{"id":367578,"date":"2010-02-23T11:01:37","date_gmt":"2010-02-23T16:01:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/business\/archive\/2010\/02\/how-high-speed-rail-can-help-expand-the-economy\/36422\/"},"modified":"2010-02-23T11:01:37","modified_gmt":"2010-02-23T16:01:37","slug":"how-high-speed-rail-can-help-expand-the-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/367578","title":{"rendered":"How High-Speed Rail Can Help Expand the Economy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Chuck<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s been hard to justify high-speed rail (HSR) projects in terms of
\nconventional cost-benefit analysis. But, it may be time to rethink–and broaden–the way we think of the benefits of HSR. HSR’s benefits
\nare usually thought of in terms of lowering transport costs by reducing
\nproblems like gridlock, pollution, and travel time. But the real
\nbenefit of HSR may turn on its ability to expand economic growth,
\naccording to a new analysis by my colleagues at the Martin Prosperity Institute<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There are three main mechanisms through which high-speed rail can help
\nexpand the economy, according to the MPI study. First, HSR expands the
\nlabor pool available to firms, bringing talented workers from nearby
\ncenters within commuting distance and thus expanding the quantity and
\nquality of available employees. Second, HSR makes more jobs available
\nto workers without making them have to relocate and move to a new home.
\nThird, HSR extends the benefits of other expensive,
\nproductivity-enhancing infrastructure such as airports across broad
\nregions. International airports, major research universities, and
\nreference libraries are all more financially viable and internationally
\ncompetitive when they serve a larger population. High-speed rail allows
\nthem to build the scale they need to achieve world-class excellence and
\nalso spreads their high costs across a wider population.<\/p>\n

The MPI report is here.<\/a>
<\/p>\n

Photo credit: Chuck Kennedy\/Wikimedia Commons<\/i><\/p>\n



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It’s been hard to justify high-speed rail (HSR) projects in terms of conventional cost-benefit analysis. But, it may be time to rethink–and broaden–the way we think of the benefits of HSR. HSR’s benefits are usually thought of in terms of lowering transport costs by reducing problems like gridlock, pollution, and travel time. But the real […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5959,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-367578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5959"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367578\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}