Every week, 105 airplanes take off from Logan Airport on a 40-minute flight toward New York City. For many, it’s the only way to avoid a five-hour car ride or nearly just as long of an Amtrak ride.
The United States is one of the only rich nations in the world to completely lack high-speed rail infrastructure, and the climate and people’s time suffer as a result.
U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton has proposed bringing fast and efficient rail transport to the Northeast and Massachusetts, providing residents with a climate-friendly, time-efficient means of transportation.
If completed, the proposed investment in high-speed rail infrastructure would also help alleviate the housing crisis by allowing more families to live in affordable communities while commuting to the places where they work but might not be able to afford.
Moulton’s detailed proposal offers a solution to multiple problems Massachusetts faces. It’s time to take action and pass his plan.
Elliot Elkin, Benjamin Road, Arlington
A stronger
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It took over 40 minutes just to get from the Museum of Fine Arts to Harvard Square Friday night. (And there was no Red Sox game…) Could we get some medium-speed rail for Boston?
Agree here 100%. Plus fixing the local T and commuter rail!
A world where there is enough investment in intercity rail to build genuine high speed rail is also world where transit is adequately funded. The countries with the best high speed rail also have the best urban transit (i.e. Japan, China, Spain) While countries like the US that lack high speed rail also have inadequate public transit.
High speed rail proposals aren’t undermining transit funding in the US, decades of neoliberalism and a federal mandate for an 80-20 funding split in favor of highways has.
All Poor Bono Publico/James Williamson ever seems to do is position alternatives to driving against each other but really all of these alternatives should be advanced together in opposition to the real issue, which is how much more money we spend on infrastructure for automobiles.
Our Reps and local politicians should be more concerned locally. What happened to the 1980’s promise that the Red Line was to extend to Route 128 as it was called back then? Then the traffic mess at Alewife would not be as severe.
^ a bunch of nimbys in Arlington were concerned about “City people” coming to their neighborhood and the plan imploded.
At this point, I’m getting tired of all this hand-waving in favor of high-speed. In general, the US is wholly unready for high-speed rail. We have a massive brain drain of how to build a trains effectively and economically – and fixing car dependent sprawl is a much more important task.
First of all, what do you mean by high-speed rail? At this point the Acela does, more or less, resemble your average intercity European train. Excluding the TGV, most trains in Europe, don’t top 150 mph. In fact, even the Shinkansen, which is largely considered to be the greatest high-speed rail system in the world, usually doesn’t get up pass 150 mph. Even the FRA doesn’t have a universal definition for the United States. In general anything above 110 mph is considered to be high speed rail in United States given that our average revenue service track speed tends to average around 79 mph at best – with a handful of exceptions.
Secondly, which right-of-way do you propose could run 186 mph+ high-speed trains? Currently there is no good option to produce high-speed rail on the north east beyond what we currently have. Indeed, the right of way that we currently have in general is far to curvy for speeds that we want.
Nearly every plan that comes up, approximately every five years, proposing trains that can slash an hour or two off the current trip times between Boston and New York, is a pipe dream at best. There is no way to produce super fast high speed rail in the Northeast without a $100+ billion dollar price tag. I am absolutely not in favor of throwing billions of dollars at something to try and fix the problem – it’s extremely irresponsible and that money could be better spent on other infrastructure related tasks that have the same bang for buck as high speed rail.
Instead of clamoring for HSR, we should perhaps take the low hanging fruit that lies along the northeast corridor. Instead of increasing the top speed along the line, let’s instead increase the lowest speeds at various points along the Boston NYP section. Additionally, we could start by opening at least three out of four tracks on the metro north railroad instead of the now just one track that remains open, causing massive delays in the headways of the Acela in northeast regional trains. We could also strive for half hourly service along the NEC – this would bring prices down and increase revenue at the same time, especially given that most trains in the northeast are both unaffordable and fully booked.
Instead of clamoring for $100 billion plus high-speed rail perhaps we could instead invest $1 billion in the electrification of the MBTA commuter rail.
Perhaps we can make sure that rolling-stock and trainset replacement happens every 10-20 years instead of every 25-50 years.
Perhaps we can raise the on-time-performance of every Amtrak train in the northeast by making sure that track and catenary maintenance doesn’t run a massive multi-billion dollar backlog.
Let’s fix these things before we recklessly wave our hands at senators to drop billions on high speed rail.
“and fixing car dependent sprawl is a much more important task.” High speed rail helps do this by making it easier and faster to travel from city centers, and facilitating TOD around stations.
“at this point the Acela does, more or less, resemble your average intercity European train.” arguably true but it absolutely does not resemble the average high speed train in Europe or Asia. Acela only reaches 150 MPH for 49.9 miles, The Shinkansen you claim it is comparable to runs at 200 MPH for 241 miles. In Europe the the LGV Est Européen runs at 200 MPH for 252 miles and the LGV Méditerrannée does for 155 miles.
Your point about the US counting 110 MPH as high speeed only emphasizes how off in its own world the US is about this. Those are absolutely not considered high speed rail in most of the world.
“Secondly, which right-of-way do you propose could run 186 mph+ high-speed trains?” You are correct that the current alignment cannot meaningfully support true high speed rail. Proposals that reach that standard focus on creating new routes. There is a reasonably serious proposal to Build a new corridor between New Haven and Providence from the NorthEast Corridor Commission: http://nec-commission.com/connect-nec-2035/
There is another Related proposal that includes that new line as well as a new tunnel to and line on Long Island from North Atlantic Rail (a coalition of unions, non-profits, and universities): https://northatlanticrail.org
“There is no way to produce super fast high speed rail in the Northeast without a $100+ billion dollar price tag” and those proposals openly state that. This is still a worthwhile investment compared to what we pour into highway and aviation infrastructure it could help render redundant.
“could be better spent on other infrastructure related tasks that have the same bang for buck as high speed rail.” High speed rail is capable of taking planes out of the sky. The number of flights between Boston and NYC or DC and NYC etc is completely unsustainable. There is no other project besides high speed rail that can start to ground those planes, so I truly do not know what else has even close to the same bang for the buck.
“Instead of increasing the top speed along the line, let’s instead increase the lowest speeds at various points along the Boston NYP section.” this is already happening, it is good and necessary but will not make enough of a time difference to meaningfully reduce flights like high speed rail would.
“Instead of clamoring for $100 billion plus high-speed rail perhaps we could instead invest $1 billion in the electrification of the MBTA commuter rail.” These sources of funding come from different pots and again countries that fund high speed rail also fund transit. Places like the US that don’t fund it/have it also don’t fund transit well. You can also be tactical about it Germany for example uses high speed rail investments to improve all intercity rail times. Electrification of the MBTA Commuter Rail (especially the providence line) could even be included as a tiny part of a project like this. Japan has done very similar things including even building entire new local lines along high speed right of ways as part of the project: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Shuttle
Why pit these against echaother and not pit both against the $200 billion we spend on roads and highways every single year? Half a years worth of highway funding could pay for a world class high speed rail line. We can and should do all the things you suggest AND build high speed rail.