Posted on Friday September 18th by The Infrastructurist | 332
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- A Salt Lake City to Vegas high speed link strikes us as a bit far-fetched, but transportation planners in Colorado, Nevada, Utah, Arizona have cobbled together a Western HSR Alliance lobby to link those cities with Denver and Phoenix. (Las Vegas Sun)
- In Britain a new plan has been unveiled for a 900-mile HSR network running up both the east and west coasts. One of it’s authors says, “This report calls for us to do something uncharacteristic in Britain, which is to be bold and brave and to think long-term.” Sounds familiar! (Guardian)
- Sweden already has train service at 125 mph between it’s three largest cities. Now’s considering a $17 billion investment to upgrade the system to high speeds, which would halve travel times. That’s weird because in America, 125 mph would be mind-blowingly fast… (The Local)
- One investment report is betting that Japan’s next big export industry will be HSR equipment: “It looks like an international campaign to export locomotives, switches, and other components of the national Shinkansen ‘bullet train’ system may be the thing that gets the country’s economy back on the rails.” (Green Chip Stocks)
- It’s amazing that anybody would look to the US to learn about HSR. But some Canadian lawmakers are doing just that, making the trek down from America’s Hat to observe the theoretically high-speed Acela train making a low-speed trip from NY to DC. (AHN)
- White House advisor Jared Bernstein calls the $8 billion in stimulus funds for HSR a “downpayment” — a way to “incentivize private-sector capital sitting on the sidelines.” That’s the government’s role, he says, “not to build this stuff by ourselves.” (Reuters)
- The idea sounds fanciful, but the money is real: Tennessee and Georgia have snagged $14 million to study a maglev link between Chatanooga and Atlanta. The idea would be to eventually connect the line to Nashville and Chicago. (Atlanta Jornal Const.)
September 18th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Don’t kid yourself. Neither the white house, nor any current government transportation agency, are interested at all in private sector participation in high speed rail.
September 18th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
I’m not sure that’s true. Obama’s campaign proposal of the infrastructure bank was substantially about bringing in private sector participation. Ed Rendell, as a leading Dem voice on infrastructure investment, has excellent bona fides on the matter. He was defeated on the PA ‘Pike, but there’s no question he’s committed to it.
The roadblocks are more political rather than ideological, and are largely related to Congressional reluctance to cede control.
Jebediah
September 18th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
I don’t doubt they’re interested, but the political compromise will propbably make private companies difficult to fit in. With the exception of CAHSR, we haven’t heard much about operations, even the legal structure of them, from the government planners so far. But that doesn’t look like the goal of the current HSR project.
September 18th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
Actually in the Passenger Railroad Act of 1970, which created Amtrak, private rail firms are prohibited from getting into the intercity passenger rail business. The government agreed to take over the failing passenger railroads and the companies were prohibited from getting back into the business. Private equity has been used by Amtrak, but there would need to be specific legislation to enable the private firms to get back into the passenger rail business.
Having said that, perhaps this is the time for the prohibition to be lifted.
September 18th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Jeb, I love how every time the items in your daily dig have to do with another country’s massive investment in infrastructure, you make a snarky remark about the US (”That’s weird because in America, 125 mph would be mind-blowingly fast…”). I love it! We really are the lame-o’s of the world of infrastructure.
September 18th, 2009 at 11:53 pm
The funniest thing in this round-up is the Canadian effort. My god, it’s almost as if they decide how to eliminate any chance of being the best from the get-go.
In case people haven’t read it, please read the article in The Walrus about Canada’s high-speed rail past, and most likely, non-future:
http://www.walrusmagazine.com/articles/2009.06–off-the-rails/
September 20th, 2009 at 4:46 am
The Senate is cool and all… but it leads to horribly stupid appropriations like giving money to TN to study HSR (and maglev of all things… so make it in a low priority corridor with a non interoperable technology) when we can’t even make the NEC, definitely in the top 5 best locations world wide for HSR, into a real HSR system. By the time Acela takes the under 4 hours it needs to take from Boston to DC, the rest of the world will have teleportation.
September 21st, 2009 at 6:33 am
I love how the British have branded their HSR plans as bold and brave! It certainly is uncharacteristic but bold and brave I don’t think so!