From: adrian@ntmtv.UUCP (Adrian Brandt)
Subject: Anti-rail bias in transport subsidies
Organization: Northern Telecom Inc, Mountain View, CA
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 19:52:55 GMT


THE CARDS ARE STACKED AGAINST THE PEOPLE

A Modern Transit Society Position Paper  (1/30/92)


Every form of transportation requires an infrastructure--facilities along
which vehicles move or land, communication equipment and personnel to direct
vehicle movement, etc.  Trains need tracks, bridges, signals, and stations.
Airplanes need airports, traffic controllers, and weather reporting services.
Autos and trucks require a street-and-highway network, bridges, and traffic
signs, signals, and police.  Boats need lighthouses, buoys, canals, dredged
channels, and docks.

The various forms of transportation are not treated equitably with regard to
paying the cost of their respective infrastructures, and the resulting
disparity retards transport progress and prevents society from deriving
maximum benefit from each transport mode.

Among all transport forms, only the railway is required to provide and
maintain its infrastructure at its own expense.  In addition, railways pay
property taxes on land occupied by their facilities.  Infrastructures for all
of the other modes are provided at public expense, with users' contributions
generally falling short of actual cost, and with no property taxes paid on
occupied land.

The result is a competitive field that is sharply biased against rail
transportation.  Only the railway's inherent efficiency has enabled it to
exist, albeit in limited fashion, under these prejudicial conditions.  The
overall situation has manifested itself in reduced rail service in both urban
and inter-city situations, and in society's loss of the technological,
environmental, and economic benefits that are inherent in rail transport of
passengers and freight.

A particular railroad line--the 12-mile Southern Pacific branch that serves
the Davenport cement plant on the California coast--provides one example.
Another exists in Santa Clara County (CA), where an SP branch serves the
Kaiser Permanente cement plant.  Both rail lines exist today for but one
purpose:  To transport the products of cement plants.  In order to serve the
plants, the privately-owned railroad company is required to maintain the
lines at its own expense and to pay property taxes on the land it uses.  If,
on the other hand, the cement were to be shipped by truck, it would move over
public highways, where carriers would not be obligated for costs of
constructing, maintaining, or widening the roads.  Wear and damage caused by
the trucks would be repaired at public expense, and no taxes are levied on
the land covered by concrete and asphalt.  Taxes paid by trucks do not
compare to the costs incurred by rail transport companies that provide their
own infrastructures and, in addition, pay property taxes.

This destructive disparity has been rationalized with the claim that the rail
infrastructure is "private", and not available for use of vehicles other than
those that are part of the rail transport mode.  However, the logic behind
this claim is questionable.  For one thing, the objective of transport is to
move people and goods--not vehicles.  Everyone can make the same use of rail
services, without having to buy and maintain his own vehicle for the purpose.
For another, the private nature of railway lines provides substantial public
benefit, since it enables transport to be provided faster, safer, and more
efficiently than would be the case on a system cluttered with random
vehicles.

The disparity creates an obvious pressure to change the mode of shipment from
rail to truck.  That the public benefits from the present rail shipment is
obvious, and that there would be a significant loss of benefit if the track
were abandoned is equally obvious.  However, from the viewpoint of a private
transport-service provider, the special costs associated with the tracks and
right-of-way can only be justified if the railroad's inherent ability to
handle bulk shipments more cost-effectively than trucks outweighs those
costs.  The fact that the public interest is better served by continuance of
rail service is not enough to justify the extra infrastructure outlays by a
private entity.

There are less-bulky products to be shipped than cement--products whose rail
movement entails less profound savings, perhaps, than cement, but whose rail
movement nevertheless provides public benefit.  In such cases, the ability to
avoid payment for track, line, and property taxes readily pushes the
transport flow from rail to road--with all of the obvious losses to society.
The argument that trucks can reach everywhere has become irrelevant with
modern inter-modal freight-handling methods.  The problem is strictly the
result of failure to deal with transport modes in an even-handed fashion.

The loss of commodious and non-polluting street railways, and their
replacement by less-satisfactory buses, can be traced to the same
institutional failure--the singling out of rail-borne transport as the one
mode required to provide its own infrastructure and pay taxes on it.

It is essential to transport progress that the playing field be leveled to
enable all modes to compete equitably, and to permit the public to vote
meaningfully with its dollars for the modes it prefers.  To accomplish this,
each form of transportation should be required to pay in toto for the
infrastructure it requires, with no contribution from general taxation.
Also, each mode should be required to pay appropriate ad valorem taxes on the
land it occupies.  In addition to restoring the American competitive process
to the vital transport industry, these moves will permit substantial
reductions in taxes paid by all citizens.  As an alternate approach, the
railroad infrastructure might be brought under the public wing to give rail
systems the advantages currently enjoyed by their competitors.  With this
approach, all property taxes on railway land would be forgone, and, in
addition, provision and maintenance of track and other infrastructure would
be at public cost--as is the case with competing transport modes.  Rail
operating firms and agencies would be expected to make some contribution to
offset these costs--as is the case with other modes.

Whichever method is selected, the public-chattel nature of transport
infrastructure must extend to all modes or to none.  No nation, and no
industry, can long endure half slave and half free.

Modern Transit Society
P.O. Box 981
Sacramento, CA 95812

-- 

Adrian Brandt (415) 940-2379
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ARPA: ntmtv!adrian@ames.arc.nasa.gov