This tidy narrative that the doom-chatterers both envy and fear is being dented by a number of recent stories concerning Chinese rail initiatives. As Tsinghua University's Economics Professor
Patrick Choavec writes, China’s high-speed rail is "expensive both to build and to operate, requiring high ticket prices to break even. The bulk of the long-distance passenger traffic, especially during the peak holiday periods, is migrant workers for whom the opportunity cost of time is relatively low. Even if they could afford a high-speed train ticket — which is doubtful given their limited incomes — they would probably prefer to conserve their cash and take a slower, cheaper train. If that proves true, the new high-speed lines will only incur losses while providing little or no relief to the existing transportation network.”
China's Empty Trains... & Other Unintended Consequences | Newgeography.com
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