A Word from Eric Miller for September, 2000

A Place, A Purpose And A Seamless Trip

Many different forms of transportation serve many different purposes in the United States. Each has its strengths, yet we expect each to be an end-all to every transportation problem.

In the 1940s and 50s, as air travel increased and became more economical, the choice was seen as one of competition for survival between long-distance trains and aircraft. In America's cities, as automobiles became more common, the choice seemed to be between cars and public transit. Likewise when streetcar lines were being dismantled, the choice to be made was between streetcars and buses. In American cities today, the choice to be made is sitll viewed as being between the automobile and public transit.Yet, despite the choices transportation consumers appear to have made, no "supplanted" form of transportation technology has disappeared from the landscape.

I once suggested in conversation to my friend Nick Kyriazi that because he didn't drive, he was opposed to automobiles. "I am not opposed to automobiles," he responded. "I just don't think people should use them the way they do."

The "way" he was talking about was to use automobiles on a day-in, day-out basis to get to work, go to the store, and travel around in-town. In his view, that was the role of public transportation. The automobile, in his view, should be reserved for trips out of town to places that you can't get to by public transit. And in fact, if most people confined their car use to these purposes, Americans could save untold amounts of money each year--not only in fuel costs, but on maintenance, license, insurance and other costs, because there wouldn't be a need for every family to own multiple cars: they could be rented occasionally as needed.

Commute Till You Drop

In San Francisco, a regional, heavy-rail transit system called BART connects cities in the region. It mvoes people longer distances quickly and helps to keep development focused on the areas it serves: Oakland, Walnut Creek, San Francisco, Pittsburg, Richmond and (eventually) San Jose. But as the regional heavy-rail transit system directs development to these cities, it becomes increasingly important to have a light-rail or streetcar system connecting major points within the urban boundaries. While San Francisco and San Jose have such systems, other sizeable cities such as Oakland and Walnut Creek do not.

That means the area that can be dense and walkable in San Francisco and San Jose is much greater than in Oakland or Walnut Creek. The walkable district in those cities is limited to the area immediately surrounding the heavy-rail stations, while in San Francisco and San Jose it stretches to every point served by the light-rail or streetcars. The result is most people in residential areas in Oakland and Walnut Creek cannot use the automobile the way Kyriazi suggested. Buses provide a quick, if ideally temporary, fix to the problem.

To take the other side of the argument, some may suggest that the regional rail system could be served just as efficiently by buses as light-rail. Perhaps in the short-term, in an already developed city it can. But the bus is less efficient mechanically, and, as previously stated, it won't create a focus for denser development, and will infact discourage street life and walking with its noise, stench, and rough ride. And since it requires the same street pattern and other paved infrastructure as do cars (unlike light rail which can operate in narrow, inconspicuous rights-of-way if necessary), it still encourages the city to spread far and wide in a suburban pattern. Unlike light-rail, the bus must follow the developmental ruts established for automobiles.

The bus does have its place: it can be used to connect parking lots to transportation transfer points, or places within a short distance of the light-rail lines.

Getting Out of Town

Passenger railroads, once the primary way to travel long-distance, declined as Americans were lured to new highways and the speed of air travel. Yet in many cities today it remains difficult to get to the airport. The trip, sometimes as much as an hour's drive out of a major city, can involve a costly cab ride or the added expense of leaving an automobile at the airport.

More, secondary cities like Morgantown, West Virginia, served by several passenger trains a day in the 1950s, were cut-off from long-distance travel when airplanes replaced trains. Seeing airplanes as something that would and replace long-distance trains was a view that continues to leave the transportation system in the United States incomplete and places like Morgantown inaccessible.

A half-century after passenger railroads began their slow fade from the American landscape, plans are underway to begin connecting Amtrak--currently enjoying near record ridership levels--to major airports. While railroads may never move at speeds to compete with cross-country air travel, they could provide an easy way to get from small towns and city centers to an airport on the outskirts, and they are often quicker than air for medium-distance travel, once you figure in teh added tiem and inconvenience required to get to and from the airports, and any transfers the air industry's current hub system requires. After all, a train station can be downtown, and the train can make several stops in different parts of the same city, making rail access quite a bit handier than air.

In some cities, such as Baltimore, Amtrak already connects to Baltimore-Washington International and provides a convenient connection to towns as far away as Cumberland, Maryland, on the southwestern Pennsylvania border. Plans to improve rail service between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia include a connection to the state capitol airport in Harrisburg, providing seamless rail service between points like Johnstown and Lancaster and service to destinations as far away as Europe. Passengers boarding in Downingtown, for example, may no longer be burdened with the drive to the Philadelphia suburbs, Baltimore or Harrisburg to catch a flight. Checking baggage at the train station in Downingtown, they won't have to see it again until it rolls by on the airline luggage belt at their final destination. (Interesting, " baggage" seemed to become "luggage" with the emergence of serve-yourself airways and the long corridors of airports).

There's also room for a substantial cost savings as municipalities no longer have to burden taxpayers by maintaining small municipal airports in places like Akron, Ohio and Blair County, Pa.

Airlines may themselves have an incentive to connect to trains, because short-distance flights are more costly to operate, and the passenger base doesn't warrant frequent flights. In fact, Lufthansa recently established a rail operation in europe to serve short- and middle-distance travelers.

Working Together

Unfortunately, a half-century of wilful shortsightedness has held to the view that each innovation comes at the expense of another. A few expensive decades later, perhaps we are realizing that a complete and efficient system requires discovering the value of connecting many technologies and making them work together for the benefit of all.

Eric Miller is editor of The New Colonist.

Go to A Word from Richard Risemberg

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