Today is the deadline for states to submit high-speed rail program applications. Only states with shovel-ready high-speed rail plans (meaning the final environmental impact statement has been approved) are eligible to make such applications. States without such plans had to submit applications for planning grants in late August, and at least some of those planning grants have already been awarded.
The Antiplanner spent Wednesday in Springfield, Illinois, where the primary question is not whether to build high-speed rail but where it is going to go. As the home of both the president and the secretary of transportation, Illinois officials believe their state has a lock on its proposal to build a high-speed (really, a moderate-speed) line from Chicago to St. Louis via Springfield.
The big problem is that the Union Pacific, whose tracks and right of way the trains would use, goes right through the center of Springfield on 3rd Street. While you might think this is an advantage, local residents were irate when they learned that the plan would probably quadruple the number of trains going through town every day, and that many at-grade rail crossings would close and others be replaced by concrete overpasses that would mar the beauty of, among other buildings, the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Dana-Thomas house.
The UP route divides the capital from the city’s business district, so city officials and business leaders are trying to get the state to consider an alternate 10th Street route now used by Norfolk Southern. UP is not enthused, as it would add curvature and cost to its route. Nor are the mostly-black residents of the neighborhood along the alternate route; the local NAACP opposes the alternative routing.
On checking in to a Springfield hotel, the Antiplanner was greeted with postcards presenting an artist’s conception of what the high-speed rail line would look like next to such buildings as the Dana-Thomas house. Hoteliers usually avoid politics for fear offending potential customers, so it is obvious that these plans have made people particularly irate.
The speaker of the Illinois house — one of the most powerful men in the state — has weighed in with a bill that would forbid the state from spending any money on the 3rd Street route. This will probably spur the state into at least studying alternative routes, something it has said it could not do without jeopardizing the shovel-ready nature of the project.
The plan calls for double-tracking Union Pacific’s line from St. Louis to Chicago, and it is clear that U.P. is thrilled to have the taxpayers subsidize this expansion of its freight capacity. If no one rides the moderate-speed trains, all the better for the railroad because it can have the new capacity all for itself. I wonder what Norfolk Southern, not to mention Canadian National (which owns Illinois Central, a third competitor along the route), think of the feds doubling their rival’s capacity.
This whole controversy reminds me of the debate over the location of a north-south light-rail line through downtown Portland. Downtown businesses all agreed they wanted the light rail, they just didn’t want it on their streets. Powell’s Bookstore, prominent restaurants, and other businesses all threatened to move if it was on their street. In the end, they built it on the existing bus mall, since all the businesses that might have protested that location had already closed due to the bus mall.
The Chicago-St. Louis project is supposed to cost about $2.5 billion, of which the state would put up about $400 million. This means Illinois will ask the Federal Railroad Administration for more than a quarter of the money available for “program grants” (some of the $8 billion in stimulus funds is going for planning grants).
Meanwhile, California is applying for $4.5 billion, no doubt under the theory that, since California’s plans cost more than the rail plans of all other states combined, it should get more than half the federal funds. Given that the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives is from the Golden State, the California High-Speed Rail Authority probably think it has a lock on those funds.
That will leave about $1 billion for all the other states combined. If indeed California and Illinois get the big bucks, it will be interesting to see who gets the rest.
Rail advocates hope Congress will follow up the stimulus money with tens of billions more for high-speed rail. But enthusiasm for high-speed rail may be dimming. The Senate wants to spend far less on high-speed rail than the House, and given the federal government’s money problems, there might not be any money at all after 2010.
That’s a photo of a freeway!
Highwayman, actually that’s a postcard with an artists image of what they envision happening. 😉
What I don’t understand with the alternative route is why they’re talking about routing UP freight over it. Why? Shouldn’t UP run it’s existing + future freight trains on it’s own track?
Or is this part of overall plans UP has for increasing capacity on that corridor that they’re looking to do either way?
How many people need to travel between Chicago & Springfield?
Very few.
Personally, I lived in Chicago & the suburbs for over 25 years & never went to the Springfield. When younger, I went to Peoria about 20 times, for a family trip, because my Dad did business w/Caterpillar, but a train would not have been used. A car was still needed for transport in Peoria. Also, there still would have been the need (parking cost) for getting to a station in Chicago–20 miles away, over an hour of time there including checking in.
Think about how few travelers there would be from Chicago to any other UA in Illinois, none of which have populations over 200,000.
All this taxpayer money could help delivery of products:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/SmartGrowth/wm2637.cfm
prk166,
This IS Union Pacific track. Obama’s so-called high-speed rail plan is really mainly a plan for giving the railroads subsidies to double-track their lines. I doubt that UP would double-track this route if the feds weren’t paying for it. The passenger rail buffs hope that it will be more cost-effective to double-track the UP line than to build a brand-new line.
You guys are fucking crooks!
The Antiplanner wrote:
> This IS Union Pacific track. Obama’s so-called high-speed rail
> plan is really mainly a plan for giving the railroads subsidies
> to double-track their lines. I doubt that UP would double-track
> this route if the feds weren’t paying for it. The passenger
> rail buffs hope that it will be more cost-effective to
> double-track the UP line than to build a brand-new line.
The Antiplanner and faithful allies might be interested in
what Ron Utt of Heritage wrote the other day:
Will Obama’s High-Speed Rail Plan Become a Subsidy for Freight Railroads?
My hopes were dashed. When I saw Dead in the headline, I hoped high speed rail was dead.
Michael said: My hopes were dashed. When I saw Dead in the headline, I hoped high speed rail was dead.
THWM: What the fuck is it with you anti-rail zealots? You go on with this John Galt/Ayn Rand bullshit, yet roads are a sacrosanct form of socialism, freight wise it’s ok to help out truckers, but it’s not ok to help freight trains?
I have no problem that the street in front of my house isn’t profitable, though don’t use socialism as your business model and complain about.
Scott, go fuck your self! I-55 wasn’t built for those just so they drive between Springfiled & Chicago. Amtrak trains passing through Springfield go as far south as Texas.
You’re all sleazy crooked bags of shit and I hope one day soon the invisable hand hits you in the back of the head with a baseball bat!
THWM:“What the fuck is it with you anti-rail zealots? You go on with this John Galt/Ayn Rand bullshit, yet roads are a sacrosanct form of socialism, freight wise it’s ok to help out truckers, but it’s not ok to help freight trains?”
ws: That’s the way I see it. Nevermind the fact that roads need to be tailor-made for huge freight trucks with thicker pavement, larger overpass heights, and turning radius/superelevation design (all things that increase the cost of roads) specifically for large trucks on the skirts of regular automobile user fees. Certainly trucks pay more, but nowhere as close as to the amount that they get from highways, nor even close enough to the amount of damage they do to roads.
Subsidy for highway freight okay, subsidy to railroad bad (even though railroads are a predominately private entity that pays taxes on their holdings/land and funds most of their own infrastructure and safety services). Highways do not pay property taxes (owned by the public) — but railroads do.
This is what we means when we say Randall does not cover the entire transportation system from a fair position. There’s much to criticize in the way of subsidies and fairness of the entire system, but it’s always absent from Randall’s arguments.
I neither approve of Highwayman’s foul more nor do I approve of any government subsidies.
Any government subsidies or any governance at all?
the highwayman said:
“You guys are fucking crooks!”
You’re free to not read this site highwayman if it so upsets you. In fact, I’m not sure why you do other than to defecate all over it.
Fuck you!
“Any government subsidies or any governance at all?” – Highwayman
As I said, I don’t approve of any government subsidies.
So no government at all then.
Frank; You’re free to not read this site highwayman if it so upsets you. In fact, I’m not sure why you do other than to defecate all over it.
THWM: STFU Frank & O’Toole’s a damn fraud!
ws: That’s the way I see it. Nevermind the fact that roads need to be tailor-made for huge freight trucks with thicker pavement, larger overpass heights, and turning radius/superelevation design (all things that increase the cost of roads) specifically for large trucks on the skirts of regular automobile user fees. Certainly trucks pay more, but nowhere as close as to the amount that they get from highways, nor even close enough to the amount of damage they do to roads.
Subsidy for highway freight okay, subsidy to railroad bad (even though railroads are a predominately private entity that pays taxes on their holdings/land and funds most of their own infrastructure and safety services). Highways do not pay property taxes (owned by the public) — but railroads do.
This is what we means when we say Randall does not cover the entire transportation system from a fair position. There’s much to criticize in the way of subsidies and fairness of the entire system, but it’s always absent from Randall’s arguments.
THWM: Well of course, that’s because, O’Toole is a fraud, along with the rest of Cato & Reason.