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Transportation

Do High-Speed Rail Projects Increase Happiness? (vice.com) 142

Posted by BeauHD from the empirical-evidence dept.
According to a recent study involving a sample of 28,646 Chinese people, high-speed rail projects were found to increase individual happiness, albeit not by much. An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from a Motherboard article: It can increase happiness, especially for people who live in regional capitals, rural areas, men and the elderly, but only by an increase of .076 on the happiness scale of one to five. To put it another way, as the study does, "The coefficient accounts for 1.997 percent of the mean of happiness." This is statistically significant, in the strict definition of whether results are due to chance, and therefore a publishable scientific finding. But it is hardly meaningful in terms of how much high speed rail influences the happiness of Chinese people. I mean, come on. Two measly percent?

In the "policy implications" section, the study authors pose a tantalizing question: "What is the significance of economic growth if it cannot effectively improve residents' happiness?" While the two percent happiness finding may be marginal, they're at least asking the right questions.
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Do High-Speed Rail Projects Increase Happiness? More

Do High-Speed Rail Projects Increase Happiness?

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  • Not significant (Score:3)

    by Geoffrey.landis ( 926948 ) on Thursday April 13, 2023 @09:07AM (#63446370) Homepage

    The law of headlines applies. 0.076 on a scale of 1 to 5 is not significant by any human meaning of the word.

    I don't even believe that this is significant statistically; I can't credit that you can match the control group (no high speed rail) with the experimental group (high speed rail) sufficiently well that you can say that the effect is related to the high speed rail, and not due to some other differences between the groups.

    • 0.076 on a scale of 1 to 5 is not significant by any human meaning of the word.

      That depends enormously on how non-linear the scale is in the relevant region. In reality, all of these "Rank your subjective evaluation on a scale of 1 to n" questions are spurious attempts to quantify the qualitative. In some cases it may be possible to get statistically significant results by comparing each individual's ranking before and after an event to see how many go up, go down, or remain unchanged; but any analysis beyo

      • 0.076 on a scale of 1 to 5 is not significant by any human meaning of the word.

        That depends enormously on how non-linear the scale is in the relevant region. In reality, all of these "Rank your subjective evaluation on a scale of 1 to n" questions are spurious attempts to quantify the qualitative.

        True enough. Subjective scales cannot be linear nor non-linear, since there is not objective measure.

        What "0.076 on a scale of 1-5" actually means is that one person in 13 ranked their happiness one point higher on the 1 to 5 scale.

        In some cases it may be possible to get statistically significant results by comparing each individual's ranking before and after an event to see how many go up, go down, or remain unchanged; but any analysis beyond that is unreasonable.

        The non-paywalled portion of the actual paper https://www.sciencedirect.com/... [sciencedirect.com] doesn't give enough information to tell whether the survey is a before- and after- opening high-speed rail stations in cities, or comparing cities with- and without high speed rail.

        If it is indeed a b

    • I don't even believe that this is significant statistically;

      Clearly you didn't read the paragraph or you would have seen this:

      This is statistically significant, in the strict definition of whether results are due to chance, and therefore a publishable scientific finding.

      It doesn't matter what you believe, the numbers say otherwise.

      • I don't even believe that this is significant statistically;

        Clearly you didn't read the paragraph or you would have seen this:

        This is statistically significant, in the strict definition of whether results are due to chance, and therefore a publishable scientific finding.

        It doesn't matter what you believe, the numbers say otherwise.

        Let me rephrase this for you, then: I don't believe that the statistical manipulations that the authors used to conclude that the results they measure are due to the factor they studied (high-speed rail), rather than due to other factors (systematic differences in the populations studied) have sufficient refinement to justify a conclusion that their result of a 0.075 difference is meaningful.

  • Additive (Score:4, Funny)

    by Njovich ( 553857 ) on Thursday April 13, 2023 @09:07AM (#63446372)

    So why don't we just make 50 high speed rails and make everyone super happy?

    • Re: Additive (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Baloo Uriza ( 1582831 ) <baloo@ursamundi.org> on Thursday April 13, 2023 @09:13AM (#63446384) Homepage Journal
      You're not wrong. Any country that's putting private car ownership ahead of public transportation and walkabikity in its suburban and urban areas is bound to be a shittier place to live than places that prioritize humans over cars. Shopping malls, theme parks, resorts and almost every neighborhood that existed before parking minimums came into misguided existance leverage this to their advantage by making walkable convenience a main but unspoken selling point.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Entrope ( 68843 )

        Any country that's putting private car ownership ahead of public transportation and walkabikity in its suburban and urban areas is bound to be a shittier place to live than places that prioritize humans over cars.

        Wow, you moved those goalposts by miles there.

        One could just as easily claim that any country that prioritizes conformance and being part of the herd above individual freedom and autonomy is bound to be a place where people feel compelled to report happiness as part of a herd

        • Re: Additive (Score:5, Insightful)

          by SouthSeb ( 8814349 ) on Thursday April 13, 2023 @10:16AM (#63446538)

          When millions of commuters get into their cars only to get stuck in miles and miles of traffic congestions and take hours to travel to work, they're free and autonomous individuals or just a conformist herd?

          And just to note: you can own a car and still commute by public transportation.

          • The difference between public transportation and driving a car is rigidity versus flexibility. You have to comply with their schedule, you go where there go and that forces economic choices that are not always to your advantage. It's entirely reasonable to consider public transportation as the cattle chute to the abattoir of commercial interests.

            to your question about individuals versus herd, my partner chooses to drive her 35 to 75 minute commute because public transit is an 1h 45 to 2 h 30. She refused

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Ichijo ( 607641 )

              The difference between public transportation and driving a car is rigidity versus flexibility. You have to comply with their schedule

              Speaking of which, I try to schedule my driving to avoid traffic congestion.

              You will probably say traffic congestion is a sign that the roads are inadequate. To which I would reply that traffic congestion is a sign that your city's buses get stuck in traffic. [youtu.be] That's easy to fix. [nacto.org]

              I think it's not possible to have a "good" public transit system that doesn't waste the rider's ti

            • You have to comply with their schedule, you go where there go and that forces economic choices that are not always to your advantage.

              Only if your public transportation system is run by imbeciles who insist on treating it like a business that it isn't, instead of a public service that it is. We should expect our officials to run it as a public service, and hold them to it. Contrast the American way to the Dutch way and just be impressed how much worse it is to even drive here as a result, and we spend mo

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by Entrope ( 68843 )

            This is about high-speed rail programs. Those are not used to relieve rush hour congestion, which is what you are talking about. Please keep up.

          • it you're looking at this in terms of china, the highway system there is relatively new, and there is very little traffic, except inside the major cities.
            High speed rail there is more an intercity travel method, and feels a lot like traveling by plane with their implementation of it and the process of boarding.

            • and feels a lot like traveling by plane with their implementation of it and the process of boarding.

              Yeah, let's not do that. It's creepy and weird. Even when we do it at the airport. The way most of the world handles the ticketing and boarding process for rail is just fine, and Amtrak's a little on the anal side as it is.

        • above individual freedom

          I don't think you know what that means. What part of living in a place where you very life is dependent on buying an expensive device with real running costs, having to ask the government for permission to use it (and pay them too), and above all can't do that for all sorts of conditions (such as not being old enough) do you consider to be "individual freedom"?

          You define freedom as having a car which allows you to live your life.
          I define freedom as not needing a car to live mine.

  • Please for goodness sake please stop sticking random concepts together and posting it as an article. Its just nonsense!

  • High-speed rails sure cause excitement (Score:3)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Thursday April 13, 2023 @09:21AM (#63446400)

    The faster you snort, the quicker you get high.

  • It means 98% of the survey's respondents didn't heed the party's order to be happy about high-speed rail.

    • Re:2% increased happiness in China is significant (Score:4, Insightful)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Thursday April 13, 2023 @09:45AM (#63446474) Homepage Journal

      It's almost as if people have the wrong idea how what life in China is actually like.

      It was quite interesting to watch minds get blown when the CCP responded to zero COVID protests by abandoning the policy. It didn't last though, they were soon back to assuming that China was something like North Korea or East Germany.

      • It was quite interesting to watch minds get blown when the CCP responded to zero COVID protests by abandoning the policy.

        In every government, you need the consent of the governed. If enough people revolt at once, you can either massacre them (with the attendant economic impact) or change your plans. It's not a big surprise that the CCP responded to such widespread protest the way they did. It's how they respond to less distributed protest that's the concern.

      • It was quite interesting to watch minds get blown when the CCP responded to zero COVID protests by abandoning the policy. It didn't last though, they were soon back to assuming that China was something like North Korea or East Germany.

        WTF? There were plenty of protests in China over COVID policies. People got thrown in jail, which is what the CCP does. That stopped the protests. The bitching online never stopped though and finally Dictator For Life Xi decided he'd pushed everybody far enough, so the lockdowns stopped. For what it's worth, China is a lot like East Germany. Some years ago I had a real born and raised in China girlfriend and she told me a horror story of her and her roommates being pulled from their dorm rooms i

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          I'm not saying China doesn't have a lot of problems, but you are extrapolating too much.

          Think about how your own country looks from the outside. I'm British. It's illegal to protest here if your protest annoys people. People are regularly illegally detained, beaten, even raped by the police. There is still systemic discrimination against British people from the Carribbean, including deaths at the hands of the state. Our last two leaders were not elected, they were installed, and the government is suppressin

      • Have you ever lived in China?
        Known anyone who has that wasn't a 50 center?

        Where did you get this tra-la-la idea that the cccp is responsive to the needs and wants of the Chinese people?

        You know who are also Chinese people?
        The Uyghur
        Tibetans
        Falun Gong
        The 8% who aren't Han

        I suspect most of them would dispute your Disney like perspective on life in China.
        The ones still alive and not in jail or a rape center, anyway.

  • If I was a contractor on a high-speed rail project I'd be happy as hell, singing all the way to the bank.
    You can milk the project for decades.

  • Scary that China has the money to waste on bullshit social science surveys of 26,000 people.

  • A high speed rail line isn't enough (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Thursday April 13, 2023 @09:33AM (#63446446)
    You need walkable cities and complete public transportation. You'll start to see better health outcomes from the cleaner air and the ability to go walking to get exercise as well as the improvements to community that come with cities vote for people instead of cars.

    That said as the price of cars skyrockets and begins to devour people's incomes increased public transportation will have an outsized impact on happiness even without walkable cities. Car companies are increasingly using the Apple computer model or you focus on selling a small number of expensive products instead of a large number of mass market ones. With wages continuously not keeping Pace with inflation that means cars are increasingly becoming unaffordable in a society that is built around affordable automobiles

    • That said as the price of cars skyrockets and begins to devour people's incomes increased public transportation will have an outsized impact on happiness even without walkable cities.

      The future of transportation for low-income folks will be self-driving cars as a service. When people are priced out of owning, never underestimate the ability of rent-seekers to find new markets to exploit.

      • the cost of them is still too high. The problem is the car manufacturers are going to want to rent seek there, so they're going to want to push up prices as high as they can. And there just isn't much if any competition anymore. I'm old. Real old. There were lots more car companies when I was a kid and they competed head on. Now they carve out market segments and use analytics to collude without backroom deals.

        If we do see self driving cars as "the future" I think it'll suck very nearly as much money ou

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by laird ( 2705 )

        There are millions of people who can't drive - elderly, kids, disabled, etc. - and they benefit immensely from other affordable options, mass transit for popular routes, and ride-sharing / robotaxis for unique routes. And even for people who can drive, buying a car is inefficient, as the car is on average only 5% utilized, so it's just sitting in a parking lot or driveway all the rest of the time, consuming space. A shared car can be more like 50% utilized, meaning that you can satisfy the same demand with

        • My mom is elderly. Using public transportation is more difficult for her than driving because it is hard for her to walk very far. It is also scarier. Older people are less will equipped to deal with strangers, unfamiliar settings, or the complexities and uncertainties of public transit.

          • It can also be cheaper for poor people to buy a beater and run it the rest of the way into the ground than shell out for public transit.

            A car is also freedom. Mobility is power.

            With a car a poor person has a wider range of movement to get a better job and improve their life instead of being limited to the local bus/train routes and schedules to their shit 9-6 job that has to be on a public transit route,

            So annoying when rich people talk about the joys of having a walking life style like some kind of Hollyw

    • You do realize that inflation is also making it harder to build out public transportation, don't you? Oh wait of course you don't. Let's just borrow more money to pursue public projects. What's the worst that could happen? More inflation?

      • that's just silly. The problem with inflation is price gouging by unregulated monopolies. Gov'ts can buy at such high amounts (and can directly employ people) and get around that price gouging with ease.

        Inflation today is a legal & social issue, not an economic one.

        • Lol, you have absolutely no understanding of basic economics.

          You can't print up an extra 6+ trillion bucks, dump it into the economy as "free money" (as opposed to in exchange for goods and productive services) and expect anything than higher inflation.

          This isn't even Econ 101. It's Econ 1. Or even pre-Econ required to get into the basic Econ 1 class.

          Where do you get this shit from?

      • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

        by laird ( 2705 )

        Deficit spending (and the 'spending and borrowing' you're complaining about) peaked under Trump, back in 2020, it's dropped dramatically under Biden. That being said, when the economy slows down is when the government is supposed to step in and boost the economy with more spending, and in particular to invest in things like infrastructure that have a huge multiplier effect - a dollar spend on infrastructure turns it about $11 in economic benefit because not only do the construction workers spend their wages

        • What infrastructure has the government been spending on?

          Didn't we just pass a huge, falsely named, infrastructure bill? What real infrastructure is that money tagged for? How much is going to real projects?

          At last check, about 10%. The other zillions is all crap that will increase inflation as no useful goods or services are being acquired with that money.

  • I think that's missing from the headline of the article.

  • Let's just ignore the possibility that such a small deviation is quite possibly mis-read. What about causation?

    Saying high-speed rail "increases" happiness is ignoring what caused the high-speed rail to exist in the first place. The fact that the government, or in rare cases private industry, was willing to sink a LOT of money into something helpful may be indicative that there are, in fact, other areas where they have spent a LOT of money to do something helpful. Like, other forms of mass transit, city pla

  • People are never happy. (Score:3)

    by The Evil Atheist ( 2484676 ) on Thursday April 13, 2023 @10:07AM (#63446528)
    Technology doesn't bring happiness, it just upgrades our apathy.

    The Grand Canal, which linked the north of China to the south, brought great economic opportunities. Its unpopularity helped take down the Sui Dynasty that built it. The immediately following Tang and Song Dynasties, prospered greatly from it, but if you asked anyone they would never say the Grand Canal increased their happiness.

    Technology can improve lives. But people just get used to it and take it for granted. "Happiness" is not a good measure.

  • Okay, but how long have they had it? (Score:3)

    by Petersko ( 564140 ) on Thursday April 13, 2023 @10:21AM (#63446550)

    The other important avenue to investigate: if you take it away from them and give them slower rail, how much does their happiness decrease?

    You eventually just accept any increase in performance as the "norm" and are no longer happy about it. You just accept it, and then resent it if it goes away/

    • Kinda makes you wonder how many of these people surveyed have cars.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by eepok ( 545733 )

      THIS!! People are *horrible* judges about the increases in their quality of life and thus their happiness. They simply assume that it should have been that happy the whole time. People are GREAT at complaining and telling you how difficult life has gotten due to a specific change.

      The study should have asked:

      1. Rate your current happiness on a scale of -5 to +5 (feel free to use decimal points to the 0.00).
      2. Imagine you suddenly high-speed rail between major metropolitan areas in your state. How much has yo

      • We sort-of did that where I live, actually. Federal government announcement for near a billion dollars for HSR, connecting several major cities. State was on board with it. Most of the people in the state were excited about it. Initial design was unveiled. Then a republican governor gets elected, turns down the federal funds because trains are socialist or something, and the funding goes to another state for another project.

        I think the official line was that the state might have to pay to maintain it in the

        • You got lucky. Let California show you how it's done.

          The rest of your argument is, "We piss away money on sports teams and other stupid shit so we should piss away money on stupid HSR, too!"

          How about instead arguing to cut off all the stupid shit and lower taxes so people keep more of their own money to spend on things they decide for themselves are important to them?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Ichijo ( 607641 )

            How about instead arguing to cut off all the stupid shit and lower taxes so people keep more of their own money to spend on things they decide for themselves are important to them?

            That's a good idea. We'll lower our taxes by privatizing all the infrastructure so people can decide for themselves whether the benefit of driving on a road or crossing a bridge is worth the toll.

            • We require roads. No one has demonstrated or shown in any way that we require HSR.

              • No one has demonstrated or shown in any way that we require HSR.

                It's not a requirement that you enjoy your life either. Nothing requires that you don't waste many hours driving when the journey could be quicker and more pleasant. You actually require very few things.

                • Yes it is a requirement that I enjoy my life or I'll spend my time money effort and vote to change that.

                  If I don't have roads I will agitate to get roads or move someplace that does.

                  If I don't have HSR, so what?

                  Without roads, the entire global system of commerce breaks down and most of the planet starves to death.

                  Without HSR... uh.... hmmm... well... yeah... there's that thing we can't do without which is uhm... really important... uh huh... you know what I mean!

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Ichijo ( 607641 )

                We require roads.

                Ok, so your argument is that if it's something we require, it's ok for it to be socialized. Roads, food, clothing, housing, healthcare, and so on.

                • It is something society requires. Without roads, society as we know it will collapse. If the roads all magically disappears one day the first thing that would happen is new roads being built,everywhere.

                  If HSR all magically disappeared or never existed, so fucking what? Society will not break down or run more poorly in any way whatsoever.

                  If you are naked, hungry, cold, and sick, then that's your problem. Get a job. No one else is hurt nor is society going to break down if you don't get the latest cooles

    • They were not given HSR. Nor could it be "taken away". Their money was spent on it, they own it, they have a fair expectation that their money will somehow improve their lives. And if you spend their money on something and "take it away" or they never get it then they will be justifiably unhappy that their money got stolen.

      Governments do not create anything. People do.

  • I think if you asked a typical NYC Subway rider the same question, you'd get a different answer. Mass transit is supposed to improve the quality of life by offering mobility at a free or reasonable price. I'll remember that smiling the next time I'm standing in an overfilled subway car next to somebody yelling at me that smells like urine.

    • You literally couldn't move all of those people around NYC with cars, though. There just isn't physically enough space. So the choice for the people you couldn't accommodate that way isn't between the subway and cars, it's between the subway and nothing. Even if they walked, the foot traffic congestion would be a problem!

    • Yes, you'd get a different answer because you're asking someone commuting on a subway about high speed rail, which is something different altogether.

      You'd probably get a different answer if you asked someone on a private plane too. And you'll possibly be surprised to learn that private planes aren't high speed rail either.

      I get that the US has never had HSR and most people are unfamiliar with it, but FFS, you're on the internet so you should at least be able to google it and learn what it is before ranting

      • It's called an Analogy, HSR is Mass Transit, very expensive, and typically is not self-sustaining in terms of revenue. The French gov't still dumps a ton of money into SNCF

        But these guys can spell it out more concisely. [cato.org]

        The NYC Subway was built when labor was much cheaper and digging up existing infrastructure to make room for it was a matter of cause, the city wanted to do it so they went ahead and did it

        I'm sure in China, HSR is "inexpensive to ride" but normally the ticket costs on an HSR vs. normal train

  • their Dear Leader and his glorious public works. You see, unlike us in the decadent West, who view massive public works as detrimental to the environment or detrimental to the free enterprise system, the Great and Glorious Chinese Communist Party has discovered the secret of how to force a smile on every face at the sight of a high speed rail line out to the middle of nowhere.

    The secret is actually quite simple: tell everyone the Dear Leader personally directed its design and construction.

  • Sell your high speed rail project with funded research like this, then it probably isn't with building.

  • Each time a new TGV line opens, with stations somewhere in the sticks, real-estate prices go up since Parisians will buy everything up.

    So it's not for everyone.

  • ... interview any of the farmers who lost their land to the rail right of way?

  • For government officials beholden to voters, they're happier because they're "doing something" (with someone else's $, but still).

    For the whole host of contractors, construction firms, diversity managers (to ensure we have the right 'blend' of diverse employees on the project - gov't contracts, don'cha know) all of them are delighted with the sort of open-ended, open-schedule, cost+ contracts that are issued when the priority isn't a finite thing as much as an ongoing hole in the ground into which money can

  • traveling on china's high speed rail is roughly the same as going to the airport. I don't really see how it would give any more happiness than having an airport nearby.

    you enter the rail station, wait in line for your ticket, if your not a citizen you wait even longer!, then you go through security screening, just like at US airports. After making it thorough the security screening, you enter the terminal (like the airport), and wait for your train to arrive.

    riding the train, you get a bit more space than o

  • Maybe the Ruby ones....

  • Just in case you were wondering why Vice is going belly-up, /. has offered this item in evidence.

  • Excitement is a few percents close to the high-speed rails, but it is for sure higher if you are far from them, because there is no noise caused by the train. The excitement is nil if your distance from the rails is equal to zero, since you will get hit from the train (maybe that, if your name is Ruby, you could enjoy sitting on rails...).
    So the use of geostatistics [wikipedia.org] is strogly recommended, to properly estimate the degree of excitement.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Aside from the question about the significance of the study I have a few ideas about that happiness.
    I live in a rural area and we were fairly cut off from the capital>
    Until in the 1970's a new bridge was build bringing us within an hour of that capital which was nice for many people.
    But the number of burglaries and other incidents also started to rise...
    Now they are planning a railway line that'll connect the capital to the north and further into Germany.
    Yes it is going to be nice when I can simply
  • There are really different approaches to looking at something like this. By itself, high speed rail won't increase happiness, but if the addition of high speed rail reduces the number of people who are unhappy, that is a positive thing. How long does it take you to get to work and to go home after work? If high speed rail reduces how long it takes people to travel to/from work, then that may not "raise happiness", but it will reduce how unhappy people are. Do you HATE being in stop and go traffic fo

  • Maybe the problem with the 2% increase in happiness is that the metric for happiness is flawed. Happiness is not unidimensional, scalar, or constant across people or time. For example, the contractor who got rich from building the rail line is likely pretty happy, the guy whose house got demolished in the process is likely really unhappy, and the person who lives far from the rail line likely doesn't care.

    From the study [sciencedirect.com], "When the happiness range is from 1 to 5, the opening of the HSR will bring about a 0

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