What If You Replaced Interstate 35 In Texas With High Speed Rail? | Taking Back the Streets SA 2 DFW
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- Опубліковано 29 лип 2024
- The radical idea of replacing freeways with high speed intercity passenger rail investigated more closely. We're going to rip up Interstate 35 northbound lanes between San Antonio and both Fort Worth and Dallas. Impact of road vehicle traffic? Who cares?! This is a tongue-in-cheek presentation about what seems like a highly impractical and improbable scenario, but we'll keep that between you and me and let the people that don't bother reading descriptions figure it out. Is it pie in the sky? Is it actually not a bad idea? Is it somewhere in between? You decide!
If you are so inclined, come join the continuing conversation in the Discord Lucid Group:
/ discord
Visualization in the video was accomplished with Unreal Engine 5.
Stock footage came from Pexels.com and Pixabay.com
Chapters:
0:00 Taking Back The Streets!
0:28 San Antonio to San Marcos
3:46 San Marcos to Austin
5:15 Austin to Killeen-Temple
6:48 Killeen-Temple to Waco
8:45 Waco to Fort Worth
11:47 I35 Split to Dallas
13:54 Up Next
14:10 See You On That Big, Beautiful Freeway!
Topics:
Texas
Interstate 35
San Antonio
The Alamo
Riverwalk
High speed rail
Downtown San Antonio
ring roads
San Antonio Austin congestion
New Braunfels
Walmart
San Marcos
Texas State University
San Marcos Premium Outlets
Union Pacific
Austin
Alstom Avelia
Downtown Austin
University of Texas Longhorns
San Antonio Austion Megaregion
Austin Red Line
Jarrell
Killeen
Fort Cavazos
Temple
Belton
Schlotzsky's
Whataburger
Pizza Hut
Burger King
Starbucks
Jimmy John's
Waco
Baylor University
Cabela's
Top Golf
Downtown Waco
Texas State Technical College
In n Out Burger
Lane Stadium
Brazos River
West, Texas
Interstate 35 split
Interstate 35 West
Interstate 35 East
Alvarado
Fort Worth
Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex
Dallas Fort Worth High Speed Transportation
Fort Worth Central Station
DFWHST
Robert Frost
Waxahachie
Dallas Zoo
Texas Central Railroad
Trinity River
Attribution:
'An NICTD EMU street-running on Michigan City’s 11th Street; United States, in 2009; the street-running track has been replaced with its own right-of-way as of 2023'
by Russell Sekeet
creativecommons.org/licenses/... - Наука та технологія
Here at Lucid Stewdios we use shockingly high quality renders in Unreal engine 5 to stay competitive in the urbanist UA-cam market.
For 6 months until AI takes over. :D
@@LucidStewcan you make a sequel to this video by investigating other routes on the Texas triangle? If not, can you make a visualization of DC to Boston or Phoenix/Tucson to Los Angeles?
The UE5 visualisation is the killer app of the channel, in my opinion. Mr. Stew, this is the concept that sets your channel apart from the rest!
I hope to see the it and the channel grow. Just the start here. Very bare bones. I will be adding more like traffic on the remaining lanes in future videos to keep immersion a little better. I'm very happy though that this quality was in my reach for a 1 week production.
This is a fantastic concept and it's clear you had a blast making it. :)
I did. thanks for noticing!
This was a lot of fun! Would love to see you take over the 405 and the 5 for LA to Dan Diego😂
Getting ready to create a monstrous list. Your request is first. Good one, too.
I 100% second this. The CAHSR route for LA-SF is definitely better than the extremely rural areas I-5 heads through, but LA-SD the 5/405 corridor would be so much cleaner than the alternative if we could get away with it politically.
Wow this new visualization you are using now is amazing, it looks so real and gives you a decent idea on what it would look like!
I also really like the idea of this video series, let’s take back the interstates! Maybe something like Chicago to Minneapolis via I-90/94 would be interesting.
If the Google map data were just a little bit better I think that would make it. There are select places where they use photogrammetry for the 3D details, so hopefully that implementation spreads. I have Chicago-Minn/St. Paul on the list. This will be a mixed series with Taking Back The Rails! Same idea, but freight ROW instead of interstate.
This is awesome! I think Brightline is onto something with using interstates instead of eminent domain to acquire new land. Would love to slap a $5 toll on interstate 35 every 50 miles or so. Car users would pay for the project in no time!
As a Texan this was so fun to watch, thank you. This is like much-needed therapy after white knuckling on I-35 for an unjustifiably high proportion of my life.
Truth! I stay off i35 if possible. Use state highways. Waco/Downsville here.
Love it. This is really good work.
I know it's tongue-in-cheek but it's also excellent and I WANT IT NOW.
Would love to see this style of video for a train between Cincinnati and Cleveland!
May as well do 3C all the way to Cleveland. I'll add it to the list.
@@LucidStew I definitely have considered "what if some of these lanes were a train" on some of the drives in Dayton, Cincinnati, Columbus, and Eastern Ohio more times.
Commenting to say this is one the best videos I've watched in recent months. I want more!
Sure. I'll add it to the list.
I'm thinking maybe President Eisenhower got us the foundations of a high speed rail network. Ideally I would love a clean sheet high speed rail plan kinda like how China did and some how connect cities at 250 mph. Make the entire passenger rail network profitable. I love this video, thank you for putting this together. Politicians should look into this!!!!!
In some ways I think that is the case even if the traffic lanes stay intact. The country's existing excess interstate ROW may make better conduits than most people think and it's already owned by the government.
There is a reason passenger rail services in Europe are all state-owned. They do not make any profit. The Interstate highways in the US are also not profitable.
And the reason China was able to build out its high-speed rail network so quickly is because it cut corners and used tofu-dreg construction.
As a former central TX college student- I totally agree with your stop placements. These sort of thought experiments were precisely what radicalized me against cars. I've driven those roads too many times and gotten into so many potential accidents and have collected so many tickets. But for a student, the opportunity to fuck off to Austin for a Saturday night on the town, and get back home without driving, would be a game changer. Smh. It will not happen in my lifetime though... maybe when I come back to campus in my golden years...
Yeah, the collegiate benefit really jumps off the page. The travel times are also really good. Better than I thought they'd be sticking to the alignment. Essentially the student body of all the I35 area universities would have ready access to all of the I35 culture and entertainment, and probably a student discount to boot!
@@LucidStew It's almost like the Japanese figured out student discounts! But yeah, it also highlights how shity Texas central is too because that plan goes from Dallas to Houston, going through the Brazos valley... but I haven't seen any obvious stops in Waco or even Temple TX (TX A&M)... which is super awkward when you consider that Waco is (factually) almost exactly to the mile between Dallas and Austin. So this seems like a no brainer connecting a Houston to DFW and SA to Austin line. But... *shrug*
@@Gnefitisis Given the content of this video, I'm going to say SA-Houston I-10 and Houston-Dallas I-45 are inevitable. I also have the city pair series where I take things a little more seriously and I still have the South Central Corridor video where I plan to cover the current TCR proposal(and Texas Triangle and Texas T-Bone), so I think there will be plenty of ideas to compare long before anything is built.
@@LucidStew oh sure. It's supposed to form the Texas triangle, but I'm mostly griping on the station placement for TCR is still unclear. Is that still expected at this time? Maybe my standards are too high.
@@Gnefitisis My understanding of the TCR route is that there will be stations in suburban Houston, 20 miles east of College Station, and near downtown Dallas(the location in the video is accurate).
Awesome video. Not sure I'd take it too seriously since the station locations are not as central as they should be, but maybe this is truly the best Texas can offer.
Honestly the Fort Worth and Dallas stations are slightly off script. I considered bringing the S.A. station closer into the core, but the visuals weren't great. The map tiles are cool for easily representing the world, but they're also something of a limitation.
Since my daughter, son-in-law and grandson live in Austin I am becoming very familiar with I-35 between Dallas and San Antonio. This corridor desperately needs HSR. Having a station in Austin near downtown and UT would be a great plus.
Dude this is so awesome! Loved the concept and your narration added a nice touch. I was totally hooked.
Can you please do SF-LA / Portland-Vancouver corridors? Basically all of I-5
I5 L.A.-S.D. was my second choice behind I35, but Texas was too tempting to pass up. I already have a request for Portland-Redding. I'll add Portland-Vancouver, but that would probably wait until after I get to the Pacific Northwest Corridor video. So what's left...L.A.-Sacramento, Sacramento-Redding. Got it. Basically going to need an I5 mini-series.
@@LucidStewThe I-5 between Stockton and LA basin doesn't really connect to anything. I think this is why HSR follows Hwy 99 (more or less). I-5 is boring AF
@@JimVanderveen I'll throw in stops at Buttonwillow and Kettleman City. Santa Nella can have a station at the Andersen's. It'll be all good.
I've been lurking for a while, but I have to say this is a really fun idea. I have always wondered how much faster I could go by train while stuck in traffic on the highway lol You've got yourself another subscriber, best of luck!
Nice. How about the Florida Turnpike? It's 264 miles from not quite Miami to Wildwood (pop. 15k). You would have to do a little bit of extra work to make the ends useful.
I think is perfect that first image the train in between 2 roads.
Can you do St. Louis to Kansas City? The I-70 route would hit more big cities and be faster than the River Runner, but there are some big hills and it would cross the Missouri River twice. The current route stays on the south side the whole way.
Thank you for saving the Schlotzsky's and Whataburger 🙏
Please continue to make visualizations for connections between major US cities. You're doing the lord's work by educating the public like this!
i really hope some day one day we get this high speed train route. obviously not exactly as shown but something very similar for sure.
This is easily your best video yet. The juxtaposition of the high quality renders of trains with the clip art mushroom cloud over a WalMart is just perfect. And I love the “YOLO, Mofo” attitude of how you’re dealing with the road.
Thank you. Nice to see someone fully gets it.
I live in New Braunfels, and with the increased traffic on I-35, the time is right
You should consider a Part 2, focusing on the proposed connection on I-30 between Fort and Dallas. I believe it is more likely to be built and sooner than and eastern branch crossing from Waco into Waxahachie.
Only problem is that it would make an extremely short video and about half of it is underground. I'll be covering it regularly as part of the news.
Of note there is an amtrak route that shares a few stops here - the texas eagle. Unfortunately it takes 7 hours to get from from worth to san antonio. Maybe for another vodeo you could talk about how the route could be improved? (I'll start: more trains per day!)
I'm going to make this a dual series. The other half will be Taking Back The Rails, where freight rights of way get the same treatment.
This was so epic. I'm loving your unique 3d model overlay. It's fantastic. I wish this was the reality for us as a nation.
Killer video! Keep it up Stew
I live in SA but work in Austin and just can’t stop thinking about how in the same time it takes me to drive to Austin we could have a train that takes even less time to get to Dallas from SA🙃
The video is purposely over-the-top, but it looks to me like a similar, much more doable options combining freeway and freight rail rights of would be of a similar quickness.
Love this! Would love to see KC to STL to CHICAGO or something midwestern investigated
amazing video. seriously high quality production and sheer creativity for a channel with not too many subs.
You should do a video of High Speed Rail from Miami to St. Petersburg via I-95, SR 528, I-4, and I-275.
I absolutely love this concept, seeing is believing and the first step to making it so. I would love to see this treatment done for Cascadia Rail!
From the requests so far it looks like there's going to be a 5-part border-to-border I-5 mini-series. 😂
❤ this was great!
I don't know how you made this video, but the addition of the Google Earth footage looks great! I would love to see more interstate to train conversion videos like this.
This is a very good idea to use the right of way of interstate and multi-lane freeways. You will face opposition from motorists losing lanes which means greater traffic congestion. The argument that the trains will remove motor vehicles from the freeways will not be easy sell unless the motorists really see a difference in traffic volume. And this will take time to occur.
I'm essentially ripping off Brightline West, since this MAY be the way forward until freight opposition to electrification can be overcome. There are some rights of way that are quite good for this. Some are not. I-495 is one of the good ones, and the right of way has plenty of room. This isn't a situation where the last possible lane expansion is being taken away. In instances like this, its likely much more possible politically. However, you do need the state behind the idea no matter what. In the case of BLW, California has almost given up on building and expanding freeways and Nevada is very happy to have an additional connection to their biggest source of revenue.
It's a great idea. It sure makes high-speed rail seem a lot easier to conceptualize and plan.
I'd like to see this along the I-90 in Upstate NY between Albany & Buffalo.
These renderings are incredible
Great idea
Thank you. I also plan to do the same with freight rail corridors.
Great idea and video! You could even take the series a small step further and put high speed rail on the closing freeway shot 😊 (at least for this series of videos)
Great minds think alike. That closing shot is actually what inspired this video(as I first used it in the video before this one). I unfortunately did not have time to add trains to it for this video, but expect it in future videos.
5:36 fun fact this town was completely levelled after a massive tornado in the 90s
I dunno how fun that is...
Amazing but needs at least one dedicated stop at a Buc-ee's
This
this is BRILLIANT! (but, we do need to teach you how to pronounce "Waxahachie" ... but everything else is amazing!
Amazing. Realistically, cities could use animations like these to sell their projects to the public. And they can be done cheaply, so less money going to “consultant” firms and “studies”.
3D visualization is a very powerful tool and I'm just scratching the surface here with the free, pre-packaged stuff. Throw in a drone and some photogrammetry and it can get pretty crazy. Might see some of that from me eventually, we'll see. Then of course you can layer AR or VR on top of that, but then your RELATIVE low cost starts going away.
Hopefully it gets built as traffic increases and there is still no rail options to travel
After spending two weeks in Europe and seeing how great high-speed rail is, it saddens me that we can't have a rail service like this in the foreseeable future. I often travel from San Antonio to Dallas, and the 5-hour trip is a pain we have to endure due to I-35
This is really cool
Love the concept and the video even if it makes me sad.
Sad to lose all those traffic lanes?
@@LucidStew haha sad that an idea like this will never happen.
could you do a video that orders the way the various highspedd line aleady do or so to have videos should get built.
I think a dedicated high speed rail link triangle between San Antonio, DFW, Houston is a good idea which should complement the current Interstate system, but eliminating I35 completely is a bad idea. There is a huge amount of commercial truck traffic that originates either in Mexico or in South Texas and is just passing through DFW. Not all the cars travelling on I35 between the two are just people driving around to be annoying.
As an example, I live in San Antonio, but have a pasture in central Kansas I inherited. I like to visit it at lease once a year and visit family. I would love to park my truck on a train in San Antonio and just ride the train to DFW. But then I could unload my truck and continue my journey to the pasture. It's cheaper for me to drive my truck than to fly to Kansas and get a rental car. Plus, I need the 4 wheel drive.
Plus, DFW or San Antonio are so spread out, it's unlikely someone arriving by train will need to be in that area around the station. They might need to travel 100 miles after that trip. Much cheaper to drive your own car.
Most Texans are not simply urban dwellers, they aren't like NYers who might never leave a radius of 30 miles for their entire lives (I'm exaggerating to make a point, I know)
Technically I only used half of I35. One interesting part of putting this video together to me is that in order to truly pull this off, you'd need to sacrifice 2 lanes or less on a huge portion of the entire length. It only really becomes an issue in urban areas. Likely you'd need to switch between interstate and existing freight ROW, which would likely be similar travel times if some of the rural parts were straighten slightly to make up for slow, urban freight routes.
AutoTrain is a thing on the east coast where snowbirds take their car with them from NY to Florida. I'm not sure if anything similar exists in HSR terms. I imagine the extra weight would slow things down significantly.
Oh this video looks so good
Small question. Afik the max grade on interstates is 6%. Can typical high speed rail train-sets climb a grade that steep?
It's also interesting that the curves and "sharpness" of hills is the limiting factor. Can probably fix a lot of that if you're ripping out the inside lanes or building on the median.
Finally, Highways are bloody noisy. (many exceed OSHA limits) Fully enclosed stations in the median would be much better for passengers. Transit connections will also be key to compensate for the develop able land lost to the highway corridor.
Brightline West has a 6% grade in their route.
@@LucidStew Assuming steel wheels get the same friction as low speed high pressure steel bearings, then something like 10% would be the grade limit if all axles are powered.
So it sounds like the biggest challenges to using interstate medians for HSR are the curves and rapid changes in slope. Still, if you can average >120mph while bypassing traffic and the TSA it'll be a big improvement.
@@martylawson1638 I would assume its possible, or they wouldn't be bothering. It would, however, be the steepest grade on an HSR route in the world. I think the greater concern is safety and also the operational and maintenance costs due to the route's generally extreme nature.
Waco, here. This was thoroughly entertaining. 😂
Downtown Belton is a surprisingly lively, walkable place. I’ve been, and I recommend getting off the freeway if you’re driving through the area.
I fuckin love the the animation
Great video, Stew! I love making fantasy train alignments and this channel is my bread and butter! Quick question, what are the curve radius speeds for the Avelia when tilting? I can't find the info anywhere and it makes it hard for me when I try to visualise speeds (I like making NEC routes on MetroDreamin' so I have to consult the curve radii a lot). Awesome vids!
I have an extremely quick and dirty chart that runs slightly conservative. 60mph-0.25miles, 90mph-0.5m, 110-0.75, 125-1, 150-1.5, 175-2, 200-2.5 I got that from a chart on an old Australian transit blog. I think I also ran across the information somewhere in CAHSR technical docs, which is where I got the idea that I'm running on the conservative side.
@@LucidStew those are accurate numbers looking from other sources. I do wonder how much the Avelia tilt ability increases those speeds though, on the NEC it's bumped the speed from 150 to 165 and I wonder how much faster it gets on the lower speed sections. It would be nice if Alstom released their radius chart. How much shorter is the travel time WDC-BOS compared to the Acela? I can't find it anywhere. It'll be exciting to see the future development of tech allowing for higher cornering speeds.
@@TheTransitDiaries I also have a conventional chart, which conversely runs on the aggressive side(especially on the faster end). 60mph-0.33miles, 90mph-0.66m, 110-1, 125-1.25, 150-1.75, 175-2.25, 200-3. Tilting speed advantage looks to be in the 10-15% range.
Very interesting video! It be cool to see I-91 from Springfield to New Haven.
I might be covering that route (roughly) in the follow-up video(s) to my NEC video
Where do you get the google earth model files from? I’ve been trying to do something similar for one of my own projects and so far I’ve been unsuccessful. Pls tell 😢
Also what software are you using to model this with? I’ve been using Rhino and it slows my computer so much because of the sheer file size.
I use a plug-in for Unreal Engine 5 called Cesium ion.
@@LucidStew holy shit thanks. Is all your modeling done in Unreal Engine or do you have other software in your modeling workflow?
I saw you mention the numbers you use for curve radii speeds on another comment, but I was wondering what you use to efficiently check the curve radii of the routes you plan? I'm working on a big HSR project myself but have been mostly just eyeballing it so far with the curve radii, but I'd love to be more exact with it. Thanks!
Google Earth Pro
I really liked this new video style! Your original series is likely more practical to how things will actually play out unfortunately… but that’s why we need to just adopt this approach. Start converting freeways into rail lines!
Also I would love to see you do one for I-70 between k.c. and StL.
@@StLouis-yu9iz on the list
Portland Oregon to Redding California. 420 miles on I-5:)
A little long, but I'll make an exception for this one. Wouldn't surprise me if I end up covering ALL of I-5 eventually. :)
Great video. I'd love to see you blaze a trail between Chicago and the Twin Cities, along I-90 and I-94: Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison, Eau Claire, St. Paul. A variation could be Chicago, Rockford, Beloit, Janesville, Madison, and then onward.
That’s brilliant! Let’s send it. Yey for trains
Thought experiments are one thing, but you leave the jimmy johns alone!
This is great visualization! Would be great to see something for Detroit and the entire metro region around it. Maybe a Toronto, Detroit, Chicago route?
I'm working on a non-freeway, more realistic Chicago-Detroit video right now.
No way love to hear it, gotta subscribe now in that case, have been seeing your content for a while now, keep it up!@@LucidStew
Alas, it's only a dream.
I don't see the complete removal of northbound I-35 in Texas occurring ever. I would love to see how this would look if HSR were in the median, with an alternative of it being elevated.
How about I-75 from Atlanta to Miami with fork to Orlando using the Florida turnpike
Great animations, very interesting conceptional theoretical concept. If you used the ROW of the NYS Thruway you could likely only get to 80-100 MPH for 2/3 of it due to mountainous terrain. The Mass Turnpike would definitely be a rollercoaster.
Yeah, I think this will likely be one of the faster routes in the vain, but I have been surprised many times in the past year looking into things. I get the feeling a revisit of certain ideas entertained in previous videos is somewhat inevitable with the visuals available now.
Can you do something similar to this using Los Angeles's I-5 (Golden State/Santa Ana Freeway) corridor to Sacramento?
Seems like I-5 border to border is in the cards at some point.
Take back the streets of the PNW next please!
This is my dream
Would like to see this continued further north up I-35 to OKC, Wichita, Kansas City (essentially replacing and extending the Heartland Flyer route) , and beyond. As well, what the travel times would be on a route through KC on I-70 to St. Louis and on to Chicago on I-55 (SW Chief and Lincoln Service route alternative)
I will add those 3 to the list.
The dream 😻
College towns need trains.
I don’t think you mean Killeen as it’s located 15 miles west of I-35 - but I-35 does cut through Temple. The census combines them into the Killeen-Temple-Fort Hood MSA with a 2020 population of ~475,000 (up from 330,000 just 20 years previous). So growing quickly, as you mentioned. A good halfway point between Dallas Metroplex and Austin.
Ok, as a user of this road who knows how comically unsuitable it would be, but I-76 would be a fun one to look at. There's a giant windy stretch in the Appalachians near Pittsburgh, not sure if there are any grades genuinely too steep for rail. Supposedly the steepest grade is 3%, but that's per wiki, and the runaway truck ramp makes me think it might be a nonstarter.
While I did not put the track in the roadway... 😄 ...I have looked at an I-76 based route to get to Pittsburgh here ua-cam.com/video/HFq1zwuJq8o/v-deo.html
@@LucidStew Have to admit I'm surprised by how well it works. Go easy on the East busway, yes it should at the very least be a T line and yes it's primitive BRT, but it's more important than any of the light rail lines. I imagine billions of dollars to turn it into something exciting wouldn't exactly be opposed by the city though, as long as they didn't end up with too much of the bill lol
You should also add a station in New Braunfels by connecting to Schlitterbahn and Landa Park near downtown, my cousins live near by there.
I want to see a HSR on the interstate between St Petersburg, FL and Orlando, FL to see what Brightline could do. I believe passenger rail has to go farther east than Tampa.
I meant to say west.
I4. Read you loud and clear. If you want to see an analysis of that, I did one in my Florida Corridor video. ua-cam.com/video/O0AHbFSPKC0/v-deo.html
Epic video. I lived in Fort Worth and hated I-35 with a passion. Any chance you could do a video on Kansas City to Little Rock via Joplin MO, Bentonville, Springdale, Fayetteville, Fort Smith, Russellville, and Conway Arkansas?
Can highways support the weight of high-speed trains vs cars or trucks?
I think so. The limit on gross vehicle weight is 40 tons. That's not a power car, but its also nothing to sneeze at. They do also occasionally transport very large and heavy things on roadways, like the Space Shuttle!
Yes easily, a passenger train weighs about 50 tons per car.
How long is a stop?
In the calculations 2 mins. In the animations from 0-15 seconds. :)
I’m sure it’s a lot more work, but putting in some cars going 70-80 mph for scale would drive the point home a bit more.
It's a future goal. I'm working on proficiency. This will be going in just about everything I produce from here on out, so I'll probably get quite a bit faster still.
Which website/app/game/software did you use to make this beauty
Unreal Engine 5
Can you do a tutorial video on how you did it?@@LucidStew
@@treyjefferson1149 This is a combination of Cesium ion and a package in the UE marketplace called Railway System with IC Train. Both of those have docs and tuts. Beyond that it mainly things I've made from free assets following a couple of YT spline path tuts
As long as you leave the Whataburger at Killeen-Temple, everybody'll be cool with the rest, lol
R.I.P. Schlotzsky's
@@LucidStewlol
You should investigate the front range rail 👀
I has planned on a more realistic look at the idea, but it might work out to prime the pump with one of these first for I-25.
@@LucidStew love it!! Excited to see it🙌
would be interesting to know what kind of intercity traffic volume it would relieve.
I have to imagine it would make traffic worse. Although I did find it curious that while constructing through the Dallas area they seemed to have squeezed the entire freeway into one side...
@@LucidStew The capacity for moving people on tracks instead of a road lane is substantially higher: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Route_capacity#/media/File:Passenger_Capacity_of_different_Transport_Modes.png
Especially if you would use the median in most places, the third and forth lane do not bring three or four times the capacity of a single lane.
Just wait for teleporting.
eta similar. 😂 ...to be built, not from place to place...
As vehicle traffic dwindles to just local and rural use the need for interstates will fade away and be replaced by this new mode of travel. May not be high-speed rail but something faster utilizing the defunct roadways as a foundation. Now that is probably 100 years off but eventually the need to for air travel with in the US will all but disappear as this mode of travel takes hold. Airports will only be used for international travel or Alaska/ Hawaii the rest converted into housing/ commerce centers.
People often neglect the much longer term when talking about this subject, but it is important to consider because planning and construction lead times on projects like this are often in the 20-30 year range. As a result, while the present condition is important to consider as well, these projects are not built for the present condition. If the U.S. can reach something equivalent to European travel mode usage, short to mid-hop air travel all but goes away and road vehicle usage goes down about 15% in favor of various public transit. This would, in theory, free up enough interstate highway demand to make a portion of them available for other use. While the video is fanciful, you can see a double-tracked ROW would only take up the equivalent of 3 lanes, so if demand drops 15% 50 years from now, the median + a couple of lanes works out for both modes of travel in many places where it is absolutely unthinkable now.
This is absolutely ridiculous and I love it.
Originate your taking back the streets in Corpus Christi. Roll up I-37 to downtown San Antonio to connect with this plan.
Very nice video, and moves along quickly. China is building a new train route right thru the Mt Everest range to Nepal. Nothing stops China, not even perma frost. The scenes you show between towns would be very easy to build.
What most people pushing rail and less Interstates do not realize that the Interstates for not built to move people in cars, it was to move the military and military vehicles in time of war. That is why all big cities don't have an Interstate. Only the military bases and ports are connected. Interstates have been enlarged to carry freight via tractor/trailor rigs for the nations supply line. Those trucks pay incrediblly high road taxes to support the Interstate highway system.
If people want to ride mass transit let them do it and pay for it, but passenger trains have never operated on Interstates highways to be able to take them back. Interstate 35 at least through Texas will never be replaced by High Speed Rail as Interstate 35 is part of the NAFTA freeway connecting Mexico, and Canada to the United States for the movement of goods and the Military. The high speed rail if built wil not take over Interstate 35. It may take over Southwest Airlines because many of the daily flights between Dallas, Austin, San Antonio and Houston could easily be replaced by high speed passenger rail. And you wouldn't have to spend 2 hours at airports to fly 45 minutes. Many people afraid to fly would welcome high speed passenger rail, too.
Military vehicles and Freight trucks will always make Interstate 35 needed. Great rendering job. Unfortunately due to completion of the 35E through Dallas not shown on Google the rails running on the old roadway through the construction would not be possible. I noticed you mispronounced many of the cities like Jarrell, Alvarado and especially Waxahachie which you liked saying so much you mispronounced it multiple times. The High Speed Rail project on perfectly levell with continuous top speed on a central line between Houston, San Antonio, to Dallas has won the right to Eminent Domain and is going to have far higher speeds from start to finish without all of the slow downs to use the Interstate lanes.
What big cities don't have an interstate?
Let’s get rid of every highway in the country and replace them with bike lanes!
JUST bikes? :D
I can see this as a way to Amtraks future. Laying tracks in the center of existing interstate highways. The inner trains are express trains, the outter are "local" trains. I say the first good one to do this with would be I-10 from LA to Jacksonville. Express trains would only stop at LA, Phoenix, El Paso, San Antonio, New Orleans, Jacksonville. Local trains would service cities between these anchor cities. Anchor cities would be treated like hubs, not lines.
If you're double-tracked on the main and 4-tracked in the stations, allowing through trains to pass, that affords the throughput to accommodate a fair amount of both express and regional service. I'm know for a fact not every single freeway possesses the ability to handle this, but its generally what I'm looking into as the federal highway system presents available ROW in many places and it is advantageously government-owned.
It's a very good video!
However, can you make these trains TOP speed to 354 km/h or 220 mph as both California's HSR and UK's HS2 will have that top speed (or in case of HS2, 362 km/h or 225 mph)
HS trains are already can reach 260 mph (420 km/h) and Chinese high speed trains operate at 350 km/h.
I went with the tilter because, in my experience so far, they are slightly faster overall on highway constrained routes. The 15 miles or so of top speed between each metro area at 35mph faster in not enough to make up for extended periods of time at 90mph or less in metro areas with a conventional train. It also takes a couple of miles to accelerate between 185 and 220, so when you're talking about short distances already, the difference becomes negligible. A very fast train would be most suitable for areas with very long top speed stretches.
Inclined trains are better on winding tracks, but for example (if you could animate it later) the CHSR, you could use them, since the section between Madera and Merced is relatively straight (sharp turns are rare). Also motorists could be triggered if a train speeds past you at three times your speed (where the speed limit is 75 mph)
NEED MORE!!
Next do the 401 :>
U.S. 401 or Highway 401 in Canada?
@@LucidStew Didn't realize there was a 401 in USA. I was talking about the one in Canada.
One of the most egregious and infamous highways in north America. Perfect to steal some lanes no?
@@justaguy6216 ok, makes more sense. U.S. 401 is kind of in the middle of nowhere. 😅
@@LucidStew Hahaha yeah, just checked it on the map.
Yes love it! Would love to see Portland to Vancouver (BC), by way of Seattle, next!
on the list!
I'm very much looking forward to showing it to my local elected officials!@@LucidStew #daretodream
@@user-uy7vh8sm6s I actually have a fair amount of content planned for up there, its just a little ways off. I'm going to cover the corridor, which will be attempting to get a 140-160mph average between Portland and Vancouver. At some point I will probably also take a look at a more mixed, probably closer to 100-115mph average implementation that Brightline(or even possibly Amtrak) might do if they ever build up there.
@@LucidStew Well shucks, I was hoping we could use this to lobby the WA Legislature this year but they're already in budget conversations now and the timing probably means that we'll have to wait until next year's legislative session. If the Cascade corridor video is anything like what made here though, it'll be better than the 20 years of studies and hundreds of millions of dollars paying consultants have yielded haha