High Speed Rail in the US

[Ben Kenobi]

Chicago-St. Louis-Kansas City-Oklahoma City-Dallas-Houston also works.

Gives us about 50 miles per million people. Higher then anything on the east coast, but about as viable as Toronto-Montreal.

[DanS]

It's not merely a matter of stringing big cities together. You have to connect cities where people (preferably businesspeople) travel by air between them with a high frequency. Many of the possible corridors that Ben mentions make no sense at all.

[Kontiki]

It's not merely a matter of stringing big cities together. You have to connect cities where people (preferably businesspeople) travel by air between them with a high frequency. Many of the possible corridors that Ben mentions make no sense at all.

Ben, you need to read this several times, so I'm quoting it again. Just using population numbers is useless. High speed is also useless if your stops are too close together.

[Ben Kenobi]

Dan S:

All I'm doing is finding the most viable route from point A to point B. Sure, business people might prefer a more direct route, but there are tradeoffs.

For a laugh I wanted to see what was the best route from Chicago to LA.

LA-Las Vegas-Denver-Omaha-Chicago gives me 64 miles per million people, which is about 100 km/million people.

That's surprising. It's actually more viable to do coast to coast then the link from Edmonton to Calgary.

[Wezil]

Ben, you need to read this several times, so I'm quoting it again. Just using population numbers is useless. High speed is also useless if your stops are too close together.

It's not merely a matter of stringing big cities together. You have to connect cities where people (preferably businesspeople) travel by air between them with a high frequency. Many of the possible corridors that Ben mentions make no sense at all.

Again.

[Asher]

Ben make no sense at all.

Fixed. I'd suggest you copy and paste this into your clipboard -- in this thread you'll be saying this a lot.

[Asher]

They should build a high-speed rail link between Tokyo and Shanghai. Look at the populations there.

Edit: Maybe a Tokyo-Shanghai-Mexico City line?

[Dinner]

High-speed intercity passenger rail is also relatively pointless if it connects cities that lack effective mass transit systems. The government would be better advised to spend money on mass transit and leave the high-speed rail for the future.

I have to agree. The cities have to get the basics done before they can move on the the next stage.

[Dinner]

The stops being to close together is what is wrong with California's proposed route. Every city wanted to be connected to it and as a result the trains would have to stop every 5 minutes when really it should zoom between larger business centers and have local mass transit take people to the smaller areas. The proposed route also twists and turns all over the place to connect a bunch of 3rd rate town centers when it should be a straight line between San Diego to LA and LA to Sac with an East-West going from Sac- San Fran. Screw all the little towns, they can get local light rail to hook them to the main line but the main line needs to be fast and it can't do that if there's a million 10 minute stops. That's the problem with the current Amtrak service, it stops so much it is faster to just drive.

[Drake Tungsten]

We need to invest money to replace laughable mass transit systems like this with real heavy rail...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Diego_Metropolitan_Transit_System

[Dinner]

It is relatively heavy (totally separate from regular street cars) but once the expansion to La Jolla/UTC is completed it will cover most of the city except the I15 corridor which is where the high speed rail is slotted to go.

[Asher]

We need to invest money to replace laughable mass transit systems like this with real heavy rail...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Die...Transit_System

San Diego just copied Calgary, and still failed.

[Asher]

It is relatively heavy (totally separate from regular street cars)

Dude, that's called LRT.

Two guesses as to what LR stands for.

[Dinner]

Except I'd bet our system pre-dates yours so who copied who?

[Drake Tungsten]

It doesn't matter. Light rail sucks. Let me know when you have heavy rail like a real city.