Boston’s Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) is $9 billion in debt. It has at least a $3 billion maintenance backlog. It must spend $470 million a year just to keep that backlog from growing, but its maintenance budget this year is just $100 million. So when Boston shoemaker New Balance said that it was willing to spend $16 million building a new commuter rail station next to its headquarters, and to pay to maintain that station for the next decade, Boston transit officials were overjoyed.
The Atlantic calls this a public-private partnership. While it might be considered appropriate that employers help pay for transit stops that serve their employees, there’s another question no one else seems to be asking: how much will the transit line to serve this stop cost taxpayers?
The station is on a transit line that recently has had poor commuter-rail service because the passenger trains conflict with freight trains. In 2011, the state had to pay CSX $100 million to move most of its freight trains elsewhere. Since then, the state has spent more than $40 million upgrading the line. While New Balance might pay to maintain the station, taxpayers will have to pay to operate trains on the route.
Trains are expensive. That’s why they are obsolete and why all but eight American cities replaced them with buses by 1970. Most cities that have rail transit lines can’t afford to maintain them. That’s why people should be skeptical of expansions of rail service when existing lines are falling apart. Instead of celebrating New Balance’s project as a public-private partnership, transportation watchers should be asking what other service or maintenance plans Boston will have to give up to serve this station.
“Trains are expensive.”
Before Henry Ford, so were cars.
How do we make trains less expensive?
Reduce the weight of the vehicles?
Use light rail rather than heavy rail?
Use kerbside stops rather than stations?
Use diesel-electric rather than electric drive?
Build rails over utilities, and accept than sometimes the rails will be lifted, and that the service will run either side of the gap?
“Most cities that have rail transit lines can’t afford to maintain them.”
Not in Europe. London has heavy rail, overground and underground, also a light rail system. Many European cities have light rail. Karlsruhe even runs light rail services on heavy rail lines.
“Trains are expensive.” “Before Henry Ford, so were cars.”
Non Sequitur.
Current train technology cannot use any more mass production techniques. Mostly, trains operate in one dimension,and cars operate in 2 dimensions. Aircraft operate substantially in a third dimension.
The mathematics of how many rail-cars one rail-line can use, and how much surface area, and hence people, that line can service, are inescapable, and absolutely demand the end of taxpayer subsidies for passenger rail.
Feels like Groundhog Day around here.
obsolete: no longer in general use; fallen into disuse.
Approximate annual passenger train miles per capita, USA: 50
Approximate annual passenger car miles per capita, USA: 9,500
Frank, you would actually have a little credibility on transportation issues if you actually got your facts correct. (though you sometimes make sense on urban issues–but then a broken clock is right twice daily)
First, if there were actually 50 passenger train miles per capita in the U.S. annually, there would be 15.9 billion train miles per year. This is about 3-4 times the number of passenger train miles per capita than Switzerland. I think you meant “50 rail PASSENGER MILES per capita.” A big distinction that you missed, leaving yourself open to attack.
Also, international transportation statistics including those from socialist hellholes like Germany, France and Switzerland include all forms of rail in their rail usage statistics, e.g., heavy rail, light rail, commuter/regional rail as well as intercity rail. The total of ALL rail passenger services in the U.S. is a bit short of 40 billion annual passenger miles, based on Amtrak and transit data for 201 (via Randal’s huge NTD spreadsheet summarizing NTD data). That’s about 12-126 annual rail passenger miles per capita, not 50.
If you’re comparing apples-to-apples, you also meant automobile passenger miles per capita, not passenger car miles per capita. The figure you quoted was for total motor vehicle miles driven per capita, including trucks, buses, school buses, etc. Personal automobiles are about 75-80 percent of the total, generating around 3.7-3.8 trillion annual PASSENGER MILES excluding trucks et al, or about 11,000-12,000 per capita.
Also, just because intercity rail is at a low ebb in the U.S. thanks to the stupidity of much of our “culture” (sic), doesn’t mean what happens in the U.S. is “best practice” or passenger rail service is “obsolete” (sic). I suggest telling the Europeans–particularly those in that socialist hellhole Switzerland–or the Japanese, or the Chinese, etc. that “passenger rail is obsolete.” Just the ineffective, often stupid, pork-laden, incompetent ways that passenger rail is usually done in the U.S., buddy.
201 should be 2013 broken 3 key on keyboard!!
First of all, msetty, you forgot to tell me to F off in advance. Second of all, even with your slightly revised figures, passenger rail is still severely obsolete. You might cry & scream and wave your hands, but there’s no other way to look at it.
Srsly? 346 words? To tell me I used the a label that is slightly (by a word or two) inaccurate?
Your 346-word obloquy does not disprove that passenger trains are an obsolete form of transportation in the USA.
Stay classy!
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How do we make trains less expensive?
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~FrancisKing
While it’s true that there are some tweaks than can make a difference, they carry with them minuses. For example, lighter usually means sacrifices in safety and/or increased costs to make use of newer lightweight materials.
At the end of the day though, that question is a bit like asking how do we make ee cummings poetry fit iambic pentameter. It can’t be done. At the end of the day, it’s the nature of the beast.
To get it to fit that new criteria means it’ll be something completely different. In this case, it’s the bus. That is the technology that succeeded the trolley just as the trolley succeeded the omnibus.