As debate continues in the United States over the scope - and even the wisdom - of the Obama administration's recently announced $8 billion rail construction program, it might be worthwhile to examine how China is proceeding with its plans to build a 13,000-km (8100-mile) network of high speed rail (HSR) lines connecting the country's principal cities by 2012.
The project is the core of a larger network of some 19,200 km (16,000 mi) of high speed rail lines to be placed in service by 2020. In the project's first two years, China spent a total of $75 billion on development and construction of the system, which is projected to cost $300 billion by the time it is completed. The $50 billion the Chinese government spent in 2009 dwarfs the $8 billion in American funding just announced.
As in the United States, the Chinese HSR program is a stimulus project, intended to employ workers idled by a slump in foreign trade. Unlike in the US, however, China has committed huge sums to the project in order to see it to fruition.
Technologically speaking, the trains in China leave their rivals elsewhere in the dust. On the recently opened Wuhan-Guangzhou High-Speed Railway, scheduled trains make the 922-km (576-mile) trip in 2 hours and 57 minutes, operating at an average speed of 312.5 km/h (195.3125 mph) -- the fastest scheduled rail service in the world. This performance far outstrips the 150 mph top design speed of Amtrak's Acela trainset and makes the average 89 mph speed on the 325-km (204-mile) New York-Washington run downright poky.
Most of the Chinese high speed lines will operate at speeds of 250 km/h (156.25 mph), with some lines operating at speeds of 300 to 350 km/h (187.5 to 218.75 mph).
Many cities in the Eastern United States are located within 500 miles of other large cities, making rail service of the type described above feasible. China's decision to tie the new high-speed lines into the existing slower-speed rail network extends its reach; such a system could be adopted in the U.S. as well.
A 2009 article on China's passenger rail development program on the Transport Politic blog notes that only the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System outranks the Chinese rail program in size and scope. That project, which originally envisioned a 66,000-km (42,500-mile) system built over 25 years, grew into a 75,000-km (46,875-mile) system that took more than 30 years to complete. By comparison, China plans to spend a total of $1 trillion to expand its existing rail system by 42,000 km (26,250 mi) over a 12-year period.
Can the United States afford to match this ambitious goal? Probably not. And as the Interstates reshaped the American urban landscape in such a way as to make much intercity rail travel impractical for many, it may well be that an investment of this scope would be an unwise use of American public funds. But there are rail services that could be improved to the point where they are no longer a world-class embarrassment - most notably the Northeast Corridor, but also in the Midwest and on the Pacific coast - and focusing our investment on those areas would probably pay off in much the way the Chinese hope their investment will.
Written by Sandy Smith
Exclusive to HULIQ.com
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