Going Backwards - Fast

I was in Europe A couple of months ago. The main excuse was to check out bike sharing systems. I didn’t let that distract me from hopping on a train at any opportunity. The training started with the Eurostar, the high-speed rail from London to Paris.

It is good to get out of here every once and a while. A change in perspective can, well, change one’s perspective. In North America, surrounded by cars and planes, we think this is just how people get around. Even worse, we think that planes and cars represent the latest and greatest and the be all and end all in transportation. Well, that was the fifties. Now, the world is passing us by while we are dreaming of a past future that never will be. Passing us by so fast that we might as well be going backwards fast.

Just how fast, check out the video.



High-speed rail is fast and getting faster. This is not your father’s train. The latest ones are hitting 350 km per hour, almost 4 times what an automobile can go. And you don’t have to stop for chips or the can. As far as planes go, by the time you schlep out to the airport, suffer through insecurity line-ups and cram onto the plane, downtown to downtown rail is competitive for trips of up to five hours. And much more civilized.

We have wasted untold billions of silver and sweat in a transportation system that was a symptom of cheap, plentiful oil and steel. Now that neither are cheap, there is no longer a need to for the automobile industry. Hybrids are not a solution, they cost several thousands more up front at a time when wages are stagnant and prices are going up. Not a transportation solution for the masses, they do allow a few to ease their consciences. The reality is that congestion is making driving slower and slower. Rising costs of everything from steel to plastic to oil make the automobile a drag on the economy.

As planting hay and building stables would have been a folly a century ago, so is constructing highways, drilling for oil, building better batteries and hoping for hydrogen today. The folly of moving backwards fast.

Countries all over the world have been investing in high-speed rail for the last 30 years. Japan, France, Spain, all have great networks. China and India are coming on fast. Californians will be voting on high-speed rail. Probably even more important decision than the presidential race. Even Alberta, the oil capital of the world, is looking at a line between Calgary and Edmonton. As dealers of addictive substances have long known, it is better to stick to selling it than using it.

The progress in China is truly staggering. They building a 12,000 km high-speed railway network would connect all provincial capitals and major cities by 2020. The first inter-city high-speed link, between Tianjin and Beijing, opened August 1st, and more than 1.8 million passengers have ridden the 350-km/h electric trains. The 120km journey used to take 70 minutes but now takes only 30. They plan on having the speed up to 380kph in a couple of years. Don’t be distracted by the reports of their love affair with the car. Sure, they are using cars but they are also making massive investments in transit and rail. The really story is that they are leapfrogging us, if indeed, they ever were really behind.

Peering from the window of the Eurostar munching on what seems like my tenth croissant, the cars on the highways are moving backwards fast.