John Baer: Will Obama rail plan get U.S. back on track?
By John Baer
Philadelphia Daily News
Daily News Political Columnist
I'VE LONG believed that one of the biggest policy blunders in modern U.S. history was and is disproportionate investment since the 1950s in the interstate highway system.
Even after the '70s' "energy crisis," we continued to ignore the obvious alternative of greatly improved rail service to reduce growing reliance on foreign oil.
There's no doubt that auto and airline industry lobbyists helped Congress keep the blinders on; all one need do is look at the numbers.
Since 1990, for example, political contributions from the air-transport and automotive industries total $392 million, according to data maintained by the Center for Responsive Politics.
During the same period, railroad companies, makers of railroad equipment and companies that service railroads, gave $47 million.
That puts the former at a better than 8-to-1 advantage. Imagine how that advantage grows with contributions from the trucking industry, Big Oil and others.
It's no wonder we are where we are, which is burning up fuel no matter its costs, clogging our highways and helping pollute the planet.
So, it struck me as good news and sensible policy when President Obama and Vice President (and train-rider) Joe Biden last week jointly called for new investments in high-speed passenger rail service.
Both stressed how such investments - $8 billion in the current Recovery and Reinvestment Act and the promise to seek $5 billion more over the next five years - can create jobs, save travel time, increase productivity and reduce carbon emissions.
Obama said that overcrowded highways cost the nation $80 billion a year in lost productivity and wasted fuel. Biden, in an uncharacteristically short sentence, said, "This is a giant environmental down payment."
Now, I confess a bias.
My parents and I trained from Pennsylvania to Miami every year on the day after Christmas from the time I was born through my mid-teens. I lived on a train for a week in Canada on a summer trek to Hudson Bay.
I've taken the train across Pennsylvania (in many small towns, residents wave at passing passenger cars), a great way to appreciate the size and diversity of our state. And I have a cousin who's married to an engineer.
But nostalgia and personal history aside, major investment in rail travel is a good thing that's badly needed and long overdue. It can finally move us toward the European and Japanese models of high-speed, low-pollution transportation.
David Johnson, vice president of the National Association of Railroad Passengers, tells me that a new study by Oak Ridge National Laboratory shows that trains are significantly more fuel efficient when measured in BTUs per passenger miles against cars, planes or trucks.
Amtrak, for example, clocks 2,650 BTUs per mile, cars 3,512.
"Trains are more environmentally friendly and offer more comfort and convenience," says Johnson, "and you get more work done. No one says put your laptop away."
It's also clear that rail investments pay off.
In the 104.6-mile stretch of Keystone Corridor between Philly and Harrisburg, state improvements in 2006 allowing more trains to travel faster (up to 110 mph in some spots) increased ridership dramatically.
PennDOT rail guy Calvin Cassidy says that in 2005-06 ridership was around 900,000, but in 2007-08 jumped to 1.1 million.
Johnson says that passenger upticks also occurred after rail upgrades between Chicago and Detroit and elsewhere, and notes new money will improve service in multiple regions of the country.
Service from Philly to Harrisburg to Pittsburgh could qualify for the program. Contracts could be awarded by the end of this summer.
Given fuel costs, traffic and what air travel has become (airports distant from downtowns, delays, security, lost luggage, weather problems), there should be widespread support for better train service.
My hope is that everyone realizes this and gets, you know, all aboard. *
Send e-mail to baerj@phillynews.com.
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