Train Envy

Steve Clemons rides the Shanghai maglev that speeds passengers from the airport into the city in 7 minutes and 20 seconds reaching a top speed of 270 mph and is suddenly not so happy with the state of things in the United States:

And when I left Washington ten days ago, I was reading that it was going to take 15 years to extend a subway line from the DC metro to Dulles Airport -- and that it would still take 1 hour and 20 minutes when completed to travel from downtown Washington to the Airport. Our social objectives should be higher than they are.

Indeed. There are sound reasons why we can't do infrastructure upgrades as quickly as the Chinese, but we ought to do much better than we are.

Comments

Remember when America used to be the country that led in all kinds of indicators and were the first to rise up to confront challenges-- like, say, an urgent need to rethink transportation and a more efficient use of energy?

I don't understand why those who claim to love our country the most hold it to the lowest possible standards.

Posted by Freddie | July 11, 2008 12:31 PM

it's probably worth noting that "into the city" isn't really into the city. It leaves you in a pretty inconvenient place in Pudong, and plans to expand the line have been slowed by public protests due to their health concerns about having a maglev track in a residential neighborhood (no, really).

So, even China has problems building infrastructure, and even with their highest-profile showcase public works boondoggles.

Posted by joe | July 11, 2008 12:33 PM

Conservative ideology has done great harm to America. The harm is so pervasive and universal that people have trouble seeing it, it fades into the background of America's everyday reality. There will be no improvement until deep cultural change comes to the USA.

Posted by Northern Observer | July 11, 2008 12:52 PM

While I agree with the basic premise, I think that its a bit more complex here than that. The Metro is never going to get to the airport and back very fast, because it is a stop and start line. My question is about demand - are there a lot of people who want to ride a train from Dulles to downtown DC quickly? Because extending Metro won't solve that.

I'd like to see a local "airport" rail. Because DC has three airports (Dulles, National, and BWI), it would be nice to have good high speed rail connections between these airports and downtown DC (with downtown Baltimore access also an option). This would make life easier in so many ways. I've been looking at traveling to Europe, and for a while, the best options price-wise involved flying out of one of the DC area airports and returning to another. If I drive (as I may have to), where am I going to put my car for such a trip? Its nice to have the options, though.

Posted by B. Minich | July 11, 2008 12:54 PM

You won't see Mag-Lev trains here for the same reason the WTC rebuild is a failure. Lawyer and special interest gridlock...showing the slow erosion of the ability of Americans to get anything done with our transportation and energy infrastructure has reached crisis stage.

Whereas a system that works on authoritarian capitalism is fast, nimble, gets things done as planned at the least cost. No decades-long lawsuits to contend with or partisan paralysis.

10 years from now, the WTC Site will still be a Pit, with less and less people willing to pay for symbols of a long-ago incident that cost lots of lives. And there will be no Mag-Lev trains able to make it from planning to funding against the NIMBYism organized against such dangerous high speed conveyances going through their backyard. Will such people be 100% Safe in event of a derailment? NO? Then forgetaboutit!

Of course, in another 10 years, with a serious loss in standard of living, continued domination of the Elites over The People, and America in notable decline - people will be ready to reshape America with a major rewrite to the Constitution that ends the ability of projects demanded by the majority of the People being blocked by lawyers and interest groups.

Posted by chris ford | July 11, 2008 1:01 PM

Remember when America used to be the country that led in all kinds of indicators and were the first to rise up to confront challenges

Actually, no. All that happened either before I was born or slightly after.

The most important, most sweeping technological change in my lifetime has been the spread of the internet to the masses. This didn't happen because there was some "big challenge" that Americans decided to confront and conquer. It happened because the World Wide Web made the internet more accessible and opened up a large number of new applications and ways to communicate that hadn't been possible before, and investment money was raised to build the infrastructure to fulfill the demand and develop the promise of possible opportunities. And it was built on the backs of fairly uninteresting grunge work (building a system to complete a purchase online is difficult and complicated, but isn't exactly a technological feat).

We want what we want, and what we want can get acquired without confronting "national challenges." Public squalor is considered acceptable as long as certain amenities can be provided for individuals. JFK looks like a dump and Dulles's lack of a rapid connection to downtown is pretty ghetto, but people just don't prioritize their nation's infrastructure. It's like my landord: the paint is peeling on the building, the place is a mess, and parts of the building are in disrepair. But it is "good enough," he gets his rent checks, and he doesn't feel the need to bother spending the money, even the his house looks rundown compared to its neighbors on the same block. It's not like he lives there, so what's it to him?

Posted by Tyro | July 11, 2008 1:03 PM

On paper, at least, BWI has some pretty good rail options. I just checked and there were something like twelve MORE trains going BWI-DC today. They seem to take 20-30 minutes to make the trip. I bet the service isn't great but I doubt it would take a giant capital expenditure like a new monorail system to make it first-rate.

Obviously Reagan National Airport has some pretty good rail options, being on the metro system and all.

That leaves Dulles, which is expected to get a cripplingly slow metro rail plus at least five new stations, which will never be used by significant numbers of DC area residents for access to the airport. Personally, I think this idea WANTS to take 15 years, because it isn't very well thought-out.

Posted by mark | July 11, 2008 1:08 PM

I think there are a lot of people who would like to get from Dulles to downtown DC quickly. I don't think they'd care all that much whether they get there by car, bus, or train. The Dulles Toll Road and Greenway are busy each day, and not just with recent airport arrivals. Some of the Loudoun County commuter buses stop at Dulles (as well as various points in downtown DC) and these are usually pretty crowded. So people are already willing to pay a toll to avoid the slow alternate route, Route 7, which is always slowed down because of the traffic lights.

In fact my wife and I did an experiment a few months back - we spent more money in extra gas burned waiting at the stoplights, than the toll cost; and got in to work later, too. (Going over to Maryland and braving the daily jam on 270 is just crazy talk).

Posted by Tel | July 11, 2008 1:12 PM

The Germans are the real leaders in Maglev technology. Transrapid is the German company that built the Shanghai maglev:

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

The Governator was talking about building one in California a while back. Sadly, all I could think about was Arnold screaming, "Get to the Maaaaglev!!!" during an emergency...

Posted by owenz | July 11, 2008 1:21 PM

Tel, you don't have to pay a toll to go to Dulless Airport. That's the point: the interests of commuters near Dulles Airport and the interests of airline passengers don't necessarily coincide; or, EVERYone wants their stop to be the terminus of a two station, high-speed maglev line.

It makes me wonder, though: why isn't Dulles a transportation hub for commuters as well? Why build the interim stations on the Toll Road at all? Have commuters between Dulles and Tysons go OUT to Dulles, then put them on a high-speed, express train to the city.

Posted by mark | July 11, 2008 1:43 PM

If building a maglev system were on a list of the 50 top infrastructure priorities in the U.S., it would be somewhere around 48 or 49. Conventional high-speed rail can do everything maglev can do while costing less to build and using less energy for propulsion.

Yeah, let's do something great over the next decade. But instead of sending a few people to Mars or building a few maglev spurs, we could reconstruct our energy production/supply infrastructure so that it runs mostly on wind, solar and geothermal energy (with the remander being natural gas for heating, petroleum to run our new, super-efficient autos, and some legacy nukes).

The tens of billions squandered on a vanity project like a maglev spur could build quite a lot of renewable generating capacity.

Posted by jlw | July 11, 2008 1:49 PM

Yea, what Joe said. The maglev is cool (I've ridden it), but it doesn't actually go anywhere. It stops in the middle of nowhere and you have to take the subway the rest of the way.

Posted by Mark | July 11, 2008 1:50 PM

There's another reason that we don't do things as quickly as the Chinese do -- do them that quickly, and you tend to make MAJOR mistakes.

The Shanghai maglev, apart from being inconvenient and too expensive for the locals to ride, is slowly sinking into the ground. At a certain point, it will require either massively expensive repairs or it will stop running. The asshats who built it somehow forgot that Shanghai soil is spongy and waterlogged, and would not take kindly to having a huge concrete track dumped on top of it with inadequate foundations.

So much for Chris Fraud above and the supposed advantages of "authoritarian capitalism," which is chiefly noted for not listening to reasonable objections, screwing up massively, and taking its frustrations out on its critics when the latter are proven right.

Posted by sunsin | July 11, 2008 2:18 PM

The Governator was talking about building one in California a while back.

It's not a Maglev, but there is now serious talk about a high speed line in California. A 10 billion bond measure is on the ballot in California this November. I'm all for it as train travel is much more pleasant than long drives or airplanes at those distances.

Posted by JordanT | July 11, 2008 2:34 PM

Conventional high-speed rail can do everything maglev can do while costing less to build and using less energy for propulsion.

This is mostly true, and HSR is obviously the much more proven technology. But there is an interesting footnote: I believe maglev can handle significantly steeper grades than high-speed rail. So although maglev is generally something like 50% more expensive, it can be closer if the terrain you're building on is going to require an inordinate number of trenches, tunnels and viaducts for HSR. (There also used to be some theories that maglev track might be easier to build because the tolerances could be much looser than HSR, but I think in practice that turned out to not really be true.)

That might come into play in CA a little, since there are some serious mountains to get over there, but who knows. Nobody is talking about maglev there anymore, and that's probably just as well.

Posted by jack lecou | July 11, 2008 2:36 PM

what it looks like out the window of the Shanghai maglev. (some of it anyway)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRX3XzRnz2Y

Posted by Alan B | July 11, 2008 3:50 PM

Maglev is a bad idea, and it should tell you something that despite its having been available for 30 or so years, there are no (no) successful deployments. There is a test track in northern Germany that's been there 30 years and had a bad crash not so long ago. There is or used to be a demo project somewhere in Britain. There is the Shanghai Airport one, which is a hyperexpensive prestige project that was originally meant as the teaser in a deal to build a Beijing-Shanghai link (just as the German project was meant to build a main line from Berlin to Hamburg and then to Munich).

The problem is that *you have to rip everything out and start again*. There is literally no integration with the existing rail system, so you're doomed to a completely new alignment and completely new civil works. There is no support for the things you need for high-frequency, multi-route working, like switching and signalling. At the moment, the best you can do is point-to-point, one train - a toy project. Choo choo. You can't do a progressive maglev build-out because, well, the trains can't run on the tracks, so you've got to launch One Huge Project.

Further, it only works if there is enough space between stops to decelerate and accelerate (the Shanghai one only spends a couple of minutes at full speed); otherwise there is no point.

And finally, after the R&D TGV-Est got within 32Km/h of the maglev record last year, there's no meaningful speed advantage either.

I think of it as creationist technology.

Posted by Alex | July 11, 2008 4:12 PM

Maglev is a bad idea, and it should tell you something that despite its having been available for 30 or so years, there are no (no) successful deployments. There is a test track in northern Germany that's been there 30 years and had a bad crash not so long ago. There is or used to be a demo project somewhere in Britain. There is the Shanghai Airport one, which is a hyperexpensive prestige project that was originally meant as the teaser in a deal to build a Beijing-Shanghai link (just as the German project was meant to build a main line from Berlin to Hamburg and then to Munich).

The problem is that *you have to rip everything out and start again*. There is literally no integration with the existing rail system, so you're doomed to a completely new alignment and completely new civil works. There is no support for the things you need for high-frequency, multi-route working, like switching and signalling. At the moment, the best you can do is point-to-point, one train - a toy project. Choo choo. You can't do a progressive maglev build-out because, well, the trains can't run on the tracks, so you've got to launch One Huge Project.

Further, it only works if there is enough space between stops to decelerate and accelerate (the Shanghai one only spends a couple of minutes at full speed); otherwise there is no point.

And finally, after the R&D TGV-Est got within 32Km/h of the maglev record last year, there's no meaningful speed advantage either.

I think of it as creationist technology.

Posted by Alex | July 11, 2008 4:14 PM

But instead of sending a few people to Mars or building a few maglev spurs, we could reconstruct our energy production/supply infrastructure so that it runs mostly on wind, solar and geothermal energy....The tens of billions squandered on a vanity project like a maglev spur could build quite a lot of renewable generating capacity.
Posted by jlw

Be careful with the "solar, wind, geo, all the biodiesel we want from leftover grease" mass delusion.
For 30 years, renewable ethanol was also part of that mantra, unti reality hit the technologically illiterate "green dreamers".

In California a nuclear power plant was shut down by Greens who favored solar power and "beautiful wind!". The whole site, except the shutdwon reactor and the spent fuel blocked from being disposed of, was converted to acres and acres of solar panels.
A success story?
No. The nuke plant produced 900 MWs 365/24/7. The "miracle exciting renewable solar" facility makes 4 MW. It is only running at 4MW or above for 1330 hours a year, the rest of the time making less, or no power. Which requires construction of full backup power plants, like gas turbines. It costs 35 times more than the electricity the nuke plant, and the only way the power is sold is that rate payers are forced to pay for it bundled into other generation if they want any electricity at all.
And, while they were shutting down nukes and barring coal and seeking to tear down hydro dams, Cali evironmentalists were silent or encouraging of mass immigration. And of large welfare benefits to increase alien spawning - the state's population going from 22 million to 34 million energy users in 20 years, and will be 38 million with the 1st year of the widely supported illegal alien Amnesty, which both McCain and Obama pledge to pass.

After 10s of billions invested over 30 years in solar, blessed solar!, California has less than 250 MW solar capacity - which translates effectively outside optimum meteorlogical conditions to a daily output rate of 101.6 MW statewide...None for days at a stretch. (Or little better than 10% of the ability of a single modern 1000MW gas, coal, or nuclear plant to reliably make electricity.)

Wind is hardly faring any better. 8 times more expensive than conventional power, mostly in litigation in CA on environmental lawsuits and NIMBY ones....coming mostly from out of state where litigation is under better control and the taxpayer subsidies to Agribiz and ranch owners are huge.

Technologically illiterate people are the biggest believers that no hard thermodynamic, material, environmental limits exist to "exciting sources man has looked at and failed to adapt to powering their civilizations on a large scale for two millenia. True believers that "miracle technology" has the fix right around the corner if only money is thrown at them to bring forth the inevitable "miracle fix" as we need them...No different than medically ignorant people that say a technological cure for cancer is easy, cheap, and right around the corner with "exciting non-traditional treatments" that just need a little more research money.)

**********************
"There's another reason that we don't do things as quickly as the Chinese do -- do them that quickly, and you tend to make MAJOR mistakes.
......
So much for Chris Fraud above and the supposed advantages of "authoritarian capitalism," which is chiefly noted for not listening to reasonable objections, screwing up massively, and taking its frustrations out on its critics when the latter are proven right.
Posted by sunsin"

We are not talking about native engineering and science expertise levels - though the Chinese have done superbly in eliminating their quality control issues and their huge gaps in engineering and science disciplines over the last 20 years, as they build the largest, fastest, and eventually the greatest-sized modern infrastructure.

If there is risk, it is also with mods caused by lawsuits not fully thought out (Replacing freon foam with inferior CO2- based foam on the Shuttle, bowing to demands that the Big Dig add ornate elements to some tunnels, causing a ceiling collapse. And risk of bridges falling down from neglect as courts and special interest groups forced transportation funds from O&M to mass transit boondoggles.

But my point was more that we were able once to get things done, safely and fast, better than any other competitor.
The Empire State Building went up in 1 year 41 days from bare ground even without 70 years of timesaving project MGMT, construction, CAD technology.

90% of the Interstate was built in the 50s, and despite laser surveys, computer-design, far better equipment - remaining stretches now take an average of 30 years, vs. 6 months to build - and cost 17-18 times as much per mile in constant dollars.
Which bears on the Mag-Lev. If we had the technology 50 years ago, we'd have thousands of miles of low-cost Mag-Lev tracks laid and hundreds of trains running now. But today, given the gridlock - such good ideas are instantly rejected as impractical because it would take far too long to build them to justify the money to get financing, preliminary architectural&engineering work done. Judged far too risky by banks to loan money out only to see 1/4 of the project done and the sunk money stranded and the whole labor force shutdown while lawyers sue over the unknown effects of high gauss magnetic fields on pregnant women, squirrels, and preservationists fretting that 19th century slum housing might have to be torn down.

Which argues that America, if it is to be competive, must limit the ability of small special interest groups to cripple the Country. That may mean authoritarian capitalism, or imposition of a standard that once society signs off on a project, the project is financed - it goes ahead as a binding contract except for only a few safety-related "STOP!" conditions.

Robert Moses, the Civil Engineer and Builder who made NYC a modern city, almost always bringing his mega-projects in on time - said he was entitled to be a de facto dictator because of his reputation for getting stuff done, getting it done safely, and not abusing the public trust or their tax dollars - by brooking no delays that would screw him, the construction labor force, or screw the public with massive overruns caused by court delays.
Which he basically got, just like a ChiCom Politburo approved Shanghai electric master plan does these days - because no one wanted to cross him and get full blame for the failure.

Posted by chris ford | July 11, 2008 4:36 PM

In practice, the Maglev is useless- it only goes to the outskirts of the city, and then you have to either cross a busy street and get on the regular metro (which can take anywhere from 10-30 minutes, and then another 30 to the center of the city) or hail a taxi, which you might as well have done from the airport. The Shanghai Maglev is the worst example of government-led infrastructure that you can possibly imagine. Plus, I and alot of people used to get queasy stomachs while riding it, and people throwing up was not exactly unknown.
But we still ought to be able to get rail to Dulles before 2025.

Posted by Kevin | July 11, 2008 5:06 PM

Y'know, this is isn't really a difficult question.

We spent our money on war- and when a comprehensive was done recently, the DOD was simply unable to account for about $1 trillion worth of stuff.

When we were spending $300 billion a year on war, the Chinese were spending $12 billion a year.

Sure, they didn't invent any new airliners- but we didn't either, since the 747 rollout in about 1970.

Sure, the Maglev may not pan out. But remember, Frank Sprague's first streetcar in Richmond wasn't any great shakes. At first they had to go out at night and drag back all the failed streetcars with horses to be fixed while the town slept.

So everyone here wants to pan the Maglev because it's uncomfortable to admit America is no longer anywhere near #1. The fact is all that talk about big spinoff from military R&D is just bullshit. The big spinoff you get from a big army is war.

Sure, you can sit around the crackerbarrel and make jokes about how unhappy all those city folk really are, with their electric lights and gramophones. That doesn't stop the world from spinning and buying your very own TurbidyBloat X500 won't change it either.

We're the last great military empire in a world that can't afford militaries or empires. Or, as one commentator put it, going from New York to Beijing is like going from the Flintstones to the Jetsons.

Go to an airshow and watch the Blue Angels. That's all you're going to get for your money from the past 30 years.

Posted by serial catowner | July 11, 2008 7:16 PM

This information is pretty distressing, for a number of reasons.

One: 7min 20sec to go 19 miles. This is fast, no doubt, but going 60 mph the trip would be 19 minutes.

Two: Dulles to downtown DC is 26 miles. If it will take 1hr 20min (80 minutes) to do 26 miles, this is less than 20 miles per hour. This is close to the average speed of the Tour de France, but if they only had to ride 26 miles on a very flat road, they could average well above this.

Three: All of this blurs the fact that trains are very efficient, the basic infrastructure is cheap compared to roads, and non-maglev train systems would benefit from the coming hydrogen era.

Trains benefit from reduced friction, road and air. But air friction forces increase with the cube of the speed. Twice as fast uses eight times the energy. Three times as fast uses 27 times the energy.

Posted by tomj | July 12, 2008 12:25 AM