As we speak, I'm blogging from the new BoltBus from DC to New York (they also serve Boston and Philadelphia) which features electrical outlets and WiFi. Naturally, it's quite a bit slower than the Acela, but given that it's a fraction of the price of even the slower Regional train, it seems to me that Amtrak really needs to step up its game in terms of internet access.
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BoltBus
26 Apr 2008 01:43 pm
Comments (46)
India is starting to put WiFi on trains. It's pretty sad that we can't keep up the notoriously bureaucratic Indian Railway Authority. It is my theory that the Vogons from Douglas Adams' books really do exist and that they run the Indian rail system. But even they can put WiFi on trains.
So are you doing some sort of a HITS event we can attend in NYC? Let us know.
The Atlantic won't pay $60 a month for a Verizon card? You could even use it on the subway!
How are the seats?
Took DC2NY a few months ago - not bad. Dupont to MSG in 4ish hours. Wifi. Comfortable, if small, seats. $40 round trip.
Matt - why no follow up/wrap on yesterday's event?
How did it go? It's not like you to miss an opportunity to plug...
It's worth noting that express bus service on the Boston-NYC run is FASTER than train service.
Just priced out Boltbus, Amtrak, Delta Shuttle (cheapest airline on Orbitz) for New York to Washington, buying a one way ticket for today and then an advance ticket one month from today:
Bus-- $25 walk up price / $10 advance-
4 hours
train-- $146 (Acela), $98 / $125, $69 advance - 2 hours 50 minutes or 3 hours 20 minutes
airplane-- $125 / $63 advanced -
1 hour, 20 minutes
I was surprised that Delta was so cheap and so slow-- 200 miles in 80 minutes (166 mph)-- no doubt because of congested airports on both ends. If you include the hour at the airport to get through security, your travel speed is 91 mph.
But damn, Amtrak needs to step up, if you can't compete on price or speed, their unique selling proposition has to be service. If a freakin' 10 buck bus ticket includes free wifi, then their $146 Acela ticket absolutely should include the same.
Regional Amtrak is only a bit slower than the Acela between New York and DC, and still faster than any bus I've tried.
I found myself taking another cheap inter-city bus (Megabus) every weekend for a year from Chicago, and although I wouldn't call it 'great', it was pretty comfortable, often on-time (!) and by far the cheapest option, and much much better than Greyhound (and cheaper, too). Didn't have wifi, though.
I've taken the Megabus to chicago a couple of times. The bus is nice, but the level of service is minimal. I'm not talking about amenities, I'm talking about being sure a bus will show up. If you have a flexible schedule and can wait out its quirks it's an okay ride for the price. I haven't tried it on the east or west coasts.
The bus is nice, but the level of service is minimal. I'm not talking about amenities, I'm talking about being sure a bus will show up. If you have a flexible schedule and can wait out its quirks it's an okay ride for the price.
Whereas American air travel, by comparison, is always both quirk-free and Swiss in its on-time precision.
This Bolt Bus sounds like a great idea -- a way for yuppies and hipsters to ride a "cool" bus without all the poor people they might have to rub elbows with on Greyhound.
I wonder though if the right sized jet -- maybe a corporate jet that could seat about 20 -- could fill a niche here, particularly if it did what that company Fallows profiled does and flew from little airport to little airport with no waits or delays on either end. From whatever the D.C. equivalent of Teterboro is to Teterboro.
MY is a big proponent of trains...any thoughts on why Amtrak can't get anywhere near the bus in price, if trains are so much more efficient than buses? If trains can't compete on DC-NY-Boston, where could they possibly be expected to compete?
Matt, does this raise any questions for you about your enthusiastic support of rail-style mass transit? It's not exactly a killing blow against Acela that they don't have Wi-fi, but it shows the more general point that rail transit is almost certainly done by big public (or quasi-public) agencies which aren't good at innovating, while highways give a couple people with a bus and a business plan an opportunity to do something new.
"This Bolt Bus sounds like a great idea -- a way for yuppies and hipsters to ride a "cool" bus without all the poor people they might have to rub elbows with on Greyhound."
They aren't so much competing against Greyhound, I think they're more competing against the "Chinatown express" type buses.
There may be a class issue there, but there's also the "drivers don't speak English" issue and the "rumors of inter-bus line Triad competition and sabotage" issue.
But damn, Amtrak needs to step up, if you can't compete on price or speed, their unique selling proposition has to be service. If a freakin' 10 buck bus ticket includes free wifi, then their $146 Acela ticket absolutely should include the same.
Yeah, let's throw even more billions of taxpayer dollars at an obsolete, unpopular, bankrupt passenger rail system.
Let's see: If I'm reading your numbers correctly, for the privilege of shaving 40 minutes off a 4-hour bus journey, you'll pay between 5 and 7 times as much to travel by regular train, and for the privilege of shaving off an hour and 10 minutes, you'll pay between 6 and 10 times as much to travel by "high-speed" (ha ha!) train. And you lose the wi-fi service to boot.
It's no wonder inter-city bus services carry around 15 times as many passengers as Amtrak. Amtrak doesn't need to step up, it needs to be put out of its misery.
What do the bus lines do in the event of a significant traffic jam due to an accident?
With enough warning, they can probably alter their route to go around. But once in a while I'm sure a bus must get stuck on, say, the NJ Turnpike, causing a significant delay.
I wonder though if the right sized jet -- maybe a corporate jet that could seat about 20 -- could fill a niche here, particularly if it did what that company Fallows profiled does and flew from little airport to little airport with no waits or delays on either end. From whatever the D.C. equivalent of Teterboro is to Teterboro.
Fallows wrote a whole book about this: Free Flight. A new generation of small, cheap, fuel-efficient jets like the Eclipse 500 may usher in a new era of air taxi services. For prices not much higher than current full-fare coach tickets on scheduled airlines, Americans may soon be able to use these services for intercity travel, eliminating much of the current delays caused by airport transfers and check-in and security procedures.
Yeah, let's throw even more billions of taxpayer dollars at an obsolete, unpopular, bankrupt passenger rail system.
One reason Amtrak (in the NE) doesn't work that well iis because it's budgeted in a Water Torture way: just enough to limp along in the very short term, but not enough to plan anything. We've had this discussion so many times already on this blog that I don't want to go through the whole thing again, but I get the feeling that there is a consensus (except for people like Mixner) that long distance train travel in the US doesn't make much sense, but rail travel in the NE, and inter city rail elsewhere, does, or can.
The passgenger rail system has been bankrupt for quite a bit of its life, not just in the last 35 years. I know I'm wasting my digital breath here, but if you were to think of the interstate highway system strictly in business terms, it would be 'bankrupt', too - much more massively so than Amtrak.
rail transit is almost certainly done by big public (or quasi-public) agencies which aren't good at innovating, while highways give a couple people with a bus and a business plan an opportunity to do something new.
There would be no market for these buses if there were a good alternative (how is a bus 'something new'?). Sorry, but this argument is a bit circular. The sentence should read: 'massively subsidized monopoly-highways give a couple people with a bus and a business plan an opportunity to do something different.' Why do we have to subsidize the two guys with a bus? I'm not railing (pardon the expression) against roads per se, I'm just saying we have to think of them as a public investment - a HUGE public investment dwarfing piddly little Amtrak - which is either worth it, at current/recent levels, or not.
This Bolt Bus sounds like a great idea -- a way for yuppies and hipsters to ride a "cool" bus without all the poor people they might have to rub elbows with on Greyhound.
What a weird claim. The Bolt Bus is dirt cheap -- why wouldn't poor people ride it?
Amtrak, especially between NYC and Boston, suffers from 19th century roadbeds that are politically impossible to supersede (heavens, the town council in Waterbury might withdraw their support!). Anyone who has ridden high speed rail in Europe recognizes that it's a superb form of transportation (though I'm not arguing that it is necessarily cost effective, especially if one ignores massive subsidies to roadbed for buses, and significant subsidies to air travel as well.) Nor is rail easily conducive to privatization, as various experiments in Europe have shown.
Nevertheless, assuming that 'market forces' will produce the most comfortable, safe and environmentally sound form of transportation would seem to be equally foolish, if we look at what happened to US air transport after deregulation. For even modest comfort, the cost is extremely high (price a first-class ticket from NYC or DC to Boston, someone, for a seat that's less spacious than in an Amtrak regional train?), and that provides no relief from routine delays, weather problems, and other discomforts.
Again, rail may not be able to compete on price (even if the subsidies were equal and the political roadblocks to creating high-speed lines loosened). It might even take a LOT of subsidies to make rail the most comfortable, safe and environmentally sound mode of transportation (look at how the EU has been subsidizing high-speed rail construction, if not operation, in Spain, recently). But in the end, rail IS potentially the safest, most comfortable, reliable, and environmentally sound for medium-length trips, say 50-300 miles. Too bad we'll probably never be able to experience it in the US...
butter,
We've had this discussion so many times already on this blog that I don't want to go through the whole thing again, but I get the feeling that there is a consensus (except for people like Mixner) that long distance train travel in the US doesn't make much sense, but rail travel in the NE, and inter city rail elsewhere, does, or can.
Your alleged (and somewhat incoherent--apparently, you think intercity distances are short) consensus flies in the face of half a century of intercity passenger rail decline. There are only a handful of routes in the country where it might possibly be made to work economically and practically, and none at all where it actually does work as a matter of current reality. Even with its huge subsidies, it isn't remotely competitive with road or air travel, and the future looks even worse for rail. Demographic and technological changes clearly favor an even greater dominance for road and air.
The passgenger rail system has been bankrupt for quite a bit of its life, not just in the last 35 years. I know I'm wasting my digital breath here, but if you were to think of the interstate highway system strictly in business terms, it would be 'bankrupt', too - much more massively so than Amtrak.
Roads and highways are funded from gas taxes, vehicle taxes and other taxes levied on their users. Roads are basically paid for by the people who use them, which is essentially the entire population. Amtrak subsidies, in contrast, represent a huge transfer in wealth from a large number of people who rarely or never use the system to the relatively small number who do. And those users tend to be upper income--business travelers riding the northeast corridor, wealthy retirees riding the Sunset Limited, etc.--which makes the subsidy even more obscene.
... rail transit is almost certainly done by big public (or quasi-public) agencies which aren't good at innovating, while highways...
Sorry, my mistake: dh's argument isn't quite *circular*, it just isn't convincing. There is nothing innovative about trains or buses (or subways, or traditional air travel for that matter). For the sake of this argument, innovation is defined as: cheap with wifi. But the bus isn't cheap once you figure in the cost of the roads, etc. And I'd suggest that lack of wifi on the train isn't due to a.) government over-regulating broadband - we have shitty broadband access in this country (and also not very 'broad'), even in the NE; it's the fault of government alright, but not because of sclerotic regulations, but rather because policy is set by innovation and competition-averse telcos instead of government. And b.), I would strongly suspect that Amtrak's 'just in time' funding model has a lot to do with it as well - they have to move heaven and earth to introduce any new service, like Acela. Yes, they should have wifi on the trains by now, but there should also be wifi just about everywhere in the NE by now, and REAL broadband.
Amtrak is a convenient political tool for conservatives in congress who argue that government doesn't work - of course they make *sure* it doesn't work. That IS circular.
Anyone who has ridden high speed rail in Europe recognizes that it's a superb form of transportation
I've ridden high-speed (and low-speed) rail in Europe extensively, and as I wrote here, I find it far from a "superb form of transportation." I get the sense that most American proponents of European rail either have little or no actual experience using the system, or are rail fanboys whose enthusiasms are not shared by the general public.
In any case, the idea that if it works in Europe it can work in the U.S. is fundamentally flawed. Europe is a small, densely populated continent. Britain, for example, has something like 30 times as many people per square mile as the U.S. Most European cities and population centers were established long before the rise of motor vehicles, and are correspondingly compact. Cars and roads and wide open spaces have never been as important in European culture as they are in American culture. The Railroad Age in America effectively ended in the middle of the 20th century.
And even in Europe, rail travel is under increasing pressure from low-cost airlines.
"The Bolt Bus is dirt cheap -- why wouldn't poor people ride it?"
Do they? There are ways to separate classes without using high prices.
"Roads and highways are funded from gas taxes, vehicle taxes and other taxes levied on their users"
They are not. Only 75% of the funding for the Interstate Highway System comes from gas taxes and since these taxes can only be used for highway funding they are akin to a subsidy.
Want to save Amtrak? Privatize the whole highway system.
The Atlantic won't pay $60 a month for a Verizon card? You could even use it on the subway! Posted by Kevin | April 26, 2008 2:23 PM
Not the Manhattan subway, as there are no cellular signals underground.
I recall reading of plans that eventually transmitters will be put in, however, I believe many people are happy that the underground portions are free of cell phones, and that means that when proposals get close to reality they will undoubtedly be shot down by protests and litigation, etc., and that it will take years to happen, as with many such things in New York. Yes, one still has to use a pay phone when calling someone from an underground Manhattan subway station (either that or leave to go to the street to use your cell phone and pay to get in again) and they still actually have them.
I myself don't look forward to adding people talking on cell phones to a sardine can situation at rush hour.
Fred, how do you separate classes without using high prices (other than the customary way that troublemaker Rosa Parks ruined for everyone)?
Incidentally, Bolt isn't a scrappy startup run by "a couple people with a bus and a business plan", its owned by Greyhound. I guess they figured was time for some rebranding.
"I recall reading of plans that eventually transmitters will be put in, however, I believe many people are happy that the underground portions are free of cell phones, and that means that when proposals get close to reality they will undoubtedly be shot down by protests and litigation, etc., and that it will take years to happen, as with many such things in New York. Yes, one still has to use a pay phone when calling someone from an underground Manhattan subway station (either that or leave to go to the street to use your cell phone and pay to get in again) and they still actually have them.
I myself don't look forward to adding people talking on cell phones to a sardine can situation at rush hour.
Posted by artappraiser | April 27, 2008 12:45 AM"
The security problem does come up though. If you could use your cell phone down there, it would be easier to inform the NYPD if a gunman or whatever started trying to kill people or take them hostage, if a bomb went off, etc.
They are not. Only 75% of the funding for the Interstate Highway System comes from gas taxes ...
Gee, only 75%? And I didn't say that all funding comes from gas taxes, anyway. I said, "gas taxes, vehicle taxes and other taxes levied on their users." The point is that roads and highways are essentially used by everyone and paid for by everyone. Amtrak, in contrast, is funded by everyone but used by few. And the few who do use it tend to be wealthier than the general population. Amtrak subsidies represent a huge wealth transfer from the lower-income majority to a higher-income minority. That's a "progressive" value, is it?
"Fred, how do you separate classes without using high prices"
Lots of ways. You set up your business in certain geographic areas (for a bus company, your stops). You signal to certain people that your business isn't for them, etc. For example, you won't see a lot of poor black people in hipster dive bars -- and it's not because poor blacks can't scrape up the money for a can of PBR.
I have to agree with Fred here. Just outside of Baltimore, for instance, you had some mid-to-upscale super markets that would sell things like $1,500/oz. truffles a few yards away from normally-priced Coco Puffs and Cheerios (in fact, such cereals would often be priced higher in poor neighborhoods in Baltimore). However, since these stores often catered in marketing and their availability of high-quality, expensive and/or international brands to the new rich around Baltimore (but within easy driving distance of Baltimore), they had a predominantly white customer base. This didn't stop them from stocking everyday goods and brands that just about every American buys at reasonable prices. From what I hear from people who used to work in the service industry in Baltimore, a lot of working-class blacks in Baltimore didn't like going to shop at these places because of the social atmosphere that a self-selecting clientèle created.
Matt, does this raise any questions for you about your enthusiastic support of rail-style mass transit? It's not exactly a killing blow against Acela that they don't have Wi-fi, but it shows the more general point that rail transit is almost certainly done by big public (or quasi-public) agencies which aren't good at innovating, while highways give a couple people with a bus and a business plan an opportunity to do something new.
VIA Rail in Canada (which is most certainly a crown corporation) has Wi-Fi in the Quebec City - Windsor Corridor. It works great. I don't think it's a matter of public/private so much as organizational will. See:
http://www.viarail.ca/wirelessinternet/en_index.html
On a completely unrelated note, I can't imagine using a laptop on bus for anything serious without getting sick.
Amtrak subsidies represent a huge wealth transfer from the lower-income majority to a higher-income minority. That's a "progressive" value, is it?
I can't find the final number, but the federal outlay for Amtrak in '06 was between $1.2 and $1.5 billion. That's a 'huge wealth transfer'? Do you know what a true wealth transfer is? Not that. Assuming the 75% number above is both nominally and contextually correct, even the remaining 25% of the budget for highways is a geometrically larger number than the Amtrak subsidy. Nice to see that you care so much about the lower-income majority Mixner. How about looking at some *real* massive wealth transfers? Oh, I forgot, it's not about the size of the number, it's about principle, isn't it?
bwa ha ha ha.
"The Age of Rail ended in the early 20th century." For passengers maybe. For freight no way. Rail freight is booming. The natural effiencies of rail in the freight area are well documented.
"The point is that roads and highways are essentially used by everyone and paid for by everyone. "
That´s not the point. The problem is that since these subsidies forces people that don´t drive to pay everyone is *forced* to drive. One of the reasons that many illegal aliens era leaving the US is because since they can´t renew their drivers licenses they don´t drive. And if they don´t drive they have zero mobility, specially in Florida.
And these 75% accounts only the Interstate Highways. If you account the money spent by cities and states the percentage is lower.
Sure, Amtrak is a lousy idea, but it´s result from the fact that subsidies to highways and airports forces the entire transportation system to be subsidized. There are others problems as well. For example, truck interests avoid the use of railways for express cargo in the same structure used for rail passengers.
I would like to chime in as a railroad supporter.
I traveled quite a bit by train, with 90% of my experience in Europe. I observed that reasonably fast trains in Germany share tracks with freight trains. Germans have huge prejudice against trucks on their beloved autobahns, and you can send goods by train there so they go as fast as if they were send by trucks. Taking 50% of trucks off route 95 would be a very worthy idea, and a tiny portion of the capacity of the tracks that would serve that purpose could support trains with 25 dollar tickets between DC and NY.
Similar "rapid freight lines" could be economical in many transit corridors, including Philadelphia - Pittsburgh - Cleveland - Detroit (side branch) -Chicago, Chicago - St Louis - Memphis - New Orleans etc.
Mixner loves to pile upon passenger rail, but in the age of 120 $/bbl oil, electric trains should be more competitive than before. Just build some nuclear plant to make them "carbon neutral". More importantly, sending truck trailers by electric train would conserve a lot of diesel fuel, currently more than 4 $/gal, and a lot of highway wear and tear.
Rather than thinking about economics of rail versus plane for passenger travel now, we have to think: how to make it possible, 20 years from not, to use only half of the oil we use now, and 40 years from now, only a quarter? Because CHEAP oil will be gone. We are bidding for oil together with customers who enjoy big surpluss in their exports of manufacturing goods, so it will be expensive for us. In the same time, the preposition to invest huge amounts into development of new fields is increasingly less attractive. For starters, most countries that CAN do it already have a problem of "sterilizing" the revenue. They have less problem if they delay the production -- and if the revenue rises as a result, well, this is a win-win.
Why don't we have good buses in cities where train travel is a total joke?
I think a service like this would be very competitive in Texas, for example. We have Greyhound, but they're kind of a pain in the ass, have no amenities, and frankly are overpriced.
I'd like to see a BoltBus or something like it on the Houston-DFW, Houston-Austin, and Houston-San Antonio routes.
butter,
I can't find the final number, but the federal outlay for Amtrak in '06 was between $1.2 and $1.5 billion. That's a 'huge wealth transfer'?
Yes, of course it is. A huge number of people who rarely or never use Amtrak massively subsidize the small number who do. And as I said, Amtrak riders tend to be higher income, so it's not only a wealth transfer from the many to the few, but a wealth transfer from poorer to richer. Amtrak's own reports state that revenues cover only two-thirds of even just its operating costs, let alone its total costs.
Assuming the 75% number above is both nominally and contextually correct, even the remaining 25% of the budget for highways is a geometrically larger number than the Amtrak subsidy.
Irrelevant, since the number of users of highways is also geometrically larger. Even people who don't drive obviously benefit from roads and highways through bus services, taxis, road freight, etc. As I said, roads and highways are essentially used by everyone and paid for by everyone. Intercity passenger rail is not. Amtrak is used by only a small minority of the population. And since the vast majority of road and highway funding is effectively a form of user fee (gasoline taxes, vehicle taxes, tolls, etc.) the amount people pay for roads and highways is broadly commensurate with the amount of benefit they derive from it. That is obviously not true for Amtrak.
Jim D,
To reiterate, Boltbus IS Greyhound. If they make money on the NE corridor routes, I wouldn't be surprised if Greyhound expands it to other routes.
As for Texas, it would be funny if Boltbus copied Southwest Airlines original business plan-- Houston to Dallas to San Antonio to Houston in the shape of a nice triangle ((4 to 5 hour drive for the 200 to 250 miles per leg).
http://digitalroam.typepad.com/digital_roam/2008/04/southwest-airli.html
Southwest charges $120 walk up, $60 advance for the 1 hour flight per leg.
Mixner loves to pile upon passenger rail, but in the age of 120 $/bbl oil, electric trains should be more competitive than before.
Highly dubious. First, most electricity in the U.S. is generated from oil and other fossil fuels, so higher oil prices will also increase the costs of train travel. And second, there are all sorts of initiatives and technologies to improve the fuel efficiency of cars and buses: hybrid, plug-in hybrid, diesel, ethanol, flex-fuel, fuel cell, and so on. These and other technologies can cut the fuel costs of motor vehicles by 50% or more. Even if the current trend of rising oil prices marginally increases the competitiveness of rail in the short term, rail is so uncompetitive compared to buses (check out the fares for the BoltBus vs. Amtrak that beowulf posted above) that it would be unlikely to have much effect. And over the long term (10, 20, 30 years hence) we can reasonably expect motor vehicle fuel efficiency to increase dramatically.
Mixner has a huge bug up his ass about rail.
rail is so uncompetitive compared to buses
High speed rail is reasonable for trips of 450-500 miles. Airplanes have delays and airports distant from the city center, and buses are constrained by highway speed limits and traffic congestion. You consistently have a blindspot when it comes to these issues.
jb: $1.2 and $1.5 billion. That's a 'huge wealth transfer'?
Mixner: Yes, of course it is. A huge number of people who rarely or never use Amtrak massively subsidize the small number who do.
$1.5 billion per year is about $5 per American per year. Of course rich people pay more taxes and poor people pay less, so rich people pay more than $5...but they supposedly use Amtrak more. Or something. Look, Amtrak is clearly a kludge, but the idea that it's a 'massive wealth transfer' is ridiculous, particularly in light of all the real massive wealth transfers (transfers UP) we have these days. Pick a Pentagon program at random and your odds of its being one are good. It could only concievably be called a large transfer if you're thinking in relative terms. But why would you do that when the absolute amount is so small?
As I said, roads and highways are essentially used by everyone and paid for by everyone. Intercity passenger rail is not.
Roads are relied on by everyone because there is no choice but to. Everyone pays for and relies on roads because they have to.
there are all sorts of initiatives and technologies to improve the fuel efficiency of cars and buses: hybrid, plug-in hybrid, diesel, ethanol, flex-fuel, fuel cell, and so on. These and other technologies can cut the fuel costs of motor vehicles by 50% or more.
Of course trains will be untouched by any of these efficiencies, right? Of course! Trains suck!
butter,
$1.5 billion per year is about $5 per American per year.
This is supposed to be a defense of the subsidy? How about we give $1.5 billion a year from the general fund to Bill Gates? After all, it's only $5 per year per American. If massive wealth transfers from poorer to richer are to be justified on the grounds that the burden on each poor individual is small, then Amtrak is just the tip of the iceberg.
Of course rich people pay more taxes and poor people pay less, so rich people pay more than $5...but they supposedly use Amtrak more.
The point is that despite paying more, Amtrak users, who tend to be wealthier, are still massively subsidized by people who rarely or never use the system, and who tend to be poorer. Why, exactly, should average Americans living in Flyoverland pay billions of dollars to subsidize Acela tickets for people like Matthew Yglesias?
Roads are relied on by everyone because there is no choice but to.
Another nonsequitur. People have "no choice" but to rely on roads because roads are absolutely necessary to the functioning of any modern industrialized nation. You're not saying anything meaningful here. The point, which you are consistently missing, is that the nation's road and highway system is fundamentally democratic and egalitarian. Everyone uses it, everyone pays for it, and the amount each person pays is more-or-less commensurate with the benefit they get. Passenger rail, in contrast, is funded by everyone but used by few. And the few who use it tend to be wealthier than the many who do not. That's why Amtrak subsidizies are so obscene.
Of course trains will be untouched by any of these efficiencies, right?
If you think there are burgeoning technologies to increase the efficiency of passenger rail to be remotely cost-competitive with efficiency increases in motor vehicles (and airplanes), please describe them.
High speed rail is reasonable for trips of 450-500 miles.
The sweet spot for high-speed rail is generally considered to be distances under 400 miles. Beyond that, air travel tends to be faster, even with airport connection and check-in/security delays. And even in its sweet spot, high-speed rail requires massive subsidizes just to be barely competitive. New York-Washington is probably the single most conducive route to high-speed rail in the entire country, and as the Boltbus demonstrates, it is barely competitive even in that market.
And air travel promises to become a whole lot more competitive in the near future. If you haven't already, you should read James Fallows' Atlantic piece about DayJet.
Comments closed May 10, 2008.
| 
Heads in the Sand
Could never have imagined that cheap inter-city buses would generate such buzz. I've seen articles in the NY Times, the Boston Globe, and WaPo recently. Go yuppie buses, go!
Posted by Ilya Gerner | April 26, 2008 2:01 PM