Study: High-speed rail could benefit Midwest

The Chicago Tribune ^ | December 14, 2004 | Carol Ann Riha -- The Associated Press

[IronJack]

I'd be interested in seeing the details of this proposal. It smells a lot like bacon to me, but I'd love to debunk the revenue and cost projections. It could be more fun than a Spiderman comic.

[Petronski]

"Hey, Ernie! Let's build greased pneumatic tubes from LA to New York. We stick people in and squirt them through with 2 million psi blasts of air. They'll cover 3,000 miles in 3 minutes."

I'd ride that for a dollar.

[sergeantdave]

I forgot to add "Splat!" at the end of the ride.

[quantim]

PORK, of the first order.

Don't forget the expenses of third generation handouts to the employee's offspring with automatic increases in benefits, paid for by your grandchildren.

 

[Vince Ferrer]

How's the Las Vegas monorail doing these days?

[LowCountryJoe]

Willie doesn't appear to have taken a position on this one but being the "conservative" that he is, do either of you have any guesses as to which way he's leaning?

Also interesting is the numerous keywords assigned to this thread. I'm telling you that it's not of my doing and it seems as though Willie has quite the growing fan club.

[FreedomPoster]

We need more of it, because rail is such a huge success in America. Just look at Amtrack.

[Toddsterpatriot]

Another consideration: we are running out of radio frequencies for communication with aircraft. When we do run out of frequencies, airlines won't be able to put additional planes to work, which creates a window of opportunity for high speed rail.

I suspect the frequency issue could be solved much more quickly and cheaply than by building high speed rail.

[newgeezer]

Heard-this-on-the-news-this-morning ping.

[biblewonk]

F*** Europe, give me big ole suv's to drive to my mail box.

[You Dirty Rats]

True. We are a nation of the automobile.

And the airplane. This country does not have the population density of Northwest Europe and other rail centers. That's why passenger rail died in this country decades ago outside of the Northeast Corridor and our largest cities.

[Willie Green]

And the airplane. This country does not have the population density of Northwest Europe and other rail centers.

Short-hop air travel over distances of 150~500 miles is inefficient, both in terms of fuel consumption AND passenger travel time (considering the increased demands for airport security). High-speed rail is a viable transportation alternative to provide service in this niche where major metro areas are located only 150~500 miles apart. We may not have the population density to provide full transcontinental service, but we certainly have regional areas where such short-haul passenger service would be competitive.

The 110 mph technology mentioned in this article, while representing a dramatic improvement over current performance, is actually fairly slow by modern "high speed" standards. State-of-the-art high-speed rail offers speeds of up to 190 mph, and Maglev promises top speeds exceeding 300 mph. Faster is better, of course, but it is also more expensive. So this article is likely addressing a "minimal cost" proposal to upgrade current infrastructure to minimal "high speed" standards. This likely makes economic sense for many of the routes within this MidWest network. However, I think it should also be planned to interface with higher-speed technology for use on the more heavily traveled routes.