Hi-speed rail dreams

Interactive future map

David Crossley, Dec 11, 08.

Tagged with transportation, high speed rail

UPDATE (04/20/09, 9:02 am): President Obama unveiled his administration’s preliminary strategic high-speed rail plan. The Department of Transportation will issue eligibility requirements, application prerequisites, and evaluation criteria by June 17, and it will begin soliciting applications in August and awarding funds in late September.

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UPDATE: High-speed rail funds may go to incremental improvements. A New York Times article indicates that the $8 billion in stimulus funds slated for high-speed rail will likely be used to improve existing rail lines, a step that many advocates say is necessary before building new high-speed lines like those in Japan, China, and Europe.

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UPDATE: Listen to a KTRH interview with David Crossley about high-speed rail for the Texas Triangle.

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As interest grows in connecting America’s great cities with high-speed rail, many look to Shanghai’s 270-mile-per-hour Maglev train, a train that flies. That kind of speed would enable a trip from Houston to Dallas in under an hour, city center to city center. Downtown Houston to downtown Austin would take a little over 30 minutes.

This would be an expensive undertaking. A feature at Conde Nast’s Portfolio.Com says maglev would cost about $53.4 million per mile in the US. At that rate, the high-speed rail service proposed for the Texas Triangle would cost about $23.5 billion dollars. But even that is peanuts compared to the cost estimates for the Trans-Texas Corridor, which at least one source put at over $145 billion.

An interactive map of possible future high-speed rail service among US cities (click on the Routes tab)

More Commentary

Comments

.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) said:

I would have preferred that you refer to the proposed Texas T-Bone which has a lot more currency than the Texas Triangle.

The minimum speed specification for passenger trains in T-Bone service is 225 MPH which is easily met by MAGLEV but other alternatives as well, in particular Siemen’s ICE-3. Both would require separate ROWs of course. Considering the planned route alignment and the likelihood that service from Houston Central to Dallas Union Station would stop at DFW first, my guess is that the minimum travel time would be at least 1.5 hours.

Nevertheless, this trip time, center to center convenience and level of passenger comfort and services would no doubt have a sharp impact on both commuter airline and vehicular traffic, thereby substantially reducing fossil fuel consumption and both air and noise pollution. Moreover, it would really put Texas on the map in terms of appeal to European and Asian firms looking for the best location for regional and hemispheric business sites.

Posted on Dec 18, 08 at 3:59 pm

.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) said:

I think that we agree with you about the T-bone versus triangle concept. In the policy world of megaregions, the general consensus is to refer to Houston, Dallas / Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio, and everything inside of that as the Texas Triangle and that is why David used that term above. He did not actually mean that the rail infrastructure should be triangle shaped, but instead that it should serve and connect the Texas Triangle Megaregion. It seems to me that the T-bone concept has pretty much won in Texas over a triangle for whenever we move forward with pursuing high-speed rail.

Also, you bring up a key point that the origin to destination time could be greatly reduced in a scenario with high-speed rail (or maglev) and local rapid transit at both ends, as opposed to short haul air travel with the trips to and from the airports (usually far away from the dense urban ares) via car, bus, or even light rail. Even more, for urban center to urban center trips, trip times would be much faster on high speed rail.

For more on the Texas T-Bone:
http://www.thsrtc.com/

Also, here is a neat example of how Air France has integrated high speed rail with air travel:
http://tinyurl.com/3mgrvs

Posted on Dec 19, 08 at 2:52 pm

.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) said:

Also, you bring up a key point that the origin to destination time could be greatly reduced in a scenario with high-speed rail france travel guide (or maglev) and local rapid transit at both ends, as opposed to short haul air travel with the trips to and from the airports (usually far away from the dense urban ares) via car, bus, or even light rail. Even more, for urban center to urban center trips, trip times would be much faster on high speed rail.

Posted on Jun 05, 09 at 4:05 pm

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