Wakey wakey Wall Street Journal - the real money's in roads (a regular memo)
Posted Thu, 2008-02-14 07:12
NEWS DESK: Guys, Rupert'll go bananas if you don't get with it - the story on real money, roads money, not rail.
Daniel Machalara has come out of his eyrie in upper Vermont or is it New Hampshire, and got down to the Gulf coast and turned in his triennial piece on a "dawning new era of rail" grabbing page one no less - the same heap of warmed over rah-rah rail revival garbage you ran in 2004, 2001, 1999, 1996 or whatever. This time Dan Mack's all excited about the $300m upgrade of a rail track to the metropolis of Meridian Mississippi that allows the freight trains from Louisiana to run there at a speed of 60mph instead of 25mph. Not quite up to drag races with the trucks, but getting closer to be sure.
(WSJ Feb 13 pA1, or as you have it on the banner Vol CCLI No. 36 - does the WSJ really go back to
Roman times with those CVICLX numerations? We thought you were just Victorian with those mouthy stylings of 'Mr. Huckabee' and 'Mr. Obama' that you report the election campaign. Readers might think they were Sir Huckabee or Lord Obama if you didn't title them mister in every single reference?)
But back on rail. Whenever I've asked them why they truck it, rather than rail it, shippers tell me it's not the time rolling that's the problem with rail, even if 60mph is a newsworthy advance for Dan Mack's choo-choos. The problem is the time the cargo doesn't roll at all. It's the time it just sits in some 'classification yard' waiting for a new train to be formed up, or gets stuck in a great heap of containers in an intermodal facility, or when the trailer-on-flatcar just waits on a siding for the roadwheels to bobtail it down to the yard. It is typically days of sitting, but then you never know with rail, they say. Deliveries are about as predictable as the weather.
At conferences and in policy papers the experts talk about intermodal transfers - a fancy term for loading and unloading trains or boats - being made "seamless." Neat sounding concept, except that the act of loading and unloading trains and boats and keeping track of the large boxes is inherently seamy. Ironing out the seams is expensive and slow.
A just-in-time economy is only marginally helped by 60mph rail lines. The bulk of the freight will continue to roll on rubber tires. On tires it can go door to door, or loading dock to loading dock. Or be handled at the hundreds of thousands of ex-urban warehouses and yards that all have road access, but rarely a rail siding.
But now you're done with Dan Mack's perennial story about the rail revival that never happens, if you're to avoid the Wrath of Rupert, you've got to pick up on some real news - road money, big money, big policy issues.
Consider the news your readers have totally missed the last few months with Dan Mack in Meridian Miss.:
- the fight in New Jersey over a $40 billion plan by Governor Corzine to "monetize" the New Jersey Turnpike and other tollroads (even the NY Times is onto this one)
- Pennsylvania Act 44 which has dominated Pennsylvania politics since last summer and still has story legs, the fight over tolling I-80 and the fight for survival of the venerable Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, the federal indictment on 141 charges of corruption of the Turnpike's great patron Sen Vince Fumo, and Governor Rendell's $30 billion plan to privatize its operations
- the roadblock thrown up by environmental crazies at California's Coastal Commission to completion of a tollroad network in southern California, Gov Schwarznegger's painful fence sitting act, and the decision that has to be made by the US Secretary of Commerce on whether to override the coasters
- US Transportation Secretary Mary Peters amazing policy confrontation with the whole Washington DC roads establishment, the congressional earmarkers and the alphabet soup of lobbyists - AASHTO, ARTBA etc about the future of roads funding, gas taxes and earmarks vs pricing and the market
- the big fight the feds have picked with the rail-enthusiast establishment in northern Virginia and Tysons Corner over saying 'No' to money for the $5 billion Dulles Rail line which the locals want to prop up with Dulles Toll Road tolls and the bizarre story of how an airports authority nearly managed to muscle its way in to seize a tollroad and a rail line as well
- how the Capital Beltway, I-95 and the Shirley Highway down to the Pentagon are being rebuilt with billions of private investments from Australia on the promise of tolling express lanes
- toll plazas planning to go cashless, including those within sight of your offices there on Wall Street, if not from Vermont
- IBM's big move back into tolls (after computerizing the PA and OH pikes in the 60s they exited the business) and their bid for Mayor Bloomberg's congestion charging scheme in New York City following a triumph in Stockholm and their controversial patent on variable road pricing
TOLLROADSnews 2008-02-14
Daniel Machalara has come out of his eyrie in upper Vermont or is it New Hampshire, and got down to the Gulf coast and turned in his triennial piece on a "dawning new era of rail" grabbing page one no less - the same heap of warmed over rah-rah rail revival garbage you ran in 2004, 2001, 1999, 1996 or whatever. This time Dan Mack's all excited about the $300m upgrade of a rail track to the metropolis of Meridian Mississippi that allows the freight trains from Louisiana to run there at a speed of 60mph instead of 25mph. Not quite up to drag races with the trucks, but getting closer to be sure.
(WSJ Feb 13 pA1, or as you have it on the banner Vol CCLI No. 36 - does the WSJ really go back to
Roman times with those CVICLX numerations? We thought you were just Victorian with those mouthy stylings of 'Mr. Huckabee' and 'Mr. Obama' that you report the election campaign. Readers might think they were Sir Huckabee or Lord Obama if you didn't title them mister in every single reference?)But back on rail. Whenever I've asked them why they truck it, rather than rail it, shippers tell me it's not the time rolling that's the problem with rail, even if 60mph is a newsworthy advance for Dan Mack's choo-choos. The problem is the time the cargo doesn't roll at all. It's the time it just sits in some 'classification yard' waiting for a new train to be formed up, or gets stuck in a great heap of containers in an intermodal facility, or when the trailer-on-flatcar just waits on a siding for the roadwheels to bobtail it down to the yard. It is typically days of sitting, but then you never know with rail, they say. Deliveries are about as predictable as the weather.
At conferences and in policy papers the experts talk about intermodal transfers - a fancy term for loading and unloading trains or boats - being made "seamless." Neat sounding concept, except that the act of loading and unloading trains and boats and keeping track of the large boxes is inherently seamy. Ironing out the seams is expensive and slow.
A just-in-time economy is only marginally helped by 60mph rail lines. The bulk of the freight will continue to roll on rubber tires. On tires it can go door to door, or loading dock to loading dock. Or be handled at the hundreds of thousands of ex-urban warehouses and yards that all have road access, but rarely a rail siding.
But now you're done with Dan Mack's perennial story about the rail revival that never happens, if you're to avoid the Wrath of Rupert, you've got to pick up on some real news - road money, big money, big policy issues.
Consider the news your readers have totally missed the last few months with Dan Mack in Meridian Miss.:
- the fight in New Jersey over a $40 billion plan by Governor Corzine to "monetize" the New Jersey Turnpike and other tollroads (even the NY Times is onto this one)
- Pennsylvania Act 44 which has dominated Pennsylvania politics since last summer and still has story legs, the fight over tolling I-80 and the fight for survival of the venerable Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, the federal indictment on 141 charges of corruption of the Turnpike's great patron Sen Vince Fumo, and Governor Rendell's $30 billion plan to privatize its operations
- the roadblock thrown up by environmental crazies at California's Coastal Commission to completion of a tollroad network in southern California, Gov Schwarznegger's painful fence sitting act, and the decision that has to be made by the US Secretary of Commerce on whether to override the coasters
- US Transportation Secretary Mary Peters amazing policy confrontation with the whole Washington DC roads establishment, the congressional earmarkers and the alphabet soup of lobbyists - AASHTO, ARTBA etc about the future of roads funding, gas taxes and earmarks vs pricing and the market
- the big fight the feds have picked with the rail-enthusiast establishment in northern Virginia and Tysons Corner over saying 'No' to money for the $5 billion Dulles Rail line which the locals want to prop up with Dulles Toll Road tolls and the bizarre story of how an airports authority nearly managed to muscle its way in to seize a tollroad and a rail line as well
- how the Capital Beltway, I-95 and the Shirley Highway down to the Pentagon are being rebuilt with billions of private investments from Australia on the promise of tolling express lanes
- toll plazas planning to go cashless, including those within sight of your offices there on Wall Street, if not from Vermont
- IBM's big move back into tolls (after computerizing the PA and OH pikes in the 60s they exited the business) and their bid for Mayor Bloomberg's congestion charging scheme in New York City following a triumph in Stockholm and their controversial patent on variable road pricing
TOLLROADSnews 2008-02-14