The Midwesterner: Blogging the Global Midwest

Chicago: What's Changed? What Hasn't?

A few years ago, The Chicago Council published a book called Global Chicago, with two goals in mind. The first was a wake-up call to Chicagoans that their old industrial City of the Big Shoulders was gone, replaced by a global city with new strengths and challenges. The second was an attempt -- probably the first anywhere -- to study globalization's impact on cities by looking hard at one of those cities.

I was talking recently with the editor of the book, Charles Madigan, then a writer and editor at the Chicago Tribune (as was I), now Presidential Writer in Residence at Roosevelt University in Chicago. We were exploring what's changed in Chicago since the book came out, and what is unchanged -- or still undone.

The Global Economy Flies Away

We live in an interconnected world, dependent on links -- roads, telephones, fiber optic, airlines -- to keep us in touch with the global economy. If one of those links breaks, we are that much less connected to the world, that much further distant from the economy that determines our daily reality.

This is what may happen to 19 small cities in the Midwest, where Delta Airlines says it plans to change or shrink its service or end it altogether. In some of these cities, Delta is the only airline that flies in or out. If it leaves and if no other airline takes it place, these cities will become remote islands in the global sea, as cut off from the mainland as if someone dug up their highways or severed their phone lines.

All Aboard

Since we're talking about Germany (see previous post), it's a good time to look at the German high speed rail system and see whether, in this area too, that country has something to teach the Midwest.

Germany and the Midwest are roughly the same size. Both are mostly flat. Germany has more people but both areas -- especially the Midwest east of the Mississippi -- are densely populated.

But in rail, they couldn't be more different. Germany has its Intercity-Express (ICE) network of high-speed trains, many of them running up to 200 miles per hour on tracks so smooth that the wine in your glass barely jiggles as you race through the countryside. The Midwest, like the rest of the United States, has Amtrak. If you haven't ridden Amtrak, be assured that all the awful stories you hear about it are true.

For the Midwest, there's got to be a better way and copying the German ICE system might be it. Many Midwesterners want to see this happen -- the Midwest High Speed Rail Association is the best source. All this was discussed at a meeting in Omaha this summer. One result was a paper from the German company, Siemens, called "High-Speed Trains Running on Freight Line Tracks: The Experience of Germany."

Thanks For Nothing

President Obama, it seems, has just stiffed Illinois and the Midwest on high-speed rail. A lot of people hereabouts will be crying over this let-down. The rest of us -- people who really care about the long-term future of the region -- should send the president a big thank-you card.

Obama, coming off his State of the Union message, went to Tampa, Florida, to announce $8 billion in grants to develop the first American high-speed, intercity rail service -- basically 13 separate "rail corridors" between major cities. The president said this would be a big job-creator. At least 30 rail manufacturers are bidding for contracts, he said.

Of this money, Illinois is to get about $1.23 billion, to start building a line between Chicago and St. Louis -- actually, mostly tracks and other infrastructure between Alton, outside St. Louis, and Dwight, south of Chicago. Wisconsin is to get another $823 million for a Chicago-Milwaukee-Madison project.

This sounds like a lot of money. It also sounds like a victory for both Illinois and Wisconsin, two hard-hit states who need all the federal funds they can get. Actually, it's both a defeat and a victory.

It's a defeat for Illinois officials, including Gov. Pat Quinn, who had hoped to get about twice as much -- $2 billion to $2.5 billion -- to start work on passenger service between Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee and other cities. The state's application had asked for $4.5 billion.The actual money is much less.

But it's a victory for more far-sighted people who know that the plans Quinn and others had in mind that would lock Illinois and the Midwest into a Toonerville Trolley system, a 110-miles-per-hour version of the true high-speed rail that much of the rest of the world, from China to France, already has in place. 

De-railing the Midwest

Everybody, it seems, agrees that the Midwest needs high speed rail. The problem is that no one agrees what high speed rail really is.

The inside track right now seems to belong to proposals for "high-speed rail" with inter-city trains reaching top speeds of 110 miles per hour, and average speeds (counting station stops) of about 78 miles per hour. These trains presumably would be run by Amtrak and, in fact, amount to not much more than a slightly speedier version of the present Amtrak. 

Advocates of "real high speed rail" (as they call it) want a system with trains reaching top speeds of 220 miles per hour, with average speeds of about 150 miles per hour. This is what most of the world considers high speed rail to be: it's about average for many European countries and, indeed, is a bit slower than trains in China and France.

For baffling reasons, much of the Midwest seems ready to walk when it can run, to go for snail rail when it could get the real thing. Clearly, moving at 110-mph in a 220-mph world means that the Midwest, already lagging in the global sweepstakes, will get left in the dust. But, if current plans prevail, this is what will happen.

These two attitudes were on display Jan. 15 at a Chicago meeting, sponsored by Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn and called "Beyond Transportation: The Economic Impact of Rail in Illinois." The meeting dealt with both passenger and freight traffic, the latter also a crucial issue in Midwestern economic planning. But much of the conversation centered on high speed rail, defined vaguely.