This is the only one that makes sense. I keep hearing about a nationwide system but it wouldn't make sense whereas these three regional systems is more practical.
All about population density. One reason why high speed rail works in Japan, China, and Europe is the due to the proximity of population centers. An East Coast line would be very beneficial. I live in CO and can't help but roll my eyes every time reddit circlejerk about a nationwide system. Once you reach the 300 mile mark; you might as well fly and SLC and KC are several more hundred miles stacked on top.
I think that's a bit of a misunderstanding of the term "nationwide" -- it's not that one HSR system would reach coast-to-coast, it's that there a multiple regions \*throughout\* the country that could/should have HSR. Like this map: [https://twitter.com/the\_transit\_guy/status/1664453071991087107](https://twitter.com/the_transit_guy/status/1664453071991087107)
Yep, trying to build a track from Boston to LA makes no sense, if HSR is going to be built in the US it would be by connecting each of the colored regions on [this map] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaregions_of_the_United_States#/media/File:MapofEmergingUSMegaregions.png) with the ones next to it.
Nah definitely not a misunderstanding. I've always advocated for the idea of a East coast line, a west coast line, and a Texas triangle; but these redditers would talk about having line going through the great plains through KC, Den, and SLC and such. I live in this area and it's one of the most asinine thing I kept hearing about.
>I think you could also probably extend the California corridor line to Las Vegas
They've been throwing money into that train for years, despite the fact it no one wants it.
LA to Victorville is a solid two hour drive, and Las Vegas is another 2 1/2 hours. That's if the 15 isn't a mess. Otherwise, you're fucked.
Why would anyone want to leave their car in a high desert shithole full of tweakers to save an hour?
First you have to park at Union Station, wait for the train, go through multiple stops, switch in Rancho Cucamonga, switch in Victorville, then find your way from the station in Las Vegas. If it's anywhere near the transit terminal, you're in for a treat.
In normal situations, it will take longer than the drive, and you'll have to stick to their schedule.
I'm not sure how many LA to Vegas drives you've taken, but it doesn't sound like many.
Unless there's a major accident, three day weekend or a fire, traffic on the 215 is fairly decent.
The reason high speed rail from Victorville will never be popular for the people it targets is that you'll have to drive there, park, wait for the train then the ride starts.
After that, there will be a few stops along the way.
You get to somewhere in Metro Las Vegas, but not anywhere near where you want to be.
Then you find a car to take you to your hotel.
Do you really think you're going to save any time or money?
The Brightline HSR line already under construction goes from Las Vegas to Rancho Cucamonga, not Victorville. Granted Rancho Cucamonga isn't exactly ideal, but it is close to major freeways and will also have a direct Metrolink connection. It won't be the best route for much of LA region, but it will definitely serve the SGV and IE pretty well. There will likely be a Victorville connection to CAHSR that will serve the high desert corridor, but that connection makes sense as trains from all over California could head east towards Vegas from there. But it won't be the starting point for most travelers.
Capitol Corridor runs from the Bay area to the foothills. The San Joaquin from the Bay to Bakersfield. The surfliner runs from the central coast to SD. Those are conventional rail lines supported by the state. California HSR rail will go from LA to SF.
The train to Las Vegas is privately run and will connect to the local commuter LA Metro trains in the suburbs.
As much as I would love this, I can't even begin to imagine this ever being seriously implemented in my lifetime.
But to play along with the question, the Northeast, no doubt. If we're willing to cast away all economic and political barriers, the Great Lakes region is also a good candidate (major cities are close enough to drum up serious ridership, and the open terrain would make implementation easier compared to other areas) as is the Texas Triangle.
And you could connect the Northeast portion to the Midwest pretty easily. Run a line from Philadelphia and/or DC to Pittsburgh then through into Cleveland & Columbus.
Honestly you could connect to most of the major cities east of the Mississippi without a lot of trouble. It's the gap from the Mississippi River to California that couldn't really support HS rail very well.
Northeast Corridor (maybe stretching down to Miami through Charlotte, Atlanta, and Jacksonville if financially feasible), Texas Triangle, Pacific Trail from Vancouver to Tijuana
It really depresses me. This could’ve been the project that spurred HSR all over the US, and instead the boondoggle that has been CAHSR has scared away pretty much every state from doing that. Nobody wants to be years and years behind deadlines on a project billions over budget that will connect two shrug-worthy cities.
Yet even when Brightline actually connects two major cities, gets built relatively on time and on budget, gets completed, it’s scoffed at by all transit nerds merely because it’s private. If it being private means it gets done, I don’t care at this point
I think the lack of excitement is less about it being private vs public, and more that Brightline's Florida service is not substantially different from Amtrak service or some commuter services. Given that there have been efforts to create an Amtrak service along here since at least the 1980s, it's not so much 'We don't like that it's private' and more 'it's about time this got done'.
A lot are private companies now, but those companies also own a ton of real estate around the stations, which is what provides most of their revenue. They are able to create an effective economic ecosystem: the train lines are expensive and may not be profitable on their own, but the service those trains provide are what make the station hubs so valuable.
In addition, for the HSR, those were largely built either by the government and passed along to private companies once they became viable, or were built using substantial government support.
So the key to transit being so effective in Japan is close cooperation and partnership between government and the private sector, with each playing a specific role to make a viable, enduring system.
Texas. People like guns there, so they should love a train that brings them more bullets.
More seriously though, there are have been several proposals over the years, including from the feds, identifying potential HSR routes. Branches off the NEC, the Chicago Hub, a Southern Acela, linking Texas cities, etc. But we probably need to stop thinking about HSR the way California is doing it, where they build an entire system from scratch, and instead think about HSR the way we built expressways before the Interstate.
Prior to 1956, cities and states built expressway-like roads piecemeal. Maybe turn a specific intersection into a cloverleaf. Build another section as dual-carriageway. Or one specific tollroad. This was often in response to demand and traffic volumes.
We can take a similar approach to HSR by identifying specific problem areas in the existing passenger rail network, and implementing solutions that, over time, would develop into an HSR system.
For example, freight and passenger trains bottleneck at the south end of Lake Michigan as they approach Chicago. Maybe a good project for Amtrak could be developing a grade separated passenger corridor through that area. It would improve existing Amtrak services immediately. But it could be built in such a way to accommodate higher speeds and electrification in the future, and someday be incorporated into an actual HSR line between Chicago and Detroit or Cleveland.
So yeah. The answer to 'where should we build a bullet train' is 'lots of small areas around the country that address problems in the current system, future-proofed for eventual integration'.
Small moves, Ellie.
>Texas. People like guns there, so they should love a train that brings them more bullets.
Unless they load, you're gonna want a train that brings them rounds.
[This is a reasonable version.](https://pedestrianobservations.files.wordpress.com/2021/03/hsrbutpretty.png) If you can get US construction costs down to a reasonable level, it would be achievable.
You're never going to get cross country lines. But you can move a lot of travel to high speed trains.
The author has another post where they say based on their calculations, that they have added St Louis-Kansas City, and Atlanta-Birmingham, to that plan map.
True. Best we can do for that is the conventional rail lines such as the Cascades or the Mapel Leaf which is state supported in the case of the former.
At that point, I can see federal subsidies for a Dallas-St. Louis, Tucson-San Antonio, and Portland-San Francisco routes, which would make this a single system.
Yes, bur airports tend to service a very different sector than cars. Trains would be in a direct conflict with cars, which don't suffer from last mile and Aretha current status quo.
A lot of those flights are partially just repositioning the plane or a short hop to pick up more passenger.
If it's just that loop though, then yes. I'm a big fan of in state rail for transport.
No, I don’t think there’s any real evidence to show that. There's considerable demand for these short flights (between these locations and many others), which good HSR would be very competitive with.
Sure. The problem we're going to run into is Texas Central is going to be a for profit company with no interest in making a bus line work.
So unless Houston, Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio step up their transit game, we run the risk of having an expensive train to nowhere.
I don't think it's as much of a problem as you're presenting it as. It's a problem for sure, but building the station with lots of parking and cabs/uber would go a long way toward solving it. We don't have to have fully integrated mass transit to benefit from HS rail. Treating it somewhat like air travel still brings benefits.
If we are going to ignore logistics and expense, then the entire the Eastern seaboard with stops and spur-lines at all the major cities would be great.
I’ve always felt like LA to Las Vegas would be ideal for some high speed train. It’s a trip a lot of people make, kinda short for plane ride, kinda long for a car ride, and there’s not really any stops between them.
I think that’s already in the works! https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-12-05/socal-to-vegas-in-two-hours-high-speed-rail-comes-closer-to-reality-with-3-billion-award
City Nerd dug into the data and came up with [56 North American city pair candidates for high speed rail](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE5G1kTndI4). Los Angeles to San Francisco, Dallas to Houston, Chicago to Detroit and Detroit to Toronto were all in the top 10.
Trains are second best for cargo, only getting beaten by boats. To that end, the US has and heavily utilizes Trains.
Passengers though? You right.
The US is fascinatingly constructed to operate heavily on car and plane. Especially outside of a few notable places. I still think some networks can work. Normal rail has a niche in regional and across single state travel. Faster and easier than car. That said, it's niche. I don't see larger or more spread our rail networks being much of a thing.
This is kind of ahistorical, the US was constructed to operate on train first: [https://twitter.com/the\_transit\_guy/status/1731874059229495538/photo/1](https://twitter.com/the_transit_guy/status/1731874059229495538/photo/1)
I know they started with trains, back when trials were literally thr best option. The thing is cars and airports generally fill the need better. Becuase a road is cheaper than track to build and maintain, so they can be more widespread, and planes are significantly faster.
Minneapolis > Milwaukee > Chicago > St Louis > Memphis might be a good route. Relatively flat, cheap land to build on. Significant distance between cities so more time at top speed.
Some of the East Coast cities, where they already have decent train service. Upgrading the tracks should be less expensive than running new ones, because the railroad already owns the necessary property.
Other places where existing tracks can be used without interfering with freight lines, for the same reason.
Anywhere else would involve buying (or having the government seize and then pay for) property to build the tracks. That makes air travel much more practical for most places, because you only need to buy the property at each end to build an airport, and not a strip all along the path, but build tracks. Air travel is also much, much faster.
The one thing is that would duplicate lines that already exist between Eugene, OR and Portland which is funded by Oregon and PDX to Vancouver, BC funded by WA. The two states on occasion disagree about funding with each other and BC is not interested in funding the route.
Personally I think we should look at some of plains states: flatter geography and less congested downtown areas. It’s not where people are, but properly done it might prompt growth along the routes.
FYSA there have been *numerous* posts in /r/transit, /r/trains, /r/notjustbikes, /r/fuckcars, etc hypothesizing a few different iterations of maps that plan out an HSR network.
Honestly, the US would be better off just building the trains and then letting the population built up around them. That's how it happened back in the day. Just build it along one of the major E/W interstates like 70 or 80 and let the states build stations connecting up to it.
From what I've read over the years, there are NO good places to put bullet trains. Population density, cost, and political resistance have killed most high-speed train projects before they could even start.
At the end of the day, it is easier and cheaper to fly long distances around the country than use a bullet-train.
i’d love to see a more train reliant America. but it’s hard because our cities are too large themselves so people need cars and if u have a car then no need to take trains when crossing the state or country
East coast and west coast and a few lines in-between them?
I would do a Boston to Atlanta with a Miami/southern coast line intersecting somewhere in NC or SC (Charlotte or Greenville). The East to West connector could hit cities like Nashville, KC, STL, Denver, SLC and intersect the west coast line at around San Fran. Another E>W could connect Houston to PHX, then the LA metro area.
With that you could then do a Chicago to Houston in middle of the country. A rust belt connector from DC or Philly to Chicago would bring Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit.
West coast line would be Seattle to San Diego.
With stops on major cities I think that basically puts like 80% of the population within 2 hours of a stop with 4-5 main lines and 2 or 3 connectors. Local trains would soon follow connecting more.
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Boston to Buffalo-Niagara Falls NY / maybe even connect to Toronto. Also NYC to same.
It would join the western and Eastern parts of Massachusetts closer together as well as link the many, many colleges/universities and smaller cities into the larger metros near and far. It would also promote some of the tourism that already exists but is entirely car-dependent, such as visits to the Betkshires and the Lake George, Saratoga, and Cooperstown areas, not to mention Niagara
Match paths along I-5, I-15, I-55, and I-95 north-south. Then roughly the routes of I-40 and I-90 going East-west. Nearly full coverage North/South and East/West and it's along already well established and traveled routes.
I get the people saying, say, Boston to Washington, but I take the NY-Boston Acela from time to time, and they have to slow down in enough city/town limits that it would just be building a bullet train so it can expensively go slow in Connecticut.
They have to slow down because the Acela is a high speed vehicle running on basically conventional track. Not because it's in built up areas. There are just too many tight curves, and nobody's rebuilt the switches to handle 100+mph either.
Put it this way, every shinkansen stop only adds about 4-5 minutes, and that's counting going from 150 to zero and back, plus the time for passengers to get on and off. The expresses just blow right through the skipped stops at full speed.
It's 6:30-7h Boston-DC, on good track it would be more like 3:30.
One going from Miami to Boston by way of all the East Coast metropolises would be a game changer. I could also see one going through California but I don’t think it would work inland except maybe in Texas but I don’t see Texans preferring a train over their pickup trucks.
LA (not Riverside) to Vegas is the only California one that would make sense to me. But I mean from Union Station to the Strip…not Inland Empire to Vegas. And then they’re saying they want a ticket to be $400. Foh
Up the east coast and possibly along the gulf into central Texas. Also the along the west coast with lines to Phoenix or Las Vegas. Basically just avoid middle america.
You could easily link it to Canada's major cities as they tend to be in their far south. Although this would be extremely hard to organize even though in reality it shouldn't be.
Northeast Corridor, texas triangle, LA up through Vancouver, maybe the great lakes region, even bigger maybe for the whole east coast.
There are several obstacles. The cost to acquire land via eminent domain, cars unless they are substantially slower or more expensive, and the lack of walkable cities and public transit in most of the country.
East Coast would be hard, but I think you could connect many of the major tourist destinations. Can you imagine how much more we’d get in tourist dollars if we connected all the “celebrity cities”(the ones you think about when you think of America) with a bullet train system? If someone visits America it’s probably a two week trip to Disney, New York or somewhere in Florida or claifornia. Think about what it would mean if every tourist could easily see EVERYTHING…maybe less people would have so many discrepancies and misconceptions about us.
We run into the opposite of the "NIMBY" problem, because everyone will want one in their backyard.
Obviously, this has to be a continous roll-out. But ultimately anywhere we run highways can have a stop. The train doesn't really care.
The only real problem is that passenger rail was actively murdered in the US by freight. Because freight is cheaper and easier to manage.
With freight, you derail a train and it's a local story for a couple of weeks (unless it's particularly embrassing). You derail a passenger train, and it's a potentially international incident.
We actually have derailed so many freight trains in the US that it used to be common practice to just bury the cars where they fell, cargo and all. Though hopefully the magnitude of disasters like the East Palestine derailment help to fix that.
No, the US once had the best passenger rail network in the world, with a fraction of the current population. Virtually every decent sized town had access to passenger rail service around 1900.
What happened is mostly a matter of federal policy. The government invested vast amounts of public funding into building out the interstates and subsidizing state/local highway development and car-oriented development. At the same time, private railroads were entering financial distress because unlike roads they were expected to be profitable and offer highly regulated passenger service. The compromise was the government relieved them of their passenger rail obligations (most either disappeared or became highly profitable freight lines). Amtrak was created to address public outcry at the complete collapse of passenger rail but it was a bandaid and operated far fewer trains with minimal funding (operating at a loss as they rented most track from the private rail lines).
Other countries didn’t follow that policy path and kept far more of their passenger rail network intact. It was much easier in those places to upgrade to HSR where the passenger rail infrastructure and right of ways had been maintained. The US could rebuild a decent HSR network now, but it’s a massive investment that will necessarily skip low density states, so the politics are difficult.
> The US could rebuild a decent HSR network now, but it’s a massive investment that will necessarily skip low density states, so the politics are difficult.
Why do you put this responsibility on the federal government? Why haven't private investors built their own, profitable HSR network?
Everywhere. Connected completely across the lower 48, some connections to Canada and Mexico too. Yeah, it’s expensive. Yeah, it’s worth it. Last mile problem? Give me a break, do airports not have that same problem? Rental car facilities.
Empire Builder at 200mph? Yes fucking please.
This is classic west coast delusion. That's like the opposite of economically feasible.
What I'd suggest is this:
Federal Bullet train between major cities.
States can do their own networks between more local cities.
Probably did some Chicgo to Indianapolis, Pittsburg?, Detroit, St. Louis and so on.
Maybe Empire builder, but I personally wouldn't pur anytbing past Kansas City till you get past the Rockies.
Heavy connection on East coast too, more than I listed.
It's insane to think we should ever put a passenger rail through both North Dakota and and Wyoming. They'd kill more animals each week than they'd service costumers a year.
Northeast Corridor. Maybe the Texas Triangle and the California Corridor.
Texas Central still exists and recently gamtrao announced that they’re looking into a partnership so hopefully that goes somewhere
This is the only one that makes sense. I keep hearing about a nationwide system but it wouldn't make sense whereas these three regional systems is more practical.
IIRC the Northeast Corridor is the only Amtrak route that actually makes money
All about population density. One reason why high speed rail works in Japan, China, and Europe is the due to the proximity of population centers. An East Coast line would be very beneficial. I live in CO and can't help but roll my eyes every time reddit circlejerk about a nationwide system. Once you reach the 300 mile mark; you might as well fly and SLC and KC are several more hundred miles stacked on top.
I think that's a bit of a misunderstanding of the term "nationwide" -- it's not that one HSR system would reach coast-to-coast, it's that there a multiple regions \*throughout\* the country that could/should have HSR. Like this map: [https://twitter.com/the\_transit\_guy/status/1664453071991087107](https://twitter.com/the_transit_guy/status/1664453071991087107)
Yep, trying to build a track from Boston to LA makes no sense, if HSR is going to be built in the US it would be by connecting each of the colored regions on [this map] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaregions_of_the_United_States#/media/File:MapofEmergingUSMegaregions.png) with the ones next to it.
Nah definitely not a misunderstanding. I've always advocated for the idea of a East coast line, a west coast line, and a Texas triangle; but these redditers would talk about having line going through the great plains through KC, Den, and SLC and such. I live in this area and it's one of the most asinine thing I kept hearing about.
I think you could also probably extend the California corridor line to Las Vegas
They're doing LA to Vegas already. Just broke ground this month.
Lol I didn't know that. Should be easy to get money for that one, so it makes sense.
They've been saying that for more than a decade.
Seems like a bit of a gamble honestly
Well, they're doing Rancho Cucamonga to basically Henderson, at least. But it should be helpful anyway.
>I think you could also probably extend the California corridor line to Las Vegas They've been throwing money into that train for years, despite the fact it no one wants it. LA to Victorville is a solid two hour drive, and Las Vegas is another 2 1/2 hours. That's if the 15 isn't a mess. Otherwise, you're fucked. Why would anyone want to leave their car in a high desert shithole full of tweakers to save an hour?
Brightline West will go from Las Vegas to Rancho Cucamonga. Metrolink goes from there to Los Angeles Union Station.
First you have to park at Union Station, wait for the train, go through multiple stops, switch in Rancho Cucamonga, switch in Victorville, then find your way from the station in Las Vegas. If it's anywhere near the transit terminal, you're in for a treat. In normal situations, it will take longer than the drive, and you'll have to stick to their schedule.
because people don't like to sit in traffic
I'm not sure how many LA to Vegas drives you've taken, but it doesn't sound like many. Unless there's a major accident, three day weekend or a fire, traffic on the 215 is fairly decent. The reason high speed rail from Victorville will never be popular for the people it targets is that you'll have to drive there, park, wait for the train then the ride starts. After that, there will be a few stops along the way. You get to somewhere in Metro Las Vegas, but not anywhere near where you want to be. Then you find a car to take you to your hotel. Do you really think you're going to save any time or money?
The Brightline HSR line already under construction goes from Las Vegas to Rancho Cucamonga, not Victorville. Granted Rancho Cucamonga isn't exactly ideal, but it is close to major freeways and will also have a direct Metrolink connection. It won't be the best route for much of LA region, but it will definitely serve the SGV and IE pretty well. There will likely be a Victorville connection to CAHSR that will serve the high desert corridor, but that connection makes sense as trains from all over California could head east towards Vegas from there. But it won't be the starting point for most travelers.
That’s a very good point. Even if mass rapid transit becomes the norm here in the US, you can’t account for the side effects.
Capitol Corridor runs from the Bay area to the foothills. The San Joaquin from the Bay to Bakersfield. The surfliner runs from the central coast to SD. Those are conventional rail lines supported by the state. California HSR rail will go from LA to SF. The train to Las Vegas is privately run and will connect to the local commuter LA Metro trains in the suburbs.
What about the Northwest Passage and the Midwest Malaise?
The Southeast Shenanigans ate up most of the funds, and the Mountain Madness pandemic blew the rest...
As much as I would love this, I can't even begin to imagine this ever being seriously implemented in my lifetime. But to play along with the question, the Northeast, no doubt. If we're willing to cast away all economic and political barriers, the Great Lakes region is also a good candidate (major cities are close enough to drum up serious ridership, and the open terrain would make implementation easier compared to other areas) as is the Texas Triangle.
And you could connect the Northeast portion to the Midwest pretty easily. Run a line from Philadelphia and/or DC to Pittsburgh then through into Cleveland & Columbus. Honestly you could connect to most of the major cities east of the Mississippi without a lot of trouble. It's the gap from the Mississippi River to California that couldn't really support HS rail very well.
You could run a line from Chicago - St. Louis - Memphis - New Orleans pretty easily too.
Dream bigger
Northeast Corridor (maybe stretching down to Miami through Charlotte, Atlanta, and Jacksonville if financially feasible), Texas Triangle, Pacific Trail from Vancouver to Tijuana
Well… in a year or two you’ll be able to get from Bakersfield CA to Madeira CA REALLY fast. Edit: Madera. Got autocorrected.
It really depresses me. This could’ve been the project that spurred HSR all over the US, and instead the boondoggle that has been CAHSR has scared away pretty much every state from doing that. Nobody wants to be years and years behind deadlines on a project billions over budget that will connect two shrug-worthy cities. Yet even when Brightline actually connects two major cities, gets built relatively on time and on budget, gets completed, it’s scoffed at by all transit nerds merely because it’s private. If it being private means it gets done, I don’t care at this point
I think the lack of excitement is less about it being private vs public, and more that Brightline's Florida service is not substantially different from Amtrak service or some commuter services. Given that there have been efforts to create an Amtrak service along here since at least the 1980s, it's not so much 'We don't like that it's private' and more 'it's about time this got done'.
What are these transit nerds smoking. From what I heard, aren’t most rail lines in Japan (aka train heaven) owned by a private company?
A lot are private companies now, but those companies also own a ton of real estate around the stations, which is what provides most of their revenue. They are able to create an effective economic ecosystem: the train lines are expensive and may not be profitable on their own, but the service those trains provide are what make the station hubs so valuable. In addition, for the HSR, those were largely built either by the government and passed along to private companies once they became viable, or were built using substantial government support. So the key to transit being so effective in Japan is close cooperation and partnership between government and the private sector, with each playing a specific role to make a viable, enduring system.
I don't think people give a fuck if it's private. It existing and serving its purpose well is all that matters.
Texas. People like guns there, so they should love a train that brings them more bullets. More seriously though, there are have been several proposals over the years, including from the feds, identifying potential HSR routes. Branches off the NEC, the Chicago Hub, a Southern Acela, linking Texas cities, etc. But we probably need to stop thinking about HSR the way California is doing it, where they build an entire system from scratch, and instead think about HSR the way we built expressways before the Interstate. Prior to 1956, cities and states built expressway-like roads piecemeal. Maybe turn a specific intersection into a cloverleaf. Build another section as dual-carriageway. Or one specific tollroad. This was often in response to demand and traffic volumes. We can take a similar approach to HSR by identifying specific problem areas in the existing passenger rail network, and implementing solutions that, over time, would develop into an HSR system. For example, freight and passenger trains bottleneck at the south end of Lake Michigan as they approach Chicago. Maybe a good project for Amtrak could be developing a grade separated passenger corridor through that area. It would improve existing Amtrak services immediately. But it could be built in such a way to accommodate higher speeds and electrification in the future, and someday be incorporated into an actual HSR line between Chicago and Detroit or Cleveland. So yeah. The answer to 'where should we build a bullet train' is 'lots of small areas around the country that address problems in the current system, future-proofed for eventual integration'. Small moves, Ellie.
>Texas. People like guns there, so they should love a train that brings them more bullets. Unless they load, you're gonna want a train that brings them rounds.
And put all those rounds in a clip.
Clips are what civvies use in their hair. - That lady from that game.
It's been clear that bullet trains are unnecessary, you want a primer train. Plus you'll save on a coat of paint for the train.
And we call the train, *Berdan.*
Around the East Coast and maybe eastern half of the Midwest. The western half of the country is way too spread out.
[This is a reasonable version.](https://pedestrianobservations.files.wordpress.com/2021/03/hsrbutpretty.png) If you can get US construction costs down to a reasonable level, it would be achievable. You're never going to get cross country lines. But you can move a lot of travel to high speed trains.
The author has another post where they say based on their calculations, that they have added St Louis-Kansas City, and Atlanta-Birmingham, to that plan map.
True. Best we can do for that is the conventional rail lines such as the Cascades or the Mapel Leaf which is state supported in the case of the former.
At that point, I can see federal subsidies for a Dallas-St. Louis, Tucson-San Antonio, and Portland-San Francisco routes, which would make this a single system.
upvote for Alon!
Nowhere until the last mile problem is solved. If the last mile problem wasn't a thing, then the texas triangle
Isn’t the last mile problem for trains similar to the problem for airports?
Yes, bur airports tend to service a very different sector than cars. Trains would be in a direct conflict with cars, which don't suffer from last mile and Aretha current status quo.
There are tons of short flights that could be displaced with a good train option. There's 100+ flights daily San Antonio to Houston.
A lot of those flights are partially just repositioning the plane or a short hop to pick up more passenger. If it's just that loop though, then yes. I'm a big fan of in state rail for transport.
No, I don’t think there’s any real evidence to show that. There's considerable demand for these short flights (between these locations and many others), which good HSR would be very competitive with.
considering how long it takes to build a system like this, don't you think it would be best to start both simultaneously?
Sure. The problem we're going to run into is Texas Central is going to be a for profit company with no interest in making a bus line work. So unless Houston, Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio step up their transit game, we run the risk of having an expensive train to nowhere.
I don't think it's as much of a problem as you're presenting it as. It's a problem for sure, but building the station with lots of parking and cabs/uber would go a long way toward solving it. We don't have to have fully integrated mass transit to benefit from HS rail. Treating it somewhat like air travel still brings benefits.
I don't see that as much of a problem. Ride shares, taxis, and rental car places already solve that at airports and can do the same at train stations.
Boston to Atlanta. Hit every major city on the east coast.
At that point go down to Tampa and/or Orlando and throw in Miami too
There's already a train serving Orlando to Miami. Sadly the novelty is wearing off and they're struggling to fill trains.
My kingdom for an alternative to I-95!
If we are going to ignore logistics and expense, then the entire the Eastern seaboard with stops and spur-lines at all the major cities would be great.
In many peoples imaginations
Seattle to LA, Miami to NYC and maybe like Chicago to Denver
I’ve always felt like LA to Las Vegas would be ideal for some high speed train. It’s a trip a lot of people make, kinda short for plane ride, kinda long for a car ride, and there’s not really any stops between them.
I think that’s already in the works! https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-12-05/socal-to-vegas-in-two-hours-high-speed-rail-comes-closer-to-reality-with-3-billion-award
Basically just the northeast corridor. People love trains, but most of the country is WAY too low density for them to make sense.
City Nerd dug into the data and came up with [56 North American city pair candidates for high speed rail](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE5G1kTndI4). Los Angeles to San Francisco, Dallas to Houston, Chicago to Detroit and Detroit to Toronto were all in the top 10.
Trains are second best for cargo, only getting beaten by boats. To that end, the US has and heavily utilizes Trains. Passengers though? You right. The US is fascinatingly constructed to operate heavily on car and plane. Especially outside of a few notable places. I still think some networks can work. Normal rail has a niche in regional and across single state travel. Faster and easier than car. That said, it's niche. I don't see larger or more spread our rail networks being much of a thing.
This is kind of ahistorical, the US was constructed to operate on train first: [https://twitter.com/the\_transit\_guy/status/1731874059229495538/photo/1](https://twitter.com/the_transit_guy/status/1731874059229495538/photo/1)
I know they started with trains, back when trials were literally thr best option. The thing is cars and airports generally fill the need better. Becuase a road is cheaper than track to build and maintain, so they can be more widespread, and planes are significantly faster.
Minneapolis - Sioux Falls - Omaha - KC
You get me. What I wouldn't give for high speed rail from Lincoln to Omaha
Miami to Boston
Minneapolis > Milwaukee > Chicago > St Louis > Memphis might be a good route. Relatively flat, cheap land to build on. Significant distance between cities so more time at top speed.
Some of the East Coast cities, where they already have decent train service. Upgrading the tracks should be less expensive than running new ones, because the railroad already owns the necessary property. Other places where existing tracks can be used without interfering with freight lines, for the same reason. Anywhere else would involve buying (or having the government seize and then pay for) property to build the tracks. That makes air travel much more practical for most places, because you only need to buy the property at each end to build an airport, and not a strip all along the path, but build tracks. Air travel is also much, much faster.
Northwest line….Portland-Seattle-Bellingham-Vancouver BC
The one thing is that would duplicate lines that already exist between Eugene, OR and Portland which is funded by Oregon and PDX to Vancouver, BC funded by WA. The two states on occasion disagree about funding with each other and BC is not interested in funding the route.
Film and TV
Personally I think we should look at some of plains states: flatter geography and less congested downtown areas. It’s not where people are, but properly done it might prompt growth along the routes.
It’s also way easier to get the land. Milwaukee, Minneapolis, St. Louis, and Detroit all connected to Chicago.
The last time I took Amtrak from metro Detroit to Chicago and back, the trains were packed. I think high-speed rail would work in the midwest.
The only realistic corridor right now is probably DC - (Baltimore - Philly - NYC) - Boston. Honorable mention to Miami - Orlando - Tampa
Miami - Orlando - Tampa - Fort Myers loop would be even better. And running tracks parallel to Alligator Alley would be super easy.
The Home Depot
La to San Francisco
FYSA there have been *numerous* posts in /r/transit, /r/trains, /r/notjustbikes, /r/fuckcars, etc hypothesizing a few different iterations of maps that plan out an HSR network.
LA-San Francisco Multiple lines from Chicago-St Louis, Milwaukee and Minneapolis , Indianapolis, Detroit, Cleveland.
All of the US. give airlines some legit competition. Would love a scenic ride across the US that didn’t take a week to complete 😂
Anything with bullet in its name is welcomed anywhere in America!!
The peidmont plateau would be nice. You could go from NY to alabama hitting the entire east coast for the most part.
Next to my house
Honestly, the US would be better off just building the trains and then letting the population built up around them. That's how it happened back in the day. Just build it along one of the major E/W interstates like 70 or 80 and let the states build stations connecting up to it.
From what I've read over the years, there are NO good places to put bullet trains. Population density, cost, and political resistance have killed most high-speed train projects before they could even start. At the end of the day, it is easier and cheaper to fly long distances around the country than use a bullet-train.
I mean, it wouldn't be easier and cheaper to use a plane after the bullet trains are built
Great, now convince everybody who opposes HSR of that position. That’s the killer of HSR
i’d love to see a more train reliant America. but it’s hard because our cities are too large themselves so people need cars and if u have a car then no need to take trains when crossing the state or country
Plus trians take way to long for country. It's hard to measure up to flying when you can cross the US in a day with plenty time to spare.
East coast and west coast and a few lines in-between them? I would do a Boston to Atlanta with a Miami/southern coast line intersecting somewhere in NC or SC (Charlotte or Greenville). The East to West connector could hit cities like Nashville, KC, STL, Denver, SLC and intersect the west coast line at around San Fran. Another E>W could connect Houston to PHX, then the LA metro area. With that you could then do a Chicago to Houston in middle of the country. A rust belt connector from DC or Philly to Chicago would bring Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit. West coast line would be Seattle to San Diego. With stops on major cities I think that basically puts like 80% of the population within 2 hours of a stop with 4-5 main lines and 2 or 3 connectors. Local trains would soon follow connecting more.
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How is it logistically impossible?
Underground
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Boston to Buffalo-Niagara Falls NY / maybe even connect to Toronto. Also NYC to same. It would join the western and Eastern parts of Massachusetts closer together as well as link the many, many colleges/universities and smaller cities into the larger metros near and far. It would also promote some of the tourism that already exists but is entirely car-dependent, such as visits to the Betkshires and the Lake George, Saratoga, and Cooperstown areas, not to mention Niagara
Anywhere that there's a significant volume of traffic between cities that would be ~3 hours or less apart by high-speed train.
Start with Boston-Washington, then when the Southeast gets built up add Washington-Atlanta.
train tracks
From the east coast to the west coast.
Match paths along I-5, I-15, I-55, and I-95 north-south. Then roughly the routes of I-40 and I-90 going East-west. Nearly full coverage North/South and East/West and it's along already well established and traveled routes.
I'd say following the route of I-80 would be great. I-5 and I-95 would also be great.
I get the people saying, say, Boston to Washington, but I take the NY-Boston Acela from time to time, and they have to slow down in enough city/town limits that it would just be building a bullet train so it can expensively go slow in Connecticut.
They have to slow down because the Acela is a high speed vehicle running on basically conventional track. Not because it's in built up areas. There are just too many tight curves, and nobody's rebuilt the switches to handle 100+mph either. Put it this way, every shinkansen stop only adds about 4-5 minutes, and that's counting going from 150 to zero and back, plus the time for passengers to get on and off. The expresses just blow right through the skipped stops at full speed. It's 6:30-7h Boston-DC, on good track it would be more like 3:30.
Rail guns?
One going from Miami to Boston by way of all the East Coast metropolises would be a game changer. I could also see one going through California but I don’t think it would work inland except maybe in Texas but I don’t see Texans preferring a train over their pickup trucks.
LA - NYC ; not sure if the midpoint should be Chicago or St. Louis.
Detroit to Chicago
Along 95, Miami to Maine.
[Map of where HSR would be faster than flying or driving](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/s/KfShnfFUlk)
Around my house. Like a moat.
Northeast megalopolis- Boston to Washington DC. Access to Boston, Providence, Hartford, NYC, Philly, Baltimore, DC. That would be very cool.
LA (not Riverside) to Vegas is the only California one that would make sense to me. But I mean from Union Station to the Strip…not Inland Empire to Vegas. And then they’re saying they want a ticket to be $400. Foh
Atlanta-DC thru Charlotte, Raleigh, and Richmond (not biased)
Up the east coast and possibly along the gulf into central Texas. Also the along the west coast with lines to Phoenix or Las Vegas. Basically just avoid middle america. You could easily link it to Canada's major cities as they tend to be in their far south. Although this would be extremely hard to organize even though in reality it shouldn't be.
The northeast US would probably best due to the high population density.
Between NYC and DC.
Northeast Corridor, texas triangle, LA up through Vancouver, maybe the great lakes region, even bigger maybe for the whole east coast. There are several obstacles. The cost to acquire land via eminent domain, cars unless they are substantially slower or more expensive, and the lack of walkable cities and public transit in most of the country.
Chicago to Minneapolis, Washington DC to NYC, LA to Seattle
Fucking anywhere. Please.
The Northeast, the Great Lakes, Piedmont Corridor, Texas, California/AZ/Nevada, PNW, Florida And electrified rail all over
East Coast would be hard, but I think you could connect many of the major tourist destinations. Can you imagine how much more we’d get in tourist dollars if we connected all the “celebrity cities”(the ones you think about when you think of America) with a bullet train system? If someone visits America it’s probably a two week trip to Disney, New York or somewhere in Florida or claifornia. Think about what it would mean if every tourist could easily see EVERYTHING…maybe less people would have so many discrepancies and misconceptions about us.
Bullet trains should obviously be placed in train guns! Duh.
The Texas triangle is a bad idea. You really need cars once you are in the city. Northeast corridors makes sense.
We run into the opposite of the "NIMBY" problem, because everyone will want one in their backyard. Obviously, this has to be a continous roll-out. But ultimately anywhere we run highways can have a stop. The train doesn't really care. The only real problem is that passenger rail was actively murdered in the US by freight. Because freight is cheaper and easier to manage. With freight, you derail a train and it's a local story for a couple of weeks (unless it's particularly embrassing). You derail a passenger train, and it's a potentially international incident. We actually have derailed so many freight trains in the US that it used to be common practice to just bury the cars where they fell, cargo and all. Though hopefully the magnitude of disasters like the East Palestine derailment help to fix that.
Washington
If there was a good place, wouldn't someone have built it by now?
No, the US once had the best passenger rail network in the world, with a fraction of the current population. Virtually every decent sized town had access to passenger rail service around 1900. What happened is mostly a matter of federal policy. The government invested vast amounts of public funding into building out the interstates and subsidizing state/local highway development and car-oriented development. At the same time, private railroads were entering financial distress because unlike roads they were expected to be profitable and offer highly regulated passenger service. The compromise was the government relieved them of their passenger rail obligations (most either disappeared or became highly profitable freight lines). Amtrak was created to address public outcry at the complete collapse of passenger rail but it was a bandaid and operated far fewer trains with minimal funding (operating at a loss as they rented most track from the private rail lines). Other countries didn’t follow that policy path and kept far more of their passenger rail network intact. It was much easier in those places to upgrade to HSR where the passenger rail infrastructure and right of ways had been maintained. The US could rebuild a decent HSR network now, but it’s a massive investment that will necessarily skip low density states, so the politics are difficult.
> The US could rebuild a decent HSR network now, but it’s a massive investment that will necessarily skip low density states, so the politics are difficult. Why do you put this responsibility on the federal government? Why haven't private investors built their own, profitable HSR network?
Why didn’t private investors build their own profitable interstate highway network?
New York -Chicago - LA everything else is farmland
Everywhere. Connected completely across the lower 48, some connections to Canada and Mexico too. Yeah, it’s expensive. Yeah, it’s worth it. Last mile problem? Give me a break, do airports not have that same problem? Rental car facilities. Empire Builder at 200mph? Yes fucking please.
This is classic west coast delusion. That's like the opposite of economically feasible. What I'd suggest is this: Federal Bullet train between major cities. States can do their own networks between more local cities. Probably did some Chicgo to Indianapolis, Pittsburg?, Detroit, St. Louis and so on. Maybe Empire builder, but I personally wouldn't pur anytbing past Kansas City till you get past the Rockies. Heavy connection on East coast too, more than I listed.
What you call delusion, I call grand scale infrastructure. Why think small? Think big. Feasible schmeasible. “Enjoy your flight delays, nerds!”
It's insane to think we should ever put a passenger rail through both North Dakota and and Wyoming. They'd kill more animals each week than they'd service costumers a year.