HIGH-SPEED RAIL KEY TO INFRASTRUCTURE RENEWAL
By Nick Gier, Professor Emeritus, University of Idaho (nickgier@roadrunner.com)
See also Denmark Leads the World in Wind Power
The U.S. will not be able to compete in the world economy without a substantial rebuilding of its infrastructure. Our great success in the last century was not only due to our individual initiative and innovation, but also to government investment in railways, roads, and waterways.
The only country now doing what we did in the early 1900s is China, which has invested $200 billion in extending its railways. As John Scales of the World Bank states: “I don’t think anything compares except maybe the growth of the U.S. rail network at the start of the 20th century.” Because of interest on our treasury bills and profits from selling goods to the rest of the world, China will not have to borrow money to finance these projects.
In 2005 America’s civil engineers the nation’s infrastructure a “D” grade, and they estimated that it would take $1.6 trillion over five years for proper upgrades. Only about one third of Obama’s stimulus package will go to infrastructure with only $46 billion for roads, bridges, and railways.
Currently China invests 9 percent of its gross national product in infrastructure, European nations lay out 5 percent, but the U.S. gives only 2.4 percent. The last major project was the interstate highway system, initiated by President Eisenhower at a cost of $400 billion in today’s dollars. The federal gas tax, the main source of revenue for road building and maintenance, has not been raised since 1993, and the Highway Trust Fund is $4 billion in debt.
Europeans pay much more in fuel taxes: the Brits pay 50 cents per liter while we pay only 8 cents per liter. Every year the Europeans consume just 76 gallons of petroleum per capita, while each American burns up a whopping 429 gallons. High European fuel taxes pay for good roads and superb public transportation, including some of the fastest trains in the world. Amtrak’s Acela train, whose engines and cars are made in Canada, averages only 79 mph between New York and Washington, while the EuroStar between London and Paris averages 136 mph.
When I traveled to Japan for the first time to give some lectures in 1983, I could not wait to ride on a “bullet” train. As I stood on the platform at Tokyo’s main station, I was amazed to see these high-speed trains departing for every major city within minutes of each other. In 1983 the bullet trains’ top speed was 130 mph, but when I went back in 2002 I was sometimes moving along at 186 mph.
Japan’s bullet trains first began operation in 1964, just in time for the Tokyo Olympics. After forty-five years of service, there have been no deaths, no major injuries, and only one derailment, which was caused by an earthquake in October 2004. In stark contrast, from 1997-2003 Amtrak accidents killed 96 and left 1,328 injured. Unlike Amtrak, Japanese bullet trains run on dedicated double tracks that never cross a road and are checked for alignment every night.
Drawing on Japanese and European technology, China is now building its own bullet trains, and it launched Beijing-Tianjin service just in time for the 2008 Olympic Games. By 2012 new tracks between Beijing-Shanghai, built at a cost of $23.5 billion, will carry passengers at 236 mph and consume only 12.7 KW per passenger, the most energy efficient public travel in the world.
The key to energy efficiency is railway electrification. Exploiting inexpensive hydropower, the Milwaukee Road ran electric locomotives from the Montana border to Seattle until it went bankrupt in 1925. An extensive electric train system served all of Southern California until the tire and auto industry lobbied to have it replaced by freeways.
Except for the city trains in Copenhagen, Denmark’s rail cars used to be pulled, as they still are in the U.S., by diesel-electric engines. The 1970s oil crisis convinced the Danish government that it had to wean itself from foreign oil. Government investment in electrifying the rail lines and building the world’s best wind turbines, plus the discovery of North Sea oil, has not only made Denmark self-sufficient in energy but, on windy days, a exporter of energy.
Extending high-speed rail in the U.S. will require substantial upgrades in our fragmented and antiquated electric grid. Wind power in Northern Europe is transmitted over new and much more efficient DC lines that, unlike AC transmission, can be placed under bodies of water. When the wind is not blowing in Denmark, it definitely is in Scotland or Northern Germany, and when it’s blowing everywhere, the excess power pumps water back up into Norwegian reservoirs.
California is leading the way with high-speed rail. Voters have approved tens of billions of dollars in bonds, $9 billion alone for a Los Angeles-San Francisco line that would reduce travel time to 2.5 hours. It is estimated that 160,000 construction jobs would be created with 450,000 permanent jobs by 2035. Ticket sales would generate $1 billion a year. Moving Californians out of their cars would save $12.7 million barrels of oil per year and 12 billion fewer pounds of carbon dioxide would be released into the air.
President Obama’s long-range plans are for an infrastructure investment bank, whose capital would be raised on the basis of 3 private dollars to one federal dollar. It is estimated that 47,500 jobs will be created for every $1 billion spent. Ironically, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley were raising huge sums of infrastructure money before their collapse, but other private sources will surely be found.
The most unfortunate fact, however, is that the turbines for our wind farms will have to be imported from Denmark or Spain, and the bullet trains most likely will come from China. The greatest manufacturing economy in world history has now taken second place to a nation that, only 50 years ago, was a poor peasant society. It did not have to be this way. With better industrial planning, taboo among free marketeers, the U.S. could still the leader in making things that the world needs.