In modern, complex economies, calculating the cost/benefit of a high-speed rail project is virtually impossible. That is because there are too many confounding variables. Pro or Con, one should be dubious of any economic study on HSR.
In the latter category, there is a new study from the UCLA Anderson School of Management (California High-Speed Rail and Economic Development: Lessons From Japan). The authors argue against high-speed rail investment as a generator of economic growth. Their methodology was as follows: look for correlations in the economic growth rates of Japanese prefectures depending on whether or not they had Shinkansen service. The authors found no measurable difference between prefectures with Shinkansen stations and those without.
This is not a really surprising result. Let us note that Japan has the world’s best passenger rail system, reaching all parts of the country. Areas lacking a Shinkansen station still have really, really good conventional rail service — so good that they might even be considered “high-speed” by US standards. And there is the “network” effect: conventional rail links serve as feeders to the Shinkansen station in the big city.
Even worse, the study extrapolates the Japanese experience to California’s high-speed rail project. If the Shinkansen made so little difference in Japan, the authors argue, then surely California would be the same, right? Well, that is a really apples-oranges comparison. California doesn’t already have an extensive and high-quality conventional rail network like Japan. Compared to California’s existing Amtrak service, HSR would be a gigantic improvement in mobility. Now, whether that big gain in mobility results in economic growth is anyone’s guess, but studying the Shinkansen probably doesn’t tell us a whole lot.
Systemic Failure 
[…] on the Network today: Systemic Failure says a recent HSR study out of UCLA is flawed. Richard Layman at Rebuilding Place in the Urban […]
Japan’s conventional rail can be described as frequent, efficient, and convenient, but it’s far from high speed. The very fastest conventional lines only go up to 160 km/h, and the typical main line speed is 130 km/h, with branch lines and urban lines being even slower. So it’s at best as “high speed” as regular US trains, and is often slower. This is caused largely by the use of narrow gauge and to some extent very curvy alignments and lots of congestion.
Even on curvy alignments, Japan manages some impressive average speeds. Consider, for example, the JR Hokkaido series 283 DMU. The maximum speed is 130 km/h — but average speed of 106 km/h (65 mph) — in some very challenging mountain terrain. It was fast enough to put competing air service out of business. 65mph, BTW, matches the average speed of Amtrak-California in the pancake-flat Central Valley.
It is very difficult to compare between Japanese conventional rail with Amtrak California.
All the Japanese rail company are “For profit”. They have to be profitable operation while competeing with Auto and Air. Local gorverment does not provide subsiduary usually.
I have not seen any roadmap into profitable business for any route of Amtrak California.
I saw news from Capitor corridor about breaking ridership and increase ticket price. However their Farebox recovery rate is not improved as much as those revenue increase.
Actually, they’re nearly all subsidized, but mostly for capital improvements.
Do you have a source for that?
My understanding was that private rail systems occasionally received partial subsidies for particular capital projects deemed “in the public interest” (e.g., putting a surface line underground), but that for the most part capital projects were financed by the rail systems themselves, and that subsidies were not a major factor.
Hmm, if having a station on a shinkansen line doesn’t result in any growth, it seems surprising the way relatively minor Japanese cities go nuts trying to get themselves a shinkansen station … they certainly seem to think it has positive benefits.
I also vaguely recall seeing a paper (probably on the JRTR site) saying exactly the opposite: that a shinkansen station has obvious and measurable benefits, at least to the surrounding city…