Nov 6th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
SUPERTRAIN Needed
Transportation for America Communications Director David Goldberg takes to the CAPAF Wonk Room to urge President-Elect Obama to give America a transportation system we can believe in. You can sign the petition here.
43 Responses to “SUPERTRAIN Needed”
Register
RSSLogin
Advertisement
Visit Our Affiliated Sites
Books By Matthew Yglesias
Topic CloudView topics sorted by popularity
Abortion
Afghanistan
Basketball
Blanche Lincoln
Budget
China
climate
Congress
Crime
DC
Demographics
Economics
Economy
Energy
Environment
EU
Finance
Football
Gender
Health Care
History
Inequality
International Law
International Relations
Iran
Israel
Media
Monetary Policy
National Security
NATO
NBA
Palestine
Political Reform
Public Health
Public Opinion
Race
Regulation
Russia
Sarah Palin
Sports
Stimulus
taxes
Technology
Trade
transportation
Featured
Subscribe to the Progress Report
Contact Matthew Yglesias
Use this form to contact blog author Matthew Yglesias.
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
November 6th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
I’m sure that Mr. Mixner will be along to favor us with some trenchant commentary.
November 6th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Am I dating myself to suggest that “Supertrain” has pretty terrible associations, considering the TV flop of the same name? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supertrain.
I guess it is preferable to “The Big Bus” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Bus
November 6th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
Transportation for America has also just released some promotional footage to go along with their petition.
November 6th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
The nation’s air traffic control system could do with some modernizing as well. I’ve never quite understood why the air transportation system is usually overlooked in these transportation infrastructure undertakings. http://www.jpdo.gov
November 6th, 2008 at 9:31 pm
via Ed Cone, I found this link and information:
http://www.change.gov/
http://www.change.gov/agenda/urbanpolicy/
November 6th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
change.gov gives you some idea of how little priority Obama is likely to give transportation. It doesn’t even rate its own spot on his “Agenda” menu. It’s buried inside “Additional Issues.” Apparently, transportation is less important than “Faith,” “Disabilities,” “Rural” and “Veterans,” all of which get their own entry on the “Agenda.” And when Obama does mention transportation, he mainly talks about roads and highways and bridges, with only the occasional reference to public transportation. A search on “Amtrak” yielded 0 hits.
I was encouraged to see that Obama prominently features the following items on his “Energy & Environment” page:
- Get 1 Million Plug-In Hybrid Cars on the Road by 2015
- Develop and Deploy Clean Coal Technology
- Prioritize the Construction of the Alaska Natural Gas Pipeline
- Promote the Responsible Domestic Production of Oil and Natural Gas
But since Matthew assures us Obama is an authentic “progressive,” rather than a triangulating Clintonian centrist, he doubtless has a secret SUPERTRAIN plan he’s just not telling us about yet.
November 6th, 2008 at 11:39 pm
Sigh.
Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe that it is critically important for the United States to rebuild its national transportation infrastructure – its highways, bridges, roads, ports, air, and train systems – to strengthen user safety, bolster our long-term competitiveness and ensure our economy continues to grow.
* Create a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will address the infrastructure challenge by creating a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank to expand and enhance, not supplant, existing federal transportation investments. This independent entity will be directed to invest in our nation’s most challenging transportation infrastructure needs. The Bank will receive an infusion of federal money, $60 billion over 10 years, to provide financing to transportation infrastructure projects across the nation. These projects will create up to two million new direct and indirect jobs and stimulate approximately $35 billion per year in new economic activity.
That took me less than 2 minutes to find on the Change.gov site. Somehow, Mixner’s efforts yielded nothing. Better trolls please.
November 6th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
Well done, D. I see your capacity for irrelevance has not dimminished. Did you find anything that conflicts with what I just said? No, I didn’t think so.
Better morons, please.
November 7th, 2008 at 12:08 am
I have a question. Apart from our immediate needs for infrastructure spending to stimulate a failing economy, and apart from the need to repair some obvious infrastructure elements that are not going away, like bridges, what should be our long term infrastructure strategy in this country? That is, thinking purely in terms of the future of the US economy and the future organization of life and work in America, what kind of public investment in infrastructure do we most need to work with and enhance that likely future, rather than fight against it?
Isn’t it the case that the physical movement of people is becoming somewhat less important, while the movement of their ideas and intellectual work product via communication devices is becoming more important? How will people choose to live if they are gradually freed from the necessity of living within a short reach of their physical workplaces? How can chronically underemployed communities be more effectively integrated into the nation’s and the world’s economy? How can we promote economic growing activity while simultaneously decreasing the costly, inefficient and environmentally damaging daily lugging of people to and fro over the landscape?
Also, are there physical infrastructure improvements that should be promoted because they can enhance the effective social interactivity and connectedness of relatively small and humane communities, and help build our social capital, even if they are not involved in the world of commerce?
And finally, which long-term infrastructure plans are most conducive to the advancement of freedom?
November 7th, 2008 at 12:19 am
Mixner: Along with what has already been said, the “Agenda” menu seems to be based pretty closely on the “Issues” pages on the BarackObama.com campaign website. (Which seems like an efficient way of going about things.) As such, the comparative weighting of issues is not necessarily the degree to which the Obama administration will care about the issues, but how much they thought it mattered in the context of the campaign trail.
November 7th, 2008 at 12:36 am
“Googol”
Transportation is not given any priority in either the campaign website or the new transition website. If Obama wanted to give greater visibility to the issue on his new website, he could do so simply by rearranging a few links. To the extent that Obama does talk about transportation, it’s mainly about motor vehicle-related infrastructure and technology—roads, highways, bridges, alternative fuels, electric cars. There’s very little about public transportation at all.
November 7th, 2008 at 1:01 am
Ahem.
November 7th, 2008 at 1:15 am
Mixner says: change.gov gives you some idea of how little priority Obama is likely to give transportation.
I provide a quote from change.gov detailing $60 billion in proposed new transportation spending.
Mixner says: A search on “Amtrak” yielded 0 hits.
I provide a quote concerning Obama’s plans for spending on “train systems” among other transportation projects.
Mixner takes these unequivocal refutations of his statements as evidence that his characterization of Obama’s plans is correct.
Mixner is an idiot.
QED
I can’t tell you how much I look forward to Mixner claiming that $60 billion really does constitute “little priority” and that the difference between “train systems” and “Amtrak” is a distinction crucial to his argument. You just know it’s coming.
November 7th, 2008 at 6:06 am
Matt, I hope that you keep reporting and following up on this issue. I signed the petition because I can’t think of anything that is more important to the long-term health of our country, our environment, and our economy than a smart transportation policy, and especially the expansion of rail services. It’s not going to be like Germany, where you can get anywhere on a train, for a few decades, but we need to make a start.
November 7th, 2008 at 7:27 am
It’s not going to be like Germany, where you can get anywhere on a train, for a few decades, but we need to make a start.
It is never going to be like Germany. The population density of Germany is more than eight times that of the United States.
We can’t have a smart transportation policy if people begin with such unrealistic expectations.
November 7th, 2008 at 7:38 am
hope that you keep reporting and following up on this issue. I signed the petition because I can’t think of anything that is more important to the long-term health of our country, our environment, and our economy than a smart transportation policy, and especially
November 7th, 2008 at 8:09 am
A couple small points:
(1) I remain skeptical about the notion that virtual workplaces will gradually take over the entire economy. My sense is that so far this has worked only in certain limited cases, and that most employers continue to find it necessary to have their employees physically working together.
(2) Comparative national density calculations are of very little utility when discussing transportation policy in the United States. That is because the United States population is not distributed anything close to evenly. See, for example, here:
http://www.census.gov/geo/www/mapGallery/2kpopden.html
For comparison, here is a similar map of France. Note the comparatively even distribution pattern:
http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/ERD/DB/mapdb/map_4.htm
As Matt himself has pointed out before, for these purposes a better measure would be weighted population density, which would moderate the distributional issues. But even that I think is the wrong approach: transportation policy in the United States obviously needs to reflect the fact that the country is made up of some very different regions, and so our transportation infrastructure will have to be tailored to each region in light of each region’s specific characteristics. In that sense, attempts to discuss the appropriate transporation infrastructure for the United States as if it were one undifferentiated mass are bound to reach erroneous conclusions.
November 7th, 2008 at 8:31 am
Well, that ‘wonkroom’ posting was pretty thin soup, sort of like the wave at hygeine that men do as they leave the restroom and point their hands briefly at the sink to indicate that they have remembered that they are supposed to wash their hands.
In fact, the Obama campaign platform seems to be more muscular right now than the public call for action.
During the Bush years, the Bush gang kept moving the goalposts. There should be local projects waiting for funding, but probably some local authorities simply needed to go ahead with less perfect ameliorative measures and band-aid fixes.
It’s tempting to think the state DOTs will be as brain-dead as Mixner and simply ask the feds for money to add lanes and strengthen bridges. But we seem to be looking at an electorate that has seen what their DOT dished up and found it distinctly wanting.
Basically, the first task for an Obama administration is to cut out the kudzu vines of the Bush gang from the Federal agencies, so they can at least function normally. This alone will help state and municipal agencies develop cost-effective plans, which will score quite well under regular guidelines.
The Bush gang was always about keeping the qualified people from working, sort of like Mixner trying to mess with people’s brains in these threads. We have no shortage of talent in this country, and the California HSR project offers a nice example of how a project can be developed and thoroughly vetted before seeking funding.
Sure, sign the petition. But if you really want to make a difference, pay attention. Because there’s probably some smart growth and transit development happening right now, close to you.
November 7th, 2008 at 11:29 am
I really have no life, contribute nothing to society, and will soon be unable to leave the basement where I wank out my pathetic Sprawl Belt existence.
November 7th, 2008 at 11:41 am
I am a lying fool.
November 7th, 2008 at 11:51 am
DMonteith,
I provide a quote from change.gov detailing $60 billion in proposed new transportation spending.
You provided a quote proposing $60 billion in transportation infrastructure spending over 10 years, or an average of $6 billion a year, which is less than 0.2% of the federal budget. There were no “details,” but the vast majority of that spending is likely to go to roads, highways and related infrastructure, since our transportation system is so overwhelmingly dominated by motor vehicles.
November 7th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
DTM,
As Matt himself has pointed out before, for these purposes a better measure would be weighted population density, which would moderate the distributional issues. But even that I think is the wrong approach: transportation policy in the United States obviously needs to reflect the fact that the country is made up of some very different regions,
There is no conflict between the use of weighted density for evaluating the merits of different kinds of transportation policy and the fact that densities vary between different regions of the country. Weighted density shows the stupidity of your belief that urban area density is a useful density measure for transportation policy. Los Angeles has a higher urban area density than New York, but Los Angeles obviously could not support New York’s public transportation system, because LA’s population is much more uniformly distributed within its urban area than is New York’s.
Also, in every region the trend is a shift away from higher density and towards lower density. The national trend is a shift in population and jobs away from higher-density regions towards lower-density regions.
November 7th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Mixner,
Obviously, you didn’t understand my point or data, this time or the prior time you are referencing. You are also factually incorrect about population trends in the United States.
November 7th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Unlike Mixner, I don’t use sock puppets to call an idiot an idiot. You’d think that someone so fond of using them would be better at attributing their use by others, though.
There were no “details,” but the vast majority of that spending is likely to go to roads, highways and related infrastructure, since our transportation system is so overwhelmingly dominated by motor vehicles.
Your initial comment that I quoted said “transportation”. The fact that you now wish, given that the website and my comment also address transportation, that you had said something else does not alter the fact that you were wrong. It actually serves to emphasize it.
Also, let me re-quote, since you missed it the first time: “…National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank to expand and enhance, not supplant, existing federal transportation investments…”
I put the hard parts in bold for you. And I will also note that I was right when I said “I look forward to Mixner claiming that $60 billion really does constitute “little priority”. Let me complement you on the mobility and predictability of your goal posts.
November 7th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
DMonteith,
Your initial comment that I quoted said “transportation”. The fact that you now wish, given that the website and my comment also address transportation, that you had said something else does not alter the fact that you were wrong. It actually serves to emphasize it.
I’m sure you wish I wish I had said something else, so I’m sorry to disappoint you. As I said, the evidence from Obama’s own websites and other campaign material is that transportation is a low priority for him, and that to the extent he addresses it at all his focus will be on roads, highways, and cars, not rail or public transportation.
I put the hard parts in bold for you.
Well done again. Here’s something in bold for you: $60 billion over 10 years is an average of $6 billion a year, which is less than 0.2% of the current federal budget. Assuming Obama really wants and manages to get that 0.2% increase for transportation, most of it will likely be spent on roads and highways and associated infrastructure, because roads and highways so overwhelmingly dominate our transportation system.
November 7th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
Mixner,
If, as you regard the smoking ruins that reality has made of your ideology, it makes you feel better to convince yourself on no evidence whatsoever that at least federal spending on transportation will increase by no more than 10-15%, all I can say is, keep on rockin’ in the free world!
December 9th, 2008 at 8:19 am
Tokyo/New York, Nov 18 (DPA) Mazda Motor Corp and other business partners plan to buy back a 20-percent stake of the Japanese automaker from Ford Motor Co Wednesday, the automakers said Tuesday.Ford will reduce its share of Mazda to 13
January 15th, 2009 at 2:59 am
laptop battery
laptop batteries
March 9th, 2009 at 9:46 am
Hay,I like your posting friend and i would like to link exchange with your blog if you want.this is my blog Car Body Kit And also dont forget to come.i will happy if you come .Good bye friend
March 17th, 2009 at 2:27 am
Great site. Good info
tramadol
March 22nd, 2009 at 6:19 am
tramadol
Incredible site!
April 2nd, 2009 at 5:20 am
If you have to do it, you might as well do it right
buy cheap viagra
April 9th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
My friend on Orkut shared this link and I’m not dissapointed that I came here.