Topic #1: Mark's article and highway congestion

[arbfbe]

The only entities that offer open acces are those that make a profit from providing access. Think toll roads, canals and ports. Their business, either public or private is to allow anyone with the funds to use their facilities. The carriers using the open access facilities make their profits from hauling the freight or passengers, the open access facilities do not. It seems all the organizations that do not provide unregulated open acces are those that make their profits from moving something, think railroads, pipelines and powerlines.

Some states like Iowa and Washington have recognized that rail subsidies will result in lower highway expenditures in the long run when heavy commodities are moved to rail. The recent rail updates in St Louis relieved congestion.

One can argue the politics of subsidizing railroads but the baseline should be the economics, where does your government get it's best return on money's spent.

I get taxed every year to support a county airport that I have not used in the last 8 years or so. I don't see using it again in the near future either. I would certainly like to see more airport user fees and fewer taxes in this instance. On the other hand, anything to get traffic off the highways and county roads and keep the road structures in shape would be appreciated.

Alan

[jchnhtfd]

"The cause of highway congestion is simply political malfeasance. If engineers were allowed to plan transportation systems and infrastructure development free of political input, there would be no such thing as choke points or congestion"
Dave! I do love your optimism... and I think, as an engineer, I should be flattered... however... it ain't true, much as I wish it were. Most (not all!!!) engineers aren't all that good as planners. Having said that, however, I tend to agree that the congestion problems (which on highways tend to be quite localised) are the result of political decisions (not sure I'd go so far as to say they are the result of malfeasance, though -- that's pretty strong) -- and most politicians are pretty poor planners, too. An argument could be made for really good centralised planning, but I'm not much in favour of centralised control of anything (that's a political argument and doesn't really belong here!). On the whole (and I haven't read Mark's article -- dang Post Office!) I believe (and this is a political viewpoint) that with a minimum of central direction free market forces can, and should, do the planning -- although the process can be somewhat slow and painful. But those forces have to be free market and, at the present time, there are many distortions introduced in the free market for transportation by various government subsidies, either direct or indirect (and the latter include taxation policy, particularly on the local level).

One of the bigger problems, it seems to me, lies in determining how to pay for such public improvements as canals and lock and dam systems, airports and the air traffic control system, and especially highways, in such a way as to be fair and to eliminate the effective subsidy.

But I'll wait and see what Mark has to say before I go any farther!

[jchnhtfd]

" have yet to hear from anyone who can argue as to why it is justifiable for all other transportation modes have some form of open access, except railroads"
Dave -- please see my reply in the thread 'How to double capacity of US Railroads for this one. Very very briefly, there is a fundamental difference between the nature of transportation by means of highways, skyways, canals and what not and railroads, and while open access is somewhat feasible for those other modes (it is breaking down for the skyways), the fundamental nature of a train running on a fixed guideway is sufficiently different that open access does not result in any operational or economic improvement -- rather, almost everything gets worse. As, I might point out, the British have found, to their cost. And it is not in the politics of the thing, it is in the fundamental nature of the thing: the physics and the engineering. Which, like the tide, won't change for wishful thinking.