Details of Obama's High-Speed Rail Plan Revealed - Technology Review

Details of Obama's High-Speed Rail Plan Revealed

Existing rail lines will be improved, and Chicago could be the hub of a proposed Midwestern Regional Rail System.

Kevin Bullis 04/17/2009

15 Comments

Yesterday, President Obama unveiled a strategic plan for developing high-speed rail in the United States. The trains, which would travel at least 90 miles per hour and as fast as 250 miles per hour, would be designed to replace cars and airplanes for trips between cities 100 to 600 miles apart. The plan includes a map of 10 potential routes, including a few in the Northeast and a system in the Midwest centered on Chicago. Which of these routes will get funding hasn't been decided yet. The economic stimulus plan included $8 billion for high-speed rail, and Obama's budget proposes an additional $1 billion in grants per year for five years.

Some of the money will be directed to projects that already have initial engineering and environmental work completed--projects improving existing rail to increase speeds from 70 miles per hour to over 100. But much of it won't be spent for years.

High-speed rail can reduce congestion, and it's more efficient than travel by car or plane. According to the White House, "Today's intercity passenger rail service consumes one-third less energy per passenger-mile than cars." New high-speed rail, which could be somewhat more efficient than today's trains, could reduce carbon dioxide emissions by six billion pounds of CO₂ a year. High-speed rail has been successful in France, Spain, and Japan, and it's growing rapidly in China. But passenger rail has limped along in the United States, especially outside of the Northeast. As Obama noted in a rousing speech in support of his plan, "Americans love their cars." Who knows if things will change if train speeds increase?

The high-speed rail projects won't necessarily use much new technology. One thing mentioned in the plan is something called Positive Train Control, a system for monitoring and controlling trains better. It would include advanced GPS tracking, using the Nationwide Differential Global Positioning System (NDGPS), and remote controls that can be used to stop the train if the driver has passed out. Not a bad idea for a train approaching an intersection at 220 miles per hour--the speed for a proposed rail system in California.

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Guest (symonds881)

1032 Days Ago
04/17/2009

2 Comments

1032 Days Ago
04/17/2009

High Speed Rail

We are about 30 years behind the French in both high speed rail and nuclear power.
How did we fall so far behind?

How did Wall Street and the banks get so powerful?

We need to design and build clean products for the future in the US. This will be done by engineers, scientists, and entrepreneurs, not the clever MBA's who have been the darlings of the top universities for the last twenty years.

How can we change the power structure of this county for the good of many and not just the wealth of a few?

Are there any companies left in the US that can build high speed trains?

19 Comments

1032 Days Ago
04/17/2009

Re: High Speed Rail

Are there companies left in the US that can do high speed rail? Well, not exactly in the US, but close: Bombardier in Canada can.
How did we get so far behind, e.g., France or Japan over the last 30 years? No easy answers here, but many factors could be invoked. We allowed Greens to torpedo our nuclear industry in the wake of the 3-mile Island incident. We allowed airlines and car companies to dismantle our public transportation systems, especially rail and streetcars.
But then, nuclear power stations and railways work best when they're run by highly dedicated and competent central governments, as is the case in France and Japan. So I'm not convinced we can pull it off here. Our political and economic system has too much hardwired instability to deliver a suitable environment. It was designed for people who look after themselves and do not look to their government for solutions.

8 Comments

1032 Days Ago
04/17/2009

The article states that:

According to the White House, "Today's intercity passenger rail service consumes one third less energy per passenger mile than cars."

Are they assuming that the train is full at all times?

4 Comments

1032 Days Ago
04/17/2009

ode to pie in the sky ideas. rail travel is not something that works in this country. all public transit systems in the USA need large public funding just to operate as they loose money on each passenger. amtrak is, excuse the pun, a train wreck. It doesn't make money can't stay on schedule and no one wants to ride it. why invest it this?

1 Comment

1032 Days Ago
04/17/2009

Re:

The key is the location of railways stations.
In europe, they are located in the middle of large cities.

Paris-Lyon downtown to downtown under one hour by train, over 3 hours by plane.
The rail killed the Airplane on short commutes.
If you build your railways station in the middle of the desert far from airport or cities, then sure, it will be useless.

2 Comments

1032 Days Ago
04/17/2009

Re: High Speed Rail

Roads and airports are supported by the government. Plus the jet engine and autos add more pollution to the atmosphere than would trains.

Anyone who has ridden a train in Europe knows how great a train can be.

Plus a good rail system would help revitalize the cities.

click here...

118 Comments

1032 Days Ago
04/17/2009

Re:

I agree with this statement. I tried taking the train a while back. A complete pain in the butt. Took two hours by train and hour and a half by car. Even with auto congestion.
The web sites to help me navigate were poorly designed. The information at the stations was poorly designed.
The station I wanted to get off at only was stopped at once an hour, so to get to work on time I had to go to a farther station and walk back.
Overall, if this was run by a "real" company, not a quasigovernment organization sucking off the Federal Government, they would be out of business.
   So typical of the Democrats (not saying the Republican are perfect, far from it), they think throwing a lot of money at the problem will make it better.
   It will not.
   If they really want to make things better, pay the train companies a base amount and then pay by the number of people transported.
   At least give them an incentive to look at how to make more people take the train by bettering their service.

92 Comments

1031 Days Ago
04/18/2009

Of course, that was your experience with the existing rail system... So that's a bit like saying highways would be a waste because back roads took forever and messed up your car.

340 Comments

1031 Days Ago
04/18/2009

Don't like trains?

I used to think that trains were a total boondoggle, because you could buy multiple fleets of new buses for the price of light rail.

Then I took the Blue line into downtown LA. under a couple $ each ride. Or all day for about $5.

I also frequent the NYC subways when I am not on the Left Coast. This is the most efficient subway system in the world. They only lose about $ five per rider. In contrast, San Francisco's BART loses about $50 per rider.

However when you factor in road subsidies, you could state the costs in terms of vast loses per driver road trip in a car also. And we DO lose huge amounts in terms of carbon emissions, which are a result of the positive aspects, being able to go where ever we want quickly (if not jammed), carrying pretty much whatever we can cram in our vehicles.

the trains ran ALOT MORE than buses and they are much harder to crash. Pretty much only at grade crossings, which are not totally elinated, or if the system failed and ran into another train, or sharing lines with freight trains. I remember awful waits for a bus. They were neat, clean and safe.

We are able to transfer to the gold line and stop and have lunch inexpensively in Chinatown, then get back on and walk around old town Pasadena and visit antique shops (wife loves those), museums, parks, etc. The Huntington is just a mile south of one stop.

And BTW, he had a vast network of fast efficient trains that ran thru LA area in the early 1900's. MASSIVE SUBSIDIES of ROADS by government is among reasons they shut down. They were so common the city of Huntington Park and Huntington Beach were named after him (HB wanted a train line to the city to bring early beach-goers, and they got it!)

I think that a backbone of light rail, that attaches to on-demand partial-day rental of tiny cars and also people movers in the form that the eco-city in Dubai is using would be ideal, and greatly reduce the need for cars.

Face it, our suburban sprawl type cities are incredibly wasteful, and then they try and build high-density dwellings, which are MUCH more energy efficient and the sprawlers, who created traffic jams in the first place because as spread out as they are, everyone has to use cars, decry the increased density.

I would say the answer would be 'node' type cities. High density separated by parks, industry, farmland, with every node connected by high speed transportation and with public transit such as I mentioned, the 4 person people movers, buses, light rail within the cities, or mini-arcologies.

450 Comments

1031 Days Ago
04/18/2009

Re: Car industry is heavily subsidized, so why shouldn't the rail system be subsidized as well?

To "mkss": you bring up a very widespread and pernicious stereotype, when you say that railway companies need to be subsidized, while private car transportation does not.

Railway companies own their rails, and the associated costs of maintenance are gigantic. This puts them at a competitive disadvantage versus car transportation, where the roads are public, paid for by the taxpayer. Therefore, such conclusions that rail transportation is a tax burden (ex. keeping Amtrak alive) is complete bullsh*t. If the costs of the railway system were paid for by tax money, as it is done for the highways, then the railway transportation could be far more cost competitive.

In order to level the playing field, the government should subsidize the railway system on equal terms with the subsidies given to the highway system.

1 Comment

1031 Days Ago
04/18/2009

How about focusing on building train based systems that provide high speed transport for you & your car? That way you have your privacy (a big reason people love there cars), you have entertainment/communications built in, and you are mobile once you get to where you are going? Also would help extend the range of battery based cars.

20 Comments

1028 Days Ago
04/21/2009

Trains Are Faster and Cheaper than Autos or Air

..... when properly sited and engineered. Simple time and economics are the drivers between the growth of high speed rail in Europe and Asia. Here are two simple principles to make this successful:

- Focus first on routes between 100 and 500 miles. This is the distance where cars and air travel can't compete with well designed rail running at 200 miles/hour. I know this group can do the math, but still...   100 miles in 30 minutes. 250 miles in 1 hour 15 minutes.   Compare that with auto travel or airplanes with their huge fixed time costs of running through airports, taxiing, takeoff, landing, etc. The U.S. is simply missing this important piece of it's transportation portfolio, thus costing society more in time and money than it needs to spend.

Ultimately, in the U.S. east of the Mississippi, there are major cities repeatedly every 500 miles or less, inviting a contiguous network of these lines.

- High speed rail is defined as at least 150 miles per hour. The Europeans and Asians will get a good laugh at the U.S. for calling 90mph "high speed". And proper definition isn't just about our ego. It's about getting the benefits afforded by this technology. 90mph simply won't provide the benefits.

Other notes for thought:
- High speed rail offers huge energy independence benefits. Besides being several times more energy efficient than auto or air, they use electricity, thus using an entire portfolio of different primary sources of energy. And not relying on one source of energy that creates carbon emissions and comes from people who don't like us much.

- High speed rail can decongest our corridors. HSR can transport people at a rate/hour comparable with a fully-saturated airport and bring these people right into the city center.

423 Comments

1021 Days Ago
04/28/2009

Alternative Thought

For traveling these shorter distances of 100 to 500 miles, why not develop Lighter-Than-Air-Craft or technically superior zeppelins that have improved materials, can carry huge weight and reduce fuel consumption by leveraging Helium. A new industry could be created and later adapted for replacing ocean going freighters.

As for rail solutions, a system used to move our 150 million workers to their jobs every day by replacing one lane on he freeways with a rail system is easier to do than buying up all the right of way space needed for high speed rail. The travel routes for the aircraft could be to simply follow existing freeway routes betwen th emajo metropolitan areas.

click here...

25 Comments

998 Days Ago
05/21/2009

Maglevs Better Alternative

In Popular Science last year they had an article on green alternatives. One of those alternatives was a maglev taxi shuttle mass transportation proposal called skytrain. It involved elevated track that went around common transportation hubs around a city and small shuttle sky buses that could hold 15 to 20 people that would whisk people to those hubs. It looked very doable and the significant item lacking was funding for engineering development. The company is based in California.

Long distant intercontinental maglev trains could replace much of air travel. They would have to be in low pressure tubes to allow high speed transport of 500 MPH. That would be an engineering feat of great magnitude that could involve solar and wind assistance.

This is like a modern version of the elevated trains in NYC. Of course the most expensive element of this scheme is the track, about the same costs as an electric transmission line. But if voters could vote out the antinuclear legislators that could make it economically feasible. I also think that in view of peak oil and roads transportation may have to morph into hovercraft. If there was more helium then those craft could have lift support but the supply of helium is limited on Earth.

Without significant innovation autos look to be scaled back due to increased cost, omitting the carbon sequestration scam, and it is a governmint, revenue generating scam. But it is the AGW carbon hysteria that can kill the whole thing. Just look at Germany and their energy fiasco with the antinuclear, treehugging greens, they're actually digging up towns for lignite coal because wind and solar just aren't delivering. LOL what a political fiasco.

Bio

Kevin Bullis is Technology Review’s energy editor.

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