The city of Milwaukee could be forced to pay millions of dollars for utility work related to a planned downtown streetcar project.
The state Public Service Commission has issued a letter regarding the planned 2.1-mile streetcar line, which the Common Council approved in July, in response to an inquiry from a pair of Republican lawmakers.
State senators Van Wanggaard and Leah Vukmir wrote the PSC asking who would be on the hook to pay for the potential costs associated with moving utility lines that could be in the way of the streetcar route. A letter signed by PSC attorney Cynthia Smith suggests the responsibility could go to Milwaukee rather than utility companies.
Citing a 1932 state Supreme Court case, Smith writes municipalities must pay to move utility lines unless they carry “an adequate health, safety or public welfare justification” for causing disturbance to existing lines.
Alderman Robert Bauman, one of the top proponents of the streetcar, said Monday he had not yet read the letter but that it struck him as “partisan politics.” It was only a matter of time, Bauman said, before the PSC got involved in the project.
“It’s all political,” Bauman said. “The law doesn’t matter any more in the state of Wisconsin. You’ve just got to look at which party the decision maker is from and know.”
The commission’s chairman, Phil Montgomery, is a former Republican lawmaker appointed by Gov. Scott Walker.
“The Republicans will do whatever they can to kill this,” Bauman said.
Copyright © 2012, The Daily Reporter Publishing Company
So Alderman Bauman…It is now “partisan Politics” to inquire who will be on the hook for paying for a proposed project? Strikes me as something more along the lines of being responsible, accountable to the taxpayers and displaying a level of common sense, which you apparently lack. You would make Nancy Pelosi proud…(we must pass this healthcare bill so we can see what’s in it)
Everybody relax. The panicking roadbuilder lobby and certain road-connected lawmakers and hangers-on are throwing misinformational smokescreens in attempts to intimidate Milwaukee City Council to defer this project.
Check out Van Wangaard, an elected official who knows better, calling it a “train”! And where was he and Vukmir when the really big-time utility relocations were happening under roadwork?
Streetcar lines only go *18 inches* below the pavement for the track zone. Utility-relocation costs are much lower than the obstructionists are crowing. Yes, rerouting is also possible. But these same streets carried the original streetcars!
Would the obstructionists hand back this hard-won federal money … shrunken now from constant raiding for roads … and give it to some other city?
Wisconsin is notorious for that. All of Scott Walker’s rejected federal rail grants are now going to states with more-visionary leadership, and Walker is paying multi-millions for state rail upgrades out of the state treasury.
Mr. Jakubiak, thank you for our comments, but I suggest that you actually read the letter from the PUC and then rethink your posting.
The cost estimates for what is known as “utility relocation” — which can, and in this case, evidently does, involve significant work other than actually moving the location of the utility infrastructure — are from the various impacted utilities.
You may — or may not — be correct in your statement that streetcar lines only need to go 18″ below the surface of the street, but one extremely important factor involving electric rail lines is known as “stray electric current.” You might know that electric buses have two trolley poles, one for the direct current power feed and one for the ground, or return. Overhead electric powerlines are expensive to build and a lot of trouble to maintain, so electric trains such as light rail vehicles and streetcars, which are not insulated from the street by rubber tires, only have one overhead line and ground through the rails, back to the power supply substation.
However, in order for this to work property, the rails must be extremely carefully insulated to protect against any leakage — and, unfortunately, such leakage is very common, the rail operators must continually monitor and periodically test for leakage, and quickly repair any problems.
Before this became well know and generally accepted, by the early 1920′s. electric railroads generally did not bother with grounding through the rails back to the power supply, or did not pay proper attention to insulation and, instead, just allowed, or did no properly prevent, the power to ground to earth.
Unfortunately, electricity, like water, will take the path of least resistence, will find any “hole,” and, over time, enlarge it, and then go for the nearest conducting material — which, in the bad old days, tended to be metal water and sewer pipes and metal building foundations components. The stray current can quickly corrode the metal utility pipes, etc. — to the point of significant loss of useful life or, in some extreme cases, catastropic failure, which can occur over as short a period of a few years from the original problem, or even shorter time, depending on the various factors at work.
No utility, and no Public Utilities Commission, is going to take ANY chance of such problem, and no electric railroad with any brains is going to take any chance of such an event. Standard practice, for decades, is to ensure that such infrastructure is protected and that the protection is properly planned, designed, engineered, constructed, inspected, and tested.
Even though stray electric current has been a well known problem for over a century, there are still problems today when electric railroads do not do things right the first time; there have been major problems with this in both Houston and Seattle in recent years with their light rail lins, which, arguably, can be traced to trying to do things too quickly and/or cheaply without a full understanding of the technical issues.
Also, in some extreme cases, it is possible for propulsion power to leak in a way that can be dangerous, including potentially fatal, to innocent parties who may do nothing more than touch a piece of metal in the street or sidewalk or a metal light or utility pole.
Competent design, construction, and maintenance provides a very high level of protection against such problems, but this is most definately not something that can be left to those who are not qualified to do such work, or those that are not prepared to make the necessary investment of time and money to do things right.
Anyone who suggests that such concerns are meaningless should be quicky informed of their major error and corrected; their opinions that utility relocation issues are just political opposition to the project should be discarded..
Now, that said, from what I know of this, we are still in a preliminary state of knowledge; it is possible that more detailed studies may show that issues are not as difficult as is not indicated, nor will the full amounts now mentioned, be necessary to be safe for all and to protect Milwaukee’s vital infrastructure and public safety. However, at this time, the only wise course of action is to plan on the highest reasonable level of protection until there is very strong evidenc that it is not required.
This is NOT politics; this is proper professional standards and absolutely required public safety protection. From my review of the PUC letter, it appears that this is a very proper and professional response from PUC legal counsel based on solid data from the concerned utilities and, I’m sure, vetting of their representations by well qualified PUC technical experts in this field. It appears to be a preliminary opinion very solidly based on facts known at this time and the applicable law and should be regarded as such.
It should not be, and cannot be, ignored or discounted.
Tom Rubin
Of *course* proper grounding for returning current is to be expected – along with accessibility, air-conditioning, and for that matter, round wheels.
As to utility-relocation being an issue – if it’ll even be necessary – utilities are known to have pushed this to get funding for moving infrastructure that they already wanted to move anyway. That is exactly what happened in Minneapolis, and they got spanked in court for it.
Closet-obstructionists like to pose as reasonable neutralists, finding anything/everything to jump on, just as Rep. Phil Krinkie did in the Twin Cities, pushing Xcel Energy to file suit.
Of *course* a few things might have to be moved – things like manholes and access plates – and some reinforcement may be needed here and there, but nothing compared what’s needed to redo a road. A streetcar is no heavier than a loaded semi.
This was Minneapolis’ basic contention in court: Electric companies were given the free use of city streets for a public good. The downside of this is that they have to get out of the way when the public good requires it.
Mr. Jakubiak, may I again suggest that you read the letter from the PSC; while I will not claim it is impossible that you would be proven correct in your opinion as to who may ultimately pay the costs for necessarily utility relocation and related work, it appears that, at the present time, the utilities do not agree with you and that the PSC, the governmental agency charged with such matters, has, at a minimum, certainly not rejected their position — or their cost estimates.
I would also caution that, while in the Hiawatha light rail case in Minnesota, you are correct that the eventual decision was for Metro Transit, the facts in this particular are not identical — and the matter is subject to the constitution, statutues, case law, regulatory system, and process of another jurisdiction.
The “who pays” decision — the agency that is undertaking the action that creates the necessity for the utility work to be performed, or the utility (actually, the utility ratepayers) that has placed equipment et al in the public infrastructure — is a matter of law. There are several states where, in such situations, the costs of such utility relocation work is ALWAYS the responsibility of the governmental agency and NEVER the responsibility of the utility itself. How such a decision might come down in this particular in Wisconsin is not something that I would care to hazzard a guess on at this time — but, I suggest, proceeding with the proposed streetcar project without knowing exactly how this will come out, in advance of the decision to proceed, would be most unwise.
You appear to also be questioning the cost estimates provided by the utilities. While I have not performed any type of analysis of these, my experience with and knowledge of similar costs for other projects drives me to give them a reasonable degree of credibility at this point, particularly since the PSC has not rejected them. Until a more detailed analysis is performed and can be evaluated, I suggest that they be regarded as the best current estimate and used accordingly.
I would also suggest that these NOT be regarded as the maximum possible costs; it is certainly not unknown for preliminary projections of such costs to prove to be less than actual costs. The future may also, of course, show the costs to be lower, even significantly lower, than what is now on the table, but, to my knowledge, we do not have any factual basis for a belief that the costs will be higher or lower at this time — and, speaking as someone who has been involved in cost projections for rail transit lines, if it was me, right now, I would start with the values in the PSC letter and add a significant contingency on top of them. This may be proven too high, in which case the project would get good news, but if thes costs were proven to be too low by events yet to come after a lot of work had been done to progress the project, that could be sufficient to kill the project after spending a lot of money for no result — or, worse, force the sponsors to come up with more funds, or to abandon, a partially-completed project.
I will tell you also that, based on my experience in dealing with the Federal government on such matters, I believe that it is extremely unlikely that the Federal Transit Administration would allow the project to proceed prior to this issue being definatively settled.
The manner in which you refer to such cost matters — “a few things may have to be moved – things like manholes and access plates” — is disturbing to me. The vast majority of the cost related to that “access plate” is not the relocation of the access plate, but the utility infrastructue that the access plate was placed there to provide access to. If there will be a train running over the present location of an access plate, there would likely be quite a bit that had to be moved, which could involve tearing up major portions of the street for dozens or hundreds of feet and doing a lot of expensive work under ground level.
A manhole is a vertical access, generally to a vertical pipe that goes underground several feet to a chamber and/or a horizontal pipe, tube, or conduit. Again, in most cases, moving a “manhole” is very likely to involve moving an entire underground chamber and/or significant sections of the horizontal infrastructure. This could easily involve major work on the street, closing down a lane or lanes of traffic for a block or even more, digging down to create a new chamber or horizonal tube, then splicing in the new segment and disconnecting the old.
You are also correct that, in some instances, the necessary work to create a safe and proper operating environment for the proposed streetcar system could involve not just moving the existing infrastructure, but betterments — for example, if it is necessary to relocate an existing pipe of some type, it very well may be that the pipe to be moved is near the end of its useful life and would have to be replaced in a few years in any case. In such situations, the cost of the utility relocation — and the betterment — is commonly split between the city, as the streetcar agency, and the utility, on behalf of the ratepayers based on how much “benefit” the utility and its ratepayers get out of the work. (I am vastly oversimplifying this, of course.)
However, it must be considered that, when replacing this type of underground infrastructure that is approaching the end of its useful life, you do not generally replace only a few feet, or a block’s worth, you replace the entire run.
I believe that your dismissal of the preliminary costs of the utility relocations that would be necessitated by the streetcar project as excessive is both premature and lacking any identified factual basis. (I would be most glad to review any studies or other rationale that you are basing your stated opinions on.)
Also, the very significant factor you appear to gloss over is that, even if the utilities were to be found responsible for the entire cost of the utility relocations, the cost does not somehow disappear, it is only a question of which element of the public pays: (a) the taxpayers of Milwaukee, or (b) the utility rate payers.
To a very large degree, these are the same people.
Senator Wanggaard has expressed his opinion that the costs of utility relocation should not be paid by the electric or other ratepayers of Racine County – which appears to me to be a perfectly valid and responsible position for an elected representative to be advancing.
It may be that, under Wisconsin law and regulation, that, even if the costs of the streetcar-necessitated utility-relocation were to be found to payable by the utilities alone, these costs would not be charged to the general rate-paying base for the utilities, but to only the City of Milwaukee rate-payers. If this were to occur, the only real differences would be: (a) the people who would be paying the costs would be doing so through their utility payments rather than through their tax payments, and (b) because taxes and utility charges are each assessed under their own method of calculation, there would undoubtedly be “winners” and “losers” from such a decision.
Therefore, IMHO, the proper cost to be considered when doing a benefit-cost analysis of the streetcar proposal is the total cost that would be paid if the streetcar is built — and that includes the cost of all utility work, regardless if the checks would be cut by the city or the utilities because, in the last analysis, the costs are paid by the same people — the locals; it is just a matter if you refer to them as taxpayers or as utility rate-payers, it is the same people with a a different title.
In the PSC letter, there is some most interesting language, that for the City to shift the responsibility for the costs, there must be an “adequate health, safety or public welfare justification,” one that thePSC states, at this time, the City has not done (which, of course, is far different from cannot do; I do not even know to what degree, if any, the City has attempted to do so at this point). The question then becomes, can the City meet this requirement?
This is not an area I claim expertise, but the use of the word,”adequate,” here is interesting — its use in this context appears to imply that, not only must a “health, safety or public welfare justification” (or perhaps some combination thereof) exist, but it (they) must be of a level that meets some standard of reasonableness; e.g., a $1 benefit may not be sufficent to justify a $100 million charge.
If this is so, then where is the bar to be set — and can the City meet it?
This type of test also is frequently attached to another requirement, that of no reasonable alternative to the proposed project. For example, if it could be shown that another public transit mode, such as buses running on the same or similar routes, would provide comparable benefits, or a major component of such, without having to do the utility relocations at all — would this be something that the hearing officer or judge would consider in his/her ruling?
Of course, if the City were to attempt to show health, safety, and/or public welfare justifications, one might imagine that the utilities and/or the rateholders — or even the PSC itself — might challenge the benefits povided and/or the costs of creating them. Such a challenge could, for example, include the presentation of how the construction and/or operating subsidies of certain other streetcar systems have exceeded the pre-construction projections, or that the ridership projections of some other streetcar have not met their projections, or the City’s record in presenting what proved to be inaccurate costs and benefits of prior public infrastructure projects.
By the way, your statement, “A streetcar is no heavier than a loaded semi,” is a bit off.
The general weight limit for “standard” 18-wheel semi-tractor trailers is 80,000 pounds, distributed over five axles, with the four non-steering rear axles at about 17,000 each (in an ideal world, which never occurs, but close enough for our current purpose).
Perhaps the most popular streetcar now in use in the U.S. is the Skoda T-10 (Portland, Seattle, Tacoma, Tucson), which has an empty weight of approximately 63,400. With a crush load of 127 riders (which would not be common, of course, but could be reasonably expected for times such as a major downtown event ending and attendees using the streetcars to reach parking, home, hotel, meals, other entertainment, etc.), at 175 pounds per, that’s another 22,225 pounds, for a total of 85,625 — and this would be born by the two two-axle trucks, for an average of 21,400 pounds per axle, or about 26% more per axle than our 18-wheeler.
I point this out, not because it has any particular relevance (the weight of the semi is carried to the street on eighteen tire footprints, each about the the size of your open hand, while the weight of a railcar is carried to the ground through the rails and their supports, a very different matter entirely), but to further illustrate that you may wish to reconsider making technical statements regarding matters you may lack the technical knowledge and experience to properly address — and particularly in then making judgements and offering opinions on such matters.
I’ve been in this business for 35 years and have worked with dozens of rail transit systems of all types and I am not yet able to express an opinion to the proposed Milwaukee Streetcar being a good thing or bad because the facts and analysis required to make that decision do not yet exist — and I am astonished that you appear to be able to.
Most likely, the only thing that would astonish me more is if someone relied upon your opinion.
If there is ever going to be a streetcar system in Milwaukee, there is a very large amount of detailed technical work that would need to be done first, by qualified experts in their respective fields — and, trust me, wishing does not make it so.
Tom Rubin
Tom Rubin wrote “… 127 riders at 175 pounds per …”.
Tom, you definitely don’t know Milwaukeeans.
But hey, we all agree on the need for qualified experts, and I call on the Milwaukee city council and related committees to do thorough (and I use the word ‘thorough’ advisedly) background checks on each expert and firm who may come calling at City Hall for a consulting job on this or any project … but most definitely this project.
175 pound Milwaukee average weight — on that one, yep, you got me.
In my defense, 175 pounds is the (upcoming) national standard, from the Federal Transit Administration — which they are just raising from 150 pounds.
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2011-03-14/pdf/2011-5831.pdf
They are also increasing the floor space per standee from 1.5 square feet to 1.75.
This is actually still a proposal at this point, but I think it is a pretty good bet that the final rule will not vary much, if any.
As to the vetting, I’m not disagreeing, but the issue is, what are they vetting for? In many cases, one can begin to ask, are they REALLY vetting for a firm that will provide the desired, pre-arrived-at, conclusion?
Such vetting is a legal and procedural requirement, with all professional firms required to demonstrate the technical, financial, managerial capacity to do the work.
What is generally not required is a showing of, nor a test for, ethical capacity — except that if you are on the Attorney-General’s list, or have been convicted of a felony — particularly the False Claims Act — you shouldn’t even bother proposing.
I have also seen requirements for having an ethic policy that includes specified provisions. I’m rather lukewarm on that one; most of the firms I’ve know and watched for decades tend to fall into two categories, those that don’t need ethics policies and those that won’t heed ethics policies.
Well, required ethics policies can’t hurt and, sometimes, you can find something that violates an ethics policy and can be acted on to get rid of a vendor for cause easier than trying to show violation of statute or regulation.
However, there are lot of firms out there that have never been convicted of anything, and have very finely prepared ethics policies, and lot of experience and qualifications as stipulated — that I wouldn’t want working on any project I was associated with. Unfortunately, these are often they very same firms that have worked so hard for so many years to develop relationships with decision-makers in top management and on the Board that will go to bat for them.
One problem is the way that transit planning/design/execution work is structured. Very frequently, the work starts with a high-level plan. If the recommendation is to go forward, and the firm has not messed itself up too bad, then the add-on is to do more work — etc., etc., etc.
If the consultant keeps putting out reports that say, this is a wonderful project and the more it will cost, the more wonderful it will be, and so we should go to the next stage, where our contract will be even larger — well, there is an obviously conflict, because if the consultant were to come in and say, based on our analysis, there is alternative that is less expensive to the voters and will work better, the two outcomes will be: (a) the consultant gets paid less for all the work from there on, or, more likely (b) the consultant gets fired for not coming back with the “right” answer. If the consultant ever said, is a bad project, drop it now — well, it just broke its own rice bowl on this project, and hasn’t done itself any favors on getting future work.
I was just reviewing such a process for a big project in the Northwest last weekend. The original contract for the consulting work said, the contract value is expected to exceed $25 million, but there is only funding for the first phase, for $8 million. (Numbers changes to protect the … people involved.)
A few years later, that contractor — which was the only proposer — has billed over $100 million and the project is nowhere remotely close to getting ready to break ground.
Another interesting story was for the constuction of the first leg of what is generally acknowledged to be one of the worst, if not THE worst, light rail systems in the U.S. A junior member of the consulting team came to her old college prof, literally in tears, because she was ordered to “improve” the ridership projections to make the project pass muster — and there was some speculation that the order came from the senior elected official on the agency board that was determined to see the project built.
It was, more stupid and light rail extensions have followed, and that isn’t the half of it.
One possible solution that I have often advocated — and no one has ever taken me up on — is to hire a different firm to do the work for each major option. For example, in some transit corridor improvement situations, the likely alternatives might be light rail, bus rapid transit, and the “baseline” — low capital cost improvements to the existing transit system (sort of a combination of what used to be know as the “no build” and the “transportation system management” alternatives, the “best that can be done” without major capital investments).
Each consultant would be responsible for doing the best it could with its alternative, the consultants would have to work together to agree on the various planning assumptions, each would have access to all of the materials of the others, and each would get to comments on the works of the others.
It would likely be more expensive in the first round, but I think you would get a far more honest, and truly competative, process, with far, far less opportunity, or pressure, for the sole consultant to tilt the process to someplace where it maybe shouldn’t have gone, and even more diffcult for the top management or the governing board to try to put their thumb on the scale.
Well, perhaps, once before I die.
Tom Rubin