$8 Billion For "High Speed" Rail?

It's $8 billion or $13 billion, depending on how you interpret Washington promises for future budgets. My first thought, upon hearing about this, was "$13 billion for what?" Last November California approved Prop 1 for about $10 billion for high speed rail, and for that amount all we're going to get is planning, design, and maybe some property purchases and a little infrastructure - and all that just for the first line from San Francisco to L.A.

Take $8 billion (or $13 billion) and spread it around the whole country for high speed rail and what do you really get? Probably some maps and conceptual drawings, a few junkets to France and Japan, of course. Anything else? Free calendars with pictures of trains?

I'm sure there are no details on this yet, but Obama does say this:

And our strategy has two parts: improving our existing rail lines to make current train service faster -- so [Congressman from New Jersey Robert Andrews] can, you know, shave a few hours over the course of a week -- but also identifying potential corridors for the creation of world-class high-speed rail. To make this happen, we've already dedicated $8 billion of Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds to this initiative, and I've requested another $5 billion over the next five years.

Oh, okay. I think I can read that to mean "$13 billion to improve passenger rail service, and while we're at it we'll make a short list of where we want high speed rail some day."

But see how it's already getting misinterpreted at the Chicago Tribune:

Year after year, high-speed rail in the U.S. has been a popular idea that never left the station because of a lack of political will. All that changed Thursday.

Passenger trains traveling at 110 m.p.h.–arriving in Chicago from St. Louis in under four hours–could be operating in three or four years after President Barack Obama allocated $8 billion in federal stimulus money to begin building a national high-speed rail system, Illinois officials said Thursday.

They're conflating "high-speed rail" with "110 m.p.h. trains." Worldwide, high speed rail is understood to mean trains running faster than 125 mph. In China they run at speeds from 125 to 217 m.p.h.; in France from 130 m.p.h. to 200 m.p.h.; in Japan from 162 m.p.h. to 186 m.p.h.; in Russia up to 130 m.p.h.; in Turkey (Turkey!) up to 155 m.p.h.

That Wall Street Journal article (first link above) includes this map provided by the Department of Transportation that shows possible high speed rail locations. I noticed that broken (how appropriate) red line between Boston and D.C. The map key just identifies that as the Northeast Corridor's Acela service and claims it hits 150 m.p.h."for a stretch." I sent to WikiPedia article about Acela to find out if they've improved the service since I left New England. The answer is "no." While it is designed and built to travel at 200 m.p.h., the trains are limited by regulation to 150 m.p.h. due to track conditions, but it actually travels at an average speed of 86 m.p.h. The only place it can hit top speed is on the straight stretches between Providence and Boston, which I recall as being the most pleasant part of any Acela trip. Once the train pulls out of Providence headed to Boston, you'd better start getting your stuff together because you don't have much time. It's fun to be standing up and walking around at 150 (or whatever) m.p.h.

I think what will happen is we'll spend that $13 billion and some tracks and crossings will be upgraded, allowing for faster train service, which is all good and worth the money. But when the money is all spent people will ask, "Where's our high speed rail?" And then Washington will try to cover its ass, "We didn't really say you'd get high speed rail!" "Yes, you did!" "Nuh-uh! Show me where we said that!" We'll go back and forth over that for a while, and we still won't have any high speed rail, except what individual states have built.

IOW, these two programs should be kept separate: (1) passenger rail improvements, and (2) high speed rail. Do both and fund both.