High-speed rail: China and the US
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| HSR in China |
....High-speed rail is a functionally obsolete technology that is slower than flying, less convenient than driving, and far more expensive than either.
Nor is it environmentally green: constructing high-speed rail infrastructure produces tens of thousands of tons of greenhouse gases per mile, emissions that in most cases will never be made up for by operational savings.
Building 22,000 miles of high-speed rail helped put China’s state railway company nearly $850 billion in debt, which is so unsustainable that China has slowed construction of more such rail lines.
Building 22,000 miles of high-speed rail helped put China’s state railway company nearly $850 billion in debt, which is so unsustainable that China has slowed construction of more such rail lines.
Meanwhile, both driving and air travel in China are growing much faster than rail travel. In the decade ending in 2019, for example, China’s rail travel grew by 80 percent, but air travel grew 186 percent.
The important infrastructure gap is in freeways. China opened its first freeway in 1998 and by the end of 2019 it had built 93,000 miles while the United States had under 67,000. Moreover, China is building about 4,000 new freeway miles a year while the United States has built fewer than 800 miles a year.
Freeways carried the average American almost 4,000 miles in 2019 and many are filled to capacity for several hours of the day. Amtrak carried the average American just 19 miles in 2019 and wasn’t able to fill more than half of its seats.
....China’s eagerness to build so many freeways shows that it realizes something that American political leaders have forgotten: highways drive economic growth.
Freeways have several advantages over high-speed rail. First, they can pay for themselves. America’s Interstate Highway System was paid for entirely out of user fees such as gasoline taxes. China’s freeways are paid for out of tolls. By comparison, most of China’s high-speed rail lines, says a Chinese transportation economist, are “bleeding red ink.”
Second, U.S. freeways connect with 2.9 million miles of other paved roads, so people exiting a freeway can continue to their final destinations without changing vehicles....
Third, freeways carry both passengers and freight, while high-speed rail systems can only carry passengers, greatly limiting their usefulness. America’s freeways carry more than 25 percent of all passenger-miles and 25 percent of all ton-miles of freight shipped in the United States....
Finally, the pandemic has reminded us of the importance of resilience, and motor vehicles and highways are the most resilient transportation we have. To keep operating during the pandemic, Amtrak needed a billion dollars of subsidies on top of the $2.2 billion in federal and state subsidies it normally gets, while highways are there when needed regardless of available funding.
The gap between China and U.S. freeway systems developed because an anti-highway lobby made up ridiculous stories about the evils of personal mobility.
The important infrastructure gap is in freeways. China opened its first freeway in 1998 and by the end of 2019 it had built 93,000 miles while the United States had under 67,000. Moreover, China is building about 4,000 new freeway miles a year while the United States has built fewer than 800 miles a year.
Freeways carried the average American almost 4,000 miles in 2019 and many are filled to capacity for several hours of the day. Amtrak carried the average American just 19 miles in 2019 and wasn’t able to fill more than half of its seats.
....China’s eagerness to build so many freeways shows that it realizes something that American political leaders have forgotten: highways drive economic growth.
Freeways have several advantages over high-speed rail. First, they can pay for themselves. America’s Interstate Highway System was paid for entirely out of user fees such as gasoline taxes. China’s freeways are paid for out of tolls. By comparison, most of China’s high-speed rail lines, says a Chinese transportation economist, are “bleeding red ink.”
Second, U.S. freeways connect with 2.9 million miles of other paved roads, so people exiting a freeway can continue to their final destinations without changing vehicles....
Third, freeways carry both passengers and freight, while high-speed rail systems can only carry passengers, greatly limiting their usefulness. America’s freeways carry more than 25 percent of all passenger-miles and 25 percent of all ton-miles of freight shipped in the United States....
Finally, the pandemic has reminded us of the importance of resilience, and motor vehicles and highways are the most resilient transportation we have. To keep operating during the pandemic, Amtrak needed a billion dollars of subsidies on top of the $2.2 billion in federal and state subsidies it normally gets, while highways are there when needed regardless of available funding.
The gap between China and U.S. freeway systems developed because an anti-highway lobby made up ridiculous stories about the evils of personal mobility.
Supposedly, we shouldn’t build more roads because people will use them. Instead, they want us to spend billions building light rail and high-speed rail that would mainly be used by economic elites.
....Although American auto ownership rates are much higher than in China, about 7 million low-income households in the U.S. lack access to an automobile. Numerous studies show that automobility helps people out of poverty far better than free transit, while the costs of congestion fall mostly on the working class, whose hours and job locations are less flexible than many middle-class workers....
....Although American auto ownership rates are much higher than in China, about 7 million low-income households in the U.S. lack access to an automobile. Numerous studies show that automobility helps people out of poverty far better than free transit, while the costs of congestion fall mostly on the working class, whose hours and job locations are less flexible than many middle-class workers....
Randal O’Toole is a senior fellow with the Cato Institute and author of “Romance of the Rails: Why the Passenger Trains We Love Are Not the Transportation We Need.”
Regardless, anti-car SF Streetsblog supports the dumb project.
Labels: Anti-Car, California, China, Democratic Party, High-Speed Rail, Rail Projects, Streetsblog
posted by Rob Anderson @ 2:11 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
Good to see that money for high-speed rail apparently isn't in the pandemic relief bill.
"...Meanwhile, both driving and air travel in China are growing much faster than rail travel"
And presumably so will their congestion in getting to the airports. And of course flying is such a breeze--checking in/security/weather delays; no emissions coming from jet engines, is there?
Doesn't AMTRAK have to share track with freight (often the priority) on many routes? A wonderful way to disrupt schedules and guarantee displeasure with the service.
"...Numerous studies show that automobility helps people out of poverty far better than free transit, while the costs of congestion fall mostly on the working class, whose hours and job locations are less flexible than many middle-class workers."
HUH?!? So you're poor and owning/driving a car will lift you out of poverty? You will add to the congestion with your slave-to-car-payments vehicle, sit in traffic because CATO says more people should be driving, burning fuel (adding to climate change, which you will ultimately pay for) to get to your hourly wage job late and be docked. Oh, I get it--you'll be able to somehow manage 2 or 3 jobs by driving between them. And when those tolls go up, you'll demand a subsidy--the same subsidies that could have been applied to a robust mass transit system.
And can't wait for autonomous vehicles, which could potentially add more metal boxes to the roads with concomitant congestion so we build more and wider roads by increasing gas taxes, which don't seem to keep up with rising costs and are unpopular at the ballot box. Highway patrols, snow plowing, asphalt maintenance, media strip landscaping, restriping, debris removal, sign maintenance are all somehow cost-free.
This post is about high-speed rail. Since high-speed rail boosters in the US argue that China is way ahead of us on that, O'Toole provides information on the downside of what China is doing on HSR and how cars, planes, and freeways are becoming more important in China than trains.
An important study from the Urban Institute shows that having cars helps poor and working people move out of bad neighborhoods and, just as important, expand the range of their search for jobs, which is much harder using our limited public transportation systems.
I said it many times before, with the amount of spending it would take to build a high speed rail from LA to SF, we could buy every driver in the state an e-car. Much better option.
Yes. That reminds me of a similar evaluation of Spain's costly HSR project:
"What did Spain do with its European money, its cheap debt?" [Cesar] Molinas said. "We made empty buildings and airports and high-speed trains." (As the Madrid banker told me, "The cost embedded in taking someone by high-speed rail to Galicia is so high that it would be cheaper just to give people in Galicia a free plane ticket.") Molinas would have preferred investments in what is often called human capital, the very stuff that the crisis was forcing Spain to stint on. "Now we are cutting education, research and development, health care. People making the laws don't understand" (Letter from Madrid, Nick Paumgarten).
Here's a functional link for the Spain quote.
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