It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
High-speed rail from Nevada to California breaks ground for planned 2028 opening
U.S. President Joe Biden (R) delivers remarks next to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg (L) on protecting consumers in the South Court Auditorium at the White House, May 2023. Buttigieg was in Nevada on Monday to break ground on America's first high-speed railway. File Photo by Chris Kleponis/UPI | License Photo
April 22 (UPI) -- The Transportation Secretary on Monday was on hand to break ground with other officials on what will be America's next high-speed railway.
"I'm convinced that the first time Americans actually experience American high-speed rail on U.S. soil, there's going to be no going back and people are going to expect and demand it all across the country," Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told CNBC Monday.
Brightline West's railway -- which also has a Florida route -- is expected to be open by 2028 and will be able to reach speeds of 200 miles per hour across its 218-mile-long route which will run from Las Vegas in Nevada to Los Angeles in California.
It is being described as the "first true high-speed rail system" in the United States. Plans call for it to be running in time for the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles and will get passengers to their destinations in half the typical time at two hours.
It is funded by PresidentJoe Biden's 2021 bipartisan infrastructure bill. In December, Biden had announced $8.2 billion in federal funds for new rail projects, which included the $3 billion to "fast track" the high-speed rail system project between Nevada and California.
But the rest of the project will be privately funded. Brightline said they expect the project to have more than $10 billion in economic effect and will create over 35,000 new jobs during construction between the two states.
Talks of a possible high-speed railway in California date back as far as Obama administration efforts in 2012 to get the idea off the ground. The high-speed line is projected to serve more than 11 million passengers each year, leading to fewer cars on the road and reduced emissions in the region, Biden had said in December.
A Transport Workers Union official praised the groundbreaking day.
"The Transport Workers Union is proud to be here for the unveiling of this critical infrastructure project that will transform the way people travel and provide thousands of good-paying jobs," International President John Samuelsen said in a statement.
"Investments in big infrastructure projects like Brightline West provide more than just a way to get from one place to another, they provide jobs with a pathway to economic security for hardworking Americans," he said.
On Monday morning, Buttigieg called the day "a major milestone in building the future of American rail and the jobs that come with it" on social media.
"For decades, America has not invested in passenger rail the way other countries have," the Transportation Department posted online.
"That changes today, with the start of construction on Brightline West," they wrote.
"This project will support Nevada's tourism economy and create good-paying union jobs," Nevada Sen. Jacky Rosen, a Democrat, posted on X.
The state's other senator, Catherine Cortez Masto, a fellow Democrat, echoed Rosen's sentiments about boosting Nevada's tourism industry and creating "good-paying union jobs -- and that's what Brightline West will do for our state," she put on social media. ADVERTISEMENT
Nevada's state Assembly speaker, a Democrat, also pointed to union jobs, "reduced traffic and air pollution, and a greatly improved travel experience" Speaker Steve Yeager said in his take on the day, calling the groundbreaking ceremony "a packed house."
Saturday, January 20, 2024
U$A
Federal funding flows for passenger-rail projects
The Nevada DOT received a $3 billion federal grant to help fund Brightline West, a proposed high-speed rail route between Las Vegas and Southern California.Photo – Brightline West
The year ended on a very high note for the U.S. passenger-rail industry. Last month, the Federal Railroad Administration announced $8.2 billion in grant awards for projects nationwide and advanced passenger-rail corridor planning activities that will impact every region across the country.
The 10 projects that will receive grant funding under the Federal-State Partnership for Intercity Passenger Rail Program will advance two high-speed rail (HSR) corridors and fund improvements to existing corridors for expanded service and performance, FRA officials said in a press release.
Those projects will:
help deliver HSR service in California’s Central Valley;
create a new HSR corridor between Las Vegas and Southern California, serving an estimated 11 million passengers annually;
make major upgrades to existing conventional rail corridors to better connect northern Virginia and the Southeast with the Northeast Corridor (NEC);
expand and add frequencies to the Pennsylvania Keystone Corridor between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh;
extend the Piedmont Corridor in North Carolina as part of a higher-speed connection between Raleigh and Richmond, Virginia;
invest in Chicago Union Station as an initial step toward future improvements to the critical Midwest corridors hub; and
improve service in Maine, Montana and Alaska.
Calling out new corridors
Also last month, the FRA announced it selected 69 passenger-rail corridors in 44 states through the new Corridor Identification and Development Program, which was created by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) of 2021. The corridors were awarded up to $500,000 for additional study and planning for new or expanded passenger-rail service.
The first round of selections targets upgrades to 15 existing rail routes, service additions or extensions on 47 new routes and the advancement of seven new HSR projects, FRA officials said. The corridors also will help create a pipeline of intercity passenger-rail projects that are ready for development and future funding.
The IIJA “gave us a once-in-a-generation opportunity to think smart and think big about the future of rail in America, and we are taking full advantage of the resources we have to advance world-class passenger-rail services nationwide,” said FRA Administrator Amit Bose.
The grant awards and Corridor ID study funding followed President Biden’s Nov. 6 announcement of $16.4 billion in funding for 25 passenger-rail projects designed to improve critical infrastructure on Amtrak’s NEC. That award included nearly $10 billion for Amtrak to modernize infrastructure, improve stations and support future ridership growth on the NEC.
“I’ve been talking about this for a long time, I know. But finally — finally — we’re getting it done,” said Biden, a longtime Amtrak rider. Biden made the funding announcement after riding an Amtrak train from Washington, D.C., to a train maintenance facility in Delaware.
Among the 12 Amtrak projects that received funding through the Fed-State Partnership for Intercity Passenger-Rail Northeast Corridor Program is the Federick Douglass Tunnel in Baltimore. That project — which received a $4.7 billion grant — calls for replacing the existing 150-year-old B&P Tunnel, a major chokepoint on the NEC network.
Signed into law in 2021, the IIJA called for an unprecedented $66 billion in new funding for Amtrak and passenger-rail systems.
NTSB Investigating 2 Brightline High Speed Train Crashes That Killed 3 People in Florida This Week
The National Transportation Safety Board will investigate two crashes involving Florida’s Brightline train that killed three people at the same railroad crossing on the high speed train’s route between Miami and Orlando
The three deaths in Melbourne this week mark at least 108 since it began operations in July 2017.
By Associated Press Jan. 13, 2024 A Brightline train approaches the Fort Lauderdale station on Sept. 8, 2023, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The National Transportation Safety Board said Saturday, Jan. 13, 2024 it will investigate two crashes involving Florida's Brightline train that killed three people at the same railroad crossing on the high speed train's route between Miami and Orlando.
(AP Photo/Marta Lavandier, file)
FORT LAUDERDALE Fla. (AP) — The National Transportation Safety Board said Saturday it will investigate two crashes involving Florida’s Brightline train that killed three people at the same railroad crossing on the high speed train’s route between Miami and Orlando.
The crashes happened Wednesday and Friday at a crossing along the U.S. 1 corridor in Melbourne, on Florida’s Atlantic coast, where the high speed train passes through on its daily routes to and from South Florida. Since Brightline launched the 160-mile extension that links South Florida and Orlando in September, there have been five deaths, according to an Associated Press database.
Friday’s crash killed driver Lisa Ann Batchelder, 52, and passenger Michael Anthony Degasperi, 54, both of Melbourne. On Wednesday, 62-year-old Charles Julian Phillips was killed when the vehicle he was driving was hit by the train. Three passengers in that vehicle were injured, according to Melbourne police.
Melbourne Mayor Paul Alfrey told reporters at the scene that the SUV triedto outrun the train. He said he’s spoken to Brightline officials about doing another public safety campaign to warn drivers not to go around railroad crossings because the train is traveling at higher speeds.
“I start by saying if the arm is down don’t go around,” Alfrey told Orlando television station WKMG. “There’s no good outcome with a train. This is an unfortunate situation. We have the loss of life again. There’s safety precautions for a reason, and people need to adhere them.”
The bright, neon yellow trains travel at speeds up to 125 mph (201 kph) in some locations. The 3.5-hour, 235-mile (378-kilometer) trip between Miami and Orlando takes about 30 minutes less than the average drive.
The NTSB team was expected to at the scene for several days, beginning Saturday.
“Investigators will work to better understand the safety issues at this crossing and will examine opportunities to prevent or mitigate these crashes in the future,” NTSB spokeswoman Sarah Taylor Sulick told The Associated Press.
She said a preliminary report will be released within 30 days, and a final report will be issued in 12 to 24 months.
Brightline did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment, but the company has placed warning signs near crossings to alert drivers to the fast-moving trains.
The three deaths in Melbourne this week mark at least 108 since it began operations in July 2017. That’s one death for approximately every 38,000 miles (61,000 kilometers) its trains travel, the worst death rate among the nation’s more than 800 railroads, an ongoing Associated Press analysis that began in 2019 shows. Among U.S. railroads that log at least 100,000 train-miles a year, the next-worst rate since 2017 belongs to California’s Caltrain commuter line. Caltrain has averaged one death for every 125,000 miles (201,000 kilometers) traveled during that period.
None of Brightline’s previous deaths have been found to be the railroad’s fault. Most have been suicides, pedestrians who tried to run across the tracks ahead of the train or drivers who maneuvered around crossing gates rather than wait.
Fourth in a Series: There was something special about the Rail Diesel Cars (RDCs) built by the Budd Company in the middle of the past century. They were self-contained passenger cars (and some baggage cars, too) that ran on many railroads in Canada, the Northeastern United States and elsewhere. They had a unique “feel” as they rode, as well as an equally unique sound as the on-board diesel engines revved up, just before the train (sometimes as a single car, and sometimes coupled with other RDCs) started moving.
RDCs were used for commuter-length runs, corridor-length trips on lightly-patronized lines, and even for long trips where they replaced once-famous trains until those runs were discontinued. From the 1950s onward, they were seen and heard (yes, their engines were loud) on railroads from the Boston & Maine to Trinity Railway Express, and from the Northwestern Pacific to the Canadian Pacific. Today there are a few in service on certain tourist railroads, and there is one scheduled route where they run three times a week in each direction, year-round.
That route hosts VIA Rail Trains 185 and 186, formerly officially named the Lake Superior, but which the people along its route affectionately remember as the “Budd Train.” It is the only train on VIA Rail that runs on historic CP track (the signs have been changed to say “CPKC”), except for a few short stretches of the transcontinental Canadian. It runs between White River and Sudbury, Ontario, on a segment of the original Canadian route, from the days when CP Rail operated the train. It is isolated from any other passenger routes, and White River is a long way from other places.
Getting There from Winnipeg
My trip to ride the Lake Superior started in Winnipeg, at a dark and dingy bus station on Sherbrook Street, on the south side of the city. At one time, there were several bus routes that called at Manitoba’s capital, most of which were operated by Greyhound Canada, which suspended service west of Ontario in 2018 and went out of business completely in 2021. The few buses from Thompson do not stop at that location, so only eight buses per week do. One is a weekly bus to Regina, Saskatchewan operated by Rider Express. The other is a daily bus to Thunder Bay, Ontario, run by Ontario Northland, the bus company affiliated with the railroad of the same name.
My bus left on Monday, Aug.14 at 12:30 PM and ran on a highway loosely parallel to the CP main that once hosted such trains as the Canadian and the Dominion. The bus stopped near several places that once had CP stations and trains, like Kenora and Fort Francis on the 11-hour trip to Thunder Bay. Kenora was the most interesting place on the route. My bus wound its way through downtown after providing an opportunity to see a bit of the Lake in the Woods, where the Minnesota border juts north, making it the northernmost place in the United States south of Alaska. The rest of the stops were not that interesting, but they included a couple of convenience stores that had decent snacks (including an “assorted sandwich”; Manitoba’s name for a smaller version on a round roll of the sandwich we call a “sub”). After a one-hour layover near Thunder Bay, it was time to change to a bus bound for Sault Ste. Marie, (“the Soo”), which stopped at White River about 6:00 on Tuesday morning on its way there.
The Northwest End of the Line
The bus was due at White River at 6:00 AM, while the train was scheduled to leave at 7:00 AM from the station located about a 20-minute walk from the bus stop. The options were to spend an extra day in Winnipeg and take a chance on being stranded for two days in White River (and probably blowing the rest of my itinerary), or playing it safe by spending 25 hours in White River. I chose the latter option, which meant all day Tuesday there. I had booked a room at the Continental Motel, where the train crew also stayed. My first stop was a doughnut shop across the road, a lightly used stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway, so the day began with coffee and an opportunity to meet the local seniors, some of whom had worked on the railroad. After that, it was time to see the town, and there was not much to see. Many businesses and all the restaurants had moved away from the town’s residential area, and over to the highway.
There were still a few businesses left in the older part of town, including a food store. The train station was there, too, but it was closed, and there was no waiting room or station agent. The White River Heritage Museum was open, though, and it provided an opportunity to learn about the town and its history. The museum also featured an exhibit about the town’s most-famous character, Winnie-the-Pooh. A veterinarian from an Army cavalry unit bought a bear cub from a trapper at the White River train station and took the bear with him when he went overseas to fight in 1914. He named the bear Winnie, for his home town, Winnipeg. Winnie ended up as a popular attraction at the London Zoo, and writer A.A. Milne bought a stuffed bear modeled after Winnie for his son Christopher Robin Milne. The rest is literary history. The town also has a Winnie-the-Pooh Park, a restaurant affiliated with the Continental Motel, and a lunch truck that sold decent fish and chips. All in all, there was not much to do in White River. The town takes pride in being the coldest place in Ontario, too, but not in August.
Riding the “Budd Train”
Several passengers who were riding the train stayed at the motel, and the owner provided a ride to the station for the crew, returned to the motel, and took us passengers to the station in time for the 7:00 AM departure. The train itself consisted of three cars: one each from the classes RDC-1, RDC-2, and RDC-4. The latter was a full baggage car. Tthe RDC-1 was a standard coach of its type with a 90-passenger capacity. The RDC-2 was a combine with a capacity of 70 passengers and a baggage compartment. It pulled up to the station, and about 20 riders got on. The interior sported a 1970s style, complete with an array of pastel colors. Curtis, who oversaw the train, had coffee available for us and a few snacks, although the lack of food was not as serious a problem on that train as it had been on those that took several days to complete their trips. There would be more to eat later, in Sudbury.
The route included two intermediate station stops where the old Canadian on CP Rail used to call: Chapleau and Cartier, in addition to the final stop at Sudbury. The entire trip took somewhat more than eight hours. As with other trains on VIA Rail, there were several stops at remote settlements. Even if there were no passengers getting on or off, the baggage man delivered and picked up items from or for the baggage car at few of those places. Within that car were several storage bins, stacked on top of each other and aligned in rows. They were marked, and it was clear who the recipients were. While the flag stops at remote places were also a feature of the other VIA Rail “Adventure” routes, the unique sound, smell and feel of the old Budd cars created a sense of nostalgia that pervaded the trip.
The scenery was similar to that on the current Canadian east of Winnipeg: lakes and woods, and more of the same. Yet the sound of the RDC cars and the feel of the way they speed up or slow down is unique, and it is not available anywhere else in North America on a scheduled train. Some of the riders were railfans who had also come a long distance to ride the train.
Shortly after 3:00, the train pulled into Sudbury, where it terminated. Riders got off and on along the way, but the number who alighted at Sudbury was approximately the number who had initially boarded at White River. The Sudbury station is one of the few truly historic buildings in town, but it has not been restored to its original glory. At one time, it was a major stop for the CP transcontinental trains, the place where the Toronto section joined or split from the Montreal section, depending on the direction. The Montreal section stopped at Ottawa, too. Those days are long gone, and today the Sudbury station stands as a rundown shadow of its former self. At least it still hosts a passenger train.
August 1970: CP Rail’s flagship train, the Canadian, departs Toronto Union Station for Sudbury, where it will meet with the section from Montreal. From thence, it will follow a southern route along the north shore of Lake Superior to Thunder Bay. From there it will proceed to Winnipeg, Regina, Calgary and Vancouver. Robert Taylor/Wikimedia Commons.
A Good Railroad Museum
Sudbury is a small city that once boasted a lot of railroad activity. There are CPKC through freights, and the VIA Rail “Budd Train” still goes to White River or arrives from there, the last vestige of the old CP Rail Canadian on its original route. The town itself started as a CP railroad town, and its growth was fueled by lumber, with copper and nickel mining. A “big nickel” stands on the grounds of the Science North Museum to commemorate that history. Not much more of the city’s history is visible in the downtown area. It appeared that much of it had been bulldozed or altered into oblivion. So, sadly, Sudbury’s downtown core did not have much to see, and its museums were not nearby.
Capreol is located northwest of downtown Sudbury, and was one of the towns that was absorbed into “Greater Sudbury” in 2001. Operationally, it was Sudbury’s counterpart on CN, where the Montreal and Toronto sections of the transcontinental trains like the Continental Limited and the Super Continental split or joined, depending on direction. Capreol still hosts VIA Rail’s Canadian twice a week in each direction, and it was the destination of the ticket agent who had welcomed Train 185 on Wednesday afternoon. He had to leave quickly to be on hand to open the Capreol station for Train 1.
Canadian National FP9 6507 with Train 2, the Super Continental coming into Pembroke, Ontario, Sept. 6, 1965. Marty Bernard/Wikimedia Commons.
The next morning, it took about 45 minutes to get to Capreol from downtown Sudbury on a Greater Sudbury Transit (GOVA) local bus. I had added Capreol as my Thursday stop only the prior evening, when I learned that the Northern Ontario Railway Museum would be open. The museum is located in a railroad Superintendent’s house built in 1916, also one of the few buildings that has retained its historic appearance. The house contains exhibits about local railroading, the CN main that goes through there, mining, lumbering and other aspects of Capreol’s history and culture. The railroad collection, located behind the house, includes a CN Mountain class steam locomotive, a boxcar that had been converted into a small house for a railroad worker and his wife during the 1930s, and other equipment and tools. Probably the most interesting car in the collection is a “school car” that served remote towns along the line. It contained a classroom, a small library and living quarters for the teacher and his wife. He taught all grades, from first grade to a few basic college-level courses to the children in the towns on his circuit, as well as adult education in the evening.
Capreol’s other museum, the Heritage Centre, is located one block away, in a now-retired firehouse. It contains a fire engine and other firefighting memorabilia, more artifacts that tell the history of the town, and a large model railroad layout downstairs. It took about three hours to see both museums, and slightly more than another hour to take a quick walk around town and have lunch at the eatery where the locals go. From there, the director of the museum, with whom I also had lunch, gave me a ride to the Sudbury station for Ontario Northland buses. It is not located near downtown Sudbury, but it hosted one departure a day toward Ottawa, my next destination. The ride was not as scenic or interesting as the one from Winnipeg to White River, but it was not as long, either. The bus left about 2:45 and arrived at the VIA Rail station in Ottawa on schedule, at 10:30 PM.
Canada’s Capital
I have already reported on the transit I rode in Canada, so I will concentrate on my destination cities in this article. Ottawa’s new Confederation Line light rail took me to within walking distance of my accommodation for the night. The next day I rode the entire line by daylight, ending up back at the train station for my trip to Montreal.
In the meantime, I took a look at the city, focusing on downtown Ottawa. Like many cities, it has historic buildings interspersed with newer, less-interesting structures. There are some famous places to see: the Byward Market, the Chateau Laurier Hotel, and the bridge over the Rideau Canal (which is a popular spot for ice skating in the winter). It was not possible to see the Parliament buildings because of construction. They were not even fully in use, since the Senate was temporarily using the historic Union Station building (the current station is several miles away but is served by the Confederation Line). Because there were no tours of the Parliament buildings available, I saw the Supreme Court Building instead. Ottawa does not have a particularly strong food scene, although shwarama, the Arab counterpart to the Greek gyro, is a popular favorite.
There is more to see in Ottawa, including museums, but they will have to wait for another visit to the city. Service on VIA Rail is not one of the city’s great attractions. There is relatively frequent service to and from Toronto and fewer trains to and from Montreal, but there are no other lines that serve the capital city. There were trains directly from New York City on the New York Central at one time, but that was before most of us were born.
The last train left for Montreal at 5:50 PM, and I was on it. It was one of the first trips from Ottawa that ran with the new Siemens Venture cars instead of VIA Rail’s old corridor fleet. I did not find the comfortable. They were fixed and did not recline at all, there were no footrests, they were narrow (or at least they felt that way), there was not much leg room, and half of the seats faced backwards. In short, they were similar to the equipment that Brightline runs in Florida and Amtrak has introduced on its Midwest routes centered on Chicago. The train was packed, and I boarded early enough to get a forward-facing window seat, but the trip had the comfort level of a “commuter” train. It took slightly more than two hours to get to Montreal; about the length of the Long Island Rail Road’s East End trips, NJ Transit’s longest journeys, and many of the longer trips in the Los Angeles area on Metrolink.
I spent the next day (Friday) in Montreal, riding local transit and sampling local foods, as I reported previously. I had to be home in New Jersey for a while to attend to civic matters and catch up on writing for Railway Age. Amtrak’s Adirondack had been suspended for the summer, so I had no choice but to take a bus. New York Trailways ran an overnight bus, so I got home on Saturday morning, Aug. 19. It could have been worse. One of the few routes that Greyhound still operates to Canada is the route between Montreal and New York, so there is still a choice of buses between those endpoints.
I still had more places to go in Canada, including plans to ride the two remaining VIA Rail lines in Quebec, and the Ocean to and from Halifax, Nova Scotia. That trip would take place at the end of August and the beginning of September. I will report on the trains that serve the remote areas of northern Quebec in the next article in this series. In the meantime, I will have a feature on the “Budd cars” and their influence on passenger railroading during their heyday more than a half-century ago.
David Peter Alan is one of America’s most experienced transit users and advocates, having ridden every rail transit line in the U.S., and most Canadian systems. He has also ridden the entire Amtrak and VIA Rail network. His advocacy on the national scene focuses on the Rail Users’ Network (RUN), where he has been a Board member since 2005. Locally in New Jersey, he served as Chair of the Lackawanna Coalition for 21 years, and remains a member. He is also Chair of NJ Transit’s Senior Citizens and Disabled Residents Transportation Advisory Committee (SCDRTAC). When not writing or traveling, he practices law in the fields of Intellectual Property (Patents, Trademarks and Copyright) and business law. Opinions expressed here are his own.
SCI-FI-TEK Hyperloop to shut down after Richard Branson sells stake
Matthew Field Fri, 22 December 2023 Hyperloop One raised more than $450m and built a test track in the Nevada desert in the hope of cracking a new mode of transport - Virgin.com/PA
A US start-up that hoped to revolutionise public transport using 760-miles-per-hour hyperloop technology is shutting down, a year after Sir Richard Branson pulled his backing from the business.
Hyperloop One, which was trying to commercialise a new form of transport envisioned by billionaire Elon Musk, is planning to sell its assets and wind down its operations, Bloomberg reported.
In 2013, Mr Musk envisioned an alternative to high-speed rail and air travel that would see passengers whisked through vacuum-sealed tunnels in levitating pods. He had claimed the technology would cut the journey time from Los Angeles to San Francisco down to 30 minutes compared to almost six hours by car.
A number of start-ups had attempted to make the theory a reality. Hyperloop One raised more than $450m (£353m) in the effort, building a test track in the Nevada desert.
The company was rebranded as Virgin Hyperloop One in 2017. Sir Richard’s company took a stake in the business and hailed it as an “incredibly innovative and exciting new way to move people and things at airline speeds on the ground”.
But last year, The Telegraph revealed Virgin was stripping its branding from the hyperloop project and selling its minority stake in the venture. The company was rebranded as Virgin Hyperloop One in 2017 after Sir Richard’s company took a stake in the business - Virgin.com/PA Wire
Despite completing a first test of its pod system in 2020 with human passengers, the company’s attempts to build hundreds of miles of tubes to connect cities around the world never got beyond its 500 metre test track.
Bloomberg reported that the employment contracts for Hyperloop One’s remaining staff will end on Dec 31. The company’s intellectual property will be transferred to Dubai shipping conglomerate DP World, which owns a majority stake in the business.
Engineering experts have repeatedly pointed out the concept suffers from major technical challenges that could prevent the idea ever becoming reality.
Several start-ups still harbour hopes of turning the theoretical technology into a reality. In Europe, Dutch company Hardt Hyperloop raised €12m (£10.4m) earlier this year to build a testing facility.
Hyperloop One did not respond to a request for comment.
IT WAS ALL HYPE
Hyperloop One to Shut Down After Failing to Reinvent Transit
Sarah McBride Thu, December 21, 2023
(Bloomberg) -- Hyperloop One, the futuristic transportation company building tube-encased lines to zip passengers and freight from city to city at airplane-like speeds, is shutting down, according to people familiar with the situation.
Once a high-profile startup, Hyperloop One raised more than $450 million since its founding in 2014, according to PitchBook. It built a small test track near Las Vegas to develop its transportation technology, and for a time took the name Virgin Hyperloop One after Richard Branson’s Virgin invested. Virgin removed its branding after the startup decided last year to focus on cargo rather than people.
Now, the company has laid off most of its employees, and is trying to sell its remaining assets, including the test track and machinery, according to one of the people, who asked to remain anonymous discussing private information. In early 2022, the company employed more than 200 people. The business has also closed its Los Angeles office. The remaining workers, tasked with overseeing the asset sale, were told their employment will end on Dec. 31.
DP World, the Dubai-based conglomerate, has backed Hyperloop One since 2016 and owns a majority stake. The startup’s remaining intellectual property will be transferred to DP World, a person familiar with the situation said.
Through a spokesman, DP World declined to comment. Raja Narayanan, Hyperloop One’s acting chief executive officer, also didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Hyperloop One, formally known as Hyperloop Technologies, merged with a shell company this April, according to a document reviewed by Bloomberg. At that time, the value of shares in most classes was written down to zero cents, and the shareholders of the shell company became the only owners of Hyperloop One. At an all-hands meeting, employees were told that DP World orchestrated the transaction, according to one of the people.
The company had captured the public’s imagination since its founding in 2014, a year after Elon Musk released a white paper outlining a vision for hyperloop technology. The concept was a tantalizing promise of a new kind of transportation technology — and an end to traffic.
But the nascent industry stumbled, and Hyperloop One never won a contract to build a working hyperloop. The company also attracted plenty of attention for the wrong reasons. Co-founder Brogan BamBrogan once arrived at work to find a noose on his chair. And another co-founder, the venture capitalist Shervin Pishevar, stepped aside after Bloomberg reported on sexual harassment allegations against him, which he denied. A one-time director, Ziyavudin Magomedov, was arrested in Moscow on charges of fraud and embezzlement unrelated to Hyperloop One. At the time, Magomedov’s lawyer said he was appealing the arrest.
Although no large-scale hyperloop has been built after years of effort, the concept continues to enchant entrepreneurs. Several hyperloop companies are at various stages of building protoypes, including Hardt Hyperloop, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies Inc. and Swisspod Technologies.
Musk has promoted the field as well, creating a series of competitions for student-designed hyperloops and building a now-demolished test track. He also started Boring Co., a tunneling business that has pursued related technology.
Hyperloop’s loss is high-speed rail’s gain
Sean O'Kane Fri, December 22, 2023
In 2013, Elon Musk published a white paper that teased the idea of zipping from Los Angeles to San Francisco in just 35 minutes through a vacuum-sealed tube -- a system he called hyperloop. The idea “originated out of his hatred for California’s proposed high-speed rail system,” according to his biographer Ashlee Vance.
Ten years later, the most high-profile startup that tried to follow in Musk’s footsteps -- Hyperloop One -- is closing its doors. And the news of its demise broke less than two weeks after the Biden administration announced $6 billion in funding for high-speed rail projects across California.
It’s a big win for public transit advocates, many of whom have spent decades stumping for not just high-speed rail, but better rail service overall. (Biden’s announcement also included funding for a slew of other rail projects around the country.) But it’s not a clean victory by any means.
For one thing, many cities and states were lulled by the hyperloop siren song and were subsequently left adrift. I still vividly remember reporting out a story in 2018 about the collapse of Arrivo (another hyperloop startup created by one of Hyperloop One’s co-founders) and calling Colorado’s Department of Transportation to ask about the company going under, only to realize on the call they had no idea it had happened.
Colorado was not alone. Hyperloop One once promised West Virginia that it would build a $500 million test and certification facility in the state. It also built a test track near Las Vegas where it did, briefly, move some people through a tube -- enough of an accomplishment, apparently, for then-CEO Jay Walder to claim it was the “first new form of mass transportation in over 100 years.”
Other hyperloop projects and companies remain, though largely outside of the United States. Thankfully this country was already building momentum back up for investing in its rail system, with a focus on faster trains.
The most high-profile effort is Brightline, a company that recently extended its existing service in Florida all the way to Orlando, allowing passengers to travel there from as far as Miami.
Brightline is also building what it calls “the nation’s first true high-speed rail network” between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. That project received $3 billion of the funding recently announced by the Biden administration, and is expected to break ground in early 2024.
Building high-speed rail will take more than just money. There are deeply rooted problems standing in the way stemming from years of deregulation. Projects of this size also struggle to stay on time and on budget. The other big recipient of the newly announced federal funding -- another $3 billion -- is a high-speed rail project slated to run the spine of California that was the original source of Musk’s ire.
Could high-speed rail’s revival run the risk of a rematch with the world’s richest man? Perhaps, though train fans can take solace in how distracted Musk has become since that 2013 white paper.
Besides, outside of a handful of engineering contests held by SpaceX, Musk only ever entertained his own hyperloop projects at a superficial level.
Musk once tweeted that he had “verbal govt approval” to build “an underground NY-Phil-Balt-DC Hyperloop.” It was never built. In April 2022 he claimed his tunneling effort The Boring Company would “attempt to build a working hyperloop.” The following day the company tweeted “Hyperloop testing at full-scale begins later this year.” That also never happened.
Musk spent the last decade barely engaging with the hyperloop, essentially outsourcing his attempt to kill high-speed rail. With Hyperloop One's death casting a pall on that premise, it looks increasingly like the billionaire has a decision to make: Does he care enough to find the time to finish the job himself?
Hyperloop Ultra-High Speed Transport Is Hyper Dead
Logan Carter Thu, December 21, 2023 NORTH LAS VEGAS, NV - MAY 11: People look at a demostration test sled after the first test of the propulsion system at the Hyperloop One Test and Safety site on May 11, 2016 in North Las Vegas, Nevada. The company plans to create a fully operational hyperloop system by 2020.
Hyperloop One is the company born to bring Elon Musk’s much hyped contention that it would be possible to engineer underground or above-ground virtually airless tubes to facilitate ultra-high speed mass transit to life. That dream now appears dead as the company has laid off most of its employees and is trying to sell its remaining assets.
As with many startups, Hyperloop One had a strong start with over $450 million in initial investment, but as the reality of building an entirely new form of transportation requiring uncharted logistics set in, the company destabilized. It was bought by Richard Branson’s Virgin in 2017, and then was surrounded in scandal up-to its recent demise. Bloomberg reports,
The Hyperloop ran a single test with passengers on its Nevada test track with dismal results. The pod, which was supposed to be operating at speeds in excess of 700 mph, achieved a top speed of 100 mph. Womp womp. A Tesla Inc. electric vehicle drives through the Las Vegas Convention Center Loop ahead of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada on January 3, 2022.
A Tesla Inc. electric vehicle drives through the Las Vegas Convention Center Loop ahead of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada on January 3, 2022.
Elon did manage to build a kind of “Hyperloop” that remains alive and well, but is nothing like what was initially promised. Elon’s Hyperloop exists as a single-lane tunnel system that runs beneath the Las Vegas Convention Center that acts as an underground route for standard Tesla vehicles to ferry folks around the 4.6 million square-foot convention center. I have ridden the Tesla Hyperloop several times over my three years attending The SEMA Show and it is incredibly convenient, if a bit extra. This system was intended to expand beyond the convention center, though, which it has yet to do.
In other news, Japan’s bullet train continues to operate flawlessly and ferry nearly a million passengers around the country each day with virtually infallible punctuality and efficiency.
Jalopnik High-speed transportation firm Hyperloop One to shut down - Bloomberg News
Reuters Thu, December 21, 2023 FILE PHOTO: Journalists and guests look over tubes following a propulsion open-air test at Hyperloop One in North Las Vegas
(Reuters) - High-speed freight transportation company Hyperloop One will shut down, having failed to win any contract to build a working hyperloop, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday citing people familiar with the matter.
The Los-Angeles-based firm, which completed the world's first passenger ride on a super high-speed levitating pod system in 2020, will sell off its remaining assets, while the employment for its remaining employees will end on Dec. 31 this year, according to the report.
Hyperloop One did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
In a hyperloop system, which uses magnetic levitation to allow near-silent travel, a trip between New York and Washington would take just 30 minutes - twice as fast as a commercial jet flight and four times faster than a high-speed train.
Elon Musk had reignited interest in the technology in 2013 by setting out how a modern hyperloop system would work. His own tunneling enterprise, The Boring Company, is seeking to send passengers packed into pods through an intercity system of giant, underground vacuum tubes known as the hyperloop.
Hyperloop One was founded in 2014 and raised more than $400 million, largely from United Arab Emirates shipping company DP World and British billionaire Richard Branson.
(Reporting by Aatreyee Dasgupta and Bhanvi Satija in Bengaluru)
Elon Musk’s Much-Hyped Hyperloop One Is Shutting Down: Report AJ McDougall Thu, December 21, 2023 David Becker/Getty Images
Guess it didn’t live up to the hype. Hyperloop One, the chrome-plated pipe dream of a tube-transportation firm, is shutting down operations, according to Bloomberg News. The company is auctioning off its assets and laying off its workforce with an eye toward pushing its few remaining employees out the door on Dec. 31, insiders familiar with the matter told the outlet on Thursday. After that, all of its intellectual property will shift to majority stakeholder DP World, a Dubai port operator. It marks an ignoble ending for a once-buzzy startup based on tech dreamed up by Elon Musk. In 2013 he unveiled the open-source design for the hyperloop, a vacuum tube technology that promised to send passengers and cargo whizzing around the world. Hyperloop One, founded a year later, tinkered with Musk’s so-called “alpha paper” on the concept, raised $450 million, and built a small test track in the Nevada desert. But it never truly managed to get off the ground, with Bloomberg reporting that the company had failed to secure a contract to build a working model at scale.
Sunday, December 17, 2023
'Transformative' California-Las Vegas high-speed rail project applauded by IE officials Alexa Mae Asperin Thu, December 14, 2023
RANCHO CUCAMONGA, Calif. - The highly-anticipated Brightline West bullet train that will take travelers from Southern California to Las Vegas in under three hours is being hailed as a "game-changer for the Inland Empire."
City officials applauded the federal government awarding the private company a $3 billion grant in funding - a critical step officials said will help push the project to the start of construction, which could begin by early 2024.
During a press conference earlier this week, city officials noted the impact the Brightline West project would have on the region, with construction alone supporting more than 11,000 jobs each year and bringing in $5 billion in spending to San Bernardino County, with $300 million of that going to Rancho Cucamonga.
"We are thrilled to witness the realization of this transformative project that connects our dynamic regions," said Rancho Cucamonga Mayor L. Dennis Michael. "This strategic investment in cutting-edge infrastructure not only opens doors to jobs, economic growth, tourism, and commercial ventures but also enhances Southern California’s global connectivity."
Officials said plans are also underway to redevelop the Cucamonga Station as "a state-of-the-art multimodal transportation center" aiming to serve as many as 11 million passengers per year by using the high-speed rail service.
"The arrival of Brightline West and the new Cucamonga Station underscore how the Inland Empire and western San Bernardino County have become a transportation hub and economic driver for Southern California and beyond," said Atif Elkadi, CEO of the Ontario International Airport Authority.
Brightline West aims to start construction in the upcoming year, with the goal of having trains between Las Vegas and Rancho Cucamonga running by summer 2028, just in time for the Olympics.
Photo courtesy Brightline West
According to Brightline, the expected travel time between Las Vegas and Los Angeles is approximately 2.5 hours. The zero-emission electric trains could carry 500 passengers at speeds of nearly 200 mph.
Approximately 50 million one-way trips are made annually between these two destinations with 85% of them by car or bus, the company said. At full operations, Brightline expects to attract approximately 12 million one-way trips each year.
Amenities for travelers include free onboard WiFi, ADA accessibility from station to train, a wide selection of food and drinks, checked luggage, and hotel check-in services.
State’s game-changing high-speed rail offers glimpse into nationwide convenient travel: ‘I’m all for it’
Leo Collis Fri, December 15, 2023
Rail travel in the United States took a significant step forward in September with the arrival of a new Brightline service in Florida: a fast train between Miami and Orlando.
According to the Associated Press, it is the first privately owned inter-city passenger rail service to open in the country for a century, and project deliverer Fortress Investment Group is hoping the line will transport eight million people every year between the state’s major tourist cities.
The journey between the two locations takes three-and-a-half hours, with the train reaching speeds of up to 125 miles per hour on the 235-mile stretch.
Trying the new brightline route today. Pretty comfortable experience.
Brightline has previously outlined its commitment to sustainability. The company says its trains that run on the Miami to West Palm Beach line that opened in 2018 are the most environmentally friendly models in service, with the biodiesel electric trains said to cut equivalent pollution on the journey in personal vehicles by 75% per passenger per mile.
It is the first train company to receive the WELL Health-Safety Rating for Facility Operations and Management for its trains and stations, and it’s said the Miami-Palm Beach route can remove three million cars a year from roads in the area.
The opening of the new line has caught the imagination of Redditors, with a number of people sharing their thoughts on Brightline’s latest operation and the state of rail travel in the country.
“If more 110mph trains are going to be built around the country then I’m all for it,” one user said.
“[The government] should be building both [high-speed rail] and [non-high-speed-rail] so that trains can compete against both road and air travel,” added another. “Cars and planes are both terrible for the environment so we should be trying to get people off these and onto greener transport instead.”
Brightline’s trains don’t quite fit in the “high-speed rail” category, but the service between Orlando and Miami reduces travel time when compared to cars by around 30 minutes.
It’s safe to say the United States is lagging a bit when it comes to high-speed mass transportation by rail, with China among the world leaders in this field.
Meanwhile, Brightline CEO Mike Reininger heralded the possibilities that train travel provides, allowing passengers time to do other things they wouldn’t otherwise be able to do behind the wheel.
“The idea that my car is the only way for me to get where I need to go is being challenged by a new product,” he told the AP. “A new product that’s safer, that’s greener, that is a great value proposition (and) it’s fun.”
California Is Getting ‘World-Class’ High-Speed Trains
Jessica Puckett Thu, December 14, 2023
Courtesy Central California
America's rail system has long paled in comparison to the bullet trains of Japan and France's Train à Grande Vitesse. But now, historic new federal funding could finally bring high-speed train travel to the US.
In December, the Biden administration announced $8.2 billion in funds will be allotted to 10 passenger rail projects across the US. Two of the projects receiving the largest investments are new high-speed trains in the West that will be among the “first world-class high-speed rail projects in our country’s history,” the White House says.
With top speeds of 200 and 220 miles per hour, the two lines would be the fastest passenger trains in the country, far outpacing the current fastest train in America—the Amtrak Acela. That train, which runs between Boston and Washington DC, currently reaches top speeds of 150 miles per hour (Amtrak's next generation Acela trains, which begin rolling out in 2024, will reach slightly faster speeds of up to 160 miles per hour).
The new projects would bring passenger trains in the US one step closer to high-speed rail systems in Europe and Asia. “When I ran for president, I made a commitment to build a world-class, high-speed rail worthy of the United States of America,” President Biden said in remarks announcing the funding. “To put our nation back on track with the fastest, safest, and greenest railways in the world. And at long last, we’re building the first high-speed rail project in our nation’s history.”
Not only will the new trains slash travel times compared to driving and help reduce traffic on some of the nation's busiest roadways—they'll be cleaner too. The two train lines coming to California will be electric, making them an environmentally friendly alternative to flying or driving, the White House says.
“The tide has turned for high-speed rail in America,” Andy Kunz, president and CEO of US High-Speed Rail said in a statement. “Electrified bullet trains will transform the nation’s transportation system—reducing congestion, helping end our dependency on fossil fuels and advancing the fight against climate change. ”
Brightline West trains will travel between California and Nevada, reaching speeds of up to 200 miles per hour.
Brightline’s new California to Nevada high-speed train will receive up to $3 billion in government funding to help build an intercity passenger rail system between Las Vegas and Rancho Cucamonga, California (a city in San Bernardino County about 37 miles east of Downtown Los Angeles). Brightline says its station in Rancho Cucamonga will be located right next to the city’s Metrolink commuter rail station, allowing for connections into the heart of Los Angeles.
Reaching speeds of up to 200 miles per hour, the new train will take just two hours—nearly half the time it takes to drive between the two cities. Most of the 218 miles of tracks will run in the median of Interstate 15.
Like Brightline's first trains in Florida, which run at maximum speeds of 125 miles per hour between Miami and Tampa, Brightline West will prioritize a comfortable passenger experience both on and off the train. The company is known for building modern rail stations complete with bars, passenger lounges, free Wi-Fi, grab-and-go food for purchase, and quick security checkpoints. On board, there will be free Wi-Fi and power outlets at each seat, as well as a snack and beverage service.
Because the trains will run on electricity, the new project will avert about 400,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions and remove millions of cars from the road each year, according to the White House. The rail line is expected to serve 11 million passengers annually.
Brightline West is expected to break ground in 2024, and the project will take an estimated four years to complete construction, putting the train’s debut in 2028 (at the earliest). The California Inaugural High-Speed Rail Service Project's will eventually link Los Angeles and San Francisco with electrified trains traveling up to 220 miles per hour.
Another passenger rail project, called the California Inaugural High-Speed Rail Service Project, will receive up to $3.07 billion in government funding to bring high-speed rail service to California’s Central Valley. Tracks will stretch 171 miles from Bakersfield to Merced, stopping in Madera, Fresno, and Kings/Tulare along the way. The goal of the rail corridor is to connect smaller towns in the middle of the state with bigger cities in Northern and Southern California.
Eventually, the larger train project will link Los Angeles and San Francisco (and the cities in between), offering a high-speed rail journey that would take under three hours.
The trains will reach speeds of up to 220 miles per hour, and they’ll be all-electric, powered by 100% renewable energy, according to the White House. “These bullet trains will make travel quicker and easier, bring housing closer, create new jobs and economic opportunities that would otherwise be out of reach, secure cleaner air for our children and help save our planet,” former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who represents California’s 11th Congressional District that includes San Francisco, said in a statement.
Construction on the high-speed line has been happening in fits and starts since 2015, but travelers will have to wait several more years before exploring the Golden State by bullet train: Test runs on the Central Valley portion of the rail line aren't expected to start until at least 2028.
Opinion Joe Matthews’ ‘modest’ proposal: Give high-speed rail to homeless Californians
Joe Mathews Sat, December 16, 2023
California is spending billions to house its increasing population of unhoused people. But it hasn’t come close to its ambitious goal of ending homelessness. And many Californians have lost hope that it ever will.
California is spending billions to construct a high-speed rail system. But it hasn’t come close to completing an actual line. And many Californians have lost hope that it ever will.
In the face of such failures, what is to be done? One option would be to surrender, concluding that mega-projects are too challenging here.
Or we could steel ourselves and embrace the wisdom of Dwight Eisenhower, who advised: “If a problem cannot be solved, enlarge it.”
In Ike’s spirit, I suggest we combine the big problems of homeless housing and high-speed rail into something larger.
Opinion
I hereby propose — very modestly — Homeless High-Speed Rail.
You read that right. Finding permanent lodging for unhoused people would become the new, urgent mission of our high-speed rail authority.
Under Homeless High-Speed Rail, the state’s unhoused people would no longer have to live in cars, shelters or encampments. Instead, everyone would have the option of a sleeping-car berth on a brand-new bullet train.
Sure, this fusion might create some challenges. But might it solve even more problems?
For example: Advocates have long criticized California for its mishmash of competing homelessness initiatives, and for insufficient funding for local solutions. My proposal solves all that by consolidating every single state and local homeless housing program under one single state agency: the California High-Speed Rail Authority.
But, instead of spending massively on the land, labor, and permitting for homeless housing — Los Angeles pays $800,000 for some units — California could spend that money on rail cars that provide housing, leaving more funding to build rail. That’s a win-win! An artist’s rendering depicts a high-speed rail train rolling through the southern San Joaquin Valley.
Combining homeless housing and high-speed rail also could answer objections that dog both programs.
For example, cities often can’t build homeless housing because of opposition from neighborhoods. But NIMBYs would lose their backyard objections when housing for the homeless zooms past at 200 mph.
Meanwhile, hosting homeless Californians answers persistent questions about whether there would be enough riders to support the project. In a Homeless High-Speed Rail project, unhoused individuals would provide a large and steady ridership base.
Strange as my proposal may seem, almost nothing about it is new.
Keeping homeless people constantly on the move sounds cruel, but this is already established policy across California, since communities constantly tear down homeless encampments, forcing unhoused people to keep relocating. And if you board local transit systems in the state, you’ll see that individuals without homes are California’s most dedicated train riders, because of the low-cost shelter they provide.
Of course, there will be some Californians who object to the whole concept, finding it perverse. These misguided moralists, a few of them columnists, will say that California is a rich place that can afford to house all its people and to build the high-speed rail systems that other countries enjoy.
In theory, these skeptical Californians will probably be right. But California doesn’t operate on theory. It operates on unmanageable budget processes, a volatile tax code, and a broken governing system. Since California refuses to fix these systems, it will never have enough housing for the homeless, or a high-speed spine for its transportation networks.
So, before you dismiss my modest proposal, ask yourself: In the face of massive failures, when doing big, essential things is nearly impossible, is any idea too awful to take off the table? Joe Mathews writes the Connecting California column for Zócalo Public Square .
Joe Mathews View comments Passenger trains could help combat climate change — if rail can actually get built Rachel Frazin
THE HILL Fri, December 15, 2023
The Biden administration is investing billions in passenger rail, giving a boost to a potentially important tool for mitigating climate change.
However, significant hurdles could slow efforts to get more rail online.
Last week, President Biden announced $8.2 billion in Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding for 10 passenger rail projects, including what the White House described as the “first world-class high-speed rail projects in our country’s history.”
The funded projects include a line connecting California to Las Vegas — which alone is expected to carry 11 million passengers each year and prevent 400,000 tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere — as well as lines serving California’s Central Valley, North Carolina and a line connecting Washington, D.C., and Richmond, Va.
Experts, the rail industry and environmentalists say that passenger trains could be an important tool for getting people out of cars and planes, thereby helping the planet.
“As long as it helps get people from Point A to Point B, we will see less car trips on the road,” said Rebekah Whilden, deputy director of Sierra Club’s Clean Transportation for All campaign.
She added that a reduction in travel in personal vehicles is “ultimately what we need to see to see the emissions reductions that we need.”
Nick Little, director of railway education at Michigan State University’s Center For Railway Research and Education, said there is potential to grow more rail in the U.S., but only in “selective” locations.
He said that opportunities exist in the northeastern U.S., as well as to connect the Dallas-Fort Worth area to Houston and Austin in Texas and Chicago to cities including Detroit, Grand Rapids, Mich., and Minneapolis.
However, the future of rail may not look like the ambitious high-speed rail maps that crop up on social media, illustrating fantasies of connecting the entire nation: Such ideas are a “pipe dream,” Little said.
It identifies parts of the Northeast and California as places for “frequent trains at 125-250+ mph in the nation’s densest and most populous regions” and parts of the Midwest as areas for regional service connecting large and midsize cities as well as “feeder” services to connect communities to the rail network.
Christopher Barkan, professor and director of the Rail Transportation and Engineering Center at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, said that he expects rail to grow in the years ahead, noting that there’s already significant work underway.
He said he mostly expects it to crop up in corridors between 100 and 400 miles in length.
“It’s a combination of population density and suitable distances where both conventional and high-speed passenger [rail] can be competitive,” Barkan said.
Andy Kunz, president of the U.S. High Speed Rail Association, said “the prognosis is really good” for the future of high-speed rail.
“The really good thing is, the Brightline West one, which will connect Las Vegas and Los Angeles, that one will be up and running in four short years,” Kurz said.
“It’ll make the case much sooner to the American people how great of a transportation mode this actually is,” he added, saying that another California project is expected to take longer to build.
However, he said that building out high-speed rail in the Northeast is “going to be one of the harder ones to build because they’ll have to build a whole new set of tracks” in order to handle the high speeds.
Meanwhile, Little said that he particularly expects to see more frequent trains on existing routes going forward because it’s “an easy thing to do, relatively,” since the trains themselves are the only additional expense.
But for new rail, there are still hurdles to overcome.
Barkan said the nation’s environmental review process — sometimes known as permitting — is one hurdle.
“The initial thing that takes time is the environmental permitting,” he said. “That’s actually one of the things I think the United States needs to improve is to accelerate its environmental permitting process for projects such as this.”
Permitting is also a hot topic on Capitol Hill — where lawmakers have sought to make a deal to speed up energy and other infrastructure projects. As part of a deal to lift the debt ceiling, some changes such as shorter federal environmental reviews were approved earlier this year, but lawmakers do not appear to have moved closer on a broader agreement.
Kunz said that not having enough funding for rail projects is the “No. 1 reason” for delays.
“Not having the money readily available early, the project ends up slowing down or actually stopping and waiting for the money to come in,” he said.
This, in turn, drives up the bill for projects because of inflation and increased costs.
Barkan said the grants announced last week will be “a significant help,” but more is needed.
“We’re not done yet, but it’s a huge step forward.”
Whilden, with the Sierra Club, said the nation’s rail system might be able to get a boost not only from money allocated by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, but also through more general climate and pollution grants in the Inflation Reduction Act.
“Municipalities and states can apply for it, and basically the only kind of checkbox is that it has to lower … pollution emissions, and so rail could be seen as being able to be used for that sort of grant,” Whilden said.
