Libertarians’ False Numbers Exposed Again

June 11, 2013 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Car Stop 

One of the many ways in which some libertarian transit critics falsify statistics about public transportation is to take initial ridership of a new rail transit line and compare it to projected ridership years in the future. An article on Los Angeles’ Expo Light Rail line by Axel Hellman in the May 1, 2013 Annenberg digital news edition caught them again at that dishonest game. It reported,

When the Expo line, Los Angeles Metro’s newest light rail line, opened in April, 2012, initial ridership numbers were low, starting at about 11,000 per average weekday . . . One libertarian think tank even used these numbers to argue that light rail systems in general should not be built.

But now, one year later, the picture is very different. Ridership on weekdays has been increasing at a steady clip of about 1,000 per month, reaching an estimated 26,000 per day during the week. Given that Metro projected about 27,000 riders per day by the year 2020, that number is very good. The number of people riding the Expo line may pass that benchmark in the coming months.

Quelle surprise! The libertarians will, no doubt, be quick to admit their mistake and correct their statements about the failure of the Expo line. Sadly, they won’t, because like all ideologues, “truth” is determined by their ideology, not by facts.

As bad numbers, distortions, and at times bald-faced lies about rail transit continue to pour forth from some libertarian transit critics, the question should be, why does anyone take these people’s work seriously? The sad answer is that it is all too easy to fool the press and the public on issues they know little or nothing about. Just roll into town, spew lots of wrong numbers and then leave before anyone can say, “Wait a minute . . .”

The reality of rising rail transit ridership, even in car-centric LA, is a fact. The Annenberg article states,

A Metro spokesperson [ed: that’s “spokesman” in English], Jesse Simon, disputed the line’s naysayers, cautioning that ridership will rise with time. “A favorite tactic of rail critics used to be [ed: they still do it] to take statistics from a year or two after the opening date of a rail [line] to show that out-year estimates of rail patronage were grossly exaggerated. But changing to rail involves a longer process of changing habits. Our experience with rail patronage, and I believe experience elsewhere, is that rail growth is incremental.”

Simon said that in the long term, ridership has been slowly increasing on Metro‘s other rail lines. “Rail patronage has increased steadily almost every year since the first line opened in 1990; and not only because more lines came on line – – within each line then growth has been steady and it has not reached a stable endpoint.”

Could LA’s Metro perhaps coax Jack Webb of Dragnet fame to make an earthly appearance to say to libertarian rail critics, “Just the facts, ma’am?”

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Boston in Retrospect: Was A Complete Shutdown Necessary?

May 31, 2013 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Car Stop 

Both the people of Boston and the police handled the bombing of the marathon well. Transit was another matter, although what happened was not the T’s fault. The state government ordered the entire Boston transit system – – trains, trolleys, buses, all of it – – to shut down. This order was not given before the bombing (if some evidence of the plot had been uncovered), when it might have made some sense, but after it. Amtrak even shut down passenger rail service to the city!

All this happened not because al Qaeda was thought to have a suitcase nuke in the city, but because of one 19-year old kid with a gun – - who turned out to be wounded and hors de combat. Boston contains more than one teenager with a gun and evil intent every day. But the magic word “terrorism” was uttered, so everyone was essentially told by their brave government to go hide under the bed.

This response was wrong on two levels. First, it was bad transit policy. Transit should make every effort to keep operating in times of emergency. That may be when people need it most. For a variety of possible reasons, cars may be unsafe, unavailable or inoperable. Some semblance of normal life can nonetheless be preserved if people can take transit. And no matter what the situation, some people will need to go someplace, even if only out of the city (Amtrak take note).

The bad transit policy ordered by the state government points to the second mistake, bad security policy. In the face of terrorism, one thing government should not do is serve as the terrorists’ megaphone. That is what they want. Publicity is at least half of the game for them, and over-reaction gives them more publicity than they could ever buy. Arguably, the two Chechens’ (Russia could have told us all about Chechens, had we bothered to ask (or to listen since the Russians did contact the FBI)); just why are there Chechens in America, anyway?) biggest success was not the bombing itself but shutting down the city of Boston for a whole day. That success came wholly from government over-reaction.

Yes, the injuries and loss of life in Boston were tragic. But West, Texas lost more dead when the fertilizer plant blew up. The over-reaction in Boston came not from the event itself, but from one word, “terrorism.” Ironically, we often allow terrorism to terrify us, which is exactly what the terrorist want and what terror-wise governments should refuse to permit.

In his weekly address, President Obama said, “Americans refuse to be terrorized. Ultimately, that’s what we’ll remember from this week.” That was true of the police and the public, but not the government of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It lost its cool, and in the process made a very bad decision about public transit.

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The West From a Car Window

February 13, 2013 by · 6 Comments
Filed under: Car Stop 

The West from a Car Window is the title of one of the 19th century books on my bookshelf.  The “car” in question is a railway car, not that insubstantial quadricycle, the automobile.  If you had asked a 19th century visitor how he traveled, he would have replied not “on the train” but “on the cars.”

In early January, I journeyed up the West Coast, from LA to Seattle, by train and other public transportation.  Here are a few observations from that trip.

With a friend and his nine-year old son, I took the Coast Starlight from LA to San Francisco.  Bad dispatching made us run about an hour late – – as the conductor said over the train’s PA system, “You can’t spell stupid without UP” – – but it was a scenic run and faster than if we had driven, since snow closed Interstate 5 for eighteen hours.  When everything else shuts down, the trains usually still run.

Both my friend and his son loved the train.  Accustomed to flying, they could not get over how much more comfortable the train was, yet also cheaper (we were in coach).  It was the boy’s first real train trip, and he cannot wait for more.  He was astonished and delighted by the freedom of the train.  Instead of having to sit in a small seat, belted in, he was allowed to go everywhere on board; the only rule we laid down for him was “Don’t get off.”  He made new friends, enjoyed the lounge car, saw wonderful views out the big windows and dinner (with us) in the dining car.  From the age of eight, I took all-day journeys by myself on the train, and there were few things I enjoyed more.  Boys still love trains and always will.

We spent a weekend in San Francisco, a city my friend had often visited by car.   We got transit passes and saw the city by cable car and streetcar.   At the end of the day Saturday, he said to me, “I never really saw the city before at all.  It was just traffic and the hunt for parking.  I noticed far more today than in all my previous trips.”  Add another convert to the merits of rail transit.

Together, San Francisco’s cable cars and streetcars (the F Line on Market Street) make an important point too many transit professionals overlook:  equipment need not be modern to provide good service.  The cable cars were almost always crowded (the nine-year old was ecstatic when he found you can ride on the running board; it made a better ride than any amusement park, despite the $6 fare).  The streetcars, Peter Witts and PCCs, were also often full.  The F line carries over 20,000 people per day.  As conservatives know, what worked then will work now, and not just in transportation.  The older is often also cheaper, better looking and more fun.  San Francisco’s PCCs painted in the colors of other cities that had them add real beauty to the streets, which modern LRVs are not likely to match.

Sunday night I did something that, 80 years ago, thousands of Americans did every evening.  That night, I was probably the only one.  What was it?  I took the streetcar to the night train.  The last conservative left on earth will still be doing things like that, lest old traditions fail.

Waking in my comfortable roomette on the Coast Starlight just after we entered Oregon, running early, I enjoyed the west from a car window at its best.  The day was clear and crisp, temperature above zero, with fresh snow clinging to the pine trees.  Snow muffles the sounds of the train, so you seem to be riding on a magic carpet.  And magical it was:  I had views of the mountains normally vouchsafed only to intrepid outdoorsmen, as I lay warm and comfortable in my bed.  Now that’s civilization!

The next day, a friend and I took the Talgo from Portland, mostly because I wanted to see the Cascade Corridor in operation and get first-handed impressions of the Talgos.  These Spanish-designed trains did not do well when tried in this country in the 1950s, mainly because ride quality was poor.  That has changed.  Our ride to Seattle was smooth and comfortable, much more so than Amfleet.  Also, unlike Amfleet, the windows are large.

Our train was the first of the day from Portland north, and it was well patronized.  Because the Talgos are slow, it felt like we were going faster than we were.  Top speed is 79 m.p.h, because the Cascade Corridor has rightly focused on average speed and trip time, not top speed.  Within a minute of leaving the station in Portland, we were running at a good speed, something common in Europe but rare in America, where passenger trains crawl endlessly through cities.   That is how higher speed rail works, and it makes much more sense, outside of the Northeast Corridor, than does high speed rail with its enormous costs.  The Cascades Corridor and its Talgos are exactly what my region, the Midwest, needs on corridors such as Cleveland-Columbus-Cincinnati.  Thanks to one-term Governor Kasich, we won’t get it anytime soon.

In Seattle, we rode both the light rail line and the new streetcar line.  Seattle’s light rail is fast and comfortable; the Kinkisharyo cars are remarkably smooth and quiet.  The line runs mostly south of downtown mostly through what appears a downscale area, and because the stations are widely spaced. I am skeptical about how much effect it will have on re-development.  Time will tell.

Seattle’s new streetcar line, in contrast, is clearly designed to bring development, and I expect it to do so.  The areas is runs through are largely parking lots, and I would bet the libertarian transit critics that in ten years those will be gone, replaced by much more valuable high-density buildings.  The streetcar line will pay for itself many times over.

We rode the streetcar at about 5 PM, and saw the new line already performing a classic streetcar function, local collection and distribution.  At that hour, almost all ridership was inbound, toward the city center, not outbound.  I would wager that most of those passengers – – the single car was quickly full – – were transferring to other modes – – trolleybus, ferryboat, commuter train or light rail – – to continue their homeward journeys.  By offering convenient, pleasant collection and distribution, the streetcar makes all those other modes more attractive to more people.  That is how a good transit system works.

We retuned to Portland the next day, again on the Talgo, but found that this trainset did not ride as well as that of the day before.   A train crewman told me different sets ride differently.  I suspect the reason may be maintenance:  the Cascades Corridor has no protect sets, so it must be difficult to maintain trains to an adequate level.  We were also an hour late, reminding us of the curse of American passenger rail travel, uneven quality of service.

Mt final day out west began with a gracious tour of Oregon Ironworks’ new streetcar subsidiary, United Streetcar, which is building the first new streetcars constructed in this country since the last PCCs were built in 1952 (for San Francisco).  We quickly saw that this is no mere assembly operation.  United Streetcar begins by cutting and bending the basic metal that forms the car frame.  It is really building streetcars, not just putting kits together.  With fourteen streetcars in various stages of construction, we had visions of the happy days at places like the Kuhlmann car works in my home town of Cleveland (the factory complex still stands, missing the “K” in the sign on the main building’s roof).  The build quality of the cars we saw under construction appeared to be excellent.  United Streetcar deserves to succeed in its bold venture to build streetcars for our small if growing market, and I very much hope it does.

After United Streetcar, Julie Gustafson took me on and a friend on a tour of Portland’s new extension across the river to Portland’s Eastside Industrial District.  Portland’s eastside has a bit of the “wrong side of the tracks” feel to it, and the streetcar is clearly a development tool.  I suspect it will be successful, as the original loop through downtown Portland was.  Like its predecessor, the new line was built at a reasonable price of about $13 million a mile.  It will eventually connect with the old line at its southern end as well as its northern end, which will make it much more useful to riders.

That new connection will be via a new bridge over the Willamette River which is being constructed mainly for light rail, at a horrendous cost of about three-quarters of a billion dollars.  I’m sorry, but as a conservative, that price sticks in my throat.  I have no doubt that if the bridge were for highway traffic, it would cost a similar amount.  But can’t we find less expensive ways to build bridges?  Do other countries pay that much for a light rail/streetcar bridge?  Although the bridge is designed to accommodate light rail, streetcars, pedestrians and bicyclists (and various permits were required by a variety of agencies with waterway jurisdiction, no doubt adding to the cost), I wonder if cheaper alternatives were considered?  And while we are on the subject of saving money, must we ‘beautify’ new streetcar lines with “public art” that mostly resembles abandoned, rusting Soviet radar antennae?  Yes, I know its Portland, where up is down and black is white.  But ugly is still ugly.

My variety of car windows provided a week’s worth of enjoyable views of the west, far more than I could have gotten through an automobile’s windshield.  We sometimes forget that is what rail offers that little else can:  pleasurable travel.  Here’s hoping our country’s future includes more of it, in place of the miserable “efficiency” offered by equally miserable utilitarians.

William S. Lind serves as Director of The American Conservative Center for Public Transportation

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