—Malcolm Kenton

Posted by Malcolm Kenton

Trains: Enhancing Freedom of Mobility

Friday, August 13, 2010

Washington Examiner editorial page editor Mark Tapscott claims that we train and transit advocates want to use “government power to force the rest of us to accept less mobility and convenience.” On the contrary, expanding train and transit service gives people more mobility and convenience by not tethering them to one mode of transportation. Many prefer not to have to worry about where to park or having to go get gas when out on errands or taking a leisure trip across town or across the country. Taking public transportation also saves money, and may even save your life—over 42,500 people are killed in car accidents each year, 50 times more than die on railroads and 180 times more than die on transit annually. But those of us who would rather leave the driving up to someone else are left with less mobility and less convenience because public funding priorities are so overwhelmingly skewed towards highways.

Tapscott also compares the “freedom” the car offers to that afforded by smartphones. But what good is a smartphone when you have to spend all your travel time keeping your eyes on the road? When you use trains and transit, you have the freedom to spend your travel time however you choose, including by using your smartphone, without posing a safety hazard. Mobile devices can also increasingly help you get around without a car just as easily as they can give you driving directions.

Balancing out the U.S. transportation funding scale to provide frequent, dependable train (and bus) service would give people the freedom to choose not only when and where to travel, but also how to travel, and the freedom to choose a mode of travel that takes a lighter toll on the pocketbook and the planet. It’s advocates of the highway-happy status quo who want to limit your freedom of mobility.

—Malcolm Kenton

Posted by Malcolm Kenton

Szabo: Higher-speed Passenger and Freight Trains Can Coexist

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

A recent article in the Economist magazine discusses some freight railroads’ concerns that higher-speed passenger trains on their tracks would hamper their business. Federal Railroad Administrator Joseph Szabo—whose agency has proposed guidelines that railroads accepting public funds should meet regarding passenger service levels—wrote the following unpublished letter to Economist in response:

Your article “High-speed Railroading” (July 24) did an excellent job of articulating the many benefits of the American freight rail system, which is truly the best in the world. The Obama Administration has committed significant resources to maintaining and improving that system, through investments in crucial freight rail infrastructure like the recent TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) grant for the Crescent Corridor Intermodal Freight Rail project.

However, the assertion in the article that freight and passenger rail cannot successfully coexist is not supported by the facts. On the contrary, passenger and freight rail have been successfully sharing infrastructure since the beginning of railroading more than 150 years ago. With good modeling, planning and engineering, we can ensure capacity levels appropriate to the operating needs of both. That is why we are working closely with States and host freight railroads to reach operating agreements that define responsibilities, achieve balance between the private and public interests, and ensure optimal operations for both interests.

The Economist implies that these balanced agreements are unachievable, but through open dialogue and good-faith negotiations, the States and the freight railroads can finalize agreements that ensure strong service outcomes and allow both types of rail to prosper. In many cases, high-speed rail investments will add double and triple tracks, as well as new sidings and signal improvements, which over time will allow freight and high-speed passenger trains to coexist at the optimal speeds for each. This process will require hard work, but win-win agreements that grow passenger and freight rail service will bring the highest level of benefits to the nation by relieving highway congestion, improving air quality and reducing dependence on fossil fuels. That’s a win for every American citizen.

Posted by Malcolm Kenton

Acela Should Be the Mold for Modern American Trains

Monday, August 09, 2010

I am aboard an Acela Express from Newark to Washington and am amazed at the lack of enthusiasm for these trains from policymakers and even rail advocates, except for this pile of passengers that pay good bucks to use them. These are not all businesspeople traveling on their employers’ dime.

Acelas are maligned because they “only” do 150 mph for the twelve miles in Rhode Island and no faster than that, but it is a fine 125-135 mph product right down to the on-board service people and crews. Passengers seem delighted with it. It has clean restrooms, big windows and, with the wide vestibules, a joy for those with special needs.

I know no two are alike due to modifications and that Amtrak must hire special talent to maintain them, these problems cured with ongoing new equipment procurement with extension options, which in the end requires a dedicated source of funding.

Passenger train advocates should continue to pursue the running of Acela-type trains outside the Northeast Corridor on places where track conditions can accommodate them, pulled by diesels until the day we finally adopt electrification nationwide. I can only imagine the quality of service: modern long-distance trains with a sit-down diners and maybe even sleepers a la the Talgo equipment on Spain’s Renfe between Barcelona and Geneva. Canada’s VIA should be in on this as well.

—James Churchill, NARP Director

Editor’s Note: Amtrak says that the 130 new cars (sleepers, diners and crew dorms) being ordered for long-distance service will contain design elements borrowed from the Acela, including the large windows.

Posted by Malcolm Kenton

Southern Cities Discovering that Trains Mean Business

Friday, July 30, 2010

For the past few decades, city boosters in Charlotte, NC, have wanted the Queen City to become more like Atlanta—taking advantage of its location to become one of the Southeast’s premier business hubs. Now, when it comes to modern transportation, it’s Atlanta that is looking enviously towards Charlotte.

Both locales, like all medium- and large-sized US cities, had streetcar networks early in the 20th century. But while Atlanta does have the 30-year-old MARTA heavy rail transit system, it lacks modern streetcar or light rail lines. Charlotte, meanwhile, opened its first light rail line in 2007 and has plans to greatly expand the system. Just this week, Charlotte’s City Council agreed to accept a $25 million federal grant to build an east-west streetcar line to connect with the north-south LYNX light rail line. There are some plans afoot to build new rail transit lines in Atlanta, and a funding application was made in February for a streetcar on Peachtree Street, but Georgia has yet to receive any federal grants for transit.

And it’s not just transit—intercity passenger rail has a lot to do with it as well. Charlotte is connected to Greensboro and Raleigh by six daily Amtrak round-trips, with two daily round-trips linking it to the Northeast Corridor—a link that the Southeast High-Speed Rail Corridor aims to solidify. Credit for this can be given to the state of North Carolina’s decades of planning and investment, while Georgia has spent next to nothing on trains, the result being that Atlanta is served by only one daily Amtrak train in each direction and high(er)-speed rail is a much longer ways off.

This has Atlanta business leaders worried that the metro area, which is suffering from worsening traffic congestion and deteriorating transit service, may be losing jobs to cities like Charlotte. MARTA and its connecting suburban bus systems have the dubious distinction of being the only urban transit system not to receive state funds—they are funded primarily by a 1% sales tax levied only in the counties they serve. This left these systems particularly vulnerable to the effects of the recession on sales tax revenue, resulting major service cutbacks. Yet the Atlanta area remains far behind in the competition for federal transit dollars because its planning process is not as far along as those of Charlotte and other cities.

Hopefully the success of Charlotte’s rail transit investments in catalyzing smarter development—aided by better intercity train connections—will finally persuade Georgia’s political leaders to get serious about passenger rail. Not only are trains (and buses) an essential lifeline for those without access to cars, but they are the most proven way to combat crippling congestion while creating jobs and desirable places to live and work—places centered on people, not cars.

—Malcolm Kenton

Posted by Malcolm Kenton

Trains Already Using “Smart Grid”

Monday, July 26, 2010

A feature in E Magazine’s July/August 2010 cover story takes a look at the potential for plug-in electric cars to be part of a remodeled grid that gives consumers more control over how much energy they use and when, and would even allow people to reduce their power bills by giving electricity back to the grid. Electric cars would store the energy produced through braking and give it back to the grid when plugged in.

Federal grants from the Department of Energy, totaling $100 million, are going to develop pilot programs for this technology in five states. Meanwhile, electrified railroads like Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor have been regenerating electricity through dynamic braking for several years.

Even when both cars and trains are fueled by electricity and not by gasoline or diesel, there’s no escaping trains’ superior efficiency—or their unique capacity to foster less energy-intensive, land-consuming development patterns. Investing in the expansion of passenger train service on electrified railroads (along with green energy sources) would deliver a much greater bang for the public’s buck.

—Malcolm Kenton

Posted by Malcolm Kenton

Flag Stops: New Ideas, New Challenges

Monday, July 19, 2010

A roundup of news and views on passenger train issues.

• The Housatonic Railroad has commissioned a Massachusetts research firm to study restoring passenger trains on its line between Danbury, CT and Pittsfield, MA—essentially extending northward the Danbury Branch of Metro-North’s New Haven Line from New York City. The railroad’s vice president of special projects, former Connecticut transportation commissioner Colin Pease, told the Danbury News-Times: “If the study’s finding strongly indicate a passenger market, [the Housatonic Railroad] is prepared to spend, along with other private investors, $100 to $150 million to improve the tracks and infrastructure along the line.” Housatonic has become the first private “freight” railroad to formally study getting into the passenger business since 1980.
• A national passenger train network as a key component of mobility, and it’s equally important to our national security. The impetus to invest in trains in order to cut the transportation sector’s oil consumption becomes more urgent as the US military warning of serious oil shortages within five years.
• Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood touts the outlay of stimulus funds for augmenting North Carolina’s passenger railcar and locomotive fleet as another step towards completing the Southeast High-Speed Rail Corridor. 34 jobs will be created immediately, while the transit-oriented development the corridor continues to attract will generate an estimated 19,000 jobs. The Secretary also comments further on how better automobile alternatives work to combat obesity.
• The CEO of JetBlue acknowledges that hundreds of his airline’s short-haul flights won’t be needed as high-speed train service increases—and he’s fine with trains being a complement to air travel.
• The American Prospect lays out the challenges before the new reform-minded leadership at the Departments of Transportaton and Housing and Urban Development—challenges worsened by public pressure for reduced deficits and against tax increases, which have led the White House to impose a 3-year freeze on discretionary spending. Luckily, former Reconnecting America President Shelly Poticha and other New Urbanists in the administration have a “can do” attitude and are breaking down decades-old barriers to interagency communication.
• A graphic designer has reimagined the national Amtrak network as a subway map. This conceptualization gives one a better perspective on how Amtrak works as a network—and shows where connectivity is sorely lacking: the Gulf Coast, Boston North to South, and between North Carolina and Memphis, to name a few spots. Importantly, the Florida-New Orleans route is left off of this map, although the “suspended” line remains on Amtrak’s official map and on the US DOT’s “existing services” map.
• Hoping life will imitate art: The author of a novel featuring a train across North Dakota and Montana (a NARP member) is using his book to promote restoring the North Coast Hiawatha in real life. A friend of his discusses on YouTube.
• LCL: Support for the fight to prevent the Princeton Dinky from being replaced by a dedicated busway grows.  * * * A National Journal panel of transportation experts expounds upon the potential for high-speed rail to generate economic activity. * * * Planning for rail systems and transit-oriented development, long the exclusive domain of government, is generating interest from private funders. * * * The Quiet Car movement reaches New Jersey Transit.

—Malcolm Kenton

Posted by Malcolm Kenton

Louisiana Moves Forward

Thursday, July 08, 2010

After his efforts to thwart progress towards establishing passenger train service between Louisiana’s capital (Baton Rouge) and its largest city (New Orleans) were met with resistance from citizens, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R)—known for his criticism of government spending—took a major positive step by signing a law that will create the Louisiana Interstate Rail Compact and authorize cities and parishes (i.e. counties) within the state to form their own compacts to develop passenger rail. These compacts will be able to oversee the design, construction, operation and maintenance of train services, and will have the power to float bonds and raise revenues, subject to the approval of the voters in the affected jurisdictions.

In the law’s language [PDF] is the state legislature’s finding that “The development, improvement, expansion, and maintenance of an efficient, safe, and well-maintained system of railways, transitways, and other transportation facilities that promote mobility are essential to Louisiana’s economic health and are intended to act as a system that provides a basis for business and industry to compete cost effectively on a regional, national, and global scale in order to provide a high quality of life for the people of this state.”

NARP applauds Governor Jindal and the legislature—thanks to the leadership of Rep. Michael Jackson (I-Baton Rouge)—for putting in place the framework for ongoing investment in increasing Louisianians’ mobility choices and thereby improving the state and region’s quality of life. If you live in Louisiana, please take a moment to send the Governor a note of your approval and encouragement.

—Malcolm Kenton

Posted by Malcolm Kenton

Misdirected Priorities

Tuesday, July 06, 2010

The New York Times reminds us of the extent to which oil extraction is one of America’s most heavily-subsidized activities. Imagine how much the quality of our lives and our environment would improve if these perverse subsidies were eliminated and part of the savings redirected to investments in an expanded network of modern passenger trains.

—Malcolm Kenton

Posted by Malcolm Kenton

Amtrak and Bicycles: Time to Think Outside Those Boxes

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

John Henry
Special Contributor

It’s hard to imagine a more environmentally friendly marriage of transportation modes than passenger trains and bicycles. Yet as America struggles to conserve energy and reduce its collective carbon footprint, Amtrak has no provision for carrying bikes on many trains and often makes it difficult to take them on others.

As a result, the nation’s intercity rail system lags far behind its counterparts in Western Europe, where cyclists have long been able to roll their bike onto trains. Amtrak also lags behind the many commuter rail and subway systems in this country that now provide easy access for two-wheelers, enabling cyclists to travel long distances without ever having to set foot in a motor vehicle.

To be sure, Amtrak, which boasts that it “strives for greener passenger rail every day through eco-smart practices and programs,” does operate some trains with European-style roll-on service for bikes. But this convenient feature is limited to state-subsidized trains in California, Oregon, Washington, Missouri, downstate Illinois, North Carolina and on the Boston-Portland, Maine, route.

Cyclists in the Northeast actually have less roll-on service than a decade ago, when Amtrak operated three state-funded trains with bike racks in baggage cars. Those trains, which serve the Adirondack region of New York State and Vermont, have run without baggage cars for several years and no longer take bikes.

» read more...

Posted by NARP

Deepwater Horizon, Energy, U.S. DOT and Trains

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Quoting again from the June 11 Philip Stephens column in Financial Times, “The reason the Deepwater Horizon rig is there is because the US consumes a quarter of world oil production even though it has only one-twentieth of the population.”

A major reason that the US has such high per capita energy consumption is our high reliance on automobiles and aviation. The world has an average of 107 motorcars per 1,000 inhabitants, but the U.S. has 765 cars per 1,000 people. That compares with 516 in Europe (15 nations), 188 in the Russian Federation, 14 in China and 11 in India.

Simply raising CAFÉ (miles per gallon) standards does not address the “external” energy costs of the automobile—including pedestrian-unfriendly development and widely-spaced buildings which themselves consume energy inefficiently.

In 2007 (the most recent figures available), automobiles averaged 28% more energy consumed per passenger-mile than Amtrak. Domestic airlines averaged 19% more than Amtrak. If the nation had invested adequately in passenger trains, Amtrak’s showing would have been even better.

Secretary LaHood deserves credit for the fact that the draft U.S. DOT Strategic Plan FY 2010-FY2015 [PDF] says most of the right things. Here are some quotes from the Executive Summary, starting with its first sentence: “President Barack Obama supports a transformative U.S. transportation policy that improves public health and safety, fosters livable communities, ensures that transportation assets are maintained in a state of good repair, supports the Nation’s long-term economic competitiveness, and works to achieve environmental sustainability…In addition to the sustainable development patterns associated with livable communities, DOT will also promote the substitution of carbon intensive travel on congested highways and airways for use of more energy efficient transportation systems, including rail, water, and pipelines where feasible.”

We need the White House to connect those dots more frequently!

—Ross Capon

Posted by NARP

Bringing Trains into the “Energy Mix”

Monday, June 14, 2010

In a Washington Post Business section column yesterday, economic policy expert Ezra Klein drives home a truth that is unwelcome to many Americans: gasoline in the U.S. is actually too cheap because prices do not account for the societal and environmental costs associated with its use. The Gulf oil disaster is one of the more visible externalities (to use the economist’s term) of the oil market.

Klein quotes Ian Perry of the think tank Resources for the Future: “We’re pretty much stuck with our dependency on oil. We don’t have any substitutes. Even if we hugely increase the price on oil, we’d only have limited impact on it. People need to drive and get to work.” Therein lies the flaw in the thinking of those who look at Big Oil as the only problem: it’s not just oil that we are over-dependent on—the U.S. cannot maintain its addiction to driving.

To simply switch to a cleaner, greener fuel source while continuing to consume energy at our present rates would be impossible—we can’t generate that much energy from renewables within a workable time frame. We need to get serious about using less energy, and there’s no getting around the gross ineffeciency inherent in a transportation system that is so unilaterally oriented towards motor vehicles. As Dr. Wolfgang Meyer, who studied the question of “green fuels,” concludes, the amount of infrastructure needed to power the current U.S. auto fleet on renewables is off-the-charts impossible.

A world-class passenger train system—intercity trains connected with local and regional transit supporting walkable, bikeable communities—can move Americans quickly and comfortably using a small fraction of the energy that our mobility currently consumes. Trains must be a key component of the “clean-energy future” President Obama is advocating. We must take every opportunity to remind our elected officials to make it so.

—Malcolm Kenton

Posted by Malcolm Kenton

An Oily Warning

Friday, June 11, 2010

As oil keeps billowing into the Gulf of Mexico, the nation’s attention is focused on yet another of the significant consequences of our overdependence on fossil fuels and overreliance on inefficient technologies. While we hope that the gusher can be safely plugged or diverted as quickly as possible, we have to recognize that every crisis presents an opportunity to shift our society onto a course that will minimize the chances of such devastation occurring again. The spill is a wake-up call that what’s at stake when it comes to transportation policy is the quality of our lives, and those of the ecosystems on which we depend.

Financial Times columnist Philip Stephens says President Obama must use this opportunity “to shape a new conversation about the unavoidable links between oil spills, climate change and sustainable economic growth.” “If the world’s richest nation and biggest oil consumer is not ready to curb the greenhouse emissions that cause global warming,” he cautions, “no one else, least of all China, is going to make the switch to a low carbon economy.”

As the Senate prepares to take up a major energy and climate change measure, the way for which was paved by yesterday’s vote, we need to remind Senators that the revenue generated by a carbon levy on transportation fuels ought to support the development of the most efficient, Earth-friendly form of motorized transport—passenger trains. Revenues from the transportation system should go towards programs like TIGER that use competitive bidding to steer federal dollars to where they can have the most impact in enhancing the quality, while shrinking the carbon footprint, of the US transportation system—along with direct investment in passenger rail, both through the states and through Amtrak.

The longer we wait before taking serious steps towards a saner transportation system, the more the economic, social and environmental price tag of the status quo goes up.

—Malcolm Kenton

Posted by Malcolm Kenton

Public Outcry Saves D.C. Streetcar Funding

Friday, May 28, 2010

Early Thursday morning, Vincent Gray, the chairman of the Council of the District of Columbia—the capital city’s elected legislative body—removed $47 million from the District’s fiscal 2011 budget that had been set aside for the completion of the city’s first streetcar line since trolley service ended in 1963, divvying up the money amongst other government programs. The Council voted mid-morning to adopt the change, but word got out quickly on the widely-read local blog DCist, as well as through Facebook and Twitter, and the local chapter of the Sierra Club and the advocacy group Streetcars for DC sent out action alerts. As a result, Council members’ offices were inundated with calls and emails from constituents in protest.

In the face of this public outcry in an election year, the Council quickly reversed course and reallocated the funds, taking $10 million from this year’s budget and placing $37 million from the 2011 budget in reserve, meaning further council action will be required before it can be spent.

Some of the credit for the public backing can be given to the administration of Mayor Adrian Fenty, whose intitative led to the laying of track for two streetcar lines and the purchase of several vehicles from the Czech Republic, one of which was put on public display earlier this month with great fanfare. The city has also generated well-received video conceptualizations of the future streetcars in operation.

But what’s really driving the push for streetcars is that Washingtonians—along with majorities of Americans elsewhere—understand the need for better transportation that is built around people, not cars. Cities that have built and extended rail transit systems—including Washington with the Metrorail—have seen development gravitate towards areas around train stations, making urban living more accessible and attractive, while curbing the environmental impact of population growth. As one Washington-area blogger explains, bus routes just don’t have the same impact on communities that streetcars do.

Yesterday’s developments in D.C. were a fine example of democracy in action, spurred by ordinary citizens and aided by the Internet. This type of success can easily be replicated if rail and transit advocates make the best use of the tools available.

—Malcolm Kenton

Posted by Malcolm Kenton

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