Paul Weinstein and Bruce Reed explain how new investments in high-speed rail could alleviate America's perpetual air travel issues.
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Trains: Not in Vain
27 May 2008 03:36 pm
Comments (13)
From a political perspective, the fact that lots of people along potential corridors are losing airline service at their local airports can't be hurting the prospects of high speed rail.
freddiemac,
I am aware of some such studies done in the 1990s, but they were based in part on assumptions about fuel prices and airline capacity increases which have proven inaccurate, along with explicitly holding aside some environmental concerns that have since become more prevalent. For example, see here:
http://www.fra.dot.gov/Downloads/RRDev/cfs0997all2.pdf
More recent studies using the same methodology but updated facts and including the environmental issues have shown greater advantages to high speed rail. See, for example, here:
http://www.dot.wisconsin.gov/projects/state/docs/mwrri-economic.pdf
James Howard Kunstler has been sounding the call for just such a plan, and for just the reasons cited, for years. It's good to see that the policy eggheads are finally proposing some common sense solutions to critical problems.
They said they love rails, and that's a fact...
Its inevitable, isn't it?
You hear a lot of talk about telecommuting, virtual meetings, and so forth. And that's great, but folks still need to travel in order to conduct business a lot of the time. Businesses aren't going to like paying the taxes, but they aren't going to like shipping their coach-class middle managers and technical people all over hell and creation at premium prices either.
Frankly, even without an energy crisis its an idea who's time has come. Air travel sucked even when it was affordable and more dignified. Factor in the end of cheap gas and its a no brainer. I'm not driving to California to see Aunt Suzy in a grease-powered golf cart.
DTM,
Yawn. We've been over the Federal Railroad Administration's study before. Even that study concluded that on only four national routes would the benefits of building high speed rail systems outweigh the costs. And given the history of rail project cost overruns in the United States, even that modest conclusion is highly optimistic. Actual costs of rail projects almost always exceed estimates, and actual ridership of rail systems is usually less than projected ridership. The study also makes no serious effort to compare the cost-effectiveness of high-speed rail with alternative options, such as greater investment in air travel infrastructure.
As for the Weinstein and Reed piece, it is just more of the usual vacuous cheerleading that we see from rail fanboys, devoid of any serious analysis.
would the benefits of building high speed rail systems outweigh the costs
DTM is pointing out exactly why the first referred study was to be taken with a large grain of salt. A study from the 90s might have well have taken place in 1956, or in a comic book for that matter, for all the good it does. The equation changed when the value of a key variable changed. Gas is expensive and only going to become more so. There really isn't a viable substitute if demand remains as high as it is.
I don't think the point here is that building high speed rail is cheap or intended as a way to somehow generate income. The point is that air travel, and to a lesser degree automotive travel, is about to get very, very expensive which is likely to have an economic impact far beyond the cost of building high speed rail.
Don't underestimate the level of anti high-speed rail lobbying already being done by the airline industry and the various political and business interests attached to national and state highway construction. There has been fair amount of high speed rail interest in various states since the 1990s but it could never muster enough support to overcome the business interests aligned against it. Maybe that worm has finally turned, but the forces working against it have had plenty of practice, and they really aren't interested in whether or not its good or smart policy.
Just so people know, that 1997 study was quite upfront about its assumptions and limitations. For example, here is one key passage:
"[R]eal fuel prices were assumed to remain constant through 2040, although the Department of Energy recently predicted increases in energy fuel prices due to shrinking resources, capital investments in more efficient technology, and more stringent environmental regulations. Any assumed increases in energy prices would have favorably affected the projections for HSGT, both by raising the fare levels of competing, energy intensive modes and by giving most HSGT options a relative advantage in unit operating expenses for energy."
For a chart of real gasoline prices up to 2008, see here:
http://inflationdata.com/inflation/images/charts/Oil/Gasoline_inflation_chart.htm
The upshot is that rather than fuel prices remaining constant, as the study assumed, they have more than doubled since 1997 in real terms.
Condor,
I think that is right, but I also think things have really turned for the airlines in particular politically. Basically, they can't cut the routes serving Representative X's district and expect to have a lot of political clout with Representative X.
I'm sure that the airlines will lobby against high speed rail, but they are broker and politically weaker than they used to be.
I've taken the train from Paris to Grenoble, Frankfurt to Cologne, Paris to Brussels. You go about 180 miles in an hour, city center to city center. It's so much better than air travel. People in this country are used to crappy Amtrak service on bumpy tracks where the freight trains have priority and already-slow trains are an hour late. Only the Northeast Corridor has tolerable service, and even there the trains are slow by European or Japanese standards.
It will cost billions to build high-speed rail. We should spend the money, because it will pay off in the short term in jobs and in the long term in energy savings and economic growth.
Never one to pass up a Clash reference, are you Matt?
Comments closed June 10, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
There are many good reasons for America to invest in some high speed transit corridors. We've discussed the pros and cons to death here on this blog. I wonder if there has been any systematic feasability study that weighs a lot of the pros and cons bandied about.
Now is a good time to jump on the high speed rail horse, with all the airline mergers and bankruptcies floating around.
Posted by freddiemac | May 27, 2008 4:00 PM