(The following story by Summer Harlow appeared on The News Journal website on May 29.)
WILMINGTON, Del. — The French AGV zooms by at 200 mph and China’s Shanghai Maglev eats up the rails at 350 mph — more than double the 125-mph average of the Japanese Bullet train.
By comparison, Amtrak’s Acela train creeps along at an average of 83 mph. But the Acela could be in store for a power boost.
The U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure has approved a proposal by Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., to consider using a public-private partnership to bring high-speed rail to the Northeast corridor.
Mica and Rep. Mike Castle, R-Del., touted the plan for 150-plus-mph trains at a news conference Wednesday afternoon at the Wilmington Amtrak station — although whether those trains would actually stop there is unclear.
“This really captures people’s imaginations when gas has been hovering around $4 a gallon,” Mica said. “There’s no other alternative. How much more of Delaware or Florida or New York can you pave?”
The plan, which will require Senate approval, is part of the five-year reauthorization for Amtrak, which has seen an 11 percent rise in passengers over last year.
Amtrak carries about 26 million passengers a year, about half of whom are traveling in the Northeast corridor between Washington and Boston. Among commuters between Washington and New York City, more use trains than planes, making the area ripe for private investment, Mica said.
The idea is to cut the travel time between New York and Washington from two hours and 45 minutes to less than two hours. Trains would have to go 150 mph or faster to do that, but exactly how fast and whether they would stop in Wilmington still has to be determined.
The Wilmington station is Amtrak’s 11th-busiest in the nation, so Castle said he would “fight like heck” to make sure any high-speed trains stopped here.
How much it would cost to build high-speed rail lines separated from standard commuter and freight lines, and construct new bridges and tunnels, also is unknown. Mica said such upgrades would require at least a $14 billion investment, and it could be a decade or more before the service is in place.
The high-speed proposal would require the U.S. Department of Transportation to seek proposals from the private sector for engineering, financing, building and operating a two-hour express service between New York City and the nation’s capital. That rail line then could be used as a prototype for other high-speed trains across the country.
Private investors who helped finance such trains in England already are turning a profit, but that doesn’t mean it will be easy to get the private sector on board here, the congressmen said, adding that the federal government also will have to pony up quite a bit of money.
“My sense is the private community will take an interest in this, but there will be a lot of negotiations about how much it will cost and who will pay for what,” Castle said, adding he knows no company is going to offer to pay for everything. “I think it can be worked out, but the private contribution is hard to judge.”
Rafiq Baker, 30, who was waiting for a train back home to Manhattan after a day of business in Wilmington, said he found it hard to believe the private sector would want to take a risk with Amtrak.
“Amtrak has a history of borderline bankruptcy, so why would a private institution want to back it?” said Baker, who works for JPMorgan Chase. “It doesn’t sound very profitable from a business perspective.”
Tony DeSantis, president of the Delaware Valley Association of Rail Passengers, said he has no doubt the country, especially this area, needs high-speed rail service. But he has a “Jerry Maguire” issue, he said.
“Show me the money,” he said. “The private sector is not going to put up the cash to do this. Taxpayers are going to have to pay for this, but I think there’s enough public benefit that it is worth public investment.”
Unlike Amtrak nationwide, the Northeast corridor actually is making a profit, Mica said, so investing in a high-speed upgrade would “not be a losing proposition” for a private company.
For the past decade, Congress has been underwriting Amtrak to the tune of $1.2 billion a year, or about $50 per train ticket.
And considering that without Amtrak, I-95 would be a “parking lot,” a several-billion-dollar federal investment is more than worthwhile, Castle said.
Because of high capital costs, Amtrak always will need some help from Congress, Amtrak spokesman Cliff Black said.
But installing high-speed rail has the potential to increase the 3.5 million passengers a year on the Northeast corridor’s Acela to 30 million, Mica said, and it would make room for more commuter and freight trains to run on schedule.
Plus, Black said, whenever running time is reduced, ridership increases.
Upgrading the country’s rail system is long overdue, Black said.
“There couldn’t be a better time to address our mobility problems,” he said. “The nation is in a transportation crisis with the deterioration of roads, and congestion on the roads and at airports. There needs to be an investment in rail to make it part of the transportation mix, especially as rising gas prices have brought passenger trains to the forefront.”
Delmarva Rail Passenger Association President Tom Posatko, who attended Wednesday’s news conference, said he believes Mica’s plan is proof of a ground shift in the country’s thinking about the need for trains as part of a comprehensive transportation system — especially in light of rocketing gas prices.
But a high-speed system is geared more toward a niche market of business travelers, he said.
“The average family going to New York for the day is not going to want to pay a premium,” he said.
Merleen Macdonald of West Chester, Pa., who was waiting for a train to Richmond, Va., Wednesday, said she didn’t like the idea of taxpayers footing a multibillion-dollar bill just to shave 45 minutes off the trip from New York to D.C.
“Already, the Acela is cost-prohibitive to the average person,” said Macdonald, 61. “The Acela only takes 10 minutes less, and it’s twice the amount of money. I don’t know that’s worth it.”