I'MMA LET YOU FINISH
First!
Second!
Third!
Yes, build more fucking trains.
geb:drf
Out at third!
Sorry, Chris.
geb:drf
hello
So Chris, you come here often?
gwb:drf
Curse your flashing typing fingers, Arabella!
I heard that Zap kinda blogged about this a few weeks ago...
Quite a quiet plea!
Supporters of rail service and other mass transit have to speak up
We just lost a passenger rail tax increase because the people in
Marin County believe no one will live there if the rain doesn't come there. Stupid stupid stupid
I live in the county the sells them their water so I say cut'em off.
Do it, Democrats! Personally, I love trains, though I have no train to ride down here except a play train.
I'd love to see America riding trains again.
My husband is a railroad fanatic. He's got aspergers in this regard.
Please keep the volume down. Enough fucking trains, at least at the dinner table.
God, he's a maniac.
gwb:drf
The Twin Cities has rediscovered its love of trains via the light rail. And we're getting a commuter line through the NW suburbs. And we're expanding light rail...
More! More! More!
A quite plea for the new Dem congress to stick inject lovely rail-related pork in with all the other pork in the Transportation funding bill.
I'll offer up my own quite plea for Atrios to stick inject some proofreading into his posts once in a while. 
If you wonder what kind of train-obsessed loon my husband is? He saw my Garnet Hill catalogue and went nuts. The cover showed a pair of kids cavorting on a railroad right of way. (No trains in sight.)
He reported Garnet Hill to the FRA.
gwb:drf
And I want this building back, dammit!!
Bless you Atrios.
mass transit investment
sensible infrastructure and an
oil-weaning idea whose time is long overdue
the boss is on high-test again
(insert gratuitous Psychedelic Furs quip here)
Quiet a bit urly to be 'drinking liberally', despite any sense of self-justification, ain't it?
shits.
I vote for the Transportation Amendment in MN (forcing at least 40% of Car-Selling taxes to be spent on public transit development and not road upkeep) and it passed 57-43.
My home town in Greater MN is at least 3 hours from the Twin Cities and I voted for it for a very simple reason: I want a high speed train from Moorhead to Buffalo someday and I want a light-rail from Buffalo to the Metrodome/Downtown area so I can see Twins games without paying for parking.
drapes
No flirting.
geb:drf
Trains are one of the very best things about the USA, and should be enhanced. It would be foolish to let them go any further than we already have.
I hear someone's looking for a sock.
I'll give you a sock, nolo.
Holy cow! I agree w/ Atrios!
Talk about bi-partisanship!
Start by expanding the PATCO line over to 30th St, thus allowing easier connection to the R1 to the Airport.
Second, if NJTransit could build a line like Camden's River Line to Trenton over commercial rail track, why can't we do the same from Philly to Reading??
And, run privately, the RiverLine is making money and expanding service!
I want to W. on a train and not let him off.
I want to
put him on a train...
Buh Bye!!!!!
god damn right! as a short line railroad operator - i can attest to the value in your statement!!!!!!!!!!
The Dem. locomotive needs to do some real 'pulled pork'.
Yeah, the US is bigger than Japan or EU countries making train travel take too long for cross country (except on vacations), but we are way behind EU/Japan on train technology for medium distance travel.
We need to give Amtrak a dedicated portion of the federal gasoline tax, free from annual congressional intervention - and increase that fed. gas tax by a few percentage points a year until Detroit understands the message of fuel economy.
But the FRENCH have got train travel sweetness totally understood.
Oberstar says he'll expand rail in MN, specifically to Duluth.
and Oberstar will likely be Transportation Chair
and Oberstar will likely be Transportation Chair
there should be maglev trains crisscrossing the country and electric monorails in every city. this is the twenty-first century, for fuck's sake!
.... can they run on Biofuels?
but yeah honestly, let's get some Futureness up-ins.
Hear f'ing hear!
Granted, even a super fast bullet train wouldn't be super awesome for coast-to-coast travel, but the fact that i can't get from Atlanta to DC on a train in a resonable time frame is preposterous.
And it's equally preposterous that I can't get on a light rail line near my apartment and find my way downtown. MARTA's a damn joke.
Stupid burbs keep splitting off from the city. They're gonna bankrupt Atlanta and poison their own pond. Shortsighted, polluting, traffic inducing, giant mcmansion building, jackasses. Atlanta will be a wasteland in 10 years at this rate.
So sad.
Oh, please, please, please, make this plea really loud. Seriously, passenger rail is such a sensible idea for energy conservation, safety (can't very well fly a locomotive into a building, now, can you?) and general quality of life it's a guarateed loser in Congress unless the public really gets behind it.
You guys were instrumental in getting Nick Lampson elected. Now, if he can get behind passenger rail, especially an express train connecting Dallas, Austin, Houston, and San Antonio, he can make his cardinal-red district a nice navy blue by 2008. In fact, his new collegue, the Senior Senator fro Texas is really a good friend to AmTrak, and could be a lot of help here. (It's probably her only good issue, but she is really good on it.) If they can get it together on this, it would be the rare case of doing well by doing good. Please, make him do so.
I live in an area that's incredibly ripe for light rail/commuter trains - Albany, Schenectady, Troy, NY - tracks all over the place, parallel to the expressways for the most part, abandoned but still available rights of way, 10th busiest Amtrak station in the country.
Think we could get a light rail system here? Not if the local powers that be have anything to say about it. And yet it would be so easy to do, instead of spending millions every year just around here, rebuilding the roads over and over. The common wisdom is that no one will ride it - and civic jealousy won't let anyone else try it if they can't have it.
Just do it, for Pete's sake!
Let's have a high speed (maybe even mag lev) train initiative that rivals the interstate highway system or the space program. That's something America could get excited about.
Karen, I am with you. We need quality rail in Texas! I am so glad Congressman John Culberson(R) cannot play his stupid games anymore here is in Houston...pretending to support light rail, while doing everything possible to derail the project. His meddling in local city politics has been pathetic. Can't wait for the day when USA will be on par or better in rail travel... I truely envy the europeans and Japanese. I think it is really a national security issue. We have no real alternatives other than air or having to drive long distances... trains would be a welcome addition.
Wow, lots of pro-rail Texans in the house! Gonna be a tough haul, though. These rednecks pinheads never bitch about anything like they do about local rail. Some day I won't ever againhave to look in my rear-view and see some jackass in a red F-350 bearing down on me, going 90 on his way to the ATV festival.
Best Atrios post of 2006.
Want to have trains and force some people out of their cars? Lay electric high speed rail down the interstates. It would be far far cheaper than the legal fights over right-of-way etc. Then run light rail and bus-only roads from the towns the interstate took such pains to avoid to the high speed rail stations on the interstates. Soon, development, as if by magic, will happen where there are stations.
Most of the fight on rail comes from the airline, auto and oil lobbies. Southwest Airlines' owner had a huge say in stopping high speed rail in California. Unlike the interstate highway system which were sold to the public under the guise of defense (we can evacuate the cities in 10 minutes in case of nuclear attack!) high speed rail would actually help us kick our oil habit which, in turn, would make us safer.
Banning short haul flights within the U.S. would go a long way. Say any flight less than 150 miles to start with. SO, no more flying from Boston to NYC, or NYC to D.C. There is only one reason why anyone flies from Detroit to Chicago, Or Dalls to Houston, of L.A. to S.F. - because there is no good alternative.
It's time one was provided. And it would go a long way to relieving the baggage problems as reported by the NYTimes.
Soon I will be able to hop lightrail and travel from Phoenix to Tempe, and if I really want to get totally crazy, go on all the way to Mesa.
Well, it's a start.
Transportion / Energy is the single most likely issue to unite people in political action in this age. Many of the great suggestions in the above comments are local applications of political actions needed to respond to this crisis. Grassroots energy and transportation reform could be the dealbreaker in successful campaigns. Many individuals can start immediately by using the public transport that is already available and making big noise about gaps in service. We should not be waiting for government to do anything, although it would be nice if they did get their stuff together. There are things that each of us should be doing to move along the collective practice of insisting on renewable resources. Then, the government will follow.
I think the Shuttle Assembly Building is about the smallest-sized train you could get. That would make for some mighty vistas in every downtown, except when the train arrived.
What JeffCO said. Methinks there needs to be a re-do.
I am expat living in Germany. It costs us almost 50 euros, more than 60 bucks, to fill up our Ford Focus with gas (I drive a VW in Florida and a Ford in Germany, go figure).
Each member of my family here has a subscription ticket for the train system in the state we live in and for the most part we only use the car on the weekends. It costs me a little over a euro a day for my monthly ticket. Deutsche Bahn has a weekend ticket that is good for 5 people for one way travel anywhere in Germany for 30 euros. So 60 for a weekend trip for 5, anywhere in the country, and most of the country is within 6 hours of where I live.
Every day on on my commute to work I ask myself why we can't do something like this at home!
Atrios is right, this is a conversation that American really needs to have.
OK, is it "stick" or "inject"?
Light rail saves lives (by reducing the number of vehicles on the road), saves stress, and saves money for consumers. What's not to like? And oh yeah, it makes people progressive as they realize we're all in it together.
I've just moved from the D.C. area (where they're *finally* making some headway in expanding the Metro into northern Virginia--should be all the way to Dulles airport by 2015!, and where MD's new governor is a supporter of the proposed Purple line, which would partially duplicate the beltway's route and help ease up some of that crazy congestion) to Nashville, where a trial commuter rail line, the Music City Star, was started in September. I haven't heard any stats on how well it's catching on, but if it duplicates trends in places like North Carolina, it should eventually expand to the north, south, and west. Nashville has three major highways running through it plus branches, and it still gets way too congested. Frist actually pushed for federal funds to pay for last-minute insurance for the Star--let's see what the Dems can do.
Too bad Florida got another Republican gov (though I don't know his stance on rail)--Jeb Bush repeatedly smacked down voter's wishes for high-speed rail in the state.
In a short editorial on p.B8 in the Sunday 12Nov WaPo - I haven't been able to find it online - noted wingnut Paul Weyrich of Fairfax VA writes in support of funding for the DC Metro:
"...It is an issue of pressing concern to citizens of all political stripes, including conservatives such as myself... rail transit benefits everyone, including non-riders, by reducing traffic congestion... [it also] aids in resource conservation. True conservatives are conservationists who are committed to passing on clean water, breathable air and natural resources for future generations... Transit also greatly aids our communities by raising property values... Finally, the special relationship between Metro and the federal government requires that the government come to the table as a full partner to help Metro... [by matching investment from local & state jurisdictions]... Quite simply, dedicating federal and local funds for transit is both smart and responsible public policy.
"True conservatives should be lining up to support this measure, and the public should be ready to hold leaders in Congress accountable if they fail to meet the challenge before them."
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