http://www.governor.state.nc.us/NewsItems/PressReleaseDetail.aspx?newsItemID=889

Quote :

"North Carolina Receives $545 Million for High-Speed Rail from American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Gov. Bev Perdue announced today that North Carolina is receiving $545 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for further development of the Southeast High Speed Rail Corridor, a nearly 500-mile route that will allow trains to travel between Charlotte and Washington, D.C. at top speeds of up to 90-110 miles per hour and an average speed of 86 mph. “Building this high-speed rail corridor will put our people to work on critical infrastructure projects and boost local economies in North Carolina,” said Gov. Perdue. “This is a huge leap toward making high-speed rail in North Carolina a reality.” Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson announced the funding award today during a ceremony at the newly renovated Durham train station. The project is expected to create or maintain 4,800 private sector jobs in North Carolina and provide environmental and energy benefits through reduced congestion and improved air quality. “Every dollar we spend on high speed rail is an investment in job creation and in cleaning the air we all breathe,” said U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. “Building high speed rail will put people in North Carolina to work right away, lay the foundation for long term growth and make travel faster and cheaper - all while reducing our impact on the environment.” Under the recovery funding, North Carolina received $520 million for improvements that will enable higher track speeds along the corridor between Raleigh and Charlotte and $25 million for projects to improve reliability of existing service from Raleigh north to Virginia. In addition, Virginia received $75 million for improvements to the Richmond to Washington, D.C. section of the Southeast High Speed Rail Corridor. “We’ve been working with our partners in multiple states to lay the foundation for a high-speed rail network that will serve as the Main Street of the East Coast,” said state Transportation Secretary Gene Conti. “These funds will help us realize that vision and continue our efforts here in North Carolina to build a 21st century transportation network that incorporates all modes of travel.” Since the USDOT designated Charlotte to Washington, D.C. as a high-speed rail corridor in 1992, the N.C. Department of Transportation has invested more than $300 million in the state’s intercity passenger rail service for renovation and construction of train stations, track work improvements and corridor preservation projects in order to pave the way for high-speed service. The high-speed rail corridor funding award meshes with the goals outlined in NCDOT’s new Complete Streets policy, which calls for a diverse transportation infrastructure that encompasses all modes of travel, from bicycles and ferries to cars and rail. The corridor project is also in conjunction with the Statewide Logistics Plan, which leverages the state’s assets to improve the economic well-being of all North Carolinians."

1) Jobs
2) Recovery
3) Infrastructure
4) Environmentally Sound
5) In North Carolina

Which President Obama hater wants to be the first to sh*t on this initiative? And.... Go!

1/29/2010 12:56:25 AM

I have a feeling it will just be unused.

1/29/2010 1:03:59 AM

Tickets will be too much, no one will ride.

I'd go for $50 or less. Anything more and I might as well drive.

1/29/2010 1:38:18 AM

I do the amtrak thing from Raleigh to Charlotte & I know others who do.

Just for a look at what some other countries are up to.











Bigger map:
http://www.visualizingeconomics.com/wp-content/uploads/ams-usa-population.png

Obviously we have different population sizes/locations and geographies to deal with as compared to some of the other countries out there, but putting more and better trains around the coasts makes sense.

[Edited on January 29, 2010 at 1:48 AM. Reason : .]

1/29/2010 1:48:14 AM

I'd go for a little more than 50. However, you have to arrange rides or parking on either end. Train tickets are outrageous, now. For charlotte to DC, that gets into plane territory. Compared to planes, trains stack up better since you also have to worry about rides at the end and you have to deal with security BS. A train should be a more pleasant experience than a plane or a drive.

86mph is still slow compared to european or asian trains. You would get around 60mph driving.

1/29/2010 2:33:15 AM

Is Charlotte to DC really such a heavily trafficked route that it needs this?

I think high speed rail between cities could be a boon, it would certainly cut down on puddle jumper air traffic and interstate congestion, but I would expect to see things like Boston to NY or Philly to DC get high speed rail before Charlotte to DC.

1/29/2010 2:35:31 AM

That is why proportionally I believe places like that & Florida got more of the money for train upgrades/additions.

1/29/2010 3:08:26 AM

who the hell rides a train?

1/29/2010 8:57:50 AM

According to Google Maps, Charlotte is about 400 miles from Washington D.C. So that means at best this could cut your trip from almost 6.5-7 hours (again according to Google Maps) to 4 hours (if it peaks near 100 mph).

That is surely a significant improvement, but I am not sure who will benefit. I am not going to suddenly decide to live in Charlotte and commute to D.C. So who is supposed to be using this??? That's actually a very important question. If thing is going to be environmentally attractive it needs to be changing a lot of people's travel patterns. I don't think it will.

Now, I guess you could say that "well, if it is a waste of money, so long as we are creating jobs to help get us out of the recession." That looks like Supplanter's fall back position, anyways (jobs! jobs! jobs!). But that argument assumes we will be constructing this thing while we're actually still in a recession. Will we?

I don't see any timelines in the article, but if its anything like most construction projects we're probably still a long way from even breaking ground. We're talking about surveying hundreds of miles, planning and designing the damn thing, community outreach/stakeholder meetings, environmental impact statements, all kinds of time consuming shit that don't create very many jobs. All in all, I would be very surprised if this thing was creating a significant number of jobs in North Carolina BEFORE the recession is over.

[Edited on January 29, 2010 at 9:40 AM. Reason : ``]

1/29/2010 9:32:43 AM

I wanted to bring this from the Obama thread, where this story was reported earlier:

Consider the following conditions in Switzerland, a country where rail-travel works well:

-Highways are more often two-lane, and roads are narrower so often you will have to pull over to let someone pass.
-Traffic congestion is a lot more severe due to less lanes, less parking spaces.
-Cars cost about 25% more to purchase and 150% more to operate (adjusted for exchange)
-Drivers license standards are much higher. You need expensive training, and permit limitations are harsher.
-There are a lot more sidewalks. There are also a lot of bike, scooter, and/or pedestrian-only roads. There are also a lot more pedestrians. Lots of bike storage also.
-Citiy growth has incorporated the rail system: businesses are built near stations, or near rail-bus stops (a lot of cities have rail-trolley networks within the city).
-Rail passes come in many forms. Most people have year-long passes purchased from the government, heavily subsidized so they're cheap. These passes often incorporate bus travel as well.
-There are some very fast inter-metro trains, travelling from 100-160mph
-Rail travel is much more rigidly managed and scheduled, so it's more reliable

1/29/2010 9:42:16 AM

^ all very good points about a system of public transportation where an extensive, reliable rail system is in use. Not a single argument in that list for why this particular high-speed rail should or should not be built.

[Edited on January 29, 2010 at 9:50 AM. Reason : ``]

1/29/2010 9:48:51 AM

Trains rock. By far the most comfortable thing for the price. The only problem is they're almost always slower than driving.

1/29/2010 10:09:32 AM

Quote :

"“Every dollar we spend on high speed rail is an investment in job creation and in cleaning the air we all breathe,” said U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson."

Considering the magnitude of onerous EPA regulations many people have to face in starting up or maintaining a business, and the abuse this agency heaps upon employers, this statement is laughable.

1/29/2010 10:12:53 AM

I don't think any rail system will be solvent without some of these conditions. OK?

Think of the amount of good $545 million can do. Now think of how much good is accomplished by having a 90mph train between Charlotte and DC instead of a 60mph train.

BTW, it's not going to improve much over a car's travel time because likely the train will have half a dozen stops along the way.

1/29/2010 10:20:54 AM

^^so a company shouldn't have to pay for its negative externalities?

1/29/2010 10:23:14 AM

Quote :

"1) Jobs 2) Recovery 3) Infrastructure 4) Environmentally Sound 5) In North Carolina"

I'll give you the last three, with the caveat that some environmental group somewhere, who may support high speed rail in theory, will oppose the location of some specific track, guaranteed.

comman however,

Infrastructure means nothing if it isn't used. Like others have commented, efficiency, reliability, and price point are all going to be considerations here. Are the terminals going to be located where they are most efficient (not likely) or will they be located where they are politically expedient (ding! ding! ding!)

As far as jobs . . . not really. First off, assuming that there are no more efficient uses for the $545M (doubtful) the kinds of jobs that go into making high speed rail are going to be very specific. This isn't CCC ditch digging, if I'm hopping my ass onto a bullet train, I'd like to have more competent and motivated workers than those I meet in TSA or the DMV. Once the rail is built where do these jobs go? Unless there are other projects in the works, they'll be unemployed again with a second set of equally useless skills. (OTOH, if light rail took off, then they'd be quite employable, there are to sides to my pessimistic coin).

As far as recovery, see the last paragraph. It is going to take a lot more than $545M to cause a recovery in NC and Charlotte wouldn't be as big as it is now if there weren't already satisfactorily efficient means of traveling to and from it.



And the fuck if this has anything to do with hating Obama, I'd oppose this shit if it were President Jesus Muhammad Buddha (R) himself.

1/29/2010 10:28:20 AM

Quote :

"According to Google Maps, Charlotte is about 400 miles from Washington D.C. So that means at best this could cut your trip from almost 6.5-7 hours (again according to Google Maps) to 4 hours (if it peaks near 100 mph)."

Google maps isn't really the best judge for that. If you're doing the "go up sunday, come home friday" week commute to DC (for whatever reason) there's a slowdown between Richmond and DC during summers that turns a 2 hour drive into a 4 hour drive.

So it's really 8.5-9 hours from Charlotte to DC versus about 5 on the train (you have to count for a few stops in Gboro, Raleigh, Richmond, and maybe Fredericksburg).

Beyond that, it can be mildly cheaper than Airlines, and paying for parking up here in DC is a nightmare. You can either do private parking for 30 bucks a night, or you if own a place you can pay 250 every 6 months to the DC DMV for a parking permit.

1/29/2010 10:35:33 AM

Quote :

"so a company shouldn't have to pay for its negative externalities?"

Is that what I said? I was talking about EPA abuse...like when a guy dug a shallow trench in his backyard and, when rain filled it in, the EPA came along and declared it a wetlands.

The EPA has also threatened to implement Cap n Tax even if the congress rejects it. How many jobs will that kill?

1/29/2010 10:44:45 AM

Companies would be paying for externalities if the government would enforce private property rights and not subsidize corporations through favorable regulation.

1/29/2010 10:49:47 AM

With a train you have to buy two cab rides. One for getting to the train and one for getting off. Train stations don't have long-term parking. If you happen to live and work near bus-stops, then you only need bus fare.

If you live and work in walking distance of a station, then you don't need anything but legs and to carry all your luggage.

1/29/2010 10:52:22 AM

haha woooaahhh. I have driven to DC in the summer and never encountered *that* much traffic. But maybe it just depends on time of day.

Either way, I was thinking people would save at most 3 hours using the train. You're saying they will save at most 4 hours. So it sounds like we're in the same ballpark.

Now who is going to benefit from these time savings? I don't know many people that commute from Charlotte to D.C. on a regular basis. Does anyone have any concrete numbers on how many people are actually making this trip now that would benefit from this???

1/29/2010 10:52:44 AM

Quote :

"Is that what I said? I was talking about EPA abuse...like when a guy dug a shallow trench in his backyard and, when rain filled it in, the EPA came along and declared it a wetlands."

source?

PS*

Quote :

"Companies would be paying for externalities if the government would enforce private property rights and not subsidize corporations through favorable regulation."

Misapplication of coase theorem. Not true in presence of significant transaction costs.

[Edited on January 29, 2010 at 10:54 AM. Reason : ``]

1/29/2010 10:53:30 AM

idk about charlotte to dc, but up here in Maine we're gonna get some funds to connect the downeaster (which runs from boston to portland, me) up to Bar Harbor (Acadia National park) through Freeport. This is pretty cool cause both freeport and bar harbor are big tourist destinations as it is. Also tickets on the downeaster are like $40 for a round trip.

The problem is it takes forever because of all the stops and it just doesn't go that fast to begin with.

1/29/2010 11:15:26 AM

waste of fucking money. fuck obama.

1/29/2010 12:00:25 PM

Charlotte to dc commute is not the point. The point is to be able to go anywhere on the east coast by train. chartlotte to boston. Wherever you're going on the 95 corridor, there will soon be a train for that that goes faster.

Quote :

"but I would expect to see things like Boston to NY or Philly to DC get high speed rail before Charlotte to DC. "

already exists. have you never heard of the acela?


btw calling this a high speed rail is a joke. it may be high speed by 1960s standards but its just an average train for 2010. maybe even a little on the slow end of the technology available.


This is good because we need to make progress towards phasing out car travel.

Also keep in mind that even if it was the same time as in the car, gas would cost more than the ticket plus you spend all that time driving instead of riding. miami to boston in 20 hours would be golden.

1/29/2010 12:08:17 PM

^
And businesspeople can spend that time working and making $$$

1/29/2010 12:28:11 PM

The Acela travels just barely above highway speeds on average, so when I said I would expect for HIGH SPEED RAIL to hit them first I meant HIGH SPEED RAIL. You know, continuous, dedicated, high speed travel from point to point. I don't mean a train that can potentially go 150, but actually averages around 70-80 on a given route. That kind of train is pretty pointless given the ease of interstate travel. It works well for business travel, and is taking a large bite out of air traffic between DC and Boston, but it's done very little to cut down on interstate traffic, and air pollution from automobiles is a far more pressing concern than that from planes.

People will not abandon the flexibility of a car for minimal time savings if they then have to hoof it or take other slow, unreliable forms of mass transit (i.e. buses and the DC metro). While the Acela may work for business travel, it's a piss poor substitute for driving or flying then renting a car.

If you want to make rail appealing, start making upgrades in the intercity subway and rail. Once the cities themselves are easy and convenient to travel in via metro you can work on getting people to them via high speed, dedicated trains. All the stops on a high speed line absolutely kill efficiency.

1/29/2010 12:33:47 PM

1) Jobs
Is not an argument. In order to create government jobs you must first their tax others or borrow the money to pay their salaries. Studies show that for every dollar raised in taxes, more than a dollar is taken out of the economy. And if it involves a tax increase then it often destroys more jobs than the money can create.

2) Recovery
How would this in any way help stabilize the economy? Higher taxes, more debt, diverting resources, mal-investment, all these disrupt economic activity, not stabilize it.

3) Infrastructure
In name only. As is tradition, light rail costs substantially more than a comparable capacity highway to build, costs substantially more to maintain, and even then carries far less traffic. High speed rail is even more so. Amtrak loses money for almost every ticket it sells. It loses even more money for every Acela ticket it sells. Meanwhile, the French and Japanese losses on their high-speed train tickets make Amtraks look puny, as the government pays the majority of your train ticket, which only goes to cover operating costs, as 100% of the construction costs was paid by the government. Meanwhile, highways pay for themselves through gasoline taxes. If you want to build rail infrastructure that will benefit mankind, loosen the permitting process for freight rail.

4) Environmentally Sound
Sorry again. Studies show that a passenger on light-rail (which is powered by coal burning power plants) produces more and worse pollution than cars on a highway. Even from a pure energy (BTU) standpoint, rail is comparable to the average car (intercity car travel tends to carry more passengers than the 1.57 overall average) and not much better than an airplane.


The environment would be much better off, and the American people too, if the government instead went to subsidize non-stop bus service or subsidize rail-freight.

5) In North Carolina
So would building a new freight line, or a new highway, or whatever else we use the money for, such as lower taxes which allow the citizens of North Carolina to spend their money how best would improve their lives. This is even if the project ever gets built, as Phoenix spent $1.4 billion to go 20 miles, and that was basic light rail, high-speed rail costs substantially more.

[Edited on January 29, 2010 at 1:06 PM. Reason : img]

1/29/2010 1:01:05 PM

Your two graphs offer conflicting opinions as to whether the San Jose light rail system offers better or worse energy efficiency than a Single-Occupant vehicle.

I agree that trains are not environmentally friendlier than cars in terms of per-passenger BTU, but I just wanted to point out that your graphs suck.

1/29/2010 1:21:08 PM

Electric trains could be made considerably better as an environmental alternative if we had more nuke plants like Europe. However, as you've pointed out they don't make a lot of sense economically.

1/29/2010 2:03:18 PM

^^ You are correct. The two data sets come from different sources. The top one comes from the Department of Energy (http://cta.ornl.gov/data/chapter2.shtml) and the bottom one comes from the Department of Transportation (link in graphic). Or so this author claims:
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/category/rail-and-mass-transit

1/29/2010 2:52:09 PM

In a policy class the other day the teacher dropped a revelation on me: jobs aren't a benefit of policy. Any policy would create jobs. Spending half a billion dollars on anything will create jobs. It's like the Lewis Black bit on public works project: "What you do is, you go down to Alabama, and find the place that's worst off -- that'll be hard -- and then you build a big fucking thing. It doesn't matter what it is, as long as it's big, and it's a fucking thing. Because building it will create jobs, and then there will be tourists who say, 'Wow, I gotta go see the Big Fucking Thing,' and then there will be a Big Fucking Thing gift shop, a Big Fucking Thing spa and resort..."

As for infrastructure and environmentally sound...look, it sounds neat and all, but like others here I don't see how it's going to get much use. Trains aren't really cheap, especially when you factor in taxis or car rentals once you get to your destination. Not that many people go from NC to DC. We've been pouring money into Amtrak for years and hardly anybody uses that. I've ridden Raleigh/Greensboro and Greensboro/Charlotte several times and never seen a train car more than about a third full.

1/29/2010 3:06:44 PM

Quote :

"Not that many people go from NC to DC."

tell that to i-95. one of the busiest highways in the world.

1/29/2010 3:12:04 PM

Yes, but the majority of the traffic on I-95 in NC is thru traffic. People aren't leaving Miami in droves to get to Fayetteville.

1/29/2010 3:18:19 PM

High Speed Rail:
The best way to subsidize the lifestyles of people that wish they lived in Europe but are too lazy to learn a second language.

j/k

1/29/2010 3:19:26 PM

^^you have to have high speed rail in nc to have high speed rail from miami to boston.

1/29/2010 3:41:27 PM

I'm just waiting for the .gov to screw it up, and 545million will get us the track and stations, but forget to budget the trains or some stupid crap like that.

1/29/2010 3:53:58 PM

They did say this is only the first installment.

1/29/2010 4:37:14 PM

^^^No kidding, but are we one of the areas that should be worked on first?

1/29/2010 5:13:34 PM

^First? We aren't going ahead of areas around Boston or Miami, they're getting money too, in fact they are getting more. If we have to all go sequentially in order of priority that would take much longer than simultaneous upgrades/construction.

1/29/2010 5:23:51 PM

Quote :

"I'm just waiting for the .gov to screw it up, and 545million will get us the track and stations, but forget to budget the trains or some stupid crap like that."

HA!! You have no idea! California is trying to build high speed rail from LA to SF, approximately 390 miles. The supporters say it will cost $40 billion, the critics say it will cost more than twice that (the light rail line to San Jose would up costing three times what the government budgeted). The distance from Charlotte to Washington about the same as this plan from LA to SF. As such, yes, this half billion dollars has a long way to go before it gets anywhere close to paying for just the stations.

Basic math:
Californian estimates of high speed rail (bidirectional track): $40 billion for 390 miles = $102.5 million per mile
Raleigh outer beltline (six lanes each way): $1.1 billion for 71 miles = $15.5 million per mile

[Edited on January 29, 2010 at 6:35 PM. Reason : maths]

1/29/2010 6:24:50 PM

Tickets for the hate train are free and plentiful!

CHOO CHOO

1/29/2010 6:37:18 PM

http://www.hulu.com/watch/123228/stossel-stossel---light-rail-scam#s-p1-sr-i1

1/29/2010 7:12:29 PM

Yippeee for the Choo Choo Train!

1/29/2010 11:04:55 PM

1/30/2010 12:34:05 AM

Quote :

"tell that to i-95. one of the busiest highways in the world."

Yeah...but that statement doesn't really apply to anything south of DC/NOVA. I'm quite familiar with I-95 from NC up to NY and while it can be extremely congested at times (especially in the summer) unless there's a new high speed train averaging over 100 mph at a price that is no more than 30-40% more than the cost of me driving the same route I won't be inclined to use it. On most of my road trips I average around 70mph including stops at a significantly cheaper price than using rail.

2/3/2010 1:00:37 PM

trains are stupid

people in other countries other than REAL america are dumb and poor

mass transit is in noone's interest because it somehow involves government and government is stupid because i read something by a libertarian

Really all I have to say on the serious side is that, until more Americans accept the train as the primary mode of transportation between cities as they have elsewhere, it probably won't be as profitable. I'd love to see that change, of course, and I think it's different in the NE or it might be in Cali, but we've built things around car culture and car culture is what we get. The point to have done this was the early century before corporate power, being what it has been here, made sure that we were encouraging car culture (see: General Motors until the 1970s).

[Edited on February 3, 2010 at 1:21 PM. Reason : .]

2/3/2010 1:14:16 PM

Ridership will depend a lot upon cost. I live in Washington DC, and when I go to New York or Boston, I'll either take the train or bus because when you add up the cost of gas, parking, and the $35-$40 worth of tolls each way plus the headaches of traffic, the $25 for a bus or $60-$70 for a train makes sense. However, going back to Raleigh or Greensboro only requires a single tank of gas and some mileage on my vehicle each way; unless I can get a $30-$40 ticket back home, it's not worth it even if it only saves me an hour or so. This doesn't even take into consideration the convenience (or lack thereof) of the schedules for anything going south of DC.

I just think that the distances between Charlotte to Washington DC aren't long enough to make high speed rail work. It makes more sense if you're integrating it into the DC-NYC-Boston corridor however.

I wouldn't knock the DC Metro. It's pretty effective as long as you're not trying to go to the second tier of suburbs like Fairfax County. A lot of people don't like driving into the District because of the traffic and the cost & hassle of parking, especially for events.

Oh and yes, that corridor of I-95 from Richmond to Washington DC is a pain in the ass. Sometimes, it would take me just 3 hours to get from Greensboro to Richmond and then another 3 hours to make the last 100 miles from Richmond into Washington.

2/3/2010 1:58:46 PM

^^It won't make sense until the US has the same population density (on average) as Europe. And given how large our country is I don't see that ever happening. You can't compare our country with Europe or Japan, its an apples to oranges argument.

2/3/2010 4:59:40 PM

Four hours on the train, stopping ten times on the way, or 40 minutes on the airplane for about the same price. Well, not the same price, as while the airplane ticket is being taxed and is therefore revenue generating for the government, the rail trip was heavily subsidized, so your ticket actually cost several times more than you paid for it.

Cheap? Take the bus, it will stop ten times on the way, but might even be competitive with driving in some instances.
Lucky? Take an express bus, it will not stop, you will get there about as fast as you could drive, and it would most certainly be cheaper than you could drive (express bus lines are usually much cheaper than Greyhound).
Need a car when you get there? Drive.
In a hurry? Fly.
ENDOFLINE

2/3/2010 5:00:00 PM