High speed Detroit-Chicago rail approved

[Novine]

One other data point is the cost for this upgrade compared to other proposed transportation projects. It's costing the state about $1 million per mile to acquire the rail line and the feds will cover the $1.45 million per mile to upgrade the line with improved signals, track improvements, etc. Total cost per mile is around $2.45 million. For comparison, it's projected to cost $175 million per mile to widen I-94 from 6 to 8 lanes in Detroit. The cost to add one lane in each direction on I-75 in Oakland County is projected to cost $37 million a mile. Oakland County states that it costs them up to $1 million dollar per mile to pave a gravel road. For all the hand-wringing there will be about the cost for this project, it gets the state ownership of the busiest passenger rail line in the state and provides upgrades to that line to allow train speeds up to 110 MPH at a cost that's less than 2.5 times per mile what it costs to pave a 2 lane gravel road.

[bailey]

One other data point is the cost for this upgrade compared to other proposed transportation projects. It's costing the state about $1 million per mile to acquire the rail line and the feds will cover the $1.45 million per mile to upgrade the line with improved signals, track improvements, etc. Total cost per mile is around $2.45 million. For comparison, it's projected to cost $175 million per mile to widen I-94 from 6 to 8 lanes in Detroit. The cost to add one lane in each direction on I-75 in Oakland County is projected to cost $37 million a mile. Oakland County states that it costs them up to $1 million dollar per mile to pave a gravel road. For all the hand-wringing there will be about the cost for this project, it gets the state ownership of the busiest passenger rail line in the state and provides upgrades to that line to allow train speeds up to 110 MPH at a cost that's less than 2.5 times per mile what it costs to pave a 2 lane gravel road.

While I get the logic behind your statement and agree with it... the problem is selling that to a local population that spends a few hours EVERY DAY sitting in traffic on I-94/ I75 but only, maybe once every ten years, takes a train anywhere. THAT is the problem. Very few people here see the value [[bargain that it is) in investing ANYTHING in rail. The vast majority demand nice wide roads, and then elect representatives to make that happen.

[ghettopalmetto]

While I get the logic behind your statement and agree with it... the problem is selling that to a local population that spends a few hours EVERY DAY sitting in traffic on I-94/ I75 but only, maybe once every ten years, takes a train anywhere. THAT is the problem. Very few people here see the value [[bargain that it is) in investing ANYTHING in rail. The vast majority demand nice wide roads, and then elect representatives to make that happen.

And over the years, we've sunk TRILLIONS of dollars into highway construction, and we still have such clusterfucks. Your answer is to throw more money at freeways and encourage more driving? Ever hear of Atlanta's "Freeing the Freeways" program in the 1980s?

Ignore the whiners and build the God damned trains so we can catch up with the rest of the developing world. Necessity isn't a democratic process that should be left to the lowest-common-denominator turdbasket to decide.

The rest of you, get passports and go somewhere. The trains in Vietnam are better than Amtrak.

[Eric_c]

The hardest part to swallow is that we built all our great rail lines 150 years ago with private funds. They matured into massive, for-profit transportation companies serving every region in an efficient way and employed hundreds of thousands across the continent - jobs, I might ad that can't be done from India.

We *had* all this sixty years ago and gave it up in exchange for "personal transportation", itself another discussion entirely.

[CAQuail]

For Fiscal Year 2010 here are some facts to add to the discussion. Below is a list of all the cities on the Wolverine route and how many passengers. It should be noted that New Buffalo, Michigan City and Hammond Whiting are the only ones that could even be remotely considered to be in commuting distance to Chicago

City Boardings + Alightings

Albion 1,636
Ann Arbor 140,735
Battle Creek 52,057
Birmingham 22,286
Dearborn 80,502
Detroit 67,971
Dowagiac 3,169
Jackson 28,506
Kalamazoo 113,061
New Buffalo 9,967
Niles 18,488
Pontiac 15,981
Royal Oak 34,306
Michigan City IN, 3.395
Hammond-Whiting 6.638

The five Detroit area stations had a combined total of 221,064 passengers, an average of 605.65 passengers per day. For Dearborn and Detroit that number may include passenger using the connecting bus to the Lake Shore Limited and Capitol Limited at Toledo.

As for the speed issue, the San Joaquin between Oakland and Bakersfield California [[315 miles) has a top speed of 79 MPH, in fiscal 2010 it carried 977,834 passengers. This year it will top 1,000,000 passengers California's experience has been that reliability and frequency are more important then speed. So with 70% of the route capable of 110 running I think we can expect to see ridership continue to grow.

Regards
C.A.Quail

[bailey]

And over the years, we've sunk TRILLIONS of dollars into highway construction, and we still have such clusterfucks. Your answer is to throw more money at freeways and encourage more driving? Ever hear of Atlanta's "Freeing the Freeways" program in the 1980s?

Ignore the whiners and build the God damned trains so we can catch up with the rest of the developing world. Necessity isn't a democratic process that should be left to the lowest-common-denominator turdbasket to decide.

No. that is not my answer. It's what will happen though as the reality of the situation is that catering to the whims of the lowest common denominator turdbasket is precisely what happens in a representative democracy.

But I guess we could lobby some local pillars of the community to work outside the political quagmire and use their vast wealth and influence to get a coherent, forward thinking mass transit and a rail plan together that would serve the metro area. Yeah, some one call Illitch...oh wait.