At The Hill Rinzen Widjaja argues that high-speed rail is not a good strategy for solving transportation problems in the United States:
There is a fundamental conflict between the notion of connecting the whole of the U.S. with high-speed networks and the American tradition of decentralized infrastructure. The success of the Eisenhower Interstate System was not that it connected major cities but because it empowered Americans to traverse the entire country, aiding local economies along the way. The Eisenhower Interstate System also allowed Americans to live far away from city centers and helped cement America’s car culture. The vision for a high-speed rail within the U.S. imports the centralized planning of a nation with drastically different values and geography, fundamentally misunderstanding what has contributed to the historical success of the Eisenhower Interstate System.
Furthermore, the financial logic of high-speed rail networks simply does not hold up, as ongoing projects turned into what many city planners now describe as logistical and financial “nightmares.” Citizens Against Government Waste pointed to the mismanagement of California’s high-speed rail, which has faced rising costs every year since the project began. While the claim that it would cost $33 billion was never feasible, the current $113 billion estimate is already 23 percent higher than the $81.4 billion that organization had originally estimated it would actually cost. It cites the “opportunistic contractors” that have exploited the lack of foresight involved in the project, 88 of which were booted by Gov. Gavin Newsom far “too late.”
I suspect that Mr. Widjaja as an Australian doesn’t recognize how policies get enacted into law in the United States, at least at the federal level. We have two major political parties and neither of them is a “programmatic party” although in honesty they have moved considerably in that direction since the Interstate Highway Act was enacted during the Eisenhower administration which most Americans no longer even recall. Our parties are composed of different factions and whatever actually makes it into enacted law is a compromise among those factions.
The major factions in the Republican Party are Jacksonian social conservatives, Hamiltonian pro-business interests, and anarcho-capitalists.
The major factions in the Democratic Party are traditional machine politics Democrats, technocrats, and a host of special interests including environmentalists.
It is the intra-party politics that explains what does and does not get done. Republicans are unlikely ever to support high-speed rail. The anarcho-capitalists oppose it outright on principal, no government incentive would be large enough to induce the Hamiltonians to support high-speed rail, and the Jacksonians don’t care much one way or the other as long as the plan serves the communities where they live and they receive some of the money appropriated for it. Mr. Widjaja does a pretty good job of explaining why those requirements are unlikely ever to be met. And that’s why Republicans won’t get behind high-speed rail.
While the Democrats support high-speed rail such projects are less about actually building and completing such things than the process of administering and approving them because those are the causes of the machine politics Democrats and technocrats. Under such a rubric the costs can expand without limit and never actually accomplish anything. A high-speed rail project that never actually gets built satisfies environmentalists since nothing gets built, satisfies technocrats since they’re employed planning and administering it, and satisfies machine politicians for a host of reasons.
And that’s where we stand. The Republicans won’t support it and Democrats won’t complete it because doing either is destructive of their coalitions.
Antiplanner, who is actually a train enthusiast, has several analyses of rail transport in his archives:
http://ti.org/antiplanner/
In general, all public rail transit systems lose money, and high speed rail loses money hand over fist. On a passenger-mile basis, rail of all kinds is the most expensive way to move people, has the highest fuel costs and has the highest emissions. Private autos actually beat rail in every category, and buses are by far the best mode of public transport.
That said, China has gone ahead and built a high-speed rail system that connects all their cities. It actually has two-thirds of all the high-speed rail trackage in the world, and operates the fastest high-speed trains.
I suppose the limited distances and high population densities help justify the costs. Japan has a similar situation.
Reading through the part on the threat to small town gas stations and diners posted by high-speed rail, I began wondering if the writer had spent much time in small town America or appreciated its diversity. It’s not all diners and gas stations in the desert, like that in The Petrified Forest. Then I get to the end of the piece and learn he is from Australia. I wonder if he’s projecting his understanding of what would happen down under if all the major cities were connected by high speed rail.
Most of the U.S. is not like Australia which is 70% arid or semi-arid, and I’m not always clear why people live where they do, but it’s rarely because it is merely a stopping point between places.
Since I’m currently watching Twin Peaks for the first time, I don’t think he understood that town. It’s a logging town with a large saw mill operation located on a river that may have also been a useful fording location at one point. The town has a nice resort hotel that sponsors conventions. It’s a destination tourism place, not a stopping point between places that would be impacted by high-speed rail going in somewhere. It’s even possible high speed rail from LA to Seattle could increase the number of people to Twin Peaks, perhaps not to everyone’s liking.
That was very much my reaction.
It aligns with a point I’ve made before. I wish more people were actually familiar with the United States. That pertains both to those from abroad and Americans.
I think it’s fine if New Yorkers like New York and Angelenos like Los Angeles. They would be much better off if they took some long driving vacations, getting off the interstates and driving through the countryside.
Agreed. I live in a semi-rural area and regularly travel to see family in Tennessee, Indiana and Iowa. Lived in Florida for a while and visit there on occasion and visit friends in California also. Conversely, I also think it would be good if people from rural areas and smaller towns visited larger cities. Not the hellholes that they seem to think they are.
I would disagree that they are intended to fail. I have a hard time seeing anyone verbalizing that wish or putting it in writing or even thinking it. I think they are just way overly optimistic, and unrealistic about what they can accomplish.
Steve
I think you’re missing the point. Completing the project is not part of the intra-party coalition’s agreement. Republicans have a similar problem with the budget which we see unfolding right before our eyes. That what they’re agreeing to is ruinous doesn’t even enter their minds.