Local opinion: ADOT’s passenger rail plan doesn’t track

and analysis of the writer:

About a month ago, I was excited to see a bunch of articles about an intercity train from Tucson to Phoenix, but when I read them, they were just about wasting half a million dollars on a 3-year exploratory committee for the same old diesel technology Amtrak currently uses.

Arizonans, let’s be more ambitious! Following the current state of the art, we should demand electrified infrastructure that supports speeds no slower than 200 mph. The EU, Japan, and yes, especially our archrival China, all have trains running at these speeds or higher. Passengers would be ferried between Tucson and Phoenix in 35-45 minutes on an express train following ADOT’s 159-mile-long yellow route alternative. That’s on par with what my commute from midtown to Roche in Oro Valley used to take.

Yes, the price tag of this project would be more than the current ADOT plan, but the rewards would be immense. Flights out of TIA would drop in price competing with Sky Harbor, and we may even encourage a few more non-stops out of Tucson. I can even see the American Eagle flight being canceled, replaced with a code share on the high-speed rail. Companies in both Tucson and Phoenix would benefit from a combined talent pool, while employees would benefit from more job opportunities and higher wages. Family and friends living between the two cities would be able to enjoy more frequent visits.

I don’t think I have traveled on a more dangerous stretch of road than our section of I-10, and it isn’t getting any safer as our region’s population grows. I know most of us have seen one or both directions closed due to tractor-trailers overturned or major accidents causing hours of delay, sometimes the result of haboobs, strong winds, or torrential monsoon downpours. ADOT’s future traffic predictions, despite planned widenings, anticipate increasing travel times from 1 hour, 45 minutes today (per Google Maps) to an estimated 2 hours, 2 minutes in 2035 and 2 hours, 59 minutes in 2050, almost doubling the time it takes to make the journey today, likely resulting in additional accidents and closures.

How does ADOT propose lessening our time burden? Three times daily Amtrak service with an estimated travel time of 1 hour, 22 minutes from downtown to downtown. Having experienced Amtrak on the East Coast, I find this estimated route time as being very ambitious, especially if any tracks are to be shared with Union Pacific. But let’s give ADOT the benefit of the doubt. Sure, this saves a couple minutes compared to going by car, but you’ll need to add at least 10 minutes at each station. I can’t see myself leaving my car behind for this, that is assuming ADOT finishes their 18 years of planning in 2028 and then maybe buys some trains and installs some tracks.

We must demand high-speed rail and push for a committed source of federal funding to build this infrastructure. Tidbits released over 18 years of studies let all of us down. I want to see development of “in-house” talent when it comes to executing and building projects. America spends far too much on consultants for rail projects because we simply do not have home-grown expertise. As a country, we should ensure that rail projects are less bespoke and focus on design modularity. Let’s make Arizona a trendsetter and an industry power player when it comes to high-speed rail!