Counterpoint: High-Speed Rail Can Be a Good Investment - Post 4: Density, Cost

Last Monday, Robert J. Samuelson published an op-ed in the Washington Post suggesting the high-speed rail is nothing but pork.  At one point he says:

"Only in places with greater population densities, such as Europe and Asia, is high-speed rail potentially attractive. Even there, most of the existing high-speed trains don't earn 'enough revenue to cover both their construction and operating costs,' the Congressional Research Service report said. The major exceptions seem to be the Tokyo-Osaka and Paris-Lyon lines."

(from Wikimedia Commons)

As I mentioned in a previous post, I traveled on the AVE trains in Spain this summer.  Spain has a population density of about 210 people per square mile.  There are 12 US states with greater densities than this, as follows:

• New Jersey            1,174
• Rhode Island          1,008
• Massacusetts             841
• Connecticut               726
• UK                 656
• Germany         593
• Maryland                  583
• Delaware                  453
• New York                414
• Florida                      344
• France            310
• Ohio                         282
• Pennsylvania             281
• E. Coast (MA-FL)   276
• California                  237
• Illinois                       232
• Spain              210
• Hawaii                      202

Even more to the point, the whole East Coast, from Massachusetts to Florida, is almost as densely populated as France, which is highly regarded for its excellent high-speed rail system.  So this oft-repeated canard that the US just isn't dense enough to accommodate high-speed rail is patently untrue.

Now the second point: "high-speed trains don't earn 'enough revenue to cover both their construction and operating costs."  Neither do highways.  In fact most highways earn no revenues at all.  Zero.  So what's his point?  Highways don't earn enough revenues to cover EITHER their construction or operating costs.  Virtually all transportation systems are subsidized.  So the decision is not whether a system can pay for itself--none do--but rather which systems make the most sense for long-term growth, environmental impact, competitiveness, value, flexibility, etc.  The very fact that some high-speed rail lines actually DO pay for themselves, as he points out, makes a strong argument for choosing them over highways, which never do.

Climate Decade in Review

Now that the 2000's are finished and we're into the 2010's, we can take a look back at some of the major climate-change-related events of the first decade of the 21st century. Beginning on January 19, I started tweeting "The Climate decade in review" tweets several times a day. Check them out at www.twitter.com/steveoffutt.

Here on my blog I am going to do the same thing, with one or two key climate-related posts each day, but slightly longer than a tweet. Come back often and enjoy! Here's your first one:
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The Climate Decade in Review: August 12, 2003 - France records the highest temperature ever: 111 degrees Fahrenheit. This occurred during the 2003 European heat wave that killed as many as 35,000 people.

Specific weather events like this are difficult to directly attribute to human-induced global warming, but most experts agree that climate change likely played at least a small role in the heat wave. Even if not, as global warming increases, the likelihood of devastating heat waves such as this one will continue to increase and they will become more common.