Railroaded

Remember that agreement between the federal government and the states of New York and New Jersey to split the cost of repairs to the Amtrak tunnel under the Hudson River and build a new rail bridge over the Hackensack River?  Well, now you can forget it.

Not only has Donald Trump decided that the agreement to share the cost between the two states and the federal government for the massive project - totalling $13 billion - isn't in force anymore, but his appointees in the Federal Transit Administration have declared that there never was any such agreement.  Or so New York and New Jersey found out when they requested the $6.5 billion that the feds promised.

"Your letter also references a non-existent '50/50' agreement between USDOT, New York, and New Jersey. There is no such agreement," Federal Transit Administration deputy administrator K. Jane Williams wrote in response to the request last week.  "We consider it unhelpful to reference a non-existent 'agreement' rather than directly address the responsibility for funding a local project where nine out of 10 passengers are local transit riders."

In other words, this mostly helps locals in states that voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and also elected Democratic governors and senators, so they can all go to hell - where, apparently, Martin O'Malley will be there to serenade them with his guitar.

Gateway Development Corporation, the group overssing this massive project, dismissed Williams' letter as posturing and added that GDC is "are confident that the Trump Administration will engage with us as the President turns to infrastructure in 2018."

Yeah, well, let me throw in a few things to undermine GDC's confidence.  Not only do Republicans want to punish Democratic states for opposing Trump, they don't want to spend any money anywhere on transit projects because there's no profit in it.  You would assume, of course, that they only want to spend money on highways, like a new interstate between Raleigh, North Carolina and Norfolk, Virginia, to be numbered Interstate 87 (yeah, a mainly east-west route using an odd number already in use in New York State, why not?).  Most congressional Republicans don't even want to spend money on that, since their precious tax cut made all of that even less affordable than it was before.  Besides, Trump canceled this railway deal with New York and New Jersey - the two states where he got his start as a real estate developer - for a more cynical reason - Barack Obama brokered it.  And by declaring it "non-existent," Trump is essentially saying that there was no such agreement as this ailwaydeal, there was . . . no such President as Barack Obama. 

It was just a dream . . . all . . . a dream.  Sort of like the hope of having quality passenger rail in America. >:-(

By the way, here's a rendering of the new Portal Bridge over the Hackensack River in New Jersey, which would be built for trains heading into Manhattan.       

And here's the reality of the current Portal Bridge, built when Roosevelt was President . . . Theodore Roosevelt.

As for the outline of Trump's infrastructure "plan" for 2018 . . . I'll get to that later. 

Another Amtrak Derailment

The traffic derailment of the Amtrak train in DuPont, Washington on its first Seattle-Portland run is full of spectacular ironies, the main one being that the fall of some of the train's cars onto Interstate 5 caused massive disruptions on the very transportation network - our interstate system - that Amtrak is meant to relieve.  The lack of positive train control on the train called for more investments in our transportation infrastructure, yet the track itself was newly installed, and, as noted, this train was on its maiden run.

The facts on the ground, however, only illustrate how little attention we pay to our intercity passenger trains. The speed on this track was a mere 30 mile per hour, which meant that trains couldn't go too fast.  Other countries have trains that go at least four times as fast, but the track on this connection between the two most important cities in the Pacific Northwest couldn't handle even thrice that speed; the train derailed at an 80-mph speed.  The track was new, but the technology clearly wasn't.  And the new technology that was needed the most wasn't in place to ensure people's safety. 

And here's a more direct look at that trestle over I-5, from November 2016.

This picture gives you a less encumbered look at the graffiti on the overpass, symbolizing the blatant disregard and lack of respect for our national passenger train system.

And after all of this, three passengers on that train are dead.

Trump wants to spend money on infrastructure, and he hopes to have a plan to introduce sometime in 2018, but if you're a railfan, don't hold your breath.  Even if Republicans actually agree to any spending on infrastructure, Trump, despite his New York City roots,  isn't likely to increase spending on passenger rail, because Republican lawmakers outside the Northeast and California have zero interest in upgrading and modernizing Amtrak.  Indeed, they've spent the past 35 years trying to get rid of it, and this accident gives them an excuse to cut the very funding Amtrak needs to get positive train control installed system-wide.

I give up.  We're never going to have first-class rail service in this century . . . and more people are going to die or be hurt in accidents like the one in Washington State.  It's a damn disgrace. :-(

Off the Tracks

If you're an American, you can expect passenger rail service to be a disappointment.  But in the New York area, disappointment has mutated into disgust.  

New York Pennsylvania Station, North America's busiest railway station, is undergoing significant delays thanks to equally significant repairs needed for the tracks.  It seems that the neglect of the station's rail infrastructure is responsible for more than a few derailments of Amtrak, NJ Transit and Long Island Railroad trains in recent months, and the station itself is so mismanaged by Amtrak that, in rare bipartisan fashion, Democratic New York governor Andrew Cuomo and Republican New Jersey governor Chris Christie are ticked off with the whole damn thing.  Not that they've done anything in recent years to make things any better.  Trains at the station have been increasingly late for years, thanks to failing systems and aging tunnels under the Hudson River that need to be supplemented by new ones.   

On top of all that, the station itself is crowded, cramped, fetid and dilapidated, its grand old waiting room long since torn down and replaced with a sports arena that looks like a giant carburetor filter.  Plans to build a new, modern station named for the late U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Democrat of New York and a friend of mass transit, have been just that - plans, never enacted upon.  Amtrak also has to deal with replacing decrepit bridges nearby, including a swing bridge in New Jersey over the Hacksenack River that was built when Roosevelt was President - Theodore Roosevelt - which constantly fails.

And there's the Metropolitan Transit Authority rapid transit system of subways and elevated trains.  I've ridden the MTA constantly whenever I've been in New York, and I've seen the system rebuilt and refurbished over the years.  The trains are cleaner, the stations are decent, the porcelain walls of the station have had art work added to them, such as a Roy Lichtenstein mural in the Times Square station, and the trains run frequently and at a good clip.  And it's all a mirage.  The system has been using equipment that was installed when Johnson was President (Lyndon, not Andrew - the system isn't that old!), its tracks are aging, and expansion of the system has been slow at best - good grief, it took forever just to open a portion of the new Second Avenue line!  The MTA, however, is in a state of crisis and needs a billion-dollar baby of a bailout.  Trains on the F and G lines have derailed in recent years, and an A train derailed in Harlem just last week.  If Billy Strayhorn were alive today, he'd write a song urging folks bound for Harlem to walk.  Simply put, a new 7 train terminal near the Javits Convention Center and some festive murals in the Times Square station have not made New York subways the equivalent of the Paris Metro. 

It's going to get worse before it gets even worse.  Even if Donald Trump's trillion-dollar infrastructure program somehow passes - and Mitch McConnell shows no interest in pursuing it - Trump hasn't mentioned anything about regional mass transit, not even in regard to his hometown of New York City.  His proposal to discontinue long-distance Amtrak routes to shore up the Northeast Corridor will likely, as I've already opined,  reduce what little support there is for Amtrak outside the Northeast.  High-speed trains?  Nah, the federal government is too busy planing another Interstate highway through Nevada and Arizona to care about anything like that!  

The United States remains an autocentric country at heart, and I don't see our attitudes toward public transit changing any time soon.  Trump won't talk about public transit, Hillary Clinton didn't talk about it, and the only 2016 presidential candidate who did talk about it got only 0.6 percent of the vote in the Iowa Democratic caucuses.  The regional public transit system in the greater New York area may be ready for badly needed improvements, but, ready or not, it ain't getting any.