Days of Yore – part two

Governments spend $200 million a day, fixing and building roads. Streetcar tracks last virtually forever.  70% of ’rush hour’ traffic on freeways, is bumper to bumper.  In 1946, 23.4 billion people rode streetcars and busses.  Streetcars ran on the busiest of streets and avenues, with busses connecting to them from various neighborhoods.  In 2009, eight billion people rode on public transit..  ’Freeways,’ (a total misnomer), and the urban sprawl they created, are totally responsible for America’s not being self sufficient in oil, and are totally responsible for the smog which hangs over American cities.

The highway lobby, is probably the second most powerful lobby in D.C., second only to the Israel lobby.  It consists of automobile and truck manufacturers, oil, tire, and cement interests, plus the makers of traffic signs, and all that goes with auto and truck transport.  They always seem to get their way, which means more freeways and more roads.  The more roads and highways there are, the further out people will move, the more cars they will buy, the more frustrated and broke they will become, and the filthier the air will become, not counting importing more and more oil.  Now I’ll tell you what American transport was like before the literally millions of tractor trailers every day, invaded the interstates and other roads.  Before the interstates, which we can thank Eisenhower for, trains carried the freight to terminals in towns and cities of all sizes.  Every little town had a siding and freight dock.  The U.S. highway system consisted of basically two lane roads and virtually no trucks.  Trucks picked up the merchandise at railroad sidings or terminals, and carried it to its ultimate local destination.

One gallon of diesel fuel, can move a ton of freight over 400 miles, with a two man crew, and one gallon of diesel fuel, burned in a five or six miles per gallon truck, with one driver, weighing its legal 80,000 pounds, can carry probably a conservative 25 tons of freight. There is nothing with less friction than a steel wheel on a steel rail, and virtually nothing with more friction, than a rubber tire on a concrete road.  A 2,000 ton train emits .01 gram of hydrocarbons per mile, and an 40 ton tractor trailer emits .30 grams, with a car emitting 2.09 grams per mile.  Any wonder we have smog?

In two-vehicle crashes involving large trucks and autos, 98 percent of fatalities are occupants of the passenger car.  (I have found lots of statistics!)  The annual death toll from truck related crashes, is the equivalent of 26 major airplane crashes each year.  The costs of large truck crashes in a year, is over $19 billion.  One 80,000 pound tractor-trailer, does as much damage to road pavement as 9600 cars.  Trucks pay miniscule fees for the damage they do and crashes they cause.

One more point about the previous column.  The many dozens of metropolitan streetcar systems which were torn up, were all built, paid for, and operated by private, for profit companies or corporations.  No taxpayer monies involved.  The re-built ones we see now, are costing hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars.

The powerful highway lobby, influenced the President and Congress to build the trillion dollar interstates, which killed railway freight business, caused us to be dependent on foreign oil, and polluted the air everywhere.  Interstates also killed tens of thousands of small businesses, and millions of jobs, when they bypassed cities and towns.  U.S. 66 still is fondly remembered, after Interstate 40 destroyed it.  Few “Get their kicks on route 66” any more, as the old song goes.  In 1946, at age 12, I traveled on the B&O’s Cleveland Overnight Express from D.C. to Cleveland.  I slept in a Pullman berth, ate in the diner, and Cleveland’s downtown was alive, busy, and wonderful, with streetcars, department stores, and businesses of all sorts.  Office buildings were architecturally splendid, and100% occupied.  I’ll never forget that trip.  Downtown Cleveland today, is a crime ridden disaster, as are most major cities’ downtowns.  I’ll take 1946, but of course that’s impossible.  

Interstates allow millions of trucks to operate daily, and cars to operate at high speeds.  The Interstates are so great that they should be sold to private investors, who would turn them into toll roads, and be operated at a profit.  Get them off the taxpayers’ backs.  The air would magically clear, oil consumption decrease, the number of huge trucks be reduced by at least half,  and the taxpayers relieved of a huge burden.  As Maurice Chevalier sang in Gigi, “I’m so glad I’m not young any more.”