The Benefits: A Stronger Economy

The Midwest has many of the ingredients for a strong economy, high-speed trains are needed to make them work together effectively.

The region is ideally situation to participate in the global marketplace. We have a diversified base of natural resources, a well educated work force, a powerful higher-education network, abundant fresh water, livable cities and a giant hub airport that offers non-stop service to all major European and Asian business centers. Fast highways and railroads connect Midwestern shippers to every deepwater port on the North American continent.

Yet the Midwestern economy is failing to achieve its growth potential. The reason is geography. The Midwest’s largest cities are too far from one other—and from the small towns that separate them—to function as an efficient economic unit. Driving times are too long, air fares are too high, and flying time-plus-ground travel makes many airline trips almost as slow as driving.

Regional growth depends on region-wide collaboration. But travel times between most Midwestern cities exceed the 2-to-3-hour Day Trip Zone on which successful collaboration depends.

Business thrives best when business people can visit customers and suppliers and return home within the same day. That’s why big cities are such successful business centers: Any business trip within a metropolitan area can be completed within a day. The outbound and returning travel segments total no more than 2 to 3 hours each.

How can the Midwest pull all of its cities, large and small alike, into a single 2-to-3-hour Day Trip Zone? With a network of 220-mph trains—the only travel technology that makes crossing the entire Midwest as quick as crossing a large metropolitan area. Only high-speed trains have the power to transform the entire Midwestern region into a virtual metropolis.

Making an entire region behave like a large metropolitan area cannot happen unless the region develops Extreme Mobility: Business people in the region must be able to travel from any city in the region to any other and return the same day—as if they were doing no more than traveling between city and suburb or between suburbs of the same city. A one-way trip cannot consume more than 3 hours—usually much less.

But in today’s Midwest, a 3-hour trip equates to a radius of no more than about 150 miles—less than the distance from Chicago to Green Bay, Indianapolis to St. Louis, or Detroit to Grand Rapids. The Midwest needs to go faster before it can grow faster. It needs fast trains. Highway and air transportation have reached their respective speed plateaus. Rail alone has the potential to double its speed—and beyond.

The interrelated crises with the economy, energy supplies and the environment make it urgent that Midwest governments undertake two separate, but interrelated, projects at the same time: 110 mph upgrades to existing infrastructure and building new, 220-mph world-class high speed lines.

Upgrading existing rail infrastructure to raise passenger-train speeds from 79 mph to 90 – 110 mph speeds extends the Day Trip Zone to 200 miles, tying smaller and mid-size cities to major commercial centers. Chicago’s Day Trip Zone would reach out to embrace Springfield, Indianapolis, Madison and Detroit. These upgrades can be implemented quickly, providing immediate value and protecting against future oil shocks. Upgrading existing infrastructure will also improve freight service. Several Midwest states intend to apply for federal rail-infrastructure grants from the American Reinvestment & Recovery Act.

But 110-mph service still would leave many important Midwestern points—the Twin Cities, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Louisville and Kansas City beyond Chicago’s Day Trip Zone. Smaller cities such as St. Louis and Kansas City, Cleveland and Cincinnati, Madison and Minneapolis would lie outside each other’s Day Trip Zone as well. And dozens of smaller communities would be left behind in the race for growth, jobs and economic development.

Truly transforming our Midwestern economy will require a much more aggressive approach to regional mobility: Only when cities are 3 hours apart (preferably 2) can residents of all communities truly collaborate. An only when trains come and go at hourly intervals can rail meet the needs of all travelers.

Today’s high-speed trains cover 500 miles in three hours, a speed that brings virtually the entire Midwest within a day trip of Chicago and just three hours from key international links at O’Hare. A network of 220-mph rail lines truly will transform the Midwestern economy.