# Unobligated HSR Funds



## Ben (Oct 2, 2012)

So the deadline to obligate the HSR funds was September 30, but about $168 million remains. What happens next to these funds?


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## afigg (Oct 2, 2012)

Ben said:


> So the deadline to obligate the HSR funds was September 30, but about $168 million remains. What happens next to these funds?


The deadline only applied to the $8 billion in ARRA stimulus funds. It did not apply to the $2.1 billion of FY2010 HSIPR funding. I did a breakdown of the 160 projects by funding source as currently shown as obligated on the FRA website HSIPR status table. Turns out to be simple to copy and paste the table into a Word document and then sort by funding source. It is possible that the table will be updated in the next few days with funds that were obligated late last week.

The breakdown (as of 10/1) is:

ARRA $7,929,953,602 (99.1% of $8 billion)

FY09 $77,775,083

FY10 $1,923,930,000

So there are $70 million in ARRA funds that are not shown as obligated, but some of the remaining funds may be used by the FRA to manage the program. It is possible that the FRA is allowed to hold a small amount as reserve, but that is speculation on my part.

The FY10 funds include $53 million that was awarded to Iowa for the Iowa City portion of the Chicago-Quad Cities-Iowa City corridor (IL received $177 million) which is being held by the FRA until the Iowa legislature and Governor reach a decision on whether to proceed or not.


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## Anderson (Oct 2, 2012)

I'm just wondering, but is there any drop dead date on the Iowa decision?


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## Nathanael (Oct 3, 2012)

Anderson said:


> I'm just wondering, but is there any drop dead date on the Iowa decision?


Now that the funding has been "rearranged" so that the Iowa money is not from ARRA money, I believe there is no drop dead date, or if there is, it's some time quite far away (2017 or something).

Of course, LaHood has the power to set a drop-dead date at any time. I would expect that if Iowa is still doing nothing after the new legislature is seated after the 2012 elections, that he will set such a date.


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## afigg (Oct 3, 2012)

Nathanael said:


> Now that the funding has been "rearranged" so that the Iowa money is not from ARRA money, I believe there is no drop dead date, or if there is, it's some time quite far away (2017 or something).
> 
> Of course, LaHood has the power to set a drop-dead date at any time. I would expect that if Iowa is still doing nothing after the new legislature is seated after the 2012 elections, that he will set such a date.


The Chicago to Iowa City grant was never ARRA money; it was one of the projects selected for the original round of FY2010 grants. The only re-arrangement was splitting the $230 million grant with $177 million going to IL, so the state could proceed with the Chicago to Quad Cities segment and purchase rolling stock as part of the 130 corridor bi-level car order.

I think any drop dead date on the FY2010 funds is some years off because it is part of normal appropriations where the funds can remain authorized for a long time unless Congress specifically closes them out. I agree that it will be up to LaHood or his successor to re-direct or threaten to re-direct the funds if Iowa is still stalled on providing state matching funds in 2013 after the November elections. It is worth it to keep the funds in place for extending service to Iowa City as it would be a notable expansion of new Midwest corridor service outside of IL and MI. Once a corridor service is running to Iowa City, the next logical step would be to extend service to Des Moines and then eventually to Omaha, if Omaha and NE are interested.


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## Anderson (Oct 3, 2012)

Well, since it is 2010 money, if nothing else, could LaHood threaten to redirect the money to bulk up an Amtrak car purchase of some kind?

As to the Iowa City operation, I _do_ want to know one thing I've never asked: Why wasn't Des Moines included in this from the start? I don't think I ever asked, but Iowa City is about 30% the size of Des Moines and therefore seems to border on being a "stub end" for the route. Thinking of current route endpoints, only Port Huron (Blue Water), Carbondale (Illini/Saluki), Quincy (IL Zephyr/Carl Sandburg), Rutland (Ethan Allen), and St. Albans (Vermonter) seem to be smaller, and two of those are operational "accidents" due to trains being truncated. Brunswick, ME will be added to the list in 28 days, but there you at least seem to have a decent-sized tourist market to make up for it, and I know we've talked about there being plans to extend the Ethan Allen to Burlington and to restore the St. Albans-Montreal connection.

So...why such an odd endpoint?


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## Eric S (Oct 3, 2012)

Just speculation on my part, but I imagine IA considered Iowa City to be a good first segment of eventual cross-Iowa (Quad Cities to Omaha) service. Iowa City does have a significant source of potential rail travelers (University of Iowa). Perhaps the thought was that with IL determined to start CHI-Quad Cities service, IA could begin some sort of corridor/regional service fairly cheaply by first extending it to Iowa City. Then, if/when it proves popular, more support would exist for extending that service from Iowa City to Des Moines as a second segment/phase, and then as a third phase from Des Moines to Omaha.


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## afigg (Oct 4, 2012)

Anderson said:


> As to the Iowa City operation, I _do_ want to know one thing I've never asked: Why wasn't Des Moines included in this from the start? I don't think I ever asked, but Iowa City is about 30% the size of Des Moines and therefore seems to border on being a "stub end" for the route.


I suspect the main reason is that the Iowa City leadership and politicians are strong advocates for rail service to Chicago. Any proposed extension route to Des Moines was pending the formal Iowa route alternative study which probably respectable money to reach the obvious route conclusion as was discussed on here months back.

Looking up Iowa City on wiki, it is very much a college town with University of Iowa with a total of 30K students. According to wiki, "Iowa City is tied with Stamford, Connecticut, for the US metropolitan area with the highest percentage of the adult population holding a bachelor's degree or higher; 44 percent of adults hold a degree." So a college town with an educated population, with probably a lot of students, faculty and staff traveling frequently to Chicago and IL. Iowa City has a slightly larger population than Lynchburg, VA which makes for an interesting comparison.

The commercial airport for Iowa City is the Eastern Iowa airport (code CID) which serves Iowa city and Cedar Rapids and is about 20 miles north of Iowa City. The top destinations for CID are Chicago O'Hare, Dallas-FTW, Minneapolis, Detroit hub airports. Looking up the airport stats on the DOT BTS website, the number of passenger flights at CID fell from 11,200 in 2007 to 6K in 2011 and the number of airlines operating at CID fell from 11 to 7. The numbers of passengers has held up better falling from 1.05 million in 2005 to 915 thousand in the past year but jammed in on fewer airplanes. Typical pattern of shrinking service at a small commercial airport.

Looking at the flight options, there are no direct flights from CID to Omaha for example. Looks like the common connecting flights are through O'Hare or Minneapolis with flight times ranging from 3.5 to 5.5 hours. I get a driving time between Iowa City and Omaha of around 4.5 hours. This is a case of where a corridor train service with 79 or 90 mph max speeds between Iowa City and Omaha can compete against air travel because of the airline hub system. Upgrade the corridor to 55 or 60 mph average overall speed and it is faster to take the train to Omaha than to fly on a commercial airline. Get the service running to Iowa City and that should build interest in extending it to Des Moines and then to Omaha. Sounds like a plan.


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