Much like the proposed Florida passenger trains that can be run without government subsidies (but can we have some anyway?), train supporters are gushing over Japan’s tentative decision to build a magnetically levitated (maglev) line from Tokyo to Osaka. Japan apparently sees this as a way to revitalize its economy, especially if it can sell the trains to the United States and other countries.
Maglev train being tested in Japan. Wikimedia commons photo by Yosemite.
The Antiplanner has maintained that transportation improvements are economic game changers only if they make travel faster, cheaper, and/or more convenient. Maglev meets only one of those criteria: at projected speeds of a little more than 300 mph, maglev would be at least 50 percent faster than existing high-speed trains and possibly even faster than flying over short distances. Flights from Tokyo to Osaka, the route of the proposed maglev, take about 80 minutes, and the maglev promises to reduce times to little more than an hour.
Maglev, however, is certainly not less expensive to build: the proposed 320-mile line is expected to cost as much as $112 billion. That’s about $300 million per mile. For roughly the same cost, the California high-speed rail project would extend 520 miles. Proponents say maglev lines will cost less to maintain because there is no friction between the trains and the rails. But operating costs are likely to be higher because of maglev’s power requirements. Nor is maglev any more convenient than ordinary high-speed trains or flying.
On top of that, environmentalists are complaining that the proposed Tokyo-Osaka line will be “the biggest environmental disaster or life-destroying project of the postwar era” because it will require the excavation of millions of cubic feet of rock and dirt. Around 90 percent of the line would be underground (which sounds like a boring trip to me).
You can take a levitra prescription https://www.supplementprofessors.com/cialis-4010.html pill just an hour before intercourse. It improves vigor and viagra uk supplementprofessors.com energy levels. Are there any Serious Side Effects? While the product is mostly harmless, in some cases it is possible that order levitra can seriously damage your health. For example, a cheap cialis from canada fracture of a bone requires waiting for bone repair and consolidation, something that takes more time (even several months in some cases).
Central Japan Railway Company (Central JR) projects that the faster line would attract 88 million passengers a year, but 72 million of them would shift from the current high-speed rail line. That means less than 20 percent would be “new” passengers, the real measure of whether a transportation project is a game changer. Some of those 20 percent may otherwise have flown, suggesting that the amount of actual new travel would be even smaller.
Central JR says it will build the Tokyo-Osaka line out of the profits it is earning on the existing Tokyo-Osaka high-speed trains, suggesting it won’t need any public subsidies. However, doing so means the project won’t be complete until 2045, a full human generation away.
Construction of America’s first transcontinental railroad took about six years. It took only fifteen years after the introduction of commercial jet aircraft in 1952 for some airlines to convert their entire fleets to jets. The idea that it will take more than 30 years to introduce a new transportation technology makes it seem impossible.
For one thing, no one knows what life will be like 30 years from now or whether anyone will want to travel on a maglev train or what other technologies will compete against it. As a result, any large investment in fixed infrastructure over that length of time is extremely risky. One thing that seems likely to come true is that Japan’s population will decline in the next few decades–demographers predict a fall from 128 million today to 111 million in 2045–making the need for maglev even less than you might think by looking at the people riding the Shinkansen today. Claims that maglev will somehow overcome the economic effects of this population decline, perhaps by encouraging the country’s population to concentrate in the Tokyo-Osaka corridor, sound like wishful thinking.
It seems likely that, as in the case of All Aboard Florida, Central JR is actually hoping the government will subsidize the maglev line and is using the 2045 date to prompt the government to do so. But Japan has been building high-speed rail lines throughout the country in a failed effort to revitalize the nation’s moribund economy. There’s no reason to think that subsidizing an even more expensive maglev line would do any better, especially if it generates little new travel.
One thing is certain. Anyone who truly believes in maglev should strongly oppose the California and other high-speed rail projects in the U.S. Why spend $200 million per mile and decades to build rail lines that will only go about 200 mph when it may soon be possible to build lines that can go more than 300 mph?
Nothing rail-related is in any way a game changer. This isn’t the 18th century; people don’t generally move to be near to a train line.
And correct me if I’m wrong, but not only is mag-lev super expensive to build, but it uses huge amounts of electricity, too.
The Antiplanner wrote:
Much like the proposed Florida passenger trains that can be run without government subsidies (but can we have some anyway?), train supporters are gushing over Japan’s tentative decision to build a magnetically levitated (maglev) line from Tokyo to Osaka. Japan apparently sees this as a way to revitalize its economy, especially if it can sell the trains to the United States and other countries.
FTFY (fixed that for you):
Much like the proposed Florida passenger trains that can be run without government subsidies (but can we have some anyway?), train supporters are gushing over Japan’s tentative decision to build a magnetically levitated (maglev) line from Tokyo to Osaka. Japan apparently sees this as a way to revitalize its economy, especially if it can get taxpayers in the United States and other countries to subsidize its development and construction.
Maglev, however, is certainly not less expensive to build: the proposed 320-mile line is expected to cost as much as $112 billion. That’s about $300 million per mile. For roughly the same cost, the California high-speed rail project would extend 520 miles. Proponents say maglev lines will cost less to maintain because there is no friction between the trains and the rails. But operating costs are likely to be higher because of maglev’s power requirements. Nor is maglev any more convenient than ordinary high-speed trains or flying.
So where would a maglev line in the United States possibly make sense? Running parallel to the Amtrak Northeast Corridor (NEC) between Washington, D.C. and Boston, Massachusetts. Last time I checked, there was a lot of development (commercial, industrial, residential and government uses) along most of the NEC. According to a recent (2012) Amtrak report (.pdf) [which make no mention of maglev], the NEC is 457 miles long. A parallel maglev line would seem to require a lot of digging, or perhaps a lot of propert condemnation – or a lot of both.
Two things being ignored are the first 50 miles TO (the station) and last 50 miles FROM (the station). Even today, the reason transit has minuscule figures is because people want the convenience of a personal transporter. The game changer will be a conveyance that will do everything expected of high speed rail, but without the cost, complexity, time-to-build (like 5 years) and will take users doorstep to doorstep in their own personal transporter. TEV might a good start . http://www.tevproject.com/