I read half the article and i strongly disagree with a lot of its points.
First, it lists corruption as a reason to halt the HSR (high speed rail) program. Corruption is however not specific to rail and exists in every branch of the economy, including car and road construction. So that’s not a reason to target HSR.
Secondly, it says that HSR is not “economical”, which completely ignoring that HSR does not have to be economical, at least not in the classical sense.
To a political party, the cost of a project is the popularity or unpopularity of the project; i.e. to the party, the actual cost is the cost of voters who dislike projects. However, the Chinese people are overwhelmingly looking at HSR as a positive thing and an excellent idea. So it has a very positive benefit for the state.
Also, note that good transportation facility is valuable for all the other branches of economy, and therefore has positive economic by-products.
These considerations make me wonder whether actually the article is paid for by the oil lobby, trying to perpetuate outdated and expensive airlines and car transport methods.
so? even if that’s true, that doesn’t mean high speed rail is bad. it means you should be more careful with the planning, not “don’t try new shit for the next forever years”
Realistically what the United States really needs isn’t high speed rail but just passenger rail service. Standard speed mainline passenger service to more places and with more frequency than three times a week at 3am (which I wish was an exaggeration)
If I were totalitarian dictator of the US I’d first have the federal government sieze control of the entire rail network, including all dispatching and all of the private rail maintaince companies and lease trackage rights back to the railroads, keeping rail construction, dispatching and maintenance in house. Next I would create a true national passenger rail network, restoring service to every city possible that still has active right of way. Then, I would use my ownership of the rail network to force the class 1 railroads to construct and operate their trains in a manner condusive to actually moving freight and not blocking other trains (it’s incredible how railroad company executives seem to hate railroads and do everything they can to avoid operating a functioning railroad) plus open up the rail network to new private freight and passenger companies, and finally I’d build new rail coordidors first following the existing interstate network and as those new rail coordidors bed in I’d start reducing lanes on the interstate and introducing tolls to further discourage the use of private vehicles. Maybe some would be converted into bikeways, maybe some would be re-greened. It would be a decision made on a case by case basis what to do with all of the space reclaimed by the highway network
We used to dream big and our governments used to undertake projects like this to improve our countries. And despite our governments being richer than ever they choose to stagnate and not take risks on big public projects like this
Given that we here in the US are still trying g to work out from under 150 year old rail infrastructure, I don’t think they need to worry about it for a while.
Rail generally lasts longer than roads even if you don’t maintain it. We’ve proven that
A feature of rail is very high building costs. If they wasted money on building HSR on a lot of places where it’s not needed, this means there’s gonna be a debt that never gets paid by the utilization of the rail. Bad investment.
So it’s not about maintenance, but the up-front cost.
Not doing an investment where an investment would make a lot of money is of course a kind of reverse of this, but which leads to a similar outcome.
If they wasted money on building HSR on a lot of places where it’s not needed
There’s no such thing as “HSR where it’s not needed”, especially in a country that’s building housing at an insane pace. Each HSR station will just get a city built around it (hopefully not a car-dependent hellhole) and people will flock there.
this means there’s gonna be a debt that never gets paid by the utilization of the rail. Bad investment.
Chinese government can print an infinite amount of Yuan out of thin air. They don’t care about internal debts, what they do care about is popularity among their people, and “build more HSR” is a really popular policy in China because it obviously and immediately improves quality of life for loads of people. While it definitely will not “pay itself off”, this is not the point of such projects.
Thinking about everything in terms of “profit motive” is exactly why the US is the way it is.
There are certainly reasons to dislike Chinese government. They are allowing overproduction of single-use plastics (which is horrible for the planet), they are building new coal plants in 2025 (which is horrible for the planet and the quality of air in China), and they are still sometimes building car-dependent hellholes for more affluent people. But it is still like the least bad government on this planet (or at least one of them), all things considered.
Ok, so infinite Yuan is a hyperbole, but for something so relatively cheap and so massively beneficial as rail, profitability really doesn’t matter. China has more than enough resources and influence to eat the cost now and reap the benefits for the next century.
I would say that there’s quite a lot of reason to believe that infrastructure investments can be one of the best ways to help poor people rise economically. Which has obvious paybacks.
This still requires creating infrastructure that is actually needed, otherwise it’s just wasting money (which ultimately is just an abstraction over wealth, opportunity, materials, workers’ finite time and energy, etc etc).
infrastructure investments can be one of the best ways to help poor people rise economically
And specifically consider how much we can help by not requiring all the expenses of owning a car. Transit and intercity rail could be among the best investments when you consider those indirect benefits. Such a shame that short sighted people want them to be profitable in utilization
you’re looking only at the return-on-investment of rail as if passengers would have to pay for it with tickets and such. that is not at all the case.
the benefit of rail or any transport infrastructure in fact is the fact that it facilitates the rest of the economy. almost every economy depends a lot on transport, and by making transport possible, the rest of the economy becomes possible, and then that pays takes, and that’s the advantage in having transport capabilities.
https://www.pekingnology.com/p/china-massively-overbuilt-high-speed
Good luck dealing with that financial bomb.
I read half the article and i strongly disagree with a lot of its points.
First, it lists corruption as a reason to halt the HSR (high speed rail) program. Corruption is however not specific to rail and exists in every branch of the economy, including car and road construction. So that’s not a reason to target HSR.
Secondly, it says that HSR is not “economical”, which completely ignoring that HSR does not have to be economical, at least not in the classical sense. To a political party, the cost of a project is the popularity or unpopularity of the project; i.e. to the party, the actual cost is the cost of voters who dislike projects. However, the Chinese people are overwhelmingly looking at HSR as a positive thing and an excellent idea. So it has a very positive benefit for the state. Also, note that good transportation facility is valuable for all the other branches of economy, and therefore has positive economic by-products.
These considerations make me wonder whether actually the article is paid for by the oil lobby, trying to perpetuate outdated and expensive airlines and car transport methods.
so? even if that’s true, that doesn’t mean high speed rail is bad. it means you should be more careful with the planning, not “don’t try new shit for the next forever years”
Realistically what the United States really needs isn’t high speed rail but just passenger rail service. Standard speed mainline passenger service to more places and with more frequency than three times a week at 3am (which I wish was an exaggeration)
If I were totalitarian dictator of the US I’d first have the federal government sieze control of the entire rail network, including all dispatching and all of the private rail maintaince companies and lease trackage rights back to the railroads, keeping rail construction, dispatching and maintenance in house. Next I would create a true national passenger rail network, restoring service to every city possible that still has active right of way. Then, I would use my ownership of the rail network to force the class 1 railroads to construct and operate their trains in a manner condusive to actually moving freight and not blocking other trains (it’s incredible how railroad company executives seem to hate railroads and do everything they can to avoid operating a functioning railroad) plus open up the rail network to new private freight and passenger companies, and finally I’d build new rail coordidors first following the existing interstate network and as those new rail coordidors bed in I’d start reducing lanes on the interstate and introducing tolls to further discourage the use of private vehicles. Maybe some would be converted into bikeways, maybe some would be re-greened. It would be a decision made on a case by case basis what to do with all of the space reclaimed by the highway network
We used to dream big and our governments used to undertake projects like this to improve our countries. And despite our governments being richer than ever they choose to stagnate and not take risks on big public projects like this
Given that we here in the US are still trying g to work out from under 150 year old rail infrastructure, I don’t think they need to worry about it for a while.
Rail generally lasts longer than roads even if you don’t maintain it. We’ve proven that
A feature of rail is very high building costs. If they wasted money on building HSR on a lot of places where it’s not needed, this means there’s gonna be a debt that never gets paid by the utilization of the rail. Bad investment.
So it’s not about maintenance, but the up-front cost.
Not doing an investment where an investment would make a lot of money is of course a kind of reverse of this, but which leads to a similar outcome.
There’s no such thing as “HSR where it’s not needed”, especially in a country that’s building housing at an insane pace. Each HSR station will just get a city built around it (hopefully not a car-dependent hellhole) and people will flock there.
Chinese government can print an infinite amount of Yuan out of thin air. They don’t care about internal debts, what they do care about is popularity among their people, and “build more HSR” is a really popular policy in China because it obviously and immediately improves quality of life for loads of people. While it definitely will not “pay itself off”, this is not the point of such projects.
Thinking about everything in terms of “profit motive” is exactly why the US is the way it is.
There are certainly reasons to dislike Chinese government. They are allowing overproduction of single-use plastics (which is horrible for the planet), they are building new coal plants in 2025 (which is horrible for the planet and the quality of air in China), and they are still sometimes building car-dependent hellholes for more affluent people. But it is still like the least bad government on this planet (or at least one of them), all things considered.
That’s not how any of this works. Sure they can do that, but they cannot control the effects of having done so.
Ok, so infinite Yuan is a hyperbole, but for something so relatively cheap and so massively beneficial as rail, profitability really doesn’t matter. China has more than enough resources and influence to eat the cost now and reap the benefits for the next century.
You could say the same about pretty much any infrastructure. It’s hideously expensive and will never get paid back by utilization.
All are hideously expensive and will never get paid back by utilization.
Are they all bad investments?
I claim they all are critical for their indirect benefits to an economy, a society, and rail is exactly the same.
I would say that there’s quite a lot of reason to believe that infrastructure investments can be one of the best ways to help poor people rise economically. Which has obvious paybacks.
https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/infrastructure/publication/infrastructure-and-poverty-reduction-innovative-policies
This still requires creating infrastructure that is actually needed, otherwise it’s just wasting money (which ultimately is just an abstraction over wealth, opportunity, materials, workers’ finite time and energy, etc etc).
And specifically consider how much we can help by not requiring all the expenses of owning a car. Transit and intercity rail could be among the best investments when you consider those indirect benefits. Such a shame that short sighted people want them to be profitable in utilization
you’re looking only at the return-on-investment of rail as if passengers would have to pay for it with tickets and such. that is not at all the case.
the benefit of rail or any transport infrastructure in fact is the fact that it facilitates the rest of the economy. almost every economy depends a lot on transport, and by making transport possible, the rest of the economy becomes possible, and then that pays takes, and that’s the advantage in having transport capabilities.
why are you talking about building high speed rail where it’s not needed? don’t think anyone’s advocating for that.