily commute. In the UK, daily commuters to London come from as far away as Yorkshire (170-200 miles). They can do the bulk of their commute in 1hr 45 minutes.

The big trick with commuting using high-speed rail is plumbing the high-speed rail system into the cities' mass transit systems at either end. By doing this you can start to make longer-distance commutes effective by public transport. Most European cities have their subway, light rail and bus networks closely tied into the intercity train system, usually sharing station sites. That makes a difference. Even just making the nearby city bus routes stop at the front of the station can make a huge difference to this. That's where I think agencies like RTD in Denver have the right idea - bring the trains and the buses into the same place.

The other important thing is that the FRA (Federal Railroad Administration) need to get their heads out of their backsides and quit imposing utterly ridiculous crashworthiness standards on the trains. On a high-speed rail system you put the crashworthiness (or lackofcrash-worthiness) into the infrastructure itself, not the trains. That's what the entire rest of the world does. It means you can use light, efficient train sets, allowing the commuter trains to accelerate all the way to 100mph+ at the same rate as a light rail vehicle. It also reduces the maintenance required to the route, making both the trains and tracks cheaper to run, because of the reduced axle-loadings and lower energy costs. The imposition of a "Positive Train Control" system over the entire existing intercity networks will go a long way to preventing crashes, and once it is implemented, the FRA really need to reconsider their approach.

To be honest, any approach to high speed rail would likely take 20-30 years to truly bed-in. "Transit oriented development" needs to be more than a buzzword - it needs to become second nature - for a true change to work. That means people need to get in the habit of thinking "I will buy this house because it is near a good bus route" or "This house is only 10 minutes walk from the station" in the same way that people currently think of "only 5 minutes from the interstate". That's when the big changes will start. But to get there, you need to reduce the barriers to using transit, and consider raising the barriers for running a car. High Speed Rail can form a part of that.

The final question is what is being competed against? In most of the developed world, the high-speed train networks are often geared around being competitive with airlines on journeys in the 100 - 400 mile area. If you site your stations well, and use

Re:Its not the speed that is the problem.

[Tetsujin]

>>>like they do in France or Japan

Why would we want to imitate two countries that have spent the last 15+ years in economic decline (called "the lost decade" in Japan)? That would be akin to saying, "Let's model our system on the fallen empire of Rome." Um. No thanks.

Cars offer more flexibility than trains do (you can hop in your car in the middle of the night - can't do that with a train). Cars also offer more options (can drive to the beach tomorrow - can't do that with a train).

Yeah, but trains offer you the ability to spend your travel time doing something other than driving. You can sleep, watch movies, play video games, whatever.

Compare the experience of a delay or layover on a train to the experience of being stuck in traffic - in either case you may stress out about whether you'll reach your destination on time, but in the case of train travel you can relax and count on the train crew to work it out. You aren't operating a vehicle as it creeps forward in a hundred miles of stop-and-go traffic, you are in a comfortable seat with easy access to your luggage, there is a toilet available and probably a snack car.

Train travel is relatively expensive and I'm not fond of that aspect of it, obviously - but what I love about it is that it's so relaxed compared to flying or driving. I don't have to deal with the elaborate security that airports have, and I don't have to be driving for ten hours straight. I do have to be sitting in a train for a long period of time (hours, overnight, whatever) to get to my destination - but most of the time I have access to a power outlet and the freedom to use my computer. It's an enjoyable way to travel.

It's true that with trains, as with flying, you wind up at the destination station with no means of travel to your real destination. One could rent a car or get a cab or whatever - I agree it's a problem, a fundamental limitation of traveling that way. Still, in some cases this limitation is perfectly OK - I can travel to DC and have my in-laws pick me up at the station, or travel to Baltimore or Pittsburgh and walk to the con center, things like that.

None of the trains I've ever been on have run (close to) empty. They're usually (in my experience) filled to capacity for most of the trip.

Re:Its not the speed that is the problem.

[rsclient]

One simple way to tell if we've "spent all the money": do really, really rich people still feel comfortable lending us money for long periods at low interest rates? 'Cause those people aren't dumb, and they'd sell their own grandparent to make more. ....survey says.... we just sold $24 billion of 10-year notes at 3.66%. I'd say that everyone who is rich disagrees with you.

And lastly: basic economic data is that when countries are in a recession, they should increase government spending (especially on infrastructure like rails). Countries that cut spending then tend to fall further into recession.

Re:Why do we need high speed trains?

[DragonWriter]

This isn't a troll, I would really like someone to explain the situations where a high speed train is better than an airplane or a car.

Its faster than cars and more energy efficient than cars or aircraft, and, as I understand, the stations are smaller for their capacity than aircraft making them easier to locate in convenient places and integrated efficiently with local public transit networks.

The security will be just as bad as at an airport if the government runs it, especially considering that just as many trains get bombed by terrorists as airplanes.

As apparently a large number of people have forgotten this in less than a decade (judging from the comments on topics like this on Slashdot), the event that precipitated the creation of the TSA and the intense focus on airline security wasn't airline bombings, it was hijacked airliners being used as a manned bombs against high-population targets chosen by the hijackers. This is somewhat impractical with trains which, even if they are hijacked, have very little freedom of maneuver once the hijackers take control.

Wouldn't we be better served either putting that 53 Billion into our roads and infrastructure?

High-speed rail is infrastructure and, as such, is not an alternative to "roads and infrastructure".

Re:Stupid Idea

[Flammon]

Your oil propelled vehicles are not sustainable.

Most people can't reason that far

[SmallFurryCreature]

They see it as simple as this. My debt is 1000 dollars, my food bill for the year is 1000 dollars so I stop eating for a year and all my troubles will be over... eh yeah... they will.

China is not just catching up, it is not in danger of going in front, it is already there. The Chinese just build the high speed railnetworks that break record speeds over record lengths and order a new train model in the HUNDRETHS. They are re-colonizing Africa often rebuilding the same railroads the Brits used for pretty much the same reason. Get their hands on the amazing amount of raw materials they are going to need and raw materials the US will find it far harder to get.

People tend to think of the US as this superpower but forget that pre-WW2 they were nothing. America entered the war late and we all know what happened when they finally were forced to enter. They got their asses handed to them. It wasn't until the Americans got their act together and ramped up their massive potential that things turned around. And then America fell asleep again under Reagan with the same exact attitude that had led America to become a sitting duck to Japanese expansion. Except this time it is the Chinese and the Chinese need not fear the waking of the American giant. It is to fast asleep and the Chinese are pretty damn big themselves and growing rapidly.

The world is changing and America is watching the Super Bowl on its fat asses believing the bread and circusses. Saw some of it on the BBC and my god it was pathethic. Linking a silly sport with world events? How self congratulitory can you get?

The US is living in a dream world where its economy is in tatters, production is going down hill, it is involved in wars it can't win, has more people in jail then any other country only being beaten per head by ruthless dictatorships and can't even build a 2nd rate rail network...

It is truly sad because unlike most people who see China beating the USA I don't think that is good thing for anyone even people in China. The Chinese government ain't nice and we don't want to see a Chinese run Britisch empire reborn thank you very much.

So America, get of your fat asses and show some of that can do spirit. Do you really want to be known as that place where road bridges are falling apart and everything is made in China?

Re:Stupid Idea

[noidentity]

I propose a new term: recovery theater - things done to give the appearance of recovery or helping it, while they have no effect or a negative effect.

Re:Stupid Idea

[dachshund]

High speed rail for the US is a dumb idea. We have an EXTREMELY functional interstate system for local travel, and for all other domestic travel we have airplanes (very efficient and low cost if tickets are bought in advance. Don't like fees? Fly southwest).

When you make transportation policy, you need to plan for between 10 and 40 years in the future. In other words, you probably shouldn't base your policy on today's SWA airfares.

You may not have noticed today's Wikileak cable, but in the opinion of US diplomats, the Saudis have been dramatically overstating the size of their oil reserves. The plentiful cheap oil from Saudi Arabia is what's keeping flights and car travel relatively cheap. As the global economy comes out of its stupor, there's a very good chance that we'll be headed towards dramatically higher fuel prices. As in, you're in the last few years of cheap air travel --- enjoy it.

This problem may not be insurmountable for highway driving, assuming we can get widespread electrification and a huge network of charging stations. But it looks to be a bad time for air travel --- absent major breakthroughs in coal fuel conversion (and the willingness to dramatically increase coal usage across the board), driving and flying are probably not going to win the future.

Re:Way To Cut Spending!

[moonbender]

A deficit is something your grandchildren will be paying off. But building infrastructure like this is an investment that your grandchildren will continue making a profit from, too. Certainly a better long-term investment than fighting an overseas war.

BICYCLES

[johnrpenner]

hope they have integration with bicycles -- if the new system is anything as good as germany's existing system, it will be amazing. in germany, they have an incredible integration of subway and regional trains, and all station platforms are level with the train - so you can roll bikes on and off the train at any stop, and it continues with bike paths.. it makes getting from A-B with bikes and trains pretty seamless. although, in america, maybe just having a place to lock your bike up at the station might be considered progress.