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An obsession with cars and planes
| Article published on Wednesday, Dec. 30, 2009 |
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Editor:
Too bad so many people are unaware of the significant progress being made in commuter rail all over this nation, including Tri-Rail in South Florida.
Many raise the issue of population density as a limiting factor. TBARTA sent a delegation to Charlotte, N.C., to study what has been accomplished there. What they found amazed them.
Low population density Charlotte (much like Tampa Bay area) realized years ago that roads and cars were not a solution to the transportation gridlock just over the horizon if we continue down the rubber-tired vehicle path.
A case in point – one of many – is the gridlock fast approaching the U.S. northeast highway system, where those states are working to expand rail infrastructure, because there simply is no room to expand the highways.
Charlotte convinced voters to approve a dedicated funding source and has pursued their rail plans.
The projected ridership has been exceeded beyond their wildest dreams, and Charlotte is moving forward to expand their system. Ditto for Phoenix, Dallas, Albuquerque, Salt Lake City, Nashville and St. Louis.
One of the more amazing stories is Los Angeles: the car capitol of the world has moved to embrace all three commuter rail options, heavy rail, light rail and subways. Again, they’ve exceeded projections and are expanding their systems. Los Angeles has also instituted ‘bus rapid transit’ (pioneered by Curitiba, Brazil) and copied all over the world. It is wildly successful, even in Los Angeles.
Fundamental to passenger rail success is careful planning that moves people from where they live to where they want to go, as well as a dedicated funding source.
All forms of transportation rely upon public subsidy of some sort. The problem in the United States is that we have become obsessed with cars and planes, both of which are the least efficient at moving anything around the Earth, and have contributed significantly to climate change.
We lavish about $30 billion a year on highways, while AMTRAK struggles to provide service on a 70-year-old infrastructure for which Congress has failed to fund upgrades for too long, under the pretext that AMTRAK must make a profit.
Every other industrialized country in the world understands that passenger rail will never turn a profit, but rail is the most efficient way to move over the surface of the Earth. One of the best systems in the world exists in one of the least densely populated industrialized nations: France. It’s technology is being emulated world-wide, as are similar technologies from Japan, Spain, and Germany. China has adopted Germany’s mag-lev technology.
Population density is no longer an excuse for refusal to adopt a rail system, as has been proven by the experience in numerous locations around the United States. A transportation system should embrace rail, bus, pipelines, water and planes, integrating all that is best about each technology. That is the policy followed by other industrialized nations, which explains why American visitors to those nations marvel at their transportation systems.
And why the U.S. is approaching transportation gridlock.
Once again, the flawed ‘free-market’ mantra of the political ultra right is taking the United States right up to the edge of the abyss. Hopefully, saner heads will prevail and avoid tipping over into that abyss. One more example of a seriously flawed political ethic gone awry.
Michael L. MacDonald
Clearwater
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Article published on Wednesday, Dec. 30, 2009
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