High-Speed Train Networks: We Still Don’t Have Any
Early in the Obama presidency, Congress passed the $797 billion stimulus package which included a plan for federal high-speed rail investments. Major US cities were to be linked by high-speed rail. By January 2012, the Obama administration had put in more than $10 billion in federal money for high-speed rail development. But some state and local officials were balking. The governors of Wisconsin (Scott Walker), Florida (Rick Scott), and Ohio (John R. Kasich)—all Republicans—gave back billions of federal dollars, denouncing the programs as creations of big federal government and as economically unfeasible.
In California, the only high-speed rail project that actually began construction ran into major problems. The high-speed train project, an 800-mile system, was expected to be completed by 2020, but has been pushed back to 2033. In the meantime, by 2040, the population of California is projected to be over 54 million, another 17 million more than in 2010. In addition, the cost of the project has now tripled, to nearly $100 billion. Another $202 million was pumped into the project through the Infrastructure Act in September 2023. The project is limping along, way over budget, experiencing maddening delays.
By contrast, high-speed rail service, “bullet trains,” are common in other advanced countries. Railway Technology reported that the fastest trains operating today are in service in China, Germany, France, Japan, Morocco, Spain, South Korea, and Italy. Not in the United States, where the closest thing to a high-speed train would be Amtrak’s Acela, operating between Washington, DC, New York, and Boston. Amtrak planned to spend $2.3 billion to replace its aging Acela fleet and improve railway tracks, but the project is already three years behind schedule. Amtrak was contracted with the French rail manufacturing firm Alstom to develop and manufacture twenty-eight new high-speed train sets, but have run into delays because they have not met Federal Railroad Administration safety requirements. Finally, in January 2024, on the fourteenth try, the new trains passed the federal safety tests. The new Acela service is scheduled to begin operating in June 2024, with trains running at 257 km (160 miles) per hour, much faster than the older Acela trains. Amtrak will be receiving $22 billion from the Infrastructure Act.
So confident in its high-speed network of trains, the Train à Grande Vitesse (TGV), the French government in April 2022 banned short-haul domestic flights in the country. The aim was to curb France’s carbon emissions from aviation, and despite complaints from businesses in the aviation sector, the program is moving ahead with government funding and support, and other European countries are looking at the possibilities of greater reliance on short-haul train travel rather than airlines. Throughout Europe, passenger rail service is booming, with a 50 percent jump between 2021 and 2022.
Sources: David Shepardson, “US Passenger Railroad Amtrak High-Speed Acela Program Facing New Delays,” Reuters, October 3, 2023, https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-passenger-railroad-amtrak-high-speed-acela-program-facing-new-delays-2023-10-03/; Peter Nilson, “French Short-Haul Ban Only Possible Thanks to High-Speed Rail,” Railway Technology, September 27, 2022, https://www.railway-technology.com/features/french-short-haul-ban-only-possible-thanks-to-rail/?cf-view; Paige McClanahan, “In Europe, Trains Are Full, and More Are on the Way,” New York Times, January 4, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/04/travel/europe-new-trains.html. “The 10 Fastest High-Speed Trains in the World,” Railway Technology, https://www.railway-technology.com/features/the-10-fastest-high-speed-trains-in-the-world/?cf-view.
