Amtrak's 2035 map has people talking about the future of U.S. train travel
npr.org
npr.org
Right now, the best jobs in the state are divided between Charlotte-area, and Triangle area (Raleigh and Durham). House prices are going up like crazy in those areas, meanwhile the more affordable cities that are outside the range of a comfortable commute to those cities (High Point -> Triangle), (Winston -> Charlotte) can't quite compete with the network effects around banking, healthcare, and tech that are driving the growth in the big areas. Those cities wouldn't actually be a terrible a commute away from Charlotte or The Triangle (45min-1hour in ideal conditions), but traffic during peak hours and constant road construction along those routes would make it miserable.
If there was fast, reliable train service, I could definitely see commuters giving those areas a closer look. Especially since so many jobs these days seem to be less stringent about office time (ie, only go into the office 2x a week).
First, Amtrak is not a competitive transportation option. It can be a fun novelty, but it's expensive and slow. Going from Portland to Oakland is supposed to take 18 hours but actually took 20 when I rode it. The same trip in a car takes 10 hours. By plane is 90 minutes. It gets worse: Amtrak cost me more than a plane ticket to the same destination.
Second, hundreds of billions of dollars doesn't get you much train in the US. California tried to build a high speed rail route between SF and LA. The estimated completion cost has skyrocketed to $100 billion and the completion date is 25 years after voters approved the project. The state has since given up on connecting LA & SF by high speed rail.
There is simply no future in which passenger rail competes with air travel in the US. Even in circumstances where the distances are not too great, and the political and bureaucratic hurdles are.
To be honest, when it's my own money I usually just take the regular regional train. It's about half the price and because it can piggyback off the electrification done for Acela, it takes less than an hour more.
On other routes being slow is a massive liability though. If people could get from San Francisco to Portland in 10 hours, or even 12 hours, instead of 18 hours, it would be much more practical. At 18 hours it messes up your sleep schedule rather than just giving you more time to read.
It might just not be worth it to spend more on rail travel from Portland to SF though. It's just a reality of geography rather than somebody's mistake that travel from SF to Portland is harder than travel from DC to NYC.
Last time I went through LAX there were no good options for getting from there to downtown LA.
In Japan, I can literally show up for a Shinkansen five minutes before departure and hop right on.
Airports for short range traffic are fscking awful.
* I can’t just show up for the Acela five minutes before departure. It’s not nearly as bad as flying, but there is ceremony involved.
* Security and boarding are a lot better when you are a frequent business traveler. That’s who is going to make the bulk of the DC-NYC trips regardless of modality. We shouldn’t compare the tourist experience between the two.
Contrast that to the TGV in France, which zooms around at 200mph and covered one of my trips between Paris and Avignon (~430mi) in ~2.75hrs about a decade ago. US train infrastructure feels extremely behind in comparison. Perhaps it's because of a greater emphasis on highway travel.
That said, the NYC-Montreal and Boston-Toronto lines are lines that absolutely should be dedicated high-speed passenger rail in addition to the NEC, but they are not even dedicated passenger rail lines at the moment let alone proper 220mph HSR lines.
Roadbeds are maintained to freight train standards, e.g., the difference in height of the two rails.
Amtrak depends on the "host railroads" who are not very hospitable to passenger traffic.
So it seems pretty probable to me that Acela came about because there was already a huge and increasing demand for such a service.
NIMBY-ism as well? Because I can't fathom how a 400 miles high-speed rail route can cost $100bn unless you're spending years re-drafting your route because every asshole on the way has to be heard.
25 years is not completely nonsensical though, if you want to do this right it does take time.
For a fairly recent example, the french LGV Est is 252 miles (406km), it cost 4bn (including 800 millions worth of rolling stock), and took 16 years before the construction and financing protocol of the first phase was signed and the opening of the second phase. First phase opened a year late, and second phase 3 months late because of the Eckwersheim testing accident (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eckwersheim_derailment).
Obviously building in California would require additional studies and expenses for earthquake safety and the like, but 12x… seems a bit much.
The cost only makes sense if it's basically all tunnels and briges, like Chūō Shinkansen: that's estimated to cost north of $90 billion for 177 miles, but it's going straight through mountains, 90% of the way is through tunnels.
And most of the cost of tunnels is the requirement for emergency access and ventilation; the small demonstration tunnel in Vegas lacks these features, and so was cheaper.
To compare, the Gotthard Base Tunnel in Switzerland requires emergency cross connections every 325m and access shafts to the surface. The cross connections are perpendicular to the main tunnel and short in length so they have to be dug out more or less with workers anyways. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_Base_Tunnel#/media/Fi...
Oh crud Hyperloop finally makes sense to me.
But, yes, I've been in a Concorde (not flown in one) and the seating is, at best, modern domestic--non lie-flat--business class.
I actually think this is something that a lot of modern supersonic travel fans miss. If you're willing to spend the money that supersonic travel will cost you can travel very comfortably. And 12-24 hours of time spent relaxing comfortably is not actually a problem for most people.
There were definitely other problems (the aircraft was a dinosaur, with parts no longer made and a three-person crew; there was no reasonable replacement program on the horizon; the fuel costs of supersonic were hard to justify with the oil prices of the 2000s) but yeah, at some point Concorde's proposition became less and less appealing.
FWIW the biggest supersonic contender these days, Boom, is specifically targeting room and per-mile costs for a modern business-class cabin of 50 people, which is a lot more workable from a business perspective. That being said, the money is not really in transatlantic (where you can sleep for 6-8 hours anyways) but in transpacific, because 12+ hours in a plane is a slog no matter how comfy the seat is.
It does mean that non-stop from LA to San Jose would be right out though. Being conservative and assuming a 300km/h vehicle, you'd want at least 3 stops along the way if people are completely trapped in the vehicle without even being able to stand up, much less relieve themselves.
The bathroom is an obvious problem, and it also ties into problem # 2; the Americans with Disabilities Act. Cars and even minivans are not compliant with ADA without very expensive modification. Airplanes can afford long dwell times and dedicated personnel for people with disabilities, but as designed Boring Company/Hyperloop stuff can't accommodate this in a reasonable way.
https://www.indy100.com/science-tech/elon-musk-boring-compan...
The LGV route is a far more open and "flatter" (relatively speaking) than LA to SF. There's way less for them to tunnel or grade, which gets expensive quickly. HSR requires more gentle changes in direction than traditional rail. Building on flat, open terrain that no one is using is great... but that kind of terrain is already in use or owned by someone. Thus, easements or having to outright purchase the land. If not and you go for cheap land, it's going to come with downsides, like being mountainous.
At that, France sees less than 10 earthquake events over 2 magnitude a year on average. In the past week, there were already 6 events over 2 magnitude between LA and SF alone: https://www.cisn.org/map/index.html An LA to SF line is practically on a fault line. Devastating earthquakes are a real reality for a Cali line, not so much for France. The Cali standards for building rail are going to be higher than France, and for EXTREMELY good reason. Thus, price goes up for construction.
There's a lot more at play to building these things. What I mentioned barely scratches the surface to the complications. Claiming NIMBY is pretty naive if you don't take into consideration the real world problems and needs to achieving something compared to the lofty, idealistic wants of a project.
It's funny how the same complaints tech folks make of the construction industry are in parallel with what construction folks say of the tech industry. Both are based off ignorance. I have the pleasant curse of having a foot in both fields.
Real world construction is far more complex and difficult than what you imagine. Wide sweeping statements like, "incompetence of the construction companies and their governmental overseers" stinks of you having an cartoonish armchair understanding of what it actual takes from visualized computer renders to a real standing structure. Because civil engineering in the modern age has been a total failure, har har har. Honestly, it's people like you that are easily persuaded to vote for abolishing OSHA on the grounds to hasten construction times and lower costs. Because guess what, Cali construction costs are pretty high due to safety regulations. This is where... oh God forgive me for saying this... I agree with a lot of Cali construction code even though it can be excessive at times, it's warranted a lot of time. Especially because some of it is set for their specific region's character of obstacles... almost like local authorities know best and should enact laws how to construct depending on their local area's nuances! They shouldn't base their construction methods on regions from the other side of the planet!
That's exactly what happens. Not because of NIMBYism but because it's run by consultants on cost plus, T&M, or percentage contracts. They have no incentive to finish the project. And in fact are financially rewarded for making the project more expensive.
Trains are slower in some cases, but the views you simply cannot get from a plane or car.
You can work on a train.
You can get a private cab.
You can get up and move around.
You can go to the viewing car and see the beauty of America.
You can't do any of that in a plane or car. It is traveling in a much better way, even if longer.
Take the Southwest Chief from Flagstaff to Colorado routes and you'd be amazed at how pretty New Mexico is, the deserts of Arizona and the mountains in Colorado. Take any of the coastal lines. You will simply be blown away.
The great thing about trains or infrastructure like fiber across America maybe, people will see govt/business in action. It will build platforms of market value that people can see, people in small towns, people all around.
People need visuals just like clients need visuals to see progress, even though lots of the work is not visible maybe in code or other areas.
The time to train is now. In a way it is the last chance to really get it going before everything is full.
We have been robbed of amazing train rides and views. Take any of these routes/lines and tell me you don't enjoy the views. [1]
Before you vote on anything related to trains, go take one on our underfunded Amtrak routes. It will change your mind if you are not for it. Imagine if we did this right.
Trains use much less fuel, help make pricing for cars/planes competitive and more. Having a third major transportation option besides a bus is needed as we get more packed in.
For me, driving the west has been life changing. I wish I could convince my friend to give it a go. They would get a lot out of it.
Trains are less of a threat. Attackers can only really cause damage on a train to a section and maybe a derailment.
Plane terrorism is broader. With a plane everyone is at risk and the plane could be used to attack other things.
Train terrorism is limited. A train can't be taken off course. A train can't be all blown up. Even a massive derailment only affects a section. An attack would be a tragedy but it has rails so to speak on the reach of the damage. Maybe if they blew it up over a bridge or by a building in a city it could cause more damage or some other trigger like causing another disaster. You to have the threat of people setting explosives on the track. There was one of those in 1995 in Arizona where 1 died and 78 were injured, supposedly the attackers were avenging the Waco Siege. [1] Looks like that is the only terrorism event on trains in the US. [2] Subways and metros are probably more targeted in the city.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_Palo_Verde,_Arizona_derai...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in...
This is no way in comparison to train travel. There's no "dining car" on the train. There's no tables for business meetings. There's no 2 to 4 bathrooms per car. Sleeper rooms are much cheaper and accessible than on planes, but sure, you can pay a multiple of $10k for a room on beyond-first-class international flights.
But even if I granted you that in the old days, you could show up 30 minutes before the flight, walk pretty much straight to the gate, you're still ignoring much more time spent getting to the airport, and time spent waiting for takeoff and baggage loading/unloading.
Major airports are generally located outside cities and near water if possible, train stations are usually located in the heart of the metro area. Sure, there are exceptions like Las Vegas, but in general, most people have to spent 45mins-1hr just getting to the airport in the US.
No one's saying you should use train travel for DC to SF. But come on, NYC to DC, or SF to LA is a no-fucking brainer. When you drive from SF to LA, most of Route-5 is straight land on wild open, flat prairie, and the main difficulty is when you hit the mountain range past Bakersfield, which every advanced country, be it the French, Swiss, Germans, Japanese, Chinese, already deal with, on far more harsh terrain.
There's zero excuse for the opposition to high speed rail for regional intercity, except for a stubborn, weirdly political opposition to trains, which George Will kind of outlined (accidentally) in a piece attacking trains as "socialist" but somehow air travel as "non-socialist" despite the fact that the Feds and States have funded aviation infrastructure to the tune of hundreds of billions over the decades.
What happens if people don't want a railroad through their property at all? After all, once a railroad is sitting on your land, it's difficult to repurpose it for much else. The state can try eminent domain, but that takes time and lengthy court cases, and the costs add up quick.
To put it in perspective, the only all season transcontinental route is the southern most line on the article’s map. It only exists by virtue of the Gadsden Purchase in 1854. The right of way is controlled by the corporate successors of the Southern Pacific.
The non-existence of viable alternative all season grades across the west is why the Gadsden Purchase happened. The US had assumed surely such routes existed in Alta California following its succession in 1848 via the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
I think it leaves Flagstaff really early in the morning - and it's not worth mentioning Flagstaff to LA or LA to Flagstaff because those trips are only scheduled for the middle of the night.
They could run them more with more routes and funding. On the way back to Flagstaff it was later so maybe they already have some additional times.
It would be nice to see LA sections during the day. But that is another benefit really, you can sleep easier on a train than you can on a plane or car, especially with a private room/car.
In that time I would start to work (on the clock), just "sleep in" or work on hobby projects.
In the same time a friend of mine in the bay area manages to travel 20 km to the office.
As much as I hated commuting ... I'd take commuting by train over commuting by car every day.
In France, the railroads are nationalized. A new high speed line doesn't incur the similar costs for right of way acquisitions.
[1]: http://blog.amtrak.com/2019/05/why-are-amtrak-trains-delayed...
In the Seattle metro area, about 100 miles of low-speed light rail has cost $75.5 billion so far. Building infrastructure in the US is just inherently more expensive than in other countries. It is a political problem, and unfortunately, only has political solutions.
Further if that is your "dream" to impose prohibitive taxation on the population I would question your ethical foundation as well
Edit: for the record since someone below is using a straw-man to claim I support subsidies, I dont. I prefer the government stay out it completely, neither taxing nor subsidizing (nor bailing out) anything, or any industry. I am not Pro or Anti Rail, nor I am Pro or Anti Air Travel. I am Anti-Government intervention...
(Flights barely break even at all, and that's even with the absurd level of subsidies airlines get today)
I prefer the government to stay out of it completely. I prefer the government stay out of everything...
In bankruptcy, assets would be sold off (the planes wouldn't be crushed). Businesses restructured and life would go on. It's extremely unlikely no one would be willing to take air travel, even at higher prices than current (I like flying NYC/SF at $150/flight, but I would do it at $600/flight too).
Which BTW under most proposed versions of the Carbon tax is nothing more than a political tool, not a tool to properly account for externalities
Governments do not have a track record for being trust worthily enough to be placed in charge of controlling Externalities, it would inevitably be used to usurp power, and liberty from the people, while unjustly enriching their political allies.
This happens every day, in every government. As the saying goes "Government: if you think you have problems wait until you see our solutions."
What are they? Pigouvian taxes like carbon taxes are near universally endorsed by economists as a market oriented method of improving outcomes.
From an environmental perspective low speed inter-regional fright rail makes a lot more sense.
Where high(er) speed passenger rail could really shine is intra-regional lines. Granted stops slow things down, but the NYC region commuter lines (LIRR, MMR, NJT) have horrible average speeds.
I understand from friends in greater DC and the Bay Area that the situations there are similar.
For example, I'd like for the train to Miami to skip Orlando and Tampa, and for Brightline to be left to bring service back if it makes economic sense (they're already working on Orlando). If not, there are buses like Megabus and Flixbus. That would shorten the Boston to Miami route quite a bit.
Interestingly enough, rail is competitive in the opposite direction from Portland, namely to Seattle, and Seattle to Vancouver. SeaTac is far enough away from both Tacoma and Seattle to be a slog from many parts of the metro area, and the sole highway corridor gets very congested. And it mostly consists of lots of small investments to the existing route, like a $181M bypass that shaved ten whole minutes off of a 3h30 trip, a 6.7% improvement in travel times.
It's most likely these types of smaller improvements that Amtrak will be seeking, and other bang-for-the-buck improvements like electrification. (Even on the same track and same speed limits, electric trains offer better acceleration than their diesel counterparts, which is similar to what we're now seeing from the electrification of cars.)
Lack of high speed rail is an orthogonal issue, and is constantly conflated with fixing the current state of affairs. we don't even have standard passenger rail yet! We need to build more cheap track to connect areas first.
Rail travel is far more efficient than flying, both environmentally and economically. Flying is heavily subsidized in ways that rail is not, and that tends to hide the externalities.
Rail has also been set up to fail with metrics like direct profitability, which is entirely not the point of public transportation. It's like claiming the entire value of a road is the toll money it generates.
https://www.bts.gov/content/train-fatalities-injuries-and-ac...
91 rail collisions (not just with cars, but of all types) for trains (not just passenger trains) in 2020 nationally.
That’s...pretty rare.
So to say the economic part is not obvious one has to be willfully ignorant of government spending, just listing the obvious source of government subsidy there are many other less obvious one including special tax exemptions, and many other programs that have indirect benefits to the industry
[0] https://urbanreforminstitute.org/2019/09/transport-costs-and...
I find it amusing that in this thread if I make a statement opposing government funding of trains people point out that Airplanes get government funding, and if make a comment opposing government funding of airplanes people point out that trains get government funding
It seems that the 2 groups are completely unable to fathom that a person could simply oppose government funding of both Planes and Trains....
Neither Amtrak nor Air Travel should get ANY tax payer money, for any purpose or reason..
Which is exactly the reverse of the old days when freight waited.
Also many host railroads only maintain some sections of roadbeds to freight standards, so passenger trains must slow to freight speeds.
When the Colorado Plateau snows in - as it does about every winter - a bus to LA can simply detour south toward Phoenix.
It's unfortunate, but this is probably the way it should be.
Economically the repeat customer should probably get the benefits of predictability / stability.
Also, passenger commuter lines do stick closer to schedule than long-distance trains.
When I've traveled amtrak, the first time I was surprised to have such unpredictable times, but after that I just factored it in. Most long-distance amtrak travel is for the scenery and the pace, not for private-jet-efficiency.
It's this mentality that is exactly the problem. If a public transportation system can pull a profit that means it's actually creating value for people in excess of the resources that it took to create.
If you look at the best public transit systems in the world most of them are either for profit corporations or explicitly chartered to generate revenue (MTR/Comfort Delgro in sg, MRT in hong kong, tokyo subway). I'm aware that MTR recently got nationalized, so we shall see if the quality remains.
This also neglects the question of positive externalities attached to public transportation systems that aren't accounted for in a profit / revenue metric, such as lower property prices, more flexible labor markets, and the quality of life improvements of mixed use zoning that high use public transportation facilitate.
Seriously? That's the speed of our slowest local regional trains here in Europe. Long distance trains are about twice as fast per km even on a trip one fourth the length and with several stops. If this is a regular state of affairs then it's no wonder that the state of train travel in the US is what it is.
With an ECx or ECE it'd be below 8h.
1. https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Portland,+Oregon/Oakland,+Ca...
2. https://www.amtrak.com/alert/pacific-surfliner-coast-starlig...
And there are very few reasons to travel from Portland to Oakland on a dedicated itinerary. No critical business relationships. No historic ties. No cultural affiliation.
Comparisons of US rail to Europe usually ignore most of Europe. 18 hours reflects a rail speed comparable to what Google returns for a train trip from Zagreb to Tirana. I'm not sure you can even take a train from Berlin to Baku.
> 18 hours reflects a rail speed comparable to what Google returns for a train trip from Zagreb to Tirana
Ehm...I don't believe there's been railway connection from anywhere to Tirana since 2013. Albanian railway infrastructure is largely non-existent at this point. And the only international railway connection to Albania is freight-only. Not quite sure what Google told you there.
Quite simply it runs along the best available route. Down the Willamette Valley to Eugene and then...well it has to make do past Mount Shasta until near Sacramento.
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I'm not going to express faux outrage at the shortcomings of European rail based on the lack of service to Triana. Rather it is to point out that in this sort of discussion of US passenger rail, Europeans tend to ignore a great deal of Europe. More understandable is the misunderstanding of US geography, even in the US people presume similar political geography implies similar physical geography.
Finally, Oakland to Portland is not a major passenger route. Not really even a major rail route since the sea is a viable alternative for freight along the coast and most freight in the US travels east-west.
As for Albania, you know how to pick the one part of Europe where train service is crap - anything from Bosnia southeastwards in http://emptypipes.org/supp/isochrone_zagreb/. Pretty much any other direction is perfectly serviceable and vastly better connected. Apparently you can get sooner to Paris from Zagreb by train that to any of Albania. Is the US west coast due to its geography a similar uniquely bad place?
The US west is mostly empty. When you look at the article’s map even the named places are tiny. La Junta is tiny. Flagstaff is less than 100,000 as a metro. Reno is about half a million. Cheyenne is in Wyoming. The entire state has fewer than a million people.
In terms of European rail travel, I avoided the low hanging fruit like Dublin to Lisbon, Reykjavík to London, or Oslo to Paris.
If you drive along I-5 from Portland to Oakland, there is one mountain pass (Siskiyou summit[1]). Most of the trip is very flat, as you're traveling through Oregon's Willamette valley and California's central valley.
This ignores the existence of climate change. Air travel is not sustainable and air travel is least amenable to conversion to hydrogen or electric.
As you mention, the chief barriers to HSR in North America are political and bureaucratic, not practical. What's missing, then, is the political will to do hard things.
Governments used to be able to do things, when the situation demanded it.
But eventually air travel's time will come, and HSR is the only alternative that's on the table.
It’s completely false, unnecessary, and counterproductive to spread FUD about climate change requiring substantial reductions in quality of life. People are smart and resourceful enough to solve these problems.
And there's no precedent for the level of global cooperation -- which would have to transcend nation-level political realities -- required for meaningful change.
I'm long on humanity. But not because I think we're all going to wake up and fix the climate in a coordinated manner.
Few people want to be stuck on a passenger ship for weeks at a time, their objective is not to be sitting on a ship. It would make international travel completely infeasible for all but a minority. No one would be able to do simple things like visit family if it required a month or more of round-trip transit time.
Society has been organized around jet travel. It can be reorganized around the reality of international travel requiring large time investment.
An argument of "but climate change" is tone deaf and not very compelling when it is you getting thrown under the bus for the Greater Good. Economic realities can't be ignored when they are inconvenient.
The economic effects of climate change will be more catastrophic than making it take longer to move internationally, something that very very few people actually have a need to do.
Addressing climate change in anything more than a performative way will require massive increases in global industrialization, not less. Impactful eco-friendly infrastructure isn't going to build itself. Needlessly making this slower and more difficult than necessary just lends credence to the idea that climate change activists aren't serious about addressing the problem.
The promotion of non-serious solutions to climate change make it much more difficult to get by in from average people for supporting credible and substantive solutions. Which isn't helpful if the objective is to constructively address climate change.
Zeppelins are tres tres romantique, though.
But seriously, why can’t you just tie the zeppelin down? Is there not any sort of cable material with enough tensile strength?
https://ourworldindata.org/ghg-emissions-by-sector
Energy usage for industry is 24%
Road travel is 11%
It seems aviation’s 2% is not the low hanging fruit.
There is no low hanging fruit. We need to address every sector. No individual solution is going to cut more than a few percent of total carbon emissions.
A buddy of mine worked for a startup a few years ago that promised to go into large plants and do some trickery with the harmonic losses with the very large AC motors in a lot of the big equipment. Apparently there is a lot of losses in such things. They would install equipment to improve the situation in exchange for a portion of the energy savings over time, which was considerable.
Is the same solution that cuts down on carbon emissions in making steel going to cut emissions when making fertilizer?
Aviation accounts for 9% [1] of US transportation co2 emissions (and as they're emitted at high altitude, impact is likely more like 13-14%)
[1] https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/fast-facts-transportation-...
(Musk's Loop idea is basically another iteration of the PRT concept.)
That said, the Musk Loop type plans where the cabs/cars only carry 1-4 people - which seems similar to this SkyTran - is obviously inefficient and not really a realistic alternative to cars or mass transit systems.
You only think that because you haven't done the math. Its frustrating to hear people talk about how something is "obvious" when by "obvious" they just mean "I haven't actually put any thought into it.
A single Skytran track has more capacity than 7 lanes of freeway or 3 tracks of light rail. Does that sound "obviously" inefficient to you?
A lane of freeway can move about 1500-2000 people per hour in single-occupant vehicles. If you're moving 2k people/hour in 4-person cars on a fixed guideway, you need to have about 10 seconds between vehicles. That's about 8 seconds for a car to physically clear the switch, the switch to physically move to an alternative position, and then the trailing car to cross the space needed to come to a complete stop should the switch fail to actually work. If you claim 7× the capacity, you need to do all of that in a little more than a second.
So, yes I have "actually put any thought into it." I've put sufficient thought to recognize standard gadgetbahn claims with standard gadgetbahn levels of evidence backing them up, and thus I can respond with standard gadgetbahn criticisms.
Your thinking is out of date.
Also peak oil, a largely forgotten issue. As fuels get more expensive, more efficient modes of travel will become cheaper relative to air.
We may greatly reduce hydrocarbon fuel usage but it won't be because we ran out in my lifetime.
Which means you’d have to use hydrocarbon fuel. Which can be chemically produced from atmospheric CO2 and water if you have enough carbon-neutral energy. Or you could sequester an offsetting amount of CO2 if that would be more efficient.
Look at the article’s map. That empty distance between San Antonio and El Paso is nearly 900km of West Texas emptiness. There’s Del Rio and Van Horne as the biggest towns and Marfa as perhaps the most famous.
When last was San Antonio to El Paso an important trip for someone you know?
There are a handful of routes in the US where Amtrak is currently competitive. As others have mentioned, these are mostly in the Northeast Corridor. Amtrak should be investing in improving these, but instead treats them like a cash cow to fund unprofitable routes elsewhere.
There are also a few routes that, with a little bit of investment, could be competitive. LA to San Diego is one example -- they're the #2 and #8 largest cities in the US, only 120 miles apart, and one has notoriously bad traffic. The biggest problem with current service is that some sections of the route share a single track for both directions of travel, which can lead to cascading delays. They're fixing this, but because there's so little funding, it's going to take 30 years just to lay a few dozen miles of track alongside the existing track. It would seem like a no-brainer to prioritize this.
But because Amtrak requires congressional funding, and no member of congress wants to be left out, you end up getting grand plans that touch every state in the country, and you have to add routes that have no chance of being successful just to get enough votes. Eyeballing the map, it looks like the only state in the continental US without a stop is South Dakota.
10 hours of active driving is something completely different than 20 hours being a passenger/sightseer (of which I would spend significant part asleep or reading) In fact I don't think it's safe to drive for 10 hours, you probably need to add several hours of rest, and will still be half zombie after that.
At some point the train becomes attractive. It's certainly a much less stressful option.
That said I must agree American trains are in poor shape compared to other places.
Well-marked, well-maintained, well-signed, and gradient/curve controlled interstate highways are among the easiest for self-driving vehicles. It's just about possible today (but expensive and in some ways legally unsolved).
It would be shocking if America didn't have popular, reasonably-priced self-driving highway vehicles in 14 years to do that (14 years used to match the timeline of Amtrak's 2035 map).
And an additional amount of maintenance costs, vehicle depreciation, insurance, etc. Driving might still come out less expensive, but ignoring all the extra costs makes it look cheaper than it really is.
From Salt Lake City heading west the first metro of more than one million is Sacramento a thousand kilometers away. In between is nothing but mountain ranges running north south. The little ones only nerds and locals can name. The big one, the Sierra Nevada, which most Americans will vaguely allude to as “the Rockies.” Despite the Rockies being five hundred kilometers to the east of Salt Lake City.
Even further on the other side of the Rockies sits Denver 800 km away. It's the closest million plus metro to the east of Salt Lake. Again across north south mountain ranges.
That’s 1800 km of mountain traversing rail line that only serves Salt Lake City. And it’s still almost that far - 1600 km - to Chicago...and a mere 1200 km to New York City.
The US is vast. Europeans don’t have practical rail from Helsinki to Athens. Or Berlin to Baku. Both significantly shorter than NYC to San Francisco.
National passenger rail isn't politically viable in the US because passenger rail is an absurd approach in most of the US.
The west and the midwest are most of the US.
So really, it's just your concern that is important to you. There's no "we" in it. Only what benefits you.
If you think intercity rail is a great idea, you don't need the US Senate. Just your own local and state officials to boldly pay for it with your own local and state taxes.
Draw the line with them, not with me.
The problem isn’t that some states won’t go along. It’s that you think of Hawaii as owing you fealty. New Mexico as obliged to pay tribute.
The problem is that geography and history make the US unsustainable over the long term. There’s no “Plymouth Rock therefore California.” No “Jamestown therefore Santa Fe.” No “Mount Vernon therefore Maui.”
> The problem is that geography and history make the US unsustainable over the long term.
Here we agree, which is why the US should build several dense intercity rail networks within its borders which will eventually serve as skeletons for its balkanized successor states :)
I suppose you consider federalism itself to be "war upon the locals". That ship sailed (or perhaps burned and sank) when the Articles of Confederation were replaced by the Constitution.
continual underlying appeal as the alternative to self control
If I could only just control my compulsive, pathological desire for decent-quality intercity rail travel in densely populated regions...
The problem isn’t that some states won’t go along. It’s that you think of Hawaii as owing you fealty. New Mexico as obliged to pay tribute.
By that logic, taxpayers in New York have been paying fealty to Texans in the Fort Worth area (via the Lockheed F-35 construction facility) for years.
The southernmost route traverses the mountains of the Basin and Range physiographic region.
It does, just not in hyper regressive California.
You could build a full high-speed rail network between Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio for $100-$150 billion.
You just can't build much of anything in California, period, that's the issue. It's a collapsing state in most metrics that matter for quality of life (and has been for a long time), even the venture capitalists can't abandon the state fast enough. As their capital flees, so goes what remains of California (tech). As taxes go far higher this decade, the flight will get worse, Texas and Florida will keep extracting immense value out of California and New York.
This model already works well along the Northeast corridor. Even the slow, delay-ridden Empire Service (thank CSX for that) ran full trains between New York and Albany(before Covid). Not to mention the main DC to Boston route.
The failure of intercity rail does not seem all that distinct from the general failure to invest in infrastructure in the US, and the enormous costs when the investment is attempted.
Except the NEC is heavily competing against existing air travel between its common destinations. Or are you generally referring to longer distance air travel? (i.e., 2+ hours by plane?)
It's so easy to imagine taking a self-driving sleeper taxi overnight between Portland and Oakland in 10 hours - just throw a bed in the damn thing, go to sleep, and wake up at your destination. Give self-driving cars a dedicated lane with a different speed limit, and you could bomb the trip in 7 hours, easy. It'd all utilize existing infrastructure, we'd just be increasing the throughput.
If the car is electric, it'll be multiples cheaper than the fuel costs of driving yourself, a spiffy van with nice spread out reclining seats could have multiple passengers so the cost could be split further, and it'd probably be 1-2 orders of magnitude better for the environment than taking a flight.
I would hope that Amtrak in the long term also electrifies the rail network so that the dependency on diesel engines can be reduced - for some routes this may not make sense, but where you have frequent services it seems that it would be a worthwhile impovement too.
Ten hours by road. Large enough to have sleeper compartments or reclining seats. (Large enough to have restrooms.) Driven by an NI -- natural intelligence -- whose competence is accredited by the state government in a reasonably fair examination of skills. Give a dedicated lane to the bus, and seven hours might be within reach.
Really, the problem is that I see flights between the two cities at $70 per person and 2.5 hours in the air. Even if it takes an hour on each extra, that's 5.5 hours versus 7 for a fairly reasonable price.
All these modes of transportation have pros and cons. How do we get people to take less flights? Busses already exist. Decent fast and cheap trains don't, nor do self-driving cars. Both will help poach people away from shorter flights, but one is (potentially) much cheaper and easier to implement.
The primary issue I have is that the hours the service runs, the first departure is a little too late to arrive for a morning meeting, and the latest is a little too early to leave the office after 5 - an earlier and later option would make it very viable for one day business travel.
Whilst the US population is generally much less dense than much of Europe, there are large areas (PNW, the northeast, much of California) that definitely have high enough population density to support an extensive rail network. Yes there must be political will to make these improvements, but surely that is true of all infrastructure spending?
The front range of Colorado, for example, had trains everywhere in the late 1800s. It was the way to get between Denver, Colorado Springs, Pueblo, Boulder, Golden, and other cities on the front range.
Now they're trying to build a rail link between Denver and Boulder, and it's costing a fortune and running into all kinds of NIMBYism and bureaucracy.
I'd love to see it, but the way it's going I'm skeptical it will ever beat out the RTD buses.
We are going to need a citation here because I’m pretty sure this isn’t true
1. https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2019/02/12/gavin-newsom-br...
2.https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-09-08/newsom-b...
From personal experience (family that lives in Fresno), Fresno revamped downtown to get ready for all this. They cleaned up the Fulton Mall route, pumped a ton of money into the area, realtors were banking on Airbnb housing for all the construction jobs coming in from out of town. Fresno even made a concession to allow tiny trailers to be parked and connected on properties with homes on them already. Then the state shut it down.
Another reason from what I’ve pieced together is that California had so many hurdles to jump through. Namely the environmental reports that had to be made.
Seattle area is spending $54 billion just on a regional expansion of light rail and the cost had gone up considerably since then because of inflation and real estate pressure. https://www.constructiondive.com/news/seattle-area-light-rai...
And is Amtrack even the right organization to lead this effort? The inaugural run of the NW corridor high speed line resulted in derailment with 3 deaths in 2017. Positive train control could have prevented the crash bit they didn't spend on that even though it was mandated by congress. The train was going 80mph in a 30mph zone with a tight curve. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Washington_train_derail...
It sounds warm and fuzzy and I would welcome high speed national rail, but the numbers and timeline don't add up.
TBF light rail, and urban construction in general, is extremely expensive (due to right of way, real-estate, complicated works, …) and it doesn't really "scale out" as every urban project is its own little nugget of crap.
When you're building thousands of miles of track, after a while you'll have a lot of experience which can get leveraged pretty much as-is.
Not saying the plans here make sense, mind.
- own rail tracks,
- own stations and surrounding real estate
One to enable punctuality and one to commercialize to fund operations. And, it all needs to be provided using government funds. No passenger train transport has succeeded without government funding and subsidy.
There shouldn’t be any more funding for freight rail tracks owned by private companies.
Private companies are the only ones willing to make these investments in infrastructure so they can leverage the data it provides, i.e. BNSF and Buffet.
Only assuming ticket sales needed to cover all operations, which definitely need not be the case.
Not in any useful way: freight delays passenger trains in the US with impunity.
http://blog.amtrak.com/2019/05/why-are-amtrak-trains-delayed...
The only significant thing that wasn't freight related, is they split the train in Albany when you are going to NYC or Boston. The second train had some issues, so it took a bit to get a different one, so we were sitting there without power in like, July for an hour or so.
For example, on the San Jose <-> Oakland commuter line (which has existed for decades!), Amtrak runs trains with top speeds of 120mph (or was it 85?) at something closer to a top speed of 45mph.
Edit: Also, the freight line routes no longer make sense. For instance, they run through a pedestrian plaza in Jack London square to an ecological restoration area in south bay, where most factories have been shut down. (There are still salt ponds, but that salt evaporation plant is slowly being shut down in an ecologically responsible way, as I understand it).
I think they should give the freight company imminent domain rights to run a line due east (to sparsely populated areas), allowing the freight lines to run unimpeded by Bay Area rush hour and pedestrians. In exchange, the freight lines would give their existing right of way to commuter rail systems.
Also, while I’m dreaming, Bart would be converted to standard track width, and they’d restore the Palo Alto to Santa Cruz commuter rail lines. Then, all the systems would be put under a single authority, and all the transfers between the existing systems would be timed transfers.
Should be "eminent".
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/eminent_domain
It's amazing to see the trains running at-grade right through a busy downtown street in Oakland; I feel like I've never seen that anywhere else! (Except in Inception as part of a nightmare, maybe.)
Due east from where? San Jose?
Having just driven that way last week over Hwy 130 - it is rugged mountainous terrain that would be quite expensive to develop with rail. Pretty though, and worth the drive in the spring for those who live in the south bay if you have a reason to take the long way out to the valley.
My personal experience is that having taken Amtrak from NYC a huge number of times, it's never been meaningfully delayed leaving Penn Station. But that it will get delayed en route, as the train comes to a halt and the conductor announces we're waiting for a freight train. We wait for 10 or 15 minutes, the freight train takes a couple minutes to whiz by, and then we start moving again.
So I don't know what priority Amtrak has on paper, but in reality Amtrak trains that leave on time are delayed by freight.
So much so that for my return trip where I catch a train that's already been en route for 8+ hours, it's virtually always 30-90 minutes late.
The number of times it has not been delayed by freight after that, crossing upstate New York, numbers in the single digits.
For some reason eastbound seems to fare better, but still no guarantees.
...because there's an anti-government cult that occupies a disproportionate number of government offices in the country.
"Bad" investments is exactly what government is for: things we'll all benefit from (including but not limited to broad economic contributions) but which market incentives don't align to produce.
This kind of purist thinking is dangerous because it prevents you from observing the facts as they are. For example whatever the root cause of California’s high speed rail problems, it’s probably more complex than “public government is bad”. But you will never find out because you have ideological blinders on.
The key thing is not the sector but whether there’s an effective oversight mechanism. It’s a lot more productive to focus on those feedback loops than trying to assume any sector comes in exactly one universal quality level.
Hard to do when the people who really understand broadband networking are working for ATT, Comcast, and Verizon and not for the government.
Funny enough, it seems like SpaceX has the solution for this and it's rolling out as we speak: https://www.starlink.com/ . Space-based internet that actually works and is actually fast is a game-changer.
Let's see how the telecoms respond to competitive pressure. If anyone can get 100Mbps within a year, I'm willing to bet Gigabit fiber/cable will be available nearly everywhere soon.
This does not defend the appalling incompetence in "managing" the HSR project, I'm just defending the choice of running the train up the Central Valley which I had not understood at the time the project was initially approved.
The Central Valley was chosen as the first construction package area because a lot of the initial money CAHSR got from the federal government had to be spent quickly, and flat ground means that the construction would be the cheapest and quickest construction portion. That the result has neither been cheap nor quick is a pretty severe indictment of the epic mismanagement involved.
Not sure if I'm misinterpreting your comment, or you're being satirical or what.
I was under the impression that it was the government in CA that massively misspent the tax payer billions they were given. As far as I know, there is still no usable "high speed" rail between LA and SF, which is exactly the type of project the left claims they could build, if we just gave the benevolent government more cash.
But maybe I'm in my own bubble, and have not heard the truth.
I'm more familiar with the "great" government infrastructure we've got in my own area. Let's just say the DC metro is garbage, and should've been seized from the corrupt local politicians who've used it as a crony jobs program for the last few decades. But instead, they'll be gifted with tens of billions of more tax payer dollars as part of the various stimulus bills.
Forgive me if I've absolutely no faith in anything the government touches anymore.
do you drive on roads
Free market Capitalism (one form of capitalism) is the only economic system that is compatible with individual liberty, since you oppose that I assume then you also oppose individualism, and individual liberty instead support Authoritarianism and collectivism
Have you heard of the call on the left to “abolish the police”? I have never heard this from libertarians. Do you support abolishing police and prisons? Because that seems to me a far more oppressive institution than, say, income tax. The United States has the largest prison population in the world, I cannot imagine anything worse for individual liberty than that. Also, what about people’s freedom to do what they want with their time? Americans work the longest hours in the western world and have some of the worst labor protections. Libertarians are obsessed with freedom to consume but have little interest in protecting people’s freedoms at work. If the government monitored how long you were in the bathroom, that would be insane, but when an Amazon warehouse in a small town in Alabama does, it’s “the free market”. Libertarians hate when the government takes your money, but love when your boss takes your money, libertarians hate lazy people who don’t work, but have no problem with people who in inherit wealth and live off their investments. They love free speech and free association, but hate unions: which is a freely chosen organization of workers representing their interests. I could go on, but I fully support individual liberty and freedom, which is why I’m a socialist.
The "who will build the roads" trope is common statement for people that support government largess, is ironically poor example of "good government" and completely ignores reality that in most area's the government does a VERY VERY VERY poor job at road maintenance while charging the citizens an obscene amount of money for that poor service.
If a private home owner assocation paid the amount of money most governments do per mile of private road they would be in the civil courts suing that contractor.
BTW many communities in the US do have private roads in them, maintained by the owners of the homes in those communities
Here in the DC area, we have the subjectively WORST traffic in the country now (DC, Boston, etc. might argue otherwise). Regardless, they've built almost 0 new capacity in the last decade EXCEPT for toll roads.
Yep, the main road I use in the DC's "tech corridor" in NOVA is a privately owned (by a foreign company, to boot) toll road whose prices have at least doubled in the last 5-7 years. Before Covid, I was getting alerts for $40 top-ups on my EZPass weekly, it seemed.
They used to have incentives for hybrids and EV cars to use the multi-user lanes (much less traffic during rush hour), but I believe they let those expire and now they use price-by-demand algorithms for the costs to use express lanes. They are almost insulting how high the prices will be at peak times - e.g. $20 to use express lanes for 1.5 miles.
As for residential roads - well those are already paid for with gas and local taxes. Interestingly, my state's sales tax is 30% higher than when I was a kid. Prop taxes go up every year due to exploding house prices, but I see absolutely no new services they're providing with all this extra cash. Do you, in your city?
In order to bid on a project, the government needs three bids from three from three different companies.
In my county, we have continual road, sewer, communications work. It's almost like it's never ending work that doesn't get completed?
I live in the lovely liberal enclave of Marin County.
I noticed, in my county, there is one company that gets All the work. (A very old company. If you live here you know it's Italian name.)
A few years back I started looking at the competing three bids. I looked up the heads of the companies that were bidding.
What I found was surprising.
In many cases the three companies that bid on a government job had a family member, related to the company that gets all our county work, on their contractor's licenses.
It looks like the Italian family sent their kids/grandkids to Sacramento to pass a very easy test, and had them set up "separate" companies.
Why--so at bidding time the three companies would be eesntially bidding against themselfs.
The winner of the "rigged" bid gets the contract essentially for the Italian family that gets all the jobs, and keeps the never ending road infrastructure jobs going.
The companies must share equipment, and employees? I guess it's all legal?
So---if you ever wonder why one company seems to get all the contracts, it might now be that it's the best company.
I do understand it takes millions in machines to build projects, and not every company has the equipment.
I just feel like the system is rigged, and not more efficient than many government run projects.
When there no real competition, and politicians who are way out of their expertise, granting the OK for a huge job; the private company can pretty much do whatever it wants, and blame the slowdown on the, "infarculator of the ground water table rod of thelvin, and that's why it's taking so long Chief?"
(Some projects have Performance Bonds. Many do not require them. Those ongoing projects where they seem to did up a road, and repair it, then dig it up again; most likely don't have Performance Bonds.)
Yeah, all those evil libertarians that run the west coast /s
NE corridor has decent passenger rail. CA has laughable passenger rail. Both are as blue and pro-"fix problems with government" as can be. I know sample size is only 2 but this does point to the cause of the discrepancy being elsewhere.
I agree that "picking up the shit nobody else will" is the kind of investment government should be making but clearly just "removing the anti-government cult" isn't enough to make passenger rail succeed.
They also own sections of other lines - including the New Haven-Springfield line[1].
I'm under the impression that China subsidizes the cost of train tickets because it's viewed as an economic multiplier and sociatal benefit. As an American, it'd be pretty cool if America could do this. It'd also be helpful for tourists to visit smaller train connected cities rather than flying from 1 hub to the next.
We should build out more rail with the same logic.
I don't think this reflects the current thinking in Washington about Amtrak. I wasn't able to find its P/L history, but has it ever made a profit? I can't remember hearing that it did.
Since when? Source? They were always getting preempted when I used it.
[0] - http://blog.amtrak.com/2019/05/why-are-amtrak-trains-delayed...
But both are weekly services, and even Nice–Moscow (yet alone intermediate stops) has more capacity most days by plane than the once-a-week train.
- Rome to Athens
- Paris to Barcelona
- Madrid to Stockholm
Much of Europe is a very far way from having a seamless integrated cross-border train system.
The next direct train takes 6h39m.
China kept their unprofitable rural slow passenger routes into the distant corners of their country, and now they are converting them to high speed routes.
The Beijing-Guangzhou high-speed line is 2,298km long, and used to be 22 hours but now runs in 8[1]
Being able to go from Penn Station in Manhattan to Union Station in Chicago in 8 hours in a comfortable train would be a serious alternative to air travel, and once the track is upgraded, it would probably be cheaper than existing service. And this is completely doable with decades old technology. Other countries have done comparable things with less.
I don't think we should abandon "legacy" routes just because they are not profitable right now. And even if they are never profitable that alone is not a good enough reason to abandon infrastructure.
Eventually, a more direct NY - Chicago high speed rail route could be built that is even faster.
You just need a fast NYC to Buffalo with a little extension on to Hamilton, ON and you’ve got a very direct NYC to Chicago route.
Seattle-Vancouver avoids it by not making any stops between Vancouver and the border, so the immigration checks take place at the station. This might be feasible for Montreal, probably not for Toronto, and a train that runs from Buffalo to Detroit without stopping in Canada at all seems implausible.
Would likely need a special treaty in place so Americans traveling from Chicago to NY can travel through without a passport (just ID). Alternatively if we’re talking diplomatic solutions, the US and Canada could move towards a Schengen-style free transit zone without cross country border checks.
There's a seaplane from Victoria-Seattle. It's been a few years since I took it but I believe this is what happened. There's a custom agent at each side. I can't remember if there were any checks before departure though. I would imagine they would do some preliminary check because they don't want to be on the hook for taking you back.
Shortest custom wait ever BTW since the plane only holds 10-15 people.
> US and Canada could move towards a Schengen-style free transit zone without cross country border checks
This would be a dream. I'm curious why I've never really heard any proposal about this. As a Canadian (currently living in the US), I think that Canada would be more opposed to this. We always seem to have a fear of the US amalgamating us. I think it'd be politically tricky on both sides though. Even though it was proven to be false, there's still this myth that the 9/11 hijackers entered the US through Canada.
If it helps, Switzerland joined the Schengen area while maintaining its own customs controls (with reasonably consistent enforcement) and autonomy on immigration policy (outside of temporary tourist travel which is mostly harmonized). Major policy unification isn't necessary, although the minimum feasible level is likely still unprecedented for the US and Canada.
Which has, in regular times, a weekly service by the Russian railways. And it passes through Belarus, and ends in Russia, countries for which you need visas and aren't necessarily the friendliest. If that service makes sense, Chicago-Seattle certainly could ( as an experience, cheap travel, etc.)
Of course, maybe this is exactly what the future of transportation should look like: more localized travel on modes that can be powered by renewable sources or nuclear.
Compare the journey from my small village in New Mexico to Chicago, about 1200 miles. We just happen to have an Amtrak station 5 miles away. The drive time is about 18-20 hours without stops, which is long enough that an overnight stop is going to be likely. The flight time is only about 3 hours, but that requires first driving 40-70 minutes to the airport, spending time waiting in the airport, and then arriving at O'Hare, and then the 50 min metro journey back into the city.
The Southwest Chief, however, arrives here around lunch time, and arrives in Chicago about 24 hours later.
If you were optimizing for minimum travel time, you'd probably fly. If you were optimizing for cost, you'd probably drive. But if you want a nice journey, the train is fantastic and faster than driving if you're going to stop.
So, there are variations on the theme, and sometimes the train wins, sometimes the train loses.
Train fans vastly overestimate the number of people who will optimize for "sitting in a train and staring out the window for days".
In the case of the parent's scenario, it seems pretty reasonable in that you're really only talking about maybe an additional half day of travel. But that's probably about the upper limit.
Driving: 18 hours, 1269 miles x $0.56/mile = $710 each way (IRS millage rates as proxy)
Train: 55 hour travel, $209 each way (no refund)
Flying: 2.5 hour flight, $68 each way on a budget flight. Double both time and price for non-budget.
I would love to take a train, its just not practical.
OTOH, the flight is hard to compete with in that instance, so I suspect even with a better route, you'd likely still fly between those two places. Others might not, and the new service/route would benefit people making shorter journeys along the way.
I'm acknowledging that it's not for everyone, but that's not really a fair depiction. I get a lot of work done on a train -- the atmosphere is similar to a coffee shop in some ways. Other people enjoy going to the common car and chatting and playing cards with strangers. Or reading. Or just watching Netflix on their devices, like they'd probably be doing at home anyways. We were also talking about an overnight trip, not "days".
[1] I don't have a fear of flying. I don't fly because of the security theater and the "presumed guilty" attitude. Also because of the declining comfort and service because people are prioritize the bottom line. It sucks.
(I always get a sleeper; without that it wouldn't be worthwhile.)
Are you close by?
I'm near Golden.
I think the biggest factor was the convenience. We'd just show up at the train station and take the next train, usually within an hour. No planning, no booking, just bought our tickets at the station, minutes before our trip. All of this for less than 1/4 the cost of a last minute plane ticket.
Sure we could have flown, and the farthest places may have been faster to fly. But that only if the tickets were available and security lines in china are just as bad as here. There's also the comfort of a train with a meal coach. And, the thrill of watching the land rush by at lightning speeds. America felt so backwards on my return.
That's kind of already happened. The Moynihan Train Hall just opened up recently. I checked it out recently and it's quite nice, certainly much nicer than the old Penn Station. The next time you're getting off in NYC, walk towards the back of the train you came in on and then go up to the surface, and you'll be exiting in Moynihan instead of Penn.
Hawaii's interisland flights probably most closely resemble this air travel experience. Aside from Sunday & Friday fares that have a $30 premium due to work-week commuters, currently current week tickets are $49 and next week and beyond tickets are $39. And if you want to believe that's just a covid effect, there was a $29 special going last year right before covid.
Pair the process with chill, small-ish airports* and the hassle of flying is about as low as it gets for controlled commercial air travel.
Years ago, it used to be the norm to Judy show up 10 or 15 minutes before the flight.
* Obviously Honolulu is an exception, but it does have a separate interisland terminal.
I think it's kinda weird how very few politicians are talking about this.
The only things Elon Musk does well are incremental improvements over existing technology, that's not a bad thing but he always throws out bullshit promises that he can do it 10x cheaper or fares only cost one dollar.
I suspect in China there is more political incentive to connect these far-flung provinces, though, to try to promote national unity. I'm not sure closing the gap between the PNW and "middle America" is considered quite as important by people in DC.
That said, the route from NYC to Montreal is really beautiful north of Albany. It just takes about ten hours to get there.
This is just always going to be the problem. It's ok for some mild entertainment but it's not viable for regular travel. A flight to Montreal is like an hour and probably half the price.
With pretty reasonable high speed rail, that should be no more than a 4 hour trip. At which point it is very competitive with flying in terms of time.
For cost, it looks like a round trip on Amtrak is typically $200, whereas a round trip flight for two weeks from now is around $300.
I much preferred the relatively relaxed nature of train travel, and it only bit out an extra hour or two of my day. With high speed rail it wouldn't even be a contest.
Two things to keep in mind by rail to Montreal: customs add 1h, and in summer, if the rails are too hot, per Canadian regulations, the train cannot go faster than 50km/hour or something ridiculously slow like that, which adds another hour or two. Onboard wifi only works when in the US, and because of the mountains in upstate NY, the signal can be very flaky and slow.
In all fairness, that's pretty true in a lot of places. It certainly is in the UK in my experience. I'd actually have said at least the Acela isn't particularly onerous in this regard.
However, I think there is another issue in the US: last mile transit.
Even if the US magically have the rail system similar to China today, using it in cities like Houston etc. that has poor public transit would still be a pain in the ass in practice.
Houston is arguably a particularly bad example. But there are a lot of cities where you pretty much need a car if you want to be at all mobile.
My experience living in China is that for high speed rail departing from tier one and tier two cities, you would often need to book a ticket a day in advance, or - if you were winging it - be willing to go to somewhere other than your intended destination. And foreigners cannot get their tickets through the machine like people with Chinese ID card can, so that means waiting 30-45 minutes in the line to get your ticket (even if you booked online), before you even go through security, which is another 15-20 minutes. And if you show up at the main concourse 5 minutes before the train leaves, you will be denied access to the platform due to the airport-like boarding procedure. As such, I always had to calculate arriving at the dedicated high speed train station (usually itself 30+ minutes bus or subway ride out of the center of town) with at least an hour to spare.
It is still far less hassle than taking a flight, but it's not comparable to the real spontaneous opportunities of going by bus/coach or slow train (hard seat). With those forms of travel you really can just show up at a nearby station and go wherever, with little to no pre-planning and less stressful security checks. But then it will take hours to go halfway across the province. Of course, for many Chinese, that is the standard mode of travel, because high speed rail is still fairly expensive by comparison.
All that said... Pretty much everything about traveling by rail in China is better than it is in America. But traveling by rail in Europe is the gold standard, I think. Being able to buy tickets from a machine, not show photo ID anywhere (in the Schengen area at least), just step on and step off, that's real freedom of movement.
See https://pedestrianobservations.com/2021/03/20/streaming-high... for a much less exciting map, but one for which u have more confidence Amtrak could actually pull it off.
I rather they do the crazy fun cross country routes after that. America needs to demonstrate it's serious about urbanism before I take any cross country lines crayoning seriously.
Name a form of transport that isn't subsidized.
> Where I live, it was all built with tax dollars.
You answered your own question, and, you paid for it too!
Some really enjoy getting off at one stop for a while, and getting on the next train and continuing the journey. Or just deciding that this place looks nice, and getting off here. Try that in an airplane...
There's a growing niche of transoceanic travel by container-ship and bulk freighter, too. It's neither cheap nor fast, and that's the point. It's truly unplugged, where the journey is part of the destination.
Throughout the entirety of human history except the last hundred years or so, long distance travel has been a borderline-boring activity. Maybe that's not such a bad thing -- our brains need some downtime to reflect and defrag. We're just starting to appreciate en masse that "monotonous" can be kissing-close to "meditative". Rail is part of that, and as people catch onto that, it's making a comeback.
A couple years my wife and I went Birmingham to New Orleans for $150 round trip on Amtrak. Airfare on the same route was $600, and I would have paid $150 in parking alone in downtown New Orleans. Moreover, the time difference between train, driving or flying was not all that different. The train was scheduled at seven hours, about the same as driving time with stops. And air travel would have been about the same once you factor in getting to the airport early, two flights with a layover in Atlanta, and getting from the airport to downtown.
It’s also a whole heck of a lot more pleasant than flying. 50” of seat pitch, width of a first class seat, hot food, alcohol, plenty of room to walk around, interesting people to talk to, no needless security theater, no need to get to the station 30 minutes early, no need to worry about baggage fees or weights.
Before the pandemic hit, we were planning on doing the Empire Builder from Chicago to Portland. For the three of us (me, wife, daughter) in a bedroom was $1100. Expensive, but factoring in transportation, room and food for 2.5 days for 3, it’s not a bad deal. And you get to sit back, watch the scenery, read, nap, etc.
I mean yeah, if I need to travel across the country quickly, an airplane will always win. But airlines have seemingly gone out of their way over the last 20 years to make flying as miserable as possible to squeeze every cent out of customers. If I can afford to take some time and the train is an option, I will always choose the train based solely on it being less miserable than flying has become.
My friend never did say what it cost him. I suspect it was the price of a low-end car, but given that he had the car for over a week, and it came with dining and sleeping arrangements for 9 people (him, his family, in his laws, the chef and conductor) he doesn't regret it.
>Typical pricing for a trip is along the lines of a high-end cruise. On average, the all-inclusive costs typically can run between $2,500 and $7,000 or more per car per day. But remember, a rail car may accommodate 6, 8, 10, 20 people or more.
https://www.aaprco.com/travel/where-do-i-start/chartering-a-...
Still looks like a lot of fun, but 20k-56k for 8day trip... I can't do that.
About 15 years ago, I had to spend a little over 3 weeks in Beaumont, Texas, for work, leaving Beaumont just before Thanksgiving. I dislike flying and wasn't paying for the trip and had never taken a train, so asked to take Amtrak.
My train trip was from the Tacoma, Washington Amtrak station to the Beaumont station and back, via the Los Angeles, California, station. It's a 3 day trip each way, and so on the return trip I was traveling on Thanksgiving day.
Pretty much every stop that day had a ton of people getting on and a ton of people getting off, often whole families. They were all just taking the train to the town a few stops down the line to get together with family from the neighboring towns for the holiday, and then return the next time a train going the other direction came through (trains came through each way three days a week on that segment).
So yeah, it may not make sense to have a cross-country route if you just consider people who are traveling from one of the route to the other, just like an elevator does not make sense in many buildings when you just consider the volume of passengers traveling between the penthouse and the bottom of a five level underground parking garage.
But just like an elevator between that deep garage and the penthouse is also an elevator between every other pair of floors, a cross-country train route is also a route between every pair of stops between the ends.
Same. I10 is pointless - no-one drives from Santa Monica to Jacksonville - flying is much faster once you’re going long distance. I mean I would love to cross the country by car for entertainment, but as a common method of travel it doesn’t seem to make much sense.
/sarcasm (for those who need it pointing out...)
Cross country rail lines are just like cross-country interstates: mostly used by people for specific regional connectivity.
It's also an absolute atrocity in the face of climate change.
And it's long overdue that fact is reflected in the ticket price, imo.
For 1,5h flight you end up wasting 3-4h anyway because you need to get to the airport etc, and out of those 3-4h most of the time you can’t do anything productive or relaxing either. With 5h train you can either relax or work and it’s much more productive. Also less co2 produced ofc.
And that’s with “slow” trains going 100mph. With faster trains as in France or Japan even more airplane rides are unnecessary
I know people take the train between Seattle and Portland. I'm sure there are other examples.
* The CA region (SF/Bay Area/Sacramento/LA/Las Vegas/Phoenix).
* Texas triangle
* France TGV-like lines in the Midwest, centered on Chicago, connecting to Minneapolis (via Milwaukee), St. Louis, Detroit, Cleveland, maybe Indianapolis, Columbus, Cincinnati
* New England/New York outside of the NEC--that is, Toronto-Boston and Montreal-New York with timed transfers at Albany.
Right now there are ~40 flights a day that go from PDX-SEA or SEA-PDX. Those are a waste of airport capacity and carbon emission. Both cities have the transit network to easily get people to the airport from wherever the HSR ends up for people who are using those flights to make connections, and could promote growth in the aggregate area in a way that doesn't exist now.
But the pandemic has shown an additional possibility by increasing the acceptability of working remotely. It may become more attractive to have a slightly longer but less-hassle trip (board in city centers or at least locations closer than an airport) if you are continuously net-connected and able to have quiet video conferences and do other work.
In the 90s I spent a lot of time on Shinkansen and TGV and had good phone service and networking (even at GPRS speeds) which meant it wasn't really "lost" time. And certainly I was not alone. (It helped that there was a culture of having actual phone conversations away from the cabin).
That can be a feature. It can also be a bug for all the people who don't live in the city. If I had to board Amtrak in downtown Boston (rather than the suburban station I use), that would probably tip the scales against me using the train.
Faster trains for major city to major city, but slower trains to reach the suburbs?
There is a commuter rail network into Boston. But many of the lines go to a different train station. It definitely wouldn't make sense for me. At that point I might as well just drive to Manhattan (which would actually be faster anyway) or maybe New Haven, where I could pick up a MetroNorth commuter rail. (Have been thinking of trying the latter anyway next time.)
https://www.governing.com/now/taking-the-commuter-out-of-ame...
The primary problem in Boston (from my perspective and I expert alot of other people) is the schedule of the commuter rails is terrible. They just make zero sense. You can take a train into Boston between 6-10am and a train out of Boston between 4 and 7pm, otherwise, you have to wait hours for a train.
I'll take commuter rail by preference to go into the city but only if I'm basically going in and out at normal commuting hours. I won't take it if I'm going in for an evening event or even, generally, if I have an evening event following something in the daytime. But they're basically designed for commuters (hence the name) and, in my experience, are pretty empty the rest of the time.
To your basic point, I don't think I've ever used commuter rail to connect to another mode of transportation whether train or plane. Just too much overhead.
In Switzerland, the inter-region trains are closely coordinated with the local networks of smaller trains, buses, even boats.
You'd take some sort of mass transit from your suburban station to downtown Boston, and board the fast train minutes later.
My commuter rail doesn't even come into the same train station as Amtrak headed south does.
Amtrak to NYC is already a bit marginal for me because I drive an hour in basically the wrong direction to a suburban stop. If I had to go into Boston which is even further in the wrong direction, I just wouldn't do it.
I think we need to have a concept of essential rail service, like we have with road and air.
These routes should have have any obligation to make money, because they provide a benefit to tax payers. Most infrastructure is just accepted as something that should be funded.
Another reason these long distance routes should be left intact is because they are an important anchor for eventually expanding to high speed rail.
China kept their unprofitable rural slow passenger routes into the distant corners of their country, and now they are converting them to high speed.
See last page of the FY 2019 annual report (Amtrak's FY 2019 ended on Sep. 30, 2019; aka pre-pandemic): https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/p...
In the US, at the federal level at least, rail has a serious popularity problem which makes it politically difficult to sustain. That problem is largely driven by the fact that outside of the northeast our rail service is a joke.
If we want to have good quality rail across the country — which I would like to have, fwiw — I think we’d get there faster by focusing on serving just a few places with very high quality rail that everyone else would actually want. Then we could gradually expand the system with concentrated investments that hit that quality bar. After a generation of that, we could have broadly popular rail with a high quality of service. Perhaps that could even include highly subsidized service to rural areas, in the same way we have intensely subsidized highway and postal services to such places today.
But I think if we want to get there we need to start with a smaller goal of regional networks that are GOOD, so that people’s perception of rail changes.
Well being that this is the federal government, it doesn't get to use the immigrant labor that the private sector does, so you are right.
At some point we just need to decide that a project is worth building, and will be built, regardless of the opposition.
- Effective cost benefit analysis that realizes rail is a net win environmentally
- Ability to control costs & graft on large projects to keep labor costs reasonable
- Effective government that understands it's worthwhile to allow some private loss for the net public good
At the end of the day, I believe we'd all be better off with more highspeed rail in the US. There's is no fundamental lack of resources preventing us from doing it; the problem is a lack of competence and political organization.
[1] https://tunnelingonline.com/why-tunnels-in-the-us-cost-much-...
The damn map from Amtrak goes to a 404. I wish we would just get some other company than Amtrak to implement the rail. I love the idea of rail, it’s a shame that Amtrak is somehow incredibly more expensive than flying every time I check the prices.
Even cities that have subway systems, they're in desperate need of new lines. Washington DC and Chicago spring to mind, since their systems could benefit greatly from simply adding an outer loop line. They both suffer from many lines where you have to go into the center to get back out again. The dream for the silver line was to connect the spokes in DC but I know of no real projects in Chicago. It would be a dream to have a map like this in Chicago[1]
I'm glad that Musk's proposed line was chased out the state. The Blue line needed expansion to allow for express lines to the airport, importantly with a few stops in between like a better planned purple line. Chicago did NOT need a 20 dollar a trip vanity project train that only went from O'Hare to the loop so that tourists and the wealthy could have a convenient private line to avoid all the poors. [2]
[1] http://www.gapersblock.com/detour/a_cta_map_for_2055/
[2] https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-biz-chicago-...
High speed trains are three times as fast.
A 100mph train (again, not a modern high speed train) with limited stops would beat the car. Not sure the track could be built for this in this geography, however.
100+ mph roads aren't unheard of (see autobahn). Neither are 100+ mph trains. The fact that neither is available is frustrating.
kWh/passenger-mile, which, even if you assume both have environmentally-equal power sources, means environmental impact.
Probably also easier to keep other vehicles off your “dedicated” lane with a train.
Train service between the two cities, meanwhile, is much more reliable in how long it's actually going to take.
This whole "one mode to rule them all" attitude- common in American news media- is toxic. Cars, trains, buses, planes, and more all have their place.
We were told that funding was already approved and project would be completed by 2018.
In 2018 we were told project and money were allocated and the project would now start in 2019 but had been delayed.
Fast forward to 2021 ... nothing ever happened. Some people inspected the rail lines.. they improved a couple of crossings. That’s it.
Honestly it’s been a bit disheartening to see how slow and difficult things seem to move at the federal and state level :(
https://www.rtands.com/passenger/intercity/quad-cities-to-ch...
Maybe our politicians are a bit too old for the job of visionaries?
By way of comparison, here is a map of European rail: https://www.eurail.com/content/dam/maps/Eurail-Map-2021.pdf
[0] https://media.amtrak.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Amtrak-C...
[1] http://media.amtrak.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/FY19-Year...
I like rail service and wish we had better. But right now there’s this political albatross in the US that rail is a slow, inefficient, money pit. That argument has some weight when you look at those super long distance lines. But when you exclude them and focus on the northeast corridor where Amtrak has good quality of service, the argument falls apart.
To me, the long game for the US to have better rail service means focusing on delivering excellent service quality in the places where they can to get some wins. Then expand service as they can while maintaining quality.
Sprinkling “a little rail” broadly across the country costs a lot more money and delivers far lower quality service. We only do it because of the need to get the senators from rural states to support our federal rail program.
Also nice would be SJC to Santa Cruz.
That Reno to Tahoe drive is still a hike and Heavenly/Squaw/Sierra at Tahoe are decently far apart.
Also, last mile transportation in San Jose/SV, especially if you were carrying around skis would be a pain. Add in the fact that it costs $60 each way and it just isn't worth it. There used to be ski busses that did the route (and presumably would take you right to the slopes) but I have no idea if they still run. Those seem like a much better option.
Doesn't that also mean its a bad time for people to be driving their own cars all over?
That is because of a "temporary" service suspension in 2004 from damage by hurricane Katrina.[1]
Apparently even Amtrak thinks that by 2035 they won't be capable of restoring service.
[1]: https://www.jacksonville.com/article/20081117/NEWS/801256449
This inexplicable fascination with trains is frustrating to watch. They're expensive to build and aren't comprehensive solutions. The first thing that needs to be done is to get people off of cars. The easiest way to do that is dump a bunch of money into on demand ad hoc shuttle bus size transport. Make public transport convenient and people will use it. If people use it then they will support it and cities will naturally build to depend on it.
Edit:To illustrate the problem, I live about a mile from the center of downtown Atlanta. To get to the Amtrak station would require a bus, transfer to the subway, and transfer to another bus. It would take an hour to get to the station 6 miles away.
I suppose it would be two hours.
Nashville <-> Atlanta is 4 hours and a lot of people (including me) just hate driving for long distances like that. It’s dangerous and boring. While yes you might need a car to fill your last mile obligations if you’re not going too far outside city limits ride shares like Uber and Lyft can fill that hole.
I'm pretty dubious about the demand. There's not even a megabus between Nashville and Atlanta.
I’ll give you the demand aspect sure, but a 2.5 hour link between dense downtown Atlanta and Nashville business districts can also become a catalyst for increased demand. Depends how much cost goes into the project. Maybe it’s worth pursuing maybe not. I think the biggest obstacle is how much state and local governments cooperate. State and local governments that are supportive are going to reap the benefits while hostile ones will suffer in the long term. Nashville recently voted down a comprehensive light rail plan so not sure how much support there is on that end.
The "if you build it they will come" is an argument I've seen a lot. But it's hard to square that with the decline in usage of exiting rail. I know in Atlanta ridership is down 15% despite a 40% increase in population.
Yep, this is a key problem in the USA. Even if you build an amazing regional rail system, the nature of what's at each end of most journeys will still push people toward cars far too much of the time.
short trips - cars beat trains
long trips- planes beat trains
This is why we have successful train service only in the northeast where the trips are medium length, and cars advantages are mitigated by the awful traffic on 95.
If it isn’t then your local authority does a poor job on infrastructure.
In general, train on the Northeast Corridor is pretty good especially if you're not going the whole route. But I actually would be faster to drive to Manhattan than taking the Acela. However, it's a lousy drive and I hate driving into Manhattan.
Yes! This is exactly what cities should be aiming for.
People also like to point at the German train system, which is very good, but mostly people have the experience of coming into Berlin on it, and again, Berlin has one of the best public transit systems in the world.
For example, I live in Seattle. We regularly vote to tax ourselves to build and operate transit service. In 2019, just before the pandemic hit, we had a 10-minute citywide bus network with fast, easy transfers across about 85% of the city. People used the heck out of it, especially in combination with the two light rail stations that opened in 2016.
When my spouse and I took a three-week trip across Germany to see where parts of our family are from[0], we didn't touch the wheel of a car once. Big city like Frankfurt, small town like Lutherstadt Wittenberg, in-between like Leipzig, they all worked. They were some combination of walkable, understandable bus service, and local rail.
There's infrastructure and there's culture. Americans don't have the idea that cities and towns can be accessible on foot and by transport, so we don't hold ourselves to that standard. But we could, with no loss of convenience for many of us.
The trip from Toronto to Montreal is a full day and is worth it if you hate flying and want to avoid security. However as it gets used more and more they are adding more airport style security features taking away that benefit as well.
Now, when I travelled to Japan and rode the shinkansen I really enjoyed it and was amazed by how quickly I could get around. But I also saw how absurdly expensive it was and how without government support on top it fundamentally would be impossible except in the highest density corridors of Canada and the US.
I love trains. Absolutely adore them. But I cannot see how in the low density areas of North America they can remotely compete with cars or airlines.
The sleeper car I got for the 2 night trip cost me quite a chunk of change.
I could see a scenario where getting a sleeper car for 10 hours would be cheaper than getting one for 36 hours.
I would like to see something finished and not half-completed or half-started and not find out after another 25 years go by. I also wonder if it becomes some near obsolete transportation method by this time. Hopefully it can also support and be future compatible to support future transportation engines of some sort or thought through to allow for such compatible iterations.
I'm authentically curious whether it is feasible engineering and infrastructural-wise to have something ready in just a couple of years? Is it possible to have proper planning/design done fast including any bureaucratic politics? Or is this all really an impossible mission?
I write this because I once heard it also took years to just extend a simple bus stop route.
I read through part of the discussion but can someone enlightens me does it make sense to build high speed railway in the States? Every piece of reply tells me that cost is going to be prohibitive and it's not going to be faster than taking airplanes.
Back in China it does make a lot more sense to have trains connecting each city, because:
- Each city, even the 3rd and 4th tier ones have a lot of people and they move around to get jobs and others.
- Average car owned by family is still low even for first tier cities.
- It's common for airplanes to be late
But I don't really see these kinds of things for the States.
It's mostly not supported. The only formatting I know of is asterisks for italics, and leading spaces for
fixed-width quotes.If there's new track, the paths chosen could be laid out to support subsequent high speed upgrades (or be high speed out the door, though I'm not sure enough money has been allocated).
The denser network in the more densely settled east coast may not permit HSR at all (though Europe managed even in more densely populated areas).
The odds of Amtrak pulling this off are near 0. They earned their poor reputation.
This rail plan is 100% realistic because it appropriately de-emphasizes long distance rail that Amtrak is so infamous for.
It targets expansion in very obviously lacking intercity regions. These new routes will be profitable for the government either directly or in lasting economic benefits.
I've also rarely taken other city pairs.
What isn't practical except mostly as a one-off tourist thing for someone with lots of time is going Chicago to Seattle and similar routes or fantasies of drilling a tunnel through the Appalachians for a fast NY to Chicago run.
Amtrak's biggest challenge is that its service is inconvenient in most of the cities/towns it serves. For example, in Syracuse, NY, where Amtrak has 8 trains per day (four in each direction) that arrive at reasonably convenient times, the station is located on the outskirts of the city, far from the city center. Cleveland has the opposite problem: the station is near the downtown area, but all of the scheduled trains (4 per day, two in each direction) arrive between 1 am and 6 am. Where Amtrak is convenient to use (e.g. the NEC) it works reasonably well and is actually competitive with driving or flying.
Also used high speed trains in Germany.
I understand the resistance but there is no technical problem that prevents efficient passenger rail services in North America, we just need to do it.
But again, with Amtrak's record, where does the confidence come from that they could pull it off? As is pointed out above, it has never really succeeded, and has been propped-up by the government its entire life.
Change leadership, change direction and continually improve.
NEC = northeast corridor
The article also points out that Amtrak purposefully invests as little as possible into the unprofitable long distance network, which seems to be exactly what you’re asking for: to stop investing in Amtrak’s archaic routes.
The article also details a plan that focuses on profitable and popular intercity service. Routes like Cleveland - Columbus - Cincinnati that are a part of this plan are no-brainer expansions that will easily yield regional economic benefits.
As you’re aware, Amtrak is the government. Any economic benefit they bring to a region goes right back to the government in the form of tax revenue. It should be obvious then that Amtrak itself doesn’t need to be profitable for it to be a net positive investment.
We don’t expect our roads to be profitable and yet nobody questions whether highways are a “feasible” mode of transport.
Most regional airfields are bigger money sinks than Amtrak. The federal government subsidizeds up to $800 per passenger in some of the more rural air routes in Alaska.[2]
Rail travel subsidies are a fraction of what the United States taxpayers spend on transportation. We have a concept of "essential" air and road travel subsidies, why not essential rail subsidies?
Think of how great this arm of our transportation infrastructure could be if we shifted 10% of what we spend on regional airlines to rail transport.
Other countries have clearly demonstrated that high speed rail works. And they don't spend nearly as much on infrastructure.
And what is wrong with just having subsidized slow passenger service across the continent either? I assure you it is not too expensive compared to what we already spend, and I think it is very beneficial. I think that we should continue to maintain a fleet of long distance passenger trains and stations. Passenger trains can be an essential safety where other forms of travel are unavailable. We just take it for granted that the government should spend as much as it wants building roads everywhere, but we count every penny when it comes to passenger rail.
[1]: https://usa.streetsblog.org/2020/12/23/meet-2020s-worst-high...
[2]: https://web.archive.org/web/20120202212318/http://www.buses....
- It is not cheap
- it is not reliable (time wise)
- it is not fast
- it requires leaving in the middle of the night or before the crack of dawn
Make it so that the cost is effective, the trip arrives on time, it is not significantly slower than driving and let me leave at a sane hour and then they will have something useful.
EDIT: here's an example:
Amtrak NY to Florida: $123 to 200 (21h)
Flight NY to Florida: $69 to 97 (3.5h)
Amtrak Iowa to California: $300 (52h)
Flight Iowa to California: $200 - 300 (6h)
A few years back I casually looked into taking an overnight train to Chicago from the East Coast and it was going to be something like 4x the cost of flying.
Of course a bullet-train in Japan from Tokyo to Kyoto is two hours — not requiring a sleepover on the train.
Japan, to be sure, is a small country compared to the U.S. But with a similar train system, San Francisco to Denver would be an 8 hour train ride.
The french LGV Est cost about 10k€ / mile (4bn for 252 miles), and it was not considered cheap. And that's including 800 millions worth of rolling stock too.
If we exclude the rolling stock from Est's cost and assume those 160bn will be purely infrastructure, it should get you about 12500 miles of track (stations included).
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2009/04/16/a-visio...
Obama’s high-speed rail plan went absolutely nowhere, in part because Republican governors flatly refused to participate.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/12/no-high...
California has been trying to build a line for 5 decades. Now the price is beyond reasonable.
China built 22,000 miles for under 500 billion?
At this point we’ve got to be near ready for 300 mph maglevs.
…well, OK, but then you say…
California has been trying to build a line for 5 decades. Now the price is beyond reasonable.
So I'm not sure how we get to that reasonably priced point.
Well I'm no expert, but other countries seem to be managing it just fine.
Realistically how fast could america get its trains? 150 mph? And with long stops, how fast is that?
Meanwhile we can probably automate 100mph highway self driving, leave when you want, costs less, carry more luggage, can stop to see things along the way, can go more places and directions, and you have a car when you get there.
Long haul rail IMO is really just for cargo.
Yes, that's the entire problem. The congestion, parking issues, public cost, and pedestrian hostility of cars doesn't go away just because they get automated.
Ah, yes. The height of American ambition is to aspire to a future train eventually reaching speeds 70% of what is considered normal elsewhere in the world.
Now if you can just launch into space and fly over it... well then America has some innovation.
States aren’t capable of building big infrastructure like this. Federal cash with federal strings attached is incredibly effective.
Look at interstate highways as an example. Fairly standard overpass bridge replacements cost $50M. Project quality varies but stuff gets built mostly on time and with minimal corruption.
How sad that our trains suck so badly.
This makes no sense and will never happen. And this plan will make no significant progress towards this pipe dream.
This is a bald-faced lie to sell a political proposal.
The Amtrak system should just be abolished, except in the North East corridor where they own much of the tracks.
Remove the prohibition from mixing freight and passenger cars, and in fact partially subsidize freight carriers having an Amtrak car at the back of most every freigt train... partially subsidized to ensure they will making stops in the small remote cities without other transit options. Modernize the systems to allow bypassing stops with no-one waiting to get on or off, and use more cameras and intercoms with fewer on-train employees to keep costs down while still supervising and assisting passengers.
Technology is marching on, and if Amtrak doesn't make these sorts of changes soon, it'll become entirely redundant. Passenger trains are faster and more efficient than automobiles right now, but a near-future with self-driving, fully electric vehicles on non-pneumatic tires could be faster, cheaper, and less polluting than passenger rail.