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No mention of electric trains at all...what is the fascination?
Except for California's super train plan. They said they might carry 117 Million passengers by 2030, it could be built in as little as 15 years...at little math...so it would open in 2023-2025.
Alan, I think your ideas are one my greatest hopes...these lead times are frightening.
BTW, Alan have you ever thought of building an information website (promoting your ideas and yourself as a consultant)?
I ask because sometimes I come across decision makers and would love to point them somewhere to get started in electrification of transport.
Heck, I would even host it on our company servers if it would help. I just grabbed electricrailnow.com and electricrailnow.info for you.
Sorry for derailing the thread a bit. Alan's ideas are one of the major proactive things we can do(next to conservation).
Sorry for derailing the thread a bit
An excellent pun :-)
ATM, I would suggest
http://www.lightrailnow.org/
even though it does not cover all aspects.
There are some other sites.
Ohers have urged me as well, although I find writing painful & slow, several people say that I write well. I am looking at this.
I am not a fan of High Speed Rail in the USA. I prefer "semi-HSR" that can run passengers at 110-125 mph top speeds and light & medium density freight on the same tracks. I see freight as the higher priority.
I am active on stuff behind the scenes. Two long shots for 1,000+ mile railroad electrification programs in the works.
I am booked till ASPO-Houston, but let me think this over. I am preparing handouts for the conference ATM, and the T21 model using my ideas with Millennium Institute.
It has been a LOT of work to develop ideas from concepts to firm ideas. The hard #s from the T21 model will help a lot IMHO.
My two best papers are
http://www.aspo-usa.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=168&It...
http://www.lightrailnow.org/features/f_lrt_2007-04a.htm
Point them there.
Best Hopes,
Alan
Ok.
Well, I got those domains anyways.
Maybe TOD could put together a compilation of electric rail discussions under them.
It is not a rejection, let me think about it.
I also think a broader subject, such as Peak Oil & Global Warming Mitigation may be more appropriate. Many of my concepts (a non-GHG North American grid for example) fall into that rubric.
Best Hopes,
Alan
Didn't mean to put you on the spot either. There here if you want em.
these lead times are frightening
Me Too !
The US federal funding process is designed to ration very limited funding by queue (waiting & paperwork).
OTOH, the French build their trams in 3 to 4 years time.
A new Mayor in Lyon promised two new tram lines with broad brush statements "from here to there" and "there to there".
Three years, five months later he cut ribbons on both.
Perhaps we need to import retired French bureaucrats !
Alan
You missed the link above...
Mass Transit: Separating Delusion from Reality
...whose author states that light rail may not be an answer.
Some quotes:
Also takes exception to the fallacy of tax monies "earmarked" for specific venues:
The author clearly has a pro roads agenda but if light rail has such great potential and appeal, why aren't the ones mentioned more successful?
It says alot to me that people would rather be stuck in their cars in bumper to bumper, rush hour traffic than hop a train.
"..if light rail has such great potential and appeal, why aren't the ones mentioned more successful?"
Because they were being examined during this period of extremely cheap gasoline. We haven't had the compelling NEED to make our transportation more economical. Not only do we have the momentum of this illusion that cars give us 'freedom' (cut to bumper to bumper images, circling blocks umpteen times to find a spot, paying for fuel, insurance, maintenance, etc.. ), but it was also being forcefully 'endorsed' by investments in roadway saturation and not transit saturation, both from government and industry. Yes, consumers made choices, but what choices were presented to them, what kind of public information helped form their priorities?
Those cities that have developed light rail at least have a degree of flexibility, whereas towns and cities that ripped up their tracks and terraformed exit ramps over/through old rail pathways will be facing anything from mighty bills to possibly extinction depending on how they can adapt to changed fuel-transport-food realities at the speed that the changes hit us.
Unfotunately there is not much flexibility in the light rail system itself since, as the article maintains, peoples workplaces are as far flung as their living arrangements.
Light rail would be best suited to locales where the centers of commerce are centrally located. I doubt many places in the USA can lay claim to that condition.
Asking society to reformulate its economic activity along a mass transit light rail while under the crushing auspices of Peak Oil seems a bit farfetched to me.
No, conservation is the key here, hybrid buses, rationing, rideshares and maybe even private industry will step up, GM is saying the Volt will be ready for road testing next year.
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070911/BUSINESS01/7091...
Like it or not we are stuck with an unbelievably large prior investment in the form of our road and highway system.
What makes sense is to leverage that investment by setting high CAFE requirements for every vehicle using that system, including long haul and commercial trucking which should be phased out in conjunction with expanding the heavy rail system for moving goods and materials.
Some may argue that Jeavons Paradox will offset any gains in fuel economy but that has yet to be tested in the face of declining resources.
"Light rail would be best suited to locales where the centers of commerce are centrally located. I doubt many places in the USA can lay claim to that condition
... Asking society to reformulate its economic activity along a mass transit light rail while under the crushing auspices of Peak Oil seems a bit farfetched to me."
And yet you still have to compare that to 'Asking society to continually MAINTAIN it's mammoth and capillary system of paved roadways and individual vehicles, and the resulting expenses of trucking ourselves and our supplies out to all these diffused points' .. while under the crushing auspices of Peak Oil. The original setup is what's farfetched. The amount of cheap energy we've had access to is outrageous, but now we're built around it as our central assumption. The volt may be great, but it still needs a terribly costly road system in place to do us much good.
Yes, we need massive conservation and road-based mass-transit options as ways to get by as we figure out how to live in a world with more modest energy availability, but we also need to be able to consider the big pills that must be swallowed. We need durable and efficient transit systems designed for the long view, and rail and light rail have proven themselves in this. It's not a silver bullet, but it is the most energy-efficient way to move things over land and must still play an essential role in a long-term investment to keep things moving. I believe in Transit-Oriented-Development, and structuring the communities around the most efficient forms of transportation, but this is a gradual shift at both ends. You add some trolley lines, some people can walk and bike to them, but there are still roads, buses and cars to cover the distance, as long as you can afford to.. Businesses that aren't near train lines may tend to move closer, lobby for spurs, set up shuttles.
We've got to make a very poorly designed country come back in line. Rail and Light rail will be an incentive for that, with a real capacity for delivering transit with reliably few calories. This is a huge country, and it's completely insane that we have any argument about the sense in using the most efficient and durable means to get around it. Take your bike to the train station.. I want an electric car, too, but I'm more than happy to plan for using the 21st century versions of these 19th century technologies for the lion's share of my transport needs. It's funny how that article quoted the academic (Stanford?) saying rail is a step backwards, and we need to go forward. Going from a less-efficient mode to a more efficient mode is going to save you fuel in either direction, forward or reverse. But of course, reverse is anathema in a country that is addicted to racing around in ever-faster circles..
Regards,
Bob Fiske
Very well stated Bob Fiske !
Just to restate some obvious points. Almost all US cities (all ?) were once centrally located (remember "downtowns") and those bones still remain. The "Creative Destruction" of American economy and Urban Form will accelerate post-Peak Oil IMHO. We will NOT be frozen in whatever form we find ourselves in today.
Those offices and industries that are located non-sustainably will either relocate or stop. With reduced economic activity, some economic centers will be abandoned. Those office buildings 3 blocks from a rail station are unlikely to be abandoned.
The "market" will reform rapidly around rail when it is valued. Washington DC added a new station (New York Avenue) to an old line. A half dozen office buildings sprang up !
After two decades of minimal TOD around Miami's first elevated Rapid Rail. Miami voted to expand it greatly (to 103 miles). In 2004, I counted 15 of 23 construction cranes within 3 blocks of a Metro station.
Trees will not stop growing post-Peak Oil. Construction will slow but not stop. We could build twice as many homes with half the resources as we do today
I figure that a high efficiency 5-plex (2 story. 3 + 2 units, average 450 sq ft each, no parking except bicycles) would take about as much resources as the average 2,497 sq ft single family home in the USA with supporting sewers, streets, etc. and garage required for sprawl. The extra insulation, geothermal heat pump, expensive windows of the post-Peak construction could offset the energy required for the supporting infrastructure of the sprawl. Add some 3 story homes into the mix as well.
I have read that retail space/capita has expanded almost 10x since 1950. I can believe this. Shopping malls with a sea of parking and no transit will likely empty.
Buses are not a solution, except as short feeders to rail, due to their relatively high use of FF.
Best Hopes for Energy Efficiency !
Alan
Hopefully this gets to you, I've been away for a few days.
When it comes to separating people from their cars, you have yet to see the insanity.
As much ingrained into JoeSixpacks non-negotiable right to unlimited amounts of cheap gas is his right to drive any type of vehicle he damn well pleases.
So unless you are advocating bringing this version of T.O.D. to being over at minimum the next 50 years or so you are badly overestimating Joe's ability to see the "sense" in your proposal.
No matter WHAT the reason, people will rebel at the loss of their private transportation.
It would take a HUGE propanganda effort to convince Americans otherwise.
Also missing in the publics mind about the coming scarcity is the appalling lack of leadership neccessary to take on the powerful vested interests aligned against rail (although the limits rail imposes on travel would be an appealing benefit to any future dictator "Your papers, please!").
The doomer in me scoffs at the notion "it was done in 1907, it can be done in 2007" attached to rail.
What was done a century ago was done while we were on the upslope of energy and materials production.
Previous societies that have peaked have rarely, if ever, entered the downslope in a peaceable, cooperative fashion.
So IMO you've got quite a bit arguing left to do.
The author, Wendell Cox (along with Rubin) are long time paid shills for the Road Lobby and I do not bother to read him anymore, due to his habitual use of half truths (use transit statistics from a year with a transit strike to show a declining trend in transit use is one example that comes to mind). Here we would call him a troll.
Transit SYSTEMS (see Washington DC for a system at least partially completed) are needed rather than isolated lines for a transformative impact.
Bus Rapid Transit routinely fails to meet predicted ridership goals, Light Rail routinely exceeds them (and most light rail systems are short of rolling stock because of federal rules, also suppressing ridership and causing excessive crowding).
Car traffic will be forever crowded till fuel issues force them off the road. Uncongested road space draws a crowd.
Vancouver BC has ZERO urban freeways and functions quite well. Hopefully other cities will follow their lead and dynamite existing freeways.
Portland OR is well along to building a partial system once the Green Line (under construction) is completed. East of the Willamette River they will have 4 lines, 1.5 lines + streetcar west of the River.
Portland has wisely kept from expanding freeways (and also encouraged TOD & established Urban Growth Boundaries) . I was told that commuters from Washington have 8 lane freeway in WA, 6 on bridge and in Portland till first exit to Light Rail Park & Ride, 4 lanes thereafter.
This is not calculated to make commuters from Washington sprawl happy. It is calculated to reduce commuting from a state w/o an income tax into a state w/o a sales tax and reduce overall road demand in Portland (paid for by Portland & Oregon).
Portland has benefited economically and environmentally from this reduced emphasis on auto travel. The Pearl is a TOD area that has grown from nothing with the streetcar. Portland has the highest % bicycling commuting in the nation 3.5%. Overall Portland has a reputation as a very livable community which helps economically.
No other American city can be said to have built a Light Rail SYSTEM since WW II and Portland needs several more lines before one can truly say that they have.
Best Hopes,
Alan
Preliminary plans years ago once called for linking the Gold & Green Lines in the SouthEast into a loop, This was cut as an economy measure. I think that it would add to the utility of the SYSTEM to add that back.