Informed but opinionated commentary and analysis on urban transportation topics from the Secret Worldwide Transit Cabal. Names have been omitted to protect the guilty.

Our Mission: Monkeywrench the Anti-Transit Forces

 
TINGZHI DUSHI TIELU DEJIANZHU, DOU__TA!

Home of More Transit Links Than You can Possibly Check(tm), Unless you have no life other than websurfing

"Truth passes through three phases: 1) It is ridiculed. 2) It is violently opposed. 3) It is accepted as self-evident." Albert Schopenhouer. In the United States, rail is currently passing through Phase Two.


From the Cabalmaster:

No, your eyes aren’t deceiving you!

The above is the equivalent of “STOP BUILDING RAIL SYSTEMS, DAMMIT!” in Chinese, with one key syllable omitted (this is, after all, a family-oriented blog). We thought that would an appropriate lead-in to this report.

Two 1996 studies recommended a busway for Beijing, rather than "LRT" or "Skytrain" (elevated heavy rail using linear-induction motor cars, as in Vancouver, Canada).

We Opinionated Ones are not surprised that these were utter failures as policy documents – and we don’t think you’ll be, either.

Both papers considered a corridor extending from northeast from Xizhimen subway station to Haidan (Zhongguancun) and the Summer Palace, major tourist attraction and popular destination for Beijing residents.

The Beijing Busway Study (Andrew H. Spencer, Jin Guo, Andong Wang and Weichang Weng, "Traffic Engineering + Control," vol 37, no 3, March 1996) proposed a busway built in existing roads, separated from other traffic but shared with bicycles.

"Only the busway shows a positive NPV ["net present value," i.e. benefits minus cost]; those for LRT and skytrain are negative in the extreme. The reason is simply that for the rail options the high construction costs outweigh the (heavily-discounted) benefits which do not rise in proportion; time-saving benefits also suffer from low assumed values of time, themselves the consequence of low incomes. The principal benefit is the saving in operating costs; for the busway this outweighs the value of time savings by three to one.

["Heavily-discounted" is an understatement. This paper used a discount rate of 12 percent, which is very high. The high value of the discount rate used by Spencer et al. "reflects the restrictions on capital spending introduced in 1993 in an attempt to restrain overheating in the economy."]

"Our study concludes that not only can the busway carry the passengers forecast for 2000, it is also the only means of doing so that justifies its costs."

"Light rail or busway? A comparative evaluation for a corridor in Beijing" (Andrew H. Spencer and Andong Wang, Journal of Transport Geography, vol 4, no 4, 1996) contains more details, but uses the same methodology and reaches the same conclusion. It adds, "It must be noted that these findings apply only to Beijing or to other cities which have sufficiently wide roads. Busways are unlikely to be a solution in the inner parts of Shanghai or Guangzhou, or instance."

Some of the commentary in the second paper has a familiar ring:

"Publications by the municipal and subway authorities show proposals for an extensive network with three lines intersecting the central area in both north-south and east-west directions, but capital for such ambitious schemes will inevitably be in short supply. Beijing is, in any event, not a city that is conducive to efficient subway systems. The population density for the eight most built-up administrative istricts, at 4380 persons per square km [= 11,000 per sq mi], is surprisingly low; the density for the entire territory of Singapore, with its extensive unbuilt areas, is 5200 [= 14,000 per sq mi]. There has been rapid peripheral expansion of both housing and business developments over the last 15 years (MVA Consultancy 1993; "Beijing Transport Study Draft Final Report;" prepared for the British Overseas Development Administration and the Beijing Academy of City Planning and Design). Many of the city’s streets are wide, even monumental, in scale, and Beijing’s planners have traditionally seen roads as the primary form of transport infrastructure. The low density of development makes it questionable whether rail could ever be accessible enough to be generally attractive to a population already accustomed to personal transport [in the form of bicycles]. Nor would it be likely to be profitable. Allport [RJ] and Thompson [JM]’s study (1990, Study of mass rapid transit in developing countries, Contractor Report 188, Transport Research Laboratory, Crowthorne, Table 7.4) is illuminating. Examining heavy and light rail systems operating in 15 developing cities, they found that only those in the higher income countries – Seoul, Hong Kong and possibly Singapore – appeared to come anywhere near to covering total costs (not including construction costs) from the farebox. Most did not even cover operating costs. Beijing’s own subway currently operates at a considerable deficit and officials have made it clear to the authors that the case for improvements will have to rest on some form of cost-benefit appraisal in which the relief of congestion and the facilitating of urban development will be prime considerations."

Does any of the above sound familiar?

The Chinese government eventually rejected the recommendations of Spencer et al. We were not able to find details (perhaps similar to the Singapore story, which we brought to you in a previous post), but the evidence is unmistakable.

Beijing started construction of a 27-mile, 16-station light rail line, shaped like an inverted "U," at the end of 1999. This line, number 13 on the master plan, will extend from Xizhimen subway station north to Huilongguan, then south to Dongzhimen. The line has two miles underground, five miles on viaduct and the remainder at grade (www.metropla.net/as/beij/beijing.htm). The initial 18-mile section between Xizhimen and Huilongguan was scheduled for opening in September 2000, with the remainder to follow in January 2003 ("Full operation of Beijing's light rail system postponed," China Daily, July 30, 2002.)

A second light rail line or “elevated light metro” was started at the end of 2000. This will extend 12 miles from Bawangfen (Sihuidong subway station, Line 1) eastward to Tongzhou (Tuqiao station).

("Construction of Beijing Elevated Light Rail Begins," People’s Daily, December 19, 2000, see: fpeng.peopledaily.com.cn/200012/19/eng20001219_58169.html). Completion was scheduled for 2003 (www.china.org.cn/english/31281.htm).

However, this project evolved subsequently into an eastward extension of subway Line 1 on viaduct, planned for completion by the end of 2003.

The master plan outlines a subway, Line 9, to serve the Haidan corridor. This will extend from Fengtai Guogongzhuang in the south to Zhongguancun and the Summer Palace in the north, 16 miles, with 20 stations. The line will have 12 miles underground and the remainder on viaduct. Construction is planned to start in 2004 for compl

posted by The Cabalmaster, Master of All Transit-dom 10/29/2003 04:57:00 PM

 
HUFF, HUFF, PUFF, PUFF, IS RANDAL O'TOOLE A STEAM RAIL BUFF?

Home of More Transit Links Than You can Possibly Check(tm), Unless you have no life other than websurfing

"Truth passes through three phases: 1) It is ridiculed. 2) It is violently opposed. 3) It is accepted as self-evident." Albert Schopenhouer. In the United States, rail is currently passing through Phase Two.


From the Cabalmaster:

An October 2002 article published by the Tri-City Herald (Kennewick – Pasco – Richland, WA, see www.tri-cityherald.com/news/2002/1023/Story1.html) describes an excursion train pulled by restored Spokane, Portland & Seattle steam locomotive 700. The article quotes a “locomotive crew member” named Randal O’Toole.

The locomotive is based in Portland, OR, not far from the Bandon, OR, home base of the well-known (if slightly acerbic) author and transit critic of the same name.

Are they one and the same?

Is Randal O’Toole, author of The Vanishing Automobile and Other Urban Myths, founder of the “Thoreau Institute” and “American Dream Coalition” websites, also (gasp) a . . . a . . . RAILFAN?

Say it ain’t so, Randal!

(Otherwise, we may actually laugh loud enough to reveal the location of Line’s End™, the (very) secret (very) hidden retreat of the Secret Worldwide Transit Cabal. Think of it . . . a blowhard like O’Toole a STEAM BUFF!)

posted by The Cabalmaster, Master of All Transit-dom 10/29/2003 04:48:00 PM

 
Japanese Maglev Project Links and Lowdown

Home of More Transit Links Than You can Possibly Check(tm), Unless you have no life other than websurfing

"Truth passes through three phases: 1) It is ridiculed. 2) It is violently opposed. 3) It is accepted as self-evident." Albert Schopenhouer. In the United States, rail is currently passing through Phase Two.


From the Cabalmaster:

The Secret Worldwide Transit Cabal is pleased to bring to you the following “links and lowdown” related to one of the world’s more interesting transit projects, the “Linimo” magnetic-levitation line nearing completion near Nagoya, Japan. Known for planning purposes as the “Tobu-kyuryo Line, this was built as a suburban connector and also to provide transportation to an exposition planned for 2005. The Linimo home page is here www.linimo.jp but it’s in Japanese only. The transportation agency of Aichi Prefecture has a page on Linimo here but in Japanese only. The prefesture’s “Nagoya Tobu Kyuryo Construction Office” has a page here but again in Japanese only. Japanese-compatible software and a Japanese-language browser may be required for proper viewing.

The official English homepage of Expo 2005 Aichi Japan is www.expo2005.or.jp/en.

Japan has had two independent maglev development efforts underway for the past four decade, and the intended applications were very different. JNR (Japanese National Railways) worked on high-speed intercity transport. JAL (Japan Air Lines) worked on technology for relatively low-speed city-to-airport links. The JAL system, which has little in common with the JNR/JR high speed system aside from magnetic levitation, was dubbed "HSST," for High Speed Surface Transport.

Japan Air Lines? Maglev?

[Farms? In Berkeley? The correct answer to this one is “Yes, long ago; farmers joined forces with the state university to incorporate a separate city to prevent annexation into Oakland.]

This was actually a remarkably far-sighted move. Japan has a sparse internal air network because many good-sized cities do not have airports. This in turn reflects the availability of flat land on which to build them. Somebody figured out that "new" airports would have to be built far from the cities they served, and that the chances of securing government funds for this would be improved if the problem of ground transport were solved. JAL apparently envisioned construction of new regional airports with HSST links to major urban centers. However, the impact of the 1974 and 1979 oil price increases on the Japanese economy eventually led JAL to realize that the government wasn't going to pick up the tab for this grand scheme.

JAL spun off HSST technology to the "HSST Corporation" in 1985. Short test lines were built for word's fairs at Tsukuba (1985), Vancouver (1986) and possibly elsewhere, but paying customers did not appear.

HSST Corporation opened a small (0.9-mile) test line along a Nagoya Railroad branch in 1991. This has a minimum curve radius of 100 meters and a maximum grade of 7 per cent. This was built as a joint public-private venture: of the construction cost (450 million yen), the Nagoya Railroad paid 56 percent, the HSST Corporation paid 22 percent, and Aichi Prefecture paid 22 percent. Investors anticipated that a HSST line would be built between central Nagoya and a planned new airport south of the city (built on a man-made island). The prefectural government had an interest in the airport project, but also had an apparent interest in turning Nagoya into a center of maglev technology.

HSST technology, promoted by the HSST Development Corporation from 1993, scored an apparent sale in 1995, when Hiroshima announced plans for an airport-access line. This would extend 5 miles from the airport to the nearest JR-West station, and would eventually be extended to central Hiroshima.

Then, in mid-1996, the eastern Kyushu city of Miyazaki opened a short (0.9-mile) rail branch to serve its airport. The airport line is elevated and single-track; the project also included electrification of 1.6 miles of connecting line. Miyazaki, which has little more than 300,000 people, thus joined the select group of cities with an airport railway.

This project is not widely known outside of Japan -- after all, Miyazaki is not exactly a major tourist destination. We'll bet the gadget salesmen would like to keep it that way, for the Miyazaki airport access project had far-reaching impacts within Japan. Sendai decided to build a five-mile single-track airport railway branch instead of a metro extension. Hiroshima decided to build conventional rail instead of HSST (which would permit through service to the city center from the start). Nagoya decided to serve its new regional airport by extending a Nagoya Railroad branch. And so forth.

Nagoya proper has half the population density of Tokyo and Osaka. Since half the density also means half the population within the same area, Nagoya has not been able to finance metro expansion at the rate that Osaka and Tokyo have. Rail lines, where they exist, carry heavy traffic but large parts of the region have no rail service.

The "original" subway line was pushed to the eastern city limit (Fujigaoka), with a significant mileage on viaduct. An "onward" extension to Nagakute has been on the drawing board for some years.

A 1992 report by the Transport Policy Council recommended 25 miles of new rail lines in the region by 2008. One of these was the "Tobu-kyuryo" (Eastern Hills) line, to extend 5.5 miles between Fujigaoka and Yakusa (on the Aichi Peripheral Railway). This was outlined using some form of intermediate-capacity technology. Obviously, construction of a full-scale metro extension through this area could not be justified. Since the metro line uses standard gauge and third rail, and the Aichi Peripheral uses 1067mm gauge and 1500V dc overhead, there is no possibility of through working.

Somebody apparently decided that this route would make a good "working prototype" for HSST. Makes sense: not too long, Aichi Exposition coming up in 2005, and would provide a useful regional connection thereafter. Another factor: "Hills" in Japan do not imply nice gentle slopes, but rather abrupt rises. Sounds like a good place to put that alleged hill-climbing ability to the test. About 0.8 mile will be underground, and the remainder on viaduct. The line will have 8 intermediate stations.

The company is the Aichi Rapid Railway. This is a public-private ("third-sector") joint venture including Aichi Prefecture and on-line local governments, several banks, the Nagoya Railroad, the Chubu Electric Power Co [now that's "supplier financing!"], and automaker Toyota. The designed maximum service frequency is 6 minutes, and the designed maximum speed is 100 km/h (62 mph). The planned running time is 15 minutes, implying a commercial speed of about 20 mph. The estimated construction cost (this probably dates to the the start of construction) was 40.5 billion yen, about $320 million, or $60 million per mile.

So, despite all the hype and claims one might hear (and we expect to hear a lot from the maglev boosters), this is another Japanese "special-purpose" line serving a small niche market. If there was any potential for significantly higher traffic volumes than are now forecast, the line would be built for through service by subway trains.

posted by The Cabalmaster, Master of All Transit-dom 10/16/2003 04:55:00 PM

 
WILL CINCINNATI RAIL HATERS GO "UP THE RIVER?"

Home of More Transit Links Than You can Possibly Check(tm), Unless you have no life other than websurfing

"Truth passes through three phases: 1) It is ridiculed. 2) It is violently opposed. 3) It is accepted as self-evident." Albert Schopenhouer. In the United States, rail is currently passing through Phase Two.


From the Cabalmaster:

The Secret Worldwide Transit Cabal is obliged to admonish rail critics as follows:

IT’S OK TO SHOUT,
IT’S OK TO POUT, (but)
YOU’D BETTER NOT LIE,
WE’RE TELLING YOU WHY . . .

‘cause if you do . . . and you get caught . . .

. . . UP THE RIVER,
OH, UP THE RIVER,
OH UP THE RIVER YOU’LL GO, OH, OH!

UP THE RIVER,
OH, UP THE RIVER,
OH, UP THE O-HI-O!

Now that we’ve finished our obligatory (and weak) attempt at comedy (it did “bring down the house” at Line’s End™, the (very) secret (very) hidden retreat of The Secret Worldwide Transit Cabal) . . . we feel obliged to insert a disclaimer. We are, after all, a TRANSIT cabal . . . NOT a RAIL cabal . . . contrary to the pernicious propaganda purveyed in perpetuity by certain SAP™s.

We tend to support rail transit because it can provide high-quality transit alternatives to private autos. However, whatever the benefits of rail might be, it costs big bucks to build. Therefore, it’s perfectly legitimate to ask whether costs are justified by benefits. Honest inquiry . . . honest research . . . honest debate. The key word here is “honest.” However, there are individuals who 1.) don’t like the idea of rail transit, for reasons of self-interest or ideology, and 2.) are willing to resort to all sorts of distortion and deception.

A bit of background: Voters in Cincinnati, OH, and Hamilton County considered a light-rail financing proposal, “Issue 7,” on November 5, 2002. This was to provide the local share of a $2.6 billion transit program. It attracted a “yes” vote of only 31 percent.

As the campaign wound up, LRT supporters filed a complaint with the Ohio Elections Commission (OEC) against the opposition group Alternatives to Light Rail Transit (ALRT), in the person of its leader, Stephan Louis, see www.enquirer.com/editions/2003/02/10/loc_bronson10.html.

The point of contention: a cable-TV ad, paid for opponents, stating that "The Federal Transit Administration rates it one of the worst plans in the country.''

''. . . one of the worst plans in the country . . . ''

Oops.

The point we’re gonna develop below may seem arcane, but it’s not. Many if not most states have laws against making false statements during an election campaign. In practice, “false statements” includes situations where words, spoken or printed, are substantially altered.

FTA rates transit projects on a scale of “Highly recommended, Recommended, and Not Recommended.” This is not at all the same thing as “Good, Bad, and Worst.” For one thing, FTA evaluation criteria include the local funding share, and the availability of funding to pay this. In theory, a city could appropriate 100 percent of the estimated cost of a transit project, deposit the money in trust, then apply for federal funding as a way of boosting the project’s FTA rating.

So, even though the Cincinnati project was one of four rated “Not Recommended,” it’s also true that the cable-TV ad deviated substantially from the wording of the FTA report.

Hence the finding of probable cause by the OEC that light-rail opponents made false statements in the commercial.

WE READ THE NEWS THAT DAY, OH BOY! (With apologies to John, Paul, George and Ringo).

. . . and, to paraphrase actor George C. Scott in the flick Patton (Amazon DVD store, in character: WE LOVE IT; HOW WE LOVE IT SO!

OK, now that we’re finished with the tomfoolery: Despite pre-election polls indicating that “Issue 7” would win, and the huge gap between campaign budgets (supporters raised $750,000; opponents raised just $10,000), the measure lost by a whopping 69 percent. That, to us, suggests that misleading commercials by opponents had little to do with the outcome. Resistance to new taxes, and what might be called the “first-time” effect, probably played a much larger role.

(The “first time” effect refers to a statement, by one consultant during the early 1990s, that rail-financing proposals always get rejected the “first time” around. We Opinionated Ones were skeptical – the record up to that time suggested that if you DIDN’T win the first time around, the project was dead for years, if not decades, thereafter. Since then, events have proven that the consultant was correct: If at first, you won’t succeed, so try, try again . . . and you eventually will. We’ll bet that drives Wendell, Randal, “Railroading America” and so forth up the proverbial tree.)

We’re not sure how this story ended, or if it has in fact ended. The OEC website is located at www.state.oh.us/elc, but we could find nothing related to this matter. The maximum possible penalty would be criminal prosecution and a $10,000 fine, but reprimands are more common, according to the newspaper article cited above.

Rather than leaving you hanging, we thought we’d offer a bit of advice to the opposition::

--Suppose you’re an anti-rail die-hard, and you can’t stand the thought of voters approving light rail for your town. So, during the election campaign, you buy TV ads and declare:

“THIS IDEA IS yadda, yadda, yadda.”

(Say whatever you want; just make sure it’s not provably false.)

--But you realize that your word alone probably won’t sway many voters. So you try this on for size:

“WENDELL COX SAYS THIS IDEA IS yadda, yadda, yadda.”

(He probably did say it . . . after all, he’s Wendell . . . but you’d better make sure that you quoted him directly.)

--The response was still not what you wanted, so you try something along these lines:

“WENDELL COX, A NOTED PHYSICIAN AND SURGEON, SAYS THIS IDEA IS yadda, yadda, yadda.”

(Now you’re on thin ice -- perilously thin. Whatever else Wendell may be, he’s not a “physician and surgeon.” IF the “physician and surgeon” statement is in any way related to the “yadda, yadda, yadda,” get ready for a run-in with your state’s version of OEC.)

In case we haven’t made the point yet . . . let’s use another example, at the expense of that hapless SAP™ laureate, Dennis “Ozone” Polhill:

“THERE’S A GUY OUT IN COLORADO WHO SAYS THAT LIGHT RAIL MOTORS EMIT OZONE!” (Is RTD Passing Gas? May 29, 2002).

(If you try this during an election campaign, you’re in big trouble, bub! As we’ve explained before, light rail motors do NOT emit ozone because they CAN’T – they have no brushes (they run off of a.c., not d.c.) and are sealed airtight.)

In other words, Dennis “Ozone” Polhill’s ozone fantasy is an example of an argument that has been rendered useless – except to the most reckless of anti-rail fanatics – during an election campaign. We here at The Secret Worldwide Transit Cabal, whose mission is to “monkeywrench” the “anti-transit forces,” would like to assure you that other anti-rail arguments have been rendered worthless, and the list is growing!

posted by The Cabalmaster, Master of All Transit-dom 10/13/2003 04:35:00 PM