» Visit the Official NARP Website

Bob Herbert Asks: What About Infrastructure?

Monday, August 18, 2008

In his New York Times column last Saturday, Bob Herbert spotlighted national infrastructure issues at the US Conference of Mayors meeting and lamented their lack of prominence in the Presidential campaign.  He highlighted the opportunity Meridian, MS Mayor John Robert Smith sees in a truly national passenger train network to address our transportation needs (my emphasis on the bolded part):

The mayors talked about clogged highways, the high price of gasoline and an air transportation system that seems to get more pitiful by the day. Mayor John Robert Smith of Meridian, Miss., called on the presidential candidates to take a bold, creative approach to the nation’s transportation needs, including substantial investments in railroad infrastructure.

Mr. Smith believes the nation should devote the same level of commitment to developing a first-rate passenger rail system as was marshaled for the interstate highway system in the Eisenhower era.

He also noted this gem from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg:

At a press conference after the meeting, Mayor Bloomberg said, “We’ve got to make infrastructure investment a national priority,” and he took the federal government to task for “walking away from its responsibility in this area.”

We couldn’t agree more: The federal government needs to wake up.  See my guest entry in The Hill‘s Congress Blog that was published yesterday.

--Matthew Melzer

Posted by NARP

Re-Training America Sheds Light on Our Rail History and Future

As we posted in Hotline #565, NARP encourages its members to watch and share a recent student film about Amtrak and public transportation.  “Re-Training America” by Heydn Ericson and Malcolm Kenton, both NARP members and recent graduates of Guilford College, examines the history and future of passenger trains and alternative transportation in America.  It also features interviews with myself, other transportation experts, and the traveling public.  It is now available via YouTube in three parts:

Also see coverage from The Passenger Rail Blog and the CAHSR Blog.  Thank you, Heydn and Malcolm, for your efforts to raise awareness of passenger trains!

--Matthew Melzer

Posted by NARP

A Tale of the Georgia Mixed

Monday, August 11, 2008

While this might be a bit more nostalgia than rail advocacy, it won’t hurt for our younger fighters to learn what America once had and might indeed need again.

Back in the ‘80s, the Amtrak Timetable still had a section of connecting or other services. This once was where the Southern Railway’s Crescent, Piedmont, Asheville and Lynchburg services, the Rock Island’s Peoria and Quad Cities Rockets and D & RGW Western services resided.

Knowing that it would likely soon disappear, I wanted to ride the Georgia Mixed from Augusta through Social Circle to Atlanta.

I wish I had time and money to have ridden the other services—Macon-Camack, Barnett-Washington, Athens-Union Point—but life moves on.

It seems the Georgia Railroad received a tax break if they maintained passenger service, so they hauled a boarded up passenger car behind their freights and allowed the public to buy tickets. In practice, I learned, you were offered the opportunity to ride in the caboose instead of the stifling or freezing coach. 

The week before this odyssey, I called the Georgia Railroad to see how it worked I was politely told in a classic southern dialect that I was welcome to come down, but to be aware that the trains ran on a “leisurely” schedule. For instance, while the schedule called for an 8 or 8:30 departure, it was 11 AM And “We ain’t left yet!”

I booked a seat on the Silver Star to Columbia, wandered about town and departed on a Greyhound to Augusta in the wee hours of the morning.

Arriving early, I found a cab and went to Harrisonville Yard of the GA RR.

The departure being delayed as predicted, I was advised to take some nourishment along.

I called another cab, went to a 7-Eleven and bought a cooler, ice, Cokes and snacks.

Back at the yard, I was invited to the caboose and never even looked into the decrepit passenger car with unpainted plywood panels instead of window glass.

We finally got under way with 4 locomotives that I never saw because we had 133 cars.

I soon learned the powerful blows of slack runout and other things the professional railroader copes with daily.

We set out and picked up cars along the way.

I think it was at Social Circle, but it might have been one of the above mentioned points, that my conductor and guide led me to an old wooden- floored country store where we bought apples, bananas and a sandwich to go.

At 10 PM or so, we arrived at Decatur, GA and I was informed that the crew had “died” on the hours of service rule.

I was left with the whole train under my “command” while we awaited a taxi to bring the new crew and my conductor and the voices I had become used to by radio went their ways.

The new conductor boarded and we were soon underway to Atlanta.

As we approached Hulsey Yard, the new conductor asked me where I was going, the hour now being 11 PM or so.

I replied that I had a hotel room and wanted to get near MARTA.

He said he did not have a radio, but that we were coming near a parallel MARTA line and station.

He asked if I had ever jumped off a moving train as he had no way to signal the engineer.

I replied that I had (I will reveal that tale in a subsequent article and the danger, caveats and apologies to rail advocacy to go with it).

I donated my cooler to the railroad crews, handed my bag to my new conductor and, in my safest and most professional form, followed his detraining with the correct foot first that would throw one away from the train in case of tripping.

It was very dark. I was told I had done the jump like a professional and that I was always welcome to come back and buy a ticket on the Georgia Mixed!

He directed me to an iron walkway over the Georgia yard to the MARTA station.

Alas, the service soon went away and the only remnant left are the lyrics to a great Hank Williams tune: “They took me off the Georgia Main and locked to a ball and chain...”

--Jim Churchill
NARP Vice President

Posted by NARP

Barron’s and Kiplinger’s Acknowledge Passenger Trains

Friday, August 08, 2008

Two periodicals have train-related stories of interest. In the weekly Barron’s (cover date August 4, but will soon be off news stands), the cover story is “ALL ABOARD! With gas prices high, traffic gnarly and imports buoyant, railroads look like terrific long-term investments. Just ask Warren Buffett. Why we like Bombardier, Burlington Northern and Canadian National” ("Ticket to Riches” in the online version).

Text does acknowledge Amtrak’s ridership (“up 12%”) and says “Wabtec, a brake manufacturer, is the only U.S.-traded play on passenger travel.”

Also, as noted in our September newsletter, the September issue of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine (now on news stands) sports a letter from editor (and NARP member) Fred W. Frailey which discusses the decline of air travel and the need for passenger trains. Publisher Knight Kiplinger (editor in chief of this and two other publications) also has a column with good comments on the U.S. and its use of energy.

--Ross Capon

Posted by NARP

NARP Endorses CAHSR, Guestblogs the CAHSR Blog

Friday, July 18, 2008

NARP Board Member Dennis Lytton and I will be guestblogging on the CAHSR Blog over the next couple weeks as its primary author is out of town.  The timing is auspicious; last week, NARP’s Executive Committee approved a resolution endorsing California’s High Speed Rail project and Proposition 1, the ballot measure that will provide $9 billion in initial construction funding and $950 million to improve existing intercity and commuter train service.  I will be working with citizen activists in California to help promote Prop 1 in the coming months.

You can read my first post here.

--Matthew Melzer

Posted by NARP

Off-Shore Attacks on Light Rail

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

“What’s going on here is a battle between commuters who want to get to work and a bunch of people who don’t want to look at trolley cars while they play golf.  If the public understands that’s what this fight is about, then the Purple Line will be built.”

--Ben Ross, president, Action Committee for Transit (Montgomery County, MD)

This quote, one of the more effective rebuttals to anti-transit advocacy that I’ve seen, appeared in a July 13 Washington Post article about a strange web site fighting the Purple Line.  The Post reported that “the site’s owner is listed as a company based in the Madeira Islands off the coast of Portugal that allows clients to register Web sites anonymously…State tax records shed a little more light: Its founder is a board member at Columbia Country Club in Montgomery, whose 100-year-old golf course would be bisected by the transit line.”

Perhaps the Columbia Country Clubbers should visit Newton Massachusetts, where the Woodland Golf Club, founded in 1896, has long coexisted first with steam and diesel-powered commuter trains and, since July 4, 1959, with the Riverside branch of MBTA’s Green Line.

Next to the above article, The Post ran a nice report on plans for streetcars in Washington, DC, with a map showing potential linkage (at Silver Spring) with the Purple Line. Some trolley cars could even enter service late next year, said the headline.

--Ross Capon

Posted by NARP

Cars and Planes

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

The New York Times just published two reports that implicitly underline the need for more trains and which should help guide the US towards sounder overall transportation policies.

Sunday’s (June 29) Week in Review (under big article on Nigerian oil production problems) has a bar graph showing gasoline pump prices for 27 nations (once the page loads, click on the graph to enlarge it), plus--for most of them--tax and non-tax portions of those prices and “cost to fill the 26-gallon tank of a 2008 Chevrolet Tahoe”.

The eye-opener: US tax (federal + average state) is 49 cents a gallon vs. $1.26 in Canada. European per-gallon taxes range from $3.37 in Spain to $5.57 in Netherlands.

The cost to fill that Tahoe ranges from $6.50 in Venezuela to $104 in the US, $189.80 in Spain and $261.30 in the Netherlands.

The total per-gallon pump price is $8.98 in Germany, $8.78 in France and $8.71 in the UK.

(The latest AAA average US prices can be found here where current, day before, and month and year before prices are shown for regular, mid, premium, diesel and E-85, plus a BTU-adjusted figure for E-85 to reflect its lower energy content. There is also a graph with a one-year history for cost of wholesale, “national average” and crude oil. Finally, there’s a link to click “for information on using public transit to reduce fuel use.")

On Saturday, June 28, a front-page story gave comprehensive overview of planned airline service reductions: ”Travelers Face Deep Flight Cuts by Summer’s End”

Some key quotes: “[Labor Day] is when significant cuts in the airlines’ fleets and schedules will begin taking effect, making for a particularly jarring end to summer. 

“Across the United States, airports from La Guardia in New York to Oakland in California will be affected by flight cuts, bringing the industry down to a size last seen in 2002, when travel fell sharply after the 9/11 attacks.

“Over all, the cuts will reduce flights this year by American carriers by almost 10%, industry analysts estimate, with even deeper cuts in store for 2009.

“‘The U.S. industry is undertaking a historic restructuring,’ Gary Chase, an industry analyst with Lehman Brothers, wrote in a research report Friday. Air fares, which are up about 17% this year on average, may rise as much as 40% within the next four years, Mr. Chase predicted.”

A related story gives tips for those planning to fly.

--Ross B. Capon

Posted by NARP

Amtrak, The New York Times, and Public Policy That Doesn’t Change

Thursday, June 26, 2008

The June 21 front-page article by Matthew L. Wald, “Travelers Shift To Rail as Cost of Fuel Rises; Busy Days at Amtrak, but Strains Show,” for the most part did a good job of reminding the nation that Americans have been crowding onto trains and that we need more of them. It is particularly gratifying to read that “today Amtrak has 632 usable rail cars, and dozens more are worn out or damaged but could be reconditioned and put into service at a cost of several hundred thousand dollars each.”

But we still have to wade through old canards about the mandate for profitability. From the very outset, it was clear to anyone who cared to investigate that Amtrak would not be profitable. Rep. John Dingell (D-MI), who served for years as chairman of the authorizing committee with jurisdiction, and the late Rep. Brock Adams (who later became Secretary of Transportation) were among those who commented at the time of Amtrak’s creation on the inadequacy of its funding. The “for-profit” mandate was widely understood as the fig leaf that would enable a conservative President Richard Nixon to sign the National Rail Passenger Act into law.

On November 9, 1971, just six months after Amtrak began operations, a House hearing addressed the fact that Amtrak’s “expenditures and losses have been running at a much higher rate than anticipated,” and an additional $170 million (on top of the initial $40 million appropriation) was under consideration. At that hearing, Rep. Adams said, “I am not convinced that any part [of Amtrak] can break even under the way it is being run now, at what is in effect cost-plus to the railroads.”

Eventually, in 1978, Congress softened Amtrak’s profitability mandate by inserting the italicized words in the following phrase: “[Amtrak] shall be operated and managed as a for-profit corporation.”

So it is misleading to jump from the 1970 law to 1997 without acknowledging what went on in between.

A huge proportion of passengers on the long-distance trains are traveling between major city-pairs, not the small markets. These are people who do not want to fly; in some cases, they may be medically prohibited from flying. Others may have found air fares too high, particularly if traveling on short notice. So, while many people certainly like to ride trains, it trivializes Amtrak’s transportation importance to suggest that everyone on the long-distance trains is either going to a small community with no alternatives or is “going for the train ride itself.” Citing GAO’s reference to “low ridership” cross-country trains also demands a specific rebuttal—these trains in fact are heavily used, as some of the reporter’s other comments and statistics attest.

H. Glenn Scammel spent much of his House career badmouthing the long-distance trains, so his latest comments are no surprise. His suggestion that long-distance equipment should be transferred to short-distance routes is problematic. That equipment is not designed for short-distance travel and, if Amtrak had funds to spend on remanufacturing existing equipment, that money would better be spent on enlarging the fleet by putting back into service cars that are currently sidelined.

The GAO bean-counters have never been sympathetic to Amtrak and especially the long-distance routes, and the GAO paragraph quoted by The Times seems oblivious to the fact that much of Amtrak’s ridership growth in recent years has come from development of state-sponsored corridors that fit GAO’s apparent definition of the “only” appropriate use for intercity passenger trains. But, even though long-distance train capacity has only gone down the past decade, the Times sidebar showed 15.0% ridership growth in May (vs. May 2007) for the long-distance trains compared with 14.0% for state corridors and 9.2% for the Northeast Corridor. And the individual routes cited included Texas Eagle up 27.0% and Sunset Limited up 25.2%.

The statement that Amtrak “is not radically more energy-efficient than other means of travel” must be viewed in the context of an airline and automobile fleet that is constantly replenished with newer, more fuel-efficient models while Amtrak’s youngest over-the-road locomotives are seven years old with no new acquisitions in sight. Also, energy consumed per passenger-mile reflects load factors which on Amtrak have risen since the 2005 data which is the most recent published by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The ORNL figures do not reflect the additional damage done by aviation emissions at high altitudes and of course do not give Amtrak credit for the fact that, in many cities large and small, the train station serves as a transportation center and a magnet for transit- and pedestrian-friendly development.

One cannot overstate the importance of the federal government actually setting up a fund to match state passenger train investments on an 80-20 basis, a vast improvement over the current federal share of zero percent. Sen. Thomas Carper (D-DE), a former governor (and Amtrak board member) who should know, put it this way in yesterday’s Senate hearing on transportation and climate change: “When I was Governor of Delaware, if we wanted to build a road or a highway or a bridge, the federal government paid for 80% of it.  If we wanted to do transit investment, the federal government provided 50% of it.  If we wanted to invest, if it made more sense to put in inter-city passenger rail, the federal government provided nothing.  And I’m sure we made investment decisions which were probably wrong decisions because of the difference in those measures of federal support.”

Notwithstanding strong demand for Amtrak, and lots of talk in the media and from politicians about the need for more trains, nothing has changed yet. The House appropriations subcommittee took the first step in the Fiscal 2009 appropriations process on June 20 and came up with a freeze for Amtrak with two exceptions: doubling to $60 million the small amount that matches state investments (it was $30 million this year); including $114 million for the back pay recommended by Presidential Emergency Board 242. Transportation has the misfortune to be lumped together in the same subcommittee (and budget allocation) as housing. The Project Based Section 8 housing program is the one place in Chairman Olver’s prepared remarks where he said “I wish we were able to provide more.” (In that program, the subcommittee provided $7.3 billion, $300 million above FY08 and $918 million above President Bush’s request.)

Bottom line: the transportation funding process is still largely business as usual, but the impending bankruptcy of the Highway Trust Fund will have interesting consequences.

--Ross B. Capon

Posted by NARP

Will US Transport Priorities Change?

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

A major reason why mobility for Americans is so much more at risk than for Europeans is that federal, state, and many local governments have been making the wrong transportation investment—and land use—choices so much of the time for such a long time.

The pendulum may be starting to swing.  On Sunday, The Washington Post, which in recent decades has endorsed just about every local superhighway proposal in sight, ran an editorial under these headlines:  “Screeching to a Halt; On mass transit, the nation is falling perilously behind”.  Here is the last paragraph:

“Last year, a bipartisan commission recommended sharply higher levels of funding for transportation of all kinds, including mass transit. The panel’s recommendations included raising the gas tax. Although Transportation Secretary Mary Peters was on the commission, she declined to endorse its findings. Her head-in-the-sand posture neatly captured the administration’s abdication of responsibility.”

So, we believe, does the Bush Administration’s threat to veto the House’s Amtrak bill.

And the lead story in today’s Washington Post is headlined “Fuel Prices Challenge Cars’ Reign; $4 Gas Transforms Buying Habits, Affecting Everything From Vacations to Pizza Orders”.

Of course, the Commission advocates spending big bucks on all forms of transportation, which implies that no tough choices need to be made.  However, that is not necessarily true, since both Presidential candidates are sounding like fiscal hawks on government spending.  From our perspective, a key test of public policy is the ability to tilt towards energy-efficient transportation—trains, bicycles, walking—regardless of whether overall transportation spending increases significantly or at all.  Energy efficiency and sustainability should be a crucial determinant of our transportation spending priorities. Period.

--Ross Capon

Posted by NARP

Rail Advocate Comments on WSJ Story

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

I commend to your attention this commentary by Fritz Plous of Chicago on a recent Wall Street Journal story.

On May 28, The Wall Street Journal ran a story “Europeans Protest Fuel Taxes but Accept High Prices.” Journal reporters Guy Chazan and Marcus Walker quoted anonymous “analysts” citing “fatalism” for the puzzling failure of European motorists to protest high gasoline prices.  A named source, British trucking official Geoff Dossetter, was quoted describing motorists’ behavior as “dumb acceptance.”

Actually, the behavior of European motorists is not puzzling, but rational.  Unlike Americans, Europeans are not dependent on their cars because fast, frequent intercity trains, commuter trains, rail rapid transit and streetcars connect most of their residential neighborhoods, workplaces, shopping areas and vacation spots.

In Dortmund, Germany, a town of fewer than 600,000, 130 intercity and commuter trains a day serve the downtown rail station, which connects with an extensive network of local light-rail lines that pass through the center of the city in a 6.5-mile subway.  On the busier lines, the light-rail trains include a café car.  Dortmund is not unique; scores of smaller European cities from Seville to Szeged and from Bordeaux to Bratislava make rail travel the centerpiece of their local and intercity mobility options.  Some of those cities are on the fast-expanding European high-speed rail system, now carrying passengers at 200 mph—the equivalent of traveling from Chicago to Kansas City or Pittsburgh in about three hours. 

Dortmund is smaller than Jacksonville, Nashville or Columbus, yet the mobility choices it offers to its citizens and visitors makes those three American cities look truly backward:  Jacksonville has four Amtrak frequencies per day but no commuter rail, streetcars or rapid transit.  Nashville has three daily commuter-rail round trips, but only from its eastern suburbs.  All other daily work trips must be performed by car.  There is no light-rail transit and, despite the city’s immense popularity with tourists, no intercity rail service (Amtrak reservation agents report Nashville is the most requested destination their company does not serve—what a huge missed opportunity).  Columbus, the largest city not served by Amtrak, has no commuter trains or light rail either.  Except for a small bus system it is completely auto-dependent.

Except for the very largest cities on the two coasts plus Chicago, most of America is stuck in the same car-dependent environment as Jacksonville, Nashville and Columbus.  Not one American city in the 500,000-600,000 population range—not even Portland OR – approaches Dortmund’s level of rail mobility.  In fact, a May 27 CNN poll showed that 78 per cent of 86,207 people queried said they had no transit options available to them.

If European motorists are responding to fuel-price increases with a “What, me worry?” attitude, it’s for a very good reason:  They have nothing to worry about.  The trains are running, the subways are running and the streetcars are running, most of them powered by electricity generated without oil controlled by hostile foreigners.  The Europeans have cars, and they enjoy them, but their cars are a discretionary item, not a necessity.  American policy makers need to look across the Atlantic and learn a lesson.

--George Chilson
NARP President

Posted by NARP

Belated Report on Toledo National Train Day

By all indications, the events of May 10 in Toldeo, OH were a smashing success.  Organizer Beth McCray tells us that estimated attendance was about 1,000.  Of the activities that took place, she writes that there were two local musical groups - a jazz/pops trio and a Dixieland/New Orleans band.  A Karaoke contest ended the day.  Two clowns - including balloons - were on hand all day.  Two model railroad organizations provided working layouts in 3 different gauges.  People could sign up for drawings for various donated gifts; drawings were held every hour.  Amtrak gave two pairs of tickets good for travel to any destination served by The Capitol Limited and The Lake Shore Limited.  There were 38 organizations with displays/exhibits.

Support was provided by local Amtrak employees, All Aboard Ohio, the Toledo Metropolitan Area Council of Governments, and the Toledo/Lucas County Port Authority, which owns the Amtrak station building.

The highlight of the day was a ceremony with dignitaries to honor National Train Day, which attracted media attention.

Toledo Mayor Carleton “Carty” S. Finkbeiner (D).

TLCPA President James Hartung.

Derrick James, Senior Officer, Government Affairs Midwest, Amtrak.

NARP Board Member and President of All Aboard Ohio Bill Hutchison (l.) receives a resolution from Toledo City Council President Mark Sobczak.

Bill Hutchison and State Sen. Teresa Fedor (D), who presented a proclamation from the Ohio Senate.

Stu Nicholson, Public Information Officer, Ohio Rail Development Commission.

Demonstration of a Segway Personal Transporter.

All Aboard Ohio Regional Coordinator William Gill and Beth McCray, without whom the outstanding program would not have been possible.

--Matthew Melzer

Posted by NARP

Travelers Leaving Cars Behind; Will Federal Funding Recognize This?

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Among the multitude of reports about growing ridership on Amtrak and mass transit, here are links to four.

Last night, Brian Williams on NBC Nightly News opened a major report with this:

“Transit is booming. Ridership is now at its highest point in 50 years. The bad news: because it’s largely been underfunded for decades, mass transit may not be ready for all the Americans leaving their cars behind…”

Here is the video:

The free Washington Examiner yesterday ran a story headed “Gas prices send travelers to Amtrak.” The report said October-to-April ridership was up 10.6% nationwide and 11.2% in the Northeast Corridor compared with the same months a year earlier.

The lead story in yesterday’s USA Today was headlined, “Mass transit breaks records; Rail, bus ridership up as gas prices rocket.” The text highlights one sad irony (also covered on the NBC report): although South Florida Tri-Rail commuter rail ridership was up 13% during the first quarter and up 28% in April, “the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority…faces an $18 million budget hole that may mean cutting train service by more than half.”

Today’s Tampa Tribune carries a story keyed to NARP’s year-ago predictions about the price of oil and gasoline under the headline “A New Train of Thought.” The article begins with this:

One year ago, the National Association of Railroad Passengers predicted the average price of gasoline would top $4 a gallon, a forecast that is close to becoming a harsh reality.

What drew less attention was the organization’s prediction that the cost of flying would soar. In fact, aviation fuel prices are up nearly 85 percent over 12 months, an increase that has contributed to the loss of commercial airline service for 30 small U.S. cities and fewer flights at most other airports.

Perhaps the most important quote is mine in the Tampa article:

“The press has been filled with articles of this nature [about growing train ridership] in recent weeks. What is hard is to get Congress to do anything about it.”

The Climate Security Act now on the Senate floor presents one opportunity to increase funding for passenger trains, but support for this bill has become shaky because the economic climate has made some erstwhile supporters nervous, while longtime opponents of climate change bills are pumping away with statements focused on how the bill would further increase energy and electricity prices.

--Ross Capon

Posted by NARP

Case for Trains and Public Transport Grows Stronger

Friday, May 30, 2008

This week saw three particularly good media boosts to the case for sensible transportation or Americans’ readiness for such. First, the Outlook section of Sunday’s (May 25) The Washington Post carried a column by author James Howard Kunstler, “Wake Up, America. We’re Driving Toward Disaster.”

The paragraph of most direct interest is this:

Fixing the U.S. passenger railroad system is probably the one project we could undertake right away that would have the greatest impact on the country’s oil consumption…If we don’t get the passenger trains running again, Americans will be going nowhere five years from now.

Kunstler has been saying similar things for some time, but it is good to see his views get aired in The Post.

If anyone doubts his comment about airlines, consider that AP’s David Koenig reported May 22 that “even though most of the big airline companies have large cash stockpiles, analysts suggest they could burn through their cash and go bankrupt by early next year.”

The Washington Post had a May 27 front-page story about the explosion in transit ridership around the nation’s capital, including car-dependent outer suburbs. The top-of-page-A1 headline was “Stung at the Pumps, More Hop on a Bus; D.C.’s Outlying Transit Systems Rush to Add Capacity; Metro Worried.” (The worry is about trains being “overwhelmed” if gasoline hits $5 a gallon.)

Finally, also May 27, the radio program To the Point had an excellent discussion of the energy situation in which most of the panelists (including the Wall Street Journal’s reporter) said Americans need to drive less and use public transit more. Listen to “The Future of Energy: Is the U.S. Prepared?” here.

The panelists were:

• Neil King: Diplomatic Correspondent, Wall Street Journal
• Juli Niemann: Oil Analyst, Smith, Moore & Company
• David Sirota: author, ‘The Uprising’
• Robert Manning: Professor of Finance, Rochester Institute of Technology

Panelists agreed it was outrageous that the U.S. with less than 5% of world population is responsible for about a quarter of world oil consumption. Interestingly, Ms. Niemann, the principle advocate for expanding oil exploration and drilling within the U.S., said this should only be allowed under strict government regulations which would significantly increase costs. Mr. King said the U.S. consumes roughly 20 million barrels a day and produces only five. He said it is widely believed in the industry that, if the U.S. started taking advantage of all domestic oil opportunities, by 2020, we would still be producing only about five MBD because new production would simply offset declines in existing fields.

--Ross Capon

Posted by NARP

Beautiful Visual Tour of California HSR

This rendering summarizes in two-and-a-half minutes the experience of traversing California by high-speed rail, both inside the train and out the window.  Notably, it also shows dense, guided development around the stations, which will be positively transformative to the state’s landscape once the system is built.

--Matthew Melzer

Posted by NARP

Four Ways to Consider Intercity Passenger Train Expansion

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

(1) Provide service to the largest metro areas currently without it. The eight largest, in descending order of population are:

• *Las Vegas, NV
• *Columbus, OH
• *Nashville, TN
• *Louisville, KY
• Tulsa, OK
• Allentown-Bethlehem, PA
• Baton Rouge, LA
• McAllen-Edinberg, TX

* Indicates Amtrak formerly provided service. Las Vegas service lasted through May 10, 1997; Columbus, Nashville and Louisville lost service at the end of October, 1979, although Louisville briefly regained service with a painfully slow train to Chicago. That train ran Chicago-Jeffersonville, IN starting December 17, 1999, was extended across the river to Louisville December 4, 2001, and discontinued July 8, 2003.

(2) Route study requests in S. 294 (which passed the Senate in October):

• restore Amtrak’s Pioneer that linked Seattle-Portland with eastern Oregon, Boise and Salt Lake City. (Towards the end, its financial viability was compromised by running as a separate train all the way across Wyoming to Denver, rather than serving SLC and connecting there with the California Zephyr.)
• restore Amtrak’s North Coast Hiawatha in southern Montana and southern North Dakota – well used train until its demise in 1979.

(3) Maps in the National Surface Transportation Policy & Revenue Study Commission report, at chapter four:

The 2015 vision is at page 4-22 and notably includes

• Cleveland-Columbus-Cincinnati
• a long-discussed Meridian-Jackson-Dallas link among existing Amtrak routes, and
• closing the Bakersfield-Los Angeles gap.

The 2030 vision is on the next page and adds several routes including

• Atlanta-Florida,
• Dallas-Houston,
• Oklahoma City to both Newton/Kansas City and Tulsa/St. Louis,
• Cheyenne-Denver-Trinidad-Albuquerque-El Paso
• the above-referenced Pioneer, and
• service to Las Vegas from both east and west.

The 2050 vision is on page 4-24 and adds many more routes including Chicago-Atlanta.

The Commission recommends annual capital expenditure of $9 billion, much of which would support “genuine” high speed rail projects such that planned in California. 

(4) NARP’s 40-year vision, which is more aggressive than the Commission’s although North Carolina DOT’s vision is more aggressive than ours!  Read more about our Grow Trains Campaign and Vision Plan including regional “zoom-in” maps.

--Ross Capon

Posted by NARP

©2006 National Association of Railroad Passengers | » NARP website

• BLOG HOME
• NARP on MySpace
• NARP on Facebook Causes
• NARP YouTube Channel
• Contact NARP

• Bob Herbert Asks: What About Infrastructure?
• Re-Training America Sheds Light on Our Rail History and Future
• A Tale of the Georgia Mixed
• Barron’s and Kiplinger’s Acknowledge Passenger Trains
• NARP Endorses CAHSR, Guestblogs the CAHSR Blog
• Off-Shore Attacks on Light Rail
• Cars and Planes
• Amtrak, The New York Times, and Public Policy That Doesn’t Change
• Will US Transport Priorities Change?
• Rail Advocate Comments on WSJ Story

• Improving Amtrak Incrementally, a project of the Midwest High Speed Rail Association
• Getting There, a Project of Friends of the Earth
• The Ticket Punch: Making the Case for Amtrak With Well-Sourced Facts
• Travel and Trains and Things by Jim Loomis
• Amtrak Journeys and Commentary by Dan Zukowski
• TrainBlog by Marcel Marchon - News and opinions about train-related topics.
• Eurail Blog
• The Passenger Rail Blog
• Trains For America: More choices for better transportation
• California High Speed Rail Blog
• DowneastRiders Blog
• Amtrak Tracking for My Commute Between NYC and Philadelphia
• NJ-ARP Blog: News and opinion on New Jersey rail advocacy
• Mobilizing the Region: News and opinion from the Tri-State Transportation Campaign (NY/NJ/CT)
• Smart Growth Around America
• Streetsblog - Transportation Policy
• Planetizen - Transportation
• Gulliver: Economist.com Business Travel Blog
• The Fast Lane: Official USDOT Blog

• August 2008
• July 2008
• June 2008
• May 2008
• April 2008
• March 2008
• February 2008
• January 2008
• December 2007
• November 2007
• October 2007
• September 2007
• August 2007
• July 2007
• June 2007
• May 2007
• April 2007
• March 2007
• February 2007
• January 2007
• December 2006
• November 2006
• October 2006
• September 2006
• August 2006
• July 2006
• June 2006
• May 2006
• April 2006
• March 2006