» With political figures failing to account for the long-term interests of their constituents, the U.S. continues down its confused path.

The opening of the new $32.5 billion Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail link this week marked a significant milestone in the world effort to improve intercity rail systems. Though the development of fast train networks in China has not been without its failings, the connection of the nation’s two largest metropolitan regions — the tenth and nineteenth-largest in the world — is a human achievement of almost unparalleled proportions, especially since it was completed a year earlier than originally planned and just three years after construction began. It comes as the Chinese government celebrates its 90th anniversary.

With ninety daily trains traveling the 819-mile link at average speeds of up to 165 mph, the corridor will likely soon become the most-used high-speed intercity rail connection in the world. Because of safety concerns, the quickest journey between travel endpoints will take 4h48, more than the four hours originally proposed. But that will still be more than twice as fast as the existing trip by train and about as quick as the air trip when including check-in times and the journey to and from the airport. So from the perspective of intercity mobility, the rail link will be a huge improvement. The fact that trains stop in the major cities of Tianjin, Jinan, Xuzhou, Bengu, and Nanjing (among many others) — and that they free up capacity on the older line for freight use — only improves matters.

China is in a stage of its economic progress that makes great works such as this high-speed system more feasible than similar works in more developed countries like the United States. While the comparison between the Beijing-Shanghai link and the New York-Chicago connection is hard not to make — each would serve resident populations of about sixty million along corridors of roughly 1,000 miles — their respective political contexts differentiate them to such a degree that makes them almost impossible to compare.

Some Americans may dismiss the Chinese achievement, suggesting that the system’s construction by a single-party government with authoritarian tendencies makes it in itself suspect. One of the great things about the American political system is that it attempts to respond to the demands of the citizenry. The defeat of several Democratic governors in last fall’s elections reflected on some degree of disenchantment with the Democratic Party in general, but in three cases — Florida, Ohio, and Wisconsin — the GOP’s open opposition to intercity rail projects there clearly played a role in convincing voters, who evidently agreed with the anti-rail sentiment, to throw out Democrats. In some ways, it is a reflection on a successful democracy that the rail projects in those places were cancelled, whatever their technical merit.

Yet the completion of China’s longest high-speed line should raise questions in the minds of Americans about whether our particular political and economic system is most fit to compete in a rapidly changing global economy.

The United States, celebrating its own 235th anniversary, has in many ways yet to escape the doldrums of the recession. But unlike China, whose government moved forward quickly to invest in its economy in response to investor insecurity, the U.S. has been characterized by a pile-up of political figures grounding their schizophrenic decision-making in paranoia over the role of government and a general distaste for definitive action on anything.

This week’s endorsement of the Central Florida SunRail commuter train project by Governor Rick Scott (R) was a reflection of American democracy at its worse. Having complained of budget deficits and scorned off federal intercity rail funds for a fast train to link Tampa and Orlando that would have likely cost the state no money, Mr. Scott has given his go-ahead to a project whose primary beneficiary will be CSX, the freight rail operator, and whose costs to the state will run up the tab into the hundreds of millions of dollars — with few public benefits. The SunRail service will operate every 30 minutes at peak hours and every two hours during the middle of the day, at least at the beginning of operations. Future operations improvements lack funding.

The commuter line’s first phase was approved by the Federal Transit Administration in 2009 for New Starts funding because of years of influential lobbying by similarly debt-obsessed Congressman John Mica (R) despite considerable objections from the U.S. government over its cost effectiveness; it was arguably the most expensive per rider of any project approved that year. The project will serve an estimated 4,300 riders a day at a final cost of $1.2 billion, $432 million of which will be handed directly over to CSX for the purchase of its line.* This amounts to a state subsidy for a private corporation, in direct contrast to the high-speed rail line, which was attracting offers of hundreds of millions of dollars from private groups that saw operating profits on the horizon.

This in a country where even the head of the supposedly progressive party claims, just like the Republican opposition, that the best way to soothe the country’s economic woes is to reduce government spending. And meanwhile, expensive projects with only a minor impact on mobility or accessibility somehow make their way forward. Ideological consistency appears not to be an American strongpoint.

Americans cannot raise their hands in dispair, brushing off the successes of Chinese dictatorship as simply the consequence of a lack of democracy. The U.S. political system’s failures to adapt to contemporary needs are no fault of democratic practice.

Indeed, China was not alone in moving forward with fast train systems last week. The French railroads authority approved the first phase of the Sud Europe Atlantique high-speed line, which will run 190 miles from Tours to Bordeaux and decrease travel times from Paris to Bordeaux from three hours to 2h05 in 2017. The program is the largest public-private partnership ever signed in Europe and will cost a total of $11.3 billion, half of which will be covered by a group of private firms expected to pay off their initial capital expenses with fifty years of operating profits. In case the point was not clear, France is a perfectly democratic place; the project underwent ten years of studies before being approved for funding, including a significant round of public forums on the scheme. The program was approved by a succession of political leaders who were elected to their posts.

Thus it is not democracy in itself that makes it difficult to envision projects similar to the Beijing-Shanghai line being completed in the U.S., but rather our particular brand of democracy. Its short political term lengths, reliance on two center to center-right political parties, overwhelming involvement of lobbying groups in the legislative process, strong state governance, and weak local and state revenue production capabilities too often result in indecision, half-hearted solutions, and reckless governing logic that focuses on short-term wins more than long-term considerations. In many ways, it’s the opposite of the Chinese governance system, where most decisions are factored into a multi-decade conception for the country’s future by state master planners who seem to know what they’re doing. Do we?

What is the appropriate response to this problem? We can speculate away, but what is obvious is that American political support for specific investments in projects such as commuter trains or high-speed rail lines is haphazard at best and dangerously wasteful at worst. This is no way to run a country.

* The funds will allow SunRail to use the corridor during the day, but CSX will still be able to run freight trains on the corridor at night, potentially making maintenance of the line more difficult. This includes a completely out of proportion $200 million insurance policy that the state is paying to CSX to use the tracks. In addition, the funds provide tens millions of dollars to CSX to upgrade an adjacent line.

Image above: Shanghai Hongqiao station, from Flickr user triplefivechina (cc)

» $10 billion spending spree will improve transit in Cordoba and improve branch railway lines. China expects to improve trade relations and open access to natural resources.

Expanding its effort to use infrastructure investments to spread its influence, the Chinese government has agreed to a $10 billion commitment to upgrade a series of intercity rail lines in Argentina and improve urban transit systems in Buenos Aires and Cordoba. Funds come from the China Development Bank and will require a 15% match from the Argentinian government.

This money will not contribute to to the construction of the Buenos Aires-Rosario high-speed line, a separate and currently delayed project.

The effort suggests not only that China is willing and able to contribute its national funds to foreign projects, but also that it intends to structure its investments as an alternative to the World Bank, a grant-making institution that since World War II has sponsored infrastructure in underdeveloped countries with the general aim of spreading Western economic interests. China announced in March that it was planning to invest in a series of transcontinental high-speed rail lines throughout Asia and Europe; in addition, the Eastern superpower has been upping its spending in Africa far above the engagement of any other country. China clearly hopes that new infrastructure abroad will help speed goods to its rapidly expanding domestic market and encourage the expansion of its own international business.

Thanks to talks between Presidents Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and Hu Jintao, Argentina will receive $4.35 billion to renovate three freight railroad lines, including $1.85 billion to improve conditions on the Belgrano Line, which links the country to Bolivia and is an important link for the nation’s agricultural producers. China undoubtedly wants to expand its access to Argentina’s productive farmland, and rail transport is significantly cheaper than road movements.

But China has also agreed to more than four billion dollars for the improvement of the Buenos Aires Subway and the creation of a four-corridor Metro in Cordoba — projects that provide no clear economic benefit to the latter country. This suggests that Argentina has agreed to giving China preferential trade treatment above and beyond the improved access to the country’s agricultural resources.

China, of course, does not have infinite resources so it won’t be able to promise similar spending in every country around the world. That said, its own extensive investment in its high-speed rail and urban rapid transit suggests that similar American projects could potentially find funding in Chinese hands. If U.S. companies aren’t able to provide adequate private sector support for construction programs, and if neither the federal government nor states themselves are able to develop infrastructure banks to advance such funding, foreign aid could be a realistic possibility.

This could be seen as a significant let-down for Americans used to thinking that we should be able to fund our infrastructure using our own funds. But the opportunity for expanded global trade could be an excellent opportunity for improvements in the U.S.; there’s no reason to be worried about direct investment from abroad if it makes possible the construction of resources that we couldn’t otherwise build.

Image above: Cordoba, Argentina, from Flickr user Javier de Cordoba

» 1,900 miles of rapid transit planned for world’s most populated country by 2015.

Most of China’s growth is concentrated in its large urban centers, which will house fifty percent of the country’s population by 2020 and 75% by 2050. For these increasingly huge megacities, the central government has no choice but to develop adequate measures to transport the population. Following the American model of car dependence is simply not possible because of high densities and inadequate space. With its high-speed rail network, now the longest in the world, the Chinese are providing efficient intercity links into downtowns.

But it’s in urban rail networks that the country has made the biggest strides towards increasing mobility within cities. Shanghai’s huge Metro, the longest on earth, is just one among eleven currently operating in China. Dozens of other cities have rapid transit systems either under construction or in planning.

Now the central government has made a commitment to spend up to one trillion one hundred billion U.S. dollars by 2015 on such grade-separated urban public transportation corridors. This is part of a one trillion-dollar investment in urban infrastructure nationwide; China will also spend $450 billion on railway construction over the same period. By the end of this year, China will offer a total of 870 miles of metro systems, up from around 600 today, on the way to 1,900 miles in five years. Far more is planned by 2020, especially in the east coast powerhouses of Beijing, Shanghai, and the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong megaplex.

Urban infrastructure investment has consumed an average of 2.6% of China’s GDP since 1994. With a national growth rate predicted to hold at between seven and ten percent a year, the country will be able to guarantee its huge level of investment.

Total infrastructure investment across all levels of government accounts for roughly 1% of American GDP. The U.S. commits about $100 billion a year to all forms of transportation spending.

Whether China’s spending will be enough to prevent the rapid rise in car use there is unknown. Chinese’s per capita automobile ownership has increased from 24 cars per 1,000 people to 40 per 1,000, though that’s far less than the 765 cars per 1,000 people in the United States. The country’s decision to implement tolls on virtually all new highways and the use of vehicle restrictions in the central zones of cities like Shanghai and Beijing will spur more use of public transit.

China better be preparing for the future, though, when it will need to spend more rebuilding its infrastructure than constructing it anew. One hopes the Chinese have developed more stable long-term operations and maintenance funds than have those of us in North America.

» China intends to extend its high-speed rail system towards south Asia and Europe with the goal of two-day journey times between London and Beijing.

If China weren’t already halfway through the construction of the world’s largest high-speed rail network, it would be difficult to take this proposal seriously. But the most populated country on earth has shown no deficit of skill recently in undertaking massive public works projects, and its ambitions — and willingness to finance them — show no sign of slowing.

So the news that China is planning a series of transcontinental high-speed rail lines designed to connect London to Beijing in just two days that broke yesterday in the South China Morning Post should be taken at face value. The proposal, which is mapped out above according to preliminary information about proposed alignments, would likely be the largest infrastructure project — ever. Taking the growing Chinese rail network as the starting point, new 200 mph lines would extend south towards Singapore, north and west into Siberia, and west through India, Kazakhstan, and Turkey, with the eventual goal of linking into the growing European fast train system.

Exact routes are not yet determined, but the general goal of the plan is to increase the region’s mobility through fast rail networks and to join together the mostly disconnected Asian and European systems.

Government officials in China plan to use this project to expand the country’s base of natural resources. Negotiations are already underway with 17 countries, premised on the idea that China would spend its own money building the rail links in exchange for resources it currently lacks. According to Wang Mengshu, a consultant working on the project, “We would actually prefer the other countries to pay in natural resources rather than make their own capital investment.”

China has already agreed to finance a rail link into Myanmar in exchange for the rights to that country’s lithium reserves. Russia and China have announced plans to build a new trans-Siberian link. Iran, Pakistan, and India are each negotiating with China to build domestic rail lines that would link into the overall transcontinental system.

It’s a sort of neo-imperialism desired by the countries to be colonized. Will they regret the selling off of their natural resources in exchange for better transportation offerings? Is this reasonable foreign investment on the part of China, or is it an attempt to take control of the economies of poor countries?

The strategy can’t be more clear: China wants to establish itself as the center of Asian trade, the hub of the world’s largest market. By developing the economies of Cental Asian and Eastern European countries that have missed out on the enormous growth currently being experienced by China, the region will experience increasing trade and development, a result that will in turn aid in expanding the Chinese economy. It would allow China to solidify its position as the dominant player in the Asian economy, with the goal of eliminating any hopes of increasing American or European influence there.

Though China’s economy continues to grow at an unbelievable pace, its slow-growth demographics resulting from the one-child policy mean that it must focus its efforts abroad if it wants to continue expansion into the future.

Despite China’s history of following through with its big rail plans, building a 17-country network is quite different than upgrading just its own lines. Some major problems, like track gauge differences and differing visa requirements, stand in the way of ever completing the project. If they get their way, however, Chinese officials want to complete the project in ten years. It’s an outrageous — and exciting — objective.

What makes high-speed rail so remarkable is its ability to move people so quickly from one place to another, and that, of course, requires high average running speeds. In the U.S., even the fastest train — the Acela Express that travels between Boston and Washington, capable of 150 mph — averages only about 80 mph on its 450-mile journey. As has been discussed previously on these pages, while the ability to reach higher and higher speeds is an important element of rail system success, the ability to maintain those speeds is what matters most.

Even on the fastest rail lines, average speeds have come nowhere close to meeting top speeds on trips between major cities; this is typically a result of required slow-downs in urban areas and at stops and tight curves through difficult terrain. Many “high-speed” lines also contain many sections that have not yet been upgraded to the highest standards, forcing trains to run more slowly along them.

Today, the fastest scheduled journey between two cities on any high-speed route in the world is on the TGV Est in France between Champagne and Lorraine stations, a distance of 168 km completed at an average speed of 279.3 km/h. But that connection is just a small section of the overall line; much of the rest of the route features far lower average travel times. Many “high-speed” rail journeys throughout the world offer similarly quick segments with the rest of the line operating far more slowely.

Indeed, the fact that high-speed rail rarely means high-speed throughout the route makes the opening of China’s new line between Wuhan and Guangzhou, which has been under construction since 2005, particularly notable. The corridor is almost 1,000 km long and trains are able to travel at their maximum speeds basically from beginning to end.

According to Chinese officials, trains will be able to traverse the 968 km route in just four three hours, averaging 328 242 km/h,* about three-fourths of the trains’ technologically imposed maximum operating speed of 395 km/h. This is compared to a 10h30 travel time on the older track.

At similar speeds, commuters could get between Boston and Washington in about three and a half hours or between New York and Chicago in less than five. Service of that speed would provoke an enormous mode shift towards rail transport — exactly what China is likely to experience now.

As evidenced by the above table, China’s new line provides quantitative speed advanages over some of the fastest trips of similar distances in Spain, France, and Italy — not to mention the U.S.

Tests on the corridor in early December 9th pushed the Siemens Velaro trainsets used by the state railway to up to 395 km/h. That makes them the fastest production trains in the world, though a modified TGV reached 572 km/h in 2007.

The Chinese government is capable of such audacious average speeds because, more than any other country on the world, it is engaging actively to invest in its infrastructure needs for the next century — its commitment earlier this year to $200 billion for high-speed rail outmatches any previous investment in rail in the history of the world.

Unlike Western countries, which tend to prioritize the preservation of existing city centers and which are willing to alter routes dramatically to respond to citizen concerns, Chinese officials can ram through huge, invasive infrastructure projects virtually anywhere. In general, this means Chinese trains are able to accelerate more quickly and maintain their top running speeds even in heavily populated areas.

There is good evidence that investors in new rail lines have a strong incentive to push trains to the fastest-possible average speeds despite the fact that doing so provokes considerable local opposition. After years of growth, South Korea’s high-speed KTX line is suffering from declining ridership after the opening of a direct metro link to the Seoul Airport, despite the train system’s relatively low fares. Competing economy air routes offer faster service that’s just as convenient; any new rail corridor in the U.S. will immediately face similar competitors, so there is a strong motivation to keep travel time differences to a minimum.

KTX hopes to regain many of those travelers with a new fast link opening to Busan next year that will increase average speeds and decrease travel times to just 2h10 between the cities.

China’s advances suggest that high-speed rail has yet to meet its technological limitations and that countries like the United States, only now spending on rail, would benefit from finding ways to speed new train lines even more quickly.

* Note: Some reports have claimed that the Wuhan-Guangzhou route is 1,070 km long and that it will be served by trains completing the route in just three hours. Wrong. The first number is the mileage of the line this new, shorter route replaces; the second is the travel time of a test train that ran the route non-stop earlier in the month (at an astonishing average speed of 323 km/h) — regular trains will take a still-admirable four hours to make the journey.

Update, 27 December: I’m sorry I reported this story incorrectly earlier. These trains will indeed be able to complete this journey in just three hours, solidifying the route’s fastest-in-the-world status. The claim of some Chinese officials that this line is 1,070 km long, however, seems to be inaccurate, as reported previously. According to ARCADIS, an engineering group working on the project, the line is 935 km long, with a 350 km/h design speed; Structurae notes that the line distance is 968 km, the number I use here. Conclusion: trains are actually averaging 328 km/h or less on the line, not the 350 km/h China is advertising. This makes sense considering that Siemens’ Velaro trainsets being used on the line are only designed for 350 km/h maximum commercial operation. There is a bit of misinformation being spread here.

China’s Beijing-Shanghai high-speed connection, which is the most important link in the country’s ambitious rail plans, will be faster than previously announced when it fully opens in 2013. The project was designed from the start for trains capable of 217 mph top speeds, but the government estimated total trip time of five hours on the 819 mile corridor, which would have meant average speeds of 164 mph on the whole line, a bit above typical for a corridor of this type. The country has now announced that its ambitions are even larger, and that trains will average over 200 mph to make the trip in less than four hours.

What’s significant about this announcement is that it means that trains will be moving at speeds higher than the 217 mph initially proposed for the major parts of the trip, making this by far the fastest conventional high-speed line in the world when it opens. The decrease in travel time from five hours to four also will allow trains to take a far higher percentage of the market share on China’s most important intercity link. Though three hours is typically seen as the time barrier under which trains can take travel share from airlines, a four hour trip on this corridor will make it a very popular choice for a link that already carries 10 percent of the country’s rail traffic. A trip between the cities today takes around 12 hours by rail.

The distance between Beijing and Shanghai is roughly equivalent to that between New York and Chicago.

China’s Railway Ministry sees its investment in new corridors as an essential way to avoid congestion as the country develops. China only has 1/50th of the number of airports as the U.S., but its high-speed railway network, measuring up to 7,000 miles by 2020, will be the longest in the world.

Beijing’s increased confidence in its capacity to deliver what amounts to the world’s most advanced high-speed corridor will be buoyed by a favorable stock market reaction, because the country is likely to list a holding company controlling the corridor on the stock market. Doing so would allow China to raise further funds for fast rail expansion, making this corridor only the first among many.

China, as described before, has embarked on the world’s largest high-speed rail program, with more than 10,000 km of passenger rail lines under construction to connect the nation’s largest and most important cities. The result will be truly expanded mobility for the country’s citizens and vastly reduced travel times.

Most important, perhaps, is the Beijing-Shanghai link, which will connect the country’s two largest metro regions, and whose construction began in April of 2008. According to People’s Daily, all of the tunnels along the 1,200 km long line will be completed this year – after little more than a year in construction. Trains along the corridor are now projected to travel at 220 mph, the same as along California’s planned high-speed line, and they will cover the distance in five hours.

Consider this: the distance between New York and Chicago is roughly the same as that between Beijing and Shanghai. Amtrak’s current best offer – along the Lake Shore Limited – makes the trip in nineteen hours. Imagine how many people would take the train if the same journey time were reduced by 75%…

Meanwhile, Shanghai Daily reports that the 2,066 km line between Shanghai and Kunming – a route not fully planned just a month ago, according to my research (at the time the project was expected to extend to Changsha only) – will be upgraded to high-speed service, with construction beginning later this year. The trains will run the route in 10 hours, versus 37 hours today. Another Amtrak comparison: that’s roughly equivalent to the distance between New York and New Orleans, a route that takes the Crescent 30 hours to complete.

Finally, construction on the proposed Shanghai-Hangzhou line, which is the first phase of the Shanghai-Hong Kong route, will begin in March, according to Xinhua. The 159 km journey will be covered in 38 minutes, versus more than an hour today. This short line will cost about 4.4 billion U.S. dollars to construct.

The U.S. stimulus bill, supposedly a “massive” investment in America’s infrastructure, will devote a maximum of $2 billion to high-speed rail, if the Senate version assumes priority. The House version of the bill included nothing for fast trains.

We’re falling further behind…

Image above: Shanghai South Rail Station, from Flickr user XXOM under CC License

» We can learn a lot when we compare.

In the United States, perhaps because of our geographical isolation from Europe and Asia, we have a tendency to ignore the successes of other nations, focusing instead on our own society as the be-all-end-all, even when we have been outmatched by our foreign peers. There is little doubt that the United States is frequently miserably slow at updating its infrastructure, but we do not bring up international competition in the interest of bashing those manifest failings; rather, the accomplishments of other countries demonstrate what we, too, can achieve as others have already.

It is with this in mind that we consider, once again, high-speed rail, a transport technology that we in America have been notoriously bad in implementing. For the most part, we have  laid back as Japan, Italy, France, Germany, Spain, South Korea, and Taiwan have developed incredibly speedy train networks and redefined mobility in their respective nations. But nowhere has the pursuit of the progress made possible by faster railways been as enthusiastic as in China, whose vigorous construction effort is unmatched.

Indeed, China has embarked on the second largest public works program in history, following only the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System in size. China plans to spend more than $1 trillion on expanding its railway network from 78,000 km today to 110,000 km in 2012 and 120,000 km in 2020. The Interstate Highway System was originally authorized to be 66,000 km long, but has expanded past that goal to 75,000 km today. The two nations are of basically equivalent size, and this means that China, which already has a passenger rail network about the size of our highway system, will be practically doubling its mileage of intercity connections.

China’s goal is to reshape its landscape around train services to a similar degree that the Interstates have reshaped the American one.

Perhaps the most audacious element of China’s rail investment is its goal to invest in 13,000 km of high-speed rail by 2020. The Chinese are investing in two major track types: very high-speed rail, for trains traveling at 350 kph (220 mph); and typical high-speed rail, for trains traveling at 200-250 kph (125-155 mph). The latter tracks would be shared with regional, commuter, and freight trains, while the former would be reserved for high-speed trainsets alone.

As the map demonstrates, there are four main corridors being readied for very high-speed rail: Beijing-Hong Kong; Beijing-Shanghai; Xuzhou-Lanzhou; and Shanghai-Changsha. Since the vast majority of China’s population is located near its eastern coast, the majority of the country’s large cities would be well served by the network. The Beijing-Hong Kong line would be the largest single element of the system, at more than 1,000 miles long. As the “what we can learn” chart at the top of the page demonstrates, building a high-speed rail line in the United States as long as this would mean, for example, building a brand new line between Boston and Miami.

China is staking much of its economy in the construction of this rail system – the investment in intercity rail is the largest element in the country’s stimulus plan designed to counter the effects of the increasingly devastating recession. The country recognizes the benefit of increasing the speed of travel in the country. It also is acting to fulfill the demands for mobility of its growing middle class not by emphasizing super-highways but instead by building railways.

The 13,000 km of high-speed rail that China expects to have ready in eleven years is a big number: it’s the biggest fast train expansion in the world. An intelligent observer, however, might suggest that Spain, much smaller in land size, has an even more ambitious goal: 10,000 km planned by 2020. Indeed, Spain’s program is indeed quite impressive, and we hope to discuss it soon on the transport politic. If China were to embark on a project proportional in landmass, it would have to be 190,000 km long; in proportion to population, it would have to be 290,000 km. Spain’s high-speed rail program is enormous for its geographic and population size.

China’s specific program provides a better example for us to follow in the United States, however, because of the similar geographical size of the two countries, and because of the relative modesty of the current U.S. rail system, which will require decades to get back into shape. As a result, a program of China’s relative scale seems far more manageable and appropriate for comparison than one similar to Spain’s.

But the other reason China’s rail network design makes sense is that it will also take advantage of existing and slower-speed tracks, which represent the vast majority of the country’s total passenger rail mileage. Spain has a concrete disadvantage here because its regular trains operate on broad gauge tracks, while its high-speed trains, eventually to be incorporated into the European network, operate on standard gauge tracks; trains can’t easily operate on both. This means that trains can’t leave the high-speed network and use regular speed tracks, as is true in France, Italy, or Germany, for instance. This is a major nuisance.

China’s system, on the other hand, leaves open the use of the high-speed tracks for trains originating from or arriving at stations or cities without high-speed service. In other words, a train could, for example, leave Nanning in South China on slow tracks, travel to Guangzhou, and then continue to Beijing on high-speed tracks. This interoperability makes trips shorter for everyone, because a passenger traveling from Nanning to Beijing would not have to either transfer at Guangzhou to another train or take the entire trip on slow tracks, nor does the government have to invest in a high-speed line from Guangzhou to Nanning in order for passengers from Nanning to take advantage of the high-speed system!

Take a similar example from a future United States: a passenger wants to travel from Dayton, Ohio to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. But, in order to economize, only a track section from Chicago to Indianapolis, Indiana has been converted to high-speed rail operation. No matter! A passenger could take a train from Dayton to Milwaukee, via Indianapolis and Chicago, traveling at a slower speed for the first and last sections of the journey, and accelerating to top speeds between Indianapolis and Chicago. The passenger still would take advantage of a major time reduction over the existing rail system, even though both his arrival and destination city are not on the high-speed rail network.

China’s example, then, demonstrates how an efficient and useful high-speed rail system can be implemented in a very large country such as the United States:

• A large regional passenger rail network, operating at low-to-medium speeds (60-90 mph), must serve most of the country, reaching almost all destinations. This network could operate on cheaply upgraded freight track, which we in the United States are privileged to have in abundance.

• A select few main lines, operating at high speeds (150-220 mph), should serve the country’s largest cities only, and the cities well positioned in between. This network would have to be built at great expense and virtually from scratch.

• Trains must be able to operate on both types of track, so that trains can take advantage of high-speed segments, but can also serve smaller destinations not directly on high-speed lines.

China’s decision to invest in about 42,000 km in passenger rail lines, with only about a quarter of that going to high-speed lines, makes sense seen from this perspective. It allows cities throughout the nation to benefit directly from rail service, with all cities getting at least some rail and the larger cities getting fast rail.

It would be a mistake in the United States to only focus on high-speed rail, because ultimately, as budgets inevitably tighten, it would mean investment in fewer of the nation’s cities than would an equivalent sum invested in standard-speed railways. We simply cannot afford high-speed rail to every city in the country. But an integrated network, with a concentration on providing a few, high-demand high-speed routes and many standard-speed routes, would be a better bang for the buck. This Chinese example we would do well to emulate.

Map updated 10 July 2011.

The south’s second city, then, remains an example for how new LRT projects can be implemented successfully. Charlotte’s focused land use program, which encouraged dense development around the LRT station sites starting ten years before the project’s completion date, ensured a steady ridership. Meanwhile, the city’s 1/2-cent sales tax, whcih was reaffirmed by voters by a huge margin in November 2007, provides a degree of financial security that any city with a strong transit system necessitates. And the city’s efforts to expand the system, which will include an expansion of the existing line to the city’s northeast quadrant, a new commuter line to the north, and a downtown streetcar network, will only reinforce the growth of the system.

But Charlotte also provides a good example for the troubles facing transit systems in today’s economy. Falling tax revenues are making it difficult to continue subsidizing the system, and LRT service may be cut to six trains per peak hour, as compared to eight today. In addition, trains would run at 20-minute intervals on Sunday, compared to 10-minute intervals today. It would be a mistake to implement such service reductions: every cut is a disincentive to use transit. Charlotte’s funding problems, however, underscore the importance of finding more funding for our nation’s transportation networks.

—

The United Kingdom is looking closer than ever to getting a full-scale north-south high-speed rail network. We reported back in November that Labour, currently in power, had been hesitating to invest in HSR, acting instead in favor of a third runway at Heathrow. But pressure from conservative leaders, especially “shadow” transport minister Theresa Villiers, is taking its tool – in a positive way.

The Economist reports that the engineering firm Arup completed a basic study at the beginning of this year presenting a $6.6-billion new HSR line from London’s St. Pancras (where Eurostar trains from Paris and Brussels currently terminate) to Heathrow Airport. But engineering work on a replacement for the recently renewed West Side Main Line, serving Manchester and Birmingham, has yet to commence.

Yet in January’s issue of Prospect, Andrew Adonis, current transport minister, comes out wholeheartedly in favor of HSR in his country, citing the passage of California’s recent $10-billion bond measure as evidence that Britain must push forward with a system of its own in order to compete.

We’re a little skeptical of his extremely optimistic vision of the U.S.’ progress on this matter (!), but we’re excited to see both sides of the political equation getting together to address this issue.

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The U.K.’s slow climb towards HSR is especially interesting in light of today’s confirmation by China‘s Xinhua news agency that the nation will spend $88 billion this year alone on rail investments. This compares to about $50 billion invested last year, certainly not an insignificant sum in itself!

This money will allow for the opening of five new HSR lines next year:

• Wuhan – Guangzhou
• Zhengzhou – Xi’an
• Ningbo – Wenzhou
• Wenzhou – Fuzhou
• Fuzhou – Xiamen

The transport ministry will also begin construction on 70 new projects in the country as a whole, leading to a network of 13,000 kilometers of HSR lines (between 200 and 350 kph). The total route mileage of all rail lines in China will increase from around 78,000 km in 2007 to 110,000 km in 2012 and 120,000 km by 2020. This is what we like to call a stimulus.

This says two things: 1. That the recession is going directly to peoples’ wallets in a way that even the price of gas couldn’t; and 2. That once people have tried mass transit, they’re willing to keep using it. We were expecting something of a drop-off after this summer’s highs, but that doesn’t appear to have happened. This is not the time to be considering decreases in services or increases in fares.

UPDATE: Several other blogs are mentioning the fact that these ridership numbers are for the period before the downfall in gas prices. As a result, our positive analyzes above may be a bit unfair.

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Meanwhile, China continues to push ahead in all things advanced. The 1350-km high-speed rail line between Shanghai and Beijing is 91% completed. This line will allow trains to travel between the cities in five hours. Important point of comparison – Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor between Boston and New York City, which is America’s fastest train route, is a 720-km long route that takes the Acela Express train seven hours to complete. That’s an average of 270-kph vs. 100-kph. As we’ve stated on this blog again and again, we’re falling further and further behind.

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But there’s hope that there’s going to be a change in philosophy in the manner in which American politicians approach our lack of investment in infrastructure. Today’s Post also included an op-ed by former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Emil Henry. This conservative argued that it was time for this nation’s right wing to abandon its historical opposition to government involvement in investment.

He argues somewhat implausibly that “investment in key infrastructure is consistent with Reagan principles,” a comment whose validity can be faulted considering the Reagan Administration’s hostile approach towards funding infrastructure, part of the reason we’re in this mess in the first place. In fact, the United States’ right wing’s complete absence of responsibility in preventing the degrading of our trains and roads is quite evident and should be remembered. After all, the conservative parties of other countries are not nearly has anti-investment: in France, for instance, Nicholas Sarkozy’s government signed into law this year a plan for 2,000 new km of high-speed rail lines by 2020. The Republican Party has allowed the country to be sacked in the last eight years, and we have the right to demand accountability.

That said, many Republicans remain in power, and statements like that of Mr. Henry may help bring more votes in the House and Senate for infrastructure funding bills. Democrats will need them if their plans are to stand a serious chance of passage.