Just what if ....

Here's a video of the Shanghai Maglev train. It only travels from the airport to downtown. At 431 km/hour. 273 mph.



Just what if ..

Let's just say that the Texas high speed rail project was brought back to life. And, let's say for sake of argument that said rail triangle was constructed - and, to quell the Negative Nancies that bitch about this rail triangle slaughtering inattentive soccer moms in their Suburbans and kids with learner permits at grade crossings - let's just say that it was constructed on elevated tracks.

Notice in the video that it takes the train fewer than three minutes to get up to full speed. The whole trip is 22 miles - about that from downtown Houston to the Woodlands, and lasts about seven minutes.

Imagine for a minute that you got onboard the train in downtown Houston. If you don't live in downtown houston, you took a connector up from Friendswood, or Pearland, or Katy, or Sugar Land. You walked over to the train, and you hopped onboard.

And sat down.

The train pulls out from the station, and you're sitting there with your laptop, or your latte from Fivebucks. While the train picks up speed, you notice that traffic on I-45 north isn't jammed up like it always is .. well, not quite so badly.

And, seven minutes later, the train slows down and stops in the Woodlands. A few people get off, and a few more get on. The train pulls out.

Let's say that this is at 7:30 in the morning, and you have a meeting in Dallas at 9:30. You left the house at 6:30, and took the car from your home in Royal Oaks to the Hillcroft Transit Center, which took you about 20 minutes on the Westpark Tollroad, and about 17 minutes if you took the light rail from Kirkwood to the HTC. The light rail from HTC to the downtown station takes another 15 minutes. Plenty of time to grab a latte from Fivebucks, which has a concession in the terminal.

And, from the Woodlands, we have 211 miles to go to downtown Dallas.

Four minutes up to speed, and you've passed through about 15 miles - 71 minutes later, you're pulling into the Dallas downtown rail station.

The taxi stand is only some 400 steps from the train platform, so you hoof it out to the cab line, and grab a cab to the building on Central in which your meeting is being held. 25 minutes in the cab, and you're walking out on the dot to take your meeting.

After your meeting, you grab a bite, and cab it back to the station for the 2:10 train back home.

At 3:30 you're in downtown Houston. You walk to another platform, get on the rail back to your office in Greenway Plaza, and at 3:45, you're walking into the lobby at 11 Greenway, heading for the elevator.

Compare this to how we do it now.

Southwest, come the end of August, will have 30 flights a day between Houston and Dallas/Love. Everyone's convinced that Houston Hobby is the best airport in the city (except for those who fly a lot) and so, we'll start out leaving the house.

Your meeting is at 9:30, and from Dallas Love to Central and, say, Throckmorton, that's going to take twenty minutes by cab. So, you have to arrive before 9:10. You need to leave a little time on the arrival end to wait for all of the people in front of you who were in boarding group "A" to unload their bags, skis, laptop cases and baby seats and de-plane. So, you need to be in Dallas by 8:55ish.

Scheduled block to block times from Hobby to Love are 55 minutes, so you need to be on the 8:00 a.m. flight.

It's a weekday, so you'll need to be at the airport at least by 7:15 to clear security. You printed your boarding passes online, so you don't have to check in anywhere, just get there and stand on queue with everyone else in the "B" boarding group. This is really cutting it close though, 45 minutes, so you plan on being at Hobby at 7:00 a.m. for the 8:00 a.m. departure.

Now, from Royal Oaks, we're going to assume that the rail is available (apples to apples and all) so you can either take your car (Westpark tollroad to US 59 to I45 south to the airport exits - give it 45 minutes if you're REALLY confident) or take the rail into town (37 minutes) and then out to Hobby on the rail line - another 20.

So, you're leaving your house at 6:00.

This is assuming everything works as it should. If it's thunderstormy - you're late in Dallas. If there's ice - you're late in Dallas. If it's raining and you took the car - you're missing your flight and you're late in Dallas.

But, everything goes as it should. So, you're saving a good thirty minutes on trip time up to Dallas this way. Time at home. Sleeping in.

While you're on the train, you're laptopping it. The ride is as smooth as sitting at your desk. Thundershowers? It provides visual interest through the windows.

Now, let's look at the return. Remember, on the high speed rail, we're back at the office at 3:45.

So, we leave lunch at 1:30. Our meeting mate in Dallas gives us a ride over to Love. We get there at about 1:50, so we can catch the next flight out at .. probably 2:30, giving us a little time to clear security. We push back, wheels up and we're at Hobby at 3:30.

Are you seeing where we're going here?

3:30, you stand up with all the other lemmings, and wait to de-plane. You head out to the light rail, back downtown and it's now 4:10. Change trains, and you're at the office 4:30ish.

You've saved one hour and twenty-five minutes today. The frustration level is also much lower.

What could you do with an extra hour and twenty-five minutes, not to mention being able to work the entire ride up and back, because you don't have to stow your laptop for takeoff/landing?

How many cars would it take off the roads?

What stands in the way? Well, several things. Firstly, Texas is all about private enterprise, and private enterprise is all about getting the money for free from the government. Secondly, unless the real estate developers here can figure out a way to make money on it, it's unlikely to gain much lobbying support.

Then, there's Southwest Airlines, who will definitely lobby against having their Texas Triangle business taken away from them. Why?

Southwest has 30 flights a day each way between Houston and Dallas. That's 8160 seats a day, and they're usually full. Their financial gross from that one city pair operation is approximately $563,000 a DAY. $180,172,800 a year, if you only look at weekdays.

That's money that's worth fighting for.

Think of the major cities separated by a few hundred miles which could be successfully paired with high speed rail.