Evansville Rail: We Are Making Progress!

Friday, July 22, 2011

We Are Making Progress!

(dreamstime.com)

Little by little, we are making progress on bringing high speed rail to Evansville. With great excitement, I can now report to you that BOTH mayoral candidates in Evansville support high speed rail.

This is a tremendous accomplishment as well as a historical one. Never have we been this close to convincing our city to pursue high speed rail. I can't wait til the first train arrives in downtown Evansville, Indiana!

Once more, I thank you the readers of this blog for your support as well as your activism. Please continue your support, and please continue to email your legislators and write to the Courier & Press.

Let's bring high speed rail to Evansville!

(blogdowntown.com)

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Did You Know?

-An intercity high-speed passenger train is three times as energy efficient as commercial air, and six times as efficient as a car traveling with one occupant.

-Switching 5% of US highway travel to high-speed passenger rail would save more that one-sixth the amount of oil imported annually from the Middle East.

-High-Speed Rail service requires less land acquisition that other modes of travel. According to the Worldwatch Institute, two railroad tracks can carry as many people per hour as sixteen lanes of highway. Farmlands and environmentally-sensitive geography are preserved.

-One railway track mile uses 0.42 football field(s) worth of land compared to one highway mile that equals 1.10.

-One Virginia Railway Express commuter train can equal as many as 800 cars taken off the highway.

-One intermodal freight train can equal up to 300 tractor-trailers.

-For every $1 invested in public transportation such as intercity passenger rail, $4 is returned in economic development.

-One regional passenger train equals 4 regional planes

-For the cost of building a third airport in the Chicago area, a network of high-speed trains could be built in nine states and serve far more travelers.

-In addition, the cost of building quality interstate highways in urban areas cost between $15 and $20 Million per mile, while infrastructure for high-speed passenger trains traveling at 125 mph costs between $3 and $6 Million per mile.

-In over 35 years of operation, the high-speed passenger rail system, carrying over 6 million passengers a day, worldwide, has only had a few minor incidents and one fatal accident.

-In the United States, Amtrak's Metroliner, a passenger train traveling at 125 Mph between New York and Washington, has had no passenger fatalities since it was established in 1986. Compare that to 500,000 motor vehicle fatalities in the United States since 1986.

-High-speed trains speed travelers from city center to city center. For most passengers, the rest of the trip is a simple walk or short taxi ride from the train station to their final destination.