Beijing to Shanghai VS. Chicago to New York
At 3:00 PM on Thursday, the first revenue train departed Shanghai on the much anticipated high-speed rail line to Beijing, connecting the political and business centers of the country. The line is expected to have a transformative impact on China's economy, population mobility, and over-crowded transportation system. Shanghai - Beijing is comparable to Chicago - New York.
China.org had some cool pictures of the train and station:
http://www.china.org.cn/...
The new Beijing to Shanghai route will offer a mix of express and local trains totaling an expected 90 trains a day in each direction. The fastest trains make the trip in 4 hours 48 minutes. Imagine traveling from Chicago to New York in that time! (It currently takes 5 hours to get from Chicago's Loop to Manhattan by air today, IF everything goes right at two delay-prone airports and on two very congested highways.)
Below is an interesting comparison of the Beijing - Shanghai route and a hypothetical Chicago - New York high-speed route.
(**A note: We used the existing railroad mileage between Chicago and New York; a high-speed line would likely be much shorter.)
Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway stations serviced and their county-level city or district populations:
Beijing = 13.3 million
Langfang = 0.7 million
Tianjin = 3.8 million
Cangzhou = 0.5 million
Dezhou = 0.4 million
Jinan = 2 million
Taishan = 0.6 million
Qufu = 0.1 million
Zaozhuang = 0.5 million
Xuzhou = 1.8 million
Suzhou = 0.2 million
Bengbu = 1.1 million
Chuzhou = 0.1 million
Nanjing = 3 million
Zhenjiang = 0.6 million
Changzhou = 1 million
Wuxi = 1.1 million
Suzhou = 1 million
Kunshan = 0.7 million
Shanghai = 19 million
TOTAL = 51.5 million people along 818 miles
(62,958 people per route-mile)
Then, consider:
Midwest-Northeast (Chicago-New York + branches to Detroit and Washington DC) high-speed railway potential stations and their consolidated metropolitan area populations:
Chicago = 9.7 million
Fort Wayne = 0.6 million
Toledo = 0.7 million
Detroit = 5.7 million
Cleveland = 2.3 million
Akron-Canton = 1.1 million
Youngstown-Warren = 0.7 million
Pittsburgh = 2.9 million
Altoona = 0.1 million
Harrisburg = 0.5 million
Baltimore = 2.7 million
Washington DC = 5.4 million
Philadelphia = 5.8 million
New York = 22.2 million
TOTAL = 60.4 million people along 1,075 miles
(56,186 people per route-mile)
The strikingly similar population densities along the similar length routes makes one wonder: Why haven't we done this yet?