MSP to Rochester High Speed Rail

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tmart
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Re: MSP to Rochester High Speed Rail

Postby tmart » October 15th, 2019, 4:21 pm

I honestly think connecting Northstar to St. Cloud as a commuter line would be a better example to show, but looks like NLE is closer to actually happening.
My gut says that, if either happens, they probably both will, and probably within a few years of each other. Maybe there's a virtuous cycle where all of a sudden Rochester is the biggest region in the state without a transit option; where the #1, #2, and #4 MSAs in the state are connected; and various regions feel they need to push for service so as to be, quite literally, on the map.

My gut also says neither project will happen as long as the GOP controls any single branch of government, and even then I don't see Walz as a particularly strong ally on this point. But I'd be happy to be proven wrong!

mattaudio
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Re: MSP to Rochester High Speed Rail

Postby mattaudio » October 15th, 2019, 8:54 pm

One thing that needs to happen is to build more of a base in the MSP region for these services rather than relying on individual regions in Greater MN to lobby for their lines.

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Re: MSP to Rochester High Speed Rail

Postby talindsay » October 21st, 2019, 2:59 pm

One thing that needs to happen is to build more of a base in the MSP region for these services rather than relying on individual regions in Greater MN to lobby for their lines.
This. The Greater MN regions all are absolutely auto-dependent so a train into the Cities, while nice for commuters or casual trips, is really just a luxury. The core is pretty damn auto-dependent as well, but people here actually valuing the idea of getting out of the core without cars would significantly strengthen any case for these lines. As long as the lines are envisioned as expensive commuter transit into the Cities, it's hard to make the case for the investment. True intercity rail benefits people going both ways, at various points along the corridor. Rochester specifically, being a medical destination in its own right, is probably the strongest case for this, but it's still not self evident - it needs to be developed.

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Re: MSP to Rochester High Speed Rail

Postby Oreos&Milk » October 21st, 2019, 3:30 pm

One thing that needs to happen is to build more of a base in the MSP region for these services rather than relying on individual regions in Greater MN to lobby for their lines.
This. The Greater MN regions all are absolutely auto-dependent so a train into the Cities, while nice for commuters or casual trips, is really just a luxury. The core is pretty damn auto-dependent as well, but people here actually valuing the idea of getting out of the core without cars would significantly strengthen any case for these lines. As long as the lines are envisioned as expensive commuter transit into the Cities, it's hard to make the case for the investment. True intercity rail benefits people going both ways, at various points along the corridor. Rochester specifically, being a medical destination in its own right, is probably the strongest case for this, but it's still not self evident - it needs to be developed.
So true, however without the rail system in place the development won't happen. The investment in the rail system is massive enough, however imagine if a developer were to scoop up the land around proposed stations, build the rail line and then develop the land into profitable development that also helped make the transit system even more profitable. That kinda investment would be massive and likely risky. If it can be profitable then there is a way, yet if it's not as profitable and as less risky as another project then it's a harder sell. I'm just saying, if there is profit to be made then there is a way.

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Re: MSP to Rochester High Speed Rail

Postby DanPatchToget » October 21st, 2019, 9:23 pm

One thing that needs to happen is to build more of a base in the MSP region for these services rather than relying on individual regions in Greater MN to lobby for their lines.
This. The Greater MN regions all are absolutely auto-dependent so a train into the Cities, while nice for commuters or casual trips, is really just a luxury. The core is pretty damn auto-dependent as well, but people here actually valuing the idea of getting out of the core without cars would significantly strengthen any case for these lines. As long as the lines are envisioned as expensive commuter transit into the Cities, it's hard to make the case for the investment. True intercity rail benefits people going both ways, at various points along the corridor. Rochester specifically, being a medical destination in its own right, is probably the strongest case for this, but it's still not self evident - it needs to be developed.
I don't know if this was the point you were trying to make, but it seems like an easy solution is to include stops along the route (Pine Island, Cannon Falls, Zumbrota, etc.) and have express trains that don't make those stops and trains that do stop in those towns, so then those towns aren't left behind with a bullet train zipping through them.

bubzki2
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Re: MSP to Rochester High Speed Rail

Postby bubzki2 » October 22nd, 2019, 10:44 am

^Great point. Critically, this would also abrogate one of the key detractor talking points (that it doesn't benefit those most affected by the train).

tmart
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Re: MSP to Rochester High Speed Rail

Postby tmart » October 23rd, 2019, 6:45 am

True intercity rail benefits people going both ways, at various points along the corridor. Rochester specifically, being a medical destination in its own right, is probably the strongest case for this, but it's still not self evident - it needs to be developed.
Couldn't you achieve some of this by continuing on to La Crosse, Madison, Milwaukee, and Chicago? I know it was being developed in isolation, but I always saw Rochester HSR in the context of the MSP-Chicago corridor and the scrapped ARRA HSR plans.
I don't know if this was the point you were trying to make, but it seems like an easy solution is to include stops along the route (Pine Island, Cannon Falls, Zumbrota, etc.) and have express trains that don't make those stops and trains that do stop in those towns, so then those towns aren't left behind with a bullet train zipping through them.
Even just adding one stop (probably Cannon Falls) might go a long way. The optics of shuttling people nonstop with literally no options whatsoever other than going to the end of the line are pretty bad. Having a stop to act as a magnet for people going into either city makes sense from a fairness perspective, even if it doesn't necessarily from a ridership one.

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Re: MSP to Rochester High Speed Rail

Postby mattaudio » July 19th, 2021, 12:11 pm

Unfortunate there's been no discussion of MSP-Rochester passenger rail with the latest round of Amtrak dream maps and infrastructure deal plans. I realize the HSR might be dead, but I still think there could be a market for connecting MSP to Rochester via Owatonna and the existing Canadian Pacific trackage. Imagine a handful of trips per day to Rochester, with one or two continuing back to the EB route at Winona to serve the Chi/Wisconsin-Rochester route more direct while retaining single-seat service (albeit a little longer) on another frequency MSP-CHI.

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Re: MSP to Rochester High Speed Rail

Postby bubzki2 » July 19th, 2021, 1:51 pm

Agreed. Slower, less direct routes might not serve the many thousands of daily commuters, but Mayo patients and Rochester residents might make trips to the Cities regularly and may not want to take a car (sporting events, etc.) Honestly, taking a train for this route would fit us as a family too.

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Re: MSP to Rochester High Speed Rail

Postby Tiller » July 19th, 2021, 2:00 pm

MSP - Rochester passenger rail/HSR is probably going to be deadish until there's more major MSP - Chicago investments. There's only so much Amtrak can do with $80B spread around the whole country. Unless the DFL were to get a trifecta and pass some real passenger rail funding in MN. They just don't seem that interested in statewide solutions tho.

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Re: MSP to Rochester High Speed Rail

Postby Korh » May 31st, 2023, 4:35 pm

Feel like it might be worth reviving the thread since the gag order was lifted and there's a little discussion in the Dan Patch thread.

Said it before but I don't see much happening unless Amtrak wants a third route to Chicago via Rochester, but who knows what will happen since TBH I really didn't think anyone still cared about the project to lift the gag.

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Re: MSP to Rochester High Speed Rail

Postby DanPatchToget » June 1st, 2023, 4:06 am

Would be nice if we could get Brightline on board, but they'd probably want it to be a Twin Cities-Rochester-Madison-Milwaukee-Chicago HSR service, which is a route that makes the most sense if we were to have any HSR service in our region, but it would be difficult from a political and economic standpoint to achieve.

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Re: MSP to Rochester High Speed Rail

Postby Trademark » June 1st, 2023, 1:41 pm

Would be nice if we could get Brightline on board, but they'd probably want it to be a Twin Cities-Rochester-Madison-Milwaukee-Chicago HSR service, which is a route that makes the most sense if we were to have any HSR service in our region, but it would be difficult from a political and economic standpoint to achieve.
Milwaukee to Deerfield only has 29 grade crossings. If we can close a third of them. 20 bridges seems very realistic to get complete grade separation and true high speed rail to Milwaukee (One of the few non-Northeast Corridor amtrak routes that made a profit some years in the 2010's). Rochester to St Paul with being a largely greenfield corridor also has potential to be pretty fast, while not true high speed due to likely being in a freeway corridor could still go 125-150. From Rochester to Milwaukee I see 110 mph being the standard with maybe some smaller stretches that go to 125.

That combination seems like it's very realistic and wouldn't break the bank. But would also get a lot of drivers to consider flying, and in the future incremental upgrades could allow it to compete with flying. The big thing this would require though would be Wisconsin going blue.

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Re: MSP to Rochester High Speed Rail

Postby Korh » June 1st, 2023, 7:45 pm

Would be nice if we could get Brightline on board, but they'd probably want it to be a Twin Cities-Rochester-Madison-Milwaukee-Chicago HSR service, which is a route that makes the most sense if we were to have any HSR service in our region, but it would be difficult from a political and economic standpoint to achieve.
That would be great especially when you consider that Brightline has done all of this in 11 years in Florida, a red state that is arguably far less inclined to favor rail than MN should be (if you had asked back in 2012, most people would bet the state would be underwater first since Scott had just killed the HSR project and was still governor)
However I still think Brightline establishing a route in MN is a longshot since MSP to Chicago is just barley on the edge of too short to fly (what would it be, 400ish miles?), Also does anyone know how many trips are taking from here to Chicago because Brightline created the Floridia project because they estimated 35-40 million people travel central and south Florida a year and scooped up express west because 50 million travel between LA and Vegas (and iirc they are aiming to capture at least 10% of both markets).

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Re: MSP to Rochester High Speed Rail

Postby bubzki2 » June 5th, 2023, 9:05 am

One nice thing about running the MSP-ROC rail next to/above traffic is that if it's above about 80MPH (as it should be) and in the shared Highway 52 corridor, the drivers would have to watch the trains pass them daily at much higher speeds. Those optics might help boost ridership for what at least a few years was literally thousands of daily car commuters in the corridor.

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Re: MSP to Rochester High Speed Rail

Postby SurlyLHT » June 5th, 2023, 10:19 am

Would be nice if we could get Brightline on board, but they'd probably want it to be a Twin Cities-Rochester-Madison-Milwaukee-Chicago HSR service, which is a route that makes the most sense if we were to have any HSR service in our region, but it would be difficult from a political and economic standpoint to achieve.
That would be great especially when you consider that Brightline has done all of this in 11 years in Florida, a red state that is arguably far less inclined to favor rail than MN should be (if you had asked back in 2012, most people would bet the state would be underwater first since Scott had just killed the HSR project and was still governor)
However I still think Brightline establishing a route in MN is a longshot since MSP to Chicago is just barley on the edge of too short to fly (what would it be, 400ish miles?), Also does anyone know how many trips are taking from here to Chicago because Brightline created the Floridia project because they estimated 35-40 million people travel central and south Florida a year and scooped up express west because 50 million travel between LA and Vegas (and iirc they are aiming to capture at least 10% of both markets).
I don't know how many travel. I just know airline tickets are cheap and we only have what... 6 million living in MN? We don't have that population density in the Upper Midwest. Nor are we fast growing.

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Re: MSP to Rochester High Speed Rail

Postby VacantLuxuries » June 5th, 2023, 11:30 am

Brightline seems to be building their entire brand on the theory that if there's enough travel demand between two cities that the airlines are competing over the customers with low prices, there's enough demand to support frequent, high quality rail service, and that they will draw enough customers to their service to develop and profit from transit oriented development near their stations.

In other words, if there's enough population density to support frequent and inexpensive air service, they believe that there's enough of that population who does not want to bother with flying that they can turn a profit. I'd love to see them succeed, if for no other reason but to see the "US isn't dense enough to support quality transit" argument strongly refuted.

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Re: MSP to Rochester High Speed Rail

Postby mattaudio » June 5th, 2023, 11:50 am

It was a few years ago now, but I added up the daily flights on all airlines in the MSP-RST-LSE-MSN-MKE-CHI corridor and it was pushing 60 flights per day.

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Re: MSP to Rochester High Speed Rail

Postby SurlyLHT » June 5th, 2023, 11:57 am

I don't know what their financial models say, but they are projecting 6 million riders over a 240 mile route in FL. If you take the highways it 408 miles and the fares between MSP and CHI. Additionally there are only 580,000 airline passengers between the two. Economics simply aren't as strong here because of the lower density.

Might it still work economically? Yes, it's possible. Is the economic incentive less than in Florida or on the West Coast? Yes.

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Re: MSP to Rochester High Speed Rail

Postby DanPatchToget » June 5th, 2023, 4:31 pm

One nice thing about running the MSP-ROC rail next to/above traffic is that if it's above about 80MPH (as it should be) and in the shared Highway 52 corridor, the drivers would have to watch the trains pass them daily at much higher speeds. Those optics might help boost ridership for what at least a few years was literally thousands of daily car commuters in the corridor.
Or drivers would complain that we wasted money on a train when the money could've been used to upgrade Highway 52 to freeway standards. That's not my opinion of course, I'm just thinking of the mindset of a rural Minnesotan.

Maybe if some improvements to Highway 52 were included with a rail project people would be more okay with it. Also an argument could be made that the train would remove some traffic, particularly those going between the Twin Cities and Rochester, which means more room for people that need to drive. Whether people would accept that argument is anyone's guess.


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