It seems topics come in waves. I was just mentioning the other day, how in California, if they were really committed to the environment, they would start building the new high speed rail from LA to Sacramento/San Francisco, by digging up I-5. They could lay down the tracks right behind the crews ripping up the freeway. They won’t. The high speed rail is highly unlikely to ever be completed. A lot of money will be wasted. It will be the train to nowhere.
While high speed rail is a nice form of mass transit and is definitely more environmentally friendly, it just doesn’t fit in with our vast network of roads and it is one of the most expensive forms of travel. Such huge projects require the force of government to ever be completed. Private property must be taken. Profits rarely ever materialize so tax-payers usually have to absorb the losses. If high speed rail was such a great thing, private capital would fund it and companies would be beating down the door to build and operate such trains. Europe has a nice network of trains. I rode them when I visited a few years ago. They are an asset for the continent but they are not profitable. Not according to the Germans I spoke with in Munich. 
The government built the trains and the government still greatly subsidizes the trains. I suppose, as long as the people know that they are being taxed to support the trains, and they are ok with it, it’s all good. The U.S. is bigger and most people who will be taxed to build the high speed rail in California will never ride it. Even if more passenger rails were developed, I doubt I would ever have the benefit of using it. A train from Wausau to Green Bay (which I would use to go see the Packers of course) would probably be the lowest priority on the list of planned trains.
Even a train that is designed to ride from LA to Las Vegas (XpressWest), through desert areas, is having trouble. If it is to move forward it looks like it will have to get a multi-billion dollar loan from the federal government. If a train between to popular and populous cities through mostly empty desert areas cannot attract private money, then there probably is no high speed rail that will ever be privately built and operated in the U.S.
I hope you don’t get the impression that I am against high speed trains. I would use trains if they reasonably priced and served my local area. I think it would be cool to ride the high speed train between LA and Las Vegas. Trains are a more sustainable mode of transportation as well. The problem is that most of these trains cannot be built without government diktats and support. The government decision of when and where to build a train is not usually supported by the desires of the local population. When a private individual or company decides to build “infrastructure”, it is because they have analyzed the situation and determined there is a profit to be made by serving the people. Developers take risks with their money. Sometimes they lose. That is ok. Taxpayers usually do not end up paying for the loss.
Unfortunately, private developers seemed to be mis-allocating resources lately as well. Remember the housing bubble? Incredibly, house building permits have apparently gone up slightly in the past month, even though by many estimates there are still well over 10 million empty houses sitting around the U.S.! And this type of activity comes back to haunt the possible future for trains. The more subdivisions, parking lots, and sprawling highways that exist to support all the empty homes, the harder it will be to put trains in anywhere.
There is hope. A private market solution is evolving that fits within the framework of America’s love affair with the automobile. It is self-driving cars. I have covered the development of these cars for sometime now (here as well). Now auto research group KPMG has released a report stating that self-driving cars will be in showrooms by 2019 or even a bit earlier. The main bottleneck holding back self-driving cars is the law, legal liability issues, and regulations. The initial test vehicles are also expensive. The technology is already here and it works well. Self-driving cars will most likely be much much safer and more efficient. They will also be essentially like miniature trains. Packs of autonomous vehicles travelling on the freeways will even look like trains. The “tracks” have already been laid. It is the best we can hope for here in the U.S.
Have a fine Friday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.
Posted under Environment, Technology
This post was written by jloew on August 24, 2012
Recently, I have been having the same conversation with my neighbors in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. We are currently waiting to see if the funding is secured for an extension of the growing light-rail system. I have heard very little, but I fear that the funding might be in jeopardy. The work is already underway to complete a line connecting Minneapolis to St. Paul down University Avenue. If the funding is secured, an additional line will be constructed which will reach out to the southwestern suburbs. I realize that supporting it might be selfish, but it would be fantastic to have this additional line. If built, I will have a station about a block from my home that will allow me to take a train that will drop me off in front of my work place in Minneapolis. I will also be able to reach the airport or downtown St. Paul without ever getting into a car.
When we can no longer drive what we want, where we want, we will not be very free. I would give you if the cars had “auto pilot” for long trips would be nice. But once you get where you are going are these things going to work? Some thing seems wrong with this get away from cars thing, like old Europe or something. We all become cattle to herd onto trains to go to our strongly structured day of toiling in whatever job we can get along the train line, and to take us back to our tiny brick box we get to live in by the grace of government. Maybe they can just give us the food we are to eat, a bag of rice and a bag of beans. After all, it is for the greater good. We can’t be eating what we want. The third leg of this stool, controlling the climate IN OUR homes. They are already doing that some places. So far its just with AC, but how long until they control our heat? They decide they need to conserve, so the heat in your house is turned down to 40 degrees. Don’t complain, it is above freezing. Throw on another sweater!
You say high speed rail is subsidized by the government. What transportation isn’t? Our cars and trucks are subsidized by government built roads. If the automakers had to provide roads for the cars it wouldn’t have happened. Air travel is subsidized by government supplied airports. If the airlines had to build airports for their planes it wouldn’t have happened. Nobody would make a profit providing transportation if the government (taxpayers) didn’t step in. Some things required for an advanced society require government expenditures. If you disagree, you can move to a third world country such as you might find in Africa. Really, wake up and die right.
This discussion is starting to sound like so many others that I have regarding issues about alternative energy, transportation and infrastructure. I see a pattern that superficially seems drawn along political lines, but when I step back I realize that the lines are increasingly drawn between those living in rural settings and those living in urban settings. This is starting to make a lot of sense to me; people hold vastly different views on these topics because their requirements for living are so different.
People who live in rural community have limited resources and small tax bases. The nearest hospitals, stores and government services many be tens of miles away and scattered in every direction. They cannot afford to build an elaborate infrastructure and cannot take very many risks. They necessarily need cheap and reliable sources of energy. And, investments like a mass-transit system are completely unjustifiable. The attachment to automobiles isn’t just part of culture; it is born out of necessity.
On the extreme end, people in large cities have a completely different set of problems. They tend to have a larger tax base with a more diverse economy, but they face higher costs of living and congestion. In the worst cases, the freedom represented by a car is just an illusion. Sitting on train or a bus is preferable to spending hours a day in grinding traffic. The high demand on the infrastructure means that investments are made more frequently and on a larger scale. As a result, it is beneficial to consider solutions that would not make economic sense in a rural setting.
In the end, what may sound like a conflict of values is really just people making decisions based on the realities of their own situations.
Right Anthony. It seems some want to force others to live a certain way. When they don’t follow along, blame those people for destroying the earth, just by living their lives. Here is an example that is not far from the truth. Heat your food in the microwave. Nope, that is a modern dangerous tool that uses electricty. So you go to use your grill, nope. Burns wood products of one kind or another or LP. Both fuels hurt the earth when collected and create emmissions when burned. Electric, nah, that hurts the earth too. So what now? It never ends, no matter how many concessions you make, they are never satisfied.
“Cattle to herd on trains”? What about the the airborne cattle cars called airplanes? Passengers are packed in like sardines.
Granted trains have greater benefit in populated areas but there is no reason we in the Midwest should not have high speed rail between major cities. Regional airports are abandoning routes and airports because they supposedly can’t make a profit running the service. High speed rail could affordably fill the gap.
China is heavily investing in rail. They think in a long term view. Rail is a long term investment which is shunned in our quarter by quarter investment attitude in the US. The US needs to invest in our rail system. Produce travels by truck throughout the US. It could travel by rail to hubs in major cities and from there to the customers by truck. There are many other ways to save money and fuel in shipping, the only thing required is a little thought, planning and investment. What happened to America’s innovative spirit? I think it is the attitude that what we have is “good enough”. I have lived my life with the attitude that whatever what I accomplish will be perfect or as close to perfect as I can get it. I have little patience and tolerance for people with a “that’s good enough” attitude.
Thanks for sharing you point of view Randy. Toll roads/freeways are an example of users paying for the service. I am unsure why the same can’t be done with trains and tracks. Why do long distance passengers trains lose money in the U.S.? Maybe they need to raise the ticket prices. The freeways were a huge investment as is any airport. Many of these were done when the country wasn’t bankrupt, which makes a huge difference. The high speed rail in California will be one of the most expensive infrastructure improvements ever funded by the government. The U.S. is 16 trillion dollars in debt and not able to fund the upkeep of the existing infrastructure. Maybe now is not the time to begin such a huge project. California, where the train is to be built, is bankrupt, however there are A LOT of rich people in California that could fund this thing. They should. Like I mentioned, if they were committed to the environment, they would put up their own money, instead of relying on taxes from struggling working families from other parts of the country. I understand what you are saying about government support of infrastructure, but there is a limit. We just can’t build everything that is proposed.
At least the proposed rail in Minneapolis is smaller and could be funded locally, which to me is more justifiable. Local people around the Twin Cities get to decide.
Thanks for your thoughts, as always Tony. The country was once an empty canvas upon which Americans built…and built…and built. Cheap oil made it possible. Now those decisions are becoming tougher to maintain. Without big breaktroughs in energy coming soon, I think the trend will be for more people to move into cities and live more efficiently, and even fund more trains.
I hear what you are saying Ray. As someone who grew up in the country, I don’t like the feeling of being herded or crowded. Other people don’t mind so much, as I think they find their freedom in other ways. Technology is advancing so fast, it will be hard to adapt. With more automated transportation in the future, there will have to be even stricter legal safeguards to protect the rights of people against government intrusion, otherwise it could be a bad situation.