Can high-speed rail be successful in America? Yes!

Megan McArdle argues that the United States is not densely populated enough to have a successful high-speed rail system.

I know--carbon emissions! The environment! Don't we eventually have to deal with these problems?

Sure. But high speed rail is less of an environmental gain than regular rail; it takes a lot of energy to move that fast. One can argue that because it is more attractive than regular rail, it is still a bigger environmental gain, because more people will switch from planes to trains. 

This is only true, however, if the trains travel very full; moving empty cars is not environmentally sound. The problem is that for trains to be an attractive alternative to planes, they need to travel fairly frequently. China can do this (arguably) because they have a large number of high-population cities that are very close to each other. We do not.

Richard Florida makes a very strong case for high-speed rail in certain highly populated areas of the United States.

Philadelphia becomes a veritable suburb of NY, its commute time shrinking from nearly two hours to slightly more than a half hour. Washington-NYC and Boston-NYC become hour-and-a-half trips.San Diego becomes a bedroom suburb of Los Angeles. And commute times shrink considerably across Cascadias' main cities: The time to get from Portland to Seattle shrinks to just over an hour, while travel between Seattle and Vancouver is reduced to less than an hour. It would take just slightly longer than an hour and a half to get from Charlotte to Atlanta. And commutes between Dallas and Houston and Dallas and Austin shrink to an hour and a half or less.

Better high-speed rail connections promise considerable economic efficiency gains. And they also promise to relieve the psychological burdens of commuting by car. Research by behavioral economists like Nobel prize-winner Daniel Kahneman finds that long car commutes are among the things that most adversely affect our happiness.

But there is an even bigger and more fundamental reason to connect our mega-regions through high-speed rail. As I recently argued in The Atlantic, our current economic crisis promises to powerfully reshape America's geography. There will be winners and losers, and a new economic geography will emerge in time.

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Mega-regions, if they are to function as integrated economic units, require better, more effective, and faster ways move goods, people, and ideas. High-speed rail accomplishes that, and it also provides a framework for future in-fill development along its corridors. Just as development filled-in along the early street-car lines and the post-war highways, high-speed rail will encourage denser, more compact, and concentrated development with growth filling in along its routes over time.Spain's new high-speed rail link between Barcelona and Madrid not only massively reduced commuting times between these two great Spanish cities, according to a recent New York Timesreport, it has also helped revitalize several declining locations along the line.

It's time to start thinking of our transit and infrastructure projects less in political terms and more as a set of strategic investments that are fundamental to the speed and scope of our economic recovery and to the new, more expansive economic geography required for long-run growth and prosperity.

Jay Yarow at The Business Insider argues that California should receive all the stimulus package money dedicated to high-speed rail.

Yesterday, a number of states applied for a share of the $8 billion in stimulus spending on high speed rail.

They should all be rejected. Except for California, which should get all of it. And it should get the other $5 billion coming down the pike....

If we built the train system proposed for California, we would get real, measurable, results. If the train is a flop, at least we'll know for sure. If it's a raging success, then we can choose the next part of the country in which to build a better train system

More from The New York Times

My two cents: I strongly agree with Richard Florida and Jay Yarow.

High-speed rail can be successful in America. If you ask any American today that has ever experienced high-speed rail in another country (Japan, Western Europe, and now China), if they would rather ride a high-speed rail train for two hours or an airplane for one and a half hours, 9 out of 10 Americans would choose the train.

Trains have enormous advantages over airplanes. Trains (in other countries, at least) leave and depart from highly populated areas very close to the city center. Look at London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, etc. The train station where people depart and arrive is no more than a few miles from the city center. On the other hand, airports are long and expensive car (or public transit) rides from the city center.

Tickets on trains are less expensive than airplane tickets in other countries, so they should be in the US as well.

Here are several more benefits of high-speed rail from the California High-speed Rail Authority website that I believe are all true:

• Tens of thousands of good jobs, both to build the trains and the train line, but also jobs to operate and maintain the trains and the train line. Not to mention all of the jobs that will result from development that ensues around high-speed rail train stations.
• Improved movement of people, goods and services.
• Faster travel between major metropolitan areas.
• Improved air quality.
• Improved energy efficiency: high-speed rail uses only 1/3 the energy of airplanes and 1/5 the energy of a family car.
• Reduced dependence on foreign oil.
• Reduced greenhouse gas emissions.
• Transit and pedestrian oriented infill development promoted.
• There are more on the website.

I hope that California is successful with its high-speed rail system. I also completely agree with Jay Yarow at The Business Insider. California should be awarded all the money dedicated to high-speed rail in the stimulus package. As he says, California is ready to build and can be the experiment that either proves that high-speed rail succeeds in this country or fails.