As an environmentalist, there isn’t much I’m looking forward to from the Trump administration. In his first 100 days, Trump has promised to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, ease regulations on fossil fuel production, and slash the EPA’s budget. But there is one thing the president-elect and I do agree on: our rail network is the laughing-stock of the world. Or, as Trump put it, the Chinese “have trains that go 300 miles per hour. We have trains that go chug-chug-chug.”
As simplistic as Trump’s comparison is, he has a point: access to high-speed rail is simply not a priority in the U.S. like it is in China. In 2003, Liu Zhijun, a charismatic businessman-turned-politician, known for his comb-over and “glamour” — sound familiar? — happened to be the Chinese Minister of Railways. He set out to build 7,500 miles of high-speed rail, more than any country had ever done before, and in five short years, the first high-speed rail lines were up and running, albeit at almost twice the cost that was projected.
Map of Chinese and Japanese high-speed rail systems as of 2015. /Wikipedia.
Meanwhile, the fastest American rail line is the Acela Express, which connects Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. and averages a meager 68 miles per hour. Increasing cost of airfare and TSA restrictions are fueling the growing support for high-speed rail nationally, but Americans are still being forced to make do with subpar passenger rail service. In 2011, President Obama declared that high speed rail would serve every four out of five Americans in twenty-five years. Five years later, there is only one high-speed rail project underway in the U.S.
A 500-mile high-speed rail line was narrowly approved by Californians in 2008. When completed, it will connect Los Angeles and San Francisco in less than three hours, reaching a top speed of over 200 miles per hour — just as fast as European and Asian bullet trains. Taking the train would then be twice as fast as driving, and comparable to flying if you account for security lines and check-in.
The high-speed rail line will eventually connect San Diego and Sacramento too. The privately funded XpressWest will provide high-speed service from Los Angeles to Las Vegas in 80 minutes. /California High-Speed Rail Authority.
The catch? Despite being marketed at $33 billion, the price tag has nearly doubled. Additionally, the first 119-mile stretch of the line was supposed to be completed by 2018, but now is slated for completion in 2022. At this rate, it will take over a decade for publicly funded high-speed rail to be a reality in America.
Due to the delays and its rising price tag, the project has started to fall into disfavor with Californians. Critics have regarded these initial challenges as signs that high-speed rail will never come to the U.S., calling the high-speed rail project a “social science experiment.”
In this respect, there are valuable lessons to be learned from the success of China’s high-speed rail system. First, it has proven that return on investment for high-speed rail is well worth the initial cost. As lawmakers fret about the ballooning cost of the high-speed rail project in California, the state will spend almost four times the cost of the rail line on road infrastructure by the time the rail line is completed. And unlike roads, high-speed rail lines can become profitable fairly quickly. China’s Beijing-Shanghai line, which was built in 2011, posted a profit in 2014, three years ahead of schedule, and is predicted to be paid off entirely by 2028.
Of the roughly $15 to $16 billion dollars set aside for transportation in California’s 2016-17 budget, high-speed rail only accounted for 15%. /Legislative Analyst’s Office
Second, China has demonstrated that high-speed rail can have a positive environmental impact. Seven of the ten most polluted U.S. cities are in California, and the reason is clear: freeways in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Jose are among the most congested in the United States. While Chinese air quality continued to worsen following the introduction of high-speed rail in 2008, moving away from transportation powered by fossil fuels played an important role in mitigating air pollution levels when they peaked in 2014. Recent decreases in smog levels provide good reason to believe that air quality in China is on the up and up. Relying on 100% renewable energy and diverting tens of millions of passengers from flying or driving annually, the new high-speed rail line in California will easily offset the greenhouse gas emissions from construction and reduce smog along major corridors.
Lastly, ambition was key to the success of Chinese high-speed rail. In China, a big personality single-handedly paved the way for one of the largest infrastructure projects in modern history; there is no reason to think that the biggest personality on the national stage in America couldn’t do the same. In his acceptance speech, Trump promised to build the “railways of tomorrow,” and unlike a wall spanning the length of the Mexican-American border, thousands of miles of high-speed rail projects is certainly a way to be a remembered. Just ask Liu Zhijun.