Beautiful. The US High Speed Rail Association has produced a plan for phased high speed rail lines across the US by 2030. The best part about it: Albuquerque, along with Denver, would be the link between East and West coasts. This is HUGE. Imagine the kind of traffic you see in an airport on a given day making connections through downtown Albuquerque. Yea. Huge.
Now, this is just one group's idea for HSR across the country but it's important that Albuquerque is seen as a vital cog in the wheel. You can bet that El Paso and the state of Texas will be lobbying like heck to get that connection through their city. They'll have a good argument too when you consider the combined trade area of the El Paso region in addition to topography.
Regardless. This is fantastic. I just know the libertarians are burning mad over a plan like this. I'm sure our own little "foundation" has already crunched some skewed numbers to prove their point.
3 comments:
They could always extend that leg down from Denver through Albuquerque and down to El Paso. There's already talk of doing a rail line From Chihuahua, MX all the way through to Denver via EP, Las Cruces & ABQ.
YES! I'm so happy that you posted this. It makes me really happy that people are talking about this. I know it's far away from happening, but just the fact that it's being discussed is good for me.
This would be fantastic. It is/was ridiculous that the first initial sets of national HSR proposals didn't include Albuquerque, Phoenix, Denver, Las Vegas, etc. Absolutely an embarrassment. I'm curious about the line connecting ABQ and PHX, though - currently there is no existing, direct rail track connecting the two cities. One would either have to travel over to the Flagstaff/Williams area, before connecting to a southbound track to Phoenix, or travel south to Las Cruces, over to Tucson, finally traveling back northward. I wonder if an eventual idea of building brand new tracks connecting the two cities is being thrown around, or if the map is just generously stylized. I live in Phoenix, but most of my family reside in Albuquerque. Because of such, I obviously spend a lot of time in both cities, traveling back and forth incredibly often. I hate the drive (I've always bemoaned the lack of a more direct freeway/interstate link between the city pair), so direct rail line or not, I would absolutely love and use such a route. I definitely hope everything unfolds as similar to this idea as possible. Oh, and also happens in my lifetime.
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