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Obama Proposes High-Speed Rail System For the US
fantomas writes "The BBC reports that 'US President Barack Obama has announced his "vision for high-speed rail" in the country, which would create jobs, ease congestion and save energy.' Can rail work in the land where the car is king? Would you travel on the new high speed lines?"
Yes.
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Nice idea, but it'll never happen. These kinds of projects are only ever successful when a government steps in and does them properly. The process of doing it with "private enterprise" or a "public-private partnership" always kills anything good that could come out of it. Compare the shinkansen in Japan and the TGV in France to the farce that is privatised railways in Australia for a good example.
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If it is priced less than air travel and it provides service to places I need to go.
If your only tool is a hammer, every problem becomes a nail.
Personally I like rail.. the bad part however is it will cost ALOT.. and Amtrak isn't exactly doing a 'great' job thus far.
Will it create jobs? Absolutely.. will it lower congestion at airports, absolutely..
Will it work as a mass-transit system (be sustainable, profitable, used): I'm willing to find out, but it ends up horribly mismanaged and failing or inaccessible because of it; I'm gonna slap someone.
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Germany is a pretty car-obsessed country but even here the fast trains have a nicely working system. One could say that there are many things wrong with it: tickets are expensive, it has cost that state a lot of money to build it, and for anything longer than a 6 hour drive, taking the plane is just as fast. That said, I use it with cheap early-booked tickets (30-60 euro independent of distance), it has onboard wlan for T-Mobile customers, per every pair of seats there is a power outlet. And when I arrive, I'm completely relaxed, in shape, and in the center of the town I want to be. Overall, it's a win. The US has a different geography though, many suburbs etc, not always a connecting public transport system. But if they start in places like california or the east coast, and build up from there, it could well work.
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High speed inter-city rail means that when I get to my destination I have to rely on public transportation (not very efficient in most US cities), or rent a car.
If I'm renting a car, this doesn't reduce congestion. The congestion is in the cities themselves, not between them. Also, the car rental costs money. I doubt it will be cheaper than driving.
I'd love to see rail as a replacement for flying, but I doubt it will be fast enough.
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Give me something at least resembles the Shinkansen and I'll ride it.
But the economy's still all cracked and broken!
Sorry guys, Obama's spoken!
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How is that unique to the US? Many countries are so small that it's not even possible to live more than an hour away from the workplace.
I think the point is that this will allow people to work MORE than an hour's drive away from home.
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rail is king is japan and europe because these places are so much more dense population wise than the usa. however, this is on average. rail can be king in the usa in dense areas like california, and the northeast. rail doesn't make sense in kansas or nebraska. still, a high speed rail link between major urban centers has some value. fast enough, and they can compete well with air travel. it will be very expensive to set up, but once the infrastructure is in place, its nothing but gravy savings
even with all of that considered, the usa still has to look beyond the automobile in an age of ever increasing energy insecurity, and rail and nuclear are neglected and unsexy but utterly solid alternatives to oil funded geopolitical problems and oil fueled atmospheric degeneration: never mind the CO2, air quality in our cities is a valid reason to go to more rail. when you fill up your SUV, you fund russian neoimperialism, you fund islamic fundamentalism, you fund trolls like chavez in venezuela. who funds the enemies of the usa in this world? soccer moms do. this is an insanity that has to end, and if it means we ride more trains, then its a no brainer
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The only big highspeed I know of is the Acela, which goes from NYC to Boston or D.C.
The price: $90 each way, no wifi.
Or you can take a bus for $20 that has Wifi.
I hear the Acela is nice, but I'd rather buy a DS for my bus ride, and i'd still save money.
In the USA, the speed of air travel is a compelling advantage over rail. That's why passenger rail in this country declined from a major industry to a government-sponsored museum hobby.
If passenger rail travel were economically viable here, it wouldn't take tax money to keep it alive.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Just look at Amtrak. Prices are too high and it is going broke.
Hardly anybody really uses a transit system in the U.S. That is why they have to paid for by the taxpayers. More people pay for bus and train systems than actually use them. The city I live in, opted out years ago because it was costing about $35,000 per year per rider. Whenever you look at actual cost per user, it isn't worth it. Just more waste of my money.
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Heck yeah. Why wouldn't I? I love the train.
Bring it. I don't even care if they're not such high-speed trains. (Remember the silly claims about the Acela so-called high-speed trains in the Northeast corridor? Laughable. I'll just take the regular trains that get there ten minutes later and cost half the price.)
All I want is more connections. If I could take the train to work I would. Even transferring to a local bus would work for me. Presto: I now have an extra couple of hours per day for reading, studying, whatever I want. My commute is just wasted time.
Remember Amtrack anyone? The giant government boondoggle that loses money every year?
What makes anyone think that Amtrack:TNG is going to be a better idea? It's going to be a huge buildout expense, disrupt many communities, and in the end will still be slower than airline travel.
If you want something visionary, how about supporting large scale consumer adoption of small regional airports and new, small advanced planes that take far fewer people but connect small airports all over with mass transit in each city? It's like the dream of the flying car but with practicality behind it and yields a lot more flexibility.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Amtrak has dragged it's feet on restoring the Sunset line east of New Orleans for over 3 years! Keep in mind that Amtrak now gets $2.6 BILLION annually.
CSX confirmed that all track repairs had been completed in mid-2006.
Believe me, I'm heading back to Houston from Tallahassee for Mother's Day and I'd love to grab a ride on sunset, but it looks like another airport shake-n-dance. Amtrak has 3 more months to offer a "plan" to restore service...wanna bet that no one ever asks for this plan?
A government controlled-business does not make it some magical, ne'er-do-bad business.
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Traveling by airplane already accomplishes that. The important distinction for high-speed rail is that it would need to be cheaper than airfare, and/or provide other benefits (e.g. the ability to take extra luggage, such as your car, with you).
The sad thing is, as much as I like trains and wish it would, I just don't see that being successful. Even the normal, slow Amtrak fares are often more expensive than discount airfare between the same two cities. I can't imagine any scenario, short of huge subsidies (which would be fine with me, but Congress would never approve it), that would allow an expensive, brand-new system to improve on that.
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I hate owning a car. Cars are a pain in the ass. They burn fuel, need repairs, require me to get them inspected, cost tons of money to clean, dirty easily, have to be parked, etc.
I have been to nearly every state in the U.S. either by car or by plane. I've crossed the country four times from end to end by road. In nearly every one of these cases, rail would have been my first choice, but Amtrak always costs significantly more than plane or car.
I LOVE the rail systems in Europe. I LOVE the relaxation, the space, the reasonable air and relaxed rules (unlike plane travel) and the fact that I get to see lots of places without having to be stuck in traffic in them. It's damn nice to go by rail.
Within cities, I love commuter and transit rail systems. I took the BART when I lived in San Francisco and I took the TRAX when I lived in Salt Lake City and I took the TriMet when I lived in Portland and I took the El when I lived in Chicago and I now use the MTA Subway system heavily in NYC.
I love, love, love rail and it would be a dream come true if someone at the top of this country could put together a working rail system that's affordable between major cities in the way that Europe's rail system is.
If the price can even match the actual purchase price of air travel, I'd take rail instead at least 75% of the time.
If rail ends up being 2x or 3x more than air, as it has been, though, I'll still end up driving or flying. Right now in the U.S. long-distance and inter-city train is a luxury mode of transportation.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Well,
I don't know why you need to be so condescending but I can tell you that the railways in the US are pretty ridiculous in terms of speed and improving them could bring big benefits.
For instance, the ACELA between Boston and NY is very slow (more than 3 hours to cover half the distance that the TGV covers in less than 3 hours).
Such a train uses half the energy of a plane, can arrive in the center of the city etc.
The Japanese Shinkansen is even better in some respect as it runs on schedules that are very intense.
Also, you don't need to change everything to achieve that, just some money and political will. The ACELA express is inherently slower (150MPH max instead of 200MPH and more) but that's not the biggest problem. They need to adapt enough tracks along the road to improve the average speed.
This is clearly a very political and complex subject. And bringing it up in the US is really quite innovative and politically risky as your post amply shows.
Absolutely, yes.
If I had to travel to anywhere it serviced, or had friends nearby the service areas, totally. It is so much more efficient for my time to sit on a train and read a book, type on my computer, or sleep than it is to be forced to pay attention to the road. Or, for air travel, I have a lot of stop and go action, driving to the airport, waiting in the security line, getting on and off the plane, inability to use electronic devices for large swaths of travel, etc. (Plus, no power.)
To make it analogous to computers, think of the brain as a processor. It's hella wasteful for it to be sitting idle. Public transportation lets it be more productively active. Parallel work flows.
Yes, but it's much harder for the "older generation" to see it. (You can define older generation for yourself.) As a 25 year-old, I grew up with congested roads, idiot drivers (you don't even know who you are!), and 30-minutes or more as a standard driving time. Hello suburbia and rural areas. Conversely, my father grew up when gas was 23 cents a gallon, and folks bought cars every other year because they were so cheap. Sunday drives "just because" were common, and, at the risk of getting flamed, with a slightly richer average socio-economic status associated with cars then, also came a slightly more educated and conscientious crowd -- i.e. less idiots on road in general.
I won't claim that I'm the norm, but I do claim that I'm on some part of a trend that will eventually be the norm.
Public transportation will happen, whether it's the rails this year, maglev in 20 years, or something else. Like a lot of other socially stagnant issues, the timeline is associated with the old ones digging their heels in. Change is hard, but when they die, it gets easier. Kind of like racist attitudes. (With exceptions, racist people generally don't change their minds. They die.)
Obama's plan simply will not work because he plans to mix freight and passenger rail routes. I would not call the examples in Japan and France a _financial_ success, but they are indeed impressive technologically. However, neither of those systems would work if they did not dedicate their tracks to passenger transportation. Freight would slow everything down dramatically.
Airfares are cheaper cause they are constantly getting bailed out by the fed.
There is a war going on for your mind.
While I like the efficiency of trains, the US moved freight traffic to the highways because it created more flexibility in placement of factories and retail outlets. We built our houses and our lifestyle in a manner that took advantage of individual transportation vehicles. We don't have the density or the lifestyle desire to move to a hub and spoke system of fast rail. Air traffic has a better ROI for moving people over large distances in a largely rural nation. For high speed rail to work it has to link urban cores where the flexibility of driving or the speed of flying are compromised. The northeast corridor can support rail inflexibility because it can be faster than flying and as flexible as driving because you are moving between urban cores with solid public transportation. It won't gain critical mass between NYC and Chicago because it is faster and cheaper to fly. It won't work between Atlanta and Birmingham because limited pubic transit in those cities make driving more flexible. Unless there is the willingness of the local communities to rezone around transit, invest in dense public transit, increase the cost of flying and decrease the flexibility of driving then high speed rail will only work where it works now. In other words you have to invest in more than the track to make high speed rail work. Effort, money and time have to be spend rebuilding the nation to fit the hub and spoke infrastructure of rail traffic.
Yes you can, but you need to keep both the scope and the context mind.
Regarding scope: high-speed rail is mostly interesting for journeys in the 50-400 mile range; for shorter journeys, the many stops would bring down the average speed too much, and for longer journeys a single-hop plane transfer is faster.
I regularly travel the high-speed net in Europe, and I love it: No of that checking-in business; I get to the station 10 minutes before the train leaves, sit down on my reserved seat, and soon I am speeding through Southern Germany at 200 mph. Still, a ~400 mile journey (case in point: Zurich-Aachen) takes me 6 hours downtown to downtown. The main reasons for that slow ~70 mph average are slow links in Switzerland, and the relatively high number of stops in densely populated Germany. Still, this is 70 mph average, at (when planned somewhat in advance) EUR 120 for a return ticket.
Now, in the US, the SF-LA corridor and the East-cost are excellent choices for such a network. Especially the SF-LA link could do with only a few stops (LA, Bakersfield, Fresno, (Stockton), San Jose, SF, say), so one could push for >80 mph average. This would bring down travel time from _downtown_ LA to _downtown_ SF to 5 hours. Such a journey would be the efficiency limit for a fast train though, since there is a good flight here. Perhaps LA-Bakersfield (~120 miles) in an hour would be a better example.
The thing to remember though, and that bring me to the "context" part of the title, is that high-speed rail cannot exist on its own. Although the connections for larger distances already exist (planes), one definitely needs connections to shorter-distance transport modalities. Examples are fast commuter train for a metropolitan area (relatively high number of stops, but fast acceleration and deceleration), tram/bus networks in the city (and _adaptations_ to the city for that, so that trams and busses are never in traffic jams, etc.). Not having this latter modality leaves you with a "last mile" problem. If you cannot get to the station fast, often, and safe, you won't use your high-speed train, and you could hardly be blamed for that.
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Germany: 357,000 km^2
Japan: 377,000 km^2
Shanghai: 6340 km^2
United States: 9,826,630 km^2
Maglev speed: 300 mph
757 Economical Cruising speed: 530 mph
You figure it out.
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I've been driving 45 minutes one way to work for over a decade & I'd get on a freaking train in a heartbeat if it was fesable for me to get to work by one.
There is a war going on for your mind.
No... Las Vegas is not planned to be incorporated into the high-speed train system. Core Cities are Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Dallas, Oklahoma City, New Orleans, Miami, Orlando, Chicago, Atlanta, Charlotte, Richmond, Washington D.C., Cleveland, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, New York City, Buffalo, Boston, and Montreal.
See the map at the bottom of this page.
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That's Bullshit.
Figure the percentage of federal dollars vs fare dollars for each and your head will explode. Even if you assume that the average flight costs ~$100, the 700 million annual passenger flights makes a nice big number:
http://www.bts.gov/programs/airline_information/air_carrier_traffic_statistics/airtraffic/annual/1981_present.html
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
How about federally-operated rails with privately-operated, competing railroad companies? You know, like the trucking companies and airlines operate as independent entities unlike Amtrak, but actually have a huge network of infrastructure that can get you places more directly than Amtrak's limited rail system? Build enough rail to enough places, and license more than one company to operate trains on them.
No... Las Vegas is not planned to be incorporated into the high-speed train system. Core Cities are Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Dallas, Oklahoma City, New Orleans, Miami, Orlando, Chicago, Atlanta, Charlotte, Richmond, Washington D.C., Cleveland, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, New York City, Buffalo, Boston, and Montreal.
I think that one of these cities are not like the others. That being said, I would love a high speed rail link from my province to major urban areas in the US. If Montreal is to be included in some sort of upgrade, then the rail line from Montreal to Albany needs some serious repair. I took the train from Montreal to Phillydelphia a few years ago and was shocked at how slow the ride was. In Quebec, the train crossed Autoroute 20(freeway) and once the train got into the US and the Adirondacks, it snaked along between the mountains and Lake Champlain.
If the Canadian dollar improves in value v. the US dollar, weekend shopping trips to NYC could be a common occurence.
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Europe's population is FAR more evenly distributed than the US, where the majority of the population is clustered around large urban centers (cities).
In large urban areas, high speed rail is essentially meaningless. Commuter rail is more important and is going to go nowhere near 150 mph.
In the NE United States it MIGHT make a difference, as the population there is fairly tightly packed in the BosWash area.
In the Western US, it's simply faster and more economical (barring stupidly huge subsidies) to take a plane.
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Everyone here is talking about the northeast and midwest, what about the damned west coast? Linking San Francisco to LA is huge, by itself. Linking Seattle to Eugene or Southern Oregon would be amazing. The commuter possibilities are endless here. Take Portland to Seattle, for example. Many people hop that via plane even though it's only about a 3 hour drive. Turn that in to a 1.5 hour train trip, and guess what? You've linked two cities with amazingly effective public transportation, cut down on the pollution of a plane or many individual autos, and perhaps increased the number of people who are willing to commute between the two large cities and their metro areas.
When a flight takes about an hour, high speed rail will beat it in both real door-to-door speed and price. This doesn't just help the NE corridor, but allows for lines like Columbus-Chicago-St Louis-Kansas.
Price, destination options and schedules.
If I could take high speed rail back home to visit (about 1,100 miles) instead of driving or flying I would, assuming there was a route and it didn't cost more or take longer than driving.
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Toledo, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Cincinnati are core cities in Ohio on the Chicago Hub line, not just Cleveland. Five dots in Ohio. People never seem to realize that Ohio is actually a pretty highly populated state with six metro areas greater than 650K people. This rail plan is going to be great for my home (but not current) state.
No. Rail lines and companies were systematically dismantled by the auto companies, GM in particular. GM participated in anti-competitive practices and all they got for it was a slap on the hand.
The great myth is that this kind of FUD has existed for so long.
I can go to Chicago (six hours by car, probably 10 by rail) then to St. Louis (nine hours by rail).
Rail slower than car? What is it that Amtrak does wrong? City to City travel is almost always faster by rail than by car in most developed part of the world (at least in Europe, Japan etc.)
Having lived in the Seattle area, I'm not that enthused on rail travel. In one of the most liberal states in the country, the rail projects that were supposed to be so beneficial for the state's environment and economy has served neither purpose. Huge amounts of money has been dumped into environmental impact studies, in acquiring lands for the project and then SO MUCH overspending such that the voters eventually have tried to kill it. And of course since all that land had been grabbed the government then makes a decent profit off of selling prime real estate back to people--when they can't complete the project.
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Unquestionably a modern, high-speed rail system connecting major cities would be a wonderful thing to have. But are we even capable of such massive, national projects anymore? Especially with a government that basically dances to the tune of big labor unions?
Imagine Boston's "Big Dig" project to submerge I-95 through that city, with all its corruption, delays and cost overruns -- times a thousand. Hell, times a million. That's what it would be like to build a national high-speed rail system in the U.S. It would be a complete clusterfuck.
Truly I say unto you: we'll see the damn Twin Towers rebuilt before anything like this gets done.
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Done right, and for short haul travel, rail is way better than air travel. What you lose in sheer speed of the plane, is more than made up for, by the time saved by not getting to the airport, checkin, luggage screening, and that sort of thing.
I've found that going to Paris on the Eurostar (French TGV bullet train that links central London and central Paris) beats air travel in just about every way. I had my parents insist on catching the plane to Paris.
This is what happens when you go from London to Paris by air:
1. Catch bus or train to airport (1hr)
2. Allow three hours to check in, get through security, board the plane, and have your plane sit in a long queue to take off (2-3 hours)
3. Fly to Paris (50 minutes)
4. Disembark at Roissy, go through immigration, get to the RER train (30, 40mins)
5. Get an RER ticket, catch train to Gare du Nord, trying not to get robbed by pikies on the way (40, 50mins)
Compare with catching the Eurostar:
1. Go to Kings Cross St Pancras, go through French immigration on British side, security screening (20 minutes). Immigration is no more than waving an ID card or passport.
2. Train trip (a bit over two hours)
3. Train arrives in middle of Paris.
Price wise, you might save a few quid catching the plane, but if you factor in airport transfers, security screening hassle and all that rubbish, then train travel comes out way ahead.
With what money does Obama intend to build this railway network?
Of course the airlines are getting subsidized -- but so what?!
Travelers don't care why it's cheaper; they just care that it is. The new high-speed rail is going to have to be cheaper, or nobody's going to use it. The government is going to have to subsidize it, or quit subsidizing the airlines, or both, or else it will fail. And I just don't see Congress agreeing to do that.
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Note to those comparing on the basis of the current U.S. rail system: don't, because it's crap.
For e.g., Josh proposes linking San Francisco, L.A., Seattle and Portland...well hey, they're already connected. Have been for near a century, by the line / train now called the Coast Starlight. It's a beautiful journey from Seattle to L.A. through all the major (and some not so major) towns on the way, the ride is pleasant, the scenery is incredible...and it takes 26 frickin' hours. (I still prefer that to flying, but I'm in a minority there). That's because it's running on tracks that haven't been upgraded, it feels like, since 1926, using trains from 1963 through stations from 1886. It never gets past sixty miles an hour.
A proper Japanese- or European-style high-speed rail network would do *the whole trip* in, oh, seven or eight hours, maybe. Meaning many of the useful internal trips would be 2-3 hours. That'd be huge.
I would really, really love for the U.S. to build this, and for similar upgrades in Canada. I like to travel and I frickin' hate airlines, it would be so nice to have a pleasant, civilized way to cover this continent.
True, Medicare's administrative costs are just 3% of total spending, while the private sector hits 11% to 14%. But insurance companies spend money to screen their claims for fraud. Medicare automatically pays more than 95% of the bills it receives. This lack of scrutiny reduces overhead, but it makes the program highly vulnerable to abuse.
In principle I think this is an awesome idea. Whether or not it works out in practice remains to be seen, especially with the way things are done in the US.
In Taiwan, just a few years ago, a high speed rail line was built from Taipei in the north to Kaohsiung in the south, nearly spanning the length of the island. It's done fairly well, almost meeting expectations. It's hurt the domestic airline industry somewhat mainly because the rail line only takes marginally longer to travel the entire distance; it takes a bit over 1 hour versus 45 minutes by plane.
The high speed rail line had a few advantage however. Nearly all of Taiwan's major cities run down the west side of the island where the land is flatter. It makes it easy to reach all the key population centers.
Secondly, unlike the US where Americans are used to having to drive long distances, Taiwan generally feel the 200+ distance is too long to drive. People do it all the time, but to them they might as well be driving from New York to California. And the cities are dense enough that it ends up being a hassle to drive around anyway. When I was in Taipei, for example, they had 2 or 3 cars for every parking spot. It's an exercise in frustration just finding a parking spot, let alone negotiating the dense, hectic traffic. The south is a bit better, but it's still a problem.
Third, many people already took buses or the existing, slower rail line, so the jump to high speed rail was a logical one. The question was if Taiwan, who generally are quite cheap, would be willing to pay a good deal more for a significantly reduced travel time. It turns out they are, but if I recall correctly the high speed rail company did lower rates at some point.
Construction was just beginning when I was living there between 2000 and 2002 and it was open to the public in 2007. The line itself runs just over 200 miles. The total cost was in excess of $15 billion. There's no way in hell we'd see a high speed rail line built that quickly and for that price in the United States.
Take the piece of garbage that passes for a high speed rail line in the northeast, the Acela. It runs on existing rail lines with slight upgrades and they still managed to finish it well behind schedule. The Wikipedia article claims it was a year late, but from my recollection of announcements at the time I'd say it was at least 2 or 3 years late. The Acela has to slow down at every single station it passes, so in my area it's barely going faster than traffic on the highway. All the trains on this line are consistently late, to the point that the scheduled times are more of an identification for the trains than an actual indication of when the trains will arrive. The best part is how every so often a train pulls down the power lines.
And I'm reminded of yet another issue, common courtesy. In Taiwan food isn't permitted on subways and most trains. And people respect those rules. In all the years of riding there I don't recall ever having seen graffiti more than a handful of times and very limited. I never had to worry about sitting in the mess someone left behind. Public bathrooms were always clean both because people weren't slobs but because they were also cleaned on a regular basis. If someone makes a significant mess someone will be by to clean it up in short order.
When is this ever the case in the US? People seem to have no respect for anything, like it's their duty to deface and vandalize. And imagine suggesting to any rider that they should wait 30 minutes, until they get off the train, before they eat. Instead they'll sit there slobbering over their food, making a mess and then have the audacity to leave the garbage sitting under the seat.
My point is that Americans turn public transportation into a miserable experience. Expect this money to be spend poorly and in the end still not provide the sort of experience that the European or Japanese high-speed rail lines provide. And just wait until every last town starts fighting for their own stop on the line. Or
Everyone here is talking about the northeast and midwest, what about the damned west coast?
Karma-whore time! FTA:
Unlike many of the posters here, I don't think that the Presidency has forgotten the West Coast, given that they identify two corridors in that list...
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
The commuter rail in Massachusetts has wifi, and is one reason my brother is moving to Boston. An hour of telecommuting before you get to work every day can be a huge draw for people.
They are only in business because they keep getting propped up by the Gov. If they weren't in business, they couldn't offer fares at all, therefore they can only offer cheaper fares because of government handouts.
There is a war going on for your mind.
Remember Amtrack anyone? The giant government boondoggle that loses money every year?
I suppose the Federal highway system makes money? No. It costs us several hundred billion dollars a year.
How about the airline industry, which has been a bailout baby for decades?
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300 mile radius rough outline with reasonable margins for schedule changes and delays with highly integrated transit system: train = arrive at station, security (+40min), ride 300 mph (+60), hop on subway/bus (+10). Total of 1 hr 50 min plane = arrive at airport, security, board (+90min), ride 300mph(+45), taxi and deplane (+30) hop on subway/bus (+10). Total of 2hr 55min
One: The existing rail infrastructure in the united states is ill-suited to speeds above 100 miles per hour (i.e. no banked curves, street level crossings, not enough straight stretches of track, etc).
Two: The existing rail infrastructure is owned by the freight companies who don't care about passenger service. Here in California I once took the Amtrak from San Diego to San Luis Obispo, a distance of ~325 miles, and I must say that the experience was a test of patience. There were three hours of delays, making for an eight hour total trip. We had to pull over and stop for half an hour on side switch tracks so that freight trains loaded with sugar beats, a higher priority than making 1000+ people wait in the eyes of the freight company, could pass us by going south...twice. If high speed rail is to happen here in the United States then it will need dedicated and exclusive tracks like shinkansen in Japan or TGV in France...period.
Three: The United States is the land of lawsuits and we are a nation of NIMBYs who will not want to see their neighborhoods "degraded" or their property values reduced by a noisy high speed train passing nearby. If a train is traveling at 200+ mph with steel wheels on steel rails then it is going to make a fairly large amount of noise when it passes. In Europe they make it more difficult for individual special interests to stand in the way of progress on such issues, but here in the United States just getting the right-of-ways established for the tracks would be a nightmare and just about every community along the proposed route will sue to prevent the train from exceeding 80 miles per hour along the stretch passing through their neck of the woods. So, what you will end up having is the high speed train that can do 200+ mph, but in practice is limited to no more than 100 along much of the route due to NIMBYs and their lawsuits, which mostly defeats the purpose of high speed rail.
Here's the actual plan documents:
http://www.fra.dot.gov/us/content/31
If you read the first PDF, hsrstrategicplan.pdf, go to page 18, under Section 301, 501, 502 you can see that up to 80% of funding may come from the government. The exact amount depends on how closely it matches the goals of the HSR plans and/or benefits other types of rail service.
While nothing excludes provide companies from getting involved, they MUST involve the states and have the project added to that state's Rail Plan. This means the project will have a stronger local component and firmer commitments by everyone involved.
Applications are due August 2009 with a draft national rail plan out in October 09. They plan on at least two phases of projects, with the 2nd phase accepting new project applications starting January 2010.
I live outside of Louisville and would love to be able to get to Indy in an hour or Chicago in 3 hours or less. I would be much more likely to go to out-of-town concerts and events if I didn't have to spend hours behind the wheel. Being able to nap in a train and especially being able to stretch my legs a bit without stopping the car would be idea.
Driving ~6hours to Chicago is not appealing and after getting to the airport early, the 1.5 hour flight turns into the same 3 hours as a train ride.
The other thing is that trains are rarely grounded by fog or storms. I can't count the number of my flights that were delayed by weather.
I've been on slashdot so long I'm starting to get out of touch with the cool stuff if it ain't on slashdot.
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
So Congress has the power to provide for the general Welfare of the United States...
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
and regulate commerce when it's among several states...
To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;
... and it even explicitly mentions roads.
So it doesn't seem to me that building national infrastructure is outside the scope of the Federal Government's enumerated powers. On the contrary, I think if there are any 2 things that are properly the Federal government's business, it's keeping an army and developing national (interstate) infrastructure.
Admittedly, no, you don't get explicit mention of railways, power grids, or the Internet in the Constitution-- but then such omissions aren't very curious of a document written in the 18th century.
is that Cold War strategists realized that military equipment movement within the US was limited. The Eisenhower Interstate System was to connect major US military bases with roads spec'ed to carry military equipment.
The trouble is, this empty suit is continuing and compounding Bush's mistakes.
-jcr
Exactly. Based on the first 100 days, Obama is on track to be, at best, the second-worst president of my lifetime.
Is everybody excited about replacing an 8-year hopeless war in Iraq with a 10-year hopeless war in Afghanistan?
Bush recklessly grew the deficit. In a single year, Obama appears to be set to QUADRUPLE it. Oh, but don't worry, he promises to cut that in half by the end of his first term, which means we'll "only" be growing the debt at double the rate we were during Bush's final year, which was already way too high.
Lest you think I'm some kind of Republican shill: I'm fairly certain McCain would have been as bad or worse.
But hey, at least we're closing Git'mo (while retaining the option of holding enemy combatants without trial indefinitely... as long as it's not in that base.)
The only real "change" I'm seeing from Obama is what will be left of the tax rebate he's promising us after you subtract the cost of all his new hidden taxes that we will have to pay (i.e., carbon exchange taxes.) That will amount to change. Mostly copper.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
At least in the US. High speed rail has little to do with our "obsession" with cars. It has to do with the fact that we jumped on the regional airport route back in the 60s.
Rail, unlike planes, has the ability to use electric power vs oil. Which then means the power can come from any number of, more green/less foreign oil type, ways.
You are correct that the infrastructure currently is hugely slanted towards air travel but it's clear you missed part of the point.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!