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Google the old interurban railways. (See map below.)
This is what you need for the kind of travel most of the urbanists want. But this has nothing to do with a high speed rail network. The high-speed rail network should be thought of like the interstate highway system. If you put too many stops there, it's like the old surface roads that the interstate highways now bypass. It slows things up too much.
If you want local trains to feed the high-speed rail, that's fine. But you have to keep the two systems separate, otherwise it renders the high speed trains virtually useless.
This isn't Europe. It isn't even New York. To get people out of a car, you need to compete with speed and efficiency, otherwise you are wasting time and money.
150 years ago, cities were made or broken by being connected to a train or being overlooked by the rail companies. Yes, I realize the times have changed, but I don't think they've changed as much as people want to think they have.
Let's see 150 years ago, there were very few miles of paved roads in the U.S., let alone autos and massive use of internal combustion engines using relatively cheap fuel. Oh yeah, there were no heavier-than-air machines, let alone jet airliners. Columbus is a large, growing metropolis even though it lacks rail service (how could this be possible given how little things have changed???).
<<Still, earth roads ruled. When the Office of Public Road Inquiries (Dodge's renamed agency) conducted the first national inventory of rural public roads in 1904, earth roads ruled--2 million miles (3.2 million kilometers) out of 2.15 million miles (3.5 million kilometers). Only 153,662 miles (247,295 kilometers) had an added surface, such as gravel, stone, shells, or sand-clay.>>
Sheer idiocy IMO to make this statement, and perhaps indicative of the mentality of rail boosters.
I suspect that intercity travel, especially if the value of time is considered, was much, much more expensive on a per mile basis as a percentage of median disposable income in the 19th century than it is today. However, that's just an informed, and perhaps inaccurate guess.
Until autos become more economic prohibitive due to changing supply/demand dynamics or taxation, once the U.S. begins to take seriously the looming environmental holocaust likely ahead due to climate change, intercity train travel likely will be more entertainment than a serious travel option.
I would much rather see the U.S. subsidize the development of robust bus routes as an interim measure, perhaps using articulated or even autonomous buses to minimize the labor factor. For the same amount of subsidies, many more potential customers could be served to many more destinations. Note that buses are actually viable private businesses today.
Human knowledge doubles every decade (and somehow, human ignorance, as evidenced by global military expenditures and dismissal of scientific warnings of the disastrous impact of climate change, keeps pace). Railroad advocates IMO currently are living in the past when they advocate for many of their desired projects. Rail solutions do make sense in heavily traveled corridors in the northeast U.S. and perhaps in CA, but likely not in the Midwest and less densely populated areas.
Funds would be much more usefully spent developing localized mass transit solutions.
Some very "Columbus" responses have populated since I posted this thread I see.
There is a city named Columbus in Wisconsin that has a fully functioning Amtrak station to serve a city of 5000 people. What is that Columbus wrong about and this Columbus right about?
It seems to me that this is not about being one step ahead of the times, trying to be innovative with high speed supertrains and driverless cars, but just getting caught up a little with the rest of civilization with basic city infrastructure that has been a global staple of transit since the 1800's (like a train).
150 years ago, cities were made or broken by being connected to a train or being overlooked by the rail companies. Yes, I realize the times have changed, but I don't think they've changed as much as people want to think they have.
Amtrak is the one that discontinued service, the last train going through in 1977. This was during a time when just about every city was seeing reduced or discontinued rail service, and there were much busier routes going through the northern part of the state. You are being dishonest with the small town comparison. That city is not a hub for rail, it is a stop on an existing line. Many existing Amtrak lines go through some small towns, but they are not supported by those small stations. The one you're talking about goes from Milwaukee to Minneapolis, and connects into Chicago, so it includes 2 of the 3 largest metros in the Midwest.
And obviously this is not 150 years ago. Columbus is one of the fastest growing cities in the entire Midwest and Northeast. Its GDP is growing faster than either of the other 2-Cs with Amtrak or local rail, and is set to overtake them eventually. I would love to see rail become a thing again there, but it is absolutely not a requirement to be successful.
Some very "Columbus" responses have populated since I posted this thread I see.
There is a city named Columbus in Wisconsin that has a fully functioning Amtrak station to serve a city of 5000 people. What is that Columbus wrong about and this Columbus right about?
It seems to me that this is not about being one step ahead of the times, trying to be innovative with high speed supertrains and driverless cars, but just getting caught up a little with the rest of civilization with basic city infrastructure that has been a global staple of transit since the 1800's (like a train).
150 years ago, cities were made or broken by being connected to a train or being overlooked by the rail companies. Yes, I realize the times have changed, but I don't think they've changed as much as people want to think they have.
If you want to have a productive discussion you should probably avoid condescending and obnoxious remarks like that. There are plenty of people with in Columbus, such as myself, who would love to see light rail or rail in general.
Speaking as a Logistics (Transportation) graduate, a lifelong railroad hobbyist, and a person who has worked on the front lines of both the rail and trucking industry, it needs to be emphasized that the time horizons for all transportation issues, climate change included, are fairly long-term and subject to change due to market conditions. Rail transportation for both passengers and freight might be proven to be more efficient on an absolute, cost-only basis, but the rail network which served us through World War II, able to move anything and anyone, from anywhere to anywhere, is as dead as Olsen and Johnson.
At present, the United States has one High Speed Rail network (Boston-New York-Washington) which has been under development for over fifty years, and one (San Diego - Los Angeles - Bay Area - Sacramento) which is under construction. The former cannot hope to match the 200 MPH top speeds of the built-from scratch French and Japanese success stories due to structural barriers inherited from its conventional predecessors; the latter will come much closer, but full completion is a 20-year proposition, even if things go according to plan.
At present the system eventually envisioned for the Midwest would involve a hub-and-spoke pattern, centered on Chicago; legs to St Louis, Milwaukee and Ann Arbor / Detroit have already been upgraded to 110 MPH potential, but Toledo / Cleveland and Indianapolis / Columbus / Pittsburgh have advanced little beyond the euphoria when our departing President took his one train ride some eight years ago.
At present, the only intercity rail passenger service in Indiana consists of the two daily (in each direction) Chicago-Detroit services, (plus a third to western Michigan), three long-distance Chicago-New York "cruise ships" (one each via upstate New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington) and a single round-trip to Indianapolis, with an early-morning departure and late-evening return -- primarily intended to ferry cars in need of repair to Amtrak's principal passenger-car shop.
Over the long run, our needs for an alternative to the private auto will depend mostly upon our ability to find and develop additional, or alternative supplies of fuel: that and the continued struggle with urban congestion -- a factor in the urbanized Northeast and much of California, but not in Indiana or Western Ohio.
Last edited by 2nd trick op; 01-09-2017 at 10:44 PM..
The "I never would use mass transit" attitude expressed by some posters in this thread is elitist, and contrary to my experience. The same persons attacking mass transit, deny economic externalities such as those caused by greenhouse gas pollution or want to privatize public schools.
When I worked in downtown Cleveland several decades ago when mass transit was much less pleasant and convenient than today (no renovated Tower City, smelly diesel buses, no free bus trolleys), I remember two partners who would take mass transit downtown. One used the bus from a far west side suburb, the other commuted from on a rail rapid from Shaker Hts. Both used their transit time to read, largely professional materials. One had to walk ten minutes daily each way from our office to the Tower City rapid station.
Both were frugal, and my impression was that they each used mass transit to avoid having a second car. Numerous professionals used mass transit to commute to work. I did so when working downtown, for much as the same reason as the partners. I was never bothered by the so-called "riff-raff."
I've known, and still know persons, who use mass transit and Uber to avoid owning a car. One such person lives in downtown Chicago, where a personal car is very expensive and rarely used. He uses Zip Cars when he needs a car.
Point-to-point transit is very popular in my suburban county, especially for the elderly who no longer own a car.
Mass transit subsidies enable persons to work, and to live independently when they no longer can drive. Mass transit reduces the need for highways and parking garages, and continues to save many users money, and it increases economic vitality among well established and serviced routes.
When streetcars largely provided transportation for most persons, even intercity transportation in much of Ohio, travel was much slower, but it was a massive improvement over just walking, or horse-and-buggy alternatives (at one point, streetcars were pulled by horses).
Mass transit will be transformed by technology in the next two decades. It may even be privatized to some degree by the likes of Uber. Ford plans to have level 4 autonomous vehicles with no steering wheels and no gas or brake pedals in mass production by 2021. Columbus soon will be testing a large-scale, point-to-point mass transit solution.
Eliminating labor costs and promoting point-to-point to service, eliminating the need for many millions of privately-owned vehicles (such as second and third private vehicles), will result in an economic revolution. Autonomous vehicles may deliver individuals to heavily traveled mass transit corridors, made more cheap by autonomous vehicles and heavier usage.
Combined with the aging of Baby Boomers, who will demand more robust transportation options for those without vehicles, and with younger generations under more economic duress and wishing to save money by avoiding car ownership to the extent possible, the U.S. transportation system by 2030 may be much different than today.
I still believe, to the extent possible, we must avoid the more heavily subsidized and lesser used options, such as intercity rail until they are more economically justified.
it needs to be emphasized that the time horizons for all transportation issues, climate change included, are fairly long-term and subject to change due to market conditions.
At present the system eventually envisioned for the Midwest would involve a hub-and-spoke pattern, centered on Chicago; legs to St Louis, Milwaukee and Ann Arbor / Detroit have already been upgraded to 110 MPH potential, but Toledo / Cleveland and Indianapolis / Columbus / Pittsburgh have advanced little beyond the euphoria when our departing President took his one train ride some eight years ago.
For climate change scientists, and for those who follow their work, we are way past the time when we should massively curtail the use of fossil fuels, especially for transportation. It's amazing how persons can ignore the documented acidification of the world's oceans and the massive ice melt which has occurred and continues to occur throughout the world. Ice melt and the rising warmth of the oceans, both well documented, have greatly mitigated the atmospheric temperature change which would have occurred as the result of the greenhouse gas effect. Once the ice is further reduced, as is occurring in the Arctic Ocean, atmospheric and ocean warming will proceed at an even more rapid pace, compounded by the release of large amounts of methane, both from decaying carbon material in once frozen permafrost areas and the release of the massive amounts of frozen methane now trapped beneath oceans. See my recent posts on this topic in this thread.
Contrary to the beliefs of climate change deniers, and not surprising given the cautious nature of most scientists, the climate change scientists likely will have proven too conservative in their negative projections in the not too distant future. Most scientific projections to date pointedly omit the impact of rising methane levels in the atmosphere. We are certainly acting much too slowly to save the world's oceans from a disastrous change in their environmental conditions, if nothing else.
To the extent that mass transit solutions and fuel changes in our transportation system could reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we are very tardy.
Contrary to the beliefs of climate change deniers, and not surprising given the cautious nature of most scientists, the climate change scientists likely will have proven too conservative in their negative projections in the not too distant future. Most scientific projections to date pointedly omit the impact of rising methane levels in the atmosphere. We are certainly acting much too slowly to save the world's oceans from a disastrous change in their environmental conditions, if nothing else.
To the extent that mass transit solutions and fuel changes in our transportation system could reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we are very tardy.
The "global warming" alarmists are being pushed to the sidelines for the same reason Hillary Clinton choked on her own ego; they have fallen into the trap of presenting themselves as a collection of overgrown Special Snowflakes, and denigrating anyone who challenges them as "deniers", "haters" -- or whatever. And they only parrot the rhetoric of their supposed "experts" --- who have an obvious vested interest in establishing themselves at the head of an international meteorologic bureaucracy run from a supposedly-enlightened and superior Europe.
They have overplayed their hand, and their only chance for regaining any respect outside their own orbit is to abandon their "cuddly polar bear" appeals to 12-year-olds and recognize those of us who live closer to the real world on a daily basis -- to deal in an atmosphere of reason, as opposed to emotion.
The "global warming" alarmists are being pushed to the sidelines for the same reason Hillary Clinton choked on her own ego; they have fallen into the trap of presenting themselves as a collection of overgrown Special Snowflakes, and denigrating anyone who challenges them as "deniers", "haters" -- or whatever. And they only parrot the rhetoric of their supposed "experts" --- who have an obvious vested interest in establishing themselves at the head of an international meteorologic bureaucracy run from a supposedly-enlightened and superior Europe.
They have overplayed their hand, and their only chance for regaining any respect outside their own orbit is to abandon their "cuddly polar bear" appeals to 12-year-olds and recognize those of us who live closer to the real world on a daily basis -- to deal in an atmosphere of reason, as opposed to emotion.
Actually, the scientists who have raised the alarm are shockingly disengaged. There does not seem to be a Rachel Carson among them. Carson endured a withering assault by "practical" men with vested interests in the chemical industry.
Your insults totally ignore the empirical evidence and the ongoing threat to the environment posed by climate change and carbon dioxide pollution, and are little changed from the attacks that attempted to belittle Carson.
I get it. You don't care about the holocaust posed by the acidification and warming of the oceans, the immense warming of the Arctic Ocean that threatens that entire ecosystem, and not just polar bears, let alone the melting of the world's surface ice and rising sea levels. If you don't care about polar bears, you certainly don't care about the bottom of the food chain, such as krill, nor therefore about penguins, let alone whales. Too bad, for all us.
Unfortunately, dealing with climate change impacts such as ocean acidification won't be as simple as simply outlawing the use of DDT, and once destroyed, the impacted ecosystems are unlikely to be recovered.
Those who ignore empirical evidence gathered by scientists let alone their tested theories, and belittle those who do respect scientists and their research, are by definition science deniers. What would you call them? Men and women of "reason?" Laughable.
Like Snowball Inhofe, one of the most powerful men in the U.S. Senate and a likely champion of yours?
Most older persons who live in northern climates, such as northern Ohio, well recognize the substantial warming that has occurred in our own regions, and greatly lament the renewed destruction of Lake Erie by "practical" men of greed.
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