More On the Benefits of Smart Rail Transport Policy

Tyler Cowen responds to my take on Ed Glaeser’s recent HSR column:

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?

I don’t really understand why Tyler thinks this is a problem. People fly between cities all the time, and airports, unlike rail hubs, are miles from central business districts. So what will people do once they’ve taken a train from one city to the next? Well, in some cases they’ll find themselves within walking distance of their destination. In other cases, they’ll find themselves within an easy transit ride of their destination; Dallas and Houston have serious plans to add to their rail networks. For other visitors cabs or carsharing will be an option. And for some subset of travelers, renting a car will be the best option. If you’re staying for the week and visiting your auntie in Galveston, then you’ll need to rent a car. If you have a midday meeting downtown and are then heading back home, well, rail is a perfect option.

And others will ask themselves this question and get no satisfactory answer and decide to drive. But if you have a rail option that’s not much more expensive than driving, and is faster than driving, and allows you to work or sleep while traveling, and delivers you within easy reach of your destination, then I don’t see how that option fails to generate plenty of traffic.

A final point: infrastructure construction influences land use patterns. Just look at the Washington metropolitan area. Jobs cluster around Metro stations on lines extending outward from the central business district. Job clusters follow major interstates, including I-66, I-270, and I-495. And jobs bunch around the region’s airports; look out from the front of the terminal at Dulles, and you see office building after office building.

If you build an effective rail system (and especially if you build complementary systems like transit and car-sharing services around that system), then employment and population patterns will respond to the shift in transportation costs. Infrastructure provides its own demand.

I’m also kind of amused at Tyler’s question, “Will people really take trains from Houston to Meridien, Mississippi?” For the right price, yes, people will take trains from Houston to just about anywhere. But Tyler, trains move in the other direction, too! It’s easy to sit around and say, “What’s the market for folks taking a train from Houston to Lake Charles or Dallas to Midland?” But for those traveling into the major metropolitan areas, trains could be tremendously advantageous. I’m sure there were a lot of people back in the day wondering who would take a Metro train from downtown Washington to Rockville, Maryland.

Comments

[Jon Smirl:]

Expand the Amtrak auto train like the one from Washington to Orlando. Everyone likes them and they are profitable. They are sold out continuously. An obvious expansion is another terminal further north near NY/Boston.

Jul 08 11:40 AM

[Valley Boy:]

The various comments made by Texans in your weblink from Tyler Cowen at MarginalRevolution.com give the feedback to this article responding to Tyler Cowen.
The Texans don't sound enthusiastic about high-speed rail.
High-speed rail might be practical in the cost-benefit sense if it were confined to linking the close-by cities of Fort Worth-Dallas and Austin-San Antonio.
I wonder if the Texans will be able to vote on high-speed rail like we Californians got to vote on our high-speed rail.

Jul 08 12:11 PM

[Steve in Gr...:]

Mr. Avent is perfectly willing to spend your money (the taxpayer's money) for this boondoogle (high speed rail in Texas, for God's sake!). I think the probability of him investing his own money is approaching zero. As is the probability of me investing mine.

If this is a good idea, why hasn't an entrepreneur (e.g. Boone Pickens) picked this up? The reason nobody has is that it is a really bad, profitless idea.

Jul 08 08:30 PM

[Valley Boy:]

The only private party I know of running a passenger train would be the non-profit company responsible for the Las Vegas Monorail. They realize that the monorail would probably be more profitable once it gets extended to the Las Vegas McCarran International Airport terminal. It currently meanders along the casinos on the east side of the Las Vegas Strip. It might be worthwhile to loop it along the casinos on the west side of the Strip as well. If it gets extended northward to reach into the city limits of Las Vegas, the city government would get involved. The monorail company would probably be turned into a public-private partnership in that case.

On Jul 08 08:30 PM Steve in Greensboro wrote:

> Mr. Avent is perfectly willing to spend your money (the taxpayer's
> money) for this boondoogle (high speed rail in Texas, for God's sake!).
> I think the probability of him investing his own money is approaching
> zero. As is the probability of me investing mine.
>
> If this is a good idea, why hasn't an entrepreneur (e.g. Boone Pickens)
> picked this up? The reason nobody has is that it is a really bad,
> profitless idea.

Jul 08 09:59 PM

[TonyCinTX:]

As a Texan, I am enthusiastic about high speed rail. I have friends in Houston; they will pick me up. I can rent a car, take the bus or a shuttle, if we had a damn metro rail (sub-surface or on-surface) I could take it.

In other cities (and Europe) I have taken subway rail all over a city; there is typically a stop every four blocks or so, easily within walking distance of your destination. If they can do it in Rome with all their restrictions on excavation, they can do it anywhere. Or do it like San Francisco with surface rail and open buses (streetcars). Or like New York, with lots of cabs.

Please, we are not idiots here in Texas. The market still rules, and if rail costs us half as much as driving, you will see a ton of students traveling and taking buses to their concerts or parties or whatever. Lower human transportation costs (in money, time or both) increase market sizes, period, and the cheaper it is the bigger the increase.

If you link San Antonio and Austin, you increase the market for San Antonio by adding a lot of Austinites to it, and the market for Austin business by adding a even more San Antonians to it. A combined market created by cheap mass transportation (and thus lower transaction costs) increases the opportunities for everybody.

Jul 09 09:53 AM

[Valley Boy:]

The Texan business situation is viewed here in California as being interesting and encouraging. Lots of Californians have moved there for the business opportunities.
If the Texan powers-that-be can find a way a build public-private partnerships and joint power authorities for mass transit in the areas which make sense to do so, then more power to you.
Perhaps bonds can be sold to investors to raise revenues for your efforts.


On Jul 09 09:53 AM TonyCinTX wrote:

> As a Texan, I am enthusiastic about high speed rail. I have friends
> in Houston; they will pick me up. I can rent a car, take the bus
> or a shuttle, if we had a damn metro rail (sub-surface or on-surface)
> I could take it.
>
> In other cities (and Europe) I have taken subway rail all over a
> city; there is typically a stop every four blocks or so, easily within
> walking distance of your destination. If they can do it in Rome with
> all their restrictions on excavation, they can do it anywhere. Or
> do it like San Francisco with surface rail and open buses (streetcars).
> Or like New York, with lots of cabs.
>
> Please, we are not idiots here in Texas. The market still rules,
> and if rail costs us half as much as driving, you will see a ton
> of students traveling and taking buses to their concerts or parties
> or whatever. Lower human transportation costs (in money, time or
> both) increase market sizes, period, and the cheaper it is the bigger
> the increase.
>
> If you link San Antonio and Austin, you increase the market for San
> Antonio by adding a lot of Austinites to it, and the market for Austin
> business by adding a even more San Antonians to it. A combined market
> created by cheap mass transportation (and thus lower transaction
> costs) increases the opportunities for everybody.

Jul 09 01:09 PM