Re:Getting High-Speed Rail Wrong
by bombcar on Thursday May 13, 2021 @12:35PM
(#27144190)
This is a major point - a high speed rail between Chicago and MSP would allow travel between those two points - but more importantly it would allow commuting travel from points in-between.
If you build the rails well, you can run both express service (which skips stops to maintain higher speed) and local service (which stops at most or all stations).
I believe the way to solve some of this would be to attack it from multiple directions:
1. Require that future highway construction be "rail-ready" - i.e., leave room and have curves that are friendly to adding rail to the highway corridor in the future.
2. Develop local rail corridors that are "high-speed-rail-ready" - as a connection between two large cities is mainly of interest to a few, but commuter rail to the nearest large city is more obviously valuable. And if designed right it can be made for commuting but still be curved, etc correctly to allow higher speed trains if/when it's finally connected through.
If you build the rails well, you can run both express service (which skips stops to maintain higher speed) and local service (which stops at most or all stations).
I believe the way to solve some of this would be to attack it from multiple directions:
1. Require that future highway construction be "rail-ready" - i.e., leave room and have curves that are friendly to adding rail to the highway corridor in the future.
2. Develop local rail corridors that are "high-speed-rail-ready" - as a connection between two large cities is mainly of interest to a few, but commuter rail to the nearest large city is more obviously valuable. And if designed right it can be made for commuting but still be curved, etc correctly to allow higher speed trains if/when it's finally connected through.