Money for Railway Upgrades

  • 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.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links

High-Speed Rail Money Slow

  • 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.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

Hip Hop Artists Tackle Environmental Issues

  • Some Hip Hop artists are using their music to reach people about environmental issues affecting their communities (Photo source: Lestat at Wikimedia Commons)

When many people think of songs about the environment, they conjure up visions of folk singers and acoustic guitars. But the environment is becoming a more prevalent issue among Hip-Hop artists. Lester Graham reports they’re looking at the issue and how it affects their lives directly:

Transcript

When many people think of songs about the environment, they conjure up visions of folk singers and acoustic guitars. But the environment is becoming a more prevalent issue among Hip-Hop artists. Lester Graham reports they’re looking at the issue and how it affects their lives directly:

Environmentalists are often portrayed as treehugging elitists by conservative talk show hosts – and others.

That image really was never accurate, but the environmental movement is becoming more diverse. The environmental issues are becoming increasingly important to a wider swath of society.

Mike Cermack is a consultant for Boston’s public schools. He helps teachers figure out the best ways to teach classes such as environmental science.

He’s come to the conclusion that music can go a long way in getting the attention of kids in the classroom – especially since Hip-Hop artists started tackling the environment and not just as some distant ‘polar bears and butterflies’ issue.

“We really want to start at the corner store and ask deep questions like, ‘why isn’t there any fresh produce? Is that linked to the fact that diabetes and obesity is kind of rampant in our neighborhoods and in our families?’”

As people living in inner cities Cermack says – artists such as Mos Def did it in his song ‘New World Water.’

(clip of Mos Def song)
And it’s not just those big nationally known artists.

Mike Cermack says he stumbled into Boston’s local ‘green Hip-Hop’ movement by working with activists who were trying to stop a power plant from being built next to an elementary school.

“In talking with them further and getting to know them, also many of them turned out to be these really talented MCs, these talented lyricists who are using the new knowledge that they found working with the non-profits and kind of weaving those into their more traditional narratives of ‘this is what’s wrong with street/urban issues; this is what’s wrong with all the gangsters around/in my city.’ They’re saying how can we also bring in these environmental issues.”

And those artists are pulling in friends and bringing a whole lot of street cred to environmental issues.

Tem Blessed and Ben Gilbarg called in some of their Boston friends to perform ‘Green Anthem.’

(clip of ‘Green Anthem’)

“They’re staying true to their roots as kind of the voice social injustice and speaking out against urban problems and they’re really mixing it up with a lot of environmental issues.”

Mike Cermack says he’s been working to get students interested in environmental issues in the classroom, but Hip-Hop artists such as J-Live and Thes One get it done in a way the students know.

“They’re already used to loving the hip-hop tracks. And they know the MC. You know, it’s more important that the MC is from the community. That’s another big piece. I think it’s a really interesting start to this green hip-hop potential.”

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links

Citizen Scientists Track Climate Change

  • Reporter Sadie Babits is tracking the blooming of a lilac tree, as part of a "citizen scientist" project that will document climate change. (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Scientists are asking citizens to pay attention to plants this spring. They want you to report everything from leaf buds to blossoms. Scientists want those observations from right in your backyard to better understand how climate change is affecting plants and trees. Sadie Babits liked the idea and signed up:

Transcript

Scientists are asking citizens to pay attention to plants this spring. They want you to report everything from leaf buds to blossoms. Scientists want those observations from right in your backyard to better understand how climate change is affecting plants and trees. Sadie Babits liked the idea and signed up:

You know, I found it really isn’t hard to be a citizen scientist.

I’m on the website for Project Budburst. It’s a nationwide effort to get people out into their backyards to track spring flowers. All I have to do is to pick a plant or tree to keep an eye on and then report my findings.

I’m thinking I’ll check out the lilac trees in my neighborhood here in Portland. But before I head out, I need some advice.

So I called Sandra Henderson. She’s busy these days directing Project Budburst at the University Corporation of Atmospheric Research.

“Hey Sadie.”

I reach Henderson at her office in Boulder, Colorado.

What advice do you have for me, a first citizen scientists observing phenology?

“The ideal thing to do is get a sense of when lilacs in your case in Portland, Oregon are expected to have different pheno events.”

Good thing I looked up phenology before calling Henderson. Basically it means nature’s calendar – the timing of when cherry blossoms bloom or a robin builds a nest.

And these life cycles of plants and animals are sensitive to changes in climate.

“Plants provide a wonderful context for understanding changes to the environment and they certainly respond to changes in temperature and precipitation, things that climate scientists are very interested in.”

Scientists can’t be in everyone’s backyard. That’s where volunteers come in. Last year some five thousand people across the country reported their observations to Project Budburst. That information now is the foundation for an online database that includes everything from dandelions to ponderosa pines.

So after walking through our neighborhood and seeing a lot of trees that have already flowered, I’ve decided that these lilac trees outside of our house are perfect for watching because they haven’t flowered yet and there are leaf buds all over the branches. And here’s a branch and the leaf buds are huge and they are just starting to unfurl.

Now that I’ve found my lilac tree to watch, I can report today’s findings.

Really that’s it. Scientists are finding out a lot of interesting things. For example, forsythia in Chicago are blooming a week earlier. These simple observations will eventually create a snapshot of how climate change is affecting plants across the U.S.

For The Environment Report, I’m Sadie Babits.

Related Links

Paying for Risks on the Rails

  • This train in Graniteville, South Carolina, crashed while carrying chemicals called "toxic inhalation hazards." Transporting these chemicals is extremely dangerous, and rail companies think chemical companies should share some of the insurance burden. (Photo courtesy of the Environmental Protection Agency)

Toxic Inhalation Hazards are a class of chemicals with a notorious name: if you inhale them, you die.
On the flip side, they’re useful: Take chlorine. It purifies drinking water. Another is anhydrous ammonia. It’s used for corn fertilizer.
The government feels some toxic inhalation hazards are so important it forces railroads to ship them, even though insurance is expensive.
Shawn Allee says rail lines now want the chemical industry to chip in:

Transcript

Toxic Inhalation Hazards are a class of chemicals with a notorious name: if you inhale them, you die.
On the flip side, they’re useful. Take chlorine: it purifies drinking water. Another is anhydrous ammonia. It’s used for corn fertilizer.
The government feels some toxic inhalation hazards are so important it forces railroads to ship them, even though insurance is expensive.
Shawn Allee says rail lines now want the chemical industry to chip in:

To understand why the railroad industry wants help with insurance, you should know what happened in Graniteville, South Carolina.
Phil Napier is Graniteville’s fire chief. Napier tells me, one night in January 2005, he got paged about a train wreck.
He hopped in his truck and before long, he found the train engineer.

“I stopped to roll the window down and this gentleman told me they had a chemical leak and he couldn’t breathe and he fell to the ground. And immediately, it hit me. It basically took my breath and all I remember is taking a U-turn heading north but I ended up south. There’s a time-zone in there that I have no memory.”

When Napier came to, he got word from his radio: the train carried chlorine and a toxic cloud was spreading.
Napier evacuated Graniteville. Later, he got a look by helicopter.

“We did a flyover. I mean, it was like a Twilight Zone – you could see cars all up and down the highways, with the doors open.”

Nine people died in the Graniteville derailment and chlorine spill. Since then, the railroad industry worried an accident like this could ruin them.

“The lesson we drew from that was, if there is a major catastrophe by the railroad carrying this material, could be forced into bankruptcy and be forced out of operation.”

That’s Ed Hamberger, the head of the Association of American Railroads.
Hamberger calls the Graniteville accident a tragedy for the town and a financial mess for the railroad responsible – Norfolk Southern.

“The accident in Graniteville resulted in damages of 400 to 500 million dollars.”

Norfolk Southern won’t confirm the figures, but consider this: it’s still in court over an incident involving nine deaths.

Experts say if a similar derailment happened in the middle of a big city like Chicago, it could kill at least 10,000 people.
Hamberger says railroads can’t insure against that.
You might think they would refuse to carry toxic inhalant hazards, but the government says they have to – because rail has the best safety record.

“The freight railroad industry has what is known as a common carrier obligation to carry these toxic by inhalation materials. Several of our members have said if they were not forced to, they would not carry it because of that liability threat.”

Hamberger says if the government won’t lift the obligation, it’s fair to require chemical companies to pay some insurance.
And, he says, it would make the public safer.
The argument goes, if chemical companies paid more to insure against transportation accidents, they’d create safer chemicals.

“With regard to the argument the chemical industry needs an incentive to make safer products, frankly, we have all the incentive in the world.”

Marty Durbin is with the American Chemistry Council.
He says chemical companies already pay insurance against accidents in their factories.
And they are looking for alternatives to chlorine and other toxic inhalant hazards.
Durbin says, besides, when trains leave their factories financial risk should be out of their hands.

“You have to have liability throughout the chain that helps motivate safety improvement.”

The chemical and railroad companies will battle this out in front of government agencies for a while.
In the meantime, each year, trains will make 100,000 shipments of toxic inhalation hazards along the nation’s railroads, even if some freight rail companies don’t want to.

For the Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

Google’s Power Meter

  • Google's new smart meter technology will eventually let consumers see how much energy each appliance (like a fridge) in their home uses, in order to help them find ways to reduce their monthly bill. (Photo by M. Minderhoud, Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

There’s 11-billion dollars in the new economic stimulus plan for upgrades to the electric grid and so-called smart meters. These smart meters hook up to your home and give the utility company real-time feedback on how much energy you’re using. Rebecca Williams reports Google is working on a way to let you see that information:

Transcript

There’s 11-billion dollars in the new economic stimulus plan for upgrades to the electric grid and so-called smart meters. These smart meters hook up to your home and give the utility company real-time feedback on how much energy you’re using. Rebecca Williams reports Google is working on a way to let you see that information:

Google’s system is called PowerMeter. It’s in beta testing right now but the idea is: if you get a smart meter, you’ll be able to see exactly how much energy your TV, fridge and computer use.

The system will hook into the info utility companies draw from your home. Then, you can log into your secure i-Google website, for free. And get real-time feedback so you can figure out how to spend less on your power bill.

Kirsten Cahill is a program manager at Google. She says they’ve been testing the PowerMeter around the office:

“I think people are surprised about things like their oven; how much the oven uses or the microwave. Things that you using every day that are actually, you know, pretty huge energy users.”

It’ll probably be a year or more before the Google system is open to everybody.

For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

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.

Related Links

A Dow Jones Index for Animals

  • Scientists have created a species index that tracks populations much like the Dow Jones (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

Biologists have created a way to
track endangered species that they say is
similar to the way we track financial markets.
Rebecca Williams has more:

Transcript

Biologists have created a way to
track endangered species that they say is
similar to the way we track financial markets.
Rebecca Williams has more:

The new system is nicknamed the Dow Jones Index of Biodiversity.


It’s put together by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and the
London Zoo.


Jonathan Baillie is with the zoo. He says the system helps keep track of which
species are doing well and which ones are close to extinction.


“So if you thought of a group of species like a company you can track what’s
happening to birds through time, what’s happening to mammals through time
what’s happening to amphibians through time – and we’re seeing amphibians
are crashing quite quickly, birds are going down but not as rapidly.”


Of course species can’t be tracked exactly like financial markets. The species
index gets updated every few years instead of every day.


Soon they’re hoping to track things like beetles, mushrooms, and lichens on the
index.


For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Puppies, Poo, and Moose Tracks

  • Aimee Hurt, with the group Working Dogs for Conservation (Photo by Brian Mann)

Researchers and environmentalists are
experimenting with a new method for collecting
biological samples in the wild. They’re using
trained tracking dogs to sniff out everything
from rare plants to moose pellets. Brian Mann
joined the hunt in New York’s Adirondack Mountains:

Transcript

Researchers and environmentalists are
experimenting with a new method for collecting
biological samples in the wild. They’re using
trained tracking dogs to sniff out everything
from rare plants to moose pellets. Brian Mann
joined the hunt in New York’s Adirondack Mountains:

It’s early, the sun still tangled in the alder trees, when we set off
on foot down a
narrow logging road.

(sound of walking down the road)

Soon, Heidi Kretser with the Wildlife Conservation Society finds the
first evidence that
we’re not alone.

“These are moose tracks.”

New York’s moose population has surged in recent years, to move than
500 animals.
Researchers have been tracking moose using airplanes and radio collars.

But today, were tagging along behind a cheerful black lab mix named
Wicket.

(sound of dog’s collar jingling)

Wicket flashes back and forth across the trail, snuffling eagerly.
She wears a bright
red vest and that tinkling bell is designed to keep her from actually
meeting a moose
head-on.

Her owner and handler, Aimee Hurt, says using dogs to find biological
samples – everything from plants to rare birds – isn’t new.

“I think if you talk to a lot of biologists who’ve been out
in the field for
decades, ‘Oh yeah, my dog figured out that we were looking for —
whatever.’ And they
started honing in on it and helping out. So I really think that dog’s
have been
biologists’ partners for a long time.”

Hurt’s organization – Working Dogs for Conservation, based in Montana
– took the idea
one step further, training dogs in much the same way that police train
K-9 units.

Wicket knows how to find six different kinds of scat, including
mountain lion, grizzly
bear – and now moose

“She is an air-scent dog, which means there’s no tracking
involved — she’s
just sniffing the air for a whiff of scat.”

Heidi Kretser, with the Wildlife Conservation Society, says moose
droppings can tell a
lot about why these Clydesdale-sized animals are returning to New York, what they’re
eating, and how they’ll reshape this forest if their numbers keep
growing.

“By understanding the diet, we’ll get a better sense of what
habitats they
might impact long-term, since they eat 40 pounds of vegetation a day.”

(sound of birds and footsteps)

Wicket leads the team on long ramble through the radiant lime green
forest, and down
across a burbling creek.

(sound of creek)

We see moose sign everywhere – mule-sized tracks, maple trees
stripped of bark. And
then Wicket sniffs out her first pile of droppings.

“Whoopee, good girl. Very nice!”

More poop means better data. So the pellets are trucked away in a
plastic bag for the
trip back to the lab.

For Wicket, the reward is a few minutes of joyous play with a squishy
rubber ball.

(sound of squeezing toy)

“Let’s get to work!” (bell jangling)

Then the team is off again, with Wicket snuffling happily through the
trees. Biologists
hope to use the same method to study other wildlife – from grizzlies
to mountain lions.

For The Environment Report, I’m Brian Mann.

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.

Related Links