Yesterday, TxDOT released a more detailed plan for the TTC. The entire 92 page document care be found here (Adobe Acrobat Reader required). On an interesting sidenote, notice the domed commuter cars: Dwight
Wow. That picture scares me! I haven't yet checked the article. But it looks like someone has wild eyed plans for seperated car, truck, freight, passenger, and high speed rail. Hold on to your wallets if this is in the works! BoxcabE50
There's certain thing's i'm finding a little wierd on this...i've just flicked through the "short" version of the report! If the aim is to lower dependency on highway travel & increase choice, why are they building what amounts to a 10 lane highway with it? What about the separate highway for trucks, won't that just make all the junctions really complicated? So they're gonna build a high speed rail line from one side of Texas to the other, presumably they have thought about it enough that it actually will connect with other rail lines, but even so wouldn't that be a high speed line running from the middle of nowhere to the middle of nowhere? I'm having trouble spotting the logic... They're talking about 4 tracks for regular freight/passenger trains, presumably they hope that the existing railroads will abandon their own lines and run on their one? I could see them going for it with time sensitive stuff, but the everyday stuff? Won't you still be left with freight trains running through the middle of cities, which was a stated objective of this network. I'm looking forward to some big & bold new idea's for boosting passenger rail in the US, this is big and bold, but i'm not yet convinced it will work. I'd like to be proved wrong though
The aim is to lower congestion on existing freeways in the cities. Trust me, this plan beats what's about to be done on the old Katy right of way west from Houston (24 lanes of freeway and toll road, with no room left for Metro's light rail). There would be very few junctions in this system. Much fewer than on interstates. Besides, have you seen freeway interchanges in Texas? It's become an artform. Initially, the main point is connecting Houston, D/FW and SA. This is exactly what the Texas TGV of the early '90's was supposed to do. The hope is that neighboring states would then build extensions to Baton Rouge/New Orleans, Shreveport, Little Rock/Memphis, OKC, et al. The plan calls for starting out with 1 or 2 tracks and adding capacity as it is needed. Personally, I can't see either BNSF or UP going along with this. But supposedly, BNSF wasn't totally opposed to it. We shall see... What I think it would take is for other states to jump on board saying they would build complementary systems. Unfortunately, I don't think any of our neighboring states would be able to afford it. (Frankly, I'm not sure that WE can afford it; $138 billion is alot, not matter how many years you spread it out.) Dwight
OK I trust you Over here though it's a recognised thing that adding road capacity adds to journeys, journeys that didn't happen because they were difficult then become easy, and more people make them. What's worse is that the congested roads that you are releiving, once they suddenly become clear, people then start using them more due to it being easier... Hope you get that explanation, I can't quite think how to explain it better! Now that sounds like a plan! Would it be a good idea to have a central government plan/standard for high speed rail, it strikes me that you could get different and incompatible systems springing up across the country, (New Mexico builds a monorail, Colorado builds a Maglev, Oklahoma does a 25kv TGV-style high speed conventional line, Louisiana goes for the conventional US 125mph diesel hauled, Kansas goes for outside stud contact....sorry, but you get the idea!) and sure it might be a standalone system serving three cities today, but in the future it could be a section of a national system...it would be nice if there was a greater plan about it. Like I say, provided these connect into useful routes I could see both BNSF & UP routing intermodal's over it to free up their networks somewhat and give those a potential speed boost. I think they would need to start out with 2 tracks, I can't see that a single track would give you any advantage over the existing network. Have they considered a "rolling road" Truck-on-flatcar idea, the cross-state east west route sounds perfect for that, load up cars & trucks at the state line & transport them right across, there are big advantages for truckers, for example even though you're talking a toll service which they would have to pay for, the truck is not using fuel so you have some saving there, and the time you're on the train also would likely count's as drivers rest, so they could potentially be travelling whilst sleeping and count that as one of their statutory breaks. Gosh, I've just saved them the trouble of building two of those highway lanes! Think of the environmental benefit of shutting down all those truck engines for the trip across the state, especially if it could be electrically hauled. An auto version of it might work as well, dependant on how much traffic crossed the entire state. For references check out the Le Shuttle operations through the channel tunnel, similar operations through some Swiss rail tunnels, and "rolling road" truck trains which are used to keep Swiss motorways from becoming clogged with trucks heading between the North & South of Europe. It is a lot of money, I'll be watching with interest to see how it plays out, keep us posted. Martyn
