Common Ground: Infrastructure - but High-Speed Rail?
Following President Obama's State of the Union Address, the Rockefeller Foundation's survey found that infrastructure is something we can all agree on, but what about High-Speed Rail? by Bill Gee
(centrist)
Thursday, February 17, 2011
In our highly polarized political environment, it has become more important than ever that we find and exploit common ground whenever we find it. Infrastructure is one of those issues.
Infrastructure is one of those things that affect every one of us on a daily basis. Whether you take your car, ride the bus or hop a train, the condition of our infrastructure is an important issue to you.
The parent company of my employer is located in Germany and as such, we often have colleagues from the Home Office working with us for months or years at a time. While there are no official rankings on infrastructure between Europe and the USA, they often complain to me about the incredibly poor condition of our roads, bridges and rail systems. If we can assume that if an individual has a safe and convenient transportation option that they are less likely to own a car, then the following statistics from 2002 may be helpful.
Country
# of Vehicles per 1000 population
Average Household Size
# of Households per 1000
# of Vehicles per Household
United States
812
2.6
384.6
2.1
Germany
586
2.2
454.5
1.3
(Sources: Nationmaster.com & (Dargay, J. et al, 2007) Vehicle ownership and income growth, worldwide: 1960-2030. Downloaded from: [link edited for length])
If we further break down this statistic to include only adults of working age, (between the ages of 21-65) that roughly translates to 1.5 vehicles per working adult in the US and less than one vehicle per working adult in Germany.
What this says is that when compared to Europe's largest economy, workers in the United States feel as though they have few alternatives to going to work other than using a motor vehicle, and all of that usage on America's highways has been doing more damage to our infrastructure than the government can keep up.
The following statement is taken directly from the President's State of the Union Address:
"The American Dream has required each generation to sacrifice and meet the demands of a new age. We know what it takes to compete for the jobs and industries of our time. We need the fastest, most reliable ways to move people, goods, and information-from high-speed rail to high-speed Internet. So over the last two years, we've begun rebuilding for the 21st century, a project that has meant thousands of good jobs for the hard-hit construction industry. We should redouble those efforts. We'll put more Americans to work repairing crumbling roads and bridges. We'll make sure this is fully paid for, attract private investment, and pick projects based on what's best for the economy, not what's best for politicians."
According to the Rockefeller study, 80% of Americans agree with this statement, which include Democrats, Republicans and Independents. They also agree by a 71% margin that this is an issue that both parties can find common ground. The most disappointing aspect of the study was with regard to one of President Obama's highest priorities in terms of infrastructure improvement - high-speed rail.
When asked to choose one or two infrastructure improvement projects where they live, 38% favored improving roads, streets & highways and only 6% chose to expand or improve the nation's passenger rail systems. No doubt, the Republicans in the House will see this as proof that the nation is not interested in high-speed rail and therefore such a project will be a waste of taxpayer dollars. There are two problems with this conclusion:
First, it is difficult to prove a negative. In other words, if most Americans have never used high-speed rail, how do they know that they would not like it or see it as important? The only high-speed rail service in America is the Ascela train on the Northeast Corridor line. This corridor runs from Boston to Washington with stops in New York, Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore. Travel time between New York and DC is about the same as if a passenger were to take a similar commuter flight "without the pat-down" of airport security. Frequent users of this passenger rail would be the first to exclaim its benefits, but since most of the population does not live anywhere near the Northeast Corridor, their voices are difficult to hear.
Second, if we are to decrease our dependence on oil, and we wish to decrease the "wear and tear" on our existing infrastructure, then we must decrease the number of vehicles per household. If 38% of respondents feel as though their local roads and highways are not being properly maintained, we can also agree that increasing the overall number of vehicles on those roads is likely to accelerate that deterioration. Reliable commuter rail transportation is the only transportation alternative that has been proven to reduce the number of vehicles on the roadways. In addition, construction and maintenance costs of rail track verses an interstate highway varies greatly. A study of Interstate 81 in Virginia found that the commuter rail system had an average cost of $6.5 million per track mile, while the Interstate highway had an average cost of $40 million per mile. Also note that if all of the passengers of the Ascela were suddenly forced to drive the same distance from New York to Washington, it would take twice as long, it would consume twice the amount of energy, and would consume five times the amount of fossil fuels.
If we can all agree that Americans have too few transportation choices, and we can agree that infrastructure is a key priority that we should be focusing on for our economic future, and we can agree that we need to get the biggest "bang for our buck" when it comes to solving our infrastructure woes. Then I think we can all agree that safe, fast, clean and reliable rail transportation is a step forward to that goal.
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