Someone made a little poster designed to convey the value of high-speed rail.
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Does this mean that roads are obsolete too?
Do you take a train to go to the grocery store each week, to the pharmacy, to the shopping mall, to the department stores, to the movies, to work? I doubt it. Just because something’s old does not make it obsolete. Obsolete implies uselessness in the present day. The light bulb is a 100+ year old invention but it’s soft warm yellow glow makes it better than anything short of sunlight. But if the feds have their way say goodbye to one of your most trusted household items. General Electric for instance has lobbied Congress for the ban on incandescent bulbs. Now are they doing this for the purpose of environmental benevolence because they care? No, they want to eliminate competition of domestic makers of incandescent bulbs so they can make CFL bulbs in factories in China and the Philippines all the while depriving domestic producers of the right to compete making bulbs consumers might consider buying.
On that poster of pictured trains, they don’t mention Spain. Spain also has wasted money on a high-speed rail boondoggle, one they actually built. That is, it doesn’t make money, but chews up tax money. Just like California’s California High-Speed Rail Authority chews up money and they haven’t even built anything yet. Despite popular and political support from the start, the AVE rail system faces a tougher future due to Europe’s financial crisis. Service between some smaller cities has been cut because too few people ride. Some wonder if it is anything more than a luxury commuter service. But let’s look at the demographics. Spain’s population density is 231 people per square mile. California’s is 242 per square mile. So they’re about the same. In both cases, there just aren’t enough people to justify such a project. The population growth rate in California is about 1 percent per year. In Spain, about 0.57 percent. So that won’t change much over the coming decades. The European financial crisis gripping the PIIGS countries: Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain. These 5 nations should never have been allowed to join the European Union; they never had the financial stability or ability to contribute to obligations on par with the larger economies like Germany and U.K. Germany is the largest economy in Europe even after being obliterated following both world wars they remained the largest, why? Because the Germans engage in financial behavior that for most of us would seem rather odd. It’s not to say they don’t have their own unique brands of socialism like dumping money in wind and solar provisions. Otherwise they’re frugal, financially disciplined, they don’t spend more than they earn, they keep more than they spend.
Roads don’t make money, that doesn’t mean that they are bad things.
Roads can make money. And they should.
If you live in a police state then sure roads can make money.
LazyReader:
Germany runs endless budget deficits too. If you keep in mind that the budget deficit will always equal savings after investment + the current account deficit, its pretty obvious that Germany runs a smaller budget deficit than elsewhere because it has a current account surplus. Of course, not every nationa can run a current account surplus, by definition.
The only problem that Greece has is that it is not in a fiscal union like America, where wealthy states like California and New York send an unceasing flow of money to poor backwards states in the south, like Alabama and Mississippi via the Federal budget.
How about comparing prices/fares (and speeds) of the cheap commuter flights in Europe to the prices (and speeds) ot the high-speed trains?
I do that whenever I travel around the US, Air Fare/Parking vs bus Fare vs train fare. Mega bus wins on the short/regional, Airlines always beat rails.
However, get rid of exorbiant parking and tolls and for family travel the Minivan is hard to beat!
I thought about putting in some price comparisons. After all, Amtrak fares on the Acela are 75 cents a passenger mile, while U.S. airfares average 13 cents/pm. But it would take a lot of time to get similar data for the other countries in the poster. It is possible to get fares for specific routes, but such fares vary widely based on local competition, demand, and other factors, so may not be representative of the nation as a whole. Any suggestions for data sources would be welcome.
Why not compare Acela fares to the NY-DC shuttle fares and NY-Boston shuttle fares? Its easy enough to get quotes for walk-up and advance purchase on the web.
Of course, I doubt the comparison would be favorable to the airlines.
The speeds shown are a little bit odd. I was on Germany’s ICE, and it was doing more like 200km/hr, not 199 mph (300 km/hr).
The Antiplanner wrote:
I made a couple of modifications that I think improve it quite a bit.
Agreed with the modifications.
Don’t Build Obsolete Infrastructure
Yep.
Just because rail made sense in the 19th century does not make it worthwhile in the 21st (and I have nothing against investing in rail infrastructure where it makes some sense). But just because other nations are spending huge sums on passenger rail does not mean that the United States should.
RUSSIA
155 MPH
Moscow to Vladivostok on the Trans-Siberian Railway is about 5,800 miles. If the train were to average that speed (the current Railway cannot support such speeds), that’s a trip of 37 hours one-way.
Moscow to St. Petersburg is about 400 miles. A reasonable distance (in some cases) to take a train. Still, even at 155 MPH, that’s about 2.5 hours. Flying is still faster. Apparently the “Russian” high-speed trainset shown above is actually built by Germany’s Siemens.
Wikipedia says this about the Moscow – Saint Petersburg Railway
The railway is relatively congested, which means that only a few high speed trains can be run each direction and day. Therefore there are plans of building a new parallel high-speed railway allowing up to 400 km/h, at an estimated cost of 696 bn roubles and an estimated completion in 2018.
[696 billion Russian Rubles is about U.S. $21.3 billion.]
That’s just walking around money.
Gator wants some new shoes.
CPZ, that’s a false premise, roads don’t exist on a profit or loss basis.
You say you hate big government, yet your bread is buttered by it!
The Antiplanner wrote:
China
217 MPH
I recall reading that the Chinese government imposed an indefinite systemwide slow order on its high-speed rail network after that fatal wreck last year.
FYI, Russia is hosting the World Cup in 2018. That is why they’re planning on building a new HSR line between Moscow and St. Petersburg. It’ll be interesting to see if it happens. Commodities are historically not only cyclical but they tend to go through 2 decades of stagnation / low prices with a decade of robust pricing. We’re at the end of the good decade. If the pattern continues, Russia just may be bleeding too much money in 2016 to go forward any further with construction.
Russia makes everything needed internally to build a new HSR line. It can simply print up Rubles to pay for the investment by issuing money from the treasury to its suppliers and labor force. Budget deficits and bonds are just a fancy way of printing currency.
Russia does not need to sell oil to Europe to pay for HSR.
Maybe things would be different if the situation arises. But the financial crisis in the late 90s killed their last attempt at this project. On the other hand this time around they have incentive to be showing off to the world since they’ll be hosting the World Cup.