China Builds Sucessful High Speed Rail While U.S. Flails under Austerity

[G_j]

http://m.dailykos.com/story/2013/09/24/1241163/-China-Builds-Sucessful-High-Speed-Rail-While-U-S-Flails-under-Austerity?detail=facebook

China Builds Sucessful High Speed Rail While U.S. Flails under Austerity
by FishOutofWater Sep 24, 2013 8:01pm PDT

China successfully built a high speed rail network while the U.S. flailed in a very weak and slow recovery held back by near record low government spending.

--

When the great global recession hit, the Chinese government went full speed ahead on plans to develop high speed rail. China embarked on a massive debt-funded spending program to develop public infrastructure. Now, just 5 years later, China is reaping the benefits of increased productivity. The Republican mantra for over 30 years, cut government spending, has led to American stagnation while China has prospered by investing in public infrastructure.

Just five years after China's high-speed rail system opened, it is carrying nearly twice as many passengers each month as the country's domestic airline industry. With traffic growing 28 per cent a year for the last several years, China's high-speed rail network will handle more passengers by early next year than the 54 million people a month who board domestic flights in the United States. ...

Business executives like Zhen Qinan, a founder of the stock market in coastal Shenzhen, ride bullet trains to meetings all over China to avoid airport delays. The trains hurtle along at 186 miles an hour and are smooth, well-lighted, comfortable and almost invariably punctual, if not early. "I did not think it would change so quickly. High-speed trains seemed like a strange thing, but now it's just part of our lives," Zhen said. ...

Chinese workers are now more productive. A paper for the World Bank by three consultants this year found that Chinese cities connected to the high-speed rail network, as more than 100 are already, are likely to experience broad growth in worker productivity. The productivity gains occur when companies find themselves within a couple of hours' train ride of tens of millions of potential customers, employees and rivals.

..more..

[Bonobo]

1. Stolen technology from Japan

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/04/15/china-japan/

[jsr]

2. Yep.

[Ursus Rex]

7. Lots of research on it since the 19th century, in North America, Europe, and Japan

Heck, I remember seeing maglev demos from MIT in school films from the 50's ... It's not a new idea, but it did (and does) require the initiative to build it, as well as commitment to develop incidental tech along the way - that's where Japan excelled. The US had an extensive train system at the time (at least, enough to suit their needs as they saw them), and didn't really grasp the future. China ... well, China strikes while the iron is hot and makes it hot by striking, and lets the devil take the hindmost.

[Romulox]

14. Who did Japan steal it from? And who cares? nt

[katmondoo]

3. Our Governor in Florida vetoed having a high speed train

even though the people wanted it and he could have received Federal money. A lot of jobs would have been created. Now it is no Obamacare. He will not take money to help the poor. The death panel the Republicans talk about is their own party.

[Niceguy1]

5. Florida

Lucked out...CaliforniaCalifornia's hight sped raild is turning into a disaster that may be in violation of the law that authorized it.

Plus a lotnof businesses (including women and minority owned) are being displaced and their compensation isn't enough to start over somewhere else.

[harun]

17. Can't make omelets without breaking some eggs bro

[Plucketeer]

29. So.....

Californians should be satisfied with driving their smog-belching cars instead of embracing the future? I would dearly LOVE to be able to get to Los Angeles in an hour or less while reading a book or napping. Instead, I have to endure three hours of risking my neck on freeways with idiots and 18-wheelers. Yeah, let's yield to some mom&pop convenience store. After all, what more "convenience" could I want???

[noiretextatique]

41. this californian supports high speed rail

honestly, we should have it already.

[Niceguy1]

42. some are resturants

That have been around for close to a hundred years.

And I would betbyoubwould be screaming loud it the govt took your property and disnt evwn pay you what ypu owed for it......that's happening, too.

[NYC_SKP]

4. This is because we wait for permission from all sides before we act.

And China just fucking builds it. Coal plants or HSR, they don't wait for their disparate interest groups to reach consensus.

They just fucking build it.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

10. That's what totalitarians always do.

At the expense of high-speed rail we should be grateful we aren't like them.

[NYC_SKP]

16. I am grateful. There is such a thing, however, as taking it too far.

I'm deep in the heart of the HSR debate in California, I hear from all sides, I read reports.

We are right now at a point where the government needs to tell the RW crazies in our central valley, and the NIMBY folks in the Livermore Pleasanton valley, to STFU and let this go through.

The same is true of ill-informed opponents to the conduction of research into offshore renewable energy projects.

Oregon has no problem with it, but California is gridlocked on the matter with no movement forward whatsoever.

[shebornik]

19. The reason we're gridlocked

is because the crooks who call themselves the High Speed Rail Authority never had any intention of building a viable rail line. They want to start the first section in the middle of nowhere and end it in the middle of nowhere. They have thrown in all kinds of idiot ideas to scare off potential investors all the while pocketing all of the allocated funds they can. Fortunately they are now in court for violating almost all of the provisions that the California voters voted for.

[Egalitarian Thug]

36. Good to learn. It is obvious this project's main goal is to steal a pile of money and fail, thus

making it that much less likely that anyone else in the U.S. will try to build one.

[RC]

27. We are mostly like any other totalitarian.

Except our thing is exporting war and war toys, instead if keeping things at home.
I suppose we should be grateful they do export the wars and war toys, instead of using them here.

[hunter]

31. We seem to build football and baseball stadiums without a lot of trouble...

[NYC_SKP]

34. Crazy, isn't it? nt

[WovenGems]

6. Our choice

We gave them our manufacturing because we didn't want things like that.

[Egalitarian Thug]

37. I don't remember ever being given a choice in this, just when did we choose? n/t

[Octafish]

8. Let's go over it one more time, G_j! We can't afford it.

What are you? Some kind of Keynesian?

[Junkdrawer]

9. But we have 1/2 trillion for Homeland Security....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=thread&address=10023733101

[Octafish]

30. The companies selling SWAT trucks are doing swell.

Good investment opportunities for all (who can afford it).

http://www.paladincapgroup.com/about-paladin-capital-group/

[NYC_SKP]

13. Next thing you know, he'll want to put "tubes" with "trains" underground in NYC and elsewhere!

We can NOT afford this shit!!!

j/k

[Octafish]

32. Pittsburgh has a light rail.

Wherever that is.

http://publicsource.org/investigations/pittsburgh-area-has-light-rail-can-you-find-it

[Romulox]

12. We are a civilization in decline, while they are ascendant. nt

[ProSense]

15. It's not "austerity"

The debate around high-speed rail is similar to debating climate change. Republicans, deniers and other saboteurs, left and right, do everything to prevent the U.S. from becoming a leader in this area.

Krugman on Republicans "Railing Against Rail". Also, Kerry on the infrastructure bank
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x467406

Robert Samuelson Is Dead Wrong About High Speed Rail
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x611357

New GOP Governors Kill $1.2 Billion In High-Speed Rail Jobs
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2010/11/06/128652/govs-rail-jobs/

[jsr]

18. It helps that they have sent people to jail for excessive graft and cost overruns on public projects

The ones that were stupid and got caught, anyway.

[groundloop]

20. Our repubs would sure the hell be in favor of high speed rail if.....

.... we were to turn over public lands and natural resources to their corporate masters, and let the corporations reap huge profits while charging people 5 times what it costs in other countries to ride. And of course these corporations would pay the people who run and maintain the system next to nothing, all while rewarding their executives richly for having such "foresight" to build such a system.

[AtheistCrusader]

26. All the while blaming unions.

[Cryptoad]

21. Bad enough

what austerity is costing us now ,,, but what it is costing our future is a crime!

[NewJeffCT]

22. I was just on one of China's high speed rail lines in April

It was about 4 hours by car, but it was 1 hour, 7 minutes by rail. Supposedly, there will be a new even higher speed train in the next year or two that will cut the 1:07 time down to about half that. The car ride would have been about 3 hours with no traffic, but the chances of no traffic in a city in China is somewhere around 0.

The ride was very smooth and the train was pretty comfortable overall.

China has 7 of the 10 worst airports worldwide in terms of delays, though, so they need high speed rail.

[Nanjing to Seoul]

23. I live here in China. Gao Tie and Dong Che are the only ways to travel

It's quick, easy and enjoyable!

[Shemp Howard]

24. The US is not China!

Americans love their cars. It's a cultural thing. Many Americans would rather sit in slow-moving traffic than jump on a train.

By and large, it's a different story in China and Europe.

I'd be more inclined to support high speed rail in the US if Amtrak were making money hand over foot, with a great demand for their services. But except for the northeast corrider run, that's simply not the case.

Personally, I love travel by train. But don't build something as expensive as HSR unless you're rather certain that lots of people want it, and will use it.

IMHO, any monies allocated for HSR should go to a nationwide bridge repair program instead.

[Pretzel_Warrior]

25. China also kills more people than all other nations combined

Ignores property rights when they move thousands from historic districts of Beijing so they can wipe out the housing and build condos.

The vast majority of Chinese live in rural villages and are in abject poverty.

[Boom Sound 416]

28. Union?

[LittleBlue]

33. China has a virtually identical land area to the US

So when people say the US, unlike European countries, has too much area to efficiently cover with rail, just tell them of China.

The Rethugs wasted our resources on war when we should have been investing in the future.

[Dreamer Tatum]

35. The fascination people have with trains is childish.

Where trains make sense, we have them already.

[Shemp Howard]

38. Now stop that.

Sensible comments like your post #35 have no place on the internet!

High speed trains are glamorous and sexy, dontcha know? And repairing crumbling old infrastructure is neither. So billions for high speed trains, and pennies for the old bridges.

[Dreamer Tatum]

39. No, I'm sure we need a way to travel from Montana to Kentucky at 200mph.

Because those AIRPLANES that travel AT LEAST TWICE AS FAST are just so inefficient.

[hunter]

40. The trouble with airplanes is they use fuel oil.

Trains can use electricity from any source.

[bluedeathray]

43. Doonesbury addressed this issue a while back...

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