Probably not. A commenter recently got upset with me for saying:

Don’t subsidize long-distance rail (unless it’s Hyperloop). I don’t, unlike many other progressive wonk types, have any passion for really nice, high-speed transport between urban hubs. That’s a lie I personally do, but I depart from liberal ideology that it’s a social benefit. Think about it, the people who most intensely travel the Northeast Corridor – or between San Francisco and Los Angeles – are affluent professionals that take many more flights than the average American, are more likely the fly in environmentally-shitty business class setups, and all around typify the East Coast Elite Liberal stereotype. That it’s treated as some sort of environmentalist’s dream is a joke. (In fact, a 100% tax on business class, 200% tax on first class, and 50% tax on all economy flights after your first two in a year is a great idea).

He (or she) noted:

About rail: the population you observe is a selected sample. With rail, more people are likely to transport themselves; how do you account for this? The answer is far trickier than what you make it out to be.

I think this criticism is very fair. I made a rather blanket generalization from anecdotal evidence and it is possible, even probable, that my sample is itself highly biased. (For example, though I think the government should be helping many people, I personally do not know anyone that should fall into this category). Maybe the Northeast Regional is a lifesaver for much of America’s poor and lower-middle and I’ve misjudged the program completely.

So I decided to do a bit of research. But first, let me state the theoretical reasons why high-speed rail should never be at the top of a liberal’s agenda. By “theoretical” I do not mean abstruse mathematics or Euler Equations, but simple logic. Let me also say this is an important post, personally, because it marks a rather strong shift from my previous prior that we should encourage massive spending on high-speed rail across the country. I have some good things to say about rail, and I’ll get to that in the end, but I’ll first outline the case against.

Sometimes anecdotes can be generalized – especially those of broad economic judgement – and, as it happens, this weekend is a good time for me to write this post. I’m planning a trip from Philadelphia to Princeton tomorrow evening and I have two good options: a local connector via Trenton or Amtrak’s Northeast Regional. The former takes roughly four times as long (two hours to Amtrak’s half), requires a connection, but comes about $50 dollars cheaper.

There’s no reason for me – or most of America – to take the Amtrak. And that’s the problem with the high-speed emphasis of the conversation. Time is money but, for most of us, it isn’t much. Moreover, with smartphones, books, and sufficiently comfortable seats, the extra hour isn’t even time wasted as it once may have been. Of course, for America’s liberal, particularly coastal, elite – it is. Daily readers of the New York Times earn way more than most people, and their fodder, like Tom Friedman, work and play in circles where than hour is worth a lot of money.

This, by itself, doesn’t mean high-speed rail is ineffective. For example, slower speeds aren’t too bad for relatively short distances – say between Philadelphia and Princeton – but become a pain when we’re talking transnational services. Wouldn’t it be nice to get from Brooklyn to the Beltway in thirty?

Unfortunately, the usage of these services are almost exclusively beneficial to the somewhat upper middle class, if not only affluent. Flying JetBlue (as anyone not yet a millionaire should be doing, without whining) is, and in all likelihood will continue to be, a cheaper option. At this point, the high-speed rail activist points out that flying is shitty for the environment.

This is a concern that I sympathize with deeply. In fact, as Christie Aschwanden writes in Slate, the best thing you can do for the environment isn’t to become vegetarian, drive a Prius, or shop at Whole Foods but to stay within a hundred miles of your home and avoid flying to the extent possible.

But I am, and you should be, concerned about an argument to socially guarantee a rail service to clear the conscience of the rather select group that will use it. I would rather institute draconian airline fuel surcharges with annual exemptions. That is, most Americans barely fly, and when they do it’s probably for an important reason. Therefore, tax the first flight at 15%, and all subsequent flights in increasing intervals of 30%. Tax business class at 100% and first at 200%. Or something similarly aggressive.

As Aschwanden points out, telling an educated professional not to go to a conference or important business meeting is difficult. It’s why flying isn’t stigmatized like driving a hummer – it’s too important an action for the would-be stigmatizers. The tax system, in this case, is our friend.

And, by the way, some might say a “carbon tax will fix it all” but this isn’t the case for flying. Because the emissions are at a very sensitive part of the Earth’s atmosphere, the marginally emitted unit can be about four times as bad. More importantly, the worst part of a carbon tax is its regressive nature, and tilting the incidence to the wealthy is a good way to stem the welfare losses.

Ultimately, the data back my story up. The liberal argument for high-speed rail derives, primarily, from perceived environmental benefits, and subsidies for the poor. The environmental benefits can obviously be extracted in a more efficient manner (which the frequent fliers will hate, but so be it). But what of the poor? Well this is from a paper by Nevine Geroggi at the Center for Urban Transportation Research and Ram Pendyala at the Department for Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of South Florida:

It was found that nearly half of the low income and elderly made no long-distance trips in the 1-year survey period. In addition, it was found that long-distance trips made by these groups were more likely to be undertaken by bus and geared towards social and personal business activities. The paper discusses the implications of these findings in the context of transportation service provision and policy formulation.