Medium Speed Rail
It’s not nearly as interesting as more dramatic passenger rail initiatives, but this Virginia plan to spend $13 million upgrading the passenger rail connection between Washington, DC and Richmond is a great example of harvesting the low-hanging fruit. That’s a low, low price tag for transportation infrastructure, because what needs to be done is quite simple — the money will go to “build a third train track on a three-mile stretch in Spotsylvania County to allow Amtrak and Virginia Railway Express passenger trains to avoid being stuck behind slow-moving freight trains.” That will speed up passenger service and (arguably more importantly) make it more reliable. Ryan Avent comments:
It’s worth pointing out how big an interest the state has in improving these rail connections. The economy in Northern Virginia is lightyears ahead of anything anywhere else in the state. Improving connections between other metropolitan areas and the Washington juggernaut will only increase the market potential of those other areas.
I think it’s also a great example of network effects in action. If all passenger rail in the United States was as bad as the current DC-Richmond link, then the value of this upgrade might be pretty low. But of course that’s not the case. We have a pretty good set of rail links between DC and Boston. So if the Richmond-DC corridor can be upgraded from “bad” to “mediocre” then suddenly passenger rail becomes an attractive method of getting between Richmond and Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York along with DC. Building high-quality backbone lines like the Acela corridor is, of course, expensive. But one of the benefits of doing so is that along with the direct benefits flowing from those links, you open up a whole range of relatively cheap additional undertakings that wouldn’t otherwise make much sense.
22 Responses to “Medium Speed Rail”
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October 1st, 2008 at 6:36 pm
You elitist! Cars are God’s gift to the world! Why do you hate America?! Subsidies!!!!!!11!one!
October 1st, 2008 at 6:49 pm
Note that its not strictly speaking the sharing of lines with freight that is the problem, but rather the sharing of lines with much slower trains.
If the lines were shared with a large number of local trains with local platforms on the main lines, there would be similar delays, while if it was shared with container superfreighters running at 110mph, it would be the Amtrak slowing down the superfreighters.
Mixing substantially different speeds is the problem … in the long period of ultra-cheap oil, the main competitive advantage of rail was in slow bulk freight and time-insensitive containers.
Protect our ability to ship freight coast to coast from Peak Oil is best done by electrifying our strategic rail grid … and setting it up to take over more time-sensitive freight tasks will also directly make it more suitable for Express and High Speed interurban passenger rail.
October 1st, 2008 at 6:54 pm
The purpose of this project is to increase the reliability of VRE, which brings commuters very long distances into DC. Many DC office workers – e.g., secretaries, IT professionals – live where real estate is cheap and work in DC instead of Richmond because wages are so much higher here. These are people who must be at their desks at 9 am or else they’ll be fired. If VRE can be made more reliable, they can be lured out of their cars and off of overcrowded 95. It’s not really about linking Richmond into the Northeast corridor.
October 1st, 2008 at 7:30 pm
I got to experience “no speed rail” today, as my train broke down about 100 yards north of the Chicago stop on the purple line today. Man, that sucked.
But I’ll be back on it Thursday. It’s amazing to me, having grown up in Southern California, but I legitimately enjoy taking the train to work. Driving is faster, and yeah, parking is expensive, but I actually enjoy the ride.
October 1st, 2008 at 7:39 pm
bloix,
is it possible to quantify the population of such RIC–DC
commuters? i have none in my peer group and i’m curious.
October 1st, 2008 at 7:57 pm
Nayagan-
VRE goes down to Fredicksburg, so I presume longer distance commuters would drive to there (total from Richmond to DC is 100 miles, so I don’t think all that many make the entire trip, or at least not every day.)
But down to Caroline/Spotslvania county has, as an approximation:
Average Daily traffic for I-95 near Fredicksburg starts at 75,000 cars. With close to an additional 100K by time to get to Dale City (Prince Wiliam/Stafford border) and then another 75K on top of that by time you reach the beltway.
And for comparision about 15,000 people are on the VRE every day.
October 1st, 2008 at 9:33 pm
It always depresses me as a transit nut that Acela passes for a “high-quality backbone line” in this country.
October 1st, 2008 at 9:37 pm
Don’t overlook how much the delays south of DC aren’t generated by infrastructure but by greed: wherever possible, freight has right of way. And don’t overlook that Snow was in Bush’s cabinet.
October 1st, 2008 at 9:59 pm
Train porn for Matt (Biden on his way to DC for tonight’s vote):
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/10/01/business/02bailout_600.jpg
October 1st, 2008 at 10:51 pm
The recent train crash that killed 25 in the San Fernando Valley shows what a little investment could do. It will take years for the image of commuter trains in So Cal to recover, but it could have been prevented cheap. Sure, the guy driving the train was an idiot, but 25 people shouldn’t die because one guy screwed up. This isn’t like flying a plane where the pilot has to manage his location in three dimensions. It’s not even like driving a car in two dimensions. It’s basically a one-dimensional problem, which could largely be automated.
October 1st, 2008 at 11:05 pm
You’re basically talking about network effects – a rail line between Richmond and DC isn’t worth that much, but when you add in the connection to Baltimore, it’s worth more. Both connections are worth more when you add in Wilmington. Same for Philadelphia, New York, Providence, and Boston. Each additional city makes every existing piece of the rail network worth more.
October 2nd, 2008 at 9:54 am
As someone pointed out, this is all about VRE, not rail to Richmond. Amtrak has something like two trains a day to Richmond, and you can’t commute there.
VRE workers tend to be government workers — so a little flexibility is showing up at 9:30 would be nice. Or they could be like Japanese trains and give them a “get-to-work-late” pass in case the train is delayed. Its not like these peons DO anything once they get their government offices.
October 2nd, 2008 at 11:54 am
I’m all in favor, but it’s obscene that Virginia has to foot 85% of the bill while the federal government pays only 15%. It’s an interstate transportation project, and should get the same level of federal funding that interstate highways get.
October 2nd, 2008 at 5:15 pm
Why stop upgrading track at Richmond? The rail service south of Richmond through Petersburg, Raleigh, Greensboro, Charlotte, and Greenville to Atlanta should be upgraded as well. I realize this may not happen in my lifetime, but I can dream, can’t I?
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