Tag: drive

Interview: Swapping an Suv for a Prius

  • Micky Maynard in her Prius (Photo courtesy of Micky Maynard)

Micky Maynard is a reporter
for the New York Times. She’s been keeping a
diary of giving up her Lexus SUV for a hybrid
gas-electric car. She’s taken her readers on
a ride through her reasoning for switching
and her on-road experiences. The Environment
Report’s Lester Graham took a ride with Maynard
in her Barcelona Red Toyota Prius:

Transcript

Micky Maynard is a reporter
for the New York Times. She’s been keeping a
diary of giving up her Lexus SUV for a hybrid
gas-electric car. She’s taken her readers on
a ride through her reasoning for switching
and her on-road experiences. The Environment
Report’s Lester Graham took a ride with Maynard
in her Barcelona Red Toyota Prius:

Micky Maynard: “Okay, so, to start it, you push this button. You see
the little ‘ready’ button, and you hear a little sound, and that’s
essentially the battery starting the car. And, off you go.”

Lester Graham: “I recall, when I was younger, I went from a pretty
powerful car to a little car, and the one thing I really noticed was
that it felt like I was driving a toy. What’s the difference between
driving the Lexus and driving this one?”

Maynard: “A difference is that in the Lexus, or in a SUV, you’re sitting
up above the ground. This car, you’re right back down on the road.
And it took a lot of adjusting. I was driving from Detroit to Chicago,
and I heard this ‘thump, thump, thump,’ and I thought I had a flat
tire, but it was just the road surface. Because I was used to sitting
up high, I never would have noticed the road bed before.”

Graham: “I know that some newby Prius drivers that when they
come to a stop, like we are now, there’s almost no sound
sometimes.”

Maynard: (laughs) “That’s right. In fact, my postman was telling me
hybrid cars will come up behind him, and he says, ‘they’re sneaky
little cars.’ He said, ‘you can’t hear them.’ (laughs)

Graham: “What’s it like going on to the on-ramp on the interstate?”

Maynard: “I haven’t had any trouble yet, because I generally try to
give myself enough space between myself and the person behind
me. You know, when you’re in a luxury car, a Lexus, you hit the
pedal and you get all this acceleration. This car’s quite peppy, but it
doesn’t have that rrrrrrrrrrrr that you get in a V8 or a V6. And that is
something to get used to.”

Graham: “I keep hearing from Prius owners that the consumption
meter really changes how they drive. How has the feedback from
the car affected how you drive?”

Maynard: “It affects how I drive tremendously. There’s a
consumption screen in the car, and it will show you exactly the kind
of miles-per-gallon you’re getting. So, if you don’t floor it, you can
get 100 miles-a-gallon – at least that’s what the car’s telling you. And
you have another meter that shows you what you’re averaging over
your trip. My pride and joy was driving a long trip and getting over
50 miles-a-gallon. And you kind of feel this little shot of pride when
you see the 50 or the 47.”

Graham: “So, you’re encouraged to take it easy just so you can be
rewarded with the feedback?”

Maynard: “And I don’t want people to think that Prius owners are all
out there going 17 miles-per-hour. We’re not. What’s going on is
we’re trying to drive smoothly, we’re trying to drive in a steady
fashion. Although they tell you that you get better gas mileage in
town, driving around city streets, I’ve actually gotten fantastic gas
mileage just driving steadily on the highway. You do keep the
consumption meter up on the screen, and you do watch it. Now, I
did have one reader write in and say, ‘stop watching the screen and
watch the road,’ and I assured her that I absolutely do watch the
road. But you do sort of glance over and kind of check how you’re
doing.”

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E-85: The Loneliest Pump

  • This E85 pump is one of two publicly available in the city of Chicago - a city of nearly three million people and dozens of dealerships that sell E-85 compatible cars. The federal government provided incentives to manufacture E85- compatible vehicles, but the fuel infrastructure hasn't kept up. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

If you’ve kicked the tires around
a new car lot recently, your dealer may
have told you about “flex fuel” cars. These
Flex Fuel Vehicles run on gas or they can
burn “E85” – a mix of ethanol and gasoline.
Congress promoted Flex Fuel Vehicles to cut
oil imports, but Shawn Allee reports
on why it really hasn’t helped:

Transcript

If you’ve kicked the tires around
a new car lot recently, your dealer may
have told you about “flex fuel” cars. These
Flex Fuel Vehicles run on gas or they can
burn “E85” – a mix of ethanol and gasoline.
Congress promoted Flex Fuel Vehicles to cut
oil imports, but Shawn Allee reports
on why it really hasn’t helped:

I’m in my car across the street from a gas station. It’s raining right now. Keeping my
distance.

I’ve been watching a pump that dispenses that E85 blend – it’s the stuff with 85% ethanol.

Anyway, this is a very lonely gas pump. I’ve been here for something like an hour and
half and no one’s filled up on E85.

So, I’m gonna head in and talk to a manager to see whether this is normal.

(sound of bell)

Allee: “What’s your name sir?”

McLemen: “Greg McLemen.”

Allee: “How often do you see people fill up on E85?”

McLemen: “It depends on the location. Mostly people just don’t know what it is. They
see a little pump over there that says E85. A lot of vehicles take it, and they don’t even
know it.”

McLemen pulls out a flier that shows which vehicles can use E85.

He says lots of these models pull in, but often pass up his E85 pump.

(sound of crinkling)

McLemen: “You can see most of them are General Motors.”

Allee: “A lot of General Motors – Tahoe, Avalanche, Uplanders.”

McLemen: “We always recommend they go online or check the owner’s manual.”

But there’s something most Flex-Fuel owners manuals don’t tell you.

Nationwide, only about 1% of stations have an E85 pump.

E85 is supposed to cut gasoline use.

So it begs the questions: If there’s not much E85 around, why can so many Flex Fuel cars
use it?

“Currently, auto companies receive a fuel economy credit for producing a flex-fuel
vehicle.”

Environmentalist Roland Hwang tracks car policy for the Natural Resources Defense
Council.

He says the Flex Fuel incentives infuriate him – because they’ve made us waste gasoline,
not save it.

“Just very roughly speaking, like a twenty per mile gallon car might be treated like a
forty mile per gallon, almost like a hybrid-level of efficiency, under these fuel economy
credits. Thereby allowing the auto companies actually to build a less-efficient vehicle
fleet than they would have had to build.”

You don’t have to take Hwang’s word for it – energy analysts in the government agree the
incentives have wasted gasoline.

But some of these analysts say there is a bright side to the Flex Fuel vehicle incentives.

One is Paul Leiby of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Leiby: “The important side of effect Flexible Fuel incentives is that we actually can begin
to achieve energy security with the enhanced capability to use alternative fuels even if
we’re not yet using them.”

Allee: “You mean the flex fuel vehicle program wastes some gas, but having flex fuel
vehicles around is like an insurance policy, for an oil shock or something?”

Leiby: “That’s exactly right. If we have to do something very fast, within one to three
years, we already have some vehicles on the road, that can quickly switch to ethanol.”

Leiby says Congress really believed this “insurance policy” idea, so it let Flex Fuel
vehicle incentives for automakers go on for more than a decade – even while we were
just spinning our wheels when it came to actually saving gas.

But now, the game could be changing.

Congress is phasing out Flex Fuel credits for the car makers.

And, there’s talk about making all cars flex fuel.

It’s a move Detroit doesn’t want to make. Because then they’ll have to actually have to
meet the government’s requirements of a more fuel efficient fleet.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Flex-Fuel Cars Often Burn Gas

  • The seven million or so Flex Fuel Vehicles are just a small portion of the 200-million or so vehicles in the American fleet, but there could many, more in the future. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

For most drivers, filling up at the
pump’s a pretty easy operation – you drive
up, you fill up, and you drive out. But people
who have Flex Fuel Vehicles have another choice.
They can fill up on gas or E-85, that 85 percent
ethanol blend – if they find the right station.
Shawn Allee reports a lot more of us
could have to make that same choice in the future:

Transcript

For most drivers, filling up at the
pump’s a pretty easy operation – you drive
up, you fill up, and you drive out. But people
who have Flex Fuel Vehicles have another choice.
They can fill up on gas or E-85, that 85 percent
ethanol blend – if they find the right station.
Shawn Allee reports a lot more of us
could have to make that same choice in the future:

I’m at a car lot in my home town. I’m not actually in the car market, but I am
curious what these E85 compatible Flex Fuel vehicles look like. I don’t own one
myself.

Anyway, I’m here with Edgar Moreno. He sells cars on this lot. He’s gonna show
me one of these vehicles here.

Allee: “Edgar, what can you show me?”

Moreno: “The Chevy Impala.”

Allee: “I actually don’t see anything that would tell me it’s a Flex-fuel vehicle.”

Moreno: “Usually it says on the gas cap whether you can use E85 or not.”

(sound of twist)

Allee: “It’s bright yellow. It says E85. In fact it says E85-slash-gasoline. What does
that mean?”

Moreno: “You can fill it with either, or.”

Allee: “How many stations are there available where I could fill this Impala up with
E85?”

Moreno: “I think there’s one in the area, but you have to drive quite a bit to get
there.”

Allee: “So, it’s one of those situations where, if I take this Impala off the lot, I could
still use it at a regular gas station, but I might have to search around for an E85
station?”

Moreno: “Yes, you do. Yep.”

Congress and both presidential candidates are considering making every car a Flex
Fuel Vehicle.

Detroit has spent a lot of money promoting E85 vehicles, and you might think they’d
be in favor of this.

Well, I called Ford Motor Company about this and found out that’s not the case.

“You could mandate every vehicle on the road to be a flex fuel vehicle. It would be a
great cost to our industry.”

Curt Magleby is Ford’s point-man on ethanol regulations.

He says if Congress gets its way there’d be more Flex Fuel Vehicles, but not necessarily
more E85 pumps.

“So you can mandate the vehicle side, but unless there’s a real focus on distribution,
it’s wasted money – we’d be putting dollars on the hoods of our vehicles for no
reason.”

So, Ford and the other car makers could make less profit on Flex Fuel Vehicles if there’s
a mandate.

At one time, they got government incentives to build Flex Fuel Vehicles, but those will
phase out.

So there’d be no benefit for the automakers.

And there’s another twist in the E-85 story.

The fuel industry is pushing to distribute ethanol in a way that might not require flex fuel
cars at all.

This is a little technical, but most gas already has 10% ethanol in it.

The fuel industry wants to sell 20% or even 30% ethanol blends because it saves oil
companies money. The government subsidized ethanol is cheaper than refining oil for
gasoline.

Ford and other car-makers are fighting this.

Magleby says burning E-20 or E-30 blends would be a disaster for existing cars.

“Ethanol is corrosive and it burns hotter, so you have to have a different fuel tank.
You have to have stainless steel fuel lines. You have to have hardened valves in your
engine.”

Car companies say burning 20% or 30% ethanol blends could hurt existing cars.

Scientists are checking whether that’s the case.

In the meantime, Congress is deciding exactly how it will promote ethanol.

It could mandate all cars be E85 Flex Fuel vehicles or it could promote lower-level
ethanol blends in gasoline.

Either way, over the next few years, we’re going to see big changes in our cars or our gas
pumps.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

New ‘Deer Crossing’ Technology

  • The Colorado Department of Transportation is trying out a new system to detect deer about to cross the highway (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

Every year there are about 1.5 million
deer-car accidents. Now highway officials are
testing a new system to cut down on those
accidents. Rebecca Williams has more:

Transcript

Every year there are about 1.5 million
deer-car accidents. Now highway officials are
testing a new system to cut down on those
accidents. Rebecca Williams has more:

There are some animal detection systems that use lasers or infrared motion
sensors. But those systems can be tripped by tumbleweeds or small animals.

In Colorado, highway officials are testing a new device.

Nancy Shanks is with the Colorado Department of Transportation. She says
they’ve buried cables along each side of the highway. The cables emit an
electromagnetic field. When an animal crosses a cable a warning sign with a
picture of a jumping deer lights up.

“It will detect a change in the field to the tune of a large animal. The system
will not pick up a smaller animal – a skunk or a rabbit, mouse.”

This cable system isn’t cheap. The pilot project costs 1.2 million dollars.

But Shanks says if this system works out, the price should come down a bit
over time.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Part Two: Kicking Gas to the Curb

  • (Photo by Julie Grant)

Lots of new hybrids and electric
cars are coming to the market. But some
say you don’t need an expensive new car to
get really good gas mileage. In the second
part of our series on saving gas, reporter
Julie Grant met one group of guys who says
you just need to take good care of your vehicle
and drive like your grandmother:

Transcript

Lots of new hybrids and electric
cars are coming to the market. But some
say you don’t need an expensive new car to
get really good gas mileage. In the second
part of our series on saving gas, reporter
Julie Grant met one group of guys who says
you just need to take good care of your vehicle
and drive like your grandmother:

John Stine – aka Johnny Mullet – has always been crazy
about fast cars and big trucks.

But in the past year, this self-described country boy put
aside the hot rods and four-wheel-drive pick-ups and bought
an old Chevy Metro with a tiny 3 cylinder engine. He made a
few changes to make it more aerodynamic such as taking off
the passenger side mirror and even the radio antennae.
And, Stine also started driving really slowly.

It took a while for Johnny Stine’s wife to come around to the
changes.

John Stine: “What did you think at first?”

Mrs. Stine: “At first?”

John Stine: “I’m a nerd. You’re crazy.”

Mrs. Stine: “I thought he was a big nerd. I thought ‘oh my
God.’”

John Stine: “What are you doing to my car?”

That all changed pretty quickly as prices at pump went up.
Her nerd went from geek to chic.

Mrs. Stine: “Anything to save gas. We have a big truck. It
was costing us over $160 a week in fuel. But when he got
57 miles to the gallon, I was just like, ‘wow, what a
difference.’”

(sound of car talk)

Stine is meeting up today with about 20 other motor heads
from Ohio, Pennsylvania, and as far as Virginia. They’ve
gathered at a state park to check out each other’s souped-
down vehicles.

The parking lot is not lined with macho- muscle cars with 20-
inch rims. These guys drive refurbished Ford Festivas, Geo
and Chevy Metros on the skinniest tires possible.

Paul Keim says they’re just trying to save a few bucks on
gas. But his wife isn’t completely sold on this hobby.

“Ask her. The lady in the green shirt, she’ll tell you, my
name is ‘cheap bastard’.”

Keim says his wife does appreciate his gas saving tips.

She’s picked up 5 miles per gallon – just by keeping up the
tire pressure, changing the oil regularly, and, adjusting the
nut behind the wheel.

“You are the nut behind the wheel. Once you adjust your
attitude, and your driving style, you can get incredible
mileage.”

So, what do we need to change behind the wheel?

(sound of car doors)

John Stine is going to give us a few tips.

First, pay attention to your aerodynamics.

Julie Grant: “It’s pretty warm, am I allowed to have the
windows opened?”

John Stine: “The windows open when we’re sitting is fine.
As I’m driving, I like to keep them up unless it is very hot.”

Open windows are bad for aerodynamics. Air conditioning
wastes gas.

So, there are sacrifices. You might get a little sweaty – just
carry some extra deodorant.

Everyone here today drive cars with a stick shift because it
means better gas mileage.

Stine does whatever he can to keep momentum and not stop
at a traffic light. That can mean coasting very slowly up to
an intersection.

Some guys here say it’s been tough to adjust their driving
habits. To drive slowly – especially when the driver behind
them is bearing down on the bumper in a race to the office.

Ken Pietro of Detroit says he knows it irritates other drivers,
but that’s their problem.

“It’s just like, ‘hey, go around, go around,’ we’re in no hurry.”

Pietro says he doesn’t care, since he’s getting more than 52
miles per gallon. What’s your mileage? He didn’t even have
to buy a hybrid.

“People just can’t believe I’m getting that. You’ve got all the
newer Priuses and Honda Insights and all that. And these
people are shelling out 20 or 25 thousand dollars to get good
gas mileage with these hybrid vehicles. Which is fine, you
got the money to do it. That’s great, save the environment.
But I can do it in a $500 car and I’m getting better mileage
than them.”

And while you might complain about their slow driving, they
might just beat you home – they won’t have to make a pit
stop at the pump.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

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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Follow the Soybean Road

  • A soybean oil sealant is now being tested on roadways (Photo courtesy of BioSpan Technologies)

Asphalt is usually made with oil.
The rising price of oil has made it more
expensive to repave roadways. Now some
cities are starting to give green alternatives
a chance. Julie Grant reports:

Transcript

Asphalt is usually made with oil.
The rising price of oil has made it more
expensive to repave roadways. Now some
cities are starting to give green alternatives
a chance. Julie Grant reports:

Cities use asphalt to reseal old roads. It oozes in and fills
the cracks, extending the life of the pavement.

But the price has gone up 200% in the last two years.

Paul Barnett is director of the Akron, Ohio Public Works
Bureau.

This year he plans to try a soybean-based sealant. Barnett
says now it costs about the same oil-based asphalt, but the
road runoff is better for the environment.

“So you have a soybean oil that’s biodegradable instead of a
petroleum product that’s going into the streams and creeks,
rivers.”

The cost of soybeans has also been increasing – for food,
for fuel, and now for things like pavement.

Barnett figures if soybean oil becomes popular, it will drive
the price higher, but for right now it’s a good alternative to
asphalt on some roadways.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

Watch Where You’re Walkin’

  • Just how easy is it to hoof it in your 'hood? A Seattle software company called FrontSeat created WalkScore.Com. The programmeers claim the site indicates whether a neighborhood offers residents enough amenities to get out of their cars. They hope people will consider the site's "walkability" scores when choosing a place to live. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

Picking a place to live can be a huge
environmental decision. Some people argue
if you can walk to everything you need, you’ll
stay out of your car, and that will cut air
pollution. But how do you compare how ‘walkable’
one place is to another? Shawn Allee looks at a Web site that aims to make that a breeze:

Transcript

Picking a place to live can be a huge
environmental decision. Some people argue
if you can walk to everything you need, you’ll
stay out of your car, and that will cut air
pollution. But how do you compare how ‘walkable’
one place is to another? Shawn Allee looks at a Web site that aims to make that a breeze:

When urban planners want to know exactly how ‘walkable’ a neighborhood is, they
commission a study, and get results in weeks or months.

One computer programmer says this approach is poky.

“And so we built a piece of software that would let anyone look up to what they
could walk to from their address.”

Matt Lerner helped build a Web site called Walk Score dot com.

You don’t have to be an urban planner to use it.

Anyone can just type in an address, and …

“We tell you all the closest schools, parks, retail stores, so you can see exactly what
that neighborhood looks like.”

Walk Score dot com also spits out a number between zero and a hundred.

If a place scores above ninety, the site calls that a ‘walker’s paradise’.

Lerner says the computer ignores stuff like weather and hills, but there’s a reason behind
that.

“Research on why people walk has shown the number one predictor of whether
people will walk is whether there’s something good to walk to.”

This is all well and good, but does Walk Score dot com work?

I want to test it out – so I ask Lerner to score a Chicago neighborhood close to me.

“If you look at Logan Square, you can see it has a walk score of 86. So if you’re
living near Logan Square, you can get by without driving very often, or even owning
a car perhaps.”

Really?

I head to Logan Square and ask people, does the neighborhood deserve the high score?

Resident: “Yeah, we’ve got a movie theater, a grocery store, restaraunts and bars.”

Resident: “Yes, you can really minimize your use of a car.”

Resident: “Everything’s close – even jewelry stores, furniture stores, grocery stores.
It’s pretty easy to get around walking.”

Most of the people I speak to say the Web site’s pretty much got it right. This is a
very walkable neighborhood. But there’s an activist who works on making the
neighborhood more walkable. He’s not convinced the web site’s got it 100% right.
He says it leaves out some things, for example, this:

(sound of dog barking)

“You’re talking about kids walking to school? That house, that’s a barrier.”

And, Ben Helphand says the Web site doesn’t just miss dogs. It misses other things
that intimidate walkers.

“They should factor in these things that are known to decrease the walkability of the
neighborhood, a big gas station complex, a drive-through bank which is right
behind us.”

Shawn Allee: “Only because they’re hard to walk by, because cars are coming in
and out?”

Ben Helphand: “And because they disincentive people getting out of their cars,
because they’re designed to keep people in their cars.”

The programmers admit the Walk Score site leaves out a lot. Helphand says he’s a
fan of the site, it’s just that it’s tailored to one purpose.

“Their real target audience is people who are moving or relocating and they want
walkability to be a factor in that choice.”

Helphand says the site gives the impression that people interested in walkability have
only one choice to make – where to live.

He wants them to make lots of choices over time.

He wants them to fix bad sidewalks, tame scary dogs, and support zoning laws that favor
walking over driving.

Helphand says if that happens enough, we can make new walkable neighborhoods – not
just rank ones that already exist.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

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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