Gov. Rendell: Financing and developing HSR in the U.S.

On Oct. 22, HSRupdates.com caught up with Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell at the U.S. High Speed Rail Association's conference — High Speed Rail 2009 — in Washington, D.C., where he discussed high-speed rail investment, high-speed rail's role in a national transportation vision and Pennsylvania's high-speed efforts. Gov. Rendell is co-chair of Building America's Infrastructure. Founded in January 2008 by Rendell, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Building America's Infrastructure is a bipartisan coalition of elected officials that seeks to advance a new national vision for infrastructure investment

HSRupdates.com: How do you think the US could go about financing high-speed rail over the long term?

Rendell: I think the only way this can be done is as a national venture; this can't be done piecemeal. If you do it piecemeal … then you've got a network that doesn't compute. You can't take a train very far, you'd have to change trains. You have to have a comprehensive vision and a great deal of similarity as you do this, so it has to be financed in great part federally and the only way you can finance a project of this dimension federally is to do it through borrowing.

I would suggest a capital budget. I would suggest to gain that confidence in the American people, which is one of Building America's Infrastructure's basic principles. We have to get it out of the political system. It's our hope that Congress will fairly soon create an infrastructure bank and I would give the infrastructure bank the ability to do a capital budget or some form of borrowing. So if it's necessary, you could do at trillion-dollar fund over a decade and spend that money as you build out a high-speed rail system and pay it back over the course of 25 to 30 years with regular debt service. A trillion-dollar fund — and I realize a trillion dollars sounds like a lot of money, although not as much as it used to sound like, I guess — but a trillion-dollar fund would cost about $80 billion a year in debt service. I know that isn't chopped liver by any means, but when you're talking the numbers we're talking now, it's a doable figure if we've got the will to do this.


HSRupdates.com: How do you think high-speed rail could play into a larger transportation vision?

Rendell: I think it's a key component. What are the upsides of having that larger, broad national vision? One, quality of life. We move people more quickly, we eliminate congestion, we cut down travel time. Secondly, economics. We move goods faster. Thirdly, the environment. Certainly high-speed rail fits into all those things. It improves quality of life — in Shanghai, you can use high-speed rail to get to the airport in seven-and-a-half minutes. If you took a limousine, it would probably take you an hour. It helps the environment because having 1,000 people on a train produces infinitely less pollution than having 750 cars carry those people and it helps the entire transportation network. For example, if we made the changes we need to make to Acela to get it up to 150 mph everywhere, that would help air traffic mightily. All of this is tied together to having that broad vision, and high-speed rail is a key component of that. 


HSRupdates.com: In Pennsylvania, you have high speed rail service in the Keystone Corridor...

Rendell: Well, I wouldn't call it high-speed, I'd call it mid-speed. But mid-speed is an improvement. We're a perfect example of, in our case, a relatively modest investment — $72 million by Amtrak, $72 million by the commonwealth — to go from 90 mph to 110 mph, and increase ridership from 898,000 in a year to almost 1.2 million a year 27 percent increase in less than two years by going from low speed to mid speed. I mean, 110, given what's out there in world, cannot be considered high speed. But the one clarion call that myself and Building America's Infrastructure wants to make is, “Don't think that … by allowing rail systems to go from 90 to 110 or 110 to 130 that you're building out a high-speed rail network; you're not.” You're improving high-speed rail service, building mid-speed regional lines, but you're not doing a real high-speed rail line that's competitive with Spain and France and Japan and China and places like that.


HSRupdates.com: Even with the modest improvements between Philadelphia and Harrisburg, how has that changed travel between those two cities?

Rendell: It's taken a lot of cars off the turnpike. It's helped congestion, and it's allowed for a whole lot greater productivity. A hunk of the people who take the Philadelphia-to-Harrisburg line are people who work in the state government. And they come to work prepared, better rested, less frustrated. The train has so many benefits. Tremendous.


HSRupdates.com: How could that corridor serve as a model for other higher-speed lines?

Rendell: It's a great model. Just bumping up service so you cut travel time from two hours to 90 minutes, you cut 25 percent of travel time and had an almost 30 percent jump in ridership. That's a message to everybody out there that people want to ride higher-speed trains. But they want a quality, efficient, comfortable ride that's easier on them than driving and, in fact, you can't drive from Philadelphia to Harrisburg in 90 minutes. Can't do it. If you build it and you build it right, people will ride it. There's no question in my mind. And we're a great example of that.

 — Angela Cotey