The energy futures of long-distance passenger rail in the United States

Minn, Michael

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/73055 Copy

Description

Title

The energy futures of long-distance passenger rail in the United States

Author(s)

Minn, Michael

Issue Date

2015-01-21

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Cidell, Julie

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Cidell, Julie

Committee Member(s)

• Deal, Brian
• Hannon, Bruce
• Wilson, David

Department of Study

Geography & Geographic InfoSci

Discipline

Geography

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• Passenger Railroad
• Energy Intensity
• Energy Efficiency
• Amtrak
• Actor-Network Theory
• Systems Dynamics

Abstract

This research interrogates potential futures for long-distance intercity rail transportation in the United States in the context of possible energy resource constraints. Three epistemically-distinctive analytical frameworks are used in order to provide a more rigorous and synthetic perspective than would be possible with the assumption of passenger rail as an ontological unity. The first chapter uses Actor-Network Theory to analyze the evolution of long-distance passenger rail in the United States as a sociotechnical network. The second chapter is a critical examination of the concept of energy intensty and the use of rail's purported energy intensity advantage over other transport modes as a basis for projecting increased long-distance passenger rail travel. The final chapter presents a systems dynamics simulation of potential futures for intercity passenger rail in the United States. The volume and spatial dispersion of future long-distance locomobility will likely be contingent on the nature of the sociotechnical transition to renewability. Politically and materially, a persistence of automobility and aeromobility would likely leave little demand for locomobility outside of recreational uses and local/regional systems that facilitate capitalist exploitation of concentrated urban spaces. Conversely, any severe material and energetic constraints that significantly reduce the viability of automobility and aeromobility would also likely leave the US incapable of operating and maintaining (much less expanding) a robust long-distance passenger rail system as a decline in mass capitalist industrialization takes with it the iconic transportation mode associated with modernity's advent.

Graduation Semester

2014-12

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/73055

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2014 by Michael Minn

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