You bet I would. Get out of my tin can for a few minutes every day, ride with my new friends in the comfort of a conveyance I don’t have to drive? Oh, yeah.
Inside the President’s high-speed rail plan, here.
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Yes, please! How about rail lines running parallel to I-84 and I-91, maybe right down the middle of the median? And improve the rail access on the shoreline, which is already pretty god but can always be better.
I would hop on the one at 91 in a heartbeat. A heartbeat.
No, no! ou don’t want a train running down the median of a highway.
There’s a Metro track in the median of a Virginia suburb of DC. One day a train flipped over and landed on the highway. It wasn’t a pretty sight.
With a train on the I-91 route, there will be a lot fewer cars on the highway.
But it can be light rail–it doesn’t have to be Amtrak. Dallas has light rail running overhead on Central Expressway (or is it LBJ Freeway? I forget) and it’s very motivating for a driver to be stuck on the highway while the train goes zipping by.
It was light rail. The DC subway system; that portion is above ground. It’s near one of the Vienna stops.
Elevate it. Put it on an old cowpath. Whatever, get it built.
Hey Jay! My turn! You spelled “You” wrong! HAHAHA! (Don’t you just hate me?) Just kidding, buddy!
Robert Moses, who ruled NYC from 1920-something till 1970-something, hated trains. Many city planners (Moses hated them more then trains) hoped that he would loop the two east/west subway lines together by adding a north/south rail line during the construction of the”Van Wyck Expressway” to allow New Yorkers access to both airports from anywhere along the subway/elevated routes, without traveling back into Manhattan to connect to the other line. It would have been at a minimal cost, with an additional 10′ of land used. He refused. Same story when he built the LIE, officially the world’s largest parking lot. His prejudices doomed New York commuters to hours of traffic, not to mention the auto emissions and fuel costs.
During the widening of I-91 in Connecticut, a rail line was proposed, but was not built.
As a tradesman, I would not be able to commute via train, however, most others would enjoy the benefits associated with a mass-transit line.
I love trains. I would commute to school in Manhattan aboard the LIRR to Penn Station.
My father worked in the garment district in NYC and commuted every day. As a teen, I would travel all over NY for the cost of a subway token. I still use mass transit whenever we travel to Manhattan. Trains rule…
Don’t they? I try to imagine all the thinking time I’d have, as opposed to driving time, if I could take a train to work. Some days, Mario, I’m like you and I need my car handy but there are days when I don’t. On those days? I’d train.
“I would travel all over NY for the cost of a subway token. ”
Which of course costs a LOT more now than it did then. But yeah, I didn’t love EVERYthing about living in NYC’s various boroughs, but I sure do appreciate the way I learned to travel efficiently by using the subway system, and to get a lot done or travel various distances in a short time.
One popular part of discussions about saving energy today is the suggestion of “bundling” errands: do them all on the same trip, figure out how to travel the fewest miles for the whole trip etc. That seemed to come naturally after learning how to get around on the subway system.
Smart. We try to bundle our trips around our household jaunts as well as work. I was being sent to the drug store 2~3 times per week for prescriptions. I finally had all scrips ready on the same day to make one pickup per week.
That’s smart. I used to not think about this stuff and now I very much do. Gas is expensive, I already drive too far to work, etc.
” Connecticut Sen. Kissel: Connecticut to Receive Federal Funds for Springfield-Hartford-New Haven Rail Line.”
Giddy-yap!
‘Xactly, and in today’s Courant it says “Region’s Share Falls Short,” but…
When in seminary in NYC, I would take the NYNH&H line up to Hartford. I enjoyed the trips. I’m sure that the tracks are still there; are the trains still running that route up to Springfield?
I believe that’s called Metro North now?
Urg. “Metro North?” I liked the old name better. New York New Haven and Hartford. Has a nice rolling sound to it.
When I first came to Connecticut, I interviewed at Pratt & Whitney in (I assume) East Hartford, and I got there by train from either Stamford or Norwalk (with one change of train). I don’t remember if it was the service now known as Metro North or Amtrak. The Amtrak Vermonter route still connects NH and Hartford, and it might be the train I took then, but it only runs once a day now.
The train service here has been cut woefully. I’ve considered riding the New Haven to Hartford, but the cost is high and the schedule isn’t set up for my work schedule. I’m going to revist that once I actually get settled in my big-girl house.
This spring/summer, we are taking the little guy on a few local rail lines that dot the New England countryside. He will no doubt loose patience with the whole experience, forget he was their in later years, but damn it, I’m gonna do it! For him, not for me!
What a cool thing to subject him to, though.
http://www.doobybrain.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/new-york-new-haven-hartford.jpg
Love that font!
I would jump for joy if I could travel by train across the country. I am not a fan of air travel although I’ve done a lot of it. When in Europe I love to take trains. Rolling through Switzerland once I swear I was transported to another dimension, it was that beautiful to roll along through the Alps! And the night sleeper from Edinburgh to London is awesome!
“I would jump for joy if I could travel by train across the country.”
You can do that now. You just can’t do it very fast.
Right. It would take nearly 24 hours to travel the 745 miles between DC and Birmingham, by train. Flying takes two hours.
Yeah, but that two hours is bookended by being at the airport an hour or more before the flight, parking the car, getting frisked, etc.
“Flying takes two hours.”
Right, the FLYING part is short. But the getting to the parking lot, transfering your stuff from the car to the shuttle, getting it off the shuttle, checking in, going through security, getting some of your stuff onto the plane, getting settled on the plane, getting off the plane, waiting for your checked luggage, etc. etc., makes it a longer trip than 2 hours. I suppose there’re going to be the same delays with trains too — which goes back to the discussion about preferring to drive mid-long distances if you have the choice.
Once did KCMO to Philly. It wasn’t the Alps, but I made a nice friend on the way.
I had the chicken pox on the train from St. Louis to Hartford. Not a great memory.
That must have been awful.
There’s just something about train travel. I’m fine with airplanes but they lack the romance of trains. Or something.
“…they lack the romance of trains. Or something.”
Romance like, say, maybe that guy reading the racy magazine hidden by the newspaper. Or something.
I’ve had only good experiences on trains, save for a racy ad or two. But yeah. It’s public transportation and sometimes the public is naughty.
Want to mix music with a train-trip?
http://www.flyingunderradar.com/
Looks like great fuN!
Oh, yeh!
“I suppose there’re going to be the same delays with trains too ”
Different delays. The transfers are quite fast, and the same carry-on baggage limits apply to everyone, no exceptions. Everything else has to be checked. The real delays occur because freight trains have the right-of-way any time there is a conflict, and that’s what needs to be fixed. Especially once you get west of the Appalachians, there is plenty of room for parallel tracks.
I agree. Basically that two-hour flight takes much of the day, from the time we leave home to the arrival at our destination. This includes car rental, and BWI has an off-site facility several miles from the terminal.
And if we fly out of Birmingham instead of Montgomery, that’s an hour and a half drive each way.
But still–it does save a day off the trip each way. That means that my wife wouldn’t have to take two extra days off her job, for the same amount of time in DC.
But it’s such a stressful day. The extra day on the train, on the other hand, consists of sleeping, reading, looking out the window, surfing the web, eating. Repeat. So relaxing. It makes me drowsy just thinking about it.
But that gives us two extra days with our kids and grandkids!
I vote we do those time-matter things, like on the Starship Enterprise. Why can’t I remember what they’re called? Oh, yes. Here they are. Transporters. Silly me.
The governor just announced today that we’re getting …I don’t remember how much $$ for a train system here. We are really hoping it means they will finally get this done. It’s been quite the brouhaha, city council fighting all the time over street cars vs light rail.
It’s like mass transit in CT is stalled and has been for decades.