So the top destinations out of Dallas are Atlanta, Denver, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Austin, Phoenix, Houston, Orlando, Chicago, and New York.
So HSR would potentially be competitive with maybe two of the top 10 destinations when comparing to air travel for DFW. I'm a proponent for the Texas HSR projects, but I don't think it's going to really radically change how most North Texans travel.
Partially because of the above (only 2 of the top 10 flights), but also because while it'll be nice to just take a train instead of driving to Houston, I'm probably going to have to rent a car or do a lot of ride hailing once I get there. Outside of a small section of a lot of these cities downtown areas you practically need a car to get around or be willing to make a lot of sacrifices.
So I'd love to take HSR to visit family in Clear Lake. I could take DART from my home, HSR to Houston, take METRO to the Bay Area Park and Ride, and then...walk several miles with my family's luggage a few miles on maybe paved sidewalks with a few kids under 3. Ride hailing is pretty much out of the question with little kids, good luck on them having adequate child seats available.
But I'll still champion and argue for the Texas HSR projects, even though I might personally not use it a lot. Maybe transit will improve where I want to go. I hope so. And even then I'll still probably take it to watch a Silver Boot series sometime. But there will be others who will be able to leverage it, and that means fewer cars on the road for me for these trips I'm somewhat forced to choose the car.
But I don't like people acting like there's no logical reason for HSR to be the dominant way for people to travel in the US. As we both agree, trips like DFW-NYC don't make much sense taking a train for most travellers.
Right. HSR isn't meant to replace all long distance travel. European cities still have very busy airports, and just look at the Ryanair route map: https://www.ryanair.com/en/cheap-flight-destinations. HSR would be ideal for DFW, Austin and Houston, where a triangular route would be very competitive, and I'd imagine would have very high passenger numbers and would replace a lot of plane and car journeys.
The traffic from Love Field would be a better target/comparison, as it's a regional airport. European style HSR doesn't replace international hub airports in europe, either.
So the top destinations out of Dallas are Atlanta, Denver, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Austin, Phoenix, Houston, Orlando, Chicago, and New York.
So HSR would potentially be competitive with maybe two of the top 10 destinations when comparing to air travel for DFW. I'm a proponent for the Texas HSR projects, but I don't think it's going to really radically change how most North Texans travel.
Partially because of the above (only 2 of the top 10 flights), but also because while it'll be nice to just take a train instead of driving to Houston, I'm probably going to have to rent a car or do a lot of ride hailing once I get there. Outside of a small section of a lot of these cities downtown areas you practically need a car to get around or be willing to make a lot of sacrifices.
So I'd love to take HSR to visit family in Clear Lake. I could take DART from my home, HSR to Houston, take METRO to the Bay Area Park and Ride, and then...walk several miles with my family's luggage a few miles on maybe paved sidewalks with a few kids under 3. Ride hailing is pretty much out of the question with little kids, good luck on them having adequate child seats available.
But I'll still champion and argue for the Texas HSR projects, even though I might personally not use it a lot. Maybe transit will improve where I want to go. I hope so. And even then I'll still probably take it to watch a Silver Boot series sometime. But there will be others who will be able to leverage it, and that means fewer cars on the road for me for these trips I'm somewhat forced to choose the car.
But I don't like people acting like there's no logical reason for HSR to be the dominant way for people to travel in the US. As we both agree, trips like DFW-NYC don't make much sense taking a train for most travellers.