The Senate has approved their version of the stimulus plan in a 61-37 vote. All Democrats and three Republicans – Senator Arlen Specter, of Pennsylvania, and Senators Olympia J. Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine – voted yes, with the remaining Republicans present voting no. Judd Gregg (R-NH) was not present for the vote, and a winner in Minnesota Senate race between Al Frankin and Norm Coleman has not yet been seated.
Because the Constitution requires that both Houses of Congress pass the same bill, the next step is for the Conference Committee to meet and resolve the differences between the House and Senate versions. Senator Specter has stated that he wants most of the what was in the Senate version to come back from Conference, which could mean the bill will look more like the Senate version in the end. Both Houses have to vote a final time before the bill can be sent to the President to sign into law, and without a 60-seat majority in the Senate, the Democrats will need at least two Republican votes to end debate and avoid a filibuster.
Friday the Transport Politic had a nice chart showing the differences between the House and Senate bills on Amtrak and transit, and I’ve reproduced it here.
| Program | Passed House Bill | Proposed Senate Bill |
| Grants to Amtrak | $800 m | $850 m |
| Grants to States for Rail | $300 m | $250 m |
| High-Speed Rail | 0 | $2 b |
| Total Rail | $1.1 b | $3.1 b |
| Transit Formula Funds | $7.5 b | $8.4 b |
| Fixed Guideway Modernization | $2 b | 0 |
| New Starts | $2.5 b | 0 |
| Total Transit | $12 b | $8.4 b |
| Discretionary Grants | 0 | $5.5 b |
I wonder how transit will fare in the “discretionary grant” programs. It’d be the first chance to see Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood in action and find out if he’s just another road warrior. Personally, I’d rather see Congress fund New Starts – which give cash to local transit projects – than High Speed Rail. Which would you rather see?
Update: Here’s a comparison of the timelines and levels of spending and tax cuts between the two versions of the bill.
Andrew, the “Discretionary Grants” are determined by the Federal Secretary of Transportation. I do like the idea of these competitive grants (i.e. highways would have to compete against transit in terms of effectiveness), but not at the exclusion of new starts and other FTA money.
Sure, but the State DOTs submit the projects. I’ll correct the post to say, “I don’t think our state will apply for many discretionary grants for transit projects”.
Thanks, John.
I didn’t know that the state DOT submitted projects, I thought it was open to all levels of government…
I have to find the link, but I read it was submitted only by state DOTs. From where did you hear that it’s open to all levels of government?
I have to stop basing what I post about on random stupid blogs. Here’s the particular text of the senate stimulus bill (emphasis added of course).
http://www.capitolhillreports.com/s336111th.pdf
It goes on like that for pages. This is the second time in a week that I posted incorrect information based on the reading of random blogs.
What are the likelyhood that Sound Transit will money for the projects that they submitted?
It’s difficult to know at this point, but it’s likely they will get some money. How much is not known, and which projects are going to be funded is unknown.
it’s be nice to read the rationale behind those funds being cut.
is that debate available anywhere, or did the funds get cut after some invisible backroom dealing?
It was never cut, I reported that based on another blog that was incorrect.
The Senate and House started with different levels of transit funding, $8.4 bn vs $9bn. The House added a $3 bn amendment that pushed the total to $12 bn, and a similar amendment failed to get the 60 votes requiretd in the Senate.
It’s important to note that the House Bill, although perhaps less for rail and mass transit, does have a significant amount (about $1.35 billion) for pedestrians and bicycle infrastructure. I think that is pretty damn important for our future transit network. via
oh html, you are so frustrating
via streetsblog – http://www.streetsblog.org/2009/02/10/senate-approves-stimulus-bill-on-to-conference-committee/#more-5439
I’m not sure why high speed rail (however they define that) is separated from Amtrak. My guess is they are looking at Amtrak as an operator only without the experience to design and contract the rails and signaling system. Is this going to be some new agency or is there already something else in place that was responsible for say the Acela route?
One reason I can see the feds funding high speed rail over local projects is those routes are akin to interstate highways rather than state and local roads. It would be much harder for all the States along a route to come to an agreement on route and funding. The problem is there are only a few routes where high speed rail makes sense so a handful of states get all the benefit. Local projects on the other hand are going to roughly be proportional to the population and tax base of each state.
California HSR is separate from Amtrak, for example. I do agree that state HSR projects are less valuable than a federally-guided and funded strategy.
I suspect Amtrak will get a contract to operate California HSR. Unless someone else is likely to a better job it makes sense to have them do it.
California has a business plan to operate this at a profit and voted last November to authorize $10 billion in bonds to get this rolling. Amtrak has operated as a welfare program for so many years I doubt California will be looking for any federal involvement in operations. More likely would be a private contractor as they bill the whole project as a public/private partnership.
Just because most of Amtrak’s routes operate at a loss doesn’t mean they suck at running passenger trains. A lot of Amtrak’s route structure and cost structure is politically mandated.
NE corridor services operate at a profit. Cascades services operate at a profit. Some of the Amtrak California services operate at a profit.
Most of Amtrak’s problems boil down to a lack of money on their part. Even the fights with the freight rail companies are essentially a money issue. Amtrak does much better on services that get a lot of Congressional attention (NE Corridor) or where there are state subsidies (Cascades, Amtrak California, others).
I don’t think the fact that many Amtrak services operate at a loss means they’d suck as the operator of California HSR. Other than Caltrain and Metrolink I don’t see anyone else capable of operating the trains without a very steep learning learning curve.
Wow, California High-Speed Rail looks like it’s in position to get a a major boost from the stimulus. Funding is in place and it’s shovel ready (shoveling paperwork counts doesn’t it ;-)
Being free of Amtrak will work for California since it’s so large with major population centers within state lines. Although I’m sure Arizona and Nevada would like to get in on it at some point. Most states aren’t large enough or lack the population density. Texas might be the other exception to high-speed rail being an interstate proposition.
Interesting factoid I got from the site was that in Japan High-Speed rail has been able to compete very successfully with air travel at distances up to 600 miles. Portland & Salt Lake City would fall within that circle from San Fransico. Of course it’s not exactly a straight line and there’s the miner (pardon the pun) problem of mountain ranges.
Why in the world would it matter to be within state lines? People want to go from Chicago to St Louis or Minneapolis and so on. Sure, maybe no one would ride NYC to LA high-speed rail but that doesn’t mean we don’t need a national network. In case you haven’t noticed, we have a national highway network that crosses mountain ranges even though few people drive across the whole country.
Amtrak could easily make money if it limited itself to certain corridors (Boston-DC and Seattle-Portland are profitable) or had the same level of Federal infrastructure investment that highways get. Instead, they get an underfunded Congressional mandate.
We have a national system of air travel (privately run albeit government subsidized) which is what high-speed trains will compete with. While there’s some people that drive across country that’s generally because they’re moving or the trip is the vacation. 200mph trains can compete with airlines up to about 600 miles. Past that the lost time (600mph vs 200mph) starts to shift people more to the airlines. The other factor is the longer the flight the more fuel efficient and economical air travel becomes. The majority of fuel is used getting the plane to altitude.
The relevance of mountains (and large bodies of water) is that it’s no longer a straight line trip so depending on how much it adds the the point to point distance shrinks accordingly. You’re also unlikely to hit that 200mph if you’re wandering along canyons and trying to pull a 3% grade. And of course it adds substantially to the initial cost which has to be recouped by higher fares (unless it’s a government giveaway like most of Amtrak).
Eventually there would be a network across the country connecting hub cities just like the airlines. Since we don’t have unlimited resources it makes sense to build the routes that profitable first. If California’s estimates are right the system will start paying back as soon as the first route opens which funds expansion of the system. Interesting to note was the predictions showed higher net revenue pricing travel at 50% of the price of airfare than at 70%!
Crossing state lines has a lot to do with getting a route funded. Take Seattle to Portland for instance. Both cities benefit. Should Washington foot 90% of the bill since most of the ROW is here? Even once you reach an agreement you’ve then got to get voters in both states to agree at the same time to fund it. Economic and political realities what they are it’s hard enough to get a major project funded in one State.
Practically speaking only a few states are big enough or have economies large enough to take on a project like this on there own (OK, it’s not without government subsidy but it’s not a federally run program).
I agree with almost everything in your post, but notice that you are conflating national air and highway infrastructure with state high speed rail. This is a Federal stimulus, so although CA HSR is the only one “shovel ready” there are certainly others that might be combined into a national system. No need to go over the Rockies, but Denver to Chicago has little water and even less mountains. I don’t have a problem with “government giveaways” if they create good transportation, and you have to admit that outside of city congestion the Interstate system works well. High-speed rail could too.
The corridor used by Amtrak Cascades has a number of “shovel ready” projects and I believe qualifies as “High-Speed Rail” as the FRA defines it.
BTW HSR is good for competing with automobiles as well as airlines. For trips where driving time is 4 hours or less (out to 300 miles or so) people are just as likely to drive as fly.
Always interesting, well thought out comments Bernie. Here’s a study completed a couple of years ago by WSDOT to determine how HSR might relieve congestion at our airports. An interesting, easy read.
http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/NR/rdonlyres/D27DD829-9CCF-483F-8A95-0CCA95C34365/0/LATS_PhaseII_Ch15.pdf
Both the FTA and DOT agree that our ‘incremental approach’ to building HSR is by far the most cost effective plan — new HSR lines, or Maglev is way down the list. While the report concludes that airport congestion is not changed much statewide, it fell short in actually doing and origin/destination surveys of all Seattle to Portland flights. I think HSR, making city center to city center in 2.5 hours would be highly competitive time wise, and at 1/3 the fare over air travel, easily attract passengers to suppport the hourly departures each way (option D)
Geeze, I got the fare wrong. Just checked and Amtrak is $28 from SEA to PDX, while the cheapest coach flight is $229 on Alaska (orbitz). Hows that for an incentive to use HSR
No doubt it is most “cost effective” to use existing infrastructure and I’m all for incremental improvements. However, the question in my mind is what would serve the country best in 30 or 50 years. New 200+ mph rail lines (not shared with freight) between big cities within a 600mi radius seems like an investment on par with our massive spending on air and interstates.
By the way, for Portland-Seattle specifically, Brian did a great post on the options a few months ago: Q&A – Seattle to Portland Information.
Mike,
Thanks for the link. I’ve tucked it away in my Google Documents. The take home message is “Both the Empire Builder and Coast starlight are operated by Amtrak as long distance scenic routes.” There’s plenty of rail tours offered in north America but they don’t come cheap and they don’t go through the most scenic portion of a route in the middle of the night! A note on fares, Horizon offers $59 one-way for restricted tickets purchased 14 days in advance from SEA to PDX. Trains can compete but only if it’s operated as a business catering to business travel.
For Amtrak Cascades they correctly identify ridership increase with increased frequency and decreased travel times. To be competitive with air they need to cut the travel time in half and double the frequency. Note, that can be done without additional trains or crews (each train makes twice as many trips). Way better service run at a profit; that’s the payback for an investment in track and signaling. We’ve already paid for the Talgo trains that can do this. Let’s start using them!
Chicago to Denver would be nice in that they are two of the busiest airline hub cities in the US. However, they are over 900 miles apart and the mile high city is in the heart of the Rockies. New Orleans is almost a hundred miles closer to Chicago than Denver. Still a stretch at 830 miles as the crow flies but it would pick up the major cities that were built along one of our first transportation corridors, the mighty Mississippi. That would also lend it’s self to branch routes from the current northeast corridor much like California’s plan of a seaboard and inland route.
In a previous post Chris asked who, if not Amtrak would operate high-speed rail service. How about airlines? They already know how to move passengers and how to contain costs in a competitive environment. High-speed rail has the potential to complement air travel. Airlines would be in the best position to adjust flights, the RR schedule and prices to optimize the system. Of course there would be government regulation critical to this being functional but it’s not a whole lot different than how the FAA “awards” routes to airlines.
Interesting thought about the airlines. With Alaska, United, and who know who operating along the corridor, it would really target trains schedules with warm butts in the seats.
Getting the BNSF to turn their ROW over to an FAA type agency would be a mountain moving experience. I think Nationalizing the railroads would be a huge mistake, and anything short of that is at the whim of the railroads — just like it is today.
I can’t see much middle ground, but maybe there’s a way. (like enforcing the passenger train priority, with fines and sanctions to back it up, and 24/7 oversight to watch the foxes in the hen houses.)
I agree that nationalizing the railroads or even impeding their ability to move freight efficiently is a mistake. Separating passenger from freight traffic is essential and dedicated track along side existing ROW as planned for California is the ideal. Hopefully California will prove to be a model that will spur development toward that goal. In the mean time virtual separation through improved signaling and targeted ROW improvements (like Pt Defiance bypass) can get us half way there (110mph vs 220mph). Sub two hour travel time Seattle to Portland with 8-10 round trips per day would probably supplant 80-90% of the trips by air, virtually of the portion served by bus and bring in a significant number of “new” riders that currently drive. Those time slots would be what the government would auction off to operators willing to provide service which met requirements designed to protect the public interest.
It’s not easy and it’s not free but it doesn’t require inventing new technology or busting the bank. As the WSDOT study pointed out moving the existing train sets off of the Portland to Eugene and Seattle to Vancouver BC runs is an obvious business decision. Focus on the market as it exists today and the positive revenue stream and rider base will drive expansion of the system in the future. The approach being used today is akin to what the airline industry would look like if instead of jetliners and hub airports we used government subsides to fly DC-3s to every municipal field in the country.
Amtrak Cascades is in a good position to receive some of the money designated for HSR service.
At the state level California HSR might spark some similar efforts in other states.
Texas (DFW/Austin/San Antonio/Houston), Florida (Tampa/Orlando/Miami/Jacksonville), Ohio (Cleveland/Columbus/Cincinnati), New York (NYC/Albany/Buffalo), Pennsylvania (Philadelphia/Harrisburg/Pittsburgh), Missouri (St. Louis/Kansas City), and Illinois (Chicago/St. Louis) are all routes that make sense are entirely or mostly in a single state and have mostly been designated HSR corridors by the FRA.
Another routing I’d like to see HSR on is the Chicago/Milwaukee/Minneapolis corridor. Back in the heyday of American passenger rail this route saw some of the highest speed (110/120 Mph) service with the Chicago & North Shore Electroliner, C&NW 400, and Milwaukee Road Hiawatha.
For most of the above corridors something along the lines of how Cascades service has developed would bring a vast improvement capable of competing with driving or flying without the staggering capital costs involved in building a full state-of-the-art high speed line like California is doing.
Regionally the “other Northwest” already has a decent commuter rail system and is probably next in line behind the northeast corridor as far as existing demand. But Chicago, Milwaukee, Minneapolis is three separate state governments to deal with as is Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland (getting to Buffalo adds two more).
None of the existing long distance Amtrak routes are viable without bullet trains. For example on the Texas Eagle St. Louis/Dallas leg is 547 miles. A hybrid of the Texas Eagle and City of New Orleans would look to have the best shot at being the central north south spine (pick up St. Louis on the way from Memphis to Chicago). Chicago/St. Louis at 258 miles is certainly viable without the dedicated tracks required by a bullet train.
St. Louis (Gateway to the West) is well positioned geographically and like Chicago it’s a major airline hub:
St. Louis/Kansas City 233mi
St. Louis/Indianapolis 234mi
St. Louis/Louisville 243mi
St. Louis/Memphis 247mi
St. Louis/Nashville 258mi
St. Louis/Des Moines 270mi
St. Louis/Little Rock & Topeka 294mi
St. Louis/South Bend 296mi
St. Louis/Cincinnati 312mi
St. Louis/Omaha 357mi
St. Louis/Tulsa 360mi
East/west it looks like:
Chicago 258-> St. Louis 357-> Omaha 458-> Denver 371-> Salt Lake 429-> Reno 111-> Sacramento(connection to CA High-Speed Rail). Chicago 433-> Omaha would cut time but initially the connectivity through St. Louis would be critical.
To get to the “real northwest” Portland 484-> Sacramento would need to be built out and probably best wait for true bullet train type service. Besides, flying into SFO is such and adventure ;-)
I hadn’t thought of Floriduh but you’re right. They have the geographical proximity, density and economy to make rail very doable ala Califonia.
Interesting discussion – I can’t add much except to put in my usual plug for adding more trains on more routes that can compete with the airlines on relatively short distances – SEA to PDX and SEA to Spokane and to Vancouver both spring to mind for adding service. SEA to SFO maybe more problematic given the current train speeds and track sharing issues with BNSF and UP but certainly should be part of a mid development range looking at the up and coming decade.
I can’t get too excited or downhearted yet about the stimulus bill because it has to go through Conference and then the result has to be voted on. At this point, who knows what will survive, get cut or shelved before the bill gets to President Obama’s desk. As it comes down to what Senators Collins and Snowe of Maine want from the package, do either of them like Amtrak or other High Speed Rail projects?
Tim