Amtrak under Obama's Man

[ablarc]

New Amtrak President Declares War on Dead End Bureaucrats in His Midst

On CNBC yesterday Jim Cramer was addressing?that is ranting about?the question of bank nationalization. Executive summary: ?The government can?t run anything!? Example A: ?Look at Amtrak!?

Ah, poor Amtrak. So many haters. If new president Joseph Boardman is to be believed though, the much-abused national rail company isn?t going to take this ?hapless bureaucracy? rap sitting down (nodding off, in fact) anymore.

But before he changes any minds, Boardman wants you know that all that stuff is true. In a revealing new story from Trains Newswire, he describes Amtrak as being ?in worse shape than he thought? and full of hopeless clock-watchers. But he?s promising that change is on the way. Some key points from the piece:

>> There are a lot of dead enders at Amtrak. Boardman refers to them as ?people who don?t believe.?

>> Their heads will roll: ?he says [any] Amtrak managers? who cannot make the transition from a survival mode to a growth mode will have to find another job.?

>> The previous management, despite the fact that traffic was up 12 percent last year, apparently didn?t order any regular passenger cars as part of their five year plan. For some reason they just asked for odds and ends like ?baggage dormitory cars.?

>> That five-year plan was ?Secret.?

>> Despite being a secret this five year plan also was ?a joke? at Amtrak headquarters. (Only among the cynical burned out types or did ?growth mode? people laugh too?)

>> This lack of passenger cars leaves Amtrak in ?horrible? shape for America?s new golden era of passenger rail.

>> Everybody loves Boardman ? congressman and railroad conductors alike. The former group digs him so much they (might possibly) want to give him more money since Amtrak got kind of stiffed in the stimulus; the latter group threw union support behind him after a jocular hang out session at Union Station on Thanksgiving day.

>> He has put in a request for $1 billion in government loans to buy electric locomotives. Apparently, ?electric motive power is in such poor shape that Washington-New York-Boston trains are sometimes canceled for lack of power.?

>> He likes to use the word ?train? metaphorically: ?People are going to have to get on the train. We will make some judgments very soon.?

It?s a PR effort, of course ? adjusting expectations with respect to his own performance and attempting to reposition Amtrak in the minds of people like Jim Cramer. It?s also a part of the real-world, non-PR challenge of defining the agency?s place in a new world where the expansion of high speed rail is a signature issue for a very popular president.


http://www.infrastructurist.com/2009...-in-his-midst/

 

[ablarc]

DUKAKIS' VIEWS

It?s hard not to have the sense that after twenty years of relative obscurity?or at least being thought of primarily as a guy who looks stupid in a tank gunner helmet? Michael Dukakis is poised for a renaissance. The trajectory of Al Gore could be instructive: eggheaded Dem becomes media laughing stock in the course of losing to a man named Bush but gets his mojo back as an opinion leader.

Dukakis certainly deserves to be an important voice in the national debate about how to rebuild our roads and rail. He has a black belt in transportation policy and as governor of Massachusetts had an impressive record of completing large public works projects on time and on budget.

Curious about the Duke?s thoughts on the stimulus bill and the larger project of rebuilding America?s infrastructure, we reached him recently at UCLA, where he?s teaching this semester. He talks about why the U.S. can?t build big things anymore, what he thinks about when he?s stuck in L.A. traffic, and what America would be like if he?d been elected back in ?88.

Setting aside modesty, if you?d beaten ?Poppy? Bush would we be facing an infrastructure crisis now?
Oh Christ, we?d have been at this thing all guns blazing.

[q]You mean, for instance, we?d now have a halfway decent passenger rail system in the U.S.?[/b]
Are you kidding me? If I?d served as president for eight years? I certainly think so.

You backed Obama in the primaries. He?s obviously made infrastructure investment a priority. What should he be doing to get it right?
I must say, he has impressed me more and more. The guy looks and sounds like a president. But, remember, it?s generally the state and local governments that do infrastructure in this country. Which means the Obama administration is going to have to kick a lot of people in the fanny to get moving with this stuff and to give us a little more of the spirit of the transcontinental railroad. What his transportation secretary, Ray LaHood, should really do is bring in the mayors and governors, sit them down with the president and say, ?Guys, we?re not fooling around. We want to see hundreds of people working out there. If you?ve got work them on weekends, do it. We want projects done and done quickly and on budget.?

There?s a lot of grumbling from progressives that Obama is wasting an opportunity with the stimulus by trying to appease Republicans in the House and Senate. As a Democrat, do you think he?s setting himself up as too much of a compromiser?
I haven?t seen that since his inauguration. But if the Republicans are still talking about too much funding for infrastructure and ?Let?s cut taxes,? they?re back where they?ve been for the past eight years. They created this mess. McConnell and Boehner these guys are still singing the same tune. The one guy on television who keeps hitting them on this is Anderson Cooper. Every time they come on and say, ?We?re worried about too much borrowing,? he says, ?Now you?re worried?!? It?s great stuff.

In the current House version of the stimulus package Amtrak and intercity rail got knocked down from $5 billion proposed by the transportation committee to $1.1 billion. You served on the board at Amtrak for many years. Does this bode ill for the funding of passenger rail under Obama?
Well, does Amtrak have a billion dollars worth of shovel-ready projects? No, they really don?t. They?ve got $300-400 million. Could they get up to speed? Yeah, but they?ve got to get up to speed. Part of the problem is that we?ve so under invested in infrastructure for so long that our capacity to do this stuff has been weakened. That?s my concern generally with the infrastructure piece of the stimulus package.

There has been speculation that Larry Summers is behind the dramatic cuts to rail and transit in this version of the stimulus bill.
Well, I?d better talk to Summers. He was my economic guy in ?88. He credits me with getting him into public life. That?s where he met Clinton for the first time, on my campaign. But some of it might be skepticism on his part about being able to get this into the ground right away.

So was he right?
I don?t think the answer was to cut back. Instead, get the planners and engineers cracking. They need work too. And none of this two-year timeline stuff. Do it in six months and get it out to bid. There?s no reason you can?t do that. It?s all a function of people. Put enough people on these jobs and they?ll do the work. I suspect there are some unemployed architects and engineers out there. But you?ve got to force these people to meet deadlines. I mean there is very serious problem in this country. We?re taking forever to do public construction.

For example?
I could bore you for hours with examples. In Boston we?re in our fifth year of reconstructing Kenmore Square. It?s a joke. It?s absurd. They?re talking about six years to extend the Green line from Lechmere through Somerville to Tufts on existing railway. Chinese and Irish immigrants were laying four miles of railway a day in 1867. Out here in L.A. on the 405, they?re in their fourth year of building about five miles of an HOV lane. When you drive down the freeway ? and since you?re generally going seven miles an hour, you have time to look around ? if you might a handful of guys working, if you?re lucky.

So, to borrow a phrase, what?s our major malfunction?
Well, there?s a serious public construction management problem in this country. They give you estimates plus or minus 50 percent. Have you ever heard of anything like that? But there?s nothing inevitable about it, and it has everything to do with the kind of direction you?re getting from the public side. When I was governor, we had two big public works projects in Boston. One was the Harbor cleanup and one was the Big Dig. They were two of the biggest projects in history at the time. Both started out with same estimate ? around $4 billion. One came in on time and 25 percent under budget. That was the Harbor cleanup. We all know what happened with the other one.

What was the difference?
It was all about the competence of the people running the projects. If I may say, my guys were running the Harbor Cleanup and [former Gov. William] Weld?s guys were running the Big Dig. The reason that the Harbor cleanup was under budget was because the folks running the show in 1989-90 when I was still governor were smart enough to know that you want get out the bid when the economy is down and contractors are hungry. So they bid low. Fine! We accepted their bids. Two or three years later the economy revives and they start piling in with change orders [requesting more money]. Doug McDonald, who at the time was the head of the water resources authority, just sat there and laughed at them. So we got our project on time, under budget. On the Big Dig the change orders must have numbered in the thousands. It?s got everything to do with having people in place who are tough and smart. I had a guy a construction director at the MBTA who was one tough son-of-a-bitch. A career guy who?d been there and knew his stuff. The contractors were scared of him! Work came in on time, on budget, no foolin? around.

We seem to have gotten to a place where people have forgotten that large public works projects can happen in less than a half a lifetime.
In the 1950s we built the Calahan Tunnel in two years. What the hell are we doing now? Our friends in Europe and Asia still know how to build a tunnel. London has announced this cross-rail project, 25 miles from one side of city to the other. It will have a hugely positive effect on all kinds of things. It?s costing $1.5 billion per mile. Compare that to the estimates for tunnels in this country. The North-South rail link in Boston (which is important not only for the city but the whole Northeast corridor and all this America 2050 stuff that my friend Bob Yaro is talking about) is a mile long and it?s projected to cost $8 billion. For a mile. Nobody can tell me that the area below London is less complicated ? they?re going to be finding Roman ruins down there, for God?s sake.

The lesson?
The lesson is: when you don?t do it, you lose your capacity and expertise to do it and do it efficiently. We?ve got to get that back.


http://www.infrastructurist.com/2009/02/02/dukes-place-michael-dukakis-on-how-to-fix-america/

 

[czsz]

In the 1950s we built the Calahan Tunnel in two years. What the hell are we doing now? Our friends in Europe and Asia still know how to build a tunnel. London has announced this cross-rail project, 25 miles from one side of city to the other. It will have a hugely positive effect on all kinds of things. It?s costing $1.5 billion per mile. Compare that to the estimates for tunnels in this country. The North-South rail link in Boston (which is important not only for the city but the whole Northeast corridor and all this America 2050 stuff that my friend Bob Yaro is talking about) is a mile long and it?s projected to cost $8 billion. For a mile. Nobody can tell me that the area below London is less complicated ? they?re going to be finding Roman ruins down there, for God?s sake.

He's so right. I'm always impressed by the quality and freshness of infrastructure in "old" Europe - and not just its trains and buses, but its clean, precision-engineered highways, too. Bold engineering projects, like the bridges from Denmark to Sweden or from the Italian mainland to Sicily, are pursued with utter vigor there.

Meanwhile American legislators extol the private dreams tax cuts can provide - on the backbone of infrastructure built by midcentury public works projects like the Interstate Highway System.

 

[ablarc]

Stimulus Changes May Roil Environmentalists

by Erika Lovley

Backed by the business lobby, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) is proposing an economic stimulus amendment to streamline environmental regulations for projects funded by the stimulus? a move that could ignite a firestorm in the environmental community.

The amendment for the stimulus bill, now being debated in the Senate, would give the government a tight, 270-day deadline to complete environmental reviews of stimulus projects required under the National Environmental Policy Act, which environmentalists consider the Holy Grail of environmental laws.

?This bill aims to streamline NEPA so reviews are done within nine months of any stimulus bill being passed,? Barrasso said. ?If these projects are indeed ?shovel ready,? they will be able to meet a nine-month deadline. Otherwise they should face the ax.?

Usually there are no time limits on NEPA reviews. The law requires government agencies to examine the environmental impacts of their projects, a tool that environmentalists have relied on for decades to revise or stop projects that pose dangers to the environment or animal species.

More than a dozen environmental groups have written senators, arguing that the stimulus is already chock-full of projects that have completed environmental reviews and would not be held up.

And Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) is currently working on a counteramendment that would mandate all stimulus funded projects comply with NEPA or not be funded.

?This is an absolutely essential review to ensure public involvement in public works decisions,? said Greenpeace global warming campaign director Steven Biel. ?There are more than enough shovel-ready projects out there that have already undergone NEPA reviews. There is absolutely no reason why this process needs to be waived.?

But the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and more than 20 other business groups have also written senators, supporting Barrasso?s proposal after arguing for months that streamlining the environmental review process would get stimulus money into the economy faster. The Chamber warns that if the review process isn?t modified, some projects could be slowed and potentially stopped by the in-depth reviews.

In 2007, the estimated average time to complete a NEPA review for a major transportation project was five years, according to a study by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.

?With so many jobs hanging in the balance, even two years is far too long to wait before ground can be broken on roads, rail, power plants?and other projects that will lead to our nation?s economic recovery,? the business groups wrote. ?NEPA must be expedited in order to protect the projects and jobs in the stimulus bill.?

Modifying NEPA isn?t a new idea. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe and other Republicans have tried for years to weaken the review process but have had no success against the strong environmental lobby.

But this time, lawmakers? determination to quickly pump money into the spiraling economy could play in Barrasso?s favor.

A letter by the Congressional Budget Office to Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) last week said waiving environmental requirements was a key way lawmakers could speed the delivery of stimulus money into the economy.


http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0209/18451.html

 

[ablarc]

This exchange is from a town hall meeting today in Fort Myers, Florida. The questioner is a local politician. It?s a great moment:

1:07 p.m.: Question: How can you help with infrastructure and transportation?

OBAMA [actual answer]: Well, we targeted billions of dollars at infrastructure spending. And states all across the country are going through what Florida is going through. There was a study done by the American Association of Engineers ? that might not be the exact title ? but engineers from all across the country. We get a D in infrastructure all across the country.

We saw what happened in Minneapolis, where a bridge collapsed and resulted in tragedy. And not only do we need to rebuild our roads, our bridges, our ports, our levees? our dams. But we also have to plan for the future. This the same example of turning crisis into opportunity. This should be a wake-up call for us.

You go to Shanghai, China right now? and they?ve got high-speed rail that puts our railroads to shame. They?ve got ports that are state of the art. Their airports, are? compared to the airports that we?you go through Beijing airport and you compare that to Miami Airport?

Now, look ? this is America. We?ve always had the best infrastructure. We were always willing to invest in the future. You know, Governor Crist mentioned Abraham Lincoln. In the middle of the Civil War, in the midst of all this danger and peril, what did he do? He helped move the Intercontinental Railroad. He helped to start land grant colleges. He understood that even when you are in the middle of crisis, you got to keep your eye on the future.

So transportation, when it is not just fixing our old transportation systems, but it?s also imagining new transportation systems. That?s why I?d like to see high speed rail where it can be constructed. I would like for us to invest in mass transit. Because potentially that?s energy efficient and I think a lot more people are open now to thinking regionally in terms of how we plan our transportation infrastructure. The days where we?re just building sprawl forever? Those days are over. I think that Republicans, Democrats? everybody recognizes that that?s not a smart way to design communities. So we should be using this money to help spur this kind of innovative thinking when it comes to transportation. That?ll make a big difference.?


http://www.infrastructurist.com/2009/02/10/obama-the-days-building-sprawl/

 

[ablarc]

DOT 20-09
Tuesday, February 17, 2009


Statement of U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood On President Obama?s Signing of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

?Today President Obama kept faith with the American people. Less than one month after taking the oath of office, he signed the landmark American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

?I thank and congratulate President Barack Obama for this impressive and hard-won victory.

?This is the day America starts back. Resources to help America are now available. At the Department of Transportation we will make sure the transportation money in this law gets Americans to work quickly.

?Transportation is a great enabler of economic growth, the lifeblood of commerce. It moves people to jobs and goods to the marketplace. Without strong transportation arteries, economies stagnate.

?We will use the transportation funding in the Act to deliver jobs and restore our nation's economy. We will emphasize sustainable investment and focus our policies on the people, businesses and communities who use the transportation systems. And, we will focus on the quality of our environment. We will build and restore our transportation foundations until the American dream is returned.

?We will invest in jobs to expand transit capacity and modernize transit systems. Transit is a centerpiece of my focus on livable communities and our Department will work closely with Vice President Biden's "Middle-class Taskforce" on transit initiatives.

?We will invest in jobs to allow Amtrak to add and modernize cars and engines and upgrade its tracks.

?We will invest in jobs to expand airport capacity and make safety improvements.

?We will invest in jobs to build and rehabilitate and make safer roads, highways, bridges and ports.

?And we will invest in jobs to launch high-speed rail in America. This will transform intercity transportation in America, reduce our carbon footprint, relieve congestion on the roads and in the skies, and take advantage of a mode of transportation that has already benefited Europe and Japan for many years.

?There are those who argue that we need to waive environmental regulations to put people to work more quickly, but that is simply not the case. We have a backlog of worthwhile transportation projects waiting for funding that have already met those standards. We are ready to build a new transportation infrastructure and we will work to keep it green.

?I have met with state officials and other transportation stakeholders, and we have discussed how the money can be spent quickly to create jobs on projects that make long-term sense for our transportation systems in communities across the nation. We also reviewed the need for transparency and full accountability on this spending. We will do things by the book.

?We at the Department of Transportation are ready to go.

?I look forward to hearing the sounds of shovels and hammers and bulldozers and, in some cases, of moving that first shovelful of dirt myself.?