Electric Cars vs. Electric Trains

The age of the electric car is probably upon us as I’ve noted elsewhere. Naturally many of you will ask does this mean that the electric train and mass transit are no longer necessary.
The answer is no, even with the electric car almost in your garage the electric train and trolley still have a place. If electric cars appear and make driving cheaper and easier there is still the problem of congestion. If driving gets really cheap because of electric cars there will be thousands more cars on the roads, the highways won’t be any bigger and congestion will be worse than ever. Given modern environmental concerns and property rights there will be little room to expand the highways so congestion will be worse than ever. The logical answer to congestion is rail transit which can move many more people in the same space than electric cars. My home state of Colorado faces this dilemma the main road into the mountains Interstate 70, is already jammed, the only way to expand it will be to bulldoze a couple of historic mountain towns. Naturally, those towns residents are now vocal supporters of a rail option.
Beyond space there are the limitations of the electric car, the top of the line electric car the Tesla Roadster has a range of 220 miles on a charge. This is more than enough to meet the driving needs of the average American, they can reach work, the supermarket, Wal-Mart, their church and the local airport. If they want to go farther they’ll need something else such as the train.
It’s a dirty secret that right now if an American wants to travel outside the big cities he or she needs a car. If I who live in Denver, want to visit Gillette, Wyoming, or Salida, Colorado, I have to drive. Sixty or seventy years ago, my grandfather who lived in Christiansburg, Virginia, could have walked down to his local train station and bought a ticket to both of those towns. It would have taken him a few days to reach those destinations but he could have reached them without a car. I can’t, in fact I can’t even visit some of the suburbs of Denver without a car. The economic havoc this is wrecking on rural and urban America is unimaginable and unreported. How many good hardworking people are moving away from the communities their families have lived in for generations because they lack decent transportation options?
This of course doesn’t bode well for those who can’t afford an electric car. Right now the electric car is a rich man’s vehicle, Mel Gibson and George Clooney can buy them. Average people can’t, if gas prices keep going up a lot of working class people are going to find themselves unable to reach their family members or their workplace because the bus doesn’t go there. Okay in the long run the electric car will be mass produced but it’ll take two or three decades to get into everybody’s garage, think personnel computers it took thirty years to get them practical enough for use in the home. There will be social, political and economic hell to pay when Joe Sixpack is standing at the bus stop looking at the gas guzzler rusting in his driveway and watching the local rich guy cruise past in his new Tesla.
It must be added The electric car would be the perfect vehicle for commuting to the train station. The commuter could drive to the station, plug the car in and commute to work. When they got back it would be fully charged for the trip home. With vast numbers of Americans now living forty or fifty miles from their work this will be a desirable alternative. It makes a great deal of sense only our politicians won’t see it because won’t be politically popular. Of course the hard headed businessmen known as real estate developers will see the sense and make it a reality. The politicians knowing who their real paymasters are will smile and go along.
The electric car then is a wonderful invention but it doesn’t make the electric train or electric powered transit obsolete. It merely augments them and makes them more vital than ever.

America’s Interurban Revival

Much has been written about the revival of street cars in America but little has been stated about an equally exciting development the revival of Interurban rail lines.
Interurbans were essentially electric powered railcars (trolleys to the general public) that operated between cities and towns hence the term Interurban. Most of the Interurbans served rural and suburban lines and some of their routes quite long distances. Unlike most commuter trains (which only operate on weekday mornings and afternoons), Interurbans provided regular service all day.
In their heyday in the 1920s, Interurbans served virtually every America city and many of its small towns and suburbs. The famed Pacific Electric connected Los Angeles to Long Beach, Riverside and even Redlands as well as dozens of other communities. The Northshore line provided high speed service and streamlined trains between Chicago and Milwaukee. My home state of Colorado boasted Interurban lines between Denver and Golden and Denver and Boulder.
Competition from automobiles and buses killed off most Interurban lines by World War II. Only a few lines such as the South Shore line between Chicago and Gary, Indiana, and New York’s Long Island railroad remained by the 1990s.
Now something exciting is happening, Interurban Rail lines are being revived and a new technology diesel electric engines is being used to reduce costs. Three new Interurban rail lines using existing railroad track and new sleek diesel electric rail cars have been opened in North America in the last few years. The River Line which connects Trenton and Camden, New Jersey (http://www.riverline.com), the O-Train (http://www.octranspo.com) in Canada’s capitol, Ottawa, Ontario, and the Sprinter (http://www.gonctd.com/sprinter_intro.htm) which connects Oceanside and Escondido in north San Diego County. These projects are exciting because they restore transit rail service to areas that lost it decades ago and because they could serve as models for cheaper and more efficient rail transit in other American cities.
Several other Interurban lines are now in the planning stages in the United States. The most exciting projects are in my home town of Denver. Here the Regional Transportation District plans to implement electric powered commuter rail service to the suburbs of Thornton, Westminister, Commerce City, Aurora, Arvada Denver International Airport. This would be an Interurban system because most of these trains would use existing railroad tracks but operate on a time table comparable to a light rail system. RTD also plans to restore Interurban service to the nearby cities of Boulder and Longmont using an existing track and diesel electric trains. Interestingly enough this ambitious project called Fastracks (http://www.rtd-fastracks.com) would use Union Station, the historic hub of Denver’s Interuban system as its hub.
In Chicago the Metra commuter rail system which operates on all day basis, is planning its first suburb to suburb rail line the Suburban Transit Access Route or STAR Line (http://metraconnects.metrarail.com/star.php). This project would use diesel electric rail cars to connect Joliet with O’Hare Airport in a line that would loop around the city. This would be an Interurban project because it would use rail cars and existing track in a suburban setting.
Many more Interurban systems will be proposed and quite a few will be built in the years ahead with the price of gas skyrocketing. Real estate developers and home builders who have land and houses in bedroom communities and suburban office and industrial parks sitting empty will be prime movers behind these projects.
America’s far flung suburbs and exburbs are perfect environments for Interurban rail. With large numbers of Americans living twenty or thirty miles from their jobs and changing patters of living alternatives to the car become imperative. Interurbans which are cheaper and easier to build than heavy or light rail transit are a perfect alternative. They can use existing rail lines, abandoned rail road right of ways or unused sections of freeway right of ways to reach their destinations. No expensive subways or elevated rail structures are needed. It wouldn’t be hard for diesel Interurban cars to run on light rail tracks. In the city center and more crowded areas Interurbans can use the same tunnels, elevated lines, stations and cuts as existing transit systems, a huge savings. Philadelphia’s excellent transit system should be a national role model here, Los Angeles an example of what not to do.
The Interurban fits the suburban lifestyle perfectly it allows citizens to keep the flexibility and freedom of the car and access the efficiency and convenience of commuter rail. Residents of small towns and subdivisions can drive to park and rides park their cars and use the train. When they get off the train these people can walk or take a cab or shuttle bus to their final destination. One Interurban stop can easily serve a huge shopping mall or office park. Changing commuter patterns also favor Interurban rail many Americans now live in gentrified Downtown areas and commute to jobs in suburban office parks.
Interurban rail is an old idea whose time as come again as evidenced by the huge success of America’s light rail systems many of which resemble Interurban rail lines and often operate on old Interurban rail routes. The question is how can we can get our politicians to fund this practical and sensible transportation alternative?

Colorado’s Transportation Policy: No Vision and Lost Opportunity

Nothing displays the lack of imagination and vision at Colorado’s state capitol than the failure of our state legislature to do anything about our state’s transportation crisis this past session.
As anybody who drives in Colorado knows our highways are overcrowded and falling apart. To make matters worse there is no alternative to the car in most of our state meaning that most Coloradoans will have to spend more and more of their limited income on gas to get around.
The crisis is made worse by the fact that we are heavily dependent upon tourism both in and out of state. Tens of thousands of Coloradoans work in the tourist industry or in jobs that service the tourist industry and hundreds of Colorado businesses depend upon the tourist industry. Virtually all of those tourists arrive by car they either drive in from out of state or the Front Range or fly into DIA and drive to their destination. High gas prices will mean that vast numbers of tourists simply won’t be able to afford to come here which could devastate our economy.
Closer to home large numbers of Coloradoans already drive vast distances to get to work and to the necessities of everyday life such as the grocery store and the doctor. Many of these people are poor and live in rural areas, lots of them will be forced to choose between gasoline and health insurance or gasoline and food because of high gas prices. Many other Coloradoans will end making another unthinkable sacrifice high gas prices will mean they simply can’t afford to go to the mountains which should be every Coloradoans right. With these people staying home many mountain towns where a lot of people are barely hanging on economically could be devastated.
Faced with such a crisis one would think our legislature and governor would be spurred to action. After all both houses of the legislature and the governor’s mansion are controlled by the supposedly eco friendly Democrats. One would think the Democrats would take the sensible measure of putting a measure for a sales tax to fund creation of a statewide network of buses and commuter trains. This measure could include purchase of the rail lines that link Front Range cities, the now abandoned Arkansas Valley rail line which links Pueblo and Vail and the creation of a state commuter rail line like New Mexico’s Rail Runner.
Also included in this could be construction of a high speed rail line along the I-70 corridor connecting DIA and Grand Junction. As well as a state wide over the road bus service to connect our smaller cities and towns. Some of the ground work for this is already laid in the form of RTD’s FasTracks and the FREX commuter bus between Denver and Colorado Springs.
The highly successful T-Rex rail and highway expansion project in Denver would be an excellent model of what could be done on I-70. Perhaps we could create an I-70 corridor Regional Transportation District to construct and operate an I-70 rail line and maintain and expand the highway and the Eisenhower tunnel. Or expand Denver’s RTD to the entire Front Range and neighboring mountain counties. These things would be in the legislature’s power.
Voters would be inclined to pass such measures they voted for FasTracks and T-Rex. Coloradoans don’t mind raising taxes if they think they’ll get something from the taxes. I imagine a statewide FasTracks would pass easily especially if it included commuter rail service for the entire Front Range. Note of course the state legislature doesn’t want to admit this because it would mean admitting that the TABOR amendment isn’t a straight jacket that impoverishes the state.
But our legislature as usual has done nothing but generate a little hot air and a few media sound bites about tolls on I-70. The legislators have done nothing so perhaps its time local municipalities, real estate developers and the tourist industry whose economic future is in danger got together and put something on the ballot themselves. If we don’t our state and especially our tourism industry might not have a future.