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Forgive me for coming up with still another of my "what's going on with this" threads, but I read little about the plan to develop a HSR terminal in Chicago and about the Chicago Hub Midwest regional HSR system. Is anything still happening with this?
I see what is going on on the west coast where HSR is moving forward in California like no place in the nation. SF leads the way with its spectacular Transbay Terminal is well under construction and throughout the state, other hubs are being developed. on the east coast, DC has firm plans in place for the conversion of Union Station to allow for HSR and in NYC, the new Penn State is in the process of becoming a reality.
Chicago, the rail hub of the nation and arguably the greatest rail hub in the world, seems to languish. Amazingly so when one considers that no city in the nation would be put in such an advantage as Chicago when it comes to future rail connection because only here in the midwest is the plan in the place that literally focuses on one locale, Chicago, as the locus of a hub and spoke system.
If you go on google images and search "Chicago HSR terminal", you will find no current renderings or plans in place.
what's going on here? HSR is the route to the future, IMHO, and they seem to get that in SF, NY, DC, LA, etc. But apparently not in Chicago. talk about being left behind.
A rather extensive renovation of Chicago's Union Station is currently underway. There is no financial need for that renovation to involve other than the existing hub of Amtrak and some of the most active commuter rail in the nation.
Rather than focus on the few corridors that need high-speed rail lines the most, the Obama administration doled out half a billion here and half a billion there, a strategy better-suited to currying political support than to addressing real infrastructure problems. Spread across 10 corridors, each between 100 and 600 miles long, Obama’s rail system would have been, at best, a disjointed patchwork.
A rather extensive renovation of Chicago's Union Station is currently underway. There is no financial need for that renovation to involve other than the existing hub of Amtrak and some of the most active commuter rail in the nation.
California is still moving forward and there are a number of things that opponents of HSR have continuously misrepresented. The cost "ballooning" was because opponents of HSR in the legislature were able to change the accounting practices of follow-up reports to a different year-of-expenditure practice. The 2016 draft that shifted a few things from the original 2012 plan is pretty reasonable and somehow managed to reduce costs. I think the big thing is if the economic boom in the Bay Area and its absurd housing values can be anywhere as ridiculous in 2025 when the initial segment opens as they are now because that might actually push usage for the limited initial segment pretty strongly.
Really, Chicago needs to think more about Cross Rail than HSR though as HSR won't be as useful until the cities that make sense for HSR to go to and from Chicago are a bit healthier and get better transit systems within their cities.
theyre slowly upgrading tracks but generally speaking the Midwest HSR thing (comparable to Acela on east coast) will likely never happen. at best, we might get some Chicago to St Louis track that can handle speeds up to 110mph for some very short segments. At best it might shave an hour off travel time on the current line. You could drive there in the same amount of time.
theyre slowly upgrading tracks but generally speaking the Midwest HSR thing (comparable to Acela on east coast) will likely never happen. at best, we might get some Chicago to St Louis track that can handle speeds up to 110mph for some very short segments. At best it might shave an hour off travel time on the current line. You could drive there in the same amount of time.
It is frankly easier to get around St. Louis by car than any other mode of transportation and that is really the motivation for folks that have the option to choose whatever mode of travel to prefer a personal vehicle for balance of speed and value. Flying out of either Midway or ORD to Lambert, with multiple options for direct flights of under 70 minutes. there will never be trains that can really compete on speed. Even the much touted 300 MPH burst of the latest bullet trains is paled by its sub-260 MPH average, which in the wide open spaces and weather plagued expanses of Illinois would need super expensive grade improvement to make things possible... DailyTech - Japan Gives Top U.S. Politicians a Free Ride, Sales Pitch on New Maglev Trains
There are serious scientists that really do try to get a handle on whether it even makes sense to promote diesel locomotive driven passenger rail as a better alternative than current hybrid or pure electric personal vehicles -- https://www.theguardian.com/sustaina...el-car-or-rail
You'd probably need to be an engineer to determine if it really makes sense to promote electric trains at the current levels of electricity generation / transmission, but I do understand that if more clean energy sources are brought online and part of the "demand end" is for transportation that could be a helpful situation...
theyre slowly upgrading tracks but generally speaking the Midwest HSR thing (comparable to Acela on east coast) will likely never happen. at best, we might get some Chicago to St Louis track that can handle speeds up to 110mph for some very short segments. At best it might shave an hour off travel time on the current line. You could drive there in the same amount of time.
The majority of the track between Chicago and St. Louis is supposed to be upgraded by either this year or next. I know they're behind schedule though, because we were supposed to be at that point by last winter. The upgraded track also came with station renovations, but that's about all I've seen thus far. The trip will take about 4.5 hours versus 5.5 hours once it's complete. The slowdowns that the trains hit when approaching both Chicago's and St. Louis' suburbs will still be there, so it's essentially going to take the same amount of time as driving without traffic.
The only upside is that it's cheaper than driving if you get a ticket early enough.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chet everett
It is frankly easier to get around St. Louis by car than any other mode of transportation and that is really the motivation for folks that have the option to choose whatever mode of travel to prefer a personal vehicle for balance of speed and value. Flying out of either Midway or ORD to Lambert, with multiple options for direct flights of under 70 minutes. there will never be trains that can really compete on speed. Even the much touted 300 MPH burst of the latest bullet trains is paled by its sub-260 MPH average, which in the wide open spaces and weather plagued expanses of Illinois would need super expensive grade improvement to make things possible... DailyTech - Japan Gives Top U.S. Politicians a Free Ride, Sales Pitch on New Maglev Trains
The upside is that you can get roundtrip on Amtrak for roughly $50 most of the time. That's cheaper than driving once you factor in gas. Chicago to St. Louis would also have to be booked early for cheap airfare. Last minute trips are hundreds of dollars roundtrip, versus the train which can still be had for $50 to $100. Lambert doesn't have the discount carriers like Spirit and Frontier, so that's not helping in regards to consistently cheap airfare.
You are right that driving down to St. Louis makes sense. It's 4.5 hours (without traffic) to take I-55 from Lake Shore Dr straight into downtown St. Louis across the Poplar Street Bridge. St. Louis also requires a car or Ubers to fill the holes in the MetroLink system far more than the L does.
"High Speed Rail" as envisioned in the euphoria after the 2008 elections is a pipe dream.
The much-ballyhooed French and Japanese systems were possible only because geographic, economic and societal conditions in those nations were drastically different from those in the United states and Canada, where ownership of a personal vehicle is considered practically a birthright. European nations still heavily tax motor vehicles and fuel as a luxury. And the Japanese system could be built "from scratch" at less expense because much of the nation was in ruins at the time of its inception.
Both the present Boston-New York-Washington Northeast Corridor and the evolving California system have a role to play -- but the principal beneficiaries will be the intermediate cities served -- higher speeds will allow the rail systems to act as exurban "feeders" to the anchor cities; and as is already being demonstrated in places like Long Island and the Los Angeles basin, additional freeway expansion eventually becomes financially impossible. But the same applies to the "new" rail lines designed and graded to allow the higher speeds promised by the "true HSR" dream merchants.
Something better than what we have now will evolve, but it will have to be built upon the basic route structure that has been in place for 150 years or more. It will be a slow process, and an expensive one.
Last edited by 2nd trick op; 09-20-2016 at 01:57 PM..
Yea, downtown to downtown HSRs make a lot more sense when the downtowns on both ends have good mass transit and are pretty easy to navigate without having your own car. In the time that the California one is up, LA will have a pretty good system and San Jose will have an alright one (SF is already quite good).
In terms of cities around Chicago where HSR makes sense, there's the Twin Cities which is slowly getting a better mass transit system but not quite there and there's St. Louis and Cleveland whose transit systems are okay but not great and not looking to improve much anytime soon. Pretty much the whole region needs a bit of improvement for this to make sense, but then there's the issue that if you act after things improve then it means doing things like securing right-of-ways and expanded stations become just that much more costly.
Yea, downtown to downtown HSRs make a lot more sense when the downtowns on both ends have good mass transit and are pretty easy to navigate without having your own car. In the time that the California one is up, LA will have a pretty good system and San Jose will have an alright one (SF is already quite good).
In terms of cities around Chicago where HSR makes sense, there's the Twin Cities which is slowly getting a better mass transit system but not quite there and there's St. Louis and Cleveland whose transit systems are okay but not great and not looking to improve much anytime soon. Pretty much the whole region needs a bit of improvement for this to make sense, but then there's the issue that if you act after things improve then it means doing things like securing right-of-ways and expanded stations become just that much more costly.
Assuming the feds were to give Illinois the money to complete such a project, Chicago to St. Louis would probably require the least cooperation between Illinois and its neighbors. Virtually the whole line, minus the final crossing of the Mississippi River into downtown St. Louis, would be in Illinois. Missouri would just need to assist with a crossing location and the creation of a downtown station.
As for public transit systems, you're most definitely correct that they're lacking across the Midwest outside of Chicago. The Twin Cities are probably the most likely to expand in the near future, and might even have the highest ridership at this point, but they aren't honestly much better, if they even are at all, than their Midwestern peers. St. Louis, for example, has more light rail track in place spanning its city and metro than the Twin Cities do. There's also talks of expanding the MetroLink with a north/south line in order to better accommodate the NGA once it moves to North St. Louis.
The trouble is that St. Louis County isn't interested in a MetroLink line that benefits the city more than the county, and they would currently prefer other additional lines be on the table first. Additionally Metro needs to do something about how they collect tickets. There are no turnstiles, so many people simply never pay to ride the train. You see security on the trains once in a blue moon, so what's the point of buying a ticket and validating it if you're highly unlikely to have it checked? That has got to change in the future.
St. Louis aside, wouldn't a highspeed train connecting Milwaukee and Chicago be great? That would almost certainly jumpstart the connection between the two cities, and the suburbs that seem to continue creeping closer and closer to each other.
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Mostly accurate, and some surprises too...
