Public Policy

This chapter provides a sketch of the development of public policy towards railroad safety. There are four key dates in this history 1853, 1893, 1900-1910 and 1970. Readers seeking more details are directed to Robert Shaw s 1978 book A History of Railroad Accidents, Safety Precautions and Operating Practices which provides an encyclopedic review of the period prior to 1950. Another source is Robert Reed s 1968 book Train Wrecks A Pictorial History of Accidents on the Main Line, While primarily a picture book, it does provide a quick, readable and informative introduction to the subject. 

In the 1830s and 1840s there was little public concern about safety. The network was small, speeds were low, traffic was light and there was little nighttime operation. No wreck claimed more than six lives. That changed in 1853. A series of wrecks claiming 234 lives, injured the president-elect, and led to considerable public outrage. An editorial in the Railroad Record opined  

By the end of the nineteenth century technological advances had improved safety immensely as compared with the time of the civil war. These advances included the introduction of steel rail (1865), continuous air brakes (1869), interlocking of signals and switches (1870), track circuits (1872), steam train heating (1881), and electric train lighting (1882). In the first decade of the new century steel cars came into widespread use which reduced the chances of telescoping and fires following a derailment or collision. 

Despite these improvements there was a great public outcry at the start of the century (Clark, 1974). The main reason was the expansion of the railroads which resulted in increased frequency and visibility of accidents. Between 1890 and 1910, train miles increased by seventy percent and passenger miles by 175 percent. While fatality rates did not increase over the period, the absolute number of casualties did. Total annual fatalities increased by half from 1890 to 1910 (figure 2.1). Over the same period the number of non-employee injuries increased threefold (figure 2.2), and the number of employee injuries increased fourfold. Clark notes that casualties were much higher in the United States than on comparable railroads in Europe. 

Consequently, a series of Acts was introduced to deal with the perceived safety problems. These Acts essentially governed safety for the following sixty years. The Acts dealt with five main areas accident reporting, specification of safety equipment, transportation of explosives, hours of work, and financial responsibility to injured employees and shippers whose freight was damaged. 

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Joseph D. Henry, Jr., Ph.D., P.E., Senior Fellow, Department of Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University Member, American Institute of Chemical Engineers, American Society for Engineering Education (Section 22, Alternative Separation Processes)... 

William C. Wood, Nuclear Safety Risks and Regulations, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy, Washington, DC, 1983. 

Portnev, P. R. (ed.), "Public Policies for Environmental Protection." Resources for the Future, Washington, DC, 1990. 

Golove, W. H., and Eto, J. H. (1996). Market Barriers to Energy Efficiency A Critical Reappraisal of the Rationale for Public Policies to Promote Energy Efficiency. Lawience Berkeley National Laboratniy. LBNL-.38059. 

Green, K. (1997). A Plain English Guide to the Science of Climate Change. Los Angeles Reason Public Policy Institute. 

Gilliland, M. W. (1975). Energy Analysis and Public Policy. Science 189 1051-105ri. 

Mikesell, R. F. (1977). The Rite of Discount for Evaluating Public Projects. AEI Studies 184. Washington, DC American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. Peirce, W. S. (1996). Economics of the Energy Industries. Westport, CT Praeger. 

Landsberg, II. II., cd. (1993). Making National Energy Policy. Washington, DC Resources for the Future. Portney, P. R., ed. (1990). Public Policies for Environmental Protection. Washington, 1 )C Resources for the Future. Tieteiiberg, T. H. (1996). Environmental and Natural Resource Economics, 4th ed. New York HarperColhns. 

Schneider, S. (1989). Global Warming Are We Entering the Greenhouse Century San Francisco Sierra Club Books. Shrader-Frechette, K. S. (1989). Nuclear Power and Public Policy. Dordrecht, Holland Reidel. 

Bam, J.. S. (1047). The Economics of the Pacific Coast Petroleum Industry, Part III Public Policy Toward Competition and Prices. Berkeley Umversiry of... 

Energy subsidies are widely attacked from many different viewpoints about public policy. Thus, among economists, both severe critics of the oil companies, such as Blair, and those such as Adelman and McAvoy who stress defective government policy criticize the subsidies. Environmentalists and other supporters of active government often feel that too many programs aid the unworthy. 

New subsidies often outlive the public policy purpose that they were intended to address. The better-designed subsidies contain sunset provisions that require explicit action to reauthorize them after a certain time. Subsidy and externality policies arc often interrelated. It may be politically difficult to tax an energy source with high external costs, but much easier to subsidize a competing energy source with low external costs. Such second best solutions arc often implemented when political considerations block the preferred option. 

Reason Public Policy Institute, Austin, TX Air Pollution Climatic Effects... 

For the freshmen and sophomores, the Seminar appears to be the first classroom opportunity to study scientific aspects of a changing global environment in relation to social and humanistic issues and to link these to current public policy discussions reported in the press. Class members have recommended that multidisciplinary global change instruction be made a requirement for all college... 

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