gildone

^What I said was they can override his block with 60 votes. My point is, given the margin by which this passed, that shouldn't be difficult, should it?.

This bill got over 90 votes in the Senate, that means it got more than 40 Republican votes. All the Dems voted for it. How hard can it be to get 60 votes to over-ride Coburn's block? What gives?

^They shouldn't count on the recent the fuel price fall being anything but temporary...

That's what I was getting at, but didn't explain fully. The fastest and cheapest way to get CLE-PGH service through YTO is to restore the Ravenna Connection. Going through Warren requires restoration of the former Erie Line, at least from Ravenna eastward as you say. That should be step 2. I see incremental steps as the best way to go.

I have to agree. The decline of the American Empire is well underway. We've lived one hell of a party... on credit and by not re-investing in the capital of our nation (i.e. our infrastructure) for a few decades now. But, you can't get something for nothing. Whether it's infrastructure, energy, education, or pick-your-topic, it's always cheap talk. Then there are the topics they avoid like the plague: peak oil, our nation's disintegrating financial situation, etc. Headline on yahoo news yesterday: "U.S. government expected to seize Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac". Also, the FDIC has a list of "problem" banks. As of June 30, there are 117 of them. Not to mention we lost another 84,000 jobs in August and "official" unemployment is now 6.1%. Although, if we were to measure our unemployment like European countries do (i.e. the Dept. of Labor's U-6 figure) it's 10.7%. Private debt (business & personal) is currently 350% of GDP. As for my household, we're liquidating some of or assets while they still have value in order to pay off the last of our mortgage debt. But I'm wandering and digressing... To bring this back closer to the topic: I think over the next few years we are going to find out that we are a much poorer nation than anyone realizes. That's going to make it hard to come up with the money to re-build our infrastructure. After all, we have the care and feeding of 800 overseas military installations that the military-industrial-congressional complex wants to keep at all costs (they want to maintain the Empire but not the Republic)... sorry... there I go digressing again... I'm not convinced that there is a connection with the election this time around. But, what do I know? Only part of that $25b would be used for the highway trust fund. Obama has come out in favor of investing in mass transit and passenger rail, but he rarely mentions it. I'm pretty well disgusted with the whole election this year. Our so-called Democratic process is little more than 3-ring circus anymore.

It appears that the decline and fall of the airline industry may be happening faster than the decline of the private passenger trains, which happened over a period of roughly 20-25 years. Although the pace of the fall accelerated as that time period progressed. And, like the railroads to their passenger trains, the airlines are doing a good job of making flying more and more of a hassle and less customer service oriented. I don't think nickel and dime-ing people for every little thing does much for their image. Sometimes I wonder if it would be better if they would just be straightforward about it and raise their fares.

The connection between NS and CSX in Ravenna would have to be re-installed in order to bring CLE-PGH trains through Warren and Youngstown. I wonder what the price tag for that is up to now...

EnergyBulletin.net has a few good articles about how some cities have been temporarily closing streets to cars but keeping them open for pedestrians and cyclists. Apparently, such temporary closures have been popular: http://www.energybulletin.net/node/46463

They talk as if it's a huge difference between $4 and $3.69 or that the recent price drops are permanent. Give me a break...

Neat idea, KJP. Additionally, I wonder if it's possible to come up with a "diverted wear and tear" figure for freight and passenger traffic diverted off of Ohio Highways and onto the Ohio Hub, for example. An annual appropriation would be based upon that figure, since the constitutional prohibition of spending gas taxes on anything but public highways would prohibit diverting that amount from ODOT.

Unfortunately, not just a few state office are in transit-inaccessible areas. Ex: Ohio EPA office in Twinsburg, BCI office in Richfield, Ohio EPA office and BCI office in Bowling Green, Ohio EPA office in Logan, ODNR office in Salem, ODNR office in Uniontown, most ODOT district offices, Turnpike Commission offices... As far as work-day travel... for agencies like Ohio EPA and ODNR, this would rarely work. Most "field work" for these agencies takes place outside of the service areas of transit agencies. Traveling to Central Offices in Columbus for meetings/trainings is a different matter, but only if we have rail service or decent intercity bus service. Current Greyhound schedules on the 3-C corridor make it impossible to use for business needs.

Southwest did make a successful long term hedge on jet fuel a few years ago. ArmrapinVA, when does this hedge "run out" for them? One thing to remember about Japan is that it is a very densely populated country (their population density is 10 times that of the US). All modes are heavily used because they have to be. Just out of curiosity, how do ticket prices compare?

^We may ultimately end up in a situation where trains replace all but the longest domestic flights if this country wants to remain mobile, which instead of rail primarily replacing trips up to 400 miles that figure could reach 1000 miles or more. Of course, I have nothing to base this on except speculation...

Photos of bicycle parking taken at train stations around the world: http://www.energybulletin.net/node/46298

How many have written to Calabrese and the RTA board so far about Calabrese's attempt at censoring the ODOT Task Force Multimodal report? I'll be finalizing my letter this week. It's not enough just to discuss it here. Action is needed. Here's the contact info is below: If you want to send your letters via e-mail, then you have to do so through the board secratery: [email protected] Otherwise here's the postal address: Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority 1240 W. Sixth St. Cleveland, Ohio 44113 George F. Dixon, III Board President Edward J. Kelley Board Vice President (Mayor, City of Cleveland Heights) Jesse O. Anderson (President, Disabled Rights Task Force, Inc.) Jane Campbell (Former Mayor of Cleveland) Bill Cervenik (Mayor, City of Euclid) Dennis M. Clough (Mayor, City of Westlake) Valarie J. McCall (Chief of Government Affairs, City of Cleveland) Nick "Sonny" Nardi (Veteran Labor Leader) Julian A. Rogers (community activist) Leo Serrano Executive Director, Office of Institutional Advancement (Cleveland Metropolitan School District)

That's a good question. Unfortunately, I don't have a good answer. Perhaps someone else has some ideas to contribute. What I can say is that if you subscribe to RMI's thesis that "efficiency is cheaper than fuel", which I do because I haven't seen anyone refute their arguments and numbers with respect to this idea, it would be cheaper overall than the mess that's in place now. It's not unlike he idea that promoting water conservation is cheaper than spending public money on water diversion projects.

Sorry that paragraph wasn't written very clearly. It was getting late (at least for me...) Bottom line: remove all subsidies (direct and indirect) to the energy industry. Cut taxes on income and tax energy instead. If ALL energy subsidies are phased out then yes, nuclear would not be viable, but, so what? Even with all the loan guarantees and subsidies being offered by the federal gov't now for new plants, they are attracting zero dollars in private capital. The only people who buy nuclear power are central planners, according to RMI (http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid467.php -- Forget Nuclear). In addition, without subsidies, renewables would compete just fine with fossil fuels and a huge shift toward efficiency would occur. What I "propose" is nothing new. RMI has been talking about this stuff for decades. Germany and a few other European countries are in the process of reducing income taxes and phasing in energy taxes instead. Germany does offer incentives for solar, but they are now questioning whether or not they are even needed. We still waste a huge amount of energy in this country because of inefficient homes and buildings, inefficient transportation (i.e. to much reliance on air and roads and bad land use), not doing simple things like combined heat and power, etc. But, there's still a sense in Congress that we have to increase supply. That's what I mean when I say Washington doesn't get it. Of course, a lot of education needs to be done. Even now, a lot of efficiency investments make perfect economic sense, but too many people don't get it. For example, switching from single pane to double pane windows has a cost payback in energy savings of 7 years or less. That's a better than 10% annual return on investment. Of course, some people just can't afford the up front investment, perhaps that's where assistance programs in some form should come in. I still hear comments from people (or see them online) that they don't buy compact fluorescent bulbs because they cost too much. What they are unable to grasp is that by the time that lamp burns out, they will be at least $25 ahead than by buying the much cheaper up front cost incandescent. Heck, someone I work with has a 30+ year old refrigerator. I tried to explain that if they bought a new one, they'd probably make the money back on a new one 5 years in energy savings (a few years longer if they wanted a side-by side with ice/water dispenser, etc). All they said was, "well, this one isn't dead yet." This is an educated person with an engineering degree, two incomes in their house and no kids (and they don't live in an expensive McMansion or have much, if any, debt).

Moved from the Euclid Corridor Thread: KJP said: BuckeyeB said: So, Calabrese tried to pull a Peters on the citizens of Ohio? I'm trying very hard to contain my anger here. :whip: I respect Calabrese. RTA wouldn't have become the best run system in North America if Calabrese wasn't doing a good job, BUT... Calabrese is supposed to be serving the public, in both his job and in his position on the ODOT task force. He's not supposed to be a dictator. To ignore the public input that ODOT received all around the state about rail and deliberately remove the rail section from the report was dictatorial move. He needs to be held accountable for this. This kind of behavior should not be tolerated. It's not the first time this had come up with him. Remember he criticized the Ohio Hub a few months ago and it led to much discussion on this list, which he was aware of through JMasek and said that he appreciated the dialog? Obviously, nothing anybody said sank in with him. All his attitude about rail is only going to result in is dividing the support in the state for alternative forms of transportation. This is the last thing we need if we are to move forward. Intercity passenger rail and commuter rail are NO LESS IMPORTANT than public transit. Ok everyone, we need to be writing letters to Calabrese chastising him for this and copying every member of the RTA board, and our legislators. I'm already working on mine. Let's get to work.

Brewmaster said: Hootenany said: You guys don't get it, or at least you jumped the gun on my statement. I'm not talking about the government directly forcing people to upgrade their homes. Like it or not, believe it or not, almost everything the government does influences the market, whether it's taxes, subsidies, regulation, etc. These things end up being defacto policy that sways the market in one direction or another. So, what I'm talking about is policy more than anything. The way things are now, energy is artificially cheap (yes, it actually is) because of tax breaks and subsidies that are given to the energy sector, whether it's tax breaks and other incentives for oil drilling, loan guarantees and direct kilowatt subsidies for nuclear power, permitting mountain top removal so coal companies don't have to pay the full environmental cost of extracting coal, etc. So, we're already subsidizing bad energy policy with our tax dollars, but that doesn't seem to bother anyone. But mention efficiency programs, and oh my god that's social engineering! Sorry, but you can't have it both ways. I'm looking at the big picture here. It's more expensive to subsidize energy production, which is what government (fed and state) subsidies, tax breaks, and regulation ultimately encourages than it is to encourage energy efficiency so that those new power plants don't have to be built in the first place. Efficiency gives better results for less money. The Rocky Mountain Institute has been making this argument for 30 years. But, direct incentives aren't completely necessary either. Maybe in a few areas, but I don't know what those areas would be. Primarily the government should is phase out subsidies and tax breaks to the energy industry and trade out income taxes on at least, say, the first $75,000 of income (I don't know what the key amount should be but I would think somewhere around there or a little higher) for revenue-neutral taxes on energy. Since we already have a system in place to report income, we keep that system and can then offer assistance to people at the bottom of the economic ladder who would be disproportionately affected by this new tax system. The market is already shifting somewhat in the direction of greater efficiency, but bad policy on the part of government (which includes a lot of counter-productive aspects) is preventing the shift from reaching its full potential, and has been for a long time. We don't really have an energy policy in this country, but an ad hoc, random system of tax breaks, subsidies, and regulation that effectively screw up the market. That's what has to change.

Bingo! As I said earlier in this thread-- countries that are willing to invest what it takes have great subway and rail systems. It's all about federal transportation priorities and what they are willing to pay for. If our government and our country were willing to pay for urban subway systems, we would have them-- even in Cleveland.

What a completely ignorant statement by Calabrese. He's the CEO of a transit agency. It's his job to have a grip on the facts and to know better. Ohio's population density is almost the same as that of France. States and countries with lower population densities than Ohio have successful rail systems. Come on Joe, what gives here? Why the blatant ignorance? :wtf: You're right, KJP, except that frustration is putting it mildly. :whip: BuckeyeB It looks like a certain statewide advocacy group needs to start addressing this. ;)

Absolutely. Efficiency is cheaper than fuel. Too bad no one in Washington gets this.

The difference between the "international cities" and the US is that other countries are willing to invest the money it takes to have superb subway and other rail services. You get what you pay for. It's that simple.

It's too bad Mary Peter's doesn't get it. Or, perhaps more accurately, just prefers to deny reality.

E-check was the wrong solution from the beginning. It's a classic case of treating the symptom but not the disease. How can anyone in their right mind expect car-induced smog to be reduced in any meaningful when planning agencies, ODOT, and government at all levels are falling all over themselves to promote auto-centric sprawl? I would vastly prefer to see the ferry project go to downtown Cleveland where there is the possibility of more intermodal connections.