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Posted by on . 25 comments.

It’s kind of a busy day for me in the non-blog world, so let me provide easy content by asking you, readers, a question. I’m going to be writing a piece on this shortly, and I have my own ideas, but I want to hear what you guys think: Why isn’t transit a bigger part of the national discussion on energy/climate change/congestion/etc.? Extra points for creative and/or conspiratorial answers. Show your work.

Comments

  1. Alex B. says:
    May 8, 2008 at 4:09 pm

    …because we (collectively) still see transit as a solution that someone else should use, i.e. let’s build transit to relieve congestion on the roads, rather than let’s build transit to move people.

    …because we still cling to the idea that we ought to be able to consume all we want, regardless of the consequences?

    …because we lack good examples to follow, thus everyone thinks of riding a crappy bus around? (There was a great quote in Schrag’s History of the Metro from some transit official that went something like ‘show me a man over 30 that rides the bus, and I’ll show you a life failure.’ – an insightful look at the attitudes both towards transit from the populace, and amongst those administering our systems…)

  2. FLG says:
    May 8, 2008 at 4:23 pm

    I think it is a rural versus urban issue. On one hand, urbanites, often liberal or at least more liberal than rural dwellers, need transit. Rural dwellers can’t use it.

    Since Republican versus Democrat is highly correlated with population density and need or usefulness of transit is as well, you end up with Democrats wanting it and Republicans not wanting it. Add to this the ideological preferences for less government spending by Republicans, and what should be a no brainer, winds up as a political battle between Republicans and Democrats over spending.

    I might be crazy. But I think it is a zero-sum perception on the part of Republicans, particularly rural Republicans, that benefits are going to Urban Democrats that blocks transit as a national priority.

    It is probably more nuanced than that, but that’s what I think the root of it is. BTW, I am against government spending in general. So, I am not picking on Republicans on that point.

  3. Daniel Hall says:
    May 8, 2008 at 4:42 pm

    1. Local/national divide. Transit is mostly about political compromise on the local level. Hard to score national political points.

    2. Lead times. Transit (infrastructure in general) is an issue that goes WAY longer than the election cycle.

    3. Blind spot effects. Most Americans have never lived in NYC, DC, SF, Boston, or Chicago and don’t know what they’re missing.

    4. Bad experience effect. Related to above, most Americans only experience with transit is buses. Buses SUCK. (I like transit a lot and still find buses obnoxious frequently.)

    5. Racism. Once they desegregated the buses the white people all got off.

    6. Preferred mode. Related to above 2 points, lots of people would just rather sit in their car by themselves. I like riding around in trains w/ tons of humanity around me but not everyone shares my preferences apparently.

    7. Bad accounting. I’ve heard lots of people talk about how much money the public transit system loses. These people never seem to talk about how much money the road system loses.

    8. Irrational preferences. People aren’t good at calculating congestion costs in their head. They don’t know what will actually make them happy — small house w/ a short commute vs. a big house with a long one.

    9. Economics. For riders transit is a good deal now but not long ago gas was still really cheap and the private costs didn’t always add up. Particularly with buses and time costs.

    10. Reality. Transit is really only a primary contributor to the solution to the congestion problem. Now this happens to be the biggest of the 3 problems you list (in monetary terms as mainstream economists currently value them) but I’ve talked above about why behaviorally we’re not valuing it correctly. For the other areas transit does indeed save energy and thus helps with climate change but don’t forgot it still requires some energy from somewhere so really here you are talking about cutting out a portion of energy/emissions from a sector (transportation) that accounts for 1/3 of U.S. emissions. If you care about energy/emissions most then look to the electricity sector first.

  4. Alex E. says:
    May 8, 2008 at 4:58 pm

    I think FLG is on to something, but I have a more conspiratorial answer: the Electoral College.

    Think about it, just using this year as an example, Obama could easily register and get to the polls new young voters and black voters, especially in red southern states. But we lose those states by 15%, so a 10% shift means we still lose. Think about that, we could have one candidate with upwards of 57% of the vote, a veritable landslide, but not be able to move enough Electoral College votes to put him in the White House.

    The Electoral College rewards low density by awarding the people in those areas more of an Electoral Vote per person. I believe this has, over a few hundred years, encouraged a less urban lifestyle. Campaigns,and thus policy, have been structured to appeal to the most people and the best use of that dollar has been to appeal to the voters with the most “voting power.”

    A nice brief conspiracy theory, I believe.

  5. Alex B. says:
    May 8, 2008 at 5:08 pm

    Well, along those lines (and Daniel mentioned this), transit is a local issue. The interstate highway system has had a profound local impact in just about every major US city, but there’s not really an equivalent way to federally inject a mass transit system on the nation as a whole. You can look at the new-era systems (BART in SF, MARTA in ATL, Metro in DC) and the few other new-era single lines (Miami, Baltimore) and they all share a lot of characteristics. Take a look at the map I posted in the previous thread, and you can easily tell visually which systems are older and urban-focused (like Chicago, NYC, etc.) versus the newer hybrid subway/commuter rail systems like BART (the most CR-ish) and Metro (the most subway-ish).

    There are a lot of similarities in those systems, but no scalability onto a national level like you have with interstates.

  6. BCM says:
    May 8, 2008 at 5:54 pm

    It’s politics. Politicians don’t want to be the bearers of bad news. If they tell people that the way they live and commute now has to change, people will tune the message and the politician out. The people don’t see the problem. They see now and now is not a problem.

    Global warming and energy worries are distant issues. That is to say that you cannot see them in everyday life. They both may be problems, but they aren’t problems to me.

    If that’s the case, gas prices may spark a national discussion on energy and transportation for the future.

  7. cminus says:
    May 8, 2008 at 6:10 pm

    Who knows the answer to all the knotty questions facing America? The Onion, of course.

    Report: 98 Percent Of U.S. Commuters Favor Public Transportation For Others.

    Not conspiratorial, nor creative (at least on my part). But brief, and who wants to bet against the Onion‘s record of insight?

  8. The Overhead Wire says:
    May 9, 2008 at 2:24 am

    FLG is right, It’s all about politics. Republicans all see transit as an urban democrat issue. It should however be framed as a national security issue which is important for everyone. Given the 1/3 reduction of energy use by New Yorkers, it would behoove people around the country, at least in urban areas to start thinking about how they can help their country.

  9. The Overhead Wire says:
    May 9, 2008 at 2:30 am

    Alex wouldn’t that be a way to push for High Speed Rail? Airline like service in smaller towns would be dynamite. That’s how the interstate highway system worked. It opened up everything. Talk about mobility. Then connecting the larger regional cities which would have a tram or heavy rail infrastructure would allow people to go to baseball games or museums. That might be the answer. Connecting people to where they want to go.

  10. Alex B. says:
    May 9, 2008 at 8:39 am

    You can certainly frame HSR as a national issue much easier, despite the fact that it makes sense for certain links (in the Midwest around Chicago, for example – but probably not going to beat planes for Chicago to Denver). I’d also focus on relieving congestion in the skies with HSR.

    Mass transit, however, simply doesn’t have that national connection. I think it’s wrong to even say that it’s been pawned off on Dems favoring urban issues, I think it’s been pawned off on each local area to fend for themselves, regardless of national party affiliation.

  11. ryan says:
    May 9, 2008 at 9:03 am

    Great comments, keep them coming. Daniel, I’m surprised to hear you say that transit is not a big contributor to the energy and climate change problems. Perhaps the direct reductions in per capita emissions that riders experience are not, by themselves, all that large, but the land-use paradigm that tends to grow up in the wake of transit seems to me to make an enormous difference.

  12. Nanonymous says:
    May 9, 2008 at 9:07 am

    Ugh – could we dispense with the “everyone’s going to get 186 mph train service if we build HSR” canard? The problem with HSR is that you don’t GET it in small towns – by definition, it’s a city-to-city service. If you stop in small towns, your average speed falls through the floor. If you blow by the little places, they become opponents at the EIS stage of the game: why should they suffer the impacts and not get the benefits?

    Moreover, when you start looking at the places where people are proposing HSR, it’s pretty clear that the finances of a front-loaded capital project are too much for private industry, let alone states that already have budget problems: think of Indianapolis to Chicago, or Chicago to Detroit. Even California would be hard-pressed to do something: the price tag is just too big, and private industry doesn’t want to put money into enormous capital projects that won’t repay the investment for thirty years.

    Passenger rail service does make sense in these places – but you’re better off improving existing lines and signal systems to get the service up above 79 mph. When you can do that, you get results: Amtrak and Pennsylvania just fixed up the Harrisburg to Philly line for 110mph service in 2006, and the carrier that was offering Harrisburg-LaGuardia service (Colgan, I think it was) got out – couldn’t compete, even with a dogleg through Philadelphia. So the idea that rail needs to be the TGV to be competitive is a canard: people see HSR as a panacea, when in fact it’s like any other technology – it has limits. It isn’t magic.

  13. Alex B. says:
    May 9, 2008 at 9:31 am

    Nan,

    I agree on your points about HSR, I’m just saying that it connects a much wider geographical area (even if not touching all points in between) than mass transit. It ought to be framed as comparable to air travel, not mass transit – despite the common technological platform.

    That said – we have huge congestion at air hubs like Chicago and New York. If you had TGV-like service (nevermind the initial cost) out of Chicago to, say, Minneapolis – I’ll bet flights between the two would trickle.

    A TGV level of HSR, however, I think still needs to be on the table. I’m all for incremental improvements, but the great advantage of rail is that you can shift those HS trains on to regular tracks. Build a few LGVs off in the country-side. There’s plenty of hinterland to do that in the Midwest.

    Rail doesn’t need to be to TGV standards to be competitive, but TGV standards really expand the radius with which it can be effective. My aforementioned idea of Minneapolis-Chicago is pushing that envelope, but I think it’s entirely plausible.

    —–

    I’ve also heard that mass transit offers no net gain in terms of energy usage compared to cars. I’m skeptical about that, but I’ve heard it. I’d say there are a few key things that stat hides. Ryan mentioned land use, that’s a no-brainer. Also, we’re comparing electricity to gas, thus point-source pollution to a diffuse distribution, not to mention the wide variety of ways to generate electricity.

    Another angle would be the energy saved by reducing other trips. How many New Yorkers regularly ride the subway and still have a car? Of those that do, how many drive nearly as much as the average American for non-commute trips?

    —-

    For a serious answer to the original question, I don’t think transit is pushed as a serious answer to climate change/energy/congestion because it’s an incredibly long-term investment. Subway tunnels, with any modicum of maintenance, will last for centuries. We’re already over the century mark in New York, Boston, etc. – and those systems are still in use, still effective. Yet we’re too focused on the much shorter rate of return.

    It’s interesting to read about the financing of Paris’ RER system – incredibly expensive, but indispensable today. Same, to a lesser extent, with DC’s Metro – an expensive vision. Right now, we’re too caught up in the financial nitty gritty. There’s no vision.

  14. ryan says:
    May 9, 2008 at 9:38 am

    On HSR, given the capital costs, I think efforts to build such systems should be focused on just a very few corridors at the outset. There are enormous gains to be had on other corridors simply from making trains competitive with automobile travel, in terms of speed. The trip from Raleigh to DC takes 7 hours. Reducing that to 4, roughly the time it takes to drive, would be revolutionary. SO HSR has potential, but we shouldn’t ignore the low-hanging fruit.

    Alex B, I’ve seen extremely poor Cato studies which suggest that rail is as carbon intensive as driving–this is absolutely false–but I’ve never seen anyone make the point that rail uses the same amount of energy. And the nice thing about rail is that the more people use it, the more efficient it becomes; just the opposite of the roads.

  15. Nanonymous says:
    May 9, 2008 at 9:46 am

    The basic problem with your idea is, as I said, threefold:
    1) The capital cost, uneven benefits, and environmenta impacts of an LGV-like line render it impractical.

    2)Incremental improvement is a lot cheaper, and it provides a means for gradual development of commuting and travel habits. It uses existing infrastructure, so you don’t have to get mired in the land use/condemnation debate, and it often provides city center access.

    3) You don’t need HSR to get the benefits you’re talking about. Where Amtrak offers shorter distance corridor service in the 79-110 mph range, it can and frequently does beat out airline service. There’s not corridor service between Chicago and Minneapolis, but there are 14 daily departures between Chicago and Milwaukee, and it’s a very successful service; ditto the LA-San Diego Pacific Surfliners. Amtrak trains carry more people between New York and DC than all of the airlines put together – and that’s not technically HSR.

    The argument that rail provides no energy advantage is pure nonsense – the electricity to gas conversion is simple math, and is in any case a red herring. The real mechanical advantage is enormous – “Railway Age” just published a U.S. Maritime Administration stat – one gallon of fuel can move one ton of freight 59 miles by truck and 202 miles by rail. The most common way around this is to compare them on a fuel per passenger-mile basis – and use a rail service with a very low load factor and an airline service with a very high load factor. Rail has disadvantages (fixed infrastructure, heavy capital costs), but the mechanical advantage of steel wheels on steel rail is real and inarguable.

  16. Ralph Garboushian says:
    May 9, 2008 at 10:34 am

    After WWII, our country shifted away from transit in general and rail transit in particular. There are many reasons for this shift: massive government spending on road infrastructure and on the general infrastructure of suburban sprawl (at the same time that streetcar systems were taxed), racism, white flight to suburbs that could not easily be served by transit, a shift away from streetcars to buses, resulting in a rougher, jerkier ride, massive government subsidaztion of the car, etc.

    The shift from transit to private cars was so complete by 1970, that the vast majority of Americans born since then have absolutely no experience riding transit. In addition, the car has become so ubiquitous, that the vast majority of Americans cannot imagine that there is an alternative. Or, if they can imagine an alternative, it is for “other people.”

    A great exammple:

    I was at the DC Council hearing last night on Klingle Road and I was struck by how the pro-road crowd all seemed unable to imagine living in and getting around DC without a car. And these are Americans who live in a city with a decent subway and bus system. The best part was when Councilmember Jim Graham said that one advantage of opening Klingle Road would be that he could access the Uptown Theater more quickly, as if there is no alternative to driving there. Granted, taking the Green Line from Ward 1 downtown and then transfering to the Red Line to get to Cleveland Park is a bit circuitous, but it’s not that big of a deal. I do it all the time. Plus what about the crosstown H bus? It’s not the greatest bus, but it runs pretty frequently. But what kind of a loser takes the bus to the movie theater?

  17. The Overhead Wire says:
    May 9, 2008 at 3:00 pm

    I’m not saying that it should be a national connect the dots strategy but rather a connect the bigger dots. In California connecting LA to Bakersfield to Fresno to San Francisco ensures that people in the North and South Valley have options better than before to get to a major hub airport or destinations in major centers.

    As for transit energy issues, the Oakridge Lab for DOE has calculated it out and electric rail saves big.

    http://cta.ornl.gov/data/index.shtml

    Heavy and Light Rail 2,784 BTU per PM
    Regular Car 4,983 BTU per PM
    Light Truck 7,038 BTU per PM
    Bus 4,230 BTU per PM
    Trolley Bus 4,004 BTU per PM

    Now that is including energy generation and transmission losses.

    At the sources without transmission
    Heavy Rail Subway 892 BTU per PM
    LRT 1,146
    Trolley Bus 1,322

  18. Dan says:
    May 9, 2008 at 3:59 pm

    Hey Ryan,

    Maybe it’s because people love their cars too much. I posted response on my blog: http://cynicalmorality.blogspot.com/2008/05/whats-so-great-about-cars.html

  19. Maia M says:
    May 9, 2008 at 4:43 pm

    Isn’t it ironic that Jin Graham, who is on the WMATA Board, would make those statements about Klingle Road?

  20. Daniel Hall says:
    May 9, 2008 at 6:10 pm

    Ryan, the main point I was trying to make — and I acknowledge that it could have been more clearly conveyed — is that we shouldn’t get our expectations TOO high on the energy/emissions gains from improving transit. As evidence I would cite Glaeser’s and Kahn’s forthcoming research on cities and GHG emissions, an early summary version of which is here.

    Yes, it’s very true that cities with transit and more density are better in GHG intensity than those without. But even if we compare New York and Houston (Table 1) it looks like the the savings are only about one-third (i.e., NY households emit about one-third less than Houston households). The comparison improves a bit if you focus on true city areas (vs. suburbs, see Table 2) but even here it appears a central NY household still uses at least 50% (and I think more) of the energy of a central Houston household.

    So yes you are getting a boost — one-third to one-half savings is very good. But remember we are talking about a portion of U.S. emissions (I think a little over 40% when you combine transportation and residential emissions). And the really big caveat is that the appropriate comparison is not NY vs. Houston but current Houston vs. ‘improved transit’ Houston. We can improve many cities a lot but not everywhere is going to reach NY levels of density and energy efficiency.

    Also, I mentioned electricity use? Note that there is already roughly as much variation in regional patterns of the emissions intensity of electricity as there is in city household emissions intensity. When I said to look first to the electricity sector if you primarily care about emissions I was just repeating what is a very standard result in almost all the literature on emissions mitigation which is that the marginal costs of reductions are lower in this sector in the near-term than in transportation.

    In summary I agree transit is part of the solution to the congestion/energy/climate change problems but in addition to the more sexy ‘conspiratorial’ answers I wanted to try to provide a realist critique for why it hasn’t entered the debate. On these kind of realist grounds I would say that it’s hard to understand why transit isn’t a bigger part of the congestion conversation, both because the costs of congestion are very high and transit is a first-order solution. But once you get into the energy/climate part of the conversation I think that given realistic constraints the ‘bang for your buck’ you get are not as high here as in some other sectors. I think it also gets challenging for politicians to go on about these second- and third- order effects when they can make much easier arguments for reducing emissions other places (“build wind power!” etc).

    But I’m open to arguments or evidence that I’ve overlooked something or I’m wrong.

  21. Nanonymous says:
    May 9, 2008 at 7:57 pm

    Well, again – the energy case depends on how you slice the pie. Mechanically speaking, there’s no question rail transit is the most efficient way to go. The DoE figures cited above understate the case, from a purely physical point of view, because they measure energy efficiency on a per passenger mile basis.

    The transit systems often run partly empty – passenger trains, for example, as a whole run at about a 49% load factor. That means they’re about half full, and in off-peak hours, urban transit can frequently be even worse. Airplanes are generally much fuller. The result is a measure of comparison that makes air transport seem artificially better than it actually is, mechanically speaking. Auto data is also problematic; there are some underpinning assumptions I think DOE makes about the number of passengers per car that may or may not be true, but are almost unmeasureable and are in any case pure guesswork.

    I’m skeptical of government numbers like these – not because I think there’s a conspiracy, but because the methods chosen artificially privilege certain modes. I put up the per-ton mile data earlier as one means of comparison, but the actualy efficiency of rail is probably more than the four times it suggests – I have seen some calculations that show a steel wheel on a rail takes seven times less energy to move a given weight. Whether you’re measuring emissions or energy consumption, there’s no doubt about it: rail is the most mechanically efficient form of ground transportation. And since you can get electricity from hydro or nuclear sources, it’s potentially emission-free.

  22. Nanonymous says:
    May 9, 2008 at 7:58 pm

    Another point that’s worth remembering – there are relatively Federal matching programs for transportation that are as attractive for state and local authorities as roads. They refer to Federal money as “ten cent dollars” for a reason.

  23. Zack says:
    May 10, 2008 at 12:42 pm

    The idea was brushed on earlier with the mention of the electoral college, but the real issue is in the Senate. If you look at how many states actually have or desire significant transit systems, the number is very small.

    MA, CT, NY, NJ, MD, VA, PA, NC, GA, FL, TX, IL, CA, WA, OR, MO, CO, and maybe TN, LA, KY, OH, AZ, and MO and that’s being very generous. This still leaves the Senate short of 25 states needed to get anything even considered that doesn’t have something else attached to it.

    Roads are an easier sell since every state has them and the only question is the funding formula.

  24. cminus says:
    May 11, 2008 at 9:13 am

    Zack, I’d consider Indiana, Wisconsin, and Minnesota as possible transit states — far more plausible than Tennessee or Kentucky, certainly. All three have one legitimately good-sized city and relatively unequal population densities, and Indiana and Wisconsin would both be served by any meaningful regional transit system based out of Chicago. In fact, as Nanonymous points out, there’s already regular corridor service between Chicago and Milwaukee, and the South Shore line (connecting Chicago to South Bend, Indiana via Gary) is one of only three surviving interurban streetcar lines.

  25. ragacs says:
    May 19, 2008 at 10:00 pm

    The Image of the Public Transit

    I know, it resemble that of a marketing/branding strategy. Yet, if you would do an associative game and collect all the words associated with the public transportation, the negative ones would be in majority (I admit, it wont really work for Bostonians, New Yorkers or San Franciscans). So, the neglect of the issues at hand is the result of our human nature: till we are negative or hesitant toward an issue we wont support it openly/full heartedly.