Thanks to the folks in Iowa, Ohio, Wisconsin and New Jersey, New York has been able to garned more money to put toward faster passenger rail between Buffalo and New York City.
But a question I posed on another thread has to considerd, too. The question: if we want bigger trucks, and triple trailers on our highways, why aren't we putting more money into passenger rail to protect and serve the traveling public? Or if we don't want to serve the traveling public with passenger rail service, why are we worring about putting them in harm's way with more trucks, bigger trucks, and triple trailer trucks? Which scenerio should we follow? Each seems to be at odds with the other except if you ar a politician tryiing to get money.
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Maybe the answer is to move the trucks out of the way of the passengers rather than the other way around, although I suspect the best answer is some of both.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
oltmannd Maybe the answer is to move the trucks out of the way of the passengers rather than the other way around, although I suspect the best answer is some of both.
Playing Devil's Advocate, what have you accomplished by maintaining the Status Quo?
henry6 oltmannd: Maybe the answer is to move the trucks out of the way of the passengers rather than the other way around, although I suspect the best answer is some of both. Playing Devil's Advocate, what have you accomplished by maintaining the Status Quo?
oltmannd: Maybe the answer is to move the trucks out of the way of the passengers rather than the other way around, although I suspect the best answer is some of both.
Amtrak is pretty much status quo. Freight railroading not so much. Lots of domestic intermodal conversion the past several years. Particularly this year. Big plans afoot, too.
So many comments miss so many facts, such as presented in my guest commentary on our NPR station KWMU
http://www.stlpublicradio.org/programs/commentaries/commentary.php?cid=1269
FIrst of all, I really enjoyed your commentary!
This is an interesting topic because there is so much misinformation spread about by both sides. On one hand, you have Wendel Cox's "passenger trains are old, archaic and evil" point of view and on the other you have the passenger rail advocates' "trains are intrinsically good, no matter what. God himself said so" point of view.
A majority of people say they want more passenger trains of all types. OK. So, what happened in Wisc and Ohio? The trains were made a major talking point in both campaigns and the anti-train people won. Hmmm. Does this mean people in those states don't want trains or they just don't think they are worth the cost? The dirty little secret here is that the most people have no idea that most train service would require a significant, on going operating subsidy. Heck, the folks that ride the express commuter bus with me each day have no inkling the farebox recovery is less than 50% of the operating cost. They got very upset at some proposed fare changes, thinking it would increase the operating profit of the service. Ongoing operating subsidies for intercity passenger transportation can be politically unpalatable. Investment in infrastructure is less so.
Trains have roomy seats. Here and now. But there is nothing intrinsic in that. The seat width and pitch can be changed. There is nothing keeping RR coaches from being fitted with 3-2 seating with knee-knocker pitch. In fact, airline passengers have been trading seating space for reduced fares for quite a while now. I'm sure, if asked, passengers will say they want both, but this is truly and either/or proposition. I suspect if we ever get some true HSR and hire for profit operators to run it, we'll wind up with less seating area than Amtrak provides now.
Infrastructure investment in PPPs ala the UP and the St. Louis/KC service can work. That is certain. It's been seen in Pennsylvania's Keystone service and the recent DC-Lynchburg NEC extension. However, many times it can be extremely costly compared to the benefits and alternatives. These projects often come in with huge price tags for reasons I can't always fathom. Hundreds of millions for a route a couple hundred miles long, big chunks of it through rural areas where highway congestion and air quality problems are few, carrying a couple hundred folks a several times a day. The same money could be used to move 10x the folk in and around major metro areas where congestion relief and air quality improvement exist for every passenger mile of service provided. Cities like Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas and Houston are struggling mightily to find money to expand their urban/suburban transit services. $800M is enough to build a couple ancillary commuter rail lines in Atlanta, each worth a lane or two of urban interstate highway capacity. Maybe we should do these projects first. They help solve the "first mile/last mile" problem of intercity train travel to boot.
The train is a good alternative to driving or flying, but given the current suburban nature of US society, a car is pretty much a requirement and the incremental cost of operating it on the occasional intercity trip is not so great, particularly when more than one person is in the car. If the US becomes more urbanized (and building transit services first might be a way to promote this) then doing with a car becomes a real option and intercity train travel starts looking better.
I think improved intercity train service in the US is a good idea. I also think the price is too high and we need to get city/suburban transit up to speed in more places before spend too much to 'connect the dots'. We also need to find ways build and operate the service more efficiently. Even the Republicans in VA woke up an took notice when the DC-Lynchburg train covered it's operating costs (even Amtrak's very high operating costs!) Now, they are on to doing a Norfolk-Petersburg - Richmond NEC extension - at a seemingly reasonable cost of $87M. http://trn.trains.com/Railroad%20News/News%20Wire/2010/12/Agreement%20reached%20on%20Norfolk%20passenger%20service.aspx
Nice discussion Don, but you are delusional if you think the main determining issue in WI or OH was passenger train service. I doubt if many voters in either state gave a fig about that issue, pro or con. Being in the industry or as an interested bystander, it is easy to lose perspective about rails and the general public.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
schlimm Nice discussion Don, but you are delusional if you think the main determining issue in WI or OH was passenger train service. I doubt if many voters in either state gave a fig about that issue, pro or con. Being in the industry or as an interested bystander, it is easy to lose perspective about rails and the general public.
Don Oltmann could be wrong, or in error, or mistaken, or perhaps even misinformed on Wisconsin or Ohio politics. But delusional? That is a pretty strong word, and I am thinking that you don't really mean that Don is suffering from major mental illness. I guess it is sort of like calling someone an idiot in a heated political discussion -- one often doesn't mean that person is subject to a clinical definition of a level of intellectual disability, rather, that one strongly disagrees with that person's point of view.
On the topic of the WI passenger train, I was talking to a fellow in the model railroading community who is not a member of the local advocacy group and hence has an independent point of view, and this person self-identifies as being a liberal, so I guess you can't ascribe the bias that he is following a conservative or Republican party line in opposition to trains. I was talking with him about the advocacy people being crabby this year and my not wanting to do the Madison Model Railroad show to have to deal with a less-than-cheerful outlook when people are supposed to be having fun with model trains.
He asked me, "Don't you ever listen to right-wing talk radio in this state? The train was pretty much all they talked about this election season."
What I gathered from this is three things. One is that the average person in this state pretty much likes their car, thank-you-very-much, and there is this perception, a suspicion, that the train isn't simply an alternative for those of us who want a car-free life style, especially as we get older and driving becomes more iffy. Rather, it is perceived in the context of the Green Campaign, where when you get a new toilet, it doesn't flush cleanly, when you get a new light bulb, it has a funny shade of white to it, when you rake your leaves to the curb, you get scolded for letting them spill into the street instead of keeping them on the parkway, and so on. There is this suspicion, perhaps borne of misinformation, or dare I say paranoia (OK, another misuse of a mental-illness word in politics) that the people who want trains want to take your car away.
On the other hand, at a meeting of our local advocacy group, one board member expressed a hatred of people "who drive Hummers" and opined that gas should be taxed at the levels in Europe so as to discourage driving and especially wasteful driving of big vehicles, and that the revenue should be put into a world-class train system. This person is pretty forceful in expressing their views, and I somewhat meekly suggested, "As an advocacy group, do we really want to advocate for trains on the basis of opposing cars? I am wondering if we would lose ground if we did that", to which the reply was that the remarks about taxing gas were a personal opinion, expressed within the confines of the board meeting but not for general public consumption, or something to that effect.
A person is entitled to their own opinion, and as a younger person, I felt the same way about strong public policies to suppress cars and encourage trains, but as I got older I began to appreciate the utility of having a car, say, to visit my parents 4 hours drive away in a rural area where they will never get train service, to help them out as they got older and more frail without having to give up my city job and without requiring them to move.
But when people oppose the train on the basis that the pro-train faction is anti-car, perhaps this is not misinformed or paranoid or delusional, perhaps this reflects the reality of what many who support the train are actually thinking.
The second thing is that the train was to serve the state capital of Madison, and Madison is symbolic, in the minds of many in the rural areas of the state, of a strong central government that wants to run their lives. Yeah, yeah, you can all weigh in about how would you like to do without state roads and state Highway Patrol, and state prisons to keep dangerous people off the streets and so on, but symbolism plays a strong role in politics, and both the liberals and the conservatives often vote their feelings rather than reasoned opinions.
The third thing is the Madison Overture Center. They say you don't look a gift horse in the mouth -- if someone gives you something for free, you don't start being all critical about what you are going to get -- but what if that gift horse will drive you broke with vet bills? A lady by the name of Pleasant Roland makes a small fortune selling what are rather expensive American Girl-brand dolls to indulgent grandmothers across this land to give to their granddaughters, and that small fortune becomes somewhat larger when that enterprise is bought by toy maker Mattel, and a large sum of money is donated to the City of Madison (a gift horse!) to replace an otherwise servicable Civic Center theatre for seeing road company Broadway shows, classical music concerts, and other forms of art. This Overture Center, long story short, has become something of an albatross on the City on account of its operating subsidy.
My final remark is that we are all part of one United States rather than citizens of feuding state entities. So if the money leaves Wisconsin and Ohio, where there is not the political support to pay the operating subsidy, (Really. Just because you belong to the advocacy group and think that the subsidy is "chump change" in the WisDOT budget doesn't mean everyone else in the state has the same point of view.), so it goes to New York, Virginia, or some other place where it services a social purpose. Is that so wrong?
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
schlimm or as an interested bystander, it is easy to lose perspective about rails and the general public.
or as an interested bystander, it is easy to lose perspective about rails and the general public.
Um, I guess I can't get away from mental-health analogies either. Is that what folks in the mental health profession call "projection?"
Of course it is not wrong to take money others turned down! But we all get wrapped up in spin! Each side spins it's "take" on a subject and rabidly expresses it without hearing the other side; or caring about the other side. The real fact is that those in power rather have us arguing amongst ourselves than paying attention to what they're really doing!
Of course I did not mean Don is psychotic or in any way mentally ill. I used the term "delusional" in the everyday sense of having been mislead about something (which is possible) and believing it to be true even though it is not. If I have offended Don in anyway, I am very sorry, but I doubt if someone as sharp as Don would have misunderstood my usage.
I don't have contacts in Ohio, but quite a few in Wisconsin, who are active politically, both left and right. The rail issue was not a factor in their vote, although about half were aware of the issue but felt it was not a significant matter.
Additionally, i think a large number of Americans are fed up with politically-ideological radio and government, liberal and conservative, etc., because they are pragmatists in the American tradition of getting stuff done.
schlimm If I have offended Don in anyway
If I have offended Don in anyway
Not offended..... You are going to have to try MUCH harder.
Don: I do think you have a good point how having viable transit at both ends of an intercity rail line, whether HSR or not, makes rail an option as opposed to the car. I also think that metro regions that already have decent existing transit should be served with improved intercity rail service (as henry likes to say!) first. The places that have had the foresight to develop and in part, pay for their transit systems, should get intercity services first, not metro areas that lag.
Paul M: I am beginning to think that approaching intercity rail services on a state and/or regional level may be more sensible than on a nationwide level, given the very differing patterns of travel, distances, metro areas, etc. make a one size fits all approach unpalatable for many so that stagnation occurs.
oltmannd schlimm: If I have offended Don in anyway Not offended..... You are going to have to try MUCH harder.
schlimm: If I have offended Don in anyway
I have no inclination to do that. I don't always agree with you, though mostly I do. Your knowledge of the rail world is a valuable asset. I lived in metro Atalanta in the 80's and recall the arguments about any expansion of MARTA, especially to the NW into Cobb. I guess that is still a struggle? Have they expanded services to the east toward Snellville ("Where everybody is somebody") and Lawrenceville?
schlimm Don: I do think you have a good point how having viable transit at both ends of an intercity rail line, whether HSR or not, makes rail an option as opposed to the car. I also think that metro regions that already have decent existing transit should be served with improved intercity rail service (as henry likes to say!) first. The places that have had the foresight to develop and in part, pay for their transit systems, should get intercity services first, not metro areas that lag. Paul M: I am beginning to think that approaching intercity rail services on a state and/or regional level may be more sensible than on a nationwide level, given the very differing patterns of travel, distances, metro areas, etc. make a one size fits all approach unpalatable for many so that stagnation occurs.
I wonder if state by state is too restricted while nationwide is too unrestricted and unwieldly. I think more in terms of regions: New England and Mid Atlantic., te Near-Midwest from Chicago to Cleveland, Cinciannati, Indianapolis, Memphis, St. Louis and Minniapolis-St Paul, the Far Midwest to Salt Lake City, Sante Fe, et al., and the Pacific Coast, Southeast and Southwest.. REgions and city pairs and groups with traditional ties. Then an Amtrak to operate inter regional trains.
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