Republican Senators Intercept Hail Mary Pass to Detroit
Can Train Innovation Like Tubular Rail Ride to the Rescue?
Transportation Infrastructure Key to Jolt Economy
OhioNewsBureau
Columbus, Ohio: The news late Thursday that a handful of southern Republican senators, whose political motivation was nothing less than busting the United Auto Workers Union, were able to quash a meager $14 billion bridge loan to Detroit's Big Three automakers Democrats and a lame duck White House were able to arrive at despite President Bush's reluctance to help the industry from driving off a financial cliff is bad news for middle class families.
The inability of General Motors, Chrysler and Ford to receive even bare basic funding begs the question of can America invent a new industry, equal to planes and cars, that can revive a nation now that domestic car makers may be soon asking for their last rights.
As Director of Ohio Operations for Tubular Rail Inc., the "trackless train technology" company from Houston, Texas, the news that Senate Republicans successfully stiff armed Detroit, while disheartening to states like Ohio and Michigan because it means more workers, families and the communities they live in will be further harmed, is the latest sign that new industries offering new jobs must be found to keep the very fabric of our society together.
This report, therefore, continues my exercise in advocacy journalism. The the rising tide of interest by federal and state officials to jolt our cardiac arrest economy to life, through large and immediate investments in transportation infrastructure, amplifies my arguments advanced in previous posts like "Time Right to Shake Up Detroit," "Living La Vida Local" and "Columbus to Paris: Attitude Not Miles Key," a trio of essays that advocate for smarter, affordable alternatives to our car-centric transportation system.
Cars haunt and hinder us as we look to upgrade or build from scratch effective, energy efficient mass transportation systems that don't abandon past technology but don't overlook, discount or block future technology either. Previous civilizations constructed huge, massively impressive and functional infrastructure. For China it was the Great Wall. For Rome it was networks of aqueducts. We must do the same. But what will be our great infrastructure achievement be? Energy or transportation? Or both?
The weekly announcements of hundreds of thousands of Americans are loosing their jobs is as painful to the body politic as passing a kidney stone is to an individual. Claims for unemployment benefits surged to their highest in 26 years, according to the US Labor Department, which reported that jobless benefits in the week ending Dec. 6 rose to a seasonally adjusted 573,000 from an upwardly revised figure of 515,000 in the previous week. This figure is 48,000 in excess of what Wall Street economists expected. With total job losses in 2008 nearing the 2-million mark, President-elect BarackObama's plan to create 2.5 million during his first term, principally through massive investments in infrastructure - roads, bridges, water and drainage systems - is both bold and necessary.
As recently as yesterday, Gov. Ted Strickland of Ohio, where about 250,000 auto-related jobs hang in the balance, gave his residents a bitter pill to swallow, as he explained what cuts he would have to make if the state is confronted with balancing a budget for 2009-10 that could be more than $7 billion, the highest budget gap in state history.
Spending more money at a time when America is broke seems the only remedy to put the nation back to work, echoing what was done by Franklin Delano Roosevelt to lift America from the strangle hold the arms of the Great Depression had on it. But unlike FDR, Obama won't have a world war riding to his rescue. But that's a good thing. The war we must fight now that will create for us the number of jobs that World War II created for the nation then is a war on foreign energy sources that can only be won when we develop our own sources of renewable energy and a means to distribute and use that power in new, innovative ways.
President-elect Obama's appointment Thursday of Stephen Chu to lead the US Department of Energy is good news. Chu is director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and shared the 1997 Nobel Prize in physics. Reuters reported that he was an early advocate for scientific solutions to climate change. Having a winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics running the national department of energy is a revolutionary selection, when compared to picking from a pool of energy lobbyists or former politicians as President Bush liked to do. And Obama could have selected a well-seasoned administrator, as he's done with his other teams like foreign relations or economics. The turnaround of picking a working scientist likeChu is exactly the kind of change Obama said he would bring to Washington. Leadership is most cost-efficient when it comes from the top. Upward leadership from the ranks is important too, but that takes time; and time is a precious commodity these days. When a leader likeChu , whose groundbreaking is all about converting sunlight to electricity, then to chemical power that could then be used to fuel America, not only points the way forward but is inclusive enough to fund inventive, innovative independents to join in, its a breath of fresh air and inspiration and should not go unnoticed by transportation officials, who should consider using technology that may not be conventional, especially when it comes to trains. The train that left the station last century may not be the same train that pulls into the 21st Century station.
The resurgence of talk about reviving train traffic in America is starting to work its way into the minds of the mainstream media. A case in point was today's Washington Post editorial "Invest in Mass Transit" whose subtitled "Far sighted way to jolt the economy" reflected the reality that voters, expressing their will on Election Day by approving most transportation issues, are ready to pay for mass transit.
"Nationwide, voters approved over 70 percent of major transportation-funding measures, according to the Center for Transportation Excellence. That's double the rate at which ballot initiatives are generally approved, and it is even more impressive because gas prices were already declining." [Washington Post ]
Citing significant rises in public mass transit over a half year, it argues that politicians should make infrastructure improvements a key component of any economic stimulus bill. In September the House passed a bill on mass transit that was "haphazardly crafted," according toWaPo , which said would "jump-start ready-to-go transit projects that cash-strapped states had shelved." Continuing, it said these approved but idle projects "would not reward the best projects, only the ones that were ready to begin." The editorial wisely cautioned lawmakers to "give priority to projects that are environmentally friendly and that encourage smart growth."
Everyone at Tubular Rail Inc, where the technology developed and patented by inventor and company founder Robert Pulliam is featured in the Discovery Channel's forward-looking NextWord episode called "Future Train," believes "trackless train technology," which reforms the relationship between wheel and track, can contribute to achieving both energy and transportation goals. TRI has been seeking its "Kitty Hawk" moment to show, through a working "proof of concept" model in Ohio or Texas, that conventional railroads, grade-level steel on steel technology is not only costly but difficult to build and environmentally unfriendly. As well known as traditional trains are and as powerful as their lobby is, the question is, is it smart or affordable to pursue them, especially as public coffers drain dry? Instead, if an affordable, energy efficient, job-producing system whose capital costs could be 60 percent less that conventional train technology, shouldn't it be given its turn at bat in the sweepstakes of public-private funding?And as America braces for hundreds of thousands or maybe millions more in job losses if a federal bridge loan to Detroit's Big Three automakers fails, as was announced Friday because a handful of Republican senators from southern states with foreign car manufacturers located in them effectively killed the helping hand, what will the next generation of jobs these laid off workers can apply for?
New train technology today is as revolutionary as the untested technology two brothers from Dayton worked on in their bicycle shop at the turn of the 20th century. Orville and Wilbur Wright, the bicycle brothers who birthed controlled, sustained flight in 1903, were hard working inventors of their day whose persistence and perseverance eventually took off despite little interest by the press and no financial assistance from government. They two bachelors winged their way into history at a windy, secluded beach at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, where they turned their glider into a self-powered airplane and made history in the process.
We can only wonder if the fanciful invention Orville and Wilbur worked on at their own expense over several years would turn the heads of state development directors, who in a state like Ohio, where jobs are leaving with few taking their place, seem only to be interested in innovations that are in the "late stages of commercialization" and that can leverage state dollars by a factor of two or three. If Orville and Wilbur showed up today with their invention in Ohio -- whose license plate slogan "The Birthplace of Aviation" memorializes their work -- they wouldn't fair well, as government officials are averse to risk. And lifting a heavier then air machine off the ground for sustained periods was indeed risky.
Tubular Rail's "trackless train technology" is a perfect example of a transportation technology that Obama's infrastructure spending program could make real.
But risk is in the eye of the inventor. The Wrights were not wrong about their own research. Pulliam of Tubular Rail has nurtured his "trackless train technology" along much as the Wright's did in their time, only Pulliam wants to invite the world to his coming out party in contrast to the Wrights, who were far more circumspect about public scrutiny than isPulliam . But Ohio may loose out to Texas in landing a new industry of future trains. Texas may get the jump on jobs Ohio sorely needs if Buckeye officials, both public and private, don't get on board a new train for a new century.
John Michael Spinelli is a former Ohio Statehouse government and political reporter and business columnist. To send a tip of comment, email ohionewsbureau@gmail.com
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