…I’m just sayin’.
These are the high speed rail corridors the USDOT has identified in their overall plan. If your rail line is on one of those green lines, and we ever pass an Amtrak funding bill with grant money for high speed rail, you can get those grants. Note that Amtrak Cascades is one of those corridors.
Given that the California project is $40 billion (although that’s not all of those lines), I’d say we could get most of this done for $700 billion. This could be our new Apollo project  – it would create jobs all over the country, we’d probably end up building at least one new railcar company (as well as helping the ones we have), and you can bet this would spur more renewable energy development.
While we need a New New Deal for infrastructure, we don’t really have the money. Especially not if we’re giving it to banks.
We didn’t have the money during the new deal either. We should be investing now for our future, not putting it off. Someone will always have an excuse, and there will never be enough money.
I agree. I just wish we weren’t pissing away money on things we can live without.
Yeah. The $11-billion-a-month war in Iraq comes to mind.
That rate of income, alone, would pay for a complete restructuring of US transportation and energy generation infrastructure. We would become world leaders in technology and in reducing our emissions.
We should capitalize failing firms in exchange for equity (similar to the S&L-era RTC), then take profits from that equity share and invest them in infrastructure projects, prioritizing rail. In the Depression we called the investment side of this the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, and it was responsible for $10 billion in projects in 1930s dollars. That’s something like $140-150 billion in today’s dollars. But I would argue that the Depression-era measures were too small-scale until the war effort kicked in. We’re going to need to spend WWII-scale money to jump start this economy. $700 billion is reasonable, so long as the cost isn’t borne by the middle and working classes.
Yes. And with $700 billion and the Obama-style tax structure, we’d be siphoning the money the rich took out of the economy during all this back into working pockets.
The National Association of Rail Passengers has already planned a new national system for their Grow Trains campaign. They figure it would be possible to double the size of the national train network in 40 years, with an investment comparable to what went into the Interstate Highway system.
Well, considering we lost 1.2 trillion on the markets today, I think it’s safe to say $700 Billion will be a mere down payment.
Charlie, what’s the appeal of making a bunch more routes if they’re as slow as existing service? Taking the train between Dallas and Austin is significantly slower (and less reliable) than taking the car, so hardly anyone even knows about it. Adding more routes like that won’t help.
The problem with the Grow Trains campaign is that it’s presented by folks who are already satisfied with Amtrak’s performance, while we need to convert drivers with better service.
If instead you made really fast routes between urban centers, as Ben’s post suggests, you’ll present a more compelling option to a more numerous constituency, and get far more in the way of converts.
Just sayin’.
225mph, baby. Buy the best the French and Japanese have to offer. You’ll get out of your car when you’re recovering from the whiplash you got from watching it pass you on the highway! :)
While true HSR like France would be nice I’d be satisfied with interim improvements to existing rail corridors to bring speeds up to the 100-125 MPH range.
Going past 125 MPH requires full grade separation and new right of way. Much more expensive to implement and therefore less likely to happen.
Besides 125 MPH corridors improves freight mobility as well and allows high-speed container trains to get more trucks off the road.
Even 125 mph is a lot faster than driving is.
Even 110mph is a lot faster than driving. And Chris – yes, I’d be happy with the incremental upgrades the state is supposed to be funding for Cascades. We’ll just eventually have to turn it into real HSR.
Even current Amtrak speeds beat driving during rush hour or Sunday afternoon or some holidays. I-5 is a complete mess from Portland past Vancouver and all the way from Olympia to Seattle. Just take the Cascades (which starts in Portland), and not the Coast Starlight (which is often delayed).
Indeed, but beating the *best* driving time gets people’s attention. Folks assume they can drive better than everyone else, remember that.
Finally, someone gets it – thanks Empact. NARP is a semi-official Amtrak cheerleading group – “anything Amtrak wants they ought to get” is their mantra. Amtrak is a dysfunctional, mongrel that needs to be euthanized as soon as possible. We must start completely anew with a map and a plan and minimum levels of service and travel times. It may mean nationalizing what’s left of the right of way, and if so, so be it. Band-aids (3 times a week trains, 50 mph average speeds) will no longer suffice.
If you need a bulldozer and all you have is a wrecking bar, you still don’t throw out the wrecking bar. You just buy a bulldozer.
Sadly, Congress and the GAO have never in 3 1/2 decades held Amtrak accountable for their very questionable accounting procedures, their bizarre allocations of the free money they’ve received from the Congress, and worst of all, the at best uneven customer service and food services on their trains. Further, b y he 1971 enabling legislation, the “host” railroads were meant to grant Amtrak trains priority in scheduling. Some have, many have not. A wrecking bar? NARP? No, an enabler of the worst kind, Ben. If you don’t already subscribe to This Week at Amtrak from URPA, please sign on – it’ll be an eye opener for all friends of passenger trains.
Great wish list. And I notice some patterns of this, the Midwest Regional Rail Initiative, the Ohio Hub, a Colorado proposal (north-south from Denver), and some Canadian proposals (Windsor – Quebec City, Calgary-Edmonton).
East of a line from western Minnesota to central Texas is two big zones of high-speed lines, which I call the Atlantic-Gulf Belt and Greater Chicagoland. The two zones meet in Pittsburgh, Buffalo, and Montreal, and they are divided by the Appalachian Mountains.
West of that line, the average population density is much less, and there are only a few isolated spots worthy of high-speed corridors: California, the Pacific Northwest, Colorado, and Alberta.
Some US HSR detractors argue that a NYC-LA HSR line would be impractical, but while that is certainly correct, that’s not what HSR is good for. It’s good for much shorter trips, though the cumulative length of a line can be much greater than the typical trip length along it.
While pure speed is very valuable, we often forget an even more critical component: frequency. One of the major advantages of the car is that it can take me where I want to go exactly when I want to go there. For example, I traveled to Bellingham this last weekend to watch the Debate with some old friends. I had to arrive by 6, but I couldn’t leave at 9:00 a.m. (which was the only time the train was going).
Amtrak today would have taken me about 1/2 hour longer than driving, but it was the inflexibility of only one trip per day that killed this option for me.
Of course greater frequency can be justified by greater ridership, and higher speeds can help with that, but still, so often we only think about frequency as a response to demand, when it should properly be considered a key component in creating demand. On some routes, higher frequency can actually generate enough new demand to fill all of the capacity created by that new service and then some.
So here’s a recipe: 200 MPH every half hour along the cascades corridor. Combine that with sufficient park and rides at the stations as well as local feeder service and you could create a real revolution. There is latent demand for such a service that is far beyond what we imagine today. It would not only get people out of their cars, but it would redefine the entire relationship between the cities along the cascade corridor. It would be completely reasonable for a person to live in Seattle and commute to Portland for example.
You should see the Amtrak Cascades long range plan. There’s not half hour frequency, but we’re already planning on hourly service in the Seattle to Portland corridor.
It’s just a matter of funding all the necessary projects. It would be 79-110mph service, about 1 hour faster than the current service.
At that speed and frequency there would be no reason to fly. My wife travels to Portland constantly, but always flies because she knows she can be on a plane in an hour no matter when her meeting ends.
The raw travel time from downtown Seattle to downtown Portland is the same for each mode (maybe even quicker via rail) – it’s the frequency that makes the difference.
Some people are afraid of flying, and some people dislike intrusive security searches.
My point is more that if they really do make Sea–>Port an hourly train, we’ll quickly see a huge jump in ridership. Once it becomes a better choice to take the train (by any standard, really), you suddenly have entire planes of people that could switch.
Actually, looking just at Alaskan Air, that has to be at least 100 people an hour per direction. Charging each of them just $30 a way would yield $6,000 a train per round trip. It sounds like a good business plan to me.
It’s a start. It can’t pay for everything, not by far, but WSDOT’s figures show that they can pay for a lot more of their operating costs if they have the capital investment they need to operate regularly.
Well, hey, now that we’ve gotten $6 million from the feds for Seattle-Portland rail (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008218067_railmoney01m.html), we’re only about 6.494 billion short of the 2023 plan.
In all seriousness, Amtrak Cascades speed and reliability improvements are incredibly valuable for the region and should easily pay for themselves. As a state, we should definitely be doing this.
They pay for themselves in economic benefit, just like most transportation investments do, especially things like light rail. The discussion never gets that far for your average joe voter, though.
The map shows so many corridors which *almost* touch. Maybe the Chicago Hub Network should extend to Buffalo, the Florida to Jacksonville, the Gulf Coast to San Antonio, and the South Central to Kansas City. Connecting the California and Pacific Northwest lines would be a stretch but doable, but I agree those two can’t reasonably connect with the Eastern ones….
I agree that those gaps are rather odd — the eastern-US ones look easily bridgable.
As to the Pacific Northwest and California, there is a little problem that I have seen firsthand from Amtrak’s Coast Starlight train:
The California-Oregon mountains.
The existing track there is *very* twisty, and straighter track would require construction of *lots* of viaducts and tunnels.
We’ll do it. Let’s worry about it after we fund SOMETHING.
Distances?
Redding – Eugene: 300 mi
Redding – Portland: 400 mi
Sacramento – Eugene: 450 mi
Sacramento – Portland: 550 mi
Between the distances and the mountains, it will be hard to justify building a California-Pacific-Northwest connecting line.
The Chicago Hub Network will likely be implemented by:
The Midwest Regional rail Initiative (radiating out from Chicago)
The Ohio Hub (Cleveland – Columbus – Cincinnati, the 3C’s):
The latter one has proposals for
Cleveland – Buffalo
Cleveland – Pittsburgh
Columbus – Pittsburgh
Thus connecting to the Empire and Keystone Corridors.
The Rocky Mountain Rail Authority
North-south through Denver
West from Denver into the mountains.
Canada high-speed-rail advocacy:
Windsor – Toronto – Ottawa – Montreal – Quebec City
Edmonton – Calgary in Alberta
Note the splendid isolation of the Colorado and Alberta proposals, while the eastern-Canada proposed line is right across the border from the northeast-US proposed lines.
Distances?
Redding – Eugene: 300 mi
Redding – Portland: 400 mi
Sacramento – Eugene: 450 mi
Sacramento – Portland: 550 mi
Between the distances and the mountains, it will be hard to justify building a California-Pacific-Northwest connecting line.
As to more recent proposals, the Midwest Regional Rail Initiative and the Ohio Hub proposal cover most of the Chicago Hub Network. The Ohio Hub also includes connections to Pittsburgh and Buffalo, thus connecting to the Keystone and Empire Corridors.
The Chicago Hub Network will likely be implemented by:
The Midwest Regional Rail Initiative (radiating out from Chicago):
http://www.dot.state.mn.us/passengerrail/onepagers/midwest.html#mwmap
The Ohio Hub (Cleveland – Columbus – Cincinnati, the 3C’s):
http://www2.dot.state.oh.us/ohiorail/Ohio%20Hub/Website/ordc/maps.html
The latter one has proposals for
Cleveland – Buffalo
Cleveland – Pittsburgh
Columbus – Pittsburgh
Thus connecting to the Empire and Keystone Corridors.
Rocky Mountain Rail Authority
http://rockymountainrail.org/Rail_Feasibility_Study.html
North-south through Denver, west from Denver into the mountains.
Canada high-speed-rail advocacy:
http://highspeedrail.ca/
Windsor – Toronto – Ottawa – Montreal – Quebec City
Edmonton – Calgary in Alberta
Note the splendid isolation of the Colorado and Alberta proposals, while the eastern-Canada proposed line is right across the border from the northeast-US proposed lines.