Obama Lays Out Plans for High-Speed Train Travel

[Genx87]

HSR is going to have to happen in the northeast. there simply isn't enough space for more airplanes. congestion around new york is ridiculous and only getting worse.

Some of those smaller airports could be used. But it would require a better air traffic control system and possibly reducing some of the space limitations in our regulation. I know the NE corridor is crazy for air travel. But honestly better more aggressive traffic management could make it much more efficient.

But if HSR has any realistic opportunity to survive in the United States it would have to be on the East coast between DC and Boston.

 

[DietDrThunder]

Wrong. Train travel in the US just isn't viable due to our nature and our having an excellent(relatively) road system.

What you people who push "mass transit" should be looking at to reduce "congestion", "fuel", and "pollution" is creating a faster/lighter mass shipping system instead of trying to stuff hundreds of people into a tin can on wheels.
Yes, we already have "heavy" rail for freight, but why not a system of faster hub to hub shipping? Meh...

I think the money would be better spent giving businesses incentives to have people work from their home offices, therefore reducing road congestion, polution, etc. I know there will always be a need for people to go to a job site, but think of all the accountants, software developers, etc. you could have working from home.

 

[Modelworks]

Think about what you are saying. You are suggesting a massive infrastructure layout to connect SMALL TOWNS to large cities.

No I am suggesting using what we already have. Just putting it back into service with small upgrades. The layout and tracks already exist.

Mix freight and passengers? How would that work? You'd have passenger cars on freight trains that would load and unload people on their wya across the country? Have you ever seen a massive freight train accelrate? It takes forever. It would take 4 weeks to get across the country. And it doesn't make sense to mix freight and passenger on short distances because short distance freight doesn't use trains.

The same way it has worked for decades. Freight is unloaded at the same places passengers unload. I see trains accelerate every day of the week, it takes about 20 minutes. Short distance freight doesn't use trains ? Tell UPS and fedex that, not to mention all the bakeries, factories, farmers that use it often for 50 miles or less.

Hopefully that twice a day is 7am and 5pm so people can go to and come back from work. Nevermind is provides absolute NO way for the people on the train to get from home to the train or the train to work. So you will still need cars/buses/taxis to do that. I also wonder how long it takes for it to go that 48 miles? My guess is probably about 1.5 to 2 hours. Who would want to sit on that waiting to get home when there car would take 45 minutes and get them door to door? How much is an hour+ of your time worth?

Nope 6am and 9:30PM . Ever here of a switch ? Multiple trains can use the same tracks at different parts of the day. No way to get from home or to work ? There is something called walking that more people could definitely make use of. How long to go 48 miles ? Right now it is about 1 hour. They could go faster, but there is no reason to. Try driving into and out of a city that is 35 miles away and if you can do it under an hour, you are unique. How much is an hour of my time worth ? A lot less than the stress I would get by driving through traffic. Not to mention the expense of the car, the insurance, gas and upkeep.

Unless you are assuming that 10,000 people get on the train in FL, and get off in CA, your 3 day trip would become 5 if they stopped at every major city in between to load and unload passengers.

Nope 3 days with 15 stops along the way.

The 'poor management' has been there are simply not enough people who would use rail in most of the United States for it to be profitable.

nope. Look at the books for companies that failed and it clearly shows they misappropriated funds.

 

[Genx87]

I think the money would be better spent giving businesses incentives to have people work from their home offices, therefore reducing road congestion, polution, etc. I know there will always be a need for people to go to a job site, but think of all the accountants, software developers, etc. you could have working from home.

I agree 150%. It could cost less to subsidize telecommuting than building roads and rail.

 

[Sinsear]

LOL. High speed trains. We have Hundreds of thousands that ride the LIRR/MTA here in NY; take a look at the MTA's financial woes. A cross country system would be MTA on a much grander scale.

 

[Steeplerot]

Think about what you are saying. You are suggesting a massive infrastructure layout to connect SMALL TOWNS to large cities. Thats a complete waste of money. How did these people get from the large city to the small towns? Cars. What makes you think that since 15 years ago people didn't want to use the trains to get to the city that they are going to now? The train wasn't convenient or profitable then, why would it be now?

Mix freight and passengers? How would that work? You'd have passenger cars on freight trains that would load and unload people on their wya across the country? Have you ever seen a massive freight train accelrate? It takes forever. It would take 4 weeks to get across the country. And it doesn't make sense to mix freight and passenger on short distances because short distance freight doesn't use trains.

The reason it is not profitable/convenient is because there has not been infrastructure upgrades. Every small town the train passes through makes it all the more efficient.

As far as the mix of passengers/freight, you obviously have no idea what you speak of, Amtrak takes almost 3 days from coast to coast (Downtown SF to Penn Station NYC) , and this includes pulling off the the side for log/coal freight. -Believe it or not, a log freight train has priority over a Amtrak passenger train nowadays! You share the tracks with freight the whole 3k miles across the USA.
It is a damn shame to see our infrastructure in such shape, fellow riders from other countries scoff at our backwardness.

Amtrak is a mess working on a shoestring budget, but it is still the classiest way to travel, biggest problems are crappy bumpy tracks/old cars and 70 mph (when lucky!) is just a failspeed to cross the vast USA.

Crossing the USA in a car or plane is nothing like a train. I recommend it to anyone who has not. The rockies (and the USA) are best viewed from the rails -what built this country imo.

 

[BoberFett]

Still living in the stone ages?
People would use mass transit if it were mass transit.
Example? Minn rail system between mega mall and downtown.
Ultra modern, all electric, efficient.
And... the people LOVe it!
So much so that MN is expanding the system as we type.
A proven winner.

This country has to start thinking "clean" mass transit, and NOT one car one person.
We can never maintain the costs of repairing roads, let along our dependency on foreign oil.
You will need to figure in the billions in costs of fighting wars to protect our oil interest if your cost formula is to be realistic.
Remember... we are talking billions, and American lives, in that cost !!!

Everyone else gets it... Now American's needs to "get with it".
So many goals could be achieved. Reducing air pollution, oil dependency, reduced infrastructure maintenance cost.

Lets grow up and get with the program for a change, and stop hanging ourselves with the rope of stupidly.

Bullshit. People who live and work between downtown on the MoA on Hiawatha love it. What the hell good does it do for the other couple million people who don't use it but are paying the bills for a handful to enjoy it?

 

[Fear No Evil]

No I am suggesting using what we already have. Just putting it back into service with small upgrades. The layout and tracks already exist.



The same way it has worked for decades. Freight is unloaded at the same places passengers unload. I see trains accelerate every day of the week, it takes about 20 minutes. Short distance freight doesn't use trains ? Tell UPS and fedex that, not to mention all the bakeries, factories, farmers that use it often for 50 miles or less.






Nope 6am and 9:30PM . Ever here of a switch ? Multiple trains can use the same tracks at different parts of the day. No way to get from home or to work ? There is something called walking that more people could definitely make use of. How long to go 48 miles ? Right now it is about 1 hour. They could go faster, but there is no reason to. Try driving into and out of a city that is 35 miles away and if you can do it under an hour, you are unique. How much is an hour of my time worth ? A lot less than the stress I would get by driving through traffic. Not to mention the expense of the car, the insurance, gas and upkeep.



Nope 3 days with 15 stops along the way.



nope. Look at the books for companies that failed and it clearly shows they misappropriated funds.

You didn't answer a lot of my questions. By your own admission, people did not use the trains 15 years ago and MOVED closer to the jobs. What makes you think that it will work NOW? It wasn't convenient or cheap enough for people to use it then, it certainly won't be NOW.

And you are suggesting that a train from FL to CA would only stop 15 times, and take 3 days, and you would get 10,000 people a trip? Thats absurd. You won't get 10,000 people a MONTH who will take that trip which means you will have a bunch of empty trains, or they will only run once a week. And the taxpayers will subsidize it. There is NO WAY to make that profitable. Also with your fuel costs you don't factor in the cost of the employees, upkeep of the tracks, trains, etc. And what about the people who want to go from NY to CA? How about from Chicago to FL? How about from Dallas to Washington DC? And when these people get to their destination what are they going to do? Jump in a car and congest the traffic just as bad.

You openly admit nearly every train company has failed to poor management. Assuming this is true, what makes you think it will change now? Government would HAVE to run something as big as you are suggesting, and they can't even run the DMV well.

 

[exar333]

Wrong. Train travel in the US just isn't viable due to our nature and our having an excellent(relatively) road system.

What you people who push "mass transit" should be looking at to reduce "congestion", "fuel", and "pollution" is creating a faster/lighter mass shipping system instead of trying to stuff hundreds of people into a tin can on wheels.
Yes, we already have "heavy" rail for freight, but why not a system of faster hub to hub shipping? Meh...

+1.

Light-rail inside a metro area is often invaluable and is VERY easy to get people to use. I would rather see the Billions spread around for better train systems in some of the more congested metro areas.

 

[Nitemare]

Can't wait until its implemented here in California.

like the BART?

We have a Rail system in everywhere that it is needed. The only place where it would be remotely feasible would be in the Northeast. Everywhere else the metro areas are too far apart.

 

[Fear No Evil]

The reason it is not profitable/convenient is because there has not been infrastructure upgrades. Every small town the train passes through makes it all the more efficient.

As far as the mix of passengers/freight, you obviously have no idea what you speak of, Amtrak takes almost 3 days from coast to coast (Downtown SF to Penn Station NYC) , and this includes pulling off the the side for log/coal freight. -Believe it or not, a log freight train has priority over a Amtrak passenger train nowadays! You share the tracks with freight the whole 3k miles across the USA.
It is a damn shame to see our infrastructure in such shape, fellow riders from other countries scoff at our backwardness.

Amtrak is a mess working on a shoestring budget, but it is still the classiest way to travel, biggest problems are crappy bumpy tracks/old cars and 70 mph (when lucky!) is just a failspeed to cross the vast USA.

Crossing the USA in a car or plane is nothing like a train. I recommend it to anyone who has not. The rockies (and the USA) are best viewed from the rails -what built this country imo.

So you are REALLY trying to suggest to me that if they upgraded the tracks and the cars people would start riding? I think the reason the cars and the tracks are outdated is because NOBODY IS RIDING.

Every small town it passes through makes it horribly INEFFICIENT. Why do you think they were cut out to begin with? Because it doesn't make sense to stop a train in butthole, nowhere to stop for Aunt Millie and Uncle Schwartzberg. Every stop adds overhead in building costs, employee costs, fuel costs, etc. What makes an interstate more efficient than the side streets? Exits every couple miles instead of every block. If they put an ramp every city block on an interstate it would grind to a halt.

I've been on Amtrak. Classy? Not the words I would describe. Sure, there is more room than a plane (Mostly because nobody rides, if it suddenly became massively popular they would cut down the sizes just as planes have). You admit the cars and tracks are crap yet you claim its the classiest way to cross the country?

Sure, taking a 3 day trip across the country and through the mountains would be cool for a vacation.. but how many times are people going to do that. For 99% of the travelers the destination is more important than the journey. Are you telling me someone who gets a week off a work and wants to travel to CA is going to take a 3 day train there, spend 1 day visiting, and a 3 day trip back? Of course not. So the train basically becomes a niche thing which is extremely difficult to make profitable because of how expensive it is to maintain.

People from other countries 'scoff' at our backwardness? How are cars 'backwards'? How can you possibly compare European countries, most of which are the size of our states, to the entire U.S? Do you have any idea what the cost would be to connect even the top 30 cities in the United States? It would be astronomical. And I seriously doubt the German's would say train travel is better than cars..

 

[BoberFett]

I think the money would be better spent giving businesses incentives to have people work from their home offices, therefore reducing road congestion, polution, etc. I know there will always be a need for people to go to a job site, but think of all the accountants, software developers, etc. you could have working from home.

QFT

If we're dead set on spending money we don't have, let's spend it on upgrading network infrastructure so not as many people need to travel constantly. Let's get high resolution video conferencing everywhere.

 

[Steeplerot]

QFT

If we're dead set on spending money we don't have, let's spend it on upgrading network infrastructure so not as many people need to travel constantly. Let's get high resolution video conferencing everywhere.

Some of us prefer the real thing. :biggrin:

 

[Steeplerot]

So you are REALLY trying to suggest to me that if they upgraded the tracks and the cars people would start riding? I think the reason the cars and the tracks are outdated is because NOBODY IS RIDING.



Sure, taking a 3 day trip across the country and through the mountains would be cool for a vacation.. but how many times are people going to do that.

No one is riding because the public transit infrastructure was intentionally and wastefully dismantled in the 1950's to force Americans onto freeways.

This is was when gas was a few cents a gallon.



Your complaints are the same as mine about rail, it is underfunded, and nowhere enough complete/fast enough to compete.

In the long run it is potentially as fast as a plane and far more fuel efficient.

The energy savings will pay for the infrastructure over time, and more infrastructure means more passengers.

 

[FerrelGeek]

Europe benefits from their train system because their road system sucks. Most of those cities, nay the whole continent was colonized and cities built before the advent of the car.

We chose to spend the money on a road system, which our entire country benefits from. We don't need to spend more on infrastructure. You won't realize increased GDP through things like a new rail structure. Our road system is already great.

/thread.

Given how ineptly the .gov runs everything else, this'll be yet another complete waste of money.

 

[piasabird]

Train to Nowhere?

Everyone lives in the suburbs or in a different location from where we work to get out of the city and the crime. American culture is anti-train in how we build cities and in our housing patterns.

In Europe they also build smaller houses, but that doesnt mean that is what Americans want.

 

[Steeplerot]

soccerballtux, you are a idiot, Europe's roads suck? The autobahn is the grandaddy of our freeways, and there is no general speed limit.

US freeways....max 75?

 

[Steeplerot]

Train to Nowhere?

TX got a few million also from this, yes.

 

[DietDrThunder]

TX got a few million also from this, yes.

They spent it on things like this:

From the Fort Worth Star Telegram article "Hundreds of millions spent on Texas transportation projects that have little to do with traffic"

Federal officials require states to spend 10 percent of transportation funds on enhancement projects to gain access to the other 90 percent for actual road work.

In Wichita Falls, a project to convert a rail depot to a visitors center was awarded $267,200 in federal funds, plus a $53,440 local match. The building now houses an insurance company.

In San Elizario, near El Paso, $96,000 in federal and local money was set aside to conduct and report on an archaeological dig.

In Fort Worth, a vintage Interurban trolley was restored at a cost of $211,200. The dapper red rail car, which is parked at 1001 Jones St., doesn’t ferry passengers on the city’s transit system but instead serves only as a static display, shielded by an iron fence from contact with the public.

$16.1 million for the Battleship Texas restoration project in La Porte.

$2 million for a Houston fire museum.

$455,000 for beautification of the Texas State Cemetery in Austin.

$150,000 on a Lufkin tourist center.

In Tarrant County, more than $35 million was awarded to hike-and-bike-trail projects in Arlington, Colleyville, Euless, Fort Worth, Grapevine, Keller, North Richland Hills and even Burleson near the Tarrant-Johnson county border.

Meanwhile, drivers in Dallas-Fort Worth, the nation’s fourth-most-congested metro area, are being asked to pay tolls on a growing number of roads and could face higher gas taxes in the coming years to make up for a shortfall of funds to expand highways.

Since the federal requirement began, $997 million worth of work in Texas has been identified as enhancement projects, including more than $410 million in projects for which the federal government has already provided reimbursement. At least $269 million more is in the process of being spent, according to a review of state and federal records.

In Arlington, $102,479 was awarded in 1994 for median landscaping on Six Flags Drive, just outside the theme park entrance

It’s difficult to say how much $997 million (the 10% requirement) would buy if it could be used on highway lane construction instead of enhancements.

It could be enough to pave over 330 miles of rural highways or to expand nearly 250 miles of four-lane interstate highway to six lanes, based on construction estimates from the American Road and Transportation Builders Association. But those figures don’t include expenses such as land purchases.

 

[Sinsear]

soccerballtux, you are a idiot, Europe's roads suck? The autobahn is the grandaddy of our freeways, and there is no general speed limit.

US freeways....max 75?

Actually there is no such road as "the autobahn". There are many autobahns. And if memory serves correct the posted speed is 120kph. You won't get a ticket for going faster but you're insurance might not cover you either in event of accident in excess of that speed.

 

[EXman]

:thumbsup:

About time.

would you sell your car(s) and use a train or bus all the time?

I wouldn't. Hell no!

I like trains personally but as a culture we like the freedom of our cars a lot.

short term government jobs are the next "bubble."

Trains? really? C'mon...

 

[Zargon]

comparison to europe are such a waste of time

much denser population, much less space overall. they have can much nicer things for a lower cost than we can. i could care less if they are appauled by our rail system, drving cars in their cities is a nightmare, they cant even use 18 wheelers because they wont fit anywhere


I actually use amtrack once in a while, but I certainly dont want to have to use it all the time.

 

[Throckmorton]

comparison to europe are such a waste of time

much denser population, much less space overall. they have can much nicer things for a lower cost than we can. i could care less if they are appauled by our rail system, drving cars in their cities is a nightmare, they cant even use 18 wheelers because they wont fit anywhere


I actually use amtrack once in a while, but I certainly dont want to have to use it all the time.

What you and the other naysayers are missing is that travel over the vast stretches of rural America are only a small part of potential train travel. High speed rail is perfectly suited for suburb-urban commuting, which is exactly what most people do.

 

[Zargon]

I am not saying its bad, I am saying its not good to be all over america.

 

[cubeless]

What you and the other naysayers are missing is that travel over the vast stretches of rural America are only a small part of potential train travel. High speed rail is perfectly suited for suburb-urban commuting, which is exactly what most people do.

but it only works for this if there's supporting infrastructure...

if the users can't get a bus from their corner to the train, and a bus from the train to their job, then it doesn't work... if it's less convenient and costs more than using a car (you still need a car to get to the train?) then it just won't fly... especially here in fl where you can't just walk half a mile from the train to somewhere without getting soaked from rain or sweat...

and the fl route is really kind of a joke... yeah, great, we'll take the money, but the disney express will end up being a white elephant down the road...