The Midwest Interstate Passenger Rail Commission

Reading some passenger-rail blogs, I came across the Midwest Interstate Passenger Rail Commission > Home It was founded in the mid-1990's to help promote passenger-rail and high-speed-rail development in the northern Midwest, but it has had limited success until very recently.

Its members are now Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio and Wisconsin, with the remaining eligible nonmember being South Dakota. All the members have Amtrak routes running to them, with the eligible nonmember having none unless the North Coast Hiawatha can be restarted.

It includes the proposed Chicago Hub HSR network, and it could be called Greater Chicagoland.

Most of the states would make good HSR candidates, or at least moderately-good ones. However, the westernmost states are rather doubtful. Nebraska and Kansas are the best chances, having neighboring-state proposed lines that extend to their borders. However, the Dakotas are much more doubtful, with their small populations and with no proposed lines extending to their borders. The largest cities of the Dakotas could easily fit into the suburbs of some of the other states' larger cities.

Illinois - 12.9m - Chicago - 9.8 m - Corridor, possible HSR
Ohio - 11.5m - Cleveland - 2.3m - LD, possible corridor, HSR
Michigan - 10.0m - Detroit - 4.4m - Corridor, possible HSR
Indiana - 6.4m - Indianapolis - 1.7m - LD, sort-of corridor, possible HSR
Missouri - 6.0m - St. Louis - 2.8m - Corridor, possible HSR
Wisconsin - 5.4m - Milwaukee - 1.7m - Corridor, possible HSR
Minnesota - 5.3m - Twin Cities - 3.5m - LD, possible HSR
Iowa - 3.0m - Des Moines - 0.56m - LD, possible corridor, HSR
Kansas - 2.8m - Wichita - 0.37m - LD
Nebraska - 1.8m - Omaha - 0.85m - LD
South Dakota - 0.81m - Sioux Falls - 0.23m - none, possible LD
North Dakota - 0.65m - Fargo - 0.20m - LD

Interesting. I never realized how sparsely populated the Midwest is. The borough of Queens has more people than North and South Dakota combined. Flushing has more people than Fargo. On one level, I think it might make more sense to just relocate the residents of some of these states closer to major population centers than to build rail lines serving them. I don't mean put everyone someplace with NYC density, but get them within a hour's drive of somewhere you might put an HSR station.

Of course, the opposite approach might be to stick HSR lines even in places like the Dakotas. In 20 years, the stations might be the hubs of cities with 1 million or more. Build it and they will come.

Hard to tell which approach would be better. On one level, HSR even through sparse areas can benefit large numbers who might just be passing through. HSR is frequently thought of as only viable out to maybe 1000 km. However, large segments of the population refuse to fly. An alternative to driving long distances might be quite appealing. It can also serve places like the Dakotas even if the primary initial goal is to serve those in population centers.

You might find it instructive to study File:USA-2000-population-density.gif - Wikimedia Commons

There's a line running roughly western Minnesota to central Texas between the more-dense and less-dense halves of the continguous US. The population density drops by about a factor of 5 going westward across that line. It goes up again only in a few isolated spots and near the west coast.

The western ends of the Greater Chicagoland HSR proposals are close to this line: Minneapolis, Omaha, and Kansas City. The line passes through eastern Kansas, easternmost Nebraska, and just east of the eastern borders of the Dakotas. Perhaps not surprisingly, each state's largest city is on its eastern border. Here's how populous the states' largest cities are:

ND: Fargo: 200k (east), Bismarck: 105k (central), Grand Forks: 97k (east)
SD: Sioux Falls: 233k (east), Rapid City: 120k (west)

Their distances to the nearest big city on the way to Chicago, Minneapolis:
Fargo: 234 mi, Sioux Falls: 245 mi

Though construction will likely be relatively easy, it would be awfully hard to justify constructing 250 mi of high-speed-capable track to such tiny places. Comparing to Chicago - St. Louis, and scaling ridership by the least populous end city's population yields factors of 1/12 for Sioux Falls and 1/14 for Fargo. To get a good comparison, I took Paris - Lyon TGV service, with its similar city populations and distances, and I counted 43 trains / direction / day on weekdays. That would reduce to about 3 t/d/d each for Sioux Falls and Fargo.