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China Begins To Extend High Speed Rail Across Asia
MikeChino writes "Last year we learned that China planned to expand its high-speed rail network all the way to Europe and now the nation has launched the first step of the project with plans to extend tracks into northern Laos. The nation has also set goals of expanding the high-speed rail line into Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore."
Their existing high speed rail lines are racking up serious debt. This plan to expand it is difficult to believe.
It pains me to read where China is doing this and that, while everyone in USA talks about how great we once were. Although there are articles discussing woes of some of the Chinese high speed rail systems but systems here in USA are being torpedoed for one reason or another (i.e. Calif highspeed rail project).
This talk of high speed rail is too expensive, doesn't go everywhere, etc. Dammit you gotta start someplace and somewhere. If you don't maintain and update country's commerce then it will choke into a third world country.
mfwright@batnet.com
Funny, you could say the same thing about America and its wars...
Show me how your car makes a profit.
Bruce Perens.
Some things aren't economic on a small scale but only become so on a large scale. Rail is something you have to roll out on a large scale, the larger the better. The countries they plan to move into don't have the greatest road systems in the world, giving the Chinese an advantage. Plus, rail is much less polluting and requires less fossil fuel, meeting international obligations (this matters to the Chinese government only because it's PR they can use against other nations) and freeing them from oil dependencies in nations potentially hostile to them.
In the event of conflict in the region, the Chinese will have greater mobility and reduced troop movement times, which basically means that they'll be able to dominate the region in a way America is no longer capable of within the Americas.
From the Chinese perspective, it's cheaper to build rail than to build a fleet of giant troop transport planes and it has none of the PR damage involved in the latter.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
This has serious long term benefits to their state. For one, all that construction and maintenance will further add to their middle class and domestic consumption, not to mention tourism and trade from Europe. Consider what such access has done for Europeans when they opened their borders to each other and it makes perfect sense for the Chines to do the same. Plus, they're control freaks and I'm sure see incredible value in recording every word on one of their trams. True that it's expensive now, and they won't have a return on it for a long time, but it's nice to see that at least one country is forward looking in terms of their infrastructure, especially compared to the austerity and oil jerks in the US.
There are two HSR lines that have paid off all their construction costs, Paris-Lyon and Tokyo-Osaka.
Taiwan's is the only HSR line in the world right now that is falling behind on the loan payment, but it still covers all of its operating costs through fares. Every other HSR line in the world is making positive progress toward paying off the construction costs.
So what this all boils down to is, what is your definition of "profitable"? I've given three possible definitions from which you may choose.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
That's fantastic! Hey, let's get rid of all profit-less things like fire departments and freeways too!
Skype is too convoluted... Now I'm reverse-engineering the Kyoto Protocol.
There's more than high speed rail going on. China is building an inter-provincial expressway system, too. The interior provinces aren't sharing in the prosperity of the coastal ones. Better roads and better freight rail will help. Historically, China discouraged inter-provincial trade, and each province was expected to be self-sufficient. That's still to some extent true, and there's some internal friction over eliminating internal trade restrictions. They won't survive a really good highway system.
The history of the US Interstate Highway System isn't quite applicable, though. Every state has at least one interstate highway, and most have at least two. That's a consequence of how Congress is set up. China's transportation system is thin in the western portion of the country.
Do you simply not get what's wrong with that analogy? Or are you trying to be funny?
People choose cars over railways because they see a better cost/benefit tradeoff. That's why railways lose many and car manufacturers make money. One can make the argument that personal car use doesn't properly account for all the externalities. You're welcome to make that argument.
But China's problem isn't lack of good public transportation, it's having too many people. If China had 100M people instead of 1000M, all of those people having a car wouldn't be a problem. Ditto for the US.
People choose cars over railways because they see a better cost/benefit tradeoff. That's why railways lose many and car manufacturers make money.
Automakers bought profitable bus and rail lines and shut them down to get us where we are today. People did NOT choose cars, they chose trains, and then the trains went away.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It's straining their bond market to pay for it. Apparently they think the investment is worth it.
Lucky we have all the answers here, otherwise I'd wonder what they knew that we didn't.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
We need to build one of these to the United States! We cannot allow a hot foreign bride gap!
Some people choose cars because of a cost/benefit analysis, but that assumes there is a viable choice. Living in an East Coast city means I have the choice to own a car and I choose not to. If I lived in Dallas, I wouldn't have a real choice, and would need a car to survive. A better comparison is railways and the Highway Trust Fund, as both are responsible for maintenance of their respective transportation networks and both lose money: the Trust Fund doesn't earn enough in gas taxes (indirect user fees) to break even and the railways don't earn enough in ticket sales (direct user fees) to turn a profit. Car manufacturers make money because most customers live in places like Dallas, those customers don't grasp the full cost of ownership to their pocketbook, and because they're buying the product of a car rather than the service of transporation.
Anyway, high-speed rail in China is a glamor project, but it's not going to last terribly well: it's built somewhat poorly and somewhat hastily, which will mean an expensive maintenance budget. As long as their economy is roaring they'll be fine, but once it levels off they're going to feel the crunch.
What's this? Another weblog? On transit?
Cars are not as efficient as short-haul aircraft, which in turn are not as efficient as short-haul HSR. We're huge, yes, but it's a relatively short drive from one city to the next throughout most of the country. 6 hours SF-LA; 4 hours St. Louis-Chicago; 6 hours Raleigh-Washington; 3 hours Seattle-Vancouver. If we want to maximize efficiency in our economy, maximizing it in transportation seems like a winning place to look.
Actually, the I-5 corridor from San Diego to Vancouver is a good example of why density along the whole line isn't as important as the integration of the local economies. Along that line are a number of population centers with a lot of space in between. Overall, the density is not terribly high, but there is a lot of traffic. Unlike some places in the West, I never once have been the only car on the road. Far from it, a drive from San Francisco to LA on I-5 is dense with cars and trucks despite the fact that it's mostly farms and low-density "cities". Points north have less traffic, but it's still substantial. If the roads are packed in the middle of nowhere, there is demand for transportation between where they're coming from and where they're going. Route density doesn't matter; it's the endpoints that do.
What's this? Another weblog? On transit?
China's highspeed rail is great. Not as great as the Japanese bullet train, the attendants are not nearly as hot and the snack cart only has the usual spicy chicken feet and instant Nescafe. But you can get a ticket for not much more than a bus, it's much faster, there's no traffic, and even the second class seats are comfortable. The first time I saw a Chinese hexie hao pull into the station, I immediately thought, "Ah, it's a shinkansen!" Indeed, the trains in my area are license-built copies of the Kawasaki Heavy Industries E2-1000 Series Shinkansen. I always liked taking the train in China, but the main problem was that the bus was always more frequent and sometimes you get some old stinky train full of redneck farmers if you don't know what to watch for when buying your tickets. With the new highspeed rail, the choice is easy.
Who cares if it loses money? That's not the point. The Chinese are loaded with cash right now. The point is to make China, and the world, a smaller place. There's a city south of here that I like to visit. However, the bus trip was 3 1/2 hours of bumpy highways (they never connect the road to abutments correctly so you always get two lurches going over every bridge)...IF there was no traffic or wrecks on the road. I never got down there as often as I liked, and my reluctance was purely due to the unpleasant journey. Now, it's 90 minutes of comfort. The last time I returned from there, I discovered that there are express trains that only take 65 minutes for the trip. Think about it: this city to the south used to be "far". Now, it is "near". I can go there in the morning and be back in the evening. A shopping trip isn't out of the question. Business is easier to conduct. Commuting to work from smaller cities outside is now an option. How's that for change the world, eh?
The black cloud in all of this is construction quality. The head of China's highspeed rail was fired, and either him or someone else highranking said he would under no circumstances ride the train himself. Oh well, I suppose I'll play the lottery on that one, and hope it isn't my train that derails at 161mph.
Connecting the rest of Asia to China's highspeed network will be pricey, but when it's finished Chinese business and influence will spread. That's the whole idea, isn't it? Invest now, pay off later. I tell you, it's weird living under a government that actually acts in its own national interest, unlike my own government.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
The U.S. transcontinental railroads were built terribly poorly. That's how they were able to lay 10 miles of rail in one day. The assumption was that once there was an operating railroad, that it would be very much less expensive to lay good track. It worked, we still have an intercontinental railroad through the same route that was originally laid.
It might be true that large portions of the China route are similarly without good roads.
Bruce Perens.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_streetcar_scandal
Bruce Perens.
You weren't alive 10 years ago, were you :-)
Bruce Perens.
As the GP I agree completely. For example, Ottawa, my nation's capital, has beautiful dedicated transit lanes. The buses speed past stopped traffic on the highways on their own private roadways, bringing public transit users to and from major stations with speed and efficiency. Last I checked, NYC is also an excellent example of a city that understands the need for at least decent public transit.
Unfortunately, too many people look at transit as a private for-profit opportunity, instead of a public good.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Why does it have to make a profit? Other transportation modalities, like your personal automobile, are not required to operate at a profit. The police don't make a profit for the community. Some things are infrastructure, and are costs rather than profits.
Bruce Perens.
In other words, you can't really say that people chose trains. It's hard to say what would have happened in the absence of this conspiracy. But they definitely had their finger on the scale, so to speak. I believe that were it not for this conspiracy, government subsidies of automobiles and gasoline, and the construction of the interstate freeway system, there's no way cars would have been able to overcome the fiscal disadvantage they bear and overtake electric traction. But who knows, maybe most people would have thought the cars were worth it. They are very sexy.
Sure they can fly anywhere, but they can't *land* anywhere. That bomb on your hypothetical runway can make resupply into an area very difficult, for at least as long as it takes to repair the runway.
Automakers didn't shut down profitable bus and rail lines where I live.
Are they really profitable? Just today, I read that the bus system in my town has 90% of its operating costs subsidized by the government. I've heard similar figures for other systems.
That's fantastic! Hey, let's get rid of all profit-less things like fire departments and freeways too!
And while we're at it, let's get rid of those unprofitable airlines. The ones subsidized by the government (Airport support monies, FAA, etc.). It's really, really hard to figure out what the true 'cost' of transportation is. And don't even get started on externalities like pollution, carbon use, etc.
Generally, government sponsored infrastructures pays for itself over time, often measured in decades. It also has the tendency to change the structure and makeup of society (think trains, automobiles).
I suspect that's what China is trying to do with high speed rail. Not make a profit, but to push (Han) Chinese culture and economic power throughout China and the rest of Asia.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Bullshit! The price for going to Beijing from Shanghai with this fast train is from 400 to 1700 Yuan, which is expensive, but far from being twice the price. On my last trip to Beijing (from Shanghai), the cheapest air ticket I could find was 1200 Yuan.
Now for this Wuhan to GuangZhou, I've just check on http://english.ctrip.com/ (which gets you the lowest fairs). What you find is 280 yuan for the ticket, plus 190 of airport taxes, which makes it 470 Yuan in total, or just 1 yuan more than your above price. That is without counting the cost of traveling from city center to airport. Frankly, don't trust US journalist, I'm quite sure that they can't even read what's on http://www.huochepiao.com./ Because doing a quick check, the price is 490 Yuan, not 469!
I remember reading something like this as well. I even mentioned it to my Chinese mate once on the phone and he replied "What? Don't be stupid, high speed train is so cheap here it costs almost nothing". He even claimed that often it was cheaper than the intercity buses (or "coaches" if you prefer). Now it's been several years since I've been to China, and my friend (like many) can have a tendency to exaggerate... but I think that the reality is not so bleak for highspeed rail in China. It's very expensive to build and run but apart from that is an absolute godsend. I live here in France, and they have only really made highspeed rail viable by making car/bus travel almost the same price. Massive taxes on fuel and obscenely high road tolls make the far quicker trains attractive. Trains are far less of a hassle in terms of security (less, not none...), generally less stressful, and for anything less than about 700kms are simply quicker than air travel. Sometimes that gets extended to more depending on how easy your airport is to get to. I live in Bordeaux, and even with less than half of the ride to Paris on high-speed rails (so max speed on those bits around 160km/h if memory serves) it only takes 3-3.5hrs (for ~550kms). They are about to start construction on upgrading the rails to high-speed rails all the way, and when that happens I can assure you air travel will drop to pretty much zero. Most people never fly to Paris from Bordeaux - when it takes only 2hrs from the centre of Bordeaux to the centre of Paris, the extra hassle of flying makes it simply non-sensical. What is my point? High-speed rail TODAY suffers many, mainly financial, hurdles in China. Who cares? It is a fabulous investment for the future - it's far, far less carbon intensive and can move large numbers of people safely and quickly. In 15-20 yrs when China's population has enough money to make expensive tickets less of a problem - when they start making road users pay the full cost to the environment and economy of road travel (some say they aren't even there yet in France...), then everything will make sense. Just like US government invested massive money in roads a few generations ago, so the Chinese government is investing now, or will be if rail companies go broke! In the long run we will look back and say "they did the right thing, it looked expensive but look at the advantages now". You'll see...
Except in the end they'll have something to show for it. A piece of hardware.
Kind of like we did back in the day when the CCC built all those bridges, roads, rail lines, parks, etc.
Right now, the United States (including governments at all levels) spends a total of between 50 and 60 billion dollars per year on mass transit infrastructure and operations. Funding for Amtrak has averaged around $2 billion per year the last decade or so.
If a quarter of spending on automobiles were diverted into public transit infrastructure and operations, it would quadruple the mass transit subsidy. (Note that that would still leave the United States ahead of European countries - many by a significant margin - in terms of fraction of household expenditures on car ownership.) Your bus stop probably wouldn't be a mile away any more. Your bus wouldn't take 45 minutes to get to the train station; it would run in a dedicated lane or on its own right-of-way, if it weren't replaced outright with light rail. It wouldn't have to stop for traffic lights, because signals would automatically clear the road ahead. The train station would probably be closer, anyway--and you'd probably be connected to an express or even high-speed line. There would be a unified fare system, so you could ride the entire system with one smart card. You can rent a car by the hour for those trips to IKEA.
Your forty-minute commute by car might, under ideal circumstances, be the same length, or even shorter. Or it might stretch out to forty-five or fifty minutes, during which time you can have a nap, read a book, catch up on the news, or connect to the onboard wifi. And the four or five grand per year you're saving turns into an annual two-week vacation in Switzerland, where you can see just how good public transit can get if it's funded properly.
The problem, of course, is that there's always a delay between when you start putting money into infrastructure and when it starts making a difference to a large number of people on the ground. And that interval between the investment and the return frightens the living daylights out of politicians. Even projects that will save their constituents money in the long term are a tough sell, because they're up against candidates who will promise to cut taxes now.
~Idarubicin
The Romans devastated their enemies more through superior mobility than superior tactics. Their enemies had dirt tracks, they had paved roads. Their enemies relied on fords, they could construct a bridge across vicious sections of river in a day and have multiple legions surrounding their foes by the next.
This is the difference between "good enough" and "the best". Those with the best are likely to win. 4x the speed means being able to move 4x the troops. Standard military wisdom is that when facing enemies of comparable technology, you need 3:1 in your favour to win. 4:1 gives you room to spare.
Different guagues is Bad Juju. Complexity is ALWAYS a weakness. If you want something reliable, you HAVE to have it simple. Trains that can do 65mph (which, incidentally, US trains can't - 55mph is too fast for quite a few regions, due to track damage) across multiple guagues have added complexity, particularly if they want to keep at the 65mph at all times. (Remember, uniform motion is cheap. Acceleration is expensive.)
220mph rail isn't significantly more expensive than 65mph rail in totality. Air resistance goes up with the square of the velocity, yes, but trains designed for 220mph speeds are built with air resistance in mind. 65mph rolling stock tends to be designed as cheaply as possible, which means you end up with drag far worse than the numbers alone would suggest.
Last, but not least, the rail in most nations is crap. The tracks are badly laid, poorly maintained and sub-optimal in location. In the same way that patching Windows will never produce a good OS, patching a crappy rail network will never produce a quality rail network. You HAVE to replace it wholesale. What's more, the cost of that replacement will actually be cheaper than continuing to repair the old crud in the long term. (The long term is something wannabe economists keep realizing they forget.)
Ok, not quite last. This point really is last. If you're competing against a rival system, you DON'T want to have said rival system dictate what you can and cannot do. Giving a competitor a say in how you compete is folly at best. Again, using software as an example, Linux does NOT use the bits and pieces of the Win32 API that Microsoft let others know about. It doesn't conform to POSIX where POSIX is broken. It doesn't limit itself to ANY competitor's ideas about what an OS should do and certainly does NOT limit itself to what ANY competitor thinks Linux should be limited to. Guess what? This approach has produced a viable solution. Approaches based on letting competitors dictate terms (eg: OS/2 needed Microsoft's cooperation, BeOS tried not to stir Microsoft's wrath) have invariably ended in disaster.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Good point. And whereas a train can deliver maintenance crews and materials to the damaged area of track, an aircraft that cannot land cannot deliver either.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Your automobile is an expense that you bear as part of the cost of having employment. If you were able to eliminate the cost of your car while remaining able to work and without suffering some other inconvenience, you would make more money, not less. Therefore, your car does the opposite of making a profit. The part that makes a profit for you is the services which you offer your employer.
Once people work this out, they can start to make sense about the value of transportation. Until you work this out, you will be manipulated by people who use your lack of understanding of economics against you. You'll vote the way they want, even when it is to your disadvantage.
Bruce Perens.
Third would country, super power, flush with cash and need to maintain a 9% annual growth? I have a solution for you! Just look at the WPA during the great depression of the 1930's!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration
The WPA pretty much built out all of our existing hydro-electric power, roads, national parks, trails, firehouses etc. It was fucking expensive, but it kept the country from falling into ruin and put food on the plates for something like 25% of the nation for a decade.
If there's been one proven long term investment that will last hundreds of years, it's rail lines. They're the roman roads of our time.
moox. for a new generation.
The Chinese are going to make to Alpha Centauri before we do, apparently...
High speed rail across Europe? That is pretty cool...
Hope we can survive the nuclear age..
Bitcoin pyramid: Join here: http://www.bitcoinpyramid.com/r/1427 it's FREE!
You have obviously never been to Europe.
Their favourite means of transportation is train. You can go through high-speed rail to almost anywhere in western Europe. I've been to the central bus station in Berlin. It's so desert it's scary.
The rail system in the US is archaic. It's slow and expensive. Of course no one wants to use it. I grant you that, bus is cheaper than train in Europe as well, but the difference in comfort and speed is worth it.
entropy happens
I don't think you should underestimate the indirect effects. There was of course no conspiracy to ditch trams in Norway, yet two of the three large tram cities got rid of them.
If you read the contemporary newspapers, you see why: it was top-down decisions, and the argument was always _trams are becoming old-fashioned. Buses are the future._ Now where did they get that idea? (which was, by the way, entirely wrong, despite its self-fulfilling character). By looking at other cities, abroad. Some of got rid of their trams for corrupt reasons.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
Your forty-minute commute by car might, under ideal circumstances, be the same length, or even shorter. Or it might stretch out to forty-five or fifty minutes, during which time you can have a nap, read a book, catch up on the news, or connect to the onboard wifi. And the four or five grand per year you're saving turns into an annual two-week vacation in Switzerland, where you can see just how good public transit can get if it's funded properly.
Or it could stretch to 2 hours. This is the case for me, though that's the return trip times. If I drive, I'm at work in in 17-20 minutes depending on traffic, but if I use public transport, it's one hour if everything is perfectly on time. The marginal costs of riding the bus is almost the same as driving too.
And you know what's the funny part? This isn't Bumfuck, Texas or anything, that's the middle of Europe, I pay 60% tax on gas + road use "fee", and public transport is heavily subsidized. Sure I could sell my car and save a bit of money, but I'd rather get home sooner and jerk off or do something fun instead of being stuck in a hot smelly bus.
Truth. No mass transportation system has ever been profitable to my knowledge. (Sure, particular stretches of toll road have sometimes - but even most of them have been "gimme's" handed over after being built with state funds or at least government-backed low-interest bonds. But the state subsidies are (in theory at least) justified by the increased economic activity generated, which generates tax revenue. So in that sense, one could say they are profitable to the state. Transportation systems are also justified by the need for fast communication across the realm for defense and control purposes.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
The USA ruled the second half of the 20th century because unlike others, we had taken the plunge and invested in 20th century infrastructure (interstate highways, airports) whilst most the world was stuck with 19th century infrastructure. Now, whilst our politicians procrastinate, China are investing in 21st century technology, whilst we are stuck with 20th century technology. The result is obvious.
Oil has double in price over the past decade. All indications are we will be lucky if it only doubles in price over the next decade, as costs and demand both rise. In thirty years time these infrastructure projects will be worth their weight in gold (as ours from the 50s/60s proved 30 years later) whilst countries like ours will become less and less competitive as fewer and fewer can afford to utilize our inefficient, oil-dependent 20th century infrastructure.
And how much of a car's operating costs are subsidized by the government? I'm talking about highways, streets, police, traffic signals etc.
The reason that the government subsidizes transit isn't because of some liberal conspiracy to help the indigent. It's because shifting that money over to more automobile subsidies wouldn't produce enough additional capacity to handle the influx of drivers.
I live in a city that has the most expensive mile of road ever built. Yet more than half the commutes into the city are *still* by transit. We might have spent ten times what we did on that road and still not have enough additional auto capacity to replace transit. On the other hand, we probably could have endowed a fund which eliminated transit fares in perpetuity for less than we spent on that road. So why didn't anyone consider that?
If we're subsidizing 90% of the cost of the bus, why not go to 100%? Not only would that attract more riders, it would eliminate the cost of fare collection systems and personnel. That means we'd need a lot less than an 11% increase to eliminate fares, and we'd get additional savings by having less car infrastructure. The reason is that car drivers would get bent out of shape over transit riders getting something "for free", even though they themselves use free and very expensive auto infrastructure and would benefit by having reduced traffic. It's simply not rational to fund 90% of the cost of the bus, and not go all the way to 100%, but the rational thing isn't politically correct.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Not just something they can use themselves, a great product demo for potential clients. Japan's JR and Siemens own the high speed rail market at the moment but it looks like China is throwing vast amounts of money around to get a stake.
This point often seems to be missed on Slashdot. The same goes for green energy, electric vehicles, high speed passenger jets and a whole host of other potentially lucrative technologies. Germany's decision to ditch nuclear power is more about making it the number one vendor of renewable energy gear in the world than about nuclear fears, at least on a political level. Japan has been doing the same since they invented the first high speed passenger train back in the early 60s.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Even premium bus lines can't give you the comfort of a train ride; I for one feel sick when I try to read in a bus.
A very simple reason: Ryanair is cheap. I have traveled by Ryanair many more times than I've traveled by train. Let's say you are at Berlin and wants to go to Paris. About 900 km apart, a meaningful distance in my opinion. Who would want to take a bus, go to Schönefeld, grab a plane, descend at Charles de Gaulle (or a shitty airport 100 km apart from Paris, if you chose Ryanair), take another bus, and get to Paris, instead of taking the subway, going to Hauptbahnhof (central station), getting on a train, and getting down at downtown Paris? Me, who can't afford the train always. But I'm just a poor boy from a poor family, and when I can afford to not suffer the inconvenience, I won't anymore.
It's true that for very large distances the speed of the airplane beats the convenience and comfort of the train. But it's very large distances, not just meaningful distances.
entropy happens
Ryanair have made inroads because it's a British/Irish company and oddly enough we're one of very few island nations in Europe. As a result, trains to the continent are a lot more expensive than trains within the continent. So it's no surprise that a budget airline is popular. I know people in most of the countries in the EU and all of them would take the train over flying anywhere on the mainland. The US has the downside of being huge, but the distance between, large neighbouring cities isn't that much. Say, New York - Boston or New York - Washington, both under 250 miles which is well under two hours by modern electric rail. Amtrak quote around $200 and over 3 hours for a fast service. For comparison, we're bringing in a high speed rail line from London to Edinburgh (around 400 miles) that will do the job in just over 2 hours. The tickets will be steep, but I imagine an advance ticket will cost £50-60.
Flying in itself is highly unprofitable. On the average Easyjet flight, only two seats are making a profit (source was an ATC manager, but it's likely to be true). The rest is made up flogging you perfume in duty free, exorbitant check in/baggage charges, overpriced sandwiches and car rentals/health insurance. Ryanair are god-awful to fly with and most of the time it's cheaper to fly with a reputable airline after all the hidden costs. Not to mention they rarely, if ever, fly to the airport you need to go to.
There is nothing really similar to Ryanair, there are many budget airlines and imitators, but nothing comes close to their abrasiveness.
If I drive, I'm at work in in 17-20 minutes depending on traffic, but if I use public transport, it's one hour if everything is perfectly on time.
I can't dispute that even under the best of circumstances, there will be trips that are inefficient or circuitous by mass transit. In densely urbanized centers these 'difficult' trips can be minimized (or nearly eliminated) by grid-layout bus systems coupled to light rail and subway backbones, but not every urban area has the population density to support that level of infrastructure, nor the geography (and absence of geographic and architectural obstacles) to permit it. There will also be populations (particularly in rural areas) which are difficult or prohibitively costly to serve. The car (or some other means of individual, independent transport) will almost certainly always be a practical necessity for some fraction of people.
That said, when you chose to live where you do, did you make access to transit a high personal priority? Or did you choose a place that had ample parking and easy access to the highway? On the flip side, it's almost certain that your employer didn't consider access to public transit an important issue when siting their offices. (In the United States, there is almost universally an assumption of car ownership, and access to transit is an afterthought. In all but the largest cities, public transit is for poor people; a sop for the lowest classes who can't (yet) afford a car.)
Regarding your other comment about the disruption caused by a transit strike, it is possible to declare transit workers an essential service and eliminate their right to strike. Contract disputes are settled through a binding arbitration process, rather than through strikes (or lockouts). Yes, this generally results in slightly higher personnel costs, but it eliminates the massive economic dislocations that can be caused by the temporary loss of mass transit. Other classes of public workers (particularly police officers, firefighters, and ambulance crews) are often declared essential and subject to similar provisions. A number of jurisdictions (including the city of New York) already bar transit workers from striking.
~Idarubicin