Stephan: Trump in one of his first actions essentially killed California's plan to develop high speed passenger rail; a remarkably short-sighted and stupid decision. But one consistent with about about 50 years of social policies concerning rail in which we have sacrificed what was once a hall mark of American technology. The unintended consequence of that policy has been to isolate large sections of U.S.
I spent four years living in a Bluebird, a special kind of motor home, making eight, months long, crossings of the U.S.. There are states in the middle of the country where I have driven down virtually every road on the map, and I can tell you that except for long hall truckers there are large stretches of this country where you can drive all day and see only a handful of automobiles, and no passenger trains. When was the last time you, or anyone you know, drove or took a train to Jonesboro, Arkansas?
Trains bring people together, even people relatively proximate to one another to begin with. Here's an example of what I mean. If we are going to rebuild infrastructure -- which I think is at best a 50-50 probability -- we would do well to think about creating social wellbeing and not just profit.
A Somalian woman enters the train at Cedar Riverside, a stop on the Blue Line.
Credit: Mark Peterson/Redux Pictures/Politico Magazine
ST. PAUL, Minn.—When the first light-rail trains set out between Minneapolis and St. Paul, the two cities threw a party 11 miles long. At the ribbon-cutting in downtown St. Paul, politicians proclaimed their hopes that the new Green Line would re-twin the Twin Cities, bridging an old rivalry. At a stop on the University of Minnesota’s campus in Minneapolis, Minnesota Vikings cheerleaders mingled with the crowd, and the university’s Goldy the Gopher mascot posed for photos. And along St. Paul’s University Avenue, at the stations that almost didn’t get built, people of every color joined the party: a Hmong dance troupe in St. Paul’s Little Mekong district and African-immigrant restaurateurs in a tented food-court stop two miles west.
More than 45,000 people rode the Green Line on its first day, June 14, 2014—the first time trains had connected the Twin Cities’ downtowns in more than 60 years. The $957 million project had […]
BS. I was there when they were starting to promote this. The real problem at that time was that there were jobs in the suburbs and jobless people in North Minneapolis and no good way to get the people to the jobs. This was another boondoggle promoted for the benefit of a few people. Not to mention that you could still see the tracks of the abandoned tram system from the early 20th century. The auto industry was convicted of crimes for killing those systems all over the country.
As a transportation engineer in Southern California, I work on a lot of light rail projects. It is interesting to see the same trend in the mid-west, of basically rebuilding track over half century old abandoned corridors. A lot of those old lines were abandoned due to lack of ridership when automobiles were taking off, and in many cases replaced by bus lines. As a graduate student, I am interested in future trends with autonomous vehicles. That being said, Stephan, do you see a day in the near future where autonomous vehicles could make passenger rail disappear as it did in the mid 1900’s? Assuming they could be used by the majority of the population (everything from private ownership of a self driving car to a self driving buses). I appreciate your input, and thanks for continuing to post interesting articles like this one.
Personally I enjoy trains. It saddens me that we invented maglev technology and never saw it manifest in our own country because of the ***holes in charge that have run this country into the ground over my lifetime. Where I live in Colorado a train system proposal called FastTracks was floated on the ballot in 2004. I voted against it because it was borderline financial “train wreck” waiting to happen. The system was supposed to connect areas of Denver, Boulder and Denver International Airport. 13 years later we paid for it, involuntarily on my part, and we now have a few lines in Denver and just recently got a line connected to the airport. No train to Boulder in sight. Maybe scam is too harsh a word but it sure feels like my dollars were taken and not much gain in return. I have to agree with Skhovland that the word boondoggle is applicable in many cases but perhaps not all cases. I don’t see trains fitting in with the decentralization that is occurring and will be occurring in future. Still waiting for the hub and spoke model of the airline industry to disintegrate…where are the solar powered drones already?!