ARLINGTON, Va. — The Federal Railroad Administration is currently evaluating options states could use to build high-speed rail, including ways to encourage multi-state projects, deputy administrator Karen Rae said in an interview yesterday.
| Karen Rae |
While the agency is mum on whether bond issuance would be part of the equation, Rae did reveal yesterday following her remarks at the American Public Transportation Association’s international high-speed rail meeting that California voters’ approval of almost $10 billion of high-speed rail bonds improved the state’s application for American Recovery and Reinvestment Act high-speed rail grant funding.
“California having a $10 billion bond go forward did help” its standing in the application process for ARRA funds, she said. The state was awarded $2.25 billion late last month, to help further its plans for a high-speed rail line between central and southern California.
The grants were highly competitive, with $57 billion of requests and only $8 billion available. Other big winners were Florida and the Midwest. Smaller grants were parceled out across the country.
Meanwhile, Congress has appropriated $2.5 billion to the rail initiative for this fiscal year. President Obama had requested only $1 billion. The president requested $1 billion in this year’s budget as well.
As states weigh their rail financing plans, they should “look at all the tools they have available to them,” Rae said.
The administration plans to lay out a framework or menu of options for states to finance high-speed rail projects, after receiving feedback on its preliminary national rail plan this spring and summer, Rae said. The preliminary plan that was released in October slated regional meetings with stakeholders to be held from March through May.
“As we go forward, we will be looking to leverage our [federal] investments,” she said.
The administration is looking at tools used in other transportation sectors.”
“We will be looking to offer as many opportunities and tools as possible but recognizing that every state has their own principles ... for bonding” and other things, she said.
One criterion the administration plans to use in decisions about development of the national rail network is the “return on investment,” Rae told an audience of private and public rail market participants at the conference.
The return on investment would not be synonymous with a cost-effectiveness analysis that George W. Bush’s administration used to determine funding for new transit projects. Instead, the preliminary rail plan says the Obama administration will weigh economic, environmental, mobility, safety, and livable communities factors, among other things.
The administration is currently looking at whether there is “a better enabling mechanism to encourage and foster multiple-state rail initiatives” for both passenger and freight rail, she said. States can enter into multi-state compacts to do rail projects now, but they can be difficult to pull off partly because “you have to pass identical legislation” in both states, she said. The FRA wants to find a way to make cooperation easier.
