Posted on May 14 at 9:08 p.m.

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.

On Laying the Tracks

Posted on May 5 at 8:46 a.m.

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.

On Laying the Tracks

Posted on May 5 at 8:45 a.m.

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.

On Laying the Tracks

Posted on May 3 at 3:51 p.m.

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...

On Laying the Tracks

Posted on May 2 at 8:08 p.m.

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.

On Laying the Tracks

Posted on May 2 at 7:43 p.m.

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.

On Laying the Tracks