In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed a law — the High-Speed Ground Transportation Act — that seemed to pave the way for a national high-speed rail system in the United States. “An astronaut can orbit the earth faster than a man on the ground can get from New York to Washington,” he lamented at the time. Sixty years later, it still takes about three hours to travel between the two cities — a period about twice as long as a single orbit of the International Space Station.
High-speed rail in the United States is still years away. But projects across the country, from Washington State to Texas, suggest a growing enthusiasm for faster train service. These efforts are relatively modest in size, proposing to connect two or three cities at a time. But that may be precisely what makes them feasible.
Under the Trump administration, high-speed rail is unlikely to receive additional support from the federal government. “There should be a federal program,” said Rick Harnish, executive director of the High Speed Rail Alliance. “But in the current circumstances, states need to do what they can on their own.”
High-speed rail 101
Andy Kunz, president of the U.S. High Speed Rail Association, estimates that only about two dozen countries across the world now have high-speed rail, which he said typically refers to train systems that go at least 186 miles an hour. Almost all of them are in Western Europe or East Asia. The only high-speed rail in Africa is the Al-Boraq in Morocco. There is no high-speed rail in the Americas yet.
Ordinary tracks cannot simply be repurposed for high-speed rail, Mr. Kunz explained. The speeds involved require a “sealed corridor” with grade separation — features like overpasses and underpasses that prevent cars and pedestrians from having to cross in front of a bullet train. A high-speed train can’t nimbly wend its way through the landscape — it needs long straightaways, gradual slopes and gentle turns.