Centrists for SUPERTRAINs
Paul Weinstein of the Progressive Policy Institute (the DLC’s think tank) is a fellow train enthusiast and has put together an excellent policy report making the case for substantial investment aimed at creating several new high-speed rail corridors in those parts of the country where we have cities spaced the appropriate distance apart. California, where the state is moving ahead with HSR plans would seem to be the most-promising candidate at the moment though there are several other good options.
To anticipate the usual objections briefly: Yes it’s true that high-quality passenger rail networks in Europe are dependent on public subsidies. But driving and flying also depend for their viability on publicly subsidized infrastructure. What’s more there’s nothing wrong with that useful infrastructure projects ought to be subsidized. The question isn’t whether to subsidize things, it’s what to subsidize. And across a certain range of distances, HSR is speedier than flying. And because train travel is more pleasant and rail stations tend to be more centrally located than airports, trains are a better option even for trips where they’re slightly slower. If we had an appropriate rail network, not only could HSR-appropriate trips be accomplished more effectively (and in a more environmentally sound way) but it would allow our air travel network to focus its resources more tightly on the kind of trips for which flying really is the most appropriate solution.
40 Responses to “Centrists for SUPERTRAINs”
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September 6th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
In Europe, there are stations where you can have your car loaded on a special car. Once you get to your destination, the car is unloaded and off you go. It’s not cheap, but it beats driving thru the Alps from Switzerland to Italy during the winter.
September 6th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
EVERYONE SHOULD WATCH AND HELP SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT THIS VIDEO.
Very Creepy promotional video for a Wasilla Assembly of God Master’s Commission workshop.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJnhRhJW35o
When you watch this video REMEMBER…this was Sarah Palin’s church for nearly her entire life.
The man in the leather jacket donning a goatee was Sarah Palin’s pastor from 1999 till 2002.
This is the same workshop that Sarah Palin is addressing in the now widely seen footage in which she talks about God’s plan for Iraq, and asks people to pray for a new oil pipeline. The pastor who introduces her in that video is the same goatee, leather jacket donning man in this video.
She continues to have close ties to this church and is involved with workshops and seminars there.
…
September 6th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
I’m really pro-HSR also. I like to travel a lot, and would love to able to take a day-trip to nearby cities. Such an adavntage, if realized, would certainly be the biggest boast to my quality of life since I bought noise-canceling headphones. What’s more, a better conncected country just seems like a better country, and would certainly make for a more vital national culture. It’s anti-parochial, which is to say it puts country first, before locality. But for some reason I don’t expect McCain will support the idea.
September 6th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
But Amtrak gassed their own people!
And besides, it’s not a subsidy if it’s for car use. Everyone knows cars fly on magic ribbons.
September 6th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
But Amtrak gassed their own people!
Slixner wins the thread.
September 6th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Paul Weinstein of the Progressive Policy Institute (the DLC’s think tank) is a fellow train enthusiast and has put together an excellent policy report
Your “excellent policy report” is a joke. To the extent that Weinstein even tries to provide any substantive support at all for his claims about the benefits of HSR, he mainly cites newspaper and magazine articles, and “estimates” produced by the California agency expressly created for the purpose of promoting HSR in that state. Where are the academic studies? Where are the independent estimates of costs and benefits?
To anticipate the usual objections briefly: Yes it’s true that high-quality passenger rail networks in Europe are dependent on public subsidies. But driving and flying also depend for their viability on publicly subsidized infrastructure.
Yawn. So you keep saying. And the response is the same: public subsidies provided to rail are vastly higher per passenger-mile of transportation benefit than public subsidies for road and air. What is the justification for these vastly greater subsidies for rail? A serious answer, please, not a handwave.
September 6th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
It’s not enough to build high-speed rail between cities. You need other transportation options at rail hubs–commuter rail, subways, buses, bike rentals, or pedestrian-friendly options. Europe and Japan have made these investments. As long as most American cities basically require you to use a car, that’s going to be the dominant way for moving between cities too.
September 6th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
It’s not enough to build high-speed rail between cities. You need other transportation options at rail hubs–commuter rail, subways, buses, bike rentals, or pedestrian-friendly options. Europe and Japan have made these investments. As long as most American cities basically require you to use a car, that’s going to be the dominant way for moving between cities too.
Cars are the dominant way of moving between cities in Europe too. And car travel in Europe is growing much faster than rail travel, so the dominance of the car is increasing in Europe too (the growth rate of air travel is higher than both). The fact that this is occurring despite the massive spending by European governments on rail (intercity and urban), and despite the greater obstacles to car travel in Europe than in the U.S. (much higher gas prices, smaller and less powerful cars, greater road congestion) is testament to the huge intrinsic benefits of car travel over mass transportation.
September 6th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Mixner, in Europe business travel in particular is virtually entirely by rail, except for very long distances. Nobody in the right mind would ever consider a car. With a train you go from near your office to near the place you need to go to. You only need to get to the train station 5 minutes ahead of time, if that. Your seat is wide, there is a table that is open always (no bullshit around take-off), and you can work effectively from the moment you take seat until the train arrives. The only sort of dead time is a 5 minutes taxi ride to/from the train station. It’s far, *far* more pleasant and productive than flying, let alone driving.
September 6th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
“European,”
As reported by Eurostat, the EU statistics agency, as of 2004, passenger cars provided 73.5% of all passenger-kilometers of travel in the EU. “Powered two-wheelers” (motorcycles and scooters) provided an additional 2.4% and buses (”buses and coaches”) another 8.3%. Road transport in total provided 84% of all passenger-km of transportation. Air provided 8%. Rail came in last, at a mere 5.8% of passenger-km.
The trend is also overwhelmingly in favor of road travel and air travel, and against rail travel. Between 1995 and 2004, travel by passenger cars increased at more than twice the rate of travel by rail (17.7% increase for cars, vs. only 8.6% increase for rail). Air travel increased by a whopping 48.8%.
Since cars overwhelmingly dominate passenger-km of travel, the difference with respect to the actual amount of travel is even more stark. Travel by passenger cars increased by 671 billion passenger-km. Travel by rail increased by a mere 28 billion passenger km. Put another way, for every additional kilometer Europeans travelled by train in 2004 as compared to 1995, they travelled an additional 24 kilometers by car.
All data from Eurostat Panorama of Transport
September 6th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
The thing is, roads reach everywhere, trains do not. Compare rail market share between pairs of cities with good service (say, Barcelona-Valencia or Lyon-Marseille) to road transport, and come back later.
Hell, there are quite a few cities where a full 50% of commuters use mass transit (Madrid, London) to go to work. Tell me how to double the amount of cars in Madrid without choking the economy to death and we´ll talk.
September 6th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
Compare rail market share between pairs of cities with good service (say, Barcelona-Valencia or Lyon-Marseille) to road transport
What about them? What is the rail market share of those routes? How has it changed over time? And what is the relevance of those particular routes to the general issue of transportation spending, anyway? Even in France, which has spent far more on new and upgraded rail infrastructure over the past two decades than any other European nation, rail’s market share has declined, as has the length of its rail network.
Hell, there are quite a few cities where a full 50% of commuters use mass transit (Madrid, London) to go to work.
Where may I find data on share of commuters who use mass transit in Madrid, London and the “quite a few” other cities you have in mind?
September 6th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
Mixner:
I don’t know the details, but your points don’t exactly match up with each other. First, you claim cars are the dominant way of moving between cities in Europe. Then, you cite statistics about total travel. That would be all travel. I would guess that, for actual long distance travel (not everyday stuff), rail provides a much larger portion than 5.8%. And unless you can differentiate between the increase in everyday trips and city-to-city trips for rail and car, your other statistics aren’t completely relevant.
September 6th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
I’d also just like to add that there are several reasons to subsidize rail travel over passenger car travel.
1) Obviously less pollution
2) Increased safety
3) Improved public health
4) Increased productivity (time spent in a car is completely wasted; time spent on a train can be used for entertainment or work, especially as wifi becomes available).
5) Less congestion (improved travel time for cars, less stress for drivers, less stress for rail users).
6) Decreased energy use
The fact that car trips are increasing faster than rail trips is not proof of the huge intrinsic benefits of car travel. Rail service is obviously not a replacement for the vast majority of trips. Many of the benefits of rail travel are not considered on an individual by individual basis.
September 6th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
The way congress works, for every $1 dollar appropriated for HSR we would have to spend additional dollars on pork and earmarks to buy the votes for HSR, which would wind up serving places whose congressmen have the greatest seniority.
Our pols don’t give a rat’s ass about the public interest.
September 6th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
lfv,
I don’t know the details, but your points don’t exactly match up with each other. First, you claim cars are the dominant way of moving between cities in Europe. Then, you cite statistics about total travel. That would be all travel. I would guess that, for actual long distance travel (not everyday stuff), rail provides a much larger portion than 5.8%.
I don’t know what basis you think you have for your guess. It may that be that most of that 5.8% share of total passenger-km consists of “short distance” rail travel–commuter and suburban rail carrying people short distances within a metropolitan area or betweeen suburbs and inner cities, rather than long distances between cities. In that case, rail’s share of “long-distance” travel may be even less than 5.8%. In any case, whatever the exact percentage, the share of even just “long distance” travel by rail is certainly much less than the share by road, and is almost certainly shrinking as a share of all “long distance” travel, as well as shrinking as a share of total travel. The length of “motorways” in Europe (which are basically the equivalent of “interstates” or “freeways” in the U.S. and serve mostly “long distance” road travel) increased by 41% between 1990 and 2003. Over the same period, the length of railway lines declined by 8%. And rail is also definitely shrinking in comparison to air travel, all of which would presumably qualify as “long distance.” Between 1995 and 2004, air travel in Europe grew at six times the rate that rail travel grew.
September 6th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
And the response is the same: public subsidies provided to rail are vastly higher per passenger-mile of transportation benefit than public subsidies for road and air. What is the justification for these vastly greater subsidies for rail?
And the response to this is the same: rail spending in the United States is mostly going towards capital construction projects to install new lines, while the national highway system was built a long ago, and the high-spending-low-use phase while it was under construction and immediately afterwards has already past.
I keep trying to explain this to you, Mixner: youe statistic is akin to noticing that someone who bought a car this year spent more per passenger mile this year than someone who bought their car two years ago.
September 6th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
Mixner,
I make it based on the commonsense thought that the efficiency of taking rail is much lower (if it is even available) for everyday trips, such as short work commutes or going for groceries/shopping/restaurants.
Are you arguing that people use rail a greater proportion of the time for these everyday type of trips than for trips that take several hours?
And again you contradict yourself: how do you square these two statements? “The fact that this is occurring despite the massive spending by European governments on rail (intercity and urban)” and “The length of “motorways” in Europe (which are basically the equivalent of “interstates” or “freeways” in the U.S. and serve mostly “long distance” road travel) increased by 41% between 1990 and 2003. Over the same period, the length of railway lines declined by 8%.”
It would seem that Europeans, despite popular belief in the US, aren’t being provided with tremendous rail service. Their governments seem to be promoting increased auto use, just as ours.
Regardless, all of this information is irrelevant to one of the primary reasons for the advocacy of rail over car/plane transport: more efficient use of dwindling and increasingly expensive energy resources.
September 6th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
lfv,
I’d also just like to add that there are several reasons to subsidize rail travel over passenger car travel.
1) Obviously less pollution
2) Increased safety
3) Improved public health
4) Increased productivity (time spent in a car is completely wasted; time spent on a train can be used for entertainment or work, especially as wifi becomes available).
5) Less congestion (improved travel time for cars, less stress for drivers, less stress for rail users).
6) Decreased energy use
On the average, rail is at best only modestly more energy-efficient and cleaner per passenger-mile than cars. Rail may not be any more efficient or any cleaner at all when total energy and total pollution (rather than just operating energy and pollution) are taken into account. Constructing rail lines and train stations generally consumes huge amounts of energy and produces huge amounts of pollution.
Even if rail travel is any more efficient or clean than car travel today, it is very unlikely to be more efficient or clean than car travel of the near future, because automobile engine and fuel technology is advancing so rapidly.
Your items 2 and 4 are similarly highly dubious. The costs of accidents attributable to car travel are mostly internalized through insurance, so it’s hard to see why they would justify public subsidies to rail. And time spent in cars can obviously also be used for entertainment or work. All the passengers in a car except the driver can essentially engage in any form of entertainment or work activity that a bus or train passenger can engage in. And even car drivers can obviously listen to music, news, audiobooks, etc. and make phone calls while driving. And of course the mere fact that someone could do something doesn’t mean he does do it. I doubt that more than a small fraction of rail commuters engage in economically productive work while commuting, and the share of total rail passengers who do so is almost certainly even less.
In any case, in order to justify the subsidies provided to rail on externality grounds you need to show that the net positive externality benefits of rail (in terms of pollution, congestion, and whatever else it may be) are at least as high as the value of the subsidies provided to rail. If you think you can make a serious case that they are, please present it.
The fact that car trips are increasing faster than rail trips is not proof of the huge intrinsic benefits of car travel. Rail service is obviously not a replacement for the vast majority of trips.
“Proof” is a pretty demanding standard. The fact that car travel is increasing so much faster than rail travel even in Europe is strong evidence of the huge intrinsic benefits of car travel. Rail service isn’t a replacement for car travel for the vast majority of trips precisely because it would be so hugely expensive, if it were feasible at all, to provide rail service that could match the speed, convenience, comfort and flexibility of car travel. The fact that cars so dominate our transportation system despite being much more expensive than public transportation demonstrates how much value people attach to these benefits.
Many of the benefits of rail travel are not considered on an individual by individual basis.
This is your claim about the alleged net positive externalities of rail travel compared to car travel again. And again, if you think you can make a serious case not only that there are such benefits, but that they are of such value as to justify rail’s massive subsidies, please do so.
September 6th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
joe from lowell,
And the response to this is the same: rail spending in the United States is mostly going towards capital construction projects to install new lines, while the national highway system was built a long ago, and the high-spending-low-use phase while it was under construction and immediately afterwards has already past.
If I understand your argument here correctly, you’re asserting that roads and highways received much higher subsidies per passenger-mile of transportation benefit in the past than rail did, and that the massively higher subsidies currently provided to rail are therefore justified as a way for rail to, as it were, “catch up” with highways in terms of total subsidies over time. Please present your data supporting this claim.
I strongly suspect that you have no data and that it’s just wishful thinking on your part.
September 6th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
Rail may not be any more efficient or any cleaner at all when total energy and total pollution (rather than just operating energy and pollution) are taken into account. Constructing rail lines and train stations generally consumes huge amounts of energy and produces huge amounts of pollution.
And how about the production of millions of cars and the ever increasing amount of roads to support them?
Even if rail travel is any more efficient or clean than car travel today, it is very unlikely to be more efficient or clean than car travel of the near future, because automobile engine and fuel technology is advancing so rapidly.
Engine and fuel technology has hardly advanced, with the goal of increasing mileage, for decades. There is a flurry of research going on now, but it remains unclear whether battery technology can ever progress to the point of providing ranges over 100 miles. Our understanding of the basic material behavior at the atomic level is still very poor and regardless of how much it progresses, it just may not be possible to achieve a battery with both the required capacity and power output for realistic automobile travel. Meanwhile, rails can be directly powered by electricity. Direct electrical power will always be preferable to conversion for storage as some other fuel such as hydrogen or ethanol.
The costs of accidents attributable to car travel are mostly internalized through insurance, so it’s hard to see why they would justify public subsidies to rail.
That doesn’t make the economic cost disappear. Our society is obviously less productive when increased resources have to be dedicated to preventable injuries. Add in premature death, which I don’t think insurance does much to address. YMMV.
And time spent in cars can obviously also be used for entertainment or work. All the passengers in a car except the driver can essentially engage in any form of entertainment or work activity that a bus or train passenger can engage in. And even car drivers can obviously listen to music, news, audiobooks, etc. and make phone calls while driving. And of course the mere fact that someone could do something doesn’t mean he does do it. I doubt that more than a small fraction of rail commuters engage in economically productive work while commuting, and the share of total rail passengers who do so is almost certainly even less.
Most trips are done by a single driver. Even if there are passengers, at least one of the people in the car is completely wasting his time. If you think you could be as productive in a car as on a train, you are seriously delusional. WIFI service is easily provided on trains, not so much in cars. Cell phone use by drivers increases the danger of autos, headsets notwithstanding.
In any case, in order to justify the subsidies provided to rail on externality grounds you need to show that the net positive externality benefits of rail (in terms of pollution, congestion, and whatever else it may be) are at least as high as the value of the subsidies provided to rail. If you think you can make a serious case that they are, please present it.
Only if you present the same case for automobile subsidies. But not really, because I don’t really feel like pouring my free time into an exhaustive study in an area I am not an expert.
“Proof” is a pretty demanding standard. The fact that car travel is increasing so much faster than rail travel even in Europe is strong evidence of the huge intrinsic benefits of car travel. Rail service isn’t a replacement for car travel for the vast majority of trips precisely because it would be so hugely expensive, if it were feasible at all, to provide rail service that could match the speed, convenience, comfort and flexibility of car travel. The fact that cars so dominate our transportation system despite being much more expensive than public transportation demonstrates how much value people attach to these benefits.
I hardly think anyone is advocating for the replacement of the majority of car trips with rail trips. But the option to travel city-to-city is appealing. And rail systems in certain areas of the country suggests that it is appealing for certain situations and should be expanded. I live outside of a large west coast metro area and fortunately work nearby with an opposite direction commute (although I bike most days). Every day I see traffic nearly at a standstill on the interstate in the morning and the evening, and this is 40 miles outside the city. People spend hours of their days sitting in traffic. Study after study indicates that one of the most detrimental things to happiness is a long commute spent sitting in a car. The limited rail service is packed full.
September 6th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
I can see three, maybe four corridors where true HSR would seem to make in terms of the population sink and the travel time … LS/SF, DC/NY/BOS, NY/CHI. Maybe MIA/ATL.
However, when you shift attention to tilt-trains, which basically need a slight expansion of the envelope required for high speed 100mph container rail freight, the map just explodes. Atlanta / Charlotte / DC, NY / Albany / Buffalo / Cleveland / Toledo / Chicago, Philly / Pittsburgh / Columbus / Indianapolis / Chicago, Cleveland / Columbus / Cincinnati / Louisville / Nashville / Birmingham / Mobile / NOLA.
Once we step back and recognize that there is a massive strategic liability in having cross country freight hostage to liquid fuel supplies, and work out how to provide a strategic electric rail backbone that is capable of handling high speed, 100mph container freight, then expanding that network to accommodate 110mph passenger tilt-trains is a relatively modest incremental improvement.
September 6th, 2008 at 10:04 pm
lfv,
I make it based on the commonsense thought that the efficiency of taking rail is much lower (if it is even available) for everyday trips, such as short work commutes or going for groceries/shopping/restaurants.
Sorry, how does that imply anything about rail’s share of “short distance” vs. “long distance” travel? The efficiency of road and air travel is also much lower for short trips than long ones. We certainly know that rail provides both short-distance and long-distance travel. Many European cities have large rail networks surrounding the city that people who live in the suburbs use to make frequent short-distance trips into the city for commuting, shopping, entertainment, etc. I have no idea why you think you can just assume that short-distance trips of this kind comprise only a small share of total rail passenger-km and that most rail travel consists of long-distance trips instead.
In any case, it’s basically irrelevant to the point. Even if we assumed that, say, two-thirds of all rail travel in Europe is “long distance,” it’s still a tiny fraction of travel by road and an even tinier fraction of travel by road plus air. Rail travel is definitely shrinking compared to air travel (all or most of which I assume you would classify as “long-distance”), and given the huge growth in motorways and the negative growth in railway lines, “long distance” rail travel is also almost certainly shrinking compared to “long distance” road travel too (as well as shrinking compared to total road travel). However you slice the numbers, the trend is bad news for rail.
And again you contradict yourself: how do you square these two statements? “The fact that this is occurring despite the massive spending by European governments on rail (intercity and urban)” and “The length of “motorways” in Europe (which are basically the equivalent of “interstates” or “freeways” in the U.S. and serve mostly “long distance” road travel) increased by 41% between 1990 and 2003. Over the same period, the length of railway lines declined by 8%.”
I assume (because you don’t clearly say) that the alleged contradiction here is massive spending on rail and a decline in the length of railway lines. But there is no contradiction. You seem to think that if rail spending increases, rail network length must also increase (or, at least, stay the same size). But that’s obviously not true. France, for example, has spent vast amounts of money to replace old railway lines with high-speed lines for its TGV services, and vast amounts of money to develop and purchase high-speed locomotives and railcars. At the same time, the total length of its rail network has declined by 14%. If it hadn’t spent so much money on hugely expensive high-speed services, it might have had more money to maintain or extend its existing network, and that network might not have shrunk.
It would seem that Europeans, despite popular belief in the US, aren’t being provided with tremendous rail service. Their governments seem to be promoting increased auto use, just as ours.
The evidence just isn’t consistent with this claim. European governments have spent huge sums of money to try and promote rail and other alternatives to car travel. As the Eurostat document says, car travel in Europe has grown massively despite these inducements by European governments to get their citizens to use other modes of transportation instead of cars. This again illustrates the huge value people attach to the speed, comfort and convenience of car travel.
More generally, the argument you’re making is just absurd on its face. The basic structure and trends of the transportation systems in Europe and the United States are determined by the collective voting and lifestyle and purchasing behaviors of their citizens. The U.S. and Europe are democracies. Laws and spending policies affecting transportation are not imposed on an unwilling population by dictators. They are the result of the political process. Consumers are not forced to buy cars and drive them instead of taking buses or trains. They choose to do so.
If people change their minds and decide they want to shift to a much more rail-oriented transportation system, they will vote and act accordingly. Don’t hold your breath. Given the huge advantages of cars in terms of speed, convenience and comfort, a large-scale shift away from them doesn’t seem terribly likely in either Europe or the U.S.
September 6th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
lfv,
And how about the production of millions of cars and the ever increasing amount of roads to support them?
Those costs, like the costs of building railtrack and stations and locomotives, would also need to be included in a full accounting of the total energy and pollution costs of each transportation mode. Do you have such an analysis? If not, you have no serious basis for asserting that rail travel is more energy-efficient and cleaner than car travel even today.
Engine and fuel technology has hardly advanced, with the goal of increasing mileage, for decades.
Auto engine technology has advanced significantly. But until recently those advances were exploited mainly to improve vehicle power and performance rather than to improve fuel efficiency and pollution, because the latter were not sufficiently serious concerns.
There is a flurry of research going on now, but it remains unclear whether battery technology can ever progress to the point of providing ranges over 100 miles.
We don’t need such batteries to achieve dramatic increases in fuel efficiency. Since a large majority of daily roundtrip commutes are much less than 100 miles, even a 100-mile range battery would allow most such trips to be made without using a drop of gasoline. In any case, new auto technology isn’t just a matter of better batteries. It’s a whole range of technologies that will improve the fuel-efficiency of cars and diversify the types of fuel we use to power them.
That doesn’t make the economic cost disappear. Our society is obviously less productive when increased resources have to be dedicated to preventable injuries. Add in premature death, which I don’t think insurance does much to address.
The externality cost of an auto accident is likely only a small share of the total cost. The major costs are direct economic costs internalized through insurance–property damage and injuries to the driver or a third party. It is only that externality cost that would justify a subsidy.
Of course, if you’re going to account for the externality cost of accidents you should also account for the externality costs of time. Driving is much faster than using public transportation. What negative externality cost should we attribute to the time lost by using public transportation instead of driving? Unlike accidents, which are rare events, these time costs are incurred for every journey.
Most trips are done by a single driver. Even if there are passengers, at least one of the people in the car is completely wasting his time. If you think you could be as productive in a car as on a train, you are seriously delusional. WIFI service is easily provided on trains, not so much in cars. Cell phone use by drivers increases the danger of autos, headsets notwithstanding.
The average occupancy of passenger cars is about 1.6. As I said, car occupants who are not driving can essentially engage in any work or leisure activity while travelling that a rail passenger can. That immediately cuts this supposed benefit of rail travel by around a third. Also, as I said, even car drivers can listen to music, news, audiobooks, etc. and make phone calls (not withstanding your “danger” comment) while driving. And relatively few rail passengers seem to engage in productive work while riding the train, anyway. I’m not saying there is no benefit at all in terms of the ability to work or be entertained during rail travel versus car travel, only that the benefit is much smaller than you seem to think it is. And again, any such cost from driving is mostly internalized. A traveller can obviously take the benefit of being able to read on the train into account when making his decision about which transportation mode to use. So, again, I don’t see how you think it would justify anything more than a very small subsidy for rail.
September 6th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
a lot of analysis by adjective here, but that’s how it goes. A lot of short haul air trips are pieces of longer itineraries in an aviation network (aka “hub and spoke”) so without some true multimodal integration, it would be hard to reduce air travel in short haul markets and continue to serve a lot of long haul itineraries. My understanding is that European roadways are intensively used for transportation of goods, and that the US freight rail system is the envy of Europe.
There’s a 1996 study of air, rail and auto in the California corridor (UCB_ITS_RR_96-3) at http://www.its.berkeley.edu/publications/UCB/96/RR/UCB-ITS-RR-96-3.pdf
full cost comparison of the 3 is at table 7.1 (including environmental and other externalities), air looks best, due largely to the high infrastructure costs associated with the other 2. Of course this was at a different set of input prices, such as for fuel.
There’s also a requisite Onion story at http://www.theonion.com/content/news/report_98_percent_of_u_s_commuters which is more about commuting than national travel however.
September 6th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
lfv,
Only if you present the same case for automobile subsidies.
But I haven’t advocated automobile subsidies. I’ll cheerfully support the elimination of the small auto subsidy if you’ll support the elimination of the much larger subsidy for rail. If you won’t take that deal, you need to explain why the massively higher subsidies provided to rail are justified. And if you want to increase rail subsidies, you need to justify that too.
I hardly think anyone is advocating for the replacement of the majority of car trips with rail trips.
Well, what share of trips or passenger-miles of travel currently made by car do you seek to replace with rail travel? I don’t expect a precise answer. A rough idea will do. Are we talking about a marginal shift of just a few percentage points, or a much larger shift on the order of, say, 10% or more of total passenger-miles or total number of trips?
But the option to travel city-to-city is appealing. And rail systems in certain areas of the country suggests that it is appealing for certain situations and should be expanded.
What areas of the country, and by how much do you think it should be expanded? Of course, most people would probably find an increase in their transportation choices “appealing” considered in isolation from the costs, and the distribution of costs and benefits. A serious case for expanding rail would obviously need to examine both benefits and costs. And the distribution of those costs and benefits. And the cost-effectiveness of expanding rail versus other kinds of policy to achieve the same kinds of benefit.
September 7th, 2008 at 2:55 am
And two points are noteworthy here. First, at 1996 energy costs, the full cost of highway and rail transport were roughly equivalent, so obviously the full cost of highway travel over these distances is higher than the full cost of rail transport under current energy costs.
And, second, this is in the context of the California distances between the two metropolitan areas, which has led to the strategy of a direct leap to genuine HSR. Much more of the US population lives in metropolitan areas that offer suitable interurban trips for 110mph tilt-train services, for which the infrastructure costs are substantially lower.
September 7th, 2008 at 8:24 am
Mixner is an illustration of the old saying that “Figures don’t lie, but some liars sure can figure”. Every once in a while it’s worth going back to his original source to see exactly where the table gets tilted, although I’ll admit that, having done that once, it’s been easier just to ignore him. Thank god for having the name of the commenter at the top of their comment!
In this case, though, I have to say his assertions seem to be obviously absurd. If “road transport” carries 84% of everything that moves in Europe, how do we explain packed commuter trains, streetcars, bicycles, and pedestrians? Just how many people are there in Europe? I’m guessing that here Mixner has just conveniently dropped off the chart all of the daily commuting. (There’s also a bias in using “passenger kilometers” as a metric if you’ve designed society to minimize the distance between home and work.)
Then he double-shuffles into the old “rate of growth” argument. Man, that would be one crowded continent if 84% of the trips were being made by car and that was growing at 17% per year. What seems more likely is that a relatively small proportion of car users appear to grow more quickly because they start from a smaller base figure.
It’s all part of why the average guy is smarter than you think when they tend to ignore people waving armloads of “facts and figures”.
September 7th, 2008 at 11:40 am
Mixner Says: September 6th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
Except that the 1996 source cited arrived at roughly equivalent costs for rail and road, with substantially higher private costs for rail, so clearly the explicit subsidy of road and implicit subsidy in terms of toleration of the imposition of external costs is higher for cars than for rail in the topic at hand, which is interurban passenger transport.
Now that the private cost advantage of interurban automobile transport has risen relative to rail, clearly any private cost advantage is simply due to the fact that motor-road transport is more effective at externalizing costs than rail is.
September 7th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Oops, sorry, forgot to note that the last was in reply to serial catowner, September 7th, 2008 at 8:24 am.
September 7th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
catowner,
I know you think your guesses and wishful thinking are more important than facts and evidence, but they’re not. You might want to try actually reading the EU document I linked to. As clearly shown in figure 1.2 on page 5, as of 2004 rail provided a mere 5.8% of total passenger-km of travel within the EU. “Tram & Metro” provided an additional 1.2%.
These numbers are dwarfed by road transportation. Passenger cars provided 73.5% of total passenger-km. “Powered Two-Wheelers” (motorcycles and scooters) an additional 2.4%, and “Buses % Coaches” an additional 8.3%. Thus, road transportation in total provided a whopping 84.2% of total passenger-km of transportation.
As the document itself states on page 4, in the section titled “Road Dominates”
As you can also see in Table 2.1 on page 8, road networks in Europe have grown rapidly while rail networks have declined. Between 1990 and 2003, motorways grew by a whopping 41%, and other roads grew by 22%. Rail networks, in contrast, declined by 8%.
Yet another indicator of the growing dominance of road transportation in Europe is the growth in the number of passenger cars. See Table 3.1 on page 35. Between 1990 and 2005, the number of passenger cars in Europe grew by 37%.
As the document notes, this huge growth in the European road network and European car sales has occurred despite government efforts to encourage people to use other modes of transportation. See the section on page 34 titled “Ever-Expanding Car Growth”
The basic nature and trend of the European transportation system is the same as the American transportation system: Cars overwhelmingly dominate transportation, and that dominance is increasing. Rail provides only a small and shrinking share of transportation.
September 7th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
full cost comparison of the 3 is at table 7.1 (including environmental and other externalities), air looks best, due largely to the high infrastructure costs associated with the other 2.
Yes, that study found that high-speed rail would be the most expensive of the three alternatives studied for a transportation link between LA and San Francisco, and that HSR would cost almost twice as much as expanding air service.
Of course this was at a different set of input prices, such as for fuel.
Fuel costs obviously affect all three transportation modes. The price of electricity used for transportation has increased substantially since 1996, just as the price of gasoline and aviation fuel have increased. According to the Energy Information Administration, the average price of electricity used for the transportation sector has increased by over 50% just since 2003.
September 7th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
even car drivers can listen to music, news, audiobooks, etc. and make phone calls (not withstanding your “danger” comment) while driving.
Remind me not to drive with Mixner.
September 7th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
Serial catowner, I agree when you said “been easier just to ignore him” He says things like this: Constructing rail lines and train stations generally consumes huge amounts of energy and produces huge amounts of pollution.
We all know that construction elves use fairy dust to make magic asphalt that never needs repaving to build roads, while constructing those dastardly rail lines uses energy and causes pollution!
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