Why Railroads:
Efficiency
Effective Use of Existing Assets: The existing
Amtrak network provides a foundation upon which to grow a
stronger system. Existing stations can handle significantly
more passengers with relatively little investment. Existing
trains can handle more people more simply adding more cars.
Simply removing railroad bottlenecks can add capacity at a
low marginal cost.
Lower Construction Cost: Upgraded track
is 6-7 times cheaper to build than highways. New track is
almost 4 times cheaper
In Northeastern Illinois in 2002, adding one lane of new
highway to an existing road cost $7.3 million per mile. Building
a new railroad track on land already owned by the freight
railroads cost between $1 million-$2 million. Upgrading existing
track and signaling to handle 110 mph service ran about $1
million per mile.
More Capacity: Rail can carry 3-5 times
more people than highways. Drivers know that at highway speed,
we’re supposed to leave about two seconds’ worth
of distance between our car and the one in front of us. There
are 3,600 seconds in an hour. With two seconds between cars,
that means one lane of highway holds 1800 cars per hour, and
with an average of 1.5 passengers per car, that means a total
capacity of 2700 people per hour per lane.
The London-Paris "Eurostar" trains that travel
underneath the English Channel hold 770 people. If there were
12 such trains per hour, the total capacity per hour per track
would be 9,240. Double-deck French high-speed trains now hold
more than 1,000 people per train. At 12 trains per hour, that’s
12,000 passengers!
Better Land Use: Rail requires 10% the amount
of land as Interstate highways.
Between New York and Boston, a distance of about 210 miles,
the main highway is Interstate 95, which is between 4-8 lanes
wide the entire distance. The total amount of land devoted
to I-95 is about 25 square miles. If new high-speed dual track
were built from scratch between the two cities, the total
land required would be about 2.5 square miles.
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