Things that are simultaneously correct:
•There are more passenger rail services connecting more communities in the U.S. now than the last 75 years, and in some places, ever.
•Given our resources and by international comparison, we’re still way behind many other countries.
🛤️🚉🚆
The President of the United States is threatening to commit war crimes and wipe out a "whole civilization" — all because he started a disastrous war of his own making and had no plan and no strategy for how to end it.
This is abhorrent, and the American people do not support this.
I look around & see real problems, serious political & strategic challenges for US transit's future, that advocates fight like hell to get the right people to solve.
If you dislike being talked to like a child, I don't know who taught you acting like one about *even the good things* prevents that.
So what are you so mad about? Is it just NYC? Is Governor Hochul not firing Janno Lieber or the MTA not attending InnoTrans seriously your animus against our whole country's (yes, gradual) transit progress?
If so, how on earth does this attitude of yours about those things *do* anything about them?
It's strange to me because it's not like you aren't getting wins here, it's just taking time. ETCS is coming, we're getting alt-compliance equipment from CA to NJ (GCL) to TX to IL to MA to UT, we're seeing automated metro conversion plans (DC) & more modern equipment (ATL/PHL). Change is happening.
NJT's new power cars are derivative of cars they've been ordering, they chose differently from Caltrain, which had different equipment before going with a European-derived design, which seems like exactly what you'd want? Metra is also dipping a toe with their BEMUs, alongside more standard coaches.
Walk with me:
Buy America mandates -> most commuter rail systems have existing rolling stock & rely on grants to buy more -> agencies have little incentive to buy substantially different products under new rules from existing US plants -> they buy more of the same, save Caltrain/Metra/newer lines.
The complexity of the public sector (and interactions with the private sector) is *absolutely* relevant to how that public sector then handles major investment and operational decisions. How could it not be?
e.g. Elected officials care deeply about domestic manufacturing, that's why it's mandated.
Well you were attributing middle school lessons about government and transportation policymaking to "deflection" so the clarity seemed helpful.
Point is, Siemens is now leading coordination of that ETCS supply chain here (they even import the balises) and getting it through the FRA. That's good.
People talk about “public transit” like it’s some abstract policy debate, but it’s literally the difference between someone getting to work or losing their job. A bus that runs on time isn’t a luxury. It’s dignity, mobility, and a shot at stability.
#transit
We do take Civics class at age 12 here. There we learn about the levels of the public sector and varying responsibilities of each. That's democracy.
I can't really speak to the interest private freight railroads have in sending their people to international conferences, that's really up to them.
They did coordinate… to pick I-ETMS over ETCS. I don't think they made the *best* choice, just the one they felt met their business needs and still fulfilled Congress' mandate.
Clearly you feel Congress should have done something different, and you have that right, it just doesn't make you right.
So… it's *not* easier, then, since the railroads seemed perfectly happy (enough) to plenty easily go to one vendor (Wabtec) and eventually implement their solution on the bulk of the nation's rail network.
Not sure there's an easy way to fix how Congress feels about Europe, especially now.
If, for example, the Class 1 railroads believed you and agreed it would be easier for them to procure and implement ETCS as a solution over I-ETMS, why do you think they chose not to? They had that option, same as CAHSR and BLW do now.
Why didn't Congress, instead of writing RSIA as they did?
Especially when even as-is, Congress ended up extending the PTC deadline twice because even with I-ETMS or ACSES' shortfalls compared to ETCS, the railroads took *that long* to actually scrounge together the money & effort to ultimately implement it. And still sold off or didn't upgrade many lines.
That's not to say the safety benefits of PTC aren't worth it (especially post-Chatsworth or Frankford Junction or Point Defiance), but there's a benefit-cost to everything. Is the theoretical benefit of mandating ETCS in 2008 when Congress didn't say you could worth the cost? It's not cut and dry.
They tried that once with cab signal mandates and the response helped damn near kill passenger rail right as other parts of the government began pouring billions into highway and airfield development. Even the PTC mandate as-is has sharply raised the cost of implementing new passenger rail service.
The Federal Transit Administration released its annual report on new transit projects to fund.
The report recommends a total of just $1.2 b for existing & new projects, a massive reduction from previous years. The federal role in funding new transit projects is being decimated.
I don't think the FRA was the problem, the private railroads spent decades crying poverty at anything other than I-ETMS and then still sold off or downgraded some lines instead of installing even that. Congress will be Congress, hence the circumstances that unfolded.
Some of our transit board members here are elected to then vote on a head, I was being broad (and I did say appointed too).
But yeah, we do some things differently here and in a number of cases that's what voters or their reps signed up for, not always for the better but that's democracy for you.
Well yeah, they're politicals, them shutting down is unfortunate & should ideally change but won't keep them from being re-elected/appointed or deciding who the bureaucrats will be.
Unfortunately us here have to keep trying to hold their hands and nudge them in the right direction, that's the job.
Well yeah, the private railroads didn't want to pay for or host ETCS implementation (hence their choice of I-ETMS or downgrading/selling lines instead) and the split government that made the PTC mandate law wasn't going to set that as the standard. New-build lines are exactly where you would do it.
I guess I can't speak for whether Europeans are just totally cool with continuing to work closely with and take advice from people who have explicitly called for them to be fired.
I can say, good luck convincing this guy of that: www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTOt...
I think you miss my point. Once you call for the *removal* of management, you are likely not getting much further with specific technical advocacy, across disciplines.
Disagreeing (even strongly) with approaches is one thing, saying someone should lose their job for it is another.
So, the imports?
Once you call for people's heads you risk getting nothing else done because people don't like listening to you when you call for their heads. That's just being human.
So anything about the things we are importing, at all?
At a high level, anywhere in the US can't build HSR the way Europe or Asia do because:
1) Most of our rail infrastructure is owned by Class 1s
2) There's no consistent source of federal funding
3) Our political system is skewed towards Republicans who are ideologically opposed to transit
Are those the same people as the national pipelines actually in Europe, that Alon is suggesting flying people to InnoTrans for? DB Eco works on all those California projects already, that doesn't seem like their point.
I'm getting déjà vu but I'll ask more clearly: is SEPTA supposed to convince GOP Senator Joe Pittman to give PA tax dollars to teach its employees German & French, then fly them to Europe every year in the hopes that maybe it'll convince your preferred apparatchik to immigrate here to take it over?
Whoever works in good faith and with genuine enthusiasm on a major rail or transit project in the US, especially in California, is either a fool, a hero or a martyr, or all three at the same time.
Dealing with the US political class must be just an absolute nightmare.
