Bloomberg Slams US Infrastructure Spending

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was a guest on MSNBC's Morning Joe Thursday, where he took up the issue of American infrastructure and high speed rail.

Bloomberg correctly points out that thousand of miles of high speed rail are being constructed around the globe, while the United States has not one operating truly-high speed train. Countries like Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Denmark and Portugal are moving to build networks of 200+ mph trains, but this is one more area where the United States is falling behind.

Though both presidential campaigns seem reluctant to discuss infrastructure - except for Romney's promise to dismantle key pieces of America's railways - mayors around the country are quick to defend the necessity of maintaining existing passenger rail and upgrading to high speed rail. Bloomberg in particular wants to see Amtrak's vision of true high speed rail along the northeast corridor come to fruition at a $151 billion price tag. It might be expensive, but Bloomberg is right that delay costs the country more than the construction will.

Bloomberg, on the other hand, slams Amtrak's maintenance of poorly performing long-distance passenger trains and lack of focus on busier routes like the northeast corridor between Washington and Boston and California trains between San Francisco, Sacramento and Los Angeles.

Bloomberg neglected to mention that high speed rail is already under development in the United States - specifically, in California, where the first segment of an ultra-fast rail line spanning the entire state is ready to be constructed after a few NIMBYs hurdles are cleared.

In the mean time, meaningful upgrades to a line between Chicago and St. Louis are almost complete, and plans for a new ultra-fast train along the northeast corridor are in their early stages. Also, in Texas, a private consortium aims to be the first in the world to undertake a major infrastructure project with no public money or planning. If they are successful, they could establish a new model for infrastructure development.

SFGate video blog on Taipei HSR

How sad is it that the USA is falling behind countries like South Africa, Brazil and Venezuela on High Speed Rail?

Florida Turns Down High Speed Rail funds

Florida becomes the latest state - after Wisconsin and Ohio - to turn down funds for a high speed rail line. Florida was given around $2.5 billion in federal recovery funds from 2009 that by law have to go to construction that increases the speed and availability of passenger rail.



This money is likely to be distributed between California, Illinois and the New York region - probably the areas where it is best spent anyway.

Next up is the budget battle to keep this year's authorization of $2.5 billion in play and to make sure Amtrak continues to be funded. A Republican proposal would cut Amtrak funds to $400 billion, not enough to maintain and run the rail program, which has seen record ridership for 15 straight months.

Gas prices up.

Gas prices are at a national average of $3.08 and rising. This should underscore the need for HSR in the USA. Go get 'em, Secretary LaHood!

Ohio and Wisconsin Killed High-Speed Rail

So since I last posted, an election has taken place and new Republican administrations have been set up in the midwestern states of Ohio and Wisconsin. These administrations followed-through on campaign promises to stop high-speed rail corridor development in their respective states, seriously damaging the progress of building modern passenger rail infrastructure in the midwest.

The federal government diverted most of their money to ongoing projects in California, New York, Illinois and Florida, where faster and more beneficial projects are in progress. In the mean time, I'm sure the fiscally conservative governors in Wisconsin and Ohio have found responsible ways to budget.

Next up comes a serious challenge to the high-speed rail line in Florida that may see the $2.3 billion dedicated to building a Tampa-Orlando train diverted to other states. I am beginning to think that federal passenger rail funding should only go to the states that deserve it most: Illinois, California and New York. Why should our federal tax dollars go to developing states that don't want to be in the 21st century?

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.