Remember Mark that this is only the initial phase and the first study. So hopefully once they start building and tweaking the system, they'll revise things such as adding branches to the airport, or perhaps rerouting to the airport if you're lucky. Sadly this is the first time in many years that money is being put towards rail, and even more sad, knowing how the government agencies work, the officials don't know what to do with it, and typical of government, they'll mismanage the whole project right from the beginning. Look at the Big Dig, and many other projects around the country.
I agree this small drop in the bucket towards passenger/rail service pales miserably from what is spent in Europe and Asia. Unfortunately the US cities are spread out over thousands of miles unlike the Europe and parts of Asia where the population centers are concentrated. The middle portion of the US is very lightly populated. I know. I've traveled across the mid-continent, and there are towns there with populations as small as 350 people! This is not an area where highspeed rail would be worth the investment. There's not enough towns or population in general to support the expense.
I agree they should look to something better than regular train service, but this is the technology that works best right now. If done properly, like in Europe or Japan, we could have a very successful system.
Where I live up here in New England, we have a mess near the airports and in and around the cities. Manchester has a rail branch that was ripped up. This is the former M&L route from Manchester to Lawrence. When the airport was built, and recently expanded, they built over the ROW. So now sadly there's no way to restore service on it. North of that, the line was pulled up and replaced with a trail. The Concord Mainline is too far away from the airport for any kind of direct service, so the only way would be to have local buses connect the two.
In general up here we seem to be forgotten when it comes to rail expansion. The eastern part of the Merrimack Valley "died" around 1970 after the shoe industry went, and we've never recovered industrially since. This isn't to say that we don't have a high population. Instead of working locally, the focus has been on the Boston area so now the people that used to work locally, now work in and around Boston. We have commuter rail service , but not at the same frequency as the rest of the state. In fact our roads are clogged with cars that come from points north, and the majority of the drivers work in Boston. This makes commuting, even locally, a hazard and a real nightmare. When it comes to holiday weekends, and summer time traffic, a local trip from Lowell to Haverhill can take up to 4 hours because fo the traffic. When I worked in Woburn, Bedford, and Lowell, I would wait until very late, or leave very early to beat the traffic home. This makes it very discouraging, and I no longer visit the beach in the summer months because of this and dread going to work or school during the holiday seasons.
The Lowell corridor at least has hourly service. We're lucky if we see one train every 2 hours up here on the Merrmack Valley Line, and they stop the trains at midnight along with a long gap between the last rush hour train and the midnight train. This makes working late in the city bad, and going in and out for pleasure. Believe me, I've been there and done that way too many times. Sadly I had to call for a ride from Reading, which is close to Boston because that's where the in between trains terminate.
Another area that lacks trains is the seacoast. The line to Portsmouth died when the bridge went out in Newburyport. The commuter rail goes as far as Newbury, and the tracks are gone from there. The Portsmouth end is freight only at once a week if that, and the line south to Salisbury is pretty much abandoned south of Seabrook. This area too is a total disaster trying to get in and out of during the summer because of the tourist business.
I think if local governments were more in tune, or as I should say more in the loop on the development process, then there would be less of a chance of things going wrong such as bypassing the airports and city centers. Unfortunately they are either dis-interested in the design phase, or are never included so this is the way things seem to go, at least in this country.
John
Claude
), and about right for High Speed Rail. Perhaps one day? It might even avoid the need for another Airport in Sydney.