27 thoughts on “America’s Transportation Infrastructure”

  1. Transportation networks are a natural monopoly. All the cases you hail as successes of private enterprise in transportation networks were economic basket cases.
    The railroad boon in the XIXth century was nothing more than a land grab by the then called robber barons. The whole point was not to build rail or to provide a service, or even to run it profitably. It was all about real estate speculation. The highways which were built in the US before WWII were pathetically small and required the payment of expensive tolls. It was only after Eisenhower saw the Nazi Autobahn in Europe during WWII that he decided to start the National Highway System in the US. As for civilian air travel it only took off after the military airports built during WWII were put into the civilian market. Before that the requirement for airports was so constraining that many airlines thought the future was in seaplanes which did not require a runway. Examples include Imperial Airways and Pan-American World Airways.
    Automobiles have nothing to do with it. This is a non-sequitur. The Ford Model T ran on the same roads as coaches did before.

    So I disagree with both you and the article. Anywhere a land monopoly is required to build a transportation network the government does it best. Sure it will have waste. They will not quickly adapt to the latest trends. But what you need in a transportation interface is less about bleeding edge tech and more about standardization and inexpensiveness which comes from the economies of scale of doing it single provider.

    1. Godzilla,

      You are right on target. The authors haven’t a clue on American transportation history.

      The Lincoln Highway Association didn’t build the Lincoln Highway, they just connected existing roads on a map as a tool to advocate federal funding for better roads. It was part of the Good Roads Movement that was started by bicycle riders in the 1880’s, not by the Model T owners, although Henry Ford was one of the loudest voices for the federal government to pay for better roads.

      http://plainshumanities.unl.edu/encyclopedia/doc/egp.tra.013

      As shown here it focused on the improvement of existing postal roads, roads already funded by the federal government for postal service, to be improved and expanded.

      I am waiting for President Obama to declare in a speech that the Sun rises in the East so some nutty blogger will write a blog stating it doesn’t rise in the East and has never risen in the East and then seeing Rand link to it. But this rewriting of transportation history is almost as funny 🙂

  2. So where did all the Ford Trimotors and DC-3’s land? Why were North Carolinians called Tarheels back in the Great Depression? (Hint: they were playing catch-up to all the other states paved roads.)

    1. If you call a “positive externality” to lease or resell land you got by expropriating it from a 3rd party under the pretense you were building a railroad track over it sure.

      1. As opposed to spending billions on uneeded high-speed-rail, which of course doesn’t involve any expropriation at all, money or otherwise. /sarc.

        Yes, it is all about the automobiles.

        1. The difference is that since the government is not interested in profit they will not try to grab all the land they can just the one they need to build the track. Plus they won’t skimp on maintenance as much. As for it being unneeded I think you are wrong. By that logic no one needed smartphones either. Just because the product or service does not exist it does not mean it isn’t viable or desirable. I think high speed rail in California or the Northeast corridor makes a lot of sense as long as they make it electric and fast enough.

          220 mph without having the TSA pestering you providing direct connection from city center to city center? Not a good idea? You tell me. Also only the railways need to be public. Japan does concession the tracks to private companies to run trains over the railroad. It does not need to be all public.

          1. The difference is that since the government is not interested in profit

            Government might not be interested in profit, but the people making the actual decisions and handing out the actual contracts definitely are interested. Corruption is the camel in this tent. I think that’s the prime reason for the popularity of large projects.

          2. Private enterprise can be just as corrupt in a segment where they don’t have any market competition.

          3. Plus they won’t skimp on maintenance as much.
            Oh. You clearly have pointed out the problem with my viewpoint. The marketing writes itself: “High Speed Rail: We Won’t Skimp on Maintenance!”

            By that logic no one needed smartphones either.
            If you want to redefine “logic” you should give people a little advanced notice. Going into the weeds at that rate of speed isn’t just dangerous for you, some innocent reader could be injured as well.

            I think high speed rail in California or the Northeast corridor makes a lot of sense as long as they make it electric

            Because if it’s diesel… it… won’t make any sense…
            … somehow…

          4. 220 mph without having the TSA pestering you providing direct connection from city center to city center? Not a good idea? You tell me.

            Around a turn rated for 60 mph – because the driver is texting his union to complain about next week’s shift schedule.

            In Europe about 400 people die every year from train collisions at railroad crossings, which is about like having a fully loaded airliner fall out of the sky every six months.

            In Egypt last year a crossing guard fell asleep and the remains of 50 children were scattered all over the tracks when their bus got hit. In 2010 a similar collision occurred in the Ukraine, killing 43. In 1999 a truck driver with a load of steel in Bourbonnais Illinois tried to beat the Amtrack train “City of New Orleans” at a crossing. The train derailed and accordioned, killing eleven passengers and injuring over 120.

            Thank goodness the train was going relatively slowly. At 220 mph there would be few survivors, since that’s faster than most airplane crashes. In the US, high-speed rail is defined as less than half that speed, and as you push into that range, many people along the hundreds of miles of track will likely never see the train coming before they get hit, so special measures to keep people from walking across the tracks have to be put in place – all along the tracks, and hundreds of traffic crossings have to be upgraded or eliminated lest a drunk or hurried truck driver wipe out the entire train.

            Unasked: In this day and age, who burrows their way to the heart of an urban core and says “OMG! I’m in the heart of the downtown business district in the wrong d*** city! What was I thinking this morning? Quick. To the high-speed train station, Robin.” China just shut down two high-speed rail lines because they were only seeing 20% of the ridership capacity. If China can’t find enough passengers, how could we?

          5. To all the FUDmeisters you know the drill. Statistically trains are safer than cars. If you want to be that safe just don’t leave the house in the morning. You might have the bad luck of being hit by a car after all. Any means of transportation has a degree of risk associated at it and most of us are willing to take it if it will save us some time in our lives waiting for transport to do the things we really care about.

            The advantage of electric is speed and low cost per mile. The US were the ones who tried the diesel turbine trainsets in the 1960s while the rest of the world like France, Germany, Japan, went electric and guess which ones turned out to be the winners after the 1970s oil crash.

          6. Railroad fatalities account for 2.6% of US transportation deaths, but only carry about 1% of the passengers. Yet the trains travel quite slowly through built-up areas, to avoid hitting people along the track or vehicles in crossings, and to reduce the noise.

            We had trains as our predominant transportation mode a little over half a century ago. The riders almost universally abandoned it as soon as alternatives were available. I’ve ridden Amtrack across the continent, and I really would recommend that everyone do it once. Twice would be a sign of mental issues.

  4. The difference is that since the government is not interested in profit they will not try to grab all the land they can just the one they need to build the track.

    I find this comment lacking facts.

    1. So the government could have distributed more land than they did. Well that is a separate issue. Is all the land in there expropriated? My guess is that it is not and most of it was simply never distributed at all.

  5. Rand,

    Tell me, if infrastructure is best financed and built by private entrepreneurs than why are you always advocating for the federal government to fund your fuel depots in space? And for NASA to fund “commercial”crew with it?

    1. why are you always advocating for the federal government to fund your fuel depots in space?

      Why are you always beating your wife?

      And for NASA to fund “commercial”crew with it?

      Because NASA needs commercial crew. Whose money should they use, if not the federal governments?

      1. Rand,

        If they are commercial they should use commercial money, like the money Robert Bigelow was offering (remember the America Prize?). You know – free enterprise?

        All NASA is doing with its “commercial crew” is under cutting real entrepreneurs like him with its COTS/CCP programs and delaying the development of true commercial infrastructure.

        But that is OK, keep believing s

          1. I don’t believe that “space is different.” I believe that if the government wants transportation, on the ground or in space, it should pay for it.

          2. Rand,

            Paying for transportation yes, but simply paying for transportation is not what COTS and Commercial Crew are about, its about subsidizing new space firms.

            Its the difference between just buying a ticket on Southwest for a NASA employee to fly and giving Boeing money to design an airliner just for carrying NASA employees.

            But of course you will close your eyes since for you free enterprise seems to stop at the atmosphere where NASA contracting starts 🙂

          3. Its the difference between just buying a ticket on Southwest for a NASA employee to fly and giving Boeing money to design an airliner just for carrying NASA employees.

            Sadly for your stupid analogy, Southwest doesn’t exist for space, and yes, NASA would have to pay Boeing to develop the airplane if they wanted to fly sooner than the market would warrant.

  6. 220 mph without having the TSA pestering you providing direct connection from city center to city center?

    Oh geez, another comment lacking facts.

    Plus they won’t skimp on maintenance as much.

    Much? Let’s ask the US Transportation Inspector General:

    “This increase has stressed Amtrak’s aging fleet and put a premium on the abilities of the company’s maintenance operations to not only ensure the fleet continues to operate safely but also to provide services to support demand. Until 2009, however, the company could not fully fund the expansion of heavy maintenance operations to repair the rolling stock it needed to keep up with rising demand.”

    Fortunately, Amtrak can just tap the US taxpayer for $1.3 billion to fix that little problem in 2009, but “Amtrak cannot sustain the expanded workforce that it used to more fully utilize its heavy maintenance facilities after its ARRA funding expires in September 2011.”

    What to do? How about trying to make a profit? Well, it’s what they decided to do, but “Amtrak has drafted a marketing plan for the services it plans to offer to other rail carriers. However, because its facilities have historically focused on Amtrak’s own fleet maintenance, the company lacks extensive experience in the competitive market for maintenance services.”

    That’s the bad news. The good news, 72% of the track miles used by Amtrak is owned by the evil robber barron companies that make profits, maintain their tracks, and have employees capable of repairing various kinds of carraiges and locomotives. And its the track, like the road surface, that determines the safe speed of travel.

    1. That’s the bad news. The good news, 72% of the track miles used by Amtrak is owned by the evil robber barron companies that make profits, maintain their tracks, and have employees capable of repairing various kinds of carraiges and locomotives. And its the track, like the road surface, that determines the safe speed of travel.

      They still looked like crap last time I visited the US. I felt genuinely horrified when I saw railroad tracks nearly in the middle of the street with no road barriers. The rails were corroded and dented. I have seen ex-Warsow Pact nations with better railroads than the USs which seem to be stuck in the 1950s. Well it could be worse. They could be like Indian railroad tracks which seem stuck in the XIXth century.

      The Amtrak guy was being disingenuous. He could always inquire inside Amtrak to see if there were disparities in track maintenance. He could also ask for best practices outside the US. But that would be too much work and would require capital to further automate track inspections. Who cares if it saves money in the long run. All that matters is this years budget.

      1. The Amtrak guy was being disingenuous. He could always inquire inside Amtrak to see if there were disparities in track maintenance.

        You are suggesting an US Inspector General reviewing Amtrak didn’t inquire with Amtrak?

        Further, what makes you think he didn’t inquire about best practices inside or outside the US? Why would he need to look outside the US, when he can already suggest that it doesn’t meet best practices of other US railroad companies?

    2. When I was heading to LA on Amtrack, one night we were on a pretty rough section and the train was slamming side to side. Unfortunately the sleeping car’s bunks are pretty darn short, and the top of my head kept slamming into the wall. To keep my head from slamming, I hooked my feet over the other side of the bed and kept them tensed, so my head would barely hit the wall with every “clack clack”. I maintained that for maybe two hours before I realized that it was impossible to sleep while keeping my feet tensed over the other end of the bed. So eventually I just let go and let my start slamming again. I either drifted off or was knocked unconscious, but felt reasonably good the next morning for breakfast. I would compare it to sleeping on a cigarette racer going full throttle through Atlantic swells. You just have to adapt.

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