Many of the cities in the USA can be organized into 4 megacities, or megalopolises: BosNYWash, ChiPitts, HouDal, and SanSan. If we take account of these in evaluating how we transport people, we see that a lot of it makes no sense.
For inter-city travel, there are really three big alternatives: Planes, trains, and automobiles.
Air travel is a mess. Not only are airports insulting to human dignity, but planes are too crowded, they are often late, and they pollute.
Cars are at least more comfortable than planes, and you don't have to be searched to drive one, but traffic is awful in many places, and they also pollute
Trains are a great method of getting between cities, when they exist. You get a seat, you don't get searched, there's no trip to the airport, and they pollute a lot less.
More below the fold
Until we get high speed rail, it's not going to make a lot of sense to go by rail across country. Six hours on a plane vs. 2 days on a train - you're not going to convince a lot of people to train it. But a lot of travel is between cities that are much closer. These can be organized into several megacities (I like this better than megalopolis). Different people have proposed different megacities. I say there are at least four: BosNYWash (Northeast corridor), ChiPitts (Chicago, Pittsburgh, and the Great Lakes, SanSan (the coast of California) and HouDal (Texas). In this diary, I talk about some generalities and BosNYWash; if there is interest, I will try to do a diary on each of the other megacities.
BosNYWash and ChiPitts each have about 54 million people. SanSan has about 40 million, and HouDal has at least 20 million, although it's harder to get information, for some reason.
Now, as to the three types of transport.
Fuel efficiency is often expressed in miles per gallon, but it is better to think of gallons per passenger mile. This makes it much easier to find the savings in gallons.
According to the IATA modern aircraft use about 3.5 liters per 100 passenger kilometer. That's 5.76 liters per 100 passenger mile, or 1.48 gallons per 100 passenger mile, or .0148 gallons per passenger mile. According to James Strickland, an airline gets about 50 passenger miles to the gallon, or .02 gallons per passenger mile. Those figures are pretty close.
Cars, of course, vary tremendously, but let's take a car that gets 20 mpg. Thats .05 gpm. But how many passengers? I have no way to know what is typical. A lot of people travel alone, but then, a lot travel as a family. Let's take 2 passengers as average, and make it .025 gallons per passenger mile. Not as good as a plane, but a fuel efficient car with 4 people would be, say, 40 mpg = .0063 gallons per passenger mile. Cars are about the same as planes. Again, according to James Strickland, a Prius gets 96 passenger miles to the gallon in typical use (about .01 gallons per passenger mile). That's about twice as good as a plane. But a Ford Explorer gets 44 passenger miles to the gallon, a little worse than planes. Let's put the typical car at .015 gallons per passenger mile.
Trains: According this site a diesel electric train in average intercity use gets 200 passenger miles to the gallon, or .005 gallons per passenger mile.
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Now, how much travel occurs in BosNYWash? How much could we save?
According to Expedia
I counted 44 flights on a weekday from NY to Boston. Most seemed to be 120 seat aircraft, but some were 50 seat, so, let's say that's 100 passengers. That's 4400 people a day, and, presumably, an equal number going Boston to NY, for a total of 8800 people. From Boston to NYC is 188 miles, so that 8800*188 = 1.6 million passenger miles. At .02 gallons per passenger mile, that's 33,000 gallons. On trains... at .005 gallons per passenger mile, it's about 8,200 gallons. Saving about 23,000 gallons a day. (That doesn't count getting to the airport vs. getting to the train station).
From NYC to Washington or Baltimore, there are 84 flights (again per Expedia), most apparently the smaller plane. Call it 60 people per plane. That's about 5,000 passengers (plus 5,000 returning), and NYC to DC is 204 miles. About 2 million passenger miles. So, a savings of about 28,000 gallons, per day.
And Boston to DC, 60 flights, figure 3,000 people each way, 3,500,000 passenger miles, a potential saving of about 49,000 gallons a day.
That's not counting Philadelphia to DC(20 nonstop flights, say 1000 people each way, 126 miles = 250,000 passenger miles), Philadelphia to Boston (35 nonstop flights, say 1500 people each way, 266 miles = 800,000 passenger miles), NYC to Philly (22 flights!, say 1000 people each way, 100 miles, figure 200,000 passenger miles). That's another 1.2 million passenger miles, another 17,000 gallons or so, per day.
There are a bunch of smaller cities, too, and some have airports. Figure we save a little more there. So, maybe 150,000 gallons, per day. There's a little less travel on weekends, so figure 900,000 gallons per week, about 45,000,000 gallons per year. Not much, compared to how much we use, but that's just one change.
The amount of energy used is just one factor, though. There's also a question of how it's generated and where it's used. Many trains are, of course, powered by electricity. If we develop cleaner methods of generating electricity, that will affect trains, but not planes. And even if the electricity generation uses oil, it will be easier to filter the pollution if it's a central place than if it's spread out over thousands of planes. Finally, I've seen some claims that burning the oil at 35,000 feet, where planes fly, is worse than burning it on the ground.
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How could this happen?
People choose travel routes based on cost, convenience and time.
If you book in advance:
NY Boston by air is about $175 round trip, time in air about 1 hr 15 minutes. BUT, there's a cab to the airport (Manhattan to any airport is at least $25, Logan to downtown Boston, about $15.... that adds $80), travel time to airport (about 30 minutes each way). Get to the airport an hour early.... So, travel time is 1 hr 15 + 30 minutes cab + 1 hr waiting = 2 hr 45 minutes. Total cost is about $250.
NY Boston by Acela express is 3 hours 45 minutes, $175 round trip. But it goes into downtown Boston, and leaves midtown Manhattan. A little longer, a little cheaper. Regular Amtrak is $116 round trip, 4 hr 30 minutes travel.
NY DC by air is about $175 round trip, time in air about 1 hr 5 minutes. But same problems as above. So figure, again, 2 hr 45 minutes, $250.
By Acela, it's expensive ($314 round trip) but 2 hr 45 minutes. Regular Amtrak is $134 and 3 hr 20 minutes.
DC to Boston is about $180 round trip, time in air about 1 hr 20 minutes
So, figure 3 hours and $250.
On Acela, it's a long trip - 6 hours 30 minutes - and about $275 round trip. (Cheaper than NY to DC??? go figure)
So, we can get faster trains, and we can get more expensive flights, and the way to pay for faster trains is by taxing flights to pay for it. I propose a 100% tax on all flights that are less than 250 miles and are served by Amtrak. The tax money to be used only to pay for upgrading Amtrak. Suppose we had a 200 mph high speed rail linking Boston, NYC, Philadelphia, and DC? Boston to NYC is under 200 miles, so, given time to get to speed figure a little over an hour. Then say 20 minutes in NYC to unboard and board, then a quick 45 minutes to Philly. Another 20 minutes and then another 45 to DC. Total time: 3 hours. Downtown to downtown.
There are other benefits. I don't know how many people drive these routes, but some of them will switch to trains if the trains are better. If fewer people are going to the airport, the trip will be easier for those who do. And if fewer planes are in the air, there will be fewer delays.
According to this Washington Post story, from January to May, 26% of all flights were delayed or canceled. There are too many planes, too tightly scheduled. From LaGuardia in NYC to Logan in Boston, this summer, only 68% of flights were on-time, 8% were canceled (see FlightStats
Why is this? I have heard two theories: One, that too many planes are scheduled to take off at the same time. More planes than runways. That way, it seems like you can make good connections. But if the planes are delayed, then bye bye schedule. The second is that there are so many hubs that delays ricochet through the system. As more flights are connections, the need to match times escalates. And because so many flights are full, or nearly full, it can be very hard to get the 'next flight'. Either way, fewer flights is better.
That tax would change the cost structure.
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Convenience is, I think, looked on wrongly. One thing that people seem not to look at is what you do once you are in the city you are going to. When you get to Logan Airport in Boston, you are 4 miles from downtown Boston. When you get to South Station, you are in Boston, with bus links, commuter rail links, and links to the local rail system's red line and silver line (and many Amtrak trains also stop at Back Bay Station, on the other side of downtown).
In New York, you have a choice of three airports: At JFK, you can take AirTrain to most local transport. That is, you have to take a train to get to the train or bus you want to take! For instance, if you wanted to get to midtown, they recommend taking AirTrain to Jamaica to change for the E train, which then takes you to midtown (and it is not a short trip). From LaGuardia, there's no train transit to midtown, although there are several bus companies. Or you can take a bus to a subway. At Newark, the situation is much like JFK. You can take AirTrain to another train to Penn Station. (I did this recently, it involves multiple flights of stairs or escalators... sure to be fun with luggage). If you get to Penn Station, you are in midtown, and right in that station there are links to Long Island Railroad, New Jersey Transit trains, and several subways.
In DC, there are two big airports: National and Dulles. At National you can get to Metrorail and use Metrorail to get to Amtrak trains. At Dulles, you have to take a bus to Metrorail (although they plan a connection). Those buses only leave every 30 minutes. Fun. Union Station, OTOH, is smack dab in midtown, with connections to the Metro and to MARC and Virginia Rail (the commuter rail systems) right in the station. There's also BWI, not so far away.
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What can you do?
Well, take the train! If you have to travel within the Northeast Corridor, take the train. It's more comfortable, it's less polluting, it's less annoying, and it might even save you time. (Oh, and you can plug in your laptop and work on a table that you don't have to fold up for takeoff and landing). Don't fly, don't take your car.
If you think my idea for a high tax on northeast corridor air travel makes sense, you could write to your representatives and senators.
Update [2007-9-3 10:26:28 by plf515]: A couple more points:
The costs for airlines can go way up if you have to travel immediately.
And I thought I made it clear train seats are more comfortable, but here's some more info: Airline seats often have a pitch of 32" and width of 17.2". Pitch is the distance from front of one seat to the front of the next seat (or between your tush and the tush of the person ahead of you). On Amtrak, the pitch is 42" and the width is 23" (see here
Update [2007-9-3 10:46:12 by plf515]: In the NY Times, today, on front page of business section, is an article on plane delays, and how they will only get worse. One flight, American Airlines flight 1659, Newark to Chicago, was 15 minutes or more late 84% of the time last year.