Burning the Midnight Oil for Living Energy Independence
crossposted from ProgressiveBlue, also available in Orange
One of the stories that came out into the press this week was the pledge by the US Department of Transport to look into extending the designated HSR corridors to include Pittsburgh/Cleveland.
This would extend the Cleveland/Chicago route via northern Indiana and connect with the Triple-C route at Cleveland (both currently competing for HSR Stimulus funding). This is a 145 mile alignment that would offer a 2:10 Express trip between these two cities as a 110mph corridor, for a 67mph route speed – and faster, of course, if later upgraded to a 125mph Regional HSR corridor.
The focus today is not, however, High Speed Rail – it is conventional rail. The focus is on how to take this alignment that hit the top northeast corner of Akron’s Summit County and leverage it into effective rail service for the Canton-Akron area.