Lost On The Shore

Stimulus That Will Benefit Us

It's good to hear that President-Elect Obama is planning on more fiscal stimulus for the American economy and even better to hear that he plans to stimulate the economy by investing in infrastructure rather than just sending out checks to everyone.  We have been ignoring our infrastructure requirements in this country for some time and the results are definitely showing.  So, since I know Barack is reading this blog, here are some suggestions:

High Speed Rail Most other industrialized countries are far ahead of us here.  Japan has been running their Shinkansen 'bullet trains' since 1964.  France began working on their TGV (train à grande vitesse, "high-speed train") in 1976 and the Paris-Lyon line opened in 1981.  The phenomenal success of the TGV has encouraged the French government to build six additional lines and other countries in Europe have built their own high speed networks - the Thalys in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, Eurostar linking Britain to France and Belgium as well as systems in Spain, Italy, Sweden and Norway.  High-speed rail networks are also being built in China, Taiwan and South Korea.

Here in the United States we don't have true high speed rail.  The Acela trains in the Northeast Corridor (Washington-New York-Boston) are called 'high-speed', but track conditions limit them to a top speed of about 125 mph rather than the 200 mph common on true high speed rail.

High speed rail doesn't make sense for much of the United states - the distances are too great to compete with air travel.  However, in the northeast corridor, the Chicago area and possibly the Dallas/Fort Worth/Houston area, high speed rail will produce city-to-city travel times that are considerably less than comparable air service while producing less pollution and being less subject to weather delays.  As an added bonus, the elimination of dozens of flights between Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston and New York will do much to reduce air travel delays in the country by reducing congestion in the New York City area.

Construction of these lines will generate thousand of jobs and the construction of the trainsets, signalling equipment and other ancillary requirements will generate thousands more. A $50 billion commitment here will get us off to a good start. 

School Construction States and local jurisdictions have been falling behind on funding the expansion and replacement of existing school buildings.  Many existing school buildings were built in the 1950s and 1960s and need either replacement or substantial renovation.  Further, existing schools are being stretched well beyond capacity.  Temporary classroom buildings are a common sight throughout the country.  Finally, most of our existing schools do not meet today's technological requirements. 

The need is tremendous.  In 1995, the General Accounting Office estimated the backlog of school construction needs at $112 billion.  In 1999, the Education Department estimated the cost at $127 billion.  The National Education Association in 2002 came up with a number of $322 billion including technology improvements.  There's no doubt the backlog has grown.  Right here in my local jurisdiction of 50,000 people there are more than $100 million in unmet needs.  The State of New Jersey estimates a $30 billion backlog in that state alone. 

An investment of $400 billion will go a long way toward eliminating the backlog.  Further it will provide work for thousands of smaller construction firms around the country and for hundreds of thousands of construction workers who are out of work due to the housing slump.  As a bonus, the Department of Energy estimates that such a program would reduce energy costs for schools by some $2 billion a year.

Roads and Bridges We haven't done a good job of maintaining our road system let alone pay for the expansion needed to meet current demand.  Tens of thousands of bridges are deficient, pavement is crumbling all around the country and huge traffic backups are way of life.  A new commitment of $500 billion in Federal money will make a major dent in the backlog here, will stimulate the construction industry all across the country and put many Americans back to work.  There's no reason to delay here.

Mass Transit Along with expanded spending on roads and bridges must come renewed investment into mass transit.  We need our cities to work efficiently.  Like it or not, the vast majority of economic activity in the United States is generated in cities, not in rural areas.  An investment of $100 billion now will generate huge dividends in the future in terms of increased efficiency and lower energy use. In addition, of course, we'll see tens of thosuands of new jobs created. 

Let's start now.  We have no time to lose.

[The photo is of a Eurostar and a Thalys train in the Gare du Nord in Paris]

Another Bridge?

Recent incidents on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge have renewed interest in an additional bridge to ease traffic congestion and provide an alternative route between Maryland's Western and Eastern Shores.  There are really only two problems holding back the construction of a third span - money and political will.

The first bridge was completed in 1952 and replaced the ferries which some of us remember and which used to run from Sandy Point to Matapeake on Kent Island.  With increased traffic volume, the General Assembly, in 1967, authorized a second bridge at one of three locations - Southern Maryland, the Baltimore area or near the existing bridge.  The third option was chosen and the second span was completed in 1973.

Since then, the number of cars using the bridges has continued to increase.  In 2007, an estimated 27 million cars crossed the bridge vs. about 20 million in 1996 and, as the population of the region continues to grow, traffic can be expected to grow further.  The existence of the bridges has stimulated development on the once-isolated Eastern Shore which, in turn, has contributed to increasing traffic.

In 2005, Governor Ehrich appointed a commission to study the feasibility and location of a third crossing.  Four potential locations were identified but, with intense local opposition to each, the commission gave up and never attempted the political work of identifying a single location to recommend.  Consequently, no action was ever taken. 

And, of course, there is the issue of money - a new bay bridge would cost more than $2 billion dollars.  If the bridge is built from Southern Maryland to the Eastern Shore, it could cost $3 billion due to the much longer crossing that would be required.  Maryland, which is facing a transportation deficit of more than $1 billion already, simply doesn't have the money.  Even if it did, there are more critical transportation issues than a third Bay crossing.  

Despite these concerns, Maryland State Senator E.J. Pipkin has called upon Governor O'Malley to request yet another study.  But, of course, Pipkin was a part of the 2005 commission which abdicated its responsibility by avoiding a recommendation.  There's no reason to believe things would be any different now. 

Some Good Things Happening In Maryland

I just got back from some travel and ran across these items in the news. 

Energy  Governor O'Malley has recognized that the solution to Maryland's energy problems lie not just in conservation but also in the construction of new generating facilities in the state.  With brownouts or rolling blackouts projected for portions of the state (including the Eastern Shore) as soon as 2011, trying to persuade homeowners and businesses to reduce consumption simply isn't going to cut the mustard.  We need both new generating capacity and improved transmission facility.  The sooner the state begins to take an active role in supporting both, the better off we will be.

Pollution  Attorney General Doug Gansler has announced plans to sue the Defense Department to force them to clean up groundwater and soil contamination at Fort Meade.  The Defense Department has been trying to dodge responsibility for this for quite a while.  The fort has been on EPA's superfund list for quite a while but the Army has been dragging its feet in the cleanup effort.  It's worth noting that they don't seem to have any shortage of funds when it comes to building a big new golf course at the fort.  Now let's see if we have the gumption to take legal action against some of our neighboring states - Pennsylvania in particular - to force them to stop sending their filth down the rivers into the Chesapeake Bay. 

Transportation  The O'Malley Administration has announced plans to fast track the procurement of additional railroad cars to supplement the MARC fleet. The 13 double-deck cars will be purchased from the Virginia Railway Express and will be refurbished before being placed into service.  When they are placed into service in November, they will increase the MARC fleet by more than ten percent.  Together with the new locomotives expected in February, these will reduce delays and allow for expansion of MARC service, giving many Marylanders a meaningfull choice of how to commute in these times of high gas prices. 

Jurisprudence  Governor O'Malley has appointed Judge Mary Ellen Barbera to the Maryland Court of Appeals.  She is an excellent choice.  Judge Barbera didn't have the luxury of being able to go directly from college to law school.  Instead, she attended the University of Maryland School of Law at night while teaching in Baltimore public schools.  Undoubtedly she learned a lot both while teaching and at law school.  Her real-world experiences and background in addition to her sharp legal mind will give her excellent perspective as she takes on her new responsibilities.  We wish her well.

A Wiser Choice

Energy prices are high.  For all intents and purposes, they are going to stay high - maybe get higher.  While the price of oil might fall back to a previously unimaginable $100 per barrel, the long term trend is going to be for it to increase.  Why?  Because demand is increasing much faster than supply is able to increase.  And, as I pointed out in an earlier post, even the Bush administration doesn't think that opening up ANWR and the offshore continental shelf will do much, if anything to reduce prices.

So, with the reality that gasoline is going to stay expensive, what should the state of Maryland do for its citizens?  The citizens of Maryland have already voted on that; ridership on MARC and on the Washington Metro is setting new records regularly.  Ridership on Amtrak is up sharply and, in fact, may trains are sold out well into the future.  Ridership on local and regional bus systems has increased sharply.  Maryland needs to invest more in mass transit.

And we need to begin now.  Like anything else, mass transit takes time to build.  While the state is spending more than a billion dollars building the Inter-County Connector, passengers are flocking to MARC and Metro trains and to the Baltimore light rail, and the overcrowding is just going to get worse.  Now is the time to begin expanding the infrastructure, building the new stations and parking for the new residents that will be coming with BRAC and ordering the new cars that are already needed.  The state needs to invest in expanding and modernizing its long-distance commuter bus network and beefing up the weak public transportation networks in its rural areas.

And we can do more than that.  The photo above shows the Eurostar and Thalys trains side-by-side at the Gare du Nord in Paris.  While we've been fiddling around in this country with slow and inefficient long-distance rail passenger service, the Europeans have built an efficient network of high-speed passenger rail trains, among them the Eurostar, which runs between London and Paris and between London and Brussels and the Thalys which links Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, Antwerp and Cologne. 

These trains run on dedicated rail lines at top speeds of 186 mph.  Travel time, for example, on the 190 mile route between Paris and Brussels is one hour and 22 minutes.  At those speeds, the travel time by train between Washington and New York could be one hour and 40 minutes or less.  We just need to spend the money (which would be a lot) to upgrade the track.

So Maryland should partner with the other Northeastern states to upgrade rail passenger service in the Northeast corridor.  The congress will never appropriate the kind of money that Amtrak nees to upgrade its service nationwide and that wouldn't make any sense anyway - rail travel - even high speed rail travel - will never compete with air travel in the wide open spaces of the great plains and the west.

But here in the more densely-packed northeast, high-speed rail travel can and should be the first option for intercity travel.  It's something we can and should do to help reduce our transportation costs and energy use.  In the meantime, we need to get to work here in Maryland building a mass transit system that will get us off the roads and help us use less gas.