MODERN TIMES
Art Hobson
ahobson@uark.edu
NWA Times 5 August
2006
A NATIONAL
HIGH-SPEED RAIL SYSTEM
I recently flew from Fayetteville
to a physics convention in downtown Dallas. Including transportation to the airport, check-in 90 minutes
before flight time, the flight, claiming my luggage, and transportation to
downtown, it took four hours each way and cost $340 for the round-trip.
If IÕd wanted to grip a steering
wheel for five boring hours each way (excluding stops), I could have
driven. This would have been 30
times more dangerous than either a plane, train, or bus and cost me $330 (at
the American Automobile AssociationÕs estimated 50 cents per mile).
Most industrialized nations have a
high-speed rail network that would have gotten me safely to downtown Dallas in
under two hours, time that could be spent in spacious quarters reading,
walking, sipping a cocktail, dining, or napping. TodayÕs fast trains have cruising speeds of over 200 miles
per hour, enabling travel from Fayetteville to downtown Kansas City or Little
Rock in an hour, or to Chicago in 3.5 hours plus a few minutes to change trains
in Kansas City and Saint Louis
These thoughts are inspired by the
July 28 Northwest Arkansas Times article
titled ÒGet back on the rails, America,Ó by geographer David Keeling. Keeling proposes just such a national
high-speed rail system.
ItÕs hard to convey how healthy
this would be. Bypassing our
ailing Amtrak system, the project would build new track, purchase new trains,
and build a dense network connecting major cities with stops in smaller
cities. Some might say itÕs too
big a project for America, yet the original 42,000 miles of the interstate
highway system—the worldÕs largest public works project—were built
in only 13 years following President EisenhowerÕs 1956 signing of the
interstate highway bill.
Here are some of the advantages of
such a system:
If 25 percent of todayÕs automobile
transportation were to switch to trains (a plausible figure, in view of
escalating gasoline prices), some 1.5 million highway accidents, 750,000
injuries, and 10,000 deaths would be prevented every year. This follows from standard accident
statistics, and from the negligible accident rate of trains. Highway deaths are especially tragic
because automobiles tend to kill people in the prime of their lives, bereaving
a wide circle of parents, friends, and accident survivors.
Automobile air pollution causes
heart disease, cancer, and respiratory ailments, at a national financial cost
of $100 billion per year. A fast
train network would prevent nearly 25 percent of this.
Cars are a primary cause of global
warming, one of EarthÕs greatest threats.
The USA emits a quarter of the worldÕs global warming gases. A rail network would reduce AmericaÕs
emissions by around seven percent.
Cars and trucks cause most of
AmericaÕs toxic carbon monoxide pollution and much of the nitrogen oxide and
hydrocarbon pollution that leads to acid rain, smog, and other ailments. Trains would reduce all of this.
A train network would reduce our
Òaddiction to oilÓ (as President Bush puts it). Automobiles gulp 28 percent of our petroleum. Since trains are ten times more energy
efficient than cars, switching partially to trains would reduce oil consumption
by some six percent, reducing oil imports by over ten percent.
Despite federal highway
expenditures of over $34 billion per year, our interstate highway system is
crumbling faster than it can be repaired.
Dollars spent on a rail system would help preserve present highways, and
allow reductions in our enormous spending for new highways.
The nationÕs airports are
overtaxed, leading to airport delays and enormous investments in airport
expansions and new land-consuming airports. With a fast rail system, intercity trips of up to 500 miles
would be faster and cheaper by train than by car or airplane, relieving
airports of the burden of these short-haul trips.
Because travel up to 500 miles
would be fast and cheap by train, travelersÕ time and money would be available
for more productive pursuits.
Our local economy and quality of
life would prosper. One result
would be commuter rail for Northwest Arkansas. Local bus service to interstate train terminals would
flourish, stimulating the spread of community bus service everywhere. Trains draw community development
inward, toward the train line, in contrast to highways such as I-540 that
encourage outward sprawl and all the transportation problems that go with
it.
With growing networks of trains for
intercity travel and buses for local travel, plus the pedestrian orientation
that would flow from these networks, many people could conduct their lives
without owning a car. The AAA
states that it costs $8000 per year to own and drive a car. Removing this burden would benefit
everybody, especially the poor. It
would release funds for more productive purposes than the purchase and
maintenance of two tons of carbon-belching steel.
The projectÕs direct economic
effects would compare with the effects of the interstate system, but with few
of the drawbacks (sprawl, highway deaths, etc.). U.S. automobile companies such as General Motors could, if
they had the vision to climb aboard this project, be rejuvenated. Jobs would be created in everything
from building trains, to constructing track, to building terminals, to
transit-oriented development near terminals.
One more big advantage: trains are fun!
A cynic might argue that a national high-speed rail network makes so much sense that our government will never accept it. But I prefer to believe that one or more of our 2008 presidential candidates will have the common sense and the vision to incorporate this idea into his or her campaign agenda, and that the first Òall aboardÓ will be heard by say 2015.