High Speed Rail (Boston to... Texas?)

How utterly disappointing.

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http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/...ia-florida-and-illinois-are-lucky-recipients/
 
It is not completely the choices but the classification of HSR as 79 and above. As this funding stands now, there won't be a single true HSR line built.

I know there needs to be a certain sense of fairness, but i would rather have seen 1-3 true HSR lines, instead of small upgrades to the status quo.

For example (these are just my personal opinions, feel free to disagree/critic my choices):

I would have had the Chicago/Madison line money go to the Seattle/Portland corrider. Also, every Northeast project besides the New Haven Commuter line money could go to Florida. I would have axed the Illinois/Michigan/Indiana money and added it to the Chicago/St. Louis line. Again, IMO i would rather they get the ball rolling on 1-2 true HSR lines and i am willing to sacrifice service improvements in my region for it.

I know HSR won't come overnight, but I would like it to come in my lifetime. $8b isn't even enough to build 1 true corridor. It looks to me like the privately built Desert Xpress is going to be the first true HSR in this country.

Maybe i am just impatient and small upgrades to the status quo will eventually get us there, I just get excited about this stuff and this announcement came as a let down to me. I speak with no knowledge of the current rail situations in the area's i have mention.
 
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If you let private enterprise conceive overnight lines at 65mph, you don't have to spend one red cent on track upgrades or faster locomotives --only sleeping, dining and club cars.

And the freight lines can be the private enterprise in question.

Will these freight lines choose to make their own newly-profitable sleeper trains run late, as they presently do with Amtrak on their lines? You guess.

The moneymaking future's not so much in fast trains. It's in slow trains.
 
That's exactly the system we had before 1970. Except that it didn't work. The private railroads wanted to exit the passenger business as soon as the Interstate Commerce Commission would allow them to. Rolling stock was falling apart, trains were chronically late. The federal government created Amtrak to try to save at least some fraction of the remaining system.
 
Times have changed.

And do you think freight line executives are smart enough to think outside the box? How many of them can think as creatively as Steven Jobs or Richard Branson?

In time, after the Russian success story has been written up a dozen times in U.S. business magazines, a light bulb will go on in some of these dimwits' heads.

After they have their third convention where someone lectures on the topic, they'll boozily exclaim, "Hey, maybe there's something to this after all!"
 
Boston.com - January 28, 2010
When it comes to rail plan, New England not a big winner
January 28, 2010 01:08 PM

By Alan Wirzbicki, Globe Correspondent

WASHINGTON - As the details of President Obama's $8 billion high-speed rail plan emerged today, one thing quickly became clear: New England is not a big winner.

Several applications from the region were rejected, including a $1.9 billion request from Massachusetts to fund the proposed South Coast commuter rail project that would link Boston, Fall River and New Bedford. The state also did not get money it requested for the "inland route" between Boston and Springfield, which would have reduced congestion and raised speeds on the MBTA commuter trains to Worcester. A Maine proposal for track upgrades between Boston and Portland also did not receive funding.

Overall, the six-state region received just under $200 million from the program, or about 2 percent of the total. By comparison, California got $2.35 billion and Illinois received $1.1 billion.

Most of the money destined for New England -- totaling $160 million -- is going to support upgrades on a line between New Haven, Western Massachusetts, and Vermont. Dubbed the "Knowledge Corridor," the project will decrease travel times between Springfield and Vermont, upgrade track, and restore service to Holyoke, Northampton, and Greenfield.

Maine also got $35 million to extend Amtrak's popular Downeaster service from Portland to Brunswick.

John Businger, a former Massachusetts state representative and longtime New England passenger rail advocate, said he hoped there would be more opportunities for the states to win funding.

"I'm disappointed in the sense that I wish it had been approved, but I hope it will go forward in short order," he said. "They need more money. They need more than $8 billion. These projects can't wait."

President Obama is unveiling the grants today in Florida, which is receiving $1.25 billion for a high-speed line between Tampa and Orlando.

The stimulus is the largest-ever federal commitment to high-speed rail, but Obama administration officials have characterized it as merely a down payment on what they hope will become a national system to rival Asia and Europe's.

Congress voted last month to provide another $2.5 billion for high-speed rail, but after that the future of high-speed funding is uncertain. By comparison, European countries have hundreds of billions building their networks; Spain is in the midst of building a high-speed network and plans to spend about 100 billion euros, or $140 billion, by 2020.
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I've always described myself as a democrat, primarily due to social issues. Economics are harder to understand. But does anyone else think that this federal money should be used to fund major, interstate HSR lines, as opposed to a bunch of smaller, intrastate or regional lines? That should be funded by the states, if they have the money. If not, then you know what? Sucks.

I'm very glad that St. Louis to Chicago is being upgraded, as well as to Kansas City. Those lines, as they stand today, are awful. Worse, they're in high demand.

But how about connecting Chicago and New York?

I won't try to understand it, because it's all above me. I'm rarely any good at picking up in the middle and improving something, in my view, the entire rail system in the US needs a revolution. Be that privatization, a balance of HSR and low-speed overnighters, or more federal money, I don't know. But something big has to change.
 
kennedy said:
...the entire rail system in the US needs a revolution. Be that privatization, a balance of HSR and low-speed overnighters, or more federal money, I don't know. But something big has to change.
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All of the above.
 
kennedy said:
I've always described myself as a democrat, primarily due to social issues. Economics are harder to understand. But does anyone else think that this federal money should be used to fund major, interstate HSR lines, as opposed to a bunch of smaller, intrastate or regional lines? That should be funded by the states, if they have the money. If not, then you know what? Sucks.
...
But how about connecting Chicago and New York?
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The kind of small rail upgrades they're making won't really be competive enough with airlines beyond a certain range, so it doesn't make sense to develop longer lines.

I won't try to understand it, because it's all above me. I'm rarely any good at picking up in the middle and improving something, in my view, the entire rail system in the US needs a revolution. Be that privatization, a balance of HSR and low-speed overnighters, or more federal money, I don't know. But something big has to change.
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Definitely not privatization. Amtrak was created in the 70s because private passenger rail service couldn't survive when put up against airlines, which were both faster and heavily subsidized. The UK re-privatized its rail system in the 80s with what are widely regarded to be disastrous consequences, and it's a country that's much more amenable to rail.
 
czsz said:
The kind of small rail upgrades they're making won't really be competive enough with airlines beyond a certain range, so it doesn't make sense to develop longer lines.
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HSR could easily overtake airlines on routes like BOS - NYC, STL - CHI, etc. It's just that all that money spent on lines between minor regional cities could have been spent on a more substantial line between two bigger cities, and would be used by more people.
 
kennedy said:
HSR could easily overtake airlines on routes like BOS - NYC, STL - CHI, etc. It's just that all that money spent on lines between minor regional cities could have been spent on a more substantial line between two bigger cities, and would be used by more people.
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this ^.


The more i think of it, Florida HSR is going to be a disaster in its current implementation. This is extremely dangerous because it will set a bad precedent as being an over expensive waste of taxpayer money and unnecessary.

No downtown Orlando. People will only be taking the train to rent a car on the other end? You need to start somewhere, but this wasn't the place IMO. I would rather see the money allocated to creating inner city light rail at both locals.

The only people i can see this benefiting is tourists heading to Disney, which ironically enough you probably won't need a car for!
 
palindrome said:
The more i think of it, Florida HSR is going to be a disaster in its current implementation. This is extremely dangerous because it will set a bad precedent as being an over expensive waste of taxpayer money and unnecessary.
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Exactly.

palindrome said:
The only people i can see this benefiting is tourists heading to Disney, which ironically enough you probably won't need a car for!
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Why would it do even that? Look at the map: how many tourists are heading to Disney on this rail line? The population of Tampa? And how many Disney tourists from elsewhere (99%) are really interested in a nice detour to Tampa? And how did they get to Orlando in the first place?

For the reasons you've given, this seems worse than idiotic.
 
HSR could easily overtake airlines on routes like BOS - NYC, STL - CHI, etc. It's just that all that money spent on lines between minor regional cities could have been spent on a more substantial line between two bigger cities, and would be used by more people.
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Yeah, in theory. But you're being radically optimistic about what kind of HSR it would be. The only US precedent, Acela, competes with airlines for Boston-NYC and NYC-DC traffic, but not really for Boston-DC through traffic, because it's not up to TGV speeds. You'd have to lay new track or substantially upgrade track between NYC and Chicago, probably buying it out from under the freight companies, who won't let it go or won't do so cheaply, to get a really competitive HSR line going on that route.

Why would it do even that? Look at the map: how many tourists are heading to Disney on this rail line? The population of Tampa? And how many Disney tourists from elsewhere (99%) are really interested in a nice detour to Tampa? And how did they get to Orlando in the first place?
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Actually the I-4 is one of the most heavily trafficked interstates in the US, and a fairly dense population corridor for Florida. There's a lot of travel between the two cities - tourists going from Disney to the beach, perhaps, or vice versa, or flying into the Tampa airport for a trip to Disney, which I think has become a popular budget option. Tampa also has a major naval base and there's lots of traffic to the amusement parks from disembarking soldiers, I'm sure.

So the routing isn't ridiculous in theory. But in implementation, it's a disaster - because there's no rail-oriented development tie-in. And the choice of Florida is abysmal, because even if there were a stop in downtown Orlando, it's not like it's the heart of a transit-oriented city; it would probably be a slightly less but still mostly park and ride facility. And the towns along the way are almost completely undifferentiated sprawl. There's very little incentive to not drive in this part of the US, overall.

I actually wonder how much the Florida choice was politically motivated. Florida is always a crucial swing state, and getting more stimulus shovels in the ground there might swing voters. And the I-4 is always hotly contested territory in presidential elections, which explains why it was favored over, say, a Florida East Coast link or a Miami - Tampa one.
 
Are there any examples internationally of high quality rail service being provided between lower density, auto-oriented cities of the type the represent many of our largest metro areas (Houston, Dallas, Phoenix, Tampa, Orlando, etc.)? It seems like rail's chief advantage is that it takes you from downtown to downtown. But other than in maybe 10 US cities, downtowns either don't have the critical mass of residential or business density, or they don't have a quality transit service feeding it, or both.

And once you get into rail-friendly city pairs that are more than 300 miles apart, it becomes very hard for rail to compete. For example, a quick search turns up numerous options for flights between NY and Chicago for under $200. Roundtrip Acela service between Boston and NY is usually $200+, suggesting roundtrip rail fares b/w NY and Chicago would be at least twice as high as airfare. On the flight I'm in the air for about 100 minutes. Even with all of the hassles on either end its a much shorter trip than on a train.

The drinking on the train thing does sound attractive, but why not take the several hours and $200 or so you'd save by flying, and get to Chicago the night before your meeting and drink in a real bar, in a real neighborhood?
 
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