3 Introduction
Introduction
The New York Times reports that “driving by young people decreased 23 percent between 2001 and 2009.” As public transportation is becoming more and more important, rail systems are becoming a major development focus in many countries around the world. High speed rail specifically is considered the most sustainable form of rail development. High speed rail refers to any railway system that allows trains to travel with the higher velocity than conventional trains. By definition, high-speed refers to rail system operation at or above 155mph. According to this definition, so far there are not any high-speed rail systems in America. The closest system to the description of high speed rail that has been developed in America is the Acela train. “The Acela Express is Amtrak's high-speed rail service along the Northeast Corridor (NEC) in the Northeast United States between Washington, D.C., and Boston via 14 intermediate stops including Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City. Acela Express trains are the fastest trainsets in the Americas; the highest speed they attain is 150 mph (240 km/h). Acela trains use tilting technology which allows the train to travel at higher speeds on the sharply curved NEC without disturbing passengers, by lowering lateral centrifugal forces” (Wikipedia). As plans are being developed to bring high speed rail to California, connecting San Francisco to Los Angeles via certain major cities including San Jose, Bakersfield, Fresno and extending railway to San Diego. This Learning Cluster brings students an opportunity to study the Acela Express running from Boston to Washington DC via New York City, along with secondary and feeder transit system that link the stations to parts of each city. As part of the research, this Learning Cluster also looks at the potential and direction of development of high rail in California.
In seven days, students were given the opportunity to travel along the East Coast. Before the trip, 11 students were divided by three groups: a group (Renae Zelmar, Denim Belville, Lauren Broker, Desiree Fernandez) studying the political/economics/institutional aspect of the rail system, another group(Kailey Moser, Kayleigh Levitt, Katherine Mehltretter, Luis Herrera) Studying the sustainable human settlement development, and a group (Tuan Manh Nguyen, Jensen Reyes, Joyce Cheong) exploring the architecture/urban design of the stations, and the rail system in relation with the city in general. The trip started from the city of Boston, studying Boston South Station, Back Bay Station and the North Station along with the transit system of the city. After two days in Boston, the group took Amtrak (conventional) train from Boston Back Bay Station to Penn Station, New York City. The group discovered the transit system in New York City, had multiple meetings with station, transportation and regional planners in both the public and private sectors. The next stop was Union Station in Washington DC, where the professor and the group had a chance to discuss the development plan with the Union Station Redevelopment Corporation. The group headed back to Soka University of America, took a deeper look at the information collected from the trip and compared to the transportation system in California.