When I write or blog about transportation I try not only to focus on safety and security but also on cost and on the security of our environment as well as our quality of life. Also I have as much pasion for trains as I do for planes --- and in future posts you'll even read of my other passion - ships. I hate sitting in traffic and I hate strip malls and ugly urban areas. I also hate the airport rat race. I'm very lucky in the Charlotte, North Carolina Area to have a good friend, Edna Chirico - a de facto family member and Godmother to our daughter Katherine -as a partner in my research and analysis of "Green" transportation alternatives for the Charlotte and Carolinas Region. Edna is originally from Salem Oregon and the Pacific Northwest where she went to high school with my wife and was a formidable member with my wife on their high school debating team. (I never debate either of these women as I'll never engage in a battle of wits unarmed.) This article here outlines my views on passenger rail for the Carolinas - but could apply to other areas such as Ohio and Chicago-Minneapolis Corridor. I'd like to make it clear that regional rail does not replace local service airlines and cannot replace the niche occupied by Part 135 air charters or corporate-owned business aircraft. Here I'm not only outlining my personal views on transportation, but shamelessly putting in a plug for Edna Chirico's consulting and planning for sustainable transportation (and also my own skills). These views are obviously my own, and have not necessarily been integrated into any of Edna's consulting products.
Edna Chirico, owner of Green Moose Consulting, www.greenmoose.net is proficient in the assessment of land use; environmental issues; and infrastructure analysis related for the most part to a 7-county area centered on Charlotte and to the Catawba Watershed in North and South Carolina. Edna provides consulting services to the development community and municipal/governmental community on a vast array of economic development and environmental focused topics. She has extensive civic leadership experience as a Mecklenburg (Charlotte) County Commissioner from 1989-1994; a Marine Commissioner 2000-2004; and on Charlotte and Gaston Regional Chamber of Commerce Board of Advisors. She currently chairs the Charlotte Chamber University Chapter and is Secretary for the University City Partners, a municipal service district and Secretary of the newly established Catawba River District, a regional green branding and education initiative. Past accomplishments include past chair WTVI public television board, Charlotte Mecklenburg Park and Recreation Commission, Mecklenburg Capital Budget Advisory Board and Charlotte Small Business Advisory Board. She is a graduate of the University of North Carolina Charlotte and has studied international business Edna provides support and analysis in the form of regional, national and international market analysis, geospatial analysis, applied infrastructure analysis, and human terrain analysis. She is a specialist in business development related to light rail and rail. She also holds the coveted Certified Commercial Investment Member” designation which is an invaluable resource to the commercial real estate owner, investor, and user and is among an elite corps of more than 9,000 professionals in the real estate, banking, finance, and economic professions who hold the CCIM designation. In the practical aspects of the maritime and watershed realm, she is a skilled sailor, power boat handler, and is certified in SCUBA. On terra firma she enjoys hiking, horseback riding, and gardening. In other words, she knows her stuff on regional planning and "Green Transportation."
Now, I cannot stand "fads" and so much of the "Go Green" Movement in my cynical opinion is clichéd and a fad. Not so with Edna. Edna is a tough as nails businesswoman who leads in sustainable development because it makes for economically thriving communities, not merely because it is the right thing to do. Edna is not an air-conditioning and paper-pushing office type of environmentalist. More often one finds her on a trail in the woods or at farmers market or on a bike. I have spent hours sweltering in the Carolina Sun alongside Edna as she pilots a boat around the Catawba Watershed enthusiastically pointing out environmental hazards and opportunities.
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Edna and me about to go observe train operations
on CSX and look at the refurbished Piedmont & Northern
near Mount Holly, North Carolina
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As I left my US Federal Government career, emboldened by seeing quality trains on branch lines in Germany, Denmark, Italy, and Poland, and incited by researching the history of rail corridors in this country such as the C&O’s Pere Marquette streamliners across Michigan, and taking Aviation Safety and Security courses at George Washington University, I partnered with Edna's Green Moose Consulting firm as a consultant to urge that we go back to the future and regain the railroad – and, for that matter – the airline – inheritance that our economists, politicians, and we the public have squandered and wasted.
As a proud product of the Empire State I never accepted that the trains that ran through Upstate New York in the pre-Amtrak Era should be no more. These trains are hopefully not the objects of nostalgia but the wave of the future. Amtrak and New York State have Empire Service between Buffalo and New York – it is the bare minimum of what was left when the Penn Central gave up the ghost and passed its trains to Amtrak. Some things are actually better than they were in the Golden Age – take the former Erie Railroad’s New Jersey and New York – now New Jersey Transit’s Pascack Valley Line. The line has been upgraded for two-way traffic seven days a week.
Now that the economy has focused our attention on such things as how difficult it is to get from point A to point B; how hard it is to get around our communities and around our region and country we have a golden opportunity to better our way of life and produce jobs. That is if our anti-subsidy and anti-rail ideologues will get out of the way. Going back to the future and restoring these energy efficient and job-creating great trains will not take major money – we are talking millions not billions – and no major technology break-throughs are needed. Communities and states around the country have shown the basics of what can be done. But, there needs to be a coordinated effort. Washington and Oregon, Michigan, North Carolina, California, and the states of the Northeast Corridor all get it, as does New York with its “Empire Corridor,” but we still have a long way to go. Edna's Charlotte "gets it" as the citizenry constantly has supported light rail.
Unfortunately, it can be argued our country as a whole has gotten no leadership nationally for a comprehensive national transportation policy since Dwight Eisenhower, and even Ike’s vision focused on highways. There have articles galore written in Trains magazine about “who killed the American Passenger Train?” and the culprits are many because local jurisdictions, states, private railroads, Wall Street, and the traveling public all played a part. The same can be said about our once wonderful airline network. Deregulation and corporate greed has played a role there too. The “fix” for our passenger rail and air networks is to harmonize and coordinate them the way they should have been years ago through national policy.
Although deep in Southern Railway Green territory rather than the battleship grey of the New York Central’s “Great Steel Fleet,” Charlotte is a likely place to ponder ways of bringing back something like the Commodore’s Great Steel Fleet back in the case of a corridor to Atlanta and northward to the Northeast Corridor. As a Certified Commercial Investment Manager and having served in local government I am interested in smart and “green” environmental stewardship when it comes to development projects and land brokerage, I have partnered with Edna to leverage and develop expertise and interest in such things as light rail, North Carolina Rail, and Amtrak.
As I'm a historian by academic training, I have been urging Edna and discussing with her and anybody in Charlotte who is interested that Green Transprortation planners such as those led and advised by Green Moose should be glancing back to the future looking at possibilities for old Piedmont and Northern lines; state and local partnerships between business groups and Amtrak, the freight railroads, and environmental associations. Again, North Carolina is one of those states that just seems to “get it” when it comes to trains, and is making incremental steps to bringing civilized travel alternatives to its citizens. Charlotte, one of the most desirable and habitable cities in the South has started a light rail system that is very popular with the citizenry despite efforts to curb it by those ideologues opposed to light rail.
Hopefully, those of us that remember the way it was in the Classic Age of Railroads and the Golden Age of Aviation when it came to customer service, common sense alternatives (the train or the plane), travel in comfort, and the joy of travel will be able to provide leadership out of this fine mess our oil companies, corporate investors, and MBAs with no experience in transportation have gotten us all into. (Sorry you guys with MBA's; railroad executives have constantly told me that you need lots of practical experience working on track; operating a locomotive and dispatching trains before you can be let loose to manage or plan anything on a railroad. Some will argue the same for airlines.)
Green Moose Consulting has been active in promoting the concept of “green” or ecologically and environmentally friendly development. The firm’s ecotourism and development project for the River District, Merchandise Mart, and Whitewater Center in the West County (Mecklenburg) area is an example of this concept. In a nutshell, this type of responsible and environmentally responsible development includes affordable and tree-surrounded housing close to schools, services, and other public facilities; walking paths; bicycle ways and the close proximity of housing and service-oriented business. All those are part of this concept. However, this concept – which now includes economic stimulus - cannot work and flourish at the macro level – that is at the state and regional - and even national level - without effective comprehensive national level transportation planning that meshes locally with accessible, convenient, and portable public transportation. That concept must include a national railroad passenger system meshed in closely with local and regional commuter and light rail and buses. Additionally, a viable and rationalized national and international airline system of systems must feed into this transportation. We see the need for the following system of systems:
· Regional Rail Corridors, in the Carolinas in the form of North Carolina Rail needs to
be more robust, and as indicated in the Stimulus Package during the Great Recession is most conducive to “shovel ready” projects as you really don’t need a shovel – simply rolling stock, locomotives, and improvements to existing infrastructure – some of which in this area could double as commuter rail – and share it with the Class I freight railroads. This is easier said than done, but is easily done if there is an operational will. In the Carolinas the regional (and Amtrak, or Amtrak’s successor) rail system needs to be expanded. Greater frequency of trains between Charlotte and the Research Triangle, with ongoing service as far as Washington and the Northeast Corridor needs to be implemented – we are already on that track and the train has left the station. The Carolinian should – and is being - augmented by another frequency in each direction. Furthermore, service from the Greater Charlotte Region should extend to Asheville in the West, and south and southwest to Columbia and Charleston and Atlanta with frequencies that will encourage people to use the train.
The above mentioned light rail must be integrated with the rail infrastructure in that the transfer between trains and trolleys is easy and not time-consuming. A resident of the River Center area should be able to walk from his or her residence to a light rail stop, and then transfer to a regional train, with connections throughout the national railroad network. Additionally, both the light rail and the regional rail need to be easily connected to the airport, as in the case of Metra in St. Louis (for light rail) and BWI Airport at Baltimore. Rail Corridors with 100 and 200 mile per hour plus service such as European high speed rail services are like France’s TGV are often lauded here. Such electric motor power ideally is better than diesel electric but we might consider that rapid implementation of service is required, as President-Elect Obama urged with all deliberate speed – we need intercity corridors now – and high speed often requires a new right of way. Besides, isn’t 79 miles per hour fast enough? Implementing a clone of the Washington to Boston Northeast Corridor or France’s TGV in a market such as Charlotte-Atlanta or Charlotte-Columbia-Charleston requires years of infrastructure planning and construction. It isn’t that it can’t be done; it just should be done incrementally – and without overwhelming costs - starting with current track infrastructure; readily available motive power; and co-existing freight and passenger service. We need not high speed but higher speed rail with more frequencies.
A good “model” for us is Amtrak’s one Pere Marquette round trip between Chicago and Grand Rapids which would be easy to expand – and should be carried on to Detroit. It provides a model for service in the Carolinas for trips such as Charlotte-Atlanta. The C& O ran streamliners called Pere Marquettes streamliners that ran between Detroit and Grand Rapids and Grand Rapids and Chicago which provided fast and comfortable service for the following quarter of a century between 1946 and 1971. In mid-Twentieth Century these diesel powered trains ran between Detroit and Grand Rapids in about two and a half hours – a speed that today would make them very competitive with air and highway “alternatives,” (if you want to consider getting to an airport two hours before departure and enduring one of our aircraft cattle cars an “alternative.”) The Pere Marquettes between Chicago and Grand Rapids ran the route in about three hours. This type of service provides low-hanging fruit that could be implemented quickly with investment at a quantum level lower than high speed rail. This regional corridor service regional network could link the Greater Charlotte Area with the Research Triangle, the Carolina Beaches, Asheville, Knoxville, Chattanooga, Columbia, Charleston and Atlanta.
This is an area ripe for quick improvement - the Charlotte region is served by approximately two round trips of subsidized North Carolina railroad passenger service to the Research Triangle – the frequency of these trains leaves something to be desired. Additionally, there is the state-subsidized Amtrak Carolinian up and back from New York – a train whose survivability was a very near thing due to various White House and Congressional fiscal shenanigans of an ideological nature regarding a national railroad network. Then there is the Amtrak Crescent service from New Orleans and Atlanta and to and from Washington and New York – unfortunately it serves Charlotte in the wee hours of the morning in both directions.
· Light rail should be a key component of our regional transportation.
It is cleaner, faster, and has greater capacity than bus lines. Light rail does not require as intense and “heavy” an infrastructure of “heavy” rail such as Chicago’s CTA or “L,” or New York’s subways. It can be relatively easily relocated – and more importantly, can use existing freight railroad right of ways. For instance, modern versions of the 1950’s era Budd RDC or rail diesel car have already proven themselves and can provide a transition, if needed, to overhead “trolley” type catenaries. A comprehensive and flexible light rail system connected with frequent local bus service enabling door-to-door public transportation for work, shopping, pleasure, and local tourism is essential. This integrated rail/light rail interchange with Amtrak’s and Carolina Rail hopefully expanded national network would aid in keeping cars off the roads; be conducive to environmentally wise development, restored historic districts, and would create jobs in infrastructure and associated commerce.
People will not get out of their cars locally, and certainly no tourists will leave their cars behind if they can’t easily go door-to-door locally, regionally, and nationally – even internationally by energy-saving, environmentally friendly, and comfortable public means of transportation. Public transportation in the western industrialized democracies means just that: publicly-subsidized (not nationalized as in the case of socialist economies) and in some cases, publicly-owned or at least managed, transportation structure serving as an engine for business growth and commerce generated by the facile movement of people. Our current subsidized and publicly-funded highway system does little of the above in an ecologically and habitable manner, and through a lack of national policy, our railroads and airline systems are not adequate either. Along with this their needs to be a robust car rental infrastructure at major nodes so that tourists and businesspersons can get around at their destinations. (This includes on-call availability at small airports so that corporate and air charter aircraft can get corporate decision-makers and technicians to and from business sites.)
Whether the Charlotte region is served by light rail, commuter rail, or by bus, if people are going to leave their cars at home, they need frequent public transportation – at the very least a system that feeds on satellite parking and rental cars or the like. In turn, this local system must connect with regional and national rail on the surface, and an airline system as vibrant and efficient as that which we had in the 1950’s or 60’s. Yes, you read correctly, we are talking about the system of some 30 and 40 years ago, before airline deregulation.
Lack of political will and vision nationally is bipartisan. The Bush II administration rightfully noted as do most conservatives that Amtrak doesn’t pay for itself. They’re right; it doesn’t, and it didn’t when Amtrak was established under the Republican administration of Richard Nixon, it was designed to save the U.S. railroads from the dead goose which had been killed for its golden egg (taxes) that hung around their collective neck in the form of the American Passenger train. It was not designed to pay for itself, anymore than the highly admired railroads of Europe were designed to pay for themselves – look at the names of the successful European passenger railroads: SNCF – French National Railroad, Deutsche Bahn – German Railroads, SJB – Swedish Railways, etc. etc. They are all subsidized, because the nature of the business is such that you can’t run such a system of systems at a profit. The George W. Bush White House, which did not show vision with Amtrak, with former Secretary of Transportation Mineta, seemingly operating in a railroad passenger transportation Wonderland, (talking about “empty long distance trains to nowhere” when empirical evidence proved the opposite, even more so with the spike in gas prices) was not the only irresponsible one. David Stockman tried to strangle Amtrak, and the Clinton Administration did little to promote rail infrastructure. Senator Elizabeth Dole, when Transportation Secretary, was honest and admitted that states could not reasonably be expected to pick up the entire Amtrak burden. The National Association of Railroad Passengers can present reams of data that show that the much maligned long-distance trains of America, while subsidized are actually heavily used, and that many communities depend upon them. (For statistical evidence, go to www.narprail.org.) “Transportation Policy” appears to have been an oxymoron at the national level until oil prices and the economic slowdown got our attention.
If our ecotourism, and entities such as the River District and livable communities in the Catawba Watershed are going to thrive in the Charlotte Region, we are going to have to take positive coordinated measures at the local, regional, state, national, and even international levels to develop a really viable and ecologically friendly transportation system of systems here in the region. These positive measures will take time, patience, and both private and public investment.
Congress, the states, and our localities need to support a national railroad system of systems. (In the case of North Carolina and Virginia I'm preaching to the choir here. First of all, many Americans prefer to travel by surface. Others, for certain religions, people with certain medical conditions, those who live in communities without airline and bus service, and those who merely want to travel easily under 1,000 miles without the hassle and discomfort of today’s flying, have to or prefer to travel by rail. Regional systems such as Carolina rail need to be linked by a rationalized, well-maintained, and redundant Amtrak-like entity, that offers superior service,; doesn’t break-down; and involves minimal federal subsidies. However, it must be kept in mind that passenger rail, like all forms of transportation, involves some form of national subsidy as envisioned by our Founding Fathers. (Remember “promote the general welfare” in the preamble to our Constitution?) This concept has been supported by the mainstreams of both the Democratic and Republican parties throughout their history. We also should not forget the security implications of needing a redundant national transportation system capable of operating under a massive cyber attack or disruption of the national air system. And last, but not least, having an alternate means of comfortable national transportation might give pause to the already heavily subsidized operators of the flying bus routes resembling sardine cans. If you think the taxpayers are paying a lot for Amtrak, take a look at the highway budget, the FAA air traffic control system, or subsidies to airports by local governments.
Passenger rail is not the only area of concern. Our national airline system is, in the view of some, in dire trouble. The so-called “legacy” airlines – the ones that made the United States the leader in world airline transport have been through bankruptcy or are foundering. Pan American, the airline that flew the way across the Pacific with the Yankee Clipper flying boats and pioneered the jet age to Latin America and across the Atlantic is gone; so is Trans World Airlines. United, American, and Delta all have been in trouble and American is in bankruptcy. Our regional and feeder carriers such as North Carolina’s Piedmont, Mohawk, and North Central are gone. We have a hodge-podge of carriers such as admirable Jet Blue to the flying cattle cars of Southwest or Spirit, all of which will get you to selected destinations relatively cheaply, but mostly uncomfortably. Anybody who has flown coach on a United States airline can tell you of the almost Dickensonian horrors of “flying cattle cars.”
Most likely it will take you longer to fly from Charlotte to say, Detroit then it took you to go there by propeller plane, and in a lesser level of comfort as a Greyhound Bus in the 1950’s, and then it will be a hassle to get to say, Saginaw or Flint. Prior to airline deregulation and the free for all of the free market and the throttling of the legacy carriers, you could easily fly from Syracuse, New York to Charlotte by stepping on Mohawk Airlines at Hancock Field in Syracuse and flying to Washington National where you would interline to Piedmont. You would sit in a reasonably comfortable seat, often two by two across, and even have a meal en route. Try that now. Little regional jets don’t seem to fly in conditions once handled by Boeing 727s or by even Convair 240 prop planes. Oh, the Public Relations types at the airlines might try to give you a spin on how great they are, but their systems only work under optimal conditions. Additionally, the unrestrained market types will tell you that thousands more Americans are flying now than before deregulation, and that they are doing it cheaper than ever (adjusted for inflation and not counting baggage fees or a fee for sitting at a window or aisle.) Those statistics might be correct, but any freshmen political science student can tell you that you can lie with statistics. The venerable North Central Airlines gander no longer flies, his “goose having been cooked” by the merger of North Central into Republic then into Northwest and ultimately Delta, and the author contends that if it doesn’t fly like a duck it isn’t a duck. The simple fact of the matter is that many will argue customer service is an oxymoron today in the U.S. aviation industry, and the U.S. public is incensed over cramped seats, long lines, horrible delays, and surly disservice. When I complained about this situation to several retired airline executives in a professional forum, they told me that I had to “adjust my expectations.” I retorted that I would – I want them back to where they were when I was a kid.
If our ecotourism, and entities such as the River District and livable communities in the Catawba Watershed are going to thrive in the Charlotte Region, we are going to have to take positive coordinated measures at the local, regional, state, national, and even international levels to develop a really viable and ecologically friendly transportation system of systems here in the region. These positive measures will take time, patience, and both private and public investment.
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| Edna Chirico, CCIM |
