Rethinking Rail
Posted by Fred Jandt
Mass Transit magazine editor
I’m a rail guy, always have been. I can remember my first ride on Amtrak with classmates when I was in elementary school. And having traveled around the country seeing some of the best rail transit has to offer. And yet, I’ve recently started to question whether it’s the best option.
As usual in a position like mine, you get a lot of things sent to you to read. A lot. I finally got around to reading an article called “Mass Transit: The Great Train Robbery†this week that was engaging on a couple levels.
At first, I dismissed this as anti-transit propaganda. For the editor of a transit magazine you’d be surprised how much anti-transit stuff I get. I suppose they figure if they can turn me against transit, they can turn anyone. Fat chance.
But as I dug into the article a little more, I realized that it really wasn’t anti-transit. It was more anti-rail, and even then it wasn’t the usual shouting about no one riding trains or you’re taking my car when you pry it from my cold dead hands, that I normally get.
No, this piece was more carefully considered with numbers to back up the writer’s arguments. Now, I know how numbers can be manipulated to work against transit. I see that everyday from the anti-transit groups. Still, it got me thinking.
Rail is expensive. There is no way around it, when you start slinging that much metal at that kind of speed, it is going to cost serious money. But I don’t think it is “prohibitively” expensive. But it may be something we need to rethink.
First of all, and I take offense at the writer’s use of the word “boondoggle”, I think we need to call in a PR agency to help with our high-speed rail situation. Having attended a few local meetings for the new rail line being built between Milwaukee and Madison and talking to many others, I can see that a large part of the opposition comes from ignorance (remember the no one rides trains comment above).
The President’s “vision” needs clarification. We need to drop the idea of “high-speed trains” because, frankly, when you say it like that, dramatic background music springs up and you get that announcer with the deep booming voice from the 50s in your head.
It’s a commuter rail line linking major population centers with others in a network to facilitate quicker travel on a mid-range level. It’s not better than air travel when you’re trying to reach the coasts from the Midwest, but if you want to travel somewhere within your region, it beats standing in a security line for an hour.
And on a local level, we need to rethink light rail. Having ridden the light rail in Portland, Denver, Baltimore, Minneapolis and other cities, I know how nice it is to just walk up, hop on a train and hop off at your destination.
Is rail within a city a bad idea? Far from it. But I am wondering if there are better options. Frankly, light rail vehicles usually are built like tanks, yet tanks have more versatility of movement. Within cities we need something in-between what we have for rail and what we have for buses.
The thing is that most of the movement has been made on the bus side. Buses have moved more toward trains than the other way around. We need a streetcar system that can operate like rail does, but still use some of the recent developments from buses (just look at what Foothill Transit did this week).
Frankly, it seems to me that we need to rethink rail. It’s difficult because that seems to go against rail’s very nature: you put it on the tracks, it goes. And yet, that’s what we need to do. Only then will I think rail get that public acceptance we really want it to.
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Fred
fred.jandt@cygnusb2b.com
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September 3rd, 2010 at 11:23 am
Cue the music and send out Jandt’s pod car. Hello PRT!
September 3rd, 2010 at 5:27 pm
I believe so many people have a bad reaction to rail projects because they have often been mis-applied. In response to some federal dollars (read bait) all kinds of statistics are developed that usually underestimate the construction cost, present unreasonable schedules for completion, over-estimate the ridership, and try to sell a rail project that should never be. The end result is that the taxpayers end up footing the bill for a very expensive project that few people use.
It has been shown many times that rail makes sense only where there is the population density to support it. This limits it to certain areas of the country. Period… REALISTIC studies need to validate this for each area under consideration. Where the dollars do not make sense, look at other options (such as bus BRT systems) that are far less costly.
These projects must pay for themselves.
September 4th, 2010 at 11:20 pm
Fred Jandt can validate his concerns and long held knowledge on GENERIC rail with some time with Christopher C. Swan’s book: “ELECTRIC WATER”. Companion website “Suntrain Transportation Corporation” is useful to supplement the discussion.
Fred’s problem is inability up to now to present standard gauge railway as the most effective broad panorama ways & means of moving freight, victuals and people, in a time-sharing arrangement, best shown by operations like the PACIFIC ELECTRIC and other regional railway SYSTEMS of the past century. High speed rail lines in Europe and China are designed to move freight as well as passengers. USA attempts to present HSR as a National Vanity are unwise and ephemeral. Concorde was a flying vanity, and was put to bed after it ran its course.
US Mega-Railroads like BNSF & UP are soon to face a new era of limits on motor fuel, which shall effectively force them to once again become transport SYSTEMS, with trucking affiliates to give seamless freight transport. As America had once upon a time. New York Central, Pennsy, Southern Pacific, Santa Fe et al had their respective truck affiliates for pick-up & delivery.
BRT promoters should have their moment in the sun; reality hits as trucking falters, and busways are no longer viable with worn-out equipment in a scenario when transport must include robust ability to move victuals as well as passengers on the same corridor. Where appropriate, General Service “buses”, able to carry more of the freight load, must be designed ASAP. These and like transport warnings are from such authorities as Boone Pickens, Chris Skrebowski, Jim Woolsey and Richard Heinberg.
APTA and regional agencies trying to determine use of BRT vs. Rail lines have responsibility to be absolutely savvy on motor fuel limit warnings from USDOE. THEN make the calculations. Cost is not the most important element when we are about to be hit by an energy emergency tsunami. Please do the research, TALK to energy analysts at DOE, IEA, CIA, etc. Fred?
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September 6th, 2010 at 5:22 pm
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September 6th, 2010 at 8:19 pm
[...] MassTransit » Blog » Rethinking Rail [...]
September 7th, 2010 at 2:02 am
[...] need to rethink rail,” says Fred Jandt, the editor of Mass Transit magazine. After first defending his credentials as a rail [...]
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September 7th, 2010 at 12:28 pm
I would be more impressed with the expertise of the author, Joel Kotkin, if he know that FTA meant Federal Transit Administration and not Federal Transportation Authority.
And, while I agree that shifting resources from buses to rail is unfair the the bus riders, the short-term focus–and 20 years is short in terms of changing land use and travel habits–can be misleading. We have spent the past 60 years in building an urban environment based on driving and cheap gas (compared with Europe). It won’t change quickly.
September 7th, 2010 at 9:21 pm
I always say, stop subsidizing roads and start tolling them. Then, all kinds of mass transit suddenly becomes cost effective and even profitable(ergo, do-able in the private sector).
Still, I doubt that rail would ever be cost effective or competitive even if we tolled all the major roadways. There is just too much concrete and rubber wheel infrastructure for rail to compete against. And this same concrete and rubber wheel infrastructure already goes to every address in America.
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October 2nd, 2010 at 9:01 pm
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May 18th, 2011 at 4:42 am
It won’t change quickly.