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ChineseDaily Transit Links Roundup for 6/5/08
Contributed by Fred Camino on June 5th, 2008 at 9:53 am
- Union Pacific doesn’t want high speed rail in California, cites safety concerns.
- City Beat interviews transit sales tax advocate Mike Feuer.
- It’s time, once and for all, for America to get serious about public transportation.
- The Amalgamated Transit Union wants fuel costs for transit agencies to be subsidized by the Federal government.
- A deeper look at the fight for the Expo Line.
Discussion
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Please keep discussions civil: exercise Troll Controll.
Three cheers for Mike Feuer! He is the real deal. He just don’t support transit infrastructure. He’s actually trying to raise the dough to build it.
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The freight rail vs. passenger rail is a complex problem. The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach provide tremendous amounts of economic activity. The need to share the same tracks with Metrolink is part of what makes additional commuter rail problematic. Building separate tracks costs a lot of money. I don’t have an easy answer here. But I don’t think freight rail is the “enemy” here. We need to move both goods and people.
It’s a complex problem which probably requires a complex solution.
That recent economic “stimulus” package mostly went to pay down debt and stimulate the Chinese economy would have been more effective stimulus had that money been spent on transportation and other infrastructure, on the kinds of jobs and goods that cannot be outsourced and have long term economic development contributions.
The stimulus package [sic] is evidence that the United States is a Third World country.
There’s no difference between stimulus checks sent out during a presidential election year, and in massively impoverished countries where politicians drive to the countryside and throw cash and food to the masses from the back of a pickup truck.
Union Pacific is in for a rude surprise.
The public will DEMAND that their right-of-way be taken if they don’t play nice.
That’s what eminent domain is for.
I guess I don’t share the same respect for UP. The railroads, like roads, are a public utility, whether or not they’re privately or publicly owned. It may not have huge green highway signs, but the national railroad system is a national resource. That they have let the tracks deteriorate and have tolerated 2-way tracks without sidings should not give them an excuse to avoid fixing the disrepair and neglect that they’re responsible for - UP should not benefit from its own negligence.
UP’s just playing hardball. It tolerates dozens of commuter trains a day on trackage it owns in Chicago, and there have been accidents.