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Flag Stops: Get Those Shovels (and Calculators) Ready

Monday, August 31, 2009

Anticipating an NPR series on high-speed rail, getting a beat on state applications for stimulus funds, countering Robert Samuelson’s flimsy anti-rail case, and more in this week’s roundup of revelations and ruminations along the line.

—Malcolm Kenton

Posted by Malcolm Kenton

Flag Stops: Emerging Trends

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Real-estate experts acknowledge a shift is afoot, Amtrak raises expectations, and even more advances on the other side of the Atlantic.

—Malcolm Kenton

Posted by Malcolm Kenton

Flag Stops: Who’s Gonna Pay For It

Wednesday, December 02, 2009

—Malcolm Kenton

Posted by Malcolm Kenton

Flag Stops: Making No Small Plans

Friday, February 26, 2010

Reasons to be hopeful, to be concerned, and to take action.

—Malcolm Kenton

Posted by Malcolm Kenton

LaHood: If you build it, they will come.

Thursday, March 04, 2010

This morning, the Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development of the US Senate Appropriations Committee heard from Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood on the President’s fiscal 2011 budget for his agency [PDF], as the committee begins work on determining spending levels for the year to begin October 1, 2010. During the question and answer period, Sen. Christopher Bond (R-MO) engaged LaHood in a heated discussion surrounding DOT’s high-speed intercity passenger rail grant program. Even when Bond tried to steer the discussion towards other transportation topics, LaHood remained focused on promoting the high-speed rail program.

Here is a sample of their back-and-forth. Note that this is a rough and incomplete transcription resulting from hurried note-taking. Exact quotes are marked by quotation marks.

Senator Bond: How do you measure [livability]? We [Congress] develop locally-based community plans for neighborhood stabilization and economic development. I support access to [alternative] transportation. The BRT [bus rapid transit] program in Kansas City has been very important. But ... livability means having a decent highway for many of my rural constituents. We lose three people a day [in accidents] on Missouri’s highways. At least one third of those deaths are due to poor highway conditions. It’s a question of staying alive. If we want all these dollars “to go in and build urban livability sections,” there need to be broader criteria.

Secretary LaHood: [To use] an example from your home state: Kansas City’s $50 million [TIGER grant] is for some of the most simple things we take for granted, like making sure people have a sidewalk to walk on. That may sound silly to you, but I took a tour and found an abandoned neighborhood where people can’t even drive down the street. We [DOT] worked with [the Department of Housing and Urban Development] to build affordable housing so people could stay in the neighborhood. That’s what livable communities [means].

Bond: When did it become DOT’s responsiblity to build sidewalks?

LaHood: You all [Congress] did it. I was part of it as a member of Congress.

Bond: I question how much money is spent on sidewalks when we need highways and bridges.

LaHood: [DOT is] just working with the priorities Congress set.

Bond: We could have used a whole lot more for highways and bridges. Every dollar we’re spending is going on the deficit. [...] The Wall Street Journal had an article by Wendell Cox on January 31st called “The Runaway Subsidy Train.” [Read our response here.] Did you see it? [LaHood: No]. I’ll give you a copy of it. [Cox says] only two [high-speed rail] segments have broken even. If you want to make it profitable, there must be high fares. What’s going to be the total cost of high-speed rail? California estimates [their system will cost] $40 to $60 billion, all taxpayer money, while the airlines flying there aren’t being subsidized by the taxpayer. [Highway users] are helping subsidize high-speed rail. What is the justification? [...] Missouri’s $30 million [in HSIPR funds] will provide extra sidings so trains can pull off & others can pass. What are the ridership projections? Can we justify that cost to the nation’s taxpayers?

LaHood: I’ll answer your question for the record. When Eisenhower signed the Interstate [Highway] bill, nobody knew how we were going to pay for it. I know this: Americans want high speed passenger rail. So many around America want good passenger rail transportation. It will connect opportunities for people. If you build it, they will come. The Interstate system is an example of that. European and Asian governments have made big investments and these lines have been huge economic engines. I can cite examples chapter and verse: if you build it, they will come. The contractos will invest a lot of private money in it.

Bond: As Governor of Missouri, I supproted and started subsidizing Amtrak. Have riders come in large numbers? No. Few people ride it. I’m not willing to spend billions more simply on the thought that they will come.

LaHood: But as Governor and Senator, you were willing to build a [highway] bridge [across the Mississippi River] on the promise that people [would] use it. “The same principle is true for high-speed intercity passenger rail.”

Posted by Malcolm Kenton

DOT Head Sympathizes With Transit Cuts…But Says Meager Budgets Will Continue

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

This map—courtesy of our friends over at Transportation For America—show how widespread the negative effects of the recession has been.  Click on a pin to see transit agency details, and what cuts are being considered (yellow pins designate a Stranded at the Station case study).


In a speech given earlier this week to the heads of transit agencies from across the country, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood expressed support for growing transit systems in American cities, but warned that a “lousy economy” would hinder efforts to increase levels of federal investment.

The speech, given as part of the annual conference held by the American Public Transportation Association in Washington, D.C., included a question and answer session, where transit heads expressed frustration at the lack of a permanent, transit-friendly successor to the federal surface transportation policy which expired last fall (Congress has been passing a series of short-term extensions in the meantime).  Passengers across the country have been hurt as transit agencies faced with widening budgetary shortfalls—due to decreased commuter traffic resulting from high levels of unemployment, and decreased tax revenue in general—are forced to choose between cuts in service and fare hikes. (New Jersey Transit, New York City’s MTA, and Washington D.C.‘s WMATA have all recently been faced with these decisions)

More after the jump…

» read more...

Posted by NARP

LaHood: Don’t expect Japanese trains in U.S. overnight

Friday, May 14, 2010

Fresh off a tour on which he rode bullet trains in China and Japan, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is using his blog to temper the expectations of Americans anxious to ride similar trains here. “No, Japanese and Chinese trains are not coming to the US,” he writes. “BUT, Japanese and Chinese high-speed rail technology and expertise may be on its way.”

NARP shares the Secretary’s (and, by extension, the President’s) conception of a near future in which design techniques gleaned from overseas are incorporated into modern, mostly American-made trains that provide frequent, reliable service to more places on existing, upgraded rail lines.

It’s easy for American public officials to point enviously to Europe, China and Japan. But we commend those, like Mr. LaHood, who realize that the U.S. cannot play decades’ worth of catch-up in a matter of a few years.

In other recent news and views:

• Faced with a choice between speeding up existing trains and adding more trains at current speeds, VIA Rail Canada (the national intercity operator) makes the right choice.
• An airline passenger laments inaction on rail connectivity in his home state of Texas. “What does it say about Texas that there’s a need for high-speed rail, broad support for it, and yet we can’t seem to make much concrete progress?” he writes. As always, it’s a matter of demonstrating to those who hold the purse strings that modern passenger trains are a high priority when most of what elected officials hear is “cut spending.” Helpfully, the Texas DOT’s newly appointed rail chief reminds us to temper our expectations.
• The coalition calling for a $4 billion appropriation for the high-speed intercity passenger rail program in fiscal 2011 held a press conference at Washington’s Union Station on Tuesday to formally launch its campaign, with NARP’s full backing. A funding increase for the greatly oversubscribed program has gotten significant backing from members of Congress.
• Amtrak employees go out of their way to reunite NARP Council member Jim Loomis with a pair of reading glasses he left on a train.

—Malcolm Kenton

Posted by Malcolm Kenton

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

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

Bob Ingle on the Hudson River Tunnels

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

New Jersey Press Media senior columnist Bob Ingle’s Sept. 26 column is notable for quoting NARP Member Phillip Craig’s testimony before the NJ Assembly’s Transportation, Public Works and Independent Authorities Committee.  Craig insisted, “We are not faced with either the tunnel as is or no tunnel;” the tunnels should go to Penn Station, eliminating the need for the new 34th Street Terminal NJT has planned.

Ingle refers to NJT’s project as “the third Hudson tunnel,” after the existing one and “a second Amtrak is planning.”  These all are pairs of single-track tunnels—there are two tracks now, and would be six in total if all the plans get built.  What is commonly referred to as what “Amtrak is planning” is conceived of as fifth and sixth tunnels identified in the NEC Infrastructure Master Plan, which was the product of a multi-agency working group.  These tunnels would be used both by commuter and intercity trains.’’

The key messages now:

• Ask Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and Federal Transit Administrator Peter Rogoff to make sure that the FTA keeps the $3 billion earmarked for Hudson River tunnels, which everyone agrees is needed, while New Jersey works through design and cost issues.
• If you live in the Northeast, express concern to your governor and your federal legislators about the need to redesign the Hudson River tunnels so they connect to Penn Station.
• If you live in New Jersey, emphasize to Gov. Christie, your U.S. senators and representative, and your state legislators, that you strongly support building the tunnels but want a new, serious review of the need to direct them to New York’s Penn Station and the savings that could come from eliminating the 34th Street Terminal.

—Ross Capon

Posted by Malcolm Kenton

Flag Stops: If you build it…

Monday, December 20, 2010

WSDOT on Flickr

Transportation chief strongly defends train investment. U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood appeared on NPR’s Weekend Edition on Saturday (click for audio and transcript) to forcefully respond to growing criticism of the Obama Administration’s approach toward developing faster and more frequent train service in selected corridors through grants to states. He tells host Scott Simon that new Chicago-Dubuque and Chicago-Quad Cities lines should be seen as initial segments for service that will extend to the Twin Cities and Omaha, respectively. “If you build it, if you make it comfortable, if you make it so you can afford it, and get there in a timely way, I believe this is what Americans want,” the Secretary concludes.

LaHood followed the radio appearance with a guest column in Sunday’s Orlando Sentinel, arguing that “we can no longer rely exclusively on roads as a strategy for economic growth over the long term.” Americans in 50 years will see a national passenger train network as indespensible, LaHood posits, the way Interstate highways are currently viewed. He points to states where construction on upgraded track has begun or will begin next year, linking significant short-term service improvements to a longer-term vision for a “national high-speed rail network.”

The State of Virginia announced a landmark agreement with Norfolk Southern Railway to bring extended Amtrak Northeast Regional trains from Richmond directly into Norfolk via Petersburg, using the former Norfolk and Western line that currently hosts heavy container traffic the Port of Norfolk. Federal and state funds will be put to “speedy” work starting in 2011 to bring the track up to passenger-train standards, allowing for a 79-mph top speed. Look for more about this in this week’s Hotline News.

In other news from the Old Dominion, Gov. Bob McDonnell, trying to close the state’s budget gap, proposed eliminating the Virginia Rail Advisory Board. By giving all intercity and commuter rail stakeholders (including passenger advocacy groups) a forum for dialogue, the Advisory Board’s existence has played no small part in putting Virginia ahead of most states in terms of the development of its passenger train network (witness the smashing success of year-old Amtrak service between Lynchburg, Charlottesville, Washington, and Northeast Corridor points). NARP member Dan Peacock defends the Advisory Board in a letter to the editor of the Washington Post.

Giattina Aycock Architecture Studio

The City of Birmingham, AL, is moving forward with an attractive design for a new intercity rail and bus depot to replace the current not-so-attractive facility located underneath the tracks. The modern, airy building, to be located on Morris Avenue between 16th and 19th Streets, will be able to accommodate two passenger trains at the platform simultaneously, as well as Greyhound and city buses, taxis, and a shuttle bus to Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport. Birmingham currently sees only two daily Amtrak trains—the north- and southbound Crescent between New York and New Orleans—but should see more in the future.

Finally, a personal anecdote that illustrates the importance of having travel choices. My mother and I traveled from Washington DC this past weekend to visit three attractions in north-central New Jersey. Since the destinations were fairly spread-apart and one was not transit accessible, we rented a car (which also wound up being less expensive than a round-trip Amtrak ticket to Newark). The car worked well for touring places that aren’t located near passenger train routes (we returned via a scenic road that hugged the Delaware River), but had we taken the train to Newark and rented a car there, we would have saved about two hours of travel time and avoided paying for gas and rather hefty tolls. So, in the end, the train may have cost roughly the same or less than the rental car, even with the high Northeast Corridor fares.

A safe and joyous holiday season and best wishes for the new year from all of us at NARP!

—Malcolm Kenton

Posted by Malcolm Kenton

Opponents push differing lessons on high-speed and intercity passenger rail

Thursday, December 08, 2011

Keystone Corridor [Image: Centpacrr]

The presses have been churning following a contentious hearing on high-speed rail before the House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure Tuesday, featuring Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and NARP’s own president, Ross Capon.  The hearing was titled “The Federal Railroad Administration’s High Speed Intercity Passenger Rail Program: Mistakes and Lessons Learned”.  Judging from the statements put out following the inquiry, however, the program’s supporters and detractors walked away with an entirely different set of lessons in hand.

[Click here for archived video of the hearing]

On the DOT’s Fast Lane blog, LaHood continued the vociferous defense of the program he initiated in response to animated questioning during the hearing:

Since 1991, Presidents and Congressmen—Republicans as well as Democrats—have had an American high-speed rail network on their agenda, in good economic times and bad.  What’s changed today is that we have a President and Vice President who are backing up their words with actions.  We’re not just writing reports and filing them away; we’re hiring workers, we’re laying track, and we’re building stations.

…

From here, the future is bright. During the next six months, more than $1.1 billion of new job-creating construction projects will begin. We’ve invested in increasing the Acela’s speed from 135 to 186 miles per hour. We’ve invested in bringing 110 mile-per-hour service to the Midwest. We’ll soon break ground on a new line between Portland and Seattle. We continue planning for a southwest network that connects Dallas to Houston and Oklahoma City.

And we’re committed to helping the people of California achieve their vision for high-speed rail, too. It’s not a cheap project, but it’s an essential one.  And we are in it for the long haul.

Over on the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee website, the view from Chairman John Mica (R-FL) was much dimmer:

We’re funding slow-speed projects all over the country, most of them for Amtrak, that will not result in high-speed service. $3.6 billion – more than one-third of the $10.1 billion that has gone to projects – was turned back by states. The one project funded that offered the most hope for achieving high-speed, the California project, appears to be in disarray. In fact, the Committee will hold a hearing specifically to review this project next week.

We need one high-speed rail success, and our country’s best opportunity to achieve high-speed rail is in the Northeast Corridor.  Now that federal funding for this program has been stopped, we have an opportunity to learn from those mistakes and make the needed changes to develop at least one truly successful high-speed rail corridor in this country.

Political media outlets seemed split on how to interpret what transpired.  Politico’s piece, “High-speed rail has a bad day”, focused on the tongue lashing that House Republicans gave the program, and transposed the hearing with news of a Field poll that claims a majority of Californians would like to see the high-speed rail bond resubmitted to the voters on the 2012 ballot.  Streetsblog Capitol Hill and The Hill chose to highlight the back-and-forth between LaHood and critics of the program, with pieces titled “LaHood Defends High-Speed Rail Program At House Hearing” and “LaHood squares off with critics of high-speed rail”, respectively.

Streetsblog captured that interplay nicely with a paragraph on a contentious exchange between LaHood and Representative Bill Shuster (R-PA), who chairs the T&I Subcommittee on Railroads:

When LaHood said that the HSR vision isn’t “Ray LaHood’s vision”—it comes from the states themselves—Shuster said yes, but his daughter wants a luxury SUV and he don’t have the money for it, so she’s not getting it. “I’m glad you didn’t think that about the Keystone Line,” LaHood shot back. He said Shuster asked for the money for that line and the DOT gave it. “Right,” Shuster said, I believe in rail investment “where it makes sense.” But, Shuster noted, he didn’t ask for help funding rail improvements between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh—and that line goes right through his district. But it’s not a strategic investment priority for the country.

Now, to my knowledge, no one is advocating for a 220 mph train between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh in the near-term.  Rail advocates—like the Western Pennsylvanians for Passenger Rail, whose efforts we reported on in November—are advocating for a plan to reduce total trip time from 5 hours to 4 hours, and add an additional frequency (from one daily to two), so business travelers could use the service. 

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is reporting that U.S. Airways’ round-trip fare for business travelers from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia will increase by almost 500 percent next year, due to Southwest Airlines’ decision to drop its nonstop service between the two cities.  With a few simple upgrades, trains could begin to dominate the air-rail market between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia to the extent they do in New York City-Washington, D.C. (69 percent) and New York City-Philadelphia (93 percent).  That’s the kind of simple improvements to our transportation network this country should be looking at: a strong business case paired with a low public cost to high public benefit ratio.  And with interest rates as low as they are, construction projects can be financed extremely cheaply. 

Capon made a similar point in his presentation, using the restoration of the Downeaster service between Portland, Maine and Boston as a case study: although many critics predicted in advance that the train would flop, the service had more than 519,000 riders in fiscal year 2011, up 8.6 percent from 2010.

The limited availability of government funds is an argument for a national rail program.  If there the resources aren’t available to fund the $117 billion plan to bring 220 mph service to the Northeast Corridor, or to fund California’s $98 billion Los Angeles-San Francisco corridor, policy makers need to look at how best to use the limited money at their disposal> growing population will need to travel one way or the other, and providing the same level of mobility in the absence of world-class passenger trains will be far more costly than developing our rail network.

NARP President Capon sums it up:

We understand Chairman Mica’s strong support of the development of the Northeast Corridor (NEC).  We also support that development both in the Northeast Corridor and elsewhere.  Richard Harnish, Executive Director of Midwest High Speed Rail Association and a member of our board, testified before your Railroads Subcommittee on April 20, 2010, “At 220 miles per hour, we can achieve a transformative tipping point where journeys become commutes and business travelers can spend a productive day in a distant city and still be home for dinner.”

[But w]e believe that the HSIPR program must be national, regardless of how few states are currently ready for very high speed trains.  Only 18% of the US population lives within 25 miles of an NEC Amtrak station.  If the HSIPR program had been focused solely on the NEC, national support for and enthusiasm for the program could not have been sustained and many projects elsewhere would not have been funded.  Moreover, the needs of the NEC greatly exceed the totality of the funding that has been provided, thereby limiting the impact the program could have had on the NEC.

Posted by NARP

Forces rally around stopping House’s transportation bill

Thursday, February 09, 2012

It’s been a hectic week for rail and transit advocates (along with organizations focused on smart growth, labor, environmental protection, domestic equipment manufacturing and supply, and so on and so forth), who have been fighting tooth-and-nail to oppose a House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee transportation reauthorization what would gut funding for public transportation and starve the intercity and high-speed rail program.

Within the next seven days, the U.S. House will vote on H.R. 7, the so-called “American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act.” NARP is joining our allies at Transportation for America and the Midwest High-Speed Rail Association (along with countless others) in opposing this bill.

Please call your Representative today and urge him or her to vote “no” on H.R. 7, mentioning specifically your opposition to the drastic transit cuts, the California high-speed rail prohibition, and the provision penalizing transit systems that operate rail lines.

Call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask for your Representative’s office. Click here to find out who represents you (enter your 9-digit ZIP code in the top right corner of the page).

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Posted by NARP

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