Sunday, August 2, 2009

Sunday Night Notes

Karlsruhe, notorious for their introduction of tram trains, is looking at nickel cadmium batteries for short segments of the line where there is a switch from Mainline to Tram operations.
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Fort Collins had a street railway until 1951, some of the tracks were dug up under the pavement recently.
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All about priorities:
Luoni said the key is spending priorities, not lack of funds. The money the federal government spent in one year on the Iraq war could have funded 200 light rail transit systems.
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We might be seeing solar ferry service in Hong Kong. At some point the bay area was supposed to have a more robust ferry system, but I haven't heard or seen anything about it lately.
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Gavin seems to not really care. Please go away soon.
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The New York Times editorial on HSR is pretty good. We need a transportation bill, not a stall. And they don't call it the highway bill!

Despite his support of the idea of high-speed rail, President Obama has put off dealing with the national transportation bill for another 18 months. That is a delayed opportunity to move forward on an important new national transportation plan to expand public transit in much the way the Federal-Aid Highway Act did for roads more than 50 years ago.

Until Mr. Obama and members of Congress can enact a comprehensive new transit agenda, both have an obligation to make a down payment on high-speed-rail corridors across the nation.

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Tough times for TOD and Mixed Use projects in Atlanta

6 comments:

Matthew said...

Ugh, Gavin; of course, this revelation isn't really surprising, except for the way he says it. It's one thing for Austin to have a crappy mayor, but SF needs someone more like Daley or Bloomberg, who can (usually) get things done, and actually care about the city.

Sad about the losses for TOD and mixed use in Atlanta, too.

theo said...

Fort Collins does not equal Colorado Springs.

They're like 200 miles apart.

Just so you know.

Pantograph Trolleypole said...

Thanks Theo for catching my brain freeze. Fixed. One has Fat Tire and Colorado State. The other has the Air Force Academy and Christian Theology.

Anonymous said...

Fort Collins still has a functioning streetcar line. It runs from downtown to City Park on weekends from May to September.

Hardly a trunk transit service, but nonetheless, it's there.

njh said...

When I lived in FC, I asked the streetcar drivers why they didn't run the streetcar during the work week: non-compete with the bus service. They would get plenty of commuters, and there are enough volunteers to run during the week with a relaxed schedule. The operating cost is about $100 a round trip apparently (mostly for maintenance).

The other annoying thing is that there is a rail line running up the main town corridor (Mason street/college street) with mostly its own right of way, but they can't get permission to use it for a light rail, despite being only used a few times a day for freight.

Matt Fisher said...

About the quote from somebody named Luoni, I find it a shock when this is said by somebody from a part of Arkansas, in the land of Wal-Mart!! Could anybody think of all that money wasted on highways all these years, while at the same time they say "lack of funds" is a reason why light rail shouldn't exist?

And Colorado Springs is home to "Dr." James Dobson and his so-called "Focus on the Family". He supported the anti-LRT Congresswoman Michele Bachmann when she was a Minnesota State Senator.