Posted on 04/23/2010 11:21:29 AM PDT by Willie Green
Like the gleam on the tracks from an oncoming locomotive, high-speed rail transportation in the United States may be finally coming into sight. Before the end of the decade, rail backers promise, Americans will be traveling on bullet trains, the way Europeans and Asians have been doing for half a century. At speeds of up to 220 mph, high-speed rail will make it possible to travel from Los Angeles to San Francisco in less than three hours, or half the time it takes to drive. Tampa to Orlando will take less than an hour, or 35 percent faster than by car. You'll be able to get from Chicago to St. Louis in less time than it takes to fly -- after you factor in the hours spent getting to and from distant airports and the hassle of getting through security 90 minutes before your flight.
The myriad benefits of high-speed rail have long been apparent to anyone who has ridden Japan's Shinkansen trains or France's TGV. These so-called bullet trains are faster than driving, more comfortable and convenient for short distances than flying and, because they run on electricity, don't rely on foreign oil imports. Trains arrive in downtown city centers and are usually linked to public transit.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
He's a Euroweenie.
Those of us who actually remember that era will recall that the first 3,000 miles or so of what later became the interstate highway system were built by the states without federal involvement and were privately financed. While the law authorizing federal financing of the interstate system may have been passed in 1956, construction largely took place in the 60's and 70's.
Federal financing of interstates might, however, provide us with an accurate prediction of how the high speed rail boondoggle will turn out (as if Amtrak isn't sufficient). The interstate system approved in 1956 was predicted to be completed in 12 years at a cost of $25 Billion. It took 35 years at a cost of $114 Billion.
[In order to be of use to the business traveler, multiple trains would be needed on a route, and that could be prohibitively expensive to maintain and man the crew.
That’s a pretty silly labor analysis considering that a passenger train can carry far more passengers than an airplane. And unlike planes, the carrying capacity can easily be adjusted simply by adding/removing cars.
Furthermore, it requires far more sophisticate skills to train a jetliner pilot than a train engineer. And the trains have much greater potential to be totally automated, while few people will ever want to board a pilotless plane.]
Willie, you are thinking from the standpoint of the train operator instead of from the view of the potential customer. For a business traveler to utilize the train they have to know they have many options, which is already true for intercity air travel (multiple airlines, etc.)
That means regularly scheduled trains that run throughout the day. For that to happen, you would have to run every two hours, otherwise the business traveler will rely on the air system, as they do now.
They will not use the system if there is only one or two trains a day. That makes business meeting scheduling too constrictive.
Wrong. Everyone that is in any 'traffic jam' ....freely wants to be there. Just like a crowded concert. You don't hear people talking about concert crowd crises do you? Just like a popular bar. There, at the concert, in the 'traffic' everyone wants to be there. No one forced them. They are all adults, supposedly rational. If you want to live in a urban area, you are going to have times of maximum utilization of any public space. This is natural. If you don't like that urban phenomenon, the US is a big, open nation where you can live decades and never encounter urban events. Natural, rational events, are not 'horrible'.
So long as we don’t have a ‘public private investment’ in donkey transport boondoggles, I’m fine with that.
I’m not one who would benefit at all from building these networks. I’m just making the point that since we do spend transportation funds already, including from targeted taxes, it makes sense to build those things that might actually alleviate traffic issues.
As for the private investors not lining up; some things are too large for the private sector to take the lead on.
We went to the space program on the government’s dime. Spin-off technology from that includes some amazing composite materials that private enterprise makes great use of now, and profits from it.
DARPA invented the internet that you use to pay your online bills with. Private investment didn’t get involved until nearly 30 years later!!
We will never be a country that goes back to what we were a hundred years ago. We do need to do a better job of return on investment on what we do spend.
And sometimes it requires the federal government to take the first step, because investors won’t take the risk if the numnbers are in the tens of billions.
The private sector does great with either the next generation of a discovery or the out of the box thinking in technology, processes, etc.
But it does not have the ability to invest in everything.
As for the person who noted the excess cost of the highway system, it seems to me that the final cost, over all those years, seems quite reasonable for the benefits we accrued (a better lifestyle for those that wanted to live the suburban life, the ability to disperse businesses away from a concentrated central location, etc.)
I gladly pay for certain things in the federal budget that I will never utilize.
DARPA invented the internet that you use to pay your online bills with. Private investment didn’t get involved until nearly 30 years later!!
Yes, and those programs served a National Defense purpose allowing the advancements in military communications... something that IS under the FEDERAL Government's Constitutional authority. The space programs also were supposed to be for National Defense. The government could not succesfully create what the internet is today without the private sector. Likewise, laser eye surgery technology is a spin off of missile guidance systems technology...... but the government IS not in the profitable business of running optometry clinics.
If State or local governments want it, fine no problem, that's their business and their residents have the power of t he ballot box. Don't make me in another state pay for it. We talk about liberal's disregard for the Constitution when it suits them. Now, how are we going to turn around and do the same?
[”..which is horribly congested most of the day. “
Wrong. Everyone that is in any ‘traffic jam’ ....freely wants to be there. Just like a crowded concert. You don’t hear people talking about concert crowd crises do you? Just like a popular bar.
There, at the concert, in the ‘traffic’ everyone wants to be there. No one forced them. They are all adults, supposedly rational. If you want to live in a urban area, you are going to have times of maximum utilization of any public space. This is natural. If you don’t like that urban phenomenon, the US is a big, open nation where you can live decades and never encounter urban events. Natural, rational events, are not ‘horrible’.]
I suspect you don’t live anywhere near Miami for you to say this.
Miami’s downtown is actually quite small, but most of the major business offices are either downtown or out by the airport (South American divisions of Hewlett-Packard, IBM etc.).
Most of the area, which is probably about 250+ square miles, is suburban, not urban.
I don’t see how driving to your job is similar to going to a crowded bar, that seems to be a stretch for this argument.
As for making choices, it looks like labor mobility is a BIT OF AN ISSUE right now for moving to other locations, assuming of course you can get hired and be able to sell a house.
The English Channel tunnel and the Alaska pipeline were both privately financed at costs in the “tens of billions”. The difference between private and public financing is that a private project has to make economic sense, while a public one does not.
“There already is a rail line between Tampa and Kissimmee (3 miles from downtown Orlando). IT ISN’T USED!!”
But when you get the Federal Gov’t involved, they will find a way to *make* people use it.
[The English Channel tunnel and the Alaska pipeline were both privately financed at costs in the “tens of billions”. The difference between private and public financing is that a private project has to make economic sense, while a public one does not.]
The English Channel Tunnel had a substantial cost overrun. It was financed by public offerings in the equity markets, as well as a debt financing by the authority set up (European consortium with no British government money. But the French did put up some money).
And don’t forget that in many of these large projects the governments will give at least a partial guarantee to the debt market borrowers.
Major corporations did not put up the money. It was almost as if a publicly traded hedge fund built the chunnel, not corporations. If it had failed, a lot of small investors would have lost their investment.
The Pipeline was mostly financed by NON-American companies. ARCO was the only domestic investor. And Japanese steel companies were the only suppliers of the pipe, since they had the only steel that passed muster.
Not exactly a ringing endorsement of American private capital being the reason these were built.
*Requires 80,000 “D” Cell Batteries (not included)
Oh, while the tunnel had an 80% cost overrun, the interstate highway's cost overrun was over 500%.
Much better would be to plant an EID under a rail or aside a rail and detonate it just before the locomotive passes over it. At 220MPH that would be one heck of a derailment.
Amoco (now BP) 46.93%
Conoco Phillips 28.29%
ExxonMobil 20.34%
Unocal 1.36%
Koch 3.08%
Move.
Everyone there, wants to be there.
Everyone at the time of a traffic ‘jam’ wants to be there. No one, not one single person is forced at any particular time, to get into a car. Go earlier, go later, move downtown, up town, cross town. Work nights, get a new job. No one ‘forces’ you. YOU have choices. I, no one, is one bit responsible for some inconvenience to YOU. You are. Move to Stuart, or Vero, or Oury, Colorado.
You have to weigh nearness to jobs, ie, an urban enviorment with the fact that there are a lot of people there. Duh. All transportaion pipes (road, rail, airports, ports) are as a matter of effinice and thus cost, built to handle less than maximum usuage. So, you will always have ‘jams’.
Jams are a feature, not a defect.
Obambi bends over, and out shoots Electricity...
Problem Solved!
Actually, we will get this by cutting down on what we presently use.
[...and I should have mentioned that the Alaska pipeline is owned as follows:
Amoco (now BP) 46.93%
Conoco Phillips 28.29%
ExxonMobil 20.34%
Unocal 1.36%
Koch 3.08%]
That’s the ownership now, it was not the ownership at the time of construction. Keep it apples to apples.
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