An article by Raju Chebium and Maureen Groppe in the Indianapolis Star discusses the possibility of high speed rail in the Midwest. The federal government has set aside $8 billion to develop high speed rail in this country. This is a significant but insufficient amount of money for development of high speed rail in this country. The French, Chinese, Japanese, and Spanish are apparently far ahead of us in this technology. In our area, the primary corridor would be from Chicago through Lafayette and Indianapolis to Cincinnati.
From my limited perspective of one round trip from Lafayette to Chicago, the main challenge isn’t the potential speed of the train and the rail, but the congestion of the corridors. Our trip from Chicago to Lafayette took upwards of 5 hours because we were rarely going at anything like top speed and spent a lot of time sitting still on the tracks.
Gov. Daniels does not seem to be a fan of this:
“I would just observe that that wouldn’t go very far if the idea is to actually build some of these,” Gov. Mitch Daniels said after Congress passed the stimulus bill, which included the $8 billion. “I wouldn’t want Indiana to get left holding the bag — an enormous bag — for some system that’s put in place and then began losing money, which these things tend to do.”
His first point about how far the available money will go toward actually completing a project is certainly relevant. Even though it happened a century and a half ago, Indiana remains scarred by overly ambitious transportation projects that could not be funded to completion. (The Indiana Mammoth Internal Improvement act included turnpikes, railroads, and canals; none of which were completed has been one of the defining pieces of Indiana history.)
The Governor’s other point about whether the rail would be a profit center seems to miss the mark, however. How much money do our roads make for the government? None. They lose quite a bit of money. The relevant question is whether the cost/benefit ratio of rail outweigh the cost/benefit ratio of the roads or other transportation it would replace — including potentially such things as reduction in pollution and fuel consumption; and – if fuel consumption is reduced enough, potentially reduction in military expenditures necessary to maintain the oil supply.
At the end of the day, it seems to me that if Spain and France can manage high speed rail, so can we. Anyone with experience traveling in Europe know how well their train systems work and how they affect the overall effectiveness in transportation for those areas?
Many things here… I’ve ridden the genuinely high-speed AVE train in Spain, from Madrid to Sevilla. It moves at 180 mph on average. That trip took just two hours! The Japanese trains go even faster. Calling any train in America ‘high speed’ is bunk. The fastest passenger trains are rated for 110 mph, and the kind of ‘high speed’ rail projects being slated in this kind of funding will be rated for 79 mph max.
Spain does not have a system, though. The have a couple of high speed lines between their biggest cities. Two, by memory. Since I was still going further south than Sevilla, I had to then take the Renfe train to Cadiz. Even though that train went half the distance of the AVE run, it took three times as long. But the train didn’t go all the way to Rota, which was my final destination, so I had to rent a car to make the rest of the distance. I would have rented a car anyhow, but just like the US, what I noted was the rail corridor that once went all the way to Rota. The track was pulled up.
Hilariously, I just went to the AVE website to see the system map, and the website is down. So much for the wonderful efficient Spanish that we don’t measure up to. http://www.RailEurope.com/Ave I was assured that the site would be back on later today.
Mussolini famously made the trains run on time. I wouldn’t judge a country’s relative merits by the trains. Spain does one route well. They do a lot of other things intolerably poorly.
The US does the NE corridor very well btw. The factors that make it work are all related to a car being a liability: expensive parking, low availability of parking, very high congestion, ease of walking to final destination, high availability of secondary transportation such as buses or taxis. None of these factors exist in the midwest, with the exception of Chicago, and even there many commuters are undaunted by the congestion and parking issues.
That’s just commuter traffic. Some of the factors that make rail work in other countries is that they are much smaller than the US, have fewer large cities, and the exclusive ownership/use of the rails by the passenger carrier. None of these are true in the US.
Besides, Spain doesn’t have a rail that runs any real distance. The Madrid-Sevilla run is 527 km, or 328 mi. One of two routes. Well, that’s about Indianapolis to Cleveland (318 mi). Should I be impressed yet with it as a ‘system’?
The next two trips to Spain, I flew. It pained me a bit, because I am a railfan. I ride trains because I actually like them. But my time means something to me. I shaved five hours off total travel time on my subsequent trips by flying directly from Madrid to Jerez de la Frontera, which was closer to my end destination besides. Plus, I saved a few Euros on airfare vs. train fare. That time savings mattered because it changed my total travel time from 23 hours to 18 hours.
Oh- I took the train out of Atocha Station in Madrid. Terrorists blew it up 5 weeks later. I was glad I took pictures of Atocha.
I haven’t even gotten to policy wonkery yet. The numbers should make anybody who talked about financial responsibility ever in their lives wince.
The numbers should make anybody who talked about financial responsibility ever in their lives wince.
Agreed.
There’s a great bit in John Huston’s criminally overlooked Beat the Devil, where Gina Lollobrigida (yes) tells the story of the Italian visitor who asks the English lord how he can duplicate one of those wonderful English lawns? And the Englishman says, “Well, first you get a piece of ground, then roll it every day for 600 years…”
We frittered it away, with plenty of encouragement from auto manufacturers and petroleum importers and people who figured environmental concerns were a losing proposition for them, politically. We should, at this late date, remain true to our national character and wait until disaster strikes, then try to deny the disaster for a while first.
Look at Chicago. Plenty of ridership for the CTA, but the infrastructure’s crumbling and it leaks money like a Wall Street bonus baby.
Enjoy your moon rocks. Enjoy that B-2 flyover at Indy. Enjoy your aircraft carriers. (We got enough of them that we’re just a sufficient canal system away from curing all our transportation problems.)
Right- look at Chicago, although at Metra, because it’s more in line with what regional promoters of light rail have in mind. I haven’t heard of anyone talking about making a CTA for Indy or any other Hoosier city.
Chicago has the Metra trains that do the longer distance commutes, and it is a fairly complete system.
I’ve ridden them from Crystal Lake in to Ogilvie Station right downtown. It was a 90-minute ride. I read and surfed the web. The car commute for the same length at the same time is also 90-minutes. The train was $6 one way. I would use about $2 in gas each way, but would save a bunch on parking, which is about $30/day downtown.
And still, the majority of the Chicagoland commuters would rather drive.
Until that nut is cracked, most commuter rail schemes end up being a real-life transfer of wealth to those who ride from those who don’t. I don’t see any justice in that. Fairness would be that the fares would cover costs. I’m not talking about making a profit, just breaking even. You know- that sustainability that is all the rage these days.