1) Rail systems are almost never profitable. The US, at least in spirit, doesn't like government subsidies. An investment in high speed rail entails paying taxes for it for many years or perhaps forever.
2) The US is much more rural than other developed countries. The land area compared to the population is huge compared to Europe/China/Japan. You almost need a car to get around because there's so much open space. Things are too far apart in many cases to make public transport realistic. Also, since nearly everyone has a car already the need for a rapid mode of transport is mostly met. Yeah it sucks in the big cities but a lot of the people that work there live far enough away that any rail system built would never reach their homes anyways.
You do see big public transport networks in places with extremely high density like New York, which has a similar density to most countries with well developed systems.
The notable exception I can think of to the trend is Russia, which has a lot of public transport compared to population density. This can probably be explained by a history of being a communist country as well as the relative lack of personal cars due to lower income and limited access to trade with countries that manufacture automobiles
The US gives $0.6 trillion / yr in energy subsidies, about 70% of which goes to oil. Which reduces the cost of cars and trucks.
$600 billion by comparison is the size of the US military and $420 billion is larger than the sales of Exxon + Chevron + Conoco + Occidental + EOG + Anadarko combined. It's an absurd claim.
> The study found that "China was the biggest subsidizer in 2013 ($1.8 trillion), followed by the United States ($0.6 trillion), and Russia, the European Union, and India (each with about $0.3 trillion)."
> The study found that oil, natural gas, and coal received $369 billion, $121 billion, and $104 billion (2010 dollars), respectively, or 70% of total energy subsidies over that period.
Apologies, it seems fossil fuels get 70%. Not just oil.
Over 60 years.
The cited study from the sentence I referenced in my comment:
> Estimated subsidies are $4.9 trillion worldwide in 2013 and $5.3 trillion in 2015 (6.5% of global GDP in both years).
> In terms of countries, China had the largest absolute post-tax subsidies in 2013 ($1,844 billion or 19.5% of GDP), followed by United States ($606 billion or 3.6% of GDP), Russia ($318 billion or 15.2% of GDP), European Union ($295 billion), India ($269 billion or 14.3% of GDP), Japan ($142 billion or 2.9% of GDP), Saudi Arabia ($129 billion or 17.2% of GDP) and Iran ($118 billion or 32.2% of GDP).
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X16...
http://www.misi-net.com/publications/NEI-1011.pdf
edit:
The other study that you provided includes global warming and air pollution as a "subsidy", no offense but that's pushing the definition.
"All estimates quoted are in constant 2010 dollars, unless otherwise noted, and refer to actual expenditures in the relevant fiscal year, rounded to the nearest billion"
At least to me that reads like "all estimates refer to expenditures from the relevant fiscal year only". However, they later quote the same numbers as being "total spending since 1950". Am I just missing an obvious interpretation for the footnote?
"from the relevant fiscal year" implies that each value relates to a corresponding fiscal year. Your addition of 'only' is redundant.
Regardless, this is a tiny point so I'll drop it. I still feel confused though :(
Excuse me? Japan privatized its rail system in the late 80s, doesn't subsidize any of the JR companies[1][2] (which are all publicly traded to boot), and has a profitable enough industry that there are now numerous private operators[3] of various sizes who successfully compete.[4]
1 http://www.railway-technology.com/features/featurelevel-play...
2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_Japan
3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyu_Corporation, and see the box at the bottom for lots more
4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_in_Greater_Tokyo#Oth...
But to think about it more, why do people have to live in such lifestyle with so much open "wasted" spaces?
Why everyone "has a car already"? All we talk about is the American lifestyle which most American still refuse to adapt or look different.
There's not enough time to do proper repairs and improvements.
What I don't understand is why more cities don't operate like Philly and operate 24 hour bus service in place of the trains at night. With a system like that the night workers can still get to work as early as others and the bar crowd can still go out with out the craziness of last train like in Tokyo.
At least the NY subway is 24/7
No such fee structure could plausibly fund any rail system outside the NE Corridor. Prices adequate to sustain the network, let alone build it up, would put ridership into a death spiral.
You can't disregard the history of the highways, or the reason they were first built - for the military in the name of national security.
There already is high speed-ish rail travel in the Northeast and it's very popular. But, for example, even if you could magically offer 6-8 hour train service between New York and Chicago, relatively few people would take it given that flying would be significantly faster.
Texan living in NYC here. I disagree. I would happily pay to take a 6 hour train to Chicago over a flight anyday. LGA/JFK are nightmares to book last minute flights and high-speed rail is a favorable experience to flying sometimes.
In contrast, there's no "useful" rail network in Texas — at all. If there was a rail network, like the single-high speed line proposed between Dallas and Houston, it would totally dominate and disrupt. People fly to/from cities in Texas all the time.
There are many many cities that would benefit from a rail network because the cost would be considerably lower than flying. If you build it, they will come.
You know, that's not terribly fast... 1200 km in 6 hrs, so 200 km/hr. France started operating 320 km/hr trains in 1990's. Do you think people would go by rail if the journey was 4 hours, city center - to - city center?
Housing costs are skyrocketing and you have people who work for all ends of the spectrum (Google down to dishwashers) moving away because they can't afford the lifestyle they envision here. Hour long commutes are the norm and every day I see at least one wreck on my way to work.
Coming from NYC where you can get anywhere in Manhattan w/in 20 minutes by train.. it's incredibly frustrating.
I agree we should also be looking outside of the bay area (connecting cities across America), but also see a pressing need here with a market that would use the rail system like crazy.
The somewhat controversial LA to San Francisco route through the Central Valley may make sense. We'll see in 15 or 20 years or whatever. Unfortunately LA is pretty spread out so you don't get the same downtown to downtown advantages that trains in the Northeast have.
The route that probably would have the biggest potential benefit is speeding up the Northeast Corridor to the point where Boston to DC was more practical vs. flying. Amtrak is apparently doing some upgrades but decided that the most aggressive improvements weren't cost-justified.
LGV Sud-Est has 3.5% grades, for example; the Pennsylvania Railroad (now Norfolk Southern) Gallitzin-Horseshoe Curve-Altoona stretch is 1.85%, B&O (CSX) Sand Patch Grade further south is 2%.
Rather, overcoming the general ruggedness of the terrain is the greatest expense. Slower railroads can meander along rivers, but a HSR needs large sweeping curves (with large radii), requiring expensive fills or cuts or viaducts. Some tunnels would be needed to cross some of the linear ridges, just like the Pennsylvania Turnpike (and the predecessor railroad that used the same right-of-way) did. In fact, it's likely that an alignment would closely parallel the turnpike, as the landscape gets significantly more rugged south of Maryland or north of I-80.
A gentler route following the Empire Corridor (roughly, NYC->Albany->Buffalo) may be cheaper to construct, but would be considered a "detour" by a casual observer -- and the expense of the NYC->Albany portion may not make it worthwhile.
Sadly, it's not very likely that such a Mid-Atlantic-to-Chicago passenger-only railway could be economical to construct and operate. US infrastructure costs routinely run much higher than the international average for comparable projects, and even the as-the-crow-flies distance (1100+ km, 700+ miles) between NYC-Chicago puts it too far out of HSR's ideal range, even in countries where people actually ride trains.
All trains will stop at the first safe opportunity in the event of heavy rain, winds, or snow. It's one of the reasons (no level crossings is another) there has never been a fatal accident involving HSR in Japan.
We subsidize highways and air travel at the expense of other ground options. It shouldn't be 70% cheaper for me to drive my family to Florida or the Carolinas for vacation from NY vs air or rail. But it is.
Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, do that I95 trip every year. There are dozens of corridors like that.
Houston-Dallas is a very high-volume city pair forming one leg of the triangle, of length around 250 miles. People do fly on this route, but most people don't, because between the airports' relatively inconvenient location (especially Houston's), security, delays, etc., it doesn't save you that much time. So most people just drive. But driving is just far enough, and stress/traffic-filled enough, that many people who drive that route regularly hate doing so (it takes 4-6 hours, depending on how good a day you're having, and much of that is with wall-to-wall traffic containing a heavy volume of trailer trucks in the mix). I've done it many times myself, and I'd love to take a train instead. For me personally, it wouldn't even have to be that fast: if the train could get me there reliably in 3 hours (i.e. average speed 85 mph, not even talking about Shinkansen speeds), I'd be very satisfied. Related things can be said about the other two legs of the triangle: San Antonio - Houston (200 miles) and the San Antonio - Austin - Dallas corridor (80+195 = 275 miles).
The topography here is also more friendly to rail than, for example, LA-SF, being mostly flat and open and with shorter distances. But unfortunately the state-level political geography is less friendly (at a local level rail is popular in all four of these cities, but the state is another matter).
The train from Albany to NYC is at or near capacity daily, although it's only 150 miles. Similar use case in many ways... It's enough of a pain to drive that people want to avoid it, and it's better than a car to go to Manhattan.
My uncle used to fly LGA to BOS a couple of times a week... I betcha that train trip is shorter now given the security and other nonsense associated with flying.
And Amtrak does offer an auto train though from Virginia to Florida.
I like the train but I don't assume it's a particularly economic option.
Any trip where people fly is a rail candidate. The hassle and bullshit associated with flying is high and getting higher.
The Boston to Washington D.C. corridor could easily sustain itself if the trains put in place were reliable, expedient, and low-fuss.
There's no technological barriers here, as China has proven, only political ones. A lot of people see Amtrak as a problem, an anachronism, not a solution.
[1]http://www.forbes.com/sites/tedreed/2015/04/14/u-s-airlines-...
$250B sounds like a lot of money, but that's since the 1970s. In that time how many airports have been built or rebuilt? What's the net cost of that?
The footprint of a rail station is significantly smaller, the costs are proportionately lower. There's subsidies there, too, but they're significantly smaller, and many of those were provided in the early 20th century back when rail was a vital link.
Also Forbes is utterly useless as a site. Not only do they bitch endlessly about ad blockers, which I only use because the sorts of advertising sites like that promote are offensively stupid, but it splits up that short article into three pages with interstitial ads between each page.
Fuck that.
You should try living in Europe.
There is no lifestyle to give up by using trains!
... so long as they are made correctly.
Imagine if there were fairly high speed trains that connected SF, SJ, outside the bay - and LA?
And the stations were easy to access through subways/quick trains?
So many fewer people would drive.
Having to deal with the BS of a car, be stuck in traffic, drive everywhere - is not a lifestyle advantage. :)
Once you have easy access to good subways/trams/high-speed trains - you likely don't want to drive unless you have to.
You're using the rail example to imply downfall, and yet the US economy has embarrassed the Japanese economy the last 25 years. In the mid 1980s, the US and Japan nearly had the same GDP per capita; very soon the US will have twice the GDP per capita of Japan.
You're implying rail is so beneficial to economic growth, and let's say I agree with that: and yet the US has been embarrassing most of Europe on economic growth for the last 20 years (Germany's economy hasn't expanded in ten years for example).
If you were right, US GDP per capita should be far lower than the EU or Eurozone, when the exact opposite is the case. Germany has a GDP per capita of the poorest US states (it's nearly on par with West Virginia currently). France nearly has the GDP per capita of Puerto Rico.
I don't believe your premise has any legs to stand on based on the facts. The real implication here is that the US would be staggeringly far ahead if it corrected some of its obvious flaws.
GDP Annual Growth rate from 1996-2016 in Europe was 1.7%, in the US from 1995-2015 it was 2.1%. [World Bank, Trading Economics].
The German GDP per capita grew from $36,000 to $46,000 from 2006 to 2016. [World Bank], and it ranks in the mid 30's out of 50 states. [Wikipedia].
The per capita GDP of Puerto Rico is $28,529, the per capita GDP of France is $41,329. [World Bank]
For a fair comparison between the US and Germany/France, let's examine the inequality adjusted Human Development Index, as measurements that do not account for income inequality obfuscate the reality of most citizens.
Germany ranks 6th, France ranks 18th, the US ranks 28th. [Wikipedia].
What is there about the German standard of living for typical citizens that compares unfavorably to the US? How can this be measured? No single number works, but I would suggest looking at medians ahead of means.
The US apparently has about half the median wealth of many European countries, although notably not Germany, which is comparable to the US on this metric.
But I'm not sure how meaningful this is or what factors might be affecting the numbers. (And I'm not even exactly sure what's being measured.)
For example, say your house went from 400k-500k in a year. For it to be 500k you still have to find a seller. Yes, there's a degree of paper value there however it's paper value only because other properties are selling for that. If you were to somehow remove property from being bought and sold, the money would just go into other investments. There is no way that 'most' of that wealth is wealth on paper in the form of property.
The reality is that Australian wages are very high comparitively. Australia is a wealthy nation.
Wow. I did not know or even suspect that! Funny thing. I've lived in both. I'd rather live in a closet-sized apartment in Germany than in a McMansion in West Virginia. It seems like there might be an ocean of inquiry behind that narrow channel of facts. (At least for me personally)
In summary, 819 miles HSR vs 62 miles LR, $34.7B vs. $53.8B, and 3.5 Years vs. 25 Years So compared with other countries, how much the inflation US GDP has?
We all know American culture for heavily depended on automative and roads don't work for most countries, probably only work in US.
The US is in a downward spiral because we didn't build a government funded $2 trillion bullet train? Are you serious?
>>>High-speed rail network is what people want - to get from point A to point B quickly.
Wrong. What people want is to telecommute. I don't want to get shoved into a bullet train every morning.
Do you agree with this 5,000km figure? If not, what figure would you choose?
In my opinion, most people in the valley or in North America still refuse to give up their lifestyle. They look for something like self-driving cars, all electric-powered "personal" vehicle to invest. And those still drive on the same road/interstates/highway infrastructure and don't give you the benefits compare with high-speed rails.
They don't recognize the real priorities - how to transport millions people everyday efficiently, cost-effectively, and most environmentally friendlies.
They also don't recognize local economy, local businesses thrive with these connected network. It is proven to be the case in China and Japan.
High-speed rail network is what people want - to get from point A to point B quickly. It's not something even the most efficient self-driving car with the best MPG electric-powered vehicle can scale for millions of people everyday.
Instead of investing into some new technologies, they seem like they refuse to take decades of proven technology and just use it in US (high-speed trains were first invented in Japan in the 60s)
But as I understand very well in the culture here, the politics, the corruption, and the oil/automative conglomerate will never make this happen for the actual good for the people.
I would without a doubt to say the US is in its downfall as it didn't pick the priorities to fix the root of the problem.