Obama supports high speed rail to Philly from Pittsburgh (Philadelphia: cost, bus)

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by user_id

You are not adding in any wait time or things of that nature.

You can do that too. For trains, typically it won't make up over an hour in longer travel time, and this is all at the margins--many people live substantially closer than 45 minutes to these two possible terminals.

[G]iven the culture they'd be more likely to drive. Even if it saved 30~60 minutes many people would just prefer to drive.

I don't know how to quantify "many", but again I don't think there is any particular American anti-train culture. I would also note again that time on a train can be productive, leisure, resting, and so forth.

If the revenue from ticket sales is going to have any hope of covering operation costs than you can't do things like this in any sort of dramatic fashion. After all, if it made so much "economic sense" why is it not done in the market place? Its not because, this is where they make their profit.

Again, the economics of HSR actually allows for this as a net revenue maximizer, and in fact we do see this in real world HSR cases.

The current rails are not that slow in comparison to driving.

Again, HSR is considerably faster than conventional rail in the United States. Indeed, even conventional rail service in other countries tends to be faster than conventional rail service in the United States. Hence, you really can't assess likely market shares by looking at current train service in the United States.

Economic models never account for all "major market factors". They are just toys. Please point to one of these models that takes into account "the major market factors".

Here is a description of the ridership model for the California HSR project:

http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/faqs/ridership.htm

An excerpt:

Cambridge Systematics (CS) prepared a detailed (4,667-zone) model of California’s current and future population, employment, household characteristics, highway network, air and rail services, and transit systems . . . . As is standard, the model predicts future trip making from forecasts of population and employment, and then looks at each future trip by household. The model compares the travel time for each mode (both in the vehicle, and getting to, from, into, and out of stations/airports), the time between departures, the cost of that trip, the number of cars available, the household’s income, how many people are traveling together, the reason for the trip, and a number of other statistically significant indicators, and from this predicts how many trips will be taken on each mode. . . . A peer review panel of local, national, and international travel model and high-speed train experts reviewed and commented on the modeling assumptions, methodologies, and results during each stage of model development.

This is the standard HSR modeling approach, as noted in that excerpt.

I've also never had to wait for a train to pass while riding the Amtrak so it would seem it has fairly high priority.

Here is a report from the Department of Transportation on Amtrak delays:

http://www.oig.dot.gov/StreamFile?file=/data/pdfdocs/Amtrak_Root_Causes_Final_Report_9_8_08_with_508_ch arts.pdf (broken link)

The bottomline is that while Amtrak theoretically has preference, violations of its preference are difficult to police and therefore they happen fairly frequently.

[user_id]

Originally Posted by Mr. Mon

Homework assignment:
Please name a large airport hub that was built using nothing but private funds and operates at a profit based purely upon the market demand for use of said airport. For extra credit, please name a new road project that was funded by a private interest and operates at a profit.

Homework assignment:

Find where I suggested that airports and roads are built using nothing but private funds.

Originally Posted by Mr. Mon

There are simply things that the private sector cannot do. The creation of large infrastructure is one of them. No one but the government has the billions needed build a non-existent piece of major infrastructure.

Firstly, I obviously disagree that this is something that the private sector cannot do. Furthermore, its simply false that the private sector can't deal with the creation of infrastructure that costs billions. As a simple demonstration, have you ever visited Disneyland or Disney world? Both have daily visitor populations that exceed many towns/cities. Disneyland is spending I believe around $15 billion upgrading its California Adventure theme park as we type.

There are tons of examples of multi-billion dollar infrastructure projects completed by private industry.

Originally Posted by Mr. Mon

By your logic the interstate highway system would have built itself....

Yes and? Because the government got involved is not evidence that highways could not have been built by private industry. Additionally, the subsidized highways killed a lot of private industry. I believe this actually demonstrates nicely why the government should get out of inter-state transportation. Our car dependence is a direct result of the government getting involved.

Originally Posted by Mr. Mon

Libertarians crack me up in their simple-minded ideology that everything must have a singular profit motive. Granted some projects are wasteful, but public projects are there because they create external benefits, and ultimately bolster the private sector.

Firstly, I'm not interested in your political ideologies nor playing partisan politics. No where have I rejected wholesale the use of public projects. In fact I rather clearly stated that inner-city transportation is probably best left to the local government so long as the tax dollars are collected in a way that reflects in some fashion actual usage of the transportation system.

I'm not trying to make a general argument about private vs public spending, rather I'm arguing that interstate (or intermetro) travel is best left to a regulated private industry. The fact that there are "external benefits" is irrelevant, such exists in many industries that have been successfully privatized.

[user_id]

Originally Posted by pman

T
actually, suburbs date to teh creation of the railroad. still, we shouldn't confuse 1920's era suburbs with urban sprawl. 1920's suburbs still retained the town model and were actually fairly innovative with how cars fit into life (but this was before the power of zoning and the auto centric central planning)

There were suburbs before the automobile (In Pittsburgh, the Southern areas serviced by the T for example), but they were not as numerous and different in character. But what we think of suburbs today, i.e., "suburban sprawl", really got going after WW2. Its not seen as much in a city like Pittsburgh though as its population has been declining since these sorts of communities become popular.

well, that and the feds adopted stndard lot sizes for subsidized mortgages (which effectively excluded cities), the adoption of the progressive income tax (which penalizes high wage earners in high cost of living areas), red lining, urban renewal, white flight, the War on Prosperity, etc, etc. oh yes, the federall subsidized interstate highway system.

Originally Posted by pman

one should probably separate freight from passenger rail but yes, they all are, why are you singling out rail to complain about?

This post is about a rail and the highways have already been built. At best you can try to sell them to private industry.

Originally Posted by pman

private industry is free to compete with Amtrak, I'm hopeful they will one day do so. nonetheless, the feds subsidize all transportation and rail should be part of that mix

This is the two wrongs make a right approach. I want transportation reform before any more money is wasted on government planned transportation projects.

Originally Posted by pman

I guess the hundreds of billions our government spends is miniscule, despite being as much as the next several countries combined.

Yes, but in most cases the US government is just another buyer. Claiming that the industry is subsidized because the federal government makes purchases from it does not make much sense.

The US government does subsidize the industry in terms of grants and things of that nature. But the industry still spends a lot of its own money on R&D. The US university system works in a similar fashion, I think this sort of quasi-private industry is far more successful than a government run industry.

Originally Posted by BrianTH

Here is a description of the ridership model for the California HSR project:

http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/faqs/ridership.htm

Yeah, I've seen that. I'm still waiting for the model that considers all "major variables".

I'd also suggest looking at a government report is not the best source. The state government is being heavily lobbied by rail interests. Of course the reports critical of it are likely to be funded by other groups that the rail may hurt. I don't know of any unbiased report on the CA rail project.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by user_id

Yeah, I've seen that. I'm still waiting for the model that considers all "major variables".

What do you think they left out?

I'd also suggest looking at a government report is not the best source. The state government is being heavily lobbied by rail interests. Of course the reports critical of it are likely to be funded by other groups that the rail may hurt. I don't know of any unbiased report on the CA rail project.

Doing a study like this costs hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars, so you are right that any such study is likely to be funded by someone with an interest in the subject. But what is the alternative? We can't just make public policy by using our intuition.

In this case, the state contracted with a third party to build the model. The model was then tested against current conditions to make sure it provided accurate predictions. It was then subjected to peer-review. I'm not sure what more can be done, and again I am unaware of a superior alternative for policymakers.

[BrianTH]

On a more general point:

A public subsidy is often warranted in cases where a project would have large positive externalities, where positive externalities in this case would be defined as benefits not received by the riders. The reason positive externalities often lead to the need for public subsidies is that a hypothetical private supplier would not be able to charge fares to riders for benefits the riders themselves do not receive, and a hypothetical private supplier would also not be able to charge non-riders for the benefits they receive for lack of a mechanism for doing so.

Accordingly, a project which could have a net benefit (benefit minus costs) for riders and non-riders combined may not be done by private parties because they can only charge for benefits to riders. It can then make sense for public authorities to step into the shoes of the non-riders, basically paying a "fare" drawn out of a portion of the benefits the non-riders would receive. And that is a public subsidy.

Economic studies of many proposed HSR rail projects have in fact found that they would create large positive externalities, but at the same time the benefits to riders alone would be insufficient to allow a private party to profit. Hence, the need for a public subsidy. The sorts of externalities they have found are economic benefits to destinations served by HSR, benefits from reducing congestion on alternative modes (airports and interstates), emissions benefits from transferring traffic from higher-emissions alternative modes, land use benefits by transferring traffic from alternative modes, savings from accident reduction from transferring traffic from alternative modes, and so on.

A common theme emerges from that list. Generally, transportation has positive economic externalities for destinations. But transportation also imposes negative externalities (costs to non-riders) in many ways. So a mode of transportation that can help achieve the positive economic externalities while at the same time avoiding more of the negative externalities than the alternatives can warrant a fairly large public subsidy.

And again, such is the case with HSR. Of course there are limits to all this: HSR is only competitive under certain circumstances, and it makes much less sense to subsidize HSR in cases where it won't be able to draw riders from alternative modes. But in cases where HSR is competitive, again the economics of HSR suggest it warrants significant public subsidies.

[pman]

Originally Posted by user_id

There were suburbs before the automobile (In Pittsburgh, the Southern areas serviced by the T for example), but they were not as numerous and different in character. But what we think of suburbs today, i.e., "suburban sprawl", really got going after WW2. Its not seen as much in a city like Pittsburgh though as its population has been declining since these sorts of communities become popular.

yes, modern suburbs, the central planners dreams. many suburban counties outside philadelphia effectively banned traditional towns with 60'd era coning codes.

Originally Posted by user_id

This is the two wrongs make a right approach. I want transportation reform before any more money is wasted on government planned transportation projects.

I figured you'd take this angle. I think of it more as the consistency approach. It's better to be consistent than inconsistent, right or wrong. Putting off high speed rail until there's "transportation reform" is a great theory, but unlikely to pan out any time soon. It's my opinion that when usage prices go up, splitting the costs looks better.

Originally Posted by user_id

Yes, but in most cases the US government is just another buyer. Claiming that the industry is subsidized because the federal government makes purchases from it does not make much sense.

the largest buyer. for years the military has been a back door subsidy for boeing. It's a false divide, saying that rail is different.

Originally Posted by user_id

The US government does subsidize the industry in terms of grants and things of that nature. But the industry still spends a lot of its own money on R&D. The US university system works in a similar fashion, I think this sort of quasi-private industry is far more successful than a government run industry.

so you'd rather see grants for high speed rail much in the same way governments build airports but don't subsidize the airlines (anymore). I'm with ya, and perhaps the best place to start is to exempt all railroads from property taxes under the interstate commerce act.

[sugarbomb]

Doesn't Amtrack already serve this purpose?

[waltlantz]

As much as I like both rail and the keystone state, I wonder about it.

I mean I can KINDA understand the California corridor. I actually think the Texas one is good for linking Dallas, Austin and Houston.

But is there much intermingling between West and East Penn, particularly economically?

I mean even with the Chicago hub, there isn't a lot of action in the Midwest that would warrant the project as of right now.
If Detroit, Milwaulkee and Cleveland were relatively healthy than sure!

I wanna see trains come back in the country as another alternative but as much as I am envious of the strides Japan and Europe have made, they have very different layouts.

In my view the Philly Pitt one is kinda arbitrary. I can see the great lakes one if that regional economy gets back on it's feet. Although most would hate the idea, I think the rail would actually work for the big Texas cities with all of their buisness activity.

I wanna see rail come back healther in certain regions but I think that that money could be better spent pimping out SEPTA and the Port Authority repectively.

[BrianTH]

waltlantz,

The Globalization and World Cities Research Network (GaWC) has been accumulating data which addresses the degree of economic connection between different cities. In the U.S., it turns out there are some pretty notable regional effects (Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, for example, are both in each other's top ten cities). And there is decent evidence that economic growth can be promoted by further regional interaction. In that sense, you wouldn't want to just wait for healthy economic interactions, but would also be trying to encourage them.

[Geeo]

From a purely personal perspective, I need to get to Philadelphia or New York maybe a dozen times a year. I've been to Chicago exactly once in my life. I've even driven as far as Harrisburg or Lancaster and taken the train to Philly from there.