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This is why we need a train system with funding parity to the highway and airport systems. There should be trains leaving constantly, at most every 10 minutes,

by khrbrt 7y ago

This is why we need a train system with funding parity to the highway and airport systems. There should be trains leaving constantly, at most every 10 minutes, from Chicago to the east, and frequent, semihourly, trains between neighboring cities along the way. Even if the author could rent a car, having to drive 300 miles is astounding waste of time and mental energy.

f5thesystem 7y ago
Ohio had plans to connect Toledo, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Columbus, however the Governor at the time turned down the federal money.
- dexterdog 7y ago
  I'm sure it wasn't free. Federal money for stuff like that usually has strings attached.
  - kgermino 7y ago
    That actually was about as close to free as it gets. At least it was for the similar money (same program) that Wisconsin turned down. In Wisconsin’s case it was about $800MM with no local match needed and the catch was committing to running the service for 20 years. Even as someone who wasn’t a big fan of the project I’m still annoyed because we’ve now spent significantly more than 20 years of operating costs for work that would have been paid for if we took the money.
    - dexterdog 7y ago
      What was the cost of running it for 20 years (both reported and then times 3 for realistic forecast)
refurb 7y ago
I can’t imagine a train leaving every 10 minutes could ever be cost effective. There just aren’t that many people who want to do that trip (8 hours?) when you could do it in 2 hours by plane.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- bobthepanda 7y ago
  As the crow flies, Chicago to New York is similar to Beijing to Shanghai, which is a long-ish high-speed-rail journey of 4.5 hours. If you have to fight lots of traffic to get to the airport that's not too bad. Probably not enough to drive demand for every ten minutes. The real value of such a network would be an intermediate trip. If Cleveland or Pittsburgh are both two hours away from New York and Chicago and the trip is downtown to downtown, demand for air travel from these mid-size cities to the larger ones would pretty much dry up save for connecting flights. And the strength of rail is that you could have some trains stop multiple times within a metropolitan area, so that you don't have to drive to a centrally located transportation hub the way you have to do with an airport. And if you add rail stops to the airport you don't even need the connecting flights anymore. You probably wouldn't get the high-speed rail to Bradford OH directly though. The closest you'd get is Dayton OH, but thankfully that's a more doable 30+ mile Lyft ride.
  - rayiner 7y ago
    LGA to ORD is 3 million passengers per year. Beijing to Shanghai is 7 million by air, plus 180 million by train (including intermediate stops). Total US air travel between all destinations is only 750 million per year. The ability of the Chinese to recoup their capital investment through ridership is massive compared to what you could expect in the US.
    - bobthepanda 7y ago
      It's worth noting that at least some of that 180 million is travel induced by the availability of the train in the first place. There are plenty of city pairs that people don't travel between because * plane travel is too much of a hassle for such a short trip, and usually expensive * roads (bus & car) are too congested
    - dredmorbius 7y ago
      Rail passengers to Denver, CO, in 1869, numbered nil. Construction of the 100 mile Denver Pacific spur line to the transcontinental railroad route in Cheyenne not only increased that somewhat, but saw Denver's population grow from 4,700 th over 35,000 within ten years. Induced demand is a thing.
matz1 7y ago
In a few years self driving car will save us.
- rustguy 7y ago
  I bet we'll get flying cars first.
bluedino 7y ago
It’s a four and a half hour drive on the highway, it’s not a big deal.
BrandonM 7y ago
There are 5 different Greyhound buses next Monday from Chicago to Dayton (called "Dayton Trotwood"), ranging from $36 to $90, all taking about 7 hours. There are some passenger trains in the US—I've actually gone overnight from Rochester, NY, to Milwaukee, WI, via train when a flight was canceled—but bus travel is just how you get to medium-sized US cities, for better or for worse. 188 US cities are larger than Dayton, and it's only the 6th largest city in Ohio. Of course, it's not as nice as having regular, smooth, fast trains. But the situation is not as dire as people make it out to be.
rayiner 7y ago
There is nothing, except Chicago’s suburbs, within about 300 miles of Chicago in every direction. Also, our train system has more than funding parity with roads. Road spending is about $175 billion per year, about half of which isn’t recovered from use fees, for 5 trillion passenger miles. That’s about $0.02 per mile subsidy. Amtrak’s capital expenditures is about $900 million per year, which comes directly from Congress. (Ticket revenue only goes to operating costs.) that’s about $0.13 per passenger mile. For a guy driving 300 miles, that cost the government $6.00 in road construction and maintenance. For the guy to train that same distance costs the government $39.
- tptacek 7y ago
  You mean besides Milwaukee, Madison, Grand Rapids, Indianapolis, Cedar Rapids, St Louis, Cincinatti and Toledo? That's more people than Chicago itself. If you take Chicagoland as an endpoint and not the city boundaries, Des Moines is also within 300 miles. Transcontinental high speed rail is, I agree strongly with your subtextual argument, a pipe dream. But regional HSR in the midwest would make a lot of sense.
  - ChickeNES 7y ago
    You forgot Detroit, and Louisville, and almost in spitting distance of Minneapolis
    - tptacek 7y ago
      Oh, you're right! My brain always stops at Ann Arbor, which I thought was too small to include.
      - wglb 7y ago
        I hear that happens a lot around the beginning of April.
      - pdonis 7y ago
        Too small? Hey! Ann Arbor is nice, I lived there for about 8 years. But I can totally understand stopping your brain at Ann Arbor if the alternative is to go on to Detroit...
ryacko 7y ago
No, the train system should be reorganized. Having multiple stops slows down travel. If Amtrak used shorter trains with a direct route, and all freight trains yielded to passenger trains, people will use more trains. Otherwise any train trip that takes over eight hours is unpalatable, no matter how bad airport security becomes.
- sokoloff 7y ago
  The problem is Amtrak, at least in Northeast, is running on tracks mostly owned by the freight companies. No way they’re going to yield on the tracks they bought without Amtrak paying them handsomely for that.
  - ryacko 7y ago
    The law states that a preference must be given to Amtrak over freight. The law can changed to give an absolute preference to Amtrak. http://www2.laufer.com/freight-railroads-fight-new-rule-for-amtrak-trains.html http://www2.laufer.com/freight-railroads-fight-new-rule-for-...

by khrbrt 7y ago

f5thesystem 7y ago

Ohio had plans to connect Toledo, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Columbus, however the Governor at the time turned down the federal money.

dexterdog 7y ago
I'm sure it wasn't free. Federal money for stuff like that usually has strings attached.
- kgermino 7y ago
  That actually was about as close to free as it gets. At least it was for the similar money (same program) that Wisconsin turned down. In Wisconsin’s case it was about $800MM with no local match needed and the catch was committing to running the service for 20 years. Even as someone who wasn’t a big fan of the project I’m still annoyed because we’ve now spent significantly more than 20 years of operating costs for work that would have been paid for if we took the money.
  - dexterdog 7y ago
    What was the cost of running it for 20 years (both reported and then times 3 for realistic forecast)

refurb 7y ago

I can’t imagine a train leaving every 10 minutes could ever be cost effective. There just aren’t that many people who want to do that trip (8 hours?) when you could do it in 2 hours by plane.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
bobthepanda 7y ago
As the crow flies, Chicago to New York is similar to Beijing to Shanghai, which is a long-ish high-speed-rail journey of 4.5 hours. If you have to fight lots of traffic to get to the airport that's not too bad. Probably not enough to drive demand for every ten minutes. The real value of such a network would be an intermediate trip. If Cleveland or Pittsburgh are both two hours away from New York and Chicago and the trip is downtown to downtown, demand for air travel from these mid-size cities to the larger ones would pretty much dry up save for connecting flights. And the strength of rail is that you could have some trains stop multiple times within a metropolitan area, so that you don't have to drive to a centrally located transportation hub the way you have to do with an airport. And if you add rail stops to the airport you don't even need the connecting flights anymore. You probably wouldn't get the high-speed rail to Bradford OH directly though. The closest you'd get is Dayton OH, but thankfully that's a more doable 30+ mile Lyft ride.
- rayiner 7y ago
  LGA to ORD is 3 million passengers per year. Beijing to Shanghai is 7 million by air, plus 180 million by train (including intermediate stops). Total US air travel between all destinations is only 750 million per year. The ability of the Chinese to recoup their capital investment through ridership is massive compared to what you could expect in the US.
  - bobthepanda 7y ago
    It's worth noting that at least some of that 180 million is travel induced by the availability of the train in the first place. There are plenty of city pairs that people don't travel between because * plane travel is too much of a hassle for such a short trip, and usually expensive * roads (bus & car) are too congested
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    Rail passengers to Denver, CO, in 1869, numbered nil. Construction of the 100 mile Denver Pacific spur line to the transcontinental railroad route in Cheyenne not only increased that somewhat, but saw Denver's population grow from 4,700 th over 35,000 within ten years. Induced demand is a thing.

matz1 7y ago

In a few years self driving car will save us.

rustguy 7y ago
I bet we'll get flying cars first.

bluedino 7y ago

It’s a four and a half hour drive on the highway, it’s not a big deal.

BrandonM 7y ago

There are 5 different Greyhound buses next Monday from Chicago to Dayton (called "Dayton Trotwood"), ranging from $36 to $90, all taking about 7 hours. There are some passenger trains in the US—I've actually gone overnight from Rochester, NY, to Milwaukee, WI, via train when a flight was canceled—but bus travel is just how you get to medium-sized US cities, for better or for worse. 188 US cities are larger than Dayton, and it's only the 6th largest city in Ohio. Of course, it's not as nice as having regular, smooth, fast trains. But the situation is not as dire as people make it out to be.

rayiner 7y ago

There is nothing, except Chicago’s suburbs, within about 300 miles of Chicago in every direction. Also, our train system has more than funding parity with roads. Road spending is about $175 billion per year, about half of which isn’t recovered from use fees, for 5 trillion passenger miles. That’s about $0.02 per mile subsidy. Amtrak’s capital expenditures is about $900 million per year, which comes directly from Congress. (Ticket revenue only goes to operating costs.) that’s about $0.13 per passenger mile. For a guy driving 300 miles, that cost the government $6.00 in road construction and maintenance. For the guy to train that same distance costs the government $39.

tptacek 7y ago
You mean besides Milwaukee, Madison, Grand Rapids, Indianapolis, Cedar Rapids, St Louis, Cincinatti and Toledo? That's more people than Chicago itself. If you take Chicagoland as an endpoint and not the city boundaries, Des Moines is also within 300 miles. Transcontinental high speed rail is, I agree strongly with your subtextual argument, a pipe dream. But regional HSR in the midwest would make a lot of sense.
- ChickeNES 7y ago
  You forgot Detroit, and Louisville, and almost in spitting distance of Minneapolis
  - tptacek 7y ago
    Oh, you're right! My brain always stops at Ann Arbor, which I thought was too small to include.
    - wglb 7y ago
      I hear that happens a lot around the beginning of April.
    - pdonis 7y ago
      Too small? Hey! Ann Arbor is nice, I lived there for about 8 years. But I can totally understand stopping your brain at Ann Arbor if the alternative is to go on to Detroit...

ryacko 7y ago

No, the train system should be reorganized. Having multiple stops slows down travel. If Amtrak used shorter trains with a direct route, and all freight trains yielded to passenger trains, people will use more trains. Otherwise any train trip that takes over eight hours is unpalatable, no matter how bad airport security becomes.

sokoloff 7y ago
The problem is Amtrak, at least in Northeast, is running on tracks mostly owned by the freight companies. No way they’re going to yield on the tracks they bought without Amtrak paying them handsomely for that.
- ryacko 7y ago
  The law states that a preference must be given to Amtrak over freight. The law can changed to give an absolute preference to Amtrak. http://www2.laufer.com/freight-railroads-fight-new-rule-for-amtrak-trains.html http://www2.laufer.com/freight-railroads-fight-new-rule-for-...