McCaskill, Durbin push for rail linking Chicago and St. Louis
Next stop — Chicago?
ST. LOUIS — As the region struggles with cutbacks in local transit routes, could a long-distance option be on the table?
The Associated Press reports today that Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin and Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill are meeting privately today in St. Louis with Amtrak chief Joe Boardman and other transportation officials.
The reason?
Using stimulus money to build a high-speed rail line between St. Louis and Chicago.
According to the AP, the money would come from $8 billion in recovery money set aside for roads, bridges and transit.
The idea of providing a high-speed accessible link between the two cities has long been a pipe dream — but, if it were to become a reality, the train could certainly provide a lasting legacy for the White House’s stimulus spending.
If nothing else, it would be a hit when the Cards and Cubs play each other.
This is just another “pork” project funded by stolen money.
A MidWest high speed passenger rail corridor would go a long way to encourage economic development, not just in the building of it, but in allowing people to commute.
Such a corridor might go from Chicago to St Louis to Kansas City to Springfield MO - to Spriengfield IL. Not necessarily in that order, but in a fashion that allows for the maximum of daily traffic. It would also go a long way toward reducing tailpipe emissions.
Sadly, it will probably remain a “pipe” dream.
Aren’t public works projects great? It’s just like the New Deal all over again, only more useless.
Doesn’t Amtrac already run a couple trains a day on that route that they can’t fill up?
MONORAIL!
amtrak runs 5 trains a day that they can fill up. there are lots of people that go back and forth from chicago to st louis every day. this gives one more option.
so, there are 5 trains, 3 megabus trips, 10 flights on AA, 11 flights on united, 10 flights on southwest, that’s 39 options that will get you to chicago. with that many, there must be some sort of demand for travel between the two cities. but, again, this is rail. and i have to say this again and again that it is not profitable. not even the fancy systems in europe or asia are money makers. is it still worth doing? you bet. there will be people that prefer to take a plane because of the speed, and there will be people that prefer to take their car for the freedom to do what they want. but there are people that will take a train so they arrive in the city, no getting to and from the airport and you can get some business or reading or whatever you want along the way.
It’s long been a pipe dream because people knew it wouldn’t work. Plus, I thought the legacy of the stimulus spending was to put people to work, not white elephants such as this.
One of the current drawbacks to rail from KC to St. Louis and St. Louis to Chicago is the time. You can drive faster than rail depending on the schedules of the other trains on the track. High speed trains would make the trip much more attractive.
A trip to Chicago on Amtrak takes 5 1/2 hours. Then, if you aren’t sticking to downtown Chicago, you’ll spend another hour getting to your final destination. If you catch a good fare, you can do it for $46.
Met Square to Michigan Avenue is 300 miles. That’s about 5 hours each way, and 20 gallons of gas. So in fact, Amtrak is cost competitive on this route, and pretty comparable in time, IF only one person is traveling and you are going downtown to downtown with no requirement for a car. Those are some pretty big ifs, but I must admit to being surprised at discovering this.
HOWEVER … building a brand new express train, running on its own separate rail, will have to be way more expensive than this, no matter how high the subsidy. And sooner or later, people are going to have to stop pretending that subsidies are free. When you buy a $2 Metro ticket and your ride is subsidized by $6 in tax money, that $6 didn’t just drop out of the sky.
Check your train schedule several trains go back n forth St louis to Chicago every day. What we need is metro link St louis to O’ Fallon at rush hour
Great idea!!
Spend billions on a rail system that will continue losing money in operation and only about a trillion paying riders would be needed to break even.
Brilliant!!!!