Tag: train

All Aboard for Amtrak?

  • 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.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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Part Three: Kicking Gas to the Curb

  • Reporter Rene Gutel gets tips from Mike Speck, a master eco-drive trainer at Pro-Formance Group of Phoenix (Photo courtesy of Rene Gutel)

We’ve all heard we can improve our
gas mileage by changing our driving habits.
And you might think you already know what
that means – coast more, for example, or check your tires’ air pressure. But according to Ford Motor Company, if you really want to get better mileage, you need a trained coach in the passenger’s seat teaching you how to do
it. In the final part of our series
on saving gas, we sent reporter Rene Gutel out to learn how to eco-drive:

Transcript

We’ve all heard we can improve our
gas mileage by changing our driving habits.
And you might think you already know what
that means – coast more, for example, or check
your tires’ air pressure. But according to
Ford Motor Company, if you really want to get
better mileage, you need a trained coach in
the passenger’s seat teaching you how to do
it. In the final part of our series
on saving gas, we sent reporter Rene Gutel
out to learn how to eco-drive:

(sound of car)

So I’m behind the wheel of my silver Mini Cooper and eco-driving instructor Mike Speck
is coaching me on how to get the best gas mileage I can, as safely as possible.

“Try to keep just a steady throttle input. You can see you are on and off the gas quite a
bit.”

We’re on suburban Phoenix roads at the beginning of rush hour. I drive a stick-shift and
one of the first lessons Speck teaches me is to shift gears a lot more quickly than I’m used
to.

Mike Speck: “And upshift.”

Rene Gutel: “Already?”

Speck: “And upshift.”

Gutel: “Oh! But we’re only going 30 miles an hour in fourth gear?”

Speck: “Yeah, it’s below 2000 RPM. The car is perfectly fine doing it.”

Speck is what they call a master eco-drive trainer at Pro-Formance Group of Phoenix.

Ford Motor Company recently teamed up with Pro-Formance to offer nearly 50 eco-
driving tests in Arizona. They studied the results which showed that by working with a
coach like Speck for just a few hours, drivers can improve their fuel economy by 24%.

The nuts and bolts of eco-driving are simple enough: Accelerate and break smoothly.
Slow down and watch your speed. Also, anticipate traffic signals as you’re going down
the road. But all this sounds way easier than it really is.

Speck: “Now we know there’s another slow left-hander coming up so off the gas.”

Gutel: “Okay, I’m off the gas.”

Speck: “And just let it coast around the corner.”

Gutel: Okay, I feel like you’re teaching me to drive my car all over again.

Speck: “I’m trying to do it as mellow as I can.”

That feeling – of going back to driver’s ed – is actually part of the experience of learning
to eco-drive.

Curt Magleby is the Director of Government Relations at Ford and he says to learn how
to do it right, you do need a coach.

“It’s not about tips and that’s what you’ll see on many websites throughout the US: tips
on how to be a better eco-driver. It’s got to be the hands-on coaching experience that
changes behavior.”

Ford is part of a new nationwide effort to encourage eco-driving. Magleby says there’s
talk of putting trained coaches at Ford dealerships.

“So when a person comes into a dealership and they’re considering the purchase of a
vehicle and we can talk to them about not only, here is the technology vehicle, here’s
what you can do, but you are a part of that equation.”

And down the line, Magleby says Ford might be pushing to have these techniques
become a part driver’s ed classes.

(sound of driving)

Speck: “You are accelerating very smoothly… very linearly. It’s very good!”

Gutel: “This is a different feel to driving. I feel like I’m coasting everywhere.”

Speck: “You are, and most people freak out about how much time they’re going to take.
When we validated the study, the average time increase was only 10%.”

Speck and I drive the same route three times during my eco-driving lessons. The first run
was the control, no tips from him at all, and I averaged 27 miles a gallon. But by the end
of the third run, we boosted that to 36 miles a gallon. Not bad, huh? Now if I can only do
that well on my own.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rene Gutel.

“Now try second. Well done! Go to third and just let it coast. Very well done.”

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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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Amtrak’s Popularity Climbing With Gas Prices

  • 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.

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Traffic Jam on the Tracks

  • This Canadian National train waits for a signal in South Holland, Illinois. South Holland, like Chicago itself, is criss-crossed with rail lines. South Holland would likely see fewer CN trains move through its town, should CN’s buyout of the EJ & E Railway get federal approval. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

American drivers hate getting stuck
in traffic jams. Well, they don’t get much
sympathy from railroads – they’ve got traffic
jams of their own. There’s one place in
particular where the train’s run so slow it
can take a day to move a train of chemicals,
furniture, and cars just a few miles. One
company tried to buy its way out of the problem.
Reporter Shawn Allee explains how that blew up
into a fight all of us might pay for:

Transcript

American drivers hate getting stuck
in traffic jams. Well, they don’t get much
sympathy from railroads – they’ve got traffic
jams of their own. There’s one place in
particular where the train’s run so slow it
can take a day to move a train of chemicals,
furniture, and cars just a few miles. One
company tried to buy its way out of the problem.
Reporter Shawn Allee explains how that blew up
into a fight all of us might pay for:

If you buy a new car or build a new house, there’s a good chance the stuff to build it
sat in a Chicago-area rail yard for a while. Railroads from the East Coast, the West
Coast, the South, and Canada all converge there. Trains in Chicago compete for
track, so they practically crawl.

Canadian National Railway doesn’t like it, and PR guy Jim Kvedaras, says no one in
America should like it either.

“Everything anybody eats, drinks, wears, lives in, moves by rail somewhere in its
production chain. If we, as the transportation provider, can offer a better service for
customers, the ultimate that contains their cost structure with the ultimate beneficiary
being the consumer.”

Kvedaras says Canadian National has a fix. It would buy a competing rail line that
runs a loop around Chicago. The company would shift trains to that less-congested
track.

The deal needs federal approval, but before that happens, Chicago-area towns are
fighting over it.

Those along the current route tell horror stories of living with too many
trains. Suburbs along the proposed by-pass route don’t want those hassles in their towns.

One place that would benefit by train traffic moving away is South Holland.

Mayor Don DeGraf says a quick car ride shows why he supports the deal.

“We’re approaching the intersection where it’s not at all unusual where we have a
train blockage.”
Shawn Allee: “Speaking of the devil, look right ahead.”

Mayor DeGraf: “It’s right up in front of us. It’s a daily occurrence.”

Allee: “I mean it’s not moving.”

Mayor DeGraf: “No, it’s just standing there. And the reason is very simple: there’s just no place for
these trains to go.”

DeGraf says inconvenience is the least of his worries.

“It becomes almost like the Bermuda Triangle, where you can’t go from one side of
town to the other side of town. So we rely on a neighboring community to give us
additional fire protection for situations like we’re experiencing right now, where a
train’s blocking the crossing.

South Holland is just one of sixty-six towns that could benefit from Canadian National’s buyout of
the by-pass route.

But dozens of towns are fighting the deal. One is Frankfort.

Frankfort gets just a trickle of rail traffic, but it might get four times as many trains
going through town.

Resident Ken Gillette’s backyard is right next to the by-pass route.

“Here I buy a house out here and ten months later, this is gonna go through. I
actually had told me wife, she wanted the house and I says, one day, those tracks
could be sold and there’d be hundreds of trains going by there every week and sure
enough that’s what happened.”

Allee: “Did you guys have some serious discussions after that?”

Gillette: “Oh yeah, not good ones, you know.”

Other Frankfort residents have similar stories. It’s little wonder the town wants the
government to stop Canadian National’s buyout deal.

Mayor Jim Holland says Frankfort’s not just being selfish. He says suburbs will want
protection from traffic hazards, and Canadian National’s offering to pay a fraction of
the cost.

“It’s assumed that the American taxpayer will eventually have to pay for the
overpasses, the extra gates and such that will be put on the railroad. And that’s
mostly United States tax dollars that pay for those.”

There’s no perfect ending to Chicago’s rail traffic mess. Even when companies like
Canadian National want to fix the problem themselves, everyone pays.

We’ll likely pay to soften the blow to towns that will see more trains passing through.
But we also pay higher transportation costs if too many trains sit idle.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Steering Cars Out of National Parks

  • Left to right, Federal Transit Administrator James S. Simpson, Deputy Interior Secretary Lynn Scarlett, Ohio Senator Mike DeWine and Ohio Representative Ralph Regula attended the press conference at the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. (Photo by Julie Grant)

The federal government is awarding nearly 100 million dollars in grant money over the next few years to reduce traffic in national parks. The GLRC’s Julie Grant reports:

Transcript

The federal government is awarding nearly 100 million dollars in grant money over the
next few years to reduce traffic in national parks around the country. The GLRC’s Julie
Grant reports:


The money is for alternative transportation projects,
including trains, shuttle buses, and bicycle trails. Federal Transit Administrator James
Simpson says each year there are nearly 700 million visits to America’s national parks
and public lands:


“And by and large those visitors have only one way of getting in and around these
national treasures: by car.”


The shuttle buses and trains are expected to reduce car pollution as well as traffic
congestion. Simpson says they are trying to help more people visit the public lands while
preserving the natural habitat and wildlife.


For the GLRC, I’m Julie Grant.

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Toning Down Train Horns

  • The sound of train horns is loud and makes your cover your ears. Now, there is a different kind of horn, the wayside train horn, that could make all that sound a little less noisy. (Photo courtesy of the Department of Transportation)

The sound of a train blowing its horn is an unavoidable part of life in many communities. One town is taking steps to make trains a little less intrusive on the lives of people who live near the tracks. The GLRC’s Chris Lehman reports:

Transcript

The sound of a train blowing its horn is an unavoidable part of life in
many communities. One town is taking steps to make trains a little less
intrusive on the lives of people who live near the tracks. The GLRC’s
Chris Lehman reports:


About 80 freight trains roll through this crossing every day. They’re not
subtle.


(Sound of train horn)


That’s what a Union Pacific locomotive sounds like as it rolls through
this city in northern Illinois.


Now, here’s a different kind of train whistle:


(Sound of a wayside train horn)


That’s something called a wayside horn. The City of DeKalb is seeking
permission to install these horns at four of the seven street crossings
along the main Union Pacific east-west tracks through the city. The
other streets would have upgraded crossing gates. The goal would be to
eliminate the need for most engines to blow their horns as they pass
through town.


The wayside horns themselves aren’t much quieter than a regular train
horn. After all, they’re not supposed to be quiet. Cars and pedestrians
would still be warned about oncoming trains. The difference is that a
train sounds its horn as it approaches the crossing.


The wayside horn stays at the crossing. The theory is that a wayside
horn directs its sound down the street…it’s not the indiscriminate
blasting that interrupts people who live in houses that happen to be near
the tracks but nowhere near a crossing.


(Sound of walkie-talkie)


DeKalb City Engineer Joel Maurer recently set up a wayside horn and
walked through a residential neighborhood to test the theory. This is
what a wayside horn sounds like a block away from the tracks, but on the
same street as a crossing:


(Sound of wayside horn)


Now, this is what a wayside horn sounds like a block away from the
tracks, but on a street where there isn’t a crossing. You’ll have to listen
closely:


(Sound of walkie-talkie, then faint sound of horn)


If you’re having trouble hearing it…well, that’s kind of the point.


Now, here’s what a train horn sounds like at that same street corner:


(Sound of train horn)


The City’s tests found that in areas a block or more away from the tracks,
the wayside horns measured some ten decibels lower than train horns,
but the wayside horns won’t make a difference in just residential
communities.


Jennifer Groce is director of Main Street DeKalb, a downtown advocacy
organization. Her office is about a block from the tracks. She says she’s
looking forward to the switch to wayside horns…


“Any help to help deafen the sound a little bit is definitely an
improvement to what we have now. With 80 trains a day, it’s a huge
influence on our businesses. We talk with all different kinds of people
throughout the day, and you can hear us on our phones, you can hear that
train, all the time. It’s a great factor for us to be able to deafen it a
little bit. Especially for the residents that are down here and have to
hear it. A lot of times we can’t open our windows, you can’t
have your car window rolled down…so to be able to stand here freely
without having to plug your ears, is a very nice thing.”


It could be a while before Groce can unplug her ears, though. The City
has to get the wayside horn plan cleared by a web of state and Federal
agencies, but DeKalb does have precedence on its side. Wayside horns
have been installed in about 60 communities nationwide, with the highest
concentration in the Midwest. Some towns have banned train whistles
altogether. But new, stricter Federal regulations now make that all but
impossible in many locations. That might make the wayside horns ever
more popular.


For the GLRC, I’m Chris Lehman.

Related Links

Steering Away From Seaway Expansion

For decades, international shippers have wanted bigger locks and channels in the St. Lawrence Seaway. Earlier this month, the Seaway’s chief in Canada said expansion is off the table, at least for a generation. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein
reports:

Transcript

For decades, international shippers have wanted bigger locks and channels in the St. Lawrence Seaway. Earlier this month, the Seaway’s chief in Canada said expansion is off the table, at least for a generation. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein reports:


Only a third of the world’s shipping fleet can fit in the Seaway. Industry has long said digging deeper drafts would bring much needed commerce to Great Lakes ports.


But Dick Corfe told shippers at a conference in Toronto there’d be no changes for fifteen to twenty years. Corfe is CEO of the St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corporation, which runs Canada’s half of the waterway.


“We have to work with what we have. We have the physical constraints of the locks. The ships can’t be any bigger than the locks, and we have an obligation to try and maximize the use of the system around the current infrastructure.”


Corfe said the way to do that is to move goods between East Coast and Great Lakes ports by ship instead of truck or train.


Corfe’s remarks come after the Army Corps of Engineers backed off a study last year that recommended expansion. Environmentalists said dredging and blasting a bigger channel would devastate Great Lakes ecology.


For the GLRC, I’m David Sommerstein.

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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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White House Zeroes Out Amtrak, but States Don’t

  • States are trying to support Amtrak by approving funding for existing service routes. (Photo courtesy of Wisconsin DOT)

States in the Midwest are considering funding supplemental Amtrak routes… even though President Bush has zeroed out the Amtrak budget. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

States in the Midwest are considering funding supplemental Amtrak routes… even though President Bush has zeroed out the Amtrak budget. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


About a dozen states contract with Amtrak to provide passenger rail service routes in addition to the national rail network. Some state legislatures have already approved funding the routes for next year. Marc Magliari is a spokesperson for Amtrak. He says several states are looking at the issue right now.


“The legislatures in Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin are still at work on their questions.”


But Amtrak doesn’t really know if it will be around next year. The Bush administration did not put any money in the budget for Amtrak. The White House zeroed out the passenger rail service.


“Zero dollars equals zero trains.”


That means even if the states pay for supplemental service… there might be no trains because all of Amtrak would be eliminated. Neo-conservatives in the Bush administration feel the government should not be subsidizing passenger rail service and are pushing Congress to eliminate the funding.


For the GLRC, this is Lester Graham.

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