It should be noted that the article appears in the blog of a strongly protectionist organization headed by the controversial (look up Metzenbaum and Hollings for the backgound) former Sen Hollings.
I just picked one reference, but the point I made can stand without a reference. What sort of axe would M&H have to grind on this issue? The only other link I looked at said manufacturing might come back to the U.S. because they surveyed a selection of business executives who said they are considering moving manufacturing back to the U.S.
My personal experience is that the current economic downturn is far, far more of a drag on U.S. manufacturing than outsoucing ever was.
At this point, I don’t see any indication of a trend that will either reverse outsourcing or revive the economy. I am making lots of preparations in case it does come back, but I can’t wait forever.
Manufacturing coming back to the US? Well there’s a few things that could make it happen:
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Foreign workers getting tired of working for peanuts. It happens. In the past 20 years I’ve seen copier parts shift from Japan, to Malaysia, to Vietnam, to China, and now some are coming from Germany! All the way 'round the world. Wonder why?
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Declining quality of the outsourced products, and distance and language problems making them difficult to corrrect.
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And talking “real world” here, say the local politico’s demands for “baksheesh” (look it up) getting too exorbitant. It happens.
Could happen. Maybe.
Sorry, I have time for only a short reply here on a topic close to me, too, and without reading other posters’ replies carefully yet. I’d ask, “But has public transportation actually failed?” If we look at recent, nationwide ridership figures, the answer is “hardly!” A glance at the Trains Magazine online Newswire stories and other media sources confirms that. What has failed is our political will to recognize the vital importance of public transportation, to realize that it is not only a public good but a central cog in the economy, and to find ways to support it adequately. Out of money? No, it’s a question of priorities, I’d say. Sure, there are some tough issues to be addressed, e.g., pension legacy costs that have gone out of control, as another poster said. But just watch what happens, sadly, in cities such as Pittsburgh as we face another round of service cuts, on top of even more fare increases. Downtown Pittsburgh is a major employment center and an amazing 50% of workers there reach their jobs daily via public transit. As chaos ensues from travel disruptions, overcrowded streets and lack of (expensive!) parking, people will see just how foolishly hard-headed and blind our political leaders are. Maybe people will then wake up and demand that sensible transit priorities be set. We’ll see. Privatization?? When Pgh Port Authority had to pull the plug on one of its suburban-to-downtown lines, a private company, chomping at the bit, immediately ran the route at a considerable fare increase. Their business slumped immediately. The transit situation ahead won’t be pleasant, even as demand continues to increase. But it might cause a public awakening from our strange political stupor.
You conflate the service economy with the information economy. In the service economy as a whole, much of the growth is projected for health care for aging baby boomers. Hands-on care (think everything from physical therapy to changing adult diapers) can’t be provided over the Internet.
In the information economy, routine work can indeed be done over the Internet, often over an ocean. But even there, some pretty significant employers (think Google, Apple, Facebook, Twitter) who have generous telecommuting policies still have large campuses with employees on site. Notably, some of them even provide “private transit”: company-operated bus systems to bring employees to and from campus so the employees can spend their valuable time doing something useful while the bus driver battles Silicon Valley traffic congestion. That such congestion persists even in our capital of high tech suggests that telecommuting isn’t solving the commuting problem.
A single person’s experience is worth only so much, but from my work in the software industry:
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Some managers still don’t want you to telecommute, period.
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Many others want you to spend a minimum amount o
Hi. I’m a bit late to this discussion, and much already has been opined, so I will try to avoid repeating or taking difference with things already said. As a retired public transit executive and having served in several systems from the 1970’s to mid-2008, I have seen a number of factors that have kept public transit from even greater successes than it has enjoyed.
Funding - Public support for transit has been neither universal nor anything close to permanent. Some places get support from local taxes, while others do not. Where there is local support, it sometimes can be coupled with state and/or federal support. Without local support and/or defined state support, it becomes difficult to compete for federal support which largely has become competitive in nature. If you are in a region with multiple/overlapping public transit operations, there likely is another regional system of funding management and competition. While everyone strives for cooperation and coordination, there also is politics (all of which is local) which creates for sometimes fierce competition for limited funding resources.
This may be a very simple summary of a very complex funding system, but there definitely is a political pecking order and fierce lobbying that goes all the way to the halls of Congress. This is reality, and when coupled with uncertainty of ongoing funding levels at all levels, it may severely stretch out even the greatest of plans, or derail them altogether. Based on the professed needs from across the states and the nation, there has not been and (in the current economy) likely never will be the levels of funding to take public transit to the levels dreamed by its most ardent fans.
Whose Responsibility - This age-old question has had neither a final nor fully agreed upon answer. In the 1970’s and into the 1908’s, there was a bountiful level of funding from the federal level, including predictable lev
Thanks, Firelock, for the information. Like Daffy Duck I find the NIMBY’s baffling. As you well know Bergen County already has the Pascack Valley Line, the Bergen County Line and the Main Line and they are quite popular with people who live along them. Perhaps the biggest reason is that they tend to push up property values. Anyone who doubts this needs only to read “The Record’s” real estate ads and note how many of them say “walk to train.” But of course you need to deal with the reality of NIMBYism. I hope that you will persevere and opponents will come to their senses.
For about 20 years I lived in Waldwick and rode the train to Hoboken. My home and job were both within walking distance of the train. In the morning I had my coffee and a newspaper; in the evening a book and occasionally a beer with a friend. People who have never done this don’t know what they are missing.
John - Welcome to trains.com! [4:-)]
I agree with Al’s Cajon Pass & Beyond MRR’s posting regarding the challenges facing public transit in the United States. It is a well thought out response.
I have ridden public transit most of my life. I used it extensively in New York City, Hartford, Connecticut, Dallas, Texas, Melbourne Australia, and Washington, D.C. I still use it to get to and from the University of Texas in Austin where I am a continuing education student.
In addition to being a user, I was a citizen advisor to the Dallas Transit System and an active participant in the referendum campaign that helped bring about Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART).
The biggest challenge faced by public transit (past, present, and future) is the automobile. It is convenient, dependable, and comfortable. It is the mode of transport favored by most Americans, who can afford it, for commuting, trips to the shopping center, entertainment outings, and family vacations.
We can bemoan unfair subsidies for the car, conspiracies real and imagined to do in public transit, lack of public funding, etc. until the cows come home, but Americans are not going to give up their cars. To think otherwise is unrealistic.
Some people appear to believe that the government should force people out of their cars. I disagree. In a democracy the majority of the people should decide what they want. Not some politician or government bureaucrat in Washington or the state capital. Having said that, it is equally important that the pricing mechanism for all modes of transport reflect their true cost at the purchase point, i.e. ticket counter, pump, etc. Unfortunately, under the current arrangements, tracing all of the subsidies and cross subsidies for each mode of transport is nearly impossible. And I am speaking as an accountant and former auditor with heaps of experience who has given it a go. It is a maddening exercise. Accordingly, most people have no idea how much their chosen mode of transport truly costs.
If mot
To John WR: Thanks for the kind words, but full disclosure here, so no-one gets the wrong idea. I grew up in Bergen County NJ, specifically Paramus, but live in the Richmond Va. area now, the wife and I bailed out of Jersey almost 25 years ago. I read the NJ papers on line, the " Record" (North Jersey.com) and the " Star Ledger" (NJ.com) because I am curious as to what’s going on up there. Don’t know why I still care but I do. At any rate those are two outstanding websites to begin with. And I AM a fan of Northeastern railroading, especially the Jersey 'roads.
Anyway, if I can’t imagine why anyone living in North Jersey and who works in “The City” or its immediate enviorns WOULDN’T want commuter rail. I can’t imagine driving into NYC every day, what a nightmare!
Al’s Cajon Pass…, I, for one, welcome your comments here. We need people like you and sam1 to keep us in touch with reality now and then.
In response to the funding problem, I’ll repeat that I think there is a short-sighted attitude of “If it doesn’t benefit me directly, I’m against it.” The way I see it, subsidized public transit will get many vehicles off the roads, saving money that would go into constantly widening roads and adding more soaring “spaghetti interchanges.” It might also help get many drivers off the roads that shouldn’t be driving. One common scenario with someone with multiple traffic citations that has had his license suspended is to tell the judge that he needs to drive to get to work, so he gets a permit to drive, or he just goes ahead and drives anyway. With good public transit, this argument loses a lot of weight.
To add to sam1’s comment about the cost of driving, maintaining a car is a tremendous burden to poorer people. One big problem here is insurance. A significant part of our premium is for protection from “uninsured drivers.” The law requires that all drivers have insurance , but there has been a problem enforcing it, and there are quite a few drivers without it. For many it’s a big burden, so they just go without it.
“If motorists saw the true cost of driving at the price point, i.e. the real cost of fuel, federal highways, state highways, county roads, local streets, traffic law enforcement, accident investigations, etc., many of the middle class may be more inclined to support and use public transit.”
I think you are right on target with this comment, Sam. Until recently I commuted by local bus first to downtown Trenton, NJ and then after I moved to downtown Newark. Bus fare was $4.70 a day. Parking alone if you were willing to park a long way off was $5 and for a close by parking garage $10. Yet almost all of my fellow workers preferred to drive, pay for parking and extra insurance, gas, repairs and often even a car payment. Yes, the bus is slower. But you can read on the bus and even plan your day. And you have to wind up saving at least $300 a month. Think of what that will amount to over 20 years in an IRA. Interestingly, my colleagues with the lowest salaries all drove cars. The few who did use public transit all earned more than the lowest salaries, usually significantly more. Clearly, many people who drive are not acting in their own economic self interest. I wish I knew how I could get them to.
You may not need public transportation now, but, the elderly will benefit. Most of us will get old.
Proposed $14 to cross the Hudson on Van WInkle and GWashington bridges…while that is one way, it only collected when outbound,but 7 bucks a swim makes NJT tickets a super bargain if only because you don’t have to swim.
I live in a suburb with all ranges of income from pure poverty to millionaires, and the public light rail in my city is so popular the transit agency has had to expand parking and otherwise find ways to accommodate all the riders. If you want to ride the train downtown (about 1 hour by train, 45 minutes by car during rush hour) better be at the first or second station bright and early or count on standing all the way. And yes, the majority of those riders are wearing suits.
It’s so successful because the transit agency took the time to find out who wanted to ride the trains and where they wanted to go before they broke ground on the first line. Cities opted in or out of supporting the transit system (includes buses and on-demand van rides as well as light-rail) by deciding whether or not to implement an incremental sales tax on top of the statewide base sales tax. Some cities were short-sighted and saw the buses bypass them for years. Now if they want to get in on the action they must come up with millions of dollars to make up what they would have contributed, and are doing so willingly because they’ve seen the light.
Meanwhile, one major artery between downtown and my suburb was completely rebuilt to bring it from its 1940’s design into the 21st century, and of course it’s still jammed at rush hour. Another, the major beltway around the city, is undergoing a similar massive revamping to accommodate (or try to, anyway) all the traffict it handles now and is expected to have not too far into the future. It includes managed toll lanes, where the toll changes according to time of day and demand. Parallel lanes will be free for those who choose more congestion over paying tolls.
OntheBNSF cites L.A. as a typical city, which in my opinion couldn’t be further from the truth. The politics of L.A., not to mention the California attitude make greater L.A. a huge aberrations from most large U.S. cities. Nowhere in Dallas su
15 years ago, public transportatoin in LA meant ride the bus along streets shared by all other traffic. Today, effectively, much of the old Pacific Electric infrastructure has been put back in place, with commuter rail, lots of light rail, and one heavy subway line, and a northern bus-exclusive way. Others can tell me if this has made a difference! I should think it has.
I’m from Brisbane Australia and our region has a (semi) intergrated public transport system operated by a mixture of state government heavy rail, local government buses and private company buses, all operating under contract to the state government. The system is known as Translink (http://translink.com.au/about-translink/our-service-area) and has a swipe card system that is recognised on all vehicles in the network. Patronage has improved substantially in the past 10 years since inception.
The network covers a distance of some 200km, serves an area with in excess of 2 million people and does rely on significant government funding. In is possible to do a trip from one end of the system to the other in a day - the cost would be AUD 24.22 by swipe (Gocard), $35.00 on a “paper ticket”, involve 3 trains and one bus and take over 5 hours
ontheBNSF,
If you’re not familiar with it, you may want to look into the book, THE POWER BROKER, ROBERT MOSES AND THE FALL OF NEW YORK. It’s a long book, over 1,000 pages, very well written. Here’s a comment about it…
“This book isn’t just for New Yorkers or for those who wonder why New York’s roadways are so confusingly laid out. America’s other big cities are New York writ small–they went to New York at the height of Moses’ power and emulated his methods! That helps us understand the mania for building our now hopelessly overcrowded expressways and devaluing public transportation, whose lack we are just now trying to address by building expensive light-rail and commuter-train systems that should have been in place for decades.”
**Al and Sam1…**both of you are big pluses in this department, great expositions on the funding issue.
Here in the province of Ontario we have a program that offers a dollar for dollar match for urban transit. This gives us an additional pool of dollars to use in expanding service to outlying subdivisions and communities. Recently, the LTC…London Transit Commission has had to increase cash fares by upwards of 10% …first increase we had in several years.
Toronto has a great service, covering everything from buses to light rail/subways through the TTC as well as GO Transit…which is going to be expanded …
Hey everyone! Remember a few months ago I spoke about the flap in New Jersey concerning the proposed rehabilitation of CSX’s Northern Branch into a light rail commuter line? How everyone was for it except the NIMBYs in the town of Tenafly? Well, here’s a new wrinkle: It seems the towns north of Tenafly are VERY interested in light rail. NJ Transit’s a bit surprised, they didn’t plan on this.
If anyones interested you can find the story on www.northjersey.com. Select “Towns”, then “Tenafly”, and you’ll find the story. Very interesting development.
Mind you, this is a democracy, not a dictatorship, and I don’t believe in shoving things down peoples throats they don’t want, but it seems the NIMBYs have some serious thinking to do.