https://www.pekingnology.com/p/china-massively-overbuilt-high-speed
Good luck dealing with that financial bomb.
Given that we here in the US are still trying g to work out from under 150 year old rail infrastructure, I don’t think they need to worry about it for a while.
Rail generally lasts longer than roads even if you don’t maintain it. We’ve proven that
A feature of rail is very high building costs. If they wasted money on building HSR on a lot of places where it’s not needed, this means there’s gonna be a debt that never gets paid by the utilization of the rail. Bad investment.
So it’s not about maintenance, but the up-front cost.
Not doing an investment where an investment would make a lot of money is of course a kind of reverse of this, but which leads to a similar outcome.
you’re looking only at the return-on-investment of rail as if passengers would have to pay for it with tickets and such. that is not at all the case.
the benefit of rail or any transport infrastructure in fact is the fact that it facilitates the rest of the economy. almost every economy depends a lot on transport, and by making transport possible, the rest of the economy becomes possible, and then that pays takes, and that’s the advantage in having transport capabilities.
You could say the same about pretty much any infrastructure. It’s hideously expensive and will never get paid back by utilization.
- highways
- local roads
- bridges
- air traffic control
- utilities of most kinds
- canals
- flood control
- erosion mitigation
All are hideously expensive and will never get paid back by utilization.
Are they all bad investments?
I claim they all are critical for their indirect benefits to an economy, a society, and rail is exactly the same.
I would say that there’s quite a lot of reason to believe that infrastructure investments can be one of the best ways to help poor people rise economically. Which has obvious paybacks.
This still requires creating infrastructure that is actually needed, otherwise it’s just wasting money (which ultimately is just an abstraction over wealth, opportunity, materials, workers’ finite time and energy, etc etc).
infrastructure investments can be one of the best ways to help poor people rise economically
And specifically consider how much we can help by not requiring all the expenses of owning a car. Transit and intercity rail could be among the best investments when you consider those indirect benefits. Such a shame that short sighted people want them to be profitable in utilization
If they wasted money on building HSR on a lot of places where it’s not needed
There’s no such thing as “HSR where it’s not needed”, especially in a country that’s building housing at an insane pace. Each HSR station will just get a city built around it (hopefully not a car-dependent hellhole) and people will flock there.
this means there’s gonna be a debt that never gets paid by the utilization of the rail. Bad investment.
Chinese government can print an infinite amount of Yuan out of thin air. They don’t care about internal debts, what they do care about is popularity among their people, and “build more HSR” is a really popular policy in China because it obviously and immediately improves quality of life for loads of people. While it definitely will not “pay itself off”, this is not the point of such projects.
Thinking about everything in terms of “profit motive” is exactly why the US is the way it is.
There are certainly reasons to dislike Chinese government. They are allowing overproduction of single-use plastics (which is horrible for the planet), they are building new coal plants in 2025 (which is horrible for the planet and the quality of air in China), and they are still sometimes building car-dependent hellholes for more affluent people. But it is still like the least bad government on this planet (or at least one of them), all things considered.
Chinese government can print an infinite amount of Yuan out of thin air.
That’s not how any of this works. Sure they can do that, but they cannot control the effects of having done so.
Ok, so infinite Yuan is a hyperbole, but for something so relatively cheap and so massively beneficial as rail, profitability really doesn’t matter. China has more than enough resources and influence to eat the cost now and reap the benefits for the next century.
why are you talking about building high speed rail where it’s not needed? don’t think anyone’s advocating for that.
so? even if that’s true, that doesn’t mean high speed rail is bad. it means you should be more careful with the planning, not “don’t try new shit for the next forever years”
Realistically what the United States really needs isn’t high speed rail but just passenger rail service. Standard speed mainline passenger service to more places and with more frequency than three times a week at 3am (which I wish was an exaggeration)
If I were totalitarian dictator of the US I’d first have the federal government sieze control of the entire rail network, including all dispatching and all of the private rail maintaince companies and lease trackage rights back to the railroads, keeping rail construction, dispatching and maintenance in house. Next I would create a true national passenger rail network, restoring service to every city possible that still has active right of way. Then, I would use my ownership of the rail network to force the class 1 railroads to construct and operate their trains in a manner condusive to actually moving freight and not blocking other trains (it’s incredible how railroad company executives seem to hate railroads and do everything they can to avoid operating a functioning railroad) plus open up the rail network to new private freight and passenger companies, and finally I’d build new rail coordidors first following the existing interstate network and as those new rail coordidors bed in I’d start reducing lanes on the interstate and introducing tolls to further discourage the use of private vehicles. Maybe some would be converted into bikeways, maybe some would be re-greened. It would be a decision made on a case by case basis what to do with all of the space reclaimed by the highway network
We used to dream big and our governments used to undertake projects like this to improve our countries. And despite our governments being richer than ever they choose to stagnate and not take risks on big public projects like this
I read half the article and i strongly disagree with a lot of its points.
First, it lists corruption as a reason to halt the HSR (high speed rail) program. Corruption is however not specific to rail and exists in every branch of the economy, including car and road construction. So that’s not a reason to target HSR.
Secondly, it says that HSR is not “economical”, which completely ignoring that HSR does not have to be economical, at least not in the classical sense. To a political party, the cost of a project is the popularity or unpopularity of the project; i.e. to the party, the actual cost is the cost of voters who dislike projects. However, the Chinese people are overwhelmingly looking at HSR as a positive thing and an excellent idea. So it has a very positive benefit for the state. Also, note that good transportation facility is valuable for all the other branches of economy, and therefore has positive economic by-products.
These considerations make me wonder whether actually the article is paid for by the oil lobby, trying to perpetuate outdated and expensive airlines and car transport methods.
China 2060: … a space elevator
USA 2060: … still the same rail service
i agree with your sentiment completely, just to point out a small technicality:
space elevators aren’t technically feasible. i’ve done the calculations a while ago and practically, the weight of the space elevator itself would be so much that it wouldn’t be able to carry its own weight. remember that it would essentially be a tower several hundred kilometers high. the highest buildings on earth today aren’t even a single kilometer high.
i believe in spaceflight though
a space elevator
You’d have to harness carbon nanotubes first… then deal with all the debris in LEO, then come up with an elevator that doesn’t take days to reach GEO (granted the counterweight can rest there and the cab can stop sooner).
Easy, just attach a huge rocket to the bottom of the elevator, problem solved. Oh, use AI to design the rocket, make the ticketing system use block chain, and when you get to orbit, a robot remotely operated by a human on the ground (but prentends to be fully autonomous) takes a picture of you and generates an NFT of it that you can purchase for 35000 USD in the gift shop.
I’ll be over here swimming in my money pool.
This is a joke meme that doesn’t mean anything … just like the American public transport system.
What hypercapitalism lobbied by big oil does to your country.
it’s not even capitalism at this point. there’s various definitions of capitalism out there, which makes it blurry and difficult-to-talk-about, but most of them feature some element of wealth maximization. in the current trajectory, nobody’s wealth is increased.
trump’s policies hurt not only the common people, but also the economy. if the common people have less money, they spend less on consumerism and that cripples the economy. that is actually what’s already happening rn. and it’s only going to get worse. we need handouts, so people can spend money.
yeah, anti public transit has several motivations, the most American is racism. if we have robust public transit, they can’t be “whites only” and you can’t force the not-whites to sit in the back. so right there. Then you have white land owning hegemony. Why do the busses only go downtown and not to the shopping center half way to the suburbs? because they don’t want the filthy poors mucking up their white fort, if you let busses go up to the suburbs then THEY can get there and do all the things they get blamed for!! Lastly, profit motive. mass transit means people can choose to have a car or not. the powers that be are making a lot of money off cars and mass transit will upset the apple cart.
i think it’s not only racism though. surely, there’s also a lot of kicking-downwards on the poor. the poor shouldn’t get a nice life, so they’re motivated to work harder and be successful, so since public transport helps everyone, including the poors, we don’t want that.
(not my words, just a common sentiment i’ve heard)
You know, I’ve been thinking about this a lot. And your comment reminds me of it. The aesthetics of evil. Racist segregation is an obvious evil. So if you tell black people to stand at the back of the bus because they’re not allowed to mix with the whites, that’s rather obvious and a horrific picture to have. But, if you handicap them, make sure they can only live in the cheapest communities and then limit the mobility of them. Same result. But because you didn’t see it, and the enforced segregation is rather subtle… Well, looks better, doesn’t it? So people are more likely to accept it. And if you say things like “The city has marked this black community unfit for investment.” then it sounds already like a conspiracy theory. Making you the weirdo for speaking out. Horrid, but an elegant and efficient system for censorship, isn’t it?
And to be absolutely clear: I reject racial segregation and censorship, obviously.
Oh trains! Now do pollution, or infrastructure, or empty cities…
A year ago I would have said Concentration Camps, but we both have those now.
You should try to find better criticism.
A year ago I would have said Concentration Camps, but we both have those now.
Jesus Christ. American liberals are champions at historical revisionism.
China has an ambitious urbanization plan, so they’re building the cities before there are people actually living there to get ahead of demand. It’s not like China has a shortage of people to live in these cities and they have central planning, they can just move production into these developments and people will move there for work. In fact, it’s happening right now. They don’t just build empty cities that just sit empty forever.
It’s true that China’s co2 per capita has gone up sharply, however it’s still about 30% lower than the yanks. China is also dwarfing other countries with the amounts of renewable energy currently under construction https://globalenergymonitor.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/solar_wind_in_construction_treemap_for_online-1.png
actually China’s CO2 hasn’t gone up in the past 12 months: https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-clean-energy-just-put-chinas-co2-emissions-into-reverse-for-first-time/
it’s likely that china has reached its CO2 emissions, and now they’re beginning to fall.
This is a good point, however the me meme is comparing to 1996. I think there’s some way to go until it drops back that far.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underoccupied_developments_in_China
empty cities
Not so empty anymore, and calling them empty was bullshit.
Turns out when you decide to build a new city, of course it would be empty at first, then people will eventually move in. But we can’t do that because we need to preserve the artificial scarcity of housing so they can be used as an investment.
America has had a concentration camp since 2001
Yabbut somebody think of the car companies!!!
While continuing to produce the worst cars imaginable
That conductor is a total hottie tho
Every three years China pours more concrete than the US has since WWII.
Bragging about encasing the natural world in a synthetic crust and displacing wildlife… Great flex
Just a reminder that concrete releases huge amounts of CO2 as it cures. Empty cities don’t help anyone.
i don’t think their intention is to keep them empty. not the worst thing to spend co2 on.
Their intention was to bolster the economy with busy work, but that’s not a long term solution.
busywork making houses ahead of time is pretty good tbh.
id take that over ai or some shit.
Houses don’t stand long on their own. It takes a significant amount of time and money to keep these things from filling up with mold or collapsing.
That’s comparing Apples to Shampoo. To completely different concepts and it’s not an either/or situation.
it really isn’t. both give out emissions, one of them is housing.
its like complaining wind farms are ugly.
Concrete doesn’t house CO2. When they created Biodome2, the engineers didn’t factor in the curing time and CO2 output and the scientists had to vent the facility or suffocate.
cement releases large amounts of CO2 when it is being produced, i.e. when the cement powder is being produced from limestone. this is due to a chemical reaction: CaCO3 (limestone) -> CaO (cement) + CO2
later, when you mix the cement with water and sand to make concrete, it re-absorbs (approx. 43% of) that CO2. you’ve got it backwards :D
curing reaction: CaO + CO2 -> CaCO3 (facilitated by water presence)
edit: ok i looked it up and concrete only absorbs about 43% of the CO2 that is emitted during cement production. Source
Another reason good urbanism and walkability is super important: the emissions don’t just come from the cars, they come from the excess roads themselves, too.
Right now, the Chinese government has effective eminent domain powers which allows them to acquire property for which to build public infrastructure, both expressways and high-speed railways. That the Chinese people have no questions about the positives regarding HSTs, especially crunchtime during holidays where railway stations would be jampacked. That they’re rolling their HSTs to show their technological prowess.
Why the US HST programs and passenger rail transport in general are at glacial pace is partly because of the usual car lobby, because of NIMBYs, because of cheap air transport, and some people now on online gambling instead of touching grass and tossing dice in Vegas.
Doesnt the us also have those powers and didn’t they use them liberally in the construction of both the railways and interstates?
That just changed completely, far cry when there was this Robert Moses had whole neighborhoods demolished for highways and rearranging whole cities. Now any sort of public infrastructure in the US does have to undergo scrutiny, whether it’s going to affect people or their mortgages or both. And most of the homeowners will oppose anything that shatters their idyll.
Right now, the Chinese government has effective eminent domain powers which allows them to acquire property for which to build public infrastructure, both expressways and high-speed railways
I’ve heard people claim as much, but at the same time, Stuck Nail Houses exist, I’m not sure how to reconcile the two. I think it’s that their eminent domain is limited to property that was purchased after a certain point, so if it’s property your parents owned since the 80s, it’s literally easier for developers to route the highway around your home than win that lawsuit, but if they bought in like 2010, they can just give you a similar or better property, or the cash to buy one, and that’s that.
There do exist stubborn nail houses but those are very rare occurrences in China where they do indeed fight to hold onto the land they consider their birthright property or believing to be much more valuable than their government tries to buy from them, the only few outbursts of dissent in a country that quashes dissent.
stuck nail houses 釘子戶 may apply in limited situations but there is no such thing as land ownership in China. When you purchase real estate in China you are buying the right to use the land for a period of time (I think it’s 80 years but don’t quote me on that number, I’m going off memory here) but the state owns the land. When the party wants to build something they are going to build it.
Hyperloop any day now!
Well, the most efficient form of government is a dictatorship, which nobody want except the dictator.
An inefficient government has groups investigating other groups to see if what they are doing is correct. This process takes time, so things move much slower. But is generally a much better protection against corruption.
You say that, but… Iraq was a dictatorship, and they weren’t all that efficient at anything other than killing Kurds.
Well, the most efficient form of government is a dictatorship, which nobody want except the dictator.
I mean… some people do, but they’re weird.
Hey now, that’s a misrepresentation of both the US and China.
China had way nicer locomotives in 96. It wasn’t 1896.
And in the US, that guy would have either been replaced by a machine, or replaced by someone younger who won’t be expecting the seniority and pay raises that being there for over 20 years usually gets you.
Replaced by machines that can’t transport humans or even freight for that matter
now I want to watch an entire playlist of Adam Something videos about dumbass tech bros trying to invent the train over and over again
Yes, but.
It’s China. I guarantee you that loads of people got fucked over one way or the other for this improvement. The Chinese government usually doesn’t care much for the rights and lives of the individuals
Are you suggesting that’s why the US hasn’t improved trains? Is there something about train improvements specifically that you think is harmful?
Plenty of people got fucked over for America’s interstate system. You just don’t care about them because they’re poor minorities
One of the reasons it was built was to demolish black neighborhoods.
You say that, but medical debt? Homelessness? Ice concentration camps for brown people? Highest incarceration rates, social credit (credit score), pedophile leaders…
Europeans, feel free to complain about China. Americans have no right to complain about China.
Not to be a tankie, but China taking over the US government would be an improvement
I AM European.
Having said that, the US is a shit show and the Empire pretty much needs to be rebuilt from scrap at this point but it’s still better than China.
If you disagree I would suggest you go to China and start posting lots of tiananmen square videos from the 90’s and then tell me which place is better.
yhea, that’s not nearly as bad as paying taxes to a pedophile to finance a death camp for brown people.
Hate to say it, but unironically, they would be better off under communist China.
The bar is so fucking low.
And the West does? Hmm, you learn something new every day.
Yeah. Absolutely nothing bad happened to anyone in the rollout of the interstate Highway system. /s
Yeah, never mind. You know what I mean, of course, but you got your head so far up Pooh’s ass that you can taste his lunch
I don’t care for the US, let it fucking burn, it deserves to die fast at this point. However, at least you can still have some open expression there (for as long as that is lasting under the Cheeto)
But the likes of you pretending that China has it all covered and is doing great and totally doesn’t fuck entire populations over are just the worst.
I’m guessing correctky that you’re of the types that think that tiananmen square was just a big happy dance party?
At least I recognize both empires for the evil shit they are
Or the US rail system that used exploited labor to build it out.
Now do aircraft carriers!
Aircraft carriers don’t let me travel to my destinations
Your fault that you weren’t born as an aircraft!
Setting that cash on fire would be more practical use of tax payer money
What’s the problem? The rich have private planes.
