» Passage by State Senate needs to be followed by House approval; Illinois would be third in the nation to specifically plan for very fast trains.

Considering the infusion of federal funds earlier this year for the state’s rail system to be only a first step towards a truly upgraded network, the Illinois State Senate last week almost unanimously approved a measure that would create a commission to evaluate the implementation of true high-speed rail service there. If passed as expected by the State House and signed by the Governor, bill SB 2571 would make Illinois the third in the country after California and Florida to actively promote the implementation of trains operating at over 150 mph.

In January, the U.S. Department of Transportation allocated $1.13 billion for upgrades to the St. Louis-Chicago mainline, enough to speed trains to 110 mph and connect the cities in just four hours. Then, in February, the state received $100 million in TIGER funds for its CREATE project, which will clear up freight and passenger rail congestion south of Chicago.

In addition, with significant support from Democratic Governor Pat Quinn, Illinois has already committed $400 million of its own funds to advancing rail internally, the second-highest state contribution after California. The Golden State’s citizens made a $10 billion pledge in 2008.

The Illinois Senate’s bill will create the Illinois and Midwest High-Speed Rail Commission whose mission will be to develop by March 2011 a roadmap for true high-speed service in the state. Though the legislation does not designate a specific corridor for future investment, the Chicago-St. Louis corridor, which passes through Champaign (location of the primary branch of the state university) and Springfield (the state capital), has already been studied for 220 mph operations and closely matches in demographics of some of the world’s most well-used fast train systems.

The bill would encourage the commission to explore how to create a public-private partnership (PPP) to design, build, and operate a fast rail network and provide recommendations about how to fund the system. The mess that followed Chicago Mayor Richard Daley’s privatization of its parking meters seems to have had no effect on the interest of Illinois legislators in putting what is clearly a public good into private hands. There is little actual evidence that PPPs have been successful in reducing taxpayer expenditure on new high-speed rail lines.

Nonetheless, the commission has yet to announce its conclusions about financing and route selection. Nor does it have the right to single-handedly institute new revenue sources, meaning that construction of a true high-speed line is in no ways assured. The Chicago-St. Louis corridor alone would likely cost at a minimum $12 billion to upgrade to 220 mph top speeds, fast enough to allow for a two-hour link between the cities. In the middle of a recession, Illinois will not be willing to pass over such funds without serious preliminary study, and nor will the federal government, which is likely to be handing out billions of dollars in further rail grants over the next decade.

Political agreement on the creation of the commission, coming from both Democrats and Republicans in the State Senate, underscores the sense among Illinois residents that Chicago should be the nation’s rail capital. It also suggests that there is common ground in the thinking that current plans for 110 mph service won’t provide the kind of speed improvements necessary to take full advantage of the rail system, a reasonable assessment. Yet while the creation of the commission is a definite advance, the state will have to commit more funds if it wants to compete with California and Florida for true high-speed rail.

Image above: Chicago Union Station, from Flickr user egvvnd (cc)

Update (13 October): State of Indiana has applied for $2.8 billion in funds on behalf of the Midwest Regional Rail Intiative for a 110 mph line connecting Chicago and Cleveland.

Update (6 October): Federal Railroad Administration head Joseph Szabo released the following news earlier today:

“We have received numerous applications from states and groups of states for the development of high-speed and intercity passenger rail programs for grant funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.  These include 45 applications from 24 states totaling approximately $50 billion to advance high-speed rail corridor programs. We also received 214 applications from 34 states totaling $7 billion for corridor planning and smaller projects.”

All awards, according to the statement, will be announced this winter (for the $8 billion). This means that the states applying for the second round of high-speed rail (applications due in Spring 2010) will have to rely on Congress authorizing more money for the program…

Update: New York has submitted a proposal for $7.9 billion (inflation-adjusted) in investments in its Empire Corridor, making it the biggest project on the list yet announced. Pennsylvania has added its own proposal for $3.1 billion in funds.

More than forty states submitted $100 billion in proposals for stimulus funding of high-speed rail projects in July. Those applications were preliminary, but they followed with more serious applications at the end of August for the Federal Railroad Administration’s first, third, and fourth tracks of rail financing, which include small project construction and corridor planning. Last week, a number of states completed their final application for the FRA’s second track, which is designed for corridor-level construction on a much larger scale. These projects, unlike those submitted for consideration in August, do not have to be shovel-ready. The FRA will determine which states receive financing in the beginning of next year.

Though the list I’ve compiled below is not necessarily complete, it provides a basic overview of the states that have announced their applications thus far. Project costs total $18 $30 $50 billion — far higher than the $8 billion thus far committed to high-speed projects in the United States, and coming in addition to the almost $7 billion for which states applied in August. Clearly, there is far more demand than supply for these funds.

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The state that submitted the second biggest proposal, California, has a major rail program underway, and there’s a lot to be said for why it should receive the lion’s share of federal funds. It is the only state whose taxpayers have made a serious commitment of their own to fund their rail program.

But North Carolina, Florida, Oklahoma, and Virginia have also submitted multi-billion dollar bids for money, arguing that their corridors deserve federal help. It remains to be seen how Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood will decide to spend the cash, but it would be inappropriate for federal funding to ignore local efforts. But would it make sense for Oklahoma and California both to receive $2 billion, when the latter had already agreed to spend $10 billion of its own money, while the former has done nothing of the sort?

In a September meeting in Georgia, Mr. LaHood was asked whether that state would receive federal dollars for high-speed rail. He responded: “It’ll come to Atlanta if Georgia gets its act together… There has to be a commitment by state government that transit is important.” This kind of rhetoric is helpful, because it provides a clue for how the U.S. government will determine funding.

The Department of Transportation has yet to establish how it will measure the efficacy of various proposed rail projects. The government will release a draft national rail plan later this month, a document which should provide some clues about Washington’s goals for intercity rail. Initial plans suggested that the government would release funding for Phase I corridors (those submitted in August) in late September, but there has been no news on that front. It would be appropriate, after all, if the government provided funding after describing its goals for the rail program.

There is also the question about how much of the $8 billion the federal government will distribute for each of the funding tracks; some states are planning to wait for round two of applications, which will be due in Spring 2010. For instance, Minnesota is planning to apply for $200 million in track 2 funds for the Midwest Regional Rail Initiative, Northstar, and the Northern Lights Express — but only next year. New Hampshire has temporarily delayed action on a planned line between Nashua and Concord, with the expectation that it will be able to demand funds later. How much will the DOT have already committed by then? Will there be any money left?

Of course, Congress has a role to play here as well. If the $8 billion included for high-speed rail in the stimulus was a good start, it clearly isn’t enough to rework the American rail system, which is hardly the paragon of quality service. President Obama requested $1 billion in additional annual appropriations for rail for the next five years, but that isn’t enough to meet the demand; the House has suggested a $4 billion grant for this year alone, but the Senate has yet to sign on. James Oberstar (D-MN), Chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, has proposed a $50 billion allocation to rail over the next five years, but his efforts to see a new transportation bill passed have been delayed repeatedly by disagreements in the Congress about how to find money.

Nonetheless, the deluge of applications from states suggest that congresspeople increasingly have strong constituent desires for increasing the pot of federal rail allocations. Whether Congress will follow through on that incipient desire, however, is another matter.

» But the fastest route would stop at the city’s airport rather than downtown.

Though state of Minnesota has not been the most active advocate of new rail connections, a faster connection between the Twin Cities and Chicago has been an ubiquitous component of proposals for high-speed rail in the Midwest. The corridor’s termini are set in stone, but its exact route is not. Whereas existing Amtrak service runs along the Mississippi River from La Crosse, Wisconsin to St. Paul, residents of Rochester and the surrounding areas are pushing for the improved line to run through southeast Minnesota. A new study demonstrates the advantages of such a detour, but its lack of connection through downtown Rochester could ultimately prove to be a major limitation.

The Southeast Minnesota Rail Alliance report compares several different routes through the state, including the 130-mile existing corridor that parallels the river and a new 170-mile line that would extend west of La Crosse, through Rochester, and then north to the Twin Cities. The latter route’s primary advantage is that it would connect to the rail link the 100,000-person population of Rochester; it is the state’s third-largest city and a major employment center, notably as a result of the presence of the Mayo Clinic. The population of areas within 20 miles of the Rochester route is roughly twice as high as that of areas near the river line, not counting the Twin Cities.

Including Rochester would undoubtedly increase ridership on any rail line since the river route reaches no cities of significant population for the entire distance between Winona and St. Paul. With 110 mph diesel train operation, the Rochester route would move 5.5 million people a year, versus 5.1 million on the river line, according to the study; both would enjoy higher fare revenues than operation costs. These estimates seem unreasonable considering other Amtrak corridors: the Keystone route between Philadelphia and Harrisburg, which already offers 110 mph electric operation, only attracts about a million riders a year and is 50% subsidized.

The “greenfield” route proposed by the Southeastern Minnesota Rail Alliance would run through Rochester Airport instead of downtown Rochester. This is clearly a decision meant to ensure fast speeds along the entirety of the route and to avoid community opposition to fast trains in Rochester’s urban areas, but it has the negative consequence of limiting potential ridership to and from this detour’s major destination! It also mistakenly assumes that a large number of people will take the train to and from the Rochester Airport when the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport offers far more air service and it could be linked to the project just as easily.

Nonetheless, the argument for a Rochester corridor over the river line is strong. Despite the former route’s longer distance, it would cost only $973 million to construct, compared to the $834 million needed to upgrade the latter corridor, not enough of a difference to justify choosing the cheaper, less effective line. The river route would need 150 miles of new track to handle six round trips a day. It would be quicker to take a train between St. Paul and La Crosse via Rochester — 2h00 versus 2h11 along the river and 2h57 today — because the new link would be far less curvy. The river line includes some 176 curves, requiring a 90 mph speed limit along most of the line — even after improvements.

The other major advantage of the Rochester route is that it would allow for 220 mph operation in the long term, whereas the river route would be unable to ever offer such speeds. With electric trains, travel between St. Paul and La Crosse could be completed in just 1h13 via Rochester; upgrades of the connection through Wisconsin to Chicago would whittle down trip times to just four hours from the Twin Cities (it takes eight hours today). Fast service would cost two billion dollars but make up the difference by attracting nine million riders by 2030, according to the Rail Alliance.

Midwest High Speed Rail Association envisions a less than two-hour express trip between the cities.

Today, the Midwest High Speed Rail Association released a major report studying 220 mph train service between Chicago and St. Louis. Though the project has yet to be endorsed by any government officials, the Association’s study will stimulate further discussion about the level of investment necessary for the link between the two cities. More importantly, the study’s conclusions indicate that Illinois’ existing plans for 110 mph, four-hour service between the metro regions are out of date and under-scaled to meet travel needs in the Midwest.

The study, completed by consultant Tran Systems, was commissioned by the Association to determine costs and other elements of a potential very-fast service across the state of Illinois. The main challenge of the report was to compare the existing Amtrak corridor, which runs almost directly from Chicago to St. Louis, via Springfield, with another corridor, partially unused, which runs via Champaign and Decatur before continuing on. The latter route was found to be acceptable for a 220 mph operating speed, largely because it is quite straight throughout. The Amtrak route is constrained by numerous curves which would slow down trains considerably.

Excitingly, the study argues that trains could run express between the major cities, with stops in Champaign and Springfield, in 1h52; with more stops in Kankakee, Decatur, and Metro East, trains could complete the journey in 2h04. The study advocates hourly trips. These journey times compare favorably with operations on the very similar Paris-Lyon TGV corridor in France. According to the report, the line could be rebuilt with electric catenary for $11.5 billion in 2012 dollars, an estimate that does not include rolling stock or maintenance facilities. The study argues that the state could prevent a sudden loss of treasury by building the line in seven phases.

The short report is worth a glance-through; though it isn’t particularly detailed, it is the first step towards transforming ideas for this Illinois route from mediocrity to world-class status.

The cost of implementation for this project would be relatively minimal considering how effectively it would likely contest air and road travel along the corridor. This route is currently served by at least 41 daily round trips on a number of airlines, making it one of the U.S.’s major air links and one that would be prime territory for rail market share takeover considering the less than two hour trip made possible by high-speed trains. The route could also serve as the central corridor of a line eventually stretching west to Kansas City and south to Dallas; the connection at Chicago would similarly provide new routes to Minneapolis, Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Indianapolis.

It’s two bad that this report was commissioned, then, by the Midwest High Speed Rail Association, not the Illinois Department of Transportation. We need to push this route as one of America’s major transportation corridors, but few at the state or national levels are willing to take the major political step necessary to begin pushing for a financial commitment similar to California’s $10 billion high-speed rail bond approved last November. Illinois needs a push now to make this study more than simply a series of hypotheticals.

Image above: Potential routes for Express HSR service, from Midwest HSR Association

Since Congress approved $8 billion for high-speed rail in this year’s stimulus bill, Illinois has been pushing hard for improvements along the Chicago-St. Louis corridor, which they contend should be the first investment in a Midwest-wide network of fast railways. Now governors Pat Quinn (D) of Illinois and Jay Nixon (D) of Missouri are pledging to work together to fund the corridor connecting their two states. But for now, their efforts are focused on an anemic project that will ramp up speeds to only 110 mph, reducing the journey time between the two cities from five hours today to less than four. Mr. Nixon said yesterday that he’d like to eventually speed trains to 210 mph, but the $8 billion authorized for projects around the nation won’t be nearly enough to pay for such improvements.

Missouri Senator Kit Bond (R) asserted last week that the federal government’s plans for high-speed rail investment lacked vision, and pointed out that Washington would be better off finding a select few projects to fund fully. In a Senate subcommittee, he said “My concern is that… we will be spreading the money so thin and wide that we will have nothing to show for it.” Implicitly, he was arguing for investment in express high-speed rail in a select number of corridors at speeds above 150 mph, rather than a hodge-podge series of minor improvements along a number of corridors.

Mr. Bond raises a legitimate concern. If the line between these Midwest cities were improved, it still would be only slightly faster than travel by automobile — at a higher cost for passengers. No mass of people will choose to travel on trains between these cities if they take four hours to make the trip; the route is hardly competitive with car travel and much slower than air routes. A far-off promise for 210 mph trains is no promise at all.

Indeed, the Chicago-St. Louis line would be a legitimate candidate for a much greater investment on the scale of California’s 220 mph high-speed program. Compare the basics of the route with that of the Paris-Lyon TGV line, one of the most successful in the world:

Both pairs of cities are roughly the same distance apart, and their respective metros and inner-city areas have similar populations; neither route has major population centers between the termini. Yet while TGVs take the trip between France’s capital and second city in two hours, Illinois and Missouri officials are promoting a rail system that will take four. The Chicago-St. Louis project lacks the appeal of the French line, and it will therefore be unable to ever produce the kind of ridership numbers that are now standard between Paris and Lyon. A 110 mph line will never make up its cost; conversely, a 210 mph line, with much higher ridership, could potentially break even.

The United States must get its investment in rail right from the start if we are to envision a long-term program of fast train projects, because we need to build public support for the program from the beginning. Spending a few billion dollars on a project that will only slightly improve commutes and attract few passengers is the wrong first step. Senator Bond has it right — we must find the resources to ensure that our initial investments will produce tangible, visible results; otherwise, in ten years, we’ll be calling high-speed rail yet another “failed” government program.

The Governors of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, and Wisconsin, as well as the Mayor of Chicago, have come together to sign a letter (PDF) suggesting their interest in working together to implement a regional rail network shooting out from a hub in the Windy City. The first phase of the network, indicated in the image above, would include routes to St. Louis, Missouri; Madison, Wisconsin; and Detroit and Pontiac, Michigan. These are lines that their respective states have discussed before as priorities for development, and Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin have already begun working on preliminary engineering on their respective lines. This is the first time, however, we’ve seen these routes framed in terms of the Midwest Regional Rail Network as a whole.

The letter is addressed to Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood to express support for the administration’s appropriation to the Midwest of some of the stimulus legislation’s $8 billion in approved funds for high-speed rail development. The letter suggests that the lines’ upgrading to speeds of 110 mph – which is the initial goal – could be completed between 2012 and 2014 and cost about $3.4 billon, the money needed from the federal government. If approved this amount would represent almost half of the overall funds.

The governors also suggested that they needed about $130 million to continue planning on an additional number of corridors in the region that might constitute phase 2 of a regional rail network. The letter cites specifically lines from Madison, Wisconsin, to the Twin Cities in Minnesota; from Chicago to Indianapolis, Indiana and Cincinnati, Ohio; and from Chicago to Toledo and Cleveland, Ohio. Ohio is working on its own project to connect Cleveland and Cincinnati, via Columbus.

Though I have my doubts about whether or not the Midwest deserves so much of the stimulus funds – California’s considerably more advanced project should receive $4 billion of the money alone – it’s surprising and relieving to see so much regional cooperation between states in prioritizing corridors and in working for a common objective. To see the Governor of Ohio suggest that the first phase of expenditures in the Midwest not include a project in his state is more than surprising, and suggests that planning for a national network does not have to be done by the federal government alone if states are willing and able to make accords with one another.

The Obama Administration is expected to lay out the criteria for high-speed rail funding from the stimulus bill in the upcoming week. We’ll see then whether these big ambitions in the Midwest will get any traction from Washington. The heated competition for these limited funds is making it clear that the $8 billion is simply not enough.

Image above: First phase of Midwest High Speed Rail project, from Governors’ letter

Tip: Midwest High-Speed Rail Blog

In yesterday’s State of the State address, Governor Ted Strickland (D) announced that he’d be working towards the development of a new rail corridor – the 3C – between Cincinnati and Cleveland, via Dayton and Columbus, connecting the states’ four largest metropolitan areas and implementing the first phase 0f the Ohio Hub plan.

This will be the first time in forty years that Ohio’s major cities have been connected by rail – and will mark the first rail service for Columbus, the state capital, in decades. According to the Toledo Blade, however, residents of the state’s fifth largest metro area were a bit dismayed by the lack of proposed service for Toledo. On the other hand, the Ohio Hub’s second phase proposes improving the existing train line between Cleveland and Chicago, which would serve Toledo. And while service to Toledo already exists, there is none to Columbus currently, so the 3C line probably makes the most sense as a first phase.

The plan Mr. Strickland wants to implement would rely on economic stimulus funds from the federal government, but it would not produce high-speed rail. Rather, it would allow for Amtrak-style service at speeds of 60 to 90 mph along the corridor. Ultimately, the Ohio Hub would form a part of the greater Midwest High-Speed Rail system. (Perhaps the system should actually be referred to as Midwest “High-Speed” Rail?)

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Texan rail advocates pitch their “T-Bone” plan to the state legislature

The Houston Chronicle reports that the Texas High Speed Rail and Transportation Corporation, generator of the Texas T-Bone plan, is actively pushing its project for a true high-speed rail connection (200 mph) between Dallas-Fort Worth and San Antonio, with a spur running from Temple to Houston.

The proposed project, whose price tag is likely to run in the $12 to $18 billion range, could be completed by 2020 and would represent the state’s second serious attempt at implementing a high-speed rail system after the early-1990s Texas TGV project failed because of its inability to receive enough funds from private sources (that proposal was supposed to be funded entirely through non-governmental money).

This time, the project won’t face opposition from now-neutral Southwest Airlines, as the Texas TGV did. And the federal government’s willingness to open its coffers to high-speed rail investment suggests that the T-Bone may in fact find the funds it needs to be implemented. Texas Governor Rick Perry (R) has expressed his support of the project, though he’s been unwilling to commit state resources to the project thus far, convinced instead that as the state becomes more populated, the project will be able to pay for itself.

Let it be known that the transport politic considers it highly unlikely for a major high-speed rail investment such as this to ever be constructed with solely private funds.

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Honolulu’s 20-mile proposed rail system to be re-routed via airport and Pearl Harbor

Say Yes to the Honolulu Rail System blog reports that the Honolulu City Council voted yesterday in favor of a change in the planned routing of the city’s rail system, which is currently being planned. Instead of running along Salt Lake Boulevard, the line will now be redirected via the Honolulu airport and Pearl Harbor, adding a predicted 8,000 daily riders and increasing the system’s cost by $200 million. With a total project cost of more than $5 billion, this represents chump change.

This change has been under consideration since the week after the election, when Mayor Mufi Hannemann suggested that it would make more sense to include airport access in the first phase of the project, rather than as a spur to be built in the future, as it would add significant ridership and help residents and tourists alike get to the airport, which is a huge economic generator for the region as a whole. The Salt Lake alignment now becomes a potential future extension.

Images above: Ohio Hub from Ohio DOT; Texas T-Bone corridor from THSRTC

Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle wants to see federal stimulus money used for the Midwest High-Speed Rail program. Meeting in Milwaukee, the Governor suggested that a line would run from Chicago to Minneapolis, through Milwaukee and Madison, with a potential extension to Green Bay. Mr. Doyle seems to know a little something about transportation, eschewing the typical superficial arguments to point out that all forms of transportation are subsidized by the government, so a public investment in rail isn’t somehow inappropriate:

“Just as we heavily subsidize our road transportation system, we subsidize heavily our air transportation system. I don’t think people should say rail is somehow not subject to subsidy when the others are.“

We’re obviously happy to hear such clear language from a Governor, and we hope to see more such arguments as the push for high-speed rail advances.

But up in Minnesota, on the other end of this potential rail line, there’s a big argument brewing about how about to connect Minneapolis and St. Paul with Chicago. Some suggest that the best alignment would follow the existing Amtrak route, along the Mississippi. This is the corridor that the FRA established several years ago for high-speed service into Minnesota. But others, including the nascent Southeast Minnesota Rail Alliance, would like to see the route go through relatively big Rochester, Minnesota instead, some 30 miles south.

St. Paul Representative Betty McCollum (D) has threatened to oppose the Rochester route, arguing that because the FRA already demonstrated its support for the other route, a Rochester path would make getting federal money more difficult. Her argument makes some sense in the short-term, but it would result in the unfortunate loss of service for one of Minnesota’s largest cities, quite a disappointment considering just how little the planned alignment would have to be altered to provide Rochester service.

Jerusalem LRT to be Completed More Quickly

Jerusalem’s light rail system, whose first phase is currently under construction, will be sped up for a completion later this year, ahead of the planned 2010 opening date. The 14-km system, which faces enormous opposition in the Israeli capital because of the street disruption and slow business its construction has caused, will run southwest-to-northeast through the city, with a stop just outside the Walled City at Jaffa Gate.

New mayor Nir Barkat ran as an opponent of the light rail system, suggesting that “environmentally friendly” buses would be more appropriate for the city and that rail investment was a waste of money. There’s also been a lot of discussion about the “inappropriateness” of Santiago Calatrava’s new Chords Bridge, which looms over the landscape and will allow trains to traverse a valley just beyond the Walled City. The system’s future, which was to include seven more lines, seems to be in doubt, but this initial Red Line will go into operation, as the Mayor has suggested rightfully that it’s simply too late to cancel the project. So he’s going to push ahead with 24-hour construction that will allow the project to be completed as soon as possible to avoid more disruption to life in the city center.

Jerusalem’s light rail is one of the most advanced systems currently under construction, with elevated security measures such as bullet-proof glass and hidden machinery incorporated into the trains built by Alstom. Despite vocal opposition, the light rail line will provide useful and needed alternative mobility for a city currently choked by traffic.

Norfolk’s LRT to Expand to Virginia Beach

The Tide Light Rail system, which is currently under construction along a 7.4-mile alignment in Norfolk, Virginia, is likely to be expanded into nearby Virginia Beach along a 10.6-mile corridor currently used by Norfolk-Southern freight rail operations. The city is under negotiations with the company to purchase the corridor, thereby allowing an easy expansion. It is always easier to develop a transit corridor when the right-of-way already exists, so we should see this project getting going soon, as long as the Tide’s opening goes as expected early next year.

Image above from Jerusalem Light Rail website