(The Daily Journal posted the following article by Bryan Corbin on its website on March 26.)
INDIANAPOLIS — Plans for a high-speed rail system in Indiana are gathering steam.
A state Senate committee passed a bill Tuesday to fund the early phases of developing high-speed rail.
Hopping aboard high-speed trains is years away. But advocates say the 110-mph passenger trains could zip business travelers from Indianapolis to Chicago or Louisville much faster and with fewer hassles than driving.
The leg from Indianapolis to Louisville could cut through Johnson County, possibly using existing freight rail lines, though its exact path is undetermined.
The bill is part of a much larger proposal, the Midwest Regional Rail Initiative, which envisions a 110-mph passenger rail network connecting nine states. Building Indiana’s legs of the network could cost an estimated $900 million, though the federal government might cover 80 percent of that.
Illinois will inaugurate its high-speed rail system later this year with a 110-mph train that will shave an hour off the 51⁄2-hour train ride from Chicago to St. Louis.
By contrast, Indiana is in the earliest stages. A bill in the legislature, House Bill 1489, would fund the planning costs of developing high-speed rail, including environmental impact studies.
The bill passed in February in the Indiana House. The original proposal said the Indiana Port Commission would issue bonds to cover planning costs. But the bill was re-written Tuesday in the Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee.
Instead, the new version of H.B. 1489 would tap federal highway dollars already flowing into the Indiana Department of Transportation for research and planning. Ten percent of those funds would pay for high-speed rail studies, an amount estimated at $1.3 million next year. The legislature would have to kick in another $220,000 from other state sources.
The committee passed the bill 8-0. It now goes to the full Indiana Senate for consideration.
Advocates of high-speed rail say it would create jobs, ease traffic congestion and reduce travel time between big cities.
“We could not lay asphalt and pour concrete fast enough to keep up with the need to move people,” said the bill’s sponsor, state Sen. Robert Jackman, R-Milroy. “It’s time we get started. We need to move in the right direction.”
House Bill 1489 created strange bedfellows. Lobbyists for both the pro-business Indiana Chamber of Commerce and the pro-environment Sierra Club testified in favor of it Tuesday: the chamber because high-speed rail would promote economic development; the Sierra Club because trains pollute less than cars.
“This (passenger rail) is something that’s long overdue that we need to return to,” Sierra Club lobbyist Glen Pratt told the Senate committee. “The most economical, environmentally friendly way to move things is by rail.”
The big unknown is how far the high-speed rail proposal will get in this year’s belt-tightening session of the legislature. Far greater state spending would be required in future years to bring high-speed rail to fruition. Illinois spent $70 million to upgrade 120 miles of its tracks for faster trains.
The rail network envisioned by the nine-state Midwest Regional Rail Initiative starts at a Chicago hub. One leg would connect through Gary, South Bend and Fort Wayne to Toledo, Ohio. Another leg would link Chicago to Indianapolis. From there, one branch would extend to Cincinnati and another to Louisville.
The U.S. Department of Transportation has designated Indiana’s route corridors eligible for federal funding, said Elizabeth Solberg of the Indiana High Speed Rail Association.
“We have the most number of federally designated miles” of any of the nine states, she said.
Solberg noted that high-speed rail would mean laying new track in some places but sharing existing freight-rail track in others.
“There would be both of those; there would be more of the latter,” Solberg said. “You would have ‘runarounds,’ places so that there are ways for slower-moving freights to pull off, so passenger trains could pass, moving at higher speed.”
Passenger trains barreling down the tracks at 110 mph would mean new signals with more advance warning at railroad crossings and automated crossing arms that motorists couldn’t drive around, she said.