By now, you can see the pattern. We find salient articles, re-print them and comment on them. The articles may be against, or for high-speed rail. But our intent is to think and write about what is being said in order to understand better the basis for rejecting high-speed rail as a very bad idea for the United States and for California.
Here's another article and argument that's more or less right, but for the wrong reasons. It's from the online version of the business section of The Atlantic. Megan McArdle's point here is that while rail, including high-speed rail is a good thing, it's not good to build demonstration projects "to nowhere." She says,
Here's another article and argument that's more or less right, but for the wrong reasons. It's from the online version of the business section of The Atlantic. Megan McArdle's point here is that while rail, including high-speed rail is a good thing, it's not good to build demonstration projects "to nowhere." She says,
Perhaps it will even work in California. But to make it work, we need to get away from demonstration projects, and start with the projects that make good economic sense. If we do a couple of those, we may inspire more imitators across the country. But if we insist on building trains to nowhere because they're so darn easy to build, we're not going to inspire anything but contempt.
I don't know what that means. How will high-speed rail in the US "make good common sense?" Why might it "even work" in California? She had made the point that Florida won't work because of lack of adequate, and therefore justifying, ridership. OK. That's one reason among many to not build it.
Why isn't that the case for California as well? What "demonstration" projects is she talking about? California's HSR is not a demonstration project that is intentionally initiated in the Central Valley. It's built there because the FRA insisted, for political reasons, and because, ostensibly, it's cheaper to start there.
It is not a demonstration project. To the contrary, it's nothing at all. Its tracks won't carry high-speed rail because there will be no electrification, no signalling, no PTC, no nothing, nothing except track. Not even rolling stock. It won't carry people unless and until they build the whole damn thing. How does that demonstrate anything?
"...because they're so darn easy to build. . . ?" Is she kidding? We don't yet know just how hard, and how expensive, they are to build until we start. That's the problem. We are intent on launching a project in California, and a program in the United States, about which we know nothing. All the promoters have concocted a laundry list of problems that will be solved, with no substantiating evidence. They have pointed at other countries in Europe and Asia with HSR and said, "Look, they have them. They must be great. People are riding them. We've been on them. We must have them also." That's a child's argument. Billy has one; I want one, too.
I strongly suspect, and this is not on McArdle's radar screen, that the powerful impetus for high-speed rail has little to do with the trains themselves and what they could contribute to the national well-being, or not. They are, instead, a golden opportunity for the distribution of pork from national and state coffers to adventurous deal-makers and political promoters, all couched in terms of jobs and economy bolstering.
Yes, in many ways, this program and it's eager project off-spring are ridiculous. "Building trains is an immensely costly enterprise--not just financially costly, but environmentally and personally costly, as people and habitats are uprooted, and metal is tortured into rails and switches and cars." This is all true.
It is immensely costly, and the negative environmental impact of construction and manufacturing for this train is also immense, but that's still not why it's ridiculous. It's ridiculous because "cost overruns, disappointing passenger figures, and a single-minded committment on the part of rail advocates that defies common sense" is merely the tip of the iceberg. It's because the program is a mega-billion dollar scam, luring the uninformed with federal "gifts" of several billion in order to trigger vast expenditures for which there is no source at either the federal or state levels. Ms. Mcadle is absolutely correct: It defies common sense!!!
And, it's ridiculous because it's a luxury train the US, and California in particular, certainly don't need, not for any reason. It's as ridiculous as borrowing money to buy a Rolls-Royce and driving it to the Unemployment Bureau to pick up your monthly check.
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http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/03/when-rail-becomes-ridiculous/72478/
When Rail Becomes Ridiculous
MAR 14 2011, 4:34 PM ET
By MEGAN MCARDLE
I often find it hard to convince environmentalists that I really am a rail buff who likes dense, walkable development, and the planet. If that's so, they ask, why do I spend so much time harping on the problems with high speed rail?
My answer is that I wouldn't harp on the problems if the advocates of high speed rail advocates wouldn't make such glaring mistakes. Like, say, the Tampa-to-Orlando high speed rail project. No matter how much you love trains, and the planet, I think you ought to be skeptical about projects like this. A New York Times article makes it clear just how dimwitted the concept was:
The Tampa-to-Orlando route had obvious drawbacks: It would have linked two cities that are virtually unnavigable without cars, and that are so close that the new train would have been little faster than driving. But the Obama administration chose it anyway because it was seen as the line that could be built first. Florida had already done much of the planning, gotten many of the necessary permits and owned most of the land that would be needed.
. . . Tampa and Orlando are only 84 miles apart, generally considered too close for high-speed rail to make sense. The train trip, with many stops along the way, would have shaved only around a half-hour off the drive. Since there are no commercial flights between the two cities, the new line would not have lured away fliers or freed up landing slots at the busy airports. And neither Tampa nor Orlando has many public transportation options. So the question arose: Could riders be persuaded to leave their cars behind and buy tickets to places where they would still probably need cars?
. . . The Department of Transportation did not have that many options. Only two states, Florida and California, were deemed far enough along in their planning to receive money for building actual bullet trains -- trains that can travel more than 150 miles an hour, on tracks of their own that are not shared with other trains.
So basically, the feds wanted to spend $2.6 billion, plus any cost overruns or operating costs, to put in a train for which there was no evident demand. Why? Because they didn't have any better options, and they wanted to build a train. The California High Speed Rail project, following similarly sound reasoning, is going to start out in California's not-very-populous Central Valley, because . . . it's easier to get the right of way. Never mind that there aren't any, like, passengers.
Building trains is an immensely costly enterprise--not just financially costly, but environmentally and personally costly, as people and habitats are uprooted, and metal is tortured into rails and switches and cars. If you are going to install one, you should be reasonably certain that there will be people around with an interest in riding your train. After all, a train running mostly empty emits a lot of carbon.
I am a fan of train projects when those projects start with a problem that might be solved by a train, and then work forward to the train. The problem is that in America, those routes are difficult to build, because they're places where there's already a lot of stuff. Rights of way are expensive and time-consuming to obtain, and the project is bound to be blocked by well-organized NIMBYs.
And so the idea seems to have become to build trains where it's possible to build trains, and hope that development follows. But trains succeed where they are better than some alternative form of transportation. In the case of Tampa to Orlando, they're worse than a car, and there isn't even any air travel to replace; in the case of Fresno-to-Bakersfield, it may be better than a car for a few passengers, but there are too few passengers to make the trains better than cars for the environment.
Meanwhile, projects that do make economic sense, like an actual high-speed Acela, or Southeastern High-Speed Rail Corridor, are going nowhere. They might have a better chance of success if rail advocates hadn't abandoned them in favor of building whizzy demonstration projects with dubious economic appeal.
But is it really a good demonstration project if the train doesn't have any passengers? Or if the people to whom you've demonstrated it finish their trip in Bakersfield, sans car? It seems to me that this is a very good way to demonstrate cost overruns, disappointing passenger figures, and a single-minded committment on the part of rail advocates that defies common sense.
There is a case for rail in the United States. It works in the Northeast Corridor, and it might well be possible to grow it organically to other areas--south from Washington, west from New York.
Perhaps it will even work in California. But to make it work, we need to get away from demonstration projects, and start with the projects that make good economic sense. If we do a couple of those, we may inspire more imitators across the country. But if we insist on building trains to nowhere because they're so darn easy to build, we're not going to inspire anything but contempt.
