New infrastructure plan - what is this?

I haven't seen specific mention of this here yet: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/us/po ... ml?_r=1&hp

A relevant quote:

White House officials said Mr. Obama wanted to rebuild 15,000 miles of roads, construct and maintain 4,000 miles of railway – enough track to span the continent — and rehabilitate or reconstruct 150 miles of airport runways while putting in place a system that would reduce travel time and airport delays.

Emphasis added. I've seen that exact phrase used in several different places, so it's clearly one of the talking points that the WH is using and not something the Times made up.

None of the articles I've read give much detail or context. I gather from the Times article that this is replacing a previous infrastructure investment bill that expired, but that this one is much larger. Does anyone know more detail? There's no real mention on what type of new railway construction this would be - passenger or freight - though I can only assume passenger service would be part of it, given the administration's focus on passenger rail. Also, I'm curious what the split is between "constructing and maintaining" - since they have such a specific mileage number in mind, they must have an actual plan for what track's going to be constructed with this money and what they're just going to maintain. Has any of this actual plan been released that the mainstream news is just ignoring?

I don't expect this is going to be an easy thing to get passed at this point, in any case.

Interesting; not necessarily Amtrak as the name Amtrak was not mentioned once. What, they couldn't fit this into that boondoggle called a stimulus?

spacecadet wrote:Also, I'm curious what the split is between "constructing and maintaining" - since they have such a specific mileage number in mind, they must have an actual plan for what track's going to be constructed with this money and what they're just going to maintain. Has any of this actual plan been released that the mainstream news is just ignoring?

Based on the news reports, the details of the new infrastructure plan have not been released. The administration is likely discussing the specifics with the leadership and committee chairmen in Congress and this is just the first stage of the political process of gathering support for a new plan. The plan may be tied to the National Infrastructure Bank concept which would provide grants and loans to states that the Administration has pushed for but has not yet been widely supported in Congress.

We will likely more details put out in the next few days.

The details are fairly sketchy at this point. There is a press release from the White House. It mentions "infrastructure bank" and updating Amtrak's fleet.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-off ... -railways-

Ah, there is a White press release. Quoting the rail and Amtrak relevant parts, although, yea, it is rather sketchy & vague:

"•The integration of high-speed rail on an equal footing into the surface transportation program to ensure a sustained and effective commitment to a national high speed rail system over the next generation;"

"Rail. Many parts of transit systems have been allowed to fall into a state of ill-repair. The President’s plan would help address this by making a major new investment in the nation’s bus and rail transit system. The Administration is also committed to expanding public transit systems and would dedicate significant new funding to the “New Starts” program – which supports locally planned, implemented, and operated major transit projects. In addition, the Administration is committed to building on its investments so far in high-speed rail – constructing a system that will increase convenience and productivity, while also reducing our nation’s dependence on oil and cutting down on pollution. The President’s plan would also invest in a long-overdue overhaul of Amtrak’s fleet."

"Infrastructure Bank. The President proposes to fund a permanent infrastructure bank. This bank would leverage private and state and local capital to invest in projects that are most critical to our economic progress. This marks an important departure from the federal government’s traditional way of spending on infrastructure through earmarks and formula-based grants that are allocated more by geography and politics than demonstrated value. Instead, the Bank will base its investment decisions on clear analytical measures of performance, competing projects against each other to determine which will produce the greatest return for American taxpayers."

The infrastructure bank matters for rail because that would be where states and possibly Amtrak would apply for projects that would be awarded on ideally less political basis based on needs and value of the project. But Congress has balked at the idea of the bank so far (the committee members like their earmarks and other directed funding). The bit about investing in a overhaul of Amtrak's fleet presumably means that Amtrak would get direct funding for buying new cars and locomotives. If this were to get through Congress - with the Senate as the big hurdle - Amtrak might actually be able to order a bunch of single and bi-level corridor cars and put in a Superliner III order along with expanding the Viewliner 2 order over the next 6 years. If I were the White House staff, they should call Amtrak and have it put out the oldest & most beaten up baggage car in the fleet at either Union station in DC or at the Bear maintenance facility and the president could use as a prop for the backdrop at a speech pushing the new infrastructure plan. Point to it and say that it was when Vice Prez Biden was in grade school.

One comment: most of the money for "HSR" is going to projects that will directly benefit Amtrak and improve Amtrak service. Moving all these discussions to a separate "High Speed Rail" forum out of the Amtrak forum is problematic. If we are going to have a separate forum for the mix of true HSR and faster & improved passenger rail projects, maybe this forum should be renamed "High Speed and Intercity Passenger Rail Projects", although that is a somewhat clumsy title.

AFAIK the Transportation bills known as ICETEA & others since the Bush 1 era have yet to be reauthorized & passed. The amounts seem way too small for a 5year highway-airport-transit program. Obama may be trying to get Amtrak & HSR into the mix. Most of the state DOT's could be working on 2020-2025 plans for future funding. Most states should have an interstate candidate for rebuilding. There may be other money to expand O'Hare & other airport projects.

Holding up the plan in my view is some method to update the taxes used to fund the projects.

Just the same old same old, coupled with some increasingly vitriolic election-season rhetoric.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100906/ap_ ... ma_economy

Judging from the poor grasp of both the economic and technical limitations at the height of the inaugural HSR ballyhoo, those of us looking for slow-but-real progress will do better once we're back in a "gridlock" stance with split contol of Congress between the two parties.

One side issue I do think should be raised is that just as the current economic slowdown allowed the freight roads an opportunty to upgrade their capacity, a shift in traffic patterns (for example, a decline in transcontinental container traffic) could permit both upgrading of currently-stressed mainlines and a search for new markets, possibly over shorter distances, for those lines and regions where some redundancy now exists.

Market conditions in the industry over the past decade have, in this writer's opinion, led to an unrealistic obsession with ruling grades where long-distance or very heavy commodities are involved. But if the pressure to use some of that capacity for passengers (more likely in a gradually-upgraded conventional network than scratchbuilt HSR dreams), than it would be merely a matter of working out a fair compenstion for the affected freight carrier --- or better yet, to move just a little further in the direction of shared assets and some degree of open access.

The most pertinent Brief Passage from The Times reportage appears to be:

• There is no shortage of projects in search of money. The problem, analysts say, is that Congress, which would create the bank, is not known for its ability to single out strategic priorities for growth. Instead, it traditionally builds broad support by giving a little something to everybody — Montana, for instance, would get a small amount of Amtrak money in return for its support for improvements along the Northeast corridor.
  
  “We don’t prioritize,” Mr. Puentes said. “We take this kind of peanut butter approach of spreading investment dollars around very thinly, without targeting them.”

The Journal simply "glosses over' any Amtrak related issues; Brief Passage:

• Meanwhile, the federally funded infrastructure bank, an idea that has been considered several times in recent years, would invest in projects viewed as critical to the economy, particularly the nation's highway system. The bank might also invest in the nation's bus and rail systems, including an overhaul of Amtrak's train fleet.

All told, with 478 Critters scurrying about with the 'folks back home", in search of keeping their jobs (and the remaining 67 holding 'there but for the grace of God go I"), this is just so much White House Labor Day rhetoric.