I had a former colleague who lived in Indianapolis, but commuted three days a week to my institution which is 55 miles northeast of Indianapolis. Before 1938, this colleague made the trip in under an hour. We had a light rail system called the inter-urban. The inter-urban was very popular, but discontinued service. After the inter-urban closed, it took my colleague 2 hours to make the trip because of the traffic. An interstate was built that opened in the late 1960s. Now the commute is about an hour. Even so, if my colleague were alive today, he couldn’t read the paper or a journal as he made the trip while driving a car. I know that cars are a lot better than in earlier days, but have we really made progress in transportation?
A few years ago I had a project in a suburb of Paris, France. From there every 20 minutes there was a train into the city center. Two of my team members decided to go to London, England for the weekend. They packed light bags, got on the commuter train into Paris, changed to the Chunnel train to London and got out relaxed a few hours later in the heart of London. Totally painless, even if you don’t speak French.
Doing this by air would have been a $60 cab ride to Charles de Gaulle airport, and expensive air ticked to Gatwick aiport, and another $65 cab ride to London. Waiting time at the Paris airport likely 2 hours total, and going through customs in London, etc another 2 hours.
Our family has travelled all over Europe by train and it by far the least exhausting mode to get around. In 1960 I toured Europe by car, and visited 14 countries, when the average citizen there did not have a car. That was fun, but now Europe by car is a real grind.
@Triedaq - If we had spent that money years ago on mass transit instead of a highway system…then we’d probably be better off today. 20/20 hindsight…
But that’s not the case. The highway system is in place. People love their cars…mass transit is an afterthought…and to NOW think about building a mass transit infrastructure based on RR…it’ll be too costly.
You’re preaching to the choir, Mike. If you notice, we aren’t saying we should spend the money. Some of us are, however, making the point that high speed rail, as a concept, has a lot of pay-offs when done right. Would we do it right in the US? Probably not, but the Japanese can get their trains to run on time, and in Europe, it’s greatly reduced demand for air travel, so we can say, with great confidence, that if we had the money to spend, and the ability to get it done right, it would pay off in the long run. However, I agree with your points that it isn’t a good idea to start this kind of project right now. It would be nice if it were feasible though.
Mike, it seems to me like you’re arguing with people who are making points that are not contradictory to yours.
Mike, it seems to me like you’re arguing with people who are making points that are not contradictory to yours.
Didn’t mean to come off that way. Just looking at things differently then what’s already been expressed.
I too like the idea of mass transit. If it were readily available I’d take it in a heart beat. But it’s NOT. Oh sure I CAN take mass transit to work…but the commute is something like 2.5 hours each way due to all the transfers and waiting around for 2 trains and 2 buses. Not to mention the 1/2 mile walk I’ll have to make once I get off my last bus. And I won’t be able to work past 6:30…because the last bus that leaves is 7pm on every day except Friday.
The concept I’m all for…the implementation I’m against…UNLESS it was funded privately…(Which WON’T happen).
If high speed rail offers improvement why wait to build it. Right now is the time to take on infrastructure investment while labor is ready, willing and able to get to work. It is totally DUMB to wait until some future time when the economy is screaming and air traffic maxing out the airports and inflation pushes costs higher. Now is the time to act.
Whitey, if you want high speed rail so badly…YOU pay for it!
Back in the day when I took the Tri-Rail in South Florida for my commute, taking mass transit doubled my commute time from one hour (driving) to two hours, but for me it was still worth it. I see high speed rail as different though. I don’t see it being used for commuting unless it replaces commuter airline routes. I see high speed rail as a replacement for air travel instead. I’d love to be able to get on a high speed train and travel from Jacksonville, FL to Houston, TX. With all the empty seats on airplanes these days, it’s pretty clear demand for high speed rail isn’t there, but it sure would be nice to hop on a high speed train and go from Jacksonville to Miami in a few hours. For a flight like that, you’d spend more time waiting around in the airport than you’d actually spend traveling.
Mountainbike, I’d be happy to pay for it. Paying taxes and seeing that money spent wisely on transportation infrastructure would be my patriotic duty and a pleasure. I am sure there were folks like you who didn’t like seeing their tax dollars spent on the interstate highway system, or the Tennessee Valley Authority project after WWII, or WWII itself, but that didn’t stop us, did it? Frankly, I don’t know where this hostility is coming from. Have you been reading what I wrote above? I don’t think we should spend the money on this right now, mainly because it’s money we don’t have.
Whitey, my distinct impression is that you believe we should build a high speed rail system, albiet perhaps not right now. My distinct impression is that you believe it would be a wise expendature of our tax dollars.
Understand that because I consider the proposed high speed rail system(s) to be an absolute waste of tax dollars and believe it would be a permanent and very expensive dependant for future budgets to support does not mean I would have opposed every tax expendature. There are, however, billions (even trillions as a total over time) of dollars worth of these type of projects (such as Boston’s “Big Dig”) that our federal budget pours our tax money into, projects that in the end accomplish nothing useful but to garner votes in key districts, appease special interest groups, and pad the resumes of elected officials.
Realize also that here in New Hampshire we have a very badly needed highway expansion (I-93) that was held up for years, and many many millions of dollars in cost hikes, because a special interest organization called the Conservation Law Foundation filed lawsuit after lawsuit to try to force us to put a rail system in instead. And they aren’t even from NH. Meanwhile, I-93 became more unsafe every year.
I appreciate that you realize it isn’t affordable right now. But I’d argue that with the deficits we’re running, and critical support programs being gutted, it should not even be on the radar screen. Frankly, it’s a luxury not a necessity. Yet advocates persist.
Re: “I honestly dont get the costs involved, they all seem very very high”. That’s inflation for you! Goods like televisions, computers, and so on, technological advances have driven down prices far higher than the rate of inflation. There’s really nowhere to cut costs on a bridge or a high speed railway. So, $1 in 2010 is worth what 11 cents was in 1950 (let alone the inflation in the last year or two.) CPI base in 1982 was 100 by definition. For 2010 CPI was 216 and for 2011 estimate is 220. That means things now cost 2.2x what they did in 1982.
@Rod Knox, agreed on traffic in general, but you can't just force people out. People do do what you suggest though -- not usually ADDITIONAL 2-4 hours, but they will shift their work hours to avoid morning and evening rush hour. Or, they will hang out somewhere near their work, rather than spend the time stuck in the car. Nobody forces them all onto the road at the same time.
In general, though, I'd love a high-speed train. But if it can't even get vaguely close to being self-supporting, it just won't work. And I don't think it would. The big problem here in the midwest is, OK, there's a high-speed train running from Chicago to LA. Well, there's no train within 100 miles of me that'll go TO Chicago to begin with, while within that range there are multiple airports where I can either fly directly to LA, or to some hub to go to LA. There could be a middle ground -- if a 200MPH train is really costly, but a 100 or 120MPH train is not, that'll still beat out 70MPH.There could be a middle ground – if a 200MPH train is really costly, but a 100 or 120MPH train is not, that’ll still beat out 70MPH.
Only if it’s a non-stop trip (which most aren’t). If it has to make frequent stops to pickup and drop-off passengers then it’ll probably take twice as long as driving at 70mph.
It’s a $$ problem. Before CA fessed up to the increased costs, they expected their HSR to take in about $0.50 for every $1.00 spent. They’ve since doubled their cost estimate, so now that’s down to $0.25 per $1.00. And their ridership estimates have been called wildly optimistic - probably so, our Dallas light rail is seeing about 1/2 the forecast nuber of passengers. So now you’re down to $0.125 income for every $1.00 spent.
Our society has WAY better ways to spend its (obviously limited) dollars.
I guess I see it as sort of like a Rolex; desirable but not necessary. Purchased and supported with private funding, I think it’s great. But I think it would be an abomination to use tax dollars for it. First we need to get the deficit down, and that cannot possibly happen by selling more T-bonds to China (for which we have to pay interest at maturity) and by adding another huge entiltlement like this to the federal budget.
We need ways to get from point A to point B. But we already have them. Roads and busses. To my mind the roads and busses are analogous to a Timex, the high speed rail analogous to a Rolex. We need to tell the time, but if we already have a Timex should the feds be taking more of our money to spend on a Rolex?
Hey, taxpayer: roads don’t pay for themselves - - -
By Andrew Nusca | December 14, 2011, 7:01 AM PST
Tanya Snyder over at the DC Streetsblog this week reminds the world that public roads and highways do not pay for themselves.
Using a new report by 1000 Friends of Wisconsin and data from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Snyder argues that roads “constitute one of the biggest tax burdens we face” thanks to heavy subsidies.
Simply: most taxpayers don’t realize how expensive it is to keep up a nationwide network of infrastructure, much less how it’s paid for today.
Snyder contrasts this with public transit:
Non-users fork over $779 per household for roads — as opposed to $50 for transit. But most drivers still believe that transit eats a huge chunk of transportation funding while roads are self-supporting. SSTI wanted to dispel that notion, said study author Bill Holloway.
Apples and oranges, of course, since roads often go where public transit does not. Still, the point is salient: it’s hard to ask citizens to pay for infrastructure when 1.) they don’t realize how much it actually costs, and 2.) they don’t know how much they’re already paying today.
The report itself is a data goldmine, showing just how much each of the 50 U.S. states disburses for highways and how much revenues exist to cover them. It’s worth a read (.pdf). In the meantime, it’s evident that clarity among constituents would help solve the municipal funding situation better than any specific initiative.
Do runways and airports pay for themselves?
It’s true that in the past road taxes on fuels paid for the upkeep and construction of roads. The interstate highway system was built with only 4 cents per gallon gas taxes. Those days are long gone. Toaday’s fuel taxes don’t cover the upkeep, let alone generate funds for new construction. Most US highway bridges are in need of major repairs. What happened in Minneapolis is a sign of more of this happening in the future.
Higher fuel taxes are needed topay for the shortfalls described. The post Worlds War II building boom has now resulted in a necessary major refurbishing and rebuilding cycle.
However, politicians do not seem to have the stomach to explain to the voters that the current sitation is unsustainable, and will result in more catastrophies.
Whitey:
"Do runways and airports pay for themselves? "
My research reveals that LAX charges a $20 dollar landing fee for light general aviation aircraft, $2.39 per 1000 pounds for cargo aircraft, and $2.69 per 1000 pounds for commercial passenger aircraft.
I’m not sure if that fee is based on payload or overall weight but if based on payload, that would mean that every 747 that lands there is shelling out $600 to $750. If based on overall weight, those fees would be much higher.
I’m guessing that airports come closer to paying for themselves than our roadways do. Also, it takes a lot less energy, resources, and land to build a place for an airplane to take off from and a place for an airplane to land than it takes to build 1000 miles of railroad track.
When you compare train fuel use to plane fuel use, is the energy debt invested in building the right of way taken into account?
Here are a few facts for the DC to Boston Amtrak run:
Northeast Regional: 7.75 hours, $96, on way
Acela: 6.5 hours, $186, one way.
Southwest Airlines, BWI to Logan:
Southwest Airlines: 2.5 hours, $126, one way (includes 1 hour i teminal)
The Northeast Regional can cost more, take longer, and both can be true at the same time. But I don’t see enough improvement in Acela to justify the extra cost. What if the bullet train shaves another hour off Acela, and costs $300 one way? The Bullet and the Acela cost more than a plane trip and take 2.5 to 3 hours longer. Why in the world would anyone ride any high speed train when it so so slow and expensive compared to the alternatives?
Sometime in the late 1950s or early 1960s, I remember reading an article in Readers’ Digest that advocated a balanced transportation system. There was a plan laid out as to distance and location and whether the route was best covered by air, rail, or bus. This was before the days of interstate highways and Amtrak. At that time, the privately owned railroads ran passenger trains. The article called for more coordination among air, rail, and bus.
With airlines filing for bankruptcy, Amtrak running in the red, and bus service needing some upgrades, maybe it is time to devise another plan for these times and implement it.
I don’t think anyone knows the REAL cost of putting in a usable high-speed rail system. The cost is going to be ENORMOUS. Maybe certain lines in a very very limited area it MIGHT be worth it. But to actually think about replacing the highway system with high-speed rail is ludicrous. The cost would be in the TRILLIONS…maybe even quadrillions. And one hick-up in the system can shut down major portions of the country for days.