We are continuing to hear high speed rail assumptions that have been repeated for 25 years now and are based on the initial experiences of the first true high speed rail line, the Tokyo-Osaka "bullet train" line that was first planned and built over 45 years ago. Like many assumptions carried forward 45 years, these assumptions no longer reflect how new high speed rail lines are planned, built, or operated. In the 25 years since France opened their Paris-Lyon TGV line, these assumptions have been disproven every few years as a new line opens in another part of the world and attracts new riders and new uses and builds new connections between cities.
The Tokyo-Osaka corridor is a unique situation—over 30 million people in two congested, affluent, very densely populated, very closely connected metropolitan areas 300 miles apart. High Speed Rail in the rest of the world is a success despite serving much lower population densities across similar distances. The 264 mile Paris-Lyon TGV line connects Paris, a city of about 2.2 million, and Lyon, a city of 472,000. On the old Paris-Lyon line, the intermediate cities total only 380,000—with 150,000 from one city, Dijon. Despite the low population densities, this line now fills over a dozen trains each day in each direction. Trains also now continue past Lyon to other cities.
High speed rail routes, unlike air routes, are not single point-to-single point services. Intermediate cities and destinations can be as important as the end points; high speed service to a city also enables high speed service to cities beyond. The 60 mile, Milwaukee-Chicago route currently fills 7 trains in each direction every day. Milwaukee-Chicago, however, is not the focus of the Wisconsin DOT, Madison-Milwaukee-Chicago is. An upgraded Milwaukee-Chicago route, however, enables more frequencies and enables service to Madison, Wisconsin Dells, Rochester, and cities beyond. Although Milwaukee-Chicago may not warrant significantly higher speeds, it enables high speed, single seat service among the 4.6 million people in the Madison-Milwaukee-O’Hare-Chicago-Champaign-Springfield-St. Louis corridor and to destinations in between.
The high speed routes in France do not all travel at 200 mph from station to station—most destinations are served at more conventional speeds and slow down considerably as the trains enter metropolitan areas and as trains leave dedicated high speed routes. The same train that travels across a high speed line from Paris to Tours slows down to about 88 mph from Tours to the Spanish border. Despite the slowdown, the route still runs up to 10 trains in each direction every day. Our own high speed route, the Acela line between Boston-New York-Philadelphia-Baltimore-Washington, only reaches 150 mph for a short period of time. The Boston-New York portion operates far below 150 mph. While the Acela corridor was limited to 125 mph, it attracted more than half of the air traffic between these cities—this share has only increased. A 110 mph speed limit is not considerable slower.
A 110 mph service can also enable higher speed service in the future. A 110 mph train increases demand for service and enables connections that are difficult at slower speeds—joint meetings between officials from Madison and Springfield are no longer an overnight trip; joint projects between professors from Madison and Champaign are no longer limited by heavy auto traffic and limited air service; cross-border commutes allow homeowners to keep their house and work elsewhere. At 110 mph, however, the trains often operate on existing rails through existing street-grade crossings, and alongside existing freight and commuter traffic. A 110 mph service does not require new right-of-ways, overpasses, or new corridors. In just the past 4 years, grade crossing technologies and grade crossing management have significantly improved grade crossing safety and dropped total highway-rail accidents by 20% while traffic increased. The Metra line involved in the 1994 grade crossing incident still serves thousands of commuters every day and accident-prone roads and expressways still carry millions of vehicles every year. The safety expectations for a high speed rail line should not be any different.
There is also exaggeration about the potential impact of the high speed rail lines—-the Chicago-area has very wide rail corridors that, following industry consolidation, often accommodate significantly less track than they were designed to hold. The CREATE plan to improve freight traffic (the "joint public and private improvement program") focuses on decreasing disruptive intersections and creating new connections between lines. The plan does not enable or preclude the addition of high speed rail. Just as Chicago is the center of rail traffic in North America and is served by an extensive commuter system, Paris is the center of rail traffic in Europe and serves a very intricate commuter system. In France, high speed rails are in the same corridors as conventional rails inside of cities; high speed rail often run alongside expressways beyond metropolitan borders. The California High Speed Rail Authority envisions building high speed rail alongside existing rails; the rail corridors in Illinois have similar capacities.
High speed rail lines do not need to bisect intermediate cities or change the character of the cities it passes. A two direction, 200 mph high speed rail line is often no wider than 3 lanes of street traffic; high speed rail also does not encourage sprawl since high speed rail passengers do not use the fast food restaurants, service stations, truck stops, motels, or big box retailers that are attracted to expressway corridors. Environmental impacts are usually characterized as significantly lower than an average new roadway. Current discussions envision bypassing intermediate cities much as expressways bypass intermediate cities while retaining the connections to enable future service and future station stops. Intermediate cities also benefit by gaining new overpasses resulting in fewer delays and fewer grade crossings across existing rail lines beyond their city limits.
The cost of the system will be significant—all infrastructure improvements require significant investment. However, the resources devoted to high speed and intercity rail need not divert attention from CTA and other transit projects in the Chicago area. In other parts of the world, intercity and high speed rail co-exist and are enabled by improved transit service—people still need to reach their final destinations after arriving by high speed train. High speed rail decisions should not reflect a choice between high speed rail and transit but, rather, a choice between convenient, easy rail connections between cities and difficult, congested road connections and expensive air services.
UPDATE: Thanks for the feedback and for including me on the Rescue List (Twice!). This is a very Chicago-centric diary since I happen to be from Chicago and it was originally written as a response to an editorial in the Chicago Tribune:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/...
Every country has different historic development patterns and those patterns affect how people use and develop their transportation systems. The U.S. isn't France or Spain or Germany or Japan or Taiwan or China or the U.K. but those countries also have many differences yet they still support successful high speed rail systems. Looking at just population densities is less important than looking at potential origin-destination pairs. Spain's high speed routes include major cities like Madrid and Barcelona but also includes stops at university and industrial centers.
In the 500 mile, 4.6 million person Madison-Milwaukee-Chicago-Champaign-Springfield-St. Louis corridor, there are 61 Fortune 1000 headquarters, 9 nationally ranked research universities, 20 national research labs, and 2 major commercial airports in addition to 2 state capitals. The potential connections can only be imagined at this point (Joint State of Illinois-State of Wisconsin hearings? UIUC Chemical Engineers working on production methods in Milwaukee factories? Northwestern medical researchers conducting studies at St. John's Mercy in St. Louis?) yet are currently inhibited by current road congestion, limited rail connections, and limited air service.