The 10 Key Stations for High Speed Rail in the USA, Mexico, and Canada: the Most Important Cities
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- Опубликовано: 9 ноя 2021
- This week we look at some of the busiest train stations in the world as we continue to press the question of whether the US will ever have high speed rail (outside the debatably high-speed Acela corridor). Since our last survey of American bullet train prospects, we have now added the geographies to the north and the south -- so we can legitimately ask, will Canada ever have high speed rail? And we'll dig into Mexico's current plans, which may put it ahead of Canada in the race -- and the US, for that matter.
We hit all the high speed rail hotspots on the continent, including California High Speed Rail, the Texas Central Railway, Brightline West, the North Atlantic Rail effort, Mexico City to Queretaro, and promising corridors and networks in and around Chicago, Atlanta, and Seattle.
Join us as we expand our vision to look at bullet train possibilities all over the continent.
Other CityNerd vides referenced in this video:
- City Pairs for High Speed Rail in the USA: • Top 10 Places to Build...
- International Twins for US High Speed Rail City Pairs: • U.S. High Speed Rail v...
- Toronto-Montreal High Speed Rail: • High Speed Rail vs. Ai...
- North America's Workhorse Streets: • 10 Busiest Streets in ...
- Transit to NFL Stadiums: • Top Ten Transit to NFL...
- NBA/NHL Arenas and Urban Design: • 10 Arenas That Fit The...
USA metropolitan statistical area data: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...
Canada census metropolitan areas: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...
Mexico metropolitan areas: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropo...
Photo Credits:
New title roll: Video by IRVING AGUILAR from Pixabay
Grand Central Terminal Video by Daniel Carlton from Pixabay
Colts logo By Indianapolis Colts - static.nfl.com/static/content..., Public Domain, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
Bullets logo from SportsLogos.Net
Mexico City Metro numbers By Sofree and Andreuvv - Own work, CC BY 3.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
Grand Central Terminal for thumbnail Image by ollguna from Pixabay
Music:
CityNerd background: Caipirinha in Hawaii by Carmen María and Edu Espinal (RUclips music library)
Twitter: @nerd4cities
Contact: nerd4cities@gmail.com 
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😂 Toronto and Montreal both make the top 20, but not with each other. Another point of hilarity for me is how much better Toronto->Detroit ranks than TO->NY. Sometimes a model doesn't account for which cities we actually want to visit, but it definitely delivers useful insight.
I'm glad you put LA->San Diego in, because it seems crazy that California didn't build that high speed rail first. China didn't build Beijing to Shanghai first. They build Beijing to Tianjin. California just goes for the Hail Mary right off the bat...
I'm all about suggesting part 2's for videos now, so my suggestion is a part 2 which looks at how well the stations integrate with public transit, and how good that public transit is. Texas may look good for building high speed rail because of terrain, distance, and population, but arriving carless in those cities is another thing.
You are my psychic twin. This video was actually originally conceived to be about which stations have the best transit integration, but I felt like I needed to figure out what the important stations were first. I mean, Seattle King Street has pretty good transit connections, but if the high speed rail potential is sort of mediocre, then maybe I don't care that much? So, in the back of my mind, I was already thinking this was a two-parter.
The other thing is...and I get this comment a lot on these HSR vids...it's not at all clear to me how important transit connections to HSR are. I mean I'd rather have them than not, but if the HSR trip is replacing a plane trip, you might've been taking a taxi/ridehail anyway. I mean I think it's important, but I wouldn't want to overstate it. Besides, most of these HSR lines won't be built for at least 20 years, and you could see very different transit connections in places like Dallas and Houston by then. I mean I wouldn't hold my breath...but I'd hate to discount those cities if they have capital investments on the books that are going to fill some of those gaps (and I think Houston does).
I'll still make the transit connectivity/rail hub video because for me, personally? I'd take transit 10 times out of 10.
Pinned this comment because it's well stated and it gets at several of the other comments on here, and I don't want to type 30 different replies. 😅
The Detroit/Canada border crossing is as or more than Mexico. Mainly due to there's only one. A significant number of people cross everyday for work. Detroit is still a major freight destination.
Ford, who owns Mighigan Central Station now, rebranded to a transportation company. Talk is to bring back passenger there is hinted at. Chicago is the capital of the Great Lakes Megalopious.
Would like to see all the hubs connected by dedicated HSR corridors. How I play Transportation Fever 2.
@@CityNerd Thanks!!
The problem with LA - San Diego is that the obvious direct route is NIMBY hell. So the indirect inland route is in the second phase of CAHSR.
Suggestion - the top 10 proposed transit projects in north america that deserve to be built (that aren't currently funded)
When this channel gets big enough (should be a couple weeks), I'll bring in Yonah Freemark for a guest spot.
@@CityNerd and when the channel gets really really big, you should have Anthony Head read your part.
@@Phingolfinai would say the channel is pretty big now lol
I love seeing Mexico compared with the other countries in the continent, we are usually left aside.
I think you were absolutely correct with Buenavista station, with it being centric and well conected with 2 metrobus lines, one suburban line (I hope they expand it to Querétaro soon), and one planned light rail line.
Another option could be Observatorio station in the west of the city, although it's not that centric, it will be the terminus for the Toluca line
Observatorio for sure. If you had a Mexico City - Puebla line, could you run it to Buenavista (might be difficult) so that it could continue to QRO, or would you need to terminate at, like, Pantitlan?
Pantitlán would be a good choice for a Puebla line, given the huge number of transit there is over there and it's closeness to both the airport (is that an important factor?) and the downtown. Another option would be San Lazaro, where the current eastern intercity bus terminal is. There actually used to be a station there, it was the terminus for the México-Veracruz narrow gauge rail.
Great analytic approach
With the completion of the Gold line connection to Observatorio, it becomes a even better terminus for any line going West. Heck a stop in Santa Fe before Toluca would open all kinds of possibilities.
I’m so frustrated with Indy’s shortsighted decision to build our BRT hub away from Union Station. Union is a beautiful building, supports through running trains, and is in the heart of downtown. Should’ve revitalized that historic train station and offered better future connectivity to future intercity rail improvements.
This is a great illustration of why HSR is so challenging in the interior of the American West. I'm in Salt Lake, and by these metrics I can see why connecting us to Denver, Vegas, and San Fransisco would be pretty much the last step in a national network.
I NEED your suggested Mexican line to be built. I live in León which is in the middle of an important industrial corridor spanning from Guadalajara to Querétaro and many other industrial cities in between (Irapuato, Celaya, etc.) and this would be a gamechanger for transportation
It's a really strong corridor!
As a former expat in CDMX and Queretaro, aspiring urban planner, and huge soccer fan (Santos Laguna though,) this channel ticks so delightful boxes for me that I didn't even know I needed. Love that you take the time to explain all the scoring systems in depth. Love the work!!
Glad it's appreciated! Fulham fan too??
I loved that you included México, we are always forgotten 🚄🚅
Not forgotten on this channel! And that Mexico City-Guadalajara corridor needs to happen.
Oh, there you are!
@@annoyed707Oh, there you are!
I think that one issue with just going by metro pop. is that Canadian census tracts tend to be significantly smaller, so if you take the Greater Golden Horseshoe (which is almost exactly the same size as Chicagoland) you end up with a population of like 9.9M
If one wanted to be really precise yet break "all the rules" to calculate population in the Greater Golden Horseshoe, look instead at a point centered in Lake Ontario and draw a circle 50 miles from that point.....the population would include the entire exiting GTA, plus Kitchener-Waterloo, Buffalo-Niagara and Rochester. The population within this arbitrary circle would exceed 12.5 million. The border between Canada/ US is as arbitrary as that circle.....the economies of both regions are inextricably linked.
Actually really surprised with how low the MSP to Chicago corridor scored since there’s been talk of some form of high speed rail on the corridor since the 90s. Quickly realizing after remembering the study I was reading from 2000 on the corridor that a lot of the trip generators were the multiple smaller metro areas between MSP and Chicago in Milwaukee, Madison, LaCrosse, and Rochester. If I remember correctly from the study, they predicted ridership of over 5 million a year within 20 years of the study completion date had they built it.
Can attest the train between Grand Rapids and Chicago is BEAUTIFUL; if only GR could convince MTA to electrify a track up through Kalamazoo. If there were high speed to Chicago/Detroit I'd move back home in a heartbeat.
studies have shown the benefit of HSR is highly dependent on local transit connections as well, If you ever re-re visit your connection scoring model It would be cool to try and integrate some kind of station connectivity rating or overall transit modal share coefficient!
which would definitely additionally favor NY (31%) to Montreal (22%), DC (16%), Boston (14%) and Philly (10%) plus VAN (20%) to SEA (10%) and PDX (7%) over Houston/SA/Dallas (3%, 2%, 2%!). SF is also pretty high up there for the US at 20% but Socal is all
Came to the comments section to say this. Maybe base it on the modal share of all non-car transportation? high walking & biking feeds well into intercity rail as well.
Also include local rail.
I have often travelled by HSR in the central section and local rail at both ends.
Similar to spoke and hub for airlines.
@@GustavSvard probably, though I have never seen any rigorous studies on that. And anyways, including walk/micromobility numbers are mostly high where transit use is high and low where it's low, so it doesn't change the relative standings much.
WTH are you talking about.
Dallas would actually fair higher percentage Than even some cities listed above due to the amount of Walkability and transportation available around the Station
Whoo hoo! You pronounced “Oshawa” correctly this time! We’ll have you dropping Toronto’s second T before too long! 😁
Munnn-tree-all tho. Mun. Like Gun-tree-all. Pew pew.
Is it bad I've never realised Toronto has 2 Ts? I've never said the second one, my accent never say T unless in needed.
@@sterlinghartley2165 to get REALLY local, you need to get it down to two syllables - “Tronnah”, rhyming with “wanna” 🇨🇦
CityNerd got Oshawa correct, but he makes up for it by getting Rochester wrong. It's Raw chester, not Rock chester in New York.
@@sterlinghartley2165 toronno, atlannah
Oh man, I dream of the México-Querétaro line being built. I have family in León and I have come to really like Querétaro and some of the surrounding towns like Tequisquiapan or Bernal.
Most importantly, the México-Querétaro highway is an absolute nightmare, you can lose hours in traffic there when there is an accident or repair works. That train line was supposed to be built back in 2014, but it was cancelled due to a corruption scandal.
Took the bus from Querétaro to North bus station in CDMX a few weeks ago. The travel time is SUPER unpredictable. We hit crazy traffic on the return trip out of Norte...I mean we literally didn't move for half an hour at one point. I have to say, though, the bus stations (both of them) and the buses themselves are super nice, much better than anything in the US. Still, would love to see that HSR to Buenavista!
@@CityNerd That's the word, unpredictable hahah. Was your trip by any chance on November 12? I ask because that day I also lost up to an hour and a half in insane traffic going north. Terrible decision not to take the train, which is usually my preferred method of transportation.
But yeah, there are some nice intercity buses! Especially the ETN double decker ones, though I usually travel on Primera Plus and ADO.
BTW, the town I grew up in is actually off that highway close to the Tepotzotlán tollbooth!
For Boston, the north/south station question is a hard one. They’re a mile apart, but you have to make a subway connection to get from one to the other.
If money were no object, I’d build an actual central station in the middle of the State/Govt. Center/Park St./Downtown Xing stations.
It’s a shame they didn’t add a direct rail connection between N. and S. Stations during the Big Dig; the 93 tunnel runs right by both! Maybe we can reclaim some of those vehicle lanes…
What I would do is build a new Union Station over the current Aquarium station and use that as the terminus of all intercity rail lines to Boston. Building a new station in the middle of downtown would wreak so much havoc upon the neighborhood because everything is so dense
Looking at the Mexican routes you talked about, I think San Luis Potosi would be a great stop after Queretaro, and could become more competitive if the train keeps going north to Saltillo and Monterrey, allowing to have Mexico City to Monterrey by High Speed train. You would probably say that is too long to compete against trains, but nowadays a lot of people still uses the buses to travel between these two cities, so it seems to me as a wasted oportunity not to build the route all the way to Monterrey. Then for Aguascalientes, I think this city could have three potential routes, a nonstop to Guadalajara, a nonstop to León and a nonstop to San Luis Potosí, hence also allowing to have a high speed route between Guadalajara and Monterrey. You should also check the possibility of having the Mexico to Guadalajara go through Toluca and Morelia to have a faster route rather than going via Queretaro and León
As someone who lived in Boston for 13 years, I'm glad Acela is at South Station instead of North for a couple of reasons:
* Much as they've made the neighborhood around North Station really nice, the station itself is still just one big long hallway. It's not a terribly comfortable place to wait, especially compared to the high ceilings and architectural beauty of South Station. It also doesn't have the food options South Station has in case you want to grab a bite to eat before your train.
* The connections at South Station are better. South Station has the Red Line (the busiest MBTA line) to Cambridge & Braintree and the Silver Line to the airport & the South End (which is, admittedly, a bus, and not really the BRT that the MBTA likes to claim it is). North Station has the Orange Line to Malden & Jamaica Plain or the Green Line to Jamaica Plain & Newton (now that the D line goes to North Station again); these two have quite a bit of redundancy to them.
I think it's worth mentioning that in addition to the rail connections, South Station is home to Boston's fairly large and fancy intercity bus terminal, vital to getting to the many places in New England not served at all by rail. Also, when it comes to additional Amtrak connections, currently South Station is the end of the Chicago-Boston route that I-90 approximately follows, while North Station is the end of a much shorter but more popular route to Portland ME.
But I think the main reason the Acela goes into South Station is that the Northeast Regional route has gone into South Station since forever and the Acela is basically that but faster.
@@thexalon Very good point about the bus terminal. That said, the main reason the Acela goes to South Station is that that's where the tracks go. There is no passenger suitable rail link between South Station and North Station.
This type of analysis is extremely important. Thank you.
Another set of North American city pairs that would be interesting and valuable to know: Night-train pairs. The European Union is promoting the restoration and expansion of overnight train service across country borders in the EU, e.g. Vienna to Brussels. A night train has sleeping compartments and food service; the journey starts in the evening and ends in the early morning. The duration is approximately 12 hours, giving you time for dinner, 8 hours of sleep and breakfast during the journey. The European initiative is part of a larger carbon reduction program.
Yeah, I've heard of that. I've been on overnight trains in the US, and I'd be interested in learning more about what the EU is doing to market the service over cheap flights. I'll research!
Sleeper cars are expensive as hell to run.
So you want to stop $99 each way sub 2hr flights for $1000 each way 12+hr trains... Hello 1939
@@phreshone1 Night trains do not cost 1000 each way.! I took a night train from Frankfurt Germany to Venice and I forgot the cost but it was well under €300. Plus when I made a connection I got to explore another city on the way.
@@enjoyslearningandtravel7957
On an Acela plus speed train, a roomette price will approach a grand... It's $500 first class one way DC to Boston (350 coach)... Double that length and have to serve comp meals, it's gonna be close to $1000.... Much better to ride the Airbus for 2.5 hours
Baltimore just broke ground on an expansion of Penn Station, the one thing we need now is a replacement of the B&P tunnel. One of the worst Amtrak/Commuter rail bottlenecks in the country.
Also, have you considered looking at commuter rail systems? Especially in the northeast, they supplement the Amtrak system so well
Amtrak NE corridor is essentially a bunch of commuter rail systems back-to-back.... It's why it works because those systems help pay the maintenance.... It's why it will be tough to connect other city pairs... If the city doesn't have commuter rail, there's not enough traffic to pay the maintenance costs
CityNerd I think you missed a pairing when you neglected the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal corridor as a possible HSR route. You didn't do an inside-Canada pairing between Montreal and Toronto. Union Station in Toronto is already the third busiest train station north of Mexico, after Grand Central and Penn. The Toronto-Montreal service carries about four million passengers annually as it is, taking five hours on a route shared with freight trains. Make that route competitive with the roughly 100 daily scheduled flights between Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa, and you'd have a damn viable service.
The model doesn't really take into account international borders, which I do think are worth considering. It's not a big deal to get across but it still affects how often people will travel between two cities. People from Toronto make more trips to Montreal and Ottawa than to closer US cities like Buffalo and Detroit.
@@davidreichert9392 There is no international border between Toronto and Montreal though?
@@mitchtavio That was kind of my point. The analysis considered distance, but not the effect of international borders meaning that the absence of such a border between Toronto and Montreal makes it a more viable route than many of the routes shown here between Tor/Mtl and US cities.
That's Canuukistan, you blow your own money
I love this channel. I'm a huge aviation enthusiast and usually downplay HSR, but after seeing some of your videos I genuinely do hope to see greater rail adoption in the US. I also have to remind myself that Europe (a benchmark for how to best implement rail?) has a good mix between world-class rail lines and a thriving aviation industry. In all, have learned that airplanes simply need to be reserved for situations where they're most needed, like transcontinental, overseas, etc. and leave the rest to rail, if possible. So, thank you!
Good take. For all the great rail that exists in Europe, air travel there is extremely convenient and affordable. Or, perhaps it's causal? HSR adds competition do drive down prices, and also frees up runway slots. The whole dynamic is incredibly fascinating.
The original 1800s rail corridor from San Diego to Phoenix was international and made stops in Tijuana and Tecate, so I think that totally makes sense. It’s one of the busiest border crossings
Yes !
Awesome to see Mexicali getting some love! Also, CDMX tried building the rail to Querétaro, but the project was halted in 2014
I would love high speed rail to Grand Rapids from Chicago. My family already takes the train out there at least twice a year. High speed rail would only encourage us.
Also, you being surprised of Grand Rapids having suburbs was pretty funny. My mom always gets mad when people think of Grand Rapids as a small town. It's actually a pretty nice city with a booming healthcare industry.
I literally learn at least one thing that blows my mind every time I make one of these videos. I thought Grand Rapids was the same size as like Flint, Saginaw and Kalamazoo.
Grand Rapids is about twice the size of Flint.
I appreciate that you have kept it honest and dignified
Thank you for this video. This was what I asked in the other video!
I always learn so much in your videos! Thank you for doing what you do!!
I regularly ride Acela from Back Bay Station in Boston, which sometimes gets lost in the shuffle, but to me, I use Back Bay Station much more than South Station, simply because it has connectivity to the MBTA as well as Amtrak on the Orange and Green lines, which are more convenient for me!
Damn, congratulations on making videos with 1k views within 3 hours now! You will definitely reach to 100k subs EASILY! Congratulations and keep it up with the content
What is noticeable with the JR/Renfe investment is that both of those countries have high speed systems that do not integrate with the local lines, which could impact the design choices made. France designed the TGV so that it can travel through and on existing stations and lines before transitioning to high speed routes between the cities. One way to keep costs (and opposition) down is to not build so much more infrastructure within cities, unless you have to. Quite why Houston would need an entirely new station when the existing one only gets 3 trains a week is beyond my comprehension.
great work. Thank you.
These videos are great! Thank you!
As a gateway to the south, as in older times, Chattanooga has to be considered. It was a huge rail hub for a reason. If you're coming from the North and heading south, there's a TON of places to get to through Chattanooga: Atlanta, Charlotte, Nashville, Knoxville, Birmingham, Louisville, Memphis Within 300 miles is also Savannah, New Orleans, almost Little Rock, look back on history
There's a whole network between Chicago and Atlanta that becomes extremely viable if HSR ever takes off in the US. Chattanooga definitely a node on that network.
@@CityNerd I would love Atlanta-Chattanooga. Let me tell you, taking that flight (family business) kills me every time.
Another great video! I wish Cascadia had a higher score too. In theory it seems like a slam dunk, it’s a shame the numbers don’t work out for this region.
I mean, I'm not saying they don't "work"...it's just that you're going to be spending a much higher proportion of public funds to build and operate/maintain it that you would a corridor that has higher potential ridership (and fare revenues). It's just more politically difficult, particularly in the US.
It would be interesting to see how the equation would change if you allow for cheaper or slower options to try to balance the finances. as a resident of the pacific northwest I would adore increased train options that were competitive with driving. especially since portland and Seattle have excellent transit connections and walkability.
its crazy. you’ve grown 6 thousand subscribers in just a few days. i have to congratulate you.
Ngl, I bingewatched ALL your videos in a DAY!! Awesome content
Legend!
The Liga MX shout surprised me!
Great video as always man!
I live in Detroit and I love the look of Michigan Central Station(it's being renovated currently). I've gotten into populations and public transit in the past year and the Northeast is stacked. I might want to fly to Boston, take Amtrak to NYC, Philly, Baltimore, DC, and fly back to see those places. Also, good overall proximity to other cities here(Chicago/Toronto very close)
I find it interesting that Atlanta is so low on many of these rail videos, especially given its large history being *the* rail hub of the southeast. I feel a line Atlanta-Tampa or Orlando would help offset a lot of the traffic on I-75 in S Georgia/N Florida, especially if that line continues on to Miami.
I think that it falls off a lot due to the distanced involved. Atlanta is the airline hub of the Southeast, but given how far it actually is from anywhere in Florida HSR just falls behind planes.
300 miles...
300 miles is the max length segment pair unless two segments back to back..... Like Boston-New York and New York-DC... And then those metro area better be 2 million plus...
Remember 300 miles as a rule of thumb and you can quickly get the first level answer
Atlanta is just to far away from other major cities to make high speed rail economically viable.
While mileage is important, time of the train journey is more important. For HSR to compete with the airlines for the passenger market share and win the battle, the train journey must be done in around three hours whatever the speed of the train. Amtrak's Acela numbers don't lie. Atlanta to Charlotte with a train averaging 130 mph would take less than two hours while a that same average speed for Atlanta to Orlando would take more than three hours... While HSR trains may top out at 200 mph, they average much less...
@@TheBaldr Atlanta is a hub city in the South, but in all directions, not exactly on a trunk corridor to Florida unlike Philadelphia where more than half desire to go in either direction on the trunk northeast corridor.
I’d really like to see videos about smaller cities since the big ones can get the feeling of being repetitive after a while… but that’s just a suggestion
I was doing MSA population studies back in college in Michigan back in the early 00's and Grand Rapids was one of those cities that did not loose population in the mid-west back in the 90's. It sneaks up on you how big it is.... of course, it doesn't have the best reputation for equal opportunity housing policies during the late 20th century.
love the videos and finally came up with a possible suggestion: streets with greatest transit ridership potential, or city with greatest transit expansion potential. example could be santa monica or venice blvd in los angeles.
Great videos! I love to see you include Mexico.
Another Great Video!
Just discovered this channel and it’s really great. As a Washingtonian, I love that we keep getting ranked at or near the top of your lists!! Really curious to see what you think of our Metro’s upcoming Silver Line extension. It’s kind of unique in that it is by far the longest line in the network because it extends out to IAD. That’s good, but all the other stations seem more like they belong in a suburban commuter rail line than an urban metro line. Interested to hear your thoughts. Perhaps in a video on top 10 metro networks, or top 10 commuter rail systems in North America?
Honestly, DC actually got it right with the Metro. And I'm of the belief it's time they expand some of the lines even further out. Green Line's northern terminus of should be extended to Laurel. Orange Line's northern terminus should be extended to Bowie. While our Metro is unique in that it connects the urban to the suburban, I feel it doesn't do enough. But I'm a transit junkie so maybe I'm a little too obsessed with the idea.
@@jnyerere I’m all for expanding it, for sure, but I believe more density is needed downtown. Adding more lines to create more of a “mesh” network rather than a hub & spoke (where all the transfers happen at Metro Center, Gallery Place, and L’Enfant Plaza) would make it easier to get around the city, rather than just to get to downtown from the outside. Kind of like what the purple line is gonna do in Maryland, but in DC proper. Imagine a line connecting U Street, DuPont, and a station in Georgetown! Then coming down through Foggy Bottom, adding stations at the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument, connecting to Smithsonian, then Waterfront & Navy Yard, up to Eastern Market, then adding a station at Maryland Avenue?, then NoMa-Gallaudet, then back to U Street! Then another loop farther out like a spider’s web. Idk, just an idea. Nerd out with me!
Absolutely, it's a shame the purple line is a Maryland only project because pushing it out to Tysons (or even the orange line) would be fantastic and take so much stress off 270 and 495. Moving the blue line north, or even adding a national harbor stop would be awesome to see too
Interesting video, nice
This is a pretty cool analysis! I'm from Guadalajara and was surprised to not see CDMX-Toluca since there is currently a big rail project being built to connect the two.
Since 2014 there's been interest by the government to build a high-speed CDMX-Queretaro line, and I've always imagined that project could be the first step towards a CDMX-Guadalajara high-speed rail connection. Unfortunately, the project hasn't made much progress past just being an idea.
Your videos are so good! Can’t believe you have under 50k subs. Keep it up man!
-vancouver
Also it’s OSH-AH-WAH
I love your videos so much! Keep up the good work!! Are you on Twitter?
Raleigh-Richmond Corridor will probably be the easiest straight line high speed corridor to construct. There's few obstacles and will connect the northeast corridor with the southeast piedmont zone.
G'Day, Cool vid mate
Having a HSR from Niagara Falls to Toronto with stops along st. Catherine’s, and Hamilton at the very least, I would imagine would be well used. Especially with the amount of Canadians living outside of the GTA area, and commute to GTA for work.
And of course connect buffalo NY with it as well!
I think there's good core demand between Toronto and NYC, and you could definitely connect through Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and Albany (besides the places you mention).
@@CityNerd i thought there were talks of High speed rail in New York state. One connecting capital to NYC, then Albany west towards Niagara Falls and Buffalo... So NYC rich could quickly go to their vacation home outside NYC, where everything from housing to food is cheaper..! :-D I might have my memories mixed up however... heh
great content! keep up the great work!
PS. You familiar with Buffalo's East side abandoned rail yard? interior is BEAUTIFUL with expensive marble and granite EVERYWHERE... I deff recomend to check it out!
7:00 Woot! A Grand Rapids reference!!
When searching stats on Toronto, the metro area is actually called The Greater Golden Horseshoe, if you just search Toronto metro area it won’t include all of its suburbs. It’s called horseshoe because of its shape and golden because of its unusually warm climate, wealth, and prosperity.
-cheers
Problem with using the "Greater Golden Horseshoe" is that it includes a bunch of counties that arguably have no business being tied with Toronto. The Greater Golden Horseshoe encompasses Waterloo, Kawartha Lakes, Peterborough, and Niagara, Brant, and Haldimand counties. At some point you have have to draw a line and say stop. I'm sorry but Peterborough has absolutely no business in being tied in with Toronto when calculating the population, same with cities like Brantford and Niagara Falls. As such the most common metro area used is the GTHA, or the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, which includes the City of Toronto, York, Durham, Peel, Halton, and Hamilton Regions. It's more than good enough.
Back in the day Union Station (DC) used to be its own ecosystem separate from Amtrak. My mother used to take my sisters and I there on Saturdays when it had a movie theater in its basement. It was like a mall. Good good times.
Suggestion for a series of videos: look at a single city (preferably cities with as little rail as possible) and try to propose a rail system (light, heavy, or both) for it
Not sure if that's my wheelhouse but I can think on it!
I was a little surprised to hear no mention of Raleigh-Durham. A quick googling suggested this could be due to the area being split into separate MSAs. Albany also falls off the map due to low MSA population. Amtrak's project to build a new line between Raleigh and Richmond is very exciting, though it will be sub-hsr and launch with few daily roundtrips. Then again, I believe regional and intercity service to be a necessary step before HSR construction in the US. Your video does put into perspective Amtrak and the FRA's decision to prioritize capital projects between NYC and Washington in particular.
Having Raleigh-Durham listed as a CSA instead of an MSA is definitely a mistake.
No, Raleigh-Durham is an MSA (pop ~1.4m), and I included it -- it's just none of its pairs met the 2.0 score threshold. Strongest seems to be with DC, at 1.3.
@@CityNerd Raleigh and Durham-Chapel Hill are listed as 2 separate MSAs. Raleigh-Durham is the CSA. The 1.4 M number you used is just for the Raleigh MSA. The population of the Raleigh-Durham CSA is about 2.1 M. My calculations have the score for the Raleigh-Durham CSA & Washington MSA at about 1.9. If you use the Washington-Baltimore CSA, it's about 2.9. If you know anybody at the OMB, please let them know they've made a mistake!
How does your model rank the Quebec City to Chicago corridor with stops in Montréal, Ottawa, Toronto, London and Windsor / Detroit?
I feel like it’s often overlooked that part of the goal of CA HSR is to spur development in the inland sections of the state and help with the housing affordability crisis on the coast. For example a tech worker might be able to live in Merced and commute to the office 2-3 times a week on HSR. Many people already spend 3+ hours commuting each day so a HSR commute might not even be longer, while also saving a million+ on a typical single family house.
Also, if I had to guess as to the reason why they're working on HSR heading northbound from Los Angeles rather than southbound to San Diego, it has to do with NIMBY opposition from Orange County.
@@thexalon Nope. They wanted to include the Inland Empire and Temecula, so they left the OC portion as a stub, which is a little odd considering the existing LOSSAN Rail Corridor is the second busiest in the country.
In any case, the starting bit of the system has to include both NorCal and SoCal for some very obvious political reasons.
I've heard this "supercommuter" economic argument for CAHSR (we've made the argument for VAN-SEA-PDX too) and it just depresses me. Maybe that's the world we live in today, though.
I don't know why this doesn't feature more often in proposals. Bringing distant areas into functionally being part of a Metro area seems like a great way to instantly grow a city and all the benefits that come with that.
For example pair like Calgary-Edmonton could end up functioning like Minneapolis-St Paul or Dallas-Fort Worth with high speed rail, and the 2 cities combined(+red deer) would be somewhere between Vancouver and Montreal in size.
Since it's come up a few times: You might have a fun video to make that looks specifically at these border crossing pairs.
As I understand there's been some discussion about rethinking Amtrak's crossings to Montreal. Specifically, I think they're considering making Montreal's station work more like "an airport" where US bound passengers are pre-cleared by customs, and CA bound passengers go through customs upon exiting the train when they alight in Montreal.
If implemented this would really change the outlook for Amtrak's "close to the CA border" service. The current Adirondacker train could run faster, but it also gives the Vermonter the opportunity to extend it's service past St Albans through to Montreal re-becoming the Montrealler. The Ethan Allen Express is also looking at extending to St Albans with a current project (IIRC), and could simply head further north too.
Three daily frequencies between NYC and Montreal is quite different from one, and could be a real game changer, especially from an equipment and crew reliability standpoint.
Anyways, I'm wondering about a video like "top ten border cities that would grow with streamlined cross border rail service" or something like that. My guess is that the obvious ones would crop up like Toronto, Montreal, and Tiajuana. But I'd wonder about further inland cities like Chicago, Mexico City and New York. How would the Texas cities fare? Vancouver? I know much talk is made of a Boston Montreal connection, but is it all it's cracked up to be?
You could assign the current 2h-3h border crossing penalty and then when you take it away see how much things improve!
Also, the caveat of a system like is being proposed for Montreal is that it only works if one side of the border has only one stop. For security reasons, a Montreal bound train must make no stops after it cross over from the US.
This means "border adjacent" cities might be the only feasible cities where this scheme really works. A train from Chicago, Via Detroit to Toronto might not work well because your probably want a stop in London, Hamilton, or somewhere else like that. Though I guess if you're willing to make a few stops be "exit only" stops it could work.
That said, a rehashing of the current Lake Shore Limited route to use the north shore of Lake Erie, with stops in Buffalo, Hamilton, and Detroit would work fine because the Hamilton stop would be the "customs one".
@@robjohnson3446 Before Schengen european passport controls were done in the train. The border control agents would board on the last stop before the border, do their checks and leave again. With the close relationship between Canada and the US that could also work there.
@@lars7935 alternatively have it be "everybody off" go through customs and then reboard. I'm sure there is an optimization problem here to be solved for the best way to incorporate customs with a border crossing train that has multiple stops beyond.
Maybe you simply get off the train, go through customs, and get on a different train that doesn't through run even though tracks exist to enable this if needed. (Obviously not paying a fare for the transfer) The main desire is least total delay for the crossing while still having effective cutoms, ideally being significantly faster than airports.
Interesting. Can you make a video about the business of high speed rail investment? You alluded to some companies at the 11:31 mark. Curious about how those business models work, how it differs from Amtrak.
great video love the channel!
I hope that if NA gets its HSR network, you steer away from terminus stations from the get go. Even though a lot of them already exist and they are often these hugely impressive buildings, they really suck from an operational standpoint compared to through stations!
I know this might seem abit overreaching but if you have the chance to build a new network you really should do it right. Termini add like 15 minutes of travel time to connections that continue from that station, they often create huge delays because of get congestion as they can create really bad bottlenecks and they are way less convienent to change trains in as a passenger. Theres a reason the DB here in Germany is willing to spend billions of euros on stuttgart 21 and frankfurt21, both projects to turn termini into underground through stations for ICE service.
How did San Antonio - Monterrey fare?
Would like to see a corridors video
SA-Monterrey was a 1.4. Really not bad, and likely to get stronger as those cities grow.
TOPIC IDEA: ALTERNATIVE TRANSPORTATION. Out here here in UT we're currently debating ways to ease trafic in Little Cottonwood Canyon (home of Alta and Snowbird). The two final proposals are: 1. Widen the road and increase bus service, or 2. A gondola going from the base of the canyon up to Alta. A cog railway was ruled out. Would be interested on your take and other such projects around the world.
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Glad to see San Diego get some love here.
We need to get our own shit together down here, starting with expanding Brown and getting rid of Lindbergh, then we can take HSR all the way to the border. San Diego doesn't have the smartest people deciding these things, it's all NIMBYs, developers and other reactionaries.
Heyy, new upload, nice
Given that there is much talk in Canada of privately funded HSR between Calgary and Edmonton (despite Calgary having no intercity passenger rail of any kind since the late 1980s and essentially needing to build a new train station from scratch), even more than that of the Cascades and the Corridor, how would you rate this city pair by your metric, even if there were no plausible trip generators outside the QE2 corridor?
And why would you surmise that there is so much talk about HSR between Calgary and Edmonton despite the transborder routes being scored higher yet barely talked about?
I'm in Ann Arbor which is in the Detroit CSA but out of the Detroit MSA. The giant regional airport DTW is half way between here and downtown Detroit. The current Amtrak service from Detroit to Chicago stops in Ann Arbor. Would the HSR stop in Ann Arbor? Or is there going to be a good regional transit network to feed the Detroit HSR station?
7:48...did you use a photo from somewhere in France for Philly, haha, if only my city looked that good!
I wish there were Chicago-Minneapolis and Chicago-NYC HSR! Chicago-NYC is about the very limit of where I think significant numbers would prefer to take a train over flying (I estimate around 3.5-4 hr one way).
I know you know more about North America, however I'm keen for you to make a video about HSR in Australia and potential connections. We have some of the busiest air routes in the world and people think HSR is a no brainer. I think it should be built, however I think it's the more intermediate cities with the metropolis' that are where the value is. This is like Sydney to Newcastle, Brisbane to the Gold coast etc. And not necessarily Brisbane to Sydney etc. It'd be awesome to hear your insight.
Am surprised Harrisburg to NYC did not make the top ten. It’s widely used actually Also the other thing with the Philly/NYC pair is probably two to three times the passenger volume use NJT for this trip Both Philly NYC and Philly Balt have commuter rail options along with Amtrak. Both are within 90 miles
I did a fun high speed rail plan in a mock US government thing I was in. I centered it in my district (Nashville) because that my politician loved his pork.
It surprisingly does make a nice central location with that perfect distance to St. Louis, Memphis, Atlanta, Birmingham, and Louisville but I can see why it didn't rank. All those cities are a bit small in the grand scheme of things.
That was a fun network to put together and explain to everyone else why a cross country route was very very stupid.
I like Atlanta-Nashville.
Originaly buenavista station was de hub center for all de train lines that connected the north of the country with mexico city, maybe another place for the station could be in San Lazaro to the East of the historic center, but the best is buenavista, the only problem I think with buenavista station is the lack of space for expansion, thank you for the video
For Mexico, maybe Monterrey-Laredo-San Antonio, Monterrey-Reynosa-McAllen or even Monterrey-Saltillo-Torreón and if connected Saltillo to SLP you get the connection to CDMX
I really enjoy your channel. I am curious why Miami, Ft Lauderdale, Palm Beach Orlando, Tampa, Jacksonville, Atlanta did not make it to High Speed Stations. Brightline has already started here
Hi! Former Durham Region resident here! The 2nd pronunciation of Oshawa is correct!
For Mexican HS rail, a Guadalajara to CDMX makes more sense given their distances, size, and cities in between. It's Mexico's northeast corridor and later on there could be extensions to Aguascalientes or San Luis Potosi. However an extension from CDMX to Puebla would be hard because there 2 large volcanoes in between them and tunneling thru would extremely expensive.
Oh, good insight on CDMX-Puebla. Thanks!
As a resident, was pretty surprised to see Richmond fall above the 2 point threshold with NYC. Pretty cool
When I ran the numbers it surprised me that Richmond shows up for NYC but not for DC. Distance to DC metro area is too close. Think of it this way -- if you live in the NoVa suburbs, are you really going to backtrack to Union Station just to get to RVA?
GR getting recognition...interesting. Check it out during summer, it and the Lake Michigan beachfront is honestly surprising.
I'm late to the game, but you mention border checks with the internation pairs, which I think is interesting.
Depending on how popular the HSR line is (and how strict border security is, so maybe not ideal for US/mexico), border checks could be streamlined a bunch for rail travel.
I've heard of cases where at the last stop before the border, a bunch of border security agents (including sniffer dogs) would board the train, and systematically go through all carriages checking the (pre-filled) paperwork of all the passengers and ofc sniffing the luggage. By the time the train would arrive at its destination on the other side of the border, all passengers would be cleared.
(There are near infinite variations on this possible, with more/less stuff at the end point stations. You could do a quick luggage scan before getting on the platform. Or maybe (electronically) mark the passports of the people that were cleared on the train, so that at the destination, they just have to electronically scan their passport at an automatic gate in order to leave the station...)
So imho, worst-case the time lost in border checks will be equal to car or air travel, but best-case it could be streamlined enough to be almost negligible. (though SDG-TIJ is probably too short to do much on-train)
Do you think you could do a video on this except using local transit ridership instead of raw population to account for the "last mile problem".
Also what about evaluating specific corridors/hubs cities like how Boston-Buffalo had many comperable intermediaries like Rochester, Syracuse, Albany, Springfield along the natural route. And how Albany is right on the intersection of NYC-Montreal and Boston-Buffalo despite not being the largest itself. (Maybe the corridor could look at highway statistics from the Mass Pike and NY Thruway who both have accurate usage data, atleast internally from the electronic toll system, to evaluate travel demand)
I’m pretty interested in more info about the Vancouver-Seattle-Portland HSR and why it doesn’t show up so much on these HSR lists. As first glance it seems like it would be higher?
Basically by his methodology, Portland and Vancouver are just too small to make it on here. Culturally it makes sense. All those cities have strong transportation ridership and it would be supported, and there is alot of shared connections between the cities. However, I do understand his point of it being more of a regional priority then a national one. Although, I believe it would be on of the most successful.
Apparently by US MSA standards, Hamilton and Oshawa would be part of the Toronto Metro.
It's also know by StatsCan as HOT, Hamilton / Oshawa /Toronto.
@@richardkralick3062 I’m more used to seeing GTHA.
I understand you're using a statistical method here. But the reality is that Toronto - Montreal via Ottawa is getting a much improved service. Granted it's not actually HSR, but it will hopefully draw people from planes and cars.
I have a whole video on Toronto-Montreal.
Michigan’s got a high-speed rail that goes from Detroit to Chicago, although it’s Amtrak and it only does 100mph it stops for freight trains so takes longer than driving.
Is there a ready way to adjust the gravity model so that it accounts for the terrain? HSR especially doesn't get along with mountains - significantly impacting the practicality of several corridors mentioned in the video - e.g. Mexico City-Puebla, DC-Pittsburgh, and of course LA-SF
No, it's just a demand model, not a cost model -- so it's really just getting at one side of the equation. Make sure you don't tell Spain and Italy that it's undesirable to build HSR through mountainous terrain!
@@CityNerd Or China, South Korea, Japan and Switzerland which are all very mountainous countries
I always wondered about HSR from Houston to New Orleans. New Orleans-Metairie metropolitan area has 1.2M population and the Louisiana origin population in Houston is very high (even before the hurricane). Plus, tourism & business traffic would be very good. What is keeping it below at 2.0 rating?
I'd be curious what your thoughts are on regular-speed (i.e. 90 mph avg b/w city pairs) rail, either regional networks or long-distance services. Obviously true HSR is necessary to drive mode shift in intercity travel b/w major urban areas. At least my own intuition though is that to fully leverage the benefits that brings for the regions outside those centers, you'd also need stuff like frequent trains connecting every town in each state, and 1000-1500 mile daytime & sleeper routes to connect the disparate HSR & regional rail networks. Is there a way to rank hypothetical services under that paradigm, i.e. to identify cities which could support standard rail networks but not HSR?
You don't necessarily need a train to every town but a train to every county and a strong intertown bus network withing the counties. (Atleast for Eastern counties where even the largest ones are only around an hour or so in "diameter", western counties can be insanely large but the same basic idea of grouping towns into a bus regions and regional railing those bus regions together and into hubs for the main HSR lines)
My man just called Rochester "rock-chesther"
Well, I think you should also consider high-speed night-trains for long distances. Those may take longer than a flight but sleeping in a sleeping car (rail) is MUCH more comfortable than sleeping in a plane...
I'd love to see an attempt to get from coast to coast using a similar measure of strength in city pairs. Which coastal cities get to be a logical termini. Given its performance here LA may be the best western terminus but it I could see reasons for it ending a trans continental route in a few cities on the East coast. Does the optimization send it thru Chicago or thru Texas? What's the least ridiculous way to make it thru the mountain/desert west? Do you cross from Kansas City to Denver, San Antonio to El Paso, Dallas to Albuquerque, or something else? I suspect it would highlight some odd city pairs and create a list that isn't quite so Acela heavy, if that is appealing.
This is so nerdy, and I love it.
What about Montreal-Ottawa? Great video!
Not as strong as Montreal-Toronto or Ottawa-Toronto, but you'll definitely get Montreal-Ottawa if you connect those other pairs!
The funny thing is that I think that a high speed rail connection would be better utilized through Millennium station instead of union station due to better connections with the L and the fact that it's already electrified. That is to say nothing of the fact that most of the destinations are to the east of Chicago where Millennium can better take advantage of it's location
Bostonian here. South Station is the better station due to its proximity to the center of the city. However, if the Acela ever runs out of North Station, I will be a very happy man. That will mean we finally connected the two halves of our network and can through run trains. The North South Rail Link has been proposed for decades and would be transformative for regional rail in Boston.
Union Station in downtown Los Angeles to anywhere, all the tourist that come thru and all the locals that want to get away, good videos, I was wondering where you are from?
I believe the better question when it comes to high speed rail projects is not where to put them based on today’s populations but where they will be advantageous for a population 20 or 30 years from now. Where will we want them decades from now and where will wish we had taken advantage of the cheaper and available land now surrounding those places before being fully built up?
Could there be a video exploring the top ten places for building tomorrow’s rail networks based on todays relative ease in acquiring available land, smaller suburbs to get in the way, and projected growth of paired cities? Your existing videos do a good job looking at current data. But do not generally reflect the reality that creating a wholly new rail link between say NY and Boston is magnitudes more difficult and expensive than between St. Louis and Denver, or chicago and Minneapolis, despite the distances being greater. And while Boston and NY are not going to get a lot bigger than they are, the same might not be true for other city pairs.
I am not sure what metrics could be used to add this dimension but in a world with scant resources to devote to this issue, we should look for bargains. Surely there are easier targets and harder targets. Let us build a next century resource for where the next century will want and need it.
Growth certainly follows airports. Can’t we expect the same from solid rail networks?
Love your channel. D
Hamilton and Oshawa are part of Toronto’s CSA and the GO Train network but they, along with Kitchener/Waterloo and Barrie, are all in the 1 or so hour drive from Metropolitan Toronto.
I'm a bit skeptical that the metro area populations I'm using for the three countries are apples-to-apples. (I included the three Wikipedia links in the video description.) It feels to me like if Toronto was a US city, the census would consider Hamilton and Oshawa part of the metro area, not just the combined statistical area. Would make a big difference in the numbers.
The advantage of Chicago comes in when HSR can be competitive with air travel. A major trunk line between Chicago and Denver could connect a Mid-west and a Western hub for crossing the great plains where nobody really wants to stop. From Denver, Salt Lake City, thence Boise, Seattle, Portland and Vancouver to the NW. From Denver Las Vegas, LA, San Diego, Phoenix don't need much branching. From Chicago, the concern going east is flight times, so, if HSR gets better vs. air, then Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York go on one trunk and Atlanta, Orlando, Miami on another. Finally the connection from Chicago to Dallas, with that being the South-central hub, brings Chi-town back to its glory days as the transport hub of the nation.
Lots of fun. However you have put Washington DC in eastern Maryland near the shore in Item 5
Uh oh