First, if you have not already read it please go take a look at the excellent analysis of the current state of US High Speed Rail by Vikingkq.
And now I'd like to introduce you to Turkey, a country that seems to really get Mass Transportation in the 21st century. This will be the first of what I hope to be a series of posts on Turkey's efforts to move it's rapidly growing population around without encouraging the car dependence we've all come to know and love back in the U S of A.
Turkey's newest line will reduce travel time from 10 hours 30 minutes to 1 hour and 15 minutes.
More over the jump.
Turkey today launched yet another line in it's ambitious project to link the country's major cities with High Speed Rail passenger service. This project, Turkey's second HSR line is projected to be completed by the end of 2010.
the government earmarked 7 billion USD to railways in the past 6 years. Improving railways has become one of the primary matters of government.
If you read Vikingq's diary you saw the Obama administration's skeleton plan for a comprehensive HSR network in America. If my image embedding skills worked (keep in mind I've never done this, long time lurker, first time poster) here is Turkey's plan:
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In some ways it's unfair to contrast the Turkish HSR experience with the USA. Turkey has only about a quarter of the population of the US (Wikipedia says 73 million) with 1/10 the land and 3 times the density of the US. Of course, no one is seriously proposing a HSR line to Alaska or Hawaii, so I guess that changes the numbers somewhat. Nevertheless Turkey faces many of the same challenges that the US has: an ageing infrastructure, huge natural barriers and uneven population distribution.
As you can see from the quote above, Turkey's 21st century governments have made a sustained effort to upgrade the notoriously slow rail system, and they've backed up their words with funding. This is what it's going to take to get HSR to be competitive against air in America.
The line that broke ground today is actually the perfect length for a real American example. Imagine if you will, a HSR line between Chicago and Indianapolis (190 miles). Based on the technology being put into place in Turkey today, the trip would take 1 hour and 15 minutes. In fact, the link between these two midwestern cities would probably be less than that since the Ankara-Konya line has a mountain range or two to cross. When I lived in SLC, Utah, I was willing to have a commute that was not much shorter than that. At the very least this would cut into a huge chunk of short distance air travel, clearing our skies a bit and promoting more sustainability.
Of course HSR isn't the be-all end-all solution to the transportation mess that is America, but it's a very good step to be taking in conjunction with other public policy measures like zoning, multimodal access, inter and intraregional coordination, and reimagining our civic spaces. But these will have to be for another day. Tune in next time where I'll detail the wonders of Istanbul's multimodal connectivity.
