The purpose of this research is to analyze the use of the public train usage in Central Florida to determine the feasibility of high-speed rail usage in the future. This study will be split into parts and expanded upon. The first part will observe rider perspective, values, and issues regarding rail transportation as is available in Central Florida. In further installations, which will be conducted separately from this thesis, there will be an analysis of the providers of rail transportation. It is hypothesized that there will be a moderate demand for rail transportation used by the public. Original: The main purpose of this descriptive research is to describe the feasibility of high speed rail in the United States. Feasibility is defined as the determining factor in the sustainability of a project. In the case of this research study, high speed rail is the project and is defined as a specialized railroad system, including dedicated tracks and specialized rolling stock, that travels upward of 125mph. It is hypothesized that the feasibility in high speed rail is high due to the current functioning transportation systems in Florida.

High-speed passenger rail is seen by many in the U.S. transportation policy and planning communities as an ideal solution for fast, safe, and resource-efficient mobility in high-demand intercity corridors. To expand the body of knowledge for high-speed intercity passenger rail in the U.S., the overall goal of this dissertation was to better understand the demand for high-speed intercity passenger rail services in small- or medium-sized intermediate communities and improve planners' ability to estimate such demand through traveler surveys; specifically, the use of different experimental designs for stated preference questions and the use of images to describe hypothetical travel alternatives in traveler surveys. In pursuit of this goal, an Internet-based survey was distributed to residents of Waco and Temple, two communities located along the federally-designated South Central High-Speed Rail Corridor in Central Texas. A total of 1,160 surveys were obtained from residents of the two communities. Mixed logit travel mode choice models developed from the survey data revealed valuable findings that can inform demand estimates and the design of traveler surveys for high-speed intercity passenger rail planning activities. Based on the analysis presented in this dissertation, ridership estimates for new high-speed intercity passenger rail lines that are planned to serve intermediate communities should not assume that residents of these communities have similar characteristics and values. The d-efficient stated preference experimental design was found to provide a mode choice model with a better fit and greater significance on key policy variables than the adaptive design and therefore is recommended for use in future surveys. Finally, it is recommended that surveys should consider the use of images of proposed train services to aid respondent decision-making for stated preference questions, but only if the images used in the survey depict equipment that could be realistically deployed in the corridor.

In the spring of 2004, a synergistic team of professors, practitioners, and graduate students coalesced in a graduate planning studio at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) with the greatest of ambitions: to craft a “Plan for America,” through the year 2050. Their work led to a megaregional revival, weaving the work of Jean Gottman, old regionalists like Benton MacKaye, and New Regionalists like Peter Calthrope into a new perspective on regional planning. In the brief period that followed, a flurry of megaregional research was produced by scholars at Penn, Georgia Tech, the University of Texas at Austin, the Regional Plan Association, and the Lincoln Institute for Land Policy. But nearly a decade into this megaregional revival, old questions about the concept continue to simmer while many new questions emerge, which begs the question: what exactly has this flurry of megaregional research settled? How exactly are megaregions defined and delineated? Do they even have fixed boundaries? Assuming a consensus emerged on how to define and delineate the space, how could such a large and unwieldy scale be governed? Are megaregions functional economic units or merely a product of poorly regulated sprawl development over vast expanses? If they are indeed functional units, how are they interacting or competing with one another for growth, development, and finite public resources? The answers to these questions have been, well, elusive. This thesis begins to remedy this glaring gap in the literature by conducting semi-structured interviews with the key informants credited with leading the conception and evolution of megaregional thought in the U.S. With their aid, this thesis begins to contextualize the provenance, the evolution, the barriers to progress, and the potential future trajectories of the megaregional construct. One of these potential future trajectories – megaregional economic development – is explored between the nation’s only physically linked pair of megaregions: the Texas Triangle and Gulf Coast. In the final chapter of this thesis, recommendations drawn from these analyses are made for the research, the pedagogy, and the practice of planning for megaregions. Together, this triptych of recommendations outlines a path towards a megaregional future. / text

The United States as a whole is embarking on the historic task of implementing high-speed rail (HSR) throughout the country in an attempt to improve regional mobility, including congestion at some of the nation’s busiest airports. However, despite the wide overlapping of service that both air and HSR provide and the goal of reducing airport congestion, little discourse has occurred on the topic of how these two modes might interact in an intermodal context. This report explores how air travel and HSR might cooperate in the US, which is defined as an explicit attempt by the two modes to utilize each other in order to transport a passenger to their final destination. It will document potential benefits of cooperation, survey how cooperation works elsewhere in the world, and investigate the current climate within the US for cooperation, including a review of current HSR plans and analysis of air travel data. This information will form the basis for suggested airports for the integration of HSR and air travel, and for how US airlines might utilize HSR. Lastly, lessons learned will form a list of best practices to follow in order to better insure a cooperative and successful relationship between HSR and air travel. / text

Current transportation methods within the Central Arizona region revolve primarily around automobiles. In order for the region to become more economically resilient and environmentally sustainable, alternative transportation methods must be considered. One such alternative that has shown great promise in other regions of the United States is rail transport. Rail transport, including commuter rail or high speed rail, has proven to not only be an effective alternative to automobile transport, but also as a more environmentally sustainable transportation option. The I-11 Super Corridor study, a part of the University of Arizona’s Sustainable City Project 2014, applied next generation urban planning design ideas to the planned Interstate 11 corridor, a major transportation artery that will connect Mexico and Canada. This study inspired this project’s focus on the concept of identifying suitable routes for new transportation infrastructure within the central and southern Arizona regions. Through the incorporation of commuter or high speed rail within central and southern Arizona, a more resilient regional economy and environment can be created. The previous I-11 Super Corridor study presented the incorporation of different regional factors, including population density and economic statistics, to determine suitable routes for future transportation corridors. This project integrates the utilization of specific local and regional data and advanced GIS analysis to determine suitable routes for new rail transport corridors within Maricopa, Pinal and Pima Counties.

This thesis expands upon the dialogue between speed and architecture, investigating how architecture reinterprets the linear city, originally defined by the continuous fabric of the freeway and more recently reconfigured by the high speed rail line. Using the linear city as a site of exploration and high speed rail as a ground to test new typologies of architectural insertions at amplified speed, this thesis produces an extended civic space along the proposed high speed rail line connecting Tampa and Orlando. Combining a series of performance and commercial programs, this new typology will make the obscured visual experience along the extended territory of the rail line legible, through a sequencing of specific architectural intersections, exploring how monumental civic space will be made and occupied in the sprawl of the American city.

High-Speed Rail (HSR) as a fast, reliable and environmentally friendly mode of transportation has received a lot of attention in recent decades. The International Union of Railways reported that there are more than 18600 miles of HSR in operation and about 1.6 billion passengers per year are carried by them. Although there are plans for HSR in many states including Florida, the United States, however, is still hesitant to develop its own HSR network. One of the main barriers to developing high-speed rail is excessive vibration propagation to the media which may cause annoyance to people who live in the track neighborhood. Train induced vibration also contributes to track settlement, developing track flaws, and increasing life cycle cost of track and supporting structures. The aim of this research is to address this problem by conducting a comprehensive investigation into track dynamics. For this purpose, three-dimensional mass-spring-damper models of vehicle, track and supporting structures were developed and matrices of mass, stiffness, and damping of each subsystem were formed. The response of the whole system was, then, determined by coupling the subsystems using Hertz contact theory. The differential equations of the coupled system were solved by the Newmark integration method and the results including vertical and lateral displacements and forces were presented in the time domain. Since the purpose of this dissertation is to quantify the effect of track and vehicle condition on vibration level, rail defects were also taken into account and rail random irregularities for the vertical profile, Gauge, alignment and cross level (super elevation) were incorporated into a numerical solution. The results of the study show the effect of track and vehicle parameters on the response of the vehicle, track, and substructures. Since Florida and some other states in the United States are very prone to hurricanes, an investigation was conducted into the effect of wind speed on vehicle stability. For this purpose, a curved beam was modeled to consider the influence of track curvature, cant deficiency, wind speed and train speed simultaneously. The results from the study show the maximum allowable values of train speed and axle load for different wind speeds. The findings can be used to decide under what circumstances there is a risk of vehicle overturning and how to avoid it.

This master's thesis describes the current state of passenger rail transport and the most important long-distance projects in Europe in the 20th century. It also deals with current changes in the European rail market and its further development. The aim of this master's thesis is to analyze the state of long-distance rail passenger transport in the Czech Republic and abroad, a general view on the high speed rail, which is described in terms of its development, technology, benefits and costs and the analysis of the competitiveness of high speed rail compared to air transport from a user's perspective. This thesis also solves possible relations between high speed rail and other means of transport and whether high speed rail could be competitive in the Praha -- Brno line.

This Master Thesis focuses on rail transport in Japan. It describes the evolution of Japanese railroads from the beginning until present day, when is Japan the leading country in personal rail transportation. Further, there are described major railway operators and high-speed railway network Shinkansen. Later it explains modern system Maglev, which is momentarily built in Japan. The analysis focuses on financial indicators and specific traits of Japanese railroads. In the end the author compares Shinkansen against other means of transport on two major routes of different length. He asks question how introduction of new forms of rail transportation can change the Japan.

Re-tool: v.tr. re-tooled, re-tooling, re-tools 1. To fit out (a factory, for example) with a new set of machinery and tools for making a different product. 2. To revise and reorganize, especially for the purpose of updating or improving. The American ideals inherent in the suburbs are the promise of space, affordability, convenience, and traditional family life; conversely the public realms of the suburban typology become disconnected from each other as well as the larger city. The Generic City condition in which the periphery is no longer captivated by the center from which it was created is pervasive in the American landscape. Public space within the city has been consumed by their auto-centric infrastructural requirements, creating a loss of activity and identity. "Lowly, unpurposeful and random as they may appear, sidewalk contacts are the small change from which a cities wealth of public life may grow." Connecting people and places to one another and the metropolis that feeds them is essential for a properly functioning society. One example of an American city afflicted by auto-centrism and pedestrian marginalization is Tampa. The solution to Tampa's disconnection is a transit oriented development model in which there are localized areas of higher density that become nodes along a public transit route, thereby connecting areas of low density. By creating transportation nodes, places will become better connected in time and space. Establishing a more social form of transit in the Tampa Bay region will provide the opportunity for the creation of a secular cathedral of transportation. The Infrastructures we erect, just as the monasteries in the Middle Ages, must seek to enliven the communal and artistic traditions that make civilization and culture meaningful. The network of light rail connecting disjointed areas in Hillsborough will be linked to a high speed rail connecting major metropolitan areas across the state. This central downtown node will be manifested as a multi-modal station which incorporates multiple functions into an existing single use environment to densify the urban core of Tampa, create denser housing, and reconnect people to places. The main area of focus is the rail station and its overlap of program to create density and intensity so that connections with places and culture will be reinforced. The station will become a major public space of amenity and gathering point for the community.