# Can NEC HSR improvments happen for less than $151bn?



## Anderson (Jul 23, 2012)

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/07/13/almost_as_good_high_speed_rail_for_one_tenth_the_cost.html?wpisrc=obnetwork

http://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2012/07/10/northeast-corridor-hsr-90-cheaper/

Though there aren't detailed numbers in either case, and I can't speak to the practicality of some of the proposals, I would at least suggest that in light of the sticker shock associated with the planned project, a bit of discussion about other options might be worthwhile.

In particular, I'm open to points on both longer trainsets instead of trying to wedge more track space in on parts of some routes (this would go for both Amtrak and commuter trains, btw, but it does apply more to Amtrak for obvious reasons...and of course, though they're coming, the longer Acelas are definitely a step in the right direction...though I'll reiterate an earlier lament that Amtrak can't do what the Brits do and have two 8-car sets that actually become one 16-car train), as well as more limited straightening-out projects in lieu of full new alignments.


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## Crescent ATN & TCL (Jul 24, 2012)

Anderson said:


> http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/07/13/almost_as_good_high_speed_rail_for_one_tenth_the_cost.html?wpisrc=obnetwork
> 
> http://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2012/07/10/northeast-corridor-hsr-90-cheaper/
> 
> ...


My understanding is that from WAS to NYP they will essentially use the current alignment and add two 220mph tracks that are separate from the other 2-4 of the current NEC. There will be cases where space or track curvature will require the new tracks to leave the existing ROW to maintain high speed. From NYP to BOS they plan to build a new ROW through Hartford to BOS. Most of the cost is in the NYP to BOS section, the new tunnels in NYP, new bridges, new stations and upgraded stations to handle to new trains.


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## afigg (Jul 25, 2012)

The short answer to the question posed in the subject line is obviously yes. We can implement a Next Gen HSR NEC for less than $151 billion. For starters, the projected (WAG?) cost for the NextGen HSR is $117 billion in the 2012 Vision. $33 billion is for the current NEC, Keystone East, and NHV-SPG corridors. I get the impression that not many on this forum have really READ it.

The Amtrak Vision document is very vague on the NextGen HSR with only hand waving information. We are going to learn more later today (Wednesday July 25) as Washington Post is reporting Amtrak will be unveiling their $7 billion plan for upgrades to DC Union Station. Sounds like they have already gotten many of the local DC politicians lined up in support. If there is a public presentation for DC, I think what we will see is a series of public presentations unveiling a portion at a time, city by city on the NEC, with the respective Senators, Congressional Representatives, Governor, Mayor, local pols being asked in advance for their support.

The only specifics in the 2012 Vision are the NEC upgrades through 2025. If Amtrak can achieve those by 2025, we will have a faster and more reliable NEC with many of the choke-points fixed and the major remaining old bridges replaced or rebuilt.

To talk about the Vision plan in a productive way, we should start with the major program costs elements table shown on page 24 of the 2012 Vision.


```
Program Element
Master Plan South - NYP to WAS and Harrisburg Branch   $14.9 billion
Master Plan North - NYP to BOS and NHV-SPG Branch      $3.9B
Gateway Program - Newark to NYP                        $14.7B  (would love to see a meaningful cost breakdown of this)
NextGen HSR Phase 1 - NYP to WAS                       $51.4B
NextGen HSR Phase 2 - NYP to BOS                       $58.0B  (through CT we go!)
HSR Rolling Stock and Servicing Facilities             $7.6B (HSR trainsets cost that much?)
```


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## jis (Jul 25, 2012)

Yes, I think it is important to break it down into pre-2025 and post 2025. I would also like to see the breakdown of the Gateway Project costs, and I suspect that anything that involves property acquisition in Manhattan is a bit dicey when it comes to estimating costs accurately. Afterall PANYNJ and NJT did learn that lesson very very quickly in their ARC forays. no reason to believe that Amtrak will fare much better on the Block 780 condemnation, unless they have a very enormous ace of some sort up their sleeves.


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## Anderson (Jul 27, 2012)

I read the old Amtrak Next Gen HSR document (i.e. the 2011 one), and aside from sticker shock I got a lot of the gist you have from it. An interesting, worthwhile point is that the document seems to strongly imply the need for CAHSR and the original DX alignment (as well as the FEC project, among others...an extension of DX to Phoenix and CAHSR to San Diego both seem necessary).

Looking over the document, I have to admit that it's the post-2025 stuff that rankles me the most. This isn't to say that I don't want to see improvements on the BOS-NYP times (in particular), but I'm really looking at this situation and sort of dropping my jaw.

One thing that the report does seem to hint at is this: Demand is likely to "take care of itself" due to congestion (since I don't care if Megabus /does/ charge $1, that's not going to do any good if they can't actually keep a decent schedule).

With that said, I do see one potential issue with the plan as a whole: It all implies massive non-business ridership growth on the HSR lines at a PPR level of $135 or so. I do not buy this: The Acela is commanding a massive spike in PPR at the present, yes, but that has quite a lot to do with longer-term capacity limits helping to drive pricing. Cannibalization by the Regionals notwithstanding (and indeed, this might be /helping/ drive those averages up by "weeding out" shorter-distance travelers from the Acela), those averages have spiked sharply over the last two years.

In other words, I doubt we'd be seeing quite these fares if the Acela had the extra 40 cars on the trains. Moreover, the HSR cannibalization from the Regionals implies that Amtrak is expecting to move a lot of traffic from the Regionals to the HSR trains as well. Again, this doesn't bode well for their PPR projections since shorter-distance traffic is going to "water down" PPR. I'm also not buying the added 12 million HSR riders that "showed up" between the 2010 and 2012 plans. The source of some of these diversions has me scratching my head (more on this in a moment).

The problem isn't that the new trains won't be shiny enough or fast enough to attract traffic...I'm just looking at non-business travel and, from the perspective of a generic family of four, this is going to be $1080 for a round trip at an "average" bucket on the HSR line vs. $440 on the Regional. A couple of extra hours at your destination just isn't likely to be worth the extra $640 for a non-business traveler unless we're looking at "endpoint travel" or something close to it (i.e. Boston/Hartford-Washington). I think the prices are realistic (which is refreshing to see)...I'm just not buying the ridership guesses on the HSR lines. I can see someone shifting from Megabus to a Regional because of reliability issues; I can NOT see them shifting to a $120-150 express train.

The other assumption that Amtrak seems to be making is that they can _wipe out _the air markets in the region...that 40% diversion figure (roughly 13-14 million riders, btw) is coming from longer-distance traffic within the NEC, since Amtrak has really already "won" from NYP south. I can see that to/from New York and Philly; I'm not seeing it on the Boston-Washington runs, however. Getting to 30% or 40%, sure, but I'm not sure if you can get 13-14 million air diversions without a total collapse in the air market there.

Oddly, in a way I could see doing the NYP-BOS HSR segment more than I can see the NYP-WAS segment, at least in terms of trip time "bang for buck": The 111 minutes of projected savings over the shorter-term improvements (and 120 minutes over the base case) come to something like $520mn/minute versus $1.35bn/minute. I'm also not sure just how much more traffic Amtrak hopes to get with slashing WAS-NYP under roughly 2:30. At some point, the market is going to start getting maxed out, and somehow I just don't see the benefit of a 40-minute PHL-NYP ride (or one hour PHL-WAS) at the fares they'll be commanding. You'd almost think they wanted to run a "bullet commuter" line south of NYP, and the fare structure they're talking up won't support that.


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## Anderson (Sep 6, 2012)

First of all, a disclaimer: Though I attended their luncheon this year, I'm not formally affiliated with VHSR to my knowledge or recollection.

With that said, I've got a link from them asking for emails to be sent in asking for Virginia's inclusion in the study process. Considering where ridership is in Virginia (Regional ridership originating in VA alone is steadily approaching a million per year), approaching 10% of Regional ridership with only a fraction of the service of the further-up NEC (no segment in VA can boast more than six Regionals, and the only segment with _that_ is the bit from the NS/CSX split to the DC border), VA arguably has some of the greatest potential for increased ridership for Amtrak, both within the state and "up the corridor".

Likewise, Amtrak has stated that extending trains into VA provides incremental revenue to the NEC. Put simply, the cost of extending trains south out of Washington is outweighed by the added revenue that ticket sales both within VA and to WAS and points north provide. As of the latest PIP, both routes are showing substantial profits.

Excluding VA doesn't make sense for a whole host of reasons. Therefore, I _am_ asking y'all to click the link below and help push for VA's inclusion in the NEC Vision.

http://www.vhsr.com/action/necfuture


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## George Harris (Sep 6, 2012)

Anderson said:


> The other assumption that Amtrak seems to be making is that they can _wipe out _the air markets in the region...


They should if they get the end to end (NY-Was & NY-Bos as two seperate end to ends) time under 2 hours. That is what experience showed in Taiwan. The end to end flights, distance 210 miles went from one every 15 minutes or less to about 2 a day. That was with getting to and on the plane much less a hassle than here. If we see 2 hours on each side of NYC, that would get you 4 hours Was-Bos, which is essentially plane competitive, so even though it probably would not wipe out BOS-WAS flights, it should take a huge bite out of the market.

While the capital costs of developing the 2 hour services would be huge, the operating costs would probably be less than now as the runs would be at a more steady speed rather than the continual acceleration/braking alternations that is necessary to achieve the current shorter run times.


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## jis (Sep 6, 2012)

Anderson said:


> Excluding VA doesn't make sense for a whole host of reasons. Therefore, I _am_ asking y'all to click the link below and help push for VA's inclusion in the NEC Vision.
> 
> http://www.vhsr.com/action/necfuture


I have already submitted a comment through the NEC Future feedback process, and also talked to the lady from PB who runs the NEC Future Citizens Meetings about this. So there is at least one comment in the till about this matter.


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## Anderson (Sep 8, 2012)

George Harris said:


> Anderson said:
> 
> 
> > The other assumption that Amtrak seems to be making is that they can _wipe out _the air markets in the region...
> ...


I'm not sure that the operating costs would come down, but I can see what you're saying at least containing any increases. Basically, the top speed would likely be bumping up against some of the limits out there where power consumption starts rising quickly (I recall reading a bit about this with DX/XW...basically, there was a point where adding 10 MPH cut about 7-12 minutes off the trip time but doubled operating expenses).

Basically...I could see markets out to Philly-Boston or Washington-Hartford collapsing. Essentially, everything but the endpoints. And I could also see, depending on what happens on a few of the attached corridors, some "crashing out" in markets involving Albany, Harrisburg, and the like (heck, we're already seeing some of this with PHL-PVD/BOS with just the withdrawal of Southwest from that market). I'm just not sure that the endpoints could work out; I suspect that you're more likely to see some of the air markets from VA to NYC disintegrate first, and honestly that might be more worth the effort and money (since a 2:00 WAS-NYP service combined with a 90 minute WAS-Richmond service such as VA worked out a path to in the early 90s would likely, if you could guarantee a close connection, come in further down in time while also smashing up a smaller overall air market).

The question does come down to whether this is worth it in the scheme of things, though...and there I'm not entirely sure. Yes, I'd like to see this money spent on passenger rail, but I'm also somewhat uneasy about seeing this much money poured into the NEC alone. If it's a choice between this or nothing, obviously I'll pick this, but I'd rather see a broader network of 125 MPH lines (or even electrified 150 MPH lines) in the Midwest and on the Eastern Seaboard.


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## Anderson (Sep 10, 2012)

And as usual, I'll put my drafted comment up here so I can refer to it later:

With respect to the NEC Future Tier I EIS, I would propose several amendments/alterations to the scope and scale of the Environmental Impact Statement:

1) The inclusion of the corridor(s) from Washington, DC through Richmond, VA to Newport News and Norfolk, VA. At the present time, no less than nine Amtrak trains per day on weekdays, and eight per day on weekends, proceed south from Washington to Richmond and/or the Hampton Roads area. This is close to 1/5 of the Amtrak trains operating daily on the NEC, and these trains increasingly make up for a substantial portion of the ridership on the NEC. Moreover, the steady increase in ridership, combined with Virginia's intent to increase the number of trains on this section from 9 to at least 13 per day (nine of which will be Regionals) suggests that the impact of Virginia ridership on the NEC will be substantial.

2) The inclusion of the corridor from Washington, DC to Lynchburg and/or Roanoke, VA. This corridor has been a smashing success, and is on course to carry over 200,000 riders per year with only a single regional train supplementing Amtrak's Crescent. As with the Richmond/Hampton Roads corridor, there are plans to expand service, extending the present Lynchburg train to Roanoke; additionally, the state has reportedly expressed interest in adding at least one more daily train on this route.

Almost unique throughout the United States, both of these corridors currently accrue substantial revenue to the Northeast Corridor, offering Amtrak substantial net benefits for serving Virginia. Put more plainly, Northeast Regional service to Virginia is profitable for Amtrak. Moreover, the state of Virginia is among the fastest-growing in the region, and increasing populations and population densities in the state offer the NEC one of its greatest potentials for ridership growth in the coming decades. Moreover, the growth is projected to be such that the interstate highway system in Virginia, already approaching capacity, will likely be unable to absorb all of the added demand. At the present time, gridlock frequently overwhelms I-95 around Washington, DC; while summertime traffic headed through Virginia leaves both I-95 and I-64 facing daily gridlock on both weekdays and weekends for several months out of the year. As such, reliable rail service both within Virginia and to destinations beyond, particularly along the NEC, has great potential and upgraded service can be implemented both more quickly and less expensively than can additional interstate capacity.

Additionally, the likely impact of the Southeast High Speed Rail (SEHSR) project should be given consideration. While the ultimate status of this project is to be seen, the long term plans here call for no less than four daily trains proceeding south from Washington, DC to Charlotte, NC. The current report only hints at this project in passing, but its mentioned inclusion underestimates the potential for ridership generation on this front. Though including the entirety of this project would widen the scope of the NEC Future EIS enough to potentially cause problems with the sheer scope of the report, its effects should at least recieve a reasonable its likely impact should be given weight in the report.

Similar consideration should be given to other complementary services, including but not limited to:

-Services such as the Maple Leaf/Empire Corridor services running beyond Albany; the Vermonter; the Pennsylvanian; the Adirondack; and the Downeaster, all of which provide daylight service between various areas and one or more cities along the NEC, as well as connections to the rest of the Corridor

-Long-distance services such as the Silver Meteor, Crescent, and Cardinal, and Lake Shore Limited. Four of these trains run along the NEC for approximately 225 miles from New York's Penn Station to Washington Union Station, before continuing to Chicago, IL; Miami, FL; and New Orleans, LA. Additionally, the Lake Shore Limited and Capitol Limited provide connecting services from Boston, MA; New York, NY; and Washington, DC to Chicago and points west, and Amtrak is presently seeking to add cars to the Pennsylvanian to add direct service from Philadelphia, PA to Chicago, IL.

In both cases, these services operate directly on the NEC for part of their operation and/or they provide connecting services which have the potential to add substantial ridership to the NEC. In the case of the Capitol Limited, a large number of users connect through Washington Union Station on their way from the Midwest to Florida.

To realize the full benefits that the NEC can reap through these services, these regions must be included in the planning process for the NEC. As such, I make the following recommendations:

1) Expand the study area of the Future NEC to include the relevant parts of the states of Virginia, including both the "Golden Crescent" of the Washington-Richmond-Hampton Roads corridor and the Washington-Lynchburg corridor;

2) Clearly take into account the complementary services, including but not limited to the SEHSR project and all other corridor operations serving cities along the NEC, as well as long-distance services providing the same;

3) Schedule and conduct some NEC study groups, agency scoping meetings, and public hearings in Virginia along the Commonwealth’s Golden Crescent; and

4) Amend Title 49, section 24102, part 6 of the United States Code to add Virginia as part of the Northeast Corridor; and

5) Amend Title 49, section 24102, part 5 to include Virginia's Golden Crescent as part of subpart A.

I appreciate your consideration of these comments.

Sincerely

[REDACTED]

In plain English, VHSR had a good gist in their letter...but I didn't quite find it sufficient as it failed to make serious mention of SEHSR (in particular) or more than hint at "network effect" issues surrounding the decent pile of NEC-serving trains, both on other corridors connecting to the NEC (or partly on the NEC) or to even _touch_ on the six LD trains that serve NEC stations.


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