The Asphalt Empire Strikes Back

UPDATE by Robert: Sen. Kit Bond, Republican from Missouri, is offering two anti-transit amendments - including one that would kill the $2 billion in high speed rail funding currently in the Senate version of the stimulus. Contact both Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer to let them know those amendments must be defeated - and while you're at it, ask Boxer's office why the hell they're advancing the cause of carbon pollution and global warming denial by helping Inhofe.

Dianne Feinstein DC office: (202) 224-3841
Barbara Boxer DC office: (202) 224-3553

Obama's silence on all this is also rather deafening. He has allowed Republicans to narrowly define what is stimulus and what is not - he hasn't mounted a strong defense of including mass transit funding as stimulus, and hasn't spoken out against Republican demands to gut the stimulus package. A new president with extremely high approval ratings should not be letting his administration get tied down by these Lilliputians, yet here we are.

UPDATE 2 by Rafael: Right now, Republicans are playing hardball. There will be no broad bipartisan majority because House Democrats will not accept a completely watered down bill in conference. The idea of stripping down the bill to the elements the GOP already agrees with in order to pass something, anything, Real Soon Now is a bad one because it does not require Republicans to voting for less palatable policies down the road.

Democrats may be able to bribe at least one Republican Senator into breaking ranks this time or, they may succeed in calling the GOP's bluff by forcing them to read telephone books for a while while thousands are losing their jobs every day. I'd quite like to see the latter happen just to underline how anachronistic the whole concept of filibusters is in the 21st Century.

However, given the gravity of the situation, it might make more sense for President Obama, Sen. Reid, a small group of Rockefeller Republican Senators and Speaker Pelosi to hammer out a European-style formal coalition agreement for a two-year legislative agenda. It would be more diplomatic to show deference to Senate Minority Leader McConnell, but this isn't about playing nice. It's about cobbling together a narrow, filibuster-proof majority. This is also why I didn't include House Minority Leader Boehner in the above list - his job for the next two years is to articulate the GOP alternative to the Democratic agenda, not to govern.

The alternative to a stable coalition agreement is to fight over each and every amendment of each and every bill, wasting precious time while the economy is tanking. Consumer and business confidence will only recover once there is visible evidence of a coherent strategy going forward, one that absolutely should include HSR as a means to gradually wean the nation off its addiction to oil.

Original post begins here:

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Streetsblog SF warns that Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) is about to enter into an unholy alliance with Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK). They plan to introduce an amendment to add $50 billion for highway construction to the stimulus bill (h/t to Robert Cruickshank). This comes on the heels of the GOP blocking a $25 billion amendment sponsored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) for highways, water and mass transit, ostensibly because no compensating cuts in other spending were offered. The Senate did pass one amendment: "Most consumers who buy new cars, minivans or light trucks by the end of the year would get tax deductions for the sales or excise taxes and the interest on their loans. Sponsor Barbara Mikulski , D- Md. , estimated that a family would save about $1,500 on a $25,000 vehicle. The key vote on the $11 billion measure was 71-26".

It is understandable that lawmakers are worried about the deteriorating state of the economy and focusing on the short-term issue of preserving and/or creating jobs. The DOTs of many states have a lot of planning expertise in highway projects, so most of their "shovel-ready" projects relate to roads. It's quite likely that there are at least $80 billion worth of road and road bridge repair projects around the country. If the bill contains verbiage targeting the funds that specifically, the Boxer-Inhofe amendment may make sense. However, it is not in the long-term interest of the country to substantially expand highway capacity in the context of this stimulus bill.

Similarly, it may make sense to provide tax breaks that generate demand for new cars, lest one of the Big Three goes belly-up. If that were to happen, it would amount to more than just job losses. The domestic automakers opted out of social security and Medicare decades ago, when that seemed like a good idea. Instead, they committed to providing pensions and health care to their retirees themselves. With Chapter 11 unlikely to succeed for an industry that depends on long-term relationships with its customers, bankruptcy would quickly lead to Chapter 7 a.k.a. liquidation. That would saddle the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation and either Medicare or Medicaid with the burden of providing a taxpayer-funded safety net for hundreds of thousands of retired auto workers that never contributed a dime towards these programs during their working lives.

However, the devil is once again in the details. A blanket tax break for the purchase of just any new car encourages the purchase of cheap gas guzzlers. Germany has taken a different approach: it limits its incentive to new car buyers who agree to scrap their old jalopies. The idea is to finally take cars without catalytic converters or with antiquated diesel engines off the roads to improve air quality. The US has a different problem: low average fuel efficiency. Therefore, any tax break for new car buyers should be limited to models that get at least e.g. 30mpg in the 2008 combined drive cycle and then only if the old vehicle was both rated at less than e.g. 22mpg in the old combined drive cycle and is scrapped.

The excessive dependence of the US transportation sector on fuels derived from oil exposes the economy to volatility in the price of that commodity. In particular, it was the assumption that gasoline would always be cheap that prompted cities to promote low-density urban sprawl in favor of high-density transit-oriented development. Combined with generous tax breaks and exotic mortgages for home buyers, this led to a large asset bubble that was massively reinforced by the securitization of mortgages by investment banks and insurance companies. The run-up in the price of oil, triggered by a combination of robust worldwide growth, a temporary lack of reserve production capacity plus rampant speculation, caused that bubble to burst.

In other words, the most obvious approach for a stimulus in the short term - perpetuating the status quo - risks cementing the same car culture that enabled the current economic meltdown in the first place. There were many other contributing factors, but creating funds and incentives for highway expansion and purchases of gas-guzzlers would simply set the scene for a repeat performance in the future.

It is essential that strings be attached to the stimulus measure to ensure long-term strategic objectives are not sacrificed on the altar of short-term expediency. Moreover, it would be extremely foolish to raid transit and intercity rail funds to expand those for highway construction and new car purchase incentives. Diversification of primary energy sources for the transportation sector is a national security issue, as is tackling wasteful congestion on the nation's roads.

Electric trains remain the only proven technology for moving large numbers of people over long distances safely with a small land use footprint, zero tailpipe emissions and without using a drop of oil. Blind faith in the holy grail of advanced automotive batteries is a risky bet and does nothing to address land use and congestion issues. It would be better to hedge by promoting the development of transit networks, folding electric bicycles and bicycle lane/path infrastructure to complement high speed intercity rail. Of course, as Trains4America reports, there will be conflicts over how to use the limited rights of way that remain after half a century of disinvestment in passenger rail services. Atlanta is one such case, the whole Altamont HSR vs. BART extension controversy in the Bay Area is another.

Bottom line: if funds are added to boost road and road bridge repairs and incentives to improve the average fuel economy of the nation's car fleet, there should be concomitant increases for electric rail and bicycle infrastructure funds to facilitate long-overdue changes in land use policies and oil consumption patterns. Note that vehicles running on grid electricity will only yield reductions in CO2 emissions if that electricity is generated from renewable sources. The stimulus bill already contains funding to build up that capacity, but the real value of electrification is that it dissociates primary energy sources and energy use in the transportation sector.

That means increases in the transportation infrastructure portions of the bill - including incentives to buy more efficient and/or electric vehicles - can be paid for either by deferring tax breaks or, by deferring the construction of renewable electricity generating and distribution capacity (or a combination of the two). As always, the art is to find an appropriate balance without breaking the bank.

California Rapid Rail Dreamin'

One of the wonderful things about walking down memory lane is that you stumble upon nuggets showing how California has come full circle. Before WW2, Los Angeles and Orange county already had a well-developed network of Red Car trolleys, forerunners of modern light rail.

There is a persistent myth that GM, Standard Oil and Firestone conspired to dismantle the Red Car lines so transit companies would be forced to buy diesel buses instead. The more prosaic truth is that the Pacific Electric company was a loss leader for a real estate tycoon, Henry Huntington. Having made his fortune, he let the quality of service go downhill. The war effort brought rapid growth to Southern California and, the new arrivals had no choice but to live in areas not served by Red Car lines. Planners quickly came to rely on roads and the internal combustion engine to provide residents with the mobility they needed and craved. What had been a rail culture turned into a car culture.

So why am I talking about this on a High Speed Rail blog?

Two reasons:

1. high speed rail is to short-haul flights as trolleys were to buses (or modern light rail is to bus rapid transit, h/t to DoDo). The pros and cons are comparable, albeit at different speeds and distances. There is no doubt that flying is the more economical choice for truly long distances, in terms of both fare price and the opportunity cost of time spent in transit. Only hard core railfans and pteromechanophobes wax lyrical about spending several days in the comfort of an Amtrak train trundling across the country. At truly short distances in rush hour traffic, subways and light rail reign supreme. It is the middle ground of distances from 30 to roughly 500 miles that HSR will contest in California - with every chance of gaining significant market share.
   
2. California voters have decided that the pendulum has swung too far in favor of oil-based mobility and want to redress the balance. The recent rapid run-up in the price of oil triggered the collapse of the housing bubble, forcing US taxpayers to take on over $1,000,000,000,000 in new debt. Add to that the cost of the war in Iraq, which at least indirectly was about retaining access to oil: ka-ching another $500,000,000,000 or more including long-term care for veterans, all on future generations' credit card. That's a whole lot of zeros. The experience has brought the risks inherent in relying on a single source of primary energy, crude oil, into sharp relief. Concerns about anthropogenic climate change come on top of the already known costs of an excessive dependence on crude oil.

Reducing the need to travel and switching to electric vehicles is now in vogue. In the US, most efforts to date have focused on various degrees of electrification of the automobile, but the required batteries must meet multiple conflicting design objectives: high capacity, high power over a wide range of ambient temperatures, life expectancy same as vehicle, crash safety and affordable price tag. You can have any 5 of these 6. Other developed countries have long focused on electrification of their rail networks instead - the technology is ready and proven. That infrastructure is also expensive but funding is collective rather than individual. With proper maintenance, overhead catenaries will last for many decades.

Bottom line: at intermediate distances, electric high speed rail delivers fast service, capacity high enough to avoid expensive airport and freeway expansions, zero tailpipe emissions, excellent safety and, reduced dependence on crude oil in favor of electricity - all at affordable fare prices. CHSRA has gone one further and committed to running all of its trains on renewable electricity.

In the specific case of the US, there are two major stumbling blocks. First, rail is now used primarily for slow, cheap but profitable heavy freight at interstate distances. The infrastructure is owned by competing freight companies, with some trade in trackage rights. Only a few sections of the US rail grid are publicly owned, e.g. the North East Corridor, the Caltrain SF peninsula corridor and, the Alameda freight corridor in LA. Passenger rail volume is very modest by international standards and, taxpayers have long resisted investing in something that only works well if it is perceived as a public service, rather than as a commercial enterprise.

Second, the Federal Rail Administration (FRA) has defined rules that minimize overheads for heavy freight operators. Rather than spend a lot on maintenance, they just keep running a little more slowly every year. They stick with very old, winding alignments with little or no track superelevation to avoid the massive investments needed to support higher speeds. They avoid upgrades to signaling, preferring instead to rely on passive crash safety at low speeds. They do not voluntarily invest in grade separations, diesel exhaust gas aftertreatment or electrification. They even convert dual back to single track alignments and abandon underutilized rights of way altogether, because this reduces their property tax bill. They don't stick to a timetable. The reason for all this is simple: bulk freight customers won't pay a premium for higher speed. All of this works against the provision of effective passenger rail services, as well as regional rail freight of high value goods.

Specifically, the most onerous rule relates to mixed traffic, which in FRA lingo means letting off-the-shelf lightweight rolling stock designed to UIC standards (a.k.a. non-compliant) share track with much heavier equipment that is FRA compliant. By default, this is totally prohibited. Officially, FRA claims its rules improve rail safety. Caltrain has recently shown that the non-compliant electric multiple unit (EMU) rolling stock it would like to migrate to performs as well or better than FRA-compliant equipment in crashes involving road vehicles at grade crossings. The unofficial reason for the mixed traffic rule is that freight operators do not want to invest in the signaling and emergency train control upgrades needed to avoid train-on-train accidents in busy corridors.

One way to address this is to build new rail networks dedicated to rail services other than heavy freight. Typically, that means passenger-only solutions. Examples include subways, light rail, BART and now California HSR. Such systems are allowed to operate non-compliant equipment under a waiver because there is no risk of train-on-train collisions with 15,000 ton heavy freight trains. However, as the recent tragic crash in Chatsworth proved yet again, no amount of crash buffer zones can protect drivers and passengers at even moderate relative speeds. As a result, HR 2095 now mandates the installation of positive train control (PTC) on many corridors on the US national grid by 2015.

Europe and Japan take a different approach to rail safety, one that relies on substantial public investments in track, signaling, rolling stock, maintenance and operator training to avoid accidents. Passive safety is no more than a complement to fall back on if all else fails. The reasoning behind this philosophy is that they consider all rail service, passenger as well as freight, to be to some extent a public service. The intent is to keep people from dying on the roads, to avoid massive investments in road infrastructure and, to reduce exposure to crude oil - almost all of which these countries need to import. Air quality concerns play a subordinate role, the primary focus in on passenger service.

Fortunately, the geography of Europe and Japan lends itself to hauling bulk freight by sea or inland waterways, so rail freight is focused on competing against trucking for relatively fast and punctual delivery of high-value goods, e.g. livestock, foodstuffs, mail/parcels, car parts and cars. In addition, there is the objective of getting trucks off the roads, e.g. in the Alps. Switzerland, Austria/Italy and France/Italy are each working on very long base tunnels to speed freight rail to make it more competitive. Other tunnel projects, such as the Seikan in Japan and the Channel Tunnel in Europe, are focused primarily on replacing slow passenger ferries.

While California HSR is a very worthwhile project in its own right, it also recognizes that passengers rail only works when its stations are in downtown locations with connecting transit and/or within comfortable walking distance of destinations such as large agglomerations of offices, sports stadiums, mega-malls or high-density residential districts. Unfortunately, seismic building codes and the predominance of the automobile have favored low-density development in most areas of the state. In addition, true HSR (top speeds of 186mph or more) can only serve a very limited number of stations because it takes quite a while to reach high speed. Commuter rail and regular-speed intercity trains are supposed to act as feeders into the HSR network. Roughly 10% of proposition 1A funds are reserved for capital investments in existing providers of such services.

However, in order to really drive passenger rail ridership, a bolder approach is needed. If you disregard the very sparsely populated regions north of Sacramento, the Sierras, the Mojave desert and the central coast between Salinas and San Luis Obispo, California is actually quite comparable to many European countries in terms of population density. That means their rail network model and associated philosophy may well make a lot of sense within this one state (with the possible inclusion of the city of Las Vegas). The implication is that it may make sense to develop a rail safety and funding model that permits both heavy freight and other forms of rail service to co-exist by sharing track.

To coin a term, I've called this concept "rapid rail" to distinguish it from the prevailing notions of freight and HSR as animals that must be kept strictly separate at all times. The middle ground, which would be appropriate in many parts of the state, is to find a regulatory path to permit mixed traffic not as an exception but as the rule. The idea is to use existing freight tracks where they permit high speeds, such that only some sections require brand-new tracks. Achieving this will require the following:

• new FRA rules spelling out the safety measures that must be implemented and enforced on network segments designated as "rapid rail". Sub-classes would permit all traffic, prohibit heavy freight, prohibit heavy and medium freight or, prohibit all freight for light cargo and passenger service only. Each segment on a rapid rail network would be mapped to one of these classes as appropriate.
  
• public-private partnership (PPP) between the state and the freight operators plus Caltrain that owns the infrastructure. BART could join this partnership by installing gauge change stations at selected locations, plus retrofits to its rolling stock. The PPP would enjoy a 30-year monopoly franchise co-ordinating all planning and funding of infrastructure projects including both new alignment construction and, upgrades to and proper maintenance of the legacy portions. It would also be party to road, local transit, electric grid and urban densification planning. In terms of operations, it would act as the sole dispatcher of all heavy rail traffic, based on a timetable with adequate slots for heavy freight. It would be very counterproductive to favor passenger rail to such an extent that rail freight loses market share to trucking.

In addition, rapid rail segments would be gradually electrified at 25kV AC single phase @ 60Hz over a number of decades. Priority would go to long tunnels, sections affected by poor air quality and, high-volume commuter corridors suffering severe rush hour congestion. The latter creates pressure to invest in freeway upgrades, carries high opportunity costs due to loss of productive time and, high dependence on oil. Rail operators would need mandates and fiscal incentives to invest in two-mode locomotives or self-propelled trainsets to take immediate advantage of partial electrification of their routes. If it were to link to the standard gauge grid, BART would of course retain its third rail DC electrification.

A very important concept in this context is that HSR is not BART. While it is intended for true bullet trains, lightweight diesel or electric rolling stock could use the same tracks in the sections where the bullet trains don't run at more than 125mph anyhow. In particular, Caltrain, Metrolink, ACE and NCTD could - if they wanted to - choose to operate such purely regional HSR trains, using either fast DMU/EMU self-propelled rolling stock or even plain old locomotives such as this one:

To illustrate what I mean, I have created two maps showing in detail what this shift in regulatory philosophy and operational practice could help bring about. The first Rapid Rail map has three pages. Scroll down the icon list on the left if you want to see them all (btw, Google Maps has some bugs and sometimes fails to show everything at the first attempt). I encourage you to zoom in on details of interest to you and, to read notes I've attached to named lines and icons.

• Page 1 shows an extensively built out rapid rail network for Northern California and the Central Valley. Highlights include:
  
  
  
  • HSR approach to SF via 101 freeway median (sacrifice traffic lanes but avoid cost of DTX tunnel)
    
  • loop track on 2nd floor of SF Transbay Terminal, buses in basement
    
  • dual tracks across Bay Bridge (sacrifice a traffic lane on each deck, not certain if bridge can take the load)
    
  • standard gauge rail-around-the-Bay. In the East Bay, this leverages an existing unused ROW adjacent to BART between the Union City and San Leandro stations. The section between Niles and hwy 262 would require a viaduct directly above UPRR and/or BART tracks. The nearby Hayward fault would complicate the civil engineering design.
    
  • a detour track past Oakland airport
    
  • a bypass route along hwy 4
    
  • a standard gauge intermodal station at Concord NWC (important intermodal with BART North Concord, eliminates need for eBART)
    
  • connection with CV towns via downtown Tracy
    
  • Amtrak San Joaquin moved to UPRR ROW
    
  • Altamont Pass connector (may eliminate need for BART extension to Livermore)
    
  • a new Capitol Corridor alignment via Vallejo
    
  • spur to Santa Rosa
    
  • spur Napa Valley
    
  • a new bridge and access segments to a loop track to Sacramento Airport terminals
    
  • alternative implementation of Sacramento HSR station to permit adjacent run-through tracks for rapid rail feeder trains (see Page 3 for details)
    
  • a Caltrain extension to Hollister
    
  • a new fast alignment from Gilroy to Monterey Cannery Row
    
  • a spur up to Santa Cruz Boardwalk along hwy 1.
    

  Note that the Benicia rail bridge and the western and northern approaches to it would become a dedicated freight corridor shared by UPRR and BNSF (cp. Alameda corridor in LA)

  
  For clarity, the complementary BART network is not shown.
  
  
• Page 2 shows
  
  
  
  • a sped-up alignment for the Central Coast corridor routed inland around Vandenburg AFB. Check the Terrain view to see where this calls for the construction of new tunnels. Two-mode locomotives will be needed for the one near Solvang.
    
  • a rapid freight corridor between Bakersfield and Sylmar based on new tracks in the hwy 99 median plus a 48-mile base tunnel through the Grapevine. Electric traction would be mandatory in the tunnel, which heavy freight trains could easily traverse at speeds of well over 100mph in less than half an hour without expending a drop of diesel fuel. Similar long rail tunnels exist in Japan (Seikan), under the Channel between France and the UK and are in preparation in Switzerland (St. Gotthard), Austria/Italy (Brenner), France/Italy (Montblanc) and Spain/Morocco (Straits of Gibraltar). This one through the Grapevine would be the longest in the world, though and cross two active faults deep underground (cp. seismic risks of Seikan and Straits of Gibraltar tunnels).
    
  • dual standard gauge tracks across the Richmond-San Rafael bridge (at the expense of two precious traffic lanes, not certain if bridge can take the load)
    
  • a cargo distribution yard in the Concord NWC
    
  • a detour and freight/cargo access tracks to Castle Airport, if that is ever upgraded to commercial service for long distance passenger, dedicated cargo and heavy lift aircraft
    
  • SMART extensions to Tiburon and Sonoma town
    
  • a new HSR feeder network in the Visalia region
    
  • a new loop line in the Van Nuys area based on an old ROW
    
  • some railyards and other details
  
  
• Page 3 shows details of my alternative concept for the Sacramento station. I would hate for that city to repeat LA's mistake of creating a terminus station without run-through tracks.
  

The second Rapid Rail map shows various options for getting around Southern California and over to Las Vegas. Please note in particular:

• alternative #1: Anaheim - San Diego via existing tracks to San Juan Capistrano and new tracks in the I-5 median to Torrey Pines
  
• alternative #2: Victorville - San Bernadino - Ontario - Anaheim - San Diego using upper floor tracks of Anaheim ARTIC that were intended for maglev to Las Vegas.
  
  
  
  Features new alignments on hwy 57 median and through Cajon Pass intended for passenger service for light/medium but not heavy freight.
  
• loop to get from upper to lower floor tracks at ARTIC for direct LA US - San Diego service using this second option
  
• alternative #3: Corona - San Diego (Balboa Park) via I-15 and hwy 163.
  
• new Metrolink routes: LA US - Long Beach airport, LA US - Disneyworld - Anaheim loop. Long Beach airport could also be accessed by Orange County Metrolink routes that do not involve LA US. Electrified tunnels in both segments, two-mode locomotives required.
  
• Victorville - Las Vegas as per Desert Xpress plans, i.e. privately funded and based on diesel trains at 125mph. Electrification optional but very highly recommended if alignment permits higher speeds that way. Consider mounting power distribution lines on the catenary masts to help defray the cost.
  
• Mojave - Barstow connector to HSR starter line to permit access from Las Vegas to Palmdale airport, the Central Valley and Bay Area/Sacramento. Dual-mode trainsets using both HSR and Desert Xpress tracks must be capable of 186-220mph in electric mode, even if they are limited to 125mph when running on diesel.
  

UPDATE: I've added a third new map showing the option of a new Richmond - San Rafael rail bridge (h/t to David S.)

Of course, all of this goes well beyond the immediate objective of getting the HSR starter line built such that FRA permits the use of off-the-shelf non-compliant but proven trainsets on it. With its target top speed of 220mph, California HSR will immediately become one of the premier HSR services in the world.

My objective here was simply to point out future possibilities and especially, the conversion of traffic lanes on Bay Area bridges to standard gauge rail tracks. Getting to a judicious mix of car and rail cultures will require sacrificing some actual and potential freeway capacity. Also, a viable rail culture must absolutely meet the legitimate needs of the entire spectrum of rail operators, from passenger to heavy freight.