"Because if your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down their throats."
Take electrified rail, for instance. Here's a sad report from Dean Baker of The American Prospect, one of the best reporters going today:
I was shocked to discover in a conversation with a congressional staffer that rebuilding the country's train system is a topic that is strictly verboten on Capitol Hill. I was reminded of this when I read that a French train had set a new speed record of 357 miles per hour. Trains are far more fuel efficient than planes. Even at much slower speeds than this new French train, service across the Northeast and between the Midwest and Northeast can be very time competitive with air travel, after factoring in travel times to and from airports and security searches. It is remarkable that politicians don't even have trains on their radar screens.
And, if you haven't seen the video of what an electrified train can do, check this out.
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
Washington Post features rail hack job from Robert Samuelson
Comments
View as Flat
thinkdharma Posted 7:19 am
06 Apr 2007
I was recently in Oregon, trying to get between Eugene and Portland, and had a few moments to talk to the friendly ladies at the Amtrak ticket counter. They told me that because the federal government doesn't really regulate the rail system anymore like it does the aviation industry, some companies run roughshod over others. So, in Oregon, this meant that Union Pacific routinely blocked the tracks, causing the Amtrak trains in Oregon to run often hours late (she mentioned that the train to Portland had been 8 hours late the day earlier). This was supposedly because UP is trying to get Amtrak out of the rail buisiness (perhaps their political might has something to do with lackluster federal dollars for public rail transit). She contrasted this to the train system in Montana in which Amtrak shared the rails with Burlington Northern which was much more amiable to passenger trains and resulted in no delays.
So, there are definitely political and inter-corporate obstacles to enabling public rail transit to reclaim its greatness.
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GreenEngineer Posted 7:26 am
06 Apr 2007
Something seems fishy here. Like maybe the Amtrack executives really aren't interested in seeing their company survive...
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Nucbuddy Posted 7:45 am
06 Apr 2007
epinions.com/trvl-review-3F25-BA96C5F-3922A9EA-prod4
even going from D.C. to New York seems a lot less hectic, although a bit more money, on a plane. If you are going any longer distance, unless you have an affinity for trains, cost, time, and comfort are all maximized up in the air.
Amtrak itself doesn't even make enough money to stay afloat. The government subsidizes Amtrak so that it can keep running. People find out that they can fly cheaper and faster, and aren't interested in the loud and bumpy ride on an Amtrak. It should definitely be considered for short distances, but there is a reason when most people don't even consider trains when they travel: it's an outdated mode of transportation that just can't compete with airlines.
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birdboy Posted 8:27 am
06 Apr 2007
If you've ever ridden the rail in Europe, you'd know that it can be done right, and when it is, it's a pleasure to ride.
a liberal in redsville
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GreenEngineer Posted 8:37 am
06 Apr 2007
Spoken like a not-tall person.
As a side note, does anyone have any figures for the level of subsidy received by Amtrack, vs. the level of subsidy received by the airlines in this country? Please include subsidies associated with airport operations, IER waivers, and airline bailouts.
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renegade botanist Posted 10:21 am
06 Apr 2007
One of the big challenges is that Union Pacific thinks they are GOD. Actually there is a shortage of infrastructure for moving freight by rail. If it is time sensitve freight you ship by truck. If it doen't matter as long as it gets there someday then you ship by rail.
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ejgrist Posted 1:04 pm
06 Apr 2007
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amazingdrx Posted 3:16 pm
06 Apr 2007
Light rail is the ticket for people moving. Put it in tubes and power it with renewable electric power. It can go faster in a tube. No cows, deer, or cars on the tracks. The tracks can be electrified with no short circuting due to rain.
No ice or snow on the tracks. Tracks on the sides and top of the tube for a tri-rail stability. It could beat airplanes as far as speed over a lot longer range. Could it beat the French train? No doubt, and in a safe manner.
The tubes can go under roads and buildings and other obstacles. Have the tubes in pairs, one for each direction, buried in the freeway median for instance.
Smaller trains from local areas could link up into larger ones for cross country travel. Companies could lease their own train cars. Just like they do jets. Light rail stations could be like miniature airports, sized to fit the market, just like airports are.
With broadband inside the tubes the passengers would be connected. For work or entertainment.
As local cars joined long distance trains the passengers would have access to food and sleeping cars.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Ron Steenblik Posted 4:52 pm
06 Apr 2007
The secret of a high-speed rail system starts with the track: make it straight, and really strong. When British Rail set out to build its high-speed system (not!), in a more densely populated country, it put its engineering talents into developing fancy solutions to make the train, particularly the undercarriage itself, more stable -- e.g., so that it could bank around corners. Somebody forgot to tell them that in so doing the train would smash into signal poles, trees, buildings situated close to the tracks.
But I digress.
I grew up riding trains. Long ago, my father worked for the Maine Central Railroad. My first memory of a long-distance vacation involved taking a series of trains from Bangor to Orlando. On the stop-over in New York City, we got out of Grand Central Station to stretch and spied a huge crowd of policemen in front of a hotel entrance. All of a sudden a large man stepped out of the hotel and was surrounded by them.
"Who was that guy?", I asked my parents.
"That's Fidel Castro, the President of Cuba", they replied. He was on a visit to the UN, I gather.
And now the guy is blogging about biofuels.
Sorry, I digress again.
Are trains romantic? You bet. That is why I cringe at the thought of long-distance underground fast trains. A good idea (but enormously expensive), no doubt, for traversing, say, New Jersey, but would negate half of the pleasure of riding a train through the countryside: gazing out the window.
As to the annual federal subsidy for Amtrak, it appears to be in the neighborhood of $1 billion a year. Here is a useful, albeit 10-year-old site on the operating profit and loss of Amtrak by route. State and federal subsidies to ethanol are now running at around $6 billion a year. Does Amtrak save 1/6 or more of the small amount of petroleum fuels and CO2 emissions avoided by blending ethanol into the nation's gasoline? I have no idea, but if anybody has any aggregate estimates of fuel and GHG savings associated with Amtrak, please bring them to our attention.
That is not to say that the current subsidy to Amtrak is cost-effective. From my recent travels on Amtrak, I would guess that the company is dysfunctional.
One of the conductors on the Chicago to Washington train, which I've taken from Harper's Ferry to Rockville, MD (from where I jump on the metro) on several occasions shows the classic signs of an employee who has a job for life but no incentive to become more efficient, and every incentive to express his loony side. I was glad there were other people on the train, else I would have been tempted to call in the people with the white coats.
Amtrak knows its future is dependent on appropriations from Congress, and has become adept at pulling on those begrudging purse strings. A dose of competition for those subsidies, based on performance, would seem in order.
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GreyFlcn Posted 6:13 pm
06 Apr 2007
Ethanol.
Hydrogen.
Inductive Charging Roads.
But this one is might be an exception given how highly regulated/planned long distance travel is.
_
However obviously what you might have some people toss out is Centia Jet-BioFuel.
http://www.insidegreentech.com/node/733
The interesting thing with this is that it's a Fischer-Troph process to make it. (i.e. The inputs can be nearly anything)
.... and as awlays, the one thing which might actually make biofuels viable is algae......
But noone's doing that yet.....
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caniscandida Posted 9:13 pm
06 Apr 2007
The Oregon story that ThinkDharma told (is that a West Coast name, or what?) is very interesting. Of course, Amtrak takes on different forms, and has different functions, in different parts of the country.
I do not know the West Coast trains, and the quality of their service, at all. Nor do I know the trains that go south from New York (the "Palmetto," I think it is called) or from Chicago (the "City of New Orleans," immortalized by Arlo Guthrie in one of our greatest folksongs).
But I have been constantly on the Northeast corridor, between DC and Boston, mostly between NYC and Philadelphia. And I have been on routes between NYC and Chicago, both the northern-loop one, through upper New York State and across northern Ohio and Indiana, and the southern-loop one. Pace Ron Steenblik, we found the train from DC to Chicago to be the most comfortable in all the Amtrak fleet, in our experience.
And anyway, eccentric stewards are the sort of detail that adds grace to one's trip. Our travel diaries are in principle always begging for those darling little vignettes ...
On traveling through New Jersey: Believe it or not, the ride between NYC and Philadelphia has a lot to recommend it. No, it is not quite as leafy or picturesque as some other Amtrak routes, but I have always enjoyed it. I remember traveling with a California family on vacation, who commented on the things you would never see out West, such as cemeteries, and factories of famous companies, such as Johnson and Johnson.
The Trenton station is one of the worst train stations ever constructed; avoid it. But the Newark station is a masterpiece, a jewel. New Brunswick is an impressive ride-through, if you look out the north side and ignore the south-side view. Going to Princeton is of course worthwhile, and is oddly more adventurous and interesting than one might expect.
The ride into Philadelphia, down the Schuylkill, past Fairmount Park and the Acropolis-like Museum of Art, is impressive.
The ride into NYC, post 9/11, is inevitably poignant. Nobody ever said the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center were remarkably beautiful buildings. But to travelers on Amtrak traveling eastward into New York, in the late afternoon, it was glorious, watching the setting sun reflected in the towers' windows.
New Yorkers can never return to the city (The City; He Polis, as the Greeks referred to Constantinople), without studying the skyline, and considering the catastrophe of 9/11.
So: trains. Amtrak. They are part of America. Sure, Amtrak trains can be crusty and inflexible and unreliable. But we need to keep emphasizing how desirable the concept of train travel is.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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MarkUK Posted 10:32 pm
06 Apr 2007
You could build a high speeds dedicated network that would be faster than flying taking everything into account...
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sunflower Posted 12:55 am
07 Apr 2007
http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=696
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GonzoDon Posted 1:34 am
07 Apr 2007
As J.H. Kunstler likes to point out, the United States has a train system that would embarass Bulgaria. Anyone who has traveled by train in Europe knows just how efficient, pleasant, and sensible train travel can be.
Will improved service in the U.S. require large subsidies to be affordable? Almost certainly. Is this a deal-breaker? Not in my opinion. Subsidizing Amtrak at $1 billion a year sounds rather outrageous. Until you reflect on the fact that we've spent around $350 billion on our ill-fated Iraq War to date. Hmmm ... let's see ... 1 disasterous Iraq War, or 350 years of subsidized Amtrak service ??? ... well, I'll take the latter, please.
And of course rail transit can't and won't work everywhere. The more populated East and West Coast corridors are the most obvious candidates for improved service. But even here in relatively unpopulated Colorado it's a crime that we don't have fast and frequent train service as an option for the thousands who travel daily up and down the densely-populated Fort Collins-Longmont-Denver-Colorado Springs corridor.
This is a social values issue. Support for such train service would require taxes, which means for example that people who today can afford a $50,000 SUV would perhaps, if efficient train service were supported as a viable transit option, only be able to afford a $49,500 SUV. To many Americans this would be an unconscionable crime. To me this seems like a sensible trade-off for the common good and (perhaps more significantly) for the long-term viability of a democratic society that is currently unsustainably over-dependent upon dwindling fossil fuels.
Call me a Cassandra, but I do think it's high time for us to 'start making other arrangements' in the U.S. ... improved train service should be part of those arrangements.
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Delay And Deny Posted 2:37 am
07 Apr 2007
Ok, now what is the population density of the United States?
Right. Exactly.
Trains don't make sense here.
The Texeme Construct offers international text memetics construction and textcasting services. http://www.you-read-it-here-first.com
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Ron Steenblik Posted 2:51 am
07 Apr 2007
Mark in the UK: 350 miles per hour is the peak speed of the TGV. On a journey between LA and Houston, assuming several stops along the way, the average would work out to probably half that, or 8 hours. Still not bad, especially if one could work (or sleep, or dine) on the train during that time.
One thing I haven't seen mentioned yet here is combining trains and bicycles. Many European countries have large and secure rooms attached to their train stations, for storing and rent all-weather bicycles. Commuting by bicycle and trains quite common in The Netherlands, where the train sheds only close when the last train (usually after midnight) departs.
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Laurence Aurbach Posted 3:22 am
07 Apr 2007
Eighty percent of the US poplulation lives in metro areas. The overall density of US metro areas is 320 per square mile.
The density of France is 293 per square mile.
http://pedshed.net
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GreenEngineer Posted 4:13 am
07 Apr 2007
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Ron Steenblik Posted 4:24 am
07 Apr 2007
In the USA, a high-speed train could cut journey time to under three hours between most cities of the north-east, and between Washington and Raleigh-Durham, Houston and Dallas, Portland and Seattle, ...
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caniscandida Posted 4:29 am
07 Apr 2007
On delays: Yes, Ron, I quite see your point that delays are not good for business. Usually, when I have ridden on Amtrak, it has not been with any great sense of urgency. And just as well. E.g., at the stop at Lamy, New Mexico, the stop that serves Santa Fe, the train that passes there is traveling between Chicago and LA (or the other way around), and so has had lots of time to accumulate delays; with the result that the Lamy station has a kind of Man~ana attitude: when the train comes, that is when it comes, so meanwhile just sit back and relax.
But even for tourists in no hurry, delays can be meaningful, in a negative way. A number of years ago, my husband and I took the Via Rail train from Toronto to Vancouver. We left Toronto on time in the early afternoon, as I recall, but then sat on the tracks for a long time not far outside the city. The result in that case was that we passed a scenic stretch along the Great Lakes after sunset, in darkness.
So, as ThinkDharma suggests, and as GreenEngineer seems to go along with, are most Amtrak delays due to Amtrak's inability to make itself a high priority for track use, over against the freight carriers? And how much of that, then, can fairly be ascribed to Amtrak's inherent inefficiency?
A couple of other matters:
Not that I am phobic, because I am not, really, and I have flown many times, and often enough enjoyed the view when the visibility is good: but really, I would prefer not to fly. Flying has a psychological cost, which ought not to be underestimated. I would always prefer another means of transportation, if it were available and practical. And I suspect there are others who think like that, when it is time to travel.
Also, it must be remembered that when one arrives at an airport, one really has not got anywhere yet. There is still a longish trip into town to negotiate. Train stations, by contrast, are usually located in the downtowns of cities. That is a great advantage of train travel.
On trains and bicycles: I wish I had a better sense of how that works in Europe. But in fact, that sort of thing is part of my plan to eliminate private vehicles from most of Manhattan and downtown Brooklyn. Bicycles, and bicycle-rickshaws, are to be made available at all the access points.
But as fate would have it, I am not yet the czar of this island city-state ...
In sum, I believe there is a real popular demand for reliable, comfortable (e.g. lots of food and drink) inter-city trains in the US. And I strongly doubt that it is entirely Amtrak's fault, if Amtrak is unsatisfactory. There are other powerful players affecting how this game is played out, including the airlines, the automobile industry, the freight-carrying rail lines, the truckers and the businesses that they serve, and the interstate highway system.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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Sam Wells Posted 4:32 am
07 Apr 2007
Then the invention of the motor vehicle and rubber tires changed everything. I don't usually track conspiracies but what many of the new crop of "robber barns" did was to buy up all the trolley systems and such, so as to put in vehicle and bus streets. The reason for doing so was because motorized vehicles made more money off the US citizens, although most heavy loads were still transported by ship and railroad.
You know the story, except in very urban areas such as the Northeast, passenger revenue fell completely through the floor. By the 1970's the Interstate Highway System was put together - and for an interesting reason, mainly for the military (e.g., 1 mile in 5 had to the straight enough to land a jet). During this time the federal government supported mostly highway construction and only begrudgingly continued the money-losing passenger train service ... which later became known as AMTRAK. Thus, the so-called "conspiracy" continued to work against any coordinated and sustainable passenger railroad system.
The history is fascinating and explains how over the past century, the same kind of "robber barons" who created the railroad system killed off its own passenger business so they could make millions off us dumb Americans. Funny how cruise liners and railroads are getting more interest today - it sounds like a conversation from the 1890's.
-sammie
Onward through the fog
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Laurence Aurbach Posted 5:34 am
07 Apr 2007
Metropolitan areas are made of counties. They are the counties that contain cities and large towns, and the adjacent counties that are within commuting distance. So metro areas can include a great deal of rural land. See for instance how much of North Carolina is classified as metro areas.
In my estimation, the majority of France would qualify as a metro area, if the US definition was applied. Here's a map from 1972 that illustrates the population distribution.
Relating this to the thread topic, eighty percent of Americans live in metro areas that are comparable to nations like France and Spain in terms of density and geographic feasibility for train service.
http://pedshed.net
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Delay And Deny Posted 7:47 am
07 Apr 2007
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_populat ...
US: 31 per sq. km
France: 110 per sq. km
The Texeme Construct offers international text memetics construction and textcasting services. http://www.you-read-it-here-first.com
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Delay And Deny Posted 7:51 am
07 Apr 2007
A train is a much more primitive technology than a car or a plane. A car is at least capable of two-dimensional movement. A plane is capable of 2+ dimensional movement ( some movement above the surface). A train is only capable of linear movement on its track.
It's track is specialized, it takes up land, it bisects terrain. A train presents an unnatural high speed vehicle that intersects with standard street and pedestrian traffic moving at 1/6th its speed.
A track requires maintenance, it is a single point of failure that can hold up all traffic on its route. You cannot "reroute" a train easily when it's trying to get to certain destinations.
The Texeme Construct offers international text memetics construction and textcasting services. http://www.you-read-it-here-first.com
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Sam Wells Posted 7:51 am
07 Apr 2007
Onward through the fog
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Ron Steenblik Posted 10:03 am
07 Apr 2007
Canis: Here is a photo of some (open-air) bike racks near the Amsterdam train station.
Jabailo: Yes, overall, the USA (especially if one counts Alaska) is less densely populated than France. Anybody can see that. What Laurence wrote was that the overall density of US metro areas, at 320 per square mile, is slightly higher than the average density of France (293 per square mile). Nobody here is arguing that commuter rails in Montana or the Dakotas would make economic sense.
And yes, of course, a train is less flexible than a car. (The same goes for point-to-point journeys by scheduled commercial airliner.) But many journeys do not require that flexibility. Indeed, most people around the world who commute by train enjoy at least one advantage over those who drive: they can do something else during that time -- like read a newspaper, or sleep, or write their next blog.
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Laurence Aurbach Posted 10:45 am
07 Apr 2007
It's all about market catchments and customer access.
When an airport is proposed, planners and market analysts will look at the regional population to determine if there are enough customers to warrant a new facility. They look at competing facilities nearby, demographics (i.e., are there lots of potential riders near the proposed site?) and ease of access via local and regional transportation facilities (for airports that usually means: Is there an Interstate highway close to the site?)
If the U.S. population was evenly distributed then trains would never work (and for that matter, neither would airports). Fortunately, 80 percent of the US population is concentrated in 20 percent of the US land area. Since the population density of that 20 percent is comparable to France or Spain, high speed train networks have the potential to as viable as the French or Spanish systems, at least in terms of customer access.
I agree with all of your points about having a coordinated, interlocking system of rail transport at local, regional, and national scales. That's very important. Right now, the US doesn't have the needed political structures to accomplish that. Metropolitan Planning Organizations would be the logical coordinating agencies, but even after the passage of ISTEA and SAFETEA, the MPOs remain relatively weak and focused on highways.
http://pedshed.net
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birdboy Posted 12:04 pm
07 Apr 2007
They could permeate the cities, allowing the conversion of city streets into green corridors, rich with life, quiet and safe.
a liberal in redsville
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Sam Wells Posted 1:45 pm
07 Apr 2007
I'd like to pursue the local-regional-national rail concept but in my experience, many of the universities doing rail research are funded by the American Association of Railroads, AAR. They are principally BNSF, UP, CSX, and folks like that. Note that AMTRAK is not really included and there is definitely a conflict of interest. The business of the AAR is to increase ton-miles and containerized movements, with some smattering of work on improving safety such as at railroad crossings and grades. It's not about moving PEOPLE.
And there's some really, really cool stuff out there like computerized rail yards and good manpower to back it up if the computers go down. I saw one dude working a train with a walkie-talkie and a joy stick, like wow. Push the joy stick forward, a little puff of some comes out of the engine and it starts slowly moving.
We need new track systems and ways to put them down, cheaply and miles at a time, while having the very highest construction standards.
Lastly, good point that rail is efficient, almost as good as riding a bicycle. You could probably put SUV's on a train and get better mileage than driving the darn car on the highway.
The big problem is that alas, most trains are slow. I mean slow as molasses. It was never that way in the past, in the heyday of railroading. Pennsylvannia Railroad and others had locomotives that could go pretty darned fast (don't get me lying, I have no idea of their speed records). But they were ALWAYS ON TIME. There was a saying you could set your clocks and pocket watches by when the train came through town.
But alas, as the rail system deteriorated and the slowest component always sets the pace, those old lumbering freight trains hung up the entire deal. Plus, if a unionized train crew completed their 8 hour shift, they'd just stop dead in the tracks and call a taxi and go home, tying up the whole line. That is why AMTRAK is never on-time, since it doesn't have dedicated tracks (much mileage outside the NE) and the coal and intermodal trains get first priority, then general frieght, then ...
sammie
Onward through the fog
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tico89 Posted 3:21 pm
07 Apr 2007
But, trains are useful, they're efficient, they can be very, very fast (over 500kph, anyone?), they're reasonably cheap. And they do a good job city-hopping or for commuting, where all you need is for them to follow a fixed path. Look at Canada. Not an awful lot of people take the train across the country, but from Toronto, for example, you can take a commuter train to the suburbs, you can take another train to cities around. And you can use the subway or streetcars inside the city.
Trains aren't going to knock off planes for long-distance journeys, any more than they're going to monopolise sea travel just because one train happens to be able to travel under a stretch of water. But what they can do is replace those pesky short-distance flights, that are causing so much of the problems. So, shouldn't this be about the positive impact of fixing up and reintroducing trains, not about how useless Amtrak are? Isn't that just defeatism?
OK, I'm off now.
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smoothsilk Posted 12:36 am
08 Apr 2007
Actually, most folks now feel that the military pretext for the interstate highway system was just that -- a pretext. (You've never really seen a military plane land on an interstate, have you? -- except maybe a rare emergency!) The real intent was to subsidize the petroleum and auto industries with the infrastructure they wanted to sell more of their stuff.
As an aside: huge investments into infrastracture that "private" companies and corporations use is often completely ignored by most of the free-market advocates, who mysteriously insist that every firm from General Motors to Exxon to Boeing to Wal-Mart etc. (just look up the Fortune 500) somehow made their mark through pure, self-reliant, "rugged individualism," when in reality they're the biggest welfare receipients in all of human history!
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amazingdrx Posted 2:15 am
08 Apr 2007
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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AlanfromBigEasy Posted 7:13 am
08 Apr 2007
Electrify Freight Railroads and shift half of truck ton-miles to rail (Tolls on interstates + no property taxes on RRs ROW just like trucks ?)
Build Out On-The-Shelf Urban Rail Plans
Lots of Electric Trolley Buses
Make Transportation Bicycling MUCH easier & safer
Add more rolling stock to existing Urban Rail Lines.
Note: Additional diesel Amtrak not required, minimal oil savings until RRs electrify (like NorthEast Corridor and Harrisburg-Philly).
Nest Hopes,
Alan
http://www.lightrailnow.org/features/f_lrt_2006-05a.htm
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AlanfromBigEasy Posted 7:15 am
08 Apr 2007
http://www.lightrailnow.org/features/f_lrt_2006-05a.htm
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spaceshaper Posted 9:31 am
08 Apr 2007
Sam W.: Long-distance train travel in the US was alive and well right up through the 1950's and died as a serious transportation option not because of a plot by automakers but because of the arrival of cheap airline tickets and long-haul jets. Six hours coast-to-coast versus three days? No contest. Not to be confused with the well-documented destruction of urban infrastructure such as the LA tramcar system by auto interests many years before.
MarkUK: 300+ miles per hour demands track which is not only very straight, very high-quality, and very well-maintained but which is also completely and securely fenced, with entirely separated-grade crossings. Hitting even a stray dog at that speed could be catastrophic, let alone a road vehicle. Most US track is totally insecure in this respect, to an extent that is perhaps unimaginable to a European rail user (I waited ten hours in Flagstaff, Arizona to board a train traveling from Chicago to Los Angeles that was delayed by a brush with a pickup truck in Missouri and with a cow somewhere in Kansas - not uncommon occurrences, but at fifty miles per hour, seldom disastrous. The train had also had to wait in Albuquerque for a second relief crew as the first had been waiting too long because of the earlier delays and had to be sent home in accordance with federal, not union, safety regulations). Quite apart from the financial costs of establishing such right-of-way security, the environmental impact on migratory megafauna of thousands upon thousands of miles of effective fences would likely be much worse than that posed by the physical presence of any of our current transportation infrastructure. I would also mention that having travelled on 100 mph TGV trains in France I cannot imagine the 300 mph version is a pleasant and relaxing experience.
Several commenters have mentioned the downtown-to-downtown connectivity of long-haul train systems as an advantage. This is only true if downtown is both your start point and your destination: a Manhattanite for example, who can get to Grand Central much more easily than to Kennedy, and whose destination might be downtown Philadelphia - hey, could that be the reason that route is still well-served and profitable? I am willing to bet this situation does not hold for most traveling Americans, most of the time however. The suburban airport is likely much more convenient of access from your suburban home or office than a train station in a congested downtown, and it has plenty of parking for your own vehicle as you leave and plenty of parking at the other end for the rental car in which you drive to your beltway convention hotel, your office park business meeting, or your vacation resort. This is not in any way to praise the present system which is clearly, we all accept, unsustainable in its energy use and overall environmental impact. But it is extremely easy and convenient to use for an average competent adult, and it does indicate the depth of the infrastructure upgrades needed in most American cities and metro areas to facilitate the claimed advantages of downtown to downtown rail connectivity. European models in this respect, sad to say, have limited value here.
On a related note, while I do not challenge Laurence Aurbach's overall population density numbers (Laurence, I deeply appreciate the sane good sense you bring to Grist on a regular basis) I would point out that while France is about the same size and shape as Texas and has just three times its population, it is likely to have very different travel patterns: because of cultural, social, family and language issues a much, much larger proportion of its citizens' traveling is done within its own boundaries. In France, attending a national business convention or a family holiday gathering usually means staying within that Texas-sized area, and thus very attainable at surface speeds. Texans traveling for similar purposes are as likely to be heading for Seattle, Miami or Chicago as for San Antonio or Austin. Consider that more than twenty million Americans consider it worth their while to fly to meet their loved ones at Thanksgiving, despite the miserable conditions at most airports and in most airplanes at that time of year.
As an aside - "mass transit" - I would be so happy if I never read or heard that phrase again as a way of referring to public transportation. Quite apart from its authoritarian connotations of regimented workers stuffed into metal containers to be passively moved from place to place (boy, doesn't that sound a lot like a commuter SUV on the interstate rolling stop-and-go alongside a hundred thousand others?), it fails to describe the full range of public transportation options which are and should be available, many of which are not "mass" at all (free loaner bikes, anyone?), at the same time as it fails to be sufficiently definitive of the environmentally desirable options. Air travel, except for the fortunate few in executive jets, is undeniably a form of mass transit.
In spite of the concerns I express above, I must also say that I have always enjoyed the sociability, variety and sheer scenic pleasure of long-distance train travel. I have lolloped along the upper reaches of the Mississippi at a pace slow enough to watch herons fishing and turtles sunbathing when track maintenance forced our Empire Builder (what a name for a train, does the chimp-in-chief know about this?) onto a low-speed freight track. We were three hours late to Chicago, but were happy nonetheless. Ah, the guilty little pleasures of Amtrak! Train routes take all the by-ways in and out of our cities and have few billboards and outlet malls to obscure the landscape. Is it too much to hope that with the soon-to-be changing economics of efficient energy use train travel will indeed return to prominence across the wonderful landscape of the US?
It also has to said that the great speed and relatively low cost of air travel enables greater frequency of travel, and thus multiplies the disproportionate environmental impact of flying. Flying the red-eye coast to coast for a cousin's wedding or a niece's graduation is something many of us would regard as a reasonable extravagance: would we be as eager if the journey cost a month's salary or took three days each way? And why do so many of my sentences end with a question?
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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Sam Wells Posted 12:11 pm
08 Apr 2007
This might sound strange, but I seem to detect a back-lash against flying on jets because of all the hassle and security and poor airline performance. I hate even going near an airport anymore, and I used to love to fly. I'll drive up to 8-12 hours now. But is there a train that could get me there as fast as my little car? Not here in Texas, at least, my little France (hehe).
And here's a good one for you Global Warming folks: burning jet fuel produces not only CO2 but water vapor which is the Numero Uno greenhouse gas, and the effect of high-altitude contrails are just now being understood. It is no coincidence that many European airlines have jumped on the IPCC credit bandwagon ... but the science does not seem to support such a massive invasion from one market sector that uses so much fuel. I have no idea what to think there as yet. /sammie
Onward through the fog
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apsmith Posted 12:33 pm
08 Apr 2007
A few links on our discussions and how to get in touch with us:
Draft 1
Summary of comments
review of S.294
Bruce McF's diary
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caniscandida Posted 9:38 pm
08 Apr 2007
On the eighth, yesterday, tico89 (1989 being his/her birth year? -- che miracolo!) expressed what I believe very well.
On the other hand, I am disappointed with Spaceshaper's analysis, comparing and contrasting flying with train-travel. Neither system is anywhere near ideal, at present. But as tico89 brilliantly said, it is defeatism to think that that is all we can hope for.
Sure, as SpaSha says, lots of people like to fly now. But I refuse to believe that train-travel, if it were made efficient, speedy and comfortable, would not be attractive to very many travelers.
Your Flagstaff anecdote, SpaSha, is analogous to all my Lamy anecdotes. We are talking about the exact same train line. All that amounts to is, Amtrak as it is, is not satisfactory. (God bless the poor cow.) It does not recognize that many people on the west-of-Chicago routes still use Amtrak. Nor does it recognize that many people would love a reformed Amtrak better than ever.
I have traveled a bit, on the "Empire Builder." Often, between Chicago and Montana; sometimes, within Montana. Nevermind the silly name. Always, happily.
The suggestion that suburban/extra-urban airports are somehow more convenient than urban train stations is simply crazy. What kind of traveler are we talking about, first of all? Sure, the kind with limousine waiting? The kind with family waiting? Even so, that always involves a long drive.
New York and vicinity are served by no less than three great airports. Still, it always takes a considerable bit of time, and//and/or significant expense, to negotiate one's paid local travel to one's destination, from South in Staten Island and the opposite NJ shore to Lower Upstate, from Long Island to anywhere in northern New Jersey.
I have no idea what your hypothetical suburban travelers are like. I have flown into and out of many North American airports, from Toronto and Vancouver down to Mexico City, and never found the transportation between airport and destination easy.
If many travelers like to do it that way, well, good for them. But I am sure a better way can be found. I am sure most of those travelers would be happy if a better way were found.
In fairness, we found the bus from the Mexico City airport to Cuernavaca to be convenient enough. And see, that involved a further, if short, ride from the bus station in Cuernavaca to our hotel: exactly the sort of transportation that would be typical, if transportation to train stations (and bus stations) were to become frequent and standard.
From what I have observed in Toronto, Vancouver, Minneapolis/Saint Paul, San Diego, Oakland, Mexico City, Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky, and all the NYC-vicinity airports, as well as Lisbon, Barcelona and Rome, and from everything I have heard from other travelers in North America and Europe, car service and taxis are what make this ridiculous system work. Everybody else, finding their way from airports to places of habitation, unable to afford car service or taxis, must suffer, sometimes very painfully.
Euclideanly, if the suburban/exurban circumference of any urban area approximates a circle of 360 degrees, and if an airport is located somewhere within that outer arc, then to suggest that the location of an airport somewhere out there on that circle is the most convenient location for an inter-city transportation center, is crazy.
We must consider ancient Greek geometry. And we must consider people who cannot afford taxis. How nice, if inter-urban transport could eliminate such complications!
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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spaceshaper Posted 1:31 pm
09 Apr 2007
Train travel used to be efficient, speedy and comfortable. But it could not compete with the 10X speedier long-haul jet.
"It does not recognize that many people on the west-of-Chicago routes still use Amtrak."
I know how full the trains are. One reason I have not taken an Amtrak train in several years is how far ahead you have to book.
"The suggestion that suburban/extra-urban airports are somehow more convenient than urban train stations is simply crazy."
We all tend to speak from our own experience. I already acknowledged that Manhattanites have their own perspective. Here in central North Carolina, RDU airport is no more than thirty minutes by car or shuttle for a million and more people in the metro area. For all but about 50,000 of them that's considerably more convenient of access than Raleigh's downtown Amtrak location. There is bus service from Chapel Hill to Raleigh, but it does not serve the train station. The airport is ten minutes or less from the the major institutions headquartered in Research Triangle Park - Glaxo Smith Kline, the EPA, etc. - which is why they are there. I don't endorse the land use and public transportation policies that make this a fact, but a fact is what it is. Similar facts are self-evident in most large American conurbations that have seen their major development in the last fifty years.
"If many travelers like to do it that way, well, good for them. But I am sure a better way can be found. I am sure most of those travelers would be happy if a better way were found."
Agreed.
"..car service and taxis are what make this ridiculous system work. Everybody else, finding their way from airports to places of habitation, unable to afford car service or taxis, must suffer, sometimes very painfully."
To travel is mostly an elective action which costs money. As a proportion of the cost of air or train tickets, those peripheral costs are generally minor.
"Euclideanly, if the suburban/exurban circumference of any urban area approximates a circle of 360 degrees, and if an airport is located somewhere within that outer arc, then to suggest that the location of an airport somewhere out there on that circle is the most convenient location for an inter-city transportation center, is crazy."
We are no longer mostly city dwellers. In the last half-century we have become a nation of suburbanites, with transportation hubs to match. Cities have spread to touch other cities, and airports have become established at their intersections: Baltimore/Washington; Dallas/Fort Worth; Minneapolis/St. Paul. The geometry is not as it was.
Travel is in many ways the ideal consumer product: it is a market that is almost impossible to saturate. Air travel has lowered the threshold for burning oil in huge amounts, with all the environmental damage which that entails, by reducing the cost and the amount of time it takes to cover immense distances. When I lived in England thirty years ago it took more than a day to travel from London to Rome by train, while flying was much too expensive to contemplate. Having made that long trip, you tended to stay a while. All that has changed. Now, my British friends fly to Venice for the weekend. I love to travel by any means, including the amazing privilege of air travel. I always hope to get a window seat. But if Kunstler is right, and we live to see long-distance air travel become infrequent and costly once more, I will not complain.
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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JMG Posted 3:41 pm
09 Apr 2007
Amtrak doesn't get a "subsidy" any more than the Department of "Defense" or the Census Bureau or any other government program does.
In contrast to government spending on governmental programs we have government spending to prop up profit seeking entities--airlines, to consider only one.
For example, cities all over America tax their residents to give the money to an airport authority, which provides commercial airlines with a true subsidy--government spending that provides no services to the public, but instead allows a private corporation to profit for providing those services.
There is much to say about trains and why they get so little support and why we're willing to spend billions of government money to attempt to prop up the worlds most energy-intensive and destructive way of getting around, automobility.
Anyone interested in trying to get better trains that work better for people might be interested in the National Assn. of Rail Passengers (http://www.narp.org).
"An optimist is someone who thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. A pessimist is someone who is afraid that the optimist is right."
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caniscandida Posted 4:53 pm
09 Apr 2007
<<
We are no longer mostly city dwellers. In the last half-century we have become a nation of suburbanites, with transportation hubs to match. Cities have spread to touch other cities, and airports have become established at their intersections: Baltimore/Washington; Dallas/Fort Worth; Minneapolis/St. Paul. The geometry is not as it was.
>>
Yes, I believe all that.
Dallas/Fort Worth now have must-see museums, collections and installations. Funny, though: for us in the Northeast, considering Texas as a destination is something of a grave moral failing.
Not beyond forgiveness, though, thank God, good God, whose Son bled and died on the Cross.
I did indeed fly into the Minneapolis/Saint Paul airport, to be present at the wedding of a student. I HATED the cab travel between the airport and the downtownish hotel where we were put up, and back again.
I hated also the prickly conversation, with cute guys at the huge sort-of-sports bar, clearly pick-up bar.
Anyway, just as well, that I had enough senses about me, post quite a few cases of very good wedding-quality champagne, to drive a number of close relatives of the bride, back to our hotel, through the winding ways of a city that I had never ever been in my life.
We got there! Harmless! Baruch ha-Adonai! And the auto-rental people knew nothing ....
(Kids, don't try this at home!!!)
How I wish I could have picked up somebody from that college bar! (Presumably, they would have enjoyed it immensely, though it might have been hard to interpret ... )
And, how I wish I could have traveled home by train! (Presumably that young Minnesotan student would have adjusted, after a bit ... )
Est-ce-que vous m'entendez?
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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Ron Steenblik Posted 5:41 pm
09 Apr 2007
In any case, Amtrak is engaged in a business, just like any other transport business. There may be fewer externalities associated with riding Amtrak than taking an airplane, and there may be legitimate social reasons to subsidize certain transport routes. But one could equally argue that there is a public good element to roads and other transport infrastructure. Whether the value of the public good in each case equates with the subsidies provided is the question.
Defending the current Amtrak subsidy says nothing about its cost effectiveness. One could imagine a better, more-efficient passenger rail service returning to the United States some day, but it probably won't happen simply by marginally turning the tap on (out-of-shape) Amtrak's life-support system.
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JMG Posted 6:35 pm
09 Apr 2007
I don't know what dictionary you are looking at, but elementary logic says that one cannot subsidize one's own activities. If I buy groceries, have I "subsidized" grocers? If I buy internet service, have I subsidized them? No, I have purchased them to benefit myself.
Same with a passenger rail system--government spends money to provide the nation with a passenger rail system (after having spent far more to destroy the prior privately owner passenger rail systems through subsidies to highways and aviation).
It is vital, to think clearly, to maintain clear distinctions among different kinds of government expenditures
(a) government spending to provide public goods via government;
(b) government spending to provide goods and services used by government to provide public good;
(c) government spending to subsidize a private business (by allowing that business to reduce the apparent cost of the goods or service to the consumer).
In type (a), the government pays the entire price and may or may not charge those using the service a portion of the cost. The Army, Navy, Coast Guard, National Institutes of Health, AMTRAK, the FBI, the Postal Service, and the Department of Interior all fall into this category.
All of these functions are funded through taxes. As a matter of legislative choice, we collect money from users of park lands, range lands, mining lands, and rail passengers. We don't have to--we could simply make all those fully tax supported, like the Army, Navy, and FBI.
In type (b), we have the many situations in which government chooses not to provide the services via government employees but, instead, to purchase them or contract for them with private entities. Many of these are invisible "back office" functions (accounting, engineering, design, data processing, etc.).
In type (c), we have true subsidies--public funds spent that neither directly nor indirectly provide public goods (types (a) and (b), respectively).
Instead, this type (c) spending is spending public dollars to benefit non-governmental entities in order to reduce the cost that these private entities charge to the ultimate consumer for the subsidized goods or services.
For example, tax credits for biofuels are a real, type (c) subsidy--the government neither provides nor purchases the biofuels; instead it funnels public funds to private entities in order to reduce the cost of biofuels, to encourage their use.
If you want to argue that all government spending is a subsidy (which appears to be what you're saying) then we lose this important conceptual distinction and there'd be no point to the lengthy discussions about subsidies on this site.
(Do you feel that the government, as the right would have it, "subsidizes" public schools by providing schools for free public education? If so, who is the beneficiary of the subsidy?)
"An optimist is someone who thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. A pessimist is someone who is afraid that the optimist is right."
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Ron Steenblik Posted 8:47 pm
09 Apr 2007
For the purpose of this Agreement, a subsidy shall be deemed to exist if:
(a)(1) there is a financial contribution by a government or any public body within the territory of a Member (referred to in this Agreement as "government"), i.e. where:
...
(iii) a government provides goods or services other than general infrastructure, or purchases goods;
...
and
(b) a benefit is thereby conferred.
Thus, if the government pays over-generously for a good or service (which happens frequently, and has been alleged in the case of some contracts with aircraft manufacturers) -- i.e., a benefit is thereby conferred -- there may be an element of subsidy involved.
So, no, when you buy groceries you are not subsidizing the grocer: you are engaging in a market transaction.
The ASCM (and some economic definitions) do not include government expenditure on infrastructure in their definition of a subsidy. (Some do, as when many environmental groups say that the government is subsidizing roads.) In the case of the Amtrak subsidy, however, the government is largely subsidizing shortfalls in operating costs, not infrastructure. With that money it is not purchasing, say, travel for its employees (which comes out of a different account). The German government does that when it subsidizes its hard-coal industry, which would cease to exist without the subsidies. Would anybody consider that "government procurement"?
Is the service that Amtrak provides a public good like national defense? No. Strictly speaking, a public good is defined by two criteria: non-rivalness and non-excludability. Neither applies to train travel. That is to say, conductors can certainly exclude non-paying customers from using the service, and limited seating means that the consumption of the service by one individual does reduce the amount of the good available for consumption by others. The option to take a train may be a merit good (that is, one that society has decided collectively is intrinsically desirable), but that is not the same thing.
All this is not to say there may not be good reasons to subsidize some passenger rail services, and for governments to invest in improving the infrastructure. But to label all of what a passenger rail service provides a public good and imply that any subsidy in its name is justifiable (which is not what I think you are saying, JMG) is to avoid the hard question that remains: how valuable is maintaining a viable national passenger rail service, and what is the most cost-effective way of obtaining it?
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Tom Philpott Posted 10:31 pm
09 Apr 2007
You write that:
Defending the current Amtrak subsidy says nothing about its cost effectiveness. One could imagine a better, more-efficient passenger rail service returning to the United States some day, but it probably won't happen simply by marginally turning the tap on (out-of-shape) Amtrak's life-support system.
Why is Amtrak so lame? My understanding is that, after decades of disinvestment in trains, and hundreds of billions (trillions?) in public car-infrastructure investment (ie, roads), to speak nothing of the cascades in subsidies to liquid fuels (gas and ethanol), we now have a situation wherein driving is very much the path of least resistance. In this context, it's hardly surprising that consumers overwhelmingly prefer cars. But it's a myth that consumer preference created the situation--more likely, a series of decisions to withdraw funding from trains and direct them to cars did.
Given that history, is Amtrak, with its modest $1 billion or so annual federal budget (a fraction of what corn farmers get in a bad year; has GSI ever calculated the annual subsidies that prop up car use in the US?), really so bad?
The question isn't rhetorical. I've heard a lot of people talk about how bad Amtrak is, and I'm wondering if there's something within its institutional culture that I'm nor aware of, or if it's just the victim of a society who's leaders have chosen to spend lavishly on a rival transportation mode.
Victual Reality
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caniscandida Posted 10:45 pm
09 Apr 2007
While it may apply well enough to train service in the US, as it is, that is unfortunate, and that ought not to be considered the acceptable standard.
I remember many Thanksgiving-time and Christmas-time trips, having to stand, between cars. I remember one Christmas-time trip in which a ceramic gift was broken, on account of the miserable conditions of my train trip.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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Ron Steenblik Posted 10:59 pm
09 Apr 2007
My gut feeling -- but it is only that -- is that a dollar (carefully) spent on improving passenger rail transport in the USA would probably yield greater benefits (in terms of reduced oil consumption, congestion, air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions) than on, say, producing corn-based ethanol. But getting the incentive structure right, and introducing a dose of competition for whatever subsidy is on offer, is as or more important than the issue of how much the government should spend.
Those who are fed up with the perpetual limbo in which Amtrak has been maintained -- I do think the i.v.-drip analogy is apt -- have a point. Amtrak's current funding situation reflects more of a political compromise than any long-term, clearly articulated plan.
There are good, dedicated people working for Amtrak. And some things they have done very well. Their over-the-telephone automated reservation service, for one, is superb, and very user-friendly. But who could blame some of Amtrak's employees for feeling demotivated?
The United States needs a good debate on the future of its passenger rail service, one that is willing to learn from other countries' experiences.
I think we have the start of such a debate here on Grist. And for that I thank JMG.
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JMG Posted 1:56 am
10 Apr 2007
I think a more accurate view would include the benefits that Amtrak provides to non-riders. Off the top of my head:
(A) in congested corridors, losing Amtrak would cripple the highway systems even further;
(B) nationally, Amtrak provides a far more carbon efficient mode of long-distance transport, helping contribute to greenhouse gas reductions vis a vis other choices;
(C) Even with its dirty diesels, replacing Amtrak commuter runs with cars means a net loss in air-quality to people living in central cities;
(D) if cities had to build the roadway infrastructure to serve all those who can commute and do business travel by rail, cities would require even more parking and roadways, further promoting the carchitecture death spiral (the more cities do to make themselves auto-friendly, the fewer people want to live in them);
(E) Amtrak helps fund track upkeep and repair: maintaining this infrastructure benefits everyone, because it serves to provide an alternative to highway shipping; further, it provides the most efficient means of evacuation from cities--if our rail system wasn't so decrepit, New Orleans, well served by rail, could have been entirely evacuated and the human cost of Katrina could have been dramatically reduced;
(F) by continuing to operate, Amtrak provides a clear, low cost path forward for electric rail, which will be essential to living in a higher-efficiency, lower-carbon world.
Those are all benefits that accrue to everyone in America, not just rail passengers.
Besides, the whole premise of your argument is that there is a "transfer" to Amtrak: ("I would still regard the Federal Government's annual transfer to Amtrak a subsidy.") You haven't addressed how the government can transfer money to itself. The government keeps a complex set of accounts and transfers money from one to another all the time. But it's still the government. And Amtrak has governmental immunity; when it is sued, it is only where Congress has chosen to waive that immunity. So we know there's no private actor here to receive the subsidy--it's the same government on both sides.
Moreover, your (apparently preferred) definition of a subsidy from WTO says "other than general infrastructure"--I think that, after bridges, rail is perhaps the archetype of "general infrastructure."
Further, if you say that rail passenger service is not a public good because it fails your "non-rivalness and non-excludability" criteria ("conductors can certainly exclude non-paying customers from using the service, and limited seating means that the consumption of the service by one individual does reduce the amount of the good available for consumption by others") then you just said that all roadways and especially highways are not public goods.
That is, yes, to travel by rail, one must purchase a ticket, and yes, there is an all-too-limited supply of rail travel options in this country. However, try using the highways without purchasing a vehicle that costs, on average $0.55/mile to own and operate (AAA). And as people sitting in traffic from coast to coast can tell you, your decision to use the highways has a huge negative influence on the ability of others to do so.
Your subsidy definition more accurately describes the benefit conferred on all the businesses who depend on highway trucking (and which does far more damage to the roads, to the air, to the climate than it even begins to pay for) than it does to rail passenger service. There are no "free riders" enjoying rail travel (except for all those benefits listed above, which are settled on everyone regardless of whether the ride trains), but there are LOTS of private businesses who do far more to destroy the highways (and the climate, and the quality of life for their neighbors) and who pay much less than the costs they impose on others--the classic free rider issue.
So, yes, Amtrak is a public good, even under WTO definitions.
(Although, to digress a moment, why we should care about how the WTO defines things is not clear. Bring agreements like NAFTA to Congress and get a 2/3 Senate approval and you've got the supreme law of the land, right up there with federal law and the Constitution. Keep avoiding Congress and trying to define them as simply "agreements" rather than treaties and all you've got is a sign that the corporations have taken over your government.)
Contrast moneys spent on Amtrak with all the billions shovelled into airlines (and diverted into the executives' pockets) over the years, especially after 9/11. (I recently read that we gave the supposedly profit seeking airlines more, gratis, after 9/11 than we've given Amtrak since its creation; and I read a long time ago that, on the whole, the airlines have NEVER been profitable on a sustained basis, and that only the military side keeps the commercial side functioning. For example, the Pentagon recently signed an $11 million deal with a Michigan air frieght service to bring home caskets from W's oil wars--wonder what the markup is on that?)
"An optimist is someone who thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. A pessimist is someone who is afraid that the optimist is right."
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Ron Steenblik Posted 2:56 am
10 Apr 2007
Decidedly, it is inaccurate to assert that Amtrak is a public good. Rather, there may be some benefits associated with Amtrak that have the characteristics of a public good. Most of these result from avoided congestion and emissions -- though no train is emission-free until all trains are electric and all electricity is emission-free -- which vary by time and place. As with biofuels or any other transport "solution", those reductions are amenable to metrics that compare the cost of particulate matter or CO2 avoided among different options. (Have I run those calculations for Amtrak? No.)
I think you are stretching to suggest that rail carriages would have provided the most efficient means of evacuating people from New Orleans. First, getting the population of the city to the central station would have been no mean feat (and think of the crowd control challenge). Say you could fit 100 people per carriage, 10 carriages per train. That is 1,000 people. How long would it have taken to shunt 1,200 trains in an out while you load 1.2 million passengers? Trains can help, but surely buses starting out from decentralized locations would be more efficient.
(Again, don't get me wrong, I am not arguing against trains!)
Finally, you say "by continuing to operate, Amtrak provides a clear, low cost path forward for electric rail, which will be essential to living in a higher-efficiency, lower-carbon world." Electric trains operate mainly in the north-east corridor, right? In any case, there are plenty of other train lines elsewhere in the world that can serve as good examples. (Again, that is not an argument for abandoning Amtrak!)
A footnote: Yes, a Government can subsidize itself. Amtrak is a state-owned enterprise, not a government department, and it is nominally run as a business -- a business that would be contestable if the Government were serious about encouraging restoration of a world-class passenger rail service in the USA -- which is something that I think we would both like to see.
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JMG Posted 3:30 am
10 Apr 2007
So, yes, I think you are (intentionally or unintentionally) arguing against Amtrak. I can't help but see spreading the meme used to help destroy Amtrak and adopting the language of rail opponents as destructive.
As Lakoff and many others have noted, once you accept the language frame of the right, you lose no matter what. "Subsidy" is a demonized word in public discourse, just like "welfare" became demonized.
"An optimist is someone who thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. A pessimist is someone who is afraid that the optimist is right."
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spaceshaper Posted 4:35 am
10 Apr 2007
<<"Subsidy" is a demonized word in public discourse, just like "welfare" became demonized.>>
I understand the thinking but I believe that it is a grave mistake to abandon good, useful words simply because they have been misused for political purposes. I think Ron is right on this one, the funds given by government to Amtrak are without doubt a subsidy, and must be defensible as such in terms of public benefit. The case has been offered that such a subsidy is indeed in the public interest and those who believe it has been well made must be prepared to stand up and speak for it, not cower in a corner or try to dress it up in other language. If it is true that "subsidy" has been demonized then it is necessary to undemonize the word, not abandon it. The appropriate allocation of subsidy, by a process which like all public expenditure must be subject to honest scrutiny, is a legitimate function of government.
Politicians without conscience have throughout history have done their best to manipulate the language for their own purposes, and the neocons have set a new low bar for shamelessly distorting the parameters of public discourse. If we allow this behavior to go unchallenged we have already lost not only this battle but a thousand other besides.
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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Ron Steenblik Posted 4:53 am
10 Apr 2007
"Operating subsidy" is a common and accepted term in transport economics. In plenty of other areas of discourse, and languages, "subsidy" is not pejorative. And an interest in debating the cost-effectiveness of subsidies does not imply that the person has taken a position that government-provided goods and services necessarily create unfair distortions.
One more time, I am not arguing against spending public money on passenger rail service. (See my first post in this string, or the GSI's page on transport.) Does that mean, however, that questioning the way that public money is currently being spent on Amtrak should be off limits? Does engaging in such a discussion rule out the possibility that increasing public expenditure on passenger rail might nonetheless be worthwhile?
I thought we had a good discussion going. (50 comments at last count!) Arguments in defense of rail need to be sharp if the interests arrayed against better passenger rail service are to be engaged effectively.
Let's come back to your original posting, which, quoting Dean Baker, lamented the fact that
rebuilding the country's train system is a topic that is strictly verboten on Capitol Hill
If that is a bad thing, I would maintain, then so is stifling a discussion on the future of Amtrak. I shall bow out of with a quote from somebody whose credentials, I hope, are suitably progressive: Paul Weinstein Jr.
Amtrak has struggled to hold together its network with minimal public investment, constant political interference from 535 congressional micromanagers, and an aging infrastructure that hinders improvements in service. But the system is still failing, and it's time for an overhaul.
The good news is that Amtrak succeeded in saving passenger rail in America. But the company's political survival skills have also become its greatest liability. Faced with an aging infrastructure of old cars, bumpy tracks, and rundown stations, Amtrak continues to run trains through as many states (and congressional districts) as possible, supporting a passenger rail system based on the economic and transportation needs of the 1940s -- and the politics of the 1980s and 1990s. If we are truly to have a state-of-the-art passenger rail system, we need to bid farewell to Amtrak and begin the process of modernizing our rail system in densely populated corridors.
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