manufacturing is returning to the USA as energy prices fall, read oil shale and natural gas, and as living standards in currently low-wage countries rise binging rises in wages. More andmore USA companies are taking Henry Ford's position when he first hired people for his newfangled assembly line and other manufacturers complained about the high wages he paid. Innovaton is better and quicker when the whole force of a particular company is motivated, not just the top brass.
I have lived among a very pro computer lifestyle society many of who believe what Buycrus says even their paternal leader said "people think, machines work". Some work I do used to need a studio in order to do the complete job...now, 95% of the work can be done away from the studio, for some even 100% with the right equipment. But I don't think that that is going to be a way much manufacturing will be done in the future. My grandmother used to sew socks and things doing piece work at home for a large factory back in the teens and twenties...but that is not what the future of industry is going to be. There will be commuting for industry and there is a consequence of quality, integrity, creativity and productivity that I think comes about in a physical group activity. I do not discount the idea of fewer commuter rides but do wonder about how such a social change will bring about a return to mom and pop agriculutral pursuits?
RIDEWITHMEHENRY is the name for our almost monthly day of riding trains and transit in either the NYCity or Philadelphia areas including all commuter lines, Amtrak, subways, light rail and trolleys, bus and ferries when warranted. No fees, just let us know you want to join the ride and pay your fares. Ask to be on our email list or find us on FB as RIDEWITHMEHENRY (all caps) to get descriptions of each outing.
Telework has more sticking points than projected.
I telework with some regularity. My work laptop has different (older) versions of all the software I use in the office. You can immediately see how that's an issue. Authenticating sessions is a hassle, and they time out regularly. Response times fall because I can't lean back in my chair and yell at someone two cubes down. Accessing, controlling, and securing sensitive data is an issue.
Just from my own experiences, I can't imagine not going into the office less than four days a week. My entire team had to telework recently because of construction in our building. We gathered together in conference room in another building instead of working from our houses.
The trend is a decline of U.S. manufacturing. And perhaps you need to be reminded that the forum rules do not permit us to insult each other.
Bucyrus Sir Madog: Bucyrus: I think the problem of traffic and commuting will be solved by just ending commuting, rather than commuting by train. We are quickly becoming a service / information economy. People will just stay home and do their work on the Internet. This nonsense of driving off to work every day will seem like a relic of the horse and buggy era. I hope this will not happen! Who raises the cattle, who builds the truck that ships it to the meat packing plant on roads or rails built by whom? Who delivers it to your supermarket and builds the car you use to go there? A healthy economy needs all three sectors - agriculture, industry and the service sector to serve those two. Unfortunately, we tend to forget this. We will always need transport, be it private or public. Well, not everybody will telecommute. Industries like transportation fundamentally require the performers to be moving from one point to another. Agriculture already requires no commuting, so that is not a candidate for telecommuting. The same is true for construction jobs. Manufacturing does require commuting and that cannot be replaced by telecommuting. However, manufacturing it the one category that is disappearing in the U.S., and will continue to disappear. Some manufacturing will remain, but most of it is in the suburban rings, making transit difficult to apply. Where transit is most applicable is from the outer rings into the city core. Not only are there natural transit-worthy corridors there, but also the road traffic is worse in that commuting pattern than anywhere else. So there is an incentive to substitute transit for driving. But the inner city core is precisely where all the information jobs are concentrated. I know they have been talking about telecommuting for quite some time without much progress down that path. There is a certain corporate status in the image of all the employees working under one big tent, and companies are reluctant to give that image up. They have also been talking about building comprehensive rail transit for a long time, but that moves forward very slowly, In the meantime, the economy is contracting and wages are falling. This is what will force the transition to telecommuting. There is no time to wait for transit to be built everywhere. The cost of living is as high as it has ever been, and wages are falling to 1980s levels in some sectors. To make that budget work, something has to give, and the main candidate is the cost of commuting. There is simply no reason for a person who spends eight hours a day sitting at a computer to be driving off to a big beehive downtown every day. Business is acquiring a very lean and mean attitude in order to compete with the third world, and commuting to a symbolic headquarters every day will soon seem as silly as the hula-hoop.
Sir Madog: Bucyrus: I think the problem of traffic and commuting will be solved by just ending commuting, rather than commuting by train. We are quickly becoming a service / information economy. People will just stay home and do their work on the Internet. This nonsense of driving off to work every day will seem like a relic of the horse and buggy era. I hope this will not happen! Who raises the cattle, who builds the truck that ships it to the meat packing plant on roads or rails built by whom? Who delivers it to your supermarket and builds the car you use to go there? A healthy economy needs all three sectors - agriculture, industry and the service sector to serve those two. Unfortunately, we tend to forget this. We will always need transport, be it private or public.
Bucyrus: I think the problem of traffic and commuting will be solved by just ending commuting, rather than commuting by train. We are quickly becoming a service / information economy. People will just stay home and do their work on the Internet. This nonsense of driving off to work every day will seem like a relic of the horse and buggy era.
I think the problem of traffic and commuting will be solved by just ending commuting, rather than commuting by train. We are quickly becoming a service / information economy. People will just stay home and do their work on the Internet. This nonsense of driving off to work every day will seem like a relic of the horse and buggy era.
I hope this will not happen!
Who raises the cattle, who builds the truck that ships it to the meat packing plant on roads or rails built by whom? Who delivers it to your supermarket and builds the car you use to go there? A healthy economy needs all three sectors - agriculture, industry and the service sector to serve those two. Unfortunately, we tend to forget this. We will always need transport, be it private or public.
The cost of living is as high as it has ever been, and wages are falling to 1980s levels in some sectors. To make that budget work, something has to give, and the main candidate is the cost of commuting. There is simply no reason for a person who spends eight hours a day sitting at a computer to be driving off to a big beehive downtown every day. Business is acquiring a very lean and mean attitude in order to compete with the third world, and commuting to a symbolic headquarters every day will soon seem as silly as the hula-hoop.
Not to say you are full of it but you are. Manufacturing is definitely strong in the US just recently Caterpillar moved the Electro-Motive Diesel plant to Muncie and Toyota is building a flagship sports car in the US if anything the Us will become bigger for manufacturing.
Railroad to Freedom
Sir Madog Bucyrus: I think the problem of traffic and commuting will be solved by just ending commuting, rather than commuting by train. We are quickly becoming a service / information economy. People will just stay home and do their work on the Internet. This nonsense of driving off to work every day will seem like a relic of the horse and buggy era. I hope this will not happen! Who raises the cattle, who builds the truck that ships it to the meat packing plant on roads or rails built by whom? Who delivers it to your supermarket and builds the car you use to go there? A healthy economy needs all three sectors - agriculture, industry and the service sector to serve those two. Unfortunately, we tend to forget this. We will always need transport, be it private or public.
Well, not everybody will telecommute. Industries like transportation fundamentally require the performers to be moving from one point to another. Agriculture already requires no commuting, so that is not a candidate for telecommuting. The same is true for construction jobs. Manufacturing does require commuting and that cannot be replaced by telecommuting. However, manufacturing it the one category that is disappearing in the U.S., and will continue to disappear.
Some manufacturing will remain, but most of it is in the suburban rings, making transit difficult to apply.
Where transit is most applicable is from the outer rings into the city core. Not only are there natural transit-worthy corridors there, but also the road traffic is worse in that commuting pattern than anywhere else. So there is an incentive to substitute transit for driving. But the inner city core is precisely where all the information jobs are concentrated.
I know they have been talking about telecommuting for quite some time without much progress down that path. There is a certain corporate status in the image of all the employees working under one big tent, and companies are reluctant to give that image up. They have also been talking about building comprehensive rail transit for a long time, but that moves forward very slowly,
In the meantime, the economy is contracting and wages are falling. This is what will force the transition to telecommuting. There is no time to wait for transit to be built everywhere.
One of the reasons that urban public transit is no longer a private enterprise is that it no longer enjoys the near monopoly it had prior to the 1920's. The private automobile, overly restrictive regulation concerning fares and high labor and capital costs all contributed to the demise of public transit as a privately-operated non-subsidized operation.
The terms being discussed have to be identified and defined. Public transit...in my mind it means transit agencies like rapid transit, light rail and commuter bus or train operations under the umbrella of a government sponsord or supported orginization. But the term could also be construed to mean any and all forms of transportation no matter what the form of owners or operators or even distances travelled.
Under my definition of public transit my conclusion is that it has not failed but is very alive and kicking. There are new routes and systems being developed in major and minor cities across the country and passenger counts up in existing situations. This is for bus, subway, light rail and commuter operations...ride any of them sometime, rush hour, midday, or weekends: you'll find them well used point to point and every point in between, sometimes even to the use of standing room only!
Amtrak, that's a political soccer ball well discussed many times, many ways, all over these posts.
But by your question, do you mean, why does private enterprise not flourish by opertaing these services? That, too is often discussed here.
Well, here's a new wrinkle on the transit demand.
In Northern New Jersey, specifically in Bergen County, there's a bit of a flap going on about the revitalization of a freight line, CSXs Northern Branch, into a New Jersey Transit light rail commuter line. It's the old Erie Northern Branch that runs through North Bergen, Fairview, Ridgefield, Palisades Park, Leonia, Englewood, and Tenafly. All the aforementioned towns want it once parking and traffic concerns are addressed, but not Tenafly. The Tenafly "Antis" are trotting out all the NIMBY arguments: noise, traffic, "it'll run over our kids", you name it. Unspoken is the worry it'll bring in "undesireables", ignoring the fact said "undesireables" don't need NJ Transit to get where they want to be. Use your own imaginations to figure out "undesireables", I won't elaborate.
Ironic, since Tenafly is a child of the old Erie to begin with. My father grew up in Tenafly in the 30's and 40's and I asked him "Hey Dad, when you were a kid the trains ran through town about every 25-30 minutes. How many kids got run over?" "None", said Dad, "we weren't stupid!"
I think St. Louis' lite rail revival was fortunate to be able to utilize a former freight line tunnel under the downtown.
the south shore did survive as a combination profitable freight railroad (the other two Insull interubans did not have sufficient freight business and other commutor railroads were parrallel) and a subsidized (as usual) commuter railroad. Commuter railroads are subsidized because the land costs and constructions costs would be astronomical for highway transportation if the railroad service did not exist. But nearly all their passengers own cars. Used for pleasure instead of commuting. Like the average Sweiss and German, and with increased urbanization and congestion, possibly some day the average American. Cities like New York and Chicago would practially shut down without their "L" or subways and their commuter railroads..
I think that ontheBNSF's post of 7/24/12 suffers from a very common misconception of what most electric interurban railroads were. The vast majority of interurban railroads would not be useful today (and, in fact, ceased to be useful by the late 1920’s or early 1930’s).
When people today think of “interurbans” (if they think of them at all), they understandably think of properties like the Pacific Electric in California, the North Shore, South Shore and the CA&E in Chicago, the Illinois Terminal in central Illinois and a handful of other properties which survived into the 1950’s or 1960’s. These were NOT typical interurbans. They were special cases which often represented a morphing of a property that started out as an interurban into something else. That's most clearly the case with Pacific Electric, South Shore and Illinois Terminal, which morphed into very important freight railroads (a type of service most interurban railroads were incapable of providing). The Pacific Electric was actually controlled by the Southern Pacific raillroad for most of the 20th century. Railroads like South Shore, North Shore and CA&E (and Pacific Electric, on some of its lines) were also able to morph into major commuter lines because of entries into their principal cities which were free of lengthy running on city streets (the NSL, SSL and CA&E avoided any street running in Chicago; IT had very little in St. Louis; most of the major PE lines had street running in LA, but it was much shorter than typical interurban lines in other cities). NSLand CA&E also handled carload freight, although not as extensively as PE, SSL or IT.
The "typical" interurban railroad was nothing like these properties (except, perhaps, in the style of equipment used). They were, essentially, glorified rural streetcar lines, operated at somewhat higher speeds when on open track than city streetcars (some operated at much higher speeds on open track than city streetcars, but most didn’t). They typically had very lengthy operations in city streets, streetcar style, in the major cities they served, and also many of the minor communities as well. Most had physical plants which were incapable of handling carload freight with steam railroads The market they were designed to serve was town to town local passenger and package transportation, a market which seemed very promising in the late 19th and early 20th century (which, at the time, was very poorly served by existing forms of transportation). Trouble is that, once cheap autos and paved roads became available by the 1920’s, interurban passengers deserted the trolleys by the score for the automobile, and the package services went to truck, By the 1930’s, busses could easily handle the remaining business. Most of the industry was in big trouble after the mid 1920’s (some properties before that), and the industry was almost completely extinguished in the 1930’s. Only a few properties survived into the post World War II era.
Anyone who wants to know what the interurban industry was really like should read “The Electric Interurban Railroad in America” by George Hilton and John Due, which is the best scholarly work that has been done on the industry (including histories of individual properties) and is very readable (railfan warning – while it’s a wealth of information, it doesn’t have many pictures).
Bucyrus I think the problem of traffic and commuting will be solved by just ending commuting, rather than commuting by train. We are quickly becoming a service / information economy. People will just stay home and do their work on the Internet. This nonsense of driving off to work every day will seem like a relic of the horse and buggy era.
ontheBNSF Bucyrus: Why couldn't you just run the 100 people in their cars single file in a single lane? That is kind of what the bus would be doing. you end up with this thing called gridlock and congestion thus you need more lanes. You are trying to go against simple geography.
Bucyrus: Why couldn't you just run the 100 people in their cars single file in a single lane? That is kind of what the bus would be doing.
you end up with this thing called gridlock and congestion thus you need more lanes. You are trying to go against simple geography.
Gridlock is just a word for a lack of capacity. That can happen with any form of transportation.
You have to consider that although you can compress more people into a rail line flow than a highway lane flow, the rail line costs a lot more than a traffic lane. And you need a train too.
And moving people is not just like moving high tonnage bulk materials when it comes to efficiency.
But suppose you had rail everywhere people wanted to go, any time they wanted to ride. What percentage of people driving cars would quit driving and ride rail?
BaltACD Bucyrus: ontheBNSF: And public transit simply carries more and simply gives you more for your investment it costs a lot less to move people by public transit than it does to move by the same amount roads and highways. If it gives you more for the investment cost than cars and highways do, why don't people get rid of their cars and ride transit? Why would they spend more than they have to? Public transit doesn't get you EVERYWHERE you want to go - and people want to go everywhere.
Bucyrus: ontheBNSF: And public transit simply carries more and simply gives you more for your investment it costs a lot less to move people by public transit than it does to move by the same amount roads and highways. If it gives you more for the investment cost than cars and highways do, why don't people get rid of their cars and ride transit? Why would they spend more than they have to?
ontheBNSF: And public transit simply carries more and simply gives you more for your investment it costs a lot less to move people by public transit than it does to move by the same amount roads and highways.
And public transit simply carries more and simply gives you more for your investment it costs a lot less to move people by public transit than it does to move by the same amount roads and highways.
If it gives you more for the investment cost than cars and highways do, why don't people get rid of their cars and ride transit? Why would they spend more than they have to?
Public transit doesn't get you EVERYWHERE you want to go - and people want to go everywhere.
A personal example - I am supposed to start commuting to Santa Ana in three weeks and have little desire to drive there on a daily basis. The good news is that I'm 4 miles from Amtrak's Solana Beach station, so getting to/from that station will be easy. The almost as good news is that the NB morning express train takes 56 minutes to get from Solana Beach to Irvine. The bad news is that taking public transit from the station to the office in Santa Ana will take close to an hour, though the company is looking into other options for that part of the trip..
- Erik
Bucyrus ontheBNSF: As a for example If I wanted to move 100 people I could use several cars which take up several lanes traffic and thus costs lots of money to build the lanes of traffic and the cost of auto ownership on 100 people, or have a bus capable of moving 100 people and devote one lane of traffic for it. Why couldn't you just run the 100 people in their cars single file in a single lane? That is kind of what the bus would be doing.
ontheBNSF: As a for example If I wanted to move 100 people I could use several cars which take up several lanes traffic and thus costs lots of money to build the lanes of traffic and the cost of auto ownership on 100 people, or have a bus capable of moving 100 people and devote one lane of traffic for it.
As a for example If I wanted to move 100 people I could use several cars which take up several lanes traffic and thus costs lots of money to build the lanes of traffic and the cost of auto ownership on 100 people, or have a bus capable of moving 100 people and devote one lane of traffic for it.
Why couldn't you just run the 100 people in their cars single file in a single lane? That is kind of what the bus would be doing.
ontheBNSF As a for example If I wanted to move 100 people I could use several cars which take up several lanes traffic and thus costs lots of money to build the lanes of traffic and the cost of auto ownership on 100 people, or have a bus capable of moving 100 people and devote one lane of traffic for it.
Bucyrus ontheBNSF: Bucyrus: ontheBNSF: And public transit simply carries more and simply gives you more for your investment it costs a lot less to move people by public transit than it does to move by the same amount roads and highways. If it gives you more for the investment cost than cars and highways do, why don't people get rid of their cars and ride transit? Why would they spend more than they have to? because public transit doesn't simply exist in high enough frequency for most and in enough places. You can't pull "if it is so good argument why don't people use it" when people simply aren't given the choice and it isn't available. Kinda a dumb argument. It wasn't a trick question. I realize that a lot of people do not ride transit because it is not available everywhere. But people know what transit is. So, if most of the people who drive cars wanted transit, they would get it built. So apparently, they don't want it. If it is better than cars, why don't more people want it? What is your basis for claiming that it costs a lot less to move people by public transit than it does to move the same amount by roads and highways?
ontheBNSF: Bucyrus: ontheBNSF: And public transit simply carries more and simply gives you more for your investment it costs a lot less to move people by public transit than it does to move by the same amount roads and highways. If it gives you more for the investment cost than cars and highways do, why don't people get rid of their cars and ride transit? Why would they spend more than they have to? because public transit doesn't simply exist in high enough frequency for most and in enough places. You can't pull "if it is so good argument why don't people use it" when people simply aren't given the choice and it isn't available. Kinda a dumb argument.
because public transit doesn't simply exist in high enough frequency for most and in enough places. You can't pull "if it is so good argument why don't people use it" when people simply aren't given the choice and it isn't available. Kinda a dumb argument.
It wasn't a trick question. I realize that a lot of people do not ride transit because it is not available everywhere.
But people know what transit is. So, if most of the people who drive cars wanted transit, they would get it built. So apparently, they don't want it. If it is better than cars, why don't more people want it?
What is your basis for claiming that it costs a lot less to move people by public transit than it does to move the same amount by roads and highways?
do I really have to answer that. It is called economies of scale, it can be assumed proportional to the amount of people say a bus rail vehicle can carry vs the amount of cars required and the same amount of roads, the cost would be greater for roads.
ontheBNSF Bucyrus: ontheBNSF: And public transit simply carries more and simply gives you more for your investment it costs a lot less to move people by public transit than it does to move by the same amount roads and highways. If it gives you more for the investment cost than cars and highways do, why don't people get rid of their cars and ride transit? Why would they spend more than they have to? because public transit doesn't simply exist in high enough frequency for most and in enough places. You can't pull "if it is so good argument why don't people use it" when people simply aren't given the choice and it isn't available. Kinda a dumb argument.
Bucyrus ontheBNSF: And public transit simply carries more and simply gives you more for your investment it costs a lot less to move people by public transit than it does to move by the same amount roads and highways. If it gives you more for the investment cost than cars and highways do, why don't people get rid of their cars and ride transit? Why would they spend more than they have to?
The person who's office job is now done on the internet may still need to commute to the unemployment office when his job is easily off-shored.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
ontheBNSF And public transit simply carries more and simply gives you more for your investment it costs a lot less to move people by public transit than it does to move by the same amount roads and highways.
For some maybe. They have been saying this will be the future of "work." Right up there with flying cars like the Jetson's, IMO.
Many jobs, probably most, can't be done remotely by computer. But, then those jobs are usually considered to be the type that "Americans won't do," so probably don't count anyway.
Jeff
While I can't speak for the West Coast experience with public transit, I can tell you in the North Jersey area where I come from public transit, and by this I mean trolleys, intererbans, and the like died out purely do to lack of patronage. Prior to World War One all were heavily used by the public, but after the war the automobile came into it's own and the ridership began to inexorably drop. The Great Depression (no-one had any money) and then World War Two (no-one had any gas) gave the trolleys a bit of a reprieve, but by the late 40's the handwriting was on the wall.
Mind you, some electric mass transit systems did survive but did so by evolving into another form. The New York and Newark NJ subway systems are a good example.
I can't blame the auto makers. Henry Ford was no fool, and "The Great Bicycle Craze" of the 1890's gave him the idea that there was a VERY strong demand for personal transportation. He just came up with a way to capitalize on it.
Look at it this way: When there's a strong demand for public transportation it'll come back in a big way. Maybe when the Boomers are too old to drive? Who knows?
ontheBNSF Roads don't pay for themselves and we seem to be alright with that and airlines receive massive subsidies each year, why should public transit have to pay for itself what it gives you is a better quality life, convience, reduced congestion, and reduced societal burden and costs.
Roads don't pay for themselves and we seem to be alright with that and airlines receive massive subsidies each year, why should public transit have to pay for itself what it gives you is a better quality life, convience, reduced congestion, and reduced societal burden and costs.
Yes, you can find subsidies for everything, but that does not mean that it is equally worthwhile to subsidize everything. On average, the people who pay for highways get a lot of use out of them, and so it is worthwhile to them.
Sir Madog If we dare to risk a look over the fence to Germany or Japan, we will see people owning cars and still using public transport to a high degree. Just to be fair, this hasn´t always been that way. Public transport, just like in the US, had been on the decline in the 1960´s and 1970´s, when streetcar lines were closed and replaced by bus service. Ridership figures went down at a higher rate than the no. of automobiles grew. Change came in the late 1970´s, when people learned, that it being stuck over an hour in rush hour traffic may be not the smartest way to commute to work. That time marked a change in trend. Streetcar lines were re-opened, ROW´s were being separated from the roads or even put underground, new streetcars were put in service, and ticketing systems were unified in urban areas. This process is still not concluded and each year sees a number of improvements. However, there is a price tag to that. These systems can´t be run as private enterprises, "doomed" to make a profit. While operating profits have gone up, none of the public transport systems we have in Germany recovers its capital cost. They all rely on some sort of subsidy from tax money.. As long as such subsidies are regarded as "un-American" or even "socialistic", any attempt to re-introduce public transport in the US is bound to fail.
If we dare to risk a look over the fence to Germany or Japan, we will see people owning cars and still using public transport to a high degree. Just to be fair, this hasn´t always been that way.
Public transport, just like in the US, had been on the decline in the 1960´s and 1970´s, when streetcar lines were closed and replaced by bus service. Ridership figures went down at a higher rate than the no. of automobiles grew.
Change came in the late 1970´s, when people learned, that it being stuck over an hour in rush hour traffic may be not the smartest way to commute to work. That time marked a change in trend. Streetcar lines were re-opened, ROW´s were being separated from the roads or even put underground, new streetcars were put in service, and ticketing systems were unified in urban areas. This process is still not concluded and each year sees a number of improvements.
However, there is a price tag to that. These systems can´t be run as private enterprises, "doomed" to make a profit. While operating profits have gone up, none of the public transport systems we have in Germany recovers its capital cost. They all rely on some sort of subsidy from tax money..
As long as such subsidies are regarded as "un-American" or even "socialistic", any attempt to re-introduce public transport in the US is bound to fail.
one problem was that the transit systems were privately owned and the pols would not allow fare raises to meet rising costs.
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