Low Cost Alternatives

Pennsylvania's submission is in. Politics and Place and Green is Good beat me to the punch, so I won't rehash what they have already capably covered, EXCEPT to say, Keystone Corridor West…really? Don't patronize us. If you have no real plans of making it a corridor, don't call it one. I can call the Turtle Creek Industrial Railroad the "Export Corridor", but that doesn't change what it is. The same can be said for the "Keystone Corridor West"; you can call it a corridor all day and all night but to PENNDOT, it's a freight railroad with 1 passenger train each direction every day.

Enough Ranting…Instead I want to make a pitch for more "standard" service. Despite the problems of the late "Steel City Flyer" I do believe the market is there for greater service. In 2008 the Pennsylvanian's ridership increased 12%, and increased another 1% in the first half of 2009 (I know 1% is hardly stellar, but not bad when you consider that overall ridership on Amtrak has slipped from the huge increases in 2008).

Combine the increases with the fact that there are some holes in the current service and you get the opportunity for more service. Someone cannot take a train from Pittsburgh (which leaves at about 7:20 AM) go to Harrisburg or Philly, and expect to get anything done that day and return on a later train to Pittsburgh. The same goes for anyone traveling to Pittsburgh from Harrisburg or Philadelphia. In fact, that is even worse. If you have business in Pittsburgh, better be ready to make a 3 day trip! If your business takes place on Tuesday, you'll be leaving Monday afternoon in order to arrive on Monday evening. I hope your business takes all day, because your next opportunity to head east will be on Wednesday morning.

The bottom line is, we can do better, and do it for a lot less than an electrified HSR system*. The track is there, the signaling is top notch (used by 60+ freight trains a day). If you think said 60+ trains a day are a problem, consider a quote from an NS exec who when asked about the Pittsburgh Line in a Trains Magazine article from 2005 said that "We've Got Room to Grow". He is right. Most of the right of way from Pittsburgh to Harrisburg at one point had more tracks than what they have now. That means, if need be, another track could be put in place. This would certainly minimize interference between freight and passenger trains.

We, as a state could foot part of the bill and have Amtrak operate it, much the same as the Keystone Corridor, Lincoln Service, and Downeaster, to name a few. That would save on rolling stock costs. If we wanted to get crazy, we could follow the path of Vermont who has been pursuing DMU's for its Vermonter service. Everybody knows where I stand on DMU's. They're FRA approved so they could operate with freight trains. Additionally, they're cheaper to build and maintain than traditional trainsets.

This is by no means hard analysis, but it can be done, again maximizing existing infrastructure in order to save construction/operating costs. Pennsylvania would be doing its own citizens a much better service by committing to lower level but more frequent service instead of wasting a few million here and there every few years to study HSR west of Harrisburg with no real intention of ever building it.

*I haven't changed my position on HSR, and would support it if PENNDOT ever got serious about it west of Harrisburg. However, since they don't seem to be serious at all, we should at least get some form of transportation investment west of Harrisburg.

A Perfect Storm for Public Transportation in the United States?

The Good

The last two years have been an exciting time if you are an advocate of public transportation in the United States. Among other things, we have seen a major spike in gasoline prices, and although they seem to have stabilized somewhat have pushed people away from their personal automobiles and towards alternate means of transportation in record numbers. Case in point: Amtrak saw a 14% increase in ridership between July 2007 and July 2008. The poor economy has eroded some that increase, but ridership is still higher than it was at this point in 2007. It's also important to keep in mind that this is with a smaller system than Amtrak has ever had along with stagnant funding. Check out the master list vs. what service is in place today.

Ridership on public transit is up. Way up. In 2008, transit ridership was the highest since 1956! That's big. That's 52 years of highway dominance, out the window in one year.

Additionally, the winner of the 2008 Presidential campaign brought even greater hope by promising to invest in our long neglected transportation system along with our national infrastructure. This promise was highlighted by the symbolic train ride that the President-Elect and Vice President-Elect took from Philadelphia to the inauguration in Washington, D.C.

Things sure are good in the transportation world aren't they? Not so fast. Some big issues in America right now are forming together with the record success of transit to form a perfect storm of sorts that threatens to hamstring transportation development in this country, if not set cause a massive setback.

The Bad

While transit use is up, which is great, funding remains flat. Check out an article here in the Post gazette that touches on the issue. Local transit authorities are faced with increased demands on their infrastructure and calls for service expansion all while dealing with the same funding levels that they dealt with 5 years ago. In some cases, because of the hard economic times funding has even been cut, again, while ridership increased. The system is broken, that's not news. The Gas Tax hasn't increased in 16 years and the Highway Trust fund is broke. You can't get better transit if you don't have the money to pay for it.

The Ugly

The healthcare debate, among others swirling around Washington seem to have caused enough strife to further the notion that our current funding strategy will suffice for another 18 months. The Post Gazette covers it here . It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if the funding system doesn't work now, it will continue to not work for another 18 months. Things will stay about the way they are now. Ridership looks to stay high, and funding will be inadequate which will cause further cutbacks and potential fare increases.

Hope isn't completely lost for a new funding package before the September 30 deadline of the current deal, but an 18 month delay could cause a permanent halt to a funding overhaul and renewed emphasis on transit.

The political tides seem to be shifting. The tremendous support that the Obama administration and their policies enjoyed may be at least wavering. The Senate Committee charged with appropriating the initial $4 billion dollars of HSR funds decided only to appropriate $1.8 billion. While this is not the end of the discussion, the figures initially discussed are already being paired down. This does not bode well for future HSR funding. The same can be said of transit funding. If support for HSR is still high and the money is being cut, imagine what happens when the support dies down, or gas prices come down.

I don't want to be a Negative Nancy here, but in my mind, we as a nation are at a crossroads. The demand for transit is there (and hopefully will continue to rise). What is missing is political will. If we put transportation in the back seat and don't fund it now and fund it properly, our best case scenario is we will have what we have now. Aging infrastructure, too many roads, and not enough alternate forms of transportation. That's the BEST case scenario.

Stillborn

I have had some questions about and concerns about where the State of Pennsylvania stood on HSR. Now, I'm pretty sure that I have my answer, and I don't like it.

The Transport Politic did a post about the initial requests for HSR funding that were to be submitted last Friday. He broke it down into two lists, confirmed requests, and probable. While states like Arkansas (progressive state that they are*) and California have already submitted applications, and states like Alabama/Mississippi (again very progressive states**) are likely candidates to submit for funding, Pennsylvania is notably absent from that list.

While Transport Politic's post is not the final absolute list, the lack of any information coming from any source (be it news or government) in Pennsylvania pretty much sums up our status. I think the silence is more frustrating than being told flat out that Pittsburgh to Harrisburg HSR is not even a concern for ______ reason (budget issues, don't care, etc).

I would also be a little less upset about this if there were some alternate plan or "consolation prize" such as a few more trains between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh and or Pittsburgh and Cleveland.

It's not over, and there are more rounds of funds scheduled to be made available later. However, future funding from the Federal Government is never a sure thing.

At this point, it's hard to even say if there are any plans by Pennsylvania to apply for funding now or in the future.


*Sorry Arkansas, but you are kind of trashy
**Sorry Alabama and Mississippi, but you are kind of trashy too

Our Neighbor to the Nor...err I mean West

Usually, most of the energy we Western Pennsylvanians focus on Ohio has to do with their terrible NFL football teams. When it comes to planning a new HSR SYSTEM, however, they are light years ahead of us. I talked a little bit yesterday about where various other HSR corridors stand, and because Ohio is our neighbor to the west, I wanted to focus a little more exclusively on them.

You could argue that Pennsylvania already has HSR (or at least a version of it) both on the NEC (Northeast Corridor) and the Keystone Corridor from Philadelphia to Harrisburg. However, we as a state seem to be pretty satisfied with that and have therefore become complacent (insert your favorite Harrisburg loves Philadelphia, hates Pittsburgh comment here).

They have become so complacent tht when I searched PENNDOT's website for "High Speed Rail" I got this message in reply. When I search for Ohio HSR, I found several websites, including All Aboard Ohio, which is a non-profit rail advocacy group which is very involved in making HSR a reality. Additionally, unlike PENNDOT, ODOT has an entire website devoted to their plan. Here's a summary of their accomplishments found on the "Ohio Hub" website*.

-Funding Requests have been completed and submitted for all four phases of the project
-A full report has been completed and includes:

• Feasibility estimates
• Capital and Engineering Costs
• Operating strategies and operation costs
• Ridership forecasts
• Fleet Requirements
• A number of appendices that tackle many of the practical issues including freight integration, funding and scheduling

Here's a quick summary of what Pennsylvania has done to secure funding to extend the Keystone Corridor to Pittsburgh:

• Jason Altmire has said we need to begin work to secure funding to extend the Keystone Corridor or connect Pittsburgh to Cleveland
• That's all

We may be better at football, but I sure am envious of what Ohio has done to position themselves towards the head of the line for HSR funding.

Pennsylvania is either happy with what it's got already or is completely distracted by the budget fight going on in Harrisburg. Ohio seems to want to include Pittsburgh in its plans but we have to assume that the State of Pennsylvania will have to involve themselves in some way shape or form. We, as a state can't sit here and think that Ohio is going to take care of everything for us. The Pittsburgh to Cleveland connection is phase 4 of the 4 in the project. I couldn't even estimate how long Phase 1 will take, let alone phase 4.

The last thing Pittsburgh needs is to be an isolated backwater to a budding HSR network.


*You could spend hours on this website, it has maps of the four phases, an archive of project related documents and reports, along with news concerning the project, and other info about HSR

Standing on the Platform Watching the High Speed Train go by

The Pittsburgh blog scene has been on fire with posts concerning the flurry of train related news that has popped up in Pittsburgh's media. It's exciting to see all this sudden attention focused both on local commuter rail and on Pittsburgh's piece in the HSR puzzle.

Much has been said about where to go first, Cleveland, Harrisburg, or Washington D.C.? They each bring up good points. (For my two cents, Cleveland would be the easiest first step, and since we're already behind the 8 ball, we should be looking for easy right now).

Where we should go first is not the point of this post however. The purpose of this post is draw attention to the fact that we are, indeed, behind the 8 ball when it comes to HSR. Here's a brief synopsis of where some other programs stand in comparison to the extended "Keystone Corridor"

-California: In addition to having a pretty sweet website, California is first in line for $$$ so says Joe Biden. This surely has to do with the bond issue for $10 billion with a B that was approved last year.

-Florida: The sunshine state has developed a comprehensive rail plan which you can see here. Additionally, they are well ahead of the curve for the myriad of studies that must be undertaken. Several studies including a ridership and cost study were undertaken in 2003 and would just need to be updated. Their application to receive federal funding is also nearly complete.

-Ohio: Ohio has already dedicated $7 million to study HSR. Additionally, they have banded together with 8 other Midwestern states that would have Chicago as a hub in the hopes to increase their chances of securing funding. Multi-state cooperation is said to increase the likelihood of funding.

This is not an all inclusive list, but from this brief list it's easy to see who the front runners are for the money. It doesn't help that apparently the state of Pennsylvania has done....absolutely nothing. Until Mr. Altmire's speech about extending the Keystone Corridor or connecting to Cleveland, no one was so much as speaking about HSR involving Pittsburgh. With an application deadline of August 24th, we are fast running out of time to take advantage of this round of funding. Another $50 billion is slated for further down the road, but the winds of politics could change by the time that money is to be appropriated.

A failure to capitalize on this opportunity would be a failure by the leaders of our region and state. While our local leaders should do all they can to promote and build our transit infrastructure, it is our State and Federal representatives who need to push this forward. So far Jason Altmire is the only one who truly seems committed to making this happen (all while pushing commuter rail in parallel).

Pittsburgh has failed so many other times when we had a chance to better our transportation assets. This time the responsibility does not fall squarely on Pittsburgh's shoulders. It falls on the State and Federal representatives . We do not need to be standing on the platform as Obama's HSR Express flies through without stopping

Trainapalooza

In a town where transit related articles aren't always easy to come by, I got probably a little more excited than I should have to see three separate articles about commuter/HSR relating to Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania. I'll write more (especially about the HSR entries) in a later post, but just to get them all out there, here they are in no particular order:

Commuter Rail: In an apparent reversal from a previous article in the Post Gazette, the Greensburg line is apparently not dead. Additionally, the costs estimates came back less than expected(sweet). I'm still not sure how many more studies must be taken but at $208 million, these lines look like a steal (Thank you existing infrastructure). Also, for anyone interested, public comment will be held June 29th in Greensburg, and June 30th in New Ken. Hours for both are 6-9 PM.

HSR:
The Pittsburgh to Cleveland Connection: It's been stated by other bloggers that it would make better sense for Pittsburgh to connect to Cleveland (and Chicago) before it connects across the state to Philadelphia and Harrisburg. I for one, agree, and apparently so does Jason Altmire. In a meeting yesterday he said that a link between Pittsburgh and Cleveland is a "missing link" to Obama's proposed HSR system. Apparently, a connection between the two cities would be eligible for funding... however, before they can think about any corridor, they must begin to work on it. Leading us to our third trainapalooza article...

A slow start to HSR: California and several other corridors have a jump start on us for HSR funding. Although Philly to Pittsburgh has been designated an HSR corridor, that's about the only thing that has happened. Jason Altmire wants to take steps forward to begin working towards HSR corridors to and through Pittsburgh, although no concrete steps have been outlined.

A Transportation Center, No, a Bus Station, Yes

In the finest traditions of wordsmithing, the Recently re-built Greyhound Bus Station was re-christened as the "Grant Street Transportation Center".

Really???? Balderdash!!!! I think the Grant Street "We have a bunch of forms of transportation kinda close" Center would be more accurate. I'm not knocking the fact that they re-built the Greyhound station, it was old, dirty, and kind of smelled. But let's call it what it is, a bus station. This is Pittsburgh politics at its worst, we call something different than what it is, and then cite it as an example of how we're "moving in the right direction", when in reality little has changed aside from some hollow words.

It's just another opportunity lost, or is it? There are several forms of transportation in close proximity; you've got the bus station, Amtrak, The T, and the busway. In fact Amtrak was originally supposed to be included, but for some unknown reason, was not. In my mind, you've already spent $40 million to re-build the thing, why not spend the extra few million (a small amount in comparison to the overall cost) to bring those things together, and actually MAKE it a transportation center. You're a few enclosed walkways from that being the case.

First things first, un-abandon the Penn Park branch of the T. The Port Authority said it was too expensive to operate. I agree, only because the manner in which they operated it was foolish. Have certain trains from the Overbrook line and certain trains from the Beechview line run to Penn Park instead of Gateway Center. Bring back that easy transfer to the busway, Greyhound, Amtrak, or to a potential commuter line. Additionally connect the busway and T stop to the Transportation Center and Convention Center via an elevated walkway, which was supposed to be included in the NSC project but was not.

Step Two, connect the railroad to the Transportation center. Again, one covered walkway could bring passengers from the station platforms to the transportation center. Right now, the Amtrak station feels more like a remodeled basement than a gateway to a city. Imagine if Pittsburgh sees increased Amtrak service under Obama's plans for expanded passenger and HSR service. Which would you rather people to first see when they enter Pittsburgh? This, or This?

Additionally, if any form of commuter rail becomes reality, again this is a perfect opportunity to integrate it into a real bona fide transportation center. Current plans call for the operation to either terminate in the strip district or at Penn Station. Either way it could be made to work (if the Strip option was chosen, the tracks could run right up to the Convention Center and an elevated walkway could be used to connect the the platforms to the transportation center).

As it stands now, there is no reason for most people to enter this $40 million "transportation center" unless you're parking there or taking a Greyhound bus. Give people a reason. For once, make a whole hearted attempt at integrating transportation modes. Don't make this new building a bus station with a fancy name.

A red-headed stepchild no longer? Good for Pittsburgh?

Then President Elect Obama's train ride from Philadelphia to Washington D.C. for the inauguration was meant to be a symbolic gesture to his political hero Abraham Lincoln, I am hoping it is also symbolic of things to come in America. A re-birth for passenger rail. A counter revolution to the explosion of automobile ownership and use, that helped nearly push American railroads over the edge after World War II. Many railroads were pushed past the point of no return and fell into bankruptcy, and those that remained abandoned moving people and re-trenched in moving things.

The unenviable task of moving the few people left that still utilized movement by rail fell to Amtrak. They inherited broken equipment, and poorly maintained infrastructure. So far (since 1971) they have managed to survive, but never thrive. Basically, Amtrak was the son from a previous marriage to the Federal Government, while the airlines and interstates were the favorite kids. The government didn't want anything to do with Amtrak, but couldn't just abandon it, so they put as little effort (money) into Amtrak as possible. There are lots of debates as to why this is, but that is another blog for another time.

President Obama has pledged to change that, and has paid alot of lip service to what will happen with Amtrak. Now is a great time to increase our rail movement options. Gas is slowly but steadily climbing higher (again), and airline options out of Pittsburgh seem to be dwindling every day, and are not an inexpensive option.

Included in his remarks are talk about a high speed inter-city rail network, similar to Amtrak's already operating Northeast Corridor. Post Gazette has jumped on the bandwagon, and has reminded us all NOT TO FORGET PITTSBURGH!

I agree, don't forget Pittsburgh, but let's take a step back first. Before we try and get schnazzy electric powered trains running between Pittsburgh and points east and west, let's get some decent service that won't require billions more in stimulus money to come our way.

Here's a really easy solution: better choices i.e. more trains. As it stands right now, if you are conducting business in Harrisburg or Philly, you would have to leave a day early ( @ 7:20 AM from Pittsburgh) if you wanted to be in either place at the beginning of the business day the following day. Otherwise, if you leave the day of your business, you would not arrive in Harrisburg until 12:45 PM, or Philly until 2:50 PM.

If you arrived in Harrisburg @ 12:45 PM, you would have approximately 2 hours to conduct your business before you would have to catch a train at 2:26 PM back to Pittsburgh. If you are in Philly, forget it, you are stuck until the next day at noon.

If you want to go to Chicago, drink your coffee! You have to catch a train at midnight. This train at least would get you into Chicago at a manageable time (8:40 AM). On the way back, your train would leave Chi-town at 7:05 PM and get you into Pittsburgh bright and early at 5:30 AM.

Here's an idea, add a couple trains, one that leaves around 7 AM, but skips all the stops in the middle except Harrisburg and Philly. Then add one more from Philly that leaves at, say 5 PM and gets into Pittsburgh around 10 or 11. That way, business people can at least get their business in, and have the trip be somewhat practical. Additionally, add a couple of trains to and from Chicago as well. Instead of having a through train that stops in Pittsburgh, have a train that starts in Pittsburgh and travels to Chicago. Schedule it leave in the morning, from both locations. That would put the trains in their respective destinations around mid afternoon. Again, the point is to give people options. If you don't give people viable options, they won't choose to use different forms of transportation aside from their own cars.

These ideas are by no means an in-depth plan, just some ideas that came off the top of my head. One thing I do know is that the market is there. The new luxury bus service between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg is doing well (well enough to add additional service after only a few months of operation). I certainly support this service, but wouldn't mind seeing the Federal Government begin to properly subsidize additional forms of transportation other than highways.