[crdoconnor]

>Even in a place like China the benefits are dubious. It is still often more cost effective to fly from Beijing to Shanghai than take the bullet train.

The price of flying has been driven down in China thanks to the bullet train.

Bullet trains are a very long term investment so they look terrible up-front - they are much more energy efficient per journey, however, so amortizing the cost of billions of passengers they're often a MUCH, MUCH better deal even though the upfront cost is very high. There are a couple of possible Boondoggles in China (I'm a bit dubious of the Wuhan-Guangzhou route), but Beijing-Shanghai along with many other routes makes perfect sense, much like LA - SF or the Northeastern Corridor.

Additional benefits include creating infrastructure that will let you wean yourself off oil and thus aid a reduction in global warming, not to mention reducing the country's exposure to the vicissitudes of the global oil markets and instability in the middle east.

The US would probably have a lot more of it by now if the upper echelons of power weren't infested with austerity/inflation hawks and oil company executives shaping policy for their own personal benefit.

[seanmcdirmid]

I actually take the Wuhan Guangzhou route often since my wife's hometown is on it and lacks an airport. It always seems crowded at least.

[ekianjo]

> Bullet trains are a very long term investment so they look terrible up-front - they are much more energy efficient per journey, however, so amortizing the cost of billions of passengers they're often a MUCH, MUCH better deal even though the upfront cost is very high

That's assuming there are no technological improvements in transportation in the long, long term. Which is, honestly, in this time and age, ridiculous.

[jseliger]

That's assuming there are no technological improvements in transportation in the long, long term. Which is, honestly, in this time and age, ridiculous.

I understand what you're saying and you might be right. But you could just as easily have said the same thing in the 1960s ("we'll have flying cars"), and yet here we are in 2014 and the places that built and maintained mass-transit systems are on average doing better than those that haven't (Richard Florida discusses this in a couple of books; so does Edward Glaeser in The Triumph of the City.)

[ekianjo]

The countries which invested in train in the 1960s are not really doing very well as far as I can tell. Japan and France are both in recession or stagnant, and it's not like trains has replaced other means of transportations. If anything, plane carriers have become cheaper than trains now, and there's also competition from the road (bus lines). So I'm not sure, country wise, that investing in high speed trains has been very profitable for the countries involved.

[rayiner]

We're not on the precipice of technological advancements in transportation? The physics are what they are, and most of what can be done has been. Its worth noting that, e.g., the investments into subways from a century ago still haven't been rendered obsolete by technology. We're only further along that plateau.

[ekianjo]

Subways make sense because they are short lines within the city. I'm talking about inter-city transportations. We'll soon (well, in 10-20 years maybe) have self driving cars, potentially faster planes (some are in development), maybe better train technologies even (that will probably need new lines - so you need to rebuild everything). And let's not forget that some sources of energies may get cheaper over time and change the transportation landscape as well. I wouldn't bet on "nothing changing" over the next 30-50 years.

[crdoconnor]

>Subways make sense because they are short lines within the city. I'm talking about inter-city transportations. We'll soon (well, in 10-20 years maybe) have self driving cars

You're kidding right? This is not a substitute for high speed rail. Cars are SLOW.

>potentially faster planes (some are in development)

You mean like the Concorde?

>maybe better train technologies

Or maybe not. Especially since without large scale investment train technology basically doesn't go anywhere. You could have said this in the 1960s yet we're still running the same shitty passenger Amtrak lines we did back then.

[ekianjo]

> You're kidding right? This is not a substitute for high speed rail. Cars are SLOW.

hahaha! You forgot that trains only go to a single place, and you often have to take other transportations means after to get to where you need to be. Cars can go directly everywhere you need, and once they are automated I'm pretty sure we will see at some point motorways for automated cars where cars will go way above current speed limits AND bring you right where you have to be without moving out of the vehicle. And if you want to work during transportation, cars will be the best way to do it, really. Nobody looking over your shoulder, more space, more comfort. If you are just saving 1 or 2 hours with the train but losing much more in productivity, the calculation is quickly done.

> You mean like the Concorde?

http://www.businessinsider.com/richard-branson-supersonic-pl...

[crdoconnor]

>http://www.businessinsider.com/richard-branson-supersonic-pl....

>Although he wouldn’t give a timeframe to when it could be done — hopefully “within my lifetime,”

In other words "don't hold your breath" and "I wouldn't make any long term economic decisions based upon this guys' pie in the sky notions".

The fact that this technology has regressed (can't cross the atlantic in 3 hours any more!) means that your assumption that future forms of transportation will always be better, faster and cheaper is horribly shortsighted and wrong.

You'd have told us in the 80s that we'd have something better than that by now. We don't. Actually what we have now is slower, and while planes like the A380 are more fuel efficient, isn't efficient enough to mitigate the rising cost of oil.

[yongjik]

Sure, if you compare technology currently in commercial use to technology where prototypes are just being built (or even better, technology that Richard Branson wants to have), the latter must look shinier. Hardly surprising.

By the way, you didn't really address "Cars are SLOW" part.

[waterlesscloud]

As others have pointed out, cars can go directly to your end destination, which trains cannot do.

But aside from that, I suspect we'll see at least a doubling of car travel speeds in the next few decades.

Speed limits are an artificial constraint in the name of fuel efficiency and safety. With automated cars, the safety limit is at a much higher speed, and even fuel efficiency can be improved with computer controlled 'trains' of cars drafting and reducing wind resistance overall (made possible by automation making the idea safe).

Still a long way from bullet trains and aircraft, but much better than car speeds today.

[rayiner]

The physics of rolling resistance and road wear really aren't on your side re: doubling of car speeds.

[seanmcdirmid]

Well, its not like Japan hasn't been spending lots of money on Shinkansen existing lines since they've been built. Actually, they upgrade them constantly. Having the right away from the first line cleared out makes continuous upgrades more feasible, however.

[crdoconnor]

>That's assuming there are no technological improvements in transportation in the long, long term. Which is, honestly, in this time and age, ridiculous.

That's dumb. Japan has invested in it since the war and has reaped the benefits despite (relatively steady) technological improvements in HSR.

Assuming that there will be sufficient unknown black-swan technological breakthroughs to render it uneconomic is frankly, absurd.

[ekianjo]

> That's dumb. Japan has invested in it since the war and has reaped the benefits despite (relatively steady) technological improvements in HSR.

What benefits, exactly?

EDIT: I mean, what obvious economic benefits is Japan getting from spending so much on train lines?

[crdoconnor]

* Far lower CO2 emissions for long distance travel.

* Greater social interconnectivity between cities, enabling denser, richer industrial networks. The Keiretsu economic structure to which Japan owes so much of its industrial success would not have worked nearly as well without easy long distance intercity travel. Horizontal networks of large numbers of small businesses spread across large distances that combine together to form, e.g. a Nikon digital camera, would not be possible if executives in these businesses did not have easy access to one another and one another's factories.

* Lower trade deficit - it's better for Japan's economy that the money spent by its citizens on long distance travel isn't filtered overseas into the pockets of rich Arab dictators via oil purchases (who then spend it on gambling in Parisian casinos or American fighter jets). Instead, it is spent at home, generating additional economic activity, enriching Japanese rather than Arab princes.

* It serves as a good form of Keynesian stimulus - keeping people employed and levels of economic activity stable during debt-crisis driven economic slumps.

All of these are economic benefits that occur in addition to the cost savings.

[ekianjo]

> * Far lower CO2 emissions for long distance travel.

Yeah, except that electricity in Japan is mostly not nuclear, so you consume CO2 to produce electricity to run your trains anyway.

> Greater social interconnectivity between cities, enabling denser, richer industrial networks.

Most of the fabric of the industrial world in Japan is around Tokyo - that is the main point of the article, too, by the way. Most of the other cities in Japan are underdeveloped compared to Tokyo. Not sure where you get the idea the train is making things better for everyone.

> long distance travel isn't filtered overseas into the pockets of rich Arab dictators via oil purchases

Electricity is produced with petrol and gas in Japan mostly. You are feeding the same rich Arab dictators anyway.

> It serves as a good form of Keynesian stimulus

Yeah and we all know how well Keynesian stimulus works. It works as long as you spend, and then poof, nothing, and people get back to unemployment - it's a loss for everyone.

[crdoconnor]

>Yeah, except that electricity in Japan is mostly not nuclear, so you consume CO2 to produce electricity to run your trains anyway.

It's MORE energy efficient - not zero emission (yet):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail#Energy_efficie...

"Even using electricity generated from coal or oil, high-speed trains are significantly more fuel-efficient per passenger per kilometre traveled than the typical automobile because of economies of scale in generator technology[42] as well as lower air friction at the same speed."

Nonetheless, it will also make it easier to reduce emissions as renewable energy output ramps up. You can run HSR on hydro, wind and solar power - you can't run planes on electricity.

>Most of the fabric of the industrial world in Japan is around Tokyo

Japan's industry stretches a LOT further than just Tokyo, as do its Keiretsu, and MANY of its household-name brands (not to mention most factories) are not headquartered there (e.g. Toyota, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Sharp, Nintendo, etc.). Japan is NOT just Tokyo.

>Most of the other cities in Japan are underdeveloped compared to Tokyo. Not sure where you get the idea the train is making things better for everyone.

I've no idea where you got the idea that the rest of Japan is undeveloped. Perhaps you should pay a visit to Osaka.

>Electricity is produced with petrol and gas in Japan mostly. You are feeding the same rich Arab dictators anyway.

Since Fukushima, yeah, but A) it is STILL more energy efficient and B) it's easier to move on to renewables (currently cheaper than oil) if your long distance travel depends largely on electricity rather than kerosine.

>Yeah and we all know how well Keynesian stimulus works. It works as long as you spend, and then poof, nothing,

It works perfectly well as a way of stabilizing demand and employment until the private sector works through a bad debt overhang and demand picks up again. This has been proven time and time again despite many economic junk-science attempts to disprove it.

If the stimulus is large enough (c.f. WW2 spending in US or Nazi public works programs pre-WW2) it ends depressions.

Japan's stimulus was enough to prevent widespread unemployment the likes of which Spain has right now, but not enough to end its serial economic malaise.