A comment in a diary about CAHSR got me thinking.
The comment faulted the Obama administration for not having the national HSR system, so grandiosely proposed in 2009, open for business in 2010—something that simply is not possible in the United States, or many other places outside of China. It’s not because of the lack of money (well, actually it IS to an extent, but that's a another diary), but it’s because our legal planning processes take a very, very, very long time.
It occurred to me that many people really don’t know how a project, especially one as grand as national high-speed rail, gets from paper to public open for business, and that unlike places like France, Italy, even the UK, and of course China, there are a lot more entities to deal with. The Feds. States. Local governments. And then “The People.”
The US’s HSR development program (and by HSR, I’m using the US Statutory Code definition of 125mph+ as there is no standard international definition) is administered by the Federal Railroad Administration.
The interstate highway system is often cited as an example, under some aura of nostalgia perhaps, of a megaproject that was done quickly. Congress authorized its construction, the states began construction, and within a short time we had a national network. It’s nice nostalgia, but it isn’t true.
The first proposal to Congress came in 1939. Yes, Eisenhower is cited as the father of the network, based on what he saw of the autobahn network in Germany, but that’s also not true that it was his brainchild although he pushed very hard for its construction. That’s 17 years prior to its Congressional authorization in 1956. The first state to complete its network was Nebraska in 1974. That’s 18 years after. The network, despite the existence of two gaps, was declared complete in 1992, 36 years after its first Congressional authorization and 53 years after the first proposal to Congress. One gap is at I-70 and I-76 in Pennsylvania, in Breezewood. It’s a hotel trap, and will likely never close. The other is on I-95 in New Jersey, its alignment canceled due to a freeway revolt. It will be closed in Pennsylvania in 2016 or 2017 with the construction of a new interchange at I-95 and the PA Turnpike, 61 years after Congressional authorization and 78 years after first proposal.
Why did it take so long? Several reasons, among them being:
1. Freeway revolts, where community activists and other grassroots organizations decided they no longer wanted their cities carved up, plowed under, sucked dry. Take a look at city planning office maps from the 1950s and early 60s. Many of those freeways were never built, because people got fed up.
2. Increased mandatory environmental requirements at both the state and Federal level (for example, the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, aka NEPA).
3. NIMBYs, related to Freeway Revolters. A very powerful creature, planners the world over hate them even when they’re right, and they have many, many, many legal tools in the United States. Many. State governments themselves can be NIMBYs, as proponents of HSR are finding out. Florida and Wisconsin's governors basically were NIMBYs on this issue.
4. States balked at the cost of supporting the system (the results of which we’re now seeing) and/or the cost of raising their matching funds to construct it. Eisenhower and Congress negotiated a 90/10 split in the original Federal bill but remember this cost $25 billion in 1956 dollars—a cost that’s about $218 billion today. Final cost: about $500 billion in 2014 dollars. (I used theInflation Calculator to get these numbers). Megaprojects appear to cost less when you break them up into phases, though. I personally think people should be ambitious and get it done in one, but that's just me.
All of these elements will be present if and when a national HSR network ever makes it to widespread construction. That’s why the Federal government is understandably (and yes, I'll agree, disappointingly) cautious.
So, how will a big megaproject like the US’s proposed HSR network get from paper proposal to open for business? In list form, the process looks pretty easy:
1. Proposal
2. Study (usually for feasibility)
3. EIS (EIS stands for Environmental Impact Statement)
4. Design
5. Right-of-Way Acquisition
6. Construction (and I’m rolling in the purchase of train sets and the hiring and training of employees into this)
7. Ribbon cutting. Choo-choo! All Aboard!
Look easy, right? Nope! It’s not. Steps 2 through 4 especially can take up to, at their most extreme, a decade. And all of these steps are not necessarily linear, as megaprojects are built in phases. Phase 1 may be at step 7 while Phase 2 is at step 3 and Phase 3 is still at step 2 and the final Phase is still at Step 1. Step 2 can be part of Step 3. Step 5 might be going on during Step 4. So let’s pick this apart (I’ll do this as if it is linear. It’s often not.)
Proposal
I have a proposal. I present it. Or a metropolitan planning organization presents it to a DOT during its parent state's transportation plan development hearings (these are either yearly or every other year, depending on the state). Or, alternately, a state DOT presents it. Or the Federal government outlines it thanks to Congressional legislation (the currently proposed HSR corridors are from FRA’s HSR Strategic Vision document and much of it framed by the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008 (PRIIA)). Or the state puts it on the ballot, like California did. This is where a lot of the US was in 2009 when the President announced the program. Since then $10 billion has been spent on laying the framework in many corridors, and one major system is finally under construction in California.
Study
Okay, so my proposal is out there in the world, and people like it, and it’s got funding to proceed. Now it gets studied. Is it feasible? How much might it cost? Where will it go? How might it be paid for? These generally aren't very detailed. I will note here that in my opinion, and I must stress that I have no evidence of this and this is just my opinion, there are political entities who will study a project over and over again to give the semblance that they’re really interested in building it, but they really don’t want to and politically can’t say that. I have a couple that I suspect of being in this trap: upgrading Keystone West in Pennsylvania, and building a subway beneath Roosevelt Avenue in Philadelphia to link far Northeast with the city center with fast transit, a project first proposed, incidentally, in a master planwritten in 1913. Yes, 1913.. The city and the regional planning organization have studied it over and over and over and over and over and over again. If that sounds like a conspiracy theory, it probably is.
EIS
This one is pretty important. EIS is hefty.
EIS stands for Environmental Impact Statement, an innocuous name for a document that at its extreme can run for tens of thousands of pages and take many years to construct.
This document considers everything, and I mean everything. It considers all impacts a project may have on the entire environment, human and otherwise. It considers impacts on air quality, water, endangered species, archeological sites, forests, parks, historic buildings. There is an environmental justice component where impacts on minority communities are considered. The document doesn’t make decisions, it merely gathers up all the information. All of this is done with significant public outreach, and that outreach is considered in the document. This is thanks to the freeway revolt era where the public was not consulted, so the public made sure they were heard.
Multiple alignments (including “no-build/no action”) their respective costs, their environmental impacts on the entire environment, their impacts on minority communities, how many people might actually use it (for each alignment) and so on are considered. How much will each cost? How many houses will have to be taken? How many businesses? How many people relocated? All are considered for each alignment. EIS documents are often done in tiers, where social aspects are split out and considered separately from environmental ones. Individual states (like California) might have their own EIS documents independent of the federal one. Drafts are presented, and each draft is up for public comment, comments that get considered again. Finally, it’s presented to the agency (in this case, FRA) in question who then will say “yes, go ahead” or “nah.”
This process is exhaustive. Some people think the way we do things is half-ass. Perhaps it is, but they’ve probably never been the government planner or their consultant who has to put one of these together. It is exhausting.
Unfortunately, the EIS is one of the tools that NIMBYs use to murder projects to death, often successfully. Because it considers everything, including many alignments along with a no-build option and doesn’t make a judgment in either direction, anyone can make the EIS say whatever they want.
Design
This is usually a lot more straight forward. This is where the preferred alignment actually gets mapped out—more so than a line on a paper. Here’s where they get down deep—where the bridges will go. Where the tunnels (if necessary) will go. Exactly what private property is taken or public property purchased. Utilities that need to be moved will get IDed. And so on. This is where the engineers do their magic.
RoW Acquisition
In short, the 5th Amendment is what controls what the government can “take” for public use. Now there’s Kelo v New London, which expanded that notion and cities (and presumably states and the Federal government) can take private property for private sector economic development. Since Kelo, 44 states have either restricted or banned that type of taking. But basically eminent domain happens if one lives in the path of the megaproject. The government will buy your property from you. That’s about it.
Property owners can tie this up in court too, especially when they get together in “grassroots citizens coalitions.” For years. It will be interesting to see CA HSR mount this hurdle.
Construction
This is what it says on the tin and this can happen in concert with Right of Way Acquisition, as they’re doing in California. I think this is a risky but ambitious move for them and I’m excited to see what happens.
I won’t go into the whole thing about “low bids” and their inevitable cost overruns because the diary’s long enough and it’s a rant for another time, but cost overruns can delay a project and then projects are then late, and expensive.
Open For Business
All done? Stations ready? Trainsets polished? Staff hired and trained? Get those giant clippers and clip that ribbon and hop aboard, Mr. or Ms. President. This moment may come 10 to 30 years after the first proposal on paper.
That’s why the proposed high-speed rail system proposed in 2009 could not possibly be open for business in 2010. That’s absurd (and I’ll admit that perhaps, our exhaustive process does border on the absurd.)
Now note here I didn’t really discuss “it costs too much” or “we aren’t dense enough.” The plan as presented didn’t really worry about that and at the time there weren’t many ideas that were even close to construction.
What the administration did do (and it really should have highlighted this more) is spot improvements that lay the framework for such a network to fully come into existence. $10 billion has been spent . These improvements in some places will bring portions of the network up to (as defined in the US statutory code) HSR standards.
Here’s an example of an EIS and how extensive the process is, for Florida East Coast Railway’s currently underway high-speed rail project.
FEC once was in the passenger market and abandoned its passenger lines in the 1960s as many railroads did, leading to their nationalization. Now it’s back in it with All Aboard Florida, a train that will run between Miami and Orlando in about three hours (making it competitive with driving). Even though this is an (almost) entirely private sector effort, note the amount of work the EIS put in.
Construction began in November. It’s an ambitious project and the segment from FEC’s existing tracks to Orlando will be entirely new for a distance of some 40 miles. If they succeed though, by the early 2020s, there will be HSR (again, as defined in the US Statutory code) from Miami to Orlando. This is fast considering FEC proposed this in 2012. I also say “almost entirely private sector” because FRA has granted them loans of an unspecified amount to get started. It’s a very risky project, as Carl Hiaasen of the Miami Herald notes. I have enjoyed the commentary of my fellow railfans in this thread here. Do read it if you get the chance, from the beginning.
A whole bunch of others are at various stages of the planning process. You can check them out here and here.
The vision presented in 2009 was never going to happen quickly, even if every state along the proposed corridors cooperated. I’m sorry to say that, but we’re not China. Some states like rail (would you believe VA and NC do? Well, they do!), others are ambivalent, and some are outright hostile, and they get their say, since it’ll be their DOTs (and private sector contractors) who will be building it, like the interstate system. Gov. Cumuo killed the Empire Corridor HSR and used the EIS and feasibility studies to do so. In my own local area a commuter rail line was smacked down in the very same stage.
Now, I happen to like (ok, tolerate) our planning process. Liberals and other activists after all pushed hard and got this regulatory framework constructed, and I like it a lot more when the public is heavily involved. This diary may sound like I don’t, but I am pointing out that the process can be a barrier (see, for example, Seattle). Even I can recognize that. Be wary of looking at China and lamenting---their planning process is very different. (PDF)
It's going to be awhile, but I think we'll get there.