In 2010, Amtrak proposed to spend $117 billion to upgrade its Boston-to-Washington high-speed rail corridor. This idea was so unrealistically expensive that the Antiplanner called it “gold-plated high-speed rail.”
Apparently, Amtrak wants platinum plating instead, as its 2012 update to the proposal has raised the cost to $151 billion. This includes some additional bells and whistles, including a $7 billion revamp of Washington, DC’s Union Station (see Amtrak’s report for complete details).
Amtrak either hasn’t heard or doesn’t care that high-speed rail is dead (except for a train to nowhere in California) or that the federal government is about out of money. Instead, says Amtrak CEO Joseph Boardman, it wants to be “ready” in case someone accidentally drops $150 billion or so in its path.
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“Look at the $400 million we got last year,” he told the New York Times. “We already had a plan in place, so when it fell in our laps we were ready to go.” (Amtrak only got that money because Florida rejected the high-speed rail grant offered to it by the feds.)
It is one thing to be ready for $400 million. It is another to devote scarce resources to writing plans that would require more than $150 billion to implement. The sad thing is there are no doubt some members of Congress (not to mention a certain vice president) who think giving Amtrak $150 billion to blow on high-speed rail is a good thing.
Amtrak’s plans often mention congestion on highways between Boston and Washington. But (as Amtrak admits on page 4 of its 2010 plan) Amtrak only has a 6 percent share of traffic in this corridor, while buses have an 8 to 9 percent share and automobiles about 80 percent (the other 5 percent being air). This suggests improving bus service would do more to relieve congestion, while improving highways will do most of all. Amtrak is simply not going to capture enough riders to significantly reduce congestion.
The Antiplanner wrote (with emphasis added):
Amtrak’s plans often mention congestion on highways between Boston and Washington. But (as Amtrak admits on page 4 of its 2010 plan) Amtrak only has a 6 percent share of traffic in this corridor, while buses have an 8 to 9 percent share and automobiles about 80 percent (the other 5 percent being air). This suggests improving bus service would do more to relieve congestion, while improving highways will do most of all. Amtrak is simply not going to capture enough riders to significantly reduce congestion.
Promoters of government spending on passenger rail frequently talk about highway congestion as justification for their (usually expensive) projects. But your point is correct – HSR is not going to provide highway congestion relief. For downtown-to-downtown trips in the Northeast Corridor, it may ease airport congestion somewhat, but probably not enough to be noticeable. And since Amtrak “loses money on every customer (and doesn’t make it up in volume),” is it good public policy to spend huge sums of taxpayer money on passenger rail transportation systems that lure patrons away from unsubsidized modes like inter-city bus and air travel?
For the record, there are long stretches of highway running parallel to the Northeast Corridor that do not suffer from recurring congestion. Probably the most-congested part of the trip is crossing from New Jersey to New York, especially if the destination involves Manhattan.
Buses do not have 8-9% of the NEC travel market. We went over your figures and assumptions a year ago or so when you last posted this and pointed out the flaws in your calculations by comparing your assumed ridership based on seat miles vs. actual ridership reported by bus operating corporations.
Did you calculate in passenger-miles, rather than vehicle-miles?
150 BILLION dollars (*extends pinky)
I’m puzzled as to why the Antiplanner continues to push an infrastructure (roads) that is not just obsolete, but is expensive, consumes vast amounts of real estate and kills people like there’s not tomorrow.
Yes, RoboCar is part of the answer,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LYi2NAi8zE&feature=c-shelf-119
but it’s still surface road technology, with all of its distractions.
Rail is expensive and not only kills, (hardly) no one rides it. It works best when suspended, but suspending a 500 ton trainset is expensive. Plus, as we said, no one rides it.
What if there were a technology that was both Robocar and (elevated) rail? Your hybrid Robocar (buy or rent/lease) drives you from home to a staging area (commuter parking lot, for instance) where it transitions to guideway, which carries you, non-stop, at 100 mph direct to the desired destination staging area. there it is re-integrated with the road system and drives you to your destination. Your route – with guideway pylons spaced every 200-feet – will take you over wetlands, parks, mountains, you name it. With the blessing of the Sierra Club (one would hope). And once you arrive at yhour destination, it gives you two options: first, park (upon which it would drive itself to a parking/staging area), or second, turns itself into a taxicab/rental car, spending the day earning you coin while you go about your own work.
When it’s time to go home, just reel it in with a call from your Smartfone.
Cost? A fraction of what it now costs to run a car.
If you’re thinking ‘limited capacity’, think again. What figure do you get when you 10 cars per second platoon by at 60 mph. At 100 mph? Nothing could touch it.
The best part? It could be entirely privately financed. Plus no one dies. Wait. The best part is that it would remove socialist transit and socialist road agencies from the equation. For further reading, http://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/itrans/third%20generation.htm
“If you’re thinking ‘limited capacity’, think again.”
Okay, I’m thinking…
“What figure do you get when you 10 cars per second platoon by at 60 mph. At 100 mph? Nothing could touch it.”
60 mph is 26 m/s. So at 10 per second, the distance between the front of one car and the next will be 2.6m. Typically, cars are 4m long. Let us hope that these are short cars.
“With the blessing of the Sierra Club (one would hope)”
That is an extraordinary hope.
“or second, turns itself into a taxicab/rental car, spending the day earning you coin while you go about your own work.”
And it is returned dirty. Who ya gonna call?
These mixed mode systems have been around on the drawing board for donkey’s years. And that is where they will stay. Expensive, ugly, noisy – just so people don’t have to use – ugghhh! – transit.
I also love the use of the word ‘socialist’ – what a horrible thought, people working together, instead of sulking around in an individualist way.
FrancisKing.
On Capacity: you say “Let us hope that these are short cars.â€
Short yes, light too. By way of comparison, a Smartcar is 8 feet long, and that’s about what we’re talking about, give or take.
At 60 mph an object moves at 88 feet/second. So moving 10 cars/second at 60 mph on a single guideway yields 36,000 vehicle movement per direction per hour (10 x 60 x 60 = 36,000). At 100 mph – easily attainable and on a fraction of the hp required for rubber on road – it’s 146 feet/second or 18 vehicles/second or, well, you don’t want to know. And to double everything, just add another vertical layer.
The idea would be to platoon a reasonable number of vehicles, say 10, and then separate each platoon with the minimum amount of space required for the following platoon to be able to stop. And since they’re autonomously controlled and not reading the newspaper or, like America’s famous ‘hero pilot’, Sully Sullenberger, yakking on his cell or gawking ‘the beautiful view of the riverâ€, so maybe a couple of seconds.
Here’s a blurb on platooning from the PATH project, run in 1997. http://www.path.berkeley.edu/path/Publications/Media/FactSheet/VPlatooning.pdf
Sierra Club support (or lack thereof) You say “That is an extraordinary hope.â€
As an environmentalist myself, I’d like to think that the Sierra Club recognizes that while God stopped making land a long time ago, He’s still making people. I’d also like to think that it/they recognize the need for mobility. The Sierra Club recognizes we’ve been doing things wrong. Like expropriating 250′-wide swaths to build obsolete, people and turtle-killing roadways or even transit. The way of the future is, basically, “whatever it takes that will maximize mobility, minimize the impact on the environmentâ€, and, I would hope, also minimize the cost. I would also hope that they/it would agree that if it can be done by the private sector, more power to ’em.
Taxi option. You say “If it is returned dirty. Who ya gonna call?
No one. Like Avis, you have their debit card and as per the standard rental agreement, they pay for (above normal) cleanup and/or damages.
You say “These mixed mode systems have been around on the drawing board for donkey’s years. And that is where they will stay.â€
Hopefully, people will get tired of killing themselves off at the rate of 35,000 a year and incurring billions in property damage and more billions in lost productivity, and accepting that it’s okay to keep paving things over and running up the debt.
You say “Expensiveâ€
I say “What…?!” Utah’s DOT ballparks new freeway construction costs at $70 million per lane mile. Meaning a 4-lane freeway can cost $300 million/mile. And that doesn’t include the human cost.
Compare that to elevated guideway at $10 million/mile – and because everything is robo-controlled, none of ‘human cost’ associated with cars or transit, which per mile, kills people 4 times more than automobile.
“Uglyâ€? Holy cow, Francis, what do you call a freeway…beautiful? Goodness!
If you consider guideway ugly, look out your window and check out all the power lines. Which, in a guideway scenario, will not only be removed (concealed within), but like most of the ground surface, re-purposed for people (parks, bicycles, housing, farmland).
“Noisyâ€? Have you ever stood by an expressway and listened. They spend millions erecting noise barriers. Then there’s all the Yahoos who soup up their cars or rip the mufflers off their Harleys. Not going to happen on guideway.
Just because it is suspended, what makes you think that it would be noisier?
“(all that) just so people don’t have to use – ugghhh! – transit.â€
Ugghh (transit) is right. And not just use, Francis, but have to pay for, use it or not. And most don’t and won’t.
You forgot to bring up “the environment”. A 4-lane freeway gobbles a 250′-wide swath. If it crosses wetland, too bad turtles, you have to go. Guideway? How about a 3′ diameter pad every 200′ – or, with bridge-structure, 1,000′ or more.
You: “I also love the use of the word ‘socialist’ – what a horrible thought, people working together, instead of sulking around in an individualist way.â€
Me: That’s where we differ. You’re happy to have your neighbor (or Uncle Sam) pimp your ride. I believe in user-pay. I also believe that the technology and a mindset exists that can make most services we receive from giverment, transportation included, revert back to the private sector.
Thanks for taking the time to respond (and thanks to the AntiPlanner for letting me).
Dave Brough
“Short yes, light too. By way of comparison, a Smartcar is 8 feet long, and that’s about what we’re talking about, give or take.”
But the market is for larger vehicles – take a look out of your window. Even in the UK, the home of the small cars with our high petrol prices, the Smart car is a rarity.
“or, well, you don’t want to know.”
It’s a great game, multiplying big values together. For example, if you change the way PRT works from merge to signalised, you can have a marked increase in capacity with (if coordinated) a very small increase in delay. Each pod 2m long, one metre between pods. Unlike your scheme, PRT uses smaller and cheaper infrastructure, and doesn’t require people to buy a new car. But it’s not exactly, popular, is it?
“No one. Like Avis, you have their debit card and as per the standard rental agreement, they pay for (above normal) cleanup and/or damages.”
But you want to travel right now, yes? Not after the cleaners have turned up and sorted it out.
“I say “What…?!†”
That’s my line. Every new idea has a price which is pitched low – nothing new. But every time the price goes up. Monorails for example, we are assured, are cheap, because all you have to do is put up some pre-cast pillars, put the pre-cast top sections on by crane, and you’re done. Except that the Las Vegas monorail cost $88m/mile. It keeps going into and out of bankruptcy proceedings.
““Uglyâ€? Holy cow, Francis, what do you call a freeway…beautiful? Goodness!”
I’m referring to the artists impression of a junction on the web-site that you provided. An artists impression that, by the way, did not show the drip pans or evacuation routes required by law – so you can add those to the rat’s nest. This is one of things that cause problems for PRT. The narrow routes in the PRT concept diagrams also do not contain these obligatory features.
““Noisyâ€? Have you ever stood by an expressway and listened. They spend millions erecting noise barriers.”
Cars make noise. Usually this is absorbed by the local buildings. When you elevate a route you then broadcast the noise all over the area. Which is another reason why elevated infrastructure is not popular.
“Me: That’s where we differ. You’re happy to have your neighbor (or Uncle Sam) pimp your ride.”
No, I’m not. Subsidy is nature’s way of telling the service provider that they’ve got it wrong. But transit can be profitable, if they get the offer right. Of course, when taxpayer’s money can be summoned up at the click of a finger, why bother?
On the other hand, I’m struggling to see how your concept is marketable. Everyone has to buy new special cars, of a type that they don’t want. You’ve got to put up the structures everywhere, and get an income from it some how, when most people’s cars don’t fit. You’ve got to get the scheme past people who don’t like your scheme for environmental grounds. Park and Ride seems to me to be a better buy. You can start with a small car park and buses, and increase the size and capacity as is required by customer demand. It pays for itself. All that is required is a small congestion charge to stop people mindlessly driving past the site.If they have good reasons for driving into town in their car, then that’s fine, but they’ve got to pay for it.
@Dave Brough:
I’m puzzled as to why people like you think it’s acceptable to spend $7 billion on revamping a single train station. This is the problem inherent in rail. Unlike airports, where terminal construction is self funded and as a result has a financial limitation (never mind the private sector airlines to keep them in check), rail programs seem to have no limits on financial stupidity. If an airport were to propose a $7 billion terminal the airlines would chew up the management team and vomit them out into the middle of the town square for sport.
What…?! “People like me” think it’s acceptable to spend $7 billion revamping a train station??! Hardly. I’m not for spending a dime on transportation or (almost) anything else that doesn’t come from private sources, and as far as train stations are concerned, not only do I agree with you: “rail programs have no limits on financial stupidity”, I’ll take it a step further: blow them up (and replace them with the DualMode robocar I pitched at the top of this piece).
Did I redeem myself?
Ugh… Totally misread your post. Apologies.
Though airports entrap people. You go through security, then they make you pay $4 for a bottle of Pepsi, then the security people take away your drink before you can drink it.
Better the person traveling pay the cost of the airport by buying that Pepsi no?
Me thinks rail can learn a lot on funding projects from Aviation so as not to make them so “non-user” dependent.
Roads are obsolete?
Where/how would buses, robocars, delivery trucks, etc travel?
What’s the alternative to roads?
Rail?–Expand to within 1/2 mile of all buildings?
That involves some very heavy & cumbersome carrying of personal purchases & especially business purchases & construction.
Do you really expect for the contents of each truck to instead be taken on public transit & then carried to it’s final (or intermediate) destination?
Oh, your project of suspended wires & rails of much more than 1 million miles (& even going thru rural areas) is very unrealistic & has no serious consideration. That would cost at least $5 trillion.
Just imagine all the raw materials that it would use to build & operate.
Electrify the streets, auto-drive the cars, privatize micro-nuclear power plants… now you’re talking!
This is what will happen to California’s Highspeed rail in fourty years if it ever gets built. The money won’t be there to do it right the first few times, so they will just keep spending more and more and more money. The end result will be a number of high speed demonstrator sections linked by large sections of conventional rail.
For all of the billions that the government has poured into the NEC over fourty years, they’ve only managed to shave less than two hours over times from the ’50s. This entire corridor is a black hole, sucking money into it, and giving almost nothing back. The entire project is just welfare for the Serious People. (The East Coast political elite that determine what is a serious topic for discussion in American politics, and what topics make one a non serious Radical)
If Amtrak ever gets the money, this will be the third government rebuild of the line. Any person not driven by either idealogy, or by a desire to not be eclisped in greatness by other countries would have long ago given up on high speed rail. The serious people have it all wrong. We had high speed rail in this country, as the Antiplanner documents on his other blog. Read about the kind of speeds and travel times that the railroads were getting in the thirties, even Amtrak’s fastest train on the NEC is barely competitive over the same kinds of distances. The problem with high speed rail in this country is that everyone but the serious people decided long ago (As far back as the thirties) that the car, and plane were easier, cheaper and faster. The impending death of the car is as it always will be, just wishfull thinking on behalf of the serious people.