At last month's Rail-Volution conference in Boston, Streetfilms was able to grab a few moments with William Lind, a politically conservative transit advocate. Lind aims to provide "liberal transit advocates" the language to build support for public transportation (okay, just rail) in terms that conservatives can relate to. Some of Lind's arguments don't reflect our views here at Streetfilms, especially his disdain for buses (which we don't cover in this video), but he makes a thought-provoking case for transit investment. Streetsblog readers won't want to miss his critique of highway spending as a massive government intervention.

Photo: NYT

A Times investigation revealed that LIRR workers -- even white-collar managers who had little active role in running trains -- had won approval for approximately $250 million in taxpayer-funded disability payments since 2000.

In fact, the GAO found that LIRR employees have filed Retirement Board claims at a rate 12 times higher than the other seven railroads covered by the agency (a list is available after the jump). Meanwhile, LIRR riders are facing yet more fare increases amid a massive budget gap at New York's transit authority.

How could the Retirement Board get away with sending disability payments to rail workers who the Times found well enough to spend most days golfing? By setting the bar for claims much lower than the Social Security system, which administers disability requests for most American employees.

The Retirement Board requires rail workers claiming a disability to have 20 years of work experience at any age level or 10 years, for those who have already turned 60. Social Security, by contrast, requires 20 quarters of participation in the system during the 10 years prior to the claim.

Once that standard is met, the Retirement Board asks workers to prove that they are prevented from working in their regular railroad position due to a permanent mental or physical condition. Most LIRR claimants provided their medical evidence of disability from one of three doctors, which the GAO deemed "an indicator of fraud or abuse."

Social Security, on the other hand, asks workers to prove that a permanent ailment prevents them from taking on any gainful employment in the national economy. While 99.6 percent of LIRR employees won Retirement Board payments, only 39.1 percent were approved for Social Security disability checks. Employees of other commuter railroads, who won 100 percent approval from the Retirement Board, were cleared by Social Security at a 79.4 rate.

After the Times story prompted New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo to open a formal probe of the LIRR disability system, the Retirement Board implemented a five-point reform plan to apply greater scrutiny to rail workers' claims. But the GAO audit cast doubt on the plan's effectiveness, noting that a nearly universal rate of claims approvals has remained the norm. The Retirement Board defended the five-point plan and reiterated its commitment to better quality control.

Rep. John Mica (FL), the senior Republican on the House transportation committee, said in a statement that he had taken over supervision of the GAO request after an initial inquiry by Sen. Charles Schumer was withdrawn. "We should not assume that there is widespread abuse of the program by railroad workers, but we need to determine whether improvements to the system are necessary," Mica said in a statement.

In addition to the LIRR, the following railroads are covered by the federal Retirement Board: the Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad, Metro-North Railroad, New Jersey Transit, Northeast Illinois Commuter Railroad, Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District, Port Authority Trans-Hudson Corporation, and Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority.

Meadowlands Rail event in July. Photo: EGS Blog

The New Jersey Transit Meadowlands Rail Line opened for business over the summer, and made its first NFL regular season run last weekend. A reader sends this account:

The train I was on for the Giants game Sunday was 100 percent full (wouldn't be surprised if people were left on the platform, except the train was so full I couldn't see out the window to check). Came on time, plenty of trains at the end of the game, etc. Bought my ticket at a Metro North station and they had someone manually checking tickets at Secaucus (since Secaucus usually uses electronic NY Transit tickets). Ironically, my friend who had the tickets drove and hit so much traffic that we missed kickoff.

The Giants, having topped the Redskins, travel to Dallas this week, and will host the Cowboys in December. Fresh from the impressive debut of rookie QB Mark Sanchez in Houston, the Jets face the Patriots -- now 1-0 thanks to the hopelessly luckless Bills -- in their home opener Sunday afternoon.

Robert Menendez (D-NJ), a senior member of the Senate Banking Committee, began his hearing on transit today by displaying the above cartoon by Pulitzer prize-winner Tom Toles. The senator's message parallels Toles': In a world where the auto industry can get $2 billion more in one week, what's to be done about rail's $50 billion backlog?

Menendez, whose state is one of only four in the nation where 10 percent of commuters take transit, said lawmakers should weigh emergency spending authority for the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) to help local agencies pay for equipment repair needs that are estimated at $50 billion -- for the top seven urban rail networks alone.

But given the difficulty of wrestling transit's long-term share of federal money past the 20 percent mark, winning emergency funds for rail would be a very heavy political lift. So FTA chief Peter Rogoff focused on the more achievable question of how to best spend Washington's $5 billion-plus budget for transit modernization.

"The current formula" for distributing that money, Rogoff acknowledged, "is a bit of a hodgepodge. It's hard to define what the strategic goal of it is."

Complicating the issue, he added, is that everyone agrees transit agencies are falling far behind on keeping their equipment in what the FTA calls "state of good repair," but few parties agree on how to actually define that term.

The U.S. DOT is currently completing a more in-depth study of transit modernization needs that aims to single out repair needs linked to passenger safety, with findings expected early in the fall. Rail safety has taken on new urgency in Congress in the wake of the D.C. Metro's fatal crash in June.

Yet looking only at safety risks undercutting transit agencies' ability to serve ridership that is hitting record highs. Fixing escalators and crumbling train platforms "might not be viewed as safety-critical," Rogoff said, "but it can move people out of transit and back to highways," thus further clogging the nation's already taxed roads.

One thing that Menendez, Rogoff, and transit officials from four states agreed on was the need to avoid penalizing agencies making progress on repair with less federal money. In fact, New Jersey Transit was singled out by the FTA in May for properly supporting its equipment health.

How did the state get its transit into top shape? It was simple as formulating a workable long-term funding plan, NJ Transit executive director Richard Sarles testified before Menendez.

Given the Capitol's current focus on short-term stimulus, however, that task is far more challenging than it might seem.

Will all 11 high-speed rail plans end up getting a piece of the action? (Photo: WSJ)

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D), the co-chairman of Building America's Future and an unabashed high-speed rail evangelist, urged senators to shrug off their post-bailout reluctance to approve large spending projects. The White House's $13 billion commitment, Rendell argued, is only a down payment on a workable system.

Building high-speed rail along the California coast, he added, is estimated to cost as much as $40 billion. A northwestern network is projected to cost $25 billion. Similar long-term funding problems, as it happens, are also haunting lawmakers who aim to overhaul federal transportation policy.

Rendell suggested that a national infrastructure bank, independent of the government, should be tapped to direct money to high-speed rail proposals without political concerns influencing the process. "The public wants that," he said. "The public doesn’t want transportation dollars authorized through [the existing] system."

That outcome is highly unlikely, however, given that the federal DOT already has released its guidelines for an internal ranking of regional rail plans. And Federal Railroad Administrator Joseph Szabo was on hand to defend the administration's methods.

"Our vision matches, frankly, what they've done in Europe," Szabo told senators. Meanwhile, Rendell kept imploring the lawmakers to reconsider the Obama administration's 110-mph ballpark for defining what constitutes "high-speed".

With high-speed trains topping 200 mph in China and 160 in France, the governor said, "we're absolutely consigning ourselves to second-class citizenship" by setting the benchmark at 110 mph.

Tom Skancke, a member of the transportation revenue panel that last year called for a major gas-tax hike to fund system-wide reform, echoed Rendell's concerns with a call to publicly promote broad reform:

I don't think the nation as a whole has a plan for high-speed rail. ... The way we get there is, we have to sell the American public, particularly on rail, as we get people out of their horse and buggy. It is a cultural shift. We have to convince the American people that high-speed rail is going to be predictable, going to be on time, going to be affordable. ... We know what the alignment should look like. I just believe we need to step up and do it.

Amtrak CEO Joseph Boardman also sought to bring Rendell and Skancke's ambitions down to earth.

Citing the Acela train's moderate progress in taking over market share in the northeast corridor, Boardman said the U.S. is "not a train-riding culture" -- an eyebrow-raising admission from the chief of the nation's largest passenger rail service. "With high-speed rail, speed is not the issue," he said. "Convenience and trip times are."

Boardman also did his part to guard Amtrak's turf, suggesting that high-speed rail planners "build a culture of riding the train" by ensuring that the projects receiving funding are easily connectable to the network he runs. "People want to be seamless," he said.

As for the senators in attendance, most put in palpable plugs for their own home-state proposals. Texan Kay Bailey Hutchison, the commerce committee's senior GOPer, was abuzz with the possibilities of the Texas "T-Bone." Sen. Mark Udall (D-NM) spoke of a western corridor linking Albuquerque and Texas.

But with Rendell warning that his fellow governors are equally convinced of the merits of their own local rail plans, the task of separating the wheat from the chaff was rarely discussed.

The scene of yesterday's D.C. Metro crash. Photo: NYT

The letter was sent by two chairmen with a central role in transportation policy -- commerce committee chief Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and environment committee chief Barbara Boxer (D-CA) -- to the two senators who shepherd the annual transportation budget, Patty Murray (D-WA) and Kit Bond (R-MO).

Rockefeller and Boxer noted that a $50 million investment in technology improvement grants was authorized last year when Congress passed a new rail safety law. That law favored rail safety upgrades that implemented "positive train control," a computerized program to prevent crashes that safety experts said might have averted last year's deadly California Metrolink crash.

As Rockefeller and Boxer wrote to their fellow senators:

More commuters are turning to commuter rail today than ever before. In these tough economic times, with many commuter rail agencies facing budget cuts, funding for the railroad safety technology grants is vital to ensure that important safety measures continue to be implemented.

Ray LaHood geeks out on French high-speed rail. Photo via The Overhead Wire

Today's DOT guidance uses the same standard that was outlined in last year's Amtrak reauthorization bill: high-speed trains are those "reasonably expected to reach speeds of at least 110 mph."

That standard appears flexible enough to include most regional rail plans. California's high-speed authority believes the state's service can reach a top speed of 220 mph. The states working on a midwestern rail network with Chicago at the center, however, envision their trains achieving an average of 67 mph for local service and 78 mph for express rides.

In addition to speed, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) will initially evaluate high-speed rail proposals using six criteria, with each one assuming a different priority level depending on the pot of money that's being spent.

Here's where things get a bit complicated, because high-speed rail aid has been split into four tracks.

The first two use stimulus money for projects and programs, and the second two use money from the annual congressional appropriations process for planning and project execution. In fact, DOT's guidance says the first two tracks of money -- the $8 billion popularly referred to as high-speed rail stimulus money -- may not be paid out in full this year, "to allow for potential future rounds of solicitations and awards which occur after 2009."

The first track of stimulus money is aimed at "shovel-ready" projects that are supportive of high-speed rail development. For these funds, economic benefits (read: job creation) is the No. 1 criterion, followed by general transportation benefits at No. 2.

Saving energy, promoting sustainable development and discouraging fossil fuel use -- what DOT calls "other public benefits" -- is ranked No. 6 out of six priorities for this first track of stimulus money. For the second track of stimulus money, reserved for longer-term work that's not primarily aimed at economic recovery, "other public benefits" is priority No. 2.

Another DOT criterion focuses on the sustainability of each high-speed rail network, or how well local planners have anticipated the financial risk of such a massive project. Sustainability is ranked in the bottom three priorities for both pots of stimulus money.

The dense nature of today's 68-page guidance may make it difficult for many in the mainstream media to pay close attention. Yet with $8 billion on the line, it should be interesting to see how many state and local officials weigh in before DOT's official comment period ends on July 10.

The high-speed Midwest Regional Rail Initiative's proposed reach. (Photo: Michigan Messenger)

"This is how the interstate highway system started, folks," Biden told the governors, according to the pool report filed by the White House press corps. "It wasn't like the Lord on the eighth day said -- boom! -- there's the interstate highway system."

The group included eight governors -- from Michigan, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin, Illinois, Massachusetts, Georgia and Missouri -- but not New York's David Paterson, who's taking some flak from a Democratic state legislator for his decision to focus on legislative priorities in Albany.

Applications are due this summer for the $8 billion in high-speed rail money that was added to the economic stimulus bill, and detailed guidance on that process is slated for release by month's end.

It's still unclear, though, how many projects are in line for a share of that pot, not to mention the passenger demand and matching-funds requirements that rail proposals would have to meet.

As Sarah pointed out in her Streetsblog Network post today, directing the money to the most high-demand areas remains a key concern for transportation planners.

Another unanswered question is whether Congress will sign on to the administration's pitch for $5 billion in annual high-speed rail funding over the next five years. LaHood is headed to the House Appropriations Committee tomorrow morning, where part of his job will be to sell that long-term rail investment to his former colleagues on the Hill.

Meanwhile, the most well-represented corridor at the meeting appears to be the Midwest Regional Rail Initiative, which would link Chicago with St. Louis, the Detroit area, Wisconsin and the Twin Cities of Minnesota. In an April letter to LaHood, governors from that region estimated the cost of their high-speed rail corridor at $3.4 billion, using 3,000 miles of track that don't require negotiations over rights-of-way.

Midwestern senators are also working the phones to ensure that freight rail doesn't stand in the way of an expansion of high-speed passenger service. Will the Midwest initiative's political might -- both LaHood and the president are Illinoisans -- help vault it ahead of the competition?

You've probably seen this already. It's the latest graphic representation of the nation's proposed high-speed rail corridors, and it's been all over the transportation blogosphere since President Obama stood beside it at a press conference yesterday.

Those corridors are likely to change somewhat as the administration refines its new strategy for high-speed rail, says Transport Politic blogger Yonah Freemark, who credits the administration for taking serious steps toward a national rail plan.

Perhaps the biggest positive from yesterday's presser is that Obama linked the idea of high-speed rail to local transit, center cities, and car-free transportation:

Imagine boarding a train in the center of a city. No racing to an airport and across a terminal, no delays, no sitting on the tarmac, no lost luggage, no taking off your shoes. (Laughter.) Imagine whisking through towns at speeds over 100 miles an hour, walking only a few steps to public transportation, and ending up just blocks from your destination. Imagine what a great project that would be to rebuild America.

New York City made a major public commitment to Bus Rapid Transit in 2006 when, after years of discussion, the MTA and DOT put forward plans for pilot routes in each of the five boroughs. In the meantime, the city's BRT agenda has encountered a few setbacks in Albany and made a partial breakthrough on Fordham Road, with a service that incorporates some nifty bus improvements, but not enough to merit the BRT designation.

Streetsblog caught up with Hook -- in between trips to Cape Town and Mexico City -- for an email Q&A about why New York City needs Bus Rapid Transit, common misconceptions of BRT in America, and what will make BRT succeed here. This is the first of four installments.

Streetsblog: Is BRT the right mode for New York City at this moment in time? A lot of folks think that BRT is no substitute for light rail or a subway system. How would you pitch the idea of BRT to New Yorkers?

Walter Hook: I was in Philadelphia a few months back, which is a real rail and streetcar-loving town, and I took a lot of heat for suggesting BRT had a place in U.S. cities like New York and Philadelphia, particularly from my friends in the sustainable transportation advocacy community. I understand why a lot of folks in the U.S. see BRT as some sort of marketing trick to pawn off low-quality bus improvements as mass transportation. I think it's because we don't really have a full BRT system in the U.S. Not very many people have been to Bogotá, or Curitiba, or Pereira or Guayaquil to see the best BRT systems. These are not exactly tourist Meccas.

The Second Avenue Subway would be great, it’s needed, it would have higher demand than almost any other metro line in the country. But will it happen?

New York City already has the most extensive subway network in the U.S., and one of the most extensive in the world. Whatever BRT is built, it will need to fit seamlessly into that network. Some subway lines are extremely crowded -- at capacity despite a very high fare by international standards. The 4, 5, and 6, the L -- these trains are packed.  I don't know why Japanese and Chinese cities can roll out 10 miles of new subway line a year, and the richest city in the world has been trying and failing to build the Second Avenue Subway since the 1960s. But I've lived in this town a long time, and I am skeptical. The optimists are telling us that we will have a Second Avenue Subway between 125th Street and 63rd Street by 2015 and only after we spend $4 to $5 billion. So this means we are probably talking about 2018 or 2020, and $10 billion. The Second Avenue Subway would be great, it’s needed, it would have higher demand than almost any other metro line in the country. At those volumes, metros are often a good investment. But will it happen?

Plus, the MTA needs something like an additional $20 billion just to bring the existing system into a state of good repair. If we only talk rail, that puts any mass transit improvements to my neighborhood -- Brooklyn adjacent to the hole in the ground that may one day be Atlantic Yards -- off the radar for two decades, even though they are talking about introducing Manhattan-level densities into my neighborhood in the next few years.

SB: Couldn't light rail get the job done in many cases?

WH: I don’t see light rail as much of a solution to this problem. Light rail has all the problems of a BRT system with most of the cost of a metro system. Surface light rail in Manhattan -- how much would it cost? The Denver light rail line was estimated to cost from $40 to $75 million per mile, and naturally it’s proving to be like double that. That’s less than the billions per mile the subway would cost. But the best BRT system in the world, Bogotá's TransMilenio, when the complete reconstruction of the entire road into a boulevard with bike lanes and beautiful trees is all included in the price, cost about $20 million a mile. It might cost more than this in the U.S., but all things being equal (high quality of all elements, dedicated transitways, specially configured low-noise, low-emissions vehicles, etc.) it's going to be a whole lot cheaper than LRT.

Very good BRT systems have been built for as little as $8 million a mile. With the same capital budget, we could build more than twice as much proper BRT as light rail, probably 5 to 10 times more, with no loss in the quality of service, the capacity, or the speed. Even counting the contribution to total life cycle costs of operating and maintenance costs, BRT is a bargain, something all New Yorkers love.

The engineering for light rail is more complicated: You need electric conduit, ugly overhead wires, tracks -- not to mention rail yards that are nearly impossible to locate in any dense city. What is the operational advantage? If light rail does not have an exclusive right of way, it is even more stuck in traffic congestion and much more accident prone than local bus services. Capacity? The capacity of a light rail system is no higher than a BRT system. The law of physics pertaining to only one object occupying a given space at one time applies to LRT just as it does to buses. The limitations of block lengths and traffic signals apply to both equally. The capacity of LRT with only two tracks (almost universal) is significantly lower than the many BRT systems that have passing lanes at the stations supporting express services just like on the subway here.

Very good BRT systems have been built for as little as $8 million a mile. With the same capital budget, we could build more than twice as much proper BRT as light rail. BRT is a bargain, something all New Yorkers love.

There is one circumstance that I have discovered where light rail might have a higher capacity. If a light rail station has all the same features as a BRT system, including pre-paid boarding from stations with platforms level with the vehicle floor, and there is only one exclusive lane available (no space for a passing lane at the station), so express services are impossible, and the LRT has an ultra-modern signaling system like they have in Zurich, it might be possible to reach capacities of about 20,000 passengers per direction during a single peak hour using LRT, while a BRT with the exact same configuration would only be able to reliably move about 15,000 at a similar speed. But there are almost no corridors in the United States with transit demand above 15,000 at the peak hour per direction that do not currently have a metro or subway line in them, so ultimately, the preference for light rail over a proper BRT system is mostly aesthetics and ignorance of the technical capabilities of a well-planned and implemented BRT system.

In Mexico City, MetroBus has enhanced perceptions of surface transit. Photo: Shreya Gadepalli/ITDP.

Of course, you can mess up a BRT system, and Boston's Silver Line proved that you could waste almost as much money on BRT as you can on a rail system. Many of the BRT systems we've worked on are nowhere near as good as TransMilenio. For mainly political reasons, the risk of BRT being something far from optimal is pretty big, even here in New York City.

It's important to the world that New York City doesn't just build some low-quality bus improvement and call it BRT. This could really damage the already poor reputation of BRT as a serious mass transit option in the U.S. But what if New York were to hit it out of the park, with something amazing? The rest of the world expects no less from the greatest city in the world.

The Metro-North Railroad's M-7 train cars now offer special accommodations for passengers traveling with bicycles, the MTA announced yesterday. The railroad is just testing this out for now, so if you're a Metro-North rider, management wants to know what you think of the new bike hooks. From the press release:

The railroad is seeking feedback from the cycling community on the hooks – their ease of use, placement, etc. Metro-North has established an e-mail address to which people can send comments about the bike mount: surveys@mnr.org. The intent is to increase safety, convenience and sustainable mobility for all customers.

One potential issue that might come up: The bike hooks are located in the space reserved for disabled riders...

The hooks are located in the area designated for wheelchairs, which will continue to have first priority in this space. Prominent signs will specify that cyclists must remove bicycles if the area is needed for a customer in a wheelchair. Feedback on the proposal also is being sought from wheel chair users.

Photo: Frank English/MTA Metro-North Railroad.

The Presidential Inaugural Committee has hit on a novel way of reducing the pressure that the enormous crowd expected to show up on Inauguration Day will put on Washington: Have Barack Obama take a pre-inaugural railroad tour that will allow people to show up to view him and Joe Biden at multiple locations.

A rendering of the Transbay Transit Center with a 5.4 acre park on its roof.

Pointing to the renderings on a projection screen behind him, with a 5.4 acre park atop the terminal, 2600 units of housing (with a pledge of 35% affordable homes), the construction of the tallest building in the West, and a terminal expected to serve 100,000 daily riders, Mayor Newsom added: "Eat your heart out, New York City."

If the city manages to find the $2 billion necessary to complete the project, San Francisco's transit hub would be finished in 2014, 101 years after Cornelius Vanderbilt opened the doors to New York's Grand Central Terminal.

The Transbay Transit Center, a public-private partnership headed by the Transbay Joint Powers Authority (TJPA), will replace the existing Transbay Terminal with a multi-modal transportation hub that would serve nine transportation systems in the same complex, including the potential California High Speed Rail route through San Francisco.  

Mayor Newsom and several other speakers stressed the economic significance of a large-scale construction project as the overall economy sours and the city makes budget cuts.  

Nathaniel Ford, Sr., Chairman of the TJPA and head of MUNI, argued that "without projects like this, we will not be able to provide mobility for the growing population of California, and bring together the fractured public transportation system in San Francisco."  

Mayor Gavin Newsom, former Mayor Willie Brown, and board members of the Transbay Joint Powers Authority

Though the project design is impressive, funding remains a daunting obstacle. As outlined in the excellent feature story by Steve Jones in the San Francisco Bay Guardian yesterday, the TJPA has not found the money to pay for the entire project and may be relying on state funding that won't materialize, especially with California's ballooning budget deficit.

While the TJPA has suggested that it hopes the Transbay Transit Center will catch the eye of President-elect Barack Obama's team, as it expedites construction projects for the fiscal stimulus package early next year, it will be only one of many transit projects competing with the road and bridge lobby, which is already circling the wagons nationally and in California.

"It's exciting to see the first shovel in the soil for the new terminal and there are still real concerns about how we raise the additional $2 billion or so for the project," said Dave Snyder, transportation policy director for San Francisco Planning and Urban Research. "But this is a perfect public works project for the new century."

Below are the various renderings of the proposed terminal as presented by Mayor Newsom and the TJPA at the groundbreaking:

The Natoma Street facade

The center light column from below...

... and above.

The view from Mission Square

Photo: Matthew Roth

Last night The Overhead Wire's Jeff Wood gave a heroic play-by-play of several transit ballot initiatives, live-blogging results into the wee hours. The big-ticket item -- California's bond issue for a high-speed rail line spanning most of the state -- passed with about 52 percent of the vote. Plenty of other measures passed too, with notable exceptions in Missouri, where Kansas City voters rejected a light rail line, and St. Louis opted not to increase funding for transit operations and expansion.

New transit systems and expansions were approved in Los Angeles, Seattle, Honolulu, West Sacramento, Marin County, and Aspen. Voters in Milwaukee and Berkeley signed off on new funding streams for operations, while another measure in Berkeley that would have made it tougher to launch BRT lines went down to defeat.

In a press release, CALPIRG cautioned that the high-speed rail line is not yet a fait accompli:

This vote confirms California's commitment to building high-speed rail. Now California leaders must continue fighting for the project in order to start laying the tracks as quickly as possible. Before we spend bond funds on construction, Congress and private companies will have to match California's commitment to the train. We need that to happen quickly because this project cannot be delayed any longer.

Damien Newton has more on California's transpo ballot measures over at Streetsblog LA.

Video: California High-Speed Rail Blog

You know, John McCain is my friend. And I know you hear that phrase used all the time in politics. I mean it. John McCain is my friend.

We've traveled the world together. It's a friendship that goes beyond politics. And the personal courage and heroism demonstrated by John still amazes me.

But I profoundly disagree with the direction John wants to take this country, from Afghanistan to Iraq, from Amtrak to veterans.

Meanwhile, earlier in the week, a panel of Democratic pols and economists seemed to agree that new investment in American infrastructure -- including freight and commuter rail -- is sorely needed, but came up short on the subject of funding. Roll Call reports:

They all expressed the need for a private-public partnership, but the question of where to raise federal funding caused anxiety among the elected officials.

One key issue was that the current system for infrastructure funding, implemented in the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, relies on gas taxes for revenue. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) called any attempt by Congress to raise the gas tax “dead on arrival.”

But Gov. Ed Rendell (D-Pa.) said that with or without the gas tax something had to be done to bridge the funding gap, noting that the $1.6 trillion cited by the ASCE report would only cover maintenance, not new projects.

“When I became governor I had to raise $2.4 billion in taxes,” Rendell said. “When re-election came around — people aren’t stupid — one incumbent lost and she voted against the tax increase.

“This is the time we have to challenge the American people. Folks, you get what you pay for.”

Photo: Associated Press via CNN 

Biden commutes to work each day on Amtrak and has been a strong supporter of the beleaguered rail service. He is an original co-sponsor of the Amtrak Reauthorization Bill (National Defense Rail Act), S.104, introduced on January 7, 2003. Introducing an earlier version of the bill with Sen. Fritz Hollings (D-SC) on March 6, 2002, Biden stated, "For 30 years, I have witnessed Congress dangling a carrot in front of Amtrak's eyes, funding it just enough for it to limp along. And I'll tell you, this has to stop.  Now is the time to commit politically and financially to a strong, safe, and efficient passenger rail system." Biden has been particularly concerned with rail passenger security, and has, in the words of communications director Norm Kurz "worked furiously" to secure funding for Amtrak to upgrade its tunnels, hire more cops and bomb-sniffing dogs, build more fences, and add lighting to terminals.

Amtrak president George Warrington presented Biden with a "Champion of the Rails" award in June 2001 and the American Passenger Rail Coalition (APRC), a national association of railroad equipment suppliers and rail businesses, presented him its "Rail Leadership Award" in March 2002.

As Matthew Yglesias (and MissLaura) points out, Biden's son serves on the Amtrak board. (R. Hunter Biden is the only Democrat among current Amtrak board members. He was appointed by fellow Yalie George W. Bush to fill a seat vacated by Michael Dukakis.)

So well known, or well publicized, is Biden's affiliation with Amtrak that it's already become a point of ridicule for Beltway media types. Undeterred, before heading to this week's Democratic National Convention in Denver, Biden made an appearance at the Wilmington station, which he has passed through each day for the last 35 years, to greet workers and passengers.

Photo of Joe and Jill Biden at Wilmington Amtrak station via Delaware News Journal 

"I was with Governor [Tom] Ridge yesterday, and we visited a General Electric plant in Erie that makes -- guess what? -- locomotives. That's not viewed as, quote, high tech, is it? But you'd be amazed at the product, of the thousands of workers that are working there and building a locomotive that over half of their business is through exports, because they build the best locomotives in the world in Erie, Pennsylvania."

As Sean notes, high tech and well-made as Erie-produced trains may be, a more significant factor in the plant's export ratio could be that "because of decades of terrible transportation policy, there's not much of a market for locomotives in this country." And who do the folks in Erie, PA have to thank for that? Why, Senator John McCain, for one -- who, as perhaps the most outspoken opponent of domestic rail in Washington, has done everything in his power to cripple the very industry those "thousands of workers" depend on for the well-being of themselves and their families.

But hey, if McCain is elected president and finally succeeds in putting Amtrak out of business, maybe all those GE employees could get jobs building the Car of the Future.

Build More Livable and Sustainable Communities: Over the long term, we know that the amount of fuel we will use is directly related to our land use decisions and development patterns. For the last 100 years, our communities have been organized around the principle of cheap gasoline. Barack Obama believes that we must devote substantial resources to repairing our roads and bridges. He also believes that we must devote significantly more attention to investments that will make it easier for us to walk, bicycle and access other transportation alternatives. Obama is committed to reforming the federal transportation funding and leveling employer incentives for driving and public transit.

It's something, but not exactly a compelling pitch (not to mention that the "roads and bridges" bit reads like a sop to the highway lobby).

On the stump, meanwhile, the candidate continues to make an engaging case for high-speed rail, especially in the midwest. Air travel, apparently, is not much of a sacred cow compared to driving and big lawns. Via Trains for America, here's an excerpt from a recent speech Obama delivered in Ohio:

"If you think about the Midwest, think about right here, what we've got is all kind of towns that we could connect," Obama said. "All of these cities are, they basically take in the air about 45 minutes to an hour to fly."

"But by the time you get to the airport," Obama continued, "take off your shoes, get to the terminal, realize that your flight's been delayed two hours, go pay $10 for a cup of coffee, and a sandwich for another $10, come back, you get on the plane, you're sitting on the tarmac for another 25 minutes, you finally take off, you're circling above the city for another half hour, when you land they can't find your luggage, and then you get to where you're going -- by the time it's all done it's a five-hour trip! …So the time is right now for us to start thinking about high-speed rail as an alternative to air transportation, connecting all these cities and think about what a great project that would be in terms of rebuilding America."

Political reality says few if any state legislatures will enact statewide taxes to finance metro transit systems. But they can give the green light to their metro regions to tax themselves. Then it's up to regional business and civic leaders, in this increasingly metropolitan nation, to make a sufficiently compelling case to city and suburban voters alike. With long commutes increasingly unaffordable, and with city-suburb antagonisms much milder than in past times, selling well-conceived regional transit plans should be achievable.

Peirce notes that cities like Denver, Charlotte, Seattle, and even Houston are taking the initiative to fund transit expansions on their own.

Streetsbloggers may recall that the question of how much capital spending should come from local revenue streams and how much should come from the feds cropped up repeatedly during the congestion pricing debate. Opponents argued that more local money for the MTA would tempt Washington to decrease its contribution (while the historical record shows a constant flow from the feds as city and state funds fluctuate).

New York may be far ahead of the cities Peirce names when it comes to existing transit services, but in terms of planning for the future, are we keeping pace?

The Guardian reports that SNCF, France's national rail company, is taking advantage of a boom in ridership to make aggressive plans for expansion. While SNCF positions itself to help ease the impact of high fuel prices on the French public, what are American leaders preparing to do? Drilling offshore and taking a few hits from the strategic petroleum reserve aren't going to cut it.

Over in France, all the new riders have SNCF chairman Guillaume Pepy thinking big:

The state-owned SNCF delivered a net €1.1bn (£875m) profit last year and first-half figures, due next week, are said to be sparkling. Pepy envisages up to 80m extra passenger trips this year or an increase of around 8%.

"This change will speed up because we are facing a twin energy and environment crisis," he says, pointing to surging fuel costs and growing personal worries about carbon footprints. "People want sustainable mobility and, in France, more trains and more SNCF."

The growing number of passengers is maxing out the current system, which Pepy sees as an opportunity, especially in a time of escalating fuel prices. He wants to double the size of SNCF's high-speed network by 2015, make rail stations into multi-modal hubs, and capture market share from energy-intensive air and road travel.

The new SNCF chairman sees rail stations, mainly in the regions, becoming new transport (and commercial) hubs not just for trains but for buses and trams -- "all those places where people don't want to bring their cars."

SNCF executives believe rail can take market leadership from air and road on journeys up to four hours long and point to the success of Eurostar (part owned by the group) in increasing traffic so far this year by around a fifth on the back of shorter journey times between London and Brussels/Paris. You can even get to Marseille from Paris in little more than three hours.

Contrast to the attitude among many politicians and opinion leaders here in the U.S. -- typified by this Wall Street Journal op-ed -- which views public management of rail systems skeptically, to put it mildly. Congress may be taking a long-overdue step toward investing more in Amtrak, but that is triage compared to the direction SNCF is heading in, as high-speed train service in Europe widens its already considerable performance lead over American intercity rail.

Photo of high-speed trains at the Gare de Lyon in Paris: Feuillu/Flickr