The Night Train: The Path for Ohio High Speed Rail

by BruceMcF

Burning the Midnight Oil for Living Energy Independence

One of the consequences of the 2010 General Elections was the election of RepubliCorp Governors in Ohio and Wisconsin who politically neutralized the success of sitting Democratic state administrations in landing $400m and $800m High Speed Rail funding by demonizing the High Speed projects that were funded.

What that means for Wisconsin seems likely to be cancellation of the project but its certainly worth pushing back (and see below for further).

Ohio was completing the final Design this year, so never committed to the Build funds, so while Kasich is handing ~8,000 jobs to another state, there's no immediate budget impact to hit him with. Indeed, given the new make-up of the state board that would have to approve taking the Build money, after demonizing the "Quickstart", Kasich couldn't take the money now if he wanted to.

So where next for Ohio High Speed Rail?

continued at Daily Kos....

Obama Admin: Rail Money is for Rail, Use it or lose it

by greendem

The Obama administration is urging Wisconsin's incoming Republican governor, Scott Walker, to reconsider his opposition to high-speed rail in his state and threatened to rescind $810 million in federal stimulus grants for the project if the venture is killed.

For the Record, Walker sought to prove his teabagger cred when he picked this fight.

"I am drawing a line in the sand Mr. President:  No matter how much money you and Governor Doyle try to spend before the end of the year, I will put a stop to this boondoggle the day I take office."
http://www.scottwalker.org/...

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Village Green: A family copes with the unexpected costs of sprawl (video)

by Kaid at NRDC

Queen Creek, Arizona, is on the far southeastern fringe of metropolitan Phoenix.  According to Google Maps, it’s 38 miles and about an hour to central Phoenix by the shortest route.

The land use pattern in and around Queen Creek consists of random enclaves of newly developed leapfrog sprawl, with equally random patches of irrigated agriculture to the north and east.

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The GOP has identified the number one threat to our "Fredoms"...

by Renzo Gasolini

And evidently it is fiendishly disguised as a 260 mph train

Because the Chinese have one, and we don't. And by God the Republicans are going to make damn sure it stays that way

China unveils 260mph train line

"A new high-speed rail line has been opened in China amid boasts from officials over the use of domestic technology to set world records...

...The China-made CRH380 train has been clocked at almost 262 mph - a world speed record - though it will usually operate at a maximum speed of 220 mph...

The line was opened as China prepares to have 10,000 miles of high-speed rail in operation by 2012...

Ten Thousand Miles of of High Speed Rail (HSR) by 2012? Holy fucking yikes!!

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Village Green: Walking to School Is a No-No in Laguna Beach

by Kaid at NRDC

I gave a presentation about sustainable communities on October 6, which happened to be International Walk to School Day.  In my talk, I mentioned that, in 1973, sixty percent of American kids walked to school; by 2006, that portion had dropped to a paltry 13 percent.  I’ve written before about school sprawl and how the location and design of some schools seems explicitly designed to prevent or discourage access by foot or bicycle.

To counter this, the National Center for Safe Routes to School has sponsored a number of programs, including Walk to School Day (or, as some places called it, "Walk and Roll to School Day").

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Sunday Train: Northeastern HSR Alignments & The Move to Tuesdays

by BruceMcF

Burning the Midnight Oil for Living Energy Independence

This is a fairly short Sunday Train, but I thought I better get something posted, so I had somewhere to put this scheduling announcement:

• Due to a new prep on Monday Morning this coming Fall term, the Sunday Train is temporarily moving to Tuesday Evenings until the end of year Holidays, starting next week (19 October)

The actual Sunday Train portion is about one element of the Amtrak proposal for a High Speed Rail corridor for the Northeast: the alignment. At the preliminary proposal stage, an alignment must be selected for study so that preliminary cost and patronage estimates can be performed. However, if the decision is made to go ahead, a range of alignments will be (and, indeed, must be) studied.

So tonight I take a brief look at the alignment options from the report.

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Oregon Candidates On Active Transportation Issues

by JayinPortland

The Bicycle Transportation Alliance has released candidate responses to their four question survey on active transportation issues in Oregon.

The questions asked of candidates for Governor (guess who didn't respond!), US Senate, US House and numerous state and local races were -

1. What programs and other public policy initiatives do you support for making Oregon communities more accessible for pedestrians and bicyclists?

2. What programs and other public policy initiatives do you support for improving the safety of road users, particularly vulnerable users (e.g., better education for road users, increased penalties for unsafe vehicle operation, other statutory modifications)?

3. What programs or other public policy initiatives do you support to ENCOURAGE the use of bicycles for transportation?

4. Please list the active transportation projects, if any, in your district for which you have provided assistance or support?

Let's take a look at some of the more interesting (and fun!) responses...

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How to Say "Never Again"

by Michael Brune

When the BP oil disaster was raging this summer, much of the country was engaged in a conversation about how we could prevent something like this from ever happening again.

If there were an easy answer to that question, we would have found it already. Oil drilling is inherently dangerous and dirty. As long as we keep drilling for oil, there's simply no way to guarantee against another disaster. Sure, we can reduce the odds -- the new drilling regulations announced by the Interior Department last week  might make another accident less likely, but they don't address the fundamental challenge: getting off oil as quickly as possible.

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Village Green: the Design & Context of Public Transportation

by Kaid at NRDC

In almost all American communities, if public transit exists in any meaningful way, it competes for patronage, primarily though not exclusively with driving.  While some advocates seem to believe that the best way to attract more riders to transit is to make driving increasingly as unappealing as possible through fees, removal of or restrictions on parking, "road diets" and the like, I’m not fully in that camp.  There is an appropriate context for each of the things I just mentioned, but for the most part I want to make transit better so that customers choose it not just out of necessity but because it is easily accessible, comfortable, and efficient.

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Sunday Train: 1:36 NYC/Boston, 1:23 NYC/DC, $117b, 30yrs

by BruceMcF

Burning the Midnight Oil for Living Energy Independence

As The Transport Politic reported earlier this week: Amtrak Unveils Ambitious Northeast Corridor Plan, But It Would Take 30 Years to be Realized

After months of sitting on the sidelines as states and regional agencies promoted major new high-speed rail investments, Amtrak has finally announced what it hopes to achieve over the next thirty years: A brand-new, 426-mile, two-track corridor running from Boston to Washington, bringing true [Express] high-speed rail to the Northeast Corridor for the first time.

Some questions and answers, over the fold.

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Sunday Train: HSR Plan A and Plan B Thinking

by BruceMcF

Burning the Midnight Oil for Living Energy Independence

This last week, I have been staring at The Transport Politic post, Republican Wave Could Spell Trouble for High-Speed Rail Projects from Coast to Coast.

Living in Ohio, that is doubly true: first, adding the impact of the recession on top of the impact of sixteen years of Kasich/Portman style policies is, ironically, the best opportunity for those who helped cause the mess to gain political power from it.

So, is there a Plan B?

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Energy COOL Live Event: Progressive Automotive X-Prize

by A Siegel

As I write this, the count-down is on for the Progressive Automotive X-Prize winners announcement. This is a live event.  

I had been planning, with the award announcement, to take the time to do a post on this prize, the process, and the winners.  In short, this Prize (with 12 finalists of 111 teams with 137 entrants) seeks to help drive, with a $10 million award, forward more energy efficient automobiles.

Why this quick post? And a post that will be a running commentary?  Because I had not realized that the award process is actually taking place in Washington, DC, 'around the corner from me'.  And, well, if it is hard to get to the Historical Society of Washington in just a few minutes the car winners will be on Capitol Hill this afternoon.

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"Renewing a" misguided "commitment"?

by A Siegel

Yesterday, President Barack Obama announced a $50 billion investment in the nation's transportation infrastructure with an infrastructure investment bank to come to support future investments. There is much of value to this program, from the very simple reality that there is a huge back-log of investment requirements to repair the nation's infrastructure (let alone bring it to the 21st century) to the nearer term value of providing employment to people across the country.  Our roads are in lousy condition with too large a number of dangerous bridges. Our airports can be better.   Our rail system is a shadow of what it could and should be.   In other words, at least on first glance, needed investment with shorter and longer term benefits.

One small item, however, set the alarm bells ringing:

ROADS: Rebuild 150,000 miles of  roads – renewing our commitment to the backbone of our transportation  system;

Take a look at this.  The first item is focused on our road network with a dedication to "renewing our commitment to the backbone of our transportation  system."

Considering the damage that our addiction to oil does our economy, health, security, environment, etc ..., should we "renewing our commitment"?

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Village Green: to Aid NOLA Recovery, Lose the Treme Expressway

by Kaid at NRDC

As we reflect on the five years that have passed since Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, we can observe both progress and much, much left to be done.  At Xavier University Sunday, President Obama spoke for many when he said that despite progress there are still too many vacant lots, too many people unemployed and "too many New Orleanians who have not been able to come home."  Writing for the Associated Press, Cain Burdeau and Michael Kunzelman also report that the President noted the harsh reality that the recession and the Gulf oil spill have only compounded the challenges of recovery.

Rebuilding one of our nation’s most loved (if also most impoverished) cities has been inherently a matter of planning and architecture, and the task has brought out many ideas, some fabulous, others well-intentioned but falling short of the mark, in my humble opinion.

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Village Green: the Crumbling of the DC Metro

by Kaid at NRDC

The many workers and administrators who make our public transportation systems work as well as they do for so much of the time deserve our praise and support.  Held back by tight and shrinking budgets, frequently placed in poor and dangerous working conditions, and forced by the nature of their business to work with aged and faulty systems at the same time that those systems are heavily used, these good people are asked to do the impossible and to take the heat when expectations are not met.  This certainly goes for the nation’s second-busiest system, in Washington, DC where I live.  But:

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Natural Gas Vehicles: an 'ethanol'-like boondoggle?

by A Siegel

Despite all the green washing out there (and there is lots of it, lets be clear), corn-based ethanol is far from a panacea in terms of reducing America's dependence on imported oil, dependency on fossil fuels, reducing greenhouse gases and representing a good investment for the taxpayer.  While supporting corn ethanol is, it seems, great politics to get through the Iowa primary, independent study after independent study shows that it is not a good deal for the taxpayer, the economy, and the environment.  The absolute 'best' case, from honest analysis, is that this is a very costly and inefficient path for very marginal reductions in fossil-foolish dependencies and minimal greenhouse-gas emission reductions. Other analysts come out with the conclusion that we actually lose ground in GHG emissions in returns for the $billions being pumped into corn ethanol.

Right now, we seem to be watching (in slow motion?) a headlong rush into another "ethanol"-like boondoggle driven, in no small part, by the $70 million or so that T Boone Pickens has put behind promotion of The Pickens' Plan.

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Sunday Train: The Liberty Fund, 1 cent/gallon and 1 percent

by BruceMcF

Burning the Midnight Oil for Living Energy Independence Remember the ontroversy over whether the Stimulus would be "going overboard"? Well, when we net Federal, State and Local Government ... there is no Stimulus. The Federal Spending from ARRA was too small to cover the drop in spending at the State and Local government in the last quarter of last year and first quarter of this year. And yet those who are unhappy that we have not yet had a Depression since the 30's have been successful in getting the recipe for a Depression installed as the Conventional Wisdom. This diary is about one strategy to side-stepp the neo-Hooverites with a "fully funded" program that will still provide the stimulus that our economy desperately needs to get the recovery into second gear where it can start cutting into the unemployment crisis.

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"Doomsday"cuts for public transportation as politicians pay lip service to energy independence

by nyceve

I live in New York City.  Public transportation is the life blood of this teeming metropolis. Most people who live in New York don't own cars, we use public transportation for everything.  Yet, we are approaching  doomsday here, the MTA which runs our transit system has announced huge cuts due to a lack of funding. But New York’s Metropolitian Transportation Agency (MTA) faces a nearly $400 million budget shortfall this year after tax revenues plummeted in the recession. The agency’s debt load has more than doubled in the last decade, it was $13 billion in 2000. It now owes $30 billion in outstanding bonds, payable at interest rates of between two percent to five percent. Seeing the BP catastrophe destroy lives all along the Gulf Coast, and  weeping over the graphic images which recount the tragic consequences of our addiction to oil, it is unfathomable that mass transit in New York City and many other great American cities struggles to survive.

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Bicycle Diaries

by gmoke

When I read a book, I note anything that strikes me.  Here are my notes from Bicycle Diaries by David Byrne NY:  Viking, 2009 ISBN 978-0-670-02114-7 David Byrne, the musician and artist who was in Talking Heads, has become a bicycle advocate after years of riding all over the world.  He takes a folding bike with him on his journeys and tours and bikes wherever he is.  Byrne also keeps a blog: http://journal.davidbyrne.com/

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Sunday Train: Getting Ohio's 3C Line Into Cincinnati

by BruceMcF

Burning the Midnight Oil for Living Energy Independence While EnergyFreedom Transport is an issue that has been brought back onto the "front burner" (so to speak) ... ... there has been ongoing work on this front ever since the supply-drive oil price shocks of the 70's and 80's. Ohio won $400m in competitive HSR funding from Stimulus II, to do the first work toward a 110mph Triple-C corridor, supporting a starter Amtrak-speed service at first and then building toward a 110mph. But it aint 3 C's without Cincinnati, and getting into Cincinnati is tricky.

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