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Originally Posted by lawfin
Agreed....as much as it turns my stomach to have to pander to the disperse living arrangement crowd it may be necessary to have some strategic stops to jump start ridership.....
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In the case of the north suburbs it is probably necessary for at least one stop maybe even 2 to make HSR competitive with auto at least if you are going to Milw.
Unfortunately, the cost in time is borne by all of us because some people cannot handle any density above about 3000 / sq mile
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It's not about "pandering to the disperse living arrangment crowd," whatever in the world that means, it's about dealing with reality. And the reality is in America most people live in the suburbs. I realize that many people on this forum want us to be Europe but we are not Europe and Europe didn't develop the way it did for no reason, it developed that way because they didn't have cars. Now we can take some of the good things they have like HSR, but let's get down to earth, we will always have the suburbs. I don't think HSR should be exclusive to only people that live near the Loop! I take the Hiawatha a lot and the amount of people that get on and off at the suburban stops is quite enough to keep them, and there really are only 3 of them.
Now shifting that suburban stop from Glenview to O'Hare I would fully support and would make just too much sense to happen. It would give a HSR connection from O'Hare to Mitchell and Mitchell is easily the most used suburban stop along the line in my experience. O'Hare would blow it away. It would also give the advocates of an express train from O'Hare to downtown Chicago exactly what they want. Everyone would win.