| Greenwash or Green Eugene? |
Eugene's Greenwashing
public relations boosterism
"World's Greatest City of
the Arts & Outdoors"
world's most absurd slogan
Ecocentrism: Eugene not "number one Green City"
What is greenwash?
Greenwash and the environmental movement
Carbon Absolution:
the "carbon neutral" hoax
Honesty Needed for real solutions
Bypassing Sustainability:
Planes, Trains, Automobiles
Eugene, Springfield, Lane County promote $817 million for new & bigger highways
Troubled Bridges Over Water
I-5 cracked bridges
West Eugene Parkway
proposed 1951, stopped 2007
Kulongoski - Bush plans for
I-5 NAFTA Superhighway
at www.road-scholar.org
Development boondoggles
Intelligent Urban Design:
sensible downtown development
Nodal Development: fake environmentalism
Bus Rapid Transit (EmX)
Nike Basketball Arena: funded by sweatshop blood money
EWEB's paving of west Eugene wetlands: money that could fund renewable energy
Tax Breaks for Polluters
Big Box Stores
2050 fantasy: Lane County ignores limits to growth
Human Rights City?
Chinese Olympics
June 1, 1997: pepper spray used on peaceful protestors
rapist cops convicted of felonies
tasers
Greenwash Building
Wetland Homes: "Sustainable Eugene" paving wetlands with subdivisions
Polluted Air and Water
Clearcutting the Cascades and Coast Range
Aerial Herbicides Blanket Lane County's Forests
Slash pile burning - a huge waste of trees
Toxic Eugene:
Plywood glue factories
Railroad pollution
wood preserving
Grass Seed Capital of the World: Pollen and Smoke Pollution
Nano-pollution
general info at oilempire.us
greenwash groups:
Activist Malpractice
1000 Friends of Portland promotes timber industry
Oregon Environmental Council
Oregon League of Compromising Voters (OLCV)
SOLV
Portland environmentalists greenwash Governor
energy return on energy invested:
excessive meetings fail to reach potentials
strategy for effectiveness, unity and transformation
Eugene's cliques: People's Front of Judea
peace groups
climate crisis
Peak Oil
forest protection
land use & transportation
West Eugene Collaborators:
environmentalists who proposed a worse route for the West Eugene Porkway
West Eugene Collaborative: two flavors of elites
WEC's map of a highway sized loophole
Butt Ugly Architecture
Wayne Morse federal building: Homeland Security
Strip Mauls: West 11th and Coburg Road
Disasters: preventative, permaculture perspectives
Eugene's Multi-Hazard Mitigation program
Cascadia Subduction Zone - Richter Nine
Dangerous Dams and the Willamette Valley Tsunami
Firestorms, Loggers, Fireworks
Oregon Coast energy national sacrifice zone
LNG: Liquid Natural Gas
Coos Bay, Columbia River
floods: don’t build hospitals in floodplains
storms: plant fruit trees, not firs, around homes
landslides: ban clearcuts and new road cuts
wildfires: fireworks and clearcuts increase risk
earthquakes and coastal tsunami: seismic retrofit bridges & buildings
volcanoes: plan to do without Calif. products if Mt. Shasta erupts
dam collapse:
the Willamette Valley tsunami, strengthen - or remove - the
dams
critical infrastructure: redundancy, relocalization and renewables needed
hazardous material: ban toxics, monitor train & truck shipments through region
terrorism: community cohesion is solution
Disaster Mitigation and Land Use:
Eugene needs intelligent (urban) design
Hospitals, Earthquakes, Floods,
and Lahars
Troubled Bridges Over Water:
the I-5 bridge crisis
West Eugene sprawl in floodplains: WEP, Target megastore, Royal Node
subdivision
The Long Emergency: Peak Oil and Climate Collapse require paradigm shift
Katrina disaster shows the Federal government response: we are on our own
Eugene: the bubble
Trains
"In the United States, we have a railroad system
that the Bulgarians would be ashamed of. We desperately are going
to need railroad transport for moving people around, for moving goods around
– we don’t have that. What we do have is a trucking system that
is going to become increasingly dysfunctional, especially as the expense
mounts of maintaining the tremendous interstate highway system. It costs
so much money every year to maintain what the engineers call a high level
of service – which means that the trucks that are delivering things
from the central valley of California to Toronto don’t break their
axles while they’re bringing those Caesar salads to Toronto. Once
you have a certain number of trucks that are breaking their axles in that
3,000 mile journey, that’s the end of transcontinental trucking –
which also implies that this is the end of certain economic relationships
that we have gotten used to."
-- author James Howard Kunstler, from
an interview in the film "The
End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the End of the American Dream"
www.newtrains.org - NewTrains.org is a national organization that promotes new train systems across America
www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/dt.cms.support.viewStory.cls?cid=29550&sid=1&fid=1
LETTERS IN THE EDITOR’S MAILBAG
Published: Dec 2, 2007
Turn railway into bike path
If the complex and expensive deal to rebuild the railway to the coast can’t be put together, perhaps Rep. Peter DeFazio can find the money to convert it to a bike path. This would be a tremendous boost to Lane County’s growing reputation as a bicycling destination, and create business opportunities along the way for lodging and food.
Paul Niedermeyer
Eugene
With heavy trucks forced to detour next week around two Interstate 5 bridges
in the Eugene-Springfield area when weight limits going into effect because
of structural problems, U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio weighed in Friday, urging the
state to go even further in limiting oversize truck traffic.
The federal limit on loads in most states is 80,000 pounds, but Oregon was grandfathered
in with 13 other states at 100,000 pounds, DeFazio said. DeFazio hand-delivered
a letter to Bruce Warner, director of the Oregon Department of Transportation,
suggesting that ODOT "scrutinize each permit request" to be sure that
the cargos that could be broken up and carried on more than one truck do not
receive permission to be carried intact. ....
He also recommended that many overweight, oversize loads be diverted
to railroads instead of being transported on highways.
“For each rail car used, we can remove three normal-weight trucks from
our highways - the railways tell me they can carry 296,000 pounds on their cars,”
DeFazio said. “This would reduce congestion, improve safety and increase
efficiency.”
“DeFazio urges less road weight,” by Randi Bjornstad,
The Register-Guard, March 1, 2003
www.kunstler.com/mags_diary23.html
April 21, 2008
Blind Spot
I happened to be flying into Minneapolis the very day that Northwest Airlines announced its merger with Delta --Delta to be the more senior (more equal) partner -- in effect, to absorb Northwest and run its operations. Many observers are not optimistic that the merger will rescue these companies in any case, since both airlines are financial basket-cases, but it's a sort of last-ditch effort to save them both.
It was less than great news up around Minneapolis, Northwest's corporate headquarters. A lot of people I talked to were anxious that Delta would cut service to a lot of little cities in the upper Great Lakes and northern prairie region, places like Duluth, Grand Forks, Green Bay, Traverse City and many other towns. Instead of one or two flights a day, they may end up with one or two a week, or none at all, they feared.
The Northwest pilots were none too pleased, either, because Delta was making noises about their own pilots seniority counting for more than Northwest's pilot's seniority in terms of preferred assignments and scheduling. In fact, the Northwest pilots were so pissed off they threatened to scuttle the merger.
That part of the country is a big region of wide open spaces Things are very far apart. You wouldn't want to drive a car from Des Moines to Rapid City, even if gasoline was a good bit less than the $3.50 a gallon it is now. Driving around the prairie is especially tedious -- and dangerous because of the tedium. The landscape is boring. The roads are dead straight and mostly dead flat.
It happened, also, that I got a little guided tour of Minneapolis from the author-shlepping service that my publisher engaged. We rode past the old Minneapolis central train station. He said no trains stop there anymore (there's a dinky afterthought of a station next door in St. Paul). Anyway, the only train that comes through the Twin Cities is the pokey once-a-day Amtrak to Seattle.
In other words, this region of the country has next-to-zero railroad service. Can we pause a moment here to ask: exactly how far does America have its head up its ass? Do you get the picture? Can you connect the dots? The airline industry is dying and absolutely no thought is being given to how people will get around this big country -- except to make the stupid assumption that we can just drive our cars instead. Even during the several days I was around Minneapolis, no news media or politician raised the subject of reviving passenger railroad service.
In point of fact, these are exactly the kind of trips that would be better served by rail, anyway -- the towns that are less than five hundred miles apart. The travel time between trains and planes would be comparable, considering the two hours or so that you have to add to every airplane trip because of all the security crap, not to mention the delays. As a matter of fact, USA today ran a front page story two days after the Delta / Northwest announcement saying "Air Trips Slowest [now than] in Past 20 Years." Subhead: "Trend likely to persist as congestion worsens."
One big reason for the airport congestion, of course, is that the runways are cluttered up with planes making trips of only a few hundred miles. This has been a problem for quite a while. Periodically, it gets so bad that the media gets all excited and sometimes (last summer, for instance) the President makes a statement deploring it. Since the current president is a knucklehead, it apparently hasn't occurred to him to get behind a revival of the passenger rail system. But Mr. Bush is apparently not the only elected knucklehead in this country, because absolutely nobody is talking about this.
Now get this: we are sleepwalking into a transportation crisis. As I already said, the airline industry is dying. The price of petroleum-based aviation fuel is killing it. And forget the fantasies about running it on bio-diesel or used french-fry oil. Driving cars will not be an adequate substitute, either. It's imperative that this country gets serious about restoring the passenger rail system. We can't not talk about it for another year. We must demand that the candidates for president speak to this issue. If you who are reading this are active reporters or editors in the news media, you've got to raise your voices behind this issue.
| Cascadia high speed rail |
amtrac (also amtrack, amtrak): noun
an amphibious tracked vehicle used for landing assault troops on a shore.
ORIGIN World War II: blend of amphibious and tractor.
The most efficient place for Oregon to invest in passenger rail travel is the Amtrak route from Eugene to Portland. The “Talgo” trains on the “Amtrak Cascades” line are capable of going 124 mph (210 kph). However, it is faster to drive from Eugene to Portland on I-5 since the train cannot travel at its potential speed due to the poor quality of the tracks (the trains would become airborne, briefly, if they went full speed).
Upgrading these tracks for faster trains would require rebuilding some of the railbed and grade separating the road crossings (since 120 mph trains striking a stuck car on a crossing would be very dangerous for the train.
The cost of upgrading Amtrak for high speed travel in the Willamette Valley would be about the cost of the WEP plus the I-5 / Beltline interchange reconstruction. It would probably be less than the projected cost to widen I-5 to six lanes from Salem to Eugene.
The federal Department of Transportation considers the Cascades line from Eugene to Vancouver BC one of the top priorities for high speed rail in the United States, but there is barely enough money to keep the existing (slow) service running.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amtrak_Cascades has background information on the Seattle / Eugene train service.
old Amtrak (Coast Starlight - 80 mph) and new Amtrak (Cascades line - 124 mph)
-- Acela high speed rail, Boston station (150 mph)
the TGV in France and the Japanese bullet trains have top speeds
around 180 mph
Germany, Spain, Belgium, Korea and other countries have similar very high speed
train systems
the United States spent its money on the interstate highway
network, NAFTA superhighways, Outer Beltways around sprawling suburbs
and the world's largest military industrial complex
Putting a new high speed line in the median strip of I-5 would cost much more and make less sense than upgrading the existing freight tracks. Every bridge on the Interstate would need to be torn down and rebuilt (to accommodate the train right of way). Part of the highway route would also need reconstruction, since some of the roadway would not allow for the trains (especially I-5 between Salem and Portland). Upgrading the existing train tracks to facilitate high speed train travel would also whisk passengers from downtown to downtown, instead of dumping them by freeway interchanges that are completely car dependent, with little public transit.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2004051050_runte04.html
Guest columnist
Eastside rail: We just don't get it
By Alfred Runte
Special to The Times
Alfred Runte
In a region so outspoken about global warming, one would think that any plan to scrap the Eastside rail line would have drowned in the obvious hypocrisy. Instead, salvage crews could be knocking on Bellevue's door in weeks. Really, is the automobile lobby that strong, or have all of us — environmentalists included — finally been culturally and politically duped?
Ask Europe and even China. Railroads are the way to the future. Nor is the problem just global warming. Annually, urban sprawl costs the United States up to 3 million acres of open space. Highways encourage all those losses. At that rate, an area the size of California will be gone — paved over — in less than 40 years.
Still, our elected officials — now including those at the Port of Seattle — tell us how wonderful a bicycle trail can be. "Someday" the Eastside rail line will be needed. That someday just isn't now.
Paraphrasing a popular movie, "The American President," I used to think our politicians just don't get it. Finally, the historian in me understands. The deeper problem is that no American gets it, having lost all sense of what railroads do.
It started with the big lie of American culture: Railroads are out of date. Consider that while Europe and Japan launched high-speed rail service in the 1960s, we spent the decade tearing our railroads up.
Why? Because the highway lobby convinced Congress to ignore our railroads, while paving companies, oil companies and vehicle manufacturers became the big campaign contributors.
Now the irony cuts like a knife. The 1960s also launched American environmentalism — when young activists like Al Gore got their start. However, in his documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," railroads are out of sight. Between speeches, we find him lamenting global warming in an airplane — or a chauffeured limousine.
Gore's Nobel Prize aside, no symbol of America's ignorance about railroads can be more telling than a noted environmentalist who barely mentions them. Worldwide, our argument that greener cars will solve global warming is still viewed as pure denial.
Worse, we get downright ditzy subscribing to the notion that bicycles might be the answer. Granted, they are heavily used in Europe and Asia, but not as a substitute for building rail. Today, the slower trains in Asia and Europe do 100 mph. The fastest exceed 200. Before coddling bicyclists — before cementing our failures — we need the exact same thing.
In Switzerland, four-lane highways have been banned from the Alps. By 2009, half of all truck traffic crossing Switzerland will shift to high-speed, electrified rail. Attacking global warming, the Swiss know to regulate the biggest offenders. In Olympia, regulation remains appeasement, while King County Executive Ron Sims talks of ripping out the Eastside track for a trail.
The point remains inescapable: If the Eastside rail line is lost, Puget Sound will have only one surviving railroad running north and south. Periodically, those tracks go down in winter landslides. Imagine losing them in an earthquake. In that case, freight traffic between the United States and Canada would have to detour all the way to Spokane. And forget about adding that second passenger train to Vancouver, B.C.
In the 1980s, the region's only electrified railroad was converted into a trail. Entering Puget Sound over Snoqualmie Pass, it was known as the Milwaukee Road. We still have a beer named after Milwaukee, but not — as do the people of Europe — that alternative for saving our mountains and air quality.
The Swiss are right. Saving the environment means to reverse history. Highways are what need reversing.
In Snoqualmie Pass, the electrified railroad Interstate 90 displaced was barely a sliver across the landscape. Today, we could plug that railroad into something really green, including wind, tidal and solar power. Better yet, paralleling Highway 169, the Milwaukee Road's former right-of-way between Maple Valley and Renton would be perfect for commuters in that burgeoning suburban corridor.
Suddenly, we want congestion all over the Eastside — the same mistake twice? We should be making thecuckoo clocks.
Greener cars have a place, whether hybrids or electrics. However, no one is going to build an electric airplane, nor will highway construction be less excessive. The greenest mode of mass transportation is the one America threw away.
Throw it away here and we deserve the world's condemnation as a state of posturing hypocrites. The Eastside rail line may not be perfect, but it is the place to start. If we cannot learn from history, or at least admit that we have sprawl, the next time we wring our hands over global warming, we should remember the world's true environmentalists and just shut up.
Alfred Runte of Seattle is director of special projects for All Aboard Washington, a rail-advocacy organization, and the author of "Allies of the Earth: Railroads and the Soul of Preservation" (Truman State University Press).
Copyright © 2007 The Seattle Times Company
| Why a train to the coast would not replace the WEP |
Some WEP opponents have periodically suggested that the train line running from Eugene to Veneta (and ultimately to Coos Bay) should be upgraded to include passenger service, which would supposedly reduce or eliminate a "need" for the WEP. This is extremely unlikely to be built, a distraction from the greater need to improve existing Willamette Valley train service, and the WEP is more likely to be stopped by its legal and fiscal problems (not vague calls for trains to Veneta when the WEP is supposedly designed to deal with Eugene area traffic and overdevelopment).
For more on the WETLANDS alternative to the WEP, please read the summary at www.permatopia.com/wetlands/alternative.html
Parkway is an obsolete solution
Letter to the Editor by Ethen Perkins, Eugene
The Register-Guard
November 16, 2005
Gary Wildish opines (guest viewpoint, Oct. 28) that the West Eugene Parkway has "survived every test of popularity thrown at it." He refers to a 50.9 percent to 49 percent vote in 2001. That was not an unbiased popularity test but the result of outspending. Wildish's buddies got the best advisory vote in favor of the parkway they could buy. [note: this letter did not mention the fact the WEP approval would be a federal decision, the highway is not a City of Eugene project subject to local elections]
The parkway would fragment imperiled ecosystems and endangered butterfly habitat. No doubling of wetland mitigation elsewhere can remedy that. Its planners can make no adequate provision for the damage the parkway will do to endangered butterflies because habitat fragmentation by a high-speed elevated roadway is sure to be a death trap for them.
Improved existing infrastructure could be reducing one-driver car trips between Eugene, Veneta and the coast, if the existing rail line were developed for commuter and tourist trips. Park-and-ride bus rapid transit could also be reducing our car dependency. Rushing four lanes into a narrow highway across Fern Ridge is a dysfunctional, obsolete idea that only increases our auto dependence.
We need elected officials and transportation staff thinking beyond high-speed roadways to a time when one-rider car trips are unappealing alternatives. I would take a fast train or bus to Veneta or the Oregon Coast rather than driving there in a heartbeat.
Why is that choice not available? Could our narrow focus on the parkway have had anything to do with it? It's time to drop the parkway for better non-car alternatives.
http://www.registerguard.com/news/2005/11/16/ed.letters.1116.p1.php?section= opinionTime changes parkway issue
Letter to the Editor by Bob Cassidy, Eugene
The Register-Guard
November 18, 2005
... To take the time to seriously look at other options for handling the traffic on Highway 126 is a wise decision. Why go ahead with spending all that money when there is so much opposition to it?
I personally like the option of putting a trolley on the tracks from Veneta to shuttle back and forth the 72 percent of Veneta residents who work in Eugene.
http://www.registerguard.com/news/2005/11/18/ed.letters.1118.p1.php?section= opinion
The issue of "going to the coast" is a red herring
The issue of traffic "to the coast" is a red herring -- the WEP would have nothing to do with going to the coast.
It is bait to lure the public (the WEP would end 52 miles from Florence).
The WEP, officially, doesn't even go to Veneta -- it supposedly ends just a mile outside the City of Eugene limits, about five miles east of the City of Veneta. It would do nothing to fix a poorly designed Highway 126 through the Coast Range, although some WEP supporters shamelessly urge the public to consider how the porkway would allegedly speed access to coastal communities. In the unlikely event that there really is $169 million planned in the ODOT budget for the WEP, some of that WEP money should be allocated toward overdue safety improvements on 126 between Eugene and Veneta (a full sized shoulder, possibly a passing lane) and in the Coast Range between Noti and Mapleton.
A train to the coast would be extremely slow on winding tracks
A passenger train to the coast would take several times longer than a bus. The existing train tracks west of Veneta are extremely winding, in part due to the path of the tracks along the Siuslaw River (much of which does not parallel Highway 126). If you look at the map of the tracks, or better yet, travel the route of the tracks yourself, you will see that high speed passenger service on this route is not feasible. (Most of the route would be fairly slow due to the track conditions.) It is unknown how many millions (or billion?) would be needed to blow up the mountains to make a straight route for faster train service to the coast.
The existing tracks to the coast do not reach Florence (they veer away from that town a few miles east, and then head south toward Coos Bay). A shuttle service would be needed to take passengers to Florence. The cost of this shuttle, or of extending the tracks to Florence, would probably be more than merely having a decent intercity bus service between Eugene and Florence.
Perhaps the most plausible high density event along the tracks that could spur period use for passenger service is the Oregon Country Fair, which has the most public transit usage of any destination along Highway 126. However, the tracks never get very close to the OCF fair entrance (not merely the parking lot entrance), and a logical station of downtown Veneta would still require fleets of shuttle buses to transport fairgoers from the train to the fair.
Train service for the Fair would require renting (or buying?) at least a pair of passenger trains, construction of a side track to enable trains to pass each other (the existing rail is single track between west Eugene and Veneta), construction of a train station in downtown Veneta (and possibly in the woods adjacent to the OCF entrance on Oregon 126, about one mile from the entrance to the Fair itself, much farther than the bus stop currently used to shuttle thousands of fair goers).
The "train to the coast" sounds like a fun ride, but the practical aspects are not very feasible.
There's no money anyway
It is nice to imagine that money for the WEP could be used to fund improved train service. However, this shift would require major changes to State law to reallocate ODOT "modernization" funds for non road purposes, although the Federal Highway Administration has allowed many states to cash in freeway funds to fund public transit projects and/or smaller roads. Given the fact that there is (maybe) $17 million available for the WEP, and that finishing Beltline, fixing Highway 99 and Roosevelt, and other minor ODOT projects in west Eugene would total more than this cost, it is obvious that there would not be any "available funds" to shift toward trains.
Veneta to Eugene would not be a serious commuter route for a new train line
"The Urban Rail Feasibility Study Eugene/Springfield Area (July 1995) concluded that projected 2015 ridership for an urban rail system was too low to be competitive with other cities seeking federal rail transit funding; and that BRT could significantly improve transit service for substantially less capital investment and lower operational costs than urban rail."
-- Central Lane MPO Regional Transportation Plan, October 2004 PRELIMINARY DRAFT Chapter 2, Page 29
A Veneta to Eugene train proposal would fail on traffic counts, unless Veneta becomes MUCH larger than it is now. Even though nearly everyone moving to Veneta works in Eugene (there are very few jobs in Veneta), a train line to the big town is not likely to be approved and funded by any transportation agencies.
Veneta is a relatively small community, even with the explosive sprawl growth that has happened since the building moratorium was lifted (a new sewage treatment center was built to facilitate expanded suburbanization). In 1995, a feasibility study showed that Springfield to Eugene had poor prospects for enough ridership to justify a new light rail system (like the Max in Portland), a reason why the area is getting a Bus Rapid Transit system instead of light rail.
Trains are certainly more fun to ride than buses, but buses are going to be much more practical for Veneta commuters.
Train service from downtown Veneta to downtown Eugene would not be able to easily take commuters to the Hyundai computer chip factory, the new Peace Health center along the McKenzie River, the proposed Delta Highway site of Triad Hospital, and many other employment centers not in the central core of Eugene. Express bus service from Veneta would be flexible (and cheap) to shift commuters toward shifting employment areas, especially as certain real estate speculators seem intent on relocating much of downtown Eugene toward the northermost sectors of the metropolitan area.
Keep freight rail to the Coos Bay port
Lane County planners are considering the decommission of this rail line and its conversion to a bicycle route - a "rail to trail." While a better bicycle route is needed from Eugene to Veneta, since the causeway across the lake is extremely dangerous (a reason to upgrade the shoulders on 126 instead of building WEP), the freight trains are Eugene's connection to the only substantial port on the Oregon coast.
Planning for peak oil's impacts on trade requires preserving rail lines to provide energy efficient transportation of goods in the future -- and the train line to Coos Bay may turn out to be a critical lifeline for the Willamette Valley’s access to trade with distant bioregions.
Other potential routes for coastal train service:
Portland-Astoria, Corvallis-Toledo (near Newport), Forest
Grove-Tillamook
The road with the greatest traffic counts between the Willamette Valley and coastal communities is Highway 18, which goes to Lincoln City. There is no train route (decommissioned or active) along that route.
The second busiest road to the coast is the riverfront route between Portland and Astoria, which does have a parallel train route.
The map of Oregon railroads in the "Atlas of Oregon" (p.
109) suggests that the most logical "train to the coast" route would
be Portland to Astoria, assuming the tourist
economy survives a bit longer past the peak of oil extraction. An Astoria bound
train might be able to generate sufficient ridership in the summer time to justify
the needed investment (at a time when Amtrak barely stays in operation on the
"Coast Starlight" route between Seattle and Los Angeles, and the Cascades
line from Seattle to Eugene travels about half the speed the locomotives are
capable of reaching).
An Astoria bound train could bring "Lewis and Clark" oriented tourists.
It leaves from the biggest city. It actually reaches the middle of the town
it is going to. There is a short passenger trolley in Astoria to entertain
the tourists, but I don't think it actually goes anywhere beyond the town.
The Astoria line used to terminate at Seaside but it was abandoned decades ago
- I don't know if it would be possible to rebuild it.
While Newport is a major tourist destination, the tracks to Newport end in Toledo, a few miles before Newport. A shuttle service would be required to cover the final miles. Newport is also less pedestrian friendly than Astoria, so additional public transit would be needed to make Newport a viable destination for car-free tourism.
The Forest Grove - Tillamook rail would also be a very SLOW path to the coast. This route does not go through the resort towns of Seaside, Cannon Beach or Manzanita. It does pass through Rockaway Beach, which seems more economically depressed and is less of a destination than the fancier resorts. Bus service between Tillamook and the Willamette Valley would be considerably faster than the circuitous freight rail route, even if large sums were invested to upgrade the rail line.
Intercity bus travel is needed to the coast - and along the coast
There is minimal intercity bus travel along the Oregon Coast and between coastal towns and the Willamette Valley. These needs should be addressed with increased service, both during the tourist season and in the wintertime, when coastal communities are more isolated.
Buses are not as much of a fun ride as trains, nor as romantic, but they are going to be a major component of any practical intercity transportation system, especially to connect towns separated by mountainous terrain.
Flaws in track cause seven derailments in 18 months
By Jack Moran
The Register-Guard
Published: Tuesday, December 13, 2005
A Roseburg-based railroad carrier has two years to implement a maintenance and inspection plan aimed at eliminating track defects that have caused at least seven derailments in Oregon since early 2004, putting the public and railroad employees at risk, federal officials said Monday.
Central Oregon & Pacific Railroad, which handles freight along more than 470 miles of track in Western Oregon and Northern California, must make significant repairs to bring its tracks into compliance with national safety standards under an agreement announced by the Federal Railroad Administration.
Since 1998, state and federal railroad inspectors have noted more than 4,500 defects on Central Oregon & Pacific's tracks. Seventy-eight of those resulted in recommended fines, although records of any civil penalties levied against the railroad were not available Monday, FRA spokesman Steve Kulm said.
A series of track-caused derailments, beginning with an April 6, 2004, incident in Eugene in which six cars slid off a track, prompted federal officials to seek a safety compliance agreement with the short-line railroad. No one was killed or injured in any of the derailments, according to agency records.
Derailments "are a flag to us that we need to take a closer look," Kulm said.
Last June, the railroad agency completed an investigation of Central Oregon & Pacific that found that by failing to comply with federal track-safety standards, the company was "creating a significant risk to the health and safety" of workers and the public, according to the agreement.
Dan Lovelady, Central Oregon & Pacific's general manager, signed the accord last week. He declined to comment on it when reached by telephone Monday afternoon at his Roseburg office.
Federal officials have confirmed seven track-caused derailments on the railroad's lines during the last two years, and an eighth accident remains under investigation. Existing track hazards include defective crossties, failing rail joints and rails that have spread too far apart for trains to travel safely.
The FRA said that Central Oregon & Pacific track inspectors "have not performed quality inspections, possibly due to lack of proper training, and (the company) had not provided enough oversight to ensure that inspections and record-keeping were correctly done."
The seven confirmed track-related derailments caused more than $363,000 in damage to equipment and tracks, according to railroad administration records.
Three of those derailments occurred in Lane County, with others in Douglas and Josephine counties. The most damaging of the track-related accidents happened last March near Winchester, just north of Roseburg. A broken rail caused a train to derail and destroy a 135-foot-long trestle, dumping several loads of logs onto the ground and across Old Highway 99, according to an Associated Press report.
Besides its line that runs south from Eugene to Siskiyou County, Calif., the railroad also runs trains along a track that extends west from Eugene toward Florence, then south to Coos Bay and Coquille.
"Performing sound track inspections and maintenance is not optional," FRA Administrator Joseph Boardman said in a prepared statement Monday. "We fully expect railroads large and small to comply with safety regulations that protect the public and safeguard railroad employees."
During the last two years, Central Oregon & Pacific has had 13 trains derail on its lines, according to railroad administration statistics. Rail defects were the cause of some, and improperly loaded cars and mechanical or operator error were blamed in the other crashes.
A particularly damaging one occurred in November 2004 near Riddle, when 4,300 gallons of diesel fuel spilled into Cow Creek and surrounding soils following the derailment of two locomotives and 10 cars.
Previously, the rail line was in the news in November 2003, when a fire erupted inside a railroad tunnel in the Siskiyou Mountains near the Oregon-California border. The tunnel was finally reopened in April.
The company's insurance carrier paid for $10 million of the repairs - its legal limit - but the company had to foot the bill for the remaining $2 million in repair costs, according to company financial filings with the federal Securities and Exchange Commission.
Central Oregon & Pacific is owned by RailAmerica Inc., a publicly traded Boca Raton, Fla., corporation. Central Oregon is one of 47 short-line railroads in 27 states and six Canadian provinces owned by RailAmerica.
Central Oregon & Pacific was formed in 1994 to buy the lines from Southern Pacific Railroad, which was selling off assets in order to pay down heavy debt.
In addition to developing a track-safety plan, Central Oregon & Pacific also must train inspectors whose job it will be to check for compliance with national safety standards. Federal officials will conduct periodic inspections during the next two years to ensure the railroad is upholding its end of the safety agreement.
If it does not, the railroad will face a more stringent compliance order that would hold the company's top officials personally responsible for failing to stick to the agreement.
TRACK DEFECTS
Since 1998, federal and state inspectors have recorded more than 4,067 track
problems on Central Oregon & Pacific Railroad lines. They include:
• 171 gauge defects
• 704 defective crossties
• 167 defective rails
• 1,224 defective rail joints
• A separate 2003 federal inspection found 400 track defects
These derailments in Oregon were attributed to the company's problems:
• Eugene, April 6, 2004
• Sunny Valley, July 31, 2004
• Wolf Creek, Oct. 26, 2004
• Drain, Nov. 7, 2004
• Eugene, Dec. 1, 2004
• Eugene, Jan. 5, 2005
• Winchester, March 1, 2005
— Federal Railroad Administration
On Feb 16, 2008, at 7:14 PM Feb 16, Warren Weisman wrote:
I heard that elusive "someone" proposed or was
involved in planning a high-speed rail system between
Eugene and Portland that would eventually connect with
Vancouver, Canada.
The Federal Department of Transportation has plans for this, but they aren't going anywhere.
Washington State is making some modest efforts to realign curves (and making a short cut near Tacoma) to speed up the Amtrak Cascades service. The Wash DOT website has some details about these projects, but none of them are upgrades for bullet train type service.
If the State of Oregon is doing anything for trains, it's hard to notice. Oregon's government is too busy talking about Sustain a Bull to bother with such details as making the trains run on time.
In the past half year:
the train line to Coos Bay via Mapleton has been closed (lack of maintenance)
the short line to Tillamook washed out in the December 2007 storm, probably closing the line forever
the main UP line near Oakridge was wrecked by a US Forest Service clearcut
the tracks between Ashland OR and Weed CA are possibly going to be closed, too.
The "Talgo" train between Eugene and Seattle can go about 200 kph (120 mph) but that's not quite bullet train performance. However, the train tracks are not capable of handling this speed, and train service is slower than driving Interstate 5 at the speed limit (or even at the more efficient 55 mph / 90 kph limit imposed by Nixon to conserve some oil).
Does anyone have any contact information for folks on
the Oregon side of this project? The first step in
other states before the project goes no where seemed
to be the formation of a High-Speed Rail Authority?
Does anyone know if this has been proposed in Oregon
and by whom?
As far as I know, no authority has been planned for fast trains in Cascadia.
The Oregon environmental groups don't seem interested in this. Perhaps if their funders (foundations) decide to prioritize train service then there could be more interest.
Upgrading the train tracks from Eugene to Portland would require a couple hundred million (new rail? grade separated crossings for roads).
ODOT has a report on their website about the need for extra freight rail lines around Portland to cope with train congestion (mostly caused by importing huge amounts of crap from Chinese sweatshops). The price tag would be $169 million - curiously the same price as one of the many versions of the West Eugene Porkway.
The only noise I've seen (letters to the R-G) about better trains around Eugene seem more focused on having a passenger train to Mapleton (and then a shuttle bus to Florence? proposals are vague) although the train track between Mapleton and Veneta is very winding and no train could possibly go at a decent speed due to its condition - intercity bus service between Eugene and Florence is much more practical, although not as sexy. (The train line also does not go to Florence, and it is unlikely that a spur would ever be built there to haul tourists or gamblers at the casino.) Focusing on upgrading Amtrak is more urgent than a train to almost nowhere (no offense to anyone in Mapleton, but it's not a realistic destination for a passenger train line).
In California, the High Speed Rail Authority seems more interested in planning their project (SF - LA) for another decade or two, not actually building anything. It's the transportation equivalent of "vaporware" (software that is promised for a long time but is never completed).
The Wall Street Journal had an article a couple days ago about the revival of freight rail in the US, but in Oregon we will be lucky the way things are deteriorating to have any train service at all.
Wall Street Journal
February 13, 2008
PAGE ONE
? Interactive Map: Making Track3
New Era Dawns for Rail Building
Lines Add Tracks,
Upgrade Tunnels
To Take On Trucks
By DANIEL MACHALABA
February 13, 2008; Page A1
MERIDIAN, Miss. -- America is back to working on the railroads.
For decades, stretches of track west of this town were so rough that trains couldn't run faster than 25 miles an hour. Lanie Keith, a locomotive engineer for Kansas City Southern, recalls waiting for hours when trains stalled on a steep curve on a stretch of single track between Meridian and Shreveport, La.
But over the past two years, at a cost of $300 million, track crews have transformed the 320-mile route. Installing 960,000 crossties and 80 miles of new rail, they've turned a railroad backwater into a key link in a resurging national transport network. Mr. Keith now skims parts of the improved track, called the Meridian Speedway, at nearly 60 miles an hour. "You went from moving like a turtle to a jack rabbit," he says.
1
The upgrade is part of a railroad renaissance under way across much of the U.S. For the first time in nearly a century, railroads are making large investments in their networks -- adding sets of tracks, straightening curves that force engines to slow and expanding tunnels for bigger trains. Their campaign is altering the corridors of American commerce, more so than any other development since interstate highways spread to the interior.
For decades, railroads spent little on expansion, even tore up surplus track and shrank routes. But since 2000 they've spent $10 billion to expand tracks, build freight yards and buy locomotives, and they have $12 billion more in upgrades planned.
The buildout comes as the industry transitions away from its chief role in recent decades of hauling coal, timber and other raw materials in manufacturing regions. Now, increasingly, railroads are moving finished consumer goods, often made in Asia, from ports to major cities. Their new higher-volume routes, called corridors, often serve the South, where the rail system is less developed and the population is rising.
Railroad operators are pressing for advantage over their main competitor, long-haul trucking, which has struggled with rising fuel prices, driver shortages and highway congestion. Railroads say a load can be moved by rail using about a third as much fuel as it takes to haul it by truck. And rail transport is becoming more efficient still, they say, as operators speed their lines and logistics companies build huge warehouse areas along routes.
Demand for rail service increased sharply when the U.S. economy and Asian imports surged starting in 2003. Tight capacity on major routes enabled railroads to raise prices. The growth in freight volume has slowed along with economic growth, but shippers say they're still planning to increase their use of rail transport because of the cost.
"The railroad industry is finally making some money," says Charles "Wick" Moorman IV, chief executive officer of Norfolk Southern Corp., based in Norfolk, Va. "And we're pumping that money into our infrastructure."
Pelahatchie, Miss., on the Meridian Speedway.
Trucking accounted for 82% of the U.S.'s truck-and-rail intercity-freight spending in 2004, up from 78% in 1990, according to Eno Transportation Foundation, a research organization in Washington, D.C. But trucking companies, notably industry giant J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc. of Lowell, Ark., are using railroads for the long-haul part of some trips because it's cheaper. Some rail promoters believe that as a result of their investments, they could cut into the business of the two million long-haul freight trucks in the U.S., which account for 350 million shipments a year.
Attracting Interest
For the first time in years, the industry is attracting interest among big-name investors. Last spring, Berkshire Hathaway Inc., disclosed an 11% stake in Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp., the second-largest U.S. railroad by revenue. Berkshire has since raised the stake to more than 18%. In a move recalling rail boardroom battles of the past, Children's Investment Fund Management LLP, a London hedge fund, and other shareholders have put up a slate of directors for a coming annual meeting of the nation's No. 3 railroad, CSX Corp. (Union Pacific Corp. is the largest U.S. railroad in revenue terms; Norfolk Southern and Kansas City Southern are fourth and fifth, respectively.)
The expansion is stirring conflict with some old customers, the shippers who move raw materials such as chemicals, grain and logs, who feel they're being charged unnecessarily high rates to pay for capital improvements. Trade groups representing such shippers are seeking federal legislation to rein in railroad rate increases.
"I think the railroads are investing in corridors to serve a different customer, and heavy U.S. industry will be left in the dust," says Kenneth Walker, a transportation manager of Graphic Packaging International Corp., a cardboard manufacturer in Marietta, Ga.
It's been a century since railroads embarked on a similar spate of capital investment. Between 1900 and World War I, they launched a huge rebuilding program across the U.S. midsection to handle freight and passenger trains. Traffic was booming as the economy roared back from a financial panic in the 1890s. Railroads added second, third and fourth sets of tracks along main routes, built tunnels and bridges and installed stronger locomotives.
After World War II, though, cars began wiping out passenger-train service. New interstate highways unleashed trucks as a freight competitor. By the 1970s, U.S. railroads were deep into a decline, other than adding new track to the coal fields of Wyoming.
Burlington Northern was the first to pursue the strategy of building a high-capacity corridor to link ports with population centers needing consumer goods, rather than linking industrial centers. In the 1990s, it set out to complete a second set of tracks on its Chicago-Los Angeles Transcon line. "It came right out of the 'Field of Dreams': Build it and they will come," says Rob Krebs, a retired Burlington CEO.
Wall Street analysts objected to the big spending, and Mr. Krebs throttled down the expansion in 1999 and 2000. But his successor, Matt Rose, resumed work on the project in 2003, and it is now nearing completion.
Problems with old infrastructure were becoming clear elsewhere. Union Pacific was plagued with freight jams and service breakdowns during a surge of Asian imports a few years ago. Union Pacific hired thousands of new train crew members, and it has since launched a massive track-installation program across the Southwest.
It is upgrading its Sunset Route, from Los Angeles to El Paso, Texas, with a second set of tracks. It's planning to build new freight yards and a fueling station along the way. When the $2 billion project is finished in 2010, Union Pacific will be able to roughly double the number of freight cars crossing the Sunset each day to more than 9,000 from about 5,000 currently.
Railroads are generating development in the same way they spawned towns and industrial sites over a century ago. Warehouse complexes are popping up next to new rail yards designed to load and unload trains carrying containerized goods. Major distribution operations have opened or are planned in places like Elwood, Ill., Kansas City, Mo., and Columbus, Ohio.
The social consequences are evident in developments like AllianceTexas. In the late 1980s, Hillwood Development Co., founded by Ross Perot Jr., son of the former presidential candidate, built a cargo airport outside Fort Worth, thinking that would be the best way to attract companies to 17,000 acres of land north of the city. As an afterthought, the company says, it made room for a rail yard.
A decade later, it's the rail yard that has attracted huge warehouses, for companies such as J.C. Penney Co. and Bridgestone Corp. These and others get container loads of jeans, electronics, tires and such from Southern California ports. "I never would have thought having a rail hub in the middle of our development would have attracted so much interest," says Thomas Harris, a Hillwood senior vice president.
The development, which employs 27,000, has spawned a nearby minicity of shopping centers, a golf course, a racetrack and 6,200 houses. More than 300 of the homes are high-priced models in gated communities.
Railroads have found friends among environmentalists, who see moving freight by train rather than truck as a way to reduce fuel burning and emissions. Method Products Inc., a San Francisco maker of nontoxic home and personal-care products, says it plans to use rail for 50% of its shipments this year, up from 33% in 2007. "We view rail as a solution to lower our greenhouse-gas emissions," says Jason Bowman, the firm's global logistics manager.
States Climb Aboard
States have also started to climb aboard. In a 2002 report, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials said transportation capacity could be increased more cheaply in some intercity corridors by adding railways rather than expanding highways.
Norfolk Southern is seeking public funding to accelerate rail-corridor projects, arguing that they provide a public benefit by limiting fuel use, traffic congestion and air pollution. The idea is gaining backers. Virginia created a rail-enhancement fund in 2005 from car-rental fees and is spending $40 million to improve a Norfolk Southern freight line in the state. The railroad industry is urging Congress to pass a railroad investment tax credit to fund rail improvements.
Many old lines need work. Norfolk Southern's most direct route to the Midwest from the docks of Norfolk, Va., has tunnels high enough for coal trains. But they are too low for double-stack trains, which haul shipping containers one above the other. Norfolk Southern has begun a three-year, $260 million project to raise the height of 28 tunnels on the route, which it has renamed the Heartland Corridor.
Norfolk Southern's most ambitious project is the Crescent Corridor, a network of tracks between the New York City area and New Orleans. The company touts the corridor as a cheaper and more environmentally friendly alternative to widening highways such as Interstate 81, which runs through Virginia's scenic Shenandoah Valley.
Trucks make four million to 4.5 million trips annually along I-81 in Virginia, according to the Virginia Department of Transportation. Norfolk Southern envisions a route with enough speed and capacity to displace about a million truck trips a year. It is seeking funding for most of the $2 billion project from the U.S. government and states along the corridor.
Tim Lynch, an executive of the American Trucking Associations in Arlington, Va., says it's "folly" to think rail corridors can take the place of additional highways. "You need to do both, because you have growth in freight traffic that will keep both modes busy," he says.
Work continues on the Meridian Speedway between Meridian and Shreveport. Kansas City Southern bought the line in 1994 as a shortcut for freight moving between Los Angeles and Atlanta, bypassing crowded gateways in Memphis, Tenn., and New Orleans. The railroad began to improve the line, at one point easing a hilly curve near the river town of Vicksburg, Miss., that for years hampered Mr. Keith and other engineers when trains stalled there.
Additional Overhauls
Two years ago, Norfolk Southern agreed to contribute more than $300 million for additional overhauls in exchange for a 30% stake in the Speedway. The money has helped replace tracks and install a signal system on a line that had none. It allowed construction of sidings so trains can pass each other in more places.
Union Pacific uses the Speedway for a leg of a longer run that begins near the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, Calif. Improvements on the line have enabled Union Pacific to launch a new train packed with Asian goods that can cross the Southern U.S. in 72 hours, down from the 120-hour service it offered in past years. Such numbers translate into big savings for railroads, which figure that each mile per hour of speed they can add systemwide translates into fewer cars, locomotives and crew members.
Mr. Keith says his trips between Meridian and Vicksburg now take six or seven hours, compared with 11 or 12 before the upgrades. He says he saved 30 minutes on a recent run by pulling onto a newly lengthened siding in Meehan, Miss., to pass another train.
Mr. Keith says the work will clear the Speedway to handle more and faster trains. "I love it," he says. "It guarantees me work stability."
Write to Daniel Machalaba at daniel.machalaba@wsj.com2
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WETLANDS:
West Eugene Transportation,
Land and Neighborhood
Design Solutions
West Eugene Porkway alternative
| TREES:
Transportation, Energy, Environment, Sustainability |
TRANSPORTATION after Peak Oil
change regional plans to anticipate Peak Oil
maintain road networks, don't expand them
upgrade Amtrak and inter-city buses
convert RV factories to make buses
local manufacture of electric cars, bicycles
no “mileage
tax” to track motorists 24/7/365
Hybrids should not subsidize Hummers
ENVIRONMENT
Protection and Restoration
ecoforestry:
selective logging to restore tree farms to forests
no clearcuts or biocides,
value added products
green business, clean industry
myco and bioremediation,
zero discharge
ban toxics to protect public health
carbohydrate
economy, no petrochemicals
reduce garbage: waste is a terrible thing to mind
intelligent (urban) design:
beauty not ugliness
(prevent strip mauls, billboards)
ENERGY
for the Year 2025
build solar panel and wind turbine factories
convert grass seed farms to grow biofuels
require passive solar design in building codes
relocalize production to reduce
consumption
(fewer delivery trucks)
retrofit buildings: conservation & renewables
initiatives for sustainable jobs after Peak Oil
SUSTAINABILITY
is not efficiency, it is post-petroleum
paradigm shifts: psychological and political
beyond boom and bust: steady state economy
local food security,
more community
gardens,
teach gardening skills at neighborhood levels,
protect farm soils
from "development"
regional inventories of food production and
processing
economic stability needs democratic
decisions,
Campaign Finance Reform
public health: single payer health care
support local economy:
strengthen
local businesses,
build downtown Farmers Market
not Whole Foods predator,
ban big box megastores & franchises