(1) Provide service to the largest metro areas currently without it. The eight largest, in descending order of population are:
*Las Vegas, NV
*Columbus, OH
*Nashville, TN
*Louisville, KY
Tulsa, OK
Allentown-Bethlehem, PA
Baton Rouge, LA
McAllen-Edinberg, TX
* Indicates Amtrak formerly provided service. Las Vegas service lasted through May 10, 1997; Columbus, Nashville and Louisville lost service at the end of October, 1979, although Louisville briefly regained service with a painfully slow train to Chicago. That train ran Chicago-Jeffersonville, IN starting December 17, 1999, was extended across the river to Louisville December 4, 2001, and discontinued July 8, 2003.
(2) Route study requests in S. 294 (which passed the Senate in October):
restore Amtrak’s Pioneer that linked Seattle-Portland with eastern Oregon, Boise and Salt Lake City. (Towards the end, its financial viability was compromised by running as a separate train all the way across Wyoming to Denver, rather than serving SLC and connecting there with the California Zephyr.)
restore Amtrak’s North Coast Hiawatha in southern Montana and southern North Dakota – well used train until its demise in 1979.
(3) Maps in the National Surface Transportation Policy & Revenue Study Commission report, at chapter four:
The 2015 vision is at page 4-22 and notably includes
Cleveland-Columbus-Cincinnati
a long-discussed Meridian-Jackson-Dallas link among existing Amtrak routes, and
closing the Bakersfield-Los Angeles gap.
The 2030 vision is on the next page and adds several routes including
Atlanta-Florida,
Dallas-Houston,
Oklahoma City to both Newton/Kansas City and Tulsa/St. Louis,
Cheyenne-Denver-Trinidad-Albuquerque-El Paso
the above-referenced Pioneer, and
service to Las Vegas from both east and west.
The 2050 vision is on page 4-24 and adds many more routes including Chicago-Atlanta.
The Commission recommends annual capital expenditure of $9 billion, much of which would support “genuine” high speed rail projects such that planned in California.
(4) NARP’s 40-year vision, which is more aggressive than the Commission’s although North Carolina DOT’s vision is more aggressive than ours! Read more about our Grow Trains Campaign and Vision Plan including regional “zoom-in” maps.
The grassroots is continuing to get organized : in Florida to win Recovery Act funds for Tampa-to-Orlando high-speed rail (whose alignment and connectivity as currently planned leaves much to be desired), and in Michigan to save the state’s three Amtrak trains from state budget cuts.
Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) offers an accurate assessment of the predicament of transportation strategies for reducing pollution. It’s clear that the current gas tax-based funding model is ill-suited to the need, but very few lawmakers seem willing to consider anything different. Remember, though, that political will is a renewable resources, and it comes from all of us as active citizens. One sign that such political pressure can be brought to bear: the rapid growth of the Transportation for America coalition, in which NARP is a partner.
Excitement mounts in Idaho over the potential return of the Pioneer. Among those pressing for its revival: US Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID). Grassroots support for the train has always been strong in Idaho, a state not normally thought of as being home to public transportation riders.
Continuing signs of the unsustainable nature of short-haul air service in markets that could be served by high-speed rail. Relatedly, Southwest Airlines’ CEO has dropped his opposition to federal high-speed rail investment, saying he is not worried that better trains will ground short-haul flights. This doesn’t appear to be a very far-sighted outlook for an industry that needs to better prepare for the inevitable end of cheap oil, but with Congress beginning to formulate a fresh approach to the nation’s mobility needs, less voices in opposition to rail is certainly a good thing.
The Transport Politic assesses the composition of the Senate when it comes to support for funding transportation alternatives. Based on ten votes taken since January 2008, chances look good that future legislation funding rail and transit would attract 60 votes. The biggest obstacle, though, lies in bringing such bills to a vote in the first place by putting them on the agendas of the relevant committees.
Bloomberg’s US architecture critic hopes for the best from the poorly-planned projects to bring commuter trains into a deep underground station under 34th Street in Manhattan via new Hudson River tunnels (which received stimulus funding this week), while longing for Penn Station to return to its former grandeur. Along similar lines, our friends at the Midwest High-Speed Rail Association are discussing the importance of great stations to complement fast, frequent, modern trains. While one Midwestern city is looking to restore its downtown depot to a travel hub, another may have to let its grand station go.
Washington-based writer and blogger Ryan Avent offers an excellent rebuff to economist Ed Glaeser’s misinformed critique of rail development.
LCL: Washington State transit advocates herald the opening of the new Vancouver train; our paper urging restoration of the Gulf Coast Connector generates press coverage; the nation’s premier green building certification program is beginning to better incoorporate the fact that location (especially in relation to transportation services) matters at least as much as the resource-conserving design of the building itself; a significant progressive policy shift is afoot in Houston, and a major transit-oriented redevelopment plan takes shape in NARP’s backyard; “Mister Trains” concurs with our view on the use of recent federal money for trains; E: The Environmental Magazine‘s syndicated “Earth Talk” newspaper column touts train travel’s green bona fides; and despite overall drops in ridership nationally, more travelers are—as the slogan says—catching the Texas Eagle wave.
The office of Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID) has obtained a preliminary draft of Amtrak’s Congressionally-mandated study [PDF] of the possibility of restoring the Pioneer between Salt Lake City and Seattle. It presents a very conservative ridership estimate—even lower than actual ridership was when the train last ran in 1992—and says the new equipment and track upgrades required would take at least four years once the company gets the go-ahead from Congress.
A land developer from Maine went to Ohio to spread the word about the wonders that new passenger trains can work for local economies. He touted the fact that every dollar his home state put in to initiating and operating the Downeaster has brought about $70 in additional construction investment, creating 18,000 new jobs. He thinks Ohio’s 3-C corridor could do the same.
A Washington Postreview of Green Metropolis by David Owen, which has just been added to the NARP Bookstore on Amazon.com, emphasizes Owen’s strongest point about the consequences of overreliance on the automobile: “The real problem with cars is not that they don’t get enough miles to the gallon, it’s that they make it too easy for people to spread out, encouraging forms of development that are inherently wasteful and damaging.” This is something NARP has been pointing out for years, even when doing so puts us in the minority of green-minded groups.
Phoenix’s 9-month-old light rail line is converting skeptics—and bucking the national trend—by carrying almost 7,000 more daily riders than projected, the vast majority being leisure riders, reports the New York Times. In most cities, 60 percent or more of transit users are commuters, but only 29% of Phoenix light rail riders take it to work and back. It goes to show how well transit can work, even in a metropolis that is practically the epitome of sprawl.
A Philadelphia Inquirer article paints a not-so-pretty picture of the condition of Amtrak-owned infrastructure, which the company revealed only after government watchdogs threatened to file suit. Several bridges on the Northeast and Keystone corridors have been rated “poor” by Amtrak’s own inspectors, showing such overt signs of decay as corroded beams, holes, and trees growing through cracks. The these pieces of the physical plant remain neglected, the more it’s going to cost, in terms of safety as well as dollars.
Amtrak adds a new city to its list of destinations this week with the reopening of Icicle Station in Leavenworth, Washington, which will be served daily by the Empire Builder’s Seattle section.
LCL: A preprogrammed “Balanced Transportation Analyzer” (Excel file) gives you the chance to play policymaker and come up with a plan to ease congestion in the Big Apple. * * * Thomas Friedman says US lawmakers don’t have the guts to raise the gas tax. * * * A video high-speed rail wish from a future rail advocacy leader. * * * A slight setback for Tar Heel travelers: a new Raleigh-Charlotte train will come, but not until early next year. * * * There’s one industrialized country the United States appears to be a few steps ahead of on high-speed rail: our neighbor to the north.
Solid majorities of American voters think greater investment in trains and buses will be more effective at reducing congestion, pollution and oil dependence—and enhancing our quality of life—than building more roads, and are willing to pay higher taxes for it. These findings, based on a survey of 800 registered voters in all 50 states and DC, were released today by Transportation for America (T4A), a broad advocacy coalition of which NARP is a member. In another indication that train advocates’ goals are broadly shared, the sentiments respondents expressed cut fairly evenly across geographic, income and party lines. The main reason respondents gave for why they don’t use transit often, if at all, is that it is not available or convenient where they live, not because they are wedded to their cars or averse to using transit.
Also from T4A: Despite the higher sticker price on housing closer to city centers, urban living is actually more affordable than auto-oriented suburban living when transportation costs are factored in, according to a Center for Neighborhood Technology study [PDF]. This phenomenon, called location efficiency, doesn’t just occur in large cities: it can be realized in suburbs and small towns that are walkable and oriented around transit nodes. This reinforces the message from a 2000 Surface Transportation Policy Project report, “Driven to Spend: The Impact of Sprawl on Household Transportation Expenses.”
Following on the heels of West Virginia, Kansas Governor Mark Parkinson (D) signed into law a bill mandating the state’s Department of Transportation to begin a passenger rail program, giving Kansas a better competitive position in the scramble for future rounds of high-speed and intercity passenger rail (HSIPR) grants. Another enacted law creates the Midwest Interstate Passenger Rail Compact, formalizing cooperation between Kansas and its neighbors to advance passenger service. This, plus federal grant approval announced last week, is aimed at making the Northern Flyer a reality. NARP congratulates our newest Council Representative, Deborah Fischer Stout (President of the Northern Flyer Alliance) for her tireless efforts to make this happen!
In a sign of support for an expanded long-distance network, two of President Obama’s nominees for Amtrak’s Board of Directors wrote Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) indicating they would press for refined cost estimates for restoring the Salt Lake City-Portland Pioneer. The two nominees, plus a third pick, have been approved by the Senate Commerce Committee and are awaiting a confirmation vote in the full Senate.
New high-speed train service between the central Chinese cities of Zhengzhou and Xian is so popular that all airlines have ceased flights between the two locales. The train takes less than two hours to traverse 314 miles (comparable to a trip from Washington, DC to New Haven, CT). The Chinese government is steadily moving towards its goal of having more than 8,000 miles of new high-speed railroads built by two years from now, a feat often cited by President Obama and other leaders to show how far behind the US is in terms of modernizing the national rail network.
LCL: Support for a major rail freight mobility project—with potential benefits for passengers—is bringing the governors of some affected states together, 3 Republicans and 2 Democrats. * * * The gears have been set in motion for the electrification of the Caltrain commuter line from San Jose to San Francisco—meaning faster, greener trains in five years—upon the completion of ten years of study. * * * Amtrak ridership from the 4-month-old station in Leavenworth, Washington, is 11% higher than Amtrak’s original estimate, with visitors from the Puget Sound area opting to take the train rather than drive to the Bavarian resort town. * * * Despite a host of other budget cuts made in the same bill, an amendment to withdraw $8 million in state operating grants to Amtrak was thankfully defeated in the Missouri House of Representatives. * * * Amtrak stations in California will soon get new electronic displays showing real-time train departure information and announcements.
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