We took a week and a half off from High Cost Rail, but a piece from John Horgan ends the hiatus. He writes:
This month, Liam Julian, a fellow at the Hoover Institution, produced a lengthy and devastating critique of the many questionable assumptions involved in the plans for high-speed rail nationally and, in particular, Florida and California.
The Hoover link is here and the report notes that
A September 2008 report from the Reason Foundation concluded that California’s ridership projections at the time were “absurdly high — so much so that they could well rank among the most unrealistic projections produced for a major transport project anywhere in the world.” The report continued: “Under a passenger-mile per route-mile standard, the chsra [High Speed Rail Authority] is projecting higher passenger use of the California system than is found on the Japanese and French hsr [high-speed rail] networks despite the fact that these countries have conditions that are far more favorable to the use of hsr.”
That gets us back to the cost to the taxpayers and Liam notes
The designers of Florida’s and California’s proposed high-speed rail routes say that ticket sales will pay for their respective system’s operating costs. No doubt those who are planning lines in other American corridors will say the same. The claims are surpassingly dubious. Only two dedicated high-speed railways in the world — one connecting Tokyo and Osaka, and the other between Paris and Lyon — have ever broken even on their initial and ongoing expenditures. And many European high-speed rail systems that are deemed cost-effective actually receive lots of extra help.
Having talked to dozens of people at Art in the Park about High Cost Rail, I heard that concern start to come to the fore.
And here is another expert weighing in on the environmental aspect:
Referring to a research report on proposed high-speed rail lines between Los Angeles and San Francisco, Cox went on to note that “our work in California suggests that the cost per ton of greenhouse gas emissions removed by high-speed rail would be on the order of $1,800. The [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] says we ought not to spend more than $50 per ton.”
Cox points out a shocking statistic from a University of California study, which “suggests that the California high-speed rail system would take 71 years to pay back the greenhouse gas emissions that are used in construction. It really is not the environmental winner that a lot of people say that it is.”
http://www.examiner.com/x-43619-Charlottesville-Libertarian-Examiner~y2010m6d28-Transportation-policy-expert-Wendell-Cox-points-out-paradoxes-of-highspeed-rail
Posted by: Joe | June 29, 2010 at 01:58 PM
HCR Installation 21:
http://www.its.berkeley.edu/publications/UCB/2010/RR/UCB-ITS-RR-2010-1.pdf
Executive Summary
"We have reviewed the key components of the California High Speed Rail Ridership Studies. The primary contractor for these studies, Cambridge Systematics (CS), has
followed generally accepted professional standards in carrying out the demand modeling and analysis. Nevertheless we have found some significant problems that render the key demand forecasting models unreliable for policy analysis. This Executive Summary describes the most serious problems. The body of this report elaborates on these problems and describes additional concerns we have.“
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No doubt lots of spinning will come out of this one- particularly because nobody is paying enough attention.
How much more will be our cities be burdened with HSR related work without any compensation? Who in the legislature will finally pull the plug? It can't be too soon.
Posted by: Jennifer | July 03, 2010 at 07:29 AM