Posted on 12/20/2001 8:42:55 AM PST by Publius
People identify me with railroad issues and advocacy. They forget that I came out of the highway lobby. As late as 1987 I was active in promoting a $1.6 billion, 1077-mile, 4-lane highway development program for my home state of Mississippi. During my business career I have owned five auto dealerships and an air charter service. My first involvement at the federal level was in highway safety. President Nixon named me to the National Highway Safety Advisory Committee. In 1975 President Ford appointed me to the National Transportation Policy Study Commission which was chaired by Bud Shuster. I led the subcommittee on advanced technology.
I went into this process a strong believer in highway transportation. After three years I was transformed into a believer in inter-modal transportation. Those sentiments were confirmed by my later work as Federal Railroad Administrator under President Bush, which also brought me into contact with leaders in aviation and transit. My comments reflect nearly thirty years of hands-on experience.
The Interstate Highway Program
Forty years ago America embarked upon the Interstate Highway System. We built 46,000 miles of multi-lane routes without stoplights or grade crossings. It was a grand achievement. But if you think about it, the interstate system was not designed for high-speed travel. In most states the top speed limits are only five miles an hour above those posted on the conventional numbered roadways of the 1950’s. The great benefit of the interstates was that we increased capacity by a large factor, and avoided the stoplights, traffic jams, and slow-downs that held average speeds to 50 miles an hour or less.
The interstate system had dramatic impacts upon mobility, economic growth and transportation efficiency. But its development created problems that we did not consider important at that time. Some urban areas experienced economic growth, which was spurred by their access to modern highway corridors. Others confronted more disruptive consequences. Urban interstates also became commuter routes, which fragmented downtowns and helped spread residential and commercial development to widely scattered suburbs. Many city centers were devastated, and many small towns withered as the new routes chose green-field rights-of-way.
Few people worried about air pollution in the 1950’s. In one respect our air had become cleaner because Americans of that era had switched from coal furnaces and coal-fired industrial boilers to cleaner units which used natural gas or electricity. Meanwhile, our modern highways stimulated the explosion of personal transportation by automobile, instead of public transportation by transit or rail. By the 1970’s, vehicle emissions represented the primary source of urban pollutants.
For a time, Detroit built smaller cars, but the growth in overall numbers of trucks and automobiles soon offset the pollution savings. Local governments chose to pursue industrial polluters instead of confronting the tricky problem of restricting autos and trucks. The result was to drive manufacturing out of urban counties.
Today, commuters coming to the city to work in service industries pass outbound commuters headed for factories, which have relocated to the urban fringe. City governments are losing the battle against air pollution, and have resorted to such strategies as urging residents not to run their lawn mowers on high-ozone days or avoid fueling their autos until after dark. Yet most large cities will flunk the new EPA air-quality standards.
Interstates are regarded as safer than conventional highways, but higher vehicle counts, rush-hour traffic jams, and rising driver frustration are degrading the safety performance. Highway fatalities remain at an unacceptable 40,000+ per year. We would not tolerate this situation in air or rail service.
The Problem of Congestion and "Externalities"
Only in recent years have transportation engineers and analysts begun to focus on these impacts. They commonly are referred to as "externalities" -- the costs of pollution, energy waste, land disruption, accidents and time wasted in traffic jams. These costs sometimes are hidden, but they are real. More to the point, highway user fees do not cover them. A study conducted for the American Trucking Association concluded that the trucking industry alone was responsible for $30 billion in annual costs which exceed the user fees it pays. Those costs have been transferred to the general taxpayer and to the consumer in the form of higher prices. And that's only part of the true cost of these external impacts.
Right now, our highway and airway-based passenger system is ailing. Highway and airport gridlock is getting worse, and we have found that we cannot afford to build our way out of this gridlock. Hundred-million-dollar interchanges only move traffic jams to new locations. Highway engineers now recognize in most cases that adding lanes to urban interstates won't solve the problem. Congestion is worse. Rush hour in Chicago now covers eight hours per day. Average speeds in big-city downtowns are slower than they were 100 years ago, and the true cost of operating a new automobile is in the 40-cents-a-mile range and rising. It's currently about $6,000 a year. That works out to 500 after-tax dollars per month to move you an average of 1,200 miles a month. That's pretty expensive to move your body in your car 15,000 miles a year.
Aviation's ability to expand is on a par with the problem of legroom in its passenger seats. The cabin can be reconfigured to add an inch or two, but that's about all. Load factors are at record levels. Passengers are furious over delays and overcrowding. With Herculean effort we are able to add an airport like Denver International once every 20 years. Alternatives such as VTOL aircraft have stalled out. Airport managers' visions now are limited to their existing property boundaries. A few airport commissions, like those in New Orleans and Miami, are trying to bring high-speed rail to their terminal escalators, but most airports are not.
It has become clear that we cannot solve our transportation needs of the 21st Century just by adding ever-more-costly highway lanes. This approach simply is not sustainable. When I use the term "sustainable", I intend it to mean a system that we can afford to build, and a system whose adverse impacts upon safety, land use, energy consumption and air quality are held to acceptable limits.
The Global, High-Speed Inter-modal System
As I thought about how to overcome these challenges, I was drawn to our recent experience in inter-modal transportation. What has taken place during the past 20 years is nothing short of revolutionary. Inter-modal transportation has become the global standard for moving freight -- using a system, which is sharply focused on speed, safety, reliable scheduling and economic efficiency. Today, that network emphasizes moving freight in North America and passengers in Europe and Asia. It is beginning to include passenger service in the United States.
The global high-speed inter-modal freight system builds on the strengths of each mode that have become partners in offering service. It also makes use of the versatility of the cargo container. Cargo ships and airplanes span the oceans. The freight railroad is the high-speed, long-distance transportation artery on the land. The truck provides local feeder service at origins and destinations. Cargo airplanes deliver high-value specialized freight. This system works -- but it urgently needs dramatic improvements to its land component in order to handle growing volumes of containers delivered by ship and airplane.
Modern, high-efficiency, high-capacity inter-modal terminals are key to the system, providing almost seamless interchange. Secondary rail and highway routes support the inter-modal system and connect cities, rural regions and individual freight customers to the main-line corridors. Today, a double-stack train leaving a coastal port can replace 280 trucks, run at speeds up to 90 miles an hour on the western railroads and afford as much as nine times the fuel efficiency of container transport by highway. Overall, the operational and economic efficiency of freight's inter-modal network conserves fuel, reduces other environmental impacts and is significantly safer. It represents the most economically and environmentally "sustainable" approach to transportation services.
Meanwhile, this new inter-modal science is redrawing the railroad map of North America, linking the populations and economies of the United States, Canada, and Mexico in a true "North American Rail System." Our continental network serves 90 states and provinces with 240,000 miles of routes and almost 400 million people. Most of its main lines are in excellent shape.
Over $60 billion in private funds has been spent for upgrading to heavy-duty welded rail. Another key point is this -- customers are driving the inter-modal freight network. North American customers suffer when it comes to moving people. Passengers take what the modes have to offer, shuffle between terminals, wait at the curb for the hourly bus downtown, or head for the latest addition to the airport parking garage, where we fork over above-market rates for the "privilege" of being an airline customer. Or we find ourselves at the mercy of higher rental car prices.
One could make the case that the worst defect of our passenger transportation system is the limited number of choices it offers. Residents of cities under 100,000 population often have only one practical option for inter-city travel -- the private automobile. Where bus and Amtrak service exist, the frequencies often are insufficient to meet the customer's needs. Airlines have retreated from short-haul markets. Where air service remains, the fare levels have driven people back to their automobiles.
It's Time for "Interstate II”
It seems to me that our success in freight inter-modal points the way to the most promising strategy for transportation improvements in the years ahead. I call it "Interstate II." It is a new vision of truly high-speed inter-city travel that is based upon steel, not pavement. The concept is not radical. It combines the proven efficiency of rail transportation with the strengths of the inter-modal system. Interstate II can take advantage of rights-of-way that already exist -- both rail and highways.
Interstate II already is under way. The New York-Washington Northeast Corridor has been in place since the 1970’s. [Publius note: Actually since 1910.] High-speed trains will serve Boston later this year. Turbo-trains now operate on the Empire Corridor in New York State. Washington, Oregon and British Columbia are developing a high-speed route in the Pacific Northwest. Eight years ago Congress authorized five new high-speed rail corridors. Today, with the TEA-21 Act, thirteen have been approved for development. When Congress voted $2.3 billion in capital funds for Amtrak, it sent a message that inter-city rail passenger service is here to stay. It is interesting to note that Amtrak's package express business is booming, because express companies cannot expand if they are limited to clogged highways. Interstate II will attract mail and package express business away from highways and airways, adding to the new system's revenues, and helping to share the increased traffic loads that the other modes confront.
The evolution of Interstate II reminds me of the conditions that prevailed during the decade prior to our construction of the first interstate routes. The old two-lane roads were not adequate for traffic volumes. Several states took the lead in building toll roads -- Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kansas and Oklahoma. Important segments of "Interstate I" already were in operation before Congress voted to launch that project.
The same thing is happening in the 1990’s. These state and regional initiatives represent the beginning of a network of high-speed rail lines. Many of them will parallel interstate highways. During the first quarter of the 21st Century, I believe that we can build about 20,000 miles of corridors capable of running trains at 90 to 150 miles per hour. As much as another 10,000 miles of high-quality conventional rail routings will augment that network.
Often, we will be able to use the same right of way that freight railroad now occupy, if we deal with a number of key issues, including grade separation and liability. An important element of Interstate II is the requirement to eliminate at-grade highway-rail crossings. Many of them can be closed, because they are unnecessary. Others will require separation. The remainder can be fitted with high-tech crossing devices. We cannot have efficient rail corridors, conventional or high-speed, if trains encounter grade crossings every mile in the country and every block in town. Some people will shy away from the crossing-closure issue as too controversial. But think back to the 1950’s. We closed tens of thousands of road intersections when the Interstate highways were built.
For Interstate II to function properly, we also must create terminals to transfer passengers and freight among modes and routes. Fast, modern and highly efficient inter-modal terminals and yards are essential to freight's inter-modal system, providing "seamless" service. Get off an airplane at Dulles or Denver airports and you are reminded that seamless service hasn’t arrived. The seams are ripped apart just on the other side of the baggage claim.
Another important element of Interstate II will be the city center terminal. The city center terminal serves the inter-modal passenger network. It also serves cities both large and small and helps to revitalize the downtown. These facilities should be developed by local governments, just as they built and financed airports. City center terminals can be hubs for people and retailing. In larger cities they can provide a financial contribution to the overall corridor development project.
Amtrak will have a key role in the inter-city passenger component of Interstate II. But we need to start thinking about Amtrak in a more realistic context. Amtrak should be in the business of moving people inter-modally, in partnership with inter-city bus companies and local transit, but not owning track or terminals. Amtrak should operate and be treated like an airline. Airlines don't build airports. They don't carry those debt costs on their books. If airlines had been compelled to finance airports, they would not have had the capability to undertake the remarkable expansion of fleets and service that has occurred during the past forty years. What's fair for airlines ought to be fair for Amtrak, which today is burdened with aging station facilities that in many cases are an embarrassment, which discourages use.
Interstate II is Affordable
I also favor Interstate II because it represents the option we can afford.
For the equivalent of two cents on the motor fuel tax, one penny at the federal level and a second penny from the states, America could have within twenty years' time a network of high-speed rail corridors that approaches the scale of the Interstate Highway system. That commitment of fuel tax dollars would offer a powerful incentive to additional private investment as well. States and cities should be partners in the process, bringing additional revenues to the table. Again, we are talking about the equivalent of one cent on each state's motor fuel tax. Some people will argue that motor fuel taxes should only go to highway projects. But highway construction is not solving the gridlock problem. More important, the existing level of highway user fees doesn't even come close to covering the costs that highway transportation now inflicts upon our economy and society. More to the point, it is not building the system we need, one that captures the safety and capacity of the 21st Century inter-modal passenger and freight network. Cities, towns, counties and citizens already are paying for that funding gap in many indirect ways. Law enforcement costs. Emergency services costs. Land lost to highway rights-of-way that goes off the tax rolls. Pollution rules that drive industrial jobs out of urban counties despite the fact that most of the emissions are highway-related.
Aside from the obvious benefits from Interstate II, I favor it because there are no alternatives. If trends of the 1980’s and 1990’s persist into the new century -- and there is no reason to believe that they will not -- conventional solutions based upon individual modes simply cannot cope with the growth. Does anyone here seriously believe that we can double the capacity of our urban highway system within the next 15 years? The price tag for just a 10 percent increase would be staggering. And does anyone think that we will add eight or nine airports on the scale of Denver International? I would be surprised if we completed even one of them.
We are long overdue in coming to grips with the huge costs of trying to make the highways and airways solve all of our transportation needs, especially since there are efficient alternatives. It is our job to convince the American people and their opinion leaders that Interstate II is possible and is the obvious solution to our mobility needs for a new century. Rail corridors will prove to be cheaper than hundred-million-dollar interchanges that only relocate traffic jams. They will be safer than 43,000 deaths per year on America’s roadways.
This new ethical inter-modal transportation system will conserve fuel, reduce pollution and be less disruptive in using land. And just as America's toll roads used private money to finance construction, Interstate II can attract major private investment cost sharing. Private money can be applied to construction, operations, station development and equipment -- especially modern passenger, mail-and-express train-sets.
How many times have you heard people ask, "Why can't we have trains like those in Europe?" The answer is, We can. It's a question of priorities, strategy, partnerships, leadership and policy. We need to explain to the people of America that they can have a customer-driven passenger system. They can have choice within that system, and it doesn't have to cost 40 cents a mile to get anywhere. Americans also can obtain an even more efficient, low-cost freight and express network that will reap even more benefits through its inter-modal design. Americans can have interstates of steel for less cost than interstates of concrete and asphalt. And Interstate II will provide plenty of work for the traditional highway-builders.
Building this very safe, 20,000-mile, grade-separated, high-speed inter-city rail network is the key to the quality of transportation services during the next century. The money is there to do the job. The "road gang's" next goal should be to build it. It is up to you. I believe that the concept makes sense. I hope that you will agree.
The interstate highway system has not been the culprit in the demise of small-town America -- if anything, you would think that interstate highways would make remote areas of the continent more accessible. Small towns began to disappear when the nation embarked on a drive toward improvements in efficiency in all areas of life. It simply isn't terribly cost-effective to deliver something to a town of 250 people, whether it be food, mail, passengers, or even telephone service.
In western Canada the railroad is still king (except when it comes to passenger service). Due to the long distances between population centers, rail has a larger share of the shipment of raw materials and finished goods than it does in the U.S. And even then the small towns are dying a slow death, due to improvements in railroad efficiency that have moved the industry away from a multi-stop, multi-line system and toward a system of busy main lines, no branch lines, and a few major hubs. The days of a grain elevator in every small town are numbered, even though trains are probably moving more grain than ever before.
BECAUSE NO ONE RIDES THE TRAIN!
Airports were traditionally built by public entities before 1946. Then President Truman signed a law that got the fedgov into subsizing the building of airports.
Cities or port authorities (semi-public entities) tend to be the operators of airports. If the airlines had to pay for airport construction and operation, the cost of air travel would be prohibitive.
BECAUSE NO ONE RIDES THE TRAIN!
In America's suburbs, many huge office complexes are located within close driving distance of interstates, not walking distance. Drive the LBJ Freeway north of Dallas some time.
One of the basic problems any mass transit system runs into is America pride. We like to be in charge. With cars we are, in trains or any other mass transport we aren't. While you can complain loudly, and often correctly, about the problems of the car as a system of movement until you've got something that allows me to leave my house whenever I want, get to work straight from home without having to wait for the next scheduled whatever, work as long as I want, run a few errands on the way home without having to wait for my transport and without having to carry my purchases from the last store into this store, then you've got nothing that will beat the car.
Control of our own destiny, that's what the car gives and no mode of mass transit currently known CAN give. And until you've got something that can match the convenience you're just wasting effort because the masses will never adopt it.
If you go back and look at the history of this country through the late 19th century, you'll find that the country ran through a series of sporadic periods of prosperity, interrupted occasionally by a devastating financial crisis caused by a railroad-related issue (service interruptions, labor unrest, etc.). The railroads were simply too powerful, and even a minor problem on a major railroad would bring the entire country to a grinding halt. Imagine the catastrophic impact on the U.S. economy today if 25% of all passengers, grain, coal, oil, etc. could not get from one point to another for several days at a time.
To give you an idea of the magnitude of the power of the railroad industry in 19th-century America, consider that the original Dow Jones Industrial Index was comprised almost entirely of railroad stocks!
Daus said:
Because it's already been accomplished with much less infrastructure cost. ...and I can take Midwest Express direct to DC five minutes from my door stop. ...The best, most efficient way to get from my house to Orlando is on a direct flight, on a well run airline ...
I respond:
Yes, but... If you take away Midwest Express (and maybe one or two other flights a day by Sun Country) you are left with a hop to Chicago or Minneapolis before you get anywhere.
As for your trip to Orlando, I would compare it to the telecommunications infrastructure. You have copper pairs running to your house. The phone company combines them into a bigger pipe. Somewhere between here and there you end up on a huge fiber optic pipe. On the other end you separate again, until you are on your own pipe again.
Today you hop in your car, drive to the airport, get on a plane that may (or may not) take you direct. By adding a step and go to the airport, get on a train, then get on a full plane that takes you direct, you are not too far off.
I'm just asking the question of if it would be cheaper and/or faster that way. Not sure that I am sold on the idea.
balrog666 said:
That's called a hub system. Almost all the big airlines already use it.
I respond:
And we all complain about having to fly into St Louis (or Atlanta, or Chicago) to get anywhere. With true "intermodal" you could separate hub for long haul, another for short, and something effective connecting them. Planes are used today. I'm just asking if trains would work here also.
Kinda like interstates and surface roads. Some folks take the interstates for short hops, but most are on it for longer trips.
You could probably finance a steam locomotive to pull your own commuter rail, if you were so inclined.
A small railroad enthusiasts' club near me restored a Baldwin 1916 (Philadelphia) Mikado steam-coal locomotive.
Didn't cost all that much.
It pulls thousands and thousands of persons from the suburbs to the Indiana State Fair every year.
I think that they are very much a pain-in-the-ass to run and keep up compared with the diesels or electric locomotives.
Why not have a retro F3 GE locomotive streamlined diesel? They look cool, and run well. They would satisfy your urge for nostalgia.
Plus they have no boiler to blow up and flay your skin off like a candy wrapper when they collide against a bridge abutment.
In 1919, Maj. Dwight Eisenhower took a military convoy coast-to-coast to show the primitive condition of America's roads. Rivers were forded or ferried, not bridged. The roads were gravel or dirt, turning to mud in the rain. The press corps followed his 30 day transcontinental journey, and the "better roads" movement was born.
After WW2, Gen. Dwight Eisenhower got a good look at Hitler's autobahns and decided to import the concept here. Much of the history of the proposal of the interstates is contained in the article I linked to this in post #1.
The ostensible goal of the National Interstate and Defense highways was to clear out the cities in the event of nuclear attack. As if an urban interstate freeway could even clear out a city during a typical evening rush hour!
Here in Mississippi, many small towns are at their death knell because the one or two industries which employ everyone are shutting down (almost always agriculture or timber related), and there is nothing left. My hometown is nearly extinct becuase no one is left, the prairie farms wittled down to a handful of big time landowners or growing up in trees, and the timber supply to the west slowly growing irrevelant. All that is left today are a handful of working folks, a few government employees, elderly folks that don't want to leave their home, and a large unemployed black population, many of which are sadly subsisting on nothing more than government handouts.
Indeed, many a small town in Mississippi has been reduced to little more than a government subsisting holding center-the "projects" contain most of the population, with little of those people caring about a job because Uncle Spam gives them free money. Thus if you want to work, you move, or struggle against a multitude of forces. One major problem is that there is no diversification in the industry, and I suspect that until that happen many towns and counties will become nothing more than wildlife reserves with government-dependent folks in the towns. Now I'm way off subject so I'll stop:)
Now the push past fiber optic has been spurred by the net, but without the net we don't need anything better than fiber either so that's really not a valid statement either.
The Florida vote to which you refer was to construct a high-speed heavy rail line similar to the French TGV. The voters put it in the Florida Constitution, but there is no specification as to how it will be paid for.
Actually, damage is proportional to the fourth power, not the second power, i.e., damage = weight ** 4.
(Is that Fortran or C?)
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