Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > Illinois > Chicago
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
Reply Start New Thread
 
Old 02-22-2009, 06:52 PM
 
Location: Chicago
15,585 posts, read 27,507,785 times
Reputation: 1761

Advertisements

I guess we are going to have to see how this goes and cross our fingers. Literally.

Las Vegas bets on $8 billion rail pot, but Midwest team is well connected -- chicagotribune.com
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 03-09-2009, 09:01 PM
 
Location: Chicago
156 posts, read 330,113 times
Reputation: 135
Not very substantive, but here's the latest.

High-speed rail could become reality :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Transportation (http://www.suntimes.com/news/transportation/1467611,w-high-speed-rail-030909.article - broken link)
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 03-09-2009, 11:11 PM
 
Location: Hyde Park, Chicago
72 posts, read 167,023 times
Reputation: 22
Quote:
Originally Posted by Avengerfire View Post
I guess we are going to have to see how this goes and cross our fingers. Literally.

Las Vegas bets on $8 billion rail pot, but Midwest team is well connected -- chicagotribune.com
Well I think Chicago has good potential as a rail city.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 03-10-2009, 08:41 AM
 
Location: Chicago
38,707 posts, read 102,897,201 times
Reputation: 29977
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheLordYourGod View Post
Not very substantive, but here's the latest.

High-speed rail could become reality :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Transportation (http://www.suntimes.com/news/transportation/1467611,w-high-speed-rail-030909.article - broken link)
Since nobody has apparently asked, I will: how many billions do we want to spend to cut the travel time between Chicago and St. Louis by one hour? The cost/benefit ratio just doesn't add up IMO. And 500 million isn't a lot of seed money. It took almost that much money just to renovate the Douglas branch of the Blue Line (now the Pink Line). And that's only 7 miles worth of track.

And this is "economic stimulus?" Give me a break, it will be a decade before this thing comes online. I understand the importance of investing in infrastructure, but if the goal is to stimulate the economy right now, this seems like a ponderous way of doing it.

Bottom line: this is 2% stimulus, 20% practical, and 78% pork. And that's a generous analysis.

Meanwhile, the CTA, which actually gets used by hundreds of thousands of people a day, is falling into ruins...

Last edited by Drover; 03-10-2009 at 08:54 AM..
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 03-10-2009, 08:54 AM
 
Location: Hyde Park, Chicago
72 posts, read 167,023 times
Reputation: 22
Quote:
Originally Posted by Drover View Post
Since nobody has apparently asked, I will: how many billions do we want to spend to cut the travel time between Chicago and St. Louis by one hour? The cost/benefit ratio just doesn't add up IMO. And 500 million isn't a lot of seed money. It took almost that much money just to renovate the Douglas branch of the Blue Line (now the Pink Line). And that's only 7 miles worth of track.
Yeah, thats dead on. I think a better investment would be more intersuburban rail, so reverse or intersuburban commuters could take advantage of it and maybe some day clear up the Kennedy. Why take a train to a city if you need a car to get around?

I guess the interurban nature of the high speed projects gives it a national scope, but people live locally.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 03-10-2009, 09:08 AM
 
Location: Tower Grove East, St. Louis, MO
12,063 posts, read 31,536,045 times
Reputation: 3799
I don't entirely understand this either, it just doesn't make any sense to me.

Fixing existing transit systems and building light rail in more medium-sized cities seems a much better long-term investment.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 03-15-2009, 06:12 PM
 
367 posts, read 1,202,155 times
Reputation: 294
Quote:
Originally Posted by Drover View Post
Since nobody has apparently asked, I will: how many billions do we want to spend to cut the travel time between Chicago and St. Louis by one hour? The cost/benefit ratio just doesn't add up IMO. And 500 million isn't a lot of seed money. It took almost that much money just to renovate the Douglas branch of the Blue Line (now the Pink Line). And that's only 7 miles worth of track.
Your analysis is kind of closed-minded.

Let's look at it another way. Saving an hour of travel time can be quite valuable. A good lawyer might bill out at $500 per hour. If he has an extra hour to do productive work, that's $500 of inefficiencies wrung out of the economy. Certainly not every Lincoln Corridor rider is a high-powered attorney, but upgrading that line can save a lot of productive hours in this state (478,000 riders last year; most of whom only rode a fraction of the entire length of course). That hour is even more valuable when you consider there really is no other mode except private airplane that can get you from downtown Chicago to downtown STL in under 4 hours. And it's an even better deal when you consider that time on the train can be productive work time for many, while time driving or flying commercially cannot. The ridership of the CHI-STL will increase many times over if this kind of speed increase is combined with improved service frequency, saving many more productive hours and boosting the economy or quality of life for those who need to travel CHI-STL.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Drover View Post
And this is "economic stimulus?" Give me a break, it will be a decade before this thing comes online. I understand the importance of investing in infrastructure, but if the goal is to stimulate the economy right now, this seems like a ponderous way of doing it.

Bottom line: this is 2% stimulus, 20% practical, and 78% pork. And that's a generous analysis.
Let me give you more information about the Lincoln Heritage Corridor and FRA regulations on passenger rail.

The Lincoln Heritage Corridor is not a 100 year old el line that needs to be rebuilt. It is a modern, working piece of railroad used to move thousands of tons of freight every day. The track doesn't need to be replaced, which WOULD be extremely expensive.

To get started, the only things that are absolutely needed are in-cab signaling and upgrading of signals and crossings along the route. The FRA does not allow operation over 79 mph without in-cab signals, and operation >79 also means stricter rules on what kind of grade crossing protection is needed. The Midwest High Speed Rail association estimates the former can be done for $15 million - it is off-the-shelf equipment and there has already been some work started, and Michigan already has a model system in place and operating from the IN-MI border to Kalamazoo, MI. The Midwest Regional Rail Initiative Study found that tracks and signal upgrades can be accomplished for $150 million dollars (2003 dollars). These upgrades are already complete and/or funded over part of the line.

That's all you need for the capability to operate at 110 MPH over most of the route, which is the target in Illinois. The locomotives and rolling stock can already do it, and much of the track is already built to those standards. In practice it would be dumb to do this without also increasing frequencies and reliabilities, which would require expensive new sidings. And you would want to put in some more flyovers and upgrade some stations, as for example the MWHSR assoc. recommends. But these are really capacity, reliability and usability improvements and are a separate issue.

If the state wants to just buy an off-the-shelf cab signaling system as Michigan has done, I don't see why they can't do that in months. As far as I can tell, the needs as far as which grade crossing to upgrade are already studied. They probably haven't done engineering studies on each site, but this can't take too long, there are crossing gates going up every day in this country. Therefore, much of this work could be completed within two years and counts as stimulus.
[/quote]
Quote:
Originally Posted by Drover View Post
Meanwhile, the CTA, which actually gets used by hundreds of thousands of people a day, is falling into ruins...
Come on, there's more to it than raw ridership numbers. CTA busses now carry more riders than the el system. Don't you think we should still upgrade the el?

Comparing intra-city transit and inter-city travel is really apples-to-oranges. You might as well as ask if the funds for a CHI-STL train might be better applied to Medicaid.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 03-15-2009, 06:15 PM
 
Location: Chicago
15,585 posts, read 27,507,785 times
Reputation: 1761
Oh lord.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 03-15-2009, 06:42 PM
 
Location: Houston Texas
1,003 posts, read 2,423,488 times
Reputation: 250
I disagree!
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:


Settings
X
Data:
Loading data...
Based on 2000-2020 data
Loading data...

123
Hide US histogram


Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > Illinois > Chicago

All times are GMT -6.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top