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Flag Stops: Counterarguments Edition
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
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.
—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
At the same time, federal policy must move further in the direction of treating transportation more holistically, transforming our system into one that enhances mobility in a way that is sustainable and enhances our quality of life, one in which passenger rail should be a central figure. The Obama Administration and key lawmakers have indicated that they are ready to lead such a transformation, but following through on their stated goals means making sure that each piece of the puzzle fits. As it stands, the new fuel economy standards are a slight mismatch.
It remains to be seen what effect the new standards will have on another key piece of the puzzle: American manufacturing jobs. As currently structured, the government’s bailout of the auto industry does not prevent a sizable amount of its work from being shipped overseas; this may have been a factor in persuading the Big Four to support the new standards. As Americans continue to drive less and turn to alternative ways of getting around, our industrial base will need to be restructured so that it continues to employ American workers in making the things we will need more of. The Nation’s Max Fraser has a good prescription for a new industrial policy:
During World War II, the Roosevelt administration helped keep workers on the job and factories humming at full capacity by buying tens of thousands of planes and tanks from a quickly retooled auto industry. Today’s planes and tanks could be the buses, subway cars, trains and light-rail cars that would spur the development of new systems of mass transit and help shift the country away from its unsustainable carbon dependency.
Rail and transit advocates have our work cut out for us. NARP will continue to work to see that policymakers connect all the dots and realize the full potential of an interconnected, sustainable mobility system that depends on robust passenger rail and transit networks.
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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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Flag Stops, May 14th Edition
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Flag Stops: Full Speed Ahead
B means the one that takes the least time overall, not necessarily the one that actually goes the fastest. Boardman says that the focus should be on improving existing infrastructure to produce more frequent 110-mph service on corridors such as Chicago-St. Louis, something that is achievable within 10-15 years, rather than investing in the new capital necessary for 200-mph service, which would take more than 20 years to build. The Transport Politic and the CAHSR Blog rebut that speed really does matter, while Trains for America sides with Boardman.
More food for thought for those of us interested in passenger rail’s impact on urban geography:
- Former Massachusetts Governor and Amtrak board chairman Michael Dukakis renewed his call for a “steel interstate” before a group of journalists in Cambridge, saying pithily: “This is fairly obvious. If you invest in rail you get compact cities; if you invest in highways you get sprawl.”
- A New York Times blog asked various urban design experts if it is possible for US cities and towns to go car-free, as is being pursued in Vauban, Germany. The takeaway message: nearly all agreed that the keys to auto-independent living are density, diversity, and good public transportation, features shared by all of the American cities with the lowest rates of car ownership.
- Ryan Avent takes a peek at the oft-overlooked impact of parking on the layout of cities and towns and, consequently, on their economic development. Though nobody likes parking lots and decks aesthetically, and most people would prefer walkable downtowns and shopping centers without massive asphalt deserts surrounding them, the combination of the lack of automobile alternatives, bifurcated zoning practices, and laws specifying minimum amounts of parking spaces per building, makes these eyesores inevitable. Let’s hope that developers hoping to build more attractive living, working and shopping spaces add to the pressure for transportation alternatives and mixed-use zoning.
- Finally, the City of Arlington, VA, tells the story of its success with smart growth practices before the term “new urbanism” was coined.
Have you ever wondered why new transit projects seem to always be in the planning stages, but new roads and highways can go from idea to reality in less than 10 years? Planetizen asked the same question and came up with an answer:
[W]e get more roads because our policies are structured to spend more money on them, and they’re more popular with elected officials. ... The [relative] lack of funds [for transit] has added complexity [and] length to an already complex and lengthy process. As a result, project supporters and detractors alike are alienated from the planning, forced to navigate a morass of acronyms, plans, and steps.
The considerable amount of red tape involved when local communities try to get federal funds for new transit lines stifles public interest in them and slows the democratic process to a crawl. Yet another aspect of the status quo that should be reconsidered as Congress works on the surface transportation reauthorization.
LCL: AAA predicts an uptick in driving this summer; House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee Chairman James Oberstar is enthusiastic about “funding amounts planned for Amtrak and development of high-speed rail systems [that] rival the highway system expansion that began in the 1950s and spurred economic growth for decades;” good public transportation and a fair fare structure are important tools for advancing social equity; a motorcyclist laments car culture and calls for Amtrak investment; Rochester, MN, announces a bold rail plan; talk of reviving two passenger train routes in Iowa; a short film shows the possibilities of new urbanism; and some last thoughts on National Train Day: an environmental blog toasts the occasion, Transportation Secretary LaHood lauds Amtrak’s recognition of the Pullman Porters and A. Phillip Randolph, and an ode to “foamers.”
—Malcolm Kenton
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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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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.
Airlines, conversely, are wrestling with a surplus of seats, forcing them to choose between flying certain routes using smaller planes or terminating those flights entirely. The former has the advantage of decreasing operating costs through decreased fuel and staffing costs. But an industry historically oriented to the 747 jumbo-jet has proved ill equipped to make a wholesale shift to smaller aircrafts, with the result being that over the past year airlines have announced plans to take 1,700 airplanes out of service, with a 29% increase in the number of aircraft in storage. The latter option—stopping service of routes entirely— is complicated by the existence of the Essential Air Service (EAS) program, a federal subsidy for air service to lightly used airports. USDOT reports that the average route subsidy costs between $1 and $2 million per year; just over $133 million will be spent this year to ensure that these small towns, mostly rural in character, will stay connected to the national network. However, Bloomberg News reported that last year’s most heavily subsidized route was the Albuquerque to Alamogordo, New Mexico route, costing taxpayers over $3,600 per passenger last year.
Yet these contracts are not proving altogether effective at luring airlines into maintaining service. Six carriers who take part in the program have either gone out of business or chosen not to renew their contracts with the government. Industry advocates argue that the agreements—typically two years in length—leave carriers vulnerable to spikes in fuel costs. President Obama’s Office of Budget and Management—a cabinet-level office which works directly under the President—has said the program is inefficient and needs to be overhauled to maximize cost effectiveness. The President’s budget outline, however, has proposed an additional $55 million for the program.
This reflects the political influence that elected officials representing the 34 affected states attach to the maintenance of service. Legislators who defend the EAS program understand the value—and the cost—of a truly national transportation system. Not coincidentally, many of the same Members also defend Amtrak. Transportation advocates, as the people who best understand the crucial role transportation plays in our society and economy, should avoid the temptation to dismiss small communities’ desire for accessible air service as extravagant. But there are important ideas to take away from what is happening.
First, all modes of travel are subsidized by the taxpayer, and the sooner the canard that the free-market will free the taxpayer from the cost of building and maintaining a national infrastructure is set aside, the sooner we can start effectively managing costs.
Second, transportation reform cannot leave communities stranded. In this context, it is all the more important to take an integrated approach to mobility issues. Not every community needs to be connected to the national system simultaneously by highway, air, and rail. Instead, an integrated national system should serve every community in a way that is rational—based on the population density, traffic patterns, and distances involved—with different modes complementing each others. In a climate of volatile and rising fuel prices, passenger rail’s superior energy efficiency makes it a more judicious target of government subsidy than airlines when the goal is to provide service to sparsely populated rural areas.
In an era of constrained energy, we can no longer afford to let a single mode dominate our transportation system. While this idea has clearly reached the highest levels of the federal government, it has yet to penetrate many state houses. Governor Pat Quinn of Illinois recently confirmed plans for a third airport for suburban Chicago. $100 million has already been allocated for the purchase of land and the final price tag is expected to rise into the billions of dollars. When viewed in relation to the overriding trends in the airline industry, the certainty of the return of high fuel prices, and an existing project to expand capacity at O’Hare, the Governor’s proposal is revealed to be absurdly shortsighted.
That money should be spent instead to speed the flow of freight and passenger rail traffic through Chicago, the most congested rail hub in America. Expand the passenger network to make trains a better and faster option for the suburbs of South Chicago. While a rail line connecting to an existing airport might not have the cachet for some residents of south-suburban Chicago that a new airport does, there are more important considerations when making policy decisions that will affect the country for the next 30, 50, and 100 years.
President Obama, in just over 100 days, has shown us that a vision of the American transportation network that includes passenger trains as a vital component can quickly become the national vision. It is incumbent on leaders of every stripe to seize on this vision for a balanced transportation network; for the good of our economy, our environment, and our communities.
—Sean Jeans-Gail, NARP Communications Director
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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
—Malcolm Kenton