FL, CA, IL to get first high-speed rail funds

Texas gets just $4 million

Steve Hawley, Jan 28, 10.

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UPDATE: (2/02/10, 12:45 pm): Americans have been overwhelmingly enthusiastic about the high-speed rail funding, according to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, writing in his Fast Lane blog:

Over the past few days, I’ve heard transportation experts around the country collectively exhaling after waiting nearly a year to see how we evaluated the various proposals. State leaders are excited about what this means for their economic future. And the public is thrilled to see the U.S. move full speed ahead toward a 21st century transportation infrastructure that will rival systems in Europe and Asia.

Response was even positive in states that did not receive much funding, such as Texas and Oregon, LaHood said. He said that those states were bypassed because of merit, not politics.
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The Obama administration announced Thursday that California, Florida, and Illinois will receive the most initial high-speed rail funding, with California receiving $2.34 billion, Florida getting $1.25 billion, and Illinois receiving $1.235 billion, according to Bloomberg News and the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO).

Other big winners include Wisconsin ($822 million), Washington ($590 million), North Carolina ($545 million), and Ohio ($400 million). Twenty-four other states will also receive funding. A full list of the awards, as well as project descriptions, is available at the AASHTO website.

“It looks like [the administration is] doing it right,” said Robert Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association. “They’re front-loading investment in some corridors that are ready to go. Certainly Chicago and Los Angeles and to a lesser degree the Florida project have the transit links and walkable downtowns.”

Overall, the administration awarded $8 billion, money which was included in last year’s stimulus bill. The Federal Railroad Administration planned to announce the awards last fall but pushed back the date due to overwhelming response. The agency sad it received 45 applications requesting a total of $50 billion.

“There’s no reason Europe or China should have the fastest trains,” said President Obama during his State of the Union address. “There are projects like [Florida’s] all across this country that will create jobs and help move our nation’s goods, services and information.”

US high-speed rail could get an even bigger boost this year. In December, Congress approved another $2.5 billion for high-speed rail, and last summer US Rep. James Oberstar of Minnesota proposed a six-year federal transportation bill that would include $50 billion for high-speed rail. With Congress focused on healthcare legislation, neither house acted on Oberstar’s bill, but US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood expects a bill to be passed by the end of the year.

Texas, which requested $1.9 billion for preliminary work on the “Texas T-Bone” corridor connecting San Antonio, Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Houston, will receive just $4 million in stimulus funds. That money will go toward improving signal timing at rail crossings between Austin and Fort Worth, which will increase the speed of the Texas Eagle rail service.

Last week, the Dallas Morning News reported that Texas was unlikely to receive much money:

This month, at a speech in Austin, a top federal rail administrator charged with managing the distribution of the new grants said Texas’ application lacks the kind of political support from the governor and the Legislature that would help it compete against other states where that support has been stronger.

“There has been no central vision, no common vision for rail in Texas,” said Karen Rae, deputy commissioner for the Federal Railroad Administration. “And that kind of vision, that kind of support from the political leadership, is critical to success in our program.”

The entire T-Bone project is expected to cost between $12 billion and $18 billion, and supporters hope the system will be completed by 2020. The trains would hit top speeds of 220 miles per hour.

Yesterday, Streetsblog had reported that Florida would likely receive $2.6 billion for its high-speed rail line connecting Tampa and Orlando. It noted that Florida has been working on a high-speed rail network for years, and that the state has already set aside a dedicated right-of-way along Interstate 4 worth approximately $100 billion. The Disney Corporation, based in Orlando, has also voiced its support for the project. The state hopes to have the first trains running in four to five years at speeds of up to 150 miles per hour.

Currently, the US has only one high-speed rail line: Amtrak’s Acela, which connects Washington, DC to Boston. The train reaches speeds of up to 150 miles per hour, but due to stops and sharp curves, the trains average just 83 miles per hour. By comparison, Japanese bullet trains run at 168 miles per hour, French trains hit speeds of 200 miles per hour, and the world’s fastest train, a magnetic levitation line in China, reaches speeds of 267 miles per hour.

Some organizations have criticized high-speed rail as wasteful spending, but the Tampa Tribune rebuts those claims:

For every in-depth, statistically laden report by think tanks such as the Reason Foundation, Heritage Foundation and Cato Institute that challenge rail transportation, there’s an equally cogent, heavily researched study that makes the opposite case.

The Washington-based Center for Transportation Excellence, for example, posts a point-and-counterpoint summary of rail issues at www.cfte.org/critics/what.asp, stating that public transportation critics can be influenced by personal beliefs, political agendas or potential harm to an industry they represent.

US Federal High-Speed Rail Plan