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Transportation system stuck in 20th century

4 min read

There’s a reason why the modern world’s largest nation, Russia, did not become the most economically powerful. Although it is rich in natural resources, it never developed the transportation systems necessary to get goods to market efficiently. By contrast, the United States spent much of its wealth and the muscle and sweat of its immigrants to build canals and railroads. We tamed our rivers with locks and dams, and later an interstate highway system made Americans the world’s most mobile people.

One hundred years ago, the byways we had built would soon help make us the richest and most powerful nation on Earth. Now, with 320 million people, we have more than three times the population of 1915. And our 20th-century transportation can’t handle the load.

We call our readers’ attention to the front page of yesterday’s Observer-Reporter. The lead story described an accident on Interstate 70 involving two tractor-trailer rigs that claimed the life of one of the drivers. Westbound traffic was backed up from Claysville to Washington for eight hours. Those of us old enough to have driven on I-70 and I-79 40 years ago may recall how light the traffic was then, when most goods going coast to coast traveled by rail, and cars were the primary vehicles on highways. Now, most goods are shipped by truck – quicker, but far less fuel-efficient – and the highways they travel were not meant for such weight and volume and continue to deteriorate. The volume of traffic and the high speed at which it moves makes travel on the interstates increasingly dangerous.

Not that railroads are always a better solution. Another story on yesterday’s front page described a derailment near Charleston, W.Va., of a train carrying 3 million gallons of crude oil from North Dakota to Virginia. Nineteen freight cars slammed into each other and caught fire, leaking oil into the Kanawha River and forcing the evacuation of hundreds from their homes.

It may be much more efficient and a little less dangerous to ship oil by train rather than by truck, but accidents do happen. A similar disaster in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, in 2013 killed 42 inhabitants of that town. A much safer and more efficient way to transport oil is by pipeline. This presents a dilemma for environmentalists opposed to the proposed Keystone pipeline, which would transport oil from the tar sands of Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. They oppose the pipeline because it perpetuates dependence on oil as an energy source when our efforts and investments should be to develop cleaner energy sources. But stopping the pipeline will not halt the flow of oil from Canada through the United States; it will instead move by rail, creating more potential for damage to the environment.

Pipelines are a better option than railroads for moving oil and gas, but they are no good at moving people. Trains are best for that, but we have abandoned most of the tracks that carried passenger trains. Instead, we have opted for the least efficient way to travel: everyone operating his own vehicle. Getting people to ride on the few remaining trains is a bit of a problem, though.

For instance, there’s just one train a day running from Pittsburgh to Harrisburg, and it takes five and a half hours, compared to four hours by car. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported this week that the Keystone West High Speed Rail study concluded that a $10 billion investment to straighten curves could cut that travel time by about 30 minutes. That’s an enormous investment with almost no benefit. Railroad executive Henry Posner III called the study a “joke,” and he said that for a much smaller expense of $10 million to $13 million per year, the number of daily trips between the cities could be increased to three and the number of passengers, who don’t mind the leisurely pace, tripled.

All this has us thinking that what this country needs is a 21st-century transportation system that keeps in mind that in 15 years there will be 41 million more people living here, and by 2115, our population will have passed half a billion. Anyone in Washington, D.C., thinking along those lines? Didn’t think so.

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