Trains, Planes, Ferries and Bridges.

Prior post on high speed rail got me thinking about how to explain where HSR makes sense to build. First off, stop thinking of high speed rail like urban transit, like a trolleybus/streetcar, heavy rail metro, or even commuter rail. It goes much much faster--faster in a way most American's simply don't comprehend--no one has any experience traveling at HSR speeds--we travel at highways speeds (65-90 mph) and aircraft speeds (460-565 mph).  The relevant point is this: The faster you are going, the longer it takes to stop. (Landing aircraft seem to take mere seconds, which seems quick, until you realize the runway is a mile long...). So.

The faster the train goes, the longer it takes to stop, and the less frequently it stops. Take a rough ratio, say a HSR goes at 2/5 the speed of a jet aircraft. Shortest (scheduled) jet aircraft flight is about 60 minute*s. 2/5 of that is 24 minutes. So that's the absolute minimum distance between stops for HSR. And which assumes the endpoints are major metropolitan areas.

 The analogy:  As ferries connect places by water, planes connect places by air. Only in a few cases, where demand is both substantial and reliable, is it actually worth building a surface transportation connection, rather than simply using ever-larger 'ferries' to connect the two points. Before the Brooklyn Bridge in NYC, or the Bay Bridge in San Francisco, there were enormous fleets of boats ferrying people back and forth over the water. Today, we have enormous fleets of planes, ferrying people over the air. Demand must be truly enormous to justifying building a 'bridge' to connect two points. 

Prior to the pandemic, there were about 100 flights a day (35,365 annually) between LAX (Los Angeles) and SFO (San Francisco). It's the busiest air route in America. Which is why CAHSR made sense. (Stopovers at interim points much less so). 

Take a minute to find/scan the document "Where High-Speed Rail Works Best" by the regional plan association--it identifies all the city pairs where High Speed Rail makes sense. 

Here is a map you don't see often:

Most talk about HSR prattles on about population, but HSR journeys in India are scarce, despite it's billion plus population: This map gets to the heart of it: high speed travel (airplane and HSR) is proportional to wealth. Airplanes fly from 'pillar to pillar'. The higher the pillar, the more airplanes.

Look at the tall powers, and you can tick off American HSR initiatives:

1. CAHSR
2. Texas Central
3. Northeast Corridor
4. Brightline (Miami)
   

Map also explains why Chicago and Atlanta are second tier HSR cities: nothing both big and near. Chicago-Detroit and Atlanta-Charlotte are the best they can offer. Long bridges to not very tall pillars.

"But what about Miami?"

Miami seems weird--short pillar, not a lot of stops. You have to get into the nitty-gritty of the history to explain it. First off, the whole area was 'settled' by rail, specifically Henry Flagler's East Coast Railway, so there is already a long vertical rail corridor running through the urbanized area. Second, the area is very dense linear strip. Look at the density of the counties, and the average density isn't that great. But when you look at census blocks, you can see that the coastal side of each county is packed, and the inland side is empty (thanks to the Everglades). 

Misc. Observations:

1. Utah has already connected it's three 'towers' via a regional rail system (FrontRunner)--Colorado should probably do the same. 
2. Portland-Seattle-Vancouver probably works, if they can ever get speeds up. Coordination with Canada makes it complex--Amtrak barely crosses the  border, presently, doesn't really reach Vancouver per se. 
3. North Carolina's 'urban crescent' looks weirdly good for non-high speed train service-- Lot of smaller metros, none too far apart. They already have the Piedmont Amtrak train filling the niche, with 4 daily trains. Travel time still much slower than car, though.  

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*Ignoring special cases: connecting flights to islands, and/or 'milk runs' from major hubs to affluent communities (Vale to Aspen, CO.)