Despite severe political and financial headwinds, plans for at least three high-profile, high-speed rail projects in the United States appear to be forging ahead – the California High-Speed Rail system between San Francisco and Los Angeles; Amtrak's Northeast Corridor (NEC); and DesertXpress between Victorville, Calif., and Las Vegas.

The California High-Speed Rail Authority recently released a new business plan that it said "lays the foundation for an economically viable high-speed rail system... that will attract and drive private investment, generate strong revenues, and operate without any public subsidies," (Review the new business plan online at www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/Business_Plan_reports.aspx)

Current estimates for building the West Coast system are approaching $100 billion. The Authority said that it has identified federal and state funding to begin construction of a 130-mile segment between Bakersfield and Merced. "Like successful systems around the world, California's high-speed rail system will initially be built with public-sector funds and, when the system is operational, ridership will drive revenues that, in turn, will attract further private-sector investment," the Authority stated in a press release.

Amtrak recently announced that planning and development efforts for "its proposed new, dedicated 220-mph next-generation high-speed rail system are being fully integrated within a new Northeast Corridor Infrastructure and Investment Development business line." By the end of 2011, Amtrak said that it intends to release an updated NEC vision plan that integrates planned improvements to the existing infrastructure with development of high-speed rail.

According to Amtrak, the vision plan "will set forth an ambitious and realistic plan for the phased implementation of true world-class high-speed rail in the Northeast by incrementally upgrading existing NEC infrastructure, enhancing capacity at key chokepoints, and building new infrastructure."

Amtrak also said it is working on a plan to identify strategies for financing, including maximizing private investment.

In the third U.S. high-speed rail project recently in the news, DesertXpress Enterprises received Surface Transportation Board approval to build a 190-mile-long high-speed passenger rail line between Las Vegas and Southern California. The proposed $6.5 billion line – reportedly dependent on a $5 billion federal loan as well as private investment – would follow the Interstate 15 corridor and not have any at-grade vehicle or pedestrian crossings. According to its website (www.desertxpress.com), DesertXpress expects to begin final design and construction in 2012 with full rail service beginning by the end of 2016.

Both the DesertXpress and California High-Speed Rail lines are being ridiculed by opponents as "trains to nowhere" because initial segments of the proposed rail routes don't link to major California cities or to each other. However, name calling is the least of the obstacles the operators face. Adequate public and private funding in the current economy to even begin pounding spikes on any of the high-speed rail projects is uncertain at best.

Bob Drake,
bdrake@zweigwhite.com