Photographer's "traumatic train"

This photo by Chris Edwards of Leicestershire, U.K., dramatically illustrates the human side of the transportation crisis in Tokyo as a result of the March 2011 earthquake. The transportation crisis was the subject of “How a Shaken City Kept Steady Nerves,” which appeared in the fall 2011 issue of InTransition. Here’s how Edwards described the scene when he posted the photo to Flickr:

I was on board a train in Tokyo yesterday when the big earthquake struck, I was unbelievably scared, I still now don't understand why the train didn't derail completely.

We was evacuated from the train once the main earthquakes stopped and then after a couple of hours or so of walking we found refuge in a hotel basement, where I still remain, although I have a room now. A very wobbly one though, 9 floors up and we're still having quakes.

In a subsequent email correspondence, Edwards related that while, in the end, the city of Tokyo coped with the many challenges posed by the earthquake —including avoiding the loss of life or serious injuries when the transit system shut down —living through the experience left passengers very much “shaken”:

We were on a very traumatic train for 90 minutes with very little information offered. When we eventually got evacuated, the station we walked to was in turmoil. Nobody knew what to do or where to go and the transport authorities were offering no information other than handing out maps.

Whilst we were in that station more earthquakes hit and masonry was falling around us. The roads were gridlocked for many, many hours. Over the next few days the railways were shut down at random intervals with very little warning leaving massive queues for taxis and gridlocked roads again.

The place was in chaos.

That said, we were travelling at a high speed and the speed the train network shut down was very impressive.

Other photos by Edwards on Japan and other subjects can be seen at: www.flickr.com/photos/bubblesphotos/.

You Can't Spell Subsidy Without B-U-S

By Josh Stephens

It's funny to consider the circumstances under which Americans are willing to accept government subsidy or programming. Education: good. Agriculture: Good. Fire and safety: sure. Health care: no comment. As for transportation, we seem to be OK with ambulances, whether they're transporting us to publically supported hospitals or not. But mass transit to someplace else -- be it work, recreation, or your Botox appointment -- is another, more complicated matter.

Public transportation seems like a business because the fare structure is so familiar. Paying for a bus ride feels no different than paying for a movie ticket, so it's natural to think that the marginal cost to the consumer covers the marginal cost to the provider and away we go. Except that hidden from every fare is the 50-70 percent of operating costs that are covered by the public. Since we don't get a receipt saying "70 of your ride has been brought to you by the taxpayers of your city and state," it's even easy to imagine that the people who use public transportation can, and do, just pay for it themselves.

These assumptions complement the fallacy that riders are the only beneficiaries of the system. But as we have seen during this recession, public transportation's benefits are more than vast enough to justify public intervention. Buses and trains rescue people who can no longer afford to drive, and they enable urban economies to function by matching employees with employers -- which is the whole (economic) purpose of cities. This is why a certain radical fringe contends that the benefits to free transit -- that is, transit with a 100 percent subsidy (a la schools) -- would pay for itself many times over.

That might sound a little nuts, except that it's hard to define a substantive difference between the argument in favor of fare-free transit and that in favor of toll-free roads. It's tempting to imagine that, through the magic of elasticity, if you divide the quantity demanded by a price of zero you get infinite demand and therefore an infinite reduction in traffic. The math doesn't work out quite like that, but without the burden of pulling out a wallet, a great many discretionary riders would have a few bucks left over for food and rent.

Which brings us to the recession: All the great ideas in the world matter little if transit agencies have no money to spend and more riders than they know what to do with, which is exactly the state of affairs today, as the nation's transit agencies face a collective deficit well into the billions. My article approached these deficits from a distant, abstract perspective, as if to assure everyone that, indeed, misery loves company. But let's not forget that the real misery is that which afflicts the riders, forced to abandon jobs, remain housebound, or suffer interminable waits while the bus plies its route.

Many agencies don't quite know what they're going to do to close their budget gaps, save raising fares and eliminating service. No matter what, one encouraging outgrowth of this crisis -- from a reporter's standpoint -- is the outpouring of candor from these agencies. While government bureaucracies are notorious for obfuscation and euphemism, my reporting uncovered very little sugar-coating, as if the global crisis has finally allowed public officials to let down their guard.

Their collective message is clear: Transit agencies are asking for patience, understanding, and even a little sympathy. Whether or not we're willing to give them any more of our money is, however, another matter.

Josh Stephens’ article, “Mass Transit’s Reversal of Fortune,” appeared in the fall 2009 issue. He is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles.

Arena Gives Crowds New Look at Newark

By Karl Vilacoba

Growing up on the Jersey Shore, I often had to choose between the Meadowlands and Madison Square Garden when it came to spending my entertainment dollars. The choice usually boiled down to this question: the highway or the railway?

Whether it was a concert tour or a pro-wrestling card, the venues sometimes hosted the same events days apart. I could make the car trip up the New Jersey Turnpike to the Meadowlands sports complex (home to Giants Stadium and the Izod Center) or hop on a train to Penn Station New York, which is basically the Garden’s basement. Although it was a good half-hour longer, MSG usually won out. The train eliminated the stress of driving as well as the pesky tack-on prices for tolls, parking and gas. But with Newark’s Prudential Center now up and running, I’ll probably be seeing less of MSG in the future.

Pulling out of Penn Station Newark one night, I glanced out the train window at the 4,800-square-foot TV screen on the arena’s exterior and it dawned on me how important transportation is to a venue’s success. Out of this commuter’s daydream was born the idea for this issue’s look at sports arenas and transportation. I learned a lot from reading and writing the various articles in this series, and I hope you did, too.

One of the most thought-provoking of the bunch was a sidebar I worked on called “Academics Say Stadiums Don’t Pay.” The piece features an interview with Professor Rick Eckstein, author of a book that challenges the notion of the sports arena as a catalyst for economic revitalization. Eckstein said that of the dozens of publicly financed stadium projects he’s studied, not one has lived up to its financial promises. When you crunch all of the relevant numbers -- jobs created, tax ratables, sales revenues, etc. -- it never justifies the public investment, he said. And when confronted by these facts, he said, people will defend the stadiums with lame arguments along the lines of community pride.

Which brings me back to Newark. At the expense of sounding just like the suckers Professor Eckstein warned me about, I still think the city’s decision to invest in the Prudential Center was a no-brainer.

Before I started working here, I flat out feared Newark. Notice I said “before.” Because once I spent some time downtown, I felt as safe there as Manhattan. This area today has plenty of great things going for it – the trick is getting people here to see for themselves. That’s exactly what the Prudential Center has been doing, thousands of people a night.

Former Mayor Sharpe James relentlessly pursued a downtown arena a few years ago, casting total faith in the idea that it would be the great economic cornerstone for the city’s future. He offered team owners the heavens to relocate to a blighted patch of properties a few blocks from Newark Penn Station. Just when it seemed like the plan had flatlined, James sealed the deal by pledging $210 million toward its construction. He took some lumps for the move, and rightfully so. After all, the city has no shortage of pressing needs that money could have been spent on.

Let’s say Newark earns back just half of that money through arena-related tax revenues. Can the rest of what it gains really be quantified? In the years since the 1967 riots, attracting tourists has been a huge challenge and good national publicity has been scarce. If you asked me two years ago what the first word to come to mind would be when you said “Newark,” I’d have responded with something like “crime.” Standing around the streets before a recent Devils game, I couldn’t help but wonder how many of those fans would have said the same.

But not after they left. Now the first word they think of might be “Devils,” “hockey,” “arena” or “fun.” If they’ve looked around a little, it could even be something like “museums,” “restaurants” or “universities.” That sure beats “crime.” How much is a change like that worth?

Karl Vilacoba is the author of “The Devils in the Details,” published in the Summer 2008 issue of InTransition. He is the magazine’s managing editor.

Book 'Em, BART

By Karl Vilacoba

What a novel idea!

The San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART) has teamed up with a local library to set up a book-lending machine at its Pittsburg/Bay Point Station. According to BART, they are the first transit system in the nation to offer such a service.

Riders can choose from 400 fiction or nonfiction books for free by inserting a valid Contra Costa County library card in the machine. They can borrow up to three books at a time, as long as they return them to the machine within three weeks. The public will have access to the machine during BART’s normal hours of operation.

The county public library plans to install three other machines at a transit village at a BART station in Pleasant Hill, a site in Byron/Discovery Bay and another location that has not yet been determined.

It is also unclear whether standard library silence rules will now apply to the station.

Commuter benefit rises $5

For a second consecutive year, the IRS has approved an increase in the monthly allowable tax-free amount toward commuter benefits, raising the maximum from $110 to $115 for transit costs. The change became effective Jan. 1.

The IRS reportedly raised the commuter benefit amount to adjust for inflation based on the Department of Labor’s Consumer Price Index. However, the $5 may offer little comfort to many public transit riders. With fuel costs skyrocketing in recent years, transportation agencies have hiked their fares to compensate – by almost double in some cases – but transit benefits haven’t nearly kept the pace.

Help could be on the way. Bills introduced both in the House of Representatives and the Senate last year would revise the laws to increase the monthly transit and vanpool limit to $200 per month, if passed. Both, as of this writing, were assigned to committees for review.

In a press release, the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) praised the $5 hike as a win for commuters and the environment. The organization cited a recent study which claimed riding public transportation could reduce a commuter’s daily carbon emissions by 20 pounds.

The Less Stress Express

By Karl Vilacoba

I’m seeing more grays than I’d care to when I look in the mirror lately, but I read something the other day that reminded me it could be worse.

A recent study suggests that commuters who take the train to work were less stressed by their trip than those who drove. According to “Leave the Driving to Them: Comparing Stress of Car and Train Commuters,” motorists reported significantly higher levels of stress, more negative moods and indicated their trip took more effort and was far less predictable compared to rail riders.

I can certainly relate to this study. When I joined the magazine a few months ago, I had a decision to make: To drive or not to drive. I, too, would be choosing between the NJ Transit rails or the highways. Even my commute time was the same as the average for people in the study, roughly 75 minutes.

I decided to base my decision on a drive I took to our Newark offices for an interview. The meeting was set for 9 a.m., so it would serve as a pretty good indicator for the rush hour traffic I’d face each morning behind the wheel.

On my way in, I got confused by the signs in a construction area and missed my exit. I allowed myself about a half-hour extra to be on the safe side, but I watched in panic as the minutes ticked off on my dashboard clock while I desperately sought a way to turn around in the glorified parking lot that was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard gridlock traffic. I made the embarrassing call to let my future supervisor know I was running late.

I explained what a disaster Route 280 was to a current co-worker who sat in on that meeting, and he asked with puzzlement why I would ever take that road. I told him that’s what the directions on the Web site said to do. “They do?” he said with a chuckle. “Oops.” Thanks, partner!

If it were purely a matter of speed, I would drive. It would save time, although not enough to be a deal-breaker. If it were purely a matter of money, I probably would save by getting a parking pass and driving, although parking garage fees, tolls, high gas prices and the attrition on my car all add up. But there’s something to be said for living without the fear of getting in a high-speed crash, or the relatively few surprises of a train ride. At the end of the day, it’s a quality of life decision, and I devised a checklist about my drive to help myself make it.

Congestion? Check. Expensive? Check. Stressful? Check. Check. Check. … So where can I get my monthly pass?