http://madrad2002.wordpress.com/2009/08/24/robert-samuelsons-column-is-a-train-wreck/

On nobody’s HSR list, but two of the top five metropolitan areas in the country by population (well, Houston is very close to Philly and may have passed it, but I’m not sure) with fast growing populations and separated by less than 300 miles. Even if it’s not on anybody’s list, that city pair sure looks like it fits all the standard requirements for HSR. Do you really think that his back of the envelope numbers would have looked better with other choices?

New York-Philly is the only city pair that would do better, where we already have Acela. But this rail funding isn’t about Acela.

Yes, fine the other rail proposals outside of California aren’t for 150+ mph rail. But if 150+ mph wouldn’t work Houston-Dallas, then it’s not going to work almost anywhere in the country outside the NEC. And don’t say that these moderate speed upgrades are going to help 150+ mph HSR– that would require all new track and these changes would do nothing to help it.

So if you’re admitting that most of America has too low population density to support European-style speeds of HSR, but 110 and 125 mph trains would be helpful, then fine. But don’t just say, “No one is proposing faster speeds right now, so I don’t want to talk about it.” Say you would actively oppose such proposals right now because the economics doesn’t support it, or else I can’t take you seriously.

But that is not the question he actually addressed. He may have claimed that he was looking at that, but what he addressed was a narrower question.

The question Glaeser addressed was whether two cities less than 300 miles apart with Dallas and Houston’s population and current air market but without their growth rates and without the options of 110mph Emerging HSR or 125mph Regional HSR and with no new demand for transport generated by faster trips at lower price would find it economically justified.

The NEC already has over 1.5m rides for the sub-Emerging HSR trip speeds on the Acela, and both California and Florida are growing rather than ZPG states, so the hypothetical question addressed does not apply to proposed Express HSR in any of those three corridors.

The Midwest Hub, Ohio Hub, Southeast Corridor, Cascades Corridor, Gulf Coast Corridor and New England Corridors are all proposed for 110mph, so the hypothetical question addressed does not apply to proposed Emerging HSR in any of those six corridors/systems.

So the question Glaeser addressed was not actually about the real world HSrail policy … though Morris and Samuelson claimed that it was.

At best Glaeser’s hypothetical addresses why the direct Houston/Dallas alignment that was in the Texas Triangle may be less economically appealing than the T-Bone, which increases ridership by giving Fort Hood, Temple and College Station direct connections to Houston that they lack in the Texas Triangle.

But that is a far cry from the intellectually dishonest characterizations of his analysis that Morris and Samuelson have engaged in.

Glaeser wouldn’t be much of an American economist if he couldn’t do a little fast footwork with figures. The fact remains that airlines in Europe have invested in HSR and are substituting HSR routes for short hops because it makes sense.

No, the question Glaeser addressed is whether HSR would be economically rational. His answer is that it would not be. Whether providing some other new form of transportation, or expanding the capacity of an existing one, would be economically rational are different questions.

Unless you are suggesting that mobility is unnecessary, this is nonsense. People have to travel *somehow*. The question is how.

Longman’s argument is almost entirely about FREIGHT rail, not passenger rail, so I’m not sure what you think it has to do with Samuelson’s piece.

I suspect Samuelson would agree with Longman that we should encourage the diversion of freight transportation from highways to rail. It would free up highway capacity for passenger traffic.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2009/0901.longman.html

Except consider Glaeser’s back of the envelope analysis.

Its easy for the innumerate to throw around vague adjectives to cover over the fact that they can’t work the numbers, but actually Glaeser’s numbers said very clearly that the incremental, private benefits alone would cover the costs at under 10m passenger per year. Since there are corridors that can easily expect well over 10m passengers per year, your claim of “highly irrational” is just bluffing.

And with the an Emerging HSR corridor costing $8m/mile or less, rather than his estimated $40m/mile, even the corridor he chose easily gets over the bar he himself set for the hypothetical corridor, a Houston/Dallas corridor where some mysterious force has imposed Zero Population Growth.

Because he did not look at total transport benefit of the line, but net benefit to switching from flying to using the line. That means he is assuming that there are no new people who need new transport capacity.

In a growing area, where the full transport benefit is included, even 1.5m riders per year gets much closer than he estimated for Express HSR, on private transport benefit/cost alone.

And since an Emerging HSR corridor would be the cheapest way to add transport capacity, with any populatio growth it becomes a slam dunk.

He doesn’t need to consider the costs and benefits of alternatives to HSR. The question he is addressing is whether the benefits of HSR would outweigh its costs. And his answer is that they would not. HSR is economically irrational. Not just a little irrational, but highly irrational. The benefits don’t even come close to the costs.