If You Were God/Goddess | Transit & Infrastructure Sandbox

[Delvin4519]

Don't have time to do one of my customary long analyses but, @Delvin4519, you might find this interesting: Boston, Massachusetts 1909: Suggested Ultimate Development of Steam Railroad Systems, Plate II

Full-res version on page 171 (of the viewer, not original work) here, with additional details starting on page 114, including counts of mainline inbound trains during morning rush:

(For those wondering, this is a 1908 concept for a North South Rail Link, similar to the hypothetical one I discuss in my blogpost here, and which figures in to Delvin's hypothetical maps upthread.)

99 mainline trains entering the city between 8 and 9 a.m. (doesn't even include trains departing the city).

Seems like it's counting both northbound and southbound side for 99 inbound trains (39 at the north and 55 at the south), and 4 tracks to get from one side of the city to the other, which is pretty close to the maximum of 44 tph through a quad track mainline tunnel. (If the B & RB & L RR was counted on the northside that'd reduce the north-south imbalance to 45-55)

I'm kinda surprised that the Fairmount Line (Midland division), and the B & A each carried 10 tph. Waltham also similarly sees ~ 10 tph, but is split between north and south Waltham. The Eastern RR and Saugus also had 10 tph.

This means Allston-Brighton once had trains every 6 minutes during rush hour, and the decline of the B & A plus the rise of the Mass Pike has left Allston-Brighton with a slow, clunky, dinky bus shuttle that connects to a snail rail tunnel downtown.

Here's my unusual hot take, the B & A subway to Newton Corner isn't a rapid transit extension. The B & A subway is a rapid transit restoration. A restoration of high frequency rapid transit to Allston-Brighton not seen since the early 1900s. This time, with signficantly expanded off peak service and new service to Boston Landing and Beacon Yards that did not exist back then.

I'm also seeing a historical proposal for 160 tph on page 117 (page 132 of the viewer), which is a roughly 60% increase of the levels had at the time.

On another related note, I've also made a handful of changes to the fantasy frequent network map that was initially in the fantasy T maps thread, that accompanies this absurd "mainline rapid transit network" concept (still relies on a huge capacity expansion on top of the 1908 NSRL concept, since it's just that absurd/insane --- so many railroad branches radiating out from a single point or two in downtown, plus the fantasy to send 11-12 tph to all BERy stations and Lynn/Quincy/Waltham). I mostly made it in response to the post in the General MBTA thread that said how "15 minutes isn't good enough, bad by international standards" , and the fact that the Nubian terminal was literally the only terminal without a rapid transit hookup). The maps essentially explore the "transit land grab", "mainline railway ROWs" vs. "surface routes", and the "excess bus running to rapid transit terminals" vs. "cutting buses back to outlying rapid transit terminals" concepts and tinker around with them quite a bit.

Spoiler: Improved 2nd versions of my fantasy frequent network maps from the fantasy maps thread

Easiest way to get a project built was to ask engineers from 100 years ago to do it at the costs of the time lol... Read wikipedia and it was like "In 1909, it was decided that a four mile subway would be built. The plans were drawn up and it was dug over the course of two years by several local workers under a major street." Now open the GLX wikipedia article and compare!

Ah yes, the ultimate "ideas so bad they're good" post. It's literally the "transit land grab" era of the time to grab (unclaimed) land to build out rapid transit between 1835 and 1935, whether it's through mainline railroad ROWs or rapid transit tunnels, which is essentially the rapid transit infrastructure we are mostly stuck with today. Places like Brighton Center and Vinnin Square are essentially stuck with local bus connections to connect with rapid transit, since the transit ROWs were never claimed in order to serve areas like these with front door service. (There was a 2nd post from F-line I wanted to quote (something to do with a BLX wild detour from Lynn terminal around Lynn, unrelated to Vinnin Square IIRC) but I can't find it right now, I'll edit this post if I find it again).

Just imagine if a subway was built to Nubian Square instead of an El back in the early 1900s (as my fantasy map was edited to add). Perhaps there would still be rapid transit to Nubian like how Harvard still has its rapid transit today,

 

[Charlie_mta]

Easiest way to get a project built was to ask engineers from 100 years ago to do it at the costs of the time lol... Read wikipedia and it was like "In 1909, it was decided that a four mile subway would be built. The plans were drawn up and it was dug over the course of two years by several local workers under a major street." Now open the GLX wikipedia article and compare!

Yeah, we've definitely regressed in that regard.

 

[cats10000]

99 mainline trains entering the city between 8 and 9 a.m. (doesn't even include trains departing the city).

Seems like it's counting both northbound and southbound side for 99 inbound trains (39 at the north and 55 at the south), and 4 tracks to get from one side of the city to the other, which is pretty close to the maximum of 44 tph through a quad track mainline tunnel. (If the B & RB & L RR was counted on the northside that'd reduce the north-south imbalance to 45-55)

I'm kinda surprised that the Fairmount Line (Midland division), and the B & A each carried 10 tph. Waltham also similarly sees ~ 10 tph, but is split between north and south Waltham. The Eastern RR and Saugus also had 10 tph.

This means Allston-Brighton once had trains every 6 minutes during rush hour, and the decline of the B & A plus the rise of the Mass Pike has left Allston-Brighton with a slow, clunky, dinky bus shuttle that connects to a snail rail tunnel downtown.

Here's my unusual hot take, the B & A subway to Newton Corner isn't a rapid transit extension. The B & A subway is a rapid transit restoration. A restoration of high frequency rapid transit to Allston-Brighton not seen since the early 1900s. This time, with signficantly expanded off peak service and new service to Boston Landing and Beacon Yards that did not exist back then.

I'm also seeing a historical proposal for 160 tph on page 117 (page 132 of the viewer), which is a roughly 60% increase of the levels had at the time.

View attachment 50959

On another related note, I've also made a handful of changes to the fantasy frequent network map that was initially in the fantasy T maps thread, that accompanies this absurd "mainline rapid transit network" concept (still relies on a huge capacity expansion on top of the 1908 NSRL concept, since it's just that absurd/insane --- so many railroad branches radiating out from a single point or two in downtown, plus the fantasy to send 11-12 tph to all BERy stations and Lynn/Quincy/Waltham). I mostly made it in response to the post in the General MBTA thread that said how "15 minutes isn't good enough, bad by international standards" , and the fact that the Nubian terminal was literally the only terminal without a rapid transit hookup). The maps essentially explore the "transit land grab", "mainline railway ROWs" vs. "surface routes", and the "excess bus running to rapid transit terminals" vs. "cutting buses back to outlying rapid transit terminals" concepts and tinker around with them quite a bit.

Spoiler: Improved 2nd versions of my fantasy frequent network maps from the fantasy maps thread

View attachment 51062
View attachment 51296
View attachment 50967

Ah yes, the ultimate "ideas so bad they're good" post. It's literally the "transit land grab" era of the time to grab (unclaimed) land to build out rapid transit between 1835 and 1935, whether it's through mainline railroad ROWs or rapid transit tunnels, which is essentially the rapid transit infrastructure we are mostly stuck with today. Places like Brighton Center and Vinnin Square are essentially stuck with local bus connections to connect with rapid transit, since the transit ROWs were never claimed in order to serve areas like these with front door service. (There was a 2nd post from F-line I wanted to quote (something to do with a BLX wild detour from Lynn terminal around Lynn, unrelated to Vinnin Square IIRC) but I can't find it right now, I'll edit this post if I find it again).

Just imagine if a subway was built to Nubian Square instead of an El back in the early 1900s (as my fantasy map was edited to add). Perhaps there would still be rapid transit to Nubian like how Harvard still has its rapid transit today,

Imagine if we had all of this: https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search?f[collection_name_ssim][]=Massachusetts+Board+of+Railroad+Commissioners&f[institution_name_ssi][]=State+Library+of+Massachusetts&f[related_item_series_ssi][]=Maps&only_path=true

 

[tysmith95]

Not really a transit pitch, but could they redevelop/demolish the Xfinity Center and put a similar amphitheater in one of the Gillette Stadium parking lots.

Driving in and out of that place is (Mansfield/Great Woods) is absolute hell, and it would be so much better if they could put it in Gillette and run event trains to and from.

I can't think of a worse event venue in the area lol.

 

[DominusNovus]

I figure the sandbox thread is the best place for this, but I’d be happy to move it elsewhere. I’m doing a bit of creative writing, just for my own edification.

Its the year AD 2124 (yes, just doing the lazy futurism thing of projecting out 100 years). The Boston-Washington Megalopolis (present population about 50 million) has grown to over 100 million, giving the region a population density closer to Taiwan.

What sort of transit system would you design for this region? You’ve got the full support of the states involved, and you started in AD 2074 - 50 years to build it out.

 

[Charlie_mta]

I figure the sandbox thread is the best place for this, but I’d be happy to move it elsewhere. I’m doing a bit of creative writing, just for my own edification.

Its the year AD 2124 (yes, just doing the lazy futurism thing of projecting out 100 years). The Boston-Washington Megalopolis (present population about 50 million) has grown to over 100 million, giving the region a population density closer to Taiwan.

What sort of transit system would you design for this region? You’ve got the full support of the states involved, and you started in AD 2074 - 50 years to build it out.

High speed electrified rail between all large, medium sized, and smaller hub cities, quiet elevated transit system rail (and tunnels where absolutely necessary) in and around every large and medium sized metro area, electric and non-electric bikes on demand for commuter/pleasure travel plus first/last mile travel connecting with transit, a comprehensive network of multi-use paths and protected bike lanes, self-driving cars on demand, a robust freight rail system, and bus transit always located on exclusive bus lanes and busways feeding the rail transit lines.

In other words, what we should already have today (except for the self-driving cars not yet developed) and to an extent, what we actually once did have 100 years ago prior to the rise of the automobile, the freight truck, and auto-centric suburban sprawl.

 

[bigeman312]

I figure the sandbox thread is the best place for this, but I’d be happy to move it elsewhere. I’m doing a bit of creative writing, just for my own edification.

Its the year AD 2124 (yes, just doing the lazy futurism thing of projecting out 100 years). The Boston-Washington Megalopolis (present population about 50 million) has grown to over 100 million, giving the region a population density closer to Taiwan.

What sort of transit system would you design for this region? You’ve got the full support of the states involved, and you started in AD 2074 - 50 years to build it out.

Northeast Corridor

A high-speed trunk line with as fast and frequent of service as would be possible at that time making the following stops:

South Station (Express and Local)

Back Bay (Express and Local)

Route 128 (Local)

Providence (Express and Local)

Kingston (Local)

New London (Local)

New Haven (Express and Local)

Stamford (Local)

New Rochelle (Local)

New York Penn (Express and Local)

Newark Penn (Express and Local)

Newark Airport (Local)

Metropark (Local)

Trenton (Local)

Philly 30th Street (Express and Local)

Wilmington (Local)

Baltimore (Express and Local)

BWI (Express and Local)

New Carrollton (Local)

DC (Express and Local)

For the sake of this experiment, let’s assume Express trains run 6 tph at peak and average 250 mph end-to-end and the Local trains run 6 tph at peak and average 200 mph end-to-end. That gives you service every five minutes at the major stations and every ten minutes at the local stations. Travel time would be 1 hour, 50 minutes from Boston to DC on an express train and 2 hours, 15 minutes on a local train.

Toronto & Chicago Long-Distance

The next layer off of that would be longer distance service to the west between the BosWash major cities and Chicago/Toronto. For example, from
Boston I’d imagine the following stops:

Boston - Chicago	Boston - Toronto
South Station	South Station
Back Bay	Back Bay
Worcester	Lansdowne
Springfield	Framingham
Pittsfield	Worcester
Albany	Springfield
Schenectady	Pittsfield
Utica	Albany
Syracuse	Schenectady
Rochester	Utica
Buffalo	Syracuse
Erie	Rochester
Cleveland	Buffalo
Sandusky	Niagara Falls, NY
Toledo	Niagara Falls, ON
Bryan	St Catherines
Waterloo	Aldershot
Elkhart	Bronte
South Bend	Oakville
Chicago	Toronto

For the sake of this experiment, let’s assume trains run 5 tph at peak each and average 180 mph end-to-end. That gives you service every six minutes at the combo stations (South Station, Back Bay, Worcester, Springfield, Pittsfield, etc) and every 12 minutes at the Toronto locals (Landsdowne, Framingham, etc). Assume similar service patterns for the NYC, DC (or any other) bound trains. Travel time from
Boston would be 5.5 hours to Chicago and 3.5 hours to Toronto.

Layered Northeast Corridor Satellite Service

The next layer down would be overlapping service to satellite cities with more local stops. I could see many routes fitting this mold. For example:

• Hartford <-> Philly via NYC
• Portland <-> Providence via Boston NSRL
• Portland <-> Hartford via Boston NSRL

There are many others I can think of, for example trains serving Virginia Beach, Richmond, the Lehigh Valley, Albany, Harrisburg, etc. For the three prototypes I listed, station stops on these three could be:

Hartford - Philly	Portland - Providence	Portland - Hartford
Hartford	Portland	Portland
Berlin	Old Orchard Beach	Old Orchard Beach
Meriden	Saco	Saco
Wallingford	Wells	Wells
New Haven	Dover	Dover
Bridgeport	Durham	Durham
Stamford	Exeter	Exeter
Greenwich	Haverhill	Haverhill
Larchmont	Woburn	Woburn
New Rochelle	North Station	North Station
New York Penn	South Station	South Station
Secaucus Junction	Back Bay	Back Bay
Newark Penn	Ruggles	Lansdowne
Newark Airport	Route 128	Framingham
Metropark	Canton Junction	Ashland
New Brunswick	Sharon	Worcester
Princeton Junction	Mansfield	Springfield
Trenton	Attleboro	Windsor Locks
Cornwells Heights	Pawtucket/Central Falls	Windsor
Philly 30th Street	Providence	Hartford

Let’s assume these “satellite service” trains run 4 tph at peak and average 160 mph end-to-end. That would mean throughout the Northeast Corridor you’d have service like this with, for example, trains every 15 minutes or better at peak at all stops (with many having double that service). Portland to Providence would take about 1 hour, 10 minutes. Portland to Boston would take about 55 minutes.

 

[DominusNovus]

High speed electrified rail between all large, medium sized, and smaller hub cities, quiet elevated transit system rail (and tunnels where absolutely necessary) in and around every large and medium sized metro area,

Lets dig into this one. What does that look like? Do we get something like
- regional rail linking smaller cities to the network
- high speed rail connecting medium cities to the network
- maglev vacuum trains for the largest cities
(remember, this is AD 2124)

@bigeman312 sorta hit the nail on the head while I was typing!

 

[AndrewOnTheMBTA]

This has been one brewing for a bit, which I'm not sure if anyone has gone through. This only fits in this thread, in my opinion - a median-(concrete?) pole-supported elevated (some points with w poles on sides) rail (similar type rolling stock to K/Crenshaw line in LA) from Beachmont down 145, then down route 16 to Wellington. There would be intermediate stations at Winthrop Ave (turn from Route 145 to Route 16; short walk to downtown Revere), Broadway (next to Broadway in Chelsea and Revere), Prattville, Everett Ave, Second Ave, Sweetzer Circle, Santilli Hwy/Gateway Center, and then finally Wellington.

First, I know this is redundant with some of the intention of the SL3 extension. Secondly, I can only imagine how expensive and difficult such engineering is. Third, I think this would interrupt traffic for a couple of years for a light rail.

I do like the route and growing residential population it traverses, as well as a timesaving ring route.i think elevated rail is a lot quieter, less space-consuming, and it should be considered more as a viable option.

 

[Riverside]

Yeah, @bigeman312 laid out the strategy I would take. Linear (mega) cities are really interesting to me, as it creates a pretty significantly different dynamic than radial transit networks. Conceptually, I would imagine a six track “spine” running down this corridor, NYC Subway-style, with local tracks, express tracks, and “super express” tracks. This would then be supplemented by more conventional networks radiating out from individual cities. I’d have local trains do something similar to the (faster) Northeast Regional trains today, express use the Acela stopping pattern, and super-express only stopping in Boston, New York, Washington, Raleigh/Durham, Charlotte, and Atlanta.

The below is something I wrote out a few years ago, but never published in full form before now:

Let’s think big for a moment.

The Jīnghù High Speed Railway operates between Beijing and Shanghai at an average speed of 181 miles per hour, using the Fùxīng EMU, which is designed to operate at up to 220 miles per hour.

What if we built an equivalent in the US, maybe even with some improvements?

Consider this sequence of cities:

• Portland, ME
• Boston, MA
• Hartford, CT
• New York, NY
• Philadelphia, PA
• Washington, DC
• Richmond, VA
• Raleigh or Durham, NC
• Charlotte, NC
• Atlanta, GA

Except for Charlotte-Atlanta, each of those stops is roughly 100 miles apart. At >200mph speeds, that means 30 minutes between each stop. (Boston to New York in 60 minutes! NYC-ATL in 3 hours!)

Let's assume that a lower-tier conventional 125 mph HSR service exists in parallel to the new super-high-speed service. 100-mile-stop-spacing means that even in a "flythrough" city, you're still no more than 50-60 miles from a "hub" station, which at HSR speeds would mean ~30 minutes of travel, which would still keep your journey competitive with flying in many cases.

For example, a journey from Fredericksburg, VA to Atlanta, GA would be:

Origin	Destination	Distance	Speed	Travel Time
Fredericksburg, VA	Richmond, VA	50 miles	125 mph	<30 min
Richmond, VA	Atlanta, GA	500 miles	>200 mph	2.5 hours

For a total journey of about 3 hours. A direct flight from Richmond to Atlanta takes 1h35m today, and the drive from Fredericksburg to the Richmond Airport takes a bit over an hour. Let’s assume you arrive at the airport an hour early, and the train journey is already beating the plane: 1h drive + 1h wait + 1.5h flight = 3.5 hours, vs 0.5h train + 2.5h train.

(Yes, all of this is highly dependent on favorable ROW and station locations, and well-timed schedules to support transfers.)

Making a super-high-speed train stop every 30 minutes/100 miles may not be wise. So let's condense those stops into a 200-mile, 1 hour cadence:

• Boston, MA,
  • for Eastern and Northern New England
• New York, NY,
  • for the Tri-States
• Washington, DC,
  • for Northern and West Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware
• Raleigh/Durham, NC,
  • for North Carolina and Southern Virginia
• Charlotte, NC,
  • for South Carolina
• Atlanta, GA
  • for Georgia and destinations across the Southeast

The cadence breaks down a bit in North Carolina -- Raleigh/Durham and Charlotte are only 120 miles apart. But, otherwise, the spacing of major cities in the Eastern US is surprisingly consistent.

With proper HSR feeding service, you would still be able to ensure that single-transfer journeys from "flythrough" cities would be competitive with flying. For example, Philadelphia to Atlanta could look like this:

Origin	Destination	Distance	Speed	Travel Time
Philadelphia, PA	Washington, DC	123 miles	125 mph	1 hour
Washington, DC	Atlanta, GA	577 miles	>200 mph	3 hours

The non-stop flight from Philly to Atlanta today is 2h10m. PHL is a larger airport, so let’s assume 2 hours early for security, and you’re right there at the train’s four hours.

We often think of the BosWash corridor ending somewhere in Virginia. And it is indeed true that the density level drops off south of Washington. But Raleigh or Durham and Charlotte are all major metropolitan centers; Raleigh and Durham are both roughly as far from Washington as New York is, and then it’s only another 120 miles to Charlotte – equivalent to the journey from DC to Philadelphia. From Charlotte, it’s 230 miles to Atlanta – just a smidge more than the 200 miles between DC and New York.

Building super-high-speed-rail from Boston to Atlanta would be a moonshot undertaking, the likes of which the United States has not seen since the Interstate Highway System was built, or perhaps even since the New Deal. It would also knit together the regions of the Eastern Seaboard, transforming domestic travel for half of the country. And a “spine” of super-high-speed-rail infrastructure would then spur the development of branchlines, revolutionizing rural transport across the North and South.

 

[bigeman312]

I figure the sandbox thread is the best place for this, but I’d be happy to move it elsewhere. I’m doing a bit of creative writing, just for my own edification.

Its the year AD 2124 (yes, just doing the lazy futurism thing of projecting out 100 years). The Boston-Washington Megalopolis (present population about 50 million) has grown to over 100 million, giving the region a population density closer to Taiwan.

What sort of transit system would you design for this region? You’ve got the full support of the states involved, and you started in AD 2074 - 50 years to build it out.

I’ve really enjoyed this thought experiment, but I have a demographic aside and question: where would these people come from? What would cause this region’s population to double in a century?

Possibilities:

• They are mostly born here, primarily descendants of people who already live here:
  • For that to happen, a population to double in roughly three generations through natural growth, the fertility rate would have to average about 2.5 over the next century, mathematically speaking. The United States hasn’t had a fertility rate that high since 1942-‘67. It’s currently 1.6, while the northeast is even lower (DC is 1.2, VT/RI/NH/MA are 1.4, etc). Would this growth be spurred by a baby boom the likes of which most living Americans haven’t seen in their lifetime?
• They are mostly domestic migrants:
  • This possibility would really affect some of our answers. High speed trains to Atlanta and Chicago are less relevant if those regions have depopulated. We’ve been seeing an outflow from many of the Northeast states in recent years. Massachusetts and New York have lost about a million people in net domestic migration this decade. Would this growth be spurred by a reversal of this domestic migration trend? Florida and Texas have gained about 1.5 million residents from net migration alone this decade. Is this a scenario where climate change has driven millions or even tens of millions of domestic migrants from California, Florida, Louisiana, Texas, and Arizona over the next century?
• They are mostly immigrants:
  • There are obviously billions of people who live in other countries. There are 46 million foreign-born residents in the United States. Would this growth be driven by an increase in immigration?
• Decreased mortality:
  • Life expectancy in the US has increased from 60 to 79 in the last century. It’s even higher than that in the Northeast, with MA, NY, CT, and NJ all at about 81. Hong Kong, Japan, and Macau have the highest life expectancies in the world at 85. All else equal, a long term increase in US life expectancy to 85 would increase our population by 8%. An increase to 90 would increase our population by 14%.

Interesting to think about which of these scenarios are most at play in this thought experiment, as it would effect what transit system would be most appropriate.

 

[Delvin4519]

I figure the sandbox thread is the best place for this, but I’d be happy to move it elsewhere. I’m doing a bit of creative writing, just for my own edification.

Its the year AD 2124 (yes, just doing the lazy futurism thing of projecting out 100 years). The Boston-Washington Megalopolis (present population about 50 million) has grown to over 100 million, giving the region a population density closer to Taiwan.

What sort of transit system would you design for this region? You’ve got the full support of the states involved, and you started in AD 2074 - 50 years to build it out.

Realistically we'd also need to elevate all the tracks onto a very tall embankment that are at risk of a 1 in 1000 year flood for the year AD 2124 to mitigate the risk of flooding, so a large amount of cost is going to be eaten up by solely elevating existing tracks as opposed to building new track. Probably also extend rail service frequencies into more inland cities that will need to take some coastal residents who can't stay on the floodplains. As such, add extra trains for routes to connect with inland cities, such as: Chicago - Pittsburgh - Philly, Toronto - Albany - Springfield - Boston, Montreal - Albany - NYC, Montreal - Springfield - NYC.

 

[JeffDowntown]

Yeah, @bigeman312 laid out the strategy I would take. Linear (mega) cities are really interesting to me, as it creates a pretty significantly different dynamic than radial transit networks. Conceptually, I would imagine a six track “spine” running down this corridor, NYC Subway-style, with local tracks, express tracks, and “super express” tracks. This would then be supplemented by more conventional networks radiating out from individual cities. I’d have local trains do something similar to the (faster) Northeast Regional trains today, express use the Acela stopping pattern, and super-express only stopping in Boston, New York, Washington, Raleigh/Durham, Charlotte, and Atlanta.

The below is something I wrote out a few years ago, but never published in full form before now:

Let’s think big for a moment.

The Jīnghù High Speed Railway operates between Beijing and Shanghai at an average speed of 181 miles per hour, using the Fùxīng EMU, which is designed to operate at up to 220 miles per hour.

What if we built an equivalent in the US, maybe even with some improvements?

Consider this sequence of cities:

• Portland, ME
• Boston, MA
• Hartford, CT
• New York, NY
• Philadelphia, PA
• Washington, DC
• Richmond, VA
• Raleigh or Durham, NC
• Charlotte, NC
• Atlanta, GA

Except for Charlotte-Atlanta, each of those stops is roughly 100 miles apart. At >200mph speeds, that means 30 minutes between each stop. (Boston to New York in 60 minutes! NYC-ATL in 3 hours!)

Let's assume that a lower-tier conventional 125 mph HSR service exists in parallel to the new super-high-speed service. 100-mile-stop-spacing means that even in a "flythrough" city, you're still no more than 50-60 miles from a "hub" station, which at HSR speeds would mean ~30 minutes of travel, which would still keep your journey competitive with flying in many cases.

For example, a journey from Fredericksburg, VA to Atlanta, GA would be:

Origin	Destination	Distance	Speed	Travel Time
Fredericksburg, VA	Richmond, VA	50 miles	125 mph	<30 min
Richmond, VA	Atlanta, GA	500 miles	>200 mph	2.5 hours

For a total journey of about 3 hours. A direct flight from Richmond to Atlanta takes 1h35m today, and the drive from Fredericksburg to the Richmond Airport takes a bit over an hour. Let’s assume you arrive at the airport an hour early, and the train journey is already beating the plane: 1h drive + 1h wait + 1.5h flight = 3.5 hours, vs 0.5h train + 2.5h train.

(Yes, all of this is highly dependent on favorable ROW and station locations, and well-timed schedules to support transfers.)

Making a super-high-speed train stop every 30 minutes/100 miles may not be wise. So let's condense those stops into a 200-mile, 1 hour cadence:

• Boston, MA,
  • for Eastern and Northern New England
• New York, NY,
  • for the Tri-States
• Washington, DC,
  • for Northern and West Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware
• Raleigh/Durham, NC,
  • for North Carolina and Southern Virginia
• Charlotte, NC,
  • for South Carolina
• Atlanta, GA
  • for Georgia and destinations across the Southeast

The cadence breaks down a bit in North Carolina -- Raleigh/Durham and Charlotte are only 120 miles apart. But, otherwise, the spacing of major cities in the Eastern US is surprisingly consistent.

With proper HSR feeding service, you would still be able to ensure that single-transfer journeys from "flythrough" cities would be competitive with flying. For example, Philadelphia to Atlanta could look like this:

Origin	Destination	Distance	Speed	Travel Time
Philadelphia, PA	Washington, DC	123 miles	125 mph	1 hour
Washington, DC	Atlanta, GA	577 miles	>200 mph	3 hours

The non-stop flight from Philly to Atlanta today is 2h10m. PHL is a larger airport, so let’s assume 2 hours early for security, and you’re right there at the train’s four hours.

We often think of the BosWash corridor ending somewhere in Virginia. And it is indeed true that the density level drops off south of Washington. But Raleigh or Durham and Charlotte are all major metropolitan centers; Raleigh and Durham are both roughly as far from Washington as New York is, and then it’s only another 120 miles to Charlotte – equivalent to the journey from DC to Philadelphia. From Charlotte, it’s 230 miles to Atlanta – just a smidge more than the 200 miles between DC and New York.

Building super-high-speed-rail from Boston to Atlanta would be a moonshot undertaking, the likes of which the United States has not seen since the Interstate Highway System was built, or perhaps even since the New Deal. It would also knit together the regions of the Eastern Seaboard, transforming domestic travel for half of the country. And a “spine” of super-high-speed-rail infrastructure would then spur the development of branchlines, revolutionizing rural transport across the North and South.

Concept is cool, but you really cannot skip the 3rd largest metro on the East Coast, Philadelphia, in your super express mode. Making Philadelphia a connector city would make the proposal DOA (since you have to track through Philadelphia).

 

[DominusNovus]

I’ve really enjoyed this thought experiment, but I have a demographic aside and question: where would these people come from? What would cause this region’s population to double in a century?

Possibilities:

• They are mostly born here, primarily descendants of people who already live here:
  • For that to happen, a population to double in roughly three generations through natural growth, the fertility rate would have to average about 2.5 over the next century, mathematically speaking. The United States hasn’t had a fertility rate that high since 1942-‘67. It’s currently 1.6, while the northeast is even lower (DC is 1.2, VT/RI/NH/MA are 1.4, etc). Would this growth be spurred by a baby boom the likes of which most living Americans haven’t seen in their lifetime?
• They are mostly domestic migrants:
  • This possibility would really affect some of our answers. High speed trains to Atlanta and Chicago are less relevant if those regions have depopulated. We’ve been seeing an outflow from many of the Northeast states in recent years. Massachusetts and New York have lost about a million people in net domestic migration this decade. Would this growth be spurred by a reversal of this domestic migration trend? Florida and Texas have gained about 1.5 million residents from net migration alone this decade. Is this a scenario where climate change has driven millions or even tens of millions of domestic migrants from California, Florida, Louisiana, Texas, and Arizona over the next century?
• They are mostly immigrants:
  • There are obviously billions of people who live in other countries. There are 46 million foreign-born residents in the United States. Would this growth be driven by an increase in immigration?
• Decreased mortality:
  • Life expectancy in the US has increased from 60 to 79 in the last century. It’s even higher than that in the Northeast, with MA, NY, CT, and NJ all at about 81. Hong Kong, Japan, and Macau have the highest life expectancies in the world at 85. All else equal, a long term increase in US life expectancy to 85 would increase our population by 8%. An increase to 90 would increase our population by 14%.

Interesting to think about which of these scenarios are most at play in this thought experiment, as it would effect what transit system would be most appropriate.

Thanks for that question! This creative writing experiment overall actually is primarily driven by demographic considerations (and my inspiration for the megalopolis is 'Megacity One but not dystopian'). I didn't want to go into that level of detail here, since, obviously, this is a transit discussion. But to answer your question: all 4, to varying degrees. Your typical 'united North America' scifi scenario, combined with above 2.1 fertility rate and longer lifespans, as well as steady immigration from outside the continent, and the Megalopolis drawing people from the rest of the country while their natural growth is high enough to cope with that.

 

[ritchiew]

Concept is cool, but you really cannot skip the 3rd largest metro on the East Coast, Philadelphia, in your super express mode. Making Philadelphia a connector city would make the proposal DOA (since you have to track through Philadelphia).

I totally agree you couldn't skip Philadelphia. But why does it seem impossible to track through Philly? This is a God-Mode thread and a question with a 100 year time frame. It is possible to dig a north-south train tunnel through the whole length of the city. They've done it before.

 

[DominusNovus]

Yeah, @bigeman312 laid out the strategy I would take. Linear (mega) cities are really interesting to me, as it creates a pretty significantly different dynamic than radial transit networks. Conceptually, I would imagine a six track “spine” running down this corridor, NYC Subway-style, with local tracks, express tracks, and “super express” tracks. This would then be supplemented by more conventional networks radiating out from individual cities. I’d have local trains do something similar to the (faster) Northeast Regional trains today, express use the Acela stopping pattern, and super-express only stopping in Boston, New York, Washington, Raleigh/Durham, Charlotte, and Atlanta.

<snip>

Building super-high-speed-rail from Boston to Atlanta would be a moonshot undertaking, the likes of which the United States has not seen since the Interstate Highway System was built, or perhaps even since the New Deal. It would also knit together the regions of the Eastern Seaboard, transforming domestic travel for half of the country. And a “spine” of super-high-speed-rail infrastructure would then spur the development of branchlines, revolutionizing rural transport across the North and South.

I really appreciate all the thought you've put into this, and that you were able to share your previous efforts. I definitely agree that a multi-track spine running down the corridor (with radial lines) is the best solution. Especially if you have 3 or more tiers of speed for the spine.

Making a super-high-speed train stop every 30 minutes/100 miles may not be wise.

What would your main concern about such a cadence be? Technological or logistic?

I'd propose that one solution, in either case, would be to start with service that goes to every stop for a major '100 mile' city at whatever the maximum reasonable speed for that leg is. At the same time, you can also do more express lines that go at a faster speed, and just leap frog different cities.

So, you might have the following for higher speed:
A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H
And then genuine high speed could have the following:
A-C-E-G
B-D-F-H
And even
A-D-G
B-E-H
(and yes, you'd have to work out the specifics and make sure the service levels match demand, which is why I used letters instead of actual cities)

On top of that, you don't always have a 'pure' spine if you look at a map of the population density of the current Megalopolis. For example, Boston-New York could go:
Boston - Hartford - New York (with possible stops at Springfield and/or New Haven)
Boston - Providence - New Haven - New York
Boston - Providence - Long Island (remember, 2121!) - New York
Boston - Springfield - Albany - New York (less likely, admittedly)

And then you have a string of cities to the south, further inland from the typical NYC-Philly-DC corridor, like Allentown and Harrisburg. I could see the rail system looking less like a single spine and more like a stretched out bowtie, figure 8, or hourglass. Especially if the overall growth is not just in the 'core' of the Megalopolis, but is also in outlying cities that can more easily grow larger as the region grows.

 

[Charlie_mta]

In the year 2124, personal jetpacks might be pretty well developed.

 

[ritchiew]

In the year 2124, personal jetpacks might be pretty well developed.

View attachment 53379

I don't think you're seriously considering the problems of jetpack parking. They take up less space than a car, sure, but for 100 million people!? We'd be turning our cities into vast parking lots for Single Occupancy Jetpack parking, and that's when I put my foot down!

 

[bigeman312]

Thanks for that question! This creative writing experiment overall actually is primarily driven by demographic considerations (and my inspiration for the megalopolis is 'Megacity One but not dystopian'). I didn't want to go into that level of detail here, since, obviously, this is a transit discussion. But to answer your question: all 4, to varying degrees. Your typical 'united North America' scifi scenario, combined with above 2.1 fertility rate and longer lifespans, as well as steady immigration from outside the continent, and the Megalopolis drawing people from the rest of the country while their natural growth is high enough to cope with that.

Thanks for the response. A bit of back-of-the-napkin math for context in case that's of interest:

• Assuming 2.33 average fertility rate over the next century (equal to the average over the past 80 years) gets us about 35% of the way there through natural growth.
• Assuming immigration stays at the levels we've seen in recent years, 1/3 of those immigrants settle in "BosWash," and they experience the same aforementioned fertility rate, that gets us about another 40% of the way there.
• Life expectancy increase by six years gets us another 8%.
• The final 17% (or 8.5 million) can be explained by domestic migration.

Works for me. Unlikely, but plausible.

 

[JeffDowntown]

I totally agree you couldn't skip Philadelphia. But why does it seem impossible to track through Philly? This is a God-Mode thread and a question with a 100 year time frame. It is possible to dig a north-south train tunnel through the whole length of the city. They've done it before.

If you are not stopping in Philly, the powers that be won't let you tunnel through. That is how politicians, for millennia, have played ball.