# States that decline rail funding are missing out



## CHamilton (Dec 20, 2013)

High speed rail is the interstate highway system of the future



> In 2011, Governor Walker ( R ) of Wisconsin, Governor Scott ( R ) of Florida, and Governor Kaisch ( R ) of Ohio rejected federal funds for high speed rail. High speed rail will be the economic engine of our country's future and by rejecting these funds these three Republican governors have in essence crippled their own states economic future. The decision to reject these funds was done as a short-sighted political action without regard to the needs of their individual states or the needs of the country as a whole.
> Declining these funds has meant missed opportunities and missed job creation. It also means that plans for a national high speed rail system are on hold. Three governors with only a political agenda in mind have disrupted and crippled the future of American transportation.
> In 1956 it would have been inconceivable that a governor would turn down federal funds for an infrastructure project. Today, it has happened not once but three times.


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## me_little_me (Dec 20, 2013)

I'd say that the article upon which you are basing your theory is misleading.

It proves that building superwide freeways for commuters did not solve our transportation needs (based on the picture shown). In fact, had the country invested in good commuter rail transportation, we might have been better off. So the picture has no meaning in regards to the intercity high speed rail being planned. A good, reliable, clean safe 80MPH commuter line is what is needed.

Similarly, spending zillions on a few superfast trains seems so wasteful to me. In a time when we see Amtrak trains running at 30MPH behind a freight or due to poorly maintained (for passenger service) freight tracks or sitting on sidings due to the lack of double/triple tracking, bottlenecks because of hundred year-old bridges and tunnels, slowness due to numerous crossings, lack of sidings for stations to clear a main line and failure to give passenger trains priority, a lot fewer zillions can be spent making trains capable of doing 90MPH actually go that speed and near future ones doing 120.

Closing small city airports and replacing them with regular train service to the bigger towns and, just as importantly, bigger airports, would halve the number of flights. In addition, additional and more convenient Auto-trains would make for an integrated intercity transportation plan.

I think people will be happier knowing they can get to more cities at 120MPH with slowdowns only due to hourly stops than they would be to far fewer cities at far higher cost to build the infrastructure so they can do it at 200MPH.


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## John Bredin (Dec 20, 2013)

You realize that a lot of of the "high speed rail" funds are for exactly the sort of incremental under-125mph improvements you're talking about, right?

The funds rejected by Wisconsin to extend the Hiawathas to Madison and rejected by Ohio to run Cincinnati-Dayton-Columbus-Cleveland trains were for conventional trains, not true HSR.

Illinois and Michigan are spending part of the money on 110mph service, but not 150 or 220 mph except for some (very) preliminary planning. California got money for true HSR, but 1) some for conventional projects too and 2) they have a well-developed corridor system already. For example, California, Illinois, Michigan, and Missouri collectively received federal funds for 130 new conventional bilevel corridor cars.


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## WICT106 (Dec 22, 2013)

The opponents of rail service expansions in the 2010 elections showed no understanding at all of how various forms of transportation compliment each other. The Madison Hiawatha extension was called a "rip-off" as it was convention-yet-faster speed rail being labelled as HSR. No mention at all was made of the fact that the train would've stopped at MKE's airport and how folks in the Madison area could've boarded at their station, take the train to MKE, and then fly out. No understanding at all of how things fit together in a transportation network. I think that advocates need to do a better job of illustrating how trains serve as part of the overall network, as the opponents will only get more vocal and politicize rail service even more.


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## grover5995 (Jul 27, 2014)

Voters in FL, OH and WI will soon see the benefits of improved passenger service in other states. Political ideology gets to be pretty expensive after a while in terms of lost opportunities for business growth and property delevopment. By comparison, MI has a conservative GOP governor who understands the value of improved passenger service. Ann Arbor is currently building a new station which has resulted in $100 million in related real estate developments. Similar growth is seen at other cities like Battle Creek, Kalamazoo, Jackson, Dearborn and Pontiac. There has also been similar growth in IL cities like Joliet, Bloomington/Normal and Springfield while the Lincoln Service between Chicago - St. Louis is upgraded to 110mph standards.


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## jis (Jul 27, 2014)

I am not sure what to make of the Florida situation. The AAF Miami - Orlando project makes a heck of a lot more sense than the Orlando - Tampa project that Florida rejected. And fortunately that money got put to good use to upgrade the NEC in NJ. Having talked to many folks in Florida who apparently also vote, I get the sense that they in general neither know, nor understand or care about whatever was going on between Orlando and Tampa. Personally, even back then I thought it was a mighty odd project to fund for that kind of speed.

Meanwhile three major stations are in the process of getting constructed in Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, and a fourth one in Miami is coming on line. And Orlando just got a brand spanking new commuter rail service which is now going to be extended in Phase 2 and folks are already talking about extending it to Daytona in a later phase. Also the extension of TriRail along FEC is being apparently pursued actively. So lots happening and I am not sure too many other than the true believers will remember anything about the brief Orlando - Tampa project. Florida is not like Ohio, Indiana or Wisconsin in that respect.

While I like the fact that Lincoln Service is being developed, it also appears to be one of the more phenomenal boondogglish project in terms of what we are getting for the amount of money being spent on it over the incredible amount of time it is taking to get a few miles upto speed. I wish there was a more efficient way of achieving that both temporally and financially.


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## neroden (Jul 28, 2014)

jis said:


> I am not sure what to make of the Florida situation. The AAF Miami - Orlando project makes a heck of a lot more sense than the Orlando - Tampa project that Florida rejected.


....unless you're Tampa. Tampa got screwed by Governor Scott's rejection of the federal money. I hope that high speed Orlando-Tampa service gets revived soon, perhaps as an extension of the Miami-Orlando project. Frankly, direct Amtrak service to Tampa should be displaced by such a service, which would create substantial network efficiencies.


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## jis (Jul 28, 2014)

Sure. But still the Orlando - Miami project makes more sense than the Orlando - Tampa project as the first intercity corridor to address in Florida.


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## Anderson (Jul 28, 2014)

Eh, Tampa didn't miss out on much. The train didn't go into downtown Orlando, it went to the airport (so you'd get to Orlando and then have to rent a car or hire a taxi to go into town), and there was no clear plan to fund phase two (to Miami). A SunRail connection from there to downtown wasn't happening yet (though it might have ended up on the books by now with that, to be fair...but it's already getting a lot of traction).

I've called the train "Disney's Ghost" because without going to Miami or getting a good link downtown it was basically a massive people mover for Disney World. It's something Walt might have come up with...only without as much envisioned functionality as he tended to include in his ideas.


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## George Harris (Jul 28, 2014)

Anderson said:


> Eh, Tampa didn't miss out on much. The train didn't go into downtown Orlando, it went to the airport (so you'd get to Orlando and then have to rent a car or hire a taxi to go into town), and there was no clear plan to fund phase two (to Miami). A SunRail connection from there to downtown wasn't happening yet (though it might have ended up on the books by now with that, to be fair...but it's already getting a lot of traction).
> 
> I've called the train "Disney's Ghost" because without going to Miami or getting a good link downtown it was basically a massive people mover for Disney World. It's something Walt might have come up with...only without as much envisioned functionality as he tended to include in his ideas.


The above is why this system deserved to die. It was not the best use of the money. Beyond the current Disney management and those that want rail of any kind any where the concept was essentially unsupportable. Don't think Walt would like where his dream has gone.

A far better use of money would have been to speed up and improve capacity of the route of the Tampa-Miami Silver Palm putting on it some 4 to 6 trains per day between Tampa and Miami. Extending it to run around Tampa Bay like the old Seaboard Airl Line Florida trains would have been a good thing as well.


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## Anderson (Jul 28, 2014)

Well, and I think there's a reason that FEC waited until after the project blew up to step in...they didn't want to talk up their service only for a state/federal bullet train to get dropped in next to them and wipe out their business. I _very _much suspect that FEC had their eyes on this for a little while before they announced...they clearly didn't just jump in out of the blue.


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## jphjaxfl (Jul 29, 2014)

There are lots of Tourists traveling from South Florida to Orlando and the All Aboard Florida projects makes lots of sense. For those of us Floridians who have sat in bumper to bumper traffic on I-4 between Tampa and Orlando wishing there was a high speed train as an alternative, we wish the funds had not been given away and we have an election coming up.. Using the existing early 20th century Amtrak route won't work. It needs to be a whole new 21st century alignment. Whether the train goes to downtown Orlando doesn't matter much, but it needs to go to the Orlando Airport where a new ground transportation hub is being developed. Lots of people have been to Orlando many times and have no idea where Downtown is. They go to the entertainment venues, the malls or the Airport. The same applies to Tampa.


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## cirdan (Jul 29, 2014)

neroden said:


> ....unless you're Tampa. Tampa got screwed by Governor Scott's rejection of the federal money. I hope that high speed Orlando-Tampa service gets revived soon, perhaps as an extension of the Miami-Orlando project. Frankly, direct Amtrak service to Tampa should be displaced by such a service, which would create substantial network efficiencies.


From my reading of the plans for thze Orlando airport station, it's planned as a dead end. It would probably have to be torn down and built from scratch if that line ever needed to be extended.


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## Brian_Tampa (Jul 29, 2014)

@cirdan

The Orlando airport station IS planned as a through station, but only for AAF and not SunRail. AAF is going to put their maintenance facility in the same place as proposed for the HSR project. They will use the same route to Tampa as the HSR project, more or less, if AAF ever expands to Tampa.

If AAF does expand to Tampa and Jacksonville, I think Amtrak will retrench further from Florida. I saw some traffic data for 2012? and fully 1/3 of the silver trains passengers were intra-Florida if I recall correctly.

Brian_Tampa


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## cirdan (Jul 29, 2014)

Brian_Tampa said:


> @cirdan
> 
> The Orlando airport station IS planned as a through station, but only for AAF and not SunRail. AAF is going to put their maintenance facility in the same place as proposed for the HSR project. They will use the same route to Tampa as the HSR project, more or less, if AAF ever expands to Tampa.


Thanks for that clarification. It makes more sense now.



Brian_Tampa said:


> If AAF does expand to Tampa and Jacksonville, I think Amtrak will retrench further from Florida. I saw some traffic data for 2012? and fully 1/3 of the silver trains passengers were intra-Florida if I recall correctly.
> 
> Brian_Tampa


I see what you're getting at but just wish you were wrong. Without Florida, the Silver Service wouldn't be able to survive. If AAF kills off the Silver Service, that would be a very tragic unintended consequence.

Maybe those intra Florida passengers are mostly short-haul and low revenue so in the bigger picture, the financial impact on Amtrak wouldn't be so great.


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## jis (Jul 29, 2014)

I don't think Amtrak will retrench New York - Miami service. It might retrench Tampa though, if there is high speed connecting service available from Orlando to Tamp that is easy to connect to from Amtrak.

BTW, the recent decision by the STB regarding lack of jurisdiction over NJT opens the door for allowing connecting service between Amtrak and AAF without running afoul of STB ruling of non-jurisdiction over AAF. STB ruled that it has no jurisdiction over NJT even though NJT passengers may connect to Amtrak.In reality Amtrak even issues NJT tickets without running afoul of this, and Amtrak uses NJT as a Thruway service from PHL to ACY and points in between.


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## Ryan (Jul 29, 2014)

cirdan said:


> Brian_Tampa said:
> 
> 
> > If AAF does expand to Tampa and Jacksonville, I think Amtrak will retrench further from Florida. I saw some traffic data for 2012? and fully 1/3 of the silver trains passengers were intra-Florida if I recall correctly.
> ...


It means all those seats taken up by low-fare paying Floridians can now be sold to high-fare paying New Yorkers. Amtrak will probably come out ahead on the deal.


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## Paulus (Jul 29, 2014)

Intra-Florida traffic is ≥23% of the combined Silver Service ridership. That's a major financial hit to take and I doubt you'd get high-fare paying New Yorkers to replace them: When the Silver Palm ran, with all its extra capacity, all it did was cannibalize ridership from the others.


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## cirdan (Jul 29, 2014)

jis said:


> I don't think Amtrak will retrench New York - Miami service. It might retrench Tampa though, if there is high speed connecting service available from Orlando to Tamp that is easy to connect to from Amtrak.


Only if Amtrak and AAF actually serve the same station in Orlando. Right now that doesn't seem to be what they're planning. If you've got to transfer between two locations, that's going to dissuade a whole bunch of potential riders.


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## cirdan (Jul 29, 2014)

Paulus said:


> Intra-Florida traffic is ≥23% of the combined Silver Service ridership. That's a major financial hit to take and I doubt you'd get high-fare paying New Yorkers to replace them: When the Silver Palm ran, with all its extra capacity, all it did was cannibalize ridership from the others.


23% of riders, but what percentage of revenues?


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## jis (Jul 29, 2014)

cirdan said:


> jis said:
> 
> 
> > I don't think Amtrak will retrench New York - Miami service. It might retrench Tampa though, if there is high speed connecting service available from Orlando to Tamp that is easy to connect to from Amtrak.
> ...


As I said, only if the connection is convenient, which according the current plans it will not be. So I would not foresee Amtrak getting out of Tampa either, unless things change to meet that critical requirement.


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## Paulus (Jul 29, 2014)

cirdan said:


> Paulus said:
> 
> 
> > Intra-Florida traffic is ≥23% of the combined Silver Service ridership. That's a major financial hit to take and I doubt you'd get high-fare paying New Yorkers to replace them: When the Silver Palm ran, with all its extra capacity, all it did was cannibalize ridership from the others.
> ...


Don't have the breakdown for that, but probably 15-20% I'd suspect.


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## jis (Jul 29, 2014)

OTOH, if someone at present is taking one of the Silvers from Sebring to Fort Lauderdale, it is not like they will suddenly develop and urge to drive to orlando to take AAF either.


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## jphjaxfl (Jul 29, 2014)

One of the reasons Amtrak intrastate business has dropped is curtailment of service by Amtrak. When I moved to Jacksonville in 9/2003, there were 6 daily trains plus the tri-weekly Sunset Limited. There were 3 good choices to Miami and vv, 2 or 3 to Orlando and vv. The schedulesecond were more dependable. Now Jacksonville has 4 trains daily.Southbound they are scheduled close together so there is really 1 choice. You can't plan anything at your destination because who knows what time you might arrive. Amtrak has already almost abandoned Tampa. If the Star is running late, Tampa passengers are put on a connecting bus to or from the Star. I have personally had this happen often. Most Florida's consider Amtrak intra state service ajoke. It's much more dependable to get in your car and drive. Even with heavy traffic you have a better chance keeping your commitments.


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## jis (Jul 29, 2014)

In general Amtrak LD trains should ideally augment existing local intra-state service. It is unreasonable to expect Amtrak to be the primary provider of intra-state service. It generally does not do so even in the northeast on the NEC.


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## cirdan (Jul 30, 2014)

Paulus said:


> Intra-Florida traffic is ≥23% of the combined Silver Service ridership. That's a major financial hit to take and I doubt you'd get high-fare paying New Yorkers to replace them: When the Silver Palm ran, with all its extra capacity, all it did was cannibalize ridership from the others.


I've never actually been to Florida by Amtrak and the main reason for that is that every time I had an opportunity to travel, the Silvers were fully booked on the days that I could have gone.


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## neroden (Jul 30, 2014)

jis said:


> BTW, the recent decision by the STB regarding lack of jurisdiction over NJT opens the door for allowing connecting service between Amtrak and AAF without running afoul of STB ruling of non-jurisdiction over AAF. STB ruled that it has no jurisdiction over NJT even though NJT passengers may connect to Amtrak.In reality Amtrak even issues NJT tickets without running afoul of this, and Amtrak uses NJT as a Thruway service from PHL to ACY and points in between.


And NJT runs freight on the lines it owns, and NJT runs on freight-owned lines. And NJT runs INTERSTATE passenger service (to Pennsylvania on its own behalf, and to New York under contract). Over lines shared with freight. I'd like to see the ruling because it sounds like complete nonsense; it would eliminate the entire jurisdiction of the STB over passenger service, which is clearly contrary to the intent of Congress and the text of the law.
If you're describing the case rightly, this is making the California HSR jurisdiction ruling even more of an odd man out. This is inconsistent jurisprudence; it looks like there's no rational distinction being made here, just arbitrary and capricious choices by the STB. If this is really the way the STB is ruling, (a) board members will need to be replaced by people with some consistency, and (b) a law will probably need to be passed to overturn the "precedents" created by this mess.


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## jphjaxfl (Jul 30, 2014)

Because, Amtrak intrastate service in Florida has become less attractive through the years, All Aboard Florida is being developed. If the Miami to Orlando route is successful, other routes will be developed. Once the AAF terminal and parking garage at MCO is built and the line opens, a number of us in JAX plan to drive there and catch AAF to South Florida.


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## Green Maned Lion (Jul 30, 2014)

AAF is primarily a real estate venture, from what I can tell.


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## jis (Jul 30, 2014)

neroden said:


> And NJT runs freight on the lines it owns, and NJT runs on freight-owned lines. And NJT runs INTERSTATE passenger service (to Pennsylvania on its own behalf, and to New York under contract). Over lines shared with freight. I'd like to see the ruling because it sounds like complete nonsense; it would eliminate the entire jurisdiction of the STB over passenger service, which is clearly contrary to the intent of Congress and the text of the law.


All of that is completely irrelevant because the law clearly states that government run transit/commuter rail systems are outside the purview of STB, irrespective of who they interline with or what freight runs on their lines. They are free to discontinue or start passenger service as they see fit, which is the matter at hand in Princeton. They did not say anything about running freight since there is no freight service to Princeton and that was not an issue. But as far as passenger service is concerned the intent of Congress is amply clear and STB ruling is consistent with it.
BTW NJT service to New York, the majority of it is on its own behalf. They have a relatively small contract service that they run for MNRR for the west of Hudson service of MNRR. It is really a continuation of legacy Erie service, which was run using subsidy from new York State before Conrail rationalization.



> If you're describing the case rightly, this is making the California HSR jurisdiction ruling even more of an odd man out. This is inconsistent jurisprudence; it looks like there's no rational distinction being made here, just arbitrary and capricious choices by the STB. If this is really the way the STB is ruling, (a) board members will need to be replaced by people with some consistency, and (b) a law will probably need to be passed to overturn the "precedents" created by this mess.


The distinction apparently is that the California style HSR is not a commuter service as defined by the law. As for the law, a new one is necessary that does not spell out special treatment for government run commuter service. I am not holding my breath on that one. I don;t think changing the STB members will lead to a different result on this specific one.
BTW, I have also gotten the sense of late that STB really does not want to deal too much with passenger rail if it can help it. In that sense the California HSR decision is the odd one. But I suppose they could not find any clause in the enabling on which they could hang their hat on avoiding that one too. I am sure they'd as soon wash their hands off of Amtrak too if they could.


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## neroden (Jul 31, 2014)

jis said:


> neroden said:
> 
> 
> > And NJT runs freight on the lines it owns, and NJT runs on freight-owned lines. And NJT runs INTERSTATE passenger service (to Pennsylvania on its own behalf, and to New York under contract). Over lines shared with freight. I'd like to see the ruling because it sounds like complete nonsense; it would eliminate the entire jurisdiction of the STB over passenger service, which is clearly contrary to the intent of Congress and the text of the law.
> ...


No, it does not say any such thing. Citation if you still think you're right, since you're completely wrong.



> irrespective of who they interline with or what freight runs on their lines. They are free to discontinue or start passenger service as they see fit, which is the matter at hand in Princeton.


Oh, THAT -- yes, the STB has no jurisdiction over *whether NJT starts or discontinues their own commuter services*. That's not at all the same thing as having no jurisdiction over NJT in general. The STB absolutely retains jurisdiction over NJT in regards to many, many other matters, including whether they are required to provide access to freight haulers or other passenger carriers, and all kinds of other things like that.
In short, this is a narrow ruling. Looking at it more closely, it's still an *incorrect* ruling, since the intent of Congress is very clear: ripping up tracks is supposed to require STB approval, whether passenger or freight. But it's a narrow ruling, and doesn't change the fact that the STB has lots of authority over NJT. The "commuter service" exemption from jurisdiction was intended as an anti-micromanagement provision, not an exemption for stuff like ripping tracks out to build housing on them.

I think you're right that the current STB members want to shirk their responsibilities with regards to passenger rail. This is contrary to the intent of Congress, of course (recall that the STB regulates passenger buses as well as passenger rail), which is why changing the composition of the STB would help.

---

I dug up the citations. STB is relying on 10501©(2)(a). However, the STB retains jurisdiction over many matters relating to NJT at 10501©(3)(A) and 10501©(3)(B) (relating to switching and terminal traffic of other railroads).

Furthermore, since 10501©(2)(a) only exempts "mass transportation provided by a local government authority", the STB's authority continues to apply to any activities of NJT which don't fall in that category, including most obviously hosting of freight, but arguably including a lot of other stuff (charters, contract operations, track demolition, etc.)

The STB very carefully cabined its ruling of non-jurisdiction to the Princeton Branch and the Princeton Branch service, so as not to accidentally disclaim more jurisdiction.

The STB's claim is that the obligation of freight service and the obligation to seek STB approval for abandonment and demolition of the Princeton branch was dropped by Congress at the formation of Conrail. I consider this argument tendentious; but regardless, this is an argument which is based on specific provisions of the 3R Act which formed Conrail and so only applies to a very small list of railway lines.


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## jis (Jul 31, 2014)

As I did not intend to claim anything more than what you discovered I guess we may really not be disagreeing on anything. Tracks on which freight operates is about freight. Even on those tracks STB has never stopped NJT from starting or discontinuing commuter service as they see fit. As long as freight access is maintained they don't care what happens to commuter service.

Sent from my iPhone using Amtrak Forum


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