U.S. Issues Why are we not investing in transportation infrastructure? - Page 2

Direckshun · 12-26-2012, 01:29 PM

China continues its amazing investment in infrastructure, including this:

A high speed train system, producing trains that travel nearly 200 mph and can get you distances from New York to Key West in 8 hours.

Investments like this make a ton of sense for large countries like China (and us) because (a.) they hire a shit ton of workers (China has said it has hired up to 100k people for it), (b.) they allow for more economic integration and economic prosperity for the parts of the country connected to it, and (c.) in an era where job immobility is at its highest in modern history for Americans, this provides a feasible way to travel great distances for poorer Americans.

But not only do we refuse to invest in this shit, we can't even muster the finances needed to repair the infrastructure we do have, made decades ago, in considerably less-modern ways.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/27/bu...a.html?hp&_r=0

World's Longest High-Speed Rail Line Opens in China
By KEITH BRADSHER
Published: December 26, 2012

HONG KONG — China began service Wednesday morning on the world’s longest high-speed rail line, covering a distance in eight hours that is about equal to that from New York to Key West, Florida, or from London across Europe to Belgrade.

Bullet trains traveling 300 kilometers an hour, or 186 miles an hour, began regular service between Beijing and Guangzhou, the main metropolis in southeastern China. Older trains still in service on a parallel rail line take 21 hours; Amtrak trains from New York to Miami, a shorter distance, still take nearly 30 hours.

Completion of the Beijing-Guangzhou route is the latest sign that China has resumed rapid construction on one of the world’s largest and most ambitious infrastructure projects, a network of four north-south routes and four east-west routes that span the country.

Lavish spending on the project has helped jump-start the Chinese economy twice: in 2009, during the global financial crisis, and again this autumn, after a brief but sharp economic slowdown over the summer.

The hiring of as many as 100,000 workers per line has kept a lid on unemployment even as private-sector construction has slowed down because of limits on real estate speculation. And the national network has helped reduce toxic air pollution in Chinese cities and curb demand for imported diesel fuel, by freeing up a lot of capacity on older rail lines for goods to be carried by freight trains instead of heavily polluting, costlier trucks.

But the high-speed rail system has also been controversial in China. Debt to finance the construction has reached nearly 4 trillion renminbi, or $640 billion, making it one of the most visible reasons total debt has been surging as a share of economic output in China, and approaching levels in the West.

Each passenger car taken off the older, slower rail lines makes room for three freight cars, because passenger trains have to move so quickly that they force freight trains to stop frequently. But although the high-speed trains have played a big role in allowing sharp increases in freight shipments, the Ministry of Railways has not yet figured out a way to charge large freight shippers, many of them politically influential state-owned enterprises, for part of the cost of the high-speed lines, which haul only passengers.

The high-speed trains are also considerably more expensive than the heavily subsidized older passenger trains. A second-class seat on the new bullet trains from Beijing to Guangzhou costs 865 renminbi, compared with 426 renminbi for the cheapest bunk on one of the older trains, which also have narrow, uncomfortable seats for as little as 251 renminbi.

Worries about the high-speed network peaked in July 2011, when one high-speed train plowed into the back of another near Wenzhou in southeastern China, killing 40 people.

A subsequent investigation blamed flawed signaling equipment for the crash. China had been operating high-speed trains at 350 kilometers an hour, and it cut the top speed to the current rate in response to that crash.

The crash crystallized worries about the haste with which China has built its high-speed rail system. The first line, from Beijing to Tianjin, opened a week before the 2008 Olympics; a little more than four years later, the country now has 9,349 kilometers, or 5,809 miles, of high-speed lines.

China’s aviation system has a good international reputation for safety, and its occasional deadly crashes have not attracted nearly as much attention. Transportation safety experts attribute the public’s fascination with the Wenzhou crash partly to the novelty of the system and partly to a distrust among many Chinese of what is perceived as a homegrown technology, in contrast with the Boeing and Airbus jets flown by Chinese airlines.

Japanese rail executives have complained, however, that the Chinese technology is mostly copied from them, an accusation that Chinese rail executives have strenuously denied.

The main alternative to trains for most Chinese lies in the country’s roads, which have a grim reputation by international standards. Periodic crashes of intercity buses kill dozens of people at a time, while crashes of private cars are frequent in a country where four-fifths of new cars are sold to first-time buyers, often with scant driving experience.

Flights between Beijing and Guangzhou take about three hours and 15 minutes. But air travelers in China need to arrive at least an hour before a flight, compared with 20 minutes for high-speed trains, and the airports tend to be farther from the centers of cities than the high-speed train stations.

Land acquisition is the toughest part of building high-speed rail lines in the West, because the tracks need to be almost perfectly straight, and it has been an issue in China as well. Although local and provincial governments have forced owners to sell land for the tracks themselves, there have been disputes over suddenly valuable land near rail stations, with the result that surprisingly few stores and other commercial venues have sprung up around some high-speed stations through which tens of thousands of travelers move every day.

Zhao Xiangfeng, a farmer in Henan Province, said a plan to build a minimall on his and six other farmers’ land near a station had been shelved indefinitely after he and three of the other farmers refused to lease the land for anything close to what the village leadership offered. He said he worried that local leaders might try strong-arm tactics against the farmers to force them to lease the land and revive the project.

The southern segment of the new high-speed rail line, from Guangzhou as far as Wuhan, has been open for nearly three years and already suffers from heavy congestion, which could limit the number of seats available for travel all the way to Beijing during peak hours. Regular travelers on the route said in interviews that the 800-seat trains are often sold out as many as 10 trains in advance on Monday mornings and Friday afternoons, even though the trains travel as often as every four minutes, and even lunchtime trains at midweek are often full as well.

**BigRedChief** · 12-26-2012, 07:12 PM

Bottom line is there is no profit in the idea. And the public doesn't want to take some money from something else to fund the idea.

chiefzilla1501 · 12-26-2012, 07:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

Bottom line is there is no profit in the idea. And the public doesn't want to take some money from something else to fund the idea.

I don't know the economics. But I hope we move beyond looking at things from a profit perspective and weigh overall costs/benefits. And I'm not talking about artificial jobs created. I'm talking about what high speed rail can enable us to do that we couldn't do prior to this.

La literatura · 12-26-2012, 07:25 PM

that train =

Aries Walker · 12-26-2012, 08:09 PM

It's true, there's probably not a whole lot of direct profit to be made from it. Americans just aren't that psyched about the train (because: see my earlier post). In order for it to be popular, it would have to be significantly cheaper than an airplane, which Amtrak often isn't.

It could potentially offer a good deal of indirect profit, in the same way that a bridge over a difficult chasm would improve transportation and therefore business, but the only organization that would invest in that is the government, and right now it's pretty far down on the list of priorities.

To make one last point, I'm from Maryland, and for the year and change that I lived in Indianapolis, it was quite a shock to have so little public transportation. Indy has just a bus system, which is about on par the one on campus at the University of Maryland. In DC, I could just hop on the Red Line and head down to the Inauguration, or the Jon Stewart rally, or my Jeopardy audition, but in Indianapolis I stayed away from the Super Bowl (!) because I knew it would be a tremendous pain in the ass to park.

Cannibal · 12-26-2012, 08:15 PM

We're a country in decline. We no longer care to do great things.

LiveSteam · 12-26-2012, 08:17 PM

Im all for crossing this country with 7-1/2 gauge track. Id love that

**petegz28** · 12-26-2012, 08:18 PM

I thought we were supposed too? At least that's what Obama said when he took all our money. Oh wait...this probably wasn't "shovel ready"!

**BigRedChief** · 12-26-2012, 08:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501

I don't know the economics. But I hope we move beyond looking at things from a profit perspective and weigh overall costs/benefits. And I'm not talking about artificial jobs created. I'm talking about what high speed rail can enable us to do that we couldn't do prior to this.

We don't do big things anymore. We are fat and happy and besides didn't you here, we can't afford it.

Dayze · 12-26-2012, 08:33 PM

because our dollar is shit and our treasury/gov/fed reserve is a big Ponzi scheme.

we're broke ass.

Ebolapox · 12-26-2012, 08:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cannibal

We're a country in decline. We no longer care to do great things.

but...obama!!!

**BigRedChief** · 12-26-2012, 08:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by petegz28

I thought we were supposed too? At least that's what Obama said when he took all our money. Oh wait...this probably wasn't "shovel ready"!

Thank the Republican Governor of Florida.
Part of the stimulus was to build high speed rail between Tampa and Orlando.

Disney and Universal loved it. Both cities loved it. Everyone loved it but the Republican Governor. He didn't want to get stuck with funding the rail in the long term. People went nuts at how stupid he was.

The Governor and the supporters of light rail did a independent study to see how much Florida would be out if the high rail was built....... drum roll...... not a single penny. It would make money for Florida. For the cities, provide about 50K in permanent jobs. A win-win for everyone right. The Republican Governor rejected the study that he ordered and rejected the stimulus money.

About 6 states lined up to take the money and build their own light rail.People were so pissed. Probably contributed to Obama winning Florida. As Central Florida goes, so does Florida.

**Iowanian** · 12-26-2012, 08:45 PM

We were going to fix some bridges and roads but we gave that money to Palestine and Egypt instead.

Brock · 12-26-2012, 08:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501

No, profit is a word by users who measure things by dollars and cents. ROI isn't measured in pure profit. It's measured by intangible benefits as well. Otherwise, no stadium project would ever be invested in. Most of the benefit from a stadium deal comes from the businesses that sprout up around a stadium. Anybody who's followed the NHL lockout's effect on small businesses would understand that. Or hell, how much more convenient to make business trips where I can just sit on a train and do work, instead of sitting in a car listening to... the radio.

There are benefits here. Anybody who's lived in the northeast understands how valuable public transportation is. It reduces traffic, reduces congestion, makes cities more walkable, and makes it more convenient to become a tourist to other neighboring markets. Plus, it's a pretty damn cool thing to do and I hate that the midwest has such poor public transportation. For many outside residents, it's an absolute dealbreaker for a city not to have it.

It doesn't matter if there are benefits to it. Investors care about profit, period.

**BigRedChief** · 12-26-2012, 09:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brock

It doesn't matter if there are benefits to it. Investors care about profit, period.

well, in the case of our dipshit Republican governor even a profit doesn't matter if you have to take the money to start the business from a Democrat.

RaiderH8r · 12-26-2012, 09:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cannibal

We're a country in decline. We no longer care to do great things.

Thanks Rachel Maddow.

12-26-2012, 01:29 PM
Direckshun Black for Palestine Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Springpatch Casino cash: $1166296	Why are we not investing in transportation infrastructure? China continues its amazing investment in infrastructure, including this: A high speed train system, producing trains that travel nearly 200 mph and can get you distances from New York to Key West in 8 hours. Investments like this make a ton of sense for large countries like China (and us) because (a.) they hire a shit ton of workers (China has said it has hired up to 100k people for it), (b.) they allow for more economic integration and economic prosperity for the parts of the country connected to it, and (c.) in an era where job immobility is at its highest in modern history for Americans, this provides a feasible way to travel great distances for poorer Americans. But not only do we refuse to invest in this shit, we can't even muster the finances needed to repair the infrastructure we do have, made decades ago, in considerably less-modern ways. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/27/bu...a.html?hp&_r=0 World's Longest High-Speed Rail Line Opens in China By KEITH BRADSHER Published: December 26, 2012 HONG KONG — China began service Wednesday morning on the world’s longest high-speed rail line, covering a distance in eight hours that is about equal to that from New York to Key West, Florida, or from London across Europe to Belgrade. Bullet trains traveling 300 kilometers an hour, or 186 miles an hour, began regular service between Beijing and Guangzhou, the main metropolis in southeastern China. Older trains still in service on a parallel rail line take 21 hours; Amtrak trains from New York to Miami, a shorter distance, still take nearly 30 hours. Completion of the Beijing-Guangzhou route is the latest sign that China has resumed rapid construction on one of the world’s largest and most ambitious infrastructure projects, a network of four north-south routes and four east-west routes that span the country. Lavish spending on the project has helped jump-start the Chinese economy twice: in 2009, during the global financial crisis, and again this autumn, after a brief but sharp economic slowdown over the summer. The hiring of as many as 100,000 workers per line has kept a lid on unemployment even as private-sector construction has slowed down because of limits on real estate speculation. And the national network has helped reduce toxic air pollution in Chinese cities and curb demand for imported diesel fuel, by freeing up a lot of capacity on older rail lines for goods to be carried by freight trains instead of heavily polluting, costlier trucks. But the high-speed rail system has also been controversial in China. Debt to finance the construction has reached nearly 4 trillion renminbi, or $640 billion, making it one of the most visible reasons total debt has been surging as a share of economic output in China, and approaching levels in the West. Each passenger car taken off the older, slower rail lines makes room for three freight cars, because passenger trains have to move so quickly that they force freight trains to stop frequently. But although the high-speed trains have played a big role in allowing sharp increases in freight shipments, the Ministry of Railways has not yet figured out a way to charge large freight shippers, many of them politically influential state-owned enterprises, for part of the cost of the high-speed lines, which haul only passengers. The high-speed trains are also considerably more expensive than the heavily subsidized older passenger trains. A second-class seat on the new bullet trains from Beijing to Guangzhou costs 865 renminbi, compared with 426 renminbi for the cheapest bunk on one of the older trains, which also have narrow, uncomfortable seats for as little as 251 renminbi. Worries about the high-speed network peaked in July 2011, when one high-speed train plowed into the back of another near Wenzhou in southeastern China, killing 40 people. A subsequent investigation blamed flawed signaling equipment for the crash. China had been operating high-speed trains at 350 kilometers an hour, and it cut the top speed to the current rate in response to that crash. The crash crystallized worries about the haste with which China has built its high-speed rail system. The first line, from Beijing to Tianjin, opened a week before the 2008 Olympics; a little more than four years later, the country now has 9,349 kilometers, or 5,809 miles, of high-speed lines. China’s aviation system has a good international reputation for safety, and its occasional deadly crashes have not attracted nearly as much attention. Transportation safety experts attribute the public’s fascination with the Wenzhou crash partly to the novelty of the system and partly to a distrust among many Chinese of what is perceived as a homegrown technology, in contrast with the Boeing and Airbus jets flown by Chinese airlines. Japanese rail executives have complained, however, that the Chinese technology is mostly copied from them, an accusation that Chinese rail executives have strenuously denied. The main alternative to trains for most Chinese lies in the country’s roads, which have a grim reputation by international standards. Periodic crashes of intercity buses kill dozens of people at a time, while crashes of private cars are frequent in a country where four-fifths of new cars are sold to first-time buyers, often with scant driving experience. Flights between Beijing and Guangzhou take about three hours and 15 minutes. But air travelers in China need to arrive at least an hour before a flight, compared with 20 minutes for high-speed trains, and the airports tend to be farther from the centers of cities than the high-speed train stations. Land acquisition is the toughest part of building high-speed rail lines in the West, because the tracks need to be almost perfectly straight, and it has been an issue in China as well. Although local and provincial governments have forced owners to sell land for the tracks themselves, there have been disputes over suddenly valuable land near rail stations, with the result that surprisingly few stores and other commercial venues have sprung up around some high-speed stations through which tens of thousands of travelers move every day. Zhao Xiangfeng, a farmer in Henan Province, said a plan to build a minimall on his and six other farmers’ land near a station had been shelved indefinitely after he and three of the other farmers refused to lease the land for anything close to what the village leadership offered. He said he worried that local leaders might try strong-arm tactics against the farmers to force them to lease the land and revive the project. The southern segment of the new high-speed rail line, from Guangzhou as far as Wuhan, has been open for nearly three years and already suffers from heavy congestion, which could limit the number of seats available for travel all the way to Beijing during peak hours. Regular travelers on the route said in interviews that the 800-seat trains are often sold out as many as 10 trains in advance on Monday mornings and Friday afternoons, even though the trains travel as often as every four minutes, and even lunchtime trains at midweek are often full as well.
Posts: 37,460

12-26-2012, 07:12 PM	#16
BigRedChief Brainwashed Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Swims with fishes Casino cash: $2264592	Bottom line is there is no profit in the idea. And the public doesn't want to take some money from something else to fund the idea. __________________ "Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain - and most fools do." Benjamin Franklin
Posts: 37,851

12-26-2012, 07:25 PM	#18
La literatura MVP Join Date: Nov 2011 Casino cash: $50809	that train =
Posts: 7,171

12-26-2012, 08:09 PM	#19
Aries Walker Back again. Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Aspen Hill, MD Casino cash: $31706	It's true, there's probably not a whole lot of direct profit to be made from it. Americans just aren't that psyched about the train (because: see my earlier post). In order for it to be popular, it would have to be significantly cheaper than an airplane, which Amtrak often isn't. It could potentially offer a good deal of indirect profit, in the same way that a bridge over a difficult chasm would improve transportation and therefore business, but the only organization that would invest in that is the government, and right now it's pretty far down on the list of priorities. To make one last point, I'm from Maryland, and for the year and change that I lived in Indianapolis, it was quite a shock to have so little public transportation. Indy has just a bus system, which is about on par the one on campus at the University of Maryland. In DC, I could just hop on the Red Line and head down to the Inauguration, or the Jon Stewart rally, or my Jeopardy audition, but in Indianapolis I stayed away from the Super Bowl (!) because I knew it would be a tremendous pain in the ass to park.
Posts: 2,411

12-26-2012, 08:15 PM	#20
Cannibal I'm wearing a cardboard belt! Join Date: Aug 2000 Location: Bible Thumping Country Casino cash: $44457	We're a country in decline. We no longer care to do great things.
Posts: 7,501

12-26-2012, 08:17 PM	#21
LiveSteam All aboard the crazy train Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: homeof43conferencetitles Casino cash: $40679	Im all for crossing this country with 7-1/2 gauge track. Id love that
Posts: 12,070

12-26-2012, 08:18 PM	#22
petegz28 Supporter Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Olathe, Ks Casino cash: $206779	I thought we were supposed too? At least that's what Obama said when he took all our money. Oh wait...this probably wasn't "shovel ready"! __________________ "Finally, anyone who uses the terms, irregardless, a whole nother, or all of the sudden shall be sentenced to a work camp." Stewie Griffin
Posts: 56,447

12-26-2012, 08:33 PM	#24
Dayze Poop Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Overland Park Casino cash: $1177618	because our dollar is shit and our treasury/gov/fed reserve is a big Ponzi scheme. we're broke ass. __________________ Life is 99% inspiration, 1% Perspiration, and 1% Attention to Detial.
Posts: 15,419

12-26-2012, 08:45 PM	#27
Iowanian Hey Jack! Join Date: Aug 2000 Location: The Jolly Barnyard Casino cash: $417193	We were going to fix some bridges and roads but we gave that money to Palestine and Egypt instead. __________________ "Silence is Golden. Duct Tape is silver"
Posts: 48,114

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