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Vision for High-Speed Rail in America: The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

File Language:
English


Details

  • Corporate Creators:
    United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Railroad Administration
  • Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Resource Type:
    Tech Report
  • Geographical Coverage:
    United States
  • Edition:
    Reports to Congress
  • Corporate Publisher:
    United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Railroad Administration
  • Abstract:
    In order to meet the goals of the Recovery Act while initiating a transformational new program, we propose to advance three funding “tracks”: Projects: Provide grants to complete individual projects that are “ready to go” with preliminary engineering and environmental work completed; Corridor programs: Enter into cooperative agreements to develop entire phases or geographic sections of corridor programs that have completed corridor plans and environmental documentation, and have a prioritized list of projects to meet the corridor objectives; this approach would involve additional Federal oversight and support; Planning: Enter into cooperative agreements for planning activities using non-ARRA appropriations funds, in order to create the corridor program and project pipeline needed to fully develop a highspeed rail network. This Strategic Plan is just the first of several steps intended to further refine and elaborate on this high-speed rail corridor vision — including the program guidance (due June 17), the Presidents detailed FY 2010 budget request, the National Rail Plan called for by Congress, and discussions over upcoming surface transportation legislation. The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) intends to seek structured input from stakeholders and the public throughout the process of developing and implementing the strategy.

    This April 2009 FRA strategic plan presents a national vision for developing high-speed intercity passenger rail in the United States -- as part of a broader transportation strategy aimed at economic competitiveness, energy efficiency, environmental quality, safety, and more connected communities. The document proposes a phased Federal approach built around project funding, corridor-program development, and planning, supported initially by ARRA funding and followed by longer-term annual investment. It also sets out the speed-based service framework that became highly influential in later U.S. rail planning: Conventional Rail (up to 79–90 mph), Emerging HSR (up to 90–110 mph), HSR–Regional (110–150 mph), and HSR–Express (150+ mph). The "Emerging" and "Regional" categories were later combined into a single grouping called Higher-Speed Rail (HrSR.) As a result, this report is widely cited as the foundational FRA document defining the speed-range classifications that have continued to shape later practice and discussion.

  • Format:
    PDF
  • Collection(s):
  • Main Document Checksum:
    urn:sha-512:6ffa2ebf1f78add0c9d46c17d06fa8618c176f22ccd0fdecb0b90adebc80525e5ab68f012863fa18b2b37029a075dcddb37626d6a99ec441b4b06286ecf32139
  • Download URL:
  • File Type:
    Filetype[PDF - 1.99 MB ]
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