High-Speed Rails – A Need for Cheaper and faster Transportation for the common people
Socio-Economic Reform
The only way to help people to commute faster and cheaper is by investing in high speed rails which uses electricity not fossil fuels to connect American Cities and States. Currently, people who don’t have a reliable car and cannot afford to fly prefers the Greyhound bus for intercity and interstate public transportation instead of the Amtrak trains. For intracity (within the city) commute they rely on subways, light rail, and city buses a lot. I have traveled in Greyhound from New York to Florida once. I learned from that journey that most of the people who use this bus service are people of Color. Sitting in a small seat for 20+ hours without the ability to move around was tough.
Why can’t the United States have Superfast Bullet trains as they do have in China for intercity and interstate public transportation? Sorry, I am not talking about the slow Amtrak. I am talking about the bullet Trains which run on High-speed rails at speeds of 200-250mph.
In the last 15 years, China deployed around 25,000 kilometers of High-Speed Rail connecting all their provinces and Financial hubs. This is five times the distance from New York to Los Angels. Around 1.7 Billion people are using the Chinese high-speed rails every day. These trains travel at speeds around 300km/h. At that speed, you can go from New York to Los Angels in about 13 hours. I am including a World Bank research which is a good read which shows how remarkable and affordable this construction was and also explains the research, planning, and execution behind the entire project. It says how they transformed the old fossil fuel-based conventional rail system to the futuristic clean energy-based all-electric super-fast Rail system at an affordable commute price. It also explains why they picked HSR over maglev due to the capital costs, but also implemented maglev to show their excellence in adapting most modern railway technologies. The HSR construction cost is said to be below $500 billion. These are the links to the World Bank Articles on Chinese High-Speed Rails/Innovation
https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/31801
Graph showing China's High-speed-rail construction from 2008 -2017
Map showing China's High-speed-rail construction in 2008
Map showing China's High-speed-rail construction growth in 2017
Meantime, the United States was busy fighting wars spending many trillions of Taxpayer money all over the middle east and Afghanistan, and subsequent failed nation-building attempts in these regions. From the Brown universities research, “Iraq and Afghanistan war resulted in a total of around 500,000 deaths including 7000 of our own”. Those Wars destabilized all these regions killing 100s of people every day. I am sure that the Iraq war made Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon Technologies all very rich and saved the Financial interests of Halliburton, Shell, and also the Koch's who are all heavily invested in a fossil fuel called oil in the middle east. I am still not understanding, all these for that Oil which is going to disappear in another 20 years.!?
Here is the link to Brown university’s research on the Causalities of the Iraq and Afghanistan War.
We have the potential to build a High-speed electric rail system like the one in China. Many of these new Rail technologies have US Patents including Maglev. So basically, the United States figures things out and other Countries implement it. And we still have people in this country who needs to use Greyhound’s to commute between our cities and states, if you are poor. If you have money, you can wait in an airport and waste 6-12 hours due to flight delays and unexpected cancellations.
President Biden always uses his Amtrak stories to charm people to show how common he is. He always says that he was commuting in Amtrak for the last 35 plus years from Delaware to Washington DC interacting even with an Amtrak conductor who he even knows by name. Being a Senator and still interacting with an Amtrak conductor is something that can impress many people for sure. But the thing is many news outlets including AP News Fact Check says the story does not add up. Why would he lie? Please check the AP news article below.
https://apnews.com/article/ap-fact-check-biden-amtrak-e79af0cd7015ea3d559609817cceb144
If this was a common man like me who commutes every day between Delaware and DC, the first thing which will strike my mind is how slow that train travel is. On Amtrak, It takes around 1 hour 20 minutes to go from Delaware to DC even on the Amtrak’s fastest and most expensive Acela trains. On a standard Amtrak train, it takes around 2 hours. If we had a high-speed electric bullet train, it would have taken me 25 min to go from Delaware to DC. That’s 2 hours of quality time which I could have saved every day to spend with my family, helping kids with school lessons and helping the spouse to prepare dinner, etc. But with around 3 hours wasted on commute every day, I will finally quit the job in DC and look for another lower-paying job in Delaware so that I can be near my family. I know this because I commuted between NY and DC regularly for some time and I could not afford the Air travel and had to rely on Amtrak.
When an Amtrak train’s lowest ticket costs around $50 from Delaware to DC, a Greyhound Bus ticket from Delaware to DC is only half that cost, $25. The commute time maybe 1 hour additional by bus. But cost is the reason most of the poor people still prefer Greyhound even though the commute time is more. As per a new report from census.gov below “46.3% of all public transportation commuters use the bus as their primary commuting mode. Long-distance or commuter rail is only 11.8% of all public transportation commuters”. People who cannot afford to use a car, are spending 4-5 hours on Bus commute daily if they want a better paying job in a big neighboring city.
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2021/public-transportation-commuters.html
Means to transportation to work Graph - census.gov
So why didn’t President Biden do something for a High-speed rail between NY and DC all these 35 years’ time? 90% of the money allocated for the rail in the infrastructure plan which just passed is going to the Amtrak and hardly anything for the High-speed Rail projects. We still rely on conventional tracks which are speed limited to 90mph max.
When Obama was our president, he understood the importance of future transportation and He wanted to invest heavily in High-speed Rails starting with the American recovery and reinvestment act” in 2009. He knew that it is the only way the communities in this country could equally prosper. I am quoting President Obama on Highspeed Rail “largest investment in infrastructure since the Interstate Highway System was created,” creating a high-speed rail network to rival the world’s best. “There’s no reason why Europe or China should have the fastest trains when we can build them right here in America.”.
Intercity High-speed Rail will be key to many majority and minority people alike to broaden their job opportunities beyond the City where they live. Intercity means connecting to big cities within the same states or between states. President Obama knew that this is the only way to improve the quality of life for the people who are stuck in these crowded big cities, give their kids a chance to become something in life. So in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, he allocated billions of federal money to kick start these high-speed rail projects to connect big cities in states. Such included High-speed Rail Projects in Florida, California, Wisconsin, Ohio States. But those were all completely shot down or delayed. Republican Governors John Kasich (Ohio), Rick Scott (Florida), Scott Walker (Wisconsin) all shot down the initiatives in their states by turning down the allocated federal funds. California HSR is the only one which started construction but getting delayed indefinitely.
Florida high-speed Rail project - To connect cities of Tampa and Orlando, with plans to then extend service to South Florida, terminating in Miami.
Outcome – The project is dead. Quoting the NPR and New York Times articles below. In Florida, Republican Gov Rick Scott turned down the $2 billion for high-speed rails linking Tampa to Orlando and Miami.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/17/us/17rail.html?_r=1&%20in%202011
California High-speed Rail Project: Phase 1 To connect Los Angeles to San Francisco and Phase 2 to extend north to Sacramento and south to San Diego.
Outcome- The hurdles in the form of protests and Lawsuits against this project orchestrated by the special interest groups are delaying the entire project mainly affecting the land acquisitions to construct the track. As per the Guardian Article below, “Phase one was expected to be completed in 2029, but that has since been pushed to 2033.”
Wisconsin High-speed Rail Project: Connecting Milwaukee and Madison.
Outcome – The project is dead. Quoting the NPR article below “Wisconsin's Republican Scott Walker turned down more than $800 million in federal funds for high-speed rails between Milwaukee and Madison”. The Talgo trains built for Wisconsin's high-speed rail is going to Nigeria to become part of West Africa's first operational metro system. Please the wpr.org article below.
https://www.wpr.org/trains-intended-unbuilt-milwaukee-madison-high-speed-rail-line-going-nigeria
Ohio High-speed Rail Project: Ohio Hub/3C Corridor High-Speed Rail to provide service from Cleveland to Columbus, Dayton, and Cincinnati
Outcome- The project is dead. Quoting the NPR article below. “Republican governor John Kasich rejected the $400 million in federal funds meant to establish passenger rail service from Cleveland to Columbus and Cincinnati.”
Please check the NPR article below which has all the details on the former Governors John Kasich, Rick Scott, Scott Walker turning down those federal Aids for HSR construction.
https://www.npr.org/2010/11/10/131223230/not-so-fast-future-for-high-speed-rail-uncertain
Texas High-Speed Rail Project is another recent initiative to connect Dallas-Houston. A private entity Called Texas Central Railway (TCR) has committed to constructing and operating the proposed system without even public funding. Current estimates for the construction of track between Dallas and Houston is approximately $16 billion. Please see the txdot.gov link below for details.
https://www.txdot.gov/inside-txdot/projects/studies/statewide/dallas-houston-high-speed-rail.html
Now in the Texas Supreme Court case, the state argues that Dallas-Houston bullet train developer TCR can’t use eminent domain to construct High-Speed Rails. Eminent domain is the right to expropriate private property for public use, with payment or compensation. Without this, land acquisitions will be impossible to construct the track for the bullet train and this project will have the same fate as California High-speed Rail. Please see the Texas tribune article below. States are not letting even the Private companies do the HSR construction and operation without public funding.
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/12/20/texas-high-speed-train-dallas-houston/
by Hari Ramachandran