Tag: commuter

Recycling Trains

  • Although recycling train cars is good for the environment, Buffalo’s transit authority is also doing it to save some money. (Photo courtesy of the US Department of Transportation)

Some cities are trying to save some money by recycling trains. They’re renovating and re-using their old mass-transit rail cars. Joyce Kryszak went to find out just how you go about recycling a train:

Transcript

Some cities are trying to save some money by recycling trains. They’re renovating and re-using their old mass-transit rail cars. Joyce Kryszak went to find out just how you go about recycling a train.

It’s hard to say whether there are more roads or train tracks running through the small town of Hornell, New York– a couple of hours southeast of Buffalo. The acres and acres of tracks of the old Erie Railroad yards are here. And for more than 150 years, Hornell has repaired trains in its shops. But recently, it’s started completely rebuilding some passenger rail cars.

We crouch underneath one of the jacked-up 40 ton cars and Mike Bykowski shows us how.

“This is car 114, it’s the furthest along in the rebuild process, you want to step up and take a look inside?…Sure.”

Bykowski is the director of engineering for the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority in Buffalo. And he’s in charge of overseeing the renovation of the Authority’s twenty seven light rail cars. Bykowski says after a quarter century of harsh Buffalo winters, the city’s rail cars were showing their age.

“The older cars that are out in the system right now, there’s a fair amount of rust along the bottom of the vehicles.”

“What we have done is when we replaced the frame we also replaced approximately 18 inches with stainless steel, which is a corrosion proof material.”

So, not everything on the old cars is reused. Workers at the Gray Manufacturing Industries shop are stripping down the first two cars to their shells. They’ll put in new sidewalls, new windows and seats. New electronic signage and audio systems also will be installed. But Bykowski says there’s a lot being recycled too.

“You’re saving all the steel, a lot of wiring that would have to be replaced. You’re saving copper. You’re reusing parts that are there.”

Bigger components are saved too.

The trucks and wheels are being patched, polished and eventually reattached to the cars.The motors will be rehabbed and go back into service too.

But, to be honest, Buffalo’s transit authority didn’t decide to recycle its rail cars because it’s good for the environment. It’s just trying to save some money. You see, rehabbing the cars costs about a million dollars each. That’s a third of what new cars cost.

Dave Gray is president of GMI, the company renovating the cars. Gray says they’re rebuilding cars for the Chicago and Philadelphia transit systems too.

“Most transit authorities try to rebuild vehicles. They always reach their mid-life, which is what the NFTA’s vehicles [have] done, and it’s very cost effective, so refurbishing makes a lot of sense.”

Not every city has had to be so frugal. Recently, some cities received federal stimulus money for their light rail systems. And a few of them, such as San Francisco, Washington D.C. and Miami, are simply going out and buying a brand new fleet. It is a whole lot easier and faster. It’s going to take three years to refurbish all of the rail cars in Buffalo’s fleet. Larry Meckler heads Buffalo’s transit authority. Meckler says he certainly doesn’t blame other cities for scrapping their fleet.

“If there’s other jurisdictions that can pull it off and get new cars, I’d say get the new cars because it’s a lot of effort, a lot more work, a lot more engineering – but they cost less. So, obviously, if we had the money and life was great and this was a utopian situation, every time a car hit [the end of] its usefulness, I’d just go out and buy another one.”

Still, being fiscally responsible is paying off. The authority saved taxpayers a lot of money. And in the end, Buffalo’s refurbished cars will look and work as every bit as good as new ones. Plus, even if it was unintended, the transit authority’s decision to reduce, reuse and recycle does let it claim the moral high ground.

For The Environment Report, I’m Joyce Kryszak.

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The ‘Burbs Aren’t Very Green

  • Some experts in the study say the U.S. could reduce emissions by up to 11% in the next 40 years - just by building housing closer together. (Photo courtesy of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

When the Senate picks up debate on
the climate change bill, we’re sure to
hear a lot about how power plants and
cars are contributing to the problem.
But a new study finds that we should
also be considering where we live. Julie
Grant reports that living in the suburbs
can create extra carbon emissions:

Transcript

When the Senate picks up debate on
the climate change bill, we’re sure to
hear a lot about how power plants and
cars are contributing to the problem.
But a new study finds that we should
also be considering where we live. Julie
Grant reports that living in the suburbs
can create extra carbon emissions:

Most Americans live in or near big cities – but those in the suburbs have to drive a lot.

The National Research Council completed a study for Congress. It finds that building housing closer together near urban centers could reduce the amount people drive. That would save energy and cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Marlon Boarnet is a professor at the University of California, Irvine. He was on the study committee.

“The best evidence out there leads us to believe that people who live in more dense development do in fact drive less. And we feel that the evidence can conclude that that’s a causal relationship.”

Even if single-family homes were built closer together, it would mean less greenhouse gases.

Some experts in the study say the U.S. could reduce emissions by up to 11% in the next 40 years – just by building housing closer together.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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Commuter Parking on the Rails

  • The South Shore Commuter Rail Line runs between South Bend, Indiana and Chicago. The line's reaching its 100th birthday, and as it does, its ridership is near a 50-year high. It serves many sizable towns, such as Hammond and Gary, but commuters from smaller towns, suburbs and even rural areas drive to, and sometimes cram, the rail lines' stations. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

More and more people who live in
suburbs have been climbing onto commuter
trains over the past few years. They’ve
got every reason to: they’re fighting high
gas prices, traffic congestion, or even big
road construction projects. But oddly enough,
cars remain a problem even when people choose
commuter rail. Shawn Allee found
that out first hand when he checked out one
system:

Transcript

More and more people who live in
suburbs have been climbing onto commuter
trains over the past few years. They’ve
got every reason to: they’re fighting high
gas prices, traffic congestion, or even big
road construction projects. But oddly enough,
cars remain a problem even when people choose
commuter rail. Shawn Allee found
that out first hand when he checked out one
system:

I’ve just got into a parking lot in a commuter rail station in Northwest
Indiana. This rail line runs from towns like Gary and Hammond Indiana to
Chicago, where there are a lot of jobs.

Anyway, officials with the rail line tell me parking happens to be one of the
biggest complaints. I’m here to check it out, and I gotta tell you I’ve been
driving past hundreds of parked cars, and I haven’t been able to see an
open spot yet.

Okay, finally found one.

(sound of door slamming)

Shawn Allee: “Getting a parking spot in this station took a lot longer than I
expected. This commuter here, Celia Ramirez, says she has the same
problem. What’s it usually like?”

Celia Ramirez: “It’s a dread, because I don’t know where to park.
Sometimes I park where I’m not supposed to park, on the residential
streets.”

Allee: “And then you’re taking your chances.”

Ramirez: “Yes, of getting a ticket.”

Allee: “In fact there are signs all around us right now that pretty much
warn you not to do that.”

Ramirez: “And I break that rule.”

Well, you can guess spillover parking around the rail station in Hammond ticks off
the neighbors.

To make matters worse, a lot of the commuters, they don’t even in live in Hammond.
They’re from towns or suburbs even farther out.

In fact, the local government and The Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation
District don’t always agree on how to solve the problem.

John Parsons is the rail line’s marketing director.

John Parsons: “We have over 700 spaces in Hammond. Unfortunately, we
need more. But the residents in the area are reluctant to expand parking.”

Shawn Allee: “How difficult is it to convince towns to do that, especially if
they feel that they’re creating parking for people outside of their area?”

Parsons: “It’s a difficult problem. For one thing, we’re a tax-exempt
organization and what we’re doing is acquiring residential property that
currently pays taxes and that property’s no longer on the tax rolls.”

Now, this particular rail line had a growth spurt a few years ago. It’s lightened up,
but parking’s still an issue.

So, just imagine pressure other rail lines have, especially ones that saw double-digit
growth over the past year.

The situation’s familiar to transportation experts.

Joe Schwieterman teaches at DePaul University.

He says, when it comes to parking, suburban commuter rail is often behind the ball.

“The ridership is surging on our transit system, and parking spots, you
know, it’s a five a five-year process. If we start now, we have new spots you
know, in 2013. Clearly that’s not fast enough to tap into that new market.”

So, is there a way out of the parking – commuter rail conundrum?

Schwieterman says one idea is to add bus service that branches out from stations.

But not all towns can afford it, or they don’t have enough riders to justify buses.

So, Schwieterman says some commuter rail lines are stuck.

They advertise that they’re a cheap, convenient alternative to driving. And when gas
prices rise, people take that advice.

“It’s a bad idea to encourage floods of people to take public transit if you’re
not ready to accommodate them. You lose them for life, frankly, if it’s a bad
experience.”

Still, Schwieterman says you can look at the parking problem two ways.

Sure, you can shake your head because suburban stations’ parking lots fill up.

But, at least for now, those drivers aren’t clogging roads and spewing even more
pollution on their way to work.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Suburb Sees the Light in Rail

  • The town of Elburn, IL is working to preserve their small town feel in the face of sprawling development headed their way. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

Rural towns on the edge of big cities often see encroaching suburban development as a threat to their way of life. One small town is feeling those pressures too. And it’s taking a page from its past to fight them. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee has this report:

Transcript

Rural towns on the edge of big cities often see encroaching
suburban development as a threat to their way of life. One small town
is feeling those pressures too. And it’s taking a page from its past
to fight them. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee
has this report:


Eric Gustaffson is a young guy who works at his family’s drug store. He says he plans to stick around because he likes his small town – Elburn, Illinois – just as it is. It’s still got a working grain elevator and animal feed stores. It also has a real town center, a strip of shops that people can walk to.


But like a lot of his neighbors, Eric’s bothered by some of the sprawling subdivisions that are popping up nearby. He doesn’t want to see that that kind of development come to Elburn. He says it would become a place where neighbors live too far apart and everyone has to drive to get anywhere. He does have hope, though.


“I really think that the plan that Elburn has set in place will work a lot better and will control how things grow a little bit more instead of just things from popping up in random places.”


So, what’s the plan? Well, it turns out Elburn’s looking to its past for help. Residents used to catch passenger trains here for day trips to Chicago. The passenger service died out decades ago, but now Elburn’s bringing in a new train station. It will be part of the region’s Metra commuter rail system.


By next year, commuters will be able to avoid the congested roads that lead to Chicago, but the town also wants the station to be the center of a new neighborhood, a cluster of new shops, smaller homes, and even apartments.


The idea’s to get people to walk to stores and the train instead of driving to them, all of which is very different from what’s happening in nearby subdivisions. Those are pretty much isolated tracts of big houses and little else.


There is some danger in Elburn’s plan, though. The proposed development could double the population, and the train station will attract extra car traffic to its parking lot. During our drive to the construction site, I ask the mayor, Jim Willey, whether this plan might kill the town while trying to save it.


“I get the impression sometimes people wish that we had some secret sauce we could spray on the town and keep it just the way it is. It’s sad, but you can’t do that and change happens, and we have to deal with it.”


(Sound of heavy machinery)


At the site, construction machines pack down a couple of acres of dirt. It took a decade, a lot of political will, and a hundred and forty million dollars to start the project. But Jim says that was the easy part.


It will be harder to resist the temptation to stray from the plan, and build only big, single family homes here. He says a compact mix of stores and housing will be good for the region, not just Elburn. If there’s enough housing here, maybe there’ll be less pressure to build houses on the nearby farms.


“You can’t go anywhere in the world and find finer farmland than where we’re at right now. So the least that we can do is, when we’re going to convert this to housing, is let’s think about what we’re doing, let’s try to make some intelligent decisions.”


There are towns that look like Elburn’s vision of the future. Last century, commuter towns with compact development sprung up along the country’s commuter rail lines. But they all got their start in the days before interstate highways and long car commutes. So, is it possible to mimic those towns now, in the post-automobile age?


Well, I put that question to Dave Schulz. He’s with the Infrastructure Technology Institute, a federally-funded transportation research group. He says it’s hard to keep projects like Elburn’s on track; homes are clustered close to shops, what planners call high-density. He cites Glenview, another Illinois town with a commuter rail station.


“Basically, a number of members of the Glenview board who were voted out of office for approving a townhome development that was judged, apparently, by voters to be too high density near the train station. I think we have a situation where people in the suburbs fear density.”


Schulz says it’s hard to change that attitude. But to fend off the sprawl of suburban development, towns like Elburn need to stay the course. Otherwise…


“If all you’re gonna do is build a bunch of stations in the middle of the cornfields with giant parking lots to allow people to drive to the station from wherever they choose to live, I think a fairly strong argument can be made that you’re not fighting sprawl, but you’re in fact facilitating sprawl.”


Dave Schulz says places like Elburn could be onto something. Maybe its plan for compact development will attract people looking for something different from typical suburban homes. If Elburn can keep its small-town feel, maybe newcomers won’t mind giving up their spacious yards and extra cars.


For the GLRC, I’m Shawn Allee.

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