Over the past month, economist Ed Glaeser has explored the benefits of high-speed rail in an occasional series over at the New York Times website. To put it mildly, his reception in the blogosphere has been wretched. Ryan Avent at Streetsblog has been a particularly devastating critic, picking apart Glaeser’s analysis strand by and strand and characterizing the overall effort as “daft and indefensible.”
But what’s been missing thus far is a numbers-based rebuttal of Glaeser’s “back-of-envelope calculations.” He figures three categories of benefits from high speed rail: travel (for example, fewer car accidents and reduced highway congestion), environmental (lower carbon emissions than car or plane travel, etc.), and improved land use (the rail project encouraging denser, more walkable cities, etc.). Through this combination of factors, Gleaser examines a hypothetical HSR link between Dallas and Houston and calculates annual benefits of $158 million. Not bad perhaps, but they pale in comparison to annual costs of $648 million. The gap between costs and benefits–an annual loss to society of $500 million–would seem to be so huge as to kill the prospect of US high speed rail in its cradle.
That may even to have been Glaeser’s intent in writing the series. The problem is that–through a sorry mix of omission, oversimplification, distortion, and deficiency–his calculations bear no relation to the effects he is claiming to consider. So it’s important to show that “the numbers” do not at all undermine the viability of HSR in the US, even outside the northeast and California. In fact, they tend to support it.
By populating his model with a better set of assumptions, we hope to show how badly the economist missed the mark even on his handpicked example of an HSR link between Houston and Dallas. In reality, a well-designed high speed intercity rail project between the two largest cities in Lone Star State would likely produce a net economic benefit–not at all the white elephant Glaeser suggests. In this more comprehensive model that takes into account trivialities like regional population growth and a reality-based route, the annual benefits total $840 million compared with construction and maintenance costs of $810 million. Which is to say, our numbers show that HSR pays for itself rather handily.
And this would be early in the lifecycle of the system, with those benefits likely to grow in future decades.
The Basics: A Better Set of Assumptions
Rather than looking at Glaeser’s hypothetical 240-mile rail line directly and exclusively between Dallas and Houston, I’ll base my argument on a line actually under consideration called the Texas T-Bone that would run roughly 300 miles between the cities, with intermediate stops at Waco, Temple, and College Stations. For simplicity’s sake, in this piece I’ll ignore the roughly 140-mile proposed extension of the line south to Austin and San Antonio but factor in connecting slow-speed trains from those locales.
Despite the fact that an HSR system would take more than a decade to build, Glaeser calculations are all for 2008. Why? We have no idea. Unlike some other US states, Texas is projected to grow steadily in coming years. Assuming the project gets underway relatively soon, the Texas T-Bone HSR line ought to be hitting full stride around 2030. So our model focuses on that year. Texas is projected to have 33 million people (up from 24 million today) with the metropolitan areas of Houston and Dallas each growing by more than 4 million inhabitants to populations of 9.9 million and 10.6 million, respectively.
Ridership: Using Real-World Examples
Glaeser argues that a Houston-Dallas line would be roughly one-half as popular, relative to population, as the current slow Amtrak service is in the Northeastern Corridor. His reasoning is that both Dallas and Houston are less transit-friendly areas, and therefore less conducive to train travel. So, assuming a 50 percent lower per capita ridership rate, he comes up with 1.5 million annual customers for the line – this is similar to the number of people who currently fly directly between the two cities.
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The Daily Dig is on vacation this week–last we heard passed out on a beach in Antigua–but is expected to be sobered up and and back on duty next week. We’ll be posting daily in the meantime, but also gearing up for a more ambitious editorial schedule this fall. It will include some new recurring features and departments. We think you’ll like it.
First, there was the grandfather with 64 arrests, who 
Your humble editor somehow ended up on the wrong side of a summer bug, so yesterday and today have turned into recuperation days. We should be back tomorrow and the rest of this week.
Portland Considers Buying A McMansion-style Highway Bridge
Monday, August 31st, 2009We’re all smarting from the economic recession that’s hurt our incomes and job prospects, from the decline in housing values that’s dented our wealth, and the collapse in financial markets that’s dealt a big setback to our retirement plans. We’re smarting, but, we tell ourselves, we’re smarter, too.
We’ve learned key lessons. We won’t be fooled by the Bernie Madoffs, or by claims that house prices can only go up, or that some form of complex mortgage-backed security can eliminate financial risk, or that stated-income “liar loans” were ever a good idea. At a high price, we’ve bought ourselves some very valuable lessons.
Next time, we tell ourselves, we’ll be smarter. We’ll ask the hard questions — before we sign on the dotted line. We won’t be conned by overly optimistic estimates or take some self-interested experts’ assurances at face value.
But are we really smarter? I live in the area of Portland, Oregon, and here we face the biggest public investment decision in decades. And it’s a reprise of the oldest con-game in the nation: “Hey, buddy, do you want to buy that bridge?”
In this case, the bridge is the proposed Columbia River Crossing. With an estimated price tag of $4 billion, this proposed five-mile, 12-lane freeway would be the most expensive public works project in the region’s history. The cost works out to more than $8,000 for each four-person household in the region or roughly the equivalent of 80 OHSU trams.
So far, like frenzied homebuyers a few years back, many bridge advocates seem chiefly concerned with superficial questions, such as whether the bridge will be pretty. But before we sign on the dotted line, we–and cities across the country that are considering similar investments–ought to be asking the kind of questions that will keep us from repeating the worst mistakes of those caught up in the housing bubble.
First and foremost, who will pay for this bridge?
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