High-Speed Rail from Chicago to Cincinnati - You thoughts? (Pana: 2014, apartments)

[chet everett]

Originally Posted by JasonMath

110 mph sounds great - until you realize that it's just a maximum speed, and not an average. With a four hour journey, a car would need to average 74 mph via I-65/I-74 to compete with the train. (link: http://goo.gl/maps/BDhVU) The proponents for Chicago/St. Louis high speed rail also mentioned a four hour travel time, and St. Louis is almost exactly as far from Chicago as Cincinnati. Traffic easily travels at 75-80 mph on rural interstates, so a car would still beat the "high speed" train. This is especially true when factoring in time traveling to the station and waiting for the train to depart.

IMHO, any viable HSR line needs dedicated, grade separated tracks, along with at least a 150 mph maximum speed. This would ensure that a moderate distance train (100-500 miles) would be competitive with driving and flying, even factoring time spent getting to the train.

Anyone that thinks about logically more than they lust after some fantasy driven by faded dreams of missed opportunities to have the Lionel train layout out of some museum OR some ridiculously out-of-touch conception of way people travel would of course realize SPEED IS PARAMOUNT...
http://tourguidetim.com/wp-content/u...l-railroad.jpg
http://cruiselinehistory.com/wp-cont.../mailedd56.jpg

As stated above, the European and Asia rail projects have found out the hard way that you can't really use the same corridors for freight. The Chinese have used this as kind of an advantage, doing "clean sheet of paper designs" that plop down rails where the top speeds can be sustained for the longest percentage of the run -- China's High-Speed-Rail Revolution | MIT Technology Review
In the US that is an utter non-starter -- folks that live in urban or rural area will not just be "relocated" like they can be in China, it would take untold fortunes and limitless decades of court fights to see buy out / take my eminent domain the needed right-of-way...

[Chicago76]

Originally Posted by chet everett

Anyone that thinks about logically more than they lust after some fantasy driven by faded dreams of missed opportunities to have the Lionel train layout out of some museum OR some ridiculously out-of-touch conception of way people travel would of course realize SPEED IS PARAMOUNT...
http://tourguidetim.com/wp-content/u...l-railroad.jpg
http://cruiselinehistory.com/wp-cont.../mailedd56.jpg

As stated above, the European and Asia rail projects have found out the hard way that you can't really use the same corridors for freight. The Chinese have used this as kind of an advantage, doing "clean sheet of paper designs" that plop down rails where the top speeds can be sustained for the longest percentage of the run -- China's High-Speed-Rail Revolution | MIT Technology Review
In the US that is an utter non-starter -- folks that live in urban or rural area will not just be "relocated" like they can be in China, it would take untold fortunes and limitless decades of court fights to see buy out / take my eminent domain the needed right-of-way...

Speed really isn't paramount though. It's a factor in the equation, but it certainly isn't the end all be all.

Relative cost (in actual dollar terms), frequency, reliability, and ability to remain productive on a train (compared to driving or flying) in addition to door to door travel times are collectively paramount.

The closer to 55 cents a mile a fare is, the more acceptance on behalf of business passengers (who are normally reimbursed at this rate). As an example, if I can get to Indy from Chicago in about 3.5 hours by car, or 5 by train, the train actually makes a lot of sense, provided certain conditions are met.

Reliability/predictability of travel time. Trains are typically on time and not subject to travel time uncertainty the way cars and planes are thanks to traffic and weather/security/airport delays. If I absolutely need to be somewhere in a certain time, then the train might be a safer bet.

Efficiency while in transit. If I can get 4 hours worth of work done on a 5 hour trip by train, this in most cases is preferable to a 3.5 hour trip behind the wheel which is "dead time" or trying to get work done in an airport lounge and then sneaking in 30 min of work on a cramped seating configuration on a plane. The train drops you downtown, so no worries about transit at end of destination...provided your end destination is downtown.

That's the real problem and one you touched on earlier. To draw people to train travel, an urban area needs to have a critical density of people and commercial/entertainment activity near the points of departure and arrival. If potential customers lived and worked at high densities near the city center, this would completely justify the construction of HSR for distances of 100-350 miles. They can get to the station easily and when they arrive at their destination they are less likely to be car dependent. This would drive ridership up, which would increase frequency (number of legs run a day) and convenience. The problem in the US is that there are very few metros that even arguably have anywhere close to this central city density and in the MW, especially in that distance "sweet spot" from CHI.


Places like Indy and STL have fewer than 170,000 people living in the inner 4 miles of their metros. That's less than half the number of people living at a similar distance in a metro like Baltimore, for reference.

Long term, HSR might work, but the Midwest (outside of Chicago) really needs to catch up on transit oriented development within their metros first to make it happen.

[Drover]

I've always wanted to get to Cincinnati 15 minutes sooner than I can right now by car.

I will now spend at least every other weekend partying on the Newport waterfront.

[chet everett]

Chicago76 makes excellent points about "end point desnity" and in my experince the things that drive such density in employment centers as well as entertainment and even housing are even harder to "move the needle" on than just the corridor issues.

I mean, honestly, how many people would it take to get literally any town in Ohio to match the densities of even Wicker Park let alone Lakeview or River North? Basically ALL the employment at some big suburban office park for Goodyearor Proctor & Gamble would need to retro-locate to some office building that no doubt would need a complete overhaul to 21st century levels of connectivity, comfort, efficiency , etc. in the context it makes more sense for the firm to just let all white collar staff "work from home"..

I know Drover is mostly joshing but his post does point out the silliness of "riding the rails for entertainment" too. The fact is the "fun" of getting to Cinncinnati a wee bit quicker than in one's personal vehicle would be lost by folks accustomed to riding the El to a music venue or hot dining spot. The same sort of nightmarish TSA bottlenecks that had weary travelers in mile long lines at Midway would be even less tolerable with people snaked around Union Station.

The US, and especially the Midwest, is simply ill suited to increased HSR mandates.

[MassVt]

HSR is useful in the Northeast ( where you do have multiple speeds), possibly in the Texas triangle ( Dallas, Houston and Austin/SanAntonio), and possibly in the Detroit/Milwaukee/Chicago area-- otherwise, much of the country isn't really amenable to it.

[Drover]

The Northeast has the optimal combination of high population packed into relatively short distances between major cities, and dedicated ROW for actual, honest-to-God high-speed trains. The "high speed" they're talking about here is a top speed of 110mph on limited stretches.

[ColdAilment]

I have not yet invested any hope into this, but the idea is nice, and I'm glad people are actually talking about it, shows that there is the potential for it.

I'm not sure we have high speed rail anywhere in the United States, so it seems unlikely it would come to the Midwest first, though I do think there could be enough demand for it. Indianapolis and Cincinnati are close enough there is a lot of interconnected travel and business ventures between the two cities, a high speed rail as an alternative to traditional Amtrak lines or flying, which is extremely expensive, would go well. Chicago will always be the dominant city in the Midwest, and will always attract people for business conventions and pleasure travel. The only issue I see is that there may not be enough people from Chicago going to Indy and Cincy, rather most of the people going to those cities would probably be the people from there returning home, but who knows.

Really, Chicago needs to build a line connecting it to Detroit or Minneapolis, I think they'd get more out of it. It might even take some of the congestion out of the South-Shore line in Northern Indiana and southern Chicago.

[NOLA101]

Originally Posted by Drover

The Northeast has the optimal combination of high population packed into relatively short distances between major cities, and dedicated ROW for actual, honest-to-God high-speed trains. The "high speed" they're talking about here is a top speed of 110mph on limited stretches.

And the Northeast has a ton of very transit-oriented destinations.

You have NYC, which is obviously in a class of its own and has like 10 times the transit patronage of any other U.S. city, and Philly, Boston and DC are basically on Chicago's level. Even Baltimore is more urban and transit oriented than anywhere in the Midwest outside of Chicago. And even the small cities (Wilmington, Providence, New Haven, Stamford, New Brunswick, etc.) are pound-for-pound more urban than anything in the Midwest outside of Chicago.

So, put simply, the Midwest doesn't have the transit orientation or urbanity for HSR.

[Chicago76]

Originally Posted by chet everett

Chicago76 makes excellent points about "end point desnity" and in my experince the things that drive such density in employment centers as well as entertainment and even housing are even harder to "move the needle" on than just the corridor issues.

I mean, honestly, how many people would it take to get literally any town in Ohio to match the densities of even Wicker Park let alone Lakeview or River North? Basically ALL the employment at some big suburban office park for Goodyearor Proctor & Gamble would need to retro-locate to some office building that no doubt would need a complete overhaul to 21st century levels of connectivity, comfort, efficiency , etc. in the context it makes more sense for the firm to just let all white collar staff "work from home"..

I know Drover is mostly joshing but his post does point out the silliness of "riding the rails for entertainment" too. The fact is the "fun" of getting to Cinncinnati a wee bit quicker than in one's personal vehicle would be lost by folks accustomed to riding the El to a music venue or hot dining spot. The same sort of nightmarish TSA bottlenecks that had weary travelers in mile long lines at Midway would be even less tolerable with people snaked around Union Station.

The US, and especially the Midwest, is simply ill suited to increased HSR mandates.

It's not inconceivable that we reach that point within the next 30 years though. The distinction we need to make is who the likely users of a HSR service would be: middle-upper retirees, workers comfortably in the middle class, especially childless and those with young children (transit discount for young kids + easier to entertain v. car or plane = win). You're not going to see poor or working class folks spending $$$ on HSR, nor are you going to see as many with older kids/lots of kids (cheaper to drive). The former are more frequently setting up shop in cities and inner suburbs while the latter are getting pushed out of the cities or are settling in outer burbs (larger families).

Population densities of 25K per square mile like in Wicker Park aren't required. Chicago is pretty exceptional from a density perspective and there are plenty of other cities below this that can do fine (kind of like a Portland or Baltimore sweet spot). We in the Midwest do need more people close to the center. 8K per square mile in a 3 mile radius is 225,000. That in and of itself is better than where most MW metros are, but not where you'd want to be for HSR. Here's where it could be good enough though: in most cities probably only 1 in 4 or 1 in 3 people living that close to the city center are in the HSR market, because socioeconomics skew poor. In 30 years, it could easily be the case that 3 in 4 are in the market. That wouldn't take a huge relocation of businesses from the suburbs. That's just a function of people wanting to move closer to their current white collar jobs in downtowns. That trend is occurring in places like St. Louis and Indianapolis, for example.

[chet everett]

30 years? That it just a ridiculous statement - people without kids (or not even dating...) could very well be grandparents in 30 years!

Transit planners have a hard time getting things correct for 5 year plans...

Bluntly, any body that resorts to an unrealistic time frame shows just how pie-in-the-sky their fantasies are...