Making a Virtue of Failure

The Antiplanner makes no secret of the fact that I love trains, especially passenger trains. Yet I know that passenger rail transportation is obsolete because it is expensive (compared with either autos or air), slow (compared with air and often with autos), and inconvenient (compared with autos). Unlike some people, I don’t believe taxpayers should subsidize my hobbies.

Despite this, rail advocates far and wide proclaim the virtues of high-speed rail and rail transit. Yet all too often, the virtues they claim are really faults in disguise.

One high-speed rail blogger, for example, criticizes the Antiplanner for endorsing an emerging technology that will significantly increase everyone’s mobility, not just those who have a driver’s license or who can afford to ride high-priced trains. Why dream about new technologies, the blogger says, when we can spend hundreds of billions on an obsolete technology instead?

After all, says the blogger, high-speed rail “has been in successful operation for nearly 50 years in Japan.” Yes, and 46 years ago (when Japan opened its first high-speed rail line) only 10 percent of all passenger travel in Japan was by automobile. Today, more than 60 percent of Japanese passenger travel is by auto while only 6 percent is by high-speed trains, and nearly all high-speed rail lines built since that first one have been huge financial drains on the economy.

Given that this blogger believes in “investing” billions of tax dollars into a mid-20th-century technology instead of promoting a 21st-century technology that will require no subsidies, I wonder why he is not typing on an IBM Selectric. That Internet thingy is just a new gadget that we ought to ignore and maybe it will go away.
However, erectile dysfunction is the most common form and denotes to an inability viagra uk without prescription of keeping or attaining healthy erections- is a big problem for all males around the world. They do not take cialis usa pharmacy much cure to their issues and triumph over maladjustment. Depending on levitra buy levitra valsonindia.com the type of filter used in your heating and cooling equipment. The most valsonindia.com cialis 5 mg optimal variant for quick and effective action of Kamagra oral jelly drug is to take it on an empty stomach, the drug will begin its impact much swifter.
This reminds me of a recent article by smart-growth advocate Michael Lewyn, who argues that rail transit is better than buses, even if it is more expensive, because it makes cities more “legible.” In other words, rail transit in most cities goes to very few places, but if you are willing to confine yourself to those places, you are less likely to get lost than if you take a bus.

Visitors to Washington, DC, for example, can choose from over 100 bus lines or getting around by car (or bike) on thousands of streets. How confusing! Please, save us from complexity by building an expensive transportation system that consists of just six rail lines that go to relatively few places!

Of course, rail transit isn’t always legible, especially in cities like New York and many European cities that have so many rail lines. Just ask a New York City visitor how easy it is to take the subway from Penn Station to Grand Central (which requires a change of trains — with a long walk between then — at Times Square because the people who designed the subway system didn’t think it was important to have a direct connection between the city’s two major rail terminals).

On the other hand (as another blogger points out), “bus services can be pretty legible, if your transit agency cares enough to get it right.” One city that gets it right is Boulder, Colorado, whose frequent buses have colorful names like Hop, Skip, and Jump, with distinctive paint jobs to match. This makes it easier to find the bus you want in Boulder than to find the train you want in Washington.

Moreover, with services like Google Transit and GPS devices, bus riders and auto drivers will never again have to worry about cities being “illegible.” So much for building expensive rail lines to protect poor little tourists from confusion.