High-Speed Rail Projects Get Big Boost

[GG]

http://www.kiplinger.com/businessresource/forecast/archive/High_Speed_Rail_Projects_Get_Big_Boost_090320.html

Is there a cross-country bullet train in our near future? No, but President Obama wants to make a down payment.
By Martha Lynn Craver, Associate Editor, The Kiplinger Letter

High-speed rail will get an $8-billion shot in the arm from the stimulus package. The secretary of Transportation is drawing up guidelines for how the money will be spent and communities are dusting off ideas and going after a share of the funds, which will be doled out through 2012. Plans for high-speed rail projects have languished for years for lack of funding. But as highways and airways have clogged with congestion, interest in high-speed train travel has increased.

It's a top priority for President Obama, who pressed to have significant funding included in the stimulus bill. The president also plans to press for additional funding in regular budget bills so that the U.S. eventually can have high-speed trains like the ones in Japan and Europe. But few of the projects that are now contemplated will travel as fast as those overseas. While those trains move at speeds closer to 200 miles per hour (mph), the average speed of trains in the U.S. now is about 80 mph. The goal of most U.S. projects is to get up to speeds of 110 mph or so. "Call it higher-speed rail, rather than high-speed rail," says Rick Harnish of the Midwest High Speed Rail Association.

Projects that are farthest along and well positioned to be tapped include:

    * Chicago to St. Louis. Construction would start this year and take at least two years to complete. Currently the trip takes up to six hours. The goal is to reduce that time to three hours 45 minutes and increase frequency from five times a day to nine. Trains would go 110 mph instead of 79 mph.
    * Chicago, Milwaukee and Madison Wis. The basic design work is done. The project would expand train service from seven to 10 times a day from Chicago to Milwaukee and extend train service to Madison, which currently does not have service.
    * The "3-C Corridor." This would link Cincinnati, Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio, following the same path as highway Route 71.
    * California. An 800-mile system would link the San Francisco Bay area and Southern California and the cities in between. These would be true bullet trains, with speeds of up to 200 mph. Last November, Californians approved nearly $10 billion in bonds to get going on the project. The surveying is done, and some contracts have already been signed.
    * Tucson, Ariz., to Phoenix. The service would operate trains at speeds up to 125 mph with as many as 15 stations. The project involves new track, upgrading old tracks and improving highway-rail grade crossings. There is no daily, punctual rail service in this corridor today.
    * Charlotte, N.C. to Washington, D.C. Environmental and engineering studies have been done. The project could be completed by 2015. There are future plans to extend the route into South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.

There is one other project worth mentioning, simply because of the publicity it has received: Shortly after the stimulus was passed, some news outlets suggested the high-speed rail money was added to help Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada get funding for a controversial proposal to build a magnetic-levitation rail line between Las Vegas and Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif. While the project would be eligible for such funding, it is not among those that seem likely to win the competition for the limited funds available.

For weekly updates on topics to improve your business decisionmaking, click here.

[Transport_Oklahoma]

http://www.tulsaworld.com/business/article.aspx?subjectid=54&articleid=20090320_54_E1_Theide451368&archive=yes

http://newsok.com/house-panel-learns-price-of-rail-travel/article/3354797


You rarely/never hear the Oklahoma news media lament the cost of highway projects.

Nearly a billion dollars is being spent to improve just 3 miles of I 40 in Oklahoma City and I 44 in Tulsa. 

It is still unclear as of now whether ODOT will actually apply for the rail stimulus funds.  Pro-rail Oklahomans need to let Governor Brad Henry http://www.gov.ok.gov/message.php know this is important.

I do appreciate Oklahoma House Transportation Committee Chairman T. W. Shannon for having the vision to hold a meeting on this subject.

[TURobY]

Okay, I have written what is possibly the longest letter that I have ever written to a politician.

I outlined why a connection between OKC and Tulsa is important, why the OKC-Tulsa connection is more important than the OKC-Dallas connection (for economic and political reasons), the benefits gained by connecting the two metros (shared facilities, tourism attraction sharing, and commerce), and discussion about how rail would decrease maintenance on the highways and thus offsetting the $2B.

Hopefully it will be read... 

[edit]If anyone would like a copy to use as an outline or for letter ideas, feel free to message me.[/edit]

[cannon_fodder]

GREAT point about the cost of roadways.  Few people ever even think about it because it is "needed infrastructure."  Through in the added cost to individuals of fuel, insurance, loss from accidents, car payments, extra garage space and on and on and on.

Our car habit is wasteful and expensive.

[Transport_Oklahoma]

Obama rail plans to be announced Thursday

(We hear it will be at 8:00 CDT-I imagine C-SPAN will carry it live.)

This could be the equivalent of Eisenhower's plan for the interstate highway system.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration is expected to unveil its plans on Thursday for accelerating development of high-speed rail, a concept that in the past has had mixed political support and little public funding.

"It will be broad and strategic," Karen Rae, acting head of the Federal Railroad Administration, told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday about the initiative described by officials as President Barack Obama's top transportation priority.

"It's going to talk about how we begin to create this new vision for high-speed and intercity rail," Rae said.

White House and transportation officials have spent the past several weeks weighing plans for developing at least six high-speed corridors.

High-speed rail initiatives are in various planning stages in California, Florida, Nevada, the Carolinas and the Northeast. States are already formulating how to use the large appropriation for high-speed rail projects in the economic stimulus act.

"Some of these plans are 20 years old," said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood in an interview this week with Reuters Financial Television.

In February, Congress included $8 billion for rail development in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and Obama has included another $5 billion for the efforts in the White House's proposed budget.

LaHood said the $8 billion in stimulus money will "jump-start" the process, but rail advocates and transportation officials agree that financing high-speed rail nationally will cost significantly more.

The plan to be released on Thursday is required by the stimulus act, but Rae said it will "reference the broader rail agenda that is out there."

Rae said she hopes her agency beats the next deadline set by the act on June 17 to provide guidance on how the competitive grants in the stimulus bill will be evaluated.

Government financing for passenger rail has been a contentious political issue for years although supporters have long touted its popularity in Europe and Asia. The U.S. government defines high-speed rail as "intercity passenger rail service that is reasonably expected to reach speeds of at least 110 miles per hour."

Supporters of Amtrak, the country's heavily subsidized and only long-haul passenger rail service, fought bitter political battles with the Bush administration to keep the network running nationally. Now, Amtrak and passenger rail advocates have powerful new allies in the Obama administration and Democratic lawmakers heading up key committees.

Midwestern governors recently wrote Secretary LaHood asking for $3.4 billion of the funding to build up high-speed rail corridors in Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin.

"I believe Missouri and the other states in our region present a compelling and united case to the Obama Administration to fund these projects," Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon said in a statement on Tuesday.

"Our states have been working on this rail initiative for more than a decade, and we will aggressively compete for these Recovery Act funds specifically designated for high-speed rail projects," he added.

[Transport_Oklahoma]

KOCO OKC does story on OKC-Tulsa high speed rail

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grrxUKxk8mU

[FOTD]

KOCO OKC does story on OKC-Tulsa high speed rail

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grrxUKxk8mU

FOTD wants the electric car rentals for the travelers who want to leave Tulsa and upon arrival in OKC have ready to go environmental friendly autos for quick trips around the city. Same concession coming to Tulsa from OKC.

1 hour travel which most Tulsalites spend going to Woodland.

Hope they include Norman.

Build it and they will travel....why would a republican repel this idea?