Recent investment in rail infrastructure begs the question: Are we witnessing the arrival of high-speed rail, heralding a long-awaited shift from vehicle emissions to environmentally friendly mass transit?
Projects that will bring “high-speed” trains to connect metropolitan areas across the country are it starts to breakand Amtrak begins to try faster trains in the northeast.
The Biden administration was also recently announced a $6 billion investment to deliver “world-class high-speed rail” and to “launch new passenger rail corridors across the country”. These developments have many wondering: Are we witnessing the arrival of high-speed rail, heralding a long-awaited shift from vehicle emissions to environmentally friendly mass transit?
Serena Alexanderassociate professor with a joint appointment in the schools of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Public Policy and Urban Affairs, says bullet trains are certainly feasible in the US, but would require significant investment, planning and restructuring of the existing system to make it possible.
In short, the effort requires the complete transformation of US infrastructure — a multi-trillion dollar package This would entail a major reshaping of legislative priorities.
Alexander, who has worked for the US Department of Transportation's Center on Climate Change and served as a visiting scholar in the Office of the Secretary of State, has spent her career researching efforts to decarbonize transportation. The question that motivates her: How can we build a more sustainable, resilient and fair transport system?
Could high-speed rail help bridge the gap between our high-emissions today and a more resilient, electrified future? Alexander shared some thoughts with Northeastern Global News.
Her comments have been edited for brevity and clarity.
What would a national high-speed rail network look like in the US?
I think you need to look at global standards. so that would translate to trains going around 200mph or more. But our rail infrastructure, in many cases, is too old to support trains at these speeds. If we invest in buying trains when we don't have the underlying system to run them, it's like buying a supercomputer if you don't even know how to use an Excel spreadsheet. You wouldn't. It doesn't make sense, so it doesn't make sense to buy or invest in trains that have the ability to travel more than 200 miles per hour, say because of track design, or because there are too many sharp curves, or because there are too many old bridges and tunnels that wear out. If we want faster trains, we have to build the infrastructure first.
Where do we start? A responsible approach would be to start with the areas where there is the greatest demand. Our rail infrastructure combines freight and passenger transport in many parts of the country, and this can be a real bottleneck because freight always has priority. If the trains are moving fast then there is the potential issue of bottlenecks and traffic that the system cannot handle. So there's the question of how should we think about freight, how should we think about passenger rail, and which areas have the greatest need? These are not easy problems.
Several states, including Texas and California, have already begun projects that could bring trains into metropolitan areas, connecting cities across the region. Do you see these developments as a positive step or are they dampened by the ongoing political paralysis in Washington?
I don't think I can answer the question of whether there is political will. But what I do know is that there is a lot of interest, either from community members and stakeholders, or from government agencies. It is important to understand that building this greener national transit system may be one of the only ways we can achieve our goal of decarbonizing transportation.
Many times, you see people comparing us with other European countries or with China. Everyone knows we are behind some of these other nations on the railroad. but you can't really make those comparisons. When the Chinese government decides they want to build railways, they just do it. They take land and develop it very quickly. That's not how things work here in the US
Another tricky element here is that we sometimes combine these infrastructure decisions with other policy measures or requirements. These requirements are often well-intentioned, but can make implementation more complex. For example, we approve investments in a certain infrastructure project, but the parts may be required to be sourced from American companies. Now, if we are lagging behind in rail technology, does that also mean we haven't invested enough in developing the components needed for a sophisticated rail project? Most likely yes. We often lump together all kinds of policy measures that can potentially complicate things. such as the fact that over the years we have done a lot to protect people from unfair eminence and other unfair practices, and rightly so. But the point I want to make is that just because it's complicated and difficult, it doesn't mean that transformational change isn't worth pursuing. It just means we have to be creative about how we do it.
How do you think high-speed rail fits into this holistic picture of a future transportation system?
When I think of high-speed rail, I think of the fact that it can really be a transformative solution. That is, it can transform our lives. Yes, it will be expensive. Yes, it will take a lot of effort. Annual appropriations and commitments that continue across multiple administrations will be required. But if you think about it and compare it to the way we built our highway infrastructure system — that took decades. It took us years to invest in this infrastructure. Just because this would be an expensive venture doesn't mean it would be a bad investment. So we should think about it the same way we built our highway infrastructure — you can't just decide you're going to do it and expect to see results right away. This is because our infrastructure is very outdated. there have been many years of disinvestment in our infrastructure.
When you have a large infrastructure investment plan, a large portion of the money will simply go into maintenance and making sure our infrastructure can meet current needs. This will not cause us to immediately destroy the trains due to all the years of delayed maintenance and disinvestment. If you understand that and also understand that, again, this is expensive and complicated, you'll start to get a clearer picture of the possibilities.
Can you talk about the problem, as you see it, with our current transportation system?
Transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, and over the past decade or so, we've made great strides in reducing emissions from other sectors that contribute to this overall emissions picture, such as energy. But we have not been so successful in the transport sector. In fact, many state and local governments that have developed climate action plans are finding that vehicle miles traveled per capita are actually increasing. Unfortunately, in many areas in the US, so many people are driving more, and when you consider the fact that more than 80% of all transportation emissions come from trucks and cars, it's a big problem.
It's no secret that if you want to decarbonize transportation, if you want to create a system that doesn't contribute heavily to anthropogenic climate change, we really need to reverse that trend. We really need to think about alternative modes of transportation.
We need to think about fuel sources that are greener while developing technology that will allow us to be much more fuel efficient at the same time. And we need to think about land use as well — how we build communities and how they connect. I'm talking about equity here: meeting our climate goals and building a greener transport system requires us to think about how we can achieve this in a fair way. This, of course, requires a holistic approach.
