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| Re: Phila Inquirer: Gas prices, global warming renewing interest in high-speed rail (488557) | |||
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Re: Phila Inquirer: Gas prices, global warming renewing interest in high-speed rail |
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Posted by Fytton on Mon Sep 10 04:50:13 2007, in response to Re: Phila Inquirer: Gas prices, global warming renewing interest in high-speed rail, posted by WillD on Sat Sep 8 23:26:25 2007. That's an excellent list, which shows that the USA *could* make a success of rail as much of Europe has done. Rail can be competetive on city-centre-to-city-centre times over a range of roughly 150 to 400 miles, or maybe 500 with genuine HSR. Shorter than 150 miles, it's just as easy to drive in your own car, unless parking and/or traffic congestion at your destination is bad. Longer than 400/500, even after taking into account travel to the airport, check-in and security delays, and travel from the airport at the destination, air is likely to be quicker. And don't forget, most people don't live at Penn Station or Kings Cross/St Pancras; they live in suburbs, so time of travel from home *to* the main line terminus needs to be factored in for rail too.Within rail's competitive range, other factors come into play: price is clearly important, but so is convenience (e.g. having a direct one-seat ride from A to B, not having to change vehicle en route). In my view, the growth of low-cost airlines in the UK for doemstic and short-range European travel is mainly down to these two factors. |
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