Here’s some examples of the typical contradiction many usually-reasonable urbanists are making when arguing for high speed rail-

Ryan Avent in an article plagued with this pseudo-logic:

Government is going to build more capacity. Given that, what is likely to be the best investment, all things considered?

Available alternatives, as it turns out, are not all that attractive. Roads do not appear to pay for themselves any more than railways do. Receipts from the federal gas tax come close to covering federal highway expenditures, but gas is used on highways and non-highways alike, indicating that at the federal level, highways are subsidized.

and:

I respect Mr Cowen very much, but I think it’s long past time we stopped listening to libertarians on the issue of whether or not to build high-speed rail. Who will ask whether road construction remotely passes any of the tests they’re so prepared to push on rail? And if we begin charging an appropriate fee on drivers to maintain existing roads and reduce congestion, what do they all think will happen to land use patterns and transportation mode share?

Some have emailed to ask me why I dislike Randal O’Toole so much.  The main reason is because people like Avent will always be able to point to the government highway-lover from CATO and rashly proclaim all libertarians have forever lost credibility when it comes to transportation and land use.  Of course, Avent’s narrow-mindedness on this topic deserves contempt too.

And Infrastructurist’s take seems to be favored by Avent, Yglesias, and others:

The construction of a high-speed rail line would require a large environmental sacrifice – construction crews would need to shape the land, poor concrete, lay the tracks, and build the stations. This work would release millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. But building a new highway such as Texas’ planned I-69 would require similar work and would almost certainly be just as ecologically damaging. On a somewhat smaller scale, the same can be said for new terminals or runways at airports.

In a rapidly growing state like Texas, though, a serious need for a transportation capacity upgrade is bound to arise over the next decades – especially between the state’s two biggest cities. The construction of this infrastructure would require carbon emissions on a large scale–but since we don’t yet have competing plans for highway or airport capacity expansions if the high-speed system is not built, the most meaningful question for us is the rail system’s environmental effects in operations rather than construction.

So, in other words, building either of the options, roads or rail both require “a large environmental sacrifice”, but all other options must be kept off the table, so let’s just sweep that under the rug.  Yet, there is an other option to consider for those who really think something should be done about carbon: STOP WASTING MATERIAL AND ENERGY ON CONSTRUCTION OF INFRASTRUCTURE BOONDOGGLES THAT SUBSIDIZE TRANSPORTATION!  That still goes double for roads and airports, where congestion and carbon emissions could be reduced through revenue-generating measures such as congestion tolling.

To me, the high-speed rail logic just doesn’t sound much different from what O’Toole might say (just interchange some words and continue to ignore facts):

Not only did the Interstate Highway System cost much less and move much more than our visionary rail network is likely to do, interstate highways have the virtue of being 100 percent paid for out of user fees. The rail system would require subsidies for pretty much all of the capital costs, most or all of the periodic rehabilitation costs, and at least some of the operating costs.

In the Infrastructurist article quoted above, Yonah Freemark smear’s Ed Gaeser’s back of the envelope critique of high speed rail (I admit, a little sloppy) with a hand-waving claim sounding eerily similar to the type Mr. O’Toole is so often criticized for making, “High Speed Rail Pays For Itself”.

He backs this bold claim with a calculation that shows how a hypothetical Dallas-Houston high speed corridor would cost $810M annually for construction and maintenance, while providing $840M in benefit.  Surely, we will see many more people use this analysis as evidence to back claims that high speed rail is good without proper scrutiny.  However, this analysis doesn’t even pass the O’Toole-level test of credibility, because it claims it pays for itself with 150M annually in carbon savings.  I can understand making the case for analyzing carbon savings as a “benefit” to society, but one must compare against all other options for use of cash to reduce carbon emissions – at least against a no-build + congestion toll option.  Just think of all the alternatives one might consider with a $810M annual budget for carbon reduction. At say $20/ton, that comes to 40 million tons a year.

On top of that, Freemark ignores all the other opportunity costs Randal O’Toole conveniently omits when claiming roads pay for themselves.  These omissions include:  opportunity cost of investment capital, opportunity cost of right of way land used, legal costs of eminent domain and related delays, inevitable cost overruns, accounting for optimism bias, and interest on bonds.  In my opinion, the largest of these is the opportunity costs of investment capital, which I would guess at over 15 percent compounding annually (vs a non-compounding 5% generously assumed by Glaeser and Freemark) for all costs during the 10 years (just a little optimistic?) of construction, and 8-10 percent once ridership is stabilized.  Responding to Matthew Yglesias’ hasty endorsement of Freemark’s analysis as “A real cost-benefit analysis of HSR”, Tyler Cowen similarly noted:

I’m not sure what discount rates he is using but even if we put that problem aside this screams out: don’t do it.  Given irreversible investment, lock-in effects, and required hurdle rates of return, this still falls into the "no" category.  And that’s an estimate from an advocate writing a polemic on behalf of the idea.  I’m not even considering the likelihood of inflation on the cost side or the public choice problems with getting a good rather than a bad version of the project.  How well has the Northeast corridor been run?

The urbanist in me would love a vast high speed rail network – it would centralize density at rail nodes and aid agglomeration.  But it just won’t be viable until government first stops wasting money subsidizing automobile and air travel.  In the meantime, HSR advocates commit an intellectual fraud similar to ones Randal O’Toole and his ilk make regarding roads when they make claims that HSR can pay for itself. 

If Ryan Avent is expecting to keep any credibility on infrastructure spending using these words:

In this country, we do not build transportation infrastructure for profit. Perhaps this is upsetting to the libertarians among us, but that’s how it is and how it should be.

Then, perhaps he should think twice next time he thinks of laying into Randal O’Toole for attempting to reconcile infrastructure spending using similarly shoddy arguments. Otherwise, similar to O’Toole, all the HSR advocates are saying is, “Never mind billions of dollars that must be appropriated from people of future generations. Never mind that most of those footing the bill will never ride high speed rail if they’re not fortunate enough to afford a ticket or don’t live in one of the chosen cities. Never mind the drastic effects of the construction on the environment. High speed rail would be a pretty neat thing for some cities, so ‘build baby build’.”

Related Posts:

• January 12, 2009 -- Urban[ism] Legend: Positive NPV Infrastructure (1)
• May 29, 2009 -- Yglesias Has My Head Spinning… (8)
• June 10, 2008 -- CATO Podcast: Transportation (8)
• June 6, 2008 -- Free Market Impostors (8)

Despite claims by the Conference of Mayors and the transportation lobby that there is as much as $96 billion in construction “ready to go,” the fact is that it takes a long time before meaningful numbers of workers can be hired for such projects.

As a recent Congressional Budget Office study explains, “Practically speaking … public works involve long start-up lags. … Even those that are ‘on the shelf’ generally cannot be undertaken quickly enough to provide timely stimulus to the economy.”

The prospects for unconventional projects such as alternative energy sources are even worse. The CBO calls them “totally impractical for counter-cyclical policy” because they take even longer to come online…

Finally, the impact of increased public works spending on state and local governments cannot be ignored. Most federal transportation spending goes for projects initiated by them. When they think there is a chance that the federal government will increase its funding, they tend to cut back on their own spending in hopes that the feds will foot the bill. A study by economist Edward Gramlich found that the $2 billion appropriated by the Local Public Works Act of 1976 postponed $22 billion in total spending as state and local governments competed for federal funds and actually reduced GDP by $30 billion ($225 billion today).

Meanwhile, proponents of infrastructure spending claim that Congress should sift through the shelved projects to identify those projects that will be economically beneficial, or in other words, have a “positive net present value”. One particular free-market impostor is bold enough to advocate highway spending, as “new roads can largely pay for themselves through tolls and other user fees.”

For the non-financial types, Net Present Value (NPV) is the amount of wealth created, discounted (per the time value of money) to the present, of a particular endeavor. Or in other words, positive NPV projects are expected to “pay for themselves”, from an investment point of view. As a simple rule, opportunities that have a positive NPV should be pursued, and negative NPV projects should be avoided.

2008 Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman possibly infers positive NPV when he says “public investment leaves something of value behind when the stimulus is over”, but just because something of value is left behind doesn’t mean it was a good investment or that it had positive NPV. At the same time, if not inferring positive NPV, Krugman’s inference that something of value is left behind by private investment makes me think that he actually believes NY Times readers will be easily deceived by his amateurish sleight of hand.

While we know that something of value will be created by infrastructure spending, how certain can we be that alternative spending ideas won’t create something of greater value.

Those who claim positive NPV public infrastructure projects are plentiful neglect some common features of infrastructure projects. From my first-hand experience and study, ambitious, large-scale projects are vulnerable to huge cost overruns. I don’t feel I’m going out going out on a limb when I say that very large projects that are completed on-budget or under-budget are a rarity.

Having been involved with many extremely large projects, one thing has been consistent – they have grossly cost more than originally conceived. There are long-standing jokes (not so funny for taxpayers) among consultants that when estimating big projects in Chicago (and I imagine everywhere), you have to assume the cost at the end of the day will be a factor of 2-3 times as expensive. (The factor varies depending on whether it’s airport work, highway work, or other boondoggles.)

I typically attribute the under-estimation to “optimism bias” of project proponents. Politicians promise the public benefits of the project to voters, and if lucky have the project named after themselves.  Often, by the time the over-budget project is complete, the politician’s term will have ended. If all goes as planned, the politician will have moved to a higher office by then. Often, voters forget the cost over-runs of a boondoggle project once they start using it. After all, it was only a few dollars out of each of their pockets.

Furthermore, bureaucrats are driven to expand their departments and budgets. Designers and consultants who advise on the feasibility of the project are interested in eventually having the inside track on the full commission They thus have the incentive to low ball cost estimates, and inflate benefits. Contractors initially bid low, knowing huge projects are full of changes that are typically more lucrative than the original scope.  Estimators often neglect potential risks such as unexpected soil conditions.  They may neglect these things out of expediency, incompetence, or willfully in order to further a project that has the potential to bring future fees.

Industry lobbies produce studies that exaggerate the need for certain projects. Furthermore, project feasibility studies often neglect or underestimate the time needed to condemn the land needed for the large projects, as they usually are not careful to properly anticipate resistance from landowners who do not wish to give up their land or live near the blighted construction site.

For a more in-depth look, Bent Flyvbjerg has extensively studied cost overruns of large projects and similar topics:
How Optimism Bias and Strategic Misrepresentation Undermine Implementation Concept Report No 17 Chapter 3, Bent Flyvbjerg, January 4, 2007.

Characteristics of Large Infrastructure Projects

Large infrastructure projects, and planning for such projects, generally have the following characteristics (Flyvbjerg and Cowi, 2004):

• Such projects are inherently risky due to long planning horizons and complex interfaces.
• Technology is often not standard.
• Decision making and planning is often multi-actor processes with conflicting interests.
• Often the project scope or ambition level change significantly over time.
• Statistical evidence shows that such unplanned events are often unaccounted for, leaving budget contingencies inadequate.
• As a consequence, misinformation about costs, benefits, and risks is the norm.
• The result is cost overruns and/or benefit shortfalls with a majority of projects.

Projects With Cost Overruns and Benefit Shortfalls

The list of examples of projects with cost overruns and/or benefit shortfalls is seemingly endless (Flyvbjerg, 2005a).

Boston‘s Big Dig, – 275 percent or US$11 billion over budget in constant dollars when it opened, and further overruns are accruing due to faulty construction.

Denver‘s $5 billion International Airport were close to 200 percent higher than estimated costs.

The overrun on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge retrofit was $2.5 billion, or more than 100 percent, even before construction started.

The Channel tunnel between the UK and France came in 80 percent over budget for construction and 140 percent over for financing. At the initial public offering, Eurotunnel, the private owner of the tunnel, lured investors by telling them that 10 percent “would be a reasonable allowance for the possible impact of unforeseen circumstances on construction costs.”

Policy Implications

The policy implications of the results presented above are as follows:

• Lawmakers, investors, and the public cannot trust information about costs, benefits, and risks of large infrastructure projects produced by promoters and planners of such projects.

• The current way of planning large infrastructure projects is ineffective in conventional economic terms, i.e., it leads to Pareto-inefficient investments.

• There is a strong need for reform in policy and planning for large infrastructure projects.

[hat tip: bound rationality]

Also, the wisdom of Tyler Cowen:

…quick projects are usually wasteful projects. Good new projects need to be thought out and planned. The environmental impact study alone can take years. But Obama has told the state governments they will have to “use it or lose it” when it comes to federal grants. The result will be a lot of poorly conceived projects just to capture the money.

The biggest problem with a fiscal stimulus is this: our economic problems stem from having spent too much in the first place. Now that our homes are no longer rising in value every year and America is aging, more saving is in order, not more spending. Recovery will come only when we discover which new and valuable things the economy should produce as it shifts out of real estate and finance. Simply borrowing and doling out more cash doesn’t solve that problem.

[hat tip: Positive Liberty]

and Harvard’s Linda Bilmes:

A good play to start looking for lessons is by analyzing the three biggest recent examples of heavy government spending on infrastructure: the Iraqi reconstruction effort, Hurricane Katrina reconstruction, and the Big Dig artery construction in Boston. Let me start by pointing out that all of these were plagued by a number of serious problems.

(more from Alex Tabarrok)

And if the government really wanted to, it could easily find positive NPV projects by butting its nose in the business of anti-growth cities that are unreasonably down-zoned by anti-growth policies, as noted at winterspeak:

Infrastructure Spending will be allocated the way Infrastructure Spending is always allocated — it will be based on political expediency, not whether it is a positive net present value or not. If Infrastructure was based on positive net present value, we’d have sky scrape[rs] being built in San Francisco, and 8 story apartment complexes built in Cambridge, MA, and I don’t see a whole lot of either going on.

In my opinion, there is only one true test of a positive net present value, and that is whether private capital is willing to take on a particular project. And, if private enterprise is willing to risk capital to achieve a particular endeavor, why not let them put their own money on the line instead of taxpayer funds.

The bottom line is that big projects tend to go over-budget. Even the rare big projects that are showboated as being a positive NPV investments for society, rarely are after all is said and done as their actually cost far exceed their original budgets. When private projects (positive NPV or negative) are over-budget, investors who took the risk are on the hook for the losses. When public projects are over-budget, the taxpayers are on the hook for the losses. And when it comes to big, ambitious projects, budget over-runs and sizable losses are frequent.

Related Posts:

• August 31, 2009 -- HSR Urbanists: “We Are All O’Tooles Now” (18)
• January 20, 2009 -- Uncomfortable truths about the progressive legacy (0)
• July 30, 2008 -- Urban[ism] Legend: Gas Taxes and Fees Cover All Costs of Road Use (11)
• June 10, 2008 -- CATO Podcast: Transportation (8)

Or consider the fact that Randall [sic] O’Toole is indignant about the prospect of public expenditures on mass transit systems, but appears to have little to say about public funding of highways. This, too, looks more like a case of narrow business interests than sterling free market principles.

While Yglesias’ instincts are right – current transportation markets in America are highly distorted – the reason they’re distorted has little to do with the ways highways are financed. Based on some basic figures, Randal O’Toole concludes that the vast majority of road funding – over 80% – comes out of user fees. Now, of course there are still some subsidies there, but it’s really nothing compared to the subsidies that mass transit systems receive, which in America never even come close to covering operating costs, never mind capital expenditures. Now, there are some problems with the 80% number, such as the government’s favorable access to bond markets and the legacy of infrastructure that wasn’t paid for with user fees, but all in all, it’s hard to argue that roads have a subsidy advantage over mass transit.

However, that’s not to say that Yglesias doesn’t have a point when he says that libertarians and conservatives have blind spots when it comes to how they see transportation. But the real government benefit that the road/car system has over mass transit is density: there are innumerable regulations at every level of government in the United States which favor low-density, single-family detached housing over the denser forms that dominated non-rural areas before the 20th century. Successful roads as we have in America require this low density to remain (almost) financially solvent – it would be very difficult to cope with people’s road needs if they were allowed to build as densely as they would without maximum density zoning rules and minimum parking regulations.

As a thought experiment, imagine your local town/neighborhood with twice the density. Chances are, the roads would quickly become very congested. They would have to be widened, which would require money, and even more money than normal, because the government would have to purchase valuable land next to existing roads. (That is, assuming that eminent domain is not used.) The gas tax would have to be raised, and soon the costs would get out of hand. On the other hand, mass transit would become more profitable rather than less, because much less track needs to be laid to satisfy the same demand, and mass transit systems have much more excess capacity than roads. If densities are limited, though, then this alleviates both stress on roads that go through valuable urban property (which are expensive and difficult to widen) and forces people to drive farther, thus paying more in user fees.

There’s a legitimate case to be made against American transportation and land use policy, but condemning highway subsidies ain’t it.

This post was written by Stephen Smith, who writes for his own blog called Rationalitate.

Related Posts:

• November 6, 2008 -- Reason’s Commenters Put Reason’s Contributers to Shame on Urbanism (2)
• February 3, 2010 -- LA’s partial parking privatization (1)
• August 31, 2009 -- HSR Urbanists: “We Are All O’Tooles Now” (18)
• August 22, 2009 -- Zoning as a tool of class exclusion (1)

So anyway, it was totally unsurprising to see this article by Cox referenced in reason.com’s blog, where he blames the recent subprime meltdown on New Urbanism. But what I was surprised to see is the incredible outpour of knowledge in the comments section, where various commenters methodically rip Cox’s argument to shreds. Reason ought to look into its land use and transportation coverage, and instead of relying on these tired one-trick ponies, perhaps hire some of the commentators. They, at least, recognize that New Urbanism is nothing compared to the already-entrenched pro-sprawl regulations that have been in place since the advent of the automobile.

This post was written by Stephen Smith, who has his own blog called Rationalitate.

Related Posts:

• November 12, 2008 -- Matt Yglesias fails to make the right case against highways (6)
• January 20, 2009 -- Uncomfortable truths about the progressive legacy (0)
• August 29, 2008 -- Weekend Reading: Jane Jacobs, Agglomeration, Farms, NIMBY Songs (6)
• February 3, 2010 -- LA’s partial parking privatization (1)