With Governor Rick Scott's rejection of federal dollars to build high speed rail between Tampa and Orlando, it is time that rail advocates think smart, and not fast about the future of passenger rail in America. The current fascination with going fast is distracting us from the real issue, that American trains are incredibly slow while intercity frequencies are low outside of a handful of corridors. This may sound like a retreat, but it is really a leap forward.
The solution? Focus on achievable, short to mid term goals. While the magical 200 mile per hour corridors we hear about so much make great campaign promises and pipe dreams for transit nerds, there is a much better number out there that delivers much of the benefits of high speed rail without the costs: 125 miles per hour. Why 125 miles per hour? The equipment exists in American today, it is operable on existing corridors with some modification, it can use existing rolling stock, it offers benefit to freight rail and is cheaper to build that a true high speed rail line.
Let me apply the 125 mile per hour speed to a number of corridors, both existing and potential:
Corridor Distance Travel Time Current Rail Travel Time (if available)
Chicago - Milwaukee 89 miles 0:43hr 1:30hr (Hiawatha
Chicago - St. Louis 284 miles 2:17hr 5:30hr (Lincoln Service)
Ft. Worth - Houston 260 miles 2:05hr N/A
New York-Boston 230 miles 1:45hr 3:40hr (Acela), 4:15hr (Regional)
Houston - New Orleans 336 miles 2:41hr 7:50hr (Sunset Limited)
New York-Philadelphia 89 miles 0:45hr 0:55hr (Acela), 1:05hr (Regional)
New York-Washington 225 miles 1:45hr 2:45hr (Acela), 3:20hr (Regional)
Philadelphia-Pittsburgh 355 miles 3:50hr 7:50hr (Pennsylvanian)
San Luis Obispo - San Diego 350 miles 2:48hr 8:30hr (Pacific Surfliner)
Seattle - Portland 186 miles 1:30hr 3:30hr (Amtrak Cascades)
Seattle - Vancouver 157 miles 1:15hr 4:00hr (Amtrak Cascades)
Washington-Raleigh 306 miles 2:53hr 5:55hr (Carolinian/Silver Star)
The time savings are significant. In order to whet America's appetite for high speed rail, the American people need to see faster and more frequent rail service to start with. Once that can be demonstrated, the 200 mile per hour corridors being advertised can be considered in earnest.
Beyond moving people faster, boosting speeds to a faster 125 miles per hour bring relatively close cities, such as Washington and Richmond, Chicago and Milwaukee or San Diego and Los Angeles, to becoming neighbor cities. While intercity trains make the downtown to downtown hop in record time, commuter trains would create large commutable corridors. Richmond, Virginia would be forty-five minutes from Washington, DC's downtown - for reference's sake, the average commute in the District-Maryland-Virginia area is 30.1 minutes, from outlying areas in Prince Williams and Stafford counties that average rises above 40 minutes.
The real hurdle is convincing the freight railroads to get onboard with this proposal. This is the expensive part - to keep traffic separate, new tracks would need to be laid alongside freight lines, which would be mean double, triple or even quadruple tracking some lines. The freight railroads would benefit, as this would free up capacity by removing pesky passenger trains from their lines, while giving them the opportunity to operate their own faster electric freight trains.
If all else fails, we can always dream.
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