And that is (in part) how you counter the blather from these so-called "think tanks"... by simply asking the question "Why are they so against transportation choice?"

Now, now. The poor little muffins are all upset the game isn't going their way. Instead of being upset by them, let's just think about how upset they will become when highway funding is subject to the same Congressional process as Amtrak.

 

Yep, that's right, Gas taxes will only cover about $5 billion out the $40 billion cost of the highway program in 2010. This is in contrast to 2009, when all of the money came from the highway trust fund, which is drying up. All the rest will come from general revenue funds.

 

So much for the argument that highways are self-supporting. That wasn't true in the first place and it really isn't true now! Highways should have been subject to the same scrutiny as other programs. They should stand on their own merits, just like Amtrak.

 

Meantime, we should refute them whenever and wherever possible. Set the record straight and tell "Sam the Sham" Staley to have a nice day. :-D

 

 

I also notice that the American Highway User Alliance, a front group for the road lobby is listed as a featured organization. Hmmmm...someone should google this outfit.

 

And here's a link:

 

http://www.highways.org/

 

BTW, I was reading "Sam the Sham's" article above and came across this gem:

 

"Contrast this system with the meager high-speed rail routes proposed in the U.S. The planned tracks connect just a few locations within a state...

 

In the Midwest, the Ohio “3-C” train corridor plans to link the state’s largest metropolitan areas—Cincinnati, Columbus, and Cleveland—with just 10 stops. These metropolitan areas are home to more than 8 million people in hundreds of cities in more than 15 counties. In contrast to the rail plan’s 10 stops, just one Interstate highway, I-71, links hundreds of cities in the Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland metropolitan areas with more than 100 exits. The I-270 beltway circling Columbus, Ohio includes 37 exits alone."

 

This is a classic apples and oranges comparison. For one thing, he compares a fully built out interstate highway system with a bare-bones startup of a rail line in a state that hasn't had rail service on that line in over 30 years. For another, he ignores the fact that transit has been emasculated in Ohio. It's a wonder we have any at all.

 

Highways have benefitted from untold billions in Federal, state and local spending, while transit and intercity rail service was allowed to whither and die. What other outcome would there but to drive everywhere under those circumstances? this is not the result of some free-market outcome, but the end product of decades of massive government intervention on behalf of the highway interests.

 

Oh, and here's another one:

 

"Most train stations have parking lots because most Americans don’t, and won’t, live within walking distance of the rail terminal and have to drive to the train station. Riders sit in waiting areas."

 

This guy is priceless. It's a flat out lie to say people won't live near rail terminals. That's being refuted all around the country. I was in San Diego a few years ago and a brand new high rise, with some very expensive apartments was built right next the train station. You were literally less than 50 feet from the trains.

 

The thing that annoys me most about these guys is that the media will pick up their viewpoints out a concern for even handedness. Because of that, we must be vigilant and respond in kind every time they send out one of their releases. This is a war of ideas. :argue:

When the consulting firm GEM (which he's a principle in) released their economic impact analysis of the Ohio Hub, Staley made statements in support of it.  Now, he's back at it with the anti anything but highways stance.  We need to expose him for what he is.

 

Good thing the highwaymen and the ultra right-wingers aren't in bed together or anything like that.....

 

[ ... ]

 

[ ... ]

 

Featuring Randal O’Toole, Cato Institute, Samuel Staley, Reason Foundation, Greg Cohen, American Highway User Alliance. Moderated by Jerry Taylor, Cato Institute.

 

[ ... ]

 

Gosh! I'm surprised that Randall Terry and his Operation Rescue haven't found some excuse to join that alliance!

When the consulting firm GEM released their economic impact analysis of the Ohio Hub, Staley made statements in support of it. Now, he's back at it with the anti anything but highways stance.   We need to expose him for what he is.

 

 

That's a good point. 3-C is the opening round of the Ohio Hub plan. Hey Sam! why the flip-flop? Is the smell of money leading you in conflicting directions?

Cross-posted from the Cincinnati streetcar thread. Please note who is behind this fight....

 

An unintended result of this initiative petition is that it would keep Amtrak train services out of the City of Cincinnati, including planned services to Dayton, Columbus and Cleveland. Those trains would have to stop short of Cincinnati, such as in suburban Sharonville and further isolate low-income travelers from using trains whose economy fares are often less than Greyound's.....

_________________________

 

 

Careful: Streetcar Petitions Can Be Deceptive

http://www.citybeat.com/cincinnati/article-17917-careful-streetcar-petitions-can-be-deceptive.html

 

It’s certainly true that good people can come to different conclusions and disagree on an issue. Sometimes, however, good people are led astray by those with ulterior motives.

 

For more than a year, an unusual coalition of arch-conservatives, civil rights groups, Libertarians, Green Party members and others have joined together to mount several petition drives that have made the ballot and let voters decide on issues that otherwise would have been made by elected officials.

 

.....

^cut of the nose to spite the face...

Idiocy from George Will

 

Ray Lahood, Transformed

Secretary of Behavior Modification

 

George F. Will

 

NEWSWEEK

 

From the magazine issue dated May 25, 2009

 

You might think the Department of Transportation would be a refuge from Washington's inundation of painfully earnest and pitilessly incessant talk about "remaking" this (health care, Detroit) and "transforming" that (the energy sector, the planet's temperature). Transportation, after all, is about concrete practicalities—planes, trains and automobiles, steel, asphalt and concrete.

 

Furthermore, the new transportation secretary, Ray LaHood, was until January a Republican congressman practicing militant middle-of-the-roadism. He knows what plays in Peoria, and not just figuratively: He is from there. Peoria is a meatloaf, macaroni-and-cheese, down-to-earth place, home of Caterpillar, the maker of earthmoving machines for building roads, runways, dams and things...

 

 

 

URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/197925

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

My response to George's idiocy:

 

 

 

Dear Mr. Will:

 

Regarding your May 25, 2009 column about USDOT Secretary LaHood and "smart

growth", it would be helpful, and far more professional of you, if you would get

your facts straight about a subject before writing about it.

 

So liberals want the government to force people to ride mass transit and live in

high-density developments? What about government mandated zoning codes that

have been replicated all across the country that make building anything but

automobile-centric sprawl illegal? That's not limiting people's choices and

telling them how they should live? What about transportation policies and

skewed funding that limit the choice of the vast majority of Americans to

reaching for their car keys or nothing, and limit freedom of mobility only to

those who can afford cars and are able to drive? That's not social engineering?

What about the dozens of state and national polls over the past decade that have

shown that a clear majority of Americans want more transportation choices (i.e.

freedom). If they didn't, then all of the states like Tennesee (Nashville), New

Mexico (Albuquerque), and Florida (Tri-Rail) (to name a few) that have launched

new commuter rail services in recent years would be failures. The fact is, they

have all been successful and there is solid support for more. But, the federal

government--under both Democrats and Republicans alike--has favored roads over

other modes.

 

And, if denser, new urbanist-style communities are only useful to government

planners who don't want Americans to have any freedom, then why have such areas

not suffered nearly as much in the real estate downturn as the

automobile-centric suburbs and exurbs? Could it be that--gasp--there is a

MARKET for it? That is to say, a CHOICE many Americans want?

 

Roads in America have, for the past 50+ years been the recipient of more

government largess than any other form of transportation. At best, so-called

user-fees cover about 2/3 of the cost of our roads (not counting externalized

costs). That means the rest is coming out of our paychecks. Also, it seems

you haven't noticed that Highway Trust Fund is bankrupt and has recently

required an infusion of billions in general revenue funds to stay solvent.

 

Please spare us the worn out, empty-headed lecture that conservatives are the

the only ones who want Americans to have any freedom of choice. This is a case

where conservatives like you are the ones who want to limit freedom.

 

 

Roads in America have, for the past 50+ years been the recipient of more

government largess than any other form of transportation.

 

BECAUSE THAT IS THAT THE PEOPLE WANTED THEN AND STILL WANT NOW!!!!  They may want a few alternatives, but don't touch their roads and highways.

No one will touch roads and highways.....Actually, government will continue to touch roads and highways in a positive way by continuing to make repairs and keep them safe.  But the idea of widening roads, or building brand new ones for speculative growth is becoming dated. 

 

LaHood is quite correct in this thinking, although I personally believe he's giving the Interstate Highway System too much credit.  Local policy of providing wonderful free parking is probably the biggest in my opinion.  It started in the inner cities when they became snarled with traffic as people searched for open space to park.  As zoning policies were adjusted to create this open space, it took off in the suburbs. 

 

Free parking will always inhibit abilities to make spatial adjustments on population.  I believe these adjustments are necessary whether you believe it is right or wrong for government to effect your decisions.  People will always say "that is because this is what people want,"  but people have always been used to status quo, and keep in mind that before new policies were enacted over a half century ago, what people wanted was much different. 

 

I could really go on forever, but I'll keep it short for this post.

 

 

 

BECAUSE THAT IS THAT THE PEOPLE WANTED THEN AND STILL WANT NOW!!!!  They may want a few alternatives, but don't touch their roads and highways.

 

It's not that simple.  Transportation policy (actually lack thereof) and transportation funding by the federal government, and by state governments, interfered in the transportation marketplace and has always made driving artificially cheap (i.e. under-priced with respect to its true cost).  Many of the costs of driving are externalized (that is, not captured in the cost to the end users):  congestion, traffic delays, accidents, air pollution and its effects on health costs, and several others.  If these costs were captured in the price of gasoline, it would add $7 to $11 more per gallon (Getting There: The Epic Struggle Between Road and Rail in the American Century, by Stephen Goddard)

 

Coupled with zoning codes that have replicated across the country that separate land uses and made anything but automobile-centric community design illegal, has successfully skewed the transportation marketplace and pushed it in the direction of automobile dominance.  It wasn't a simple choice by people.   

 

"Transportation...is the most subsidized and centrally planned sector of the majority of the world’s economies—at least for such favored modes as road transport and aviation. It has the least true competition among available modes, and the most untruthful prices."

--Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, p. 40

 

If we want to find out what people's choices really are, then we have to make driving and parking must bear its true cost, have genuine competition among the different modes, and adopt zoning codes that don't mandate development patterns that can only be serviced by one mode of transportation. 

 

Quick point - we too often conflate local transit systems and intercity transit systems. They serve different people for different reasons and have different arguments for and against vis-a-vis cars/trains/airplanes. There may be great reasons to use cars in one instance that doesn't hold up in other instances and vice versa, the same with rail. A system of complementary transit options would be best, I don't understand the idea that some how it is a zero-sum game.

 

Roads in America have, for the past 50+ years been the recipient of more

government largess than any other form of transportation.

 

BECAUSE THAT IS THAT THE PEOPLE WANTED THEN AND STILL WANT NOW!!!!  They may want a few alternatives, but don't touch their roads and highways.

 

Nonsense. People would want to own and operate private aircraft if the government made it less expensive than other alternatives.

 

The fact is that before the massive government investment in roadways, most people neither wanted nor needed automobiles. Farmers needed trucks more than telephones but the government felt that everyone should have a phone so they allowed the Bell System to become a monopoly on the condition that Farmer Joe, 500 miles from nowhere, would pay no more for phone service than someone living in Manhattan. But the average person living in or around a city didn't own a car.

 

The people who bought cars bought them for the occasional trip to the country where other forms of transportation did not exist.

 

Between 1920 and 1930, automobile sales increased due, primarily, to a combination of increases in (free) public roadways, manufacturing innovations which led to mass production and economies of scale and easy credit (the same credit which would contribute to the financial crisis during that period).

 

Between 1929 and 1930, US automobile production decreased by more than 50%. By 1928 the market was saturated at 20 million units. The US population was 120 million so only 20% of all Americans owned a car. In 1927 GM purchased and destroyed 650,000 used cars in an effort to stimulate the market. Alfred P. Sloan invented planned obsolescence as a means to generate growth in business.

 

The percentage of the population owning personal automobiles might never have increased much more than that. Only 25% of Manhattan residents, today, own a car which sort of belies the argument that people prefer automobiles.

 

What changed all of that was free roadways, cheap gasoline and punitive regulation and taxation of the railroads. Free roadways led to the gentrification of suburbs and, eventually, urban sprawl.

 

It is simply not true to suggest that we built roads because people wanted cars. Intercity roads were first built for commerce at the urging of farmers and truckers, the former wanting to escape the clutches of the railroads and the latter seeing an opportunity to fill a niche. There was extensive lobbying of the government by these special interests to see roads built and consumers didn't object because it meant cheaper goods, but people didn't start demanding roads because they wanted to buy cars so that they could use them. It was the governments subsidy of the road and highway system that made personal automobiles practical and desirable.

 

Another fact that belies your argument is that in the November 2008 election, 76% of all public transportation initiatives through the country were passed.

 

As others have noted, if consumers had to pay the true cost of personal transportation as a usage fee (rather than indirectly via taxes), I doubt that the automobile would be as popular as you think. Just look at how the price of gasoline affected discretionary automobile traffic.

Rail is unlikely to ever be ECONOMICALLY justified in the United States.  Never Never Never.  However, rail investment in the US is worth it in the long run because it begins to provide new travel options, allows easy access to downtowns, prevents us from widening freeways, provides increased economic benefits to urban centers. 

 

Doesn't your second sentence contradict the first? If you think only of revenues from ticket sales, advertising, etc., most passenger rail services, including high speed rail in other countries, can cover their operating costs though many not their initial capital costs. However, if you take all of the other benefits in terms of their economic significance, it appears that the investment pays for itself over the long haul.

 

Roads in America have, for the past 50+ years been the recipient of more

government largess than any other form of transportation.

 

BECAUSE THAT IS THAT THE PEOPLE WANTED THEN AND STILL WANT NOW!!!!  They may want a few alternatives, but don't touch their roads and highways.

 

I see. So we should continue to plow everything into highways and not have any real choices? That's what we do now.

 

By the way, don't shout. Maybe the idea of change has your undies bunched up?

^ No I just think that its hysterical the way you guys act like the government forced these roads and highways and sprawl upon us.  People were dying to get out of the cities and into the suburbs.

No... the highways made the suburbs possible...not the other way around.  People didn't "die' to leave the cities until interstates and better roads enabled it.

That's exactly my point.  The people weren't sitting quietly and all of a sudden there were roads and highways.  PEOPLE WANTED THEM because cars gave them EASY transportation.

Yer sure getting stirred up, bro'...take some happy pills and have a nice day.

DanB, People wanted cars and highways because government susidized the hell out of them to make them affordable. I don't disagree that a modal shift would have still happened but the extent of that shift is in dispute, at least with me. Yet the irony of your championing less government and free enterprise rings hollow when you see nothing wrong in government building, owning and maintaining highways which aren't subjected to the same taxes, costs, financing or profit margins of the stockholder-owned and financed, heavily taxed and regulated railroad lines that paralleled the highways. Many of those corporate-owned railroad lines were eliminated, leaving government-owned highways as the only transportation infrastructure in many travel markets. I don't understand why more self-proclaimed free-marketeers like you don't get upset by this.

 

We can keep going round and round on people's preferences in a free market, but we'll never know exactly what people's preferences are until transportation is returned to the free market and all transportation users pay the direct costs of using those modes. Returning transportation to the free market will likely never happen again, so the only thing left to do is to make sure the subsidies given to each mode produce an economic payback that's greater than the initial subsidy.

Rail is unlikely to ever be ECONOMICALLY justified in the United States. Never Never Never. However, rail investment in the US is worth it in the long run because it begins to provide new travel options, allows easy access to downtowns, prevents us from widening freeways, provides increased economic benefits to urban centers.

 

 

 

Doesn't your second sentence contradict the first? If you think only of revenues from ticket sales, advertising, etc., most passenger rail services, including high speed rail in other countries, can cover their operating costs though many not their initial capital costs. However, if you take all of the other benefits in terms of their economic significance, it appears that the investment pays for itself over the long haul.

 

I should have clarified....the capitol costs alone.  You are correct in your statement.

 

Returning transportation to the free market will likely never happen again, so the only thing left to do is to make sure the subsidies given to each mode produce an economic payback that's greater than the initial subsidy.

 

Interestingly, that's what has a good chance of happening with the next reauthorization of the federal transportation bill, which comes up evry six years. Rep. Oberstar has made it a priority to have all modes operate by the same formula regardless of mode. He also wants to put all funding into one fund, eliminating the artificial advantage highways have had in the past. New projects will be subject to such criteria as cost, energy efficiency, environmental impact, etc. That means that any new highway proposals will have to stand on their own merits and compete for funding against other modes. Under those circumstances, I don't think too many new highways are going to be built in the future.

 

That brings us to our existing highway infrastructure. Regardless of how we got them (whether by real or artificially induced demand or both), they are here and we will want to maintain them. However, we had to bail out the highway trust fund to the tune of $9 billion last year. This year, the projections are for a $40 billion highway budget, of which only $5 billion is to be paid for by users. All the rest will come from the general revenuse...$35 billion. Something has to give.

 

I think that faced with the cost of maintaining with existing highways, we will have user fees imposed, such as tolls or peak demand pricing to recoup at least some of these costs. It's either that or start looking at cutting the size of the highway network. I don't think we'll do that. The federal government is hemorraging dollars. Something will have to be done to address that.

 

I also think that all of this means we will be driving less (which we already are) and using public transportation more.

KJP wrote:

Yet the irony of your championing less government and free enterprise rings hollow when you see nothing wrong in government building,

 

Exactly.  You can't have it both ways.  What the government (at all levels) does, influences the market and has a real effect on people's choices.  That's what happened with roads.

 

I don't dispute that back in the day people wanted choices in addition to the railroads.  But, what the government at all levels did was skew the transportation marketplace so much that we went from no choice but trains to no choice but cars.  If we had a more honestly and accurately priced transportation market no one can argue that our transportation system wouldn't look MUCH different today. 

 

 

Hayward wrote:

I should have clarified....the capitol costs alone.  You are correct in your statement.

 

Then by your own argument, neither our roads or our aviation system are economically justified either.  Roads have never paid for more than roughly 2/3 of their capital costs, and it's similar for aviation. 

[...]

Hayward wrote:

I should have clarified....the capitol costs alone.  You are correct in your statement.

 

Then by your own argument, neither our roads or our aviation system are economically justified either.  Roads have never paid for more than roughly 2/3 of their capital costs, and it's similar for aviation. 

 

... and as I keep reminding folks, and as was touched upon earlier, railroads are for-profit entities and are taxed on their rolling stock and on real estate they use for right-of-way, yards, and other operational facilities.

 

Highways and airports are owned by municipalities, and the land used to build them disappears from the tax rolls. Their creation results in increased costs in law enforcement, traffic management, and emergency response while eroding the property-tax base, and greater part of the increased cost of municipal services falls upon local businesses and homeowners, and farmers.

 

The responsibility for enforcement, traffic management, and emergency response for new interstate highways falls upon the states, and in many cases the opening of a new interstate or other limited-access expressway is accompanied by the ownership and responsibility for existing state higways being relinquished to cities, towns, and counties.

 

Those local roads seldom are abandoned or torn up, because they provide access for local residents and businesses, and their fiscal burden shifts from the states to local municipalities and their taxpayers. Promoters of new interstate highway construction win local support by extolling the 80-90% Federal and state underwriting of construction costs, but they never bring up the long-term local side-effects.

That's exactly my point. The people weren't sitting quietly and all of a sudden there were roads and highways. PEOPLE WANTED THEM because cars gave them EASY transportation.

 

Sorry, but this is incorrect. Federal investment in intercity roadways capable of supporting motor vehicle traffic began with war (Civil) and commerce not personal transportation. The growing population of the US required substantial agricultural output and the means to get goods to market quickly. The railroads served some communities but ignored many others. An agricultural advocacy group, the Grange, gained great prominence through its anti-rail stance and farmers followed up with the "good roads" movement as a means to correct what they saw as an inequity.

 

Ironically, it was a different kind of personal transportation that spurred the development of intracity graded roads: the bicycle. Functional, less polluting and less expensive to maintain than a horse (especially if you were a city dweller), the bicycle had one drawback which was that it needed relatively smooth roads compared to a cart and horse.

^True. The arrogance of the railroads in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when they were the only option for transporting time-sensitive or perishable goods over long distances, engendered animosity whose carryover still shapes some popular attitudes toward them.

 

They arbitrarily raised freight tarriffs without advance notice, eating up much of the profits their shippers might have made and sometimes ruining shippers whose business plans had been based on previous rates. Their extortionist practices gave impetus to government regulation to protect the public from predatory "rail barons."

 

The safety bicycle, with two wheels of moderate diameter and propulsion via chain and sprockets instead of a very large front wheel driven directly by pedals, was invented in the 1880s and made bicycling a viable, safe mode of transport. Mass production put safety bicycles within reach of working-class people, and made it possible for hourly workers and shop clerks to live out from under the shadows of the enterprises that employed them. The League of American Wheelmen, forerunner of todays League of American Bicyclists, was formed to lobby for the creation of paved roads and streets for the comfort, convenience, and safety of bicycle riders.

 

America's earliest paved streets preceded the advent of motor cars by several years. Bellefontaine, Ohio, lays claim to the first concrete-paved street in America, a section of Main Street on one side of the Courthouse Square paved in 1891. Main Street has since been paved over with asphalt, but Court Avenue, concrete-paved soon after main street still retains its exposed original surface.

 

    There's a difference between getting farmers out of the mud and building motorways for commuters.

 

    The first phase of road construction lasted until, say, 1930. A lot of primitive roads were graded and paved, and were usable during the entire year. Then, motorways were built for high speed and to carry a lot of volume. This was effective to a point, but when motorways started to get more than two lanes wide in each direction, things got out of hand.

 

      Hamilton County, Ohio, has more miles of paved roads today than the entire country had in 1900.

I think the builders of the original turnpikes -- such as the NJ Turnpike and the Pennsylvania Turnpike -- had the right idea. The highways were toll roads that paid for themselves, and they allowed for long-distance auto and truck travel between major cities. However, the turnpikes didn't go directly into the central business districts, but were connected to the cities via local roads. (Note how the Ohio Turnpike bypasses Cleveland by several miles.) Things started going downhill for cities when the government moved away from the turnpike model and started plowing "free" (i.e., taxpayer-funded) expressways through urban neighborhoods.

^Good point.  The Interstate Defense Highway Act originally intended that the interstates not go into/through downtowns.  It was at the behest of city mayors that the highways go into their downtowns.  The irony is, they thought that would make it more attractive for residents of the emerging suburbs to come downtown to shop.  Obviously, the effect was the opposite.

 

 

 

 

 

    The interstates did not allow for parking. What might have happened if downtown ramps terminated in parking garages?

 

    Many interstates still have their original dimensions, but I can't think of a metropolitan interstate that hasn't been widened or modified in some way. Clearly, interstates were not well planned in cities.

Another advantage to the turnpikes: Roadside service areas with gas, food, etc. directly accessible from the highway, so that motorists don't have to pay a toll to exit and re-enter the highway. The interchanges themselves also tended to be much further apart than on freeways. On freeways with more frequent exits, you end up with more traffic, and the hideous plastic village of gas stations and fast-food joints that sprouts like mushrooms at nearly every freeway interchange.

Then by your own argument, neither our roads or our aviation system are economically justified either. Roads have never paid for more than roughly 2/3 of their capital costs, and it's similar for aviation.

 

Was I ever arguing against that?  The "rail is too expensive" argument is central to rail critics, I was responding to that.

 

The percentage of the population owning personal automobiles might never have increased much more than that. Only 25% of Manhattan residents, today, own a car which sort of belies the argument that people prefer automobiles.

 

 

People don't prefer any single mode of transportation.  they prefer convienence.  How can I get from point A to point B the best for me?  Manhattan residents don't own cars because its cost prohibitive, not because they don't actually want a car. 

 

I love public transit as much as the enxt person, but unless I had to I would not give up my car.  I would love to use my car less, which I think is the general point everyone in trying to get at - we need more transportation options to meet the demands of what people want, which quite simply is convienence.

 

 

 

I would say that while highways through the center of town have been damaging, the circle freeways are actually the worst in terms of its effect on the nature of urban development. Axial corridors of highways would have operated similar to rail lines, but circle freeways built nominally as bypasses but often were too much farther to act as such. The beltway suburb and the inter-beltway commuting is really the killer.

I don't know if I agree with that. Toronto has one of the widest, busiest "belt freeways" in the world, the 401. Yet it has only two interstate-status highways that penetrate the urban core. Yet Toronto has a very vibrant urban center. Ditto for London which is encircled by a motorway but has no motorways into the central city.

 

On my latest trip to London last week, I realized how physically small Greater London is. I took a train 23 miles north to Hatfield (the equivalent of Cleveland's Public Square to Aurora) and I was in the countryside in Hatfield. I also took a train from London east to Southend-on-Sea (60 miles) and two-thirds of the trip was through the countryside. In New York or Chicago, that two-thirds of a 60-mile train trip would have been through suburbia.

Manhattan residents don't own cars because its cost prohibitive, not because they don't actually want a car. 

 

Huh? You mean I'd have to pay more to purchase a Prius in Manhattan than Hoboken? If people in Manhattan needed cars, they'd buy them. The fact is, they don't. The same is true in Chicago and Washington, DC, to name a few. Per capita automobile ownership in these cities has hardly increased in 100 years.

 

If you mean "cost prohibitive" in the sense that they'd have to pay close to the real cost of owning and operating a car, my point exactly. The price of real estate is the price of real estate whether you put a parking space on it or a brownstone. Given that I can walk or use public transportation to get most everywhere that I need to go, why would I spend my money on a parking space? It is only cost prohibitive relative to the lower cost of doing everything else.

 

But there is a rub. When I take the Q (Broadway Express) to Macy's Herald Square to buy a suit, some part of the cost of that suit is paying for a free parking space in every Simon Mall in America with a Macy's. Doesn't quite seem fair to me.

 

As for wanting a car, when I lived in New York, Washington and Chicago, I never had them and never missed them. If I could get by without owing one, now, I would.

 

Manhattan residents don't own cars because its cost prohibitive, not because they don't actually want a car. 

 

Huh? You mean I'd have to pay more to purchase a Prius in Manhattan than Hoboken? If people in Manhattan needed cars, they'd buy them. The fact is, they don't. The same is true in Chicago and Washington, DC, to name a few. Per capita automobile ownership in these cities has hardly increased in 100 years.

 

If you mean "cost prohibitive" in the sense that they'd have to pay close to the real cost of owning and operating a car, my point exactly. The price of real estate is the price of real estate whether you put a parking space on it or a brownstone. Given that I can walk or use public transportation to get most everywhere that I need to go, why would I spend my money on a parking space? It is only cost prohibitive relative to the lower cost of doing everything else.

 

 

My point is if owning a car was more conveinent in Manhattan, people would own them.  Its not more convienent due to the cost (of real estate as you mentioned) and availability of other options.  But it's not accurate to say "if people in Manhattan needed cars, they'd buy them" because the truth is "if it was more convienent for people in Manhattan to own cars, they'd buy them."  There is a difference.

 

In NE Ohio, its more conveinent for the masses to own a car.  Obviously, current transportation spending makes it biased towards owning a car being more convienent.  But the answer to "preference" is, and always will be the path of least resistance when it comes to transportation. 

 

 

 

 

 

On my latest trip to London last week, I realized how physically small Greater London is. I took a train 23 miles north to Hatfield (the equivalent of Cleveland's Public Square to Aurora) and I was in the countryside in Hatfield. I also took a train from London east to Southend-on-Sea (60 miles) and two-thirds of the trip was through the countryside. In New York or Chicago, that two-thirds of a 60-mile train trip would have been through suburbia.

 

When I took the SW Chief to Arizona/New Mexico in 2007, it was 60 miles outside of Chicago before we hit real countryside. 

 

 

Was I ever arguing against that?  The "rail is too expensive" argument is central to rail critics, I was responding to that.

 

Just making sure.  Thanks for clarifying. 

 

The latest issue of Trains magazine had an interesting article about the cost of rail vs. highway.  Conventional rail is often less expensive to build.  The example they used was the Rail Runner commuter rail line in New Mexico.  It was actually cheaper to put in the rail line between Albuquerque and Santa Fe than to add a lane on I-25.  Rail was $12 million per mile (including stations and layover track) while the highway lanes would have cost $20 million per mile.  I've seen the $20 million/mile figure before.  South Carolina DOT had a report within the last couple of years that said adding a lane to the state's freeways would average $20 million/mile. 

 

I'm not sure of the latest estimates for the Ohio Hub, but I think it's in the vicinity of ~$5-7 million/mile. 

 

They admit that comparing costs isn't always cut and dry because, in both instances, construction costs can vary depending upon a number of factors like land acquisition, weather conditions that willl affect repairs, speed, and the geology that's being built upon.

 

They also compared average riders per vehicle mile.  Passenger cars:  1.6;  Buses:  21.2;  Rail transit:  22.8;  Commuter rail:  32.9;  Intercity (current Amtrak):  20.5

^ In addition to number of passengers per vehicle mile, they need to include number of passengers per hour.

 

The cost per mile of freeway can be quite tricky. The third lane added on I-71 between Cleveland and Columbus was added at a much lower cost than $20m/mile, because the pavement on the existing lanes was being completely replaced. The incremental cost of adding a lane -- while replacing the existing lanes -- was negligible.

 

They also compared average riders per vehicle mile. Passenger cars: 1.6; Buses: 21.2; Rail transit: 22.8; Commuter rail: 32.9; Intercity (current Amtrak): 20.5

 

There is a lot of controversy about those figures. Energy Department researchers were instructed to get the data from the poorest performing rail services. How many transit trains have any of you ridden with 23 people on them? Or commuter trains with 33 people on them? Or Amtrak trains with 20 people on them? Common sense, people.....

 

After those numbers came out, Energy Department researchers ackowledged that administration officials told them to get the data from the poorest performing rail services. In the case of the Amtrak data, they got it from the Lake Country Limited (no longer operates), Kentucky Cardinal (no longer operates) and a third train I can't remember. The third train was actually a well-used train, like most are. Amtrak's passenger-miles per train-mile was 150 people in 2007 -- in other words its the average number of people on board on an Amtrak train at a given time.

 

150 people. Not 20.5!

Clearly, interstates were not well planned in cities.

They weren't supposed to be there at all. Eisenhower envisioned the Interstate System for travel between cities not within cities. The story goes that he didn't understand that urban highways were part of the plan until he saw the Capital Beltway being built (there are variations on this account).

 

The city mayors wanted them because they reasoned that it would make it easier for people in the suburbs to get into the city. As unintended consequences, that mistake must be near the top of the list.

 

I don't think the Capitol Beltway was built until much later than Ike. Wasn't the Beltway part of the same deal that allowed the Washington Metro to be built?

KJP wrote:

There is a lot of controversy about those figures.

 

Sounds like you better write to Trains Magazine and straighten them out.

 

Something else is being worked on.

^I figured.  I know how busy you are.  I wasn't really serious.

While we may hope that without the highways into the core would have meant better cores, it could have also meant that the core would have moved to the end of the highway instead.

^I figured. I know how busy you are. I wasn't really serious.

 

Someone else is working on it, thankfully.

 

While we may hope that without the highways into the core would have meant better cores, it could have also meant that the core would have moved to the end of the highway instead.

 

Theoretically, that's a risk. But in reality it hasn't happened. The Victoria Transport Policy Institute has done some interesting research in comparing the amount of highways within urban centers in U.S. cities vs. international cities. American cities have more highways in them and thus have more parking areas, more drive-throughs, more abandonment and greater depopulation than their international counterparts, they found. See:

http://www.vtpi.org/land.pdf

 

But this is a discussion that ought to be at a land use thread, such "The sprawl of it all." To bring this discussion back on topic, see VTPI's new report "Evaluating Rail Transit Criticism":

http://www.vtpi.org/railcrit.pdf

It's amazing the love that rail opponents have for the word "trolley" they even use it to describe the Light Rail proposal for Cincinnati in 2002.

 

http://www.reason.com/news/show/28209.html

Not love of words, just ignorance of facts.