Wishes and (Iron) Horses
Posted by Fred Jandt
Mass Transit editor
It’s a landmark week for public transportation. The federal government has put its money where its mouth is to the tune of $8 billion for high-speed rail in the United States. Now the hype begins. Transit directors need to be wary, though, as that groundswell of support for rail could quickly turn against you — even if you deliver just what you promised. Just ask Steve Jobs.
You could argue that there hasn’t been a product in recent history that has been so supremely overhyped as the Apple “iPad.†If wishes were horses this thing could replace every electronic device in your home and tuck you in bed at night. Of course, this wasn’t going to be the case. Apple never promised us such a device. Heck, Apple never promised us anything about the device — which is typical for them.
And President Obama and his administration are in the same boat when it comes to high-speed rail. Have they promised us flying trains and near-instantaneous transportation? No. The administration never promised us that.
But we need to be careful now that the funds have been given not to build up high-speed rail into “High-Speed Rail†ala the famous monorail bit from the Simpsons. I had a long discussion about the benefits of the nascent Madison-Milwaukee extension to Amtrak’s Hiawatha line with members of my family. Their general viewpoint was, “What’s the point?†This became especially evident when they learned the train probably wouldn’t be traveling upwards of 200 miles per hour or reduce the time of a trip from Madison to Milwaukee to less than 30 minutes. Simply put, their expectations were a lot higher than reality — which was the case when the iPad was unveiled by Steve Jobs yesterday.
The Internet today is filled to the brim with stories and (lots of) comments about how the iPad is just a bigger iPhone and doesn’t do anything fundamentally different. It really has no place when it doesn’t do what a netbook can do and is already handled by an iPhone. Oh and it doesn’t have a camera or a phone.
Sound familiar?
The high-speed trains really have no place when they don’t do anything an airplane can do and is already handled by a car. Oh and it doesn’t have Wi-Fi or a stop at the end of my block.
A good friend of mine and a devout railfan said to me this morning that he would believe the Madison-Milwaukee Hiawatha Line when, “he saw the tracks.†I just hope that like the iPad, when he does see the tracks the hype surrounding the project doesn’t kill all the excitement of having it for him.
Be sure to check back on Tuesday when we unveil our latest creation, On the Line, a new regular blog by Mark Foss, a 20+-year transit veteran who can weigh-in on issues from the trenches so to speak.
Thanks for reading the MT Position updated every Friday,
Fred
fred.jandt@cygnusb2b.com
Check out our LinkedIn page!
January 29th, 2010 at 12:00 pm
One missing piece of the high speed rail puzzle, that directly affects public transit systems, is the lack of intermodal integration with public transportation at both ends of the train trip. This problem was described on NPR http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112467963 – “A Hitch For Rail Riders: Getting To Final Destination”.
Where are there local strategies/programs for integrated mobility?
January 29th, 2010 at 12:01 pm
Interesting, up here in Canada, Alberta to be more precise, we are having some rumbling with regard to high speed rail connecting our 2 largest cities, around a million people apiece, 300km (190 miles) apart. The word on the street is all aglow with the 1 hour trip between the cities which will beat air time because of check in, taxi time, weather delays, etc. etc. Of course our 3rd largest city is right in the middle of the two and are promising an uproar if they don’t get a stop on the trip, so add a few minutes extra time to do that.
I suspect some cooling to the idea when the reality of the situation sets in and we see 300km/h reduced to 160 and the trip time being around 2 hours. Not to mention the billions needed to build the thing. It would be far better to avoid the pie in the sky musing before it becomes nescesary to pull the rug out.
Just my thoughts.
January 29th, 2010 at 5:47 pm
Wish such was privatized or at least somewhat. Nothing the gov. owns/runs does so at a profit. Whose TA is profitable out there? Point made.
January 29th, 2010 at 6:13 pm
High speed rail only makes sense in HIGH DENSITY corridors, and even there it rarely operates at anything approaching break-even.
In Florida, the most cost effective thing that could happen here would be to give the approx $1.5 billion to some other state, and let them figure out how to make it work without bankrupting the state. These proposals always seem to be justified with SEVERELY underestimated costs, GROSSLY overestimated ridership, WILD new job estimates that never appear, and POORLY understood operating costs.
Oh yes, tell me what you are supposed to do when you get off the high speed train. How do you get around after that?
In economic times like these, this is the last thing we need in Florida.
January 30th, 2010 at 6:15 pm
What will the long term impact of an $8B investment in high speed rail, dependent on foreign technology and production, be on the bus operations in the USA? Forgone opportunity for urban America’s neighborhoods and rural USA? Can you imagine what an $8B investment in bus and bus facilities would do for American manufacturers and locations served by bus all over this Country?
March 22nd, 2010 at 5:51 pm
Hey, would you like to submit comments and backlinks to millions of blogs automatically? Blog Comment Poster will do it for you. Blog Comment Poster will increase your traffic, backlinks and earnings dramatically! Sounds cool? Yes, it is cool! It’s the best automated comments posting tool on the Internet with many advanced features. Check it out!
May 12th, 2010 at 6:19 am
Automatic Scuttle Submitter is 100% automatic social bookmarking software designed to submit your domains to thousands of Scuttle sites. Not only Automatic Scuttle Submitter creates accounts and bookmarks sites automatically, but also parses meta tags for each URL and runs itself in background without any user interaction.