Members of the U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure convened in New York City on Friday for a hearing about the importance of the Northeast Corridor. The hearing took place in the Farley Post Office, home of the future Moynihan Station. Rep. Jeff Denham (R-CA), chair of the Railroads Subcommittee, wielded the gavel while Rep. Bill Shuster (R-PA), chair of the full committee, participated along with Ranking Member Corrine Brown (D-FL) and Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY). The witnesses included the President and CEO of Amtrak, Joe Boardman; Commissioner of New York State Department of Transportation, Joan McDonald; President of Drexel University, John Fry; and President of Regional Plan Association (RPA) and Chair of the Northeast Alliance for Rail (NEAR), Bob Yaro.

The impetus for the hearing is that the current federal rail bill, PRIIA, expires this fall and Congress will begin negotiating the next bill this summer. The next federal rail bill will authorize a five to six years worth of appropriations for the Federal Railroad Administration and Amtrak, and hence capital improvements to the Northeast Corridor (NEC). The FRA's High-Speed & Intercity Passenger Rail Program is a potential source of future funding for NEC improvements. After Florida Governor Rick Scott rejected $2.4 billion in federal high-speed rail funds in 2011, nearly $1 billion was redirected to the Northeast. Amtrak's federal funding for capital improvements is also largely dedicated to the NEC, where nearly 40% of their capital budget is spent.

In his testimony before the Committee, Bob Yaro outlined the main components of an improvement program that can be authorized in the reauthorization of the rail bill. RPA calls this program, "NEC Now." The NEC Now proposal addresses the corridor's highest-priority infrastructure needs: to remove bottlenecks, increase capacity, improve reliability and reduce travel times along the entire corridor. It also proposes funding for the construction of a high-speed bypass in New Jersey for express trains to overtake local trains on a segment with heavy NJ Transit commuter rail traffic, would cut trip times between New York and Philadelphia to well under an hour.

Download RPA's NEC Now Legislative Proposal & Infrastructure Program.

Download Bob Yaro's testimony as prepared.

The Business Alliance for Northeast Mobility has officially been renamed, The Northeast Alliance for Rail (NEAR). The new name more clearly describes the work that the coalition does - it is no longer just a business alliance, as many civic and planning groups are active members, and our advocacy work is now more focused on passenger rail investments in the Northeast Megaregion, as opposed to broader mobility. The Northeast Alliance's new acronym, "NEAR," speaks to the proximity created by investments in passenger rail that reduce trip times between major urban hubs, and the hope that these investments will be made in the near-term.

Please take a moment to like our new Facebook page, follow us on Twitter, and join our mailing list.

The Federal Rail Administration recently initiated the NEC FUTURE program, a planning effort to define, evaluate and prioritize future investments in the Northeast Corridor (NEC). In the following two weeks, the Back on Track Blog will feature a two-article series on the NEC FUTURE program. The series will introduce the concept, scope, and elements of the program, and how the public and business community can participate in the process. In the meantime, we encourage you to visit NEC FUTURE's website regularly for the latest progress and to voice your opinions.

»Amtrak has a strong vision for high-speed rail that embraces the concept of public-private partnerships, but retains leadership over infrastructure and operations in the Northeast Corridor.

Over the past several posts, Back on Track: Northeast has highlighted the proposal for high-speed rail on the Northeast Corridor by a studio at the University of Pennsylvania (PennDesign), which developed a vision for completing a dedicated, two-track high-speed rail system in just 25 years. While the PennDesign proposal is exciting, it is not the only plan for high-speed rail in the Northeast.

In September 2010, Amtrak released a summary of its own plans to institute a next generation, high-speed rail service in the Northeast Corridor (NEC), in a report entitled, A Vision For High-Speed Rail in the Northeast Corridor (PDF). This report is expected to be followed up with a more detailed plan to be released in the next few months. While there are many similarities between Amtrak's vision and the PennDesign proposal, they differ in several key ways.

For starters, the document that Amtrak has released to the public so far is not as thorough or comprehensive as the PennDesign reports. Amtrak's proposal cannot be considered quite as objective as the one created by the UPenn students, for while the PennDesign proposal does not prescribe who should actually run the service, Amtrak clearly sees itself as the primary intercity rail operator in the corridor and does not recommended anything that would jeopardize that status. Furthermore, while Amtrak studied the alignment proposed by PennDesign and recommended a parallel path from Washington to New York, ultimately Amtrak chose to pursue a route between New York and Boston that is vastly different than the one PennDesign deemed most feasible.

There are many important reasons why the Amtrak proposal is worth strong consideration. First, Amtrak has more experience with passenger rail on the NEC than any other entity, and their high-quality plan is indicative of their NEC expertise. Already, Amtrak has begun pushing its high-speed vision, and has a far-reaching advocacy network and strong political ties in the nation's capital. Furthermore, even if Amtrak does not turn out to be the operator of the future high-speed service, they will continue to operate intercity trains on the NEC for a decade or more as the system is built out. As a result, their proposal will inevitably have a strong influence over the future of the NEC.

Overview of the Amtrak's Next Generation High-Speed Rail Proposal

• Alignment: Existing alignment from NYC to DC; new, inland alignment from NYC to BOS
• Top Speed: 220 mph
• Travel Time: Washington, DC to NYC in 1:36; NYC to Boston in 1:23
• Capital Cost: $117 billion
• Ridership: 37 million by 2040

Proposed Alignment

Like PennDesign, Amtrak is mindful of the unique design requirements for true, high-speed service, as opposed to those for conventional rail. Amtrak's proposal asserts, that trains need a minimum curve radius of 3 miles to maintain high speeds. In addition, high-speed trains will require about five minutes of acceleration over 16 miles of straight, flat track to reach their top speeds of 220 mph. To solve these challenges, Amtrak envisions a dedicated, 430-mile, two-track system.

Amtrak's proposed southern alignment between NYC and Washington, DC, takes advantage of the existing NEC right-of-way, which already includes long stretches of straight track that can support high-speed operations. Similar to the PennDesign route, the alignment calls for major new tunnels under the cities of Baltimore, Philadelphia and NYC, where an 11.8 mile would be the system's longest.

Like PennDesign, Amtrak's vision for the northern high-speed rail alignment is a radical departure from the existing NEC, but the two proposals came to very different conclusions. Amtrak recognizes that, north of NYC, the current NEC alignment is unsuitable for HSR. In Connecticut, west of New Haven (where MetroNorth currently operates) the tracks are already reaching capacity and nearby land development prohibits expansion. East of New Haven, curves in the alignment restrict high-speed service.

Amtrak's solution is to send the next generation high-speed trains north from NYC to Westchester County and into western Connecticut via a new, inland route. That route would take advantage of highway alignments that are already under public ownership, including Interstates 84 and 91 in Connecticut, and Interstate 90 in Massachusetts. And while this alignment wouldn't serve Long Island, it would bring intercity service to new communities, specifically the Connecticut cities of Danbury and Waterbury.

Another major feature is the alignment's new, proposed connection between New York Penn Station and Grand Central Terminal. For the first time, the NEC would stop at both of NYC's major train stations and directly connect intercity service to the east side of Midtown Manhattan, where the majority of jobs are located.

Service Pattern

Amtrak envisions four levels of service on the new, high-speed rail system:

1. HSR Super-Express: Serving the four major hub cities (Washington, DC; Philadelphia; NYC; and Boston).
2. HSR Express: Serving the four major hubs, along with one of two different combinations of medium-sized cities (Express A or Express B).
3. HSR Keystone Express: Improved service on the Keystone Corridor between NYC, Philadelphia, and Harrisburg, PA.
4. HSR Shoreline Express: Improved express service on the coastal route combined with high-speed operations between NYC and Washington, DC.

Like the PennDesign proposal, Amtrak's vision calls for improved regional service on the existing route between NYC and Boston ("Regional" in the map above). In addition, the "HSR Express" service would connect the major Northeast airports (other than JFK and MacArthur Airport, which the PennDesign alignment connects).

A key point of departure from the PennDesign proposal, is Amtrak's treatment of the NEC branch lines. According to Amtrak, high-speed service on the Keystone Corridor and the existing coastal route (the "Shoreline Express" above) would enter the dedicated HSR alignment between NYC and Philadelphia/Washington, DC. The PennDesign proposal recommended that Keystone and coastal service continue to use the existing NEC.

Time Savings

According to Amtrak, average travel speed on the NEC is approximately 62 mph between NYC and Boston and 86 mph between NYC and Washington, DC. The proposed HSR service calls for an average of around 140 mph, with stop speeds of 220 mph. Such service would cut travel time down dramatically on the NEC and make rail extremely competitive with air travel:

In general, these travel times are comparable to those of the PennDesign proposal. Between NYC and Boston they are actually faster, most likely due to the fact that Amtrak's alignment is a shorter route in terms of overall distance.

Cost & Timeline

Amtrak estimates that the total cost of its vision is $117 billion. According to their plan, the entire project could be completed in 30 years time (five years longer than the PennDesign proposal). Amtrak envisions a stair-step approach to implemention, with the first segment in operation between Philadelphia and NYC, then Philadelphia to Washington, DC followed by NYC to Hartford and finally Hartford to Boston. The plan proposes to complete construction of the NYC-Philadelphia segment by 2030 and the remainder of the corridor by 2040.

Ridership & Revenue

According to Amtrak, high-speed rail would significantly increase NEC ridership. By 2040, when the entire system is operational from NYC to Boston, Amtrak's conservative estimates project total NEC ridership of 33.7 million riders, compared to 23.4 million if high-speed rail is not built. Of the 33.7 million, about half would be high-speed rail riders (17.7 million) and half would ride the conventional rail (16 million). Meanwhile, 60% of high-speed rail passengers would be diverted from automobiles and planes.

According to Amtrak, these ridership figures are conservative. If more aggressive projections for population growth and highway congestion are considered, Amtrak projects that ridership would reach up to 43 million by 2040. Still, even at lower, more conservative levels, Amtrak predicts the system will turn a profit. In 2040, the proposal estimates that total revenue will reach $3.29 billion, compared to total estimated annual costs of $1.6 billion.

Financing

Amtrak's vision does not put forward a clear plan for financing their proposed high-speed rail system. Still, Amtrak has indicated that it is interested in utilizing a public-private partnership. In a March 2011 statement to Congress (PDF), Amtrak Vice President for Policy and Development, Stephen Gardner, argued that high-speed rail cannot be completed with private funding alone. Instead, Gardner argued, "federal funding for intercity passenger rail service is the only way to attract - and maintain - private sector participation and financing."

In May 2011, Amtrak announced in a press release (PDF) that it was developing a business plan that would incorporate a public-private partnership. In April, Amtrak released a request for consultants to submit proposals for the development of a business plan for the high-speed rail system. This business plan will include a full plan for financing, construction, and operations. The proposals were due in June and in August Amtrak announced that they had selected a consultant team led by KPMG, in association with Steer Davies Gleave, DWH Strategic Advisors, Sharon Greene & Associates, and TranSystems.

The Role of Amtrak

Amtrak's vision for high-speed rail seeks to reaffirm the national rail corporation as the leader of the Northeast Corridor. While the PennDesign proposal left open the possibility for Amtrak or new, private operators to operate passenger rail service, Amtrak clearly sees its primary role on the NEC continuing on into the future.

For this reason, Amtrak's vision has been the subject of censure by the same voices that have long criticized the national railroad corporation. In June 2011, Rep. John Mica (R-FL), Chairman of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, put forth legislation that would remove Amtrak from the NEC altogether, and replace it with private investors tasked with implementing high-speed rail. When he introduced the legislation, Mica specifically targeted Amtrak, saying that their vision would cost too much, take too long, and continue a pattern of government subsidization that he finds unacceptable.

In June 2011, Amtrak President Joe Boardman responded to this criticism in a hearing before the Mica's committee. Boardman argued that Amtrak should be a part of any high-speed rail plan for the NEC, and that Mica's plan put forth an unrealistic time frame and would actually be more expensive than Amtrak's vision.

Final Thoughts

It is largely this argument - the role of Amtrak - that is shaping the debate about high-speed rail in the NEC. In order for Congress to support major funding, Amtrak must remain open-minded about improving the corridor and capable of embracing some degree of institutional change. It is no surprise that Amtrak envisions a strong role for itself in a plan with its own name in the title, however, the debate must move beyond the same, tired discussion about the failures of publicly-owned railroads.

Still, Amtrak has a better understanding than anyone of the challenges of running a high-speed rail service in the United States. Their proposal is based on decades of experience investing and operating in the NEC. No matter what path is chosen going forward, Amtrak will inevitably need to be involved in some capacity. This proposal is good news because it shows that they are prepared to play a major role in the Northeast's transition to high-speed rail.

Images:
A Vision For High-Speed Rail in the Northeast Corridor. Amtrak. September 2010. Link.

We continue to review the PennDesign proposal for high-speed rail in the Northeast Corridor. Earlier posts examined the proposal's vision and the argument for making the investment, while the post below summarizes the proposal's major strategies for successful implementation. To learn more about the proposal, see our first post here or visit the PennDesign HSR Studio website.

»In order to make high-speed rail in the Northeast Corridor a reality, a 2011 report by the PennDesign HSR Studio proposes making improvements to America's public financing programs and a new, regional public benefits corporation whose sole mission is the success of HSR.

The challenges to completing HSR in the Northeast are immense: the complex institutional framework involving eight states and the District of Columbia, Congress's flagging commitment to transportation infrastructure, and a price tag of approximately $100 billion, to name a few.

The PennDesign proposal aims to address these challenges with clear strategies for construction, finance, governance, and advocacy. The proposal draws upon successful cases in Europe to identify best practices and builds off of existing strategies and institutions already at work in the Northeast. The proposal's recommendation are extremely valuable for advocates, because they provide a realistic set of options for achieving HSR in the NEC.

An Agressive Timeline

The proposal offers an ambitious timeline for completing a HSR line in the NEC. Construction would be completed in phases, with the entire system operational in under 25 years by 2035:

• Early action items (environmental review, environmental mitigation, and land acquisition) and improvements to existing NEC. (2012-2020)
• Phase 1: Construction of NYC to Philadelphia. (2015 - 2024)
• Phase 2: Construction of Philadelphia to Washington DC, and NYC to Boston. (2025 - 2035)

There are several benefits to this approach. First, early improvements to the existing NEC will enable the corridor to add capacity and improve speed to meet the growing demand that cannot wait for HSR. Second, the Phase 1 project will allow the HSR system to begin to generate operating revenue even before the full system is in place. Third, the Phase 1 segment is projected to the most profitable part of the line and will largely utilize the existing NEC ROW, making it easier to construct. If additional public funding is in jeopardy, the success of Phase 1 could generate additional political and citizen enthusiasm for Phase 2. Finally, the Phased approach enables the Northeast to get started right away. While the environmental review for some parts of the project may take several years, other projects, like some of the improvements to the existing NEC and parts of Phase 1, could begin much sooner.

The Financing Challenge

The most obvious challenge to implementing high-speed rail is its high cost. The government is unlikely to hand planners a check for $102 billion. According to the proposal, the solution is a public-private partnership (P3). In looking at successful cases in Europe and Asia, the students found that no major high-speed rail program has been completed without a strong, upfront commitment by the public sector. While private investors have been willing to participate, the government's participation is essential to minimizing the risk of the large investment.

The proposal offers two basic options for financing the project using a mix of private and public dollars. The first option relies on utilizing public financing tools to minimize public grants and attract private investors. For example, the proposal recommends expanding existing public financing programs, like TIFIA (Transportation Infrastructure Finance & Innovation Act) and RRIF (Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing), which offer government loans and loan guarantees. The proposal also recommends that the U.S. pursue an infrastructure bank, modeled after the European Infrastructure Bank, which can leverage government dollars to attract private investors. Finally, the proposal recommends new tax-credit programs, modeled after existing ones, which encourage investment by providing tax credits in lieu of a return, which can substantially lower the government's cost of borrowing. By combining these recommendations, the proposal estimates that government grants could be limited to around $26.5 billion and that 74% of the project's expenses could eventually be repaid.

The proposal's second financing option recommends leasing the HSR infrastructure to private investors as a concession contract. Under a concession contract, the public sector retains ownership of the rail infrastructure, but leases it out to a private investor, who pays a one-time fee for the right to control and collect revenue over a certain period of time (e.g. 10 years). Like an infrastructure bank, concession contracts have worked well in European countries, most notably the U.K., where the high-speed rail infrastructure is controlled by a private investor. As time elapses, the government can perform additional concessions, thereby collecting additional revenue to invest in the infrastructure or to defray the initial capital investment. According to the proposal, a concession contract model could cover up to 35% of the total project expenses by 2065.

Overall, the proposal's recommendations are very encouraging. By basing their recommendations on successful models in Europe and building off of existing programs in the U.S., their financing proposals are realistic and practical. We already know that the government will not hand the Northeast a $100 billion check with no strings attached. In July, Rep. John Mica (R-FL), Chairman of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, indicated that he wants HSR to proceed in the Northeast, but that any HSR project will have to include a mix of private and public dollars. In this regard, the PennDesign proposal is right on the mark.

The financing recommendations are particularly strong because they are not overly prescriptive. The truth is that decision-makers will ultimately embrace a financing strategy ultimately that reflects political goals just as much as financial realities. If Congress is not willing to make grants, for example, then a financing package will have to rely more heavily on public financing. By offering a range of financing options, the proposal makes clear that there is no single way to successfully finance HSR. Instead, U.S. decision-makers can mix and match the financing strategies that best fit with our current financial and political framework.

New Institutions for HSR

The proposal also takes on a challenge that is less visible than financing, but potentially even more important. The PennDesign report recognizes that the current institutional system governing rail infrastructure in the Northeast is inadequate. Currently, the NEC infrastructure is managed by multiple owners, which creates delays and conflicts among operators, and each state tends to prioritize investments in commuter rail over intercity service. And while these issues could be overcome, the proposal argues that the current institutional framework is too weak for the nine major governments along the NEC to cooperate and make major investments.

To solve these problems, the proposal takes its cues from successful examples in Europe. Specifically, the proposal recommends separating infrastructure operations from rail operations and creating a new public-benefit corporation (PBC) that would manage the high-speed rail infrastructure. This PBC, which they dub, "NECSA - the Northeast Corridor Systems Authority," would represent the major governments on the line and would be responsible for constructing and managing the high-speed rail infrastructure. NECSA would not, however, run any high-speed rail trains, but would be responsible for contracting with operators to run service. Under this model, a corporation like Amtrak could continue to run on the NEC, but would no longer own the infrastructure or be responsible for its maintenance.

According to the proposal, there are two main benefits to separating infrastructure from rail operations. The first benefit is that it provides a reliable source of revenue. Under this model, each rail operator pays an access fee to the infrastructure manager, based on its proportional use of the system. While rail operators can make a profit from ticket revenue, the infrastructure manager maintains a source of revenue to perform maintenance or to pay off capital expenses. The second benefit is that the infrastructure manager serves as a neutral dispatcher, which more effectively optimizes rail operations. Right now, train movements on the NEC are subject to the various owners of the line. During the morning rush, for example, multiple commuter trains may be delayed to minimize the delay of a single Amtrak train. A neutral dispatcher, however, can ensure that everyone has equal access to infrastructure and minimize delays for all riders.

NECSA, would also provide a number of new advantages. First, as a regional entity, NECSA would create an opportunity for the state-level planners to work together and formulate a plan that meets the region's full needs. Second, the PBC would have a single purpose, making it highly accountable for a clearly defined mission. Finally, it would also solve the problems caused by the line's split ownership. As we saw earlier this summer, poor investment by one state impacts every part of the line. Investments on one part of the corridor are invariably constrained by investments on another. By consolidating ownership under a single entity, these investments can be managed to ensure they optimize service along the entire corridor.

Like the public financing tools described above, these governance recommendations smartly build off existing institutions. Already, the PRIIA legislation has mandated the creation of the Northeast Corridor Infrastructure & Operations Advisory Commission (NECIOAC), which is tasked with managing the future direction of the NEC. By taking on ownership of the NEC and being given the authority to construct the HSR system, a public benefits corporation, like NECSA, would be a significant step forward for the regional governance.

And while the separation of infrastructure and operations is not found in many parts of the American rail system, it is actually quite similar to the way we run our airports and roads. While a regional port authority may own and operate an airport, a mix of operators utilize the facility. This approach makes the PennDesign proposal extremely attractive from a political perspective. For example, one of the major points of controversy surrounding Rep. Mica's plan to privatize the NEC and initiate HSR is its whole-sale removal of Amtrak from the line. Under the PennDesign proposal, Amtrak can still play an important role as a rail operator (but would no longer be saddled with the maintenance problems that plague the NEC). Rather than answer the controversial question of whether Amtrak should run the service, the PennDesign team empowers regional decision-makers to choose the best option for the NEC.

Changing the Conversation

The proposal recognizes that HSR will require an enormous amount of political support to become a reality. Our transportation needs call for long-term investment, but the political will for large-scale projects appears to be fading.

In order to address this challenge, the proposal calls for making the benefits of high-speed rail relatable and accessible to average citizens. For families, HSR means more time together. For business travelers, HSR means a faster, more comfortable trip. For motorists, HSR means better roads and fewer delays. The proposal even goes so far as to envision what a high-speed rail advertising campaign might look like, drawing upon successful examples from abroad.

In addition, the proposal outlines the key levers for achieving broad support on several levels. The proposal recommends targeting media outlets, elected officials, and real estate developers who stand to gain from HSR.

Final Thoughts

While the PennDesign proposal offers an exciting vision of HSR and a compelling case for making such a major investment, the implementation strategies described are by far their most valuable feature. Even among transportation advocates in the Northeast there is some skepticism about the potential for HSR, which is understandable after the setbacks and failed efforts over the past several decades.

The PennDesign proposal, however, makes it clear that HSR is a distinct possibility for the United States. We already have many of the financing tools and institutional models we need to make HSR work. And, while we will have to make changes to the certain systems work, the risk of those changes is quite low. The experience of our peers in Europe and Asia have already shown us what works and what does not. Overall, the PennDesign proposal sends the message to all HSR skeptics that we can make HSR a reality in the Northeast.

Images:
High-Speed Rail in the Northeast Megaregion: From Vision to Reality. University of Pennsylvania. 2011. Link.

The following post continues a review of the PennDesign proposal for high-speed rail in the Northeast Corridor. An earlier post examined the proposal's vision for HSR, while the post below examines their argument for why HSR must be built in the NEC. To learn more about the proposal, see our first post here or visit the PennDesign HSR Studio website.

>>A 2011 proposal by the PennDesign High-Speed Rail Studio argues that HSR is essential for the economic growth of the Northeast Megaregion.

The team from PennDesign takes an exciting approach to making the case for why we need high-speed rail in the Northeast. Like most proposals, the report explains how our existing transportation system will be unable to meet future demand and performs a traditional benefit-cost analysis that illuminates that positive benefits of a true HSR system.

But unlike other proposals, the students at Penn go much further. The proposal offers examples in Europe and Asia to explain that HSR has the potential to transform the economic geography of the Northeast Megaregion. Our existing urban hubs can grow stronger, our smaller urban cities can regenerate, and our overall regional economy can achieve greater productivity and stronger growth. This transformation is what makes HSR so exciting and important for the Northeast Megaregion.

The Need

The PennDesign team argues that HSR is essential to the continued economic growth of the Northeast. They assert that the Megaregion is projected to grow by 20 million people by 2050 (though more recent projections suggest that growth will be closer to 18 million). In order to ensure that all Northeast residents can reach their jobs, the Megaregion will need to invest in additional transportation capacity.

Our existing transportation system already cannot meet current demand, imposing a high cost to the Megaregional economy. The Northeast contains four of America's top-ten most congested metropolitan areas (New York, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, and Boston) and is home to the most congested highway corridor in the country: I-95 in the Bronx. As for air travel, the top four most delay-prone airports in the country are also found in the Northeast. The team estimates, that highway congestion and air travel delays together cost the Northeast $30 billion a year in lost productivity. This means that every three and a half years, the Northeast is paying the same in costs associated with metropolitan area congestion as it would take to build a true, HSR system in the NEC. That is worth repeating: the Northeast could build a true, HSR system in the NEC every three and a half years for the same price as the productivity that the region loses over the same time period due to congestion!

As we plan to expand our transportation system to meet the growing demand, the team argues that HSR is the most cost effective means of creating capacity in the densely developed metropolitan areas of the Northeast. With respect to highways, they cite a report by the I-95 Corridor Coalition, which states that the Northeast will need to spend $25 billion annually on highways through 2035 to meet growing demand under current population and transportation trends. The proposal also recognizes that the construction of multi-lane highways would be highly disruptive for Northeast residents and likely to encounter significant opposition. Likewise, airport expansions are expensive and require high amounts of land. The recent expansion of Denver airport, for example, required 53 square miles. It is estimated that a $5 billion expansion of the Philadelphia airport will only meet demand projected through 2035.

While the PennDesign team recognizes that roads and air will remain important, the introduction of HSR will create a more balanced transportation system for the Northeast. Right now, the problem is that Northeast's transportation system relies to heavily on some modes and not enough on others. Under ideal conditions, the most economically efficient mode would be used for each trip. When time and travel costs are considered, HSR is the most economically efficient mode for trips between 100 and 500 miles:

By capturing the majority of trips within that range, HSR could take some of the pressure off of the highways and rail, enabling all modes to accommodate the growing travel market in the Northeast.

The Benefits

The team completed a traditional benefit-cost analysis to demonstrate the positive economic value of the project. To calculate the total benefits, they considered a number of critical benefits, including the green-house gases that will be saved by diverting drivers from the roads to rails, the time saved by travelers no long suffering congested roadways and air delays, the number of lives saved by travelers switching from more dangerous modes of travel, like driving, the avoided cost of road maintenance (made unnecessary by HSR), and billions of dollars of saved gasoline.

The report finds that the benefits to society would far outweigh the costs. In total, the team estimated $468 billion in benefits and costs of approximately $102 billion. Following the standards set by the U.S. DOT, these costs and benefits were each discounted by 7% over a 53 year period, resulting in $71 billion in benefits and $52 billion in cost, for positive benefit-cost ratio of 1.38 - signaling high economic value for the Northeast.

A New Economic Geography

It's no secret, however, that traditional cost-benefit analyses do not take into account all of the economic impacts of improved transportation capacity. The proposal argues that high-speed rail will transform the economic geography of the Northeast by drastically reducing the travel time between cities. Here the proposal is a bit confusing, but only because while this phenomenon is real, it is difficult to measure and entails a number of overlapping and related phenomena.

The main idea is that HSR will improve productivity in the Northeast by lowering the cost (in time and money) of transporting people and goods. To understand this phenomenon, consider how many millions of additional people that HSR will put within a one-hour travel distance from the major economic hubs of the Northeast:

• 2.9 million additional people within a one-hour travel time to New York City
• 1.3 million additional people to Boston
• 10.5 million additional people to Philadelphia

The result is that firms will have access to a larger labor market, enabling both individuals and firms to specialize at what they do best. In addition, firms will have lower production costs, as HSR facilitates face-to-face meetings and lowers the cost of distributing goods thanks to reduced congestion.

The One-Hour Commuter Shed of Philadelphia, PA

Over time, HSR will encourage an increased clustering of firms near stations. The clustering of competitive and complementary industries in urban centers results in what are referred to as "spatial agglomeration benefits." Agglomeration benefits result in a rise in productivity by encouraging innovation (as firms in close proximity to one another share knowledge) and by lowering costs (thanks to economies of scale, i.e. the lower cost of labor and services thanks to increased specialization). When firms choose to locate close to one another, however, these benefits are often outweighed by the congestion costs associated with locating in a dense, urban environment. For example, it is more expensive to pay workers who must travel long distances or endure traffic delays. HSR will alter those decisions, by lowering the cost of travel to urban centers. More firms will cluster in order to take advantage of the agglomeration benefits found in densely developed central business districts.

As more firms benefit from agglomeration, the overall economy will see an increase in overall productivity. According to the proposal, these effects will be particularly powerful in the Northeast, thanks to the continued importance of innovation- and information-based industries. Unlike industrial production, these industries rely on the face-to-face interaction that HSR will facilitate and benefit from the knowledge sharing that occurs when industries cluster together.

Reigniting Our Struggling Cities

The proposal also argues that HSR could also encourage the economic growth of smaller, struggling cities, by effectively pulling them into the orbit of the larger, more economically successful metropolitan areas. Consider the case of Hartford, CT. Under the PennDesign proposal, the city would be within a one-hour travel time of both NYC and Boston.

Thanks to improved transportation linkages, cities like Hartford, CT can focus on the industries where they excel. Instead of relying solely on the local region for things like marketing and legal services, firms in Hartford will be able rely on firms in Boston and New York, allowing them to focus on what they do best. In addition, firms will be able to draw upon a much larger pool of labor, enabling them to attract talented workers who may wish to continue live in larger and more cosmopolitan cities.

In addition, HSR makes smaller cities much better positioned to participate in the Northeast economy. Thanks to short travel times, firms in large cities can take advantage of the services a smaller city may specialize in. A health services company in Boston, for example, can more easily take advantage of a health insurance firm in Hartford. Similarly, smaller cities can serve as home to large-city workers. A resident of Hartford could be at work in Manhattan in just one hour.

The proposal recognizes that HSR is not the silver bullet to improving our cities. The report provides a detailed overview of StAR (Station Area Redevelopment), a collection of design and policy strategies that cities can use to capture the benefits of HSR. Unlike current expectations for transit-oriented development, the proposal argues that StAR anchored by HSR has the potential to achieve impacts as far as one-hour travel from city centers. The team offers compelling visions of Philadelphia and Hartford, to demonstrate how transportation, design, and development can work together to improve our urban centers.

Final Thoughts

The proposal looks at HSR from two vantage points. First, there is need. Without additional transportation capacity, the Northeast economy will be unable to meet the growing travel demand, which could have serious consequences for our long-term economic growth. Second, there is potential. In other parts of the world, HSR has produced tremendous benefits by significantly altering the transportation patterns of a region. The Northeast has a remarkable amount to gain by making an investment in HSR.

The truth is, however, that global competition makes virtually every benefit of HSR truly necessary. If we wish to compete with megaregions in China, our industries must be as productive as possible and we cannot afford to endure unnecessary costs like environmental degradation and congestion delays caused by our unbalanced, auto-centric transportation system. The PennDesign proposal lays out the facts clearly and makes an excellent case for HSR. But perhaps it could be clearer on one important point: we need HSR now.

Stay tuned for a final post on the PennDesign proposal, examining their plan for implementing HSR in the Northeast.

Images:
High-Speed Rail in the Northeast Megaregion: From Vision to Reality. University of Pennsylvania. 2011. Link.

>>In 2011, a studio at the University of Pennsylvania, School of Design released an exciting proposal for high-speed rail in the Northeast, providing advocates with a realistic and attainable vision for improved rail service in the Northeast Megaregion.

High-speed rail (HSR) will transform what it means to travel in and through the Northeast Megaregion. With virtually no examples of HSR to draw from in the Western Hemisphere, that transformation is difficult to grasp for many Americans. Their questions are many: What will HSR in the Northeast look like and where will it go? How much will it cost and who will pay for it? What will it mean when we can travel from downtown to downtown at speeds of over 200 mph?

PennDesign HSR Studio

At the University of Pennsylvania, School of Design (PennDesign), a team of graduate students have produced some exciting answers. Under a design studio led by the Dean of PennDesign, Marilyn Jordan Taylor, along with Robert Yaro, President of Regional Plan Association, students released a detailed proposal for HSR for the Northeast in May 2011, entitled High-Speed Rail for the Northeast Megaregion: From Vision to Reality.

The proposal is the result of several years of planning and student work. In 2010, students completed a concept for HSR in the Northeast Corridor that included alignments and service patterns. In 2011, students took those concepts and went on to consider the challenge of turning their vision into a reality, proposing a complete implementation plan and detailing the full benefits of a HSR system.

The proposal is worth reading, because it is extremely thorough and, for a student project, is remarkable in its seemingly professional quality. In addition to making the case for HSR investments, the proposal addresses the key challenges to implementing HSR in the Northeast: public and private financing, operations and institutional governance. The proposal was also fully reviewed by many transportation experts from around the world and draws upon their experience with other successful HSR systems.

Provided below is a detailed overview of their vision for high-speed rail in the Northeast. In later posts, we will details the proposal's case for why we must construct HSR, and the proposal's realistic plan for how we can achieve HSR in just 25 years time.

The Vision: An Overview

PennDesign's vision for HSR would better connect the major population centers of the Northeast Corridor by dramatically improving travel times. The plan proposes a daring and visionary alignment that would bring regional service to new parts of the Northeast, avoiding severely congested sections of the existing corridor, and create a multi-tiered service pattern that would improve rail transportation in virtually every major city in the Northeast Megaregion.

The basic features of the HSR system in the PennDesign proposal include:

• Alignment: From Washington, DC to NYC mainly utilize existing rights-of-way on the existing, except for in key places like Philadelphia. Forge a new route from NYC to Boston that reaches new communities on Long Island and takes advantage of existing highway rights of way in CT and MA. Continue to improve conventional rail service on the existing NEC.
• Speeds: Top speeds of 220 mph with an average speeds around 150 mph
• Travel time: From Washington, DC to Boston in 3:28 (or approximately half of the current travel time).
• Capital Cost: Less than $100 Billion.
• Ridership: 37 million annual riders by 2035.

Alignment

The PennDesign team had to find a route that meets the technical needs of HSR, while still managing to serve the highly developed and densely populated urban centers of the Northeast. In order to achieve true high-speed service at 200 mph or greater, trains need long stretches of flat, straight and uninterrupted track that are dedicated to HSR service, meaning they are not shared with slower freight or conventional trains that would limit travel speeds.

View Larger Map

On the southern half, between NYC and Washington, DC, the alignment mainly takes advantage of existing rights-of-way. The proposed alignment south of NYC (pictured below) would parallel the existing NEC, which has the proper geometry to support HSR operations along most of its length, with variations in key major cities. In Baltimore and Philadelphia, for example, the alignment calls for the construction of new tunnels under the cities to provide a straighter route that would allow for faster speeds and also, as is the case in Philadelphia, to locate the HSR station closer to the CBD.

On the northern half of the corridor, between NYC and Boston, the proposal offers a new alignment that differs drastically from the existing NEC. The new alignment could provide service to Grand Central in New York City and then would travel east along new tracks to Long Island. Upon reaching Ronkonkama - MacArthur Airport - the line would turn north and travel through a new tunnel underneath the Long Island sound to New Haven. From there, a new, inland route that would bring HSR service to Hartford, CT, where it would begin breaking east to Worcester, MA before finally reaching Boston South Station.

While the northern alignment would be challenging in certain segments, it is certainly practical from a construction and operations perspective. First, it is not beyond the scope of many international HSR projects. For example, at 16.2 miles, the proposed tunnel under Long Island sound would be about half the length of the Channel Tunnel, which connects the UK and France, at 30.1 miles. Other new sections, like the route through central CT, take advantage of existing highway routes on land which is largely already under public ownership. Second, the new alignment solves the challenges of the existing NEC in southwestern CT. The section of the existing NEC between New York and New Rochelle is already heavily congested with Amtrak and MetroNorth service and there is little room in the surrounding communities to expand the right of way. In the eastern half of the state, the existing NEC is too narrow and winding for true HSR, and would require the construction of too many new bridges. Finally, the new alignment provides service to heavily populated areas that currently either have no intercity rail service or are under-served, including densely populated Long Island, JFK Airport (the busiest in the Northeast), and key regional centers like Hartford, CT and Worcester, MA.

Higher-Speed Conventional Rail

While shifting HSR to Long Island and inland through New England, the PennDesign plan pays a significant amount of attention to the existing shoreline route through Connecticut and Rhode Island. The proposal envisions a "figure-eight" service plan where HSR on the new alignment and conventional rail service on the existing NEC are well coordinated and provide intermodal connections at key stations in New York, New Haven, and Boston.The plan also incorporates the $14 billion in Phase 1 Priority Investments outlined by the NEC Master Plan, which entail important upgrades to capacity and travel times along the existing NEC, as well as substantial improvements toward a state of good repair.

Multi-Tiered Service Patterns

The plan includes a tiered service pattern along both the new HSR alignment and the traditional, shoreline route. By mixing limited-stop express service with regional and local service, the proposal successfully achieves fast travel times, while still providing service to most cities no the existing NEC. While the fastest, express services would operate on the new HSR alignment, conventional intercity service with more frequent stops would also rely on the existing NEC track.

The proposal calls for three main tiers of service:

1. Express - Serving only the major cities of the Northeast (Boston, NYC, Philadelphia and Washington, DC), creating a service that is highly competitive with air travel.
2. Limited - Serving major hub cities as well as medium sized cities, like Baltimore, New Haven, and Hartford.
3. Regional - Serving smaller cities along the new alignment.

In addition, a specialty service at regional airports could enable HSR to reduce the need for many more short-haul flights in the Megaregion, enabling passengers to connect to long-distance flights to destinations around the world. High-speed commuter service would shuttle long-distance commuters between the most popular destinations along the route. Finally, the proposal calls for improved regional service along the Shore Line.

Travel Time

Trains running on the new, dedicated HSR alignment would achieve a top speed of 220 mph and maintain average speeds of approximately 150 mph. On the limited-stop Express service, HSR would enable the NEC to finally meet (and easily surpass) the trip-time goals established by Congress in the early 1990s and to achieve a substantial reduction in current travel times:

Travel times on the Shore Line would also improve. Following the Phase 1 Priority Investments, service between Boston and NYC on the existing NEC would be reduced by 15 minutes, from 3:30 to 3:15.

Ridership and Revenue

PennDesign's proposal projects significant growth in rail ridership as a result of the introduction of HSR service. The proposal includes three sources of additional rail ridership. Specifically, HSR will:

1. Capture a higher percentage of the intercity travel market in the Northeast Megaregion, which will grow with population and employment gains.
2. Induce travel demand by creating new travel opportunities.
3. Attract a new segment of long-distance commuters taking advantage of faster travel times between residential and employment locations.

Upon the completion of the entire HSR alignment in 2035, the proposal projects annual ridership would reach 37 million on all intercity routes, and 64 million by 2050. The PennDesign team argues that HSR could reduce congestion and air travel delays by diverting a projected 27 million automobile drivers and 2 million air passengers in 2035.

The strong ridership projections mean strong revenue for HSR. The proposal projects that HSR would turn a considerable profit for HSR operators. In 2035, an estimated $6.3 billion in revenue (including $4.5 bilion in fare revenue) would easily exceed $3.9 billion in operating costs. Thanks to its strong ridership, the route between NYC and Philadelphia would be the most profitable stretch of the system.

Final Thoughts
The PennDesign Proposal is an enormous step forward in the planning for HSR in the Northeast. As the government continues to sit on its hands, the students and professors at the University of Pennsylvania have laid out a clear picture of what HSR could actually look like in the Northeast.

For rail advocates, the proposal is of extraordinary value, because it signals to decision-makers that HSR is not a pie-in-the-sky dream, but a realistic, attainable project that our region is already pursuing in earnest. And while Amtrak has also released its own vision (PDF) (which we will detail in an upcoming post), the PennDesign proposal has an independent voice that is not affected by the politics that surround passenger rail in America.

While this vision is exciting, the most valuable component of the PennDesign proposal is its plan for financing and construction, which provide a pragmatic path forward for the Northeast. Stay tuned to Back on Track: Northeast as we continue to examine additional aspects of the proposal in future posts.

Images:
High-Speed Rail in the Northeast Megaregion: From Vision to Reality. University of Pennsylvania. 2011. Link.

This post is the fifth in a series focused on examining the top investment needs of the Northeast Corridor. While earlier posts looked at general needs on the corridor, including priority investments and state of good repair, we are now looking at specific infrastructure investments. Our last post focused on the 140-year-old tunnels in Baltimore, and the series' final post, below, examines the critical capacity issues between New Jersey and Manhattan under the Hudson River.

»Increased capacity between New Jersey and Manhattan is essential for the continued growth of the NEC. With several proposals on the table, important questions of capacity, control, and political support must be answered before we can choose the best alternative.

Without new investments, the NEC will operate at 100% capacity in every major city by the year 2030. There is no question that we must invest in additional capacity for future demand. However, limited capacity is not just a problem for the future. The problem of too many trains and too few tracks already causes problems for one of the most congested stretches of the NEC: the set of tunnels beneath the Hudson River between New York and New Jersey.

Trans-Hudson Tunnels

View Trans-Hudson Tunnels in a larger map

The Trans-Hudson Challenge

Currently, two tunnels - one tube with an inbound track and one tube with an outbound track - carry trains on the NEC from the eastern edge of the New Jersey Meadowlands to Midtown Manhattan. Completed in 1910, the tunnels' creators used construction methods that would be considered crude today. As two teams worked their way from either side of the Hudson River, lacking GPS and other modern surveying tools, merely a cable strung underground from shore to shore ensured that they would meet in the middle. Workers, known as "sand hogs," used animals to cart out excavated materials. Known officially as the North River Tunnels (invoking an older designation for the lower portion of the Hudson), the tunnels are a major bottleneck on the NEC.

Despite their age, the Trans-Hudson tunnels are probably the most crucial link on the entire NEC. Thanks to growing demand for commuter and intercity service, they are currently operating at 100% capacity during peak hours. Technically speaking, the tunnels are part of a larger, two-track bottleneck that extends from Newark, NJ, to NY Penn Station, which also includes the Portal Bridge (named for its location just west of the portal to the Trans-Hudson Tunnels). Every weekday, the Trans-Hudson Tunnels and nearby tracks support 359 NJ Transit (NJT) and 100 Amtrak trains, including a remarkable 24-25 trains per hour in each direction during peak travel times.

Such high traffic poses problems for both NJT and Amtrak. With just two tracks, trains must run one after the other with as little space in between as safely possible. When something goes wrong in the tunnel (an all too frequent occurrence), like a stalled train or a power problem, delays cascade throughout the intercity and commuter systems on the NEC. According to an analysis by Infrastructurist (see above), a five minute delay can affect up to 10,000 riders. A small derailment in early August, for example, caused delays as far away as Washington and Boston and delayed NJT commuters for almost two days. But the bigger problem is demand. Both operators would like to run additional train service, but simply have no room. Not only does limited capacity constrain current service, but it makes it nearly impossible to meet future demand on the NEC. By 2030, NJT expects commuter ridership to double.

Interestingly, additional Trans-Hudson capacity was not actually included in the Phase 1 Priority Investments outlined by the NEC Master Plan (PDF). When the Plan was published in May 2010, the now-canceled ARC project was still in the works and about to break ground. The ARC project, led by NJT, was going to add two new, single-track rail tunnels under the Hudson River. Operationally, ARC would have provided Amtrak with capacity for four additional trains and NJT with capacity for 25 additional trains during the peak hour.

Proposed Solutions

In the wake of ARC's cancelation in October 2010, different stakeholders in the Northeast have proposed a number of different solutions to the trans-Hudson question. In general, none of these proposals are new. Some were already being developed for the future and were rushed forward. Others had been on drawing boards in the past, only to be taken off the shelf once ARC was terminated.

Gateway Project
In February 2010, Amtrak announced the Gateway Project, which would specifically address the whole NEC bottleneck in northern New Jersey. With an estimated cost of $13 billion, Gateway would add two single-track tunnels under the Hudson (like ARC), replace the Portal Bridge with a new, three-track span, and add two new tracks between Newark and New Jersey. Unlike ARC, which had trains ending in a station eleven stories below 34^th street, the Gateway proposal calls for trains to serve an expanded Penn Station, just below street level, between 30^th and 31^st Streets. (The current Penn Station extends from 31^st to 34^th Street.)

In its February announcements, Amtrak did not make clear enough that the Gateway Project is not meant to replace ARC, but to supplement it. In fact, the infrastructure included in Gateway is actually a part of Amtrak's Vision for High-Speed Rail on the NEC (PDF), introduced in September 2010 (before ARC was even canceled). In March 2011, Amtrak's application federal high-speed rail funding, included a $188 million request to begin engineering and environmental review of the project, which went un-funded.

As part of Amtrak's plans for future growth, Gateway is focused more heavily on expanding intercity services than supporting commuter rail. During the peak, Gateway would add eight Amtrak trains (for a total of 12) and 13 NJT trains (for a total of 34). In contrast, ARC would have added four and 21, respectively. Since true HSR service will rely on additional NEC infrastructure, it is unclear what role Gateway would play in this service and how true HSR would impact commuter service.

MTA 7-Train Extension
In November 2010, New York City announced plans to study the extension of the 7-train from the west side of Manhattan to Secaucus, NJ. Right now, the city is already funding the line's extension within Manhattan, from 42^nd Street and 8^th Avenue, to 34^th Street and 11^th Avenue. The new capacity is meant to serve the development of the far west side, where developers are planning office and residential development over the Hudson Yards (land currently occupied by rail yards and former industrial space).

By serving Secaucus, NJ, the 7-Train would enable NJT customers to transfer from commuter trains to the subway before crossing the Hudson River. According to the Tri-State Transportation Campaign's (TSTC) Mobilizing the Region blog, the project may also include a bus transfer, taking pressure off of trans-Hudson bus services (see below). The appeal of the 7-train extension is that it would provide access to Grand Central Terminal and the east side of Manhattan, home to a significant number of jobs but more removed from west-side location of Penn Station.

Optimistic projections peg the project's cost as low as $5 billion, since expensive tunneling in Manhattan would already be complete as part of existing projects, but ridership projections remain anyone's guess. In February 2011, the city hired an independent firm to initiate a study of the extension. According to Mobilizing the Region, insiders suggest that the results of the study have been pushed back.

Bus Expansion
A third proposal that is on the table is to make improvements to the trans-Hudson bus infrastructure. In general, trans-Hudson bus proposals are usually not discussed in the same conversation as trains, but they have the potential to provide big increases in capacity at potentially far less cost than a major rail investment. Right now, bus riders already outweigh rail commuters. While approximately 300,000 commuters ride the bus across the three Hudson crossings (the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels and the George Washington Bridge), only about 70,000 commuters take the train to Penn Station and approximately 90,000 riders utilize PATH trains between New York and New Jersey.

A number of solutions have been proposed to increase trans-Hudson bus capacity. For example, the Port Authority is planning a new garage for buses in Manhattan, which would allow buses to skip the slow trip they must take to enter the city to collect passengers during the evening rush. In 2009, the Tri-State Transportation Campaign released a report (PDF) advocating for the introduction of a west-bound express bus lane (XBL) during the evening, to complement the eastbound XBL that provides a dedicated lane for buses during the morning rush. Another proposal has called for adding a high-occupancy toll lane, also in the Eastbound direction, to provide additional capacity for buses during the morning rush. Finally, as mentioned above, NYC is also considering a bus transfer station in its study of the 7-train extension, which could free up more space for in the Lincoln tunnel by directing bus passengers to the new subway link.

Picking the Right Project

With different proposals on the table, the question is: which one to choose? Of course, you'll get a different answer depending on whom you ask. Amtrak obviously supports its Gateway project; the real estate developers of the Manhattan's far West Side have been interested the 7-train extension; the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is already planning some bus improvements; etc. When we take a more objective approach to assessing these proposals, several key questions rise to the surface:

1. Additional Capacity For Whom?
Right now, the trans-Hudson bottleneck is an issue that affects two primary markets: commuters between New York and New Jersey and intercity passengers along the NEC traveling through Manhattan. With public dollars so limited, the challenge is to figure out how to provide more capacity capacity for both.

At first glance, this question might seem easy; only the Gateway proposal serves both intercity passengers and rail commuters. But this is misleading. The 7-Train extension, for example, could hypothetically carry enough existing rail commuters that NJT could actually reduce service to Penn Station, which would effectively provide more capacity for Amtrak trains.

And yet, even if a new tunnel like Gateway is the answer, then which market deserves more capacity? On the one hand, it would seem that commuter rail riders vastly outnumber intercity passengers. Every year, approximately 58 million commuters use the current Trans-Hudson Tunnels, compared to just 1.5 million Amtrak riders. On the other hand, Amtrak riders are generally traveling significantly longer distances (as measured in passenger-miles) and paying much higher fares. There is no obvious solution to how new capacity should be distributed among these two ridership markets.

2. Local Growth or Regional Development?
The question of capacity inevitably leads to a bigger question: what are our goals for economic development and growth at the local, regional and megeregional level?

Different kinds of capacity can affect development in different ways. On the local level, increased commuter capacity can improve local communities in New Jersey, by reducing automobile congestion, promoting transit-oriented development, and curbing sprawl. On the regional level, increased commuter capacity is essential for economic growth, by connecting the fast-growing labor market west of the Hudson to the high-paying jobs in Manhattan. Finally, with respect to the larger Northeast Megaregion (from Maine to Virginia), increased intercity capacity is essential for the Northeast economy, which, by some estimates, loses $30 billion a year in productivity as a result of automobile and air travel delays. The information and innovation-based industries that are powering our growth rely on a dependable and rapid transportation system.

3. Who Should Run the Service?
Currently, the New York City metropolitan area is served by three public transit agencies, numerous private bus and ferry operators, and Amtrak. Traditionally, transit services are defined by regional boundaries. NJT serves communities west of the Hudson River, MTA operates in New York State (with services contracted to Connecticut), and the Port Authority operates services that cross state lines.

The chosen project will have to respect these arrangements or, at the very least, be able to resolve the obstacles inherent in crossing state lines. Consider the 7-Train extension, which could pose serious political risks for the leadership at MTA. As a state-level agency, the MTA is funded by New York and not New Jersey. The extension to Secaucus would for the first time bring the NYC Subway to another state. While this would be good news for New Jersey residents (who could potentially fund the service in special ways), New Yorkers might reject any move that they see directing New York's resources to New Jersey.

The other issue is, which agency will actually want it? The MTA is already experiencing severe constraints in both its operating and capital budgets. And back in November, MTA chairman Jay Walder expressed surprise at the city's proposal. As for the Port Authority, the agency has shown no real interest in initiating a major new rail service and is also fighting to raise money for its own capital budget. Under Governor Christie's administration, the state of New Jersey has proven an unreliable partner for major investments and in 2010 cut subsidies to NJT, forcing the largest fare increase in the agency's history.

4. Who Will Support It?
The 2010 cancelation of ARC was a reminder that the trans-Hudson issue is rife with political and institutional obstacles. Since the trans-Hudson dilemma is a question for the entire New York City metropolitan area, the institutional and political framework makes progress difficult to achieve. In addition to the various transit agencies mentioned above, the region is controlled by three separate governors, the mayor of NYC, and local municipal leaders that are seemingly countless (particularly in New Jersey, which is home to more municipalities than the entire state of California). It is incredibly difficult to get all of these many stakeholders on board for a single project and, as Governor Christie recently demonstrated, it only takes one major defector to bring down a project of regional significance.

Conclusion

With so many proposals on the table, now is the time for a serious evaluation of the trans-Hudson issue. The questions about capacity, economic objectives, control, and political support must be addressed first, before we can identify the best option for relieving the trans-Hudson bottleneck.

What we do know is that we must act soon. Virtually every leader in the New York City metropolitan area recognizes that we need additional transportation capacity between New York and New Jersey. Not only is the current, century-old system failing to meet our current needs, it will be woefully inadequate for the projected growth in travel demand and could place major constraints on the economic potential of the New York metropolitan area and the larger Northeast Megaregion.

Images
North River Tunnels Portal: NJ Transit.
ARC Tunnel Graphic: The Infrastructurist.
Gateway Project: Amtrak.
7-Train Extension: Wall Street Journal.
Chris Christie: Wikimedia Commons.

This new, interactive Google map, created by Dan Schned, Coordinator of the Business Alliance, depicts the alignment of the Northeast Corridor in great detail, as well as all of the stations served by Amtrak trains. There are many other rail stations along the corridor, not shown here, that are only served by commuter trains. This new map of the Northeast Corridor will make its permanent home on the "About the Northeast Corridor" page on this website along with plenty of useful facts about the NEC, such as average daily ridership and traffic, ownership information, priority investment needs, and more. You will likely see more interactive Google maps included in posts on this website in an effort to provide more spatial information to our readers. We hope this will be a helpful resource for you in the future. Please post a comment if you have any suggestions for future map development.

In the coming weeks, we will continue to add more information to this Northeast Corridor map, including the location of major state-of-good-repair projects and bottlenecks, such as the Baltimore and Potomac Tunnel and Portal Bridge, and projects currently underway, such as major upgrades to track and overhead wires between New Brunswick and Trenton, NJ and improvements to the Harold Interlocking.

Vital Statistics:
Total mileage = 457
Total annual passengers = 259,539,000
Total annual passenger miles = 4,990,390,000
Average daily passenger trains = 2,272
Average daily freight trains = 50

Ownership:
Amtrak = 363 miles
Connecticut = 46 miles
Massachusetts = 38 miles
Metro-North Railroad = 10 miles

For more information, visit the About the Northeast Corridor page.

This post is the fourth in a series focused on examining the top investment needs of the Northeast Corridor. While earlier posts looked at general needs on the corridor, including priority investments and state of good repair, we are now looking at specific infrastructure investments. Our last post focused on NEC's decaying bridges and the post below takes a look at tunnels.

>>The aging, poorly maintained Baltimore and Potomac Tunnel is one of the largest, most expensive state-of-good-repair projects on the NEC and, as such, is a major barrier to increasing capacity and improving trip times.

As we have outlined before, aging infrastructure is a serious obstacle to achieving high speeds on the NEC, creates major bottlenecks to increasing service, and causes breakdowns that seriously damage reliability.

The Baltimore and Potomac Tunnel

On the NEC, there may be no better example of aging, obsolete infrastructure than the Baltimore and Potomac Tunnel. The B&P Tunnel is a section of the NEC just south of Baltimore Penn Station that carries Amtrak's NEC and MARC's commuter trains beneath the west side of Baltimore. The tunnel is sometimes referred to as the B&P Tunnels (plural) because of two open cut sections that break it into three segments.

At approximately 1.4 miles, the B&P Tunnel is longer than Baltimore's other famous tunnel: the Union Tunnel just east of Baltimore Penn Station, which is about 0.6 miles long. However, the most stunning feature of these tunnels is not their length, it is their age. Completed in 1873, eight years after the end of the American Civil War, they are both almost 140 years old.

View NEC Civil War Era Tunnels in Baltimore in a larger map

Maintenance

Without question, the B&P Tunnel must be replaced. Already, it requires a level of maintenance that goes well beyond basic infrastructure upkeep. The tunnel's Civil War-era design creates constant maintenance issues. For example, unlike tunnels built today that are made out of reinforced concrete or even other aging tunnels on the NEC that are lined with steel, the B&P Tunnel is constructed of brick masonry. As a result, it is highly susceptible to water infiltration and requires frequent inspection of their structural integrity.

This extra care is with good reason. The tunnel has had several, major structural problems over the years. During the days of the Pennsylvania Railroad, a section of the tunnel near Penn Station collapsed. Instead of repairing the tunnel, engineers solved the problem by digging out the collapsed section and turning it into an open-air "cut." In the 1970s, the tunnel's floor was lowered and its walls were stabilized to correct for other structural problems.

Bottleneck

Besides maintenance issues, the B&P Tunnel represents a major constraint on NEC capacity and speed. The tunnel and its approaches force the NEC to narrow from four tracks down to two. Even more problematic is the tunnel's alignment. Because of its S-curve shape, trains traveling northbound must travel at a speed of 30 miles per hour. In fact, the curvature of the tunnel and its approaches results in speeds no greater than 40 mph through most of Baltimore. This is exacerbated by the significant grades that exist in the tunnels, which also limit train speeds. The B&P Tunnel has a mile-long, 1.34 percent grade and the Union Tunnel has a 1.2 percent grade. These may not sound like much, but these grades make for steep climbs for heavy trains.

This bottleneck affects both local train service in Baltimore and intercity rail service up and down the corridor. The tunnel currently supports the operations of both Amtrak and MARC, Maryland's state-run commuter rail service whose Penn Line runs from Baltimore to Washington, DC. Daily traffic in the tunnel is high with 52 MARC trains and 80 Amtrak trains using it, including both Northeast Regional and Acela Express service. The B&P Tunnel also sees significant freight activity with both Norfolk Southern and CSX trains using it.

The two-track design spells trouble for the increase in rail traffic that is planned to occur in and through Baltimore. MARC intends to increase its commuter rail service through the B&P Tunnel from the current 26 daily round trips to 75 in 2030. Amtrak envisions similar service increases in the future as well, growing from 40 daily round trip trains to 55 in 2030.

Plans For Replacement

Due to the severe maintenance and capacity problems of the B&P Tunnel, the NEC Master Plan included the cost of its complete replacement as part of the $14 billion in Phase 1 Priority Improvements. There is no doubt that a new tunnel would be expensive. In a 2009 report, Amtrak estimated that a new, replacement B&P Tunnel would cost about $1.25 billion, an enormous portion of the total $8.8 billion state-of-good-repair backlog on the Amtrak-owned portions of the line.

Planning for the replacement has been underway since at least 2005, when the FRA released a preliminary study (PDF) on the passenger and freight rail network in Baltimore, following a devastating fire in the Howard Street freight tunnels under Baltimore in 2001. Among other findings, the study identified potential alignments for new passenger tunnels to replace the B&P Tunnel (in red):

According to Amtrak, replacing the B&P Tunnel would generate major transportation benefits. The project would transform the experience of riding the NEC to and through Baltimore. According to the NEC Master Plan, Amtrak plans to completely decommission the existing tunnel and construct a new tunnel for passenger rail under West Baltimore. The new tunnel would mitigate the current maintenance problems that plague this section of the NEC and allow Amtrak to reduce travel time through Baltimore. A separate tunnel for freight rail traffic would be constructed to provide a dedicated route through the city, and the original B&P Tunnel would be abandoned.

Already, the State of Maryland and Amtrak are pushing ahead with the tunnel replacement project. In 2009, the Maryland legislature passed a resolution (PDF) in support of new tunnels under Baltimore. Resolutions, of course, do not pay for new tunnels under densely developed cities. That same year Maryland applied for a federal grant, and in January 2010, the state was authorized $60 million in federal stimulus funding to study the impact of potential new tunnel alignments under Baltimore.

Next Steps

The story of the B&P Tunnel is a microcosm of the larger NEC. The plans for replacement are there, but the funding remains the biggest obstacle to achieving progress. Right now, it is difficult to imagine Amtrak or Maryland finding the scale of financial support necessary for replacing the tunnel. After recent debates about reducing the debt, Congressional support for transportation infrastructure projects is languishing and Republicans continue to attack the federal high-speed intercity rail program, which has been supporting the B&P Tunnel replacement effort so far.

Despite the lack of will from Congress, the B&P tunnels must be replaced. While old age can be a virtue in many areas, transportation infrastructure is clearly not one of them. If the tunnels reach 150th birthday with no end in service in sight, we can hold a funeral for the death of America's commitment to infrastructure investment.

Image: FRA. 2005. Report To Congress: Baltimore's Railroad Network, Challenges and Alternatives.

>>Along the entire NEC, our crumbling bridges must be replaced in order to improve service and achieve a state of good repair.

Of all the investments we must make in order to bring the NEC to a state of good repair and expand capacity, bridges may possibly be the biggest one of all.

The NEC Master Plan recognizes these bridges as a top priority. The Plan's $14 billion in Phase 1 Priority Projects includes $6.3 billion specifically for bridges. According to the Plan, the NEC travels over 224 bridges that have reached their end of life and must be significantly rehabilitated or replaced. Constructed primarily in the early 1900s, these century-old bridges are unreliable, limit train speeds, create delays, and force Amtrak and the northeastern states to pay significant maintenance costs.

The story of these bridges can be found up and down the entire NEC. To understand how they impact our current services, it's helpful to take consider each bridge separately. With so many to look at, we've narrowed it down to the top four bridges most badly in need of repair. Without further ado, the top four:

View NEC Bridges that Must be Replaced in a larger map

1. Portal Bridge (between Kearny and Secaucus, NJ)

Perhaps no single piece of infrastructure is as representative of the current problems on the NEC as much as the Portal Bridge, a two-track span over the Hackensack River that carries NJ TRANSIT and Amtrak trains from Newark, NJ to New York Penn Station.

The bridge represents a serious obstacle to achieving a state of good repair. Completed in 1910, the structure's age has been responsible for numerous delays and service failures. Portal is a swinging, movable bridge. Except during peak travel hours, federal law requires that the bridge remain in the open position to accommodate maritime traffic. Normally, these openings are routine, but occasionally the bridge gets stuck open, delaying the 70,000 rail riders who rely on it every day.

In 1996, however, poor maintenance conditions turned a failed bridge opening into a disaster. On November 23, the 86-year old bridge failed to close properly, leaving its tracks dangerously misaligned. Upon entering the bridge, an Amtrak train traveling eastbound derailed, sideswiped a train crossing in the opposite direction, and tumbled off the bridge and onto the river bank below. Thankfully no one was killed, but 43 passengers were injured. In light of the bridge's serious maintenance conditions, federal investigators concluded that the bridge needed dramatic increases in inspection to ensure safe operations. (PDF of federal review of the 1996 Portal Bridge accident.)

The bridge is also part of a serious capacity bottleneck in Northern New Jersey. With just two tracks, the NEC between Portal Bridge and New York City is the most densely traveled length of rail in the nation. The stretch already operates at 100% capacity and has no room for additional trains during peak hours. To make matters worse, since the 1996 derailment, Portal Bridge is subject to a speed restriction of 60 mph, while the surrounding track is certified for 90 mph.

The precarious state of Portal Bridge underscores the sensitivity of the NEC operations. A single point of failure can bring the whole line down. In 2005, Portal Bridge caught on fire during the evening rush hour, after a train pulled down a sagging electrical wire over the bridge. In one moment, the only rail link between New York City and the southern half of the NEC was severed. According to George Warrington, NJ TRANSIT's head at the time, if the fire had caused structural damage, service to NYC could have been suspended for months.

As of 2008, the cost of replacing Portal for both intercity and commuter trains was estimated at $1.34 billion. The project began environmental review in 2006 and was approved by the FRA in 2008. Since then, the process of securing funding has been slow. In 2009, New Jersey received $38.5 million in stimulus funding to complete final design of the bridge's replacement. In 2011, Amtrak applied for $570 million in high-speed rail grants to begin construction, but failed to secure the money. At this point, there is no funding identified to complete the project.

2. Pehlam Bay Bridge (Bronx, NY)

The Pehlam Bay Bridge has not faced the same dramatic problems as the Portal Bridge, but still represents a critical investment need for the NEC. A uniquely beautiful span, the bridge carries Amtrak trains over the Hutchinson River in the Bronx. Like Portal, the Pelham Bay Bridge restricts travel speeds and serves as a critical link in the system. If it failed for some reason, New York Penn Station would be effectively cut off from the entire northern half of the NEC.

Constructed in 1907, the bridge is beyond its useful life and must be replaced. A new Pehlam Bay Bridge would increase speeds on the bridge from 45 to 110 mph. Unlike the current, low-level design, a bridge built at higher-levels would reduce the number of bridge openings and reduce service disruptions. A new bridge could also unlock future service expansion, including a proposed, new commuter service along the bridge's route from Connecticut to New York Penn Station.

Amtrak has already begun planning the replacement of the Pelham Bay Bridge. In 2009, the corporation used $10 million in stimulus funds to begin the rehabilitation of bridge's structure (PDF), but has been planning for its complete replacement. According to the NEC Master Plan, the replacement would cost approximately $500 million. In 2011, Amtrak applied unsuccessfully for funding to complete engineering and design for a new bridge, and the project is still awaiting funding (PDF).

3. Susquehanna River Bridge (Havre de Grace, MD)

Maryland is home to several major bridges that carry the NEC over the rivers that drain into the Chesapeake Bay. The longest of these bridges is the Susquehanna River Bridge. Completed in 1906, the bridge is ¾ of a mile long with a movable span in the middle.

The Susquehanna Bridge serves both passenger and freight rail operators. It supports Amtrak, MARC (Maryland's commuter rail service) and the freight railroad Norfolk Southern. Susquehanna is currently a major capacity bottleneck. With just two tracks, it forces the NEC to constrict down from four tracks to the north and three tracks to the south.

In May 2011, Maryland was awarded a $22 million federal, high-speed rail grant to support initial design and engineering for the Susquehanna Bridge replacement. Priced at $500 million, the bridge is the most expensive to replace in Maryland. The state and Amtrak are also pursuing the replacement of two other bridges: the Bush River and the Gunpowder Bridge. Like the Susquehanna, these spans are over a century old and limit capacity by constricting capacity to two tracks, down from three or four.

4. The State of Connecticut

True, this is actually many bridges, not just one. But in Connecticut, you would be hard-pressed to choose just one. Like Maryland, Connecticut is home to a large number of the NEC's bridges. While the line's route along the Long Island Sound provides beautiful views, it requires the train to hop over the many inlets and rivers that punctuate the coast line. Facing years of under-investment, these are troubled bridges over Sound waters.

In total, the state is home to a whopping ten movable bridges on the NEC, at least six of which need to be replaced.

The story of these bridges is the same, as sorry a tale as the others on this list. Built at low levels over a century ago, these bridges must be opened to accommodate maritime traffic. Old age and poor care in the past have driven up maintenance costs and damaged their reliability. Speed restrictions and curved tracks force trains to slow down.

The process of replacing these bridges is complicated by the line's split ownership, which is divided in half at New Haven: the state owns the portion to the west and Amtrak owns the portion to the east. The state and Amtrak are separately pushing forward to replace their major bridges. Amtrak completed the replacement of the Thames River Bridge in 2008 and, with the support of federal stimulus dollars, is currently replacing the Niantic River Bridge, expected to be complete in 2013. Its final major replacement, the Connecticut River Bridge, is estimated to cost $600 million.

The state also has plans to replace the major removable bridges on its section of the line. After completing the replacement of the Pequonnock River Bridge in the 2000s, the state has no funding identified for its four remaining major bridges. According to the NEC Master Plan, the replacement of the Walk and Saga bridges would together cost approximately $600 million.

Conclusion

Although tens of thousands of riders travel across these bridges safely every day, we cannot take their reliability for granted. Each one of these bridges is a hugely critical link in the NEC system. Although passenger rail beats other modes in many categories, operational flexibility isn't one of them. If one of these major bridges were to fail, Amtrak and the commuter railroads cannot just drive around it. To lose one of these bridges for any period of time would throw tens of thousands of riders onto the roads.

And while the cost of replacing these bridges is a daunting figure, we must make this investment right now. As this list makes clear, our aging bridges create delays, slow service, limit capacity, and are major obstacles to achieving a state of good repair. We cannot create reliable service or meet future travel demand without bridge investments.

Images:
Portal Bridge: O Gauge Railroading Magazine
Pelham Bay Bridge: www.yonkersrail.com
Susquehanna River Bridge: Flickr - Mr. T in DC
Connecticut River Bridge: Hardesty & Hanover

This post is the second in a series focused on examining the top investment needs of the Northeast Corridor. Our previous post introduced the $14 billion in Phase 1 Priority Investments necessary for improving the NEC over the next ten years. The post below takes a general look at the state of good repair needs on the NEC. Upcoming posts will look at specific infrastructure investments necessary to improve service and create new capacity.

>>The NEC faces a multi-billion dollar backlog in necessary repairs. Congress must make critical investments now to address system failures.

Maintaining transportation infrastructure is like taking care of your teeth. If you brush your teeth and floss every day, a trip to the dentist is but a mere cleaning. But, if you put brushing off, your teeth will form cavities that are painful and expensive to fill. Right now, the NEC doesn't just have cavities. It needs a root canal.

The passenger rail infrastructure in the Northeast is in serious disrepair. Having suffered decades of neglect and under-investment, the NEC system is aging and deteriorating, while increasingly forced to withstand the stress of rapidly growing ridership. The Northeast Corridor Master Plan (PDF) identified a backlog of billions of dollars in necessary repairs. Without these investments, the NEC will remain susceptible to system failures that disrupt the Northeast economy and will be unable to improve service to meet growing travel demand.

According to Amtrak's 2009 State of Good Repair Spending Plan (PDF), the tremendous maintenance and repair backlog includes:
• More than 200 bridges, most completed at the turn of the 20th century - before the introduction of the Model T
• Baltimore's B&P Tunnels dating to the post-Civil War period
• Numerous interlockings where tracks join and cross each other that are functionally obsolete and must replaced
• Electrical systems that provide power to trains but rely on components from the 1930s
• Locomotives and passenger cars that are 30-40 years old and frequently break down

How Did We Get Here?

The maintenance problems on the NEC started long before Amtrak. Although the national railroad corporation began operations on the NEC in 1971, it did not receive ownership of the NEC until 1976. By that time, the majority of the line was already in disrepair, thank to the line's previous owner, Penn Central. Struggling for its survival in the 1950s and 50s, Penn Central had chosen to defer maintenance in order to save money.

After Amtrak took control of the NEC, instead of providing it with the necessary funding, Congress demonstrated a long-standing pattern of unbalanced transportation spending, favoring roads and highways over rail and transit. Between 1970 and 2008, the Federal government invested a total $36 billion in the passenger rail systems around the country, including both operations and capital investments. In that same period, compare this to the $421 billion in federal subsidies given to the aviation industry and over a trillion dollars given to the national highway system.

In June 2011, Senator Frank Lautenberg criticized the Federal government's lopsided attention to roads. He said, "Last year, we spent more than $40 billion on highways. Over Amtrak's entire 40-year history, we've spent just under $38 billion total. That's worth repeating: Amtrak has received less federal money in its history than highways get in a single year."

While Congress has passed legislation on multiple occasions requiring that improvements be made, these initiatives have not been properly funded. In 1976, for example, Congress launched the Northeast Corridor Improvement Project. Despite lofty goals for improving infrastructure and reducing trip times, Congress did not provide the funding necessary to make the improvements. According to a GAO report in 1980, limited funding forced planners to dramatically scale back the scope of the project. This story repeated itself in the 1990s, when Congress approved the implementation of the Acela, but did not fund the capital projects that were needed to achieve the goals it established for travel time on the NEC.

With limited capital support from Congress, Amtrak has consistently been forced to defer maintenance and replacement of infrastructure. As a result, many pieces of the NEC continue to operate well beyond the end of their expected life, even as ridership and train traffic continues to grow.

Why We Need a State of Good Repair

The NEC remains a crucial component of the Northeast's transportation system. Over the past ten years, intercity ridership on the Corridor increased from 8.2 million passengers in 2000 to 13 million passengers in 2010. A long-term disruption on the NEC, caused by our chronic failure to repair our aging infrastructure, would cripple the Northeast. If even a fraction of the Corridor's daily ridership of 750,000 riders were suddenly thrust on to our highways and into our airports, the whole system would be brought to a stand-still, sending shockwaves through our regional and national economy.

Already, we see the consequences of under-investment. Aging infrastructure is evident at virtually every part of the line - even at the busiest and most economically vibrant parts of the Northeast. For example, to reach New York Penn Station, the nation's busiest rail station, passengers must travel through rail tunnels under the Hudson and East Rivers that were completed in 1910. Over a century old, these six tunnels accommodate more than 1,200 train movements a day.

Poorly maintained infrastructure is unreliable. Between New York and Washington DC, major electrical components date from the late 1930s and routinely fail. In fact, in June, the electrical system on the line between NYC and Philadelphia failed twice in a single day. Older infrastructure also reduces speed, which limits capacity. In Baltimore, passenger operations rely on tunnels that were completed in 1873, and their obsolete design restricts speeds to 30 mph. And such restrictions can be found along the entire NEC.

The poor state along the Corridor delivers a strong blow to the Northeast economy. In the most recent month recorded (May 2011), 10% of all travel time along the Northeast Corridor was a delay caused by such things as poor infrastructure, engine failures, conflicts among trains, or passenger-related holds. On average, each rider on the NEC experiences a delay of 7 minutes. For the 13 million annual riders, this results in an estimated $28 million in lost productivity.

Looking Ahead

While a state of good repair can alleviate the problems we have now, it is also an essential foundation for the future growth and expansion of the corridor.

Unfortunately, the current funding pattern for the NEC will be inadequate to pursue a state of good repair. Current annual appropriations are too low to make the scale of investments called for by the Phase 1 Priority Investments. In fact, the House recently proposed lowering Amtrak's appropriation by 25% below its current levels. What's more, the uncertainty of the annual appropriations process undermines Amtrak's ability to make long-term investments. Many larger projects will need several years of planning, engineering and construction. Amtrak cannot pursue these projects without more certainty about its future funding levels.

The reality is that we must make major investments in maintenance now. As we put this work off, necessary repairs will only become more expensive over time. As ridership continues to grow, the system will be increasingly susceptible to failure. And while we can perform targeted work right now, like taking a single track out of service, our growing backlog may eventually require that we stop service altogether for repair. At that point, instead of needing a root canal - we'll need dentures.

Images
NEC at Westchester Avenue, Bronx, NY. John H. Gray. Flickr.

This post is the first of a series focused on examining the top investment needs of the Northeast Corridor. The post below introduces the Phase 1 Priority Investments identified by the Northeast Corridor Infrastructure Master Plan. Upcoming posts will focus on the general state of good repair needs on the Corridor and specific infrastructure investments necessary to improve service and create new capacity.

>>With high-speed rail as a long-term goal, the Northeast must secure the $14 billion in Phase 1 Priority Investments identified by the NEC Master Plan to achieve necessary repairs and service improvements right now.

High-speed rail is still many years of planning and construction away from being up and running.

Recognizing this fact, the Northeast should begin by focusing on improving the existing NEC in the near-term. In May 2010, the region completed a three-year planning process that resulted in the NEC Master Plan, which outlines $13.8 billion in Phase 1 Priority Investments that we can pursue right now. These Phase 1 Priority Investments would make critical improvements toward achieving a state of good repair, add capacity in key bottlenecks, and reduce travel times along the entire NEC.

The Master Plan

Planning on the NEC is not easy. It requires coordinating with the line's multiple owners and stakeholders, and accommodating its intercity, freight, and commuter rail operators. The NEC and its branch lines pass through twelve states from Maine to Virginia plus the District of Columbia, and support the operations of nine commuter railroads and seven freight railroads. Ownership of the these lines is also split. While Amtrak owns the majority of the mainline NEC, key portions are owned by the states of New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, and CSX owns the majority of two other branch lines.

Facing these obstacles, the NEC Master Plan is a remarkable achievement for the Northeast Megaregion. The planning process was performed the by the NEC Master Plan Working Group, which included representatives from all 12 northeastern states, Washington DC, Amtrak, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), eight commuter railroads and three freight railroads.

In May 2010, the Working Group released its plan, which identified the major rail improvements necessary to bring the NEC to a state of good repair and (meet the growth in travel demand through 2030.

Phase 1 Priority Investments

Right now, the Master Plan itself is nearly too big to fathom. In total, it recommends $52 billion in investments by 2030 - a daunting figure that is beyond what we can fund in the near term.

Recognizing the need to start smaller, the Master Plan provides a small first-step to initiating progress. In what it calls the NEC Main Line Phase 1 Priority Improvements, the Master Plan lists $13.8 billion in projects that represent the most important projects for the NEC to pursue right now.

The Phase 1 Priority Investments have three major goals:

1. Perform the most critical repairs necessary toward achieving a state of good repair
The Phase 1 Priority investments will dramatically improve service reliability on the NEC by replacing century-old infrastructure on the line's busiest sections. As riders know, the line is frequently subject to failures caused by aging equipment and decades of poor maintenance.

2. Improve trip times by increasing speeds on existing tracks.
These investments will enable Amtrak to achieve substantial time savings on the NEC. Consider the Acela - Phase 1 investments will reduce travel time by 8 minutes between Washington, DC and NYC, and another 8 minutes between NYC and Boston. New rail capacity also means more trains and better service. For example, with these improvements, Amtrak plans to introduce new, limited-stop express service that will reduce travel time by 15 minutes between Washington, DC and NYC.

3. Create new capacity in the busiest sections of the line
These investments will also provide badly needed capacity at the line's most delay-plagued bottlenecks. Already, key stretches of the corridor in New York and New Jersey are operating at 100% capacity. Amtrak and the commuter railroads cannot add new trains. As we continue to grow, the situation is only poised to get worse. Unless we add new tracks, travel demand will exceed capacity in virtually every major city on the NEC by 2030.

To these ends, the Phase 1 investments touch nearly every part of the line, balancing repairs to existing infrastructure with targeted expansions. Key investments include:

• Over $6 billion for the repair and/or replacement of tunnels and bridges, including almost $2 billion for the replacement of Portal Bridge in New Jersey and $1 billion for tunnels under Baltimore, MD;


• Over $2 billion for the rehabilitation of the electrical and signaling system between Washington, DC, and New York City, including the installation of constant tension catenary wire that will increase speeds on the Acela service;


• Approximately $1.5 billion for improvements and expansions at key rail terminals; and more.

At $14 billion, these projects will have a major impact, by enabling the NEC to meet the needs of all users over the next ten years. We must make make these projects a reality. If we do not invest, the NEC will remain what it is now: unreliable, slow, and inadequate for the growing travel demand of the Northeast.

The Challenge Ahead

The NEC Master Plan is evidence that there is no lack of planning or direction for the NEC. The real problem is getting the money.

The biggest obstacle toward achieving funding is Congress. It's obvious that the Northeast states are eager to see these investments. In the most recent round of grant applications to the federal high-speed rail program, virtually every state in the Northeast applied, in addition to Amtrak. But states rely on federal dollars to make the vast majority of their transportation investments. What's more, the regional, multi-state character of the NEC means that the federal government is the most logical source for most of the funding. If a project in one state will benefit the whole corridor, then all states have an interest in making the investment.

Unfortunately, Congress's commitment to the NEC has been anything but consistent. Earlier this year, the federal government showed a new level of generosity through the federal high-speed rail program. In April 2011, the FRA ruled that the NEC would be eligible for grants under the federal high-speed rail program. Later this year, that designation paid off. In May, the program awarded Amtrak $450 million to pursue a series of upgrades to reduce travel time and improve reliability on the NEC in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania (a project identified under the Phase 1 Priority Improvements). Maryland, Connecticut, and Rhode Island also received grants to jumpstart Phase 1 Priority projects within their state borders.

But now Congress appears to be trying to erase that progress and undermining future investments. In July, the House voted to approve legislation that would rescind all federal high-speed rail grants that have not yet been obligated. If approved by the Senate (a possibility considering the complex negotiations occurring between the House and the Senate), the legislation would effectively cancel Amtrak's and the states's NEC projects.

Recent developments in Congress make securing future federal investments even harder. The recent transportation proposal from the House, for example, proposes cutting Amtrak's funding by 25% below current levels. Following the debt ceiling debacle, the newly announced "Super Congress" is tasked with making $1.5 trillion in government spending cuts and could very well go after transportation spending.

The truth is that the Phase 1 Priority Investments are not expenditures - they are investments. If we wish to continue our economic growth, we need a reliable transportation system and new capacity to meet current and future demand. The Federal government must make a bigger commitment to passenger rail on the NEC.

Stay Tuned

Reflecting the complex needs of the NEC, the Phase 1 Priority Improvements represent a mix of repairs, capacity improvements, and service upgrades. Please stay tuned as we continue this series, which will break down the most critical needs of the Northeast Corridor and explain why we must make improvements right now.

Images
Acela: John H. Gray. Licensed under Creative Commons. Flickr.
Acela in CT: Licensed under Creative Commons. Flickr user Fortyseven.

>>The derailment of a commuter train in New York Penn Station causes severe delays throughout the Northeast Corridor, pointing to the need to invest in additional rail capacity.

The Northeast Corridor is like a house of cards; when one card goes, the whole house comes down with it.

Such was the case yesterday, when an NJ TRANSIT train derailed in one of the tunnels between New York and New Jersey, causing delays that cascaded throughout the system and lasted over 24 hours. The headline from the Washington Post says it all: "Commuter train derails at Hudson River tunnel in NYC; disrupts trains throughout Northeast."

According to Amtrak, at approximately 8:00 AM Tuesday morning, an NJ TRANSIT train headed to Trenton, NJ, derailed just after leaving New York Penn Station in the tunnels underneath the Hudson River. The train's last two cars jumped the tracks, stranding over 300 passengers for over an hour until a rescue train arrived.

Over the past 24 hours, this one small accident has wreaked havoc on commuters as its effects reverberated throughout the NEC. As workers rushed to investigate and repair the accident, NJ commuters saw delays of 60-90 minutes that began yesterday morning and lasted throughout the day. NJ TRANSIT was forced to cut its train service in half and divert some service to its terminal in Hoboken, NJ. Over night, NJ TRANSIT canceled all service to and from NYC, and this morning, commuters continued to see delays or diversion to Hoboken Terminal.

Up and down the NEC, travelers felt the impacts of the derailment. Amtrak was reporting delays of 30-60 minutes, affecting passengers as far away as Washington, DC and Boston, as trains struggled to get through NYC. For passengers in Pennsylvania, the Keystone service was cut back to Philadelphia, canceling through-service to NYC altogether. The 150,000 daily commuters on the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR), who share New York Penn Station with Amtrak and NJ Transit, were not spared from the incident either. The LIRR saw delays of its own and was forced to cut some of its trains during yesterday's evening rush.

The Trans-Hudson Bottleneck

The derailment is more evidence that we need additional rail capacity between New York and New Jersey.

Major delays are caused by the severe capacity bottleneck underneath the Hudson River. Currently, there is only one set of tunnels to carry commuter and Amtrak trains from New Jersey to New York Penn Station - with one tunnel for inbound trains and one tunnel for outbound trains. When one tunnel goes out of commission for any reason - a stalled train, a power failure, a derailment - capacity is cut by more than half (for more details on the technical constraints, see note below).

As a result, the trans-Hudson tunnels are one of the most vulnerable points on the NEC. Take down the tunnels and you take down the corridor. Every day, 100 Amtrak trains and over 350 NJ TRANSIT trains move through tunnels. And during the morning rush hours, approximately 70,000 NJ TRANSIT commuters rely on their steady operation. If this critical link is broken, service on the entire corridor is disrupted. The situation is made worse by the fact that the tunnels were constructed in 1910. Service disruptions are common, as both NJ TRANSIT and Amtrak trains occasionally lose power inside.

New Tunnels

Yesterday's derailment is salt in the wounds of supporters of the now-defunct ARC tunnel,which was canceled by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie in 2010. The project would have completed a new set of rail tunnels under the Hudson, effectively doubling capacity between New York and New Jersey and providing a back-up system in the case of a disruption in the current tunnels.

After ARC was canceled, Amtrak put forth its own proposal for increasing trans-Hudson capacity in February 2011. The Gateway Project would add two new tunnels between New York and New Jersey. While the ARC tunnel was primarily a commuter rail project, Gateway would be aimed at supporting the expansion of Amtrak's service on the NEC. The project would also enable an increase of NJ TRANSIT service, but not to the same extent as ARC. In April, Amtrak applied to the federal high-speed rail program for almost $200 million to perform preliminary engineering and environmental analysis for the new tunnels, as part of a larger application for investments on the NEC, but was rejected.

While the Gateway plans are good news for the NEC, the Trans-Hudson issue is still far from being solved because of a serious lack of political will among local leaders. The states of New York and New Jersey have each faced major budget crises and appear unready to tackle the challenge of new trans-Hudson capacity. And the Port Authority, which is responsible for investing in major bi-state connections, has turned its attention to other important projects.

With ARC gone and the Gateway Tunnel stuck in the planning stages, the NEC needs strong leadership to make the trans-Hudson issue a top priority for local and regional investments.

(Note on Capacity: In the event that one tunnel in a pair is put out of commission, overall capacity is cut by more than 50%. When trains go through a single tunnel in one direction, they can follow each other one after the other with minimal space in between. But if a single tunnel serves trains going in both directions, the trains must be more spaced out, because a train going in one direction must wait for the train in the opposite direction to clear the tunnel. So, for example, two tunnels each serving 25 trains per hour, becomes one tunnel serving 15.)

Images
Photo: NJ Transit.
Postcard of Hudson River Tunnels: Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.

This article was written by Manfred Ohrenstein, member of the Business Alliance for Northeast Mobility, founding partner of Ohrenstein & Brown, LLP, and former New York State Senator. This post was originally published on the Business Alliance home page. In the coming weeks, articles by other guest writers will be published here on the Business Alliance's blog, Back on Track: Northeast.

Background on Legislation

In mid-July, Rep. John Mica (R-FL), Chairman of the House Transportation & Infrastructure (T&I) Committee, introduced legislation aimed at constructing high-speed rail on the Northeast Corridor (NEC). The bill includes a controversial proposal to remove Amtrak from the NEC and to sell the present right-of-way and railroad operations to private investors who would bid for the opportunity to finance, construct and operate a high-speed rail system. The legislation would also impose an impressive requirement that high-speed rail be up and running just ten years after the successful investors are chosen.

Many passenger rail advocates, including the Business Alliance for Northeast Mobility and the U.S. High-Speed Rail Association (USHR), praised some aspects of the bill, but generally considered the proposal unrealistic in its failure to recognize that it is unlikely that private industry alone would cover the immense investment required to build and operate a high-speed rail line of the extent and complexity required in the NEC. It is clear that substantial public investment is required for this project to be successful.

Meeting Report

Last week, Mica met with members of the USHSR to discuss their concerns about the bill. In a positive move, Mica showed a remarkable willingness to negotiate and alleviated the major concern about the lack of public participation in his proposal. He agreed that the federal government would need to be involved in the development of high-speed rail through a public-private partnership.

The meeting began with a detailed briefing by Joyce Rose, Staff Director for the Rail Subcommittee. Without even being questioned, Rose explained that Mica understood that he could not succeed in his legislative goals by privatizing the NEC and that public funding has to be a part of this unique high-speed rail project.

When he arrived (about half-way through the meeting), Mica immediately tackled
the question of government participation. He started by directly addressing Thomas Hart, Vice President of USHR. Earlier this summer, Hart testified before the T&I Committee and criticized the bill, arguing that no high-speed rail line can be constructed without significant government participation. Mica explained that as much as he would personally favor a totally privatized project, he now understands that there would have to be a public component to any successful high-speed rail plan in the NEC. Although he did not elaborate with respect to specifics, such as whether the government would provide loans or grants or how much support the government could provide, Mica was clear that only a true partnership between the private and public sectors would be able to achieve success.

What was particularly heartening was that, while politicians often tailor their message for each audience, Mica accepted that his remarks at this meeting would be in the public record. The meeting was open to the public and was held in his Committee's the public hearing room. At one point, a participant pointed out that press was present, and Mica stated that he was talking at a public meeting.

The meeting still left in question the potential role of Amtrak on the NEC. Although he recognized the importance of government funding, Mica did not give any indication of what institutional form the United States Government's participation would take. So, it is possible that Amtrak's role can be worked out later. While it is clear that Amtrak must be involved as the owner of the NEC, Mica is also correct in insisting that private investors will need to have substantial control to be willing to invest in such a major project. Any private investor will be rightly interested in maximizing profits, and will need to be given control to pursue that aim.

Analysis

It is clear that Mica's legislation is constrained by his own politics and those of the Republican party. Like his Republican colleagues, Mica does not like Amtrak. He considers rail subsidies a waste of money and wishes to see passenger rail fully privatized, a position which is unrealistic since privatization of our passenger rail system will never happen. He also has to contend with the reality that his colleagues don't support the existing federal high-speed rail program because they believe it effectively subsidizes Amtrak. A large number of Republicans simply don't want to support Amtrak or invest in passenger rail at all. As a result, Mica's legislation takes the approach of removing Amtrak and privatizing the NEC.

Although many advocates are disturbed by this ideological approach, it is important to recognize that Mica has emerged as a major champion for high-speed rail on the NEC. Despite his party's antipathy toward subsidized passenger rail, Mica has identified the NEC as a highly valuable, government-owned asset and that high-speed rail on the NEC would be a major innovation for the United States and that it is possible to build it out in 10 to 15 years with private investments. Now, with his recognition that public investment is also essential, Mica is embracing the kind of public-private partnership that many advocates believe is the only way to achieve high-speed rail on the NEC.

By providing so much attention to this issue, Mica has also placed high-speed rail on the NEC on the agenda in a time when most Republicans have turned their back on large-scale public investment. When you have someone who is in another ideological camp, but agrees with you to a very large extent on the goal, it makes sense to try to work with him and reach an agreement. Since Republicans control the U.S. House of Representatives, this would be a propitious time to do that.

About Manfred Ohrenstein

Mr. Ohrenstein is founding partner of Ohrenstein & Brown, LLP and leads the firm's Government Affairs practice, serving as a strategic consultant and government affairs representative for Fortune 500 companies in New York City, New York State, and Washington, D.C. Mr. Ohrenstein is a prominent political and civic leader in the city and state of New York and is a 35-year veteran of the New York State Senate, where he was a member until 1995 and also served as Democratic Minority Leader. He chaired the New York Delegation to the Democratic National Convention, is currently Vice-Chairman of the New York Holocaust Museum, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Insurance Federation of New York.

Images:
U.S. High-Speed Rail Association

>>Following the House vote to strip all un-obligated high-speed rail funding, Sen. Chuck Schumer urges stakeholders to reach agreement on rail projects in New York State in order to protect project funding now.

Yesterday, U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) released a letter urging Amtrak, the New York State DOT, freight railroad CSX, and the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) to work out the final details of an agreement on rail projects in the State of New York.

Schumer's letter reveals an eagerness shared by many politicians to protect grants awarded to states by the federal high-speed rail program. As we reported in July, the House approved an Energy and Water Appropriations Bill that includes a provision, introduced by Republicans, to strip states of all awarded high-speed rail grants that have not yet been obligated. If the provision is approved by the Senate, over $1 billion in un-obligated projects would effectively be cancelled.

The Challenge of Obligating Funds

The hold up is that the FRA, which administers the federal high-speed rail program, cannot obligate New York's funding until agreements can be worked out among all major stakeholders, including CSX, the freight railroad that owns the right-of-way that this high-speed rail project affects. Schumer's call for action comes just days after the FRA obligated $336 million in grants for new trains for Illinois, California, Iowa, Michigan and Missouri, a major victory for those states and the FRA, who can rest assured that their funding is now safe from rescission.

If the House has its way, New York State would lose major investments in its passenger rail infrastructure. Sen. Schumer's letter targets the $240 million in grants for the Empire Corridor, which runs from New York City to Albany and Buffalo. These grants would fund improvements that will dramatically increase the speed of trains on the corridor and make major advancements in service reliability. New York also has other un-obligated funding, including a $295 grant million for the replacement of Harold Interlocking in Queens, NY, on the NEC, but Schumer's letter focuses on the Empire Corridor.

So far, obligating the funds has been held up because of a disagreement about how fast passenger trains will move on the corridor. While Amtrak and state planners have been preparing for 110 mph operations, the track's owner CSX has called for 90 mph. In April 2011, Michael Ward, CEO of CSX, argued that the private freight railroad had little to gain from improved passenger operations on the corridor and that speeds over 90 mph would disrupt and delay his freight trains. State advocates are split on the issue. Back in June, Rep. Louise Slaughter (NY-D) urged CSX to accept 110 mph operations, after the Empire State Passenger Association, a state-wide rail advocacy group, released a statement endorsing CSX's call for 90 mph operations in a bid to speed up an agreement among all parties.

Cause for Worry?

Schumer's letter clearly signals that he is worried because he understands that the Senate cannot guarantee the protection of rail projects funded by the federal high-speed rail program. Back in July when the House voted on the bill that would rescind the funds, some advocates expressed certainty that the Senate would block the rescission. In his letter, Schumer promises to fight the provision, but admits that the best way to protect these grants is by reaching an agreement that will enable the FRA to obligate funding as soon as possible:

"I will work to keep this provision from being included in the final appropriations bill, and will fight against any other efforts to rescind money awarded to New York. However, the best way to prevent high speed rail funding from the threat of rescission is to finalize the necessary agreements so that the money can be obligated and put to its intended use, and I strongly urge you to do just that."

Schumer's words ring particularly true following the lessons of the recent debt ceiling debacle. The House and Senate are bound to continue fierce negotiations on spending and nothing - not even grants already awarded - can be guaranteed by either party.

A decision on FY 2012 appropriations and this bill by the Senate is likely to come in September. Throughout the summer, the FRA has been working hard with the states to get funds obligated and will continue this effort. As mentioned above, the FRA released $336 million to states in the California and the Midwest for new trains. The Northeast has also seen progress - in early July, Massachusetts secured $72 million for the line from Massachusetts to Vermont. Later that month, Pennsylvania secured $24 million for the Keystone Corridor from Harrisburg to Philadelphia. Finally, Yesterday, NYS got a small piece of good news when the FRA transferred about $6 million to the state for small improvements on the Empire Corridor and Adirondack Corridor, which runs from Albany to Montreal.

Of all the rail corridors in the Northeast, however, the NEC remains the most vulnerable. Since its projects were not awarded until May 2011, there has been little time to work out the agreements necessary to secure authorization. In total, the NEC has nearly $1 billion in awarded funding that has yet to be obligated. Critical projects that are vulnerable to cancellation include:
- Amtrak ($449 million): Upgrades to 24 miles of track and electrical equipment in Pennsylvania and New Jersey and track improvements at the entrance to NY Penn Station.
- New York ($295 million): Construction to replace Harold Interlocking in Queens, NY, where frequent conflicts create delays for over 300,000 daily Long Island Rail Road and Amtrak riders
- New York ($240 million): Construction of signal, track, and station improvements to reduce travel time and increase service on the Empire Corridor.
- Pennsylvania ($66 million): Design and construction of improvements on the Keystone Corridor - separate from the earlier grant already obligated.
- Connecticut ($30 million): Construction of the New Haven-Hartford-Springfield Rail Project to expand intercity service and introduce commuter rail service.
- Maryland ($29 million): Design and preliminary engineering for the replacement of the Susquehanna Bridge, a century-old span carrying the NEC from Baltimore to Washington, DC.
- Rhode Island ($22 million): Construction of a third track on NEC at Kingston station to reduce delays on Acela Express service and accommodate a future commuter rail extension.

Schumer's public call to secure NY's funding is a major signal that the Senate cannot guarantee high-speed rail funding. If we wish to protect these critical improvements on the NEC and the larger Northeast, the FRA, the states, and the freights must reach agreements and secure obligations now.

Images
Chuck Schumer. Flickr.
Map of Empire Corridor. Amtrak.

>>With investments in true high speed rail requiring decades of construction, the Northeast must also invest in conventional rail service.

When proponents in America discuss high-speed rail, it is often not clear what "high-speed" actually means.

The Acela service on the Northeast Corridor, for example, was originally billed as America's first high-speed rail service. But, as we explained last week, the Acela has a maximum speed of 150 mph and an average speed closer to 70 mph. In general, true high-speed rail systems, like those in Europe and Asia, can operate at top speeds of around 200 mph or higher. As a result, Acela is best considered America's fastest example of conventional passenger rail.

While a true high-speed rail promises important benefits for the Northeast, such a system is extremely expensive. The Northeast is still many years -- and billions of dollars -- away from achieving those speeds. While smaller investments in conventional rail don't pack the same wallop, they are less expensive and still have great potential to improve service right away. In order to balance our short-term needs with our long-term goals, the NEC must pursue both improvements to existing, conventional service as well as true high-speed rail.

Federal Definitions

In the United States, the Federal Railroad Administration has created its own definitions for different tiers of intercity passenger rail service:

1. Core Express: Trains operate at speeds of 125 - 250 miles per hour on tracks dedicated to high-speed trains, matching standards for high-speed rail around the world.


2. Regional: Trains operate at speeds of 90-125 miles per hour on dedicated tracks or tracks that are shared b high speed, commuter, and freight trains.


3. Emerging/Feeder Routes: Trains operate at speeds of up to 90 miles per hour.

Under these categories, the Acela Express service is best described as "Regional." The true high speed rail systems in Europe and Asia would be Core Express.

Currently, the Obama Administration has invested in rail service under the High Speed Intercity Passenger Rail Program (HSIPR) Program. The name of this program is somewhat misleading, since it is really pursuing two separate aims: true, high-speed rail AND conventional, intercity passenger rail. On the "high-speed" side, the California system is the only example of dedicated Core Express service currently supported by Federal grants. On the conventional, intercity side, the federal program is supporting a wide number of critical improvements, but at slower speeds or on tracks that aren't "dedicated," meaning they are shared with commuter or freight trains.

Progress in the Northeast

Even though the HSIPR program isn't building true, high-speed rail for the NEC (yet), the program is making major, necessary investments. In May 2011, the Northeast Megaregion received almost $1 billion in grants from the HSIPR Program to complete a series of projects along the Northeast Corridor and its branch lines.

On the NEC main line, Amtrak is undertaking $450 million in improvements to upgrade a 24-mile section of track in New Jersey, increasing the maximum speed from 135 mph to 160 mph. This project will also replace the electrical system, which is responsible for frequent delays for the 70,000 commuters who rely on the line every day. New York State received $295 million to complete the reconstruction of Harold Interlocking, a site of frequent delays on one of the busiest stretches of the NEC, in Queens, NY. This project will untangle the series of tracks serving Amtrak and the Long Island Rail Road, reducing travel time for the 150,000 commuters who pass through daily. In addition, the states of Maryland ($22 million) and Rhode Island ($28 million) are undertaking projects to ease bottlenecks with new capacity and upgraded infrastructure that will support Amtrak's intercity passenger service.

The NEC branch lines are also seeing huge improvements. In Connecticut and Massachusetts, the HSIPR program is funding the New Haven-Hartford-Springfield Rail project, which will ultimately quadruple rail service on the line and raise speeds to 110 mph. In New York, HSIPR grants will raise speeds on the Empire Corridor to 110 mph. Finally, in Pennsylvania, operations on the already-110 mph Keystone Corridor, are being upgraded to increase reliability and reduce travel times.

A Dual-Pronged Approach

The investments by the HSIPR program demonstrate that we need investments in both conventional rail service and true, world-class high speed rail. Proposals by Amtrak (PDF) and a studio project at the University of Pennsylvania suggest that true high speed rail in the northeast will face significant obstacles, including a cost of approximately $100 billion dollars and decades of construction. While these obstacles are worth overcoming, we cannot wait for such large-scale investments to see improvements in our service. By investing in our conventional rail system we can achieve faster, more frequent and more reliable service right now - which will continue to supplement a high speed rail system well into the future.

This strategy of investing first in upgrades to existing, conventional rail service to provide more frequent, reliable, and faster trains as a stepping stone to dedicated, high speed rail is not unique to the United States. Other countries, including Japan, France, and the United Kingdom, have made these investments before implementing true, high speed service. Better service on the existing NEC will provide the foundation for true high speed rail.

Improvements to the existing NEC also recognize that our rail system isn't just for intercity service. It must be a reliable operation for the eight commuter railroads and four freight operators who share the NEC with Amtrak. Such improvements also recognize that we have needs that must be met right now. With key sections already at capacity, we must expand capacity to meet growing travel demand that cannot wait for HSR.

The question for the Northeast then isn't whether we should pursue conventional rail or high-speed rail. The question is how can we do both.

Images
Spanish AVE Train: Flickr. Bonaventura Leris.
Cover of Vision of High-Speed Rail on the Northeast Corridor. Amtrak.

>>Recent extreme weather exposes the need to invest in the NEC and for the line's different owners to coordinate their investments.

In late July, the Northeast and much of the country experienced an extreme heat wave that brought sections of the Northeast Corridor to their knees.

Failing Infrastructure

About one week ago, on July 22, passenger service on Amtrak and MetroNorth was halted in Connecticut, after a commuter train damaged the line's electrical system. According to various reports from the state, the issue was sagging overhead wires that supply power to the trains. As the heat rose to high levels, the wires expanded, causing them to droop perilously low. The train's pantograph (a metal arm on the top of the train that draws power) got tangled in the sagging wires, ripping them down and halting service.

Sadly, this incident could have been prevented. More modern technology, referred to as constant tension catenary wire, is designed to prevent the kind of sagging that caused last Friday's disruption. While Amtrak installed constant tension catenary on the line east of New Haven in the 1990s, the line west of New Haven, owned by Connecticut, has not yet been upgraded. And this problem can been seen on the NEC outside of Connecticut. Similar problems have recently occurred in NJ and Pennsylvania.

The Challenge of Split Ownership

This story offers two major lessons. The first is obvious: we must make investments to improve the line's overhead wires. The second lesson is more nuanced: planning on the NEC is difficult because the line's ownership is split among different parties.

While Amtrak owns the entire corridor south of New York City, the line north of NYC is more complicated. New York State and Connecticut own the line from New Rochelle to New Haven (splitting it at the state line) and Massachusetts owns the line in its borders, while Amtrak owns the rest.

Last week, an analysis by Transportation Nation explained how this situation affects riders. According to the article, the extreme weather hit NEC operations in Connecticut much harder than in New York State. While Connecticut's riders were stranded in trains with no power or air conditioning, New York's commuters traveled comfortably and on time. The difference was the result of state-level planning and investment; while New York has made investments on its portion of the NEC, Connecticut has been slower to improve the overhead catenary wire system. As a result, Connecticut's portion of the NEC is highly susceptible to these kinds of service disruptions.

The line's different owners have broader implications for the NEC than just uneven investment. The split ownership of the line makes it essential for the region and the operators on the line to coordinate plans for the NEC. It is no secret that Amtrak would like to expand service and improve reliability on its service from New York City to Boston, but its plans inevitably rely on Connecticut. New rail cars on the Acela service, for example, will do little to improve service if the overhead wires continue to fail.

Regional Progress

The good news is that Connecticut already has improvement plans. In recent years, the state has been completing a major overhaul of its portion of the NEC, repairing bridges and replacing the overhead wires with constant tension catenary. Since the work requires taking entire tracks out of service, progress is slow. Over the next five years, the state will invest $400 million in the overhead wires, and work is expected to be complete in 2016.

For its part, Amtrak is also investing in constant-tension catenary wire. In May 2011, it received a $450 million federal high-speed rail grant to perform upgrades to the track and electrical system in New Jersey. These upgrades include the constant tension wires that enable faster speeds and minimize delays. Despite this progress, significant stretches of track south of New York City still need funding for their upgrades.

As for regional coordination, Amtrak and the Northeast states have already made significant progress. In 2010, they released the NEC Master Plan, which identified the projects that will achieve a state of good repair and expand capacity to meet the needs of all intercity, commuter and freight rail roads by 2030. For the line's owners and numerous operators, however, the challenge remains to get the projects identified by the Plan funded.

With funding, it's clear that the region should continue to explore new ways of working together. It's easy to place blame for service disruptions on a section's owner or specific operator, but that fails to capture the interconnectedness of the line. Since investments in Connecticut benefit all parts of the line, all northeastern states have an interest in seeing those investments happen.

Images
Stamford Station: Karl Baron. Licensed under Creative Commons. Flickr User kalleboo.
Catenary Wire: K Tower at Washington Union Station. Licensed under Creative Commons. Flickr User jpmueller99.

>>Rep. Mica continues his plan to privatize the NEC, but agrees to a more cooperative approach. Despite Mica's criticism, Amtrak should remain a partner on the NEC.

Last Thursday, Streetsblog Capitol Hill reported that Rep. John Mica (R-FL) will continue to push his bill to privatize the Northeast Corridor.

In June, Mica, Chairman of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, introduced legislation that would transfer ownership of the NEC from Amtrak to the government and invite private investors to bid for the opportunity to develop and operate HSR in the Northeast. Under the legislation, once private investors are chosen, Amtrak would be removed from operating on the NEC.

While the Legislation has some good ideas, like creating a new regional entity to manage the NEC, it's clear that the bill would fail to create HSR in the Northeast. The key problem is that it fails to assure potential investors that the federal government would be willing to make a significant contribution toward the project. No successful HSR system has been constructed without a strong, upfront commitment by the public sector.

Cooperation

In a meeting on Wednesday with members of the U.S. High Speed Rail Association, Mica and his staffer stated that the bill was still very much alive, but agreed to take a more cooperative approach.

One key issue was the issue of Amtrak's debt. According to Streetsblog:

A member of [Mica's] staff said that the original plan was being portrayed as transferring Amtrak's assets away from it, while leaving Amtrak holding the bag on the debt. "Which, when you put it that way, does sound sort of unfair," the staffer said, indicating that issues like those are being worked out.

Mica continued to push for private sector involvement, but argued that players on all sides of the issue were gaining consensus:

Mica asserted that the involvement of the private sector is "non-negotiable" - which Amtrak itself would agree with, as it's already seeking private sector partners. Mica gave Amtrak CEO Joseph Boardman credit for being on board. "Boardman sees that you cannot [upgrade the NEC to high speeds] - at least in his lifetime - under the current proposal," Mica said. He also said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is "willing to negotiate."

Indeed, Amtrak has quietly begun to invite private sector participation. Last spring Amtrak issued a Request For Proposals, inviting the private sector to submit proposals to develop a business plan with Amtrak for the construction and operation of HSR on the NEC. Amtrak has not yet commented on the proposals, which were due in June.

Still, it's clear that Mica and Amtrak do not see eye-to-eye on the plans for the NEC. While Mica's plan would remove Amtrak from the NEC altogether, the national railroad corporation argues that it has valuable expertise that makes it an essential partner in the development of any HSR operation in the Northeast.

At this point in time, Amtrak is right. Since HSR is still many years away, Amtrak must continue to play a leadership role on the NEC and pursue its long-developed plans for improving the existing rail service. To remove Amtrak from the NEC without a well-developed plan and a proven, competent alternative would be a mistake.

Slowing down conventional rail?

While they continue to push for HSR on the NEC, Mica's staff had potentially bad news for projects at slower speeds. According to Streetsblog:

[Mica's] staffer also stated that the committee was giving inter-city and passenger rail "a temporary rest" while it focuses exclusively on high-speed rail. "It does not serve the two programs well to be 'smooshed,' or put together and consolidated the way they have been and then have most of the projects that receive funding not be high-speed rail in any way, shape, or form."

As projects like the Acela have shown, modest improvements can have a dramatic impact on rail service and expanding ridership. There are many valuable projects on the NEC and its key branch lines in Pennsylvania, New York, and Connecticut, that likely would not result in high-speed service under Mica's definition. It is unclear if these projects would qualify for federal support under Mica's proposed legislation.

Images
Amtrak train in Paoli, PA. Licensed under Creative Commons. Flickr User jpmueller99.

In a two-part series, we examine the history of Amtrak's Acela Express service, to determine the lessons its provides as we plan for the future. In Part 1, we detailed the service's growth and success, despite facing strong criticism early on and delivering only incremental service improvements. In Part 2, below, we examine the service's ongoing challenges and Amtrak's plans to improve service in the near-term.

>> Acela's existing limitations highlight the investments we must perform in order to improve passenger rail service on the Northeast Corridor.

Persistent Challenges

Despite its success in increasing ridership on the NEC, Acela has its shortcomings. The service reaches its top speed of 150 mph only on short stretches along the northern half of the line, and averages approximately 70 mph over the entire route between Washington DC Union Station and Boston South Station. These numbers fall well below the high-speed figures in other countries, where trains can reach top speeds above 200 mph. Furthermore, like the other rail services on the NEC, the Acela trains are subject to frequent delays.

The limitations of the Acela service are not the result of poor management by Amtrak. Instead, the service faces a number of challenges that constrain and hinder operations, including curvy tracks that limit its overall speed and congestion that prohibits service expansion. The challenges facing Acela, described below, signal the investments and changes we need to make in order to see faster, more reliable service on the NEC.

Legacy Infrastructure
In many ways, the Acela trains are using 21^st century technology, but running on 20^th century infrastructure. Even on the busiest sections of the NEC, the Acela travels along infrastructure over 100 years old. For example, the tunnels leading to New York Penn station were completed in 1910; and the tunnels under Baltimore in 1873. Overall, the NEC's tight curves and narrow spacing between tracks were not designed for 150+ mph speeds and make speeds of 200 mph or more almost entirely unfeasible. In order to accelerate and maintain high-speeds, trains need long stretches of straight, uninterrupted track.

State of Disrepair
The age of the NEC compounds the maintenance issues that plague the Corridor. After decades of under-investment by the federal government, the NEC faces a backlog of $8.8 billion in repairs necessary to achieve a state of repair. The poor conditions along the line result in frequent service failures and limit overall speed.

Consider the Portal Bridge, a century-old span over the Hackensack River, which carries the NEC from Newark, NJ to New York Penn Station. The bridge swings open to accommodate maritime traffic, but occasionally gets stuck in the open position, stopping all traffic on the busiest stretch of rail in the country. Due to its age and repeated malfunction, Amtrak has also chosen to restrict speeds on the bridge to 60 mph, even though trains can travel at 90 mph on the surrounding tracks. And the Portal Bridge is just one example. Amtrak has identified 224 bridges on the NEC that are beyond their design life and must be replaced.

Regulations
Acela's speeds are also affected by weight. As we have explained before, regulations from the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) require that passenger rail cars in America be constructed strong enough to withstand a high-impact collision with a freight train. In Europe and Asia, regulations focus less on ensuring that cars are crash-worthy and more on preventing crashes altogether, by fully separating passenger services from freight operations. The result is that American rail cars are significantly heavier than rail cars in other countries, which slows acceleration, reduces overall speed, and increases energy consumption.

Shared Tracks
Unlike high-speed services in other parts of the world, where trains enjoy their own, dedicated tracks, the Acela must share its right of way with multiple commuter rail operators and Amtrak's own Northeast Regional service. In addition to sharing, Amtrak does not own the NEC tracks in key sections in New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, leaving its trains subject to the delays of commuter rail operators, who in many cases prioritize their own trains.

This complex arrangement can cause significant delays and slow service. With Acela trains operating at significantly higher speeds than commuter trains, schedules must be highly engineered to minimize conflicts. In May 2011, the most recent month for which data is available, interference with other passenger trains and slow orders from other rail operators together represented nearly half of Acela's delays for the month (1,400 of 2,900 minutes). (PDF of Amtrak's May 2011 Performance Report.)

Limited Capacity
The sheer number of trains running on the NEC restricts Amtrak from adding additional service on the line. In key areas, such as the entrance to New York Penn station, commuter and intercity traffic have reached maximum capacity.

According to the NEC Master Plan, completed in May 2010, 24 out of 66 segments of the NEC are currently operating at 75% capacity or higher, with eight segments in Northern New Jersey and New York City already at 100% capacity. As a result, there are no available schedule "slots" for Acela trains via NYC during the peak period.

The high congestion also causes severe delays. During peak periods, trains run one after the other, without any schedule buffer between them. As a result, if one train experiences a malfunction, the delay impacts it and all trains behind it, cascading throughout the system. A delay in New York City can result in delays in both Washington, DC and Boston.

Planning for the Not-So-Distant Future

A true high-speed rail service could address many of these challenges. A new, two-track, dedicated high-speed rail system would provide new capacity, remove conflicts between commuter rail and intercity trains, and offer a 21st century system capable of speeds reaching 200 mph.

High-speed rail, however, cannot be the only answer. Even if we construct a new, dedicated high-speed rail system, our commuter rail and conventional passenger rail services will continue to face the issues of the system's age, poor maintenance conditions, and limited capacity. In addition, a true high-speed rail system is likely decades away. As a result, we must pursue a state of good repair and increased capacity on the existing NEC right now.

Recognizing the need for a multi-pronged approach, Amtrak has already begun to invest in near-term improvements on the existing NEC to meet the growing demand for higher speed service.

New Rail Cars
With virtually no capacity available for Amtrak to run additional Acela trains during peak travel times, Amtrak's only option is to enable more passengers to ride on each train. Currently, Amtrak runs 20 Acela train sets, each with six passenger cars. To add capacity, Amtrak plans to acquire 40 new rail cars and extend each train set by two cars, for a total of eight cars per train.

Every year, Amtrak makes a request to Congress for annual appropriations that support its capital and operating expenses. This year, for Fiscal Year 2012, Amtrak has requested capital funding to begin the procurement of the 40 new rail cars. As Congress continues to debate transportation spending levels for Fiscal Year 2012 and beyond, Amtrak's appropriations are still undecided. If the corporation receives the necessary funding to begin procurement, the new cars could theoretically be put into service in three to four years (though Amtrak itself has not provided a time frame). (PDF of Amtrak's FY 2012 Budget Request)

Improvements to the Existing NEC
In addition to upgrading its rolling stock, Amtrak is also making badly needed improvements to its track infrastructure. Amtrak is taking the lead in making almost $450 million worth of improvements to the NEC in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. These improvements, including the upgrading of a 24-mile stretch of track from 135 to 150 mph, enabling the Acela to achieve its top speeds. The project will also replace the electrical system, reducing the system failures that frequently plague this stretch of the NEC.

Like Amtrak's rolling stock plans, the fate of this project rests in the hands of Congress. In July, the House voted to effectively cancel this project, although the Senate's support of the HSIPR Program should ensure that it goes forward. Looking beyond this one investment, the NEC Master Plan provides a detailed overview of the projects that would bring the NEC up to a state of good repair and meet the growth in travel demand through 2030. Despite the detail in this plan, Congress has not taken up the task of funding these critical improvements.

Lessons Learned

1. The operational shortcomings of the Acela are the result of aging infrastructure, poor maintenance, and limited capacity that strains to accommodate commuter and intercity services.
2. While a dedicated, two-track high-speed rail service could solve these operational shortcomings in the long-term, achieving a state of good repair and increased capacity can enable Amtrak to expand Acela service, increase speeds, and reduce delays in the near-term.
3. While Amtrak has developed plans to improve Acela service in the near-term, the Corporation must rely upon Congress to make a firm commitment to improve the NEC.

Conclusion

The success of the Acela service, despite early operational hiccups and widespread criticism, reveals the strong demand for high-speed passenger service on the NEC. Its growth also demonstrates the power of more modest, incremental improvements to improve service and expand ridership.

Many of Acela's operational limitations and its frequent delays, however, signal the kinds of improvements we need to make: repairs on our existing infrastructure, new capacity to meet future demand and a long-term investment in a dedicated, high-speed rail system. In the near-term, Amtrak is forging head with improvements that will increase capacity and improve service. But without Congress's support these near-term investments will not come to fruition, which will constrain Amtrak's ability to address current ridership and to meet the growing demand for passenger rail.

Images
Acela Express Engine: Licensed under Creative Commons flickr.com user Cliff1066
Congestion analysis on the NEC: 2010 NEC Master Plan. PDF.
Portal Bridge: Michael Rosenthal, NJ Transit. Portalbridgenec.com
Acela Interior: Michael Hicks. Licensed under Creative Commons. flickr.com user mulad.

In a two-part series, we examine the history of Amtrak's Acela Express service, to learn the lessons of the past as we plan for the future. In Part 1, below, we detail the service's growth and success, despite facing strong criticism early on and delivering only incremental service improvements. In Part 2, we will examine the service's ongoing challenges and Amtrak's plans to improve service in the near-term.

>> The success of the Acela service demonstrates the potential for high speed rail and incremental improvements on the Northeast Corridor.

The Acela

Amtrak's Acela Express service runs between Washington, DC, and Boston, MA, serving 16 stations along the line. Amtrak runs approximately 50 Acela trains per day, with the line south of New York City seeing about double the service to the north. With a top speed of 150 mph, the Acela is the fastest passenger train in the United States.

Since its introduction in 2000, the service has become a dramatic success story for Amtrak and for passenger rail in the Northeast. The service has demonstrated the power of fast, reliable rail service to provide a competitive and profitable transportation choice for the Northeast Megaregion.

Growing Pains

The history of the Acela has its roots back in the 1960s, when high-speed service was first proposed for the United States. Planning for the Acela began in earnest, however, in 1994, when Amtrak invited bids to develop trains capable of 150 mph service. The first Acela train entered service six years later in December 2000. (Click here for an early timeline of Acela.)

While the smooth operation of the Acela is largely taken for granted now, a series of technical mistakes inspired widespread criticism of the new trains. By 2005, a New York Times article detailing Acela's history, described the Acela as a "frustrating burden" for Amtrak.

The first major problem occurred in 1999, during testing, when Acela's engineers admitted that they had built the trains four inches too wide. As a result, the train would be unable to utilize a special tilting technology specifically designed to maintain the train's high speeds along the tight turns of the NEC. After service began, technical difficulties plagued the system. The Acela was sidelined three times due to technical problems during its early years of operations.

In 2005, for example, all Acela cars were taken out of service for several months for emergency repairs. The issue was largely one of weight. In order to comply with federal regulations that require that rail cars be able to withstand a full-speed crash with a freight train, the Acela cars are approximately double the weight of the European cars that their design is based upon. This extra weight caused problems for the Acela's suspension system and its braking mechanisms, which had to be replaced after they unexpectedly developed large, dangerous cracks.

While these technical shortcomings did little to inspire confidence in the Acela service, to many, Acela's most fundamental disappointment was not a mistake at all. First, with a top speed planned at 150 mph, Acela fell far below its peers in Europe and Asia, where trains can reach top speeds of 200 mph and higher. Second, thanks to track conditions on the NEC, Acela trains failed to achieve a series of travel time benchmarks that had been earlier by set Congress. For example, the goal was to travel from Boston to New York in under three hours. Instead, the Acela can make the trip in about three and a half. Without sufficient funding from Congress, Amtrak was unable to make the track improvements that could sustain 150 mph travel and deliver such ambitious time savings.

In general, Amtrak faced expectations for Acela that were arguably too high and constraints, like capital funding, that were beyond its control. As a result, Acela's introduction looked more like a modest service improvement - not the high-speed rail system that many had envisioned for the Northeast Corridor for so long.

Finding Success

Despite these early challenges, riders in the Northeast have responded overwhelmingly and positively to the introduction of the Acela service.

Ridership Growth
Since opening, ridership on the Acela has reached 3.2 million passengers in just ten years. According to Amtrak, an average of 80% of seats are sold in the busiest segments with most trains sold out during peak periods.

Competition
And as Acela has grown, its success has not come at the expense of the slower speed, Northeast Regional rail service. Along the NEC, total ridership on the Acela and Northeast Regional service has increased by 24% from 8.4 million in Fiscal Year 2000 to 10.4 million Fiscal Year 2010 (Note: Amtrak's fiscal year ends September 30). Instead, Acela's high-speeds and easy access to downtown business locations have made the trains extremely competitive with air service. As of 2010, Amtrak's Acela and Northeast Regional services together have captured 69% and 52% of the air/rail markets in New York City-Washington, DC and New York City-Boston, respectively. According to Amtrak, the Acela is also more energy efficient than other modes of travel, using approximately 2,400 BTUs versus approximately 3,000 BTUs by air travel and 3,400 by the automobile.

Revenue
The Acela train is also extremely profitable. From 2000 to 2010, ticket revenues on the NEC grew by 87%, driven mainly by increased ridership and higher prices on the Acela trains. This single service contributes almost 25% of Amtrak's overall ticket revenues, despite representing less than 10% of total system ridership. In recent years, Amtrak has made revisions to its financial reporting that make it difficult to compare the performance of their routes and between recent years. However, in 2010, Amtrak's reporting indicates that the Acela ran an operating profit of $82.5 million, the highest of any line.

Since 2000, Amtrak has steadily increased service and added new amenities to meet the growing demand and encourage additional ridership. In 2005, Amtrak increased frequency dramatically with 12 additional round trips between New York City and Washington, DC, and one additional round trip between New York City and Boston. In 2010, the Acela was the first Amtrak train to receive Wi-Fi service, enabling business passengers and other riders to stay connected while on board.

Lessons Learned

Acela's current success demonstrates the potent demand for higher speed trains on the NEC. Upon celebrating its ten-year anniversary in December 2010, Amtrak President & CEO Joe Boardman wrote in the Philadelphia Inquirer, "Acela has shown that high-speed rail does work in America, and that prudent public investments in passenger rail can pay huge dividends."

Acela's success also signals the power of incremental improvements to deliver major service upgrades and big ridership gains. While many rail advocates were disappointed by Acela's limited speeds, its incremental advances have still inspired tremendous growth in ridership and service. This is an important lesson for other rail corridors in the Northeast, like the Keystone Corridor in Pennsylvania and the Empire Corridor in New York State, that aren't implementing true high-speed service, but are making more modest improvements to service and speed. The value of incremental improvements is also an important lesson for the NEC itself. Even as we pursue a dedicated, high-speed rail system, ongoing investments on the existing NEC to improve reliability, address capacity constraints and increase speeds will further the success of our rail operations and help meet the continued growth in passenger demand.

Part 2 . . .

Despite this success and the potential it demonstrates for further investment, the Acela train is not without its flaws. Stay tuned to Part 2 for a deeper analysis of Acela's ongoing challenges and Amtrak's plans to improve the Acela in the coming years.

Images:
Acela Route Map: Amtrak
Acela Train in Philadelphia: Creative Commons License flickr.com user madbuster75 Ryan Keene
Acela Promotional Poster: Amtrak

>>Despite criticism of the timing of its purchase, Amtrak was right to pursue the replacement of its current electric locomotives now under current FRA standards.

Last Friday, Streetsblog Capitol Hill ran an article by guest contributor Stephen Smith, which criticized Amtrak's planned purchase of new, electric locomotives for the Northeast Corridor. Overall, Smith is right to question the federal "crashworthy" regulations that inflate the cost of Amtrak's trains. Since there is no set timeline for removing these regulations, however, it is unfair to criticize Amtrak for going ahead with the purchase now.

To provide some context, in June 2011, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) awarded Amtrak a $563 million loan to complete the acquisition of 70 new locomotives for the Northeast Corridor. The loan was made as part of the Railroad Rehabilitation & Improvement Financing (RRIF) program, a largely under-utilized program that provides loans and loan guarantees for railroad projects.

There is no question that Amtrak's engines on the Northeast Corridor need replacing. The current locomotives have been in service for 20-30 years and have traveled, on average, 3.5 million miles. The locomotives require extensive maintenance and are frequently susceptible to technical failures, including engine fires. In May 2011, the last month on record, engine failures were responsible for over 3,000 minutes of delay for passengers on Amtrak's Northeast Regional service.

The Uncertainty of Federal Regulations

For Smith, the problem is one of timing. Right now, Amtrak's purchase costs are driven up by FRA regulations that require that all rail equipment be "crashworthy" - built to withstand a crash with a heavy freight train. If Amtrak waits for those regulations to be loosened, it could purchase "lighter, off-the-shelf" equipment from Europe and Asia, which Smith says could reduce costs by 35-50 percent.

Smith is right to suggest that these regulations should be altered. There is no doubt that these well-intentioned safety regulations drive up the cost of U.S. passenger trains. While American regulations focus on crash-worthiness, other countries focus on preventing crashes altogether by ensuring that passenger operations are fully separated from freight operations and utilize safety technologies that automatically trigger the brakes in the event that two trains are on course to collide, such as Positive Train Control (PTC). Where Smith goes wrong, however, is his assertion that Amtrak will not need to comply with these regulations by 2015. According to Smith and an analysis by Alon Levy at his blog Pedestrian Observations, the key is PTC. Under current federal regulations, the installation of PTC is mandated on all U.S. passenger rail corridors by 2015. Once PTC is installed on the NEC, Smith says, the FRA's regulations would no longer need to apply, meaning Amtrak could buy lighter trains and save taxpayer money. (Right now, according to the NEC Master Plan, PTC is only complete on the NEC main line between New Haven and Boston and in smaller sections in New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland.)

The problem is that the FRA has given no indication that it plans to loosen its regulations on the NEC. For both technical and political reasons, the FRA could choose to maintain its crash-worthy standards for train cars. First, once PTC is installed along the entire NEC, Amtrak's passenger trains will continue to share tracks with freight operators regardless of PTC. Second, FRA regulations are not necessarily subject to technical realities. If a crash were to occur between two trains on the NEC, the FRA would face enormous political pressure to maintain or strengthen its safety standards. A recent and tragic accident between a tractor trailer and an Amtrak train in Nevada is a reminder that these standards still play an important role in protecting passengers and signaling that the FRA ensures safety to the fullest extent possible. And while such an accident seems unlikely for the NEC, there is always potential; just last Friday, an automotive truck crashed through a fence and onto the NEC. The driver was killed and Amtrak service was suspended on the line between Boston and New York City until Saturday.

In picking up Smith's analysis, the Economist's business travel blog, Gulliver, described Amtrak's plan as another example of its "poor purchasing choices." But like Smith and others, the Gulliver blog has it backward. If Amtrak had purchased non-compliant locomotives assuming the regulations would change, but then did not, critics would have plenty of evidence of poor decision making. Right now, however, Amtrak can only make its decisions based on the facts they have on hand. Unless the FRA issues a timeline for regulatory change, Amtrak must purchase train sets that will comply with the current standards.

Funding Constraints

Besides regulations, Smith ignores how Amtrak's chronic under-funding by Congress constrains the timing of its purchasing decisions. It is no secret that the federal government's commitment to funding transportation improvements remains uncertain. Knowing that funding may be even harder to secure in the future, Amtrak was smart to secure this loan now. Since it began in 1998, the RRIF program has been largely under-utilized by the FRA. Amtrak's $563 million loan, for example, is greater than all prior loans for passenger railroads put together.

Smith also ignores the question of funding when he suggests that Amtrak should purchase Electric Multiple Units (EMUs) for the NEC. Unlike locomotives and non-motorized passenger cars, currently in use on the NEC, EMUs have smaller engines on each passenger car. The debate between investing in EMUs vs. locomotives + cars is beyond the scope of this post. Still, what's clear is that EMUs would need a significantly higher up-front investment and require an even larger amount of government support, which is highly unlikely at this time. Furthermore, if Amtrak is unable to replace all of its passenger cars, due to constrained funding, these locomotives should be compatible with all existing equipment. With federal funding so difficult to predict, how can one blame Amtrak for playing it safe?

Overall, the real focus once again should not be on Amtrak, but on Congress and the Federal Railroad Administration. Right now, the conditions on the Northeast Corridor require Amtrak to make immediate investments in its trains and tracks. While changes to the FRA regulations would be helpful, Amtrak cannot make its purchasing decisions based upon changes that are only hypothetical. And even if Amtrak wanted to make bolder choices with its equipment purchases, it must operate under current funding realities imposed by the political establishment. Without stronger guidance from the federal government, Amtrak is making the wisest choice it can. Sadly, pursuing the replacement of its locomotives under the current FRA standards and in securing the RRIF loan now, is basically the only choice it could make.

Images
Mockup of Amtrak Locomotive. Source: Siemens.
Picture of Amtrak AE-7. Licensed under Creative Commons. Source: Flickr.com user Doug Letterman.

>> The FRA has obligated $24 million for the Keystone Corridor, but up to $1.2 billion of rail projects in the Northeast remain threatened by rescission.

As we reported earlier, last Friday the House voted to rescind up to $2 billion in high-speed rail grants, as an amendment included in its FY 2012 Energy & Water Bill. If approved by the Senate, the provision would cancel all projects for which grants have been awarded, but not yet obligated by Congress. Up to $1.2 billion worth of projects in the Northeast fall into this category.

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, however, has just secured a small piece of that pie, protecting it from the threat of rescission.

Yesterday afternoon, the FRA announced the obligation of $24.3 million in funding to Pennsylvania for improvements on the Keystone Corridor. For those not familiar, the Keystone Corridor spans 104 miles between Philadelphia and Harrisburg. Amtrak, which owns the line, runs the Keystone Service along the Keystone Corridor and the NEC to New York Penn Station. The line is currently Amtrak's fourth most heavily traveled route in the country.

The $24.3 million grant will fund the elimination of the three last, remaining at-grade crossings on the line. Currently, trains must bisect public roads at three locations, which forces trains to reduce speed and delays local traffic. The new, separated crossings will increase travel speed and reduce the potential for accidents. The grant will also fund preliminary work on the replacement of a crucial, but functionally obsolete interlocking near Harrisburg. These improvements are part of a larger set of planned projects that together will eventually raise speeds on the Keystone Corridor from 110 mph to 125 mph.

The Power of Incremental Improvements

These projects, while seemingly modest, will have a major impact on the Keystone Corridor. In the past, incremental increases in speed and service have resulted in big ridership gains for the Keystone service. In 2006, a series of investments enabled trains to increase speeds from 90 to 110 mph and expand service from 11 to 14 round trips per day. These investments have paid off. Since then, ridership has grown by more than 37% to around 1.2 million annual riders and state subsidies to operate the line have decreased by 20% between 2004 and 2009.

Clouds Ahead

While yesterday's announcement is good news, not all of Pennsylvania's rail projects are out of the woods just yet. Besides this $24.3 million grant, the state is still waiting on the obligation of a $40 million grant awarded in May 2011 that would complete construction on a key interlocking in order to achieve higher speed service. If the House provision to rescind unobligated funding are allowed to stand, this grant and the entire $1.2 billion in grants for the Northeast would be lost altogether.

The protection of these unobligated funds is not assured. The outcome will depend on the negotiations between the House and Senate on a final Energy & Water bill. While some transportation advocates have expressed confidence that the Senate will include rail funding in their version of the bill, there is still a chance that political maneuvering or partisan compromises could result in the Senate either including a rescission itself or agreeing to one in negotiations with the House.

As a result, the best way to protect these projects is for the FRA to authorize their funding now by hammering out operating agreements as quickly as possible, like they did with the Keystone Corridor. Or individuals and local leaders can continue to send letters to their Senators expressing strong support for high-speed rail and opposition to attempts to rescind funds that have already been awarded to rail projects. Visit StandUpForTrains.org and click the "Help Now" button to learn more about how you can help protect important rail projects in your state.

Images
Map of Amtrak's Keystone Service: Amtrak.com
Map of Keystone Corridor and station stops: Federal Railroad Administration. Technical Monograph: Transportation Planning for the Philadelphia-Harrisburg "Keystone" Corridor, Volume 2.

>> A House vote last Friday to rescind high-speed rail awards could cancel Northeast rail projects. The FRA can secure projects by obligating funding now.

On Friday, July 15th, the House passed a 2012 Water and Energy Appropriations Bill that included an amendment to strip funding for high-speed rail that has already been awarded, but yet to be spent.

For the Northeast region, the bill would rescind nearly $1.2 billion in badly needed investments. Projects threatened by the bill include a dramatic upgrade to the NEC in New Jersey and Pennsylvania ($449M), the replacement of the busy and congestion-plagued Harold Interlocking in Queens, New York ($295M), and improvements to rail corridors in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont and upstate New York. (For more detailed information, see the list below.)

The House provision would use the high-speed rail funds to offset emergency disaster relief for the victims of flooding in the Midwest. While these victims certainly deserve Congress's support, their aid should not come at the expense of these rail projects. Congress is not in the practice of using transportation spending to provide "emergency" relief and for good reason. States will be unable to make long-term investments if their Federal funding is subject to weather-related disasters. In this case, the justification that flood mitigation is an "emergency" is unusual, since the funding will not be available until September.

The House vote does not mark the end of the line for these projects. The Senate's Water and Energy bill will not include any rescission to high-speed rail funding. As a result, the subsequent negotiations between the two chambers could strike the rescission out of the final bill. In addition, states can pursue a more certain route to protecting their funding. On Streetsblog, Tanya Snyder explains that the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) can protect these awards by obligating the funding, at which point Congress cannot rescind it. If the rescission provision holds in Congress, it won't go into effect until September, providing the FRA with a small window of opportunity to get the grants out the door.

The process of obligating funds, however, requires more than a stamp of approval by the FRA. Before funding can be released, the FRA must have legal agreements among all relevant stakeholders, including all rail operators on the line, state transportation departments and, of course, the line's owner. In New York, for example, the state must hammer out an agreement with freight operator CSX in order to secure $240 million in grants toward improvements on the Empire Corridor. While the state is pushing its plans to raise top speeds from 79 to 110 mph on parts of the line, CSX, the line's owner, is backing a more modest increase to 90 mph.

Potential Impacts

The cancelation of these projects would have a big impact on the Northeast. The bill "will eliminate thousands of jobs, will halt a large number of rail projects across the country. . . and hurt local and station economies," said Rep. Louise Slaughter of New York, chair of the Congressional High Speed & Intercity Passenger Rail Caucus.

Consider the largest grant: $450 million for Amtrak to upgrade a 24-mile stretch of track between NYC and Philadelphia. The project will raise speeds from 135 to 160 mph and replace the decades-old electrical system serving the line. On the surface, these improvements appear to be highly technical and mere incremental adjustments to service. For the users of this line, however, the project is making badly needed repairs. Suffering from years of poor investment, the line's electrical system is increasingly susceptible to failure (including two breakdowns in a single day in June) causing delays for the over 140,000 riders on NJ Transit and Amtrak who rely on the line to reach jobs in NJ and NYC. And the benefits of the project go well beyond transportation. The project is estimated to create over 12,000 jobs.

Projects at Risk

As described above, the Northeast stands to lose up to $1.2 billion in grants. Projects that remain unobligated and could be affected by the rescission include:
- Amtrak: Upgrades to 24 miles of track and electrical equipment in Pennsylvania and New Jersey and track improvements at the entrance to NY Penn Station ($449 million)
- New York: Construction to replace Harold Interlocking in Queens, NY, where frequent conflicts create delays for over 300,000 daily Long Island Rail Road and Amtrak riders ($295 million)
- New York: Construction of signal, track, and station improvements to reduce travel time and increase service on the Empire Corridor ($240 million)
- Pennsylvania: Design and construction of improvements on the Keystone Corridor ($66 million)
- Connecticut: Construction of the New Haven-Hartford-Springfield Rail Project to expand intercity service and introduce commuter rail service ($30 million)
- Maryland: Design and preliminary engineering for the replacement of the Susquehanna Bridge, a century-old span carrying the NEC from Baltimore to Washington, DC ($29 million)
- Rhode Island: Construction of a third track on NEC at Kingston station to reduce delays on Acela Express service and accommodate future commuter rail extension ($22 million)

>> Amtrak ridership continues to expand on the NEC, demonstrating Americans' changing travel preferences and strengthening the case for continued investment in rail infrastructure.

Last week, Amtrak announced that for the first time its total system ridership is projected to break 30 million passengers in a single year.

Amtraks fiscal year does not end until September, but its projections are based on the strength of results through the month of June. According to Amtrak, June 2011 marked the 20th consecutive month of ridership growth year-over-year. So far this year, total Amtrak ridership is up 6% over last year. On the NEC ridership is up 5.6%.

Amtrak's positive news comes just as the organization is facing increased criticism of its role as the national passenger rail corporation. In June, Rep. John Mica (R-FL), Chairman of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, introduced a bill that would privatize the Northeast Corridor and strip Amtrak of its ownership of the line and its rolling stock. In February, Mica argued that "Amtrak's Soviet-style system is not the way to provide modern and efficient passenger rail service."

Amtrak's recent success, however, points to a consistently strong record on the NEC. The results this year will continue a period of remarkable growth in the Northeast. Between Fiscal Year 2000 (the last year before the Acela service was launched) and Fiscal Year 2010, ridership on the NEC increased from approximately 8.4 million to 10.4 million passengers, an increase of 24% in just ten years. If this year's trend continues, Amtrak's NEC ridership will reach just under 11 million riders.

The growing demand on the NEC makes the need for investment ever more important, a point was not lost on the leadership at Amtrak. In a press statement released last Tuesday, Amtrak CEO and President Joe Boardman asserted, "We are having a very strong year because people around the country are choosing the convenience, efficiency and hassle-free environment of Amtrak to meet their travel needs. .... Amtrak has wisely invested the federal funding we have received to improve infrastructure and equipment. Continued investment in Amtrak and passenger rail will support the further growth of this increasingly vital transportation option."

Amtrak's growth provides further evidence that Americans' travel patterns are continuing to evolve, if slowly, away from private automobile use. In its press statement, Amtrak argues that riders are choosing the train as higher gas prices make driving more expensive. Amtrak may also be benefiting from an increased desire among travelers to stay "connected." The recent introduction of free Wi-Fi access on the Acela trains enables professionals, students, and other riders to remain productive and entertained while traveling. In contrast, the automobile is the only place where drivers cannot access the Internet, at least not while keeping their eyes on the road.

Amtrak's growing ridership also pours cold water on those who pit passenger rail against intercity bus service. The growing popularity of low-cost carriers like Megabus and Bolbus has not come at the expense of Amtrak's ridership. As passengers opt out of the car, both bus and rail each have a role to play in a balanced, multi-modal transportation system for the Northeast.

Yet, even as Americans' travel patterns continue to change, Amtrak's ridership will inevitably be constrained by tracks that are largely at 100% capacity along the entire NEC. Our current system is straining under current demand and, with this kind of growth, will be woefully inadequate for our future travel needs. Continued investment is essential to meet the growing demand for passenger rail.

>> High-Speed Rail is a game-changer. It has the potential to radically improve our transportation system and transform the economic geography of our cities and region.

It's 5 o'clock and you're running late. Your meeting in Washington, DC, went well. So well, in fact, that it went long and you missed your flight home to Boston. Any other night you would be fine, but tonight you have to get home quickly - it's your anniversary and you promised your spouse you'd make it home in time for dinner. You call the airline. There's a flight leaving soon but it's rush hour. With traffic and security, you'll never get to the gate in time. You look up the bus schedule. It's cheap, but out of the question. It won't arrive until past midnight or even later with traffic on I-95.

Quickly, you run to Union Station. To your relief, you find out that trains leave for Boston every 30 minutes. But, of course, you think, it will never get you there on time. A glance at the schedule delivers a shocking surprise - the 5:30 departure from Washington arrives in Boston at 9:00! Plenty of time for a late dinner! Whew! You board the train, recline in your roomy, comfortable seat, modify your dinner reservation using the train's free Wi-Fi network, and call your spouse to share the good news.

Why Build High-Speed Rail in the Northeast? from Regional Plan Association on Vimeo.

This vision could be a reality.

For the past four decades, passengers have long dreamed of riding a true, high-speed rail service on the NEC. With a strong culture of rail ridership and a string of dense, transit-friendly cities, the NEC has the ideal characteristics for high-speed rail. While we have seen major progress, like the launch of Amtrak's Acela service in 2001, the NEC has been unable to make true high-speed rail happen.

As we dream about it, other countries around the world are living it. While high-speed rail seems like a no-brainer for a small, dense, technology-driven country, like Japan, and wealthy, rail-friendly European powers, like France and Germany, the rapid growth of high-speed rail in Spain, China, and soon Brazil has shown us something new. These countries understand that high-speed rail is not a luxury, but rather an imperative for their long-term national economic growth.

Following President Obama's historic investment in a national high-speed rail network in the economic stimulus package, supporters of true high-speed rail are making a renewed push. Over the past year, two new proposals offer a glimpse of what constructing high-speed rail in the NEC would require and describe its remarkable potential to transform the Northeast economy. In May 2010, a studio at the University of Pennsylvania, School of Design presented a vision of high-speed rail in the Northeast, followed by the release of a detailed implementation plan in May 2011. In September 2010, Amtrak released their plan for constructing a next generation high speed rail system in the Northeast.

In these proposals, we see that strategic investments in high-speed rail will provide tremendous benefits for the Northeast economy. With super express trains serving the region's largest cities and reaching speeds over 200 mph, travel times in the Northeast will be cut by more than half:

The benefits that high-speed rail can promise go beyond dramatically improved travel times. High-speed rail can provide the missing link to a balanced transportation system, transforming the way we interact with our communities and with each other. As part of its A Better Tomorrow initiative, America 2050 helped produce a unique video that portrays a Detroit transformed for the better by high-speed rail, providing a powerful vision of what high-speed rail could mean for the Northeast.

The power of high-speed rail extend beyond our transportation system. The price of a high-speed rail system is high, but should be considered an investment rather than a cost. Both the Amtrak and Penn proposals estimate that high-speed rail in the NEC would cost about $100 billion dollars. However, the benefits far outweigh this hefty price tag. For example, the American Public Transportation Association estimates that every $1 billion invested in high-speed rail creates over 24,000 jobs. That means that building high-speed rail in the NEC could create, not thousands, but millions of jobs.

High-speed rail also has the potential to transform and regenerate our urban cores, particularly the medium-sized cities, like Baltimore, MD, Newark, NJ, and New Haven, CT, which have struggled to transition from a manufacturing to a service-based economy. According to the Penn proposal, high-speed rail in the NEC would put an additional 10.5 million residents within a one-hour trip distance of Philadelphia, effectively raising its employment pool. While transportation is not the silver-bullet to reinvigorating our struggling cities, it increases the number of jobs and housing options that citizens have access to.

These changes offer only a mere glimmer of the many impacts that high-speed rail can offer the Northeast Megaregion. Metropolitan growth, energy independence, economic productivity, national security, and environmental sustainability will all benefit from a true, high-speed rail service and a more balanced regional transportation system.

For more information, the Penn proposal, available here offers a detailed vision of the effect that high-speed rail can have on the local and regional scales. Amtrak's proposal, available here, offers its own vision for a new HSR alignment and service on the NEC.

In many ways, our country and our region have flown off the rails.

It is time to get Back on Track.

After years of under-investment, our nation's transportation system is failing. Our bridges are crumbling and our roads are congested. Delays plague our airports and our railroads cannot run on time. While other countries around the world are making critical, long-term investments in their infrastructure systems, on which their economic growth depend, the United States has continued to shortchange its transportation systems, constraining our nation's economic growth potential. And while Congress stubbornly debates issues like infrastructure and our national debt, over 9% of the country remains out of work.

The situation in the Northeast is particularly dire. As we struggle to pull ourselves out of the most difficult recession in decades, we must contend with aging infrastructure, some of which is over a century old. It is no secret that our passenger rail system is not working. Plagued by frequent delays and system failures, the Northeast Corridor (NEC) is in an $8.8 billion hole, the amount needed to fix the current system.

If we do not make investments, conditions in the Northeast are only going to get worse. Over the next 20 years, the NEC will need an additional $43 billion to accommodate projected growth in travel demand. Already, 750,000 intercity and commuter riders rely on the NEC every single day, and by the year 2050, the Northeast Megaregion will add 20 million additional people. Unless we begin work now to balance our transportation system by creating new capacity on alternative modes, our region's highways and airports will simply be unable to move all of these people to where they want to go.

Now is the time to get the Northeast Corridor Back on Track.

We must fix our current rail system, build new capacity for growth, and provide a new service that meets the needs of the next generation of residents, workers, and visitors in the Northeast. Specifically, we must:

1. Achieve a State of Good Repair on the existing NEC,
2. Create the capacity to meet the growth needs of all NEC users, including intercity, commuter, and freight railroads, and
3. Construct a world-class High Speed Rail system on two new, dedicated tracks along the NEC.

To accomplish these goals, we have major work to do. We must craft a unified, implementable vision. We must develop the coalition of decision-makers and advocates necessary to transform this vision into a reality. We must reform our legislation to attain and sustain long-term investments in our passenger rail infrastructure. Finally, we must find ways for the many stakeholders along the NEC, at the local, state, regional, and federal levels, to stand and work together.

This post marks the first entry of Back On Track: Northeast - a new blog focused on tracking progress toward implementing a world-class high-speed rail system on the NEC, exploring the broad array of practical and political challenges, and making the case for fixing our existing passenger rail system and creating a faster, more reliable conventional rail service.

Back On Track: Northeast provides a common information resource that includes regular news updates on federal and state policies affecting rail service, spotlight posts highlighting key issues affecting the NEC, and valuable research on the need for and potential benefits of high-quality passenger rail service. Most importantly, Back On Track: Northeast serves as an online gathering space for supporters and advocates.

Our goal is to generate a productive dialogue on the need for investment, enable supporters to take action, and establish Back on Track: Northeast as the unified voice for advocates for better rail service on the NEC. By reaching new audiences and connecting advocates, we can expand and unify our regional coalition and successfully achieve high speed rail on the NEC.

About the Editor, Jeremy Steinemann

Over the next two months, I will be managing and growing this blog as part of a summer project with America 2050 and the Business Alliance for Northeast Mobility. I am a graduate student in the Urban Planning Program at MIT, studying the intersection of transportation, land use and urban redevelopment. If successful, this blog will become a permanent fixture and continue to serve as a forum and resource for a broad coalition of rail supporters in the Northeast.

Please join me in this conversation, by sharing your comments, ideas, and content. In the current political climate, the fight for infrastructure investments is more challenging than ever. We must all work together to achieve world-class passenger rail service in the Northeast.

Image: Map of the Northeast. Source: Pilot Portal USA.