Best hope for high speed rail?

When the Northeast Corridor (NEC) was recently designated as a high speed rail corridor by the US DOT, it was a welcome sign of the administration’s continuing focus on high speed rail.

This status not only ensures that states in the NEC and Amtrak will be eligible to apply for funding from existing federal high speed and intercity passenger-rail programs, it also made it possible for Amtrak to apply in April for a portion of the $2.4 billion in federal high speed rail grants redirected from Florida following cancellation of the Orlando-Tampa project.

On May 9th, the US DOT announced total grant awards of around $2 billion in High Speed Intercity Passenger Rail (HSIPR) funds to Amtrak and 15 states. Amtrak will receive $795 million – the largest share of this current round of funding – to upgrade the most heavily used sections of the NEC, enabling the railroad to increase train speeds from 135 mph to 160 mph on critical segments in the corridor.

Amtrak has recently published two documents detailing medium- and longerterm plans to improve NEC infrastructure and services. The NEC Master Plan proposes improvements on existing alignments that will reduce end-to-end running times by about 27 minutes in both the South (New York-Washington DC) and North (New York-Boston) Ends. The Vision for High Speed Rail in the Northeast Corridor HSR Plan includes implementation of true (over 220mph) next generation HSR service in the NEC that will reduce the end-to-end running times to about 96 and 84 minutes in the South and North Ends, respectively. Amtrak is currently refining the Next-Gen HSR Plan by performing a more in-depth analysis, the results of which are expected later this year.

These designation and funding announcements, and Amtrak’s recent ambitious planning efforts, reflect the general transportation environment and the continuing success of Amtrak’s Acela service in the NEC.

Indeed, the NEC is one of the most densely populated corridors in the US and one of the most heavily traveled. Of the roughly 160 million annual intercity passenger trips in the NEC, the approximate shares of auto, air and Amtrak rail modes are 89%, 6% and 5%, respectively. Expected population and employment growth in the NEC will translate into significant rises in total trip-making, putting tremendous stress on the overall transportation network. NEC highways are already heavily congested with Interstate-95, the primary intercity highway through the NEC, one of the most consistently congested interstates in the nation. Major airports in the NEC have some of the worst on-time performance records in the country.

This ever-increasing congestion in the region has also led to significant increases in Amtrak’s NEC ridership following the introduction of its Acela service in 2000. Amtrak’s share of the air/rail market in the NEC has increased substantially in the subsequent decade, from 37% to 69% in the South End and
from 20% to 52% in the North End.

Steer Davies Gleave has played a role in NEC HSIPR planning efforts. Members of our Boston office have been involved in a number of NEC rail projects including independent assessments for the USDOT of the NEC ridership and revenue forecasts in Amtrak’s annual Business Plans; analyses of revenue-maximizing Acela fares; assessment of the public benefits of Acela service improvements including true HSR; and ridership and revenue forecasting for the New York State Empire Corridor.

Many of the issues and challenges faced in planning HSR in the NEC are similar to those faced by the UK in its own HSR development program. The proposed High Speed Two (HS2) service is the UK’s response to these challenges and therefore provides a good opportunity to highlight issues for HSR in the NEC.