My numbers were wrong. Givewell has ACTUALLY directed over $2 billion in funding from over 125,000 donors now. Seriously, it's a great option for this giving season, and you can get $100 matched using my code. Just go to www.givewell.org/ and select “TH-cam” and “CityNerd” at checkout. Thanks!
Please focus on the need for a rail system directly from Chicago to Atlanta. There's no reason I should have to take a ride to DC to om a trip fr I m Chicago to Savannah
We had one until the late 1950s, and then the only Chicago-Florida lines went through Birmingham, Montgomery, and Valdosta or Birmingham, Columbus (GA), and Albany. Any return of a proper Chicago-Florida line must go through Louisville, Nashville, Chattanooga, Atlanta, and Macon.
YOOOOO Trump WON hahahaha, isn't that WILD!! He won the Presidency, the Senate, the House, the popular vote and the Governorship for the Republicans!! LOLLL You and your friends are an unpopular minority in this country. K BYE!!!
There are apparently 100,000 people that commute between Dallas and Houston multiple times a week, 24,300 people fly. Yet, there are still people that argue against HSR between the two cities. Oil companies headquartered in Houston and American Airlines headquartered in Fort Worth certainly doesn’t help. Edit: the 24,300 refers to how many people fly between Dallas and Houston every day on average.
The only problem with using only rail to get from A to B in Texas is once you're at the destination you still have to drive to get anywhere. Obviously same issue with flying. But Texans also have that midwest driving stamina, so the drive from Dallas to Houston really isn't much of a deterrent. Personally, my airport does not have direct flights to San Antonio or Austin. I would much rather fly in to Dallas and take HSR to my destination than wait an extra 2 hr in the airport for a 45 minute flight.
Connecting the Dallas-Houston-Austin/SA triangle seems like the number one priority by far for HSR. All are in that perfect “too close to fly, too far to drive” range, the land is flat and relatively cheap, and they are all distinct, huge, and growing metro areas.
@ There is so much demand that such issues wouldn’t be a significant detriment to implementing HSR. An important issue would be to have stations in an appropriate location within the city based on an analysis of travel patterns, and projected patterns.
Columbus is one of the biggest cities in the world with absolutely no passenger rail service. Ohioans have called for a passenger rail connecting Cincy, Columbus, and Cleveland, for at least my whole life. Really hope it happens at some point.
No passenger rail service in our Columbus either (GA), but we’re only moderately-sized and out of the way from any obvious corridors save maybe Birmingham-Macon/Albany. Here to Atlanta would be nice… But Columbus, OH deserves much more immediate regular passenger service, just for being the core of Ohio.
@@pcongre yeah I just meant it's on the top 10 list for biggest cities with no rail transport of any kind. I think it's number 10 but it's the only American city in the top top.
@@LSMusic614 can't find the source for that top 10, but according to demographia there are at least 24 larger cities for which I can't find any rail at all (not a lack of service, mind you - as in there is not a single meter of tracks in those cities)
In the UK, we call 1 train a day a "parliamentary service" - a service that exists just to tick a box to say they are running a service with no expectation that anyone will every ride on it. I have 14 trains per *hour* between my fairly large metro area and nearby much larger metro area. 10 trains per day is for rural branch lines.
To be fair to the US, which I am very rarely, the massive distances and sheer quantity of "fairly large" and large metros in the US are much greater than every country besides China, which obviously has no political hurdles to jump through, or land acquisition to worry about. The UK and most European countries have *most* of their population within a relatively small distance compared with the US, and have much more density, so your train situation may be the exact same as say Washington D.C. to Alexandria, which is about every 4 minutes, but may not be for every single fairly large to large metro corridor.
@@shuss-pi3mecomparing density region by region between the US and Europe, it truly looks like we only *just* settled the east coast (and the rest of the country is still the wild Wild West) We can easily fit a billion people, but have 1/3 of that
yes but have a tiny amount of freight, and its only on major corriodrs whereas you can send a freight from some random middle of npowehere town to just about anywhere between Prince Rupert in Canada (its a major port) and Mexico city especially after the Canadian Pacifc and Kansas City Southern Merger
“It’s an analytical exercise who’s main purpose is to generate results that I can be mad about” would be the best description of my job as an engineer 😂
I happened by chance to meet David Gunn, who later became Amtrak's president. We were seat mates on a plane -- in coach--where Gunn (a cost-conscious man) expressed great interest in how I used and felt about Washington DC's metro system that he then managed. I was very impressed with him. He tried hard in both jobs to improve services while cutting waste, and resisted efforts to carve out the most profitable sections of Amtrak (short runs) for private investors. He refused to sell out the publlc interest and it cost him his job
Cincinnati is brutally underserved by rail. There's basically 1 train every other day at ~1:40am to Chicago and the same but at ~3:30 am going the other way. To be honest there should be a line between Cincinnati and Louisville or continuing the 3c+d route down through Lexington to Nashville. It's mind boggling that Louisville and Nashville don't have any sort of service, especially since there historically was with the LN line.
I saw a video recently about the abandoned subway/metro projects over the years, and I can see why rail directly into downtown might be an issue in terms of the topography, but yeah the city needs to be connected somehow.
As someone from Louisville, YES! I wish that we had any rail service that went to Cincy or down to Nashville. I just hope that the proposed line from Indy to Louisville actually happens.
EVERY city with more than 100K where you measure trains "by day" and not "per hour" is brutally underserved. I live in a rural state of Germany. The 2 biggest cities are just above 200K and a bit more than 50 miles from each other. There is a direct local train at least once per hour, with additional regional trains. And you could also use 2 more lines to go there, in a triangle route. Those side lines go only to villages or towns that generally are 20K-30K. And also have a hourly train per direction. Oh and there is also another direct connection between the 2 big cities, but that is not electrified and only served by a very slow train every 2 hours. Government tries to shut it down about once every 5 years because only 500 people use it daily, but that always gets hot reaction, because for those people it's an essential connection from village to big town. Without it they would need to use a car.
@@steemlenn8797 "...only served by a very slow train EVERY 2 HOURS." If only such a schedule could be in place in the larger populated area of the USA!
If you want to turn your rage into action, join us at All Aboard Ohio! We have chapter meetings across the state, plus you can become a member, donate, or check out our awesome store there!
Regarding Denver to COS, there was supposed to be a ballot measure regarding funding the Front Range service this election, but it got pushed back to 2026. At this point, since it's going to be a state-supported Amtrak service, the most important thing is getting the population to agree to fund it. Since Colorado has become reliably progressive, I think the odds of it passing are high.
I’ve been following Colorado High Speed rail since I was in middle school… now I’m 31… so maybe in my son’s lifetime he can ride a train to Denver. I don’t want that to be the case. I commuted between COS and Centennial then to downtown Denver for a few years and I absolutely hated it.
I've been actively talking up Front Range Passenger Rail to as many other Denverites as I can. This passing would've been a life changer when I was commuting to FC
All but one of the new RTD board members seem poised to do wonders for RTD’s public “Reason to Drive” reputation, with them talking about improving safety and frequency which are two of the main issues people I talk to have with their services. If the can engender a little more trust in public transit it would help.
As a former Lehigh valley resident, Philadelphia resident and frequent traveler to New York City I am so thrilled so see this. I know so many people who car commute to both locations from the valley and it blows my mind that we don’t have better transportation available.
The best way to get Amtrak trains to arrive on time is to require that they carry "some" US Mail aboard. The primary rail carriers (BNSF, Norfolk Southern, Union Pacific, CSX) must then prioritize Amtrak movements over freight traffic...
They already legally have to give way to amtrak trains. They just get around the legal requirement by running trains so long they physically cannot fit within the sidings and thus force the Amtrak trains to give way.
I know Nashville was only on the thumbnail, but I think a Nashville-Chattanooga-Atlanta, or Nashville-Louisville-Indy, or Nashville-Louisville-Cincinnati lines would all be great candidates
Absolutely, My family all live in Chattanooga. I can't get a direct flight so I either have to drive in ever-worsening traffic from ATL or take the very short ATL to CHA flight. I takes longer to board that flight than the flight lasts. And Nashville is 2.5 hours by car from Chattanooga so you'd only need a reasonably fast train. It all makes too much sense, which is why it probably won't happen until Ray is Secretary of Transportation.
As someone who lives in Bakersfield. That gap you spoke of drives me INSANE. instead of taking a train I had to take a bus to Lancaster and hop on Metrolink. While on the bus guess what I passed by, TRAINS!! The tracks are there. Amtrak just has to buy the rights to use them. It kills me
The truly absurd thing about the Delaware and Lehigh Valleys in PA is that those rail links existed 100 years ago. The Reading Railroad was one of Philadelphia's major railroads, and between the Reading, Lehigh Valley, and Pennsylvania Railroads, the entire region was easily accessible by rail.
Allentown/Bethlehem to Philadelphia until about 1980 when service ended, ostensibly because diesels weren’t permitted in the then-new center city commuter tunnel. Real reason is that the two counties never joined SEPTA, preferring to operate their own TA. Phillipsburg (across the bridge from Easton) had NJT service to New York until mid 1980s, I think. Please come to visit. Hint: our metro planning agency dislikes adding a third lane to our freeways in the distribution center capital of the NE *and* claims poverty on doing anything at all about passenger rail. Director of the TA, Owen O’Neil, is a stand-up guy.
Love your channel, CN. One gripe, though: Often you flip visuals from city to city, around (round?) the world, as you narrate some topic or other, and I get confused…now where are we? I wish every scene was labeled, especially any from My City, if I had one, which I don’t. Congratulations on a fascinating body of work (oeuvre?).
A-B-E native & long-time Philly resident here... it's so depressing. the bus service is also not great. Recent Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk is YIMBY-aligned. The city could easily double in population if connectivity were better. Amazon (et al) have clearly noted the potential -- you can't go 1 mile in the valley anymore without hitting a massive warehouse complex. But it's cars all the way down.
As an East Tennessean, I know why there isn’t good commuter rail in my state. I think a line from Memphis-Nashville-Knoxville-Asheville-Charlotte would make a lot of sense.
I know the focus is on shorter regional routes, but I stand by the idea that a interstate 40 mirror train route would do pretty good. NC, TN, AR, OK, TX, NM, AZ, CA, connecting more of less the same major points along the path
Geez, so many of these intercity connections would make so much sense! No wonder they haven't been done! 🤣When I was in tech school, wayyyyyy back when in the 1980s, I had a PT job in the school and we had this very old boss (had to be 80s) and he had a lot of great stories. He mentioned that after WWII, the US had a decision to make, a country-wide interconnect railway system, or, highway system. And we can see which won out. Wonder what could have been...
What's funny is that the US already had a fantastic interstate highway system. Look at route 66 for example. We honestly didn't need the interstate highway system that was built; it was purely an infrastructure project to benefit the car industry. A few bypasses to get cars routed around cities is really all that was warranted. Yes it did help build the suburbs, but in my opinion the suburbs that we built after the 1950s have been a net negative for the country in almost every way.
@@jamalgibson8139 Indeed! Ostensibly, the highway system was built for the military to get troops and material moved faster, etc., with a side benefit to the car industry. Suburbia and car culture are overall colossal detriments. Sure, cars had/have their place, but not to the extent we have it.
Sarasota native here: we used to have the Tampa southern that went from Tampa through Bradenton and Sarasota to a junction just south of Arcadia. There it would link up with another branch of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad and would go down to the terminus in Naples, passing through Punta Gorda and Fort Myers. There hasn’t been intercity service in over 50 years
Sarasota was the winter home of the Ringling Circus. Back when "the train came to town", it many times included "lions, and tigers, and bears". Oh, my. [Speaking of Florida, there used to be train service between New Orleans and Jacksonville. In theory, there is going to be a train between New Orleans and Mobile re-opened one-of-these-days.]
@@JoyClinton-i8g Jacksonville here for the shout out! We would LOVE to be connected to Brightline. Or to be able to get an Amtrak headed north to Atlanta that didn't pick up at 2am. Yep- that's the only service that we get!
I've lived in the Lehigh Valley most of my life and the idea of restoring passenger rail to NYC and Philly comes up every few years. I think for many it's hard to justify the cost when bus services currently serve the area. That and sharing the NYC line with fright plus the old tracks being removed on the Philly line for a rail trail. So who knows, maybe someday it'll come back.
Bias against urban areas is even more of a cause. Nobody wants to do infrastructural improvements like mass transit because they know well who is going to be using it, which is seen as wasting money by everyone else.
@@starventure which is stupid, because outlying communities would have access to better jobs in the city while retaining their autonomy, and could even experience decent growth from people looking for semi-rural housing.
The Pennsylvania Railroad ran two trains daily that connected New York, Newark N. J., Philadelphia Pa , Harrisburg Pa , Pittsburg Pa, Columbus and Dayton Oh. Effingham Ill and terminating in St Louis. They were the Spirit of St louis and the Penn Texas ( that continued past St Louis as part of the Texas Eagle.) Those city pairs would work today.
I'm not surprised to see NYC to Allentown top this list. Last summer I spent a couple months taking the bus from NYC to Hazleton PA every Monday and back every Friday. A train would have made my life so much easier, so I was really glad to see that one included in corridor ID. Allentown is way larger and closer to both New York and Philly than Scranton/Wilkes-Barre/Hazleton though, so it is kinda baffling that it isn't connected by rail already!
Flagstaff to Phoenix is one corridor I really want because I live on the southwest chief line and I have family in Phoenix so it would be very convenient
Correction: You said Winston-Salem and Greensboro are separate metros, but they are both part of the Piedmont Triad Metro, which is a single metro area and a single CSA that is comprised of High Point, Winston-Salem, and Greensboro. Many rely on both WS and Greensboro who live within either for business, work, living, community as they are truly one metro region.
As someone who travels about 40 miles each way on trains every day for education, I'm extremely thankful this rail link exists because I would not do this if I had to drive or rent in the other city. The town where I live now loves building big apartment buildings and as a result, house prizes here are still very reasonable. That's right, more apartment buildings make houses cheaper too! The trip takes just 40 minutes and there are direct trains every 30 minutes. Paying 50$ per month for the train is way better than 500$ per month and the hassle of renting student accommodation.
The Providence & Worcester RR still exists and operates, even if most of their activity is on the mine that parallels 395. It probably wouldn't even take too much to get some DMUs running between the two. There's even a station in Woonsocket to stop at, complete with its own Hachiko statue.
I'm from Calgary and in the years since becoming a train nerd I've been getting a kick out of saying "X town has better train service than Calgary". The Pas, Manitoba has better train service than Calgary White River, Ontario has better train service than Calgary Burns Lake, BC has better train service than Calgary Moosonee, Ontario has better train service than Calgary Senneterre, Quebec has better train service than Calgary Watrous, Saskatchewan has better train service than Calgary Viking, Alberta has better train service than Calgary
I can explain the issue with Bakersfield to LA. The mountains suck. If you notice from the high speed rail design plans, they have to go all the way around the Grape Vine rather than how cars go which is basically straight through. There's also issues of just finding the right spot you can build that doesn't have too high a grade of land. With how expensive it's going to be in that area, it's put lower on the list as a priority. (Also, I'm still super annoyed at how slow the building of the rail is. I'd really like some damn rail to get to SF from Fresno).
With just about everything having been approved and cleared at this point, there is just one limitation: Money. Fortunately there is enough in the pot for the next four years. By then you should have rail, catenary and trains in test mode. And the last bits into Merced and Bakersfield should be under construction. The standard rail extensions to Merced for cross platform transfers should be in process too.
I wonder how Detroit-Lansing-Grand Rapids stacks up? That seems like a gap that is quite glaring to us in Michigan. Also, Detroit-Indianapolis seems like another candidate, though perhaps less likely to ever get any service due to Indiana not wanting to pay for passenger rail beyond the South Shore Line. Also, though not entirely in the US, it seems like Chicago-Detroit-Toronto deserves some attention, as the actual gap in service is only a few miles long (Detroit to Windsor). I do know this is on Amtrak’s actual list of corridors (and it is being studied), so maybe there’s a chance that gets service..
Would it be feasible to take the Tunnel Bus between the train stations in Detroit and Windsor to work around that gap? (I haven’t tried the Tunnel Bus yet. One time, I drove my car from home in Ann Arbor to the Windsor train station, then I took Via to Niagara Falls.)
@@hulltim2 I live in Ann Arbor, my son is in Lansing, and my mother in law is in Grand Rapids. It's nice that all 3 of us can take Amtrak to meet in Chicago, but it sure would be better for us if your proposed Det-Lan-GR service could also stop in AA!
The Houston Dallas corridor not having rail is insane. For a while we had a tourist train from Houston to Galveston back in the 90's. Yet somehow we had the Galveston Interurban in the 40's and 50's.
I grew up in Sarasota FL in the 90s. At some point there was a year 2020 master plan making the rounds that would have had a high speed rail from Tampa to at least Sarasota, maybe beyond, by the year 2020. I no longer live there and had forgotten about that until now. So that rail line could have been almost 5 years old at this point had it not been shot down. As a kid I remember thinking how cool it would be to hop on a train to Tampa even if it seemed like a distant dream at the time. Apparently it's still a distant dream.
Thanks Ray for promoting Allentown to New York and Allentown to Philly. I live in Allentown and there is a decent bus from Allentown to New York, but that’s about it. Rail seems to be so far away from happening. It’s sad. And it would be so perfect. A huge boon for the Lehigh Valley too
I don't know if the people there really commute to New York City that much. They are more the local types. Or they were when I used to live around there.
Kudos to our local TA for colocating the major bus station to NYC at the airport, offering free daily parking for commuters. Still service to city centers, but this is real convenient.
@@saratemp790 they probably were in the past but post Covid and remote work, I’ve seen a lot of New York transplants on this edge of the state because it’s only an hour and 45 back to New York City by car.
I'll nominate you Ray, for Sec. Trans. :D. Seriously, I'm a native Ohioan who took a 24 year detour to be a railroader in the NEC, both Amtrak and freight. I had friends in OARP/AAO who spent just about their entire adult lives in the fight for some kind of rail passenger service in the 3C corridor, to no avail. We have a corrupt state government that is in the pocket of highway interests. I don't know how else you could characterize it when the former ODOT Sec. of the previous Republican Governor came to there from being a lobbyist for the asphalt paving industry - no kidding. He forbade officially mentioning the term intrastate rail passenger service while he was in office. It's partly why Ohio is 7th in U. S. population but 47th in transit funding, and I don't know how to change that anytime soon? And yes it's a total disgrace that Columbus has no rail passenger service of any kind, and they moved the intercity bus station to out by the interstate, and Cleveland is getting ready to do the same thing. Much respect for the channel.
2:18 taipei to kaohsiung having 90+ hsr trains per day in EACH direction is crazy, thats like what 10 min headway unless its running into the night more frequency than most cities metro
Japan main Shinkansen has one nozomi (the fastest one with few stops) between Tokyo and Osaka every 10 mins and one other type in about the same time, so afaik it's about the same every day. It is really crazy having so much service available and a fair bit of them are full during peak season/ hours.
One thing to consider when saying "air travel has an advantage"... LAX-PHX is a classic example. 373 miles - 5 hours by train at Amtrak's standard 79mph. An hour and a half gate-to-gate in the air... BUT, consider AT LEAST two hours in LAX's TSA debacle PLUS getting down there (remember, no public transit to LAX until at least 2026, and I doubt it's going to make a lot of difference)... the time at this distance is gonna be a wash, and I'd much rather spend that time in a nice train seat than most of it in a queue or in an airport or airplane seat... bump the train (new build, after all) to 250kph and there's no question.
Denver to Boulder was part of RTD's 2004 ballot initiative, FasTracks. The line hasn't been built except for a single station stub off of the G line. The Front Range Passenger Rail District and RTD are actually working together to share as much infrastructure in the shared corridor as possible.
The airport is actually connected via heavy rail that was built under the same FasTracks ballot initiative. The line uses Silverliner V trainsets. Service started in 2016, 12 years after the vote. The Colorado of today is not the Colorado of 1990
Love your channel and its content, been watching for years but I must admit that I'm most excited to see whatever your cat is doing during the credits. This week: biscuit making! lol
Very happy and also sad to see the Lehigh Valley show up finally! Our whole region has exploded over the past decade and our infrastructure can't keep up. Our bus network is WAY underfunded. So many people in the region want to see rail service to Philly and New York.
Your B roll of Seattle still shows the 99 viaduct. ;P I loved the Cascades train between PDX and Seattle proper, especially when it was $25. And a $5 upgrade to the business car. Triple that now, but still better than the wretched bus on i5.
That dream Tampa to Fort Myers is being squashed as we speak with the conversion of right of way from old train lines to trails. Trains used to run all the way to Naples but now the line stops at Sarasota. It runs again for 40 miles from Arcadia (way inland) to Fort Myers. And from Fort Myers to Bonita Springs is practically abandoned with plans to convert it into a new trail. From Bonita to Naples it has already been converted to a 4 lane stroad. Atlanta having the same issue with the greenbelt. As good as having trails is, we are killing the last chance to get decent rail transportation, it will be impossible to get right of way for new tracks in the future
I wish there was a greater focus on connecting many of the massive holes between metros of the upper South and Midwest, the fact that St. Louis doesn’t connect to the existing lines in Carbondale and Indianapolis without going through Chicago first is ridiculous. Other lines like a north/south line connecting Atlanta with Tennessee and Kentucky, or a line connecting KC and Omaha, would be huge and life changing for millions in multiple regions of the US.
The country is split at Chicago and New Orleans. You cannot go from one side to the other without going to one of these two places first. Which of course is ridiculous.
I'm 53 and I remember when the EU became a thing. What interested me most as an outsider was the mobility it offered to labor, since the passenger rail service was already pretty awesome compared to the US at the time. And it's only gotten better since. I hate that so many powerful people in the US shoot this kind of stuff down just to keep everyone else miserable.
I live in Carbondale and go to school in St. Louis. The fact that I can't just take a train is the most infuriating thing And the thumbnail shows STL-Carbondale-Nashville-Atlanta, which is a line I've been thinking about for at least a year now
I feel like it should be a no brainier for me to be able to get on a train at my medium sized small town, take it to a big city like Chicago or STL, then change trains and be able to get off at another town the same size as mine. Instead it’s a 90 minute drive to the airport, 5hr flight (layover included) and another 90 minute drive to get to that town. And that said destination down is in the middle of the Kentucky/Tennessee gap.
Yes. A phx to tuc train would be amazing. Honestly take that line all the way to Mexico There are so many tourists from Mexico into Arizona and up to Las Vegas. This would be similar to Vancouver to Portland.
The lack of a high-speed line between Toronto and Montreal is absolutely absurd. A downright stupid number of flights make that pair, and a bunch of people forced to drive or bus it. I've rode VIA from Montreal to Toronto and that is barely a legitimate option.
"This is all just a long way saying that if you go to the state of Ohio expecting anything to make any rational sense at all, you're going to be disappointed." As an Ohioan: Yes, that's about it in a nutshell. Animaniacs had it right years ago: "All is strange and vague." "Are we dead?" "Or is this Ohio?"
There's been a passenger train station directly across the Shoreway from the general area of Browns Stadium for over 100 years now, and still no connection to Detroit, Chicago, Indy, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati or Buffalo on game days... but they want to build a new stadium less than a mile from the airport? Haha, yeah, okay, whatever.
@@taxirob2248 And $13.00 per day at Northpoint Garage for public parking, then nearly one-half mile walk to Amtrak-Cleveland platform at 2:30AM? Discouragement; what could be worse? Oh, unannounced, the train is late. And does the upcoming generation wonder WHY that old "Terminal Tower" building in the center of town was built with tracks underneath it?
@@michaelsmith9590 actually Terminal Tower is serving its intended purpose. Intercity service was supposed to connect where Amtrak is now. The plan was to have a huge passenger terminal on Lakeside, a Grand Central Station type of thing. Needless to say, it never got built.
@@michaelsmith9590 look online for pics of the original downtown Cleveland plan, it was very much a "Germania" flavored neo-classic type of thing. Terminal Tower at the south end, and the actual train station at the north end.
@@taxirob2248 I mean, in theory you could take Amtrak from Pittsburgh to Cleveland ... with the small problem of the schedule being absolutely ridiculously badly timed. That 100% of the intercity train service in the entire state of Ohio consists of 2 trains in each direction stopping between 11:30 PM and 7:30 AM is just so convenient!
I’m from Fort Myers and have been saying the same thing! There’s no reason why we can’t make the brightline a loop that connects the entirety of central and southern Florida!
Re: "...no reason why WE (As taxpayers?) can't make the brightline.....connects.....Florida! (1) Brightline is a for-profit corporation. Its owners seek the highest-populated possible city pairs for its revenue. Southwest Florida communities south of Tampa Bay likely do not make their list. Nevertheless, as stated elsewhere as an evacuation option, PUBLICALLY-OPERATED passenger rail service on the Gulf Coast of Florida makes very good sense when one's life is in the balance: to escape or to endure a major storm and its aftermath of electric power loss, fuel and food shortages. Interesting to hear arguments about transport privatization when BILLIONS of dollars continue to fund major PUBLICALLY-OWNED tollroad expansion and extension projects.
I’d love for you, or one of the other urbanist TH-camrs, to do a video on the MBTA Communities law. So many suburbs are screwing the law up by placing their zoning for apartments over existing apartments/multi family housing, and others are shooting it down completely. Only a handful are truly embracing the law, and it’s a law that other metros (SF, NYC) should take note on
I would like to see a video about the most underserved cities that _technically_ have rail service, but most people would never consider it because trains only ever come in the middle of the night
How can Amtrak or any other train service serve the Southeast region of the US? Like Nashville, Memphis, Chatanooga, Knoxville, Roanoke, Bristol, VA/TN, Atlanta, Macon, Birmingham, Mobile, Jacksonville, Savannah, Charleston, and Charlotte, NC.
Nashville - Atlanta - Macon - Savannah. Atlanta - Macon - Columbus, GA - Montgomery, AL - Mobile, AL. New Orleans - Mobile, AL - Tallahassee, FL - Jacksonville, FL. Chicago - Memphis, TN - Birmingham, AL - Columbus, GA - Waycross, GA - Jacksonville, FL.
Not to defend Colorado’s lack of connectivity, but we do have a state run coach service called Bustang that runs fairly frequent busses between each of those cities and Denver in pretty good time. I would still love to see FRPR go through and would love to see better connectivity between CO cities but at least we don’t have nothing
Lehigh Valley - Philadelphia service was once provided by SEPTA. Service was dropped when they abandoned their unnelectrified tracks. Sadly, the tracks between Quakertown and Bethlehem have since been removed, making any attempt at reinstating service…circuitous.
The fact that Texas has no high speed rail is absurd to me. Plenty of people commute from San Antonio to Austin daily. Some people commute even farther weekly between cities like Houston and Dallas. For reference, the train from Dallas to San Antonio is scheduled to take 10.5 hours. Driving is about 5 hours. IIRC a large reason we dont have high speed rail is that a lot of the small towns the lines were proposed to go through are opposing any development if the trains dont stop there, which defeats the purpose of high speed rail.
I think the trick is you build lines that can do high speed (doesn't need to be ultra fast, even 150 miles an hour will beat cars by a huge margin and still be competitive for medium distances with air) and run slower (like 80 miles per hour) trains on them too to stop in a bunch of cities. Or do like the Japanese shinkansen where you have slow trains that stop at every station and fast ones that stop at one fourth of the stations.
With respect to towns blocking development, this is partly what slowed California high speed rail. Palmdale specifically was a totally unnecessary stop for the system that may actually doom it because of the weird routing it causes, but it was forced because the official there demanded a station. It's possible he did that because he wanted to kill the project, but that's just speculation. Anyways, it's still possible to have hourly service that bypasses all the small towns and have 15 minute service to various towns along the route. Frankly, you could have 10 minute express service and all other service hits the smaller towns, but American transit planners don't seem to understand that frequency is more important than station density.
@@jamalgibson8139 Absolutely. I really like the Japanese style of getting around this. Multiple Shinkansen lines - some like the nozomi stop only at the major stations and are the fastest. Other ones that stop at each station that are slightly slower, but enhance connectivity. Sometimes it's easier to take the fast line to a major station, then backtrack depending on where your start and end stations are. But I think that a lot of these small town officials think that their towns will die if every possible train doesn't stop there.
@@denelson83 Houston having massive oil companies and Dallas having the headquarters of two of the biggest airlines in America. Coincidence that we don't have a high speed link between these two obviously great candidates for it?
I would love to a suburban MBTA commuter rail ring that goes from Fitchburg, to Worcester, to Providence. Just a shame that MA has little desire to invest any major infrastructure anymore.
The Lehigh Valley (Allentown-Bethlehem) area has been rapidly absorbed into the NE megalopolis over the past two decades, especially in terms of transportation. This is because there are 20-30 miles of warehouses west of Allentown and 10-20 miles of warehouses north of Bethlehem. A new major section of highway was completed to New York within the last two decades. And the NE extension of PA Turnpike (I-495) is being widened. It is mostly too little, too late. The highways from A-town to both cities are packed. I analyzed the early spread of COVID in late winter/spring of 2020, the first measurable rise of any metro emanating from NYC SCSA was the Lehigh Valley. There is a lot of commuting and family connections. I live in Philly and was raised in ATown - so I drive to see family regularly - and there is rapidly rising traffic and commuting. Commuter rail would be widely used.
Big thing nobody wants to talk about: elevation is about 250 feet above sea level and plenty of good water coming from the Poconos originally intended to serve the steel company. So climate change destination location.
Sad thing is that some of these city pairs had popular passenger rail links in the past. The entire front range was served by ATSF passenger trains in the 50’s. The Texas cities & LA to Bakersfield was well served by the southern pacific back then. You can see remnants of fallen passenger trains in rail museums. But it didn’t have to be this way if USDOT had forethought back in the day to keep some services in operation.
I consider that the South has three "capital cities" - Atlanta, Charlotte and Nashville, and there should be trains connecting all these city pairs. Atlanta to Nashville should have service, which should eventually be part of a direct Chicago to Florida train (as opposed to the new Floridian, which is really a stopgap train).
@@danhobson2879 I wasn't referring to the state, rather the region. Charlotte is the biggest city in NC and in some ways the most important, in my opinion.
9:09 Ohio's population corridors are long overdue for re-establishment of intercity passenger rail. Why has the 3C+D corridor lacked passenger rail service since 1971? Seems like an obvious opportunity, but efforts to restart service have been scuttled numerous times. Perhaps an ideal non-electrified corridor for something resembling Bright Line? Want to give a big shout out to the the advocacy efforts of All Aboard Ohio! Thanks for including them in this discussion about Ohio passenger rail.
Somewhere in a dusty archive is a color photo of "Train-X", Pullman Company-built passenger train, sponsored by the former New York Central System which (I read elsewhere) ran a trial from Cleveland - Columbus - Cincinnati line during the 1950's. It was said that the bolted-track did not provide a comfortable ride. Marketing of its yellow-green colour livery did not sit well with locals at the time.
One big transport gap in Illinois is Chicago to Peoria - no direct interstate link, let alone rail. Peoria residents who want to take a train to Chicago have to go to Normal to catch the Amtrak Lincoln Service or Texas Eagle.
It's so painful to think about how US train service should be so much better. There is so much potential, and it would reduce traffic on our roads significantly if the service was even half decent.
It would make it a lot easier to travel with pets too. Think about booking a small private train room that's pet friendly rather than trying to fly with them. Huge untapped market.
I have long felt that State College PA would be a good candidate for a HSR stop. Penn State student population is huge and lots of non PA students. 100,000+ on game days and I am sure some would love to opt out of driving. Lots of alumni from Philly and NYC. Currently not served by rail at all.
I’d love to see the ROI comparison between expanding highways between these city pairs & rail. We do a terrible job quantifying the cost of a perceived free service has a high entry cost but low use fee vs one that has a lower entry cost and low use fee.
Make sure that ROI takes into account trucks using the highways. It's something the anti-car people never factor in. Good luck getting your produce from farms to your urban supermarket without highways. I suppose farmers could deliver by train? 🤭
@ the awesome thing about the current interstate system BETWEEN cities & urban areas is that it’s VERY suited for truck traffic as it is, & no new interstate within a metro area will ever come close to the cost-to-benefit from the original interstate system. We could spend a fraction of the money for maintenance & non-expansion plans with better ROI than new interstates. The inverse would be true for passenger rail as we exterminated the passenger rail system to fund the highways, so the money that would go to new rail would likely have returns looking like 1950’s highways.
Even the airlines don't want to put planes on the Allentown to New York route; if you book ABE-EWR on United, you'll actually travel that route by bus. Also, the Lehigh Valley in general needs much better public transit to support longer distance trains. If they were to put to a train station in Allentown, there'd be no easy way to get to or from Bethlehem or Easton from it.
Bethlehem borders Allentown. Like, a bump in a road and street signs change. Also, an existing station. Easton is on the way to NY. You have to go through Easton to get to NYPenn.
My favorite part about that bus is that at least at one time if you tried to book it by itself, it cost $1100 and then said “NOTE: this is a bus” beside it.
Years ago I lived in La Junta CO and was able to take AmTrack to LA and from LA to Sacramento. I could then take AmTrack from Sacramento to Denver. BUT I had to take Greyhound from Denver down to Pueblo and then drive to La Junta.
Lehigh Valley, What could be... There is a line (ex-Jersey Central RR) parallel to the current freight (ex-Lehigh Valley RR) line all the way to Allentown. There was passenger service to Philipsburg, NJ on the Pa border until 1981 or so. Sadly, all of it has been torn up in Pa. now an incomplete bike path. In Nj, I 78 was built on top of the ROW without a bridge. The problem on the east end is the bottle neck from Aldene to the vicinity of Newark airport. All of Norfolk Southern's freight traffic and NJT's Raritan Valley Line use this stretch of track.
As I am living in High Point, going to school in Greensbor, and working in Winston-Salem I would love a train of some kind that would be able to take me to Winston from either city. The traffic is usually awful going between the three
what I like most about trains even if it’s not high speed is the feeling of steadily moving smoothly without breaking in stop and go traffic in cars or buses, yes I know Amtrak shares rail with freight trains and has stop to yield right of way but I feel people take for granted what the efficiency of passenger rail could be just because trains were invented before cars, you’re moving more people per square foot linearly and smoothly compared to cars and it’s stress free and enjoyable ride
Cleveland and Akron, weirdly enough, actually do not have a physical railroad corridor that connects the two cities. All of the legacy trackage flows roughly east to west through the two cities with no north-south connection remaining. I haven't seen it stated for certain anywhere but it's my theory that the fact you'd need to actually build more track to link Cleveland and Akron is a big reason why it has never been seriously considered as part of the 3C+D corridor. All of the other cities on that route are already connected by extant Norfolk Southern trackage.
The former Democratic governor of Louisiana was hell bent on getting rail service between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, but unfortunately, he was term limited and the new Republican governor has zero interest in the project. The Feds were all in under Biden and Mayor Pete, but it doesn't look good now.
Congrats on getting so big you pulled an interview with sec pete 👏🏽 👍🏾..can you maybe do a video on the best future public trans plans in all 50 states? Also most affordable public trans networks?
I live in the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania. I would love train service to both New York and Philadelphia. But I've heard of plans for a train to New York for the past 30 years and nothing has happened.
This would be a great database item to have anywhere in the world, for export into a GIS layer. It'd compute a lot faster if every point was limited to just the three nearest points.
They (Amtrak) could easily add a 3rd "Silver" route that would close the gap between Charlotte, NC & Columbia, SC. Then continue as far south as Fort Myers, Florida. AFAIK, there's already existing rail line that could be used for passenger rail. Omaha - Kansas City also seems like a good idea, maybe continuing further on with a connection to either Springfield, MO - Tulsa, OK or from K.C. to St. Louis.
![Would You Fall for It? [ST08]](/img/n.gif)
My numbers were wrong. Givewell has ACTUALLY directed over $2 billion in funding from over 125,000 donors now. Seriously, it's a great option for this giving season, and you can get $100 matched using my code. Just go to www.givewell.org/ and select “TH-cam” and “CityNerd” at checkout. Thanks!
Please focus on the need for a rail system directly from Chicago to Atlanta. There's no reason I should have to take a ride to DC to om a trip fr I m Chicago to Savannah
We had one until the late 1950s, and then the only Chicago-Florida lines went through Birmingham, Montgomery, and Valdosta or Birmingham, Columbus (GA), and Albany. Any return of a proper Chicago-Florida line must go through Louisville, Nashville, Chattanooga, Atlanta, and Macon.
YOOOOO Trump WON hahahaha, isn't that WILD!! He won the Presidency, the Senate, the House, the popular vote and the Governorship for the Republicans!! LOLLL You and your friends are an unpopular minority in this country. K BYE!!!
QUINCY TO ST. LOUIS IS A MISSING LINK
Thank GOD Trump Won! Clean sweep too
There are apparently 100,000 people that commute between Dallas and Houston multiple times a week, 24,300 people fly. Yet, there are still people that argue against HSR between the two cities. Oil companies headquartered in Houston and American Airlines headquartered in Fort Worth certainly doesn’t help.
Edit: the 24,300 refers to how many people fly between Dallas and Houston every day on average.
Absolutely insane and yet so believable
And Southwest headquartered in Dallas (at Love Field).
The only problem with using only rail to get from A to B in Texas is once you're at the destination you still have to drive to get anywhere. Obviously same issue with flying. But Texans also have that midwest driving stamina, so the drive from Dallas to Houston really isn't much of a deterrent. Personally, my airport does not have direct flights to San Antonio or Austin. I would much rather fly in to Dallas and take HSR to my destination than wait an extra 2 hr in the airport for a 45 minute flight.
Connecting the Dallas-Houston-Austin/SA triangle seems like the number one priority by far for HSR. All are in that perfect “too close to fly, too far to drive” range, the land is flat and relatively cheap, and they are all distinct, huge, and growing metro areas.
@ There is so much demand that such issues wouldn’t be a significant detriment to implementing HSR. An important issue would be to have stations in an appropriate location within the city based on an analysis of travel patterns, and projected patterns.
Columbus is one of the biggest cities in the world with absolutely no passenger rail service. Ohioans have called for a passenger rail connecting Cincy, Columbus, and Cleveland, for at least my whole life. Really hope it happens at some point.
No passenger rail service in our Columbus either (GA), but we’re only moderately-sized and out of the way from any obvious corridors save maybe Birmingham-Macon/Albany. Here to Atlanta would be nice…
But Columbus, OH deserves much more immediate regular passenger service, just for being the core of Ohio.
"in the world"
@@pcongre yeah I just meant it's on the top 10 list for biggest cities with no rail transport of any kind. I think it's number 10 but it's the only American city in the top top.
@@LSMusic614 can't find the source for that top 10, but according to demographia there are at least 24 larger cities for which I can't find any rail at all (not a lack of service, mind you - as in there is not a single meter of tracks in those cities)
OMG! i found another musician who watches geography and urban planning videos. Whats going on @LSMusic614 ???
In the UK, we call 1 train a day a "parliamentary service" - a service that exists just to tick a box to say they are running a service with no expectation that anyone will every ride on it. I have 14 trains per *hour* between my fairly large metro area and nearby much larger metro area. 10 trains per day is for rural branch lines.
You’re lucky to get trains every four minutes in a city on a subway in the United States. That’s insane.
To be fair to the US, which I am very rarely, the massive distances and sheer quantity of "fairly large" and large metros in the US are much greater than every country besides China, which obviously has no political hurdles to jump through, or land acquisition to worry about.
The UK and most European countries have *most* of their population within a relatively small distance compared with the US, and have much more density, so your train situation may be the exact same as say Washington D.C. to Alexandria, which is about every 4 minutes, but may not be for every single fairly large to large metro corridor.
Good luck telling a murican that
@@shuss-pi3mecomparing density region by region between the US and Europe, it truly looks like we only *just* settled the east coast (and the rest of the country is still the wild Wild West)
We can easily fit a billion people, but have 1/3 of that
yes but have a tiny amount of freight, and its only on major corriodrs whereas you can send a freight from some random middle of npowehere town to just about anywhere between Prince Rupert in Canada (its a major port) and Mexico city especially after the Canadian Pacifc and Kansas City Southern Merger
“It’s an analytical exercise who’s main purpose is to generate results that I can be mad about” would be the best description of my job as an engineer 😂
I happened by chance to meet David Gunn, who later became Amtrak's president. We were seat mates on a plane -- in coach--where Gunn (a cost-conscious man) expressed great interest in how I used and felt about Washington DC's metro system that he then managed. I was very impressed with him. He tried hard in both jobs to improve services while cutting waste, and resisted efforts to carve out the most profitable sections of Amtrak (short runs) for private investors. He refused to sell out the publlc interest and it cost him his job
Cincinnati is brutally underserved by rail. There's basically 1 train every other day at ~1:40am to Chicago and the same but at ~3:30 am going the other way. To be honest there should be a line between Cincinnati and Louisville or continuing the 3c+d route down through Lexington to Nashville. It's mind boggling that Louisville and Nashville don't have any sort of service, especially since there historically was with the LN line.
It's *still* more service than Columbus, though, with its 0 trains per week from anywhere.
I saw a video recently about the abandoned subway/metro projects over the years, and I can see why rail directly into downtown might be an issue in terms of the topography, but yeah the city needs to be connected somehow.
As someone from Louisville, YES! I wish that we had any rail service that went to Cincy or down to Nashville. I just hope that the proposed line from Indy to Louisville actually happens.
EVERY city with more than 100K where you measure trains "by day" and not "per hour" is brutally underserved.
I live in a rural state of Germany. The 2 biggest cities are just above 200K and a bit more than 50 miles from each other.
There is a direct local train at least once per hour, with additional regional trains. And you could also use 2 more lines to go there, in a triangle route. Those side lines go only to villages or towns that generally are 20K-30K. And also have a hourly train per direction.
Oh and there is also another direct connection between the 2 big cities, but that is not electrified and only served by a very slow train every 2 hours. Government tries to shut it down about once every 5 years because only 500 people use it daily, but that always gets hot reaction, because for those people it's an essential connection from village to big town. Without it they would need to use a car.
@@steemlenn8797 "...only served by a very slow train EVERY 2 HOURS." If only such a schedule could be in place in the larger populated area of the USA!
If you want to turn your rage into action, join us at All Aboard Ohio!
We have chapter meetings across the state, plus you can become a member, donate, or check out our awesome store there!
Do you like the Frans?
Regarding Denver to COS, there was supposed to be a ballot measure regarding funding the Front Range service this election, but it got pushed back to 2026. At this point, since it's going to be a state-supported Amtrak service, the most important thing is getting the population to agree to fund it. Since Colorado has become reliably progressive, I think the odds of it passing are high.
That'd be a start, but we really need passenger service between Cheyenne and El Paso.
I have doubts but fast tracks failure to deliver is going to complicate this
I’ve been following Colorado High Speed rail since I was in middle school… now I’m 31… so maybe in my son’s lifetime he can ride a train to Denver. I don’t want that to be the case. I commuted between COS and Centennial then to downtown Denver for a few years and I absolutely hated it.
I've been actively talking up Front Range Passenger Rail to as many other Denverites as I can. This passing would've been a life changer when I was commuting to FC
All but one of the new RTD board members seem poised to do wonders for RTD’s public “Reason to Drive” reputation, with them talking about improving safety and frequency which are two of the main issues people I talk to have with their services. If the can engender a little more trust in public transit it would help.
As a former Lehigh valley resident, Philadelphia resident and frequent traveler to New York City I am so thrilled so see this. I know so many people who car commute to both locations from the valley and it blows my mind that we don’t have better transportation available.
The best way to get Amtrak trains to arrive on time is to require that they carry "some" US Mail aboard. The primary rail carriers (BNSF, Norfolk Southern, Union Pacific, CSX) must then prioritize Amtrak movements over freight traffic...
People need to pressure Congress to get the Post Office to bring back the railroad post office car.
They already legally have to give way to amtrak trains.
They just get around the legal requirement by running trains so long they physically cannot fit within the sidings and thus force the Amtrak trains to give way.
Fun fact, the corridor study between San Antonio Austin and Dallas did not make the federal funding list because TxDOT screwed up the application
oh no
By ineptitude or design, such an outcome was a given.
oh that absolutely sounds like something txdot would do
@@breensprout No, that doesn't sound like the "Just one more lane, bro!" people at all.
I know Nashville was only on the thumbnail, but I think a Nashville-Chattanooga-Atlanta, or Nashville-Louisville-Indy, or Nashville-Louisville-Cincinnati lines would all be great candidates
The fact that there isn’t a Cincinnati-Louisville-Nashville-Atlanta Amtrak line is insane to me.
I live near Nashville so I’m pretty mad about it.
I would love KC to STL to Nashville to Chattanooga to ATL. That would be wonderful for my family..ha. only Greyhound and not even Megabus!
We need to bring back the Chattanooga Choo Choo!
Absolutely, My family all live in Chattanooga. I can't get a direct flight so I either have to drive in ever-worsening traffic from ATL or take the very short ATL to CHA flight. I takes longer to board that flight than the flight lasts. And Nashville is 2.5 hours by car from Chattanooga so you'd only need a reasonably fast train. It all makes too much sense, which is why it probably won't happen until Ray is Secretary of Transportation.
The lack of Indy > Louisville service is criminal.
As someone who lives in Bakersfield. That gap you spoke of drives me INSANE. instead of taking a train I had to take a bus to Lancaster and hop on Metrolink. While on the bus guess what I passed by, TRAINS!! The tracks are there. Amtrak just has to buy the rights to use them. It kills me
The truly absurd thing about the Delaware and Lehigh Valleys in PA is that those rail links existed 100 years ago. The Reading Railroad was one of Philadelphia's major railroads, and between the Reading, Lehigh Valley, and Pennsylvania Railroads, the entire region was easily accessible by rail.
Allentown/Bethlehem to Philadelphia until about 1980 when service ended, ostensibly because diesels weren’t permitted in the then-new center city commuter tunnel. Real reason is that the two counties never joined SEPTA, preferring to operate their own TA. Phillipsburg (across the bridge from Easton) had NJT service to New York until mid 1980s, I think. Please come to visit. Hint: our metro planning agency dislikes adding a third lane to our freeways in the distribution center capital of the NE *and* claims poverty on doing anything at all about passenger rail. Director of the TA, Owen O’Neil, is a stand-up guy.
Unironically I would vote for anyone who pledged to name Ray as SOT
Trump 😂
he'd be better at HUD imo
@@jag4109Lucid Stew as head of DOT and City Nerds as head of HUD
Love your channel, CN. One gripe, though: Often you flip visuals from city to city, around (round?) the world, as you narrate some topic or other, and I get confused…now where are we? I wish every scene was labeled, especially any from My City, if I had one, which I don’t. Congratulations on a fascinating body of work (oeuvre?).
A-B-E native & long-time Philly resident here... it's so depressing. the bus service is also not great. Recent Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk is YIMBY-aligned. The city could easily double in population if connectivity were better.
Amazon (et al) have clearly noted the potential -- you can't go 1 mile in the valley anymore without hitting a massive warehouse complex. But it's cars all the way down.
As an East Tennessean, I know why there isn’t good commuter rail in my state. I think a line from Memphis-Nashville-Knoxville-Asheville-Charlotte would make a lot of sense.
Especially if you have smaller lines going towards other metro areas in TN
Is that where the Chattanooga Choo Choo used to go,?
I know the focus is on shorter regional routes, but I stand by the idea that a interstate 40 mirror train route would do pretty good. NC, TN, AR, OK, TX, NM, AZ, CA, connecting more of less the same major points along the path
Geez, so many of these intercity connections would make so much sense! No wonder they haven't been done! 🤣When I was in tech school, wayyyyyy back when in the 1980s, I had a PT job in the school and we had this very old boss (had to be 80s) and he had a lot of great stories. He mentioned that after WWII, the US had a decision to make, a country-wide interconnect railway system, or, highway system. And we can see which won out. Wonder what could have been...
We had a country wide rail system in WWII and what we have is a fraction of what we had then .
What's funny is that the US already had a fantastic interstate highway system. Look at route 66 for example. We honestly didn't need the interstate highway system that was built; it was purely an infrastructure project to benefit the car industry. A few bypasses to get cars routed around cities is really all that was warranted.
Yes it did help build the suburbs, but in my opinion the suburbs that we built after the 1950s have been a net negative for the country in almost every way.
@@jamalgibson8139 Indeed! Ostensibly, the highway system was built for the military to get troops and material moved faster, etc., with a side benefit to the car industry.
Suburbia and car culture are overall colossal detriments. Sure, cars had/have their place, but not to the extent we have it.
@@josephpadula2283 Yep, largely forgotten.
@@ph5915 I truly wonder how different the US would be had we dropped 500 billion into interstate/high speed rail in 1955, rather than into highways...
Sarasota native here: we used to have the Tampa southern that went from Tampa through Bradenton and Sarasota to a junction just south of Arcadia. There it would link up with another branch of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad and would go down to the terminus in Naples, passing through Punta Gorda and Fort Myers. There hasn’t been intercity service in over 50 years
Everything on this list USED to have service at some point. It's so sad
Sarasota was the winter home of the Ringling Circus. Back when "the train came to town", it many times included "lions, and tigers, and bears". Oh, my. [Speaking of Florida, there used to be train service between New Orleans and Jacksonville. In theory, there is going to be a train between New Orleans and Mobile re-opened one-of-these-days.]
@@JoyClinton-i8g Jacksonville here for the shout out! We would LOVE to be connected to Brightline. Or to be able to get an Amtrak headed north to Atlanta that didn't pick up at 2am. Yep- that's the only service that we get!
Venice was part of that too, right? Or another railroad? There’s a disused station there.
Bro I live in the Caribbean I don’t know why I like watching your videos
I've lived in the Lehigh Valley most of my life and the idea of restoring passenger rail to NYC and Philly comes up every few years. I think for many it's hard to justify the cost when bus services currently serve the area. That and sharing the NYC line with fright plus the old tracks being removed on the Philly line for a rail trail. So who knows, maybe someday it'll come back.
I suspect the JeBran family, owners of the bus company, prefer the status quo.
0:46 “derailed,” very nice
Automotive industry + oil industry + airline industry and even environmental groups on occasion is a *tough* hill to climb
Bias against urban areas is even more of a cause. Nobody wants to do infrastructural improvements like mass transit because they know well who is going to be using it, which is seen as wasting money by everyone else.
@@starventure which is stupid, because outlying communities would have access to better jobs in the city while retaining their autonomy, and could even experience decent growth from people looking for semi-rural housing.
The Pennsylvania Railroad ran two trains daily that connected New York, Newark N. J., Philadelphia Pa , Harrisburg Pa , Pittsburg Pa, Columbus and Dayton Oh. Effingham Ill and terminating in St Louis. They were the Spirit of St louis and the Penn Texas ( that continued past St Louis as part of the Texas Eagle.) Those city pairs would work today.
I'm not surprised to see NYC to Allentown top this list. Last summer I spent a couple months taking the bus from NYC to Hazleton PA every Monday and back every Friday. A train would have made my life so much easier, so I was really glad to see that one included in corridor ID. Allentown is way larger and closer to both New York and Philly than Scranton/Wilkes-Barre/Hazleton though, so it is kinda baffling that it isn't connected by rail already!
I went there last year and I was pleasantly surprised by Allentown.
A fervent desire to keep more outsiders outside. Nativism.
Flagstaff to Phoenix is one corridor I really want because I live on the southwest chief line and I have family in Phoenix so it would be very convenient
Correction: You said Winston-Salem and Greensboro are separate metros, but they are both part of the Piedmont Triad Metro, which is a single metro area and a single CSA that is comprised of High Point, Winston-Salem, and Greensboro. Many rely on both WS and Greensboro who live within either for business, work, living, community as they are truly one metro region.
As someone who travels about 40 miles each way on trains every day for education, I'm extremely thankful this rail link exists because I would not do this if I had to drive or rent in the other city. The town where I live now loves building big apartment buildings and as a result, house prizes here are still very reasonable. That's right, more apartment buildings make houses cheaper too! The trip takes just 40 minutes and there are direct trains every 30 minutes. Paying 50$ per month for the train is way better than 500$ per month and the hassle of renting student accommodation.
The Providence & Worcester RR still exists and operates, even if most of their activity is on the mine that parallels 395. It probably wouldn't even take too much to get some DMUs running between the two. There's even a station in Woonsocket to stop at, complete with its own Hachiko statue.
And the crazy thing, the tracks already exist between the pairs you mentioned, so service could be installed if one would actually want to
Dang it, I'm proud to be a member of "Train Dork TH-cam!" 😂
Edmonton-Calgary is definitely Canada's biggest gap.
lol lol IS it cold maybe Grampops stoped Jitering eh
@ Are you alright?
I'm from Calgary and in the years since becoming a train nerd I've been getting a kick out of saying "X town has better train service than Calgary".
The Pas, Manitoba has better train service than Calgary
White River, Ontario has better train service than Calgary
Burns Lake, BC has better train service than Calgary
Moosonee, Ontario has better train service than Calgary
Senneterre, Quebec has better train service than Calgary
Watrous, Saskatchewan has better train service than Calgary
Viking, Alberta has better train service than Calgary
@@dozenthdragon But do they have the Ctrain and good bus system?
@@HIDLad001i wouldn’t say Calgary Transit has good bus service will not as frequent as should be and leaving people behind at stops occasionally
I can explain the issue with Bakersfield to LA. The mountains suck. If you notice from the high speed rail design plans, they have to go all the way around the Grape Vine rather than how cars go which is basically straight through. There's also issues of just finding the right spot you can build that doesn't have too high a grade of land. With how expensive it's going to be in that area, it's put lower on the list as a priority. (Also, I'm still super annoyed at how slow the building of the rail is. I'd really like some damn rail to get to SF from Fresno).
With just about everything having been approved and cleared at this point, there is just one limitation: Money. Fortunately there is enough in the pot for the next four years. By then you should have rail, catenary and trains in test mode. And the last bits into Merced and Bakersfield should be under construction. The standard rail extensions to Merced for cross platform transfers should be in process too.
I wonder how Detroit-Lansing-Grand Rapids stacks up? That seems like a gap that is quite glaring to us in Michigan. Also, Detroit-Indianapolis seems like another candidate, though perhaps less likely to ever get any service due to Indiana not wanting to pay for passenger rail beyond the South Shore Line.
Also, though not entirely in the US, it seems like Chicago-Detroit-Toronto deserves some attention, as the actual gap in service is only a few miles long (Detroit to Windsor). I do know this is on Amtrak’s actual list of corridors (and it is being studied), so maybe there’s a chance that gets service..
@ If you’re talking about the International, that went through Port Huron, not Detroit.
@@hulltim2 my mistake, then.
Frankly I’d want to have both, but Detroit makes more sense for population density.
Would it be feasible to take the Tunnel Bus between the train stations in Detroit and Windsor to work around that gap?
(I haven’t tried the Tunnel Bus yet. One time, I drove my car from home in Ann Arbor to the Windsor train station, then I took Via to Niagara Falls.)
@ Yes, it can be done - however, it requires two transfers (one on the Detroit side to the Tunnel Bus, and one on the Windsor side to VIA).
@@hulltim2 I live in Ann Arbor, my son is in Lansing, and my mother in law is in Grand Rapids. It's nice that all 3 of us can take Amtrak to meet in Chicago, but it sure would be better for us if your proposed Det-Lan-GR service could also stop in AA!
The Houston Dallas corridor not having rail is insane. For a while we had a tourist train from Houston to Galveston back in the 90's. Yet somehow we had the Galveston Interurban in the 40's and 50's.
I grew up in Sarasota FL in the 90s. At some point there was a year 2020 master plan making the rounds that would have had a high speed rail from Tampa to at least Sarasota, maybe beyond, by the year 2020. I no longer live there and had forgotten about that until now. So that rail line could have been almost 5 years old at this point had it not been shot down. As a kid I remember thinking how cool it would be to hop on a train to Tampa even if it seemed like a distant dream at the time. Apparently it's still a distant dream.
I love your weekly uploading. Noticed your channel rebranding and just want to say I'll be sticking around. I am inspired by your progression.
Congrats on the new channel name, you've joined the big leagues!! 🎊🎉🥂
Thanks Ray for promoting Allentown to New York and Allentown to Philly. I live in Allentown and there is a decent bus from Allentown to New York, but that’s about it. Rail seems to be so far away from happening. It’s sad. And it would be so perfect. A huge boon for the Lehigh Valley too
Does anyone commute from that airport?
I don't know if the people there really commute to New York City that much. They are more the local types. Or they were when I used to live around there.
Kudos to our local TA for colocating the major bus station to NYC at the airport, offering free daily parking for commuters. Still service to city centers, but this is real convenient.
@@saratemp790 they probably were in the past but post Covid and remote work, I’ve seen a lot of New York transplants on this edge of the state because it’s only an hour and 45 back to New York City by car.
I'll nominate you Ray, for Sec. Trans. :D. Seriously, I'm a native Ohioan who took a 24 year detour to be a railroader in the NEC, both Amtrak and freight. I had friends in OARP/AAO who spent just about their entire adult lives in the fight for some kind of rail passenger service in the 3C corridor, to no avail. We have a corrupt state government that is in the pocket of highway interests. I don't know how else you could characterize it when the former ODOT Sec. of the previous Republican Governor came to there from being a lobbyist for the asphalt paving industry - no kidding. He forbade officially mentioning the term intrastate rail passenger service while he was in office. It's partly why Ohio is 7th in U. S. population but 47th in transit funding, and I don't know how to change that anytime soon? And yes it's a total disgrace that Columbus has no rail passenger service of any kind, and they moved the intercity bus station to out by the interstate, and Cleveland is getting ready to do the same thing. Much respect for the channel.
City Pairs sounds like a dating app for urban enthusiasts.
I need a car free dating app
2:18 taipei to kaohsiung having 90+ hsr trains per day in EACH direction is crazy, thats like what 10 min headway unless its running into the night
more frequency than most cities metro
Japan main Shinkansen has one nozomi (the fastest one with few stops) between Tokyo and Osaka every 10 mins and one other type in about the same time, so afaik it's about the same every day. It is really crazy having so much service available and a fair bit of them are full during peak season/ hours.
One thing to consider when saying "air travel has an advantage"... LAX-PHX is a classic example. 373 miles - 5 hours by train at Amtrak's standard 79mph. An hour and a half gate-to-gate in the air... BUT, consider AT LEAST two hours in LAX's TSA debacle PLUS getting down there (remember, no public transit to LAX until at least 2026, and I doubt it's going to make a lot of difference)... the time at this distance is gonna be a wash, and I'd much rather spend that time in a nice train seat than most of it in a queue or in an airport or airplane seat... bump the train (new build, after all) to 250kph and there's no question.
As the former HQ for the L&N Railroad, Louisville's lack of passenger rail is insulting. We used to be so connected!
Hello there new channel name. Very professional.
Too bad we cant paint them gold
like pld scool myspace glitter
Denver to Boulder was part of RTD's 2004 ballot initiative, FasTracks. The line hasn't been built except for a single station stub off of the G line. The Front Range Passenger Rail District and RTD are actually working together to share as much infrastructure in the shared corridor as possible.
it took about 30 years to connect DEN airport to Denver via light rail; I would just write CO off at this point
The airport is actually connected via heavy rail that was built under the same FasTracks ballot initiative. The line uses Silverliner V trainsets. Service started in 2016, 12 years after the vote. The Colorado of today is not the Colorado of 1990
Love your channel and its content, been watching for years but I must admit that I'm most excited to see whatever your cat is doing during the credits. This week: biscuit making! lol
Very happy and also sad to see the Lehigh Valley show up finally! Our whole region has exploded over the past decade and our infrastructure can't keep up. Our bus network is WAY underfunded. So many people in the region want to see rail service to Philly and New York.
But the family which owns the bus company doesn’t, especially with a round trip fare of nearly $100 for an 80-mile trip.
really excited to hear your thoughts on this topic
Relax, it's not that big a deal. Dont need all this fake optimism
Your B roll of Seattle still shows the 99 viaduct. ;P
I loved the Cascades train between PDX and Seattle proper, especially when it was $25. And a $5 upgrade to the business car. Triple that now, but still better than the wretched bus on i5.
That dream Tampa to Fort Myers is being squashed as we speak with the conversion of right of way from old train lines to trails. Trains used to run all the way to Naples but now the line stops at Sarasota. It runs again for 40 miles from Arcadia (way inland) to Fort Myers. And from Fort Myers to Bonita Springs is practically abandoned with plans to convert it into a new trail. From Bonita to Naples it has already been converted to a 4 lane stroad. Atlanta having the same issue with the greenbelt. As good as having trails is, we are killing the last chance to get decent rail transportation, it will be impossible to get right of way for new tracks in the future
I wish there was a greater focus on connecting many of the massive holes between metros of the upper South and Midwest, the fact that St. Louis doesn’t connect to the existing lines in Carbondale and Indianapolis without going through Chicago first is ridiculous.
Other lines like a north/south line connecting Atlanta with Tennessee and Kentucky, or a line connecting KC and Omaha, would be huge and life changing for millions in multiple regions of the US.
The country is split at Chicago and New Orleans. You cannot go from one side to the other without going to one of these two places first. Which of course is ridiculous.
I'm 53 and I remember when the EU became a thing. What interested me most as an outsider was the mobility it offered to labor, since the passenger rail service was already pretty awesome compared to the US at the time. And it's only gotten better since. I hate that so many powerful people in the US shoot this kind of stuff down just to keep everyone else miserable.
I live in Carbondale and go to school in St. Louis. The fact that I can't just take a train is the most infuriating thing
And the thumbnail shows STL-Carbondale-Nashville-Atlanta, which is a line I've been thinking about for at least a year now
I feel like it should be a no brainier for me to be able to get on a train at my medium sized small town, take it to a big city like Chicago or STL, then change trains and be able to get off at another town the same size as mine. Instead it’s a 90 minute drive to the airport, 5hr flight (layover included) and another 90 minute drive to get to that town. And that said destination down is in the middle of the Kentucky/Tennessee gap.
Yes. A phx to tuc train would be amazing. Honestly take that line all the way to Mexico There are so many tourists from Mexico into Arizona and up to Las Vegas. This would be similar to Vancouver to Portland.
12:40 I never thought I'd see my hometown, Poughkeepsie, mentioned in a CityNerd video (even if it's very tangential). I love it
Maybe it's been mentioned in passing before, but I don't remember
I’m still waiting for my top ten European fortresses ray
Not limited to the US obviously but I’m dying for international rail that gets you to Montréal from a major US city in fewer than 12 hours.
The lack of a high-speed line between Toronto and Montreal is absolutely absurd. A downright stupid number of flights make that pair, and a bunch of people forced to drive or bus it. I've rode VIA from Montreal to Toronto and that is barely a legitimate option.
@@thatoneotherotherguyless customs bullshit would go a long way. I hear it’s even worse than it used to be?
As someone who grew up in South Bend (hi Mayor Pete!), “the last interurban” the South Shore line between SB and Chicago just doesn’t get enough love.
Thanks!
You're welcome!
"This is all just a long way saying that if you go to the state of Ohio expecting anything to make any rational sense at all, you're going to be disappointed." As an Ohioan: Yes, that's about it in a nutshell. Animaniacs had it right years ago: "All is strange and vague." "Are we dead?" "Or is this Ohio?"
There's been a passenger train station directly across the Shoreway from the general area of Browns Stadium for over 100 years now, and still no connection to Detroit, Chicago, Indy, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati or Buffalo on game days... but they want to build a new stadium less than a mile from the airport? Haha, yeah, okay, whatever.
@@taxirob2248 And $13.00 per day at Northpoint Garage for public parking, then nearly one-half mile walk to Amtrak-Cleveland platform at 2:30AM? Discouragement; what could be worse? Oh, unannounced, the train is late.
And does the upcoming generation wonder WHY that old "Terminal Tower" building in the center of town was built with tracks underneath it?
@@michaelsmith9590 actually Terminal Tower is serving its intended purpose. Intercity service was supposed to connect where Amtrak is now. The plan was to have a huge passenger terminal on Lakeside, a Grand Central Station type of thing. Needless to say, it never got built.
@@michaelsmith9590 look online for pics of the original downtown Cleveland plan, it was very much a "Germania" flavored neo-classic type of thing. Terminal Tower at the south end, and the actual train station at the north end.
@@taxirob2248 I mean, in theory you could take Amtrak from Pittsburgh to Cleveland ... with the small problem of the schedule being absolutely ridiculously badly timed. That 100% of the intercity train service in the entire state of Ohio consists of 2 trains in each direction stopping between 11:30 PM and 7:30 AM is just so convenient!
I’m from Fort Myers and have been saying the same thing! There’s no reason why we can’t make the brightline a loop that connects the entirety of central and southern Florida!
Re: "...no reason why WE (As taxpayers?) can't make the brightline.....connects.....Florida! (1) Brightline is a for-profit corporation. Its owners seek the highest-populated possible city pairs for its revenue. Southwest Florida communities south of Tampa Bay likely do not make their list.
Nevertheless, as stated elsewhere as an evacuation option, PUBLICALLY-OPERATED passenger rail service on the Gulf Coast of Florida makes very good sense when one's life is in the balance: to escape or to endure a major storm and its aftermath of electric power loss, fuel and food shortages.
Interesting to hear arguments about transport privatization when BILLIONS of dollars continue to fund major PUBLICALLY-OWNED tollroad expansion and extension projects.
In Boston, North Station doesn't connect to South Station. You have to walk a few blocks for a connection
I’d love for you, or one of the other urbanist TH-camrs, to do a video on the MBTA Communities law. So many suburbs are screwing the law up by placing their zoning for apartments over existing apartments/multi family housing, and others are shooting it down completely. Only a handful are truly embracing the law, and it’s a law that other metros (SF, NYC) should take note on
I would like to see a video about the most underserved cities that _technically_ have rail service, but most people would never consider it because trains only ever come in the middle of the night
Make Florida Brightline a loop. Going back through the Everglades along Alligator Alley back to Miami.
How can Amtrak or any other train service serve the Southeast region of the US? Like Nashville, Memphis, Chatanooga, Knoxville, Roanoke, Bristol, VA/TN, Atlanta, Macon, Birmingham, Mobile, Jacksonville, Savannah, Charleston, and Charlotte, NC.
Nashville - Atlanta - Macon - Savannah. Atlanta - Macon - Columbus, GA - Montgomery, AL - Mobile, AL. New Orleans - Mobile, AL - Tallahassee, FL - Jacksonville, FL. Chicago - Memphis, TN - Birmingham, AL - Columbus, GA - Waycross, GA - Jacksonville, FL.
Not to defend Colorado’s lack of connectivity, but we do have a state run coach service called Bustang that runs fairly frequent busses between each of those cities and Denver in pretty good time. I would still love to see FRPR go through and would love to see better connectivity between CO cities but at least we don’t have nothing
they should electrify it and call it Busla
Lehigh Valley - Philadelphia service was once provided by SEPTA. Service was dropped when they abandoned their unnelectrified tracks. Sadly, the tracks between Quakertown and Bethlehem have since been removed, making any attempt at reinstating service…circuitous.
But we got a lovely rail trail with two disconnected sections out of it. /s
They could certainly take it back.
As a resident of Nashville, that thumbnail speaks to me
The fact that Texas has no high speed rail is absurd to me. Plenty of people commute from San Antonio to Austin daily. Some people commute even farther weekly between cities like Houston and Dallas. For reference, the train from Dallas to San Antonio is scheduled to take 10.5 hours. Driving is about 5 hours.
IIRC a large reason we dont have high speed rail is that a lot of the small towns the lines were proposed to go through are opposing any development if the trains dont stop there, which defeats the purpose of high speed rail.
It is the auto industry that is suppressing high-speed rail in the US, along with the airlines.
I think the trick is you build lines that can do high speed (doesn't need to be ultra fast, even 150 miles an hour will beat cars by a huge margin and still be competitive for medium distances with air) and run slower (like 80 miles per hour) trains on them too to stop in a bunch of cities. Or do like the Japanese shinkansen where you have slow trains that stop at every station and fast ones that stop at one fourth of the stations.
With respect to towns blocking development, this is partly what slowed California high speed rail. Palmdale specifically was a totally unnecessary stop for the system that may actually doom it because of the weird routing it causes, but it was forced because the official there demanded a station. It's possible he did that because he wanted to kill the project, but that's just speculation.
Anyways, it's still possible to have hourly service that bypasses all the small towns and have 15 minute service to various towns along the route. Frankly, you could have 10 minute express service and all other service hits the smaller towns, but American transit planners don't seem to understand that frequency is more important than station density.
@@jamalgibson8139 Absolutely. I really like the Japanese style of getting around this. Multiple Shinkansen lines - some like the nozomi stop only at the major stations and are the fastest. Other ones that stop at each station that are slightly slower, but enhance connectivity. Sometimes it's easier to take the fast line to a major station, then backtrack depending on where your start and end stations are. But I think that a lot of these small town officials think that their towns will die if every possible train doesn't stop there.
@@denelson83 Houston having massive oil companies and Dallas having the headquarters of two of the biggest airlines in America. Coincidence that we don't have a high speed link between these two obviously great candidates for it?
I would love to a suburban MBTA commuter rail ring that goes from Fitchburg, to Worcester, to Providence. Just a shame that MA has little desire to invest any major infrastructure anymore.
I would be interested to see your take on the efforts to restore rail service on Vancouver Island.
The Lehigh Valley (Allentown-Bethlehem) area has been rapidly absorbed into the NE megalopolis over the past two decades, especially in terms of transportation. This is because there are 20-30 miles of warehouses west of Allentown and 10-20 miles of warehouses north of Bethlehem. A new major section of highway was completed to New York within the last two decades. And the NE extension of PA Turnpike (I-495) is being widened. It is mostly too little, too late. The highways from A-town to both cities are packed.
I analyzed the early spread of COVID in late winter/spring of 2020, the first measurable rise of any metro emanating from NYC SCSA was the Lehigh Valley. There is a lot of commuting and family connections.
I live in Philly and was raised in ATown - so I drive to see family regularly - and there is rapidly rising traffic and commuting.
Commuter rail would be widely used.
Big thing nobody wants to talk about: elevation is about 250 feet above sea level and plenty of good water coming from the Poconos originally intended to serve the steel company. So climate change destination location.
Sad thing is that some of these city pairs had popular passenger rail links in the past. The entire front range was served by ATSF passenger trains in the 50’s. The Texas cities & LA to Bakersfield was well served by the southern pacific back then. You can see remnants of fallen passenger trains in rail museums. But it didn’t have to be this way if USDOT had forethought back in the day to keep some services in operation.
I consider that the South has three "capital cities" - Atlanta, Charlotte and Nashville, and there should be trains connecting all these city pairs. Atlanta to Nashville should have service, which should eventually be part of a direct Chicago to Florida train (as opposed to the new Floridian, which is really a stopgap train).
While I agree with Charlotte needing to be connected to Atlanta and Nashville, Raleigh is the capital. Not Charlotte.
@@danhobson2879 I wasn't referring to the state, rather the region. Charlotte is the biggest city in NC and in some ways the most important, in my opinion.
9:09 Ohio's population corridors are long overdue for re-establishment of intercity passenger rail. Why has the 3C+D corridor lacked passenger rail service since 1971? Seems like an obvious opportunity, but efforts to restart service have been scuttled numerous times. Perhaps an ideal non-electrified corridor for something resembling Bright Line?
Want to give a big shout out to the the advocacy efforts of All Aboard Ohio! Thanks for including them in this discussion about Ohio passenger rail.
Somewhere in a dusty archive is a color photo of "Train-X", Pullman Company-built passenger train, sponsored by the former New York Central System which (I read elsewhere) ran a trial from Cleveland - Columbus - Cincinnati line during the 1950's. It was said that the bolted-track did not provide a comfortable ride. Marketing of its yellow-green colour livery did not sit well with locals at the time.
I came here to watch you roast my hometown of Nashville for its barren lack of rail, based on the thumbnail and now I’m sad. 😂
The whole US outside the northeast is a passenger rail gap
One big transport gap in Illinois is Chicago to Peoria - no direct interstate link, let alone rail. Peoria residents who want to take a train to Chicago have to go to Normal to catch the Amtrak Lincoln Service or Texas Eagle.
It's so painful to think about how US train service should be so much better. There is so much potential, and it would reduce traffic on our roads significantly if the service was even half decent.
It would make it a lot easier to travel with pets too. Think about booking a small private train room that's pet friendly rather than trying to fly with them. Huge untapped market.
I 75 from Naples to Tampa is a nightmare. Passenger rail would be very helpful.
I have long felt that State College PA would be a good candidate for a HSR stop. Penn State student population is huge and lots of non PA students. 100,000+ on game days and I am sure some would love to opt out of driving. Lots of alumni from Philly and NYC. Currently not served by rail at all.
That drive suuuuuucks.
I’d love to see the ROI comparison between expanding highways between these city pairs & rail. We do a terrible job quantifying the cost of a perceived free service has a high entry cost but low use fee vs one that has a lower entry cost and low use fee.
Make sure that ROI takes into account trucks using the highways. It's something the anti-car people never factor in. Good luck getting your produce from farms to your urban supermarket without highways. I suppose farmers could deliver by train? 🤭
@ the awesome thing about the current interstate system BETWEEN cities & urban areas is that it’s VERY suited for truck traffic as it is, & no new interstate within a metro area will ever come close to the cost-to-benefit from the original interstate system. We could spend a fraction of the money for maintenance & non-expansion plans with better ROI than new interstates. The inverse would be true for passenger rail as we exterminated the passenger rail system to fund the highways, so the money that would go to new rail would likely have returns looking like 1950’s highways.
Even the airlines don't want to put planes on the Allentown to New York route; if you book ABE-EWR on United, you'll actually travel that route by bus. Also, the Lehigh Valley in general needs much better public transit to support longer distance trains. If they were to put to a train station in Allentown, there'd be no easy way to get to or from Bethlehem or Easton from it.
Bethlehem borders Allentown. Like, a bump in a road and street signs change. Also, an existing station. Easton is on the way to NY. You have to go through Easton to get to NYPenn.
My favorite part about that bus is that at least at one time if you tried to book it by itself, it cost $1100 and then said “NOTE: this is a bus” beside it.
I went to school at Lehigh university and it was so frustrating any time I had to go to NYC as a carless student!
Years ago I lived in La Junta CO and was able to take AmTrack to LA and from LA to Sacramento. I could then take AmTrack from Sacramento to Denver. BUT I had to take Greyhound from Denver down to Pueblo and then drive to La Junta.
Lehigh Valley, What could be... There is a line (ex-Jersey Central RR) parallel to the current freight (ex-Lehigh Valley RR) line all the way to Allentown. There was passenger service to Philipsburg, NJ on the Pa border until 1981 or so. Sadly, all of it has been torn up in Pa. now an incomplete bike path. In Nj, I 78 was built on top of the ROW without a bridge. The problem on the east end is the bottle neck from Aldene to the vicinity of Newark airport. All of Norfolk Southern's freight traffic and NJT's Raritan Valley Line use this stretch of track.
As I am living in High Point, going to school in Greensbor, and working in Winston-Salem I would love a train of some kind that would be able to take me to Winston from either city. The traffic is usually awful going between the three
what I like most about trains even if it’s not high speed is the feeling of steadily moving smoothly without breaking in stop and go traffic in cars or buses, yes I know Amtrak shares rail with freight trains and has stop to yield right of way but I feel people take for granted what the efficiency of passenger rail could be just because trains were invented before cars, you’re moving more people per square foot linearly and smoothly compared to cars and it’s stress free and enjoyable ride
Service between Denver and Colorado Springs would be amazing.
Colorado is too busy spending money on services for illegal immigrants
@ No lie detected.
Cleveland and Akron, weirdly enough, actually do not have a physical railroad corridor that connects the two cities. All of the legacy trackage flows roughly east to west through the two cities with no north-south connection remaining. I haven't seen it stated for certain anywhere but it's my theory that the fact you'd need to actually build more track to link Cleveland and Akron is a big reason why it has never been seriously considered as part of the 3C+D corridor. All of the other cities on that route are already connected by extant Norfolk Southern trackage.
Sadly, the CA&C (Cleveland, Akron and Columbus division of PRR) once did exactly that.
The former Democratic governor of Louisiana was hell bent on getting rail service between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, but unfortunately, he was term limited and the new Republican governor has zero interest in the project. The Feds were all in under Biden and Mayor Pete, but it doesn't look good now.
Congrats on getting so big you pulled an interview with sec pete 👏🏽 👍🏾..can you maybe do a video on the best future public trans plans in all 50 states? Also most affordable public trans networks?
“What’s wrong with a bus?” Spoken like someone who isn’t 6’1”
I live in the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania. I would love train service to both New York and Philadelphia. But I've heard of plans for a train to New York for the past 30 years and nothing has happened.
This would be a great database item to have anywhere in the world, for export into a GIS layer. It'd compute a lot faster if every point was limited to just the three nearest points.
I want A+ public transit options in Metro Detroit waaaaaay more than I want a rail line to Toledo. 😭
They (Amtrak) could easily add a 3rd "Silver" route that would close the gap between Charlotte, NC & Columbia, SC. Then continue as far south as Fort Myers, Florida. AFAIK, there's already existing rail line that could be used for passenger rail. Omaha - Kansas City also seems like a good idea, maybe continuing further on with a connection to either Springfield, MO - Tulsa, OK or from K.C. to St. Louis.