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Federal rules prefer buses over streetcar expansion
An article in Thursday’s Oregonian explains how the Bush administration’s rules attempt to prevent streetcar lines from competing with bus rapid transit for federal funds. To quote Peter DeFazio: “It’s set up to make streetcar never pencil out.” Here’s how: At stake is about $200 million in federal money that could provide the first national…
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Another Rail Line Bites the Dust?
An article in the Oregonian suggests that public sector leaders my decide that after damage from recent storms the cost of repairing the Port of Tillamook Bay Railroad is simply too high.
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Double Decking
A guest post from regular commenter Garlynn Woodsong: Recently, we have discussed the testing in San Francisco of a double-decker bus, which will then move on to Las Vegas, NV to go into full service as a part of the fleet serving their Deuce line. Tri-Met is currently running its fleet on B5 biodiesel, and…
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Amtrak: Maybe Now?
In stark contrast to the Bush administration’s efforts to pull the plug on Amtrak funding, a post on Planetizen links to a Washington Post column encouraging investment in the nation’s rail systems. “America’s train advocates are mildly optimistic. And for some good reasons. Amtrak is reporting impressive ridership gains. Oil is pushing $100 a barrel,…
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Sorting Out Fareless Square
We’ve had plenty of opinion about fareless square, and/or it’s curtailment. I’d like to try to back up a little bit and take this out of the realm of opinion, and get into a more structured analysis. So I’m going to pose this question: If you were asked to conduct an objective analysis of costs/benefits…