The Folly of Highways as Evacuation Routes
Sitting here watching CNN this morning as people from Galveston & Houston are attempting to evacuate ahead of Hurricane Rita. Soledad O’Brien just did a phone interview with a guy that has traveled 48 miles in 13 hours. Evacuees are running out of gas on the interstate. Others are overwhelming gas stations along the evacuation route.
Interstate highways were sold to the public back in the days of the Cold War as means of evacuating cities in the event of nuclear war. Maybe in the 1950s they had few enough cars to actually evacuate a city in a reasonable time frame. Today we can’t even get people home to the suburbs without congestion.
When I can bicycle faster than people in cars it is a clear sign we are too dependent on cars. Some Republicans in Congress are suggesting we take a look at Amtrak. But, they aren’t thinking we bolster our passenger rail service to help our transportation needs! No, they are suggesting we cut or eliminate Amtrak to help pay for Katrina cleanup. Such a move would place us even more dependent upon private cars and fossil fuels.
– Steve
Interesting post — hadn’t heard about Amtrak as a target. I must admit, I’m no fan of Amtrak on the east coast — where we need it most. On the west coast I have taken the train from Vancouver to Portland. Beautiful route, clean cars, efficient, timely service. Here in the east, I have taken the train from DC to NYC countless times. The cars are old and dirty. They are not on time on a regular basis and the overall service is lousy. And for this — we pay two to three times the fare for the same length of travel as Seattle to Portland. Amtrak is horribly mismanaged and in need of an overhaul. I adore passenger rail service and on the congested east coast we should be building more of it at lightening speed but I don’t know how the hell to convince congress or the auto companies or Americans in general of that fact.
[REPLY – My last Amtrak trip was supposed to be a short ride to Chicago but we ended up arriving about 5 hours LATE. We need reliable high-speed passenger rail service. – SLP]
“No, they are suggesting we cut or eliminate Amtrak to help pay for Katrina cleanup. Such a move would place us even more dependent upon private cars and fossil fuels. ”
DAMNIT DAMNIT DAMNIT! How is this supposed to help?
Wasn’t one of the biggest problems with evacuating people from New Orleans that there weren’t ways for people without cars to escape?
And about your train ride to Chicago on Amtrak, I’ve had a lot of short delays on that route (and a couple of long ones), but for the most part, the countless times I’ve taken the train between StL and Chgo, it’s been either on time, or less than 20 minutes early or late. That’s been my experience. I do agree, though, that we need that high-speed rail, though I wonder if Chicagoans might treat us to some extent as a suburb if they could get out here in 1.5 hours easily.
Hey, St. Louis as a suburb of Chicago might not be such a bad thing! Well, maybe…
I could get a job teaching at UI-C, for example, then head over to the station, and get home in time to cook dinner on the Southside of STL! Make Chi-town $$, have STL living expenses (plus that train trip). Not bad – right?
All kidding aside, I would love to see high-speed rail on that corridor, but it’s gonna take major investment from the State of Illinois that may never happen.
I admit it. I have a secret desire to live in Chicago. The main reason I don’t is that my spouse doesn’t want to be so far from home. If we had that high speed rail…ah…to dream.
I had a very libertarian intro to poli-sci professor at SLU my freshman year of college (the first try) who swore that the purpose of the highways wasn’t really to evacuate the cities. Instead, it was to make body cleanup after an attack that much easier. Since most of the population would be in cars, you could just come through, bulldoze them to the side and bury them. I thought it was pretty cynical, but seeing how bad the evacs have gone…I’m starting to wonder.
I agree 100% with you. In fact, a few Dem. and Rep. leaders have approached Bush with such a proposal entitled “National Defense Rail Act’ about the need for high-speed rail for passenger as well as national security issues. Of course, our ‘oil bought’ President has yet to accept their proposal or fund its research. Even thought, its a well known fact that New York City subway system aided many first responders, fire and police officers to deliver materials, people, etc. to aid in the rescue and recovery phrase of September 11.
Irony, I came across this page will researching the very same topic for my thesis. I’m currently working on my master’s in Business and Organizational Security Management. This topic is completely in-line with it, which is to take the evacuation of New Orleans, Houston and Galveston to see how high-speed rail and trains could aid in citizen evacuation.
In my thesis, I propose two train models: 1) a regular communter transportation which can also be used to evacuate light and middle injury citizens and 2) a medical train equipped to evacuate the disabled and seriously injuried. If, anyone can help me contact high-speed train manufactures or if you know of any information that could be useful in my research. Please feel free to contact me.
Take a look at this site
http://www.emergencyrailconcepts.org