Michael Dukakis: Obama Needs To Revive Train Manufacturing Industry

Last week we ran part one of our recent interview with Michael Dukakis, in which he discussed how building transit will lead to healthier cities and how the burden is now on governors to take the lead on building out our passenger rail network.

In part two, the Duke has some advice for Obama on how to jump start what could become a major domestic industry in decades ahead and .

What the most important thing that nobody is discussing with respect to transportation policy?
The thing that nobody is talking about is: how do we revive the transit rail industry? You know, we can’t make a train in this country. If we’re going to commit ourselves to this kind of spending on rail, it seems to me that one the things that the administration should be doing is taking a serious look at how you revive train and transit manufacturing. Maybe you do it in joint ventures with foreign firms. But why shouldn’t we be getting a chunk of these jobs if we’re going to be spending this money?

If you were in Obama’s position, how would you do that?
The first thing you do is give the automobile makers a $5 billion contract to manufacture transit equipment. This would be far more stimulative, plus you’d get something for it. And then you distribute the equipment to transit systems all over the country. Let’s see if we can’t get them to make a streetcar. I mean, if you can make a bus, why not a streetcar? There are 100 cities in this country that want to do light rail–that’s a market for you. Did I ever tell you the story about Jack Welch and me?

No, please do.
This is after the Cold War. GE was closing some plants. I said, “Instead of closing these plants, why not get into the transit business? As governor, I’m spending hundreds of millions on transit equipment and I’m not buying a stick of it in this country.” I’ll never forget it. He said, “I’m a railroad guy”–his father was a conductor on the Boston & Maine railroad–”I love trains, but we go where the money is. As long as this country is spending billions on missiles, we’ll make missiles. When–and if–they decide to spend billions on rail, we’ll start making transit again.” So here we are. We have an administration that seems to want to do it. We have a Congress that’s strongly rail supportive. I think this might well be a time to act. And I’m serious about these bus contracts* for Detroit. Why not?

It does seem like there’s been a lack of imagination on the administration’s part with respect to transforming the car industry.
Yeah. Well, now that we got our $8 billion we can go to work on train manufacturing in the US.

Do you think an expansion of rail would actually allow us to bring down the car ownership rate?
We’ll see!

One of the most important questions around infrastructure investment in this country is whether we can get meaningful funding for an infrastructure bank. During the campaign, Obama promised $80 billion. But at least one very powerful senator–Max Baucus (D, MT.)–seems intent on derailing it.
Our president has great persuasive powers these days and I hope and expect he’ll use them. Max is a smart guy and not anti-train. He just doesn’t want that highway money mixed in. But, at the same time, it seems to me that in the future what highway money we spend in this country is going to be largely for maintenance and reconstruction. The new projects are mostly going to be–at least I hope–inter-city rail and transit.

But isn’t it going to be tough to convince to Congress to hand over a big pot of money with no strings attached?
That’s always a problem. You have folks in Congress who don’t want to be in a situation where they vote the money and then it’s the governors back home who take credit. But most people on the Hill really do favor giving states broad discretion. Now with that $8 billion, it’s not discretionary – it has to be used for rail.

How do we instill the required urgency in our politicians?
For me it was all about jobs. I used to ask, “Why aren’t there 200 people working on these road jobs? What is this six people stuff?” We had skilled construction trade people out of work. I just personally couldn’t tolerate a situation where we had work to be done, money appropriated, folks out there looking for work – and nothing happening. But now is very good time to be doing this stuff. We’ve got a lot of people in planning, engineering, and architecture that need work. There’s lots of excess capacity. Contractors are hungry, and they’re bidding low. Bids are coming in well below estimates on stimulus projects.

Some experts say we should be worried about these low bids–that construction firms are likely to start going broke before they finish the projects they’re working on.
Not if you have smart construction management. The Boston Harbor clean up came in on time and 25 percent below budget. That project and the Big Dig started out with the same estimated costs and had the same level of complexity. The difference was competent, tough construction management. We had the good sense to get contracts out on the harbor projects in the middle of the ‘89-’91 recession. My successor, William Weld, futzed around for two or three years on the Big Dig and that cost taxpayers billions of dollars.

So how on earth do we get good construction management?
A lot of it has to come from LaHood. He’s got to convey that. And I think he’s prepared to do so, based on the conversations I’ve had with him. But remember, it’s not the federal DOT that does the construction, with the exception of Amtrak. This is mostly a state thing.

Where it’s an uneven situation at best.
When we were out in Denver visiting our daughter last January, we drove along a local road that was under construction. We were out there again last weekend–and it’s still under construction. It’s almost June! We’ve got a problem in this country.

Is it that the state DOTs are simply dysfunctional organizations?
I don’t know that they’re dysfunctional. But for reasons I don’t quite understand. Kenmore Square in Boston still under construction five years after it began. It should be about a six month job. Actually, here it’s because the folks at the MBTA who are responsible for construction just don’t have what it takes. With Fred Salvucci, I had a transportation secretary who knew who the good people were.

Most governors don’t know amount about transportation policy–how do they get it right?
I nearly flunked physics at Swarthmore College. [Laughs] I’m serious though – that’s why I went into politics. But I’ve always had this interest in transportation. Salvucci and I started working together when we were trying to kill the Master Highway Plan here in Boston, which took ten years, and I got to know him. How do you find a guy who’s the son of an immigrant bricklayer and has two degrees from MIT and has political smarts coming out his ears? I was very fortunate. But it really depends on state and local elected executives picking top notch people to do this stuff. Even Fred though–I’d come back from the field and would call him up and say, “Nobody’s working on Route 2, Fred! Traffic’s backed up! What’s going on?” That’s one thing a governor can do – ask questions.

Looking around the country, are you seeing governors who seem to have that urgency you’re talking about?
When Kitty and I were driving back from LA recently, we stopped off at Zion National Park in Utah. On local TV there was Jon Huntsman, announcing stimulus construction projects, surrounded by twenty construction companies, and saying, “We’re moving on these and moving fast.” He probably doesn’t know any more about construction than I do, but he’s got that impatience and commitment to doing the stuff and putting good people to work doing it. It’s not complicated.

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(*Dukakis credits his UCLA colleague Daniel J.B. Mitchell with this idea.)