Quote:
Originally Posted by novawolverine
I think rail could definitely work for passenger travel in the midwest, but it just goes to show that the megalopolis in the northeast isn't just large population centers near one another; there's a lot of inter-connectivity in other areas that has developed over a long period of time. I don't even like consolidating all of the metro's on the east coast, but my main point is that SoCal is more comparable to NYC-Philly than it is to the Great Lakes Megalopolis.
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Yeah, I agree. BosWash's coordinating of transportation infrastructure is light years ahead of any other region in the country and even that doesn't come pain free. I was just reading the NYT article about how Gov. Christie's decision to kill the new Hudson River tunnel project was more a political calculation than fears about cost overruns as he initially claimed. That was to be a vital core piece of infrastructure for the Northeast Corridor.
Anyway, this is completely off topic (aren't you all sick of talking about Houston yet? kidding) but I think the logical next step for that type of coordination to spread would be to the Great Lakes. I think SoCal kinda "cheats" because it is all already under the jurisdiction of California and even down to the county level the governments aren't very fragmented. In the northeast you're coordinating among well over half a dozen states and in the Great Lakes you'd be coordinating across nearly half a dozen states plus at least one province in a different country.