$8.2 Billion from the President’s Investing in America Agenda to Deliver Transformative Passenger Rail in America President Biden’s Investing in America Agenda – a key pillar of Bidenomics – is delivering world class-infrastructure across the country, expanding access to economic opportunity, and creating good-paying jobs. By delivering $66 billion from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law –…
This is awesome, this is legitimately a great start, and I want MORE. I’ve got a little bone to pick about calling Brightline HSR, but, whatever.
Some things I’d love to see:
-More investment in Amtrak getting their own, dedicated alignments that they won’t have to share with freight operators. This is currently the reason why their speed limits are so low that it’s literally faster to drive than to take Amtrak anywhere for most of the country. And I do mean that literally, it’s faster to drive including stopping at hotels, from Sacramento to Chicago than it is to take the California Zephyr. It’s twice as long to take the coast starlight as it is to harden your mind and your ass and just drive from LA to Seattle.
-Along with that, I’d love to see more Mid-Speed Rail projects for Amtrak, not only for intra-region travel but especially for inter-regional travel. Mid-Speed Rail (thinking of brightline east here, so minimum avg 120 mph) would make Amtrak a viable and competitive option for inter-regional travel while still being much more affordable to build and operate over those long distances than HSR. At 120 mph average, you could do the Coast Starlight run in a little under 10 hours, which is a comfortable overnight trip or leisurely day in coach, as opposed to the 36 hour ride it is now. The California Zephyr also goes from 54 hours to just 17 hours, which beats the fucking pants off driving that route. It’s not competitive with airlines on the time front, but there’s still an argument to be made for making that trip by train for comfort and accessibility (not to mention not having to deal with airline bullshit).
-Gulf coast HSR and TxHSR would be great to see, but it was probably wise of Biden to leave that alone so Texas didn’t cut its face off to spite its nose. Hopefully once TxHSR is a thing, they’ll like it so much that they’ll only decide to add six more lanes to the Katy freeway instead of twelve.
-Needs more urban rail projects. Let’s get more metros, light rails, and regional transit that can act as feeders for these HSR projects.
But with all that said, this is still a great start
MSR would be fantastic. If I had 120mph option for regional travel I would use it all the time. I used to commute from Portland to Seattle and it would be incredible to not have to fly
I don’t know the tipping point (distance of trip in miles) at which air travel becomes better time-wise. Obviously coast to coast routes. Probably shorter routes too. But anything regional is a no-brainer at 120+ mph. HSR becomes even better
Main obvious challenge IMO is not the mechanics or the math. HSR/MSR takes a lot of political capital for a long time, which is hard when there’s so many things competing for that capital
It needs sustained investment. Even if we get a two steps forward one step back situation, though, I’ll take it!!
Conventional wisdom is that airlines break even with true HSR (220MPH ish) at around 400-450 miles and have it beat by 500. But I also think that’s only accounting for time and not accounting for the incredibly enshittified experience that is flying these days.
I’d gladly have my trip take a few extra hours if it meant not dealing with airline bullshit
There’s an argument against planes due to carbon emissions too, so if that was included in the price I think many would be inclined to take rail instead.
Speaking from a European perspective, with an existing rail network that mostly works: above about 300-400km (200-250 mi), the train starts hemorrhaging passengers to flight. Flight is still massively cheaper. Unless that equation changes, trains will always be an also-available regional/long distance travel mode.
Many of these allocations are what you’re looking for, except the 120 mph part.
As the pair of example most interesting to me, allocates money for planning
upgrades to Hartford—>Springfield, including double tracking, increase potential service from like 30 trains to 40. While some is local commuter traffic, this all feeds down from Vermont to Acela at New Haven. There’s your midrange rail and connection to high speed
new service Boston—>Albany. Currently one impractical long distance train to Chicago, but run up to seven per day. Now you not only have mid range rail becoming usable, but you’re connecting Acela and Downeaster in Boston with Vermonter and Connecticut Trail in Springfield and big parts of NYS at Albany. Now you have a web of useable service, and Springfield and Albany have the beginnings of hubs
While these still aren’t fast enough or frequent enough for good midrange rail, they’re a good bet by connecting to Acela, by connecting to nyc and Boston where cars and flying are tough, and by connecting dozens of colleges with tens of thousands of students who don’t have cars
This is awesome, this is legitimately a great start, and I want MORE. I’ve got a little bone to pick about calling Brightline HSR, but, whatever.
Some things I’d love to see:
-More investment in Amtrak getting their own, dedicated alignments that they won’t have to share with freight operators. This is currently the reason why their speed limits are so low that it’s literally faster to drive than to take Amtrak anywhere for most of the country. And I do mean that literally, it’s faster to drive including stopping at hotels, from Sacramento to Chicago than it is to take the California Zephyr. It’s twice as long to take the coast starlight as it is to harden your mind and your ass and just drive from LA to Seattle.
-Along with that, I’d love to see more Mid-Speed Rail projects for Amtrak, not only for intra-region travel but especially for inter-regional travel. Mid-Speed Rail (thinking of brightline east here, so minimum avg 120 mph) would make Amtrak a viable and competitive option for inter-regional travel while still being much more affordable to build and operate over those long distances than HSR. At 120 mph average, you could do the Coast Starlight run in a little under 10 hours, which is a comfortable overnight trip or leisurely day in coach, as opposed to the 36 hour ride it is now. The California Zephyr also goes from 54 hours to just 17 hours, which beats the fucking pants off driving that route. It’s not competitive with airlines on the time front, but there’s still an argument to be made for making that trip by train for comfort and accessibility (not to mention not having to deal with airline bullshit).
-Gulf coast HSR and TxHSR would be great to see, but it was probably wise of Biden to leave that alone so Texas didn’t cut its face off to spite its nose. Hopefully once TxHSR is a thing, they’ll like it so much that they’ll only decide to add six more lanes to the Katy freeway instead of twelve.
-Needs more urban rail projects. Let’s get more metros, light rails, and regional transit that can act as feeders for these HSR projects.
But with all that said, this is still a great start
A great start!!
100% agreed with dedicated Amtrak alignments
MSR would be fantastic. If I had 120mph option for regional travel I would use it all the time. I used to commute from Portland to Seattle and it would be incredible to not have to fly
I don’t know the tipping point (distance of trip in miles) at which air travel becomes better time-wise. Obviously coast to coast routes. Probably shorter routes too. But anything regional is a no-brainer at 120+ mph. HSR becomes even better
Main obvious challenge IMO is not the mechanics or the math. HSR/MSR takes a lot of political capital for a long time, which is hard when there’s so many things competing for that capital
It needs sustained investment. Even if we get a two steps forward one step back situation, though, I’ll take it!!
Conventional wisdom is that airlines break even with true HSR (220MPH ish) at around 400-450 miles and have it beat by 500. But I also think that’s only accounting for time and not accounting for the incredibly enshittified experience that is flying these days.
I’d gladly have my trip take a few extra hours if it meant not dealing with airline bullshit
There’s an argument against planes due to carbon emissions too, so if that was included in the price I think many would be inclined to take rail instead.
Speaking from a European perspective, with an existing rail network that mostly works: above about 300-400km (200-250 mi), the train starts hemorrhaging passengers to flight. Flight is still massively cheaper. Unless that equation changes, trains will always be an also-available regional/long distance travel mode.
We need to nationalize our rail… What Regan did to it was absolutely idiotic, and completely devastated the economies of many small towns.
Many of these allocations are what you’re looking for, except the 120 mph part.
As the pair of example most interesting to me, allocates money for planning
While these still aren’t fast enough or frequent enough for good midrange rail, they’re a good bet by connecting to Acela, by connecting to nyc and Boston where cars and flying are tough, and by connecting dozens of colleges with tens of thousands of students who don’t have cars