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I've made a profit on the IRS numbers since I own my car outright and get good gas mileage, so those numbers aren't entirely accurate, either. Even if I figure in the cost of oil at about .003 cents per mile (it costs me about $15 to change my oil and I change it every 5000 miles), I'm still only spending .103 cents a mile for the trip at $4.00 a gallon for gas.
I don't think the figures for new rail construction would include the lawsuits that would arise from eminent domain takings.
I like the idea of tying rail into the terminals, though. The infrastructure is certainly there for rental cars and processing luggage and people.
The simple reason we don't have decent intercity rail is that virtually every politician and ordinary citizen has been so totally brainwashed about the sanctity of the automobile that they can't think in any other way. Add to that the fact that most all of the people who could remember when the US had a very efficient and extensive intercity rail system have died of old age. I would submit that most current Americans, aside from taking commuter rail and tourist railroad rides, have never set foot on a passenger train. I've ridden Amtrak a lot and, despite its many shortcomings, many first-time Amtrak passengers have made the comment to me that, had they known that passenger train travel could be as low-stress and pleasurable compared to the alternatives of driving or flying, they would have been riding trains much sooner and much more often.
I have posted extensively elsewhere on City-data about this issue, so I won't repeat all of it here--my other posts may be queried. I will quote one snippet from a post I made earlier today over on the Colorado forum:
Quote:
Freight and--eventually--most medium-distance and commuter traffic is going to go back to the rails. The only question is whether it can be effected in some sort of cost-effective and orderly manner, or whether it comes as a panicked, expensive, and disorderly reaction--AFTER a catastrophic economic meltdown caused by the failure of our current automobile/air-dependent transportation system.
For commuter trips, I think buses and rail are ideal solutions. But for medium distance trips, rail balances the time it takes to drive with the incovenience of having to make further connections to get to your final destination, like flying.
Cars are more convenient and if you have a car with reasonable mpg they are cheaper than rail.
As a nation we are addicted to convenience. Our egos just love it! I am as guilty as the next person. It is however an addiction that would serve us well to break.
As a nation we are addicted to convenience. Our egos just love it! I am as guilty as the next person. It is however an addiction that would serve us well to break.
That is a very good point. Convenience is certainly part of the national pschye.
The thing is I spent some time in Dallas, where the car is king. Having come from New York, I used the bus system at first. Its actually pretty good and a bargain. But everyone thought I was insane. Yet they constantly complained about the traffic and accidents. Is that convenience?
For commuter trips, I think buses and rail are ideal solutions. But for medium distance trips, rail balances the time it takes to drive with the incovenience of having to make further connections to get to your final destination, like flying.
Cars are more convenient and if you have a car with reasonable mpg they are cheaper than rail.
That last sentence is only true if one ignores all of subsidized costs of the automobile that are paid through the plethora of sales, property, and income taxes poured into roads, from taxes paid to everything from a local municipality all the way to the federal government. The earliest promoters of the automobile--people like Henry Ford and the oil barons--very correctly understood that auto had no future if the motorist actually had to directly pay the true cost to operate his or her automobile over the road. So, they successfully lobbied to have many of those costs socialized on to the taxpayers. It has been a truly brilliant ruse--one that would make any grifter proud. In a grifter's eyes, of course, the best scam is one where the "mark" never figures out that he's been "had." The auto/highway scam sure fits that description. Truth is, the American highway system is probably the largest, most inefficient experiment in socialism every attempted. The pittance of subsidies to passenger rail and transit pale to invisibility compared with the highway pork-barrel.
This lovely socialistic experiment called the American highway has left us with a traffic-choked highway transportation system hopelessly dependent on depleting and ever-more expensive resources; has led to land and agriculture-devouring sprawl with all of the attendant environmental destruction associated with that; and has severely distorted marketplaces for energy, real estate, even food. Whatever the benefits of the "auto age" have been--and there have been many--at the end it is a lifestyle that has prolifically squandered finite resources, helped to create a huge level of national and personal debt in the United States, and--worst of all--has created a huge investment in an infrastructure and living arrangement that soon will be neither sustainable nor useful. The sooner we can move toward other alternatives, the better. Otherwise, we can expect real and long-lasting economic and social tragedy.
Truth is, the American highway system is probably the largest, most inefficient experiment in socialism every attempted.
I think you hit the nail right on the head with this statement. What a tremendous waste of resources it has taken to build the monstrosity of the american highway system ( which admittedly I have enjoyed again and again ). In addition to wasting resources, it has probably done more to foster the myth of do your own thing...me..me..me than anything else in this country. Why should I ride a crowded bus or take a train and adhere to some predetermined schedule when I can hop in my car whenever I want to and go exactly where I want to go more quickly and inexpensively. But like you pointed out, the more inexpensive part is just another myth becasue the real cost is very slickly hidden from view.
On another note: Some of the most enjoyable travelling I've ever experienced was on a train. I took several trips across Canada, one from Melville, Saskatchewan to Montreal and another trip from Montreal to Edmonton. What a fun way to travel! You can get up and walk around, get some fresh air between cars, get off the train and walk around at the stops, and I would always meet some great people on the train. One time I flew from Norfolk to Pheonix and booked my return flight from Albuquerque to Norfolk. To get to Albuquerque, I took the train from Flagstaff. What a great trip. It was so much more relaxing than dealing with the airport ( that was way before 9-11 and flying was already a hassle in my mind ). I remember wishing that I would be travelling all the way back to Norfolk via train instead of flying back from Albuquerque.
Last edited by CosmicWizard; 04-24-2008 at 09:43 AM..
I think the highway has its purpose. You should rely on just one transportation model. I do think that for moving large amounts of people it is extremely costly and inefficient. Just on pollution alone it is FAR more costly than moving hundreds of people buy rail. As sooo many have said. The system needs to be heavy and light rail with in cities. I would also say BRT to pick up the slack. travel between metro area should be fast rail. Doing this you would be able to get across America by rail with no problems. I am from NYC and i have seen how mass transit can be. Yes NYC mass transit isn't perfect but man does it blow away anything I have seen thus far. We are about to see interesting times in America and many of us won't be driving in the coming decade, it is what it is. I just hope many local govts have the sense to build out a good system before ish hits the fan.
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Originally Posted by sterlinggirl
A couple of observations:
Transportation costs are being compared between cost of gas for a trip versus a rail ticket, which gives an unfair cost advantage to the car in the calculation. To be a fair comparison, the cost of car travel should be calculated at IRS or some similar figure of cost per driving mile.
The 10 Billion number for a new high speed rail corridor seems outrageous, but is less than Delta and Northwest lost due to high fuel costs 1Q of this year. Tying the airline hubs into the rail system might provide the best of both worlds, allowing the airlines to concentrate their business on long-haul fuel efficient routes, while still being able to get the customer to their end destination. Regional airports wouldn't be too hard to convert into terminals.
car transport is inefficient for moving people. I think your on the right track with tying planes to the rail though. I believe things will move in that direction
Rail is more efficient when looked at on it's own, but we are still going to be paying for roads because people have to get to the train station. The cost of rail is still going to be in addition to what we are going to continue to spend on road maintenance. We may not be building as many additional lanes on intracity routes and possible intercity routes, but we're still going to need the keep and maintain the 4 million miles of roadway we have in this country.
Our roads carry almost 4 trillion vehicle miles at a cost of $153 billion per year, counting all levels of government from local to federal, and counting maintenance and new construction. That's a cost of 5 cents per vehicle mile traveled. Of that 5 cents, about 2 1/2 cents are covered by the individual driver through fuel taxes, license fees and other direct motor vehicle related taxes and fees. The other 2.5 cents is covered by the government's general fund. The average fuel economy in the US is 20.4 mpg, which is about 5 cents per mile. So the individual driver pays about 10 cents a mile for roads. There is an average of 1.2 passengers per vehicle, so the cost per passenger mile is a little over 8 cents.
Our public transportation system (including buses, intercity rail, intracity rail, ferries, but excluding airplanes) carries about 50 billion passenger-miles with a total government subsidy of about $16 billion, or about 30 cents per passenger mile. The additional 30 cents per mile is covered directly by fare box revenues.
A national road network such as we have that connects virtually every front door with every other front door for five cents per vehicle-mile per year is about as efficient as you can get.
While rail does move a lot of people, it is expensive to subsidize. The chart at Farebox recovery ratio - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia shows how heavily it is subsidized, with even New York's very heavily used system getting only 2/3 of it's operating costs from the fare box. Cities like Seattle get about 1/5 of their operating revenue from the fare box for the buses.
Bus and rail systems work very well for commute trips, but not so much for the people who just need to run to the store or to a friend's house a few towns away.
Rail is more efficient when looked at on it's own, but we are still going to be paying for roads because people have to get to the train station. The cost of rail is still going to be in addition to what we are going to continue to spend on road maintenance. We may not be building as many additional lanes on intracity routes and possible intercity routes, but we're still going to need the keep and maintain the 4 million miles of roadway we have in this country.
Our roads carry almost 4 trillion vehicle miles at a cost of $153 billion per year, counting all levels of government from local to federal, and counting maintenance and new construction. That's a cost of 5 cents per vehicle mile traveled. Of that 5 cents, about 2 1/2 cents are covered by the individual driver through fuel taxes, license fees and other direct motor vehicle related taxes and fees. The other 2.5 cents is covered by the government's general fund. The average fuel economy in the US is 20.4 mpg, which is about 5 cents per mile. So the individual driver pays about 10 cents a mile for roads. There is an average of 1.2 passengers per vehicle, so the cost per passenger mile is a little over 8 cents.
Our public transportation system (including buses, intercity rail, intracity rail, ferries, but excluding airplanes) carries about 50 billion passenger-miles with a total government subsidy of about $16 billion, or about 30 cents per passenger mile. The additional 30 cents per mile is covered directly by fare box revenues.
A national road network such as we have that connects virtually every front door with every other front door for five cents per vehicle-mile per year is about as efficient as you can get.
While rail does move a lot of people, it is expensive to subsidize. The chart at Farebox recovery ratio - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia shows how heavily it is subsidized, with even New York's very heavily used system getting only 2/3 of it's operating costs from the fare box. Cities like Seattle get about 1/5 of their operating revenue from the fare box for the buses.
Bus and rail systems work very well for commute trips, but not so much for the people who just need to run to the store or to a friend's house a few towns away.
I am from NYC and I can tell you, that last part is not true. Getting around in NYC by train is far easier than you are trying to make it out to be. I now live in Florida and I can assure you, walking a block or so to a train station as opposed to driving cross town is FAR easier in NYC than Florida (here you have to drive). Also, most neighborhoods in NYC have neighborhood stores. NYC is setup far more different than insufficient and unsustainable suburbia, so walking up the block to a bodega or to a neighborhood grocery store takes minutes. As opposed to driving to some grocery that could be twice the distance away from your home that a NYC grocery would be. As for meeting friends up, again train system is easy and effortless, unlike driving.
As per cost, I think if someone took a more practical look at cost which are not only what the state pays but what individuals have to pay for upkeep, insurance and pollution cost, cars are far less efficient.
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