Slashdot Mirror
Is a US High-Speed Railway Economically Feasible?
An anonymous reader writes "The federal government has committed at least $8-billion (and counting) for the development of a nationwide high-speed intercity passenger railway system in almost three-dozen states. Rail advocates have long dreamed of an extensive railway grid that will provide clean, speedy, energy-efficient travel. The high-speed rail program is also expected to create thousands of desperately needed jobs, while reducing the nation's dependence on foreign oil and easing gridlocked highways and congested air-space. However, this noble, ambitious, multi-year plan faces a multitude of obstacles — including costs that will no doubt escalate as the years pass by; and an American public that may be reluctant to relinquish the independence and convenience of their beloved automobiles for a train."
An SUV with 1 driver and 3 passengers is pretty close, with the advantage that it goes exactly where you want it to go when you get to your destination.
are they highspeed rails? Nope. So, irrelevant, really.
How did you get modded funny? I found your statement to be quite insightful. I vote to replace the term "lefty" with "softhead"!
Yes, you can very easily die getting to work in the weather we've got out here without the protection of a vehicle.
Is someone forcing you to live there?
No sig for you!!
As a European living in China, two places with extensive train networks, I tell you: it will not work. Trains are not as convenient or cheap as you may think. I don't know of any country that has a fully profitable train system - they are all subsidized because nobody is willing to pay the real price of a train ticket. Mind you, that's in European countries where gas is already much more expensive than US. Simply cranking up the gas price a little to force a few folks into the train won't cut it. The real deal with train is this: they are supposedly "greener". This means that if you are against them you are, supposedly, against a better world. On the back of this guilt-trip, the people will be asked to pay for the new trains, some people will be asked to relocate, others will be asked to suffer the noise of a train. All with really just one goal in mind: providing new infrastructure (at your expense) for the GOODS transportation industry. They're the only guys who are going to profit.
Sorry, fail: railroad tracks need regular replacement, too. Rail, as well as the trucks and cars which ride on them, need regular maintenance and repair. It costs a LOT more to repair a passenger car than it does something in a personal vehicle (if only due to the economy of scale).
Unlike my van, which I've got a personal investment in maintaining, the same is not true for public transit.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
A beautiful paper which I have bookmarked and will bring out from time to time over the next decade for entertainment effects.
Assuming the paper is right, then the fight is over: there is no way we are going to do what it takes to reduce our CO2 levels that much. If that paper is right, global warming is going to happen, with all its horrible (or insignificant, or even beneficial) effects. We will see what will happen.
Qxe4
That's weird. My wife is a teacher and found a job here. I'm a tech nerd too and found a job. In fact I have an interview for a new one next week.
No sig for you!!
If gas taxes promote "efficient living", then surely outlawing combustion altogether would promote even more efficient living?
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
I'll buy into someone's estimate on the maximum safe amount of CO2 when that same someone can accurately model the actual Earth's climate to such an extent that the model shows a reasonably complete and in-depth understanding of all the various mechanisms causing changes over tens, hundreds, thousands, and millions of years.
Thus far, every single model ever produced has utterly failed to work for >4 years at a stretch without arbitrary corrections (ie cheating) being fed into the model. What that tells me is that nobody actually understands all the different feedback loops, cycles, and other mechanisms of the Earth's climate and is therefore speaking directly out of their anus when ranting on about the "damage" a particular component is causing.
I have my own worldwide climate model that says it's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's telling me that above 1,000 ppm CO2 in the atmosphere, a negative temperature feedback mechanism will be triggered which drops temperatures by about 1.2C over the following 100 years. It's also telling me that "it's a greenhouse gas because look, if you do a lab experiment in a closed environment which ISN'T an accurate representation of the Earth's model and lacks all the various feedback mechanisms, heat gets trapped!" is a bunch of scientifically bankrupt horse shit.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
I can't believe you linked to that garbage, and please don't tell me you go to climatecrocks.com regularly. You can do better.
In addition to not countering my point (which was that plants grow better in higher CO2 environments, which is true), it is a collection of one-sided statistics mixed with emotional scare attempts. Claiming that the fires in Russia or floods in Pakistan are evidence of global warming is as dumb as claiming that the unusual cold streak in the San Francisco area this year is evidence of global cooling.
Look at the one-sidedness. Put aside that no climate model is good enough to predict the effects of a warming earth on anything less than a continental level. The entire movie is an attempt to convince that the worst will happen from global warming. It isn't an impartial investigation of the effects of global warming, it's a clear propaganda piece.
So, let's examine the effects of global warming in a particular part of the world, California's central valley. Let's assume that their assumption is correct, that flooding would be more common, and and so would droughts. That's ok, we know how to deal with droughts, so that wouldn't be a problem. As long as the average rainfall rises (IPCC report WGII says it will, although it's based on computer simulation and therefore worthless), it will be overall beneficial. Another benefit: in California we can grow winter crops because it has a Mediterranean climate, but some years it gets cold enough to freeze, and kills crops. It doesn't get super cold though, just a degree or two below freezing. If incidences of freezing became less frequent, it would save $billions.
There are some definite potential benefits of the earth getting warmer. Would they outweigh the harmful effects? I don't know, I haven't spent the time necessary to investigate the matter fully. The guys you linked to certainly don't address the question honestly. I expected you to be more careful in your sources.
Qxe4
I wouldn't think that turning America into Europe would be a good thing at all. Much of it is to do simply with grass is greener (no pun intended) on the other side fallacy. Perhaps Europe is a bit greener but that's one of the few advantages. Even on the Human Development Index, so beloved by the liberals, the US is above every large country in Europe except France: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index US is about the same as Finland and Austria, ahead of Denmark, slightly behind countries like Sweden and Norway and a lot better than UK, Germany, Italy, Spain (which are a more fair comparison)
And that is with lower taxes and generally less interference by the government to provide all these services that supposedly help the poorer people (in fact harm them but that's another argument). Not to mention that in the US the salaries for equivalent jobs are higher, prices for equivalent good are much lower (I live in USA but am in Europe right now). All this is easy to look up. Americans also live in bigger and cheaper houses, drive bigger and cheaper cars. Educational standards at lower levels (run by the government in the US) are better in Europe, depending on the country, but at university level the US is definitely better than every country in Europe. Again easy to look up any rating system. High speed internet is more available in certain wealthier countries in Europe but its horrible in others.
In short, what is so great about Europe? In my experience Tarantino got it right, same shit but a little bit different (and as it seems quite obvious to me, but for some reason not to others, a little bit worse).
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
And how could increasing taxes on gas to subsidize trains possibly help the poor? What are the benefits: few lucky enough to live near a train station would have cheaper subsidizer transportation only in cases when they happen to be traveling to another place near the train station (or suitable public transport). What are the costs: The "common man" would still need a car for all the rest of the transportation needs, but he would have to pay more to run it. He will also have to pay more for every other product that is transported, which is basically everything, hence making him poorer. How is it that just about every scheme dreamed up by the big government supporters ends up harming the poor?
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Laughable
Laughter isn't a rebuttal. Walter Block's arguments for private roads are comprehensive, and you've failed to show any example of a mistake on his part.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."