Roundtable: U.S. High-Speed Rail Developments

Chris Brady, Vice-Chair, American Public Transportation Association (APTA) Committee on High-Speed and Intercity Passenger Rail, writes:

“In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson remarked at the signing of the High-Speed Ground Transportation Act: “Today, as we meet here […], an astronaut can orbit the earth faster than a man on the ground can get from New York to Washington. Yet, the same science and technology which gave us our airplanes and our space probes, I believe, could also give us better and faster and more economical transportation on the ground. And a lot of us need it more on the ground than we need it orbiting the earth.”

Though the United States has continued to invest in automobile infrastructure in the time since, the country is yet to see true high-speed rail.

While a large proportion of the world has embraced high-speed rail, the United States has lagged in adopting technology that could move passengers safely, efficiently, reliably, and quickly. With unprecedented amounts of federal funding poised for investment in passenger rail, will the United States finally see true high-speed rail?

This roundtable discussion, which I am pleased to moderate, gathers experts from various areas of the U.S. passenger rail industry; members who are knowledgeable, passionate about, and involved in projects advancing high-speed in the U.S. We’ll discuss some of the key/pressing questions that the industry needs to address and aspects to understand about the major benefits of developing true high-speed rail.”

Participants:

• Bruce Armistead, Chief Program Manager, California High-Speed Rail Authority
• Rick Harnish, Executive Director, High Speed Rail Alliance
• Enrico Trapazzo, President and CEO, FS Italian Railways USA Inc.
• Julie White, Deputy Secretary for Multimodal Transportation, North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT)