The New York Times Sunday Magazine focused on infrastructure this week and included an article on California high-speed rail. The article included a chart comparing the fares or costs for driving, flying, or taking the high-speed train from Los Angeles to Sacramento.
According to the chart, the airfare is $100, driving is $50, and the train will be $55. That is exceedingly optimistic: the current Amtrak fare is $55, and most other high-speed rail lines cost more than the conventional trains.
But the chart leaves out a big cost: the subsidies. Subsidies to driving and flying are about a penny a mile, or about $4 for the trip from L.A. to Sacramento. But when the construction cost of the California high-speed rail system is amortized over 30 years and then divided by the projected annual passenger miles, you get a construction subsidy of 32 cents per passenger mile, or more than $120.
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The same magazine includes an interview with transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. The Department of Transportation “is doing great things now,” he says. “We have 13 billion times more money for high-speed rail than we’ve ever had at the department.” Actually, they don’t; they only have $8 billion (the other $5 billion is in Obama’s budget but not approved by Congress), and they’ve had money before so even $13 billion isn’t 13 billion times as much.
Meanwhile, those who get Parade magazine as their Sunday supplement instead of the New York Times Magazine were treated to an article on public transit, complete with a poll asking, “Should America divert some funding from highways and bridges to invest in public transit?” Since America is already diverting tens of billions of dollars from highways and bridges to public transit, this is a pretty biased way of asking the question.
The article makes it clear that the goal of the Democrats in charge is to increase transit’s share of highway user fees to more than 20 percent. It is too bad the article didn’t point out that transit only carries 1 percent of all travel, and this hasn’t improved even after more that 25 years of diversions of highway fees to transit. Even without this crucial information, the very unscientific poll — last time I checked — was heavily trending towards “no.”
How many people want to go from Bay Area (pop ~7 million) to the LA area (pop ~17 million)?
The #s in each UA might seem high, but how realistic are the projected riders (50-70 million)? The capital cost for that, averages out to $1grand per passenger for a one year amortization [per the very high projected ridership]. For 30-year notes, that’s roughly $2grand per passenger (w/interest); divide into each year (30) & that’s about $70 per ride, to just pay for capital costs (no operating & maintenance), still based upon the extremely optimistic ridership #s.
Basically, this HSR is far from being feasible.
Compare to Japan & France, with the correct ratios of density, population, distances, ridership, cost, etc. & the conclusion is: “No build!”
An example from my experience: I’ve lived in the Bay Area for 5 years & I’ve never visited LA during that time & see no reason to. If I was to visit LA [or Sac] perhaps I’d take HSR, but 200% (more likely 5-20%) of the population using the HSR [annually] is very unlikely, & the actual use will be far less than the sufficient demand to support it.
For the people currently going between these areas (10 million ?), why would they sacrifice the convenience of time (air) or personal mobility (car)?
Don’t forget: energy & emission reduction is negligible or non-existent.
Also realize: the projected avg mph is too high. Also, consider accidents (usually fatal) of any little dent/obstruction (earthquake) in the track.
Alternatively, how about an I-3 interstate?
There already is a CA-1, so numbers should not be confusing. The route for an I-3 would mostly go along CA-1 & US-101, with some new pathways made. Much coastal land is available for a route & new habitation, allows for 10 million people. Build on farmland & variegated topography (ie hillsides)!
There is not a shortage of arable land (the fucked up notion of ethanol makes this more difficult) & most land in CA is not naturally farmable (ie irrigation).
In other words, water can be delivered to areas [for ag] where people don’t want to live, & people can actually pay more for their personal water use (ie desalination).
Randal, what are the subsides for the Interstate system using your figgers? What about for the roads getting to, say, I-5 (not the construction only, but the maintenance of local and county roads)?
DS
Are you beginning to regret your Obama vote yet, AP?
ROT: “But the chart leaves out a big cost: the subsidies. Subsidies to driving and flying are about a penny a mile”
ws: I’d disagree in your subsidy numbers for the automobile as there are economic studies that put it much higher. But I’ll bite anyways, a penny a mile and how many trillion miles are driven annually on our roads and highways? That’s a few billion that is owed in just one year. Times that subsidy deficit over a few years and that’s some serious cash!
ROT:“Meanwhile, those who get Parade magazine as their Sunday supplement instead of the New York Times Magazine were treated to an article on public transit, complete with a poll asking, “Should America divert some funding from highways and bridges to invest in public transit?†Since America is already diverting tens of billions of dollars from highways and bridges to public transit, this is a pretty biased way of asking the question.”
ws:What would they (a poll) say about the 8 billion injected from the general fund last year and a few more billion needed for the next biennium to to keep the HTF afloat?
Dan, the “subsidies” for highways are <20% of expenses.
Roughly: $90 billion from gas tax, $30 billion from other fees, tolls unknown.
Highway spending is about $150 billion.
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/ohpi/qffinance.cfm
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2007/hdf.cfm
All people benefit from roads.
Does it really matter, when there are more vehicles than adults?
About 90% of adults drive & most of those who do not drive, would prefer to drive, but money is an issue.
Is it fair for public transit, with <4% use, be 2/3 subsidized?
Highways, with 90% use, being 1/5 subsidized, is not an injustice.
Gas tax could increase by ~$0.40/gallon to pay for all.
Should transit tickets be increased 2-3 times to cover expenses?
Some gas tax & toll revenue goes to public transit. Sounds messed up.
Scott, lad, not only are you not Randal, and not only did you not provide the road subsidies according to the original argumentation, but you gave no evidence for your evidenceless assertion about “preferring” to drive.
Surely 90% of people don’t want to jump in the car to escape their single-use subdivison to go anywhere. That is a big fat wishy-wish of and the car and lung cancer and obesity lobby, and credulous message force multipliers shill their message fo’ free.
DS
Scott: “Gas tax could increase by ~$0.40/gallon to pay for all.”
ws: That’s just to cover the direct costs (even though it might be higher) that are not being accounted for, and none of the externalized costs. Mark Deluchhi, who has done an article for ADC, puts the externalized costs for Sacramento at about $2 to $7 a gallon extra.
http://www.its.ucdavis.edu/publications/2005/UCD-ITS-RR-05-18.pdf
In another report of his, he stated:
“Our analysis indicates that in the US, current (ca. 2005) tax and fee payments to the government by motorvehicle
users may fall short of present government expenditures related to motor-vehicle use by approximately
20–70 cents per gallon of all motor fuel.”
*It should be noted that the 20 – 70 cents range is not including the local and state average burden of 38 cents.*
“Furthermore, our estimate here is only ofthe difference between user tax and fee payments to government and actual government monetary outlaysfor motor-vehicle infrastructure and services; it does not include the cents-per-gallon-value of any non-monetary
environmental or oil-use externalities such as global warming or the macroeconomic costs of oil disruptions.Incorporation of these and other external costs could further raise the price of fuel by on the order of a$1 per gallon of motor fuel (Parry and Small, 2005; Delucchi, 2000; Delucchi, 1997). We may conclude, then, that motor-vehicle users in the US – unlike users in most European countries – do not ‘‘pay their way’’.”
http://pubs.its.ucdavis.edu/download_pdf.php?id=1139
All told, a person who has to pay these extra direct and indirect costs that are not being covered by the individual and are on the backs of the taxpaying denizens; a person would need to pay around $40,000 in total fuel costs of the life of the car (assuming 22.4 MPG standard, 150,000 mile lifetime of car @ $6.00/gallon). 6 dollar figure is assuming a base cost of $3.50 and subsidy cover cost of $2.50.
Scott, are you aware of what a free-market transportation really means? You keep pounding your chest about “free markets” but you’re just an impostor like ROT. It’s the biggest threat to the car crowd (I generally support a free-market transportation system). We can stop subsidizing transit because we stopped subsidizing cars. People will live in denser cities and take more transit. Your worst nightmare!
Dan, I’m not sure why you point the obvious of O’Toole being a separate person than me. Actually, my first name is Randall, which is irrelevant. I attempted to answer a question that you addressed at him. So what? Thank you for the compliment of referring to me as young (lad).
If those not all of ~90% of people who drive don’t like that, they can move to a denser area (& w/mixed-uses) where transit is more prevalent. However, many advantages of lower density (larger yards, more privacy, more nature, less noise, ect.) will be lost. It’s a trade-off.
Sure, there are externalities, also called indirect costs, for cars & roads. So what? All benefit from highways, even without driving (ie goods transport). This cost, where is it occurring now? In other words $5/gallon totals about $900 billion, annually. Where are expenses of that amount showing up?
I don’t really say “free market,†we have a mixed market. But more gov intervention & redistribution almost always messes things up.
Shorter young ignorant boy:
I hope I can spam the thread enuf to distract away from the fact that roads were heavily subsidized, esp the Interstate Highway system.
Oh, and maybe I can distract away from the HMID. Any other inconvenient subsidies I can clumsily distract away from?? Gosh that dense novel by that misanthrope that almost ever’body grew out of after Junior High is guh-rrreat, ain’t it!!???!!
DS
Scott:“Sure, there are externalities, also called indirect costs, for cars & roads. So what? All benefit from highways, even without driving (ie goods transport). This cost, where is it occurring now? In other words $5/gallon totals about $900 billion, annually. Where are expenses of that amount showing up?
I don’t really say “free market,†we have a mixed market. But more gov intervention & redistribution almost always messes things up.”
ws: Externalities and other direct-costs not being covered are important because they have implications on land uses and habitation patterns. They also have an implication on the viability of cities and transit. It’s easy to drive a lot of and live far away from anything when it’s below cost and cheap.
The automobile/highway/suburbia is a prime example of redistribution and gov. intervention. Wake up! You have tunnel vision and can’t unwrap your mind from your ideological bias.
You keep stating these statistics that are essentially created from our poor policies. It would probably be that even if we had a fairer market for transportation that the car would still be used plenty – and that’s fine. I like to drive myself, but find it utterly absurd that I need to get in car for every trip to be mobile. It would also have vast impacts on the built environment and major impacts on transit investment, too. You wouldn’t see neighborhoods built that didn’t have a grocery store within walking distance or a neighborhood that rejected mass transit service, etc.
Would you see McMansions in exurbia w/$6-10 a gallon of gas. Probably only for the very rich.
ws, Highway VMT, annually, is less than 300 billion. http://www.bts.gov/publications/key_transportation_indicators/march_2009/html/highway_vehicle_miles_traveled.html Your grossly large estimate (by a factor of over 7), shows how lefties can make accusations & assertions without having data.
Roads are less expensive than highways & especially freeways. Are there objections to prop taxes paying for many local services, which include plain roads? Higher transit use (above 5%) occurs in high density areas where there are fewer road-miles/capita.
That parade article mentions how funding transportation has been spent in the ratio of 80%:20% (highway:public transit) & that will change towards more transit. How fair is that, especially in light of the fact that the passenger-mile ratios are 98%:2%? The article goes on that more favoritism towards transit will help congestion. That is mathematically wrong. Shall I explain? People travel 50 times as many miles by car than transit. How will neglecting highways even more, help traffic? Transit already gets 10 times its share, on a passenger-mile basis. You anti car people, should apply consistent standards, but it’s obvious that the pro-transit is selfish.
BTW, re: HSR, not very many people want to travel between CA’s UAs. Flights are being dropped http://www.mercurynews.com/localnewsheadlines/ci_12602709
“The automobile/highway/suburbia is a prime example of redistribution and gov. intervention.” — WS
I agree there have been policies that have influenced how it’s been shaped. But to go from talking about minimum lot sizes and building freeways influenced development to implying that it would be _nothing_ like it is today is a huge leap. Could there be more more density than today? Sure. But likewise leveling the playing field could very well have resulted in private investors building roads, freeways and maybe even some transit much further out where they could purchase large tracts of land to develop and build the projects they want, projects that would be difficult to pull off without eminent domain or with local opposition. It could be a world where the suburbs got leap frogged for the exurbs.
It could be a world where the suburbs got leap frogged for the exurbs.
In general I like your comment, but for the lack of one important consideration: lleapfrogging would likely be less prominent, as location efficiencies would happen, as they would be economically driven.
That is: if private companies are putting pipes in the ground, you can bet that ~94 times out of 100 they won’t make them one inch longer than they need to be, which means more clustering and vertical development.
And large-lot SFD would likely be more expensive, as the distance the pipes have to travel would be capitalized in the house and land, not in the General Fund (oh, look – a subsidy).
DS
prk166:Sure. But likewise leveling the playing field could very well have resulted in private investors building roads, freeways and maybe even some transit much further out where they could purchase large tracts of land to develop and build the projects they want, projects that would be difficult to pull off without eminent domain or with local opposition. It could be a world where the suburbs got leap frogged for the exurbs.
ws:No doubt, if we had a fair market for transportation and policies that did not induce sprawl – we’d still have sprawl to some degree. However, it would not be as drastic and many cities and inner-suburbs would be doing much better.
Scott:“ws, Highway VMT, annually, is less than 300 billion. http://www.bts.gov/publications/key_transportation_indicators/march_2009/html/highway_vehicle_miles_traveled.html Your grossly large estimate (by a factor of over 7), shows how lefties can make accusations & assertions without having data.”
ws:That’s a link to monthly data through a year. You can clearly see in a given month there’s already billions traveled. American’s VMT is in the trillions annually.
Annual VMT:
http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_01_32.html
Show me where did I grossly misstate the facts? You made a very big accusation, now prove it (cause I’m apparently a lefty for arguing for free-market economics).
ws, Sorry, my mistake in mixing up VMT for monthly, rather than yearly.
So annual VMT [driven] might be about 3 trillion. At a subsidy of a penny/mile [for roads] that comes out to $30 billion, which matches other figures. That amount is close to the subsidy for transit, yet there 50 times more passenger-miles by private vehicle. Should there there be fair standards applied, on a passenger-mile basis? Either cut transit subsidies down to <$1 billion, or increase road subsidies to $1.5 trillion.
In regards to free-markets, it’s inconsistent how many claim that should apply to roads, such as complaining about its 20% of non-user gov support, but are far from applying the market to public transit.