After months of inflammatory rhetoric attacking business and commercial aviation which has contributed to the critical state of demand, President Barack Obama added icing on the cake yesterday as he announced an $8 billion package to encourage development of high-speed rail, something that has been undermining short-haul air service in Europe for years. The initiative is aimed at “reducing dependence on cars and planes and spurring economic development.”

The President, Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood are urging states and local communities to put together plans for a network of 100-mile to 600-mile corridors, which will compete for the federal dollars. “Everyone knows railways are the best way to connect communities to each other, and as a daily rail commuter for over 35 years, this announcement is near and dear to my heart,” said Vice President Biden during the ceremony, citing his daily commute between Washington and Delaware when he was a senator.

The strategic plan released yesterday formalizes the identification of 10 high-speed rail corridors as potential recipients of federal funding that could undermine bread-and-butter air service across the country. Those lines are: California, Pacific Northwest, South Central, Gulf Coast, Chicago Hub Network, Florida, Southeast, Keystone, Empire and Northern New England. Also, opportunities exist for the Northeast Corridor from Washington to Boston to compete for funds to improve the nation’s only existing high-speed rail service.

While years away, high-speed rail would certainly have an impact on The Slog, Horizon Air’s nomenclature for I-5 between Seattle and Portland. But wait, it is important to understand the definition of high-speed rail for the Obama Administration. It is not the 200+ miles per hour that is the goal of European rail lines. High-speed rail is rehabilitating tracks that can carry trains at 90 mph, half that for Japan’s 180-mph bullet trains.

The corridors include:
• California – San Francisco Bay Area, Sacramento, Los Angeles and San Diego
• Pacific Northwest – Eugene, Portland, Tacoma, Seattle and Vancouver, BC
• South Central – Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Dallas/Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio and Little Rock
• Gulf Coast – Houston, New Orleans, Mobile, Birmingham and Atlanta
• Chicago hub network – Chicago, Milwaukee, Minneapolis-St. Paul, St. Louis, Kansas City, Detroit, Toledo, Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Louisville
• Florida – Orlando, Tampa and Miami
• Southeast – Richmond, Raleigh, Charlotte, Atlanta, Macon, Savannah, Columbia, Jacksonville and Washington, D.C.
• Keystone – Philadelphia, Harrisburg and Pittsburgh
• Empire – New York City, Albany and Buffalo
• Northern New England – Boston, Montreal, Portland, Springfield, New Haven and Albany

To add insult to injury, Obama cited Eisenhower’s efforts to build the highway system as the model for the effort; a commitment the aviation industry wants, and, so far, is not getting, for the roll out of NextGen. The plan identifies $8 billion provided in the ARRA and $1 billion a year for five years requested in the federal budget as a down payment to jump-start a potential world-class passenger rail system and sets the direction of transportation policy for the future.

Meanwhile, the airline industry can only salivate at the unprecedented level of rail spending being released in the near future. By late summer, the Federal Railroad Administration will begin awarding the first round of grants. Additional funding for long-term planning and development is expected from legislation authorizing federal surface transportation programs.

Citing the potential for saving the environment, creating jobs and make ground transport more efficient, President Obama, along with Biden and LaHood, an $8 billion investment in high-speed rail lines as it released a strategic plan as part of the stimulus package. The President, Vice President and Secretary of Transportation are urging states and local communities to put together plans for a network of 100-mile to 600-mile corridors, which will compete for the federal dollars.

“My high-speed rail proposal will lead to innovations that change the way we travel in America,” said President Obama. “We must start developing clean, energy-efficient transportation that will define our regions for centuries to come. A major new high-speed rail line will generate many thousands of construction jobs over several years, as well as permanent jobs for rail employees and increased economic activity in the destinations these trains serve. High-speed rail is long-overdue, and this plan lets American travelers know that they are not doomed to a future of long lines at the airports or jammed cars on the highways.”

“President Obama's vision of robust, high-speed rail service offers Americans the kind of travel options that throughout our history have contributed to economic growth and enhanced quality of life,” said Secretary LaHood. “We simply can't build the economy of the future on the transportation networks of the past.”

Meanwhile, those networks from the past could not have been built without massive government subsidization in creating such landmark services as the transcontinental railroads. The resulting boon to the robber barons of the era included millions of square miles surrounding tracks of land grants made to the railroads and provided a further boon as companies sold off the land for development. The corruption that ensued resulted in California naming Mt. Whitney for the person who “re-defined” gently sloping grades – which gained the lowest government subsidy – to mountainous grades, which, of course, gained the highest subsidy. The barge industry has been using this argument for years on the tilted competitive environment in the ground freight industry as it sought more funding.

The plan identifies two types of projects for funding. One would create new corridors for world-class high-speed rail similar to European and Japanese systems while another would involve making train service along existing rail lines incrementally faster.

The greening of Europe has long included an attack on short-haul air service which was significantly impacted by the growth of high-speed rail service on the Continent and in Britain. Citing the increasing air travel hassle, European rail officials, in testimony before the Senate, said high-speed rail is consistently winning market share form short-haul air and auto traffic. Of course, regionals would remind them that their success has come with subsidies that put airlines at a competitive disadvantage.

The European Experience
High-speed rail has historically captured the major share of combined air/rail traffic along routes where train journeys are under three hours. But this changed with the rollout of new high-speed routes in 2007, according to French National Railroads (SNCF) CEO Guillaume Pepy: "With air travel becoming more complicated and increasing airport congestion, high-speed rail now wins 50 percent of the traffic where rail journeys are 4.5 hours or less," he said. On the Paris-Perpignan route (five hours by train), TGV has 51 percent of the air/rail market, on Paris-Toulon (four hours) 68 percent. On routes with two hours or less train travel time, rail traditionally wins 90 percent of market share.

The first European high-speed line (Paris-Lyon) carried two million passengers in the first year of operation growing to the hundreds of millions today. The total number of high-speed train passengers throughout Europe has been rising steadily from 183 million in 2000 to 245 million in 2005, according to the International Railway Association (UIC).

In France, rail held only 22 percent of the combined Paris-Marseille air-rail market before TGV Mediterranean went into service in 2001, but in four years that market share rose to 65 percent and in 2006 it was 69 percent forcing easyJet to abandon its Paris-Marseille flights. Similarly, bmi discontinued London-Paris after Eurostar won more than 70 percent market share of that market. It also won more than 64 of London-Brussels by 2007.

The new TGV East line, connecting Paris to eastern France, Germany, Luxembourg, and Switzerland in nearly half the time of current rail service, was set to capture 75 percent of the Paris-Strasbourg market last year with expectations it would ultimately take 90 percent. Before the introduction of high-speed rail, the route took four hours by train, and, in 2007 airlines held 60 percent of the market. With new TGV routes, travel was expected to drop to two hours and 20 minutes.

Air France suspended its Paris-Metz flights a month after TGV East went into service. TGV East provides faster, direct connections between 20 French destinations and Paris and between 10 destinations in Germany, Luxembourg and Switzerland. High-speed trains also connect passengers to major European airports, including Paris Charles de Gaulle airport, Amsterdam's Schipol, Frankfurt, Zurich, Geneva, Lyon and others, enabling trans-Atlantic passengers to connect to high-speed trains instead of European regionals at the airports.

Madrid-Barcelona went from nearly seven hours by train to 4.5 hours and then four hours and by the end of last year was set to go down to 2.5 hours. Last year was also the timing for the anticipated 186 mph service for Zuid’s Thalys train in the Brussels-Amsterdam route dropping the time from three hours to 1.5 for its hourly shuttle service. London-Amsterdam dropped from four to 3.5 hours on Eurostar which also operates a 2.15-trip between London and Paris.

Paris to Marseille (480 mi. - same as NY-Detroit) takes three hours by high-speed TGV train. Paris to Brussels (185 mi), a distance comparable to NY-Boston takes 1 hour, 25 minutes on Thalys. Similarly, the 85 mile trip from Paris-Reims – a distance comparable NY-Philadelphia – was expected to drop from 1 hour and 35 minutes to 45 minutes.

In 2007, the world speed record for steel-wheels-on-steel-track trains was just set by a specially-modified experimental French TGV with a top speed of 357 mph. Top operating speed for passenger travel of most high-speed trains in Europe was 186 mph, which was upped to 199 mph that year with a goal of 224. Of equal importance is the over 90-percent on-time reliability of rail service which far outstripped airline competitors plagued by delays.

While these figure are old (2007), rail officials touted emissions reduction of 36 percent for high-speed rail at a time when other ground transport was growing at 19 percent over 15 years and air transport was up 8.9 percent. “When calculated per 100 passenger kilometers air travel generates more than four times CO2 emissions than high-speed rail, and private cars generate 3.5 times the CO2 (measured in kilograms per 100 passenger kilometers),” according to statistics compiled by the UIC from European environmental agencies at the time. One high-speed operator’s report noted that air passenger between London-Paris generates 122 kilograms of CO2, compared with just 11 kg for a traveler making the roundtrip on Eurostar.

High-speed rail has faced an uphill battle in Congress but may now get a boost. Under President Obama’s plan, high-speed rail development will advance along three funding tracks:

* Individual Projects. Providing grants to complete individual projects that are “ready to go” with completed environmental and preliminary engineering work – with an emphasis on near term job creation. Eligible projects include acquisition, construction of or improvements to infrastructure, facilities and equipment.

* Corridor programs. Developing entire phases or geographic sections of high-speed rail corridors that have completed corridor plans, environmental documentation and have a prioritized list of projects to help meet the corridor objectives.

* Planning. Entering into cooperative agreements for planning activities (including development of corridor plans and State Rail Plans) using non-American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) appropriations funds. This third approach is intended to help establish a structured mechanism and funding stream for future corridor development activities.