I have never blogged high-speed rail issues because I don't (yet?) have a point of view on them. I can see the benefits from subsidizing metro systems and buses. I don't know whether most of the planned subsidies to high speed rail will pay off.
Ed Glaeser, in a recent Op-Ed, criticized high speed rail for Texas. On this issue, Ryan Avent gets upset at Glaeser:
Of course, Texas has four of the nation's fastest growing
metropolitan areas, all within a few hundred miles of each other — an
ideal distance for high-speed rail. Austin, Dallas, Houston, and San
Antonio are currently home to some 16 million people, and those
metropolitan areas have added 3 million people since 2000 alone.
Congestion is an issue within those metropolitan areas and will continue to worsen as they grow.
Not
only is it entirely appropriate to build transportation infrastructure
with future growth in mind, it's imperative. America's current
sprawling growth pattern resulted in no small part from the mass
construction of interstates and highways, which drew suburbanites to
previously unsettled areas.
Moreover, Texan metropolitan
areas are working to accommodate future growth in a denser fashion by
building miles of metropolitan transit systems. Transit and rail are
complementary technologies, each of which will increase the return on
investment of the other.
My question is simple: how could you take rail from Dallas to Houston and cope once you got there? San Antonio I can see, at least provided you will camp out in city center (a mistake, but that's a question for a different day). I am willing to be converted, but what are the odds of such a line attracting significant patronage, with or without ongoing subsidy to the fares and not just to line construction? Or is the vision that everyone takes the train and then rents a car on arrival? According to Matt Yglesias, the plan won't even directly link Houston to Dallas. By the way, here are some of the other planned links from Texas. Will people really take trains from Houston to Meridien, Mississippi?
Inquiring minds wish to know.
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@ sean, I live in San Antonio, a couple of miles from downtown, and I don’t understand the comment about not camping out in the city center. I wish that wasn’t a question for another day, but I’ll go ahead and take it on today. San Antonio probably has the most attractive and walkable downtown of all Texas cities. You could easily get by without a car, though of course most people don’t. There are a lot of good as well as middling restaurants downtown, for all appetites and budgets. Not sure the purpose of your visit, but the things tourists come to see are all downtown — the River Walk, the Alamo, La Villita, etc.; Fiesta. And what’s more, San Antonio has a very good bus system, which converges on downtown. The attractions and good restaurants that are not downtown are mostly on Broadway or McCullogh, easily accessible by the number 9 (or 10, to Austin Highway; the McNay is at Austin Hwy and New Braunfels) and 5, respectively — which is not to slight Stone Oak, the shiny, happy, moneyed, spanking new exurbs outside the outermost loop, but most of those seem to be chains, albeit good ones; but regardless, not sure why you would want to camp out there instead of downtown, and I can’t think of any other contenders.
I have spent my entire 29 year career living in Houston and travel frequently to Dallas, San Antonio and Austin as well as other parts of the country. I usually prefer to drive when traveling to the other major Texas cities rather than fly. Since coming to Houston, the city has roughly doubled in size as have these other major Texas cities. Many other regions of the country have had stagnant employment and population growth with aging infrastructure during this period of time. With a diverse economy, low cost of living, and favorable business climate, these cities will have 20-30 million people in the coming decades. In a global economy, Texas is leading the nation in international trade and is likely to continue to be one of the leading areas of growth in the country. Part of what makes these cities great is a combination of entrepreneurial spirit and long range planning and investment in infrastructure. All of these cities are experiencing redevelopment and expansion of their inner cities as well as suburban growth. These metropolitan areas need planned expansion of infrastructure including highways, toll roads, light rail, high speed rail, freight rail, airports, and ports. Without developing this infrastructure, the highways in Texas will look like the 405 in LA in 10 to 20 years.
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