
Two-Thirds of Americans Would Utilize High-Speed Rail If It Was Available - misnamed
http://evobsession.com/survey-two-thirds-americans-utilize-high-speed-rail-available/
======
rmason
My father told me a story about discontinuing a street car line (called an
interurban) in a town North of Detroit. There was a hearing at city hall and
hundreds of villagers turned out.

Dozens of people made the case to keep the line. Finally the street car
company's lawyer got up and made the business case for discontinuing the line.
He concluded by asking the crowd how many of you used our company's street car
to get to this meeting? Not a single hand went up.

It's easy to tell a pollster you're for high speed rail but how many will
actually buy a ticket? Perhaps they should ask for them to prepay for a
ticket?

~~~
eli_gottlieb
>It's easy to tell a pollster you're for high speed rail but how many will
actually buy a ticket? Perhaps they should ask for them to prepay for a
ticket?

I use the MBTA on a fairly frequent basis. I would use it every day if biking
didn't half my commute time.

I've also used Megabus to visit New York City, for day trips even, Acela for
an interview in New York once, and a short domestic air flight to visit a
friend in Washington DC for a weekend. These costed ~$30, ~$200, and $500 for
round trips, respectively.

Note that the bus takes almost five hours, the train takes four hours, and the
airline flight took about two to three hours. The bus and train were crossing
the same distance between the same two cities, and a comparable air trip would
have cost $450 for a 1 hour, 15 minute flight.

Why is the transit system structured so that by taking "high-speed" public
transit over slower private transit, I reduce my trip by 20% but pay 9x more?
Why is it that if I actually want to travel quickly, I have to take a private
transit agency (ie: JetBlue), and can quarter the time spent in transit by
spending twice as much as the next-fastest option and 15x as much as the
slowest option?

In particular, how can we talk about a so-called "high-speed" rail system in
which the gap between driving and taking a train is only one hour but the cost
gap is multiplication by nine?

~~~
mikeash
Acela isn't "high-speed" rail, it's basically normal rail with high-speed
hardware which occasionally goes fast enough to barely clear the threshold for
calling it "high speed."

Acela averages less than 70MPH. In a proper high-speed system that would be
more like 180MPH. Boston to DC would be 2.5 hours, vastly faster than flying
once you account for airport nonsense.

~~~
seanp2k2
While I agree that more high-speed rail would be amazing in the US as a viable
transit option, a lot of the calculus around efficiency of it rests on it
being exempt from the likes of TSA. TSA has been making their way into train
stations for a few years now:

2013: [http://reason.com/archives/2013/08/08/tsa-to-ruin-train-
trav...](http://reason.com/archives/2013/08/08/tsa-to-ruin-train-travel-now-
too)

2015: [http://www.infowars.com/tsa-airport-style-searches-on-all-
am...](http://www.infowars.com/tsa-airport-style-searches-on-all-amtrak-
trains/)

~~~
chimeracoder
> TSA has been making their way into train stations for a few years now:

Yeah, 'Amtrak police' are now also doing their own 'random' inspections and
swabs, etc. Last few times I took the Amtrak from Penn Station they were doing
this.

Yet another reason for me to take the bus (which is 80% cheaper, as long as
they're not sold out).

------
slg
Years ago I thought the idea of regional high speed rail lines in the US was a
great idea, but I think the time for that has come and gone. The future seems
to be clearly moving towards autonomous cars (and buses one presumes). Why
sink billions into high speed rail when on our current pace it will be only a
couple decades before we have all electric cars powered by solar and other
clean energy sources that are 90 something percent autonomous? I think most
people would easily choose a 5 hr autonomous car ride from LA to SF with
complete freedom of movement in both cities compared to a 2 hr train ride with
possibly a couple hours in both cities dealing with connections getting you to
your specific destinations.

~~~
protomyth
I do wonder what would happen if they built a new double lane highway between
two cities that is only usable by autonomous vehicles? How fast do we trust
autonomous vehicles to go?

~~~
adventured
In a fairly straight line and in good weather? Very fast (compared to current
US highways). 150 mph or more.

The primary factor I can think of in terms of risk, are wild animals crossing
and vehicle malfunction (eg tire rupture). Censors/radar, both in the vehicle
and along the perimeter, should take care of the animal threat. On the
mechanical side, well, the goal would be to get the rate of death down to
perhaps airline-like numbers.

~~~
protomyth
A fence and over/under animal crossings would probably deal with the non-
flying animals. Birds require a bit of intervention sometimes.

I wonder if anyone has done a paper on how fast / how dense you can drive
automated cars while maintaining a decent safety margin.

Also, different makes of automated cars are going to be a pain in the butt for
the system. I'm sure the Kia and Ferrari are going to want to go different
speeds.

------
nraynaud
Be weary of statistics asking people what they might do if something were
available vs what they actually do when it's there. Because then you have to
factor in the schedules, the ticket price, etc. It doesn't cost anything to
answer yes to a poll, it's a bit more complicated when it's time to plan a
trip and shell the money out.

------
WalterBright
I'd prefer a more modest speed rail that went from where I am to somewhere I
want to go. It does no good at all to travel at high speeds somewhere else,
when all that saved time is more than lost trying to get from else to where I
want to go.

I'd even prefer slower rail to my car, because I can read on the train, and I
don't have to spend 5-10 min parking.

------
chimeracoder
> To be more exact here, 63% of those surveyed stated an interests in
> utilizing high-speed rail service if it was available.

That's asking the wrong question, though. The issue is not so much whether
people would, in the abstract, have an interest in using high-speed rail as a
hypothetical means of transportation. The first challenge is figuring out
_where_ to place the rail - trains can only travel on tracks, so the train
routes need to connect highly-trafficked (source, dest) pairs in order to be
useful. And the second challenge is figuring out how to do this for a price
that justifies the costs. (Even if the project is taxpayer funded, the costs
include the opportunity cost - what other projects that tax money could have
been spent on).

Two-thirds of Americans would use high-speed rail if it connected their home
city with their most frequently-visited destination city. But that's not the
same as saying that two-thirds would use high-speed rail if it connected, say,
LA and SF, or NYC and DC. The question is, would enough people use _those_
routes in order for the project to justify its costs?

The question isn't entirely useless - for example, if only 1% of the country
demonstrated an interest in using high-speed rail, we could probably stop
there. (Even if it connected NYC and LA, the two largest cities, there's no
way the traffic would cover the opportunity cost of the project). But as
stated, this survey tells us pretty much nothing new - we already knew that
there's an abstract interest in high-speed rail, but what we _don 't_ know is
how to convince people that we have a cost-effective way of building out the
tracks between the most-important destination hubs[0].

[0] We sort of do know what the most-important destination hubs are, because
it's not _that_ different from the most-trafficked Amtrak routes and flight
routes in a given region. Yes, you can make the argument that high-speed rail
rail should serve the areas that aren't currently well-served by other
transportation means, but keep in mind that those also tend to be the less-
populated areas to begin with, which means that the challenge of recouping the
costs of the project is even greater.

~~~
ctdonath
This. Rail is great for roughly linear population distributions (like Japan or
California coast), but understand the USA had a huge 2D spread - laying out a
vast rail grid is a lot harder than roughly a line. Each terminal had the same
problem, as travelers are moving to/from in all directions. My own case: 2
miles to the nearest bus, then 20 miles to the subway, then 15 miles to what
would be the high speed long range rail terminal - then a similar reverse
sequence to reach the destination, at which point I'd have minimal luggage and
no personal transport. Way easier to just throw everyone & everything into the
family SUV and drive, taking a similar travel time with what I want and have a
vehicle when we arrive.

~~~
ghaff
Which is one reason why the Northeast Corridor works even though it's only
sorta high-speed rail. There are a few cities off the coast like Pittsburgh
that miss out but you handle a lot of population with a single line.

The only caveat is that, because it's not really high-speed, it works better
as north and south segments than as one single line. But because it's NYC in
the middle, even that works pretty well.

------
kposehn
Two criticisms of the map:

1\. A high speed line down the California coast is totally impractical.
Mountains, granite and huge grade changes make for an expensive proposition.

2\. The broken links in the midwest between the network in Texas/Oklahoma with
that stemming from Chicago is silly. Their are mothballed Rights-of-Way there
that are perfect alignments for HSR.

Outside that, I'm still very much interested in a way to make HSR work in a
number of areas for the US.

------
sandworm101
I'm always confused by the high-speed rail numbers. Exactly how many trains
would it take to get 2/3 of the US population using rail?

Take the average international-sized airport runway. It can land a 747 every
couple minutes. That's hundreds of people every minute. A high-speed rail line
cannot take even a fraction of that number. The trains cannot run at speed
without significant time/distance between them. That's the limit of one-
dimension travel (rail) v the three dimensional world of aircraft. It would
take dozens of parallel rail lines to replace even a medium sized airport.
While we all might want to use rail for some journeys, I don't see it ever
competing with air travel in the US market.

~~~
mikeash
A Shinkansen line (arbitrarily chosen because it was the first thing that
popped up in my search) can do 13 trains per hour with 1,323 passengers per
train, which is equivalent to one 747 every 1.4 minutes.

~~~
sandworm101
That would replace one runway, but it still doesn't compare to the number of
planes that the sky can handle. Sky which is cheap/free in comparison to
building rails. There is definitely a point where trains are more efficient,
particularly between a small number of large cities, but moving a large
proportion of US air traffic onto trains, imho, is a different problem given
the number of routes (1000s) and airports (100s).

I'd have to see the math, but there is also a question as to carbon emissions
per-passenger/distance. I believe that on long flights (more time at high
altitude) widebody aircraft might be more fuel efficient than high-speed
trains stuck on tracks.

~~~
fla
> Sky which is cheap/free in comparison to building rails.

Isn't flying the most expensive kind of transportation ? Plus it relies on
fossil fuels big-time.

~~~
sandworm101
It's hard to compare price because it is very rare for two means to compete
directly. It's often apples and oranges. A train that moved as fast as plane
isn't going to be very fuel efficient. They can be electric (insert source
debate) but planes can also run on biofuel (another debate). And when
comparing plane-train, a plane burns much of its fuel taking off and climbing
to altitude. Once there (10,000m) it is remarkably fuel efficient in terms of
passenger/mile at a given speed. And there are times when rail simply won't
ever be an option (over large water). The head of RyanAir gave a great
presentation a couple years ago about highspeed rail. His point was that,
while great if you live in london and vacation in Paris, most people don't
live downtown, that planes can land in places much closer to actual
destinations --> reducing total-journey emissions.

I'd love a high-speed rail from Vancouver BC to Calgary Alberta, or Prince
George (both places I go every year). But building such a structure is a
monumental task (10s of billions) and a fast train would take a vast amount of
energy covering that distance. Imho trains just cannot compete in such
markets.

~~~
fla
As you said, it is two different things.

I take the train everyday. For me, travelling by train for < 4h trips to a
city sounds like a good deal.

It is generaly a smoother experience than taking a low-cost flight. But, I
realize it really depends on how 'car-first' and large your country is.
Definately not an universal solution.

------
freditup
There was a previous article[0]/discussion[1] on HN that contained a similar
map of proposed high speed rail lines. This previous map made less sense
because it encouraged building out new HSR lines across the vast expanses on
the American midwest.

I like this new map better though - HSR makes the most sense for medium-
distant transit. The Mid-Atlantic/New England area is a perfect example of a
region where a lot of mid-distance travel happens. The current rail lines are
okay but not fantastic and improved lines would be a positive for travelers.

[0]: [http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/17/opinion/sunday/a-new-
map-f...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/17/opinion/sunday/a-new-map-for-
america.html) [1]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11506446](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11506446)

------
toddrew
Do two-thirds of Americans travel enough to use high-speed rail?

~~~
bluedino
I currently use rail once, maybe twice a year. Being faster could possibly
make impact on that. It's a 4 hour train ride to Chicago but it's a 2 hour
drive to Detroit or Cincinnati.

In theory if the train was twice as fast, becoming the same 2 hour ride, I'd
be more likely to visit Chicago more for one-day or even a single evening
event.

------
ChuckMcM
This would seem pretty clear when California voters (notorious for not voting
in taxes or bonds) approved the high speed rail project. What was even more
interesting were the forces that came out against it and how they have acted.

~~~
ScottBurson
I voted for that bond measure, and now I regret it. I'm a little fuzzy on the
details at this point, but my recollection is that it was originally planned
to include major Caltrain improvements, which they have now given up on.

~~~
greglindahl
The intended improvements have changed, but they're still there. Hopefully
we'll end up with electrification and level-loading, which should increase
Caltrain people/hour to be the same as a BART line. 38% of tech workers in
Palo Alto take Caltrain, just imagine what it could be if Caltrain wasn't
running over 100% during rush hour.

------
PaulHoule
It would help people who fly too.

One thing that struck me living in Europe was that flying was much cheaper and
easier and I think competition with rail was a big part.

------
Mz
Well, they are currently breaking ground on high speed rail in California. We
may get this question answered in actual fact in the not too distant future
instead of in some hypothetical study.

Anyone have any ideas for how to help make it successful? I would love to have
better transit options because I have no plans to drive a car ever again.

------
wahsd
Bullshit! I will believe it when 2/3 or Americans put $1,000 or so deposit
towards a high speed rail system.

------
tamana
Altrnste read: One third of Americans would refuse rail even if it were
perfect and free.

------
jessaustin
Truly, the subjunctive tense is dead.

------
jschlemm
We certainly need better public transit infrastructure.

------
ap3
Two-Thirds Of Americans __SAID THEY __Would Utilize High-Speed Rail If It Was
Available

------
wahsd
It really kind of fascinates me why people are so obsessed with rail and high
speed rail. What are the emotional reasons for it, because there are no
rational and reasonable arguments for it that can't be refuted. It makes
absolutely no sense and strikes me as another one of those examples of
obsessive thoughts and ideal people have these days. It's like all the shitty
education we subjected people of roughly <35 years old to are starting to bear
shitty rotten and mutated fruits.

~~~
mikeash
High-speed rail is the best way to travel intermediate distances, say 200-1000
miles. In this realm, it's faster than air travel overall (because you have
much less security nonsense and getting to the train station is much faster
than getting to the airport) and it's far more comfortable.

I must know, how do you refute that?

~~~
wahsd
Well, I can assure you that if train ridership increases, the risk will
increase as a function of the attack vector and the threat by muslims. As that
risk profile increases, so will the "security nonsense" and difficulty getting
there increase.

Also, the degree of expedience at which airports function leaves a lot of room
for improvement. There is really little reason why it could not get far more
efficient. You seem to also miss the fact that even if you establish a route
through 1,000 miles of other people's land and have dispossessed them through
eminent domain, and you have blasted your way through ecosystems, you are then
stuck with specific routes that can only adapt by scaling throughput of that
specific route.

Think of it this way, with the pestilence of douchebags overrunning Austin
there is no way that rail could have accommodated that growth, let alone even
triggered it. What, are you going to build high speed rail infrastructure
across multiple states to California to accommodate the flow of douchebags to
SXSW and ACL? You'd be lucky to be done before Austin has suffocated itself
and the bubble bursts and the next fad has drawn the attention of the
pretentious class.

I won't disagree that train travel is more comfortable, but hell, you really
need to be because the trip, at best, is going to take you three times as
long. Because what you are also missing is that we are talking about high
speed rail here, we are not talking about fast rail like Acela, which is quite
convenient in the NE corridor, but also only because of the population
density. But even that train stops on a regular basis, which is also a
function of what makes is even remotely not a horrific idea even though it
still loses money. The problem with air travel these days is that the Airline
industry has essentially captured regulators and legislators and are raping
the public with high prices they are colluding on and ever decreasing service
and features, also essentially due to collusion and a lack of real
competition.

Don't get me wrong, I realize that train travel has some benefits and is
probably more energy efficient and less polluting, but reality is that it is
in no way cost effective let alone adaptable and flexible.

The thing that kind of irks me the most about he wide eyed, pie in the sky,
rail supporters is that they have absolutely no idea how much it actually
costs to provide the kind of level of rail and public transportation
infrastructure that you see in Europe. The costs are astronomical both in long
term investments and in M&O. There are inklings of how much it really costs,
but reality is that no one really have an accurate understanding of its cost
because European governments keep that information under lock and key, lest
the rabble find out how much their money is squandered.

