How high speed rail should be built: Part 1

When it comes to high speed rail funding, the Obama administration may be looking for progress in all the wrong places - but it is still possible for them to get on the right track.

It seems that the first grants for high speed rail are largely going to places where the use of intercity passenger rail and public transportation has not caught on. The Obama administration likely sees this as a way to educate new communities about the benefits of public transportation and to encourage them to build their own systems and support the use of their taxes to build out infrastructure.

However, if the Obama administration is serious about building a usable - and well used - national high speed rail system, there is only one place to start: the northeast corridor.

The northeast corridor is home to the most densly populated and the most transit oriented cities in the country and the Acela Express, the closest thing to a high speed rail line in the United States passenger rail system operated by Amtrak.

The Acela service connects Washington, DC, New York City and Boston via a 457 mile corridor that it traverses in around 7 hours. The train is capable of reaching speeds of over 150 mph but due to track conditions and the regulations of agencies which own portions of the route, the trains often run at less than half their maximum speed.

If 220 mph service was insituted along the corridor, travel times between the cities could be halves. Since its inception, the current Acela service has captured 40% of the travel market along the northeast corridor. 220 mph trains could lead to the demise of wasteful and inefficient shuttle flights between northeastern cities and allow for greater connectivity between businesses in the region. A person could live in a suburb of Boston and commute to Philadelphia to work without having to set foot in an automobile or an airport.

Amtrak has already studied the possibility of upgrading the operating speed of the Acela service - they have already invested in adding WiFi to the trainsets. Replacing or upgrading the Acela trainsets to increase their operating speed is also in discussion. Members of the Republican opposition in Congress have signalled some support for increasing the speeds while criticizing the funding decisions made by the Obama administration.

Furthermore, the cities along the northeast corridor - Boston, Providence, New London, New Haven, New York, Newark, Trenton, Philadelphia, Wilmington, Baltimore and Washington - all have well developed transit networks to take people to and from rail terminals. The populations of these cities are well acclimated to using rail and public transit. 9.8 million riders use the Amtrak trains along the corridors annually.

Finally, if the Obama administration had made the wisest decision to start high speed rail development in the northeast, the next hubs of high speed rail would be established in Boston (pop 4.5 million), New York (pop 8.3 million), Philadelphia (pop 5.8 million) and Washington (pop 5.3 million).

Next time we'll explore what the next logical step after upgrading the northeast corridor would be - lines spoking out from those hubs.