Escape to (and from) New York

A few weeks ago I traveled from Oregon to New York for the third time in the last year. This was my longest visit — a full two weeks including a brief excursion to Buffalo and Rochester for a family reunion. In Manhattan, we stayed with five friends from Geneva, Switzerland — two of whom had never been to the city before and spoke no English whatsoever. So I had the chance to practice my French and serve as an informal tour guide — an enjoyable duty, to be sure. Nearly four decades after moving away from the city, it's still a huge treat to go back.

The deterioration of New York's infrastructure has been abundantly recorded and condemned (most recently by the Times' Tom Friedman, whom I hesitate to mention in any context due to his disastrous misjudgments on other issues). So I'll confine myself to an anecdote that invites an extended comment on the state of our national transportation network.

On August 11th, we and our Swiss friends were scheduled to fly to Buffalo from JFK on separate flights. Severe thunderstorms developed that morning, as forecast, and dumped heavy rain on the NY region. At LaGuardia airport, for example, nickel-sized hail fell and winds reached 60 mph. There were tornado warnings farther out on Long Island.

Not surprisingly, a number of flights were canceled (including our friends' flight to Buffalo) or postponed. We were scheduled to leave later from JFK via JetBlue, but the flight was rescheduled three or four times. For reasons far too annoying and complicated to recount, we (like our friends) finally rented a car at the airport and drove the 450 miles to Buffalo.

The airport delays were inevitable, of course, given the fierce weather conditions. No blame there. Refugees from canceled flights roamed through JFK searching for alternatives, overwhelming the lines filled with people (like us) trying to board postponed departures. People were in tears and, at times, it looked like scuffles were about to erupt. The airlines did little, it seemed, to respond to these predictable frustrations.

In the midst of all the chaos, it occurred to me that there must be far better ways to transport large numbers of people. Many of the canceled flights on the boards were for short and medium distances: places like Boston, Washington, Richmond, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Albany and, of course, Buffalo — our destination.

And of course there is a better way: trains. In Japan, I traveled on the high-speed shinkansen system from Kyoto to Tokyo at 125 mph. Trains on a few routes that are unimpeded by Japan's typically mountainous terrain can reach 188 mph. Some 375,000 people travel on the shinkansen every day. The trains are quiet, comfortable, beautifully engineered and run on time almost without exception. A proposed maglev (magnetic levitation) version has, in tests, reached speeds of 361 mph. The shinkansen system has an impeccable safety record.

A few years ago, I also rode the French TGV (train à grande vitesse, or "train of great speed") system on the Lausanne-Paris-Geneva routes at speeds up to 200 mph. On the flat farmlands southeast of Paris, the TGV passed cars on the adjacent freeway like they were hardly moving at all. The TGV trains are even faster than the shinkansen. In 2001, a TGV traversed France from Calais to Marseille, a distance of 663 miles, in just 3 1/2 hours.

For short and medium distances, these speeds are highly competitive with air travel. Most train stations are in the centers of cities, avoiding long and often aggravating trips to and from airports. In a standard TGV, my trip to Buffalo would've only required about 2 1/2 hours.

High-speed trains are far less vulnerable to weather delays than airplanes and automobile traffic. Trains can run on electricity rather than aviation fuel, whose price has increased by 62.5% over the last year. Amtrak's engines, many of which are still diesel-powered, use only 2/3 as many BTU's per mile as cars, buses and airplanes. While the federal government subsidizes Amtrak at the rate of $40 per passenger each year (for a total of $1.4 billion in 2006), "highways are subsidized at a rate of $500–$700 per automobile."

In a rational universe, the U.S. would've invested in sytems like the shinkansen and TGV decades ago instead of defunding and neglecting Amtrak, the last vestige of a once-proud passenger rail system. The U.S. is now 31st in per capita rail miles per year, far behind other industrial and industrializing nations. Outside the northeast corridor, private automobiles account for 99.9% of all intercity passenger miles. Incredibly, cities like Phoenix, Las Vegas, Columbus, Tulsa, Nashville, Des Moines and Boise have no passenger rail service at all.

Not surprisingly, this year's enormous increases in the cost of oil have raised demand for rail service. Still, there is little evidence of the kind of strategic planning that produced the shinkansen, the TGV or the Transrapid maglev system that currently operates, with great efficiency, in Shanghai. Short-term thinking — the bane of the U.S. economy and political system — rules, as usual, in D.C.

[PHOTO by the author.]

A Car-Free Day

Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski has put together an ambitious legislative package to promote renewable energy sources, as detailed in the Sunday Oregonian (February 11th). For the first time since his election in 2002, he has a Democratic legislature that seems open to innovation in this, and many other, areas.

So far energy conservation hasn't been a major focus of the discussion here in Oregon. But a statewide conservation program, designed to significantly reduce consumption of fossil fuels, would easily and inexpensively complement the proposals that have been offered. There has been little recognition of the value of energy conservation at the federal level, leaving it up to the states, in the spirit of creative federalism, to develop their own approaches to overcoming the “national addiction” to oil.

My modest proposal is to encourage each Oregon household to select a voluntary “Car-Free Day” which could potentially reduce statewide gasoline consumption and pollution by anywhere from 5-15% (1). The Car-Free Day would emphasize the following:

1. Encouraging Oregonians to refrain from driving their cars one day per week.

Families could plan their weeks so that travel by car would be unnecessary during whichever day they choose as their Car-Free Day. For most of us, it would be easiest to begin on weekends, though the Car-Free Day would then provide less relief from heavy volumes of urban traffic on weekdays. As the concept gains currency, though, increasing numbers of drivers could explore alternative ways to commute to work by bus, carpool, bicycle, streetcar, train or foot.

2. Encouraging Oregonians to exercise more and explore their own communities on their Car-Free Day.

Everyone would benefit from more exercise, but the Car-Free Day would offer a less obvious advantage: relief from the growing stress of driving, especially with the increasing volumes of traffic here in the Portland region (as also described in the Sunday Oregonian article headlined "Car-choked highways certain to get worse"). Walkers and bikers could explore their own communities, re-acquaint themselves with their neighbors and perhaps get involved in various projects that would improve their town. (Examples: litter and graffiti cleanups, tree plantings, sports.) Even a subtle change in lifestyle, with less emphasis on the automobile, could offer long-term benefits to American families and their communities.

3. The plan would be voluntary, informal and flexible, with no government supervision at any level. It could begin with a simple proclamation by the governor or legislative resolution followed by a press release and appropriate publicity (2).

The voluntary Car-Free Day could be implemented at no cost to taxpayers and without negative impacts on Oregon’s economy. Some participating Oregonians might not go grocery shopping on Saturday, but their need for groceries (or clothing or electronics or anything else) would not be affected. Owners of trucks and other commercial vehicles could also participate, of course.

But wouldn't people just drive more on the six other days? Not necessarily, since the long-term goal of the program is to promote consciousness of automobile use and ways to reduce it. A fringe benefit might be reduced use of second (or third) cars, which would have similar benefits.

The economic advantages of even a modest conservation program could prove substantial. Consider, for example, that the U.S. consumes about 21 million barrels of oil per day at a current price of $60 per barrel (February 9^th). Two-thirds of that oil is imported. American automobiles consume more than 8.2 million barrels of oil per day, an amount roughly equal to Saudi Arabia’s daily production. If all our automobiles were in a separate country, only three other countries would produce more carbon dioxide emissions per year.

A national Car-Free Day each week could potentially reduce oil consumption by 14%, or about 1.23 million barrels a day. Annualized, the savings would be enormous: 420 million barrels or $25.2 billion. Even if the program at its inception reduced consumption by only 5%, the economy would save $15 billion, with proportionate benefits to Oregon and states.

The environmental benefits would be even more impressive, though it’s difficult to place an economic value on air made more breathable though reduced emissions of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide, benzene, particulates and other pollutants. A study by the National Academy of Sciences showed that a reduction in oil consumption of 1.2 million barrels a day, similar to what I’m proposing, would reduce pollutants associated with global warming by 50 million metric tons by 2015.

Surveys show that Americans are eager to support efforts to achieve energy independence, but they have been given little sense of direction by the current administration. The weekly Car-Free Day would strengthen Oregon’s reputation for national leadership and nicely complement the state's efforts to diversify its energy portfolio.

NOTES AND SOURCES

(1) The "Car-Free Day" has been proposed in places like Canada and the EU. For the most part, as in Canada and the International Car-Free Day (September 22nd), that "day" is an annual, rather than weekly, event. While this approach has symbolic value, its practical impact is nil.

(2) No, this program would never be mandatory, with the government deciding who can or can't drive and on what day. Years ago I adopted my own Car-Free Day (usually Sundays), and it has yielded unexpected benefits on many levels. But that's the subject for a future blog.

CIA World Factbook: United States (2006)
Online at: https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/print/us.html

Putting the brakes on U.S. oil demand (2003)
Environmental Defense
John DeCicco with Rod Griffin and Steve Ertel
Online at: http://www.environmentaldefense.org/
documents/3115_OilDemand.pdf