seanmcl

I clicked on the link and I don't see the plan, anywhere. Nor do I see a forum for public comment. Oops. Silly IE 8 didn't let me scroll down.

I can't wait to order a Gibson from the dining car steward a la Cary Grant in "North by Northwest". Speaking of which, on the current Capitol Limited I noticed that the dining cars had bars in them, but I didn't know if they actually operated these. The meals were standard fare; practically nothing was freshly prepared (unless you include a microwaved meal as freshly prepared).

The following is the closing paragraph from an article published in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette regarding a proposal to have the Federal Government set standards for safety on local public transportation systems. Note that John Mica is the ranking Republican on the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee. Obviously he doesn't read the USDoT reports which have attributed all but one Amtrak fatality in the last decade to factors outside of Amtrak's control. Two Republicans on the transportation panel, John L. Mica of Florida and John J. Duncan Jr. of Tennessee raised questions about the need for federal oversight, citing its potential added costs and the generally solid safety record of rail transit. Mr. Mica noted that Amtrak, which is federally regulated, has a higher passenger fatality rate than rail transit systems. Read more: http://www.postgazette.com/pg/09342/1019275-455.stm#ixzz0Z8VwNnKr

Don't bother. This guy has no vision (other than using his office for self-aggrandizement). Bill Peduto, who is actually trying to get something done about rail in Western PA, was "talked out of running" for mayor because "the Party" wanted someone that they could control. Heck, less than half of the eligible electorate even voted in the last mayoral election. Many Pittsburghers persist in their thinking that Cleveland is "the mistake on the lake". My wife and I (and, now, son) travel there frequently and love the wide streets and sidewalks, the RTA, Pier W, and watching barges at Shooters (though it would be nice to have some good restaurants down there). In Pittsburgh, most of the waterfront development has been championed by advocacy groups, not government. And rail service is an afterthought. Also, I should mention that most of the "transition" that he speaks about occurred when he was still in plastic pants. Pittsburgh's true leaders are over 40 and happy to work from the sidelines. They, not the local government, have made the difference to Pittsburgh. Ironically, Cuyahoga County has been much more forward thinking that Pittsburgh/Allegheny County. For example, Cuyahoga County studied the impact of big box retail developments on the local economy and concluded, rightly, that they cannibalized existing municipalities and their tax bases. Still, nearly two years after their masterful report was issued, Pittsburgh/Allegheny County was still issuing TIFs to promote the development of more Wal-Marts in municipalities adjacent to (but outside) the city all in the name of "economic development" (like one more Wal-Mart is gonna make a difference to the region).

I just completed that round trip from Pittsburgh to Chicago (my wife and I, and now our two-year old son, have done that trip for the start of Chicago's holiday season each year for the last 12). Amtrak marketing focuses too much on destinations like Florida and NYC, and doesn't think enough about cities like Chicago, IMHO. My experience was: 1. The bumps and grinds were exciting to my son. 2. They weren't nearly as frightening as the Palmetto route (even I could barely sleep on that one). 3. The big bumps were at diamonds and switches (of the latter, there were many). The track, itself, was smooth. 4. The GG1 which used to be in Elkhart is gone. I wonder who has it? All in all, the experience was a good one though I have one complaint which is that all but the A-B compartments on the sleeper are capable of being opened into doubles (nice when you are traveling with children and want to have a glass of wine before bed). But reservations books these first, instead of last. I made my reservations six weeks in advance and only the A-Bs were open.

no problem, the link was on the 1st google result. Unfortunately, that is the newsletter containing the summary information which was captured by most blogs. What I would like to see is the actual report which is summarized in the newsletter. But I haven't been able to find it. The original report was in 2006 and the publications only seem to go back to 2007. My concern is that we quote the summary conclusions of a report but don't have the original report with which to verify the methodology. The first question out of somebody's mouth will be "Show me the report that this came from."

The problem is that the link to the TxDOT web site contained in the article leads to an invalid page error. In fact, a Google seach of Texas DOT Asset Value Index turns up many references to the purported report, most of which quote the same information, but I can't find the original source. I just don't someone to point to this blog only to be asked "Where is the original report?"

There are many forms of libertarianism and not all of them are anarchistic. In many cases, people claim to be libertarians who are actually fiscal conservatives who have grown tired of the excesses of the Republicans who pretend to be so but actually are in favor of government intervention when it suits their ideology. Paul Weyrich was a fiscal conservative who, nonetheless, found strong economic arguments for funding rail transit. Being a fiscal conservative and supporting public transportation are not inconsistent, especially when you consider the economic cost of the alternatives.

I live about 1,000 feet away from that site and was headed home on that road when the landslide occurred. Given the large amount of construction activity at the site and the fact that they were on a fast track and working practically 24 hours a day and given that Ohio River Boulevard is heavily travelled it was a miracle that no one was hurt or killed. Ironically, a local citizens group opposed to the development for quality of life reasons had an engineering study done which showed that this was likely to occur. The municipality of Kilbuck had waived over 71 zoning and land use requirements in order to be able to grant a building permit. The state Department of Transportation allowed the developer to use the developer's numbers for the estimated traffic, instead of the industry standard "Traffic Impact" data in order to keep the developers from having to make any significant changes to the road, in spite of the fact that the developers numbers would have made that Wal-Mart one of the poorest performing Wal-Marts in the state. The state Department of Environmental Protection and the Allegheny County Health Department approved the site tapping into Emsworth's sewage system even though the pumping station did not have the capacity and, even though under the best assumptions, a failure of that pumping station would have resulted in thousands of gallons of raw sewage pouring into a local creek. The DEP also did not require a retention pond for the run-off (their failure to include this in a Sam's Club development along the same creek a few miles up resulted in such flooding that in September of 2004 when the rains from Hurricane Ivan hit the region over 25 cars at a local used car dealer which was perched on a land fill adjacent to the creek were washed into the creek spilling fuel and shearing off bridge abutments and manholes from the storm sewer buried under the creek). During the rebuild of that sewer system it was discovered that Emsworth, which had been pressured by the DEP to provide sewage access for the Wal-Mart, was actually illegally tapping into a sewer system belonging to another municipality. All an all it was an illustrative case of how elected officials, in a desperate attempt to allow Kilbuck some tax relief, waived the very protections that they had put into place to prevent such an occurrence, thereby essentially causing it to happen.

I don't think so. http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN1641107120090716

Something that stops in a city between the hours of 6 a.m. and midnight, has competitive fares and is on time at least 80-90 percent. For some reason, the Westbound Capitol Limited seems to be on time more than the Eastbound. As noted, before, the Cleveland (and Pittsburgh and Buffalo and ....) times seem to be a factor of the departure times from New York, Chicago and Washington, as well as the speed of the train. With trip times of 16 hours, the only way that these cities would see daytime service is if the originating departure or destination disembarking were in the wee hours of the morning, unless there was separate service originating in Cleveland (or Pittsburgh), which isn't a bad idea.

Actually, there are some who happen to believe that we have already peaked. After all, if the current producers were actually capable of producing more, why didn't they take advantage of the $4/gallon price of gas to ramp up production and sales? Some have said that the producers were simply taking advantage of the high profits but when you are highly profitable, don't you ramp up production to take advantage of the windfall? But nobody did. Production didn't rise in response to high prices. Why? Some say because production was already at or near peak and the producers didn't want that known. Let's say that they are nowhere near peak production. Then they could increase production to meet demand, stimulate more demand through lower prices, and realize more revenue. But, instead, they did nothing. Why? Well, what if you are near peak and you start to increase production? At some point, you reach your peak and it becomes obvious where that is. If you do nothing, people don't know. Sure, there are other options, but they only become feasible when oil prices are over $XX/barrel and they need to be sustainable at that price for sufficient time that you can complete your recovery of the oil. Besides, it is silly to look at oil/gas prices as it affects the individual, directly. A fuel price change of as little as a few percentage points has tremendous implications for the cost to transport goods and services. And air travel is acutely sensitive. Consider that a barrel of oil is 42 gallons. Processing results in about 19 1/2 gallons of gas, 9 gal. of fuel oil, 4 gal. of jet fuel and the rest being products such as lubricants, grease,kerosene,asphalt and plastics, and that's only light, sweet crude. In other words, it take more barrels of oil to produce the same volume of jet fuel as gasoline.

What irks me is that none of what Samuelson writes is either new or correct. In the very same issue, there is an opinion piece by Michael Steele the RNC Chairman which trots out the same old well-worn (and discredited) "facts" about health care reform. It used to be that journalism consisted of more than letting people regurgitate the same old myths for the purpose of inflaming the sentiments of people who don't care to educate themselves as to the facts.

From today's Washington Post, an Op Ed piece by Carlos Lozada: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/21/AR2009082101775.html Regarding Christopher Steiner's "$20 Per Gallon: How the Inevitable Rise in the Price of Gasoline Will Change Our Lives for the Better" http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0446549541 A quote (to stay within the limits of fair use): Other tidbits: $14/gallon, Wal-Mart goes belly up due to high overseas shipping costs. $20/gallon, HSPR becomes the transportation mode of choice. Some have already predicted that $20/gallon will be between 2018 and 2024. That gives us 10-14 years to get the alternatives in place.

I do no such thing. Do you only read what YOU post. Look at your signature line: If things really run in spite of the government, not by aid of it, how is it that you have no trouble accepting government subsidies that allow you to drive well below the actual cost? Another fact is that even with road subsidies, until the economic downturn, the amount of freight shipped by intermodal rail was increasing far faster than the amount of freight shipped by truck indicating that a more market based approach to freight involves the cooperation of rail and road. And, in fact, if oil prices head up which, inevitably they will, and if Congress adopts a metered rate to replace the current gas tax, then you'll see even more freight shipped, at least in part, by rail. I acknowledge that roadways continue to be important to commerce but that their role and their share of the marketplace is declining because of innovations in other forms of transportation and coopertation between former competitors. And all that I am saying is that the same can happen for passenger transportation as is happening with freight, with some investments in a system which was cannibalized during the railroad reorganization in the 70s. Your Charleton Heston-like "you'll have to take the roadway out from under my cold, dead tires" is practically cartoonish. No one is even talking about that (just like Heston wasn't saying what people thought that he was saying).

That's a pretty extreme view. You just talked about how we put all our eggs in one basket with highways and roads, but you seem to be advocating putting all those eggs into the rail basket. We need a robust TRANSPORTATION system. Road, rail, water, and air transport should all be supported appropriately by the government. The problem, as I see it, is that the government can be short sighted and does put all of their eggs in too few baskets. But the answer certainly isn't to abandon the roads and highways like they did with the rails. Read the first part more closely. What I am saying is that barring reasonable options to taking a car everywhere, I'd like to see the road users pay the full cost just as the users of rail do now. In other words, a level playing field. I did not suggest abandoning the roads but, in fact, a bi-partisan commission of the USDOT suggested what I am suggesting which is to eliminate the gas tax and go to a metered service by which you would pay a tax on every mile that you drive and this tax would fully fund the system of roads and highways. That seems not only fair but reasonable; hardly extreme.

And I'd like to have some options or, barring that, an end to public subsidies for modes of transportation that contribute to 40,000 deaths/year from auto accidents (not to mention deaths from smog and pollution), millions of dollars in property damage, urban sprawl which has economically crippled many Midwestern downtowns and wars in the Middle East. Let the people who want roads pay the full cost. As for gas available and affordable, think about a future in which it is neither and practical alternatives for personal transportation are non-existent or unaffordable. Some believe that this future is not far off. If they are right, and our optimism is unjustified, shouldn't we start preparing, now? When gas prices were $4/gallon, people abandoned driving in droves but, for many, there were no practical alternatives. That translated into an economic ripple effect for the many businesses that depended upon travelers. If, as you have suggested, our economy depends upon the roadways, I'd conclude that we have too many eggs in one basket for our own good.

Understood. But, one needs to look at the big picture. For example, I think that passenger rail could very well achive the same kinds of synergies with the long haul bus companies and the short haul airlines if the infrastructure existed to support it. But the deal that created Amtrak (as well as much that happened before it) did not leave passenger rail with the same ability to recover from years of government subsidies of road and air. I won't repeat what has already been discussed in great detail in this forum but there was, and is, an important economic niche for HSPR in the grand scheme of passenger transportation in the same way there would evolve an important role for rail in the truck freight market.

Moves our economy? Not without the construction of intermodal ports which link the road system to inland waterways and railroads. After almost a century of competition, in 1989 the J.B. Hunt company inked a deal with BNSF which allowed Hunt trailers to be loaded directly onto rail cars. In that year, 5 railcars moved 150 trailers between California and Chicago. Today, intermodal transport is almost 70% of Hunt's net income (about 3/4 of a million shipments). Shifting 10% of truck volume to intermodal would save more than 1 billion gallons of fuel/year: http://www.aar.org/InCongress/~/media/AAR/BackgroundPapers/Intermodal%20%20Mar%202009.ashx In addition, you have to consider the economic cost of moving freight from rail to road. A study done in the Midwest indicated that between 37% and 71% of the roadways servicing the same regions would experience shorter lifespans if the freight carried by the regional short line railroads were shifted to trucks. The fact is that neither highways nor railroads "move our economy"; neither could sustain the economy without the other. These, and shipping via waterways, are essential to our economic future and as the price of oil rises, intermodal will even be more cost effective. It doesn't take a great leap of faith to see that moving large volumes of people can, similarly, be more efficient if passenger rail were given the same support. The problem, in part, is one of myopia. When I think about my washer that I just bought from Sears and will have delivered next Monday, I don't think or care about how it got to the warehouse (hint: intermodal) nor do I think about the fact that it would cost me a whole lot more if it was only my washer that was shipped to the warehouse and not the washers of my neighbors. But when I think about how I am going to get from Pittsburgh to Cleveland, my concern is not about how to get 1,000 other people there, too. It should be. Finding a more efficient way to move all of us would decrease the proportional cost of my travel.

No, they are even shutting down major roadways. Businesses in the downtown area are planning for "essential personnel, only", downtown schools and universities have cancelled classes, the rivers are closed to boat traffic. It was lunacy to schedule the G-20 for Pittsburgh. The downtown area, bordered on three sides by rivers, is logistical nightmare in terms of security. Ironically, the summit was originally scheduled to be in New York City but organizers were afraid of massive protests so they evacuate Pittsburgh, instead. Even more ironically, the locals, here, believe that this is a good way to show off the city. How? By making it look like the set for Omega Man?

Unfortunately, it is also the case that 69% of Americans favor a public health care alternative, yet the Congress seems unwilling to pass it. I'm not trying to stray off topic but I am pointing out that our government doesn't seem to represent us anymore.

With current travel times of around 16 hours between Washington or New York, and Chicago and only one train a day in each direction, I'm not sure what you can do. The current departure times for Chicago, New York and DC means that the better part of the trip is at night (when the train is running on time), and gives you a good part of the day in the cities. At current speeds, it would probably make more sense to add service from, say, Cleveland to Chicago, Cleveland to New York or Cleveland to Pittsburgh, than to increase the number of the longer distance routes. Westbound departures in Pittsburgh are barely acceptable at 11:30 at night, especially since cab service is so bad and traveling with kids is a major headache, which is a shame because kids are future voters.

Pun intended?

I'm not sure that you have to do that much. What you do have to do, however, is make sure that their beliefs are not based upon half-truths, un-truths and inaccuracies. All of us, I believe, want the same thing: economic opportunities. What differs is what we perceive that we need to achieve these. “The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.” – John F. Kennedy

Agreed. But, as in the case of the recent AP postings, the media seems to have a hard time being objective. And when you consider that the Associated Press is a virtual monopoly in terms of syndicated news (sure, there are others, but none as huge), this is a significant problem. A journalist's job is not to persuade but to inform. Bob standing on the corner may have an opinion about this or that, but that opinion does not qualify as news. As an example, the recent piece by Andrew Taylor included the phrase money-losing Amtrak. I cannot imagine a credible journalism program in the United States that would accept this type of disparaging remark especially in the context of the article which was clearly meant to suggest that Federal rail subsidies are hurting highway programs. Except that one could argue that overall, the impact on economic activity may be a zero sum game, or worse. If building any mode of transportation, roads or otherwise, only results in the shifting of economic activity from one region to another, the overall economic benefit may be negative since now you have the loss of tax revenues to the municipality that loses the business without, necessarily, reducions in the cost of support social programs. Most domestic economic stimulus does little more than shift employment from one part of the country to another. Infrastructural improvements, on the other hand, can be of benefit if they result in increases in productivity, nationally. One problem that we have is embodied in the famous statement that "all politics is local". That may be true, but thinking locally may be the biggest impediment to national economic recovery.