D.C.'s High Speed Rail 2009: HSR in a U.S. context

By Angela Cotey

Last week, I attended the newly established U.S. High Speed Rail Association�s (US HSR) first conference � High Speed Rail 2009 � in Washington, D.C. About 250 people attended the event from 15 countries, including Japan, Korea, Sweden, the Netherlands and Germany.

They ranged from engineers and consultants to rail suppliers to high-speed rail advocates to local politicians. No matter who they were or where they came from, all attendees were trying to get a handle on how the United States� current commitment to high-speed rail might impact them.

During the eight sessions, attendees heard from members of Congress about their views on HSR in the U.S., learned about projects around the world, and heard HSR experts and advocates discuss planning and financing options. Presentations were part pep talk, part reality check, but they all put HSR implementation in the United States into perspective.

The Obama Administration�s inclusion of $8 billion for HSR in the stimulus bill was mentioned repeatedly, as was the need for many billions more to build a national high-speed rail network (US HSR is advocating a 17,000-mile network by 2030 that would cost $600 billion).

Overwhelmingly, attendees and speakers believed the nation eventually will commit the funds to make HSR a reality � when one speaker posed the question, �How many here believe $8 billion is all we�ll see for high-speed rail?� only three hands out of about 100 went up � but acknowledged it�ll be a long road getting there.

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, who co-chairs Building America�s Future, a coalition of elected officials dedicated to U.S. infrastructure investment, spoke during the opening session and discussed his support for a National Infrastructure Bank to help fund HSR.

�We need a new vehicle to fund infrastructure,� he said. �As long as it all comes out of the same budget, and transportation competes with military and health care, we�ll never have the funds for high-speed rail.�

Rep. Jim Costa (D-Calif.) expressed a similar opinion and noted California voters� November 2008 approval of a bond measure to finance HSR in the state.

�If we�re competing with roads, bridges, etc., it will be hard to find enough revenue. That�s why in California we came up with our own revenue source,� he said.

JD Stokes, vice president of transportation engineering and architectural firm SE3, was optimistic about the country�s ability and willingness to pony up funds for HSR development. 

�The infrastructure bank we�re talking about is how we built the highway system. In 1956, $1 billion was spent for the highway system. That increased year after year and in the last 15 years, we�ve spent $500 billion for highways alone,� he said. �It does grow and it does start small. Small like $8 billion.�

But, as was repeated over and over during the conference, the speakers were �preaching to the choir.�

�You have to go back to where you live and talk to chambers of commerce and other local groups,� said Rendell. �We�ll never get a commitment to spend the money we need without it coming from the local level to the belt line. It has to start from hometowns and make its way up to the federal government.�

For all the optimism in the crowd, there were a handful of folks who raised valid points about HSR development in the U.S.

As one audience member pointed out during a Q&A following the �Planning and Financing HSR� session: �If you look at the high-speed rail network, there�s probably only 12 states that would get the lion�s share of the funding, and that doesn�t get you the votes you need in the House and Senate. That�s a major issue if we expect funding beyond the $8 billion.�

Rep. Michael McMahon (D-N.Y.) stressed the importance of investing more in HSR and selling the concept to the public, but also raised the issue, �Do we as a nation have the will to get this done?�

In addition, during his presentation, John Krieger, staff attorney with the U.S. Public Interest Research Groups, said he believes that �after the first round of funding is awarded, you might see some support fall off when some projects are not included.�

Later during the conference, David Spencer of law firm Steptoe and Johnson discussed public-private partnerships, a financing option that many states are counting on to help fund their HSR systems. During his presentation, Spencer didn�t mince words when discussing PPPs as they relate to the rail industry. Some of his comments:

�PPP is not a free lunch. The private side wants a real return. Green is not a return on private investment. Prestige is not a return on private investment. Real estate development and job creation is not a return on private investment.�

�Historically, no U.S. railroad has even covered the operating costs of passenger rail, even when there was not competition from automobiles and airplanes. You can make money as an operator. Your variable costs are relatively low. You can cover variable costs if you�re the operator and someone else has paid the capital and fixed costs, but that doesn�t cover the cost of investment in track and equipment. What this means is that for at least the next 10 to 15 years, we will have to rely on government subsidies. Revenues are far too speculative to obtain purely private financing. There might be some private financing available after some operating experience.�

Meanwhile, some presenters tried to put the nation�s HSR plans and investment into perspective � especially as it compares to other countries. 


�Over the last five years, $286 billion has been spent in the U.S. on all transportation modes,� said Illana Pruess, outreach director for Transportation for America. �China is investing $300 billion just for high-speed rail.�

Jean-Pierre Loubinoux, director general of the International Union of Railways, noted that in Europe alone, there already are 5,174 kilometers of high-speed rail in operation, 2,417 kilometers under construction and 7,765 kilometers planned.

In Spain, Spanish national railway RENFE is in the midst of what Corporate Director Apolinar Rodriguez called �the most ambitious high-speed rail plan in the world.� By 2020, the railway plans to expand its high-speed rail network from today�s 988 miles to 6,200 miles.

Next, Tae Hoon Park, general manager of overseas and the Trans-Korean Project Team for Korea�s KORAIL, discussed the KTX super-speed train system that was introduced in April 2004. Trains run between Seoul and Susan at 300 kph, and the next generation of trains will travel at 400 kph, said Park.

�KTX has caused a considerable modal shift,� he said. �KTX has almost 50 percent of long-distance travelers. It�s changed the lifestyle and population of cities along the line.�

Turning to Japan, Richard Lawless, senior external advisor for the U.S./Japan High Speed Rail Project Team for New Magellan Venture Partners L.L.C. (for which he also serves as president and CEO), discussed the country�s HSR network, which was launched in 1964. In its 45 years of operation, Japan�s system has had zero fatalities � largely because it operates on dedicated track in closed corridors, Lawless said. The separate operations also reduces potential for train delays; the average annual delay per train in Japan is less than 30 seconds.

Finally, Jan Moorlag, international business manager and project director of rail for ARCADIS, highlighted China�s WuGuang project, which is just a portion of the country�s massive effort to increase its passenger-rail network from 50,000 miles to 75,000 miles by 2020. The $17 billion WuGuang project calls for building nearly 620 miles of double track, 625 bridges, 221 tunnels and 16 stations between Wuhan to Guangzhou. Trains will operate at speeds up to 220 mph.

Another presentation worth noting, particularly as the Federal Railroad Administration grapples with how to dole out the high-speed stimulus funds: Yoav Hagler, associate planner with non-profit group Regional Plan Association (RPA), detailed the association�s America 2050 initiative. Launched in 2005, the initiative aims to develop a growth strategy for the country, recognizing the emergence of 11 �mega-regions� that are home to more than 70 percent of the employment centers and population.

When the HSR funds were announced earlier this year, RPA worked through its America 2050 initiative to prioritize which projects should receive the funds. The association assessed all potential corridors for HSR viability and included all cities with populations higher than 50,000, then connected them to every other city within 100 to 500 miles, resulting in a total of 27,000 city pairs.

RPA then used criteria such as such as population, distance from other city pairs, transit connections, economic productivity and congestion to determine which regions could most benefit from HSR.

The top-ranking city pairs? New York City-Washington, D.C.; Philadelphia-Washington, D.C.; Boston-New York City; and Baltimore-New York City. Cities in the Northeast Corridor represented six of the top 10. Also ranking near the top: connections between southern and northern California, and a handful of connections to Chicago.

RPA also developed a HSR phasing plan. The first three phases of the Midwest hub system � between Chicago and St. Louis, Detroit and the Twin Cities � as well as Northeast Corridor and California connections, make up Phase One. Phase Two calls for extending the first three phases as well as launching HSR service to other mega-regions. Phase Three would begin to provide connections to some of the mid-size regions to begin integrating them into a national network.

All in all, the dialogue among conference attendees was not about if the U.S. would build a HSR network, but how. It�s a daunting challenge, but nothing the U.S. hasn�t overcome in the past with the building of the interstate highway network, a handful of presenters said.

�It took two decades to figure out how to finance the interstate highway system and a few things came together: One, you had a presidential champion; two an oil crisis induced a recession; and three, you had a book of maps showing where the system would go,� said Rick Harnish, executive director of the Midwest High Speed Rail Association. �That�s when we decided to raise the gas tax and put money into it. We need to have a national passenger-rail system we sell as a unit, and part of that is getting one high-speed rail line built so we can show how it works.�