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.

Counterpoint: High-Speed Rail Can Be a Good Investment - Post 3: Greenhouse Gases

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:

"What would we get for this huge investment? Not much. Here's what we wouldn't get: any meaningful reduction in traffic congestion, greenhouse gas emissions, air travel, oil consumption or imports."

I think he is wrong on all counts.  I addressed commuting and air travel.  Today I address greenhouse gas emissions.

Yesterday I made the point that intelligently designed and built high-speed rail can reduce air traffic.  And it has in countries with good networks, like France, Spain and Japan.  Every plane trip that is eliminated is going to save thousands of gallons of fuel.  Every gallon of fuel contributes about 25 pounds of CO2 to our atmosphere.  In yesterday's post I pointed out that the trains from Madrid to Barcelona had the capacity of as much as sixty flights per day between those two cities (in reality, since not every train is full, they are not currently offsetting that many flights--but they could).  That's theoretically over 2000 tons of CO2 per day that could be saved.  Less, of course, than whatever greenhouse gases are emitted from running the train.

As I pointed out yesterday, however, as our production of electricity gets cleaner, so will the emissions associated with running the train.  So let's say 1/2 of that for now: 1000 tons per day.  365,000 tons per year.  For one corridor.  I would disagree with Mr. Samuelson's contention of no "meaningful reduction in greenhouse gases."  Maybe that's not much to him, but I think it's meaningful.

Counterpoint: High-Speed Rail Can Be a Good Investment - Post 2: Air Travel

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:

"What would we get for this huge investment? Not much. Here's what we wouldn't get: any meaningful reduction in traffic congestion, greenhouse gas emissions, air travel, oil consumption or imports."

I think he is wrong on all counts.  Yesterday I addressed commuting.  Today I address air travel.

Here's his point:
"In a report on high-speed rail, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service examined the 12 corridors of 500 miles or fewer with the most daily air traffic in 2007. Los Angeles to San Francisco led the list with 13,838 passengers; altogether, daily air passengers in these 12 corridors totaled 52,934. If all of them switched to trains, the total number of daily airline passengers, about 2 million, would drop only 2.5 percent."


Hmm.  Amtrak's Northeast corridor by itself carried more than 50% of the passenger load he quotes above.  There's something wrong with that number.  I suspect that they did not include intermediate passengers. Since a train can make a few stops (not too many, or it degrades the service), a single corridor actually serves several markets.  Just like the Washington-New York trains serve Baltimore and Philadelphia as well as DC and New York.  I suspect that would increase that number substantially.

When I was in Spain this summer, I took the AVE train from Madrid to Barcelona--386 miles (2 hours, 38 minutes!) (see my post: High-Speed Rail in Spain).  Almost every single train on Friday afternoon was completely sold out, and they run 24 trains between 5:50 AM and 11:30 PM.  Each of those trains can carry 1.5-2 times the number of passengers on a plane, unless you're talking a widebody aircraft.  That's a lot of flights being replaced.

More importantly, however, is that our air traffic system is overburdened.  It will take billions and billions of dollars to upgrade air traffic control and increase capacity of that system.  Take a look at my blog post from last year describing how strategic use of effective rail might eliminate the need to build a $20 billion third Chicago airport.

This op-ed suffers from one of the most common logical errors.  It compares the costs of high-speed rail with, well, nothing.  It assumes that whatever would happen instead wouldn't cost anything at all.  But not only would the costs of trying to increase air capacity be enormous, but the environmental costs would be higher as well.  What kind of analysis is that?  And that doesn't even take into account that trains can be more flexibly fueled (electricity can come from renewables, nuclear or other sources).  For now, planes are pretty much reliant on petroleum, which is getting more and more precious.

More soon.

Counterpoint: High-Speed Rail Can Be a Good Investment - Post 1: Commuting (??!)

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:

"What would we get for this huge investment? Not much. Here's what we wouldn't get: any meaningful reduction in traffic congestion, greenhouse gas emissions, air travel, oil consumption or imports."

I think he is wrong on all counts, and I'll deal with each one-at-a-time over the next few days.

First: traffic congestion.  Another quote: "Even assuming 250,000 high-speed rail passengers, there would be no visible effect on routine commuting."

 Well, duh!  High-speed rail has nothing whatsoever to do with commuting.  Setting up this irrelevant strawman that he can then knock over is a waste of ink and damages his credibility on the other points.  It's as stupid as saying, "Building a third Chicago airport will have no visible effect on routine commuting."

I'm certain Mr. Samuelson is smarter than this, so why does he spend two paragraphs trying to make a point that high-speed rail is going to have some sort of effect on traffic.  I don't know.  Some of the commenters to the article suggested it was a paid oil-company promotional op-ed.  I'm not quite that cynical.

Monday What's on the Web: The Progressive Fix

Every Monday I highlight other bloggers or web contributors who are making important or interesting contributions to climate, sustainability, transportation or market transformation. Check back each week for another installment.

----------------------------

This week's profile is The Progressive Fix.   The Progressive Fix is a blog associated with the Progressive Policy Institute.  It covers a wide variety of topics that support progressive topics, including many that mirror closely the ideas and policies that this blog endorses.  It tends to be more political and policy oriented than market and business oriented, but covers a lot of good ground nonetheless.

This blog covers the whole range of topics, from Afghanistan to Urban Planning.  By going to their content-by-topic page you can find those topics of particular interest, such as Environment or Green Jobs

In particular, PPI has been a strong supporter of high-speed rail (two previous posts on this blog here and here) and investments in infrastructure that will support a growing economy. 

Recent posts that may be of interest to my readers include:

How the Military is Leading the Way on Energy Security

Congress and Climate: The Long View

How To Pay For High-Speed Rail

 

 

 

Reports on Costs of Dulles Stop on Silver Line are Absurd

Today's Washington Post reported that the estimated costs for Phase 2 of the Silver Line are much higher than originally estimated.  The part of those estimates associated with the Dulles station, $640 million higher to place it immediately adjacent to the terminal, must be highly inflated.

The original costs of Phase 2 were in the $2.5 - $3 billion range.  The new estimates add about $600 million. Keep in mind that these are preliminary engineering studies and are thus subject to significant revision.

Specifically, though, this article reports that the costs associated with the Dulles stop would be $640 million lower by putting the stop 600 feet away rather than immediately in front of the terminal as originally planned.
This is a recent issue, and here are two recent GGW posts that deal with this:

• MWAA considers moving Dulles Airport Metro stop
• A split-level Dulles Metro stop would be best

The $640 million cost associated with this is totally absurd.  That is more than the Woodrow Wilson Bridge cost, which is two superstructures across a major river over a mile long.  Give me a break.  It will not cost $1,000,000 per foot.  The reason this cost estimate is so high is because the people doing the estimates are being constrained and not allowed to think outside the box.  I am way out of my league here, since I am no engineeer.  But I suspect that the costs are being driven by the assumption that the rail line and station need to be shoehorned in without making any changes to the existing access to Dulles by cars. 

However, if one were to instead look at the situation as a clean slate and redesign access for all modes as part of the project, it would have to cost way less than that.  I imagine one could demolish the entire infrastructure in front of the terminal and completely rebuild it for less than $640 million.  What is needed is vision.  Ask the simpler question, "How could easy and optimal access for the rail line and cars be accomplished most effectively given the existing space?"  If it's cheaper to tear out some of the roads and then put them back somewhere else than to try to dig a tunnel for the train, then do that instead.  There has to be creative solutions that will put the terminal where it belongs--inside--for a lot, lot less than $640 million.

Regardless, I stand by my comment I posted to GGW back on August 13:
"I cannot imagine an airport siting its automobile passenger drop-off 600 feet from the terminal entrance. It's the accumulation of these little "compromises" that eventually add up to a system that is inconvenient, as Reza rants about above. Where do we stop? If 600 feet is no big deal, then what about 700? or 800? The mindset is just wrong.
"It's no different than making 10-minute headways into 14-minute headways on a train line (average waiting time goes up 2 minutes). Hey, it saves some money and is only a *minor* inconvenience, why not? Well, if it's already 14 minutes, then make it a round 15 for simplicity's sake. And you know the rest.
"Design and architecture send signals. The signal being sent by this design will be--for the decades it is in existence--that Metro is the second-class mode people ought to use to travel to the airport. On the other hand, imagine that the station for the Silver Line were actually MORE convenient than being dropped at the curb. Imagine that! A station located and designed so that every airport user says, 'Wow! Look how convenient and cool that is.' As it is with this new proposal, it will be essentially completely out of sight, and many people probably won't even know it exists. Then what signal is being sent? That, in my opinion, is the much bigger value."

High Speed Rail in Spain

Sorry for the lag in postings the last couple of weeks.  I was away on vacation in Spain.

I had the distinct pleasure of taking three trips on the AVE high-speed rail network.  The first leg I took was the express non-stop Madrid to Barcelona.  It makes the 386 mile trip in 2 hours and 38 minutes at an average speed of almost 150 miles per hour.

Spain (and Europe in general--not to mention China) continues to invest heavily in expanding its high-speed rail network, while the US cannot seem to get a single effective line built in this decade.  It's a sad indicator, in my opinion, of the decline of US leadership in the world.

Monday What's on the Web: The Transport Politic

Every Monday I highlight other bloggers or web contributors who are making important or interesting contributions to climate, sustainability, transportation or market transformation. Check back each week for another installment.
----------------------------The Transport Politic is written by the prolific Yonah Freemark, an independent researcher currently living in France. Where he lives seems to be irrelevant, however, since he covers transportation issues all over the world, including significant coverage in the United States.

The blog focuses pretty strongly on public transit, rail systems, policy and politics of transportation. Yonah does extensive research, and the posts are very thorough and often include impressive technical detail. He clearly promotes the viewpoint that our transportation systems need to move away from road-based policies to something more sustainable.

Examples of recent posts include:

Merging Transportation and Land Use Planning at the Federal Level

Sydney Looks at Closing Downtown Streets to Traffic, Considers Light Rail Expansion

U.S. FTA Head Rogoff Paints Grim Picture of Nation's Transit Priorities

China Expands Its Investment in Rapid Transit, Paving Way for Future Urban Growth

How Viable is Commuter Rail for North Carolina's Triangle?

Freight Rail Is a Transformative Solution, But Not Necessarily a Job Creator

Today's Washington Post contained an op-ed penned by the Governors of five states in the Mid-Atlantic and the South. In it, they recommend investing in a 2,500 mile rail corridor termed the Crescent Corridor that will replace much of the truck traffic between the South and the Northeast. This is a great idea, and it has already received some stimulus funding. As pointed out in the article, as much as 40% of the traffic on I-81 is truck traffic. There is not much room to expand road capacity, and even if there were, the space required to move the same amount of freight via rail will be much, much smaller.

In addition, shipping freight by rail is far more environmentally sustainable, with reductions in fuel consumption of 2/3rds or more to transport the same amount of goods. "It's an idea that will not only create jobs but also reduce highway congestion, improve safety and take more than 1 million long-haul trucks off the road each year," the article states.

Transforming our transportation systems is an imperative objective as we continue to move into a world of rapidly changing climate, unsustainable land-use patterns and increasing traffic congestion. Shifting significant portions of our freight transportation from truck to rail is a no brainer, even taking into account the significant infrastructure costs involved.

So I am totally on board with these governors and the overall idea of shifting freight to rail. My only quibble is that they are throwing out the job creation rubric as a key reason for doing this. You can see the contradiction in their statement above: removing 1 million trucks from the road will also remove the truck drivers and the support systems for those trucks. That's part of the reason it's so efficient--you only need one really big vehicle with a staff of two or three people to move the goods that would have taken hundreds. Yes, some jobs will be created in the construction part of the initiative, but in the long run, shifting to rail will be much less labor intensive than trucking.

So, yes, let's invest in rail (passenger rail, too, for that matter) Let's transform our transportation systems to more sustainable models. But let's not couch it in false terms of job creation.

Last Mile Discussion on Greater Greater Washington

Following up my blog post here discussing the last mile problem in Tysons Corner and the proposal to use PRT as a potential solution, Greater Greater Washington has run a 4-part series on this issue.

Feel free to join the discussion. Here are links to the posts:
The Last Mile in Tysons Corner Part 1: The Problem
The Last Mile in Tysons Corner Part 2: Busways
The Last Mile in Tysons Corner Part 3: PRT?
The Last Mile in Tysons Corner Part 4: PRT's Obstacles

I think the discussion has been excellent, with a diversity of viewpoints and some good ideas. I don't agree with some and I agree with others. That's what it should be all about, don't you think?

Integrating High-Speed Rail into the "System"

As the New York Times pointed out a few days ago, we have no real high-speed rail in the United States, putting us decades behind many other developed countries. The recently passed stimulus package includes $8 billion for high-speed rail investment, which is a start. Here's a blog that analyzes a number of the possible routes that high-speed rail could serve. The DOT high-speed rail site is here.

One major problem we have in the United States is that there is no strategic vision for our transportation system, and there hasn't been for almost 50 years, since we built the Interstate Highway System.

Being strategic about how we integrate high-speed rail presents some incredible opportunities. I argue that we should use high speed rail as an integral part of our air travel system rather than set it up as a separate mode. I am going to use O'Hare to Milwaukee as an example of how this works, but there are certainly other places where making an intelligent synergy between the two modes creates enormous value.

Why Airports?
There are about a dozen flights a day between O'Hare and Milwaukee. Let me assure you that nobody flies between Chicago and Milwaukee. Those planes are filled with transferring passengers--passengers who started in Seattle or Denver or Newark. Imagine if the train were built directly from airport to airport, including integrating luggage transfer and ticketing. Now when you fly from Seattle to Milwaukee, you deplane at O'Hare and get on your connecting "flight" to Milwaukee, which is actually the train. Your bags are transferred for you, just like you were taking another plane. Advantages for the traveler include:

- More dependable (better in the winter and not affected by the thunderstorms that delay flights at O'Hare all summer)
- Faster. A true high-speed train should be able to make this trip in under an hour, including an intermediate stop (or two)
- Flexible. That intermediate stop might be more convenient for you.

To truly make this work optimally, the line should start in downtown Chicago, go through O'Hare, travel to Milwaukee's airport (which is conveniently south of downtown) and then into downtown Milwaukee. This makes it much more cost-effective, because now the train carries the local passengers traveling from Chicago to Milwaukee AND the long-distance passengers who were changing planes at O'Hare. With more passengers, service can be more frequent, creating a positive feedback.

If we keep thinking this through, we see advantages for a number of players:
The Airline Perspective
- Why not have the airlines own and operate the trains? This would help make them supportive rather than antagonistic. I don't know this for certain, but I would not be surprised if Southwest Airlines lobbied hard against the Texas high speed rail project proposed a decade or so ago, because they perceived it as competition.
- The airline, say United, could now sell its take-off and landing slots and get rid of hangar space and maintenance and refueling and everything else in Milwaukee except baggage handling and ticketing, for enormous savings.
- The airline can now re-dispatch those planes to more profitable, longer routes (short flights like these tend to be money losers for airlines)
- If it's United, they can skim some customers from other airlines who want the convenience and reliability of the train (alternatively, the airlines could create a consortium and work together to provide the service).
- And they can also get all the customers who ride from Chicago to Milwaukee who used to drive or take the Amtrak train.
- Just imagine if the airline perceived itself as a "transportation" company rather than an airline. Then this sort of integration can make bottom-line sense to them, and they become allies rather than enemies of high-speed rail.

More Why Airports?
- Airports already have the travel infrastructure in place: rental cars, parking, hotels, etc. that travelers often need when they travel. This reduces the need to re-create all this infrastructure at separate stations that are only served by rail alone.

Thinking Even Bigger
The biggest cost advantage of all requires a really big vision. Imagine that we now built similar lines from O'Hare to Indianapolis and Detroit and Minneapolis and St. Louis and Cincinnati and Des Moines and Cleveland and Columbus--picking up intermediate stops like Ann Arbor and Cedar Rapids. Using Kayak, I estimate there are perhaps as many as 300 flights per day to destinations within 300 or 350 miles of O'Hare. What does that mean? Well, if enough flights get replaced with train trips, then we save $20 billion or whatever it would cost to build that third Chicago airport that keeps getting pushed.