The Years the Locusts Ate

It's strange to think that just two years ago Seattle seemed to have a bright future well in hand. It seemed then that the viaduct would come down, a new park would be built on the waterfront, a streetcar would be built from Seattle Center and down 1st Avenue to the International District, and the Museum of History and Industry would move to a new park at the south end of Lake Union. And, while a recession or depression would affect container traffic to the port, Seattle did not seem particularly vulnerable to economic failure. Boeing, we are so over you.

Since then, a new mayor has been elected- a mayor who has no apparent interest in a 1st Avenue streetcar line, a park on the Central Waterfront, or the long-cherished community goals for a park at the south end of Lake Union. Rather than appealing to the highest aspirations of urban citizenry, McGinn appeals to the lowest. Given a microphone, he trumpets his opposition to the tunnel on any occasion, no matter how inappropriate, like some bewildered pachyderm lost in our Packwood Forest.

Currently, a central element of McGinn-o-mania is the Pedestrian-Bike-Traffic Master Plan, expanded to encompass transit- a huge study due "soon" to guide us in planning bicycle and pedestrian paths and future transit needs. Clearly, McGinn hopes this document (or process) will provide a plan to build paths and possibly propose a light-rail line to the voters.

The insanity here is that you can't really build a new street grid for bikes and walkers in addition to the street grid we already own. Not to mention the fact that the existing streets already occupy all the best places. Duh. The "advanced thinking" of Seattle is still riding on the sidewalk with training wheels. As for slyly piggy-backing a light-rail proposal onto an effort initially directed towards paths, well, good luck with that one.

Any long-term resident of Seattle is, of course, inured to the urban gadfly and the nattering nabobs of negativity. It is, to some extent, what passes for wit. Garnish with heaping scoops of holier-than-thou and you have a concoction that will kill or cure any proposal- and, quite possibly, the body politic in which the proposal has hatched.

HafenCity

In 2000 the Germans began construction of a new business and residential development in an old warehouse wharf neighborhood by Hamburg. They expect to have it mainly finished by the year 2030.

Ever the prudent engineers, the Germans consulted the best science available at the time, and have planned the new development to handle rises in sea level and flooding that may result from global warming. Not entirely coincidentally, the efficiencies of the new development also fight global warming at the source, by reducing carbon emissions.

This is your real explanation of the German banking genius- judicious and continuous pump-priming by governmental bodies investing in the future, over long periods of time. Take special note of the amounts of time required.

You can read more about HafenCity here.

Fundamental Contradictions of Railroads

Americans and Europeans began in the railroad business with two different backgrounds. In the US the concept of a corporation was almost a new thing. The antecedent was the corporate body, but in America those bodies were small and weak, and American industrial corporations grew with few restraints. In Europe, corporate bodies were of long standing, and any new proposal had to pass a long vetting process by cities, kings, parliaments, churches, and capital markets.

In both systems, railroads survived the first and one of the greatest shocks to their philosophy, the discovery that they couldn't function at all as they had been planned. The plan had been for the corporation to build a way, install rails, and then, when you wanted to use the way, you put your vehicle on the rails and went where you wanted to go. The railroad, in short, would function as a sort of improved toll road.

In just a few years, this was seen to be wrong and fallacious. To function properly, railroads needed to own and control all the vehicles using the rails. So managed, their fantastic improvement of transportation would obviously impact any society they came in contact with.

In America in the 1830s, this was hardly a problem. Virtually the entire continent could be developed by new railroads without impacting an existing business or king. The demand for transportation was so strong that it became the central fact of political and financial life for the states of the 'Old Northwest' in the 1830s.

In Europe, every constriction applied, from the competition of ports and waterways, to the belief that the monarch possessed as a right the granting of the corporate existence. The long practice of these constraints, however, also provided a framework for the gathering of funds and the building of the hugely capital-intensive railroads.

The later follow-on of these differences emerged in the 1880s and 1890s in America, when every strong railroad believed that with sufficient effort they could 'capture' a territory. Americans started thinking that if one railroad went broke, another would soon buy the line or build a new one, and, in fact, the railroads became so over-built that in 1918 the USRRA was able to slice tens of thousands of miles from the map and radically improve service.

In Europe, more of what we might call 'central planning' had built lines which had reasons, and would not be allowed to go broke and abruptly cease service. Nor, after a few disastrous experiences, were the European companies allowed to build without supervision. European railways entered the 20th century encumbered by the requirements of society, but by the end of the century the European roads were, with the sole exception of long-haul freight, vastly superior to our own.

How could this happen?

Railroads are Big

It's not immediately apparent how big a railroad is. Try to pick up a piece of rail and you start to get the picture. But the real bigness of the railroad lies in the right of way and the structures, much of it critically important to transport by rail, and won hardly over a century of struggle.

Taken all together, it's quite an investment- in fact, it's too much investment to ever pay a competitive return. And, with a few exceptions, this has been the case for the entire history of railroading. Each road built on the bankrupt wreck of two or three or even sometimes a dozen failed progenitors, and each in turn destined to fail.

The simple fact is that the investment is too large to pay over 5% on investment in a nation where 6% is the ante. Other nations have dealt with this by constructing state railways, by constructing the railway and leasing it to a private company to run, or by nationalizing formerly private roads.

It would take some mighty fancy economics to determine the ins-and-outs of societal and railroad finance. With practice this science will improve , but in the meantime we'll experiment and learn from others. At least we've learned that healthy railroads, competing in the capital markets for private investment, with dividends over 5%, ain't gonna happen.

They're just too darn big.

The Core of Transit

Judging from the local transit blogs, Seattle has developed a new generation of transit fans. This mentally fresh generation thinks all ideas are created equal and deserve to be examined on their merits. As for paying for transit, however, the thinking is quite the reverse, and here they try to milk some scheme from existing taxes and revenues.

Rail transit, however, is and will be a socialist enterprise. There are a number of reasons for this, to be explored in a future post, but the bottom line is plain- no business as usual.

Fortuitously, this is a time when we have learned we cannot continue business as usual in any case. The question is not whether we will change ourselves, but how we will change ourselves.

Seen as a social asset, transit looks much different from how it appears as a collection of kludges and wild guesses by technocrats with little or no actual historical knowledge. And that's a good thing.

McGinn's Trifecta

Seattle's Mayor McGinn must feel as though he's died and gone to heaven. Where else could you find an entire city of such rubes?

Last week McGinn announced he had a plan to create 60,000 jobs in Seattle. In the process, he revealed the real reason for the press conference- he's learned that people are concerned, most of all, about jobs.

The Seattle papers, in a kindly manner, simply ignored the announcement. Pointing our how implausible it was would have been cruel.

And that's ok with McGinn- he now has his "plan", and his trusty supporters can be relied on to point this out at any suitable occasion.

For a demagogue, it doesn't get much better.

The Ideal Post

The ideal blog post, to my way of thinking, is the beginning of a conversation, to be continued in 'comments'. There are, of course, other ideals, but in this case I'm referring to a non-expert post that can't justify long-windedness, but hopes to stimulate an enlarging discussion.

In this regard, a little controversy becomes a good thing, encouraging readers who choose to disagree- that is, to say, if disagreement is permissable in your audience. The audience that cannot civilly disagree will react violently to disagreement, and the ensuing discussion may be less than enlightening.

Much like a short paper for high school, a post should have an idea that is asserted, developed, and summarized in somewhat less than 300 words. Then, if you combine your wait for eager readers with contemplation of the seaside (photo courtesy Matt Yglesias), your soul will find peace.