John Hennessy III,
P.E.
Please contact your Representative, Senators, and President Obama, and tell them to fight this devastating budget proposal that would reverse decades of progress on vital passenger rail corridors all over the country. Visit www.StandUpForTrains.org today to send a message to your representatives that you want a stronger national passenger rail system.
View this complete post...PEDESTRIAN OBSERVATIONS
House Transportation Committee Chair John Mica (R-FL) has finally come out explicitly in favor of privatizing the Northeast Corridor and letting private consortia bid for high-speed rail construction. Mica’s rationale is that Amtrak is an inefficient government provider, and its proposal for spending $117 billion over 30 years to build high-speed rail in the Northeast is deficient…Not mentioned anywhere in the article is the FRA, which is the real obstacle to modern rail operations. Mica has to my knowledge said nothing about the FRA, which is too bad, since it could feed into the Republican narrative of bad government and the need for privatization and deregulation.
The Department’s Federal Railroad Administration selected 15 states and Amtrak to receive $2.02 billion for 22 high-speed intercity passenger rail projects as part of a nationwide network that will connect 80 percent of Americans to high-speed rail in 25 years.
View this complete post...With warmer weather comes the melting and refreezing that is the main cause of those potholes we see popping up on our roadways. MoDOT crews routinely scout for potholes and make temporary repairs to the pavement…As fuel prices continue to rise, so do the number of passengers on the Missouri River Runner. In fact, a heightened demand for seats recently caused Amtrak to add two additional cars on the St. Louis to Kansas City run. Since June, the Missouri River Runner has seen a jump in passengers of nearly 16 percent.
View this complete post...
AMTRAK
Increased traffic and congestion into midtown Manhattan threatens the economy of northern New Jersey and New York City. The existing 100-year old rail tunnels into midtown Manhattan are already operating at capacity during rush hour, and ridership is expected to double in the next two decades. To address these immediate concerns following the cancellation of the ARC Tunnel project and with the encouragement of Senator Lautenberg, Amtrak expedited its plans to build new rail tunnels.
The Illinois Department of Transportation has reached a cooperative agreement with Union Pacific and Amtrak that will permit the release of a $1.1 billion federal high-speed rail grant to the state of Illinois to fund passenger rail improvements between Chicago and St. Louis. The agreement was proclaimed by state and federal officials as “historic” and hailed as “one giant step closer to achieving high-speed passenger service between Chicago and St. Louis.” But stripped of its rhetoric, the announcement only reveals how inadequate and cost-ineffective the Administration’s “high–speed” program is turning out to be.
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