A Canadian chemical manufacturer shipped rail cars of toxic chlorine away from Vancouver and is storing them in rural Washington State.
(Photo source: Wikimedia Commons)
Environmental groups suspect tight
security at the Vancouver Olympics
has shifted an environmental risk
from Canada to the US. Shawn Allee reports:
Transcript
Environmental groups suspect tight
security at the Vancouver Olympics
has shifted an environmental risk
from Canada to the US. Shawn Allee reports:
A Canadian chemical manufacturer shipped rail cars of toxic chlorine away from Vancouver and is storing them in rural Washington State.
The company says it’s part of a long-planned renovation of the chemical plant. Environmental groups suspect the rail shipments were timed to move tanks away from the Olympics.
Fred Millar is watching this development for Friends of the Earth. Millar says terrorists have shown interest in rail cars filled with chlorine gas.
“And that’s what people are mostly worried about because just one chlorine tank car could put out a cloud over any city at a lethal level that’s 15 miles long by 4 miles wide.”
US rail companies make 100,000 shipments of chlorine and similar toxic chemicals per year. Their safety record has largely been good, but accidents have released deadly chlorine gas.
One derailment in South Carolina killed nine people.
8 billion dollars was announced for rail projects.
(Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress)
The Obama Administration’s
release of money for higher
speed rail ended up being less
than most states wanted. Lester
Graham reports on what this
will mean for passenger train
service:
Transcript
The Obama Administration’s
release of money for higher
speed rail ended up being less
than most states wanted. Lester
Graham reports on what this
will mean for passenger train
service:
Eight billion dollars apparently doesn’t go that far in rail projects. The pundits have noted California’s Sacramento to San Diego corridor got 2.3 billion and Florida’s Tampa to Orlando route got 1.25 billion, making those states the big winners.
But if you forget state boundaries and look at rail networks, the Midwest’s Chicago Hub network pulled in a whopping 2.6 billion to improve the rails.
Amtrak doesn’t get any of this money. It just runs the trains. It doesn’t own many of the tracks. But spokesman Steve Kulm says better tracks mean Amtrak trains can go faster.
“Train speeds are going to increase from say 79 to 90 or from 90 to 110. But wit this funding that was announced, there was the Florida project and the California project. If those projects do happen and get moving, those projects will be at the 150 or higher levels.”
That’s how fast the train from Washington to New York goes and it’s getting more passengers than the airlines.
Some states have shovel-ready rail projects, but others states are just in the planning stage. Here is a high-speed train in Taiwan.
(Photo source: Jiang at Wikimedia Commons)
Today, August 24, is a deadline for
states competing for eight billion
dollars in federal stimulus money
for higher speed rail. Shawn Allee reports, this stimulus could
run in slow-motion:
Transcript
Today, August 24, is a deadline for
states competing for eight billion
dollars in federal stimulus money
for higher speed rail. Shawn Allee reports, this stimulus could
run in slow-motion:
Federal Railroad Administration staff are staying late tonight – August 24 – to accept hundreds of applications for higher-speed rail funds.
FRA spokesperson Rob Kulat says the agency wants to give out stimulus money quickly, but, just in case, it’s announced there might be two rounds of applications – not just one.
“It would be a delay, but the idea is to have successful projects, to have them work cost-effectively. If a state isn’t ready financially or technically to implement their plan, then they need to go back to the drawing board a bit. We’re not going to throw good money after bad.”
Kulat says some states have shovel-ready rail projects, but others states are just in the planning stage.
It could be years before they clear the track for faster trains.
Because of the down economy, ridership is up. But with the economy flagging, transit companies are having to cut routes and raise fares.
(Photo by Shawn Allee)
So with the government’s 787 billion dollar stimulus plan now approved, a lot of folks in state and local government are thinking about the federal dollars that’ll float their way soon. Some mayors are especially eyeing the 8.4 billion for public transit. Rene Gutel looks at who wants to spend what:
Transcript
So with the government’s 787 billion dollar stimulus plan now approved, a lot of folks in state and local government are thinking about the federal dollars that’ll float their way soon. Some mayors are especially eyeing the 8.4 billion for public transit. Rene Gutel looks at who wants to spend what:
Mayors from coast to coast see the stimulus package as one big pot of gold. Phoenix mayor Phil Gordon knows exactly how he’d like transit money spent in his city.
“First and foremost, Light rail.”
(sound of a train)
It’s all about light rail. Phoenix is notorious for its car-culture, freeways and gridlock; Residents worry it’s turning into the next L.A., but a brand new twenty-mile light rail line launched in December.
Trouble is, it’s only one line. It goes from the suburb of Mesa and ends in downtown Phoenix.
Mayor Gordon wants to use federal stimulus money to add a three-mile extension. Gordon says it’s the ultimate shovel-ready project. All planned, just add 250-million dollars and it’s ready to go.
“We could sign a contract with America, with the federal government, that we will turn dirt by March 31st, and we’ll create 7,000 new jobs.”
Those new jobs will be around long enough at least to get the rail extension built. But getting a light rail line is not the same as keeping it running.
Look at San Francisco that has a well developed transit system. They have a different kind of wish list that centers on maintaining the system they already have.
Judson True is a spokesman for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency.
“We want to repair light rail vehicles that have been damaged in collisions, we have some cable car kiosks that we’d like to replace, we have change machines we’d like to replace in our metro subway stations.”
And it keeps on going. The American Public Transportation Association has identified nearly 800 public transit projects nationwide ready-to-go within 90 days.
APTA says the projects will not only create hundreds of thousands of jobs, but reduce fuel consumption and decrease greenhouse gas emissions.
But San Francisco’s Judson True says, while he’s grateful for funding for capitol projects…
“Systems like ours in San Francisco also need help on the operating side, and you see that all over the country.”
People are calling it the transit paradox and it’s hit cities like Denver, St. Louis and New York City.
Because of the down economy, ridership is up. And yet most transit systems rely on local and state money to subsidize operations. But with the economy flagging, cities and states are struggling too – and transit companies are having to cut routes and raise fares.
“You have a catch 22, more riders and you have to make service cuts.”
That’s Aaron Golub, an assistant professor in the School of Planning at Arizona State University. Mass transit’s his specialty. He’s worried about transit systems getting gleaming new buses, and kiosks, and buildings but then not having the means to operate them.
“It would be quite ironic if, for example, Phoenix were able to afford a light rail extension while cutting back on light rail service at the same time. Or the worst case, opening a light rail extension and not being able to operate it at all.”
Golub points to studies that say you create more jobs by investing in current transit operations – not capitol projects.
But many mayors across the nation feel light rail and other mass transit is an investment in their future. They’re ready to take on those shovel ready projects now with the hope that it’ll kick start the economy now and by the time the routes are finished, we’ll be out of the recession.
The Akron multi-modal transportation center. It was built by the train tracks, but before it was completed, Amtrak pulled out
of Akron. Now the only mode of transportation is the bus. (Photo by Julie Grant)
People who like the idea of passenger trains have been waiting for decades for the
federal government to get on board. Now, some think Congress might be ready to
get funding on track for Amtrak. Julie Grant reports:
Transcript
People who like the idea of passenger trains have been waiting for decades for the
federal government to get on board. Now, some think Congress might be ready to
get funding on track for Amtrak. Julie Grant reports:
A few years ago, I took the train from Akron, Ohio to visit my sister in Washington,
D.C. She still teases me about it. What would have taken less than 2 hours by
plane or 6 hours by car took 14 hours by train.
We got side-tracked a lot, waiting for freight trains to go by.
(sound of a train)
That passenger route I took has since been canceled. The trains that come through
now are only for freight.
Moving freight was the real reason most railroad companies started laying down
tracks in the 1800s.
Passenger trains were just a way of getting name recognition and brand loyalty with
the fat cats that owned the factories that needed to move freight. They were treated
well on the passenger trains, and everybody benefited from that great service.
By the 1920s, the government started investing a lot of money in highways.
The age of the auto moved ahead. Passenger trains became quaint.
Companies running trains started going bankrupt. By 1970, Congress voted to
create a national passenger rail line – Amtrak.
Ross Capon is president of the National Association of Rail Passengers. He was
already a leader in the passenger rail movement when the gas crisis in 1979 hit. He
thought gasoline shortages and high prices were going to give Amtrak the jump it
needed.
“When we had prominent cartoonists ridiculing the Carter administration for
discontinuing Amtrak trains, at the same time as gasoline was unavailable to many
people, I thought we were going to be in clover from then on. I was wrong.”
But when gas prices spiked last year, so did Amtrak ridership. Capon thinks, maybe
this time passenger rail will come into its own. Even though gas prices have
dropped, lots of people still want to ride the rails.
I’m visiting the brand new multi-modal transportation center in Akron. But so far, the
only mode of transportation is the bus.
Kirt Conrad is director of planning for the Metro Regional Transit Authority. He says
the center was built along the train tracks. But before it was even finished, Amtrak
pulled out of Akron.
Now if you want to go somewhere, you’ve got to take the bus. But over the past
year, Conrad says, the buses can barely keep up with all the new demand.
It’s like this in many cities across the country. People want to ride the rails – but
there’s no train.
In cities like Dallas and Phoenix, Conrad says trains have been successful.
“The ridership projections are surpassing what they had forecast. So i think the
experience is, you do build it and nationally they have come.”
Many states have been working with Amtrak to improve tracks. And, in some places,
trains go as fast as 120 miles an hour. Passenger rail supporters say for shorter
trips, say a couple of hundred miles or so, trains make a lot more sense than going
to the airport.
But analysts say if passenger rail is going to get on track it needs government
investment.
Conrad says passenger trains need better access to tracks – and better tracks – so
they can move past the slower freight trains.
But Ross Capon at the Rail Passenger Association says Congress is spending
almost all its transportation money on highways and airports.
“The federal government has, to put it crassly, bribed the states for years not to
spend money on rail. Look, we’ll give you 90% dollars on your highway projects,
80% dollars on your airport projects. But if you dare spend money on passenger
trains, youíre on your own buddy.”
But Capon thinks, maybe now, since Amtrak is more popular, Congress might be
ready to increase the amount of federal money it spends on passenger rail service.
Getting rail projects across the nation on the fast track.
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.
An Amtrak train, Pere Maquette, in St. Joseph Michigan (Photo courtesy of Amtrak)
More people are riding the nation’s
passenger train service, Amtrak. It’s to the
point that Amtrak doesn’t have enough train
cars in some areas and the trains are sold out.
Lester Graham reports Amtrak has some other
issues to deal with before it can get on the
right track:
Transcript
More people are riding the nation’s
passenger train service, Amtrak. It’s to the
point that Amtrak doesn’t have enough train
cars in some areas and the trains are sold out.
Lester Graham reports Amtrak has some other
issues to deal with before it can get on the
right track:
Amtrak is seeing more passengers. Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari says on some of
its busier routes, ridership is up double-digits.
“We’re seeing increases of 20% with no additional capacity. Those are just people who
are taking the train who hadn’t taken it before or who had changed their travel plans to on
a day when the train isn’t sold out, because we have a lot of days now where the train is
selling out.”
That’s because the train is handy – especially on those shorter trips, such as New York
to Washington, Los Angeles to San Diego, or Detroit to Chicago.
Last year Amtrak had more than 26-million passengers. This year it looks like it’ll get
about 27-million. Now, to put that into perspective, 761 million people flew on an
airplane in the U.S. last year.
But, Magliari says most of Amtrak’s competition isn’t the airlines.
“Most of our competition is the automobile and we believe the largest single reason for
some of the increases we’ve had this year is people trying to avoid the higher cost of
driving their own cars and trucks.”
And Amtrak would love to buy some more trains to serve those passengers. But the
railways are already crowded. The same reason Amtrak is getting more passengers –
higher fuel prices – is also the reason a lot of freight is being switched from trucks to
trains.
Jonathan Levine is an Urban and Regional Planning expert at the University of
Michigan. He says, for much of the nation, more freight train traffic is causing Amtrak
some problems.
“The scheduled service is really quite good if and when the trains follow the schedules.
But, those of us who’ve taken those trips know that the probability of having a delay is
rather significant. And it happens because of congestion on the rail lines.”
Amtrak is supposed to get top priority on the railroad. But the freight railroads own a lot
of the tracks. The dispatchers work them. They control the switches. And in this day
of just-in-time deliveries, it’s hard for those railroads to side-track a freight train for
Amtrak to speed by.
Mark Magliari with Amtrak says they’re working on that problem.
“About 70% of our operations—that’s about everything outside the East Coast—is on
somebody else’s railroad. And we’ve seen progress in a lot of these relationships with
the host railroads, making improvements in how they handle us.”
And judging from the increase in ridership, train passengers don’t see it as any different
than an airplane being delayed. And at least it’s a comfortable seat with plenty of room
to walk around, unlike a crowded plane sitting on the tarmac.
Mark Westerfield uses Amtrak. He also works for one of those freight train companies.
We caught up with him at Union Station in Chicago. He thinks the problems can be
worked out for Amtrak, they need to be worked out.
“It needs to be expanded. It needs to be increased. And, I think, I’m very optimistic
about the fate of Amtrak with the price of fuel, the price of gasoline, the congestion at
airports, the security at airports, the fact that a lot of the traveling public is getting older,
as I am, and less willing to be cramped into MD-80s and aging 737’s. I think it’s got a
great future. I really do. It’s gonna require a lot of capital investment.”
Getting that capital investment means getting more support from Congress and state
legislatures. Some members of Congress make a lot of noise about funding Amtrak.
They make is sound as though it’s the only government supported transportation
system out there. The fact is, airports get tons of money from the government. With
rising fuel prices and more ridership on Amtrak, government money for the train might
get a little better traction with Congress in the future.
For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.
A freighter leaving the Duluth harbor in Minnesota. (Photo courtesy of EPA)
A ship in the Duluth–Superior harbor in Duluth, Minnesota. The St. Lawrence Seaway made it possible for the Duluth–Superior harbor to exist. (Photo courtesy of EPA)
One of the Ten Threats to the Great Lakes identified by many of the experts we surveyed
is dredging channels deeper and wider for larger ocean-going ships. In the 1950s, engineers
carved a shipping channel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes via the St. Lawrence
River. The St. Lawrence Seaway was to make ports in cities such as Chicago and Duluth main
players in global commerce. Today, the Seaway operates at less than half its capacity.
That’s because only five percent of the world’s cargo fleet can fit through its locks and
channels. For decades, the shipping industry has wanted to make them bigger. David
Sommerstein reports:
Transcript
We’re continuing our series Ten Threats to the Great Lakes with a look at the idea of
letting bigger ships into the lakes. Lester Graham is our guide through the series.
One of the Ten Threats to the Great Lakes identified by many of the experts we surveyed
is dredging channels deeper and wider for larger ocean-going ships. In the 1950s, engineers
carved a shipping channel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes via the St. Lawrence
River. The St. Lawrence Seaway was to make ports in cities such as Chicago and Duluth main
players in global commerce. Today, the Seaway operates at less than half its capacity.
That’s because only five percent of the world’s cargo fleet can fit through its locks and
channels. For decades, the shipping industry has wanted to make them bigger. David
Sommerstein reports:
(Sound of rumbling noise of front-loaders)
The port of Ogdensburg sits on the St. Lawrence River in northern New York State.
When the Seaway was built, local residents were promised an economic boom. Today
what Ogdensburg mostly gets is road salt.
(Sound of crashing cargo)
Road salt and a white mineral called Wallastonite – the Dutch use it to make ceramic tile.
Front-loaders push around mountains of the stuff. In all, the port of Ogdensburg
welcomes six freighters a year and employs just six people.
Other Great Lakes ports are much bigger, but the story is similar. They handle low-value
bulk goods – grain, ore, coal – plus higher value steel. But few sexy electronic goods
from Japan come through the Seaway, or the gijillion of knick-knacks from China or
South Korea.
James Oberstar is a Congressman from Duluth. He says there’s a reason why. A
dastardly coincidence doomed the Seaway.
“Just as the Seaway was under construction, Malcolm McLean, a shipping genius, hit on
the idea of moving goods in containers.”
Containers that fit right on trains and trucks. The problem was the ships that carry those
containers were already too big for the Seaway’s locks and channels.
“That idea of container shipping gave a huge boost of energy to the East Coast, Gulf
Coast, and West Coast ports, and to the railroads.”
Leaving Great Lakes ports behind ever since the regional shipping industry has wanted to
make the Seaway bigger.
The latest effort came in 2002, when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers studied the
economic benefits of expansion. The study said squeezing container ships through the
Seaway would bring a billion and a half dollars a year to ports like Chicago, Toledo, and
Duluth. But if you build it, would they come?
“Highly doubtful that container ships would come in. Highly doubtful.”
John Taylor is a transportation expert at Grand Valley State University in Michigan.
He’s studied Seaway traffic patterns extensively. He says there would have to be “a sea
change” in global commerce.
“Rail is too competitive, too strong moving containers from the coast in and out say from
Montreal and Halifax and into Chicago and Detroit and so on, too cost-effective for it to
make sense for a ship to bring those same containers all the way to Chicago.”
The expansion study sparked a flurry of opposition across the Great Lakes. It failed to
mention the cost of replumbing the Seaway — an estimated 10 to 15 billion dollars. It
didn’t factor in invasive species that show up in foreign ships’ ballasts. Invasives already
cost the economy 5 billion dollars a year, and environmentalists said it glossed over the
ecological devastation of dredging and blasting a deeper channel.
Even the shipping industry has begun to distance itself from expansion. Steve Fisher
directs the American Great Lakes Ports Association.
“There was quite a bit of opposition expressed through the region, and in light of that
opposition we took stock of just how much and how strongly we felt on the issue and
quite frankly there just wasn’t a strong enough interest.”
Most experts now believe expansion won’t happen for at least another generation.
Environmentalists and other critics hope it won’t happen at all.
So instead, the Seaway is changing its tactics. Richard Corfe runs Canada’s side of the
waterway. He says the vast majority of Seaway traffic is actually between Great Lakes
ports, not overseas. So, the Seaway’s focus now is to lure more North American shippers
to use the locks and channels.
“Our efforts have to be towards maximizing the use of what we have now for the benefit
of both countries, the economic, environmental, and social benefit.”
Today, trucks and trains haul most goods from coastal ports to Great Lakes cities.
Shippers want to steal some of that cargo, take it off the roads and rails, and put it on
seaway ships headed for Great Lakes ports.
A Canadian chemical manufacturer shipped rail cars of toxic chlorine away from Vancouver and is storing them in rural Washington State. (Photo source: Wikimedia Commons)
