Congressman From Oregon Speaks Out
On The National Crisis

Editor’s note: On Friday, February 29, Jim RePass, President and CEO of NCI, and editor, Molly McKay, attended the Northeast Climate and Competitiveness Summit, a one-day conference in Baltimore, MD, organized by the Regional Plan Association. Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D) Oregon was the keynote speaker for the morning session.

“Since the founding of the Republic, our nation’s greatness has rested on the planning and building of its infrastructure. Our forebears recognized the need to invest in road networks to serve the needs of the colonies, water systems to serve growing cities, canals to facilitate trade, railroads and telegraph lines to open up the West, and dams to encourage settlement and generate power.

“This year marks the bicentennial of the Gallatin Plan, crafted by Thomas Jefferson’s Secretary of the Treasury, Albert Gallatin, to develop the infrastructure needed by a fast-growing nation. This plan built on George Washington’s vision of connecting the interior settlements to the markets and ports of the East Coast with a network of roads and canals.

“In 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt invited every state and territorial governor to join member of his Cabinet and Congress, professional organizations, and government bureaus in a National Conference at the White House to discuss infrastructure needs for the 20^th century. The resulting report incorporated the growing interest in conservation as well as the need for future investments in hydropower to generate electricity. More importantly, it laid the ground work for many of the critical investments initiated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to jumpstart the nation’s recovery from the Great Depression.

“Today, the challenges of the 21^st century – global warming, dwindling oil reserves, growing insecurity in the Middle East, and an uncertain global economy – require a renewed national focus on the infrastructure that is essential to our cities, our rural communities, and our economy. Unfortunately, we have neglected the state of America’s infrastructure far too long, threatening our economic prosperity and the future of our communities, urban and rural.

• The American Society of Civil Engineers has given our nation’s public infrastructure – water, sewer, and transportation systems – a grade of D-minus, estimating that it will cost $1.6 trillion over the next five years just to repair the infrastructure we currently have.

• The National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission recently calculated that it will take $225 billion annually just to maintain our existing transportation system over the next 50 years. Meanwhile, the Office of Management and Budget predicts a $3.2 billion shortfall in the Highway Trust Fund by 2009.

• As Japan, China, India, and The European Union continue to invest in transportation improvements to support their growing economies, we are falling further and further behind our global competitors.

• More than 72,000 miles of municipal water and sewer pipe are more than 80 years old, threatening the public health and economies of communities large and small.

• A warming climate creates more demands on our infrastructure. Communities will require more energy-efficient transportation systems that produce fewer carbon emissions; additional water storage capacity; and stronger levees and dams to protect homes and businesses from unpredictable and increasingly severe weather events.”

• We have no more time for studies, he said. It is time to implement and we must not shy away from the need to make the investment and to spend more money. This is not just about money. It is about vision and value. If we have the right vision, and people understand the underlying value for our nation, we will get the resources.

• The federal partnership must be redefined. Too often it is the ancillary things, endless studies being an example, that are funded. This is a convenient way NOT to implement programs.

• The Congressman’s recommendations address the obstacles:

• There should be a uniform ratio in funding transportation – not “free” money for highways, while for transit “You are on your own.”

• Environmental problems shouldn’t be solved by destructive, wasteful “solutions,” like paying to pave a creek rather than saving a wetland in order to control floods.

• We need a broader range of infrastructure participation on the federal level. Rather than being bound by funding by silos, there should be an interplay of modes. We could save billions by funding high speed rail instead of building more airports to accommodate trips that should go by rail. No one should be traveling by air on trips of 500 miles or less.

• He spoke of accountability in spending – it’s time to “zero in on performance and results and revamp the budget process to look at real value for what we spend.”

• We should strengthen the role of metropolitan areas, so many of which are shortchanged and neglected, rather than getting hung up on disputes over percentage rates in “donor/don-ee” battles.

He urged the audience to make sure no single party captures this debate. Everyone must be involved. In this “carbon-constrained economy,” we should hold a forum on infrastructure in October where all three candidates are invited. By the time the new president is sworn in, a national infrastructure plan should be ready.

Congressman Blumenauer has received overwhelmingly positive support for crafting a new National Plan from over 240 stakeholder groups, including engineers, planners, transportation organizations, labor unions, business groups, environmental advocates, and foundations.

He has introduced two resolutions to highlight past planning efforts and celebrate the remarkable coalitions that created and supported them: H.R. 935 commemorates President Theodore Roosevelt’s 1908 White House Conference of Governors; H.R. 936 commemorates the 1808 Gallatin Plan.

As a member of the Ways and Means Committee, Blumenauer continues to build support for a new National Plan from other member of Congress and key interest groups, such as the American Public Transportation Association, the American Metropolitan Water Agencies, and The American Institute of Architects.

Combined Highway, Rail Pass Coming?

BOSTON, FEBRUARY 26 -- Boston-area commuters may soon be able to pay their tolls, park their cars or hop on the MBTA, all using one card.

This could be like combining the Charlie Card with an E-Z Pass. It will require a tech-savvy company that can develop a system for electronically linking the turnpike with the MBTA and government-run parking garages.

The Boston Herald reported that the turnpike authority is now accepting bids from firms interested in the job.

One proposal is to have one pass that would allow commuters to use the Charlie Card to pay tolls and ride the T. All fees would come directly out of the users' bank accounts.

Other ideas are: prepaid toll passes and a Fast Lane transponder designed so that families can share a single one.

The Turnpike Authority should learn in about a month if any of the proposals are possible.

CHARLOTTE, NC, FEBRUARY 26 -- Plans are moving forward for a commuter rail line from uptown Charlotte to southern Iredell County.

The Charlotte City Council approved an engineering contract Monday not to exceed $8.5 million. This will determine the feasibility of constructing the line.

The total cost of the line is estimated at $275 million, however no federal funds can be used to build the line.

Philly Transit Riders Asked
To ‘Go Green’ By SEPTA

PHILADELPHIA ---The Philadelphia region’s transit authority, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority (SEPTA) is asking it’s riders to “Go Green” by using public transit.

The promotion may get some help from the price of gasoline, which is going to $4 a gallon by this Summer, and $5 a gallon by 2009, according to the experts.

SEPTA announced this past week that it has launched an “…initiative to educate and encourage the Greater Philadelphia region to ‘live green’ by riding public transportation. The effort, entitled “Go Green Go SEPTA”, will use community events, strategic partnerships and advertising to educate the public on the vital role public transportation plays in preserving the environment and promoting cleaner air.”

“By taking SEPTA, our riders are doing their part to help reduce air pollution, diminish the effects of global warming and minimize our dependence on foreign oil. Our vehicles and service play an essential role in making the region cleaner, as well as in making it easier for people to live greener,” said SEPTA General Manager Joseph Casey. “We’re grateful for the positive impact our riders are making, and this campaign is one way to recognize their contributions to our environment.”

Riding public transportation is one of the most significant and immediate actions a solo commuter can take to reduce his or her environmental impact, said SEPTA Vehicle exhaust is the second-largest source of carbon dioxide emissions in the United States, pumping nearly 1.5 billion tons into the atmosphere annually.

Public transportation, on the other hand, is a net CO2 reducer. A 40 seat bus with just seven passengers is more fuel-efficient than the average car. A full bus is six times more efficient and a full train is 15 times more efficient, SEPTA noted.

“In fact, the annual carbon savings from a solo commuter switching to public transportation is more than the savings from home weatherizing, thermostat regulation, replacement of five incandescent bulbs with fluorescent lamps, and installation of an energy-efficient refrigerator -- combined!”, the agency said.

In addition, SEPTA has taken steps to minimize the environmental impact of its bus fleet. SEPTA currently has 32 diesel-electric hybrid buses on the road and will introduce an additional 400 new hybrid buses between 2008 and 2011. The hybrid buses are nearly one-third more fuel efficient than standard diesel buses and further reduce carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide emissions by 80% and 38% respectively. All hybrid buses will soon be identified with a “Go Green Go SEPTA” logo.

Also, to make the existing non-hybrid buses more environmentally-friendly, SEPTA has retrofitted the entire bus fleet to operate on cleaner, ultra low-sulfur fuel.

To bring the Go Green Go SEPTA campaign to life and communicate the eco-friendly effects of choosing public transit, SEPTA is using signage featuring live moss growing in areas throughout Market East Station in Center City Philadelphia. At the heart of this display, SEPTA symbols are grown in live moss in areas such as signage atop the station’s Information Desk. The campaign reinforces the message that the decision for commuters to leave their cars home and commute via SEPTA is a green one. SEPTA’s green campaign also includes moss-inspired design elements on posters on station columns, token packs and window displays at SEPTA headquarters. SEPTA will also distribute Go Green Go SEPTA eco-friendly seed packets to commuters to reinforce the campaigns goal of spreading green awareness to riders.

Berlin – Deutsche Bahn stated in a press release late last week that the Hamburg – Berlin main line will be shut down in mid 2009 for approximately three months in order to replace nearly all of the concrete rail ties installed on the mostly two-track route. Deutsche Bahn inspection teams as well as engineers from Germany’s rail regulatory agency, EBA, have noted that thousands of the concrete ties along the route are slowly disintegrating, thus allowing water to corrode the inner steel reinforcement bars and causing instability in the tracks.

The Hamburg – Berlin rail corridor was upgraded twice in the past two decades, the first time in the early 1990s shortly after German re-unification. At that time the route was electrified from the eastern suburbs of Hamburg through to Berlin Ost Bahnhof (formerly Berlin Hauptbahnhof). At the time many sections of tracks dating from the 1950s and 60s were replaced with pre-assembled track sectors made with concrete ties, a standard practice in Germany and much of Europe. Then in 2001-03 another upgrade was made to the line to prepare it for 230 km/h speeds with ICE trains. Again, numerous sections of the tracks were upgraded or replaced with concrete ties.

Later it was determined that a now-defunct company in northeastern Germany which supplied concrete ties for this route and dozens of other rail lines in Germany manufactured many thousands of rail ties with poor quality control and sub-standard concrete. On the Hamburg – Berlin route nearly all of the concrete ties can be traced back to this company. Deutsche Bahn has been replacing defective rail ties from this company for several years. Several industry sources stated that Deutsche Bahn was able to secure substantial financial compensation from the manufacturer in an out-of-court settlement.

Deutsche Bahn will most likely completely shut the line down to all normal traffic from March through June 2009. Passenger trains will be re-routed on a detour via Stendal and Salszwedel, or on a detour via the already busy Berlin – Stendal – Wolfsburg – Hannover high speed line.

Munich - The governments of Germany and Switzerland have signed a letter of intent to begin the long-proposed electrification of the Allgäu line from Munich to Lindau, Germany which forms part of the Munich-Zürich route. Under the deal, the German government will contribute EUR 100 million, while the Swiss government will provide EUR 50 million and the German state of Bavaria will fund the remaining EUR 55 million portion of the project cost.

Photo: David Beale Swiss all the way to Munich? SBB electric locomotives, such as this one standing in Chur, Switzerland in May 2007, hauling trains from Zürich to Munich can presently go only as far as Lindau, Germany, where electrification ends and a German diesel takes over.

German Transport Minister, Wolfgang Tiefensee, said at the signing ceremony that work would begin on the project in 2010 with completion scheduled for 2015. Electrification of the line will allow journey times for Munich-Zürich passenger trains to be cut from four hours to just three. ICE trains will be able to operate on the route for the first time and locomotive hauled intercity trains will no longer require the change from a Swiss electric locomotive to a German diesel locomotive or vice-versa in the island town of Lindau.

For some rail fans the electrification will mean a bitter-sweat end to one of the few remaining intercity train routes operated with DB 218 series “Lollos” or “Rabbits” or Soviet-built DB 232 series “Ludmillas”.

Garden State Budget Woes Are Not Just Local:
What It Means For Transit

New Jersey Governor Jon S. Corzine delivered the bad news this past Tuesday. We all knew it was coming, because the state is three to four billion dollars in the hole. Of course, none of us, including the Legislature, enjoyed hearing it. The Governor said “Frankly, New Jersey has a government its people cannot afford” and the result will be severe budget cuts. In this case, the cuts mean about 5000 layoffs and elimination of three government departments. There will be cuts to hospitals, schools, municipal assistance and lots of other services. Where this leaves New Jersey Transit will be determined through the political process that will soon begin in Trenton.

As I listened to the bad news on the radio, I remembered an incident at the APTA Commuter Rail Conference in Atlantic City four years ago. Alan Rutter, who was then Federal Railroad Administrator, said that any money for development of new rail corridors would have to come from the states. During the question-and-answer period, I noted for the record that, while we would all like to see new rail corridors develop, the states are all having financial difficulties and states like New Jersey, which have major transit operations, are having a hard time paying for the transit we already have.

Gene Skoropowski, managing director of California’s Capitol Corridor Joint Powers Authority, followed me by pointing to the rail corridors that his home state had developed and stating that the state was running out of money to keep paying for them. Rutter sidestepped addressing our concerns, and a few weeks later he left the FRA. Gene has since added frequencies to his Capitol Corridor Line and Illinois added trains to its corridors in 2006. All growth is state-financed. Elsewhere on Amtrak, there are fewer long-distance trains now than there were four years ago.

Local rail transit providers have not made severe service cuts yet, and new starts are still popping up around the nation. However, fares have increased substantially in many transit cities. Fare hikes in such places as Philadelphia, Chicago and Los Angeles have been particularly severe. The events of the past four years demonstrate that the concerns Gene and I expressed are legitimate, and the situation keeps getting worse.

It is time for our States to make some hard choices. These choices must be based on sound thinking about the public benefit, rather than on politics-as-usual. Transit fares in the Garden State have increased five times since 1988, while the gasoline tax has remained at the same level. Tolls on the Garden State Parkway and New Jersey Turnpike have not been increased for many years, although it appears inevitable that fares on New Jersey Transit will go up again before 2008 is over. Gov. Corzine has proposed severe hikes in highway tolls as a major fund-raising means for the state. Still, in the middle of the debate on the subject, he has promised that the portion of Interstate Route 440 in New Jersey will not become a toll road. Government’s favoritism to the road lobby is still hale and hearty and essentially unquestioned. We in the rail advocacy community have consistently favored a balanced transportation policy, where motorists and truckers make reasonable contributions to the state’s mobility costs, rather than placing a disproportionate share of the burden on transit riders, who often have no choice in how they travel.

It is no secret that automobile, trucking, oil and highway construction interests are strong and powerful, in every state and on the Federal level. The word has been out for years that these interests caused and financed the Transit Holocaust of the mid-20^th Century. Even in a time of fiscal belt-tightening, Gov. Corzine has proposed spending tax money to widen New Jersey’s major highways, which will create yet another disincentive to use the rail lines that run parallel to those highways. It is easy to promise highway improvements, while gasoline tax increases and highway toll hikes are a hard political sell everywhere. It is much easier to raise transit fares. There are more motorists and truckers than there are transit riders. Transit-dependent people have no alternative but to pay more for the service they get, even if that service is reduced. For a politician, raising transit fares while holding the line on highway user fees amounts to the worst sort of pandering. The politician gets to pose as a fiscal tough guy while permitting egregious depletions of the public treasury.

A look at today’s mobility picture shows the folly of this policy. This nation is overly dependent on foreign oil, much of which comes from the unstable Middle East. Rep. James Oberstar, Chair of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, recognizes the connection between more transit use and less need for foreign oil. Over-use of automobiles, rather than clean electrically-powered transit, fouls our environment. The air is much better in Los Angeles today than it was 25 years ago, because that city has built a major rail transit and commuter rail network, and people use it. Highway space is also at a premium, especially in this part of the country. There simply is not enough room for each person to take up so much road space. Even some transportation officials are beginning to recognize that we can’t build our way out of congestion by widening highways.

The transportation professionals and advocates who read this column are familiar with the benefits of transit. APTA says “Transit means business” and they are right. Our nation’s most vital and successful cities, the ones that continued to thrive despite the federal government’s 1950-1980 highway-and-suburb-building spree, are the ones that had good rail transit in place at the start and continued to maintain their systems even in the darkest days. These cities retained and expanded their capacity to take people to their jobs, business meetings, leisure destinations, and family and friends. Real estate development, business location and residential settlement patters follow rail lines because investors – including homeowners – know the resource will be there over the long term. Rail transit is an investment, while bus service can be cut or withdrawn at any time.

As the economy slows down, our leaders must look to the public benefit when determining how to spend scarce dollars. Hard economic times are no longer a valid excuse for not improving transit. The development of the Second Avenue Subway in New York was halted in the 1930s for economic reasons. There have been four “groundbreakings” for the line; the most recent in 2007. It has not yet been built and may never be. Cincinnati started to build a subway in the 1920s that was never completed, and Rochester abandoned the one that had been built and operated there. Our cities cannot afford such waste of infrastructure.

It is time for our leaders to take a hard look at the costs and benefits of every project. There are transit projects that are not cost-effective and should be built differently than currently devised. A case in point is New Jersey Transit’s proposed dead-end deep cavern terminal, twenty stories under 34^th Street in Manhattan. Rider advocates in New Jersey and New York are actively promoting direct access for NJT to Grand Central Terminal, instead. Problematic transit projects are rarely completed, however, because gun-shy politicians can always default to another highway-widening scheme that sweeps the problem under the rug while passing the responsibility for the real solution to the next generation. Merely widening highways as a knee-jerk reaction to traffic congestion is an idea whose time has passed. As self-described “recovering traffic engineer” Walter Kulash has famously observed: “Adding another lane to cure highway congestion is like letting your belt out another notch to ‘cure’ obesity.”

Transit and trains create effective, long-term people-moving solutions, not futile belt-loosening exercises. Transit and trains provide mobility for everyone, whether or not they own an automobile, and open up a non-automobile alternative for those who do. Rail transit represents a sound investment in a city or in a neighborhood, and it means that improved mobility for everyone will be a permanent part of life at that location.

Developers and employers know that, too. With hard times ahead, our task is clear. Whether we are transit managers, civic leaders or citizen advocates, we must pull together to make sure our elected leaders make the choice for more and better transit locally, and more trains to connect our metropolitan areas. The nation needs trains and transit, and now is the time.