Introduction
Today I’m starting a series on high-speed rail. This first post contains my opening thoughts, and some of the background assumptions that inform the rest of what I’m going to write about.
Background
There are many people in the wide world of the media who have taken time to write about the pros and cons, and people have wide-ranging opinions about the viability and the value of any rail system. The arguments for and against tend to boil down like this:
Those in Favor:
High Speed Rail would be an immense benefit to the economy, transformative in the same way the Interstate Highway system was 60 years ago. The cost may be high, but we’re facing a mobility crisis and we need to act. Adding more freeways just makes the existing traffic problem worse downstream. Go to Europe and see how useful and enjoyable the rail system is, and then tell me that you still don’t want one!
Those Opposed:
High Speed Rail would cost a fortune and hardly anybody would ride it. Where are they going to put the stations so that they’re actually useful? If I have to drive a long distance and then park at the station and then pay a bunch of money for a ticket and then I arrive in only a few minutes less than what it would have taken me to drive the whole way, why on Earth wouldn’t I just drive the whole way so I can have my car with me when I arrive?
The biggest thing I see missing from the debate is acknowledgements due to both sides.
For the pro-rail folks: realize and address the fact that if the service doesn’t save time or money compared to driving, then ridership will be very low. Also, if the system doesn’t connect to the right destinations, ridership will be low. In other words, it’s not worth building a system at all if we can’t build one that will be useful to people.
For the anti-rail folks: acknowledge that if a new system is built that offers better service, the environment will change in response. People will adapt by moving their homes or offices etc, or by demanding better local transit connections or park-and-ride facilities.
Lastly, on the issue of funding: highways and rail are both highly subsidized. I personally think that neither should be subsidized, but as long as one is they will both have to be. There’s no way that one method of transportation can sustain itself privately in an open marketplace against a subsidized competitor. So, I’ll happily propose an unsubsidized rail system just as long as we convert all freeways and/or long-distance highways to toll roads which collect fares based on their cost of operations, maintenance, and construction, and restrict gas taxes to use for local streets. If that’s not on the table, then we’ll have to consider some ways in which the public sector can support a high-speed rail effort.
Looking Ahead
Now, I’ve spent a lot of time researching high-speed rail. There are dozens of studies that talk about the issue, and a wide range of proposals floating around the world. However, most of these proposals are piecemeal, focused narrowly on a single objective. For instance, some studies focus on redeploying existing freight rail tracks for the cheapest possible regional system. Other studies look at connecting cities across the nation, but don’t discuss how the trains will connect into local transportation systems.
My strong belief is that any high-speed rail proposal should meet the following criteria:
- Perform across all three tiers of transportation (local, regional, inter-city).
- Offer better travel times than any currently existing alternative.
- Be specifically designed to maximize station-area development or redevelopment potential.
- Consider both passenger and freight operations in its design.
What I don’t see among the many existing proposals on the table are detailed concepts meeting those criteria, so that is what I’m going to attempt to develop. As an added icing-on-the-cake I’m going to try and conduct this as an open dialogue that seeks input from anyone who is interested in providing it. I’ll be writing sequentially, first about big-picture things, and then about little details. When I’m finished with this series my goal is to have developed and justified a reasonable proposal for a new transportation system here in Texas.
I’m looking forward to the series, and the lively discussion I expect will come with it.
Categories: featured, move
Tags: debate, development, high speed rail, redevelopment, stations, technology, transit, transportation
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5 Comments
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Andrew,
I enjoy your blog and I’m sure you’ve seen the recent french effort at high-speed rail:
http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/sncf/Texas.pdf
The intersting thing about it is that they believe they can build it, have an 8.5% return on investment and give it to txdot by 2050. I’d like to hear your thoughts about it.
Kyle
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One of the big hurdles you will have to jump is the ‘last mile’ problem. If the goal is to significantly reduce auto trips then users will need a viable alternative to their personal cars when they reach the ultimate destination. Otherwise, what you are really competing against is air travel between major destinations, not vehicle travel. I don’t think it will be enough for most people to just take a bus or taxi to their final destination.
I’ll go ahead a proffer a potential solution in allowing riders to bring their cars along in an attached freight car (there are those designed to move vehicles) like the Amtrak Auto Train service. Doing that, though, will cost more money and travel time (you have to arrive early so they can load your car).
Something else to consider is the number of people traveling in a single vehicle. I visit Austin every other month or so and, just because of my personal interests, I’d love to be able to take a train rather than drive. However, when I travel I’m also traveling with my wife and four children. So, the cost savings would also have to justify the purchase of 6 tickets. It may well happen that the cost savings will have a break even point for number of travelers where taking a train won’t make sense.
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That’s great feedback, August. I think the points you’re making are very valid, and are part of the reason I say that any train system that sees itself as a replacement for automobiles is not going to work. You’ve got to think hard about what specific kinds of trips (and travelers) the train can serve well, and design for those.
Quickly, though, here’s a counter-thought on the train system and traveling with a family of 6. Skip ahead twenty years and let’s imagine that some form of rail travel has been successfully implemented between all the major Texas cities, and that a decent percentage of each city is also covered by reliable mass transit.
If that family of six chooses to live in a central-city neighborhood where Mom works from home, the kids can walk to school, and Dad chooses to commute sans-auto (walking or taking light rail or whatever), the family might be able to save a lot of money by choosing not to own a six-passenger vehicle, but simply to own one or two smaller cars for certain types of trips and get around other ways the rest of the time.
In that situation the family might find that it was much cheaper to take trains and transit most of the time when they were going somewhere as a family, and rent a van when absolutely necessary.
Of course as the city is today nobody would live without a permanent six-passenger vehicle if that’s the family size. However, we don’t know what kind of lifestyle choices people might make in another generation if there are many new options available to them. We also can’t predict what kind of alternate businesses will spring up to help fill those niche demands – like new forms of car-rental or car share around stations.
That’s exactly the kind of discussion that I’m going to try and factor in as I write about this topic over the next week or two. There is no crystal ball, but by thinking of as many possibilities as we can imagine, we can come up with a much more reasonable picture of what the future could hold.
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Kyle,
I have seen the SNCF proposal, but I haven’t read it in detail. I’m not surprised that they are focused on the I-35 corridor and are somewhat leaving Houston “out in the cold”, there are so many more good stops in between Dallas and San Antonio than any other corridor in Texas.
I’ll take a look at this stuff in more detail and try and write an analysis of it in the days ahead.
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This may apply to both arguments, but it seems as though there’s no actual way for the average person to foresee how well high speed rail will work, unless one compares it to rail in other areas. I think though that if Texas was suddenly given a rail system on par with New York overnight, the support for it would be immense.
Without getting political, I’m all for subsidies in highway and rail. Personally I find it deplorable that tax priorities favor fuel inefficiency and old technology without a non-automobile alternative for travel. Generally the Houston (and Texas) mentality for travel is backward. People complain about traffic, but live thirty miles from where they work (sometimes by choice) and believe no one would ride a commuter rail. Houston freeways with five lanes in each direction are still congested. Working people have to mostly rely on unreliable automobiles, or nice automobiles they can’t fully afford.
I’ve lived in Houston my whole life and only found out about the Sunset Limited a few years ago, and just recently considered taking it to New Orleans for a mini-vacation. The fact that most people (I would assume) aren’t even aware of an alternative to flying and driving to certain cities must have SOME effect on ridership.
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