Monday, July 27, 2009

High-Speed Trains in the News Again

In theory we love the idea of high-speed trains. They seem to be a future forward idea that would benefit the region immensely. Today, 8 states and the city of Chicago signed an agreement committing to this idea.

High-speed trains sound very enticing, but this article in the Trib thinks it would be better to spend these billions of dollars on local projects like CTA and Metra repairs. In a perfect world we agree and would love to have billions spent. However, politicians probably like the fact that they're potentially improving the lives of people in 8 state across the Midwest.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Politicians wanting to benefit the lives of their constituents? Bologna. Does anyone really believe this nonsense?

Anonymous said...

I'm not a big fan of this project considering these trains will only operate at 110mph. On a 300 mile trip you'll only be saving roughly an hour and 15 minutes or so versus driving in a car (I'm assuming the car is traveling at 75mph and that the train is nonstop). I feel that if they're going to pour billions into this project, they should model the system after the Shinkansen in Japan. These trains operate at 190mph. I've taken the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Hiroshima and it was amazing.

john said...

I welcome any and all investments in our rail infrastructure however small.