Transport: The Loss of the Lacey V. Murrow

TORONTO, ONTARIO - Today is Thanksgiving Day in the United States, but twenty years ago, 25-November fell on a Sunday, and it was quite an interesting day. From my 25-November-1990 Highlight report:

When it was opened in 1940, the Lacey V. Murrow floating bridge was the longest floating bridge in the world. It served well as US 10 and temporary I-90 until the new, third Lake Washington floating bridge opened parallel to the old bridge last year. The classic old span began to be renovated, with some of the work, including the eastern approach and part of the decking completed by the beginning of the Thanksgiving work break.

However, when workers arrived to check on the bridge this morning, they found one of the middle pontoons rapidly taking on water and sinking. They immediately went to shore for safety, and as they called in help, a loud cracking noise was heard. The bridge broke in two, with a middle pontoon immediately sinking. The western section broke away from the approach and began drifting southward. The eastern section remained attached to shore, but continued to take on water.

By this time, the local media had arrived on the scene, and live coverage of the disaster soon reached the airwaves. Another pontoon began to lean downward and bubble. Water come over the roadway, and then the section tipped downward, causing a construction crane to topple into Lake Washington. The pontoon soon followed in turning over and sinking, sending up circular bubbles on the way down.

A few more pontoons went down in such dramatic fashion before the remainder of the bridge stabilized. A tugboat was called to drag the drifting section and hold it against the shore. At the end of the eastern section, the last pontoon hung facing downward, threatening to break off and sink.

Meanwhile, the new bridge was shut down as a precautionary measure and it will remain closed tomorrow morning which will certainly cause a traffic jam the likes of which have never been seen in the Seattle area. Once the new bridge is confirmed safe, the investigation into what happened to the old bridge this morning can begin.

It turned out that the sinking pontoons had snapped some of the cables attaching the new bridge to its southern anchors, meaning that there was stress on the bridge from the still-tensioned northern anchors, threatening to break that bridge apart as well, though it was not in danger of sinking. A fleet of tugboats and other heavy watercraft were recruited to pull on the old bridge until new anchors could be attached.

The old bridge had been undergoing hydro-demolition, the process of using pressurized water to break apart the concrete surfaces that were to be removed. If that doesn't sound ill-advised enough on a floating bridge, the waste water from the process was being stored inside the pontoons, and some of the water-tight barriers had been removed to facilitate this practice. The significant storm that hit around the Thanksgiving holiday was enough to combine with these factors to sink the fifty year-old bridge.

As the parallel Homer M. Hadley Bridge had just been recently designed and completed, it was a comparatively simple process to adapt the plans for that five-lane bridge to the replacement three-lane Lacey V. Murrow Bridge, which was constructed on a somewhat expedited schedule and opened in 1993--with the insurance company of the contractor on the original bridge's refurbishing paying a good portion of the bill.

Now, the 1990's-era bridges are a fixture between Seattle and Mercer Island, and the only controversy surrounds whether to install light rail tracks on the Homer M. Hadley Bridge.

Transport: Never Mind Rail...

TORONTO, ONTARIO - This blog has been relatively cynical about the $8 billion that was to be devoted to "high speed rail" projects from the Recovery Act in the United States, as announced in January. While calling it all "high speed rail" was an almost-pathological overstatement of the projects that were funded, it looked like some serious improvement to rail infrastructure was going to take place in a number of states, and California and Florida, at least, would actually be able to start building true dedicated right-of-way, 200+ mile per hour lines that most of the world would view as high speed rail.

One election later, that's apparently not the case. Most dramatically, almost immediately after the election, Wisconsin stopped all work on a project that would have created a high-speed passenger rail corridor between Madison and Milwaukee. Governor-elect Scott Walker had promised during the campaign that he would kill the project to save money, re-iterated after the election that he would keep this promise, and as a result sitting governor Jim Doyle, a rail supporter, immediately halted all work so as to avoid throwing money away on a project that would be stopped just months later. Assuming that nothing changes, Wisconsin will forfeit the $823 million in Federal funds it had been awarded for the project--and it isn't especially clear how much money it will actually save the state, as the federal money was going to fund essentially the complete project, assuming no cost over-runs.

The same thing has happened in Ohio. Newly elected Governor John Kasich also campaigned against the creation of a rail corridor in his state. As a result, work is being stopped on the "3C" line connecting Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland, and as a result $400 million will be returned to Washington D.C. The situation in Florida may prove similar--Rick Scott campaigned against the Orlando to Tampa true high speed line because it was expected to cost the state about $280 million, but seems to be doing a reasoned analysis now, rather than simply rejecting $2 billion in federal money that most expect to grow to about $2.3 billion if the project proceeds. It remains to be seen if Florida will really leave $2 billion or more on the table.

Adding to the anti-rail environment while not part of the Recovery Act situation, New Jersey governor Chris Christie has also killed a $8.7 billion project to create an additional rail tunnel under the Hudson River. Of all the projects mentioned here, this one did stand on the most dubious financial ground--New Jersey could have been on the hook for substantial potential cost overruns--and the political history of the project could be characterized as sketchy. Still, it fit the pattern of a Republican governor killing a rail infrastructure project.

With the money to be refunded to the Federal government only available for rail projects by law, some of the states whose projects were underfunded or not funded at all may yet end up getting funds. Many pundits, however, believe that the returned money will end up going to California, which still seems to be serious about building its high speed line despite its overall financial situation--and it is possible that new legislation may be passed that will simply eliminate the funds and put them toward debt reduction.

What Walker, Christie, Kasich, and (at least during the campaign) Scott all have in common, besides being Republicans, is the claim that their states could not afford rail infrastructure, that it was not an appropriate thing for the state to be spending money on, and that the projects would be a waste of money as not all state citizens would use the systems. The logic really doesn't hold up--taxes go to everything from public schools to air traffic control that not everyone uses, and rail infrastructure is no different conceptually from road infrastructure that seems to draw no complaints when it is funded by stimulus funds.

The truly amazing claim is the first one, that the rail infrastructure cannot be afforded. People from the same party that constantly claim that the United States is exceptional and does not need to look to foreign models are basically admitting that we do not have the money to spend on infrastructure that China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Spain, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, and even Turkey do have. When the United States wakes up and discovers that it is in the in a second tier of nations, one thing it will be able to look back on is the mass cancellation of rail infrastructure projects in 2010.

{And it's hard to ignore the Onion's take on the situation.}

Transport: Relaxed Autos, but only Autos

KENNEWICK, WASHINGTON - Away from the largest urban areas, the western United States is dominated by the automobile. In most of the west, there is no alternative, no sidewalks, no bike lanes, certainly no public transit. The Tri-Cities are an exception of sorts in that Ben Franklin Transit is a reasonably usable system, with a balance of local and intercity routes with timed connections making it possible to make it from just about anywhere in Richland, Kennewick, or Pasco to anywhere else in an hour or less.

Yet, the traditional forms of "green" transporation are essentially unknown here. I have not seen a single bicyclist in four days here, even a recreational one. One would think that this would be the ideal season for bicycling in this climate, as the skies have been clear and the temperatures have not yet become oppressive; when I once lived here, I used a bicycle reasonably frequently.

Pedestrians don't seem to be allowed here. I only intend a small amount of irony in that statement. On at least four occasions, I have had an automobile completely ignore my presence in a sidewalk and just shoot through the interchange without even looking at me, sometimes even after the location where they would have hit me had I continued on my intended course. People obviously do not expect any pedestrians here, and feel they do not ever have the right-of-way.

Interactions between drivers, though, are actually more relaxed than I remember them here in the past. On multiple occasions, a car in front of me has failed to move for at least five seconds after receiving a green light. Nobody honked, nobody seemed to get upset, and eventually the driver would notice that they had a favorable signal and would move through the intersection.

This seems counter-intuitive, as the Tri-Cities have definitely grown since I lived here more than a decade ago, and one would expect that the mood would become more tense with more people. A possible theory is that part of the population growth has been amongst people from Mexico, and the laid-back nature of Mexico may be influencing driving habits here. Or, perhaps the roundabouts that have proliferated here on both city and state roads have forced people to figure out how to be polite to one another in vehicles.

In any event, some of that patience and politeness needs to be applied by drivers to people that do not happen to be in another vehicle.

Transport: Gerard Kennedy on Metrolinx

Member of Parliament Gerard Kennedy and the Clean Trains Coalition's Mike Sullivan both addressed a question at a community meeting on 19-May-2010

TORONTO, ONTARIO - For his latest community meeting held last Wednesday at Bishop Marrocco/Thomas Merton Catholic Secondary School in Toronto, Ontario, Gerard Kennedy chose as his topic the federal role in public transportation. This might seem an odd selection in many ways, as really the only role of the federal government in local transportation is funding, and as a member of the opposition Kennedy has little influence on that. However, the meeting still had a number of remarkable moments rather revealing of both the MP and his audience.

Kennedy is the infrastructure critic in parliament, so he presented developed opinions about transportation-related topics. There seems to be a general consensus on the political left that Metrolinx's plans for a line to the airport are not to be stopped entirely, but should include electrification (for noise and pollution benefits, as well as lower operating cost) from the beginning, and that the line should be public, rather than run by a private operator. Kennedy expressed no deviation from that consensus.

His critique largely focused on two areas. First, he emphasized that the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA), a federal organization, needed to be pushed to be involved in Metrolinx projects from the beginning, rather than an agency of last appeal when Metrolinx's obligations to the community were not met. He pointed that the CTA had been ruled to have jurisdiction over rail projects, and thus all Metrolinx/GO Transit commuter rail projects. The experience in the Junction over pile driving in 2009 may have gone on too long, but at least the court cases surrounding it made this clear, and Kennedy wants to leverage the ruling to make Metrolinx address issues before construction starts on other projects.

The second thing is that Kennedy wants a body of all levels of government jointly having responsibility for political oversight of these projects, so that the various levels cannot just claim that others are responsible. This might seem like a typical politician's proposal with little chance of becoming reality, but Kennedy genuinely has a point. Since (to cite Parkdale as an example) Gord Perks at the city council level, Cheri DiNovo at the provincial level, and Kennedy at the federal level do largely see eye-to-eye about what should happen with the corridor despite their different party identities, it would make sense to have a body in which they could wield their various powers to ensure the end they would like to see would be met.

This proposal provoked a great deal of discussion from the audience, with a lot of discontent expressed at the lack of coordination between DiNovo (from the NDP) and Kennedy (a Liberal) in particular. At some level, if Kennedy was telling the truth that he would have attended last month's public meeting put on by DiNovo (covered here) had he not been traveling, it's really a shame that he was traveling, since that would have changed the whole tone of the accusations from activists in the audience who are never seeing the two of them in the same place.

The harshest words from the public were aimed at Metrolinx, with one person accusing the provincial agency of being "diabolical." Kennedy did not exactly defend them, saying "they are not necessarily diabolical... they haven't behaved in way that is very responsible." Anyone who lives within earshot of the Junction--which means even me--would call that an understatement.

As for the broader picture beyond Metrolinx, Kennedy called for a national public transit policy for all cities, saying that the federal government "needs to be more than a funder--we must bring something more to the table." Sharing standards and expertise were suggested as part of that formula, and Kennedy reminded the audience that the Liberals have called for more of the gas tax revenue to be directed to municipalities.

Kennedy always seems to have a out-of-the-blue remark that I find interesting in his meetings. This time, it was in response to a question about climate change. "It looks to me like the Obama administration is going to use the EPA to regulate carbon," he said, "We may have a price for carbon by the new year in Canada as a result." We shall see.

Transport: Yet Less High Speed Rail

TORONTO, ONTARIO - When the initial announcements were made in January, this blog addressed the fact that much of the high-speed funding in the United States is not actually going to high-speed projects. Well, now it turns out that even less of the money will go to high-speed projects than was first thought.

Recently, the San Jose Mercury News reported that Caltrain will electrify its commuter line between San Francisco and San Jose, a project estimated to cost $1.23 billion. This seemed like an impossibility, considering California's near-Greek financial status and a similar shortage of funds at the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board that runs Caltrain. Yet, the "Murky News" revealed that there is funding available for the project--using funds designated for high-speed railways.

The preferred routing for California's high-speed route between San Francisco and Los Angeles uses the Caltrain right-of-way between San Francisco and San Jose, and the line would need to be upgraded for electric power and higher-speed running (currently, the limit on the line is 79 mph, lower in a number of locations) in order to host the high-speed service. Thus, Caltrain qualifies to use a portion of the high-speed funding for its upgrade.

As a practical matter, this is probably a very good use of stimulus funds. Caltrain is already one of the best commuter rail systems in North America, with rush-hour "baby bullet" trains running between San Francisco and San Jose in under an hour (try driving it in that!) and regular service throughout the day. Converting to electric propulsion will reduce emissions and noise in the residential areas along the line and allow for faster service that will be cheaper to operate (allowing the operation of more trains). It will also allow eventual extension of the line deeper into San Francisco through a tunnel which realistically could not have hosted diesel trains. The peninsula will have a truly world-class commuter rail system that, if supplemented with other transit connections, will attract riders and have an impact on highway mobility.

Yet, the idea of a high speed rail initiative was to link cities not currently connected with a viable alternative to the automobile and commuter aircraft, not to upgrade a commuter rail service. I'm personally in favor of the Caltrain electrification initiative--and have been since the mid-1990's--but think this smells like dishonesty in federal funding (and state funding through the high speed rail bonds). Maybe it's time to stop pretending there is such a thing as high speed rail funding, and just start calling it "Rail Transformation Funding" or something along those lines. Caltrain will be transformed, but it won't be high-speed any more than the existing "baby bullet" express trains are high-speed. Selling the funding as something else just breeds the anti-government cynicism that is already far too prevalent in the United States. It's time to stop feeding it.

Transport: Fare Incentives

TORONTO, ONTARIO - At this juncture, I ought to be traveling almost exclusively by rail. I have the time and I prefer traveling by rail anyway for environmental reasons, never mind the railfanning opportunities. Yet, whenever I have headed west farther than Michigan since becoming unemployed, it has been by air. How can this be? Simple. It's cheaper.

As hard as it is to believe, airfares--even relatively last-minute airfares--have been cheaper for every trip segment over 400 miles I have taken in the past two years, with one exception--Amtrak was slightly cheaper than Southwest Airlines for Sacramento, California to Portland, Oregon last December, so that segment occurred by rail. While I have never done a comprehensive analysis, this can't possibly be reflective of the actual costs. Even taking into account that rail travel takes longer, the fewer number of people involved in the infrastructure of running a train versus running a plane means the labor costs of going by rail can't be significantly higher, and everything else should be lower. Most significantly, the fuel costs should be radically lower--trains use just over one-third as much fuel per passenger-mile as an airplane according to the Sierra Club.

(I would have guessed a much larger difference, but that's still huge. Looking at the derivation--such as here--it seems to come from a passenger load on a train of twenty, which is too low by a factor of at least five for most Amtrak trains, even long-distance ones. It also gives a passenger load of 90 for aircraft, which would be a loading factor of less than 0.7 on a 737 when most airlines are averaging a load factor of 0.85, but that's a more mild underestimate than the rail underestimate. I have a feeling that all of these estimates were intended to favor the automobile).

Yet, it's actually not surprising that rail fares are often higher than air fares. Both the railroads (Amtrak and VIA Rail Canada) and the airlines use yield-management techniques on their fares to maximize revenues. Assuming their models are working properly, it's entirely possible that the demand for rail services is high enough that the railroad can charge fares higher than airlines and still maximize their revenues, whether from people that physically or emotionally cannot or will not fly, or those traveling to intermediate destinations. VIA Rail Canada obviously offers enough amenities and convenience that its regular fare from Toronto to Montreal is equivalent to the base fare on Porter Airlines (both about $144), though more discounts are probably available for the train.

I'd like to propose that the fact that rail fares are not cheaper than air fares means that our taxes on fuel are clearly not high enough, as it should cost less to transport a passenger by rail. However, if we believe the revenue-management software is actually working, it implies that airlines cannot actually charge more money for their tickets and earn more revenue. Raising the fuel taxes would decrease the airline profit margin, and at some point the airlines would simply stop flying a route because it would not be profitable.

Maybe that is what needs to happen. If the weakest airlines disappear from a route, the decreased supply would mean that the remaining airlines would be able to charge a higher fare and maintain profitability. Rail fares could also rise some because of increased demand from people that could no longer afford to fly, but not as much as the air fares. The impact would be modestly higher rail fares and significantly higher air fares.

In other words, there's no way I'm going to be able to financially justify taking the train unless it costs more than it does now. That may be the right outcome from a national policy perspective, but I'm not looking forward to that.

Transport: Deciphering "High Speed" Funding

TORONTO, ONTARIO - Those hoping for high-speed rail in the United States are likely a bit confused by where the $8 billion in Recovery Act money designated for high speed rail will be spent. President Obama and Amtrak-riding Vice-President Biden announced today that only two true "high speed" projects would receive funding, in California and Florida. However, a number of other states will receive money to incrementally improve their conventional services. What's going on here?

Cynics would say this is only about politics. While certain "blue" states (California, Illinois, Maine, Washington, and Wisconsin) are being rewarded under this view with significant project funding, swing states are over-represented, with Florida getting the only complete high-speed system funded, North Carolina getting a significant grant, and Ohio getting perhaps the most unexpected grant, $400 million to improve infrastructure for new corridors within that state, which sees only Amtrak long-distance service at odd hours presently. "Red" states? There is just a small grant to Texas and some spillover money for Missouri from the Chicago-St. Louis corridor that will go to states that did not vote for Obama.

I'm not going to argue that politics played no role here, but there may actually be a policy strategy here that makes sense which I have yet to see presented elsewhere. For a long time, advocates have been arguing that a demonstration corridor was needed to show what a high speed rail corridor could do. Orlando to Tampa, Florida has apparently been selected as that demonstration corridor, and in that regard, it's an interesting choice. It's long enough--80 miles--to show the speed advantages of high-speed rail, but short enough to be relatively inexpensive to build, and it has the interesting advantage of competing mostly just with the automobile--few fly for that short of a distance, and Amtrak runs only long-distance trains between the two cities. The only inexplicable part is that the Federal money will only pay for about half the cost of the project--Florida will have to come up with the rest of the money on its own, and in its current budgetary situation that's far from certain.

The bulk of the rest of the money went mostly to states that have already demonstrated an ability to effectively improve existing service. The California money may be designated for the high-speed system supported by Governor Schwarzenegger, but California has been the national leader in using state funds to create meaningful corridors, with the greatest success achieved in the "Pacific Surfliner" corridor from San Diego to Los Angeles and on to the Central Coast, and the "Capitol" corridor between San Jose and Sacramento. Washington received a significant grant which fits right into its incremental approach that has already shaved a half-hour off the travel time between Seattle and Portland, Oregon and increased the number of corridor trips from one to four in the past fifteen years. Maine fought almost single-handed to create and improve the Portland to Boston, Massachusetts "Downeaster" corridor which also runs through New Hampshire and now may get to extend its corridor to Brunswick, with a goal of reaching the capitol in Augusta.

From a policy perspective, that just might make sense--get a demonstration corridor going, encourage the states that have invested in rail by reinforcing the investment, and hope that by setting this precedent, other states will start to invest. It's hardly a bold move, but perhaps it sets the stage for a further round of investment someday if the demonstration corridor becomes popular. The Obama administration is all about hope, isn't it?

Transport: 100th Trip by Air

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA - Today, I departed on my one-hundredth trip that involved at least one segment of air travel. It took me more than twenty years to reach this landmark, racking up just over 450,000 miles on 38 different airlines.

There was a certain irony in this trip being the one-hundredth, as it took place after the longest period of time I had gone without being on-board an aircraft in a decade. Not since 1999, when I did not fly--and basically did not travel--until the winter holiday season, had I gone more than four months without taking to the skies for one reason for another. Being unemployed this year, though, I have not had the money to travel and in fact am making this trip using frequent flier miles from all those previous experiences. (Not that even this is inexpensive anymore--the fees and taxes for this frequent-flier trip cost more than USD 150 just to get out of Toronto.)

It was also reminiscent of my first transcontinental trip. Like that trip twenty years ago, I was on American Airlines and was routed through their hub in Dallas-Fort Worth. The connection took place in the dark, so I did not see the brown-tinted concrete that had made such an impression on me in that first visit. In the terminals, though, things didn't seem much different to me than on that last visit, or amaizngly the only other time I connected through DFW in 2005; most of my connections have been through Chicago.

In fact, nothing much seemed to have changed in the flying experience since my last flight. Security procedures still seem to be the same as last year, the quality of airline service doesn't seem to have gotten any better (it could scarcely get worse--even peanuts or a substitute are a thing of the past on the major carriers these days), and major airports are still charging for wireless Internet access. Fellow American passengers were agressive and rude, drawing shaking heads from more patient Canadians. The only minor change to note was that even the pilots seemed to be surprised just how bright pink and green the de-icing fluids were in Toronto.

Still, in December, the whole name of the game is to get to one's destination, and American Airlines did at least manage to do that, reasonably close to one-time.

Airlines ranked by miles traveled (number of flight segments in parenthesis):

1. America West, 54,780 (38)


2. British Airways, 48,358 (15)


3. American, 47,999 (21)


4. Swiss, 35,608 (8)


5. United, 33,310 (24)


6. Continental, 27,282 (14)


7. Air Canada, 26,300 (13)


8. Northwest, 24,015 (22)


9. Lufthansa, 22,046 (7)


10. Alaska, 20,280 (24)


11. Delta, 16,888 (12)


12. Air France, 14,342 (6)


13. Southwest, 12,365 (23)


14. ATA, 11,350 (10)


15. US Airways, 9,932 (7)


16. Swiss Air, 7,490 (2)


17. US Air, 7,061 (6)


18. WestJet, 6,050 (3)


19. Frontier, 5,540 (4)


20. TWA, 5,480 (4)


21. Sun Country, 5,020 (4)


22. ExpressJet, 2,753 (3)


23. Pinnacle Airlines, 1,650 (3)


24. American Eagle, 1,535 (5)


25. Horizon Air, 1,119 (5)


26. Cross Air, 892 (2)


27. Mesa Airlines, 692 (2)


28. Tyrolean Air, 504 (2)


29. AirTran, 368 (1)


30. Air Wisconsin, 347 (1)


31. Shuttle America, 345 (1)


32. Skywest, 257 (2)


33. Air Canada Jazz, 254 (2)


34. Austrian Arrow, 254 (1)


35. Atlantic Coast, 253 (1)


36. Styrian Spirit, 208 (1)


37. Trans-States, 135 (1)


38. Chicago Express, 123 (1)

Transport: Intermodal Solutions

PORTLAND, OREGON - My Amtrak Cascades corridor train was delayed in departing Seattle, Washington earlier this evening, waiting on a connecting bus from Bellingham that was scheduled to arrive a half-hour before the train departed, but because of traffic ended up delayed nearly 45 minutes. The time allowed for some reflection on the concept of intermodal transportation.

One thing that European countries seem to understand that the United States, with its emphasis on individual corporations and entities does not seem to understand, is that people want to get from point A to point B as easily as possible. They may prefer certain amenities or carriers along the way, but the main thing is being able to get from their origin to destination without major inconveniences along the way. In Switzerland, for example, the extensive passenger rail system is not only set up for easy connections between intercity and local (S-Bahn) services operated by the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB), but also other rail carriers like the Matterhorn Gotthard Bahn (MGB) and the Bern-Lotschberg-Simplon (BLS)--and also the Post Bus system and ferries like the Schifffahrtsgesellschaft des Vierwaldstättersees (SGV). Go to the SBB web site and try, for example, a trip from Zurich, Switzerland to Friedrichshafen, Germany (home of the Zepplin museum) and all the intermodal possibilities appear.

The same sort of integration does not exist in any form in North America. Not only is there no easy way to compare Greyhound, Amtrak, and Southwest Airlines on a trip from, say San Diego, California to Sacramento, California, but there isn't even a good interface to compare all airlines, as many discount carriers like Southwest and Allegiant don't appear on the major travel search sites. Even if such a comparison site were available, there is no easy way to connect between services in most places. Bus and train stations are in different locations, and if a connection to an airport is available at all, it's via a city bus service, adding yet another leg for travelers.

Individual systems are making progress in this regard. The state-subsidized Amtrak California system provides integrated connecting train and bus service. It's not a coincidence that on this trip I used an Amtrak California bus from Sacramento to Oroville--it ran more frequently than Greyhound and departed from a more convenient location in Sacramento (of course, because of laws to protect Greyhound, I had to buy a ticket from Davis to Oroville and not ride the train from Davis, but it was still cheaper than Greyhound). Around Toronto, Ontario, GO Transit operates an integrated rail and bus system throughout the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, but integration with local transit systems is sorely lacking. In the San Francisco Bay Area, 511.org has long provided a multi-modal trip planner that has become quite useful, but fare integration has yet to follow suit in the manner that it has in Europe.

It's not rocket science to set up an integrated trip planner so that getting from Newark, Delaware to Amherst, Massachusetts could be done most efficiently by the traveler. Nor is it rocket science to set up a fare collection system to properly reimburse the individual carriers along the way so that the traveler would need to purchase only one ticket. However, setting up connections between different modes of transportation is a much harder infrastructure problem, and someone needs to have the authority to run the integrated resources. Unfortunately, that someone is most logically government, something that Europeans are willing to accept but still seems to be anathema to North Americans. So, likely North Americans will continue to lack the convenient public transportation systems that exist in Europe.

For the record, despite leaving Seattle 23 minutes late, thanks to relatively low freight traffic levels and quality dispatching from BNSF (including veteran Centralia South Dispatcher Earl W. Johnson), my Amtrak Cascades train arrived in Portland only 12 minutes late. The train reached its final destination of Eugene, Oregon only 5 minutes late, according to Amtrak.com. It definitely made sense to wait for the bus.

Transport: Georgetown Line Upgrades

TORONTO, ONTARIO - Coming on the heels of the news last week that GO Transit will purchase the Canadian National's Weston Subdivision, which is the first 17 miles of GO's Bramalea/Georgetown commuter rail line out of Toronto's Union Station, Metrolinx today released the Draft Environmental Project Report (EPR) on what it plans to do to upgrade the line. The document is accessible through the Metrolinx Consultation Portal. With GO and Metrolinx planning to merge, the GO purchase of the line pretty much guarantees that what Metrolinx plans to do will actually be built, assuming funds are available.

So far, the usual suspects (Steve Munro, Transit Toronto, and Metronauts) have not weighed in on the document. Perhaps this is because there really isn't anything new in the plan that hasn't been seen before, but I found some of the technical details and their long-term implications interesting.

The EPR covers the portion of railroad between Bathurst Street (just west of Union Station, and the end of the current GO-owned Union Station Rail Corridor) and Highway 427, just short of the junction with the CN freight line at Halwest west of the Woodbine race track. Throughout most of this distance, the current double or single-track Weston Subdivision will be expanded to four tracks to accommodate both more frequent GO and VIA service on the line, but also the every-fifteen minute service to be run by a private company between Union Station and Pearson Airport (once called "Blue 22", now the Union-Pearson Air Link).

The interesting design details are all found under Appendix E, so those interested in such things may wish to go directly to the plans presented there. On the four track main, the line will have to be taken below the current grade to achieve grade separation at three locations--Strachan Avenue, the current Canadian Pacific crossing at West Toronto, and the area of Weston station. The grades for these depressions are shown as no more than 2.0%, so these will not present a significant hindrance to any passenger operations, but may present a deterrent to running freight on the corridor in the event future traffic patterns changed for some reason.

I was most interested in the design chosen for the branch between the corridor and Pearson Airport. The option chosen for this single-track line is one with tight curve radii and 3.0% grades, making it unlikely that full GO commuter trains will ever run into the airport, as I would like to see someday. I suspect the private company wants to make sure that this is not an option so that there will be no competition with their expensive express trains to Union Station that will stop only at Weston and Bloor. Since I expect this service will not actually make money and that SNC-Lavalin will eventually want out of those operations, it would appear that the best we can hope for would be shuttle trains between the airport terminal and the Woodbine commuter rail station--and for that eventuality, the extension of the existing airport tram system would be considerably more convenient and likely cheaper. At least a rail shuttle to GO Woodbine would be functional.

Part II of the EDR is supposed to come out in May, then the comment period runs until 30 July. After that, the project proceeds in whatever form is approved.

Transport: Remembering Buffy the Train Slayer

TORONTO, ONTARIO - Three years ago almost to the day, I took Amtrak's Coast Starlight on an overnight trip from Seattle, Washington to San Jose, California. In that era before the economy started to slow down, the Starlight was known for being consistently late, in large part because of congestion caused by freight train traffic. This trip would prove the most delayed of any I had ever taken on the Starlight before or since, and a major reason was someone called "Buffy the Train Slayer."

There were actually many reasons that the Coast Starlight was delayed during that era. The railroad lines used by the train south of Portland, Oregon were historically owned by the Southern Pacific which merged into the Union Pacific in 1996. The UP integration of the SP was extremely problem-prone, some related to deferred maintenance under the SP, some simply related to high traffic volumes and other, more normal factors. Even ten years later, the UP was playing catch-up. The highest-volume lines had been prioritized for upgrading and repairs, and the line plied by the Coast Starlight was not one of them. At one point in 2006, there were four hours of "slow orders" on the Starlight route, or speed restrictions on tracks that required passing over them at lower speed than normal for safety reasons. With four hours of lost time, there was no chance of running on time, even if no other delays were encountered, even accounting for slack in the schedule--there wasn't four hours of slack.

Usually, though, there were other delays. Some were Amtrak's own fault because of inadequate maintenance, as a locomotive would fail or a car would have a problem and have to be set-out enroute, or a relief crew would not arrive as expected to meet a late train. However, the largest single factor was what Amtrak called "freight train interference." On lines owned by freight railroads, such as nearly the entire route of the Coast Starlight, the freight railroad controlled dispatching and decided which trains would get to go first. In early 2006, there were more freight trains than Union Pacific could really run on the Sacramento to Portland portion of the Coast Starlight route. It was a major headache for the train dispatchers that were trying to set up the routes for all the trains.

Some were more skilled than others, and a certain dispatcher that worked second trick (afternoons) on the "Dispatcher 68" desk that controlled the line between Portland and Oakridge, Oregon gained a reputation for not getting trains over the road quickly. It wasn't just Amtrak crews and passengers that noticed. Freight crews didn't reach their destinations within their hours of service mandated by Federal law and had to be relieved frequently. Track maintainers became frustrated with the dispatcher with initials "SKR" since they couldn't get time on the track to make repairs. The situation became so famous that it began to be written about on-line and known worldwide.

In one particularly egregious incident, an Amtrak Cascades train from Eugene to Portland, Oregon took six hours to go the approximately fifty miles between Salem and Portland scheduled for not much more than one hour. Railroad enthusiast John Bauer happened to be on board that train and like many people had gone to the bistro car to pass the time while the train wasn't moving. Someone there asked the conductor what was going on, and he said something about the dispatcher really "stabbing" the train. As Bauer told the story:

Passengers took it from there with "What was that movie about a slayer?" "It was the Vampire something wasn't it?" "Yeah, that was Buffy the Vampire Slayer." "Well, how about this being Buffy the Train Slayer?"

The name stuck. The dispatcher with initials SKR became known as "Buffy the Train Slayer" worldwide.

I had never experienced "Buffy" before the trip three years ago, but I wouldn't soon forget. The train had encountered heavy freight train traffic on the BNSF Railway between Seattle and Portland, but still left Portland and entered "Buffy"'s territory only 3 minutes late. The first sign that all wasn't quite right should have come with a ten minute delay for a meet at a siding called Gervais, but on a busy railroad that isn't necessarily a big deal. When I first realized we were in trouble was when the dispatcher contacted our crew south of Salem to communicate two unforeseen speed restrictions and gave her initials as SKR in the process. I knew of "Buffy" and her reputation, and I now knew that my train's progress was at her mercy.

All still seemed reasonable until just we were stopped by a red signal just short of the Eugene station, running about a half hour late. Twenty minutes later, the northbound Coast Starlight pulled out of the station and we were allowed in. This seemed a bit odd, as the station stop at Eugene usually took ten minutes or less, and we proceeded to pull out of the station about an hour late. However, I didn't know what "Buffy" had in store for us next.

The next siding past Eugene station was Judkins, and there was a relatively short northbound freight in the siding. "Buffy" instructed us to back into the south end of the siding behind it. We followed the instructions and waited, with no indication of how long we would be there. In an hour, a northbound train passed, but we still didn't get a signal to proceed. Only after another twenty minutes passed and another train went by did we finally continue southbound, now more than two hours late. After two more bad meets, we finally left "Buffy"'s territory, about three hours late.

It didn't get better overnight, as we encountered the bulk of the "slow orders," but likely also faced more freight interference. This underscores the fact that while "Buffy" had become notorious, in many ways she was simply a reflection of Union Pacific policies at the time that did not prioritize Amtrak trains. She was basically doing her job as directed by Corridor Managers above her, in some sense the scapegoat for a situation she didn't really create.

The next day there were further delays, including the addition of a private car to the train at Oakland and a major delay while we had to wait to use a bottleneck section of track just north of San Jose while three shorter-distance passenger trains were allowed to run first. Final arrival in San Jose was seven hours, twenty minutes late for what should have been a twenty-four hour trip. It was the worst timekeeping I had ever experienced on Amtrak.

Things have changed in the past three years. "Buffy the Train Slayer" changed territories in late 2006 and no longer dispatches the Coast Starlight route in Oregon. Union Pacific has repaired the vast majority of the slow orders on the route. The economy has slowed and the number of freight trains on the route has decreased markedly. Most significantly, the Union Pacific now has a policy of trying to earn incentive payments from Amtrak and makes a real effort to run the trains on time. In 2008, I took three trips on the Coast Starlight, all of which reached their destinations on time or early. In February 2009, the Coast Starlight ran on-time 91% of the time, well above Amtrak's nationwide average and better by 10% than any airline. Less than a quarter of the delays were attributed to "freight train interference." It all makes "Buffy the Train Slayer" seem like a distant memory.