The Riehl World: Mark Packard & Rail Safety

Is Carlsbad city councilman Mark Packard really more interested in political grandstanding than public safety?

As a member of the North County Transit District board, he cast the only “no” vote to fund a study to install a federally required safety system on our local commuter trains. He said he did so because the feds weren’t funding it. Upon hearing from their attorney that failure to comply with the law would mean there’d be no commuter rail service here after 2015, the eight other members of the board voted to fund the study.

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A year ago, a Metrolink train, passing through the Los Angeles suburb of Chatsworth on a Friday afternoon, ran a red light, colliding with a freight train headed in the opposite direction on the same track. Twenty-five passengers died in the crash, and 135 others were critically injured. A month later, President Bush signed the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (RSIA), requiring the nationwide installation of Positive Train Control (PTC) technology by December 2015 to prevent other such disasters.

Before the government took action, several safety-conscious rail carriers nationwide had already begun installing it.

The estimated cost to install the system on local train routes ranges from $27 million to $90 million. The district’s current annual budget is about $90 million.

Maybe Packard was inspired to vote against funding the system after reading the North County Times‘ anti-rail service editorial the day before the meeting (Big price for rail safety, October 21), which suggested that taxpayers will be unfairly tapped to subsidize the “relatively few” mass transit users, suggesting that commuters in suburban areas like ours would be better served by a more robust bus service that carries more people to more places.

According to a June 2009 report, Coaster ridership has ranged from 100,000 to 175,000 per month. The new Sprinter line carries from 150,000 to 225,000 riders a month. Maybe that’s “relatively few” in the eyes of editorial writers, but I’d say a total ridership rising to 400,000 a month represents a large enough group of users to require a public investment in their safety. A side benefit of the rail safety technology is that it will allow trains to run more frequently, which is likely to increase ridership.

Elected officials hate unfunded state and federal mandates. And no politician is as fond of paying for new programs as proposing them.

The Rail Safety Improvement legislation signed into law in October 2008 provided for Railroad Safety Technology grants of $50 million per year from 2009 to 2013 to fund Positive Train Control projects like the NCTD’s, but funding for the grants has not yet been appropriated.

So the questions remain: Is preventing the loss of lives and critical injuries to train passengers worth the cost? Should we invest in expanded mass transit by rail, or pave the countryside with more roads?

Political grandstanding like Councilman Packard’s won’t help us find answers to either of those questions.

Richard J. Riehl writes from Carlsbad. Contact him at RiehlWorld2@yahoo.com.