New York Times Looks At China’s HSR System
Today’s New York Times has a pretty good article on the rapidly-growing Chinese high speed rail system, which will open a link from Beijing to Shanghai – two of the nation’s most populous and important cities – on July 1. Those two cities are about the same distance as New York and Atlanta, a trip that takes 18 hours by train. Next month, Beijing to Shanghai will take just 5 hours. And that has big economic impacts, even outside the key Beijing-Shanghai corridor:
China’s manufacturing might and global export machine are likely to grow more powerful as 200-mile-an-hour trains link cities and provinces that were previously as much as 24 hours by road or rail from the entrepreneurial seacoast.
Zhen Qinan, a founder of the stock exchange in coastal Shenzhen and the recently retired chief executive of ZK Energy, a wind turbine producer in Changsha, said that high-speed trains were making it more convenient to base businesses here in Hunan Province. Populous Hunan has long provided labor to the factories of the east, but its mountains have tended to isolate it from the economic mainstream.
Mr. Zhen ticked off Hunan’s attributes: “Land is much cheaper. Electricity is cheaper. Labor is cheaper.”
Around China, real estate prices and investment have surged in the more than 200 inland cities that have already been connected by high-speed rail in the last three years. Businesses are flocking to these cities, now just a few hours by bullet train from China’s busiest and most international metropolises.
The description of Hunan Province sounds almost exactly like the description of California’s Central Valley. As I have been saying for years now, the Valley will do extremely well with California HSR – land and labor are both cheaper there, and there’s every reason to believe businesses and jobs will flock to Fresno, Bakersfield, Merced and Hanford once the system is complete.
The article also points out that China’s HSR system has opened up more room for freight trains on tracks in China, and the separation of passenger and freight has had positive impacts for both.
The article discusses some of the criticisms of Chinese HSR:
Financial regulators in Beijing have cautioned banks to monitor their rising exposure from hefty loans to the rail ministry. To pay for rapid deployment of the high-speed system, the ministry has borrowed more than $300 billion.
That’s a hefty sum, and tax revenues would be a better way to fund it than a lot of borrowing. But even then, the borrowing looks like it might just pan out. China used HSR as a form of economic stimulus during the recession, and the effects on business and freight, as well as savings in energy costs to move passengers, may very well balance out the construction costs.
The New York Times doesn’t explore that issue explicitly, a reflection of the bias in American journalism against making an honest accounting of infrastructure benefits, but we can see the balance sheet pretty well, and the article gives plenty of ammunition to make the case that China’s HSR investment is worthwhile.
Another issue that frequently comes up is fares. Unlike HSR in France or other places, where governments chose to subsidize fares at system launch, China doesn’t subsidize its fares, perhaps because they need to pay back the debt. That’s a risky policy and a bad one from the perspective of getting riders and ensuring everyone can enjoy the system’s benefits. But even with higher fares, China’s HSR system is wildly popular:
From Changsha to Guangzhou, the one-way fare in economy class for the two-hour journey, at speeds of up to 210 miles per hour, is 333 renminbi ($51). That is comparable to a deeply discounted airfare, but expensive for a migrant worker from Hunan who might earn only $160 to $400 a month in wages in Guangzhou….
Zhou Junde, a migrant construction worker with a large red and green tattoo of a hawk on the right side of his neck, stood in line here at the Changsha station on a recent Friday afternoon to buy a high-speed ticket to Guangzhou. But the next high-speed train was sold out, and so was the next one 10 minutes after that. He would have to wait 30 minutes to board a train with a seat.
“Sometimes,” he said, “I come several hours early to get the departure I want.”
Ultimately the issue here seems to be that Chinese workers aren’t getting paid well enough, and not that HSR is too expensive. But that too reflects a bias in American journalism for deflation and against wage inflation.
Many Americans are reading this article and wondering why the hell we aren’t doing more of this here. Oliver Willis, a leading progressive blogger, blamed the right for our inability to get HSR done:
The Bush years were the beginning of America slipping behind the rest of the world, as our government rapidly increased its hands-off approach to national greatness projects. What we are dealing with now is the aftermath of that (and Democrats enabling it).
Willis points out that conservatives are “constraining our innovation” and that is undoubtedly true. Whereas the United States was once a global leader in new and better technology, today’s conservatives, whether they are Republicans in Congress or NIMBYs in Palo Alto believe that innovation is bad and that anything which threatens the status quo must be ruthlessly crushed. It’s an anti-intellectual, anti-progress stance that has no place in a modern society.
And it has no place in a global economy. Those conservative anti-HSR folks are convinced that it will always be 1985, that the United States will always dominate the globe, always be rich, and always will be able to base that success on burning oil. Anyone who has looked at reality lately knows that’s no longer true. But anti-HSR forces are more interested in propping up a failed status quo than in actually preparing the country to meet the challenges of a new century.
They will happily ruin all of our futures just so they can keep burning oil, just so they can keep living out a fantasy of having a semirural life in the middle of a dense urban area. There’s no reason – none whatsoever – why we should go on humoring these reckless attitudes any longer.
http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/tre75m0gg-us-china-rail/
It appears that some of China’s hsr lines have hardly any passengers. So too the CHSRA’s Tehachapi detoured, Fresno-obsessed, greenfield stilted, iconified Diridon-Pacheco extravaganza and maybe 1/5 the number of passengers projected?
Does boondoggling get you the firing squad in China?
Miles Bader Reply:
June 22nd, 2011 at 10:59 pm
You do know that throwing in a huge glob of your pet FUD phrases just makes you look like a nutjob, right?
political_incorrectness Reply:
June 22nd, 2011 at 11:28 pm
Don’t worry about him, we’ve tried already.
synonymouse Reply:
June 23rd, 2011 at 12:19 am
The truly nutty see car-crazy Fresno as the center of the hsr universe. What a waste.
http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2011/06/21/fresno-calif-is-new-car-theft-capital-us/
TomW Reply:
June 23rd, 2011 at 9:21 am
The high number of car thefts gives Fresno residents added reason to ditch the car for HSR.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
June 23rd, 2011 at 9:42 am
The failure of the Smurfberry crop gives Papa Smurf extra incentive to ditch his alchemy gig in the Smurf Village and instead commute on HSR to new opportunities in the Magic Marshes!
Peter Reply:
June 23rd, 2011 at 9:55 am
Do they grow magic mushrooms there?
Miles Bader Reply:
June 23rd, 2011 at 10:00 am
They did … but that evil Gargamlynarik has eaten them all!
joe Reply:
June 23rd, 2011 at 12:56 pm
Well Gargamlynarik, in cities like SF, auto break-ins and related expenses like insurance deter car ownership. Protreo Hill, Noe Valley, Haight and Casto are examples. Would the economic incentive be that much different in Fresno ?
Fresno’s public transit combined with HSR’s connections to LA and San Jose, The Capital of Silicon Valley, will probably reduce car ownership and help the city foster in-fill. Certainly a two car family could drop a car and use that savings to ride rail.
http://www.fresno.gov/NR/rdonlyres/E1B45744-443D-4575-BD2F-286945C54C04/0/FAXSYSMAP03_11.pdf
Alon Levy Reply:
June 23rd, 2011 at 1:32 pm
Are you saying Fresno has public transit?
randyw Reply:
June 23rd, 2011 at 1:50 pm
Even with poor transit, I do expect Fresno and all of the stations to quickly get Carshare/ Zip Car cars. Which would be a very valuable and cheep way to extend the easily accessible reach of the system.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 23rd, 2011 at 2:11 pm
Californians think if the bus comes every half hour during daylight that’s great service…..
joe Reply:
June 23rd, 2011 at 3:03 pm
Alon, Yes. I am saying Fresno has a rapid transit system. I posted a link to the system map PDF.
Also Google transit supports Fresno http://www.google.com/intl/en/landing/transit/#mdy
Live in the service area and with HSR public rapid transit take you and a carton of smurfberries to downtown LA or SF or the Capital of Silicon Valley, San Jose.
Alon Levy Reply:
June 23rd, 2011 at 3:50 pm
First, rapid transit generally means a subway, an el, or S-Bahn-grade commuter rail. If you want to stretch it you can include light rail or full-fat BRT.
Second, here is a local’s view of what Fresno has. It’s not public transportation; it’s charity. It bears the same relationship to public transit that a mud shack in the rural parts of the third world bears to an apartment building.
BruceMcF Reply:
June 24th, 2011 at 10:05 am
Or for a less precise, less hyperbolic analogy, it bears the same relationship to public transit that ramshackle apartment buildings built with neither code nor legal hookups to electricity in urban parts of the third world bear to an apartment building …
… it is, indeed, public transport, but is far from public transport someone would choose to ride by preference, rather than riding because they have no other choice.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
June 23rd, 2011 at 3:49 pm
I’m saying that the only people in Fresno who don’t drive everywhere (and who won’t continue to drive everywhere) are brown people who aren’t going to be paying to riding shiny spanky HSR for jaunts to the LA County Museum or to SF Giants games, but are going to continue waking and riding beater bicycles and waiting forever for shitty bus service and filling menial jobs and who are never going to get anything from CHSR except higher taxes (which, yes, they pay.)
Nobody moves to Fresno in order to embrace a Car Free Urbanist Composting Organic Community Values Lifestyle. Not on Planet Earth.
Leroy W. Demery, Jr Reply:
June 24th, 2011 at 8:07 am
Too bad, “‘Mouse,” that you don’t bother getting off your … um, tail … to check out Chinese rail traffic statistics. Amerikanskiy monoglots might be interested to know that these are now fully bilingual.
I just got back from a trip to China and travelled on the HSR between Shanghai and Nanjing. It cost $25 for the express train which covers the 190 mile journey in 75 minutes and half the price for slower local train which does it in 110 minutes. I took the express train on three separate occassions and it were at least 85% full. I was on the local train once and there were people standing without a seat. Both trains travel at a maximum speed of 200 mph except the local train has more stops. Supposedly only seated tickets can be sold but the demand is so high the rule is not always followed. The population of Shanghai is roughly the same as that of LA and Nanjing the Bay Area. There are about 85 departures in either direction on a daily basis.
One can arrive at the train station 15 minutes ahead of departure and there is enough time for you to board and get comfortable before the train leaves the platform. It was an amazing experience. Oh have I mentioned the leg room?
Jarrett Reply:
June 23rd, 2011 at 2:35 pm
What was the security like? Could you just buy your ticket at a vending machine and hop on board without barriers of was there a security theatre?
Alon Levy Reply:
June 23rd, 2011 at 3:50 pm
There’s very brief security theater, at some stations. It took me 1 minute at Shanghai South, and was as far as I remember nonexistent at Jiaxing.
5letters Reply:
June 24th, 2011 at 3:06 pm
Starting June 1st, you need to present a government issued ID when purchasing tickets for HSR. Random ID verifications are performed at the station. At the entrance to the station there are usually X-ray machines for luggages and metal detectors but as far as I can tell there are no additional security checks once you are inside the station. You simply need to swipe the ticket to enter the platform when it is time to board which is usually 20 minutes before departure.
Americans just love them some schadenfreude about how China does things badly – that’s why you have people predicting a China bubble and writing in length about Chinese boondoggles. Somehow, they never bother themselves with the facts that the US is not really recovering from its own bubble and that it has huge cost overruns on projects such as the Big Dig and Bay Bridge Eastern Span replacement and never punishes the people responsible. Spare yourself reading those repetitive articles about China; just read Orwell’s essay, Notes on Nationalism, and mentally search-and-replace terms appropriately.
The topic at the moment is the the retired chief engineer of China Railway Ministry’s confession that the entire Chinese HSR system is a fraud and an exaggeration, not how well China’s HSR system works.
China’s HSR system should not be a role model for anyone to follow, because Chinese tracks are unsafe and are already falling apart after less than 4 years of operation, Chinese trains willfully infringe on foreign intellectual property rights, and Chinese railway operators speed to 350 km/hr on trains and tracks built for 300 km/hr.
In other word, whatever happens in China has no relevance here in the US, because Chinese bids cannot pass US safety and intellectual property rights standard.
Alon Levy Reply:
June 23rd, 2011 at 10:15 am
The least safe major railway systems measured in fatalities per passenger-km are Germany, Italy, and South Korea. France, Japan, and the Germanic countries of Europe other than Germany itself are much safer.
Peter Reply:
June 23rd, 2011 at 10:19 am
“The least safe major railway systems measured in fatalities per passenger-km are Germany, Italy, and South Korea.”
Of the countries we have reliable numbers for…
Alon Levy Reply:
June 23rd, 2011 at 3:51 pm
Yep.
Well, to be fair to the Koreans, the US has even more fatalities per passenger-km – I just don’t consider it a major passenger railway system.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
June 23rd, 2011 at 4:07 pm
To a significant extent, train accidents per route-km are just measuring traffic density and number of junctions and number of passengers per km.
What’s impressive about the US is how many people it manages to kill with trains running once an hour on “networks” that are seldom more than a couple radial unconnected shuttle lines. It takes effort and talent and dedication to spontaneously jump off the rails and run into a kindergarten and BLEVE when there’s no other traffic for 50 miles.
(On the other hand, Switzerland has the world’s highest trains per day per track density, but doesn’t have the proportionate fatality, despite the heroic efforts of Berlusconiland.)
Max Wyss Reply:
June 23rd, 2011 at 11:27 pm
Most often, accident rates with rail systems contain grade crossing accidents as well. Such accidents are not really assignable to the rail system, but to the stupidity of the (mostly) car driver. When comparing with Switzerland, one has to be aware that most gate crossings in Switzerland are full gates, as opposed to the half gates in many other countries. Therefore, it is not really possible to drive around the closed gate.
I guess, it also depends a lot on the general “safety awareness” of people and staff.
Alon Levy Reply:
June 23rd, 2011 at 11:34 pm
For the record, the numbers I’m channeling are based on media reports that made it to English Wikipedia, and exclude almost all grade crossing accidents (and probably a lot of worse accidents in India and China). They basically are about safety to rail passengers, rather than car drivers.
Sektor Reply:
June 24th, 2011 at 11:35 pm
The poster above is a well known anti-China troll who posts garbage related to China everywhere on the Internet. Anything he says has to be taken with a huge block of salt.
All the accusations are basically unfounded, since all the evidence is anecdotal. The Chinese HSR system is as good as any. And I say this from experience. Compared to Spain’s AVE and France’s TGV the Chinese system is just as good, if not better.
It’s easy to focus on the negative, but airlines are now expecting to lose 30% of traffic between Beijing and Shanghai to HSR.
Andy M. Reply:
June 23rd, 2011 at 8:41 am
sorry, forgot to mention the source. Here is is (in Spanish unfortunately) http://www.expansion.com/agencia/efe/2011/06/22/16270844.html
Report: Beijing-Shanghai railway speed claim faked
Interestingly, the NYT story says speeds were (in part) cut to cut energy use and allow for lower fares:
OT: At the Morgan Hill’s request, a 15-foot earth & concrete “at-grade” berm for both HSR and UP is now also under consideration.
Reality Check Reply:
June 23rd, 2011 at 4:23 pm
Here’s the link to the full story.
Peter Reply:
June 23rd, 2011 at 4:44 pm
PAMPA should take notes as to how a non-loony town has successful dealings with the Authority.
Miles Bader Reply:
June 23rd, 2011 at 5:13 pm
Excellent, so pretty much a win for everybody.
[UP should note well: if they play nice, HSR can help them...]
morris brown Reply:
June 23rd, 2011 at 6:13 pm
For 3 years now I have heard how negotiations with the UPRR were ongoing. It should be plainly obvious that UPRR wants nothing to do with HSR and they had better just go elsewhere.
BTW, note that the “earmark” of $16 million for CalTrain PTC was “finalized” today. I’m sure Robert will comment on this. If this means, throwing funds at CBOSS, what a complete waste.
Peter Reply:
June 23rd, 2011 at 6:31 pm
“It should be plainly obvious that UPRR wants nothing to do with HSR and they had better just go elsewhere.”
The fact that UPRR is still negotiating after years makes it plainly obvious that both sides feel that something good will come out of these negotiations. The terms of an agreement such as the Authority wishes to make with UPRR aren’t going to be resolved in a few weeks, let alone a few months. Note that the Authority is also still negotiating with BNSF, after years as well. Also note that they’re negotiating certain, specific issues, such as how to implement HSR in a specific location. They’re not just negotiating for the sake of negotiating. Should we give up because the issues are complex and they’re taking a long time to resolve?
“If this means, throwing funds at CBOSS, what a complete waste.”
Agreed. CBOSS must die.
in other news: FRA OK’s $16m for design of Caltrain’s special custom version of PTC. For some background reading … a lot has been written about CBOSS over on Clem’s blog.
political_incorrectness Reply:
June 23rd, 2011 at 7:19 pm
*slams head into wall*
Alon Levy Reply:
June 23rd, 2011 at 9:43 pm
You should view the glass as 92% full: only $20 million of the $251 million pricetag is funded. (More like 98% with the obligatory cost overruns.)
For those interested in statistics:
The Jinghu (“Beijing-Shanghai”) railway extends 1,450 km (the “freight distance” is 1,463 km). The line is double-tracked throughout, with a third track Beijing – Tianjin. Electrification was completed in 2006. The maximum permitted speed (certainly not on all of the line) is 250 km / h.
The hand-wringing in certain quarters – US and China – about the HSR project (the Jinghu High-Speed Railway) ranges from ridiculous to “crow-diculous” (to borrow one of my father’s “SC-isms”). The corridor served has 6.5 percent of China’s land area, and houses 26.7 percent of its population.
As for the impact on Beijing – Shanghai air services (… boo, hoo, hoo …): The corridor has 11 cities that house more than 1 million people (e.g. Nanjing). That makes 109 “other” markets (aside from Beijing – Shanghai) between cities having populations of 1 million, and up.
At 2005, the Jinghu line carried 108 million passengers, and 54 million tonnes of freight (freight statistics pertain to Tianjin – Shanghai segment, 1,315 km).
The 2005 traffic-density statistics were 47.9 pass-km per km of line length, and 72.2 million tonne-km per km of line length.
This means that, on average, each km (or mile) of line carried 47.9 million passengers and 72.2 million tonnes of freight. That was more than five times the national average for rail passenger traffic, and two times the national average for rail freight traffic.
(Implied “average travel distance” was 628 km per passenger.)
This traffic was not distributed “evenly” along the line length. Of the total, 73 percent of line length was described as carrying 70 percent or more of “capacity,” and 26 percent was described as carrying more than 100 percent of “capacity.”
The passenger traffic density statistics may be placed in context as follows:
The Tokaido Shinkansen carried 82.8 million pass-km per km of line length (2009). The statistic for all shinkansen lines (2008) was 37.5 pass-km per km of system length.
BART carries about 15 million pass-km per km of line length “systemwide.” The busiest segment, the Transbay Tube, carries about 45 million pass-km per km of line length.
Remarkably, the Beijing and New York subway systems carried about the same passenger traffic density at 2005 – 36 million pass-km per km of system length. The Lexington Avenue Subway carried about 155 million pass-km per km of system length (2005).
Thus, the Jinghu Line is an exceptionally busy railway.
(Certain Amerikanskiys will spout cubic light-years of hot air over this, but rail “capacity” is a function of passenger-km and tonne-km, not “passengers” and “tonnes.”)
Statistics for 2009: 143 million passengers, up by more than 31 percent from 2005.
52.7 million pass-km per km of line length, up by 10 percent from 2005.
(Implied “average travel distance was 534 km per passenger. Shorter-distance traffic, long “suppressed” by sheer lack of capacity, is growing.)
53 million tonnes of freight (Beijing-Shanghai).
53.7 million tonne-km per km of line length, down significantly from 2005. (Passenger traffic growth might – “might” – be constraining freight traffic.)
The Jinghu High-Speed Railway, 1,318 km, is forecast to carry 220,000 passengers per day. This implies about 80 million per year. Assuming an average travel distance of 600 km (might be too low), this implies an annual passenger traffic density somewhat less than 40 million pass-km per km of system length. The Jinghu High-Speed Railway will be the world’s second-busiest HSR line.
For the benefit of Amerikanskiy monoglots, Chinese-published statistical tables on transport (and other topics) are now fully bilingual. See China Statistical Yearbook 2010. National Bureau of Statistics of China, Beijing, 2010.