Posted on 11/07/2001 11:43:05 AM PST by Willie Green
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:02:18 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
I recently attended one of the four public meetings that were held to inform the public about the proposed high-speed magnetic-levitation train that would link Pittsburgh International Airport and Greensburg via downtown Pittsburgh and Monroeville.
What I learned concerned me greatly - as a homeowner and as a taxpayer. I'm all for progress and improving our transportation system. But this project doesn't appear to solve any of our transportation problems while destroying land values throughout the area.
(Excerpt) Read more at pittsburghlive.com ...
High-speed rail and maglev offer the perfect alternative to augment & supplement our highway and air transportation infrastructure. For regional trips between 150 and 350 miles, it is faster than automobile and not that much slower than air. Yet offers the potential to alleviate both congested highways and air corridors!
In light of current economic conditions, construction of this vital transportation infrastructure should be accelerated.
Proximity -- The author is disturbed that there are only 4 stops on the 47 mile length of the system. This indicates that he does not understand that this is NOT a proposal for local mass transportation. It is actually the initial segment of high-speed regional service that would be extended eastward to Harrisburg & Philadelphia, serving several smaller cities along the way (Johnstown, Hershey). Similar westward extension to Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago is also envision in the long term. Bogging the maglev down with excessive local stops would undermine the intent to provide high-speed city-to-city service.
Affordability -- $5 per segment doesn't sound bad to me. Apparently the author isn't familiar with cab fares or fees for downtown or airport parking. He's also still hung up on Allegheny and Westmoreland County citizens being the only source of passengers. If it was intended to be a strictly local system, I'd probably agree. However, ridership can be exected to increase as service is expanded to other cities. Similarly, more detailed fare schedules for daily commuters vs. an occasional rider can be formulated as construction is completed. But $5 per segment sounds more resonable for planning purposes than the heavily subsidized, unlimited $1 per day he cites for the Washington Metro. (DC area FReepers are invited to verify this "fact". $28 for an unlimited 28-day pass seems absurdly low.)
Circuitous Route -- Here the author's objection reach a schizophrenic crescendo. He starts whining once again about there not being enough local stops. But then (surprise!): NIMBY! (In other words, he wants a system with a lot more local stops for convenience, but don't build it next to anybody's property because it's ugly. (I really have to question whether this guy ever bothered to try to understand the proposal. He completely ignores the fact the the proposed routes make extensive use of existing rights-of-way.)
Pittsburgh region has what it takes for maglev
High-speed rail authority chair says train project moving ahead in FL
Pittsburgh Maglev runs too close to home for Penn folks
Folks out here can recognize a boondoggle when they see one...
The DC Metro has several fairs. There is a $5/day unlimited rider pass that is good after 9am and all day on weekends. The typical one stop fair, is around $1. Never having been a daily commuter in DC, I'm not sure of the costs of monthly passes, but the author is very correct that the DC Metro with 28 stations, hits virtually every neighborhood in the DC Area. I never use a car when I’m in DC. Morning and evening ridership on the Metro is very high and you can go from downtown all the way to Rockville in less than ½ hour.
This boondoggle $5 billion science project they are schilling in the Burgh with only 4 stops is a sad joke. But I don't for a minute put it past the money grubbing pols and their Union bosses here to shove it down our throats just like they did with $1 billion worth of useless stadiums. You keep talking like its some sort of done deal that this train will go to Philly and Chicago. At $5 billion for only 47 miles, what in the hell would the cost be to go 300 miles to Philly? Something like the entire GDP?
BTW, who exactly benifits most from a train that stops downtown in the state capitol. Local, state, and federal employees. It is a perk for them. And the rest of us are "allowed" to use it, if it is convenient.
I'm not familiar with the extent or frequency of congestion along I-70 in Colorado. Heavy traffic 1 day a week during ski season doesn't sound like enough to justify a $6 billion monorail. But if the monorail can prevent a $12 billion widening of the highway, it may be worth it. (Ya gotta assume that anybody who's willing to take a bus is already doing it. What you WOULD need is something that is both faster and more weather tolerant than either car or bus.)
At fifty million per mile, do you think they'll take it to Harrisburg?
If it is really a REGIONAL rail system (as you claim), then it would only be justified if there were REGIONAL CONGESTION on existing transportation routes between the cities to be connected by the system. Are they?
Of course not.
Hence there is no economic justification for an additional capital-intensive regional transportation infrastructure between Harrisburg and PGH.
Hence your pet project is a boondoggle.
Reasonable?
I don't think so. I've seen planning and that ain't planning.
Here, in San Francisco BART country the cost of everything associated with the trains has increased and one of the central arguments for it, free parking at convenient intervals is no longer true.
Add to that the constant threat of being at several unions' whim for a system-wide shutdown and you have the best argument for continuing the highway system we all enjoyed 30 years ago, before we allowed the "utopians" to run the asylum.
Is the route as flexible as a conventional railway, ie: are there crossovers to allow changing from "track to track" or is it just one set of equipment moving back and forth on a fixed rack?
Most of what I've seen in artists depictions, leads me to believe that is a glorified people mover. A single vehicle going back and forth on a single path.
Hardly what I would call high speed rail.
As a dyed-in-the-wool railfan, I still think these things are an expensive political boondoggle.
If they were the money-making, panacea that everyone claims that they are, private industry would be knocking down the doors to get in on it.
Instead, all I see are some manufacturing corporations trying to sell an expensive, unproven technology to a bunch of spendthrift politicians.
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News/Current Events
Source: Newsday
Published: 11/1/01
Posted on 11/1/01 6:18 PM Pacific by 11th Earl of Mar
|
WASHINGTON (AP) Congress should abandon next year's deadline for Amtrak to become self-sufficient so the railway can concentrate on security improvements, a federal investigator said Thursday. The recommendation by Mark R. Dayton, the Transportation Department's deputy assistant inspector general, offered fresh support for lawmakers who want to get Amtrak out from under Congress' 1997 requirement that it wean itself from federal operating subsidies by Dec. 2, 2002. "There is no truly national passenger train service in the world that makes a profit," said Senate Commerce Chairman Ernest Hollings, D-S.C., who has proposed eliminating the self-sufficiency requirement as a part of a multibillion-dollar package for the railroad. George D. Warrington, Amtrak's president, said it has become even more difficult, in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, for the railroad to make money while fulfilling a mandate to provide passenger service throughout the country. Many lines outside the densely populated Northeast lose money, and Amtrak subsidizes them with money from profitable routes and other commercial activities. "With the economy contracting and public expectations about security and safety rising, the self-sufficiency deadline will force us to choose very soon between two evils," he said. Those are: cutting back on service to save money, or keeping service with better security, only to lose more money and risk liquidation. Amtrak critics in Congress have opposed any effort to devote more money to the railway until it proves it can cover operating costs. "What they've done since 1973 is promise self-sufficiency every few years, and it's never been done," said Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the committee's ranking Republican. The Amtrak Reform Council is charged with monitoring Amtrak's progress and will determine whether it has met the goal of self sufficiency. Government monitors have repeatedly said they don't expect the goal to be met. If the council finds the railway hasn't met the goal, it would trigger the start of a 90-day period for Amtrak to develop and present to Congress a liquidation plan, and for the council to come up with a restructuring plan. Eliminating the trigger "would allow Amtrak to keep its focus on improvement rather than dissolution," Dayton said. For instance, Amtrak should take the lead on improving the ventilation and evacuation systems in six aging underwater tunnels to New York's Penn Station, Dayton said. Other lines use the tunnels, but developing a cost-sharing plan would result in dangerous delays, he said. "Narrow, winding, spiral staircases and crumbling benchwalls are inadequate to support the successful evacuation of what could potentially be thousands of passengers," he said. If the trigger is not scrapped, the 90-day window for creating and evaluating new plans should be expanded, he added. Last month, the committee approved a compromise bill crafted by Hollings and McCain that provides $1.77 billion for Amtrak security upgrades, including funding for the New York tunnel improvements.
On the Net: Amtrak: http://www.amtrak.com
Copyright 2001 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. |
BTW, who exactly benifits most from a train that stops downtown in the state capitol. Local, state, and federal employees. It is a perk for them. And the rest of us are "allowed" to use it, if it is convenient.
The same reasoning can be applied to any public good that doesn't benefit you. I never go to Tennessee. Why should I pay any taxes here in Pennsylvania that might go for something I don't use like a road near your house?
You benefit from this Light Rail scheme in that it takes those thousands of public servants and everyone else who rides it off the roads you must use, especially at the rush hours, leaving more road space for youself. A freeway lane maxes out at about 1800 cars per hour (that's one every two seconds). Thus a six lane freeway can thus carry around 6000 people per hour in one direction into town. If this Light Rail line hauls 9000 people in at rush hour, that's equivalent to freeing up the freeway for 90 minutes from traffic formerly going into the city (this is not to say new traffic won't replace that now carried on the light rail line). Or to not building freeway capacity necessary to carry that many people at that time. At a minimum $25 million per lane-couplet mile, wouldn't you as a taxpayer rather build a $30 million per mile light rail line, than a $75 million per mile freeway?
You might find the following interesting to read:
-----------------------------
URBAN FREEWAYS DON'T PAY
by E.L. Tennyson, P.E.
copyright 1989
When Interstate 95 was being planned through the City of Philadelphia over 30 years ago, it became apparent that there was no hope the superhighway would be a sound undertaking, financially or ecologically. The (then) four cent federal gasoline tax would not begin to cover anything close to the 90 percent federal share, the City would lose heavily on valuable property removed from the tax rolls, and the parallel railroad and transit lines would no longer be able to operate without subsidy as the subsidized new road diverted some of the travel (and revenue). Despite the bleak prospect and strong opposition, the road was pushed thorough, and the consequences have been suffered.
Much has changed in thirty years, but freeway economics has not. "The more things change, the more they stay the same." Despite the increase in the federal gasoline tax from four to nine cents, Interstate 696, recently (1989) completed 28 miles across the northern tier of Detroit for $ 675 million, suffers the same economic losses as I-95, The Delaware Expressway, has for thirty years in Philadelphia. There is no credibility to the belief that such highways "pay their way" from the Highway Trust Fund. The table below estimates the huge economic losses associated with typical urban/suburban freeways such as I-95 in several major cities and I-696 near Detroit, using a typical mile of I-696 as the most recent example:
ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF A MILE OF I-696
Cost of Construction ($675 mil./ 28.2 mi.) 23.9 million
Annual amortization of construction @4% 0.96 million
Lost opportunity cost (interest) annually 0.96 million
Annual maintenance and police @5% 1.2 million
Lost taxes on private property acquired 0.2 million
Revenue from 9 ¢ fed.gas.tax: 100,000 ADT 0.165 million (ADT = Average daily travel @ 18 miles per gallon)
Gast Tax Revenue for the 10% state share 0.195 million
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Annual loss on a mile of urban interstate $2.94 million
Revenue to cost ratio of urban interstate 11%
Highway engineers include the value of time saved on an interstate as a justification for paying for them. In 1989, such time was worth about six cents per minute based upon diversion studies where choices were available. Truckers are credited with a much larger saving of fictitious money. The problem with this credit is that it represents no actual source of funds with which to build or maintain a highway. The credit is imaginary cash. The costs must be paid with real money. With inadequate gasoline taxes and no tolls, the money must come from deferred maintenance inadequate policing, higher property and/or sales taxes for local roads, or other non-highway revenue source, diverting funds from more urgent needs. Such a direct subsidy to the trucking industry is very poor and inequitable public policy. It is destroying more efficient means of transportation.
If public mass transit projects were credited with the same value of time saved, the renowned San Diego Trolley (North America's most economically successful: transit project since the inception of the interstate highway program would earn almost $19 million per year on its initial South Bay (Tijuana) line which costs but $1 million per year to maintain and operate. The trolley would be profitable with free fares. The deceptive irrationality of using time saved to "pay" for highway projects should be obvious. If it is not obvious, then public transit projects should be credited with the same time saving value. This nation faces severe economic and environmental problems including deteriorating transportation infrastructure, burgeoning public debt, loss of productivity, balance of payments deficits, environmental degradation, suburban traffic congestion, travel safety, and mobility; for those who at any given moment do not have an expensive vehicle available. This nation must face these problems and mitigate them, or the rest of the world "will bury" us, as Nikita Khrushchev once predicted. Extravagance, uneconomic highway programs, end petroleum dependence are some of our worst excesses, but the solution is simple--toll roads. The Dulles Toll Road (Va. 267) in Northern Virginia and the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey are good examples. People will pay if they want the improved service and there is no free alternative. When people pay it better allocates resources and restores our economy to a better balance. The laws of economics can not be repealed, as the Communists have finally learned.
SOURCES:
I-696 - THE WASHINGTON POST, Feb. 4, 1990, page H-2.
San Diego Metropolitan Transit Development Board (MTDB) data
Mr. Tennyson was Deputy Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, 1972-79 and Deputy Commissioner for Transit Engineering for the City of Philadelphia 1968-1971. (City Transit Engineer 1956-67) Mr. Tennyson is now Public Works planning Coordinator for Arlington County, Virginia.* He was also Operational Start-up Consultant for the San Diego Trolley (1979-1980)
*E.L. Tennyson retired from Arlington County Public Works in 1992 after 50 years in the transit industry. He lives in Vienna, Virginia. Tennyson is widely cited in the literature.
The billions being dreamt of for this scheme would be better spent speeding up rail service across the state if PA really needs a high speed system. Currently, it takes around 7 hours to run acorss the state on Amtrak. The most difficult part of the terrain is the roughly 60 miles from Conemaugh Jct. to Altoona and the 100 miles from Harrisburg to Tyrone. France just spent around $3.5 billion building a 186 mph TGV route about 160 miles long. $4.25 billion would get you that, plus the necessary improvements like straightening curves and electrification to the already well engineering parts between Philadelphia and Harrisburg, Tyrone and Altoona, and Conemaugh Jct. and Pittsburgh. Combined, the whole route ought to get you across the state in around 3 hours 15 minutes, plus the new route would go to State College.
Alternatively, these same billions could build you the Spine Line LRT tunnel from downtown to Oakland, Shadyside, And Squirrel Hill, and put LRT on the east busway and down to Monroeville, and up to the North Hills along McKinght Rd.
Either way seems like money better spent on moving people in PA.
And there is no evidence that your system would be any more efficient than what we have.
When was the last time an Interstate turned a profit? As it is, they lose buckets.
At least one Amtrak route does - the Northeast Corridor. It would stand to reason that making other rail routes like the NEC might make them profitable.
I am not in total disagreement with the idea of mass transit; I just think it ought to be paid for by those that use it. I would also agree that the road system should be paid for by those that use it, rather than the wage-earner.
I should also point out that the author does appear to have a dog in this race, being in the transit bureaucracy and all.
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