Sustainability Blog
Western Rail Network Key to Regional Sustainability
Just so all the Harvard folks are clear: yes - there are people out west.By Chris Blanchard, 9-17-09
According to his bio, “Ed Glaeser is the Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics at Harvard, where he also serves as Director of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government and the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston. He studies the economics of cities, and has written scores of urban issues, including the growth of cities, segregation, crime, and housing markets. He has been particularly interested in the role that geographic proximity can play in creating knowledge and innovation. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1992 and has been at Harvard since then.” An obviously brilliant and esteemed urban economist, you’ll see why I find his article “Put Transit Where the People Are” so bizarre. From the article:
MASS TRANSIT needs mass to work: enough people must live and work near train stations and bus stops. Densely populated Eastern Massachusetts should therefore be a prime location for public transportation. . . Despite the difficulties trains face in urban Boston, the Obama administration is pushing a new transportation agenda that promises high-speed rail in unlikely spots like Alabama and Oklahoma.
Dr. Glaeser continues:
So far the Obama administration’s transportation spending has gone overwhelmingly to highways in states with plenty of roads relative to people. Per capita federal transportation spending in the 10 densest states, which include Massachusetts, is less than half of spending in the 10 least-dense states. This policy follows an established formula, but it makes little sense. Congestion problems are most severe in the dense areas that get less funding.
Ok - that sounds plausible. Cities that are denser should get more funding. But here he comes again with his misreading of the west:
Now the administration wants Americans to envision high-speed rail lines in the wide-open spaces of Texas.
Ok. So I think we get it. He is convinced that there is no one in the west, and that there isn’t sufficient density in the west to build rail. That’s his first argument. So let’s dissect that.
Unless legendary urban historian Carl Abbott is wrong, here is the reality: the west is plenty dense. In his latest book, How Cities Won the West: Four Centuries of Urban Change in Western North America, Abbott writes:
Densities of western cities are surprisingly high. It remains surprising to many people that Los Angeles is more densely populated than Detroit, Cleveland, or Pittsburgh. There were forty-nine metro areas in the United States with one million or more people in 2000. Ten of the twelve most densely populated were western - Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Phoenix, Sacramento, Seattle, Portland, San Antonio, and Salt Lake City. Pg 229-230.
So we’ve busted Harvard/East Coast myth number one. But then there’s Glaeser’s contention that cars and planes are preferred over public transportation choices out west. Glaeser writes:
There is a reason why 48 percent of Amtrak’s passengers travel on only two routes: the Northeast Corridor and the Los Angeles-San Diego line. For travelers in the less-dense areas between the coasts, cars beat trains for modest distances and planes win over long hauls.
Glaeser of course leaves out the fact that many Amtrak lines in the west aren’t in operation any longer (could this be a reason the other lines get all the traffic?). A particular noteworthy example is the Pioneer Line that formerly connected Seattle, through Portland, Boise, Salt Lake, Denver, Omaha, and Chicago. So the issue of the availability of western rail lines aside, Carl Abbott once again enlightens us on the transportation preferences issue:
Sacramento, Los Angeles, Denver, Dallas, Salt Lake City, and Phoenix built more limited rail systems after 1990, although some of them continue to expand (as in Denver and Phoenix). One consequence is that four cities of the western U.S. ranked in the nation’s top ten for percentage of journey-to-work trips made by public transit, with San Francisco/Oakland comparable to Washington D.C., Honolulu comparable to Philadelphia, and Seattle and Portland comparable to Pittsburgh. pg 225
So I think we’ve scuttled that argument. Funny, though, Glaeser wasn’t the only Harvard guy recently to write such an article. Robert Samuelson wrote one very similar not long after, decrying the proposed building of a rail corridor from Houston to New Orleans where no one lives (Houston is the fourth largest city in the United States, and the “Texas Triangle” of Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio accounts for 7% of U.S. GDP). But recall that only a minuscule percentage of Harvard grads ever take jobs out west,But just so all the Harvard folks are clear: yes - there are people out west. so perhaps these fellas have never been out here amongst the cowboys, Indians, and sagebrush.
There are so many issues one could cover here. Glaeser admits that more spending won’t relieve congestion in the Eastern corridors, yet calls for more spending in those corridors. Samuelson also claims that there is no economic gain to be had from building rail which is completely unbelievable because U.S. history since the 1850’s cannot even be understood without contemplating the development of the railroad.
Glaeser also ignores other issues such as long term competitiveness and sustainability. No matter what you believe about “peak oil” prudent planning has to take into account the political turmoil surrounding oil, rising prices, and seemingly decreasing supplies. We also have to take into account crowded west coast ports that cannot get goods moved efficiently enough on over burdened highway networks. Those are just a couple of the reasons why an improved rail network all across the U.S. makes sense.
But just so all the Harvard folks are clear: yes - there are people out west. Really. To close with a last fact from Carl Abbott:
In the 2000 census of the United States, western metropolitan areas took eight of the top twenty slots. These eight super-cities - Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay metropolis, Dallas/Fort Worth, Houston, Seattle, Phoenix, San Antonio and Denver - all had more than two million residents. pg 9
And that, my dear Harvard friends, is like your own motto says, “veritas.”
For more information on proposed improvements to the Trans-American rail network visit http://america2050.org
Chris Blanchard is a Ph.D. student in the acclaimed urban studies program at Portland State University where his research focuses on urban planning and economic development.
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Portland is not the West. It's the coast.
It's clear to me you haven't worked for the railroad, which is normally pretty helpful in understanding the game.
If you look at your urban clusters, with the exception of Texas and perhaps Seattle/Portland, all are separated by roughly a 500 to 1000 mile gap of flyover, a full-day trip in all cases, most of which in turn are jump-jet rides, sardine syndrome and TSA notwithstanding.
There are factors of time-value at work here, which you should understand if you are getting a PhD that has anything to do with economics. For example, back east the highways are jammed with trucks. Out west, the trailers and boxes go intermodal because the time lost is made up by crew savings...or is actually better on, say, the ATSF LA/Chicago or CHI/PDX on UP or BNSF. Why? Haul radius and potential routings.
In a smaller sense, flying out of Montana nutshells the issue. I can take the streamliner to Portland overnight, grab the trolley and save a zillion dollars flying out of PDX, the time value for me works. AND I get better connections. But when the streamliner falls down on the schedule (the Pioneer was notorious for that, back in the day) then I am utterly, utterly hosed, stuck in Portland with a stack of blown flights. As much as I like and prefer trains, I am not interested in that outcome...and it almost happened the last time. Cost me 28 bucks to grab a cab from Van Junction and I just barely made it.
Let me know if you want me to rip into public transit and the demographics of that.
Cross country rail has to be the answer. It costs too much to build airfields in podunk towns. If we ever wish to compete again with Europe--or even Asia, we're going to have to rebuild the rails.
I am of course not factoring in a revolution or a major pandemic...
You are the delusional one. The rails do not need to be "brought back." In fact, new rails are being built, example being the Santa Fe main line...triple tracks on Cajon, and a double tracking of the bottleneck at Abo Canyon to be completed in about a year. Then there is Norfolk and Western's clearance project on their main line so they can take on double-stack traffic.
As for airline services back to the sticks, I never said that, but as usual you delude yourself into thinking I did so you can take another snot shot from under your mushroom cap. Air service to the boonies is being subsidized already, because the simple economics of passenger miles and seat miles and lift do not work, period. The density of the passenger base is just too low and the hauls too long.
The old CAB regulated air travel in a way that airlines were forced to subsidize loser routes with high, regulated rates on the more-lucrative runs. Reagan changed that, and it was beneficial to hundreds of millions while millions in flyOVER country got screwed -- or at least got kicked off the gravy plane.
So, back to the topic...Chris's point is encouraging transit. The lowest cost service is, guess what, bus service, not rail. The entry costs are comparatively low and so are the seat-unit costs, PLUS the routings are orders of magnitude more flexible.
But of course, buses, no matter how nice, are pretty darn low on my personal list of preferences. I see them as adventures in anthropology.
I mean, that's a GREAT train ride, not just up the front range to Winter Park but up around the Volcano loop into Toponas, but when someone has seven days for a SKI vacation, they'll fly and get seven days, not take a train for two to get five.
Railroad management opposes transit because it interferes with the more profitable freight carrying by interposing passenger carrying traffic. Capitalism insists on maximizing profit and skinner is nothing if not a capitalist.
European transportion is not so profitable as our domestic system because profitable freight traffic has never been allowed to shunt aside convenience for the larger masses of homo sapiens.
http://www.america2050.org/2009/09/where-high-speed-rail-works-best.html
I'm going to have to come back at you and say that Crapo is just pandering. The Pioneer had a terrible schedule (like in Boise at 3 AM or something) and also had weather issues at certain times of the year that made timekeeping just rotten. With Amtrak's equipment shortages, there's no spares sitting at either Denver or Omaha or Portland. I know that from experience with the not-so-trusty Empire Builder.
So will Idaho, Oregon and Wyoming throw down money for new equipment? And pay the crews? And the track time? Never mind California probably can't afford anything itself any time soon, not with their impractical profligacy.
JR, once again thou spoutest nonsense. Euro trains have never been profitable. In fact, fuel is taxed ridiculously high because subsidies for the passenger service had to come from somewhere, and that's it. So Euros drive for fun on Sunday, paying through the nose for the joy, and the rest of the week they take the train.
That, amazingly enough, is probably a practical outcome for Europe. Capitalist or socialist, it is, in fact, the lowest-cost option, but clearly you lack the intellect or logic to consider that even a socialist eco-utopia has costs that need to be paid somehow. Even the good comrades in the CCCP had to pretend to pay their workers and Putin doesn't take pretend money for his Caspian oil.
As for freight, again JR, you are clueless. Haul distances, drayage issues, and the inherent problem of tiny clearances and a stupid coupler setup that makes switching cars of any kind really inefficient has pushed a lot of Eurofreight onto the road network, which is actually the "best" option for flexible shipment of individual products to smaller recipients.
Never mind that entire countries in Europe, with separate rail systems, are smaller than many American states. Why d'ya think the EU has been implemented?
There are lots of trucks on Euroways during the week while the proletariat take the train...or at night when the proles are home.
The reason this nation has no railroad systems similar to Europe's was the Automobile and petroleum lobbies' success at the end of WWII.
Great fortunes and traffic jams increased as a result of Eisenhower's interstate project. So were dead zones in inner cities as residents escaped by automobile to bedroom communities farther and farther from city centers.
Capitalism has given us immense rewards; but unforeseen results
have not been entirely solveable--mainly because easy profits were elsewhere.
Now I'm hearing rightwingers saying if you don't believe in trashing the environment you should stop driving your car, stop eating meat, or wearing shoes.
It has progressed so far that an anti-intellectual can say if you're against global warming your should stop breathing.
What fools there are among us!
You aren't much better in "contributing." Apparently you are interested only in "discussing" matters with those who agree completely with your party line -- and guess which party. For those who aren't brainwashed yet, then all we get is cheezy personal attacks on intellect or whatever.
By the way, the Statist had a story on the new Pioneer and the numbers are pretty bad. 350 mil or so in up front (which is said to be safety upgrades, but UP is in the best shape ever) costs and 25 million in annual subsidy. And how much "global warming" would be prevented by it? Not 25 million a year worth, I bet.
Let's face it, there are folks in this world that don't have the patience or intellect to actually use cogent arguments to have the "other side" come around. No, let's just shut up the other side and force THEM to change to do the things WE "believe" are CORRECT.
Guess what, dude? Believe all you want, but by gosh, I want to know. There's a difference.
"I disagree with what you just said" is a phrase that merits memorization. Use it.
Another important consideration almost wholly ignored is the relationship between solar activity, both the short and long term cycles, on the planets climate. And I meant "planets" in the plural. One should note how the ice caps on Mars shrunk considerably during this last solar cycle, and last time I studied the matter, carbon emissions on Mars were at an all-time low. Therefore, unless our solar/battery powered Rovers caused "anthropogenic warming" on Mars, the cause of the warming was the sun. You know, the little star that warms our days.
Funny too how "Global Warming" has had a new moniker given it - "Climate Change". There is no "Global Warming" anymore - there's "Climate Change". "Be afraid. Be very afraid." Particularly since that dreaded "Climate Change" happens all the time.
See, there was a problem that kept coming up. An "inconvenient" set of data kept pouring in. None of the "warming models" has panned out as predicted. Worse, some years just wouldn't heat up the way the proponents of anthropogenic hot air insist they should have. Well, "Global Warming" wasn't going to cut it. How can you maintain the proper level of hysteria when it's snowing? Hell, just change the name so that when it's cold and snowing we can blame that on human activity as well.
"Wild swings in the weather are anthropogenic in origin", even if for decades we've all said, "If you don't like the weather wait five minutes." That's the definition of "wild swings" if you ask me.
What a name - "Climate Change." It's like spandex. It's the perfect "One size fits all" hysteria!
As an aside and not wanting to be a real mean fellow here, but another circumstance to consider is why the silver-spooned Mr. Gore, the Gore of both movie and political fame as well as sprawling mansion owner and nice humble second digs scattered around the country is so intent on making money of this so-called "warming" by marketing "Carbon Credits". You know the deal. Real wealthy corporate pieces of dung selling pollution and making boatloads of cash off it.
Motive. Method. Opportunity. "Follow the money." "Climate Change" ain't just small change...
And Jill, "I disagree with what you just said". (Just kidding...)
"Civility" is not the issue. Anonymous trollery is, and you know it. I have no problem with certain parties critiquing my wardrobe, or dredging the depths of Google for whatever rhetorical "gold" or muck they may find. All's fair in political joustery.
But look at this discussion. Mickey Garcia is apparently a real warm body in Sun Valley (poor guy, the skiing is way better here) but Mike and JR are noms de slagge. And when I jumped at Chris for his premise, he responded well and I had a fine time with that report.
GW, MK, GH, and any number of name regulars here almost never agree with my faction, nor mine theirs, and that's fine. We "know" each other and pretty much stick to the "rules." In fact, we sometimes look each other up and have sidebar discussions. And rather civil discussions, at that.
I would suggest that New West figure out some way to scrape off the anonymous posters...the tone of the discussion would rather quickly improve as respondents realize they will be held accountable somehow for their public pronouncements, personal character defamations, and other "uncivil" whatnottery.
It is not the anonymity that is the problem here. It's the specific choices of words. You can call yourself Bride of Satan if you want as long as you are civil.
As for your point, Jill, taken. Sort of. In certain circumstances.
But again, Horst makes my point. Before the tea parties I honestly didn't know there were enough kinks on the planet to have to come up with the slang term "teabagger." That's not real civil, although some might take it as a compliment.
My suggestion stands.
Not much evidence--from an intellectual perspective--to support skinner's concerns, I'd say...
Right wing? Reactionary?
I give you Tim McVeigh, fer shure. First order coward, and really an idiot. Good riddance. That slag that shot MLK? Medgar Evers?
But recent history is also replete with leftist acts of cowardice. How about Lee Harvey Oswald? Marxist. The Puerto Ricans shooting in Congress? The Symbionese Liberation Army? Weather Underground? The Panthers? Earth First (or at least the ELF people, including the ringleader who hung himself rather than stand trial)? Squeaky Fromme? The Manson Left.
And what's this about "reactionary" violence? Watts? The Yippies in Chicago? Newark?
Or let's get just a bit bigger and a little further along? Pol Pot? Left.
Mao? Left. Stalin? Left. Uncle Ho? Left.
We can argue about whether Hitler was a right wing crazy, but his party WAS the National SOCIALISTS and his was a government controlled economy.
Put that in your pipe and sit on it, comrade.
Most Americans have gotten over the demonizing of left wing governments since the Alzheimeric-in-Chief broght the process to its nadir.
I think if you will check carefully, you will find most of the domestic terror in this nation in the past 75 years has been courtesy of your ideology, not mine.
Chris, I finally found my calculator after reading the Statist editorial. 82,000 to 111,000 riders a year, average 96,000. Operating subsidy 25 mill a year. Tick tick click. Bink...$260 and change, PER RIDER TRIP in subsidy, NOT COUNTING the three hundred mil in prep and equipment costs. Zounds! Gadzooks!
For that, we could give trainiacs a taxi cab ride to Salt Lake, at least from Pocatello...
I'm sorry you are too dang dense, and too focused on taking cheap shots at that darn Skinner to realize that $260 per passenger boarding in subsidy or operating loss is absolutely ridiculous.
Let's run the numbers a little further.
96,000 average passengers a year, 365 operating days, two train starts each day from both ends. That's 730 train starts per year, and each train will board (tickyticktap, click) 131 total passengers between Ogden and Portland Depot.
That's total, and not everyone will ride all the way? Awful! You could do the deed with a couple or three old Budd cars.
Amortizing the equipment makes the numbers even more terrible, because you have to "pay down" the infrastructure. Let's say a rough guess of 35 million a year minimum in debt service. Then the total hit to the taxpayer is $500 for each person that didn't drive on I-84. And 131 passenger trips on the I-84 corridor per day is a snowflake in winter.
If there were enough demand for 2000 passengers per day, or 4000, with a need for two trips a day (which gives riders options), the idea of the Pioneer or the Rose coming back from the dust bin would be less ridiculous. But now, with those numbers, is completely irresponsible.
1) We need to all be clear on the policy objective before we dismiss proposed solutions.
2) We need to be clear on the time horizon of the possible implementation of this policy.
3) We don't know the "real" prices of the other transportation options.
4) We don't have any comparative statistics against which to view the costs of the Pioneer.
(this is probably a whole separate post but I'll keep it short)
There are any number of policy objectives that reopening the Pioneer line could accomplish: providing an alternative to air travel in the region; mitigating against future reductions in air service; mitigating against rising fuel costs; environmental protection; economic development; national competitiveness.
Senator Crapo says his objective with this policy is this: "A number of years ago (1997), Amtrak cut the Pioneer Route, which went through southern Idaho. That left many rural Americans in Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming without convenient access to the nation's passenger rail system." So, this proposal does what he is looking for, but yes, at what price. That brings me to point #2.
The good Senator, from what I gather, would like to see one of the Pioneer options happen sooner rather than later. That probably isn't likely, in my estimation. Again referring to that America2050 rail report, no one really expects the Pioneer line to come back online for quite some time. I think it is reasonable for most people to agree that sometime in the next 40 years, it makes sense to get this line going again. That's my position.
We should also be fortunate that we *know* the real costs of reopening the line. What does an airline ticket *really* cost? Who knows? $9 billion in taxes support TSA, and $14.6 the FAA. Add that to the cost of your plane ticket to SLC or anywhere else, and that is just the tip of the iceberg of hidden costs for just one form of travel.
And so there is a $260 per passenger subsidy. Is that a lot? Who knows? What does it cost to run passenger or HSR in the Northeast? Japan? Europe? Would this represent a bigger per-capita subsidy (subsidy = public investment) than do our roads, and airlines? These are all questions that we need to answer.
I do want to throw out there too that at least there is SOME collection of non-public revenues for this system. What non-public revenue does I-84 collect? Zero. In fact, I-84 improvements are being paid for with Grant Anticipation Revenue Bonds which means your kids are paying for I-84 improvements.
Anyway - ECON 101 tells us that at some cost and certain conditions, this policy proposal makes sense. I do not know if that is *now* or not; I still have questions. But, as I said, I think it is reasonable to be planning for the redeployment of this line sometime before the middle of the century. But as policy and bureaucracy moves so slowly, this is probably the time that we have to start talking about it if we want to make this happen at all.
I keep hoping Mr. Obama will bring back the ideologies reflected by the New Deal--and that nobody will buy into the voodoo economics being pushed by Skinner and like minded ideologists..!
I will say that the use of I-84 is not completely "free" because there are fuel taxes and trip permits for trucks. Not fully-allocated costing, of course, but not "free," either.
I would say that rail becomes viable when it is the least cost solution. For example, the tofuheads in Steamboat thought that a COMMUTER TRAIN between Yampa and Craig was just the ticket for the working class and the jet passengers out at the Hayden airport.
The tag on that was in the six million a year range. So I'm sitting there listening to this stuff after the consultant scored 80,000 to "study" it. Finally, one of the ringleaders stood up and said "can't we get a grant and try it for a year?" That's kind of what we are dealing with "Pioneering" a Pioneer replacement.
It's not like the old days when you could scrape out a roadbed, throw down two streaks of rust on toothpicks and declare yourself a common carrier. Build it and they will come doesn't always happen.
The bottom line was I went home and ran the study through the wringer and then put together a short paper for the Routt county commissioners and the city council. The conclusion was, at the time U.S. 40 met standards for reconstruction to four lanes in the far future (like 25 years) THEN spending the money instead on track would be a breakeven deal.
If you are in a situation where the infrastructure costs for the competing modes are a wash (Europe as an example, or built environments like the Boston-Norfolk Megaplex) then it makes fiscal and social sense to lay track.
I suppose as fuel costs rise, certain demographics will first move to buses (like in Boise) for longer and longer trips. But favor should be showered on the lowest net cost per trip INCLUDING the time value of the trip.
If my time is worth fifty or a hundred bucks an hour, what do I choose? Five bucks? I'm retired? Each level has different modes and motives.
I think the 2050 people are close to correct in their assessments of where "big rail" is going to happen. I have pretty strong doubts about ABQ-Denver, Raton and Glorieta are tough hills.
Finally....
Horst, be relevant or be gone.
Not likely skinner. Not likely.