Author: David Ewing
Publisher: AASHTO
ISBN: 1560511850
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 164
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Book Description
This report addresses the public benefits and investment needs of intercity passenger rail transportation. AASHTO has published an investment needs report for highways and transit, and intends to publish a report on freight rail investment needs. Cost estimates for intercity passenger rail investment presented in this report were developed independently from those contained in the freight rail report. In combination, these reports provide a complete picture of the benefits of the various surface transportation modes to the U.S. and the value to be realized by both the traveling public and shippers through strategic investments.
Author: James McCommons
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
ISBN: 1603582592
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 306
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Book Description
During the tumultuous year of 2008--when gas prices reached $4 a gallon, Amtrak set ridership records, and a commuter train collided with a freight train in California--journalist James McCommons spent a year on America's trains, talking to the people who ride and work the rails throughout much of the Amtrak system. Organized around these rail journeys, Waiting on a Train is equal parts travel narrative, personal memoir, and investigative journalism. Readers meet the historians, railroad executives, transportation officials, politicians, government regulators, railroad lobbyists, and passenger-rail advocates who are rallying around a simple question: Why has the greatest railroad nation in the world turned its back on the very form of transportation that made modern life and mobility possible? Distrust of railroads in the nineteenth century, overregulation in the twentieth, and heavy government subsidies for airports and roads have left the country with a skeletal intercity passenger-rail system. Amtrak has endured for decades, and yet failed to prosper owing to a lack of political and financial support and an uneasy relationship with the big, remaining railroads. While riding the rails, McCommons explores how the country may move passenger rail forward in America--and what role government should play in creating and funding mass-transportation systems. Against the backdrop of the nation's stimulus program, he explores what it will take to build high-speed trains and transportation networks, and when the promise of rail will be realized in America.
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Railroad travel
Languages : en
Pages : 28
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Book Description
Author: Randal O'Toole
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781944424947
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
American transportation has undergone many technological revolutions: from sailing ships to steam ships; from passenger trains and urban rail transit to airplanes and automobiles. Normally, the government has allowed and even encouraged these revolutions, but for some reason the federal government is spending billions of dollars trying to preserve and build obsolete rail transit and passenger train lines, including high-speed trains that cost more but are less than half as fast as flying. O'Toole asks why passenger trains have been singled out -- and whether this policy makes sense. -- adapted from jacket
Author:
Publisher: AASHTO
ISBN: 1560514442
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 32
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Book Description
This report was prepared at the request of AASHTO's Standing Committee on Rail Transportation. It provides for AASHTO's members and others committed to developing a national intercity passenger rail system a summary of the recent favorable actions by Congress and the Obama Administration, a description of the work of the states over the past decade, the views of the essential partners to the states and other commentators, and some guidelines for advancing the effort.
Author: Anthony Perl
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 9780813170480
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 366
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Book Description
North America faces a transportation crisis. Gas-guzzling SUVs clog the highways and air travelers face delays, cancellations, and uncertainty in the wake of unprecedented terrorist attacks. New Departures closely examines the options for improving intercity passenger trains’ capacity to move North Americans where they want to go. While Amtrak and VIA Rail Canada face intense pressure to transform themselves into successful commercial enterprises, Anthony Perl demonstrates how public policy changes lie behind the triumphs of European and Japanese high-speed rail passenger innovations. Perl goes beyond merely describing these achievements, translating their implications into a North American institutional and political context and diagnosing the obstacles that have made renewing passenger trains so much more difficult in North America than elsewhere. New Departures links the lessons behind rail passenger revitalization abroad with the opportunity to recast the policies that constrain Amtrak and VIA Rail from providing efficient and effective intercity transportation.
Author: Geoffrey H. Doughty
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253060656
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 244
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Book Description
Discover the story of Amtrak, America's Railroad, 50 years in the making. In 1971, in an effort to rescue essential freight railroads, the US government founded Amtrak. In the post–World War II era, aviation and highway development had become the focus of government policy in America. As rail passenger services declined in number and in quality, they were simultaneously driving many railroads toward bankruptcy. Amtrak was intended to be the solution. In Amtrak, America's Railroad: Transportation's Orphan and Its Struggle for Survival, Geoffrey H. Doughty, Jeffrey T. Darbee, and Eugene E. Harmon explore the fascinating history of this popular institution and tell a tale of a company hindered by its flawed origin and uneven quality of leadership, subjected to political gamesmanship and favoritism, and mired in a perpetual philosophical debate about whether it is a business or a public service. Featuring interviews with former Amtrak presidents, the authors examine the current problems and issues facing Amtrak and their proposed solutions. Created in the absence of a comprehensive national transportation policy, Amtrak manages to survive despite inherent flaws due to the public's persistent loyalty. Amtrak, America's Railroad is essential reading for those who hope to see another fifty years of America's railroad passenger service, whether they be patrons, commuters, legislators, regulators, and anyone interested in railroads and transportation history.
Author: United States. Congress. House. Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. Subcommittee on Railroads
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 324
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Book Description
Author: JayEtta Z. Hecker
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
ISBN: 1428945113
Category : Railroads
Languages : en
Pages : 32
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Book Description
This testimony discusses the future of intercity passenger rail. Intercity passenger rail in the United States is at a critical juncture. It has become increasingly clear that the current approach to intercity passenger rail is not likely sustainable. Given Amtrak's worsening financial condition and opportunities for intercity passenger rail to play a larger role in our nation s transportation system, there is growing agreement that the mission, funding, and structure of the current approach to providing intercity passenger rail needs to be changed. There is less agreement on how they should be changed. Both longer-term fiscal pressures and the new commitments undertaken after September 11th sharpen the need to look at competing claims and new priorities. Stated differently, there is a need to consider what is the proper role of the federal government in intercity passenger rail.
Author: United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 168
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Book Description
