Photo: Shi YaliOne of the less-publicized components of the stimulus package was an $8 billion commitment to develop a high-speed rail (HSR) network in America. This is no more than a down payment, given the very large sums needed to build HSR (University of Minnesota transportation scholar David Levinson estimates that the proposed California segment alone will cost $80 billion, or more than $2,000 per Californian; given my state’s financial problems, this is going to require a very large bake sale).
Since this policy appears to be a personal favorite of the president and other officials, the needed funding may well materialize down the road. But it is worth asking whether the touted benefits will too.
Backers cite many gains to be reaped from HSR, including relieving crowding at airports and on highways; cutting the need for expensive new air and road infrastructure; preventing road fatalities; reducing travel times and costs; promoting economic development (particularly in areas not well covered by air service); improving travel reliability; boosting productivity; spurring technological advances; stimulating the economy/creating jobs; and, because HSR will run on electricity and may require less energy to move each passenger, reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
This is a long list and the blog is a short medium. So for now let’s just consider the final point about HSR’s environmental benefits. Under some conditions, there is no doubt that an HSR system would reduce greenhouse emissions. Unfortunately, a study undertaken by the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton for the U.K. Department for Transport raises some troublesome questions about whether these conditions can be met in reality.
Booz Allen considered two potential U.K. HSR lines (London-Manchester and London-Edinburgh/Glasgow). They found that the CO2 emissions required to move HSR passenger seats were about the same as those required to move automobile seats — hardly a slam dunk for rail. In fact, intercity bus came out considerably cleaner than HSR on a per-seat-mile basis.
HSR would emit less on a per-seat mile basis than air travel. But the major caveat is that all of these figures consider emissions from operations only, without taking into account the very large amount of pollution that will be created in the construction of the HSR system.
When the emissions spewed by all those earth movers, tunnel boring machines, bulldozers, trucks, cranes, etc. are taken into account, the carbon advantage for HSR vis a vis air travel largely evaporates.
What would the bottom line be if the proposed U.K. lines were built? It all depends on how many people shift from air to rail; the more HSR passengers the better. But the authors found that even if the mode split on the proposed London/Manchester line shifted from 50-50 air/rail (approximately the current distribution) to 100 percent rail ridership, emissions over a 60-year period would be lower if the HSR line was never built.
The picture for HSR is somewhat brighter for a proposed London/Scotland line, because that corridor currently has a low 15 percent rail share (meaning there’s more scope for people to switch to rail). But to make the rail line worthwhile, HSR would have to capture almost two-thirds of the air/rail split. This is not impossible, but it may prove difficult given that air travel has a considerable speed advantage over HSR and will continue to do so in the future. (For reference, even the California HSR authority, which strongly supports the program, forecasts that rail will attract only one third of the air/rail split in the California corridor).
There are, of course, many uncertainties involved in this type of analysis. Technological advances may make electricity production cleaner in the future (though airplanes’ fuel economy may improve as well). Obviously Britain is not the U.S. (although given its high population density and short distances, Britain may actually be a better place for HSR than most areas of our country).
Still, the results of this study deserve careful consideration. No one argues that futuristic rail isn’t a great way to get from Main Street U.S.A. to Epcot Center (usually). But given the very severe budget constraints we are currently facing, a program as costly as HSR should be evaluated very thoroughly despite its considerable allure.
Hat tip: David Bayliss
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Hmm. The big point is that the cost to move any goods (including people) is going to go up. Oil, diesel: they are only going to get much more expensive, maybe sooner than we project or wish.
Not building HSR might be penny wise but pound foolish as the only place we have to live is the future.
While David MacKay does not incorporate building costs (to my knowledge), he calculates HSR as 27x more efficient than cars if the train is full. It would take a very empty train to have the same (lack of) efficiency as a car. I’m not sure where his estimates grossly diverge from that of Booz Allen’s.
For shame. This is the kind of calculation that involves very intricate and complex assumptions about any number of data points. Consequently, the results of these calculations vary substantially from one another, and it is very difficult to get an idea of what the real differences might or not be if the assumptions are not provided with the results. Doing otherwise is at best setting up a straw man and at worst a piece of deceptive propaganda. In this environment, a single study is relatively meaningless; what is needed is a broad array of studies that can be compared with one another. This is particularly dangerous in light of what appears to be a concerted effort by industry to discredit the train (and “global warming” issues in general). A preliminary question: who paid for these studies? Examples of such complications include how much of the infrastructure is taken into account (e.g. is airplane/car/train manufacture considered?) and what that the infrastructure looks like (e.g. what about a general move away from coal?). A particularly essential assumption that remains undiscussed is the time frame involved, because the expense is much, much higher on the front end for building a high speed network than it is to run it. There are a number of fundamental reasons to think rail traffic would be fundamentally more efficient. To begin, most people seem pretty confident electric plugins would be more efficient than cars (this is mostly to do with internal combustion issues). Yet trains should for any number of reasons be more efficient than cars. First, with trains electricity does not have to converted from AC to DC and back as often. Second, trains have a much lower rolling resistance than cars. Third, weighted by carrying capacity trains have a *much* lower and sleeker profile and should have less air resistance despite traveling at twice the speed (i.e. the profile difference should be greater than a factor of four). Fourth, by carrying capacity, train lines should cost about what an equivalent road would cost. I fully admit that the most important variable is how much people will actually use a given rail line, but this would work itself out if the externalities caused by pollution were truly figured into the price. If the difference is great enough the incentive will be for business to promote rail travel and make it more effectively used.
@3 Noah–Where to start?
“If HSR is 100% electric, then it doesn’t have to emit anything. Cars and planes do.”
Whaaaa? HSR emissions occur upstream, beginning with the excavation/extraction of the fuel needed to power the electric plant.
“We can’t make any investment in sustainable technology without CO2 emissions in the short term.”
CO2 emissions will be with us short and long term. No getting around it.
“Once we replace the power plants, we will have a 0 emissions infrastructure in place without any additional investment or emissions.”
Look, we’re all supposed to be underwater in 100 years. That electrical infrastructure will not be replaced before we are all living in rafts.
What’s the prediction? Sea levels will rise a foot over the next century? I will make a bold prediction. 100 years from now, not one person will have gotten wet because of that rise in sea levels. Further, any dwelling/person that is currently within 10 yards of a coast line will….move inland about 20 yards. Problem solved for another 100 years.
I absolutely don’t understand the desire to completely overturn our entire economy/lifestyle for what has, according to many studies, little chance of success.
The day that our current methods of energy production become too costly, they will be replaced. Not before.
I’ll second some of the comments here.
I don’t believe that the comparrison is very fair. You are assuming that no new infrastructure would be required to keep up with future growth. California’s air and car corridors are basically at capcity so any passenger growth in the long term requires the same sort of infrastructure work and emissions as you are criticizing.
I’d like to see what happens to air travel if you add up the huge new airports (with their associated car trip to the park & ride lot) or worse, adding lane miles to highways from LA to SF.
My guess:
If you add the Seat Mile Emissions of any mode of transportation (total of per trip emissions and amortized construction emissions from the creation of that mode of transit) Rail would end up with a significant advantage in emissions once the expanded capacity is taken into account.
Lastly, the fact that Electricity sources are fungible once the power is generated means that the Rail Network is the only system that could get better emissions over time without replacing the vehicles (airliners can loast 40 years!).
A high speed rail network would be faster than or the same speed as a flight from Edinburgh to London.
Currently, with a regular train, the journey is 4 hours 45 minutes. A flight takes around one hour. However, both Edinburgh and London train stations are very central. This means you can arrive for a train just five minutes before it leaves, you need no connecting transport, there is no time consuming security and you do not have to wait for your bags at the other end.
Even with a low speed train, the time is about the same. A high speed train would be much faster than air travel.
> given that air travel has a considerable speed advantage over
> HSR and will continue to do so in the future
Does this “speed advantage” take into consideration all the time wasted at the airport? When I lived in DC I could get to NY considerably faster on the train than I could by plane because getting to the airport, checking in, going through security, etc added so much more time to the trip that it wasn’t worth it.
Because of the space needs, airports are rarely close to the city. In contrast, train stations are much smaller and are usually very close to where people live.
Airplanes are dependent on high-quality liquid fuel. If for any reason the supply was disrupted or the cost went way up, the cost comparison would tilt towards rail.
The amount spent on repairing and upgrading freeways is enormous, and also currently dependent on fossil fuels.
There are 40,000 deaths from auto accidents every year. Extrapolating from that, it’s boggling how many injuries to people and damage to cars there must be. While one big train crash could be spectacularly awful, I doubt the stats would work out worse than that.
If building High Speed Rail also means re-building a working rail system for local use and goods transport, I am so for it.