MARP Members:

The city of Clare in Clare County was selected among 100 finalists nationwide to compete for the 2011 This place Matters Community Challenge sponsored by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Winning depends on how many voters (one email address per vote) click to vote for the Clare project. Top prize is $25,000 that Clare will put toward a major restoration of its historic 1895 Queen Anne depot. This link to the Main Street homepage has the information.

http://mainstreetclare.com/

Your support and votes will be appreciated.

Rosemary Horvath, MARP member

From The Detroit News

Randal O’Toole of the Cato Institute claims Michigan “cooked the books” in  assessing the benefits of improved passenger rail service, but his critique is  deeply flawed (“The great train con,” May 12).

However, rail is a good deal for the state.

In his column, O’Toole said using the well-established economic concept  called “consumer surplus” as a rail benefit makes the case look better than it  really is. In so doing he falsely defines the term and neglects to mention that  it is frequently used in assessing benefits from highways and other facilities.  The Federal Highway Administration’s assessment, for example, “calculates user  benefits based on changes in consumer surplus for travelers.”

Estimating consumer surplus is a legitimate, time-tested way of predicting  value. And as the United States begins to modernize its rail system, the value  of those improvements is becoming clearer every day. We now have real cases in  which upgraded rail access is demonstrating value to riders and to local and  regional economies.

The 10-year-old Amtrak Acela, for example, is the closest thing to high-speed  passenger rail in the United States. It has allowed Amtrak to nearly double its  share of Washington-New York air and rail travelers, from 37 percent in 2000 to  69 percent in 2010. In contrast to conventional Amtrak trains, which at best  break even, the upgraded Acela brings in a 40 percent operating profit.

The Downeaster, an Amtrak-operated route, runs from Boston to Portland,  Maine. Between 2005 and 2011, service was increased from four to five daily  round trips, and travel time cut by 20 minutes.

These were relatively modest upgrades, but results were not. Ridership more  than doubled, to a half-million a year.

Closer to Michigan, work is under way on Midwest routes targeted by O’Toole.

Normal, Ill., is on Amtrak’s Chicago-St. Louis route. Even before the  national rail effort began in 2009, Illinois had added service on the line,  resulting in a 207 percent ridership increase between fiscal year 2006 and  fiscal year 2010.

In Normal, improving service and a new train-bus station, set to open in  2012, is spurring an estimated $200 million in private downtown development,  including a large hotel and a publicly funded conference center.

In general, based on these preliminary examples, plus experience with other  transportation facilities here and abroad, it’s clear that upgraded rail service  will create economic value by providing new access and connections across  Michigan, the region and the nation.

Better options for travelers, increased access and productivity for  businesses, and growth in jobs — that’s the promise of Michigan’s rail project.

Congratulations to the state of Michigan for choosing the right course on  behalf of its citizens.

Allen D. Biehler , former secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of  Transportation; executive committee member of the State Smart Transportation  Initiative at the University of Wisconsin

From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20110614/OPINION01/106140310/Letter–Rail-will-boost-Michigan-economy#ixzz1PGZTO3fU

From The Detroit News

By Randy O’Toole/ CATO Institute
When U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood announced this week that he  was awarding Michigan nearly $200 million for high-speed rail, he claimed  that the project would bring “trains up to speeds of 110 mph on a 235-mile  section of the Chicago to Detroit corridor, reducing trip times by 30 minutes.”  But Michigan’s own grant  application says the $196.5 million will only increase average speeds from  60 to 64 mph – with the top speed remaining unchanged at 79 mph. That is,  travelers will save a mere 12 minutes – not 30.

Why the discrepancy between the claimed 110 mph-and-30 and the real 79  mpg-and-12?

Page 12 of the grant application tells the tale: After spending the $197  million, the state is applying for another grant that will require  hundreds of millions more to increase speeds to 110 mph.

Together with Michigan’s senators and governor, LaHood’s press conference was  an exercise in high-speed deception.

Last year, about 480,000 people rode the Chicago-Detroit trains, which are  some of the biggest money-losers in the Amtrak system. Can anyone really believe  that saving 1,315 people 12 minutes a day is worth $196.5 million? The state  will have to spend a lot more money to have trains reach top speeds of 110 mph  (which means average speeds of around 75 mph). Michigan’s 2009 Chicago-Detroit  rail plan projected  costs of more than $1.3 billion, of which the state has less than $400  million so far. So bringing the tracks up to 110-mph standards will cost at  least $900 million more.

This doesn’t count the cost of locomotives and railcars, which the plan  projects will be more than $350 million for enough trains to make 20 daily round  trips. Last Monday, the federal government also gave $268.2 million for  locomotives and railcars to five Midwestern states. Assuming a third of that  goes to the Michigan corridor, the state still needs some $250 million more.

In short, anyone who thinks they will soon see bullet trains in Michigan has  been misled.

The state needs at least a billion additional dollars before you will see  those trains. Given current economic conditions, those dollars won’t be  available for a long time – if ever. And the costs won’t stop there. Last year,  Amtrak lost $19 million running three round trips a day between Chicago and  Detroit. Amtrak fares start at $31 and the subsidy per ride is almost $40.  Increasing the number of trains to 20 per day could cost taxpayers as much as  $100 million a year on top of the capital costs.

By comparison – with virtually no subsidies – Megabus carries people between  Chicago and Detroit at fares of $15 to $18. While Amtrak takes 6-1/2 hours,  Megabus takes just 5-2/3 hours, mainly because it stops only in Ann Arbor, while  Amtrak trains stop 8-9 times.

The best way to save people time is to simply end Amtrak subsidies, which  unfairly compete with buses, airlines, and other relatively unsubsidized  forms of transportation. Megabus or some other bus company would no doubt step  in and provide non-stop service from Chicago and Detroit to Lansing, Kalamazoo,  Battle Creek, and other Michigan cities. That would serve those 1,315 Amtrak  passengers, saving them time and the taxpayers money.

Back in 2007, the congressionally chartered National  Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission urged the federal  government to invest heavily in passenger trains. But it also warned that,  before making such investments, the government should do “a rigorous  quantitative analysis” comparing trains “with alternative approaches [including]  intercity bus, aviation, and highway modes.”

Of course, the administration conducted no such analysis.

Congress has zeroed out funding for high-speed rail in 2011 and it appears  unlikely that the federal government will give Michigan any more grants to  upgrade its track to 110 mph. This mean the $350 million or so dedicated to this  line so far is almost a complete waste – but not as much of a waste as spending  another billion to get trains that are a little faster than a bus but far more  expensive to ride.

From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20110512/MIVIEW/105120336/O-Toole–The-Great-Train-Con#ixzz1PGXq3WrQ