12 Rail Routes We Should Build to Grow Rural Economies, Eliminate Short Flights, and Combat Climate Change

Note: This is an extension of a previous article on 5 Big Ideas to Fight Climate Change because it got too long.

Of course, I want high-speed trains in the United States. Taking the high-speed trains in Europe changed how I think about transportation. They’re so self-evidently better than taking flights less than two hours.

It’s often faster if you include time spent at and traveling to the airport. It’s more convenient, more comfortable, more reliable, and often cheaper. You can work and read and use wifi and you have legroom.

It’s also way better for the environment.

That’s why I think one of the steps we need to take as a country to fight climate change is to work on building climate-friendly transit to replace short flights.

If you fly regularly, it’s almost without a doubt your biggest contribution to CO2 emissions. In this excellent short book Flying Green, the author mentioned that if you fly from London to New York and back, you have emitted more CO2 than the average person in many parts of the world over an entire year.

Plus, air travel will be very very hard to decarbonize. Most of what we hear about “sustainability” from the airlines is just greenwashing.

Flying is So Bad That We Don’t Even Need High-Speed Rail

Average-speed rail is good enough to start.

While high-speed rail along the Northeast Corridor (Boston-New York-Philadelphia-Washington DC) is sexy to talk about, it’s rife with challenges.

Why California High-Speed Rail is Over Budget And Delayed — And What We Should Do About It

For a rail to go fast, it must go straight. Unfortunately, thanks to the suburbs, the only way to make straight enough lines would be to go through sprawled-out towns.

We would be repeating many of the same mistakes as we did with the highways, tearing apart communities along the routes of our plans.

Now, am I for spending $100 billion on the proposal to make a New York to Boston high-speed rail that goes out to Long Island and underneath the Long Island Sound? Yes, I am. This list is not the list of the most obviously beneficial high-speed rail routes. This video from City Nerd contains that list, and there’s zero overlap here.

I think there are other places where we can win by focusing on just being better than flying. With this, consumers will choose the train over short flights.

These projects could in turn have a host of benefits, like providing better service to rural and mid-sized communities which would improve their economies.

It can also help create a culture of rail where there currently isn’t, which would make the big projects even more popular.

What We Need is Adequate Service Targeted At Reducing Short Flights

The good news is the US is already doing it, so this idea is a continuation of a growing trend.

In this article, I wrote about my experience riding the new train from Orlando to Miami. That’s a great case study. This is a semi-high-speed train, reaching 125mph.

Let’s look at a case study I know even better.

A Case Study for New Trains Competing With Flights: Burlington, VT to New York Amtrak

I’m originally from Vermont, but I went to college in NYC. I consider myself a leading authority on the transit options between the two places.

Just a few years ago, in my senior year of college, Amtrak opened a second Vermont-NYC route.

This one was nearly two hours faster (7 hours instead of 9). It leaves from downtown Burlington once a day and goes through Albany. At 7 hours, it’s still longer than flying, but it’s cheaper, more convenient, and more comfortable.

The Best NYC to Burlington Option: My Amtrak Ethan Allen Express Review

Since it opened, I think I’ve only flown once and taken this train 7-8 times. This has made it possible for me to hit my personal flying limit of six flights per year.

I wouldn’t call this an ideal transit project, because it’s still much longer than flying and feels like it’s going 15mph in some parts of Vermont, but it shows that even SOME rail can win, and it doesn’t need to be high speed.

JetBlue has ended its New York to Burlington service

Thanks to the shitshow that is completely deregulated flying in the US, it’s often not financially viable for airlines to fly to small cities. Right now, JFK has a shortage of gates for airlines to use, which means airlines are cutting service to their least profitable routes, always to small cities. JetBlue just broke up with Vermont.

Looks like I’ll definitely keep taking the Amtrak.

I know this isn’t the only city that airlines have cut off. In fact, many small cities since airline deregulation have lost their place service. This is an opportunity for the Amtrak and other potential rail projects to shine.

Two Main Factors We Should Look At For Deciding New Rail Routes

The Burlington to New York train fits both of these, which is a big inspiration for this list.

The first one is obvious. The second is severely under-discussed.

1) The Shortest Flight Routes

If there’s currently a flight, it means there’s demand for non-car travel. The shorter it is, the more likely the train will be much better than a plane.

So we’re looking at drives between 3 hours to roughly 7 hours.

2) Small-Medium Metro Areas Close to Big Metro Areas

This is less obvious but I’ll make the case.

• The airlines lose money on flying to small places. These flights are essentially subsidized by busier routes. In this case, there may be less pushback from the airline lobby coalition to get rail built here. They lose money on it anyway.
• If the airline doesn’t lose money, it’s because they charge a lot for the people who live near the tiny airport. This is good for rail because it means people can save money on the train. After all, flying out of small airports is much more expensive than flying out of major hubs.
• Smaller cities are often less built out and entirely sprawled (though not always.) It might be more practical to build a new train line from a logistics perspective. It may be easier to go in a straight line.
• It invests in forgotten, rural metro areas. As someone from a rural area, I know we don’t want to forget rural America. A well-functioning train will lead to more economic opportunity for the people in the smaller areas since it’ll be easier for visitors and businesses to come and for them to get out. Because of this, it’s also more likely to get bipartisan support.

I think this criterion has already proven to be successful, at least by my own experience taking the Burlington Amtrak.

These don’t need to be high-speed, they just need to be better than flying.

Finally, you’ll notice a trend of cities that connect to major airline hubs, like Denver and Atlanta. I think it makes extra sense in these areas because it could make the major airport more accessible to small cities.

Living in New York, I routinely took the 75-minute trek to JFK from my Lower East Side apartment on the J train. As long as the train can hit that mark, I think people will take it straight to the big hub.

Candidates Based on My Criteria

This is not exhaustive. I didn’t put them in a specific order, and I didn’t have a formula of any kind. I didn’t even research them much so if there are extenuating circumstances why these can’t be built let me know.

I also know I missed a of potential routes. LOTS. The very nature of this list is I’m talking about often-forgotten American cities.

Let’s get into the routes.

Cheyenne-Denver (100 miles)

In Why Flying is Miserable the author called out Cheyenne, Wyoming as a small city that has lost most of its air travel since airline deregulation. Without other transit options, Cheyenne has less connected to the rest of the country.

Because its air service is so bad, there’s a great opportunity for rail. Right now, people in Cheyenne either drive or take a United flight to get to Denver.

Only 100 miles apart, any train could improve the opportunities for people in Cheyenne to get to the Denver airport, a major hub.

I could imagine this train connecting to Denver’s train system, which is actually not that terrible for the US.

Colorado Springs-Denver (70 miles)

These cities are only just over an hour’s drive, but both Southwest and United have flights. The fact that there’s even flight service is an absolute abomination. This is commuting train distance. New Haven is 80 miles from New York, and there are trains every hour.

With a metro area population of over 700k, Colorado Springs is definitely big enough to support train routes and eliminate these embarrassingly short trains. This population is comparable to New Haven.

Augusta-Atlanta (145 miles)

Atlanta gets a lot of love (or really hate) on this list.

There are lots of decent-sized metro areas with airports within a few hours of driving.

In fact, Delta may even have a case to invest in these next few trains so they don’t need to run these routes anymore, and they just get people taking the train to the Atlanta airport where they can put them on their profitable routes.

Columbus, GA-Atlanta- (108 miles)

In 2023, American Airlines announced it was dropping its service from Columbus, Georgia.

These are exactly the small cities that airlines are leaving behind, and that trains can better serve anyway.

Birmingham-Atlanta (147 miles)

In 2023, I visited Birmingham with two of my best friends on our route through the Deep South. The experience shook me to my cor. In Birmingham, particularly near Rickwood Field, the only Negro League baseball field, I saw housing with homemade roofs and broken glass on forgotten streets that reminded me of the not-so-great parts of San Salvador.

Birmingham is exactly the small city that could be revitalized with better transit, giving its people the opportunity to bring others to their city, and for them to see other places.

I was also struck by the highway from these two cities. It felt dead straight, with speed limits hitting 75mph. This would make it easier to build a higher-speed train. Make it run next to our between the highway.

Atlanta-Savannah (248 miles)

With a much further distance, I’ll admit this one is more of a stretch. But while we’re building out a whole network of trains flooding into Atlanta, I’ll add it to the list.

Detroit-Lansing (90 miles)

Again, this is basically commuting distance. East Lansing is also home to Michigan State, which means there are a lot of college students without cars who could use an easy way to get to Detroit.

Allentown-Philadelphia (64 miles)

Another embarrassingly short flight that shouldn’t exist. Connection to Philly would also mean, for people in Allentown, an easy connection to DC and New York as well and bring them into the mix of the Northeast Corridor.

Wichita Falls – Dallas (119 miles)

American has a flight between these two Texas cities. I would consider putting the train station in the Dallas Fort Worth airport, because it connects those in Wichita Falls more easily to the big airport hub.

Dallas, like Orlando, is all sprawl, so they should take notes from Brightline.

3 Honorable Mentions

These three don’t qualify because there isn’t a flight between them. But I want to highlight them because there’s an opportunity for rail.

Burlington, VT-Boston

While Amtrak has connected Burlington and New York, we still don’t have a good way to get to Boston. All we have is a once-per-day Greyhound bus. From the Boston direction, it gets to Burlington in the middle of the night, so it’s next to worthless.

You could even start the train in White River Junction.

St. Johnsbury, VT-New York + Boston

I have a soft spot for St. Johnsbury, VT, a rural place in a rural state.

Its downtown rail station has been tragically converted into a welcome center. They have no airport close by (most drive to Burlington).

The town feels and logistically is very isolated.

Given that it already has some rail infrastructure that’s no longer used for passenger trains, I think an Amtrak from here to Boston and/or New York could revitalize its economy.

For the New York train, all it needs to do is get to White River Junction to connect with the ones that go From Chittenden County down to New York and DC.

For the Boston train, it just needs to connect at Littleton, New Hampshire where the Amtrak train continues down to Boston.

I talk more about St. Johnsbury and its adorable downtown in my article on my idea for Vermont’s Housing Crisis.

San Franscisco-Santa Rosa

The fact that there isn’t effective transit between these two places is baffling. It’s on my list because they’re so close together, the population is so big, and the traffic is so bad it’s a great candidate for rail.

It actually used to have a flight. Now all they have is a two-hour bus or a commuter train to a ferry.

Once the California High Speed Rail project is done, this will make even more sense, because the train line will end at San Francisco.

Who’s Paying For This??

Nearly every single aspect of our driving experience is subsidized. I talk about how driving is exactly more expensive for society than public transit in this article on the hidden costs of cars.

From the streets to the gas prices, drivers pay only a fraction of the cost of driving. In 2022, the federal government spent $1.7 billion on highways and streets.

And, we accept these costs even in rural areas. Of course, rural areas could never “turn a profit” if they needed to with tolls.

We SHOULD connect rural areas with roads and rail because it connects the people in those communities to the rest of the country and the world.

Yet, many Republican politicians turn down rail projects because they insist they make a profit.

Even though they’re often in rural states where the federal government even more heavily subsidizes their roads for their citizens’ benefit! The hypocrisy is dumbfounding. So yes, this will be tax-payer funded.

While Brightline is technically privately run, it wouldn’t have been possible without ample federal support and grants, as highlighted in this excellent video.

Transportation, like the postal service, is fundamentally for the public good and should not be expected to turn a profit the same way a company that sells coffee mugs should. The fact that we always bail out the airlines during times of crisis is plenty.

However, we can help pay for this by drastically slashing investments in highways. Especially new highways. In fact, in my article on 5 big ideas to combat climate change, one of them is to cease new highway construction.

Instead, divert those federal funds to building out the rail infrastructure.

Let’s connect our rural communities to big cities, and drastically reduce our carbon footprint so we can move towards a cleaner world in the process.