The Topline: How the new Amtrak service compares to driving
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Welcome to The Topline, a weekly roundup of the big numbers driving the Minnesota news cycle, as well as the smaller ones that you might have missed. This week: how the new Amtrak service stacks up to a car; extreme weather drives power outages; Minneapolis business license fees; and the season Midwesterners like least.
How Amtrak’s new Borealis service to Chicago stacks up to driving
On May 1 Amtrak introduced new service between St. Paul and Chicago, dubbing it the Borealis line. The new once-a-day trains departing St. Paul around noon and Chicago in mid-morning effectively double the service between the two cities, with fares costing $41 for a one-way adult ticket.
The question on a lot of minds: How’s it compare to driving a car?
Minneapolitan Rhett Carlson ran the numbers, using Google Maps and Amtrack’s own published estimates. Google says a car trip departing the same time as the train would take about six hours and ten minutes, about an hour and 15 minutes shorter than the seven-hour, 25-minute train ride. That’s a time penalty of about 20%.
That’s roughly middle-of-the-pack performance compared to other Amtrak Midwestern lines, Carlson estimates. Trains like the Illinois Zephyr between Chicago and Quincy run about 10% quicker than driving, while trains from Chicago into Michigan might take almost twice the time of a drive.
Of course, speed isn’t typically the main draw of rail transit in the United States. Kicking back in a comfortable train car while the countryside whizzes by is usually a lot more enjoyable than driving down the interstate for hours on end, and traveling by rail is much better for the environment as well.
Extreme weather is increasingly driving power outages
Bloomberg reports that from 2014 to 2023, the U.S. experienced twice as many weather-driven power outages as in the prior decade. One recent study finds that in New York state, weather is now responsible for about 40% of all power outages.
Poorer neighborhoods, where power infrastructure tends to be older and in more disrepair, are particularly susceptible to weather-driven power problems. And rural areas tend to experience longer outages than more urban ones.
The problem is likely to get worse as a warming climate drives more extreme and erratic weather. Massive, headline-grabbing outages — think Texas in early 2021 or Louisiana later that year — are only part of the problem.
Ride-hail license fees are wild
Reading Max Nesterak’s latest update on the rideshare wage fight last week I was struck by this line:
Just one potential competitor — MyWeels (with no ‘h’) — became licensed in Minneapolis on Wednesday after paying the city’s annual fee of $37,145 plus $10,615 for a “wheelchair surcharge.”
A $37,000 fee for a business license seems excessive, almost designed to ensure massive companies like Uber and Lyft have near-monopolies on the service. Do other industries deal with similarly-steep licensing costs in the metro?
No, as it turns out. An off-sale liquor license will set you back $1,500, according to Minneapolis’ official fee schedule, and that’s one of the pricier licenses available. It costs $270 to open a car wash, $135 to sell Christmas trees, and $320 to open a hotel with up to 20 rooms.
The $37,000 for rideshare businesses (transportation network companies, in regulatory parlance) really stands out. Several of the alternative rideshare operators Max talked to cited that fee as a reason they’re not open yet.
Midwesterners actually hate the winter, data show
The Washington Post’s Department of Data recently surveyed people across the nation on their favorite seasons. Handling the cold is a core part of Midwestern identity, so you might suspect that people here would be more likely to say they prefer winter.
But in fact, it’s the opposite: Just 6% of Midwesterners rated winter the highest, the lowest of any region. The region also has the biggest favorability gap between winter and the other seasons. Summer’s our favorite season, with spring and fall close behind. In the South and West people prefer spring over summer, while in the Northeast they like fall better than spring.
The post The Topline: How the new Amtrak service compares to driving appeared first on Minnesota Reformer.
