Travelers easily whiz from city to city on high-speed trains in many parts of South America, Asia and Europe. Since the first high-speed lines began operating more than 50 years ago in Japan, they have become an essential part of transportation worldwide.
Yet the US has never built a single stretch of high-speed rail, which is generally defined as accommodating trains that go at least 321kph and proposals to do so have been thwarted for decades.
So what is holding the US back?
Photo: AP
For starters, a much larger land mass, longer distances between major cities and the high cost of construction. Other factors include efficient air travel, relatively low prices for gasoline and a car-based culture.
“The challenge in America is the scale of America,” said Robert Eckels, chief executive of the Texas Central High Speed Railway, a private venture that is planning a bullet train between Dallas and Houston, Texas.
In recent decades, political pressure against bullet trains has come from conservatives, who argue that such systems should acquire private financial backing and prove that their operations will at a minimum be cost-neutral. It is a burden state and federal governments do not place on other huge transportation projects, such as freeways and airports.
For now, the best the country can do is Amtrak’s Acela, which reaches speeds of up to 240kph on a busy route between Washington and Boston.
In an effort to jump-start high-speed rail, the administration of US President Barack Obama in 2009 awarded US$7 billion for projects in California, Florida and Wisconsin. Republican governors in Florida and Wisconsin rejected the funding and backed out of high-speed rail plans, sending more of those dollars to California.
The list of other proposals for faster-speed rail includes: linking Las Vegas with greater Los Angeles; Chicago with St Louis; Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, with Pittsburgh; Oklahoma City with Tulsa; and upgrading track on a medium-speed line between Miami and Orlando.
Despite the political resistance and financial hurdles, two projects have moved beyond the conceptual phase. One is California’s US$68 billion plan for a high-speed rail network connecting northern and southern California. The other is the privately financed plan in central Texas.
California’s long-term financing plan relies heavily on federal money that is unlikely to materialize in a Republican-controlled US Congress, but Democratic Governor Jerry Brown remains a strong supporter, negotiating a dedicated funding stream through a separate program that raises money from businesses as part of an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The Texas project has received much less publicity than California’s, yet it could become the nation’s first operating bullet train line.
Private-public partnerships in construction may be the best way to mute political criticism, as well as kick-start the projects, said Andrew Goetz, a professor and faculty associate who studies high-speed rail at the Intermodal Transportation Institute at the University of Denver.
Rail proponents argue that the lack of high-speed rail has hurt US competitiveness. The typical US business traveler spends two days of travel to attend one meeting, said Andy Kunz, president and chief executive of the US High Speed Rail Association.
“We’re stuck in traffic for hours. We’re dealing with horrible airlines as it deteriorates,” Kunz said. “The whole country is getting shortchanged by this.”
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his