James Howard Kunstler, oft derided as seeking to return America to a pre-industrial state, actually wants to return the country to the glory years of the industrial era, when the major components of our industrial infrastructure were in place and flourishing while Progressive Era reforms were making cities more habitable and humane.
This allowed us to build great cities while ameliorating problems that had overwhelmed earlier cities, such as hypercrowded tenements, which were relieved greatly by the streetcar suburbs, which allowed people of modest means to escape. The cities "sprawled" a bit, but on the whole remained quite dense and compact because they didn’t have to devote 50 percent of their surface area to the care, feeding, and storage of automobiles.
One of Kunstler’s frequent laugh/cry lines is that America once had the greatest rail system the world had ever seen; the one we have now would shame Bulgaria.
As a member of the National Association of Rail Passengers and someone who has taken the nominally 42 hour "Empire Builder" trip back-and-forth between Chicago and the Northwest numerous times, this story puts a chill on my holidays.
Set in Obama’s adopted hometown, it suggests a crying need and numerous opportunities for improvements that will require investment now, soon, and in the long-term—precisely what his team is supposedly seeking (investments that will spur spending promptly, create jobs in the near term, and build capacity in the long term).
We need to start throwing money at Amtrak with a shovel—hire more personnel to staff the trains and stations and maintain the facilities and care for people who are supporting rail travel with their money. That’s spending that can be felt in weeks.
We need a lot more rolling stock and crews to staff it. That’s spending that will begin to be felt in months with firm orders, and pay off in a few years.
And we need a lot more double tracking and electrification all over the U.S. We have got to get the U.S., if not into the 21st century, at least to the same level of rail service capacity that we had in 1908. This starts with building as much dedicated electric-rail passenger track as possible, so that we no longer have to be sidetracked for hours multiple times over the course of a journey to allow freight trains (which take priority) to pass.
The nice thing is that rail line right of ways are capable of serving as a convenient place for a new electric supergrid facilities, eliminating the NIMBYism that make siting such a nightmare for utility planners and providing a use for the distributed power generation plans we need to get off fossil fuels. (In most U.S. cities during the beginning of the electric age, the electric companies became "traction" companies, owning trolley lines because they needed a use for their power.)
There’s an oft-repeated story about the millions of dollars NASA spent trying to devise a pen that would write in zero gravity—and the simple elegance of the Soviet approach to the problem (they used pencils). In ground transport, we seem intent on repeating this mistake: we would rather spend a fortune trying to devise a complex new approach to an old problem than notice that the old solution is still valid.
For public transportation to survive, we all need to ... drive more?
Sen. Ben Cardin answers Grist’s questions on public transit and mountaintop removal mining
Comments
View as Flat
Jon Rynn Posted 3:37 am
26 Dec 2008
Kunstler has called for immediate building of more Amtrak trains (he felt it necessary to diss high-speed rail at the same time). It would seem to be a no-brainer, although I don't know whether the production facilities even exist anymore: I wonder if they were made in the U.S., and whether those companies exist either. If not, then here we are again hoping the developed countries, that is, Japan and Europe, help us, and of course there would be long delays as in the case of the Acela because the American rail system is different than theirs.
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amazingdrx Posted 3:51 am
26 Dec 2008
I would bet that FEMA had a bushie in a position to break down Amtrack Jon, Cheney himself probably ordered those rail cars to a rusty siding. Hehey.
Bring back the rail toads, slow or fast, hi-speed, commuter, all flavors. With computer multiple waring systems, maybe based on GPS onboard trains, maybe we could cut the real accident rate? That would help.
The GPS unit in one train would communicate with and moniter the position of neighboring GPS units and put limits on train proximity that would need human over ride. In other words, even if everyone else screws up, the GPS beeps, shuts off the train and alerts of a close call when it is miles away.
Maybe a track monitering sytem could be developed too that would let the computer check the track a mile or so ahead for misalighnment or cars, cows, or humans on the track.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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ekologkonsult Posted 6:54 am
26 Dec 2008
I did not quote the text, I more commented the essence of the use of Bulgaria in this example.
I´m blogging on The Orchid blog,
http://theorchidblog.blogspot.com
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JMG Posted 8:10 am
26 Dec 2008
Twain said that analyzing comedy is like dissecting a frog -- you don't always find what you're looking for and it doesn't do the frog any good.
My guess is that, to American ears, Bulgaria is funniest in that sentence because of the surprise factor. It's one of approximately 180 countries that we (as a people) give absolutely no thought about from day to day, so there's the surprise element.
I don't think Kunstler is hostile to the descendants of the Bulgars or says that they are "corny" -- just that America is actually not the place its stupified inhabitants tend to think it is.
The 5% Project
Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay.
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JMG Posted 3:25 pm
26 Dec 2008
http://is.gd/dF23
The 5% Project
Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay.
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ekologkonsult Posted 12:41 am
27 Dec 2008
It is just that Americans as well as many of us in Western Europe have a very odd view of Europe, and seam to believe that Europe ends by polands eastern border at best, but that is pushing it. And the knowledge of slavic nations and the attitudes towards them is always that of "guestworkers who clean asbestus of old houses".
I´m blogging on The Orchid blog,
http://theorchidblog.blogspot.com
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aangel Posted 1:28 am
27 Dec 2008
A much better model is that developed by the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas which indicates a peak in 2010.
Andre Angelantoni
Cofounder, PostPeakLiving.com
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Pangolin Posted 7:19 pm
27 Dec 2008
If trains that had no business in an urban area could bypass them entirely the whole system would run faster due to decreased go-slows and stoppages due to grade crossing issues. This would also free up the urban corridors to be used for passenger rail more frequently.
Currently passenger rail on the Seattle to Los Angeles, I-5 corridor is just about useless through California due to once-daily scheduling and constant delays. Get the freight out of the way and we might get back to having useful railways for passengers.
Put the Carbon Back
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JMG Posted 1:40 pm
28 Dec 2008
To the west are hills, to the east are hills, and all around the compact and decaying older parts of town is sprawl, including lots of McMansions in foreclosure. The paper today has a story about the city -- already looking at $5-$7M hole in what must be a "balanced" budget for 2009 -- having its current budget already overspent on trying to keep the roads clear, thanks to a storm (Ice and snow in winter! The nerve!).
So where does the money come from to create a freight bypass? I can't think of a better use of stimulus money than taking on these issues (providing separate tracks for freight and passengers, electrification, etc.) But spending that kind of coin, even in keynesian deficits don't matter right now mode, would require that we stop pouring money into cars and roadways ... solving the grade crossing issue by closing as many of them as possible and building pedestrian and bike overpasses rather than systems that try to continue the motoring way AND restore a functioning train system.
The 5% Project
Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay.
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JMG Posted 1:47 pm
28 Dec 2008
http://is.gd/dVBo
The minority reality (let's call it The Long Emergency) says that it is necessary to make radically new arrangements for daily life and rather soon. It says that a campaign to sustain the unsustainable will amount to a tragic squandering of our dwindling resources. It says that the "consumer" era of economics is over, that suburbia will lose its value, that the automobile will be a diminishing presence in daily life, that the major systems we've come to rely on will founder, and that the transition between where we are now and where we are going is apt to be tumultuous.
My own view is obviously the one called The Long Emergency.
Since the change it proposes is so severe, it naturally generates exactly the kind of cognitive dissonance that paradoxically reinforces the Status Quo view, especially the deep wishes associated with saving all the familiar, comfortable trappings of life as we have known it. The dialectic between the two realities can't be sorted out between the stupid and the bright, or even the altruistic and the selfish. The various tech industries are full of MIT-certified, high-achiever Status Quo techno-triumphalists who are convinced that electric cars or diesel-flavored algae excreta will save suburbia, the three thousand mile Caesar salad, and the theme park vacation. The environmental movement, especially at the elite levels found in places like Aspen, is full of Harvard graduates who believe that all the drive-in espresso stations in America can be run on a combination of solar and wind power. I quarrel with these people incessantly. It seems especially tragic to me that some of the brightest people I meet are bent on mounting the tragic campaign to sustain the unsustainable in one way or another. But I have long maintained that life is essentially tragic in the sense that history won't care if we succeed or fail at carrying on the project of civilization. . . .
I am especially concerned about an "infrastructure stimulus" project aimed at highway improvement at the expense of public transit. This would be the epitome of a campaign to sustain the unsustainable. We need to begin planning right away for a transition away from automobiles, not in order be good socialists but because Happy Motoring is at the core of our unsustainability trap. The car system is going to fail in manifold ways whether we like it or not, and it will fail due to circumstances already underway. For one thing, it will cease to be democratic as the remnants of the middle class find it impossible to get car loans, or pay for fuel, or insurance, and that will set in motion a very impressive politics-of-grievance setting apart those who are still able to enjoy motoring and those who have been foreclosed from it. Contrary to what you might make of the the current situation in the oil markets, we are in for a heap of trouble with both the price and supply of petroleum (more on this below). And there is no chance in hell that any techno rescue remedy to keep all the cars running by other means will materialize. . . .
Counties, municipalities, and states will join in the bankruptcy fiesta. It would be reasonable to expect collapsing services as a result. This would be a situation fraught with danger -- of rising crime, of public health emergencies as water systems are not kept up and sewage treatment becomes unaffordable. I don't imagine the federal government stepping into every Podunk or Metropolis from sea to shining sea and propping up these services. People will have to cope with danger and deprivation.
2009 may be the point where we begin to understand what kinds of places will be more hospitable to human society further ahead. I maintain that our giant urban metroplexes have way overshot their sustainable scale and will contract severely. With all the economic hardship, we ought to expect a lot of demographic churning, people leaving hopeless places and moving on to something more promising. I believe we will see them move to smaller towns and smaller cities. The reorganization of the rural landscape into smaller-scaled farms has not begun to occur -- though 2009 might be very hard on agribusiness, given the shortage of capital and if oil begins to march up in price by late winter. Eventually, the rural landscape will require the labor of many more people than is currently the case. Whatever else happens, 2009 will surely see a massive return to home gardening as budgets become strained to the extreme. As the New Urbanist Andres Duany said recently, "Gardening is the new Golf!"
The Oil Scene
Many were stunned this year to witness the parabolic rise and fall of oil prices up to nearly $150 and then back around $36 by Christmas time. Quite a ride. I said in The Long Emergency that volatility would be the hallmark of post peak oil because it was obvious that advanced economies could not absorb super high prices and would crash in response; that at some point after crashing, these economies would respond to the new lower oil price, resume their cheap oil habits, and build to another price rise. . . and crash again. . . in a declension of ever-lower industrial activity.
What I probably didn't realize at the time was how destructive this cycling between low-high-and-low oil prices would actually be in the first instance of it, and what a toll it would take right off the bat. We can see now that our first journey through the cycle took out the most fragile of the complex systems we depend on: capital finance. As a result, a huge amount of capital (say $14 trillion) has evaporated out of the system, never to be seen again (and never to be deployed for productive purposes). It will be harder for the USA to rebound from the grievous injury to this crucial part of the overall system, and Europe has foundered similarly -- though the European nations are not burdened to the same degree by the awful liabilities of suburbia. . . .
At some point, then, demand, even if slightly lower, will catch up with declining supply. My prediction for 2009 is that we will see two things occur, possibly at the same time: a resumption of rising prices, and spot shortages. I say this because the global economic fiasco is sure to produce geopolitical friction, and inasmuch as America has to import almost three-quarters of the oil we use, the prospect for trouble is great.
The tragic part of all this, of course, is that the temporary plunge in oil prices has prompted an incurious American public to assume, once again, that the global oil predicament is some kind of a fraud. Given the flood tide of fraud they have been subject to in banking and investment matters, I suppose you can't blame them from thinking that everything is some kind of a scam. Given feeble car sales this season, there are reports that an increasing percentage of those sold now are are trucks and SUVs. . . .
In the meantime, there are still those who hope (as described above) that various alt.energy systems will insure the continuation of our Happy Motoring habits. This is an idle hope, and 2009 will be very sobering for those who imagine that hybrid cars, or electric cars, or "air" cars, or any other kind of car technology are going to save the day. Even if President Obama mounts an "infrastructure stimulus" program, it will not keep up with all the necessary routine road repair that our highway system requires. The extreme financial hardship faced by localities and states insures that they will have to postpone a lot of expensive highway maintenance -- even if the federal government fixes a big bunch of bridges and tunnels -- and so we face the interesting prospect that our roadway systems will enter their own deadly zone of systemic failure even before the whole car issue is settled.
I am waiting to see whether Mr. Obama will undertake a restoration of passenger railroad service. I've said enough about this in the past, but it's worth reiterating that a failure to get comprehensive passenger rail service going will be a sign of how fundamentally unserious we are as a nation. . . .
The 5% Project
Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay.
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amazingdrx Posted 3:02 pm
28 Dec 2008
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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amazingdrx Posted 3:35 pm
28 Dec 2008
He got a pass on Y2K, will he get another one if he's wrong on peak oil being the disaster to end all disasters? We'll see.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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JMG Posted 4:26 pm
28 Dec 2008
The 5% Project
Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay.
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Pangolin Posted 6:01 pm
29 Dec 2008
The trick isn't just that oil prices swing up and down. Every time we go through one of these swings enterprises that took decades to build vanish when expenses exceed the ability of the company to manage debts. Those contractors can't just go and buy back equipment when the swing looks to be heading back up because the banks have blacklisted them.
The nasty bit about Peak Oil is that human capital, training and assembled, functional, working teams, is destroyed every time the whip cracks. So that when the town suddenly has funds to pave the engineers and foreman are stocking shelves at Winco and fishing at the reservoir. The teams which got things done are gone and have to be assembled from scratch.
This is where Kunstler is right even though it doesn't come through in what I've read. Peak Oil's high price swings destroy things that can't be reassembled on the bottoms. Each cycle destroys some link in the economic chain which then requires extra energy to replace. The whip cracks; parts fall off. The whip keeps moving.
Put the Carbon Back
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