High Speed Rail in the US

[KrazyHorse]

I wouldn't say minimal, Dan. I've made that trip 4 times.

[KrazyHorse]

Also, off peak the traffic isn't too bad. Baltimore to Lincoln tunnel in under 3 hours, as long as it's later evening or midday

[DanS]

Yes, but you're going from Baltimore. Almost any time near the rush, it's a schlepp from Washington to Baltimore (and many other times besides). Ben is talking about Washington <-> NYC.

OK, let's be generous and say that it isn't minimal. 20,000 trips between the two cities a business day, including Chinatown buses, et al. We're still talking a one and a half order of magnitude difference.

[Ben Kenobi]

I'm talking about the entire route, not just NYC to Washington.

That 150 million passengers for that Shinkansen is for Osaka/Tokyo.

When looking at a line from Boston to Washington, you have to look at all the segments, Boston to NYC, NYC to Philly, and Philly to Washington.

About 1.5 million passengers a year use Amtrak to commute between New York and Philadelphia on a regular basis.

If 'regular basis' means 3x a week, that translates into about 150 trips in a year, or about a total ridership of 200+ million trips a year.

That's higher then the Osaka to Tokyo numbers, so at least the Philly/NYC route would be profitable for a high speed train.

http://www.nysun.com/new-york/new-amtrak-service-could-boost-the-sixth-borough/52916/

[DanS]

Ben, just stop. You do this again and you're the second person on my ignore list.

The entire Northeast corridor, from Virginia to Maine, carries about 12 million passengers per annum. That includes locals and everything. Few of these folks would pay to ride a bullet train.

[Ben Kenobi]

Why are you so angry at me?

[Ben Kenobi]

Acela Express 3.399 million (Washington-New York-Boston)
Northeast Regional (1) 8.299 million (Newport News-Washington-Boston/Springfield)
Keystone 1.184 million (New York-Philadelphia-Harrisburg)

These are the numbers I was looking for.

http://www.amtrak.com/pdf/NortheastCorridor.pdf

We are looking at 12.9 million Amtrak customers yearly, which is about 8.5 percent of the total in Japan.

Does not include car trips, or plane. If we double it, we get about 25 million trips a year, or about 17 percent.

Well, I have to say I'm surprised the numbers are so low in the US. I have to agree with DanS that it's a stupid idea now.

[Drake Tungsten]

You simply can't ignore bus travel if you're trying to determine the number of NYC to DC travelers.

[DanS]

So go ahead and add them in.

I just don't think the markets intersect that much. Acela is about 6x the price of the buses.

[Guynemer]

I'm not sure why that Amazes you, Guy. Columbus is the quintessential creature of the interstate and air travel.

Oh come now. Columbus has been one of the biggest cities in Ohio since long before I-70 and I-71.

[Straybow]

I don't think the West Coast routes would be that profitable outside the LA-SF route. The SF-Portland distance (at 650 mi over 1½ times as far as LA-SF, connecting a far smaller city) makes the construction and maintenance costs too high for that leg. Seattle to Portland wouldn't be profitable, and Seattle to SF can be flown so cheap there's no point to think about a bullet train.

I would put the northern terminal in San Jose or East Bay rather than SF. They're larger and growing faster, and any extension to Sacramento doesn't have to cross the bay.

There is a way to allow the two-bit cities in on it, but they won't be happy. They get stops, but serviced infrequently. No train stops at more than one intermediate point, and a decent percentage of trains are express service at a slightly higher cost.

[DanS]

Oh come now. Columbus has been one of the biggest cities in Ohio since long before I-70 and I-71.

It was always well smaller than Cleveland and Cincinnati when I was growing up in Ohio. Its current prominence (beyond being the capital and the seat of OSU) is a recent affair. I'm sure it wasn't much of a town during the heyday of passenger rail.

Edit: Although it's interesting that the city did have a station that served 112 passenger trains a day at its height around the turn of the century. Didn't know that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Station_%28Columbus,_Ohio%29

Really fascinating. Take a look at the passenger rail map in 1877. I can say that some of those stops that look major were towns of 20,000 people or less.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/1877_PC%26StL.jpg

In my little hometown, passenger rail began in 1876 and the station still stands, although I'm guessing that passenger rail service ceased in the 1930s. The line doesn't seem to appear on the map. Further research suggests that there were once hundreds of passenger rail stations dotting Ohio.

[Spiffor]

Spiff: I agree, but I wonder about the next 100 years. It doesn't seem wise to expect cars to remain the same.

After all, 100 years ago, the US had by far the best passenger rail system in the world (as it has now with its freight rail system). My little home town of 1,500 people had regular service. Passenger rail almost died in the US because cars are very useful.

I have little knowledge of city planning in the US. But I guess it has something in common with the European one : your cities would rather do things fairly cheaply, and without making too many voters mad. (Besides, your cities are going to have an architectural history increasingly worth conserving)

As a result, I guess you guys won't really raze whole areas of your cities, only to make extra room for roads in the coming 100 years. Well, unless a war does that job.

Besides, I can't really imagine cars to get so much smaller than the small models of today. In 100 years, I think the humans will still want to commute quickly, and they will still want to be physically protected from said speed. That, and many people will certainly still own big cars for their family (though they possibly won't use them for their daily commute)

Finally, the subways of Paris and London were built before automobiles were anything but a toy for the very rich. Those cities' congestion problems were due to carts and pedestrians. Some phenomena don't change so much, even whit new technology.

[RGBVideo]

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THREAD DELIVERS

Ben, you have NO IDEA how stupid your posts are looking to an European who has lived most of his life in a country with a well-functioning, hi-tech rail network.

[Asher]

His posts don't just look stupid to Europeans...