Amtrak
Streetsblog Basics
Why Biden Is Right to Think Beyond the DOT in His Infrastructure Package
Opponents of President Biden's infrastructure plan ignore that "transportation infrastructure" must include tackling our frayed social safety nets and our broken street designs.
April 12, 2021
So What Is the Deal With The Governor And This New Gateway Project Report?
The Big Dog thinks he knows the best plan for an essential, but long-stalled, rail project. What is he doing?
November 30, 2020
Report: We Really Need to Divert Money from Drivers to Transit Users
The federal government needs an entirely different way of funding transportation — one that would finally allocate billions of dollars that currently subsidize and encourage driving to fund and expand transit, a new report argues.
September 10, 2020
Op-Ed: A Better Plan Than Cuomo’s $8B Penn Station Annex
The governor would disrupt Midtown in order to enlarge the station. "Through-running" would enable us to avoid that — and provide one-seat rides around the tri-state.
June 22, 2020
Feds Must Fix Hudson River Tunnel Before Catastrophic Failure Cripples New York
The Regional Plan Association estimates that a failure of the tunnel would cost billions to the New York region and send home values plummeting.
February 27, 2019
Integrated Planning Can Help Free New York Transit From Dependence on Trump
The New York region can’t count on Washington to fund its transit mega-projects.
February 14, 2018
What the Amtrak 501 Derailment Says About America’s Failure to Prevent Train Crashes
While the investigation is just beginning, initial reports indicate that the train entered a tight curve at too high a speed.
December 19, 2017
House Votes to Slash Amtrak Funding Just Hours After Horrible Crash
Just hours after seven people were killed and hundreds injured in an Amtrak derailment near Philadelphia, the U.S. House voted to cut funding for the passenger rail service.
May 13, 2015
Don’t Look Now, But the House Amtrak Bill Actually Has Some Good Ideas
Tomorrow, the House Transportation Committee will consider a bill that changes the nation’s policies on passenger rail. The proposal, while it includes some cuts, is a departure from the senseless vendetta many House Republicans have waged against Amtrak in the past. The National Association of Railroad Passengers, NARP, says the plan contains "commonsense regulatory and governance reforms."
September 16, 2014
Oil-Laden Freight Trains Delaying Amtrak, Commuter Trains Across U.S.
Oil production is booming across North America, as new technologies make it possible to extract liquid crude oil from sources like the Bakken shale oil field in North Dakota and Montana, or Alberta's tar sands. The ever-increasing volume of crude oil mined in remote Great Plains locations often finds its way to refineries via "rolling pipelines" – freight trains that tow a million barrels of oil around the United States every day. Production of Bakken crude has tripled over the past three years, and 79 percent of it is shipped out by rail.
August 14, 2014