Trains Save Fuel

WGIL -- Galesburg Radio 14 ^ | Thursday, October 14, 2010 | Illinois Radio Network

[Willie Green]

(IRN)-An environmental group is touting the fuel saving benefits of the train.

In particular, the savings are measured based on the use of the Metra commuter rail system in the Chicago area: 34.8 million of gasoline a year, assuming all the train riders would have made all the same trips by car, with 1.3 people in the car each time, according to the group Environment Illinois.

Metra served 77 million passengers in 2008, with ridership increasing an average of 1 percent per year since 2000. Its busiest line, the BNSF line between Aurora and Chicago, carries an average of 63,200 passengers each weekday.

Environment Illinois is calling for an adjustment of the federal transportation funding formula to support rail as much as roads. Field associate Sophie Huckabay says the current formula rewards states that adopt transportation policies that promote fuel consumption, a perverse incentive, she says.

The train related fuel savings would accrue, Huckabay says, on expanded Metra service further into the hinterlands, to places such as Johnsburg, Rockford, DeKalb and Kankakee, and high-speed rail Downstate.

[Lazamataz]

Are you a Marxist, a socialist, or just born stupid?

You and I independently came to the same conclusion.

That makes me feel better that maybe I was dead on.

[Ditter]

Well said! Thanks for boldly blurting it out, we have been saying that to him for some time now, but in a softer tone.

[Quality_Not_Quantity]

Are you a Marxist, a socialist, or just born stupid?

Wow! I was going to 'report abuse' until I saw Who (capitalization intentional) posted that.

[GladesGuru]

“Over 35 million Americans rely on some form of public tansportation to commute to work every weekday.”

Willie, Willie - most of those are urban, Big Sh*tty Liberals, not Americans.

[trisham]

Let me think...nope, I can’t decide.

[Paladin2]

I saw this thread earlier, but have just returned. I’ll be back as soon as the popcorn is done and the beer chilled. Hope I’m IBTZ.

[dearolddad]

Metra served 77 million passengers in 2008, with ridership increasing an average of 1 percent per year since 2000. Its busiest line, the BNSF line between Aurora and Chicago, carries an average of 63,200 passengers each weekday.

How much of Metra's operating expenses were subsidized by tax payers?

[Paladin2]

Trains have a CoF problem when it comes to stopping. Nasty Aero too.

[smoothsailing]

Are you a Marxist, a socialist, or just born stupid?

Reminds me of the two by four and the mule...

A man sold a mule to a farmer and promised that as long as the farmer was nice and polite to the mule, the animal would perform any task without hesitation. For months the farmer politely tried to get the mule to work but the stubborn animal wouldn’t do a thing. Finally, fed up, the farmer called the man who sold him the animal and complained that no matter how polite he was he got no cooperation. The man told him he’d come over to help.

The man showed up at the farm and asked the farmer what he wanted the mule to do. The farmer said he wanted the mule to plow his field. As the farmer watched, the salesman walked up to the mule hit him on the head with a two-by-four — hard. He then calmly and politely asked the mule to please plow the farmer’s field. The mule went right to work.

Shocked, the farmer exclaimed to the salesman that he told him to be nice and polite to the mule to get him to do anything, yet he had hit him on the head with a chuck of wood. The salesman replied that he was polite, but he first had to get the mule’s attention.

WILLIE BOY

Jim, you make a damn good two by four! LOL!

[Notary Sojac]

Hey Jim, please don’t zot Willie. He’s sort of our pet.

[jazusamo]

LOL! Now that’s funny. :-)

[GonzoGOP]

How much of Metra's operating expenses were subsidized by tax payers?

This is all I could find quickly. It is from the 2008-2009 budget.
The RTA sales tax is 1.25% in Cook County, and 0.75% in the collar counties. One-third of the sales tax collected in the collar counties (i.e. 0.25%) is distributed directly to the counties and the county boards may use that money for transportation or public safety purposes.

A new distribution of revenues is prescribed, essentially leaving the distribution of the sales taxes collected at the old rates as is (by references to "85% of 80% of the receipts from those taxes collected within the City of Chicago" and the like) and then, after certain funds described below are set aside, the remainder is allocated 48% to CTA, 39% to Metra and 13% to Pace.

Of course you need a lot of money when your CEO is forging signatures of the board of directors and embezzling something around half a million dollars. We will never know how much he took because before he could testify he stepped in front of a METRA train and got splattered all over the roadbed. Funny how often that happens in Chicago.

[longtermmemmory]

utter garbage.

it does not take into account, car rentals, taxis, or sub transportation.

If anything this is the frieght commercial reframed for the BS about slave rail.

If it is that efficient private industry would have done this already. Passenger trains have no place in the modern world.

[davetex]

willie, here’s an idea. Just shut your pie hole and ride the damn train. Simple enough for you?

[narses]

The answer to the Green idiocy:

Drill, baby, drill!! We’ve got plenty of oil.

Go get 'em Jim!

[going hot]

You just now figuring that one out?

[ShadowAce]

Over 35 million Americans rely on some form of public tansportation to commute to work every weekday.

10M in NYC, another 5-10M in LA, several million more in Chicago.

Doesn't leave much for the rest of the country, and the argument fails.

[xzins]

Trains don’t save oil, Jim. They’re pushing a rail in Cincy. It goes from a point A to a point B that might make sense for those who live right on that route or just a few blocks from the stops it might make. Other than that, how are they going to get around???

They’ll have to rent a car, hire a taxi, ride a bus (if available) and all that will take time and oil.

I’ll also have to do car, taxi, or bus to the location where I get aboard IF I ever want to be in those neighborhoods to those destinations.

I can jump in my car and get just about anyplace in the city in 30 minutes. The other sounds like a 1.5 - 2 hour process that ends up using vehicles anyway.

Factor in vehicles to final destination and time lost, and you get a non-starter.

[AU72]

Since the advent of standard shipping containers, railroads have been less useful for moving goods. It will work if the ports have direct rail connects but most of the destinations do not have one and it is inefficent to move the containers more than once from source to destination when a truck will do.

[KevinDavis]

Willie I have been hearing about oil going out since the 70’s... In fact I have heard Oil was suppose to be out now..