Streetsblog Los Angeles

As Damien has noted the California High Speed Rail Autjority is coming to L.A. this week, specifically to the Metro Board Room (3rd floor of the Taj Mahal, as some of us like to call the Metro Headquarters Building). Wednesday afternoon its Executive/Administrative Committee is meeting at 1 p.m., followed by the Finance Committee at 2 p.m. and the Operations Committee at 3:30 p.m.

Then on Thursday starting at 9 a.m. the Board is meeting; its agenda and the various reports being presented are available online.

Besides the alignment updates being presented the meeting is significant for Southern California because it will be the first since Alex Clifford left his role as Metro’s high speed rail liaison. It was in 2009 that Metro CEO Art Leahy appointed Alex Clifford (then General Manager of Metro’s Gateway Cities Service Sector) to be Executive Officer (EO), High Speed Rail for the agency. In that capacity Clifford provided executive direction to project management staff and consultants to facilitate the implementation of High Speed Rail (HSR) projects, including planning and implementing the Los Angeles to Anaheim, Los Angeles to Palmdale and Los Angeles to San Diego HSR corridors. The position also had responsibility for representing Metro for the Los Angeles-San Diego-San Luis Obispo (LOSSAN), Amtrak and Metrolink service corridors (Per agenda item #24 heard at the Metro Board Sept. 24, 2009 meeting). Read more…

Update, 5:00 PM Friday: Rick Scott’s office just issued a statement with the subject line “Rick Scott: My position remains the same on High Speed Rail.” Rather than saying he asked for more time to consider his options, he refers to LaHood’s decision to extend the deadline and says:

I believe High Speed Rail is a federal boondoggle, as I said more than a week ago. This morning I communicated to Secretary LaHood that as long as Florida remains on the hook for cost overruns, operating costs and paybacks in the case of default, I will vigorously oppose this project.

Since that time, Secretary LaHood has extended his own deadline for coming up with a way to alleviate Florida’s risk on High Speed Rail. While I appreciate his continued efforts to keep the project alive in Florida, it is important to note that I have yet to see any proposal that accomplishes my goal of eliminating risk to Florida’s taxpayers.

From earlier this afternoon:

Will Rick Scott reconsider his decision to forego high-speed rail in Florida? Photo: Orlando Sentinel

Florida Gov. Rick Scott has asked the Department of Transportation for additional time to reconsider his decision to return $2.4 billion in federal funding for high-speed rail in the state.

Scott was given an extension last week by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, while the two parties worked on ways to minimize the risk involved for the state of Florida. The governor had been given one week to reconsider his decision, one that was criticized by fellow Florida Republican John Mica, chair of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.

According to reports from a local newspaper, state transportation officials have floated the idea of making Amtrak or a private company responsible for any potential cost over-runs, one of the concerns cited by Gov. Scott in his refusal last week.

LaHood made the following statement this afternoon on the situation:

Read more…

Florida Gov. Rick Scott has asked the Department of Transportation for additional time to reconsider his decision to return $2.4 billion in federal funding for high-speed rail in the state.

Will Rick Scott reconsider his decision to forego high-speed rail in Florida? Photo: Orlando Sentinel

Scott was given an extension last week by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, while the two parties worked on ways to minimize the risk involved for the state of Florida. The governor had been given one week to reconsider his decision, one that was criticized by fellow Florida Republican John Mica, chair of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.

According to reports from a local newspaper, state transportation officials have floated the idea of making Amtrak or a private company responsible for any potential cost over-runs, one of the concerns cited by Gov. Scott in his refusal last week.

LaHood made the following statement this afternoon on the situation:

“This morning I met with Governor Rick Scott to discuss the high speed rail project that will create jobs and economic development for the entire state of Florida. He asked me for additional information about the state’s role in this project, the responsibilities of the Florida Department of Transportation, as well as how the state would be protected from liability. I have decided to give Governor Scott additional time to review the agreement crafted by local officials from Orlando, Tampa, Lakeland and Miami, and to consult with his staff at the state Department of Transportation. He has committed to making a final decision by the end of next week. I feel we owe it to the people of Florida, who have been working to bring high speed rail to their state for the last 20 years, to go the extra mile.”

Read more…

Somehow, every time a governor makes a really bad decision that denies appropriate transportation options to his constituents, he gets chance after chance to take it back. And somehow, they never do.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott is expected to kill high-speed rail, again. Photo: Tampa Bay Online#

Take Chris Christie of New Jersey. How many times did he say no to the ARC Tunnel before it was finally over? And now Rick Scott of Florida has killed the Florida high-speed rail project deader than dead.

He announced a week ago that he was rejecting $2.4 billion in federal stimulus money for a high-speed line to run from Orlando to Tampa. Everyone from DOT Secretary Ray LaHood to Rep. John Mica to Sen. Bill Nelson and countless Floridians have tried to change his mind. They tried to allay his fears about the state’s financial exposure. They promised that private investors would take over the risk and local governments would manage the project. Mica proposed scaling back to a 21-mile line from the Orlando Airport to the Convention Center and Disney World.

But Rick Scott won’t budge.

Scott’s press office won’t say when he’s expected to make the announcement, but local Florida papers are already announcing, based on anonymous tips, that it’s all over.

Even without an official announcement, Twitter lit up with frustration over Scott’s decision.

“Rick Scott Throws Florida Under The Train.”

“Scott is tone-deaf. Disastrous for Florida.”

“This was a political move not a business decision.”

“Can’t believe he turned down the money for the rails. That would have brought jobs to fl and would have helped!”

“#Floridians officially embarrassed! California, you’re welcome!”

“Enjoy the money and the jobs, California and New York. Signed: Rick Scott”

Sen. Bill Nelson said, “A wise man’s quote favored by President Kennedy was that ‘an error does not become a mistake until you refuse to correct it.’ Well, today, Rick Scott made one heck-of-a mistake.”

Vice President Joe Biden’s announcement of a $53 billion infusion for high-speed rail has fallen like a lead balloon on the ears of some key GOP leaders. House Transportation Committee Chair John L. Mica (R-FL) and Railroads Subcommittee Chair Bill Shuster (R-PA) expressed “extreme reservations” about the plan.

Transportation Chair John Mica has "extreme reservations" about the administration's new plan for HSR. Image: Orlando Sentinel

“This is like giving Bernie Madoff another chance at handling your investment portfolio,” Mica said in a statement.

“With the first $10.5 billion in Administration rail grants, we found that 1) the Federal Railroad Administration is neither a capable grant agency, nor should it be involved in the selection of projects, 2) what the Administration touted as high-speed rail ended up as embarrassing snail-speed trains to nowhere, and 3) Amtrak hijacked 76 of the 78 projects, most of them costly and some already rejected by state agencies,” Mica added. “Amtrak’s Soviet-style train system is not the way to provide modern and efficient passenger rail service.”

They say the committee plans to investigate how previous funding decisions were made, charging that rail routes were selected “behind closed doors” as a “political grab bag for the President,” despite “the Administration’s pledges of transparency.”

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result and that is exactly what Vice President Biden offered today,” Shuster said. “Rail projects that are not economically sound will not ‘win the future.’ It just prolongs the inevitable by subsidizing a failed Amtrak monopoly that has never made a profit or even broken even. Government won’t develop American high-speed rail. Private investment and a competitive market will.”

Like we said – don’t count those 53 billion chickens before they’re passed by Congress.

The Obama administration is taking its infrastructure push on the road. First stop: Philadelphia, to announce a $53 billion plan to invest in high-speed rail.

"Amtrak Joe" announced the administration's plan for investing in high-speed rail this morning. Photo: Brendan Polmer/CNN

To Vice President Joe Biden, high-speed rail isn’t just another administration initiative. He’s Mr. Amtrak. He gets it. Biden says he’s made 7,900 round trips between Wilmington and Washington on Amtrak. If each of those trips had been reduced by 10 minutes, he says, he would have had 55 more days to spend with his family or working.

So the vice president was a fitting ambassador to travel to Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station with Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood to announce a six-year plan to build a national high-speed rail network that will, the administration says, reach 80 percent of Americans within 25 years. The plan he outlined today would devote $8 billion to rail development next year.

“In the next 40 years, the United States is expected to increase in population by 100 million people,” Biden said. “Seventy percent of all people in America now live within 50 miles of the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. You know how congested we are now. What happens with 100 million more, a significant portion of them along our coasts?”

Each day, he said, six times more people take a train than an airplane to get between Washington and Philadelphia. And more than twice as many people take the train between New York and Washington than fly. “How many more slots can the Philadelphia airport open?” Biden asked. “Airways can only take so much traffic in the lanes.”

“If you shut down Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor,” Biden said, “you’d have to add seven new lanes to I-95 to accommodate the traffic.” He then went on to cite the cost-benefit analysis of building rail instead of road. The construction cost for an average linear mile of one lane through the city of Philadelphia ranges from $40-50 million. And one new runway, like the one Atlanta just built in its Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, costs $1.3 billion.

“When you talk about the investments we’re making in rail, they pale in comparison to investment you’d have to make in runways or highways,” Biden said. “And that’s before you factor in the environmental benefit of taking cars off the road.”

Read more…

When President Obama and Secretary LaHood talk about their bold new vision for high-speed rail, you don’t hear them mention the country’s very own train company, which just celebrated ten years of providing the closest thing this country has to high-speed rail service, in the Northeast Corridor.

Will this be the face of future high-speed rail service in Florida and California? Photo: aarchitect/flickr

The administration has doled out $10.5 billion so far for rail improvements around the country. Some of that is going to existing rail lines that Amtrak runs, such as the Cascade service in the Pacific Northwest, which is using federal funds to improve on-time performance, increase frequency of service, improve signaling, and slowly increase top speeds.

But the banner projects are new, next-generation high-speed lines in places like Florida and California. Service on those lines is being opened up to competitive bidding. Will Amtrak be part of it? And if not, will the nation’s 40-year-old rail giant fade into irrelevance?

Florida is expected to issue a call for bids any day now (assuming Governor Rick Scott doesn’t decide, in the end, to kill the project like his colleagues in Wisconsin and Ohio). The state only represents a prospective 2.4 million riders a year (compared with about 13 million on the NEC) but it’s enormously significant because Florida and California are the only new lines projected to run passenger rail service on dedicated tracks – not competing with freight trains.

Where intercity passenger trains compete with freight – in most of the country these days, excluding the NEC – “Amtrak can only run a handful of trains per day because they’re leasing space on a freight railroad that doesn’t keep the schedules,” said Petra Todorovich, an expert on high-speed rail with the nonprofit America 2050. “When [freight trains] fill up their cargo from the yard, then they leave the yard. So Amtrak is trying to run passenger trains on a schedule on tracks that are owned by a railroad that doesn’t keep a schedule.”

That’s why rail service in much of the country has been infrequent and unreliable and has been in a poor position to compete with private automobiles or air travel. Amtrak continues to run those lines as a public service, in many cases mandated by Congress – but they’re not profitable or efficient.

So a dedicated track for passenger rail in Florida and California presents a unique opportunity for rail to show off what it can do for other parts of the country, which haven’t historically had world-class train service.

Read more…

President Obama made his long-awaited infrastructure push during his State of the Union address – with more information included in an accompanying memo released today (see below). This is what he told Congress:

The third step in winning the future is rebuilding America. To attract new businesses to our shores, we need the fastest, most reliable ways to move people, goods, and information – from high-speed rail to high-speed internet. [Applause]

Our infrastructure used to be the best – but our lead has slipped. South Korean homes now have greater internet access than we do. Countries in Europe and Russia invest more in their roads and railways than we do. China is building faster trains and newer airports. Meanwhile, when our own engineers graded our nation’s infrastructure, they gave us a “D.”

We have to do better. America is the nation that built the transcontinental railroad, brought electricity to rural communities, and constructed the interstate highway system. The jobs created by these projects didn’t just come from laying down tracks or pavement. They came from businesses that opened near a town’s new train station or the new off-ramp.

Over the last two years, we have begun rebuilding for the 21st century, a project that has meant thousands of good jobs for the hard-hit construction industry. Tonight, I’m proposing that we redouble these efforts. [Applause]

Read more…

The darkest reds are the places with the best chances for success with high speed rail. Courtesy of America 2050

Perhaps it goes without saying, but when you’re advocating for something, it’s not enough to make it happen – it has to succeed. If you get what you want and it’s a miserable failure, you’ve made matters far worse for your cause.

That’s the quandary some high speed rail advocates find themselves in now. Some ardent rail supporters have recently found themselves in the awkward position of arguing against the proposed Florida line, for example, fearing that such a line is doomed to low ridership.

But which corridors would be destined for success? America 2050, a nonprofit that advocates for infrastructure investment to prepare for future population growth, has provided a new tool for advocates who want to make sure they’re pushing projects with the best potential to succeed. Its new report, “High Speed Rail in America” [PDF], could help guide the process of expanding rail in the future.

Read more…

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood published an op-ed in the Sunday edition of the Orlando Sentinel, arguing for a vigorous campaign of high speed rail building. He said, “If we work together, a national high-speed-rail network can and will be our generation’s legacy.”

DOT Chief Ray LaHood is pushing Florida to pursue plans to build high speed rail. Photo: Getty Images

Why run the op-ed in the Sentinel and not a national paper like USA Today or the New York Times? LaHood’s comments were pointedly directed at Florida Governor-elect Rick Scott, who is making noises about following his counterparts in Wisconsin and Ohio in rejecting federal high speed rail money. And the Sentinel is the paper of record in the 7th Congressional district, represented by incoming House Transportation Committee Chair John Mica.

Mica has long said high speed rail is only practical in the Northeast Corridor, where there is sufficient density. He didn’t even want the proposed rail line to go forward in his home state until a recent, unexpected infusion of federal money made the prospects suddenly more appealing.

LaHood won’t be deterred. In his piece in yesterday’s Sentinel, he says a national high speed rail system “will spur economic development and job creation along its corridors.” It will also, he says, integrate cities, ease congestions, reduce oil dependency and emissions, and boost the manufacturing sector through Buy American provisions.

Read more…