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Comment by bombcar | Hacker News Reader

This is the main (and perhaps the most important driving factor) - if you build a rail line from empty land directly into the heart of a major US city, that empty land will develop relatively quickly over the next 10-20 years.

Instead we've done the same but with sprawling highways, which doesn't do much for density (and requires cars, and once you have a car you just use it for commuting).

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Careful there. It is easy to do stupid things and so not get that growth. A HSR from middle of nowhere south Dakota to NYC grand central station will get approximately 0 riders - the distance (all distance in transport is measured in minutes not meters) is too far to commute every day, and there is nothing else to draw people.

I wish this didn't need to be pointed out, but there are a lot of stupid proposals out there. So be on the lookout - don't blinding support HSR: put support where it will be useful.

Nope, you're totally right. The devil here is entirely in the details.

Alternatively though if you built an express line from Tupper Lake to Grand Central, Tupper Lake would become the new Greenwich.

There's a common fallacy here: that a line built from "nowhere, SD" to NYC serves only people from either NYC or "nowhere, SD". But that's never true. It would serve people all along the route, people taking shorter, "more regional" journeys. The fact that nobody actually rides the whole line doesn't matter.

Of course, that still may not be enough to justify such a line, but the fact that nobody travels from one end to the other is not an issue.

I did forget to put in the non-stop qualifier. Which is another stupid thing people propose all the time.

Why is it stupid?

Because a big advantage to trains over airplanes is you can stop at places in between for low cost. It is common for airplanes to spend more time getting from the gate to cruising altitude and back down than at cruise.

A train going Chicago to Minneapolis would only lose a few minutes stopping at cities like Milwaukee WI and Madison WI - both fairly large cities. An airplane could stop at each, but the cost of one stop would double the full trip time.

Where a train stops vs go past is a very complex subject full of trade offs. However in general a train that only goes non-stop between two points is a bad idea. I've been in discussions elsewhere in this topic about that - read them for more info. (including those who disagree - they have valuable insight)

I guess I don't understand, you seem to be explaining why the non-stop aspect is a genuine benefit for trains.

They're explaining that cost-per-stop is much lower for a train than an airplane. A stop might cost an airplane an hour or more added to the duration of the full multi-stop route (slowing down, losing altitude, landing, taxiing, boarding, taxiing, take-off, gaining speed and climbing) even if we allow for some pretty serious optimization of processes. It might cost a train anywhere from 1-15 minutes. A train can make four stops between two points and, despite traveling at a much lower top speed, finish the whole route much faster than an airplane would, doing the same thing. That is, it's friendlier to multiple stops over medium-distance routes than an airplane. If you're going point-to-point and it's a very long distance, you may as well just take a plane. If you have a 250 mile route and want a stop every 50 miles, then a train's (way) better than an airplane. Multi-stop (not to be confused with excessive stops) routes are exactly where trains shine.

A HSR train stop and go - without opening the door is about 1.5 minutes added to the total trip time (depending on how fast the train goes of course). It is possible to get the time the doors remain open down to under a minute (this is done for airport trains), but I think 1.5 minutes is a more reasonable floor just because people need some time to get their bags on the train and around other people.

This puts the time loss to stopping a train at 3-17 minutes.

Sure, HSR is gonna have it worse than a minute, I was thinking of, say, subways and light commuter rail, with the 1 minute lower bound. Some of those don't spend more than about a minute not at full speed for some stations, including door-open time and de-/ac-cellerating. No train where people aren't traveling very light and prepared to get off fast is going to get quite that low a stop time, though, true.

It's like people have completely forgotten that rail allowed the USA to open up and develop in the interior in the first place! Look at the amazing featured map in [0]!

(I live in the town that had the first rail line in Australia.)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcontinental_railroad

We have plenty of proof to the opposite near where I live. Passenger rail was installed in several locations with the promise of growth that never materialized. One of the lines is from downtown to an airport, through a few miles of neglected neighborhoods that never got the rush of development and gentrification rail was supposed to bring. Another goes from the city through several suburbs and has had negligible impact because ridership is so low.

People prefer not being constrained to the train tracks if they can drive, they prefer to not live near the constant blaring of horns and squealing of wheels on the tracks, and in these days prefer not to be stuck in a cabin full of potentially sick strangers for 2-3 hours a day round trip.

"the promise of growth that never materialized."

Was it legal and politically palatable to build there, or in the neglected neighborhoods around it? In the USA, unless you're talking about actual greenfield land, rail-supporting development is usually illegal to build.

Rail was sold by the city as a way to promote growth there- aside from hooking up the airport, it was the only reason to run rail at all.

The central question is how was the land abutting each station zoned? Did they change the zoning to allow for more development? Or did it remain mostly residential-zoned and just change from single-family to multi-family?

The reason rail works beautifully in other countries is that you can get off the train and walk to useful destinations, even if where you disembarked isn't where you live. Shinkansen in Japan have tons of shopping, nice restaurants, and hotels all within a block or two of the station. So there's a reason for non-residents to stop as well as residents. And because everything surrounds the station there's no point for residents to go anywhere else.

>One of the lines is from downtown to an airport

You don’t provide enough specifics about your local situation, but it’s been long noted that airport rail lines underperform. The author Alon Levy’s blog and others in the transit space have covered this. TLDR: They fail serve the local riders well, in an attempt to serve less frequent airport riders who are more likely to pay for a taxi/rideshare, rent a car, get picked up/dropped off, etc. There are often poor airport connections, like people movers or airport connectors, getting to the right terminals, etc which creates more friction and confusion.

>neglected neighborhoods that never got the rush of development and gentrification rail was supposed to bring

Rail and transportation infrastructure generally is an enabler for re/development and land use, but not a guarantee of it. Necessary but not sufficient by itself.

> 2-3 hours a day round trip

That would be ridiculous, if it would up to 1 hour round trip it maybe would be more effective.

It is a 40 mile total run, making a number of stops along the way. The more people it has to serve, the less convenient it becomes.

The other line (running from downtown to the airport) was also a total of 1 hour 30ish minutes including bus from my house to the terminal, then rail down to the airport. It otherwise was a 30ish minute drive, tops, and driving is what almost everyone chose to do if they had the car to do so.

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