TGVs, AVEs andShinkansens: The Failure

of the Acela to“Acela”rate

Jason S. GanzPSCI 221 – Public Policy

Prof. ConstantinidesDec 11, 2011

The United States as a global transportation hub of both people and commerce is an anomaly in

terms of passenger train infrastructure in the field of high-speed intrastate and transcontinental

transport1, a byproduct of the United States' geographic size relative to high-speed train employing

states such as France, Spain, and Japan, but also due to factors such as constituents' perspectives,

political action committees and special interest groups, and state and federal government officials

having to balance the wants and desires of the aforementioned groups. Consequently, high-speed train

transport in the United States has been primarily relegated to Amtrak's Acela line along the eastern

seaboard; transcontinental train journeys being relegated to lower-speed traditional lines that in speed

are not unlike the Subway or Long Island Rail Road cars seen by New Yorkers on a daily basis.

However, what seems to be the impetuses for such vehement resistance of a means of transport

that could inexpensively carry far more people greater distances for substantially lower fares than via

airplane?2 3. The root of such hindrance seems to be rooted in several demographics, all of whom

separately and jointly possess the ability to leverage local, state, and federal lawmakers into their

respective positions though actions ranging from direct election (individuals) to lobbying lawmakers

(political action committees, special interest groups, etc.,) through endorsements or the spread of media

chastising an adversarial government official, and even through collective protests (ie: Not In My Back

Yard, or NIMBY). Such groups and constituents, combined with politicians' collective and individual

fears of these committees and groups catalyzing their respective ousters from office, are essential in the

hindering of the American train infrastructure compared to foreign countries.

Ironically, it is not as though a high speed – or moderate speed – train in the United States

would make any different noise than its European or Japanese counterparts, metal wheels on metal rails

at 185 to 250 miles per hour sound the same on French rails, Japanese rails, Spanish rails, and

American rails, but the first problem with the implementing of a high-speed rail system is in fact, noise.

Ironically, the greatest increases in noise and duration of said noise is not at the highest speeds that

trains reach (185 to 225 miles per hour), but rather in the zone that Acela trains function at (130 to 150

miles per hour)4. Because of this higher velocity of travel, although the maximum magnitude decibel-

wise of such sound may be anywhere between two decibels and ten decibels higher – depending on

1 For the purpose of this paper, I am using the term “state” defined as the commonly employed use of “state”; e.g., the state of Texas, rather than the more political science-oriented meaning of “state”.

2 Orbitz, “Flight Search Results: New York (JFK) to Los Angeles (LAX),” Orbitz.com, http://www.orbitz.com/App/PerformSeeMoreFlights?z=ab9&r=28&lastPage=interstitial (accessed October 22, 2011).See Appendix A for provided Airplane Prices.

3 TGV, “Rail Europe - Paris to Nice - October 29, 2011 – TGV,” RailEurope.com http://www.raileurope.com/us/point_to_point/ptp_results.htm?execution=e1s1&resultId=40541945&noLock=1 (accessed October 22, 2011). See Appendix B for provided Rates.

4 C. Mellet, F. Letourneaux, F. Poisson and C. Tallote, “High Speed Train Noise Emission: Latest Investigation of the Aerodynamic / Rolling Noise Contribution,” Journal of Sound and Vibration 293 (August 26, 2005): 536-37.

whether one is inside the train (and in which car one is travelling in) or a bystander in the near vicinity5,

the higher speed of travel mitigates the duration of the Doppler Effect, or how long a sound is audible

as it endures its crescendo and subsequent diminuendo to an audio-receiving device6. For the average

person not privy to such knowledge pertaining to doppler effects, actual sound amplification from such

an increase in velocity becomes exaggerated as constituents lobby against such an infrastructure due to

perceived noise fears, because unless one is situated directly by the train, the increase in sound-pressure

is increased by no greater than a factor of two to three7 8.

But as stated in previous paragraphs, noise is subjective and its perceptions as it pertains to

noise pollution by trains is one that people wish to have no such increase in magnitude, even if the

noise could be reduced in duration by half, causing grassroots movements to engage legislators at the

local, state, and federal levels to prevent building a unified railroad infrastructure capable of supporting

transcontinental high-speed travel. At the local level, in August 2010, the city of Palo Alto, California

was provided with a vote of no confidence by its constituents when the California High Speed Rail

Authority proposed a high speed line that would travel through Palo Alto and its vicinity; constituents

claimed that they would be paying in terms of taxes and noise pollution for a service that would

provide little to no benefit at the individual level9. In this case, citizens were able to communicate via

referendum their separate and joint perspective of a high-speed train to a municipality willing to reduce

its autonomy in the name of providing due capacity to its citizens. But even beyond what constituents

perceive as noise problems are lobbyists and groups that use their constituent masses as a means to

rally behind politically aligned legislators, and influence a malleable populace into their control.

These special interest groups, in particular the American Automobile Association (AAA), have

lobbied governments at the local, state, and federal levels through collected membership fees to

improve road-based infrastructure through wider roads, and through polls designed to show that

Americans favor policy that enhances automobile driving, even at the expense of the environment.10 In

fact, two major special interest groups, the aforementioned AAA and the Teamsters Union – the largest

union in the United States11 – have supported pro-automotive and pro-trucking measures such as

5 Ibid, and 5386 John M. Chowning, “The Simulation of Moving Sound Sources,” Computer Music Journal 1, no. 3 (June, 1977): 49.7 “Sound (music) and Noise (bang),” Tontechknik-Rechner Sengpielaudio, http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-

levelchange.htm (accessed October 22, 2011).8 Mellet 5389 Kate Galbraith, “U.S. Plays Catch-Up on High-Speed Rail,” New York Times, September 5, 2010.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/06/business/energy-environment/06green.html (accessed October 22, 2011).10 Michael A. Rivlin, “The Secret Life of the AAA,” Transportation Alternatives Archives,

http://www.transalt.org/files/newsroom/media/2001/010101amicus.html (accessed December 8, 2011).11 Samuel R. Friedman, Teamster Rank and File: Power, Bureaucracy, and Rebellion at Work and in a Union (New York:

Columbia University Press, 1982), 3.

increased speed limits in the City of Los Angeles12, and have aligned with Republican legislators and

congresspersons managed to hinder the progress of high-speed rail systems such as monorails13 and

magnetic levitation – or Maglev – trains14. Maglevs in particular have been pushed as a future method

of high-speed trains due to the relatively basic concept of a train held to a track by a series of repelling

magnets that would allow for high-speed and smooth transit; unfortunately, the costs are astronomical

and even if, as Hopkins proposes, a free-transit, and tolled highway (FAT) system were to be

implemented, only high-speed monorails would be viable, not monorails.15

However, the Teamsters Union / International Brotherhood of Truckers has its own reservations

towards the implementation of high-speed transit that they feel are assuaged by instituting higher speed

limits instead of the use of high-speed rail transit. If any of the reading audience has ever been on a

thoroughfare and noticed the alarmingly high speeds that tractor-trailers and box trucks, to name two

types of truck, can hit extralegal speeds that create for automobile drivers dangerous situations on the

road. In large part, the already dangerous job of over-the-road truck driving (a job that according to

British people involves changing 18 gears only to be forced back to first due to a traffic jam, murdering

prostitutes, and checking your mirrors16) could be relieved in some way by high-speed transit being

implemented for cargo as well as passenger transit, preventing excess fatigue on operators and thus

potentially preventing thousands of unnecessary trucking-based accidents per year due to sleep

deprivation that cause an estimated 56,000 fatalities per annum.17

Now that the cursory level flaws (ie: flaws easily comprehended by the general public) have

been addressed, what benefits would high-speed rail transit provide for a country as large as the United

States? Two states that have extensively implemented traditional high-speed trains, Japan and France,

have employed them to great economic benefit for their respective states, as well as successfully

integrated the trains into the daily lives of people. Most certainly these two states have lobbying

factions analogous to the AAA and IBT that would hinder any sort of high-speed rail development. So

why then has this mode of transit become mainstreamed in France and Japan?

The primary reason for the integration of high-speed rail transit into the state of France was an

12 Damian Newton, “How Mike Eng and the Auto Lobby Stalled On Safe Streets,” L.A. Streets Blog, entry posted May 12, 2009, http://la.streetsblog.org/2009/05/12/how-mike-eng-and-the-auto-lobby-stalled-on-safe-streets/ (accessed December 8, 2011).

13 Thomas H. Hopkins, “A Nationwide High-Speed Monorail Grid For the United States,” Virtual Global Super Projects Conference 2001, http://www.wdf.org/gspc/virtual2001/pdf/HopkinsPaper.pdf (accessed December 8, 2011). pp. 10 – 11 of .pdf file

14 Hopkins 8, 1015 Hopkins 6 – 716 PeteyKirch, “Jeremy Clarkson On Lorry Driving - (c) BBC” (December 8, 2011), YouTube .flv with mp3 Audio file,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imhBoE56OEs (accessed December 8, 2011).17 “Driver Fatigue Is an Important Cause of Road Crashes.,” SmartMotorist.com, http://www.smartmotorist.com/traffic-

and-safety-guideline/driver-fatigue-is-an-important-cause-of-road-crashes.html (accessed December 8, 2011).

integration of corporatist networks with the financial resources and ability of the state to act as a key

entrepreneur for the formation of the infrastructure; that is, the employment by the state of a

corporation in order to procure land and lines for building new high-speed lines and overhauling

already existing rail lines into high-speed transit.18 While such a method of business commingling with

the state may sound like a conflict of interests in American “free-market ideal” terms, it does allow for

high amounts of labor mobility and corporate autonomy while the state dictates to the business what

must be done by the corporation to fulfill the state's wishes19; almost micro-mercantilizing the train

industry in order to stimulate high-speed rail. France's choice of using the French National Railways

(SNCF)20, had its own issues of public policy due to the magnitude of the undertaking a complete

overhaul of an aging rail system.

As with all businesses that are forging into an untold field, the state must often provide an

incentive or punitive measure as a means of coercing a business to undertake a potentially financially

debilitating project – and for SNCF, this was no exception. SNCF's executives, many of whom had

become French transportation's pariahs as the traditional system languished into disrepair and was no

longer competitive speed and economics-wise to the car or plane for intrastate and short-travel

interstate transit21. A 1973 proposal of the initial infrastructure of such high-speed transit displayed the

hub of the proposed french High-Speed Train (TGV) to be Paris, with a series of dendrites that would

extend as far as Madrid to the Southwest, Manchester to the North, Berlin to the East, and Milan to the

Southeast; effectively unifying much of Western Europe through a single train-system.22 The biggest

challenge for a train that would effectively unite much of Western Europe via rails though was the

construction of the English Channel, an international public policy incident that would take nearly

twenty years to fully rectify and implement at the level of mass consumption.

The issues at hand with connecting the English Channel included handling the increase in traffic

that was projected as a result of integrating the TGV into the proposed “Chunnel” and the interests for

ferries that had been the traditional means of crossing the Channel in prior decades.23 The Channel

Tunnel Group (CTG), who was in collaboration with both the French and British governments, as well

as SNCF, released several reports that estimated traffic through the Chunnel both with and without the

18 James A. Dunn, Jr. and Robert Perl, “Policy Networks and Industrial Revitalization: High-Speed Rail Initiatives in France And Germany,” Journal of Public Policy 14, no. 3 (Jul. - Dec., 1994): 313.

19 ibid20 Dunn and Perl 31621 Dunn and Perl 315 – 31722 Michael Chisholm, “The Impact of the Channel Tunnel On the Regions of Britain and Europe,” The Geographical

Journal 152, no. 3 (Nov., 1986): 315-16.23 Chisholm 320

TGV's presence in 1983, 1993, and 200324, and it was estimated that ferries would experience little to

no loss due to perceived compensations in volume provided by tourists who could now more easily

travel from England to mainland Europe and vice versa25.

Another problem France, along with England, experienced with high-speed transit was the

inaccessibility the TGV possessed to remote areas as well as the need for the TGV to station and travel

through densely populated areas such as Paris, Lyon, Nice, and beyond the borders.26 Problems in the

more remote areas included the viability of providing roads to the more remote French areas to increase

volume for the TGV27, how to build the TGV and account for minimum speeds in excess of 180 miles

per hour along farmlands near the A1 motorway in England28, and that beyond the major metropolitan

areas, existing track would merely be upgraded rather than completely overhauled; relegating any high-

speed train activity to relatively close to typical train speed29. To counter these possibilities, high-speed

lines were implemented in rural areas with flat topography where possible; leaving regular rails to an

as-needed and in metropolitan areas basis;30 a solution that ultimately assuaged many urban and

suburban residents' collective noise and pollution fears31 while allowing the TGV to expand not just

into Britain and Germany, but ultimately throughout much of Western Europe as was originally

planned.32

As such, the dilemma of high-speed rail in what ultimately became a near-transcontinental

infrastructure was mitigated through careful planning to avoid high-speed problems in urban areas

while allowing for a reduced speed through heavily populated areas as well as maximizing the use of

flat topography for high-speed stretches to minimize the need for turns (which would need banked

curves to create centripetal force to avoid lateral derailments) and ultimately much of Western Europe

was in one way or another connected through high-speed transits that expanded to include the TGV

(France), and the Alta Velocidad Espanola, or AVE – where if the train is more than fifteen minutes

24 Chishom 318. In this table, Chisholm demonstrates how even though motoring traffic, ferry passengers, and footwalkers may be decreased, the economic benefit provided to both England and France through Chunnel travel from an economic standpoint compensates for the loss of tolls suffered by losses in ferry and motorist tolls.

25 ibid26 Ian Thompson, “The French TGV System - Progress and Projects,” Geography 79, no. 2 (April, 1994): 167.27 ibid28 Ibid, the A1 motorway in England had at the time of publication a speed limit of 130 kilometers per hour.29 Dunn and Perl 328. The top speed of any high-speed train on a normal line would be 100 miles per hour to mitigate the

stress on tracks not designed for these trains. 30 ibid31 Diane Cornely, “Planning For High Speed Rail in the United States: The Penndesign Report On Planning For America's

Emerging High Speed Rail System,” PennDesign (December 2009): A-4, http://www.design.upenn.edu/hsr2011/planningforhsr.pdf#page=80 (accessed December 10, 2011). In May 1990, approximately 1,200 people protested the spread of the TGV into Italy due to fears that noise suppression fences would not be implemented. Their fears were ultimately put to rest, though small clusters continue protesting elsewhere to this day.

32 Chisholm 320

late, the ride is free (Madrid to Seville is five minutes late for a threshold33 – (Spain). However, high-

speed transit is most feasible when the distance that requires travelling is between three hundred and

six hundred kilometers, which is often too far for a car-ride, but not distant enough to justify flight34.

For one country, where six hundred kilometers can take a passenger cross country, high-speed rail

transit is not a luxury, but a way of life.

Japan is an archipelago of approximately 125 million people that has a cultural tendency of

efficiency, speed, and punctuality, and the bullet trains called Shinkansen35 are an example of a public

policy action that has been raised, cultivated, and continuously improved throughout the past half-

century to become an icon of the ability for a state to rebuild after massive devastation. However,

unlike the high-speed trains of Europe, which were built as a means of countering a rail industry left to

languish after the mass influx of air transit into Europe, the Shinkansen's original purpoe was to be able

to transport military-based necessities throughout Japan at a rate of 200 kilometers per hour36. After

World War II, when the project was scrapped – for obvious reasons – the locus for high-speed rail

transitioned from a military interest to one for civilians. However, problems with post-war train

structure languished in the 1950; culminating in two extremely deadly crashes – a 1962 train crash that

killed 160 people, and one on November 9, 1963 that killed 161 people – both shared the common

thread of being between a passenger train and a freight train.37

Much of Japan's rail problem that had existed before World War II was only exacerbated by the

massive attacks levied by the United States during World War II and was the root cause of the

aforementioned collision. Additionally, with the re-emergence of urban spheres in the 1950s, the Diet

(Japanese Parliament) and ultimately the government as a whole commissioned a segregated high-

speed transit system with nuances such as specially gauged tracks, trains specifically designed for this

gauge, and renovated stations; target speed: 130 miles per hour.38 The initial track of the Shinkansen

was opened in 1964 between Tokyo and Osaka, Japan's two most populated cities39, as a test both of the

viability of segregated lines, but more importantly as a technological centerpiece for the 1964 Summer

33 “Guide to the Spanish Railway Network,” Expatica.com, http://www.expatica.com/es/essentials_moving_to/essentials/guide-to-the-spanish-railway-network-1929.html (accessedDecember 9, 2011).

34 Gines de Rus and Gustavo Nombela, “Is Investment in High-Speed Rail Socially Profitable?” Journal of Transport Economics and Policy 41, no. 1 (Jan 2007): 5.

35 Christopher P. Hood, “The Shinkansen's Local Impact,” Social Science Japan Journal 13, no. 2 (February 19, 2010): 211.

36 Hood 213.37 Hood 21438 Daniel Albalate and Germa Bel, “High-Speed Rail: Lessons For Policy Makers from Experiences Abroad,” Research

Institute of Applied Economics (March, 2010): 5.39 Hood 214

Olympics which commenced 9 days after the first Shinkansen run.40

However, the Shinkansen's existence as a high speed train was not without its faults, the most

prominent of faults arising from the 1922 Japanese Railway Law which rather than permit trains to

follow the most efficient route – typically a straight line – required trains to engage in slaloms, semi-

circles, etc., due to legislators believing that train service should go to the constituents' respective

neighborhoods rather than into major metropolitan centers.41 In essence, the interest of the politicians'

campaigns was more urgent than a means of transport that could quickly and efficiently transport

millions of workers per day to work, and as a result even the highest speed trains would be required to

navigate at some level the same towns as their lower-speed counterparts, while maintaining an

incredibly stringent timetable with its own stipulations. Lateness, to put it gently, would not be an

option for the conductor.

The urban legend that is tossed around by foreigners pertaining to the incredibly accurate

timeliness of the Shinkansen is not at all a legend; Shinkansen conductors are not allowed more than

one minute of tardiness lest the Shinkansen is to provide many thousands of fare refunds and explain to

many thousands of employers why the train was tardy to the station.42 While this may be considered

conducive to the estimated 380,000 Tokaido Shinkansen travellers that commute per day,43 the issue of

conductor welfare arises. Fortunately, the issue of the government or a private agency having to

provide insurance, healthcare, and other services to a very stressed out conductor is assuaged as all

operations of the Shinkansen, including acceleration, deceleration, stops, etc., are done by a series of

computers that dynamically instruct the train44, as well as function as a “surrogate conductor” in the

event the human conductor is excessively fatigued or enters a state of duress45, as was the case in 2003

when a conductor fell asleep at the helm with 800 passengers on board travelling at 275 kilometers per

hour; the train arrived in Okayama without incident due to the precision of the Automated Train

System.46

40 ibid41 ibid42 TopGear, “Race Across Japan Part 1 - Top Gear - BBC” (October 5, 2010), YouTube .flv with.mp3 Audio file, 3:54 to

4:18, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3i-HRxf8z4 (accessed December 9, 2011). Key to note: the Shinkansen has an 87% on-time rate EVEN with the lateness threshold at sixty seconds.

43 Y. Yamada, “Message from the President,” a brief synopsis of the environmental impact of the Shinkansen, its evolution, and its annual ridership, Tokyo, Japan, 2010), http://english.jr-central.co.jp/company/company/others/eco-report/_pdf/p1.pdf (accessed December 9, 2011).

44 “Order for the Enforcement of the Nationwide Shinkansen Railway Act. Cabinet Order No. 272. Enacted September 25, 1970, last amended by Cabinet Order # 197 of May 17, 2006, Article 3. http://www.mlit.go.jp/english/2006/h_railway_bureau/Laws_concerning/06.pdf page 2

45 A. Straszak and R. Tuch, “The Shinkansen High-Speed Rail Network of Japan,” IIASA Proceedings Series (June 27 - 30, 1977): 439-40.

46 Roderick A. Smith, “The Japanese Shinkansen: Catalyst For the Renaissance of Rail,” The Journal of Transport History 24, no. 2 (September 1, 2003): 233-34.

Unfortunately for Japan, the rapid proliferation of the Shinkansen throughout Japan has left two

major problems for Japan, the first agricultural and the second cultural based on societal, that not even

the Shinkansen's executives or a room of extraordinarily powerful mainframes can solve; the shift of

rural farmers into Japan's cities in order to gain access to train services, and the aged and infirm of

Japan who live in rural areas that expect their progeny to care for them in their golden years.47 For

many of these youth in a society that is becoming increasingly elderly yet has a very low rate of

reproduction, this could result in a massive population drop within the next 50 years that a Japan in the

1960s was by no means prepared for.48 So perhaps for all the public policy problems the Shinkansen

was able to solve such as urbanization, redundancy to prevent collisions, and being the gold-standard of

timeliness, the greatest public policy problem arose from its existence; how to balance the increasing

levels of aged Japanese with a need to maintain a hypermodern and increasingly urbanizing Japan

without causing massive collapses in diminishing cities that have a Shinkansen station49. A question

that is beyond the scope of this paper, but also increasingly common in the United States, a state built

on rails and an increasingly geriatric population.

The United States is a relative anomaly in terms of possessing a rail system with high-speed

capability compared to the aforementioned two states – as well as many other states with a robust rail

infrastructure. Beyond the cursory problems of a highly contentious private population that resists any

sort of encroachment on land (even if for the public good) by employing eminent domain to its fullest,

as well as special interest groups that seek to stymie rail development as it stands currently, there has

been relatively little influence by both Amtrak and the United States government to implement such a

system due to the rapid decline of rail use after the 1970s in favor of automotive and air transit.50 In

fact, the only high-speed line implemented in the United States, the “Acela Express” runs exclusively

between Boston and Washington, D.C.,51 with sporadic plans for high-speed rail in the vicinity of major

metropolises, but none that would link the entire state together.52 However, unlike France and Japan,

both states which have massively improved their rail infrastructures and compensated for policy

47 Hood 222 – 223. Although many Japanese youth live and work in the cities, many of their grandparents are still living in relatively rural areas.

48 ibid49 Hood 221 – 222. Hood gives many examples of where the mere existence of a Shinkansen station has caused an

artifical increase in the metropolitan area's population, often at the cost of surrounding small towns that are not servicedby these trains. Conversely, if depopulation occurs in less urban areas, there are fears that the evolution of the Shinkansen may be dragged into an un-needed grave with rural Japan.

50 Louis S. Thompson, “High-Speed Rail in the United States: Why Isn't There More?” Japan Railway and Transport Review (October, 1994): 32.

51 “Acela Express,” Amtrak, http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer/AM_Route_C/1241245664867/1237405732511 (accessed December 10, 2011).

52 United States Department of Transportation “Vision for High Speed Rail in America” Federal Railroad Administration http://www.fra.dot.gov/Downloads/RRdev/hsrmap-lv.pdf

problems that arose / could arise, as well as individual and worker problems, the United States still

faces these problems, many of which were exacerbated by the end of World War II and the Eisenhower

Administration.

Although the employment of rail had declined in the years following World War II, railroad use

enjoyed a resurgence during World War II that just as quickly vanished as a result of the proposing and

implementation of an interstate system not unlike the Autobahn53 – other than the Interstate system

would have speed limits throughout. The Interstate Highway Act of 1956, which passed the United

States House of Representatives by a vote of 388 to 19 on April 27, 1956 and the United States Senate

by a vote of 89 to 1 on June 26, 1956,54 was the culmination of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's

dream to connect the United States and authorized the building of 41,000 miles of transcontinental

highway at the cost of $25 billion from 1957 to 1969.55 President Eisenhower and Robert Moses, the

interstate's planner, however, had not accounted for the long-term ramifications of such an operation

upon an already flagging rail system that would include a precipitous drop in the amount of freight

carried by rail per year, as well as an equally precipitous drop in rail use to the automobile; airplane use

also spiked as cars were now more capable of replacing trains for travel to airports as well.56

As a result, much of what was laid out in track form by nationwide railroad agencies was

consolidated into what is now Amtrak, or the National Railroad Passenger Corporation in 1971 as a

result of the fear that any sort of rail service in the United States would cease to exist. Spearheaded by

the Nixon Administration's passing of the Rail Passenger Service Act of 1970, intercity transit (defined

in the Act as transit that was not “short-haul” within metropolitan and suburban areas57) would be

largely done as a hybrid government-cum-private corporation in which a corporation would function

akin to any sort of corporation a reader may know of (officers, a board of directors, etc.,) yet have

government subsidy in order to keep prices palpable for consumers.58 This corporation, better known

as Amtrak, has been provided through 1998 with approximately $30 billion in subsidies in order to not

only improve already-existing rail infrastructure, but also provide modernizations to its system in order

53 Martha J. Bianco, “Robert Moses and Lewis Mumford: Competing Paradigms of Growth in Portland, Oregon,” Planning Perspectives 16, no. 2 (April, 2001): 102.

54 United States Department of Transportation and Richard F. Weingroff, “Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956: Creating theInterstate System,” Public Roads, a Publication of the Federal Highway Administration 60, no. 1 (Summer, 1996): 10, 12

55 USDOT and Weingroff, 5, 11 The implementation of the United States Interstate system brought to fruition the idea Eisenhower had noticed as a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army of such a system. This arose as a result of a sixty-two day, cross-country journey across the United States in which Eisenhower noted the poor conditions of major roadways throughout the United States.

56 L. Thompson 3257 Rail Passenger Act of 1970, Public Law 91-518, § 102, 91st Cong. (October 30, 1970).58 Rail Passenger Act, §201, §301 – 303.

to keep up with the needs of rail passengers.59 But with Amtrak itself admitting it has never turned a

profit60 and in several points in its tenure owing $750 million in debt while receiving government

subsidies of over $2 billion in 199961, it becomes little wonder that even if the issues of eminent

domain, noise pollution, etc., are solved, that the government, if not subsidize Amtrak, must become a

sort of “equal partner to Amtrak” in order to maintain its viability62. One way was the development and

implementation of the Acela high-speed train that travels from Boston to Washington, D.C..

Although due to its single-line tendency, a tendency that differs from the suprastate nature of the

TGV and its siblings as well as the fully interstate nature of the Shinkansen, the Acela train –

implemented as America's answer to the aforementioned bullet trains – was pressed into service on

December 11, 2000 in the hopes of bringing the same intercity successes of Europe's and Japan's

intercity transit to the United States. However, due to Amtrak's lingering problems with using

excessive funds for maintenance rather than for continued improvements and modernizations63, Acela

has not expanded at anywhere near the rate of its European and Japanese counterparts due to problems

that pertain to federal regulations that require a heavier weighted train to adhere to safety regulations64

as well as common practice for non-Acela trains to achieve no higher than 79 miles per hour;65 after all,

why attempt to improve one's infrastructure and increase the speed of intercity transit when no

incentive is provided to do so? Unlike the TGV and the Shinkansen, which have evolved through

generations due to a need to provide services to those who live often hundreds of kilometers from

work, or require long-distance transit that doesn't require the use of an airplane, rail travel in the United

States has primarily become a means of leisurely travel not unlike the Orient Express – albeit without

the opulence. However, the dichotomy in the evolution of American high-speed transit may see

improvements if two policies, the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008 (PRIIA)

and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA)66 are properly implemented.

The PRIIA, which was enacted on October 16, 2008, laid out within its parameters a provision

59 Ronald D. Utt, Ph.D, “Congress Should Accept Industry Offers to Buy Amtrak,” The Heritage Foundation Backgrounder no. 1179 (May 18, 1998): 1, http://ntl.bts.gov/lib/11000/11400/11460/bg_1179.pdf (accessed December 10, 2011).

60 Charles D. Chieppo, “This Train's Not Bound to Break Even,” Boston Herald, June 11, 2001. http://www.pioneerinstitute.org/pdf/010611_chieppo.pdf (accessed December 10, 2011).

61 Utt, Ph.D 1 – 2.62 Ibid, with intercity rail accounting for only 0.3 percent of total travel in 1998 (a volume Utt contends is about the

equivalent of the total amount of people that travel through Charlotte, NC), Utt believes that a greater amount of privateinfluence is needed to spearhead the development of the American Rail System.

63 Utt, Ph.D 164 Katy Alberti et al., “Emerging High-Speed Rail Initiative in the Midwest: A Case Study of the St. Louis - Chicago

Line,” University of Chicago Humanities Department (December 8, 2010): 24, http://humanities.uchicago.edu/orgs/institute/bigproblems/Team8-1210.pdf (accessed December 10, 2011).

65 Alberti et al 666 ibid

for Amtrak to update Acela to a “state-of-good-repair”, a consolidation of Amtrak's debts (almost akin

to a quasi-Chapter 11 bankruptcy but without the ruin of Amtrak's credit), as well as required Amtrak to

more closely monitor which of its lines were satisfying these requirements and which lines were

laggards in terms of performance and quality.67 Most notable to the PRIIA was section 501, which

stipulated that the 10 major intercity rail sectors68, per recommendation of the United States Secretary

of Transportation, would begin connecting via intercity rail in an attempt to make short-distance,

interstate transit runs more conducive. Transit lines such as Empire (Upstate New York) and Chicago

Hub (Much of the Northern Midwest)69 would have their metropolitan areas connected as a

rudimentary step towards bringing the United States to a level of connectedness that is currently held

by much of Western Europe and Japan. To spike interest in such a project, the United States

government offered private companies contract offers to form a public-private relationship70 not unlike

the SNCF and the French Government collaboration that resulted in the TGV. However, by the

beginning of the Obama Administration, the lack of responses, combined with the housing and jobs

crises in the United States forced the infamous 2009 stimulus package the PRIIA needed; the ARRA, a

portion of this stimulus package spearheaded further development of an Amtrak high-speed network.71

In order to finance the PRIIA, the ARRA was ultimately forced to allocate $1.3 billion for

Amtrak and an additional $8 billion for any state or agency that was either willing to work in collusion

with Amtrak or as a competitor of Amtrak.72 Although this number may seem quite large for what has

become in the United States a deprecated form of transport, within the ARRA was no explicit provision

for the safety measures required by its Japanese and French counterparts such as a central override

system in the event of operator sickness or fatigue73. While this may appease Amtrak's conductors

(since there is less of a threat to their jobs by some robotic machine that has government parameters

programmed into it), unlike the Shinkansen and TGV which have segregated rails due to their speed

and / or gauge size (the Shinkansen is on a 3' 6” wide rail instead of the 4' 8” standard rail74), the Acela

line currently rides on, and even after implementation of PRIIA and ARRA, would ride on the same

rails that freight trains ride on. What person would willingly pay a premium in order to ride a high-

67 Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008, Public Law 110-432, § 101, § 102, § 205, § 210, 110th Cong., 2d sess. (October 16, 2008).

68 PRIIA § 50169 “High Speed Rail Corridor Descriptions,” Federal Railroad Administration, http://www.fra.dot.gov/Pages/203.shtml

(accessed December 11, 2011).70 PRIIA § 21471 “Public - Private Partnerships Hsr Expressions of Interest,” Federal Railroad Administration,

http://www.fra.dot.gov/rpd/passenger/2107.shtml (accessed December 11, 2011).72 The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, Public Law 111-5, U.S. Statutes at Large 123 (2009): 208-9.73 Earlier in this paper, I went into detail on the automated computer system that the Shinkansen operate on that allow for

automatic override in the event of perceived or actual absence of ability by the conductor.74 Smith 242

speed train that travels at the astronomical speed of 14 miles per hour75 after $9,300,000,000 in total

taxpayer expense went into improvements for Amtrak's lines?

It is not for lack of interest in high-speed rail that the United States' lackadaisical public policy

relative to its international counterparts that will cause a high-speed rail system to fail. Rather it is the

lack of state autonomy from protesting constituents, an excess of unions and special interests, and

having to erase decades of infrastructure decay that stymies the integration of a nationwide high-speed

rail system. The $25 billion interstate investment in the 1950s, an amount that would equal nearly

$100 billion in 2011 dollars, no doubt put the dream of an American high-speed rail system into an un-

needed grave. Not every trip is 50 miles or 2,000 miles, and there is in itself an enjoyment of travelling

through America on a futuristic liner not unlike how our parents and grandparents would travel in

decades past. High-speed rail would have revitalized a dying means of transport, and it still can if

allowed to run the way it is meant to, but then I ask myself, how many MTAs and Jeremy Clarksons76

would it take to put this great idea into what would be sadly, a permanent and very unwarranted grave.

75 Hopkins 1476 TopGear, “Trains Part 2 - Top Gear - BBC” (November 26, 2011), YouTube .flv with mp3 Audio file, 1:15 to 1:55,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMWBPrFVwLk (accessed December 11, 2011).

Appendix A

Above: JFK to LAX flight rates as of 10/22/11

Interstate Train Travel (France) – Appendix B

Train Rates for French rail Travel (Paris to Nice), for Oct 29, 2011

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