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This is a truly incredible article that criticizes China's plans to build high speed rail to under-served parts of China by taking the angle that it won't make money, and therefore is stupid. Amazing that infrastructure projects that help rural Chinese gain access to a high speed rail network is criticized from the angle of profit-making when making a profit is never the point with infrastructure projects. The NYC subway system wasn't built to "make a profit," but that doesn't mean it was a bad idea. But China bad so somehow them building a crazy amount of high speed rail is bad.

  • cracksmoke2020 [none/use name]
    ·
    4 years ago

    Regardless of anything market driven, China building rail to these areas is clearly not about building a good transportation system, it's about connecting the country and geopolitics (comparable to how the US interstate system did the same).

    If you're traveling from any of these areas to other parts of China, it's more energy efficient just to fly when you factor in the environmental impact of building high speed rail.

    • bamboo68 [none/use name,any]
      ·
      4 years ago

      If you’re traveling from any of these areas to other parts of China, it’s more energy efficient just to fly when you factor in the environmental impact of building high speed rail.

      what is the breakeven point of passenger miles per km? or however thats measured

      • cracksmoke2020 [none/use name]
        1·
        4 years ago

        They're building high speed rail into Xinjiang which has like 1000km of wilderness desert and mountain ranges (all of which is deeply environmentally destructive to build through in the short term) followed by a few smaller cities which will now be connected. These things are measured by passenger miles, but the populations of these areas already just make it obvious that this has no real transportation value.

        The only comparable context in US terms would be if we built high speed rail to connect parts of alaska to Washington.

          • cracksmoke2020 [none/use name]
            ·
            4 years ago

            Except in Xinjiang there are like 4 cities around the size of 500k and that's it. And then there's like 1000km of wilderness and small towns before you have other similarly sized cities.

        • bamboo68 [none/use name,any]
          ·
          4 years ago

          well i know of the top of my dome xinjiang has at least like 25x the population of alaska, but my question was what the breakevenpoint is, asy ou would need it based on the claim youve made and I'd like to better understand the situation

          • bamboo68 [none/use name,any]
            ·
            4 years ago

            has at least like 25x the population of alaska,

            and theres not the second biggest country in the world in between xinjiang and the rest of china lol