There are several reasons more passenger rail doesn't happen.
Generally the passenger rail proposals are illegal because they fail some now 100+ year old laws on cost/benefit analysis originally enacted to throttle bankrupting the US from building water projects to make the deserts bloom when the US had lots of blooming land not in deserts. If you own some desert and can talk the Federal Government into a big water project to make the desert bloom, then you can get rich, but the US could go broke doing that.
Well, continually, any honest cost/benefit analysis dooms any Federal subsidies for passenger rail.
There was a big example in Baltimore: They built a subway. Big subsidies. The system was done but not quite carrying passengers yet. I went to a lecture on the economics. The cost/benefit solution, even counting the construction cost as $0.00? Sure: Brick up the openings of the subway and just f'get about it. Why? No way could ticket prices pay even for routine operating costs.
Looking at just ticket revenue seems shortsighted. A similar analyses would never be able to justify road construction and maintenance, which directly generate revenue only through gas taxes and traffic fines.
Urban centers are more productive than suburban sprawl due to network effects. Effective passenger rail allows higher density, resulting in a productivity dividend to everyone in the area.[1]
Economic analyses along these lines are often used to sell highway expansion -- since of course highways don't pay for themselves directly -- but research does not support claims that adding highway capacity has any significant economic impact.[2]
> Looking at just ticket revenue seems shortsighted.
To me, not focusing on ticket prices looks in conflict with the law on cost/benefit analysis, inviting waste, and shortsighted.
For US cost/benefit analysis 101 (at one time I was forced to take a grad course in that and still have the text) the main idea was to add all the (A) costs, capital, operating, etc. and (B) benefits "to whosoever they may accrue". Then the benefits had to exceed the costs. Amazing concept.
So, if are building a national park in Wyoming, then the main benefits are to the visitors to the park. Tough to say that I get a benefit if I live in NY and never visit the park. For the benefit of the people who do visit the park, add up ticket revenue or, if want park admission to be free, estimate what the ticket revenue would be worth.
Then according to the law, the benefits have to exceed the costs. That was aimed first at water resource projects but was also applied to public parks and maybe dams, highways, etc.
For the Baltimore subway, the obvious benefits went to the riders. Then the obvious way to measure the benefit was to add up revenue from ticket sales. If want the subway to be free or run at a loss, then okay, but still have to add up the benefits and they have to exceed the costs. Well, IIRC for that subway, no way could benefits to the riders pay even for the on-going operating costs. So, the optimal cost/benefit solution was to brick up the entrances and shut down the project. The capital expense? Wasted money.
Saying that the subway would have a benefit because some employers could get some workers for less money, there would be fewer cars on the roads, etc. IIRC was far-fetched and didn't count.
Yes, we could do the dreamy analysis: Just imagine a really, secure, productive, beautiful city with lots of happy people with beautiful art, statues, vistas, boulevards, walking trails, nature walks, roof top organic vegetable gardens, pet friendly, free dial-a-ride transportation, free bicycles, fast, quiet, clean, safe subways, lakes, parks, free concerts at noon, dinner time, and evening, fireworks each Saturday night, all carbon-free, renewable energy, phosphate free detergents, CFC free air conditioning, "top of the line, totally non-polluting" electric taxis, group singing Kumbaya every afternoon, a norm of group hugs all the time, full gender equality, fluidity, and ambiguity, sidewalk cafes with no paper products, sidewalk artists, farmers' markets in the streets Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, an open air theater, a music and arts school, a performing arts center, lots of art galleries, free 24 x 7 walk-in medical clinics, etc. Just add up the benefits. Clearly they would be astronomical, beyond any costs. So, any and all cost/benefit analyses have already been passed! Let's get to work and pick the hand-formed, artisanal, multi-colored pastel paving stones for the sidewalks!
Long ago I got a strong impression that people who have that dream city in mind, in particular a lot of people in NYC, really hate private cars.
I live 70 miles north of Wall Street out in the sticks, deer in the backyard, etc., and I was torqued and pissed when for my car registration I had to pay a sur-tax to support the MTA, that is, some trains to NYC. I never ride those trains. If the trains need more money, then they should raise the ticket prices, that is, have the people who benefit from the trains pay what the trains cost, at least the on-going operating costs. It's far-feteched and wildly indirect to say that I get a benefit when I don't ride those trains.
But some people really like trains and other public transportation and really hate cars and private transportation. There are a lot of people like that in NYC.
I don't think that Kumbaya city is what the cost/benefit analysis had in mind, but I do get the strong sense that it is what a lot of people looking for Federal subsidies have in mind.
A highway and gas taxes? Sure, if gas taxes can pay for a highway, then the benefits clearly, necessarily do exceed the costs: People liked the driving enough to pay for the gas and the gas taxes, so no question.
The public transportation lovers, the train lovers, and the subsidy takers are all coming out of the woodwork again. I smell a fad, a bubble. IMHO, this too, will pass. We're not going to have a lot Federal subsidies for a lot of new passenger trains or Kumbaya cities springing up.
It's really simple: Anything like passenger trains mostly just do not work. Sure, NYC is built on top of a lot of subway lines, and they are now crucial to that city. So, that's NYC. So be it.
Why NYC? A good seaport between (A) the US Midwest, the Great Lakes, the Erie Canal, and the Hudson River and (B) much of the rest of the world, especially the US east coast and Europe. So, it was geography.
But, back to trains. The people have lots of origin-destination pairs so try to have lots of stops. Then on average at each stop usually take on or let off only a few people and for those few people have everyone else on the train wait and have the many tons of the train itself slow down, stop, and accelerate again. Bummer.
So, really, don't want so many little stops and, then, come up short on origin-destination pairs. E.g., my car is downstairs, under my family room, just off the basement. It's just a few steps to the car, and when I get back with groceries, etc., it's just a few steps to move the stuff from my car, an SUV, to my appropriate storage shelves for that stuff. When I start, accelerate, and stop my car, that's about 4000 pounds, not 100 tons, and only my time is involved, not also the time of hundreds of other people. Indeed, if I have much stuff, I back the SUV into the garage to save a few steps hauling the stuff. A train? To replace my SUV? A really bad joke. There is no way a train can stop close to all the houses in my neighborhood. That is, again, a train is very short on origin-destination pairs.
That's an old and very obvious and clear story: About 100 years ago, the US had passenger train service to essentially every cross-roads or larger in the whole country. But as soon as private cars were available, to heck with the horse drawn buckboard from the house to the train station, and to heck with the passenger trains. That is still the case.
Even if the trains were infinitely fast, to do well serving lots of origin-destination pairs, the delays for all the needed stops and connections would take too long.
The fact of life is that in nearly all the land area of the US, and for nearly everyone in the US not in one of the top 10 largest cities, the main means of people transportation is their private car, yes, on highways funded by gas taxes.
I know; I know; the Kumbaya city people want Federal subsidies to get rid of private cars, gasoline, suburbs, highways for private cars, etc. and have everyone in their own 500 square foot per person flat in a high rise in Kumbaya city with lots of trains and, soon, self-driving taxis, food delivery via drones, ordered by talking into a friendly AI appliance, etc. That fad, bubble will also soon go away.
Gee, and remember, we will need really good train service to Woodstock, NY!
Folks, again, follow the money: The people who want the subsidies want to give you a lot of dreamy stuff and then get your money and put a lot of it in their pockets. They want to have you dream about 100% all-natural, carbon-free, CFC-free, phosphate-free, anxiety-free, totally free, organic, pure, renewable, with no harm to the 100% all-natural, pure, pristine, delicate, sensitive, environment, the climate, the coral reefs, the whales, the birds, Antarctica, etc., or was that the last such scam? Uh, and the birds, well, there has been some compromise there!
Here is one: On the Great Lakes, have a nice paddle wheel boat. Big enough for several hundred people. Pick people up at some ports and take them on a beautiful, scenic evening cruise with all the best people.
Here's another idea: Notice that a lot of people want to have a private boat of 40 feet or so, say, on the Great Lakes. As everyone knows, to own such a boat usually has a cost per hour actually on the water too high to believe. So, have some such boats and rent them. Do a really nice job. E.g., have the boats in top condition and squeaky clean. Have very helpful staff of young people, usually college students off for the summer, in nice, crisp uniforms.
These ideas sound good, right? Make lots of money, right? Would be candidates for Federal subsidies based on cost/benefit analysis? Right?
Wrong! The ideas flopped. They lost money. Actually, the first idea, the cruise ship, did work for some years about 100 years ago and then trailed off. For whatever reason, those ideas didn't work.
For the free enterprise system, people learn that (A) there are lots of really nice products which, however, cost so much too few people can afford them and (B) lots of cheap products lots of people can afford except nearly no one wants them. Free enterprise has to make money in this world of (A) and (B). Public projects? With just cost/benefit analysis done in some dreamy ways, we're looking at a lot of projects that wouldn't work in free enterprise. I.e., the projects are losers in that charging what the real costs are, too few people would buy. It's their choice to buy or not, and too often they would not. But, with a public project, they have to pay for the thing whether they want to or not!
I have an idea: Why don't we get back to rationality and reality, wise up, and stop the scams and their waste and ripoffs? Remember Solyndra?
Or are we so rich we can ignore reality and rationality and indulge ourselves in goofy nonsense and dream of smoking funny stuff?
You compound error on error here, so I'll just focus on the first:
To me, not focusing on ticket prices looks in conflict with the law on cost/benefit analysis, inviting waste, and shortsighted.
It's not.
Public goods, a term of art in economics, refer to those for which market transactions alone fail to capture the full benefits. There may be additional factors as well including nonrivalry or nonexcludability. Even on a transit system where it seems that the beneficiaries are well-defined -- passengers -- there are nonexcludable beneficiaries: drivers who experience less congestion, the families of workers or children who can commute by transit rather than requiring private auto trips, employers who have an increased employee pool, retailers who benefit by increased foot traffic and patronage, reduced air pollution, etc., etc., etc.
So, no, farebox revenue, of and by itself, doesn't tell the full story.
The basic principles were layed out some time ago:
"The third and last duty of the sovereign or commonwealth is that of erecting and maintaining those public institutions and those public works, which, though they may be in the highest degree advantageous to a great society, are, however, of such a nature that the profit could never repay the expense to any individual or small number of individuals, and which it therefore cannot be expected that any individual or small number of individuals should erect or maintain. The performance of this duty requires, too, very different degrees of expense in the different periods of society."
-- Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, Book V, Chapter 1, Part 3.
I did respond to that. I explicitly mentioned the idea of helping employers by making it easier for workers to get to the employer's shop.
Much of the rest I wrote is a parody of your ideas.
NYC is there and exists, and we have to live with it. But what is in practice and reality necessary in the commons, public, etc. in NYC need not establish a principle to apply elsewhere. I explained why NYC is there -- it's some geography. Maybe that geography is still important; maybe not. But that geography is rare: In the whole east US, there is about Boston, NYC, Philly, Baltimore, DC, Charlotte, and New Orleans. And NYC has the advantage that it is not blocked by the mountains that run from about Maine to Florida. That is, due to the Erie Canal, NYC has a water path to the US Midwest.
NYC is there. It's done. It's not going away, and we're not going to build another one. That passenger trains and other public and commons expenditures are important in NYC does not extend to the rest of the country.
Curious that Adam Smith said some of that stuff.
But I tried to indicate that cost/benefit analysis as in the US law I studied does not include the highly indirect benefits you mentioned.
To me, you include so much that (A) no person or government process would ever be able to sort through and decide what to include versus reject and (B) the way would be wide open for way too much public spending as in my Kumbaya city parody.
Something happened in the DC Beltway: For some years, people kept trying to figure out the best routes. Finally it became clear that the routes didn't much matter because of the years between when the route was announced and when it was finished. During those years, lots of apartment and office buildings and shopping centers would locate to take advantage of the Beltway as soon as it was finished.
Well could do something similar with trains: Build them and let people move their apartment, office buildings and shopping, etc. to conform to the trains.
Maybe could go to some big, low density area of the US, just put in lots of trains, put up lots of buildings, and then let people move in. That is, design the area for trains instead of private cars. My understanding is that China has tried such things and the effort flopped.
Net, for the present US, passenger trains don't work. The main reason is that the way people live now, they need far too many origin-destination pairs, and trains can't serve that many. Private cars and highways can; trains can't.
We're not going to redesign and rebuild everything around trains or anything else. Instead we are going to be incremental. Where there is a need, business will try to find ways to fill it. An example is Amazon based on the Internet, Moore's law, and the Interstate highways. Based on the Internet, more people will be able to work from home and not commute. Maybe there will be a role for drones. Maybe there will be less commuting for education.
Sorry, net, in the US, once again, as has been fully clear since the end of WWII, passenger trains will flop. In particular, I don't see either Trump or Congress putting up the cash to change that.
The US does a lot with trains. E.g., recently Buffett bought BN. It carries coal, lots of coal. IIRC, trains are carrying lots of stuff for fracking.
Trump is doing a lot to get coal going again in the US. Then trains will have to be involved. The mine that just opened is for metallurgical coal. Okay, then, that coal will be used for making steel, and no doubt trains will also carry the steel. And Trump wants US steel to do better -- more trains. Generally Trump wants more US manufacturing: Okay, likely both inputs and outputs will be carried heavily by, right, trains. Trump wants to export coal: Okay, then, as that coal is loaded on ships, likely it will come from trains.
I'll stick to the first error: "That passenger trains and other public and commons expenditures are important in NYC does not extend to the rest of the country."
It's not false, and you didn't write enough to say why it's false. Or, NYC needs subways. And, for commuters to NYC, they need trains that also connect with the subways. E.g., for a while my wife was working in Manhattan. Well, I put her on the 7:33 AM out of Chappaqua and picked her up there in the evening.
That situation just does not apply anywhere else in the US unless you insist on SF.
"In 2012, the New York City Metropolitan Statistical Area generated a gross metropolitan product (GMP) of over US$1.33 trillion, while the Combined Statistical Area[5] produced a GMP of over US$1.55 trillion, both ranking first nationally by a wide margin and being roughly equivalent to the GDP of South Korea. [6] "
Citing: "U.S. Metro Economies (note CSA 2012 GMP total includes sum of New York, Bridgeport, New Haven, Allentown, Trenton, Poughkeepsie, and Kingston MSA 2012 GMP values cited)" (PDF). IHS Global Insight, The United States Conference of Mayors, and The Council on Metro Economies and the New American City. November 2013. p. 9 through 18 in Appendix Tables. Retrieved July 29, 2014
"The economy of the State of New York is reflected in its gross state product in 2015 of $1.44 trillion"
Which is to say that New York State absent the NYCMSA is 0.11 trillion.
Or: NYCMSA is 92%+ of the economic activity of New York State.
The NYCMSA also exceeds the GDP of all but three of the remaining United States, and is nearly 10% of the overall total (California and Texas exceed it). It is greater than that of the smallest 18 states, combined.
I was saying that at this point, NYC
does need trains. And, suspicions
confirmed, NYC is awash in money
to pay for them, and for the new
construction after 9/11, for the big
water tunnels, for some subway
extensions, for whatever renovation
they want to do to Grand Central Terminal, and, really, for whatever
they want to do to the Metro or whatever
it is called to Upstate NY, Connecticut, Long Island, etc.
But, for all that money, recently I, who never ride trains, at least have not in about 15 years and rarely forever, had to subsidize the commuter trains to NYC. Bummer.
So, as you showed, NYC really should
be able to pay for its own trains.
But: For a while nearly year 2000, I was
working in the Wall Street area, that is, 70 miles south of me. I found that I could drive my car, park, and get to my office in less elapsed time than the trains took just to get me from my nearest station to Grand Central. Between gas, parking, and care maintenance, I spent a lot of money
on the commuting, but the trains
were not cheap, either. And I would
still need my car to get to/from my nearest train station and, then, need a subway or taxi to get me to my office.
That's a curious data point. Sure, if everyone tried cars, then the roads would get clogged. Still it's curious that
for all the screaming about traffic jams,
my personal car was faster.
Fine, at this point, NYC has no alternative but to make trains and subways work, and they do. And taxis.
But, sure, NYC still needs roads, e.g., the
18 wheel trucks that queue up outside of NYC waiting for the selected time to drive into the city to pickup/deliver. E.g., I have a friend who killed 5000 hogs a day in Ohio and each day drove some number of 18 wheel trucks, his,
with 40,000 pounds a truck, of fresh
pork to spots in NYC and Manhattan. So,
NYC still needs roads.
Here is a biggie point I omitted: Really, outside of a few big cities, nearly everyone needs a personal car. Then, for some one trip, when there might be a choice of what mode of transportation to use, for the car the cost is just the marginal cost for that trip since they still need the car, no matter how often they take a train. If the marginal cost of using the car is less than the train ticket, for the full cost of the train, and if the car is more convenient, then people will be using
their car. That point is one of the main stakes in the heart of trains everywhere but NYC where the trains are necessary because NYC at this point has no choice.
And now there is a new stake in the heart of trains -- the TSA.
There is another biggie point: Last night I did two Google searches
Amtrak losses
Acela losses
I found lots of articles on lots of losses. Amtrak is for the whole country; they actually have some trains coast to coast. Acela is for the NE or some such and supposed to be fast? For Amtrak, apparently right along they have been getting about $1.5 billion from Congress. And from what I saw, Acela is also losing money.
These losses add fuel to the fire that in the US, passenger trains can't pay for themselves with ticket prices. And, for Amtrak, much of the track they use is not dedicated to Amtrak but is also used by other trains, including freight trains. So, some of the high speed rail proposals will have to build and maintain their own tracks, vacuum tubes, etc. thus further increasing their costs, both capital and operating. Obvious: High speed passenger trains will be big money losers.
Outside of NYC, passenger trains have been dying since just after WWII.
They are not coming back.
So, you're finally getting to the point of noticing things and raising some interesting points. A few of which I was hoping you might turn up.
We're also getting pretty late in the stage of an HN discussion. I don't know where else you comment on things, but I'm active on Reddit, and run a sub there. I've just created an open thread post: https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/6l5nfd/open_th...
Some of the points you've raised:
* Failures of composition: what's logical for a single agent isn't beneficial on net for society as a whole.
* When you're driving into Manhattan, you are directly benefitting by the existence of the rail network as it reduces the congestion of the roadways you're on. That is, if your time, or transit flexibility requirements, make rail unattractive, you are an external beneficiary of that rail network. (Positive externality.) Ergo: you should pay for it.
* "NYC's GDP dwarfs that of the state as a whole, so it should pay for its own upkeep." Interesting perspective, one which could be further discussed.
* Not made, but possibly imputed: NYC's notional financialised GDP exceeds that of rural districts ONLY BECAUSE of favourable consideration NYC has been able to impose on the very notions of property, market price, and relative surplus value capture. You haven't gone there, but I will. It's an interesting argument and turns many economic core/periphery arguments on their head.
* NYC is a capability centre whose benefits spill out over not only all of New York State, but much of the US and world. To what extent does this justify various forms of tax in support of NYC?
* Transportation and explicit vs. implicit subsidies. Again: there's a vast literature on this topic of which you're evidencing little familiarity. I'm not saying you haven't read it, though you're not arguing in a way which suggests you have. Going back to Smith again, largely Book V, which deals with such matters, though I could point to many other elements -- the justifications for creation of canals, railroads, postal roads, post offices, libraries, schools, public universities, the aviation industry, highway systems, and publicly-managed ports, all come to mind. Simon Winchester's The Men Who United the States addresses many of these elements, though not from a principally economic perspective.
Keep in mind that the notion of trans-continental or inter-continental travel occurring within hours rather than days, weeks, months, or years is one that's only about 60 years old.
And again: if you want to continue this discussion, I invite you to Reddit, where it's easier to keep an exchange alive.
I up-voted your post because whether or not I disagree, I can't stand people coming by and doing drive-by down votes on posts like this where you've clearly thought about and put work into a response. Thanks for that.
I don't take public transportation, I'm a car-commuter. But I have an issue with something you said and it irked my quite a bit. You called those riding the trains and what not "subsidies" but you don't look at our car culture and have the same view. This befuddles me. Highway construction is every bit the subsidy that public transportation construction is, perhaps more so. Not to mention the other impacts, environmental or otherwise, that cost us dearly. Whether it's the harm to the environment, the higher cost paid to maintain a car and the infrastructure to drive it on, or the fact that car accidents are the leading cause of death for our country's youth, picking on public transportation as a subsidy is not a fair characterization.
> Highway construction is every bit the subsidy that public transportation construction is, perhaps more so.
Well, first, my understanding is that the Federally funded roads are paid for from the Highway Trust Fund, that gets gas taxes and commonly shows a profit, that is, gets used for other than highways, but I don't have good data.
Second, on this thread the beginnings of this was cost/benefit analysis. There if benefits of roads exceed the costs, then it's okay to spend general tax money on the roads.
The reason I'm screaming subsidy is that I don't believe that passenger trains can pass traditional cost/benefit analysis anywhere in the US except in NYC, maybe SF, and that's about it. Or, for NYC they will do what they do because in some sense NYC needs it, to heck with cost/benefit analysis. But recently I did have to pay a surtax to support the NY MTA when I never use it -- apparently they are not charging enough for their tickets. I'm not part of the unique NYC thingy so should not have to pay for the MTA for NYC.
My view of the trains being pushed now is that no way will they pass cost/benefit analysis unless count all kinds of distant benefits that traditional analysis never did. So, to me, the only way the trains could roll would be just flat out subsidies taken from people by force via the tax laws. Bummer.
I'm less concerned about the bad aspects of private cars than you are.
I regard the trains as a scam intended to make a few people rich from money from the Federal government from tax money. E.g., supposedly Musk's businesses have gotten $1 B or more, or was it $5+ B. It's a lot. To me, Musk is sucking on the public teat.
You're putting your car before your horse. The reason they don't pass this cost benefit analysis is because we continue to build and subsidize road construction, gasoline, and cars. If you keep subsidizing that, then turn around and look at public transportation and sneer at it as if it is somehow something that is a subsidy, of course you can never do an appropriate cost/benefit analysis. Not to mention that instead of fixing the issue, we keep building roads. That never solves the problem.
I'm not familiar with your particular situation or how the NYC metro works, but typically we pay taxes for all sorts of things we don't use, and some thing we indirectly benefit from.
> I'm less concerned about the bad aspects of private cars than you are.
Which I find bizarre. Why are you so concerned that you might be subsidizing trains, but unconcerned about the environmental impact, the suburban sprawl and resource drainage, the insane amount of money spent purchasing and maintaining cars and highways, and the thousands of people who die every year in car accidents?
> I regard the trains as a scam intended to make a few people rich from money from the Federal government from tax money.
Well then you can just level that criticism at everything so unless you're an anarchist (and I am, actually), this isn't really a useful comment. Plus, if you think trains are a "scam" that are somehow screwing the American taxpayer, why would you not level the same criticism at the auto or fuel industry?
> unconcerned about the environmental impact, the urban sprasubwl and resource drainage, the insane amount of money spent purchasing and maintaining cars and highways, and the thousands of people who die every year in car accidents?
We could go on and on about that. Sure, ballpark, first cut, you are correct. But I don't see a better alternative.
And for the costs, IIRC, and again, this is not my job and I don't have good data, nearly cars pay for themselves from when people buy the cars, buy gas, pay for maintenance and insurance, when the gas taxes are used to build the roads, etc.
> environmental impact
From cars and truck on the roads, I'm no longer much concerned.
> suburban sprawl
I like the suburbs, much better than living in a large city.
> resource drainage
I'm not very concerned: We're using iron, aluminum, concrete, and oil. Someday we will run out of oil, and then we will make it from electricity, water, and CO2. We can recycle the iron and aluminum -- IIRC the aluminum is valuable enough to be eagerly recycled now. Concrete? It needs mostly only calcium carbonate, that is, lime stone. The planet is totally awash in lime stone. And the concrete on the roads can be recycled. Some people are concerned about concrete because making cement from lime stone releases CO2. My understanding is that CO2 from human sources is tiny compared with what comes from volcanoes.
> purchasing and maintaining
Yup, it's expensive, one of the major expenses, likely second only to housing. But I don't know of an alternative unless we are all going to live in small apartments in high rise buildings in dense cities. And we will still need roads for trucks, taxis, and likely busses.
But, a lot of people would rather live in the suburbs and drive a personal car and are willing to pay the costs. If they are in fact paying the costs, then fine with me.
> the thousands of people who die every year in car accidents
I don't like that. But I've driven maybe 800,000 miles without an injury. As a teenager I had some minor accidents, but the main cause was ice and no one was hurt and no cars were seriously damaged. In some parts of the country, when the roads are covered with glare ice, don't drive for 3-4 days.
I just bought auto insurance in NY: It was $370 for the year. That's a good measure of the costs of the accidents and injuries. Medical insurance for the rest of health care is much, much higher. So, auto accidents are not a biggie for medical problems. The old biggie was smoking, but we've made progress on that. Now a biggie is obesity. IIRC, then it's heart disease and cancer. My parents dies of smoking, via heart disease and cancer. Without the smoking the cancer would not have been there. Same for the heart disease except eventually Dad would have had that but now some simple pills for about $0.50 a day fixes that quite nicely. We're making progress in medicine, but, still, that $370 a year figure shows that the medical side of cars is tiny compared with the rest of medicine.
Cars are better than they used to be: Tires used to be gone in 10,000, 20,000 miles. Now it's common to get 70,000 miles. Brakes, ball joints, they last much longer. The engines are much cleaner due to electronic ignition and fuel systems and, thus, last much longer, commonly over 200,000 miles. We're getting more lifetime out of U-joints, wheel bearings, shocks, etc. My SUV has over 200,000 miles and the original shocks -- Bilsteins, from Chevy. Also original springs, suspension bushings, and ball joints. For much of the car interiors, the synthetic fabrics are nearly indestructable. In my 200,000 mile SUV, a lot of the interior looks new. And cars are getting better still, e.g., better protection against corrosion.
The US is a big country. Cars are working great. I see no better alternative. Passenger trains? NYC and DC for commuters. Secret? Both were awash in money and could buy whatever they wanted.
> We could go on and on about that. Sure, ballpark, first cut, you are correct. But I don't see a better alternative.
Well there is an alternative. You build more dense, mixed-use developments where people can walk, bike, or if needed take the bus to where they need to go. Have rentals like Car 2 Go and Lyft and whatnot. Trains aren't the only solution, they are part of a suite of available solutions. I don't advocate getting completely rid of cars, but building 6-lane highways is simply unsustainable and undesirable.
> And for the costs, IIRC, and again, this is not my job and I don't have good data, nearly cars pay for themselves from when people buy the cars, buy gas, pay for maintenance and insurance, when the gas taxes are used to build the roads, etc.
Ok so let's say that everybody pays for their cars and whatever. Yes you pay for the maintenance and yes you pay for the gas. I'll even submit that you pay for the tax and that directly funds roads. My question to you now is, whether or not that is an economically justifiable policy to maintain. Let's say you buy a cheap new car at like $15,000. Ok, so now you're out that money, + interest. Now you have to pay out of pocket for tires, gas, and insurance. All of that money is, as far as I'm concerned, wasted, because if we zoned better we could have situations where you work close to where you live, and you don't have to drive everywhere. Now what are you saving? All of that cost. On top of that, we haven't even broached the subject of teenager deaths (let along just general destruction of life and property from accidents) and the hospital costs associated with those accidents, nor have we discussed the health impact of pollution, sitting on your fat lazy ass everyday, nor have we touched on the environmental impact from extracting all these resources that aren't needed. You sitting here saying "I'm unconcerned" is kind of alarming. How can you be unconcerned with any of this?
> But I don't know of an alternative unless we are all going to live in small apartments in high rise buildings in dense cities. And we will still need roads for trucks, taxis, and likely busses.
The problem is that you have this picture of what urban means, (small apartment and idk, what else?) when it's not the case. I have no desire to live in a shoebox either. Yet I still live in the middle of a downtown in a large city in the US. How can you reconcile this? The fact is that urban sprawl is almost as undesirable as suburban sprawl. But mixed-use neighborhoods solve for both. Check out this TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_speck_the_walkable_city
> The US is a big country. Cars are working great. I see no better alternative.
Than you simply aren't thinking. I don't mean to sound rude here but it's pretty easy to imagine a far superior solution to gigantic unused parking lots, fiery deaths and destruction, and 45 minutes (each way) drives stuck in traffic. Why is it that every other first-world country on the planet can get along fine with public transportation, but we can't? If you want to say "America is so big" my reply to you is good, and we should keep the open space open for better uses than gigantic, poorly built homes. You can have the best of both worlds. Hell you can even still have a car. But you cannot have a world where everybody does the single-occupant commute to their 9-5 everyday, not for long at least.
> Passenger trains? NYC and DC for commuters. Secret? Both were awash in money and could buy whatever they wanted.
Hmm. I wonder why that's the case?
Also, I don't dispute that you are paying $370/year for car insurance, but you're far below average anywhere in the country, and nearly 4x cheaper than the average for New York. If you have any contrary stats by all means post them, but this is like the first thing I found: https://www.valuepenguin.com/average-cost-of-insurance
There are some people who really like passenger trains. They see passenger trains, including some really fast ones, in Europe and Asia and want such in the US. To get those trains, they want big bucks from the US Federal Government.
In the US, NYC is there and spends a lot of money on various public and commons projects. Passenger trains are an example.
We will not build another NYC, and how NYC spends money on trains, etc. does not generalize elsewhere in the US at all well.
For the US, for people, as they travel, for nearly all miles, say, commuting and shopping, to and from school, etc. there are lots of origin-destination pairs. Trains can't serve that many origin-destination pairs. First, can't lay that much track. Second, can't start, accelerate, and stop a 100 ton train with several hundred people just to pickup or let off just 1-4 people at a time, and that is what the many origin-destination pairs would require.
Also on a train, tough to carry all the stuff for shopping -- an SUV is much better. Also on a train, tough to carry all the stuff for a family visit to grandma's, either across the country or even just across town -- an SUV is much better. For a soccer mom with several kids, her own and some neighbors', an SUV is much better than a train for keeping all the kids, their sports equipment, etc. together.
As has been fully clear in the US since the end of WWII, nearly everywhere in the US, passenger trains flop.
Then, now there is another stake through the heart of passenger trains -- the TSA.
In nearly all the US, for nearly all their transportation, people prefer private cars and public roads paid for with gas taxes to trains. Otherwise they prefer airplanes.
Trump wants to do a lot on US infrastructure, but I don't think that will include more on passenger trains.
They are passenger trains. With rare exceptions, passenger trains in the US flop. High speed rail passenger trains will also flop.
It's simple: Again, once again, over again, yet again, one more time, in the US, with rare exceptions, passenger trains flop.
For passengers, too many of the reasons for the flop also hold for high speed trains, maglev trains, trains in vacuum tubes, trains above ground on long legs, trains underground, trains on old style rails, small trains, long trains, trains through big cities, trains between pairs of big cities, trains in areas such as the Rust Belt. They all flop.
Why? They are not very attractive to the passengers who too often would rather take their personal SUV or an airplane. They cost too much per passenger served.
Sorry 'bout that.
I've explained here over and over, long and short.
There are people now who just came out of the woodwork again, once more, as off and on going back at least to 1950 or so, and are pushing passenger trains in the US -- high speed, in tubes, on magnetic rails, on traditional tracks, between cities, through cities, in selected areas, say, the Midwest Rust Belt, between selected pairs of cities, e.g., LA and SF, etc. They are all trains. In the US, they will lose big bucks. The only way to build or operate them is to use the tax system to force people to pay for them.
So, now the people who want trains, and their Federal $$$$$ subsidies, see Trump's infrastructure push, smell $$$$$, are out of the woodwork, and are pushing passenger trains. One of the last things pushed was Solyndra. Before that it was blocking CFCs and ruining the AC in two of my cars. Before that it was blocking DDT and, thus, increasing a lot of disease from mosquitoes -- killed a lot of people.
There are some people who view their careers as selling projects. They come up with a long list of emotional reasons, get a lot of publicity, get donations, lobby for Federal subsidies, and that's their job. They just want to sell their projects. They want to be on your back and in your pocket. They want to use the legal and tax system to force you to do what otherwise you would not do. They use NYC and SF as big examples, but those examples don't apply elsewhere in the US. The examples from Europe, Japan, and China don't apply in the US.
Again, again, again, again, the US had passenger trains, from each little cross road to each other little cross road. After WWII, private cars on roads paid for by gas taxes killed the passenger trains for a really simple reason: People didn't like passenger trains and preferred their cars or airplanes. That's just the truth.
Why did people not like passenger trains? I've explained here over and over and over, short, long, medium, etc.
In simple, blunt, bottom line terms, for nearly all of the current US or anything like it, passenger trains are just total junk engineering ideas -- junk. The trains try to force a lot of people to share some one track, but in fact in reality nearly none of those people want to be on that track because it isn't close to where they started or where they want to be.
Again, once again, it doesn't matter how fast the trains are because even if the high speed trains were infinitely fast, they would still flop because they just can't serve enough origin-destination pairs. People would waste time waiting for the first train, waste time for each stop of that train (to stop and start a 100 ton train is EXPENSIVE), and waste time between each change of trains, and still usually they wouldn't really get within even a mile of where the heck they wanted to go. Due to all the time stopping, the revenue per hour for the train is too darned small.
Look, passenger trains are just some pie in the sky, some emotional appeal, to force you to buy something you don't want. The people forcing you are after your money.
I can see it now: Trump wants some infrastructure plan and tries to get it through Congress. Yup, I-84 and I-684 are really rough and need new surfaces; I-84 likely needs more lanes.
So, some train lobbying effort gets to some Congressman and explains how the train subsidies will help his campaign finances and jobs and votes in his district. So, as part of legislative compromise, (that's where you should either not cross the street then or run as fast as you can to cross the street but compromise and walk across slowly) the Congressman goes along with Trump's proposal but only if the proposal includes some train pork for the Congressman and his district. That's not new. As part of this, the lobbying effort understands, as they have for may other projects, e.g., CFCs and DDT, that they need a big PR effort to get the public ready for the tax dollars for these trains.
Here's an example of how this works: Most Congressmen are desperate for campaign funds. Well, there is Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. For the Republicans to elect him to that position, part of his job is to raise money for the campaigns of Republican Congressmen. Ryan is expected to raise ballpark $30 million a year. So, when see what Ryan does, e.g., dragging his feet here and there, making one absurd statement after another, here's what he is really doing: He is adding PR his donors like, the donors who provide the $30 million. So, he is at least pretending to push the interests of those donors. So, Ryan won't even pick up a pencil with less than six weeks of posturing about writing instruments. It's all 99 44/100% total BS, but that's how he gets his $30 million. Then, after a lot of such PR posturing and total BS, nonsense statements, with a lot of public support to do the right things, with a lot of poorly publicized deals, out of the view of the headlines, then, often, maybe, Ryan will be able to do the right, obvious thing he knew about right away at the beginning. That's much of why often it takes Congress so long to act. It's the effect of money on politics as we know far too well.
There is a solution, a really fast, overwhelmingly powerful, never fail, 900 pound gorilla solution: Inform the citizens and have them inform their representatives in Congress. Without fail, when enough phone calls and letters arrive in Congress to say that high speed rail is a scam, that will be the end of high speed rail, and no amount of special interest lobbying and campaign donations, free trips to Aruba, etc. will have any effect at all.
And, how to inform citizens? Sure, now, the Internet, e.g., HN. Why am I doing this? Good government. I'm not being paid. I'm taking my time, getting down voted, etc. to shine a bright light on the scam.
Since 99+% of HN readers should agree with me, I should win. So far, I'm losing.
Gee, high speed rail is just so dreamy!!!
Here I'm calling BS, flim-flam, fraud, pork barrel, money wasting, subsidy, pay-off, kick-back, force you to buy something you don't want scam. I don't like scams. Fewer than 1% of US citizens should like it. Wise up: You are being had.
Such scams have happened too often in the past. Maybe with the Internet, we can cut down on the scams.
Recall the recent Sharyl Attkisson book and statement: IIRC, "Essentially everything you read in the media was put there by someone with a special interest who wants to influence your opinion." So, these scams via the media are not just the exceptions but the rule, the usual thing. Sure, in the media, we recognize the ads except Sharyl Attkisson is saying that essentially all the rest is also ads.
Well, here I'm not running ads. I've explained the passenger rail scam. If you can't understand, then that's sad for our country.
Again: can you make this more concise? I really tuned out when I saw this wall of text, and I didn't see my question answered in the first sentence or two before you went into your exposition (in fact, it seems you ignored my question).
I was astoundingly "concise" and answered your specific question in my first, short sentence:
You asked
> Are you suggesting that a metro system, like MTA or BART, is the same as a high speed rail? They serve fundamentally different purposes.
and my answer started with
> They are passenger trains.
That's the answer directly to your question, in the first sentence and just four words. So, the answer is right there, right up front, the first thing, nicely "concise", in just four words.
Apparently you did not see those four words as answering your question. Well, then, my four word answer was too "concise". So, I went on with what you call a "wall of text" and explained just why being a "passenger train" is the problem, different "purposes" or not, fast or slow, long or short, etc. The answer to your question is right there, short, concise, right at the beginning, in just four words and, then, if that is too short, with lots of detail.
I typed it in. All you have to do is read it. If the four word answer is too "concise", then read the "wall of text".
You're calling rail a scam (a system that works marvelously in Europe and Japan for example) and saying that the "rail industry" is out for your tax dollars, but.... did you forget about the massive highway construction industry and automotive industry?
My view is that the auto industry has long and usually paid for itself as people buy cars (there was the 2008 bailout). For the highways, my understanding is that the Federally funded ones are paid for from the Highway Trust Fund which gets the Federal part of gasoline taxes. IIRC (I don't have good data) is that that fund is a favorite for raiding for money for other projects, maybe even trains.
So, I don't see cars as a scam. Passenger trains? Yes. Cars? No.
This neglects positive externalities, doesn't it? The NY Metro is economically vital but can't recoup its operating expenses from ticket sales, so it relies on taxes (and, unfortunately, a lot of debt). Nobody would say the MTA is exactly a model of a functioning subway system but there's no principle that says a subway can't be funded with taxes and tickets in combination.
There is such a principle and even a law, cost/benefit analysis. And it doesn't consider your externalities. C/B analysis is especially simple for a train -- can estimate the benefit from the ticket revenue. If more is needed, then the train fails C/B analysis.
But for the NY and NYC MTA, they don't care because NYC needs the trains. For the rest of the country, they should and do care.
If you want my tax money for your new dreamy trains, then I will tell my representatives to vote no.
Public transport projects have to undergo cost benefit analyses first in Germany. They only get subsidized when the result is positive. This is rarely a problem.
Generally the passenger rail proposals are illegal because they fail some now 100+ year old laws on cost/benefit analysis originally enacted to throttle bankrupting the US from building water projects to make the deserts bloom when the US had lots of blooming land not in deserts. If you own some desert and can talk the Federal Government into a big water project to make the desert bloom, then you can get rich, but the US could go broke doing that.
Well, continually, any honest cost/benefit analysis dooms any Federal subsidies for passenger rail.
There was a big example in Baltimore: They built a subway. Big subsidies. The system was done but not quite carrying passengers yet. I went to a lecture on the economics. The cost/benefit solution, even counting the construction cost as $0.00? Sure: Brick up the openings of the subway and just f'get about it. Why? No way could ticket prices pay even for routine operating costs.