I did respond to that. I explicitly mentioned the idea of helping employers by making it easier for workers to get to the employer's shop.
Much of the rest I wrote is a parody of your ideas.
NYC is there and exists, and we have to live with it. But what is in practice and reality necessary in the commons, public, etc. in NYC need not establish a principle to apply elsewhere. I explained why NYC is there -- it's some geography. Maybe that geography is still important; maybe not. But that geography is rare: In the whole east US, there is about Boston, NYC, Philly, Baltimore, DC, Charlotte, and New Orleans. And NYC has the advantage that it is not blocked by the mountains that run from about Maine to Florida. That is, due to the Erie Canal, NYC has a water path to the US Midwest.
NYC is there. It's done. It's not going away, and we're not going to build another one. That passenger trains and other public and commons expenditures are important in NYC does not extend to the rest of the country.
Curious that Adam Smith said some of that stuff.
But I tried to indicate that cost/benefit analysis as in the US law I studied does not include the highly indirect benefits you mentioned.
To me, you include so much that (A) no person or government process would ever be able to sort through and decide what to include versus reject and (B) the way would be wide open for way too much public spending as in my Kumbaya city parody.
Something happened in the DC Beltway: For some years, people kept trying to figure out the best routes. Finally it became clear that the routes didn't much matter because of the years between when the route was announced and when it was finished. During those years, lots of apartment and office buildings and shopping centers would locate to take advantage of the Beltway as soon as it was finished.
Well could do something similar with trains: Build them and let people move their apartment, office buildings and shopping, etc. to conform to the trains.
Maybe could go to some big, low density area of the US, just put in lots of trains, put up lots of buildings, and then let people move in. That is, design the area for trains instead of private cars. My understanding is that China has tried such things and the effort flopped.
Net, for the present US, passenger trains don't work. The main reason is that the way people live now, they need far too many origin-destination pairs, and trains can't serve that many. Private cars and highways can; trains can't.
We're not going to redesign and rebuild everything around trains or anything else. Instead we are going to be incremental. Where there is a need, business will try to find ways to fill it. An example is Amazon based on the Internet, Moore's law, and the Interstate highways. Based on the Internet, more people will be able to work from home and not commute. Maybe there will be a role for drones. Maybe there will be less commuting for education.
Sorry, net, in the US, once again, as has been fully clear since the end of WWII, passenger trains will flop. In particular, I don't see either Trump or Congress putting up the cash to change that.
The US does a lot with trains. E.g., recently Buffett bought BN. It carries coal, lots of coal. IIRC, trains are carrying lots of stuff for fracking.
Trump is doing a lot to get coal going again in the US. Then trains will have to be involved. The mine that just opened is for metallurgical coal. Okay, then, that coal will be used for making steel, and no doubt trains will also carry the steel. And Trump wants US steel to do better -- more trains. Generally Trump wants more US manufacturing: Okay, likely both inputs and outputs will be carried heavily by, right, trains. Trump wants to export coal: Okay, then, as that coal is loaded on ships, likely it will come from trains.
I'll stick to the first error: "That passenger trains and other public and commons expenditures are important in NYC does not extend to the rest of the country."
It's not false, and you didn't write enough to say why it's false. Or, NYC needs subways. And, for commuters to NYC, they need trains that also connect with the subways. E.g., for a while my wife was working in Manhattan. Well, I put her on the 7:33 AM out of Chappaqua and picked her up there in the evening.
That situation just does not apply anywhere else in the US unless you insist on SF.
"In 2012, the New York City Metropolitan Statistical Area generated a gross metropolitan product (GMP) of over US$1.33 trillion, while the Combined Statistical Area[5] produced a GMP of over US$1.55 trillion, both ranking first nationally by a wide margin and being roughly equivalent to the GDP of South Korea. [6] "
Citing: "U.S. Metro Economies (note CSA 2012 GMP total includes sum of New York, Bridgeport, New Haven, Allentown, Trenton, Poughkeepsie, and Kingston MSA 2012 GMP values cited)" (PDF). IHS Global Insight, The United States Conference of Mayors, and The Council on Metro Economies and the New American City. November 2013. p. 9 through 18 in Appendix Tables. Retrieved July 29, 2014
"The economy of the State of New York is reflected in its gross state product in 2015 of $1.44 trillion"
Which is to say that New York State absent the NYCMSA is 0.11 trillion.
Or: NYCMSA is 92%+ of the economic activity of New York State.
The NYCMSA also exceeds the GDP of all but three of the remaining United States, and is nearly 10% of the overall total (California and Texas exceed it). It is greater than that of the smallest 18 states, combined.
I was saying that at this point, NYC
does need trains. And, suspicions
confirmed, NYC is awash in money
to pay for them, and for the new
construction after 9/11, for the big
water tunnels, for some subway
extensions, for whatever renovation
they want to do to Grand Central Terminal, and, really, for whatever
they want to do to the Metro or whatever
it is called to Upstate NY, Connecticut, Long Island, etc.
But, for all that money, recently I, who never ride trains, at least have not in about 15 years and rarely forever, had to subsidize the commuter trains to NYC. Bummer.
So, as you showed, NYC really should
be able to pay for its own trains.
But: For a while nearly year 2000, I was
working in the Wall Street area, that is, 70 miles south of me. I found that I could drive my car, park, and get to my office in less elapsed time than the trains took just to get me from my nearest station to Grand Central. Between gas, parking, and care maintenance, I spent a lot of money
on the commuting, but the trains
were not cheap, either. And I would
still need my car to get to/from my nearest train station and, then, need a subway or taxi to get me to my office.
That's a curious data point. Sure, if everyone tried cars, then the roads would get clogged. Still it's curious that
for all the screaming about traffic jams,
my personal car was faster.
Fine, at this point, NYC has no alternative but to make trains and subways work, and they do. And taxis.
But, sure, NYC still needs roads, e.g., the
18 wheel trucks that queue up outside of NYC waiting for the selected time to drive into the city to pickup/deliver. E.g., I have a friend who killed 5000 hogs a day in Ohio and each day drove some number of 18 wheel trucks, his,
with 40,000 pounds a truck, of fresh
pork to spots in NYC and Manhattan. So,
NYC still needs roads.
Here is a biggie point I omitted: Really, outside of a few big cities, nearly everyone needs a personal car. Then, for some one trip, when there might be a choice of what mode of transportation to use, for the car the cost is just the marginal cost for that trip since they still need the car, no matter how often they take a train. If the marginal cost of using the car is less than the train ticket, for the full cost of the train, and if the car is more convenient, then people will be using
their car. That point is one of the main stakes in the heart of trains everywhere but NYC where the trains are necessary because NYC at this point has no choice.
And now there is a new stake in the heart of trains -- the TSA.
There is another biggie point: Last night I did two Google searches
Amtrak losses
Acela losses
I found lots of articles on lots of losses. Amtrak is for the whole country; they actually have some trains coast to coast. Acela is for the NE or some such and supposed to be fast? For Amtrak, apparently right along they have been getting about $1.5 billion from Congress. And from what I saw, Acela is also losing money.
These losses add fuel to the fire that in the US, passenger trains can't pay for themselves with ticket prices. And, for Amtrak, much of the track they use is not dedicated to Amtrak but is also used by other trains, including freight trains. So, some of the high speed rail proposals will have to build and maintain their own tracks, vacuum tubes, etc. thus further increasing their costs, both capital and operating. Obvious: High speed passenger trains will be big money losers.
Outside of NYC, passenger trains have been dying since just after WWII.
They are not coming back.
So, you're finally getting to the point of noticing things and raising some interesting points. A few of which I was hoping you might turn up.
We're also getting pretty late in the stage of an HN discussion. I don't know where else you comment on things, but I'm active on Reddit, and run a sub there. I've just created an open thread post: https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/6l5nfd/open_th...
Some of the points you've raised:
* Failures of composition: what's logical for a single agent isn't beneficial on net for society as a whole.
* When you're driving into Manhattan, you are directly benefitting by the existence of the rail network as it reduces the congestion of the roadways you're on. That is, if your time, or transit flexibility requirements, make rail unattractive, you are an external beneficiary of that rail network. (Positive externality.) Ergo: you should pay for it.
* "NYC's GDP dwarfs that of the state as a whole, so it should pay for its own upkeep." Interesting perspective, one which could be further discussed.
* Not made, but possibly imputed: NYC's notional financialised GDP exceeds that of rural districts ONLY BECAUSE of favourable consideration NYC has been able to impose on the very notions of property, market price, and relative surplus value capture. You haven't gone there, but I will. It's an interesting argument and turns many economic core/periphery arguments on their head.
* NYC is a capability centre whose benefits spill out over not only all of New York State, but much of the US and world. To what extent does this justify various forms of tax in support of NYC?
* Transportation and explicit vs. implicit subsidies. Again: there's a vast literature on this topic of which you're evidencing little familiarity. I'm not saying you haven't read it, though you're not arguing in a way which suggests you have. Going back to Smith again, largely Book V, which deals with such matters, though I could point to many other elements -- the justifications for creation of canals, railroads, postal roads, post offices, libraries, schools, public universities, the aviation industry, highway systems, and publicly-managed ports, all come to mind. Simon Winchester's The Men Who United the States addresses many of these elements, though not from a principally economic perspective.
Keep in mind that the notion of trans-continental or inter-continental travel occurring within hours rather than days, weeks, months, or years is one that's only about 60 years old.
And again: if you want to continue this discussion, I invite you to Reddit, where it's easier to keep an exchange alive.
Much of the rest I wrote is a parody of your ideas.
NYC is there and exists, and we have to live with it. But what is in practice and reality necessary in the commons, public, etc. in NYC need not establish a principle to apply elsewhere. I explained why NYC is there -- it's some geography. Maybe that geography is still important; maybe not. But that geography is rare: In the whole east US, there is about Boston, NYC, Philly, Baltimore, DC, Charlotte, and New Orleans. And NYC has the advantage that it is not blocked by the mountains that run from about Maine to Florida. That is, due to the Erie Canal, NYC has a water path to the US Midwest.
NYC is there. It's done. It's not going away, and we're not going to build another one. That passenger trains and other public and commons expenditures are important in NYC does not extend to the rest of the country.
Curious that Adam Smith said some of that stuff.
But I tried to indicate that cost/benefit analysis as in the US law I studied does not include the highly indirect benefits you mentioned.
To me, you include so much that (A) no person or government process would ever be able to sort through and decide what to include versus reject and (B) the way would be wide open for way too much public spending as in my Kumbaya city parody.
Something happened in the DC Beltway: For some years, people kept trying to figure out the best routes. Finally it became clear that the routes didn't much matter because of the years between when the route was announced and when it was finished. During those years, lots of apartment and office buildings and shopping centers would locate to take advantage of the Beltway as soon as it was finished.
Well could do something similar with trains: Build them and let people move their apartment, office buildings and shopping, etc. to conform to the trains.
Maybe could go to some big, low density area of the US, just put in lots of trains, put up lots of buildings, and then let people move in. That is, design the area for trains instead of private cars. My understanding is that China has tried such things and the effort flopped.
Net, for the present US, passenger trains don't work. The main reason is that the way people live now, they need far too many origin-destination pairs, and trains can't serve that many. Private cars and highways can; trains can't.
We're not going to redesign and rebuild everything around trains or anything else. Instead we are going to be incremental. Where there is a need, business will try to find ways to fill it. An example is Amazon based on the Internet, Moore's law, and the Interstate highways. Based on the Internet, more people will be able to work from home and not commute. Maybe there will be a role for drones. Maybe there will be less commuting for education.
Sorry, net, in the US, once again, as has been fully clear since the end of WWII, passenger trains will flop. In particular, I don't see either Trump or Congress putting up the cash to change that.
The US does a lot with trains. E.g., recently Buffett bought BN. It carries coal, lots of coal. IIRC, trains are carrying lots of stuff for fracking.
Trump is doing a lot to get coal going again in the US. Then trains will have to be involved. The mine that just opened is for metallurgical coal. Okay, then, that coal will be used for making steel, and no doubt trains will also carry the steel. And Trump wants US steel to do better -- more trains. Generally Trump wants more US manufacturing: Okay, likely both inputs and outputs will be carried heavily by, right, trains. Trump wants to export coal: Okay, then, as that coal is loaded on ships, likely it will come from trains.
But, passenger trains and Kumbaya city? Nope.