I came across this great post detailing a proposal for an interstate rail network. There’s a few awkward routing selections, but who doesn’t love a fantasy map? Enjoy!
Envisioning a Future Interstate Rail Network
The Transport Politic
January 30, 2009…Below is the transport politic’s vision of the 21st century’s Interstate system: a network of 10,000 miles of high-speed rail and roughly 30,000 miles of upgraded standard-speed track. The system would provide electrified 200 mph service (in yellow) between the biggest cities on the East and West coasts and connect every metropolitan area of more than 100,000 people in the continental states with at least standard-speed rail (in brown). Standard-speed rail could be implemented relatively simply along existing freight right-of-way; in many cases, these tracks only need minor touch-ups to be readied to serve passengers. The system would rely on existing Interstate and rail right-of-way and extends on both the NARP and FRA proposals, but narrows in on the most cost-effective and interconnected corridors, focusing on the most densely populated regions. This is why each map of the rail system included here has as its backdrop the concentrations of population in metropolitan areas in red.
The system would have an emphasis on connecting destinations separated by 500 miles or less; for such distances, high-speed rail outpaces airplanes and in other countries has commanded up to 80% of the market share on such routes. The high-speed system would not traverse the Great Plains or the Rocky Mountains, as such a trip would likely attract few passengers and be relatively cost inefficient. It would not provide high-speed service for Denver or Salt Lake City, but both are so isolated that high-speed rail to and from them would be relatively underused. But the whole system, including standard-speed rail, would allow for a high degree of interconnectivity between the cities in the densest areas of the country and allow for the time efficient replacement of the automobile and airplane on a large percentage of trips.
Such a system would require an active federal government funding an expensive national system, maintaining its infrastructure, and running its trains. Our government is currently not capable of doing as much, but with a defined vision such as this – to provide rail service to all of the nation’s metro areas and to connect the biggest ones with true high-speed rail – Washington could mature to the task. Back in 1956, the federal commitment to highways was minimal; in one bill, under one president, the system changed.
Proposed National Rail Route Network – Standard and HSR Routes
Exciting. And more good news: the plan is to spend $88 Billion on intercity rail over the next two years! … oh, wait… that’s in China, … never mind.
I couldn’t be more excited about the prospect of rail transit returning to Ohio. Did you see that the Governor proposed an increase in state fees to support, among other things, the 3C plan?
http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20090202/NEWS0108/302020042
Let’s hope it passes. Call your representatives!
30,000 miles of upgraded standard-speed track! great…
To visit another future system, Google ‘intercity irish wiki’ (Inter City Iarnrod Eirelann). Check out ‘22000 Class’. This option might lower funding (political) thresholds for CCC rail. Intercity distances are the same as proposed routes here.
While the general idea of a high speed rail network is something nearly all of us here would support, I find this map curious.
Look at Ohio. You can’t go from Columbus to Toledo, Detroit, Chicago, Indianapolis or St. Louis. There’s no direct Detroit-Toledo-dayton-Cincinnati route and no direct Columbus-Pittsburgh route.
At the same time, there is a curious stub end route to Lima and a weird line from Ashtabula to Charleston, WV via Youngstown, Wheeling and Parkersburg. The latter would be a dog as far as ridership goes and would cost a fortune to build in the mountainous territiory south of Parkersburg. Ironically, Youngstown would have do direct east-west service.
Even the 3-C Corridor does a dog-leg at its north end, which will slow running times and push up costs. Same for Cleveland-Toledo-Chicago, which does a dip down to Ft. Wayne and back up to hit South Bend.
It looks to me as though the map was drawn without regard to present and past travel patterns. It also looks like costs of building in some locations were not taken into account.
I think we’d be better off to stick with a map we already have—The Ohio Hub—and go from there. If were up to me, I’d start with what we had running in 1962 (to pick a year—the map is on the NARP website: http://www.narprail.org) and overlay that with the Midwest High Speed Rail Initiative, the Ohio Hub and other services. That would be much more logically laid out, I believe.
Here’s another good fantasy rail map from NARP:
http://www.narprail.org/cms/index.php/resources/more/the_map_of_narps_vision/