Florida Governor Rick Scott killed the Tampa-to-Orlando high-speed rail project, seven years after the state previously killed it once before. Scott cited three reasons for killing it: the potential for cost overruns, overly optimistic ridership projections, and the fact that, if the project turned out to be a dud and the state shut it down because it couldn’t afford to operate it, it would have to return the federal grants to the federal government.
Where does this leave Obama’s high-speed rail plan? On one hand, Immobility Secretary LaHood now has nearly $2.5 billion he can give to other states for high-speed rail. But with most of the freight railroads opposing moderate-speed rail on their tracks (the only major exception being Union Pacific in the Chicago-St. Louis corridor), projects that aim to share tracks with freight trains are going nowhere.
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That leaves California, the only other state (besides Florida) that planned to build tracks exclusively for high-speed trains. Even if LaHood gives all $2.5 billion to California, that state will still have only about $10 billion in hand to build a project that will probably cost at least $65 billion.
With Republicans in the House seemingly dead set against spending any more federal dollars on high-speed rail, it seems likely that the program is dead.
My understanding is that the freight railroads don’t oppose the moderate speed rail per se (and in the case of NS in North Carolina, they don’t actually own the track in question but rather have a trackage rights agreement), but they won’t accept the penalties that the FRA is trying to impose in case passenger rail delays occur.
The states and the freight railroads were able to come to agreements, but the FRA is vetoing it. Seems like there should be room for negotiation there, and I suspect that the FRA might back down in an effort to get the funds obligated before they get taken away.
Is Dan/Highwayman going to cry? There, there, poor baby.
The Florida project would have been a disaster. The reduced travel time between Tampa and Orlando would have been offset by travel time/cost requirements in getting to and from the train stations. Tampa and Orlando are not dense enough or far enough apart to make the concept work.
John Thacker,
The freight railroads have a lot of objections to HSR, and recently they have been focusing on the on-time standards the feds want to impose on the projects. But really their objection is that running 110-mph passenger trains on the same tracks as 50-mph (typical) freight trains is unsafe, not to mention a huge scheduling headache. BNSF and CSX have formally stated they want to limit trains to 90 mph, and NS wants no faster than 79 mph, which is the existing standard on most Amtrak routes.
Oh, they do have objections, but I suspect that those objections can be overcome if they see enough of a benefit from the track upgrades. E.g., in North Carolina the track upgrades are double-tracking the busiest stretch of the NS mainline from Greensboro to Atlanta, which on net should make it easier for the existing passenger trains to run on different tracks than freight.
Of course, that raises the objection (that the FRA shares) of why the federal money should be going to subsidize private freight railroads, but the FRA will, I predict, swallow those objections to get the money obligated if the new Congress looks like it wants to take the money back.
“But really their objection is that running 110-mph passenger trains on the same tracks as 50-mph (typical) freight trains is unsafe, not to mention a huge scheduling headache.”
Oh please. There is nothing “unsafe” about it. The freight railroads did it themselves for decades from around 1900 to 1950 when the infamous ICC cab signal order was put in effect and destroyed US preemince in high speed rail, and on a lesser scale to 1970 on the few remaining districts which complied with the ICC’s diktat. Amtrak has operated 110 mph+ passenger trains and freights for 40 years between Boston and Washington, and continued to run at 100 mph on the Santa Fe and Illinois Central after its founding. I just rode a passenger train at 125 mph today to Baltimore, and we passed a Norfolk Southern freight doing 50 mph on the other track twice. No one died or was injured in the process. The Providence and Worcester operates daily freights in Rhode Island as Acela’s zip by at 150 mph in the other direction. Up in Canada, which operates under essentially the same rules as the US as far as railroads go, they operate 105 mph passenger trains next to massive 50 mph CN freight trains every day between Quebec and Toronto.
Everything that the Europeans, unwilling freight railroaders, and anti-HSR folks tell you cannot be done HAS BEEN DONE for 110 years in the United States. There is nothing magical or mystical or inexplicable about it at all. It simply takes a will to do it.
And most of the “scheduling” issues, come from the self-sabotage the freight railroads undertook on themselves with government complicity and connivance from 1970 to 1990 in ripping out double track, reducing interlockings, eliminating alternate routes, and pulling out high speed signal systems. They are regreting this short-sighted stupidty all on their own becaus eof the huge boom in traffic that has occurred since 1990, but passenger rail really makes them regret their shortsightedness.
Everything that the Europeans, unwilling freight railroaders, and anti-HSR folks tell you cannot be done HAS BEEN DONE for 110 years in the United States. There is nothing magical or mystical or inexplicable about it at all. It simply takes a will to do it.
The way to Win The Future in the 21st century is to go spend lots of money on the technology of the 19th century?
19th century technology, you mean things like automobiles?