As America starts taking baby steps toward building a respectable passenger rail network in this country, there remains the sad, barely acknowledged fact that twenty years ago, a major party presidential candidate was campaigning on precisely this idea. Then he became the first victim of a real Karl Rove-style media sliming, and the rest is history.
But Michael Dukakis still knows more about making rail work than most of America’s national political talent put together. With Obama dropping $13 billion as a down payment on a high speed rail system, we were curious what the Duke–now back in Boston after a semester spent teaching at UCLA–thought of these developments, and what he saw as the biggest challenges ahead.
After first speaking with him in late January, we checked in with him again by phone earlier this week.
(AND: See PART II of this interview)
Did you have an inkling this $13 billion for high speed rail was coming?
Not a clue. In fact, I was a little concerned during the campaign because, while Barack was talking about infrastructure, we could never get him to be specific about rail. For example, there were opportunities to do press events around specific projects and he just never did them. Maybe that was wise, I don’t know. But I think the vice president has played a major role in this–and more power to him.
You’re happy with the result, I assume?
Are you kidding me? For us rail fanatics this is like dying and going to heaven.
So what happens now?
Because nobody anticipated this, there are very few places in the country that are ready for it. The governors have to come together and draw up regional rail plans. Apparently there is planning money available as well. They’ve got to get it and then get going. These are not elaborate projects, for the most part–it’s taking existing track and upgrading it and putting in new signals, getting equipment, all that kind of stuff. But there’s got to be a sense of urgency here. Ray LaHood certainly has it and so do the president and the vice president.
I think Ray LaHood has been a pleasant surprise to a lot of people.
Look, he’s Lebanese – that’s practically Greek, you know? We’re from the same tribe. [Laughs] No, I like what he’s doing. He really has a sense of urgency about him. So, now the question is, are the governors going to get moving?
What governors in particular need to get going?
You take a look at New England for example, and you’d think this place would be raring to go. Well you know, there aren’t any shovel ready projects–none that I’m aware of, anyway–and the governors themselves, until a week ago when they met at a conference, there was no regional rail plan, quote unquote, up here. And you’d think this is an area where we would be miles ahead of anybody else because of the importance of rail generally here. So we’ve got a lot of work to do.
The Midwestern governors seem to be on the right track, so to speak?
Oh, absolutely. So is California. I’ve worked pretty closely with the high speed rail authority out there and, you know, they’re moving.
There’s a battle brewing in towns like Palo Alto. They’re saying the high speed rail line will be too noisy or disruptive or whatever. Does NIMBYism pose a threat to the larger project?
I certainly hope not. Wherever you’re building a brand new line obviously you’re going to have some issues. But my impression is that with the exception of that one place, Altamont Pass, people feel pretty good about it. Not only did the people of California vote for it, but they seem to support the proposed alignment.
In a national context, will NIMBYism be a problem for expanding our passenger rail system?
In most of the country because you’re using existing rights of way, so any local impact is minimal. You may get double tracking or triple tracking or just upgrades, but you don’t have to take a single house or business. So it makes that kind of problem much less of a burden.
Along with rail, there’s a lot of talk these days about congestion pricing. I was surprised to learn that you’re an opponent.
It’s not that I’m an opponent. This is a great country, but we’re a flavor-of-the-month country. The fact of the matter is we’ve got to build transportation infrastructure, and if we have to raise the gasoline tax to do that, then you do it. I raised the gas tax in the middle of a recession in 1989, and no one liked it, but we got it through. I’m just impatient. Maybe it’s because I’m confronting my own mortality or something. I’m not against it. I’m just wary of the idea that, “OK, we’ll do congestion pricing and somehow we’re to raise the money we’ll need to build stuff and we’re going to decongest our highways.” I just don’t think that’s going to happen.
Because it would be too complicated?
Hey, you want to decongest highways? Build first-class public transportation. Our highways will begin working again. I’m sorry to be so simple minded about it. I don’t want us to spend years and years debating congestion pricing. I mean, it’s appropriate in certain places. But call it what it is–a toll road–and be done with it.
Public transportation is a huge investment. A lot of people, including one of the expert participants in the NY Times’s recent debate on whether Americans could ever go car-free, say only a handful of US cities are dense enough to really support that investment.
It’s a chicken and egg thing. If you build first-class rail-based public transportation systems, over time you’ll get the kind of cities you want. Boston was in bad shape in the 60s when we were having this ten year debate over the so-called master highway plan. We were doing the same thing as everyone else, building highways and inviting people to leave town. Well, today Boston is arguably the most successful city in the country. Why? Because we stopped building highways. Admittedly we had a subway in place. But it was in terrible shape. This isn’t complicated: fixed rail produces dense, walkable cities. Highways produce sprawl. Take your pick.
Obviously this transformation would take a while.
Even in Boston it took a while before the development community came to the conclusion that if you want to build a major development, you do it near a node of the transit system. Today nobody would think of doing else. And now the city is cutting parking requirements, saying let people take transit or use Zipcars or whatever.
Is there a younger, sprawlier city that we could use as a case study?
Denver seems to be right model. They built the highways and hollowed out the city of Denver. And thanks primarily to a new mayor, John Hickenlooper, who rallied all the other local mayors, they passed a sales tax increase and are now moving on a comprehensive rail-based transit plan. And already downtown Denver is filling up again. You can see it happen. I think you can do the same thing in every major city in America. But you’ve got invest in rail, and it will take some time. Given what’s happened in the construction industry in recent months, this a great time to move on this stuff.
You really think it could work in any major American city?
Well, look at the western cities. Portland took it into it’s own hands is doing very well. Seattle is kind of moving in that direction. LA is moving that direction. Villaraigosa has been a huge champion of rail transit, and they’re moving on it. Pheonix is into light rail. Denver is a great model, as I said. Salt Lake City is doing streetcars and light rail. Everyone is into this.
You’ve been cautious about plans to build European and Japanese-style high speed rail here.
In certain places its fine. In California, it’s what they need. To their credit they’re way ahead of everyone else on it. They started way back when under Pete Wilson, a good Republican, created the high speed rail authority. There may be other opportunities. But when you have a well developed national rail network which with fairly modest investment can get you moving in the 125 mph range, without disruption and delay, for most parts of the country it makes sense to upgrade and improve those rights of way. You go to Britain and ride the trains that go 125 mph a hour – it’s not 200 mph, but it’s pretty damn good.
SEE ALSO: PART II OF THIS INTERVIEW
May 21st, 2009 at 10:33 am
[...] The Infrastructurist and Michael Dukakis talk trains: It’s a chicken and egg thing. If you build first-class rail-based public transportation systems, over time you’ll get the kind of cities you want. Boston was in bad shape in the 60s when we were having this ten year debate over the so-called master highway plan. We were doing the same thing as everyone else, building highways and inviting people to leave town. Well, today Boston is arguably the most successful city in the country. Why? Because we stopped building highways. Admittedly we had a subway in place. But it was in terrible shape. This isn’t complicated: fixed rail produces dense, walkable cities. Highways produce sprawl. Take your pick. Leave a Reply [...]
May 21st, 2009 at 5:09 pm
I just made Michael Dukakis my screen saver.
It would be better if he was wearing a train conductor’s hat though.
May 22nd, 2009 at 2:07 am
America needs to rethink how it thinks about trains and transit. Newer, advanced train technology, one that is geared to the future for speed and energy efficiency and that dramatically cuts the cost of conventional track systems, the kind Mr. Dukakis speaks so fondly of in the article, is here now, and its called Tubular Rail technology. Watch our “trackless train” technology on the Discovery Channel program called “FutureTrains” here: http://www.tubularrail.com/video.htm). Then ask yourself whether 19th century train technology is what you want to invest in, or whether you want to invest in “transformational technology” that represents a new standard for a new industry? The choice should be clear. If you would choose light bulbs or candles, cars over stagecoaches, planes or balloons, cruise ships over Spanish galleons, modern medicine over snake oil or industry’s advancement over its previous efforts, then Tubular Rail represents the next mode in passenger transport. America has squandered its rail legacy, and Americans, so in love with their cars and the sense of independence they derive from them, have not the mindset to pay for building out a new system because they fundamentally don’t understand the purpose of paying taxes in general or a transit tax in particular. But a reliable, dedicated stream of funding is needed to do just that, but all the cues in the culture hide or denigrate riding with one or more people while all the cues says cars and roads, which lead to sprawl and isolation, are part and parcel of growth and development. Not the case, but TRT represents a Wright Brother’s moment.
May 22nd, 2009 at 11:49 am
[...] Michael Dukakis told us earlier this week, the northeast is lagging miserably in the planning for high speed rail. Until [...]
May 22nd, 2009 at 12:55 pm
Has there been any serious research into this tubular rail idea, or any prototypes constructed? All those pretty pictures on the website look silly, but I’d love to see a working model, even a way scaled down simplified one.
May 22nd, 2009 at 2:29 pm
I wish people like John Spinelli would stop using the “19th Century technology” shibboleth. For the record, Mr. Spinelli, CONCRETE was invented by the Romans and the wheel was invented about the 5th Millenium B.C.
As for your “21st Century technology” (sic), it looks like some form of maglev; if so, how are you going to keep it in proper alignment when I understand most maglevs have tolerances to within 12-15 mm or so?? Like any form of fixed guideway, high speeds = closer tolerances.
May 22nd, 2009 at 2:31 pm
John Spinelli,
I like balloons.
-Jebediah
May 23rd, 2009 at 9:41 pm
It’s so cute watching the maglev, PRT and tubular rail shills bombard blogs and news articles with their pipe dream failures.
May 26th, 2009 at 8:16 am
[...] week we ran part one of our recent interview with Michael Dukakis, in which he discussed how building transit will lead [...]
May 29th, 2009 at 11:38 am
[...] picking up on the Infrastructurist’s Dukakis interview (?), the Boston Globe cites Duke’s urgent message that it’s time for New England [...]
June 3rd, 2009 at 10:28 am
If rail is a 19th century technology, then so are cars, as are bikes, rubber tyres, steel, electricity….
June 18th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
[...] picking up on the Infrastructurist’s Dukakis interview (?), the Boston Globe cites Duke’s urgent message that it’s time for New England [...]
June 23rd, 2009 at 5:21 pm
Modern rail concept, with trains pulled by locomotives is more than 200 years old and as modern and useful as ever. German Maglev it´s 38 years old and in the way out: there is only ONE line operating in China with a hugh deficit because it went to nowhere and spend a lot of electricity. It´s a hugh white elephant. The test track in Germany will be demolished. Long live the rail!
June 30th, 2009 at 9:10 am
Is it not amazing how impatient shipping practices weaned us away from the most economical mode of transportation? “No, ship it by truck, it will get here faster”. There are situations where faster is necessary, but think about all the tractor trailer rigs which are crossing the country at any moment of the day. Now cut half of that into 4 or so trains, hauling a hundred boxcars of freight. All the money that has been wasted on being so impatient that we must have it 2 days sooner than the speed of rail.
I live in New England, just north of the dukes old stomping grounds, and in my 50 years of life, I’ve traveled on Amtrak one time, coast to coast, in sleepers, loved almost every minute of it (those substandard freight tracks in the midwest are downright dangerous when you are walking in the passenger car on the upper level). The down side apart from that is where I had to surrender 3 days of my vacation just to ‘get there’. I’d only save a few hours if the Chicago to LA speed increased 50%, because that leg hit 70MPH and the delays were those bad tracks, refueling in Phoenix, yielding rights of way and all the stops. The Boston to Chicago leg would need considerable improvement to yield significant time reduction, if I recall the car steward correctly, we averaged about 50MPH, with delays caused by trackage related issues (curve too sharp for higher speeds, many grade crossings on the existing rail corridor, which existed mostly because freight still ran on rail).
I’d be looking for those rail services to improve, certainly.
I’m not at all sure that local passenger rail will work well for me. I live 50 minutes from the nearest passenger rail terminal (that commute time is not an estimate, I drove it daily for over a year)… then add a 30+ minute commute to get into Boston from that terminal. I can presently do that in my car, since I rarely go to Boston. If I had some reason to regularly commute at all by passenger rail, I most likely won’t be going into the parts of Boston where mass transit is in service (and for that end, is the T and is MBTA all that reliable?), that means my automobile drive would be significantly less than 80 minutes. If I commute by rail to areas where I’ve seen employers, I’m pretty sure I’d need a cab from whatever passenger terminal was closest to where the employer did business. Put those costs and time delays together and I might as well keep the car.
As such, I feel the latter improvements would not impact my life very much, that aside from my appreciating the trend towards greener transportation for others.
October 15th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
[...] Jebediah. Talking Trains with Michael Dukakis. The Infrastructurist. May 21, [...]
October 15th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Miami Fl to Ny Ny takes 26 hours 58 mins via amtrak, that’s around 47.4 mph, if they could boost that to 165 that would be 7.745 hours, and another 200 miles past ny ny you’re in boston MA. The one time investment to buy the infrastructure to allow passenger trains to go 220Mph from DC to Boston would cut the running costs of the line by 66%. Suddenly the public would have cheaper options that are much faster.
Maintnance for rolling stock, including passenger cars and locomotives is most directly effected by the hours of operation. Not only that, but the personnel costs would drop by 66% as well. In addition, you would need fewer trainsets to cover the same schedules.
The benefits amtrak’s NEC would see could then be used to help reduce Amtrak’s overruns, and fund other high volume inter city corridors.
March 6th, 2010 at 7:31 pm
Why exactly does New England have non-existing planning? The money is going to dry up before New England even gets in the game, and New England is the dense region most likely to benefit! The NEC is going to have to find a way to find money for this on its own because the federal funds are probably never going to materialize in sufficient quantities before opposition arrives back in congress. I don’t think there’s just enough public support out there, despite the merit and dire need in urbanized areas.
April 16th, 2010 at 11:16 am
I just wish politicians were not so blindfolded and could think in long term, then we would have plenty of maglev lines approved all over the world. The technology deserves it!
April 20th, 2010 at 5:34 am
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