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Flag Stops: Revisiting Old Assumptions
Friday, August 27, 2010
- As the Recovery Act-funded Milwaukee-Madison high-speed (110-mph) rail line (currently undergoing environmental review) becomes a contentious issue in the Wisconsin governor’s race, our friends at the West Central Wisconsin Rail Coalition and the Empire Builder Coalition show the arguments of the train opponents to be “based upon incorrect data and misplaced assumptions.” For example, Republican candidate Scott Walker’s claim that “nobody really knows how much [HSR] will cost” completely overlooks the reams of documentation that the project’s sponsors have made public. Walker also chooses not to consider the economic benefits that the trains are sure to provide once they’re running, only the relatively small amount of engineering and construction jobs the project creates directly. Former Republican elected officials are also weighing in favoring the trains.
- The Nashville Tennessean, a daily newspaper whose editorials have been critical of passenger train investment in the past, came out with one defending the newly-proposed high-speed service between Nashville, Chattanooga and Atlanta. The editors wisely caution against passing conclusive judgments on a project that is still in the early planning stages, point to the success of new Amtrak services elsewhere at wooing new riders, and frame the issue as a matter of staying competitive with other states and countries. Let’s hope this more enlightened attitude persists.
- Mobilizing the Region provides good insight into the changing mindset of the “rails-to-trails” movement, which has always had an uneasy alliance with passenger train advocates over the tension between maintaining rail-trails as such and returning them to railroad use. It is encouraging that many rail-trail advocates see trails as part of the transportation network that can coexist side-by-side with active rail lines that will likely host more trains over time. Green-space preservationists should be natural allies of rail advocates in pursuit of a higher quality of life.
- Investigative reporter Bruce Selcraig has a worth-reading examination of the current state of American passenger rail in the respected Miller-McCune Magazine. Selcraig compares Amtrak to the frequent, reliable service that the people of Spain take for granted, even if they don’t live in a major urban area. His conclusion: “Overall, high-speed rail is far more cost effective than its opponents claim. And high-speed rail could become a significant part of America’s transportation mix with far less investment than has been poured into highways and airports.” While he gives somewhat short shrift to the value of incrementally improving existing train service as opposed to going all-out for a “man on the moon” project, Selcraig reiterates, “Perhaps passenger rail will have to be subsidized by the government, not unlike our Social Security, NASA, thousands of libraries and fire departments and all our roads and airports.”
- LCL: Federal Transit Administrator Rogoff helps break ground for a new intermodal train station in Rhode Island that will become the southern terminus of MBTA’s Providence Line commuter trains from Boston. * * * The OneRail Coalition’s latest blog posts highlight jobs being created in the railroad industry. * * * Transit doesn’t just enhance livability in urban and suburban areas. * * * The Transport Politic has a useful map of applications for the next round of federal high-speed rail funding ($2.3 billion). * * * President Eisenhower makes a post-mortem pitch for high-speed rail.
—Malcolm Kenton
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Flag Stops: Getting At the True Cost
Monday, August 16, 2010
The Federal Railroad Administration released a summary of the applications received for the next round of high(er)-speed intercity passenger train funding—$8.5 billion requested by 25 states, with only $2.3 billion available. These applications drive home the error Congress is making in reducing next year’s funding figures for the high speed rail program. Former Rep. Al Swift and the American High Speed Rail Alliance share NARP’s sense of urgency that Congress must increase the available funding if we want a train network that will help us meet our mounting energy and mobility challenges. Fortunately, it’s not too late to make your voice heard—the full Senate has yet to finish its version of the 2011 transportation spending bill, and the measure will likely go to a conference committee once the Senate acts.
Other noteworthy stories:
—Malcolm Kenton
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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
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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 | (1) Comments
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.