
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 27, 1994                   TAG: 9404280008
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By DAN H. PLETTA
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

BRING RAILS BACK INTO THE PICTURE

LETTERS TO the editor in this newspaper (including April 4, ``Freeways may repel area progress'' by Jeffery Scott, and April 8, ``I-73 debate need not produce losers'' by Clark M. Thomas) about the proposed Interstate 73 highway through Roanoke County and the New River Valley have been voluminous. Still, they fail to compare the need to that of our overall national transportation system, including trucks, trains, ships and planes.

Is I-73 really needed?

The trucking lobby would have taxpayers build more roads and parking lots. But heavy trucks, according to General Accounting Office reports, have never paid their fair share of highway costs. So, why not ship more freight on existing railroads? Truck drivers are striking (April 7 Associated Press story, ``Teamsters strike hits 22 haulers'') because trucking companies want to use more part-time drivers, more containerized freight and ship more by rail. Truckers' unions oppose that, but railroads are being used to only 25 percent of capacity!

It makes more economic and engineering sense to integrate all four modes of transportation. Some American and Canadian railroads are poorly maintained or bankrupt today. This is partially because national legislation didn't heed excellent technical proposals on railway electrification some 50 years ago, and because legislatures were persuaded to build an ever-expanding competitive network of highways, airports and waterways. Passenger- and freight-traffic loss, taxes and subsidies favoring other modes of transportation, and labor legislation condoning featherbedding forced many railroads to either defer maintenance or go bankrupt.

Had all modes of transportation been integrated by national legislation, and not constrained by labor unions or by separate bureaucracies like the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Civil Aeronautics Board, etc., their overall operation could have been more economical and efficient. For instance, piggy-back transportation by rail of truck-trailers or containerized freight might have developed sooner at a considerable saving in fuel expended per ton per mile. A rational, integrated transportation system might also have checked the continual increase in truck size and weight beyond the designed load capacity of our highway system, and thus prevented its recent deterioration.

Western Europe, where railroads, highways, waterways and airlines are government-owned, has perhaps integrated its transportation system better. Its trucks are only half as large; railways are well-maintained; waterways are heavily used; bridges last for centuries; and passenger-rail service is frequent and efficient, although coaches and sleepers aren't as spacious or as modern as are Amtrak's in the United States.

Had we integrated our transportation system 75 years ago and shipped all long-haul freight in containers by rail, we would have avoided paving many farms with asphalt and would have conserved trillions of gallons of fuel for our great-grandchildren.

Dan H. Pletta is a retired Virginia Tech professor.

by CNB