High-Speed Fail
In a four-part series on the New York Times Economix blog, Harvard economist Edward Glaeser scrutinized high-speed rail and concluded that the benefits are overwhelmed by the costs. After making generous assumptions regarding the costs, user benefits, environmental benefits, and effects on urban development, Glaeser concludes that all the benefits of high-speed rail would still be less than half the costs.
As Washington Post writer Robert Samuelson observes, the Obama administration’s vision of high-speed rail is “a mirage. The costs of high-speed rail would be huge, and the public benefits meager.” Yet even Samuelson falls victim to the common assumption that high-speed rail “works in Europe and Asia” because population densities in those places are higher than in the United States.
The truth is that high-speed rail doesn’t work in Europe or Asia either. Japan and France have both spent about as much on high-speed rail as they have on their intercity freeway systems, yet the average residents of those countries travel by car 10 to 20 times as much as they travel by high-speed rail. They also fly domestically more than they take high-speed rail. While the highways and airlines pay for themselves out of gas taxes and other user fees, high-speed rail is heavily subsidized and serves only a tiny urban elite.
Which Is Greener?
Which uses less energy and emits less pollution: a train, a bus, or a car? Advocates of rail transportation rely on the public’s willingness to take for granted the assumption that trains — whether light rail, subways, or high-speed intercity rail — are the most energy-efficient and cleanest forms of transportation. But there is plenty of evidence that this is far from true.
Rail advocates often reason like this: the average car has 1.1 people in it. Compare the BTUs or carbon emissions per passenger mile with those from a full train, and the train wins hands down.
The problem with such hypothetical examples is that the numbers are always wrong. As a recent study from the University of California (Davis) notes, the load factors are critical.
Mixed Messages on Swine Flu
The government has taken the sensible step of creating a website to disseminate information on the Swine Flu. There’s even a “Swine Flu & You” section.
Unfortunately, someone forgot to tell Vice President Biden.
On the Today Show, Biden lauded the government’s focus on identified vectors and not on a wholesale closing of the border with Mexico or shutting down commercial airline traffic. Then he contradicted this rational message by saying he “wouldn’t go anywhere in confined places now” and discourages travel by plane, subway, or automobile.
No word on whether this will impact administration plans to use “high-speed rail” to revolutionize transportation in America.
Obama the Planner
New Republic editor John Judis has a couple of insights about the Obama administration’s economic and social goals. He points out that, for more than a century, Progressive and free-market forces have gone through cycles of “reform and reaction.”
The Progressives — who my friend John Baden calls the “American counterrevolutionaries” — have repeatedly sought to increase the size and scope of government: railroad regulation, public land agencies, and the income tax in the 1900s; Social Security, low-interest home loans, and government ownership of power plants in the 1930s; Medicare, the war on poverty, and environmental laws in the 1960s.
In between, friends of free markets tried to roll back those reforms, but were never completely successful. Thus, each successive reform era has further increased government power and reduced free markets.
Who’s Blogging about Cato
Here’s a round-up of bloggers who are writing about Cato research and commentary:
- National Review’s Mark Hemingway quoted Ilya Shapiro about the 9th Circuit Court of Appeal’s recent decision on gun laws. He also posted David Boaz’s reaction to the New York Times blog that stated that Cato has been “remarkably silent on bailouts.”
- QandO’s Michael Wade offered his own thoughts on the New York Times blogger who said Cato’s voice against bailouts has not met her “expectations of adequate noise.”
- Blogging about high-speed rail, The Reason Foundation’s Samuel Staley cited Randal O’Toole’s study, High-Speed Rail: The Wrong Road for America.
- At The New Republic’s “The Plank” blog, James Kirchick discussed last week’s Cato event, “Left Turn? South Africa after the Election.”
- The Atlantic’s Clive Crook reviewed the new Cato book, The Beautiful Tree, which explains how private education efforts are empowering children in Third World nations.
- Blogging on Tax Day, Jacob Grier cited Charlotte Twight’s essay in Cato Journal on the history of income tax withholding in the United States.
Obama’s Recycled Moderate-Speed Rail Plan
The Obama administration believes in recycling, as shown by the so-called high-speed rail plan it announced last week. Below is a map of the plan, and below that is a map of the Federal Railroad Administration’s 2005 high-speed rail plan. As you can see, the proposed routes are identical. (The grey lines on the first map represent conventional Amtrak routes.)
Thursday Podcast: ‘It’s Not High Speed Rail’
President Obama’s stimulus plan included about $8 billion for “high-speed rail” projects throughout the country.
But what Obama has in mind isn’t anything like the Japanese trains that have been clocked at over 300 miles per hour, says Cato Senior Fellow Randal O’Toole in Thursday’s Cato Daily Podcast. At best, it’s “moderate-speed rail,” and won’t include an interconnected network that will allow passenger transportation from coast to coast.
For more on American rail projects, check out O’Toole’s Policy Analysis, High-Speed Rail: The Wrong Road for America.
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