Rarely does one make progress while looking over a shoulder. In the case of improving our transportation options, though, I think it might provide the greatest potential for success. Allow me to explain:
Throughout the history of transportation in America as one mode became anachronistic, a newer and speedier mode was ready to replace it. The stagecoach gave way to the railroad and the trains gave way to busses (at least for shorter distances), and they both gave way to the airplane. But there is no new whiz-bang alternative to the airlines, is there? No particle beam transport a la Star Trek. Even the SST has been mothballed. We’re pretty much screwed. Or are we?
California’s Governor Schwarzenegger recently request 4.7 billion dollars in stimulus funds to apply towards a high speed rail system within the state. A step backwards, some might say, if we return to the rails as an answer to our transportation woes. Well, let’s look at a typical trip from Los Angeles to Sacramento. To make this trip by air, plan on arriving at the airport two hours before your flight so as to allow enough time for the poking and prodding of the TSA after standing in a lengthy line leading up to the indignity. The travel time is roughly one hour and fifteen minutes unless weather or other traffic interferes with the schedule. And we all know that either (or both) is a regular occurrence. Now we’re up to at least three hours and fifteen minutes, not including travel to and from our airports. The high speed rail travel time? Two hours seventeen minutes. And the stations will more than likely be closer to our final destination than the airport so the time savings increase yet again.
Can there be any rational argument against investing in this technology? Maybe, from short haul airlines who stand to lose major business to this quick and economical alternative, but that’s economical...not rational. Much of the infrastructure is already in place. Right-of-way problems are now relatively easy to solve, what with the lower values in real estate. No more sky-high prices for the land required to lay out our rails. Give them what the property was worth a year ago and watch them take the offer without a second thought. Other hardware and software technology required for these projects will create the need for companies to provide the necessary materials. Jobs, in other words. The best thing of all is that we’ll be making something. You know: manufacturing. That’s what we did before we made money by selling paper.
Look at virtually any state and the opportunities for high speed rail service abound. (Better yet, Google “high speed rail maps” and take a look at what is being envisioned.) Eventually, these networks connect with other areas to form a national high speed rail system second to none. Driving even becomes a secondary option in certain cases.
Yes, folks, the answer to our transportation quandary lies in the past, albeit with improvements. Climb aboard, literally and figuratively: let’s all go back to the future!
1 comment:
@ Bruce -
thanks for posting this. The notion that rail is a step backwards actually falls apart on close examination, because it implies that (a) the technology has not advanced since the 19th century and (b) there are no downsides to medium-distance mobility based entirely on fossil fuels.
Infrastructure is supposed to be safe, affordable, comfortable, convenient and reliable. The basic concept of running steel wheels on steel rails has indeed been around for 150 years. High speed trains have been running at 186mph in commercial operation in France for over 25 years. By the time the first HSR trains run in California, train and infrastructure vendors will have at least 15 years of experience of running at over 200mph and at least 5 years of running at over 220mph. In other words, passengers in California will not be the guinea pigs for unproven technology.
The other aspect that is too often forgotten is that in the long run, high-capacity transportation infrastructure drives land use patterns - not the other way around. Cars can easily go anywhere, so they enabled low-rise, low-density sprawl. Trains are constrained to a small number of lines, so they promote higher-density transit-oriented development in the vicinity of stations.
And in the case of California HSR, they will do so while running on renewable electricity. Electric trains are the quintessential zero emissions vehicles!
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