U.S. High Speed Trains back on the Fast Track

After languishing at the margins of federal policy for most of the past decade, passenger rail is moving to the fore as President Barack Obama joins a growing number of states in calling for heavy investment in America's rail infrastructure.

The president's $825 billion economic stimulus package includes $30 billion for rail and mass transit projects; a Senate version specifically allocates $850 million for Amtrak and $2 billion for high-speed rail. It's significant, because Obama has long favored expanding passenger rail service and has specifically called for a rail network linking Chicago with the major cities of the Midwest.

Some aren't waiting for the feds to get with it. California voters recently authorized the legislature to issue almost $10 billion in bonds to begin construction of an 800-mile high-speed rail line linking San Francisco with Los Angeles. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has long argued California must lead the nation to a high-speed future. He and others say bolstering the nation's passenger rail system is faster, cheaper and easier than building more freeways or expanding an already overburdened air-travel system.

None of this surprises Michael Dukakis, who for 30 years has been a leading advocate for mass transit and a national network of high-speed rail lines. The former governor of Massachusetts and 1988 Democratic presidential candidate believes "growth in rail is inevitable" and says everyone — from commuters to automakers — stands to benefit from it, and it will only bolster the economy and help the environment.

Dukakis, who served on the Amtrak board of directors, teaches political science at Northeastern University and is a visiting professor at UCLA, where Wired.com spoke to him by phone about the future of rail in America.

Wired.com: The Bush Administration often was accused of trying to shut down Amtrak, but then last year the president signed a bill doubling the agency's budget over five years. What gives?

Michael Dukakis: I think he knew he didn't have a choice. That bill — which is unquestionably the best Amtrak bill we've ever had — passed with overwhelming majorities in both houses [of Congress], and I think that pushed him to sign. Because up until that point Bush was an absolute disaster when it came to funding rail. At one point he zero-funded it. That's completely at odds with the public mood.

Wired.com: How so?

Dukakis: [Republican pollster] Frank Lutz wrote an op-ed piece for the Los Angeles Times this week. His polling found that 94 percent of Americans want work done on our transportation system. Not just on roads and bridges, but on the larger system. It's undeniable.

Wired.com: The Obama administration has promised more rail and transit funding. Are we going to see things start to happen?

Dukakis: No question about it. This economic mess we're in has actually turned out to be a huge opportunity to invest in transit projects. Despite the concerns out there, I think this is a huge opportunity.

Wired.com: What concerns?

Dukakis: There's worry that the states just aren't ready to move on stuff. They haven't done the planning and the engineering they need to jump into major projects when the funding is there. We have a major construction-management problem in this country. In Massachusetts, the governor wants to build a four-mile light-rail extension using existing right of way [tracks and property that are already in place], and it's going to take six years to complete. How can that be? Chinese and Irish immigrants were laying four miles of track a day on the transcontinental railroad, and that was in the 1860s.

Wired.com: That's a state project. What about the national infrastructure operated by Amtrak? Isn't that separate?

Dukakis: Yes it is, but the two need to be interconnected, the same way the Federal Highway Administration works with state highway agencies. Building a first-class rail network for this country will require close cooperation, and moving forward I suspect we'll see close collaboration between Amtrak's construction and engineering people and their counterparts at the state level.

Wired.com: Let's talk about financing. You mentioned a poll showing 94 percent of Americans favor improving the country's transportation system. When Wired.com wrote a piece calling for an increase in the gas tax to finance mass transit and clean energy, it angered a lot of people. People may want change, but are they willing to pay for it?

Dukakis: I raised the gasoline tax in Massachusetts in 1989, and I took a lot of heat for it. But our infrastructure is a mess, in part due to lack of revenue. If you're in public office, every once in a while you need to stand up and say, "We're doing the best we can but we cannot have a first-class transportation system without increasing revenue." There are lots of ways to do that, whether it's tolls or a gasoline tax or finding a way to do it with general revenues. But you’ve got to make the case, and you have to be willing to take the heat.

It's also about government spending priorities. It's absurd to say we don't have money to expand rail. For what we spend in Iraq in a week or maybe 10 days, we could fund Amtrak's ongoing operations as well as make major investments. We spend about $30 billion a year on highways and about $15-to-$16 billion on airports and airline subsidies. We're talking about 6 percent or 7 percent of that for a national rail-passenger system. You're essentially talking about a few billion dollars a year over the course of the next 10 years for a system that we should have had years ago.

Wired.com: What would such a system look like? Would it use existing infrastructure, or will there need to be new right of way?

Dukakis: It depends on what you want to do. If you want to build a European-style 200-mph high-speed system — the kind that California is now committed to — that requires exclusive rights of way. And it probably argues for electrification. That's an expensive proposition.

Wired.com: What are the other options?

Dukakis: We can use our existing rights of way to reach speeds of between 110 and 125 mph. In some cases you'd want to lay tracks alongside what is there so that passenger and freight trains can stay out of each other's way, but most of what you'd need is already in place.

Wired.com: Most people probably aren't aware of that. Most people probably think we'd have to start from scratch.

Dukakis: You absolutely can use what we already have. It's already happening. There's a 10-state plan to connect downtown Chicago to every other major Midwest city within 400 miles using trains that travel between 110 and 115 mph. The whole thing would cost around $7 billion, and the basic proposal calls for using existing right of way.

That $7 billion is half of what it will cost to move forward with the planned expansion of O'Hare airport. Every third flight out of that airport is less than 350 miles. So if you build a regional rail system in the Midwest, you're also helping with congestion at O'Hare and opening slots for longer flights.

Wired.com: Are there other regions where such a system makes sense?

Dukakis: Florida passed and then later repealed a bill authorizing a $20 billion, 200-mph bullet train [connecting Tampa, St. Petersburg, Orlando and Miami.] But for about a billion dollars, the state could have a fast system that uses existing tracks and ties into the national network. That's a fraction of the $2 billion to $3 billion they've spent to widen Interstate 4 from Orlando to Tampa.

Wired.com: A 200-mph train is nice, but pie-in-the-sky at this point ...

Dukakis: Well, it’s not pie in the sky for California, where the people have voted to go ahead with it. Over time, it may make sense to do a similar thing in some parts of the country, but realistically, you get the most bang for the buck by focusing on the 125-mph system we've been talking about. And that could move ahead very, very quickly.

Wired.com: What would it require in terms of rolling stock and other equipment?

Dukakis: It's all equipment we can buy off the shelf, stuff that other countries are already using. It's the level of technology they're using in England, and that's a very good system.

Wired.com: Speaking of Europe, many people argue looking to Germany and France is silly because our population centers are much more spread out than those in Europe.

Dukakis: I've heard that argument a lot. But from the Mississippi River east, we actually look a lot like Europe. There's similar population density and distance between cities. That's why the Southeastern states want high-speed service extended from Washington, D.C., down to Richmond, Raleigh, Charlotte and Atlanta. They know it can work. It's true that in the area west of the Mississippi to California, with some exceptions, these kinds of corridors don't exist. But even there the Amtrak long-distance trains provide a hugely important service, and from April to October, many of them are packed.

Wired.com: The cool thing about traveling by train in Europe is when you get off the train, you can cross the platform and hop on a subway. What do you do in a city like Charlotte or Houston, where those local connections just don't exist?

Dukakis: With the exception of a handful of U.S. cities, we are not where we should be in this regard. But if more investment is made in intercity rail, you'll see local and regional transit systems reconfiguring themselves to improve the connections.

Wired.com: Build the national network and local connections will follow?

Dukakis: That's how it has worked with airports. BART [Bay Area Rapid Transit] now extends to the [San Francisco International] airport. Chicago, Atlanta, and New York have transit connections to their airports, too. If we commit to a first-class passenger-rail system, you'll see local and regional transit organizations start talking about finding ways to connect to it.

Wired.com: What's the environmental argument for trains?

Dukakis: Well, it’s far more energy-efficient and much less dependent on conventional fuels, although with diesel you’re obviously going to be using those types of fuel. But by any measure, you’re carrying far more people with less energy than you would in an automobile or an airplane.

Wired.com: Let's talk about planes. On some routes in Europe where high-speed rail is up and running, and even on the East Coast shuttle routes, airlines have seen their market share drop precipitously. Do you think the aviation industry will fight rail expansion?

Dukakis: I don't. Growth in rail is inevitable, and I think the airlines know it. When the high-speed system was approved in California, there wasn't any evidence that Southwest [Airlines] tried to stop it. With congestion and fuel prices what they are, short-haul air transportation is problematic these days, anyway. In any coherent world, using airplanes to fly 300 miles makes absolutely no sense at all.

Wired.com: Where do the automakers fit into all of this?

Dukakis: I teach with a labor economist named Dan Mitchell. He's bright as hell, and he keeps asking why we're loaning money to the car companies when we could give them a contract for $5 billion or $10 billion and have them make buses for regional transit authorities. That's far more effective than just handing them money, and it keeps their factories running.

Wired.com: The system we've been talking about requires more than buses.

Dukakis: Hey, if a company can build a bus, it stands to reason that they can figure out how to build a street car, right? The cities in this country that are planning light-rail–type systems will need to purchase every stick of rolling stock from a foreign manufacturer. There's no reason our car companies can't make them instead.

Wired.com: You seem optimistic passenger rail is going to take off.

Wired.com: That’s my hope and expectation, but there are things that need to happen. The governors and mayors need to get cracking on the planning and engineering of these projects, so that the money can be put to good use. They need to set up training programs to ensure that they have enough skilled tradespeople. There needs to be a sense of urgency across the board, and it needs to be driven by the federal government.

Wired.com: What’s your part going to be in all this? Think there's a role for you in the new administration?

Dukakis: [Laughs] Not this time. This time I'm just a private citizen adding my voice. I'm anxious to be as helpful as I can.