$2 Billion to go 20mph faster than before? I mean, progress is progress but honestly this is pathetic.
It's also only 297miles and 4.5 hours via car.
Not gonna get people to take the train if, even with this ($2B) speed increase, it still is losing to a car.
If the train makes that trip in three hours, you'll get converts.
Yeah I'd really hope that the upgrades pave the way for even higher potential speeds, like if the limiting factor is now old Amtrak trainsets instead of the rail itself. Or if a new line means less delays. 20 minutes out of 5 hours is really not much.
It's not really losing to the car. The article says the train will now also be less than five hours, so the time difference is honestly not that much. There are also four trips daily which is sadly quite good nowadays in America. You can leave from St. Louis at 4:30 AM, 6:35 AM, 2:55 PM, and 5:40 PM. You can leave Chicago at 7:15 AM, 9:50 AM, 5:20 PM, and 7:10 PM. Coach costs like $25-$31, while the car trip would cost you around $68. Instead of focusing on driving for 4.5 hours, you can relax or do work for five hours. Compared to less frequent routes (Pennsylvanian 😒) you also have several options for departure and don't need to arrive at the station before the sun even rises. Someone who knows more about planes can tell me a flight would make any sense.
As someone who goes between Philly and Pittsburgh a couple times a year, if the shitty Pennsylvanian service was upgraded to be like the new Lincoln Service, I'd be really happy!
Oh, and for price that ends up $7 million per mile. Not sure how that compares.
Illinois fucking rocks, though
I'd probably say that money is better spent on more frequency on the route than trying to increase speed by a bit. Amtrak has the same "higher speed" service in Michigan to Chicago but the infrequent service keeps it from being truely competitive with driving.
This community exists as a sister community/copycat community to the r/fuckcars subreddit.
This community exists for the following reasons:
You can find the Matrix chat room for this community here.
Be nice to each other. Being aggressive or inflammatory towards other users will get you banned. Name calling or obvious trolling falls under that. Hate cars, hate the system, but not people. While some drivers definitely deserve some hate, most of them didn't choose car-centric life out of free will.
No bigotry or hate. Racism, transphobia, misogyny, ableism, homophobia, chauvinism, fat-shaming, body-shaming, stigmatization of people experiencing homeless or substance users, etc. are not tolerated. Don't use slurs. You can laugh at someone's fragile masculinity without associating it with their body. The correlation between car-culture and body weight is not an excuse for fat-shaming.
Stay on-topic. Submissions should be on-topic to the externalities of car culture in urban development and communities globally. Posting about alternatives to cars and car culture is fine. Don't post literal car fucking.
No traffic violence. Do not post depictions of traffic violence. NSFW or NSFL posts are not allowed. Gawking at crashes is not allowed. Be respectful to people who are a victim of traffic violence or otherwise traumatized by it. News articles about crashes and statistics about traffic violence are allowed. Glorifying traffic violence will get you banned.
No reposts. Before sharing, check if your post isn't a repost. Reposts that add something new are fine. Reposts that are sharing content from somewhere else are fine too.
No misinformation. Masks and vaccines save lives during a pandemic, climate change is real and anthropogenic - and denial of these and other established facts will get you banned. False or highly speculative titles will get your post deleted.
No harassment. Posts that (may) cause harassment, dogpiling or brigading, intentionally or not, will be removed. Please do not post screenshots containing uncensored usernames. Actual harassment, dogpiling or brigading is a bannable offence.
Please report posts and comments that violate our rules.