Jobs programs helping to alleviate 10% unemployment are great. But what's not so great? Slow-moving jobs spending on initiatives that are likely to be money losers in the long-run and mostly benefit foreign companies. In light of that, how should we think about President Obama's announcement of new high-speed rail initiatives? I think there are a few things to consider.
Here's the news about the two most major projects, via Reuters:
The largest of the $8 billion in rail grants, which originated in last year's economic stimulus package, will go to major corridors, with more than one-quarter of the funds dedicated to California.
The state will get $2.25 billion for a 400-mile connector between Los Angeles and San Francisco, with trains designed to travel up to 220 miles per hour (354 kph), U.S. transportation officials said.
Florida will receive $1.25 billion to develop an 84-mile link between Tampa, Orlando and Miami. Trains would reach 168 mph (270 kph).
To be clear, these aren't commuter rails. They are for regional travel between large metropolitan areas. That means they will be used primarily for business travel and some leisure travel. So, in order for these rails to be successful, there would have to be a great deal of demand for business travel between the cities they serve.
For the Los Angeles-San Francisco route, that may be the case, but I'm not entirely sure. According to the rail website, it will be significantly slower than the flight. For example, the LA-San Fran route takes one hour and 15 minutes by plane, but two hours and 40 minutes by train. But from San Diego to San Francisco, a flight would take just an hour-and-a-half. It would take the rail about four hours. So it depends on how many travelers will prefer to spend more time on a train than they would have in a plane. And the further south you get from Los Angeles, the less likely you're willing to make that tradeoff.
Florida has an even worse problem. It has far less business and industry than California. Now you're talking about Miami, Tampa and Orlando having enough business travelers to satisfy the demand for the rail. I think that's highly unlikely. It may get more leisure travelers than the California rail, given the Orlando theme parks, but I'm not so sure. It helps to have a car in Orlando. Moreover, if it's a family trip, will there be any cost savings by buying 4 or 5 round trip train tickets versus the gas to drive to Orlando? It's not that far a drive from either location.
I am also a little troubled by this from the Reuters article:
Many of the companies are based overseas since the U.S. virtually abandoned rail development in the 20th century to focus on highway development.
Transportation officials say companies with potential commitments on the table include: General Electric Co's transportation unit; Canada's Bombardier Inc; French consortium Alstom; Germany's Siemens; Lockheed Martin Corp; Korea's Hyundai Rotem Co, Hyundai Motor Co's heavy industry unit, and Japan's Nippon Sharyo Ltd.
So what you're saying is that, of the seven most major companies that will profit from this government-sponsored endeavor, five are foreign-based? I'm not a protectionist by any stretch of the imagination, but I would have liked to have seen more U.S. government stimulus money going towards an industry where American companies would more likely benefit.
Finally, I also worry about how long it will take to break ground on these rails. The government will have to acquire or seize additional land to build the routes and stations. There will be permits involved and lots of logistic headaches to be had. After all, it's been nearly a year since the stimulus passed, and we're just now hearing the announcement of these initiatives. The projects are hardly shovel-ready.
I'm not convinced these rail initiatives are the best use possible of stimulus money. But here's hoping that I'm wrong: I'd be very happy to see these projects quickly create thousands of jobs, benefit mostly U.S. companies and turn out to be wildly popular. While I love the idea of a high-speed rail, I am not persuaded that these U.S. cities have high enough population density to make the rails profitable.
Daniel, the whole lack of American companies involved in these subsidies is precisely that: I can't name an actual American company who is actually building locomotives, especially passenger-based ones. The last company I knew who were involved in any rail service was Boeing, particularly with their LRV project designed to succeed the PCC streetcars of the 1940's. That was a spectacular failure, and pushed them out of the business. If there is a company building locomotives, they are likely building diesel-based freight locomotives, and asking them to build a passenger train is like asking Ford's truck division to design and build a sports car.
Also, in regards to travel times, especially with high-speed rail in California: You fail to take into account many outside variables in regards to the trip, including terminal-to-destination distance. As a San Francisco resident, I can tell you that the travel time from the City to SFO can be anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes, depending on your location and the method of transit (taxi/shuttle, car, BART public transit). At LAX, it's probably about the same, if not longer. And that's not taking into account traffic (such as rush hour). Further, we should also add security and check-in/pick-up luggage to the amount of time in question, another 20-30 minutes, give or take the time of week or year. In other words, that 1 hour 15 minute flight becomes an up to 3 hour 30 minute trip.
With HSR, the terminals will actually be in the cities themselves: San Francisco's terminus is likely to be a reconstructed TransBay Terminal in the middle of the South Beach business district. Los Angeles will likely use Union Station in Downtown as its terminus. In other words, in terms of business, your final destination will either be in walking distance or a $5 cab ride away, all within 10 minutes, and the same would apply to your starting location. So basically, even if the ride is two and a half hours, it is a two and a half hour trip, pushing aside most independent variables.
Finally, there is room for improvement on the speed of these trains. It's possible that new technology will allow average speeds of 250 or 300 mph by the end of the decade, which could bring ride times down to 2 hours or less. While still slower than flight, it would break even on the fastest trip time flying, and certainly beat the average time. So high-speed rail CAN compete with shuttle routes.
A lot of people are complaining about the time argument. First, I don’t think a whole lot of time will be saved not having to travel to the airport. That might work in very dense metropolitan areas like Manhattan, but in places like Los Angeles and Miami, it could take just as long to get to the train station as it does to the airport depending on where you are driving from in those areas. Not everyone lives or works in a small radius downtown. As for the time saved in security, that is a good point, for now. Once terrorists realize what a big mess you can make when a train going 200-plus-mph derails, I suspect authorities will ramp up security at the train stations too. That should make the security time a little closer to equal.
Again, as I said, I hope I’m wrong. I really like the idea of trains working in the U.S. I just have my doubts.
"First, I don’t think a whole lot of time will be saved not having to travel to the airport."
Youre just not devoting much thought to it; most airports throughout the world are built at about a 20 minute train ride away from the center; most central rail stations are built downtown; simply put, most cities dont have room for an airport at the center; there may be exceptions, but they certainly are not the norm. Now lets look at the average setup; to get to the airport, you cant drive, unless you park. Parking is 10 minutes away from the airport - usually - and requires waiting for a shuttlebus of some sort. Time to terminal: 20 minutes. This is normal. If you take a train to the airport, unless youre on the high speed rail link between shanghai and its airport, youre again taking a 20 minute ride, plus more than likely, 10 min transfer to the terminal. Average time to terminal, however you do it, 30 minutes. Planes have had checkins of 2 hours even without security. But lets suppose you have a airline that wont sell your seat if you checkin late. You still have a line to checkin, 15 mins, a walk to the gate, 15 mins, 20 mins until youre allowed to board; 15 mins before they taxi to the runway, so thats an absolute minimum of 1 hour and 20 mins. To be fair, I got someone on a plane from Market St. in 45 mins once, but they walked him through security to the tarmac, and we only made it because I had a hunch and switched lanes on the freeway before the lane I as in clogged up. On the far side, it takes 20 mins to taxi to the terminal, 15 mins to deboard, and 15 mins to exit to the taxi rank/bus/train. Then another 20 mins minimum to the center. 1 hour, 10 mins. Put the 2 together, and no matter how you slice it, you have to add 2 hours and 40 mins to every plane ride. By contrast, boarding a train takes on average 10-15 mins, and unboarding takes 5 minutes: Net advantage, 2 hours and 20 mins. None of this takes into account weather, delayed planes, security alerts, or any of the million excuses tha the average plane ride gets delayed by. If youre interested, you can research the average delay. Trains are not delayed generally by bad weather, congestion at the station, equipment not turning up, etc.
Your only logical counterargument is that people may not want to travel between the centers. My counterresponse to that would be that even if they dont; theyre still going to need to make a transfer to where they are going. Tell me, where are you most likely to find transfers to your destination? At an airport or at a city center rail station? So yeah, more than likely youre going to need to go to the city transport hub in any case; At most airports, there is a city-center rail link built in; this would argue that a lot of people go to the city center.
I've done a lot of travel, and of the public transport I've used; in practice rail is the faster option most of the time directly because airports are incredibly difficult to get through. Terminals can be 20 minutes from the central transit part, requiring airport shuttle buses, waits, and those buses tend not to leave until quite a few passengers fill up the bus. With all their cases.
Regarding terrorists and trains; I have no doubt that America will freeze at the thought of one terrorist attack, but considering the number of planes that come flaming to the ground in a normal year, that seems like an unwarranted reaction, and one could as well hope that we all get sense and go back to the days when checking onto a plane still took 2 hours.
Youre definitely wrong on the time. If you doubt that, take a survey of the time it takes in Europe to board trains versus planes. The only real question is whether there is the POLITICAL will; and public transport has always shocked Americans with its socialistic aspects - sharing a ride with others. Maybe someday when bullet trains are regarded as "planes on the ground" this will change.
This raises a few questions:
1. Must rail traffic be profitable? Are the highways profitable?
2. Could the airlines survive without massive government subsidies?
3. Many geologists and economists predict oil prices will continue to rise. Do we wait for $5 gas before we begin building a rail system to haul people and freight that's now carried by diesel-chugging trucks?
4. Regarding travel time: Have you figured in the time between when you leave your home and arrive at your destination? Rail stations are generally much faster than airport check-ins and waits for luggage at the other end.
Lets look at the facts:
It takes a minimum of 30 mins to get to the airport at either end; 2 hours to check in, and one hour to taxi to the gate and get through to a taxi. So the Flight to LA REALLY takes 4 hours longer. You can get from SF to LA in half the time it takes to get on and off the plane.
If you want to talk about further trips to San Diego, be aware that youre going to be routed through LAX. SO thats going to add another 2 hours MINIMUM, for a total of 7.5 hours, versus 4 hours for train.
For some reason, people all across the world can manage intercity travel by high speed (REAL high speed) rail. Only in America, do people insist in slogging to an airport, by whatever means possible, including long term parking, rental cars, etc., then sitting in a tin can on the tarmac for an hour waiting for the go-ahead, being denied all food and drink because it could be an explosive, and finally burning through the amount of fossil fuel that an african uses in his lifetime.
I cant see the attraction myself. Having used both trains and planes, I vastly prefer the former. Airports are close to hell on earth. Planes have no air, my airways dry up, I cant look out the window, and have my sleep schedule messed up because some business guy wants to use it as his private hotel room and catch some sleep, so all the windows must be closed.. and thats ignoring waiting forever while a plane with a working toilet is rerouted to my flight number.
But the real dividend comes in moving freight off the roads.
This entire high-speed rail program is a farce. The cost of building a high-speed rail system in California alone is 40 billion dollars. In other words five times as much as the total money given to all states by this program.
The money announced isn't going to build a single project or create many jobs. Because its not enough money and its all spread out. And because its being spent on both STUPID projects like Tampa-Orlando and financially infeasable projects like LA-San Francisco.
It would be good as a country to develop high-speed rail. And if we were serious about it, it would create jobs. But thats not Obama's plan. All his plan is going to do is spread 8 billion dollars out among a bunch of consultants across the country and not build anything.
If the country is serious about high-sped rail and jobs, we need to select projects that make sense and fully fund them. If our choice is to build a rail project LA-San Francisco, great. Lets spend the 40 billion and really do it. Or lets do Houston-Austin in Texas for 8 billion. The point is that we need to do real things rather than spend billions on talk.
"The cost of building a high-speed rail system in California alone is 40 billion dollars. "
The cost of buliding a democracy in Iraq was $3,000 billion.
The last time I flew from SFO to LAX, I had to allow 2 hours at the airport for security (that's what's recommended nowadays), plus 45 minutes to drive to SFO, plus 45 minutes to drive from LAX to downtown LA.
Assuming high-speed rail goes downtown to downtown (and those are the plans), and that the security is less incompetent than for air travel, that 4-hour timespan is looking pretty good.
Well, let's consider a few of your points. You mention that a high-speed line in California would take longer than a flight and so you doubt that it will be successful. The problem with this thinking is that statistics from all over the world consistently show that people prefer to travel by HSR over plane despite travel times that are 1-3 hours longer. Take Taiwan, for example, where they recently linked Taipei with Kaohsiung with HSR. Taking a plane between those cities is faster, yet since THSR opened domestic travel for the ENTIRE COUNTRY has dropped by more than 50%.
Second, American companies cannot benefit from HSR contracts because American companies do not build high-speed trains. That's not Obama's fault. And if he chooses to do nothing, he can sit by and watch the Chinese, who have built nearly 5,000 miles of high-speed lines in the last 9 years, complete another 4,000 miles by 2012.
Last, it seems that you are under the impression that building HSR is only beneficial to our country if it creates thousands of jobs and benefits mostly American companies. High speed rail projects around the world have had other beneficial effects, such as reducing highway and air travel, thus reducing overall oil consumption. In all honesty, I find it quite shocking that you would want the US government to continue to implement reactionary policies that have left the US so uncompetitive rather than to plan ahead for higher oil prices and shifting global markets.
You arguments might make sense if we were actually building or even planning to build high-speed rail projects. But we as a country are not. 8 billion dollars as funding is a joke. Not one project will be built with such a tiny amount of money. And the reason why American companies don't step in is that nobody is going to invest real money in what is a joke program.
Come up with real funded programs to build rail projects and there will be no shortage of companies participating. But until then, its all hot air.
I agree. I think the government should be throwing $300 billion at it like the Chinese, but $8 billion is a start.
"1. Must rail traffic be profitable? Are the highways profitable?"
This sums it all up, doesn't it? Some people have no problem with the US government, federal and state alike, subsidizing road travel with hundreds of billions of dollars, but to spend a few billion on HSR is somehow a waste of money. Here's the reality of the situation:
"Consumers do not pay the actual cost for congestion and the government subsidizes all modes. This creates a modal imbalance between all modes but particularly between subsidized urban highways and transit. A study by the International Center for Technology Assessment found that after accounting for government subsidies, pollution cleanup and other costs, the real price of gasoline is estimated to be somewhere between US$5.60 and US$15.37 per gallon."
My personal beef is that both SF and LA could really use improvements to their in-city rail systems, where the aggrevation/environmental payoff is much bigger per dollar spent. For example, why not use the money to connect BART, the SF rail to San Jose. It's almost there already, just needs a few miles of track and a SJ station. Or, work on another line in LA. Improving these systems, which are accessible to millions of people on a daily basis, will take many more people off the road than the few thousand who will opt to take the high speed rail over airplane each day.
Plus, since a lot of the work is heavy construction, that will actually help out local firms and workers, instead of foreign companies.
All the other comments have already done a great job pointing out that the "its only 1 1/2 hours by plane" is a complete farce once you factor in the time to get to and from the airport and as well as through security. So I won't add any more to that.
My additional thoughts:
1) As an actual business traveler who has made us of rail, particularly the Acela line in the Northeast corridor, I much prefer using rail when possible. It may take a wee bit longer, but unlike all that time involving driving to the airport, waiting in line, etc., my time on rail is not wasted. For rail, its generally already downtown and all I have to do is show up 10-15 minutes before my train and it "all aboard!". I get a big seat and its in front of a big ole table with outles. Plenty of room to plug in my laptop and spread out my work papers and files. I can make cell phone calls the entire time. I can get up and grab a cup of coffee when I want to. In short, its like being in the office. Compare that to air travel, where half my time is wasted either standing in line or driving to/from the airport. Once in my seat, even then, there's barely enought time to unpack my laptop before its time to pack it all up again to prep for landing.
2) All that money on the rail projects is not going to foreign companies. Yes, indeed, the companies making the acutal trains are based overseas. But seriously, of the total budget for these projects, how much is going to rolling stock? I am sure there is a whole lot of that total project cost that goes to laying and building the actual physical, in the ground, rail itself. Which will be performed by here, on U.S. soil, by American workers. In addition, you need civil engineers and other designers for the construction of that rail. On top of that, a lot of these projects involve the design and construction of new inter-modal stations - again, work for Americans.
Just a general observation here: The commentary on the blogs at this magazine is often way more informed and sophisticated than the articles and main posts, which tend to be a banal mix of conventional wisdom and twee attempts at hip contrarianism.
The publishers need to get more open-minded writers and to replace the editors on a wholesale basis.
I guess I am being rude, but it needs to be said.
I think a point of Daniel's that stands is in regards to stimulus. Sure, this will eventually result in physical labor jobs on the ground - but between the environmental impact studies and the overall design, which will probably require foreign expertise(?) when do the American jobs get created? 2014? are we expecting to still need stimulus funded work that far out?
" but between the environmental impact studies and the overall design, which will probably require foreign expertise(?) when do the American jobs get created? 2014?"
Think of it this way; Its an $8 billion tax cut that environmental impact people have to do work for. Does it work now?
But the issue is far beyond recovering the jobs lost in the republican crash. Its building the infrastructure that will be required -REQUIRED- in 2020 and beyond. America suceeded because of the freeways, but they are creaking at the seams, and today, they are clogged with people wasting productivity behind the wheel. Freight is bogged down. Tens of thousands die. Before 911, people were saying that air congestion was going to be a serious problem. What we have got, simply isnt good enough for what our economy will need. In 2007, railroads moved one ton of freight 436 miles with one gallon of fuel. Do you start to see the issue?
Without investment in railways, 450 million tons of freight will move to the roads, costing shippers $162 billion, and highway users $238 Billion, and adding $10 billion in highway repair/construction costs.
For example, the railroad on the Crescent Corridor estiamtes that it can divert 2 million trucks off the road with an additional $2 billion in investment.
Freight companies are begging for more freight capacity.
If we're building it anyway - just to cope - why not have the vision to build it 5 times faster?
Why not?
If we have $3 trillion to inspect Saddams toilets, we surely have a few hundred billion to invest in the infrastructure of tomorrow.
To answer your stimulus point more directly; If it makes sense to build better rail ANYWAY, isnt this a great time to do it? Or would you rather spend the money when the economy is overheating?
You're missing many points, Mr. Indiviglio.
First, with regard to high speed rail and air, you simply do not account for actual journey times or convenience. Ever seen how passengers are screened for security on rail? That's right, in most cases it isn't enough necessary. Check-in times are a non issue. On England's West Coast Main Line, a conventional route upgraded to 125mph running, departure gates close three minutes prior to departure at London Euston, and at departure at other locations. Even on the Channel Tunnel, where magnetometers and X-rays are required due to the passage through the tunnel, the check-in deadline of 45 minutes is, in practice, a soft deadline and they'll take passengers to within a few minutes of departure. And the generous-sized cargo racks on trains mean baggage check-in is unnecessary. So any way you cut it, close to an hour advantage for rail over the airlines. And then as others here have pointed out the rail terminals tend to be much more easily accessible than airports, at the heart of regional highway and transit networks rather than at the end of a spur. 125mph high speed rail beats the airlines at up to a 300 mile journey; 200mph does so at up to a 500 mile journey.
Secondly, with several of the projects announced today, there's a huge spinoff for other rail operators, both commuters and freights. This is particularly true in the Midwest, where the flat terrain and relatively high quality of the existing rail infrastructure make it realistic to upgrade routes as opposed to building new. More than 10 percent of the Illinois grant is for a flyover in Chicago that finally grade-separates the most congested rail junction in the United States. Amtrak, Metra, Norfolk Southern and CSX will all see big increases in reliability and reductions in journey time. The Milwaukee-Watertown section of the route to Madison sees extra track that not only makes it possible to run passenger trains, but also alleviates congestion on the busiest freight route between Chicago and Minneapolis. Had Illinois, for example, got everything it wanted in this round, we'd have seen double-tracking the entire Chicago-St. Louis route, a project that would have delivered both 125mph running and close to three-hour rail service and many extra slots for the Union Pacific as well as Amtrak.
Third is the basic point that government should not favor one mode over another. In that regard the rail industry has been the abused stepchild since the 1880s. First they were subjected to draconian monopoly laws and arbitrary controls on their ability to set fares and railfreight rates even though hardly any towns of decent size were dependent on only one railroad. Then came the onslaught of the federal highway network in the 1920s -- knocking out most interurban light rail and gravely weakening rural branch lines. Then the interstates, finishing off most passenger rail. Then the failure to deregulate prior to the late 1970s, taking out the remaining rural branches. Then the chronic underfunding of Amtrak and commuter lines, now dependent on the state due to 100 years of weakening the private railroads through regulation and subsidized competition. It's time to level the playing field. Rail is far more efficient than road -- and freight rail is unique in that it pays, handsomely, in taxes (rights of way are subject to property tax, even) and doesn't get back. Time for that to change. Our rail network, especially in the Midwest and Mid-South, was grossly overabandoned during the regulation-caused crisis of the 1960s to the 1980s, resulting in a congestion crisis, and what more appropriate than grants like these to help alleviate it?
1) The problem at Amtrack isn't underfunding. The two problems are that Amtrack puts a disproportionate amount of its resources into one particular region of the country and that frieght is the priority traffic in the rail system. Until those two things are fixed, Amtrack will never function properly.
2) Blaming the government back to the 1880s for the problems of the railroads isn't a good thing to be doing. Interstate trucking and airlines were also regulated until the late 1970s. Everyone had the same problems that the railroads did. And everyone in transportation went through chaos during deregulation. Most of the contraction in the rail system was for sound economic reasons. And those "handsome" taxes on right of ways are part of what pushed many parts of the system into closure.
3) Rail is not always more efficient than road. They both have their place as does air frieght and shipping. The mistake thats always made is trying to make one form of transportation fit all needs.
You did make one excellent point. While the 8 billion dollars spent is unlikely to create even one high-speed train in the US, the money will potentially fix a number of longstanding structural problems in the US rail system. Its just too bad that we have to fool people into railroad investments by dangling things like high-speed trains in front of them that will never be built.
" The two problems are ... and that frieght is the priority traffic in the rail system. Until those two things are fixed, Amtrack will never function properly."
Simple answer: Fix both freight AND passenger travel. Freight is desperately needed now.
I see no problem in designing a 300 mph system that moves people in the day and freight by night.
I see a massive problem in hoping that planes will take the increased traffic expected this century.
Why is it that no-one questions the fact that America spends 6 times as much on weapons as our next competitor, but the notion of building high-efficiency electric grids, wind farms, solar farms, or rail capacity is deemed "socialism"? To that you can also add broadband, sewage (not as sexy), and levees, bridges, etc etc.