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Old 01-29-2014, 11:16 AM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by emathias View Post
I don't consider Ohio a neighbor.
Ohio has lots of midsized cites, some of which have a pretty diversified employment base, but few of which have any kind of dense hubs that would work well with high speed rail -- folks that may have to visit firms like Limited Brands (parent of Victoria Secrets and other mall based specilaty retaliers) or Federated Department Stores (predecessor to Macys) or Abercrombie & Fitch or even P&G will be pretty helpless if the are at any of those firms "HQ campuses" without a car...
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Old 01-29-2014, 12:38 PM
 
Location: Cleveland, OH
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Quote:
Originally Posted by chet everett View Post
Ohio has lots of midsized cites, some of which have a pretty diversified employment base, but few of which have any kind of dense hubs that would work well with high speed rail -- folks that may have to visit firms like Limited Brands (parent of Victoria Secrets and other mall based specilaty retaliers) or Federated Department Stores (predecessor to Macys) or Abercrombie & Fitch or even P&G will be pretty helpless if the are at any of those firms "HQ campuses" without a car...
This is true and a logistical problem for sure. Most other cities do not have the urban transit in place that would make getting around them easy upon arrival with high-speed rail. What's the point if you still need a car when you get there?

Although, Cleveland actually has a pretty good rail system for an American city of it's size. It's underutilized due to the poor condition of many of the city's neighborhoods, but it will get you to key locations in the city (Downtown, airport, University Circle, Ohio City). A Chicago-Cleveland regional line would make the most sense for a line running east out of Chicago (could eventually go to NYC since Cleveland is about the half-way point).
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Old 01-29-2014, 12:43 PM
 
Location: St. Louis
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ace Rothstein View Post
I would imagine it has a lot to do with funding and high-speed rail not being a reality in the Midwest at this point. Our neighbors don't seem too interested in upgrading their rail lines and if that doesn't happen, high-speed rail will never get off the ground in our region.
I realize St. Louis is only just one neighbor, but isn't the HSR line already under construction between Chicago and St. Louis at this point? Granted, the whole thing is going through Illinois until it crosses the river into St. Louis, so maybe STL is a poor example.
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Old 01-29-2014, 01:11 PM
 
Location: Chicago, IL
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PerseusVeil View Post
I realize St. Louis is only just one neighbor, but isn't the HSR line already under construction between Chicago and St. Louis at this point? Granted, the whole thing is going through Illinois until it crosses the river into St. Louis, so maybe STL is a poor example.
I believe there is a 15 or 20 mile stretch that allows the trains to go up to 110 mph which may or may not qualify as high speed rail. I now they are still working on other portions of track but I'm not sure how much will allow for 110 mph service once the currently allocated funds have been used.
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Old 01-29-2014, 01:23 PM
 
Location: St. Louis
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ace Rothstein View Post
I believe there is a 15 or 20 mile stretch that allows the trains to go up to 110 mph which may or may not qualify as high speed rail. I now they are still working on other portions of track but I'm not sure how much will allow for 110 mph service once the currently allocated funds have been used.
I went ahead and googled it, and right now they have a stretch between Pontiac and Dwight as the first high speed segment, but, by 2015, IDOT anticipates to have the track modified to support 110mph speeds from Alton to Dwight, and then from Alton all the way up to Joliet by 2017. They also will have new stations being built in Alton, Carlinville, Pontiac, and Dwight. They're also rehabilitating stations in Springfield and Lincoln.

Here's the map:
http://www.idothsr.org/pdf/study_area_map.pdf
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Old 01-29-2014, 01:24 PM
 
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"Under Construction" is a bit of a stretch.

There are lots of "corridor improvements" planned, some of which involve eventually upgrading bridges and/or changing the route to newer sets of rail, but even these kinds of things largely lack any fiunding for the actual concrete and labor to get done.

Much more has been spent on the "intergovernmental agreements" which often are just ways for struggling state / local offices to offset their inability to cover payroll for existing staff by relying on "grants" from the Federal government which is only too happy to waste tax money. Here is a typoical story that shows how convulated the horse trading is to get these "improvements" done -- Rail News - Intergovernmental agreement advances high-speed rail project in Illinois. Key take away "Currently no funding has been identified for the construction of the projects."...
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Old 01-29-2014, 01:33 PM
 
Location: St. Louis
2,690 posts, read 3,157,231 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by chet everett View Post
Key take away "Currently no funding has been identified for the construction of the projects."...
Are they talking about the Springfield project detailed in the article, or are they talking about the whole St. Louis to Chicago corridor in general though?

I ask because at the end of the article they also say, "About $1.75 billion in passenger-rail improvements are being completed within the Chicago-to-St. Louis corridor by IDOT, UP and the Federal Railroad Administration."
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Old 01-29-2014, 01:53 PM
 
28,455 posts, read 84,957,533 times
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I am pretty sure the "improvements" are mostly what normal people would call planning and coordination -- the magic of bureaucrat speak is that they lump together all the costs of these things, which largely ends up as a just way to pay salaries of folks already on staff at IDOT with Federal grant dollars and/or hire consulting firms to assist in doing the paperpushing to get these projects rolling. To the Feds this still considered work towards the end result... There may be some actual bid solication in progress but even if things have gotten to that stage the actual work of pouring concrete and putting new steel into these upgraded bridges / flyovers can't happen until actual funds are allocated...
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Old 01-29-2014, 03:37 PM
 
8,276 posts, read 11,841,506 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by emathias View Post
Actually, the only neighbor not interested is Wisconsin.
A new governor would change all that, I suspect..

There's been talk of a Chicago-Milwaukee-Madison-Minneapolis high-speed rail system for many years..
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Old 01-29-2014, 04:53 PM
 
Location: Chicago, IL
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MassVt View Post
A new governor would change all that, I suspect..

There's been talk of a Chicago-Milwaukee-Madison-Minneapolis high-speed rail system for many years..
Possibly but I think Walker is popular enough in Wisconsin to win another election.
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