Here it goes...

During Fiscal Year 2010 the American Public Transportation Association (statistics here) reported a total of 10,186,168,000 trips on public transit (including subways, buses, commuter rail, etc) (as a side point, to put this in perspective there are approximately 400,000,000,000 total transportation trips made per year as estimated by the governments National Household Travel Survey. Thus, transit represents about 2.5% of all trips).

There is a Federal Mass Transit Account (MTA) that receives money from the national fuel tax on drivers. In Fiscal Year 2010, the MTA collected $4,811,042,000 in tax dollars paid by drivers. Drivers are subject to diversion of additional tax revenues to mass transit. Estimates are as high as $13.285 billion-- substantially higher than the $4.811 billion that is directly transfered as shown above.* However, for purposes of this analysis it will be quite enough just to work with the $4.8 billion number to illustrate how much transit trips are subsidized.

To look at this one way, imagine if transit paid the $4,811,042,000 with money from its own users. This would require a tax of 47.2 cents on every transit trip to replace money currently paid by drivers. By this measure, transit is underpriced by at least 47.2 cents per trip. Not to mention most transit agencies are losing money even with this money. Taxing transit riders 47.2 cents per trip would be quite steep relative to current fares. It takes a lot to subsidize the transit system.

Moreover. Remember, the money is actually coming from taxes collected from drivers. Drivers pay (at least) $4.8 billion toward the transit system. So to look at the number another way:

Every transit trip in the country needs (at least) $0.47 from drivers. Drivers chip in 47.2 cents for every transit trip in the U.S.!

The point is not necessarily to bash transit as much as it is to a) point out the absurdity of how much drivers pay for transit and b) illustrate the need for transit to raise more of its own funds. Relying on taxes from drivers is disingenuous. Further, transit systems as a whole will become much better by focusing on their own problems, internally.

The tough love point it that transit needs to run itself more efficiently. They need to spend money wiser; provide a better product; and raise their own money. Instead, far too much time is spent lobbying to get money from other people and to create ways of forcing people to ride their systems ("getting people out of their cars"). If the systems were fast, convenient, safe, clean, with some value-added service (wifi, etc) people would naturally ride. Transit agencies have inherent problems fixing their own internal service and profitability problems.

Now the hard truth. The lack of focus on speed and quality over the past decade, and before, is likely going to have profound long-term consequences. Cars are changing. Dramatically. They are becoming more fuel efficient and even changing energy sources. There are now cars with zero emissions. Transit advocates can talk all they want about coal for electric cars but the fact of the matter is that on a local street that car has zero emissions. Moreover, coal will be cleaner and cleaner in the future and other sources of electricity can be purchased with offsets. This point aside, cars are becoming more targeted in their uses and abilities. People can rent as they need with Zipcar, or share them, or rideshare in them. Cars get people wherever they want to go, when they want to. For these reasons alone, driving is going up in the future. Now, add in the hard truth and sad fact for transit. The projects built in the last few years have been poor projects. Trains built on platforms that go far too slow relative to the technology available.

Take this as a wake up call if you want to. The fact is transit needs 1) its own funding source. Back when the Highway Trust Fund was first established it took years to figure out the funding. A committee was established, the Clay Commission, to study and propose options. Transit needs its own Clay Commission today. Get a dedicated funding source. 2) Figure out a plan for the future that provides access. More importantly though, it needs to be convenient, ie fast. It needs to provide MOBILITY. Too much settling for old and slow systems. Think fast. How about a 3rd line in subway tunnels for some express trains out to further destinations like express lanes on a highway? 3) Operate existing systems better. Provide a good product. Don't think-- even for a second-- about how to force someone on to a train or bus. Forcing people out of cars is not a good strategy. Provide a good product. People are NOT stupid. If the product is good they will use it. It really is that simple.

Plans by the much-lampooned Republican Congress and Tea Party Republicans to get rid of the Mass Transit Account are bold. And they really are what is needed to wake up our transportation system. And it would probably be the best thing for transit systems in the long-term. With the advent of smart cards and fare cards a tax on trips could easily be implemented. Making what drivers pay available to highways would go a long way to solving funding problems in the Highway Trust Fund. Because as it stands now the U.S. as a whole is really going to need it. Transit agencies need to start now delivering a good product and serving their customers. It sounds so basic. But the fact (hard truth/tough love) is transit is failing. Its not providing a good product and its not serving its customers. Maybe they need to pay more. But if they do, it needs to be combined with a wholesale restructuring (such as the bankruptcies of the major airlines, like United and American) in which the built in high cost structure (aka pensions and labor) are written down and the organizations are run for business profit and efficiency. In the meantime, we are potentially falling far behind on our road system. Worst case scenario re: having the energy sources for it. And the baseline scenario of reducing congestion. Cutting subsidies for transit is not just imperative for our economic health. The fact is people are going to be shifting and driving more because transit is not offering the right product. Over and above that, transit and all other modes of transportation will benefit from starting to think about their own revenue sources. That's when the whole system can start coming together. The Highway Trust Fund is not a piggy bank to solve everyones problems.

>> DATA <<
According to FHWA data here:
Net excise tax paid by drivers to the Mass Transit Account in Fiscal Year 2010: $4,811,042,000
According to American Public Transportation Association data:
Trips from October to December 2009: 2,563,660,000
Trips from January to September 2010: 7,622,508,000
Combined to equate to government Fiscal Year 2010 data: 10,186,168,000
According to ORNL data from National Household Travel Survey here:
Person trips in 2009 was 392,023,000,000 or 411 billion depending which place you luck. Thus, taking an approximate average and referring to 400 billion trips per year above. It should further be noted that ORNL estimates the number of transit trips a year at 7.52 billion. This may indicate possible double counting by APTA and/or that APTA is counting a lot of transfers as multiple trips that individuals report to the government in survey data as 1 trip and/or some underestimating of transit trips by the NHTS. The NHTS reports transit trips are 1.9% of total trips, private vehicle is 83.4%, walking is 10.4%, and other is 4.2%.

* First, 2.86 cents of the 18.40 cent tax on a gallon of gasoline is channeled directly to transit projects via the Mass Transit Account of the HTF. This accounts for the roughly $4.8 billion. In addition to this 15.5% diversion, there have been other flexible spending provisions added to Federal programs that channel funds from the remaining 84.5% of the HTF and toward transit projects. One estimate by Heritage Foundation is as high as 38%.

An easy way to make a small difference is to send your old bicycle (or a donation for one) to Africa via one of these options. The 'Microsoft of the movement' is the "Village Bicycle Project" (here) that has shipped over 54,000 bikes to Africa since 1999. A smaller group, to give a flavor of grassroots efforts is "Wheels to Africa" which organizes an annual bike collection event with multiple drop-off locations in the Washington DC area (more). UK-based Re~Cycle (here) sends unwanted, refurbished bikes to rural Africa. Fourth is a unique effort called The Bamboo Bike Project (a group formed via Columbia University, Earth Institute) which is seeking to build a sustainable cargo bike made of bamboo for use in rural Africa. Via Facebook here. And the Pan Africa Bicycle Information Network (PABIN), which is "working to improve opportunities for bicycle transport and low-cost mobility to improve productivity, the quality of life and the environment in Africa," and they are affiliated with the International Bicycle Fund (IBF).

Next, a family foundation philantropist, Jeremy Guth, was just featured in Barron's for his work promoting ecological, migrating paths for animals in the Pacific Northwest: wildlife crossings. The idea sprung from work done by the Western Transportation Institute at Montana State University (here). One of the projects funded by the Woodcock Foundation is the Yellowstone-to-Yukon Conservation Initiative: http://www.y2y.net/

Guth funds wildlife crossing projects of Y2Y. The organization covers over 500,000 square miles of territory in Canada, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. The zone stretches 2,000 miles from north-to-south. And the projects are aimed at reducing the estimated more than 1.2 million collisions between cars and animals every year (source, source).

Finally, there is the CNN-promoted, Kenya-based, "Bridging the Gap" non-profit that is making tiny rope foot bridges that cross streams in Africa. Backed by a stellar, experienced board of directors. More here.

Where to charge your electric car? CarStations.com (http://carstations.com) is mapping all the locations. Currently, the map has 1,461 charging stations in the U.S. One location on the map is shown as a round, yellow electric bolt icon. Clusters of them are shown as blue circles (2-9), yellow circles (11-99), red circles (100+) . For example, there are 103 charging stations in Southern California and they are shown lumped together when zoomed out at a national level. The closer you drill in then you get the individual yellow electric bolt icons. You can also search by address and zip code. Cool site! And its worldwide too.

The site provides the ability to filter the locations by the charging type and/or the company providing the charger.

"DC Quick Charge" or fast charging (480 volt vs common 120 volt) is what long distance drivers (and well, all drivers) are going to want and look for. CarStations.com lists just 7 quick charge stations in the entire country!

More are in the works. AeroVironment (http://www.avinc.com/) is going to install 17 fast chargers along I-5 all through Oregon and Washington state.

The charger standard is called Chademo, or CHAdeMO: a Japan-developed high voltage, high-current charging method also known as DC Fast Charge.

So, what will that mean to a LEAF owner who drives I-5 all the way through Oregon and Washington?

From the bottom of Oregon (Ashland) to the top of Washington (Blaine) is a 569 mile drive on I-5. According to NY Times published data the Nissan LEAF can travel 70 miles on a full charge on an Interstate highway. At that point it needs to charge back up. However, most charging simply gets a battery to 80% of capacity. So the range is actually 56 miles (80% of 70 miles). Thus, 10 stops to charge up the battery would be needed to cover the 569 mile trip. Using the Chademo fast chargers each stop would take 30 minutes. Stopping 10 times for 30 minutes: not fun! That's 300 minutes, or exactly 5 hours, of total stopping time. Google Maps lists the trip as a 9.5 hour drive. So using state-of-the-art charging technology you would spend an additional 50% of time making the trip in order to charge up.

The upside though is 1) technology is rapidly improving (albeit more solutions to battery storage and electricity delivery are not expected so fast), but more importantly 2) people don't normally take 10 hour drives anyways. The New York Times points out a 10 minute stop at a Chademo charger would add a quick 30 miles to your trip, more than enough for getting to most routine destinations.

LEAF: 120-volt (Level 1) common outlet: 15 hours to get 80% charge and 20 hours for a full charge. 240-volt (Level 2): 6 hours to 80% and 8 hours for a full charge. Chademo Fast Charge (480-volt): 30 minutes to 80% or 10 minutes for 30 miles (about a 33% charge).

How far does a full charge get you? About 80-100 miles per charge. Read this awesome/detailed article here on LEAF driving range.

New York Times Article: http://nyti.ms/nzHOgP

The "Airport Cities" world conference and exhibition is next month, April 11-13, in Memphis, Tennessee (see link here). John D Kasarda will give the opening address and FedEx and Delta will have the keynote speakers. Tom Murcott, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Gale International will be on a panel called "smart airport cities".

Among the themes at #transpo was end-to-end transportation service options that would bundle one ticket, one price to get you from door-to-door even across several different transport modes. So it could scan either and/or all of buses/rail/air/rental cars, etc among Expedia/Travelocity and the transportation agencies and providers, bundling it all together.

This is the type of thing Bill Gates seems to have eluded to in his big picture speeches of days gone by. Also, surely Google is thinking about this via destination directions on their maps.

One of the biggest papers I have seen on the matter is "Mobility Service Providers" published here in November 2009 by Capgemini Consulting’s MRD Strategic Insights Group.

SMART, the Sustainable Mobility and Accessibility Research and Transformation program at the University of Michigan, is also developing a door-to-door approach to transportation in collaboration with Ford.

SMART sees the fact there are many different great ideas out there being developed which means "there is no single solution", therefore "connectivity is key" to bringing together Zipcar with fare payments with bikes and taxis and provide "seamless door-to-door mobility". UM-SMART's annual summit  is now merged into a new event called Transforming Transportation (by the Transforming Transportation Research Corridor Consortium) to be held April 7-9, 2011 in Detroit, Michigan.

Here's 3 solid perspectives from a completely different direction that seem very relevant to understanding the context of where, how, and how quickly things may or may not change: 

1) The first piece comes from the NY Times (originally). Its the view of an ExxonMobil corporate VP. (( NY Times it seems took piece off their site, still a link below. So funny how politically-correct speech has to be these days. Granted Colton's quotes are a bit much for people to stomach, especially fact checkers. Still, generally speaking, their valid points. If nothing else its an opinion and people should be allowed to that. Even from mega corporations )) Mr. Colton of ExxonMobil said that last time he looked it cost $17,000 to put a battery in the Nissan Leaf (probably overstated, but a valid point about the cost of ownership). To Colston, electric driving is simply too expensive to make sense for most buyers. He adds that "refueling" electricity takes 8 hours vs 5 minutes for a car. Well technology on charging is changing fast. See: http://bit.ly/gCxQ5j (15-30 minutes! Still thats not 5, and for most Americans that does matter). Colton doesn't see a battery breakthrough coming for another 10 years. The article closes with a push for natural gas. The lesson learned on that final point, and thus the value of listening to other perspectives, is the emerging battle between battery and any fuel. ExxonMobil is in the business of fuel delivery (whether it is gas or natural gas); they will lose on batteries. Well, interesting enough. Link: https://energydeals.wordpress.com/2011/02/10/for-oil-exec-an-electric-car-can-wait/
2) The AP reports about "New Drilling Method Opens Vast Oil Fields in U.S.". Wow-- that sure is not politically correct! A key quote: "new drilling is expected to raise U.S. production by at least 20 percent over the next five years. And within 10 years, it could help reduce oil imports by more than half". An analyst at Credit Suisse adds that gasoline demand will likely fall (because of all the alternative fuels coming on board, not the least of which is ethanol) which means by 2020 U.S. imports of oil could even fall 60%. Those are astonishing statistics! We on the coasts talk a lot about "flyover country". Whenever I fly over the country I look down and see just vast, vast empty areas, especially out west. I always wonder what resources surely must lie amid all those areas of unexplored mountain territory, not to mention the plains from Texas up to North Dakota. Link: http://bit.ly/fFFBej

3) A tax on electric vehicles in Washington state? That's just about the most progressive state out there in terms of having VMT reduction targets and all sorts of climate change legislation. And Washington state wants a $100 annual tax on electric cars? It does make sense as the gas tax has never been an environmental tax. The gas tax is to pay for the roads drivers use (well, and the gas tax now funds transit projects also). Anyway, the point is that electric cars cause a degree of wear-and-tear on the roads and should pay some amount. Its just surprising to see the pacific NW leading the way on this. Link: http://blog.seattlepi.com/transportation/archives/238653.asp

Food for thought drawn from NY Times, AP, and from Washington state. So even though I'm a big fan of the ability of technology to improve fuel efficiency and completely change how cars move, this is other perspectives.

Thank you for reading. Have a great day.

3G Mobility is about visualizing, informing, and bringing about a "next generation of transportation". When looking around the world today there are just big-time disruptive technologies coming that make the way we think about transportation right now, potentially obsolete just within a decade or two. You can start simply with hybrid and electric cars. Moving from the simple internal combustion engine is a MAJOR change that already we might be taking for granted.

Here are 3 examples of futuristic concepts that are actually demonstrated live in these videos (and they aren't even hot off the presses, some of these videos are a year or two old):

1. Personal flying machines. The Martin Jet Pack from the Martin Aircraft Company (website with videos here) is just one example of this.

2. Hybrid Airships. Super large air vessels such as the Hybrid Airship below are currently being developed for military purposes but hold big potential for moving very large objects long distances.

3. Shanghai Maglev. From the airport to downtown this train zips at up to 250 MPH. Watch the cars. They look like they are standing still compared to this fast moving train.

The first picture not too sure of the whereabouts (maybe the same road). The second was published via a set of Flikr photos from the Washington State Department of Transportation (via their blog here).

It shows clearing a short road (5,000 feet above sea level) to Artist Point (details)-- an area so treacherously covered with snow that in 2010 it did not open until July 30th! It usually closes in mid-October every year (or even Septemeber)!

Photo set: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wsdot/sets/72157605703374272/

(download)

Click here to download:

Have_you_had_enough_snow_Check.zip (136 KB)

I believe it when I see it. And with the President's State of the Union last night I wasn't about to get excited about hearing transportation and infrastructure mentioned until I actually read it or heard it. For all I knew it might be just a quick mention, or maybe even not mentioned at all.

Well, President Obama flat out gets transportation and enthusiastically told Americans how investing in our roads, bridges, and rail infrastructure will make a big difference for U.S. economic competitiveness. Yesterday's speech was bold and visionary, especially considering how many past SOTU addresses by predecessors didn't even mention transportation. Well, its a basic ingredient of every American's daily life!

The President slipped in 3 mentions of "infrastructure" and, as would be expected, talked a bit about High Speed Rail. He mentioned "fuel" twice and reiterated to America his goal for "a million electric vehicles on the road by 2015". He said "road" three times! He even mentioned the economic importance of the "off-ramp" when talking about the Interstate Highway System. Off-ramp. In a SOTU address!

His goal for HSR: "Within 25 years, our goal is to give 80% of Americans access to high-speed rail".

Still, as T4America points out, just talking is one thing. T4America is strongly advocating for a full 6-year transportation reauthorization bill to occur this year and Director James Corless bluntly stated, "We eagerly await the ‘flesh on the bones’ that must come with the Administration's proposal".

Plus not everyone even noticed the President talking about infrastructure. Take Bruce Katz' summary for the Brookings Institution. He heard the President talk a lot about jobs and the economy but the transportation mentions left no impression to him!

But did the mentions of transportation have a national impact? The Detroit Free Press took note in their SOTU Review). In paragraph 3 they told their readers "the nation needs better roads, bridges, high-speed rail and faster Internet access. And he recommitted his administration to putting more alternative-fuel vehicles on the roads."

In conclusion, what an awesome speech from a transportation enthusiasts perspective. There are 2 things though that I would be a bit wary of:

1) He openly stated "attract private investment". Sounds great by me as I am a big fan of private sector involvement in helping build our infrastructure. But as far as I am concerned the major banks-- Goldman Sachs, Citibank, and JPMorgan-- are getting way too big of a share of creating which programs are getting funded and who gets a piece of the action (across all sectors of the government and economy). Things such as a "National Infrastructure Bank" could end up being where these big banks get a slush fund of money from the tax collections taken from everyday workers around the country, all with with taxpayer guarantees to back-up the problems of how leveraged the projects will be. This won't necessarily lead to the right projects, they will just be big money.

2) He also threw in the caveat that he would "pick projects based on what’s best for the economy, not politicians." Sounds great but what it means in practice is something to keep an eye on. Basically he's saying 'no more earmarks' which sounds all right. But before getting into earmarks this statement by the President is much bigger than that. There is a movement in transportation to shield decision making about projects out of control of Congress and put budget decisions and project selection into the hands of a "bipartisan" board. This should be understood as aka, the big banks of point 1. I don't support this idea at all. I do not want Bloomberg and a "bipartisan" insider clan of politicians picking all the projects under the direction of Goldman Sachs and the big banks paying for their campaigns. Regarding earmarks, I don't know where I stand on earmarks except to say I understand all sides of the issue: a)transportation earmarks are chump change compared to the real budget problems the U.S. has, but b) earmarks do mean a bit of corruption whereby certain Congress members pet projects can get done in exchange for voting one way or the other, though c) without earmarks it is a question of whether there are enough votes for the gas tax and the transportation bill at all. And what that means is that Congress approves the gas tax. They don't have to. They certainly would be more popular not to. They vote for a transportation bill that they really have little control over where the money is sent. The money largely goes to State DOTs and/or is handled via the Administration. Earmarks are one way Congress members can at least be assured that a sliver of the money will end up in their district.

So there's my views. Here's

ACTUAL FULL TEXT and excerpts below:

And the sections about transportation:

"The third step in winning the future is rebuilding America. To
attract new businesses to our shores, we need the fastest, most
reliable ways to move people, goods, and information -- from
high-speed rail to high-speed Internet. (Applause.)

Our infrastructure used to be the best, but our lead has slipped.
South Korean homes now have greater Internet access than we do.
Countries in Europe and Russia invest more in their roads and railways
than we do. China is building faster trains and newer airports.
Meanwhile, when our own engineers graded our nation’s infrastructure,
they gave us a “D.”

We have to do better. America is the nation that built the
transcontinental railroad, brought electricity to rural communities,
constructed the Interstate Highway System. The jobs created by these
projects didn’t just come from laying down track or pavement. They
came from businesses that opened near a town’s new train station or
the new off-ramp.

So over the last two years, we’ve begun rebuilding for the 21st
century, a project that has meant thousands of good jobs for the
hard-hit construction industry. And tonight, I’m proposing that we
redouble those efforts. (Applause.)

We’ll put more Americans to work repairing crumbling roads and
bridges. We’ll make sure this is fully paid for, attract private
investment, and pick projects based [on] what’s best for the economy,
not politicians.

Within 25 years, our goal is to give 80 percent of Americans access to
high-speed rail. (Applause.) This could allow you to go places in
half the time it takes to travel by car. For some trips, it will be
faster than flying –- without the pat-down. (Laughter and applause.)
As we speak, routes in California and the Midwest are already
underway."

And before that he mentioned:

"At the California Institute of Technology, they’re developing a way
to turn sunlight and water into fuel for our cars. At Oak Ridge
National Laboratory, they’re using supercomputers to get a lot more
power out of our nuclear facilities. With more research and
incentives, we can break our dependence on oil with biofuels, and
become the first country to have a million electric vehicles on the
road by 2015. (Applause.)

We need to get behind this innovation. And to help pay for it, I’m
asking Congress to eliminate the billions in taxpayer dollars we
currently give to oil companies."

And then the President closed with this:

"None of this will be easy. All of it will take time. And it will be
harder because we will argue about everything. The costs. The
details. The letter of every law.

Of course, some countries don’t have this problem. If the central
government wants a railroad, they build a railroad, no matter how many
homes get bulldozed. If they don’t want a bad story in the newspaper,
it doesn’t get written.

And yet, as contentious and frustrating and messy as our democracy can
sometimes be, I know there isn’t a person here who would trade places
with any other nation on Earth."

Just prior to a major HSR seminar attended by about 400 interested guests there was a brief meeting between Norman Mineta, the legendary USDOT Transportation Secretary of last decade, Norm Mineta; the Mayor of the City of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa; and Roelof van Ark, CEO of the California High Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA). The three were sitting across from leaders from Japan in advance of the main seminar that featured speeches by them as well as U.S. Congress members Jim Costa and Laura Richardson as well as State Assemblymember Fiona Ma, Speaker pro Tempore, and her fellow Assemblymembers Furutani and Galgiani. Also of note is "Mr. L.A.", Tom LaBonge, Councilmember in Los Angeles who while not a speaker at the seminar, offered his support of the event and thanked the Japanese guests.

The presentations are all available at the Japan International Transport Institute website http://www.japantransport.com/ and directly via the link here http://bit.ly/gmYzLT.

The event helped to re-invigorate the push for the high speed rail project in California. The speakers are 1) optimistic about the money obtained and all of them were enthusiastic supporters, 2) confident that starting in the middle is a good idea, and 3) focused on the practical realities that advocacy is still just getting started. So much more funding will be necessary to continue building and eventually linking the bigger end point cities of L.A. and San Francisco.

On a personal note, it was 78 degrees and sunny that afternoon. The Omni Hotel in downtown L.A. was a perfect venue, but the beach would have been nice too.