By Request: Amtrak Outside the Northeast

Brian Ulrich asks: "In moving from Illinois/Wisconsin to New York, I'm noticing that Amtrak has much more service on the east coast than on the midwest. Why is this, and what, if anything, can be done to get our national rail service serving such potentially useful routes as Chicago/St. Louis or Indianapolis/Kansas City?"

Several interrelated causes. The primary underlying issue is that in places where Amtrak depends on using rail lines that are owned by freight rail companies, it's difficult / impossible to provide frequent, reliable service. Also, clearly, in a place where the right-of-way is owned by a freight company, you're not going to build track optimized to the needs of high-speed passenger rail so you can't provide the speed of the Acela in the Northeast.

On top of this, the DC-to-Boston Acela corridor is the most densely populated part of the country, which makes it ideal for rail service, and also includes many walkable cities with transit infrastructure and substantial commuter rail networks. Transportation is always a network phenomenon -- part of what makes taking the train from DC to New York appealing is that when you arrive car-less in New York, that's fine. Indeed, driving from DC to New York would becomes an expensive/annoying proposition when you consider the difficulty/expense of parking in New York and a car's limited utility in terms of getting around. Even if you live in the suburbs, it makes sense to take Metro to union station and take the train up to NYC rather than driving. But if you took the train from Tucson to Phoenix you'd probably wind up needing to rent a car anyway, so why not just drive?

So in terms of what can be done, it's more a question of a thousand cuts than a single broad stroke. Every time any city anywhere does anything to make itself less auto-dependent, it's a step in the right direction. And then it's just a question of deciding that this is important to us. Building new high-speed rail lines is expensive. But it's not as if building new airport terminals or new freeways is cheap, either. Giving passenger rail more priority over freight rail would be a good idea since timeliness is more important to passengers than it is to giant boxes. But ultimately if we want to move more stuff by rail, we need to build more -- and more modern -- track.

Comments

But if you took the train from Tucson to Phoenix you'd probably wind up needing to rent a car anyway, so why not just drive?

The above reminds me of people using statistics to say it's safer to travel by air than car. At either end of the plane trip you have to use a car within a city. If you die in an accident it would not be recorded as an airline accident. It would seem the car accident rate would go down if only the open road is considered.

Posted by CarlP | June 14, 2008 1:20 PM

I posted in one of the request thread a comment about the thousands and thousands of miles of disused trackage and rights-of-way in this country (even in relatively "newer" areas outside the east coast), and whether there had ever been serious pushes to put any of that trackage to more productive use than hiking trails.

We probably do need more track, and we probably need more modern track, but I think this may actually be less of a problem than we might expect.

Posted by Kevin | June 14, 2008 1:22 PM

Also, even in the northeast, Amtrak sucks. It's not even as fast as, for example, the Chinatown bus, and costs more than buslines as well.

People in the midwest just flat out don't want Amtrak. The right solution for public transit is subsidizing private buslines like the aforementioned Chinatown buses. The infrastructure is already there and designed for the purpose.

Posted by vg | June 14, 2008 1:24 PM

Um, cities like Chicago DO have decent public transit systems, plenty of walkable areas, and so on. Frankly, it is really odd that Matt was supposed to be addressing Chicago et al, but ended up talking about Phoenix.

And incidentally, at least for true high speed rail, the more uniform high density in the Northeast Corridor is NOT ideal. What is ideal is dense cities the right distance apart separated by low-density areas (e.g., farms), since that minimizes the costs of acquiring the necessary rights of way. And that is the factor basically holding the Northeast Corridor back from having true high speed rail, whereas it really would be nearly ideal conditions around Chicago.

Posted by DTM | June 14, 2008 1:28 PM

Another point is that DC-Boston is really DC-Philly-NY-Boston (plus others) so it supports a lot of shorter trips, which these midwestern routes would not. The route with the second-largest usage is San Diego/Los Angeles (about 120 miles), which is comparable to these subsections of DC-Boston, and so can serve as a kind of extended commuter rail. That track is owned by the passenger systems (LA and SD transit, not Amtrak) but used by freight as well--and certainly is not built for high speed. (Some of it is single track only). The two ends actually do connect with such public transit as there is, though (better in LA).

Outside these two corridors it is pretty difficult to see enough density for interurban rail to make much sense.

Posted by DCA | June 14, 2008 1:32 PM

"Outside these two corridors it is pretty difficult to see enough density for interurban rail to make much sense."

Why, we're doing it right here in New Mexico.

Posted by gcochran | June 14, 2008 1:42 PM

Well, from someone interested in trains for everyone (like Matt seems to be), you'd expect talk about the advantages of rail in the West (which makes a lot of sense, I think) rather than in the Midwest (where I'd say it makes a lot less). Hence the drift to Phoenix, Tucson, et al. in answering a question about the upper midwest...

Posted by vg | June 14, 2008 1:49 PM

These kinds of discussions illustrate the worst part about Amtrak's enormous subsidies: we don't have any idea what routes are actually economical.

Sure, we can make educated guesses, based on density, connecting light rail networks, etc. But fundamentally, we have no idea, because Amtrak's rail lines are driven more by clumsy political considerations than by the market.

Posted by Matt Rognlie | June 14, 2008 2:14 PM

Sadly, there is currently no passenger rail service from Phoenix to Tucson. In fact, I don't believe there is any passenger rail service from Phoenix to anywhere. Freight service, yes. But the only passengers are those who hitch rides on the boxcars.

Posted by Brook | June 14, 2008 2:20 PM

Also, even in the northeast, Amtrak sucks. It's not even as fast as, for example, the Chinatown bus, and costs more than buslines as well.

This is nonsense. From Philly to DC, the train takes about one hour, fifty-five minutes. The Chinatown bus takes at least 2 and a half hours, and at rush hour it takes over three hours. It certainly does cost more, but it has a lot more amenities, and such. I'm poor, so I usually end up taking the bus, but I have no idea where one would come to the idea that the bus is faster from. Maybe from New York to Boston, where there's a lot of stops on the train (fucking Old Saybrook. What's the point of that?)

Sadly, there is currently no passenger rail service from Phoenix to Tucson. In fact, I don't believe there is any passenger rail service from Phoenix to anywhere.

According to Amtrak, you can take a bus to Flagstaff and take the train from there. Weird.

Posted by John | June 14, 2008 2:32 PM

I doubt the businesses who depend on freight rail shipping would agree with you that timeliness isn't all that important to them, particularly given modern reliance on just-in-time retail practices. I think this issue is potentially more complicated than you're saying (and I'm a big rail fan). We definitely don't want to encourage those businesses to start using rail less and trucks more, which they might do if they had to start worrying about the timeliness of rail shipping.

Posted by beckya57 | June 14, 2008 2:32 PM

I doubt the businesses who depend on freight rail shipping would agree with you that timeliness isn't all that important to them, particularly given modern reliance on just-in-time retail practices. I think this issue is potentially more complicated than you're saying (and I'm a big rail fan). We definitely don't want to encourage those businesses to start using rail less and trucks more, which they might do if they had to start worrying about the timeliness of rail shipping.

Posted by beckya57 | June 14, 2008 2:35 PM

"You'd expect talk about the advantages of rail in the West (which makes a lot of sense, I think) rather than in the Midwest (where I'd say it makes a lot less)."

This is the opposite of the case. With the possible exceptions of LA-SF and maybe Portland-Seattle-Vancouver, the West generally lacks good intercity route possibilities ... the distances between major cities are just too long, and so rail won't be able to compete effectively with airplanes. In the Midwest, however, there are many decent-sized cities within about the right distance of each other for intercity rail to compete effectively with both cars and airplanes.

Posted by DTM | June 14, 2008 2:44 PM

John --

Yes, I was talking about New York-Boston mainly. Even if it isn't uniformly faster over the mid-Atlantic/New England region, we seem to agree that the Chinatown buses provide a better value than Amtrak.

Posted by vg | June 14, 2008 2:56 PM

"Another point is that DC-Boston is really DC-Philly-NY-Boston (plus others) so it supports a lot of shorter trips, which these midwestern routes would not."

I'd suggest taking another look the Midwest. Viable routes for high speed rail are in about the 100-600 mile range (below that it is tough to compete with cars, and above that is tough to compete with airplanes).

So, starting in Chicago, start looking for decent-sized cities within 100-600 miles, and connecting those cities to other such cities. Doing that you can find a lot of good multi-city routes--Chicago/Milwaukee/Minneapolis, Chicago-St Louis-Kansas City, Chicago-Indianapolis-Cincinnati, Chicago-Toledo(for Detroit)-Cleveland-Pittsburgh, and so on.

Posted by DTM | June 14, 2008 2:56 PM

The bus is also clearly not faster than Amtrak between NY and Philly, either- the train is about 1.5 hrs. If there is _no_ delay anywhere for traffic or tolls the bus is about 1.75 hr and that's rare. 2 or 2.5 hrs, sometimes 3, are more common. So what John meant to say is that the bus is faster than one bit of the train, in the section where the freeway has a better route than the train.

Posted by Matt (not the famous one) | June 14, 2008 3:23 PM

there are only two profitable Amtrak routes:

the Northeast Corridor.
Milwaukee-Chicago.

Milwaukee-Chicago works because it's essentially commuter light rail. Milwaukee is Chicago's largest suburb and people really do take that train daily for work. plus they don't need to drive in downtown Chicago.

But that's a pretty unique case. overall, the U.S. is simply too spread out and the number of cities where you can get around without a car is limited to:

New York, SF, Chicago, Portland. with Philly, D.C. and Seattle being "sort-of's"

Posted by Nathan | June 14, 2008 3:27 PM

The Portland-Seattle-Vancouver train is pretty cool. It's not too much slower than driving (especially when you consider you can't read/watch a movie/get work done while driving), offers pretty nice views of the countryside and water, and is pretty affordable for day trips.

Posted by ben | June 14, 2008 3:41 PM

Name the cities where you would like to NOT have a car downtwon?

New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, Chicago, San Francisco?

Did I miss any?

Now, going from Chicago to Indy, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Detroit, etc. are you going to need a car?

There has to be a downtown with mass transit for a long distance train to be worthwhile.

The only cities that make sense in this country are in the northeast.

I would love to see a high speed rail line connecting the big cities north east of St. Louis but it ain't gonna happen any time soon.

Posted by neil wilson | June 14, 2008 3:43 PM

The reason Amtrak is so skewed is that the Chairman of the Congressional enabling committee in 1972, Carl whose last name escapes me, lived in West Virginia. Thus the first Amtrak line was from Washington, D.C., to Bees Knees or Hog Hollow or wherever it was he was from. Ridiculous.

Posted by DavidLJ | June 14, 2008 3:47 PM

Almost no one takes the train daily from Milwaukee to Chicago. You get Chicago commuter rail near Racine which is cheaper to live in than Milwaukee anyway.

Posted by Rob | June 14, 2008 4:00 PM

The comparison to make is with Europe, where rail has increased its presence over the past years (think the Chunnel, which is real competition for London-Paris flights).

But there are two concommitants, aside from the basic density/local network issues.

1. Competitive rail, even given good conditions, can't run on 19th-century routes very effectively. Someone mentioned Old Saybrook...talk about a disaster for rail service! NYC-Washington has pretty good routes, because the geology is easy (no mountains), and because the railways were powerful in the late 19th century there, and bought up good routes. But mostly, effective intercity rail, nowadays, requires new roadbed.

2. This, in turn, requires a HUGE investment, and the Europeans have been investing HUGELY for decades. As long as Congress insists on a 'market' model for Amtrak, with subsidies only for operations (which are substantially wasted on subsidizing the thin service outside the Northeast Corridor), there is no chance of effective rail in the US.

Effective rail requires larger subsidies, just as airlines do (airports, air-traffic control, etc.) But there is not a passenger rail lobby, like the trucking or airline lobbies, so it's not likely.

California has been toying for a while for a new high-speed line from San Diego to LA to the San Francisco bay. The distances and populations might work, but the geology is tough, and American property litigiousness, on top of the other challenges, will probably block it from ever happening.

In short, we're probably better off investing in improved commuter rail in most cities as a way to cut energy use/carbon footprints, no matter how attractive rail is in principle. The local conditions don't look good.

Posted by Pquincy | June 14, 2008 4:17 PM

Rail is something that needs to be subsidized just like all other types of transportation. Wasn't that the reason that all the rail companies were given such huge amounts of land in the west?

Posted by ligedog | June 14, 2008 4:51 PM

There is a train from Chicago to St. Louis. We take it regularly to visit my in-laws who live in St. Louis. It works as an alternative to driving for us because we don't need a car once we are there -- we just use one of theirs. But what it can be, for anyone, is an alternative to *flying.* It's cheaper, not all that much more time consuming when you factor in all the extra time you spend in the airport, and much more relaxing (especially with kids). High speed rail between midwest cities should likewise be seen as an alternative to flying, not driving.

Posted by CS | June 14, 2008 4:53 PM

There is a train from Chicago to St. Louis. We take it regularly to visit my in-laws who live in St. Louis. It works as an alternative to driving for us because we don't need a car once we are there -- we just use one of theirs. But what it can be, for anyone, is an alternative to *flying.* It's cheaper, not all that much more time consuming when you factor in all the extra time you spend in the airport, and much more relaxing (especially with kids). High speed rail between midwest cities should likewise be seen as an alternative to flying, not driving.

Posted by CS | June 14, 2008 4:55 PM

I think the "Carl" is probably Carl Vinson, from Bugtussle, OK, or some such place.

Re Chicago to STL and return, used to ride that twice a month until about a year ago, when I retired. As CS said, it's still quite serviceable. My impression is quite pleasant, but could use some modernization. And the whole organization could really use a service attitude.

Posted by davemaz | June 14, 2008 4:58 PM

Can someone tell me why you can't take a train from Los Angeles to Las Vegas?

Wouldn't that be one of the most traveled trains in the country?

Wouldn't it hugely benefit the casinos, and wouldn't you think they'd be happy to help finance it?

Someone wise explain this.

Posted by Bubblegoose | June 14, 2008 5:13 PM

I now see the CHI-STL route, so I withdraw that critique. I also agree with those who say that rail is primarily linked with flying - Amtrak seems to realize this, too, as they talk about having leg room on their promotional materials.

Amtrak can also serve as a good complement to air travel. I started becoming a regular Amtrak passenger when I realized that it was cheaper if more time-consuming to take a train from downstate Illinois to Chicago to catch flights rather than drive to the nearest regional airport - often St. Louis, in practice, and pay for parking for weeks. This makes me think an enterprising airline could find a way to hook up something like a codeshare with Amtrak and ditch their runs to smaller cities like Springfield, Peoria, or whatever.

Posted by Brian Ulrich | June 14, 2008 5:26 PM

Bubblegoose:
Probably 'cuz it would cost on the order of 20 billion dollars. (Wikipedia lists *light* rail as costing 10-100 million per mile. Los Vegas/LA is around 300 miles and goes through some rugged terrain.) Or maybe they've all looked at the data on the Colorado River and know the game is up in a decade or two.

Posted by Curly | June 14, 2008 6:02 PM

Once or twice a year I need to go from KC to Chicago for work. I can leave my house in KC and, if all goes well, be checking-in at my hotel in three hours. (Although last year it took nine hours). And even today KC-Chicago fares run about $160.00.

The train, I've been told by two separate people, from Chicago to KC is full of drunks partying their way to Las Vegas.

Posted by Another Mike | June 14, 2008 6:07 PM

2. This, in turn, requires a HUGE investment, and the Europeans have been investing HUGELY for decades. As long as Congress insists on a 'market' model for Amtrak, with subsidies only for operations (which are substantially wasted on subsidizing the thin service outside the Northeast Corridor), there is no chance of effective rail in the US.

According to the data cited by Matt Rognlie, congress already subsidizes intercity passenger rail at a rate on the order of 150 times more per passenger-mile than it subsidizes road travel. And yet, even at that enormous level of subsidy, Amtrak struggles to attract just a small fraction of intercity travelers. Domestic airlines carry about 28 times as many passengers as Amtrak, and even intercity buses carry about 15 times as many passengers as Amtrak. Just how much insanely higher do you want the subsidies to go?

Effective rail requires larger subsidies, just as airlines do (airports, air-traffic control, etc.) But there is not a passenger rail lobby, like the trucking or airline lobbies, so it's not likely.

Air travel infrastructure, like road travel infrastructure, is mainly funded by taxes and fees imposed on users of those systems. The Aviation Trust Fund, which pays for air infrastructure, is funded by taxes and fees on passenger tickets, jet fuel taxes, airfreight waybill taxes, and registration fees for aircraft.

In short, we're probably better off investing in improved commuter rail in most cities as a way to cut energy use/carbon footprints, no matter how attractive rail is in principle. The local conditions don't look good.

Investing in commuter rail would produce little or no benefits in energy efficiency or reduced carbon emissions.

Posted by Mixner | June 14, 2008 6:36 PM

Whoever mentioned LA-to-Vegas: it's true, that route goes through some very rough terrain. Rail would be difficult, to say the least. The other thing is, it still wouldn't compete, price-wise, with the $49 Southwest flight that gets you from LA to Vegas in an hour. Basically, the volume of people travelling from LA to Vegas is so huge that it's going to be a reasonably cheap airline flight even as flights get more expensive.

I've always liked to drive it, but the traffic just gets worse every year.

Posted by too many steves | June 14, 2008 6:46 PM

Something important no one seems to have mentioned:

The Northeast Corridor, from Washington DC to Boston, is almost all *owned* by Amtrak. This gives Amtrak control over this track that it does not, in general, have anywhere else.

Elsewhere, Amtrak trains do not have priority (unless they run on time).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_Corridor

Posted by enplaned | June 14, 2008 7:39 PM

People in the midwest just flat out don't want Amtrak.

Yes, they do. At least they want it enough to support their Congressmen sending mass amounts of subsidies to keep Amtrak going in those areas.

Posted by Tyro | June 14, 2008 7:50 PM

I've heard some ridiculously high costs per mile cited for light rail. I would be interested to see the breakdown on those costs. How much of this is due to NIMBYism, "environmental impact statements," local government corruption, and other miscellaneous waste? In other words, if we actually got serious about light rail as a national priority, how much would it cost per mile then?

Posted by Josh G. | June 14, 2008 9:25 PM

I live on the outskirts of Phoenix and I just went downtown for the first time in 2 years. I remember why I don't go more; parking costs $10 and driving around down there is a big pain.

I won't even consider a job downtown because of the traffic.

There are all sorts of interesting things to do downtown, but I just don't bother because of the traffic, parking and hassle. I think if there were a train to ride, it would be like opening up a whole new world.

Posted by aatos | June 14, 2008 9:31 PM

I live on the outskirts of Phoenix and I just went downtown for the first time in 2 years. I remember why I don't go more; parking costs $10 and driving around down there is a big pain.

I won't even consider a job downtown because of the traffic.

There are all sorts of interesting things to do downtown, but I just don't bother because of the traffic, parking and hassle. I think if there were a train to ride, it would be like opening up a whole new world.

Posted by aatos | June 14, 2008 9:33 PM

Yep, the primary goal of a high speed rail network around Chicago would be to substitute for regional jets in that area, which are the least efficient mode of air travel. That would also reduce congestion at O'Hare, which in turn would benefit the entire air system in the United States.

Incidentally, it turns out that airlines are ditching some of their regional service anyway, largely because high fuel prices are making them economically unviable. I personally think that is going to help create a federal lobby for high speed rail--a lot of congressional districts have been losing decent access to the air system, and a regional stop on a high speed line within reasonable driving distance (you can't stop in every town and have it be high speed) may be the only viable intercity substitute for such districts.

Posted by DTM | June 14, 2008 9:43 PM

"Sure, we can make educated guesses, based on density, connecting light rail networks, etc. But fundamentally, we have no idea, because Amtrak's rail lines are driven more by clumsy political considerations than by the market."

Good point. Practically every federal discretionary spending program is riddled with pork, earmarks, and successful rent seeking by campaign contributors. The chances that such a process will produce rational energy policies are not high. It's another good reason for a carbon tax.

Posted by kafka | June 14, 2008 9:51 PM

Nathan said, overall, the U.S. is simply too spread out and the number of cities where you can get around without a car is limited to:

New York, SF, Chicago, Portland. with Philly, D.C. and Seattle being "sort-of's"

Unfortunately, SF is also just "sort-of". You can get around a tiny radius of downtown OK without a car. And you can jump on BART and reach other Bay Area communities where your car is parked. But you can't go anywhere else, including most SF neighborhoods, without enduring endless and frustrating delays. It's really bad. At least, that was the situation when I still lived there less than a decade ago, and I'd be shocked if it has improved significantly.

Limiting factors: 1) Light rail runs on the streets and competes with street traffic and is held up every time someone decides to double park on the rails "just for a minute". 2) The buses never run on time, they're slow, and they're buses, they just ain't cool, and 3) You have to be in better athletic shape than most to get around SF's hills on a bike. The upside is that the guys who do bike SF look really good. :-)

I tried to live without a car in SF for two years before I gave up completely. It'll be hard to talk me back onto mass transit again, anywhere. And I'm an environmentalist. :-)

Posted by Rachel Q | June 14, 2008 10:07 PM

DTM,

Yep, the primary goal of a high speed rail network around Chicago would be to substitute for regional jets in that area, which are the least efficient mode of air travel. That would also reduce congestion at O'Hare, which in turn would benefit the entire air system in the United States.

There are other, and probably much cheaper, ways of reducing congestion at O'Hare than building a high-speed rail network.

Any subsidies for high-speed rail should be limited to the comparable passenger-mile subsidy for corresponding road and air links. The market will then decide if it makes economic sense. Don't hold your breath. Since the Acela service is barely competitive with road and air, on a more favorable route, and with huge capital and operating subsidies, the prospects for high-speed rail anywhere else in the country are effectively non-existent.

Posted by Mixner | June 14, 2008 10:11 PM

Las Vegas would be a nice rail hub for lots of Western cities. I'd go to Vegas more often if there were a train from Phoenix.

As far as right of ways and rugged terrain goes, they solved that problem 50 years ago building Interstate highways.

Posted by aatos | June 14, 2008 10:20 PM

Mixner,

You write: "There are other, and probably much cheaper, ways of reducing congestion at O'Hare than building a high-speed rail network."

Well then why don't you name them, then provide the cost-benefit comparison to high speed rail, and then explain why they haven't been done already.

You also write: "Any subsidies for high-speed rail should be limited to the comparable passenger-mile subsidy for corresponding road and air links."

No, any public subsidy should be determined by the relevant balance of externalities. And since there is no reason to assume each mode of transportation has the same balance of externalities per passenger mile on each possible route, there is no economic justification for insisting each mode of transportation should get the same subsidy.

Of course I realize I might as well be explaining this to a wall, since you don't understand the concept of an externality.

Posted by DTM | June 14, 2008 10:21 PM

Matt Rognlie said, "These kinds of discussions illustrate the worst part about Amtrak's enormous subsidies: we don't have any idea what routes are actually economical.
Sure, we can make educated guesses, based on density, connecting light rail networks, etc. But fundamentally, we have no idea, because Amtrak's rail lines are driven more by clumsy political considerations than by the market."

I think you could get a pretty good idea of where high-speed trains could compete using sophisticated logistical data. You'd need to know how many people travel the route now by car, plane and bus, and how long those methods take and how much they cost. If you can beat the time and cost for a significant number of travelers, then all you have is a marketing problem.

Posted by Rachel Q | June 14, 2008 10:29 PM

Rachel, did you really have that much trouble taking Muni? I know it's bad in the rougher parts of town, but from what I've found, in most residential and commercail areas the buses run every 5-15 minutes. I guess they're sort of uncool, but not to the extent that buses are uncool in L.A. In SF, lots of middle-class folks take the bus.

Posted by too many steves | June 14, 2008 10:34 PM

Rachel Q,

That is mostly correct, although there are a few complicating factors (e.g., people above are discussing the possible utility or disutility of having a car once you arrive at your destination, and there can also be differences in terms of safety, comfort, productivity during travel, and so on).

Holding all that aside, however, the big problem is figuring out what the cost should/will be. One of the issues is the appropriate magnitude of any public subsidies. Another issue is that with large fixed costs involved, the actual numbers of riders will determine the total required costs per rider. But since ridership will be a function of ticket prices and speed, which in turn are themselves a function of ridership and the amount of fixed costs respectively, you get a lot of feedback in the models, making them pretty sensitive to your predictive assumptions.

Posted by DTM | June 14, 2008 10:41 PM

DTM,

Well then why don't you name them, then provide the cost-benefit comparison to high speed rail,

More airports. Airport expansion. Air taxi services. Air congestion charges. Improved highways. Improved bus services. That's just off the top of my head.

As for cost-effectiveness, the fact that the nation's one existing high-speed rail link can barely compete as a transportation system even with huge subsidies makes the idea that high-speed rail could be justified as an anti-congestion mechanism utterly preposterous. The benefit, if any, from reduced congestion would be astronomically smaller than the cost of building and operating the system.

No, any public subsidy should be determined by the relevant balance of externalities. And since there is no reason to assume each mode of transportation has the same balance of externalities per passenger mile on each possible route, there is no economic justification for insisting each mode of transportation should get the same subsidy.

If you truly believe that subsidies should be based on externalities, then you should favor the immediate elimination of virtually all subsidies for intercity passenger rail in this country. Those subsidies are vastly greater than could be justified under any remotely plausible attribution of externalities. Do you?

If you think the passenger-mile subsidy for high-speed rail should be significantly different than the passenger-mile subsidy for road or air, on the grounds of differences in externalities between those transportation modes, what are those externality differences, and what is the magnitude of the difference?

Posted by Mixner | June 14, 2008 10:45 PM

Mixner,

First, thank you for confirming that when you say things like, "There are other, and probably much cheaper, ways of reducing congestion at O'Hare than building a high-speed rail network," you are relying solely on your imagination.

Second, you write: "Those subsidies are vastly greater than could be justified under any remotely plausible attribution of externalities."

I'll be happy to discuss externalities with you when you prove you understand the concept. So go ahead--prove it.

Posted by DTM | June 14, 2008 10:53 PM

DTM: Mixner, along with a few others, thinks fuel taxes pay for road use. So they ignore externalities, like it would cost more to add capacity to I95 than it costs to subsidize Amtrak in the Northeast Corridor, and ignore the subsidies to automobile use.

Posted by Adirondacker | June 14, 2008 11:06 PM

DTM,

First, thank you for confirming that when you say things like, "There are other, and probably much cheaper, ways of reducing congestion at O'Hare than building a high-speed rail network," you are relying solely on your imagination.

None of the anti-congestion measures I listed are imaginary. They're all things that really exist.

You didn't answer my question about current subsidies. If Matt Rognlie's data is correct (feel free to challenge it if you think it's wrong), we currently subsidize Amtrak passenger rail transportation by something like 150 times as much per passenger-mile as we subsidize road transportation.

In accordance with your stated principle that "any public subsidy should be determined by the relevant balance of externalities," if you think this astronomical disparity between rail and road subsidies is justified by differences in externalities, what are those differences?

And if you don't, why aren't you advocating a massive reduction in Amtrak subsidies?

Posted by Mixner | June 14, 2008 11:09 PM

Matt, I've been a train guy since, I'm guessing, your mother was born.

With all the talk about externalities and so forth, two things (if the trends continue) will lead to a slow but inexorable political slide from air to rail:

1) Cost: the costs imposed on air travelers by high fuel prices continue to go up. How long do you think Southwest can hold the line on that $49 fare from LA to Vegas? In fact, I just checked. Booking for 10 days out, 2 night stayover, the fare is $99-$149 each way. From Orange County the minimum is $123. Ontario or Burbank $97, but many fewer flights, and half the return flights are $110. And Southwest is the cheapest. Amtrak is expensive (the Acela is obscene) but the difference is narrowing.

2) Convenience. Say I want a morning flight from Providence to DC to visit my daughter in Arlington, VA. First of all, I need to go to BWI and take the train to DC from there (if I choose Southwest). I choose the 730 flight. I live about 25 minutes from Providence Airport, which is really easy to get to. Because of the (badly misnamed) transportation security administration, I need to leave my house **NO LATER THAN 5AM**. 430 if I wish to leave my car in the cheaper off-airport lot. Then I get to stand in line for an hour (a little less if I'm lucky, but this is a busy time of day)and wait in the departure lounge for an hour before I board. If the weather's OK at both ends. If not, I might spend multiple hours in the departure area, and then an hour or more on the tarmac. For all that time, and all the time in the air, I'm stuck in a seat narrower than what I had in 7th grade, unable to get up, walk around, use the bathroom... you know the drill. Also, I'm going to have to buy new deodorant, shampoo and toothpaste at the other end.
To take Amtrak, if there's a 730 train, I can leave the house as late as 7. There's no parking anywhere near the downtown station, so I know I am getting dropped off. I hang around the waiting room for a few minutes, board at 725, no waiting for runway congestion , and off we go. I get to take my toiletries, bottles of water, whatever, as well. At the end, I get off the train right across the street from the US Capitol.

As far as building infrastructure across difficult terrain: how does anyone think all that FREIGHT gets from Phoenix or Kansas City to LA or Vegas. There is a huge infrastructure of existing freight lines. Yes I understand that passengers and freight don't play well together on the same tracks, but the hard work is all done. The routes exist, and they are actually in very good shape. Many miles of parallel track needs to be laid, a lot of wiring and some new yards will be necessary, but nowhere does the work have to start from scratch.

Posted by efgoldman | June 14, 2008 11:19 PM

Mixner,

You're dodging my questions, which I think proves my point--you have no idea if there are viable alternatives to relieving congestion at O'Hare (and if so, why they haven't been used), and you have no clue what an externality is. So I'm not going to discuss externalities with you, since you lack a basic understanding of the concept.

By the way, this is one of the things I said about Amtrak subsidies in another thread: "Bush was right that Amtrak is currently wasting a lot of money. But that is precisely because it is directing funds to so many different states and districts in ways that really can't be justified."

Posted by DTM | June 14, 2008 11:27 PM

aatos, re: rugged terrain: Well, the cars and trucks on Route 15 can travel up and down 4 and 5 percent grades. Trains can't really do more than 1%, I think, and I'm not sure if speedy passenger rail can even do that. So having more than single track lines through the mountains gets expesnsive real fast, what with John Henry being dead.

[and now back to your regularly scheduled programming of Mixner vs. Everybody on the subject of Why Trains Suck]

Posted by Curly | June 14, 2008 11:28 PM

By the way, getting back to the nominal topic of this thread: the terrain in the Midwest is also nearly ideal for high speed trains (e.g., no mountains). So that is yet another reason to take this question seriously, which Matt unfortunately did not.

Posted by DTM | June 14, 2008 11:35 PM

efgoldman, if you want to fly from LA to Vegas for $49, you have to book way more than 10 days in advance. Everybody knows that.

Posted by too many steves | June 14, 2008 11:37 PM

DTM,

By the way, this is one of the things I said about Amtrak subsidies in another thread: "Bush was right that Amtrak is currently wasting a lot of money. But that is precisely because it is directing funds to so many different states and districts in ways that really can't be justified."

Sorry, you're still evading the question. You said "any public subsidy should be determined by the relevant balance of externalities."

If you think there's a difference in the "balance of externalities" between road and Amtrak that justifies a 150-times difference in public subsidies, what is that difference in the "balance of externalities?"

If you don't, why aren't you calling for a massive reduction in Amtrak subsidies?

Your quoted statement above suggests that you think the current Amtrak subsidies are not justified, but that they would be justified if Amtrak spent them in different "ways." What are those different "ways?"

Posted by Mixner | June 14, 2008 11:46 PM

efgoldman,

And as I noted above, I think discontinued service to many areas (call it an extreme variations on your cost and convenience themes) is going to play an important political role. And that is a more or less direct function of fuel prices.

Here, for example, is a representative recent article about flight cuts:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24963160/

A key passage:

"The largest airports may see only a small decline in flight options, but smaller cities such as Lancaster, Pa., and Ithaca, N.Y., already have lost all service. Experts say others in the East, Midwest and beyond are likely to see individual carriers depart or also lose service completely."

Posted by DTM | June 14, 2008 11:54 PM

Mixner,

I'll say this one more time, then stop responding to you entirely.

I'll discuss specific externality questions with you only if you can prove that you understand the concept of an externality. Unless you can do that, there is no point in my having further discussions with you on these topics.

Posted by DTM | June 14, 2008 11:59 PM

efgoldman,

Your argument makes no sense. Amtrak cannot compete with the airlines even now, with its huge subsidies. Domestic commercial flights carry about 28 times as many passengers as Amtrak. Just in order for Amtrak to achieve parity with the airlines in number-of-passengers, Congress would have to increase its subsidies by something like a factor of 28. The chances of that happening are negligible. Amtrak just barely escaped having its subsidies massively cut.

Posted by Mixner | June 14, 2008 11:59 PM

DTM,

Asking me to "prove" that I "understand" a "concept" is such a vague and stupid request it's not worth bothering with, so I ignored it.

You're just flailing around now, looking for excuses to avoid confronting the obvious conflict between your stated belief that "any public subsidy should be determined by the relevant balance of externalities" your refusal to condemn Amtrak's obscenely disproportionate public subsidies.

Posted by Mixner | June 15, 2008 12:10 AM

Road travel is too slow to provide any kind of substitute for flying at ranges of 450 miles. I'll entertain Mixner's claim that more roads and buses are the solution when buses travel at 150-200 mph. Until then, he's just wanking.

More air capacity would be nice, though. On the other hand, the US air industry is typically not that profitable. Or perhaps even not profitable at all, without the assurance of regular bailouts. In short, it' just another form of public infrastructure.

Posted by Tyro | June 15, 2008 1:09 AM

Asking me to "prove" that I "understand" a "concept" is such a vague and stupid request it's not worth bothering with, so I ignored it.

Don't you understand? Magic cars! Powered by farts! -- Silly glibertarian boy.

And once more, the silly glibertarian boy demands Himalayan standards of proof for things he personally dislikes, and Marianas Trench standards for his pet hobby-horses.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | June 15, 2008 1:12 AM

tooo many steves said, "Rachel, did you really have that much trouble taking Muni? I know it's bad in the rougher parts of town, but from what I've found, in most residential and commercail areas the buses run every 5-15 minutes."

If most bus routes are within 5-15 min of their scheduled times then things have improved, and that's great.

Yeah, I really had that much trouble. It depended on my level of need -- while I held one job and needed one train to get there and the job had a flexible starting time, Muni was fine. I paid off my credit cards while I didn't have a car. :-)

Problem was when I decided to move up in the world and started working jobs in the Mission and the Marina (coming in from the Sunset district). I needed to be on time to both jobs, and I couldn't do it on the Muni -- the time from home to either job was way too too long (and highly variable!), and I couldn't travel between jobs in any predictable amount of time. So I gave up and went with the car thing.

I miss SF and N Cal, even thinking about bad Muni service makes me think of what a nice city it is to look at from the train. :-)

Posted by Rachel Q | June 15, 2008 2:06 AM

Tyro,

I'm if wanking, you're suffering from dementia. First, I didn't propose more roads and buses as "the solution," but merely as one of several possible ways of reducing congestion that are likely to be much cheaper than building a high-speed rail network. In fact, I didn't say "more" at all. I said "improved."

And second, in case it has escaped your attention, many flights are less than 450 miles, and the markets for road and air travel obviously have considerable overlap. Cities within 450 miles of Chicago include Cleveland, St Louis, Louisville, Indianapolis, Columbus, Milwaukee, Des Moines and Detroit. And even for trips for which driving or taking the bus is considerably slower than flying, it is still often an attractive alternative for many people for reasons of cost.

Posted by Mixner | June 15, 2008 2:24 AM

Tyro,

More air capacity would be nice, though. On the other hand, the US air industry is typically not that profitable. Or perhaps even not profitable at all, without the assurance of regular bailouts.

Er, Southwest Airlines, the largest airline in the world by passenger volume, recently announced its 35th consecutive year of profitability.

The domestic U.S. air travel market is extremely competitive. Well-run airlines like Southwest and JetBlue thrive, while poorly-managed ones tend to fail. The cost of entry is low (planes can be leased), so there are lots of "upstarts," most of which end up failing, and lots of experimentation with different routes and market segments to see which ones are profitable. A bit like the software/dotcom industry. The large legacy carriers are handicapped by bloated cost-structures and need to adapt to the changing market if they are to survive.

Posted by Mixner | June 15, 2008 2:37 AM

Something on the old Floridian/Hummingbird route (Chicago-Louisville-Nashville-Jasksonville) would make the whole network more workable in the South.

Posted by aretino | June 15, 2008 3:59 AM

I wholeheartedly endorse an expansion of Amtrak, and I have a suggestion for the ideal route: Dallas - Austin. This is American Airlines highest-volume route and probably its least efficient. Planes are at their most fuel-intensive at take-off and landing, which is pretty much all this particular route is. (Mixner, the externality here is that lots of planes make lots of pollution and release tons of greenhouse gases.) The terrain between the two cities is as flat as anything outside the Mississippi delta and completely devoid of places anyone would want to stop. (There is Waco, but that illustrates my point.) Existing market, demonstrated by the heavy use of commuter airlines, and the easy terrain make this route a perfect experiment. We even have a powerful Senator, Kay Bailey Hutchinson, who enthusiastically backs Amtrak. So why can't we have a commuter rail route?

Posted by Karen | June 15, 2008 10:33 AM

Karen,

Yes, I know that air pollution is an externality. But the relative cost of that externality per passenger-mile of travel for planes vs. trains depends crucially on the load factor and the type of technology used. A train that is 90% full will emit far less CO2 per passenger-mile than a train that is only 10% full. A diesel train is likely to emit more CO2 per passenger-mile than an electric train. An electric train powered by electricity generated from nuclear or hydroelectric sources will emit less CO2 per passenger-mile than an electric train powered by electricity generated from coal. And so on. It's complicated.

If your proposed Dallas-Austin line has a low average load factor (like most Amtrak intercity services) and/or is powered by coal-generated electricity or diesel (like the vast majority of Amtrak locomotives) it may emit more CO2 per passenger-mile than the average plane flying the same route. Also, high-speed trains emit far more CO2 per passenger mile than conventional trains. The British government recently decided to retain the current top speed of its rail network (125mph) rather than upgrade to high-speed service (maximum speed 200mph) largely on environmental grounds, citing studies indicating that the upgrade would require a 90% increase in energy consumption per passenger-mile and an 80% increase in CO2 emissions.

By the way, as I mentioned in an earlier post, the evidence indicates that Amtrak is subsidized at a rate 150 times higher per passenger-mile than road transportation. I haven't seen the corresponding numbers for Amtrak vs. air travel, but there's no way that vast disparity in subsidies could possibly be justified on the grounds of differences in air pollution.

Posted by Mixner | June 15, 2008 11:17 AM

The simple fact is that we are in an energy revolution as significant as the development of intense carbon-using energy sources. The energy matrix of the future will undoubtedly be electric, but the closest we've seen to an electric airliner is the Maglev train, which more advanced societies than our own will undoubtedly implement on a grand scale, while our pinheads are arguing as though they were angels.

Mixner and his ilk make a very simple mistake. They don't understand that air travel worked when everything was given to the airlines by the government. Railroads had to build rail lines, build signal systems, build terminals, and develop with their own money all the advances in locomotives and rolling stock.

In contrast, the airlines were given the terminals, given the air traffic signaling and control systems, used airplanes developed first as warplanes at government expense, and were allowed to fly where they wished, with government agencies picking up the bill when takeoff patterns made the underlying land too noisy to use.

Suffice it to say we're in a whole new ballgame, and the British are the last people we should be looking to for guidance here. To me, it's a very sad comment on American society that parents aren't absolutely frantic about what kind of globally warmed earth we're making for the children. I guess all the talk about the family we've heard has been positively Mixnerian.

In Europe, high-speed rail routes under 300 miles will take market share from air travel. We have a number of choices in this regard, and, who knows, we may even be able to develop the social skills and technical skills to implement the solutions of the future. If not, you can forget about those future Fathers Day gifts- the children of a failed future won't remember us with any gratitude. More likely, they'll be wishing they still had a few ice floes to cast us loose on.

Posted by serial catowner | June 15, 2008 1:04 PM

Some history.

The Carl from Bugtussle (Oklahoma) was Carl Albert, the Speaker of the House who immediately preceded Tip O'Neill in that position. Carl Vinson (Georgia) was the long-time Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. He was the first man to ever serve fifty years in the House. Neither of these individuals had anything to do with trains.

The West Virginian that DavidLJ had in mind is Harley Staggers. Rather than a villain in the railroad saga, he is a hero. Staggers was the Chair of the Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee. When committee jurisdictions were shuffled, and transportation given to what was then called the Public Works Committee, Staggers refused to give up jurisdiction over trains. He feared (correctly) that the Public Works Committee would be totally dominated by highway interests and thus railroads would receive short shrift. Control over railroads did not pass to the renamed Transportation and Infrastructure Committee until the Republicans took over the House in 1994.

There is no Amtrak route to West Virginia. It is true that the "Cardinal" from DC to Chicago via Cincinnati goes through West Virignia and that Amtrak retained this uneconomic route for fear of offending Staggers. However, Staggers was oneof the best friends that trains ever had in Congress.

Posted by Vadranor | June 15, 2008 1:04 PM

catowner,

Your claims about subsidies are just utter nonsense. As I said in an earlier post, the vast majority of funding for commercial aviation infrastructure comes from taxes and fees levied on airlines, airfreight companies and air passengers. In contrast, the vast majority of funding for Amtrak infrastructure comes from taxpayers who rarely or never use the system. Amtrak subsidies are a vast wealth transfer from a poorer majority to a richer minority.

Posted by Mixner | June 15, 2008 1:16 PM

Texas is indeed another place where high speed rail could make sense.

Posted by DTM | June 15, 2008 1:16 PM

Texas is indeed another place where high speed rail could make sense.

Since even conventional rail doesn't make sense, perhaps you could explain why you think high-speed rail, which the British government is refusing to pursue because it requires 90% more energy and emits 80% more CO2 than conventional rail, "could make sense."

Posted by Mixner | June 15, 2008 1:21 PM

Well, at last we've answered one question- Mixner's problem is that he simply doesn't know anything.

Mixner, here's a clue- if you think civil aviation in the US has been funded by user fees, you need to do some serious reading. Like about five years worth, so you might as well enjoy some real-life air adventures and look at some cool pictures while you do it. Aviation history is full of all that.

Don't miss the story of how the US Navy helped build the Clipper landing facilities at Midway and Wake Islands.

Really, Mixner, stop trolling and start strolling through some real books at a good library. Oh, and play outside more, too. It's good for the complexion.

Posted by serial catowner | June 15, 2008 3:55 PM