High speed rail advocates went to bed Thursday night chagrin, and woke up Friday morning ecstatic as Congress overnight tripled high speed rail funding to $8 billion.
It's a start. That's what we need. Up to 23 states would like some or all of that money. Just the California High Speed Rail Line needs $10 billion in federal monies. But as soon as one high speed rail line is built, ridership will zoom on it, and the demand for more federal funding will grow. Thurs Feb 12, 2009: a big big day in the history of the 21st century!
Time to write Sen Arlen Specter (R-Pa), Sen Olympia Snowe (R-Me) and others and say thank you to them for boosting high speed rail funding.
Photo: Click on it to enlarge it. This map identifies the 11 rail corridors that will get built first.
This is a very odd map, and I'm not just referring to the distortions of Canada's geography (it would take no greater resolution to get it correct, but for some reason it is strangely wrong).
Why, for example, would you not designate Jacksonville-Orlando as a corridor, not only making this important in-state link but also establishing the eastern seaboard connection from Portland to Miami?
Even more significantly, why would you not consider Houston and Dallas to be a major connection (incidentally connecting the midwest to the eastern seaboard routeP). KC to Tulsa or St. Louis to Little Rock would also make this connection.
The failure to connect Cleveland with either Pittsburgh or Buffalo is equally odd, especially as either would connect the Atlantic region to the midwest. Cleveland should also be connected to Toronto - this is a much more important link (and shorter) than Montreal-Boston.
Finally, why not connect Portland and Sacremento, thus connecting by high-speed rail the two major technology centres in the United States (and, incidentally, the entire west coast).
Posted by: Stephen Downes | February 16, 2009 at 07:37 PM
Yesterdays USA Today had an interview with CEO of TEREX a construction equipment manufacturer. He suggested a high speed freight rail from the Pacific coast to the Atlantic coast that would/could offload freight at a west coast port and then at 150+MPH move it to an east coast port for reloading to ships for shipment to Europe and visa versa.
This would save ships thousands of miles of sailing even after the land freight was included.
Additionally from an economic standpoint it has a half decent chance of paying for itself whereas High Speed passenger rail has little chance of paying for itself or being self sufficient.
The Chattanooga-Atlanta corridor has been being planned and studied for years. They have even thrown in making it the Nashville-Chattanooga-Corridor and as an option the Nashville-Birmingham-Atlanta route.
Bottom line is that any one of these projects is going to cost multi-millions per mile just for track/rail and perhaps more if MagLev technology is used. That does not include the cost of the equipment. So even if the installed cost was only $1,000,000 per mile the Chattanooga-Atlanta route would be about $150 million and that would be if it ran down the middle of I-75.
Ticket cost have not been firmly discussed but Assuming that operating cost is about 20% (you pick a number) of installed cost then that is about $30 million/year.
No one has ever said how many people will use it a day but assume that a one way fare is $50 then it would take 300,000 round trip tickets to meet operating cost.
Suppose a family of 4 wanted to go to a ball game in Atlanta; The round trip rail cost would be $400, throw in the game tickets, some warm beer, cold hot dogs, and maybe an overnight stay and you are now spending about $800-$1,000 to experience the great American game.
You could drive it for $100 (@$0.50/mile) and therefore saving about $300. You would also be able to come and go as you like and when you like.
Posted by: Richard | February 17, 2009 at 09:59 AM
@Richard - you didn't factor in other car costs such as lease or loan, insurance, & maintinance, nor did you factor in the time saved (and if you're traveling with kids, the extra cost of snacks and drinks during the extra time).
Posted by: Suzanne | February 18, 2009 at 03:15 PM
This is exciting for Oregon as Portland and Seattle rail service is most always so unpredictable that it cannot be used for business travel - now it might be available!
Posted by: kassia | February 19, 2009 at 09:25 AM