Why isn't there much support for intercity rail? (solar, gas, global warming)
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It seems as though everyone only wants to talk about solar, wind, mini-flourescent lights, drying your clothes outside, et. al. Light rail is mentioned by the urban planning type, but there does not seem to be the huge support that I thought that there would be for a major push for 400 mile range inter city trains.
We could make it happen with travel times respectable. We hear about passenger bill of rights for air travellers but few seem to take shots at this very fuel inefficient means of transportation. Is air travel such a sacred cow that no one want to focus on it? Everyone seems to excuse those who travel the most inefficiently - on private jets - yet there is not outcry. We make excuses for "important" people who have such great weighty things on their minds that their carbon footprint is excused. And please do not tell me that anyone believes that carbon credits makes up for the sin.
Let's write our congresspeople and get this movement going!
Intercity rail and just about all transit systems can't exist without major subsidies. The bus system here in Seattle collects less than 20% of it's operating cost at the fare box. The rest is subsidized by taxpayers. The percentage is even lower for light rail and intercity rail.
There has to be a certain population level to justify the expense of operating passenger rail. If you are lucky enough to be able to use the existing railroad tracks - which, by the way, are privately owned - then your costs will be lower. Even in Seattle, though, where intercity rail runs on BNSF tracks, it is still heavily subsidized with tax dollars. If you have to build new rights-of-way, then your costs are prohibitive.
Amtrak has had some success with the Acela trains between Boston and DC and that run has not needed a subsidy, but that is in the most densely populated region in the country.
The longer intercity runs just haven't been very popular. It's still faster and less expensive to drive from Seattle to Portland or from Kansas City to St. Louis.
Our light rail in Charlotte just opened in November after passing one vote in 98 and then anotther one in 2007. We had the existing right of way for the first 10 mile leg and it initially stemmed from the restoration of the revamped Charlotte Trolley. Light rail ridership has exceeded projections in every city it's been introduced in the past 10 years, but it is very expensive and almost always runs over budget. You have to meet strict criteria to apply for federal funding too, which is more scarce since many cities want it. Our first light rail line is paid for as part of the 1/2 cent transit tax. The approximate cost was $44 million per mile, but I would love to see a train going to many parts of the city, especially since Charlotte has horrible suburban sprawl.
Intercity rail and just about all transit systems can't exist without major subsidies.
Amtrak has had some success with the Acela trains between Boston and DC and that run has not needed a subsidy, but that is in the most densely populated region in the country.
The longer intercity runs just haven't been very popular. It's still faster and less expensive to drive from Seattle to Portland or from Kansas City to St. Louis.
Thank you for making my point when I started the thread "Why isn't there much support for intercity rail?" The point is that
Air Travel is also heavily subsidized. The entire air traffic control system is paid for by the taxpayers.
You say you can drive less expensively. For the sake of this category where all kinds of subsidized solutions are presented (solar, wind, etc., etc.), there does not seem to be a problem. Is it that air travel gets a pass where other energy savings proposals are praised?
You have seen the commercials touting the fact that a ton of weight can be transported over 400 miles on a gallon of fuel. If your point is that people will not use the service, then why bother about all of the other energy savings proposals that will cause people to change?
It is clear that the drive that you cited could transport huindereds of people at a fraction of the cost. So why concentrate on fuel standards for cars when you could concentrate on something with a greater energy savings potential?
If there are no supporters for this solution, then it is hard to get on the green bandwagon.
Well, in the west at least, the passenger rail system was given to (or, in part, back to) the freight railways. The freight system runs at near-capacity and there isn't a lot of room in the time schedule for beefing up passenger rail on the freight tracks. There is a passenger train from Los Angeles to Seattle (or was, before a huge landslide at Oakridge, Oregon blocked the tracks and now that 150-mile section is handled via bus) that does one run in each direction per day-it has a priority time slot, but if it slips that time slot (and, in the course of a 36 hour run, it almost always does), it loses that priority to freight. This makes the run's schedule very loose, and the train can arrive in Seattle a few hours late to more than half a day late, meaning only those who have leisure to travel (or are just traveling short hops) can use the train.
Could this be changed? Only by some set of circumstances that gets people out of their cars and willing to accept the slightly more inconvenient method of travel. When I lived in Portland I frequently took a train up to Seattle (about 175 miles) and it worked well because all of my business was in downtown Seattle, which had a train stop. The ride up wasn't all that much slower than a car, was definitely cheaper.
Last edited by PNW-type-gal; 04-15-2008 at 07:03 PM..
Reason: added info
It seems as though everyone only wants to talk about solar, wind, mini-flourescent lights, drying your clothes outside, et. al. Light rail is mentioned by the urban planning type, but there does not seem to be the huge support that I thought that there would be for a major push for 400 mile range inter city trains.
We could make it happen with travel times respectable. We hear about passenger bill of rights for air travellers but few seem to take shots at this very fuel inefficient means of transportation. Is air travel such a sacred cow that no one want to focus on it? Everyone seems to excuse those who travel the most inefficiently - on private jets - yet there is not outcry. We make excuses for "important" people who have such great weighty things on their minds that their carbon footprint is excused. And please do not tell me that anyone believes that carbon credits makes up for the sin.
Let's write our congresspeople and get this movement going!
I agree with you 100% on this issue. I think moving forward, with gas prices ever increasing and not decreasing, more people will clamor for mass transit. In Nashville, South Florida and many other places, mass transit ridership has doubled and tripled in some cases. Here in Fort Lauderdale they are planning to build out a light rail system which should be up and running by 2011. As for the argument about subsidies versus driving cars. People need to stop lying to themselves. infrastructure is subsidized partly by gas but that has proven not to be enough to cover the expensive of infrastructure upkeep. I think a report by DOT said our nation has one of the worst state of repair for infrastructure among any of the industrialized nation. So in the end the tax payer has to pay to repair roads, bridges and the like. This is irregardless of the fact you drive or not. So all forms of transport need to be subsidized, but so what. The big picture is, gas is not getting cheaper, and we are no looking at peak oil or soon will be. You also have environmental affects, never mind global warming. By environmental I mean we have air quality depredation etc. This is a tax on the health of the U.S. citizen.
Bottom line is, we must have train and BRT systems with in metro areas, we must have high speed rail tying metro areas together etc.
It will happen though, as people continue to feel the pinch in their wallets they will be begging and pleading for the govt to do something.
I am an admitted Railfan. I have been fascinated by railroading since I was, as a kid, the maintenance man, builder and mechanic in a home made amusement park railroad. I think trains are cool in themselves and a great way to move people and large amounts of freight over land.
I watched the intercity passenger rail system collapse in the 1960’s as the airlines switched to jet airplanes with their vastly increased safety, comfort and reduced operating costs. Most of the development costs of this technology were paid for by the general taxation because of military needs for fast long-range bombers. The original Boeing B-47 is the grandfather of all modern jet transports. The airline subsidies continued with the FAA, the Air Traffic control and the municipal building of airports and terminals. Airline gate rental fees barely pay for the operation of an airport and not for the capital investment.
During this time the railroads were saddled with old equipment, much of which did not recover from the wear and tear of WW2, and taxation of their ROW instead of the nearly free use of public airspace. The building of the interstate highway system almost drove the entire rail industry into bankruptcy. The competition did drive several major railroad companies into receivership. What emerged was a set of four huge railroad companies that now dominate land freight transport on this continent. They have as effectively controlled their costs and pricing and are now very prosperous and are making substantial investments in machinery and track.
In the pre WW2 days the passenger and the freight trains were run on separate ROW because an average freight ran about 20 mph and the passenger trains, some of them anyway, could meet a scheduled 60 mph. The 20th century limited could deliver people from NYC to Chicago in less than 20 hours. A cross continent trip could take as little as four days. Trying to fly this route in a DC-3 was a real adventure and driving a car would take more than a week. The railroads were sitting pretty and were being milked as cash cows by their owners. The diversion of capital was one of the reasons rail transport declined so rapidly after WW2.
In the 1980’s I took a Metroliner from NYC to Washington DC. IIRC the trip took about four hours. At one point in southern NJ I saw the speed indicator (I was standing behind the operator in an open doorway) display over 125 mph. Even with the stops this was a very quick trip from Penn Station in NYC to the (I forget the name) station near the Mall in Washington DC. These electrically driven trains operated on separate tracks from the freights. AFAIK these are still operating. I think this is because the distance between these cities is about optimal for medium to high-speed rail transport. Long enough to beat the driving time and short enough to beat the actual downtown-to-downtown time, not to mention, hassle of airline transport. The nearly equivalent distance from NYC to Boston has been a tougher route to operate.
I think there are some cities where high-speed rail passenger transport is a viable alternative to flying or driving. A couple of these are the northeast coast (WDC to Boston), the south west coast (San Diego to San Francisco), and various intercity routes in the mid west (Front range of the Rockies from Fort Collins to Pueblo for example).
In the long term we will need a development of a mixed system where air transport from big city to big city at long distance is supplemented by intercity high-speed rail and automotive transport. I do not believe the private sector is willing to invest the huge amount of money required to develop this system. However, I think it is a good idea to do so just for the savings in fuel and emissions.
This is barely an outline of the problem. Thank you for considering this essay.
It is clear that the drive that you cited could transport huindereds of people at a fraction of the cost. So why concentrate on fuel standards for cars when you could concentrate on something with a greater energy savings potential?
I would love to see more passenger rail instead of air travel for short hops, but it takes longer than flying and driving. Seattle to Portland is a 3 1/2 hour rail trip or a 3 hour drive. And since most people don't have appointments at the train station they still have to get to where they are going, which adds even more time (and expense) to the trip.
It also would cost me about twice as much for a rail ticket as it does for gas for the same trip, but my car gets about 40 mpg on the highway so that wouldn't be true for someone with a less efficient vehicle - but even an SUV that gets 15 mpg will only spend about $15 more on gas than the cost of the train ticket. Unless their meeting happens to be within walking distance of the depot, and if they don't have to pay for parking, then they are still going to wind up spending more.
The fact remains that for these 300 mile or so trips in most of the country it is faster, cheaper and more convenient to take your own car.
Government can do all they can to encourage more rail use, but they are going to get a lot more bang for the buck by increasing fuel standards for ipersonal vehicles.
Well, in the west at least, the passenger rail system was given to (or, in part, back to) the freight railways.
The rails have always been owned by private companies - they were never public property. All of the private companies that ran passenger trains on their rails lost money with the increase in air travel, road quality and car ownership.
Amtrak was started by the government to take over rail service from the railroad companies, and since the government didn't own any of the rail lines they had to work with the railroad companies to use their privately-held rights of way. The remaining railroads make a lot more money hauling freight than they make from whatever they charge Amtrak for use of the rails.
There weren't separate freight and passenger rail systems until the railroads dropped passenger service when they were losing tons of money on it. Passenger rail still loses money for Amtrak, but since it is a government corporation it gets bailed out.
GregW, the Northeast Corridor is one of Amtrak's success stories. The Acela service is an example of how effective high speed rail can be when serving several large cities. It is also one of the few routes that Amtrak operates that doesn't lose money. It works because Amtrak has exclusive use of that right-of-way and because it connects several densely populated cities that are major business centers. That trip you took in the 80s is even faster now due to a $2 billion investment in track upgrades and train sets.
In the rest of the country, where Amtrak uses freight rail tracks for passenger service, increased passenger train use means a decrease in freight use. Rail is much better suited to freight, especially with container shipping and large bulk loads like coal, than it is for passenger travel.
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