San Jose State University SJSU ScholarWorks Faculty Publications, Urban and Regional Planning Urban and Regional Planning January 2007 High-Speed Rail Projects in the United States: Identifying the Elements of Success Part 2 Allison deCerreno Shishir Mathur San Jose State University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/urban_plan_pub Part of the Infrastructure Commons, Public Economics Commons, Public Policy Commons, Real Estate Commons, Transportation Commons, Urban, Community and Regional Planning Commons, Urban Studies Commons, and the Urban Studies and Planning Commons Recommended Citation Allison deCerreno and Shishir Mathur. "High-Speed Rail Projects in the United States: Identifying the Elements of Success Part 2" Faculty Publications, Urban and Regional Planning (2007). This Report is brought to you for free and open access by the Urban and Regional Planning at SJSU ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications, Urban and Regional Planning by an authorized administrator of SJSU ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. MTI Report 06-03 MTI HIGH-SPEED RAIL PROJECTS IN THE UNITED STATES: IDENTIFYING THE ELEMENTS OF SUCCESS-PART 2 IDENTIFYING THE ELEMENTS OF SUCCESS-PART HIGH-SPEED RAIL PROJECTS IN THE UNITED STATES: Funded by U.S. Department of HIGH-SPEED RAIL Transportation and California Department PROJECTS IN THE UNITED of Transportation STATES: IDENTIFYING THE ELEMENTS OF SUCCESS PART 2 Report 06-03 Mineta Transportation November Institute Created by 2006 Congress in 1991 MTI REPORT 06-03 HIGH-SPEED RAIL PROJECTS IN THE UNITED STATES: IDENTIFYING THE ELEMENTS OF SUCCESS PART 2 November 2006 Allison L. C. de Cerreño, Ph.D. Shishir Mathur, Ph.D. a report cosponsored by the NYU Wagner Rudin Center for Transportation Policy & Management a publication of the Mineta Transportation Institute College of Business San José State University San José, CA 95192-0219 Created by Congress in 1991 Technical Report Documentation Page 1. Report No. 2. Government Accession No. 3. Recipient’s Catalog No. FHWA/CA/OR-2006/29 4. Title and Subtitle 5. Report Date High-Speed Rail Projects in the United States: Identifying the November 2006 Elements of Success-Part 2 6. Performing Organization Code 7. Authors 8. Performing Organization Report Allison L. C. de Cerreño, Ph.D., Shishir Mathur, Ph.D MTI 06-03 9. Performing Organization Name and Address 10. Work Unit No. Mineta Transportation Institute College of Business San José State University 11. Contract or Grant No. San José, CA 95192-0219 65W136 12. Sponsoring Agency Name and Address 13. Type of Report and Period Covered California Department of Research and Innovative Final Report Transportation Technology Administration Sacramento, CA 95819 400 7th Street, SW 14. Sponsoring Agency Code Washington, DC 20590-0001 15. Supplementary Notes 16. Abstract In August 2005, the Mineta Transportation Institute issued the report, High-Speed Rail Projects in the United States: Identifying the Elements for Success. The report noted that since the 1960s, high- speed ground transportation (HSGT) has “held the promise of fast, convenient, and environmentally sound travel for distances between 40 and 600 miles.” After briefly discussing the different experiences with HSGT between the United States and its Asian and European counterparts, the report proceeded to review three U.S. cases—Florida, California, and the Pacific Northwest—as a means for identifying lessons learned for successfully implementing high-speed rail (HSR) in the United States. This report is, in essence, volume 2 of the previous study. Also using a comparative case study approach, this effort adds to the earlier work with three additional cases—the Chicago Hub, the Keystone Corridor, and the Northeast Corridor (NEC). As with the earlier report, the goal of this study is to identify lessons learned for successfully implementing HSR in the United States. Given the early stages of most of these projects, “success” is defined by whether a given HSR project is still actively pursuing development or funding. However, in the case of the Northeast Corridor, a fuller discussion of success is provided since HSR has been implemented on that corridor for some time now. 17. Key Words 18. Distribution Statement Government funding; Line extensions; Rail transportation; No restrictions. This document is available to the public Railroad construction; Railroad through the National Technical Information Service, transportation; High-speed rail Springfield, VA 22161 19. Security Classif. (of this report) 20. Security Classif. (of this page) 21. No. of Pages 22. Price Unclassified Unclassified 194 $15.00 Form DOT F 1700.7 (8-72) Copyright © 2006 by Mineta Transportation Institute All rights reserved Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2006935922 To order this publication, please contact the following: Mineta Transportation Institute College of Business San José State University San José, CA 95192-0219 Tel (408) 924-7560 Fax (408) 924-7565 E-mail: [email protected] http://transweb.sjsu.edu ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Many individuals from around the country aided the authors in the creation of this report. Some provided their time for interviews and reviews of the different drafts, while others helped to find written documentation of historical and current facts. In particular, Allison C. de Cerreño would like to thank the following individuals for their contributions to the Northeast Corridor and Keystone Corridor cases: Charlie Banks, R.L. Banks & Associates; John Bennett, Amtrak; James Boice, Connecticut Department of Transportation; Eric Bugaile; Peter Cannito, MTA Metro-North; David Carol, Charlotte Area Transit System; Calvin Cassidy, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation; Mortimer Downey, PB Consult, Inc.; Toby Fauver, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation; David Gunn; Emmanuel “Bruce” Horowitz, ESH Consult; David Matsuda, Office of Senator Lautenberg; Richard Peltz, Appalachian Regional Commission; Catherine Popp- McDonough, SEPTA; Michael Saunders, Federal Highway Administration; Bill Schafer, Norfolk Southern Corporation; Peter Stangl; Brian Sterman, FTA; Louis Thompson, Thompson, Galenson and Associates, LLC; and Thomas Till, Discovery Institute. She also thanks Dan Leavitt, California High-Speed Rail Authority for his time in updating her on the current status of high-speed rail efforts in California. Special thanks are extended to George Haikalis, who provided a number of historical documents no longer easily found, including the summary report that Dr. de Cerreño in search of the Keystone Corridor’s earlier attempts at high-speed rail which were all but forgotten, and Steven Greenfield of Parsons Brinckerhoff, who managed to track down the full preliminary report on the feasibility of high-speed rail in the Keystone Corridor. And, finally to members of Amtrak’s Planning and Analysis and Government Affairs Departments who provided several documents and the speed restriction tables for the NEC, spent time with the author showing her how to interpret them, and arranged for additional discussions on numerous technical questions. Shishir Mathur would like to thank the following individuals for their contributions to the Chicago Hub case: John Bennett, Amtrak; David Carol, Charlotte Area Transit System; Emmanuel “Bruce” Horowitz, ESH Consult; Merrill Travis, Lower Cost Solutions, Inc,; John Schwalbauch, Illinois Department of Transportation; Ethan Johnson, Wisconsin Department of Transportation; Stuart Nicholson, the Ohio Rail Development Commission; John Hey, Iowa Department of Transportation; Ellis Tompkins, Nebraska Department of Roads; Rodney Massman, Missouri Department of Transportation; Mike Bedore, Michigan Department of Transportation; Drew Galloway, Amtrak; Joby Berman, Illinois State Toll Highway Authority; Emil Frankel, Parsons Brinckerhoff; Rick Harnish, Midwest High Speed Rail Coalition; and Rick Tidwell, Metra. Finally, both authors extend their thanks to Howard Permut, MTA Metro-North, for his thoughtful comments and suggestions during numerous rounds of the report. Thanks are offered also to MTI staff, including Research Director Trixie Johnson, Research and Publications Assistant Sonya Cardenas, Webmaster Barney Murray, and Graphic Artist Shun Nelson. Editing and publication services were provided by Catherine Frazier and Project Solutions Network, Inc. Table of Contents i TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1 KEY FINDINGS AND LESSONS LEARNED 2 THEMES FOR CONSIDERATION 6 INTRODUCTION 9 GOALS, DEFINITIONS, AND METHODOLOGY 9 UPDATE ON EARLIER CASES AND HSR INITIATIVES 10 THE CURRENT CASES 12 CHALLENGES IN IMPLEMENTING HSR IN THE STATES 14 OUTLINE OF THE REPORT 15 THE CHICAGO HUB AND MIDWEST REGIONAL RAIL INITIATIVE 17 HISTORY OF HSR IN THE MIDWEST 17 HSR EFFORTS WITHIN THE STATES 28 ASSESSMENT OF THE CASE 39 POSSIBLE ISSUES AND NEXT STEPS 50 THE KEYSTONE CORRIDOR 53 THE CONTEXT 54 HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE CORRIDOR 56 CURRENT STATUS OF THE KCIP 78 ASSESSMENT OF THE CASE 82 THE NORTHEAST CORRIDOR 87 DEFINITIONS AND CONTEXT 87 HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE CORRIDOR 92 ASSESSMENT OF THE CASE 130 FINDINGS, LESSONS, AND THEMES 139 KEY FINDINGS AND LESSONS LEARNED 139 Mineta Transportation Institute Table of Contents ii THEMES FOR CONSIDERATION 143 ENDNOTES 147 ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS 169 BIBLIOGRAPHY 173 ABOUT THE AUTHORS 191 PEER REVIEW 193 Mineta Transportation Institute List of Figures iii LIST OF FIGURES 1.