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TRAINS: A travel choice Americans want

Flag Stops: Counterarguments Edition

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

It seems some commentators are thinking along similar lines as I am about how the new fuel economy standards fit into the larger transportation picture. Ryan Avent and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich both have prescriptive analyses in The American Prospect, and the Financial Times’ Lex column concurs with my analysis.

The entire alternative transportation community has been busy rebuffing George Will’s casting of us as a bunch of elitists who want to ram our preferences down people’s throats, whereas the American “free market” (i.e. federal policy) has done little but limit our transportation choices for quite some time. “Americans by the scores of millions have been happily trading distance for space, living farther from their jobs in order to enjoy ample backyards and other aspects of low-density living,” Will writes. Happily? I’m sure many automobile commuters who sit in traffic every day would beg to differ. Here are a few good rebuttals.

George Will hasn’t been the only target of sustainable mobility advocates’ ire this week. Trains for America asks the questions that the Gwinnett Gazette’s Benita Dodd should have asked, and Streetsblog takes aim at the Heritage Foundation’s resident car-hugger Alan Pisarski.

Another loyal rail critic, Cato’s Randal O’Toole, presents more misinformation about passenger trains in a USA Today op-ed. “Amtrak charges a minimum of $99 for its high-speed Acela from New York to Washington,” he says, “but only $72 for its conventional train. Fares for unsubsidized buses on this route start as low as $20 (including free Wi-Fi), while airfares start at $99.” First, everyone who pays gasoline taxes to maintain highways is subsidizing intercity buses, and second, by the time most people are ready to book a flight, the fare has risen sharply above the base rate. O’Toole also repeats the false canard that Interstate highways pay for themselves, when in fact every mode of travel is made affordable by government spending. Plus, I wouldn’t call 736 fewer BTUs per passenger mile “marginally” more fuel-efficient.

Longtime transportation observer Tom Vanderbilt wonders why passenger trains are practically the only example of a technology that regressed over the course of the 20th century. The main culprits: a decline in rail capacity (thanks to underinvestment from government) combined with ballooning freight rail traffic, generating a system designed for slower, heavier trains. He concludes:

Obama’s bold vision obscures a simple fact: 220 mph would be phenomenal, but we would also do well to simply get trains back up to the speeds they traveled at during the Harding administration.

LCL: Streetsblog maps out the legislative machinery this year’s surface transportation reform bill will be cranked through; what the results of Tuesday’s vote mean for California HSR; China invests just shy of $300 billion in trains, iStockAnalyst endorses an incremental approach to improving passenger rail; AASHTO’s new chairman beats the drum for faster trains; NARP Council member Jim Loomis on a passenger rail success and a failure overseas; Maryland scraps road widening & funds light rail instead; and what if more sports teams went “on the road” by train?

—Malcolm Kenton

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Connecting the Dots for Sustainable Transportation

Friday, May 22, 2009

Tuesday’s much-anticipated presidential announcement of higher nationwide fuel economy standards for automobiles was nearly universally praised by auto manufacturers, organized labor, environmentalists and consumer groups, and is indeed a step in the right direction. However, the new rules may have unintended negative consequences, particularly for those interested in a future where Americans are less reliant on the car, and these should not be overlooked.

Safe Climate Campaign director Daniel Becker pointed out on NPR’s Diane Rehm Show Wednesday morning that the new standards apply to cars that are actually bought, not just to those that are in showrooms. Therefore, in order to comply with the law, the auto industry must sell more new cars, potentially with help from a provision in the climate bill that would give consumers incentives to trade in their current vehicles. Becker also noted (as does USA Today’s Open Road blog) that the laws of economics generally dictate that when the cost of an activity goes down, people tend to do marginally more of it. Therefore, by making it cheaper to drive on a per-mile basis, a gas-sipping auto fleet may lead to an increase in driving, which, while it may not have the same impact on carbon emissions, would certainly worsen the many other consequences of auto dependence: congestion, sprawl, and parking problems, to name a few. Plus, the new line of fuel-efficient cars may actually be less safe, and when people buy less gas, the key source of revenue for highway maintenance (and some rail and transit services) is further depleted.

Higher gas prices (which will inevitably return) and greater awareness about global warming have led not only to increased demand for fuel-efficient vehicles, but also for more travel alternatives. If public policy were to promote one without simultaneously addressing the other, it would be a step in the opposite direction from one that would lead to an energy-secure and livable future. Luckily, federal leaders have taken steps towards improving the automobile alternatives for which Americans are clamoring, but a guaranteed long-term source of funding for these projects is still missing. Congress will eventually have to either increase the gas tax (a move that is sure to be resisted mightily) or find other sources of funding for our transportation infrastructure.

Continued after the jump.

—Malcolm Kenton

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Tags: auto industry, climate, congress, highways, obama, transit
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“Miracle in Rockville” a teachable moment wasted

Friday, May 15, 2009

On Friday, May 8, around 4:50 PM, a car was stopped in traffic at the Randolph Road crossing in Rockville, Maryland. A MARC train (the first one after Amtrak’s Capitol Limited) hit the car, forcing it into a crossing gate which impaled the car through the rear and front windows, coming within inches of the pregnant driver’s head (see link below for dramatic photo). Media attention apparently focused exclusively on the fact that the driver was miraculously unhurt (except for minor air-bag-related injuries):

She didn’t think to jump out of the car—although, if she had, she might have been hit by the train, Valencia said. It all happened in a matter of seconds, and when she opened her eyes after the collision, the gate arm was touching her head.

Here was an opportunity to avoid future accidents by imploring viewers not to enter a railroad crossing until the next vehicle ahead if far enough to let you clear the tracks quickly.

Motorists who fail to use common sense in this regard risk their own lives and their passengers’ lives. Such accidents also traumatize the engineer (incorrectly referred to here by NBC Channel 4 as a “conductor”) and wreak havoc on the schedules of (in this case) 3,000 MARC train commuters, many of whom have day care pick-ups and other commitments, as well as any motorists whose normal route takes them across this crossing.

It is wonderful that the woman and her unborn child were so lucky. But the fact that her driving error caused the accident, and that it is an all-too-common error, obligates the media to make use of this teachable moment rather than to focus exclusively on one lucky motorist.

—Ross Capon, NARP President

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Tags: crossing, marc, safety
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Flag Stops, May 14th Edition

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Flag Stops: Full Speed Ahead

Transportation for America (T4America), a broad national coalition of which NARP is a member, last week released “The Route to Reform,” which it calls a blueprint for how to achieve the goals outlined in its platform through public policy, specifically in the next surface transportation reauthorization bill. The document calls for a new national transportation project on a scale similar to the Interstate Highway System that increases the efficiency and multimodal connectivity of the network, keeps existing infrastructure in good repair, promotes energy conservation and environmental protection, and enhances social equity and the quality of life in local communities. Specifically, T4America seeks to reduce per-capita vehicle miles traveled by 16% in 20 years, triple the percentage of Americans who walk, bike and use transit, cut transportation-generated CO2 emissions by 40%, move 20% of the nation’s freight traffic to rail and intermodal services, and increase by 50% the number of essential destinations accessible to the average American without a car. To pay for it all, T4America seeks to create a Unified Transportation Trust Fund and to double the current federal investment in transportation, as long as the new spending achieves the desired outcomes. NARP welcomes these efforts and will continue to work alongside T4America to see that passenger trains and rail transit get a substantial boost from the next surface transportation bill.

Much ado is being made over Amtrak President Joseph Boardman’s remarks to a committee of the Illinois State House of Representatives on Monday. Boardman echoed an observation that NARP has known to be true for some time: travel time matters more to an intercity traveler than top speed when choosing between car, plane, bus and train. The “fastest way” from A to

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Railroading’s Human Resource Crisis and Shortage of Women

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

On Friday morning, May 8, I was interviewed (again) by Jeff Santos of Boston’s WWZN (“The Zone” sports and progressive talk radio).

This was a special Friday. Normally Santos devotes part of Thursday morning to transportation with heavy emphasis on passenger trains and our concerns including the North Station-South Station Rail Link and the ARC tunnels under the Hudson. As I told Jeff on the air Friday, it would be terrific if he could be cloned so that every major city would have a program like this.

Santos is streamed online; podcasts include Secretary LaHood, who also was interviewed Friday. John Businger (the former state rep. and George Falcon Golden Spike Award winner who has worked hard to keep Jeff on the air) and Gov. Dukakis are also frequent guests.

Since Patricia Quinn (Maine’s respected manager of the Amtrak-operated Downeaster) was to follow me, I commented on the human resources crisis facing the rail industry, the need for more woman in the industry, and the serendipitous experience the NARP Board had of simultaneously having Quinn as speaker and the Crawfordsville, IN high-school students as collective award winners. I said it was wonderful for the Crawfordsville girls to see, in Quinn, a great example of a woman as a high-ranking railroad official. I suggested that our transportation system would be better if more women were involved in its design and execution. I might have added that one indication of this is that the majority of Amtrak passengers are women. Also, women as primary child care providers and chauffeurs, are arguably most sensitive to the importance of transportation alternatives to our children.

Railroading’s human resources crisis refers to large numbers of retirees in the next few years and the resulting challenge just to maintain the industry at its existing size, let alone responsibly spend $8 billion on HSR. Chris Barkan, who heads the railroad civil engineering program at University of Illinois, wrote an excellent article on this for TRB last year. Railroad research and training is just as much a step-child as railroad funding in general. From Barkan’s article (bolding added):

“In the first half of the 20th century, railroad transportation and engineering were well represented on college and university campuses… But after World War II… railroads were perceived as obsolete… Railroad programs, research, and classes disappeared as professors retired and were replaced by faculty interested in the newer modes. In academic circles, institutional knowledge of rail transport vanished almost completely.

“As faculty lost sight of the role of rail transport, transportation engineering classes evolved into classes in highway engineering, often without a change in the course title. Students consequently associated the discipline with the mode...”

One NARP Council member told me: “This is already a problem in rail transportation, especially among the ranks of people who are designing, building, operating and maintaining. Ironically, Recovery Act funds for rail are creating or accelerating work for people who, by and large, were already fairly busy. Hopefully, one beneficial result of the ‘stimulus’ will be to attract more talented and capable people to the industry while they can still learn from the people who will be retiring or semi-retiring over the next 10 years (assuming they can afford to).”

—Ross Capon, NARP President

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Flag Stops, National Train Day Edition

Monday, May 11, 2009

The Cato Institute (no fans of smart transportation investments) is trying to generate shock value by pricing Obama’s high-speed rail vision at half a trillion dollars and denigrating its potential benefits. Trains for America and The Business Insider offer good rebuttals. To put it in perspective, the federal government spent almost four-fifths of that amount on highways in 2008. Cato’s contention that “interstates pay for themselves” is highly misleading.

In an article making the rounds in the blogosphere this week, author and business management expert Richard Florida credits the disparity in economic fortunes between the Northeast and Midwest on the presence of fast, frequent train service on the Northeast Corridor and the absence of similar service in the nation’s midsection. The characteristics of the urban megaregions that will define the United States in the early 21st century lend themselves to high-speed rail as the most sensible way to link them, he says, and parts of the country that don’t get on board (pun intended) will be left behind. Our friends at the CAHSR blog discuss the implications of Florida’s findings for California. We would add that good train service promotes exactly the kind of car-free urban lifestyle sought by members of the up-and-coming “creative class” that Florida touts.

It seems that large rail-oriented transportation projects are popping up all over the place—unfortunately, mostly outside the US. Paris is planning a new elevated metro system linking it to satellite towns, Saudi Arabia will lay track for several new freight and passenger lines, a regional railway and connecting metro lines are in the works for Abu Dhabi (capital of the United Arab Emirates). Ironically, Americans are financing a significant portion of the latter two projects in oil-rich countries at the gasoline pump. If we had a more responsible level of taxation on petroleum use, we could afford more projects like these at home.

Two pieces of recommended reading for those interested in the connection between transportation policies and our lifestyle choices: The American Prospect offers a side-by-side comparison of a sprawling car-oriented suburb and one that is compact, pedestrian-oriented and (surprise!) transit-accessible; and Streetsblog wonders if life might be better for children if their parents weren’t wedded to their cars.

LCL: Scientists warn that “even the most drastic emissions cuts currently being discussed stand little chance of limiting global warming to safe levels;” with demand for automobiles tanking, investors are taking a second look at transit; Amtrak celebrated its 38th birthday May 1; funding is the only remaining obstacle to Amtrak service from Chicago to the Quad Cities; an additional Cascades frequency will offset its costs with new tourism spending; a new documentary explores how sprawl came to be; Bostonians hold a bake sale for their ailing transit system; New York City’s transportation czar calls for the return of streetcars to Brooklyn; and one of America’s best-known forecasters says that this year’s decrease in miles driven defies his prediction and may be the start of a new trend.

We hope that NARP members and all rail advocates took Saturday’s National Train Day as a time to celebrate the fruits of our labors (the trains we already have) and the bright future ahead for passenger rail. If a Train Day event took place near you, we hope you used the opportunity to spread the word about NARP and tell people how they can get involved in our work. The day provides a good moment to reflect on the many benefits of train travel—both its oft-cited boons to economic development and environmental sustainability, and the less quantifiable ways that good trains enhance our quality of life—and remember what inspires us to stay active in the cause. If you have any photos of the festivities you attended, please email them to us and we’ll consider posting them here.

—Malcolm Kenton

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Tags: amtrak, funding, national train day, streetcars, transit
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Trends in the airline industry: the coming permanent contraction

Tuesday, May 05, 2009

A number of interesting articles released in the past few weeks have investigated noteworthy contractions in the airline industry. However, none have attempted to look beyond the mode of air travel to think about what this will mean—and should mean—for our national transportation system.

USA Today has an excellent interactive graphic that shows the airport-by-airport decline of the scheduled seat-capacity for departing domestic flights. The nation’s 300 largest airports witnessed an aggregate drop in domestic capacity of 7.2% in the number of seats scheduled for June versus the same time last year. In fact, only three states reversed the prevailing trend—Hawaii at +3.6%, Minnesota at +0.4%, and Nebraska at +0.1% (Maine showed no change).

It seems reasonable to attribute this trend to two factors. First, the economic downturn has led to a sharp decrease in domestic business travel, both by air and rail. In February, Amtrak announced fare reductions aimed at attracting ridership for their premiere business service, the Acela, after seeing ridership drop on the line around 10% during the four month period ending January, as compared to the same period from the year before (see NARP Hotline #590). And while this drop in business traffic is an intermodal phenomenon, it does not follow that the effects will be felt equally.

Due to decades of chronic underinvestment, passenger railroads do not have enough rolling stock to satisfy demand. For whatever reason—and there are many, including the increase in airlines’ fares and fees, a 25% improvement in long-distance Amtrak trains’ on-time performance this March compared with the same period last year, and a collective hangover from the soaring gas prices of last summer—Americans have continued to flock to intercity passenger trains in spite of the recession, with the company’s overnight trains seeing a 7% increase in ridership in the first quarter of FY2009 (FY2008 marking the sixth straight fiscal year of record ridership on all routes). Amtrak’s challenge, then, is to secure the capital investment to expand capacity quickly enough to take advantage of the increased demand.

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Flag Stops, May 4th Edition

Monday, May 04, 2009

Flag Stops: A weekly digest of news and views of interest to passenger rail and transit advocates

A question on the minds of many in the transportation community this week is how we are going to pay for the intercity rail improvements the Obama Administration has promised. The California High-Speed Rail Blog favors a higher gas tax, but doesn’t rule out other ideas. However, few seem to be discussing passenger rail as a potential beneficiary of revenues from a federal cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, draft legislation for which is being considered in the House. Why not an “all-of-the-above” approach? If we spread the cost of the coming rail renaissance across a variety of revenue sources, no one economic sector or tax bracket will have to bear the heaviest burden.

Along similar lines, Streetsblog offers a comprehensive account of the wrongs of SAFETEA-LU, the current federal authorizing legislation for all surface transportation programs, pointing to what Congress needs to do this year to right them. SAFETEA-LU provided $6.5 billion annually in surface transportation funds that could have been used for transit projects, but without further federal guidance or incentive, too often went to roads. It empowered highway-happy state DOTs to make decisions at the expense of Metropolitan Planning Organizations, which often have a more multi-modal orientation. The 2005 law also failed to provide dedicated funding for Amtrak, leaving it to tussle for annual table scraps from the General Fund, and lacked the vision to propose alternatives to the gas tax, an aspect likely to be revisited this year.

A short video produced for Imagine KC succinctly shows the qualily of life enhancements and economic development that a rail transit system can generate. Similar to the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s virtual tour of its future service (which NARP has touted), it illustrates the kind of visioning of a vibrant, sustainable future that should galvanize broad public support for more and better travel options (discussed here on Tuesday).

LCL: Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell says US air travel under 500 miles should end, Conductor Chris reiterates how vital Amtrak service is to small towns, Smart Growth America shows that transportation and growth are clean water issues, bad news for Charlotte, NC, residents hoping to build on the success of the city’s year-and-a-half-old light rail line, traffic accidents outpace malaria in claiming lives worldwide, and DC residents aren’t just using transit to get to work.

—Malcolm Kenton

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