Amtrak proposal to create new rail passenger connections for major cities

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by sopas ej

Does this mean Amtrak employees are federal employees?

No, they are not federal employees.

[UrbanImpact]

Originally Posted by LAsam

LA to Vegas is interesting because I thought a private group was already planning to build a high speed train to accommodate that route (Brightline West?). Would Amtrack compete with the private option?

The same in Florida.

[dimondpark]

They should really include transit-oriented housing as part of their transportation infrastructure strategy. Make it make sense for people to use.

[ChiSoxRox]

Madrid to Barcelona is 313 miles straight line.

Milan to Rome is 297.

Both corridors used to be air dominated (and amongst the top 10 corridors worldwide) and now are ~80% rail dominated.

While a national Shinkansen doesn't make economic sense, there's plenty of those natural high speed rail corridors in the US, beyond those with current projects:

Seattle to Portland
Boulder to Pueblo (even Albuquerque?)
Chicago to Minneapolis, St. Louis, Detroit
Chicago to and in between the Ohio Cs
St. Louis to Kansas City
Atlanta-Greenville-Charlotte-Raleigh
Philadelphia to Pittsburgh
The Empire Service as HSR
Actual HSR on the Northeast Corridor
Memphis-Nashville-Knoxville

Let's make regional flights (<1 hr) a thing of the past, aside from islands.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by ChiSoxRox

Madrid to Barcelona is 313 miles straight line.

Milan to Rome is 297.

Both corridors used to be air dominated (and amongst the top 10 corridors worldwide) and now are ~80% rail dominated.

While a national Shinkansen doesn't make economic sense, there's plenty of those natural high speed rail corridors in the US, beyond those with current projects:

Seattle to Portland
Boulder to Pueblo (even Albuquerque?)
Chicago to Minneapolis, St. Louis, Detroit
Chicago to and in between the Ohio Cs
St. Louis to Kansas City
Atlanta-Greenville-Charlotte-Raleigh
Philadelphia to Pittsburgh
The Empire Service as HSR
Actual HSR on the Northeast Corridor
Memphis-Nashville-Knoxville

Let's make regional flights (<1 hr) a thing of the past, aside from islands.

The U.S. relies entirely too much on flying for travel distances of 200-500 miles. New York's airspace has been at capacity for quite some time, and the logical way to alleviate that pressure is to convert a lot of those short hops between NY and Boston, or NY and D.C. into train trips.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

The U.S. relies entirely too much on flying for travel distances of 200-500 miles. New York's airspace has been at capacity for quite some time, and the logical way to alleviate that pressure is to convert a lot of those short hops between NY and Boston, or NY and D.C. into train trips.

Exactly.

Flying from Pittsburgh to Philly, DC, or NYC for instance complexly sucks. It’s ridiculously expensive and considering the amount of time it takes to get to the airport and go thru all the crap that goes with getting on a plane, plus roughly 1 hour airtime, plus going through all the crap of getting off the plane and leaving the airport for your destination, it takes the same amount of time to drive the 4 hours to DC, 5 to Philly, or 6 to NYC.

But the drive sucks, or course.

A high-speed rail option would be a major improvement in efficiency and open up all sorts of commuting and commerce options, this resulting in economic development.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by pj3000

Exactly.

Flying from Pittsburgh to Philly, DC, or NYC for instance complexly sucks. It’s ridiculously expensive and considering the amount of time it takes to get to the airport and go thru all the crap that goes with getting on a plane, plus roughly 1 hour airtime, plus going through all the crap of getting off the plane and leaving the airport for your destination, it takes the same amount of time to drive the 4 hours to DC, 5 to Philly, or 6 to NYC.

Yeah. And planes headed to NYC area airports aren't even allowed to take off without being allocated a landing slot. So you're almost certainly going to spend at least 30 minutes on the tarmac at the departing airport while the pilots get approved to land in New York. When the weather in New York is less than perfect you'll easily wait for hours.

[SIGSEGV]

Other than Atlanta to Nashville (which IMO only makes sense if it later connects to Louisville), this looks pretty good.

One confusing thing is that the Rockford train doesn't continue to Galena/Dubuque as used to be planned but...

[badrunner]

Wow lots of good stuff.

LA-Vegas line will get a ton of use on the weekends, with a smoke break at Kelso Depot . I wonder if they'll use the old Harvey House in Barstow or build a new stop at the McDonalds next to I-15.

I'm surprised there's no direct service currently between Dallas and Houston. Phoenix finally getting intercity rail.

[Buckeye Native 001]

Originally Posted by badrunner

Phoenix finally getting intercity rail.

Phoenix had intercity rail (Sunset Limited) until Amtrak re-routed through Maricopa (about 30 miles south in Pinal County) in 1996. Phoenix Union Station, amazingly, still stands.

[badrunner]

Originally Posted by Buckeye Native 001

Phoenix had intercity rail (Sunset Limited) until Amtrak re-routed through Maricopa (about 30 miles south in Pinal County) in 1996. Phoenix Union Station, amazingly, still stands.

Yeah pretty much every city had rail service at some point. This proposal isn't really all that ambitious, it's mostly just restoring service that existed at one point on existing track.

[jtown,man]

Please no Biden. I appreciate you liking trains, me too!, but give them enough money to not suck as much but then fund the hell out of cities!

Chicago could use like 15 billion without blinking. I am sure NYC could use 30 billion with zero issues.

GIVE IT TO THE CITIES!

[Obadno]

Cross country rail is useless at this point in time.

What they need to do is fund local Mass Transit, then link the local mass transit into regional systems.


Then when you have 5, 7, 12 solid regional transit networks you link those networks together (Maybe) by HSR connections.

This entire process is being done backwards, Imagine if they tried to build the Interstate system before we had local roads?

[pj3000]

...

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by Obadno

Cross country rail is useless at this point in time.

What they need to do is fund local Mass Transit, then link the local mass transit into regional systems.


Then when you have 5, 7, 12 solid regional transit networks you link those networks together (Maybe) by HSR connections.

This entire process is being done backwards, Imagine if they tried to build the Interstate system before we had local roads?

Tell that to China and Europe.

That’s not how it works at a federal planning level.

It’s very easy to imagine that. Because in many cases, that is EXACTLY how it occurred. And the existence of many shitwater places is directly due to the fact that interstate highways were built through areas before local roads existed.

[badrunner]

Originally Posted by Obadno

Cross country rail is useless at this point in time.

What they need to do is fund local Mass Transit, then link the local mass transit into regional systems.


Then when you have 5, 7, 12 solid regional transit networks you link those networks together (Maybe) by HSR connections.

This entire process is being done backwards, Imagine if they tried to build the Interstate system before we had local roads?

No, you're talking complete nonsense. The great thing about this proposal is that no new rail has to be built at $100m per mile (or whatever HSR is supposed to cost). What Amtrak Joe understands is that the US actually already has the most comprehensive rail network in the world. It's always better to leverage existing infrastructure (if the freight companies will cooperate). Notice that most of the new routes are short hop day trips. None of this is supposed to supplant air travel.

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by badrunner

No, you're talking complete nonsense. The great thing about this proposal is that no new rail has to be built at $100m per mile (or whatever HSR is supposed to cost). What Amtrak Joe understands is that the US actually already has the most comprehensive rail network in the world. It's always better to leverage existing infrastructure (if the freight companies will cooperate). Notice that most of the new routes are short hop day trips. None of this is supposed to supplant air travel.

What Amtrak Joe what ?

Anyway, I am not talking nonsense, what Pj300 is saying is absurd, the densities of cities in China and Europe on average blow American cities and towns out of the water.

That is the thing people for some reason ignore. The Built environment of American cities completely negates the advantage of a national rail network.

Most cities and towns in the USA have amenities and attractions and business spread across the region, making a train route from City Center to City center largely pointless outside of a few cities.

So yes a high speed rail line from Boston to DC stopping in the centers of 5 major cities with traditional dense (And alive) cores would make sense but between Houston, Dallas, Austin and San Antonio? It will be used as a novelty not as a legitimate mode of transportation.

It doesnt matter though none of this is being done or talked about as a serious idea to improve transportation in the USA its meant to signal to voting blocks that like the idea of HSR networks.

American politics in our age is entirely performative.

[badrunner]

I wish they would bring back the Desert Wind route. Also Bakersfield should connect to LA via the Tehachapi pass and the famous Tehachapi Loop. That stretch would be one of the more scenic routes. But alas, that would probably be redundant with CAHSR.

[Buckeye Native 001]

For what it's worth, I think there's some conspiracy theories thrown around that the derailment of the Sunset Limited west of Phoenix in October 1995 was a ploy by someone, or a group of people, to get Amtrak to leave Phoenix. The people responsible for the derailment were never caught, but I can't imagine ridership was all that high to begin with?

[pj3000]

Rail transit forms function to increase urban density, directly and indirectly.

We already have a national rail network. We’ve had it for a very long time.