Urban Planning and Transportation Blog

Six months riding Trimet and Counting...

2012-01-20T17:05:00.000-08:00

It has been about six months since I moved to Portland, about 3 months since I updated you on my travels on the Trimet System. Last time my travel was pretty straight forward: Take the 54 and 57 to work, then ride MAX, WES and 78 to PCC Sylvania and back home on the 44 or I would ride MAX, the 6, and 44 to PCC. After Christmas, my life completely changed and I am always riding the 44 to PCC and back but my work schedule has me traveling a lot more which you can see from the number of buses I have rode down below.

Here is a rundown of the rail vehicles I have traveled on:

Manufacturer Information: # In Fleet #Ridden Most Ridden and Notes

1986 Bombardier 26 23 107 and 116 (7 Times Each)
*The three I have not ridden 106, 119, and 126 I have never seen them either so not sure if they are still in service, being repainted since many of these cars are getting new paint schemes or just missing them.
1997 Siemens SD660 52 50 245 (4 Times)
2003 Siemens SD660 27 All 27 303, 308, 309, 314, 325 (5 Times)
2009 Siemens S70 22 20 410 (3 Times)
Streetcars 10 All 10 7 (4 Times)
Colorado Railcar Power DMU 3 All 3 1001 (21 Times)
Colorado Railcar Trailer 1 1 Once
Ex-Alaska RDC's 2 2 Once Each

Now for the bus fleet:

Year: Manufacturer/Model # in Fleet #Ridden Most Ridden and other notes:

1990 Gillig Phantom 40' 63? 18 1420, 1422, 1430, 1458, 1459 (Twice)
*Not sure how many of these are actually still running.
1990 Gillig Phantom 30' 43 12 1609 Twice
1992 Flxible Metro 40' 107 47 1738 (4 Times)
1994 Flxible Metro 40' 26 17 1821 (4 Times)
1992 Flxible Metro 30' 10 9 Each one only once
1997 New Flyer D40LF 22 7 2016 Twice
1997 Gillig Phantom 40' 65 50 2139 (5 Times)
*These are buses normally assigned to the 44 Monday-Friday so its no surprise that I ridden them so many times.
1998 New Flyer D40LF 118 33 2202, 2206, 2210, 2246 (Twice)
2000 New Flyer D40LF 60 16 2518, 2526, 2560 (Twice)
2002 New Flyer H40LF 2 0
2002 New Flyer D40LF 55 38 2632 (Three Times)
2003 New Flyer D40LF 25 16 2715 and 2719 (Twice)
2005 New Flyer D40LF 39 16 2807, 2825, 2834 (Twice)
2009 New Flyer D40LFR 40 All 40 2908 (6 Times)
*Since these are the regular buses assigned to the 54 and 57 and sometimes the 78, its no wonder I was able to ride all them over a six month period.

Although I have a very love/hate relationship with low floor buses:: easier to get on and off, faster wheelchair loading, however they loose capacity, are not the comfortable to ride in, and are not that well put together, I will have to say that the D40LFR's from 2009 do seem to making some headway quality wise.

While Trimet may be a bus fans paradise with the large number of Flexible Metro's still around, Trimet does have an aging fleet and with Flxible having been out of business for almost 17 years now, I imagine that some parts are now becoming difficult to get. Trimet does have 55 diesel buses on order along with 4 hybrids which are coming from Gillig.

While Trimet has many haters out there including many of its own bus drivers, as a passenger I have to say for the most part Trimet has done an excellent job. Only once has there been a bus break down that affected me and that was when I was still riding the 54 westbound and one of them broke down leaving the garage. However, Trimet while the 54 is run out of the Merlo garage on the westside, they pulled a bus out of the Central Garage on the near east side and the bus was only running a few minutes late.

The only other incident actually worked to my benefit. One of the 1992 Flxible 30' Metros was overheating and it caused the bus to run about 10 minutes late which meant I did not have to way 20 minutes for the next bus to arrive.

Drivers on the other hand are a mix bag. Trimet does have some excellent drivers. I have sent in commendations to Trimet on two of its drivers. The first one was a driver on the 54 who is now working the 67. This person has a wonderful personality, knows how to treat customers, and was always a pleasure to ride with. Sadly the replacement on the 54 has not lived up to him.

The other driver I sent in a commendation for was on the 44. This person is extremely friendly with a wise cracking personality that works perfectly for the clientele on the 44. I rode with him a few times when I needed to make trips to downtown before heading to PCC from Beaverton.

There is only one driver I have come close to filing a complaint about. This person shows a lack of personality when you board the bus and this person gives you a look like the driver would rather cut your throat than have you on the bus. This person never says a word, just gives you the dirty look. If a customer asks this person a question the customer is luck if they get a grunt.

I always try to wish the driver a good day, afternoon, etc. when I get off the bus if the bus is not extremely crowded. One time when getting of the bus I gave this driver the standard good day and I actually got a response of the driver!! The driver say "whatever." I guess its better than a something else the person could have said.

I have ridden with this person on a couple of routes so the person must be extra board. Clearly this is someone who needs to find a job where they do not have to deal with the public.

On Tuesday, I had my first encounter of adverse weather conditions on Trimet. Once again Trimet did what it was supposed to do and provided the best possible service under less than ideal conditions. Below is a picture of my 44 to PCC Sylvania on that day.

In fact the bus had to get around several cars that got stuck along Capital Hwy. and SW 49th. The driver did a great job and we arrived at our destination in good time.

In interesting note is that this was my first time every riding a transit bus with chains. The Utah Transit Authority I believe uses chains on its ski buses when conditions are bad but since I am not a skier, I never rode the buses to the ski conditions.

Another interesting note is the bus pictured above is equipped with automatic chains that engage with the flip of a toggle switch. The driver said these buses are the only ones equipped with them. I wonder if these were an add on order from another transit agency (add on orders is when a transit agency adds a bus order to another agencies order to get a better price on buses).

After six months of regularly Trimet, I can say that Trimet does what it is supposed to. Provide the best possible service to the most riders possible with the budget given them. I encounter many people in my travels that want to whine about one thing or another when it comes to Trimet, but overall service does the job it is supposed to.

Is Trimet a perfect agency? Of course not, there is issues that need to be fixed but it does its job well.

Sustainability with Survive-ability

2012-01-19T09:30:00.000-08:00

Image by Getty Images via @daylife
When we look at any development project or even a major rehabilitation, we often look at how transit oriented a project may be, or how sustainable the project should be, but how often do we look at how survivable a building will be? The thought of making a building survivable may scare some people, and developers and bean counters will start adding up the cost, but the question is, should we be taking survive-ability into account when looking at projects?

Lets take a look at the Portland, Oregon region. How many buildings in Portland are going to survive the next time the Cascadia subduction zone has a major earthquake? How many people will die because the buildings they live and work in are not designed to handle the stresses of a major earthquake?

Those of us who grew up in Southern California probably don't even bat an eye with the thought of an earthquake. However, the earthquake in Japan last year should be a wake up call. The country of Japan has prepared for years for major earthquakes and tsunami's yet still was not prepared for the devastation caused by twin disasters last year. In fact most experts thought that type of earthquake could not happen in that part of Japan but they were proven wrong.

Of course what are the chances of a major earthquake hitting the Portland area or any area for that matter. The Portland area has been hit by subduction zone earthquakes on a regular basis for thousands of years, we are talking earthquakes of 9+ of the Richter scale. The average between earthquakes is around 250 years although there has been breaks of 500 years between earthquakes but the last one was about 10,000 years ago. When did the last earthquake like this hit the area? In a few days we will pass 312 years since the last major subduction zone earthquake hit.

But lets not look at just the Portland region, any area that is a geological or meteorological hazard site needs to look at survive-ability when it comes to construction zones. Of course let us not forget that one of the worse earthquakes in recorded US history did not occur in the western U.S. but instead in the mid-west and our most recent earthquake hit the east coast.

But other areas of the country are prone to natural disasters on a regular basis and how prepared are we?

The problem is, developers are looking to make the most money (nothing wrong with that except that when it comes into conflict with how safe an area is). In Salt Lake City, or the city of Draper to be exact homes have been built on a hill of sand that is already is causing stability issues for many homes and will be extremely dangerous when an earthquake hits that area. Further developers are allowed to build subdivisions in areas with only one escape route on the side of a mountain so that if a wild fire hits with little warning people may end up trapped with no escape.

Here is a link from the Portland City Club that had a presentation on emergency preparedness. The first presenter is Chris Goldfinger who happened to be a conference when the Japan earthquake hit. The video is about an hour long but offers some interesting insights on what will happen in the Portland region:
http://www.pdxcityclub.org/content/risks-and-potential-nuclear-energy.

The second presenter Chris Higgins (Dr. Doom), makes an interesting observation about a small item that makes all homes safer in the event of an earthquake: The Northridge Valve. It is a device that will shut off natural gas to a home when an earthquake hits. He points out that they are not required in Oregon but our neighbors in California and Washington do require them. A less than $50.00 item that could save countless lives is not required in Oregon.

Few parts of the country are immune to one disaster or another. However, how often do we take survive-ability into account when looking at developments and rehabilitation's?

Some Links for Now...

2011-12-29T22:54:00.000-08:00

I will have some new postings up next week but here are some links to some great articles to read until then:

Denver Installs first Bike Specific Traffic Signal

What Comes First: Greenways or Bridges?

Norfolk Tide Exceeds Ridership Estimates

In a Failure of Municipal Ambition, Plans for Detroit Light Rail as Focus Shifts to BRT

Switzerland: Making "When" Visable

How Frequent is Freedom?

Thin Slicing Major Transit Planning

Our States Priorities? Billions for Highways

The Non-intuitive Math of the Lake Oswego Streetcar

Five Things We can do without Rebuilding the Tappan Zee Bridge

Renumbering for Customer Friendliness

2011-11-06T16:18:00.000-08:00

Image via Wikipedia
Since I know live in Portland, Oregon I will probably use TriMet here as an example of many of my postings just like I did with Utah Transit Authority when I lived there. I will also use other transit agencies I am familiar with such as Metro in Los Angeles and Spokane Transit Authority in Spokane. However, I will not try to step on the toes of Portland Transport, an excellent transit related blog that does a great job of covering news in the area.

TriMet like many agencies still have a antiquated number system part of which is descended from its predecessor agencies. The number system is a hog pog of numbers that don't tell the person much information about the service.

However, many agencies have created new number systems to make their route numbers make it easier for customers to understand the system. The late Southern California Rapid Transit District in Los Angeles was one of the first agencies to do this. From the late 70's through 1983 the RTD renumber all its routes so a person only had to look at the number to know if the bus traveled to downtown Los Angeles or if not if traveled primarily north-south, east-west or if it was express bus or something else.

Meanwhile Jarrett over at Human Transit talked about creating a number system that told you the frequency of the routes.

Lets use these concepts to see how you can renumber a transit system to make it more customer friendly and easier to use. Of course there is always the people who don't like it when routes change, but in the long run what is most important that it would make the transit system more customer friendly for all the riders.

Here is a sample numbering system for TriMet:

100 Series Routes-Frequent Service Routes that service downtown Portland
200 Series Routes-Frequent Service Routes that do not serve downtown Portland west of the Willamette
300 Series Routes-Frequent Service Routes that do not serve downtown Portland east of the Willamette
400 Series Routes-30/60 Minute Service Routes that serve downtown Portland
500 Series Routes-30/60 Minute Service Routes west of the Willamette not serving downtown
600 Series Routes-30/60 Minute Service Routes east of the Willamette not serving downtown
700 Series Routes-Limited Service Routes
800 Series Routes-Express Service Routes
900 Series Routes-Special Service such as routes that run peak hours only

Those familiar with TriMet will know that there is only one route in the 200 series and only a few more in the 300 series but the point is to make the system easy to understand. You could combine both of those into the 200 series and adopt from their.

In addition there is one odd ball route which is the current 154. It starts at the Oregon Transit Center then travels across the Willamette. You could put this route in the 500 series since most of its route is west of the Willamette or in the 600 series since its connection with the rest of the network is at Oregon City.

Also, TriMet currently has no limited service routes but this is an example and in the future TriMet should look at instituting limited stop service on busy corridors which is something I will be posting about in the future.

While you could argue semantics, this is a general renumber system that would make a system more customer friendly and easier to use. It could be adapted by any agency to not only designate where a bus goes but also the frequency of route.

Numbers for the geeks...

2011-10-16T20:18:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia
Its been three months since I moved to Portland and started regularly riding TriMet. Since I am a numbers guy I like to keep track of the number of vehicles I ride and how many times I ride them. Not sure if anyone really would care about these numbers except for fans, but here goes.

The routes I ride most often are: 44, 54, 57, 78, MAX, and WES.

Model Information and number: Number Ridden: Most ridden:

Buses:

1990 Gillig Phantom 40' 63 buses 11 Ridden 1458 (twice)
(not all left in service)
1990/91 Gillig Phantom 30' 43 buses None
1992 Flxible Metro 40' 108 buses 15 Ridden 1738 and 1756 (twice)
(not all in service)
1994 Flxible Metro 40' 26 buses 7 Ridden 1821 (twice)
1992 Flxible Metro 30' 10 buses None
1997 New Flyer D40LF 22 buses 4 Ridden None more than once
1997 Gillig Phantom 65 buses 20 Ridden 5 of them ridden twice
1998 New Flyer D40LF 118 buses 4 Ridden None more than once
2000 New Flyer D40LF 60 buses 2 Ridden None more than once
2002 New Flyer DE40LF 2 buses None
2002 New Flyer D40LF 55 buses 8 Ridden None more than once
2003 New Flyer D40LF 25 buses 9 Ridden None more than once
2005 New Flyer D40LF 39 buses 9 Ridden 2825 Twice
2009 New Flyer D40LFR 40 buses 32 Ridden 2936 (5 Times)

Rail Vehicles:

1986 Bombardier 26 vehicles 16 Ridden 116 and 122 (4 times)
1997 Siemens SD660 52 vehicles 22 Ridden 245 (three times)
2003 Siemens SD660 27 vehicles 9 Ridden 308 (three times)
2009 Siemans S70 22 vehicles 5 Ridden 409 (twice)

Colorado Railcar Power 3 vehicles 2 Ridden 1001 (7 Times)
Colorado Railcar Trailers 1 vehicle not ridden
RDC's 2 vehicles not ridden

(sorry the columns did not come out properly).

As you can see from the numbers since I ride the 44, 54, and 57 most often on the bus side the buses assigned to those lines (the '97 Gilligs to the 44 and the 2009 DL40LFRs to the 54 and 57) are the ones I have ridden the most.

I ride WES once per day two or three times per week and it seems like every time I get the 1001. I have never been in a RDC before and I am hopping to ride those this Friday if scheduling works out.

If anyone knows how many of the older buses and the Bombardier cars are still in service, I would be interested in finding out.

I plan to update this as time goes on.

To go into the transit center or not go into the transit center...

2011-10-02T18:33:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia
I have seen a lot of comments lately on different blogs on whether transit lines should deviate or not deviate into a transit center.

The Seattle Transit blog has an article about the new Edmonds transit center which discusses this issue.

There is two general thoughts on this issue: One thought is that all buses should deviate into a transit center and the other train of thought is that through routed buses should not if it is not a far walk from the transit center.

The people who have the latter opinion generally feel that deviating to a transit station slows down the route too much and wastes precious time. As always you need to take more into consideration than looking a things in just black and white.

Lets use the TriMet's Barbur transit center as an example and how to evaluate if routes should be deviated to the transit center.

Currently the only full time TriMet route that services the Barbur transit center is TriMets marathon route the 12 from Sherwood to Gresham. It is also served by SMART from Wilsonville along with rush hour routes 64 and 94.

Two routes come close to the transit center but do not service it: Route 43 makes a turn in front of the transit center from Barbur Blvd to Taylors Ferry Road while route 44, a route I am now taking every day goes by one block away.

For anyone that is familiar with the area, you know that this area is not pedestrian friendly in anyway shape or form. In fact I have never walked in the area, I have only traveled through it either by car or bus.

Here is a good map of the area:

View Larger Map

Here is some things to take into consideration when deciding whether a transit route should be deviated into a transit center or not:

1. How easy will be for riders to transfer from one route to another without deviating? In this case with the pedestrian hostile environment in this area making transfers from the routes that service the transit to route that don't is not pleasant.

If the transit center is in a pedestrian friendly environment, walks from one route to another is not a major problem. However, many transit centers tend to be in suburban areas that make walking away from a transit less friendly than a transit center located in a downtown area.

2. Would ridership be increased by deviating the routes? For this purpose using Barbur is probably not the best example since the 44 parralles the 12 within a mile or two for most of its route and then joins the 12 on Barbur after it leaves Capital Highway.

However, Route 44 is one of only two bus routes that service the largest of Portland's Community College campus at Sylvania. By rerouting the 44 into the transit center it would allow more convenient transfers from the PCC campus to the 12 for those traveling along the Barbur corridor plus allow direct connections from the 44 to SMART. The connection from the 44 to the 12 will not be a big factor but the one to SMART will be.

Then there is the route 43 that travels from downtown to Washington Square Mall. This route only runs Monday through Friday and is not one of TriMet's better performers. Because of the nature of the 43 route, rerouting through the transit center will not adversely affect its schedule but it does have the possibility of increasing ridership by improving connections from the 43 to SMART and also the 12.

3. The third factor which is what many anti-deviation people focus on is the time loss for routes to deviate into the transit center.

This mainly becomes a concern for trunk routes and express routes.

In the case of the 12 little time is loss with the deviation to the transit center. The routes travels right past the transit center and looses probably less than a minute or two serving it. In addition ridership would be negatively affected if riders had to walk across Barbur Blvd to reach the transit center.

To give an example of route that should not be rerouted to service the transit center is the 96. This route travels right pass the transit center on Interstate 5. While the southbound on ramp to the interstate is just a block away from the transit center, the 96 would have to get off of the freeway at the Terwilliger exit and travel an extended period on Barbur to reach the transit center. Northbound the connections would even be worse and would adversely affect the lines performance.

As I mentioned above loosing one or two minutes would not adversely affect the 43 or the 44 for that matter since they are not major corridor routes (that's not to say they are not busy because the 44 is a very busy route).

4. Its location, location, location...

One of the most important points when it comes to this subject is the location of the transit center. Is centrally located where the largest number of bus routes can conveniently access it without adversely affecting its running time. Of course transit center locations are often chosen from a host of other reasons that do not put riders first from cost, NIMBYism, sweat heart deals, and of course politics.

When it comes to deviating routes to a transit center you need to take into consideration how easy would it be for riders to walk to routes that don't directly deviate into the transit center, the potential ridership of making convenient connections, time factors and location.

The ultimate decision needs to rest on whats best for the customer and what will encourage people to ride.

This Week at Amtrak

2011-09-22T18:06:00.000-07:00

Image by Jordi Gomara (itaca2000) via FlickrFrom the United Rail Passenger Alliance:

This Week at Amtrak, Vol. 8, No. 16
Volume 8, Number 16

From the Editors…

Now that the passenger rail future of Florida is coming into focus, This Week reviews how we got here.

A Tale of Two Rails

“High-Speed Rail-you didn’t let that stop you…Central Florida got its act together and look at what is happening–SunRail is coming.” - U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood at the groundbreaking for SunRail, July 18, 2011

As most of our readers are aware, everyone involved in producing This Week at Amtrak has an inextricable link to the Sunshine State. Obviously, the passenger railroading world does not revolve around Florida. Even so, in a place where our usual entertainment is either watching one of our fellow citizens defend himself in court or watching the foreigners attempt to navigate our roads, our rail on-goings are a welcome change. In just the last year, two projects have been run through the meat grinder known as the court of public opinion. The final outcomes could not have been any different. Up until now, we at This Week have been loathe to mention SunRail and Florida HSR in the same sentence due to the mass perception that a rail is a rail. Therefore, yet again we beg the indulgence of our readers, as we take This Week back home for one more issue. The time has come to make the difference profoundly clear.

A “FOX” By Any Other Name

Florida had been seriously talking about linking some of our largest cities with high-speed trains since the energy crisis of 1973. In April 1982, Florida established a High-Speed Rail Committee to investigate the potential of HSR in the State. At the time, elected officials firmly believed such improvements would be funded by private investment; yet even, then many questions were raised:

“Are sufficient transit infrastructures available (or planned) to feed the rail system? Would tourists, many of whom now come in by car from out of State, switch modes once in Florida? Could other tourists be induced to ride the train with the current cost, service, and convenience factors provided by competing modes? Would private capital be sufficient to cover a project of that magnitude? Are there transportation alternatives that might better meet the State’s needs?” - U.S. Passenger Rail Technologies (Washington, D. C.: U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, OTA-STI-222, December 1983).

It was not until the following decade that all of these efforts crystallized into the initiative to be known as the Florida Overland eXpress (FOX):

“Introducing the FOX…a fully integrated 21st century, high speed travel system combining proven European TGV train technology with American engineering, management, and construction expertise to provide Florida with a safe, reliable and environmentally sensitive world class transportation system.” - Florida Overland eXpress brochure , 21st Century Travel, May 1996

The undertaking was as grand as the times we were living in. Truth be told, the 1990s were a great time to be alive. The Northeast was in line to get high-speed trains, and it was believed Florida would come in second in this friendly race, which was more than acceptable, since we were starting from scratch.

“Florida Overland eXpress - Initial and Projected Future Routes

Our initial route responds to the State’s request and will provide service between Miami and Orlando and between Orlando and Tampa. FOX service may eventually be extended into Fort Lauderdale, downtown Orlando, and St. Petersburg. After the main portion of the system is underway, service may also be extended to Jacksonville and then to other parts of Florida.” - Florida Overland eXpress brochure, Executive Summary, May 1996

With the State of Florida continuing to grow with no abatement in sight, it seemed only natural to enhance State infrastructure to meet future demands. The initial and future route regimen was simple and attainable; and then politics intervened. Within two years, the proposed route map exploded with high-speed routes running amok through every corner of the state. This phantasm along with its bloated price tag was mercifully put out of its misery by then-Governor Bush before the end of 1998, yet this was by no means the end.

What transpired over the next 10 years is what we here refer to as “high-end entertainment.” In 2000, the voting public approved an amendment to State constitution, mandating the establishment of a system of high-speed trains. The Florida High Speed Rail Authority (HSRA) was created the following year. Although State funds for HSRA were vetoed by the Governor, Federal funds kept it afloat; efforts in planning a system continued. In 2004, the voting public approved a repeal of the high-speed train amendment, but the HSRA continued to meet, and completed the environmental impact statement (EIS) for the route between Tampa and Orlando. Ah, but now there was no more funding, and it seemed all for naught; yet, this is Florida, after all, and nothing is ever as it seems.

In 2009, the clarion call went out all over the land for High-Speed Rail. This call was answered in many corners of the country, but ultimately only two of the responses were close to plausible: California, which had its own long history of pursuing HSR; and Florida, which had its own EIS. As a result, Florida became the front runner for establishing, for the first time in the Western Hemisphere, a true high-speed railroad; even if it was only to be 84 miles long. The overall usability of the line was not the point, but rather the establishment of the ground rules for further HSR around the country.

Unfortunately, this was no longer the 1990s. Those halcyon days were long past, and the pale of a new era was only beginning to be understood by the masses. Florida, especially, was coming to grips with this new era. The 20-year boom era of about 1985 to 2005 had given way to bust and freefall. Most insidious of the boom days were the final few years, where real estate values skyrocketed on speculation, and home builders built houses for buyers who did not yet exist, but who they were sure would come. By the end of the first decade of the 21st century, it was plain that the prospective buyers were not coming. Millions of dollars of new building would remain vacant or sell dirt cheap. The last thing the citizenry wanted to hear about was some fancy new fast train that might put it on the hook financially for some indefinite period of time. Hunger will have that kind of affect on people. Consequently, the project went back on the shelf in 2011.

It may sound duplicitous, but the writers were in favor of the FOX back in the 1990s. It was a good idea. It was something we could afford…at the time. Was it perfect? No. It did not serve the downtown areas of the cities it was meant to connect, but the hope was that it could, someday. The Florida HSR of 2009 followed the same basic idea. Why not support it now? There was absolutely no guarantee the monies would ever be available to connect into downtown, let alone extend to South Florida. Although the landscape looks familiar, the reality is that we are in a very different place now. With these changes come shifts in priorities, if not a shift in paradigm. We most certainly have gone from thriving to survival mode, and it looks like we will be here for the duration.

Here Comes the Sun [Rail]

As early as 1989, the possibility of commuter rail had been deliberated in Central Florida. Tri-Rail had begun operation two years earlier, and one proposal was to extend Tri-Rail from South Florida to Tampa and Orlando as a way to connect the state. Soon enough, Tri-Rail was experiencing its own tribulations; thus Central Florida would be on its own, and so was formed the Central Florida Commuter Rail Authority (CFCRA).

In 1992, the CFCRA released its Project Feasibility Report which was all-inclusive of various forms of transit including light rail, commuter rail, and an increased number of buses to facilitate travel in and around the greater Orlando area. The commuter rail component received Federal authorization in 1998 as part of the Central Florida Rail System in the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21). In 2000, the light-rail portion was scrapped. In 2006 the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) and CSX, the owner of the existing track in Orlando, agreed on the purchase of 61.5 miles of track between DeLand and Poinciana. For $432 million, the State gets the right-of-way, and pays CSX to increase capacity on the parallel freight line through Ocala for the anticipated traffic which will now bypass Orlando.

Perhaps it was ignorance; perhaps it was an attempt to curry favor. For whatever reason, FDOT committed a huge blunder in 2008 when it entered a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Amtrak regarding maintenance of commuter trains at its Sanford Auto Train facility. This would come around to bite FDOT almost two years later.

With the track through Orlando to become property of a State entity, liability for an accident would now be similar to that of any other public-owned conveyance: Limited. Such capped liability would also extend to CSX and the few freight trains that would be left. This did not sit well with many, and CSX ultimately agreed to shoulder “some of the cost of the state purchasing a liability policy. We wanted to help with them buying the type of policy they would need” and “we’re doing a similar thing up in Massachusetts where there were similar concerns about the liability issue. As a matter of fact, what we’re doing in Massachusetts and Florida is identical.” - interview with CSX CEO Mike Ward, Florida Times-Union, December 16, 2009

It did seem the whole thing might come to naught in 2009. The Great Recession hit central Florida rather hard, and many questioned the wisdom of spending scarce State cash on trains. Through two sessions of the State Senate, funding for commuter rail, now known as SunRail, was not forthcoming. But remember, this is Florida and nothing is ever as it seems. For the first and last time, an overt tie was made between commuter rail and high-speed rail. The Feds told the State that if the millions of dollars made available for commuter trains were not claimed, then the State could forget the billions of dollars made available for HSR. In an amazing turnaround, the State Senate met in a special session and passed the SunRail legislation.

Since its inception in 1971, Amtrak has carried it own indemnification for its operations over the tracks of other railroads. Even if Amtrak experienced an accident that was completely the fault of the host railroad, Amtrak would still be responsible for settlement. So it was something of a shock (even for those of us in Florida) when Amtrak claimed, in January of 2010, that FDOT was in violation of their MOU. Despite carrying its own indemnification, it pushed for an arrangement similar to that of CSX. For whatever reason, Amtrak believed it had a stake in the game because of a 1999 agreement with CSX regarding the long-distance passenger trains that run through what was to become State-owned property. Amtrak was deluded enough to believe it held the authority to scuttle the deal. At best, if Amtrak did not wish to recognize State ownership, at jeopardy were the two long-distance trains and the Auto Train which runs North out of Sanford. This was tantamount to sticking a gun to one’s own head and demanding “Do as I say or I’ll shoot.”

It took almost all year, but in December of 2010 Amtrak dropped its opposition to SunRail following an hour-long meeting in the office of U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, with soon-to-be-Chairman of the Transportation Committee, Florida’s own U.S. Representative John Mica, in attendance. Following this calibration, Amtrak issued a statement saying it had “long supported the SunRail project.” Hopefully, going forward, FDOT and SunRail will appreciate that they had best do without Amtrak’s support.

Of course, the rest is history. On January 28, 2011, newly-elected Governor Rick Scott put SunRail on hold in order to review the project. On February 26, 2011, he cancelled Florida HSR, citing concerns over possible future operating costs. Then came July 1, 2011, and the official go-ahead for SunRail followed by the official “ground breaking” on the property of Florida Hospital. The caterers expected 300 to attend, but there were at least 400. There was one protester, who did succeed in attaining his fifteen minutes of fame.

Many pundits believed the Governor would ax SunRail, since in their eyes all rails are created equal. State supporters of HSR mounted rallies and campaigns to stop SunRail. (Most people did not notice, since the airways were saturated with the trial of one of our denizens who was found guilty of parental antipathy which, as it turns out, is not a crime.) Five days before the governor’s decision, what can only be described as an embarrassment of journalism proffered by a will-write-for-food reporter appeared in the New York Times. Although starting off with “Here in sun-parched Central Florida,” the author obviously had no clue what Floridians are really about, as evidenced by describing SunRail in these terms: “It will not link to the Orlando airport or Disney World, among the region’s biggest traffic generators.” This is a slap in the face to those of us who actually live here, and the Grey Lady owes us an apology for printing such tripe.

SunRail is not purposed for the tourists, but rather for the locals. The New York Times made no mention of Florida Hospital or Orlando Regional Medical Center, two of the biggest employers and traffic generators in the City of Orlando. Their master plans; not their plans for future development, but their actual master plans as filed to the governments per State law; are contingent on SunRail. For example, a Florida Hospital station is to be provided by Florida Hospital according to its master plan, and Florida Hospital has already provided the infrastructure for it. During the ground breaking, the hospital announced the impending construction of a new administration building to be sited next to the future station site. This is a case where it will not be feasible to just deny the commuter train and build a road, instead. The whole "Medical City" concept will have to be reconsidered, with much of it already in the ground.

Unfortunately, with all this “rail” talk, the lines blurred. Most media outlets cannot tell the difference, with one even referring to “high-speed commuter rail.” Florida HSR did do some good in that it prompted enough elected non-stake holders outside the Orlando area to vote in favor of SunRail. Ultimately, Florida HSR failed because it was the purview of out-of-state interests who, once it served its purpose of setting the new standards for domestic HSR, could easily walk away, leaving it to the locals. The questions raised nearly 30 years earlier are still pertinent and remain inadequately answered. SunRail succeeded because it is from the locals. Local stakeholders understand it will have cascading benefits on other local interests such as engineering and construction companies, all of which are eager for work in our recession-ravaged state. The locals also understand that this is their baby, for which they will be responsible. Yes, Mr. Secretary, we did get our act together. SunRail is (finally) happening.

Adventures riding TriMet

2011-09-21T21:22:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

I just purchased my TriMet monthly pass for October, which is the third one I have purchased since moving to Portland in mid-July. It has been a few years since I have regularly commuted by transit since I could walk to my last job in Salt Lake so taking a transit trip was something special.

For the most part there is little to talk about on my commutes. My trips usually involve trips on bus and then connecting for a three station ride on MAX. I usually enjoy my first bus trip of the day because it is reverse commute to the Beaverton Transit Center and is not very busy. It is long enough that I can get some reading done before arriving at the transit center and connecting to MAX.

On my return trip I usually take MAX to the Goose Hollow station then ride the 6 down to Park in order to go pick up my mail.

For the most part, my commute is pretty routine which is a testament to how well TriMet does work despite the whining by some circles including some of its bus drivers. However every once in a while something will happen that will make the commute interesting and the last couple of days it has been on route 6 despite the fact I only ride it a few blocks.

Yesterday the incident was one that would get your blood pressure up and today's was one that makes you laugh. Yesterday the bus pulled up, and the doors opened. I always wait to see if anyone is getting off. There was one guy sitting near the front but he did not move so after a few seconds I started to board. The guy then starts yelling at me that he is getting off with a walker and why didn't I clear the way for him. I just moved around him and sat down. He then yelled at me some things that I will not repeat and got off the bus.

Then there was today. There was already a bus sitting in the bus stop area but he wasn't departing for 15 minutes. Another 6 came and pulled up behind him with the regular driver I usually have on this run. A Asian lady gets off the bus with when of those folding shopping carts. The problem is as you can see from the google view the bus cannot park perfect so there is always a gap between the bus door and the curb.

View Larger Map

As the lady gets off the bus she the small wheels on the back of her folding car come off. She starts yelling at one in particular in her native language, then walks to the wall on the other side of the sidewalk leaving her cart stuck between the bus door and curb.

The driver tries to shut the door to move the cart but it just fell back in. I guess he expected either me or the other passenger to move it but after a moment he put the parking brake on and moved the cart himself.

The bus pulled away with the lady just staring at her cart.

Starting Monday my journeys will become longer so I should have even more interesting encounter as a TriMet rider.

This Week at Amtrak

2011-09-17T09:35:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia
From the United Rail Passenger Alliance:

This Week at Amtrak, Vol. 8 No. 15
Volume 8, Number 15

From the Editors…

As sands through the hourglass, so are the history and future of passenger rail in America; unrelenting.

The Year Is…

“[A]s we all know, events must run their course before becoming history, so that all true history exists only by virtue of its conclusion, and begins its historical career from there.” - Anthropologist Germaine Tillion

Contemporary thinking: The belief in that which is, has always been; ergo, shall always be. Any historian worth his or her salt knows that history does not repeat itself, but does rhyme. The way it is is not the way it has always been, nor can we expect things to remain the same perpetually. Only the most indolent of our citizenry is unaware of the rapidly shifting social order now dawning on the national landscape. Therefore, let us return to where we have been in an effort to determine where we are going.*

*This newsletter contains forward-looking statements within the discretion of the prognostic abilities of the writers. Our forward-looking statements involve expectations, projections, goals, forecasts, assumptions, history, and flat-out guesses. The writers may be spot-on or completely out to lunch. Whatever the case, our readers may rest assured we will be there to document it.

The Year Is 1970

Just 245 days after man landed on the moon, the California Zephyr completed its final run on March 22, 1970. The California Zephyr was considered to be the last word in overland travel in America; perhaps the finest conveyance in the world, but now it was gone after a mere 21-year run. For most Americans this was just a passing of the torch, no different from the demise of the stagecoach or the interstate canal network, for the year is 1970; the Interstate Highway System now makes possible national travel on your schedule. Gasoline is a national-average 36 cents per gallon ($2.09 in 2011 dollars). Jobs are plentiful and so are automobiles. The only real limiting factor of mobility is one’s endurance.

The long road to this reality has been told to the point of being hackneyed. Following World War II, the nation became flush with largess by virtue of its infrastructure remaining intact. Even though the national treasury was empty as a result of the conflict, billions of dollars were “invented” to send to Europe and Japan to rebuild their societies. As a result, those billions of dollars came back to the United States in the form of orders for the material and machines necessary to rebuild. The American worker was a benefactor of this circular cash, giving the average citizen a buying potential unheard of in previous generations. It was the Federal Government which became the primary beneficiary. All of this national income resulted in higher tax revenues, and politicians were more than eager to spend it. The American population was now on a much more level plane than at any other time in human history. With no end in sight to our newfound avarice, there came experiments in socialization. One of these was the Interstate Highway System. While this was pleasing to the American public, it was a millstone around the neck of the American railroads.

With billions of dollars going to highways and roads during the 1950s and 1960s, railroads politicked and lobbied for some sort of Federal aid. They rightfully eschewed nationalization, but did hope for some funds to invest as a counter to their subsidized competition. Any dreams of subtle aid were dashed on June 21, 1970 with the catastrophic bankruptcy of the Penn Central (Transportation Company). With the proverbial lid now blown off the true railroad condition, it became apparent to all that the situation was dire; no minor injection of public funds could rectify three decades of decline.

Even before the wreck of the Penn Central, another experiment in socialization had started public investment in the Northeast Corridor. In the early 1960s, the cause of improving passenger railroading in the Northeast was championed by Rhode Island Senator Claiborne Pell. He had no small plans:

“The encouraging news which I bring you today is that there is a strong current of opinion within our federal government that we should go forward with the kind of development which the railroads themselves have not been able to do…there is now a school of opinion that if we are to promote such a development at all, we should not be satisfied with half-way measures limited to existing technology.” – Railway Age, October 12, 1964

In keeping with the spirit of the times, the Senator sought to spend the national largess instead of answering the very basic question, Why are the railroads, themselves, not able to make such investment?

By 1970, millions of public dollars had been invested in the Northeast Corridor. With Penn Central now a financial basket case, the Federal Government saw its investment in jeopardy. As early as 1969 there was consideration inside the Beltway as to some Federal involvement in passenger railroading. With the true situation of America’s railroads now making headlines, efforts intensified, and President Nixon signed what was then known as the Railpax legislation into law on October 30, 1970. The main reason for doing so was to forestall any more Penn Centrals around the country. Railpax was renamed Amtrak, and began direct operation of a much-rationalized passenger rail network on May 1, 1971. But with other forms of nationalized socialism taking hold around the country, a little more would not hurt, right?

The Year Is 2011

Amtrak has been a reality for 40 years. If you do not believe it, just ask it: http://www.amtrak40th.com/. Amtrak has published a book, a video, and has even commissioned a train to publicize its four decades’ longevity. It has been no small task, and much blood, sweat, and tears have been shed in the process. Even so, there are many larger questions, vastly larger than Amtrak itself, now looming on the horizon.

The seemingly inexhaustible largess of the latter half of the 20th century is gone. The age of avarice is over; the era of austerity now grips us. The question of “The National Debt,” and exactly who is responsible for it, is now a subject for debate in every corner store and boardroom. Ultimately, this is all a referendum on what role government plays and what size it needs to be in order to fulfill that role. Everything is out on the table. It is only a matter of time before nationalized passenger rail is under the microscope.

Meanwhile, America’s real railroads are no longer financial basket cases. Quite the contrary; railroads are the very model of healthy business. Again, this did not come about without much blood, sweat, and tears. The Staggers Rail Act of 1980 effectively ended a bloated regulatory bureaucracy that lasted about three decades beyond its actual usefulness. Moreover, through the rest of the 1980s and early 1990s, the railroads achieved a truce of sorts with their labor organizations, resulting in a drastically-rationalized workforce. Even so, railroads hold onto their traditional role of biding their time and never forgetting the path which brought them to where they are. Eminent veteran journalist Wes Vernon, when answering the question, Freight Rail: What Recession? notes:

“Highway congestion and skyrocketing gas prices strengthen the logic of converting highway-only freight traffic to intermodal. Of the 14 million domestic truckloads moving 550 miles or more each year within the eastern half of the United States, 35 percent-or 5.1 million-have shifted to the mix of rail and highway. That means about nine million truckloads are ripe for converting to intermodal…

“What that means, in practical terms, is that the trains will likely be shipping more consumer products, from appliances to toys. Heretofore, that had been largely the predominant province of the trucks, while the freight trains primarily focused on bulk commodities such as coal and grain.” - Railfan & Railroad, August 2011

The inherent efficiency of a railroad, the thermodynamic efficiency which propelled them to success from their genesis, is once again making them the transportation mode of the future. Unfortunately, such success always comes with its detractors. Special interest groups, specifically utilities reliant upon railroads for shipment of fuels, are actively looking to re-regulate railroads for their own financial relief. The utilities, who answer to multiple state or local agencies for the setting of consumer rates, believe it easier to mandate freight rates down from the Federal level rather than push politically-unpopular higher consumer rates at the local level. Such is the result of socialization of consumer electric rates. Thus far, the railroads have been able to resist such maneuvers to set them back to the era of needless burdensome regulation. But as the era of public cross-subsidization erodes, the search for new sources of subsidy will only intensify. The railroad re-regulation battle is barely out of round one.

Meanwhile, Amtrak touts the number of riders it attracts year over year. It is expected that Amtrak will carry over 30 million passengers in 2011. Gasoline has averaged $3.50 to over $4 per gallon so far this year; for all practical purposes, this is about double the inflation-corrected price of 1970. Even so, Amtrak is a socialized government animal which looks more for “rider-voters” than customers. Even during the days of Senator Pell it was appreciated that the high density population in the Northeast would make subsidizing passenger rail politically palatable. Consequently, Amtrak has concentrated more on achieving ever-higher numbers of rider-voters than it has on efficient business acumen.

Amtrak’s formula is very simple: High-density, short-haul/low-revenue corridor trains are touted as the solution for congestion; these attract the highest number of rider-voters/constituent-subsidy. The dilution of long-distance/high-revenue trains by lower-than-historical coach fares destroys any potential meaningful revenue, but is touted as the thread of a “national network.” If coach fares were raised in line with what it costs to operate them, and the number of high-revenue cars (sleeping cars) were increased, these trains would have a chance of at least breaking even. But sleepers carry fewer passengers than coaches, thus reducing the number of rider-voters. Also, if this happened, then these trains might be turned over to private operators, and Amtrak would lose its national constituency of rider-voters. Such is the mentality of a government agency, to wit: “We have to protect our phoney baloney jobs here, gentlemen!” Governor William J. Le Petomane – Blazing Saddles.

The Year Is 2020

It has been an arduous decade; transition from a guns and butter economy to a guns or butter economy is bittersweet, at best. The American experiment of socialization has ended. The United States was born in defiance of “taxation without representation.” The belief that taxes are a necessary evil defines the American ethos; they are evil nonetheless, and as such, should always be minimized. But the largess of the latter half of the 20th century was too tempting to pass by. When said largess ended, we attempted to fill the void by massive borrowing and hoping, praying for another round of national benevolence which never came. Now the bill has come due.

Life in 2020 is much like 1920, if not in form then certainly in function. The public does not travel as much or as far as during the “good times.” Due to expanding worldwide demand, the price of transportation fuel is now well over four times the rate of inflation. Efficiency is replacing convenience. The Interstate Highway System is being rationalized in the same manner as the railroads were during the 1970s and 1980s. Automobiles and airplanes are returning to their original positions, as toys for the genuinely rich. Just as the American public adapted to the era of cheap and abundant fuel, so they have adjusted to the era of expensive and scarce fuel seen during the early days of the Industrial Revolution. The technological salvation everyone was counting on did not pan out. Technology uses energy; it does not create energy.

It is no longer 1970. No one is trying to save the passenger train from the guilt of excess. It is no longer 2011. No one is trying to expand the passenger train solely on the basis of an imperious immediacy of political interest. Passenger rail has rebounded due to its inherent efficiency, and it is back in the hands of private industry. Thus, trains are running where they should be, and not where they cannot be justified.

Back to the Present

Saving the passenger train from the oblivion of low ridership is a battle that has been fought, won, and memorialized. Unfortunately, many passenger rail advocates are still fighting the battle to save the California Zephyr from the landscape of 1970. Yet even in today’s tight budget debates, no one of any authority is talking about discontinuing passenger trains. Quite to the contrary:

“It is time to deregulate America’s passenger rail system, and give intercity passenger rail the same opportunity for success that the freight rail and commercial truck industry have benefited from.

“We must look for more effective and innovative approaches to providing modern and efficient passenger rail service by focusing on projects that make sense, leveraging private sector investment, increasing competition, and opening the door to public-private partnerships.” – U.S. Representative Bill Shuster, Chairman of the Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Subcommittee

It was not too long ago when the call to “reform Amtrak” could be heard around Washington. To those who prefer the status quo, the response was, “Define reform; what do you mean by reform?” Now the focus is shifting from reform toward an orderly dissolving of Amtrak.

For older or retired railroaders, Amtrak’s only reason for existence is an “irrational love of trains that would have us run almost empty trains over long distances simply so a foamer can stand out there and watch ‘em.” Perhaps such reasoning was justified four decades ago. Today it is well documented that those trains, especially those long distance trains, run full. They are sold out weeks before departure. This has not gone unnoticed by the private sector; higher demand means higher revenue potential. Higher revenue should translate into profitability or at the very least break-even. Amtrak, however, as a political animal focuses on “rider-voters” rather than passenger miles. Consequently, it has become the greatest of ironies that the passenger train, which was purported to be saved by Amtrak, now has to be saved from Amtrak.

Also, Amtrak has become an important conduit for tax dollars to flow into the Railroad Retirement Board (RRB) pension system (of which all railroaders are members) instead of Social Security. Many of those currently employed by the railroads, as well as the retirees, fear that if Amtrak is fundamentally changed then an adverse effect on railroad retirement will occur. What is not realized is that any new passenger railroad venture established, which may augment or replace Amtrak service, will also have to be under the RRB; eventually making the system stronger, not weaker. There is also the possibility Congress may find another funding conduit for the RRB, other than through in-and-out entries in Amtrak’s corporate checkbook.

No, history does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme. The “good roads” crusades of the 1920s and Interstate Highway program of the 1950s happened after forgetting the lessons of the National Road debacle during the first half of the early 19th century. Now the lessons of railroad regulation/deregulation have been forgotten by many, and the results are negative.

What really is our rail future? It is not ours to see. But whatever happens, we will be writing about it.

To Hybrid or not to Hybrid (buses that is)

2011-09-15T22:17:00.000-07:00

Image by paulkimo90 via Flickr
Hybrid buses...some transit companies have gone crazy having all new buses be hybrids while others such as TriMet in Portland and the Utah Transit Authority have been more conservative when it comes to buying hybrid buses. Back in 2002 TriMet received two New Flyer Hybrids while UTA received three of the same type of buses.

After evaluating TriMet made the decision not to order any new hybrids until this year because they did not see enough savings to justify the initial high costs of the buses. However, last year UTA received 10 Gillig Advantage BRT hybrid's to go along with a purchase of new regular diesels, and this year TriMet has decided to see how much the changes in hybrid technology in the last decade has changed and ordered 4 hybrids also from Gillig to evaluate their performance.

Some would argue that Hybrids use less fuel so transit agencies should by them. Of course life is a little more complicated than that. In fact the experience with hybrids have been a mixed bag largely because how well they save on diesel depends of the type of service they are used on.

New York is probably one of the biggest users of hybrid buses. In an environment like crowed New York streets were many of the buses are sitting in traffic or traveling at low speeds the hybrid technology pays off. However, in Seattle the opposite situation exists. Seattle purchased their hybrids to travel in their bus tunnel when it became a joint operation with Sound Transit Light Rail. However, once the buses leave the tunnel a number of them become express routes across the Seattle area. Because they spend a majority of their time travel at higher speeds Metro does not see the advantages of Hybrid technology.

Here is a article from Seattle about the performance of their hybrids from a few years ago:

Hybrid Buses Fuel economy promises didn't materialize

Some later numbers may show some better performance from diesels including maintenance cost however lets look at some important numbers:

Currently Hybrid buses cost substantially more than standard diesel buses. For example TriMet's new hybrids cost approximately $650,000 while the new diesels that TriMet ordered this year coast about $400,000. So lets look at some examples to show what would make this purchase justify itself.

As you can see above the difference in price between the regular bus and the hybrid bus is $250,000. Lets say a standard bus gets 4 miles per gallon and a hybrid averages 5 miles per gallon. That means that you would save one mile per gallon. For the sake of this example and to make the numbers easier lets say that the transit agency will put 500,000 miles on it during its life at the agency. Also lets say that the average price of diesel during the life of the bus is $3.00 per gallon to keep the numbers easier. With this example the agency would spend $375,000 on fuel for a diesel bus and $300,000 for the hybrid.

The $75,000 savings does not justify the initial cost of they hybrid. In this example it is virtually impossible for the Hybrid to justify its initial cost. There is other factors that need to be considered beyond just fuel cost such as maintenance and resell value but that would most likely go in favor of diesel for maintenance and resell value is so small it is irrelevant anyway.

When making decisions on what type of bus to by we need to look at hard numbers and not just try to feel good. But there is also something to be said for going beyond the bean counter numbers. Hybrid buses can offer other benefits that cannot be looked at on a balance sheet such as quieter operations and points on the political and public relations front.

On a profit and loss statement the hybrids may not add up, other factors may be in their favor but a transit agency needs to look at the the life of the vehicle and whether the substantial cost will pay off in the long run.

This Week at Amtrak

2011-09-10T10:50:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

From the United Rail Passenger Alliance.

This Week at Amtrak, Vol. 8 No. 14
Volume 8, Number 14

From the Editors…

In this issue, the conclusion of our two-part series where we look at the modern-day history and contemplate the future of the NEC.

Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor

“It will remain for the future to show how that institution can be preserved, and the way provided for its continued progress in usefulness and effectiveness for the public, for its employees, and for its owners.” - Martin W. Clement, President of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, forward to Centennial History of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company 1846-1946

The first six years of Amtrak operations on the NEC could be described as “business as usual.” From coast to coast, Amtrak was taking responsibility for all remaining passenger services, thus the NEC was just another piece of railroad. Operating crews, conductors and engineers, were still provided by the host railroads. Federal monies were made available to prop up the failing railroad infrastructure of the Northeast, including the NEC, until a permanent fix could be agreed upon. For more than five years between May 1, 1971 and sometime in 1976 Amtrak, itself, governed all of its local and long distance trains in the NEC as a tenant of Penn Central. (This is still the case almost everywhere else in the U.S. on other host railroad properties.) PC was still responsible for the dispatching of their freight trains and the many, many commuter trains that PC continued to operate over the NEC facility. It was during this brief but bright moment that the 1973 oil embargo hit the country, and suddenly the population began to take notice that there were still passenger trains running.

The Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act (4R Act),signed into law on February 5, 1976, would forever change the NEC and domestic passenger railroading. In the fire sale that was the end of Penn Central, the NEC south of New Rochelle, New York and between New Haven, Connecticut and the Rhode Island/Massachusetts state line was ceded from the newly-formed ConRail to Amtrak as per the 4R Act on April 1, 1976; the remainder went to State agencies. Transfer of ownership of the NEC to Amtrak in 1976 was orchestrated by the United States Railway Association not because of the magic of Amtrak owning its own railroad, but in order to get the financial albatross of NEC ownership off the back of the brand-new ConRail, and onto Amtrak's books, where the presumed continuing flow of free public money to sustain it would be more appropriate. Also, with the 4R Act came the Northeast Corridor Improvement Project (NECIP) and $1.75 billion in Federal funds, with the goals of achieving New York-Washington running times of two hours forty minutes, and Boston-New York running times of three hours forty minutes. The pitfalls and temptations of government money were all too soon apparent:

“A highlight of the first year of the NECIP was a three-inch-thick Environmental Impact Statement, which came to the startling conclusion that there would be no environmental damage from continuing to run trains where trains had been running for over a hundred years.” - Tom Nelligan and Scott Hartley, Trains of the Northeast Corridor, Quadrant Press, Inc, 1982

At one point, the FBI was summoned to investigate a $16 million discrepancy between material purchased and material on hand. By 1979 Congress knew what to do: Increase the NECIP budget to $2.4 billion and extend the deadline for completion from 1981 to 1985. In 1981, the Reagan Administration cut $600 million from the NECIP, and the plan to extend electrification to Boston would have to wait.

The wait ended January 31, 2000 when regular electrified service commenced to Boston’s South Station. The four-year $2.4 billion project had its own drama, with FBI raids of contractors' offices. But the biggest fraud would be the Acela Express trainsets; an untested, one-of-a-kind fleet of heavy energy users, dubiously procured and never to be repeated.

Today, the maintenance needs of the NEC are about a half billion dollars per year. Yet, due to its nature, the bulk of patronage was not, nor would ever be, Amtrak ticket-paying customers. Even so, prior to direct State assumption of commuter rail services in 1983, Amtrak would be called upon to subsidize those local needs. New amendments to Amtrak’s governing laws in the early 1980s assured that the “formulas” contained therein would never allow Amtrak to recover the huge costs of subsidizing massive commuter rail operations. Unfortunately, that situation still has not changed:

“We are paying a lot of money not needed to operate rail passenger service. We are also cross-subsidizing some of the commuter operations in the Northeast Corridor. That’s a matter of policy, and we are not urging that be changed. But the fact is, it’s not an operating cost of intercity rail passenger travel service. [Cross subsidization] is about $47 million a year.” - Interview with Graham Claytor, Trains Magazine, June 1991

Asking those states which utilize the corridor to ante up would bring Amtrak closer to solvency. Doing so, however, would mean ceding some degree of control to those states. Repeal of the commuter subsidy “formulas” was attempted in the original version of what became the 1997 Amtrak reform law, but the political clout of the NEC states on both sides of the aisle proved too strong. As of this writing, ceding any jurisdiction of the NEC to anyone other than itself is anathema to Amtrak. Emboldened by shear ownership, the NEC has taken on a life of itself; it is no longer a part of the Amtrak network but rather the core of Amtrak, to which all other lines of service must cede.

Amtrak is a political animal, and as such, political expediency will always come before business acumen. Amtrak currently touts its “market share” in the Northeast as 52% between Boston and New York, and 65% between New York and Washington. These numbers, however, are strictly a modal split, as between Amtrak and the air shuttle carriers. Using U.S. DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics data for intercity travel (non-commuter trips over 100 miles), you get a true “market share” value for rail of somewhere under 2%, and Amtrak itself reports its own paltry load factors. Mobility in the Northeast is just as important as anywhere else in the country, but are these results of a thus-far $30 billion investment worth it?

Breaking the cycle of [Federal] dependency

Whereas the 2008 economic downturn was characterized as a failure of business, the 2011 economic malaise has been defined as a failure of government. The populous will spend the rest of the decade, if not longer, asking and answering some very deep and basic questions regarding who pays for what and how much.

To this end, U.S. Representative John L. Mica of Florida, Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and U.S. Representative Bill Shuster of Pennsylvania, Chairman of the Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Subcommittee, presented a new initiative called the “Competition for Intercity Passenger Rail in America Act.” The press release of June 15, 2011 reads in part:

“After 40 years of costly and wasteful Soviet-style operations under Amtrak, this proposal encourages private sector competition, investment and operations in U.S. passenger rail service,” Mica said. “Competition in high-speed and intercity passenger rail will cut taxpayer subsidies, improve service, and bring our nation into the 21st century of passenger rail transportation.”

“Amtrak has repeatedly bungled development and operations in the Northeast Corridor, and their new long-term, expensive plan to try to improve the corridor is simply unacceptable,” Mica continued. “The nation cannot afford to continue throwing money away on this highly subsidized, ineffective disaster.

“It is time for a new direction. Around the world, other nations and the private sector have successfully competed to develop high-speed and passenger rail service,” Mica said. “There is no reason we cannot do the same in our most densely populated and congested region. By giving the private sector the opportunity to bring its resources and expertise to the table, we can lower costs, increase efficiency, and improve high-speed and intercity passenger rail service across the country.”

The intent is to transfer title of the NEC from Amtrak to the U.S. DOT or some other organization to allow for more flexibility in operations and investment. It should be noted that relieving Amtrak of the NEC property (and its attendant endless capital needs) is something that has been recommended by members of the United Rail Passenger Alliance for over a quarter century:

“But Amtrak need not own the NEC. It can be sold and its costs of ownership eliminated without adverse effect on train operations…

“Shared ownership is not unprecedented. It simply treats the NEC as a large terminal district; many hotly competitive railroads jointly and profitably own feeder lines, terminal districts, and union stations…

“Structuring the buyer of the NEC as a limited partnership (the customary means of syndicating large real estate projects) would enable Amtrak to be the general partner, retaining needed day-to-day operational control. The limited partners would be allocated the tax and other financial benefits of ownership.” - Andrew C. Selden (URPA Vice President Law and Policy), How to get Amtrak out of the woods, Trains Magazine, January 1986

On the international railroad scene, this is already a reality. In Great Britain, the national network of track is owned by Network Rail, a government-created "not for dividend" company. Network Rail's customers are separate and for the most part private-sector “train operating companies” (passenger) and “freight operating companies” who operate under periodically-renewed franchise contracts. An interesting exception to the private-sector passenger operations is the East Coast Main Line: London-York-Edinburgh. The through trains are currently being operated by another government-created company, Directly Operated Railways, because the last for-profit franchise holder, National Express, bailed out in dramatic fashion after discovering it was losing its shirt running trains even over subsidized tracks. Numerous companies, fast passenger and slower freight, operate over Network Rail and have learned how to play well together over somebody else’s infrastructure. The British experience did not come without its fair share of unpleasantries, but in the end the nationalized British Railways were successfully weaned off the public dole, and succeeded by multiple entities; private where profitable, public where warranted. This was not just to keep the trains running, but to grow and continuously improve national rail transportation. Its progeny now have a chance to learn from this experience.

The Mica-Shuster initiative was immediately castigated as total “privatization” and declared dead-on-arrival by those who may be on the losing end of this potential transaction. One amusing erudition emanating from this fracas involves invoking the final phrase of the Fifth Amendment, “nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” The NEC was “private property” which was ceded by Penn Central to public ownership upon its exodus from the transportation business. Amtrak, a “quasi-public corporation," does have preferred and common stockholders. All of the preferred stock is held by the U.S. DOT. The common stock is held by the successors of the original Amtrak-participating railroads who accepted stock in lieu of tax credits that would not aid their fiscal malaise. Today this class includes a financial group and three class-one railroads. The Amtrak Reform and Accountability Act of 1997 “required Amtrak to redeem at fair market value the shares of common stock outstanding as of December 2, 1997, by the end of fiscal year 2002.” Despite this being law, it has not come to pass. If, indeed, the NEC is property of Amtrak and therefore property of the stockholders, then that stock may be worth more than wallpaper, after all.

The other side of the “taking” coin, however, is that Amtrak received the NEC in 1976 subject to a 999-year balloon mortgage, held by U.S. DOT, who holds the mortgage on the NEC property as security on billions of dollars of debt owed back to U.S. DOT by Amtrak; which they cannot repay. All of this is laid out in Amtrak’s annual report. Thus, it is not a question of a “taking,” but one of foreclosure on a lien that has existed for 35 years, is in default, and is callable whenever U.S. DOT chooses. That is a matter of political and commercial will, not constitutional rights. Extinguishing the mortgage in return for a title transfer to U.S. DOT could also eliminate the constitutional objection. Moreover, current law [49 U.S.C. 24907(c)] already immunizes and indemnifies Amtrak and its board of directors from liability regarding any transaction “related to” the mortgage.

Also, a foreclosure would not necessarily directly impact Amtrak’s operating rights, except to the extent that U.S. DOT or its successor might choose to price access to the infrastructure at levels closer to actual cost recovery. Even that would not change anything, except to make the actual accounting losses of the NEC (especially Acela) a lot more visible.

Separating the NEC from Amtrak with all its legal gyrations will take a few years. Even then it is highly unlikely the property will be in the hands of one or more private companies. More likely is a compact of those Northeast states that will hold and become responsible for the whole corridor. (Congress pre-approved such interstate compacts for passenger rail service in the 1997 Amtrak reform law.) Today there are five state commuter agencies operating under the wire of the NEC. Add to this Amtrak and limited freight operations. Yet, once upon a time this was all under the banner of one railroad. Will we ever make it back to one operator?

The Baltimore & Ohio’s overreach of the late 19th Century bears out a pertinent object lesson for us today. The B&O concentrated its resources on a short-haul piece of railroad due to its location in what was believed to be the most valuable stretch of real estate in the country. As a result of neglecting their long-haul routes to the west, however, the railroad would become an “also ran.” The B&O would be controlled at various times by various railroads including the PRR. Ultimately the B&O found security as a lesser partner of the Chesapeake & Ohio. Today there are no major railroads headquartered in Baltimore. This is the purposeful outcome of the free market.

Today Amtrak, self-described as “America’s Railroad,” pours the lion’s share of its meager resources into the NEC to the detriment of the national network. Unfortunately, as a public entity, the laws of the free market are not allowed to be applied. Amtrak points to sheer passenger counts, opposed to passenger-miles, as justification for this aberration. With government deficits growing and public patience waning, this dichotomy cannot continue indefinitely. The longer the decision is forestalled, the fewer resources will be left available to enact said decision. Inaction is an expensive option which is no longer plausible.

This Week at Amtrak

2011-09-07T20:56:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia
From the United Rail Passenger Alliance.

This Week at Amtrak, Vol. 8 No. 13
Volume 8, Number 13

From the Editors…

One cannot discuss Amtrak without at least a basic knowledge of the Northeast Corridor. What exactly is the NEC? In this first installment of a two-part series we examine the rise and fall of the NEC.

In the beginning

“While the mighty Pennsylvania boasted of having pushed its steel tentacles into some of the nation’s most populous cities, it could not make that claim with regard to New York City. Throughout the last years of the nineteenth century, the PRR struggled in vain to conquer the great natural barrier--the Hudson River--which lay between it and America’s largest metropolis.” - Michael Bezilla, Electric Traction on the Pennsylvania Railroad 1895-1968, Pennsylvania State University Press

To understand the United States, one must contemplate the challenges of those earliest days of the Republic. The two largest cities on the East coast, New York and Philadelphia, were a six-day journey by horse and boat for the founding fathers. Yet as early as 1811, Colonel John Stevens, the father of American railroading, petitioned the New Jersey Legislature to charter a railroad between Trenton and New Brunswick. His request was denied. His sons would build the storied Camden & Amboy Railroad in 1834 from a ferry connection in Philadelphia to a boat dock on the Raritan River in South Amboy, New Jersey. The Philadelphia & Trenton Railroad was built and fully operational in 1835. The Camden & Amboy completed a branch between Trenton and New Brunswick in 1839. That same year, the New Jersey Railroad completed its line between Jersey City and a connection with the C&A at New Brunswick, and initiated through service from the New York City area to Philadelphia. A journey that had taken six days a quarter-century before could now be completed in a matter of hours.

A similar story can be told south of Philadelphia. In 1832, the New Castle & Frenchtown Railroad commenced operation in Delaware. After numerous charters and a few false starts, numerous smaller roads were consolidated into the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore Railroad in 1836. Through service between Philadelphia and Baltimore began in 1838. By 1851, it was possible to travel from New York to Washington, DC in 12 hours via a connection with the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad.

Following the American Civil War, railroads began their transformation from local concerns to national institutions. By and large it was these ideals that were at the heart of the war, itself. The Pennsylvania Railroad acquired control of the C&A, P&T and NJRR roads in 1871. After a battle for control with the B&O, the Pennsylvania Railroad gained control of the PW&B in 1881. As a result, the B&O would build its own line from Baltimore to Philadelphia.

What followed is a lesson in corporate overreach. There had been a proposal in the 1860s to build a "National Air Line" railroad between New York and Washington. It was supported by the then-upstart PRR, and opposed by the established B&O, which already had a line between Baltimore and Washington. After the B&O successfully fought off the "Air Line" repeatedly, it then found that the PRR was buying up the other railroads with which the B&O had been connecting for traffic between New York and Washington (the Baltimore and Potomac was the last piece, and then the B&O would be cut out). So the B&O built its own line to Philadelphia, at a time when the original B&O, and particularly the West End, were still unimproved and badly in need of investment; thus perpetuating its slide from the first-place East-West trunk line to third-place behind the PRR and NYC.

The story of the Baltimore & Potomac Railroad is somewhat more colorful. Originally chartered as a regional road to connect the farms of southern Maryland to the ports in Baltimore, it was purchased by a group of associates of the PRR in 1866. A “branch” was built in 1872 between Bowie, Maryland, and Washington, DC. In 1873, tunnels were completed in Baltimore, allowing connection between the PRR-owned B&P and the PRR-friendly PW&B. Within a decade, the PRR would control its own railroad in what was considered the most valuable stretch of real estate in the country.

North of New York the tale is equally as complex and historic. The first link was the Boston & Providence Railroad, which began operation between its namesake cities in 1835. The New York, Providence & Boston Railroad began through operation in 1837 between Providence and Stonington, Connecticut. In 1848 the New York & New Haven Railroad completed its line between New Haven, Connecticut and a connection with the Harlem Railroad to access New York. In 1858 the New Haven, New London & Stonington Railroad completed the last link, and by 1859 an all-rail route with two ferry crossings was possible between Boston and New York via four railroads. The NYP&B purchased the NHNL&S in 1864.

In 1872, the New York & New Haven combined with the Hartford & New Haven Railroad to become the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad; thus began an insatiable quest for consolidation in Southern New England. Germane to the Northeast Corridor, the NYNH&H, better known simply as the New Haven, acquired the NYP&B in 1892. The Old Colony, which had leased the B&P in 1888, was itself leased in its entirety by the New Haven in 1893. With all of its acquisitions, the New Haven controlled all rail traffic in Southern New England and in so doing then possessed three separate routes between New Haven and Boston: The Inland route via Hartford, the “Air Line” which avoided all major cities as well as the State of Rhode Island, and the Shore Line route which hugs the northern banks of Long Island Sound. Sometimes holding all the cards means control of one’s destiny; and sometimes it means too much of a good thing.

Let there be light

The New Haven was a pioneer of electric traction utilizing low-voltage direct-current applications as far back as 1895 on many branch lines. The New Haven connection to New York was then part of the New York Central System, and as a result of a horrific accident on the NYC in 1902, steam locomotives were banned by city ordinance after 1908. The New Haven would use the NYC third rail system into the city, but had much more ambitious plans for the rest of its main line. In April 1907, the first high-voltage overhead catenary was energized between the end of third-rail territory and the power plant at Cos Cob, Connecticut. By the end of that year, wires had been extended east to Stamford. In 1914, electrification had reached New Haven. Numerous branch lines for freight and passenger service were also electrified. Had economic conditions not worsened, the electrification program would have continued, possibly to Boston.

For the PRR, of course, owning the premier transportation system in the country had its own responsibilities. As the final years of the 19th Century wound down, traffic on the PRR continued to grow. Even so, terminating at Harsimus Cove, like so many other roads on the Hudson River, did not meet the expectations of the “Standard Railroad of the World.” After much consideration, a plan of attack was reached in 1901 wherein the PRR would access New York and beyond. Tunneling beneath the solid rock of New Jersey’s Bergen Hill and then slogging through the muck that is the river bottom, the PRR would not just enter Manhattan, but would make the grandest statement in passenger railroading travel: Pennsylvania Station New York. It would not stop there. Working in conjunction with the New Haven and PRR subsidiary Long Island Railroad, four tunnels would connect Manhattan to the Borough of Queens and then a spectacular connection to New England via a bridge over the East River at Hell Gate.

Upon its completion in 1910, the new electric division from Manhattan Transfer, New Jersey to Sunnyside Yard in the city Borough of Queens was powered by low-voltage third-rail DC electricity as the result of the city ordinance banning steam locomotives. Even then the PRR was contemplating electrification of the railroad in a manner without the restrictions of low-voltage DC, high-voltage overhead catenary. In 1915, it electrified the Main Line between Philadelphia and Paoli. This was followed by extensions north to Trenton and south to Wilmington. In 1928, the PRR announced its intention to electrify north to New York, replacing the original third-rail system except for what was needed by the LIRR (the New Haven had extended its overhead electrification to Sunnyside Yard in 1917). Despite the Stock Market crash of 1929 and Great Depression of the 1930s, the expansion continued with plans to electrify to Washington and Harrisburg. Service to New York began in 1933, to Washington in 1935, and to Harrisburg in 1938. Much of this was underwritten by Federal loans of some $107.5 million.

It should be noted that the improvement to what would later be called the Northeast Corridor was not the only PRR plan for massive improvement. In 1905, the PRR incorporated the Pennsylvania & Newark Railroad, to build a parallel freight route from the yard at Morrisville, just south of Trenton, north; connecting to a freight yard in Newark. Work was suspended in 1916 due to wartime scarcities, and never restarted. The PRR had also planned building an entirely new mainline to the Midwest running west from Lewistown, Pennsylvania, across Ohio, and well into Indiana. This new low-grade line would have given the PRR the shortest and fastest link between New York and Chicago. For reasons left to speculation, the PRR decided to improve its line between Washington and New York. This would unwittingly set the stage for passenger railroading in the later decades of the 20th Century.

The darkest hour

By the mid 1960s, America’s railroads were in trouble. Not only was the once-mighty PRR not exempt from this pain, but in many ways was its full embodiment. The radical improvement of the 1930s which made the PRR the paragon of transportation now weighed like a millstone around its neck. Overly-burdensome regulation from early in the 20th Century had ended the PRR program of continuous self improvement. This was followed by the post-war largess manifested in the Interstate Highway program; an open-access network of asphalt and concrete, underwritten and maintained at the expense of the American taxpayer. Passenger trains had always been guaranteed enough cross revenue from freight through the rates set by the Interstate Commerce Commission. Now with freight (especially the premium carloads) leaving for the subsidized highways, there was no longer enough to go around.

For the New Haven, things were even worse. Having a dense regional railroad in a small industrial area of the country made sense before the age of subsidized roadways. With the coming of the Connecticut Turnpike and New England Thruway, the New Haven did not stand a chance.

Sowing the seeds of socialized rail transportation

In the decade of the 1960s, the economy of the country was running like a well-oiled machine. Every corner of business was garnering its share of the national largess with one notable exception: The railroads. Increase in business revenue correlated with an increase in internal revenue, and much of this went to the railroads’ new competition: Socialized transportation in the form of interstate highways and airports. Meanwhile, Japan was continuing to rebuild its infrastructure. As it did not enjoy national largess, it was imperative to make the most of what it did have by rebuilding and improving on existing technology. Thus, after rebuilding its railroads, Japan took the next logical technological step of speeding up its railroads. Its 125 mph “Bullet Trains” captured the imagination of the world, and the imagination of at least one person in the U.S. Senate. After all, that money in the U.S. Treasury was not going to spend itself.

Claiborne de Borda Pell served in the U.S. Senate representing the people of Rhode Island for six terms starting in 1961. He will always be best known as the father of the Pell Grant, which offers tuition aid for college students. Immediately following his election, he turned his attention to the possibility of high-speed trains in the Northeast. He aroused then-President Kennedy’s enthusiasm for the idea, and this led to the initiation of feasibility reports by the Commerce Department. But how to pay for it?

“Where will the money come from to build a high-speed rail line in the northeast corridor? A federal subsidy only as a last resort, said the Senator. What he favors is the creation of a public authority which could guarantee bond issues. But there are other possibilities, too: ‘I am by no means exclusively wedded to the public authority approach…one alternative which has been discussed is the formation of a public corporation…’” - Railway Age, October 12, 1964

Apparently, all the other possible options were discarded rather quickly. Following the release of the Commerce Department corridor studies in 1964, Senator Pell introduced (and Congress passed) the High Speed Ground Transportation Act of 1965. Signed into law by President Johnson, the Act authorized in 1965 an expenditure of $20 million, and $35 million the next year. These funds went to upgrades to the railroad right-of-way between New York and Washington, DC, as well as to the purchase of the now famous Metroliners; 50 multiple-unit cars capable of 120 mph speeds, from the Budd Company.

This was the era of “The Great Society” where all the nation's woes could be cured with copious quantities of public money. Sadly, such was the mindset of the age of avarice; throwing money at problems was much easier than solving problems. All around the country, the railroads were losing traffic to government-subsidized competition. This atrophy of traffic led to the mistaken notion that parallel railroad mergers would equate to survival, thus leading the PRR to merge with its long time rival, the New York Central, in 1968. Part of the PRR’s agreement to allow its property between New York and Washington to become a guinea pig for an imperious immediacy of political interest was the hope of a favorable decision to grant its merger. Unfortunately, in less than two years this misbegotten union called Penn Central became the single largest corporate bankruptcy in history up to that time.

Instead of addressing the continuing failing fortunes of the nation’s railroads, elected leaders of the day concentrated on one symptom: Passenger rail losses. It has been said that Americans operate in only the two modes of complacency and panic. Complacency was no longer an option. Millions of public dollars invested in the NEC faced the possibility of liquidation in bankruptcy court. Politically, this was untenable. A key reason for the 1971 formation of the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, or Amtrak, was to protect America’s investment. America’s passenger trains were now in the hands of Senator Pell’s suggested “public corporation.”

How has this public corporation fared in its governance of the NEC? This will be addressed in our next installment.

Summer of Anniversaries in Portalnd

2011-09-03T10:13:00.000-07:00

For transit people in the Portland, Oregon area it has been a big summer of anniversaries.

Just a couple of days ago on the 1st, TriMet celebrated 25 years since the opening of its first light rail line, MAX that traveled from the eastern suburb of Gresham to downtown Portland with a fleet of 26 Bombardier light rail vehicles which I still ride at least a few times a week.

Earlier this summer TriMet celebrated another MAX anniversary with the 10th anniversary of the opening of the Red Line to the airport. At the same time the Portland Streetcar celebrated its 10th anniversary with free rides for the weekend.

This year also saw ground breaking on TriMet's next light rail line which will travel to Milwaukee.

While the system continues to have its detractors like any light rail system or transit system for that matter, MAX has become part of the fabric of the community.

Would you take this job?

2011-08-26T14:11:00.000-07:00

Take this job description and see what you think would be a reasonable wage for this position:

You are in charge of a company that takes in millions of dollars and provides a service across a large area. You are in charge of dozens if not hundreds of employees many of which will dislike you not matter how good of a leader you are.

You are also responsible for large budget and have to balance the amount of service you can provide with the amount of dollars you have. You will also answer to politicians many of them having no clue about what your service is but of course want to look good to the people that paid for their office and have to walk a fine line between keeping them happy and doing the right thing.

Finally, you will have a vocal minority that will attack you no matter what you do because you are not providing them service to their front door, your budget doesn't have enough funds. They will hate you, post on blogs, blog on newspaper articles, and demonize you at every chance.

Sounds like heaven doesn't it?

Most people will probably already figure out that I am talking about the head of a transit agency. It really doesn't matter which transit agency because it is true for most of them. Some have a bigger problem in one area than the other but in general its a pretty thankless job.

First of all, would you want this position and how much would be willing, or how little would you be willing to take in order to have the job?

Now lets to a little more comparison. If this was private sector job how much will you be getting paid. Now everyone has heard about those overprice CEO's that are just raking in the money. However, most CEO's do are not the ones you hear about all the time. They run small to medium sized businesses that deal with the same number of employees and budget as the typical transit agency.

Some of these CEO's are better than others. After all their humans and have their own sets of good points and bad points. However, for the most part if they get to this level they do it because of hard work and dedication. Yes some of them get there because of nepotism but they are the minority and usually have issues unless they too have worked up through the ranks.

The problem is, for the position of head of a transit agency you want the best and the brightest. You need the person that cannot only handled the budget, surround themselves with people that can get things done, and deal with all the other distractions the CEO of a private company may not have to deal with.

Why should someone take this position when they can go to the private sector, make more money and probably deal with less BS from the outside than running a transit agency.

So how much should a transit agency head be paid?

Understanding the different levels of transit service.

2011-08-11T07:24:00.000-07:00

Transit riders don't care how complicated it can be to provide transit service to them, they want transit service that will get them from point A to point B quickly, safely, and frequently.

But its just not that simple. There is several levels of transit service and a transit agency has to balance providing the best service with the funds it has available. Then you add the political considerations, the calls for transit equality, and the own agendas of the people running the agency and you can see it can be very complicated to put it all together.

Here is a very basic primer on the different types of transit services, who they serve and some examples of different agencies and how they handle the service.

Community Services: This routes as they name implies provide service to the local community and are not designed to provide main line bus service. This type of service can take many forms but the problem with many community services is that they are usually more expensive, sometime much more expensive than other bus services.

In Los Angeles, thanks to the tax initiatives in the area, almost every town in Los Angeles county has some type of community bus service. Some cities have extensive bus service such as Los Angeles itself with DASH, Glendale with its Bee Line, and Pasadena with ARTS.

In Las Vegas, there is a local bus service that connects the downtown area with the major outlet center near the downtown area called Citiride (or at least it used to exist, haven't been to Vegas is 8 years). The former transit agency CAT used to provide what they called Silver Star service that would connect major senior citizen complexes with grocery and other retailers to make it easier for those who had trouble riding regular buses to access transit.

Many cities have added circulators in downtown or major entertainment and shopping areas separate from the main transit agencies to provide service to areas they feel are not getting decent service from the main transit agencies such as Baltimore's new circulator system.

Denver RTD has invented a new type of community feeder called Dial N Ride which provides demand response service close to major transit centers and light rail line stations. It is guaranteed that the shuttles with be at the transit station at certain times but rides can also be arranged.

Most transit agencies provide community routes in one shape or another whether its TriMet on routes such as the 51, UTA with routes such as the 516, or METRO in Los Angles with a couple of hold over routes that haven't been either abandoned or turned into truckline routes.

For the most part the major transit agencies to a very poor job of providing community transit routes and is why so many communities have taken upon themselves to provide. It is just too expensive for a trunkline transit agency to provide this kind of service.

However, often times with communities start their own community transit service their routes will often rob riders of the trunkl ine routes making their performance go down and if they do charge fares, there is usually no transfers offered between the regular trunk line bus service and the community feeders making transit service more complicated not easier to use as should be the case.

Trunk Line Service: Trunk line service is where most major transit agencies shine. This is service down major corridors that provide the bulk of transit service across the nation. If community service provides service general to one community (not necessarily talking about towns but sometimes just one community within a major city), then trunk line service obviously provides services to the entire community. Trunk line service provides the bulk of transit ridership around the country.

If one transit agency can exemplify what trunk line service is it would be METRO in Los Angeles and its predecessor the RTD. When RTD gradually took over transit service in Los Angeles in the late 60's, it was a mishmash of routes from short community routes to major regional service and everything in between.

Starting in 1976, RTD gradually eliminated most of the shorter community routes and combined them until all of them were long routes providing service to many areas of the county. Most of time it work but other times such as with the 176, it created routes that just do not fit into the trunk line network but are too long and provide to inconsistant service to be considered community service which is really needed along its route.

The big advantage of trunk line service is that it is often the most economical service for a transit agencies to provide because they travel along major corridors and have the highest ridership per mile of any of the bus service with many getting off and on through out the route.

The downside to trunk line services is that riders have to get to the service, it usually will not go into neighborhoods and often times cities and counties have made the environment of walking to transit very hostile to the pedestrian. On of the routes that UTA cut with the implementation of the two new TRAX lines was the 207. I used to ride this route when it was the 24 and for many riders along 700 east it was near impossible to get to the buses. There is a one mile stretch of the road that has no signals or cross walks and when you do get to the a light with a crosswalk it is often dangerous to cross the street because the speed limit is 40+ MPH and most drivers drive substantially faster than that.

However, it should be pointed out that the transit agency usually has no control over this situation it is the cities and other agencies control the environment the transit rider has to endure to reach the bus.

Regional Service: Regional service is the service that connects major regions of the community to the main community or from one major community to the next.

Regional service often more expensive to provide than regular trunk line routes because it often runs along freeways, expressways, or major highways so it does not have advantage of being able to load and unload frequently line trunk line routes.

In some areas transit agencies do a good job of providing regional service and it others the service is very poor. Los Angeles used to have an extensive network of regional routes but as the former RTD was broken up and other counties established their own transit agencies, the regional service slowly faded to the wayside.

It should be pointed out that to extent regional service still exist via the El Monte and Harbor Freeway transitway's as they do connect major parts of the region, but do not provide service between the different counties. Foothill Transit does connect to Omnitrans in Mountclair and Metro provides service along route 460 from Los Angeles to Anaheim (and some tourist destination called Disneyland), but beyond that traveling from one county to the other is often difficult to impossible except along the Metrolink's major commuter train corridor with their other routes only providing sporadic service.

Often times the regional service is provided by a different agency than the major trunk line service. This is true in such areas as Seattle, Chicago, New York, among others. Of course they same advantages of and disadvantages apply when transit riders are faced with dealing with more than one transit agency.

There is other types of bus service beyond the big three although most of them are a subcatagory of the big three.

Flex Routes:

After experimenting with a couple of lines, the Utah Transit Authority with its latest bus changes have implemented several major Flex Routes.

This are a cross between a regular trunk line route and the dial N Ride service that Denver's RTD provides. While service is provided along a major corridor, the route will also deviate up to a 3/4 of a mile off route to pick up people and drop them off. The goal is to reduce the number of trips provided by paratransit service with its extreme cost.

The advantage is that it can provide service along weak corridors especially in the suburbs that are still too transit and pedestrian hostile for regular service while still providing connections to major transit service.

However, service can be inconsistent and because time needs to be added for the deviations, the route is slower and often more inconvenient than standard transit service. Using UTA as an example the flex routes run hourly or even less frequent which means service is not frequent enough to make the service pratical for the average rider which means ridership to be lower than they would be otherwise.

Worker Routes: Worker routes is a specialized service that provides peak hour service to either a single employer or multiple employers that are located in the same general area.

If the employers are big enough to these buses can often run full, however, they are also very costly and that is why most transit agency have tried to move riders to either van pools or regular service routes. In addition these routes can waste valuable capital resources even though transit agencies do not account for the value they get out of their capital resources like a private business would.

One example is UTA that has a route that runs from the Ogden area to Salt Lake City serving state offices and other business around North Temple. The bus then sits behind the Department of Revenue ALL DAY until it returns in the late afternoon.

Some major employers are now providing their own transit service to major facilities including Google in the Bay Area, Microsoft in Seattle, and Intel in the Portland area. Other employers will provide shuttle service from major transit stops such as Nike and Intel providing shuttles from MAX stops in Portland. This is much more economical that wasting a bus for one run per day.

Final Thoughts:

There is probably some minor types of service that I am forgetting here but you get the general idea here.

If we lived in a perfect world you probably could have different agencies providing each of these types of service. That would allow each agency to concentrate on their specialized area.

However, as I have pointed out on many occasions the more agencies you have providing the service, the more confusing and difficult the system becomes. Plus each agency will become territorial and look at things with tunnel vision and not do what is best for the riders but instead protect little part of the pie.

Ride the new TRAX lines August 3rd

2011-07-27T18:53:00.001-07:00

UTA will be holding a special celebration August 3rd for the opening of the Mid Jordan and West Valley TRAX lines. Trains will be operating on their new schedules offering public rides from approximately 9:00AM to 11:00pm. Fare will be free but are encouraged to bring food items to donate for the Utah Food Bank.

This will be an excellent opportunity to check out the newest light rail lines in the country and ride the new S70 low floor light rail vehicles.

I will not have the opportunity to ride the new lines until sometime in the future probably next June or so. I look forward to checking them out.

This Week at Amtrak

2011-07-10T19:32:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia
From the United Rail Passenger Alliance

This Week at Amtrak, Vol. 8 No. 12
Volume 8, Number 12

From the Editors…

Recently a prominent state rail advocacy group signed on accepting the ultimatum of a major railroad. What does this portend for the rest of the country?

Cannot Predict HSR Speed? How About a Happy Medium…

“A thousand miles seems pretty far, But they've got planes and trains and cars, I'd walk to you if I had no other way…” Hey There Delilah - Plain White T’s

Back in January of 2008, not long before the most recent resurgence and subsequent retreat of American High-Speed Rail, Rick Harnish of the Midwest High Speed Rail Association was one of the highlighted speakers at the Carmichael Conference held in St. Louis, Missouri. An interesting anecdote during his lecture told of the public’s reaction to plans for high-speed trains: “How do we get the trains we already have to run on time,” and “How do we keep the bathrooms clean.” This may lead one to wonder: Are the public’s expectations low or just realistic?

It should be noted, all hyperbole aside, that there are currently no high-speed trains in operation anywhere on the North American continent. The true definition of HSR by those who actually operate it is 250 kph (155 mph), so Amtrak’s Acela does not quite make it. But that’s okay here in the USA where our motto is, “If you don’t like what you see, lower your expectations.” Therefore, the American definition of HSR is anything faster than a bicycle going downhill. As a result there are projects ongoing to raise certain corridors up to top speeds of 90 mph or greater. The freight railroads which own the track in those corridors have their own ideas pertaining to “high speed.”

As has already been covered by This Week, Norfolk Southern’s CEO, Wick Moorman, made it clear that for his railroad “passenger train” means 79 mph, maybe 90 mph in certain circumstances. Ergo, the extension of regional trains in the Commonwealth of Virginia to Norfolk will top out at 90 mph. CSX has the same vision for passenger trains. In upstate New York, CSX has stipulated that 90 mph be the top speed for the current service running from Albany-Rensselaer to Buffalo. The government of New York State sees things quite differently, pushing to raise those train speeds to 110 mph. This is where perception meets reality; the former New York Central main line, the storied Water Level Route, is the property of Jacksonville, Florida-based CSX.

In a move to help settle this impasse, the Empire State Passenger Association agreed with CSX:

“The Empire State Passengers Association (ESPA) has endorsed 90 miles per hour as the near-term maximum speed for Amtrak’s Empire Corridor passenger trains operating on CSX’s busy freight mainline across upstate New York from west of the Capital District to the Buffalo region.”

To be sure, the ultimate goal of ESPA is to realize 110 mph trains in New York State. Still, they have wisely determined that half a loaf, paid for by someone else, is better than none. They must also be keenly aware that time is of the essence. As per the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008, specifically Section 209, it is expected that individual states will be held responsible for the operating losses for such trains. If everything had gone as per the language in the PRIIA, then in October, 2013 New York State would have to buy the cow because the milk will no longer be free.

Asleep at the Switch

Speaking of the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008, formally known as Public Law 110-432/Division B, it may well be described as a train wreck in no motion. By law enacted October 16, 2008, Amtrak was required per Section 209 to “develop and implement a single, nationwide standardized methodology for establishing and allocating the operating and capitol costs among the States and Amtrak” for routes under 750 miles by October 16, 2010. Now some nine months later, no such “methodology” has been brought forward by Amtrak, although negotiations with the states are ongoing. Even so, the law is clear as to what was supposed to happen following the deadline and no agreement:

“If Amtrak and the States (including the District of Columbia) in which Amtrak operates such routes do not voluntarily adopt and implement the methodology developed under subsection (a) in allocating costs and determining compensation for the provision of service in accordance with the date established therein, the Surface Transportation Board shall determine the appropriate methodology required under subsection (a) for such services in accordance with the procedures and procedural schedule applicable to a proceeding under section 24904(c) of title 49, United States Code, and require the full implementation of this methodology with regards to the provision of such service within 1 year after the Board’s determination of the appropriate methodology.”

In other words, with no negotiated agreement in place by October 2010 there should have been accelerated implementation deadline for the Surface Transportation Board-issued standards. Instead of five years from enactment if the schedule had been followed, with the STB involved, it was supposed to be two years (the missed deadline) + 120 days (the STB decision) + one year = three years and four months vice five years. The STB was required to issue standards by mid-February 2011, to become effective and binding one year later.

To be certain, the Surface Transportation Board has more than enough on its plate these days, what with every utility in the land seemingly attempting to re-regulate the railroad industry. As such, they are more than content to sit back and watch the negotiations from afar, and will only intervene if a dispute arises between the states and Amtrak.

This is nothing we have not seen before, here at This Week. We fully expect Amtrak to come into the STB waving a tardy “agreement,” and then the STB to take the path of least resistance by adopting it. The inherent danger of such after-the-bell acceptance would be the serious legal questions about the validity of any cost standards thus generated. Any other operator seeking to bid on any route negotiated with this agreement will be free to challenge said standards simply on the basis of missing the October 2010 deadline, and the STB’s subsequent failure to promulgate standards unilaterally as specified in the PRIIA when that happened.

The Future of American Passenger Rail Corridors?

No matter how you slice it, the costs of transportation, all transportation, are going to be reallocated such that the states will have a more direct financial responsibility. The Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008, specifically Section 209, has a goal of establishing a uniform strategy for determining those costs of train routes 750 miles and under and then passing the bill along to the states. Translation: The federal government is getting out of the corridor business. Eventually we will see the same scenario with the Northeast Corridor.

Learning from the British experiment, the physical in-place plant should belong to a public entity; in the case of the NEC, perhaps a compact of those states. The legal foundation for such a compact already exists:

“Consent to Compacts.--Congress grants consent to States with an interest in a specific form, route, or corridor of intercity passenger rail service (including high speed rail service) to enter into interstate compacts to promote the provision of the service…” - The Amtrak Reform and Accountability Act of 1997, Section 410

Connecticut and Massachusetts already own all or a substantial portion of their intrastate section of the route. The states already have the bureaucratic machinery in place for their commuter services. The maintenance needs of the NEC are roughly $500 million per year, which comes out roughly to $1 million per mile. New Jersey would have the largest stake, at 58 miles. But they also have the largest NEC demand: NJ Transit. Is it any wonder that New Jersey politicians are fighting tooth and nail to keep the status quo?

The next logical step would be to bid out the premium services. If, say, an entity such as Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Trains wins the bid, they purchase and maintain their own equipment; they pay an access fee, and the public gets to ride in the same manner as it would if it had flown. The private entity now has room to innovate within the bounds of its own equipment and on its own dime, far from the scrutiny of the budget hawks. In the real world of HSR, this is becoming a reality. In 2013 German Rail (DB) will commence HSR Intercity Express (ICE) service from Frankfurt and Amsterdam to London. The existing HSR services on the lines will continue to run. Although DB is a public entity it is improvising like a private company. This also demonstrates that HSR can be done over someone else's infrastructure, and that competing HSR services can coexist. That is about the practical extent of “privatization” in the corridor world.

This Week in Amtrak

2011-06-23T16:44:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia
This Week at Amtrak Vol. 8 No. 11

Volume 8, Number 11

From the Editors…

This week we hear from Russ Jackson, Vice President of the United Rail Passenger Alliance. Russ is a retired California college instructor, former RailPAC officer and editor, and is now living near Dallas, Texas.

AMTRAK Long-Distance trains at 40

And, what they still need is more cars!

Comments by Russ Jackson

That was then: Forty years is a long time. In this report let us first take a look at where the Western long distance trains started for Amtrak, and then look at today. Charting will be for two trains that were in the Amtrak official timetable #1 for May 1, 1971, which was quickly replaced with a new one on July 12 (to view this timetable see: http://www.timetables.org/browse/?group=19710712r&st=0001); then, the May, 1991 national timetable which was in effect when this writer became editor of RailPAC’s Western Rail Passenger Review; and then we do a comparison of those past schedules with the 40th anniversary 2011 national system timetable which is available now at all Amtrak-staffed stations.

Trains 1 and 2, the Sunset Limited

We all know what the problem with this train has been and continues to be: Tri-weekly (also said as tri-weakly) service from day one, thanks to the inherited schedule from the Southern Pacific, and it continues to run today with nearly full loads despite the very bad schedule.

1971 Dp NOrl 1:00 PM; Dp Phx 10:50 PM; Ar LA 7:30 AM Su,W,F 44.5 hrs
1991 Dp NOrl 2:15 PM; Dp Phx 10:31 PM; Ar LA 7:00 AM M,W,F 42.75 hrs
2011 Dp NOrl 11:55 AM; Dp Mar 11:57 PM; Ar LA 8:30 AM Su,W,F 44.5 hrs *

1971 Dp LA 10:00 PM; Dp Phx 8:10 AM; Ar NOrl 8:00 PM Su,Tu,Th 44 hrs
1991 Dp LA 10:50 PM; Dp Phx 7:20 AM; Ar NOrl 7:50 PM Su,Tu,Th 43 hrs
2011 Dp LA 3:00 PM; Dp Mar 10:38 PM; Ar NOrl 2:55 PM Su,Tu,F 48 hrs *

*NOTE: In 2011 the trains do not go through Phoenix, a major city now without train service, and there are generous amounts of built-in recovery times throughout the route. In 1971, the schedule called for Yuma to Tucson via Phoenix to be 6 hours; in 1991, 6-1/2 hours; in 2011, 4-3/4 hours via Maricopa. If Phoenix were still on the schedule, an hour and a half would have to be added to the 2011 schedule.

Trains 3 and 4, the Southwest Chief

In 1971 timetable #1, this train had numbers 17 and 18 and was named “Super Chief-El Capitan,” continuing its inherited Santa Fe tradition.

1971 Dp Chi 6:30 PM; Ar LA 9:00 AM; daily 40.5 hrs *
1991 Dp Chi 5:00 PM; Ar LA 8:10 AM; daily 41.25 hrs
2011 Dp Chi 3:00 PM; Ar LA 8:15 AM; daily 43 hrs

1971 Dp LA 7:30 PM; Ar Chi 1:30 PM; daily 42 hrs *
1991 Dp LA 8:30 PM; Ar Chi 3:50 PM; daily 42.25 hrs
2011 Dp LA 6:15 PM; Ar Chi 3:15 PM; daily 45 hrs

* NOTE: In 1971, the train did not go via Topeka, KS, which adds one hour to the schedule.

While running times and scheduled departures have remained fairly consistent for these trains, for others they has been all over the map. Several interesting changes from 1971: Then, the Coast Starlight was the first west coast train to travel from Seattle to, first, San Diego. It ran tri-weekly north of Oakland and from Los Angeles to San Diego, but daily from Oakland to Los Angeles. In 1971 there were only two daily round-trip San Diegans between Los Angeles and San Diego; no San Joaquins, and no Capitols. Originally, the California Zephyr was scheduled to travel its current route, but when the D&RGW railroad decided to opt out of Amtrak, it ran via Wyoming, and operated daily from Chicago to Denver but tri-weekly between Denver and Oakland. The Empire Builder did not have a Portland section, and crossed the Cascades in Washington going via Yakima instead of Wenatchee. All this was accomplished using low-level cars and locomotives that were 20 years old and operating crews inherited from the freight railroads.

This is now: In the July, 2011 issue of Trains magazine, writer Bob Johnston has written a review of Amtrak’s past, dividing its history into five sections and comparing “then” to “now.” For example, section one, “Wake-up call,” says “Then: equipment had to be ordered and funded.” Sadly, “Now: equipment has to be ordered and funded.” While that is important for all parts of the system, including the Northeast Corridor, Amtrak has neglected its long distance trains badly. In his presentation to the RailPAC-NARP meeting in March, 2011, Minnesota’s Andrew C. Selden said, “Amtrak has made no significant investment in its long distance services in 20 years, and now plans only to replace its Superliner I cars, not to grow its long distance fleet or network.” Mr. Selden’s comments and data explaining all this were published in the May-June issue of the RailPAC newsletter.

On May 17, 2011, Amtrak CEO Joseph Boardman told the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee, “You are not going to cut costs far enough on the long-distance trains to make (them) profitable.” This statement came after Amtrak’s West Coast Superintendent, William Duggan, spoke to the RailPAC meeting, revealing (with a Power Point visual) that “Sleeping car ticket revenue makes a positive contribution to Amtrak’s bottom line.” That is what RailPAC, URPA, and most objective long distance train advocates have been saying for too many years; but Amtrak has not been willing to fund additional cars that will contribute positively to that bottom line, instead choosing to invest only in corridor trains that are paid for by the states (except in the NEC). Mr. Selden says, “Amtrak is turning away boatloads of money for want of new capacity.” As RailPAC President Paul Dyson, says, “More cars on the (existing) trains means more revenue and smaller deficits. The true deficit is in management, not dollars.”

So we can all agree that adding additional high-revenue cars to existing trains, those that will run every day (including the daily Sunset Limited, eventually), is where Amtrak should be concentrating its efforts, right? RailPAC’s Noel Braymer suggests, “How about private financing (safe-harbor leasing) with a business plan to pay for them with increased revenues? With California about to order new bi-level cars how about Amtrak getting an ‘add-on’ to that order for new hulls at least.”

We must add a caution written by Mr. Selden to us, that it “will take hundreds of new cars–effectively deployed in high revenue services–to get to break-even. But, local wisdom in St. Paul is that there never will be a fourth sleeper on the Builder because the diner is swamped as it is and they couldn’t feed another carload of passengers. Personal observation is that they’re right. The diner in mid-summer (i.e., for the four peak months) is dreadful in terms of regimentation and rushed service, and stress on an understaffed crew.” After a trip on the Empire Builder, where he is a National Park Service volunteer in the Rails-Trails program, narrating the trip between Minneapolis and Wisconsin Dells, Mr. Selden wrote that “All three sleepers were all but sold out on both trains and would be sold out west of Minneapolis. Coaches were about 2/3 occupied so statistically sold-out due to down-line sales.” And this on a train that has had many on-time problems this winter and spring.

RailPAC Vice President-South James Smith returned from a round trip on the Southwest Chief from Los Angeles to Chicago and reported the same sold-out condition in May, before the official travel season begins. People want to ride… Something must be done for these western trains, besides just replacing cars one-for-one, if Amtrak really wants to grow financially and calm the criticism thrown at it. Or does it?

Emergency Funds

2011-06-18T21:00:00.001-07:00

Image via Wikipedia
The last few years have been pretty tough for transit agencies around the nation. Because of the extended recession many transit agencies have had to cut service and raise fares.

This can be especially hard for the transit dependent and low income folks, but the fact of the matter is, any organization has a budget it has to work with. You can complain all you want about salaries, where capital is being spent, or whatever other whipping post people like to complain about.

IF we lived in a perfect world, transit systems would be able to use their emergency funds to cover operations during a recessionary period. Some of you may be asking what exactly is an emergency fund: it is exactly what it sounds like, a fund to protect against emergencies. Smart financial planners tell not only individuals but also businesses to have three to preferably six months of expenses set aside for emergencies such as recessions, lay offs, etc.

Of course only a small percentage of the population actually keeps an emergency fund. Maybe that's what so many are bitterly opposed to government agencies of any kind to have emergency funds. In Oregon, instead of saving money for slow periods, the money goes back to the taxpayers. Some lawmakers this year tried to promote the idea of keeping some of that money for emergencies but most would not go for it probably considering it political suicide in today's environment.

A perfect example of a agency that was attacked severely for building up an emergency fund was the Spokane Transit Authority. Because of efficient operations the agency started to build up a nest egg but came under fierce attack.

It should be pointed out that some transit agencies did not help their own cause but being overly optimistic when it came to financial projections. One agency required 6% annual economic growth to maintain their existing services. Depending on overly optimistic economic projects was a one way trip to disaster.

Hopefully we will learn a couple of things from this recession. First, revenue projects need to be realistic and a agency cannot depend on continually economic growth to keep existing services running as is. Second, that emergency funds is something that not only individuals need but it also makes since for businesses and government agencies to be prepared for raining days.

This Week in Amtrak

2011-06-07T16:57:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia
This Week at Amtrak Vol. 8 No. 10
Volume 8, Number 10

From the Editors…

With the same assurance as the sun setting in the West, once again all of Amtrak’s perpetual financial woes are blamed on its long-distance trains.

Oh, really?

“Ducking this issue calls for real leadership.” - Springfield Mayor “Diamond” Joe Quimby, The Simpsons

Passenger rail ridership is up, of this there may be no doubt. Using the rudimentary yet flawed number of “riders,” Amtrak carried 28.7 million people in fiscal year 2010. This year should be even higher. Of course, now-a-days Amtrak never discusses “passenger miles” or “revenue per passenger mile” but this was not always the case.

Even so, when questioned by Congress as to why increasing “ridership” did not correlate to a drop in losses, the standard chestnut was brought out one more time, “It’s the long-distance trains,” said Amtrak President Joe Boardman. “They’re all unprofitable.” Oh, really? We have all heard this before, but how long will this broken record continue to play?

For many, the long-distance trains are the perceived final connection to an earlier era. Many a parent has packed up his family for an overnight trip with the proud exclamation, “We’re going to ‘Travel in Pullman Safety and Comfort’ like our grandparents did.” Obviously, there are no more open sections or drawing rooms. If there is an observation car it is privately owned. Oh, and when was the last time someone shined your shoes for you whilst you slept? Today’s long-distance train is a mere shadow of the former glory that once was the grand conveyance. Whereas average citizens could not afford fine linens, china, and silver service, these were commonplace for all who frequented the dining car; it was their chance to live like royalty, if only for a few hundred miles. Do today’s trains even come close to emulating such an emotion? Alas, such only exists for those who remember when, or who have studied the subject.

Things behind the scenes have changed, as well. Even into the early Amtrak days, long-distance reservations still used the old tried-and-true drum system. Dozens of agents sat around a rotating metal carousel with compartments containing train accommodation diagrams, while talking to customers or agents by phone. Today all of this is computerized. The ragtag collection of locomotives and rolling stock has been replaced by standard designs. Locomotive fuel economy has never been higher. Steam heating has been replaced by electric. Operating crew districts are no longer 100 miles. Bases for maintenance have been consolidated and centralized. Yet with all of these changes, which should have led to better economies, the long-distance trains still “lose money.” How can this be?

The Vision from 20 Years Ago

For Amtrak’s 20th anniversary, then-Amtrak-president Graham Claytor boasted of its cost control:

“Amtrak is determined to continue to improve bottom line through better service and controlled cost until 100 percent of operating costs are covered by earned revenues. At close to 80 percent in 1991, we are nearing that goal.” - All Aboard Amtrak 1971-1991, Railpace Publications

At no time in any of the historical records has it been found where Mr. Claytor blamed any of Amtrak’s financial woes on just the long-distance trains. Mr. Claytor was a railroad executive starting with a career at Southern Railway in 1963. He knew the numbers and, more importantly, knew what they meant:

“A year before Amtrak, railroads carried intercity passengers 4.9 billion passenger-miles and lost the 1991 equivalent of $1.5 billion doing it. In Fiscal Year 1990, Amtrak carried its 22.2 million intercity passengers 6.1 billion passenger miles and pared operating losses to about $330 million.” - All Aboard Amtrak 1971-1991, Railpace Publications

Mr. Claytor understood that the true measure of output is “passenger-miles” and revenue per passenger-mile, not the mere number of tickets sold. Tickets sold is the measure of the number of transactions, but ten $1 tickets are not as valuable as one $20 ticket. To this end, it must be noted that during the last five years the long-distance trains have averaged a growth rate of 3.7 percent, with no years of negative growth; something not even the regional or corridor trains can claim. Even more surprising is that the LD trains showed any growth at all, since they were statistically almost sold-out to begin with, and over the last 15 years (post-Claytor), their aggregate capacity (measured in “available seat miles” or even just “car miles”) has declined. This is growth in a product line defined as distance of 750 miles or greater on trains that have not seen any additional equipment in over a decade. Even so, this growth in patronage should correlate to higher revenue. What went wrong?

Since the passing of Mr. Claytor, there has not been a seasoned railroad executive at the helm of Amtrak. As a result Amtrak, a ward of the state, has reverted to a function of government; a workfare/basic transportation/federal entity charged with placating the public while twisting in the political winds. As a result it finds itself stuck between the dichotomous mandates of affordable transit and covering debts. The July/August 1974 edition of the Official Railway Guide lists the one-way coach fare between Chicago and Los Angeles at $113.50; corrected to 2011 dollars, this would be $514.47. Today's fare is one-half to one-third the inflation-corrected fare. After checking coach fares between numerous city pairs, today’s fare is one-half or less than that of 35 years ago (when corrected for inflation). Remarkably, sleeper fares are on par to then, when correlated. The result of this has, in effect, reduced Amtrak’s trains (long distance in particular) to Greyhound buses on rails. Was this always the plan? Not according to Mr. Claytor:

“They [fares] are going to increase just as fast as competitive factors permit… Because our service has been improving, and more and more people have been willing to ride, and as long as more and more people are willing to ride, and pay higher fares, the fares are going up. This is not new. This is the policy that we have been following for at least 10 years.” - Interview with Graham Claytor, Trains magazine, June 1991

Today there appear to be “more and more people willing to ride,” yet in the last 20 years Amtrak ticket sales have gone from 22.2 million to 28.7 million. Just 6.5 million more riders per year in 20 years? This is hardly anything to crow about. During the same period, as aggregate intercity travel has increased (and air traffic has quadrupled), Amtrak’s aggregate national market share has declined. How, after all this time, could ridership remain so paltry? Perhaps no one at Amtrak knows how to grow ridership and increase output. Mr. Claytor knew how to do both. When asked about service expansion and the goal of full cost recovery:

“That is one of the ways we hope to reach it and to get additional equipment in order to increase our revenues faster than our costs. That spread is what counts. With the new order for locomotives already in [to General Electric], and with the orders for new Superliner cars we hope to make this year, these would give us the additional capacity to increase our revenues. We are up against the stops on many ways, because many times of the year we can’t carry more people. We have more people wanting to go than we can carry, because we do not have the capacity. The first priority is to get more capacity on the routes we serve. The second priority will be to start new routes that we think have a good possibility of working.” - Interview with Graham Claytor, Trains magazine, June 1991

Mr. Claytor’s “first priority” fell by the wayside after his passing. Instead, focus shifted and intensified on the corporation-owned Northeast Corridor (NEC). This would culminate in the extension of electrification from New Haven, Connecticut to Boston and the notorious Acela trainsets. While these are demonstrative improvements in infrastructure and passenger amenities, it is still a short corridor, and as such offers limited potential for passenger-mile revenue growth. While total NEC ridership has grown, Amtrak’s overall market share has declined sharply, and is less than 1.5%; all of this is hardly enough to offset the costs of infrastructure maintenance, and the high maintenance and power consumption of the Acela trainsets.

Ultimately, passenger railroading in America has been held hostage by misconceptions. In the 1950s, hucksters such as Robert Young convinced people that the only future for passenger rail was the short-haul train; conveniently, short-haul trainsets were what he was attempting to sell. The outcome of a 1958 Interstate Commerce Commission investigation has been dubbed the “Hosmer Report,” after ICC examiner Howard Hosmer, wherein:

“This examiner’s proposed report included an oft-quoted speculative conclusion that railway passenger coaches would likely soon become museum pieces along with stagecoaches, sidewheelers, and steam locomotives. Such language was not adopted in the subsequent formal ICC decision.” - Amtrak’s Long-Distance Service, Can it be Made Viable?, Gordon Gill

Today’s weary chant of “the long-distance passenger trains are a money drain” is nothing more than a continuation of the "junk science" formulated over 50 years ago by those lobbying for their own agendas. The public at large blithely accepted that junk science as fact, since passenger trains, for the most part, were not germane to everyday life. As growth in passenger rail with long-distance trains, in particular, has shown, junk science no longer cuts the mustard for today's savvy travelers. Amtrak had better find a new mantra.

Past is Prologue

Recently, someone was nice enough to publicly post a picture of a train gate at Chicago Union Station from 1964, showing the makeup of that day’s South Wind: http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=2487104 Even at this late date, seven years before Amtrak, notice there are eight sleeping cars assigned to this train along with five coaches. On today’s trains, if the number of sleepers is equal to the coaches, it is a miracle; in the East, the sleepers are outnumbered by coaches. Moreover, Amtrak does not have an adequate supply of spare equipment to increase train length to match fluctuating demand. If Amtrak had kept the proper ratio, at least the income from the First Class section of the train would still be the same as 35 years ago.

Is it rational to expect Amtrak to provide “First Class” amenities? Does Amtrak really provide a First Class Service? Is the provision of a mattress enough to be classified as “First Class?” If so, try to remember that, the next time Motel 6 leaves the light on for you.

Even though Graham Claytor believed it was possible, perhaps Amtrak is not capable of providing the equipment, let alone the proper business acumen/model for overnight service. It should be remembered that for most of the history of American passenger railroading, overnight rolling stock, sleepers, and diners were provided by a third party: The Pullman Company. Pullman was a private enterprise employed by the private railroads to provide a service. For most of its life, Pullman made money. Relieving Amtrak of this chore should allow it to concentrate on its core business; the equivalent of buses on rails.

Some news and links...

2011-06-04T20:06:00.000-07:00

Image by paulkimo90 via Flickr
Six weeks from today I will be moving to Portland, Oregon so the next few weeks are going to be very crazy for me. I have several posts in the pipeline and will finish as time allows. Meanwhile here is some links that I hope you find interesting and will try to get some more in depth articles out soon.

From the Denver Urbanism Blog:

Transitways can be landscaped

From the Grist Blog:

Want more cash in your pocket? Live in a neighborhood with good transportation options

From the Bike Portland Blog:

The parking/biking trade-off: Q & A with PDC Director Patrick Quinton

PBOT unveils new "Beacon Buddies" animated video

From the Metro Jacksonville Blog:

Jacksonville Terminal As The Job Maker

An Obituary for Florida Growth Management

Can a Streetcar cost less than a Faux Trolley?

From the Urbanphile:

This Is Why We’re Broke

The Wars Between the States by Richard C. Longworth

Where Is the Good Government We Need?

The New Provincials by Jason Tinkey

From the Transport Politic:

Paris Region Moves Ahead with 125 Miles of New Metro Lines

The Silly Argument Over BRT and Rail

Sinking Dreams of a Privately-Funded Subway in Toronto

From Stephen Rees's Blog:

Study: Building Roads to Cure Congestion Is an Exercise in Futility

On Broadway

From Streetsblog LA:

Highwayman Inhofe Still Wants to Rob Bike/Ped Funding From Transpo Bill

Video: LaHood Answers Questions About Bike Lanes, Fuel Economy, and HSR

Lawmakers Introduce Reality-Based Plan to Achieve “Freedom From Oil”

Trading Parking Spaces for Park Space

From the Seattle Transit Blog:

Evaluation Report Recommends Keeping Trolleys

Finding an Apartment

2011-05-23T17:49:00.001-07:00

Image via Wikipedia
For those of you that have ever looked for an apartment, especially for those of us that want to use transit, you come to find most of the resources available online for finding an apartment mostly useless. While some apartments may show that they are close to transit or close to shopping, most of the websites fail to give you a good idea exactly how easy it is to access those services.

A week ago Saturday I flew to Portland in order to find a new place to live when we move. I think of myself as pretty web savy so I have done lots of research over the last six months since we made the decision to go back to school to try to find the right place for us.

For someone not familiar with a city this could be a daunting task. I have an advantage that I am actually familiar with the Portland area and know where to look and not look for a place to live. However, I still do not know the ins and outs of many of the neighborhoods themselves.

I do have to give a kudos to For Rent which is now including a walkscore map of the neighborhood the apartment to give you a better idea how far you have to walk to find necessary services.While that does help apartment searchers it still does not offer all the information that someone may need to find an apartment.

When I was doing research I would often have four or five windows up trying to find all the information necessary. I would have the apartment rental sights on one page, Tri-Met's website on a second, Google Maps on a third, apartment ratings on a fourth, and a fifth for other information.

Fortunately I was able to find a good apartment with excellent transit access at a good price.

However, this points out the lack of resources available through most transit system websites. Most sites are destinations with few links to get information you need beyond riding the system. Transit systems need to look at their websites not only to provide transit information but also a portal for those looking to not only ride the system but also be less car dependent.

This Week in Amtrak

2011-05-23T17:07:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia
This Week at Amtrak Vol. 8 No. 9
Volume 8, Number 9

From the Editors…

For something completely different, This Week goes to the movies, plus some observations by URPA Vice President of Corporate Communications Russ Jackson.

The Little Movie that Just Might: Atlas Shrugged, Part One

To be clear, Atlas Shrugged may not win any Academy awards. But that is not the point. The tale behind bringing Ayn Rand’s 1957 novel to the big screen is almost as long as the book itself. Loathed or loved, public sentiment is anything but neutral for Atlas Shrugged.

In this first of possibly three installments, the year is 2016 and the national economy continues to spiral downward. As a result, commercial aviation is a recent memory and all traffic, freight and passenger, must move by rail. (It is ironic that in this alternate reality all rail traffic is still in the hands of private operators.) In typical Luddite fashion, elected officials attempt to garner support for themselves while exacting a heavy burden from industry. The result? Numerous prominent businessmen vanish, following a shadow named John Galt.

From a literary standpoint, the movie succeeds. All the main points are visited: Hard work, and the virtue of the reward for such hard work, lead to progress; rewarding those who do not contribute will ultimately lead to ruin; the inequity of expecting industry to respond to critics whose sole job it is to criticize. That is not, however, the reason one goes to the movie theater.

This production was constrained by a small budget, and the results have the appearance of made-for-television instead of the big screen. The principal railroad scenes are stock footage of modern day trains and a real Union Pacific track maintenance/concrete tie crew in Indiana. The climax of the film is the completion of the rebuilding of a rail line, and the first train to ply it. Ironically, that first train is a computer-generated image which is heavily based on Amtrak’s Acela, the very epitome of government interference in railroad operations.

As a point of comparison, a rather silly movie from last year, Unstoppable, did succeed in bringing the railroad to the big screen. Although its plot was an unrealistic contrivance of unstoppable exaggerations, the moviegoer did get a first-hand look at the grit, grime and gravity of railroad life.

In Atlas Shrugged, the plot centers around three industries: The railroad, steel, and petroleum. Malevolent special interest government intrusion is hampering their efforts, but they resolve to move ahead despite this interference. The film makers concentrate on the characters and portrayal of the squeaky-clean world they inhabit. After all, why show the gritty side of industry? Interestingly, the plot of this film is not fantasy, but was once reality. Our film’s heroine, Dagny Taggart, presides over a railroad where locomotive parts are hard to come by, and some lines have track that is over a century old. Imagine Penn Central circa 1972. Imagine parked trains derailing. Now imagine direct government involvement. Hardly fantasy, these things actually happened. It was this world which led to creation of the National Railroad Passenger Corporation.

Should the film makers have paid more attention to railroad details? At a screening/Q&A session arraigned by the Reason Foundation, the first two questions asked by the audience were about the railroad scenes. Not too many people have seen the inside of a steel foundry or an oil refinery, but railroads are a universal tie which binds us all, either as onetime passengers or perhaps via family connections. This preexisting subconscious familiarity with railroading is just the sort of connection needed to attract an audience.

In spite of it all, the film does work. It is rather dense, and as such will sail clear over the heads of the average moviegoer. It is a thinking movie for a thinking audience. Is the free market the answer to all our problems? Of course not; but neither is the free market so infinitely large as to subsidize everything else. Some may see this as a political statement, others as social commentary. In the words of Alfred Hitchcock, “It’s only a movie.”

Winter and the Amtrak long distance trains
Report and Comments by Russ Jackson

The western long distance trains had a rough winter in the northern two-thirds of the country. Some trains were canceled altogether for several days. Here is a rundown of some of the activity, by train, in the past few weeks. Not everything is included, but here are some highlights, using Amtrak's data. When April is figured in, things will look much worse.

California Zephyr. 45.2% on time in March, 52.5% for the last 12 months. For several days, Donner Pass was closed not only to road traffic on I-80, but also the Union Pacific main line was snowed in as drifts of over five feet of blowing snow blocked access. While there was diligence by the UP crews, there were several derailments. For the first time in many years, the rotary plows stationed at Roseville were called into service. The old heads who remember how it was up there when snows like that were more common are mostly retired, and the youngsters have never seen snow like this before. The weather is still bad, but the route is open again so that Trains #5/6 can run their regular route. Train 5, which left Chicago on April 16 on time, arrived in Emeryville 3 days later and 58 minutes early. Delays to the trains now are in southern Iowa, where flooding has occurred. For some days the trains originated-terminated at Reno, with passengers bused from California when I-80 finally opened. To see a great video of the rotary plows in operation, look at http://www.kcra.com/r-video/27364908/detail.html.

Empire Builder. 33.6% on time in March, 33.8% for the last 12 months. The Builder was the hardest hit of all the western trains. It did not run at all for many days, including the week before April 15, when it had not operated due to flooding on the BNSF in North Dakota. Before that it was winter storms, but once the snow starts to melt up in that state, Amtrak's line from Fargo to Grand Forks and west is subject to water problems. An anticipated BNSF detour line direct from Fargo to Minot had many slow orders due to high water, and was declared unusable. Amtrak has discussed permanently moving #7/8 to this alternate line, but it will bypass Grand Forks, Devils Lake, and Rugby, towns that rely on the train for service. Amtrak has said it will cost $100 million in upgrades to bridges and track in the Devils Lake area if that service is to continue. The BNSF does not use that route for freight service. It would take two "construction seasons" to rebuild, after Congress had appropriated the money. How likely is that to happen now?

Southwest Chief. 83.9% on time in March, 77.8% for the last 12 months. Not much to say here, as Trains #3/4 continued to depart on time, and arrived early at both ends more than they were late.

Sunset Limited. 88.9% on time in March, 83.1% for the last 12 months; however, problems arose when wildfires damaged a Union Pacific bridge near Marfa, Texas, on April 9, stalling the train for 18 hours; thus weather at the other extreme affected the Sunset route.

Coast Starlight. 45.2% on time in March, 65% for the last 12 months. Winter weather did have an effect on the operation of Trains #11/14, but most of the problems have come due to track work being done by the Union Pacific south of San Jose and San Luis Obispo, which has required the trains to be detoured, and has provided railfans with several chances to ride the detour route through the San Joaquin Valley. The detour began south of Emeryville at Fremont, where the trains crossed the Altamont Pass to Stockton, then traveled on the Union Pacific line south to Bakersfield, up the Tehachapis, across the famous Loop, through Mojave, Lancaster, Palmdale, and into Los Angeles. For a full description of one of the #11 detours that departed Oakland Jack London Square 30 minutes late and arrived at Los Angeles Union Station at 9:57 PM, see Chris Guenzler's picture story on http://www.Trainweb.org. Passengers going south to the Starlight's regular Central Coast stations rode buses from Oakland.

Whether Amtrak and its host railroads were "prepared" for this winter is ripe for speculation, but when a winter like this one happens it's nail biting time all along the routes. We congratulate Amtrak, the BNSF, and the UP for their diligence in restoring service in a timely manner. Lessons were learned, and it will be interesting to see how prepared they all are next winter.

This Week in Amtrak - Amtrak's 40th Anniversary Edition

2011-05-02T17:18:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia
Volume 8, Number 8

From the Editors…

For those who have not noticed, Amtrak is now a four-decade-old reality. Is this the best we could hope for?

Fix Amtrak First

May 1, 2011 marks a major anniversary in American railroading. For some it is a celebration. For others it is a bittersweet regret. For a few, it means keeping their vocation. Then there are those who find political opportunity.

To be sure, the world which led to the creation of Amtrak is now a distant memory. In 1970, despite ever growing ton-miles, America’s railroads were in trouble. In the Northeast over a half-dozen carriers were mere decrepit shells of their former glory, and one by one would follow Penn Central into bankruptcy. The Milwaukee Road and Rock Island of the Midwest teetered on the brink of insolvency, seeking relief by shrinking their physical plants or by mergers. Out West, the Southern Pacific, once the third largest industrial corporation in the country, sought relief through merger and passenger train-offs. Otherwise healthy roads in the Southeast and West knew only too well that their future fortunes were inextricably tied to continued interconnectivity in the nation as a whole. Over six decades of burdensome Federal overregulation was threatening to wipe railroading from the American landscape.

Meanwhile, the rest of the country was aiming ever higher. Man landed on the moon. Commercial supersonic flight was becoming a reality. The basic interstate highway system framework was complete with no impediment, financial or physical, to its construction. Nevertheless, America could not survive without its railroads, and the powers-that-be knew this.

The simple reality is that Amtrak was created, not to save the passenger train, but rather to save the freight rail network. In a stopgap move created to relieve the railroads of their financial malaise, the government established the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, first known as Railpax, and today known as Amtrak. All eligible (non-commuter) railroads were invited to participate. All but seven joined. This was merely a Band-Aid for the industry. A much larger bandage would be the Federal takeover of the Northeast railroads in 1976, in the form of Consolidated Rail Corporation, or ConRail. The ultimate corrective surgery would be passage of the Staggers Act of 1980 and deregulation of much of the industry. ConRail would be privatized in 1987 and ultimately broken up in 1999. Through it all, the Band-Aid that is Amtrak remains.

Now with nationalized intercity passenger service a reality for four decades, the world is a much different place. We are no longer a nation capable of visiting the moon. Commercial supersonic flight ended almost a decade ago. The cost to return the interstate highway system to a state of good repair is estimated in the “hundreds of billions of dollars,” money the nation simply does not have. Now more than ever the nation is in need of a comprehensive and coherent passenger rail system, not a Band-Aid. In order to achieve this there is one unavoidable step: Fix Amtrak first.

True, there have been past attempts at fixing Amtrak’s woes. The most recent was the Amtrak Reform Council of the last decade. It was during this period that many Amtrak apologists obfuscated, and demanded from any who questioned Amtrak’s worthiness to “define reform.” Well, in just the last 18-24 months Amtrak has fired its Inspector General for ostensibly doing his job; after losing the contract to operate Virginia’s commuter trains, Amtrak began systematically harassing the winning bidder, Keolis, in what may or may not have been an attempt to get the contract back. In Florida, Amtrak demanded unnecessary concessions from a not-yet-running commuter railroad, SunRail, for reasons that are still nebulous. Suffice it to say there is plenty of room for improvement at Amtrak; actions such as the above at any private corporation would have warranted legal and/or disciplinary action.

Amtrak’s foibles have not been lost on the current administration. The cry for High-Speed Rail was followed by requests of interest; not from Amtrak, but rather from the states, directly. With this end-run around Amtrak, it was hoped the rebuilding of passenger railroading could be achieved sans the bureaucratic black hole of business as usual. The results were spectacular failures in Ohio, Wisconsin, and Florida. If there is to be a renaissance of passenger trains, Amtrak is no longer a can to kick down the road.

Although there is no quick fix, there are steps which could aid in the recovery of national passenger rail service. The best place to start would be at the top: The Amtrak board of directors. Since 2008, the Amtrak Board should have had nine members; currently there are eight. Of these, seven are life-long bureaucrats with only one from a professional railroading background. As Amtrak is a ward of the State, this is to be expected, but it was not the original intent:

"Once the corporation was set up, it was placed under the responsibility of management working under a 15-man board of directors. Eight of the directors were to be appointed by the President, and one of the eight always was to be the Secretary of Transportation. None of these eight directors nor any officer of the corporation was allowed to have any connections with the railroads. Three additional directors were to be elected by common stockholders and four by preferred stockholders. Initially, common stock was to be issued only to railroads and preferred stock only to persons other than railroads. In short, the corporation mainly was to be owned by the railroads, but all the decisions were to be made by a board composed largely of Presidential appointees." - Don Phillips, Railpax Rescue, Journey to Amtrak, 1972.

Obviously, the original plan for the Board did not pan out. All of Amtrak’s preferred stock is held by the government and much of the common stock is still held by the railroads. As these shares are deemed worthless, they are not much of a basis upon which to run a corporation; however, there is a very significant difference between then and now. In 1971, there were over five dozen Class One railroads. Today there are only seven, six of which handle daily Amtrak trains.

Adding seven seats to the existing nine-member Board would come close to the original plan of 15 members. Of these seven new seats on the Amtrak Board of Directors, six seats would be from those Class Ones, and one would be a representative from the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association (ASLRRA). Why? This ensures there are at least seven people on the Amtrak Board who understand business and understand railroading. By design, Amtrak is meant to be a quasi-public corporation. The addition of seven members from the private sector will ensure a professional atmosphere in accordance with generally accepted business practices. These seven new members would balance with the existing nine board members, selected and confirmed from the public sector, guaranteeing the public’s input to “America’s Railroad.” If leadership from the private sector were allowed to re-allocate available Federal capital to applications that would yield the highest return per dollar invested (as opposed to political goals), then Amtrak’s financial outlook might not be so dismal. Also, as seen with commuter passenger services provided under contract by some freight railroads such as BNSF in Chicago, they still know a thing or two about passenger operations.

Every aspiring manager is warned of a common human tendency of subordinates: The ever-present gravitation toward those projects that are favorites, to the neglect of other projects which may be priority. To that end, it becomes necessary to remove the Northeast Corridor from Amtrak. This is not to imply a lack of importance for the NEC. A large number of people live in the Northeast, but the majority of Americans do not. Even before Amtrak, the U.S. Department of Transportation singled out fast trains as reflected in the High Speed Ground Transportation Act of 1966, which led to the DOT's sponsorship of the Metroliners on Penn Central. Ever since the NEC was ceded to Amtrak in the fire sale that was the end of the Penn Central, Amtrak’s myopic attention has continuously returned to those 450 miles of track between Boston and Washington, D.C., consuming a half billion dollars or more a year in Federal support. What about the other 20,000 miles? Due to the unique nature of the NEC, it should be grounded in its own reality; a separate board of governance, and its own budget separate from the national network. Congress has mandated that all corridor services be operated in a uniform manner (read, state subsidy) by 2015. Now would be an opportune time to place the NEC where it belongs.

Obviously there are other issues plaguing American passenger railroading: Deteriorating equipment, eyesore stations, growing tonnage on the rationalized freight railroads, outdated labor practices, etc. These will all have to be addressed in time. For now, it is time to take that “first step,” the initial change in direction departing from the status quo, intent on a new destination. Up until now, Amtrak has been deemed too small to register with the body politic, but too large to simply dispense with entirely; now, however, is a different time. Passenger rail is no longer a luxury subsidized out of the national largesse. Passenger trains are the ever-present and ever-growing lynch pin of transportation. Future growth will be predicated on the present amelioration of the business-as-usual Amtrak. Is this not what we, the people, should deserve and should expect?

This Week in Amtrak

2011-04-28T16:27:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia
Volume 8, Number 7

From the Editors…

Recently, Amtrak released its updated fleet strategy plan. What a difference a year makes.

A Tale of Two Strategies

At first blush, it would appear the primary difference between Amtrak’s Fleet Strategies of February 2010 and February 2011 is a thorough going over by our very own proofreader here at This Week. (For the record, she vehemently denies this, but the investigation is on-going.) Upon closer inspection, it becomes obvious certain realities are now being accepted. Before going any further it should be known that the original document and its update are of a high quality and represent the obvious expenditure of many hours of effort.

The updated report acknowledges the orders of 130 single-level cars for Eastern long distance service and 70 electrics for the Northeast Corridor. Priorities held over from 2010 are the replacement of 250 Superliner I's and the development of “a new fuel-efficient high speed diesel locomotive.” New to the priority list are: Replacement of 145 Amfleet II's, developing a “bi-level corridor car to replace single-level cars where clearances permit, adding two cars each to the existing Acela fleet (40 new cars total), and planning the next generation of high-speed trains. Total estimated cost of this 30 year plan is $25.2 billion.

Replacement of the single-level long distance coaches, Amfleet II, has now been moved ahead of the Amfleet I replacement. Why? Despite being a few years newer, the average mileage for an Amfleet II car is 1.4 million miles over an Amfleet I. Truth be told, the Amfleet design was never meant for long-distance service, yet they have performed adequately for over 30 years; a true testament to the construction of the Budd Company. CAF USA has a very tough act to follow, constructing the 130-piece Viewliner 2 order. There are 145 Amfleet II’s in service but the Fleet Strategy does not specify how many new cars will be ordered. If CAF USA gets a chance to build a coach variant of the Viewliner 2 platform, then we could possibly see uniform trainsets in the east, something which has not happened since the introduction of the Amfleet II’s in 1980. Do you believe in miracles?

In 2010, “long distance” services were defined as “more than 600 miles,” whereas in 2011 it is “more than 750 miles.” No doubt this is a sign of inflation. Also curious is the statement that the long-distance trains “have grown around 2 percent annually,” although “Table 8: Amtrak Ridership Growth FY06-10” demonstrates that long-distance trains were the only service during those five years not to have a negative ridership growth; even during the doldrums of 2009. Average growth on the long-distance trains according to Amtrak’s data was 3.7 percent for the last five years, a fact all the more fascinating when one takes into account there has been no addition to the equipment of these trains in over a decade.

A significant difference between the two reports is the acknowledgment of Amtrak’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG). The OIG is evaluating the original report, and will issue its own report this year. “We look forward to receiving the final OIG report and we will continue to work with the OIG to ensure that its insights are incorporated in the next fleet plan update as appropriate.” Where was the OIG during the original report? Oh, right.

In both reports the Horizon fleet of regional-distance cars is panned: “These cars suffer from a variety of operational problems in cold temperatures and winter conditions.” Interestingly these cars are a variant of an original Pullman-Standard commuter car design which has gained acceptance in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts, none of which are known for their balmy winters. The solution for 2011 is a new fleet of 125 bi-level cars ostensibly patterned after the cars used in regional service in California. As these cars do not have any operating history in the extremes of the Midwest, this will be an interesting experiment. Although the “California cars” appear to be similar to Superliners, the difference is in the details. Superliners have their Head End Power (HEP) and Multiple Unit (MU) cables well above the ground and away from snow and ice buildups. California cars have their cables astride their couplers, as is standard with most other equipment. Superliners have successfully pinch hit for Horizon cars in Midwest services during wintertime. If one expects California cars to perform to the same level as the Superliners, one may be in for an unpleasant surprise.

One other curious statement as regards the potential routes for the new bi-level cars: “The only other exception would be Amtrak’s Hoosier State/Cardinal Service between Chicago and Indianapolis, which would continue to use single level equipment because of clearance constraints on the Cardinal route.” Trains between Chicago and Indianapolis have always ferried equipment to and from Beech Grove, Amtrak’s maintenance facility just outside Indianapolis. The deadheading equipment does include cars from Amtrak’s current bi-level fleet: Superliners, Superliner II’s and California cars.

The plans for Acela were wide and varied in 2010. By 2011, the choices have been narrowed: “There is a compelling case for an additional two cars for each set… [the extra cars] will deliver a positive return even if the trains were replaced in 2023.” Moreover, the desire is expressed for an additional 20 trainsets “of a new rather than the existing design and delivery would begin in 2017.” Apparently they have learned one lesson.

Unfortunately, both reports address the potential utility of self-propelled diesel cars or Diesel Multiple Units (DMUs). Not that there is anything wrong with DMUs in and of themselves; however, they are best suited to commuter operations. Amtrak is NOT a commuter railroad, and provides operating crews under contract to a handful of commuter operations around the country. If one of these commuter lines provides DMUs for its operation, so be it; but Amtrak should not be taking the lead on this.

It is recognized in the reports that: “Suppliers need a constant stream of work to ensure that there is sufficient business to support a competitive supplier base and avoid the boom and bust cycles in the past.” This work-fare program of equipment sustainability is the sort of thing a state-owned/operated polity should have pursued since its inception. Well, better late than never. The plan calls for an average of 65 single-level and 35 bi-level cars per year starting in 2012 and 2014, respectively.

Both reports speak of the need for the development of future equipment. The 2011 edition refers to the Next Generation Equipment Committee (NGEC), whose stated goal is “to promote the creation of a pool of standardized, interoperable equipment that could be used by Amtrak and the states in various state-sponsored corridors with flexibility and efficiency.” In light of Amtrak’s past history of equipment, standardization would be a vast improvement. This is, however, a double-edged sword. Such a mandate would mean ostracizing non-standard equipment such as the state-owned Talgo trainsets in Cascade and Hiawatha services. Standardization to the exclusion of innovation has a history of long-term negative consequences. Fifteen years ago, ABB Traction withdrew its product, the X2000, from contention for use in the NEC. The X2000 achieved higher speeds on conventional track through the use of radial steering trucks and active tilting. Since no other bidder could offer radial trucks, it was not included in the Federal bid request, and ABB realized it could not succeed in the face of cheaper, inferior products.

Perhaps the largest sign of change is what was not held over from the original report, the “Calculation of required added cars per set” toward the back of the report. Originally hypothesized were the train consists as they might appear for FY18 and FY23. When first released in 2010, it was these charts which caused many a confused look even from the most ardent Amtrak apologists. For 2018, 10 of the 14 long distance trains would receive one extra sleeping car. By 2023, four more trains would have added one more sleeper; yet this very same chart reports the 2008 load factors for the sleepers, and none are below 80%. Two trains are tied at 94 percent. None of Amtrak’s regional or corridor offerings even come close to matching this load factor. It is also no secret that fares for traveling by sleeping car are especially dear. Even so, sleeping cars are what the traveling public craves. Why? There could be many postulated reasons: An aging population, TSA fatigue, etc. We at This Week do not know the true reason for this trend, but it really is academic. The public has voted with its wallet, demanding sleeping car space.

Through Amtrak’s typical “framing mischief by decree,” it has made it abundantly clear that it is loathe to reinstate trains such as the Pioneer, North Coast Hiawatha, or Eastern leg of the Sunset Limited. Even so, it does acknowledge the growth in long-distance demand. “This gradual increase in demand can be satisfied through the progressive replacement of equipment and lengthening of existing train consists.” Limiting the increase, however, of already paltry long-distance trains by a mere one or two cars just does not correspond with reality. Long-term success of any business requires change, to support changing demand. In the past, the speed at which Amtrak responded to such change was glacial, at best. Amtrak has not received any new equipment since 2002. It may already be too late. After 40 years, it should be getting it right. If not, then perhaps it is really time to let someone or something else have a turn.

The 176 is saved but...

2011-04-08T15:37:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia
I few weeks ago I went over some of the trials and tribulations of the Los Angeles Metro Route 176 that travels from Highland Park to El Monte. For now the 176 has been saved from extinction, but will the changes going to help the 176 survive in the long run?

Originally Metro planned to replace the eastern portion of route 176 from the area of the San Gabriel Mission to El Monte with an extension of route 287 that currently travels from the Montebello Mall to El Monte creating a "U" shaped route.

Instead Metro will interline the 176 and 287 so when a 287 bus arrives at El Monte station it will change its headsign to 176 and visa versa.Service on the 287 will be reduced from every 30 minutes to every 45 minutes but the frequency of the 176 will go from a horrible every 70 minutes to a more reasonable every 45 minutes.

The question is, will this do anything to help the 176 or are we putting lipstick on a pig?

1. Will the Frequency Increase help the 176?

It might help slightly but it still is not a memory friendly timetable and in the Metro report there is not a mention of what will happen to rush hour frequency on the eastern portion of the line that is already every 35-minutes.

2. Does this address any of the destination issues with the 176?

No, there is no change in the actual route although there will now be a one seat ride for riders on the 176 to the Montebello Mall although Metro may not even put this in the timetables and for 95% of the riders of the 176 going to Montebello Mall via El Monte is substantially out of the way.

In addition this does nothing to address the issues that exist on the western portion of the route. Mainly that it serves no destinations that riders along the route want to travel to except with multiple transfers.

In other words, the changes to the 176 do not address the fundamental problems with the route. In an ideal world it would be wonderful if all the points that needed to be served by a bus (or for that matter rail) route but we do not live in an idea world. We have to look at service beyond straight corridors and look at getting bus service to the most rider generators and reworking weak lines to hit more of those generators.

This Week in Amtrak

2011-04-05T16:40:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia
This Week at Amtrak Vol. 8 No. 6
Volume 8, Number 6

From the Editors…

There is a lot of talk these days of “passenger rail.” This week we attempt to separate reality from hyperbole.

The Definition of Success; The Price of the Definition

“What is the value added?” or similar questions are asked whenever any enterprise considers expansion, upgrade or reorganization. In principle it is a simple exercise; will future generations see this investment of time and resources as valuable or worthless? In the mania that has defined passenger railroading for the second decade of the 21st Century, one fact has become crystal clear, and that is that very few can accurately define what the value added is for passenger trains.

This is not to say that those promoting new trains are doing so out of shear ignorance or malfeasance. Many of these efforts are well meant. This past February, the Administration called upon Congress for a $53 billion down payment on high-speed rail for the country to enhance mobility and create work-fare. The goal was to provide access to fast trains for 80 percent of the country in 20 years. The general response was “Would you like fries with that?” More recently, two actors from a period-piece cable television drama performed, in character, a skit promoting the virtues of high-speed trains. The idea, if not the allure, of sleek, fast, sexy transportation seems positive and for good reason, because it is; however, the path from the trains of today and the trains of tomorrow is not as straight, short, or simple as one would be led to believe.

All around this great land of ours there are mixed signals as to the future of new passenger trains, let alone improvement of those extant. Passenger rail went from a Washington missive to center stage in many regional elections. As a result, planned projects in Wisconsin, Ohio, and Florida came to naught. In California, plans are moving forward to build a high-speed railroad as far out in the country as possible so as not to attract any attention. As a result of the many rejections, once-ostracized states of the Northeast are now allowed to bid for the now unwanted Federal dollars to improve Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor.

Despite these false starts, there has been meaningful progress on many fronts for the augmentation of passenger trains. In just the last month, Washington State received its grant of $590 million for improvements between Portland, Oregon, and Seattle. In North Carolina, $461 million was received for upgrades to its Raleigh-to-Charlotte route. And in Illinois, $685 million was realized to continue improvements from Chicago to St. Louis, Missouri. Some $1.736 billion of taxpayer monies have been doled out for worthwhile projects around the country.

It is still early in the decade, but a definite trend has started to take shape regarding the future of domestic passenger trains. At one end of the spectrum, the assumed silver bullet [train] which was to herald the new era of national HSR transportation was nixed in Florida. It would have run on an independent right-of-way with no direct connection to the rest of the National system. The “3C” service cancelled in Ohio was not HSR but rather an upgrade of existing freight-only trackage, most of which has not seen passenger trains for four decades. Even with the blessing of the current owners, the enhanced track was not going to be of too much benefit to freight, as Cincinnati to Cleveland via Columbus is not a natural through-freight corridor. The stalled extension of Hiawatha service from Milwaukee to Madison, Wisconsin, also not true HSR, did plan to make use of an existing passenger route as far as Watertown. From there, a nearly-abandoned freight line would have been completely rebuilt for passenger speeds. West of Watertown, the line sees minimal traffic currently handled by a short line.

The successes seen in Washington, Illinois, and North Carolina are another matter, altogether. What do they have in common?

All are pre-existing state-supported services. Washington started daily service in 1994 using trainsets made by Talgo. The Chicago-to-St. Louis service has existed in many guises since the beginning of Amtrak, and was once home to the French-made Turbo trains. (With Talgo reportedly relocating to Illinois, perhaps the Lincoln service will see yet another iteration of exotic equipment.) North Carolina’s intrastate train service started in 1995 and utilizes its own fleet of equipment.

All are on track owned (or operated) by freight railroads. The track in Washington State is a major corridor for BNSF, linking the Pacific Northwest with Canada. Even so, they have proven time and again to be willing partners with the local authority for operating the Cascade services. In Illinois, the line between St. Louis and Chicago is Union Pacific’s shortest route between the two cities. North Carolina’s Piedmont trains utilize Norfolk Southern’s main line from Greensboro to Charlotte. This track is currently undergoing capacity expansion as part of the Crescent Corridor initiative.

All currently host long-distance Amtrak trains. In Washington State the route of the Cascades is also part of the route for the Coast Starlight. The Illinois Lincoln service also hosts the daily Texas Eagle, while North Carolina’s Piedmont shares the same track with the Crescent between Greensboro and Charlotte.

In Washington, overall track capacity will increase with completion of the Point Defiance bypass. This bypass will obviate a single track tunnel and will be used by the Cascades, local commuter, as well as long-distance trains. Union Pacific plans for increased freight traffic on the Illinois line once upgrades are complete. North Carolina will add 28 miles of double track between Charlotte and Greensboro, part of the aforementioned Crescent Corridor. The planned enhancements for all three of these routes not only aid the regional and freight trains, but also increase the viability of long-distance trains; it is like getting three for the price of one. Now that is value added!

There is virtually no end to the possible public/private synergies around the country. In Virginia, passenger service will be returned to Norfolk (using State funds). The line from Norfolk to Petersburg is the Eastern end of Norfolk Southern’s recently upgraded Heartland Corridor connecting tidewater to the Midwest. Recently, the state of Missouri applied for Federal high-speed money to increase speeds between St. Louis and Kansas City. This is the route of the State-supported Missouri River Runner, and operates over the tracks of Union Pacific. Another plan under consideration is a daily train connecting Dallas to Eastern Texas. Currently, the daily Texas Eagle runs between Marshall and Dallas; westbound in the morning, eastbound in the evening. A counterpart train would run on opposite schedules with a possible extension to Shreveport, Louisiana. This would necessitate capacity expansion on the 150-mile route also owned by Union Pacific. Enhanced service between Oakland, California and Reno, Nevada is also a possibility. Currently, the route between Oakland and Auburn sees daily service as part of California’s Capitol Corridor, including the daily California Zephyr. Pushing the corridor past Auburn to Reno, 118 miles, may require capacity expansion over famed Donner Pass; predominantly re-laying much of the second track removed prior to Union Pacific’s accession of the route in 1996.

As the nation continues to adjust from the economic correction of the last few years it is evident we are a people defined as “risk averse.” Houses are not selling even though there are those who should be able to afford such. The numerous vacant automobile dealerships that now dot the landscape are further evidence of our new-found fiscal conservatism. The progress being seen in Washington, Illinois, and North Carolina demonstrate the public will to invest in the “tried and true,” where return on investment may be easily calculated and expedited.

Of all the trains run by Amtrak, it is the long-distance fleet which has garnered consistently increasing passenger loadings despite the downturn of the economy. To those inured by the high-speed-rail mentality sweeping the nation, these “slow trains” do not fit the prepackaged ideal; however, it must be understood that no high-speed train anywhere on earth was built without something predicating it. It must also be recognized that the United States has been limping along on a skeletal passenger rail network for four decades. If there is to be a true high-speed rail network, it must be preceded by a true conventional rail network.

The simple if painful truth is that a legitimate high-speed train is not a few years or even a decade away. A genuine network of meaningful passenger trains will have to be reestablished before going any further. This is a process that could conceivably take at least a generation, and no decree of imperious immediacy can change this. The latter half of the 20th Century was defined by America’s embrace of the automobile. This did not happen overnight. The return to rail-based transportation will also be a long-term transition; perhaps too long to satisfy those overly concerned about their legacy in the annals of history.

Guest Post

2011-04-04T17:29:00.001-07:00

Image via Wikipedia
This is a guest post by All Resort Transportation a privately run transportation company based in Utah.

Will The Utah Transit System Stand Up To a Disaster?

I began this post planning to write about the current situation with public transit in Utah, and then the earthquake struck in Japan and suddenly any of our problems in this state seemed absurdly miniscule by comparison. When the 8.9 (or 9.0, depending on your source) earthquake struck and caused the tsunami, it killed thousands and uprooted hundreds of thousands, destroying homes, roads, and anything else that was in its way.

The earthquake was felt as far away as Tokyo, which is some 150 miles or south of the epicenter. Despite the distance, the shaking was bad enough that the city shut down the transit system until they could be sure that it was structurally safe to use. Cities like Tokyo rely on their public transit systems, and when it was shut down for safety reasons, literally millions of people were stranded in the city with no way to get home or communicate with loved ones.

The Ramifications of the Shut Down
The commuter lifestyle is a little different in Japan than it is in Utah (not a big surprise there). Sometimes people will commute for hours in one direction to get to work, and some estimates say that more than 10 million people use the public transit system every day. Shutting any of these services down for even a short time would have serious ramifications, and after the earthquake millions of residents were stuck without an option.

Officials shut down the trains and subways because they needed to ensure that everything was still safe. Some lines were down for around six hours and others for much longer. Hotels were immediately flooded with people looking for a place to stay, and the government began opening schools and official buildings where people could seek shelter and sleep when it got too cold outside. We saw a lot of pictures of people curled up on the floor in the train stations and others standing in line to use a pay phone since the cell networks were immediately overloaded.

After a day, most of the transit infrastructure in Tokyo was up and running again, but it was still a little sporadic. Because of the power issues caused by the loss of the nuclear plants up north, Tokyo is planning on rolling blackouts to help conserve energy. This is leading to a slightly more erratic train schedule, but commuters seem to be dealing with it as well as could be expected.
How Would Utah Do?

Obviously, in Utah we don’t have near that many people relying on the public transit system. According to UTA, TRAX is averaging about 58,000 riders a day, though the number is increasing. Public transportation is growing all over the country, and we’ve had a big push to expand our system here. Utah transportation will probably never be as complex as it is in huge places like Tokyo, but the rising population and rising gas prices are building more and more reliance on new transit options.
Right now, Utah is developing its public transit system on a number of fronts. Currently, the FrontLines 2015 Project includes:
• Mid Jordan TRAX Line – Covering Murray, Midvale, West and South Jordan
• West Valley City TRAX Line – Running between South Salt lake and West Valley City
• Draper TRAX Line – A light rail service that runs through Draper and Sandy
• Airport TRAX Line – Get from downtown SLC to the airport
• FrontRunner Provo to Salt Lake City Line – A high speed commuter rail between these cities
On top of these projects, transit studies are currently going on in Surgarhouse, South Davis, Taylorsville, Murray, and Ogden. While it’s hard to imagine public transportation becoming as ingrained in our culture as it is in Japan, all these new developments will certainly increase the number of people who rely on everything from train lines to a Salt Lake airport shuttle. Then we have to ask: how well would we do in a disaster? Are we prepared to deal with that kind of challenge?

The tragedy in Japan is on a scale that most of us can’t really comprehend, and the impact of it was felt all over the country in many unexpected ways. The transit system may seem like a comparatively small thing, but Tokyo’s infrastructure was able to bounce back because they constructed their system to deal with natural disasters. If Utah is going to succeed with its transit initiatives, there are some definite lessons it could learn.

This Week in Amtrak

2011-03-23T16:48:00.000-07:00

Image by 棟樑‧Harry‧黃基峰‧Taiwan via Flickr

This Week at Amtrak Vol. 8 No. 5
From the Editors…

This week a post-mortem of Florida’s latest foray into High-Speed Rail.

There was no Plan B

Oh I used to be disgusted… and now I try to be amused. - Elvis Costello

On February 16, Florida's Governor Rick Scott announced that the State of Florida would not move forward with the Federal plans to build a high-speed railway between Tampa and Orlando International Airport. Similar announcements had already been made in Wisconsin and Ohio earlier this year. So what is the big deal?

Well, if one were to believe the political rhetoric that has been fired across the bow since then, one might come to the conclusion the governor has cancelled every holiday on the calendar and shot everyone’s favorite pet. The U.S. Transportation Secretary, Ray LaHood, extended the deadline for accepting the Federal monies, $2.4 billion, so as to give the state just one more last chance. On March 1, two State senators filed suit in the Florida Supreme Court, as citizens, not on behalf of the Senate, to order the governor to take the money. Right about now, Governor Scott is probably wondering if he should have stayed in his native American Midwest. Nevertheless the answer is still “no.” So what is the big deal?

The U.S. Department of Transportation was willing to let go of projects in Ohio and Wisconsin that were not really high-speed rail, but rather state-of-the-art conventional trains running at conventional speeds on improved conventional track. The HSR label was only added to offer the illusion of progress to sell this imperious immediacy of interest. However, as they were not true HSR they were expendable. The sum total of rejected Federal monies was less than half of the ultimate total offered to Florida, and was quickly dispersed to other states. Florida, it would seem, is an entirely different story.

“You recall unpleasant memories: of hours wasted in slow moving traffic; of disquieted children in the backseat of your car; of rushing to the airport to discover your flight canceled; of missing important business appointments; and of the hassles involved in moving around this great state. Those difficult days, though, remind you how fortunate you are to live in a state where logic prevailed in the mid 1990s. Relaxing into your plush, expansive seat, you sigh contentedly when an attendant brings your drink. Just before you doze off, lulled into a peace-filled rest by the train’s near-silent motion, you briefly wonder, ‘Who made all this possible?’” - Opening statement from the Florida Overland eXpress Executive Summary, 1996.

Fifteen years ago, the vision was crystal clear; a fast train connecting three of Florida’s largest metro areas in comfort and style. The planning was solid but the money was scarce, and the whole thing seemed to come to naught in 1999. Then in 2000, an amendment to the State Constitution was approved by Florida voters, and in 2001 the State Legislature enacted the Florida High Speed Rail Authority Act; however, in 2004 Florida voters repealed the 2000 amendment, citing the expense of such a project.

To say there are a tenacious few who continue to keep the flame alive for fast trains in the Sunshine State would be an understatement. Five years after the voting public made their opinion clear, a Federal initiative sought to overrule local sentiments. With a seemingly ever- larger flow of Federal monies, a scheme was hatched to invest $2.4 billion in just the 84-mile Tampa-Orlando leg of the system under the auspices of building a national network of fast trains. There was no referendum, there was no ballot initiative; just an imperious immediacy of interest from Washington, D.C. With the nation in general and the State of Florida in particular suffering the ravages of hard economic times, any infusion of cash -- from any source -- seemed like a godsend. And with other trains on the national drawing board, Florida did not feel alone. But once again there was one rather large string attached: The potential large outlay of local funds. For this reason, the governor cancelled the project. Once again money was a big deal.

High-speed trains are not evil. However, nowhere on earth do they operate in a vacuum. In France, the national railway operates everything from urban transportation to high-speed trains. While they operate around 14,000 trains every day, only a relative handful are high speed. For a high-speed train to be successful it needs feeders to connect to places where the riding public actually wants to go. As of right, now these types of networks do not exist in Central Florida.

In what may appear as a case of bitter grapes, a ridership report was released just after the project was cancelled. Picked up by various news outlets was the figure of “3.3 million annual riders” and “would have made money from Day One.” This report was produced, for $1.3 million, by the firms of Steer Davies Gleave and Wilbur Smith Associates. In March 2010 Wilbur Smith Associates along with HNTB, in a joint partnership, were selected as program manager for passenger rail in the State of Florida. Moreover, the much-touted report was nothing more than five pages of numbers, with no justification for how those figures were compiled. The reader may read into this with impunity.

The initial route of 84 miles was chosen in large part due to the relative low cost of building, possibly $3 billion if one includes moderate overruns; however, connecting Central Florida with Central Florida now seems like an oxymoron. This fact was not lost on a recent article by Michael Cooper in the New York Times, “Tampa and Orlando are only 84 miles apart, generally considered too close for high-speed rail to make sense. The train trip, with many stops along the way, would have shaved only around a half-hour off the drive. Since there are no commercial flights between the two cities, the new line would not have lured away fliers or freed up landing slots at the busy airports.”

Ultimately the fast train in Central Florida would have been of little to no practical use for the everyday traveler. It would have missed all of the town centers on its route, thus would not have been a catalyst for urban development or renewal. A state-of-the-art conventional train on improved extant tracks would pass through the historic town centers, would be a catalyst for development, and should cost less than a third of the now-defunct fast train. But without the “HSR” label, it is not sexy enough for consideration by those who worry about their legacy.

In retrospect, perhaps the Orlando to Miami leg of the plan should have been considered first. At 240 miles, just over two and a half times the length of Tampa-Orlando, it certainly would have cost over two and a half times as much; however, connecting Central Florida with South Florida does make sense both politically as well as financially, and it certainly would be much less expensive than the postulated $42 billion price tag for the full build-out proposed in California.

With Florida now officially out of the high-speed rail business, attention turns to California and the building of America’s first true high-speed train between the metropolises of Fresno and Bakersfield. Instead of Central Florida it will be left to the Central Valley to iron out specifications, codes, analyses, and operating procedures for all American fast trains to follow. This is probably not what the administration envisioned as the next great leap in transportation for the country.

Ultimately the administration placed all its bets on Central Florida in the belief that everyone was on the same page; that everyone believed in the concept of high-speed rail. In doing so, they never contemplated what to do if everyone was not on the same page. In short, they had no plan B. If connecting Central Florida with Central Florida seemed obtuse, then what would connecting the 35th- and 58th- largest cities in the nation seem like?

For now, those passionate purveyors of fast trains in Florida must once again close their plan books and return them to their shelves. Again, they will have to wait for the day when someone whisking along at over 150 mph will ask, “Who made all this possible?” Perhaps someday, but not today.

Pedestrian Dead Zones

2011-03-18T15:33:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

Just because you build nice wide sidewalks and create a barrier between cars and pedestrians (such as trees) does not mean you will create an environment that conducive to pedestrian activity. To create pedestrian activity you need to have someplace to walk to but also reduce the number of barriers that exist to actually using those sidewalks to get somewhere.

Despite its very long blocks, there is some good pedestrian activity in downtown Salt Lake City from North Temple to about 350 South. If you travel any farther south than that you will see a remarkable decrease in the number of pedestrians. There is several causes of this drop off in pedestrian activity and I will cover some of the major ones in this posting.

Since Main Street is home to the TRAX light rail line I will start off at the corner of 400 South and Main. On the northwest corner of the intersection with have a court house. Court houses tend not to foster pedestrian activity because they are a single point destination, in other words people may go to the court house but that is the only reason they head there.

They are currently expanding the court house to take up most of the block from Main Street to West Temple. This will create a large barrier to pedestrian activity in the area. With court houses becoming even more fortified these days this makes court houses even more unfriendly toward pedestrian activity these days.

Here is a picture of the current court house looking north:

Here is a picture looking south diagonally from corner of 400 South and Main toward the corner of 500 South and West Temple.

Does this look like a thriving pedestrian and transit friendly downtown area or does it look like a parking lot of a suburban office park? This block of parking is made worse because of Salt Lake City's extremely long blocks. To the left of the picture is the Court House TRAX station and on the next block at State Street is another court house.

There is apparently a long story involving this parking lot barrier that covers the block between 400 South, 500 South, Main and West Temple. Despite all the opportunities that exist for development of this block with a TRAX station at the front door this lot will most likely stay as it is for the foreseeable future.

Once you walk pass the parking lot you face a new barrier for pedestrians-the 500 South and 600 South speedways to Interstate 15:

However, it is not three and four lanes of speeding cars that create a barrier to creating an effective pedestrian environment, it is the development that has occurred along the two streets. Because 500 South and 600 South are the two primary access streets to Interstate 15, the area along the two streets have become lodging row.

You would think that lodging facilities would want to foster pedestrian activity in the area but instead most lodging facilities are designed on two principles:

1. Everyone will arrive by car so there is no need to create effective pedestrian access points.
2. Especially if the lodging facility has on sight restaurants, the goal is to ensure the people staying at the facility only use their restaurants or have to get in their car and try to find parking if they want to eat somewhere else.

If you look at the picture above, you will notice that there is no pedestrian access point from the building in the picture to street level. This building is the Little America Hotel that covers all of the block with its sister property the Grand America Hotel taking up half of the block on the far side of Main Street (there is some irony that the Grand America was home to Railvolution back in 2005).

The next two pictures show the main entrance of both hotels on Main Street. While there is some pedestrian access to both hotels it is design more to foster getting guests between the two facilities than actually create any pedestrian activity on Main Street.

To be fair, the Little America does have a pedestrian entrance to its restaurant on Main Street about halfway between its main entrance and 500 South but it appears that there is few people that use it since pedestrian traffic on this section of main street is non-existent.

South of 600 South you have there is some areas of abandoned or barely used businesses and past 700 South you encounter several car dealerships including the Mark Miller Toyota Sprawl lot that completely kills most pedestrian activity in this neighborhood.

Heading back north we move one block west to West Temple and you have the only access point to the Little America from West Temple and as you can see from the picture it is not exactly pedestrian friendly:

To be fair to the Little America/Grand America hotels, they are not the only culprits as the Embassy Suites at 600 South and West Temple shows with its very small sidewalk providing the only pedestrian access to the hotel:

In fact I all of the hotels except for Motel 6, had very poor to no pedestrian access points to the hotel. This next photo is back at 500 South looking south toward 600 South with the Little America on the left. As you can see the east side of West Temple has the right elements for pedestrians, there is just too many barriers to using it.

Finally you look back toward downtown, so close yet so far away.

You can build sidewalks and put trees in to create an environment that should foster more pedestrian activity, but if development or the lack of it and street design creates barriers to pedestrians all sidewalks in the world will not encourage people to use them.

Do we need TOD Certification that goes beyond LEED Certification

2011-03-08T18:56:00.000-08:00

Some people appear to be under the mistaking impression that just because a building is LEED certified, the building is not only energy efficient but also transit friendly. To dispel that theory, take a look at a recently LEED certified building in Salt Lake City: Mark Miller Toyota.

Mark Miller Toyota sits on the corner of 700 South and West Temple just south of the downtown area. While the downtown area can be fairly walkable despite the extremely long blocks, this part of downtown sees very little pedestrian activity. In a future posting I will discuss how dead zones of pedestrian activity can be created using this area as an example but lets get back to the topic at hand.

This dealership is right on the main North-South TRAX line but the only stops are a couple of blocks away. There is several dealerships in the neighborhood that make this area very pedestrian unfriendly. In fact, Mark Miller takes up three quarters of a city block and we are not talking Portland, Oregon blocks here, no we are talking Salt Lake City blocks.

Ironically if you walk to the right of this photo to the next block you will find some live/work units.

While the Mark Miller building itself may be LEED certified, overall it is nothing but a sprawl lot that creates a barrier between the hotel/motel area of downtown and neighborhoods to the South. The area to the south has suffered from a lack of a cohesive connection to the downtown area and these dealerships do not help.

While LEED gives us a good start, we need something that goes beyond LEED and truly shows us if a building supports a pedestrian, bicycle and transit environment.

What to do with Route 176

2011-02-28T21:23:00.000-08:00

Image via Wikipedia
In previous entries I did a short history of LA Metro's route 176 and a brief description of route. As promised today I am going to look at the 176 from a marketing prespective, look at some alternatives to make the line more successful and finally look at some alternatives for the western end of the line to keep some bus service in the section of route that has no announced replacements.

First of all, there is two things that is currently hurting route 176.

The first is the current schedule of the 176. Right now the buses run every 70 minutes.You could basically call this a bean counter schedule. The present route requires a 55-minute running time so with layovers you can run the service with only two buses. While a bean counter may like being able to run the route with only two buses, it will not attract any choice riders because of the lack of frequency.

While a 60-minute frequency still would not be enough to attract a large number of choice riders, at least the buses would be running at a schedule to remember. Having the ability to know that a bus should always come at six after the hour makes riding the bus simple compared to the bus comes at different times at every hour of the day.

Another item that hurts the 176 from a marketing perspective is the lack of major destinations along the route. As I mentioned in the route description the route does service a major industrial park but they have their own built in limitations. The bus also serves a major tourist destination in the San Gabriel Mission but very few tourist will venture onto Metro buses, especially in the suburban areas that bus service is extremely sparse.

The route does not service any major shopping centers either. Alhambra has a small 20 year old minor mall, but it has no regional draw. Except for the downtown South Pasadena area, most of the retail along the route is aging grocery store centers and strip malls which are not conducive to riding the bus.

One of the problems faced by many Metro routes is the long held philosophy of Metro's predecessor RTD and Metro itself. Their concept was to run a bus as far as it could in the same corridor creating extremely straight but long routes. The problem with the 176 is that there is not a lot of through streets in the area that do not go into NIMBY land, so the route was always one of compromise.

What the 176 is a community feeder line that the RTD turned into an extremely long route that did not work. Sadly, RTD's successor has also done a poor job of designing routes that are not major corridor routes or designing any routes at all. There has been few changes to the bus routes outside the ones that were forced on Metro by the Bus Riders Union Consent Degree.

What can be done to change the route?

While none of these proposals would be acted on, here are some ideas to create a more successful route 176.

Idea one would actually restore a portion of the route to Glassell Park but avoid the section of Division Street which caused all the NIMBY issues due to worn out 70+ year old concrete with its sub base worn down by erosion.

View Larger Map

Not only would restore service on a portion of Avenue 50 and El Paso that loss service a couple of years ago, but it would also add service along a portion of York Blvd that has never had bus service and add service to the biggest regional mall in the area.

However, the potential customers who would travel to the mall would be residents of South Pasadena who would most likely not be willing to ride a bus through Highland Park. The route would also duplicate part of one of the Glendale Beeline routes and MTA Route 183 which could be seen as a negative.

Idea two is a variation of Idea One.

View Larger Map

Back in the 1980 period, RTD proposed major changes to transit service in order to change routes so that they did not look anything like the streetcar routes that once existed. In the vain attempt to eliminate anything that resembled old streetcar routes, RTD proposed to replace service on then route 6 (now 83) on York Blvd with a reroute of Route 430 (176) along York.

The downside of this is that the frequency of the 83 along York is every 25 minutes so the present frequency of the 176 would not satisfy riders along that portion of York Blvd. However, it would also have the benefit of creating new service on the section of York Blvd north of Eagle Rock Blvd that has never had bus service before.

Here is a third idea that adds service not only to the Glendale Galleria area but also serves the Glendale Metrolink station and provide connections to Bee Line.

View Larger Map

The benefits that all these proposals have in common is to increase the number of major destinations served by the route (although they would still be on the extreme end of the line), add service to areas that do not presently have any, and provide new connection opportunities that do not presently exist with the 176.

The question is would the increased ridership justify the increased cost? The present scheduling of the route would nulify any improvements to the destinations served due to the lack of service frequency.

Since Metro is planning to save the eastern portion of the route, here is an idea to save service on the western portion of the route. Now this would have been easier if Metro still operated route 262, however that route is now Montebello Bus Lines Route 30. The route could be extended from its present terminus at Garfield/Atlantic/Huntington Drive triangle to replace the portion of Route 176 to Highland Park. This would eliminate that evil duplication that occurs in Alhambra and save service through South Pasadena to Highland Park.

The ultimate issue with the route is something that cannot be resolved and that is the economic and social divide that separates South Pasadena from the other communities the 176 travel through. The best solution which is Metro has no concept in operating, will be to work with the city of South Pasadena and set up a Call N ' Ride operation for the city providing every half hour connecting service to the Gold Line. This would provide service to those that need it in the area plus provide convenient connections to other services.

When push comes to shove, there is few people who will probably notice when the 176 disappears from the landscape. After 35 years of being ignored except to cut service to the bones, there is few riders left to really care what happens to the western portion of the route.

A Trip on Route 176

2011-02-24T20:29:00.001-08:00

Image by Metro Transportation Library and Archive via Flickr
Last time I gave a brief history of LA Metro's Route 176. Today I will describe the route and some of the social-economic situations that exist along the line.

Map and schedule of the 176.

As I mentioned yesterday, the 176 currently starts its run near the corner of Figueroa and York in Highland Park. The actual end of the line is behind a aging 70's shopping center. At the corner of the shopping center is a fast food restaurant that used to be very good although I have not been there in several years.

Highland Park used to be a streetcar suburb but these days is sadly better know for the large amount of gang violence that takes place in the area. It is not an area you would want to be walking around after the sun goes down and sometimes even when it is up.

After leaving its layover zone the 176 turns on Avenue 64 before turning left onto York Blvd and crosses the elegant York Avenue Bridge. To the west you can see the very tall former Santa Fe bridge that the Gold Line now travels across. If the payment has worn down enough on the York bridge you can see railroad tracks in embedded in the street (unless they have been removed in the last few years). These are not former Pacific Electric tracks but are the only remains of a profitable former Union Pacific branch line that used to run all the way to Pasadena. However, when Interstate 210 was put in the tracks were forced out.

After you cross the bridge over the Arroyo Seco you have not only gone over a divide in the land, but you have also crossed a major economic divide. You have now entered the city of South Pasadena who has infamously been fighting the construction of a freeway segment for many years. Don't get the idea that there is a up-swelling of anti-car attitude in the city, they want the freeway they just in somewhere else (read between the lines: over toward the Los Angeles border in the less affluent part of town).

The first stop in the city used to generate some peak loads as there was a clothing manufacturer located here but it has been gone for many years and the riders with it. The line then makes brushes the Gold Line before heading north on Pasadena which turns into Mission Street. At the corner of Mission and Meridian is the Gold Line's stop in South Pasadena with the 176 being the only full time bus service the station sees.

The route then travels through the small South Pasadena business district which does not look all that different from the scenes shot here for the 1980's Michael J. Fox film "Teen Wolf". At the corner of Fair Oaks and Mission you have a connection with Metro Route 260 and there is also the Fair Oaks Pharmacy which features a classic soda fountain counter.

Once pass Fair Oaks the route travels through a residential area before turning onto Garfield and traveling along the San Marino/South Pasadena border. The route then crosses Huntington Drive and once again moves out into the city of Alhambra. Until the route turns onto Main Street, the 176 shares the route with Montebello Municipal Bus Route M30. Once the route turns onto Main Street it travels through the heart of the Alhambra Business District. Along Main Street the 176 shares the street with the 79 which means that along two of its primary corridors it shares the streets with other routes and we know how some transit circles see any duplication of service as something to be avoided.

Just after Main Street turns into Las Tunas the 176 turns onto Mission and passes the San Gabriel Mission. Metro plans to continue serving the rest of the 176 route by extending another route to run from El Monte to this intersection since it is the busier section of the line.The route along Mission is mostly residential with some small businesses located along the way. Most of the neighborhoods would rate as lower middle class.

The route continues down Mission, turns onto Rosemead Blvd sharing the street with the 266, then travels through the Telstar Industrial Park before making its way to the El Monte Bus Station. The Industrial Park is another generator of business but like most industrial parks generates those riders at only shift change times.

That gives you a very basic concept of the route. Next time I plan to look at the route from a marketing prospective to see what is the major failings of the route and what can be done to make the route more viable. I will also look at some alternatives to keep service along most of the route.

A Look at Los Angeles Metro's 176

2011-02-23T20:18:00.001-08:00

Image via Wikipedia
Like most transit systems across the country, Metro in Los Angeles has been facing tough economic times. However, like the rest of its brethren in California, they have also been facing a double whammy of recession and money being taken out of transportation to shore up its crumbling general fund by the former governor. Now Metro is proposing to cut even more service in June including route 176 which travels from Highland Park to the El Monte Station at the eastern end of the El Monte Busway.

The 176 is near and dear to my heart because I spent many years living along the route and riding it. Here is the map and schedule of the current 176.

The route first started as a Pacific Electric bus traveling from Mission and Fair Oaks in South Pasadena to Alhambra connecting several of the PE's major rail lines. The bus line was later extended to replace rail service and for many years was route 79 traveling from Main and Garfield in Alhambra through South Pasadena and Highland Park and ended up at Huntington Drive and Monterey Road.

In April, 1976 the RTD, Metro's predecessor, revamped routes in the San Gabriel valley and surrounding areas, and the little 79 was split up into two other lines. The first line, the 143, took the park of the 79 from Highland Park to Huntington and Monterey Rd. and continued all the way to East LA. The 143 was latter merged with route 425 and later renumbered 256 which continues today although it has also faced being axed at one time or another over the last few years.

The 430 took over the other part of the 79 from Highland Park to Alhambra plus portions of other routes to create the present 176. In early 1977, the route was extended from Highland Park to Glassell Park via Ave 50 replacing a short shuttle route. For 30+ years the 430/176 traveled back and forth between Glassell Park and El Monte with little notice until the portion between York and Figueroa in Highland Park to Glassell Park was cut in order to allow Metro to retire its remaining and aged 35 foot RTS buses.

That brings up to the present time and the very real possibility that this route will probably meet its demise in a few months. I am going to use this route as a case study on what can be done to route that has largely been ignored for 30 years to improve its performance, the socially-economic conditions that apply to the line, and some alternatives to the Metro proposal.

In the next entry I will describe the current route and some of the different neighborhoods the bus travels through and other interesting facts about the route.

This Week in Amtrak

2011-02-20T20:47:00.000-08:00

Image via Wikipedia
From the Editors…

Beware the ides of… February? This week a brief of some current events.

Just How Much is that Wild Goose?

“A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money.”- Senator Everett Dirksen

Just how many names can one give to a hole in the ground? What does one name a hole that does not really exist? This particular hole, meant to connect suburban New Jersey with New York City, has had many names and titles. A decade and half ago, it was known as the “Trans-Hudson Express Tunnel” (THE Tunnel) or, deridingly, as the “tunnel to Macy’s basement.” Later known as “Access to the Region's Core,” (ARC) ground was officially broken in June of 2009. On October 27, 2010, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (New Jersey being the only state officially participating in this project) gave it a new name: Dead. Concerned that the $8.7 billion undertaking would spiral to Big Dig proportions, the governor decided the price was too rich for New Jersey’s blood. There were meetings and more meetings between Trenton and Washington, but despite Federal demand for payback of $271 million, the project was axed once and for all… or so it seemed.

On February 6, 2011, a new player, Amtrak, rode into town along with U.S. Senate representation from New Jersey. Together, they announced a new scheme to build, and a new name: The “Gateway Tunnel.” They intend to spend $50 million for more design and engineering work, with a potential cost of $13.5 billion for completion. (It would appear Governor Christie’s concerns over costs were more than prescient.)

Two days earlier, the City of New York contracted with Parsons Brinckerhoff, Inc. to (quickly) study the feasibility of extending the No. 7 subway line west, under the Hudson River to NJ Transit’s station at Secaucus, New Jersey. Unlike the previous tunnel plans, this would allow riders transferring at Secaucus access to the West Side of Manhattan, Times Square, Grand Central Terminal, and Queens, without traversing an already-full Pennsylvania (Penn) Station.

Unlike the ARC, the Gateway Tunnel (actually two tunnels with one track each), proposed by Amtrak and friends, will not terminate north of Penn Station or Macy’s basement. Rather, it will run directly into Penn Station, adding to its already burgeoning passenger congestion. Currently, Penn Station handles a daily crush of some 600,000 persons. The existing century-old, twin single-track tubes handle a maximum of 23 trains per hour. It is expected the new Gateway Tunnel will allow for an additional 21 trains per hour. No source for this project's funding was cited.

Just two days later, on February 8, Vice President Joe Biden announced a new Administration initiative to spend $53 billion over the next six years on High-Speed Rail projects nationwide. The goal is to allow high-speed train access to 80 percent of the public within 25 years. Again, no source for the requisite funds was cited.

Not everyone is onboard with the immediacy of interest in “High-Speed Rail.” As has been reported in these pages before, many have advanced their political careers on “stop the train” platforms; therefore, it does not portend well that the two U.S. Representatives who declared this initiative “dead on arrival” are the House Transportation Committee Chairman and Railroads Subcommittee Chairman.

John Mica (R-Fla.) was his usual sanguine self in frankly appraising this development: “This is like giving Bernie Madoff another chance at handling your investment portfolio.” Mica is none too happy about the previous $10 billion pledged for HSR, or about the involvement of the Federal Railway Administration (FRA) in the HSR corridor selection process; and is especially displeased with the continued interference of the National Railroad Passenger Corporation. “Amtrak hijacked 76 of the 78 projects, most of them costly, and some already rejected by State agencies,” said Mica. “Amtrak’s Soviet-style train system is not the way to provide modern and efficient passenger rail service.”

Bill Shuster (R-Penn.) also had his take on this latest HSR missive: “The Administration continues to fail in attracting private investment, capital, and the experience to properly develop and cost-effectively operate true high-speed rail.” … “Government won’t develop American high-speed rail. Private investment and a competitive market will.”

To date, $271 million has already been spent. This includes $26.3 million for property acquisition in New Jersey for what was the ARC project; and $50 million has been proposed for more study of “ARC-lite.” Of the $10 billion pledged for “High-Speed Rail,” at least $1 billion has already been spent. To keep this all in perspective, Amtrak currently has on-order 70 new railcars for Eastern trains at approximately $2.3 million per each. The $1.321 billion already spent and proposed could have purchased over 500 of these railcars, expanding Amtrak's existing fleet by one-third. The problem with a wild goose chase is that regardless of the amount of money or resources expended, one still may not wind up with the goose.

An “E-Ticket Ride” to Fantasyland

Lathen, a small city of some 11,000+ souls (in 2009), may not ring a bell in the minds of those from outside the Emsland district in Lower Saxony, Germany. Yet, Lathen boasts what may be considered the world's fastest form of overland transportation. This is where ThyssenKrupp's Transrapid Maglev test track extends over 30 kilometers. If one is interested in buying one’s very own maglev transportation system, then Lathen is the place to visit. The test track was built to devise, test, improve and (most importantly) sell the concept of maglev; nothing more, nothing less. It does not see active scheduled service for the general public to ride.

The team members involved in writing, editing, and publishing this newsletter are all current or former residents of the State of Florida. As such, we have been watching intently the now almost-daily developments, with the latest incarnation of fast trains here being Florida High-Speed Rail. On February 16, newly-elected governor Rick Scott officially turned down $2.4 billion in Federal funds earmarked for the initial east-west, Tampa-Orlando route (roughly 80 miles). His reasoning for doing so included projected cost overruns and questionable ridership/revenue projections. This has become quite the firestorm in Tallahassee, and may rage for some time to come.

Governor Scott was not the only one questioning the validity of this project. At this year’s Southwest Rail Conference, one presenter succinctly pointed out that American HSR supporters were “attempting to have their icing without bothering to bake the cake.” Specifically he added, “Florida needs to mature its HSR plans.” Transporting tourists from theme parks to the beaches on the Gulf of Mexico is not a mature reason for building HSR.

When the go-ahead for High-Speed Rail projects came early last year, it was like popping the cork on a bottle of long-fermenting ideas. For Florida, it was a matter of dusting off the plans for the stillborn Florida Overland eXpress of 1996. When proponents for Florida HSR were questioned about the validity of this endeavor, the answer was curt and simple: The state already owns the right-of-way, and the environmental impact studies are complete. It is true that both of these prerequisites are a major hurdle for any project; still, is it not odd that public benefit was not one of the top two reasons for building?

Would Tampa-Orlando HSR be of anymore use to riders than the test track in Lathen? The simple reality is: No. It was not, nor was it ever meant to be, a serious contender for moving residents about the Sunshine State. As much as Lathen proved the workability of maglev, so too would Florida HSR be merely a vehicle to test and prove the feasibility of High-Speed trains in America. Every nation that has ventured into the HSR arena has had to develop its own system, with its own parameters to suit that nation's specific needs and conditions. The United States will be no different. Those involved with Florida HSR have been in talks with the FRA about requirements for vehicles traveling at hitherto-unseen speeds. As State Senator Paula Dockery said, “This was going to be a model for the nation.”

Numerous potential companies and consortia of companies have been eagerly awaiting the expected payout to develop all the systems for such a project. Now that it appears Florida HSR has been scrubbed, those would-be builders are scrambling. Without Florida, where else will they “beta test” their product? Without Federal money, who will pay to develop new, or adapt existing, technology for use in America?

Had the Tampa-Orlando line been built, the technology would have been built, tested, redesigned, retested, ad nauseam until everything was ready for primetime; after which, maybe the second phase of Florida HSR, a north-south, Orlando-Miami route (roughly 230 miles), would have been built. Tampa-Orlando is, however, a bit of a misnomer. In reality, the Eastern terminus is not the city of Orlando, but rather the airport (which bears its name, but is nowhere near Orlando). The western end is not the beautifully-restored downtown Union Station, but rather a parking lot off the highway. The likelihood of drawing riders was about par with drawing bees with vinegar. No matter how technically successful this may have been, would the public tolerate the spending of billions more of public monies in order to go to Miami?

Universal Truths

Every project has to start somewhere; and someone has to pay for it. Whereas private dollars may combine with public monies and actually build the line on State property between Tampa and Orlando, what about the future? When the champagne stops flowing and the confetti settles, there will still be a train to run. Will those private dollars still be there to fund its operation? When all is said and done, Florida HSR is nothing more than a novelty, a $2+ billion tourist attraction for foreign and domestic visitors to gawk at before moving on to the next attraction. Speaking as a resident this very expensive, publicly-funded tourist trap is the last thing we need here.

New Name and expanded focus...

2011-02-18T09:04:00.001-08:00

For those arriving on this page today expecting to see Transit In Utah...surprise this blog has a new name to go along with some change in focus in the next few months and some changes in my personal life.

As I mentioned a few months ago I tried to expand the focus of the blog from covering happenings in Utah but also covering areas of interest across the United States and Canada especially in the cities I have good familiarity with such as Southern California, the San Francisco Bay Area, Utah, Las Vegas, Charlotte, Portland, Spokane and Seattle.

I might move the blog to a different platform once I study more on the different options and I have registered the follow url: http://www.urbanplanningandtransportation.com which is directing to this page at the present time and the forcible future.

The main reasons for these changes is that there is going to be a major change in my personal life over the next 4 months. While I have kept my personal life and this blog separate since its inception, this blog is actually driving some of the changes in that life.

While I do have a degree in Business Management (a two year degree) and tons of experience, the last few years have been difficult. Before I attended Railvolution in October, I was thinking of returning to school but was torn because Utah schools would not accept most of my credits so was looking at moving back to Spokane where my credits were earned. However, our first choice was to move to either Portland or Seattle and after talking to Portland Community College I found out they would take my existing credits which is great since I only need a few classes to get a transferable degree.

From there I plan to apply and attend Portland State University to get degrees in Urban Planning and Economics.

In May I will traveling up to Portland in order to find a place to live. My goal is to find a place with easy transit access to the PCC campuses and PSU. There is some other changes going to take place in March that is going to affect the type of apartment I can find. I hope you enjoy reading of my adventures of trying to find a place to live that meets these requirements.

In my years doing this blog we have seen a lot of changes both good and bad both in Utah and across the nation. I hope to make it back down to Salt Lake in August for the opening of the new TRAX lines since I have been watching progress on the these lines since they were first proposed but am not sure at this time.

To my regular readers, I hope you will continue enjoying this blog, I plan to continue providing observations on urban planning and transportation.

This Week in Amtrak

2011-02-14T21:47:00.002-08:00

Image via Wikipedia
This week a tale of caution, a tale of woe, a tale of passenger rail investment in our 21st Century.

Beware the Law of Unintended Consequences

Basic physics teaches us that for every action there is a reaction. The sociologists tell us such reactions may bring unintended consequences; unanticipated and potentially undesirable outcomes. It is widely held that such unintended consequences fall into one of three categories: Positive, negative, and perverse (wherein the results of the reaction are opposite to what was intended). Prominent sociologist Robert Merton cited numerous reasons for this lack of foresight, but perhaps the most dangerous in the political arena is the “imperious immediacy of interest” wherein “…paramount concern of the immediate excludes consideration of further or other consequences …”

At this time last year, passenger rail was garnering more than its usual share of the public eye. This was entirely due to the Administration’s said goal of building “High-Speed Rail” projects all around the country, even likening these to the Federal Interstate Highway program of the 1950s. As a result, many states pulled their decades-old dreams for intrastate passenger trains off their respective shelves, shook off the dust, and slapped on “High-Speed Rail” labels. One of these was the state of Ohio which wrote, in part, in its High Speed Intercity Passenger Rail Application of October 2009:

"During the past 35 years, the State of Ohio has continued planning for the reinstitution of passenger train service on its Cleveland-Columbus-Cincinnati corridor and vested several state agencies with that responsibility. In 1973, the Ohio Legislative Service Commission (LSC) moved to ‘study the feasibility’ of establishing a rapid transit system connecting Ohio’s ‘major cities’ in response to the Arab Oil Embargo. In 1977, the Ohio Rail Transportation Authority (ORTA) was created by the Ohio General Assembly to continue feasibility planning. In 1979, the Ohio legislature passed a law urging neighboring states to join them in exploring the potential for the development of a regional rail system within the Great Lakes Region. Following the 1982 defeat of a statewide sales tax initiative to advance high speed rail service, ORTA was abolished and its staff moved to the Ohio Department of Transportation.

“The initiative advanced in 1991 when the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA) was enacted funding safety improvements at highway-rail grade crossings on corridors that were ‘designated’ as high-speed intercity passenger rail corridors based on their present utility and their potential for future development. It was in 2000 that the FRA designated the 3C Corridor as an extension of the Chicago Hub network and included the primary points or cities along the line: Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton and Cincinnati.

“Subsequent and current initiatives to advance passenger rail service in Ohio have been the responsibility of the ORDC, which was established by the Ohio General Assembly in 1994. In 1996, ORDC joined the Midwest Regional Rail Initiative (MWRRI), which calls for the development of a ‘Chicago Hub’ a system envisioned as a 3,000-mile rail system with eight passenger corridors serving 60 million people in a nine state region. The most current Midwest Regional Rail System (MWRRS) Plan report was issued in October 2004.”

Another of these was the state of Wisconsin. Although its rail aspirations were not as long-lived as Ohio, Wisconsin did bring its checkbook. In July 2009, the state entered an agreement with Talgo America to purchase two train sets for $47 million. As part of that agreement, Talgo would establish an assembly plant within the state’s borders. In doing so it would set the standard for the Midwest. Its High-Speed plan, also of October 2009, was the guideline for reintroducing service of some 85 miles between the state capital of Madison and Milwaukee. Although tagged with the “High-Speed” label the proposed service would never have exceeded 110 mph. The plan read in part:

“WisDOT is the lead state for the [Midwest Regional Rail Initiative] and will manage the efforts of the Steering Committee to identify the preferred train set equipment type. WisDOT also is involved in the nationwide effort to identify and acquire the preferred train set equipment through their involvement in the Next Generation Corridor Equipment Committee (mandated by the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008, Section 3605).”

Talgo, for its part, kept its end of the bargain. They set up shop in the former Tower Automotive facility in Milwaukee with the promise of jobs in an area perpetually hit by hard times. The train sets to be delivered are of the new Talgo Series VIII, which are to be fully FRA-compliant and needing no waivers. The two sets ordered in 2009 will be placed in service on the existing Chicago - Milwaukee Hiawatha service. (The state of Oregon also ordered two sets, also to be built in Wisconsin.) It was initially hoped that two more train sets would be ordered for the expanded Madison - Milwaukee service. Ultimately, a new maintenance facility would be established in Madison.

At face value, this seemed like a good idea; a state connecting its largest city to its capital. New Mexico accomplished the same in 2008 when it connected Albuquerque with Santa Fe; however, the New Mexico Rail Runner has the look and feel of a commuter train, and has a total length of 97 miles. Recently the Commonwealth of Virginia announced its intention to connect its second largest city, Norfolk, with the state capital of Richmond, a distance of 109 miles. At no time in either case was the moniker “High-Speed” ever used or applied.

As with most parties these days, however, after the champagne stops flowing and the music stops playing, comes the stark dawn of day. The HSR party was no different. This ersatz High-Speed Rail was deemed as grossly indulgent in an era of austerity. New regimes elected to high office in Ohio and Wisconsin view HSR as too rich for their blood. Both new projects have been canceled, and the Federal monies reallocated to other states.

Talgo, for its part, will continue to hold up its end of the bargain; however, instead of filling the 125 positions originally projected, it will fill just 65. The four train sets on order for Wisconsin and Oregon will be completed by 2012. If no new orders are secured by then, the Milwaukee plant will only be used as a maintenance base for Wisconsin’s equipment. [As we go to press it has been reported Talgo shall move its operation to Illinois. Details of this shall be forthcoming.]

It was believed by many that these projects of Ohio and Wisconsin were reasonable -- and realistic -- due to their basic nature. Despite the “High-Speed” label, they were really in fact just a return to the past, with schedules that would not have been out of pace just two or three generations ago. Since these were really conventional trains and not the gold-plated fast trains of another continent, it was hoped those in charge would see past the HSR-“imperious immediacy of interest“; however, this was not to be. Even though all that glitters is not gold if it is perceived by the public to be gold, then it is a target. And whereas the call was for “High-Speed Rail” to be built around the country, it appears its collapse will doom many conventional rail projects as well. Can any other reaction be more “perverse?”

UTA TRAX S70 cars

2011-02-10T22:03:00.014-08:00

On Monday UTA held a press photo event to see the new Siemens Low Floor S70 light rail vehicles now testing on the Sandy line. UTA also announced that the cars should enter regular service in the spring.

This Week in Amtrak

2011-01-27T17:42:00.001-08:00

Image via Wikipedia
From the Editors…
Something is turning 40, and oddly enough someone wants you to know about it. This and other more somber milestones are covered this week.

Of Time and (Wall) Space

If you are not already aware, Amtrak intends to make very sure you will be: On May 1, the National Railroad Passenger Corporation (NRPC) -- yes, that is still Amtrak’s legal name -- will achieve 40 years of existence. According to its internal newsletter, Amtrak Ink, there are numerous outlets planned to observe this latest milestone. There will be a commemorative book for which Amtrak has already canvassed its employees for pictures. There will also be a video by “an Emmy award-winning producer.” Also, “Beech Grove is renovating surplus equipment and restoring one F-40, one P-40, three baggage cars, and an Amfleet food service car for a special 40th anniversary `museum train' that will travel across the country to many employee locations.” Since when has Amtrak had “surplus” equipment?

One thing is for certain, this year’s Amtrak wall calendar makes the pronouncement loud for all to hear: “AMTRAK CELEBRATES 40 YEARS OF SERVICE.” Superimposed over a map of the original route structure are over a dozen snapshots from those early years of “rainbow consists” and '70s fashion sense. The lovely Patty Saunders is captured in her go-go boots and early Amtrak uniform. The first Amtrak-painted locomotive is seen in a one-of-a-kind design of black with a wrap-a-round pointless-arrow logo. (Mercifully, that was not repeated.)

It is a wonder to contemplate the journey of the last four decades; yet, this wall hanging of 24 by 33 inches is quite the reminder of an uncertain era not that long ago. On the original system map, in the lower left corner of the montage, is the directive, “Service from Fort Worth to Houston will be shifted from Temple route to Dallas route as soon as possible after May 1, 1971.” Imagine, direct service between Houston and the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex. In the lower right of the map is seen the line and station stop for Wildwood, Florida. Just above that, between snapshots of the original Metroliner and a bedraggled Coast Starlight, is the line depicting the service we once enjoyed between Chicago and Florida. Today both of those are distant memories, as service to the Sunshine State has been continuously marginalized over 40 years. Was it something Florida said?

Perhaps most telling is the stylized logo all the way in the lower corner of the montage. As a depiction of motive power progress, five caricatures are arrayed from left to right, displayed in five different paint schemes. On the left is an Amtrak-painted GG-1 electric, internationally recognized as the finest example of electric traction ever to see service under wire. Designed by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1934, the GG-1 fleet would serve her masters and successors until the 1980s. On the right of the lineup is depicted an Acela Express train, the antithesis of the GG-1.

On this calendar, Amtrak touts itself as “America’s Railroad,” but wait -- there is a picture used in the ad campaigns from its formative years, showing an employee (not a model) standing between the gauge of the rails, holding a large-scale replica of a passenger rail car. The tag line for the ad was the vow to “make the trains worth traveling again.” In 1971, the year the NRPC (now Amtrak) was created, the trains already were worth traveling. Crowds showed up to ride in the peak of summer, 1971; then again in winter, 1971-72. Amtrak did not have the wherewithal to keep up with such demand. When the railroads, in their original role as sole source contractors, did what they could to keep up, the pushback to stop doing that came from inside -- Amtrak! It was a downhill slide from there. After 40 years of false starts and unfulfilled promises, is it not time to hold Amtrak to its word?

In Memoriam

As we muddle our way through the winter season, we wish to pause for a moment to reflect on the lives of three men who, in their own separate ways, left their mark on American railroading:

Eugene K. Garfield worked for the Johnson Administration in the 1960s as Assistant to the Secretary of Transportation, Alan S. Boyd, in the then newly-minted U.S. Department of Transportation. It was during his tenure that a feasibility study for an auto-ferry service between the Northeast and Florida was conducted, and concluded that the service would be potentially profitable but best left for the private sector. After returning to the private sector in 1968, Garfield set about making that study a reality, and from 1971 to 1981 he ran the private Auto-Train Corporation. The original Auto-Train eventually succumbed to financial troubles and the infrastructure was purchased by Amtrak. Garfield died at the age of 74 on December 26, 2010, in Hollywood, Florida. Reflecting on his life reminds us that the entrepreneurial spirit in transportation in not dead, but merely dormant, in a generation that has been taught otherwise.

James A. (Jim) Boyd was a prolific railroad photographer and writer. Much more that just the average railfan, Boyd worked for the Electro-Motive Division of General Motors as a field service representative. In 1972, Boyd began his long association with Carstens Publications, eventually becoming editor of Railfan (later Railfan & Railroad) magazine from 1974 to 1998. Additionally, he authored many Trains magazine articles as well as dozens of books. Boyd brought a sense of discipline and decorum to the railfan ranks. His guiding influence will be sorely missed. Boyd died at the age of 69 on December 31, 2010, in Newton, New Jersey.

Robert G. (Bob) Lewis was that rare, perfect blend of knowledgeable railfan and professional railroader. Between 1934 and 1941 he worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad, and briefly for the Bessemer & Lake Erie. Following the war and a brief return to railroading, he joined the Simmons-Boardman Publishing Corporation. He worked in various editor positions for Railway Age magazine until 1956, when he was named Magazine Publisher. He retired in 1995, but maintained the title of Director of Special Projects. All through his professional travels, he had his camera with him, and amassed an impressive collection of photographs of America’s railroads.

Bob died at the age of 94 on January 5, 2011, in Ormond-by-the-Sea, Florida, but not before this author had the opportunity to meet him at the High-Speed Ground Transportation Association convention in 1996. Lewis was as congenial and approachable as anyone could be.

Later, as a result of merciless prodding by his former co-workers, a number of his photos were published in book form in Off the Beaten Track -- A railroader’s life in pictures (Simmons-Boardman, 2004). Having obtained a copy, this author made an appointment to stop by and garner an autograph. The welcome was warm and sincere. The meeting was as touching as it was informative. Lewis said the real reason behind starting the publication of International Railway Journal in 1961 was just to have an excuse to travel the world. We discussed the issues of the day including, of course, what to do about Amtrak.

With the completion of these distinguished runs the sun shines less brightly over the railway; reminding us of our own finite existence and the need to make our remaining days count. All too soon, the weeds will overgrow and obscure our tracks.

A Transit Day for all weather...

2011-01-20T08:54:00.013-08:00

Took my first transit trip of the new year yesterday. I started off at the intersection of California Avenue and Pioneer. I had originally planned to take the route 232 to downtown but because of the rain I was running late and just missed the bus heading to downtown.

I decided to walk down to 1700 South since I could catch either a 232 or 248 and thought that a 248 would come around 8:48. As I was walking down to 1700 South the weather changed from rain to hail.

Just a couple of minutes after I arrived at the first stop for the 248 a 1999 Gillig Advantage pulled up with a couple of passenger and we headed to the Ballpark TRAX station.

UTA is finally putting in a permanent bus shelter in at Central Station which should do a pretty good job of keeping customers out of the elements while waiting for bus. While I was walking around the station I also saw the new Gillig Advantage BRT Hybrid buses were in service on routes 2 and 550.

While at the station I also walked over and check out the new bicycle center. While the center looks nice there was not a single bike in the bike parking area. While I don't know how it is doing overall, you have to wonder if it is not suffering from the poor location of the station.

From Central Station I rode some of the "getto" UTDC ex-San Jose VTA cars that are usually running on the University line. While the cars could have used a good interior revamp when they were refurbished, they are still in better shape than bus would be of comparable age.

As usual the train was packed by the time it left Gallivan Plaza but I got off at Library to spend some time doing paperwork at the Downtown Library. From there I did some walking around the south downtown area before taking TRAX and route 232 to my starting point.

Oh and the weather changed again. When I arrived at the Library it started to snow but by the time I left it was sunny but cold. It then clouded up during the rest of the trip. A little bit of weather for everyone...

Well it wasn't an exciting trip report but it there will some good ones coming up in a few months. In May I will be making a trip to Portland and all my travel in Portland will be on Tri-Met and after June 15th I will be riding transit almost every so I should have some interesting comments then.

However, on this trip I did get a few ideas for upcoming postings so look for them soon.

This Week in Amtrak

2011-01-18T17:29:00.002-08:00

Image by Madbuster75 via Flickr
From the Editors…
And now a (highly) condensed look at the year past through the eyes of This Week at Amtrak.

2010, A.D. [Amtrak Defined]
As we enter our eighth year of publication, we find the world of passenger railroading in a greater-than-usual state of flux. Obviously, the biggest curveball thrown may be summed up in three little words: High- Speed Rail. After the “Vision for High-Speed Rail” and High-Speed Rail guidelines of 2009, we waited in expectation for January 28, when $8 billion worth of specific American Recovery and Reinvestment Act rail projects would be announced. It took months for the euphoria to subside. Then came reality; mid-term election candidates began to run on platforms advocating stoppage of HSR projects in their respective states. Freight railroads found the punitive federal guidelines “surprising” and “frightening.”

Then things got interesting.

On January 5, after an initial one-year term as President, Joseph H. Boardman was granted (by the Amtrak Board) a permanent position. On January 11, an Amtrak press release announced, “AMTRAK READY WITH BIG PLANS FOR 2010 -- New Year brings major projects and new initiatives.” This was hardly the first announcement heralding “big plans.” As with so many other forward-looking statements of years past, this was generally received with a sigh. As events would later prove, however, some rather big things did actually happen.

March 6 saw the first Town Hall meeting co-sponsored by Amtrak and Trains Magazine. Well-attended and featuring the presence of Amtrak Chairman Tom Carper, as well as Joe Boardman, there were those inside the corporation who decried this “foamers’ forum.” Even so, there was positive dialogue about photography and updates on equipment rebuilding at the Beech Grove Repair Facility, using stimulus money. A train of three cars and a locomotive were on display for all in attendance to tour (and photograph).

March 31 was the end of an era at Amtrak. Cliff Black, long-time (and long-suffering) Chief of Communications and employee since 1981, retired. For years, it had been his quotes, his voice which represented Amtrak to the general public. Through each change of leadership at Amtrak, and there were several, the one constant had been Black's deft handling of the news media. Any of us seeking good honest information knew Cliff Black was the man to see. While keeping on-message for his employer, he never led the news media astray; an amazing feat in today's world of journalism. Suffice it to say, this is a retirement well earned and richly deserved.

July 23 brought what was perhaps the biggest, most jaw-dropping initiative undertaken by Amtrak all year, and possibly all decade: The order for 130 new Viewliner 2 single level cars with an option for 70 more to replace the remaining Heritage baggage cars and diners. Was this shocking turn due to a previously-unrealized corporate need? No. As far back as 15 years ago, Amtrak's then-president Thomas Downs described the remaining Heritage cars in service as “junk.” Was this, then, as a result of a sudden jump in demand for sleeping car space on eastern trains? No. Sleeper space has been at a premium, especially in the East, since the retirement of the last Heritage sleepers in 2006. Ever since the 50-unit fleet of Viewliner sleeping cars entered service in 1995-96, we have been waiting for the rest of the Viewliner fleet to supplant the last of the Heritage fleet. We have waited… and waited… and waited. When Amtrak announced, on January 11, “a comprehensive and detailed plan to replace and expand its fleet of locomotives and passenger railcars” they could have warned us that this time they really meant it.

The Washington Times of September 12 reported on a Congressional probe of the sudden ouster of Amtrak Inspector General Fred Weiderhold, the previous year. Quoting from draft copy, “Because of his expertise, the [Amtrak] Board viewed Weiderhold as a threat.” Also found were “excessive fees” paid to outside law firms by Amtrak’s Law Department and, due to the circumstances surrounding Mr. Weiderhold’s departure, “It was not a truly voluntary resignation as Amtrak management had suggested in public statements.” There was some attention given in the Halls of Congress which, thus far, has amounted to nothing beyond lip service. But as Chicago Cubs fans are used to saying, “maybe next year.”

On October 16, a Norfolk Southern freight train departing Enola Yard across the river from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, en route to Hagerstown, Maryland and points South, derailed in downtown Harrisburg. The rear of the train was still west of the Amtrak station, precluding the eastbound Pennsylvanian from entering. Many will use such an incident to demonize the freight railroads and to call for building separate tracks. Ironically, that is exactly what NS has been attempting to accomplish in the area for a number of years. Currently, when freight trains to or from the south enter or depart Enola Yard, they are required to cross the Susquehanna River twice (and pass the Amtrak station), a process which adds hours to transit times. NS has been working with the State to rebuild a former connection on the south side of Enola Yard at Lemoyne. The process has been held up for the usual political reasons (concerning which a boxcar could not care less). Until this has resolution, efficiency will suffer. Passenger rail will suffer. Egos will continue to be stroked. A similar incident occurred July 2, and for what? For less than 1,300 feet of track. Sometimes the answer really is that simple.

Also in October came an admission of the obvious. One year earlier, the contract to run the Virginia Railway Express commuter service, held by Amtrak for 18 years, was awarded to the French company Keolis. Amtrak did not like this intrusion into its turf. As documented by veteran reporter Don Phillips, “The battle then turned bitter, and Amtrak and its unions turned nasty. Union officials made it clear to employees that if they signed with Keolis, they would be fired immediately by Amtrak and permanently blacklisted. Crews who agreed to stay with Amtrak not only received a $5,000 bonus but were guaranteed a job. Amtrak, meanwhile, even tried to hire crews laid off from New Jersey Transit who had been approached by Keolis. The idea was to prevent Keolis from hiring enough crews to run the system by takeover day, June 28.” Yet, in spite of all the chicanery and dirty tricks Keolis did begin service (albeit delayed) and continues to operate. By October of 2010, Amtrak President Joe Boardman finally admitted, “We know we did not provide the right answers,” and “I see a lot more competition coming forward.” Amtrak considers itself to be the sole keeper of American passenger railroading. Considering its isolationist history, this is understandable; however, the word is getting around that there are others willing to ante up to the table. Amtrak has promised to behave. Will it?

Finally, on December 20, Norfolk Southern and the Commonwealth of Virginia entered an agreement to reintroduce passenger service to Norfolk. This is funded by “an $87 million Rail Enhancement Fund grant” which, when translated into English, means these are state monies, not Federal or ARRA grant. Yes Virginia, there really are states who take the initiative in their passenger rail programs.

2010 promised to be the year of “High-Speed Rail.” Ultimately, it came in like a lion and went out like a lamb. HSR was touted as the savior of our economy; an engine for creating jobs in much the same way as the Interstate Highway System of two generations ago. Rhetoric was thick. Substance was lacking. The proposed fast trains look sleek and sexy, but where is the business case to justify them? No one is against creating jobs, but with at least $8 billion in the offing, the question is begged: Is this a good, sustainable transportation policy?

Perhaps the biggest story in passenger rail is the one that did not happen.

Amtrak’s manifesto of January 11 predicted, in part, “the purchase of several hundred single-level and bi-level long distance passenger railcars and more than a hundred locomotives.” New Viewliners were ordered in July, followed by a contract for new electrics in October. Unlike many of the HSR initiatives, these orders have had no political opposition. Yet as 2010 wrapped up, there were no “bi-level long distance passenger railcars” on the horizon. As pointed out by Andrew Selden, URPA Vice President, “This is the one application of capital available to Amtrak that promises a quick and positive return on incremental invested capital. No other investment opportunity, honestly accounted for using GAAP measures, offers anything even close to this. Yet Amtrak refuses to pursue it.”

As the year has drawn to a close, the same basic route map remains in place. Apologists are grateful the map has not shrunk any further. Advocates wonder why, in an era of so much talk of rail, the map is not growing. The Sunset Limited still does not venture any further East than New Orleans, and is carried on Amtrak’s daily status as "Hurricane`Katrina' Aftermath & Service Adjustments - Sunset Limited: Normal service resumed 03Nov05, with the exception of Trains 1 and 2 between Orlando and New Orleans."

True, there was much more talk about passenger rail this past year than in recent memory. The small order for equipment was positive, yet after so many years of benign neglect, this can hardly be counted as a fresh start. “What is needed most in 2011, following what happened in 2010, is a better, more rigid plan for creating new trains which have a higher guarantee of success and financial reward, instead of becoming yet another burden on the overburdened taxpayers,” said Bruce Richardson, URPA President.

As the afterglow of the latest surge in HSR interest fades into memory, it is clear that sleek, fast trains do not exist in a vacuum. Around the real high-speed world, fast trains succeed as part of a vast integrated network; the trains, by themselves, would be nothing more than pricey tourist attractions. Amtrak would appear to have figured this out, as evidenced by its current equipment orders, and wish list from last January. Unless projects of this type are embraced, to build upon the few successes of this past year, then the whole enterprise is for naught; hopefully, it will not be too little, too late.

What I have ridden over the years...

2011-01-17T07:58:00.010-08:00

Image via Wikipedia
Matt over at the Track Twenty-Nine blog showed a listing of the rail systems he has ridden over the years in his posting

Making a List, Checking it Twice

and I thought it would be interesting to see how many I have ridden in comparison. While I have not traveled on as many systems as he has, I know have a challenge to try to ride more of the systems around the country.

First I will do something different from Matt and show the Amtrak trains I have ridden over the years:

Coast Starlight: Both directions twice plus multiple times on the California Section
San Joaquin's: Multiple times except Sacramento-Stockten which I have done only once in one direction
San Diegans (now Surfliners): Multiple Times
Southwest Chief: Los Angeles to Flagstaff Round Trip
San Francisco Zephyr: One way from Denver to Sacramento
California Zephyr: One Roundtrip from Salt Lake City to Denver and one way trips from Denver to Salt Lake City and Salt Lake City to Reno
Desert Wind: Two one way trips from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City and multiple trips on the segment from Los Angeles to San Bernardino.
Pioneer: One way trip from Salt Lake City to Portland
Empire Builder: Two one way trips from Portland to Spokane and both directions for Seattle to Spokane
Cascades: Multiple Trips
Sunset Limited: One way trip from Alhambra to Phoenix
Spirit of California: Several Times

As you can see all of my train riding has been on the west coast but I hope to be taking more trips in the future. I have not counted the several special trains I have been on over the years.

Now on to transit systems:

Heavy Rail:

San Francisco Bay Area - BART (multiple times over the years)
Washington DC - Metro(1980)
New York- Subway (1980)
Los Angeles - Metro Rail (several times)
Miami - MetroRail (2007)
Atlanta - Marta (not ridden yet)
Boston - "T" (not ridden yet)
Chicago - "L" (not ridden yet)
Baltimore - Metro Subway (not ridden yet)
Philadelphia - SEPTA (not ridden yet)
Philadelphia - PATCO (not ridden yet)
New York/New Jersey - PATH (not ridden yet)

Light Rail Lines

San Francisco - Muni (multiple times)
San Diego - Trolley (multiple times)
Portland - MAX (multiple times)
Los Angeles - Metro (multiple times)
Sacramento - Light Rail (1999)
Salt Lake City - TRAX (multiple times)
Denver - The Ride (2006)
Seattle - Central Line (October 2010)
Pittsburgh - "T" (not ridden yet)
Boston- "T" (not ridden yet)
Dallas - DART (not ridden yet)
Baltimore - Light Rail (not ridden yet)
Philadelphia - Light Rail (not ridden yet)
Camden - River Line (not ridden yet)
Newark - NJ Transit (not ridden yet)
San Jose - VTA (not ridden yet)
Minneapolis - Light Rail (not ridden yet)
Charlotte - Lynx (not ridden yet-did not exist when I lived in Charlotte)
Jersey City - Hudson/Bergen Line (not ridden yet)
Oceanside - Sprinter (not ridden yet)
Buffalo - Metrorail (not ridden yet)
Cleveland - Light Rail (not ridden yet)
Houston - MetroRail (not ridden yet)
Phoenix - Valley Metro (not ridden yet)
St. Louis - Metrolink (not ridden yet)
Norfolk - Tide (opening 2011)

Commuter Rail:

San Francisco - Caltrain (multiple times)
Los Angeles - Metrolink (multiple times)
Miami - Tri-Rail (2007)
Salt Lake City - Front Runner (multiple times)
Portland - WES (2010)
Washington DC - MARC (not ridden yet)
Dallas - Trinity Railway Express (not ridden yet)
Chicago - Metra (not ridden yet)
Philadelphia - SEPTA (not ridden yet)
Washington DC - VRE (not ridden yet)
New Jersey - New Jersey Transit (not ridden yet)
San Jose - ACE (not ridden yet)
Nashville - Music City Star (not ridden yet)
New York - Metro North (not ridden yet)
New York - Long Island Railroad (not ridden yet)
New Haven - Shore Line East (not ridden yet)
Boston - MBTA (not ridden yet)
San Diego - Coaster (not ridden yet)
Seattle - Sounder (not ridden yet-although have traveled both routes on Amtrak)
Chicago - South Shore (not ridden yet)
Austin - Capital Metro (not ridden yet)
Minneapolis - North Star (not ridden yet)
Albuquerque - Railrunner (not ridden yet)
Dallas - A Train (opening 2011)

AGT/Miscellaneous

Seattle - Seattle Monorail (1999)
Las Vegas - Monorail (2005)
Miami - Metromover (2007)
New York - JFK Airtrain (not ridden yet)
Morgantown - WVU PRT (not ridden yet)
Detroit - People mover (not ridden yet)
Las Colinas (Dallas) - PRT (not ridden yet)
Jacksonville - Skyway (not ridden yet)
Newark - Airtrain (not ridden yet)

Streetcars:

Streetcars are noted as being a heritage line, modern streetcar or original streetcar line. I have ridden all the modern lines that are currently open but have not ridden none of the heritage or original lines.

San Francisco - Cable Cars (multiple times)
Portland - Portland Streetcar (multiple times)
Tacoma - Link (2004)
Seattle - Seattle Streetcar (October 2010)
Dallas - McKinney Ave Trolley heritage line (not yet ridden)
San Francisco - F Line (not yet ridden formal F-line but have ridden most of the route)
Charlotte - Charlotte Trolley heritage line (not yet ridden)
Kenosha - Kenosha Streetcar heritage line (not yet ridden)
Little Rock - River Rail Streetcar heritage line (not yet ridden)
Memphis - MATA Trolley heritage line (not yet ridden)
New Orleans - original streetcars (not yet ridden)
Philadelphia - Girard Line original (not yet ridden)
Savannah - River Street Streetcar original (not yet ridden)
Tampa - TECO heritage line (not yet ridden)

Here is also a listing of the transit bus companies I have ridden over the years:

Los Angeles - RTD/Metro
San Francisco - San Francisco Muni
Spokane - Spokane Transit Authority
Salt Lake City - Utah Transit Authority
Seattle - King County Metro and Sound Transit
Portland - Tri-Met

As you can see I still have a long way to go to ride transit just around the United States much less around the rest of the world.

Oregon Bill Caused Uproar in Bicycling Community

2011-01-14T09:21:00.006-08:00

Image via Wikipedia
There has been a huge uproar in the Portland Area and around the net with the introduction of a bill in the Oregon Legislature that would ban anyone under 6 years old from being carried on a bike or a bike trailer.

Representative Greenlick who introduced the bill seems to have good intentions with the introduction of the bill. He is a professor of Public Health at Oregon Health Sciences University and is reacting to a report on the number of injuries on bicycles.

Here is some articles about it from Bike Portland:

Oregon House bills would prohibit wearing headphones, carrying kids under six while biking - Updated

Rep. Greenlick says safety concerns prompted child biking bill

Greenlick child biking bill reaction roundup

Mia Birk asks Greenlick to withdraw bill, says he "misinterpreted" bike injury study

Rep. Jules Bailey works to amend Greenlick bill - Updated

Urban Planning and Transportation Blog

Six months riding Trimet and Counting...

Related articles

Sustainability with Survive-ability

Related articles

Some Links for Now...

Related articles

Renumbering for Customer Friendliness

Numbers for the geeks...

To go into the transit center or not go into the transit center...

This Week at Amtrak

Adventures riding TriMet

This Week at Amtrak

To Hybrid or not to Hybrid (buses that is)

This Week at Amtrak

This Week at Amtrak

Summer of Anniversaries in Portalnd

Would you take this job?

Understanding the different levels of transit service.

Ride the new TRAX lines August 3rd

This Week at Amtrak

This Week in Amtrak

Emergency Funds

This Week in Amtrak

Some news and links...

Finding an Apartment

This Week in Amtrak

Related articles

This Week in Amtrak - Amtrak's 40th Anniversary Edition

This Week in Amtrak

The 176 is saved but...

Related articles

This Week in Amtrak

Guest Post

This Week in Amtrak

Pedestrian Dead Zones

Related articles

Do we need TOD Certification that goes beyond LEED Certification

Related articles

What to do with Route 176

A Trip on Route 176

A Look at Los Angeles Metro's 176

This Week in Amtrak

New Name and expanded focus...

This Week in Amtrak

UTA TRAX S70 cars

This Week in Amtrak

A Transit Day for all weather...

This Week in Amtrak

Related articles

What I have ridden over the years...

Oregon Bill Caused Uproar in Bicycling Community