[progchat_action] Minnesota contemplates high speed rail
Steven Robinson
High-speed service to Chicago would anchor statewide passenger train
service under a new plan.
By Kevin Giles, Star Tribune.com December 31, 2009
The most sweeping rail plan in Minnesota history envisions a
high-speed train running to Chicago within five years and a network
of passenger trains someday connecting the Twin Cities with Rochester,
Duluth and several other cities.
The Minnesota Department of Transportation plan, released Thursday,
names several possible routes over which a high-speed train from
the Twin Cities to Chicago would travel. Developing that route, the
plan said, is an urgent first step to securing federal funding that
could help build a comprehensive network of passenger trains. They
could connect major train hubs in Minneapolis and St. Paul with
Moorhead, Mankato and Eau Claire, Wis., within 20 years.
After that, the plan envisions running trains from the Twin Cities
to Albert Lea and Willmar in outlying Minnesota and to the Canadian
city of Winnipeg.
"It's an exciting time because I think the public is ready for
trains," said Myra Peterson, a Washington County commissioner who's
been a champion of statewide rail planning. "Every time that we
have something that happens in the air like the Detroit incident,
the traveling public is more convinced that we need a viable option."
Minnesota's sudden leadership role in statewide rail planning will
help in the race for federal money, said Tom Sorel, director of
MnDOT. Passenger rail, largely erased from the American landscape
40 years ago, is undergoing a resurgence in popularity as billions
of federal dollars come available.
Minnesota's vision wouldn't come cheap, with general infrastructure
costs through 2030 ranging from $6.2 billion to $9.5 billion. Those
figures don't include detailed engineering costs for specific trains
and routes.
"They're not your grandfathers' trains anymore," is how Dan Krom,
MnDOT's director of passenger rail, described new high-speed trains
-- defined by national standards at 110 mph -- that someday could
be running six times a day from the Twin Cities to Chicago.
Commissioned by the Legislature last spring, Minnesota's first-ever
comprehensive passenger rail and freight plan also projects that
improved freight rail -- already transporting 30 percent of all
freight in the state -- will serve to further reduce heavy truck
traffic on highways.
Route alternatives
Much of the public debate so far has been over whether a proposed
high-speed train to Chicago would follow the existing Amtrak "river
route" through Washington and Dakota counties, or instead would run
to the Twin Cities via Rochester.
The new plan includes several other potential high-speed routes,
including one along Interstate 94 from Eau Claire and another along
the Wisconsin side of the Mississippi River, but the plan doesn't
favor one over another. Routes would be subject to environmental
review to further determine what works.
"An alignment to Rochester is going to take work," Krom said, because
no train has ever run from there to the Twin Cities. However, the
plan calls for developing a high-speed Rochester train corridor to
the Twin Cities whether that route eventually includes Chicago or
not, he said.
Rochester's advantage is that trains could run as fast as 150 mph,
he said, while trains along the "river route" would run no faster
than 110 mph and would be hampered by some "geographic issues" along
the Mississippi River.
"I was hopeful that there might have been even more direction
provided by the plan," said Sen. Ann Lynch, DFL-Rochester, who
wanted a stronger declaration of Rochester's importance as a true
high-speed route. "There are corridors that clearly won't accommodate,
now or in the future, true high-speed rail."
Peterson of Washington County said she was confident that the river
corridor would be chosen for the high-speed trains. Ridership to
Chicago on the Amtrak trains that follow that route continues to
grow, she said, and the state invested $6.5 million in safety
improvements on the route in the past few years.
"The only corridor that is shovel-ready and could have improvements
within a few years is the river corridor," she said. "Every dollar
we invest in the river corridor is a dollar invested in better
freight movement, passenger rail and commuter rail."
A faster train could trim the trip between the Twin Cities and
Chicago to five and a half hours, from the current eight. New trains,
Krom said, won't resemble current trains with their 1950s and 1960s
technology, but instead would be roomier and brighter, with wireless
computer connections, business class sections, and new "tilt"
technology that would allow them to navigate curves without slowing.
http://www.startribune.com/local/east/80451547.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP
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