2023 was a particularly smart year for American high-speed rail. In Florida, Brightline extended its fast run (125 mph top speed) from Miami to Orlando with plans to launch an extension to Tampa. The company’s task (up to about 200 mph) of linking Las Vegas with the Los Angeles suburbs received the required environmental approvals and earned $3 billion (about $9 per user in the United States) from the federal government. The Biden administration also provided $3 billion of the $10 billion needed to help California complete its new 171-mile (220 mph) Central Valley corridor between Merced and Bakersfield. Finally, Amtrak’s new Acela exercises, lighter and faster (260 km/h), could nevertheless be put into service in 2024, which, with some important improvements, would shorten the adventure between New York and Washington in two and a half hours. half. about 3 now.
But although some believe that the dream of high speed in the United States is nevertheless within reach, the truth is that the United States is still far from being able to boast a high-speed rail network like those discovered in Asia and Europe. The explanation is simple: the cost.
American rail projects are more expensive and take longer to complete than anywhere else in the world. Domestic rail and transit projects charge 50% more (per kilometer) than those in Europe and Canada. American projects also take longer. According to a study, European tunnels can be built 18 months faster than those in the United States. This additional time is costly, as corporations will have to pay salaries and benefits during this long wait.
Given the current size of the Federal deficit, and the absence of a direct source of funding (highways, by contrast, are directly funded by the gas tax), high-speed rail boosters need to focus on improving construction efficiency. That means enacting several major reforms that will make the investments from the Bipartisan Infrastructure law go further.
Despite all the progress made in 2023, speeding up high-speed rail in the United States will require implementing an agenda of reforms to reduce costs. There would be a lot to gain: benefits in terms of mobility, traffic congestion, climate change and much more. But all those gains will remain elusive if we can’t compete in value with Europe and Asia.
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