The most important traffic jam in the world

June 22, 2017 7:27 AM

One third of all freight traffic in the US goes through Chicago, a train shipment spends an average of 30 hours traversing the Chicago region. To put that into context, freight often takes 48 hours to get from Los Angeles to Chicago.

If there was one bit of America’s infrastructure that you should choose to upgrade, this is it.
posted by Another Fine Product From The Nonsense Factory (34 comments total)

There's a horrible little demon in my soul that always pops up whenever articles mention how the US is relying on late 19th century infrastructure while Europe's is wonderful and modern that says "you know there's a reason a bunch of the rail infrastructure dates from after about 1945. If someone had systematically bombed Chicago into rubble 60 years ago we'd have newer rail there too..."
posted by Wretch729 at 7:54 AM on June 22, 2017 [32 favorites]

As someone from Northwest Indiana, this article strikes to the root of my being. The first day I drove on the highway at age 16, I drove on to the on-ramp, did not accelerate fast enough, and was gently* side-swiped by a semi. One learns to be an aggressive driver very quickly in that part of the country.

*as in I did not die, I just got batted into the ditch and was able to drive right out again.
posted by schmopera at 7:58 AM on June 22, 2017 [4 favorites]

IL is super, super fucked financially right now. As someone who doesn't know jack about how rail transit works, what is the benefit to Chicago and IL to spend billions and billions of dollars we don't have to upgrade our railways? Is it an investment that we would somehow recoup through fees charged to trains passing through? How long would that take? Why shouldn't the railways themselves finance this?
posted by higginba at 8:10 AM on June 22, 2017 [6 favorites]

I'd say that the benefit would be that the state wouldn't be even more fucked, as the people who are moving their freight through Chicago (or trying to) start looking at alternatives to that. Unfortunately, not only does the rest of the state not seem to understand how important Chicago is to the state, they resent the hell out of it (Cook County was the only county in the state which went for Pat Quinn), and Trump probably won't kick the money free (or enough of it) because it perennially goes blue in presidential elections.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:16 AM on June 22, 2017 [3 favorites]

It's not on the map in the article, but the Metra District North line (map) still runs on the left track. My parents always claimed because British engineers originally built it. So yes, there is some older infrastructure. OTOH, it runs fine, and is usually on time.
posted by Phredward at 8:16 AM on June 22, 2017 [2 favorites]

Yes, nationalize the railroads and upgrade the infrastructure!

Oh wait, no, scratch that, they seem to want public money put toward the benefit of private railroads.

More!

But the problems of infrastructure in the US are not limited to the political economy of billion-dollar grant applications and the absurdities of the Trump administration. As WSJ reports, To the amazement of business activists and advocates of regional economic development, it turns out that there is homeowner resistance and NIMBYism on Chicago’s South Side.

Business activists

Following the success of CREATE’s Englewood project, “Norfolk Southern Corp . is trying to build a $285 million expansion of an existing intermodal rail yard in the Englewood neighborhood to accommodate the increase in shipping driven by the rise of Amazon and other online sellers. The railroad has purchased more than 550 lots in Englewood from the city of Chicago and from neighborhood residents; last year, it filed eminent domain proceedings against several property owners who refused to sell. Those residents oppose the company’s eminent domain rationale and have filed a motion to dismiss. Englewood is a predominantly black neighborhood and one of the city’s poorest.

Funny how it ends up in poor black neighborhoods. Gosh, I wish those NIMBYists would stop standing in the way of progress.
posted by indubitable at 8:18 AM on June 22, 2017 [5 favorites]

In the US, aren't most rail lines financed, if not owned, by corporations?
posted by ZeusHumms at 8:22 AM on June 22, 2017

Funny how it ends up in poor black neighborhoods.

Yup. (Rondo neighborhood, Saint Paul, MN)
posted by ZeusHumms at 8:27 AM on June 22, 2017 [5 favorites]

In the US, aren't most rail lines financed, if not owned, by corporations?

Yes, which is why freight rail funding in the US is tricky. There are some states and local entities that own rail lines, but I believe the significant majority of rail lines are owned by the seven Class I railroads that operate in the US (Amtrak is its own thing -- even though it's a Class I, they don't own much railroad miles, but lease access).

The benefit to improving rail freight movement is that it can reduce the amount of freight on the roads, which are public goods. Fewer trucks on the road means less impact to the road and less congestion for all road users. But it's difficult to pin down even rough numbers for the near, mid- and long-term savings of improving rail as a way to reduce freight loads on public roads, because there are so many variables at play.

Rail and road freight compete for the mid-to-long haul loads, and are relatively evenly priced, which is why fuel prices can shift freight from roads to rail or vis-versa -- the margins are slim enough that expensive fuel makes rail the more affordable option. Road is always the "last mile" delivery, unless a company has a rail spur on their property, which isn't too common, as you can expect. Rail loads are generally not time-sensitive, but delivery unreliability due to varying congestion is still an impact on the rail business model - you want to be able to tell someone "we'll have your delivery to you (or to your client) within x hours or days," and you don't want to have the caveat of "give or take a day, depending on congestion," if you're talking about moving goods within the continental US.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:34 AM on June 22, 2017 [5 favorites]

Ah. Chicago.

I occasionally get asked about (or asked to talk about) the politics of transport investment and Chicago is always one of my examples of fucked up shit which is low-hanging fruit, but which no one will likely ever fix.

Because - as this article really nicely highlights - just a few small improvements would reduce the locomotive and freight car fleet requirement in the entire US by eight or nine-figure amounts. It's fucking insane that nothing has been done about it.

The problem though (which the article doesn't really cover) is that the main beneficiaries would be the companies that don't own the infrastructure. So without a mechanism to reallocate cost according to benefit with the 6 relevant freight operators (UP/BNSF/CSX/NS/CN/CPR) it'll never happen.

I genuinely don't want to sound like a sniffy European here but honest to god Chicago is the one thing I can always rely on to cause a genuine quiver of disbelief through even the most right-wing of transport audiences in the room. Whether it's a bunch of politicians or engineers. Because - complex as the work would be - none of it is rocket science. Nor is it a risky investment. Anywhere in Western Europe (or China) it would be a no-brainer.

But reallocating costs according to benefit in the US is a red line that cannot be crossed. It's fucking communism or something. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
posted by garius at 8:36 AM on June 22, 2017 [30 favorites]

And for an idea of how significant Chicago is for rail freight, here's a map of 2010 the total tonnage flowing through the US via the various rail lines (via Federal Railroad Administrations' "Freight Rail Today" page/article). It's a bit more clear than the graphic in the OP article, and notes that Kansas City is also a very prominent hub.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:39 AM on June 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

The US is super, super fucked financially right now. As someone who doesn't know jack about how automobile transit works, what is the benefit to the US to spend billions and billions of dollars we don't have to upgrade our highways? Is it an investment that we would somehow recoup through fees charged to cars passing through? How long would that take? Why shouldn't the motorists themselves finance this?
posted by entropicamericana at 8:40 AM on June 22, 2017 [3 favorites]

Is it an investment that we would somehow recoup through fees charged to cars passing through? How long would that take? Why shouldn't the motorists themselves finance this?

Taking into account the aforementioned caveat that there is way more low-hanging fruit in US rail first:

Because you like Amazon deliveries to get to your house, food deliveries to get to your local shop, and fire engines and ambulances to get to you in an emergency.

Drivers should contribute to road maintenance, but transport networks (and infrastructure at large) are a community good. They provide benefits irrespective of direct usage, and should be funded accordingly.

That's why people who don't drive should help fund roads, and why people who do drive don't get to be the sole decision-makers in how those roads are managed, where they go or how they are governed.

(That last bit is something that seems to get forgotten a lot)
posted by garius at 8:48 AM on June 22, 2017 [22 favorites]

shipment spends an average of 30 hours traversing the Chicago region. To put that into context, freight often takes 48 hours to get from Los Angeles to Chicago.

This is super misleading. It depends entirely on the type of freight being moved. And freight taking its time getting through Chicago has nothing to do with infrastructure. Moving just about any type of freight by rail is the most efficient, environmental way to do it. And not just saying it because I work in the business!
posted by repoman at 8:55 AM on June 22, 2017 [2 favorites]

.transport networks (and infrastructure at large) are a community good.

[Americans ]"Co-mu-ni-ty? What is this "community" of which you speak? Is it something I can sell? [/Americans]
posted by happyroach at 9:00 AM on June 22, 2017 [8 favorites]

That's why people who don't drive should help fund roads, and why people who do drive don't get to be the sole decision-makers in how those roads are managed, where they go or how they are governed.

In my state (MN), there's a fee/surcharge which will be applied to electric cars, which will make up for lost gas tax revenues, which currently fund road infrastructure work.
posted by ZeusHumms at 9:12 AM on June 22, 2017

This'll all get sorted once the Northwest Passage opens up.
posted by one weird trick at 9:28 AM on June 22, 2017 [3 favorites]

And freight taking its time getting through Chicago has nothing to do with infrastructure. Given the entire premise of this article is that it does - please elaborate.
posted by Another Fine Product From The Nonsense Factory at 9:33 AM on June 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

shipment spends an average of 30 hours traversing the Chicago region. To put that into context, freight often takes 48 hours to get from Los Angeles to Chicago.

This is super misleading. It depends entirely on the type of freight being moved.

It is first stating an average and then saying that SOME freight gets from LA to Chicago in 48 hours, how is either of these misleading?

And freight taking its time getting through Chicago has nothing to do with infrastructure.

If that were true how is it that times have improved following the recent improvements to infrastructure? If your statement were correct these small projects would have had zero effect.
posted by Cosine at 10:19 AM on June 22, 2017

What's interesting to me is the generalized situation: a change in something (Chicago rail infrastructure) would have great benefits (efficiency, safety) not particularly important to the owners (the rail companies). The costs (monetary and societal (I consider the use of eminent domain a societal cost)) and their allocation become such an argument that the situation limps along costing everyone more than an a timely solution would.

A strong federal ability to mandate solutions would help avoid these situations, but we're reluctant to give anyone the tools to cut through the problems because those tools would likely be misused in other situations.
posted by Emmy Noether at 10:54 AM on June 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

The Webbs repeatedly touch on the difficulty of funding roads in England as soon as land trade was significant over more than local distances. Local funds and labor weren't enough to handle the freight that was bought and sold and taxed in towns and cities. There were rules through the 19th c. trying to limit the kinds of wheels that were legal on maintained roads, or the maximum weight, or the standard to which roads had to be maintained. Nothing works until various forms of nationalisation, which of course leads to endless grousing and attempts to capture the contracts.

Even paying for them, I haven't found a good online version of English Local Government in its various volumes. The OCR error that introduces Poor Kate and her resented younger sister Road Kate is charming, though.
posted by clew at 11:51 AM on June 22, 2017 [2 favorites]

There's a horrible little demon in my soul that always pops up whenever articles mention how the US is relying on late 19th century infrastructure while Europe's is wonderful and modern that says "you know there's a reason a bunch of the rail infrastructure dates from after about 1945. If someone had systematically bombed Chicago into rubble 60 years ago we'd have newer rail there too..."

The TGV and ICE use rails that sure as hell weren't around in 1945. WWII did nothing to spark that innovation.
posted by Talez at 11:59 AM on June 22, 2017

The TGV and ICE use rails that sure as hell weren't around in 1945. WWII did nothing to spark that innovation.

No, but they were built by people with memories of building the then-current rail infrastructure, and people who built the TGV and ICE systems will remember what that was like when the next generation comes around.

And in the meantime, in the U.S., there are no people with such memories of essentially building a system from the ground up. They've done some improvements, some tweaks, some repairs, but the whole bloody thing has always just been there.
posted by Etrigan at 12:07 PM on June 22, 2017 [4 favorites]

the whole bloody thing has always just been there

Yes, and this is true of many kinds of infrastructure in the US in 2017. The Kosciuszko Bridge which opened in April was the first significant bridge built in New York City since 1964. Anti-tax loons have been running this country for so long at this point that the level of infrastructure investment that took place in the first half of the last century sounds like science fiction to a modern reader.
posted by enn at 12:26 PM on June 22, 2017 [9 favorites]

I hope that Poor Kate and Road Kate will appear in the next Mad Max film.
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:39 PM on June 22, 2017 [2 favorites]

In Baltimore there's a 100+ year old tunnel that is not tall enough for double-stacked containers and acts as a major choke point for East Coast freight traffic. It had a major fire once already. The cost to put in a modern replacement tunnel would be about $4 billion, but no way CSX was/is willing to pay for even part of that.

Their proposed solution? A 300 truck/day transfer of containers from the port to a loading yard on some CSX property in a poorer part of Baltimore. Upwards of 300 heavy trucks per day going through an underwater tunnel, over highways and bridges, through toll plazas and neighborhoods. Luckily the people living there were so fired up and contentious that CSX and Baltimore politicians ultimately backed down. They are now trying to find the money to patch the existing infrastructure enough to mitigate the problem.

The point being no railroad company will ever assume any significant cost no matter how much it would improve things. And the people now running the federal government think everything should be done through privatization. The dog chases its tail.

Someday we will look back in wonder at the early/mid 20th century US infrastructure in the same way we look at the ruins of Rome.
posted by CosmicRayCharles at 12:52 PM on June 22, 2017 [8 favorites]

Freight railroads don't have an interest in debottlenecking shared infrastructure. It makes it harder to exercise market power.
posted by JPD at 3:12 PM on June 22, 2017

Freight railroads don't have an interest in debottlenecking shared infrastructure. It makes it harder to exercise market power.

Not really. The rail industry is constantly competing against long haul trucking. If they price themselves to the point where a pipeline is competitive they can kiss that route goodbye. Railroads are one of the few areas where deregulation has actually been a help as prices came down and at the same time the haulage went up as trucks in the '70s were far cheaper at their government mandated rate than the government mandated rate of rail. Prices went down, profits went up, inflation went down.
posted by Talez at 3:55 PM on June 22, 2017

. For the first years of deregulation that was true, but as the industry consolidated down during the 90s and 2000s the players began to exercise market power by raising prices and more importantly cutting way back on capex. And unlike airlines it's really hard to add new capacity. The entire bullish thesis on the industry shares is predicated on this.
posted by JPD at 4:49 PM on June 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

It's interesting that the Alameda Corridor, which was a huge rail project around the Port of Long Beach that got a ton of trucks off of the road and generally simplified life for everyone, *was* able to get completed.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:24 PM on June 22, 2017 [2 favorites]

It's not on the map in the article, but the Metra District North line (map) still runs on the left track. My parents always claimed because British engineers originally built it. So yes, there is some older infrastructure. OTOH, it runs fine, and is usually on time.

It's the Union Pacific North line that runs on the left. IIRC, it's because it used to be single track and they built the stations on the east side of the track and it was decided when adding the second track that it made more sense to keep the stations on the side going to Chicago (i.e. the side on which more people would wait). There are some exceptions--I think those stations in Winnetka that are below street level have the waiting room on the west side. Anyway, a couple of the stations have an explanatory "historical note".
posted by hoyland at 4:19 AM on June 23, 2017 [3 favorites]

Illinois won't be funding anything to do with this in any kind of near future. We're more worried about state worker salaries and pensions, property taxes, and as far as Chicago is concerned, crime and the closing of schools. Rail is a distant concern no matter how valid.
posted by agregoli at 5:45 AM on June 23, 2017

The rail industry is constantly competing against long haul trucking.

and do you know who pays for the equivalent of the rails for long-haul trucking?
posted by entropicamericana at 6:26 AM on June 23, 2017 [7 favorites]

Interesting article, thanks for poting. I can't get over the fact that this is the normal mode of operation in cold weather. Yet the switches still freeze up all the damn time.
posted by gueneverey at 2:15 PM on June 24, 2017