[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
LAGGING BEHIND: THE STATE OF HIGH SPEED RAIL IN THE UNITED STATES
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
TRANSPORTATION AND PUBLIC ASSETS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JULY 14, 2016
__________
Serial No. 114-70
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah, Chairman
JOHN L. MICA, Florida ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland,
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio Ranking Minority Member
JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
JIM JORDAN, Ohio ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
TIM WALBERG, Michigan Columbia
JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee JIM COOPER, Tennessee
TREY GOWDY, South Carolina GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas MATT CARTWRIGHT, Pennsylvania
CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina BRENDA L. LAWRENCE, Michigan
RON DeSANTIS, Florida TED LIEU, California
MICK, MULVANEY, South Carolina BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN, New Jersey
KEN BUCK, Colorado STACEY E. PLASKETT, Virgin Islands
MARK WALKER, North Carolina MARK DeSAULNIER, California
ROD BLUM, Massachusetts BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania
JODY B. HICE, Georgia PETER WELCH, Vermont
STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM, New Mexico
EARL L. ``BUDDY'' CARTER, Georgia
GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin
WILL HURD, Texas
GARY J. PALMER, Alabama
Jennifer Hemingway, Staff Director
David Rapallo, Minority Staff Director
Ari Wisch, Professional Staff Member
William Marx, Clerk
Subcommittee on Transportation & Public Assets
JOHN L. MICA Florida, Chairman
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois, Ranking
JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR. Tennessee Member
JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN, New Jersey
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky MARK DESAULNIER, California
GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin, Vice BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania
Chair
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on July 14, 2016.................................... 1
WITNESSES
Ms. Sarah Feinberg, Administrator, Federal Railroad
Administration
Oral Statement............................................... 7
Written Statement............................................ 10
Mr. Baruch Feigenbaum, Assistant Director, Transportation Policy,
Reason Foundation
Oral Statement............................................... 17
Written Statement............................................ 19
Mr. Thomas Hart Jr., President, Rail Forward
Oral Statement............................................... 24
Written Statement............................................ 27
Mr. Chris Koos, Mayor, Normal, Illinois
Oral Statement............................................... 34
Written Statement............................................ 37
LAGGING BEHIND: THE STATE OF HIGH-SPEED RAIL IN THE UNITED STATES
----------
Thursday, July 14, 2016
House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Transportation and Public Assets
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:10 p.m., in
Room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John Mica
[chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Mica, Duckworth, Boyle, and
DeSaulnier.
Also Present: Representatives Costa and Davis.
Mr. Mica. Good afternoon. I would like to welcome everyone
to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
Subcommittee on Transportation and Public Assets subcommittee
hearing today. Pleased to have you join us today.
The subject today of our hearing is entitled ``Lagging
Behind: The State of High-Speed Rail in the United States.'' As
part of our oversight responsibility, we are conducting a
review of where we are with the administration's high-speed
rail program.
The committee, I want to state at the beginning, will
proceed, and I will give the order. And without objection,
first of all, the chair is authorized to declare a recess at
any time.
I will also start and note the presence of our colleague
Congressman Rodney Davis of Illinois and ask unanimous consent
that he be allowed to participate in these proceedings. Without
objection, so ordered. Welcome.
Mr. Davis. Thank you, Chairman Mica, Ranking Member
Duckworth. Thank you for the unanimous consent, and I would
have been very upset if one would have objected.
Mr. Mica. We will get to you. I think you are going to
introduce one of our witnesses today. But welcome, and you can
also participate.
So thank you so much.
The order of business will be as follows. First, we will
start with opening statements, myself and the ranking member,
Ms. Duckworth. Then we will hear from our witnesses, and we
have four distinguished witnesses today. And they will be sworn
in. This is an investigations and oversight subcommittee.
And then after we have heard from all four of the
witnesses, then we will proceed to questions. That will be the
order of business today.
So welcome, all of you. Thank you for participating and
being with us.
I will start with my opening statement and some comments
that I put together for this hearing. Probably there is not too
many people in Congress that are what I consider greater
advocates of passenger rail and also high-speed rail. I think,
unfortunately, we have not been able to keep up with the rest
of the world, but I think it is a very cost-effective,
environmentally friendly way to move people, and we,
unfortunately, have not had the greatest success in that area,
except in some limited areas.
I was somewhat optimistic, even as a Republican, when I
heard this new guy on the block, President Barack Obama,
announce--make a pronouncement even, I think, during his
campaign and then during his election. And in 2009, after he
took office, he said that the administration's efforts would be
to transform travel in America with a historic investment in
high-speed rail.
The President also said, another quote, is imagine whisking
through towns at over 100 miles an hour. And he also has
addressed this in his address to Congress, State of the Union,
support for passenger rail service in the United States.
However, 7 years later, we only have high-speed rail as
part of our imagination. We don't have any real projects that
we can point to that are operational or even close to that.
There is no hope right now of actually even seeing a successful
project in the foreseeable future.
The President pledged and the Congress provided, and we
spent over $10 billion on his high-speed rail initial proposal.
Of that, 99 percent of the money--and we will hear from the FRA
administrator shortly--is obligated, and some 51 percent, we
are told, has been spent. And unfortunately, we don't have a
high-speed system that we can point to or show again that it is
in the near future.
In addition to that $10 billion, Congress has appropriated
some $10.4 billion in capital spending for Amtrak. That is
capital money, most of it in the Northeast Corridor, and I have
always been an advocate for the Northeast Corridor as having
the best potential to move forward and get close to high-speed
rail as we could. But even with those expenditures of over $20
billion, again, the goal is elusive.
FRA has awarded billions to different projects, rail
projects. Unfortunately, most of that is to build what I call
``snail-speed rail,'' and also some of the money was directed
towards some flawed projects that, unfortunately, were rejected
when offered by--to multiple Governors.
For example, and I think we have got in Ohio FRA awarded
$400 million for the proposed 3C project that was rejected by
Governor Kasich. The 3C would have provided average speeds
initially of 39 miles an hour, was later revised to 50 miles an
hour, and would have taken 6 hours and 30 minutes to travel
between Cleveland and Cincinnati, later revised to 5 hours and
11 minutes.
It is far longer than a car trip or bus trip would take
between these cities, which is a little over 4 hours. Maybe I
can make that route next week when I am in Cleveland.
But it didn't happen. President Obama promised that his $10
billion rail problem would use some existing infrastructure to
increase speeds on some routes from 70 miles an hour to over
100 miles an hour, a goal that he said was quickly achievable.
But today, aside from the preexisting Northeast Corridor,
we certainly--or we currently only have four lines in the U.S.
with any segments capable of operating at 110 mile an hour.
That is top speed, not average speed. And those fast segments
consist of less than 300 miles of track total.
But the average speeds on these corridors, unfortunately,
are much lower, such as the Chicago to St. Louis line, where
after we have spent $1.3 billion in funding, average speeds
will go from 53 miles an hour to 62 miles an hour. That is not
high speed by anyone's definition.
You can see some of these up here, leading at the top with
California. I think Mr. Denham is going to be doing a hearing
on that, he told me, I think in a month or so. But you can look
at the other routes and the increase of speed, which is very
minimal. None of them even close to high speed.
One time we used to define it as 110 miles an hour average.
We are in the 100 mile per hour range. Higher speed, of course,
is another question.
But on some of the corridors, again, the Chicago-St. Louis
line, you see the $1.3 billion expenditure. On some of the
other corridors that received top awards, the speed isn't
raised at all, such as the Seattle-Portland corridor, which
received $813 million, and the Charlotte to Raleigh corridor,
which received $569 million.
On two corridors given major awards, now this is
interesting, ridership actually decreased by thousands between
2008 and 2015. That is the Chicago-Detroit and then Portland-
Seattle routes.
In 2011, in the State of the Union address, President Obama
said for some trips it will be faster than flying, showing us
one example. Instead, FRA spent billions of dollars on projects
that will have travel times comparable to taking the bus or
driving the route.
Only one project funded by the $10 billion Obama rail
project is actually planned to create what we call real high-
speed rail service. That is California, where so far we have
got, put the lion's share of the $10 billion, some $3.9
billion. And again, unfortunately, that project has been in
turmoil from almost the beginning.
The California project, some have told me, is off the
tracks. Its budget has again almost doubled from $33 billion to
$64 billion. The average speeds will be far lower than
originally projected, and the travel time between LA and San
Francisco, if it is done, will take 4 to 6 hours is what we are
now hearing.
Instead of the original start date of 2020, which was
projected for the California project, the first passengers
won't be able to ride the first section until 2025 at the
earliest. And service isn't planned to reach from San Francisco
to Los Angeles. The best, most optimistic estimate is 2029.
While the Obama administration has failed to deliver high-
speed rail in the United States, around the world there are
some incredibly successful projects. In China, you can travel
635 miles on high-speed rail to Beijing to Nanjing at an
average speed of 174 miles an hour. And you will hear the
amount of investment that some of these countries have put into
this, some all public money and then some public-private
partnership.
In France, you can travel 408 miles from Paris to Avignon.
I have actually taken that route, and it is an average speed of
154 miles per hour, average speed.
In Russia, and I sat next to a Russian representative at a
high-speed rail conference, kind of shocked to find out even
the Russians have leaped ahead of us, and from 404 miles from
St. Peters to Moscow, the average speed is 108 miles an hour.
They have high-speed rail or a close to 110 mile an hour mark
in the former Soviet Union, which has partnered with private
partners to put that system in place.
High-speed rail, unfortunately, still remains an illusion
in the United States. The administration's--I told the staff to
put this quote in here. I said they are trying to put as much
parsley around the turkey as possible. That is my quote.
Unfortunately, it is not the shining, sleek, high-speed rail at
the high speed we would like to see.
We do want to try to make this a positive hearing. We have
opportunity for public-private partnerships coming up, and we
want to get back on track and see if we can get in the game.
Very pleased to have, again, our witnesses here, and thank
you again for participating.
Let me yield now to our ranking member, Ms. Duckworth, who
is actually in the Chicago area, and we have got two or three
routes emanating out from there we would like to see high-speed
rail.
Thank you.
Ms. Duckworth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for
holding this very important hearing.
Shortly after taking office in 2009, President Obama
announced his strategy for modernizing our Nation's passenger
rail system, as you mentioned. There are two parts to the
President's strategy.
The first was to improve our existing rail lines to make
current train service faster and safer. The second part was to
identify potential corridors for a world-class high-speed rail
system. In the press and elsewhere, there has been a lot of
focus on the second part of the President's strategy. However,
it is also important to acknowledge the importance of improving
existing rail lines.
Just as a race car can't run on a dirt road, you cannot run
a bullet train on 100-year-old tracks. To address a need for
modern infrastructure, the President used the 2009 economic
stimulus package to put millions of Americans back to work and
allow States to upgrade existing rail corridors.
The Federal Railroad Administration has allocated $10
billion to States through the High-Speed Intercity Passenger
Rail System, or HSIPRS. They used this money to fund 146
individual projects various States developed.
These projects have already delivered real results. In five
key rail corridors around the country, including the two in
Illinois, we have completed dozens of modernization projects,
reducing travel times and improving their frequency,
reliability, and safety of service. The average age of these 5
corridors is 135 years old.
The investment in upgrading them is paying off. Once the
funded projects are complete, these previously neglected
corridors can operate at speeds of up to 125 miles an hour.
There is a lot of work that needs to be done to bring our
transportation infrastructure into the 21st century. The
benefits of doing so are very real.
Private development follows Federal investment, which will
prompt economic revival. In Illinois, we saw the impact of
these Federal dollars and the private investment that follows.
Today, we will hear from the Mayor of Normal, Illinois, about
what these Federal programs have done for his community,
including keeping thousands of jobs in the Normal area.
However, despite the benefits this investment in our
Nation's transportation infrastructure brings, some State
Republican politicians have expressed significant opposition to
these programs. In Florida, Republican Governor Rick Scott
rejected a Federal grant. This decision cost his State hundreds
of millions of dollars in lost investment and upgrades. In
Wisconsin, Republican Governor Scott Walker also rejected
Federal funds, costing his State over 10,000 construction jobs.
Since 2010, the Federal Railroad Administration has
requested over $34 billion in additional funding to pay for the
next phase of rail modernization efforts. Of this request of
$34 billion, the majority has granted zero dollars. In fact,
since taking control of Congress, the majority has denied all
additional funding requested for high-speed rail.
Today, if we hear the Republican majority lamenting that we
are lagging behind in our infrastructure investment, they
should look in the mirror. Twenty-first century transportation
requires 21st century infrastructure, and that requires 21st
century funding. Unfortunately, the current majority in
Congress, like so many of our bridges and tunnels, seems stuck
in the 19th century.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for calling this hearing. I look
forward to hearing from our witnesses in particular on how the
President's programs have benefited the people of Illinois.
Thank you, and I yield back.
Mr. Mica. Well, thank you for your opening statement.
And we will leave the record open for 5 legislative days
for any Members who would like to submit a written statement.
I am going to now recognize the panel of witnesses, and let
me start to welcome back Sarah Feinberg, and she is the
administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration; Mr.
Baruch--is it Feigenbaum? Feigenbaum. And he is Assistant
Director for Transportation Policy at the Reason Foundation.
And then welcome back Mr. Thomas Hart, who is the president of
Rail Forward. And then let me yield to Congressman Davis to
introduce our last witness, but welcome.
Mr. Davis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Ranking
Member Duckworth, for giving me the opportunity to be here to
introduce my constituent and my friend, Mayor Chris Koos.
You know, not every Member of this institution gets to say
that they actually represent Normal.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Davis. But I do. And I am proud that Mayor Koos is at
the helm in that community.
You know, Mayor Koos joined the town council in 2001 and
was sworn in as Mayor just 2 years later. And for the past 15
years, he has been working to make sure that not only his
community of Normal, but the neighboring community of
Bloomington, which we call the twin cities in our area, is an
area that has experienced growth. And a lot of that growth has
been centered around the infrastructure needs of both
communities.
Now a lot of my family revenue goes to Normal because my
daughter is a student at Illinois State University, which is in
Mayor Koos' fine community, and Illinois State University is a
shining example of how a transportation network can continue to
grow a public institution in States like Illinois. And that
took leadership, that took vision, and it took working together
as a community to make sure those things get done.
I am happy to have an office in what we now call ``uptown
Normal,'' where we see the transportation networks come
together that Mayor Koos will discuss later. Because,
unfortunately, Mayor Koos, I had my flight to your community
canceled that was going to be later tonight, I am rerouting to
St. Louis, and I cannot stay.
But welcome once again. Thank you for your service and
thank you for being such a good friend.
Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Mica. Well, it is great to learn there are some people
in Congress who are from Normal, and we certainly welcome you
and we are delighted to have your representative, who I really
enjoy his sense of humor, which you have to keep around here.
So we wish him well, thank him for introducing you.
Now that we have got all of our witnesses introduced, it is
my responsibility to tell you again this is an investigations
and oversight committee of Congress and subcommittee hearing.
And we do swear in all of our witnesses. So now if you will
stand and raise your right hand.
Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are
about to give before this subcommittee of Congress is the whole
truth and nothing but the truth?
[Response.]
Mr. Mica. Let the record reflect that all of the witnesses
answered in the affirmative. Again, welcome.
And then we got some goldy-oldies who have been here before
and a couple of new kids on the block as far as witnesses. The
way we proceed is please do not read your entire statement if
you have prepared one. We like you to summarize and summarize
in about 5 minutes.
Your entire remarks will be made part of the proceedings,
and also if you have anything else you want to submit for the
record, upon request, we will also submit that. So, actually,
it is kind of neat. If you come in the back, I can show you the
proceedings of all of our hearings and what was said and the
submissions. So this is an official proceeding, and we do
welcome you completing the record. So I give you that
invitation.
So with that little introduction, again we welcome you. You
are kind of lucky today because most of the suspects have fled
the Capitol. Not this many have left since the Capitol was
burned by the British in August of 1814, but they are out, and
you are very fortunate so you won't get grilled or questioned
as much today. But it is an important hearing, and we do want
to review where we have been and where we need to go.
And I am delighted again to welcome back--and she made
special arrangements to be here. That is why I didn't want to
cancel the hearing or postpone it today. But we welcome back
the director and administrator of the Federal Railroad
Administration.
Welcome, Ms. Feinberg. You are recognized.
WITNESS STATEMENTS
STATEMENT OF SARAH FEINBERG
Ms. Feinberg. Thank you so much.
Chairman Mica, Ranking Member Duckworth, and members of the
subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to discuss the current
state of high-speed and intercity passenger rail in the United
States.
Nearly 8 years ago, Congress rightfully recognized that for
our country to have a strong and modern transportation system,
we must begin to move beyond our dependence on motor vehicles
and aviation. We must have a more reliable, frequent, and
faster passenger rail service.
To achieve this goal, Congress passed two landmark pieces
of legislation. The first was the Passenger Rail Investment and
Improvement Act of 2008, signed by President George W. Bush.
PRIIA established the foundation and the programs for FRA's
High-Speed and Intercity Passenger Rail Program. The second
piece of legislation was the American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act of 2009, which provided the seed money to begin building
the stronger passenger rail system while also jump-starting the
country's economic recovery from the great recession.
In 2009, FRA began working to achieve a long-term 25-year
goal to connect 80 percent of the country's population to
reliable, frequent, and faster passenger rail service. The
program had two parts. One, to improve existing rail lines in
order to increase capacity, speed, and frequency. And two, to
develop new corridors to serve new markets with world-class
rail service, the likes of which already exist in many other
countries.
The program was national in scope, but State-based in
execution, similar to how the Federal Government built the
intercity highway system more than a half century ago. States
were very much in the lead on requesting service, planning
projects. They were given the ability to seek funding for
projects that best reflected the needs and characteristics of
their individual markets.
FRA eventually received nearly 500 applications requesting
more than $75 billion worth of project funding, far exceeding
the $10.1 billion available. These applications proposed a wide
variety of service improvements, including increased
reliability, frequency of service, and speed.
After careful and thorough review of the applications, FRA
awarded funding to support nearly 150 projects in 35 States and
the District of Columbia. Nearly 85 percent of these
investments are concentrated in 6 key corridors.
Today, thousands of corridor miles of track are being
constructed or upgraded. New passenger locomotives are being
manufactured, and more than 30 passenger stations are being
upgraded. Rider experience is improving due to increased
reliability and reductions in travel times.
Mr. Chairman, I know you have great interest in the
Northeast Corridor. Let me assure you that--and this
subcommittee that FRA is committed to this vital corridor. From
the Recovery Act alone, FRA awarded nearly $1 billion for
improvements.
Of course, that does not include the more than $3 billion
that was initially awarded to the State of New Jersey to
construct a new tunnel under the Hudson River, but more than
half of the 150 projects the administration funded are
complete. Another quarter are scheduled to be complete by the
end of 2016.
Like all major and ambitious transportation projects,
whether public or private and no matter the mode, there have
been and remain important challenges that demand continued
attention and contentious oversight. With the frequency at
which few other grant programs have been reviewed, the
Government Accountability Office and the Department of
Transportation Office of Inspector General have exhaustively
audited FRA's implementation of the Recovery Act and
appropriations for passenger rail grants 14 times.
The program is arguably now the most deeply investigated
and audited program in the department's history. In no case did
the auditors identify waste, fraud, or abuse in any of the
grants.
Mr. Chairman, improving the speed, efficiency, and
reliability of America's railroads is critical to moving our
transportation system into the 21st century. However, our most
important task is ensuring that America's railroads are safe,
which is why many of the investments we made as part of the
program have also focused on safety.
We have invested in eliminating grade crossings because the
safest crossing is one where trains and motor vehicles never
cross paths. And we've invested in bridge upgrades and repairs,
track improvements, and positive train control. These
investments are critically important because any increase we
make to safety in one area of our rail system typically
benefits the entire network because in the United States our
freight and passenger rail networks are largely one and the
same, as they frequently share track with each other.
And Mr. Chairman, I'm aware that I'm running out of time,
but while I'm on the issue of safety, I know that you are
particularly interested in addressing our grant programs today.
But I cannot address this committee today without addressing
safety as an overall issue.
On Friday, June 3rd, Union Pacific derailed a crude train
in Mosier, Oregon. Fortunately, no one was injured, but the
resulting fire burned for more than 14 hours. FRA has recently
announced that the cause of the incident was UP's failure to
maintain the track in that area.
On Tuesday, June 28th, two BNSF trains collided in
Panhandle Texas, killing three crew members and injuring one.
The injured crew member's life was saved when he leapt off a
moving locomotive just prior to the head-on collision.
And just earlier this week, two passenger trains in Italy
collided head-on, killing more than 20 people and injuring more
than 50.
Mr. Chairman, the FRA continues to do all that we can to
improve safety. But we cannot do it alone. Railroads and
shippers must move to safer, stronger, hazmat tank cars as soon
as possible. Railroads must implement positive train control as
soon as possible and not wait until the 2020 deadline.
And railroads must upgrade their Civil War era braking
systems so that braking is more efficient, and in the event of
a derailment, fewer cars leave the tracks. And this Congress
can do more as well with increased funding for commuter
railroads struggling to afford PTC and additional funding for
more FRA safety inspectors.
Mr. Chairman and all the members of the subcommittee, thank
you again for inviting me to be here today. While we have
wisely invested $10 billion in high-performance rail, this
country continues to fall behind in making the needed
investments in our passenger rail system. There remains demand
from communities and leaders across the country, and the
administration has made repeated budget requests for additional
funding to meet these needs.
We need a strong transportation system, and the investments
Congress made 8 years ago to be more reliable, frequent, and
faster is only the beginning.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I look forward to your
questions.
[Prepared statement of Ms. Feinberg follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Mica. Thank you. We will hold questions until we have
heard from all the witnesses.
Mr. Feigenbaum with the Reason Foundation, you are welcome
and recognized.
STATEMENT OF BARUCH FEIGENBAUM
Mr. Feigenbaum. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And Mr. Chairman Mica and Ranking Member Duckworth and
fellow members, thank you for the opportunity to testify to the
House Subcommittee on Transportation and Public Assets.
My name is Baruch Feigenbaum. I am the Assistant Director
of Transportation Policy at Reason Foundation, a nonprofit
think tank with offices in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. For
almost four decades, Reason's transportation experts have been
advising Federal, State, and local policymakers on market-based
approaches to transportation.
I'm a graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology, with
degrees in public policy, transportation planning, and a
concentration in engineering. My master's thesis studied
induced demand. I have authored studies on high-speed rail in
Europe and Asia, as well as looking at Texas, and I'm on two
National Academy of Sciences committees.
For the past 40 years, ever since the Johnson
administration, the U.S. has shown an interest in high-speed
rail. Previous programs failed to gain traction. However, that
changed with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, also
known as the stimulus. The Obama administration proposed
spending $8 billion in stimulus funds to lay the groundwork for
high-speed rail throughout the country.
Implementing any new Federal program is challenging. It is
unlikely that any program would be perfect from day one.
However, there is considerable evidence that suggested the
program could have been managed more effectively. Generally,
the problems can be broken down into the overall vision of the
program and then the actual implementation details.
From the beginning, the high-speed rail program has lacked
a defined direction. Officially, the program's aim is to help
address the Nation's transportation investment challenges by
making strategic investments in passenger rail corridors that
connect communities, and I think that's a great inspirational
statement, but I'm not sure that's a goal.
Every country around the world that has built high-speed
rail has done so for one of two reasons. Most built rail to
relieve overcrowding on existing conventional rail lines.
Several countries built high-speed rail to protect rail's share
of travelers that was declining due to competition from
aviation or cars.
Since the number of U.S. passengers taking rail has
remained constant and gains on the Acela and regional trains in
the Northeast have basically offset losses on some of the long
distance services, neither of these reasons is especially
applicable for the U.S.
All countries that have built successful high-speed rail
lines have built the first line in the corridor most suited to
high-speed rail. In the U.S., this is the Northeast Corridor,
which connects Boston, New York, and Washington, D.C. While
Amtrak currently operates higher-speed rail along this
corridor, this service averages 68 miles per hour between
Boston and New York and 82 miles per hour between New York and
D.C.
True high-speed rail would operate at twice the speed in
the Northeast Corridor, with an average speed of close to 150
miles per hour or more. Several lines in other countries have
transitioned from existing conventional rail to high-speed
rail.
Additionally, instead of awarding funding to the most
promising single line, the administration provided funding to
33 States, the District of Columbia, and Amtrak. Much of this
funding was not for building high-speed rail, but for improving
operations of existing passenger rail corridors. And while
there certainly is importance in doing that, the program's
focus was supposed to be, at least initially, on high-speed
rail.
One of the most challenging projects, the one that's
currently under construction, is in California. That's a
project that costs have increased from $20 billion up to at one
point in time $98 billion and down to $66 billion as some of
the technology was chosen and changed.
My biggest issue with this corridor is that it goes through
the Central Valley, basically traversing three sides of a
square instead of serving as a straight line between Los
Angeles and San Francisco. And all of the successful high-speed
rail lines around the world have gone in a straight line of
being the most direct route.
The implementation of the President's vision has had a
number of problems as well. There has been staffing issues at
the Federal Railroad Administration. The Passenger Rail
Investment and Improvement Act expanded FRA's role, and perhaps
FRA did some unrealistic things as a result of this in terms of
taking on a massive railroad expansion only a year after that
was completed.
There's problems that are continuing to the present day.
They have declined, but they're not through. The Government
Accountability Office has reprimanded the agency for failing to
establish a process to identify project-specific goals and
performance measures. There is also a failure to provide
documentation detailing grantees' expectations as well as
guidance on specific types of equipment purposes.
I'm running out of time, but I do want to say that I think
a better approach to high-speed rail in this country would be a
form of public-private partnership specifically focused on the
Northeast Corridor. I'd be happy to get into more of that in
the questions.
Thank you.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Feigenbaum follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Mica. Thank you. We will now turn to Mr. Hart with Rail
Forward.
Welcome, sir, and you are recognized.
STATEMENT OF THOMAS HART JR.
Mr. Hart. Thank you, Chairman Mica, and thank you, Ranking
Member Duckworth.
And I am pleased to be here today with my Rail Forward
team--Renee Robinson, Mitchell Brisbane, and Victoria Burton--
who have helped me a lot in preparing my statements and other
exhibits that are a part of my testimony.
Also, my wife and daughter are here, and I must recognize
my dad, who was one of the first black lobbyists on Capitol
Hill. He lobbied back in the '70s for people movers and other
energy projects for Westinghouse Corporation.
I'm the president of Rail Forward and was a co-founder and
served as vice president for government affairs for the United
States High-Speed Rail Association. During that period, I
testified a number of times before Congress on the subject of
high-speed rail. So it's my opportunity and my pleasure to be
here today to discuss it further and, hopefully, pave a track
forward for high-speed rail in America.
As the other witnesses have already articulated, in 2009
through 2011, the program was extremely popular and held
bipartisan support from Democrats and Republicans in the House
and the Senate. And a number of projects over the last 8 years
have been started, but none of them have been completed.
Although projects to connect Los Angeles to San Francisco
and Chicago to St. Louis and Orlando to Miami are under way,
they have not been completed, and two of those three, even when
they are finished, will not be true high speed. Thus, I believe
that there is sufficient amount of blame to be spread among the
Nation's stakeholders for lack of more progress on the high-
speed rail intercity passenger system.
I have a few criticisms of FRA, but need to first note that
Ms. Feinberg was not the administrator during the early years.
So she is not to blame for some of the missteps that FAR--FRA
undertook.
The first mistake was, frankly, the administration
designating the FRA that was a safety agency to undersee and
administer the $10 billion high-speed rail program. The FRA had
never worked on this type of program before. The FRA had
neither the experience, the staff, or the regulations to
quickly and effectively implement the grant process to develop
high-speed rail.
We got to go back to 2009 to understand that this was
supposed to be a stimulus project. It was supposed to stimulate
jobs and infrastructure, and frankly, it fell short on both.
Rather than utilizing the best practices of the numerous
countries that have effectively developed high-speed rail over
the past 50 years, FRA decided to develop and design its own
regulatory framework, which was burdensome and lengthy. There
are a few benefits to being last to market, and that's how we
are--last to market to high-speed rail. You can learn things
from others, but FRA insisted on reinventing the wheel, which
wasted a lot of time and a lot of money.
Furthermore, the FRA had no programs to engage small
business or disadvantaged businesses in the design or
construction of high-speed rail. When the project was first
announced, there was a huge wave of small and minority-owned
enterprises that were looking forward to being involved in
America's new state-of-the-art rail system. Thousands showed up
at conferences and rallies for high-speed rail.
However, that support died when small businesses realized
that there was no active engagement in these projects. To add
insult to injury, the FRA is currently still undertaking a
disparity study to design their DBE and small business
programs. By the time these studies are complete, all the money
will be gone.
Another valid criticism of FRA is that they tried to do too
much with too little. Pennsylvania Congressman Bill Shuster
frequently argued that the administration took the stimulus
money and ``sprinkled it around the country'' instead of
focusing it on major projects that would serve as the model for
the next generation of high-speed rail in America.
There were 15 international consortium prepared to bid, and
none of them to date have been engaged appropriately in a major
high-speed rail project. Even to date only 51 percent of the
money that was allocated has been spent. The shovels should
have been in the ground and creating jobs well before the
Governors elected to return the money.
As it happened, when Governors Scott Walker and Kasich
collectively returned over $3.5 billion, they played right into
Amtrak's hands because much of that money ended back up into
Amtrak, and that was not the original intent of the high-speed
rail program. One of the best one-liners, Congressman and
Chairman Mica, on this issue of sending the money back and
reauthorizing it was coined by Corrine Brown when she said,
``Those Governors were stuck on stupid.''
The Federal Government also made a mistake in reallocating
the money back to Amtrak because it crushed the competition in
the industry that we had hoped for with the high-speed rail
development. FRA pins the blame for lack of progress for a lack
of continual funding from the Federal Government. FRA is
correct.
When needs to be done is a bipartisan support for a
national infrastructure bank that, to date, has bipartisan
support but is still not framed in a way where a majority of
Congress and Senate are willing to vote on it positively. The
idea of an infrastructure bank and other public-private
partnerships like the one in All Aboard Florida are likely the
best option for raising the significant amount of funds to take
the next step in the journey for high-speed rail.
In conclusion, despite the number of numerous mistakes made
by various parties, we have successfully advanced the movement
toward high-speed rail in America. The movement will become a
reality first in California, then throughout the Nation.
Continued efforts on finding additional funding are important
or are critical to this effort.
Amtrak must also play a major role by continuing in its
efforts to produce higher-speed and safer rail travel. Finally,
the people that work in these chambers of our national
government must learn to work together better than we have over
the last 8 years.
With that optimistic view, I yield back to the chairman.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Hart follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Mica. Thank you, and we will now hear from the Mayor
from Normal, Illinois, Mr. Koos.
Welcome, Mayor Koos.
STATEMENT OF CHRIS KOOS
Mr. Koos. Chairman Mica, Ranking Member Duckworth, and
distinguished members of the subcommittee, thanks for the
opportunity to testify today and a special thanks to
Congressman Davis for his kind words and steadfast support for
our community and small transportation investments.
My name is Chris Koos, and it's true. I am the only Normal
Mayor in the United States. Normal is a medium-sized city in
central Illinois, about 140 miles southwest of Chicago and home
to Illinois State University.
First off, I'd like to thank the members of this committee
and the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee for
including a passenger rail title for the first time in the
surface transportation authorization known as the FAST Act.
This legislation provides my city, State, and region the tools
needed to address safety, capital, and rail operations to
support a truly multimodal and efficient transportation system.
I look forward to working with our Federal Government partners
on implementing the programs outlined in the bill.
I'm always glad to share Normal's success with passenger
rail and transit-oriented development and the use of public-
private partnership to maximize return on investment. As
recently as 10 years ago, Normal's development was primarily
occurring on its perimeter. The central business district, now
known as uptown Normal, was struggling, as it does in many
cities throughout the United States. The town's political
leaders and business community began to rally around a vision
to improve access to transit and revitalize uptown and awaken
it into a key asset that could help our region compete and
prosper economically.
Our passenger rail station is the second busiest in the
State of Illinois and the busiest on the 284-mile Chicago to
St. Louis corridor outside of these cities. The previous
station was built in 1990 on the Normal town hall parking lot.
By the mid 2000s, increased ridership on the Lincoln and Texas
Eagle services resulted in overcrowding to the facility that
was affectionately referred to as ``Amshack.''
Key to our uptown Normal master plan was a transportation
center designed to provide a multimodal hub to accommodate an
expanding city bus system, intercity and charter buses, a
station, a new platform for Amtrak, and pedestrian and bike
connections to our uptown and the universities.
The plan for the Normal uptown station received tremendous
support from the State of Illinois, our sister city
Bloomington, McLean County, our regional airport, Illinois
State University, Federal and State legislators, and our local
business community, including our local Chamber of Commerce and
the area's largest employer, State Farm Insurance.
In 2010, Normal was awarded one of the first TIGER grants
in the Nation. The $46 million project received $22 million
from TIGER, $11 million in additional Federal funding, and more
than $13 million in State and local contributions. Six months
after receiving funds, it was the first TIGER project in the
Nation to break ground and begin construction.
Less than 2 years later, in 2012, the multimodal
transportation center was completed, on time and within budget.
Since opening in July 2012, uptown station and its adjacent
plaza has become the new heart of Normal, and I think we have a
slide that shows the new transit station that, again, serves
local bus connections, regional bus service, as well as
amenities such as a restaurant. And the city hall occupies the
top floors, and there is also a park and ride deck that you can
see in the background.
Uptown Normal is now a vibrant neighborhood with
residential, commercial, and entertainment opportunities. Local
transit ridership is up 34 percent, and transit-oriented
development continues to abound.
Thus far, public investment of approximately $85 million in
Federal, State, and local monies in the transportation arena
has generated more than $150 million in private investment in
the uptown district, including construction of a 228-room
Marriott hotel with a 40,000 square foot conference center and
an adjacent 114-room Hyatt Place hotel also shown in this
picture.
Currently, there are plans to invest an additional $45
million of private dollars to further promote livability and
quality of life in our uptown. In the next slide here, you'll
see this bike and pedestrian friendly roundabout built with
local and Federal funds, and the next slide refers to a couple
of hundred feet from the new station of new mixed-use
developments like the ones that have been built, with more
expected to come online within the next year or two.
Following comprehensive planning discussions, including the
Union Pacific Railroad, Amtrak, and a dozen municipalities with
stations along the rail line, Illinois was allocated $1.2
billion to improve service between Chicago and St. Louis from
FRA's High-Speed Intercity Passenger Rail Program, with $690
million in State and local match.
When completed in 2017, the project will produce safer
conditions, decreased travel times, improved on-time
performance, and produce increased ridership and economic
benefits for our town and our residents. Construction is
ongoing as we speak and is anticipated to be completed in early
2017.
The town of Normal along with our local stakeholders rely
on a strong partnership with Congress, FRA, and Amtrak and is
committed to a shared vision in a local, regional, and Federal
planning process to continue to make improvements to our
regional and long distance rail system to connect the region
with reliable, fast, and frequent passenger rail service.
Robust and reliable Federal capital investments are key to
make all modes of transportation, including passenger rail, to
be of benefit to our citizens and our economy. Federal support
for transportation is a longstanding tradition and a core
constitutional responsibility. We are proud to work with our
Federal partners in creating, maintaining, and funding safe and
efficient transportation systems and look forward to future
collaboration.
Thank you for the opportunity to contribute on this
important national discussion, and I'd be happy to take any
questions.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Koos follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Mica. Well, thank you.
And we will start the questions right now, and I will begin
with a question for Ms. Feinberg. Now you weren't there, but a
decisions was made, as Mr. Hart said, to sprinkle this money
around. I know it is sometimes we talk in hindsight, but a
high-speed rail project is a very expensive project. We have
ended up now with about $3.9 billion dedicated to California.
That is not enough really to bail that project out, and
most of the balance, 99 percent of the money is obligated. What
happens with our one potential project, California?
Ms. Feinberg. What happens?
Mr. Mica. What happens with it? Yes. There is $3.9 billion.
It is a $64 billion to $68 billion project. It keeps getting
delayed, put off.
Ms. Feinberg. Well, to California specifically, they're
also paying for the project with cap-and-trade funds and with
State funds as well.
Mr. Mica. Are you--is there any plan for additional Federal
funds?
Ms. Feinberg. Not at this time.
Mr. Mica. Not at this time. Okay. My preference would have
been to put the money in the Northeast Corridor in one route
and show some success and partner with the private sector.
Maybe $10 billion wouldn't have done it, but it would have been
good seed money to partner, and I think, Mr. Feigenbaum, you
said that was the way you recommended to go. Is that right?
Mr. Feigenbaum. Yeah, that is correct. That is the way that
other countries that I think ----
Mr. Mica. Yes.
Mr. Feigenbaum.--we look to for high-speed rail, Japan and
France, have done it.
Mr. Mica. Because they are very capital-intensive projects.
We don't have the money that China has, and they are building
thousands of miles of high-speed rail. But, and then Amtrak
came up with a proposal for high-speed service in the Northeast
Corridor, which was estimated to take 30 years and $150
billion.
Well, first, I won't be alive. Most people on this panel
won't be alive to see that, and they are not going to get $150
billion or even a good percentage of it from Congress. Isn't
that sort of a given, Ms. Feinberg?
Ms. Feinberg. That's certainly been the case.
Mr. Mica. Yes. So we are trying to get some successes. We
put Amtrak, which I call our Soviet-style train system, for
lack of a better term, and it has been a monopoly. We opened up
with some provisions I put in the last transportation
legislation.
Do you know anything about the status of where we are on
that, Ms. Feinberg, opening that up? I heard we had some
interest?
Ms. Feinberg. Yes, sir. I think the last time we briefed
you on this, which we've been working closely with you on, the
request for proposals ----
Mr. Mica. Right.
Ms. Feinberg.--was going out. They're due in August, and so
I expect that we will know more then. I have not been tracking
them as they come in, but I believe the due date is in August.
Mr. Mica. And when we did the PRIIA bill, we originally
opened the Northeast Corridor, which sort of got gobbled up by
Amtrak, which we wanted to get some serious proposals. Mr. Hart
spoke to it, and we ended up with how many did you say, Mr.
Hart? There were a number interested in.
Mr. Hart. There were 15 consortia that I know of.
Mr. Mica. Okay.
Mr. Hart. And worked with a number of them, particularly on
the east coast programs. And they just got frustrated through
this process.
Mr. Mica. Right. Well, some of them I was told came in.
Amtrak had taken control and basically said, ``We aren't
interested, go away.'' That is why we shifted the program over
to DOT so they could get some sort of possibility to
participate, as opposed to our sole vendor and operator,
Amtrak, shooing them off.
No one wants competition. I would love not to have an
opponent in the primary or the general election. I am sure
these media guys would like to just have one station and all of
that, but that is not the reality we live in, and competition
is healthy.
Mr. Hart, you gave sort of stinging criticism of FRA and
the process they set forward. I know Ms. Feinberg wasn't there,
but we have had problems. Even we have in Florida All Aboard,
which is probably our most successful higher-speed project in
the country, they go about 79 miles an hour from Miami to
Orlando, mainly because of speed restrictions that are imposed.
It can go faster, I know, and it will go pretty fast in some
stretches.
But again, the Federal process, it used to take 15 years. I
think we started on this 5 years ago with some of the
approvals. Do you think there is anything we ----
Ms. Feinberg. For All Aboard Florida ----
Mr. Mica. Anything we could do to speed that up?
Ms. Feinberg. Are you talking about All Aboard Florida
specifically ----
Mr. Mica. Yes, well, there is another one, is it Texas
Coastal or something? But ----
Ms. Feinberg. Certainly, Secretary Foxx and the FRA have
been really supportive of improving and speeding up the
permitting process in any way that we can. I mean, part of the
frustration of why the process takes so long, frankly, is not
really a complaint directed at the FRA. It's actually a
complaint directed at NEPA and at the historic societies across
America that tend to have strong opinions about major
infrastructure projects.
We've been ----
Mr. Mica. Well, the other thing, too, is like FEC is about
70 percent on an existing corridor, and then there is another
former rail corridor that wasn't developed coming into Orlando
airport.
Ms. Feinberg. They've significant ----
Mr. Mica. But I can see if you are plotting a new course
and some of those concerns. But I know working with Senator
Boxer and others, our intent before was to try to speed up and
condense that process.
With Mr. Oberstar, I stood on a bridge on Highway is it 35
with Members of Congress that had collapsed. People were
killed. And it was built in 435 days or something like that,
which the normal procedure would be 4 or 5 years just for
permitting, but we put a safer bridge in.
We put--and with All Aboard Florida, they are putting
positive train control. They are putting rail safety
improvements. They are improving the bridges for maritime
traffic, a whole host of things, not to mention new
environmental improvements. So getting those new systems in
place, actually protect the environment, enhance the
environment, and get us a system that is 21st century.
I would like to invite you to--I went down about 2 months
ago and saw Miami All Aboard and--members of the committee,
subcommittee. The project, this All Aboard Florida, will open,
actually the first leg, they have got the three stations--
Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach. The vehicles are
coming. Almost all private dollars.
The Miami terminal by itself is $2 billion, and it envelops
the existing metro rail and people mover downtown. They will be
bringing dry rail, a commuter rail in, and high-speed rail into
it. It is a phenomenal project.
But like to invite you down and Members to see that.
Ms. Feinberg. Thank you.
Mr. Mica. Again, a private-public, to a degree,
partnership. But almost all private money in the project. So
she nodded yes. So we will make a date.
Ms. Feinberg. Thank you for the invitation. I would love to
come--I would love to come down.
Mr. Mica. Finally, we are spending a lot of money on Acela,
and you had talked about some improvements on the Northeast
Corridor. One that concerned us after the Philadelphia crash
was positive train control. How long before we have that in
place, do you know?
Ms. Feinberg. So Amtrak, to their credit, was quite far
ahead on PTC, and they activated PTC on the Northeast Corridor
on time for the last deadline, which was December 31st of 2015.
That was before the Congress moved the deadline to 2020.
So Amtrak is ----
Mr. Mica. But the only section that was done there, I am
told, is the section up in New Haven, that there are still
sections that were to be done. That was more of a private
ownership initiative.
Ms. Feinberg. So the pieces of the Northeast Corridor that
Amtrak owns and controls, they have turned PTC on. There are
certainly portions of rail across the country that Amtrak
operates on that do not have PTC yet.
Prior to the Philadelphia accident, there was PTC turned on
in some portions, but not the specific portion where the
Philadelphia derailment happened at Frankford Junction.
Mr. Mica. And they had made a decision not to install it in
the direction in which the crash occurred?
Ms. Feinberg. It's a little bit more complicated than that,
but that's it generally. They had turned on a version of PTC in
one direction, not in the other, based on the belief that an
engineer would be unlikely to be accelerating into a sharp
curve, which is exactly what happened in the Philadelphia
derailment.
Mr. Mica. I will have more questions, but we will go to Ms.
Duckworth, our ranking member now.
Thank you.
Ms. Duckworth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And again, thank
you for calling today's hearing and agreeing to invite the
panel of witnesses, and especially Mayor Chris Koos from
Normal, to testify.
Illinois has important passenger rail connections to St.
Louis, Detroit, Milwaukee, and throughout the Midwest, and
modernizing these rail corridors makes a real difference for
the people of Illinois.
Mayor Koos, as you may know, some States led by Republican
Governors rejected high-speed rail money. Can you talk a little
bit about what the modernization program along the corridor
that comes through Normal has done, and where perhaps you would
be had those funds not been made available for things that you
have been able to do with the TIGER grants, et cetera?
Mr. Koos. Well, I think the most important things that have
come out of that is the reliability and frequency of service
along that corridor. We're seeing greater on-time performance
on that corridor.
I've come to learn over my years of dealing with this
project--I actually know more about railroads than I thought I
ever would or want to--but equally important is that high-speed
or higher-speed rail is the reliability and frequency of
service for that traveler, especially that business traveler,
to know that when they have to be at a destination that they
will be at that destination in a timely manner.
Currently, through our community, there's significant
construction going on with the addition of a second rail line
through. So we have double track through our community and
quad-gate systems and pedestrian system, gate systems, which
are significantly important, given the amount of pedestrian
traffic we have around Illinois State University.
So just getting back to your original question, I think
frequency and the reliability of service is shown, and it's
shown in the ridership.
Ms. Duckworth. Have you heard--Mayor Koos, have you heard
any feedback from your major corporate interests that are in
the city in terms of the improvement in rail service?
Mr. Koos. We have. We're seeing some use by our largest
corporate partner in terms of their travel to Chicago. They're
finding that to be more advantageous. But they're really
looking for the completion in 2017 of this higher-speed rail
system into Chicago, which shortens the time into Chicago by
estimates from a hour half to 45 minutes, which is very
significant to the business community in the sense that it
makes us almost a suburb of Chicago.
And for our local businesses, small businesses and large
businesses, they see this as a business opportunity. I recently
spoke with a man who has an insurance company and a tech
company both and said with the ability to do business out of
Bloomington-Normal community and commute to Chicago to do
business, with his lower overhead of operating in my community,
makes him a significant competitor in the Chicago market.
Ms. Duckworth. Thank you.
I would like to talk with Ms. Feinberg a little bit about
some of the state of our rail infrastructure before the
President launched the HSIPR initiative. Can you talk a little
bit about what that state was like across the Nation?
Ms. Feinberg. Certainly. I mean, I think you addressed it
in your opening statement quite eloquently that the age alone
of many of these routes is more than 100 years old, 135 years
old. Generally, we've got tracks in disrepair. A lot of the
ARRA money has gone to upgrading track, to improving safety,
separating for grade crossings, and all of that needed to be
done prior to the money being spent.
Ms. Duckworth. In fact, I was very proud to have helped get
some TIGER funding money to replace a 134-year-old bridge over
the Fox River and, in fact, it is a bridge that had both
freight and commuter rail service. Eight times a day commuter
rail service went over this bridge, and the last time it had
been repaired was 80 years ago, had been upgraded.
So let me just say that the commuters and the family
members of our men and women who have to get on those trains
and go to work in Chicago are grateful that that is being
upgraded.
I really believe that investing in our transportation
infrastructure creates jobs, generates investments, and it is
very unfortunate that since taking control of Congress, the
majority has refused to provide any additional funds through
this program. I think that these are badly needed modernization
efforts and that we stand to leverage the investments in
infrastructure into the business communities.
As Mayor Koos has said, this actually makes them a viable
competitor as a location for major corporations to those who
might only look at Chicago.
I thank you for holding this hearing, Mr. Chairman, and I
yield back.
Mr. Mica. Well, I would consider just for the record that
we have put in over $1 billion a year into Amtrak capital
improvements. They decide where that goes, and we still have
money left over. It is obligated, but not expended in the $10
billion. So, and I know some has been withdrawn. So some of
your criticism is correct, but we are trying to see some
success and some high-speed service.
Excuse me, Mr. DeSaulnier, didn't want to take your time.
The gentleman from California is recognized.
Mr. DeSaulnier. That is fine, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate
you having this hearing, and I appreciate the witnesses.
It is nice to meet the only Normal Mayor, and being a
former Mayor, I would acquiesce to I was not normal then or
now. But then, I am a Member of Congress.
I just, in context, because we talked about California, and
having been chair of both Transportation Committees in both
houses in the legislature and been a big supporter of the idea
of the absolute necessity for California as we continue to
urbanize, for our economy to continue to grow in the Bay area,
where the economy grew by almost 12 percent in 2015. But one of
our biggest obstacles are cost of housing.
And our infrastructure and our struggle with the perfect
storm of where our funding sources, as is the case for the rest
of the country, but gas tax in California at the State level,
in addition to the Federal level, is particularly problematic
when we come to investing in infrastructure.
So the importance of infrastructure, and because, Mr. Hart,
I think you and I have a similar sort of perspective of the
California project, we were very large supporters. But that has
not been without some criticism about how we are going about
it.
There are frequently analogies in California between high-
speed rail and, for instance, Golden Gate Bridge. I always
bring up the Golden Gate Bridge came in under budget and ahead
of time, and there was a dedicated funding source agreed to by
the private sector and the Bank of America, based on the
modeling before we did that.
So execution, I think, is as important as vision, and I
just have a sense of urgency about getting this right. So given
your comment, I am curious about if California is going to be
the first successful model, how do we overcome the lack of
funding, some of the struggles we have, and from the public's
perception, we are scheduled to add the equivalent of the State
of New York's population in the next 30 years, just like were
the last 30 years.
So we are going to go from 40 million to 56 million people.
It is all being urbanized. We need high-speed rail, but we also
need the other components that make, for instance, the Japanese
system so successful. So as I understand it, you have to have
the connections with intercity rail and transit. You have to
have commuter rail, and you have to have traditional rail in
between the cities, Amtrak and upgrade it.
But ultimately, you want high-speed rail as part of that,
and I hear even the Reason Foundation to agree with that. So my
struggle is I am afraid that the way we are doing it in
California actually makes it--puts it in a position where high-
speed rail will be delayed because we are--and I have to say
the Authority has come a long way towards investing in the book
ends, as we call it, the blended solution that Ms. Eshoo was
such an author of earlier in a previous session of Congress. So
how do we fix these moving parts?
And then, Ms. Feinberg, I have a question of you because
you mentioned cap and trade and as it relates to the current
lawsuit in Superior Court in Sacramento.
Mr. Hart. Thank you, Congressman, for the question.
You're right. The California system is a complex project
and--but it is underway now. And you know, they broke ground.
It's coming along. It's still a challenge, but I do believe
that the bifurcated system will accelerate the development of
the program.
The--I think one of the keys that in the long term will be
tying it into the route to Las Vegas. I think that route, in
conjunction with the route from San Francisco to Los Angeles,
will really galvanize travel along that west coast region.
Mr. DeSaulnier. Mr. Hart, you realize there is no funding
identified for that line, other than the private sector is
enthusiastic about it. So the $10 billion in bond funds as the
voter approved are restricted to the San Francisco-L.A.
corridor.
Mr. Hart. Right. And I believe that one will take shape
more rapidly, I hope, with priority funding from the Federal
Government, and then possibly some additional State revenue can
be generated as well. I think the main thing was getting it up
and running.
It's still a challenging development, and I know the
critics say, you know, the train to nowhere, at this point. But
it had to start in the middle, I think, because of the cost
factors and just trying to get it off the ground.
But I do continue to be optimistic on the success of that
route once it gets developed. But it does have to be
interconnected with passenger rail and transit rail in the
major cities.
Mr. DeSaulnier. Ms. Feinberg, I was just wondering, in
terms of the cap-and-trade funds, there is a good deal of
contention about whether that is a tax or fee. The Chamber of
Commerce has, along with some environmental supporters, have
joined in this lawsuit.
So if they were to prevail in this, do we have a backup
plan? Because that is, as you said, the most significant
contributor to at least the initial operating system. And even
with that, if the modeling stayed the way it originally was,
not the last quarter of cap and trade, you would still be $5
billion short.
So in your discussions with the Authority, is there another
source other than the private sector, which heretofore has not
been interested?
Ms. Feinberg. Well, in our conversations with the
Authority, I think they do have some backup planning that they
are preparing. I would disagree a little bit on the private
side not being at all interested.
My sense is that there has been some limited interest and
that they have put out requests for interest and have gotten
some interest. So I would disagree that there has been no
private interest.
Mr. DeSaulnier. I would love to have any information that
way. There has been--the L.A. Times has done a lot of stories
on this and ----
Ms. Feinberg. The L.A. Times loves this story, yes.
Mr. DeSaulnier. Yes, they do. I have been in some of those
articles, much to my chagrin.
Ms. Feinberg. Me, too.
Mr. DeSaulnier. Thank you ----
Ms. Feinberg. But I mean, to finish--to finish the answer,
I mean, I think the Authority has several options. There is cap
and trade, which you're taking off the table. There is State
money. There are other grant programs. Certainly, the Congress
can step in at any moment and decide to more fully fund a high-
speed rail program, which I think would be welcome in
California and elsewhere. So there is backup planning.
Mr. DeSaulnier. I appreciate it. Mr. Chairman, this is a
great hearing. It would be wonderful, I think, if we could have
a discussion about how we improve passenger rail, including
high-speed rail, which I have never heard you directly
challenge investments in high-speed rail. It is just where and
how we do that.
So I would be nice to have that discussion because I think
it is a complete necessity for the country.
Mr. Mica. Well, thank you. And these projects are
expensive. We went, you and I went to New York on the east side
access, which is now approaching $12 billion for a very short
line from Long Island to Grand Central, but needed to be done.
And you got to find a way to finance it.
Now we will hear from the gentleman from Philadelphia, Mr.
Boyle of Pennsylvania.
Mr. Boyle. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank
you and the ranking member so much for having a hearing on this
topic. It is something that I care so much about that I am
skipping--I am supposed to be speaking on the House floor right
now and skipping that because I wanted to attend this hearing.
The chairman mentioned that I represent Philadelphia. So
representing part of the city and part of the suburbs of
Philadelphia, it is probably not too surprising where my
passion for Amtrak and high-speed rail comes. But it is not
just because of a parochial interest.
I have to say, as an American, it saddened me about a year
ago when Japan had a big celebration for the 50th anniversary
of the bullet train. Celebrating 50 years of high-speed rail,
knowing that most European countries have high-speed rail, that
here we are, in what is supposed to be the best country in the
world, and we are the one major country that does not have
high-speed rail.
It is maddening and enormously frustrating. So I thank you
for having this hearing.
In only 5 minutes, I have about 7 or 8 different topics
that I could go in. So, obviously, I am not going to get to
them all. The first is regarding the FRA. I think it was the
FRA that was running the NECfuture.com Web site.
Ms. Feinberg. Yes, sir.
Mr. Boyle. I am perhaps the only Member of Congress nerdy
enough to spend late at night looking through every single
option and plan that was laid out there. I think it was upward
of 13 or 16 from running from just what would it cost to
maintain the status quo all the way to building a whole new
parallel Northeast Corridor that would be entirely for
passenger rail and not have to compete with commercial.
I wanted to just kind of find out where we are in that
stage now. Maybe you could bring us up to speed?
Ms. Feinberg. Sure. And it is a delight to talk with
someone who is doing things like staying up late at night
reading about the NEC future. Great ----
Mr. Boyle. Yes. And then I harass my staff by sending them
that email at 2:00 in the morning and was subsequently made fun
of when I came back to the office.
Ms. Feinberg. Come over to the FRA any time. We have a lot
of--a lot of people to hang out with. You'll feel right at
home.
The NEC future, as you know certainly and as most know, is
our attempt to lay out options and eventually a preferred
approach to how we should think about the NEC going forward. So
over the next 20 years, 30 years, 50 years, as the population
grows ----
Mr. Boyle. And it will grow massively.
Ms. Feinberg. Massively.
Mr. Boyle. As, and I am sorry to interrupt, as the New York
City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, D.C. metro areas are essentially
becoming one large megapolis, and that is where we are going.
So, sorry.
Ms. Feinberg. Exactly. No, thank you. These various
options, which you described well, were put out over the last
several months. There have been hundreds of thousands of public
comments that have come in.
The FRA staff had listening sessions, town hall type
meetings up and down the corridor to get input and thoughts
from the communities up and down the corridor. We have heard a
lot of really helpful feedback about what people are
interested, what they're not interested in.
As you said, it goes from status quo all the way to a
second spine, which, as anyone can imagine, will require
significant investment, the likes of which we really haven't
seen in this country. So our plan is to release the public
comments in the coming weeks so that people can have an
opportunity to see what the corridor has been saying ----
Mr. Boyle. Okay. So, in a few weeks, we will be able to
see. If you could ----
Ms. Feinberg. Those are the public comments.
Mr. Boyle. The public comments.
Ms. Feinberg. Exactly. So that others can see what kind of
comments we're getting, and then later in the fall, to try to
wrap up the preferred option and put that out for public
comment.
Mr. Boyle. I would strongly encourage FRA to please share
with my office, as someone who is very much interested, what
the public was saying about that. I will weigh in with my two
cents. In a, how can I put this, a highly unusual election
year, one common area of agreement, actually, between our two
major parties' nominees seems to be spending on infrastructure
and going big.
So I would encourage, as you are developing and looking at
the plans and if we, as a Congress, argue with this and we are
always constrained by money, of course, but recognizing not
just the total spend, but the return on investment, it is a
slam dunk, particularly in the Northeast Corridor.
I only have about 30 seconds. So I did want to--this is
even going kind of more down the line of thinking big, but I
met--and I think someone mentioned the possibility of going in
a public-private partnership direction with the Northeast
Corridor. I sought out and met the group with the Northeast
Maglev. Technology that when you first hear about it sounds
like science fiction except it already exists and, in fact, is
working.
I will be soon going to Japan to see what essentially is
the next generation of high-speed rail. I would be curious what
your thoughts are on the possibility of the maglev. I know that
Secretary Foxx approved that first demonstration project from
D.C. to Baltimore, or the study of it and what the possibility
is of that.
Because the idea of going up to 300 miles per hour and a
safety record that is incredible is just so exciting, and it is
the kind of things that we should be thinking of as Americans.
Yes?
Mr. Hart. I had the opportunity to ride a maglev train in
China. It was going over 300 miles an hour, and it was as
smooth as this table right now. It was unbelievable. You didn't
even feel how fast you were moving until you looked out the
window.
But there are some challenges with maglev. It's extremely
expensive, much more expensive than the steel wheel high-speed
rail programs. And one of the difficulties with the maglev
systems, even the ones from D.C. to Baltimore that are planned,
it's not interoperable. In other words, you likely will have to
get off of that train and get onto another train.
And so by transferring trains, you're losing the time that
you would be saving unless you're going just to those two
destinations, and that does bring Baltimore and D.C. into one
megatropolis. But if you're going to New York, you know, you
get to Baltimore real quick, but then you've got to get off the
train and get on another train. And if it's the Amtrak, you're
going to lose the time that you had wanted, you know, to make
up at the beginning.
Mr. Boyle. Although to be fair, I mean, I think the vision
of Northeast Maglev is that would just be the start, that it
would be a Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City
project, and it would include the airports as well in
Philadelphia and BWI. So that would address some of that
concern.
Mr. Hart. Yes. The proponents of it are very enthusiastic.
It is a smooth ride. It's very quick, but it is extremely
expensive and--but it does allegedly have less maintenance
cost.
So over time, it may pay out, but we're having difficulty,
you know, raising any real money for traditional, let's say,
high-speed rail. I'm not sure that we're going to have the
budget or the commitment to make a long distance maglev train.
But I hope we can enhance both technologies so that they can be
blended, and then it would be very useful in certain regions,
certainly the Northeast Corridor.
Mr. Boyle. If it is all right, I know I am way over time,
but I think that another witness, another witness wanted to--
Mr. Feigenbaum?
Mr. Feigenbaum. Yeah, sure. No, I'll just--I'll keep this
brief. The reason why China and Japan looked at the maglev
technology was they looked at it, and they decided it wasn't
real feasible. They did build some projects more for
demonstration, sort of as I don't want to say ``showing off,''
but you know, sort of as this is what we can do with
technology.
But I think they've come to the realization that at least
right now--which isn't to say in the future, there might not be
differences in cost. But at least right now, the traditional
high-speed rail, as Mr. Hart said, is the more realistic option
from cost purposes.
Mr. Boyle. Yes, I would say, I mean, my conversations with
the Japanese government, including the Ambassador here, have
not reflected that, have not reflected a backing off of a
commitment to maglev.
But I thank the chairman, who has been very gracious. As
people can tell, I have a real passion for this, and it is
great that we are having this conversation. Instead of talking
about what is the best way to put a band-aid on the system,
talking about the next 20, 30 years and where we can really go
in some exciting areas.
I yield back.
Mr. Mica. Mr. Boyle, too, you know, with provisions of
transportation opening up Amtrak routes to competition, one of
the most--well, of course, the most densely populated and the
best potential is the Northeast Corridor. You are right in the
heart of it. But that opportunity is open. We have in the bill
some caveats. We are trying to get service between Union
Station and Penn Station in 2 hours or less with at least one
stop. You would be probably the stop.
But I have talked to Richard Branson's folks and others,
and we are talking to other people who can come in, bring some
cash to help make that happen and show--if we could just get
one success in one corridor, I think we would do very well.
Now I am going to yield back to Ms. Duckworth for a
unanimous request.
Ms. Duckworth. Yes, Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent
to allow the gentleman from California, Representative Jim
Costa, to participate in today's hearing.
Mr. Mica. Reserving the right to object because he is one
of the most knowledgeable people about high-speed rail. But I
am glad to see him, and I apologize for not personally inviting
you.
Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Costa. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank the ranking member and members of the
subcommittee here for allowing me to participate.
This is an important issue for the future of America, and
it is appropriate that the subcommittee try to focus and renew
interest in this effort. Mr. Chairman, you and I have had a
number of conversations on high-speed rail in America over the
years, and I appreciate your focus and your advocacy and your
efforts.
Let me just make a few observations and maybe grind out a
few on some of the comments that were made earlier. You know,
high-speed rail in America can and, I believe, will happen. And
there are a number of factors that are involved in making that
a reality. But it is not the technology. We are on four
generations of high-speed technology that has been developed in
Japan and Europe and now in China.
It is not the understanding of financing on a per-mile
basis, depending upon what the corridor selection route is,
whether it is in urban areas or whether it is in rural areas or
whether it is in mountainous areas. We have some good
understandings of that.
There have been so many ridership studies that I have been
familiar with over the 25 years I have been looking at high-
speed rail in Europe and Asia, and one could deduce a lot of
different things from the ridership studies.
But when you look at all the multiple factors that are
involved and where it has happened and where it hasn't
happened, i.e., the United States, the most powerful nation in
the world, it comes down to really one crucible. And that is
the political will. You either have to have the political will
to make it happen, or you don't.
It has happened in France and Japan initially because they
had the political will for a combination of factors that they
wanted to proceed on, and then they put the full force and
effort of their national governments to begin to make that
happen in the '60s and expand upon it in the '70s, and other
countries took place.
Let us start, I think, first with the thesis or the
understanding at least, and if we differ on this point, then it
is a long ways from here to high-speed rail, in my opinion. But
there is a subsidy to invest in this major infrastructure
project, like any major infrastructure projects in America or
anywhere else in the world, whether we are talking about
transportation or water projects that I have a strong, deep
interest in.
If we are waiting for the private sector to come in and
finance it, especially in this day and age when we are so
litigious of a society, good luck. It is not going to happen.
It is going involve some type of a public-private partnership,
period. And any other model that I have seen just I don't
believe you can get there from here.
So, and what we are struggling with here in this--in
Washington, and we have for several decades now, is there is no
book written on how you build high-speed rail in America, and
we are trying to write that book in California, with a lot of
challenges, of course. Because a lot of the people who
sometimes indicate they would like to see high-speed rail
happen, oh, by the way, are throwing in all sorts of obstacles
and roadblocks in the process to prevent it from happening.
And they say, oh, by the way, and you have got to build it
on time and on budget and da-da-da-da. Well, that is wonderful,
but you know, if you are trying to do a lot of stuff to prevent
it from happening, how do you expect us to be on time and on
budget and with lawsuits and the like?
So we have yet to demonstrate, and this administration,
President Obama was the first to come up with $8 billion.
President Clinton's administration talked about it. But if the
folks here aren't willing to put up the money, if we in
Congress aren't going to be willing to make it happen in terms
of developing this public-private partnership, it is not going
to happen.
The $8 billion that was put there as a part of the
investment package back in 2009 was seed money. No one believed
that that was going to build any high-speed rail corridor in
America, let alone in California. So the fact is, is that we
have got to determine whether or not we are going to do it.
Now as to--and I am sorry my colleague Congressman Boyle
left--maglev versus steel on rail, I am not an expert. But let
me say that the Germans before the Urals spent billions of
marks and the Japanese have spent billions of yen on both
maglev and steel on rail technology. And for themselves, for
reasons that I think were multiple faceted, chose steel on
rail.
Now I am not to say that sometime in another generation
that maglev might have applications in certain instances, but
the fourth generation of steel on rail now has trains that can
go 260. Actually, on test runs they have gone in excess of 300
miles an hour on steel on rail.
And the Chinese, who basically morphed the Japanese
technology on steroids, were running those trains up to 250, I
think, miles an hour or faster until they had their accident,
and they have slowed down a little bit now. So the fact is, is
that I don't think we need to reinvent the wheel here. I don't
think we need to reinvent the wheel. A lot of that has been
developed.
Let me also indicate that, you know, the California
effort--and I want to commend the Governor here, along with the
President, for getting the first development to take place--
there has been a lot of argument on why you would start at the
Central Valley as the place.
Well, the fact is, is that we have got a $60 billion
infrastructure project. And if you want to try to spend $12
billion and figure out where you are going to get a system to
operate between point A and point B that will be viable, that
$12 billion is not going to go very far in the Bay area or in
the--where you already have a rapid transit system and an
interconnectivity, or in Southern California.
So the--you know, and I think it remains to be seen with
the new blended business plan that the High-Speed Rail
Authority has developed in California, I think a real
opportunity to get there from here. Is it everything we would
like? Is it the way you would like to build?
I will tell you what. It follows the pattern on highways. I
have never seen us build a freeway in the entirety. We build it
what? In segments. And that is because of the cost structure
and how much you are willing to invest in it.
So, Mr. Chairman, I want to urge you to continue your
efforts, as you have in the past, not just for Floridians, not
only for the Northeast Corridor, whether it be the Acela, which
you would like to speed up to 110 plus, which I would support
your efforts in doing so. The ranking member here in Illinois
is very concerned about improving the interconnectivity for the
systems that they are developing there and in the Midwest and
the connection.
But you know, with the population densities in California,
I think we have the density and we have the interconnectivity
to make it work. We have the second, third, and fifth most
busiest Amtrak corridors in America in California. We spend
over $70 million, the State does, every year to improve that
system.
One would argue, one way or the other, that it is average.
I can't say it is above average. It certainly is better than
what it was 15, 20 years ago. And it could be a lot better if
we were willing to make additional investments, that is for
sure.
Let me close on one note. When I carried the high-speed
rail bond measure back in 2001 and 2002, and in California, Mr.
Chairman, we had at those times to get two-thirds vote, which
means you needed good bipartisan support. And as I said in the
outset, there is no book written on how you build high-speed
rail in America.
But a gentleman who I got to know briefly before he passed
away wrote a book that comes as close as you can, I guess, to
look for examples. And that is Stephen Ambrose, when he wrote
the book ``Nothing Like It in the World.'' And I bought 35
copies, Mr. Chairman, and I passed it out to my Republican
colleagues and many of my Democratic colleagues who were
naysayers.
And I said perhaps maybe America's greatest President,
certainly a great Republican President, Abraham Lincoln, the
Great Emancipator, in 1862 in the middle of the Civil War, when
he was trying to keep the Union together, when budgeting the
war was just, you know, challenging as anything we can think of
today, I would suspect.
Americans fighting Americans. Inflation was running
rampant. The first printing of paper money, which people didn't
trust. And in 1862, he decides after developing the standard
gauge, if we are going to build across America, that is what we
are going to do.
Now I can see if poor President Lincoln--not poor, but if
the President were in office today with 24-7 news cycle and
talking heads on Saturdays and Sundays and his advisers coming
and say, ``Gee, Mr. President, we don't know that politically
this is a good idea. Maybe you might want to wait for your
second term?'' Not. I don't think so.
But he had the boldness and the courage and, most
importantly, the political will when our country was being
challenged as never before as whether or not the Union would
stay together that that would in part be a symbol of the Union
being bound together from coast to coast.
And so I think it is in that spirit of President Lincoln,
when the challenges were far greater then than they are today,
to decide either we are going to have the political will and
courage to do it and to make that investment in our
infrastructure along with other investments in our
infrastructure, or we are not. But otherwise, this becomes a
nice conversation, but it doesn't become real.
And we are trying to make it become real in California, and
I will try to do everything I can to support your efforts, Mr.
Chairman, and the ranking member as far as the courtesies that
you have given me to be a part of this afternoon's subcommittee
hearing.
Thank you so very much.
Mr. Mica. Well, thank you. And we talked earlier about
where we are with getting the California train out of the
ditch, so to speak. And how much it is going to take to finish
that to get a credible segment of it actually operating. That
is going to be a challenge for additional administrations,
rightly, as we are talking--I think our latest is up to 2025.
Do they--do you know, are they looking at like an
incremental, like initially, it was Bakersfield to Fresno, and
then they have expanded it up towards San Jose. Are they going
to open the first part with that first ----
Mr. Costa. The plan right now is from Bakersfield to
Merced, which is under construction, I might add. And the High-
Speed Rail Authority has come together with the Governor's
support and much of Northern California delegation's support as
well to connect San Jose and Merced.
Mr. Mica. But is it a phased opening? So they do the
southern part first, the initial one they were going to do, and
then take that second into the San Jose area?
Mr. Costa. What the High-Speed Rail Authority would like to
do, and they are working with the Governor's office is, is to
get those first two segments complete. These trains could go at
240 miles an hour. And then this year, in the next legislative
calendar, get the commitment from cap and trade to then connect
San Jose to Merced. That would be the funding source that would
then connect San Jose to Merced, and you would then have an
operating segment from San Francisco to Bakersfield.
Mr. Mica. Well, if the administrator has a plan that has
been submitted by California for that or you are working with
them, it would be nice to put that in the record. I just like
to put things in the record because people say things. They set
up a timeframe, and then that changes. But at least we can see
what was promised, where we should be. You need milestones.
Ms. Feinberg. Certainly.
Mr. Mica. If you could accommodate us, and we are going to
leave the record open for submissions and additional questions.
I have invited, Jim, the members of the committee to come
down to Miami to see what we are doing. We have a higher speed.
It is not as fast as California. Private sector, pretty much
private sector financed project in the intermodal center we are
building like in Orlando at our airport, $1.4 billion to
accommodate the terminal in Miami.
Mr. Costa. Good.
Mr. Mica. Under construction, is $2 billion dollars. It is
under construction, and the three terminals in south Florida
are all under construction, and the cars on their way. So we
may see something in higher-speed rail, but it certainly isn't
high-speed rail.
I want to correct the record, too. On the Florida project,
Mr. Hart and several others mentioned the administrator as very
intently involved in trying to make that a success. Secretary
LaHood added up to $2.4 billion of a $2.7 billion cost project
that was going to go 84 miles from Orlando airport to downtown
Tampa.
We, unfortunately, reached an impasse. Governor Scott just
came onboard, and people don't know this, but the Governor got
back the financials. And the part from the Orlando airport to
the Disney tourist area is a great--it could pay for itself.
The rest is a dog because they don't have a fixed system in to
connect into, into Tampa.
I tried to divide the project up, phase it. Let us do what
is successful. We could come back. Some folks on the other side
of the State and aisle and the administration said all or none,
and the Governor was not willing to take on the long-term
burden.
It also was sort of a bait-and-switch project because the
train that they were looking at was only--it was 84 miles. It
went 84 miles in 1 hour, which is 84 miles per hour average
speed. That is not high-speed rail.
You can right now get on an Amtrak train, which goes from
the Orlando station over to the Tampa station, and it takes
about 20 minutes longer than that. So it wasn't much for $2.7
billion and then going into hock. There is more to the story
that I thought should be--I would just put that in the record
there.
So, again, I want to support it. We have got some
opportunity for public-private partnership. Mr. Hart, Mr.
Feigenbaum said that those are avenues for success.
Mr. Koos, most of your project, though, I think is--is
yours a State, what do you call it, a State-supported route or
totally Amtrak?
Mr. Koos. We have seven State-supported trains a day and
one long-haul route, the Texas Eagle.
Mr. Mica. The long-haul route is Amtrak. The money for the
investment?
Mr. Koos. Amtrak operates the State routes, but they're
State supported.
Mr. Mica. But a lot of your money came from Federal for the
improvement?
Mr. Koos. That's correct.
Mr. Mica. You cited TIGER II, which again I am citing
public-private partnership, predominantly private for huge
investment. So I see that and I am even happy when it doesn't
have to come out of taxpayer dollars, just informationally.
Huge opportunities for employment. We should have high-
speed rail and higher-speed rail across the country. It is
just, to me, I think again there are so many savings. We could
get more cars off and trucks, which tear up the highway, with
better rail system.
But 22,000 miles of our rail is privately owned over which
Amtrak runs. Isn't that right, Ms. Feinberg? Amtrak only owns
about 600 miles of rail lines.
Ms. Feinberg. I don't know the exact number, but that
sounds right.
Mr. Mica. But, and part of that, almost all of that is
privately owned, and there are questions about paying for
capital improvements for the private sector. We have tried to
provide tax incentives and some assistance for capital
improvements that are necessary to upgrade those routes, but
also need to look at incentives--and this is something we might
work on, Ms. Feinberg--to get the private sector involved in
carrying passengers, which they did years ago and then got out
of the business.
But now rail is under the most pressure it has ever been
under. They are down in transporting coal and oil and all kinds
of goods, and it may be an opportunity for them to get in like
FEC, Florida East Coast, which is doing the project in Florida,
but with some incentives.
Mr. Costa. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. Mica. Yes.
Mr. Costa. To your point, in the late--in the '50s, late
1950s with different technologies, of course, when Santa Fe was
in the passenger business before Burlington Northern and
Southern Pacific, but many of the trains around the country ran
at 99 miles an hour, and they had very nice service.
And they did that with technologies that was vintage '40s
and '50s, obviously. But they had an interest. They were making
a profit out of it at the time, although that changed the
numbers as air jet travel came in and that began to change
their economic model.
But the fact is, is that with even the existing, and we do
pay the railroads additional money for on-time performance. I
don't think it is much of an incentive for them. Of course ----
Mr. Mica. But there are incentives, and I will show you one
right here, Mr. Costa. Remember I told you about Florida East
Coast railroad now back getting in the passenger business. They
are building three--this is actually under construction. Three
towers, $2 billion.
This is just one station in Miami, a commercial center.
Then above the commercial center in the tower, a hotel, then a
professional building, then two more towers looking down the
street.
Mr. Costa. Right.
Mr. Mica. This is in downtown Miami, of 400 units apiece of
living. And this is how it is going to look. Isn't that
incredible?
And it wraps around the existing metro rail and the
downtown people mover. They are bringing high-speed rail in
with another line. And then to get to the airport from that
site will be 12 minutes, and you can also--for the first time,
we will have our commuter rail ----
Mr. Costa. You have your ----
Mr. Mica.--traveling into that station, and there is you
know how much Federal money is in it?
Mr. Costa. You have your interconnectivity there. Well, I
mean, you know, the stations have been money generators in
France and in Japan--hotels, convention centers, shopping
centers, the whole. So, I mean, this model has been used in
other parts of the world successfully.
Mr. Mica. I have done a small commuter rail in central
Florida, just a small leg. We have $2 billion either underway
or on the planning boards, and they finished almost $1 billion
in transit-oriented development. So there is potential.
But I think we have to incentivize the private sector and
partner with it. If we took that $10 billion and put it in one
leg, either California or New York or someplace, and partnered
and doubled, you know, you can--there is a lot of ways to
extrapolate the money and maximize its potential.
Mr. Costa. Oh, I agree.
Mr. Mica. We could--we could have, my hope was, about this
time be cutting a ribbon somewhere. But right now, we are, as
we say, ``lagging behind''--the title of this hearing is--``the
state of high-speed rail in the U.S.''
Mr. Costa. You are correct. But you know, we are in
negotiations and conversations with the private sector in
California for that partnership, and there is a lot of
interest.
Mr. Mica. Well, we will get there, and maybe we can do some
roundtables, and we are getting toward the end of this session.
Did you want to say something, Mr. Koos?
Mr. Koos. Specifically, Mr. Chairman, in our corridor, I
think one of the benefits of the public infrastructure on the
Chicago-St. Louis corridor, it does allow freight traffic and
passenger rail traffic to work more efficiently together. And I
think that's a--that's a noble goal. It makes the railroads
more profitable.
Mr. Mica. Absolutely.
Mr. Koos. And it makes Amtrak work much better. And if
there is a way, you know, my experience has been if you can go
to a freight rail company and show them a way that they can run
profitable passenger rail on the line, they would probably be
interested. Currently, I don't think they are.
Mr. Mica. Ms. Duckworth?
Ms. Duckworth. Just wanted to, again, thank you for this
and urge you to continue your leadership on this issue, and let
us talk about this some more.
Mr. Mica. Good, and maybe another roundtable before the end
of this session, and then we will see how everything sort of
evolves. I recommend to you--you recommended your book. I am
finishing one on John Quincy Adams, absolutely astounding book.
I love biographies.
I have read ``John Adams'' by David McCullough, but this is
the second part, and learning right now that John Quincy Adams,
when he ran for President was, he was fairly conservative, but
he felt that infrastructure was so important to the country. It
was his--he went beyond that.
And then he was pitted against Andrew Jackson. Andrew
Jackson wanted absolutely bare bones Federal Government,
minimal, and that was part--this was 1820s, and their argument
over infrastructure. And the cute thing is, is reading John
Quincy Adams' defense was the Founding Fathers intended this
because George Washington, built the canals, the first post
roads.
So his justification was the Founding Fathers did this to
expand the potential of the Nation, and he brought it back to
that. But again, reading the commentary and the debate of the
1820s, things haven't changed too much.
Anything else, Mr. Costa?
Mr. Costa. No, I just want to thank you, thank all of you.
Mr. Mica. We do have additional--fairly good while here,
but we do have additional questions we are going to be
submitting, I think, for the witnesses.
Mr. Mica. So we won't belabor this anymore, but it was a
good catch-up kind of session, and I think a lot of folks, it
is nice to see some of the young Members, too, interested in
this because, as I said, if it is 30 years on the Northeast
Corridor, I won't be seeing it.
But this young lady will. I just scoped her age, and she is
raring to go and will see it complete.
But I thank the witnesses again, thank my colleagues, and
there being no further business before the subcommittee, this
hearing is adjourned.
Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 3:59 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
[all]