Regular readers of this forum know that taxpayer-funded high-speed rail makes no sense for North Carolina.
Michael Barone assures us that the idea hasn’t worked for the Chinese, either. Barone quotes an American economics professor working in Beijing:
?The problem is that high-speed rail is expensive both to build and to operate, requiring high ticket prices to break even. The bulk of the long-distance passenger traffic, especially during the peak holiday periods, is migrant workers for whom the opportunity cost of time is relatively low. Even if they could afford a high-speed train ticket ? which is doubtful given their limited incomes ? they would probably prefer to conserve their cash and take a slower, cheaper train. If that proves true, the new high-speed lines will only incur losses while providing little or no relief to the existing transportation network.?
