From MinnPost: All aboard! Northstar glides into the sunrise
Northstar opened today - the Twin Cities can check one more urban gadget off the list, we now have (technologically incompatible) commuter rail and light rail. Take that cities with only one rail mode.
From NYTBuffett's Bet on Trains
Warren Buffett is betting big on railroads. He started buying Burlington Northern Santa Fe in 2006 and then made investments in Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern. On Tuesday, his company, Berkshire Hathaway, announced the purchase of the 77 percent of Burlington Northern it didn't already own for about $44 billion (along with the assumption of $10 billion in debt). It is Berkshire's largest acquisition.It has been a long time since railroads were central to America's booms, bubbles and busts. What does Mr. Buffett's investment in trains say about prospects for the economy? How can his role be put in historical perspective?
Nice discussion ensues.
Via EP: Amtrak says 3C passenger plan to cost $500 million to get under way in the Plain Dealer.
Passenger train service between Cleveland and Cincinnati would carry nearly half a million passengers a year, but cost more than $500 million to get under way, according to a study released Tuesday by Amtrak.
Or in other words $1000 per annual passenger (divide by number of years to spread the total cost over all users) to get under way, without considering operating costs. Let's say 10 years, so $100 per passenger (ignoring discounting).
But a one-way ticket from Cleveland to Cincinnati would cost $25.50 at the Amtrak average of 10 cents per mile, said Ken Prendergast, executive director of All Aboard Ohio, a nonprofit agency that promotes rail travel.
So it won't cover costs, how disappointing.
Varner said ODOT is studying ways to find more funds for bus service. But the state has to invest in all modes of transportation. The Amtrak report shows Ohioans support passenger rail and nearly 6 million people live within 15 miles of the 3C route, he said."What we are seeing is the pent-up demand," he said.
Sure, Ohioans support the rest of the country paying for their service at a subsidy exceeding $75 per trip, why wouldn't they? And of those 6 million people near the route, only 500K per year are going to use, or one trip per person every 12 years.
But, wait, there is the economic development potential, according to this article: Passenger rail service brought $7B in investments, jobs, developer says in the Dayton Daily news.
Now I am convinced. Rail magically turns $100M to $7B, what a great investment.
Women only trains in India to reduce sexual harassment. From NYT: On India's Railways, Women Find New Peace in Commute
I was interviewed by Ina Jaffe for the NPR story: California Edges Ahead In High-Speed-Train 'Race' Of course a half-hour interview by Ina Jaffe was distilled into 2 soundbytes.
The story is fascinating ... not enough demand for air travel therefore we need HSR.
It is followed by an interview with Eric Morris. I am pleased to be no longer the only official California HSR skeptic.
Peter Gordon on HSR: < a href="http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~pgordon/blog/2009/08/how-to-make-lot-of-money.html">How to make a lot of money
"Official 2030 ridership projections are higher than for comaparable systems in Europe and Japan. When airline competition for the LA-SF run heats up, these fares have been known to plummet.The Simon-Ehrlich wager is well known. Is there anyone out there willing to bet real money on these HSR ridership foreacasts? How about the forecast's authors?"
This suggests just what we need to ensure more accurate forecasts, payments for forecasts proportional to their accuracy. Forecasters would get paid more if their forecasts were more accurate, less if they lied. The problem is that the forecasters in transportation are looking ahead so far in time, the NPV of the difference may be too small to matter.
Tyler Cowen from the blog Marginal Revolution discusses A cost-benefit analysis of high-speed rail, following up on the critique of Glaeser by Avent and Freemark and others.
... "I'm not sure what discount rates he is using but even if we put that problem aside this screams out: don't do it. Given irreversible investment, lock-in effects, and required hurdle rates of return, this still falls into the "no" category. And that's an estimate from an advocate writing a polemic on behalf of the idea. I'm not even considering the likelihood of inflation on the cost side or the public choice problems with getting a good rather than a bad version of the project. How well has the Northeast corridor been run? "
Interesting discussion of HSR in The Transport Politic discussing my interview posted yesterday.
But Mr. Levinson fails to address the fact that investment is needed in both intercity and intracity corridors. Claiming that we should not fund high-speed rail because urban transit is more important is equivalent to saying that federal subsidies to air travel and non-urban highways should simply end, because metropolitan areas need more investment and travel between cities is less important.
Perhaps such subsidies should end. I am not going to be a modalist and support subsidies for mode A because mode B gets them, or even suggest any mode should get subsidies (unless a good economic rationale justifies it). Transportation, especially intercity transportation, is an economic activity foremost that should justify itself on economic grounds. There are of course social aspects to this as well, but going down that path to justify multi-billion dollar systems is indeed a slippery slope.
An argument could be made about strengthening intercity linkages to refashion the current metropolitan system into a megalopolitan system, where people more regularly interact between cities. (Switzerland writ large). If the division of labor is limited by the extent of the market, and transportation can be used to expand the market, the division of labor can therefore increase (i.e. be more specialized), which should have some positive effects for the economy (akin to agglomeration economies). The magnitude of this is uncertain (and certainly location-specific), but I think presents the best case that can be made in favor of HSR in the US.
That said, remember that real HSR (not the short term improvements to get to 90 or 110 MPH, which may or may not be a good thing, but is certainly not HSR) is a long term deployment, so it needs to be compared with cars 10 or 20 or 30 years hence, and the air transportation system over the same period. Cars are getting better from both an environmental perspective and from the perspective of automation technologies. The DARPA Urban Challenge vehicles need to be bested to justify HSR. Cars driven by computers should be able to attain relatively high speeds (though certainly not HSR speeds). Further they may move less material per passenger than HSR (trains are heavy), and so may have net less environmental impact. This really waits to be seen.
The table that Mr. Freemark assembled (link above) is interesting and is a useful way to arrange a comparison (user time, negative externalities) being two of the major considerations. Operating costs and capital costs would be good to include as well. But the table is a bit harsh on aviation. Convenience is in how the system operates, and while the security theater we face now, especially in older large airports, is a disaster, it is not necessarily what we will face 20 years from now. Airports will be closer for many people (especially in multiple airport cities like SF, LA, DC, NY) than downtown train stations, though certainly not for all.
Our "classic" 1996 study on High Speed Rail is cited in Maybe Pigs Can Fly by Richard K. Green in Wall Street Pit.
"A couple of other points. I have yet to meet a transportation economist (and I talk to a fair number) who is thrilled by high-speed rail as a technology. John Kain was among the most rigorous and influential transportation economist of the past 50 years, and he was very skeptical about rail. I also think that we yet again have evidence that we don't come even close to internalizing the social costs of automobiles, but I see no political will for really reducing our dependence on the auto, in part because most people love their cars (this is hardly unique to America). High speed rail also seems to me to be a way to redistribute income from lower income Americans to higher income Americans, because lower-income Americans will choose Southwest Airlines (which will be cheaper) when they need to travel from one city to another."
I am quoted in State Seeks Stimulus Funds To Study High-Speed Rail by Jamie Walden. The State in question is Arkansas. The route is Little Rock to Texarkana (ultimately to Dallas).
Flowers said the applications for a cut of the $8 billion allocated to a high-speed rail system by the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009 were due Monday. The government received applications for grants totaling more than $102 billion, he said.
The land rush is on, get your HSR application in the queue.
From the BBC New UK high-speed rail plan unveiled
The line would serve Birmingham and Manchester, getting passengers from Glasgow to London in just two hours and 16 minutes, the rail firm said. It rejected several alternative routes, including the east of England.
Judging from the map (linked below), the architecture of the line is clearly to feed London, all of the ancillary cities are as if on a tree with the xylem and phloem oriented to London, it would not be terribly good for say Manchester to Edinburgh or Manchester to Birmingham.
"The firm said that the line would account for 43.7 million journeys per year by 2030, which would result in 3.8 million fewer vehicle journeys and fewer carbon dioxide emissions.".In other words, more 90% of the trips are switching from rail or air to HSR. Providing better rail service to existing rail passengers is a good thing, but CO2 is hardly a rationale (as more CO2 has to be used going faster than going slower if the electricity is from the same place ... diesel to electric conversion is a separate matter).
Finally, the cost is esimated at $55B for 1500 miles of rail (presumably including triple or quadruple tracking in some sections. Planning will take 5 more years. It is hoped by the promoters the first section (London to Birmingham) will open in 2020. Speeds will max at 200 mph.
Also see: London to Glasgow in five minutes, a video showing the West Coast Main Line (which this proposal seems to duplicate) and was recently modernized for 9 billion pounds.
I have been interviewed (by email) by the Russian business magazine Sekret Firmy -- which translates, not to Secret Firm, as you might think, but to Secrets of Business, which is a bit less spy-like. Since I don't speak Russian, the questions were in English. I assume the author will translate. Below is the English interview. The interview questions are numbered (asked by reporter Dmitry Chernikov), my answers indented below.
1) Do you believe that high-speed rail (HSR) network is an effective way to solve world transportation problems - reduce CO2 emissions, reduce travel time and costs? Why?
Not in general. HSR serves intercity travel markets, most transportation problems in the developed world occur within cities, which HSR does not directly address. Resources spent on HSR cannot be spent on local transportation problems. Assuming the HSR system uses electricity, its pollution depends on what the electric generators are using, which may or may not be clean. HSR using dirty coal may be no better, and perhaps worse than modern hybrid-electric cars, it just depends on the case. HSR may reduce travel time in certain corridors. After accounting for capital costs of construction, it is rare that HSR will reduce costs.
2) What do you think about lifestyle changes surrounding HSR? Some experts think that road-based transportation infrastructure promotes sprawling, low density, segregated land uses and large houses that use more energy per capita. And HSR infrastructure presents quite the opposite?
People seldom choose locations based on their intercity transportation access, which most people use infrequently, rather they will locate in relation to the activities (especially jobs) that they pursue daily. Whether that is road-based or rail-based depends on the local configuration of the network, not its intercity access. To the extent HSR gets used on a daily basis, by making remote areas more accessible than they were previously, encourages development on previously undeveloped land.
3) Is HSR a competitor to air industry?
Yes, in heavily used linear corridors (e.g. Tokyo - Osaka, New York - Washington) at the right distance, HSR can out-compete Air in terms of point-to-point travel times after accounting for access times and delay. There are limited number of corridors where HSR will provide more cost-effective service than Air, typically in higher density regions.
4) If HSR isn't good or sufficient way to change the current situation, what can be alternative?
It depends on what the problem is. Is it congestion, environmental impacts, lack of access, crumbling infrastructure ... ? Most transportation problems are urban, and HSR does not help much, aside from making some remote areas part of the urban region. For intercity passenger travel, in certain corridors HSR makes sense, but in others bus, air, or even auto are more cost effective.
5) Are there good examples of solving traffic problems, that can be the images of the future transportation system?
In terms of urban congestion, road pricing promises to be successful, examples include the congestion charge in London, Stockholm, and Singapore. This faces some political resistance, but will ultimately be adopted if people are serious about raising funds and managing congestion. In terms of pollution, a shift of the vehicle fleet first to hybrid (such as the Toyota Prius) and then electric vehicles will help shift the pollution problem back to power plants, which are more easily regulated. In terms of access, that can be facilitated by good land use planning and charging development the full cost for the public services they demand (water, sewer, local roads).
Follow-up Questions:
6) So, if I get your message correct, there is no big change in future in intercity transportation, just because there is no need for that. But the urban transportation does need changes. At the same time, it seems to be not realistic that government will practice road pricing, cause so many people will be against that step. And electric vehicles are still so unpopular among drivers. What do you think about perspective of real reforms in urban traffic?
I am not saying people won't build HSR, just that it is not the best way to spend scarce resources. Electric vehicles, espeically hybrids are gaining in popularity, I would bet within 10 years, more than half of all new cars sold in the US will be hybrid electric or electric. Pricing will be more difficult, but in the US, something will have to replace the gas tax once the fleet shifts to electric, as the gas tax is the primary source of road funding in the US (this is not generally true worldwide I don't think). What other types of real reforms are you thinking of, certainly some lanes can be designated to be bus-only, and areas of cities can become car-free, but those are relatively marginal shifts for western cities.
7) "areas of cities can become car-free, but those are relatively marginal shifts for western cities" - you mean car-free areas will be only in western cities (and that's why marginal) or car-free zone will play marginal role in the western cities?
The latter, there may of course be car free zone in non-western cities as well, but in western cities they will be marginal because most areas will still have access by auto.
From ReadWriteWeb NY Transportation Authority Cites Schedules as Copyrighted Material
The NY MTA is trying to take-down an iPhone application that delivers train schedules. Another example of appalling over-reach on copyright. Presumably they will lose if this goes to court, buy why do they even bother?
All transit schedules (and traffic counts, and traffic signal timings, and any other transportation data you can imagine) should be free, open, and in a standard, documented, machine-readable format.
Two more mentions in the NY Times economic blogosphere:
From Strib 1 critically hurt in LRT crash Coverage here as well.
"In the five years of the Hiawatha light-rail line, five people have died in crashes, with none of the deaths on a train.The only one to involve a car was in September 2004, when an 87-year-old man who drove under the crossing arms at E. 42nd Street died after his sedan was struck by a train.
The most recent was in November 2007, when a man on foot was hit and killed at the 46th Street station.
That time without a death "shows that people are becoming more accustomed to coexisting with the light-rail line," Gibbons said.
In 2007, the most recent year with available information, the Hiawatha line reported 52 accidents per 10 million miles traveled. Nationally, 149 accidents were reported for every 10 million miles traveled."
It should be noted buses seem to have fewer fatal crashes. Buses serve about 8 times as many passenger trips than LRT in the Twin Cities (64 million vs. 8 million according to Metro Transit. This snippet appeared earlier in the year:
Metro Transit bus hits, kills woman in Minneapolis Woman hit, killed by Metro Transit bus.Last update: February 25, 2009 - 11:01 PM
A Metro Transit bus struck and killed a pedestrian Wednesday night in Minneapolis, and the driver was unaware of the accident until the bus was a mile away, authorities said.The unidentified woman was struck and killed at 46th Street and Minnehaha Avenue about 6:35 p.m., a witness told Minneapolis police.
Transit authorities were notified and determined that the most likely bus involved was one on northbound Route 24.
The driver was notified and stopped 20 minutes later about a mile away at 42nd Avenue and 35th Street, said MTC spokesman Bob Gibbons.
Gibbons said the driver, who was placed on paid administrative leave pending standard drug and alcohol testing, was unaware that the bus had hit anyone. A lone passenger on the bus backed up the driver's account, Gibbons said.
An autopsy is being performed by the Hennepin County medical examiner.
The accident was the third pedestrian fatality involving a bus in the past nine years. Gibbons said the last such incident was in October 2006. Before that, the last one was in January 2000.
HERÓN MÁRQUEZ ESTRADA
In the Economix blog of the NY Times Edward Glaeser on High Speed Rail
Freakonomics Blog (NY Times) on High-Speed Rail and CO2
The Transportationist blog is referenced.
In the Telegraph (via Slashdot) Workers have daily smile scans
" ... The "smile scan" software, developed by the Japanese company Omron, produces a sweeping analysis of a smile based on facial characteristics, from lip curves and eye movements to wrinkles. After scanning a face, the device produces a rating between zero to 100 depending on the estimated value of the fulfilled potential of a person's biggest smile. For those with a below-par grin, one of an array of smile-boosting messages will op up on the computer screen ranging from "you still look too serious" to "lift up your mouth corners", according to the Mainichi Daily News. " ...
Just creepy. Will we have "smile fatigue" with all of these forced smiles from railway (and presumably other service employees)? Will a smile arms race emerge, with mouths curved more and more until people's face explode? It reminds of Sue Ann Niven (Betty White) from the Mary Tyler Moore show, who had such a forced smile her faced got locked into that position.
Several documents on a proposed HSR line in England have recently been released after a Freedom of Information Act Request. Links to these are below:
"Estimated Carbon Impact of a New North-South Line" (pdf)
1.20 (p.6) The London to Manchester base scenario results indicate that none of the rail options under consideration achieve emissions parity, even at 100% rail share. In other words if a new line is constructed and operated on this route, regardless of the rail technology employed, the amount of emissions generated would not reduce to the level emitted in the do-nothing scenario. Therefore, based on the assumptions applied, there is no potential carbon benefit in building a new line on the London to Manchester route over the 60 year appraisal period. In essence, the additional carbon emitted by building and operating a new rail route is larger than the entire quantity of carbon emitted by the air services.1.21 Figure 1.3 illustrates the key findings for the London to Glasgow/Edinburgh route
for the base scenario. The results are substantially different than those for the
London to Manchester route, showing how emissions parity can be achieved for all
rail options, at increasing levels of rail share.
DfT New Line Capacity
Study – cost estimate
This document is redacted, i.e. key numbers are missing, because "The release of this information has the potential for disproportionate and unwarranted adverse impact on property values which may result from publication (generalised blight)." but for the HSR analyst, there is still lots of good comparable information on other systems.
The reports were prepared by Booz, Allen, and Hamilton consultants.
From The Economist ... The progress of high-speed rail | Slower than a speeding bullet
Brian Taylor of UCLA gets quoted. "Brian Taylor, a transport expert at the University of California, Los Angeles, worries that the “coolness factor” of high-speed rail can tempt planners to look for a place to lay track, rather than for problems that fast trains might solve. "
I am quoted in a nice article by Jessica Bernstein-Wax in the San Jose Mercury News: High-speed rail around the world -
But Dr. David Levinson, a civil engineering professor at the University of Minnesota who has studied high-speed trains, questioned whether California is the ideal place for the technology, given its mountainous terrain and a population density that is low compared with parts of the Northeast and certainly most Asian cities. "It's not the worst corridor in the U.S. — I can think of a lot of corridors that are sillier," Levinson said. "In terms of demand, it's not a terrible market. But in terms of cost it's much higher, and that's because of the mountains." Levinson predicted that the project, if completed, would balloon to at least $80 billion, particularly if the trains run underground on the Peninsula. "The people in the cities throughout the Peninsula are not going to want elevated trains going through their towns, and they're going to have to build tunnels," Levinson said. "That's going to drive up the costs."
It is part of special report on High-Speed Rail.
Civil liberties intersect rail.
From Carlos Miller (via Slashdot) Amtrak photo contestant arrested by Amtrak police in NYC’s Penn Station
duane p. kerzic documents his arrest and shows the photos that got him arrested and argues his case: Amtrak Police Harassment Of Duane Kerzic For Photography In Pennsylvania Station New York On December 21, 2008
Via a Transport of Delight, from BBC: London to Glasgow in five minutes
The UK's new higher speed train service ...
A potential relief of a rail bottleneck in Chicago, as the CN takes over the shortline EJ&E which runs through Chicago's suburbs, from WSJ:
Deal for Chicago Rail Line Approved
Background: Routing the Rails Through the Suburbs
Mother Jones is historically known as a left-leaning journal. Kevin Drum writing for Mother Jones comes out against California HSR Proposition 1A: More on Prop 1A
James Lileks (a humorist): How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Light Rail
"Now, to repeat the point often made here, with tiresome regularity: what’s the matter with better buses? Seriously: If we’d kept the old streetcar system, maintained all the cars and updated them with A/C and comfy seats, our system would be renowned nationwide as a model for all. If we’d converted the trolleys to diesel, taken down the unsightly wires but kept the old cars looking exactly as they did in their glory days, it would still be revered as a model of inter-urban mass transit, because it ran on rails. Is that all it takes? Rails? Do they impart some particular magic?"
Reason Foundation has completed a study of the proposed California High Speed Rail line. The net: it is an unwise investment. Links below:
* Full Study: The California High Speed Rail Proposal: A Due Diligence Report (.pdf)
* Brief: High-Speed Rail Plan Is A Financial Boondoggle
* Brief: Marginal Impact on Greenhouse Gas Emissions
California High Speed Rail Blog: Taking the Coast Route purports to discuss The Transportation Experience.
It might be worth reading the book The Transportation Experience to see what Garrison and Levinson (i.e. me) actually think.
(And in contrast to the blog-author's assertion, both gas prices and global warming are addressed as issues, with possible solutions considered).
HSR rail is ultimately gussied up rail technology, which has its niche in high density areas with available Right-of-Way (and no intervening mountain ranges). The book, and another book by Garrison, do describe other technologies that hold some promise, but this book is primarily about understanding the historical process of transportation development, and why it creates the problems we have.
The blog author here is clearly imposing his imagined assumption of conventional opposition onto Prof. Garrison, who is a very out-of-the-box thinker, who does not fall into the traps that swallow either of the ends on the conventional axis (pro-auto, pro-rail) .
There are several other issues here
Certainly $4/gallon gas is more expensive than $3/gallon gas, but we are not talking about a project (California HSR) that is even marginally cost-effective.
The cost (and energy used) in construction will be enormous.
The rail, as all transportation projects, will promote sprawled development in the Central Valley which will now be in commuting range of the Bay Area or metropolitan LA.
The question is not whether this is a project which is beneficial (which it is not), but whether it is the best use of scarce funds (which it most certainly is not). If you had $40 Billion to spend on transportation in California, what would you do, what would serve the most people the best.
Granted air travel is not terribly convenient, but once the same security apparatus is imposed on HSR (and it will be), HSR will not be the simple urban transit-like (or even Amtrak-like) experience fans would wish for.
From AP Bridge failure a possible cause in Houston County train derailment
Brownsville, Minn. (AP) — A train derailment in southeastern Minnesota near Reno could be related to the failure of a wooden railroad bridge.
Department of Public Safety spokesman Doug Neville says it's not clear if the privately owned bridge collapsed under the train, or if derailed cars took it out.
The derailed train is owned by the Iowa, Chicago & Eastern Railroad, but it's also unclear if that railroad also owns the bridge.
I have drafted a Memo to the Next President of the United States on Transportation Policy.
The memo outlines ten visions, which are summarized here, for fuller discussion, see the full memo:
Full memo after the jump
Continue reading "Memo to the Next President of the United States on Transportation Policy" »
In today's Fresno Bee: House bill could breathe life into California high-speed rail I get quoted about high-speed rail. (I also got demoted).
From the Beeb: Germany to build maglev railway
"The 1.85bn-euro ($2.6bn; £1.3bn) project had faced financing problems.
However, the Bavarian state government said it had signed an agreement with rail operator Deutsche Bahn and industrial consortium Transrapid that includes the developers of the train - Siemens and ThyssenKrupp."
Well if someone had to do it, I am glad it isn't us. I suspect this is another in a long line of transportation white elephants. Part of a successful investment strategy is not only picking winners but culling losers. $2.6B for an airport access link that will shave a few minutes off the line haul time to downtown (and only downtown) hardly seems the best of investments.
Did UK's rail "privatisation" work. Two posts debate the issue:
(1) Globalisation Institute - The reality of rail privatisation in the UK
vs.
(2) Transport Blog: Alex Singleton. Communist.
The problem with vertical separation is the tight integration between trains and track (unlike the loose integration between lorries and motorways). For trains, the intelligence is in the track, separating them is much more difficult than in other transport. We would not think of taking elevators and elevator shafts under separate management.
On a side note: The British seem far more willing to throw around terms like "communist" than in the US, where "liberal" is much plausibly damning (and calling someone a communist is beyond The Pale).
I come home to London from WCTR to car bombs and people driving into airports (shall we now inspect all cars driving into airports ... and then the security line becomes the target, secure areas always have insecure areas outside boundaries and entrances).
Fortunately, this particular cell were not a particularly competent terrorists, so I will refer to them as goofballs. I have yet to see whether they were competent doctors? One hopes the goofballs healed better than they attempted to inflict harm.
Later in the week, a train derails:
Metronet warned in May over derailment danger. A number of passengers had panic attacks, thinking it was another terrorist attack, coming almost 2 years after 7.7 and days after the Piccadilly smoking car.
The greater harm done by terrorists (even the goofballs) is not the physical damage, but the terror (which gives this -ism its name), and people living in terror. This culture of fear is amplified by news and free flow of information.
The book Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz talks about the curse of abundance, we have too many options and by extension too much information. This repudiates the economists argument of "non-satiation", required for well-behaved utility functions.
Of course many bad things happen in the world, but when personal tragedy strikes people I don't know, and will never know, do I really need to know and am I better off if I know?
Cars hurtling on fire toward airport entrances and dud-car bombs might rise to be slightly larger than personal tragedy, but not too much larger. Scarcity makes events like this unusual, and therefore newsworthy, but unlike "dog bites man" wherein the dog was after the man rather than the news-story, getting attention from the news and causing fear is exactly the terrorist aim.
The appropriate response would be to note it, arrest the goofballs, and move-on, rather than obsessing and changing our ways and continuously reminding ourselves of the goofball agenda, and thereby empowering it. Attention is the ransom demanded by terrorists, and we don't pay ransom for fear of encouraging kidnapping, we should not pay attention for fear of encouraging more random acts of terrorism.
From the Standard: No ticket, no excuse - train guards will show zero tolerance
South West Trains (my local railway in Putney and Barnes, with far better service than some of the lines in other regions) will no longer let passengers buy tickets on trains at reasonable prices.
This seems to be a policy aimed at causing needless delay and annoyance. At most there should be a somewhat higher price (not the outrageous "full fare" prices) for the convenience of paying onboard, rather than queueing (and perhaps missing the next train waiting in queue) to buy tickets. Happier passengers usually means more passengers.
Whoops! Where did that railway line come from? ... railway issues brochure with non-existent line. Marketing, cutting corners so to speak, inserted a route as a hypotenuse of the triangle between the thriving Cornwallian metropoli of Falmouth and Redruth.
This of course relates to how to represent services abstractly on maps. All maps are abstractions, some seem to cross an unwritten line.
From Today's LA Times: High-speed train line plan may be derailed
The article suggests cutting the authority from 300 staff with 75 consulting firms under contract (of which 100 must be PR and survey firms) to 6 staff. I hope this is true, it would save the taxpayers of California a fortune on a boondoggle.
Though the article notes the line would "zip" passengers from LA to SF in 2.5 hours, this is only downtown LA and a few select stations to downtown SF (and a few select stations), unless you live on top of the stations, the access costs remain. Since one can drive the corridor in 6 hours or so, and fly it in an hour (plus 2-3 hours of access), the gains are marginal over driving (plus I need to rent a car at the other end) and negative over flying.
Furthermore, the idea that the private sector would pony up 20 billion to invest in the line is I suspect ludicrous, just look at the disaster the Public Private Partnership has been on the London Underground. One hopes (for the sake of the shareholders) firms would not be so daft as to pour good money after bad on the hopes of making money on this train.
California is not Europe and it is not Japan, and rail doesn't turn a real profit there either.
updated August 25, 2009:
For those of you who doubt I am doing work over in London, I have completed two other papers (in addition to "Too Expensive to Meter" based on my research over here):
Network growth is a complex phenomenon. Some have suggested that it occurs in an orderly or rational way, based on the size of the places that are connected. David Levinson examines the order in which stations were added to the London surface rail and Underground rail networks in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, testing the extent to which order correlates with population density. While population density is an important factor in explaining order, he shows that other factors were at work. The network itself helps to reshape land uses, and a network that may have been well ordered at one time may drift away from order as activities relocate.
This article examines the changes that occurred in the rail network and density of population in London during the 19th and 20th centuries. It aims to disentangle the 'chicken and egg' problem of which came first, network or land development, through a set of statistical analyses clearly distinguishing events by order. Using panel data representing the 33 boroughs of London over each decade from 1871 to 2001, the research finds that there is a positive feedback effect between population density and network density. Additional rail stations (either Underground or surface) are positive factors leading to subsequent increases in population in the suburbs of London, while additional population density is a factor in subsequently deploying more rail. These effects differ in central London, where the additional accessibility produced by rail led to commercial development and concomitant depopulation. There are also differences in the effects associated with surface rail stations and Underground stations, as the Underground was able to get into central London in a way that surface rail could not. However, the two networks were weak (and statistically insignificant) substitutes for each other in the suburbs, while the density of surface rail stations was a complement to the Underground in the center, though not vice versa.
Perhaps more interesting for the non-academic, we (Ahmed El-Geneidy, Feng Xie, and myself of the Nexus group) have put together three quicktime movies
The New York Times assesses the state of rail in Britain: British Commuters Cry, Once More Into the Aisles!
Anecdotally this is a complaint heard often about the poor state of the train network. I suspect the complaint is perennial.
We were returning from Harrogate to London last night on the Great North Eastern Railway (GNER) after attending the well-run and interesting UTSG conference.
The trip from Harrogate to Leeds was uneventful. On the trip from Leeds to Kings Cross in London, we were interrupted by what I believe the announcer said was a Code 3 on Coach M. (We were on a different coach so at the time didn't know what that was), though we did not stop there.
Later the announcer told us that there had been vandalism, a rock through a window, which needed to be repaired before we proceeded.
The coach was held at Peterborough for about 15 minutes while repairs were made to the broken window, and we arrived 15 minutes late. When we arrived, I could not locate the vandalism, so it must have been cleaned up fairly well.
Three observations spring to mind ...
(1) If this had happened on a plane it would be called terrorism.
(2) If this had happened on a plane, the delay would be considerably more than 15 minutes.
(3) This doesn't seem to happen on planes.
This does seem to happen a lot on trains. In fact on 100% of my trips (both of them) from northern England or Scotland to Kings Cross, my journey has been delayed by rocks thrown through windows. The precise statistics on train vandalism (by rocks through windows) I have not been able to find, but it must be common, and there are websites discussing vandalism. It is and has long been so common that it features in a Thomas the Tank Engine season one episode
My previous trip from Edinburgh to Kings Cross on August 30, 2003 was eventful for several reasons.
My notes on the day
"Depart Edinburgh. Check out of Globetrotter, take hotel shuttle to train station, catch next train to London (on the half hour).
Train: operated by GNER
1st conductor upset we are on wrong train, but eventually allows us to stay
2nd train stops at Grantham Station and engineer announces we are stopped because the train ahead was involved in a fatality on the tracks. this involves a 1 hour delay (death = 1 hour)
3rd, train stops south of Stevanage when someone pulls the emergency stop. It seems a window was broken on the car, the glass was inside, suggesting perhaps a rock was thrown?
Arrives a King's Cross.
Transfer to King's Cross/Thameslink station, which is not at the King's Cross Train Station, nor at the King's Cross underground station, but 2 blocks away. Surely these could have been connected somehow.
Take Thameslink to Gatwick. The train passes through some really poor areas of London.
At Gatwick catch hotel shuttle to Renaissance Hotel Gatwick. Everything operates smoothly."
So there was what I have later learned has come to be termed a "person under a train". This too seems fairly common. Several weeks ago I vistited Stevanage New Town, as part of my visits to a number of the New Towns in London (I am from Columbia, Maryland after all). While my train did not hit anyone, another train was cancelled for this reason and the system was delayed. The announcer at the station apologized several times for the train cancellation due to a person being hit by a train. This is a very British thing, saying sorry but somehow blaming events beyond their control. If the person was hit accidentally, I suspect he deserves a much more significant apology than the delayed customers, however that might not have been the case.
These "suicide by trains" are potentially as dangerous as other suicide bombers that we normally call terrorism. But this is rail, not air, so we don't make an issue of it. The number of people who have been killed by train derailments caused by vandalism and by suicide does not make the news.
Now why are people so disgruntled they feel like destroying? Are the causes political (I don't like trains because they destroy the environment, or community, or lead to industrialization ... the vandals are merely illiterate or uneducated Ted Kasczynskis in the making), or merely for the entertainment of the vandals (It is amusing to see things destroyed)?
Not being a vandal myself, I don't understand the psychology.
I am not the only one disappointed in GNER service, there is a blog devoted to the issue.
At any rate, I could say the trains are decrepit, but it would be much more polite to say the British make excellent use of their capital investments and don't waste money on maintenance.
-- dml
I was briefly on a segment this morning about California High Speed Rail on 89.3 KPCC | AirTalk hosted by Larry Mantle . The segment lasted 20 minutes, though I was only talked to for about 3 sentences.
The recent German maglev crash today (9/24/2006) is not good news for that emerging technology. CNN Article here.
Taking the long view, it should be remembered that all new transportation technologies have growing pains, some like the first train crash are overcome (the opening ceremonies of George Stepheson's Rocket on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway railway killed MP William Huskisson from Liverpool (September 15, 1830). However, some like the Hindenberg crash on May 6, 1937, doom the technology.
According to an editorial by Michael Dukakis, L.A.-S.F. train is a quick traffic fix - Los Angeles Times, California should build a high-speed rail line to reduce urban congestion. Clearly the former governor has never heard of opportunity costs . Spending money on intercity transportation means the money cannot be spent to solve real problems within metropolitan areas, where the traffic is.
Continue reading "California's high speed rail just won't die" »
Ken Avidor has written an obituary for Personal Rapid Transit, at least in Minnesota: End of an era for Personal Rapid Transit | Twin Cities Daily Planet.
The proposed California High Speed Rail line would be more expensive than every other active HSR proposal in the country put together. While subsidized by everyone who pays the regressive sales tax, its users would have a higher than average income, so it is a subsidy from the poor to the rich. It would cost about $600-$1000 person or $2000-$3000 per California household before a single trip is made. This money could support about 20,000 teachers or police perpetually. For every $1 spent by the passenger, it would entail $4 in public subsidy, twice the annual expenditure of the State Transportation Improvement Program
From today's Strib ... "Proposed light rail slower than express bus".
Of course the comparison should not be with the express bus (with no local stops), nor should it be with today's locals, which stop every block, but with a similarly designed local bus with just as many local stops (and just as good a signal prioritization).