Everything is grift or distraction from the grift. You get to decide which is which. .... The deep state is us. The deep state is the friends we made along the way. ...
Welcome to the latest issue of The Transportist, especially to our new readers. As always you can follow on Mastodon, or RSS. By popular demand, a BlueSky feed is also available.
“Let all the poison that lurks in the mud, hatch out” - I, Claudius. Robert Graves.
Boy, the shortest month was busy. It’s already March.
This issue’s topics:
CAHSR
NYC Congestion Pricing
Air and Maritime Safety
Network Resilience
Nuclear War
Electrification
Carbesity
Research
Back to Work
Your Moment of Zen
California High Speed Rail
I am a noted opponent of initiating construction of the HSR in California, not because HSR is a bad technology that doesn’t work, but because the capital costs, like all capital costs in the Anglosphere countries, were relatively too high1 and the benefits too low.2 Of course, if facts change (like, e.g. were cars and airplanes far more expensive), my opinion would have been different.
However once the bulk of the capital costs are already expended, the question of whether you should finish the project has a different answer to whether you should have started it. Sunk costs are sunk, and nothing is more sunk than the ugly concrete pillars littering California’s Central Valley from the gleaming transit-oriented metropoles of Bakersfield to Merced.3 So the question is: how much will it cost to complete this section vs. the benefits of this section, and subsequent sections.
The USDOT Secretary4 flew (I am sure he didn’t take a train, or an MTV Road Rules bus) to California to hold a presser at the lovely Los Angeles Union Station5 promising a compliance review. Nothing inherently wrong with a review, though it is generally the kind of process that wastes money when the answer is already known. One expects the review is a precursor to cancelling the federal contribution to the project. I am not a lawyer, so I don’t know what the rules are about cancelling contracts, but even if it were legal to do so, it would seem to indicate the US federal government is no longer a reliable partner. No surprises there I guess.
New York Congestion Pricing
It was implemented in January. Thus far, it is reasonable and not merely cynical to declare it successful:
in his statement "cancelling" congestion pricing, sean duffy calls people who ride the subway "an elite few" and i just feel as a communication professional that they gotta decide if they're going with that or crime-ridden drug den homeless shelter
Of course more people ride the New York Subway than drive into New York City, or fly in Airplanes in the US every day.
Obviously, MTA in NY has filed suit to continue the program.
But seriously, WTAF. This is about Federalism. The 10th amendment.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
States have been able to toll roads w/out federal approval from the beginning if they didn’t take federal funds (and then they could just return the funds if they wanted to impose tolls). There has been a huge central governmental overreach into what should be state prerogatives.
If what comes out of this whole process is a renewed understanding of the benefits of federalism, it still won’t have been worth it, but we will have a better understanding of the benefits of federalism. Some more autonomy is worth it even if sacrificing some milk from the federal teet (see California HSR above, which also should be built by the state, if it wants to go forward), by making the whole system less vulnerable to an authoritarian takeover. Decentralisation risks that any one of the states may go down a bad path, but it is less likely the other 49 will be brought down with them.
Air and Maritime Safety
In another top tier transport topic of the times, air safety is under question (objectively, it’s still pretty safe, but it had been SO safe since 2002, that any big crashes bring attention, and we’ve had a few).
This included the partial collapse of a bridge that could add an extra 700km to driving routes and slow down the delivery of critical supplies, the Queensland Trucking Association told the ABC.
Perhaps the network should be a bit more redundant.
Your regular reminder that Nuclear War can still happen
The US's largest concrete structure is the new LAX Rental Car Center, surpassing the former champ, the Pentagon. We spent billions to bring rail to LAX and built a gargantuan parking garage
Your regular reminder why safety statistics are getting worse:
We could talk about how the voters were lied to in 2008 about the costs, or how absurd the initial demand forecasts were (3x the northeast corridor if I remember correctly, which has 3x the population).
No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.
This of course of “I was joking” (not joking) variety of fascist monarchical cos-play that allows him to push the boundaries and walk back what gets him in too much trouble but keeps extending the Overton Window.
