Life at the Speed of Rail seeks the visions of the architectural design community, planners, graphic designers, artists—anyone who wants to contribute to the discussion surrounding high-speed rail.

At a time when politicians are debating billion-dollar transportation projects, Van Alen Institute is taking the conversation to the public. American culture is driven by colorful narratives and imagery, yet the story of high-speed rail has been told in black and white, with facts and figures (or drab maps and speeding bullet trains). It’s clear a broader vision is needed to add complexity and depth to this national discussion, and Life at the Speed of Rail is designed to offer just that.

Above all, high-speed rail poses an urgent design challenge—one calling for creative solutions at every scale, from the café car to the megaregion. In this Call for Design Ideas, entrants are asked to produce projects and narratives picturing the wide-ranging impacts that a new transportation network will have on the nation’s communities, whether urban or rural, rail-riding or car-centric, heartland or borderland. By collecting these ideas and images of a transformed America—be they specific, pragmatic, or speculative—we’ll better understand the hopes and fears of our current moment and be better equipped to decide whether and how we build this new infrastructure.

What might these visionary ideas look like?

Life at the Speed of Rail calls for participants to produce projects and scenarios that engage high-speed rail at all scales — architectural, metropolitan, regional, national. Participants may decide to tackle one or more of these scales and produce projects that reimagine the high-speed train itself, the section of the railway line, the design of crossings and intersections, the form and program of railway terminals, the graphic identity of the high-speed rail network, and so on.

We invite architects to imagine new rail modes, new infrastructures, new cities and social spaces. We want landscape architects to picture rail paradigms that embrace topography, ecology or sustainability. Urban planners, convince us that high-speed rail will rejuvenate your downtown or launch a new sub-suburban geography. Graphic, product or interactive media designers, put your talents to work reimagining the brand of high-speed rail or create apps to facilitate better train travel. If you’re a filmmaker, show us a “documentary” from the future about how the US met or failed to respond to the infrastructural challenges we’re facing. Writers and poets, craft a critique (or hymn) for high-speed rail, or fire off a transportation manifesto. Or best of all, get together in teams that reach across all disciplinary boundaries!

Image library

In the past the American government supported programs, such as the Depression-era Works Progress Administration, to create a visual record of changing American life. The result was a catalogue of iconic images of the Depression’s impact and America’s expanding infrastructure. Life at the Speed of Rail’s simple format and local emphasis empowers all Americans to show what a new transportation system would mean for their community’s future. 

A selection of entries will form the foundation of an image library — a resource for print and online media seeking better ways of illustrating and analyzing infrastructure needs. Through its engagement with a diverse set of contributors contemplating all scales of high-speed rail’s impact, the competition leverages the design community’s creativity to inform the infrastructure debate.

Awards & Public Discussions

Van Alen Institute and the fellows will select 10 of the most inspiring and thought-provoking entries and award them $1,000 each; a broad selection of entries will receive honorable mention and inclusion in an online exhibition and print publication. During the summer, the advisory committee will curate the submissions and discuss them with winning entrants in a series of public discussions hosted at partner organizations located in contested high-speed rail megaregions around the country.

Two weeks later, Vice President Joe Biden announced that the government will spend $53 billion over the next six years on high-speed rail construction and passenger rail maintenance. The federal government’s position is clear: it wants high-speed rail to be a big part of the country’s 21st-century transportation infrastructure.

But what will high-speed rail (HSR) mean for Americans? While HSR has been a prominent feature of European and Asian transportation for decades, the United States currently has just one HSR line: the 150-mph Acela Express line, which runs between Boston and Washington, D.C. Although the Acela Express transports fewer than 9,000 people per day, other HSR projects around the world are much more integrated and popular. The latest HSR line in China is estimated to transport 220,000 people a day between Shanghai and Beijing — more than all the passengers that fly through the world’s busiest airport in Atlanta each day.

The American HSR initiative aims to increase passenger numbers, train speed and eventually build rail infrastructure in eleven megaregions around the country. But more than speed movement, HSR has a host of other impacts from shifting the identity of American transportation to reconfiguring how that transit gets funded.

Some urban planners see HSR’s potential to enhance regional planning. A new rail network, oriented around the country’s most populous regions, could revolutionize how cities are connected within regions and alter where and how people choose to live and work. By shifting demand to transit corridors, rail may curb sprawl in some areas and spark development in new areas. Skeptics claim that HSR is not the appropriate planning tool for some parts of the country, where low density and dominant car use make its popularity less likely. They remind rail advocates that HSR is not a one-size-fits-all infrastructure.

Sustainability is another national priority in the 21st century, and HSR is touted for saving millions of car trips and short-haul flights. Driving as currently practiced fails to account for externalities such as carbon emissions, congestion, dependence on foreign oil and the costly maintenance of highways. With several states facing untenable budgets, highway infrastructure reaching its obsolescence point in the coming decades, and some kind of carbon trading framework increasingly likely, these externalities are unlikely to be ignored forever. A richer rail network may emerge out of necessity, rather than choice.

But building high-speed rail isn’t cheap; in fact, some estimates show that it’s about 20 times more expensive than paving highways. HSR critics suggest that high-speed trains are economically unsustainable for the country; in Florida, Governor Rick Scott recently canceled an HSR project that would have connected Tampa with Orlando, claiming that the state could not afford to pay its portion of the rail line’s cost. Editorials published in The Washington Post and other periodicals have criticized the fact that high-speed rail requires billions in subsidies (although they often fail to compare rail subsidies to those for highways and the automobile industry). Moreover, pundits and the public alike have lamented the cost of a high-speed train ticket. The average price of a one-way ticket on the new California line is expected to be $105; as the passenger numbers on the Acela Express suggest, many people cannot afford the fastest trains. Lastly, local officials have questioned whether it makes sense to invest billions on high-speed rail rather than improve local transit projects, which would affect a greater number of people every day and ostensibly better achieve the environmental goal of getting people out of cars and on to trains.

Questions about American transportation policy will be at the forefront of politics this summer as Congress debates the long-expired federal transportation reauthorization bill — an omnibus package that sets the funding and strategy for transportation over the next six years. But while much of the conversation about HSR has been full of statistics and political ideology, it has been devoid of the design community’s input and vision. A few tired maps show where rail should be implemented, but these images fail to address the transformations that HSR could bring to social, economic, cultural and environmental contexts.

What does it mean to embark on such a transformation of American infrastructure? What will the consequences of HSR look like, in terms of cities or rural places, new trains and old ones, local economies and global connectivity? What will it mean if economic and political obstacles prevent HSR from becoming a reality? It’s the design community’s turn to synthesize and envision the impacts of this technology.

CORRIDORS/MEGAREGIONS

(Image: US DOT Federal Railroad Administration)

ALTERNATIVE VISIONS

(Image: US High Speed Rail Association)

(Image: America 2050)

PASSENGER RAIL HISTORY

Rand McNally Passenger Rail Map from 1897 (Source: Library of Congress)

US Passenger Rail in 1962 (Image: National Association of Railway Passengers)

22,000 Route Miles: Amtrak Passenger Rail Service in 2007 (Image: National Association of Railway Passengers)

FREIGHT

US Freight Rail Network (Image: Association of American Railroads)

Projected 2035 Train Volumes Relative to Current Capacity (Image: Association of American Railroads)

CITY TRANSIT

(Image: Van Alen Institute; Data Source: National Transit Database)

An occasional point of HSR criticism is the perceived lack of public transit availability upon reaching an arrival city. The indicated cities above have existing light, heavy or commuter rail systems already in place and most medium and large US cities have extensive public bus networks.

FUNDING STATUS

High-Speed Intercity Passenger Rail Program

FUNDING HISTORY

(Image: Van Alen Institute; Data Source: US DOT Federal Railroad Administration

Historically, the vast majority of federal funding has been focused on highway and aviation systems with just 3 percent dedicated to intercity passenger rail in the year prior to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Additionally, federal rail funds prior to 2009 have come from annual appropriations and served almost exclusively to cover Amtrak’s capital needs and operating deficits with little long-term investment into improved technology or service.

TRANSPORTATION MODES

(Image: Van Alen Institute; Data Source: US DOT, Association of American Railroads, and US DOT RITA National Travel Survey)

Intercity miles traveled by automotive and airline passengers parallels federal investment trends with substantial growth observed since the 1950s.

PASSENGER COSTS

(Image: Van Alen Institute; Data Source: US Department of Energy, US Department of Labor: Bureau of Labor Statistics)

All forms of transportation balance personal costs with public infrastructure investment, whether highways, airports, railways or sidewalks. And since each mode of transportation is subsidized differently, costs to the end consumer can be difficult to compare. Fuel costs for instance are typically lower per person for rail than automobiles, but such statistics seldom acknowledge that most passenger rail and virtually all high-speed rail use electricity. As the price of oil fluctuates, so does the relative cost of driving to rail travel. Such costs are important to consider as the average household spends 17.4 percent of their income on transportation, second only to housing – and nearly as much on cars alone as on food.

HIGHWAYS

(Image: Van Alen Institute; Data Source: US DOT Federal Highway Administration)

At about 6.5 million miles, the United States has more roadways than anyone (India, second, has 3.3 million). The Interstate Highway system established under the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956 by President Eisenhower and other roadways under the National Highway system (image above) total 160,000 miles and are located within 5 miles of 90 percent of the US population.

CONGESTION

(Image: Van Alen Institute; Data Source: US DOT Federal Highway Administration)

CONGESTED CITIES: 1982: Los Angeles 2005: Seattle, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, Phoenix, Tucson, Denver, Dallas, Austin, Houston, Minneapolis-St.Paul, Chicago, Indianapolis, Louisville, Nashville, Orlando, Tampa, Miami, Atlanta, Charlotte, Washington DC, Baltimore, Detroit, New York, Boston.

In 1982 the only city considered by the Texas Transportation Institute to be congested was Los Angeles. By 2005, 27 additional cities met such criteria. The image at left illustrates that much of the National Highway System, even on intercity routes, is anticipated to be congested during peak periods by 2035 without significant infrastructural improvements. Many suggest that the system may be reaching a critical mass and that increased capacity won’t be enough to relieve congestion. For more info, see TTI’s website (link at bottom of page).

AIRWAYS

(Image: Van Alen Institute; Data Source: America 2050)

Short-haul flights, those under 400 miles, have actually been in decline since the 1990s even while overall air travel has increased. Most of the decline is attributed to higher fares and longer pre-boarding wait times. While telecommuting may be contributing to some decline, increased demand for longer flights at a time when some airports are nearing capacity is an added source of pressure.

SUSTAINABILITY

(Image: Van Alen Institute; Data Source: International Union of Railways)

On a per-passenger basis, high-speed rail is the most sustainable form of long-haul transportation in terms of energy efficiency. It uses one-third the energy of a plane ride and one-fifth the energy of a car ride. The California high-speed rail system aims to be powered by 100 percent renewable energy, reduce sprawl in the state by supporting transit-oriented development, and eliminate 12 billion pounds of CO2 emissions annually.

SOURCES

Federal Railroad Administration
US High Speed Rail Associations
America 2050
Library of Congress
National Association of Railway Passengers
Association of American Railroads
National Transit Database
US Department of Energy
US Department of Labor: Bureau of Labor Statistics
US DOT Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA)
US DOT Federal Highway Administration
Texas Transportation Institute
International Union of Railways
California High-Speed Rail Authority

The entry fee is $30 per submission and includes a complimentary membership to Van Alen Institute (one per entry fee). Entrants (individuals or teams) may submit up to three entries, each with a $30 entry fee. All entries must be submitted between March 21 and May 21, 2011 6pm EST. Entries that are late will not be considered (please plan ahead accordingly).

RULES

Open to anyone, anywhere, in any discipline; however, submission text must be in English. In submitting an entry, entrants warrant that the material is their original work, does not infringe upon copyright law, and that they have permission to publish the material. Entrants (whether individuals or teams) may submit up to three separate entries, each accompanied by a separate entry fee.

Submission Format

Projects must be delivered either as a single image or a short video at: http://vanaleninstitute.submishmash.com No mailed submissions will be accepted. Single images may be poster size or smaller, 24” x 36” maximum; any orientation; JPG or PDF format; 10 MB max file size. Videos may be HD or smaller, 1920 x 1080 pixels max; MOV format; 120 seconds max length; 25 MB max file size.

Images and videos may be reduced in resolution or compressed to meet file size limitations, but must be submitted in the required formats (no zip files). All submissions will be judged in their on-screen format. However, winning entrants will be asked to provide their work in original, high-resolution format (300 dpi or greater) for publication and exhibition purposes.

ANONYMITY

The submissions will be judged anonymously and the entrant’s name should not appear anywhere on the submission.

TEXT

A text statement of no more than 250 words explaining the project’s concept and design intent should be included in the cover letter section of the submission form.

OWNERSHIP

Van Alen Institute shall retain ownership of all prize-winning design submissions. Entrants acknowledge that Van Alen Institute may exhibit all entries in an online gallery, and a selection of entries may be chosen for physical exhibition and/or public display. Van Alen Institute will make reasonable effort to notify entrants of any public exhibitions of their work through correspondence with the registered contact. In entering the design competition, entrants grant Van Alen Institute unrestricted license to exercise the entrants’ rights regarding their design submissions, including, but not limited to, reproduction, preparation of derivative works, distribution of copies of the design submission, and the right to authorize such use by others.

ANNOUNCEMENT, DISPLAYS, AND PUBLICATION OF RESULTS

In entering the competition, the registrant and all team members recognize the competition’s program as the intellectual property of Van Alen Institute and agree to credit the organization by name in any subsequent exhibition or publication of the project. Entrants will be credited on all online and print material published by the organizers of the competition.

Questions?

Don’t forget to check out our Questions & Answers sections of the website for additional information.