Poll Shows Strong Support For HSR Funding
HNTB, which is a contractor for the California High Speed Rail Authority on some of the project segments (as well as other transportation projects), commissioned a poll that shows public support for HSR remains strong:
Nearly nine in ten (88 percent) Americans are currently open to high-speed rail travel for long-distance travel within the United States. While this is a strong majority, that support is down slightly from the 94 percent America THINKS recorded in March 2009.
There isn’t really much difference between 88% and 94% – both are massive majorities. The poll did show that there has been some decline in the public’s preference for HSR as a travel option since early 2009:
[Peter] Gertler [HNTB's HSR chair] said such advocacy efforts are crucial at a time general excitement about high-speed rail has slowed. Americans were far more likely to choose high-speed rail over driving or flying for a trip to a city in their region in March 2009 than February 2010 (54 percent versus 38 percent).
“The pain we all felt when gasoline was hovering near $4 a gallon has receded,” Gertler said. “Yet we can’t stand by for the next crisis to hit to address the underlying issues of congestion and our dependency on limited fossil fuels.”
I’m sure the deniers will make much of the change from 54% to 39% in terms of choosing HSR over driving or flying. But what it actually shows is that HSR demand here in the USA is driven strongly by gas prices. When they rise, more people look at trains. When they fall, folks go back to their old habits.
As we know, gas prices will NOT remain where they’re at right now. In fact, even during the worst recession in 60 years, the price at most pumps in California has been hovering around $3 per gallon. That suggests once we see real economic recovery, the price will rise again, with $4/gal an easy target. Consider also that oil consumption is already on the rise around the world and will only increase more significantly once global recovery happens and you can see why Deutsche Bank projected the cost of a barrel of oil will hit $175/bbl by 2016 – which would likely mean a price at the pump of around $5/gal.
In that instance, we’ll see people turn to HSR as their preferred travel option. Further, this poll was of the USA as a whole and not of Californians specifically, who would be more likely to choose HSR. It also doesn’t include the “induced demand” factor, which can be more easily explained as “if you build it, they will come” – as long as HSR is a theoretical concept and not an actual travel option, polls like this will prove to be a rapidly-changing and unreliable guide to ridership.
The poll did show that public support for HSR funding remains very high:
While general interest may have slowed, there’s still a great deal of support for passenger rail enhancements overall. More than four in five (83 percent) Americans agree public transit and high-speed rail infrastructure should receive a larger share of federal funding than they do now.
I don’t agree with the press release’s framing of “general interest may have slowed” but 83% support for increasing HSR spending is a pretty convincing stat that ought to give Congress a green light to make a serious and lasting investment in HSR.
The poll has its limitations, of course – I’d be curious to see what Californians believe about these issues, as well as polling results on questions such as “do you still support California HSR?” and some of the financial questions that HSR critics have raised over the last year. I’m confident that such polls would show public support here in CA remains strong, but it would be worth examining.
I think that the vast majority of this country, 90 percent, do not care about high speed rail, public transit or even know what’s going on with it.
Matthew F. Reply:
February 18th, 2010 at 6:53 pm
To be fair, 90 percent don’t care about any transit issues beyond their own commute.
Matthew F. Reply:
February 18th, 2010 at 7:06 pm
Heck, 90% of people do not care about their own car unless a light starts blinking on the IP…
Dan Reply:
February 18th, 2010 at 7:52 pm
Although I am an enthusiastic supporter of HSR, most folks I speak with don’t know / don’t care about it. Even among the well educated and those with a lot of international exposure (I am an engineer and work with many int’l folk), most have barely heard of the HSR efforts here in California.
As much as I’d love to believe the results of this poll, I find it hard to believe that 88% of Californians know *anything* about HSR (even “what it is”). There is garbage science on both sides of any debate, and i have to consider this in that camp ….. even if it espouses a side which I believe in. Bummer.
Great comic reference: http://xkcd.com/701/
Joey Reply:
February 18th, 2010 at 8:01 pm
Well I find that hard to believe. Chances are, any semi-educated person will have heard of the TGV or the Bullet Train, plus anyone who bothered to educate themselves on what they were voting on in 2008. Most people know that the project exists, though I would agree that few people know the details.
wu ming Reply:
February 18th, 2010 at 8:04 pm
um, what do you make of the millions of californians who voted for or against the train just a year and a half ago? no idea/opinion seems a stretch.
Dave Reply:
February 18th, 2010 at 9:07 pm
They should have put 83% of people who know about HSR and its planned developement and implementation in the U.S. support it. Not 83% of the population in general.
Heck, most people don’t know much else about life other than to pay those bills and pay that mortgage. It’s like they’re zombies who look to the news for answers to life, go to work to pay those bills and nothing else, how sad.
I think the real support will come out when the thing is actually built and people come to depend on it in their daily life, then the support really counts and their will be widespread support and demand for more extensions.
wu ming Reply:
February 18th, 2010 at 8:02 pm
unprompted, yes, but if asked, very few will be hostile to the idea. it’s just not on most people’s front burner.
BruceMcF Reply:
February 19th, 2010 at 11:43 am
This is why opponents are working very hard on framing the questions to set up as many “when did you stop beating your wife” questions as possible. People’s reaction to it when asked about it is far more volatile at this stage of the project than it will be when there are actual trains running of the various tiers of HSR, so its urgent to try to disrupt the process of bringing those opportunities to experience improved train operations into existence.
HNTB, which is a contractor for the California High Speed Rail Authority on some of the project segments (as well as other transportation projects), commissioned a poll that shows public support for HSR remains strong:
It really takes a lot of nerve to paint this poll as a true reflection of anything, when you Robert, do nothing but complain about a group like the Reason Foundation taking support from oil companies, and thereby nothing they support or print is worthy of any consideration.
AMAZING !!!
wu ming Reply:
February 18th, 2010 at 8:05 pm
a poll is different from an op-ed. the reason foundation mostly issues talking points. if you want to disprove the poll results, you need to go nate silver’s route and show how the sampling/methodology/questions were faulty. otherwise, you’re just putting your fingers in your ears.
show your cards, morris.
Matthew F. Reply:
February 18th, 2010 at 8:51 pm
It’s not biased, it’s a fluff poll – it’s like asking, do you like puppies?
Dave Reply:
February 18th, 2010 at 9:27 pm
88% of people like puppies down from about 94% last year.
Francis Reply:
February 18th, 2010 at 11:16 pm
I think the decline in popularity is a general malaise due to economic and political frustrations of the average American. That is in regard to HSR and puppies. Notice how the percentage somewhat mirrors the inverse of the unemployment rate. I think I’m on to something..
YesonHSR Reply:
February 18th, 2010 at 8:18 pm
The Reason Foundation/CATO ect ect flood the media with a constant stream of anti HSR rail transit ect
on a weekly basis. ! HNTBs poll is nothing compared to these pros
lyqwyd Reply:
February 19th, 2010 at 12:33 am
morris, notice how some of the people here questioned the poll? some of them being HSR supporters. That’s a sign of a rational person. Those types of people tend to be on the side of HSR.
You on the other hand are a one trick pony, anybody bashing HSR is speaking god’s truth, whereas any support is clearly a pack of lies. That is the behavior of an irrational person. Most of the deniers are have the same strategies as you.
The Reason foundation studies have been thoroughly discredited, on numerous occasions, but you keep bringing it up.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
morris brown Reply:
February 19th, 2010 at 7:27 am
you write:
The Reason foundation studies have been thoroughly discredited, on numerous occasions, but you keep bringing it up.
“Thoroughly discredited by who? By Robert — a thirty year old who runs this blog and who has no credentials. I’ll take experts with experience anytime
Insanity is this project….
Peter Reply:
February 19th, 2010 at 8:50 am
“Experts” are only credible when they are neutral. Claiming that someone whose organization is financed by oil companies and airlines who talks negatively about high speed rail is neutral is like claiming that spokespeople for Phillip Morris are neutral when they talk about cigarettes.
If they’re not neutral then they’re just hired guns.
EJ Reply:
February 19th, 2010 at 12:16 pm
“Neutrality” is a bogus concept and is irrelevant. If they’re truly neutral, why would they even bother learning about the subject?
Arguments pro or con should stand on their own merits, not how many letters someone has after their name or how professedly “neutral” they are.
Peter Reply:
February 19th, 2010 at 12:46 pm
Neutral, as in their opinions are based on facts and they are willing to change those opinions based on how facts change.
Peter Reply:
February 19th, 2010 at 1:17 pm
And neutral in which they don’t have a vested interest in stating things in a certain way to fit their patron’s agenda.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
February 19th, 2010 at 2:46 pm
I don’t care what someone’s position or bias may be. If their arguments hold up and are supported by the evidence, that’s enough for me.
So far, HSR critics have yet to find any evidence (for example) that there’s anything wrong with the ridership estimates, despite their desperate efforts to find such proof. If they ever found any legitimate flaws, I’d approach it with an open mind.
lyqwyd Reply:
February 19th, 2010 at 9:35 am
I’m not sure what Robert’s age has to do with anything.
So you will take “experts” at a clearly biased foundation that are so incompetent they put out a report that can be so easily and completely discredited by a 30 year old blogger with no credentials.
It doesn’t take a certain age, or a certain profession, or certain credentials to look at a report, and point out gaping holes that completely invalidate the premise of the report.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
February 19th, 2010 at 11:35 am
Credentials and experience alone don’t validate an argument. Evidence is what matters. The Reason Foundation’s work has been repeatedly discredited, not only on this blog but on others, by people who looked at those studies and explained quite clearly, with reference to evidence, how it was deeply flawed.
HSR deniers live in a world of truthiness, where evidence no longer matters – all you have to do is find things that reconfirm your pre-existing views and you assume that counts as “evidence.” It doesn’t.
As to this poll, I explained that it was an HNTB poll. I thought it obvious that readers could draw their own conclusions about the poll’s reliability.
BruceMcF Reply:
February 19th, 2010 at 11:40 am
Name a Reason foundation piece on HSR from the last year, and I’ll be happy to debunk a page from it selected at random, free of charge.
When the work is constrained to finding an argument against whatever the proposed HSR project is no matter what the circumstances, the author is simply at a disadvantage compared to someone who is free to support or oppose any given HSR project and is free, if new empirical information becomes available, to change or refine his or her conclusions.
I think that if you build it and it becomes convinient people will use it. Build more bike paths and bicycle lanes and people will use them, If you build more rail transit connected with more frequent, cleaner (I stress the word Cleaner) public transit (Buses/light Rail), people will use it. If you build it, they will come.
If you build thousands and thousands of roads, freeways bridges do you expect us not to use them? Of course we will use them, even if it means we become fatter, lazier irresponsible slobs because we don’t want to walk at all. I’ve seen some people drive their cars two blocks and back daily like it’s nothing. We do love our cars and I feel that if we don’t have options on trasportation our marriage to our cars seems more and more like a shotgun marriage we have gotten used to. I love my car, but I’m not IN love with it.
Victor Reply:
February 19th, 2010 at 12:51 pm
Ok I object to being called Lazy, I may be fat(380lbs or so), But lazy I’m not, I used to be able to do around 100 sit ups in about 1 minute, It started turning to fat after I stopped doing so many, In any case I use a car as mass transit doesn’t exist out here outside of dial a ride and one can not bring home food on the bus and expect It to stay frozen, So I drive a car to the market once a month and to the Post Office twice a week to get My mail as this area has no mail delivery to ones house or business, But then I’m a disabled person and in less than a year I’ll be 50 yrs old, I like HSR, But then I’ve always liked Trains, My Dad and brother like Cars and so I didn’t get along with Dad on that(among other things), Anything strenuous and My core body temperature shoots up into the near dangerous range as then I’m sweating like crazy then(You don’t have a clue as to My medical background or a degree in Medicine either most likely), But I digress, Please don’t assume a Fat person eats anymore than You do or is any lazier than You are(I don’t know if You are or not, So I won’t) as It’s wrong to do so.
Peter Reply:
February 19th, 2010 at 12:59 pm
I think Dave was referring to people who “choose” to gain weight. Not those who have a medical problem leading to the weight gain.
BruceMcF Reply:
February 19th, 2010 at 2:06 pm
As Peter noted, the original comment seems to be in relative terms – the change in weight, etc. from the change in transport system – not in absolute terms.
That is, there are overweight people in both the US and Singapore, to take two countries with quite different transport systems but not very dissimilar income levels.
But with the heavy reliance on the car in the US and a transport system in many suburban areas that allows no effective alternative to the car, its not surprising that a substantially larger share of the population in almost all parts of the US are overweight than in Singapore.
I don’t think this poll matters too much. Polls of people’s projected behavior are not a good barometer of actual behavior. Most ridership projections models I know of, including all that have been tested in the real world, look at observed travel behavior to predict rail ridership rather than ask people what they would do in a hypothetical situation.
Also: can we stop with this love affair with modes of technology? Public transit doesn’t equal buses and light rail. Light rail/tram/streetcar is one form of public transit, which you use when ridership is too low for a fully grade-separated subway or el but too high for limited stop buses and trolleys. Good public transit isn’t about technology, but about good intermodal connections, easy transfers, predictable schedules, service to the primary employment and retail centers, and a thousand other things that look small but make the difference between disasters and success stories.
Having proctored several surveys of transit passengers, I can assure you that the service attribute most desired – or demanded – is schedule adherence (or “punctuality”)
The extent to which this is a concern does not “fit” the models – and the “worldview” of some transit advocates. It is literally better to offer, say, service every half-hour or even every hour, with 100 percent schedule adherence, than every 15-20 minutes with poor schedule adherence. If you find this difficult to believe, think: someone making connections with some other service or mode, especially airlines.
I prefer the term “schedule adherence.” A chronic problem with transit is “missing trips.” There is nothing that infuriates consumers more than when timetabled services do not operate – or fall so far behind schedule that the following trip catches up. I am convinced that this problem is much more significant with buses than with rail – although it does occur on rail systems (I remember the afternoon when a scheduled peak-period BART train simply did not operate, and I missed the connecting bus – the last trip of the day.) The underlying issue, I think, is supervision of operations.
So yes, good public transit is “mode neutral” per se, but the matter is not quite so simple in the “real world.”
BruceMcF Reply:
February 19th, 2010 at 2:02 pm
And note that this is not a context-independent.
(1) Starting a trip with a relatively low frequency service, a tendency to run ahead of schedule forces early arrivals, and wait time has about twice the penalty on ridership as ride time.
(2) Connecting to a low frequency service, arriving at the connection in time is the higher priority, and a short wait a secondary priority
(3) Connecting to a high frequency service, arriving early is never a problem
(4) Ending a trip with a relatively low frequency service, a tendency to run ahead of schedule forces misses services … this imposes the most a substantial penalty on the last trip on a low frequency service.
This is why the Perth (WA) station service buses are effective recruiters, since they tend to be relatively short routes that allow buses to reliably arrive on time for the train without requiring excessively long waiting times at the station, and that is taken advantage of to provide bus routes and schedules (and ticketing) that are integrated to the rail system.
And for ridership modeling, its definitely true that rather than average wait, there ideally should be median wait, difference between median wait and 95th percentile wait, and a missed connnection measure.
Alon Levy Reply:
February 22nd, 2010 at 12:10 am
Leroy, is schedule adherence as important as you say it is across the board? I was under the impression the studies promoting its importance were done for commuter rail, where schedule adherence should be more important than for intercity rail or local urban transit.
Joey Reply:
February 22nd, 2010 at 12:37 am
Let’s just try to make sure the trains are on time :D
With the right questions, you can get the right answers… see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yhN1IDLQjo (I think – I can’t view it on this computer).