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Pre-Application Excitement

Thursday, July 16, 2009

The possibilities are virtually endless as states begin jockeying for federal passenger rail improvement money.

For passenger rail advocates, this has been a great week for imagining possibilities that may be coming one step closer to fruition. The Department of Transportation announced today that the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) has received a whopping 278 pre-applications from state governments and interstate authorities, each seeking a piece of the $8 billion included in the Recovery Act for “high-speed intercity passenger rail.” The news comes a full five weeks in advance of the final application deadline, and indicates a high level of interest from those who would do the work of constructing and upgrading rail infrastructure to support the desired level of service.

Here is a mere sampling of projects that are now in the running, based on news reports compiled by NARP. Each heading links to the full story. The FRA has complete summary data [PDF] of the pre-applications.

  1. State of Illinois: Undisclosed sum to boost top speeds to 110 mph on Amtrak’s Chicago-St. Louis, Chicago-Milwaukee/Madsion, and Chicago-Detroit routes, and lay groundwork for 220-mph Chicago-St. Louis express service.
  2. California Nevada Super Speed Train Commission: Undisclosed sum for a maglev line from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. Estimated total cost: $12 billion.
  3. State of Kansas: $500,000 to study implementation of state-supported Amtrak service from Kansas City to Oklahoma City (via Topeka and Wichita).
  4. States of Texas, New Mexico and Colorado: Undisclosed sum to study viability of a dedicated high-speed rail line from El Paso to Denver via Albuquerque and Santa Fe.
  5. State of Virginia: $2 billion plus for Infrastructure improvements allowing higher-speed trains between Washington and Petersburg.
  6. State of Connecticut: Undisclosed sum to establish high-speed service between New Haven and Springfield, MA.
  7. State of Pennsylvania: $6.8 billion for four projects, including Pittsburgh-Harrisburg upgrades and maglev between Greensburg and Pittsburgh International Airport.
  8. Arkansas Highway Commission: at least $500,000 to study high-speed connections from Little Rock to Texarkana and Memphis.
  9. State of Wyoming: Depending on what Colorado does, may be interested in extending the El Paso-Denver line north to Cheyenne.
  10. State of OklahomaUndisclosed amount to initiate 150-mph service from Tulsa to Oklahoma City and make track improvements from Oklahoma City south to the Texas state line to speed up Amtrak’s Heartland Flyer.
  11. State of Indiana: $49 million for Amtrak service from Chicago to Toledo via Fort Wayne.
  12. Ohio Rail Development Commission: At least $250 million to initiate service on the 3C (Cincinatti-Columbus-Cleveland) route, as part of a more expansive planned network.
  13. State of North Carolina: $4 billion to pursue 90 proposed projects to upgrade tracks & signals between Charlotte and the state line north of Raleigh, including reconstructing a direct rail link from Raleigh to Richmond.

As a side note, the $31 billion “Illinois Jobs Now Act,” signed by Gov. Quinn on Monday, contains significant rail and transit investments. Included is 322 million for CREATE, a massive project led by a public-private partnership to reduce railroad traffic congestion in and around Chicago, the nation’s busiest freight rail hub and a major Amtrak hub. The Act also contains $150 million for the state’s share of Amtrak operating grants, $1.8 billion for public transit, and loan repayments to freight railroads. The state funding bolsters Illinois’ odds of winning stimulus grants for passenger rail. Here’s a full list [PDF] of the projects funded.

—Malcolm Kenton and Sean Jeans-Gail

Posted by NARP | (3) Comments

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Comments


And we have this
http://www.amtrak.com/pdf/PRIAA/GulfCoastServicePlanReport.pdf

pertaining to Gulf Coast restoration, which is very negative, and loaded with high start-up costs, for example:
“Potential ridership between New Orleans and Orlando is adversely impacted by the circuitry of the rail route (769 miles versus 639 miles by highway) and slow speeds that result in a rail trip time of 18.5 hours versus 9.6 hours by automobile”

When Amtrak refuses to consider even something low cost and simple such as routing a couple of Pennsylvanian coaches through to Chicago on the Capitol Ltd, refusal to run a Thruway bus between St Albans and Montreal, and we had the Chicago customer service nightmare on a 15 hour late eastbound Chief last week due to a triple loco failure, I think it safe to assume that Amtrak’s attitude about growth and long distance trains is more in line with OMB’s than with NARP’s, and that another vehicle beside Amtrak should be sought if we want any quality expansion anytime soon.

Comment by Joe M. Versaggi  on  07/17  at  06:42 AM

In Chicago in March there was some hoipe of moving dirt by late August. Seem possible anywhere??
  Has any of this station/platform work begun??

Comment by william m weber  on  07/23  at  08:46 PM

“Amtrak not the vehicle” ... heh.  Unfortunately, it’s the one we’re stuck with.  None of the landlord railroads are interested **or they’d have already spoken up**.  We’re not likely to get anything new any time soon, so we’re stuck. 

The upside is that Boardman seems to understand that the institutional culture of failure is the biggest issue facing his company.  He says he wants to change it.  Gunn was the same way, though Boardman is more blunt, but Boardman doesn’t serve at the pleasure of a hostile Board. 

That said, on to the “pre-applications”.  Living in Oklahoma, I am only interested in that line item ... and was sorely disappointed. 

One-hundred-fifty MPH service OKC to Tulsa?  That says to me that ODOT thinks the whole process is a joke and that they just threw that in to see what would happen.

The other part, improving trip time SOUTH of OKC is disappointing in another way - we really need to extend the current train to at least Wichita and Newton, Kans.  Whether it continues on to KC is a different issue and, either way, the BNSF line NORTH of OKC needs improvements to bring it to 79-MPH standards.  I thought they’d surely ask for that, but no. 

The bottlenecks on the line SOUTH of OKC are mostly in Texas, where there is still far too much 59-MPH running, so what do they really plan to do with any money they might get?

This “let the states do it” process is fun, but not all states ... not even the majority ... are prepared to do what needs to be done. 

Peter Laws

Comment by Peter Laws  on  07/28  at  01:57 PM



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