President Barack Obama on Thursday highlighted his ambition for the development of high-speed passenger rail lines in at least 10 regions, expressing confidence in the future of train travel even as he acknowledged that the American rail network, compared to the rest of the world’s, remains a caboose….
The government has identified 10 corridors of 100 to 600 miles in length with greatest promise for high-speed development.
They are: a northern New England line; an Empire line running east to west in New York State; a Keystone corridor running laterally through Pennsylvania; a southeast network connecting the District of Columbia to Florida and the Gulf Coast; a Gulf Coast line extending from eastern Texas to western Alabama; a corridor in central and southern Florida; a Texas-to-Oklahoma line; a California corridor where voters have already approved a line that will allow travel from San Francisco to Los Angeles in two and a half hours; and a corridor in the Pacific Northwest.
If there is any good to come of the imminent death of the American auto industry, it is this. Trains—long, narrow and smooth—are inherently efficient, particularly when compared to cars—squat, blunt and short.
And, I have a modest funding suggestion for this program. Fine the shit out of any drivers who:
1. Are driving in a left lane slower or at pace with cars to their right.
2. Talking or texting on a cell phone while driving.
3. Merging onto the freeway at any speed other than that of the cars in the merging lane.
By my scientific calculations, based upon experiences on a road trip to Portland, if tickets are set at $100 each this should raise $4.27 trillion on the I-5 corridor alone.
Updated:
Because I cannot resist, compare Obama’s wise leadership on transportation to Gregoire’s Department of Transportation plan to ram both a (temporary) replacement viaduct and tunnel through downtown Seattle. Because, as per the superminority Republicans who seem to rule this state, transportation starts and ends with cars in Washington State. Cars, more cars. Roads, more roads. Anything else would be too forward thinking.
11 described my reaction exactly. I lived in Japan for two years and miss the trains desperately.
cressona,
please eat shit
and die
Cressona and Golob, get a room.
But seriously, folks – I’ve made the Seattle/Portland drive at least a hundred times (family and band stuff) and taken the train a couple of times, and I’m pretty sure driving is usually faster than Amtrak on a point to point basis because of the number of stops the train makes (wanna see the wrong side of the tracks in Chehalis? You will) and also the times it has to slow down when it passes through congested areas*
*That said, the train might well be faster on some Friday evenings. I fear Friday PDX gigs.
Notwithstanding that, though, I’m absolutely all for moving toward regional high speed rail – Seattle to LA with all points in between in particular.
While I share Cressona’s concern that the densities between Portland and San Francisco may not be viable for it now, I think that the long, flat straight stretches along existing rail lines and the I-5 and 99 Corridors may at least be reasonably easy to implement, and it’s a worthwhile transportation link that could well serve as a viable and less environmentally damaging alternative to driving (for Portland) or flying (for SF and points south)
Heck, it’s cheaper than bailing out an investment firm, and might create actual jobs….
If you are in the left lane going any speed and you can move right and you don’t move right, you are breaking the law. Now throw into the mix that asshole no. 1 behind you, speeding, flashing lights at you….
doesn’t matter — you are still breaking the law by not moving right.
And now you become asshole no. 2, because you are making the situation more dangersous for everyone cuz you know damn well that asshole no. 1 will weave in and out.
Of the two assholes, you’re the bigger one, cause you pretend to know better and have that smugness factor.
As to trains, why yes we have been killing train development here very assiduously lookit that bored tunnel there isn’t any train in it is there?
Bored tunnel at $4 billion will end up $8 billion — as much as this “huge” train investment Obama is for. Woo, hoo, we’ll be riding high speed trains to Vancouver by about 3015, for sure!
Just immediately built it over the freeway, or buy other right of way now, whatever you do it’s cheaper than waiting. And yes put the fucking train station in Olympia right by the leg.
Fnarf dear, I’m glad you stopped obsessing about passing lanes, or whatever it was that you were talking about, but I think you need a better understanding of things when it comes to Amtrak between Seattle and Portland.
The BNSF is a great partner to Amtrak. There are *occasional* problems, but most of that it beyond either Amtrak or BNSF’s control.
Union Pacific, on the other hand, who runs the Cascades south of Portland, has been dreadful. but even they are improving.
The biggest problem the Cascades faces is Geography: It runs down to Puyallup, then over to Tacoma, then around Point Defiance (where there is a bottleneck in the single-tracked tunnels) then down over by Olympia before heading down to Portland. That’s quite a meandering route compared to I-5.
Certain improvements, such as the Point Defiance bypass, will improve things, as will the Vancouver, WA realignment, but short of new ROW through built-up land, it will never be high speed rail in the European sense.
Personally, the time it takes to get to Portland doesn’t bother me. It’s certainly more interesting than driving, but I know that I’m the exception on this one. People have been thoroughly indoctrinated into the car culture in the US, and most would much rather get someplace that extra half hour early, or even sit in traffic, than give up control and let someone else do the driving. I think that’s a real pity.
Oh, and I really don’t think the train into Olympia will ever happen. As I understand it, back when there was train service to Olympia, the train had to back into town for several miles. People would never stand for that today.