From the Archives: Aviation policy expert Robert Poole talks about transportation privatization

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on April 10, 2010. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016. I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Aviation policy expert Robert Poole talks about transportation privatization

A Cato Institute briefing on Capitol Hill on Friday, April 9, asked the question, “When Does Rail Transit Make Sense?” and featured policy experts Randal O’Toole and Ronald Utt. The event attracted mostly young congressional staff members but also in the audience was Robert Poole, the Reason Foundation’s director of transportation studies.

As it happened, the lead article in the commentary section of the Washington Times that day was written by Poole, in which he argued that the federal government should get out of the business of screening airport passengers. He made two primary recommendations:

“First, TSA should be divested of its airport screening duties. TSA should regulate and oversee security, but each airport should be responsible for all aspects of its security (passenger and baggage screening, perimeter security, etc). Airports would be free to hire their own security forces or contract with TSA-certified firms.

“Second, the cost of airport security should be paid for by those who use airports: a combination of airlines and passengers. This change would cut billions from the federal budget, eliminating the large portion of airport security costs not covered by current airport or airline security taxes. It also would make the costs of airport security more visible to airlines and travelers.”

After the Cato briefing, Poole replied to a question from the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner about the future of transportation privatization.

“It’s very up in the air right now,” Poole said. With regard to surface transportation, the chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Congressman James Oberstar (D-Minn.) “wants to basically create a federal czar to have the last word, to say yes or no at the eleventh hour on any proposal for privatizing highways. That’s got the whole industry really, really nervous because nobody wants to take the risk of proposing and researching a project, then having it vetoed at the last minute after they’ve spent millions on putting their numbers together.”

In terms of airports, Poole said, “we have a little boomlet going on right now of cities that want to lease their airport under the federal airport privatization pilot program. I’m guardedly optimistic about that. Midway Airport is the most visible one but there are four others, at least, that have filed applications with the FAA.”

While none of these airports are in Virginia, there is one close by, Poole explained:

“Baltimore has talked about it but they haven’t filed. The state runs the airports in Maryland, and the governor said he would be open to an offer for BWI, which I was astonished to hear, but glad to hear. New Orleans and San Juan are two of the other leading candidates; they have applications filed. It could happen this year.”

Poole recommended that Examiner.com readers interested in transportation privatization issues should check out the Reason Foundation’s annual privatization report and Reason’s Airport Policy and Aviation Security Newsletter.

From the Archives: Former U.S. Transportation Sec’y Mary Peters: ‘not convinced’ on high-speed rail

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on March 4, 2011. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016. I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Former U.S. Transportation Sec’y Mary Peters: ‘not convinced’ on high-speed rail

On the morning of Friday, March 4, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that Governor Rick Scott (R) has the authority to cancel a high-speed rail project between Tampa and Orlando and return.

The seven Florida justices unanimously rejected a lawsuit filed by state legislators challenging Scott’s decision to return approximately $2.4 billion to the federal government that had earlier been earmarked by the Obama administration for the Tampa-Orlando rail line.

No more ‘business as usual’

Hours after the Florida announcement, the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner met with former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters and asked her about high-speed rail and what U.S. transportation priorities should be.

The government cannot “continue business as usual,” said Peters, who served as Transportation Secretary from 2006 to 2009, and previously was head of the Federal Highway Administration. “We need to look at a new paradigm of how we fund, how we operate, how we make project decisions. In the future, that has to be based on cost effectiveness.”

The government has to spend the taxpayers’ money, she said, in a way “that gives them the best possible return. We simply have not been doing that.”


Is high-speed rail cost-effective?

When asked specifically about high-speed rail – a prestige priority of President Obama and current Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood – Peters repeated her emphasis on cost-effectiveness.

“I need to be given the proof that it is indeed cost effective,” she declared.

“We have finite resources right now,” Peters explained, “not just in transportation but in the U.S. budget overall. So every dime we spend, we have to consider, is there a higher, better use of this funding that will give Americans a better return?” Can it, for instance, “reduce the deficit [or] reduce our debt?” she asked.

“I am not convinced that high speed rail is cost effective,” she said.

Leveraging federal dollars

Peters’ top priority for federal transportation policy is to “fully fund TIFIA” – the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act, which, she explained, “can make loans to projects that can attract private investment and help leverage the federal dollar.”

That idea, she added, “segues into the second” priority: Federal transportation policy, she argued, “should give precedence, if you will, to those projects that can take a dollar of federal money and leverage it, perhaps with a dollar of state money and two dollars of private money, to give us more transportation solutions for the same investment.”

Finally, she made the case for consolidation of federal grantmaking programs in the transportation field.

“I would get rid of all these categories,” Peters said. “We have 108 different categories of funding right now” and they should be replaced with block grants to the states, which could make their own decisions on what to spend on transportation projects based on local conditions and circumstances.

The block grants, she said, would not give the states carte blanche, but rather would be aimed at letting them “meet the highest priorities” and would come attached with “measurements” requiring the states to “take care of their Interstate systems at this level” and “maintain their transit systems to a certain level, as well.

In her view, Peters concluded, “I would just block-grant the programs to the states [as] a step toward devolution.”

From the Archives: Former U.S. Secretary of Transportation James Burnley sees U.S. at 'crisis point for infrastructure'

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on June 25, 2010. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016. I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Former U.S. Secretary of Transportation James Burnley sees U.S. at 'crisis point for infrastructure'

Currently a partner at the law firm Venable LLP, James H. Burnley IV was not yet 40 years old when he became President Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of Transportation in 1987, having previously served as deputy secretary in that department as well as in the U.S. Department of Justice as an associate deputy attorney general.

In an interview with the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner at the Heritage Foundation in Washington on June 25, Burnley did not mince words in his assessment of the current state of transportation in the United States.

Time to Rethink Roles

"We’re at a crisis point on infrastructure for transportation in this country and we need to start over, rethinking the roles” of the state, federal, and local governments in devising and implementing transportation policy, he said.

Noting that the economic situation today is quite different than it was in the late 1980s, Burnley pointed out that “we had deficits” under President Reagan “but nothing on the scale we have today.”

One matter that is significantly different, he said, is that “the highway user fee trust fund idea has broken down completely. In the last few years $34.5 billion have been transferred from general revenues because we can’t pay for the existing highway programs and the transit programs that are funded, in part, from the highway trust fund.”

That’s why, he said, we have to “go back to a clean sheet of paper and rethink the federal role vis-à-vis the states and cities on transportation.”

Critical of Obama
Burnley was also critical of the Obama administration’s approach to these issues.

“I don’t think that the policies that the Obama administration seems to be intent on implementing are taking us in that direction – unfortunately,” he said. “Rather, their policies, under the so-called ‘livability doctrine’ seem to be designed to have the federal government play a much more intrusive, heavy-handed role in state and local transportation decisions. I’m sorry to see that happening.”

One proposal, pushed heavily by the Obama administration, is to build and expand high-speed rail across the United States. Burnley is skeptical.

This is, he said, “an issue that ultimately will be determined by how much we as a country are willing to spend because it will never pay for itself and it requires enormous capital investments by someone.”

There are questions that have to be asked in the debate over high-speed rail, Burnley said. “Is that money available from any source, and, if so, where does it come from? The federal government? State government? Private capital, which I think is not very likely?”

Funding, he said, is “the ultimate determinative factor, which is where is the money going to come from, and is it an investment as a country that we want to make?”

High-Speed or Low-Speed?
One issue that is emerging is that federal stimulus funds claimed to be for high-speed rail are going to projects far removed from that concept.

“Part of the $8 billion in stimulus money that was set aside last year for high speed rail that’s not going to the two greenfield projects in California and in Florida has been spread out by the federal [Department of Transportation] among the states to be spent on existing railroad lines,” Burnley explained, which, outside of the Northeast Corridor – where the lines are owned by Amtrak – are owned by freight railroads.

“What we think about as the high-speed rail program” besides those greenfield projects and Acela -- “we’re talking about increasing speeds by 2, 3, 4 miles an hour, very modest increases.”

As a result, that stimulus “money is, in fact, going as direct subsidies to the freight railroads because those are the lines upon which the passenger trains run outside the Northeast Corridor,” said Burnley. “You can argue the merits of that but, factually, I think, it’s important to note that that’s what’s happened. That’s where those billions of dollars are going.”

In other words, federal money designated for “high-speed rail” is subsiding “slow rail” instead.

From the Archives: Former Virginia Secretary of Transportation Shirley Ybarra discusses rail, roads, and HOT lanes

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on June 25, 2010. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016. I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Former Virginia Secretary of Transportation Shirley Ybarra discusses rail, roads, and HOT lanes

Now a senior transportation analyst at the Reason Foundation, Shirley J. Ybarra served as Secretary of Transportation for the Commonwealth of Virginia during the administration of Governor James Gilmore. She previously served as deputy secretary under Governor George Allen.

Ybarra attended a luncheon seminar at the Heritage Foundation in Washington on June 25, where the topic was high speed rail. After the presentation ended, she spoke briefly with the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner on transportation issues facing Virginia.

The biggest single issue she identified is “congestion, particularly in Northern Virginia,” adding that in “the Virginia Beach area, same issues. It’s road congestion, quite honestly.”

To address the congestion problem, Ybarra said, “we’re seeing some solutions in Northern Virginia, with the Beltway HOT lanes and,” eventually, “the I-95/395 corridor HOT lanes.” She noted that those high-occupancy toll lanes are “not just for cars; that puts bus rapid transit on those HOT lanes also.”

High-Speed Rail in Virginia?
As to whether there is a role for high-speed rail (HSR) in Virginia, Ybarra said probably not.

“I think it’s going to be difficult to find a role for high speed rail,” she said. “A project that was started when I was Secretary was something called ‘the Third Rail’ between Washington and Richmond.

“That was because they were using the freight railroad tracks and they needed sidings and a new bridge down by Fredericksburg and that would allow the passenger trains not to be delayed by the very long freight trains like the ‘Juice Train’ that goes through right at the time it’s needed for the VRE service,” that is, the Virginia Railway Express commuter line. VRE, which runs from Manassas in the west and Fredericksburg in the south to downtown Washington, pays “freight railroads for the use of the tracks,” Ybarra explained, “because it is their track.”

McDonnell Administration Efforts
Assessing the successes and failures of the administration of Governor Bob McDonnell in transportation so far, Ybarra said “they are certainly trying to continue with public-private transportation acts, or what the rest of the world calls, public-private ventures, to bring some of the capacity and the private sector into road building,” as well as in transit.

One obstacle facing the McDonnell administration is that has substantially smaller budget “available than I did so they need to bring in the private sector and I know [the governor is] pushing that.” She noted that public-private ventures in transportation were part of McDonnell’s campaign platform and that suggestions to refine that promise have come out of a recent study commissioned by the administration.

Moreover, Ybarra added, McDonnell will be “putting in a dedicated group of people” to study transportation issues, “which we were unable to do when I was there. We all just did our regular job plus that job” of looking into future solutions for transportation problems.

“I think the dedicated group of people will help” in policymaking efforts, she concluded.

Choo-Choo Chugs Along

My post on October 2 about how Charlottesville-based travelers to Washington, D.C., have been flim-flammed by promoters of a new Amtrak train to the Nation's Capital has resulted in an invitation to be on the radio.

On Wednesday, October 28, from 12:05 to 1:00 p.m., I will be a guest on The Schilling Show on WINA-AM (1070 on the dial) in Charlottesville, to discuss passenger rail. John Pfaltz will also be on the show, to offer an alternate point of view.

I explained to the show's host, Rob Schilling, that I am not an expert on transportation policy and that I do not pretend to be such. But I'm willing to make my case that, as an individual, it is less expensive for me to travel to Washington by driving my own car than it is to purchase a round-trip ticket on Amtrak, the heavily-subsidized, federally-owned and -operated passenger rail company.

I may point out how British railroads improved markedly after Tony Blair's Labour government privatized them in the 1990s.

The show invites callers to ask questions and express their own points of view. I hope readers will take the opportunity to do that. Let Rob know you heard about the show on this blog, too!

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Charlottesville's Choo-Choo Flim-Flam

Charlottesville is agog with the news that a new passenger train rides through town on its way to Washington and New York. Rachana Dixit has the story in the Daily Progress:

A new, daily Amtrak train that will stop in Charlottesville before going to Washington and the Northeast received much fanfare on Wednesday as it rolled into the city’s West Main Street station.

“We’re really pushing rail and public transportation because it’s the wave of the future,” Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said during the train’s whistle-stop tour.

The new train was due to arrive at the station at 2:15 p.m., and it pulled in at roughly 2:24 p.m.

Beginning in Lynchburg, the train officially starts its service today and will add 14 more trips per week in Charlottesville. It came to Charlottesville on Wednesday from Culpeper and then headed to Lynchburg after Kaine — who received a rail hat that said “Chief Engineer,” a train whistle and bandana — hopped on.

Some area residents have advocated for more passenger rail service along the U.S. 29 corridor, most notably Meredith Richards, a former councilor and the chairwoman of CvilleRail and the Piedmont Rail Coalition.

The new train, which makes no economic sense (I'll get to that momentarily), is subsidized by Virginia taxpayers to the tune of at least $10.9 million over the next three years (Daily Progress figure) or perhaps $17 million (WSET).

The estimated number of new passenger trips per year ranges from 50,000 to 59,000, which means that each trip is underwritten by taxpayers for between $96 to $113 (using the higher subsidy amount).

The aim of the new service is to entice people away from driving to Washington on Route 29. For an individual, however, it is cheaper to travel by car than by train, even with the subsidy.

I calculate that it costs me, driving my 1999 Saturn, about $20.00 in gasoline (and I'm being generous: that's assuming gas is $2.50 per gallon, when it actually is less than that along the Route 29 corridor, at least until you reach the Beltway). It costs me between $1.00 and $8.00 to park in Ballston. Even if I park in the nearest commercial parking garage near my downtown DC office, the maximum charge for 24 hours is $22.00.

That means that the most I would pay to drive myself to downtown DC is $42.00, roundtrip, including parking. Since I nearly always park in Ballston, however, it is more realistic to calculate my cost to be $28.00 (if I spend all day in DC).

According to the Amtrak web site, the one-way fare on the new train is $29. Roundtrip fare is $58.

That means I save between $16 and $30 by driving myself.

If I were to travel with a friend or colleague and split the costs, we together save between $32 and $60.

For every person traveling together on that Charlottesville-DC trip, choosing Amtrak increases the cost by 100 percent while choosing a private automobile reduces it by 50 percent (up to the point every passenger seat in the car is filled).

I enjoy riding on a train as much as anyone. It is my preferred mode of transportation between Washington and New York. (There's no way you'll find me driving on the streets of Manhattan.) I once even took the Acela from New York to DC. Someone else was paying for it, of course.

Enjoying railroad travel should not, however, blind us to the fact that passenger rail, because it is not economically viable in an open market -- that is, in the absence of government subsidies -- exists only because of a transfer of wealth from the poor (who, by and large, do not travel by train) and the rich (who like to travel by train because it is the chic thing to do, and they can pretend to be environmentally conscious while doing it).

Looking at the numbers, however, why would any rational person choose to take the train rather than drive between Charlottesville and DC? Besides saving money, you would have more flexibility in terms of choosing when to depart and arrive, and if you have a change of plans -- or if your DC-area business is in Tyson's Corner rather than Capitol Hill -- you are better able to adapt to your travel needs and desires. What's more, if I drive myself, I can talk on the phone or listen to NPR without worrying about bothering other passengers.

This is a bad deal. Anyone who thinks otherwise has been bamboozled. (To be fair, people with large disposable incomes and who care little about their travel budgets might rationally choose the Amtrak option. The rest of us would not.)

And watch out: They're going to foist this boondoggle on Richmond and Roanoke, too. (No word about Elm Grove.)






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The Great Elm Grove Train Wreck

"April is the cruelest month," said Eliot. While "breeding lilacs out of the dead land" may not seem to be such a bad thing, one must remember that April also has bred some sad memories: the beginning of the U.S. War Between the States; the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr.; the death of Franklin Roosevelt.

One April day in particular merits, for good and ill, special commemoration. April 19 is the anniversary of the battles of Lexington and Concord (1775), the Waco massacre of 1993, the terrorist attack on Oklahoma City, and one lesser-known event -- the Great Elm Grove Train Wreck of 1958. That last event probably did not get the national attention of the others, but it was certainly vivid to those who lived nearby.

This April 19 will mark 50 years since a train slammed into the train depot in Elm Grove, Wisconsin, with more than two dozen cars jumping the tracks. Fortunately, because it was early on a Saturday morning, nobody was killed or injured. The depot building, however, was destroyed and a sleepy village in suburban Milwaukee was shaken up.

The Waukesha Freeman, the nearest local newspaper, was on the scene and reported the events of that morning in its afternoon edition:

Thirty cars of an eastbound Milwaukee Road freight train jumped the tracks in the village this morning, demolishing the depot and damaging two other buildings.

Two freight cars plowed into the small depot, moving it 30 feet off the foundation and leaving only the roof intact. The station agent, Tom Tracy, 33, was at his rooming house in Elm Grove. He does not work on Saturdays.

Another car shattered a 20 foot section of the nearby Reinders Bros. feed store and a tiny shed. Another 40 foot section of the feed store company's storage room was damaged.

J.A. Jakubec, Milwaukee general superintendent for the railroad, said a hot journal box on one of the freight cars probably caused the accident. When the journal box becomes overheated, the weight of the car collapses on the wheels.

The derailed cars contained canned peas and corn, paper, packaged flour, lumber, plywood and pulpwood.

A rumor that one of the boxcars was loaded with poison was untrue, Jakubec said.

He predicted that the main line won't be open until tomorrow morning. In the meantime westbound trains are being rerouted by way of Horicon to Portage, and eastbound cars from Portage to Madison to Milwaukee.

Elm Grove Police Chief Harold Graf said he was sitting in his office on Legion Dr. and Juneau blvd. at 6:30am when he heard a "terrific rumble." He knew immediately it was a train, looked up and all he could see was dust, he said. "It all took place in a minute and a half." Graf said. Telephone lines and electric lines were down and the railroad depot was demolished."

One of the freight cars came to rest about 12 feet from the corner of Felden's Tavern just northeast of the crossing. About $300 worth of liquor fell off the shelves and was damaged or destroyed. Phil Felden, who was asleep in the living quarters of the tavern, said, "It sounded like a tornado going through. It rumbled for about five minutes. It jarred us out of bed." Mrs. Felden said it was good fortune that the accident happened when it did. Her four small children ordinarily play outside the tavern in the area where the boxcar came to rest.

Along with hundreds of other gawkers, my grandfather, Chester J. Michalak -- one of the early suburban pioneers of nearby Brookfield -- was drawn to the scene. Unlike most of the others, however, he had his 16mm home-movie camera with him. I believe the three-and-a-half minutes of film footage he recorded may be the only extant moving-picture record of the Great Elm Grove Train Wreck of 1958. (It would be interesting to see if any of the Milwaukee TV stations have similar recordings in their archives but, knowing what we do about the preservation practices of TV stations and networks of that era, the existence of such records is doubtful.)

Here is what I found in a video transfer of my grandfather's film:

Local artist Gil Reid, who years later created a watercolor portrait of the destroyed Elm Grove railroad station, put his own memories of that day on video in 2006:

I suspect that, in about two weeks, the people of Elm Grove and Brookfield and surrounding neighborhoods will be commemorating this event. I hope this rare video will help them in resurrecting the images of that day half a century ago.