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Noah Smith 🐇
@Noahpinion
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We tend to think of the "sweet spot" for HSR as being about 300-400 miles, because that's the Tokyo-Osaka distance, and also SF-LA and Boston-D.C. But maybe the sweet spot is actually more like 100-150 miles. More like Houston-Austin or LA-San Diego.
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Noah Smith 🐇
@Noahpinion
It's interesting that Chinese people mostly seem to use high-speed rail as a fast commuter rail. Except for the Beijing-to-Shanghai line, the profitable lines are almost all between cities that are ~100 miles apart.
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David Watson 🥑
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Toby Muresianu 🇺🇦
@tobyhardtospell
People go between nearby cities more than they go between cities further away (and within cities more than between them). I’d be curious how traffic on the trains compared to plane traffic between the cities. Is rail likely to be profitable as a plane replacement generally?
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Robotbeat🗽 ➐
@Robotbeat
I really like to think of all types of transport as a way to expand the effective size of cities. You need to be able to commute in less than 45 minutes (ideally less than half that).
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Waymo Lives Matter
@Lib_Development
HSR doesn’t save much time over “regular train” at that distance though. An HSR network getting dominated by short distance traffic is just a sign of overbuilding
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Piotr Mazurek
@tugot17
Hangzhou-Shanghai, 150km distance, goes every 5 minutes, ticket it 6-10 euro, pretty sweet to live in Hangzhou and commute from time to time to Shanghai
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Menace Milk
@MrKapitalist
You could run a 180 mph frequent trains connecting a bunch of mid sized cities every 60-80 miles to aggregate ridership.
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Nick Walker
@nw3
Do you think it would be easier to get funding for 150 mile routes within state lines, or those that cross state lines?
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Helaine Olen
@helaineolen
I have repeatedly said the California high-speed rail should have been LA-SD. Among other things, it would have solved the problem of the fact the current train line is falling into the ocean at San Clemente and various points in SD County.
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Edward
@_edvward0
That's the sweet spot because until that distance it's faster than flying. HSR can be, but it isn't necessarily supposed to be for commuting, but to replace short haul flying.
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JaMikeyMike
@JaMikeyMike
The sweet spot is between major airport and regional hubs… Tucson to Phoenix flies every 20 minutes and is packed
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Mario Alberto
@mario_anchor
The Surfliner between LA and San Diego is quite popular. It’s low hanging fruit for improvements, electrification, and creating an example of success to build political capital for more projects.
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Avi Frisch
@frischa
My wife took the train in Florida last winter from Orlando to Miami and enjoyed the experience. It is not super high speed, but it was faster than driving. Had CA started with upgrading the existing LA-SD train line to high speed, I bet things would have gone better.
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C. Hunter
@c_hunter_r
The entire Texas triangle is the sweet spot. In order for Boston-DC to be viable would be to reduce travel times between DC and NY to two hours and NY to Boston to two and a half hours, with the former being much easier given the issues between NY and New Haven.
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Fancy 1982
@fancy_1982
The AMTRAK I95 corridor trains get lots of use Central Jersey to NYC would reduce lots of traffic and Co2
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Daniel Radding
@dradding
Doing California HSR for LA - SD first would have been the smarter move in hindsight. Start smaller and show results faster.
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Lonestar
@Lonestar1440
This is, of course, true. The Shinkansen only makes sense because it makes so many stops along that 400 miles!
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rwatmo
@rwatmo
China retro-fitting suburban rail as HSR must have some cool agglomeration effects.
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Jeffery Mace
@sagechan1
Profit and utility don't necessarily match up? Also, that 100-150mi section may need the endpoints to maximize profit anyway. Feels like an area where there's going to be a lot of local variables.
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Luis Augusto Fretes
@augustofretes
I think we know that. The distance from Tokyo to Osaka is at the upper bound of HSR viability, more than that an airplanes massively outcompete rail. And is probably able to compete solely because both are very large dense cities. I think that’s the consensus.
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Matt
@SeinfeldLiker
Dude if we could get a regular train from Austin to San Antonio at 60mph that would be a huge win
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tuba riff
@Philonius4
Houston-Austin high speed rail would be enough to convince me to move there and I hate Houston
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sigh-op
@trashed_pander
Makes China's massive HSR network seem like yet another state-driven investment that ends up being low-efficiency and low-ROI. Similar to their real estate or manufacturing overbuild.
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