Posted on Friday June 26th by The Infrastructurist | 165
- After passing on HSR a few years ago because Jeb Bush said scary things about it, Florida prepares to invest in a system linking its major cities. The state could be a bellwether for other sprawly, populous regions of the country, says Time.
- In Texas lawmakers warily embrace the idea of HSR. A top Republican in the state senate says it’s very important for the state to have “airports, trains, highways and buses that would all use the same terminals.” (Dallas Morning News)
- Doubter’s corner: The country’s designated naysayer on rail, Randall O’Toole, tries to convince Georgians not to invest in HSR by ginning up a little class warfare rhetoric: “An expensive rail system used mainly by a wealthy elite is not change we can believe in.” (Talk Gwinnett)
- In New England, states are scrambling to get together a HSR plan. But, to date, northeastern governors remain less organized than their Midwestern colleagues. (NH Public Radio)
- Iowa governor Chet Culver took a ride on a choo choo to promote HSR between Des Moines and Chicago. Eventually he’d like the line to run all the way west to Omaha. (Chicago Trib)
- Some guy with a long job title gives long boring Congressional testimony about why HSR needs to come to State College, Pennsylvania. (PSU News)
- The numbers game for high speed rail — will $13 billion and 110 mph be enough? (StreetsBlog)
- A Japanese company unveils the E5 Shinkansen, which they claim at a 224 mph operating speed will be the world’s fastest bullet train. (PressTV)
June 26th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
“it’s very important for the state to have “airports, trains, highways and buses that would all use the same terminals.” ”
Which sounds like code for “let’s hobble the railroads by putting stations out near motorways and airports, rather than city centres, so people need to drive to/from them”
June 26th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Train stations must not only be located in city centers, but also at airports to take advantage of the natural multi-modal transit hubs they have become.
June 26th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
Rail lines should as priority #1 go to city centers with spurs to the airports if the airport doesn’t sit on or near the main line.
June 26th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Why give that piece of crap O’Toole any publicity? The guy is a right-wing crackpot working for a right-wing corporate funded think tank. His head is so far up his a$$ that he breathes in his farts.
June 26th, 2009 at 5:54 pm
The arguments presented against HSR in that crappy TIME article are pathetically bad. I wonder how much it would cost to build Interstate 4 through Tampa and Orlando in today’s dollars? Answer: A hell of a lot more than building a high speed rail line.
June 26th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
Seems to me having HSR stations at airports (in addition to - not to the exclusion of downtown) is what would really make HSR sing as an alternative to planes. Looking at the midwest, I would bet most of the people boarding planes for O Hare at Springfield, Peoria, Battle Creek, or Milwaukee aren’t really going to the Loop - they’re going to connect at O Hare to Arizona or California or Europe or Asia. The key to making HSR viable is to make it convenient for what people (especially business people who pay the high fares) really want to do. A run-through of Union Station on trains from Detroit, St Louis, and Cincinnati with a terminus at O Hare would really have the potential to siphon off air traffic to HSR, and that’s what we really want to do, right?
June 27th, 2009 at 9:54 am
The US already has a massive rail asset in the form of the Amtrak network, including through Florida. Unfortunately it has been starved of funds for almost sixty years and forced into unfair competition with the interstate system and cars. For a fraction of the cost of HSR this network could be revived and upgraded to take fast trains such as those operating in Europe, but without going to the very high cost of TGV/AVE technology. See this Wikipedia page for the many European lines in the 200-250 km/h range. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail#High-speed_rail_by_region
The Amtrak Acela service from Washington to Boston is the only US example of this type of service. Why not roll it out across the nation?
June 27th, 2009 at 11:57 am
O’toole is peddling his wares in Georgia, good. I love it when extreme right wingers take up the call of class warfare. Is Reason still being financed by Exxon-Mobil-like all of the conference they sponsored for Reason that I attended were in the 90’s?
July 8th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
Rail is economically superior with respect goods movement, particularly over long distances. Coupled with compatible investments in frequent and reliable person capacity, it’s a better strategic investment for our country. This is especially true since the vast majority of our future energy is going to come through wires via nuclear, coal and hydro electrical generation. “Drill baby drill” will run dry of capital off-shore before it gets to results on the scale that is required to keep even the motorvehicle investments we have out there (drive-thrus, snowmachines, double-left turn lanes) going in any affordable level for all but the elite. If you are planning for any growth (US plus China and India), the happy motoring gig is up.
If you compare the O’Toole doctrine, which is really a massive mandatory motoring program coupled with a robust electrified car infrastructure, to rail, there is some serious financial accounting that is not being reported. The electric automobile infrastructure requires precious earth metal for batteries such as lithium and nickel as opposed to copper, steel and gravel for rail. The electric automobile infrastructure also requires that we upgrade our creaky power infrastructure from the household level up to the generating stations (this is on top of its renovation needs). If you compare today’s locomotive hauled passenger trains with diesel or electric multiple unit trains (the way the rest of world runs passenger rail now), the energy savings of passenger rail are even higher. Furthermore, electric trains can send their regenerated power back through the network to other vehicles and the grid while cars are isolated and can only recharge themselves.