Liberals And Public Transportation

What about a little way into the future, when maglev is more economically feasible?

I took the maglev from Shanghai to Shanghai airport. Travelling at well over 400kph mere metres above the ground is quite something to behold.

Not quite airline speeds, but not too far off either.

I don't know enough about the respective costs to speculate a comparison. I suspect that the initial outlay for maglev will always remain very high. Particularly given that existing infrastructure and rolling stock would be utterly useless in the inception of a maglev network.

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Originally Posted by wiggin

I'm not attacking HSR in general - I started this off by suggesting that HSR is hard to translate to the US, with particular emphasis on the plans being promoted and funded by the current administration. Even if you build dedicated lines, though (which is very challenging from a policy and cost perspective, but certainly doable), it probably wouldn't be worth it outside of the NE corridor and possibly the West Coast. Short HSR lines for other regions (connecting two close cities) might be worth it as well, but a nationwide HSR network is almost certainly not worth it, even with a dedicated infrastructure.

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Of course HSR should consentrate on the densely populated areas. The Boswash corridor has a good distance between the city. Actually Washington and Baltimore are even a bit to close to eachother (50km) the distance should be 100-400km between each station so the train actually can reach the top speed for a long enough time. The TGV Sud-Est line (Paris-Lyon) is ~400km
and needs two hours. That means even the largest distance (NYC-Boston) would be a single hop in the system.

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Originally Posted by wiggin

Do you honestly think HSR in the Midwest will be worth it for all but the closest cities to Chicago? (i.e. Milwaukee and nothing else)

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Did I suggest that? I said it depended on population density and demand, and The east and west coast corridors have better city-to-city train services than the middle states.

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An analysis of HSR in Texas made it look like a pretty unattractive option for linking Houston and Dallas, and they're pretty close by American standards. Even worse would be a transcontinental HSR service linking the coasts. That would have huge tracts of extremely wasteful infrastructure for no good purpose.

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That's based on current "analysis". I'm talking about "future projections" into 2020 and beyond. Our latest census data shows more people are moving into the middle parts of the country, for various reasons. Cost of living, escaping congestion, lifestyle preferences, looking for work, whatever. That changes district lines and representatives in congress. Enough people move out of CA looking for more affordable living.

I'm not an economist, anthropologist, sociologist, political scientist, or any -ist for that matter. But I'm pretty sure our perimeter coasts and ports, internal waterways, locks and dams, arable land and employment centers....will look quite different by 2050. And so will our transportation and fuel needs.

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Originally Posted by Timbuk2

What about a little way into the future, when maglev is more economically feasible?

I took the maglev from Shanghai to Shanghai airport. Travelling at well over 400kph mere metres above the ground is quite something to behold.

Not quite airline speeds, but not too far off either.

I don't know enough about the respective costs to speculate a comparison. I suspect that the initial outlay for maglev will always remain very high. Particularly given that existing infrastructure and rolling stock would be utterly useless in the inception of a maglev network.

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If we can find a room temperature super-conductor, then maglevs might end up destroying intra-continental air travel. But I wouldn't hold my breath.

Huston - Dallas is in perfect HSR distance, the problem is that lack of local public networks.

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Originally Posted by GGT

I think Americans have gotten so accustomed to airline hubs and interstate highways, connecting cars to planes, then back to cars again --- that people can't imagine an efficient HSR system. They tend to compare it to Amtrak (who's had so many problems it's like the poster child for what not to do) instead of other well-functioning trains in other countries.

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The comparison to Amtrak cuts in more than one direction. Just because something works somewhere else doesn't mean it works here, because we're not in the same position they were. Amtrak is the only large-scale passenger rail infrastructure *physical, institutional, and human* we have to build on over here and, as has been pointed out, basically all the HSR proposals we're seeing are expansions on the current, moderately dysfunctional, system. We're not seeing any changes except a technologically-based speed increase which would appear to be higher than the reality of the rail network will actually permit.

When the HSR initiative appeared on the California ballot, I thought it was a wonderful idea. I still do, I think an alternative high speed link between Sacremento, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego would be a great thing, very useful. I voted against the initiative because it was apparent that what was actually put forth would not and could not go forward effectively. *it amounted, in fact, to an incredibly expensive feasibility study which would only even go that far if the Feds coughed up more cash* And I gather from what I've read that the same "airy promises, little results" holds true for most or all of the other proposals lately.

Fuzzy, that's a condemnation of our processes, though. Between the "feasibility studies", who does them, how they're done, who pays for them, who gets paid to do them, or who gets kickbacks from the results..... plus ballot initiatives....we have the yawing fact that plenty of Americans are reluctant to trust politicians to move forward, based on their past results. It's been said here before, but it's worth repeating:

We need to change how our reps are elected (money buying votes) so we can change how they make their decisions (pet projects for big donors). We need to change this insane mindset of campaigning for money right after elections, and thinking in increments of two or four years. /rant :)

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Originally Posted by GGT

Fuzzy, that's a condemnation of our processes, though. Between the "feasibility studies", who does them, how they're done, who pays for them, who gets paid to do them, or who gets kickbacks from the results..... plus ballot initiatives....we have the yawing fact that plenty of Americans are reluctant to trust politicians to move forward, based on their past results. It's been said here before, but it's worth repeating:

We need to change how our reps are elected (money buying votes) so we can change how they make their decisions (pet projects for big donors). We need to change this insane mindset of campaigning for money right after elections, and thinking in increments of two or four years. /rant :)

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That was not a condemnation of our process. That was a statement on how far things could go, given the limitations of the planned development. It was intended to be built within the current rail system to keep costs down. This would also keep its effectiveness down. And now and for the foreseeable future it, any large-scale development of HSR is going to remain that way. It doesn't matter what HSR could hypothetically manage, because it's not going to be implemented under those idealized conditions. It's going to be implemented under these already existing conditions.

The only place we might get effective high speed rail in the US is the North-East Corridor. It's not going to happen anywhere else. To be done effectively it will require an entirely new transportation infrastructure be set up, the fourth such infrastructure to be actively maintained in all those areas. Single lines might be developed in a few other small areas where cities are the perfect distance apart for it to take over another network's niche, but those conditions will not be common.

To address Wiggin and GGT's points, we do obviously not have the density to make intracity rail too easy. That said, it was only a century ago that intracity rail was a pretty dominant form of transportation. Even in the mid-west.

Without massive federal subsidies for roads, a nascent auto industry and a society that generally used less energy per capita, intracity rail networks really did work. Several even existed with private and semi-private operation.

I don't underestimate the kind of social change this will entail, but like all things I do think it can be done in baby steps. Which is why I think the Obama administration's approach is off.

Planned development in the US is showing its achilles tendon. Sorry, but "baby steps" won't work for a large future investment like HSR. Just like it didn't work for NASA making it to the moon in ten years.....not ten fucking generations. It will take strong leadership with a clear vision for the future, and people agreeing to pay some sort of taxation up front. We don't really want to borrow more from China to make the US a stronger nation that can compete with them, now do we.

HSR isn't the moon landing. The underlying technology of trains is fundamentally very old and proven.

The reason intercity rail worked for a time was because transportation within cities without personal automobiles was very effective. We can't just legislate massive trains between our major population centers. No one will take them and we will have borrowed from China and the union pension funds anyway to build it. It will require incremental changes in urban and suburban organization, which will in turn be focused around new focused transportation initiatives, etc.

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Originally Posted by earthJoker

Huston - Dallas is in perfect HSR distance, the problem is that lack of local public networks.

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The analysis I saw indicated that regardless of the distance, it wouldn't pay off. There is an analysis floating around indicating it might make money, but looking at the assumptions they have to make to get there, it's pretty unrealistic.

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Originally Posted by Dreadnaught

To address Wiggin and GGT's points, we do obviously not have the density to make intracity rail too easy. That said, it was only a century ago that intracity rail was a pretty dominant form of transportation. Even in the mid-west.

Without massive federal subsidies for roads, a nascent auto industry and a society that generally used less energy per capita, intracity rail networks really did work. Several even existed with private and semi-private operation.

I don't underestimate the kind of social change this will entail, but like all things I do think it can be done in baby steps. Which is why I think the Obama administration's approach is off.

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The problem IMO isn't competition from driving (which is generally pretty inefficient and expensive; our interstate system has never really been paid for by fuel taxes) but from flying. I know that some of the industry players get subsidies from the government, but several low price carriers get relatively little, and make a profit from short-haul hops. These are much cheaper than equivalent Amtrak tickets right now, and generally take as much time or less, at least for the shorter distances (factoring in extra wait time at airports). Given the subsidies Amtrak already receives, I can't imagine that ticket prices on HSR will be much lower given the capital investment and upkeep needed for HSR.

The reason rail was the dominant form of transportation was because there wasn't a cheaper, faster alternative. Now there is.

HSR isn't like going to the moon in technology, but it may as well be in attitudes. For all the talk about how "exceptional" the US is, there sure is a lot of pessimistic no-can-do sentiment.

Wimps, the lot of ye. :down:

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Originally Posted by wiggin

The analysis I saw indicated that regardless of the distance, it wouldn't pay off. There is an analysis floating around indicating it might make money, but looking at the assumptions they have to make to get there, it's pretty unrealistic.

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Yeah, that's pritty much what I said, the distance is not the problem there.

Actually the distance is the problem, but not because of the technology, but rather the market.

Please elaborate.

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Originally Posted by earthJoker

Please elaborate.

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What I'm guessing wiggin possibly means could be illustrated with the following example. The Long Island Rail Road operates and maintains the rail lines on Long Island, and parts of Manhattan and Queens. Prices are set based upon how far you are traveling, determined by what zone you are traveling from to the zone you will disembark in. Zone 1 includes New York City, Zone 14, the furthest zone out on the island, includes the Hamptons, Montauk etc. The cost of a monthly ticket, which allows unlimited ridership of the LIRR during that month, from Zone 14 to Zone 1, costs about $430. Due to the distance the commute takes several hours, and due to the smaller population of riders who live in that area compared to others, few trains are scheduled during the day. I would assume that the high cost, long commute, and lack of regular service would be disincentives to use the service, compared to where I live, which is about a 45 minute drive from NYC, with ticket costs being about $130 less, and trains running approximately every 30 - 45 minutes.

Not exactly what I was getting at, but roughly correct. Longer distances might start to become competitive on time with planes because the trains can actually use their max speed for a reasonable period. But they become less competitive on price.

There are other concerns as well. You need a minimum ridership to make things cost effective. Looking at the number of people who travel between two cities right now is a decent measure of your maximum potential ridership, but obviously it's not going to be 100% of that number. If the intercity travel market isn't big enough, it doesn't matter whether the distance is well suited for the maximum effectiveness of HSR.

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Originally Posted by wiggin

Not exactly what I was getting at, but roughly correct. Longer distances might start to become competitive on time with planes because the trains can actually use their max speed for a reasonable period. But they become less competitive on price.

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You need enough passengers to have an hourly train or once every 2 hour. If your business plan wont get such a frequency than don't start at all. The thing with the shorter distance is, that you just don't have to go HSR. For shorter travels you better invest in even higher frequencies, because the overall gain in time will be the same (just because you don't have to wait for your train that long).

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Originally Posted by earthJoker

You need enough passengers to have an hourly train or once every 2 hour. If your business plan wont get such a frequency than don't start at all. The thing with the shorter distance is, that you just don't have to go HSR. For shorter travels you better invest in even higher frequencies, because the overall gain in time will be the same (just because you don't have to wait for your train that long).

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I agree. The reality of many markets in the US is that you won't fill those hourly (or bihourly) trains since the price is uncompetitive or the market isn't large enough.