As governor of Massachusetts, Romney had a mixed record on transit and smart growth. Photo: Daily Caller

According to the most recent polling data, Obama trounces Gov. Perry. He makes mincemeat of Bachmann and Gingrich. Only one poll shows a winning Republican candidate, and that’s Romney, with a two percent edge over the president in a recent USA Today poll.

We took a hard look at Rick Perry’s approach to transportation last fall, when he was running for re-election. As Texas governor, Perry championed a mega-highway plan that would make the Road Gang blush. He blocked metrorail extensions and vulnerable users legislation.

But what about Romney? His record as a red governor of the blue state of Massachusetts is a little more complex, and worth exploring.

In a recent Boston Globe story comparing current Democratic Governor Deval Patrick with his predecessor, Romney emerges as the more inspired candidate when it comes to smart growth. (It doesn’t help that Patrick was caught driving around in an SUV last week while telling his constituents to observe car-free week.)

According to the Globe, Patrick has done away with a program originated under Romney to encourage “mixed-use, walkable, downtown-centered, transit-oriented growth” and counter sprawl.

Under the Romney program, communities got credit for green building, saving energy, preserving open space, and zoning reform, among many other categories. Those that scored highest went to the front of the line to receive about $500 million per year in grants and revolving loan funds for infrastructure including water and sewer projects. The idea was to put state funding to municipalities through a filter, and reward innovation in sustainability at the local level; previously the money was just doled out.

Romney also pioneered an interagency partnership in Massachusetts not unlike the Obama administration initiative that brought together HUD, USDOT and EPA. Romney’s Office for Commonwealth Development brought together state agencies on transportation, environment, housing, and energy — a collaboration which has served as a model for other states. To head it, he hired Doug Foy, the head of the Conservation Law Foundation and “arguably New England’s most important environmentalist,” according to ModeShift.

Romney’s administration encouraged brownfield, instead of greenfield, development and created a bond program to encourage transit-oriented development. And ModeShift says he was “for RGGI (the Northeast regional greenhouse gas emissions compact) before he was against it.”

That highlights one fundamental truth about Mitt Romney, which is that it’s sometimes hard to know what is the fundamental truth about Mitt Romney. The man who brought health care reform to Massachusetts is not the same animal currently fighting for the right-wing-extremist vote in the Republican primary.

Romney is “neutral” on the idea that human pollution is a significant cause of global warming and opposes international climate treaties like the Kyoto Protocol. He’s pro-nuclear and pro-drilling (including in protected areas in Alaska). And as governor, Romney “used approximately $45,000 in the state’s parks and conservation money to stage a pre-Super Bowl send-off rally for the New England Patriots football team on January 30,” according to the Boston Globe.

Indeed, according to a story printed by the Massachusetts Audubon Society, Romney “viewed land protection as a barrier to his top campaign pledge to double housing production.” Romney shelved the Statewide Open Space Plan soon after entering office, according to the story.

Gov. Romney also gets a lot of blame for reneging on promises made by his predecessors to build transit to offset some of the environmental damage done by the Big Dig road project. According to an editorial in the Harvard Crimson:

As part of the 1990 legal agreement to begin the Big Dig highway project, Massachusetts promised to fund a number of desperately needed public transportation projects in order to ameliorate the increased pollution and traffic that the new highway would generate. But the Romney administration has consistently downsized, delayed, or outright terminated most of the projects that were included in the 1990 agreement, choosing instead to divert transportation funds to other expensive highway projects and mass transit extensions that would primarily benefit the Commonwealth’s more affluent residents.

Many of the transit projects, like a green line extension to Somerville and Medford, and orange line service in Jamaica Plain, are still in limbo.

But given that Boston has the oldest transit system in the country, with badly deteriorating infrastructure, the restraint when it comes to new construction may not be a bad thing.

“I think it’s admirable that these guys [Patrick and Romney] have taken safety and maintenance as their prime goals, and capital projects have to take a back seat,” said Ted Brown, a former city transportation official and writer of the Boston-based Radials blog. “I think that’s a pretty good judge of what people want.”

Romney did have a significant hand in improving the transportation bureaucracy in his state. There was no Massachusetts Department of Transportation until two years ago. Seven different entities had some hand in transportation planning and building, according to Brown, with the Turnpike Authority being the biggest and most powerful. The authority was independent until this year. Romney got the ball rolling on unification of the transportation work in the state and the creation of the department.

Meanwhile, the commuter rail system was privatized under Romney, but perhaps not of his own choosing: After a series of disagreements with the T, Amtrak declined to bid on the commuter rail service contract in 2003. The Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad Company (MBCR) now runs the rail system, and according to Brown, privatization was “not the worst thing in the world.”

Romney invested in the improvement of certain lines as part of the privatization process. Some saw the improvements, performed before handing over operations, as a donation of sorts to a private company, but Brown said it had the important effect of improving the stations and making commuter rail a more viable service. Besides, he said, for riders, “it’s the same deal.” He said the switch was seamless, and few noticed a change.

Soon after the 2008 election was sewn up, Romney came out opposing the auto bailout, saying it would encourage Detroit automakers to “stay the course — the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses.”

His opposition certainly had nothing to do with a principled stand against car subsidies or promotion of clean-fuel vehicles. Indeed, during the 2008 campaign, he told a Michigan audience that he would help “build a brighter, prosperous future” by championing the auto industry, and he attacked opponent John McCain for backing fuel economy standards, calling them “anvils around the neck of the domestic auto manufacturers.”

We’ll take a look at other candidates’ transportation records as the primary season unfolds.

My notes say that I’m supposed to say, ‘Thank you Mr. Mica for holding today’s hearing.’ I don’t think so. Because I think legislation that affects the entire passenger and freight rail system in the United States deserves hearing, examination and debate. There are numerous legal, financial and operational questions that need to be answered before we auction off Amtrak to Wall Street investors.

Rep. Corinne Brown (D-FL) wasn't quite ready to thank Mica, as is customary, for holding the hearing.

The hearing was called at the last minute as a result of Brown’s and others’ demands for a full airing of Democrats’ concerns before taking quick action on the Republican plan to privatize Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor.

Committee Chair John Mica (R-FL) started off blustery and aggressive, saying, “We’ll have a hearing every week if we have to until we get this done” and dismissing his critics’ concerns with visible frustration. Once he got that out of his system, though, he adopted a more conciliatory tone as he talked about Amtrak.

He introduced Amtrak CEO Joseph Boardman with some self-effacing humility: “[Boardman] takes a beating from time to time, sometimes from me, unwarranted, and I apologize publicly for that, but he does as good a job he can with the cards he’s dealt,” Mica said.

That was just the beginning of Mica’s overtures to the embattled rail chief and his allies. He prodded Democrats and witnesses for suggestions for improving the plan, looking to incorporate their suggestions to build consensus for the bill. Significantly, Mica even allowed that the plan to privatize the Northeast Corridor could end up leaving Amtrak more or less intact, especially since Amtrak is already looking for private-sector partners to team up with.

“I’m not trying to limit any service they provide, or privatize all of Amtrak,” Mica said. “I don’t mind giving authority to Amtrak to do what we’re trying to achieve. I don’t know that we need to create a second entity to do this.”

He said he’d been told by Amtrak leaders in the past that they didn’t have the authority to team up with the private sector to operate and maintain the corridor. “The key is to attract private capital, so we have got to have the ability, for whatever entity, whether it’s Amtrak or another entity, to attract that private capital.”

Boardman indirectly chided Mica for his previous attacks on Amtrak, saying, “The stability of Amtrak and its future are critical to have any confidence in us as a centerpiece. And this legislation, and the way that we’re characterized on a regular basis, doesn’t sustain that in the investment public. And it’s not accurate. Sir.”

While Mica may have been willing to take a vacation from his usual name-calling, not all Republicans were as generous in their approach to Amtrak. I’ve been waiting all session to hear from Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-MN), the freshman who ousted Chair Jim Oberstar from his seat last fall. In the first words I’d personally heard from Cravaack at a T&I Committee hearing, he toed the Tea Party line, mingling xenophobia and a fanatical commitment to avoiding borrowing. Amid more moderate, old-school Republicans like Mica, he embodied the new class of Republicans.

“Amtrak is broken, and the other fact is that we’re broke,” Cravaack said. “I hear about investment – where is that investment money going to come from? Right now 47 percent of our debt is foreign owned. Do we plan to go over 50 percent of that debt? We’re going to have foreign-owned entities own our debt and begin to start telling us where we can and can’t invest our money. I’m not willing to put my children and my grandchildren at that risk.”

Amtrak CEO Joseph Boardman said the privatization plan would set back high-speed rail development by 10 years.

Boardman rejected this kind of talk, saying Amtrak was “a world leader in terms of cost recovery and efficiency” and that its plan for developing high-speed rail had received “positive reviews.” He said breaking up Amtrak and handing its assets over to a private firm “would set back the development of high-speed rail by 10 years or more, and will cost the economy of the Northeast and the United States taxpayer a great deal more money.”

Democrats also questioned whether the bill was constitutional. “The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service has determined that this proposal is unconstitutional because it violates the appointments clause of the Constitution,” said Committee Ranking Member Nick Rahall. “It is also likely that the proposal violates the takings clause because it takes Amtrak’s private property without just compensation.” Several others echoed Rahall’s concerns. Boardman affirmed that his understanding was that Amtrak would receive no compensation at all for the corridor or the trains.

“In the history of a ‘taking’, that’s not what we do in this country, and that’s not what happened when the corridor was transferred to Amtrak back in 1976,” Boardman said. “The private owners were paid substantially, even though they were bankrupt.”

Despite Mica’s more moderate language, Democrats kept calling this a plan to kill Amtrak, and indeed, Boardman agreed that that would be the upshot. “With the debt that we’d be left with, we would not be able to service that debt,” Boardman said, “and as a result of that, without an increase in additional federal assistance, there would be no way for us to continue to operate any of the non profitable [routes].”

“We can tear apart Amtrak and hope for the best or give Amtrak the tools that it needs to run true high-speed rail,” said Rep. Brown.

“This bill throws the entire passenger rail system off a cliff and hopes a safety net will suddenly appear,” echoed Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY). “At least, it hopes the NEC is safe. It doesn’t deal effectively with other routes, except to remove the cross-subsidy from the Northeast Corridor that now supports them.”

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) said the cross-subsidies were fair if the United States is, indeed, a union. And Rahall was standing up for his home state of West Virginia when he rushed to the defense of cross-subsidies and of the Cardinal line that connects New York and Chicago, running through his state.

“The Cardinal will suffer a fatal blow under this proposal, along with many other vital routes that connect rural areas of our country, coast to coast,” said Rahall. “Right now, Amtrak serves about 40 percent of America’s rural population. All of this service would be lost under the draft legislation.”

Democrats and some witnesses also expressed serious concerns about labor issues with a transition to private operation. While Mica and Rep. Bill Shuster (R-PA) have continually assured organized labor that wage and benefits will be preserved and that Amtrak employees will have preference for hiring, in fact all existing contracts will be abrogated under the plan, with no guarantees and no Davis-Bacon protections.

Indeed, Nadler alluded to the fact that keeping current wage and benefit arrangements would make the contract so costly that private companies would be scared away.

Many Democrats referred mockingly to a provision in the draft bill that authorizes the FRA to pay private entities $2 million each just to prepare a proposal to take over the rail operation or maintenance. Brown said such a thing was “unheard of.”

“We pay corporations in order to encourage competition among corporations?” said Norton. “Do I hear you right? Wouldn’t it be an indication of whether or not a bidder were a serious bidder, that he was willing to put his own capital up to bid?”

She said that provision would have to be stripped out or “be laughed out of the proposal.” Still, though, she and other Democrats maintain that the entire privatization plan won’t go far. Norton says “no one entertains the illusion” that the bill would get through the Senate or be signed by the president and that it “annoys” her that an otherwise “practical” committee would waste time with it.

Indeed, some speculate that Mica is introducing this bill separately from the rest of the reauthorization – which he said would be unveiled the week of July 4 – because he knows it has no chance of passage and didn’t want to let the whole transportation bill sink with it.

Senators in Appropriations have to ask, Who rides the train cross-country anymore? Photo: Pignouf

The idyllic cross-country train trips that many Americans still take could get derailed by today’s “slash and burn” federal budget policies. Meanwhile, fears for the safety of rail passengers in the post-bin Laden era are drumming up political support for costly security measures and raising, once again, questions about why the federal government funds rail routes without any promise of profitability.

At this morning’s Senate Appropriations hearing on budget requests for the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) and Amtrak, the three senators in attendance were unified in their support for funding rail transportation. They’re working on the funding request for the FRA for 2012, not the rail piece of the overall transportation reauthorization. Still, with huge disagreements over spending levels in Congress still raging and a showdown looming over cuts as a quid-pro-quo for raising the debt ceiling, next year’s funding is a significant question.

So the three senators present wanted to know how they could be expected to defend rail funding without more transparency in the budget allocation process. They also asked pointed questions about what the administrators of the FRA and Amtrak were doing to keep riders safe from the terrorist attacks threatened by Al-Qaeda.

The FRA has taken on a greater role in the allocation of funding for rail projects over the last several years and senators appeared frustrated over a lack of clear information as to where the funding would come from. Indeed, some security projects appear in the FY2012 budget request but the FRA is also requesting a USDOT loan to for the same thing.

Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee Chair Patty Murray (D-WA) was quick to commend FRA Administrator Joseph Szabo for his efforts, but called him out for not improving transparency about how, when, where and why projects are funded. “I support investments,” she made clear. “Now is the time to address critics head on. We must communicate with the people.”

Murray and Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) presented a grim future for surface transportation if funding does not keep up pace with booming population growth. The only other senator to speak, ranking Republican Susan Collins of Maine, agreed and reminded her colleagues that the ambitious national rail plan proposed by the FRA, including high-speed rail, has yet to be followed up with any cost estimates, for construction or operations.

Szabo, for his part, could only promise that studies to be released within “the next couple of months” would present the “broader business case” for funding both high-speed rail and individual projects across the country. Szabo, the first union railman to hold his position, was proud of what his agency was doing to keep hazardous freight secure – but admitted that there are still unimplemented security measures that date back to 9/11. He pointed out that for every $50 spent on aviation security, only $1 went to surface transportation.

Mr. Szabo’s predecessor and the current president and CEO of Amtrak, Joseph Boardman, was noticeably more willing to get into details. He agreed that a disproportionate number of Amtrak employees received overtime in the last few years, particularly during ARRA-funded projects, but said that it would have actually cost more to bring on new employees with Amtrak’s full benefits packages (54 percent of the salary-related cost) and train them for the required 24-30 month period, only to lay them off as soon as projects were completed. He said that Amtrak was already addressing overtime, as well as other operational overhead, wherever it could be reduced, but it was clear he did not see these among the biggest budget problems.

Sen. Collins presented Boardman with a pointed question: “How, given that you are serving more passengers than ever before, each and every month, are you losing more money than last year?” His answer began with a awkward nod to rail advocates.

The pro-rail folks always shudder and get concerned when I talk like this, but you are not going to be able to cut costs enough on long distance trains to make them profitable. It becomes more a question of policy of whether we are going to have border-to-border, coast-to-coast connectivity.

Despite record increases in ridership, Amtrak continues to rely on federal funding to keep all of its trains running. Collins wanted to know what Boardman thought of former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell’s ideas for severing the budgetary ties between Northeast railways and the rest of the country. As he has said before, Boardman believes this would only decrease ridership by disconnecting what should remain a unified transportation system.

He was also quick to remind Collins that long-distance routes are, for many rural Americans, their only connection to regional and local transit systems. Congress mandates that Amtrak operate those routes, which no private carrier would, as a public service although they do lose money. Boardman warned that while cutting those routes may seem like low-hanging fruit, it would be painful to those who most need transportation options — and would inevitably yield negative affects on ridership elsewhere.

Senator Barbara Boxer, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, US DOT Secretary Ray Lahood, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and Transbay Joint Powers Authority Board Chairman and SFMTA CEO Nat Ford at the Transbay Transit Center groundbreaking. Photos: Matthew Roth.

Though most of the California political class celebrated the groundbreaking of the new Transbay Transit Center with U.S. DOT Secretary Ray LaHood in San Francisco yesterday, significant questions remain for funding a national high-speed rail network through the federal transportation act.

The event swarmed with Secret Service and various other branches of law enforcement keeping an eye on a crowd that, as San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom joked with LaHood, was mostly made up of consultants on the Transbay project.

LaHood cracked wise several times at Newsom's expense, repeating more comments Newsom made before the press conference to the public and the media and suggesting Californian's should vote him in as Lt. Governor on his humor alone.

When he stopped ribbing Newsom, LaHood gushed about how far "ahead of the curve" California is on high-speed rail. LaHood said U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) had cast "courageous votes" that made the stimulus bill possible, which meant a $48 billion infusion for the US DOT or nearly two-thirds his annual budget. From the $8 billion President Barack Obama added for high-speed rail nationally, California received $2.3 billion, $400 million of that for the Transbay Transit Center.

"People who come back from Europe or Asia and have ridden high-speed rail, like many of you have, come back to America and ask why we don't have high-speed rail in America? Because we've never made the investment, that's why," said LaHood. "This year we had 8 billion times more money for high-speed rail given President Obama's vision to connect America with high-speed, inter-city rail."

LaHood also pointed to California's competitive advantage in federal money for high speed rail because the state has "its act together and you want high-speed rail, you've been working on it for a decade."

"The people deserve a lot of credit, to go to the polls, and to cast votes to raise taxes in order to develop the kind of infrastructure for high-speed rail, the people deserve a lot of credit."

While ribbon cutting on such a monumental project made for good photos and sound bites, long-term funding for high-speed rail nationally and in California is not a sure thing. Despite the $8 billion last year and another $2.5 billion this year, the U.S. lags far behind China, which is investing nearly $300 billion over the next decade on its high-speed rail network. What's more, states sought seven times more funding for rail than the stimulus gave out and demand is only growing.

When asked if the Senate will take up the re-authorization of the national transportation act, Senator Boxer told Streetsblog after the Transbay event she hoped to have a bill out of her Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and to the Senate floor this year. "I think we have a very good chance but I can't say for sure," she said.

When asked if her bill would mirror House Transportation Committee Chair James Oberstar's (D-MN) commitment to increase transit funding, Boxer said, "I would hope so. I would hope we will be able to do that."

When asked whether she thought she could convince Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), the ranking minority leader on her committee and an opponent of linking climate and transportation policies, to support money for high-speed rail or at least stay out of her way, she said, "I don't know how he feels on high-speed rail," but that it was "not necessarily a problem."

Senator Boxer elaborating on the climate and transportation bills.

Boxer also noted that with a comprehensive energy bill unlikely in the near term, she and her colleagues were looking for numerous other options to "put a price on carbon," whether by making sure the Environmental Protection Agency was vigilant in regulating carbon emissions or by supporting states' efforts to limit climate change, such as the Western Climate Initiative.

"If we can't convince our colleagues that this is serious, we're going to do absolutely everything we can absent comprehensive legislation," she said.

While the federal agenda was important to her, Boxer indicated she was concerned with a local battle now brewing: California's Proposition 23, which would suspend the landmark AB 32 climate change law. "The other thing I have to do is just make sure California can move forward and that there's no preemption of what we're doing. Right now I'm fighting to defeat Prop 23, which would be a disaster," she said.

Given recent polling that shows Boxer losing ground to her Republican Senate challenger, Carly Fiorina, transportation advocates nationally should be concerned. If she were to lose her seat to Fiorina and the EPW committee were to be shaken up, a transportation act with significant funding for transit and high-speed rail would be more precarious.

Federal Transit Administration (FTA) chief Peter Rogoff today mounted a defense of the White House's transit safety plan, assuring some skeptical members of Congress that he does not want to "replicate" inter-city rail safety rules that have taken flak for impeding the development of viable U.S. train networks.

As of last year, D.C.'s Metro had less than one full-time employee working on its safety panel. (Photo: VisitingDC.com)

"[W]e engaged in at least helping the transit industry develop voluntary [safety] standards," Rogoff told the House oversight committee. "As a federal agency, I feel it's our obligation to identify what the safe practices [are]. The only way we can ensure there will be safe practices is to have mandatory standards."

The Obama administration's transit safety proposal [PDF] would seek to impose such mandatory standards for transit safety, requiring local agencies to meet a minimum threshold of compliance or be subject to federal monitoring. The president's budget for fiscal year 2011 would set aside about $30 million to help transit agencies pay for any safety upgrades required by the new federal oversight.

"It is not our goal to replicate the voluminous [Federal Rail Administration] rulebook for transit systems," Rogoff told lawmakers. The FRA's slate of safety standards have required Amtrak's Acela trains to stop short of maximum speeds and Caltrain commuter rail to delay introduction of lighter-weight cars, coming under fire from rail advocates.

But lawmakers' openness to debating the White House safety plan does not mean the FTA can count on passage this year. Leaders of the House transportation committee have indicated they do not aim to take up the transit safety bill as a free-standing measure, instead leaving the issue to the next six-year federal infrastructure bill -- which may not come to a final vote until next spring at the earliest.

The transport panel's senior Republican, Rep. John Mica (FL), is opposed to creating a new federal system to monitor safety but said at today's hearing -- Mica also sits on the oversight committee -- that "I don't mind spending our resources on safety." Rather than ask transit agencies to submit their safety work for FTA approval, Mica said, the Obama administration should spend more money on upgrading older, decaying transit infrastructure.

The challenge of ensuring passenger safety during an era of transit budget crises is particularly acute at D.C.'s Metro, which lacks a dedicated source of revenue other than contributions from its three participating governments (D.C., Virginia, and Maryland) and Congress. Transit officials in the capital are mulling a package of fare hikes and service cuts, as well as a possible gas tax hike, to close a $180 million-plus budget gap for next year.

"I think the safety problems we are seeing now at Metro are symptomatic of a larger problem, particularly on the rail system: years of deferred maintenance and management problems are taking their toll," Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-NY), chairman of the oversight committee, said in his opening statement.

Yet only a few lawmakers questioned Rogoff on the federal government's role in ensuring transit agencies would receive more money for maintenance of their existing systems. Among them was Rep. Gerry Connolly (D), whose Northern Virginia constituents are frequent users of the D.C. Metro.

"The federal government has to be at the table with operational dollars" if Congress agrees to impose new safety standards, he said, adding that "long before Mr. Rogoff [joined the FTA], the federal government has been retreating from its responsibilities to transit," particularly Metro.

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) painted a bleak picture, asking Rogoff to outline the likely result if Congress cannot sign off on the safety proposal.

"It seems like the right hand doesn't know what the head or the left hand is doing," he said.

(Chart: AAR)

You know, although passengers and
commuters have human faces, we need to remember that trade depends upon
the safe, smooth, and efficient delivery of goods. Our groceries depend
upon it as well. And jobs depend on it.

This DOT understands that.

But freight companies are hardly resting on their laurels today. The Association of American Railroads (AAR),
a Washington trade group that represents freight movers as well as
Amtrak, is just out with a report that carves out the industry’s turf
in a big way — including a legislative wish list.

Titled
Great Expectations, the report positions the freight industry as an
economic powerhouse well-positioned to power the nation through a
recovery from its lingering recession. Freight railroads generate $265
billion of economic activity per year while emitting 75 percent less
than similar shipments carried by truck, according to the AAR.

To
illustrate the financial might of the top U.S. freight companies, the
AAR produced a chart (above) that compares train shippers’ annual
spending on capital infrastructure and maintenance with the highway
budgets of major states.

So with the industry riding high from its stimulus victory, much to the dismay
of its trucking competitors, what’s standing in the way of a freight
renaissance? Government regulations, according to AAR chief Edward
Hamberger.

"Select legislative and regulatory proposals are creating an air of
uncertainty at a time when there is already too much of that," Hamberger said in a statement accompanying the report. "When so
much is riding on freight rail’s ability to sustain a healthy national
rail network necessary to help America through to economic recovery,
now is not the time to undermine our financial viability."

The
AAR report puts federal policymakers on notice on several fronts. After
praising the White House’s multi-billion-dollar high-speed passenger
rail program, which is proving
a boon to freight firms that control most existing local tracks, the
AAR warns: "[T]he development of a world-class passenger rail system
must not come at the expense of our country’s existing world-class
freight rail system."

Another bogeyman for the freight
industry — despite its efforts to play up its own environmental upside
– is the prospect of carbon emissions caps that could negatively
impact Big Coal. The AAR report effectively lashes coal and freight’s
fates together:

The impact of climate change policies on the railroad industry cannot
be weighed without first examining the impact such policies would have
on America’s coal industry. Coal generates close to half of America’s
electricity, and railroads haul more than 70 percent of it.

Freight companies are also lamenting the government’s mandate for positive train control (PTC), a computerized safety program recommended
by Congress after a fatal commuter train crash in Los Angeles in 2008.
Citing Federal Railroad Administration data, the AAR report puts the
20-year price tag of PTC installation at up to $14 billion and adds
that "this well-intended legislation will have negative unintended
real-world consequences."

Yet the industry is not wholly
concerned with beating back federal measures that could hurt its bottom
line. The AAR report makes a concerted push for a 25 percent tax credit
that would reward any company spending money on rail infrastructure.

Late Update:
Matthew Lewis of the Center for Public Integrity notes that the AAR has
a lobbying team well-stocked with congressional veterans and former
advisers to both GOP and Democratic presidents. Check out this map for more details.

Sen.
Robert Byrd (D-WV) used the STP program to earmark millions of dollars
for road projects in his home state, including the above "King Coal
Highway." (Photo: MCRA of WV)

Among the budget items slated for elimination are a $10 million fund
aimed at helping cities and towns adapt to climate change, $34 million in
rail line relocation grants — which, the White House noted, is siphoned off by
congressional earmarking rather than a merit-based process — and a $12
million inter-city bus security program that was unsuccessfully
targeted in last year’s budget.

But
the largest proposed funding cut under the U.S. DOT’s
purview is
the Surface Transportation Priorities (STP)
program, which distributed $293 million last year to an array of local
road, bridge, and trail projects earmarked by members of Congress.

The
STP program is "not subject to merit-based criteria or competition; nor
are states or localities given the flexibility to target them to their
highest transportation priorities," the White House wrote in explaining
its bid to zero out the spending.

Eliminating STP funding
(which the Obama administration proposed to do in its budget for the
current fiscal year) is likely to prove a heavy lift with lawmakers who
depend on politically valuable transportation earmarks to win favor
with voters. The program is a longtime favorite of road-building
stalwarts such as former Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman
Robert Byrd (D-WV), who earmarked more than $20 million in STP money
for West Virginia roads in 2008 alone.

However, STP
money has also benefited clean transportation projects that might not
otherwise have secured federal aid. In recent years, lawmakers have
steered program funds to build a trail along Connecticut’s Quinnipiac
River ($1.4 million), conduct a seismic retrofit of San Francisco’s
Golden Gate Bridge ($1.9 million), and build new parks in Louisville, Kentucky ($5.8 million in 2008, courtesy of Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell).

Will
the administration succeed in its latest effort to slim down
congressional transportation earmarking? The first clues are likely to
emerge later this month and next month, when Transportation Secretary
LaHood and other U.S. DOT officials begin their rounds of testimony on
Capitol Hill.

The largest share of the state's high-speed rail award, $2.25 billion, will go towards an Anaheim-to-San Francisco link that is expected to cost about $42 billion to complete.

Graphic: CHSRC (click to enlarge)

Smaller grants were given to improve service on the San Diego-Los Angeles Surfliner route, the Capitol Corridor route from Sacramento to the Bay Area, and to give trains new emissions control equipment.

The popular Capitol Corridor route will get a $29.2 million infusion -- including $6.2 million for the Sacramento Rail Relocation Project and $23 million will be allocated to "easing bottleneck conditions" between Davis and Sacramento.

"We can now move full speed ahead with these projects immediately, creating much-needed jobs, improving mobility options by enhancing Capitol Corridor intercity passenger train service and generating regional economic activity," Capitol Corridor Managing Director David B. Kutrosky said in a statement.

The White House grant is less than half the size of the state's initial $4.7 billion allocation, but the California High Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) has the voter-approved ability to match the federal aid dollar for dollar.

U.S. High Speed Rail Association chief Andy Kunz praised the administration's decision to spread high-speed rail aid out among 13 different corridors, prodding states such as California to "get creative" and leverage other funding sources.

State are "all going to scramble, going to build their own money and support systems to get these things up and running," Kunz said in an interview.

Indeed, CHSRA chairman Curt Pringle hailed the funding decision, predicting that "it will benefit every single section of our planned high-speed rail system by moving this entire vision closer to reality."

California's case for White House rail money was also strengthened by bipartisan cooperation between Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) and Democratic officials in Sacramento. Both sides of the aisle were elated at today's announcement.

The governor released a statement touting the upside of the state's shared approach. "California's leaders came together to support and submit one high-speed rail proposal and because of that, $2.3 billion will now flow into the California economy," Schwarzenegger said.

State Senate President pro tem Darrell Steinberg (D) used the moment to rally residents around continued investment in rail. "Today the federal government showed confidence in the promise of this state," he said in a statement. "It is up to us to deliver on that promise."

Meanwhile, Rep. John Garamendi (D-CA) -- who joined Rep. Jim Costa (D-CA) to craft California's first high-speed rail legislation 20 years ago -- called the funding announcement "a great first step for a program that I will continue to fight hard for in Congress in the months and years ahead."

Fighting for more funding will undoubtedly be key for California and other states facing budget crises even as they seek to build out inter-city rail networks in the coming years. Brian Stanke, executive director of the grassroots lobbying group Californians for High-Speed Rail, was already looking ahead to the next steps even as he hailed the state's victory. From his statement:

California is eligible for some of the $2.5 billion Congress appropriated last month for high speed rail, and we plan to lobby to convince the Administration to release these funds quickly. Congress also needs to ensure that the jobs bill under consideration includes several billion more for high speed rail in the near term. Additionally, we urge California's Congressional delegation to ensure the next transportation bill is passed this year and that it includes a sustainable, long-term funding source for high speed rail projects.

Bryan Goebel contributed to this report. 

Bogota's Transmilenio BRT has won praise for its roomy coaches and well-designed stations. (Photo: Streetfilms)

But another, far thornier aspect of the bus versus rail debate has made its way into the public dialogue, giving fodder to transit-minded bloggers from Matt Yglesias to Atrios: Is there a cultural bias against buses? The issue, fraught with social equity implications, made its way into a debate on conservatives and transit held today by Transportation for America.

The debate focused largely on the themes of the book Moving Minds, in which co-authors Bill Lind and the late Paul Weyrich aim to convert their fellow conservatives into transit advocates. But Lind is also an unabashed critic of buses, which he believes are unappealing to average American travelers and impede the prospects for transit expansion.

"Most Americans like transit but don't like riding buses," Lind said today, adding that "if you give them a bus, they drive," but rail would be a more preferable mode than the auto.

Sam Staley, the Reason Foundation director enlisted as the conservative transit skeptic for the debate, was put in the unlikely position of defending well-designed BRT's ability to serve communities.

Depicting buses as second fiddles to rail is "underestimating the importance of the quality of service provided," Staley said. Where rail is treated as superior, he added, often it is "doing a better job of getting point to point, and doing it faster, than a bus," but well-funded bus systems "are doing a good job at competing."

For a more in-depth look at the bus-rail dichotomy, check out the Transportation Research Board's recent paper on how the choice affects local transit goals.

The "Tea Party" is now a registered political party in Florida. (Photo: CBS)

The date coincides with an anticipated state House vote on rail legislation with multiple goals: setting up guaranteed funding for South Florida's popular but cash-strapped Tri-Rail, authorizing a similar commuter network called SunRail in Central Florida, and creating two new agencies to oversee a potential state-wide high-speed rail system.

The Orlando Sentinel reported a statement from Adam Guillette, director of AFP in Florida:

This train boondoggle is the wrong proposal at the wrong time. Our legislature should focus on ways to cut wasteful spending, not increase it!

According to the Sentinel, AFP's anti-rail protest is set to feature a high-profile guest: state senator and GOP gubernatorial hopeful Paula Dockery, who helped kill an earlier incarnation of the Florida commuter rail plan in 2008.

Dockery describes herself as a rail proponent, but claims that the current legislation would generate excessive profits for CSX, the freight company that controls more than 60 miles of rail tracks slated for purchase by the state. Still, her rhetorical approach to attacking the Florida rail bill appears straight out of Washington's pro-roads playbook.

The Miami Herald yesterday transcribed the following exchange between Dockery and fellow state senators who support the rail plan:

Dockery: In 2008, Tri-Rail brought in $9 million. What was the operating deficit that local governments needed to make up?

Sen. Jeremy Ring: I believe government needed to make up $46 million. The whole operating impact was $57 million. Mr. Chair, I have a question: I would like to know where we’re going with this? Roads cost money as well. Mr. Chair, I just don’t know where we’re going. This is not a quiz. This is not a multiple-choice quiz. ...

Dockery: Mr. Chairman, you are selling this bill on creating jobs and economic development. And I’m asking questions to show that our one and only existing rail service not only did not create a lot of jobs, but also is operating at a deficit 20 years later with a 15,000 ridership -- whereas the system that you’re trying to build now only has an estimated 3,500 ridership.

Chicago’s earliest rail transit line, pictured here, was run by a private company. (Photo: Franzosenbusch Project)

Although
Amtrak based its challenge on Keolis’ inexperience operating American
rail lines, the latter company maintains a sizable transit presence as a subsidiary of SNCF, the French national high-speed railway.

Moreover, Keolis submitted a
markedly lower bid to take over VRE operations, undercutting Amtrak by
$500,000 on first-year transition costs and $300,000 in annual
operating costs. The French-owned company’s winning bid totaled $85
million for five years, offering VRE workers the option of shifting to
another Amtrak line or staying on under the new management.

Looking
beyond the local implications of VRE’s switch to Keolis, the new
contract is part of a larger trend toward transit privatization that has seen recent deals struck in New Orleans, Savannah, and Phoenix. The Obama administration is encouraging
greater use of public-private partnerships to help fund and operate
transport networks, making these agreements something of a portent.

But
substantial hurdles remain to the effective participation of private
companies in the business of transit. Independent auditors at the
Government Accountability Office submitted a report [PDF]
to Congress last week after taking a yearlong look at how the federal
transit funding process affects the ability of local officials to join
forces with the private sector.

And what the GAO found was a whole lot of hurdles, many of them unique to the cumbersome rules of Washington’s New Starts transit program. From the report (emphasis mine):

Consultants to the Dulles Silver Line project sponsor told us that through the New Starts process, [the Federal Transit Administration] has complete control over a project’s schedule, and project sponsors have to put project work on hold
while waiting for FTA’s approval to advance into the next project
phase. They also told us that construction activities on the Dulles
Silver Line could not begin until the approval of a full funding grant
agreement — as design and construction activities cannot be completed
at the same time — and so some of the time-saving benefits of the
design-build approach were lost.

Dulles Silver
Line sponsors also nearly lost the tax-increment financing that was
intended to fund the project, according to the GAO, when a full funding
agreement under New Starts took five years instead of the estimated two
or three. A similar situation arose in Houston, where a public-private
partnership on a local light rail network told auditors "that FTA
required them to submit and resubmit entire project documents to FTA
multiple times, which led to delays."

By contrast, private
participation in new transit projects on the international level has
included equity financing in addition to operations and maintenance of
the new lines. Citing World Bank data, the GAO found international
public-private transit projects in the United Kingdom, Thailand,
Brazil, Canada, Hong Kong, France, Malaysia, the Philippines, and South
Africa.

Given the already considerable obstacles to
successful public-private partnerships in U.S. transit — the need for
private companies to cede the right to hike fares, for one — it would
seem grievously counter-productive to keep a system in place that
impedes the use of the same "creative" financing methods being urged by President Obama.

But
for now, the New Starts funding process remains in effect and providing
that disincentive.The GAO’s report recommends that the FTA introduce
more flexibility into its current public-private partnership pilot
program and "better equip project sponsors" to take advantage of
alternative approaches, but large-scale change was not discussed.

Warren Buffett (Photo: Redfin)

BNSF last year ... moved a ton of goods 470 miles on one gallon of diesel. It releases far fewer pollutants into the atmosphere. It saves enormously on energy consumption and ... it diminishes highway congestion. Rails last year moved 40 percent, more than 40 percent, over the country. They moved more than all those trucks, just the four big railroads. It's a very effective way of moving goods. I basically believe this country will prosper and you'll have more people moving more goods 10 and 20 and 30 years from now, and the rails should benefit.

That environmental rationale for Buffett's deal struck some in Washington as dubious. Frank O'Donnell, president of the green group Clean Air Watch, wrote on his website that the BNSF deal was "the biggest climate story of the day," bigger even than the political maneuverings of the Senate environment committee:

This is a $34 billion dollar bet that coal will remain the centerpiece of American energy policy in the future. Buffett clearly believes that coal use will remain strong - and possibly grow. So he is putting his money on a vision of America with no effective climate policy at all – or at least one that doesn’t slow coal growth.

BNSF's reliance on coal is indisputable; the black stuff has accounted for nearly half of its tonnage this year, and MarketWatch estimates that 10 percent of U.S. electricity comes from coal hauled by the railroad.

As coal-hauling railroads go, however, BNSF has made an attempt to distinguish itself on the energy efficiency end. The railroad is developing an emissions-free hydrogen-powered locomotive, and in May started to test-run a group of GE locomotives that cuts emissions by 40 percent over previous, dirtier models.

BNSF also has gotten on board the California High Speed Rail Authority's plans for an initial route connecting Merced to Fresno, and its CEO has advocated for a national focus on one initial high-speed project, rather than spreading around the Obama administration's $8 billion investment "like peanut butter."

When putting Buffett's bet into context, however, the corporate identity of BNSF may matter less than the impact of one powerful investor's foray into transportation.

At a time when the job-creation potential of infrastructure spending is increasingly propelling the political debate, Buffett's interest in the transport sector could be a harbinger of greater private-sector involvement to come -- thus bolstering Democratic lawmakers as they make the case for more transit, bridge, and road repair money to hasten the nation's economic recovery.

Flickr photo: ProKelly

A recent report in the Los Angeles Times found that while Metrolink was making progress on some of the changes its officials vowed to make in the wake of the crash, other promises remained unfulfilled. In a letter sent today to Metrolink chairman Keith Millhouse, Boxer said she "was pleased" when the rail network started adding a second crew member to train operating teams, adding: "As we work together to ensure that positive train control is implemented as quickly as possible, safety must not be compromised in the interim."

This week's transportation spending bill also includes $500,000 Boxer set aside for Metrolink to help pay for installation of "positive train control," a computer-based system that helps prevent crashes by automatically detecting when two trains travel too close to one another.

The senator's full letter to Millhouse follows after the jump.

September 18, 2009

Keith Millhouse
Chairman
Metrolink

Dear Chairman Millhouse:

I am deeply concerned that on average, 87 percent of Metrolink trains operate without a second crew member in the train cab.  While I recognize that Metrolink is moving forward with the installation of cameras in its train cabs, I continue to believe that a second crew member in the cab is an essential interim safety measure that must be employed.  One year after the tragic Chatsworth crash that killed 25 people and injured 135 more, we cannot afford to undermine steps we have taken to improve the safety of commuter rail.

Last September, I chaired a briefing for Senators on the cause of the Metrolink tragedy.  I requested that interim safety measures be immediately implemented in the absence of the installation of positive train control. Former Metrolink Chairman Ron Roberts pledged at that briefing to add an extra crew member in the train cabs to act as an “extra set of eyes” to prevent another tragedy. I was pleased when Metrolink began to follow through on that pledge.

While I understand the challenges facing commuter rail in this difficult economy, safety must continue to be the top priority. As we work together to ensure that positive train control is implemented as quickly as possible, safety must not be compromised in the interim.

Thank you for your attention to this critical matter and I look forward to your response.                                                                                                

Sincerely,

Barbara Boxer
United States Senator

(Image: DoE)

Page 66 of the Data Book, reprinted
on the DoE’s website on Inauguration Day, contains a table ranking the
energy intensity of various light rail systems across the country.

The
DoE lists the "average" energy efficiency of all light rail systems as
7,605 Btus per passenger mile, while the average for cars was 3,514
Btus per passenger mile.

Those numbers were enough to spark inflammatory headlines about the energy consumption of light rail. The only problem: The rail data is wrong.

An
eagle-eyed Streetsblog Capitol Hill reader discovered that the DoE used
simple averaging to obtain its light rail number, without weighting
each city’s light rail network based on how many passengers it carries.

So Kenosha’s streetcars, which carry a bit more than 60,000 passengers annually, were treated the same as Seattle’s light rail, where ridership is exceeding 60,000 every week.

Even famously anti-transit Randal O’Toole
recognized the DoE’s error and pointed out the actual average energy
efficiency for light rail is 3,642 Btus per passenger mile –
comparable with the numbers for cars, which don’t fully account for the
choice of auto driven.

The same averaging error is made on
page 67 of the Data Book, which states that the "average" energy
efficiency of heavy rail is more than 3,600 Btus per passenger mile.
That average put Cleveland’s energy-chugging system, which carry
about 30,000 passengers on an average weekday, on equal footing with
the New York City subway, where the average weekday ridership tops 7
million.

When the Streetsblog reader contacted the DoE to
inform them of the error, he got a quick acknowledgement and a promise
to correct the data as soon as possible. The incorrect averaging should
never have been used, the DoE said.

One wonders how many misleading commentaries transit critics can publish using the false data before the government corrects it.

Image: SkyTran

Some of you saw the Examiner piece yesterday about SkyTran's personal rapid transit (PRT) project and were probably looking for a response from us (one of you even asked in comments why we didn't touch it), but I've been very leery of the topic since I saw the "Pod People" post over on New York Streetsblog blow up with 227 polarizing and dogmatic comments for and against PRT (Personal Rabid Transit?), before the editors shut comments down. I'm pretty skeptical of anything taken on faith as good or bad, so why get into the fray, especially with a technology that hasn't been proven at scale?

Then there's my personal bias against the aesthetic clutter that would ensue with multi-level guideways two stories high running down quiet residential streets to whisk people to their front doors? I don't know about you, but I like walking those quiet streets and looking up at the sky.

And isn't a transit system that costs at least five times less than freeways and light rail called a bus? If the problem is competition with traffic from cars, then make a serious policy commitment to segregated roadways for buses. Or why not spend public money for innovations like bike-share, which would have the added benefit of keeping you healthy?

One of the issues the Examiner didn't touch in its promo for SkyTran was feasibility. Where in the world would the money come from to build a workable system less marginal than the monorail at Epcot Center?

"The most likely source of major public funding would be federal funds that are targeted toward new rail projects," said Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) spokesperson Randy Rentschler, whose agency would be responsible for finding public funds for PRT, should that ever be mandated by the public. He explained that the New Starts federal fund typically doles out $1.5 - 2 billion annually, though that goes to projects all over the country. In San Francisco, the Central Subway is one of the projects competing for the money, for example.

BART Director and general transit buff Tom Radulovich echoed Rentschler's comment about funding for a huge capital outlay and was skeptical of "silver bullet thinking," but did bring up an interesting angle on how the technology could benefit rail transit.

Some PRT supporters disdain rail, but there are aspects of PRT that could help improve rail transit – especially driver-less operation. More and more metro systems are going driver-less, which reduces operating costs overall, and changes the economics of transport. The main operating cost for most transit is the driver, and transit is most economical when one driver is transporting lots of people. To economize, transit agencies tend to want to run longer trains less frequently. Go driver-less, and the economics change; running three two-car trains costs just as much as one six-car train. Lille's VAL (automated light metro) operates like this; short, automated trains every 90 seconds. If BART were driver-less, we could run very short trains every few minutes during off-peak hours for the same cost as running longer trains less frequently.

So what do you think? And let's keep the sermons on topic, please.

(Photo: Washington Post)

Robert
Menendez (D-NJ), a senior member of the Senate Banking Committee, began
his hearing on transit today by displaying the above cartoon by
Pulitzer prize-winner Tom Toles. The senator’s message parallels
Toles’: In a world where the auto industry can get $2 billion more in one week, what’s to be done about rail’s $50 billion backlog?

Menendez, whose state is one of only four
in the nation where 10 percent of commuters take transit, said
lawmakers should weigh emergency spending authority for the Federal
Transit Administration (FTA) to help local agencies pay for equipment
repair needs that are estimated at $50 billion — for the top seven
urban rail networks alone.

But given the difficulty of wrestling transit’s long-term share of federal money past the
20 percent mark, winning emergency funds for rail would be a very heavy
political lift. So FTA chief Peter Rogoff focused on the more
achievable question of how to best spend Washington’s $5 billion-plus
budget for transit modernization.

"The
current formula" for distributing that money, Rogoff acknowledged, "is
a bit of a hodgepodge. It’s hard to define what the strategic goal of
it is."

Complicating the issue, he added, is that everyone
agrees transit agencies are falling far behind on keeping their
equipment in what the FTA calls "state of good repair," but few parties agree on how to actually define that term.

The
U.S. DOT is currently completing a more in-depth study of transit
modernization needs that aims to single out repair needs linked to
passenger safety, with findings expected early in the fall. Rail safety
has taken on new urgency in Congress in the wake of the D.C. Metro’s fatal crash in June.

Yet looking only at safety risks undercutting transit agencies’ ability to serve ridership that is hitting
record highs. Fixing escalators and crumbling train platforms "might
not be viewed
as safety-critical," Rogoff said, "but it can move people out of
transit and back to highways," thus further clogging the nation’s
already taxed roads.

One
thing that Menendez, Rogoff, and transit officials from four states
agreed on was the need to avoid penalizing agencies making progress on
repair with less federal money. In fact, New Jersey Transit was singled
out by the FTA in May for properly supporting its equipment health.

How
did the state get its transit into top shape? It was simple as
formulating a workable long-term funding plan, NJ Transit executive
director Richard Sarles testified before Menendez.

Given the Capitol’s current focus on short-term stimulus, however, that task is far more challenging than it might seem.

The D.C. Metro accident that killed nine riders this week has renewed calls for rail safety upgrades and reminders that car travel remains far riskier than transit. But the crash is also shedding light on a problem that goes beyond Washington: tax shelter deals between banks and struggling transit agencies -- deals that were given a retroactive pass by Congress even though the IRS considers them illegal. 

The tax shelters at issue are called "sale in, lease out" deals, also known as SILOs. Starting in the 1980s, local transit agencies began selling rail cars and other equipment to Wall Street firms, which would then turn around and lease the goods back to the agencies.

Why would either side want to get into such arrangements? Sarah Lawsky, an associate professor at George Washington University Law School, has explained the situation in detail. But the short answer is that banks got tax write-offs for their newly leased transit equipment, while local agencies got a cash benefit for giving away tax deductions they could not use.

Congress outlawed SILOs in a 2004 tax bill sponsored by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA). His original language was retroactive, Grassley's office said yesterday in a release, "but was watered down during conference negotiations to apply only prospectively."

That exception for existing SILO deals was added by Congress amid fierce lobbying by both Wall Street and urban transit agencies, as the Wall Street Journal reported at the time.

The Internal Revenue Service declared SILOs illegal in 2005, prompting some banks to accept lower payments in settlement deals with transit officials. However, Lawsky noted in an interview that some banks -- inspired by the congressional exemption -- have decided to try their luck in court with transit agencies.

"Some people want to settle and take 20 cents on the dollar," she said. "Some people want to say no ... we entered into these deals before the statute."

It remains to be seen whether the SILOs played a role in this week's D.C. Metro crash. But when federal safety inspectors asked the WMATA, which runs the D.C. Metro, in 2006 to replace its aging Rohr series rail cars -- the model that crumpled in this week's crash -- the agency declined.

WMATA was "constrained by" SILO leases from phasing out the Rohr cars, it said.

And that's just the beginning of the fallout from the tax deals, which have affected transit systems all across the country.

AIG served as a guarantor for many SILO deals, and its collapse late last year prompted several banks to seek "termination payments" from transit agencies that were otherwise up to date with their SILO leases. D.C.'s WMATA, in fact, was one of those transit networks fighting legal battles over AIG's unraveling.

A report released by Moody's Investors Service in March found that 17 of 25 major transit agencies embroiled in SILOs had lowered their risk by renegotiating with banks in the aftermath of the credit crisis. But that doesn't mean urban transit systems are all out of the woods -- Atlanta's MARTA transit agency was left with a $390 million exposure even after unwinding many of its SILOs, according to Moody's.

Meanwhile, congressional Democrats are still trying to convince the federal government to step in as a guarantor for the transit deals. After former President Bush declined to hear their appeals, Reps. Jim Moran (VA) and Chris Van Hollen (MD) inserted language into a January bailout-reform bill that would give Treasury backing to SILOs, but the bill was never taken up by the Senate.

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), whose home-state transit agency faces $150 million in looming bills from SILOs, introduced a bill this week that would impose a 100 percent windfall-profits tax on any payments requested by banks. In a statement on his proposal, Menendez said:

Will all 11 high-speed rail plans end up getting a piece of the action? (Photo: WSJ)

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D), the co-chairman of Building America's Future and an unabashed high-speed rail evangelist, urged senators to shrug off their post-bailout reluctance to approve large spending projects. The White House's $13 billion commitment, Rendell argued, is only a down payment on a workable system.

Building high-speed rail along the California coast, he added, is estimated to cost as much as $40 billion. A northwestern network is projected to cost $25 billion. Similar long-term funding problems, as it happens, are also haunting lawmakers who aim to overhaul federal transportation policy.

Rendell suggested that a national infrastructure bank, independent of the government, should be tapped to direct money to high-speed rail proposals without political concerns influencing the process. "The public wants that," he said. "The public doesn’t want transportation dollars authorized through [the existing] system."

That outcome is highly unlikely, however, given that the federal DOT already has released its guidelines for an internal ranking of regional rail plans. And Federal Railroad Administrator Joseph Szabo was on hand to defend the administration's methods.

"Our vision matches, frankly, what they've done in Europe," Szabo told senators. Meanwhile, Rendell kept imploring the lawmakers to reconsider the Obama administration's 110-mph ballpark for defining what constitutes "high-speed".

With high-speed trains topping 200 mph in China and 160 in France, the governor said, "we're absolutely consigning ourselves to second-class citizenship" by setting the benchmark at 110 mph.

Tom Skancke, a member of the transportation revenue panel that last year called for a major gas-tax hike to fund system-wide reform, echoed Rendell's concerns with a call to publicly promote broad reform:

I don't think the nation as a whole has a plan for high-speed rail. ... The way we get there is, we have to sell the American public, particularly on rail, as we get people out of their horse and buggy. It is a cultural shift. We have to convince the American people that high-speed rail is going to be predictable, going to be on time, going to be affordable. ... We know what the alignment should look like. I just believe we need to step up and do it.

Amtrak CEO Joseph Boardman also sought to bring Rendell and Skancke's ambitions down to earth.

Citing the Acela train's moderate progress in taking over market share in the northeast corridor, Boardman said the U.S. is "not a train-riding culture" -- an eyebrow-raising admission from the chief of the nation's largest passenger rail service. "With high-speed rail, speed is not the issue," he said. "Convenience and trip times are."

Boardman also did his part to guard Amtrak's turf, suggesting that high-speed rail planners "build a culture of riding the train" by ensuring that the projects receiving funding are easily connectable to the network he runs. "People want to be seamless," he said.

As for the senators in attendance, most put in palpable plugs for their own home-state proposals. Texan Kay Bailey Hutchison, the commerce committee's senior GOPer, was abuzz with the possibilities of the Texas "T-Bone." Sen. Mark Udall (D-NM) spoke of a western corridor linking Albuquerque and Texas.

Mere hours after the Washington Metro system suffered a shocking accident, two senior senators released a letter to their colleagues asking for $50 million in grants to improve rail safety technology.

The scene of yesterday’s D.C. Metro crash. (Photo: NYT)

The
letter was sent by two chairmen with a central role in transportation
policy — commerce committee chief Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and
environment committee chief Barbara Boxer (D-CA) — to the two senators
who shepherd the annual transportation budget, Patty Murray (D-WA) and
Kit Bond (R-MO).

Rockefeller and Boxer noted that a $50
million investment in technology improvement grants was authorized last
year when Congress passed a new rail safety law. That law favored rail safety upgrades that implemented "positive train control," a computerized program to prevent crashes that safety experts said might have averted last year’s deadly California Metrolink crash.

As Rockefeller and Boxer wrote to their fellow senators:

More
commuters are turning to commuter rail today than ever before. In these
tough economic times, with many commuter rail agencies facing budget cuts,
funding for the railroad safety technology grants is vital to ensure that
important safety measures continue to be implemented.

Photo: Don Maxwell/Flickr

Shaken but apparently not badly hurt, the rider, a young woman in a light blouse and wearing a helmet, stood up to be greeted by the streetcar conductor, who offered not sympathy but angry hectoring. Didn’t she know that cyclists were not supposed to cycle in the streetcar lane?

Standing by and watching all this while preparing to board the streetcar in Seattle, I could only shake my head in sadness. We have such a hard time doing mass transit right in this country, particularly outside New York City. Seattle's shiny new streetcar “system” was essentially brand new, but its flaws were already readily apparent.

Let’s start with the tracks. Isn’t there some system possible that does not leave what looked like a three or four inch gap between the track and the street it is imbedded in? I’m sure loyal Streetblog readers will supply me with the make and model of something. I remember seeing that old footage from Barcelona that showed all those cyclists swerving this way and that in front of the streetcar, with apparently no fear of getting caught in the track gap. Can’t we do that today? It certainly doesn’t make sense to exclude cyclists from a whole lane of a street, one that could actually double as a bike lane if built correctly.

Then there are the other problems.

The streetcar line itself is only a little more than a mile long. (The website says the line is 2.6 miles, but I think they are counting both directions.) And it’s pretty expensive -- two dollars for what can be a very short ride. I boarded for what turned out to be only half a mile or so, in part because I’m still on a cane from my scooter accident. Otherwise I would have walked. No sooner had I boarded and paid my two dollars than we were there. I felt cheated. Minimal payment (or even no fare) would be better, which of course would require better government funding.

I feel guilty complaining about something that obviously took a lot of effort. The streetcars themselves are quite nice. I’m sure the organization is trying to do things well.

The central problem, as an official with a California transit agency recently told me, is that American cities and states tend to pursue transit in a fragmented and uncoordinated fashion. Different agencies representing different cities or states build different lines that often connect to each other badly, if at all. Imagine if highways were built as incoherently as rail systems. Somehow, the federal, state and local highway agencies manage to work with each other at least enough to have their projects connect.

Seattle has battled and warred over its transit systems. The city often supports transit in general but not in the particulars. Voters have approved a monorail system several times, only to see the transit establishment and political establishment help kill it. The city is nearing completion of an extensive light rail system, but it is one of the most expensive in the world. Downtown has this enormous bus tunnel -- the product of one compromise between various interests. And now there’s the tiny new streetcar system, which, to be fair, may expand and become much more comprehensive. You have to start somewhere. Maybe they will figure out a way to make it more compatible with biking, which certainly should be the friend and not the enemy.