The Transportation and Mass Transit Megathread

[rookzie]

Most of you have sniffed it out by now:

Nashville's real-time bus app coming this year
(Tennessean 6:30 a.m. CDT May 4, 2015)
(http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2015/05/04/nashvilles-real-time-bus-app-coming-year/26779815/)

It's noteworthy that most if not all those in charge and publicly representing the MTA at the time of the real-time app's initial conception are now history.  Of course, "this year" could be meaning late December, but there's solace in at least hearing the status.  Now if they could just stop the use of those tacky (and embarassin') detour signs...

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[Vrtigo]

I somehow ended up having a few beers after work last Friday with the owner of Cummins Station. He indicated his significant interest in mass transit, preserving what transit infrastructure we have left, and even creating a transit-oriented development on the site of the old train shed, should Metro decide that it would like to divest that particular property (and find some resolution to our our whole passenger rail debacle, but that's another story...)

 

It's great to hear that some of our developers are so keenly interested in helping improve our transit infrastructure.

[rookzie]

I've used SLC before on here as an example of a conservative city Nashville's size that has thoroughly embraced public transportation.  Its light rail network, commuter trains, and bus system are remarkable.  However, there are some big differences between SLC and Nashville:

 

• When Brigham Young designed SLC he made the streets extra wide, wide enough for 12 horse carriages.  Now, there's plenty of room to throw down some rail lines in the middle of the streets and still have plenty of room for cars.
• SLC is pretty flat.  It's built in a gigantic valley surrounded by soaring mountains.  But it's still a valley, a pretty flat valley.  SLC doesn't have all the hills and crannies that Nashville has.
• With very few exceptions, SLC's streets are in a perfect grid.  There are very few twisty and curvy roads in the valley.
• SLC is pretty much the only game in the state, meaning the rest of the state doesn't get bent out of shape when state dollars are used to help SLC's public transportation network.
• Downtown SLC is very clean and very prosperous.  There are large department stores in downtown SLC (Nordstrom, Dillard's), movie theaters, grocery stores, thousands of residents, the Utah Jazz, and even wildly popular restaurants like the Cheesecake Factory.  In other words, they've got the leg up on Nashville when it comes to downtown living.

I hope Nashville's city leaders come back with some great ideas, but I also hope that our state legislature sees the wisdom in helping to fund Nashville's transportation needs.

 

Yes, SLC is an extreme, if not nearly ideal setting in urban planning as far back as the days of westward expansion.  It could be a prototype for bread-boarding a miniature layout and diorama on a platform in large garage or basement.

 

It would well serve all high-ranks to check out the Northwest again as well, along with a few ground-up systems in mid-America.  On a lesser note, they also might examine what NOLA did with its expansion of the streetcar circulator to connect the New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal - UPT (Greyhound and Amtrak) to the remainder of the CBD system.  This is merely a circulator (opened in 2013 as the "Loyola-UPT" line) ─ not LRT by any means, but it does provide permanence for locals and visitors alike to navigate they ways to and from the terminal via the rest of the local streetcar network most of which runs along dedicated lanes (except on DT parts of Carondelet St. Saint Charles Ave).

 

I say this because, whether or not Nashville's former Union Station ever will be returned to public ownership and transformed back into a terminal (it could but would be overly expensive), ANYwhere else that might instead be selected as a in intercity facility inevitably will need to be incorporated into the metro regional system as well.  This has occurred in SLC (Central Station), Denver (Union Station), Seattle (King St. station, from nearby Stadium station), St Paul (Union Depot).  As I also have stated at least twice over, Nashville would be better served to have an intermodal passenger interchange facility, for commuter- and light-rail (if such is chosen), to interchange with a common Greyhound and Amtrak unit, just as a number of large and smaller cities which do not have a regional or local rail network: Greensboro, Battle Creek, Spokane, and Champaign.  This is what Nashville should have evaluated long ago, rather than kick the can down the road with Greyhound.

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Edited May 5, 2015 by rookzie

[rookzie]

I somehow ended up having a few beers after work last Friday with the owner of Cummins Station. He indicated his significant interest in mass transit, preserving what transit infrastructure we have left, and even creating a transit-oriented development on the site of the old train shed, should Metro decide that it would like to divest that particular property (and find some resolution to our our whole passenger rail debacle, but that's another story...)

 

It's great to hear that some of our developers are so keenly interested in helping improve our transit infrastructure.

 

I guess Zach Liff (owner), has to be from that same owner of some properties of the former and famous (to "mature" natives) Steiner-Liff Ind., now PSC scrap.  I know they still lease out some of that property.  One of the initial co-investors of Cummins Station, Henry Sender, had those old former Canadien National RR passenger coaches shoved up that track that sits behind the building.  Private leasing for events had been envisioned as a the use of those 4 or 5 cars lined along that track.back when the train shed has still been in place.

 

That track used to allow express-carrying passenger-train cars to be loaded on docks along that track as late as the mid-1960s.  Sender had those retired cars spotted on that track before the Demonbreun St. viaduct had been closed in 2004 for structural deficiency.  Once the bridge had been rebuilt, the one or two cars immediately to the north of the bridge were left permanently stranded on that track, because the new bridge girders are too low to clear the roof of these cars.  It's a shame, because if that entire former train-shed area would ever become transformed into a transportation center, those cars ideally really would need to be removed, rather incorporated into some historic-looking, adult play-pens.  They weigh about 80 tons apiece, so they would have to be hoisted off their berths and lowered to the parking area below (and possibly hauled away on the nearby RR). They could be cut up on-site for scrap, but that likely would end up being more costly than hoisting them down, and laying temporary panel track southward to the rail yard.

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[volsfanwill]

I have envisioned the former train shed to be a two or three floor parking garage on top of an underground light rail station that includes three lines heading south and one under Broadway. With one platform at ground level that serves both music city star trains and amtrak. Also retail facing demonbreun but demonbreun would be level with the top of the garage.

[rookzie]

I have envisioned the former train shed to be a two or three floor parking garage on top of an underground light rail station that includes three lines heading south and one under Broadway. With one platform at ground level that serves both music city star trains and amtrak. Also retail facing demonbreun but demonbreun would be level with the top of the garage.

 

Come wake me up if that happens.  I might have moved to 1428 Elm Hill, depending on vacancies, or to 660 Thompson Ln.  I'll be sure to not miss that.

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[markhollin]

TDOT's 25-year plan policy papers...

http://www.tennessean.com/story/opinion/contributors/2015/05/04/planning-key-tennessee-future/26893219/

http://www.tdot.state.tn.us/transportationplan/

 

[PruneTracy]

Fox 17 covered TDOT's HOV lanes in the Nashville area last night as part of their Waste Watch series.

 

http://www.fox17.com/news/features/waste-local/stories/WASTE-WATCH-Millions-of-Tax-Dollars-Spent-on-HOV-Lanes-125344.shtml

 

Couple of notes on this, keeping in mind both the nature of government and local television news exposés on the real or imagined largesse of the former.

• As alluded by the TDOT representative in the segment, the federal government has various carrots and sticks designed to get DOTs to construct HOV lanes in metropolitan areas. These range from additional funding programs (such as CMAQ) to outright restrictions on adding capacity with federal dollars without including HOV lanes. Without delving into the exact funding details of every widening project in recent memory, it's reasonable to say that constructing the HOV lanes enabled current capacity levels, rather than restricted them. The reporter glossed over or outright ignored this facet of the issue in the segment, framing it as TDOT's folly, rather than a product of federal policy. (Still a waste of money, though.)
• Anecdotally, there exist few areas on freeways in Nashville where police can safely monitor vehicles or pull them over on the inside shoulder, due to width and/or the presence of barriers. For obvious reasons it's highly difficult to do the same on the outside shoulder from the left-most lane in peak period traffic. Thus even if MNPD and THP were inclined to devote resources to enforcing HOV requirements, they would incur a safety risk to do so. That being said, there are several electronic measures available, with varying degrees of reliability, that DOTs can implement to provide enforcement without the need for boots on the pavement.
• The same TDOT report cited in the segment for violation rates notes that HOV rates themselves are not low, but many simply don't use their designated lane because it offers no travel time advantage (due to the SOV in the lane). The report also included a capacity analysis that shows that, in some areas (such as I-24 near Smyrna, as seen in the segment), HOV volume exceeds the capacity of the lanes, such that if full HOV usage and perfect SOV compliance were realized, the performance of the HOV lanes would be degraded such that no travel time benefits would be realized.
• It's also worth noting that TDOT's HOV lanes are designed as continuous-access lanes with no physical barrier. Some other states and municipalities build limited-access lanes, and separate them from general-purpose lanes, with the associated changes in compliance, enforcement, and cost. TDOT is using the wider, 10-10 skip lines and increased frequency of regulatory signs as an educational measure, but they can't physically keep SOVs from using the lanes without a large-scale redesign of the area's freeways.

All said, yes, it's a farce, and a waste of money, though how it came to be is more complicated than a three-minute TV segment could suggest. Also, I miss Michael Turko. He made this stuff entertaining.

[Nathan_in_DC]

HOV lanes are just another example of a, "If you're going to do it, do it right," situation. Half-arsed HOV lane structures don't really do anything useful, except maybe some mild psychological encouragement to carpool. If you really want to have a useful HOV system, it has to be lane divided and access controlled with fastidious enforcement and real fines. If you *really* want to make it effective, do like they're doing in the DC/Baltimore area: build separate express lanes that incur a toll through EZPass unless you're registered as a carpool, which either does away with or reduces the toll (enforced with random photos of vehicles).

Edited May 5, 2015 by Nathan_in_DC

[rookzie]

"HOV lanes are just another example of a, "If you're going to do it, do it right," situation. Half-arsed HOV lane structures don't really do anything.."

 

"Period."  Excuse me, anyone, for totally agreeing with what Nathan_in_DC just passioned out  Of course the governors, their commissioners, and the legislature are all ultimately accountable for this plight.  Always knew from the start of mid-state's HOV's that they would be a joke.  How honestly can Metro and the state expect to be able to enforce multi-occupancy in an open-access pair of inner lanes?  That never even worked in theory, anywhere for long, once the "novelty" wore off.

 

Hell, even parts of super-congested I-64 in Norfolk, Va. had added truly restricted HOV lanes, expanded sometime between 1990-92, and I don't regard that thruway any more advanced than that those in this state.  Restricted might work if with a limited number of access and egress points, to keep the lane channeling manageable (a pair as unidirectional, reversed according to the rush period), and they also work best for longer distances between entry and designated end points, sort of like a tollway (High Occ Toll) with no intermediate entry points, say (as a bad example) on I-24 between Briley Pkwy and Old Hickory Blvd.  With what Tennessee has now, they'd have to remove the center barrier and install short barriers on either side the center pair of lanes, and elevated on- and off-ramps to merge and diverge.  You really can't channel all would-be traffic in Hi-Occ, as the capacity would be exceeded, with feeds from and to every surface interchange.

 

At this point, I figure it's time to up the ante Whole-Hog, on both Hi-Occ and mass-transit, now that a crisis looms.  Perhaps the Feds have a few lessons to be learned for more focused guidelines on design-centric constraints in awarding matching funding for both interstate and transit projects -- initiatives that can be more pragmatically value-added in predictability.

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Edited May 7, 2015 by rookzie

[vinemp]

Japanese bullet train sets new speed record.  Man, I wish we were developing ideas like this in the States.  

https://www.facebook.com/newshour/videos/10153252747383675/?pnref=story

Regardless of political bent, our popular culture is too rigid and, as a rule, our way of knowing valorizes the (limited) benefit of individual effort/individual benefit at the expense of concern for the family/neighborhood/community/city/state/region/country. It isn't a stretch to propose that Americans prefer benefits from taxes and international borrowing to be in solely verbal or military-industrial form, filtered by myopic corporate interests. 

Edited May 5, 2015 by vinemp

[MLBrumby]

I have envisioned the former train shed to be a two or three floor parking garage on top of an underground light rail station that includes three lines heading south and one under Broadway. With one platform at ground level that serves both music city star trains and amtrak. Also retail facing demonbreun but demonbreun would be level with the top of the garage.

 

 

So unfortunate that Nashville cannot utilize (at least) the rails through the gulch and those that go west to Sylvan Park.  I can't help but think that if Nashville had a worthy representative in the US Congress, there would be some discussions on that happening.  Safe to assume with Jim Cooper, it will never happen. 

 

I posted on the Chattanooga thread a link to the latest on the city moving forward on their light rail utilizing existing tracks from the Southside to the east-northeast out to the VW plant.  

Edited May 5, 2015 by MLBrumby

[Bezoar]

So unfortunate that Nashville cannot utilize (at least) the rails through the gulch and those that go west to Sylvan Park.  I can't help but think that if Nashville had a worthy representative in the US Congress, there would be some discussions on that happening.  Safe to assume with Jim Cooper, it will never happen. 

 

I posted on the Chattanooga thread a link to the latest on the city moving forward on their light rail utilizing existing tracks from the Southside to the east-northeast out to the VW plant.  

 

CSX is a sh***y corporate citizen.  

[PruneTracy]

Half-arsed HOV lane structures don't really do anything useful, except maybe some mild psychological encouragement to carpool.

 

Technically, that's not entirely accurate. If you were trying to secure funding for Interstate widening projects while minimizing your 10% match for facilities you don't want to build, then the bare minimum is the way to go.

 

In fact, were it not for their latest efforts to beef up the signage and pavement markings, I would have said that was TDOT's plan all along, to give HOV lanes the ol' college try just to get the feds to write them a check for the projects they really wanted.

 

But yes, as both a taxpayer and an aficionado of efficiency I'd much rather they use the funds to build a facility that achieves its goal rather than starting out with some token effort then throwing good money after bad for perpetuity.

 

If you really want to have a useful HOV system, it has to be lane divided and access controlled with fastidious enforcement and real fines. If you *really* want to make it effective, do like they're doing in the DC/Baltimore area: build separate express lanes that incur a toll through EZPass unless you're registered as a carpool, which either does away with or reduces the toll (enforced with random photos of vehicles).

 

Adding to that, I'd make the lanes reversible (according to peak period directional flow) and variable-tolled to regulate demand such that the lanes remain free-flow at all times. If you're going to have a segregated facility, you may as well make it reversible to maximize capacity for your laneage. With variable tolls, the owning agency can keep the facilty moving even when congestion is heavy on the general-purpose lanes, and provide discounts for HOVs, ILEVs, or transit vehicles. The segregated facilty can also be used as a detour for GP traffic during construction or maintenance activities, maximizing safety and minimizing traffic control. And the tolls would pay for the upkeep and upgrading of the whole facility, managed and GP alike.

[Nathan_in_DC]

So it looks like Virginia Beach just approved $20 million in next year's budget for expansion of the Tide light rail from the city line with Norfolk to the Town Center development.

Honestly I thought that program was dead, but it gives me hope that eventually Nashville will be able to pull something out of its butt. If a city as sprawling and dysfunctional as Virginia Beach can do it, surely Nashville can.

[Hey_Hey]

The HOVs may come in handy when it comes to needing space for mass transit.  Those lanes could be used for BRT or light rail, and it will be a little more palatable to take an HOV lane instead of a regular lane of traffic. 

[rookzie]

The HOVs may come in handy when it comes to needing space for mass transit.  Those lanes could be used for BRT or light rail, and it will be a little more palatable to take an HOV lane instead of a regular lane of traffic. 

 

So far that seems to work with effectiveness as bus-only on shoulder lanes, rather than on any existing center lanes.  Pace Suburban Bus Co. of Chicago has been doing this on I-55 (Stevenson Expressway) since 2011, and IDOT seems to have take a liking to it, such that it has allowed the OK for future expansion along designated portions of I-90 and I-94.

Combined with bus-only shoulders, "Ramp Metering By-pass Lanes" enable buses to by-pass waiting standing or crawling traffic.  Determined by the density of motor traffic existing on a stretch of roadway at a given point in time, ramp metering employs traffic signals to control the flow of traffic onto expressways.  This, further integrated with queue-jump lanes for buses only, allows buses to proceed ahead of other traffic as the buses use ramps to enter expressways. As cars await for a green signal to enter the expressway, buses use the queue-jump lane to by-pass this waiting traffic.

-==-

[rookzie]

So it looks like Virginia Beach just approved $20 million in next year's budget for expansion of the Tide light rail from the city line with Norfolk to the Town Center development.

Honestly I thought that program was dead, but it gives me hope that eventually Nashville will be able to pull something out of its butt. If a city as sprawling and dysfunctional as Virginia Beach can do it, surely Nashville can.

 

Thanks.  Even though I'll probably never see that area again, I spent so much time in SE Va. (and that state as a whole), that I can't help maintaining at least minimal interest in their status, especially after having worked those former freight rails back in the '80s.

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[PruneTracy]

So far that seems to work with effectiveness as bus-only on shoulder lanes, rather than on any existing center lanes.  Pace Suburban Bus Co. of Chicago has been doing this on I-55 (Stevenson Expressway) since 2011, and IDOT seems to have take a liking to it, such that it has allowed the OK for future expansion along designated portions of I-90 and I-94.

 

The problem with BOSS around here is that TDOT, among a significant but shrinking number of states, specify a thinner pavement depth on shoulders than for travel lanes. (This is why you'll typically see contractors having to repave shoulders before shifting traffic onto them during construction work.) Granted, buses are much lighter than trucks, but BOSS would definitely shorten the pavement lifespan of the shoulders.

[rookzie]

That no doubt is the case with shoulder construction stability.  The existing center HOV setup as we know it in TN, though, is a terrible joke, since at best it is unmanaged and passive in operational design, and therefore has a high rate of user non-compliance.

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Edited May 6, 2015 by rookzie

[Nathan_in_DC]

I keep a passing interest in it because of the fact that I'll probably end up there again in the next few years. I may, or may not, have even been compelled to post in the comments on the story on the Pilot Online... http://hamptonroads.com/2015/05/va-beach-city-council-reaches-budget-compromise#_ga=1.150120319.830736181.1418033513

[rookzie]

 

Japanese bullet train sets new speed record.  Man, I wish we were developing ideas like this in the States.  

https://www.facebook.com/newshour/videos/10153252747383675/?pnref=story

 

 

Regardless of political bent, our popular culture is too rigid and, as a rule, our way of knowing valorizes the (limited) benefit of individual effort/individual benefit at the expense of concern for the family/neighborhood/community/city/state/region/country. It isn't a stretch to propose that Americans prefer benefits from taxes and international borrowing to be in solely verbal or military-industrial form, filtered by myopic corporate interests. 

 

Our being a basic democracy of capitalism, on a large, expansive geographic area without having a nationalized rail network as those of developed nations of much smaller boundaries, is what makes it highly unlikely (if even remotely possible) that in foreseeable future(s) the U.S would muster to develop any network of ultra-high-speed rail (UHSR).  At best a single UHSR line or two might be constructed beyond the prototype stage, but even that would be at least a full human generation away politically.  The fact that the U.S. lies on a separate continent, not contiguous to regions as China, Japan, France, Germany, and Spain, also eliminates a factor of inducement to build even a single sub-system as such.

 

UHSR and true high-speed rail (HSR) both would require entirely new RoW, as even true HSR needs to be isolated from all freight-carrier ops.  Except in a few instances (such as the state of N.C.), freight carriers own all the US interchange trackage.  Our current, skimpy (compared to the 1950s) intercity passenger rail network, assembled as "Amtrak" in 1971, pays to utilize the tracks on which its trains run, the primary exception being the Boston-DC Northeast Corridor (NEC), owned by Amtrak (eventually acquired by sale from the Fed Govt. of former bankrupt lines), and on which freights are permitted only along certain segments,

 

The very best that can be hoped for would be true standard HSR, which approaches the practical limits of steel-wheel-on-rail technology, and even that faces almost purely precipitously steep contention politically on all levels of govt., save in very rare cases.  External to the electrified NEC (and an electrified segment to Harrisburg, Pa.), currently the states of IL, MI, NC, and FL have enjoined the FRA, and Amtrak to fund certain segments of "upgraded" HSR along shared rail segments.  Texas, and Ohio have long entertained connecting their metro areas with HSR, for nearly 30 years but to no avail.  Political will and lack of density remain stalwart against any wholesale upgrades.  The Interstates and the airlines will remain king and queen in this nation.

 

REF:

Why can't America have high-speed trains?

Source: CNN - 17:26 PM, May 03, 2015

"Michael Smart is an assistant professor of transportation planning at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University. The views expressed are his own."

(CNN)Imagine being able to travel from New York to Los Angeles without having to step on a plane, yet be able to do so in a fraction of the time it would take to drive. On the surface, that tantalizing prospect took a step closer with the news last month that a Japanese maglev train had reached a top speed of close to 400 mph, breaking its own world record in the process.

And the sight of futuristic looking trains whizzing past platforms at hundreds of miles per hour isn't confined to Japan: China, France and Spain, to name a few, have their own high-speed rail networks. Indeed, while these bullet trains may look futuristic, they have been around for decades; they're a tried and tested technology that the Japanese debuted over 50 years ago.

So surely it's only a matter of time before large numbers of U.S. passengers are doing a daily commute to New York from Washington and Boston in about the time it would take them to drive to work in their own cities, right?

Not anytime soon.

While several countries have undertaken the tough work of raising the money to invest in bullet trains, it's unlikely the United States will ever see the vast network of high-speed trains that blanket other countries. Indeed, passenger rail service in the United States lags behind much of the rest of the developed world, for several reasons.

For a start, much of the United States is not exactly an ideal market for high-speed rail. Compared to places where rail really flourishes -- Japan and Western Europe, for instance -- the United States is geographically vast. As a result, in much of the country, cities are far enough apart that air travel provides significant time savings, even compared to some of the fastest trains.

The layout of cities matters, too. When you arrive in Tokyo, Paris or Barcelona, it's often convenient (and even pleasant) to walk to your final destination. When it's not, a fast and frequent mass transportation system awaits to whisk you away. This is not the case in many American cities, where arriving by train typically means jumping into a cab or renting a car for the last leg of your journey. Simply put, in many sprawling U.S. cities, getting to your destination by train can still mean you've got quite a way yet to get home. We could change that. And we probably should. But we're not there yet.

Still, there are several parts of the United States where high-speed rail makes a great deal of sense.

The Northeast Corridor (Boston-New York-Washington) comes in at the top of just about every list of potential candidates for high-speed rail, with the distances involved being considered within the "Goldilocks" zone for fast trains. For example, at just over 200 miles from New York to both Boston and Washington, fast trains could compete with even faster airplanes by offering centrally located stations and providing an alternative to the hassle of airport security lines. These cities are dense, have strong downtowns, and extensive mass transit systems once you arrive.

Just as importantly, rail on the Northeast Corridor can also compete with driving, mainly because traffic congestion makes driving in the region so slow and unreliable, while tolls and parking costs can make it an expensive and time-consuming option. Rail in the northeast even has a great track record; after Amtrak's almost-high-speed Acela service began on the Northeast Corridor in 2000, ridership exploded, quickly outstripping air travel between New York and Washington.

However, the biggest barrier to improved rail service in the United States is simply the lack of political will. At the federal level, support for passenger rail service has languished and Washington has devolved decision-making (and increasingly, funding) to the states. With the nation's transportation trust fund nearly broke and no permanent solution in sight, it seems unlikely the federal government will champion high-speed rail -- a costly endeavor -- in the near future.

Without leadership from the federal government, the states are largely in control. Yet many of the most promising corridors for high-speed rail cross state lines, making it difficult to plan for better rail service. In 2009, the Obama administration awarded nearly a billion dollars of stimulus money to plan and upgrade a high-speed rail line connecting Chicago to Milwaukee and Madison. A year later, Scott Walker, the newly elected governor of Wisconsin, rejected his state's portion of the money and the project was, for the time being, at least, derailed. (The money quickly found its way to a grateful California for its high-speed rail line.)

Still, all is not lost for those hoping to see high-speed rail in the United States.

California is committed to building its high-speed rail link between San Francisco and Los Angeles, paying for the line largely with state money raised by a new cap-and-trade market on carbon emissions. Several privately funded projects are also in the planning stages. For instance, a Dallas-to-Houston line promises 205 mph service in 2021 without a single dollar from the taxpayer. Meanwhile, another private company has already begun construction on a Miami-to-Orlando line with a more modest speed of 125 mph, with service expected to begin in 2017.

All this points to how high-speed rail will likely progress in the United States: piecemeal. It is doubtful that we will have a nationwide system of fast trains soon. And this is not necessarily a bad thing; through a combination of private and public action, we should target markets where high-speed rail makes sense. That means looking for shorter corridors connecting dense places with existing mass transit infrastructure.

High-speed rail won't be cheap, so we'll have to choose wisely. Some of the most promising corridors are also the most expensive; Amtrak estimates upgrading the Northeast Corridor to true high-speed rail would cost upward of $150 billion. Such an undertaking requires careful consideration of the economic, environmental and other costs and benefits of individual projects. But more importantly, it requires the kind of long-term planning that seems to have become vanishingly rare.

Thankfully, high-speed rail doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing approach. And while given the choice I would rather be riding Japan's speeding bullet trains, even the incremental improvements we've seen in services like Amtrak's Acela can make rail travel a lot more appealing for the hundreds of thousands of passengers who rely on it every year.

 

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Edited May 8, 2015 by rookzie

[rookzie]

I would have posted this in the Trans thread, but since I followed Markhollin's post with another on high speed rail, I put this as a follow-up.

 

At least one other reason that the U.S. will have a hard time in settling for upgraded form of high speed rail (more accurately referred to as “higher-speed rail”) in most reaches of the country (urban or rural).  Level crossings are an Achilles heel of any train with appreciable speed.  The passenger train in the video (Amtrak’s Wolverine Service from Pontiac to Chicago) had been traveling only about 70 mph, far below the bare-minimum 110 mph designation for Higher Speed Rail  - HrSR (typically operating below the U.S. designation of HSR of 150+).  Beyond mere track and signal upgrades, level/grade crossings will have to be all but removed, as signals and gates alone have not eliminated the catastrophic results of collisions at such crossings, and at best they only can be designed to reduce the number of incidents.  With today’s lighter rail equipment, loaded trucks pose a significantly greater probability of derailments upon impact, than that with older or heavy freight locomotives (or old steam units of the past, where heft was the rule before light-weight alloys) at the head end (a scenario which simply renders the stability of HSR nearly impossible without substantial capital funding (and political will) to enable closing and separation of grade.

The train shown in the video was westbound, summer 2009, running along a rather extended straight stretch of non-upgraded track alongside Hywy US-12  in Canton Township, MI, between Dearborn and Ypsilanti, before it eventually would accelerate to 79, and after four stops later reaching 110mph between Kalamazoo and Port, IN.  Imagine the spectacle of a collision at that speed.  Even the low speed of 70 is nothing to sneeze at, in any collision.

 

 

http://vid722.photobucket.com/albums/ww230/rixstuh/Amtrak%20train%20-%20car%20collision%20footage%20-%20cab%20view%20read%20description%20Low_zpsl9xlgmyr.mp4

 

Five teenagers died in the crash shown, as a lowered gate had not been sufficient to deter a run-around.  Even full-length gates and center barriers wouldn’t stop any one from crashing through wooden of fiberglass gate arms.  This is another reason that with true HSR, grade-crossing elimination is almost a must.  To stop safely for the yet uninformed (or unsuspecting) passengers on that typically full train, the engineer places the train into an abrupt deceleration by applying a combination of the main air brake with the dynamic or "regenerative" loco brake (recognized by the whining sound), to minimize damage due to slid-flat wheels and to maintain safety of standing and seated passengers.  As tragic as that incident was, it could have been even worse, had the crumpled wreckage snagged some rail switch points and the least compressible wreckage (the car's engine and driveline) got caught beneath the locomotive.  instead it impacted and remained attached to the protruding foremost coupler.  That's the I-275 overpass in the distance.  Neither true or upgraded HSR can work well with a bunch of successive grade crossings, or any grade crossings w/r/t that matter, without a predictable incident.

 

But that's so expensive that a trade-off likely would be the case. Michigan (MDOT) reached an agreement to purchase the track east of Kalamazoo to Detroit, including the site of that horrific collision, and it is working with Amtrak and the FRA to upgrade that segment as well to 110.  This likely will be the max-out of HrSR in that entire stretch.
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Edited May 9, 2015 by rookzie

[smeagolsfree]

So much posted on this thread and I am not sure if the below link has ever been posted. This document deals with bridge enhancements and there is actually a rendering of a interstate cap.

http://www.nashvillempo.org/docs/MovingTNFoward/enhancing_bridges.pdf

[volsfanwill]

Ron, great find. who ever made this needs to join us at a meet. 

i like how every time RR tracks were in a picture there was a passenger train on them.