NARP Blog

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

(1) Provide service to the largest metro areas currently without it. The eight largest, in descending order of population are:

*Las Vegas, NV

*Columbus, OH

*Nashville, TN

*Louisville, KY

Tulsa, OK

Allentown-Bethlehem, PA

Baton Rouge, LA

McAllen-Edinberg, TX

* Indicates Amtrak formerly provided service. Las Vegas service lasted through May 10, 1997; Columbus, Nashville and Louisville lost service at the end of October, 1979, although Louisville briefly regained service with a painfully slow train to Chicago. That train ran Chicago-Jeffersonville, IN starting December 17, 1999, was extended across the river to Louisville December 4, 2001, and discontinued July 8, 2003.

(2) Route study requests in S. 294 (which passed the Senate in October):

restore Amtrak’s Pioneer that linked Seattle-Portland with eastern Oregon, Boise and Salt Lake City. (Towards the end, its financial viability was compromised by running as a separate train all the way across Wyoming to Denver, rather than serving SLC and connecting there with the California Zephyr.)

restore Amtrak’s North Coast Hiawatha in southern Montana and southern North Dakota – well used train until its demise in 1979.

(3) Maps in the National Surface Transportation Policy & Revenue Study Commission report, at chapter four:

The 2015 vision is at page 4-22 and notably includes

Cleveland-Columbus-Cincinnati

a long-discussed Meridian-Jackson-Dallas link among existing Amtrak routes, and

closing the Bakersfield-Los Angeles gap.

The 2030 vision is on the next page and adds several routes including

Atlanta-Florida,

Dallas-Houston,

Oklahoma City to both Newton/Kansas City and Tulsa/St. Louis,

Cheyenne-Denver-Trinidad-Albuquerque-El Paso

the above-referenced Pioneer, and

service to Las Vegas from both east and west.

The 2050 vision is on page 4-24 and adds many more routes including Chicago-Atlanta.

The Commission recommends annual capital expenditure of $9 billion, much of which would support “genuine” high speed rail projects such that planned in California.

(4) NARP’s 40-year vision, which is more aggressive than the Commission’s although North Carolina DOT’s vision is more aggressive than ours! Read more about our Grow Trains Campaign and Vision Plan including regional “zoom-in” maps.

--Ross Capon

Comments

Fifth way to consider intercity rail expansion:
Improve service to cities already served, but served badly.

- Rebuild the line to Phoenix Union Station (from both sides) to passenger standards and restore service there
- Enhance the speed and capacity on the Chicago-Cleveland line—then add daytime trains (there are currently two trains each day, both in the middle of the night). Extend these east to resurrect the direct Philadelphia-Chicago route via Pittsburgh.
- Interconnect Toledo and Detroit by train.
- Reestablish the cross-border trains through Detroit, for better connections to Toronto from the Midwest
- Upgrade the connecting tracks to allow Amtrak to serve Madison, WI directly rather than via connection from Columbus
- Build the CAHSR passenger rail connection from Bakersfield to Los Angeles, California
- Reconnect New Orleans with Florida via the Sunset Limited or another route
- Increase Sunset Limited frequency so that you can get from Austin to New Orleans every day of the week
- Add a north-south route through the Mountain West, El Paso-Albequerque-Denver

This may not be the most obvious sort of “expansion”, but taking cities which already have rail service and giving those cities rail service heading in *more directions* at *more times* with *fewer transfers* is, indeed, expansion, and a very important sort of expansion.

Comment by Nathanael Nerode on 06/12 at 09:27 PM

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NARP blog

Four Ways to Consider Intercity Passenger Train Expansion

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Posted by NARP | (1) Comments

Comments

Comment by Nathanael Nerode on 06/12 at 09:27 PM

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