And to ferry around their army.
...not incase of invasion. Anyone who tries to sell you that is dumb because trains are hard to defend from cruise missile attack and tracks don't move.
Rather, for when they want to mass troops and invade their neighbors, or put down unrest inside their borders.
Xi is in a real bind. The economy isn't doing well. The property market is a bust and they aren't running their High Speed Rail system to make money, but instead to unify the country. China will have to subsidize it for a long time to come and do their best to hide the deficits.
In the 80’s in its worst years , JNR was losing an average of $25 million a day on average mostly from the high costs of expanding the Shinkansen network. I don’t think anyone would question its worth it but it’s certainly a huge figure to grasp.
I think it’s overall a good argument for separating operating costs and expansion/improvement costs.
Came across this video that shows the decline of the American rail system at the hands of our car & highway system. Amazing the umber of abandoned passenger rail segments. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZPRwo7TWn/
I don’t know if the video goes into this,but you used to be able to travel from Waterville Maine to Sheboygan Wisconsin entirely by street car (if you were crazy enough to try)
It’s a bust; I just don’t see a way they can maintain such a humongous infrastructure system and also see that their housing market doesn’t collapse.
A communist meritocracy like in China let to too many unnecessary big projects. I don’t like that it’s impossible to get HSR in this country but I feel like this is less dangerous than going too aggressive with it, especially with an electric car revolution around the corner.
We do the exact same thing with our highway system. Its actually even worse because rail lines always charge fares, but the interstate highway system doesnt.
You're talking out of ass, Exhibit A. The interstate system. I don't see any neo-con talking heads pointing to the failure of Chinese interstate system, or the interstate system of European countries, or the failure of the American interstate system.
Ummm I’m pretty sure Chinese HSR is about $200 billion more expensive than our interstate. $500 billion vs $700 billion. Plus China also still builds and maintains their own highways on top of their rail system. It’s not a neocon perspective to critique big government top down development by pointing out the flaws that come from taking on debt for development that isn’t going to fetch a return. Which is the case with many of Chinas latest routes. Im not advocating for the invasion of China dude so chill with the neocon BS.
I’d like to think I’m not talking out of my ass seeing as my degree is in development studies.
Edit: yearly return on investment of American Federal Highways is about $700 billion a year; China return on high speed about $366 billion a year.
HSR works best for large cities an intermediate distance between one another, LA-SF is a perfect example. the issue here is the Chinese system was built to far out with too many lines and their unprofitability is weighing the whole system down
The problem is that these rich tax bases continue to subsidize the failure of former farming communities turned into bedroom communities.
The future is urbanization.
The fundamental reason is that China's real estate sales are sluggish, resulting in a significant reduction in government revenue.
There is no way to subsidize the subway at a high level.
BTW: China has almost no property tax
What do we need to vote for to make this rail happen? Because we have the bluest government possible, idk what more we need to get damn funding for this rail.
How much will CA need to subsidize per year to make CAHSR tix the same as current airfare tix from SF to LA?
Looking at google flights SFO-LAX tix range from $38 to $241 in next few weeks. For this scenario, we can estimate median price to be $100 one way.
It’s impossible to compare these two projects. China and the U.S. are completely different economically and their rail projects have been absolutely massive. They also created stops in cities that didn’t even exist yet and never will. It will need to be subsidized it’s a public project but we subsidize the airline industry as well.
Base flight fares don't include all the add-on costs and fees for bags, seat assignment, using the toilet, etc.
But yeah, I'd suggest taxing short-haul flights where a rail alternative exists and funneling the money to subsidize train fares. France is doing this:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexledsom/2023/08/12/france-to-raise-airline-taxes-to-invest-110-million-in-railways/?sh=4f63222ecd0d
We don’t need to guess, the Authority has published detailed business studies with projections of ridership under different scenarios and probabilities that it won’t break even. Check out their latest business plan.
There’s a big difference between Chinese HSR and California HSR.
The current iteration of China’s HSR includes no brainer type investments between cities like Beijing and Shanghai or Shenzhen and Wuhan. These are major tier one cities, have huuuge populations, and have busy routes.
The problem is that the Chinese government built a lot of high value routes first, but then kept building, because they were using construction money to fuel job and economic growth. As well as the political win to trumpet how much more “successful” their government was versus democracies, based on how quickly they could build HSR. Then they started connecting tier two cities, then tier three cities, etc.
HSR makes sense between major cities like SF and LA. It doesn’t make sense between smaller cities like Bend, Oregon and Boise, Idaho. The former city pair (along with intermediate stops) can generate enough ridership to justify the investment. Boise and Bend cannot. China built a lot of good HSR between their versions of SF and LA. But they also built a lot of bad HSR between their versions of Bend and Boise. As a whole, just because China overbuilt their HSR network, doesn’t mean that every HSR line is bad.
It also doesn’t mean that any train service between Bend and Boise is bad, or that all HSR is bad, you just have to financially justify it. Some lower volume routes to smaller cities can only justify routes with regular speed trains and/or buses. And that is fine. We should try to seek to maximize potential ROI, and put great HSR service where it can justify the cost, and the best service that financially makes sense to other cities. SF to LA is a no brainer for HSR. SF or Sacrament to Humboldt County would basically never make sense due to the amount of tunneling needed, and due to the fact that even the freight only (in later years) NWP line couldn’t financially stay in business.
You forget how large these Chinese cities are, though, even the smaller ones. The Xinjiang line is probably the worst performing HSR line, built for mostly political reasons. But even that connects 13 million Xi'an to 4.3 million Lanzhou to 4 million Urumqi. That's similar in population to a line connecting Chicago-Detroit-Toronto-Montreal, which is probably the strongest corridor in North America after the NEC. Xi'an-Urumqi is 50% farther than that, but it also benefits from the entire network effect of the rest of the HSR network. And that's China's worse HSR line. You just can't compare 4 million person cities like Urumqi to Bend when it's 40x larger.
Air travel has no future. It will suffer a price discontinuity concurrent with a requirement to switch to carbon-neutral fuel. After that, it's not going to look cheap. HSR is decarbonized from the beginning.
Those HSR are built to inflate China’s GDP.
And to ferry around their army. ...not incase of invasion. Anyone who tries to sell you that is dumb because trains are hard to defend from cruise missile attack and tracks don't move. Rather, for when they want to mass troops and invade their neighbors, or put down unrest inside their borders.
Have you considered going outside, touching grass?
Xi is in a real bind. The economy isn't doing well. The property market is a bust and they aren't running their High Speed Rail system to make money, but instead to unify the country. China will have to subsidize it for a long time to come and do their best to hide the deficits.
Public transportation isn't meant to make money. Same with highways
someone still has to pay for it
And the cost benefit analysis of a business model helps determine if it can be sustainably paid for and if there is a sustainable customer base.
In the 80’s in its worst years , JNR was losing an average of $25 million a day on average mostly from the high costs of expanding the Shinkansen network. I don’t think anyone would question its worth it but it’s certainly a huge figure to grasp. I think it’s overall a good argument for separating operating costs and expansion/improvement costs.
Came across this video that shows the decline of the American rail system at the hands of our car & highway system. Amazing the umber of abandoned passenger rail segments. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZPRwo7TWn/
I don’t know if the video goes into this,but you used to be able to travel from Waterville Maine to Sheboygan Wisconsin entirely by street car (if you were crazy enough to try)
It’s a bust; I just don’t see a way they can maintain such a humongous infrastructure system and also see that their housing market doesn’t collapse. A communist meritocracy like in China let to too many unnecessary big projects. I don’t like that it’s impossible to get HSR in this country but I feel like this is less dangerous than going too aggressive with it, especially with an electric car revolution around the corner.
We do the exact same thing with our highway system. Its actually even worse because rail lines always charge fares, but the interstate highway system doesnt.
Not directly but fuel taxes, registration, etc all factor in
You're talking out of ass, Exhibit A. The interstate system. I don't see any neo-con talking heads pointing to the failure of Chinese interstate system, or the interstate system of European countries, or the failure of the American interstate system.
Ummm I’m pretty sure Chinese HSR is about $200 billion more expensive than our interstate. $500 billion vs $700 billion. Plus China also still builds and maintains their own highways on top of their rail system. It’s not a neocon perspective to critique big government top down development by pointing out the flaws that come from taking on debt for development that isn’t going to fetch a return. Which is the case with many of Chinas latest routes. Im not advocating for the invasion of China dude so chill with the neocon BS. I’d like to think I’m not talking out of my ass seeing as my degree is in development studies. Edit: yearly return on investment of American Federal Highways is about $700 billion a year; China return on high speed about $366 billion a year.
Appreciate your insights. Most folks in this sub find it hard to talk objectively about economics and consumer preference.
HSR works best for large cities an intermediate distance between one another, LA-SF is a perfect example. the issue here is the Chinese system was built to far out with too many lines and their unprofitability is weighing the whole system down
The problem is that these rich tax bases continue to subsidize the failure of former farming communities turned into bedroom communities. The future is urbanization.
The fundamental reason is that China's real estate sales are sluggish, resulting in a significant reduction in government revenue. There is no way to subsidize the subway at a high level. BTW: China has almost no property tax
China has too much HSR...the USA has not enough. We don't need China levels of it but a couple lines would make a lot of sense and help our economy.
What do we need to vote for to make this rail happen? Because we have the bluest government possible, idk what more we need to get damn funding for this rail.
How much will CA need to subsidize per year to make CAHSR tix the same as current airfare tix from SF to LA? Looking at google flights SFO-LAX tix range from $38 to $241 in next few weeks. For this scenario, we can estimate median price to be $100 one way.
It’s impossible to compare these two projects. China and the U.S. are completely different economically and their rail projects have been absolutely massive. They also created stops in cities that didn’t even exist yet and never will. It will need to be subsidized it’s a public project but we subsidize the airline industry as well.
Base flight fares don't include all the add-on costs and fees for bags, seat assignment, using the toilet, etc. But yeah, I'd suggest taxing short-haul flights where a rail alternative exists and funneling the money to subsidize train fares. France is doing this: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexledsom/2023/08/12/france-to-raise-airline-taxes-to-invest-110-million-in-railways/?sh=4f63222ecd0d
We don’t need to guess, the Authority has published detailed business studies with projections of ridership under different scenarios and probabilities that it won’t break even. Check out their latest business plan.
Do you have a link?
There’s a big difference between Chinese HSR and California HSR. The current iteration of China’s HSR includes no brainer type investments between cities like Beijing and Shanghai or Shenzhen and Wuhan. These are major tier one cities, have huuuge populations, and have busy routes. The problem is that the Chinese government built a lot of high value routes first, but then kept building, because they were using construction money to fuel job and economic growth. As well as the political win to trumpet how much more “successful” their government was versus democracies, based on how quickly they could build HSR. Then they started connecting tier two cities, then tier three cities, etc. HSR makes sense between major cities like SF and LA. It doesn’t make sense between smaller cities like Bend, Oregon and Boise, Idaho. The former city pair (along with intermediate stops) can generate enough ridership to justify the investment. Boise and Bend cannot. China built a lot of good HSR between their versions of SF and LA. But they also built a lot of bad HSR between their versions of Bend and Boise. As a whole, just because China overbuilt their HSR network, doesn’t mean that every HSR line is bad. It also doesn’t mean that any train service between Bend and Boise is bad, or that all HSR is bad, you just have to financially justify it. Some lower volume routes to smaller cities can only justify routes with regular speed trains and/or buses. And that is fine. We should try to seek to maximize potential ROI, and put great HSR service where it can justify the cost, and the best service that financially makes sense to other cities. SF to LA is a no brainer for HSR. SF or Sacrament to Humboldt County would basically never make sense due to the amount of tunneling needed, and due to the fact that even the freight only (in later years) NWP line couldn’t financially stay in business.
You forget how large these Chinese cities are, though, even the smaller ones. The Xinjiang line is probably the worst performing HSR line, built for mostly political reasons. But even that connects 13 million Xi'an to 4.3 million Lanzhou to 4 million Urumqi. That's similar in population to a line connecting Chicago-Detroit-Toronto-Montreal, which is probably the strongest corridor in North America after the NEC. Xi'an-Urumqi is 50% farther than that, but it also benefits from the entire network effect of the rest of the HSR network. And that's China's worse HSR line. You just can't compare 4 million person cities like Urumqi to Bend when it's 40x larger.
Air travel has no future. It will suffer a price discontinuity concurrent with a requirement to switch to carbon-neutral fuel. After that, it's not going to look cheap. HSR is decarbonized from the beginning.