^^well yes that would be cheaper, but it makes transfers/ through service very inconvenient. Plus part of the point is to make living downtown more attractive. I wouldn't be all that enthused to take the hour long Metrolink ride to Mid America/Edwardsville to take the HSR train to Indy/CHI.
But you're right this may be the only way to get the ball rolling. The estimate was $12B for STL-CHI and that was to East STL. A new Miss. River HSR Bridge will be expensive.
So the train station I used every day in Seoul was Noryangjin station, which is on line 1 and has three passenger platforms and several tracks without platforms. Frieght trains and passenger trains breezed right through the station while I waited for the my subway train (technically commuter rail). KTX (that crazy system that is going to hit 400 km/hr soon) always shot right through the station while I was waiting. It wasn't particularly loud, and it was gone before I even knew it was there.
I'm concerned that frieght and Amtrak lines in St. Louis tend to cut up neighborhoods instead of connecting them. If we're running a bullet train between downtown and Kirkwood, we really ought to have light rail or commuter rail running right next to it in the same corridor. The added stations along the way, probably with long pedestrian bridges over the tracks, could reduce the great Ellendale divide.
I took KTX between Seoul and Busan many times. It is as was suggested above. I got off work, hopped on the train to Seoul or Yongsan Station, and I caught the Busan subway a couple hours later. The distance between Seoul and Busan is comparable to the distance between St. Louis and Chicago, KC, Indianapolis, Louisville, Nashville, Memphis, Little Rock, Des Moines, or the Quad Cities. Tulsa is a bit farther, Springfield is a bit closer. It's great to know that KTX in Seoul follows subway line 1 because it means the gaps between can be reached by a slower train and that those important stations can be reached by commuters between them.
When I wanted to get from my apartment to the city of Asan, I could have taken the subway from my house for two hours south, or I could do as I did. I went one stop north, hopped on the KTX to Cheonan in under twenty minutes, and then took the subway one stop from there. Cheonan might be analagous to Washington, MO for the sake of comparison.
My idea of peripheral stations is to get the ball rolling only... The obvious preferred alignment is to go straight to downtown. The second best option is to run downtown on non-dedicated ROW. Our RR industry (and federal regulations) for 150 years has been designed from a freight rail point of view. FRA doesn't even really know how to deal with or regulate passenger systems effectively. Passenger rail was always secondary or tertiary. In the states (not south korea) the only way I know to get around FRA regulation is a "separate" system - AKA one that doesn't share track with other FRA compliant vehicles and one that doesn't have road crossings. Doing this inside urbanized areas is very expensive and prone to NIMBYism. Transit friendly people generally want both HSR in St. Louis AND we for Metrolink to expand - this could be a good plan to accommodated both proposals. Any future metrolink expansions should have this in mind: allow extra room for future tracks which could be utilized by HSR, commuter Rail or even express Metrolink trains within Metrolink ROW - such that the track or stations don't have to be rebuild upon implementation - minimizing future costs (electric catenaries and ROW would already be in place). The two existing lines are screwed in that sense - hopefully they (those in charge of thee money) show some more forethought in the future. In the end the goal isn't revitalized downtowns but effective transportation for the most people as efficiently as possible. A prosperous downtown is a benefit but shouldn't be a goal. I think my satellite station idea gives the most bang for the buck for an already outrageously expensive system.
^I think we agree to some extent. Benefiting downtown should not be our only goal. Most of the time when I take the train to Chicago, the airport is my real destination. The hour I lose transferring in the loop and commuting to O'Hare would be nice to cut off. If we had HSR from the west terminate at Lambert and HSR from the east terminate at MidAmerica, then we'd have a reason to invest in an airport to airport express train with a stop downtown (think Shanghai's airport maglev)
Having lived in cities with and without airport express trains, I gotta say they're nice to have. Express lines between airports if done right can be super nice. Better than shuttle buses... Again using Seoul as an example. KTX terminates at Seoul station, then there's an express train to Gimpo airport that continues on to Incheon airport. You could leave Busan and get to Incheon airport in three and a half hours.
I'd much rather have one good express train cut through downtown to connect me to two suburban inter-modal hubs than have twenty lines cut through downtown and make the place unwalkable and exploding with debt from expensive infrastructure projects.
Barcelona has something kind of like this. They have eastern and western train stations with subway in between (no express). The railyards are messy and huge and are thankfully not in the middle of the city.
Lambert, MidAmerica, and Spirit of St. Louis can handle sprawling train facilities and benefit from the synergy. Downtown only has so much room unless we're putting trains under Market Street and the gateway mall, or maybe passing them through the arch... I'd much rather have awesome facilities in the suburbs and a nice train downtown than see more bridges and air rights battles eat up our political capital and public resources.
quincunx wrote:excellent post. MODOT's top priority is rebuilding I-70 from ex-urban St. Louis to ex-urban KC with truck-only lanes at a cost exceeding $3.5 billion. Now that is amazing lunacy!
And that is exactly what Kinder spoke of should be done instead of HSR on the 97.1 interview.
He hinted that if he were elected governor he would turn down the funds like the newly elected Govs of Wisconsin and Ohio did.
So if that's what you want, by all means feel free to vote for Mr. Kinder if he runs for Gov. as expected.
I was on Kinder's side when it came to the Tour of MO--but getting the Tour back at the expense of HSR is about the worst tradeoff I can imagine.
quincunx wrote:excellent post. MODOT's top priority is rebuilding I-70 from ex-urban St. Louis to ex-urban KC with truck-only lanes at a cost exceeding $3.5 billion. Now that is amazing lunacy!
And that is exactly what Kinder spoke of should be done instead of HSR on the 97.1 interview.
He hinted that if he were elected governor he would turn down the funds like the newly elected Govs of Wisconsin and Ohio did.
So if that's what you want, by all means feel free to vote for Mr. Kinder if he runs for Gov. as expected.
I was on Kinder's side when it came to the Tour of MO--but getting the Tour back at the expense of HSR is about the worst tradeoff I can imagine.
Dredger wrote:Certainly can understand the arguments or response but the context of why you need to spend that much for such intial little gain is lost or very poorly explained. HSR in the US is essentially at its infancy stage. The reality is their going to be a high front end cost to secure the ROW and rebuild infrastructure in and around any rail improvements, from closing down road crossings, building seperation and upgrading a whole host of items.
I'm not sure this is the case. To my knowledge, the infrastructure would have to be wholly revamped for it to be truly HSR. Attaining HSR speeds would require the "to be" routes to change again. In effect, they're spending tons of money for incremental improvements. Pure pork, but whatevs.
Dredger wrote:Certainly can understand the arguments or response but the context of why you need to spend that much for such intial little gain is lost or very poorly explained. HSR in the US is essentially at its infancy stage. The reality is their going to be a high front end cost to secure the ROW and rebuild infrastructure in and around any rail improvements, from closing down road crossings, building seperation and upgrading a whole host of items.
I'm not sure this is the case. To my knowledge, the infrastructure would have to be wholly revamped for it to be truly HSR. Attaining HSR speeds would require the "to be" routes to change again. In effect, they're spending tons of money for incremental improvements. Pure pork, but whatevs.
Why don't they make one "express train" that runs a day that only makes 3 or 4 stops to speed things up? That might get the STL to Chi communte down to 4 hours.
In IDOT's application on a fully doubled tracked STL-CHI route there would be 9 trains a day; four of which would be express. This would save 21 mins. CHI-Joliet-Normal-SPI-ALN-STL
I could only dream that you find stories like this in mainstream media or even fox news let alone it happening in the good ol US. To think that we are on track to drop below 2% of GDP in infrastructure spending versus the plus 6% when the interstate system was built and we leap frogged past the world to become the largest economy bar none.
China plans $106 billion in rail investments this year
Published: January 6, 2011
BEIJING — The Chinese government has announced it’ll spend $106 billion on new railroad lines this year, the state-owned People’s Daily has reported. The country is in the midst of an aggressive push to expand its ability to move people and good by rail, particularly high speed passenger routes.
Among China’s big plans for the year will be the opening of a $33 billion high speed link between Beijing and Shanghai, slated for June.
China opened its first high speed line in 2008, and now operates the world’s biggest network at nearly 4,700 miles. The country plans to nearly double that by 2012.
In Missouri’s case, it is unlikely that
Amtrak could ever achieve satisfactory
service between Kansas City and Saint
Louis on the existing rail line between the
two cities, much less high-speed service.
With respect to high-speed services, it is
almost mandatory that they have double
tracks and no-grade crossings. However, it
would be relatively easy and inexpensive
to make provision for this within the overall
transportation infrastructural provision for
the new urban corridor backbone north of
the existing I-70.
Obama had no problem talking HSR when it came to the State of the Union speech and rebuilding America, I believe he referenced tracks everytime he mention pavement. I thought it was a good point on his end.
On my end, the discussion will be the fact that he talked about planes, trains and automobile but didn't have anything to say about boats when it came to infrastructure. Especially when talking exports and the fact that Savannah, Charleston, and a number of ports not to mention the inland waterways have either been trying to deepen their ports to accomondate bigger containerships going through an expanded Panama Canal or get locks and dams rebuilt. Charleston Mayor personally pitched his port project a few days ago to the President.
How large of an ocean going vessel can make it all the way up to St. Louis on the river? We obviously have large pleasure boats making the giant loop through the great lakes and intercoastal waterway and down the river, but those large pleasurecraft have to use locks. Since a boat only going to St. Louis wouldn't need to use a lock, it could be larger. In other words, can cargo go from China directly to St. Louis up the Mississippi without cargo transfer?
gary kreie wrote:How large of an ocean going vessel can make it all the way up to St. Louis on the river? We obviously have large pleasure boats making the giant loop through the great lakes and intercoastal waterway and down the river, but those large pleasurecraft have to use locks. Since a boat only going to St. Louis wouldn't need to use a lock, it could be larger. In other words, can cargo go from China directly to St. Louis up the Mississippi without cargo transfer?
No. They can only go as far as New Orleans, as far as I know.
Didnn't phrase my comments very well, trying to highlight two items that are very big in the shipping world via water. Just as transit/rail advocates want HSR, ports and shippers want the following infrastructure investments.
1) First, Every major coastal port on the Gulf and East Coast wants to go to 50' channel depth to accomondate the larger size containerships that will be able to go through the expanded Panama Canal (LA/Long Beach already going 55 to 60' depth and started to build the next generation container facilities to accomondate even larger ships as a hedge against the competition). Railroad have piggybacked on this and have been investing in such freight/rail corridors as the Heartland Express (NS) and Crescent Corridor (CSX).
2) Second, The Inland waterway ports want to see aging lock and dams replaced by larger locks to accomondate 1000' tows in one shot. St. Louis is fortunate in the fact that tows can go to unhindered to the gulf coast or vice versa without having to go through a lock. An advantage that is exploited.
As far as shipping on Mississippi, deep draft channel goes up to Baton Rouge, another sixty miles or so up the river from New Orleans. From there its all tugs and barges.
gary kreie wrote:How large of an ocean going vessel can make it all the way up to St. Louis on the river? We obviously have large pleasure boats making the giant loop through the great lakes and intercoastal waterway and down the river, but those large pleasurecraft have to use locks. Since a boat only going to St. Louis wouldn't need to use a lock, it could be larger. In other words, can cargo go from China directly to St. Louis up the Mississippi without cargo transfer?
No. They can only go as far as New Orleans, as far as I know.
Actually Baton Rouge is the farthest upriver the really big ships can go from what I understand.
Apparently when they were building a bridge over the Mississippi in the 30's Gov. Huey Long made sure it was built low enough that the really big ships couldn't go through--thus ensuring that Louisiana would get all the shipping business.
Nice little article for a change as NC makes a push to secure its HSR grants considering the Wisconsin, Ohio and now talk of Iowa killing their grants.
Their is also a nice article about Congressman MICA talking about his support for NEC and HSR and makes some good arguments in his support to go forward without Amtrak leading train to speak.
Federal Money at Risk, N.C. Pushes Rail Upgrade
01/26/2011
The Cary News
Text size: AABy Bruce Siceloff, The Cary News, N.C.
Jan. 26--State transportation officials spent a few days in Washington this month trying to get their hands on more than $500 million in stimulus funds that the Obama administration pledged a year ago -- but has not yet paid out -- for a big railroad upgrade between Charlotte and Raleigh.
North Carolina is in a hurry to secure the money before it is snatched back by new Republican leaders in the House of Representatives, who are looking for opportunities to curtail a few billion dollars in high-speed rail spending.
^ Dude, if it makes fiscal sense and promotes business, then you can expect quite a lot of GOPers backing it.
From all I've heard (and I've heard a lot), the comprehensive HSR plans have been supported by key members of both sides of the aisle throughout, caveated that the support comes if and only if we can afford it as a country.
They are anti-urban and high speed rail between cities is not something they will ever back.
Even Peter Kinder, who some seem to think is more pro-St. Louis because he likes bikes, went on 97.1 FM (tea party radio) and claimed high speed rail was a waste and he would push for more highway funds.
Disclaimer: I voted for Kinder in 2008 and considered voting for him for Gov. in 2012 until I heard that. If a Danforth style Republican challenged Nixon I would definitely cross party lines to vote for him or her--but with the TP in charge I think aerodynamic bacon will be more likely!
