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LAGGING BEHIND: THE STATE OF HIGH–SPEED 

RAIL IN THE UNITED STATES 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

TRANSPORTATION AND PUBLIC ASSETS 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT 

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

JULY 14, 2016 

Serial No. 114–70 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov 

http://www.house.gov/reform 


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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah, Chairman 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

TIM WALBERG, Michigan 

JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan 

PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

MICK, MULVANEY, South Carolina 

KEN BUCK, Colorado 

MARK WALKER, North Carolina 

ROD BLUM, Massachusetts 

JODY B. HICE, Georgia 

STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma 

EARL L. ‘‘BUDDY’’ CARTER, Georgia 

GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin 

WILL HURD, Texas 

GARY J. PALMER, Alabama 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Ranking 

Minority Member 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

MATT CARTWRIGHT, Pennsylvania 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

BRENDA L. LAWRENCE, Michigan 

TED LIEU, California 

BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN, New Jersey 

STACEY E. PLASKETT, Virgin Islands 

MARK DeSAULNIER, California 

BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM, New Mexico 

JENNIFER HEMINGWAY, Staff Director 

DAVID RAPALLO, Minority Staff Director 

ARI WISCH, Professional Staff Member 

WILLIAM MARX, Clerk 


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SUBCOMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION & PUBLIC ASSETS

JOHN L. MICA Florida, Chairman 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR. Tennessee 

JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin, Vice Chair 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois, Ranking 

Member 

BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN, New Jersey 

MARK DESAULNIER, California 

BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania 


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C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on July 14, 2016 ............................................................................... 1 

WITNESSES 

Ms. Sarah Feinberg, Administrator, Federal Railroad Administration 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 7 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 10 

Mr. Baruch Feigenbaum, Assistant Director, Transportation Policy, Reason 

Foundation 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 17 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 19 

Mr. Thomas Hart Jr., President, Rail Forward 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 24 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 27 

Mr. Chris Koos, Mayor, Normal, Illinois 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 34 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 37 


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LAGGING BEHIND: THE STATE OF HIGH– 

SPEED RAIL IN THE UNITED STATES 

Thursday, July 14, 2016 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND PUBLIC ASSETS

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

Washington, D.C. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:10 p.m., in Room 

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John Mica [chairman 

of the subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Mica, Duckworth, Boyle, and 

DeSaulnier. 

Also Present: Representatives Costa and Davis. 

Mr. MICA. Good afternoon. I would like to welcome everyone to 

the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Subcommittee on Transportation and Public Assets subcommittee hearing today. Pleased to have you join us today. 

The subject today of our hearing is entitled ‘‘Lagging Behind: The 

State of High-Speed Rail in the United States.’’ As part of our oversight responsibility, we are conducting a review of where we are 

with the administration’s high-speed rail program. 

The committee, I want to state at the beginning, will proceed, 

and I will give the order. And without objection, first of all, the 

chair is authorized to declare a recess at any time. 

I will also start and note the presence of our colleague Congressman Rodney Davis of Illinois and ask unanimous consent that he 

be allowed to participate in these proceedings. Without objection, 

so ordered. Welcome. 

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you, Chairman Mica, Ranking Member 

Duckworth. Thank you for the unanimous consent, and I would 

have been very upset if one would have objected. 

Mr. MICA. We will get to you. I think you are going to introduce 

one of our witnesses today. But welcome, and you can also participate. 

So thank you so much. 

The order of business will be as follows. First, we will start with 

opening statements, myself and the ranking member, Ms. 

Duckworth. Then we will hear from our witnesses, and we have 

four distinguished witnesses today. And they will be sworn in. This 

is an investigations and oversight subcommittee. 

And then after we have heard from all four of the witnesses, 

then we will proceed to questions. That will be the order of business today. 


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So welcome, all of you. Thank you for participating and being 

with us. 

I will start with my opening statement and some comments that 

I put together for this hearing. Probably there is not too many people in Congress that are what I consider greater advocates of passenger rail and also high-speed rail. I think, unfortunately, we 

have not been able to keep up with the rest of the world, but I 

think it is a very cost-effective, environmentally friendly way to 

move people, and we, unfortunately, have not had the greatest success in that area, except in some limited areas. 

I was somewhat optimistic, even as a Republican, when I heard 

this new guy on the block, President Barack Obama, announce— 

make a pronouncement even, I think, during his campaign and 

then during his election. And in 2009, after he took office, he said 

that the administration’s efforts would be to transform travel in 

America with a historic investment in high-speed rail. 

The President also said, another quote, is imagine whisking 

through towns at over 100 miles an hour. And he also has addressed this in his address to Congress, State of the Union, support 

for passenger rail service in the United States. 

However, 7 years later, we only have high-speed rail as part of 

our imagination. We don’t have any real projects that we can point 

to that are operational or even close to that. There is no hope right 

now of actually even seeing a successful project in the foreseeable 

future. 

The President pledged and the Congress provided, and we spent over $10 billion on his high-speed rail initial proposal. Of that, 99 

percent of the money—and we will hear from the FRA administrator shortly—is obligated, and some 51 percent, we are told, has 

been spent. And unfortunately, we don’t have a high-speed system 

that we can point to or show again that it is in the near future. In addition to that $10 billion, Congress has appropriated some $10.4 billion in capital spending for Amtrak. That is capital money, 

most of it in the Northeast Corridor, and I have always been an 

advocate for the Northeast Corridor as having the best potential to 

move forward and get close to high-speed rail as we could. But 

even with those expenditures of over $20 billion, again, the goal is 

elusive. 

FRA has awarded billions to different projects, rail projects. Unfortunately, most of that is to build what I call ‘‘snail-speed rail,’’ 

and also some of the money was directed towards some flawed 

projects that, unfortunately, were rejected when offered by—to 

multiple Governors. 

For example, and I think we have got in Ohio FRA awarded $400 

million for the proposed 3C project that was rejected by Governor 

Kasich. The 3C would have provided average speeds initially of 39 

miles an hour, was later revised to 50 miles an hour, and would 

have taken 6 hours and 30 minutes to travel between Cleveland 

and Cincinnati, later revised to 5 hours and 11 minutes. 

It is far longer than a car trip or bus trip would take between 

these cities, which is a little over 4 hours. Maybe I can make that 

route next week when I am in Cleveland. 

But it didn’t happen. President Obama promised that his $10 billion rail problem would use some existing infrastructure to increase 


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speeds on some routes from 70 miles an hour to over 100 miles an 

hour, a goal that he said was quickly achievable. 

But today, aside from the preexisting Northeast Corridor, we certainly—or we currently only have four lines in the U.S. with any 

segments capable of operating at 110 mile an hour. That is top 

speed, not average speed. And those fast segments consist of less 

than 300 miles of track total. 

But the average speeds on these corridors, unfortunately, are 

much lower, such as the Chicago to St. Louis line, where after we 

have spent $1.3 billion in funding, average speeds will go from 53 

miles an hour to 62 miles an hour. That is not high speed by anyone’s definition. 

You can see some of these up here, leading at the top with California. I think Mr. Denham is going to be doing a hearing on that, 

he told me, I think in a month or so. But you can look at the other 

routes and the increase of speed, which is very minimal. None of 

them even close to high speed. 

One time we used to define it as 110 miles an hour average. We 

are in the 100 mile per hour range. Higher speed, of course, is another question. 

But on some of the corridors, again, the Chicago-St. Louis line, you see the $1.3 billion expenditure. On some of the other corridors 

that received top awards, the speed isn’t raised at all, such as the 

Seattle-Portland corridor, which received $813 million, and the 

Charlotte to Raleigh corridor, which received $569 million. 

On two corridors given major awards, now this is interesting, ridership actually decreased by thousands between 2008 and 2015. 

That is the Chicago-Detroit and then Portland-Seattle routes. 

In 2011, in the State of the Union address, President Obama said 

for some trips it will be faster than flying, showing us one example. 

Instead, FRA spent billions of dollars on projects that will have 

travel times comparable to taking the bus or driving the route. Only one project funded by the $10 billion Obama rail project is 

actually planned to create what we call real high-speed rail service. 

That is California, where so far we have got, put the lion’s share 

of the $10 billion, some $3.9 billion. And again, unfortunately, that 

project has been in turmoil from almost the beginning. 

The California project, some have told me, is off the tracks. Its 

budget has again almost doubled from $33 billion to $64 billion. 

The average speeds will be far lower than originally projected, and 

the travel time between LA and San Francisco, if it is done, will 

take 4 to 6 hours is what we are now hearing. 

Instead of the original start date of 2020, which was projected for 

the California project, the first passengers won’t be able to ride the 

first section until 2025 at the earliest. And service isn’t planned to 

reach from San Francisco to Los Angeles. The best, most optimistic 

estimate is 2029. 

While the Obama administration has failed to deliver high-speed 

rail in the United States, around the world there are some incredibly successful projects. In China, you can travel 635 miles on highspeed rail to Beijing to Nanjing at an average speed of 174 miles 

an hour. And you will hear the amount of investment that some 

of these countries have put into this, some all public money and 

then some public-private partnership. 


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In France, you can travel 408 miles from Paris to Avignon. I 

have actually taken that route, and it is an average speed of 154 

miles per hour, average speed. 

In Russia, and I sat next to a Russian representative at a highspeed rail conference, kind of shocked to find out even the Russians 

have leaped ahead of us, and from 404 miles from St. Peters to 

Moscow, the average speed is 108 miles an hour. They have highspeed rail or a close to 110 mile an hour mark in the former Soviet 

Union, which has partnered with private partners to put that system in place. 

High-speed rail, unfortunately, still remains an illusion in the 

United States. The administration’s—I told the staff to put this 

quote in here. I said they are trying to put as much parsley around 

the turkey as possible. That is my quote. Unfortunately, it is not 

the shining, sleek, high-speed rail at the high speed we would like 

to see. 

We do want to try to make this a positive hearing. We have opportunity for public-private partnerships coming up, and we want 

to get back on track and see if we can get in the game. 

Very pleased to have, again, our witnesses here, and thank you 

again for participating. 

Let me yield now to our ranking member, Ms. Duckworth, who 

is actually in the Chicago area, and we have got two or three 

routes emanating out from there we would like to see high-speed 

rail. 

Thank you. 

Ms. DUCKWORTH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for 

holding this very important hearing. 

Shortly after taking office in 2009, President Obama announced 

his strategy for modernizing our Nation’s passenger rail system, as 

you mentioned. There are two parts to the President’s strategy. 

The first was to improve our existing rail lines to make current 

train service faster and safer. The second part was to identify potential corridors for a world-class high-speed rail system. In the 

press and elsewhere, there has been a lot of focus on the second 

part of the President’s strategy. However, it is also important to acknowledge the importance of improving existing rail lines. 

Just as a race car can’t run on a dirt road, you cannot run a bullet train on 100-year-old tracks. To address a need for modern infrastructure, the President used the 2009 economic stimulus package to put millions of Americans back to work and allow States to 

upgrade existing rail corridors. 

The Federal Railroad Administration has allocated $10 billion to 

States through the High-Speed Intercity Passenger Rail System, or 

HSIPRS. They used this money to fund 146 individual projects various States developed. 

These projects have already delivered real results. In five key 

rail corridors around the country, including the two in Illinois, we 

have completed dozens of modernization projects, reducing travel 

times and improving their frequency, reliability, and safety of service. The average age of these 5 corridors is 135 years old. 

The investment in upgrading them is paying off. Once the funded 

projects are complete, these previously neglected corridors can operate at speeds of up to 125 miles an hour. There is a lot of work 


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that needs to be done to bring our transportation infrastructure 

into the 21st century. The benefits of doing so are very real. 

Private development follows Federal investment, which will 

prompt economic revival. In Illinois, we saw the impact of these 

Federal dollars and the private investment that follows. Today, we 

will hear from the Mayor of Normal, Illinois, about what these Federal programs have done for his community, including keeping 

thousands of jobs in the Normal area. 

However, despite the benefits this investment in our Nation’s 

transportation infrastructure brings, some State Republican politicians have expressed significant opposition to these programs. In 

Florida, Republican Governor Rick Scott rejected a Federal grant. 

This decision cost his State hundreds of millions of dollars in lost 

investment and upgrades. In Wisconsin, Republican Governor Scott 

Walker also rejected Federal funds, costing his State over 10,000 

construction jobs. 

Since 2010, the Federal Railroad Administration has requested over $34 billion in additional funding to pay for the next phase of 

rail modernization efforts. Of this request of $34 billion, the majority has granted zero dollars. In fact, since taking control of Congress, the majority has denied all additional funding requested for 

high-speed rail. 

Today, if we hear the Republican majority lamenting that we are 

lagging behind in our infrastructure investment, they should look 

in the mirror. Twenty-first century transportation requires 21st 

century infrastructure, and that requires 21st century funding. Unfortunately, the current majority in Congress, like so many of our 

bridges and tunnels, seems stuck in the 19th century. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for calling this hearing. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses in particular on how the President’s programs have benefited the people of Illinois. 

Thank you, and I yield back. 

Mr. MICA. Well, thank you for your opening statement. 

And we will leave the record open for 5 legislative days for any 

Members who would like to submit a written statement. 

I am going to now recognize the panel of witnesses, and let me 

start to welcome back Sarah Feinberg, and she is the administrator 

of the Federal Railroad Administration; Mr. Baruch—is it 

Feigenbaum? Feigenbaum. And he is Assistant Director for Transportation Policy at the Reason Foundation. And then welcome back 

Mr. Thomas Hart, who is the president of Rail Forward. And then 

let me yield to Congressman Davis to introduce our last witness, 

but welcome. 

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Ranking 

Member Duckworth, for giving me the opportunity to be here to introduce my constituent and my friend, Mayor Chris Koos. 

You know, not every Member of this institution gets to say that 

they actually represent Normal. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. DAVIS. But I do. And I am proud that Mayor Koos is at the 

helm in that community. 

You know, Mayor Koos joined the town council in 2001 and was 

sworn in as Mayor just 2 years later. And for the past 15 years, 

he has been working to make sure that not only his community of 


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Normal, but the neighboring community of Bloomington, which we 

call the twin cities in our area, is an area that has experienced 

growth. And a lot of that growth has been centered around the infrastructure needs of both communities. 

Now a lot of my family revenue goes to Normal because my 

daughter is a student at Illinois State University, which is in 

Mayor Koos’ fine community, and Illinois State University is a 

shining example of how a transportation network can continue to 

grow a public institution in States like Illinois. And that took leadership, that took vision, and it took working together as a community to make sure those things get done. 

I am happy to have an office in what we now call ‘‘uptown Normal,’’ where we see the transportation networks come together that 

Mayor Koos will discuss later. Because, unfortunately, Mayor Koos, 

I had my flight to your community canceled that was going to be 

later tonight, I am rerouting to St. Louis, and I cannot stay. 

But welcome once again. Thank you for your service and thank 

you for being such a good friend. 

Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. MICA. Well, it is great to learn there are some people in Congress who are from Normal, and we certainly welcome you and we 

are delighted to have your representative, who I really enjoy his 

sense of humor, which you have to keep around here. So we wish 

him well, thank him for introducing you. 

Now that we have got all of our witnesses introduced, it is my 

responsibility to tell you again this is an investigations and oversight committee of Congress and subcommittee hearing. And we do 

swear in all of our witnesses. So now if you will stand and raise 

your right hand. 

Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are 

about to give before this subcommittee of Congress is the whole 

truth and nothing but the truth? 

[Response.] 

Mr. MICA. Let the record reflect that all of the witnesses answered in the affirmative. Again, welcome. 

And then we got some goldy-oldies who have been here before 

and a couple of new kids on the block as far as witnesses. The way 

we proceed is please do not read your entire statement if you have 

prepared one. We like you to summarize and summarize in about 

5 minutes. 

Your entire remarks will be made part of the proceedings, and 

also if you have anything else you want to submit for the record, 

upon request, we will also submit that. So, actually, it is kind of 

neat. If you come in the back, I can show you the proceedings of 

all of our hearings and what was said and the submissions. So this 

is an official proceeding, and we do welcome you completing the 

record. So I give you that invitation. 

So with that little introduction, again we welcome you. You are 

kind of lucky today because most of the suspects have fled the Capitol. Not this many have left since the Capitol was burned by the 

British in August of 1814, but they are out, and you are very fortunate so you won’t get grilled or questioned as much today. But it 

is an important hearing, and we do want to review where we have 

been and where we need to go. 


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And I am delighted again to welcome back—and she made special arrangements to be here. That is why I didn’t want to cancel 

the hearing or postpone it today. But we welcome back the director 

and administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration. 

Welcome, Ms. Feinberg. You are recognized. 

WITNESS STATEMENTS 

STATEMENT OF SARAH FEINBERG 

Ms. FEINBERG. Thank you so much. 

Chairman Mica, Ranking Member Duckworth, and members of 

the subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to discuss the current 

state of high-speed and intercity passenger rail in the United 

States. 

Nearly 8 years ago, Congress rightfully recognized that for our 

country to have a strong and modern transportation system, we 

must begin to move beyond our dependence on motor vehicles and 

aviation. We must have a more reliable, frequent, and faster passenger rail service. 

To achieve this goal, Congress passed two landmark pieces of legislation. The first was the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008, signed by President George W. Bush. PRIIA established the foundation and the programs for FRA’s High-Speed 

and Intercity Passenger Rail Program. The second piece of legislation was the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, 

which provided the seed money to begin building the stronger passenger rail system while also jump-starting the country’s economic 

recovery from the great recession. 

In 2009, FRA began working to achieve a long-term 25-year goal 

to connect 80 percent of the country’s population to reliable, frequent, and faster passenger rail service. The program had two 

parts. One, to improve existing rail lines in order to increase capacity, speed, and frequency. And two, to develop new corridors to 

serve new markets with world-class rail service, the likes of which 

already exist in many other countries. 

The program was national in scope, but State-based in execution, 

similar to how the Federal Government built the intercity highway 

system more than a half century ago. States were very much in the 

lead on requesting service, planning projects. They were given the 

ability to seek funding for projects that best reflected the needs and 

characteristics of their individual markets. 

FRA eventually received nearly 500 applications requesting more 

than $75 billion worth of project funding, far exceeding the $10.1 

billion available. These applications proposed a wide variety of 

service improvements, including increased reliability, frequency of 

service, and speed. 

After careful and thorough review of the applications, FRA 

awarded funding to support nearly 150 projects in 35 States and 

the District of Columbia. Nearly 85 percent of these investments 

are concentrated in 6 key corridors. 

Today, thousands of corridor miles of track are being constructed 

or upgraded. New passenger locomotives are being manufactured, 

and more than 30 passenger stations are being upgraded. Rider exVerDate Sep 11 2014 12:10 Oct 19, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\21434.TXT APRIL

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perience is improving due to increased reliability and reductions in 

travel times. 

Mr. Chairman, I know you have great interest in the Northeast 

Corridor. Let me assure you that—and this subcommittee that FRA 

is committed to this vital corridor. From the Recovery Act alone, 

FRA awarded nearly $1 billion for improvements. 

Of course, that does not include the more than $3 billion that 

was initially awarded to the State of New Jersey to construct a 

new tunnel under the Hudson River, but more than half of the 150 

projects the administration funded are complete. Another quarter 

are scheduled to be complete by the end of 2016. 

Like all major and ambitious transportation projects, whether 

public or private and no matter the mode, there have been and remain important challenges that demand continued attention and 

contentious oversight. With the frequency at which few other grant 

programs have been reviewed, the Government Accountability Office and the Department of Transportation Office of Inspector General have exhaustively audited FRA’s implementation of the Recovery Act and appropriations for passenger rail grants 14 times. 

The program is arguably now the most deeply investigated and 

audited program in the department’s history. In no case did the 

auditors identify waste, fraud, or abuse in any of the grants. 

Mr. Chairman, improving the speed, efficiency, and reliability of 

America’s railroads is critical to moving our transportation system 

into the 21st century. However, our most important task is ensuring that America’s railroads are safe, which is why many of the investments we made as part of the program have also focused on 

safety. 

We have invested in eliminating grade crossings because the 

safest crossing is one where trains and motor vehicles never cross 

paths. And we’ve invested in bridge upgrades and repairs, track 

improvements, and positive train control. These investments are 

critically important because any increase we make to safety in one 

area of our rail system typically benefits the entire network because in the United States our freight and passenger rail networks 

are largely one and the same, as they frequently share track with 

each other. 

And Mr. Chairman, I’m aware that I’m running out of time, but 

while I’m on the issue of safety, I know that you are particularly 

interested in addressing our grant programs today. But I cannot 

address this committee today without addressing safety as an overall issue. 

On Friday, June 3rd, Union Pacific derailed a crude train in 

Mosier, Oregon. Fortunately, no one was injured, but the resulting 

fire burned for more than 14 hours. FRA has recently announced 

that the cause of the incident was UP’s failure to maintain the 

track in that area. 

On Tuesday, June 28th, two BNSF trains collided in Panhandle 

Texas, killing three crew members and injuring one. The injured 

crew member’s life was saved when he leapt off a moving locomotive just prior to the head-on collision. 

And just earlier this week, two passenger trains in Italy collided 

head-on, killing more than 20 people and injuring more than 50. 


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Mr. Chairman, the FRA continues to do all that we can to improve safety. But we cannot do it alone. Railroads and shippers 

must move to safer, stronger, hazmat tank cars as soon as possible. 

Railroads must implement positive train control as soon as possible 

and not wait until the 2020 deadline. 

And railroads must upgrade their Civil War era braking systems 

so that braking is more efficient, and in the event of a derailment, 

fewer cars leave the tracks. And this Congress can do more as well 

with increased funding for commuter railroads struggling to afford 

PTC and additional funding for more FRA safety inspectors. 

Mr. Chairman and all the members of the subcommittee, thank 

you again for inviting me to be here today. While we have wisely 

invested $10 billion in high-performance rail, this country continues to fall behind in making the needed investments in our passenger rail system. There remains demand from communities and 

leaders across the country, and the administration has made repeated budget requests for additional funding to meet these needs. 

We need a strong transportation system, and the investments 

Congress made 8 years ago to be more reliable, frequent, and faster 

is only the beginning. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I look forward to your questions. 

[Prepared statement of Ms. Feinberg follows:] 


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Mr. MICA. Thank you. We will hold questions until we have 

heard from all the witnesses. 

Mr. Feigenbaum with the Reason Foundation, you are welcome 

and recognized. 

STATEMENT OF BARUCH FEIGENBAUM 

Mr. FEIGENBAUM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And Mr. Chairman Mica and Ranking Member Duckworth and 

fellow members, thank you for the opportunity to testify to the 

House Subcommittee on Transportation and Public Assets. 

My name is Baruch Feigenbaum. I am the Assistant Director of 

Transportation Policy at Reason Foundation, a nonprofit think 

tank with offices in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. For almost 

four decades, Reason’s transportation experts have been advising 

Federal, State, and local policymakers on market-based approaches 

to transportation. 

I’m a graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology, with degrees in public policy, transportation planning, and a concentration 

in engineering. My master’s thesis studied induced demand. I have 

authored studies on high-speed rail in Europe and Asia, as well as 

looking at Texas, and I’m on two National Academy of Sciences 

committees. 

For the past 40 years, ever since the Johnson administration, the 

U.S. has shown an interest in high-speed rail. Previous programs 

failed to gain traction. However, that changed with the American 

Recovery and Reinvestment Act, also known as the stimulus. The 

Obama administration proposed spending $8 billion in stimulus 

funds to lay the groundwork for high-speed rail throughout the 

country. 

Implementing any new Federal program is challenging. It is unlikely that any program would be perfect from day one. However, 

there is considerable evidence that suggested the program could 

have been managed more effectively. Generally, the problems can 

be broken down into the overall vision of the program and then the 

actual implementation details. 

From the beginning, the high-speed rail program has lacked a 

defined direction. Officially, the program’s aim is to help address 

the Nation’s transportation investment challenges by making strategic investments in passenger rail corridors that connect communities, and I think that’s a great inspirational statement, but I’m 

not sure that’s a goal. 

Every country around the world that has built high-speed rail 

has done so for one of two reasons. Most built rail to relieve overcrowding on existing conventional rail lines. Several countries built 

high-speed rail to protect rail’s share of travelers that was declining due to competition from aviation or cars. 

Since the number of U.S. passengers taking rail has remained 

constant and gains on the Acela and regional trains in the Northeast have basically offset losses on some of the long distance services, neither of these reasons is especially applicable for the U.S. 

All countries that have built successful high-speed rail lines have 

built the first line in the corridor most suited to high-speed rail. In 

the U.S., this is the Northeast Corridor, which connects Boston, 

New York, and Washington, D.C. While Amtrak currently operates 


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higher-speed rail along this corridor, this service averages 68 miles 

per hour between Boston and New York and 82 miles per hour between New York and D.C. 

True high-speed rail would operate at twice the speed in the 

Northeast Corridor, with an average speed of close to 150 miles per 

hour or more. Several lines in other countries have transitioned 

from existing conventional rail to high-speed rail. 

Additionally, instead of awarding funding to the most promising 

single line, the administration provided funding to 33 States, the 

District of Columbia, and Amtrak. Much of this funding was not for 

building high-speed rail, but for improving operations of existing 

passenger rail corridors. And while there certainly is importance in 

doing that, the program’s focus was supposed to be, at least initially, on high-speed rail. 

One of the most challenging projects, the one that’s currently 

under construction, is in California. That’s a project that costs have 

increased from $20 billion up to at one point in time $98 billion 

and down to $66 billion as some of the technology was chosen and 

changed. 

My biggest issue with this corridor is that it goes through the 

Central Valley, basically traversing three sides of a square instead 

of serving as a straight line between Los Angeles and San Francisco. And all of the successful high-speed rail lines around the 

world have gone in a straight line of being the most direct route. 

The implementation of the President’s vision has had a number 

of problems as well. There has been staffing issues at the Federal 

Railroad Administration. The Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act expanded FRA’s role, and perhaps FRA did some 

unrealistic things as a result of this in terms of taking on a massive railroad expansion only a year after that was completed. 

There’s problems that are continuing to the present day. They 

have declined, but they’re not through. The Government Accountability Office has reprimanded the agency for failing to establish a 

process to identify project-specific goals and performance measures. 

There is also a failure to provide documentation detailing grantees’ 

expectations as well as guidance on specific types of equipment 

purposes. 

I’m running out of time, but I do want to say that I think a better approach to high-speed rail in this country would be a form of 

public-private partnership specifically focused on the Northeast 

Corridor. I’d be happy to get into more of that in the questions. 

Thank you. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Feigenbaum follows:] 


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Mr. MICA. Thank you. We will now turn to Mr. Hart with Rail 

Forward. 

Welcome, sir, and you are recognized. 

STATEMENT OF THOMAS HART JR. 

Mr. HART. Thank you, Chairman Mica, and thank you, Ranking 

Member Duckworth. 

And I am pleased to be here today with my Rail Forward team— 

Renee Robinson, Mitchell Brisbane, and Victoria Burton—who have 

helped me a lot in preparing my statements and other exhibits that 

are a part of my testimony. 

Also, my wife and daughter are here, and I must recognize my 

dad, who was one of the first black lobbyists on Capitol Hill. He 

lobbied back in the ’70s for people movers and other energy projects 

for Westinghouse Corporation. 

I’m the president of Rail Forward and was a co-founder and 

served as vice president for government affairs for the United 

States High-Speed Rail Association. During that period, I testified 

a number of times before Congress on the subject of high-speed 

rail. So it’s my opportunity and my pleasure to be here today to 

discuss it further and, hopefully, pave a track forward for highspeed rail in America. 

As the other witnesses have already articulated, in 2009 through 

2011, the program was extremely popular and held bipartisan support from Democrats and Republicans in the House and the Senate. 

And a number of projects over the last 8 years have been started, 

but none of them have been completed. 

Although projects to connect Los Angeles to San Francisco and 

Chicago to St. Louis and Orlando to Miami are under way, they 

have not been completed, and two of those three, even when they 

are finished, will not be true high speed. Thus, I believe that there 

is sufficient amount of blame to be spread among the Nation’s 

stakeholders for lack of more progress on the high-speed rail intercity passenger system. 

I have a few criticisms of FRA, but need to first note that Ms. 

Feinberg was not the administrator during the early years. So she 

is not to blame for some of the missteps that FAR—FRA undertook. 

The first mistake was, frankly, the administration designating 

the FRA that was a safety agency to undersee and administer the 

$10 billion high-speed rail program. The FRA had never worked on 

this type of program before. The FRA had neither the experience, 

the staff, or the regulations to quickly and effectively implement 

the grant process to develop high-speed rail. 

We got to go back to 2009 to understand that this was supposed 

to be a stimulus project. It was supposed to stimulate jobs and infrastructure, and frankly, it fell short on both. 

Rather than utilizing the best practices of the numerous countries that have effectively developed high-speed rail over the past 

50 years, FRA decided to develop and design its own regulatory 

framework, which was burdensome and lengthy. There are a few 

benefits to being last to market, and that’s how we are—last to 

market to high-speed rail. You can learn things from others, but 

FRA insisted on reinventing the wheel, which wasted a lot of time 

and a lot of money. 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Furthermore, the FRA had no programs to engage small business 

or disadvantaged businesses in the design or construction of highspeed rail. When the project was first announced, there was a huge 

wave of small and minority-owned enterprises that were looking 

forward to being involved in America’s new state-of-the-art rail system. Thousands showed up at conferences and rallies for highspeed rail. 

However, that support died when small businesses realized that 

there was no active engagement in these projects. To add insult to 

injury, the FRA is currently still undertaking a disparity study to 

design their DBE and small business programs. By the time these 

studies are complete, all the money will be gone. 

Another valid criticism of FRA is that they tried to do too much 

with too little. Pennsylvania Congressman Bill Shuster frequently 

argued that the administration took the stimulus money and 

‘‘sprinkled it around the country’’ instead of focusing it on major 

projects that would serve as the model for the next generation of 

high-speed rail in America. 

There were 15 international consortium prepared to bid, and 

none of them to date have been engaged appropriately in a major 

high-speed rail project. Even to date only 51 percent of the money 

that was allocated has been spent. The shovels should have been 

in the ground and creating jobs well before the Governors elected 

to return the money. 

As it happened, when Governors Scott Walker and Kasich collec- tively returned over $3.5 billion, they played right into Amtrak’s 

hands because much of that money ended back up into Amtrak, 

and that was not the original intent of the high-speed rail program. 

One of the best one-liners, Congressman and Chairman Mica, on 

this issue of sending the money back and reauthorizing it was 

coined by Corrine Brown when she said, ‘‘Those Governors were 

stuck on stupid.’’ 

The Federal Government also made a mistake in reallocating the 

money back to Amtrak because it crushed the competition in the 

industry that we had hoped for with the high-speed rail development. FRA pins the blame for lack of progress for a lack of continual funding from the Federal Government. FRA is correct. 

When needs to be done is a bipartisan support for a national infrastructure bank that, to date, has bipartisan support but is still 

not framed in a way where a majority of Congress and Senate are 

willing to vote on it positively. The idea of an infrastructure bank 

and other public-private partnerships like the one in All Aboard 

Florida are likely the best option for raising the significant amount 

of funds to take the next step in the journey for high-speed rail. 

In conclusion, despite the number of numerous mistakes made by 

various parties, we have successfully advanced the movement toward high-speed rail in America. The movement will become a reality first in California, then throughout the Nation. Continued efforts on finding additional funding are important or are critical to 

this effort. 

Amtrak must also play a major role by continuing in its efforts 

to produce higher-speed and safer rail travel. Finally, the people 

that work in these chambers of our national government must 

learn to work together better than we have over the last 8 years. 


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With that optimistic view, I yield back to the chairman. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Hart follows:] 


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Mr. MICA. Thank you, and we will now hear from the Mayor 

from Normal, Illinois, Mr. Koos. 

Welcome, Mayor Koos. 

STATEMENT OF CHRIS KOOS 

Mr. KOOS. Chairman Mica, Ranking Member Duckworth, and 

distinguished members of the subcommittee, thanks for the opportunity to testify today and a special thanks to Congressman Davis 

for his kind words and steadfast support for our community and 

small transportation investments. 

My name is Chris Koos, and it’s true. I am the only Normal 

Mayor in the United States. Normal is a medium-sized city in central Illinois, about 140 miles southwest of Chicago and home to Illinois State University. 

First off, I’d like to thank the members of this committee and the 

Transportation and Infrastructure Committee for including a passenger rail title for the first time in the surface transportation authorization known as the FAST Act. This legislation provides my 

city, State, and region the tools needed to address safety, capital, 

and rail operations to support a truly multimodal and efficient 

transportation system. I look forward to working with our Federal 

Government partners on implementing the programs outlined in 

the bill. 

I’m always glad to share Normal’s success with passenger rail 

and transit-oriented development and the use of public-private 

partnership to maximize return on investment. As recently as 10 

years ago, Normal’s development was primarily occurring on its perimeter. The central business district, now known as uptown Normal, was struggling, as it does in many cities throughout the 

United States. The town’s political leaders and business community 

began to rally around a vision to improve access to transit and revitalize uptown and awaken it into a key asset that could help our 

region compete and prosper economically. 

Our passenger rail station is the second busiest in the State of 

Illinois and the busiest on the 284-mile Chicago to St. Louis corridor outside of these cities. The previous station was built in 1990 

on the Normal town hall parking lot. By the mid 2000s, increased 

ridership on the Lincoln and Texas Eagle services resulted in overcrowding to the facility that was affectionately referred to as 

‘‘Amshack.’’ 

Key to our uptown Normal master plan was a transportation 

center designed to provide a multimodal hub to accommodate an 

expanding city bus system, intercity and charter buses, a station, 

a new platform for Amtrak, and pedestrian and bike connections to 

our uptown and the universities. 

The plan for the Normal uptown station received tremendous 

support from the State of Illinois, our sister city Bloomington, 

McLean County, our regional airport, Illinois State University, 

Federal and State legislators, and our local business community, 

including our local Chamber of Commerce and the area’s largest 

employer, State Farm Insurance. 

In 2010, Normal was awarded one of the first TIGER grants in 

the Nation. The $46 million project received $22 million from 

TIGER, $11 million in additional Federal funding, and more than 


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$13 million in State and local contributions. Six months after receiving funds, it was the first TIGER project in the Nation to break 

ground and begin construction. 

Less than 2 years later, in 2012, the multimodal transportation 

center was completed, on time and within budget. Since opening in 

July 2012, uptown station and its adjacent plaza has become the 

new heart of Normal, and I think we have a slide that shows the 

new transit station that, again, serves local bus connections, regional bus service, as well as amenities such as a restaurant. And 

the city hall occupies the top floors, and there is also a park and 

ride deck that you can see in the background. 

Uptown Normal is now a vibrant neighborhood with residential, 

commercial, and entertainment opportunities. Local transit ridership is up 34 percent, and transit-oriented development continues 

to abound. 

Thus far, public investment of approximately $85 million in Federal, State, and local monies in the transportation arena has generated more than $150 million in private investment in the uptown 

district, including construction of a 228-room Marriott hotel with a 

40,000 square foot conference center and an adjacent 114-room 

Hyatt Place hotel also shown in this picture. 

Currently, there are plans to invest an additional $45 million of 

private dollars to further promote livability and quality of life in 

our uptown. In the next slide here, you’ll see this bike and pedestrian friendly roundabout built with local and Federal funds, and 

the next slide refers to a couple of hundred feet from the new station of new mixed-use developments like the ones that have been 

built, with more expected to come online within the next year or 

two. 

Following comprehensive planning discussions, including the 

Union Pacific Railroad, Amtrak, and a dozen municipalities with 

stations along the rail line, Illinois was allocated $1.2 billion to improve service between Chicago and St. Louis from FRA’s HighSpeed Intercity Passenger Rail Program, with $690 million in State 

and local match. 

When completed in 2017, the project will produce safer conditions, decreased travel times, improved on-time performance, and 

produce increased ridership and economic benefits for our town and 

our residents. Construction is ongoing as we speak and is anticipated to be completed in early 2017. 

The town of Normal along with our local stakeholders rely on a 

strong partnership with Congress, FRA, and Amtrak and is committed to a shared vision in a local, regional, and Federal planning 

process to continue to make improvements to our regional and long 

distance rail system to connect the region with reliable, fast, and 

frequent passenger rail service. 

Robust and reliable Federal capital investments are key to make 

all modes of transportation, including passenger rail, to be of benefit to our citizens and our economy. Federal support for transportation is a longstanding tradition and a core constitutional responsibility. We are proud to work with our Federal partners in creating, maintaining, and funding safe and efficient transportation 

systems and look forward to future collaboration. 


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Thank you for the opportunity to contribute on this important 

national discussion, and I’d be happy to take any questions. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Koos follows:] 


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Mr. MICA. Well, thank you. 

And we will start the questions right now, and I will begin with 

a question for Ms. Feinberg. Now you weren’t there, but a decisions 

was made, as Mr. Hart said, to sprinkle this money around. I know 

it is sometimes we talk in hindsight, but a high-speed rail project 

is a very expensive project. We have ended up now with about $3.9 

billion dedicated to California. 

That is not enough really to bail that project out, and most of the 

balance, 99 percent of the money is obligated. What happens with 

our one potential project, California? 

Ms. FEINBERG. What happens? 

Mr. MICA. What happens with it? Yes. There is $3.9 billion. It 

is a $64 billion to $68 billion project. It keeps getting delayed, put 

off. 

Ms. FEINBERG. Well, to California specifically, they’re also paying 

for the project with cap-and-trade funds and with State funds as 

well. 

Mr. MICA. Are you—is there any plan for additional Federal 

funds? 

Ms. FEINBERG. Not at this time. 

Mr. MICA. Not at this time. Okay. My preference would have 

been to put the money in the Northeast Corridor in one route and 

show some success and partner with the private sector. Maybe $10 

billion wouldn’t have done it, but it would have been good seed 

money to partner, and I think, Mr. Feigenbaum, you said that was 

the way you recommended to go. Is that right? 

Mr. FEIGENBAUM. Yeah, that is correct. That is the way that 

other countries that I think —— 

Mr. MICA. Yes. 

Mr. FEIGENBAUM.—we look to for high-speed rail, Japan and 

France, have done it. 

Mr. MICA. Because they are very capital-intensive projects. We 

don’t have the money that China has, and they are building thousands of miles of high-speed rail. But, and then Amtrak came up 

with a proposal for high-speed service in the Northeast Corridor, 

which was estimated to take 30 years and $150 billion. 

Well, first, I won’t be alive. Most people on this panel won’t be alive to see that, and they are not going to get $150 billion or even 

a good percentage of it from Congress. Isn’t that sort of a given, 

Ms. Feinberg? 

Ms. FEINBERG. That’s certainly been the case. 

Mr. MICA. Yes. So we are trying to get some successes. We put 

Amtrak, which I call our Soviet-style train system, for lack of a better term, and it has been a monopoly. We opened up with some 

provisions I put in the last transportation legislation. 

Do you know anything about the status of where we are on that, 

Ms. Feinberg, opening that up? I heard we had some interest? 

Ms. FEINBERG. Yes, sir. I think the last time we briefed you on 

this, which we’ve been working closely with you on, the request for 

proposals —— 

Mr. MICA. Right. 

Ms. FEINBERG.—was going out. They’re due in August, and so I 

expect that we will know more then. I have not been tracking them 

as they come in, but I believe the due date is in August. 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Mr. MICA. And when we did the PRIIA bill, we originally opened 

the Northeast Corridor, which sort of got gobbled up by Amtrak, 

which we wanted to get some serious proposals. Mr. Hart spoke to 

it, and we ended up with how many did you say, Mr. Hart? There 

were a number interested in. 

Mr. HART. There were 15 consortia that I know of. 

Mr. MICA. Okay. 

Mr. HART. And worked with a number of them, particularly on 

the east coast programs. And they just got frustrated through this 

process. 

Mr. MICA. Right. Well, some of them I was told came in. Amtrak 

had taken control and basically said, ‘‘We aren’t interested, go 

away.’’ That is why we shifted the program over to DOT so they 

could get some sort of possibility to participate, as opposed to our 

sole vendor and operator, Amtrak, shooing them off. 

No one wants competition. I would love not to have an opponent 

in the primary or the general election. I am sure these media guys 

would like to just have one station and all of that, but that is not 

the reality we live in, and competition is healthy. 

Mr. Hart, you gave sort of stinging criticism of FRA and the 

process they set forward. I know Ms. Feinberg wasn’t there, but we 

have had problems. Even we have in Florida All Aboard, which is 

probably our most successful higher-speed project in the country, 

they go about 79 miles an hour from Miami to Orlando, mainly because of speed restrictions that are imposed. It can go faster, I 

know, and it will go pretty fast in some stretches. 

But again, the Federal process, it used to take 15 years. I think 

we started on this 5 years ago with some of the approvals. Do you 

think there is anything we —— 

Ms. FEINBERG. For All Aboard Florida —— 

Mr. MICA. Anything we could do to speed that up? 

Ms. FEINBERG. Are you talking about All Aboard Florida specifically —— 

Mr. MICA. Yes, well, there is another one, is it Texas Coastal or 

something? But —— 

Ms. FEINBERG. Certainly, Secretary Foxx and the FRA have been 

really supportive of improving and speeding up the permitting 

process in any way that we can. I mean, part of the frustration of 

why the process takes so long, frankly, is not really a complaint directed at the FRA. It’s actually a complaint directed at NEPA and 

at the historic societies across America that tend to have strong 

opinions about major infrastructure projects. 

We’ve been —— 

Mr. MICA. Well, the other thing, too, is like FEC is about 70 percent on an existing corridor, and then there is another former rail 

corridor that wasn’t developed coming into Orlando airport. 

Ms. FEINBERG. They’ve significant —— 

Mr. MICA. But I can see if you are plotting a new course and 

some of those concerns. But I know working with Senator Boxer 

and others, our intent before was to try to speed up and condense 

that process. 

With Mr. Oberstar, I stood on a bridge on Highway is it 35 with 

Members of Congress that had collapsed. People were killed. And 

it was built in 435 days or something like that, which the normal 


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procedure would be 4 or 5 years just for permitting, but we put a 

safer bridge in. 

We put—and with All Aboard Florida, they are putting positive 

train control. They are putting rail safety improvements. They are 

improving the bridges for maritime traffic, a whole host of things, 

not to mention new environmental improvements. So getting those 

new systems in place, actually protect the environment, enhance 

the environment, and get us a system that is 21st century. 

I would like to invite you to—I went down about 2 months ago 

and saw Miami All Aboard and—members of the committee, subcommittee. The project, this All Aboard Florida, will open, actually 

the first leg, they have got the three stations—Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach. The vehicles are coming. Almost all private 

dollars. 

The Miami terminal by itself is $2 billion, and it envelops the existing metro rail and people mover downtown. They will be bringing dry rail, a commuter rail in, and high-speed rail into it. It is 

a phenomenal project. 

But like to invite you down and Members to see that. 

Ms. FEINBERG. Thank you. 

Mr. MICA. Again, a private-public, to a degree, partnership. But 

almost all private money in the project. So she nodded yes. So we 

will make a date. 

Ms. FEINBERG. Thank you for the invitation. I would love to 

come—I would love to come down. 

Mr. MICA. Finally, we are spending a lot of money on Acela, and 

you had talked about some improvements on the Northeast Corridor. One that concerned us after the Philadelphia crash was positive train control. How long before we have that in place, do you 

know? 

Ms. FEINBERG. So Amtrak, to their credit, was quite far ahead 

on PTC, and they activated PTC on the Northeast Corridor on time 

for the last deadline, which was December 31st of 2015. That was 

before the Congress moved the deadline to 2020. 

So Amtrak is —— 

Mr. MICA. But the only section that was done there, I am told, 

is the section up in New Haven, that there are still sections that 

were to be done. That was more of a private ownership initiative. 

Ms. FEINBERG. So the pieces of the Northeast Corridor that Amtrak owns and controls, they have turned PTC on. There are certainly portions of rail across the country that Amtrak operates on 

that do not have PTC yet. 

Prior to the Philadelphia accident, there was PTC turned on in 

some portions, but not the specific portion where the Philadelphia 

derailment happened at Frankford Junction. 

Mr. MICA. And they had made a decision not to install it in the 

direction in which the crash occurred? 

Ms. FEINBERG. It’s a little bit more complicated than that, but 

that’s it generally. They had turned on a version of PTC in one direction, not in the other, based on the belief that an engineer would 

be unlikely to be accelerating into a sharp curve, which is exactly 

what happened in the Philadelphia derailment. 

Mr. MICA. I will have more questions, but we will go to Ms. 

Duckworth, our ranking member now. 


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Thank you. 

Ms. DUCKWORTH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And again, thank 

you for calling today’s hearing and agreeing to invite the panel of 

witnesses, and especially Mayor Chris Koos from Normal, to testify. 

Illinois has important passenger rail connections to St. Louis, Detroit, Milwaukee, and throughout the Midwest, and modernizing 

these rail corridors makes a real difference for the people of Illinois. 

Mayor Koos, as you may know, some States led by Republican 

Governors rejected high-speed rail money. Can you talk a little bit 

about what the modernization program along the corridor that 

comes through Normal has done, and where perhaps you would be 

had those funds not been made available for things that you have 

been able to do with the TIGER grants, et cetera? 

Mr. KOOS. Well, I think the most important things that have 

come out of that is the reliability and frequency of service along 

that corridor. We’re seeing greater on-time performance on that 

corridor. 

I’ve come to learn over my years of dealing with this project— 

I actually know more about railroads than I thought I ever would 

or want to—but equally important is that high-speed or higherspeed rail is the reliability and frequency of service for that traveler, especially that business traveler, to know that when they have 

to be at a destination that they will be at that destination in a 

timely manner. 

Currently, through our community, there’s significant construction going on with the addition of a second rail line through. So we 

have double track through our community and quad-gate systems 

and pedestrian system, gate systems, which are significantly important, given the amount of pedestrian traffic we have around Illinois State University. 

So just getting back to your original question, I think frequency 

and the reliability of service is shown, and it’s shown in the ridership. 

Ms. DUCKWORTH. Have you heard—Mayor Koos, have you heard 

any feedback from your major corporate interests that are in the 

city in terms of the improvement in rail service? 

Mr. KOOS. We have. We’re seeing some use by our largest corporate partner in terms of their travel to Chicago. They’re finding 

that to be more advantageous. But they’re really looking for the 

completion in 2017 of this higher-speed rail system into Chicago, 

which shortens the time into Chicago by estimates from a hour half 

to 45 minutes, which is very significant to the business community 

in the sense that it makes us almost a suburb of Chicago. 

And for our local businesses, small businesses and large businesses, they see this as a business opportunity. I recently spoke 

with a man who has an insurance company and a tech company 

both and said with the ability to do business out of BloomingtonNormal community and commute to Chicago to do business, with 

his lower overhead of operating in my community, makes him a 

significant competitor in the Chicago market. 

Ms. DUCKWORTH. Thank you. 


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I would like to talk with Ms. Feinberg a little bit about some of 

the state of our rail infrastructure before the President launched 

the HSIPR initiative. Can you talk a little bit about what that 

state was like across the Nation? 

Ms. FEINBERG. Certainly. I mean, I think you addressed it in 

your opening statement quite eloquently that the age alone of 

many of these routes is more than 100 years old, 135 years old. 

Generally, we’ve got tracks in disrepair. A lot of the ARRA money 

has gone to upgrading track, to improving safety, separating for 

grade crossings, and all of that needed to be done prior to the 

money being spent. 

Ms. DUCKWORTH. In fact, I was very proud to have helped get 

some TIGER funding money to replace a 134-year-old bridge over 

the Fox River and, in fact, it is a bridge that had both freight and 

commuter rail service. Eight times a day commuter rail service 

went over this bridge, and the last time it had been repaired was 

80 years ago, had been upgraded. 

So let me just say that the commuters and the family members 

of our men and women who have to get on those trains and go to 

work in Chicago are grateful that that is being upgraded. 

I really believe that investing in our transportation infrastructure creates jobs, generates investments, and it is very unfortunate 

that since taking control of Congress, the majority has refused to 

provide any additional funds through this program. I think that 

these are badly needed modernization efforts and that we stand to 

leverage the investments in infrastructure into the business communities. 

As Mayor Koos has said, this actually makes them a viable competitor as a location for major corporations to those who might only 

look at Chicago. 

I thank you for holding this hearing, Mr. Chairman, and I yield 

back. 

Mr. MICA. Well, I would consider just for the record that we have put in over $1 billion a year into Amtrak capital improvements. 

They decide where that goes, and we still have money left over. It 

is obligated, but not expended in the $10 billion. So, and I know 

some has been withdrawn. So some of your criticism is correct, but 

we are trying to see some success and some high-speed service. 

Excuse me, Mr. DeSaulnier, didn’t want to take your time. The 

gentleman from California is recognized. 

Mr. DESAULNIER. That is fine, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you 

having this hearing, and I appreciate the witnesses. 

It is nice to meet the only Normal Mayor, and being a former 

Mayor, I would acquiesce to I was not normal then or now. But 

then, I am a Member of Congress. 

I just, in context, because we talked about California, and having 

been chair of both Transportation Committees in both houses in 

the legislature and been a big supporter of the idea of the absolute 

necessity for California as we continue to urbanize, for our economy 

to continue to grow in the Bay area, where the economy grew by 

almost 12 percent in 2015. But one of our biggest obstacles are cost 

of housing. 

And our infrastructure and our struggle with the perfect storm 

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try, but gas tax in California at the State level, in addition to the 

Federal level, is particularly problematic when we come to investing in infrastructure. 

So the importance of infrastructure, and because, Mr. Hart, I 

think you and I have a similar sort of perspective of the California 

project, we were very large supporters. But that has not been without some criticism about how we are going about it. 

There are frequently analogies in California between high-speed 

rail and, for instance, Golden Gate Bridge. I always bring up the 

Golden Gate Bridge came in under budget and ahead of time, and 

there was a dedicated funding source agreed to by the private sector and the Bank of America, based on the modeling before we did 

that. 

So execution, I think, is as important as vision, and I just have 

a sense of urgency about getting this right. So given your comment, 

I am curious about if California is going to be the first successful 

model, how do we overcome the lack of funding, some of the struggles we have, and from the public’s perception, we are scheduled 

to add the equivalent of the State of New York’s population in the 

next 30 years, just like were the last 30 years. 

So we are going to go from 40 million to 56 million people. It is 

all being urbanized. We need high-speed rail, but we also need the 

other components that make, for instance, the Japanese system so 

successful. So as I understand it, you have to have the connections 

with intercity rail and transit. You have to have commuter rail, 

and you have to have traditional rail in between the cities, Amtrak 

and upgrade it. 

But ultimately, you want high-speed rail as part of that, and I 

hear even the Reason Foundation to agree with that. So my struggle is I am afraid that the way we are doing it in California actually makes it—puts it in a position where high-speed rail will be 

delayed because we are—and I have to say the Authority has come 

a long way towards investing in the book ends, as we call it, the 

blended solution that Ms. Eshoo was such an author of earlier in 

a previous session of Congress. So how do we fix these moving 

parts? 

And then, Ms. Feinberg, I have a question of you because you 

mentioned cap and trade and as it relates to the current lawsuit 

in Superior Court in Sacramento. 

Mr. HART. Thank you, Congressman, for the question. 

You’re right. The California system is a complex project and—but 

it is underway now. And you know, they broke ground. It’s coming 

along. It’s still a challenge, but I do believe that the bifurcated system will accelerate the development of the program. 

The—I think one of the keys that in the long term will be tying 

it into the route to Las Vegas. I think that route, in conjunction 

with the route from San Francisco to Los Angeles, will really galvanize travel along that west coast region. 

Mr. DESAULNIER. Mr. Hart, you realize there is no funding identified for that line, other than the private sector is enthusiastic 

about it. So the $10 billion in bond funds as the voter approved are 

restricted to the San Francisco-L.A. corridor. 

Mr. HART. Right. And I believe that one will take shape more 

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ment, and then possibly some additional State revenue can be generated as well. I think the main thing was getting it up and running. 

It’s still a challenging development, and I know the critics say, 

you know, the train to nowhere, at this point. But it had to start 

in the middle, I think, because of the cost factors and just trying 

to get it off the ground. 

But I do continue to be optimistic on the success of that route 

once it gets developed. But it does have to be interconnected with 

passenger rail and transit rail in the major cities. 

Mr. DESAULNIER. Ms. Feinberg, I was just wondering, in terms 

of the cap-and-trade funds, there is a good deal of contention about 

whether that is a tax or fee. The Chamber of Commerce has, along 

with some environmental supporters, have joined in this lawsuit. 

So if they were to prevail in this, do we have a backup plan? Because that is, as you said, the most significant contributor to at 

least the initial operating system. And even with that, if the modeling stayed the way it originally was, not the last quarter of cap 

and trade, you would still be $5 billion short. 

So in your discussions with the Authority, is there another 

source other than the private sector, which heretofore has not been 

interested? 

Ms. FEINBERG. Well, in our conversations with the Authority, I 

think they do have some backup planning that they are preparing. 

I would disagree a little bit on the private side not being at all interested. 

My sense is that there has been some limited interest and that 

they have put out requests for interest and have gotten some interest. So I would disagree that there has been no private interest. 

Mr. DESAULNIER. I would love to have any information that way. 

There has been—the L.A. Times has done a lot of stories on this 

and —— 

Ms. FEINBERG. The L.A. Times loves this story, yes. 

Mr. DESAULNIER. Yes, they do. I have been in some of those articles, much to my chagrin. 

Ms. FEINBERG. Me, too. 

Mr. DESAULNIER. Thank you —— 

Ms. FEINBERG. But I mean, to finish—to finish the answer, I 

mean, I think the Authority has several options. There is cap and 

trade, which you’re taking off the table. There is State money. 

There are other grant programs. Certainly, the Congress can step 

in at any moment and decide to more fully fund a high-speed rail 

program, which I think would be welcome in California and elsewhere. So there is backup planning. 

Mr. DESAULNIER. I appreciate it. Mr. Chairman, this is a great 

hearing. It would be wonderful, I think, if we could have a discussion about how we improve passenger rail, including high-speed 

rail, which I have never heard you directly challenge investments 

in high-speed rail. It is just where and how we do that. 

So I would be nice to have that discussion because I think it is 

a complete necessity for the country. 

Mr. MICA. Well, thank you. And these projects are expensive. We 

went, you and I went to New York on the east side access, which 

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land to Grand Central, but needed to be done. And you got to find 

a way to finance it. 

Now we will hear from the gentleman from Philadelphia, Mr. 

Boyle of Pennsylvania. 

Mr. BOYLE. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you 

and the ranking member so much for having a hearing on this 

topic. It is something that I care so much about that I am skipping—I am supposed to be speaking on the House floor right now 

and skipping that because I wanted to attend this hearing. 

The chairman mentioned that I represent Philadelphia. So representing part of the city and part of the suburbs of Philadelphia, 

it is probably not too surprising where my passion for Amtrak and 

high-speed rail comes. But it is not just because of a parochial interest. 

I have to say, as an American, it saddened me about a year ago 

when Japan had a big celebration for the 50th anniversary of the 

bullet train. Celebrating 50 years of high-speed rail, knowing that 

most European countries have high-speed rail, that here we are, in 

what is supposed to be the best country in the world, and we are 

the one major country that does not have high-speed rail. 

It is maddening and enormously frustrating. So I thank you for 

having this hearing. 

In only 5 minutes, I have about 7 or 8 different topics that I 

could go in. So, obviously, I am not going to get to them all. The 

first is regarding the FRA. I think it was the FRA that was running the NECfuture.com Web site. 

Ms. FEINBERG. Yes, sir. 

Mr. BOYLE. I am perhaps the only Member of Congress nerdy 

enough to spend late at night looking through every single option 

and plan that was laid out there. I think it was upward of 13 or 

16 from running from just what would it cost to maintain the status quo all the way to building a whole new parallel Northeast Corridor that would be entirely for passenger rail and not have to compete with commercial. 

I wanted to just kind of find out where we are in that stage now. 

Maybe you could bring us up to speed? 

Ms. FEINBERG. Sure. And it is a delight to talk with someone 

who is doing things like staying up late at night reading about the 

NEC future. Great —— 

Mr. BOYLE. Yes. And then I harass my staff by sending them 

that email at 2:00 in the morning and was subsequently made fun 

of when I came back to the office. 

Ms. FEINBERG. Come over to the FRA any time. We have a lot 

of—a lot of people to hang out with. You’ll feel right at home. 

The NEC future, as you know certainly and as most know, is our 

attempt to lay out options and eventually a preferred approach to 

how we should think about the NEC going forward. So over the 

next 20 years, 30 years, 50 years, as the population grows —— 

Mr. BOYLE. And it will grow massively. 

Ms. FEINBERG. Massively. 

Mr. BOYLE. As, and I am sorry to interrupt, as the New York 

City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, D.C. metro areas are essentially becoming one large megapolis, and that is where we are going. So, 

sorry. 


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Ms. FEINBERG. Exactly. No, thank you. These various options, 

which you described well, were put out over the last several 

months. There have been hundreds of thousands of public comments that have come in. 

The FRA staff had listening sessions, town hall type meetings up 

and down the corridor to get input and thoughts from the communities up and down the corridor. We have heard a lot of really helpful feedback about what people are interested, what they’re not interested in. 

As you said, it goes from status quo all the way to a second 

spine, which, as anyone can imagine, will require significant investment, the likes of which we really haven’t seen in this country. 

So our plan is to release the public comments in the coming weeks 

so that people can have an opportunity to see what the corridor has 

been saying —— 

Mr. BOYLE. Okay. So, in a few weeks, we will be able to see. If 

you could —— 

Ms. FEINBERG. Those are the public comments. 

Mr. BOYLE. The public comments. 

Ms. FEINBERG. Exactly. So that others can see what kind of comments we’re getting, and then later in the fall, to try to wrap up 

the preferred option and put that out for public comment. 

Mr. BOYLE. I would strongly encourage FRA to please share with 

my office, as someone who is very much interested, what the public 

was saying about that. I will weigh in with my two cents. In a, how 

can I put this, a highly unusual election year, one common area of 

agreement, actually, between our two major parties’ nominees 

seems to be spending on infrastructure and going big. 

So I would encourage, as you are developing and looking at the 

plans and if we, as a Congress, argue with this and we are always 

constrained by money, of course, but recognizing not just the total 

spend, but the return on investment, it is a slam dunk, particularly 

in the Northeast Corridor. 

I only have about 30 seconds. So I did want to—this is even 

going kind of more down the line of thinking big, but I met—and 

I think someone mentioned the possibility of going in a public-private partnership direction with the Northeast Corridor. I sought 

out and met the group with the Northeast Maglev. Technology that 

when you first hear about it sounds like science fiction except it already exists and, in fact, is working. 

I will be soon going to Japan to see what essentially is the next 

generation of high-speed rail. I would be curious what your 

thoughts are on the possibility of the maglev. I know that Secretary Foxx approved that first demonstration project from D.C. to 

Baltimore, or the study of it and what the possibility is of that. 

Because the idea of going up to 300 miles per hour and a safety 

record that is incredible is just so exciting, and it is the kind of 

things that we should be thinking of as Americans. Yes? 

Mr. HART. I had the opportunity to ride a maglev train in China. 

It was going over 300 miles an hour, and it was as smooth as this 

table right now. It was unbelievable. You didn’t even feel how fast 

you were moving until you looked out the window. 

But there are some challenges with maglev. It’s extremely expensive, much more expensive than the steel wheel high-speed rail 


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programs. And one of the difficulties with the maglev systems, even 

the ones from D.C. to Baltimore that are planned, it’s not interoperable. In other words, you likely will have to get off of that train 

and get onto another train. 

And so by transferring trains, you’re losing the time that you 

would be saving unless you’re going just to those two destinations, 

and that does bring Baltimore and D.C. into one megatropolis. But 

if you’re going to New York, you know, you get to Baltimore real 

quick, but then you’ve got to get off the train and get on another 

train. And if it’s the Amtrak, you’re going to lose the time that you 

had wanted, you know, to make up at the beginning. 

Mr. BOYLE. Although to be fair, I mean, I think the vision of 

Northeast Maglev is that would just be the start, that it would be 

a Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City project, and 

it would include the airports as well in Philadelphia and BWI. So 

that would address some of that concern. 

Mr. HART. Yes. The proponents of it are very enthusiastic. It is 

a smooth ride. It’s very quick, but it is extremely expensive and— 

but it does allegedly have less maintenance cost. 

So over time, it may pay out, but we’re having difficulty, you 

know, raising any real money for traditional, let’s say, high-speed 

rail. I’m not sure that we’re going to have the budget or the commitment to make a long distance maglev train. But I hope we can 

enhance both technologies so that they can be blended, and then 

it would be very useful in certain regions, certainly the Northeast 

Corridor. 

Mr. BOYLE. If it is all right, I know I am way over time, but I 

think that another witness, another witness wanted to—Mr. 

Feigenbaum? 

Mr. FEIGENBAUM. Yeah, sure. No, I’ll just—I’ll keep this brief. 

The reason why China and Japan looked at the maglev technology 

was they looked at it, and they decided it wasn’t real feasible. They 

did build some projects more for demonstration, sort of as I don’t 

want to say ‘‘showing off,’’ but you know, sort of as this is what we 

can do with technology. 

But I think they’ve come to the realization that at least right 

now—which isn’t to say in the future, there might not be differences in cost. But at least right now, the traditional high-speed 

rail, as Mr. Hart said, is the more realistic option from cost purposes. 

Mr. BOYLE. Yes, I would say, I mean, my conversations with the 

Japanese government, including the Ambassador here, have not reflected that, have not reflected a backing off of a commitment to 

maglev. 

But I thank the chairman, who has been very gracious. As people 

can tell, I have a real passion for this, and it is great that we are 

having this conversation. Instead of talking about what is the best 

way to put a band-aid on the system, talking about the next 20, 

30 years and where we can really go in some exciting areas. 

I yield back. 

Mr. MICA. Mr. Boyle, too, you know, with provisions of transportation opening up Amtrak routes to competition, one of the most— 

well, of course, the most densely populated and the best potential 

is the Northeast Corridor. You are right in the heart of it. But that 


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opportunity is open. We have in the bill some caveats. We are trying to get service between Union Station and Penn Station in 2 

hours or less with at least one stop. You would be probably the 

stop. 

But I have talked to Richard Branson’s folks and others, and we 

are talking to other people who can come in, bring some cash to 

help make that happen and show—if we could just get one success 

in one corridor, I think we would do very well. 

Now I am going to yield back to Ms. Duckworth for a unanimous 

request. 

Ms. DUCKWORTH. Yes, Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent 

to allow the gentleman from California, Representative Jim Costa, 

to participate in today’s hearing. 

Mr. MICA. Reserving the right to object because he is one of the 

most knowledgeable people about high-speed rail. But I am glad to 

see him, and I apologize for not personally inviting you. 

Without objection, so ordered. 

Mr. COSTA. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to thank the ranking member and members of the subcommittee here for allowing me to participate. 

This is an important issue for the future of America, and it is 

appropriate that the subcommittee try to focus and renew interest 

in this effort. Mr. Chairman, you and I have had a number of conversations on high-speed rail in America over the years, and I appreciate your focus and your advocacy and your efforts. 

Let me just make a few observations and maybe grind out a few 

on some of the comments that were made earlier. You know, highspeed rail in America can and, I believe, will happen. And there 

are a number of factors that are involved in making that a reality. 

But it is not the technology. We are on four generations of highspeed technology that has been developed in Japan and Europe and 

now in China. 

It is not the understanding of financing on a per-mile basis, depending upon what the corridor selection route is, whether it is in 

urban areas or whether it is in rural areas or whether it is in 

mountainous areas. We have some good understandings of that. 

There have been so many ridership studies that I have been familiar with over the 25 years I have been looking at high-speed rail 

in Europe and Asia, and one could deduce a lot of different things 

from the ridership studies. 

But when you look at all the multiple factors that are involved 

and where it has happened and where it hasn’t happened, i.e., the 

United States, the most powerful nation in the world, it comes 

down to really one crucible. And that is the political will. You either have to have the political will to make it happen, or you don’t. 

It has happened in France and Japan initially because they had 

the political will for a combination of factors that they wanted to 

proceed on, and then they put the full force and effort of their national governments to begin to make that happen in the ’60s and 

expand upon it in the ’70s, and other countries took place. 

Let us start, I think, first with the thesis or the understanding 

at least, and if we differ on this point, then it is a long ways from 

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ture projects in America or anywhere else in the world, whether we 

are talking about transportation or water projects that I have a 

strong, deep interest in. 

If we are waiting for the private sector to come in and finance 

it, especially in this day and age when we are so litigious of a society, good luck. It is not going to happen. It is going involve some 

type of a public-private partnership, period. And any other model 

that I have seen just I don’t believe you can get there from here. 

So, and what we are struggling with here in this—in Washington, and we have for several decades now, is there is no book 

written on how you build high-speed rail in America, and we are 

trying to write that book in California, with a lot of challenges, of 

course. Because a lot of the people who sometimes indicate they 

would like to see high-speed rail happen, oh, by the way, are 

throwing in all sorts of obstacles and roadblocks in the process to 

prevent it from happening. 

And they say, oh, by the way, and you have got to build it on 

time and on budget and da-da-da-da. Well, that is wonderful, but 

you know, if you are trying to do a lot of stuff to prevent it from 

happening, how do you expect us to be on time and on budget and 

with lawsuits and the like? 

So we have yet to demonstrate, and this administration, Presi- dent Obama was the first to come up with $8 billion. President 

Clinton’s administration talked about it. But if the folks here aren’t 

willing to put up the money, if we in Congress aren’t going to be 

willing to make it happen in terms of developing this public-private 

partnership, it is not going to happen. The $8 billion that was put there as a part of the investment 

package back in 2009 was seed money. No one believed that that 

was going to build any high-speed rail corridor in America, let 

alone in California. So the fact is, is that we have got to determine 

whether or not we are going to do it. 

Now as to—and I am sorry my colleague Congressman Boyle 

left—maglev versus steel on rail, I am not an expert. But let me 

say that the Germans before the Urals spent billions of marks and 

the Japanese have spent billions of yen on both maglev and steel 

on rail technology. And for themselves, for reasons that I think 

were multiple faceted, chose steel on rail. 

Now I am not to say that sometime in another generation that 

maglev might have applications in certain instances, but the fourth 

generation of steel on rail now has trains that can go 260. Actually, 

on test runs they have gone in excess of 300 miles an hour on steel 

on rail. 

And the Chinese, who basically morphed the Japanese technology on steroids, were running those trains up to 250, I think, 

miles an hour or faster until they had their accident, and they have 

slowed down a little bit now. So the fact is, is that I don’t think 

we need to reinvent the wheel here. I don’t think we need to reinvent the wheel. A lot of that has been developed. 

Let me also indicate that, you know, the California effort—and 

I want to commend the Governor here, along with the President, 

for getting the first development to take place—there has been a 

lot of argument on why you would start at the Central Valley as 

the place. 


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Well, the fact is, is that we have got a $60 billion infrastructure 

project. And if you want to try to spend $12 billion and figure out 

where you are going to get a system to operate between point A 

and point B that will be viable, that $12 billion is not going to go 

very far in the Bay area or in the—where you already have a rapid 

transit system and an interconnectivity, or in Southern California. 

So the—you know, and I think it remains to be seen with the 

new blended business plan that the High-Speed Rail Authority has 

developed in California, I think a real opportunity to get there from 

here. Is it everything we would like? Is it the way you would like 

to build? 

I will tell you what. It follows the pattern on highways. I have 

never seen us build a freeway in the entirety. We build it what? 

In segments. And that is because of the cost structure and how 

much you are willing to invest in it. 

So, Mr. Chairman, I want to urge you to continue your efforts, 

as you have in the past, not just for Floridians, not only for the 

Northeast Corridor, whether it be the Acela, which you would like 

to speed up to 110 plus, which I would support your efforts in doing 

so. The ranking member here in Illinois is very concerned about 

improving the interconnectivity for the systems that they are developing there and in the Midwest and the connection. 

But you know, with the population densities in California, I 

think we have the density and we have the interconnectivity to 

make it work. We have the second, third, and fifth most busiest 

Amtrak corridors in America in California. We spend over $70 million, the State does, every year to improve that system. 

One would argue, one way or the other, that it is average. I can’t 

say it is above average. It certainly is better than what it was 15, 

20 years ago. And it could be a lot better if we were willing to 

make additional investments, that is for sure. 

Let me close on one note. When I carried the high-speed rail 

bond measure back in 2001 and 2002, and in California, Mr. Chairman, we had at those times to get two-thirds vote, which means 

you needed good bipartisan support. And as I said in the outset, 

there is no book written on how you build high-speed rail in America. 

But a gentleman who I got to know briefly before he passed away 

wrote a book that comes as close as you can, I guess, to look for 

examples. And that is Stephen Ambrose, when he wrote the book 

‘‘Nothing Like It in the World.’’ And I bought 35 copies, Mr. Chairman, and I passed it out to my Republican colleagues and many 

of my Democratic colleagues who were naysayers. 

And I said perhaps maybe America’s greatest President, certainly 

a great Republican President, Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator, in 1862 in the middle of the Civil War, when he was trying 

to keep the Union together, when budgeting the war was just, you 

know, challenging as anything we can think of today, I would suspect. 

Americans fighting Americans. Inflation was running rampant. 

The first printing of paper money, which people didn’t trust. And 

in 1862, he decides after developing the standard gauge, if we are 

going to build across America, that is what we are going to do. 


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Now I can see if poor President Lincoln—not poor, but if the 

President were in office today with 24–7 news cycle and talking 

heads on Saturdays and Sundays and his advisers coming and say, 

‘‘Gee, Mr. President, we don’t know that politically this is a good 

idea. Maybe you might want to wait for your second term?’’ Not. 

I don’t think so. 

But he had the boldness and the courage and, most importantly, 

the political will when our country was being challenged as never 

before as whether or not the Union would stay together that that 

would in part be a symbol of the Union being bound together from 

coast to coast. 

And so I think it is in that spirit of President Lincoln, when the 

challenges were far greater then than they are today, to decide either we are going to have the political will and courage to do it and 

to make that investment in our infrastructure along with other investments in our infrastructure, or we are not. But otherwise, this 

becomes a nice conversation, but it doesn’t become real. 

And we are trying to make it become real in California, and I 

will try to do everything I can to support your efforts, Mr. Chairman, and the ranking member as far as the courtesies that you 

have given me to be a part of this afternoon’s subcommittee hearing. 

Thank you so very much. 

Mr. MICA. Well, thank you. And we talked earlier about where 

we are with getting the California train out of the ditch, so to 

speak. And how much it is going to take to finish that to get a 

credible segment of it actually operating. That is going to be a challenge for additional administrations, rightly, as we are talking—I 

think our latest is up to 2025. 

Do they—do you know, are they looking at like an incremental, 

like initially, it was Bakersfield to Fresno, and then they have expanded it up towards San Jose. Are they going to open the first 

part with that first —— 

Mr. COSTA. The plan right now is from Bakersfield to Merced, 

which is under construction, I might add. And the High-Speed Rail 

Authority has come together with the Governor’s support and much 

of Northern California delegation’s support as well to connect San 

Jose and Merced. 

Mr. MICA. But is it a phased opening? So they do the southern 

part first, the initial one they were going to do, and then take that 

second into the San Jose area? 

Mr. COSTA. What the High-Speed Rail Authority would like to 

do, and they are working with the Governor’s office is, is to get 

those first two segments complete. These trains could go at 240 

miles an hour. And then this year, in the next legislative calendar, 

get the commitment from cap and trade to then connect San Jose 

to Merced. That would be the funding source that would then connect San Jose to Merced, and you would then have an operating 

segment from San Francisco to Bakersfield. 

Mr. MICA. Well, if the administrator has a plan that has been 

submitted by California for that or you are working with them, it 

would be nice to put that in the record. I just like to put things 

in the record because people say things. They set up a timeframe, 


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and then that changes. But at least we can see what was promised, 

where we should be. You need milestones. 

Ms. FEINBERG. Certainly. 

Mr. MICA. If you could accommodate us, and we are going to 

leave the record open for submissions and additional questions. 

I have invited, Jim, the members of the committee to come down 

to Miami to see what we are doing. We have a higher speed. It is 

not as fast as California. Private sector, pretty much private sector 

financed project in the intermodal center we are building like in 

Orlando at our airport, $1.4 billion to accommodate the terminal in 

Miami. 

Mr. COSTA. Good. 

Mr. MICA. Under construction, is $2 billion dollars. It is under 

construction, and the three terminals in south Florida are all under 

construction, and the cars on their way. So we may see something 

in higher-speed rail, but it certainly isn’t high-speed rail. 

I want to correct the record, too. On the Florida project, Mr. Hart 

and several others mentioned the administrator as very intently involved in trying to make that a success. Secretary LaHood added 

up to $2.4 billion of a $2.7 billion cost project that was going to go 

84 miles from Orlando airport to downtown Tampa. 

We, unfortunately, reached an impasse. Governor Scott just came 

onboard, and people don’t know this, but the Governor got back the 

financials. And the part from the Orlando airport to the Disney 

tourist area is a great—it could pay for itself. The rest is a dog because they don’t have a fixed system in to connect into, into 

Tampa. 

I tried to divide the project up, phase it. Let us do what is successful. We could come back. Some folks on the other side of the 

State and aisle and the administration said all or none, and the 

Governor was not willing to take on the long-term burden. 

It also was sort of a bait-and-switch project because the train 

that they were looking at was only—it was 84 miles. It went 84 

miles in 1 hour, which is 84 miles per hour average speed. That 

is not high-speed rail. 

You can right now get on an Amtrak train, which goes from the 

Orlando station over to the Tampa station, and it takes about 20 

minutes longer than that. So it wasn’t much for $2.7 billion and 

then going into hock. There is more to the story that I thought 

should be—I would just put that in the record there. 

So, again, I want to support it. We have got some opportunity for 

public-private partnership. Mr. Hart, Mr. Feigenbaum said that 

those are avenues for success. 

Mr. Koos, most of your project, though, I think is—is yours a 

State, what do you call it, a State-supported route or totally Amtrak? 

Mr. KOOS. We have seven State-supported trains a day and one 

long-haul route, the Texas Eagle. 

Mr. MICA. The long-haul route is Amtrak. The money for the investment? 

Mr. KOOS. Amtrak operates the State routes, but they’re State 

supported. 

Mr. MICA. But a lot of your money came from Federal for the improvement? 


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Mr. KOOS. That’s correct. 

Mr. MICA. You cited TIGER II, which again I am citing publicprivate partnership, predominantly private for huge investment. So 

I see that and I am even happy when it doesn’t have to come out 

of taxpayer dollars, just informationally. 

Huge opportunities for employment. We should have high-speed 

rail and higher-speed rail across the country. It is just, to me, I 

think again there are so many savings. We could get more cars off 

and trucks, which tear up the highway, with better rail system. 

But 22,000 miles of our rail is privately owned over which Amtrak runs. Isn’t that right, Ms. Feinberg? Amtrak only owns about 

600 miles of rail lines. 

Ms. FEINBERG. I don’t know the exact number, but that sounds 

right. 

Mr. MICA. But, and part of that, almost all of that is privately 

owned, and there are questions about paying for capital improvements for the private sector. We have tried to provide tax incentives and some assistance for capital improvements that are necessary to upgrade those routes, but also need to look at incentives—and this is something we might work on, Ms. Feinberg—to 

get the private sector involved in carrying passengers, which they 

did years ago and then got out of the business. 

But now rail is under the most pressure it has ever been under. 

They are down in transporting coal and oil and all kinds of goods, 

and it may be an opportunity for them to get in like FEC, Florida 

East Coast, which is doing the project in Florida, but with some incentives. 

Mr. COSTA. Would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. MICA. Yes. 

Mr. COSTA. To your point, in the late—in the ’50s, late 1950s 

with different technologies, of course, when Santa Fe was in the 

passenger business before Burlington Northern and Southern Pacific, but many of the trains around the country ran at 99 miles an 

hour, and they had very nice service. 

And they did that with technologies that was vintage ’40s and 

’50s, obviously. But they had an interest. They were making a profit out of it at the time, although that changed the numbers as air 

jet travel came in and that began to change their economic model. 

But the fact is, is that with even the existing, and we do pay the 

railroads additional money for on-time performance. I don’t think 

it is much of an incentive for them. Of course —— 

Mr. MICA. But there are incentives, and I will show you one right 

here, Mr. Costa. Remember I told you about Florida East Coast 

railroad now back getting in the passenger business. They are 

building three—this is actually under construction. Three towers, 

$2 billion. 

This is just one station in Miami, a commercial center. Then 

above the commercial center in the tower, a hotel, then a professional building, then two more towers looking down the street. 

Mr. COSTA. Right. 

Mr. MICA. This is in downtown Miami, of 400 units apiece of living. And this is how it is going to look. Isn’t that incredible? 

And it wraps around the existing metro rail and the downtown 

people mover. They are bringing high-speed rail in with another 


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line. And then to get to the airport from that site will be 12 minutes, and you can also—for the first time, we will have our commuter rail —— 

Mr. COSTA. You have your —— 

Mr. MICA.—traveling into that station, and there is you know 

how much Federal money is in it? 

Mr. COSTA. You have your interconnectivity there. Well, I mean, 

you know, the stations have been money generators in France and 

in Japan—hotels, convention centers, shopping centers, the whole. 

So, I mean, this model has been used in other parts of the world 

successfully. 

Mr. MICA. I have done a small commuter rail in central Florida, 

just a small leg. We have $2 billion either underway or on the 

planning boards, and they finished almost $1 billion in transit-oriented development. So there is potential. 

But I think we have to incentivize the private sector and partner 

with it. If we took that $10 billion and put it in one leg, either California or New York or someplace, and partnered and doubled, you 

know, you can—there is a lot of ways to extrapolate the money and 

maximize its potential. 

Mr. COSTA. Oh, I agree. 

Mr. MICA. We could—we could have, my hope was, about this 

time be cutting a ribbon somewhere. But right now, we are, as we 

say, ‘‘lagging behind’’—the title of this hearing is—‘‘the state of 

high-speed rail in the U.S.’’ 

Mr. COSTA. You are correct. But you know, we are in negotiations and conversations with the private sector in California for 

that partnership, and there is a lot of interest. 

Mr. MICA. Well, we will get there, and maybe we can do some 

roundtables, and we are getting toward the end of this session. 

Did you want to say something, Mr. Koos? 

Mr. KOOS. Specifically, Mr. Chairman, in our corridor, I think 

one of the benefits of the public infrastructure on the Chicago-St. 

Louis corridor, it does allow freight traffic and passenger rail traffic 

to work more efficiently together. And I think that’s a—that’s a 

noble goal. It makes the railroads more profitable. 

Mr. MICA. Absolutely. 

Mr. KOOS. And it makes Amtrak work much better. And if there 

is a way, you know, my experience has been if you can go to a 

freight rail company and show them a way that they can run profitable passenger rail on the line, they would probably be interested. 

Currently, I don’t think they are. 

Mr. MICA. Ms. Duckworth? 

Ms. DUCKWORTH. Just wanted to, again, thank you for this and 

urge you to continue your leadership on this issue, and let us talk 

about this some more. 

Mr. MICA. Good, and maybe another roundtable before the end 

of this session, and then we will see how everything sort of evolves. 

I recommend to you—you recommended your book. I am finishing 

one on John Quincy Adams, absolutely astounding book. I love biographies. 

I have read ‘‘John Adams’’ by David McCullough, but this is the 

second part, and learning right now that John Quincy Adams, 

when he ran for President was, he was fairly conservative, but he 


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felt that infrastructure was so important to the country. It was 

his—he went beyond that. 

And then he was pitted against Andrew Jackson. Andrew Jackson wanted absolutely bare bones Federal Government, minimal, 

and that was part—this was 1820s, and their argument over infrastructure. And the cute thing is, is reading John Quincy Adams’ defense was the Founding Fathers intended this because George 

Washington, built the canals, the first post roads. 

So his justification was the Founding Fathers did this to expand 

the potential of the Nation, and he brought it back to that. But 

again, reading the commentary and the debate of the 1820s, things 

haven’t changed too much. 

Anything else, Mr. Costa? 

Mr. COSTA. No, I just want to thank you, thank all of you. 

Mr. MICA. We do have additional—fairly good while here, but we 

do have additional questions we are going to be submitting, I think, 

for the witnesses. 

Mr. MICA. So we won’t belabor this anymore, but it was a good 

catch-up kind of session, and I think a lot of folks, it is nice to see 

some of the young Members, too, interested in this because, as I 

said, if it is 30 years on the Northeast Corridor, I won’t be seeing 

it. 

But this young lady will. I just scoped her age, and she is raring 

to go and will see it complete. 

But I thank the witnesses again, thank my colleagues, and there 

being no further business before the subcommittee, this hearing is 

adjourned. 

Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 3:59 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

Æ 


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