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High-Speed Trains in the US?
demondawn asks: "Countries around the world are researching and adopting high-speed rail systems, but the U.S. seems to be behind the bandwagon. How do Americans feel about the adoption of a high-speed rail system in the U.S.? How do people in nations that have already adopted high-speed rail feel about their services? And how about tourists who have travelled either to or from the U.S. feel about public transportation around the world?"
As someone who is carfree by choice and who has issues with flying, I wish we had a high-speed train system like Japan's.
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In America we have relatively cheap plane travel to anywhere in the continental US. Despite many privacy concerns about the current state of air travel in the US, flying is still one of the cheapest (for the distance) and safest methods of transportation around. Still, competition from the rail industry would likely be a good thing, opening more options up, and eventually lowering prices.
They are very happy squandering more and more money into bigger and bigger trucks so any proposition to do otherwise is viewed as communist. Also, there is an anglo-saxon cultural trait that sees the city as something sinful, bad, evil that should be fled at all cost, hence the popularity of suburbia.
In the same vein, here is a very good explanation of the whole idea of having livable cities.
" No need to RTFA. Americans love the independence their automobiles give them."
Better mod the above up. We've been conditioned to automobiles. What's the first thing every teenager wants (aside from girls)? Yup, their drivers license. Also most alternatives quite frankly are lacking. Don't go were you want. Don't go when you want? And you end up sharing space with people you normally wouldn't dare. That and retrofitting cities in this "homeland security" era would cost billions.
Its the old population density issue.
Trains work great for medium distances, which describes all of Japan, and any single country in Europe. They do poorly for long distances because a standard airplane goes twice as fast (at worst case), and has no problem with terrin that is hard to get a train through.
When you go between two cities in a single country trains are nice. (often trivially slower than a plane after you factor in all the hastles of flying) This describes Europe, cities are close enough that flying isn't enough faster.
In the US cities are more spread out, except on the coasts. There is a high speed train between NY and Boston. Law prevents it from reaching high speed, but it is high speed otherwise. Well if the law wasn't in the way anyway, IIRC they need a few more upgrades to reach high speeds, but who would pay for that if you won't be able to reach those speed anyway.
I don't know what California doesn't have a high speed train. It would make sense, they have the population to support it. (though perhaps not enough people are going in one direction? I don't know)
For me there is no point in a high speed train. I live in Minneapolis, there is no place for it to go. In the metro area stops would be too frequent, and any other city is far enough away that you fly. Though that may not be true, there is a special case that might make sense. The airport is considering a train to some tiny airport outstate that can handle more planes than they can.
There should be an intelligently subsidized and managed rail system in the US. We dump a ton of taxes into our interstate highway system, and sure as heck, they aren't pay-as-you-go. If we give away billions of dollars to build and maintain highways, why not throw away money on the rail system?
Rails are more fuel efficent for moving freight than paying tons of money on an interstate highway system, and then have 16 wheelers burn all that diesel without significantly subsidizing the roadway. If the rails were more robust in operation, instead of truckers driving across the country, they could move freight from major rail stops, and cut down on the interstate driving. In NYC alone, getting a freight line into Long Island would significantly reduce the volume of trucks across the bridges & highways.
Back in the go-go '90's, there was so much air traffic, major airports like LaGuardia (LGA, NYC) basically had a hazardous airspace from all the planes (still does). High-speed rail would cut out the need for short commuter flights. Not that its such a problem now, and the airlines obvious don't like competition. But again, you burn way more fuel for flying (per pound), than you do for rail.
If you presume that petroleum based fuels will be in short supply, its in the national interest to have a more coherent transporation policy. Also, having a robust rail system give the U.S. redundant system in case one has to go down (i.e. 9/11, bomb threat on a bridge or tunnel).
The reason why this will not happen in the near future is threefold. 1) The stupidity (psychology) of the average American citizen (SUV driver). 2) Special interests such as the airlines and trucking industry, and 3) politicians.
Passenger rail could easily be cost effective. The problem is that Amtrak is a gov't agency, and Congress is loaded with parasites that insist on a rail stop in their district. So instead of stops based on customer usage and efficiency, you end up with rail lines making more stops than needed, so they can get the fiscal vote of support from the local congressman.
Ironically, the short term incompetence of this gov't makes this cluster f**k incredibly insigificant as a problem. There probably should be a slashdot poll on how many people drive SUVs.
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
They have cars in Europe, you know. They like them a lot, I seem to remember the Italians and Germans in particular really like cars. Doesn't stop them from having trains, too.
You forgot one important fact. The rails that Amtrak runs on are privately owned by the freight train companies. The government has little if any control over them.
Amtrak runs according to CSXs schedule, for example in the Northeast. Freight has priority, like you said, so therefore they cannot be competitive because they can't set their own schedule.
Whether there is some sort of "conspiracy", I don't know. But compound this fact with America's love of the automobile and there is no way rail transportation can work over long distances in the USA.
What about L.A. to San Francisco, or to Sacramento? Distancewise, they're pretty comparable to Paris-Lyons, and certainly L.A. and San Francisco have sufficient population densities.
I think it mostly comes down to network effects. The car culture is what perpetuates the car culture.
When you get off the train in Paris, I'm guessing that you can step straight onto the intracity transit system. It's the only thing that makes sense, because all those people flooding in through the train system need somewhere to go. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, everyone drives their own intracity transit system, and few use mass transit because it's not robust enough to handle more than a tiny fraction of the city's transportation needs.
In conclusion, it's not a matter of distances and densities. If it doesn't make sense to build a commuter train between LA and Frisco, it's because once you get off you'll have a hell of a time getting anywhere without a car.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Yeah, around 725km. Though, remember, that's a "regional" flight that's done on a small aircraft (~50 people). Such a route could not support regular high-speed train service (~150 people a day), so it would require infrequent service (e.g. once a day) or high subsidies to make up for the lack of travel. Moreover, even a 300kph train takes two hours to complete what is 45 minutes in the air.
Now try expanding that to LA-NY - it would be a 18+ hour train ride, even with no stops and a 300kph train. That's a far cry from the 5-6 hours it takes by air.
High-speed train service makes sense when there are dense population centers that are close together. In the US, the only place where that exists is Boston-NY-DC. And, as expected, that's the only place in the US where there is high-speed train service (Acela).
Amtrak needs to focus on improving service in the Boston-DC corridor rather than on building out routes that no one will use. Denver-LA service is neither profitable nor necessary.
I am logging in from a public hotspot in Spokane, as I layover on Amtrak's Empire Express. I was surprised to find a hotspot I could access from my seat on the train. Rail is great way to travel. It's costing me $125 to cross the USA from Seattle to NYC. in the event of a crash it's only about a foot to ground. Smooth but boring, I will be here for 43 hours. Faster would be better.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
USA population 293 027 571/land area 9 161 923 sq km=31.98.
Sweden 8 986 400/410 934=21.87.
Finland 5 214 512/304 473=17.13.
Russia 143 782 338/16 995 800=8.46.
Even more important of course is how concentrated parts are, not the country averages.