From Evansville To Minneapolis, A Bullet Train Is Better Than A Plane

(ultimatetaxi.com)

On June 9th, 2011, our local Evansville Regional Airport offered direct flights from Evansville to Minneapolis...

http://www.courierpress.com/news/2011/mar/10/evansville-airport-adding-service-minneapolisst-pa/

“For years we’ve been trying to get this service,” said Dianna Kissel,
Evansville Regional Airport’s marketing and public relations manager.

Minneapolis/St. Paul is an attractive market, Kissel said, because it
improves Evansville’s access to the Western U.S.

On June 9th our local officials decided to "celebrate" this accomplishment...

http://community-observer.com/2011/06/09/evansville-regional-airport-to-host-minneapolisst-paul-kick-off-event-on-thursday-june-9-2011/

The Evansville Regional Airport will host an open-house event from 11:30 to 1:00 on June 9, 2011 to celebrate the start of Delta’s regional jet service to Minneapolis St. Paul (MSP) starting that same day. This new service will offer local passengers many more options for west coast connections. The event includes a ribbon cutting with Mayor Weinzapfel and the Chamber of Commerce of Southwest Indiana’s Ambassadors that will start at 12:30.

That's right, it's the same officials who thought we needed a ribbon cutting ceremony for a simple Lloyd Expressway overpass at Fulton....

http://www.courierpress.com/news/2010/sep/08/ribbon-cutting-thursday-lloyd-expwy-interchange-fu/?partner=RSS

and Oak Hill Road...

http://tristatehomepage.com/fulltext?nxd_id=287197

With all of these grand ribbon cutting ceremonies, the perception appears to be that we are making progress. But I ask the simple question: Are we really investing in the best technology?

In other words, is this the best way to spend our money to get to Minneapolis? Let's take a look into the options.

According to Mapquest, if you drive from Evansville to Minneapolis, it will take you 11 hours and 56 minutes to drive 697.71 miles...

http://mapq.st/o6q0ff

The estimated cost would be around 2-3 tanks of gasoline depending on what vehicle you drive. This equates to a rough estimate of $120-$240.

According to http://www.evvairport.com/, if you take a direct route from Evansville Regional Airport to Minneapolis/St.Paul Airport, you can get there in 1 hour and 52 minutes....

http://www.quicktrip.com/flightresultpage.html

But it will cost you $1,277.00 to fly on August 9th if you go with Hotwire...

http://www.hotwire.com/air/results.jsp?searchTokenId=1&backButtonInputId=index

Or you can fly on August 24th with Hotwire for $785.75 but it will take you 3 hours 50 minutes....

http://www.hotwire.com/air/results.jsp?searchTokenId=2&backButtonInputId=air-results

(Note: These estimates were taken from Hotwire.com for the dates August 9th and August 24th. These prices and times will fluctuate up and down daily. This is only intended to be a rough estimate.)

So while there are indeed a few flights on a few days at a few times to Minneapolis that can take you there in roughly 2 hours, they are significantly more expensive than most of EVV's direct flight's to Minneapolis and really don't make financial sense over a 1 or 2 stop route or a slower route that will take roughly 4 hours.

Also, none of these times take into account the facts that you have to travel outside of downtown Evansville and vicinity to reach the airport, the 1 + hour it takes you to go through security, and the frequent delays that are a common practice in the airline industry. Simply put, when everything is calculated, we can either take a flight that will take at least 3 hours of our time and will cost almost $1,300 or we can take a flight that will take at least 5 hours of our time and will cost almost $800.

Now let's take a look at high speed rail....

http://www.midwesthsr.org/2011-economic-study

Unfortunately, Evansville is only listed as a Bus Feeder Route due to our political leaders failing to push for high speed rail in Evansville...

http://www.midwesthsr.org/sites/default/files/pdf/MHSRA_2011_Economic_Study_Executive_Summary.pdf

Therefore, we will have to use a city that is comparable to Chicago in distance. That city is St. Louis which is 6 miles farther than Evansville is to Chicago. The reason why we must get a comparable distance to Chicago is because a route from Evansville to Minneapolis would involve taking 2 trains: 1 train from Evansville to Chicago and 1 train from Chicago to Minneapolis.

If you look at page 5 of the economic study above, you will see that...

1. It takes 1 hr, 55 minutes to go from St. Louis to Chicago.
2. It takes 2 hrs, 45 minutes to go from Chicago to Minneapolis.
3. This comes to a grand total of 4 hours, 40 minutes.

If you look on page 22 of the study, you will see that a 220 mph high speed rail bullet train beats both the automobile and the airplane to many different cities around the Midwest.

Now let's take a look at the fares. Go to page 24 and lets calculate our fares by taking annual revenue and dividing it by annual riders. This calculation gives us...

1. $42.61 to go from St. Louis to Chicago.
2. $53.02 to go from Chicago to Minneapolis.
3. This comes to a grand total of $95.63 to go from St. Louis to Minneapolis which is a comparable distance with Evansville to Minneapolis.

Here are some more cost comparisons between air, auto, and rail...

http://www.midwesthsr.org/cost-advantage

While the gap in fares between air and rail gets significantly closer when we calculate bigger cities such as St. Louis, the truth is, only the rich will be able to use air service out of Evansville or anywhere else for that matter in the future.

With lengthy lines for security, oil prices on the rise, and many people moving to their town's urban core, why is Evansville investing in its airport instead of building high speed rail?

Yes, if you catch that one magical flight that goes directly to Minneapolis, you might (keyword might) be able to save an hour or less travel time, but is it worth paying $800-$1300? I don't think so. For the vast majority of flights leaving Evansville and heading to Minneapolis, their fares are significantly higher than a train ticket on a 220 mph bullet train and their travel times are longer than the bullet trains by over an hour or two.

Before we invest one more dollar in our interstates and our airport, we need to focus solely on BRINGING HIGH SPEED RAIL TO EVANSVILLE!


(elpc.com)