High-Speed Rail Access Near Interstates Sought

To promote high-speed rail links such as a proposed route between Las Vegas and Anaheim, the federal government must allow private firms to run rail lines along interstate highway rights-of-way, members of Congress were told Thursday.

“The single most important thing the federal government could do for our project is to assure access to the right-of-way alongside interstate and other federally assisted highways,” said Rolfe G. Arnhym, a member of the California-Nevada Super Speed Ground Transportation Commission.

Arnhym, who heads the Palm Springs Chamber of Commerce, testified before the surface transportation subcommittee of the House Public Works and Transportation Committee. The subcommittee is considering legislation that would ease the tight restrictions on the use of federal highway rights of way, especially by private, profit-making concerns.

Proponents argue that high-speed trains, capable of traveling at 300 m.p.h., would ease highway congestion, cut auto pollution, and allow workers to live in less-expensive neighborhoods farther away from city jobs.

In an interview, Arnhym said the extent to which the privately financed, Las Vegas-Anaheim project would make use of routes along interstates is not yet clear. That will largely depend on the location of station sites, which have not yet been selected.

“It’s really a hedge against the future,” Arnhym said. “We’re looking to go well beyond simply a California-to-Nevada link; we’re looking at a network (of high-speed rail connections) in the Pacific Southwest.”

However, Paul Taylor, the commission’s executive director, said in a telephone interview that he expects that the consortium that is selected to build the high-speed rail link will plan to make heavy use of federal highway rights-of-way, especially in the Mojave Desert.

Interstate 15, which runs from San Diego, through Riverside, San Bernardino, Victorville and Barstow before it reaches Las Vegas, is the only federally financed highway that connects the Orange County-Inland Empire region with Nevada.

One consultant has estimated that the Las Vegas-Anaheim line would draw 6.5 million round-trip passengers a year. Fares most likely would be set to compare favorably with airlines. The system could cost as much as $4 billion to build.

Rep. Ron Packard (R-Carlsbad), a subcommittee member who represents southern Orange County, said that permitting rail companies to run high-speed lines adjacent to interstate highways is a key to exploiting the technology.

“Without use of existing rights of way,” Packard said, “high-speed technology would probably be cost prohibitive as a method of daily commuter travel. . . . It is time that we utilize our resources to their greatest extent.”

Current Federal Highway Administration regulations make it difficult for the government to turn over highway rights of way for use by private companies. For example, federal law allows the Department of Transportation to make available rights of way along federally financed highways only to a “publicly owned mass transit authority,” and even then, only if such use would not affect highway safety or future highway improvements.

“As I understand it,” Packard said, “the fact that that private capital is being used (in the Anaheim-Las Vegas project) may prevent this project from using existing rights of way.”