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Why Trains in Europe Function So Badly

By | | Transportation
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Over at KiwiReport, a writer named Serena Carsley-Mann asks a good question: “Why do trains in America function so different from trains in Europe?” Unfortunately, she mistakenly thinks the problem is that “trains in America function so badly.”

In fact, America has the most efficient rail system in the world. It is European trains that function badly. The Antiplanner has discussed this before, but since writers like Carsley-Mann continue to get it wrong, it is worth repeating.

According to a Pew study, freight shipped by truck uses about ten times as much energy, and emits far more greenhouse gases, per ton-mile than freight shipped by rail (see page 2). Because rail cars weigh more, per passenger, than automobiles, rail’s comparative advantages for passengers are much smaller, and unlike trucks it will be very easy for cars to close the gap: a Prius with a average of 1.67 occupants, for example, is more energy efficient than almost any Amtrak train. Thus, to save energy, it is better to dedicate rail lines to freight rather than to passengers.

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Reason #9 Most Americans Don’t Ride Transit
It’s Demeaning

By | | Transportation
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“Exact change only.” “Carry proof of fare with you at all times.” “No food or beverage.” “No playing music aloud.” “Take off your backpack and put it between your legs so we can cram more people onto your transit vehicle.”

Some of these rules are for the convenience of other passengers, but most of them are for the convenience of the transit agencies themselves. Take, for example, the request–which could easily become a rule–to passengers to not wear backpacks while on board a transit vehicle.

You might think that this was for the convenience of other customers so more people can fit on board. But if the vehicles so crowded, why isn’t the agency running them at greater frequencies so they don’t get so full? In the case of the light-rail car pictured in the story at the above link, the answer may be that the agency picked a high-cost but low-capacity form of transit and now is stuck with that choice.

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Getting It Right

By | | Transportation, Urban areas
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The modern escalator was perfected 96 years ago, so when someone is spending $625 million a mile on light rail (which technology is only 80 years old), you’d think they’d at least get the escalators right. Instead, “escalator failures have become a part of the daily routine” at Seattle’s University light-rail station.

If the system were brand new, you might say they were getting the bugs out. If it were old, you might say it was wearing out. Instead, it is not quite a year old, having opened on March 19, 2016. Despite that, they don’t work. To make matters worse, they came with a one-year warranty, which has expired because installation was completed before the station opened for business.
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Seattle recently voted to have some of the highest taxes in the nation going for transit. If they aren’t spending an appropriate share of this money on functioning escalators, it makes you wonder where it is going instead.

Slow Growth of Labor Productivity

By | | News commentary, Transportation
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The Bureau of Labor Statistics has published a report finding that labor productivity has grown more slowly after the last recession–in other words, during the Obama administration–than during any other recovery period in recent history. Normally, the response to a recession is for private companies to clean out all of their least productive programs, and the people who worked in those programs find more productive jobs elsewhere. The result is a growth in labor productivity during the recovery period.

Much of Obama’s “stimulus” program, however, was aimed at protecting jobs during the recession, so many less-productive programs managed to survive and the people working in those programs didn’t have the (admittedly stressful) opportunity to find more productive work. Other parts of the stimulus program involved funding of less productive projects that normally wouldn’t have been funded. The result was a slow growth in productivity.

We can see the difference between government and private productivity by comparing the private rail industry with Amtrak and the transit industry. As shown in the table below, transit employees have more than doubled while ridership has grown by just 50 percent, so employee productivity has declined by more than 30 percent.

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End of the Iowa Pacific Hoosier

By | | Transportation
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Iowa Pacific says that it will cease operating the Chicago-Indianapolis Hoosier State at the end of this month. The train was originated by Amtrak with support from the state of Indiana, but Indiana was dissatisfied with Amtrak’s service. It contracted with Iowa Pacific, the owner of several regional railroads and some deluxe passenger equipment, to operate the train instead.

The last dome dining in the world is found on the Hoosier State, but only until February 28. Wikipedia photo by Pecan314159.

Iowa Pacific offered many things that Amtrak did not, including a dome car, dining facilities, and free wifi. The improved service led ridership to grow faster than expected. But the company said that a quirk in the contract with the state of Indiana led it to get less revenue than it expected.

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2015 National Transit Database

By | | Transportation, Useful Data
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If you downloaded the summary file for the 2015 National Transit Database that the Antiplanner posted December 30, please do so again (link fixed). I discovered I made an error transferring the operating cost data from the raw files to this summary sheet, and the revised version corrects this error.

The revised version, which is about 1.6 megabytes, also has a lot more calculations in it. These include vehicle occupancy (passenger miles divided by vehicle revenue miles), average number of seats per vehicle, and average standing room per vehicle. They arise that how cipla viagra works – inflating claret breeze to the genitals. Stimulants pills have been used to cure ADD for more than three decades. generic levitra The problem is professional spammers end up with sildenafil free shipping the list of valid names and addresses and use the list to generate more spam to your in-box. So lets take a look at which are used to improve that part of the body, and if there is interference (subluxation) in this communication pathway real problems happen. generic cialis professional Some columns calculate operating and maintenance costs per passenger mile or vehicle mile, but these should be used with care as maintenance costs can vary tremendously from year to year.

Benefits & Costs Benefits of Autonomous Cars

By | | Transportation
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A new study estimates that self-driving cars will save the United States more than $300 billion per year. The study adds up the costs of traffic accidents and assumes that self-driving cars will reduce accidents by 90 percent. That’s optimistic, but the study doesn’t even count the savings due to congestion relief, increased productivity while traveling, and the reduced cost of delivering goods and services.

On the other hand, one analyst estimates that self-driving cars will “wipe out 4 million jobs.” A taxi- and limo-driver lobby group has already begun to lobby the New York legislature to protect jobs by banning self-driving cars.

This is where it is important to understand the difference between benefits and costs. Jobs are not a benefit; income is the benefit. Jobs are costs: if more income can be produced with fewer jobs, everybody gains. That includes the people whose jobs are lost because–at least if the society is reasonably mobile–they can find better jobs instead, paid for out of the money people saved by reducing costs.

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Is Dallas-Houston High-Speed Rail Viable?

By | | Transportation
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One of the projects on the supposed Trump infrastructure priority list (which, I am 90 percent convinced, is not an official Trump administration list) was a Dallas-Houston high-speed rail line. When the Antiplanner called this project a boondoggle, I received an email from a supporter saying it will be entirely privately financed. While that would alleviate my objections, I remain skeptical that it could work.

The Texas Central project is backed by the Central Japan Railway and proposes to use Japanese high-speed rail technology in the 240-mile corridor from Dallas to Houston. Trains would make only one stop between those two cities, making the journey in 90 minutes at top speeds of around 200 miles per hour.

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Confusion about Infrastructure

By | | Follow up, News commentary, Transportation
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The Christian Science Monitor thinks that the Democrats wrote their infrastructure plan as a “political bridge to President Trump.” Fox News thinks that Trump might “get on board” the Democrats’ plan. Statements like these show that many reporters–and by extension members of the public–haven’t yet figured out the real issues behind the infrastructure debate.

As Business Insider points out, there’s a bigger difference between the two sides over “how it’s paid for” than “what gets built.” The Democrats want the federal government to spend a trillion dollars, money it would have to borrow. Trump wants private investors to spend their own money. Never the twain shall meet.

But Business Insider doesn’t understand how Trump’s idea will work. If Trump is going to rely on the private sector, it says, then only projects that generate revenue will be built because “projects that don’t generate revenue for the private sector generally don’t get financed.” But there are two kinds of public-private partnerships. The kind that Business Insider is writing about is called demand risk because the private partner takes the risk that tolls, fares, or other user fees won’t repay the cost.

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Competing Infrastructure Plans: Trump vs. Democrats

By | | News commentary, Transportation
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Senate Democrats have proposed an infrastructure plan that calls for $1 trillion in federal deficit spending. In detail, the plan calls for:

  • $100 billion for reconstructing roads & bridges;
  • $100 billion to “revitalize Main Street,” that is, subsidies to New Urbanism and affordable housing;
  • $10 billion for TIGER stimulus projects;
  • $110 for reconstructing water and sewer;
  • $50 billion for modernizing rail (Amtrak and freight railroad) infrastructure;
  • $130 billion to repair and expand transit;
  • $75 billion for rebuilding public schools;
  • $30 billion to improve airports;
  • $10 billion for ports & waterways;
  • $25 billion to improve communities’ resistance to natural disasters;
  • $100 billion for a next-generation electrical grid;
  • $20 billion for broadband;
  • $20 billion for public lands and tribal infrastructure;
  • $10 billion for VA hospitals;
  • $10 billion for an infrastructure bank;
  • $200 billion for “vital projects” that “think big” such as building “the world’s fastest trains.”

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