Rail Expansion - Continuing an alliance with the business community
Alan Harvey is a new member of NPI. Alan is an economist and writer living in Tacoma, who has been involved with tax reform - in particular, an attempt to reform the the state's business and occupation tax. He'll be developing NPI's Economic Policy section and discussing why progressive economics work consistently, as well as why the current administration is taking us down the wrong path. We are pleased to welcome him aboard! - Andrew Villeneuve, Executive Director, Northwest Progressive Institute
The defeat of I-912 is a go-ahead for some of the most needed roads projects in the state. It is a victory for public investment won in cooperation with the region's business community. At least in transportation, regional businesses see the value of public goods. As progressives, we can build on this.
The Washington Transportation Commission just last week released an RFP for a study of how rail can contribute. If we can get past the entrenched interests of the big railroads, who would prefer to minimize capacity in order to maximize profits, ala oil refineries, this study could lead us to the next phase of transportation.
In the long term the economics of roads is impossible. Oil is a limited resource, and burning it creates dangerous climate change. The increase in automobiles projected for the next two decades will clog any number of lane miles, no matter how the cars are powered. And just the geographic surface area needed for roads and parking is enormous.
The nation’s heaviest road freight corridor is down I-5 between Seattle and Portland. Each semi causes up to 16,000 times as much damage to the roadway as a car. Shipping into Washington ports is stymied not by port facilities, but by the dearth of capacity on the main lines.
Rail is cheap. Rights-of-way are already extant. It is easier to maintain. The technology is advanced. Shifting freight onto rail can release capacity for auto traffic, increase the usable life or roads, and it gives us a place to go when the price of oil and oil’s pollution becomes to great. AND rail gives us baby boomers a way to travel when we get older. (Commuter rail is increasing ridership at 25 percent per year)
Rail also has benefits in terms of financing. It is easy to charge a toll. Bonding is practical, since the revenue stream is not a stream of taxes. The environmental, congestion, road maintenance and gas price concerns facing road-based transportation will make rail more valuable over time. Financing schemes to mirror these economics are sure to arise.
And voters like rail. There is an intuitive support for it. Opposition to roads projects arises not only from the anti-tax nuts, but from environmentalists and others who see the inevitable futility of roads-based transportation.
Almost as important, public expansion of rail can be a place for progressives and the business community to work together again. Corporate interests may dominate the federal government, but in the state, it is an anti-government Republican-led conservatism that is holding things up.
Regional and local businesses are not well served in their alliance with these reactionaries. And they are beginning to see it. Education is another area where business and progressive interests coincide. But transportation is a start.
The defeat of I-912 is a go-ahead for some of the most needed roads projects in the state. It is a victory for public investment won in cooperation with the region's business community. At least in transportation, regional businesses see the value of public goods. As progressives, we can build on this.
The Washington Transportation Commission just last week released an RFP for a study of how rail can contribute. If we can get past the entrenched interests of the big railroads, who would prefer to minimize capacity in order to maximize profits, ala oil refineries, this study could lead us to the next phase of transportation.
In the long term the economics of roads is impossible. Oil is a limited resource, and burning it creates dangerous climate change. The increase in automobiles projected for the next two decades will clog any number of lane miles, no matter how the cars are powered. And just the geographic surface area needed for roads and parking is enormous.
The nation’s heaviest road freight corridor is down I-5 between Seattle and Portland. Each semi causes up to 16,000 times as much damage to the roadway as a car. Shipping into Washington ports is stymied not by port facilities, but by the dearth of capacity on the main lines.
Rail is cheap. Rights-of-way are already extant. It is easier to maintain. The technology is advanced. Shifting freight onto rail can release capacity for auto traffic, increase the usable life or roads, and it gives us a place to go when the price of oil and oil’s pollution becomes to great. AND rail gives us baby boomers a way to travel when we get older. (Commuter rail is increasing ridership at 25 percent per year)
Rail also has benefits in terms of financing. It is easy to charge a toll. Bonding is practical, since the revenue stream is not a stream of taxes. The environmental, congestion, road maintenance and gas price concerns facing road-based transportation will make rail more valuable over time. Financing schemes to mirror these economics are sure to arise.
And voters like rail. There is an intuitive support for it. Opposition to roads projects arises not only from the anti-tax nuts, but from environmentalists and others who see the inevitable futility of roads-based transportation.
Almost as important, public expansion of rail can be a place for progressives and the business community to work together again. Corporate interests may dominate the federal government, but in the state, it is an anti-government Republican-led conservatism that is holding things up.
Regional and local businesses are not well served in their alliance with these reactionaries. And they are beginning to see it. Education is another area where business and progressive interests coincide. But transportation is a start.
