Quote:
Originally Posted by OhioGuy
If Rahm can convince Amazon to build its second HQ in Chicago, I wonder if that would provide the impetus for building his long desired high speed rail connection between downtown & O'Hare? Or perhaps he'd make it part of negotiations to convince them to build here. Basically, if you build in Chicago, we'll build the fast train to O'Hare. (among many other items I'm sure he'd offer to get them to build in Chicago)
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I'd rather money be spent on local subways like the map I posted a couple posts up.
Or, if express service to O'Hare is done, it be done with the Crossrail proposal and combined with a strong push for HSR between Chicago, Minneapolis via Milwaukee and Madison and Rochester, Detroit via South Bend and Kalamazoo and Ann Arbor, and Cinci or Columbus via Indy.
If St. Louis could link up with KC, and Detroit to Toronto, and a Ft. Wayne, Toledo and Cleveland route put together, too, all the better. Just routes to St. Louis and Minneapolis would be a good starting point. Both St. Louis and Minneapolis have the infrastructure to handle downtown train service, although both might link into their airports, too.
As far as cities that could make use of downtown connections, Cleveland probably could, too. Detroit is just starting to have worthwhile downtown transit, and Indy isn't really known for that, either. For the intermediate stops, Milwaukee, Madison, Champaign and Springfield all are pretty well set up for that, at least by American standards. HSR in them would help push them to densify their centers, too.