Sometimes it’s comforting to have a rigorous, numbers-based analysis tell you something you already pretty much know. In this case, most Americans understand that there are intercity corridors in this country that would be ideally suited for high speed rail investment. But the smart folks at America 2050 have done a great deal in advancing the national conversation by putting together a report (pdf) that ranks which potential HSR routes are the best candidates for investment–that is, which will have the greatest ridership demand.
The rankings are based on six factors: population, the size the local economy, distance between cities (with 250 miles being optimum), the quality of the local transit networks at each end, how bad the highway congestion is both cities (on the idea that this dissuades driving), and whether the cities are in a mega-region (more on that here).
Naturally, tops on the list was a NY-Washington DC link–probably as good a natural candidate for HSR as any route in the world. Six of the top 10 pairs, in fact, are overlapping segments on the larger Washington-Boston route.
Confusingly, that very route is today served by the Acela, which many people think is high speed because it looks like a high speed train, what with the pointy aerodynamic nose, fancy seats, Euro-style name and all. But in any meaningful sense the Acela is just a device to fool ourselves–rather like chewing gum when you’re hungry. It theoretically could go fast, but doesn’t do so because the tracks just don’t allow for it (except one little stretch blah blah — a taunting and meaningless exception).
Also in the top ten are LA-SF and, charmingly, the Dallas-Houston route that Edward Glaeser poopooed in his unimpressive “back of envelope” analysis over at the NYT’s Economix blog.
The top 25 are city pairs are:
