At the APTA conference in San Francisco, representatives from France, Germany, and Japan revealed the secrets behind their high-speed rail success stories
Here in the PNW I’d take hourly Amtrak service in 5 years over high speed rail in 20. We should push for both, of course, but if we can drastically improve regular rail for a fraction of the price and in so doing build the constituency for HSR, we absolutely should.
Amtrak needs to start with the NEC. Boston-NYC-DC should be easy mode for running a train system. Until they get that working as it should, NYC-Chicago is next. Places like the PNW or the rest of the midwest need service, but the low handing fruit needs to be first.
Please lets work together and force them to run good service where it is easy and develop experts in running good trains. So long as you are pushing for the PNW and I’m pushing for my home we are divided and nothing will get done.
I agree that at a national level the NEC should absolutely be the priority, and that is where I would hope my federal taxes go. However, as Amtrak Cascades is a state-supported route which is primarily paid for by Washington and Oregon, I don’t see the problem with pushing those states to invest more of their transportation budgets in those routes.
Here in the PNW I’d take hourly Amtrak service in 5 years over high speed rail in 20. We should push for both, of course, but if we can drastically improve regular rail for a fraction of the price and in so doing build the constituency for HSR, we absolutely should.
Amtrak needs to start with the NEC. Boston-NYC-DC should be easy mode for running a train system. Until they get that working as it should, NYC-Chicago is next. Places like the PNW or the rest of the midwest need service, but the low handing fruit needs to be first.
Please lets work together and force them to run good service where it is easy and develop experts in running good trains. So long as you are pushing for the PNW and I’m pushing for my home we are divided and nothing will get done.
I agree that at a national level the NEC should absolutely be the priority, and that is where I would hope my federal taxes go. However, as Amtrak Cascades is a state-supported route which is primarily paid for by Washington and Oregon, I don’t see the problem with pushing those states to invest more of their transportation budgets in those routes.
How about we instead have reliabl(y delayed by multiple hours) service with spotty cell phone reception for large stretches?