China, aviation and HSR

"China’s high-speed rail network keeps rewriting the rules of distance and connectivity. With over 50,000 kilometres of track in operation, linking 97% of cities above 500,000 residents at speeds of up to 350 km/h, it has become the largest and most intensely used system on the planet."  

- Chris Bruntlett

The metrics remind me of levels of US-aviation service coverage, and make me wonder if China hasn't focused on HSR for much the same reason it focused on electric cars: both commercial aviation and internal combustion vehicles are (like semi-conductor manufacturing) industries with extremely high-quality thresholds to be internationally competitive, and rather than fight it out, China pivoted toward New Technologies.

CAHSR

Mistakes abound, but CAHSR is the 'icebreaker' for Shinkasen in American--there is no domestic industry experience in HSR, yet politics demanded that it had to be American Made. So such mistakes were (depressingly) inevitable. CAHSR was also, at the start, politically tenuous--it had barely fifty percent support, and was only feasible because a massive slug of Federal cash was available.

The cost estimates were, if no laughable, certainly questionable. And because of the lack of cost sensitivity that afflicts most public sector infrastructure projects, a whole series of decisions that would have been questionable from an engineering standpoint were made to buy political support. The political support for a tenuous project was maintained, but suffered ballooning costs. All very typical mega-project issues. (Flyvbjerg has written extensively on such issues).

High Speed Rail, EU and the US

Today, another iteration of the argument. It goes like this:

"Amtrak sucks, why can't the US have high speed rail like Europe!" 

"Because the US is way larger!"

 Let's settle this once and for all - it is. 

https://mapfight.appspot.com/us-vs-eu/united-states-european-union-2017-size-comparison

 As the borders don't line up exactly, let's talk area. 

 KM^2

9,834,000 - US 

4,476,000 - EU

So the US is about 2.2x the size of the EU.
Let's forget about Alaska for a moment (1,717,856 KM^2)

Let's also omit the rounding error of Hawaii, so we can talk continental US, and compare continental polities.

10,430 - Hawaii

9,834,000-1,717,856-10,430=8,116,144

8,116,144/4,476,000=1.8.

So the US is about twice as large. 

This is also completely irrelevant. When people talk about the US being 'too large', they aren't really talking about size--what they mean to talk about is density, that the space per person in the US is much larger than in the EU. This is completely true. 

Year | Population | Area | Density

2019 | US - 328.2 | 8,116,144 | 40.43

2019 | EU - 446  | 4,476,000 | 99.64

So, on average, the EU is about twice as dense as the US.

Now that we've dispensed with the need to check Quora, let's talk about why this argument is irrelevant: average density.

Most of the EU (like most of the US) is empty. (Chloropleth maps of density are often deceptive). 

Europe dot density map 

US Census Blocks, <1 person/square mile:

Hence, making density comparisons over such nearly continental scales is meaningless.

 

If Salt Lake it ever going to connected to HSR, it will be through Green River...

...which basically means never.

As Jarrett Walker of Human Transit puts it, "BE ON THE WAY". As the map shows, SLC is a culdesak off of any HSR route. (Darn Wasatch Mountains, always getting in the way).

 It's not by accident--the Mormon pioneers chose SLC for it's isolation. Even when the interstate were being built, they detour around that big pair of bulges that are the Wasatch and Rocky Mountains.

Talk to someone who is old enough to know, and they still recall the changes that happened when I-80 reached the Salt Lake Valley. (Last bit completed was in 1986!)

HSR in Utah

Wasatch Choices 2050 had a high speed rail depot at the SLC International Airport.

But when I look at this map, I wonder if the place to put it isn't on the Red line Trax Meets the orange line on the map... Would be a long way from the CBD, though, with no direct connection.