More Trains

So things are looking up a bit for Amtrak recently. It seems that the political and especially the economic environment has changed in a number of ways that favor more investment in rail and intercity rail is one of the recipients of that investment. In recent years, Amtrak could expect about $500 million a year in appropriation from the Feds. The most recent veto proof bill to pass both houses of Congress puts funding at anout $14.5 billion over the next 5 years. Nice.

Of course, in terms of the vision of a fast, efficient National rail service, this is still chump change. The U.S. is still far behind what is happening in the rest of the world with passenger rail and its likely to remain that way for a long time into the future. Amtrak president Alex Kummant:

Clearly, we would all love to have TGV-style 200 mph trains. But there are a couple of things there. Those are tens of billions of dollars of investment. So the question becomes: How do we find the public, financial and political lift for that?’ We get beaten up every day over raising an appropriations request for $40 million. And in the next breath we are asked ‘Well, when are you going to go high-speed?’ And the answer is, ‘If you have $40 billion we will talk about it.

So while its great that we are starting to take some steps in the right direction, there is a much longer walk ahead of us.

Its more than a funding issue, however. Amtrak does well in the Northeast corridor because the density and the closeness of its cities make it ideal for intercity rail. So part of what will also change things for the better in this context will be initiating different, more density aware approaches to how we construct residential zones. To that effect, Matt Yglesias has a very good post on this over at his blog at the Atlantic Monthly. I don’t think I can say it any better than he does there.

Tags:   amtrak · interstate rail · Mass transitNo Comments.

This is a terrific article which retraces the history of the development of the Chevy Volt.

1. It gives a good sense of where the technology is now in terms of both its promise and its limitations.
2. It goes beyond what has happened and is happening with GM to a wider industry perspective.
3. it confirms what has been suggested in many other places which is that this is a pretty risky venture on GM’s part but does a good job of explaining why the risk might be worth it.

Its really a great read.

Tags:   Chevy Volt · Electric CarsNo Comments.

Great news for Las Vegas (my home town). On Friday, Bush signed a bill into law which would, among other things, provide $45 million for a high speed train traveling from Las Vegas to Los Angeles. The new train line would use Magnetic Levitation technology that would allow it to travel up to 300 mph. I would love to see Vegas making more moves in the direction of a more viable light rail system within the city limits but this is also pretty cool.

Tags:   Disneyland · High Speed Rail · Las Vegas · Los Angeles · Maglev · magnetic levitationNo Comments.

Interesting goings on in Philadelphia. Apparently electric trolleys now have the flexibility of being able to maneuver “off the wire” for decent stretches. This really boosts their value for mass transit because, while they still don’t quite offer the flexibility of bus lines, they are significantly cheaper to operate than even diesel fueled buses.

From the linked article:

Trackless trolleys cost $2.54 per mile to operate and maintain, compared with $2.76 for diesel buses, according to SEPTA.

Nonetheless, SEPTA has stuck to its 2006 decision – made over Philadelphia’s objections – not to buy 23 more trackless trolleys to restore service in South Philadelphia. SEPTA managers say they prefer buses, which are cheaper to buy and more flexible to run.

“For an authority of this size, which has about 1,300 buses, the capital costs and upkeep costs for a small fleet of trolleys – it simply isn’t practical,” SEPTA spokesman Richard Maloney said. And he said the cost of electricity, capped until 2010, could rise after that and increase trolley expenses.

But the concern about the possible rise in the cost of electricity seems like a bit of backward thinking to me. Unless I am missing something, cities are already spending massive amounts of money and indeed seeing budget shortfalls because of rapidly rising fuel costs. In 2003, SEPTA, the Philadelphia Transportation Authority was spending 12.8 million a year on fuel. They’ve had to budget 57.1 million for the coming fiscal year.

Transit planning decisions can often be more complex than they appear on the surface. I get that. I also get that transportation authorities tend to prioritize issues of practicality in a way that city boards often do not. Moreover, the trolleys have their limitations and indeed electricity may become more expensive in a couple of years.

But even given those factors, this does not seem like a tough call to me. At worst, SEPTA will be paying slightly higher upfront costs for a cleaner, quieter transit system that will absolutely cost them less per year well past 2010 and more than that, will offer very predictable costs. Fuel costs are proving to be far less predictable. The city definitely seem to prefer the trolleys. Riders prefer the trolleys. What’s the issue here really?

Tags:   buses · diesel · electric trolley · Philadelphia · SEPTA · trackless trolleyNo Comments.

This seems like pretty big news to me. Apparently Toyota has had a major breakthrough in fuel cell tech. I haven’t been following fuel cells quite as closely as the EV stuff but a hybrid with a range of 560 miles that basically runs on hydrogen is pretty welcome news as oil prices continue their rapid rise.

The article mentions that these cars are too expensive for most people to buy outright so they are generally only available for lease and they are not really available outside of Japan at all. Nonetheless this is definitely promising. I am going to be following this a lot more closely.

Update: I should add that there is a lot of justifiable skepticism about the overall viability of fuel cells in the long term. This article at the US Dept of Energy outlines a few of the issues and this thread at Green Car Congress raises a few more.

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In both the light rail and interstate rail categories, federal funding has always been an important part of the equation. Amtrak, which handles most of the interstate consumer travel, has been a money pit for decades and is deeply dependent upon the half billion it receives from the government each year to keep it afloat. Even so, its service level outside of the Northeast corridor is fairly described as abysmal. Light rail systems in cities also heavily depend upon federal funding for expansion projects. With fuel costs inexorably rising as they are, the priority of rail travel is becoming a more pressing question. Ridership is up everywhere, and at both the city and interstate level, it is becoming pretty clear that what we have is not going to be adequate going forward without some shifting in our priorities.

So with respect to the two candidates running for President, it is worth asking how they might approach these issues. Here’s a pretty good summary at the DCist. To put it bluntly, there isn’t much of a contest on this particular issue. Senator Obama has a particular interest in transit issues dating back to his time in the Illinois Senate. He wants to increase Amtrak funding by a significant amount (11.6 billion over the next five years) and has put forth the idea of mirroring the Amtrak approach in the Northeast corridor for the midwest. He has also clearly signaled his support for more high speed rail.

Not much to be said about McCain on the issue except that he is clearly not very fond of Amtrak. He has actually suggested shuttering Amtrak altogether to presumably be replaced by smaller rail companies.

Tags:   amtrak · Barack Obama · interstate passenger rail · John McCain · Light RailNo Comments.

Interesting post from Krugman today.

In thinking about how rail can ease some of our oil dependence issues, it is important to remember that interstate trucking is a pretty big part of this equation. Krugman’s post makes the point that the U.S. is doing better than Europe in that respect. The freight train industry is actually doing pretty well here as opposed to Europe where public investment tends to focus on high speed passenger transport. But, even with all of the diesel trucks and a growing freight train industry, our trucking industry uses a lot of fuel.

The real tangle is that if we want to think about how to use trains to lower our overall fuel dependency, we have to think hard about how to strike a proper balance between passenger transport and freight transport. In a lot of places, there are only one set of tracks. Prioritizing how those tracks are scheduled and used can make a huge difference in the efficiency of either passenger or freight systems. Europe seems to have struck the wrong balance for now.

Tags:   Elizabeth Cotten · freight trains · fuel consumption · high speed trains · passenger trainNo Comments.

Just perusing the web, there are a lot of stories out there about cities building or expanding their light rail systems. Ridership is sharply up in a lot of places for obvious reasons and I am always inclined to think of this sort of thing as a “no brainer.” Of course more trains and better public transit is going to be a good thing.

It is important to remember however, that it is more of a complex issue and in a lot of places there is a lot of resistance to the idea and a great deal of complication over how any such ideas ought to be implemented. This story out of KC is a case in point.

Funkhouser has proposed, based on input from local transit planners, a 119-mile network of light rail and streetcars in city streets, commuter rail on existing railroad tracks, plus rapid and express buses. It would require a half-cent sales tax increase in the three counties, plus hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal government. And it would be overseen by a new tri-county board of mayors and county officials.

…

Platte County’s presiding commissioner, Betty Knight, reached by phone, said she and another Platte commissioner were out of town. But she added that she’s not in favor of Funkhouser’s plan so far.

“I’ve looked at the plan, and I’m disappointed,” Knight said. “To see we get two express bus routes for a contribution (in tax dollars) of $7 million a year is a little disappointing.”

Apparently this particular debate has been going on in Kansas City for quite some time now with no real solution in sight.

Despite all of its positives, building modern transit infrastructure is disruptive and involves a lot of upfront costs. When you are talking about light trains in particular as opposed to bus lines, there are a lot of communities that have to accept what can be a pretty significant change to their environments. Generally taxes have to be raised. Some communities will argue that the train should go through their neighborhoods in order to revive their local businesses. Others will argue that the train should go through theirs because they already have higher density. It can all get pretty ugly.

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This car looks fun. They actually have a version that is available as a kit car for a little over $100,000 but they are planning to release an $18,000 and a $30,000 version at some point.

Tags:   electric car · kit car · tangoNo Comments.

By now many people will have heard of the Chevy Volt, slated to be released for retail sometime in 2012. Its actually a new kind of hybrid that runs completely on an electric motor but after about 40 miles, a gas powered generator based on a small internal combustion engine kicks in and feeds electricity to the motor. Its a nice idea, and using this approach many people will be able to get away without using gas at all since the average commute is a bit less than 40 miles a day. The 6-7 gallons of gas in the generator than gives you about another 640 miles for longer trips. Great efficiency especially considering the current gas crunch.

The problem with releasing these cars earlier seems to be that GM does not feel that the battery technology is where it needs to be to really make this vehicle work. They plan on using lithium ion batteries, which are the type in most modern laptops and cell phones, as opposed to the lead acid and nickel cadmium batteries that were used in the older model electrics produced by GM, Toyota and Honda back in the late 90’s. But for a lot of reasons, the current method of stacking lithium ion cells still doesn’t quite do the trick. Indeed, now as it was then, the battery tech seems to be what is holding us back from having a solid, commuter appropriate electric vehicle.

It is not so much that the batteries don’t exist. If one is willing to spend enough, they can have a great electric car in their driveway today. Companies like Tesla have come up with some pretty good solutions for high end or niche vehicles that perform very well in the $100,000 range. But unfortunately, for the normal middle class consumer, the limitations of battery tech has been the ev dream killer.

All of that is to say that as I continue to develop this blog, one of the topics will be an examination of where we are on electric cars, and a lot of that is really a discussion of where we are on high performance batteries. There does seem to be some promise out there and I will try to mark it from time to time.

Update:

I didn’t want to get too much into the dispute in this post as to whether NiMH battery technology is really obsolete and inappropriate or whether it is actually being suppressed by oil companies (Chevron mostly) who managed to buy up all the patents for the tech. Like I said in my first post, I don’t want to hold myself out as any sort of expert on these matters and while I am sure NiMH technology is getting something of a “bum rap” in discussions of the present and future of EV cars, there are definitely some good reasons to start thinking in terms of lithium ion. Here is a good article I read a while back on the topic

Tags:   battery technology · Electric Cars · ev · gm volt · rav4 ev 4No Comments.