High Speed Trains And Stupid Solutions
So what kind of opium pipe has Bill Lawrence been smoking???
And why didn't you answer me the first time I asked you this question?
by Athena D. Merritt
Philadelphia Business Journal
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Ridership reached a record 1.27 million trips on Amtrak’s Keystone Line between Harrisburg and Philadelphia last fiscal year, state Transportation Secretary Allen D. Biehler said Monday.
From July 1, 2009, to June 30, 2010, ridership totaled 1.277 million, which was a 3.9 percent increase over the previous fiscal year’s 1.229 million trips.
Pennsylvania completed $145 million in improvements along the 104-mile line, which runs between New York and Harrisburg by way of Philadelphia, in 2006 through a joint effort with Amtrak and the Federal Transit Administration. The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation launched a website to promote ridership on the Keystone Line in August 2008.
The "Keystone Line", which uses the Keystone Corridor but is not synonymous with it, is basically a commuter line.
People aren't using it to go from Harrisburg to New York but from Downingtown and Exton to Philadelphia, and from Metro Park, N.J. to NYC too, I suppose.
As someone else has pointed out, commuter rail is antithetical to high-speed inter-city bullet trains.
I don't think anyone has an issue with maintaining commuter rail in crowded urban areas where it has been in use for a century-plus albeit getting the government out of it and making it profit-oriented rather than government-job oriented would certainly be desirable.
Actually, rather than high-speed bullet trains it very well may be smarter to end service at Coatesville or Parkesburg with more trains running rather than keep the line open to Harrisburg which very well may be for based more on politcs rather than what people want.