This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.
A senior economist. You know, the kind of person who could help scope out the revenue forcasts for a new ballot initiative.
Gas Prices
This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.
This article has some interesting points to make about fuel consumption:
Americans spend 3.7 percent of their disposable income on transportation fuels. At its lowest point, that share was 1.9 percent in 1998, and at its highest, it reached 4.5 percent in 1981, said Johnson of Global Insight.
Still, despite the rise in energy prices, gasoline remains cheaper in the United States than in most industrialized countries. In France, for example, a gallon of gasoline costs about $7.70 at today’s exchange rates. Also, Americans pay less to drive a mile today than they did in 1980, once the impact of inflation and gains in fuel efficiency are taken into account, said Lee Schipper, a visiting scholar at the transportation center of the University of California, Berkeley.
Schipper estimates that the cost of gasoline per mile traveled will be about 15 cents this year. That is nearly three times the low of 5.6 cents a mile reached in 1998, when fuel efficiency peaked and prices were at their lowest. But it is still cheaper than the record paid in 1980 of 17.1 cents a mile, adjusted for inflation.
As bad as gas prices seem, they’re still not as high as they’ve been by historical standards. But people’s perception in this case matters at least as much as reality, and the perception is that gas prices are pretty darn high. Finally, it’s hard to separate the increase in gas prices from the general slow down of the economy in general.
All that said, it certainly does seem like the fundamentals of supply and demand, not reckless speculation, are leading us inexorably towards $200/barrel.
Oh now it makes sense, that’s per year!
Carless in Seattle explains what I couldn’t figure out from the P-I article on the ULI report last week. I wrote that I couldn’t understand how the shortfall was just $800 per person, less than the cost of the any of the major road or rail projects in the region. But CIS explained the missing piece: it’s $800 per person per year. Wow. That’s a lot of money, more than four times the cost of the failed Prop. 1 measure from last year.
Private Commuter Rail?
Snohomish County has given a private company, GNP Railway rights to operate commuter rail in the portion of the old BNSF railway in Snohomish county. Currently that portion of the former railway is a trail. GNP railway wants to operate commuter rail service from Snohomish to Bellevue or Renton, with a station in Snohomish (the city) where there was one the larger part of a century ago.
In order to accomplish this, GNP would need to make a similar deal with the Port of Seattle, get the capital to add rails where there’s currently just a trail, and build stations along the line. It sounds a little iffy to me, because I doubt the line would get enough ridership to make this a profitable enterprise, but GNP chairman Tom Payne has a history of bringing railroads from the dead:
Payne, a former locomotive engineer, transformed a failing rail line into Canada’s third-largest railroad in the 1980s and 1990s. He operated a tourist-oriented excursion train out of Tacoma in 2006.
I would be awesome if this works, though I imagine some sort of public-private partnership would be needed. This is going to be an interesting one to watch.
Wow, in a country with bad transportation infrastucture, we’re the worst
That’s what the ULI is saying. We’ve got a backlog of about $800 per person in this region, for about $800 per person. Seems low: that’s only about $3 billion, the 520 bridge and the viaduct are each more than that. Dallas-Fort Worth is second at about $400 per person, so we’re twice as bad as the next worst.
American cities are falling behind Asia and Europe in investing in roads, transit, bridges and other systems needed for growing populations, the study said.
Among U.S. cities/metro areas studied, the Seattle-Puget Sound area’s infrastructure-funding gap was nearly twice that of Dallas-Fort Worth, which was second at nearly $400 per capita. ULI, a nonprofit education and research institute that focuses on land-use, population growth, urban planning and the environment, worked with financial consultants Ernst & Young to produce the 60-page study.
“By 2040, the population of the Seattle area is projected to grow by 1.7 million new people, with 1.2 million new jobs … that’s like dropping the population of greater metropolitan Portland into the Puget Sound area,” John Hempelmann, co-vice chairman of the Reality Check Task Force for ULI Seattle, said Wednesday.
“That’s a big number, and a huge challenge, given the lack of infrastructure capacity and lack of funding.”
America is losing the transportation race quickly. If you go to Singapore, China, France, Korea or practically anywhere else the airports are nicer, the trains are nicer, sometimes even the highways are nicer, and it’s generally easier to get around than in most US cities, wonder why? Infrastructure spending:
“It’s kind of discouraging,” he told the audience, that in 1960, the U.S. spent 12 percent of its gross domestic product on infrastructure and now spends 2.4 percent. Japan spends 10 percent, China 9 percent and India 4.6 percent, Hudnut said.
Earlier this year, he said, a bipartisan congressional commission estimated the U.S. needs to spend at least $225 billion annually on transportation systems alone “just to catch up and keep pace with the rest of the world.”It shows in Americans’ daily lives. Europeans are connecting major cities using high-speed trains traveling 200 mph, Hudnut said.
But Seattle-area drivers spent about 45 hours in traffic delays in 2005 — more than a week of vacation — in contrast to 12 hours in 1982, according to the report.
Some are hoping for a reauthorization of the depleted federal Highway Trust Fund in November 2009, but with a shifted focus from cars to transit.
That’d be a start. But we’d also need to start approving funding for these project on a local level. Let’s hope ST2 gets through this year…
Density Around the World
This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.
Interesting chart, via Ezra Klein, on relative densities of major cities around the world. When folks like me talk about increasing density in the Seattle metro area, we’re talking about going from Houston-like levels to maybe, maybe Stockholm- or Berlin-like levels.
I’m sure there are issues with this chart and the methodology (Is Barcelona really 4 times denser than New York?), but the point is that, relatively speaking, we don’t have to increase density by all that much to see significant benefits in transit use and energy conservation.
Update: Speaking of Stockholm…
Where There’s a Will
This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.
The Urban Land Institute states what should be obvious: if you keep voting down transportation funding, sooner or later you’re not going to have any money to spend on transportation:
Among U.S. cities/metro areas studied, the Seattle-Puget Sound area’s infrastructure-funding gap was nearly twice that of Dallas-Fort Worth, which was second at nearly $400 per capita. ULI, a nonprofit education and research institute that focuses on land-use, population growth, urban planning and the environment, worked with financial consultants Ernst & Young to produce the 60-page study.
“By 2040, the population of the Seattle area is projected to grow by 1.7 million new people, with 1.2 million new jobs … that’s like dropping the population of greater metropolitan Portland into the Puget Sound area,” John Hempelmann, co-vice chairman of the Reality Check Task Force for ULI Seattle, said Wednesday.
I-695, Prop 1, the monorail… the list of transportation projects ultimately rejected by Puget Sound voters is long (going back to the Bogue plan in 1911 and Forward Thrust in ’68).
But the really maddining thing is that the Seattle Metro area has generated an absolutely astonishing amount of wealth in the last decade or two. We’re home to two of the richest men on planet Earth, not to mention the highest number of millionaires per capita in the country. And yet, despite all this, we can’t fund an infrastructure project (and don’t get started on funding for other priorities like education).
At the end of the day, then, this is our own fault. After all, we have no state income tax, so our taxes end up being more regressive than most places. Partly, of course, it’s a leadership issue. But at the end of the day, trying to lead people in the Northwest is like herding cats. This part of the country, tucked away in the corner, appeals to (and breeds) a certain kind of loner, a do-it-yourself type. As such, we’re pretty skeptical of mass movements and big organizations. That’s too bad, because we have the resources (natural, intellectual, and financial) to really show America (and the rest of the world) how to do things right.
(via CIS)
Great reason to have an ST2.1 vote in 2008 provided by: The Discovery Institute?
This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.
How does a pro-roads organization come to favor rail? Well, they don’t. But they provide a great reason to push for infrastructure improvements immediately. The world is awash with global capital right now (article here). Sure, they want to use this cheap capital for building roads, but the argument is the same for building massive rail improvements quickly.
Here’s the situation. Remember the collapse of the mortgage industry, specifically the sub-prime mortgages? Well the bubble was caused by a glut of global capital looking for a safe place to rest, and the bubble popped when investors realized that sub-prime mortgages were not a safe bet. This capital hasn’t gone away – it’s still there looking for safe, long term investments (see: Dubai for one of the places it has landed). For a great primer on this, listen to a rare This American Life documentary on the subject (here).
What would be a safe, long-term investment for global capital? Discovery says infrastructure fits the bill. We may disagree on what that infrastructure should be, and I don’t think they realize the full financial potential out there, but we agree on the major financial points. This global capital is available now. We don’t know what the financial picture will look like in several years. Actually, this is a great reason to do more than just ST2.1 immediately – let’s build an in-city light rail system while we’re at it. We just may not ever get this good of an opportunity again.
Vote Transit
This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.
Ezra Klein warms my heart:
How long till traffic becomes a voting issue? Americans spend more time in it every year. They get heart attacks from it. And now, with gas prices well above $100 — and racing skyward still — how long till road rage, till driving, till a life spent in the car and a paycheck spent at the pump, become voting issues? Arguably, gas prices are already there. But no politicians has figured out how to do anything with that save promise lower gas prices. But we’re not going to lower gas prices. And discontent will only become more intense. Someday, some politician is going to figure out what to do with that, and my hunch in the word “transit” will be a big part of it.
Emphasis added. I’ll go him one better — not only will no one lower gas prices, but even if we did, it would increase traffic.
I just love, love, love how far the national conversation has moved towards a pro-transit agenda. We’ve got a long way to go before we’re spending more money on rail than roads, but we’re getting there.
For more, check out this post on The Overhead Wire regarding the proposed Boxer Amendment to the Lieberman-Warner climate change bill.
A mini-vacation on Metro
This Seattle Times article about miniature vacations on Metro to summer hotspots around town is pretty interesting. Pike Place Market, Pioneer Square, Seattle Center … Just kidding. The article is about semi-natural and outdoorsy places such as the Ballard Locks, Golden Gardens and Alki. And since it was in the Times, it was written by someone who lives on the Eastside (this time Kirkland). I honestly learned how to get to Snoqualmie falls by transit (271 from Bellevue TC or 209 from Issaquah PNR), which is awesome for moving my carless life forward. Snoqualmie falls is a great place to take friends from out-of-town, and now I can do it without a car.
The Alki directions miss the mark: West Seattle Water Taxi, guys, come on! This is really the only way to get to Alki in the summer months, I can’t imagine why someone would want to take the 56 there.
Ok, so what other interesting places can you get to by bus in this area? I can think of the Museum of Glass in Tacoma (a worthwhile visit on ST route 594), Magnuson Park (65), Emerald Downs (152), and the Arboretum (48, 11)? Help me out!