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Category Archives: High-Speed Rail
Can HSR Connect Hartford and Providence?
If new high-speed rail construction has to largely follow Interstate corridors, then a new line from New Haven to Boston can serve either Providence on I-95 or Hartford on I-91/84/90, but not both. However, there’s still the possibility of building … Continue reading
Posted in High-Speed Rail, Providence, Transportation
101 Comments
Infrastructure and Democracy
Two stories, one recent and one older, have made me think about the undemocratic way the US builds infrastructure. The older story is California HSR’s cost overrun coming from scope creep; the biggest overruns were in the Bay Area, where … Continue reading
UN and Rail Operators Propose International Vacuum Train Network
The UN Development Programme, the UIC, the governments of Japan and the EU, and the Japan Railways group have issued a joint release calling for the development of an international network of vacuum tubes in which trains will travel at … Continue reading
Posted in High-Speed Rail, Transportation
16 Comments
Linear Compression: How HSR is Like Rapid Transit
A post from last month on Keep Houston Houston notes how high-speed rail transformed Japanese geography to the point that it’s faster to get from Osaka to Nagano via Tokyo than direct despite a doubling of travel distance. The same … Continue reading
Posted in High-Speed Rail, Transportation, Urban Transit
14 Comments
The Magic Triangle: Infrastructure-Timetable-Rolling Stock
In the last month, Amtrak decided not to purchase additional Acela cars, but instead replace the Acela fleet ahead of time, and try to buy trains that aren’t compliant with FRA regulations. More recently, Amtrak and the California HSR Authority … Continue reading
Posted in Amtrak, FRA, High-Speed Rail, Incompetence, Transportation
109 Comments
Intercity Buses and Trains
In the three countries with the longest and traditionally largest HSR networks – Japan, Germany, and France – there is no large intercity bus network, with government regulations against the development of one. The US and Canada are in somewhat … Continue reading
Posted in High-Speed Rail, New York, Transportation
123 Comments
Sanity Checks on HSR Ridership
If you multiply the populations of the metro areas served as a proxy for HSR ridership, then by comparison to Shinkansen lines as well as the AVE, New York-Washington traffic should be about 15-20 million passengers per year. It’s even higher … Continue reading
Posted in High-Speed Rail, New York, Transportation
70 Comments
Carolyn Maloney’s International HSR Proposal
Carolyn Maloney, the Congresswoman representing Manhattan’s East Side, gave an interview to the Globe and Mail in which she called for high-speed rail between New York and Canadian cities. She did not specify which cities, but presumably those are Montreal … Continue reading
Posted in High-Speed Rail, New York, Transportation
80 Comments
Are Forecasts Improving?
In response to my takedown of Reason, specifically my puzzlement at the estimates of inaccuracy in traffic forecasts, alert reader Morten Skou Nicolaisen sent me several papers on the subject. While there is past research about traffic shortfalls, for example … Continue reading
Peak Factors and Intercity Trains
In contrast with Reason’s fraud, CARRD’s Elizabeth Alexis makes a more serious criticism of the XpressWest plan: there is a prominent peak in travel from Southern California to Las Vegas on Friday afternoon and Sunday afternoon, and this means that … Continue reading
Posted in High-Speed Rail, Regional Rail, Transportation, Urban Transit
31 Comments
