Funding Strategies and Project Costs for State-Supported Intercity Passenger Rail: Selected Case Studies and Cost Data (0-4723-1)

This report documents an investigation into project costs and funding strategies that U.S. states and coalitions of states use to fund intercity passenger rail projects. Four states (California, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Virginia) and one multi-state corridor (the Pacific Northwest Corridor in Washington and Oregon) with documented histories of funding intercity passenger rail projects were selected for in-depth review. Factors that were considered in the case studies included: state-level funding sources, project costs, and estimated costs for future projects. A secondary goal of this research was to develop project cost analysis tools, such as a cost-per-mile index, for use by state rail planners in evaluating proposed intercity passenger rail projects. The research team concluded that the development of universally applicable cost-per-mile indices for intercity rail was infeasible at present due to the great number of variables involved in rail construction and the relatively small sample size of recent, comparable projects. Variables involved include project-specific factors such as terrain type, drainage requirements, regional labor and material costs, signalization and communication upgrade requirements, and the condition/track classification/traffic levels of existing infrastructure. As a result, researchers developed example project cost data and model cost ranges by project type.