because I disagree with this guy. But only on the larger picture, because he misses the forest for the trees (as some of his commenters point out). Well, OK, in one small reference he suggests that trains won't work in the US as a national system. And that is exactly what I'm talking about.
I can't really argue with his numbers for transcontinental or even half-continental rail travel. It takes too long even with high-speed rail (assuming we're going to build dedicated routes that don't also handle freight), because even though it's 600 miles from Indy to Washington DC and the TGV-style trains can hit up to, what, 320mph?, as the writer points out, they don't do that on a regular basis -- they hit more like 200, and even then you're only talking about on the straight.
Some time back, somebody made the statement that it is actually more economical from a time and (even today) fuel standpoint to drive to your destination if it's less than 6 hours away -- if you count your air travel time from the time you leave the house, get to the airport, go through security, wait around for your plane to board, fly, land, collect luggage, get rental car or take taxi to your destination. I'll drive farther than that because I hate dealing with the DC area airports on the way back; I just rent a car here and drive it for a week for about half of what it would cost to fly and rent, saving my employer the big bucks.
But as far as rail goes, I continue to fail to see why regional rail isn't a bigger deal (and hasn't been a bigger deal for years). I would happily take the train to Chicago, or Cleveland, or St. Louis -- if it existed. In fact, I wish to hell there WAS regional rail to Cleveland, as many times as I've been there in the past three months. Sadly, what we will end up seeing called "regional" rail will likely be light commuter rail to surrounding counties, rather than true interurban service that actually takes you from one city center to another.
As far as commuter rail goes, here in Indy, we're just starting to talk about a route from the Noblesville/Fishers area to downtown that was probably needed 20 years ago. And we're talking about several other routes to come after that (the only reason that one particular route is being touted now is because the regional transport administration owns existing tracks and right of way that go almost if not all the way down to Union Station in downtown Indianapolis).
What bothers me is that the authority will undoubtedly try to keep the tickets priced low by looking for tax subsidies. I don't mind paying a little more in taxes for regional transport, but damn it, with gas at $4/gallon, parking at whatever it is a day, and gridlock at an all-time high on the East side, commuters ought to be willing to pay $8-10 one way for a ride where they don't have to drive, don't have to park, and can relax with a cup of coffee and the newspaper instead of fighting traffic twice a day. The authority should NOT set the price low just to get people to use the system, and the state, in order to help prod people to use it, should drop all plans to widen and improve I-69 in the northeast corridor.
But then the authority has to deliver. The trains and stations need to be clean and accessible, there needs to be plenty of parking, the trains need to run on time, the personnel need to be courteous and helpful, and the whole thing has to be run as if it was intended to make a profit. In fact, it probably SHOULD run at a profit. It probably should be run by a private company or consortium whose prime reason for running it is to make money, not to suck at the public teat.
And it needs to run late at night so that people can use it to reach entertainment and shopping venues downtown. It can't shut down after the rush hour.
Well, that's all I have time to rant about. Comments?
