You take a high speed train from Downtown Podunk to Downtown

amm in ny wrote:

David Benton wrote:What i meant was , when businessmen fly , they dont have a car to get to the suburbs , so why is that different from hsr ?

Is this a trick question?

In the USA, at least, they rent a car at the airport and drive to their destination. Virtually every commercial airport in the USA has car rental offices right in the airport (by the luggage claim area), with the cars themselves either right next to the terminal or a short shuttle bus ride away.

I don't know of any Amtrak station in the US that has anything like this. The closest they came was that, at one time, you could get Amtrak to arrange for a rental company to bring a car to certain Amtrak stations. But, basically, when you arrive at an Amtrak station, you are on your own.

I know from experience that there is an Avis a few blocks walk from Pittsburgh station, there is an Avis IN New Haven Station, there is a Hertz at Chicago Union Station

Hey Zip Car is in Tuscaloosa AL and Waco TX... I have no idea why I would be there anytime soon but if I was I could use ZIP car. Can you drive a Zip car point to point or does it have to go back to the home base?

It's ok, I just wanted to make sure you didn't think all farmers were stereotypical rednecks.

Zip cars must be returned to the home base so they would not work for point to point travel, but to go from the station to a meeting and back would work.

What interests me more though is the technology. One of the biggest problems with getting rental cars into stations is the odd hours trains may arrive. Being able to open the car with an RFID card and not needing an agent would be invaluable.

george matthews wrote:

David Benton wrote:What i meant was , when businessmen fly , they dont have a car to get to the suburbs , so why is that different from hsr ?

Gradually cities in the US will change. The "suburbs" will become more expensive to travel from, and less desirable to live in. Business and people will tend to return to the central city. The railway station will attract businesses again. I am assuming that it will not become practicable to run the same number of private cars on post-oil energy.

That's assuming no technological changes, which will inevitably happen. Automobile transport will become more energy efficient and take advantage of new energy sources as companies strive to attract buyers and sell their product. At the same time current suburban growth will be reigned in to a degree, as it's a wasteful use of land resources. There will still be suburbs, but not sprawling outward as we see today. The current suburbs will grow to become small cities, whose suburban footprints will be smaller and more Eco-friendly. Open space and farm land will surround the outskirts of these new cities.

Long Distance transit will for the most part be reliant on rail, although a network of highways will still be vital to augment rail.

gearhead wrote:Then what? You meeting is in the suburbs and you have 3 other sales calls to make. Do you rent a car? The local transit system is too slow to do make all your appointments. Should you have driven in the first place? I say if we have high speed lanes on the tollway that people pay extra for to go 100 MPH that might be faster door to door. Todays sports cars can do 140 easy, Heck my Grand Am goes 95 and I have to bring her in check because I dont realise how fast she runs on the flat roads around here. As far as fuel efficiancy it is when cars stand still or go slow that they waste fuel. Somewhere there is a bell curve of a ideal speed. If we want clean air we need to eliminate stop lights in favor or something else like smart traffic control. Imagine if we had a version of cab control for your car were instead of stop lights or speed signs a satilite would send a signal for you to slow down or stop.

What are you talking about...? NJ Transit commuter trains run at 100 mph. MARC commuter trains can run faster than that. You sure you're in the right forum, and in the right era? I haven't heard of any high-speed intercity trains (note the designation) whose terminus or even intermediate stop is located anywhere in a "podunk" district. What about the old long-distance trains that bypassed the "podunk" regions in the past, often making but two or three intermediate stops on a run over many hundreds of miles?

As for 140 mph, you can try to run a high-horsepower automobile at that speed for sustained periods, but don't expect to make it much past 100K, assuming you reach 100K without blowing your transmission.

The buisness has moved out of downtowns in citys,Try finding life in downtowns like Toledo Ohio,Akron Ohio, Syracuse New York, Detroit MI,Buffalo NY, Cleveland Ohio, Worchester MA,Louisville KY, Youngstown OH. All these citys have most of the white coller buisness move to the burbs. To build High Speed rail and then expect the buisness to move downtown is expecting a bit much. Name 5 citys outside of the East Coast that still have a downtown department store. Offices are now in office parks (sans any public transit)by the Airports and major freeway interchanges. Again its back to civil rights. White People are scared to go downtown because of a percived fear of crime. Oh that and free parking in the malls and office parks in the burbs. Whole suburbs like Solon Ohio (Built up by the Erie Railroad of all people from the 1950s-1970s as a alternitive to downtown) and Dearborn MI were built around freeways. Ever go to Downtown LA? Ever notice how small its downtown actully is?

gearhead wrote:Hey Zip Car is in Tuscaloosa AL and Waco TX... I have no idea why I would be there anytime soon but if I was I could use ZIP car. Can you drive a Zip car point to point or does it have to go back to the home base?

Zipcars must always be returned to their home base.

gprimr1 wrote:It's ok, I just wanted to make sure you didn't think all farmers were stereotypical rednecks.

Zip cars must be returned to the home base so they would not work for point to point travel, but to go from the station to a meeting and back would work.

What interests me more though is the technology. One of the biggest problems with getting rental cars into stations is the odd hours trains may arrive. Being able to open the car with an RFID card and not needing an agent would be invaluable.

Hertz, National, and Enterprise are all also experimenting with the technology. There are other car sharing providers out there. DeutscheBahn runs their own car sharing network in German specifically tied to the train stations.

gearhead wrote:The buisness has moved out of downtowns in citys,Try finding life in downtowns like Toledo Ohio,Akron Ohio, Syracuse New York, Detroit MI,Buffalo NY, Cleveland Ohio, Worchester MA,Louisville KY, Youngstown OH. All these citys have most of the white coller buisness move to the burbs. To build High Speed rail and then expect the buisness to move downtown is expecting a bit much. Name 5 citys outside of the East Coast that still have a downtown department store. Offices are now in office parks (sans any public transit)by the Airports and major freeway interchanges. Again its back to civil rights. White People are scared to go downtown because of a percived fear of crime. Oh that and free parking in the malls and office parks in the burbs. Whole suburbs like Solon Ohio (Built up by the Erie Railroad of all people from the 1950s-1970s as a alternitive to downtown) and Dearborn MI were built around freeways. Ever go to Downtown LA? Ever notice how small its downtown actully is?

I'm not seeing your point. Unless you're visiting the manager of the Airport Hyatt O'Hare, you're going to need a car from there too.

Enterprise will pick you up if you arrive while they are open, and you can usually get better prices (no airport surcharge) but the problem becomes when the train arrives outside of working hours.

gearhead wrote:The buisness has moved out of downtowns in citys,Try finding life in downtowns like Toledo Ohio,Akron Ohio, Syracuse New York, Detroit MI,Buffalo NY, Cleveland Ohio, Worchester MA,Louisville KY, Youngstown OH. All these citys have most of the white coller buisness move to the burbs. To build High Speed rail and then expect the buisness to move downtown is expecting a bit much. Name 5 citys outside of the East Coast that still have a downtown department store. Offices are now in office parks (sans any public transit)by the Airports and major freeway interchanges. Again its back to civil rights. White People are scared to go downtown because of a percived fear of crime. Oh that and free parking in the malls and office parks in the burbs. Whole suburbs like Solon Ohio (Built up by the Erie Railroad of all people from the 1950s-1970s as a alternitive to downtown) and Dearborn MI were built around freeways. Ever go to Downtown LA? Ever notice how small its downtown actully is?

So everything is better when you fly from downtown Podunk to downtown Podu- oh wait....


Also, why should we continue to enhance or conform to flawed urban planning/policy and land use? Airports have there place, but there's only so much we should be relying on them for. And freeways... just... ugh... Come on. The car just leads to terribly policies and land use. Office parks and strip malls are a tremendous waste of space, energy, resources, and every single thing involved with them. And who needs free parking in the burbs when you don't even need to buy, maintain, fuel, or park a vehicle in the city?

Thats exactly what George Will the Arch Bishop of Conservtism is acusing this adminstration of doing,,,Wanting to change our behavoir and force Urban Planning and Social Engineer Us and control our lives, Look at Rochester NY were Railroad.net is based out of and how Midtown Mall worked for a while and then failed. Rochester has a downtown train station and a good bus system (1.00 cheap!) and no retail to speak of. I was frezzeing my arse off smoking my pipe at a hot dog stand there last year. Use to be nice town now is a hole. Will Trains bring it back?
Now I say reuse the Old Post Office next to the depot and make that the train/bus station. But that alone will not save downtown. I agree it would be nice if most Buisness was downtown and the suburbs were green and leafy with "Leave it to Beaver" and June Cleavers. But also now it seems that some first string burbs are turning into geuttos in there own right. Again my point is that high speed rail is it to be paid by the masses have to serve the masses. I like NJ Transit because it serves everyone and at a higher speed then driving. Having just a couple of trains at $$$$$$$$$$ per seat for a few buisnessmen wont cut it with the masses.

and one more thing----------Was it not the Suburban Trains aka Metra that caused the sprawl of Chicagos suburbs as we know it? That CNW atauly sold real estate in vacant lots next to train stations?

CarterB wrote:Yup, 100MPH + if...........you had the German Autobahn, AND keep in mind the Autobahns, with few exceptions, do not go to or through city centers. Add to that, at those speeds and mpg, and $4.00 or more / gallon. Plus who's gonna pay for all the death and destruction from accidents at those speeds? Maybe if you live in Montana, but try doing such in NJ!!!

Autobahns and "autobahn-ähnliche Strassen" (Expressways in Autobahn-Style) do naturally go through or to city centers. Germany is already more densely populated than most of the United States.
And as for the accidents: German controlled-access highways are in the "Top-5" of the safest street-systems in the world.
2010 Germany had on its controlled-access highways only 2.2 fatalities per 1 billion vehicle kilometers. USA had 4.8 fatalities per 1 billion vehicle kilometers on her controlled-access highways.

Thomas I
I have a condo in Hamburg, and believe me, the Autobahn or "autobahn-ähnliche Strassen" goes nowhere near Zentrum.
You have to drive to outskirts to get on A24 to Berlin or A1 to Lubeck or out west of Altona to get on the A7.
In any case, my point is, if you want to go 100mph+ in the USA, you'd better be in Texas or Montana and a damn good driver at that.