Federal commitment, stronger ties to academia, specific standards and the separation of planning from environmental permitting concerns are key to the future of high-speed rail in the US, according to a report released by the Institute Urban Management Brown from New York University.
In Europe, the controversy is not whether to build high-speed rail, but where to build it, Eric Goldwyn, the report’s lead author, said at a press conference on July 8. “In the US, there is controversy about both,” he said.
He added that while previous high-speed rail efforts have failed, “this time, I think, is different.”
However, the Federal Railroad Administration or another governing body must set technical standards, Goldwyn said, noting that the planned high-speed rail effort in Texas uses the Japanese rail standard, Brightline West is using the current US rail standard and California high speed. The high-speed rail effort is considering a European standard.
“One engineer said that on paper, you can work some things out, but until you’re running Japanese rolling stock on American rail, we’re not entirely sure it’s going to work,” he said.
Goldwyn’s team interviewed 66 experts for the report, with help from the US High-Speed Rail Association, he said.
Fabian Koark, COO of SAE Industry Technologies Consortia, said the industry group is working with relevant agencies to try to establish high-speed rail standards. “There can be no positive economic development without intercity connections,” he said. “Other parts of the world recognize that.”
He noted that when the Ukraine conflict began, gas prices soared in Europe, making driving or flying between metropolitan areas expensive. “The trains were full, the roads were empty,” he said.
Brian Sooter, standards adviser for the American Public Transportation Association, said the FRA approached APTA in the 1990s to develop standards for passenger rail equipment, but more engineers are needed to promote’ ls. “We don’t have enough engineers,” he said.
There are high-speed rail standards, he added, noting that Japan’s Shinkansen system has been operating since 1964 with zero fatalities.
Other countries have universities focused on developing high-speed rail experts, Goldwyn said. “Companies pay students to go through programs,” he noted.
Sooter added that high-speed rail is “a system of systems” with standards for diversions, tracks, equipment and so on. “Getting there will require collaboration across different organizations” for high-speed rail as a whole, he said.
He said the sponsors of the high-speed rail project “need to define the project and know what they want; design-bid-build is the best way to ensure this. There is room for design and construction, though [sponsors would] you need to acquire an advanced set of designs, say 50 to 60 percent.”
Another concern is when project sponsors must agree to pay for local improvements, he added. For example, the California High Speed Rail Authority had to pay $202 million to a California city that wanted grade separations, he said. Federal funds “are being wasted on local improvements that are great for the communities, but not for the project,” he said. “Grade separations are great, but should the California High Speed Rail Authority be the entity paying for them?”
The ideal is that once a project is defined it is allowed and “local plans must adapt to it”, he added.
Project sponsors should also resist compressing environmental reviews and planning into a practice, he added. “The risk is that you focus on environmental review and developing projects that are not necessarily buildable,” he said. “In theory, it’s cheaper and faster if you combine them; in practice, not so much”.
Rather, project sponsors should develop the project plan and then mitigate environmental concerns, he said.
Above all, a sustained federal commitment to high-speed rail is needed, the trio agreed. They pointed to Amtrak’s history of facing political attempts to defund it, saying it can’t be the main torchbearer for a future high-speed rail system, but Andy Byford, Amtrak’s vice president for the high-speed rail development, said the agency is “very serious” about high-speed rail, with a plan to release an official strategic plan later this month.
As for the need to standardize, he added, “a rinse-and-repeat approach to high-speed rail deployment would be beneficial.”
