These having been a slow couple of weeks in politics, I've been trying to educate myself a little bit on the very fascinating debate surronding high-speed rail, which received $8 billion in funding in the stimulus package. I've come to some fairly substantive conclusions that I hope to share with you over the next week or two -- but in the meantime, it's worth thinking about how Americans travel currently.
One fascinating statistic, for instance, which I found in a 2001 survey by the Department of Transportation: about 90 percent of Americans' trips of 50 miles are more are made by personal vehicle rather by plane or by other means.
Now, this somewhat oversells the story: trip frequency resembles a gravity function, with trips becoming exponentially less likely with increasing distance. Of all trips at a one-way distance of 50 miles or more, the average distance traveled is only about 260 miles, and the median is closer to 100. Distances of that magnitude are fairly easily negotiable by car.
Even among truly long-distance trips with a one-way distance of between 500-1000 miles, however, a majority (54 percent) are made by car, versus 42 percent by air. Taking the raw data from the survey and using it to plot a smooth function, we wind up with the following:
The breakeven point here is at about 875 miles -- that's when a typical American is equally likely to make a trip by plane as by car. (Note: the chart above excludes the small percentage of trips that are made by bus, train or other means.)
875 miles happens to be about the travel distance from St. Louis to New York City. To me, it seems pretty insane, under most circumstances, for a St. Louisan to choose to drive his trip to New York rather than to fly it.
Let's consider, indeed, the costs of flying from St. Louis to New York. Imagine that we have a solo traveler making a three-day business trip and staying at a hotel in Midtown Manhattan:
* The prevailing price of a non-stop, round-trip ticket from St. Louis to New York these days is about $250.
* In addition, assuming a 3-night stay, you'll pay about $35 in long-term parking fees at Lambert Airport in St. Louis.
* Assuming a 20-mile trip to and from your home in St. Louis to the airport, you'll also spend the equivalent of about $15 in mileage costs to make this trip to and from the local airport (I'll explain in moment how I calculate this number).
* A cab from LaGuardia to Midtown Manhattan wil run you about $40, assuming some traffic. You have to take a cab both to and from LaGuardia, so this is a total of perhaps $80.
* Finally, once you're in Manhattan, let's assume that you'll incur about $75 in additional transit fees (cab fares and public transit) that you could have avoided if you'd had your car with you.
This works out to a total of $455.
Now, how much would it cost to drive from St. Louis to New York?
* The AAA estimates that the cost to drive a typical American sedan is about 52 cents per mile. However, this includes some fixed costs -- like insurance -- that don't depend on how frequently you drive. If we strip these out, the true, marginal cost of driving is about 36c/mile. An 875-mile one-way journey equals a 1,750-mile roundtrip, which means that it will cost you the equivalent of $630 to operate your car for this length of time.
* You'll also have to park your car for three nights. If you're fairly lucky, you might be able to get away with doing this for $70 in a Midtown Manhattan garage.
* Finally, you'll need to drive your own car around Manhattan as desired. Let's say that another 15 miles go on your odometer as a result; this comes at a cost of about $5.
The cost of driving to and from St. Louis is $705. So you're already paying about $250 more to drive than you would to fly.
And that's before considering the time savings from flying. Certainly, there are a lot of "hidden" time costs associated with air travel. You'll have to arrive at the airport about an hour early to board early and get through security. It might take you half-an-hour to drive to the airport, and another half-hour to drive from the airport to your hotel once you've arrived at LaGuardia. You'll need to wait a quarter-hour or so to pick up your luggage, and maybe another 15 minutes or so to arrange local transit. Let's also build in another 15-minute fudge factor for delays. All of this, in addition to the listed flight time of about 2.5 hours (which already includes an ample allowance of tarmac time), means that the door-to-door journey will probably take you something like 5-5.5 hours.
But driving from St. Louis to New York, assuming an average travel speed of 65 MPH, will take you about 13 hours. If you value your time at $30 an hour, the net cost of driving rather than flying to St. Louis works out to the equivalent of another $260. That makes flying roughly a 2:1 bargain over driving: $475 in time and expenses versus $970.
Now, certainly, a one-size-fits-all approach isn't perfect here. If, for instance, this is a personal rather than a business trip and you have your kids along with you, driving will be much more competitive. It's not particuarly more expensive to drive four people 875 miles than to drive one (unless you're considering the extra time wasted), whereas each additional passenger requires you to purchase a separate airline ticket. If you're uncomfortable using taxis and public transit, meanwhile -- or were traveling to a city that didn't have them in such abundance as NYC -- you'd probably have to rent a car instead, which is a pretty big marginal expense.
Still, I'd expect the numbers for most 875-mile trips to be slanted fairly heavily in favor of air travel -- but instead, Americans are just as likely to drive this distance as to fly. There are, I believe, two reasons for this.
The first has to do with the nature of people's mental accounting. When people think about the costs of driving to St. Louis to New York, they probably think about the price of gas, but don't go much beyond that. In fact, gas is a relatively small piece of the puzzle: about 10c per mile. It's the other costs -- maintenance, tires, and especially depreciation -- that are the killer. Consider: if you buy a car for $25,000 that you're hoping to operate for 100,000 miles, this means that your paying about 25c per mile of travel. You probably forget about this cost since you've paid for your car up-front. But the 1,750-mile round trip from St. Louis to New York is 1,750 miles sooner that you'll have to replace your vehicle -- this alone costs you $437.50, almost $200 more than the round-trip airfare!
The other factor is that a lot of Americans don't like flying -- they either find the experience unpleasant or are afraid of it. A 1999 poll from ABC News found that 14 percent of Americans are very afraid of air travel, and another 29 percent are somewhat afraid of it. These Americans take substantially fewer journeys by air than do those who don't fear flying: a reasonable extrapolation from ABC's numbers is that there's about 20 percent less aggregate air traffic than there otherwise would be if nobody were afraid of it.
In addition, some people might not be afraid of air travel, but may nevertheless find the experience unpleasant. A 2008 survey from the Travel Industry Association found that about 41 million air travel round-trips were avoided because people found the experience irksome: this is about 10 percent of the total number of domestic round-trips in a typical year. Thus, between the fear and other unpleasantness that people associate with commercial air travel, it occurs about 30 percent less often than it otherwise might.
What does this mean for something high-speed trains? It could be either good news or bad news. If a people are driving more than they "should" because they don't like air travel, then trains could pick off quite a bit of that traffic. A "true" high-speed train from St. Louis to New York, traveling at 150 MPH, could make the journey in just under 6 hours, which is quite competitive with air travel once the additional door-to-door costs of air transit are considered (although there are some incumbent to rail travel too). And many of the hang-ups that people associate with air travel, indeed, aren't likely to transfer to rail. Train travel can often be quite comfortable, for instance, and acrophobes won't have to worry about being suspended 30,000 feet above the ground in a flying cigar box. On the other hand, if people are attached to driving for "irrational" reasons -- they find it romantic or improperly evaluate expenses like depreciation -- rail travel might not make much of a dent.
9.01.2009
Do Americans Really Hate Flying? Or Really Love Driving?
@ 7:27 AM
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Your analysis doesn't seem to take into account situations where 2 or more people travel together (e.g., a family of 4).
In those cases, the air fare is going to be substantially higher, with a negligible change in the car costs.
If the raw data includes the distribution of group sizes, perhaps that could be used to make a more apples-to-apples comparison.
...you are not only discounting personal trips, but also student migration (where they want to move their car with them) and just in-general road trips. In addition the fact that costs for driving transportation is not magically fixed at the whim of some large organization. Some cars are going to be more reliable than others, have cheaper gas mileage, or simply be used cars with little value in depreciation. At least, in my experience, people don't take road trips in their best-looking car, they take road trips in their stablest car.
Why not continue your analysis for high-speed rail travel? Just make sure to include the taxpayer cost of construction and maintenance of the rail system. The results should be interesting.
One, of course you can find one example that favors flying. I've compared distances of around the same length where the car and plane came out nearly equal.
But more importantly, think about how many trips are simply quicker by car. Let's say it takes me thirty minutes from my house to the airport, and from my destination airport to wherever I'm headed. (This is actually less time than it typically takes me; my house is around an hour away from the nearest airport). That's one hour already. I have to arrive an hour early, so we're up to two. If we're talking about a drive to grandma's place, some hundreds of miles away, I'm already halfway there.
The shortest flight I can find is three hours. In five hours, I could've already been at grandma's house, having muffins. If there are any delays, any problems retrieving my luggage, any construction at the airport, driving goes even farther ahead.
And then there's the ability to carry more luggage without facing stiff fees, cars generally being more comfortable than aircraft (especially with the new restrictions on everything under the sun), and not having to deal with TSA.
For a trip around the same distance you give, Kansas City-Atlanta, it's around 14 hours (12 hours driving, 2 hours eating and other breaks) by car. And it's probably not that much more expensive than flying if you need to get there the next day. Or if you just don't want to deal with the hassles of flying.
Anywhere you can drive to in 5-6 hours is probably easier to reach in the states by car than by air. But then, we might be biased-- it's probably easier to cover long distances by car in the midwest, whereas relatively short distances can be long trips in New England, and are better covered by air.
25 cents a mile in depreciation is too high. For a lot of us, the thought of driving a car just 100,000 miles is unthinkable. Furthermore, I would never buy a new car -- always buy used. I picked up a 2007 Taurus last year with 35,000 miles on it for $10,000. If I drive that for 100,000 miles, and I intend to drive it at least that long, the depreciation (assuming it's worthless when I'm done) is 10 cents.
There are also many places in this country where it is not convenient to fly to. It takes 6 hours for me to drive from Baltimore to my father's in WVA. The airport closest to his house is a little over 2 hours, and the flight is an hour and a half.
There is a scenic element to driving that I enjoy. It's not possible to appreciate this country in that was from the air.
Actually, I was a bit confused when you were talking about one way trips early on versus round trips (I may just be a bit dense). I assume you mean to say that driving from Pittsburgh to Cleveland, for example, is 150 miles one way, but we are comparing the round trip for both air and car travel.
@JimCA, Nate does address your point (I think) in the paragraph that starts "Now, certainly, a one-size-fits-all approach..."
One further point in favor of car travel is that it offers flexibility. You can leave whenever you want, either from your home or from your destination to return home. You can also toss additional items in your car without worrying about space (usually), again either from home or on your way home. Trains might be more flexible than planes in when you could leave and what you could bring, but right now high speed trains are only a potential future.
I think you have a big city bias. Most people do not fly from big, busy airports to big, busy airports in cities where it's easy to get cabs. The destination specific travel expenses are especially important, I think, because rental cars are expensive and not everyone can actually get one. Me, for instance. So tack on that expense and do your math again, please.
@Mark, if he's going to do that, then he should include the taxpayer cost of building and maintaining the highways for road trips.
I'm not sure you're handling car depreciation correctly.
Firstly, you will presumably trade in or sell your car after the 100,000 miles you drive it. The value at the end of your ownership is not $0.
Secondly, car depreciation is not constant over its entire lifetime of miles driven. Used car prices are discounted according to the risk associated with the uncertain accident and repair history from the previous owner. Thus it is often said that the biggest drop in value in your car comes when you first drive it off the lot.
The proper way to account for the depreciation would be to consider the resale value at when you began the trip vs. the resale value at when you ended. It would never be anything close to $437.50.
Curious. I have the distinct impression that not all of the original post was visible when I made my comment above. (I'm pretty sure I read the whole thing and didn't see anything about families, depreciation, the cost of one's personal time, etc.) Maybe I somehow scrolled past that accidentally?
At any rate, my main point still stands -- the primary thrust of the article seems to be to compare air trips via car trips based on data that doesn't quite justify the comparison (although it could be quite close--I just don't know from the article.)
I also just noticed that the report is from 2001, a decidedly unusual year for air travel, which would raise a different set of issues.
Overall I think the exercise is useful, but this seems to be a very rough first draft...
four things.
1. where i grew up (and where my parents still live) is 3+ hours away from a major airport. therefore, the cost would add in a horrendous 12 hour bus ride (because any bus that goes to my town also goes to every other tiny town along the way), or someone has to make a 6-hour round trip just to come get me. on the other hand, i could drive and be there in 7 hours.
2. i HATE flying. you have to arrive early. you have to be subjected to invasive searches. you have to show your id a million times. you have to keep track of everything at all times. you are surrounded by rude cranky people, and after a few minutes of it you become a rude cranky person yourself. driving on the other hand i LOVE. i live in a very scenic part of the country. on the drive i can stop when i want to stop, listen to music i want to listen to (and sing along to it!), ponder how life has been going since i last visitied, etc.
3. your 'standard air fare' is bogus. i don't travel just any old standard time. i go see my folks over thanksgiving and christmas. airfar is REALLY expensive during those holiday times. also, air fare fluctuates wildly. fine, st. louis to NYC is $250. what about other cities? what about cities less travelled-to than NYC? cities where it's hard to get a direct flight, therefore adding to the time and crankiness factor?
4.finally you forget that many people have multiple destinations. let's say i live in michigan (i do). then i have family in cleveland, oh, columbus, oh, western PA, and central PA (i do). for reasons too long to get into, these relatives are never in the same place at the same time. therefore if i want to see them ALL, i either fly (to four different cities, including two that are not anywhere near major airports), or i can drive, thus increasing my flexibility with all the trips and ultimately costing less than if i flew from place to place (and also, i suspect, taking less time given all the hidden time costs of flying).
4b. i know there are regional airports but then you have to take those tiny little planes that seat 50 people and feel like you're on a flying school bus. no thanks.
Yeah, this particular has scenario has all sorts of bias in it that seriously affects the math. You've mentioned a few of the variables but here are some you didn't mention:
- not living or heading to a location near an airport
- scenic trip, the purpose of the trip is the vogage through every point on the ground between your place and there ... yes, people still do road trips like that
- Is there someone with a car at the other end to meet you? Sure who the hell in Manhattan has a car to meet you
- Whether or not you consider the time in transit a "waste".
P.S. If I load 4 people in the cab and 6 in the box of a pick-up the passenger mileage rivals or exceeds that of the NYC subway. The riding experience is likely to be similar, or even better if someone in the back brought a flat of beer. ;)
I was wondering the same thing Nate was, but I think Jesse's comment might have nailed it
I have to agree with the "big city bias" factor. Here's the more likely scenario (and I'd love for someone to do the actual math on it): Oklahoma City to Omaha or Albuquerque to San Antonio.
1) You need a car at your destination, which is true in all but a very few places in the US.
2) There is no direct flight often. So, for example, you have to go OKC to Chicago to Omaha if you fly. That's much longer.
The second point applies even to some big cities if you come from smaller towns. Omaha to NYC, go through Chicago. OKC to LA, go through Denver or Dallas.
I think you have a lot of things right in the post, but I think we're getting a touch of the "east coast bias" here :)
I found your post very useful and interesting - but I also think simplistic. That is the nature of the story here and the reason that the car culture is so popular - cars represent independence and freedom. Trains and airplanes are a group experiences that require a small sacrifice for a little benefit.
If your going to start doing cost benefits analysis make sure that you include all the costs in building and maintaining the fantastic and crumbling national road system.
A much more interesting conversation might be to examine polling data on how Americans view cars and trains.
Peace
Eric Wolf
Brother Wolf Storytelling
Some of these critiques also shade your conclusion about the likelihood of rail success. Perhaps a direct St. Louis to NYC line is likely, but direct routes will be the exception (except for big city folks). So people living in Montgomery going to Pittsburgh will have to change trains and go through hubs just like flying.
We have an amazingly good interstate road system that connects every major city directly to nearby cities. Even the most ambitituous rail plans don't do that. The map I recall seeing has OKC only connected to Dallas. So OKC to Chicago means OKC to Dallas to KC to St Louis to Chicago. Almost anyone would choose to drive rather than do that.
If more than one person is traveling -- which is quite likely; virtually all of my traveling is done in groups of 3-10, never alone -- then it's almost impossible for it to be cheaper to fly. A lot of traveling is done by groups of friends, families or couples on vacations or just trips, and it is clearly not optimal for these people to fly even moderately long distances.
Most destinations also require a car during your stay if you're going to make any use of your time; if you're going to be tied up in a conference or something most of the time, then you're okay without a car. But if you're on any other kind of trip, then you need a car in the majority of cities.
Finally, it's odd to use as your example one of the most car-free cities in the continent, and one of the cheapest places to fly. And David is correct; the handling of depreciation in this post makes no sense.
As other people said, the situation seems simplistic or possibly even slightly biased. Maybe if numbers were run and showed for a large set of city to city, enough to gain a reasonable glimpse on the whole story.
I also agree with all the talk about using a used car in this comment section: I only buy used, so resale is not really my primary concern - just reliability.
@Nate: Doesn't any model have to put a $value on time? Driving from StL to NYC takes maybe 17 hours, or two driving days. Flying might take 2 hrs (leaving aside travel to airport).
In addition to the on-the-way costs (hotel -- lets assume food costs are the same whether you're at home or on the road), there's time spent in travel.
And this may also relate to the broad purpose of the trip. Is it "business" or "pleasure"? If it's for business, I'm "on the clock" and my employer (or myself if I'm unemployed) has to figure in my pay (and possible opportunity costs) to the hours on the road (and away from the office). The employer may even think it's worth my traveling business class so that I can arrive more refreshed, or even work en route.
If it's "for pleasure," there is still soem value to my time -- but how do you value leisure hours? An extra day luxuriating on the beach might be worth spending $500 on an ait ticket. (Not to mention, I can rent a car if I need one at the other end.). If this is a quick getaway weekend, I'm squeezing in this minivacation without missing any work at all.
In any case, the calculus needs to reflect some valuation of time.
Consider the likelihood of a trip being delayed due to weather, airline incompetence, repair or general flight delay and having to stay at a crappy airport hotel, or worse, staying at the airport itself. Many times this (potential) loss of time and inconvenience justifies the extra cost and planned time of driving.
When I drive, I more or less know when I am going to arrive. When I fly, I know there is a high likelihood of being late, being pissed off, and wasting my time in a place I don't want to be with people I don't want to be with.
So another conclusion to the analysis is that Americans would rather control how they spend their time (in a car) versus having their time controlled for them (stuck at the airport).
Just want to echo two points that I really can't believe you left out:
1.) A whole lot of people aren't leaving from/going to an area close to a major airport
2.) Quite a few people have multiple destinations in mind. Unless all your destinations are served by Southwest, good luck finding affordable plane tickets in that scenario
And I'll add a third, probably less important, thing you're forgetting: cargo. If you want to take anything that won't fit in a couple suitcases with your other travel necessities, flying becomes a pain in the butt.
While you're dreaming, we could also build trains that run at 900 mph underground in a partial vacuum.
Air travel is really, really unplesant with our baby. The increase in stuff that he has created, along with the more strict scheduling needs his presence entails, makes driving the easy choice.
Now, if I could get to the airport no more than one hour ahead, and the planes took off and landed on time, and they didn't charge extra for extra bags, then we would probably start flying again.
Oh, and on social trips, we like to visit friends on the way and stop and eat at interesting places that we find through yelp, egullet, etc. We can't do that on a plane.
Uh, I left out the obvious. If I'm the governor of South Carolina and I desperately, desperately need to get to Argentina and maximize my pleasure hours when I arrive, I am gonna fly, and damn the price of the ticket. I'm in love and I'm horney as hell. The time saved is invaluable, so my travel cost is larely irrelevant.
Then again, I could take the wife and kids on a very leisurely 3-week drive, maybe even learn some Spanish and Portuguese on the way. But how much fun would I have when I got to Buenos Aires?
You also need to factor in walk-up airfares instead of advance paid fares. Some people are unable to plan their trip far enough ahead to avoid the penalty airfares that Airlines impose to last minute travelers or travelers who need to change their flights.
I would also concur that most people that I know who choose to drive long distances have fully depreciated vehicles so they only pay the absolute variable cost of fuel and repairs.
One big plus for HSR is that it can make stops along the way and serve a much larger market than regional airports. If someone can catch a train 20 miles away rather than drive to an airport 100 miles away they might be more inclined to take the train.
The experiences that I've had with TSA make me not want to fly.
I was threatened to be detained as to intentionally miss a flight in DFW.
Why?
Because I looked at the TSA person the wrong way. Seriously, a look. Not a word, not a physical action, a look.
She called over her supervisor, but really just so he could re-enforce those threats.
They're thugs, not all, but clearly some of them. Talk to me about flying once we're not pretending that a bottle of shampoo and conditioner can be used to make a bomb.
I'm a proponent of the idea of high-speed rail in the United States. Living 12+ driving hours away from my family I would prefer a compromise between flying (damn you O'Hare!) and driving. High-speed rail has a definite, tangible appeal to me.
So I was surprised and disappointed when I tuned into NPR (they are having a full week of stories exploring rail transit in the US nightly this week) and learned that we're currently looking at speeds of around 100 mph. Half of what the rest of the world has. In fact these are the same top speeds achieved in the US 100 years ago! Fyi Amtrak currently has a cap of around 80 mph.
Suddenly Nate's 6 hour trip becomes a 9 hour trip. This of course presumes no stops along the way. Not exactly enticing.
For light rail to work in the US it's going to have to be convenient and cost effective. With such low top speeds I'm afraid we're simply Amtrak Part 2.
I really want something like high-speed rail to work, but don't waste the time/money if it's going to be half-assed.
>> @Nate: Doesn't any model have to put a $value on time? Driving from StL to NYC takes maybe 17 hours, or two driving days.
I think you mean one day driving. ;) Which kinda underscores just how many variables there are here. Yeah, I've driven that much in a single day. Add in someone to tag-team with and we drove 35+ hours straight. Ottawa to the middle of Saskatchewan, right before Christmas. I was a student coming off a workterm. He was a classmate and he could have flown with his ticket paid for but he agreed to drive with me to split some gas and take the ticket price in cash.
Short solo business travel between two relatively large cities; no family, no colleagues, no extended stay, no stops, no change of planes, no significant items to transport, no valuable or fragile luggage, no need for flexibility en route or for personal transport at destination, and so on. Maybe you should stipulate large flaming roadblocks on the interstate, just to ensure that there's no hint of balance in that hypothetical scenario.
That said, time-and-money analysis doesn't begin to take into account the almost comically unpleasant experience of today's typical air travel. Domestic commercial economy air travel is for situations where auto transport is not feasible.
From a consumer perspective, high-speed rail could offer either the best or worst of both; depends on the details.
I completely agree with the criticisms of the post.
Suggesting that the average long car trip is the equivalent of a lone idiot driving by himself from downtown St Louis to NYC at a random time of year is a straw man. Depreciation is exaggerated. Etc.
Having said that, let's talk about St Louis and rail.
I lived in the St Louis area for three years.
I worked with, among other people, a fair number of middle class, mainly white laboratory technicians.
They tended to own huge SUVs.
The St Louis area has a limited light commuter rail system.
I was interested to note that all of the lab techs who had access to the light rail used it every day (and it was a bit of a bus trip from the nearest station to the lab).
Those who did not have access to it sometimes commented that they wished they did.
There was no stigma, or at least no strong stigma, attached to using the light rail system. Even though it was clearly "public transit".
They were all aware that it made economic sense to use the rail system (if you were lucky enough to have access), that you could relax during the rail trip, etc.
A good, economical high speed rail system might be popular. It's not a perfect analogy, but it did seem that there was little resistance to the basic concept of rail.
I echo the first comment - this analysis totally ignores families, which means it needs to go back to the drawing board. Your car costs are mostly fixed, while flying you have to multiply by the number of family members, so yes, driving is cheaper.
St. Louis to NYC is also bad example - a better example is St. Louis to Destin, FL, which is a very common route for thousands of actual St. Louisans, is about the same distance, and is relatively difficult to get to unless you drive.
Why doesn't Nate proofread before posting. You've got to be kidding me: "your" vs. "you're"? This lack of professionalism will hold this blog down. For shame, for shame.
Back to the topic, I must admit that while I support Obama, I oppose high speed rail. Like it or not, we're stuck with the car. Lets focus our energy on making them greener, safer, and more comfortable.
I agree with the analysis *for a single person or couple* with no kids. I would *never* drive more than 200 miles (and often fly about that distance for my work). I don't like to drive and it's much easier for me to read / work / listen to music in a plane than to concentrate on driving for hours on end.
I agree with others in this discussion when you factor in kids / other family. The cost of flying goes up rapidly, while the cost of driving remains relatively stable. If I had a family and needed to travel across country, not sure what I'd do: if I could afford it, I'd fly, for sure. I'm pretty sure if I had to drive, that trip wouldn't get made.
It took all the way down to Brother Wolf's post for it to be noted that PEOPLE JUST ENJOY ROAD TRIPS!
Oh, Nate. You too have to use "exponentially" to mean "polynomially"? Really? It's like a knife in my heart.
As an urban planner, it's great to see this discussion come up on this site. I'm only 27 and haven't been in the field long, but I know that planners tend to see the car as a necessary evil and view planes and especially trains as a vastly superior alternative. As evidenced by the comments though, there are numerous excellent reasons why people drive.
Personally, I tend to agree with Nate about the insanity of driving such a distance, as in the four years that I've lived in DC, I've driven to my family in Connecticut I think three times and have taken the plane or train at least 20. I'm fortunate that I live 30 minutes from a Southwest hub (BWI) and I and my family are both on Amtrak's northeast corridor, so it's very easy for me to take either method, whereas dealing with the stretch between Wilmington and NYC on I-95 is a nightmare.
However, if you're not between DC and Boston, taking the train isn't usually a viable option. I think Nate's point, and one that a lot of the commenters missed, is not that air travel is superior to car travel, but is that that with enough infrastructure investment, rail lines can capture a lot of travel that is currently relegated to cars rather than trains for any number of reasons, as evidenced by the comments above. I'm interested to see his posts about the topic in the next few weeks, as a viable rail system would provide numerous economic and environmental benefits, and, along with renewable energy investment, was really the part of the stimulus package that seemed to provide the greatest long-term benefits.
@Dwight. Yeah, I've done those, too. Used to drive home from college 1000 miles straight through, with three drivers trading off, in about 17 hours. More recently have made the trip of ca. 800 miles in 13 hours driving solo.
@stop_the_stutter
*cough* No it didn't. ;)
@David
Secondly, car depreciation is not constant over its entire lifetime of miles driven. Used car prices are discounted according to the risk associated with the uncertain accident and repair history from the previous owner. Thus it is often said that the biggest drop in value in your car comes when you first drive it off the lot.
Actually his depreciation wasn't handled that badly. If it was a $35K car, the first 100,000 could represent $25K. It makes some assumptions that aren't going to hold true in all cases. But they aren't that much off for a buy and hold driver. On the flipside for a lease those extra miles can be very expensive if you get yourself into a overmileage situation on a lease.
The "drive off the lot" thinking is probably less accurate if those extra miles bring you to purchase another new car sooner. That is why averaging it out over the lifetime of your ownership is the most accurate way to look at it.
I have flown only once since 9/11.
It was a humiliating experience. TSA 'officers' (fat, stupid, angry, aggressive homers, at an airport that is as far from home as they'll ever go) are the main reason. If you ddrive, you MAY have to deal with stupid, aggressive cops, but if you are careful, you can avoid 'em. Not the TSA cretins. You cannot fly without running into them. Ergo, I do not fly...
My little RX-8 just carried my wife, myself, my 10 year old son and my son's best friend, on a 10 day vacation from Boston to the NC coast.
An RX-8 drives like no other car. The instant I am driving my RX-8 I am having pure fun. We listened to Harry Potter on our iPods. The time in the car is a pure pleasure.
The two boys, have dozens movies and Nintendo DS games. And stopping ANYWHERE is an adventure, from the strange Golf-Range/Go-Cart/Put-Puts, to Plain McDonalds to drop dead fantastic Mariott Resident inns for $129 with two king bed, two full baths, hot tubs, pools, full kitchen, three flat panel TVs. My driving trip's travel adventure, IS BETTER, the vacation destination.
Flying sucks 100% of the time. I get the pleasure, of being treated like a criminal terrorist suspect stuffed in a cattle cage, breathing the lung spew of hundreds of stupid, smelly strangers, who are always more pissed and stressed than I am. My family has not taken flight from any airport required trips for the last five years. I can't imagine flying again unless I am dead first.
My brother is a corporate pilot. He is marry to a female pilot flying big jets for a big Airline. I've watched them for years with their three children during the pre-flight packing. Holy crap there is more stress in packing than a month's vacation could relieve. AND THESE ARE PROFFESSIONAL AIRLINE INDUSTRY TRAVELERS.
The airline industry is a horrible way to travel for the standard family. For a business man of women, fine. You've already turned yourself into a zomby. But for family travel, airline traveling should be illegal to travel by plane as a form of child abuse. Parents subjecting themselves to the aluminum tube travel, just to get places quick, forget it.
If you need to get some place quick, as a family and have some happiness and low stress among your family members during the travel time, don't use the airport travel machine that simply turns everyone into tourist hamburger humans. A country bus ride in India is more dignified and invigorating.
One other factor. Americans have a lot of stuff - they love their stuff and want to take it with them. You can fit more in an SUV than in an overhead compartment.
This was pretty clearly written by someone who's never traveled with kids (esp. a baby). There are a lot of other "costs" associated with flying with kids that don't come up when I travel alone on business.
Take luggage. When I travel alone, it's just my laptop and a rol-aboard. When the family's in tow, it's 3-4 suitcases, diaper bag, stroller, etc. When we fly, all this has to be loaded into the car, then carried from parking lot to terminal to check-in. Have you ever gone through security with a baby, stroller, laptop, and diaper bag? Then, when you get to your destination, assuming your luggage hasn't been lost, you have to get it all onto the rental car shuttle, then into the rental car, then unload it at wherever you're staying. When you drive, you load it once and unload it once.
Then there's flexibility. When you drive you can leave pretty much whenever you want. When you fly, you have a strict timetable. Again, when I'm alone, that's not a big deal, but with my wife and kid, there's a lot more stress involved in making sure everyone's ready on time.
Finally, people don't value their leisure time at anything close to their actual salary. If people really valued their time at $30/hr, very few people would ever do their own dishes. When you compare flying to driving, people compare cash costs to cash costs. Basically airfare vs. gas (rational or not, most people don't consider depreciation in this trade-off). Based on this comparison, once you add a second or third person in the car, especially if one's a kid, any trip that doesn't require an overnight stop looks pretty attractive to drive, unless the trip is pretty short-duration (like a long weekend) and time is critical.
What this says about high-speed rail is that it'll face pretty much the same issues as flying does. The only difference is that the infrastructure is a lot more expensive and a lot less flexible than air travel infrastructure.
Juris said...
@Dwight. Yeah, I've done those, too. Used to drive home from college 1000 miles straight through, with three drivers trading off, in about 17 hours. More recently have made the trip of ca. 800 miles in 13 hours driving solo.
The guy that travelled with me said he'd not do it again, ever. But I think that was just his fever-so-bad-that-he-went-to-the-hospital-emerg talking. :) We both had a bit of a cold when we left and ended up really sick. Maybe would have anyway but that old Dodge Diplomat's heater system was wonky, it heated the driver's side a lot more than the passenger's. So coming through Duluth the driver was sweating and the passenger was shivering. That probably wasn't very helpful for our colds. :)
Really, we have no idea whether high speed rail will even address the inconvenience issues of flying. It may be that high speed rail operators feel it's most economical to pack their passengers in like they do on airplanes, removing one advantage of rail travel. It may also be that by the time we have high speed rail, we also need to protect that against terrorism with inconvenient security checks.
I'm all for high-speed rail. I truly wish we had it now. I live within 2 miles of an Amtrak station, but 50 minutes from the nearest small airport with commercial service.
That said, right now everything is tilted towards car travel. I am making a trip from SC to MD this week. I tried my damnedest to work out a way to do it via train or plane (plus three legs of public transportation and begging for a lift for the final leg). Just not do-able. And the cost was outrageous.
See, figuring in all those hidden (and sunk) costs is cheating. I own two 1999 cars. They're already depreciated beyond the point of no return. The only real costs of any trip are for gasoline and, if you're really anal, the possibility of buying a new tire 1 or 2% sooner than you would otherwise. That's nearly nothing.
But the cost of a train ($300 for my trip plus public transportation) or plane (almost as much, if I purchased early) is right in your face. For the car, I'm out $100 in gas and less than 10 bucks for tires. Bringing two other people along cuts my cost to under 40 bucks.
As I said, I wish there were cheap and accessible public transportation wherever we go and cheap and accessible public transportation in between. But there is not. As long as we have transit options which attempt to make a profit, we'll see the gouging that is common (my train fare went up $100 during the final week before I would have purchased--airfare went up $200). That's the way of capitalism.
And I'm afraid that getting the public to use mass transit is not a capitalist ideal. There has to be a lot of subsidy thrown in so that people can catch a bus, train, and metro for $50 per person--total, round trip--to go visit Grandma who lives hundreds of miles away in a rural setting. That or $15/gallon gasoline. Either way, it's not just a mindset thing--it truly is economics.
Nice post.
For the record, I live in St. Louis and went to school a couple years ago in NY, so I've made the trip many times. I take public transportation on both sides (living off the Loop in STL helps) so that saves a boatload of money.
Last January some I drove to NY with three friends (unfortunately I was the only one with a car - or a license). It took us about 18 hours, but we stopped pretty often. Oh, and I tried to use the "depreciation" argument on them, saying they owed me more than the cost of gas, but it quickly became the kind of discussion best avoided among friends ...
@Nate: I think maybe Aram and you should talk (see his comment above). This problem needs a multivariate model that factors in: (a) time (perhaps not distance per se, but opportunity costs for a pleasure or business trip, and the cost of uncertainty of departure/arrival times); (b) fares/tickets/depreciation and fuel; (c) lodging & other incidental costs of travel; (d) possible side-benefits of alternative means of transport (interim stops, ability to work en route, etc.); (e) adjustments for multiple travellers; (f) access to alternative modes of transport (distance to nearest rail station/airport); and (g) auxiliary benefits/costs of transporting goods (luggage, skiis, toothpaste, drugs, etc.).
Your analysis suffers from the bias of an employed, able-bodied person.
An unemployed or retired person probably values his/her time differently.
A significant minority of the population deals with disablities which make public transporation problematic. They may need rapid access to accessible bathrooms, use of a power wheelchair, ready availability of assistive devices, the aid of a companion or service animal, etc. Can these be obtained on public transporatation? Sometimes yes, but the lack of surety represents a major impediment to their use.
Well, let's see, I won't drive long distances any longer since i made the Boston to Florida trek 6 times and my friend put us into a guard rail at 85 MPH. I hate flying because somehow I am labelled a security risk (every single time, it's unreal considering I don't own a passport and have never left the country). I took Amtrak x country a few years back, it takes forever, and was almost 13 hours late to the final destination, the waiter on the dining cart was flat out rude to me (where else could I go to eat over 4 days of travel). All things considered, I only go places where buses go now (free wifi, too).
Randy Cox said...
Either way, it's not just a mindset thing--it truly is economics.
Actually your thoughts on depreciation expose it as a mindset that creates a mental distortion. *shrug* Yeah, that's how you think about it. How you feel about it. But there-in is the rub. The gap between looking at the car in the driveway and saying "that's paid for, all the mileage is free" and the object reality of the matter.
I live in St. Louis. My job has me travelling fairly frequently. For a gig on the East Coast--Washington or New York, usually--if I'm there for a full week or longer I prefer to drive.
Yes, it's a 15-17 hour drive depending on my actual destination, but I can stop when I want, eat when I want, carry as much luggage as I feel like, take sharp objects if I want to, and not be poked and prodded and felt up and herded with a crowd of coughing, sneezing people and their shrieking infants.
Basically, what it comes down to is that end-to-end trip time becomes longer, but it is much, much less unpleasant time: I can use my iPod and catch up on all the Escape Pod podcasts I've missed since the last time I did a long drive, and there's no airline there resenting the hell out of the fact that I'm actually using the crappy service I've paid too much for.
Adam
The author was so focused on one aspect that he negated this question:
Why do people that drive 1000+ miles in a trip choose a car?
They do it because they are able to fully explore an area of the country (at their leisure). They do it because they are able to save money in different ways (packing food/drink into coolers, sleeping in trailers), they are able to bring a wider assortment of household goods with them to enjoy their time.
So, even if the costs associated rail/plane are cheaper than automobiles, you cannot put a price tag on the amount of freedom and flexibility that traveling by a car provides. People will gladly overpay (even when they know the costs) when they are given the choice.
The real problem is that America is just too damned big.
The public transportation debate (both city- and country-wide) is something that fascinates me. I'm currently living in France (Nancy), I've lived for three months and a half in the IS (Tempe, Phoenix metro area) but I'm originally from Argentina.
I second most of the opinions regarding the inhumanity of air travel, which in the US is made worse by the TSA. It's true that the distances in France are not comparable to those in the US, but for me the overhead of travelling by plane far overweights the time advantage.
What overhead? I have to get to the airport (cab/public transportation), arrive early enough, go through security, fly, eventually recover my checked baggage, and get to my destination (cab/public transportation).
On the other hand, train stations in France are always located in the center of the city. It takes me an hour and a half to cover the 300 km between Nancy (where I'm living) and Paris, and that's not even the fastest train available. I leave from downtown Nancy and I arrive to downtown Paris. For me, that's unbeatable. I can carry luggage without worrying about the size or the airline losing it. I can arrive to the train station 15 minutes before the train leaves.
Again, the distances in the US have another scale than in France, but I find train travel to be the best conbination between not having to actually drive the vehicle (allows doing useful things during the journey), having almost no overhead, and a decent speed. And you also get to enjoy the sights. Heck, many high-speed trains have free (in First Class) or cheap (Second Class) WiFi, and power outlets.
A good paper analysing the *total* enery costs incurred by different public transportation methods can be found in:
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/06/planes-trains-pound-automobiles-in-transit-lifecycle-study.ars
St. Louis is 875 miles from NYC by air - it is at least 950 miles by car. I don't know how this graph/curve takes account of the fact that some distances are significantly larger by car than by plane (traveling north/south pretty much anywhere but the coasts, for example).
I saw a special last night on the state of our highways and bridges in the U.S. Apart from the horrible deterioration that is down right dangerous in many instances which hopefully this stimulus will fix up... If half of the show is true, we're in for some serious congestion. Populations are only growing, commercial trucking is going to congest our roads all to hell.
Either massive amounts of money go into doubling the size of our highways or we figure out a way to utilize rail more effectively and efficiently. Roads are great but they have their limitations.
What ever happened to everyone having individual helicopters?
Just my own personal data point.
I love to fly. I'm not afraid of the airplane, or going down in a horrible fireball of death into the ocean or nearest mountain. In fact, I get that child-like feeling of excitement when the plane takes off, looking down on the city I just left while trying to recognize streets I know. I don't travel on business, so the little stuff like that hasn't become routine to me.
On the other hand, I hate going to the airport. I go through layers upon layers of ineffective security theater, removing my shoes, my belt, and occasionally my dignity, handing over personal property that I'd never otherwise consider entrusting to the person in that very clean blue shirt that my tax dollars paid for. If I should need a meal, I'm offended that grown adults cannot be entrusted with proper silverware, because someone might use a fork to hijack an airplane, rather than the pocket knife I actually once forgot it my pocket and accidentally passed through the security checkpoint with.
I just completed a trip from Chicago, to New York, to D.C., and home again, and did it all by car. I don't care that I could have saved $x by flying and avoiding the hotels. I don't care that I could have arrived at each destination Y hours/days earlier in an airplane. And in the next year or two, when I need to visit family back in Canada, I won't care then either.
I miss flying, but I'll never miss the inconvenience and removal of personal liberties that business travelers appear willing to endure regularly.
Sometimes, money isn't the issue.
Shouldn't Nate also factor in the higher risk of death or dismemberment we take when we're on the road?
A question on depreciation: I've had jobs that reimbursed everyone a flat 62¢/mile for depreciation... were we over-reimbursed?
Mark said:
"Why not continue your analysis for high-speed rail travel? Just make sure to include the taxpayer cost"
Mark brings up an interesting point. I'd love a back-of-the-envelope estimate of taxpayer costs for all 3 modes of travel.
If high-speed rail can be as comfortable and convenient as the Acela express trains on the northeast corridor, they will beat air travel on the hassle factor.
I've switched from the shuttle flights when traveling between NY and Boston or NY and DC because when I take the Acela (1) I don't have to arrive 1 to 1 1/2 hours early (15 minutes will do) and (2) I don't have to go through security. Plus the seats are more spacious and comfortable, there's a snack bar, and there's an outlet for my computer.
I have hated flying for a long time, though I still do it for long trips.
Trains are generally much nicer, particularly on either side of Washington and New York, when they tend to empty out. Going from Springfield, Massachusetts to Penn Station costs about $25-35 per person each way plus parking which varies on duration. I don't really care how the costs come out, I pretty much always take the train to New York. Since I can read from the time we leave the station to the time we arrive, it saves me a lot of time as I see it too.
On the other hand, I'd generally rather drive to Philly, given the need to get from my relative's house in the 'burbs to the city center. Take this out and train would be preferable there too. These are old suburbs, much more walkable than the Levittowns of the world, but public transit is still inadequate there. I think that to truly encourage people to take trains or other mass transit, you need to ensure that people can get around on arrival. And frankly, busses are usually slow, indirect, and make one think "I could drive here quicker." We need more light rail and subways within the cities, that offer an advantage over driving once you get there. If Boston with it's half a million people can manage it, so could Denver, of the same size, or Metro St. Louis of with 2 million.
I'm also disappointed that Obama's not interested in providing a real high-speed rail. I know that this would be a tremendous investment, but it's probably the only way to make passenger travel economical to most people once you get out of the Northeast. It would be amazing if Obama took an Eisenhower-like initiative, and decided that we need a national network of bullet trains and intracity rail networks.
The problem (aside from political will) would be that if such a thing happened inevitably terrorists would decide that the trains looked like a sexy, sexy target. And you'd suddenly have the TSA making riding as unpleasant as flying.
Everybody is talking about inconveniences of air travel like some bad stand-up comedian ("don't you hate it when you have to take your shoes off..."). It's not like driving doesn't have bad traffic and a-hole drivers. I think that, to a degree, the meme that air travel is a pain influences the decision to fly or drive rather than the individuals actual experience with air travel.
Want a viable national rail system that can replace a good chunk of cars?
Ban all sales of houses more than 10 miles outside the city limits of a city of 100,000 people or more.
Seriously, that's what you would have to do. Rail is great and very useful in the big-city corridor of the northeast.
Even *with* the gouging and choice pickings of what the most profitable city-to-city lines would be, Amtrak bleeds money like a head wound.
And you *still* would have to maintain the road system. Road maintenance costs are not simply x * cars. If you reduce an interstate's car load by 50%, you don't reduce the maintenance costs by 50%.
Greener, more energy-efficient cars and planes are the future of long-distance travel, not trains. There's no amount of subsidy that will make trains a sizable fraction as flexible as cars. There's no amount of subsidy that will make maintaining a train route as efficient as a plane route. After all, with planes, you maintain the plane and the airports; you don't have to physically repair air traffic lanes.
I don't understand why people think that flying is such a nightmare. On average, I take a roundtrip flight about every six weeks, about 20 over the past two years, or 40 individual legs, and at least 10-15 different airports. Not once have I been searched, patted down, or questioned. The worst of it was when they made me check my grandmother's home made applesauce because it was a liquid that I couldn't bring as a carry on. And the longest security line I had to wait in was probably 10 or 15 minutes.
Now, if you don't like being squeezed into a small seat, dealing with the arriving early, or finding your way to or from the airport that's one thing, but the TSA really isn't bad at all, and usually they are pretty friendly. I think most people here have had one bad experience and then have written of the whole system, or have not even flown and just heard horror stories from friends.
Another factor: the cost of air travel goes up the longer you wait to buy your ticket, as does the risk that you won't get a seat at all. You have to plan well ahead to get the lowest cost (ceteris paribus -- yes, you can play bumping games).
Generally this is not true of trains (though availability of seats could still be a factor).
And it is not true at all of cars.
Case in point, I have 300 mi. trip to make on Thursday, returning Sunday, but I want flexibility in my departure times at both ends of the trip, and I'm traveling with my wife. I never gave a thought to flying. If I decided to book the flight today, it would cost a mere $879 per ticket (including all taxes), plus ca. $60 in taxi round trip.
My round trip 600 miles in my car will take 5 hours driving each way and even at 50 cents per mile will cost a small fraction of the airfare. Of course, I could have saved airfare by locking in a fare many weeks or months ago. But I can't plan that far ahead!
As it happens, there's very annoyingly routed Amtrak bus-train combo alternative. I'm not going to try to describe it. But it would get me to my destination in 15 hours (assuming the train is on time -- and there are several stops) and cost between $250 and $360 round trip (alternative bad routings) per person. Forget it.
you cannot put a price tag on the amount of freedom and flexibility that traveling by a car provides.
Of course you can. While it remains subjective in that different people will attach a different cost, so the cost would better be described by a curve over the entire population, there is certainly a price tag to be put on it. This is done all the time. By individuals and by people studying individuals.
I'm sorry to pile on, but I have to throw in my 2 cents. I used to really love flying, and wouldn't think twice about flying across the country for a long weekend. However, the experience continues to get worse and worse (seats keep getting smaller, less leg room, pointless 'security' requirements, invasive searches, and so on). I have no desire to be treated like a criminal in a herd, and so I always choose now to drive. I get the added benifit of getting to stop at all the intersting places along the way, like small vineyards, and no one tells me I can't bring that case of wine I just got.
@Williams
I don't think you're really reading comments then. Like I said, I was threatened by security staff, in the employ of my country, the people whose salary I pay with my tax dollars, and they are threatening me for looking at them wrong.
They told me if I didn't shut up and smile, I'd be interrogated, made to miss my flight and have to buy another ticket. That shit is fucked up, and that's not complaining about an uncomfortable chair.
And of course, my Windows Mobile phone ate the badge numbers and everything important. God I about destroyed the device when I realized that.
@Ted
You've been lucky in searches and security times, but that's hardly the point. You need to get to the airport early IN CASE security takes that long. I often breeze through in 10 minutes, but it has taken me 45 before (I'm tossing out the fall 2001 sample of regular 1.5 hour waits when they were just figuring everything out)
Other reasons I find flying a nightmare is the seating is very cramped, the hassle of having to fit everything in one bag, and (this is personal, but real to me) the fear of dying a firey death. Yes, the chances of that death are greater in a car, but I didn't say I was waying the pros and cons rationally....it's a phobia, therefore inherently irrational. I can (and do) tell myself that flying is safe all the time, but it ain't easy to overcome a fear.
I hate to fly, and I end up doing 3-5 round trips a year. My fears don't stop me from doing the cost-benefit analysis, but I do put my thumb on the driving/train side of the scale.
I fly all the time. I live in Maryland and I fly into Boston 4-6 times a year. I used to do it more. I only drove it when I moved from Boston to DC with all my stuff. I fly to a few locations out west once a year as well.
I have never had an "encounter" with a TSA agent. I've been pulled on occasion for extra screenings but I've never been embarrassed or treated disrespectfully. I have, however, seen many people behave horribly toward TSA agents.
I don’t understand driving 450 miles. I find it expensive, stressful and time consuming. I only get 10 vacation days a year; I don’t want to spend half of them driving. I wish I could afford to take the train but right now it is too time consuming and expensive to justify.
I’d like to see some statistics about the average size of travel groups and how many people are traveling to and from metro areas. I think people are underestimating the number of solo and couple travelers.
Why do the analysis unless you're doing it for a private enterprise that's considering going into the high speed rail business?
From a government policy standpoint, the issue is not subsidizing any (and that includes cars) particular mode of transportation. If GHG emissions are seen to be a problem, a direct carbon tax would be the solution.
Several other factors that you did not take into account involve luggage and certainty.
My father will not fly unless the road trip is expected to take more than 12 hours (roughly 720 miles), because he's had 7 experiences where his luggage was lost, and 5 experiences where he had to overnight at an airport and missed an event - twice missing a day at a conference in which he was supposed to give a presentation.
When the airline does actually work, and the luggage actually does arive with the passenger, you will almost always be delayed... and you have to pay monstrous fees for luggage (if you're going for a week, and need to bring some suits for a conference, you're guaranteed at least 2 bags - which is $75... If you need a 3rd bag, perchance you are taking some other items for your business meetings, then you have to pay another $100 for the third bag... and you have no assurance that the bags will arive with you.
Most cities are not as pedestrian friendly as New York, which means you either need a cab every time you go somewhere or you need to rent a car - in which case you still need to pay parking.
I very rarely need to fly for my position in the company... I've taken 5 flights in the last year. Two of those flights were delayed by more than 3 hours (one of which was the first day of my honeymoon, which my wife and I missed 6 hours of our lovely day we had booked at a natural hot springs resort, because we were sitting on the plane on the tarmac without AC for 5 hours, and we had to book new transportation accomodations when we finally landed.)
People HATE flying, because the airlines are completely unreliable... or perhaps reliably unreliable.
If the bullet trains can actually be depended on, they will be used.
If you had a fast reliable train service that could get me hundreds of miles for 2-300 dollars I would pick it over driving every-time.
I personally hate driving. It is nothing but constant boredom and fear of death and mutilation. I wish I could just appear places. I have never had a flight as bad as some of my commutes home. I live 10-15 minutes away from work
When one considers all of the really important variable you've left out of the analysis: # of passenger, proximity to airports, luggage, etc. which are all familiar to your readers; one wonders about all the analyses we've been reading which are not familiar to us and could be leaving out some important variables. Makes one kind of skeptical.
Eli Baker
How much does increased risk of death or injury, which seems like a pretty big extra cost of car travel, add to the picture?
I think most people would fly from St. Louis to New York, those are two big airports where it would be easy to find a direct flight at a reasonable cost.
But that is not the case for every trip. Many airports are small with few direct flights, and many cities are expensive to fly to. Layovers can add substantially to the time and hassle of air travel and flying to and from certain airports can be more expensive.
Having flown nearly a hundred times, and been on trains about six (including in Europe, but not high speed rail), I like trains. They probably aren't any safer than planes, but they feel safe and the scenery is better. Plus you don't feel so packed in like a sardine.
I drive because I hate what "airline security" has done to flight on the whole. That, combined with fees for luggage I used to be able to bring for free, along with the hassle of showing up early for said "security," adds up to a lot of stress and annoyance.
Driving somewhere in my car takes more time (especially when I drove to Vegas) but I think your calculations apply only to single-occupant trips. Taking 2 friends with me to Vegas saved us each $200, even with the cost of the rental car + gas + time.
i think i remember reading somewhere that driving is more economical over long distances when dealing with 2 or more occupants in the vehicle vs flying those same people to a destination.
I know a lot of business travel in the Boston-NY corridor would be willing to embrace high speed rail. It seems to depend on going from one high density population center to another.
Another hybrid option would be some kind of high speed "car train" (basically like a ferry, you load the car onto the train and ride the train then pick up your car when you get there.) I know some folks from Florida use the car train to avoid the long drive, but then can still have their car when the reach up-state NY where a car is essential to getting around.
@ "rhoda" -- if you are sincerely interested in this blog and not just in doing drive-by bombing, you should understand that Nate often posts things as trials and learns from the feedback.
His election model last year used such a process to great benefit.
He's gotten a lot of constructive feedback today on this column, and I'm sure he would welcome some from you, if you have any.
As many people have already commented I feel your thinking on this topic is very "East Coast." Most Americans, are not in fact driving 900 miles to NYC. To compare costs more accurately you should be looking at smaller cities, more rural areas, with longer travel between home and the airport, and locations that are better accessed by car. For example camping trips and visiting relatives. Also many people visit multiple locations on a single trip. I feel like people traveling for business are much more likely to travel by air because they are experienced to air travel and much more tolerant of its inherrent annoyances. However the majority of families most likely do not do much business travel and prefer travel by car because of it's ease and familiarity, combined with a much different travel plan and itinerary than the one you lay out in driving from St. Louis to New York.
It will be interesting to see what the conclusions are that you are promising us. My suspicions are that they will show that 1. Americans love their cars (no surprise there) and 2. Americans don't like to take the train, or that it will be a hard sell.
I think there are some missing factors in your analysis, or at least factors that do not seem to be accounted for. For instance, is the majority of air travel business travel? Business air travel seems to be almost the other extreme, that business trips of 100 or even less miles would tend to made by air rather than car because such expenses are easier to write off or expense to a client. What is the average length of a business trip?
Finally, how many trips does the individual American make every year over 425 miles (about a six hour trip)? There are three points to be made here: one is student travel which tends to include lugging belongings with them; two are family trips where you are taking an extended trip with more than three people (where using a car allows for multiple destinations and time is not a factor); and, finally, three how many of these extended trips are to places not readily served by airlines, or not served at all. An easy example is from the Chicago area many families take trips trips to northern Wisconsin, 4-6 hour trips, to remote locales where not only are there no airports nearby, but they are also bringing recreational equipment with them (perhaps even a boat), and airlines have made it even more expensive now to bring extra items with you.
One wonders how many trips are really made from St. Louis to New York (or from Chicago) by car versus plane. Is city to city travel over 500 miles really more likely by car than plane? I wonder. It is hard to tell from what you say whether the majority of these long trips aren't to more remote areas or to destinations with beaches where families spend extended vacations and renting a car for over a week comes to seem far less economical when the costs cannot be split.
Having commented above about a couple of factors in favor of driving, I will reverse course here. I work in an accounts payable-like job, and it seems to me that when people travel on business (in my job's case, to educational and technical conferences) they most often travel by plane. Now, people can be reimbursed mileage if they drive or of course air and cab fare if they fly. But if they drive, as Nate points out, they put miles on their cars, and (I don’t know if Nate noted) run the risk that something will go wrong on their drive. Our employer pays mileage but not your repair bill if the water pump goes out or the transmission fails, or if some other car careens out of control and hits your car. Even though the likelihood of those things occurring may be small, it probably isn’t worth it for any business traveler who is going from a major city to any other major city, no matter how close or far, to drive, since the traveler is reimbursed for standard costs either way.
That said, I would like to say that I hope we do introduce some high speed rail into the equation. It may have to go in on the coasts to begin with, but at least that would be a start. And particularly if they are electric, the trains would accommodate a transformation from a gas based transportation system to perhaps a solar and wind powered transport system.
From purely a time perspective, I always found a break-even point at around 5 hours (or ~300 miles). If I could drive it in 5 hours or less, then flying would inevitably take longer (and be more of a hassle).
There's a fuzzy range there for trips over 5 hours, where sometimes driving is still faster. As many people have pointed out, driving is often the easier option if either your origin or your destination is not within an hour of a major hub airport. Indirect routing, layovers, and travel to/from the airport add up. That's why driving from Iowa City, IA to Canton, OH often ends up faster than flying. And cheaper, too.
@Cess Pool
Business travel simply has a lot more of the variables tilted towards it. The "emotional" depreciation method mentioned in the comments here tends to get tossed for a more accurate one Nate used, and his assumptions on that fit even better (the business usually has the cash in hand to make the optimal choice easy). The traveller's time tends to get a much higher value applied. The endpoint of the trip is usually important, the "sightseeing" of the points between is less important. At least one end, if not both ends, are more likely to be in a business center with good airport coverage. You are less likely to have a lot of extra baggage to check (when I fly I push to have all carry-on, on checking ... which is probably why I've never experienced a loss of baggage?)
As someone who hates both flying and driving long distances, I'm rooting with all my heart for high speed rail anywhere and everywhere.
How many trillions of dollars get spent subsidizing car travel (through road building and upkeep) every decade? It's time we put the money into a form of travel that is fast, comfortable and environmentally friendly.
Too add to the benefits of HSR, I really like the idea of car-ferry. Then, even people who didn't live close to the train ubs could benefit readily. They could drive to the train station, take HSR w/ their car for 1000+ miles, then drive the remainder of their trip.
Car Ferry + HSR definitely would win a lot of fans over flying!
WV: typoin -- I hope there isn't a typoin my comment...
Dwight -- I used to travel a lot for business, and I basically agree with you.
The only problem with fitting everything in a carryon is the new "no liquids" rule. For people who have medical needs, this can be a hassle even if they have the appropriate doctor's forms. And my female business compatriots insist that a 1qt bag simply isn't enough room for the hair-n-makeup products required by a typical woman...
WV: proly -- I proly will get strip-searched by TSA next time I fly.
This thread was over in one. Statistics have to be available somewhere for the average number of passengers in these vehicles - and I wouldn't be surprised if a majority of the travelers (if not the trips - one 5-person family vacation covers for a lot of singletons) are carpooling friends or family.
I personally just hate flying, so I drive the 500 miles to San Francisco or Davis when visiting friends, even when I'm alone. When the California High Speed Rail is finished, I'll probably never drive that run again.
I'm actually *from* St Louis, so I viewed your example with interest!
I regret to add that the train option, for StL to NY, is not an option. Others here have pointed out high costs and lengthy times. For me, the deal-killer is the fact that Amtrak does not use its own rails.
Amtrak uses the rails owned and maintained by the freight companies. They maintain their rails to the condition that their freight business requires.
This is a much lower condition than passenger service requires. It has two consequences.
The first consequence is on schedule. If a freight train is delayed due to rail problems, that's only a problem if the cargo is perishable (or if the delivery contract has a time incentive or delay penalty). But if it adds 4 hours to a passenger trip, then a 9 pm arrival changes to a 1 am arrival.
I've often had this happen when meeting visitors who arrive by rail.
The second consequence is safety. Derailing freight cars is no big deal, so long as we're not talking dangerous cargo. But derailing passenger cars probably means hurting people, and it quite possibly means killing people.
But Amtrak must still pay the freight companies in return for permission to use their rails -- without any control over the condition of those rails.
Not only do the railroads maintain the rails to freight standards; but when (not if) they don't maintain them even to their own standards, and passengers are maimed or killed as a result, it's not the freight companies who must pay for damages in court. Under the agreement by which Amtrak gets access to the rails, *Amtrak* covers the freight companies for any damages resulting from accidents to their passenger trains on the freight lines' rails.
This info is from a book by David Cay Johnson. The name of the book? "Perfectly Legal." Because it is.
Matthew Fedder said...
"I personally just hate flying, so I drive the 500 miles to San Francisco or Davis when visiting friends, even when I'm alone. When the California High Speed Rail is finished, I'll probably never drive that run again."
And I think that was Nate's whole point. If high-speed rail were available, many of the non-flyers would choose that over driving.
The question is: How many? and for which trips?
The Doctor:
Nate isn't talking about comparing flying or driving with the existing Amtrack service.
He's talking about the proposals for a new (passenger only) high-speed rail service that's been suggested as part of a green/stimulus package.
Of course I want to echo earlier comments -- if "high-speed" means only 100 mph, then forget it. High speed should match the speeds that other countries are already offering.
One thing to consider is the starting and ending points of the trip. When traveling between cities with decent air connections that allow for non-stop trips, your analysis makes sense. However, I went from Portland Oregon to a fishing trip outside of Butte Montana last year, a total of about 700 miles. I would have had to make connections in Seattle or Salt Lake City. Lift off to touch down would have been about 5 hours. Additional travel to and from airports and arriving early would have made the travel time around 8 hours. I drove in about 10 hours. Much more pleasant, I could carry more luggage, I didn't have to worry about losing luggage or late flights and it was mostly beautiful scenery. I am very much in favor of improved rail travel, high speed and otherwise. However, the data seem to be incomplete if you don't take out all of the 875 mile trips that aren't convenient by air.
I believe - and hope - that Nate is setting us up a bit here, making the point that no matter how you want to account for car vs. plane trips, people act in a predictably irrational manner when it comes to making many longer trips.
As others have alluded to, the real question behind this post is, How would a high speed rail system affect how people travel? With that question, Nate's post sets the stage for an almost certain "We don't know" as an answer to this question: People aren't behaving rationally now, there's no clear indication they would act rationally with a third option, and thus a high speed system is a gamble.
We would need a lot more data to really begin making arguments, I think, not the least of which is which trips would be impacted. If there are high speed rails along the coasts between major population centers, and we can find data that people who are afraid to fly do live in metropolitan areas on the coasts, we can start modeling the numbers.
@Doverspa.
I made several holiday trips from Omaha to Tulsa and back. After driving the distance a few times, I started flying instead. On the one hand, driving that distance was definitely cheaper, and getting to Tulsa still left me a good two hours from my parent's house. On the other hand, flying was quicker (even with the tortuous routes and occasional delays) and it reduced the risk of having a car wreck or an expensive break down in the middle of Kansas.
Economically, I'd call it a wash, or at least too dependent on personal preference to generalize. But that's on a trip of only 500 total miles (less just for the portion from Omaha to Tulsa).
Speaking to the concept of a "car ferry" train, I have to say that thermodynamically it's a pretty dumb idea, and probably economically as well for that very reason.
Consider: Moving a single person with luggage is probably 250-300 lbs. Moving a car with that person and luggage is at least 10 times that (A hybrid Prius has a curb weight of 2900 lbs).
So a train can haul one car and passenger or ten passengers. Thermodynamically, you'll use 10 times the energy to haul a person. And economically, it's pretty obvious which one is going to be paying more, isn't it?
And for what reason? So that you can have your own car after you arrive at your destination?
I don't THINK so!
Both the article and the comments are showing some big blind spots.
As lots of people have pointed out, the article ignores lots of places where flying isn't feasible. If I'm taking my family for a week of skiing at Taos (700 miles away), driving is a heckuva lot easier and cheaper than flying to Albuquerque or Santa Fe and renting a car.
Still, I wouldn't dream of driving from Austin to Atlanta for business (900 miles) when there's an easy nonstop flight available. Some of the pro-driving comments have only served to illustrate the "irrational" aspects of decision-making, with people wishing away the economic costs of driving, ignoring the dangers of driving, and pretending that long-haul family trips are idyllic bonding experiences.
As for inter-city trains (as opposed to commuter rail), they're great where there's enough demand to justify lots of them, as on the Northeast Corridor. I would never drive from DC to NYC when I could take the train. But in Texas they would be almost useless.
Most people have done an excellent job of viscerally debunking Nate's thesis here, so I won't pile on. But there are lessons to be learned here for his hi-speed rail analysis:
Any analysis that doesn't conclude that rail (hi-speed or otherwise) is anything but a public-spending boondoggle, is making the same mistakes as Nate's analysis here.
I shudder to think of what his preliminary conclusions were for hi-speed rail, given the elementary points missed herein. It's a good thing he test-drove the theory first, and hopefully won't let theology bias keep him from correcting those mistakes when doing the broader rail analysis.
Hi-speed rail works only in areas with highly compressed populations with high congestion risk and where there is easily obtainable secondary transport available at either end of the trip.
Any analysis of rail systems constructed or reconstructed in the last 40 years will show that the economics are favorable for only a small number of potentail travelers and that none of the systems are even close to being economically self-sufficient.
If any public rail systems had to charge fares that reflected the costs of actually running the systems, ridership would drop substantially, as they would be even more economically non-competitive with driving for any but single travelers. That would also hold true if sunk costs were ignored and fares were calculated on the true marginal cost of transport.
Hopefully, Nate will do an intellectually-honest analysis, not something intended to drive public policy toward herding people onto trains.
The distaste for such utopian and empty-headed public policy transcends typical liberal/conservative boundaries.
Here's an idea, and one I can't recall being proposed anywhere else.
First, a train should be high speed. There are good sound economic reasons for that, but also it's a selling point if you can get your customer to their destination quickly.
Now, one of the things that inhibits high speed is the need to slow and stop at various destinations along the way.
So instead, why not figure out a way to decouple and recouple a car or cars on the fly?
What I'm thinking is this:
First, supply each car or car set with an engine of its own.
Second, as a town is approached, release the engined car or cars and let it/them take the passengers on in to the station on a side spur.
Third, speed up a previously passengered car or cars and drive it/them up in the back of the train, connecting with it "on the fly".
Fourth, have passengers file out of the motorized car or cars and into the main train.
Fifth, have passengers file into the motorized car or cars in preparation for getting off at the next stop.
And so on.
Result: a train that never stops from main stop to main stop!
The car depreciation question is definitely a hard one to define, but tracking my own expenses for years on both newer and older cars, the $0.25/mile of variable costs seems pretty spot on (closer to $0.20 for me, but this is based on my own careful car buying decisions, and cheaper gas prices prior to the last couple of years). The reality is that while buying a well used car may reduce the depreciation to near nothing, those unexpected maintenance costs (e.g. need a new alternator, power steering pump, etc.) end up adding enough to balance out what you're saving in depreciation. As irrational as car buying can be, people seem to be pretty rational about when it's time to junk them. And therein lies the problem, people's car buying and use decisions are just plain irrational.
A few personal anecdotes might also shed some light. Some options not considered are renting a car at your own location and driving it round-trip. Since many rental places offer unlimited miles, this can often be a cheaper option than driving your own car, tipping the scales toward driving. This is especially true if you're going to have to rent a car at your destination anyway. Back to the flip side, personally having an car with relatively few miles for its age, it makes sense for me to drive that car since at this point, its age is a bigger factor in depreciation than its miles. So putting a few thousand miles on that car isn't going to depreciate it much since it should have more miles on it for its age, anyway. Each situation is so unique that I think $0.25/mile is a pretty fair "average" assessment.
Also, kids have been mentioned, but not pets. I have a friend who did a cross country trip in a rental car. The cost to kennel his dog (which he didn't want to do anyway) helped push the scales away from flying. If high speed rail had a "owners with pets" car, that may help encourage use. I'd love it if "family" cars were split off as well. The lack of the ubiquitous kicking and screaming child in the seat behind you would be enough for me to switch from planes to trains! I've always liked the idea of auto trains like the one Amtrak operates on the southeast corridor, which gives the best of both worlds - pack up your car, drive it onto the train (with all your stuff in it), sit in the comfy train, and then drive your car and stuff off near your destination. I love the idea of HSR, but it need to be fast enough and have enough options for passengers if it's going to work. HSR may cost a lot, but so doesn't building and maintaining airports and roads, so I think it's long overdue.
Here's where high speed would work:
Boston-NYC-Philly-DC
No stops in between. 150 miles plus per hour. Drop you off in the city center, where subway etc is readily available. Anything else is just a pipe dream (no pun intended).
I concur with those who note the freedom, independence and control of one's own destiny associated with the automobile. These are quintessentially American ideals that coincide well with the automobile.
That said, I think that high-speed trains would catch on en masse only if people had the option of bringing their automobiles onto special cars of the trains and storing them there so that they could get their car off the train when they reach their destination. I may not care about seeing anything on the way from Point A to Point B, but I might want the freedom to drive around and explore once I get to Point B.
Hey Nate,
There are a couple of built-in assumptions you made that I would suggest may not always be the case. For example, for driving you assume people will drive their own cars. However, if they rent a car, then the maintenance cost doesn't enter into it.
Also, you are using one example of a hub-to-hub airline ticket. While, I would suggest that most trips of 875 or more are not St. Louis to New York or the like, and therefore the price of the airline ticket - not to mention extra baggage would be much more than $250.
Finally, how many trips of 875 miles or more that aren't business related have only one person going? I would say very few.
So, I think it is quite possible that there is some economic sense in considering driving as an alternative to flying.
THE NON-STOP TRAIN
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeGZDXLB8GM
Sacto Joe,
I've thought of the exact same concept before. Seems feasible with today's technology, though I figure it's only a pipe dream. Bureaucrats just aren't that adventurous/creative!
The point that (I think) connects my previous remark about Amtrak with proposals for high-speed trains is the rails:
To be viable -- both per schedule and per safety -- the passenger company must own (and maintain) the rails its train runs on.
The discussions I've seen, here and elsewhere, have focused on the engines and rolling stock.
As big as those issues are, "rails" raise the stakes considerably. For one thing, they involve real estate: obtaining rights-of-way across what (for cross-country travel, such as StL to NYC) would be very long distances.
For another thing, where the new rails will intersect with existing rails, construction of the new rails they will involve interactions/negotiations with the owners of the rails already in place -- that is, with the existing freight companies.
Who have no intrinsic stake in seeing passenger rail traffic succeed.
The engine technology for high-speed trains may prove viable. But the whole enterprise could still founder, if the rails cannot be laid.
I hope not. I'd like to see it happen. But if the "rails" issue is ignored, it won't happen.
THE NON-STOP TRAIN
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeGZDXLB8GM
malevole1
Great minds think alike!
It's not just bureaucrats that aren't adventurous/creative. Look no further than American automobile companies!
Bottom line, though. This is a good idea, and it needs to be given a chance to survive. However, it's unlikely that it'll make it without a huge investment. The federal government could take the lead, just like it did on the internet.
But I guarantee it won't happen if we just give up and say "it'll never happen"!
"But if they drive, as Nate points out, they put miles on their cars, and (I don’t know if Nate noted) run the risk that something will go wrong on their drive."
At my workplace we routinely drive for business travel. This has to do with distances and airport locations. While you can drive a personally owned vehicle (POV), just about everyone I know uses a rental vehicle. This generally costs the business about what POV travel does, but solves most of the problems with breakdowns because those become the rental chain's problems.
Ok I know this point has been beaten in over the last hundred posts, nonetheless here is a funny story. When I had to fly to get home going from Minnesota to Northern Arkansas, I quite literally flew over my house and went another 500 miles down to Dallas TX, and then took a plane back to the area I just flew over. Both driving and flying took 10 hours.
As for other thoughts, I agree with a former poster that inter-city trains are the thing to focus on, like Boston-Philly-NYC-DC. Nonetheless, I would love to see some transcontinental trains again; primarily because I enjoy scenic drives/rides. But I dont see that happening anytime soon.
I hate driving and would much prefer flying, but I agree that you left out the obvious situations where driving makes sense -- moving more people or more stuff. You might want to look at data breaking down the average length of trips made by 1 person vs those made by 2, and 3+... It still surprises me that, with all the business trips made, the breakeven point is 875 miles.
Nate,
Interesting stuff. One thing to consider is the regionality of flying and driving, as well as accounting for speed and, especially traffic.
For instance, I'm from the Boston area. In the northeast, the thought of anything more than a four or five hour car ride is rather laughable—these area almost always made by other means. Boston to Washington, DC, for example, is 440 miles, and Google Maps says it'd take about 7:40. But almost no one will ever drive this, for several reasons. First, there are options: a plane takes three hours or so, door to door. A train about six or seven. Speed limits are 55 or less a good deal of the way, too, not 70 or 75 like out west.
Importantly, the straight-line route goes through Hartford, New York, Philly and Baltimore. So traffic is a doozy. There's really no way you can plan the trip and not hit rush hour somewhere, and since rush hour in New York lasts about 16 hours a day, you can probably tack on another hour or two of aggravating traffic to sit in.
But, I think there's a cultural aspect, too. No one, that I know of, in Boston, would consider driving anywhere much past New York for a weekend. In Minnesota, however, people routinely drive to Chicago, (409 miles in 6:44) for two days. Distance-wise, it's comparable with Boston to DC (or Baltimore), although the roads are faster and the only real opportunity for traffic is in Chicago. Even still, a $100 roundtrip flight is generally three hours, so there is an eight hour time savings overall if you don't drive. Even if you only value an hour of time at $15/hour, 820 miles and eight hours is $415, which will cover four round-trip tickets, as well as some of the train fare on either end.
So I think it's a cultural thing. In the Northeast, especially, there's "something" every three hours in most any direction, whether it's a city, an ocean, a mountain range, a lake (usually with resort amenities), or an international border. These, I think, are psychological barriers. If you are going to the first "thing" you drive, but if you are going to the second, you fly. In the Midwest and out west, these "things" are fewer and further between. From Boston to DC, you pass through New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and a slew of smaller cities. From Minneapolis to Chicago, you go around Madison. That's it. It seems closer, because there's much less in between.
So, what I'd like to see is a breakdown of these distances traveled by region. I'd be willing to bet the average between air and car is under 600 in the Northeast, and over 1000 in the Upper Midwest.
One other note concerning depreciation of vehicles:
Much of a vehicle's depreciation is tied to the calendar and not the odometer; a vehicle loses value just by sitting in the garage. Of course, the vehicles' condition is not likely deteriorating by being parked--but the older a car is, the less it's worth on the resale market--even if the odometer reading is otherwise the same.
This produces an interesting conundrum in car ownership: If you own one, it's frequently rational to use it as much as possible; otherwise you are wasting money. The exception of course is an older car that is "fully depreciated". And Cash for Clunkers just took zillions of those off the road.
I find the focus on rail service from New York to St. Louis weird. The high-speed rail blogs I read don't even think about such long-distance corridors. Instead, they support corridors of up to about 500 miles, such as San Diego-LA-San Francisco, Boston-New York-Washington, and Chicago-St. Louis. Even very ambitious high-speed rail plans for the US don't try to get people to ride rail from New York to St. Louis. At current technology, high-speed rail's outer limit of competitiveness with air is 4.5 hours, which, on flat land with few intermediate stops, means about 800 miles.
Even then, in practice 800 miles means construction costs will be very high. So high-speed rail plans only include such lines when they're really amalgams of shorter lines - for example, New York-Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh-Chicago are both at the right length for high-speed rail to be competitive, and there might be enough demand for through-routing trains from New York to Chicago on those two lines. But otherwise, the lines people advocate for, like the plan for California, the Northeast Corridor, and a T-shaped system connecting the Texas Triangle, top at about 500 miles.
Alon Levy,
That does somewhat dovetail to the post though since Nate was comparing air and vehicle out past rail's [current] range. A bigger piece of the puzzle.
Another myopic and poorly thought out piece by Nate Silver. He's getting to be pretty consistent with churning out garbage.
It's pretty obvious that most of your readers don't have an even basic knowledge of economics and the resulting thread is absolutely laughable! "Individual cars with motors so they never have to stop" and "Dedicated bullet trains" and "carbon tax increases to subsidize train travel" are so totally ludicrous that they border on the asinine.
Do yourselves a favor and get to your community college and take an elementary economics 101 course. You'll all be better off for it. and it might give you some insights as to how the federal government's policies are destroying your future and the future of your children
@albionmoonlight and @Matt:
I also have small children (currently ages 1 and 3) but my wife and I have come to exactly the opposite conclusion: given the option, we almost always choose to fly.
I really can't fathom strapping a small child into a carseat for 10+ hours a day -- it's just plain cruel. You'll need to factor in much more frequent breaks for stretching and diaper changes. Factor in a LOT of extra time for additional stops if you're traveling with an infant that's still nursing. How's that going to impact progress toward your destination?
I'll be the first to agree that flying is profoundly unpleasant -- for me. But for a child, flying actually has a lot going for it. In particular, the time is broken up -- drive to airport, check-in/waiting, flight itself, etc -- and the novelty of the situation is a constant source of entertainment. And in the end, happy kids = happy parents.
The main thing is that you need to make a deliberate effort to travel light. On our most recent trip (Seattle to St. Louis for a family reunion at a camp in the Ozarks) we went completely carry on -- two smallish travel packs that fit easily into the overhead compartment and a tote bag with toys, snacks, and diapering supplies for the four of us. It's really not that hard.
Of course, high speed rail would be even better -- larger seats, greater freedom to roam around the train, the dining car (!), etc -- but we're making do with what's available.
[BONUS: children under 2 fly free if you're willing to have them on your lap (that's where they're going to end up anyhow, right?)]
I don't fly because my destination has NO public transportation and the regulations dealing with flying sucks. Hell even my current city barely has public transportation (you'll wait +30 minutes for a bus). The fact that I don't like flying as a physical experience really pales in comparison to the inconveniences involved.
Another wrinkle to comnsider...
surprised no one had yet mentioned the impact of pets on travel decision-making...
many of us want or need to travel with our 4 legged kids.
flying with a pet has become more expensive than flying with children [especially compared to infants who fly 'free].
I am about to travel from central FL to MN for a visit that will lasy over a month.
air fare with carry-on only for 1 person appears to be priced reasonably - but to take the small dog doubles the price, and to take extra luggage for myself & the dog for a month [or more] is even more cost-prohibitive. Plus that does not include the disadvantages of security, vet travel papers, and all the other hoops that now exist for traveling with a pet.
Train ? not an option.
Drive ? it is at least 24 hours to drive straight through, but we can leave at our own schedule & stop whenever WE want or need to eat or exercise [try that on a plane trip with your pet]
I used to fly across the country several times a year with my dog & it was OK - but since 9/11 & TSA, it has become unworkable to try to fly with a pet, besides becoming way too expensive !
so me & the pooch + all our stuff will load up in the Taurus & hit the road by Labor Day for the next 4-6 weeks on the road vsisitng relatives spread out across MN & SD on a flexible schedule...
plus if we flew, I would have to rent a vehicle in MN for at least a month - also a no-brainer cost wise.
now, a good train option that was pet friendly would have been nice.
Should notice how many people travel with their pets now ? this is the only growth industry segment in hospitality & travel.
same with the evacuation from Katrina, etc. - do not EVER forget that americans value their pets over most everything else - including seemingly rational cost-benefit analysis.
I have no trouble finding hotels that WELCOME pets today
just another wrinkle for travel projections... make the high-speed trains pet friendly - or else they will fail imho.
@DCM in FL:
"just another wrinkle for travel projections... make the high-speed trains pet friendly - or else they will fail imho."
As long as you can ensure that I don't have to hear, smell, or be touched by your pet, I'm all for it.
ROB
LOL - I was resisting commenting on how people like you who bring screaming infants onto planes are a BIG reason that many rational travelers can no longer tolerate flying.
especially when yoy travel with non-paying smelly ear-splitting crying babies that cause everyone else to arrive with nerves frazzled - and I could go on.
when my pet flies in a bag under the seat - no one even knows he is there. your kids make EVERYONE else on the plane tense & ruin the travel experience.
in other words, pets make better travelers than small children !
most parents traveling with small kids know they are making all the other passengers suffer - try a horror flight into Orlando someday [think mickey mouse]
Just to pile on:
I travel what I consider to be infrequently ... once a year from Indy to Chicago, about twice a year from Indy to the Richmond, VA area, maybe an occasional short trip here or there. I drive to all the places.
I like flying, I just don't like the current state of air transportation: security theater, baggage lottery, small seats with neighbors I wouldn't choose for anything ... and every now and then my friends will ask if I can bring something that isn't getting through airport security no matter what year it is.
There are other smaller reasons I could probably work around, like being able to take whatever I want and figure out if I needed it when I get there, but those are the big ones.
Would any of that be different with high-speed rail? Not much, I'd guess. I suppose you'd be able to take more things with you, and maybe there wouldn't be nearly as much security theater, but the seating couldn't be that different from an airplane, could it? And I'd still need to rent a car once I arrived and all that.
I'd definitely consider it, but honestly I'd be more likely to use a local rail system (for commuting, errands, etc.) than a national one.
flying with a pet has become more expensive than flying with children [especially compared to infants who fly 'free].
It is only about $30, each leg of the trip, if they are small enough to bring as carry-on.
How are pets with hotels/motels? I haven't done a lot of traveling with pets, just the once flying on a move with 2 cats. But from others with dogs it seems you need to figure out how to keep them in the vehicle (weather permiting).
Of course working dogs get a pass on both routes. Seeing eye dogs and the like seem generally well accepted?
DWIGHT
you are incorrect about the cost of flying with pets. Delta [the dominant carrier] is currently charging $100 on each flight for a carry-on pet that fits under the seat - and has plans to increase that expense. Plus they count the soft-sider pet bag as your ONE carry-on, so you are forced to pay another surcharge to check your baggage.
in other words, it ends up costing as much as $150 extra each way. and checking the pet as 'cargo' is expensive too...
in addition, pet owners must incur
the cost of the mandatory vet certificate [$50 +/-] & other expenses to take a small pet along.
BUT they also severely limit pet access to 4 or fewer in the main cabin
funny how they make you prove a pet has it's vacinnations, but people with TB & other comunicable diseases can board at their leisure...
it has been many, many years since flying with a pet was as inexpensive as $30
particularly galling since the pet must be stowed under a seat while small infants get preferential treatment including pre-boarding & free flights & extra luggage [strollers, bags, etc.] for no additional cost - plus they slow down boarding, clog up the aisles & restrooms & generally children annoy other travelers
and by no means is it just me...
I just find this analysis too simplistic to be of any value. There are too many important factors in making a travel decision that are not factored in.
If you are studying a specific city pair you should get the mode share between that particular city pair. Some cities have no direct flights between them. Some people live too far from the airport, these are important factors that influence a person's decision.
It's definitely an interesting subject, but this post didn't really shed any light.
I enjoy roadtrips and have found that renting a car to drive a long distance takes out the depreciation cost. Most rentals offer unlimited miles. I live in Milwaukee and like to travel east a lot. A trip to NYC is about the same distance as from St. Louis. If I rent a car for $30/day, the total cost of the hypothetical trip comes to $150 plus gas and tolls. Tolls are about $50 and gas about $200. This brings the cost to $400. A number of hotels near the Newark airport offer free parking. From there, public transit to Manhattan is easy. The rental cost does not include insurance, but my auto insurance covers me for about everything and that is a cost I always pay anyway. If my girlfriend joins me on the trip it is way more economical than fying, except for the time factor. However, the extra driver is $15/day so the total becomes $475. (but on business an extra driver is often free).
Times and prices being anywhere in the same ballpark, I would choose rail over air in a second. The main factor is comfort - planes have crammed seats, limited aisle space, poor light, and poor air quality, making them a truly horrible travel experience. When you consider these factors, it's also easy to understand why many might choose to drive despite the higher costs.
Nate,
How about an analysis of high speed rail in a specific high volume corridor such as Bay Area-LA area. The air traffic in the Bay Area is sufficient to support 3 airports: SFO, San Jose, and Oakland. The LA area supports 4 airports: LAX, Burbank, Long Beach, and Orange County; 5 if you count Ontario.
Like everyone else here I think the errors in reasoning here are odd. How many places do Americans fly to that they can get around in without a car? There are few cities with adequate public transportation options (convenient that in your example you included the city that probably ranks near the highest in public transportation coverage). Ignoring the post travel time seems to be pretty silly.
This post was lazy Nate.
As others have pointed out, there are lots of unrealistic assumptions about this analysis. Two stood out for me: that one flies/drives alone, and, the more interesting one, the car depreciation, which I find extremely flawed. I think David@8:11AM has it right: the first mile off the lot costs a few good thousands, perhaps up to 20% or more of the cost of the car if one considers all the stuff one has to pay for when buying a new car. In most circumstances, the resale value of a vehicle after a couple of days and with an extra 1700 miles on it doesn't change one penny. Yes, there might be some wear, but I'm not sure it would average even 10c/mi ($170).
@DCM in FL:
Shucks, that was too easy -- couldn't you at least sniff the bait before you bit?
In all seriousness, I've never encountered any trouble with passengers carrying pets on board. $100-150 extra for a small dog or cat in an underseat carrier does seem pretty crazy, but someone in management must have figured out that it doesn't hurt them financially. On they other hand, they probably know that if they charged for my one-year-old (who will spend all of his time on my wife's lap or mine, regardless) they'd lose probably lose the other three fares. Do you think that vast numbers of pet owners would fly a lot more if flying with their critters were cheaper and easier? I don't know, but it seems like a good experiment for a new startup airline to try!
(As for a flight into Orlando, that sounds like a horror even without a plane full of screaming kids with stinky diapers ;-)
Nate,
While you're at it, how about an analysis of the non-monetary environmental costs (e.g. carbon footprint) of driving vs. flying vs. rail? My own rough calculations suggest that driving wins if you've got more than one passenger in the car, but flying results in lower emissions if you're going solo. Of course, the availability of commercial flights means that I'll go on trips that I would never consider if I had to drive (e.g. that three-day conference in Europe) and, as a result, even though I don't fly that much relative to many people I know, flying accounts for most of the CO2 emissions I'm responsible for.
Couple of years back, I had to travel from the San Francisco Bay Area to Los Angeles for a business training class. I drove, merely to avoid the hassles of Airporter transportation, Security check-in requirements, fitting things into someone else's schedule. Some co workers flew in from Phoenix, AZ, a comparable distance. It took me about 8 hrs to drive. It took them 8 hrs to fly. Flying round trip was about $6.00 cheaper than driving round trip. Psychic cost of driving, infinitely less than flying.
Wow, really? I just lost a lot of respect for this site. It seems like you support trains (for other reasons) and then massaged some numbers till they supported your conclusion. How many people do you know who take long-distance trips solo? Whatever number you come up with for the cost of the road trip needs to be divided by the average number of people. (Unfortunately, the survey you cite didn't say the average car occupancy for long-distance trips; it gives it only for daily commute trips.)
So, yes, it has to do with mental accounting. We add up al the costs and divide by the number of people. (Most people can even divide by small numbers in their heads!) I've rented a car to drive on a road trip, and with 3 people going it was already cheaper than flying. We ended up with 4, so it was even better! I always fly if I'm going somewhere alone, and often do when I'm going with just one other person. At times, we've rented a van to get 8 people at once.
In conclusion, your idea that people like driving more than they should is likely wrong. Driving is often cheaper, and flying (especially if you have kids!) is a luxury.
ROB
clearly the airlines crunched some #'s to justify free flights for infants [despite the obvious safety issues of a baby 'sitting' on a lap] vs. charging higher fees for pet travel.
but it is much like Nate's analysis - it is lacking in inherant difficult to measure cost/benefit subtext.
sure, pet parents will pay a premium to fly with their kids - BUT once they discover the hard way how much better it is to drive, then forget about flying [in other words - the airlines lose the buyers]. they sure have lost me - I seldom fly anymore because the airlines have made the experience so nerve-wracking & tedious & hidden expenses as well as delays...
parents with infants appear to be a market to 'encourage' for frequent flyers in the future from a irline perspective - too bad it is actually a bad trade-off & short-term 'benefit' as that segment does not become dedicated frequent flyers on a particular airline except at the deepest discount price-point [not-profitable]. plus the unit cost of moving these parents with infants is higher due to labor & other costs less loss of other 'shoppers' such as pet parents who are discouraged by discrimination & higher fees.
you cannot imagine how many people I know who no longer will fly except under extreme duress. Even from FL, you can drive almost anywhere in the country for just one extra day of leisurely travel in comfort with your pet + have your transportation at the other end = it works out easier, less hassle, more relaxing & even cheaper - only drawback is an extra travel day +/- but with flexibility built in that works out better. In fact, weekend travel is cheaper by car than trying to fly on discounted weekdays because hotels are often cheaper typically on the weekends. Airfare is priced at a premium for weekend travel. nate also missed that comparison as well as the heavier holiday travel that accounts for much traffic.
True, IF the US ever does tack on a reasonable gas tax to support alternative travel [which I do support], then the roadtrip option would lose some of it's appeal when the distance is greater [until we get those 100MPG vehicles]. But factoring in pet transport makes a huge difference for a significant segment of society - just as it does for children [although kids + pets is often a double whammy]
now, another factor is SIZE of the human - and we all saw airlines float the idea of surcharges & extra seat requirements for the obese. that went over like a lead balloon. but I used to trade in my lieage for a seat up front in business or 1st for cross-country where my dog could be less crowded & bothered by kicking feet & kids.
once Ruben Studdard sat in the seat directly in front of me on a flight from LA to Atlanta. I really was afraid the seat was going to sink so low as to squish my dog in his bag beneath it...
that is just one more reason not to fly unless I travel over-seas or in an emergency. otherwise, with planning & flexibility road trips are cheaper all things considered imho [even when gas was $4/gal] + if you are traveling 2 or more [including a pet], then it is almost always cheaper & easier to drive, baby, drive [unfortunately]
Sorry. I had to add a comment about high speed rail. In California, the problem is not the lack of high speed rail. the Capitol Corridor & San Joaquins do very well with standard passenge equipment. BUT. Try to get a train connection between Sacramento or San Francisco and Los Angeles. There is ONE passenger train daily in each direction between Sacramento and Los Angeles. This same train also serves the San Francisco Bay Area. Sacramento to LA, Depart at 6:35 AM. LA to Sacramento, Depart at 10:15 AM. 14-1/2 hrs scheduled time. California really doen't need bullet trains, just normal passenger service running from Sacramento to LA via the San Joaquin Valley. If Union Pacific can highball freight that way, Amtrak should be able to do the same on a parallel track with passenger trains.
Ah, no one has mentioned the thrill of the open road, apparently very few fans of the old Route 66 TV series...
Actually, one person touched on it, the idea that the travel is part of the trip. Ever heard of this thing called camping? Lot of people do it, and you can't bring that sort of gear on a plane.
There's a definite appeal to traveling by car, especially if you make stops along the way.
There was a time when rail trips were considered romantic voyages like cruises, and rail could become that again in this country if the routing issues were resolved. Right now, the way the hubs are set up, you often have to double back via an indirect hub.
Trains, even high-speed trains, need to have some entertainment on board, maybe a car with a gym on it, showers, and wireless internet.
With those options, it would be superior to driving, and far superior to flying for all but coast-to-coast trips.
stevepasek said...
Ah, no one has mentioned the thrill of the open road, apparently very few fans of the old Route 66 TV series...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My family(dad) drove out to the west coast on vacation in 1965. Day 1: Kent to St. Louis, Day 2: St. Louis to Oklahoma City (Route 66) Day 3: Oklahoma City to Williams, AZ, Day 4/5: Grand Canyon, Painted Desert, Petrified Forrest, Day 6: Skiing on the CO river, diverging to San Bernardino and Sunny Vale, CA where my uncle lived.
On the way back, El Paso to Dallas, 550 miles, straight, flat an occasional cactus along side the road and then the longgg haul Dallas to Memphis, 850 miles.
My dad was a train, plane and automobile kind of guy as we visited most of the Civil War battle sites. And remember quite vividly him giving the gas station attendant $5 and asking him to fill er up and check the oil and he got change back lol.
I digress.
Went on several Love Boat cruises in the USN courtesy of Uncle Sam and all it cost me was a lot of aggravation. ;)
I got some messages about how idiotic Nate was becoming so I am back now
Total costs for driving
25 MPG
1750/25=70 gallons*$3 per gallon
= $210
Insurance is a sunk cost
Normal auto maintenance is around $500 per year max
Most people drive 12,000 miles per year
1750/12000=14.5%*500=72.5
Total driving costs =282.5
Driving wins hands down idiots
Nate:
Way too many assumptions in your example for it to be a representative trip. You assume a single driver with an urban destination. As soon as you put a family of three or four in the automobile with anything beyond airline allowed luggage and/or intermediate destinations, you must change the entire calculation.
Michael Shores
The cost usually always comes down to number of passengers. While living in Germany, I once had to take a trip to a destination about 100 miles away. For one person, the cost was about the same to take a high speed train as it would be to drive (based only on fuel costs), so I took the train. If two passengers were going, I would have driven, and it would have taken close to the same total amount of time (driving a bit faster than I would in the U.S. of course). In the U.S., it might be harder for the costs to equal out for a single passenger because we tax our gasoline at lower levels.
I think the focus on high speed rail from city center to city center is kind of misguided.
What we need first and foremost is better regional and commuter rail within metropolitan areas. One of the reason Amtrak is so heavily used in the Northeast is because you can get from the city center to various destinations very easily through public transit, cabs, etc. A train from New Orleans to Houston doesn't make much sense if people can't get to Houston from the suburbs on public transit.
Nate - if you're going to do an analysis of HSR in the US, there it'd be awesome if you could provide some kind of balance to the article series I saw over at economix over the past few weeks:
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/04/running-the-numbers-on-high-speed-trains/
Some of the problems I saw there:
1) you have to account for both the cost of HSR construction AND at least the maintenance, if not original construction costs of the highways. Just because they're already there doesn't make them free.
2) subsidies - both those on air travel and those on roads/gas.
3) pick an actual planned line, not some hypothetical one that's not realistic as an isolated system.
I'm cautiously optimistic about HSR, but I think there will have to be some definite policy changes in regards to transportation in order for it to gain any headway. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with!
-Doug
I actually find a certain "romance" in travel by rail. I'd love to have more opportunities to do so. I commuted by train to a job for three months and it was a wonderful experience. The farthest I've traveled by train was from Lancaster, PA to NYC, and that was a good experience too.
That being said, I've still driven about 1000 miles on road trips multiple times. I think I'd probably rather take a plane or train over that under many circumstances.
Your analysis undervalued the impact of multiple people. Although you mentioned it in passing, most people I know who aren't terrified of flying will not drive by themselves 850 miles.
Once you add in a spouse/companion and especially kids, the cost analysis changes significantly. If you drill deeper in your numbers and take into account the types of trips and average family size I think it will become very apparent why more people drive then fly. My family of four is currently planning a trip to TN from Michigan and it will take us about 9 hours to get there. We will probably spring for an extra hotel and make the trip slightly longer to accomdate the drive, but he economics are still way better than airfair for 4 people.
Calling gravity an 'exponential' or a 'polynomial' function (as one commenter put it) is not correct. Gravity drops off as 1/r^2 which is a rational function.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_function
You also haven't taken into consideration that to people out west where I live are used to traveling very long distances in their cars because many places we visit are not served well by airlines or the cost from small airport to small airport is much higher than large airport to large airport. We routinely drive up and down the state of Idaho to visit friends and relatives that are at least 6 hours away. To us that's just part of the trip. Rail would be great if is would serve some of our remote locations!!
I would like to know how you valued peoples time at $30 an hour. My guess, only a guess, would be that people who drive for travel make less per hour than those who fly. I would be truly shocked if the average hourly wage of a 'driver' was $60 an hour. Or, maybe they have changed the wage to time value of money ratio.
How did you get to 36c a mile marginal cost? That was sort of thrown in there without an explanation.
Here are my calculations:
9.5c a mile gas
1.25c a mile oil change and other preventative maint every 4000 miles @ $50
1c a mile new tires @ $400 every 40000 miles
1.25c a mile wear and tear
How did I get 1.25c?
Easy. My car is a 1999 Toyota Camry at 120k miles. I looked up the blue book value. $3250. I then looked up the blue book value for 130k mile. $3150. The extra 10k miles lowered the blue book value by $125. 1.25c a mile.
Altogether, this comes to 13c a mile.
My car might be slightly older and more used than average. So wear and tear would cost less since the blue book is already fairly cheap. I did the same thing for a 2007 Camry (pretty average car) with 30000 miles and came to 12.5c a mile wear and tear.
This would raise the total to 24c. Its hard for me to see how you get to 36c.
I'm not counting future repair costs. Those are the primary reason why blue books are lower for higher mileage. To count them here would be double counting.
I should also point out that blue book values are based on approximations of true value with the assumption that miles were an average mix of highway and city.
Adding only highway miles would actually be costing you less than the blue book calculation estimates.
I'm really curious where the 36c number came from. I just don't see it.
You should be aware not to take AAA's numbers at face value. AAA is a lobbying organization with an agenda. Specifically trying to get the mileage deduction on tax returns raised.
Its sort of like the rule of thumb: "An engagement ring should cost two months salary". Ask yourself who came up with this rule and what are they really trying to say with it.
The retarded Interstate system should be replaced completely with rail.
Rob: Wikipedia has a good page about the energy consumption and carbon footprints of various modes of transportation.
Darg: if you're looking for good rebuttals to Glaeser's anti-HSR articles, read this analysis on The Infrastructurist. Personally, I'd rather Nate linked to such blogs instead of trying to run numbers of his own. Nate's an expert on politics and statistics, not rail, and people who are not experts make silly mistakes, such as seriously consider high-speed rail from New York to St. Louis, or refer to New Jersey as dense (as Krugman does).
Juvanya: there's no point in replacing the Interstates with rail. High-speed rail is built to different specs. It requires larger curve radius - typically 7 km, though in constrained areas like the Northeast Corridor you could get away with 4. It also requires gentler slopes - 3.5% at current technology (slower trains are limited to about 1.5%), versus 6% for the Interstate system.
Conversely, rail requires much less right-of-way width than roads. Occasionally it makes it worthwhile to build high-speed rail in the right-of-way of a freeway, when the terrain is flat, but that can be expensive. In France, such construction costs $22 million per route-km. It's justified if you're connecting largish cities - say, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio, or Raleigh, Charlotte, and Atlanta.
I live in Seoul, Korea, and my in-laws live in Busan. A flight from Seoul to Busan takes about 45 minutes. Then add in the hour it takes to get to the airport from where I live, plus the need to be there at least half an hour earlier, plus the extra half an hour to get from the airport to my in-laws house as opposed to from the train station, and we're talking about 2 hr. 45 min. Coincidentally, that's the same amount as the travel time via the high-speed rail. Given the slightly cheaper price and infinitely more pleasant experience of taking the train, it's a no-brainer for me. And you can put me down as one of those who's not afraid of air travel, but just doesn't particularly like it.
The numbers look very location dependant. Flying from say Bismarck ND to Chicago IL (which is roughly the same distance is substantially more than $250.
Also those in rural areas do not think twice about driving a 200 mile one way trip to visit a friend for dinner.
i've never seen a more idiotic collection of critiques in my life. Obviously Nate's calculation isn't going to grab all the hair-brained scenarios you goofballs present. Jesus christ, the analysis may be "limited," but he's probably pretty spot on about the costs of standard business travel, which is probably the group with the most similar characteristics in the US. My god are you really thinking his analysis will consider you uncle Jed's horse-drawn wheelbarrow adventures through remote Appalachia ? we're talking statistics here, and you oddballs apparently have no grasp for your own deviation from the mean.
My experience with TSA's heavy handed treatment, and being treated like dirt by the airlines has made me willing to pay more and take the time to drive - even on a trip of more than 1,000 miles.
The last time I took an intercity bus I had to put up with some TSA type security. That's why it was the last time. I'd love to use high-speed rail, but not if there're TSA-type hassles.
Nate's comparison for a single traveler headed from St. Louis to New York appears well-reasoned and perfectly valid. Speaking from personal experience, however, I can confirm that the caveats for multiple passengers are considerable. I travel at least once a year (and usually twice), coincidentally, from the New York area (Bergen County, NJ) to St. Louis, as both my wife and I are native St. Louisans. (I can tell you the trip is closer to 1,000 miles than 875. Westbound, we take I-78 to I-81 to the Pa. Turnpike to I-70.)
Along for the trips are my wife and, since late 2007, our daughter. Flying for us entails taking the car seat out of our car, strapping it into a cab to take to the airport, removing it at the airport, checking it, then re-installing it in a rental car in St. Louis. Notwithstanding the airfare savings, just avoiding the car-seat hassle is almost reason enough to choose the lengthy drive over the flight. Add to that the fact that our daughter will be 2 by this Christmas, which puts airfare alone in the $800 neighborhood, which as Nate acknowledged, makes the driving expenses far more palatable.
Oh, I should add: I am adamantly in favor of high-speed rail in the U.S. I've ridden it in Europe, and it's fantastic. I would love to be able to ogle the scenery as I traverse the nation, instead of having to keep my eyes on the road.
Jesse: '2. i HATE flying. you have to arrive early.'
This time cost is more than covered by the increased speed, usually, and you shouldn't have to arrive terribly early. (Though., to be fair, I avoid flying on high-traffic dates, whereas that's when you fly.)
'you have to be subjected to invasive searches.'
My /things/ are searched, but I don't have to deal with that. The silly fake security are stupid, but it's not terribly inconvenient: I have to put my things on a conveyer belt, remove my boots and belt and empty my pockets (and many things that belong in my pockets aren't allowed). But over all, this is five minutes of inconvenience.
'you have to show your id a million times.'
Twice, by my count. Only once if you don't check any baggage.
'you have to keep track of everything at all times.'
But you're only allowed to have one thing to keep track of, as the airline tracks the rest for you (albeit now at a cost). And, honestly, I see people blatantly violate the announcements. Because we know it's a stupid policy. As long as someone--even a stranger--is near your bag, the TSA won't notice that you're not.
'you are surrounded by rude cranky people, and after a few minutes of it you become a rude cranky person yourself.'
I'm usually surrounded by reasonably nice, happy people. When I drive, though, I'm surrounded by assholes and morons.
Love your baseball analysis, but damn you are out of touch here, especially with regards to driving.
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