The California legislature based its approval of the sale of billions of dollars of bonds to start construction of high-speed rail partly on claims that the rail line would help revitalize California’s economy. But now a study from UCLA finds that Japan’s high-speed rail line, one of the most popular in the world, failed to boost that nation’s economy.
“Rather, the evidence suggests high-speed rail simply moves jobs around the geography without creating significant new employ- ment or economic activity” says the study. “As an engine of economic growth in and of itself, CHSR will have only a marginal impact at best.”
The California High-Speed Rail Authority responded to the study by trotting out an architect who claimed all sorts of benefits for the train. Asking an architect to respond to an economic analysis is like asking a plumber for a second opinion on your cancer diagnosis. The plumber might give you the answer you want, but probably not the right answer.
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Meanwhile, the latest Reason magazine features an article on “how rail screws the poor.” In this case, “rail” refers to light- and heavy-rail in Los Angeles. This is old news, but it seems people need to be reminded of it over and over.
The short story is that LA cut bus service to pay for rail construction in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This led to a 17-percent drop in bus ridership. An NAACP lawsuit charging racial discrimination led to a 1996 court order to restore that bus service, which led to a restoration of ridership levels. However, that court order expired in 2006, after which the Metropolitan Transit Authority almost immediately began cutting bus service (arguing as it did so that it was substituting “quality for quantity”).
The transit authority, says Reason, “is simultaneously increasing operating costs, reducing operating revenue, cutting service for working-class and poor customers, and dismantling a functioning mass transit system, all in the service of a fantasy that was pushed on an unwilling L.A. by wealthy liberals.” And rail advocates in the rest of the country hope to achieve the same results in their own cities.
Now this is what O’Toole really wanted say;
(The California legislature based its approval of the sale of billions of dollars of bonds to start construction of freeways partly on claims that the roads would help revitalize California’s economy. But now a study from UCLA finds that Japan’s freeways, some of the most popular in the world, failed to boost that nation’s economy.
“Rather, the evidence suggests freeways simply move jobs around the geography without creating significant new employ- ment or economic activity†says the study. “As an engine of economic growth in and of itself, freeways will have only a marginal impact at best.â€)
Even though land use and transportation patterns in the United States are not especially well-suited for (passenger) rail, and the amount of rail ridership outside the N.E. Corridor is pretty close to zero, spending of tax dollars on (passenger) rail projects like this one is frequently some sort of sacred cow, and cannot be questioned.
Remind me again why people want to take a train from Los Angeles to San Francisco when they can fly the same distance in less time (even taking into account the time consumed by “security theater” at the airport)?
Far less time. Flight time from SFO to LAX is 56 minutes, and it’s 90 minutes gate-to-gate.
Sacred cow indeed. Just like public education. I love talking with the above referenced “wealthy liberals” (my favorite) about their sacred cows. That they themselves don’t use.
I don’t see how a high speed train can generate any economic activity anywhere except where it stops, and it cannot stop very much if it is going to be fast. All the towns inbetween just get the noise, danger and inconvenience.
So do you complain about exits off of freeways too?
The usual sniping here aside, it is clear both rail and highways tend to “rearrange” new development and growth, which doesn’t arise from transportation improvements, per se, at least not in this era.
Even after years if not decades of argument, The Antiplanner and his allies have still failed to convincingly make the case that highways are economically, morally and otherwise “better” than rail in guiding whatever development occurs.
Never mind that in most cases, rail provides substantially higher quality service than buses (perhaps one reason Bolt Bus et al haven’t wiped out Amtrak in the N.E. Corridor, and rail riders are willing to pay much higher fares, are (1) at least in the Northeast, trains are substantially faster; and (2) trains are much roomier and more comfortable. I’ve always found it easy to read on a train (Amtrak or BART) compared to buses, the latter tending to cause nausea thanks to the rougher ride).
The “user fees mostly pay for roads” argument is a hoot, given that Congress has to bail out the Highway “Trust” (sic) Fund every year by multibillion dollar amounts, 99%+ of the time every activity EXCEPT driving pays for the motor vehicle terminal costs (parking), as well as a whole host of other negative impacts not covered by direct charges for driving.
The “liberty” and “freedom” arguments for motor vehicles are also quite laughable, given the very high cost of entry for motor vehicle ownership, let alone the immobility for those who can’t, or wish not to, drive. For nearly 20 years, I knew a Bay Area transit activist who argued that the lack of decent alternatives to driving was a civil rights issue for the large minority who can’t or don’t want to drive. Though I believe he’s passed away by now, little has changed.
“The ‘liberty’ and ‘freedom’ arguments for motor vehicles are also quite laughable, given the very high cost of entry for motor vehicle ownership, let alone the immobility for those who can’t, or wish not to, drive.”
It is about freedom of movement, msetty. Say I want to get to Sequoia or Yosemite to go backpacking. Never gonna happen on rail, and the most flexible option is driving.
Same was true when I lived in Portland for a decade, most of it without a car. Simply couldn’t get to wilderness. No train will fix that.
Here’s the moral argument for you: California teeters on the verge of bankruptcy, and assuming the state avoids that, where is the moral superiority in making future generations pay for rail that: 1) Increases CO2 emissions during construction that will take decades to be neutralized; 2) Will primarily benefit a small minority who use the train?
When less expensive and quicker modes of transport already use existing infra, why throw public money down the HSR hole?
If fuel taxes weren’t being diverted to mass transit, then roads would have substantially more money would they not? Billions more as a matter of fact.
You like trains. That’s nice. Imagine how much you’d like them if you actually had to pay for them.
That’s bullshit and you know it. Roads are mostly funded by property taxes, not sales taxes on gas.
In 2011, Americans consumed 134 Billion gallons of gasoline.
This generated roughly $23.9 billion in Federal tax revenue.
Of that $23.9 billion, 15.5% ($3.7 Billion), was diverted to mass transit instead of being spent on roads.
If $3.7 billion of that money wasn’t spent on mass transit, there would be billions more for roads. And we haven’t even talked about state fuel taxes or taxes on other types of fuel (diesel).
Wow. What planet are we talking about?
A huge majority of American people have cars. Most poor people have cars if they don’t live in the city. They can afford cars because they don’t pay huge rents in the city.
It is hard to compare highways and rail lines because highways are so very flexible and rail lines are so very inflexible. What does a rail line do for police, fire, ambulance, cable, plumbers, Domino’s, school buses, mail, trash collection, sewers, electricity, gas, etc.? Cargo rail is a huge asset for the nation, but does nothing locally. Passenger rail is ….?
Those are streets, not highways, though you are against streetcars too.
Frank, your comment “begs the question.”
Why don’t we have high quality rail (and more often bus) service to the mountains, beaches and other recreation areas?
Because we have CHOSEN NOT TO invest in any significant manner in alternatives to driving. The usual U.S. myopia.
In places like Switzerland, Germany and Austria, even Italy, there is extensive rail and bus service to all kinds of highly rural recreation areas, because they’ve chosen to invest in maintaining the alternatives they had intact while the U.S. mostly destroyed its rail and bus networks.
I trump you on your lame “moral” argument, too. If you had bothered to look my website’s White Papers page (http://www.publictransit.us/ptlibrary/whitepapersHomePage.htm, you’d know I strongly oppose the cronyism resulting in the half-baked HSR proposal rammed through by Jerry Brown.
As for the deficit argument, just return tax rates, particularly for the rich, to what they were under Clinton; most of the deficit would disappear at little cost to economic growth, as explained by this article http://nick-hanauer.com/?p=44. If you don’t agree, well, cry me a river!
So…..What rail to national parks has been destroyed exactly? CA HSR going to get anyone to Yosemite? Nope. Wanna know why? Climb gradients.
Moving on.
“As for the deficit argument, just return tax rates, particularly for the rich, to what they were under Clinton…”
Oh the tax-the rich meme. But…
“A new study by Ernst & Young concludes that increasing taxes on higher-income Americans will hurt economic growth and lead to 710,000 fewer jobs being created.”
And abolishing the Bush tax cuts for those making more than $250,000 is expected to bring in merely $0.7 trillion over the next decade, hardly enough close the deficit, let alone to pay off the nearly $16 trillion debt.
Not to mention this from the Congressional Research Service:
“The Obama Administration has proposed allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire for high income taxpayers and permanently extending the tax cuts for middle class taxpayers. Compared to permanently extending all of the Bush tax cuts, this proposal is projected to increase tax revenues by $252 billion over five years and by $678 billion over 10 years, but still leaves federal debt on an unsustainable path.”
In layman’s terms: Allowing Bush tax cuts to expire for the rich will transfer $67.8 billion a year, which is NOT enough to significantly reduce the deficit or the debt.
Oh, yes, how’s that “Canadian Socialism” working out, e.g., a philosophy that I’m sure Frank and other commentators here don’t like…well, quite well, thank you, where a typical Canadian household is 20% richer than in the U.S.:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-15/hardheaded-socialism-makes-canada-richer-than-u-s-.html
So much for the right wing theory that “socialism” (sic) is “bad” for the average person…last time I looked the Canucks had some of their own unique kinds of “political correctness” but the place was at least as “free” as the U.S., and their economy is performing better, too, with the official unemployment rate a full point less than the U.S., and a much smaller deficit, too.
So… move….
They’re not 20% “richer,” a statement that underscores your lack of economic understanding, their net wealth is higher. And why is that? Well, looking at the devaluation of the US dollar compared to Canadian dollar, USD holdings have depreciated significantly over the last 10 years.
I also liked this comment on the original article:
“Wealth is accrued from income over time. If Country A has a historically higher median income level than Country B, but Country B has a higher median net worth, then what does that tell you? It suggests to me that Country B has an asset bubble relative to Country A.”
Just because at net worth is higher at this particular point in time does not prove that socialism is sustainable.
Plus I’d really like to see how this survey was conducted, but neither article, the one you linked or the one it links to, provides a link to the survey. Hmm…why is that, I wonder? Do you have a link to the Environics Analytics WealthScapes data?
Oh, and then there’s this nugget from the Canuck newspaper:
“Our resource sector is certainly firing on all cylinders, but the biggest reasons for Canadians’ deep pockets relative to Americans’ in recent years are the related phenomena of the 2008 economic crisis and the collapse of the U.S. housing market. Because house prices in the U.S. have plunged, the real estate held by Canadians is now much more valuable than that held by Americans (worth over $140,000 more on average). In fact, Canadians hold more than twice as much real estate as Americans and, once mortgages are factored in, have almost four times as much remaining equity in their real estate. Americans’ liquid (non-real estate) assets are still greater than Canadians’.”
Seems like it really has nothing to do with socialism.
Libertarians think socialism is just fine for roads, aviation and marine transport.
Looks like it’s a highwayman rerun on the AP, today, kids.
Frank, you say you hate big government, but deep down I know you depend on it and love it!
Burn. You sure got me! I <3 Big Brother!
Gupta, an architect and urban designer, said high-speed rail benefits an economy as a whole, so comparing growth rates of specific cities misses its ability to “lift all boats.”
Okay, I’ll bite. If a project cannot manage to generate even local impacts, how are we to believe that it will “lift all boats” on some broader level?
Even after years if not decades of argument, The Antiplanner and his allies have still failed to convincingly make the case that highways are economically, morally and otherwise “better†than rail in guiding whatever development occurs.
Well, of course, there is that niggly point that almost everyone uses the roads and almost no one uses rail. I think they’ve been fairly convincing on that.
What a bunch of thick-headed lunkheads.
“HARDLY ANYONE” USES RAIL IN THIS COUNTRY BECAUSE IT “HARDLY EXISTS” THANKS TO STUPID PUBLIC POLICY FOR THE LAST 90+ YEARS. In those very few places where a useable level of rail service exists, it is HEAVILY USED.
This is as utterly stupid an argument as rail being a “19th Century” technology. Lunkheads. Arguing with you clowns is generally a huge waste of time. I wish I had smarter opponents; it would then actually be a challenge. Oh, well.
And I wish I had smarter opponents who, instead of just reading Bloomberg with open-armed acceptance, read the original article to see that Bloomberg put a spin on the story. I wish I had smarter opponents who understood that socialism has not made Canadians “richer” and that the difference is due to asset bubbles.
I don’t know how many of you may have ever driven along the “High Line” through Montana along US Route 2 east-west. This area is about the lowest density area I’ve ever seen with Amtrak service.
In this area, the average per capita ridership is typical 1.0-1.5 annual Amtrak trips per year, with one train per day each way, e.g., the “Empire Builder.” Average length per trip is 600-700 miles.
For the record, per capita rail ridership in GERMANY for trips over 100 km (62 miles) is about 1.5 rides per year, with average trip lengths of 180-200 miles with typical HSR ICE and IC train frequencies of 8-20 round trips per day, depending on the particular corridor.
In other words, Germans ride roughly 350-400 miles per year per capita on “long distance” (62+ miles) trains. Along the High Line in Northern Montana, average trips per capita are comparable to Germany, and passenger miles per capita are 40%-50% higher.
So please explain how, AGAIN, that Americans WON’T ride trains where available??!!
Of course as the German example illustrates* to attract a similar level of annual passenger miles per capita in densely populated as in Northern Montana, you need a minimum of 6-8 daily round trips that are reasonably fast (and more frequencies in the densest markets) to attract intercity rail ridership at the same per capita rates as Germany (or Northern Montana!)
* (as do the very few adequately frequent U.S. corridors like the Northeast Corridor, S.F. Bay Area-Sacramento, or L.A.-San Diego illustrate),
Hey Mikey, maybe you can answer this for me. Why, exactly, do we have to “attract” riders to trains, or build trains in the first place, when private lines exist for the legitimate purposes of freight, and the freeway (and airlines) is in place for everything else? Should we do it just to please you, Mikey? Because I’m having a hard time figuring out why we should build some rail empire in Montana, or anywhere else, for that matter. And “Germany did it” is not a reason.
Why do you think it is ok to subsidize the trucking industry?
Maybe because they bring food to the store so you can eat?
Look, if you can’t afford to fly and you don’t want to drive, then take the train. It’s not high speed, but it is commensurate with what you are able to afford. If you can’t afford a train, then take a bus. Again, the product is commensurate with what you can afford.
Arguing for high speed rail is like arguing that the government should throw billions at aviation so that everyone can fly at Mach 1.
Mach 1? Bring back the Concorde’s Mach 2! State subsides kept it going for the über rich. I suppose if there were a market for it, it would exist… Maybe Richard Branson is inventing something similar.
@Frank…
Actually, the States didn’t subsidize it – the only operators where foreign carriers. Those who could afford it paid about $20k round trip. Also, because there was no demand or practical use going forward, it died. Just like HSR should.
BTW… Did they ban the head case?
He was spouting nonsense only four days ago. Maybe he went on vacation.
One could argue that “socialism” is indeed responsible for Canada avoiding the housing bubble and therefore retaining more housing wealth than the United States, as the financial industry is much more regulated in Canada than the United States, meaning that Canadian banks were not able to recklessly gamble away their deposits. In addition, Canada does not have the market-distorting mortgage interest deduction as well.
We don’t need to attract riders to trains – statistics show that when quality train service is available lots of riders will ride it. We do need government intervention because private railroad companies have no interest in providing passenger service, even if it were profitable, because it would interfere with their freight service and, just as we are not going to construct any more electric power lines we are not going to construct any more railroad tracks either. The government intervention is similar to that which was required to make road travel attractive (Interstate Highway Bill) as well as what was required to make air travel attractive (airport construction, subsidization of Boeing, etc.).
“One could argue that ‘socialism’ is indeed responsible for Canada avoiding the housing bubble and therefore retaining more housing wealth than the United States, as the financial industry is much more regulated in Canada than the United States, meaning that Canadian banks were not able to recklessly gamble away their deposits.”
One could argue. Doesn’t mean that one would argue successfully.
Interesting that since 2006 (before the height of the bubble) the Fed has required 10% reserves for transaction deposits. Canada’s central bank has no reserve requirements.
Canada’s banking system seems far more corporatist than socialist since the banks are not owned by the government. Additionally, former IMF chief economist Simon Johnson has criticized what he calls the The Canadian Banking Fallacy:
Sounds corporatist–not socialist–to me.
Anyway, Canada is experiencing a housing bubble, so this point is really moot.
“The government intervention is similar to that which was required to make road travel attractive (Interstate Highway Bill) as well as what was required to make air travel attractive (airport construction, subsidization of Boeing, etc.).”
@transitidiot
So which commerical airport construction is subsidized? Be specific.
Also, please be specific about the governments subsidization of Boeing (BCA Division).
In other words, Germans ride roughly 350-400 miles per year per capita on “long distance†(62+ miles) trains. Along the High Line in Northern Montana, average trips per capita are comparable to Germany, and passenger miles per capita are 40%-50% higher.
So essentially what you’re saying is that policy doesn’t matter, and that Germany is wasting a lot of money trying to attract new passengers when in fact most demand is exogenous.
We do need government intervention because private railroad companies have no interest in providing passenger service, even if it were profitable, because it would interfere with their freight service
Again, you’re presuming that the provision of intercity passenger service is an end in and of itself. Why? If there really were a demand for this service, someone, private or public sector would be able to step forward and provide a service, charging users the appropriate amount to cover their costs. Railroads stopped providing this service a long time ago because it was unprofitable. That should have been a signal, but the information it provided was ignored and politics won out.
The government intervention is similar to that which was required to make road travel attractive (Interstate Highway Bill) as well as what was required to make air travel attractive (airport construction, subsidization of Boeing, etc.)
Not even close. Both of these modes had trust fund systems established for them which were linked to user charges. No comparable system exists for passenger rail, nor is one proposed.
If I-5 was owned by one trucking company, how many other trucking companies would be using it? Private monopolies are not healthy for an economy either.
In the debate between steel wheel and rubber wheel, what are the issues?
The main issue is the absence of a steering wheel on the steel wheel. Otherwise, the rubber tire performs are 95% as well as the steel wheel.
How does the physical characteristics of a wheel determine how many hotels will be built? It doesn’t, and folks who claim they can predict real estate develiopment based upon the differences in the two wheel technologies? Siply nutty.