America will suffer because of the budget compromise

[Cobalt]

You can say what you want about my numbers, but you presented some infantile point that only worked because you deceptively edited my post. You attempted to make a charge of hypocrisy, but only managed to reveal your inadequacies or malicious intent.

Curiously your numbers work only via a massive "if." You even say so yourself.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2...he-environmental-benefits-of-high-speed-rail/

So, if everyone used trains instead of planes and cars, there would be an enormous drop in carbon release. Couple trains with cleaner sources of electricity and the benefit over the internatal combustion engine is even more radical.

Now, the second question is whether this is the most cost effective way to reduce greenhouse gasses. Once again, we arrive at the sloppy math where the cost of building rail is factored into train travel but somehow road building, maintenance and the massive subsidies for the automotive and oil industries are ignored.

That "study" is just a reiteration of the sloppy analysis that underlies all of the anti-rail arguments. It doesn't even try to isolate rail travel, it just analyzes a specific program suggested in California and doesn't bother to control any variables.

Good try though!

Amusing how whiney you guys are.

Amusing how you think you're so much better yet are just as childish as anyone else here. Grow up, little boy.

 

[Dorian Gray]

The costs are almost entirely covered by the government, the economic benefit only indirectly goes back into our coffers through tax dollars.

Opponents of HSR, by contrast, demand that the cost of the rail be covered by the tickets it sells. We do not impose this same limitation on automobile travel, otherwise we would never build a single road.

So, we're going to pay for rail with our taxes? But wait.... toll roads? Isn't that how some roads get built, by charging to drive on them?

False dilemma. Why does building new rail depend on allowing existing infrastructure to crumble?

The expense, the fact that we have cars and planes that cover all ranges of travel....

You are, of course, completely wrong about what can "ill afford." When international investors are anxious to invest money in the United States, offering rates substantially below our rate of growth, we can ill afford NOT to invest in our nation's infrastructure. Light rail in metropolitan ares would be an awesome allocation of investment (Chicago also could use a few jobs, you may have seen), and light rail is another great investment.

There's already rail in Chicago and many other metropolitan areas. Now, you can't tell me that a) we need another rail system in those areas or b) we could build one rail system without tearing down the other one.

And you haven't even considered the cost of adding tens of thousands of Homeland Security people screening everyone who got on trains.

 

[TraneWreck]

The price for reducing carbon emissions via high speed rail is MUCH higher than available alternatives. It's incredibly inefficient for that purpose. You haven't actually challenged those numbers, and your link doesn't actually suggest otherwise. Almost all of the benefits your own source cites come from factors other than reduced carbon emissions. And whether doing something like reducing oil industry subsidies would be efficient is a completely separate matter.

I enjoy how you act like I haven't considered the price element when I specifically talk about the price element.

Are there more efficient ways to reduce carbon emissions? Of course. Does that mean rail doesn't decrease carbon emissions? Obviously not.

If the sole argument in favor of rail is that it was a cheap way to reduce carbon, then it wouldn't be justified. The drastic difference in carbon emission per mile is one of many factors in its favor.

So you're dismissing that because it's not about all rail everywhere?

In part. Saying, "This specific plan for a HSR in California is a bad idea," is different than saying, "HSR is a bad idea." The study you offer goes into very specific detail about that study, and doesn't have all that much to say about rail travel in general.

The California plan is a crappy one. So was the Florida one. You have yet to show that there's a plan anywhere in the US right now that isn't crappy.

Every specific proposed rail plan in the country could be a bad one, and that still wouldn't mean HSR was a bad idea.

All options in the budget negotiation, whether offered by democrats or republicans, were terrible. That doesn't mean a quality budget could not exist.

Off topic and irrelevant.

No, rather interesting. THe states that are most closely aligned with your political and economic ideology require welfare support from the states that are least aligned with your political and economic ideology.

I would find that troubling, were I you.

It would benefit California even more. So you're failing (still) to make ANY case for why this should be federal and not state funds.

THis is one of the sillier points you've expressed. All federal spending projects benefit the state their located in more than the other states. That doesn't mean they don't benefit them at all.

As for the specific source of funding, I have no conceptual issue with California footing the bill. Were this 1998, I would probably argue that they should.

But given the current economic climate, federal projects are exactly what we need. The HSR has the secondary (at this time) benefit of being a quality allocation of resources, but what needs to happen is government support of demand.

Or that money could just be spent directly on those "retarded states".

Right, increase the welfare without helping the states that are paying. How very socialist of you.

Oh, please. Stop with the pathetic posturing.
http://www.interstate50th.org/docs/techmemo2.pdf
"Net rate of social return on highway capital was about 35% in the 1950s and 60s; it declined to about 10% in the 1980s, or just about equal to rates of return on private capital. Nonetheless, the overall contribution to social welfare from Interstate highway investment has been enormous over the life cycle of the interstate system."

Now, what's your numbers? Got any?

It's amusing how proud you are of such a misguided effort. Did I ask whether the interstate highway system was an economic benefit overall? Nope, not even close.

I asked you to prove that interstate highways in rural locations were a net benefit. You claim it's obvious, but my guess is that the vast majority of the economic benefit generated by the Interstate system came from interstates on the Eastern seaboard.

In other words, would we have spent less money and made about the same back if we didn't pay for I-80 in Western Nebraska and SOuthern Wyoming? I-70 would be sufficient to connect the major cities (Denver, Vegas, those in California) to the more populous East. What's our return on that investment?

And the difference isn't really obvious to you? No, it is. You cannot honestly be so stupid as to not understand the difference in external benefits of a transportation system with through traffic and a system throughout. The reason you're getting your panties in a bunch has nothing to do with the fact that you don't understand the difference. You just think you can back me into a corner so you don't have to prove that a transportation system without through traffic has sufficient external benefits.

The Federal government pays for the upkeep of the Grand Canyon. Explain the value of that expenditure of federal dollars to states that are not Arizona under your economic theory.

 

[TraneWreck]

Curiously your numbers work only via a massive "if." You even say so yourself.

Good try though!

Good lord, you might be the worst one yet.

What was I trying to prove with that "if?" It was pretty simple: that per mile, trains emit significantly less carbon that cars and airplanes.

That's, you know, true.

*smarmy self-congratulatory sanctimony expressed through a needlessly sarcastic tag*

Amusing how you think you're so much better yet are just as childish as anyone else here. Grow up, little boy.

Haha. It's like being in a chat-room in 1995.

Let me see if I remember the proper response. Oh yeah:

"Bruh, like, I bet u r fat and don't talk to girls and live in your parents' basement."

Now you reply: "At least I'm not gay, dude."

 

[Dorian Gray]

Personally, I'm not in love with high speed rail per se, but I do see expanding our rail infrastructure generally as a useful measure toward mitigating some of the problems we are facing.

Whoa, calm down and back away from all that enthusiasm and strong language.

It's not necessarily quite that simple. I hope you will take the time to look at this Wiki article (I linked it above) discussing the Great American Streetcar Scandal.

That couldn't be repeated today. Streetcars, as the name suggests, didn't go across the country.

It's essentially the same as saying, "It's safe to say that for the foreseeable future, gasoline prices will not rise sharply" -- because when gasoline prices do rise sharply, so does rail ridership:

Amtrak had more riders in March than it has had in any March in its 40 years of existence, the company said Thursday.

So Amtrak will lose a few hundred million less than usual? Well, then let's all get behind this obvious moneymaker!

This 2008 article indicates that it happened the last time gas prices spiked, too:

DENVER — With the price of gas approaching $4 a gallon, more commuters are abandoning their cars and taking the train or bus instead.

A bit of a no-brainer, really.

Sure is. You definitely shouldn't sink billions of dollars into high speed rail infrastructure based on the temporary fluctuations of the volatile oil market. Good point, dude.

 

[TraneWreck]

So, we're going to pay for rail with our taxes? But wait.... toll roads? Isn't that how some roads get built, by charging to drive on them?

Do toll roads and gas taxes cover the entirety of the cost we sink in roads and highways?

The expense, the fact that we have cars and planes that cover all ranges of travel....

Again, we WILL be building new infrastructure. We will add 100,000,000 people over the next century. That new infrastructure can be clean, efficient trains, or it can be the old, equally as expensive auto/plane centric model.

This really isn't an issue of replacement. It's how we're going to move forward.

There's already rail in Chicago and many other metropolitan areas. Now, you can't tell me that a) we need another rail system in those areas or b) we could build one rail system without tearing down the other one.

HSR would be aimed at travel between metropolitan areas.

And you haven't even considered the cost of adding tens of thousands of Homeland Security people screening everyone who got on trains.

Are they like the tens of thousands of IRS workers that poofed into existence to enforce the Affordable Health Care Act?

 

[Dorian Gray]

You're missing the point. Our economy developed around roads and the government covered almost all of that cost, especially after the automobile was developed. At no point were roads required to cover their own cost in the same way you are demanding high speed rail does.

Incorrect. Our taxes on car tags, inspections, etc., and our income taxes pay for roads. And as I said before, toll roads make you pay to drive on them. I have no idea if they pay for themselves, but I'm betting it's closer than if they didn't have tolls.

 

[TraneWreck]

Incorrect. Our taxes on car tags, inspections, etc., and our income taxes pay for roads. And as I said before, toll roads make you pay to drive on them. I have no idea if they pay for themselves, but I'm betting it's closer than if they didn't have tolls.

Instead of betting, you could figure out if it's true or not.

The Asset Value Index, was developed to compare the full 40-year life-cycle costs to the revenues attributable to a given road corridor or section. The shorthand version calculates how much gasoline is consumed on a roadway and how much gas tax revenue that generates.

The Asset Value Index is the ratio of the total expected revenues divided by the total expected costs. If the ratio is 0.60, the road will produce revenues to meet 60 percent of its costs; it would be "paid for" only if the ratio were 1.00, when the revenues met 100 percent of costs. Another way of describing this is to do a "tax gap" analysis, which shows how much the state fuel tax would have to be on that given corridor for the ratio for revenues to match costs.

Applying this methodology, revealed that no road pays for itself in gas taxes and fees. For example, in Houston, the 15 miles of SH 99 from I-10 to US 290 will cost $1 billion to build and maintain over its lifetime, while only generating $162 million in gas taxes. That gives a tax gap ratio of .16, which means that the real gas tax rate people would need to pay on this segment of road to completely pay for it would be $2.22 per gallon.

http://scienceblogs.com/mikethemadbiologist/2008/07/the_real_cost_of_roads_222_per.php

Using Federal Highway Administration statistics, Subsidyscope has calculated that in 2007, 51 percent of the nation's $193 billion set aside for highway construction and maintenance was generated through user fees—down from 10 years earlier when user fees made up 61 percent of total spending on roads. The rest came from other sources, including revenue generated by income, sales and property taxes, as well as bond issues.

http://subsidyscope.org/transportation/highways/funding/

That doesn't mean roads are a bad idea, it just means that they cost a lot. We don't require drivers to pay for roads yet we demand that riders pay for HSR. All forms of transportation require subsidies. That government investment is returned because of the economic benefit that transportation provides. It's ludicrous to pretend everything but rail covers its costs in use.

 

[TraneWreck]

Incidentally, here is a study on the economic impact of HSR in San Francisco:

By 2030, high-speed rail will produce a sustained 1.1 percent increase in employment, or 48,000 new jobs in the Bay Area. Half of those jobs will be in service industries such as government, finance, real estate and insurance. Wholesale and retail trade, transportation, communication and utilities will account for approximately one-quarter of this anticipated growth. The project will stimulate between $6.9 and $8 billion in construction spending within the region, mainly for tracks, stations and related infrastructure. This will directly and indirectly generate between 100,000 and 128,000 Bay Area jobs during the period of construction. Jobs created in the construction, rail and transit sectors will pay high wages, and will have a high rate of unionization compared to statewide averages.

The alternative that high-speed rail offers will provide significant relief to congestion in the Los Angeles–San Francisco air corridor, the most heavily trafficked in the country. In 2005, there were 8.6 million air trips, which accounted for 43 percent of all intercity trips between the two regions. With limited runway space and few options for expansion, all three Bay Area airports—San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose—face long-term capacity constraints. If built, high-speed rail to Southern California will relieve long-term air traffic congestion in the region by shifting a portion of short-haul, in-state air traffic to trains that deliver competitive travel times. This will allow airports to allocate more of their existing capacity to long-distance and international flights, and will reduce congestion and improve the travel experience for travelers using the airports. SFO will see the greatest impact.

CO2 emission reduction is becoming a significant goal for many Bay Area businesses and communities. High-speed rail will help the state meet the CO2 emissions targets outlined in the Global Warming Solutions Act (AB32) by reducing CO2 emissions in California by 12 billion pounds annually by 2030. Traveling by high-speed train will use one-third the energy of a similar trip by air, and one fifth the energy if the trip were made by car. A high-speed rail trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles will save 324 pounds of CO2 over the same trip by car. The same trip from San Jose to Los Angeles will generate 288 pounds less CO2.

http://www.bayeconfor.org/media/files/pdf/CaliforniaHigh-SpeedRailOct2008Web.pdf

 

[Dorian Gray]

Do toll roads and gas taxes cover the entirety of the cost we sink in roads and highways?

I don't know, but if they don't, why would you want to double that by making another transportation system that doesn't support itself? Especially when Amtrak already doesn't do that?

Again, we WILL be building new infrastructure. We will add 100,000,000 people over the next century. That new infrastructure can be clean, efficient trains, or it can be the old, equally as expensive auto/plane centric model.

This really isn't an issue of replacement. It's how we're going to move forward.

I think I speak for millions when I say "there's no way a train could be put close enough to my house to justify giving up a car, so I don't want to give up my car OR pay for something I'm not going to use."

HSR would be aimed at travel between metropolitan areas.

Since cars would still be in use, roads and highways would still be required to be repaired. You're just not thinking this through. All the trucking companies - you expect them to switch to rail? Well, they won't, meaning we'd then have to keep two different sets of transportation infrastructure (3 if you count air) in good repair and functional. How can you not see that this would be at least twice as expensive with little benefit?

Are they like the tens of thousands of IRS workers that poofed into existence to enforce the Affordable Health Care Act?

No.

 

[Dorian Gray]

Instead of betting, you could figure out if it's true or not.


http://scienceblogs.com/mikethemadbiologist/2008/07/the_real_cost_of_roads_222_per.php


http://subsidyscope.org/transportation/highways/funding/

That doesn't mean roads are a bad idea, it just means that they cost a lot. We don't require drivers to pay for roads yet we demand that riders pay for HSR. All forms of transportation require subsidies. That government investment is returned because of the economic benefit that transportation provides. It's ludicrous to pretend everything but rail covers its costs in use.

I'm sorry, but I was betting on tolls. Nothing here covers tolls. And it was a sucker bet, if you took it, because if tolls brought in $1, that's still better than nothing, which is the bet I made.

In any case, this is a weak argument. "Roads don't pay for themselves, so let's build another transportation that doesn't pay for itself, because Amtrak isn't losing enough money."

 

[Newtons Bit]

And here we go again. Temper tantrums without actual quality argument. If you disagree, fine. SHow where the studies went wrong and provide your own citation.

The cost of rail tickets could be similarly hidden through subsidies to rail companies. The government could build the track and other infrastructure and not require ticket prices to reflect this expenditure like we do with gas at the pump. That would make the cost argument much different.

I did show how they're wrong. They're increasing the cost of fuel by saying that the price at the pump should include the price of your car. That's not the cost of fuel. It's not a subsidy. That's the cost of a car!

 

[Newtons Bit]

Of course water prices are heavily subsidized. That's a very good thing. There's nothing inherently wrong with subsidizing prices.

But when you try to compare industries with drastically different levels of subsidy based on cost alone, that government assistance should be considered.

Wow, I didn't think that could actually go over someones head. Thanks for proving me wrong.

 

[TraneWreck]

I did show how they're wrong. They're increasing the cost of fuel by saying that the price at the pump should include the price of your car. That's not the cost of fuel. It's not a subsidy. That's the cost of a car!

I'm sorry, what implement do you use to avail yourself of the highway system? I, and most folks, use cars or related structures based on the internal combustion engine. Typically you need one of these "cars" to drive on a "road."

Similarly, "trains" run on "rails." Now, you may have noticed that there are some differences. For one, roads sometimes have yellow stripes down the middle and are good places to pick up drifters. Rails often have to parallel metal bars and are more appealing to hobos.

Nevertheless, were we to consider the cost of rail travel, we would likely need to contemplate both the rail tracks and the train itself. On a national level, both these things would need to be considered to have an idea of what we spend on "train travel."

Thus, one would imagine that consideration of the cost of road travel would similarly contemplate the cost of cars. Subsidies at every level of the automotive process from materials to parts to assembly has made cars very affordable. It's wonderful that our nation has the wealth to make travel accessible to basically the entire population. This is unique on a worldwide level.

You have somehow confused an understanding of the cost with an attempted guilt trip. This is not the case, it's simply an attempt to honestly compare alternatives. Keeping those costs hidden leads to a poor study.

Wow, I didn't think that could actually go over someones head. Thanks for proving me wrong.

No, it was pretty obvious. You thought you'd try a reductio, but it was based on your misunderstanding of the point about subsidies. There's nothing evil about gas and oil subsides. They make travel by car affordable for a huge number of people which, until we learned about the environmental costs, was a very good thing (setting aside those other externalities, like reliance on the whims of insane Middle Eastern regimes...).

The reason these subsidies need to be considered in this discussion is not to engage in the cartoonish guilt trip that you saw fit to express in your post, but to obtain a realistic comparison of the costs of rail and automotive travel.

But please, continue to condescend with you brilliant comments.

 

[mortimer]

that per mile, trains emit significantly less carbon that cars and airplanes.

And bicycles emit even less per mile. It's not a useful measure unless you factor in ridership.

 

[TraneWreck]

I'm sorry, but I was betting on tolls. Nothing here covers tolls. And it was a sucker bet, if you took it, because if tolls brought in $1, that's still better than nothing, which is the bet I made.

So if tolls total $1 they cover the cost of the roads?

The mere fact that tolls are needed sort of proves that the roads aren't covering their own expense.

Make every road in the country a toll road and then let's compare cost of use per mile.

In any case, this is a weak argument. "Roads don't pay for themselves, so let's build another transportation that doesn't pay for itself, because Amtrak isn't losing enough money."

That would be a weak argument. Good thing only the voices in your head have suggested such a thing.

The point is that all forms of transportations require significant government subsidy. We are already investing money, we will continue to invest. There is a need for new infrastructure because of population growth, thus we will actually have to build some form of transportation, none of which pays for itself.

When we discuss building new roads to accommodate this growth, the argument that they "pay for themselves" is never deployed. Yet HSR is held to that standard.

 

[TraneWreck]

And bicycles emit even less per mile. It's not a useful measure unless you factor in ridership.

The comparison was between modes of transportation that satisfy similar distances and ridership was included in the discussion. Of course, that's a separate argument to the simple fact of which mode of transportation is cleaner from a carbon perspective. Yes, bikes are great, they don't apply to the same type of inter-city travel.

 

[tyr_13]

You have a hell of a knack for completely missing the point. Sure, HSR will slightly decrease use of interstates and airports, but not enough to reduce any expenditures on said roads and airports. Nor will HSR get you from any given Point A to any given Point B that said roads or airports don't already service. So what will HSR accomplish? At best, you get a redundant service that costs many billions of dollars and likely will require heavy subsidies for the entire life of the system. It's a solution in search of a problem.

The interstate didn't take anyone where they couldn't already drive. The original train systems didn't take us anywhere you couldn't get by boat (assuming you wanted to take that LONG ass trip).

Eliminating additional expenditures on roads and airports isn't the point as those are going to have to be expanded as well. They won't need expanded as much if rail is a viable option.

The problem is that we aren't getting as much benefits as we could. It isn't that roads and air doesn't work, but that they don't work as well in certain ways, and are getting less and less attractive over time.

We didn't need an interstate either. It wasn't a solution to a problem, but a better way of doing things.

And the point of this option is...? Can you justify the cost?

Again, if HSR located entirely within the state of California is such a good investment, then California should be able to fund it themselves. Why should Chicago residents pay for a HSR system in California they'll never use, while their own mass transit infrastructure is crumbling? I remember when the CTA trains used to be called "rapid transit", they dropped that years ago because it no longer was, given all the slow zones in the system due to disrepair.

So because the CTA was miss handled, all rail use is suspect?

Chicago should pay for California doing it to see if it works, if it can be expanded, and the used for the greater good of the Union. You do remember that we're one country right? You seem to act like we're still these United States, and not the United States.

That's the argument for. I'm not set in stone over it the way you seem to be dead set against it, despite providing nothing more than thought arguments against it. There are other ways to get this done, and HSR is one of those options.

Why should Chicago pay for highway maintenance and expansion in California? Well, seeing as Cali pays out more to the fed than it gets back in the first place, why should Cali pay for roads in Alabama?

 

[Cobalt]

Good lord, you might be the worst one yet.

What was I trying to prove with that "if?" It was pretty simple: that per mile, trains emit significantly less carbon that cars and airplanes.

That's, you know, true.

*smarmy self-congratulatory sanctimony expressed through a needlessly sarcastic tag*

You act like they mean something, yet you've not shown there would be a large enough rise in rail passengers to make those numbers meaningful. Yeah, there's a lot of lovely "ifs" in the world. But they're just "ifs."

Haha. It's like being in a chat-room in 1995.

Let me see if I remember the proper response. Oh yeah:

"Bruh, like, I bet u r fat and don't talk to girls and live in your parents' basement."

Now you reply: "At least I'm not gay, dude."

Meh. At least in my day trolling meant something.

 

[Kestrel]

Since cars would still be in use, roads and highways would still be required to be repaired. You're just not thinking this through. All the trucking companies - you expect them to switch to rail? Well, they won't, meaning we'd then have to keep two different sets of transportation infrastructure (3 if you count air) in good repair and functional. How can you not see that this would be at least twice as expensive with little benefit?

Most other developed countries have three effective passenger transportation systems. A road network, a rail network and an air travel network. Air travel works best for long distances. If it's less than two hours by train, the speed advantage of air travel is lost due to the additional time required to travel to and from the airport. The three modes of travel complement each other.