High-speed rail? Yeah, right...

In Does high speed rail in the midwest make any sense?, Unca Cece attempts to answer a reader’s question about the viability of a midwestern high-speed rail network apparently thought up by people who have never been to any midwestern city except Chicago.

For Chicago denizens, as Cecil points out, a rail network seems like a wonderful boost to the local economy. And to Chicago natives it also seems like a self-evidently wonderful idea…after all, trains are so useful here, those other cities must be just hoping they can join our magnificent life.

Well, in truth a lot of them might be. But getting there is a bit of a dilemma. You see, the train stations in those cities are not located in very useful places. It is relatively easy, for example, even in the current environment, to hop on a train in Chicago and ride to Detroit or Cleveland or something. Sure, it’s slower than high-speed rail would be, but not by all that much. The problem with doing so isn’t the speed, it’s that riding a train to Detroit or Cleveland gets you to…well…downtown Detroit or downtown Cleveland. Which is not where anyone going to “Detroit” or “Cleveland” is likely to really want to go.

When you fly to Detroit, for example, you land at Detroit Metro Airport, smack among a large array of rental car companies from which you can arrange the means to transport yourself around the region to whatever part of the Detroit metroplex you actually want to visit. It helps, of course, that Metro Airport is (from the perspective of a resident of the city of Detroit itself) way the heck out in the suburban boondocks, which also happens to be where just about anyone with enough money to buy a ticket to travel is going to want to be, if they somehow feel the need to want to be in the Detroit area.

If, however, you take a train, you’ll find yourself…at an Amtrak station. Where you’ll find…not much. Good luck renting a car. Don’t bother trying to get a bus to take you anywhere worth going. Cabs? Yeah, they exist, but good luck finding one in the true urban fashion (waving your arm in the air at passing vehicles until one stops). You’ll have to call and make a reservation with a cab company. New in town and don’t know even the names of the local cab companies? Not even much luck from Directory Assistance. They’d really like you to know the name of the business you’re calling. Oh, and pulling out that cell phone will immediately confirm that you’ve got enough money to be worth robbing, which will likely happen in short order thereafter.

While Detroit is unique in its degree of urban failure, it is not really unique in kind. These problems exist in almost every city in America to one degree or another. Chicago, New York, Boston, and Washington DC are the exceptions…the places where you can arrive on a train and then go about whatever business posessed you to go there in the first place with a minimum of logistical hassle. And note that (as Cecil points out) Chicago is the only city on that list which doesn’t already have a relatively-high-speed rail option.

When every dollar that goes to a boondoggle nobody but rail fans and pork-enamored Congressmen actually wants, and practically nobody at all will ever ride, is a dollar deprived from the improvement and expansion of rail services that are actually USED in the Chicago area (CTA, Metra, and the South Shore Line to Indiana, which has a competing bid for expansion, which bid would bring commuter rail service to several potential Chicago commuter towns that are currently un-connected to rail service), it’s especially important to consider our options carefully.

Considering infrastructure options carefully is always a good thing.

And investments in some of the US’s rail choke points could really pay off. One of the biggest bottlenecks is in, yes, Chicago.

To repeat, rail lines in eastern and western Chicago are not connected, so containers have to be transferred via truck.

Forget supertrains. Let’s spend the $1.5 billion (or heck $50 billion nationwide) to build a workable freight rail system.

Absolutely agree. If it wants to remain the transportation hub of the US then Chicago needs to drastically upgrade its freight lines.

Still, a non-stop express train from the Loop to O’Hare would be nice.

Seriously? Have you ever looked at a rail map of Chicago? It’s a huge web of interconnections across the city; there’s a dense rail network and it’s certainly possible for trains to go through the city. But crumbling track and congestion on the rail lines means that freight trains get slowed to a crawl - sometimes they have to wait days on a siding until they can get clearance to cross another busy line.

Some railroads have indeed resorted to a trans-shipment by truck for time-sensitive goods, but usually it’s cheaper to just leave the stuff on the train and wait it out, even if that makes the railroads’ customers unhappy.

Fortunately, they’re planning to spend billions to sort out this mess.

Also, lelnet, I don’t think you understand the taxi business. I’ve traveled a few times on Amtrak, and even small stations have cabs waiting when the train stops. The cabbies know that there will be passengers there who need a cab, so they wait there just like they would wait at an airport or a big hotel or convention center. Chances are you have seen these stations during the vast majority of the day, when trains are not arriving. During this time, of course the station will be a snoozefest. But the 2 or 3 times a day that the train stops, the cabs will be waiting. That’s not to mention the fact that many people ask friends or family members to drive them to airports, which works equally well with train stations, and the fact that if high-speed rail were to capture a decent amount of passengers, then rental car businesses would spring up near rail stations. Some cities already have this, since rental car companies like to maintain small downtown locations, and next to the train station is as good a spot as any.

Not always true, ardecila. I just took a very pleasant trip to Battle Creek, MI, on Amtrak. Got there to find no rental cars or cabs around. Had to look up the name of the local cab company (thank Allah for smart phones) and call to get one to come and get me…TRM

lelnet, you can’t extrapolate to a future high-speed rail system infrastructure and assume that the current non-system one will remain in place. If rail does get upgraded and start attracting a volume of passenger traffic, then everything connected with passenger traffic will grow with it. The terminals will become hubs, there will be waiting taxis, there will be shops and stores and conveniences. Cities will also request federal money to improve their transportation connections because of the new need.

The taxis will be there first and fastest because that’s the easiest to implement. But car rental stations won’t be far behind, with incentives sure to be dangled in front of them to have a presence when the first high speed train makes its stop.

There are huge numbers of questions and obstacles for a high-speed rail system, including the most basic one of all: will enough people bother to use it? But the lack of car rental firms and taxis isn’t an issue. They will be there.