China's Yearly Budget For High-Speed Rail: $100 Billion

An anonymous reader writes "For all of those wondering about China's massive high speed rail network, it costs some serious cash. Running high speed lines across the nation is expensive — to the tune of $100 billion dollars a year. This covers the cost to maintain the network, build it, and pay all of the staff. The problem is, corruption has reared its ugly head. The network itself has had its share of problems, with people dying as a result. There is also the problem that many of Chinese poor make so little money they can't afford to ride it. The sad fact is that so much money is being spent, no one can even keep count."

Comments

Concern troll submitter is concerned

[Anonymous Coward]

What is it with Americans' hatred of passenger rail? It works, it's safe, cost-effective, and requires less government subsidy than highways or airport travel. It's also a hell of a lot more pleasant than flying.

Re:Concern troll submitter is concerned

[Miamicanes]

The problem isn't that the US is more spread out... the problem is that Europe actually HAS open space to cheaply build new rail corridors in between cities, whereas in many parts of the eastern US, you can drive a hundred miles or more without seeing anything more rural than an occasional vacant lot next to the interstate. Nebraska and Kansas might have cities surrounded by cornfields, but east of the Mississippi, our cities tend to be surrounded by hundreds of miles of single-family homes, strip malls, and office parks.

The other problem in the US is our obsession with either keeping high-speed passenger trains 100% separate every last inch of the way, or forcing them to be capable of surviving a head-on collision at full speed with a mile-long coal train if they share tracks with a conventional train anywhere along the route... even if they'd only be running at low speed in the areas where they shared tracks (like the last mile or two into a big city station). In Europe (particularly in Germany), they built the first segment of the new high-speed tracks, and tied them in to the existing rail network at both ends... then extended them from there. In America, we piously plan to do stupid things, like build isolated segments of high-speed rail that don't directly connect to *anything*, and would force passengers to physically switch trains for years, or forever.

HSR between ONLY Bakersfield and Corcoran, or ONLY Tampa and Orlando, is insane. Brand new HSR tracks between Bakersfield and Corcoran that continue into LA and San Francisco along the existing tracks and immediately cut an hour or two off the time it would take to make the trip at low speed, then fill in the gaps to reduce the time even more, are a great start to what's going to be an awesome HSR network someday. Ditto, for new HSR tracks between Melbourne and Orlando (eventually Tampa) that connect to the existing FEC tracks between Jacksonville and Miami.

Engineering-wise, Acela-type trains aren't ideal... but they're actually pretty good. Their 150mph speed limit is due to Amtrak, not engineering -- Bombardier's engineers designed them to run at 186mph, and in a flat state like Florida, they could do 200mph without breaking a sweat given suitable tracks and administrative approval.

As far as subsidies go, EVERY transportation mode is subsidized from general tax revenues. Gas taxes haven't fully supported road construction and maintenance costs since the mid-1990s (they USED to, but as gas prices have increased, the federal and state governments have gradually reduced them to levels that no longer cover 100% of costs). In 2011, Amtrak's total subsidy came out to about $4.25 per American. Nothing to really be proud of, but far from the scandalous rape some would have you believe it is... and most of THAT is for fixed costs that are basically the same regardless of whether Amtrak runs one train or ten trains through any given station per day. Under the current status quo, Amtrak can't "win" regardless of what it does. If it raises fares, it gets decried for being expensive. If it lowers fares, it gets attacked for requiring subsidies. The point is, Amtrak is Amtrak. For better or worse, right now it's all we have. In a few years, we'll have the backbone of California HSR, and FEC Railroad's new passenger service in Florida running along with Amtrak.