CMAP statement August 2006

CMAP STATEMENT Aug 2006
What is the public supposed to do with the vast array of
undigested material presented in the draft 2030 Regional
Transportation Plan Update, the proposed Transportation
Improvement Program, the draft Air Quality Conformity Analysis,
and the revised 2030 forecasts, but without any real cost-benefit
data?
Play an eeney-meeney- minee-moe game with transportation
projects? Grind some local axe? Hobby-horse some pet
technology?
What is the legislature supposed to do, swallow it whole?
The public is hard put to know what it thinks itself. The August 9
"meeting" was far from a real hearing where you get to hear
everybody and everybody gets to hear you. It was just a big
show'n'tell spread over several wall posters, several
documents, and several staffers. There were several
complaints, not just mine, that this is not a real hearing. Email is
not listed in meeting announcements, but why not a yahoo group
of sorts which lets everyone see everyone else's posting? Are
public comments just going into some bureaucratic memory
hole? Maybe there are legal grounds to compel some real
hearing procedure; maybe there is some federal administrative
requirement that might decertify the "planning" process.
How is an Illinois taxpayer, concerned with economic
investment of state funds in transportation, as opposed to the
usual pork barreling, bomber generaling, and civic ego tripping,
supposed to make any sense of all this? That alone would be a
full-time job. Figure many of these projects are local in nature
and should be funded locally, where the taxpayers have a
fighting chance of keeping track of things. Funding transit
projects in particular by land value capture would make them an
entirely different game, one that makes some real comparison of
costs and benefits.
How is a federal taxpayer supposed to do the same thing,
figuring what Uncle Sucker funds from Broken Bow to the Big
Apple? It will be astronomically far from the scrutiny any well-run
business makes of its expenditures. Figure this sort of failure to
prepare for the future is what caused the Soviet Union to
collapse, whether because of central planning or excessive
expenditures, and we are not that far behind. Federal funding of
local projects creates the incentive to run up a bill, especially
when the watchword now among transit agencies here is, don't
leave any federal dollars on the table. The
movingbeyondcongest ion website is a very slick promotion for
perpetuation of very expensive, very obsolete transportation
technologies.
With that in mind, I think there should be a moratorium on road
and rail capital projects, except either the Gray Line proposal to
put the electric commuter trains on a combined fare with CTA or
generally putting commuter trains and CTA on a common fare,
until;
1) both the public and transportation planners are familiar with
an ever increasing number of books on both oil and public
money running out. There is simply no time horizon running to
2030. In view of looming uncertainties it would be best to curtail
projects without a very short, very definite, non-pork barrel
pay-back. The resources are needed elsewhere now and will be
more so in the near future.
2) there is some real time, hands on experience with at least
one technology that can do much more for much less than third
rail rapid transit and commuter rail. This is a monorail
technology that uses a linear induction motor to both propel and
suspend the vehicle under a standard steel beam. Thus the
vehicle costs about the same as a bus of similar capacity or a
half or third as much as a comparable vehicle and the structure
about one-tenth as much as a elevated structure. The footprint
being only columns eighty feet apart, it can go over existing
rights-of-way without disrupting anything. A vehicle that an
ordinary bus can drive on and off would make it an overhead
high speed, high occupancy lane. With computer matched
riders, it could provide thirty mile, one seat, one hour rides, bus
stop to bus stop. A heavy duty version could move semi-trailers
with similar felicity. Transit culture most unfortunately does not
have any such term as "totaled." Figure CTA has been saying for
some years that it will cost $5 billion to get the system in good
shape. Figure, too, that one-tenth of that will buy a whole new
bus system. So, then, $4.5 billion for rapid transit? What does
car culture do when the repair shop says it will take $45,000 to fix
the old buggy? For that kind of moola the Mercedes or Lexus
dealer is more than happy to talk to you. Will such a monorail
actually work? Who knows, although it has been used in
amusement park rides for four decades. Who cares, at least
until the moola runs out?
3) there is some serious study of a rail freight by-pass strategy
of Chicago. Some 9,000 cars move through the Chicago area
daily, neither originating nor terminating here, a factor not
recognized in the CREATE plan.The case for restoring the Peoria
&Eastern, 210 direct miles Peoria to Indianapolis, as opposed to
350 via Chicago, is not merely a by-pass of Chicago congestion
but also a substantial short-cut for traffic to and from the
southeast. A thorough Chicago by-pass strategy would have to
consider the TP&W, the Kankakee Belt, and others, but those
would be largely for traffic to and from the northeast and with a
lesser if any short-cut. Actually it might be worth some mileage to
avoid Chicago congestion. As we move the fork in the road north
and west of Peoria, the mileage advantage decreases. Since
Galesburg is it for both ATSF and CBQ mainlines, the
Galesburg-Indianapo lis mileage is 260 via Peoria and 360 via
Chicago. The UP might route Sterling-Peoria, 83 miles or so, but
Sterling-Chicago is only 120 miles. Thus Sterling-Indianapol is is
295 miles via Peoria, 300 via Chicago, a wash mileage wise, but
still avoiding Chicago. In any event, the costs of restoring
downstate lines should be a small fraction of the CREATE
project.
When I got home that evening of Aug. 9 there was a TV report on
the Chicago Transit Authority needing some $8 billion capital
investment over the next five years, one little slice of reality that
somehow escaped me that afternoon. $7.5 billion for the once
great third rail? A billion here, a billion there, however, as some
downstate politician famously said some years ago. So let's not
too surprised if many of these projects are exercises in
spending federal money.
U.S. v. Butler, 297 U.S. 1, 64-68, held that an expanded reading
of the general welfare clause would authorize federal funding of
national projects but not local projects.
The only argument against the Gray Line project is that it does
run into some Rube Goldberg and putting the diesel lines too on
a common fare with CTA would not take that much more. In any
event, a single fare for CTA and commuter train riders would
make the system incomparably more useful and allow cuts of
CTA service, especially on the electric lines.
William F. Wendt, Jr.