HSR bipartisanship: Illinois style

Two recent stories in the Chicago Sun-Times reflect political bipartisanship in Illinois on high speed rail, at least for the Chicago-St. Louis project.

Illinois Democratic Gov. Patrick Quinn recently had breakfast with his gubernatorial opponent, Republican state Sen. Bill Bradley at a Chicago diner. Quinn narrowly beat Bradley in November. One of the few things they agree on is the Chicago-St. Louis high speed rail project. Of course Bradley represents the Bloomington-Normal area which could have something to do with his support, but HSR has generally been supported by both parties in Illinois.

In the meantime, Republican Mark Kirk has started his term as U.S. senator, replacing Roland Burris (appointed by his hair-master himself Rod Blagovich to fill President Barrack Obama's senate term). Kirk has positioned himself as a moderate Republican who may not always go along with the national leadership. In the Sun-Times story, he firmly supported the Chicago-St. Louis HSR and suggested that Illinois should get at some of the money being rejected by Republican Gov.-elect Scott Walker in Wisconsin.

Let Illinois lead the nation in the nation in bipartisan support of HSR. If those GOPers in Wisconsin, Ohio and Florida don't want the money, send to places that will gladly use it to improve rail service.

Great for IL. Not so great for the country at large. For those of us who still long for a national network fast enough for working class and working age folks to traverse the country without fear of using up their tiny American-sized vacation allotments on the travel time alone this doesn't solve much of anything. All these potential holes where the growing number of anti-rail states are located could leave us with a network that is virtually worthless over time. Assuming it's not killed outright in federal budget cuts.

If (when?) the Wisconsin Hiawatha extension money ends up getting rejected, I hope most/all ends up being redirected to Illinois. (Hopefully for improvements in the CHI-JOL and/or ALN-STL sections.)

daxomni said:

Great for IL. Not so great for the country at large. For those of us who still long for a national network fast enough for working class and working age folks to traverse the country without fear of using up their tiny American-sized vacation allotments on the travel time alone this doesn't solve much of anything. All these potential holes where the growing number of anti-rail states are located could leave us with a network that is virtually worthless over time. Assuming it's not killed outright in federal budget cuts.

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Let's face it, there already is a way to get across the country without spending their tiny American-sized vacations on travel alone. That by itself is hardly a strong justification for anything

jis said:

Let's face it, there already is a way to get across the country without spending their tiny American-sized vacations on travel alone. That by itself is hardly a strong justification for anything

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Yes, we have the single largest airline market in the entire world. We also have one of the slowest and least frequent passenger rail networks I've ever seen in an industrialized country. Maybe Amtrak is heaven on earth compared to Indian railways but other than that I don't see your point Jiz.

daxomni said:

Great for IL. Not so great for the country at large. For those of us who still long for a national network fast enough for working class and working age folks to traverse the country without fear of using up their tiny American-sized vacation allotments on the travel time alone this doesn't solve much of anything. All these potential holes where the growing number of anti-rail states are located could leave us with a network that is virtually worthless over time. Assuming it's not killed outright in federal budget cuts.

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All true; however the other side of the coin could be that with a successful HSR system up and running between Chicago and St. Louis, it dulls the opposition’s contention that one needs huge population densities to have viable HSR. It shows that it does work outside the NEC and that it can work elsewhere too.

daxomni said:

jis said:

Let's face it, there already is a way to get across the country without spending their tiny American-sized vacations on travel alone. That by itself is hardly a strong justification for anything

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Yes, we have the single largest airline market in the entire world. We also have one of the slowest and least frequent passenger rail networks I've ever seen in an industrialized country. Maybe Amtrak is heaven on earth compared to Indian railways but other than that I don't see your point Jiz.

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What has Indian Railways got to do with anything. Amtrak is a puny little operation compared to it, but that is of no relevance to this discussion.

Just saying that there must be a passenger rail system is not an argument for having one. There are cogent reasons for having one, and those have been discussed ad infinitum. All that I was pointing out is getting quickly from one place to another is not something that I'd use as a primary argument for having a passenger rail system or even a high speed one. As I said there are perfectly good other ways of achieving that goal. A more interesting point to make is that all those other ways come with significant baggage like environmental costs and lack of energy efficiency and such. Those are the reasons for having a passenger rail system.

And unfortunately once one starts talking seriously about energy efficiencies, trains start looking more and more like TGVs and Shinkansens and soon things like Superliners become a thing of the past. Those same industrialized countries with dense rail networks also have remarkably few long distance sleeper trains. The only effective sleeper service is also on corridors.

UP is making rapid progress laying new rail and concrete ties. Let's hope the signaling system can be put in place quickly too.

Public transportation has always been important issue in cities in the Norrtheast and for some strange reason, Chicago...

Shawn Ryu said:

Public transportation has always been important issue in cities in the Norrtheast and for some strange reason, Chicago...

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Sarcasm?

Shawn Ryu said:

Public transportation has always been important issue in cities in the Norrtheast and for some strange reason, Chicago...

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Well, Chicago is the third largest city in the U.S and has the second biggest commuter railroad system in the country, along with the comprehensive CTA bus and rail network, so yes, public transportation is a big issue in Chicago and Illinois.

I'm glad to see all this work being done between Chicago and St. Louis. I admit I never paid very close attention to the schedule between the two cities I always saw it as a quick jump like taking the train from New York to Boston or Albany. When I realized it was a 6 hour trip I was a little taken aback. I feel like if they can get the schedule down to around 4 hours more and more people will take the train.

Long Train Runnin said:

I'm glad to see all this work being done between Chicago and St. Louis. I admit I never paid very close attention to the schedule between the two cities I always saw it as a quick jump like taking the train from New York to Boston or Albany. When I realized it was a 6 hour trip I was a little taken aback. I feel like if they can get the schedule down to around 4 hours more and more people will take the train.

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And, consider that ridership on CHI-STL Lincoln Service trains is already increasing rather significantly, up about 40% from 2007 (about 410,000) to 2010 (about 570,000).

(Other Midwest corridors have also seen increases, with CHI-MKE Hiawatha Service up about 30% [from 600,000 in 2007 to 780,000 in 2010] and CHI-DET-PNT Wolverine Service up about 6.6% [from 450,000 in 2007 to 480,000 in 2010].)