Could N.American society have successfully evolved into heavy use of passenger rail?

Trains Magazine General Discussion
21

Larry-

I’m gonna quibble a bit.

Those transit-induced suburbs were quite a bit different than the auto-sprawl of later years. Compare eastern Queens Co. NYC with Levittown as an example. Or, Northeast Philly with Cherry Hill NJ. Totally different population density. Most development along transit was what we’d call “mixed use” these days. With sprawl, the housing is “over here” and the giant shopping mall is “over there”.

But, the key to all this is roads. If you don’t build them, then there’s not much driving that’s going to occur. It’s been determined that highway expansion induces traffic. 95% of all the vehicles moving on a highway are induced. That is, they are new trips, not trips moved from another route or mode.

If NY never built the Parkways or LIE, I’d bet quite a bit of LI is still in spuds!

22

No question. The highway thing was, and still is, definitely a “build it and they will come.” In all likelyhood, no transit system expansion has ever exploded in the manner that highway fueled expansions have.

It’s a tack that I’ve never seen before, though, and I have to wonder if it didn’t indeed have the effect I suggest, however limited.

23

Not necessairly.

In California, the east side of the “Great Valley”, San Joaquin Valley and Sacramento Valley, developed in the railroad era. In the 1970’s part of the justification for building Interstate Highway 5 on the west side was to spur growth there. Growth to the east was to be discouraged by limiting improvements to Highway 99. Since then Highway 99 improvements have lagged behind the development. The result, while I- 5 is a very busy through route with spotty commercial deveopment (gas stations, motels and restaurants) at interchanges, there has been almost no development except at Sacramento and Stockton, where I-5 is in the 99 corridor. At Elk Grove, south of Sacramento, growth as just reached the east side of I-5, reaching out from Highway 99, in the last 5 years. The west side is still entirely open land. The 99 corridor is congested by primairly local traffic because of commercial and residential developement.

24

So, where “they built it” (I-5) they “didn’t come”, but where they DIDN’T build it (Hwy 99), they did come.

Why? What other factors were there that created growth along 99 but not I-5? If everything else was equal, then the only remaining explanation is that people are irrational.

25

Some things to consider:

#1 The RRs did hot have the human populations we have today, to market their ‘services’ to. More people can mean more ridership and revenue.

#2 What if the public highways were not govt funded. What if all these wonderful roadways depended on private money?

3 Or, what if the govt spread the money around equally? If govt funded the passenger RRs as well would we not have a better more useable rail system today?

#4 Our communities grew because of the availability of the automobile and roadways. If #2, and/or #3 were the case, our communites would have stayed more urban which supports rail right?

#5 Look at all that money that society has spent on the automobile industry and the roadways. We are talking trillions upon trillions of dollars North America wide since the 40s. If just half of that went to the passenger/commuter rail services I betcha our p/c rail services today would be more like what they have in Europe.

#6 Comparing with today we did not have the ‘service’ companies we have today. It is conceivable that today we could have a variety of rail service companies…trolley, light rail, subway, etc to serve urban-to-urban commutes, light rail, tram, Budd, to serve suburban-to-urban, and suburban-to-suburban commutes, and then of course full blown passenger rail for the longer haul commutes. If there can be a variety of models to get food services, home maintence services, automobile services, air travel services, etc, etc, then surely if we put our minds to it, we can have a variety of rail services too.

As a side note, From what I have read passenger rail service in Canada was profitable untill the advent of the automobile and highways.

Something to think about.

26

I’ll respond with my opinions:

#1. Certainly the market is larger. There are more NEC passengers now than ever in history. Penn Sta. NY and Union Sta Wash DC are capacity contrained right now. Some part of the US were the market was too small that lost passenger service on 5/1/71 are more viable today. Routes out of Atlanta are a good example. Metro Atlanta was less than 1M in 1971. It’s closing in on 4M today.

#2. What if Eleanor Roosevelt could fly? Roads were public since before beginning of the republic. There were some “turnpikes”, but road building was one of the 1st public works undertaken (National Road).

#3. Right now, Amtrak gets more subsidy per passenger mile than any other mode. I think what you’re talking about is if there had been public investment in rail on a par with highway and air over the past 50 years or so. I think that we’d have more corridors with rail service and more cities with commuter rail and transit, but we’d still be auto-centric.

#4 Land development tends to follow transportation infrastructure development. So, if you build transit instead of roads, you get higher density development along the transit line. If you build highways and no transit, you get sprawl. If you build both, you will get sprawl and an underutilized transit system.

#5 Sure, but we’d have voted the guys that tried to do it out of office in a heartbeat. Remember that the American Dream in post WWII America was all about the suburbs and cars - drive ins, drive thrus, etc. Trains were “yesteday’s news”.

#6 You can’t build successful transit to serve areas build up around highways. Too many O/D pairs. Population density is too low (partly because of all those parking lots and roads). You CAN build transit and then allow the land use to adapt to it. i.e. allow higher density/mixed use redevelopment along the routes.

A really good example of “if you build it, they will come” is Wash DC. Development

27

There were already population centers along 99 (Sacramento, Stockton, Fresno, Bakersfield, etc, as a result of SP building its line in the 1870’s). People go where the jobs are. Short of building a city from scratch along I-5 south of, say, Los Banos, there’s no reason for people to settle there. However, I-5 is heavily used as the primary route between the SF Bay Area and the L.A. Metro area. It’s the fastest way to get from the Bay Area to So. Cal. However, where I-5 served an already substantial population base, growth has occurred, especially in So. Cal.

Highway 99 parallels the UP (ex-SP) tracks between Bakersfield and Sacramento. As for any other interstate, check out where the population centers existed prior to interstate. Albuquerque, on I-40, was already an established town and has grown mightily. However, between Albuquerque and Barstow, there hasn’t been massive growth. Granted, there has been some, but not that much. Same thing applies between Albuquerque and Amarillo, Amarillo and OKC, etc.

On I-80 between Sacramento and Omaha, those towns that have grown substantially are those already have a substantial base on which to grow. Just building a highway (interstate or otherwise) through an unpopulated area won’t cause growth. Try driving US. 50 between Carson City, NV, and the connection with I-15 in Utah. There’s miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles. There’s no there there.

Andre

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We were once dependant on rail. We were a Nation that traveled on rail.

Airlines, Highways and other factors (psst… profits) Killed passenger service.

Sure we can run passenger trains on the NEC or in the DC subway and various other small-time commutes here and there but the dream of true Long Distance service coupled with Local service across the entire USA flickers dimly and sputters when blasted by the winds driven by people unwilling to get out of the personal car.

I see a great potential for “Born-again” passenger service nationwide at all levels. If the British and the Europeans (as well as China and Japan) can do it… why not us?

29

When considering this debate about heavy use it might be helpful to look at other industries and how the car is used.

Is air travel, from a business prespective, an example of heavy passenger useage? How many airlines have filed for brankruptcy?

How many car trips are of the “to the corner store and back” variety? Where commuter rail is in place is the ridership growing or decreasing?

If people paid the true cost of driving, including the current costs of getting oil to North America: the true environmental and health care costs of cars, then rail travel would be cost competitive.

30

Why do you think it would have been more preferable for NA society to be dependent on rail travel rather than being dependent on auto travel? We are a nation of individuals, and if you have to be dependent on something, it is better if that dependency is predicated on something that you can control individually rather than a dependency on something over which you have no individual control.

That being said, why should we assume that the auto vs train debate is mutually exclusive of each other? I think it is possible that NA society could have evolved into a society that owns 2 cars per household and uses rail for medium to long distance travel.

Look at the travel patterns between Alaska and the Lower 48. You can either drive the Alcan in your auto, or you can take the ferry out of the Puget Sound to an Alaskan port. I haven’t studied the comparative usage lately, but I believe auto travel to and from Alaska is relatively split between the Alcan and the ferries.

Now take that real world example and apply it to the nation’s rail grid. Take a situation where you will need your car in a travel situation to some distant part of the continent. Since it is cheaper to use your own vehicle as opposed to renting a car, you are now looking at options for getting your vehicle from home to the travel destination, so air travel is out. As an individual auto driver, would you prefer to drive from say Seattle to Minneapolis via I-90 or use some kind of surface ferry aka AutoTrain to get your vehicle there? Assume the time differential between driving or taking the train is not a factor. Unless you like to drive through miles and miles of Plains, I believe most people would prefer the train travel to highway travel.

What I am getting at is a parallel universe in which railroads developed AutoTrains back in the early 1900’s in response to the onset of individual car ownership, rather than maintaining the “people and bags” only attitude of passenger travel, an attitude

31

Yes and No.
Firstly the only reason European Rail is popular is because, Europe is small enough that each country could support its railroad, and freight rail isn’t as dominant as it is here. It does work in the US however. Look at Metra, MBTA, and all the other little communter services. But going from New York to LA is not as popular because people don’t travel back and fourth everyday to go to work (I hope) and Jets are just a more convenent method of long distance travel. However rail does work Linking Cities and Suburban areas within say 50 or even 100 miles of the destinations. So yes it could work here and it does in certain regions, and no it can’t work here for long distance rail. I think that Amtrak should be reduced to the NEC, and the West Coast operations (Amtrak California?). Inbetween there isn’t much else (Chicago-St.Louis-Kansas City line might work). Leave the long distance to airlines, and take up all the local communter revenue.

32

Some interesting thoughts here. I know in southern Ontario, there is the GO Transit and it is very popular.

http://www.gotransit.com/publicroot/home.asp

I rode it quite a few times a few years back, and man…why would you want to drive a car through all those cities? Sit back, open up the laptop computer, or book, don’t worry about road rage cause there is none.

Plus the GO system integrates with a few of the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) subway stations. While the subway does get crowded during rush hour, I think it is a fabulous way to commute. Plus there is VIA Rail and a couple other passenger rail system that integrate nicely into southern Ontario.

From all my experience in commuting, I wish what they have in Toronto was futher deployed throughout the country…but then again Southern Ontario does have the population to drive the business…but that’s not to say one of those Coldorado self-powered cars couldn’t be successful on some existing track.

33

I find it interesting that while you describe a great alternative transportation system around Toronto that should be able encourage everyoneto get out of their automobiles and onto public transportation it fails to do so.

The highways around Toronto are as clogged with people driving their cars back and forth to work as any other city in North America. Given the available alternative choices why do you think so many people still choose the auto over the train?

34

Ahh, but the loop continues. In todays cities, we are now facing an overcrowing issue, just like we were before the advent of the trolley. People can’t move around anymore, although now the overcrowing is due to cars instead of people. Now people are turning to trolleys and light rail to allieveate the congestion due to all the cars due to the fact that trolleys put the idea (and reality) in people’s heads that they could live outside the congested cities and commute in, which became even better with the advent of the ca

35

Sure if General Ike had not decided to build the interstate system & jets were not invented by the Germans most of us would still be riding on trains local or otherwise [:o)]

[quote]
Originally posted by CrazyDiamond
[

36

Question: How many of you would do your Christmas shopping using trolley/commuter rail systems? Kind of a hassle to carry extra baggage on such systems, isn’t it?

Auto - 1
Train - 0

Or you are in transit between home and work when you get a call on your cell from your elderly mother, who needs some maintenance ASAP for her AC. If you’re driving your own vehicle, you simply take the next exit and head to the rescue. If you’re stuck on the trolley, well, you’re stuck…

Auto - 2
Train - 0

Or you’re a soccer mom, taking one kid to practice, one to dance recital, and one to the doctor for a checkup…Need I say more?

Auto - 3
Train - 0

Or you are in transit when you spot an armoire at a yard sale that you know your wife will just love. Again, if you’re in your SUV, you stop and pick it up. If you’re on commuter rail…

Auto - 4
Train - 0

Okay, you all get the picture. There is an inherent flaw in mass transit systems for urban transportation, and that is the inability to make spontaneous and practical travel decisions on the fly. And that is part of the reason the US has such a higher standard of living than Europe, freedom to change course in midstream (and to do so multiple times) is part and parcel of our higher standard of living.

So, if I may, I will choose to split the question into two parts:

Could N American society have successfully evolved into heavy use of intercity passenger rail?

Yes, with the qualifications of (1) increased average speeds that exceed nominal highway speeds, and (2) adaptation to and development of an autotrain business at the advent of the personal automobile, rather than the exclusive attitude that actually prevailed and which marganilized rail’s usefulness to society.

Could N American society have successfully evolved into heavy use of mass transit systems?

No, no mat

37

[#ditto]A good two cents at that, or better yet a 2 cents that grew into a few dollars worth of logic. Dave I can’t say that I agree with you a lot of the time, but this time I do have to hand it to you. Well said!!! - Roy

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Holy cow! Who is using Dave’s computer today, and what have you done with futuremodal???[:o)]

39

I know Andrew, you are 100% right. Trust me it is an awesome system, but most people prefer to take their car and sit in traffic for hours. I know people that get up at 5 so they can get to work by 8, then when they leave at 4 they get home around 7 or later…make supper, eat, and then its off to bed to get a good night sleep cause they gotta get up at 5.

I don’t know why this is the case. For some people they simply cannot take mass transit cause it don’t go where they are going. For most of the rest I think it is a case of mistakingly thinking mass transit sucks. Maybe the mass transit people of southern Ontario should do a better job of marketing the benefits.

I will say one thing however. While I take the bus here in Halifax as often as I can, when I lived in Toronto I hated the bus. Frig those things were packed like sardines, and honestly…too many people smelt like sardines too! The subway/GO rail systems I enjoyed, but the buses I hated…I guess there was not enough buses running.

40

Our area has what I would call rudimentary public bus system that is well run.

I think one of the main sticking points is a car is waiting there for your use when you want it. With a bus, you have to adhere to the bus’ schedule. Another thing you have to plan for.