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March 29, 2008
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A major reason in favor of the construction of high-speed trains in America is to relieve airways and traffic congestion. First, delays at airports are costly. Larry Johnson, director of the Center for transportation Research at Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago, calculates that passengers lose more that twelve million hours each year in delays at O’Hare airport alone. In 1986, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) airlines, delays cost five billion dollars, including two billion in extra fuel and labor cost, for the ailing airline industry. According to the FAA, relieving airport congestion will cost one hundred and seventeen billion over the next decade (Mobey 14). Transportation planners predict that freeways will suffer from unbearable gridlock over the next two decades. Their conventional wisdom maintains that the U.S. cannot build out of this congestion. The Southern California Association of Governments says that daily commute time, in the Los Angeles area will double by two thousand and twenty and “unbearable” present conditions on the freeways will become “even worse”. By two thousand and twenty, drives are expected to spend
Seve nty percent of their time in stop-and-go traffic, as compared to fifty six percent today. Similar predictions have been made for metro areas around the country. Yet the best alternatives that they can offer are to spend billions more on public transport that hardly anyone will use and to try to force people into carpools that do not fit the ways they actually live and work (Samuel p 1). Highway traffic is also costly. Maintaining the interstate highway system could run three trillion dollars over the next several decades (Moberg 14). Urban congestion is a hidden tax on the productivity and welfare of urban areas everywhere. In areas like Los Angeles and New York, this tax is eight billion dollars per year; nationally, about fifty six billion per year. In the next twenty years, this insidious tax is projected to nearly double (Mallinckarodt p1). Bill Fay said,” Cars stuck in traffic waste more fuel and emit more pollutants than cars that are moving”(Dahl 4). High occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes are one of the primary tools used to reduce traffic congestion on the state highway system and improve air quality (“HOV Lanes in California …” p1). The usual goal of HOV lane restrictions is to provide overall congestion, and emissions reduction (Mallinckdet. p 1). However, in recent years, HOV lanes effectiveness in achieving these goals has come in to question (“HOV Lanes in California …” p1). When drivers use a highway, they do not pay the cost that they may be imposing on other drivers. Ideally, traffic should flow smoothly at the speed limit. However, as traffic increases, eventually the addition of one more vehicle will slow the flow and increase the travel time of other vehicles. At this point congestion (the negative externality) begins (Dahl p4). Sen Daniel Patrick Moynihan said,” The train technology, offers great opportunities to reduce congestion in our surface and air transportation system” (Clough 9). Thus building high-speed trains would aid the problem of increasing congestion at America’s airports and on the highways.
Those who argue against high-speed trains cite their negative effects to the environment. Environmental concerns have been raised with respect to high-speed rail. High-speed rail’s ability to materially reduce air pollution and energy consumption is dependent upon significantly reducing automobile and airline use ( Dahl p2). The FDOT’s (Florida Department of Transportation) projections, anticipate so few people transferring from autos and air that any air pollution or energy gain would be inconsequential. Further, construction of major infrastructure projects consumes energy. It has been estimated that San Francisco’s BART rapid transit system consumed more energy in construction than the future diversion from automobiles would save (Dahl p4). Burning fossil fuels, a process that expends approximately two times as much energy as it produces, generates most Florida electric power. Electric propulsion thus loses some of its advantage over fossil fuel propulsion (Johnson 2). Additionally French Champagne growers claim that high-speed rail embankments trap cold air, threatening their crops. A similar effect in Florida could make preservation of adjacent citrus crops more challenging (Dahl 1). However, students are now being educated on the rail system and the positive effects it can bring to the environment by reducing pollution so more and more people are using the rail transit system. Ensuring that high-speed trains will be stable, designers have minimized the amount of fuel required to run the trains, both to limit pollution from the power plant that provides the electricity and to save on the costs of electricity. To achieve the greatest speed for the lowest cost, the trains, have to be aerodynamically designed to minimize the amount of drag that is produced when they race down the track (Raoul “Optimizing Shape aerodynamics” p1) Today in the United States there is a very big problem with transportation systems. The problem consists of overly populated roads; airways and our modes of transportation are destroying the environment and burning all of our fossil fuels. One over looked possible solution to the transportation problem in the United States is high-speed trains. Trains have proven to be an effective mode of transportation in many countries and also these same countries do not share the same transportation problems we have. The negative effects to the French Champagne growers have not been proven. They claim it does that but they are in a different part of the world and a different climate then us.
Bibliography
Bieryla, Dennis. “Negative Design Tradeoffs” www.ecsel.psu.deu/~dbieryla/highspeed/negatives.html.
Clough, Alexandra. “Fast Trains Make slow progress” August 13, 1990. . SIRS. Discoverer on the Web. 8 Jan. 2001. www.sirs.com.
Dahl S. David. “Primer on congestion pricing” April 1996. Fedgazette. http://minneapolisfed.org/pubs/fedgaz/fg964c.html.
Friend, Janin. “On Board France’s Bullet Train” September 9, 1990. . SIRS. Discoverer on the Web. 8 Jan. 2001. www.sirs.com.
Guercio, Del Gino. “When even the local is an Express” December 1992. . SIRS. Discoverer on the Web. 8 Jan. 2001. www.sirs.com.
Howie, Matthew. “Amtrak measures impact of ICE train disaster” September 1998. Look Smart Service. 12 Dec. 2000. Http://www.findarticles.com.
“Interactions Between High-speed rail and air passenger transport” April 30, 1999. www.cordis.lu/cost-transport/src/cost-318.htm.
Mahtesian, Charles. “The Snail’s Pace of High Speed Rail” August 1994. SIRS. Discoverer on the Web. 8 Jan. 2001. www.sirs.com.
Mallinckrodt, Jack. “A multimodal Regional Congestion Index” January 15, 2001. http://home.earthlink.net/~mcindex1.html.
“Metro System Competition” www.nctransportation.com/metrocomp.html.
Moberg, David. “Late to the Station” June 14, 1993. SIRS Discoverer. . SIRS. Discoverer on the Web. 8 Jan. 2001. www.sirs.com.
Perl, Anthony. “Fast Trains why the U.S. Lags” October 1997. www.sciam.com/1097issue/1097perl.html.
Raoul, Jean-Claude. “How High-Speed trains make tracks” October 1997. www.sciam.com/1097issue/1097raoul.html.
Rocca, Steven. “ An Overlooked Solution” www.loyola.edu/dept/philosophy/techne/rocca.htm.
Samuel, Peter. “Traffic Congestion: A Solvable Problem” Spring 1999. www.nap.edu/issues/15.3/samuel.htm.
Sobermann, Richard M. “High-Speed trains for Canada:Technological Excellence, Groundless Conviction, or Bureaucratic Obsession?” www.fraserinstituteca/publications/books/essays/chapter3.html.
Stiefel, Chana. “ Fast Track.” March 23, 1998. Look Smart Service. 12 Dec. 2000. Http://www.findarticles.com.
Word Count: 912
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