Quote:
Originally Posted by The_Jazz
Honestly, St. Louis and Detroit are places that I go to fairly regularly, and I'd be very inclined to try high-speed rail. The flight times are relatively short for both - about 50 minutes each - but the associated hassles would probably make me change my mind. They're saying that Detroit and St. Louis would each be about 3 hours away by rail (Detroit a little less, St. Louis a little more), which translates into about an extra half hour for me once you factor in the extra drive time to O'Hare from my place, having to be at the airport an hour before my flight, the waiting on the tarmac before and after the actual flight and then waiting for the cattle in front of me to get their damn bags out of the overhead and remember that walking is alternating the left and right foot and no other combination. Add in the fact that I can make calls and send emails during the trip, possibly while having my phone and/or laptop plugged in, and it seems like a very good option.
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It makes sense to me to have a Chicago based HSR, or NYC based HSR. Trips over 300-400 miles makes flying more sensible (unless you're riding the train for vacation, but then most people wanting to take the train as a vacation would rather take a slow train).
I visit DC for fun every so often to see family. If there was a high-speed rail to NYC or Boston. I would probably use it every other time I went to visit them.
Even on the Front Range of Colorado, if there was even a commuter train that went 90 mph that spanned from Fort Collins to Denver and from Denver to Colorado Springs and maybe Pueblo. That would alleviate tons of bottlenecks on those interstates and relieve commuters stress. The ski resorts in Colorado are currently trying to work with Union Pacific to get them to update and lease their tracks for commuter trains from Denver to the ski resorts. If you've ever been on I-70 on any winter ski weekend you know exactly why this sort of thing is a good idea. A cross country high speed rail system is unrealistic, but if regional commuter rail systems were updated, and I was able to ride from San Diego to NYC using it at some point in my life I would just for nostalgia purposes.