Sunday Open Thread
Apologies for the lack of posts the last few days – deadlines and travel have gotten in the way. Here are a few of the articles I’ve been reading and thinking about lately:
• From The Transport Politic comes this excellent overview of the TGV system in France 30 years after it opened. The post focuses on the move toward increasing fares in order to pay debt on construction of new lines. Yonah Freemark suggests this may not be the best long-term strategy for HSR in France.
• Salon has a fascinating article titled America’s Oil-Fueled Collapse. But if you ask HSR critics and NIMBYs, there’s nothing at all to worry about, the only danger is from an innocuous train, not from our dependence on a non-renewable resource that is also very expensive.
Yonah Freemark observes the French system is expensive for the riders since the fares cover not only operating expenses but also construction and financial costs. But someone has to pay for these costs. It’s either the rider (in France) or the taxpayer (in the US).
The second option, which Freeman seems to favor, would be the best in an ideal world. But we don’t live in an ideal world. In France, it would be a politically risky choice. HSR projects would have to be defended in parliament. There would be accusations of favouritism, regions feeling neglected would threaten to stop supporting the government. Taking HSR out of the competitive market and into the political field would introduce a bone of contention nobody wants. And, so far, the TGV seems to hold its own in the competitive market.
Concerning PPP: of course it’s a bad solution and private firms will make profits at riders’ expense. But what do you do when the state has no money? Wait years or decades? That would be even worse. In our non-ideal world, the choice rarely is between good and bad, but rather between bad and worse.
PPP is a bad solution, but it works. Thanks to it the whole French territory was covered with freeways in a few decades. For firms impatient to start collecting tolls time really was money, so they worked fast. We can now avoid truck-infested national highways and drive nearly risk-free on privately-run autoroutes. Do I ever think of the firms’ shareholders lining their pockets at my expense? No, I just enjoy the smooth ride with no semi barring my horizon, just as I will enjoy riding a TGV running on privately-run tracks.
The conservative mouthpiece Wall Street Journal recently published the editorial There Will Be Oil “For decades, advocates of ‘peak oil’ have been predicting a crisis in energy supplies. They’ve been wrong at every turn, says Daniel Yergin”. The argument is that only 40% of oil fields are recovered economically at present prices but that as the price of oil increases there are incentives to recover more from present fields. The prediction is for a plateau instead of a peak in oil with ever increasing prices.
Peter Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 7:58 am
Because the oil is going to continue to be replenished? WTF?
That’s like my friend claiming that greenhouse gases simply leave the atmosphere. Mind, blown.
VBobier Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 10:37 am
Yep, But then some might think they can breathe CO2 which being a heavy gas doesn’t blow away, Just look at Mars and Venus, Both have more than 90% of their atmospheric composition made up of just CO2, If CO2 just left the atmosphere, then Mars and Venus would have an atmosphere like the Moon, None.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 12:14 pm
Obviously we’ll start drilling rigs in Europa.
J. Wong Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 9:35 am
A plateau in production or in prices? A plateau in production would mean increasing prices because demand would be increasing. Yes, there will be oil for decades even after peak, but the consequence for prices is not good.
StevieB Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 11:15 am
Yergin talks of a plateau of oil production. This would be good for the big oil producers. The consequence for consumers would be a larger percentage of income going toward energy costs. The higher costs of maintaining production levels would be a drag on the economy for many years.
Andre Peretti Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 11:38 am
An executive of oil firm Total situates the plateau at $200 a barrel. If countries are ready to pay that price there are reserves for 100 years.
Oil companies only take into account extraction costs and ignore environmental costs. In future, they will have to drill obliquely under mountains, endangering water tables. Deep ocean drilling is also a major environmental risk. If even the US coudn’t oblige BP to have sufficient safety rules then you can imagine what will happen when corrupt leaders grant companies deep-sea drilling permits off their coasts.
In fact, to the official price/barrel should be added military expenses+environmental costs. It has never been done. So, no one really knows the real price of oil.
Nathanael Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 5:42 pm
At that oil price ($200 a barrel), it’s already cheaper to buy and run an battery-electric car than a gasoline car.
The plateau will not be a plateau. As the price jumps, people will switch to alternatives as fast as they can, and the price will drop, and then it will jump again due to supply limits.
The people and countries who switch to alternatives first win.
If you think HSR can have anything to do with the environmental catastrophe that is unfolding you’re just as dismal at basic order of magnitude reasoning as your Reason Foundation/Koch/whatever punching bags.
This stuff is a sideshow and a hobby. Don’t pretend otherwise.
HSR isn’t going to deliver 90% global energy consumption cuts. It’s not even in the noise.
morris brown Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 11:46 am
Richard:
You do know that they are planting 1 million trees along the tracks in Italy, and they is going to even further stop global warming.
Anyone that really wants to understand climate change should read the works of Reid Bryson, the real father of modern climatology.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 12:34 pm
Now now Richard, just because HSR cuts maybe one tenth of a percent of US carbon emissions for an extraordinarily high price, that’s no reason to think that it won’t totally flip around the whole global warming thing, all by itself.
RisenMessiah Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 3:05 pm
Richard,
Your argument by negation misses the fact that there will be direct and indirect benefits from embracing HSR technology. Sure, it’s a little more efficient and can run on electricity produced by any raw material. But the game changer is moving transportation hubs back to the urban core. You can’t have un aeropuerte in the basement of a 110 story skyscraper. And sure, even in New York City there are still cabs and not that many bike riders. Just don’t mistake the direct benefit with the potential for indirect ones….
Paulus Magnus Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 3:26 pm
Explain to me how HSR, a form of intercity (and hence relatively rare) transportation, is going to move transportation hubs back to the urban core?
Derek Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 4:16 pm
HSR is not only used for intercity transportation. The plans are for four stations along the Caltrain corridor, and nine in the Los Angeles metropolitan area.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 4:47 pm
That’s called “improved commuter lines”, not HSR. Try again.
Derek Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 5:23 pm
Silly, California’s HSR is designed to be used for both commuter service and long distance service. I thought that was well understood.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 12:25 pm
Yes, it is, in a couple of areas, enhancing commuter service (although they’ve fought hard to try and refuse to do so). That is, however, qualitatively different from high speed rail as such, which has a much smaller amount of ridership (note also that those improved commuter lines do not qualify as high speed rail lines under current non-US definitions [if you want to follow US definitions, then one already is HSR]).
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 1:40 pm
Our Los Banos cheerleader blog authorship and commentariat have been at infinite pains, for many years, to stress that HSR and regional service not only have nothing to do with each other but inherently cannot do so.
This relies on an extraordinarily clever argument, namely that “commuter rail” and “high speed rail” use different adjectives to qualify the word “rail”, and so these two concepts are completely disjoint.
Maximising utility of public infrastructure and maximising return on public investment might be “well understood” elsewhere in the world, but are vociferously opposed right there on cahsrblog.com and, far more importantly, at http://www.pbworld.com and by their assorted shills in local government.
Peter Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 5:26 pm
Excellent strawman attack. Because people won’t use “high speed rail” trains to commute, but only “commuter rail” trains, right?
Peter Baldo Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 3:02 pm
The extra stations near SF and LA are there so that passengers can begin and end their trips in more convenient locations. Just a way to attract more passengers for the long distance service. For the most part, the stations are in “urban cores”, which in California means places with parking meters.
Nathanael Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 5:44 pm
Because transportation hubs are based around intercity routes, even though they are used more often for non-intercity routes. I can’t believe you don’t recognize this, Paulus. I realize it’s counterintuitive, but it’s the way it usually works.
One possible reason: The people who make the most intercity travel are wealthy businessmen, and jobs spring up where they go, largely in order to cater to them. :shrug: Then people have to commute to those jobs….
Risenmessiah Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 10:53 pm
A good analogy would be, Paulus, the difference between Midtown Manhattan and Northern Virginia. Midtown grew up around the Grand Central Terminal, which is a commuter hub as well as an intercity one and became the primary location of business in New York City. Newark or Queens hasn’t been able to steal away that job center.
But as a contrast, where height restrictions limited development around Union Station in DC, the corridor between Washington and Dulles International has become the largest job center in Northern Virginia.
Interestingly, I’d argue it’s a similar situation around John Wayne Airport in Orange County. It anchors the densest concentration of jobs in the O.C.
Alon Levy Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 11:54 am
Meh. I don’t think LAX and O’Hare anchor the biggest edge cities in their respective metro areas. Newark Liberty and JFK certainly don’t: the largest non-Manhattan employment centers in Greater New York are (in no particular order) Downtown Brooklyn, Downtown Newark, Edison-Woonbridge, Jersey City, Jamaica, Long Island City, Flushing, the Bronx Hub, White Plains, and Stamford. Some, but not all, cluster around train stations, but in all cases the majority of commuters drive rather than take transit; the train stations are historical anchors, i.e. the more recent jobs are attracted to the older jobs rather than to the train stations themselves.
Beta Magellan Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 1:05 pm
O’Hare does—the corridor along I-90 to Rosemont to Schaumberg (or, if you’re generous, Hoffman Estates) is generally considered the largest edge city in Chicago, although it’s very disperse and could probably be subdivided into several different sub0clusters (although I’ve never seen this done). The densest non-CBD employment area would be the medical district, which grew out of the Cook County Hospital basically following the pattern you describe above—despite good rail access, the presence of the hospital (and single-sector urban renewal-era planning) was the impetus for turning it into a full-blown medical district.
RisenMessiah Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 1:22 pm
Downtown Newark is twenty minutes away from the airport.
Alon Levy Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 2:29 pm
So? The biggest cluster of jobs is near Newark Penn, not near the airport. There’s not much development near the airport, unless you count industrial and port activity that’s been there since back when Port Authority’s main job was to manage the port. Newark is basically holding onto jobs it had before deindustrialization.
Similarly, although the railroads helped develop Midtown (but so did other things, e.g. proximity to Queens and Uptown), nowadays the development follows other development, rather than the existing infrastructure. The center moved north, to between Grand Central and the park. The highest intensity of development is well to the north of 42nd Street; as a result, in the AM peak, people tend to transfer from the 7 to the Q/N at Queensboro Plaza much more than the reverse.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 2:47 pm
Downtown Newark is 15 minutes from Short Hills on an express train. That doesn’t make Short Hills an employment center.
thatbruce Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 12:21 pm
That’s more due to the policies of the Irvine Company and zoning around the historical industrial areas than the existence of SNA.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 12:27 pm
Given that it’s right by the former El Toro MCAS, I find it rather surprising to assert that John Wayne was in any way an anchor and not the very large Marine community.
RisenMessiah Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 1:31 pm
Was? I am suggesting to you that it IS the anchor. I don’t see what is so controversial: one of the leading reasons that large employers abandoned downtowns is that it was no longer the most crucial location for intercity transport…now that honor went to a suburb that had your local wide-body airport.
Secondly, there’s an inherent skew here. Business that operate a bunch of franchises or other tiny chains naturally appear to dilute the concentration of employers. So subtract the McDonald’s, gas stations and post offices…then equalize for full time versus part time (otherwise an NFL stadium looks like a giant job magnet) and you will see what I am talking about.
After all, if the station is so irrelevant to job growth…why did Mr. Pringle fight so hard for ARC? Why build Diridon Intergalatic?
Alon Levy Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 2:54 pm
It’s not even controversial – it’s plain wrong. (Another counterexample: in Tel Aviv, the main direction of edge city expansion is north, exactly the opposite of the direction in which the airport is located.)
Pringle and Diridon don’t care about jobs, except construction jobs for edifices that bear their names. Diridon Intergalactic and St. Curtis Cathedral are like any other white elephant monument.
RisenMessiah Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 3:54 pm
In all seriousness Alon, please let me know if you publish a journal article that debunks the role of airports in encouraging suburbanization.
As far as Pringle, Diridon, and the others go…I think you are making a serious mistake about how intelligent and visionary politicians have to be. The brutal truth is that in America, we don’t fight politically about natural resources. We don’t struggle with morality or truth. We only care about access.
Transportation means nothing politically if it does not create … access. TransBay isn’t being built because it’s what makes sense…it’s being built because San Francisco wants to be the most important city in the United States.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 4:03 pm
Dear Jesus-is-coming-OMG,
Have you ever even visited the USA, let alone California, let alone the SF Bay Area?
Transbay could hardly be designed worse or to cause greater INHIBITION of transportation access. Really, I bet even you couldn’t balls it up worse than they have.
This and similar projects are SOLELY about scoring and spending earmarks: transfering public tax money into the pockets of the most politically juiced (and least competent, from any engineering perspective) organizations that exist. They’re not about transportation in any way shape or form beyond PR and greenwashing, they’re pure patronage and construction profit.
Talk about alternate reality!
RisenMessiah Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 5:05 pm
Glad to see your finished your lunch, Richard….
I’m not in an alternate reality. I’m tel-ling you…what you describe is the opposite of what people accuse the Chinese of doing. In China, they want to build great and glorious HSR line to serve people on cheap so that they can show great glorious HSR as sign of Progress(tm). The consultants, lobbyists, engineers, lawyers, etc… they all are mercenaries and cook whatever dish Fearless Leader wants. Because in the end, Fearless Leader wants great glorious HSR and nothing else. Details, irrelevant.
In San Francisco, the Tweed-Murphy-Burton-Pelosi-Newsom-Kamala-Slick Willie political machine also wants great and glorious HSR line to demonstrate Access(tm). The machine wants to make San Francisco live up to potential though for it in the 1840s in the imaginations of guys like James K. Polk of being the bridge between Asia and the Western World. The consultants, lobbyists, engineers, lawyers are all mercenaries and will cook whatever dish the Machine asks. When the mercenaries ask for more money and more money and more money, the Machine says, make it so.
In China, when HSR projects crashes, Fearless Leader is unhappy and puts his servants to sword, even if it’s not their fault. In San Francisco, when HSR project fails, Machine has big big big big big big problem. If HSR project merely requires astronomical sums, Machine has not that big a problem.
Alon Levy Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 5:58 pm
Sure. Let me know if you publish a journal article that proves the role of airports in encouraging major edge cities.
The keyword is major. Of course airports encourage edge city formation. It’s just that those edge cities aren’t that big, and the major ones are formed by highway intersections, or by suburban growth in formerly independent metropolitan areas, such as Silicon Valley.
This is especially true of today’s edgeless cities, the seminal article on which (Edgeless Cities by Robert Lang and Jennifer LeFurgy) has unfortunately slipped behind a paywall recently. But see if you can find it – their claim is that edgeless cities never form a critical mass as edge cities do.
joe Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 8:28 pm
I grew-up in NW Chicago, did College in Rockford and go back every year to visit since leaving in 82.
O’Hare anchored and fostered the NW suburban boom. It shifted the suburban focus from the S and SW to the NW.
There’s scant reason for the NW suburbs to over take the S and SW without O’Hare replacing Midway airport, the formerly world’s busiest airport.
The edge city is so big Chicago extended the CTA past Jefferson to compete.
Alon, WTF?
Alon Levy Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 8:37 pm
It could just be an outgrowth of favored-quarter suburbanization. In the Northeast, this is exactly where the edge cities sprout, regardless of where the airport is. Boston has Route 128, New York has Edison-Woodbridge and Stamford, Philadelphia has King of Prussia and Cherry Hill, Washington has Tysons Corner and Bethesda. The same is true of Tel Aviv – look up Herzliya Pituah.
Risenmessiah Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 8:40 pm
Don’t hold your breath, Alon. I am no longer in academia…but I look forward to hearing what your research yields.
However, a similar book has already been published: http://www.amazon.com/Aerotropolis-Way-Well-Live-Next/dp/0374100195
It’s all good fun in the name of debate.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 8:43 pm
Woodbridge is the southern terminus of the arc of suburban office parks all along I-287 with Connecitcut getting the act in Stamford. There’s miles of it in Morris County and Westchester County.
Beta Magellan Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 9:39 pm
Alon, I’d say that O’Hare was probably the major catalyst for growth in I-90 corridor—better example of favored-quarter urbanization would be more directly north (offices and light industry along Lake-Cook Road) and west (Naperville, offices and shopping along I-290, industrial uses along railway corridors in Elmhurst and Addison). However, O’Hare is also unusually busy and much of the growth happened when O’Hare was either the world’s busiest airport or becoming the world’s busiest airport—pre-crash it was carrying almost twice the traffic as the likes of SFO, Newark, Orlando and Detroit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World's_busiest_airports_by_passenger_traffic), so I think it’s a fairly unusual case.
The I-90 corridor also intersects I-294 and I-290, so it also has that going for it—although I’m not sure about the precise chronology of the airport and expressways, it wouldn’t surprise me if they weren’t planned with one another in mind.
Risen, almost all the reviews of Aerotropolis I’ve read came from architectural critics and theorists, which generally doesn’t bode well if you’re looking for something beyond intellectual-fad-of-the-week.
joe Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 9:59 pm
Naperville had Metra – end of the line for that Chicago commuter line. It also was not as old a city as terminal cities Elgin and Aurora. A Blank slate. I attribute Naperville’s growth to schools, low cost auto suburbia quality of life, critical mass of IT.
O’Hare fostered 290 and build up of other highways as well as Manheim. Also I’ve see Rockfrod grow towards the I-90 and along that corridor to Chicago ORD.
I don’t get Alon’s perspective. WTF is all that there for if not ORD? The metro area would have also grown more along the rail and also South/SW to Joliet and E to Indy without ORD to draw business.
Sears moved HQ out of Chicago to Schamburg, which is close to ORD.
Daley the Lesser extended the CTA to ORD to protect Chicago from the Edge City.
Beta Magellan Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 10:13 pm
It’s that the development around ORD isn’t typical (which makes sense, since ORD isn’t typical) and that airports do not necessarily lead to edge cities.
Also joe, CTA to ORD extension (as was built) was first floated in Chicago Area Transit Study’s 1995 plan, published in 1973. It wasn’t about protecting Chicago from The Big Bad Edge City, but having the transit service follow Chicago’s sprawl westward.
Beta Magellan Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 10:14 pm
The line itself was built during Byrne’s mayoralty and opened at the beginning of Washington’s.
Alon Levy Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 10:14 pm
Or, he extended it to ORD because the business class has an unhealthy obsession with airport connectors, far beyond their actual ridership. It’s for the same reason that Port Authority two incompatible and vendor-locked AirTrain systems.
Speaking of extremely busy airports and edge city growth, in Atlanta the main edge cities are to the north of the city – Marietta, Sandy Springs, Alpharetta – i.e. in the opposite direction from Hartsfield. So it could just be the confluence of Interstates built to serve O’Hare that made it such an unusual case.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
September 28th, 2011 at 12:04 am
The “new” terminals at EWR were build to accommodate a people mover like Airtrain. Both JFk and EWR were nearing gridlock at busy times. There was an ulterior motive in supporting the the people movers. It got all of the parking shuttle buses, the inter-terminal shuttle buses, the car rental shuttle buses and the odd bus to Howard Beach or Penn Station in Newark, out of the airport. It leaves space for the business man’s limo. Also means you can tell the peons taking business trips you aren’t going to reimburse for cab fare anymore. …isn’t the JFK Airtrain a variant of the trains in Vancouver? The Skytrain in Newark on the other hand if I remember correctly, is very very special. Also keep in mind that the inter-terminal, parking lot and car rental passengers don’t pass through a turnstile and don’t get counted.
Alon Levy Reply:
September 28th, 2011 at 4:05 pm
Yes, the JFK AirTrain is the same vendor-locked system as the Expo and Millennium Lines in Vancouver. (But not the Canada Line, which is a more conventional third rail-powered system installed by Hyundai; even the Canadians eventually say enough and don’t give Bombardier no-bid contracts.)
adirondacker12800 Reply:
September 28th, 2011 at 5:49 pm
The Port Authority didn’t fall off the turnip cart last week.
When the vendor, I forget who it is, finds that there is… imagine this… snow, sleet and freezing rain in general vicinity of Newark Airport that makes the gee-whiz cars stall, they rip it out and very very politely tell the PA they will fix it. And did. I see it being replaced with trolley cars someday. Same thing with Bombardier and JFK – fixed price contract. They wanted to ‘speriment they did it on their own dime. At least the JFK extravaganza is standard gauge, running trolley cars on it will be relatively cheap and easy.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 3:49 pm
The HSR Business Plan for Solving Global Warming through Indirect Benefits
joe Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 8:24 pm
Fighting a Straw-man
While accumulating debt is not always seen as a positive thing, it seems that RFF was in part created to shoulder this specific one.
RFF was created only recently, in 1997, due to an EU regulation that demanded that the railway infrastructure manager and operator be separate entities. RFF was thus transferred all tracks and platforms (SNCF kept money-making train stations), as well as debt that SNCF had accumulated – around 20 billion euros.
It’ll be interesting to see what becomes of the HSR situation in France when competition from other train operators is allowed.
Andre Peretti Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 7:22 pm
RFF’s debt is a trick of the French state. Here’s the story:
When SNCF was a national company run by the state it accumulated an enormous deficit due to mismanagement and abuse by politicians who, for instance, hired thousands of ghost workers after elections. The standing joke was that SNCF had more employees than riders.
When SNCF was split into RFF+new SNCF, the government agreed to transfer the debt to the state budget so the two companies could start with a clean slate. But then, it was realized that with €20 billion added to its deficit France no longer fulfilled the maastricht treaty criteria. The government decided to leave the debt in RFF’s books until better times.
Concerning competition with other companies, SNCF is clearly disadvantaged. Its labor costs are far higher than other companies’: very short workweeks, and lots of benefits inherited from the original national company. To counter that disadvantage it has created a private branch “iDTGV” where employees have normal workweeks (35 hours) and no SNCF legacy benefits. The unions saw it as the start of TGV privatization and decided to nip it in the bud. Actions were very violent and non-union iDTGV employees were molested. The unions tolerate only one iDTGV departure a day.
If Veolia starts running high-speed trains, the TGV is dead.
Be sure to watch Congressman Nunes and former CHSRA Chairman Pringle on TV last night on HSR and green jobs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYm0TjyhSes&feature=channel_video_title
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XRjatW_N9M
This video asks why the federal government should pay $6.6 trillion to maintain our current infrastructure when it will only bring $540 billion in tax revenue.
Howard Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 4:26 pm
Well if we do not maintain our infrastructure, like roads, our cities will run out of food, medicine and water, urban riots will break out, refugees will abandon the cities for the county side, and we will descend into another Dark Ages! Ancient Rome, the worlds biggest city of the time, was abandoned when the barbarians destroyed its infrastructure, the aqueducts that brought it the water it needed. Do you want to live in an America were the roads have so decayed that they can only be driven by 4 wheel drive off road vehicles? Does this mean we have to maintain every road? Clearly No! Roads that only go to “has been” virtual ghost towns and unproductive rural lands can be abandoned. There will need to be higher gas taxes, mileage fees and road tolls to pay to maintain the roads we need.
Derek Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 4:55 pm
Why can’t the federal government pay just the $540 billion and let local funding finance the rest?
Nathanael Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 5:46 pm
If local governments could print money, that would work just fine. In fact, California has the clout that if California printed money, people would take it.
However, since the Constitution attempts to prevent state and local governments from printing money, the federal government has the responsibility to take any economic management actions which require money-printing.
For more details, learn a lot of economics. :-)
Alon Levy Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 2:55 pm
And yet, the US had cities with multiple millions of people who ate pretty well by today’s standards even before it had good roads.
Howard Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 3:55 pm
Our population has exploded since then. Our rail system has shrunk, not expanded, since then. Many rail lines are near capacity now. We are dependent on our road system (especially interstates). We will need to use our existing roadway system more efficiently as the population increases but the road system will not increase significantly.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 5:19 pm
It’s doubled. Run double stack reefers.
As is often my case, a bit off topic, but perhaps of parallel interest; residential electric power consumption down a bit:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/The-Beginning-End-Suburban-atlantic-1156625650.html?x=0
http://news.yahoo.com/shocker-power-demand-us-homes-falling-170634147.html
Original source and commentary:
http://nineshift.typepad.com/weblog/2011/09/the-beginning-of-the-end-of-suburbia.html#comments
One interesting thing about this is that all sorts of data–cars being driven less, gasoline consumption down, this electric power news, stories about cities having people move in (all of which started prior to the recession)–points to revitalized cities, or at least a de-emphasizing of suburban lifestyle, yet the latest census data supposedly shows the suburbs growing in population. Why the disparity?
Other question of interest–it would seem that railroads and electric utilities should want to get together. The utilities would get a big new industrial customer, and the railroads would get off the oil diet and get better performance. It would also seem that the utilities would be interested in electric passenger railroads, both the high-speed kind and the local light rail lines, too. Yet both parties–and surprisingly to me, more so the electric industry–seems to have no interest. Why?
Nathanael Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 5:51 pm
There are suburbs and there are suburbs.
First-ring suburbs are getting quite attractive.
Outer suburbs are becoming SLUMS, where the poor are evicted to when they can’t afford to live closer to town.
Couldn’t tell you which of the two phenomena is driving the increased population in the suburbs, but my money’s on the slum phenomenon. Slums tend to have high population density.
“Other question of interest–it would seem that railroads and electric utilities should want to get together.”
Banned back in the, what, 1920s? From memory I think it was the Public Utility Holding Company Act. This was repealed recently, but freight railroads and electric utilities are *notoriously* conservative and probably haven’t gotten used to the repeal.
“Yet both parties–and surprisingly to me, more so the electric industry–seems to have no interest. Why?”
BNSF is interested. Look up Matt Rose’s statements a few years back. But then it has been known as the “forward thinking” railroad.
As for the electric utilities, they’re mostly interested in creating and expanding monopolies. It’s very rare for one to think like an entrepeneur. This unfortunately accounts for their failure to adopt renewable energy, too.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 5:56 pm
SoCal Edison was showing some interest in Metrolink electrification back in 1992ish.
From what I understand, however, railroads are somewhat less than ideal customers for power companies.
Alon Levy Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 6:35 am
It’s not a suburban ring issue… first-ring favored quarter suburbs are very rich, for example in Bergen County, on Long Island’s North Shore, and in Essex and Westchester Counties immediately beyond cities that shouldn’t be called suburbs (i.e. Yonkers, Newark/Irvington/East Orange, Mount Vernon). Ill-favored quarter suburbs are not, for example Long Island’s South Shore.
To the extent that it is, we see suburban slumming occur from the inside out, not the outside in. The color line in Manhattan, separating Harlem from the Upper East Side and Morningside Heights, is moving north. So is the line in the Bronx separating the very poor South Bronx from the middle-class North Bronx (though it’s less of a color line – Wakefield is middle-class black).
Alon Levy Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 5:59 pm
See followup, at normal Pedestrian Observations post length if my last comment was too terse for you.
Today, the front page, above the fold article in the Fresno bee was:
High-speed rail would test state’s power grid
http://www.fresnobee.com/2011/09/25/2553219/high-speed-rail-would-test-power.html
Paulus Magnus Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 4:50 pm
17.5 cents per kilowatt? Why in the world are they planning on paying double the going rate of electricity for transportation in CA?!
Derek Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 4:57 pm
It won’t be double the going rate for electricity when HSR phase I is complete.
Nathanael Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 5:52 pm
Correct, that’s a prediction of future prices.
Prices could be lower, if California starts sprouting solar panels everywhere.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 5:54 pm
Given the 30-40 cents per kilowatt hour subsidy that solar PV requires, I’m rather doubting that prices would be lower if we started spouting solar panels everywhere.
Nathanael Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 7:24 pm
You don’t actually understand the economics of solar. I realize that California currently has some funny subsidies in place, but I’m writing from NY. Widespread home adoption for “get me off the grid” purposes does indeed cut the commercial price.
Solar PV is going to cost approximately 5% per kWH of what it does now in 20 years, by the way. My “friends” are not the only ones with new tech (but theirs is the best :-) ).
Nathanael Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 7:25 pm
Could be 10%. Best to avoid optimism bias. :-)
Paulus Magnus Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 8:16 pm
[citation needed]
HSTSheldon Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 7:34 pm
You do realize that large scale solar today, thanks to dramatic cost declines recently are coming in at around 16c per KWH. Residential is at about 25 to 30 cents before subsidies. Where on earth do you get 30-400 cents per KHW in 2011?
Paulus Magnus Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 8:05 pm
“Newly installed solar photovoltaic (PV) projects in Californian were paid an average of approximately $0.34/kWh last year, according to a privately commissioned study.”
Ontario’s feed in tariff ranges from 44.3¢/kwh to 80.2¢/kwh.
Andasol solar power plant in Spain costs 0.271 euros to produce one kilowatt-hour of electricity and has a FiT of 0.28 euros per kilowatt-hour.
HSTSheldon Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 7:16 pm
Why are you quoting average figures from last year when the dynamic is changing so rapidy? The best large scale PV projects today are coming in below $.20 per KWH unsubsidized. That is not up for debate. Add subsidy and they are probably in the region of $0.14 per KWH today and the tred is very clear. Volume purchasers can get modules for around $2 per KW today and the trend is rapidly moving in one direction. Go to solarbuzz.com if you care to disagree. They state for example that in a sunny climate today, the best large scale systems come in at $.16 per KWH, commercial rooftop systems, $.20 and residential systems $.30. I guarantee that in 6 months time, these numbers for all will be lower by at least 2 cents per KWH.
joe Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 8:36 pm
I can factor in the cost of a solar panel installation on my home but, as an ecologist I also know, the true costs for my Natural Gas produced electricity, which hits 33 Kwhr, are complex and not fully reflected in my bill.
I’m not paying the full environmental cost of fracking, or carbon emissions and now there’s the risk of piping gas on PG&E’s network.
Peter Baldo Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 6:50 am
I agree. At the rate this hsr project is being built (not a high speed rate), it’ll be 20 years before trains are running. The curtains will be closing on the fossil fuel age, and it will be pointless to base an entirely new transportation system on a vanishing fuel. The project should expect to be powered by wind and solar.
The hsr system is ideally suited, or at least better suited than others, to exploit these resources. It will, among other things, be an electrical system spanning the length and width of the state. The electrical system can pick up power from the sun in the desert, and from wind in the passes, not to mention energy from trains going down hills. A line like Desert Express could be a big solar farm with an electric train running alongside.
I’ve lived my whole life in a fossil fuel economy, so it’s hard to imagine a world without cheap fossil fuel. But it’s going to happen, and we should build for it. And nuclear power’s not going to be a factor, if nobody will actually invest money to build the reactors.
joe Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 8:20 pm
What is the current rate?
The state uses a sliding cost scale – the more the use, the more you pay. The ave price for residential metered electricity is 18 cents. 17.5 is on par with residential use. Yes, I know industry doesn’t pay residential rates.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 8:34 pm
http://www.sce.com/business/rates/large-business.htm
http://www.pge.com/nots/rates/tariffs/electric.shtml#COMMERCIAL
http://www.sdge.com/regulatory/elec_commercial.shtml
joe Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 8:37 pm
Thank you to both for the links.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 8:36 pm
The EIA, in their infinite wisdom, has totally fucked up their site and removed the average prices page. It was about 8.46 cents for transportation in CA however. Nationwide it looks like 10.65 cents in 2009. Here’s a summary of them all. California appears to have sold 464,192 MWh for $43.7 million, which comes out to 10.62¢/kwh. Wonder why the number is so radically different from the one they used to post.
morris brown Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 5:06 pm
Worthless article. If anything is going to test the State’s grid and electrical capacity, it won’t be HSR. Much more troubling would be a huge influx of electric power auto, which are coming and for which more power will be needed and furnished.
joe Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 8:23 pm
Really?
1) the cars will charge at night when demand is low, 2) their isn’t going to be a massive number of electric autos. It’s a pipe dream because of high cost of ownership.
Just sitting here at LAX waiting for my flight and see that Siemens is advertising their ICE trains. Pretty cool. Would love to be boarding one of those for the trip back to the bay area. Hell, I wouldn’t have to be waiting at all for the train like I am for the plane!!!
How the CHSRA wins friends in the Central Valley:
http://www.hanfordsentinel.com/news/local/article_853289e0-e85e-11e0-9d0e-001cc4c002e0.html
Hanford Public Hearing 09-21-2011, New Director of Communications for the CHSRA – Kings County residents came to give public testimony, and this ensued for the first hour. Kings County is trying to save a cultural resource and the CHSRA cannot even pay attention
video is at:
http://bit.ly/qRcxoc.
So Amtrak electrified part of the NEC for about 5 million (6 million inflation adjusted), SCAG uses an estimate of 10 million for electrifying in SoCal, and Caltrain is apparently estimating 15 million per mile just for the electrification of the lines.
Meanwhile, in Britain, electrification costs £500-650,000 per single track kilometer. Or, in other words, Caltrain electrification would drop to 166 million dollars not including rolling stock. Heck, for that cost we could electrify every single inch of railroad in CA for $5.25 billion.
Why the hell can’t we demand that from our politicians?
Paulus Magnus Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 5:26 pm
Correction: 8.5 billion. Stupid metric conversions.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 5:57 pm
“Why the hell can’t we demand that from our politicians?”–Paulus Magnus
Sadly, much of why we have our troubles is summed up in Drunk Engineer’s “About” listing from his site, SystemicFailure.wordpress.com:
“This blog reports on a paradox in US public policy: although the nation has first-world status in science/technology, its leadership is mathematically-illiterate and/or corrupt. This paradox is most evident in the transportation sector — and especially mega-projects. Common themes in these postings include: non-invented-here syndrome, risk perception, and industry best-practices.”
To this we must add not only the effects of “campaign contributions,” but cowardice on the part of elected officials. Most are not true leaders. Most would fit the description Winston Churchill had of a French politician, whom he described as one “who was trying to determine which way his people were going so he could lead them there.”
Much more recently, an American columnist–I’m sorry I can’t recall who it was–said most pols were “about as useful as coach dogs.” This was a reference to the dogs that used to be the pets of innkeepers back in stagecoach days. One of the things the dogs did was to yap and bark at the horses as the coach approached the inn, to make sure the horses would come there and not miss the stop; I guess the dogs didn’t trust the driver. . .
Nathanael Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 7:20 pm
And yet it’s worse. I could accept politicians who were trying to find a parade so they could march in front of it… like the French politician Churchill described.
In fact, we’ve got all too many politicians who simply *can’t tell which way the wind is blowing* even when millions of people yell it at them. Deeply stupid, deeply ignorant, deeply corrupt. The prime example is the US Senate, where the preservation of the holy and worshipful filibuster rule appears to take precedence over, uh, getting ANYTHING AT ALL DONE.
Beta Magellan Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 6:38 pm
Can’t find it now, but I remember reading an article from the Kerry-Graham-Lieberman climate bill era (perhaps in The New Republic, back when Brad Plumer was doing environmental policy reporting over there) that argued a railway electrification program would be a quicker and more cost-effective way of reducing CO2 emissions than the most of the non-C02-pricing policies (specifically lots of money for electric cars) that were proposed during the last congress.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 7:23 pm
Whoever it was at New Republic writing that story, he wasn’t alone–may have even been one of these two fellows:
One is Bruce McF, who writes here–one sample of his Sunday Train column, as linked from the Daily Kos, is below:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/04/11/856291/-Sunday-Train:-Working-on-the-Railroad-Why-Krugman-is-Wrong?via=tag
The other is Alan Drake of New Orleans, with an item here from Virginia’s Rail Solution site:
http://www.railsolution.org/uploads/PDF/Citizen_s_Guide_Chapter1b.pdf
It could also be Phil Longman, who had an article in the Washington Monthly in 2009:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2009/0901.longman.html
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 8:20 pm
If you want to reduce the environmental impact of railroads, blow up lines leading to coal fields.
Calling them death trains is no hyperbole.
Besides which, US freight RR’s are actually pretty energy efficient, much as one might be prejudiced to think DIESEL=EVIL. Stringing overhead wires above freight trunk routes (and then powering the wires by burning coal) is pretty much just rearranging deckchairs. There are some marginal efficiencies from electrification, but they’re a very long way down the list of ways to improve US transportation energy intensity.
Beta Magellan Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 10:30 pm
D. P., it was an actual journalist, not a railfan.
Richard, if I recall correctly the comparison was between electrifying the whole network versus various small-bore measures (3% of the gov. fleet will be electric by 2015! and stuff like that), so it was more a comparison between different ways of rearranging deck chairs. And since most actual elecrification schemes I’ve heard of (ones involving freight railroads and somewhat better sketched-out hypotheticals) usually concentrated around the Wyoming area, I’d say that there’s no small chance that electrification as it’s likely to happen will be a net minus.
I’m in definite agreement about—how shall we say, decommissioning—all those lines from Appalachia and Wyoming, though. During my brief stint in freight policy consulting, it was infuriating to see the freights’ lobbying packets basically saying “coal = profit = future,” especially since I was working more on the intermodal, high-value/low-volume end of the spectrum.
Nathanael Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 7:22 pm
Britain was going to automate their electrification with an “electrification train”.
Yeah. I don’t know why we can’t get even the semblance of sanity out of federal-level politicians most of the time. And usually not out of state politicians. Or local ones.
The eminently sane local mayor of my small town is retiring. Sniff. I’ll miss her. The Public Works department director said that she’d been the first mayor in over 40 years to understand the importance of maintenance.
VBobier Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 9:50 pm
The Value of the US Dollar compared to British Pound is what is going on, You can’t build anything as inexpensively in the US as can be done in the UK, It’s a flaky comparison, prices and wages in Pound Sterling are different than they are here and unless the two currencies exchange places value wise, Which is highly Unlikely, No one will get costs that low in the US, If You did suppress Wages in the US, No one could support themselves or their families…
Paulus Magnus Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 10:12 pm
Err, what? Value of the pound vs the dollar is entirely irrelevant for such construction costs.
Alon Levy Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 6:40 am
And in France, electrifying the line to Sables d’Olonnes cost a little less than a million Euros per route-km (link).
Cambridge (MA) think tank issues report on HSR in America, states the obvious:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/09/27/northeast_california_called_ideal_sites_for_high_speed_rail_lines/
the report itself:
http://www.lincolninst.edu/pubs/1948_High-Speed-Rail
Chinese rail crash yet again this time in Shanghai subway injuring 260, signaling error blamed.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-09-27/shanghai-subway-crash-injures-260-following-signal-fault.html
“Shanghai Subway Crash Injures 260 Following Signal Fault
Sept. 27 (Bloomberg) — A Shanghai subway train rammed into the back of another locomotive after a signaling fault, injuring 260 people and adding to concerns that the pace of China’s rail expansion may undermine safety.”
There is something fundamentally wrong with Chinese railway signaling technology.
But what do you think would occur if BART aluminum beer can cars went bump?
Eric M Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 12:42 pm
But they haven’t in over 30 years, have they? Give up the ridiculous BART comparisons
synonymouse Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 9:44 pm
WMATA
http://www.railwayage.com/breaking-news-archive/wmata-wreck-kills-nine-ntsb-investigation-under-way.html
The trend is towards requiring more crash resistance. BART might need to beef up its stilts.
Peter Reply:
September 28th, 2011 at 5:08 am
Let’s see.
Shanghai Metro: Opened 1995. Collisions in 2009 and 2011.
WMATA: Opened 1976. Collisions in 1996, 2004, and two in 2009.
BART: Opened 1972. No collisions.
BART’s already planning on completely replacing its fleet. What are you talking about “stilts” for, anyway?
Andy M. Reply:
September 28th, 2011 at 6:21 am
This sort of statistic is meaningless until you also take into account the size of the system and the number of train movements and ridership. WMATA was a very small system initially and then gradually grew from there. The Shanghai system grew much faster. So comparing WMATA collisons to Shanghai collisions without scaling that in terms of network size is a bit unfair.
Peter Reply:
September 28th, 2011 at 6:45 am
It wasn’t supposed to be a dig against WMATA or Shanghai Metro. It was meant to show that BART is not a problem case.
synonymouse Reply:
September 28th, 2011 at 10:13 am
New BART cars with mandated improved crash worthiness will be heavier and thus the stilts will have to be upgraded accordingly.
Peter Reply:
September 28th, 2011 at 10:44 am
What “mandated improved crash worthiness” are you talking about? You have a citation to that?
“and thus the stilts will have to be upgraded accordingly.”
Not if the new cars don’t exceed the original design limits. If the were too heavy, they wouldn’t be buying them or they would be upgrading the infrastructure. Again, citation?
swing hanger Reply:
September 28th, 2011 at 10:55 am
Peter, the ‘mouse is pulling things out from his backside…
Peter Reply:
September 28th, 2011 at 10:58 am
I know. Pointing out flaws in his arguments is fun, though.
synonymouse Reply:
September 28th, 2011 at 11:07 am
It is at the rumor stage, but continuing, and coming from insiders, that the cars will necessarily be heavier and that the aerials will have to be re-evaluated as to strength.
We should be hearing about it either way fairly soon.
Peter Reply:
September 28th, 2011 at 11:55 am
Oh, right, it’s a “rumor”, so you get to claim whatever you want.
“We should be hearing about it either way fairly soon.”
Why wait? Why not just ask BART what the specs are on the new cars? I just submitted a request for the specifications on the train cars that were put out to bid.