Widespread high-speed rail service, last seen in the U.S. during the Hoover administration (when passenger trains ran faster than they do today), stands ready for its comeback. Last November California voters approved a $10-billion bond toward a rail system that will move passengers the 432 miles between San Francisco and Los Angeles in just over two and a half hours. The federal stimulus package sets aside $8 billion to jump-start rail projects around the country, and the Obama administration has pledged another $1 billion a year for the next five years for high-speed rail.
Infatuations with high-speed rail systems have come to the U.S. before, of course—most recently, Texas and Florida trumpeted regional plans, only to abandon them after a few years. But advocates now see a difference. "It's more than plans this time, it's money," says James RePass, chair of the National Corridors Initiative.
In its quest to build a 21st-century rail network, the U.S. will rely on 20th-century technology. Magnetically levitated trains such as the 19-mile-long Shanghai Transrapid are not under serious consideration. Rather advocates see a potential for systems like those in Japan and Europe, where simple improvements such as dedicated track lines and overhead electrification allow trains to regularly exceed 180 miles per hour. The Japanese Shinkansen (“bullet”) trains, for example, average 132 mph between Tokyo and Osaka, a distance of 320 miles. Spain’s recently completed AVE line between Madrid and Barcelona covers 386 miles in under three hours; since it started service in February 2008, air travel between the two cities has dropped an estimated 30 percent.
The U.S. is too large to have train service connect the entire country the way it does in Spain and Japan. Instead the U.S. Department of Transportation wants to nurture the development of regional networks. The blueprint is the Northeast corridor, in which Amtrak’s Acela Express runs from Boston to New York City and down to Washington, D.C., at an average speed of 80 mph—“high speed” only if one is inclined to grade on a curve. That is fast enough, though, to entice riders concerned about airport delays and highway traffic: Amtrak estimates that the line carries 36 percent of all rail-air traffic between New York and Washington.
Other regions ideal for a high-speed rail network—in which cities are too distant to make driving convenient and too close to make a flight worthwhile—include the Dallas–San Antonio–Houston triangle, the Floridian triad of Orlando-Tampa-Miami, the upper Midwest Milwaukee-Chicago–St. Louis corridor, and northern and southern California. The federal dollars will go to projects in 10 intrastate regions such as these, connecting cities that are between 100 and 600 miles apart.
A prime goal of these regional networks will be to alleviate travel congestion. In California, for example, a growing population will require an extra 3,000 miles of highway lanes, five large airport runways and 91 airport gates by 2030—improvements that would cost an estimated $100 billion. “That will not happen,” says Quentin Kopp, chair of the California High Speed Rail Authority. “There will be a necessity, a transportation necessity, of using something besides our automobiles.”
Yet high-speed rail faces tougher challenges in the U.S. than it does in Japan or Europe. The modern geography of the U.S. is based on the Interstate Highway System, and driving here is far cheaper than in other countries. For instance, drivers pay about $90 in tolls during that one-way trip from Tokyo to Osaka, on top of $6.50 a gallon for gas. (The economics may become worse for cars if the U.S. puts a price on carbon—trains are 28 percent more efficient than passenger vehicles on a passenger-per-mile basis.)
In addition, most rail lines in the U.S. are primarily used for freight, and federal regulations, combined with industry practice, discourage passenger trains from exceeding 110 mph on track that freight trains also use. Moving faster than 125 mph requires a rail line akin to a highway—no intersections with road traffic at any point. Hence, true high-speed rail will require miles of new track, elevated above (or sunken below) existing roads, on newly acquired land that cuts the straightest line from A to B. All told, the tab might run from $40 million to $65 million per mile. Although some of the federal money will help start projects with this level of ambition, the rest will be used for more prosaic track and signal upgrades that will squeeze a little extra speed from existing lines.
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16 Comments
Add CommentMajor highways criss-cross the U.S. - why not have HS rail systems right next to the highways? The rights-of-way are there and it would provide service access.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe main item that has been missing is the will to do it.
Unfortunately, as usual, Maglev seems to be rejected without any real consideration or reason. Truth is, maglev is the fastest and most reliable ground transport system in the world. It's only the maglev that has curve radii sharp enough to follow existing rights-of-way (read: highways). Moreover, construction costs of a maglev are comparable to those of conventional high-speed rail - but maglev's operating and maintenance costs are significantly lower.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMaglev is the way to go; the US, having no extensive conventional rail network to adhere to, has an unique opportunity to leapfrog a generation of transport and choose maglev.
public will is everything.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthe amount of automobiles on this planet is absurd.
as a result the quality of life is very very bad. Noise, stress, fumes. Pedestrians having to be constantly on the alert and our lives threatened on a daily basis. The accidents, injuries, hospital care and attention, and police and dirty roads and streets and the eyesore of parking lot after parking lot and houses with garages, etc. are just ridiculous, costly and a total waste of energy and resources.
rail cannot come soon enough for me.
why does the health department permit this overuse of the automobile?
How come that Michael Moyer should be writing on a subject he obviouslyknows nothing about? Does he not know that the Japanese are fazing out their 'Bullet' trains in favour of 'Maglev'! It's the only way to fly! I have been there and done it!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHo come that Michel Moyer should be writing about a subject he obviously knows little to nothing about! (Maglev) Does he not know that the Japanese are fazing out their 'Bullet' trains and replacing them with their Maglev! They know it's the only way to fly! I have been and done it! It's called 'progress'!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe author certainly is no expert on the subject, as noted above. But more to the point, why does he quote only an advocate, Kopp, who has been pushing the California project for 15 years and has absolutely no objectively on the issue.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy didn't he talk to a real HSR expert like Joseph Vranich, who although a HSR advocate, his views on the California project are very negative to say the least. He stated before a California State committee, the project was the worst planned HSR project he had ever seen. There is a YouTube video with his testimony (search Youtube for Vranich High Speed Rail.
Very disappoint to see Scientific Amercian publish such an un-inormed piece.
HSR proponents usually sport a very negative emotional bias towards maglev - something they can never support with arguments.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne of the unnoticed advantages of high speed rail is expected reduction in traffic on road and air. This would result in lesser burning of hydro carbons and consequent reduction in carbon footprint. With the degree of stress being laid by Obama administration on reducing carbon emmission, based on which G8 conference was recently held at L'Acquila in Italy, it would be quite in place to plan HSR network in the USA,not withstanding the cost implications. Planets well being is indeed a very crucial subject.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe amazement never cease... Writing a piece about highspeed trains without ever mentionning the TGV, which carries millions of passengers in Europe and broke a few speed records to boot. Now that 's a "tour de force" in slanting. I'll try too: did you know that forty years ago some people in north America sent three men to the moon using technology developped by germans and russians?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy are we still writing about passenger rail?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy future has cars that drive themselves, similar to the Department of Defense sponsored vehicles that had a contest in the desert. In fifty years or so, the civilain vehicles will save energy by drafting and using various hybrid technologies. One will not have to drive to a central location and park, but just get into a vehicle, with your "junk" (computers, jackets, books,winter survival gear for a Wyomingite like me:)) already in it. Will one drive? Why? Wouldn't you rather read, surf the net, look at a baseball game or a movie or just sleep? Toyota (American car manufactors will never get it) will produce a vehicle with an exercise bike.
Yes, it will be scarey giving up the control when the cars are first produced, but wouldn't you rather do something rather than risk falling asleep and dying in a roll over accident? No more multi-car crashes in the fog, the cars will go talk to each other and just go through the fog, radar in the lead car will watch for wildlife on the road. Want to see a friend 8-hours away? Travel overnight, sleep overnight, show up for breakfast and go home the next night. Need to get something to eat or go potty? Surf the net, make your choice and tell the car where to go. Too old to drive? It will not matter, the car will drive. Too old to drive and afraid you need to go potty every twenty minutes (like my 92 year old mom)? Program the car to find a rest stop every 20 minutes. Want to drive into the city and take the kids to the zoo? The car will drive you there and find a parking space. It could even drop you off and drive itself to a satallite parking are and you could call it on your cell phone and tell it to "pick me up at the zoo" in 20 minutes and it will come and get you.
"GPS-cars" are the way to go. Once they become available they will be like microwaves, cell phones or IPODS/MP3 players and we all will wonder why did we take so long to get them. Please drop the passenger rail idea and put the billions into making the "gps-cars" that drive themselves. They'll save energy, save lives, make time, and increase productivity.
The germans have been working on this concept for a while and you can look to the 2010 E class and find quite a lot of the radar based features you are talking about( auto- braking, unwanted lane change, car in your blindspot). Audi has already developed the drafting and intercommunication of a train of cars. The technology for what you are talking about already exists, it only remains for everyone to adopt a standard and for it to become affordable
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe technology you are talking about has already been developed by the germans. Look at the 2010 E class and you will find many of the radar based techs you spoke of(auto braking, car in blindspot, unauthorized blind spot). It may be necessary to outfit highways with transponders, not sure about the cost. And Audi developed the drafting and intercommunication of car trains a few years back, what is necessary now is for a standard to be adopted and for it to become affordable. That being said, rail is still cheaper transportation and relieves strain and congestion on highways and airports. With proper transit hubs, many people could find it unnecessary to have a car, and might instead have one of Toyota's personal urban vehicles (think Segway). The Japanese are thinking of a system which incorporates both, the high speed rail for long distances(over 100 miles) which could carry your urban vehicle. The answer is to have both.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe United States is too big to have a Nationwide High Speed Train Network, is the dumbest excuse I have ever heard. If we take the time to improve the tracks across the country, I do not see why we can not have a train service that goes from Los Angeles to Chicago , or San Diego to New York or even Seattle to Miami , at speeds of 300 KM's and hour. Spend the money and lets improve the train service in the United States...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInteresting article.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhere did you get the figure that "trains are 28 percent more efficient than passenger vehicles on a passenger-per-mile basis"? That seems low to me.
As I have commented more than once, if you wish for surface level high speed transportation that ticks the following boxes, - efficient, reliable,weather immune, low environmental impact, quiet,low energy consumption, potentially very fast,- then the only conceivable option is Evacuated tube Transport ( ETT ). Energy consumption goes up with the square of the speed of the vehicle due to air resistance. Take that out of the equation and high speed is much more affordable. The scrapping of 1 car would probably produce about a tonne of steel, which would be more than enough for a meter length of double tube ( one for each direction ) capable of withstanding atmospheric pressure by a comfortable margin. Millions of cars are replaced every year in the US alone. 10% of that steel could build more than 1000 Kilometers a year. Once such a system were up and running and the inevitable teething problems resolved, it's attractions would be so obvious that the network would grow rapidly.The pilot lines should be betwen two of the larger cities to sort out the best details, such as tube diameter, airlock design and size. I look forward to constructive comments
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy so much?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNetwork Rail the British 'not for profit' railway owner has recently (and locally) laid three miles of new track, albeit with a new level crossing but also with new over-bridge for �21m. The UK estimate used to be �7.5m per mile (where groundwork was needed) but clearly Network Rail wanted to prove that railways are cheaper than this.
I can't help but wonder why, though.