All Aboard the Atlanta-to-Boston Train Via Charlotte (Possibly…some day in the future)
Of the three routes under consideration to link Atlanta to Charlotte, only one should be considered.
That’s Greenfield route. It would cost between $6 billion and $8 billion, have by far the shortest time between termini and also serve the highest number of passengers. Is there really reason to spend double that amount for a slower route or go cheapest and waste $2 billion for a route that wouldn’t be quicker than driving and serve virtually no one? Exactly.
For now, exact routes, costs and most importantly funding mechanisms are TBD for the Southeast High-Speed Rail Corridor. Eventually, the government hopes that corridor will link up with lines traveling all the way to Boston.
Undoubtedly a massive rail project is part of the “elusive solutions for expanded regional transit”. Is this the one? I don’t know but missing from any paeans to our roadways is that the only true solution is fewer cars on the road.
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edatlanta
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You are correct but I can’t believe you left out the major economic impact on Bowman that this would have.
Coca Cola City Pete. Coca Cola City.
Truly the forgotten city of northwest Elbert County.
a train for people from boston to get on and leave….sounds awesome!!!
The problem will always be ticket cost. Investing 15 billion on a rapid rail project is a huge amount of money. Will the price of the ticket cover the cost? I think we all know it will not which means government will be supplementing the cost of the ticket. So what are the hard numbers? Will government be covering 100 bucks per ticket 200, 500, more? As bad as we want to do something to get cars off the road and provide alternate transportation I just don’t see rapid rail being a viable alternative.
This is a bit of a red herring because we already subsidize roads, we know the taxpayers are likely to spend more on roads than they get out of them and oh yeah: what’s the alternative?
Also congestion costs Atlanta drivers $1,505 a year as it is–a 10-percent increase from 2017.
http://inrix.com/scorecard-city/?city=Atlanta%2C%20GA&index=71
I don’t know Ed… We already have the investment in roads so that is not starting from scratch as it will be for rapid rail. Also Rapid rail will have zero impact on Atlanta congestion so no impact on the cost of congestion. What would have some impact? Telecommuting, Marta expansion, Better bus utilization, etc. More inland Ports will help remove more truck traffic. Rapid rail between Charlotte and Atlanta is prestigious but practical not so much… As much as I dislike Brandon Beach his heart was in the right place on Marta and Atlanta public transportation in general.
Atlanta’ Norfolk Southern line to Charlotte is served daily by Amtrak’s Crescent, powered by diesel locomotives, but the line has lots of curves and is single-track in a number of places. To run high-speed trains (over 100mph), you would need to electrify the line (like the Boston-New York-Washington line in the Northeast), and of course it is Norfolk Southern’s connection to the Northeast, and the company understandably would be reluctant to allow for more passenger trains at the expense of its freight operations. Atlanta has not had passenger train service northwest (toward Tennessee) in nearly 50 years because CSX and Norfolk Southern have very busy lines from here to the Midwest and neither is keen on passenger trains interfering with their freight ones. Thus, you might have to look at a new alignment for Atlanta-Charlotte high speed rail,with high costs and the inevitable lawsuits and delays.