Comments on: Administration convenes state officials to discuss HSR

By: F.K. Plous

F.K. Plous — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 18:58:36 +0000

The Interstate map was based on a simple formula: Connect all U.S. cities of greater than 50,000 population, a politically appealing but logistically dubious method of constructing an efficient land-based transportation system. The map was sold on the basis of fast, comfortable long-distance car travel, but the vast majority of the non-truck VMT on the Interstates is accounted for by local and regional commuting. I would hope the coming U.S. passenger-rail system–which I sincerely welcome–would be thought through more serious.

By: Alon Levy

Alon Levy — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 18:38:30 +0000

The US has no project ten times the size of Spain’s. The FRA corridor map and Yonah’s fantasy map both have about the same route length as Spain’s project. Remember that Spain’s connecting a lot of tiny cities to the HSR network, whereas the only lines to nowhere on the US maps are Boston-Maine, Dallas-Little Rock, and arguably Portland-Eugene.

By: MadPark

MadPark — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 15:57:29 +0000

Rockfish @8. I’d agree, and have written here and elsewhere that this project will require a 30+ year commitment, and a trust fund with monies distributed without fear or favor but rather on the merits of the project.

By: Rockfish

Rockfish — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 14:57:00 +0000

Interestingly, $200B over 11 years is exactly what Spain has committed to completing its network. You know, the one veryone points to as an HSR success story.
We, have a project 10 times the size of Spain’s and are barely able to come up with 6.5% of the money for ONE year. (Does anyone really think this funding will get re-appropriated every year by Congress?)
Sure, first steps are good, but lip service is still lip service. This $13B will disappear down a corrupt rathole of favors and political payoffs, and we’ll have nothing to show for it.

By: Christopher Parker

Christopher Parker — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 04:09:11 +0000

Biden is right. It took the early freeways of the 1930’s and initial leadership by states before we really got anywhere like considering a national system. We’re not at 1956 yet, we’re still in the thirties. Remember it was in the 1890’s when the roads movement really began.

By: Alon Levy

Alon Levy — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 19:53:06 +0000

more if we want grand results on par with what Eisenhower put into play

The grand results include bridge collapses, excessive overbuilding leading to outrageous maintenance costs, and continued subsidies from urban areas to rural areas.

By: Adirondacker

Adirondacker — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 07:22:19 +0000

in 1955, it had a map with authorized routes for freeways and a national network towards which to work was evident from the start.

In 1955 they had been studying the system for 30 years, of course they could spit out a map, all they had to do was dig out a copy of the Pershing Map from 1922, fiddle with it a bit and Voila an Defense Highway system.

They also had the example of the limited access toll roads in the Northeast, Midwest and California to point to.

…. We’ve been talking about high speed trains since the passage of the High Speed Ground Transportation Act of 1965. They should have been able to spit out a map. Lets hope they do something this go ’round.

By: Jarrett at HumanTransit.org

Jarrett at HumanTransit.org — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 07:20:03 +0000

Someone in the pre-internet era called the Interstate system “the world’s largest exercise in Soviet-style central planning.” Not even the Soviet Union ever attempted to build anything in such a completely uniform way across a vast territory. As we all know, the Federally enforced uniformity of the Interstates had all kinds of negative effects, from needless expenditures in low-traffic rural areas to huge swaths of destruction in big cities.

The Interstates are an interesting comparison, too, because like HSR they invite dreams of a uniform national network but are used almost entirely by traffic going much shorter distances, trips at the state and local scale.

So I hope Biden’s boast is over the top. Federal funding is a good thing, but I’m not sure a corresponding Federal dominance of HSR policy would be. I hope what we’ll see is continued leadership from states (or consortia of adjacent states) to plan promote each corridor, triggering vigorous competition for Federal funding but ensuring clear control of the product at the scale where the product will be used. There’s a real risk that an overly prescriptive Federal role would only stifle innovation at a time when that’s what we most need.

What’s the worst that could happen from an approach that respects and demands state leadership? Europe’s nations are the size of US states, yet Europe is somehow piecing together a world-class network from initiatives that happened entirely at that scale.

Would a Europe-wide authority have done it better? Isn’t the diversity of European approaches to HSR — diversity that a central funding approach might have suppressed — one of the great things about European rail as a laboratory and proving ground for these technologies?

By: Jeff

Jeff — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 04:33:21 +0000

What do you think of the President’s national HSR network routes? How does it stack up to the city pairs and other analysis you did in your proposal?

By: Jake

Jake — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 03:07:14 +0000

Couldn’t agree more. You hit the nail on the head with this one. If we want to get serious about HSR, then we need to treat it as equal, if not greater, than the Interstate system is treated and was treated at it’s birth.