Is More Federal HSR Funding On The Horizon?
President Barack Obama today announced new job creation proposals that, while currently vague, could lead to further federal funding for high speed rail:
• Additional investment in highways, transit, rail, aviation and water. The President is calling for new investments in a wide range of infrastructure, designed to get out the door as quickly as possible while continuing a sustained effort at creating jobs and improving America’s productivity.
• Support for merit-based infrastructure investment that leverages federal dollars. The Administration supports financing infrastructure investments in new ways, allowing projects to be selected on merit and leveraging money with a combination of grants and loans as was done through the Recovery Act’s TIGER program.
Either of these would benefit California high speed rail. Our HSR project can turn dirt beginning in 2011, and our $9 billion in state bond funding is mandated to be matched 1:1 to federal dollars. While HSR projects in other states have merit, it’s difficult to imagine an HSR proposal with more merit than California’s. None are further along in planning than ours, and none at this time offer 220 mph speeds connecting some of the nation’s largest and most important cities.
The details matter, of course, the details will be hashed out by the Congress (which is apparently how Obama wants it). To help push Congress to include more HSR funding in both the jobs bill as well as to restore the full $4 billion in ongoing HSR funding, a group of HSR supporters rallied this morning at LA Union Station. Led by LA City Council members Bill Rosendahl and Janice Hahn (who is also running for Lieutenant Governor and is a strong backer of HSR) and co-organized by CALPIRG, they called on Senator Dianne Feinstein to support the $4 billion in funding.
As the economic crisis continues, it’s becoming clearer to more and more Californians that high speed rail is pretty much the only thing in the entire state that can create a significant number of jobs in the next few years. This is an opportunity our state literally cannot afford to miss.
UPDATE: Both houses of the Florida legislature have now passed the HSR bill, which will be signed by Florida’s Republican Governor Charlie Crist shortly. This means Florida will become a more important competitor to California for HSR funding.
Does the Florida bill include funding, or is Florida still hoping for 100% federal funding?
Rafael Reply:
December 8th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
I haven’t yet seen what the Florida state legislature ended up passing. A few days ago, the strategy was still that the state would pony up its share of Tri-Rail and in addition, fund SunRail as well. The state would still ask the Feds for 100% of the funds needed to implement Florida HSR phase 1, arguing that it had already done its share by acquiring the right of way.
AndyDuncan Reply:
December 8th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
A ROW down the middle of a federally funded freeway. A freeway that was constructed at greater cost than otherwise be necessary with a ROW in the middle in order to provide for simpler future expansion (see also: DesertXpress). I’m not saying that empty freeway medians are necessarily a bad place for HSR, but they exist because taxpayers already paid to put them there and any accounting of the value of that land needs to take into account the money that was spent to get them there.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
December 8th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
Freeway medians aren’t the worst place to put the tracks when you’re going between cities, depending of course on other factors such as overpasses, surrounding landscapes, impact of high speed trains on freeway traffic, etc.
But they are definitely not good choices for urban routes, and absolutely not for stations. Florida’s problems with sprawl are as bad as California’s, if not worse. They too need to redirect growth toward existing city centers. That’s where Florida’s HSR stations ought to go, and where I’d advocate they go were I a Florida HSR activist.
Walter Reply:
December 8th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
I mostly agree with Robert.
Highway medians are an excellent choice for some stations. BART has built a line entirely in the median of CA-24 (from Oakland to Walnut Creek) with a great deal of success. Yes, the stations are outdoors in the middle of one of the Bay Area’s busiest freeways–people use them anyway. You can still talk on the phone on the platform. It’s not really an issue.
The caveat is that these stations are not urban stations. They are next to huge parking lots so that residents of the spread-out 925 area code can park and ride. Don’t get me wrong, it’s absolutely the right way to connect the Contra Costa County suburbs to Berkeley, Oakland and San Francisco. People making the short drive from their homes to a nearby train station on surface streets are not really to blame for pollution and congestion. Park and ride is not always evil. But I agree with Robert that this model doesn’t work for urban stations. Hopefully this message will get across in Los Angeles and Florida. I’m not sure about the population distribution along the Florida rail corridor, but I bet stations in medians with large parking lots would work fine if Florida plans to put stations in commuter-heavy suburban areas. We can only hope they find better spots to put the major stations in Miami, Orlando and Tampa.
Rafael Reply:
December 8th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
Florida paid quite a bit to widen the I-4 right of way when the asphalt lobby decided to increase the number of lanes from 8 to 12. The state did so precisely to preserve the median for a future rail project. Perhaps I should have called it ROW preservation instead of ROW acquisition.
Either way, stations will be smack in the middle of a very wide, busy freeway, much like several of those on the LA-San Diego spur of the California network. Rail passengers are generally not all that keen on hanging out at those, but at least in California the trains will actually get them to the downtown areas of major cities. Florida HSR phase 1 is from Tampa (which has an airport) to Orlando airport by way of Disney World. That corporation has donated land for a station. Gee, I wonder why.
Florida’s proposal covers like 2.6 Billion of the 3.2 Billion needed. I think local municipalities are suppose to pony up the rest. It doesn’t seem like the state is willing to give much though. I think California will get more funding in the first round if the $4 Billion is approved HSR for FY 2010.
Florida won’t be a tough competitor for a few years. But if only $4B is dispensed per year by the federal government, no HSR system is going to go very far. That amount might be enough to cover the federal share of CAHSR build-out and NEC upgrades, but not much else.
HSRforCali Reply:
December 8th, 2009 at 7:05 pm
$4 billion is still better than $1.2 billion. But we would need something far more substantial than that amount per year if we’re going to build HSR across the country.
Peter Reply:
December 8th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
I think once states realize how much money they can get for high speed rail they will be clamoring for more money. Obviously there’s a HUGE amount of demand by states for money for HSR. Look at how much they asked for from the $8 billion stimulus.
Peter Reply:
December 8th, 2009 at 7:33 pm
Unless their governor is Bobby Jindal.
HSRforCali Reply:
December 8th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
You have to take into account the “vulture” states that suddenly came out of the blue claiming they wanted to build high-speed rail. Something tells me they’re not serious about their out-of-the-blue proposals.
Clem Reply:
December 8th, 2009 at 11:10 pm
They’re perfectly serious about 110 mph rail. That’s what passes for high-speed rail in these parts. I will be positively amazed if California scores more than $2 billion of ARRA funding.
Rafael Reply:
December 8th, 2009 at 11:32 pm
The $8 billion in ARRA can be used for projects in which the federal share is up to 100%, at the recipient’s option. California offered to match it’s $4.7 billion request dollar-for-dollar, something it did not need to do. It chose to do so anyhow in the hope/expectation that this would increase its chances of actually getting anything at all. The California system is much larger than any other HSR project anywhere else in the country and, USDOT knows full well that CHSRA is actually looking for at least $16 billion from Congress.
However, it’s important to realize that the Feds footing the bill for everything is a very unusual setup. The PRIIA bill of 2008, which changed the definition of HSR to passenger rail that “could reasonably be expected to reach speeds of 110mph or more” and allocated $1.5 billion toward that end, limited the federal share of any one project to 80%. This put rail on par with highway projects for the first time. The $1.2-to-$4 billion a year now being discussed in the context of the regular budget for the next 5 years will presumably also be subject to a maximum federal share of 80%, as will any rail funds in the next surface transportation bill.
The only context in which “vulture” states could possibly get a second bite of the cherry is a second stimulus bill. However, if that were to get passed, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the administration decided to cast a wider net (i.e. included standard-speed heavy and light rail projects) while at the same time insisting on earlier project starts than Sep 30, 2012. Politically, the need for immediate job creation trumps the longer-term objective of a national HSR network. As long as new local/regional transit systems include stops at or pedestrian connections to prospective future HSR stations, the two goals are anyhow complementary.
California alone could readily absorb several billion in federal funds for local transit projects in short order, especially if you include the construction of multimodal transit hub buildings and environs.
Tony D. Reply:
December 9th, 2009 at 9:13 am
Rafael,
Putting all bias towards the project aside, do you think BART to SJ/SC would get some funds under a second stimulus? It is nearly 100% shovel-ready.
In terms of Fed funding for HSR: If CA can’t get the full chunk of monies necessary to complete the entire phase 1 at the outset, might we see funding concentrated on constructing the regional aspects of the system?; meaning, full build out of HSR/Caltrain (SF-Gilroy), Altamont HSR overlay, and Metrolink HSR (Palmdale/Anaheim) in SoCal, then connecting NorCal/SoCal via the central valley when funding permits? Just a thought
Rafael Reply:
December 9th, 2009 at 10:03 pm
If a second stimulus does happen and if it is focused on infrastructure, I suppose it would make sense to cast a wider net but demand an early start of construction. In other words, get cracking on whatever is shovel ready and worth doing. The BART extension qualifies on the first count and Santa Clara county voters approved not one but two sales tax hikes, so evidently they believe it’s worth doing – even if it is nose-bleed expensive.
Still, this project would have to compete with many other transportation projects, many of which will sport a better cost/benefit ratio – including many in California. Politics being what it is, Congress will eventually fund what Silicon Valley wants, simply because he who pays the piper calls the tune (at least every once in a while) but BART to Silicon Valley might struggle to secure funding early on.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
December 9th, 2009 at 12:42 am
Hardly out of the blue. Many states have been planing and actually doing something about improving rail service. Final engineering and environmental review completed. Concrete has actually been poured in places. For instance the Federal Government, the State of New Jersey and the Port Authority of NY and NJ are going to spend 10 Billion dollars in the next few years to double capacity on the Northeast Corridor. They are turning dirt for those projects now.
Rafael Reply:
December 9th, 2009 at 1:00 am
Is this the $10.2 billion plan that Yonah Freemark posted about recently?
Is any of the federal funding for that supposed to come out of the $8 billion in ARRA (separate from the Amtrak funds in that bill), the $1.5 billion in PRIIA or the $1.2-to-$4 billion/year in the next 5 budgets? In the national discussion on funding, the NEC is arguably a special case in that it is the only corridor that already has an operational HSR service – at least in the sense defined by Congress.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
December 9th, 2009 at 10:40 am
Nope, just on the ten miles between Herald Square in Manhattan and Penn Station in Newark NJ. . New tunnels under the Hudson, 6 more platforms just north of Penn Station, two new bridges across the Hackensack River and an additional track between the bridges and Newark. If I’m reading the track maps correctly a flyunder for the trains on the Morris and Essex lines ( former DL&W to western Essex County, Union County and Morris County ) that takes them off the Northeast Corridor and into the new tunnels.
http://www.portalbridgenec.com/
http://arctunnel.com/
Rumor on the Amtrak boards is that Amtrak gets 4 to 8 additional slots through the existing tunnel once both are completed. That doubles or triples their capacity.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 9th, 2009 at 11:23 am
…and a new deep-level station that doesn’t connect to anything. ARC is a walking billboard for firing the entire managerial staff on all US rail transit systems and begging Tokyo Metro and JR East to buy them at $1 each.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
December 9th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
It connects to Manhattan. You may have noticed that Manhattan is a destination for many many people.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 9th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
Manhattan isn’t a destination – it’s a collection of destinations. 34th/7th, 42nd/Lex, and 50th/5th are destinations. And ARC makes sure none of them can be served except 34th/7th.
PeakVT Reply:
December 9th, 2009 at 5:42 am
I agree, but $4B is about 1/7 or so of what is needed on an annual basis if the country is serious about HSR and passenger rail. But thanks to the efforts in CA, the country is closer than its ever been to shifting priorities.
Rafael Reply:
December 9th, 2009 at 8:14 am
I’m not sure prop 1A(2008) really triggered renewed interest in HSR nationwide. It may have helped, but mostly it was a consequence of President Obama’s and Vice President Biden’s personal affinity for passenger rail plus the chance to make $8 billion available to kick-start the process.
$28 billion a year actually sounds a bit high to me, I don’t think the industry is already in a position to absorb an influx of cash that large without wasting a lot of it. The US isn’t China, it cannot simply set aside environmental objections. There would also be an immediate shortage of skilled planners, engineers and perhaps even construction workers – building wood-frame McMansions and tunneling through mountain ranges require very different skill sets.
PeakVT Reply:
December 9th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
$27B couldn’t be absorbed next year. But 3 to 5 years from now it could be. Once companies see that a constant stream of funding will be available, they’ll equip themselves for the more obscure specialties. Besides, most of the skills needed for HSR construction are not super-specialized. And there is slack capacity in the construction industry to the tune of a couple of hundred billion dollars annually. ($27B figure derived here.)
Rafael Reply:
December 9th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
Fair enough, if there is a broad national commitment to invest heavily in transportation infrastructure nationwide, that level funding probably could be put to good use. States for which HSR doesn’t make sense will demand additional road or aviation funding instead.
However, in 3-5 years the recession will hopefully be over and there won’t be any need for an aggressive public works program to stimulate the economy. Instead, such a program would be a matter of choice, of setting new political priorities and sticking with them for the long haul.
Related: FRA’s preliminary national rail plan dated Oct 2009, which is actually not a concrete plan at all. Instead, it describes at a very high (= vague) level what the status quo is and how the agency intends to arrive at a plan, given that the vast majority of railway track-miles are in owned by competing private companies who are not about to tip their hand to each other (and probably not even to FRA).
The report shows that FRA remains focused on rail freight capacity and rail safety – both important – but has yet to get a handle on the specific issues raised by efforts to expand HSR beyond the NEC: right of way conflicts in urban areas, passenger rail punctuality, positive train control specs and funding, improving passenger rail fuel economy by switching to lighter rolling stock (i.e. active safety concept), platform height, full grade separation etc.
My takeaway is that FRA remains largely beholden to the freight rail industry, taking only the tiniest of baby steps toward actually implementing national policy on high speed passenger rail. State-level plans for brand-new networks of HSR track barely appear on FRA’s radar screen and even then, their map is incorrect.
FRA could well prove a massive boat anchor for the California system unless the state of California shells out for at least one additional agency headcount based in Sacramento – preferably at CPUC. In the grand scheme of things, the cost would be peanuts compared to the benefit of getting federal and state regulations aligned with the HSR project’s needs as early as possible. This includes essential nuts-and-bolts issues such as interoperable positive train control, use of non-compliant rolling stock, full grade separation of shared rights of way, modeling and mitigating the risk of trains fouling adjacent tracks and the consequences of that, noise and vibration from freight trains etc.
Basically, FRA is going to have to write a bunch of new rules specifically for express HSR and its staff in Washington, D.C. isn’t really focused on that. They haven’t even dusted off those already drawn up for Florida HSR yet.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
December 9th, 2009 at 7:19 pm
hmmm a preliminary plan that doesn’t spell out all the specific details for everything…
Obama wants to spend the leftover 2B inTARP money on infrastructure.
Rafael Reply:
December 9th, 2009 at 10:58 am
The figure I heard was $200 billion. This is a combination of funds not spent and repayments from past recipients.
However, TARP itself doesn’t allow the administration to simply re-allocate the “windfall” to infrastructure projects – Congress would have to pass additional legislation to that effect. What the President can do within the TARP framework is to increase the volume of affordable loans available to small business and other economic stimuli involving banks as intermediaries.
jimsf Reply:
December 9th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
oh yeah I mean 200 billion.
Congress has decided to spend 2.5 Billion for HSR.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/30375.html
Transport Politic: Congressional conference report recommends $2.5 billion in regular budget appropriations for HSR in FY2010, no change in federal capital funds for transit. In effect, the House and Senate split the difference between their respective bills.
This sum represents fresh money over and above the $1.5 billion in HR2095-110th (a.k.a. PRIIA) and the $8 billion in HR1-111th (a.k.a. ARRA a.k.a. the stimulus bill.
It’s not immediately clear if the $2.5 billion figure will apply in each of the next five years or only to FY2010, which began on Oct 1. The maximum federal share of projects funded with this fresh money is also not immediately clear, but I’m guessing it will be the regular 80% defined in PRIIA rather than the exceptional 100% permitted for the $8 billion in ARRA.
*some* of the left over money on infrastructure. About $50 billion is what I have seen.
Having Florida on board is very important, because now HSR funding has little chance at getting cut out of any jobs bill. Florida has a conservative Democrat (Nelson) and a moderate Republican (LeMieux, a placeholder for Crist basically) as its senators, so its very unlikely centrists will be able hack away as they did for the stimulus bill if these two favor its passage. LeMieux in particular is important, because as a Republican he’s one more vote that’s very important in preventing the threat of a filibuster from centrists like Nebraska’s Ben Nelson.
Rafael Reply:
December 9th, 2009 at 7:36 pm
These $2.5 billion are not earmarked for Florida HSR, they are a supplement to the $9.5 billion previously made available for HSR nationwide by the PRIIA and ARRA bills.
Your political calculation is interesting, but it’s a truly sad state of affairs when decisions regarding billions of taxpayer dollars are based not on the merit of a project but purely on counting votes in the US Senate. Besides, don’t count on any Republicans to vote for anything that could possibly be spun as a political victory for President Obama. So far, only the ladies from Maine have broken ranks and even that only on one occasion that actually mattered.