Krugman: "Stranded in Suburbia"

[El Pinko]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/19/opinion/19krugman.html?_r=2&ref=opinion&oref=slogin&oref=slogin


Stranded in Suburbia
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: May 19, 2008

I have seen the future, and it works. O.K., I know that these days you’re supposed to see the future in China or India, not in the heart of “old Europe.”

But we’re living in a world in which oil prices keep setting records, in which the idea that global oil production will soon peak is rapidly moving from fringe belief to mainstream assumption. And Europeans who have achieved a high standard of living in spite of very high energy prices — gas in Germany costs more than $8 a gallon — have a lot to teach us about how to deal with that world. If Europe’s example is any guide, here are the two secrets of coping with expensive oil: own fuel-efficient cars, and don’t drive them too much.

Notice that I said that cars should be fuel-efficient — not that people should do without cars altogether. In Germany, as in the United States, the vast majority of families own cars (although German households are less likely than their U.S. counterparts to be multiple-car owners).

But the average German car uses about a quarter less gas per mile than the average American car. By and large, the Germans don’t drive itsy-bitsy toy cars, but they do drive modest-sized passenger vehicles rather than S.U.V.’s and pickup trucks.

[marmar]

1. And Germany has a public transportation infrastructure that puts ours to shame....

.... both in its cities and between its cities.

[leftofthedial]

2. and MUCH denser population

[marmar]

3. True....but if you look at the US in regions.

Like the densely populated Northeast Corridor between Boston and DC, or the Great Lakes Region (Cleveland-Detroit-Indianapolis-Chicago-Milwaukee), or the California Coast, the transportation infrastructure within those regions is still an embarassment when compared to Northern Europe. The so-called Amtrak Northeast Corridor is its flagship, but it's an absolute joke when compared to SNCF in France, or DieBahn in German, or Nederlands Sporwegen in Holland, or even (gasp!) the relatively dysfunctional British Rail system.

[NewJeffCT]

5. well

Amtrak has been a target of Republicans for 30 years or so now, hasn't it?

they've always attempted to destroy it, privatize it or somehow eliminate it.

[leftofthedial]

13. no argument

our mass transportation system is a joke--both within and even moreso between cities.

Indeed, our entire transportation and communications infrastructure is thirty years or more out of date and is on a par with parts of the third world.

[izquierdista]

7. Not really

Judging from the last 8 years, Americans are quite dense!

[leftofthedial]

14. buh dum dum ....

psshhhht

[BeyondGeography]

4. Ah cities and towns, complete with walkable, useful centers and farmland on the outskirts

Such a miserable future that awaits us...

[ikojo]

6. Mr Krugman said the C word....class

It is because of class and race that the St Charles MO area voted down expansion of the light rail system into St Charles county. A mayor of one of the suburbs in St Charles County was quoted as saying, "we moved out of North (St Louis) County to get away from those people."

I have no pity for people from St Charles who complain about high gas prices or traffic jams in the AM and PM.

[Ichingcarpenter]

8. Amtrak in California waits for freight trains

The track or tracks are owned by Western Pacific which
has precedent over commuter.





Notice that it is a one way track in most instances






Vs. European which are always a two way track.


http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2007/03/23/swiss_rail_wideweb__430x298,0.jpg

[izquierdista]

9. Notice also

That the European track is electrified and the American train has a diesel locomotive which is half as energy efficient. Even in Eastern Europe, which is considerably less advanced than France and Germany, they still have electrified trains.

[Ichingcarpenter]

10. I've traveled on both- for example California from the Central Coast to LA

Costs only $24, however I can drive down to LA in 1.5 hours vs the train that
on the average is 3-5 hours. Then when you get to downtown LA there is also
almost no supporting public transportation system except buses. You even have
to take two or three bus connections, carrying luggage to get to the airport, which can take
another couple of hours, because the trains are delayed half the time causing you to
miss connections.

I've traveled on the rails in Europe and the railways are not privately owned,
we are 50 years behind them. A similar trip in Europe would be a quarter of the time
and a quarter of the hassles.

[comtec]

11. Actually... NS is privately owned now :(

The Dutch government for some ungodly reason has decided to do a slow, half-assed job of the gop dream, and they privatized EVERYTHING! the post office, the rails, the buses, the phones (ok THAT was an improvement) EVERYTHING!
and the cost to us mere burgers (citizens) has gone up, up, up while there has been little or NO IMPROVEMENT in quality.

In fact the NS, the bus lines, and the post office have all cut services! The bus union, in my area is in fact striking now (not charging in the morning and after noon commutes, not running at all, outside of commute hours)!!!!!

They are asking a 3.5% increase in pay (reasonable) and something else I didn't quite catch, which was none the less also reasonable.

but yeah, the public system, while a lil slow and EXPENSIVE at times, is still very efficient!

[Tesha]

15. Actually, the Diesel vs. Electric comparison is a lot more subtle than that.

> Notice also that the European track is electrified and the
> American train has a diesel locomotive which is half as
> energy efficient.

I'm sorry, but that statement is clearly wrong. The Diesel vs.
Electric comparison is a lot more subtle than that.

Electric trains have several advantages:

* They accelerate more quickly because their peak
horsepower is almost unlimited (for short periods).

* They can return energy to the network when decelerating
(regenerative braking).

* They move the pollution of ther energy generation
somewhere else or they can run off or nuclear or
renewable energy.


But diesel trains have one big advantage:

* Capital costs and maintenance costs for the trackway
are much lower.


In terms of efficiency, there's probably nothing much
to distinguish a diesel locomotive from an electric
locomotive powered by an oil- or coal-fired generation
plant. And depending on the electrical transmission
differences, the diesel may even be *MORE* efficient.
The comparison desn't apply, of course, if the electricity
comes from nuclear, hydro, wind, or solar energy.

Tesha

[izquierdista]

21. Actually, you'll have to research this more

Because I've satisfied myself that it is true and am not going to waste time looking stuff up for you. When I was wandering around the train museum in Warsaw, they had little models of the old-fashioned coal and diesel locomotives. I took note of the displays they had on the conversion to electric which they had finished many years ago, in the communist days. With all the capital involved in the upgrade and maintenance, there must be a reason that all of Europe runs on electricity.

[Tesha]

23. Unfortunately for you, "all of Europe" *DOESN'T* run on electricity.

And you don't need to go very far outside of some major
cities to find yourself looking at some very-European
diesel-electric locomotives, commonly pulling freight
but sometimes pulling passengers.

This is *VERY* true in the UK, by the way.

You might enjoy this PDF report:

* http://www.uic.asso.fr/download.php/environnement/2006-01-diesel-study-wp1.pdf

Here's part of the summary at the front of the report:

The information that has been collected on the existing diesel fleet in Europe, and the
estimates that have been made for the future development of the fleet, highlight the
complexity of the topic. There are in many cases a large number of indicators
characterising the diesel fleet due to different situations in various countries or
railway companies:

§ Rail diesel traction has comparably high absolute operating performances in
countries like Germany, France, UK, the Baltic states and further new EU member
states. The new EU 10 represent more than one third of the covered European
diesel operating performance.

§ In the Baltic States, Ireland and Greece, there is almost no electrified track and
diesel traction is the backbone of rail traffic. This is in contrast to countries such
as Germany and France where diesel traction is typically used for feeder traffic on
sparsely used lines (although it should be recognised that diesel traction still
accounts for 10% of all rail traffic in France, and 20% in Germany). In a fully
electrified country like Switzerland, diesel traction is only rarely used for some
maintenance and shunting operations.

§ Different situations in various countries also result in there being a large number
of indicators that describe the intensity of use of the diesel fleet, e.g. the average
train-km per tractive unit or the average wagon load in tonnes per diesel freight
train. Due to the fact that diesel traction is widely used also for shunting and civil
engineering processes and on lines with low traffic density, average utilisation is
much lower compared to electric traction. The main exceptions to this are the
heavy haul diesel freight trains in the Baltic countries with an average wagon load
of up to 3000 tonnes per train.

Tesha

[Retrograde]

17. California is bigger than most European countries

It's roughly the size of France, one of the bigger ones, but the population patterns are different. This particular picture is in the Sierras, a remote part of the state and one prone to heavy blizzards, which is great because that's where our water comes from, but I digress.

There are parts of the state where the trains do run frequently and usually on time. I'm lucky enough to live within walking distance of the peninsula CalTrain, which I take about once a week to San Francisco. It used to be run by Southern Pacific, which seemed to be actively looking for ways to get rid of passenger service. A couple of decades or so ago the passenger trains were taken over by the state, who contract with Amtrak for personnel (and I'm sure someone will correct me on the details :) - someone actually looked at commuter patterns and changed the SP schedules (which they'd been using since the 1940s, totally ignoring where people actually lived and worked) so they could be used by real people. They could be better - I'd like to see them run some more late night trains - but they'll do. Of course, they have the advantage that they serve a densely populated area, and that the right of way and tracks have been around for over a hundred years. Other parts of the state aren't as lucky. However, if the powers that be can ever come to an agreement on where it's going to cross the hills, we may see rapid SF-LA trains in my lifetime.

As for the precedence given to freight trains: a lot of freight comes into West Coast ports in containers, which are then transferred to trains and shipped across the country (I read once that it's cheaper to ship goods from China to Europe via US freight trains than to go through Panama, but I can't find the reference). That's stuff that would otherwise be transported by trucks, which consume a lot of diesel, not to mention wear and tear on roads. I'd like to seen more freight trains for long-distance hauling.

[paulk]

19. that's not really true

90% of the time Amtrak gets precedence over freight trains. There are occasions where Amtrak will have to wait, but it's not the norm.


-------------------


ps - I worked for the railroad (UP, which owns Western Pacific) for 20 years.

[Ichingcarpenter]

20. I also worked as a cabbie that relied on the train station

90% all of the delays were freight problems, and beleive me
I watched that system daily hoping to get fares for departure and arrivals
and also with appointments made by customers.

The delays caused by the freight railways were constant, with a lot of times
AmTrak having to call in their buses to pick up rail passengers. I got my
information from the Amtrak employees at the station on what was going on
so as to not to waste my time.

The problems between LA and the north are caused by the one rail track system
with few waiting or passing spurs. You may of worked for the freight-railways, but your
livelihood didn't rely on Amtrak and talking to Amtrak employees having to
explain the almost constant delays to their customers and the public.

Almost no railways in Europe have a one lane system, trains can crossover to either track
according to the needs of the system.

It is true, Amtrak had to wait for the freight trains because of the system.

[paulk]

22. yeah, the LA area is kind of unique

it is a real clusterfuck what with the busing and all. I rode Amtrak once from SF to LA and then east, and it was a mess.

Most of the freight goes east/west, either north of there and onto the the Wyoming UP mainline or east out of LA itself - it's probably not cost efficient for the RR to build and maintain another track north south and Amtrak gets caught in the middle.

[krabigirl]

12. A lot of Germans drive BMW and Mercedes sedans.

Sure, they aren't SUVs, but they aren't fuel efficient. My CR-V, an evil mini-SUV, gets much better mileage than my husband's sedan, a BMW. He was amazed at how poor his mileage was. Luckily, he lives close to work so he doesn't need to drive much.

[Tesha]

16. Far more of them are turbo-diesels, though.

And even our big-ass conventionally-powered Audi A8
gets about 28-29 MPG on the highway at 72 MPH.

(Your CR-V isn't a real SUV, it's only marketed as one.
That sort of car (a "crossover" vehicle) is actually
still a pretty reasonable choice for a while longer.)

Tesha

[muriel_volestrangler]

18. It would depend on the model

The most popular BMW in Germany is the 3 series; the 320i has fuel consumption 7.4l/100km, as opposed to the CR-V using 8.1l/100km (with a similar size engine). The Mercedes C 230 (nearest power equivalent from their C class, their most popular model) does use more - 9.3l/100km.

And in Germany, diesels account for about 45% of new car sales - http://www1.eere.energy.gov/vehiclesandfuels/facts/2007_fcvt_fotw481.html . That means they use significantly less fuel. Look at the Mercedes 320 CDI, and the fuel consumption goes down to 6.9l/100km.