THE FREE REIN TO 110 CAMPAIGN CATCHES ON.

The Center for New Urbanism presents "A strong case for faster trains serving ‘megaregions’."

There are 11 emerging megaregions in the US, including the Northeast, the Great Lakes, Piedmont Atlantic, the Florida peninsula, the Gulf Coast, the Texas Triangle, the Front Range of the Rockies, Arizona Sun corridor, Southern California, Northern California, and Cascadia (Pacific Northwest)—see map at top. Five of these regions dip into Canada and Mexico.

Barnett covers many topics, but intercity trains are the most interesting and relevant. He is not a big advocate of high-speed rail, which is very expensive, rather he argues for “fast enough” service—using existing technology like Acela in the northeast corridor. Such trains offer competitive alternatives to air travel and driving in megaregions.

No surprises there.

Note, though, that the story, and the book it comments on, suggests that maligning Amtrak's Acela for not being fast enough is not right.

The Northeast megaregion—which extends from Portland, Maine, to Richmond, Virginia—is the only one that comes close to offering the balanced transportation systems available in Europe, [Jonathan] Barnett writes. Train service is a critical part of that balance. Amtrak’s Acela express takes just under three hours from New York to Washington, DC, and it has captured more than three-quarters of the passengers who might otherwise fly that route. Similarly, the Acela from New York to Boston takes four hours and has captured half of the air travel. “While it is not high-speed rail, is it fast-enough rail,” Barnett explains.

That's good, although if the North River tubes fail, the resulting disruption of ordinary life in New York City will take on Wuhan flu proportions for a long time.

I'm going to have to locate the book, as the author appears to be suggesting a lot of the same things I've been writing about for years.

Acela provides a model for how rail can relieve growth pressures in airports and improve finances for trains. Because of the time it takes to travel to and through airports, trains don’t need to be high speed to be competitive—but they do need to improve service over what is available on most of Amtrak’s lines. “Trains that can attain 110 miles per hour and can operate at average speeds of 70 mph are fast enough to help balance transportation in megaregions,” Barnett says. Catenary electric trains, like the Acela, have maximum operating speeds of 150 mph, but only a few sections of track permit these speeds, he says. Currently, most Amtrak trains are powered by diesel locomotives with a maximum permitted speed of 79 mph and average operating speeds of 30 to 50 mph, Barnett writes. That’s too slow to compete with driving—let alone flying.

Technology that falls short of high-speed rail in Europe and Asia—which run at between 150 and 220 mph—could nevertheless be a game changer in many megaregions. “Using conventional technology like the Acela for rail service from Birmingham, Alabama, to Atlanta, Georgia—for example—would cut the main trip from more than four hours to less than two,” he writes.

He questions whether going all the way to high-speed rail, which is politically sexy and alluring, may be a mistake. California’s high-speed rail, which is planned to connect Los Angeles and the Bay Area—two megaregions—is expected to top $100 billion. The state only has funds for the middle section, which largely goes through agricultural land. “In retrospect, the $30 billion expended on the central segment could have gone a long way toward funding fast-enough trains, like the Acela, on Amtrak routes within the Bay Area and Los Angeles megaregions,” Barnett says.

Barnett is optimistic that “fast enough” rail travel in megaregions could be profitable for private investors like Virgin Trains USA, which is building an Acela-like train in Florida. “Today, for the first time in many years, there are private investors who are prepared to build and fund passenger rail transit—if the travel time, using the best available technology, is not more than two to three hours between key cities, and the cities are within megaregions,” says Barnett.

If you want some thoughts about Atlanta, Birmingham and the Coast, here those are. Virgin's Brightline, on the other hand, is less like the Acela and more like an updated version of Burlington's Zephyrs, which could clip along back in the day.