Biggest Plane, originally uploaded by Avi_Abrams

Looks like high speed rail is in the water this week. Yesterday I wrote about Capital Investment: National High Speed Rail and about Transportation Bandwidth. Today, the New York Sun has another story to add to the pile, Congress Eyes a Rocket Train To Washington:

If passed, the legislation would require the U.S. Department of Transportation to solicit requests for proposals from private developers to create a two-hour “door-to-door” high-speed rail service.
Rep. Michael Castle, a Republican of Delaware who co-authored the legislation, said gaining the support of Mr. Mica, the ranking Republican on the transportation panel, was key.
…
“If you can get it to two hours, or even close to that, you are going to see that many more people shifting to this usage. There is just an enormous amount of traffic out there,” he said. The legislation calls for an appropriation of $14 billion over five years.
…
One unresolved element of the legislation is the role of Amtrak. America’s federally subsidized coast-to-coast passenger railroad has fallen on hard times. In 2005, it was nearly forced into bankruptcy when the Bush administration threatened to eliminate the $1.2 billion subsidy to Amtrak, and the system is consistently plagued by delays.
…
A spokesman for Mr. Mica, Justin Harclerode, said Amtrak could participate but that the congressman envisions creating high-speed service that would be independent of existing commuter and freight lines, which would likely require new tunnels and ridding existing tracks of curves to facilitate speed.
“Let’s throw it out there and see if we get some good proposals and see if they work,” Mr. Harclerode said.
A professor of civil engineering at the University of Delaware, Arnold Kerr, said the idea of creating entirely new tracks to service a high-speed train did not make financial sense. Mr. Kerr said existing infrastructure could support a high-train.
“The question is how do they plan to finance it and how do they plan to run it and what will be the role of Amtrak? You cannot build a high-speed line out of nothing, they have the knowhow and the expertise so they have to be tied in.”

An aside: I never understand why the media doesn’t publish Bill numbers they report on – it is as if they want to deliberately obscure finding more about the Bill in question. The Bill by the way is H. R. 5644, To provide for competitive development and operation of high-speed rail corridor projects. (Introduced in House).
This Bill, like Clean Skies or Healthy Forests before it, have less to do with creating a successful regional high speed rail system than augmenting, or destroying, Amtrak.
The Sun fails to substantiate their claim that system is consistently plagued by delays, resorting to Truthiness. According to Amtrak’s FY 2008 Budget Needs Acela is over 85% on time and only the Congressionally-mandated long-distance routes are the chronically late lines (30% on time rate due primarily to Amtrak not owning the Right of Way). Additionally, the same trope about Amtrak being subsidized while implying road and air travel is not subsidized is plain tiring.
This Bill is fundamentally tilting at windmills. Is Rep. Mica trying to kill high speed rail in this country? Not having Amtrak involved and proposing buying and creating new right of way in the most densely packed region in America is a fool’s errand. Mr. Mica’s proposal not including the one organization, besides the MTA, which has built and run successful passenger rail service in America strikes me as a very un-serious proposal. And strikes me as a covert tool to eliminate Amtrak. Elimination of under-performing routes and/or secure rights of way which Amtrak solely own and control would do more to create a network of higher speed rail throughout the country then creating another organization whole cloth.
But this Bill isn’t about creating a network of high speed rail throughout the region much less the country. This Bill is about destroying Amtrak and privatizing passenger rail service. We have a proposal from a Republican Congressman, profiled in the New York Sun (a bastion of Libertarian thought) which expressly cuts Amtrak out of the picture in order to solicit requests for proposals from private developers. Quoth the spokesman for the Republican Congressman, Let’s throw it out there and see if we get some good proposals and see if they work. That’s right: Let’s throw it out there – nice. If you needed more proof that this is just a naked attempt to privatize Amtrak, take a look at the Subcommittee’s GOP press release:

This proposal will unleash the investment potential of the private sector, essential to addressing how this nation is going to finance our tremendous infrastructure needs.

Besides Republican’s desire to privatize and deregulate everything (hello Enron?) why is a Florida Republican interested in Northeastern Railroad? According to Open Secrets, Rep. Mica has raised $118,950 from the railroad industry from 1999-2008 yet also raised $409,527 from the airline industry, which isn’t surprising as he is the Ranking Member on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
Regardless of the motives, this Bill is rather short on specifics and rather long on promises. Especially concerning funding sources and administration. You can’t just throw it out there and see if it works.

BOAC, originally uploaded by painter girl

Links shamelessly stolen from Draplin:

• Travel Ephemera photoset
• Airline Timetable Images
• MOVIE THEATERVILLE

Gridlock, originally uploaded by Куртис Перри

Everyone is linking to this Newsday article, High-speed rail solution for chronic sky troubles, which of course I agree with:

Roads and airports have direct sources of financing – namely, taxes on gasoline and ticket purchases. If high-speed rail is going to become a reality, it will need a similarly robust stream of income. That’s why policymakers should establish a trust fund that would finance construction and maintenance. We could pay for this investment in a number of ways: carbon-offset purchases; a 4.3-cent diesel gas tax on the railroad industry that would raise about $200 million a year; ticket surcharges; and/or matching contributions from states served by the new rail lines.
A major investment in high-speed rail could dramatically decrease congestion at airports and on highways as well. A single railroad track, just 6 feet across, would provide the same capacity as expanding the Long Island Expressway by six lanes. Amtrak’s high-speed Acela Express trains have already captured a significant portion of travelers between New York and Washington, competing with shuttle flights for passengers.
As for energy savings, even the most conservative studies give trains an advantage of 4 to 1 over cars and airplanes. According to studies done in Japan, high-speed trains produce one-tenth the carbon-dioxide emissions of airplanes.

Apropos the Transportation Bandwidth diagram I recreated previously, the biggest hurdle to national rail isn’t just money; the proper right of way to construct intercity high speed rail is a daunting problem. Amtrak’s Acela Express, which is experiencing record ridership this year is fast, but not Europe-fast due to the legacy right of way which doesn’t allow top speeds. Additionally, any service outside the Northeast Corridor is relegated to sharing the tracks with freight service, slowing passenger service considerably. Even the proposed California High Speed Rail service is fast, but not that fast due to alignment issues in the right of way.
It seems there are five main issues with national rail:

1. Appropriation of significant initial and yearly funding
2. Identify 5-7 key short-to-medium length journeys
3. Identify population centers with surrounding centers with travel distances of 2-3 hours (350-700 miles apart)
4. Identify right of ways and terrain favorable to high speed rail
5. Create a network of lines which can leverage the network affect of millions of travelers

Off the bat, rail is horribly underfunded in this country, with spending on roads 40 times more than rail; $40 for roads and a paltry $1 billion for passenger service (Amrtak). Investing in this infrastructure needs to be at par with roads, which has for the last 50 years gotten the lions share all of the funding in the US.
Finding these locations is similar to the short-haul “Air Taxi” DayJet undertook which was described in James Fallows’ article, Taxis in the Sky. Besides which locations this system will serve, actually creating an interconnected network of high speed service is imperative for the success – which Bruce Holmes of DayJet expresses:

All in all, we have signed over 1,500 members, more than 550 of which are active travelers, and nearly 200 are frequent flyers.
However, a proof of concept is only the first step to profitability. The next step is equally important — growing the “Network” to a density that generates operating margin. As we shared with you, our projections have always indicated a network of 30-50 “line” aircraft serving 20-30 fully developed DayPort markets was needed to reach critical scale.

If DayJet can sign up 1,500 members then finding riders for high speed rail – in the face of $4/gallon gas – should be easy. But finding, buying and building the next generation of intercity passenger rail will take not only riders and investment in the infrastructure but also considerable political capital.
See also:

• Transportation Bandwidth Diagram
• On the Question of Zoning and Land Use Policies in US Cities
• MAGLEV Dreams Busted by London’s 2012 Dreams
• Survey of Department of Transportation Logos

I’m not sure where I first found this diagram before, but I found it again via Frumin and decided to reformat it for my own use. This diagram comes from Urban Transit: Operations, Planning and Economics (see update below) by Vukan R. Vuchic a Professor of City and Regional Planning at the University of Pennsylvania.
Areas Required for Transporting 15,000 Persons per hour by Different Modes (Vuchic 1981):

After the jump are the individual stills and I also complied all of thje information into one PDF: Areas Required for Transporting 15,000 Persons per hour by Different Modes (Vuchic 1981).
Update 28 May 2008
Dr. Vuchic writes in that the figure represented is actually from Urban Public Transportation Systems and Technology (Prentice-Hall 1981) but is available in Urban Transit Systems and Technology (John Wiley & Sons, 2007) which is a new edition of the work. Dr. Vuchic also notes that Urban Transit Operations, Planning and Economics (John Wiley & Sons, 2005) and his third book of my Transit Trilogy Transportation for Livable Cities (CUPR, Rutgers University, 1999) are two other good sources for transportation policy and economic study.

Continue reading “Transportation Bandwidth” →

Sydney Pollack, originally uploaded by NYCArthur

Sydney Pollack, a Hollywood mainstay as director, producer and sometime actor whose star-laden movies like “The Way We Were,” “Tootsie” and “Out of Africa” were among the most successful of the 1970s and ’80s, died Monday at home here. He was 73.
The cause was cancer, said the publicist Leslee Dart, who spoke for his family.

Read his NY Times Obituary. Funny story: Herself and I were meeting friends at the UN and became extras for The Interpreter.

Circles., originally uploaded by mes_tiza

SEPTA Market East Station, originally uploaded by jimc167