Secretary LaHood at Detroit Amtrak Depot 2:30 PM today

[ghettopalmetto]

I'm by no means a railroad engineer, but is this $200 million upgrade a stepping stone to a high speed rail line from Detroit to Chicago? Or is it just a little bit of an upgrade? Because if someone tells me that $200 million went to shave off 30 minutes of my commute, I don't see the justification. I'm not saying turn down free money from the government! I'm just saying is this is best use for the rairoad?

I think the more urgent goal is, "Let's at least get a halfway decent rail system up-and-running first, and concern ourselves with 220 mph speeds later." The issue being that funds are limited, our rail system is a shell of its former self, and as we get into the higher realms of speed, the infrastructure investments become massive and are unjustified without significant ridership. As it is, the busiest stations in most states have ridership levels comparable to podunk European towns. I've seen cities of 200,000 people that have 40 trains a day. That's more service than all but a handful of the largest cities in the United States.

True high speed rail may happen in the very distant future that some of these corridors are upgraded to "TGV"-style service [[as in California and eventually, the Northeast). If we do ever embark on true high-speed rail, we will at least have a decent regional system in place to support it. Building 220 mph rail alone would be analogous to a system of Interstate highways without local roads.

For what it's worth, MDOT proposed a $1 billion+ widening of I-75 that its consultants determined would save each driver a whopping one minute if they drove the entire widened stretch. In that context, $200 million to save 30 minutes each way into perpetuity is a bargain.