Reimagining rail travel in the United States

Abstract

The increase of congestion in American cities is creating a slower and more expensive commute for the average American passenger in major cities. Convenience and speed are incredibly important to the average American citizen. While research is being done on ways to increase the efficiency of automotive and air transportation, one of the quickest payoffs will be the re-introduction of mass passenger rail systems throughout the United States. The new types of Magnetic Levitation and Hyperloop technology allow for the speed of these new rail lines to travel at speeds close to and exceeding the average commercial airliner. By combining these new types of transportation systems with our existing infrastructure and other smaller scale transportation systems, there is an opportunity in America to revolutionize the transportation for the twenty-first century. Transportation hubs will form the human connection with these transport systems and an entirely new system will allow us to reinvent the transit hub of tomorrow. By analyzing American rail hubs such as Cincinnati’s Union Terminal, New York’s Pennsylvania Station, one can learn from the past to help influence the design and systems in these next generation of hubs. Modern day equivalents such as San Francisco’s new Transbay Transit Center and foreign examples such as Berlin’s Hauptbahnhof Station will help influence how these hubs interact with modern inner-city transit systems. Transit hubs create the human connection to the mechanical network of rail, automobile, and air transportation systems. They are often gateways to the region in which they reside, and the first and last place a person see’s as they travel from one city to another. Designing the next-generation of transit hubs is key to how we as a society interact and experience our travel.