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HSR supplements road transportation, it doesn't replace it.
How many toll roads built and maintained by private funds do you encounter on your daily commute or even on a cross-country road trip? They're quite rare. The highway system has been subsidized from construction to maintenance by the government since its inception. Road infrastructure *has never made a profit* and gas/vehicle taxes only provide a little over half of their cost. The rest come from non-related government taxes, bonds, general accounts, etc...; Subsidized.
Contrast that with Amtrak which has received less total government funding in the last forty years than the Highway Trust Fund has received in the last 3 years just from the "general fund"; $20 billion more. The northeast corridor, which operates America's only high speed rail, made a $61 million profit in 2010.
The Nixon Administration created Amtrak in 1970 because the private sector could not make a profit on passenger rail. The freight companies which operated on the same tracks as passenger rail urged the government to intervene because passenger rail helped offset capital cost(which it continues to do).
Conrail, which the government created to take over potentially profitable rail lines from bankrupt rail companies, became profitable in its last 7 years of operation and was sold to private investors in the largest IPO in U.S. history at the time ($1.65 billion).
guess what, HSR is a private venture not a public one. no public funds at all, not 1 penny.
Hello Everyone ! this will be my first post although I've been reading for quite a while...I thought I should join the discussion since this is an interesting topic . I've read around here that the countries in Europe are a lot less spread out than the United States which is true but I thought I should add that in the European Union and Russia the rail infrastructure is built the same and there are plenty "international" trains that travel from Russia to Austria , from Austria to Spain etc . The surface of the European Union is 4,324,782 km2 (about half of the U.S )to which the HSR network of Russia can be added. So judging from this perspective the HSR network of Europe is pretty big and covers a huge surface .
How many toll roads built and maintained by private funds do you encounter on your daily commute or even on a cross-country road trip? They're quite rare.
No, they are quite common in many parts of the country and new ones are being added every year.
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Road infrastructure *has never made a profit* and gas/vehicle taxes only provide a little over half of their cost. The rest come from non-related government taxes, bonds, general accounts, etc...; Subsidized.
Your statement is partially true, but very misleading. Only about 60% of our federal gasoline taxes go to fund highways.
Quote:
Contrast that with Amtrak which has received less total government funding in the last forty years than the Highway Trust Fund has received in the last 3 years just from the "general fund"; $20 billion more. The northeast corridor, which operates America's only high speed rail, made a $61 million profit in 2010.
How many billions of passenger miles were driven on the highways vs. Amtrak? I suspect that there are orders of magnitudes more miles on highways than Amtrak. Your comparison is useless.
People seem to overlook the issue of population density in their rabid zeal "to be like everyone else"
Exactly.
I lived in Atlanta for several years. Their huge rail system (MARTA) is useless for about 98% of the population there because it was built around downtown Atlanta. Now, the number of people going to downtown Atlanta is miniscule.
Meanwhile, the rest of the area is smothered with traffic congestion and people routinely have an hour commute.
Clearly, short trips between highly populated areas (London - Paris, 265 miles) make much more sense than longer trips and less populated areas. As distances get longer and the size of the population centers get smaller, their will be less value from HSR.
HSR makes much more sense in the Northeast and between selected cities throughout the rest of the country.
Unfortunately, rail projects have developed a bad reputation in the US as we have watched them fail to achieve any measurable impact on traffic problems in most cities.
I added in the revenue projections....and Private only seems to want Texas due to the Govt not touching it...they'll only do projects that have no govt involvement...some plans like the Midwest and Northeast call for 50/50 Private and public $$$. Intill the Core network of the Northeast and Midwest is upgraded you won't really hear to much on private. I do see most of the systems except Cali getting built....there feasible when compared to the GDP of there regions...with the Northeast its needed and badly...
Northeastern High Speed / Intercity Network Size : 2,280 Mi+ (4,222kms)
Lines : 2 trunk lines + with 10 Feeders
Stations : 150+ (Feeders factored in)
Projected Ridership : 127 Million a year or 350,000 daily (Feeders factored in)
Current Acela Revenue : 480 Million $
Future Northeastern Network Revenue : 4-6 Billion $
Economic & Real Estate Boom Generated : 860 Billion $
Top Speed on Trunk lines : 220mph (350Km/h)
Top Speed on Secondary / Feeder lines : 125mph (201Km/h)
Cost : 120 Billion $ (2040 $ inflation factored in)
Completion Date : 2045
California High Speed Rail Network Size : 800+ Mi (1,300kms)
Number of lines : 6
Stations : 25+
Projected Ridership : 95 Million a Year or 260,730 Daily
Revenue : 1.2 Billion $
Economic & Real Estate Boom Generated : 540 Billion $
Top Speed : 220mph (350Km/h)
Cost : 68.5 Billion $
Completion : 2050
Midwest High Speed Rail Network Size : 1,800 Mi+ (1,296Kms)
Stations : 76+ (Feeders factored in)
Lines : 6+ with 7 Feeders
Projected Ridership : 43 Million a year or 120,000 daily (Feeders factored in)
Revenue : 2.2 Billion $
Economic & Real Estate Boom Generated : 230 Billion $
Top Speed on Trunk lines : 220mph (350Km/h)
Top Speed on Secondary / Feeder lines : 125mph (201Km/h)
Cost : 70 Billion $
Completion : 2040
Texas High Speed Rail Network Size : 680 Mi+ (1,259kms)
Stations : 15
Lines : 5
Projected Ridership : 18.5 Million a year or 55,000 Daily
Revenue : 580 Million $
Economic & Real Estate Boom Generated : 140 Billion $
Top Speed on Trunk lines : 220mph (350Km/h)
Cost : 15-45 Billion $
Completion : 2030
Cascadia Corridor Size : 407 Mi (753km)
Stations : 11
Lines : 1
Projected Ridership : 12.8 Million a year or 35,000 Daily
Revenue : 405 Million $
Economic & Real Estate Boom Generated : 60 $ Billion
Top Speed on Trunk lines : 170mph (273Km/h)
Cost : 20 Billion $
Completion : 2035
Taken from MWHSR , CAHSR and AMtrak Next gen sources and other sources
Where do people get the idea that high-speed rail is inherently a money loser? The evidence seems to show otherwise. If you want to get upset over government spending and waste, then you can scream against the interstate highway system, which cost taxpayers trillions of dollars but has never made a penny ever since it was built. Even the Amtrak Acela line, the fastest passenger train in the US is running at a profit. So much for the anti-rail propaganda. Let's look at the facts instead of relying on blind partisan ideology.
Of course, High speed rail will not work everywhere in the US. No one is proposing to build it on a national scale. That would be stupid. But in certain dense metropolitan regions that will attract high ridership levels, HSR makes a lot of sense.
....In fact, it is NOT a “very big if” whether the train can support itself. It’s actually highly likely that it will be able to do so. It’s not like California is proposing to do something radical and untested. We’ve known for 50 years that high speed rail works. And it turns a profit – in Japan and France, Spain, Russia, Taiwan, even the Amtrak Acela. And California compares favorably to those globally successful routes. In most of these cases, riders have flocked to HSR from planes – including the Acela.
America is more spread out. Perhaps railways make sense in the northeast US, but nowhere else.
I added in the revenue projections....and Private only seems to want Texas due to the Govt not touching it...they'll only do projects that have no govt involvement...some plans like the Midwest and Northeast call for 50/50 Private and public $$$. Intill the Core network of the Northeast and Midwest is upgraded you won't really hear to much on private. I do see most of the systems except Cali getting built....there feasible when compared to the GDP of there regions...with the Northeast its needed and badly...
Northeastern High Speed / Intercity Network Size : 2,280 Mi+ (4,222kms)
Lines : 2 trunk lines + with 10 Feeders
Stations : 150+ (Feeders factored in)
Projected Ridership : 127 Million a year or 350,000 daily (Feeders factored in)
Current Acela Revenue : 480 Million $
Future Northeastern Network Revenue : 4-6 Billion $
Economic & Real Estate Boom Generated : 860 Billion $
Top Speed on Trunk lines : 220mph (350Km/h)
Top Speed on Secondary / Feeder lines : 125mph (201Km/h)
Cost : 120 Billion $ (2040 $ inflation factored in)
Completion Date : 2045
California High Speed Rail Network Size : 800+ Mi (1,300kms)
Number of lines : 6
Stations : 25+
Projected Ridership : 95 Million a Year or 260,730 Daily
Revenue : 1.2 Billion $
Economic & Real Estate Boom Generated : 540 Billion $
Top Speed : 220mph (350Km/h)
Cost : 68.5 Billion $
Completion : 2050
Midwest High Speed Rail Network Size : 1,800 Mi+ (1,296Kms)
Stations : 76+ (Feeders factored in)
Lines : 6+ with 7 Feeders
Projected Ridership : 43 Million a year or 120,000 daily (Feeders factored in)
Revenue : 2.2 Billion $
Economic & Real Estate Boom Generated : 230 Billion $
Top Speed on Trunk lines : 220mph (350Km/h)
Top Speed on Secondary / Feeder lines : 125mph (201Km/h)
Cost : 70 Billion $
Completion : 2040
Texas High Speed Rail Network Size : 680 Mi+ (1,259kms)
Stations : 15
Lines : 5
Projected Ridership : 18.5 Million a year or 55,000 Daily
Revenue : 580 Million $
Economic & Real Estate Boom Generated : 140 Billion $
Top Speed on Trunk lines : 220mph (350Km/h)
Cost : 15-45 Billion $
Completion : 2030
Cascadia Corridor Size : 407 Mi (753km)
Stations : 11
Lines : 1
Projected Ridership : 12.8 Million a year or 35,000 Daily
Revenue : 405 Million $
Economic & Real Estate Boom Generated : 60 $ Billion
Top Speed on Trunk lines : 170mph (273Km/h)
Cost : 20 Billion $
Completion : 2035
Taken from MWHSR , CAHSR and AMtrak Next gen sources and other sources
So compare California with the Midwest. CA estimates twice the riders and half the revenue. And the Midwest will build twice the infrastructure for the same estimated price as California.
Look at the current Acela numbers and compare them to the projections. Oops.
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