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Re: Why don't Americans ride trains? - Really?
Author: David Smith
Date: 01-11-2015 - 12:13
BOB2 Wrote:
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> You have some interesting arguments.....but. we
> actually do measure and model these danged cost of
> "externality" things all of the time. In many
> cases it really isn't that hard to identify and
> account for the explicit and/or implicit costs of
> many of these things.
>
> And, there are countless behavioral and economics
> experiments which allow us to affix at least an
> approximate quantitative value to even many
> supposedly "subjective" attributes.
>
> Just in case you missed it in Econ 101,
> externality problems come about when I put in my
> privy in next to your water well....it's about
> property rights, individual and/or common, and the
> impacts of costs we impose on others from our
> actions. It's not imaginary, it's a real thing
> that happens, and we often are able to actually
> observe it.
>
>
Snipped for brevity ...
Here's the problem with your metaphor - the CO2 emmissions from private vehicles is not comparable to sticking your privy next to your neighbors well. CO2 is not a contaminate, it is not toxic, it is not lethal, it is not poisoning the air. It's a fish-to-bicycle comparison.
You certainly can quantify the effects of putting a septic system next to your neighbor's well - you can measure the contaminates that are leaking into the clean water system, and make a determination as to it's detrimental effects. We know that if there is X% of certain bacteria in water, it will cause health effects if consumed.
Such things can be replicated in a laboratory setting for confirmation.
The "CO2 is causing global warming" argument is based on a myth, one that has achieved "scientific" status via computer models, not laboratory replication nor real world observations. Computer modeling is fraught with the age old conundrum of "garbage in, garbage out". Such assumptions are not quantifiable in the real world - only laboratory reciprocity is quantifiable.
Thus, any associated "costs" attributed to such assumptions are not quantifiable - they can only be subjective and arbitrary. In other words, manipulation by those with an agenda.
The Economist tries to make a case for passenger rail by using such extremism. Why? If passenger rail is such a great alternative to individual transportation methods, why can't it stand on it's own merits? Why does it have to depend on Chicken Little scare tactics to have legitimacy?
I do have a few suggestions for improving passenger rail service in this country, whether gub'mint run or privately run.
1. Use quantifiable measures of externalities instead of subjective assumptions - what are the savings in wear and tear on our roads and highways if a person uses non-highway transportation in it's place? Are the savings enough to overcome the corresponding drop in tax revenues? If so, then we can give a more precise measure of costs/benefits to the point of using such data as the basis for providing private carriers a per passenger mile tax credit to offset the costs of providing private passenger rail services.
2. For the convience problem of 3am arrival/departure times, why not run all long distance passenger trains in two sections scheduled roughly 12 hours apart? That way we could eliminate ALL dead-of-night stops, which would subsequently increase average velocities across the system without totally eliminating such destinations.
3. Why not implement the idea of "individualizing" passenger rail services so that travelers can achieve a sense of independence when using passenger rail? The Auto-Train concept was a fairly good idea, one that could be utilized in other areas if approached correctly. If one knows they can piggyback their private vehicle anywhere in the country, they will be more likely to utilize it.
4. We could certainly revisit the concept of the "Fast Mail", aka combining passenger rail services along with high priority freight movements to enhance potential profitability. There's no reason to limit the profit potential of any rail movement.
That's just 4 ideas off the top of my head, ideas you'd never see coming out of some gub'mint agency.
-------------------------------------------------------
> You have some interesting arguments.....but. we
> actually do measure and model these danged cost of
> "externality" things all of the time. In many
> cases it really isn't that hard to identify and
> account for the explicit and/or implicit costs of
> many of these things.
>
> And, there are countless behavioral and economics
> experiments which allow us to affix at least an
> approximate quantitative value to even many
> supposedly "subjective" attributes.
>
> Just in case you missed it in Econ 101,
> externality problems come about when I put in my
> privy in next to your water well....it's about
> property rights, individual and/or common, and the
> impacts of costs we impose on others from our
> actions. It's not imaginary, it's a real thing
> that happens, and we often are able to actually
> observe it.
>
>
Snipped for brevity ...
Here's the problem with your metaphor - the CO2 emmissions from private vehicles is not comparable to sticking your privy next to your neighbors well. CO2 is not a contaminate, it is not toxic, it is not lethal, it is not poisoning the air. It's a fish-to-bicycle comparison.
You certainly can quantify the effects of putting a septic system next to your neighbor's well - you can measure the contaminates that are leaking into the clean water system, and make a determination as to it's detrimental effects. We know that if there is X% of certain bacteria in water, it will cause health effects if consumed.
Such things can be replicated in a laboratory setting for confirmation.
The "CO2 is causing global warming" argument is based on a myth, one that has achieved "scientific" status via computer models, not laboratory replication nor real world observations. Computer modeling is fraught with the age old conundrum of "garbage in, garbage out". Such assumptions are not quantifiable in the real world - only laboratory reciprocity is quantifiable.
Thus, any associated "costs" attributed to such assumptions are not quantifiable - they can only be subjective and arbitrary. In other words, manipulation by those with an agenda.
The Economist tries to make a case for passenger rail by using such extremism. Why? If passenger rail is such a great alternative to individual transportation methods, why can't it stand on it's own merits? Why does it have to depend on Chicken Little scare tactics to have legitimacy?
I do have a few suggestions for improving passenger rail service in this country, whether gub'mint run or privately run.
1. Use quantifiable measures of externalities instead of subjective assumptions - what are the savings in wear and tear on our roads and highways if a person uses non-highway transportation in it's place? Are the savings enough to overcome the corresponding drop in tax revenues? If so, then we can give a more precise measure of costs/benefits to the point of using such data as the basis for providing private carriers a per passenger mile tax credit to offset the costs of providing private passenger rail services.
2. For the convience problem of 3am arrival/departure times, why not run all long distance passenger trains in two sections scheduled roughly 12 hours apart? That way we could eliminate ALL dead-of-night stops, which would subsequently increase average velocities across the system without totally eliminating such destinations.
3. Why not implement the idea of "individualizing" passenger rail services so that travelers can achieve a sense of independence when using passenger rail? The Auto-Train concept was a fairly good idea, one that could be utilized in other areas if approached correctly. If one knows they can piggyback their private vehicle anywhere in the country, they will be more likely to utilize it.
4. We could certainly revisit the concept of the "Fast Mail", aka combining passenger rail services along with high priority freight movements to enhance potential profitability. There's no reason to limit the profit potential of any rail movement.
That's just 4 ideas off the top of my head, ideas you'd never see coming out of some gub'mint agency.
