Laying the Tracks

"It’s also known that passenger rail is the most cost-effective and environmentally sensitive solution for expanding capacity in the 101 corridor."

That's a totally false statement. The cost to construct and operate a commuter rail line between Ventura and Santa Barbara would never be recouped by the fare box revenues. The most cost-efficient and environmental solution is to widen U.S. Highway 101. Santa Barbara/Ventura isn't anything close to NY or the east coast commuter rail corridor. The population density in Santa Barbara/Ventura doesn't justify the public investment for such a small population. Without governmental policies people aren't going to magically shift from their expensive personal vehicles to public rail.

How is widening the 101 the "most environmental" option? The rail line could have a frequent and reliable service with minor improvements on existing right-of-ways. There is no available land to widen the 101 in many locations, notably in downtown Santa Barbara and along the coast between Carpinteria and Ventura. That would be a massive and expensive engineering project. And again, such a highway project would recover NONE of its own construction and operation/maintenance costs.

The benefit of widening U.S. Highway 101 would be from the reduced travel times for commuters and the shipment of goods along the California coast. There is a cost associated with travel times. That's how the cost of construction and maintenance would be recovered. In addition to being a communter route U.S Highway 101 is a regional transportation facilty serving the entire state of California. Gas tax revenues are collected specifically for roadway maintenance. Additional lanes would also provide additional capacity in the event of a major emergency evacuation situation. A commuter rail line would be also be a "massive and expensive engineering project", which would have on-going operational cost, which would far exceed the benefit to a small ridership. No one, not you, not some other rail advocate can say the ridership will justify the public investment for a 30 mile commuter rail. Again people aren't going to shift from private car to public rail just because it's there. The commuter buses between Ventura and Santa Barbara or Santa Maria and Santa Barbara aren't running anywhere near capacity. I've always found it odd that the people in favor of the rail line aren't the ones it's intended to be used by. If you feel there's too much traffic on the 101, don't drive your car on the 101. Catch the bus. Trip reduction should start at your own driveway.

Nice answer, which in no way addresses the question that JWalker64 proposed to you:

How is widening the 101 the "most environmental" option?

First, reading is fundamental. "The most cost-efficient and environmental solution is to widen U.S. Highway 101." I didn't write "most environmental". Second, improving the capacity on U.S. Highway 101, reduces vehicle delays and the associated vehicle emissions. The 70,000+ vehicles trips on the 101 between Ventura and Santa Barbara are already there. We can expect those trips to increase due the poor land use decisions being made by the South County. When the housing is located away from the jobs, you see increase commuter trips and travel distances. Basic land use planning "101". Santa Barbara is another LA in the making because of poor unexcusable land use planning not circulation planning.

How is an empty "passenger rail car the most environmentally sensitive solution"? How much public money is too much for a 30 mile route" Who's going to guarantee the ridership? Here's a dirty little secret about public transportation. You don't build light rail or heavy rail for people already dependent on buses.

A question and a comment: How fast would the train go? Also, the saying "If you build it, they will come" comes to mind. We have an open border, so we can keep widening and widening and building to deal with this but at some point we have to face the simple fact that we have too many people.

Not politically correct, but unless someone has a better idea, we have to face what's happening.

While DarNel sees non cost benefits for building the highway wider, but doesnot for rail, the real issue may be that widening the highway will make it smaller in the short run, with corresponding road delays and increased environmental damage. In the long run, increased capacity will lead to increased dtraffic. If it were not so, you'd not be in the situation you are.

But what happens after liquid fuel becomes $5 or $6 a gallon? The rich will drive, of course. But the people who do the work in the County (who can't afford to live in the County now) will either demand higher wages or stop working as there are no alternatives.

When the voters passed Prop 1B, they expected that 2% of the money would go towards improving intercity rail. If the bond is not bait and switch, then we need to get going on improving public transportation.

One of the things we expect of our government (but usually fail to receive) is the ability to look down the road (pun?) and see where we are headed. As gasoline climbs steadily higher, Venezuela nationallizes the oil fields, China's energy use continues to explode, non-OPEC oil fields around the world continue to decline (they have ALL peaked) and questions are constantly raised about even OPEC's ability to increase production (and most of them harbor mostly ill will for the West), we have to ask why we are building more roads at taxpayer expense? At some point, and we don't know what that point may be, the pain at the pump may be more than we can bear and we may wish we had a rail transit system (it can be electic, powered by non-hydrocarbon sources). Of the world's industrial countries, the US ranks 13th from the bottom in per capita rail transit expenditures, being trailed only by countries such as Mali, Malaysia, Cameroon, Portugal, etc... In the world scheme of things Germany is not a major rail investor and they fund rail transit at a level 6 times higher than the US, France 20 times and Belgium almost 300 times higher. China is in the middle of a 50% increase in rail line mileage, to the tune of $12 billion US in 2005 alone, citing the need for energy efficiency, maximal land use and reduction of environmental damage as compared to highway transit.

Yes, the future we face will be a different one than we now know, but unless we believe that oil bubbles up from the magma (and there is no scientific evidence to support that), we need to think abou how long it's going to take to get systems built to get us where we want to go as best as we can.

One more thing... The impression that fuel taxes actually pay for the building and maintenance of our highways is false.

A Brookings Insititue study publish in 2003 reported that in 2001, 41% of the $133 billion spent on highways came from payments other than the gas tax, tolls, and vehicle taxes and fees, as follows: 15.3% general fund appropriations; 9.5% bond issue proceeds; 5.8% investment income and other receipts; 5.6% other taxes and fees; 4.8% property taxes. While most of this is at the state and local levels, federal policy encourages this by offering states generous funding matches for highway investments but no match for intercity rail investments.

As federal legislators are wary of raising "taxes", the burden of raising the funds for transportation programs is gradually being shifted to local governments and voter-approved initiatives that are, in most instances, not based on user fees, but on revenue or bond measures. These monies are, in essence, a huge subsidy to the highway system. In fact, when the Interstate Highway Act of 1956 was passed, the Federal government allocated $25 billion dollars to construct 38,000 miles of highways. This remains the largest public works project ever undertaken. By comparison, the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after WWII was only $17 billion and the entire Federal budget in 1956 was $71 billion.

Air transport has much the same issue with the FAA funde at about $20 billion per year, airports built largely at taxpayer expense, etc.

The point is, transit systems ARE subsidized, and the "fare box" (highway, air, rail - take your pick) NEVER covers the tab.

Charlieh has made by far the best comments.

I've used Glenn Yago to identify myself in order to bring attention to his name and his hard to find book, "The Decline of Transit".

From the book you'll learn that the difference between the robust transportation system in Germany and the laughable U.S. system is all about market forces. The laissez faire economics at work here vs. the German government keeping an eye on the public good is the difference. The passenger rail system in Germany was not pissed away for a few $ as it was in this country.

In 1953, President Eisenhower appointed then-GM President Charles Wilson as his Secretary of Defense, and 3 years later the Interstate Highway Act was a done deal. As I've written in a previous article, you simply need to Google "National City Lines" to find out what GM and others had previously been up to.

Bad choices have been made for us, and have led to convincing people that the automobile would take care of all their mobilty needs. Now generations have grown up needing a car, and development has been built with only the auto in mind. Oh, sure, there's room for a few buses, but with service like that who's going to use it? So, where does that leave us?

Municipalities are beginning to wake up, and realize (as we will soon) that highway congestion relief is a day late, and a $ short.
All this happy talk about widening the 101 to the County line. That's all it is, because unless a sales tax measure is passed, there'll be no money for widening. Sure, they're going to widen a few miles south of Milpas and it'll be done in 2011-12. Then Prop 1B money will widen a few miles north of the County line by 2016. That's only 9 years away! but what about the piece in between?

From what went on at the SBCAG Sub-Regional meeting today it's safe to say that without major mind shifting Measure D 2008 will go down to defeat just like the last one. That's all good for commuter rail, and it just takes some people a long time to learn what's up. When the chips are down, and our future mobility is in peril, commmuter rail will step up and take care of business!

About those Municipalities around the country; Albuquerque, Nashville, Salt Lake City, Portland, Dallas, Cape Cod, S. Florida.
They all got smart and instead of wasting all their money on road projects have recently built scalable commuter rail systems for the future. The trend is clear to see, and as difficult as Union Pacific RR and others want to be, one thing they know is that rail traffic is growing - both freight and passenger. The best thing for them to do is learn how to be a partner - and learn to give and take.
The State and Federal government need to sit down with the rail co's and work out a plan for building the infrastructure to accomodate increasing freight and passenger traffic. It has to happen.

I agree with Yago...

The problem with commuter rail or intercity rail (as opposed to public or semi-public agency owned light or heavy rail) is that you have public equipment running on private tracks, and the private enterprise basically views the public equipment as a nuisance at best. Witness the abysmal treatment that Amtrak's Coast Starlight gets from Union Pacific. One of the UP dispatchers is "affectionately" known as "Buffy the Trainslayer" - when she's on duty, the Starlight is guaranteed to be put in the hole to wait the freight trains out - and AMTRAK has no recourse, but to sit on the side an let the freights roll by, as much of the UP rail on the coast is single track.

The way to sweeten the pot for the UP would be for the public sector to partner with the UP in the expansion of the infrastructure with commensurate guarantees from the UP that passenger rail would have priority for scheduling. It doesn't take much to imagine what the freight business for the fuel efficient railroad world will look like in the not to distant future as diesel climbs to $4, $5, $6 per gallon. Fuel is already running long distance trucking somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 per mile - that makes your cornflakes a lot more expensive on the grocer's shelf than they were before. In the future rail (and most likely electrified rail, as is happening in the rest of the world) will do the long haul and truck will be progressively relegated to the shortest delivery lines possible. That means BIG increases in rail freight in the future and even the largest private entities will need help in handling the infrastructure build out that will be required to keep the US moving, making these partnerships inevitable, even if you don't tie passenger rail to such partnerships. So far, our government has chosen only to bail out the highway and airline industries. 9-11 saw the taxpayer grant $8 billion to the airlines, guarantee another $12 billiion in "loans" and then pick up the entire pension tab for bankrupt United Airlines and US Air. If it walks like a subsidy and talks like a subsidy...

Looking foward, in the public interest, our representatives in Congress need to insist that passenger rail planning be integrated into any public-private partnerships.

Just for fun, if you want to see what the French are doing, try visiting You-Tube at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8skXT5NQz...

and take a look at the French TGV setting a new rail speed record of 357 mph on its new line from Paris to Strasbourg. And this from the French, whose economy is smaller than that of the state of California...

Charlieh,

I'd love to know who "Buffy" is and be able to make a case for deliberate UP interference.

A UP official recently said that the CTC doesn't like when they (UP) say they have no room to run more passenger trains.
It seems UP is playing a game of extreme chess, but I don't understand what the point of the game is?

One can only conclude that UP thinks their stalling tactics will evoke the State and the Feds to step in and do corridor improvements.

I've also heard that UP's other N/S corridor is being heavily used by BNSF traffic, and UP doesn't want to improve that route either, because it would beneifit their competition.

So what does Warren Buffett see in all this? Why has he seen fit to put money into rail? Does he know something we don't about the solution to the public/private war of the rails?
This country's rail corridors hold real potential for carrying the ever increasing passenger and freight traffic.

Charlie, your analysis of the future transport dilemma we surely face with ever increasing fuel costs leads one to the rail solution.
So there must be wheels in motion for the government to get more involved in the improvement of the country's rail infrastructure. Cailifornia's Prop 1B is just such an example, and is certainly a sign of things to come. Political winds are blowing, and the changes that are sure to come in Washington next year are sure to beneifit rail.

For more on rail issues visit www.coastalrailnow.org

I think the problem is that while the National Rail Passenger Act passed to relieve the private sector of its common carrier passenger rail obligations specifically grants not only rights, but assigns priority to passenger rail, the realities of day to day rail operations result in delays that damage the image of intercity passenger rail. I travel western region long distance rail a LOT, and the comments always heard from passengers are "well, just never take the train if you hAVE to be somewhere". If you look at the statistics, VERY few delays are AMTRAK related. The delays are host railroad related, and usually congestion related. When the private sector made money running passenger trains (and oddly enough, they did until after the passage of the Federal Interstate Highway Act and subsequent construction of those subsideized highways) the trains ran remarkably on time. Dispatchers faced with a meet on single track would hold the freight on the siding in order to let the passenger train through. That certainly is not the case for AMTRAK. I recently sat on a siding late one night in the Cascades and counted five freights that went lumbering by while the Starlight sat in the hole. This is a question of priorities and AMTRAK has no control over that. If the road is single track, SOMEONE has to yield. Those delays that are AMTRAK related are almost always engine failure or some other rolling stock equipment issue, and almost all of those are due to aging infrastructuye. AMTRAK has accumulated a backlog of over 400 railcars that have been damaged or are in need of repair with no money to repair them.

Just as major corporations (long time global warming denyers) are realizing that they need to do something about carbon emissions or lose their competitiveness in the world market either through rising energy costs, carbon taxation, or even worse, WTO or European sanctions against US products for this countries refusal to step up to the plate, these same corporations are now facing soaring fuel costs which are eating their profits. My own business has seen the cost of getting product in my door to sell almost double in just the last couple of years. And there is money to made by figuring out how to use less energy to produce the same goods. Prior to the Arab oil embargo in the 70's Europe and the US had roughly the same level of energy units expended per unit of GDP. Europe. Europe in general, and certain countires specifically now produce 50-100% more GDP per unit of energy. We learned very little from that embargo, and the next shortage will be neither artificial or short term.

Just as major corporations (long time global warming denyers) are realizing that they need to do something about carbon emissions or lose their competitiveness in the world market either through rising energy costs, carbon taxation, or even worse, WTO or European sanctions against US products for this countries refusal to step up to the plate, these same corporations are now facing soaring fuel costs which are eating their profits. My own business has seen the cost of getting product in my door to sell almost double in just the last couple of years. And there is money to made by figuring out how to use less energy to produce the same goods. Prior to the Arab oil embargo in the 70's Europe and the US had roughly the same level of energy units expended per unit of GDP. Europe. Europe in general, and certain countires specifically now produce 50-100% more GDP per unit of energy. We learned very little from that embargo, and the next shortage will be neither artificial or short term.

It will take 10-20 years to build our infrastructure out to deal with a expensive fuel constrictred world and we may not have the luxury of such a lead time. And the longer we wait, the more expensive and difficult the build out will be, as the energy costs associated with the build out will cause prices for the buildout to soar. Hence, continuing to invest the vast majority of our capital in infrastructure that will be at an energy disadvantage in the not too distant future would not appear to be a wise investment of that capital, be it public or private. We must not stick our head in the sand and pretend the problem does not exist, or that it will go away.

Here's what you're talking about:

Congress enacted the Rail Passenger Service Act (RPSA) (P.L. 91-518, 84 Stat. 1327) in 1970 under the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution to preserve intercity rail passenger service in the United States.
In the RPSA, Congress declared that "modern, efficient, intercity railroad passenger service is a necessary part of a balanced transportation system" and could help end highway congestion and overcrowding of airways and airports.
____________________________________________________

In reality, the Amtrak Board was packed with people from the freight rail business who continued to work for the demise of passenger rail altogether. Trouble was that people continued to use rail, and wanted more service. The strategy was to let equipment wear out and defer maintenance and then cut back service for lack of new equipment.
Now the country's in a fix, and like you say will take a long time to build out of it. As with our local commuter rail project, capacity increase can be had by rail a lot quicker & cheaper than road solutions, AND it's a much more energy efficient solution. It may be that the energy issue will be what brings more public dollars to rail infrastructure.
A Washington D.C. writer named Neil Peirce who writes about transportation issues found my comments interesting concerning the tension between passenger & freight rail. It's something that hasn't gotten a lot of attention, and what I encouraged him to write about.
Here's a link to his latest story on mobility issues:
http://www.postwritersgroup.com/archives...

Lets get down to specifics. The esoteric arguments about passenger and freight rail isn't going to get Measure D 2008 passed.To get Measure D renewed the voters in both ends of the county have to be satisfied their tax money is going to benefit them. South County is pushing for commuter rail and widening of 101 as well as some other forms of alternate transportation. The North County doesn't give a hoot about commuter rail and barely cares about widening 101. They're interested in improving Highways 166, 135, 246 and transit service improvements as well as keeping the rural roads in good shape.

We need ideas to get the measure passed, not finding ways to torpedo the measure because some activist groups aren't getting their alternate forms of transportation funded to their satisfaction.

As you can see from my username I'm serious about public input. SBCAG is meeting May 17 in Santa Maria, you've got 10 days to make you ideas heard. Email the SBCAG staff at www.sbcag.org

If in fact you are an SBCAG board member, the attitude you project may be just what torpedo's Measure D 2008.
It typifies the North vs. South issue.

If you look at the South County as the bottom of a funnel, you can understand why the area south of Milpas is so problematic. Further, you can understand why there needs to be a commuter rail service as part of Measure D 2008. We don't have options here, it's 101, or the 150 (if you've got all day when the 101 is out). In the north there's 101, 154, and 1. And you can use 166 to get to I-5 if need be. That's a lot of options by comparison.

The populace on the South Coast understand the context very well, and unfortunately the North County doesn't.
This is refelected by the breakdown of the voting for Measure D 2006. The South knows that a road based solution to the commute time congestion is 15-20 years away, while a commuter rail solution by 101 In Motion estimates can be 4-5 years.

That's why the South Coast voted 63+% for the mix of solutions that Measure D 2006 offered. I might add that those same solutions were hammered out through the 101 In Motion process that drew from a wide range of sources in the community.

I think it's important that we act like one county, and realize the needs of the south aren't necessarily the needs of the north, and visa versa. The Board has no problem throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at 101 widening that they won't be around to see through to completion. I'd think the Board would be entusiastic to see a solution in the short term with rail, and one they could be proud to call their legacy.

You comments justify the South County's position exactly, I wasn't looking for justification but solutions to get Measure D passed. I'm looking for ideas to find that common meeting ground. How do we get a 66 2/3 vote from both ends of the county?

I believe that commuter rail will satisfy some folks, but its the North County Voter that needs to be convinced that Measure D is a good thing, a majority of them didn't go for it last time. The more talk there is about the North-South differences the wider the chasm becomes, harping on rail isn't going to get us a Measure D the county desperately needs.

We're all struggling with the reality of the chasm, and that when we speak out for our side the gap is likely to widen.

I do need to say that anyone on the Board saying that the populace needs to perceive a need for a tax, and that the north does not, is a huge negative. That kind of talk is worse than the inaction and lack of enthusiasum that was present in the campaign for Measure D 2006.

The bifurcated measure seems like a natural, but the problem is what can be done with a half cent. Unless the parts of the measure are all scaled down by a third, then something gets left out. With A+B the only way it would get support from the South was to make them equally weighted with solutions for all.
As it turned out it was obvious B was DOA , and led to the combining of the two. OK, so what do we do now?

The biggest issue up front is the 70% for Public Works.
If they agreed to give a little it would allow a little more to alternatives. That to me is the first step. It' truly the elephant in the room, and determines what the rest of the meassure will be.
Without give by Public Works there will be no success.

Whether I,as a board member or not, say it, or the results of the last ballot and last weeks Santa Maria Times poll says it, it is a fact, the North is against renewing Measure D.

I've already gotten feedback that the "off the top" allocation for the 101 widening is meeting resistance. The suggestions I've heard is to renew a plain vanilla 70/30 20 year Measure D. The expenditure plan to be determined by SBCAG Board work shops after the successful passage.

You can be sure that with such a measure, the south's numbers will be more like the north's were for the '06 measure.

It's not looking good, and I see the only place to get balance is from the 70% local piece. Otherwise it sets the stage for status quo and the loss of support from the South Coast.

Without widening off the top support in the south drops further,
and without an expenditure plan up front it'll never work.
People are too smart, and won't vote a blank check no matter what promises are made. It has to be in black and white.

Thanks GlennYago, for the discussion. I appreciate the input, it helps with decisions, these are the ideas I'm looking for. We may meet one day, perhaps we already have...

A 30 mile commuter rail route is not the great solution to the congestion on U.S. Highway 101. Until you people start to include land use planning in the South County as part of the discussion you're never going to really address the congestion issue. Comparing the U.S. rail system to European rail is beyond laughable. There are economic factors that preclude private vehicle ownership in Europe. Oh and heaven forbide if someone suggested increasing the housing density or the building heights in Santa Barbara like European cities. When will I can't get an answer this one question, who's going to make all the commuters shift from their private vehicles to public rail? I've attend my fair share of packed City Council and Planning Commission hearings and traffic congestion always the hot topic. The parking lots are always full of cars driven by single indiviuals. Very few ride the public bus or ride a bike to hearings.

DarNel, Can you offer any solutions to help renew Measure D. We need some ideas to satisfy the voters in the North and the South. Reread my postings...

There is another source of funds for commuter rail that would help stretch Measure D 2008 revenue.

Caltrans Rail Division head Bill Bronte recently said that Caltrans highway work in the Altamont Pass will be mitigated with commuter rail. There is a system in place there (ACE, Altamont Commuter Express) www.acerail.com

Bronte's predecessor, Warren Weber, was working on securing funds that could help get our commuter rail service up and running in advance of the ongoing Caltrans work south of Milpas.
That would make commuter rail a win-win, and a way to sell it to the voters that is currently being overlooked.

In the future, when commuter rail service to north county is seriously being considered, it becomes obvious that a platform or station needs to be built to service Orcutt and S. Santa Maria.
As the land southwest of the airport is developed, a stop south of Highway 1 & Black Rd. becomes the obvious location.

There's a lot of wisdom in the postings above, and as one points out, the cost of oil will play heavily into future transportation decisions. Due to the high cost of highways (with little return) they're becoming more and more obsolete, and rail becomes the mode of choice. That's why government needs to find a way to partner with the rail co's for cost effective investments in ROW improvements.

Since I don't live in the area affected by Measure D, I have sat on the sidelines with regard to the specifics.

I do have a couple of general comments, however.

The "economic factors that preclude private vehicle ownership in Europe" are largely tax based with fuel taxation at a level that discourages oil use - that is by design, with the intent of accomplishing exactly what has been accomplished - a rail system that makes ours "laughable". While we have subsidized highways like there was no tomorrow, the rest of the Western world has been building infrastructure that will be much better suited to a fuel constrained future. True, we need land use and density reform, but you will never get those reforms if we continue to subsidize six lane highways to suburbia. No one disputes the auto's superb flexiblity. However barring a breakthrough in physics (and that MIGHT happen, but it MIGHT NOT), it's quite likely we will find what we take as a "right" will instead be a real luxury for the very rich and today's auto commuters will WISH they HAD a rail system to shift to in the next fuel crunch, the one that's more likely to be organic and permanent. Are we ready?

BTW - I generally commute 16 miles RT on a bike and have logged 900 miles so far this year. My transporation experiment last year was 2000 miles of commuting on an electric scooter - just to prove it could be done.

In the news today was some buzz about the President's 20 in 10 program. I was curious to see what the plan proposed in order to reduce fuel consumption by 20% in 10 years.
It was no surprise that mass/public transportation is not mentioned by name. The closest reference that could direct resources to transit is:
The President's Plan Calls For The U.S. Department Of Transportation (DOT) To Work With States And Cities To Explore Ways To Reduce Traffic Congestion, Help Save Fuel, And Reduce Commute Times. In 2003, drivers in America's 85 most congested urban areas experienced 3.7 billion hours of travel delay and wasted 2.3 billion gallons of fuel, costing a total of $63 billion.
This is the laissez faire approach, and as such will not imply behavior change. Although we know different the implication is that the roads are free, and people have the right to drive anywhere, anytime, like it was a god given right.
There are some that say if you put more resources to public transportation it suggests people are being told to leave their cars, because the resources aren't being put into the "free" roads that everyone (if you have car & license) has the right to use (Like it was a zero sum game). The truth is, eg. transportation funding that is earmarked for transit (TDA) is typically spirirted away to highway projects. That's been happening for years in north county, and I understand it's the case in Ventura County too. Imagine all those unrecoverable dollars that could have been invested in rail and transit?
Look for Public Works wishes to be upheld at Thursday's SBCAG meeting. The word is that the Supervisors are going for the 70/30 just like the old Measure D. As has been pointed out in the past, this is unprecedented in California counties with a transportation tax. Measure D 2006 was forward thinking and equitable to all, while Measure D 2008 is shaping up to be backward thinking and a loser. So far the county doesn't want to spend the money to find out what the people want, and some claim to know without asking.