Passenger Rail, Low Population Density

In the Fall of 2008, I spent three weeks in Japan to learn about the highly acclaimed Japanese rail system. Of special interest to me is how Japanese railways provide service to areas with low population density. You see, people often say the railways of Europe and Japan can't really serve as models for US passenger rail service, because their population is so much more dense than ours. It's very true that most of Japan and Europe are more densily populated than most of the US, and it's also true that passenger rail works best in densely populated areas.

So I made a point of visiting areas where population was relatively sparse: the south and east of the island of Shikoku; the inland areas of the southern island of Kyushu; and the entire northern island of Hokkaido. I've put together a couple of documentary videos with footage from my trip to Hokkaido; what follows is based on parts of the video narrative.

Hokkaido proved the best example, especially for us here in Michigan. It is at exactly the same lattitude as the Lower Peninsula of Michigan (though it gets more snow!). It's just slightly smaller in area than the Lower Peninsula. The population density is slightly less than Michigan's. Yes, you read the right: it's *less* densely populated. We'll get to the figures in a moment.

Hokkaido is Japan's predominant agricultural area. It leads the country in the production of rice and fish, and shares the lead in vegetable farming. The productivity of Hokkaido rice land is 10 percent above the national average. Wheat, barley and potatoes are other staple crops, and dairy farming is a Hokkaido specialty.

Although there is some industry (most notably paper milling, brewing [Sapporo beer!], steel-making, oil refining, building supplies, marine services and food production), most of the population is employed in the service sector. Tourism is an important industry, especially during the cool summertime that attracts campers and hot spring-goers from across Japan. During the winter, skiing and other winter sports continue to bring tourists to Hokkaido. Does that sound like what we might be looking at in Michigan's future?

Let's compare passenger rail systems in Michigan and Hokkaido. What is the actual relationship between population density and rail service? Since Hokkaido, at 173 people per square mile, is actually just a little less dense than Michigan, where we find an average of 179 in each square mile, we might predict that Hokkaido's rail service is similar or a little less that Michigan's.

What we find is radically different. Michigan has no commuter rail, no urban subways, no city street rail, no rail connections to any airports, and ten daily Amtrak round-trips, all starting or ending in Chicago and only serving the southern part of the state. Michigan does have five north-south expressways and three east-west ones.

Hokkaido, with slightly less density, has 4 commuter lines, 3 subway lines, five street rail lines; 72 daily round trips between the Sapporo regional airport and three cities, and about 154 intercity trains, serving every corner of the island. But Hokkaido has only one north-south freeway and one east-west limited access highway, neither of which reach the corners of the island, and one of which is still under construction.

	Michigan		Hokkaido
Area	97,990	sq mi	32,221	sq mi
Population	10,003,422	(2008 est.)	5,583,072	(June, 2008)
Population Density	179	per sq mi	173	per sq mi
Commuter rail	0	(so far!)	4	lines + local services to many towns
Urban subways	0	(so far!)	3	lines in 1 city
Street railways	0		3	lines in 2 cities
Airport rail connections	0		72	72 daily round-trips
Intercity rail	10	daily round-trips	154	daily round-trips (approx)
Limited-access highways	5	North-South	1	North-South (part-way)
	3	East-West	1	East-West (partly under construction)

Why this difference? Not population density, though Hokkaido's rugged topography has tended to concentrate population somewhat in valleys and along the seacoast, which has not happened so much on Michigan's "pleasant peninsulas". Both, however, have areas of concentrated population that could easily be served by rail.

Both Hokkaido and Michigan began serious settlement during the ninteenth and early twentieth centuries, with rugged, pioneering types coming to trade for fur with indigenous people, to fish, to mine, to harvest lumber, and to farm. But while Michigan became a manufacturing powerhouse in the twentieth century, Hokkaido remained primarily agricultural. Both Hokkaido and Michigan were served by extensive rail systems during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but Michigan's rail network was reduced much further in the late 20th century than was Hokkaido's.

So why the difference? It can be attributed largely to government policies in the post World War II era. Early in the 20th century, all of Japan's trunk railways were nationalized. Naturally, Japanese railways suffered heavy damage during World War II; they were reogranized in 1949 by directive of Gen. Douglas MacArthur's US General Headquarters in Tokyo as Japanese National Railways (JNR), a state-owned corporation.

JNR was operated professionally and was on the forefront of high-speed rail technology, developing the first dedicated high-speed railway in the world, the famed Shinkansen "bullet train", which began service in 1964. Unfortunately, JNR was also a favorite source of "pork" for members of the national legislature. Hundreds of unnecessary lines were built and services legislated by grasping politicians, eager to secure their reelection through favors to their home districts. (Where have we heard this story before?) By 1987, JNR's debt was over $200 billion USD and the company was spending 147% of its income - in spite of Japan's overall density of 888 people per square mile.

To put the railways beyond the grasp of politicians, JNR was privatized in 1987 and divided into seven companies, one of which is the Hokkaido Railway Company (JR Hokkaido). (In case you wondered, the six regional JR passenger operating companies own and maintain their own rails and stations, unlike the British system, in which a nation-wide company owns and maintains the infrastructure, and several competitive passenger and freight companies operate trains.)

Meanwhile, the United States after World War II spent lavishly on the Interstate Highway System. According to the Federal Highway Administration, the total cost of the Interstate system was nearly $1.4 trillion USD between 1958 and 1991, the period during which the system was officially under construction. [http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/programadmin/interstate.cfm] Unfortunately, our road system doesn't pay for itself through user fees, and has required propping up from general funds for the last few years.

To get a handle on the relative spending: the Japanese subsidized its railways by about $1700 USD per person. During approximately the same period, the US spent about $6,000 USD per person, meaning the Japanese citizen got his high-speed and regional rail system for about 29% of what the US citizen paid for his high-speed road system. Of course, the US spent some money on passenger rail during that time - but not much; and Japan spent money on limited-access highways. The US has far greater distances to cover as well.

The trend is clear, though: the US wants its transportation money spent on highways; Japan wants its spent on railways. The effect on population growth patterns is profound. The Japanese rail system subsidized dense urban growth, while the US highway system subsidized difuse suburban growth, popularly known as "sprawl". Nowhere has that been more pronounced than in Michigan, headquarters and devoted fan of the US automobile industry. Only after being afflicted with repeated oil crises has Michigan begun to consider beefing up its urban rail service with commuter and light rail in Detroit, and light rail in Grand Rapids.

Yet in Japan, including sparsely-populated Hokkaido, the railway company earns a profit. JR Hokkaido's bank balance was 68M USD as of March 2008. If you're interested in a more complete business report, a good source is an article in Japan Railway & Transport Review from March 2008, titled "Increasing Efforts to Strengthen Position as Leading Transportation Provider in Hokkaido", written by JR Hokkaido's Management Planning Department. (http://www.jrtr.net/jrtr50/topics.html)

Yes, there is government support, particularly for construction of new high-speed lines (now progressing in Kyushu and Hokkaido). But diversification is a strength and a theme of all the railway companies of Japan. Ever since serious abuses by US "rail barons" in late 19th century, anti-trust legislation here has strictly limited what US rail companies can own and what businesses they can engage in. JR Hokkaido has used diversification quite creatively to turn a profit.

A look through JR Hokkaido's Web site (roughly translated by Google) shows the company owns grocery stores, convenience stores, retail kiosks in stations; a medical clinic in Sapporo station; hotels in each of three cities and two in Sapporo; financial services (including stock trading, accounting, and a debit/ticket card); 3 hot springs resorts; 8 quick-cut ten-minute barber shops, bus lines that connect with trains; a travel agency; a toxic and sensitive waste disposal service; a driving school(!); urban development projects; and 10 major station retail and office properties, including a 38-story office tower on Sapporo Station, the tallest building in Hokkaido. One popular JR Hokkaido property is an amusement center under the elevated tracks near Sapporo station, with Internet-enabled "manga cafe", DVD players, TV, billiards, darts, massage chairs, and a large N-guage model railroad layout.

Hokkaido Railway has succeeded in avoiding red ink since 1997 not only by diversification, but by what might be considered "best practices": 1. Invest in infrastructure, maintenance, and cleanliness; 2. Research and develop better ways to provide rail service; 3. Develop a culture of meticulous attention to detail, especially in safety and punctuality; 4. Schedule and dispatch trains with extreme precision

If US passenger services followed these "best practices" and were allowed to diversify, who knows what we might see?

County-Wide Transit Done Right

Wednesday's AATA Board meeting brought a great deal of information to light. One was the encouraging presentation by consultants of the August 2009 survey of attitudes toward AATA and county-wide transit. Details of that will be made available soon on AATA's Web site, and I'll let you know when they're up.

Most impressive was Director Jesse Bernstein's intense presentation of the process for moving toward county-wide transit, and his impassioned explanation of the benefits of rail transit. Both were very encouraging for those of us looking toward sustainable development based on transit. It's good to know someone on the AATA Board is not only aware of the economic and environmental benefits of rail transit, but also willing to expound upon them with fervor.

Ready, Aim, Fire!

Even more important, though, is the process Mr. Bernstein is insisting on for developing county-wide transit. Instead of saying, "Here's the experts' plan: like it or lump it", Bernstein strongly advocates working in partnership with the community to develop a plan that meets people's needs best. Yes, expert advice is important, but without community participation it's of little value.

Why? Because the community - the voters of Washtenaw County - have the final say in the matter. We, the voters, will decide whether it's worth parting with our hard-earned money to create county-wide transit.

Bernstein explains the process as consisting of three phases, easily remembered using the familiar phrase, "Ready, aim, fire":

1. Ready: Make sure the entire voting community is ready to participate, familiar with the issues involved in county-wide transit. What are the options? What are the costs? What are the benefits? It's preparation through education.
2. Aim: Find out what to aim for in county-wide service by taking some options to the community and getting input. What are the best routes? What level of service is needed? What kind of service do people want? What level of funding would work best? Though Bernstein didn't elaborate, I'm pretty sure he's referring to the "best practice": an iterative process in which input is gathered from a series of meetings, a proposal is built based on that input, and the proposal is refined through further meetings.
3. Fire: With a plan supported by the community, get financial support from the voters and implement the plan.

The "traditional" method of implementing a new service plan is to hire consultants who tell us what the best plan is, based on demographic patterns and possibly a survey, but without the community education and interaction Bernstein is proposing. The result may be a great transit plan in theory, but with little public understanding or support it's unlikely to be accepted and funded.

So I heartily applaud Mr. Bernstein for guiding the AATA in the right direction.

Updates, Updates!

It's been a month since I blogged, so there's a lot to update you on! I'll be as brief as I can while still being informative.

WCC Parking Lot

You may recall my blog entry in December opposing Washtenaw Community College's proposal to build a parking structure. Phil Geyer and I independently presented suggestions to the WCC Board of Trustees at their December meeting with alternatives to the planned construction. According to the Washtenaw Voice (student paper), shortly after we left the meeting, WCC President Larry Whitworth said, "OK, we've got to get engineers started on the project." I'm not surprised.

But wait! meanwhile, Whitworth is doing a lot of good things: authorizing all-day shuttle service from EMU's huge, underutilized Rynearson Stadium parking lot and encouraging students and staff alike to use it. And the arrangement with AATA to provide four-month bus passes for a $10 fee to the WCC community has been rescued from near-failure with a $30K subsidy from the College.

The 208 Group

I recently discovered (or was discovered by) a group that's been meeting for 2-3 years with almost exactly the same goals as Wake Up Washtenaw. They, like me, started focusing on the Ann Arbor / Great Lakes Central Railroad corridor as a potential "green corridor", and they have a lot of dynamic, talented folks in their group. It's been a pleasure and inspiration for me to sit in on a couple of their meetings.

Their current push has been planning for a visit by Christopher Leinberger, the real estate / urban planning guru whose work as brought awareness of the fundamental shift in real estate patterns, from suburbia to urban re-growth. He has also worked with developers and financiers to craft a practical system for funding transit-oriented development. He'll be teaching at the University of Michigan, where he is listed as being on the faculty, though his time is spent primarily doing research at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. He will be giving an open lecture at the University at about 1 PM on Monday, February 15 - details have yet to be finalized. (I'll be out of town then, but hope to pass along news for you.)

Commuter Rail

Both Ann Arbor commuter rail projects are making good progress.

• East-West: Ann Arbor to Detroit stations are being planned and preliminary site engineering is proceeding; Michigan Department of Transportation has authorized Great Lakes Central Railroad to refurbish some of the bi-level gallery cars it has in storage. These cars were purchased from Chicago's Metra commuter railroad when Metra purchased newer cars. A contract to acquire locomotives (probably by lease) is also in the works. The plan is to contract with Amtrak to operate the trains - a service which Amtrak provides for several state and regional rail services. $3.5M has been approved in the federal budget to fund operation. Needed track improvements, especially to East Detroit Junction, are awaiting funding as part of the Chicago-Pontiac high-speed rail corridor. SEMCOG will still be "passing the hat" for the local 20% match required for operating funds.
• North-South: The WALLY (WAshenaw-LIvingston) line is also making progress. Stations are being planned, with the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority still maintaining overall supervision of the project. The set of gallery cars being refurbished includes cars for WALLY. Great Lakes Central Railroad will operate the line (and provide the locomotives, I believe). Funding is still an issue. Also an issue is connecting with the Ann Arbor Railroad, without whose cooperation service will stop at a concrete slab on Plymouth Road. The "Annie's" owners are reluctant to enter into negotiations with anyone until they're confident WALLY will really happen. (It's a very small company, and has little time to spend on "maybes".)

Ann Arbor north-south signature service

The city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan continue to work toward a "signature" rapid transit line connecting the Plymouth Road corridor, U of M's Pfizer campus, North Campus, Medical Campus, Central Campus, downtown Ann Arbor, the Athletic Campus and South State Street (Briarwood). The name "signature" is used to avoid reference to any particular mode of transit, though the most widely discussed is light rail. The first step, soon to come, is contracting with a consulting firm to study the possible options, ridership, and impacts. A recent announcement by the University indicated they are eager to move this forward, and as one of the best-funded organizations in the state, their eagerness is a big factor in its success. If no federal funds are needed, it might be completed in about 5 years - or at least, the University portion might - according to Eli Cooper, Transportation Program Manager for the City. Since federal funds will probably be needed for major portions of the line, a lengthy review and approval process would stretch completion of the entire line out to 10 or 15 years.

Re-Imagine Washtenaw Avenue

I've been working with a dynamic team of planners on revitalizing Washtenaw Avenue between Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti. We're about to go public, engaging the citizens and businesses along Washtenaw to get their input on what needs to be done, as well as inform them about possibilities. Coming soon: a new and better Web site. Meanwhile, link to the current site here.

Revitalizing East Michigan Avenue

It's my belief that East Michigan Avenue in Ypsilanti Township has the greatest potential for dynamic infill development - in fact, for all future development - in the Township. It's also the area that has the greatest need for redevelopment, given the dilapidation, crime, danger to pedestrians, and general nuisance to residents and government alike. I'm about to kick off a community effort to get this redevelopment to happen! The over-all vision is on the Wake Up Washtenaw Web site; working out details with community input will be a high priority this coming year.

Pedistrian Killed on Michigan Avenue

Remember Wake Up Washtenaw's news note last month? "On average, each month more than 400 pedestrians are killed in America". It wasn't long before the statistical averages hit us in Washtenaw County. According to a report in The Ypsilanti Courier published Monday, December 7, thirty-five year old Shawna Pinson was killed shortly after 7 P.M. on Sunday, December 6. She was trying to cross Michigan Avenue near Wiard Road. There's a little convenience store near Wiard; perhaps she was trying to get something to eat for her three children on that dark evening (sunset was 5:01 PM). Her children are a boy age 14, and girls age 12 and 5. According to the Courier report, Ms. Pinson's family is "very cash-strapped right now and are searching for ways to bury their loved one during the holiday season." Assistance for Ms. Pinson's burial and holiday gifts for the children are being coordinated by her aunt, Kathy Augustiniak, 734-218-5131.

Michigan Avenue is five lanes wide at that point (two lanes in each direction and one for left turns) and the speed limit is 50 MPH. There is no pedestrian crosswalk at Wiard. The teenage driver of the vehicle that struck Ms. Pinson is quoted by police as having said the pedestrian was "suddenly in the roadway". Though the intersection is lit by two streetlights, there is no traffic control device there, and no median pedestrian refuge.

Our news brief on pedestrian deaths last month was based on Transportation for America's article, Dangerous by Design: Solving the Epidemic of Preventable Pedestrian Deaths (and Making Great Neighborhoods). Wake Up Washtenaw has proposed making Michigan Avenue through Ypsilanti and Ypsi Township a transit-oriented infill corridor, based on a plan drafted by the Ypsilanti Township Planning Commission in 2001. The recommendation called for three measures to address the observed issues, "High vehicle speeds" and "Unsafe to cross street at intersections":

• Coordinate with the County Road Commission and MDOT to install safe crosswalks at key intersections and destinations
• Institute traffic calming techniques to reduce speeds along the corridors
• Promote a convenient and comfortable pedestrian environment by providing
  connections to neighborhoods and safe places for walking

This tragic death might have been prevented if the plan had been implemented over the last several years. It was approved on first reading by the Ypsilanti Township Board of Trustees in December, 2001, but according to the late David Nicholson, former Planning Director for the Township, the plan was ultimately turned down because a handful of businessmen stood up and claimed it would be bad for their businesses. (I can't find the minutes of the meeting at which this took place.)

Ypsilanti Township's motto is, "Putting Residents First". I've also heard township Supervisor Brenda Stumbo say, "We're all about jobs!" It's time to start looking beyond "jobs" to "life". Are we between a rock and a hard place financially? You bet. Do we need jobs? Sure we do. Is it acceptable to improve the jobs outlook by letting job-seekers be killed? Absolutely not! I don't know if Ms. Pinson was on the rolls of the job-seekers, but like so many in Ypsilanti Township, she was hard-pressed financially and may have been unemployed. Nobody would support the idea that local jurisdictions should maintain dangerous conditions to improve job prospects, but in effect that's what happened when the 2001 plan was not implemented.

Interestingly, the Township Board actually approved the zoning designations (B-5 and B-6) proposed by the Planning Commission in 2001, but no land was allowed to be zoned with those designations. It's time to revisit the plan and actually assign the new designations to the zones they were planned for. It's time to talk to the County and State about conditions on Michigan Avenue. No improvements will happen overnight, and no funds need be allocated to make it happen. Changes like these take a lot of time and coordination between agencies, authorities, commissions, boards, and landowners. We should have gotten started on this eight years ago, and although it's too late now for Shawna Pinson and her three orphaned children, it's not too late for the rest of us. It's not too late for the Charter Township of Ypsilanti to put residents first - even before jobs.

WCC's Parking Structure: so discouraging!

On November 19th, I learned that Washtenaw Community College (WCC) is intending to build a parking structure. I've been researching the situation and becoming increasingly discouraged. Why?

Making room for more cars is a poor solution to a real problem. But equally important, it's a very popular solution. As you may know, I was a full-time faculty member at WCC for 24 years (1983-2007) and I'm teaching a couple of courses now, so I'm pretty familiar with what's been going on there.

The Ebb and Flow of Cars at WCC

WCC has a surge of cars coming to campus the first two weeks of class. Some of their drivers are doing errands such as registering for classes or buying books; others are attending classes; still others are simply using WCC as a park-and-ride where they can leave their car and take the bus to Ann Arbor. I admit it - I've done that myself from time to time, and talked to several others who do it regularly.

Because of the nature of community colleges, a lot of people enroll in classes but find they can't continue due to family or job responsibilities. Others are unprepared for college-level classes, but because of low tuition and high hopes, they enroll and try, only to discover that it's more than they can handle. The cumulative result is that the parking lot gets more and more empty as each term proceeds.

Another factor is the "recession rush". There have been several recessions since I came to WCC, and in all but one (the 2001 "dot com bubble bust") job layoffs have sent people back to the community college to upgrade their skills. The current recession is no exception - in fact, because of its severity, WCC has experienced a record boom in enrollment. That's why you may have seen photos of cars parked on the grass.

But after each recession, what happens? People go back to work and enrollment drops back down. Not as far down as pre-recession levels - apart from the boom-and-bust cyclces, there has been a slow but steady gain in enrollment over the decades. By midterm in every year since 1983, there has always been ample parking.

Why the Parking Structure is a Popular Solution

In The Voice, WCC's student-run newspaper, letters to the editor have applauded the parking structure decision by a large margin, compared to those who expressed opposition or even hesitation.

There are many reasons for this. One is the feeling that free, convenient parking is an American right. Donald Shoup's now-classic article, "The High Cost of Free Parking" (1997) explains in detail how free parking is mandated in new buildings across the US, which goes a long way to explain why the US has the highest per capita use of automobiles in the world.

But let's face it: for many WCC students, there is no way to get to the college without driving. We don't have a county-wide transit system, and for the many evening students, existing transit doesn't run late enough to get them home. I've often had evening students ask to leave class early so they can catch the last bus. Occasionally, I've given car-deprived students a ride home after class (against college policy!) so they could finish a test or group exercise.

After the first couple of weeks of a term, there has always been ample parking available, including the record-breaking Fall 2009 term. But it's only reliably available in the parking lot furthest from the classroom buildings, and people apparently hate to walk more than about two minutes from their cars to their classes. They seem to prefer circling the parking lot for 10 minutes rather than walk for 5. This term, I've have never had trouble finding parking 6-7 minutes from the building where I teach. During the first two weeks, I parked in EMU's stadium parking lot and took WCC's free shuttle bus back and forth every day. (WCC ran the shuttle for employees only during the first two weeks.) Yes, it added about 10 minutes to the commute, but it brought me to within a 2-minute walk of my building.

The proposed parking structure is to be built within a 1-minute walk of three buildings, and no more than 5 minutes from the furthest, so this is perceived as a great advantage over parking that's 6-8 minutes away.

Why the Parking Structure is a Poor Solution

There are several reasons why the parking structure is a poor solution to the problem.

First and foremost, the problem is mis-identified. The problem is not insufficient parking, it's lack of transportation options. If buses ran more frequently, to more parts of the county, and ran later in the evening, students would have choices besides owning and driving a car.

Even if we continue to focus on lack of parking as "the problem", the college doesn't have a permanent parking problem. As I outlined above, the college's main problem is the surge at the start of the term. The EMU stadium parking lot can easily handle the surge, and shuttle buses are a good deal less costly than a parking structure. They only need to be chartered for a couple of weeks each term, but a structure has to be funded and operated whether it's needed or not.

The college recently conducted a carbon-footprint survey. According to Dale Petty, the Electronics faculty member working on the survey, about 40% of the college's carbon footprint is attributable to people driving to campus. No matter what else the college does to reduce its carbon emissions, failure to address this aspect will leave WCC responsible a great, stomping footprint. Not only does a parking structure fail to address the issue, it encourages more people to drive.

How the structure is to be paid for is perhaps the worst aspect of the plan. According to material in the Board of Trustees packet for October 2009, the $11 million cost is to be paid for with a bond issue. But no millage is to be raised to pay off the bonds (it's pretty obvious the county wouldn't vote for such a millage!); instead, the repayment is to be made from the General Fund with the help of a surcharge to each credit hour. Initially, the surcharge would be $3, but that would go up to $4 as the debt load increases, before going back to $3 toward the end of the bond issue's life.

There are two problems with this funding model. One is that General Fund dollars should go to educating people, but the parking structure would suck funds away from education and put them into supporting our over-use of automobiles. The other is that everybody would have to pay the surcharge whether they use cars or not. Those who can't afford to buy and use a car would be compelled to subsidize those who are better off and can afford to drive. Such a regressive model should never be allowed at a community college.

In the final analysis, vehicle miles traveled have been declining nation-wide. The parking structure is a 20th century solution to a 21st century problem. The time to invest in parking structures was back in the 1970s. The parking problem will improve over time, not get worse; the cost of the parking structure will remain with us for many years, whether or not it's needed.

So What would be a Better Solution?

The first and best solution is simply not to build a parking structure. Continue use the EMU stadium parking for the surge.

It would be far less costly to pay people not to park in WCC's parking lot. A good start was made offering employees a free snack at the college coffee shop when they parked at EMU, and that type of incentive is just a start.

Now it's time to invest in transportation alternatives, which means the college should be working with AATA, send a representative to AATA Board meetings, support a county-wide transit system finanaically, as well as with lip service. There are consultants who can help identify less costly, more responsible alternatives. (I don't know who they are, but I know they're out there.)

Ultimately, no parking is free: it's very costly. Why should parking be free, when a bus pass costs $10 per term? A good start would be to require people parking at WCC to have a parking permit. At a minimum, that would keep people from using WCC as a park-and-ride lot. The permit could even be "free" - at least, at first. Offer registered students a choice: free parking permit, or free bus pass. That would level the playing field. Then, if a parking structure is built, a fee can be levied for parking permits. That would be a much fairer plan that putting a fee on every credit hour, regardless of a student's ability to drive.

WCC should be teaching the community about how to thrive in the "new, green economy". Let's teach by example.

Can we afford a county-wide transit system?

In a recent comment about the county-wide transit idea, "EOS" wrote to the Ann Arbor Chronicle (2009-11-03) saying, "the rest of the county doesn't want and can’t afford AATA". Deliberations at both Ypsilanti City and Township's governing boards indicate that we want AATA, but believe we can't afford it.

That may be because we don't know how much our cars cost us compared with public transit. Knowing that good transit is a good investment, I set out to calculate what a county-wide transit system would save. I'm considering the ability of households to save money by giving up one automobile, assuming they own more than one.

Using data from the Census Bureau, we find 134,187 households in Washtenaw County, and projecting from figures on page 28 of the WATS 2007 Transit Plan, we can estimate there are 22,706 families with zero or one car. These households may not be able to reduce their auto-related costs significantly, even with improved transit, so we'll remove them from consideration.

That leaves 112,980 households that could reduce their number of cars if we had good, county-wide transit. How much would they save each year? Based on car ownership costs and gas prices surveyed by AAA on November 9, 2009, APTA estimates the nation-wide average saving is $9,190 annualized for households giving up one automobile and using transit.

Supposing every household that could, would give up one car and use transit. The theoretical savings for Washtenaw County would be 1,038,286,200, though of course that is unrealistic. Instead, let's suppose 20% of multi-vehicle households decided to get along with one less. The resulting county-wide savings would be $207,657,240.

Suppose we were to offer residents to split these savings between them and county-wide transit, with 75% of that remaining in the households, and 25% going to fund transit. That would leave the residents with $155,742,930, and give the agency $51,914,310: 181% of AATA's 2009 budget. Could that amount fund high-quality, county-wide transit?

The cost per household would be $386.88, while the household savings would be $1,160.64: a 300% return on investment.

How can we afford not to do that?

OK, I know there are quite a few people who would dispute this on several grounds. I'll have a go at playing devil's advocate, then answering their points:

1. Your estimate is based on everybody paying the tax, but only 25% of tax-payers using transit. Why should the non-users subsidize the users?
   Answer a: Non-users benefit by roads relieved of 20% of their congestion. It costs far more to expand the road system, both in dollars and in environmental damage; plus in many places there simply is no more land to build roads on. If the county's population grows (and it is growing), congestion will grow worse with no practical way to build our way out of it.
   Answer b: There is always a well-documented increase in business investment in areas offer good transit. Thus, investing in transit increases the tax-base, reducing the burden on individual tax-payers.
   Answer c: Even those who don't use transit regularly will be able to use it occasionally, for example, when their car is in the shop or to send their kids to soccer practice. The better the transit system, the more convenient it will be to meet those needs.
2. Buses are not as efficient as they're cracked up to be, because they spend so much of their time driving around nearly empty.
   Answer a: Most bus efficiency figures are based on cost per passenger-mile, which takes into account the high and low times.
   Answer b: A serious effort is being made to get rail transit for Washtenaw County. Rail is even more efficient than bus, because of energy savings from steel wheels on steel rails, and because one operator can handle a vehicle that carries far more passengers.
   Answer c: When automobile efficiency is calculated, the cost of parking spaces should also be included, but often isn't. Each car requires roughly three parking spaces: one for home, one for work, and one for shopping, school, or entertainment. In addition to the construction and maintenance costs of each parking space, there is significant environmental impact due to the impermeable surface creating dangerous storm runoff, and because large parking lots force businesses to be farther from each other and from the street, increasing travel time, expense, and discouraging walking.
3. That's a lot of savings! Aren't they going to come from other, established areas of spending, and hurt local businesses?
   Answer a: Some would come come from local business such as gas stations, car dealers, and maintenance shops, yes. But consider the increased employment in transit operation and maintenance.
   Answer b: A great deal of the cost of driving an automobile leaves the local area already, including finance charges (in many cases) and most of the cost of gasoline. With lower energy use per passenger mile, transit costs return a higher percentage to the local economy.
   Answer c: According to AAA, 23% of the average cost of automobile ownership is depreciation - the cost of a new car spread over its useful lifetime. Economists tell us the rapid depreciation of autos makes them a poor investment. That's true even in Michigan, when you consider that a relatively small percentage of autos that drive in Michigan are actually assembled here, and that their parts come from all over the world anyway. Using the savings figures I estimated, $155.7 million could be invested or spent in other ways that boost the local economy.
4. All these figures are based on estimates. As far as I'm concerned, they're a crock.
   Answer a: Yes, they're estimates. Every business venture, before making an investment, makes similar estimates based on currently available figures, with a lot of assumptions thrown in. I've tried to make the figures and assumptions clear so you can reach your own conclusions. Please do so in a responsible manner.
   Answer b: This took me - an amateur - a few hours to figure and write up. We do need more accurate estimates, so more time and expertise is needed. That's probably why AATA wants to hire a consultant to prepare a proposal for county-wide service.

How Much do we Support Other Countries?

I've often wondered how much of my gasoline expense is going to support other countries, especially ones that don't agree with us or are hostile. I looked up some figures, made some calculations, and came up with this:

$667.03

of my gas money goes to other countries this year. That compares with $72.73 in Federal highway tax, $104.35 in Michigan highway tax, and $83.79 in Michigan sales tax. That's a total of $260.87 in taxes to my own governments, only 39.1% of what I send overseas.

Curious? Concerned? Read on...

Suppose you own a mid-size sedan and drive it a moderate 15,000 miles each year - an average car driven an average distance. According to AAA, 11% of your cost is for fuel. They estimate a national average cost of $8,106 for car ownership and operation in that case, so the cost of gas for a year is $1,581.

Michigan's Attorney General (Republican Mike Cox) has posted a Web page giving the breakdown of the cost of a gallon of gas. It's based on the June 5, 2009 average cost of $2.89 per gallon of self-serve regular. Based on that breakdown, we pay 4.6% in Federal highway tax, 6.6% in State road tax, and 5.3% in state sales tax (which is less than 6% because the state doesn't tax the highway taxes). That's 17% in taxes, $260.87 annually for our average case.

Since the Attorney General's information lists only the wholesale price of gas, we have to dig deeper to find out how much of what we pay goes to the cost of refining crude oil, and how much is for the crude itself. I went to a U.S. Department of Energy page that gives a rough idea of that breakdown. Of the 2008 average retail price (the most recent), 69% was the cost of crude oil ($1,058.96 in our average case), and 7% was refining and profits ($199.51). Of course, that's as volatile as the the cost of crude, so we can use it only to get a general idea of where our money goes.

OK, so how much of our crude oil comes from other countries? According to another Department of Energy table, the U.S. imported 63.0% of its oil (2.9 billion barrels) through the end of August, 2009 (the latest figures available). So of our yearly gasoline payments, $391.93 goes for U.S. crude, and $667.03 goes overseas.

The sources of imported oil are listed by country in an on-line table. Now comes the fun part. I divided the source countries into three groups by their political stance toward the United States:

• Friends (including our two biggest sources, Canada and Mexico):
  1.9 billion barrels imported, 40.8% of an average gallon of gas, costing the average motorist $436.06 yearly;
• Questionables (such as Saudi Arabia, our fourth-largest supplier, which is politically aligned with the U.S. but has a repressive government and holds values very much at odds with ours):
  7.4 million barrels imported, 15.8% of our gallon, adding up to $167.48 yearly; and
• Non-Friends (such as Venezuela, our third-largest source of oil - and the country where I was born! - whose leader Hugo Chavez campaigns actively to discredit and undermine the U.S.):
  sending us 3.0 million barrels, 6.4% of each gallon, costing us $67.50 this year.

Let me emphasize, this categorization of countries is solely mine, based on my news sources. If you'd like details, just ask.

It's of some concern that 22.2% of our gas money to enrich countries that are either questionable friends or outright unfriendly. That amounts to $234.97 we're paying each year in "taxes" that benefit shaky friends and unfriendly governments. And there's not a thing we can do about it.

Except one: reduce our dependence on imported oil.

How?

We can wait for more efficient, non-petroleum-dependent cars to come out. May they come soon - and may they be affordable!

But in the meantime, there are tried-and-true ways for all of us: take public transit, walk, or ride a bike.