[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
EXPANDING PASSENGER RAIL SERVICE
=======================================================================
(111-44)
FIELD HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
RAILROADS, PIPELINES, AND HAZARDOUS MATERIALS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
June 22, 2009 (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
__________
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
50-821 PDF WASHINGTON : 2009
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing
Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; DC
area (202) 512-1800 Fax: (202) 512-2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC
20402-0001
COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota, Chairman
NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia, JOHN L. MICA, Florida
Vice Chair DON YOUNG, Alaska
PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin
JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
Columbia VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan
JERROLD NADLER, New York FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey
CORRINE BROWN, Florida JERRY MORAN, Kansas
BOB FILNER, California GARY G. MILLER, California
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas HENRY E. BROWN, Jr., South
GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi Carolina
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois
ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania
LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa SAM GRAVES, Missouri
TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania
BRIAN BAIRD, Washington JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
RICK LARSEN, Washington SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West
MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts Virginia
TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania
MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California CONNIE MACK, Florida
DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois LYNN A WESTMORELAND, Georgia
MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio
JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan
TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma
HEATH SHULER, North Carolina VERN BUCHANAN, Florida
MICHAEL A. ARCURI, New York ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio
HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky
CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania ANH ``JOSEPH'' CAO, Louisiana
JOHN J. HALL, New York AARON SCHOCK, Illinois
STEVE KAGEN, Wisconsin PETE OLSON, Texas
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
LAURA A. RICHARDSON, California
ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas
PHIL HARE, Illinois
JOHN A. BOCCIERI, Ohio
MARK H. SCHAUER, Michigan
BETSY MARKEY, Colorado
PARKER GRIFFITH, Alabama
MICHAEL E. McMAHON, New York
THOMAS S. P. PERRIELLO, Virginia
DINA TITUS, Nevada
HARRY TEAGUE, New Mexico
(iii)
SUBCOMMITTEE ON RAILROADS, PIPELINES, AND HAZARDOUS MATERIALS
CORRINE BROWN, Florida Chairwoman
DINA TITUS, Nevada BILL SHUSTER, Pennylvania
HARRY TEAGUE, New Mexico THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin
NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia JERRY MORAN, Kansas
JERROLD NADLER, New York GARY G. MILLER, California
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland HENRY E. BROWN, Jr., South
GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California Carolina
JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois
TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota SAM GRAVES, Missouri
MICHAEL A. ARCURI, New York JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania
CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey LYNN A. WESTMORELND, Georgia
MARK H. SCHAUER, Michigan JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio
BETSY MARKEY, Colorado CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan
MICHAEL E. McMAHON, New York VERN BUCHANAN, Florida
THOMAS S. P. PERRIELLO, Virginia ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio
PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky
JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois AARON SCHOCK, Illinois
BOB FILNER, California ANH ``JOSEPH'' CAO, Louisiana
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas PETE OLSON, Texas
LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa
RICK LARSEN, Washington
MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine
DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
LAURA A. RICHARDSON, California
JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota
(ex officio)
(iv)
CONTENTS
Page
Summary of Subject Matter........................................ vi
TESTIMONY
Ardolino, Robert, CEO, Urban Innovations......................... 23
Fauver, Toby L., AICP, Deputy Secretary for Local and Area
Transportation, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation...... 6
Gleason, Christopher, CEO/Chairman, Gleason Financial............ 6
Gurney, Ph.D., Fred, President and CEO, Maglev, Inc.............. 23
Joseph, Kenneth, Member, Council of Representatives, National
Association of Railroad Passengers............................. 6
Lang, Raymond, Senior Director for National State Relations,
National Railroad Passenger Corporation (AMTRAK)............... 6
McMahon, Patrick J., President, Amalgamated Transit Union Local
85............................................................. 23
Posner III, Henry, Chairman, Railroad Development Corporation.... 6
Sieminski, Daniel W., Associate Vice President for Finance and
Business, The Pennsylvania State University.................... 23
Simonelli, Lorenzo, President and CEO, GE Transportation......... 23
Wohlwill, David, AICP, Manager of Extended Range Planning, Port
Authority of Allegheny County.................................. 23
Yachmetz, Mark E., Associate Administrator for Railroad
Development, Federal Railroad Administration................... 6
PREPARED STATEMENT SUBMITTED BY A MEMBER OF CONGRESS
Altmire, Hon. Jason, of Pennsylvania............................. 40
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES
Ardolino, Robert................................................. 46
Fauver, Toby L................................................... 51
Gleason, Christopher............................................. 54
Gurney, Ph.D., Fred.............................................. 57
Joseph, Kenneth.................................................. 67
Lang, Raymond.................................................... 70
McMahon, Patrick J............................................... 75
Posner III, Henry................................................ 81
Sieminski, Daniel W.............................................. 85
Simonelli, Lorenzo............................................... 138
Wohlwill, David.................................................. 144
SUBMISSION FOR THE RECORD
Sieminski, Daniel W., Associate Vice President for Finance and
Business, The Pennsylvania State University, "Pennsylvania High
Speed Intercity Rail Passenger Commission Final Report,
Executive Summary"............................................. 112
ADDITION TO THE RECORD
Borough of Oakmont, Robert J. Fescemeyer, Mayor and Michael L.
Federici, President of the Oakmont Borough Council, written
statement...................................................... 146
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
EXPANDING PASSENGER RAIL SERVICE
----------
MONDAY, JUNE 22, 2009
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous
Materials
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:04 a.m., at
United States Post Office and District Courthouse, 700 Grant
Street, Court Room 6A, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Hon. Jason
Altmire [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Mr. Altmire. I call this hearing to order.
Thank you all for being here today for this Transportation
Committee for the United States House of Representatives field
hearing. Today's hearing will examine the essential role that
passenger rail plays in America's transportation infrastructure
and the necessity for expanding its service and efficiency.
Our Nation's transportation system is near capacity with
gridlock on our highways and in our airspace. In 2006, there
were more than 3 trillion vehicle miles traveled, roughly
double what was traveled in 1980 and more than four times the
total miles traveled in 1957, the first year of the interstate.
Our Nation's airways have fared no better. Despite record
passenger loadings, delays in the Nation's aviation system
delivered a staggering blow to the U.S. economy. In fiscal year
2008, U.S. airlines continued to meet demand, carrying 757.4
million passengers, but the impact of unprecedented fuel prices
and an overall recess have caused airlines to cut back capacity
by reducing and eliminating routes, leaving consumers to vie
for fewer travel options.
The U.S. Department of Transportation has described the
current congestion on our highways and our air infrastructure
as chronic. Moving passengers to railways can have an immediate
impact on highways and airways, alleviating congestion,
reducing consumption, consequences and our dependence on fossil
fuels.
Since its origins in 1970, the National Railroad Passenger
Corporation, also known as Amtrak, has been tasked with
facilitating passenger services nationwide and rebuilding the
rail passenger system into modern, efficient systems. Today,
Amtrak operates a rail network across 46 States serving more
than 500 destinations and 21,000 miles of routes with its
nearly 18,000 employees. In its sixth straight year of record
ridership, Amtrak served around 78,000 passengers per day on
its 300 trains, totaling more than 28.7 million passengers
nationwide during fiscal year 2008. Given the ongoing concerns
with congestion and our dependence on foreign oil, rising gas
prices and greenhouse gas emissions, both Amtrak and the States
continue to look for opportunities to expand passenger rail
service.
Adequate investment in passenger railroad infrastructure is
crucial for national economic growth, global competitiveness,
the environment and our quality of life. Continued efforts to
expand passenger rail service are critical to maintaining an
effective nationwide system as well as to advance Congress and
the President's vision for development of high-speed rail
corridors throughout the United States.
One 70-foot-wide rail corridor can carry the same number of
persons per hour as a 16-lane expressway, emitting fewer
pollutants and consuming less energy per passenger mile.
Capacity can be added to many existing corridors at lower cost
than comparable highway improvements using modern train sets or
high-speed rail.
Rail travel is six times safer than highway travel and in
fact is the safest mode of transportation available worldwide.
Increased travel by rail stimulates economic activity and spurs
private investment in urban areas and central business
districts around rail stations. Rail service grants the freedom
of mobility to those unable to easily use our air and highway
systems because of age, physical disabilities, health problems
or economic circumstances and reduces our dependence on foreign
oil.
Investments in expansion of passenger rail service will
also encourage economic growth through the creation of highly
skilled, good-paying jobs. Since the recession began in
December 2007, one of the hardest hit sectors has been in
construction, which has seen unemployment rates approaching 21
percent. Since that time, over a million jobs have been lost in
the construction sector alone. Expanding passenger rail
infrastructure will create jobs, not only in the construction
sector of the economy but in manufacturing and service sectors
as well. And in order to address our Nation's economic, energy,
environmental and transportation challenges, we need to
continue expanding passenger rail service and invest in high-
speed rail.
On February 17, 2009, the American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act of 2009 was signed into law. The Recovery Act
provides $9.3 billion dedicated to passenger rail including $8
billion in grants to States for development of intercity
passenger and high-speed rail and $1.3 billion for capital
improvements to Amtrak. Additionally, the President's budget
proposes additional funding for each of the next 5 years for
the advancement and development of high-speed rail corridors
throughout the Nation.
Pennsylvania is currently served by five key Amtrak
intercity rail corridors and routes. In 2008, three of Amtrak's
busiest stations were in Pennsylvania. Philadelphia 30th Street
Station was ranked the third busiest in the Nation, Harrisburg
was 21st and Lancaster was 22nd. But we are here in Pittsburgh.
In the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act,
Amtrak was tasked to study the routes between Harrisburg and
Pittsburgh and the Capitol Limited route between Cumberland,
Maryland, and Pittsburgh. We await completion of these studies,
which is set for October, but I know that Pittsburgh, like all
major American cities, stands to benefit from increased
passenger rail service. Examining the growth potential and
eventually facilitating the service is a goal of mine and other
Members of this Subcommittee. I look forward to hearing the
testimonies from our esteemed and informed witnesses today and
I look forward to a brighter future for passenger rail service
in western Pennsylvania and throughout America.
I want to thank my friend, Congressman Shuster on the
Transportation Committee for being here today. This is
something that we have talked about for a long time and a goal
that we share, and I am especially grateful that Congressman
Murphy has joined us as well, and at this time I ask unanimous
consent for all Members of the House to participate in this
mornings' hearing and to ask questions of the witness. Without
objection, so ordered.
And I would turn it over to Congressman Shuster for his
opening statement.
Mr. Shuster. Thank you very much, Mr. Altmire. Thank you
for chairing this morning's hearing. This is an important
hearing and I appreciate the witnesses being here to be able to
shed some light and give their views on how we can improve
passenger rail service in Pennsylvania but more importantly as
we look from Harrisburg west to Pittsburgh how we can improve
rail service.
As Chairman Altmire has mentioned, he and I have been
working for the past couple months, it might even be several
months--time flies--but we have worked together to try to
organize and hold this hearing today. So again, I want to thank
you for all of you being here and look forward to hearing your
testimony on how we can improve rail service in western
Pennsylvania.
In 2006, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation
partnering with Amtrak completed about $140 million worth of
improvements to the 104-mile Keystone Corridor between
Philadelphia and Harrisburg. This brought travel time between
those cities down to about 90 minutes and allowed maximum
speeds of up to 110 miles an hour, which they average about 69
miles an hour, and that is the fastest passenger train speeds
in the United States outside the Northeast Corridor. Another
staggering figure to me is that over the last 3 years they have
seen about a 20 percent increase in ridership, and over the
last 3 years combined about a third more people are riding on
that line today, and I think that just goes to show you what
increasing the speed and efficiency and frequency can do to
passenger rail in this country, and that Keystone Corridor
should be a model that we can take out not only in Pennsylvania
but across this country to show evidence that it works.
Presently, Amtrak operates 14 daily round trips on the
Keystone Corridor, however, west of Harrisburg it is another
story. There is only one round trip on Amtrak's Pennsylvania
route between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh, and the ride takes 5-
1/2 hours to go 250 miles. The same trip takes 4 hours to drive
or to ride on the new twice-daily Steel City Flier, the
intercity bus service.
But transportation services are not just about savings.
They are also about access. There are a number of underserved
Pennsylvania communities between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh
including Altoona, Johnstown and the home of the ninth largest
public university campus in the Nation, State College,
Pennsylvania. With an enrollment of more than 44,000 students
at the University Park campus as well as major conferences and
festivals at Penn State year round, not to mention the
popularity of the Nittany Lions Big Ten football at least six
weekends a year, there is a clear need for improved
transportation service to State College. This is a major
population center with a built-in transit and rail constituency
and we are missing a very real opportunity by not providing
passenger rail service to State College.
By the 1970s, after many years of decline and
disinvestment, the railroad system in the United States had
fallen in a state of disrepair. Dozens of railroads that
carried both freight and passengers went bankrupt and the U.S.
government was forced to step in and pick up the pieces.
Wisely, our predecessors passed the Staggers Act of 1980, a law
that deregulated railroads and allowed the rail renaissance to
take hold. In the past 30 years, the freight railroads in this
country have enjoyed phenomenal growth and profitability not
seen for generations.
Unfortunately, an area that has lagged up until very
recently is passenger rail. Amtrak took over all intercity
passenger city in this country in the 1970s and competitive
forces have not taken hold in this market for a number of
reasons. In Congress, we have acted to broaden competition for
rail service and providing more realistic funding levels for
Amtrak so that the railroad does not have to be on life
support. Last year President Bush signed into law a bill that
would first time allow private operators to run services over
current Amtrak routes. In addition, the law directs the
Secretary of Transportation to solicit proposals for high-speed
rail for the private sector.
Since this law was passed, the new Administration has taken
the ball and run with it. Congress appropriated $8 billion in
the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and the
Administration has requested another $5 billion for high-speed
rail over the next 5 years. In the new surface transportation
authorizing bill, which we are going to be taking up shortly in
the House, the Highways and Transit Subcommittee this week
significantly ups the ante by proposing $50 billion for high-
speed rail over the next 6 years.
The time for improved passenger rail has come in the United
States. Cities like Pittsburgh need alternatives to crowded
highways and congested airports. Rail is clean, safe, fast,
convenient and creates opportunities for economic development
along the rail corridor and around the stations. I believe we
are about to experience a new era in passenger rail in this
country. I want western Pennsylvania to participate in the new
era and enjoy the benefits of increased and expanded passenger
rail service.
I look forward to hearing your testimony and thank you for
being here today.
Mr. Altmire. Congressman Tim Murphy.
Mr. Murphy. Thank you, Congressman Altmire and Congressman
Shuster. Thank you for inviting me to join you today for this
Transportation Subcommittee hearing on rail.
Pittsburgh has an interesting history on rail and an
interesting history of where it is. Two hundred and fifty years
ago, this was the battleground of the French and Indian War,
and as part of that, you had folks like General Braddock and
General Forbes and Colonel Washington and others trying to get
there from here, wherever there was, and they found it quite
difficult as it would take days of rough travel through the
mountains to get into the fork of the rivers back then some
years ago, hauling freight between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh,
300 miles or so. Later on it took 3 weeks or longer even in the
best of conditions, oftentimes on wooden plank roads. Then we
moved to canals, inclines and tunnels to come through this
geographic barrier, and although nowadays we don't send whiskey
back and forth to the East, we do still have a need for
transportation, and it is interesting over the years how this
has become something of an island. As the Pittsburgh has cut
its flights from USAir's 600-plus flights a day coming in and
out of Pitt Airport, down to less than 50, we recognize a
better transportation system here is critically linked as both
something to build business and as a barrier for economic
development.
It is interesting that an Amtrak train from Pittsburgh, you
don't have a lot of choices. You can basically if you want to
go to Harrisburg take the 7:20 out of Pittsburgh, arrive a
little before 1:00 in the afternoon, and if you want to come
back leave at 2:36 and arrive at 8:05 p.m. It is $36, which is
much cheaper than the nearly $500 flight, but the question is,
can we make it convenient, clean and comfortable and get
passengers back on board?
And that is where we recognize that all these years later
from when the Pennsylvania Railroad connected Pittsburgh and
Philadelphia and a time when traffic was cut to 14 hours and
now it is only 7-1/2 hours across the State, we still have far
to go, both figuratively and time-wise. It is critically
important we shorten the time of this route, we make it smooth
and comfortable, we make sure that the rail lines are available
for Amtrak traffic or other rail lines and they don't have to
be shared with freight lines. And we are certainly open to
listen to every possibility what we can do to make this system
uncongested, because it is already safe to travel by train but
it is unfortunate that most people never think of getting there
because with just one train a day, it is hardly convenient for
people doing business throughout the Commonwealth.
I note as someone who sometimes travels the route from
Washington, from Philadelphia, New York on the train, it is
amazing how the trains are packed with people because they are
clean, comfortable and convenient and high speed, and yet back
here in the western part of the State, we have perhaps
neglected ourselves and it is important that this Committee and
Congress takes a more active role in pushing for high-speed
rail to connect us to the rest of the area. It is not going to
come by plane without massive amounts of investment, and it is
interesting that the investments made for train are a fraction
of those needed for other highway development.
I hope to learn more in this hearing today about what we
can do from the ideas from the many witnesses and look forward
to Congress taking some clear and positive action to make sure
we have a good rail system, high-speed system that operates out
of Pittsburgh.
With that, I yield back.
Mr. Altmire. Thank you to you both, and we are going to
introduce the first panel of witnesses. Many of you have
testified many times before but I would remind all witnesses
the way the time system works. You see the red, yellow and
green lights there. The green light means you have 5 minutes to
speak. When the light turns yellow, you have 1 minute
remaining, please begin to summarize and wrap up your remarks.
When the red light hits, you are out of time. We have a lot of
witnesses to go through so let us try to stay on time if we
could.
I am pleased to introduce our first panel of witnesses. We
have Mr. Mark Yachmetz, who is associate administrator for
railroad development at the Federal Railroad Administration of
the U.S. Department of Transportation. Next, we have MR. Roby
Fauver, who is deputy secretary for local and area
transportation of the Pennsylvania Department of
Transportation. We have Mr. Ray Lang, senior director for
national State relations for Amtrak. We have Mr. Christopher
Gleason, the CEO and chairman of Gleason Financial. We have Mr.
Henry Posner, chairman of the Railroad Development Corporation,
and finally, we have Mr. Ken Joseph, member of the Council of
Representatives of the National Association of Railroad
Passengers.
Let me remind the witnesses that under our Committee rules,
oral statements must be limited to 5 minutes but your entire
statement will appear in the record. Welcome to you all. We are
very pleased to have you all here this morning and we will
begin with Mr. Yachmetz. Welcome.
TESTIMONY OF MARK E. YACHMETZ, ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR FOR
RAILROAD DEVELOPMENT, FEDERAL RAILROAD ADMINISTRATION; TOBY L.
FAUVER, AICP, DEPUTY SECRETARY FOR LOCAL AND AREA
TRANSPORTATION, PENNSYLVANIA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION; RAY
LANG, SENIOR DIRECTOR FOR NATIONAL STATE RELATIONS, NATIONAL
RAILROAD PASSENGER CORPORATION (AMTRAK); CHRISTOPHER GLEASON,
CEO/CHAIRMAN, GLEASON FINANCIAL; HENRY POSNER III, CHAIRMAN,
RAILROAD DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION; AND KENNETH JOSEPH, MEMBER,
COUNCIL OF REPRESENTATIVES, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF RAILROAD
PASSENGERS
Mr. Yachmetz. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Shuster and
Members of the Subcommittee, I am honored to appear before you
today on behalf of Federal Railroad Administrator Szabo and
Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood to discuss the potential
for improvements in intercity passenger rail and in particular
to discuss one of the most significant initiatives of President
Obama, Vice President Biden and Secretary LaHood, and that is
the development of high-speed rail transportation in America.
To supplemental this testimony, I wish to incorporate by
reference two recent publications by FRA, Vision for High-Speed
Rail in America, which we put out in April, and High-Speed
Intercity Passenger Rail Interim Program Guidance, which we put
out last week. Both documents are available on FRA's website,
www.fra.dot.gov.
Mr. Altmire. Without objection, we will enter both of those
into the record.
Mr. Yachmetz. Thank you.
America faces a new set of transportation challenges:
creating a foundation for economic growth in a more complex
global economy, promoting energy independence and efficiency,
addressing global climate change and environmental quality, and
fostering livable communities connected by safe and efficient
modes of travel.
The existing transportation system requires significant
investment simply to rebuild and maintain the critical
infrastructure we have today. Meeting our 21st century
challenges will require new transportation solutions be
considered as well. The Obama Administration believes that our
transportation investment strategy must address these several
key strategic goals: ensure safe and efficient transportation,
build a foundation for economic competitiveness, promote energy
efficiency, environmental quality and support interconnected
livable communities. The Obama Administration believes that to
help address the Nation's transportation challenges, we must
invest in an efficient passenger rail network that connects
communities across America.
Intercity passenger rail is well positioned to address many
of the Nation's strategic transportation goals. Rail is a cost-
effective means for meeting transportation needs in congested
intercity corridors. In many cases, modest investment on
existing rights-of-way can result in service with highly
competitive trip times while also providing ancillary benefits
to energy-efficient freight rail service, and passenger rail
including high-speed rail has a strong track record of safety
in the United States and overseas. America's transportation
system is the lifeblood of its economy. Building a robust rail
network can help serve the needs of national and regional
commerce in a cost-effective, resource-efficient manner by
offering travelers and freight convenient access to economic
centers.
Moreover, investments in passenger rail including high-
speed rail will not only generate highly skilled construction
and operation jobs but can also provide a steady market for
revitalized domestic industries producing such essential
components as rail control systems, locomotives and passenger
cars.
Rail is already among the cleanest and most efficient
energy-efficient modes of transportation. Future intercity
passenger rail networks including high-speed rail using new
clean diesel electric power can further enhance rail's
advantages. Rail transportation has generally been associated
with smart growth because it can foster higher-density
development than has been typically associated with highways
and airports. Rail is uniquely capable of providing both high-
speed intercity transportation and its own efficient local
access.
A cornerstone of the Administration's rail strategy is
developing a comprehensive high-speed rail passenger network.
This will require long-term commitment at both the federal and
State levels. As mentioned earlier, the President proposes to
use the $8 in the Recovery Act to jumpstart this program and
then continue the program with $1 billion a year for every year
beyond 2009.
A major reshaping of the Nation's transportation system is
not without significant challenges. After decades of relatively
modest investment in passenger rail, the United States has a
dwindling pool of expertise in the field and a lack of
manufacturing capacity. Federal and State governments face a
difficult fiscal environment in which to balance critical
investment priorities, and many will have to ramp up their
program management infrastructure. The country's success in
creating a sustainable transportation future, however, demands
that we work to overcome these challenges through strong new
partnerships among the States and the local governments,
railroads, manufacturers and other stakeholders along with the
federal commitment that we have talked about.
In the near term, our proposal lays the foundation for the
network by investing in intercity rail infrastructure equipment
and intermodal connections. Our strategy seeks to in the near
term advance express high-speed rail, those systems operating
in excess of 150 miles an hour in selected corridors, develop
emerging and regional high-speed rail services, those that
would operate at 90 to 110 miles an hour prospectively on a
shared track and in some cases dedicated track, and upgrade the
reliability and service on conventional intercity rail
passenger services with speeds in the 79- to 90-mile-an-hour
speed range. This near-term strategy emphasizes making
investments that yield tangible results within the next few
years while also creating a pipeline that enables ongoing
corridor growth.
As President Obama outlined in his March 20th memorandum to
all of us in the federal government, our process is going to be
transparent, merit-based selection, use transparent selection
criteria. We are going to measure public benefits and we are
going to work to reduce risk.
As I see our time is passing, I just want to close by
saying that these are exciting times for us. We have never seen
at the Federal Railroad Administration the degree of commitment
and engagement on the part of the President and the Vice
President in railroad programs, but if our effort is going to
be successful, we are going to need Congressional support as
well in ensuring that we have the stable source of funding to
advance the programs and the resources to implement that, and
we look forward to working with the Committee to make improved
intercity passenger rail and high-speed rail a reality.
With that, I will close. I will be happy to answer any
questions you may have.
Mr. Altmire. Thank you for your testimony. Thank you for
taking the time to travel here to be with us today.
Mr. Fauver.
Mr. Fauver. Good morning and thank you for having me here
to provide testimony on high-speed and intercity rail
development and specifically in Pennsylvania.
Imagine being able to take a train from Philadelphia to
Pittsburgh and arrive in less time than it would take to drive.
Right now it will take you 5 hours to make that drive. We are
on the cusp of making choices that will advance our
transportation system into the 21st century, and high-speed
rail is one of the choices that we have before us.
As a planner, I know that we need to envision a future,
then make decisions to implement plans. I believe that the
choices we make today regarding high-speed rail will set the
course for the future of our country. We have been doing that
here in Pennsylvania and as a result we are seeing the
benefits. We found that our investments in rail infrastructure
improvements are improving service. Our citizens are talking
with their feet, boarding trains to and from places all along
the Keystone Corridor.
When Governor Rendell came into office, he followed through
and completed a commitment made in the prior administration to
partner with Amtrak on $145 million improvement to the 104-mile
Keystone Corridor between Philadelphia and the state Capitol in
Harrisburg. The improvements included 128 miles of continuous-
welded rail, more than 200,000 concrete ties, 52 new switches
and the first upgrade to the signal electrification system in
over 70 years. The improvements were completed in 2006 and
allow us to operate trains at a maximum speed of 110 miles per
hour. That is the fastest in the United States outside the
Northeast Corridor. The express travel time between
Philadelphia and Harrisburg was cut to 90 minutes. That is a
30-minute improvement from what it was prior to the
improvements, and that is far better than what it takes to
travel by car, anywhere between 2 hours and 20 minutes and 3
hours, depending on traffic. If you ever traveled on the
Schuylkill, you know what we are talking about. People using
the Keystone Corridor avoid one of the most congested
expressways, and most importantly, it is one of the most
reliable corridors in the country with trains averaging almost
90 percent reliability over the past year, and it is cost
competitive as well.
Riders responded to the improvements. Since the
improvements, ridership on the Keystone Corridor has increased
by 26 percent. The line will provide service to 1.2 million
riders this year. These Keystone Corridor improvements
represent a first step toward building a truly national
intercity high-speed rail network. We have a lot more to do,
though, in Pennsylvania. We are already using some of the
stimulus dollars we received to improve the Elizabeth station
along the Keystone Corridor and bring it up to make it ADA
accessible. We are considering applying for discretionary
stimulus money to make further track improvements that will
allow top speeds of 125 miles per hour and further reduce
travel time between Philly and Harrisburg.
So what makes intercity and high-speed rail successful?
People want to use transportation systems that are frequent,
reliable, cost affordable and that are time competitive. Beyond
the Keystone Corridor and the Northeast Corridor, Pennsylvania
does not currently have passenger rail services that meet those
requirements. Going back to the dream, we know we need to make
choices today to get there. We need to plan for possible
improvements west of Harrisburg to Pittsburgh, a route served
by just one train a day in each direction. Pennsylvania service
that operates between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg needs
substantial capital and operating funding investments to
improve service. It takes over 5 hours to travel between
Harrisburg and Pittsburgh by train. A person can make that in a
personal automobile in 3-1/2 hours whenever they want to make
the trip. Many of the train stations along the route are in a
state of disrepair and do not meet the requirements of the
Americans with Disabilities Act.
In 2005, PennDOT completed a study entitled The Keystone
West Passenger Rail Study. This study was prepared by Norfolk
Southern with support from the Woodside Consulting Group. The
study identified the capital projects that will be necessary in
the Norfolk Southern right-of-way between Harrisburg and
Pittsburgh to increase the level of passenger rail service to
four round trips per day. At the time it was two round trips
but subsequently we lost Three Rivers service. The costs for
the projects that will be required to allow for this increase
were estimated $110.9 million, and that was in 2005. The study
didn't deal with other cost elements, though, that need to be
dealt with including capital costs for stations, additional
train sets and the operating costs for the service. The
projects identified in the Keystone West Passenger Rail Study
alone were way too shortsighted. The United States must make
substantial investments to have an interstate light rail
system. We think that the investment that is needed in the
Keystone West Corridor is billions, not in the hundreds of
millions.
High-speed rail is not a waste of resources. In the right
places such as along the Northeast Corridor, the Keystone
Corridor and other high-density corridors around the Nation, an
investigation in high-speed rail makes tremendous sense and can
give the National real workable transportation options for the
future. That is why President Obama's decision to commit $8
billion in stimulus funds for high-speed rail and intercity
rail improvements is a good move, a visionary move, and this
investment will set the stage for ongoing rail improvements
across the country.
High-speed and intercity rail programs are about connecting
high-density city areas. Doing so will permit higher levels of
sustainability. It is important to note that the federal
dollars we are talking about for high-speed rail are for
capital. The cost of building these systems without federal
funding to operate the intercity rail expansions, States and
cities are going to have to address how they are going to pay
the costs of operating these systems. In Pennsylvania, we have
made choices in this fiscal year and the previous fiscal years
and committed operating funds for the current Keystone service
between Harrisburg and Philadelphia. Intercity rail systems
can't pay for themselves. Tough local and State decisions must
also be made to support intercity and high-speed rail as a
reality.
Mr. Altmire. Thank you for your testimony.
From Amtrak, Mr. Lang.
Mr. Lang. Good morning and thank you very much for the
opportunity to testify before this Committee today. My name is
Ray Lang and I am the senior director for government affairs at
Amtrak. I have been with Amtrak for 14 years and I manage out
outreach and liaison programs for all of our State and local
partners.
As you know, recent legislation such as the Passenger Rail
Investment and Improvement Act, or PRIIA, and the American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or ARRA, have established a
number of very specific requirements for studies of potential
service improvements as well as a grant program that is meant
to fund partnerships between States and Amtrak for that same
purpose.
Amtrak and Pennsylvania have a significant and enduring
partnership that spans the entire 38-year history of the
corporation. We operate approximately 120 daily trains to
Pennsylvania. We employ 2,539 Pennsylvania residents, and the
company spent $110 million for goods and services in
Pennsylvania last year. As Pennsylvania was the Keystone State
of the colonies, it has now become a keystone of Amtrak's busy
Northeast Corridor service. This partnership has provided other
states a model for the translation of rail service from concept
to reality. We have long enjoyed a strong partnership and I
want to thank Secretary Biehler and Toby Fauver for the work
that Pennsylvania has done in holding up its end of the
partnership. Our partnership is a good foundation for future
opportunities in Pennsylvania because PRIIA envisions a
strategy built on partnerships, one where Amtrak and the States
will work together to develop short-distance corridor services
ranging from about 100 to 600 miles in length. One very
successful partnership of that kind that the Act envisions took
place right here in Pennsylvania, and that was the restoration
of the electrified service on the Keystone Corridor between
Philadelphia and Harrisburg.
Under the leadership of Governor Rendell and former Amtrak
president David Gunn, the State partnered with Amtrak to invest
$145 million in that corridor. Each of us put in half of that
total. We restored the electrification west of Paoli and
improved the track for 110-mile-per-hour service. As a result,
we were able to offer faster and more frequent service and the
results have been exciting. Ridership grew by 20.1 percent in
fiscal year 2007 and 19.8 percent in fiscal year 2008, a
striking demonstration of the relevance of rail passenger
service. Higher speeds and the elimination of the engine change
at Philadelphia cut schedule times and made our trains
competitive with airline service. The Keystone Corridor is a
major triumph and it is a model that we would like to emulate
and potentially to expand.
I believe this success has influenced the legislation, and
section 224 of PRIIA mandates studies on the costs and benefits
of service on six routes specified in the Act all over of the
country. Two of those studies touch on existing routes here in
western Pennsylvania and will be of interest in the context of
today's hearing. One study will examine the Harrisburg-to-
Pittsburgh route currently served by the daily Pennsylvanian.
The statute requires a report to determine whether to increase
frequency of passenger rail service along the route or other
segments along the route. The other requires a study of the
Capitol Limited route between Cumberland, Maryland, and
Pittsburgh, to determine whether we should reinstate a station
stop at Rockwood, Pennsylvania. These reports are due to the
Committee on October 26, 2009. We have solicited proposals for
the study and we expect to make the award around the 1st of
July, and we are moving forward and expect to meet that
deadline.
These are only two of the many activities that Amtrak will
be undertaking this summer. We are currently going all out on
some of our major development projects directed by both PRIIA
and ARRA, so it might be useful if I summarize these
developments. We are, for example, undertaking six PRIIA-
mandated studies of routes and services, two of which I
mentioned previously, and we have received requests for
involvement with 283 other projects in 34 different States to
be funded by ARRA. Those states will now be studying the
recently released FRA guidelines that came out last week, and
taking a hard look at what they really want to do.
Last year when President Bush signed PRIIA into law, it
established a federal grant program for States that wished to
develop intercity passenger rail service. When Congress passed
ARRA, that Act included $8 billion in funding for the capital
grant program authorized under PRIIA. This legislation is
critical to shaping the continued development of intercity
passenger rail service. For example, ARRA funds will be
available for individual projects, generally small projects,
that are expected to provide discrete levels of benefits on the
existing route. They will also be available for corridor
programs which will be larger bundles of projects that are
expected to provide for improved passenger service over whole
corridors. While PRIIA does provide access to capital funding,
operating funds are the State's responsibility, so if, for
example, the State wishes to pursue an expansion of Harrisburg-
to-Pittsburgh service, state operating funding will be a pre-
condition to receive federal funds.
Amtrak is very eager to support the ARRA applications. I
would join with what Mr. Yachmetz and Mr. Fauver said before
me, that we have a tremendous opportunity facing us right now.
We cannot afford to fail. The President has shown great faith
in passenger rail service and the continued development of
intercity passenger rail service in the United States. Amtrak
is very eager to develop intercity and high-speed rail service
in all parts of America including right here in western
Pennsylvania.
Thank you very much for the opportunity, and I will be
happy to take questions at the end of the testimony.
Mr. Altmire. Thank you.
Mr. Gleason.
Mr. Gleason. Good morning, Congressmen Altmire, Shuster and
Murphy and I certainly appreciate the opportunity to come
before you today to discuss Keystone West, and obviously I
appreciate your interest in this.
You know, one of the things that we have had a difficult
time getting was a lot of interest in the Keystone West
Corridor. The Keystone East Corridor, as everybody has
described, has been very, very successful, but when we move
west we haven't had a similar effort. I think it is important
to understand the context of the proposed Keystone West, what I
call a technology corridor, and the context is, as we struggle
to reinvent our regional economy, having this type of
infrastructure and this type of tool becomes very important to
attract capital investment and investment into jobs.
The corridor from Pittsburgh to Altoona to State College to
Harrisburg will never have a limited access four-lane
interstate highway. Parts of that corridor are covered by
interstate highway but parts aren't, and of course we have
Interstate 80 north of the corridor and we have the turnpike
south of the corridor, so it is kind of left there. So it kind
of leaves the corridor, you know, in terms of the
infrastructure necessary to promote economic development weak.
Now, you know, the dream of high-speed rail has been around
for 30 years. I remember Senator John Heinz talking about it.
Millions and millions of dollars have been spent promoting it
and studying it and so on and so forth, and it is a wonderful
dream, but it is not going to happen in the immediate future.
It is going to happen, if it happens at all, way down the road,
and what we need to do is try to take the infrastructure we
have now and leverage that infrastructure and utilize it to
make Keystone West Corridor a reality.
I think the partnership that was discussed here between the
State and the federal government and Amtrak is a wonderful
partnership, and as everybody has said, the Keystone East
really kind of showcases the success of that. We need to take
that same partnership and fund it properly and get that working
on the Keystone West because the citizens west in this corridor
really need that type of help.
One of the things they talked about is infrastructure
improvements on the Norfolk Southern line and I think it is
important to note that there has really been a precedent sent
when Governor Casey did a bond issue here in Pennsylvania, and
I forget exactly how much it was--maybe you remember, I don't
remember--$60, $70 million, to improve the right-of-way for
Conrail at that time, and that worked very, very well for all
the parties involved, Conrail at the time, the State and of
course our economy, and that kept the main line flowing and it
was very important in terms of our economic health.
So, you know, I think that the emerging technology corridor
that you have is State College, of course, with Penn State
University there, Pittsburgh, which is an established
technology center. You have a growing line in the Cambria-
Somerset area with a lot of defense industries and businesses
in that area, and to connect all these together with the state
capitol would generate a lot of economic synergism for the
Commonwealth and for the citizens of the State.
So that is basically my context, and certainly I am willing
to answer any questions you might have. Thank you.
Mr. Altmire. Thank you.
Mr. Posner.
Mr. Posner. Thank you. This is my first opportunity to
address this Subcommittee, so I thought it would be interesting
to just give you a little background on who I am since you
don't know who I am.
I am a Pittsburgher. I'm an investor in railways in the
United States, Latin America, Africa and Europe. I spent my
life in the rail industry. I have been a member of the National
Association of Railroad Passengers since I was 14 years old,
and my railroad career has included time with Amtrak, the Rock
Island Railroad, Conrail and the national railroad in
Guatemala. I hold several jobs right now. I am chairman of the
Iowa Interstate Railroad, which will serve as the Amtrak route
to Iowa City under the Midwest Initiative. I am also chairman
of the Steel City Flyer, which is the express bus to connect
with Amtrak at Harrisburg, and I am also known as the guy who
in 1990 tried and fail to save the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie, so
I am somebody who has spent my life in the industry and I am
somebody who has put my money where my mouth is. One other
interesting that we are up to is that next year we are starting
a high-speed rail intercity service in Europe. We have already
bought the trains, and that might be interesting also for this
Committee.
But what I wanted to do is just give you a very condensed
version of what I think the most relevant parts of my written
statement are for this group, given the time constraints, and
first of all, I think it's already been mentioned, you need to
keep in mind that the route from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh is
one of the densest freight railroad corridors in this country.
It is a mountainous, heavy haul freight railroad. It is a high-
density freight railroad as opposed to the high-speed passenger
railroad east of Harrisburg, and I think the answer is some
sort of public-private partnership with Norfolk Southern which
would build on the foundation of the fact that our Nation's
rail freight network is considered the world's best, and
evidence of that is that we are involved in a joint venture in
France to help them with their freight business so you have got
Americans saying why can't we have trains like in France while
the French are saying why can't we have trains like America.
The other thing to think as far as job creation; it is most
important to focus on creating transportation as opposed to
jobs. Western Pennsylvania is littered with infrastructure
which has mismatched the market and that ranges from the U.S.
Airways hub at the Pittsburgh Airport to the Wabash Tunnel.
And finally I think that we in Pennsylvania need to
recognize that other regions are far ahead of us in this
process. I have been reading in the press lately about how the
two frontrunners for the high-speed rail money are California
and the Midwest. I think that is because they have been working
on this literally for years and they were prepared when the
Obama opportunity came along. We need to catch up with that if
we are going to get anything done.
And then finally, and this is something that I just thought
about today so it is not in the prepared remarks, and that is,
consider the link with transit. If you look at where around the
world people actually use high-speed rail, it is in places like
California and the Northeast where high-speed rail is
integrated with the local transit systems. That is also why it
works in Europe, Japan, et cetera. It is not likely that people
are going to drive into downtown Pittsburgh and hop on a high-
speed train to go east. Quite likely it is going to be arriving
on some sort of a feeder transit system to begin the trip.
So those are my remarks, and I am hoping that that should
stimulate some interesting questions and answers, so thank you
for the opportunity to speak to you.
Mr. Altmire. Thank you, Mr. Posner, and I would reassure
you that we do know who you are and that is the reason that you
are here, so thank you for your comments.
Mr. Joseph.
Mr. Joseph. Thank you. My name is Ken Joseph. I am a
resident of Dormont. I have lived in the Pittsburgh area most
of my life. I am here on behalf of the National Association of
Railroad Passengers. Unlike Henry, I didn't join when I was 14
but I have been there for a little while.
Actually, it was interesting to hear the three of you speak
because I think that each of you touched on--between the three
of you, I think you touched on most of the points I have to
make. I think that Congressman Murphy did a good job of putting
the importance of transportation to this region in a historical
perspective. Over the years this region has prospered in large
part because of its close association with the efficient east-
west land transportation routes that have taken various forms
over the years, and we are in danger of losing whatever
competitive advantage we once had.
Congressman Murphy also mentioned how air travel options in
Pittsburgh and the region generally are much less than they
were several years ago, although I do have to make a slight
correction to what you said. Five hundred dollars won't get you
to Harrisburg anymore. There are no more direct flights to
Harrisburg. There are very few cities you can get to from
greater Pittsburgh on a direct flight.
Also, interestingly, and this was mentioned or sort of
alluded to, we have lost rail transportation options on the
past 10 years, one of the few parts of the country that has
done that. In most other parts of the country, there are more
passenger trains than there were, but in Pittsburgh, we used to
have the two frequencies that were mentioned between Pittsburgh
west to Philadelphia, but we also had a second Pittsburgh-
Chicago train which allowed people in places like Altoona,
Johnstown, Harrisburg, even Philadelphia to make a direct train
trip west to Chicago. Now, even if you are in Philadelphia, you
cannot take a direct train to Chicago. You have to change
trains in Pittsburgh and that can involve anywhere from a 2-
hour to an 8-hour wait in the train station. The 8-hour wait is
on a Sunday morning, and if you are ever feeling bad about your
lot in life or depressed for some other reason, go down to the
station and take a look at the people there who are waiting for
a train for 8 hours. It is certainly not an efficient or
comfortable way to travel.
As also has been mentioned, other parts of the country are
ahead of us, they really are, and even locally, and Ohio is
much further along in creating a statewide high-speed rail
network which hopefully we can connect with here in Pittsburgh
if we get on the ball. As has been mentioned by many people,
there is very attractive service from Harrisburg east to New
York, and as a matter of fact, I know several people who when
they want to go to New York they don't take the train because
the departure time and the arrival time aren't good but they
drive to Harrisburg or Lancaster, park the car and take the
service from there.
The first step that I would like to recommend, a very small
step, granted, in some perspectives but in other perspectives a
very large step, to improving service here would be to restore
the through train from Chicago to New York through Pittsburgh
and the other western Pennsylvania cities and towns along the
Norfolk Southern right-of-way. It is a shame that we lost that
train. From what I understand about Amtrak's current rolling
stock, it could probably be put back on very quickly if we were
willing to forego diner car service and sleeping car service.
That would be a small first step. That would double the
frequencies between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg and points east
and it would also allow everybody along the Pennsylvania line
to take a direct train to and from Chicago.
Long term, I just have to endorse what other people have
said the answer is, take more advantage of what used to be the
four-track Pennsylvania railroad right-of-way. Except for a
relatively small section here in Pittsburgh, there still is
physically room for four tracks. It is a wide right-of-way.
Most of it hasn't been lost. Freight railroads, unlike in the
past, now seem to be willing to work with government in order
to allow passenger trains more access to their real estate,
provided of course that they get benefits from that. I think
that as a long-term solution to rail transportation in western
Pennsylvania, we need to look at a greater utilization of that
right-of-way and that can only be done with a significant
capital investment.
Thanks again for the opportunity to make these remarks, and
we appreciate the fact that you have come here to Pittsburgh
and that Pittsburgh is at least on the radar screen as far as
improvements to passenger rail transportation. Thanks again.
Mr. Altmire. Thank you for your testimony, and thanks to
all of you for your testimony. We will move into the Q&A part
of the panel, and I want to start with Mr. Yachmetz. I am very
interested in consideration of the Pittsburgh-to-Cleveland
corridor as well, and we are here today to talk about the
Pennsylvania corridor, and Mr. Shuster and I have had many
conversations about Harrisburg and what we are talking about
today, but when the President put out his high-speed rail
corridor list, he had thankfully the Pittsburgh-to Harrisburg
route, which connects us to the eastern seaboard. He had
Chicago to Cleveland, which certainly makes sense with
offshoots into Indianapolis and Cincinnati and Columbus and
other places. It seems to me the missing link there would be
that the Cleveland-to-Pittsburgh route, which would then
connect Chicago to the eastern seaboard, and from our
perspective in western Pennsylvania, we feel like that would
make us the hub of the Midwestern and Northeastern high-speed
rail corridor in the entire United States and we feel like we
are well positioned to do that. One of the things that I have
done with the federal highway bill that we are in the process
of discussing is insert language into there designating that
Pittsburgh-to-Cleveland link as a high-speed rail corridor
connecting it with the two that the President has outlined, and
I just wanted to know what your thoughts were about that.
Mr. Yachmetz. Mr. Chairman, the designated high-speed rail
corridors are sort of a legacy of an older program and quite
frankly need to be revisited, in my opinion, in the context of
moving ahead with an aggressive high-speed rail program. They
date back to the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency
Act, I believe, of 1991 and they were designed to address
highway rail grade crossings on corridors likely to achieve
speeds of 90 miles an hour. That is one of the reasons why you
have this phenomenon that the Northeast Corridor is not a
designated high-speed rail corridor, even though it is the only
place that high-speed rail is actually present here in the
United States.
The other point that I would make is that under the
Recovery Act, the way the funding was made available to FRA, it
uses three different statutory authorizations that come from
the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act, and two of
those do not require presence on a designated high-speed rail
corridor, so the connection you talked about, Pittsburgh to
Cleveland, is something that would be eligible under the
Recovery Act funds. It would require Ohio and Pennsylvania to
get together and come up with a coordinated approach and
application to dealing with it but it is eligible under current
funding.
Mr. Altmire. Thank you.
Mr. Fauver, in your testimony, you indicate that
Pennsylvania needs to plan for possible improvements west of
Harrisburg through Pittsburgh, and to date, what has PennDOT
done to plan for such improvements and what else needs to be
done? And I wonder if you could incorporate into your response
a statement that Mr. Posner made in his testimony about freight
rail and how the sharing arrangement is with that corridor as
well.
Mr. Fauver. Okay. Well, I think in my testimony I
referenced a study from 2005 that we did. It was called the
Keystone West study. It was in partnership with Norfolk
Southern and our approach at that time and approach, you know,
any approach to that corridor has to be in partnership with
Norfolk Southern. They own the right-of-way, obviously would
have to sign off on any investments being made. They are going
to have to benefit from it. It is going to have to be a
negotiated item. The Keystone West study identified $110
million worth of improvements. Really, it was additional
capacity at pinch points along the line to ensure that if
several more trains were added to the service, that those
trains could operate without interruption by freight. Since
then we went through a funding crisis in transit. Part of that
funding crisis dealt with operating funding for the Keystone
corridor, the existing service between Harrisburg and
Philadelphia, and since the passage of PRIIA we have begun a
statewide rail plan. We are looking at the Harrisburg-to-
Pittsburgh corridor in the statewide rail plan. We have had
discussions with Ohio and have supported their efforts to get
designated status to close that gap between Pittsburgh and
Cleveland. The big challenge is going to be, where is the
operating money going to come from and how is the operating
arrangement going to be developed, and that is one that will
have to be worked out in Harrisburg.
Mr. Altmire. Thank you. I will turn it over to Congressman
Shuster.
Mr. Shuster. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Yachmetz, I know recently that FRA just put out
guidance on the stimulus money for high-speed rail and
intercity passenger rail. The $8 billion is in that program. I
wondered, what is going to be the breakdown, do you think,
between money going to traditional intercity versus high-speed
passenger rail service?
Mr. Yachmetz. Well, it is hard to say. We actually
contemplated as we moved forward with our strategic plan and
the guidance giving some ballpark allocations but in our
discussions with Secretary LaHood, it became clear that he
wants to see the applications come in and based upon the most
meritorious applications allocate the funds, so there is no
basis towards either high-speed rail or intercity passenger
rail other than our efforts to make overall improvements in the
passenger rail.
Mr. Shuster. So you are going to look at what is out there
and what looks like it is ready to obviously go quickly but
where we are going to have the greatest impact, so possibly
Harrisburg to Pittsburgh or, as my colleagues mentioned,
Cleveland to Pittsburgh if it makes sense and the engineering
and those things are----
Mr. Yachmetz. Yes, sir, they are eligible and we haven't
made a decision between 200 miles an hour, 110 miles an hour.
Mr. Shuster. How soon do you think you will start--the
decisions will be made?
Mr. Yachmetz. The initial applications, we have--our first
level of applications are due, right now we are targeting
August 24 for individual projects and for planning grants, and
October 2 for the overall corridor proposals. We would expect
that we would approve some individual projects by the end of
the summer, and we would make at least the first round of
approvals of corridor development by the end of the calendar
year.
Mr. Shuster. Thank you.
Mr. Gleason, I wanted to also point out that we didn't hear
that you served on the Amtrak Reform Council, so you know a
good bit about Amtrak and some of the ups and down of Amtrak,
but I just wanted to get your thoughts on, we talked about
economic development and I think a lot of us in this room
believe if you build it, they will come, but what kind of
response are you hearing and what type of economic development
do you think are going to locate along the corridor or
passenger rail improvements?
Mr. Gleason. Well, first of all, I think there is some
confusion when the term high-speed rail is used, and you know,
when you use that term, some people think 150 miles an hour and
then some people might think 79 miles an hour in a certain
corridor. You know, it depends. And I think, you know, for
example, the Norfolk Southern line right now I think has some
excess capacity because of the economy. Also, the right-of-ways
there, okay, a couple of lines have been ripped up in the past
as many of you know. Maybe some day in the future we can lay
another line on that right-of-way for additional capacity and
work that out with Norfolk Southern. But so, you know, the
economic development comes in the interrelationship between the
communities and you have somebody like State College being a
technology center. You could have people live in Blair County.
If we had normal DMU service, which is a self-propelled
passenger car, it can hold up to 90 people, it can travel, you
know, the corridor on reasonable speeds, and if you had that
type of service, people could live in Blair County, go to work
in State College every day or people could live in Westmoreland
or Cambria County and go to Pittsburgh every day back and forth
if you had that kind of DMU service back and forth between
these hubs, and you know, I think what happens is that there is
a doable way of getting this started, initiated in the short
term by using the infrastructure that is there, the
partnerships that are available, without spending a lot of
money, and with Norfolk Southern obviously it is a willing
partner, to initiate this service and begin it in the short
term as opposed to long term is when you talk about high-speed
rail. When you talk about 150 or 120 miles an hour and going
down the Conemaugh Gap, I mean, that 79 or 110 miles an hour
might be fine but going over the mountain to Altoona, 50 miles
an hour might be fine. But still, people could get from point A
to point B and the interaction between the communities would be
terrific.
Mr. Shuster. Do you have any sense--I know the Keystone
West passenger rail study didn't look at ridership. Do you have
any idea on any study that has been out there on what kind of
ridership do you get? Currently I think from Altoona,
Huntington, Johnstown west there is less than 60,000 people are
traveling on that rail line.
Mr. Gleason. Well, first of all, Amtrak did a study back in
I think the late 1990s, thereabouts, and it was a preliminary
study on ridership, and it shows that the ridership would have
to be built over time, and we had St. Francis University, their
graduate school of business also did a study and a survey that
was very favorable. But as somebody mentioned before, if you
have convenient, economical service that you can depend on and
you can use on a day-in, day-out basis, I believe that people
would come and utilize it, especially our senior citizens.
Especially, you know, in the wintertime, senior citizens are
closed off and there is no access or egress for them during the
wintertime, and if you had an intermodal model combined with
bus services to train stations, you could have people come from
Altoona or Johnstown to Pittsburgh and take a bus to the
medical center in Oakland or take a bus out to the airport to
catch a flight. There are all kinds of possibilities by doing
this intermodal with today's infrastructure. Nothing needs to
be invented here.
Mr. Shuster. Thank you very much. My time is up.
Mr. Altmire. Congressman Murphy.
Mr. Murphy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank
all the panelists. It has been enlightening. I have a few
questions here.
Mr. Fauver, a question for you. We have heard about the
success of the Philadelphia-Harrisburg run. What do we need to
do to set it up for success between Pittsburgh-Harrisburg,
Cleveland-Pittsburgh? What would it take?
Mr. Fauver. Well, first of all, I think we need to have a
solid plan that is based on good engineering facts that we look
at. The communities are there. You know, my opinion is that we
need to have a way to serve State College. It is a major, major
population center, major trip generator along that line. We
need to have good, accessible stations that provide good
entranceways into the system. If we just put additional trains
out there on the line today, we are going to be plagued with
delays, we are going to be serving stations that aren't
accessible and we are going to have a pretty high cost to
operate that service and probably not see the results that we
are looking for. So I think we need to have a pretty
significant investment in the line and it is going to have to
start with a pretty solid engineering plan.
Mr. Murphy. Does that mean we continue if we have that, we
limit the number of stops along the way? I know some people
refer to it as the milk train, you know, it is stopping at
every town along the way. You can't have high-speed rail if you
are stopping every few miles.
Mr. Fauver. Let me talk about how works on the segment
between Harrisburg and Philadelphia and maybe correlate there.
We have four trains a day out of the 14 that are express trains
that stop at five stations. Those trains are the ones that
operate in 90 minutes. The rest of the trains stop at all the
stations on the corridor and they operate at about an hour and
45 minutes so it is about a 15-minute longer trip on those
trains. The key there when you are stopping at all the
stations, and we currently don't have the infrastructure in
place to really make that as successful as it could be, is
getting full-length platforms so people can board easily at all
locations on the train. We currently don't have that. We are
working on a plan to invest in stations. The Elizabeth station
is one of the first that we are investing in to make that work.
Mr. Murphy. What is the dollar cost of taking care of the
stations, the lines, et cetera from Pittsburgh to Harrisburg?
What is that total going to be?
Mr. Fauver. I don't have a number for the whole line. I
think it is more than hundreds of millions to actually get it
up to a higher speed thing that is competitive with the
automobile but I don't have a definitive number yet.
Mr. Murphy. Where do we stand in comparing per-passenger
per-mile costs, rail versus automobile, when you look at
building highways, adding lanes, et cetera? Can rail be pretty
competitive? I mean, because the federal government has to
subsidize whatever it.
Mr. Fauver. From a pure construction point of view, I think
it is very competitive. The challenge with rail is building the
ridership and growing the ridership to a point where it can
offset the operating subsidy. We are currently subsidizing the
Keystone Corridor this year at about $8 million. But we have
had successes. As we have made the major investments in that
line, the subsidy per passenger has come down, the amount of
money we are paying per passenger because we have had ridership
growth and in turn revenue growth that has resulted from it.
Mr. Murphy. Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Posner, you invest in these things. So from your
standpoint as a person who looks at private investment, and I
was reading up about this Posner principle, investing in
underdog things, et cetera, along the way. So is this
economically worthwhile? Is this something that involves
federal, State and private investors to work on these rail
lines, and from your standpoint, can it work?
Mr. Posner. It really depends on the market. You go places
like Japan and some markets in Europe, it can be profitable
without subsidies where you have a combination of wealthy
passengers, existing infrastructure and traffic density. For
example, Japan is very wealthy, very dense.
Mr. Murphy. How about here? Can it work here?
Mr. Posner. Probably not.
Mr. Murphy. Not to a profitable level?
Mr. Posner. Probably not as a profitable business. There is
a model of private sector operation of passenger service which
is catching on around Europe where private companies compete
for the opportunity to run passenger service for the lowest
subsidy but I think that grafting that model into the United
States may be very, very complicated, and I believe the
sentiment of the freight rail industry, and I am not speaking
for the freight rail industry but I can tell you my impression,
is that there is a lot of concern about unknown third-party
private operators coming into the business. I think they would
much rather deal with Amtrak, quite frankly. I think the major
concern is one of liability, and while the freight industry is
very interested in promoting anything that benefits businesses
in addition to freight, it should not compromise the freight
business and liability is a big concern. And if I could
mention, the definition of high-speed rail, I think that once
you start talking about speeds above 110 miles an hour, it is
going to be pretty difficult to convince the freight industry
that mixing passenger trains at that speed with freight trains
is a good idea.
Mr. Murphy. Well, certainly we recognize that government
puts money into the air transportation from airports to air
traffic controllers. They are doing the highways in terms of
building the roads and the bridges and certainly in the rail
system, especially as you see the freight system is doing so
well now. I would think we want to know what the dollar value
is and what the payoff is, and I want to thank all the
panelists for your input on this today. I yield back.
Mr. Altmire. I would open it up for a very quick second
round beginning with Mr. Shuster.
Mr. Shuster. This is a follow-up for Mr. Posner on the
economic viability. That is the debate that has been occurring
in Congress over the last 30 years. Those in my party, some of
them say, you know, shut down Amtrak, it can never work. Those
in the other party, some say that you will have a profitable
railroad, every passenger rail service in the world needs
government support. I believe if we do it in the right way, not
that we can have a profitable--hopefully we can have a
profitable passenger rail system but at least we can have one
that breaks even, and I think our problem in America is, if we
focus on the corridors and not try to have at least today a
national system, you know, not have the train running from
Minneapolis to Seattle, which really is a tourist train, if we
focus on really the high-density corridors in this country, we
can get to a point where they can be self-sustaining and then
expand on that to more of a national system if so be it. And I
just wondered, you know, what are your thoughts of that as I
look at two things? I look at the history. Up to 1950, there
was a profitable passenger rail system in this country. It was
the highways and air travel that caused us to get out of trains
and into planes and cars, and second, with the expansion, the
growth of the population in the United States, we are going to
go in about 35 years from 300 million to 400 million people and
those corridors that we talk about around the country, the nine
or so corridors, the density is just going to increase
significantly. Not everybody is moving from Pennsylvania to
Arizona. So I wondered, what are your thoughts? Can we get
there if we focus on those corridors?
Mr. Posner. Yeah, I think that the word ``focus'' is
exactly right. If you look at history, what happened was, after
World War II, largely because of regulation, the first thing
the railroads said was, if we could only get rid of the
passenger trains, all of our problems would be solved, and that
didn't solve the problem. And then the railroads said if only
we could get rid of branch lines, that would solve all of our
problems, and that wasn't solved. And so finally what they said
was, well, if we can only get rid of regulation, that would
solve all of our problems, and in fact, that did solve all of
our problems. I am grossly oversimplifying, but just to keep
the discussion going. Deregulation solved all of the problems
which then allowed the industry to claw back and start saving
the branch lines, and I think Pennsylvania has a very
successful branch line network, and freight rail is a network
business just like passenger rail is, and so now the industry
is to the point where we can have serious discussions about
passenger service but I think that the answer would be simply
because this country does not have experience in private sector
passenger business anymore, we need to bring those models from
overseas, which is one of the reasons why we are trying to do
it elsewhere. But I think that if you looked at developing both
corridors and preserving the national system, that would allow
it to evolve as opposed to looking for some sort of a big bang
to occur. And I also think that having several regional
projects, because some are going to work, some aren't, will
provide some breadth of experience in terms of getting back the
experience that we got rid of in this country on how to own and
operate passenger rail systems.
Mr. Shuster. In keeping with the Chairman's wishes, I yield
back.
Mr. Altmire. Thank you.
I just had one more for Mr. Lang. Has Amtrak engaged
Norfolk Southern about increasing passenger service along the
western portion of the Keystone Corridor, and if you have, what
are the results of those conversations?
Mr. Lang. Not recently we haven't, and the study that we
are going to do for you as pat of what was authorized under
PRIIA is more of a ridership and revenue analysis, but what
would have to be done once you have that ridership and revenue
analysis is to determine at that point what level of
frequencies you want. In other words, say this corridor is
right for six daily round trips or eight daily round trips.
That is when you approach the railroad and model with them the
service and look at what their infrastructure needs and
requirements would be, look at their capacity, if you will, and
figure out how to get six or eight frequencies into that
corridor. Because we don't have a recent analysis of that. They
are time-consuming studies to undertake. We do a very detailed
analysis of that work in conjunction with them. Many of the
engineers that we have are former freight rail employees that
work very close with the freight rails. So, you know, we are
able to do that and we have a number of those studies underway
for other States and we would be happy at the appropriate time
to work with Mr. Fauver to do that.
Mr. Altmire. In closing, is there anything that you
representing Amtrak would want to add to the discussion about
sustainability of passenger rail and the long-term financial
obligations?
Mr. Lang. Sure. That is the real question is, do you want
to do this in such a way that you attract--you want to have a
service that attracts riders or is your purpose to limit
government subsidies for the service. That is the real question
here. We have 14 States that contract with us to run service.
In other words, they pay us to run trains that we would not
otherwise be operating, and the State of California by far our
largest partner. In 1992, they approached us and signed a
contract with us to run passenger rail service between Oakland
and Sacramento. They paid us to run two daily round trips in
that corridor with a plan to develop that corridor to establish
more frequencies. In 2006, 14 years later, they maxed out on
the plan and with 16 daily round trips on the Oakland-to-
Sacramento corridor, 32 train movements a day, and those are
funded 100 percent by the state of California. Their goal in
funding the operation of those trains was to get people off the
roads. Their primary purpose for running that service was to
get people off the roads and put them in transit. They made a
decision that what they would use those trains for was to move
people. It wasn't to limit operating support for those trains.
It was designed to move people. Each State has a different
reason for partnering with us. Most of them, though, it is they
have made the decision that they want to have an another form
of transportation out there, and I think that that is really
what you are talking about here today is how can we develop
Cleveland to Pittsburgh and how can we develop Harrisburg to
Pittsburgh. We will have--in October we will have ridership and
revenue analyses to give to you on this and that would
determine if we want to go forward with the capital plan.
Mr. Altmire. Thank you all very much. We will now move on
to panel number two. As the witnesses get settled, I will
introduce the panel. I would like to welcome all of the members
of the second panel. We have Dave Sieminski, associate vice
president for finance and business of the Penn State
University. We have Lorenzo Simonelli, president and CEO of GE
Transportation. Next, we will hear from Patrick McMahon,
president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 85. We have Mr.
David Wohlwill, manager of extended range planning for the Port
Authority of Allegheny County. We have Mr. Robert Ardolino, CEO
of Urban Innovations. And finally, we will hear from Dr. Fred
Gurney, president and CEO of MAGLEV Inc.
Let me remind the witnesses that under our Committee rules,
oral statements must be limited to 5 minutes but the entire
statement will appear in the record. We are very pleased to
have each of you, and I now recognize Mr. Sieminski for his
testimony.
TESTIMONY OF DANIEL W. SIEMINSKI, ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT FOR
FINANCE AND BUSINESS, THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY;
LORENZO SIMONELLI, PRESIDENT AND CEO, GE TRANSPORTATION;
PATRICK J. MCMAHON, PRESIDENT, AMALGAMATED TRANSIT UNION LOCAL
85; DAVID WOHLWILL, AICP, MANAGER OF EXTENDED RANGE PLANNING,
PORT AUTHORITY OF ALLEGHENY COUNTY; ROBERT ARDOLINO, CEO, URBAN
INNOVATIONS; AND FRED GURNEY, PH.D., PRESIDENT AND CEO, MAGLEV,
INC.
Mr. Sieminski. Good morning, Chair Altmire, Ranking Member
Shuster and Congressman Murphy. My name is Daniel Sieminski,
and I am the associate vice president for finance and business
at the Pennsylvania State University. I also have with me today
Dr. Teresa Davis, who is Penn State's director of
transportation services. It is an honor for me to be here to
testify on behalf of the Pennsylvania State University in
support of the expansion of passenger rail service in
Pennsylvania, particularly to State College in Centre County.
The Pennsylvania State University is very encouraged about
the prospect of high-speed rail service coming to the central
part of the Commonwealth. We see many potential benefits of
such a high-speed rail system to include greater access and
convenience to the region and an alternative economical means
to move people quickly and efficiently. We believe it is
strategically important to the Commonwealth as well as the
Nation to include State College in the Pennsylvania rail
network.
We also cannot discount the advantages of high-speed rail
to our environment. One of the university's strategic goals is
environmental stewardship. High-speed rail as a transportation
alternative helps us recognize that goal.
When considering State College from afar, one might ask,
what is so important about making State College part of the
Pennsylvania high-speed rail network. We believe the following
information provides the answer to that question.
There is no doubt that a traditional college education will
continue to be of great importance to society and that
excellence in research will continue to be highly valued well
into the future. What is in doubt, however, is how effective we
can be in providing a transportation system that serves the
needs of a diverse group of individuals wishing to take
advantage of the benefits that Penn State has to offer.
The notion of high-speed passenger rail to State College,
Pennsylvania, is not a new one. The first paragraph of a 1985
report entitled Pennsylvania High-Speech Rail Feasibility Study
states, ``A high-speed rail passenger system across
Pennsylvania could offer rapid all-weather travel between
Philadelphia and Pittsburgh but also create tens of thousands
of jobs, pump billions of dollars into the state economy and
spark countless opportunities for real estate development.'' A
follow-up report published almost 20 years ago in 1990 further
emphasized the importance of high-speed rail between Pittsburgh
and Philadelphia through Harrisburg. Both reports included
trains being routed through State College, suggesting a
connection through central Pennsylvania would be beneficial.
A report entitled Pennsylvania Statewide Passenger Rail
Needs Assessment, which was prepared by the Pennsylvania State
Transportation Advisory Committee in December 2001, referenced
State College and three of its even regional meetings regarding
passenger rail service.
Since 1985, State College has seen great improvements to
Route 322 between Harrisburg and Potters Mills, extensive
upgrades to Route 22 between Pittsburgh and State College, and
the construction of Interstate 99 between the Pennsylvania
Turnpike and Interstate 80. Each one of these improvements has
improved access, convenience and contributed to safer travel.
The University Park Airport has enjoyed continuous
investment in facilities and services. In the period from 1985
to 2007, University Park Airport experienced 208 percent
increase in annual passenger enplanements. The Centre Area
Transportation Authority provides the third largest bus service
in the Commonwealth, moving over 6.8 million riders last year.
Only Pittsburgh and Philadelphia have larger systems. We
believe this ranking helps demonstrate the importance of public
transportation to those living in State College.
The University continues to focus on providing
transportation options. In 1999, the University changed the
campus bus system to encourage use of transit on campus and to
discourage single-occupant vehicles. In partnership with CATA,
the University implemented a ride share program and a
discounted mass transit bus pass program. Additionally, we
worked with CATA to enhance the regional van pool program. A
web-based ride share program was added to help students share
transportation to and from the university.
In response to requests by both employees and students, the
University partnered with Fullington Bus Company to provide a
weekend express bus service from New York City for students,
employees and the community. This year, due to requests, we
will be providing a trial program for a weekend express bus to
Baltimore and Washington, D.C. The participation of our
University community members in these transportation
alternatives reflects the willingness of people to use
alternative modes of transportation when available.
While State College continues to see improvements in the
highway systems, airport capacity and bus service, the closest
high-speed rail passenger service is in Harrisburg, which is
more than 90 miles away. In many ways, that 90-mile separation
creates a barrier for many people traveling to or from State
College.
Throughout the Commonwealth, Penn State's enrollment
totaled 92,613 during the fall 2008 semester, making Penn State
one of the largest universities in the Nation. While not all of
these students are enrolled at University Park, one must wonder
what a University Park student would say if high-speed rail was
one of the transportation options. If it is one of Penn State's
44,112 students at University Park, he or she might say high-
speed rail is an affordable and efficient alternative to my
travel between home and University Park for holidays and
special weekends.
Penn State is also recognized as one of the major research
universities in the Nation. In 2006, Penn State was ranked 13th
nationally with research and development expenditures totaling
$664,182,000. Penn State's Conferences and Institutes brings
nearly 50,000 people to our conferencing programs each year.
Summer camps bring almost 220,000 youth from across the country
to Penn State.
We have already heard the mention of Penn State football.
The University's membership in the Big Ten further demonstrates
the importance of high-speed rail service to State College as
one looks beyond the borders of Pennsylvania at potential links
to the high-speed rail service expansion in the Midwest.
The economic benefit of students, research and conferences
and youth camps and Penn State football is summarized in a 2008
report. Let me read from the report----
Mr. Altmire. If we could start to summarize, we can turn to
some of this in the Q&A.
Mr. Sieminski. Penn State contributes more to the State's
economy annually than any other industry. In 2008, the
University generated $8.5 billion in direct and indirect
economic impact and an additional $8.7 billion through business
services, research commercialization and the activities of
alumni for a total of $17 billion.
In closing, I would like to thank the Committee for
allowing me to testify in support of bringing high-speed rail
service to State College. Borrowing a quote from the 1999 high-
speed intercity rail passenger commission final report, ``High-
speed rail would be a catalyst for economic growth.''
With that said, we believe including State College,
Pennsylvania, as part of the high-speed passenger rail network
is strategically important to the Commonwealth for the reasons
I brought you today. Thank you.
Mr. Altmire. Thank you. We appreciate Dr. Davis being here,
and if you would like, I would invite you to sit behind Mr.
Sieminski in the Q&A if you feel like you might want to have
something to say. It is up to you.
Mr. Simonelli.
Mr. Simonelli. Mr. Chairman, honorable Members of the
Committee, my name is Lorenzo Simonelli. I am the CEO of GE
Transportation in Erie, Pennsylvania. Established more than 100
years ago, GE Transportation provides leading freight and
passenger locomotives, signaling and communication systems,
replacement parts and value-added services to our rail
customers around the globe. Approximately 17,000 GE locomotives
are currently in use in more than 50 countries.
The infusion of $8 billion in funding for high-speed
passenger rail in the stimulus legislation provides an
opportunity for the United States to develop a leading position
in passenger locomotive production. GE is prepared to build in
northwestern Pennsylvania the next generation of high-speed
diesel-electric passenger locomotives, which will support the
high-speed rail initiative, create U.S. passenger rail
manufacturing capacity and provide well-paying U.S. jobs.
GE Transportation is arguably best known for the
development of its groundbreaking Evaluation Series locomotive.
It is the most technically advanced, fuel-efficient and low-
emission locomotive to date. The Evolution is 5 percent more
fuel efficient and generates 40 percent lower emissions than
previous locomotives. One locomotive saves approximately
300,000 gallons of fuel over the life of the locomotive. GE is
prepared to transfer this state-of-the-art technology to the
next generation of high-speed passenger locomotives which would
deliver an estimated 25 percent of fuel savings and emission
reduction by approximately 60 percent compared to the older
locomotives currently in use.
Both the United States and GE currently face the most
challenging economic environment in decades. However, times of
crisis offer unique opportunities to innovate and upgrade. Now
is the time to revitalize the passenger rail industry in our
country by building the next-generation passenger locomotive
here and replacing 20-year-old locomotives with state-of-the-
art green rail transportation solutions.
GE has a long and successful past working with Amtrak. We
designed and produced the Genesis passenger locomotive for
Amtrak in 1997 with the most recent production run in 2001. GE
is prepared to work with DOT, Amtrak and the States on the
specifications for and production of these coming passenger
locomotives.
Congress and the Administration need to ensure that there
is a standardized approach to passenger locomotives that
recreates a U.S. industry with significantly lower production
costs than new passenger locomotives. If we fail to adopt a
standardized approach, the true benefits from jobs to
efficiency will be far less significant. Using technology
developed through the Evolution locomotive, GE will meet the
DOT standards by building new passenger locomotives with a top
speed between 110 miles per hour to 124 miles per hour.
As a measure of the environmental benefits of this new
technology, replacing a fleet of 200 older locomotives would
have a savings impact of 2 million gallons of fuel and an
emission reduction of 21,000 tons of CO2, 1,560 tons of NOX and
200 tons of particulate matter. In addition, this upgrade would
sustain approximately 1,900 jobs right here in America.
We encourage the federal government and Amtrak to continue
to exercise leadership. In administering the $8 billion high-
speed rail program, the Department of Transportation must focus
its efforts on developing domestic passenger rail manufacturing
capacity. Similarly, today Amtrak is uniquely positioned to
provide new leadership in passenger rail by upgrading and
expanding its passenger locomotive fleet. GE demonstrated over
the past decades that it possesses the know-how and
manufacturing base in the United States to develop the next
generation of fuel-efficient and low-emissions high-speed
passenger locomotives. We are ready to partner with the federal
government, the States and Amtrak to make higher and high-speed
passenger rail a reality by providing locomotives made in the
United States of America rather than importing technology and
products from overseas. The modernization and greening of aging
locomotive fleets in America could clearly have a profound
impact on safeguarding well-paying manufacturing jobs in the
United States and right here in Pennsylvania.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak before you. I would
be happy to answer any questions you might have in this forum
or at later date.
Mr. Altmire. Thank you.
Mr. McMahon.
Mr. McMahon. Thank you, Congressman Altmire, Congressman
Shuster and Congressman Murphy for the opportunity to testify
here today. I am speaking here today on behalf of the
Amalgamated Transit Union, the largest organization
representing public transportation, paratransit, over-the-road
and school bus workers in the United States and Canada. With
more than 185,000 members in over 270 locals throughout the
United States and Canada, we are definitely the largest transit
union. My name is Patrick McMahon. I am the president and
business agent of Local 85 here in Pittsburgh. I represent the
2,400 employees who operate the Port Authority of Allegheny
County Transit System. I also under the ATU am the chairman of
the Pennsylvania Joint Conference Board. In that capacity, I
represent approximately 17 other cities throughout the
Commonwealth including areas of Harrisburg, Altoona, Johnstown,
Lancaster and several other of the smaller communities.
I am here today to talk about a subject which next to the
extensive revision of our health care system is the most
important subject that our Nation needs to address if we want
to grow and prosper. There can be no mistake that the use of
the American automobile adds to air pollution and saps our
economy as a result of ever-increasing gas prices. While
millions upon millions of cars creep along congested highways
in order to get to their place of business and commerce, we
must invest in a better way to enhance and improve our
mobility.
Although the ATU is not opposed to the high-speed rail
between major cities, we believe that the investment in public
transit within the major metropolitan regions is a much wiser
investment and expenditure of our federal dollars.
I am here today to talk and encourage a further investment
into light rail in public transit. We believe that light rail
will pay large dividends in our country and certainly to
western Pennsylvania. The idea that public transportation can
be self-sustaining has already proven to be irrational. Private
transportation companies have fallen by the wayside simply
because they cannot be economically operated on a for-profit
basis. Public transportation systems are now an essential
public service, the same as police and firemen. They must be
funded by government. Fare increases and service cuts are not
the answer and cannot solve the problem. People need
transportation in order to get to their jobs, stimulate our
market and invigorate our economy. In western Pennsylvania, the
expansion of mass transportation, in particular, the light rail
transportation system, is an absolute necessity. We cannot grow
unless that occurs.
Today I advocate for light rail because our experience with
heavy rail has proven to be a failure. The Port Authority once
operated a heavy rail system and found it to be unreliable and
inadequate. Because of the topography of western Pennsylvania
and the locations of our densely populated areas, heavy rail is
not suitable to service those areas. The heavy rail system is
simply impractical for western Pennsylvania.
At one point streetcars were the engines which drove the
region's economy. Those streetcars were thought to be outmoded,
but we have come to learn that going back to the streetcar in
the form of new, more efficient light rail vehicles is the
answer. Unlike our forefathers, however, we must recognize that
these light rail vehicles must operate on their own dedicated
right-of-ways and be made accessible to the riding public where
the demand is heaviest.
In the Pittsburgh area, we have several areas that
absolutely would benefit from the expansion of light rail
service: the Route 28 corridor, second would be the Oakland
east end area, and the south side of Pittsburgh. We currently
have a light rail system which services the South Hills and a
new connector soon to be opened in order to service the North
Shore where the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Steelers and our new
casino is located.
In my more formal presentation, which I have provided a
copy to you, I have outlined what I believe to be the best
possible way to connect the entire light rail system.
Essentially my idea is to integrate the existing system and
extend it through the Oakland east end area, across the
Allegheny River, along the 28 corridor. As an offshoot of the
servicing the Oakland area, we should connect the south side of
Pittsburgh into the existing South Side Rail Station.
The development of a light rail system to the areas
mentioned will result in our entire region being tied together
in one continuous transit system that will allow someone from
the furthest stretches of Allegheny County and even those in
Armstrong, Butler and Westmoreland counties to board one of our
light rail vehicles and travel into Oakland, South Side, the
central city and or the North Shore without any interruptions
and do so in a cost-efficient manner while contributing to a
clean and green environment.
To accomplish this, we would obviously need the help of the
federal government. We strongly believe that the federal
surface transportation Reauthorization bill needs to not only
increase funding for public transit capital projects but also
to include funding for operating assistance.
The Amalgamated Transit Union and this local that I
represent enthusiastically support the inclusion of House
Resolution 2746 as part of the reauthorization package. This
bill would provide for increased flexibility and the use of
federal transit funds by allowing transit systems of all sizes
to use a percentage of their formula funds for operations. Here
in Allegheny County, a maximum of 30 percent of transit formula
funds could be used for operating assistance. Significantly,
the bill would encourage State and local governments to invest
in transit through a unique incentive program.
Mr. Altmire. If we could start to wrap up?
Mr. McMahon. Okay. So Congressman, again I thank you for
the opportunity. In essence, we support the extension of the
light rail in the major metropolitan areas as a better
expenditure for our federal dollars and the rail systems. So
with that, I will conclude and certainly I am available to
answer any questions, and I thank you again for the
opportunity.
Mr. Altmire. Thank you.
Mr. Wohlwill.
Mr. Wohlwill. Good morning, Chairman Altmire and
Congressmen Murphy and Shuster, I am pleased to represent the
Port Authority of Allegheny County and I thank you for the
invitation, and my testimony is going to elaborate on points
that Mr. Posner and Mr. Gleason made about integrating local
transit systems within a regional or intercity rail system.
Port Authority is a multimodal transit provider. We serve
220,000 rides each weekday on our bus, light rail and inclined
plane system. We have 188 routes. Port Authority is currently
undertaking its transit development plan to determine how best
to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of its transit
system and improve service for existing riders and hopefully
draw new riders within available financial resources. The Port
Authority does not own or operate any intercity rail services
nor do any of our facilities serve that kind of market. We are
very interested in proposals for improved rail service in
western Pennsylvania. And as these proposals are developed
further, we urge consideration of how the intercity services
would interface with local transit, and in particular I want to
highlight Amtrak's existing Pittsburgh station. It is located
adjacent to the Martin Luther King, Jr. East Busway. This is a
9.1-mile rapid transit facility linking downtown Pittsburgh and
Oakland with Pittsburgh's eastern communities. About 25,000
riders use it each day. Thus, travelers from many of these
communities have direct access to the Amtrak station and
moreover a number of routes operating on other parts of our
system also use Penn Station as a layover point so their routes
from the north and the west that come right to Penn Station so
those communities also have direct access to the Amtrak
station.
In recent years, Penn Station, which is the name of our
busway station that is adjacent to the Amtrak station, has
emerged as a regional transit hub, and each of the counties
that surround Allegheny County have their own transit system
and many of these operate services from those counties to
downtown Pittsburgh, and these include Beaver County Transit
Authority, Mid Mon Valley Transit Authority, Meyers Coach,
Westmoreland County Transit Authority and Newcastle Area
Transit Authority and the City of Washington's transit
authority. Thus, direct service is available not only from
Allegheny County to Penn Station and the Amtrak station but
throughout the region, and this very high level of transit
access makes it possible for passengers arriving on a train to
access various parts of the region without going through the
expense of a rental car, and then conversely it also makes it
possible for the region's residents to access the Amtrak
station without worrying about limited and expensive parking in
the station area.
While these linkages to local and regional transit are
important, I would also like to mention another benefit of the
proximity of our transit system to the existing Amtrak station,
and that is Port Authority's police is headquartered in what
used to be call Pitt Tower. That is right near the Amtrak
station, and in these days of security concerns, that adds an
extra set of eyes and ears to the system, even though our
police are focused on our transit system, you know, it is a
further security enhancement.
And as a planner, I know you are a bit aways from thinking
about fares, but as planning for a rail system advances into
further phases, I would hope that would keep in mind fare
instrument that would not only be good to pay for travel from,
say, Harrisburg to Pittsburgh, but could also be used on the
region's transit systems. That would certainly improve the
integration and convenience of transferring from local to
intercity transit and vice versa.
In conclusion, Port Authority is excited about the
opportunities for further integration of local and regional
transit into some kind of intercity or regional rail system in
western Pennsylvania, and effective integration of local and
intercity transportation will be mutually beneficial to the
transit systems, to the operator of the rail system, whether it
is Amtrak or someone else, as well as rail patrons. We look
forward to working with Congressman Altmire and anyone else
involved in planning and developing the intercity rail network,
and I will be here to answer any questions. Thank you.
Mr. Altmire. Thank you for your testimony.
Mr. Ardolino.
Mr. Ardolino. Good morning, Congressman Altmire,
Congressman Shuster. My name is Robert Ardolino and I am the
president and CEO of Urban Innovations and we are based here in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Urban Innovations is a nationally
recognized firm that specializes in transit-oriented
development and public-private partnerships, known as P3s. Our
firm currently has projects in California, Arizona and
Pennsylvania. Today I would like to not only speak to the
importance of expanded passenger rail in the United States and
service in western Pennsylvania but to point out that not only
will enhanced rail service offer environmentally friendly
options, aid in reducing traffic congestion, improve air
quality and communities around such benefits, but it would
carefully plan land use and economic development along rail
corridors, both passenger and freight. Such developments are
win-win situations for everyone.
For decades the automobile has been the force behind real
estate development in America. As a result, open space and
greenfields have been consumed by an overexpanding suburbia of
large yards, wide roads and massive parking lots. During this
same period, mass transit has been deemphasized, and unlike
many parts of the world, passenger rail service has all but
disappeared. Now our Nation and western Pennsylvania has been
forced to reevaluate its development policies as a result of
rising energy costs, deteriorating downtowns and overcrowded
freeways.
Due to these troubling conditions, States are developing
programs to rectify these programs. The Federal Railroad
Administration in conjunction with the Federal Transit
Administration has developed joint policy statements for the
use of mainline railroad right-of-ways for light rail commuter
train operations. Because of the oversight of light rail
operations is designated to the FTA while intercity freight and
passenger rail operations oversight is designed to the FRA, a
joint agency accommodation is required.
Just as the freight railroad industry is rapidly growing,
so are passenger operators. There are now 19 commuter railroad
projects under FRA oversight ranging from large ones such as
the Long Island Railroad, Metro North Regular rate and rhythm,
New Jersey Transit, Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation,
and the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, to name a
few. However, southwestern Pennsylvania lacks strong commuter
rail. Public authorities own all the commuter railroads. Some
of these operate on their own tracks, provide operating rights
to freight railroads and Amtrak. Others are tenants on tracks
owned by freight railroads or Amtrak, and some have shared
arrangements. Amtrak is a contract operator of services for
several of the aforementioned commuter railroads while other
commuter railroads contract with freight railroad operators or
private companies.
The time has come in southwestern Pennsylvania to implement
commuter rail. Urban Innovations along with key stakeholders
have developed a plan to provide commuter rail service from
Tarentum Bridge in Westmoreland County to the Convention Center
in the downtown section of Pittsburgh known as the Strip with
full cooperation of the owners of the freight corridor known as
the Allegheny Valley Rail. Our project is supported by
Congressman Altmire and many regional leaders throughout
southwestern Pennsylvania including our Secretary of
Transportation, Mr. Biehler. In the coming months, Urban
Innovations will compile 8 years of studies and reports along
with Allegheny County, Westmoreland County and the city of
Pittsburgh to unveil an implementation plan that will consist
of a public-private partnership which in conjunction with the
Federal Railroad Administration and the Federal Transit
Administration will develop a 22-mile commuter rail that will
potentially connect to the formerly proposed light rail station
at the Pittsburgh Convention Center with intermodal connections
to the bus terminal and the North Shore connector. This project
will ultimately enable a rider to connect from the Tarentum
Bridge in Westmoreland County to the South Hills Village
Station in Allegheny County. The economic benefits and land-use
opportunities that will surround this project are being
developed. Urban Innovations has identified five key elements
to assure the success of this project. They are marketing,
financial, implementation, operations and maintenance.
We in Pennsylvania are in the national spotlight with the
G-20 summit on the horizon. Pittsburgh has recently been
recognized as one of the most livable cities in America. The
time has come that we have a tremendous opportunity to enhance
and revitalize our area through our rail system. This can only
be accomplished through cooperation, dedication and
persistence.
I would like to thank the Chairman and Congressman Shuster
for giving me the opportunity to speak.
Mr. Altmire. Thank you.
Dr. Gurney.
Mr. Gurney. Good morning, Congressman Altmire, Ranking
Member Shuster and others, ladies and gentlemen. I am very
pleased to be able to address this Subcommittee on expanding
passenger rail service. I am the president and CEO of MAGLEV
Inc. and we are very vitally concerned about high-speed
transportation, intercity transportation and the economic
benefits that can accrue from transportation of this nature. We
are also the private partner along with PennDOT on the
Pennsylvania High-Speed Maglev Project.
First of all, we want to applaud the emphasis that
passenger rail is now getting on putting together a real
mechanism for passenger service throughout the country. We
really believe that that is where we need to go and we totally
support that. While we understand the necessity for the
dedication of a significant amount of the stimulus funds to
conventional dual-use rail mainly to remove those obstacles
that are limiting passenger service, we very much believe that
without a concentrated effort and grade separated track, we
will be continually limited to the 79- to 110-mile-per-hour
service. We have heard that testimony given here already today.
We believe that America needs two or three truly high-speed
transportation systems in order to capture the imagination and
the support of the public on true high-speed transportation. In
the case of high-speed maglev, we are talking about speeds
slightly in excess of 300 miles per hour.
While I am a strong believer in high-speed maglev, I am
equally a strong advocate of starting such a program right here
in the Pittsburgh area. Pittsburgh is strategically located in
the United States. It was already referred to as a natural hub
of transportation between here and the Midwest, and I believe
it is that exactly. Within 500 miles of where we are sitting
now, we have one-half of the population of the United States.
That 500-mile radius is what the FRA is referring to as the
sweet spot for employing high-speed passenger service.
Not only is Pittsburgh strategically located, it also has
the kinds of conditions that are challenging to high-speed rail
and to all the intercity passenger rail. We have rugged
terrain, a full four seasons of climate and those kinds of
things which beginning here will demonstrate the applicability
of this kind of technology throughout the country.
Let me talk to you about some of the advantages of high-
speed maglev. I already mentioned its high speed at cruising,
slightly in excess of 300 miles per hour. It is energy
efficient. It is green technology. There are no effluents from
the vehicle itself. It offers substantial time savings and
quality-of-life improvement for travelers. Very importantly,
and this point came up several times today, very importantly,
it offers the ability of self-sustaining service, and I will
explain that a little bit more. With limited maintenance, the
infrastructure should last as much as 80 years. High-speed
maglev and particularly our design here in the Pittsburgh area
shows that we can bring traffic into the heart of the city,
into the heart of a compact city like Pittsburgh with very
little disturbance on the existing buildings and
infrastructure. Likewise with the service to the airport, with
a station at the airport we can connect to the ticket counter
with elevators or escalators, direct access to those locations.
Even though we have lost some of the interconnecting links at
the Pittsburgh International Airport, we still have an increase
in the origin and destinations of that airport, so the business
is picking up. Locally, the business is picking up in those
areas.
Let me talk a little bit about the technology of high-speed
maglev. I think some of you have heard me before, but let me at
least reiterate some of these points. High-speed maglev as we
anticipate it for the Pittsburgh and southwestern Pennsylvania
area has been in development in operational verification in
Germany for over 30 years. The German government has just
recently incorporated and certified a TR-09 vehicle that
includes the latest refinements of that technology. The system
has been operating in Shanghai, China, since 2004 with a 99.8
percent up time. Ninety-nine point eight percent of the time it
has been within 1 minute of its scheduled departure. It is a
technology that listen to President Obama or Vice President
Biden, this is the technology they are talking about. They
talked about high-speed rail in China. This is the technology.
We have just recently completed the FEIS. It is at the FRA
for finalization. We have begun some things with the
development of the infrastructure, particularly with precision
fabrication which is applicable to high-speed maglev but also
applicable to the Nation's need for rejuvenation of the rail
structure and also offshore structures and elevated highway
structures. We have a tremendous amount of activity that we
would like to continue to bring up. I think our Secretary of
PennDOT, Al Biehler, has testified that for every $1 billion of
transportation funding, 30,000 jobs are created. Thirty
thousand jobs are created for every $1 billion. That is jobs of
all kind, not just construction jobs and manufacturing jobs but
jobs of all kinds.
Mr. Altmire. If we could start to wrap up?
Mr. Gurney. I thank you for the time that you have given
me, and I again would like to say that we are very excited
about the opportunity of being here and to tell you about this
exciting transportation, and this is the one that President
Obama and Vice President Biden are talking about when they talk
about high-speed rail in reference to China. Thank you.
Mr. Altmire. Thank you, and thank you all. We will start
with questions.
I want to start with Mr. Gurney. We had last week someone
involved in the transportation department made a statement
alluding to the fact that it was her perception that the West
Coast and the upper Midwest were far ahead of anywhere else in
the country on high-speed technology, and we had someone on our
panel, the first panel which I am sure you heard reference that
comment. Can you talk about why you think that Pittsburgh and
the maglev project was not considered when that statement was
made?
Mr. Gurney. Well, I think that most of those statements
were made with regard to conventional steel wheel on rail
transportation systems, and to upgrade the existing rail
systems in the Midwest--and that activity has been going on for
a long time as the testimony did allude. In the California
area, a lot of activity has been going on and we have been
following a little bit of that as well. So they are talking
about conventional rail systems. There aren't a lot of places
in the country that are talking about high-speed maglev and the
benefits of high-speed maglev and so perhaps they just did not
understand the technology.
Mr. Altmire. Can you talk a little bit about when you say
this is in your mind what the President is talking about when
he talks about high-speed rail, what is the cost differential
per mile for what you are talking about with your project and
what other technologies might bring.
Mr. Gurney. We are talking about a technology here that is
300 miles per hour. It is grade separated. It is on separate
track and it is elevated. So whenever we talk about comparing,
we need to compare equivalent grade separated track to maglev.
When our comparisons and looking at the statistics particularly
on light rail, they are very cost comparable. Looking at the
light rail systems that were installed in Seattle and St. Louis
and around the country, it is very comparable. We don't have
good numbers with regard to what the upgrade of existing dual-
use rail would be.
Mr. Altmire. Mr. Simonelli, do you want to comment on that,
your technology and what the cost per mile might be in
implementing it?
Mr. Simonelli. If you look at the technology we offer
today, which is diesel-electric, as you know, the freight
railroad is one of the most productive in the world. I don't
have the specific figures with me. Just one aspect to comment,
there is a huge differential between what is mentioned as high-
speed rail and full electrification, and the way we perceive it
is, it is a gradual move towards electrification where small
progress can be made immediately with huge benefits by moving
towards a diesel-electric improvement, which is already
available. Going down an aspect of full electrification is a
20- to 30-year journey. It is not something that can be reaped
immediately.
Mr. Altmire. Mr. Ardolino, can you talk about--you
mentioned the Allegheny Valley Rail line, something that we
have talked many times about. Can you talk about what the
impediments are to getting that up and running and what needs
to happen between now and when that first passenger steps on
that train?
Mr. Ardolino. Currently, the updated report is being
completed by HDR Engineers and is due out at the end of this
month. Once the information has been reviewed, looked at by
Westmoreland County Transit Authority and our client, Allegheny
Valley Rail, we have proposed a public-private partnership. The
next step would be an environmental impact study that would be
required for the corridor, and that could take approximately 6
to 8 months to complete, depending upon what kind of
categorical exclusions we could get with FTA. We have been in
discussions with Port Authority. They already have an
environmental impact study in place for the connection to the
former station that was proposed. Our projection from start to
finish now would be 2-1/2 years.
Mr. Altmire. So that would be 2-1/2 years from today----
Mr. Ardolino. Correct. The end of this month.
Mr. Altmire. --that passenger train could be up and
running.
Mr. Wohlwill, do you want to comment on that, the Allegheny
Valley Rail line and what the Port Authority, what their
involvement might be in that?
Mr. Wohlwill. I have been a participant on a steering
committee for the Westmoreland County Transit Authority study,
and I would anticipate that as the study moves forward, we
would continue to be a participant. Who would be the lead to
advance the Allegheny Valley Commuter Railroad? I think that is
something that is still to be worked out. There are several
different models as far as implementation of commuter rail
goes, so beyond my saying that we will cooperate, I don't have
anything further to say on that.
Mr. Altmire. Thank you. I will turn it over to Mr. Shuster,
and we will do like we did last time, two rounds of questions.
Mr. Shuster. I want to conduct Mr. Gurney's follow-up from
what you were saying before and expand upon that. I know in the
next maybe 30 days they are going to award $45 million to an
East Coast and $45 million to a West Coast high-speed maglev
study or hopefully more than a study, and I just wanted to
know, number one, how are you feeling about your chances, and
number two, $45 million, what can you accomplish with $45
million towards making maglev a reality?
Mr. Gurney. Well, first of all, let me take the question
about how do we feel about our chances. I think they are
fantastic and I think so because we are very definitely the
leading high-speed maglev organization in the United States. We
have done a tremendous amount of work in bringing this
technology to the forefront, and we are continuing to work on
it. Now, what we would do with $45 million? The real approach
that we would take is, we see the construction and the work
towards deployment of high-speed maglev as being one that we
would go into a design-build mode, and so what we need to do
then is to do those kinds of things that promote and take it
from the 10 to 15 percent engineering where we are now to the
30 percent or so engineering that is associated with design-
build. That would include a major bridge crossing of the Mon
River. It would include the design of the stations in the
downtown area and also at the airport, and it would include all
of those things associated with bringing that together. So it
is design-build activities in which we would be ready to go for
construction, release contracts for construction whenever the
construction funding would become available.
Mr. Shuster. So $45 million would get you to a point where
you could be ready to----
Mr. Gurney. Forty-five million would get us well down that
path to release the design--you know, from design to design-
build contracts, yes.
Mr. Shuster. Thank you.
Mr. Sieminski, you talked about what rail connection would
do to Penn State. Have you done any studies on how the students
get to and from--I understand you said rail--or not rail, I am
sorry, air travel has increased significantly but it would be
my guess that most kids are coming by car. Is that accurate?
Were there any studies done as to how many kids would get out
of cars and onto trains?
Mr. Sieminski. We have not done those types of studies but
I would have to venture a guess easily 90 percent come by car.
We have a number of out-of-state students. You would have to
guess that they may fly in to a major airport, maybe bused. We
have a significant number of international students that again
would fly in to a major airport and look for transportation
from wherever that airport might be.
Mr. Shuster. So there would obviously be a benefit to those
students. It would seem to me because you have the 40 students
there it would be relatively easy to do some kind of surveying
of the students to get an idea, you know, how they are coming,
how far they are driving, because I think a lot of that will
determine--you know, if they are driving by car from Altoona to
State College, they are not necessarily going to get on a
train, but if they are going to Philadelphia and to Pittsburgh
and various other places----
Mr. Sieminski. The distance traveled, I think, is very
important.
Mr. Shuster. Right. Is that something you would consider
doing, that Penn State would put together a survey to try to
give us something to put our teeth into?
Mr. Sieminski. Certainly.
Mr. Shuster. And we talked mainly about high-speed rail.
What would traditional rail service, would that still be
beneficial and how would that be----
Mr. Sieminski. There is currently----
Mr. Shuster. --affected----
Mr. Sieminski. --rail service, very limited but rail
service in Tyrone and Lewistown, and I am thinking Harrisburg
to Pittsburgh, that route being developed is high speed would
provide an opportunity in Lewistown. From Lewistown, it is a
half-hour to State College, and with some minor improvements in
the road, 322, that could be a big improvement for us.
Mr. Shuster. And Mr. Simonelli, a question on--if we were
to put out some incentives to standardize approach to
locomotive manufacturing, how would that benefit manufacturing
in this country, having Amtrak step up to the plate and put out
there some kind of standardization on what a locomotive would
be? How is that going to affect General Electric?
Mr. Simonelli. Well, I think the biggest benefit is when
you look at the costs of operations and being able to have a
standardized approach across Amtrak and then the States as they
look at replenishing from a locomotive perspective, costs of
operations go down immensely. If you only have 20 units and
then another 20 units that are different, having a large fleet
of about 200 units the same, you can look at savings of about
60 percent from an operational perspective. From a GE
perspective, it helps on the employment level and also from an
aspect of northwest Pennsylvania.
Mr. Shuster. And if I could, I just have one follow-up and
will forego the second round of questions. Mr. Simonelli, how
in general can the Congress strengthen and expand U.S. rail
manufacturing in this country? What are things that you have
seen or ideas that you have that we should be looking at to
help you build rail capacity?
Mr. Simonelli. I think again some of the initiatives that
are being taken around the passenger rail and having a standard
approach, also having Amtrak actually lead the initiative,
putting through some legislation around the environmental
requirements and also I think having a better appreciation for
the differences between high-speed rail and where this country
is today. There is a number of infrastructure limitations and
it is a gradual approach, and immediate impacts can be seen by
adopting diesel-electric locomotives which are available today
and have already proved very beneficial for the freight
locomotive carriers.
Mr. Shuster. Your new locomotive, how fast will that
travel?
Mr. Simonelli. We can have a locomotive that goes between
110 to 124 hours per hour.
Mr. Shuster. That is for passenger or freight?
Mr. Simonelli. That would be for passenger, and if you look
at the average freight locomotive, again the capacity is there
to go to those speeds but they generally run between 50 to 80
miles per hour.
Mr. Shuster. Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Altmire. Mr. Sieminski, if we are able to accomplish in
the future what we were talking about earlier, the Cleveland-
to-Pittsburgh line, Pittsburgh all the way across the State
through Harrisburg, what would you envision the route that
would be necessary to get to State College? How would we get
there?
Mr. Sieminski. That is a great question. The studies that
we have had done or that were done 20 years ago suggest
Altoona, Tyrone, State College, over seven mountains into
Lewistown. Another study showed further west to Williamsport.
There are a number of routes that have been identified as
potential--let me emphasize, it is not to displace the
Philadelphia-Harrisburg-Pittsburgh connection. That is a
primary route. Certainly Altoona, State College, Tyrone,
Lewistown, Williamsport can play a significant role in adding
to the passengers of a high-speed rail network.
Mr. Altmire. I am just thinking of the geography, and if
you are a student who lives in Baltimore, let us say, and you
wanted to take the train, do you think that would be feasible?
Go up through Philadelphia, turn left and then end up winding
around a bunch of mountains to get up to State College?
Mr. Sieminski. As far as Lewistown, it certainly could be
very feasible. The next, I will say, 40 miles could be a big
challenge.
Mr. Altmire. Thank you.
Similarly on geography, Dr. Gurney, can you talk about the
Pennsylvania corridor that we are talking about and the
challenges that you would face in building a completely new
infrastructure all the way across the State and what you have
thought about with regard especially to the Altoona area and
the more mountainous areas?
Mr. Gurney. Certainly. I think one of the things that needs
to be said here is that high-speed maglev has the great
climbing capability of a 10 percent grade. Conventional steel
wheel on rail is generally limited to the 3 percent grade. So
we could go through some very rugged areas, and because high-
speed maglev as we envision it is all elevated, then it is
simply a matter of changing the heights of our columns so that
we can keep it as nice and as smooth of a ride as possible. But
again, being able to climb grades of 10 percent helps get
around a lot of those difficult terrain areas, and we have a
challenging terrain right here in the Pittsburgh area. So we
have looked at that and we could navigate through that easily.
Mr. Shuster. Will the gentleman yield for a second?
Somebody told me that technologically maglev, it can go
straight up. Is that true or is that----
Mr. Gurney. Well----
Mr. Shuster. I mean, it is not reasonable to do it that way
but it has the potential to do that?
Mr. Gurney. I don't know whether you can go straight up or
not but you certainly can devise the system to go at very, very
rapid speeds. At a matter of fact, it is used--the technology
is used in Holliman Air Force Base on that sled that we are
using for testing some launching of missiles. So it gets some
very, very high speeds.
Mr. Shuster. So the technology could exceed 10 percent, 20
percent grades if you----
Mr. Gurney. Yes, but we are really talking about passenger
comfort here.
Mr. Shuster. Right. I understand. I just wanted
clarification because somebody told me that it could exceed
that, and I didn't know. Thank you.
Mr. Altmire. Thank you, Dr. Gurney.
Mr. McMahon, you indicated in your testimony that a new
light rail system must be strategically integrated--you said
those words--within the current system. Can you elaborate on
that, what you mean by that statement?
Mr. McMahon. Yes. You know, we do have areas of
southwestern Pennsylvania that definitely could use more
transportation. I identified the 28 corridor. That is one that
I know that people around here, it is definitely one of the
worst commutes in southwestern Pennsylvania, but what I mean by
that is, the existing--we have the North Shore, which, you
know, whether you agree with the building in the North Shore or
not, we have it and we should be looking to what we are going
to do next. We could expand that. We could expand that North
Shore out through the 28 corridor. We also have, which a lot of
folks don't know because we don't use it that much, but right
at the East Busway under this very building we are in, we have
the Spy Line that connects right to the East Busway. Now, if
you would have had the planning to go from the East Busway and
extend, you know, the rail system out the busway corridor,
whether it is elevated or right beside it, however the most
efficient way and the best way of doing it, but if you would go
out through that corridor, you could connect to Oakland. There
is already a busway ramp that goes right to the Oakland area,
which would be beneficial. And then plus, you know, there are
railroad bridges, things like that, that you could cross the
Allegheny and then go down through all the Brownfields down
here where those northeastern suburbs all come in through that
get on to 28, the Millville, Sharpsburg, all those different
areas down there that you could integrate with park and rides
and things like that which we think would be very beneficial to
southwestern Pennsylvania. You know, we heard a lot of things
like the Allegheny Railroad, things like that, and they are all
great ideas but like I said in my comments and more efficiently
in the paper, we have experienced that and it really hasn't
worked. The heavy rails haven't worked in western Pennsylvania.
It is very inefficient. Port Authority had the Mon Valley, went
up through all the way down to McKeesport. It just didn't work.
It was very inefficient. They broke down a lot, things like
that. We think that the topography and, you know, the areas
that you would have to serve to make it efficient just isn't
doable in our region because of the geography and things like
that. I hope that helps. At least I hope that addresses what
your question was. I don't know.
Mr. Altmire. It does, and thank you all for your testimony
today, and I especially in his absence want to thank Chairman
Oberstar for allowing us to have this field hearing. There is a
lot of staff work that goes into it. We have staff on both
sides that are represented. Thanks to all of you for being
here. This is an incredibly busy week for the Committee. As you
saw, we unveiled the blueprint for the federal highway plan for
the next 6 years, which we may bring to Committee as soon as
this week, and I can't thank the Committee enough for their
work. This is a very busy time and everything seemed to run
smoothly. So thanks to each one of you, and I thank the
witnesses for their testimony and the Members for their
questions. Thanks to Congressman Murphy for joining us as well.
And again, the Members of this Subcommittee and Congressman
Murphy may have additional questions for the witnesses and we
will ask them to submit them to you for you to respond in
writing. The hearing record will be held open for 14 days for
Members wishing to make additional statements or ask further
questions.
Unless there is further business, this hearing is
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:20 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]