Free Republic

The idea that rail must pay its own way is ill-conceived. Rail brought this country together; passenger rail was made extremely attractive, complete with luxurious hotels, to bring alive the excellence of rail travel. Since its inception, huge grants, subsidies and concessions have been given to rail to ensure its viability. Rail is hugely efficient, but its sad demise came with the onset of the private automobile. Public funding gradually supported roads over rail. The automobile has become its own enemy: Roads clogged, time wasted and fossil fuels keeping engines idling at standstill. Costs, inconvenience and frustration bring visions of...

Most permanent jobs would be based in Victorville, Calif.When the DesertXpress high-speed train is built, there would be up to 700 permanent jobs at an operations and maintenance facility — in Victorville, Calif. Tom Stone, president of DesertXpress Enterprises LLC, told representatives of the Associated General Contractors at a lunch Thursday that building the privately funded, $4 billion traditional high-speed rail system would create 50,000 person-year construction jobs over the four-year design and construction period expected to begin late this year. Translated, 50,000 person-year jobs is the equivalent of 50,000 people working for a full year. The statistic illustrates the...

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing says the $425 million Woodward Light Rail Project -- which will run from Hart Plaza to 8 Mile -- "is going to happen" and that Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood should be in town soon to announce additional backing. Bing made the announcement Thursday during a "big four" round table discussion hosted by Paul W. Smith of WJR-AM 760, suggesting the line could help reverse economic and population trends. "I think it's about more than just transportation," he said. "It's about economic development. Cities that I've been in that have a light rail system, you've seen all...

WHITEFISH, Mont. — When I was 7, my mother took my three siblings and me on a train ride from my hometown of Brainerd to visit my grandmother, who lived in Staples. It was a 30-mile journey that took about 45 minutes. The trip was faster and cheaper by car. (Gas was about 32 cents a gallon back then, and the train tickets were $2 or $3 for each of us). But Mom thought it would be a fun and educational experience. The trip was unremarkable, but the experience — complete with a conductor who hollered "all aboard!" just like...

Project has $171M in financing, but much work remainsOnce viewed as a possible relief valve during major reconstruction of Route 28, a commuter rail line proposed for the Allegheny Valley remains a distant dream. With construction of the North Side section of Route 28 set to begin next month and disrupt traffic through the fall of 2014, the rail line to Downtown Pittsburgh, talked about for more than a decade, has yet to advance beyond preliminary studies. Robert Ardolino, a consultant to the Allegheny Valley Railroad, which has been offering to provide commuter service along its line since 1999, said...

New York -- John Parisella, Quebec’s highest-ranking representative in the United States, caught the 8:15 a.m. train Friday from New York City’s Penn Station bound for Montreal.At 11-plus hours, including as much as a two-hour logjam at the border, the journey is hardly a practical one for the business traveller.But for Mr. Parisella, the trip was field research. He’s made pushing for a high-speed rail link between the Big Apple and Montreal one of his top priorities since assuming the post of Quebec’s Delegate General in New York in November.The bullet train idea has been around since the early 1970s,...

E-ZPass customers will get price break over those paying cashA toll increase on the Pennsylvania Turnpike in January likely will make it the most expensive long toll road in the nation. The turnpike commission on Wednesday approved a 3 percent increase for users of E-ZPass electronic fare collection and 10 percent for cash customers, effective Jan. 2. That will raise the cash cost of driving the turnpike to 8.5 cents per mile, highest of the 11 U.S. toll roads of 100 miles or longer. Currently, the Pennsylvania and New Jersey turnpikes are tied at 7.7 cents per mile. Shorter toll...

COLUMBUS - While passenger trains are still at least two years away from running on a "Three-C" corridor for which Ohio has obtained federal stimulus money, state officials have begun looking at what they hope will be a second phase, which would include two Toledo routes. The Ohio Rail Development Commission has signed a $7.8 million contract with AECOM, a Los Angeles engineering firm, to assess what would need to be done to institute 110-mph passenger trains on four routes, including Detroit-Toledo-Cleveland and Toledo-Columbus. The study also would address a Cleveland-Pittsburgh route and upgrading the Cleveland-Columbus-Cincinnati route, over which trains...

Toledo and Pittsburgh are among the next cities that Ohio wants to connect as part of its developing passenger rail project, state transportation officials said Thursday. The state has signed a $7.8 million contract with an engineering firm to study new routes that would branch off from Ohio's marquee federal stimulus project -- a $400 million rail system with 79 mph trains connecting Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton and Cincinnati beginning in 2012. The contract with AECOM, a Los Angeles-based company that has worked on California's planned high-speed rail system, will determine routes for a future 110 mph service on four corridors:...

Imagine speeding across the lake through the LaBranch Wetlands and your final destination is Baton Rouge. Advocates of high speed rail are meeting in New Orleans. They say the Gulf Coast is the logically place to implement a high speed rail system. In the future they envision, New Orleans being the hub with routes originating from here to Bir to Atlanta and from New Orleans to Houston going West. The Obama administration allocated some $8 billion dollars for high speed rail systems. Louisiana turned down nearly $600 million dollars. Governor Bobby Jindal called it port spending. Adding that the state...

A passenger rail line through the Northeast U.S. has revitalized towns and created jobs, but relies on state funding to keep rolling, a rail service expert told a Springfield audience Wednesday, July 14. That summary was the message for Springfield city officials at a forum Wednesday held to drum up support for a passenger rail system in Ohio. Patricia Quinn, director of the Downeaster rail service — a passenger rail line between Boston and Portland, Maine — said the train system has benefited her region. The Downeaster rail service is similar to the proposed 3C passenger rail line that would...

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham announced Tuesday more than $10 million in grants to airports in Lexington and Sumter, as well as airports in Anderson, Charleston, Chesterfield, Darlington, Greenville, Horry and Laurens. Here's what the U.S. Transportation Department grants will pay for, according to a news release from Graham's office. AndersonAnderson County will receive a $3,774,000 grant for an airfield pavement evaluation study, to design and construct apron rehabilitation, and to design and construct taxiway rehabilitation at Anderson Regional Airport. Anderson County will also receive a $649,865 grant for runway and taxiway lighting at Anderson Regional Airport.CharlestonCharleston County Aviation Authority will receive a $388,248...

The influential General Accountability Office (GAO) has entered the battle over airline ancillary fees with a recommendation that the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) require airlines to consistently disclose optional fees and notify passengers of any refundable government fees. A new GAO report on airline fees notes that airlines have imposed a variety of fees on a range of optional services, such as checked and carry-on bags, meals, blankets, early boarding, and seat selection, and is concerned with the availability of information in distribution channels. The new GAO report says airlines will not voluntarily disclose fees unless compelled to do...

IMAGINE GETTING ON A TRAIN in Cleveland and arriving in Columbus for a meeting — relaxed, rested, and prepped for your presentation. Or your football game, or your night on the town. No more staring through the windshield at long, dreary stretches of I-71 in Richland and Morrow County. That's already a reality for travelers from Boston to Washington, D.C. There, an Amtrak passenger train travels the so-called Northeast Corridor, delivering riders to New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore at the same average speed as driving — if you weren't sitting in traffic — and occasionally reaching speeds up to 150...

Amtrak, which has forecast record ridership in fiscal 2010, saw gains in ridership and revenue in June, with the strongest growth on trains coming and going from Washington. Amtrak’s total June revenue rose 17 percent from June of last year to $163.4 million. Revenue on its Northeast Corridor, which runs from Washington to Boston, rose 12 percent from a year earlier. Ticket sales on its high-speed Acela line were up 16 percent. Amtrak’s June ridership system-wide was 2.6 million passengers in June, up 9.3 percent. Passengers on the Northeast Corridor last month rose 3.5 percent to 616,000, while Acela ridership...

DAYTON — Ohio could create thousands of new manufacturing jobs if rail service can get the push it needs from the proposed 3C Corridor Passenger Rail Project and the federal Surface Transportation Act, according to Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Ohio Secretary of Transportation Jolene Molitoris, who brought their pro-rail message Monday, July 12, to Dayton. “We know how to build big ... things in Ohio and here in the Miami Valley,” Brown said at the Dayton-Phoenix Group plant in Old North Dayton, a maker of locomotive parts. “It’s time the United States began to breathe new life into the...

While transit advocates are discussing where to put rail and how soon, a broader debate continues about the wisdom of spending any tax money on any form of rail. Critics say that if passenger rail were practical, private investors would happily build it and reap the profits. They're half right. If profits were to be had, many people would be trying to capitalize. But that's no justification to refuse to subsidize better mobility on corridors where road expansion is impossible or would cost much more than a rail line. The great expense of right of way, the slow return on...

Without a doubt, passenger rail should connect to Tampa International Airport, where parking fees can rival the cost of a flight. A seamless rail connection would help maintain the airport's reputation as one of the world's best. More importantly, easier airport access would benefit local travelers and businesses. But whether to put an airport rail station in the first phase of rail construction or later is best left to experts who calculate costs and predict ridership. The first line built should be the one most likely to carry the most people every day, spark the most redevelopment and help create...

Alarmed by a spate of near-collisions involving airliners, the government is trying to find out why air traffic controllers and pilots are making so many dangerous errors. In recent months, there have been at least a half-dozen incidents in which airliners came close to colliding with other planes or helicopters — including in Chicago, Houston, San Francisco, Burbank, Calif., and Anchorage, Alaska. In some cases, pilots made last-second changes in direction after cockpit alarms went off warning of an impending crash. "This spring we had several close calls that got everybody's attention, and I think that's the thing that really...

It seems like everything in Washington these days is politically charged — economic recovery, health care and Wall Street reform, to name a few. Unfortunately and often without good reason, transportation becomes one of them. William Lind, a respected figure in right-wing circles, is adamant that public transportation shouldn’t be, explaining why in “Rail Against the Machine,” featured in this month’s American Conservative magazine — part of a special package in American Conservative on public transportation with contributions from a host of special authors. Lind is the co-author with the late Paul Weyrich of a recent book called “Moving Minds:...