Jim Cameron 2016

Metro-North Hasn’t Enforced Quiet Car Rules, But They’re Expanding Quiet Cars

For Winter Travel, Stay Safe and Avoid Headaches: Cameron on Transportation

More M8 Train Cars on the Horizon, But It’ll Take a While — Cameron on Transportation

How to Slow Down Traffic in Residential Neighborhoods: Cameron on Transportation

Cameron on Transportation: Pay Your Fare Even When the Conductor Doesn’t Ask — or You’re Shoplifting

Cameron on Transportation: Why Widening Interstate 95 Won’t Help

Cameron on Transportation: Trains Slip Sliding on Wet Leaf Goo is a Bigger Mess Than You May Think

Cameron on Transportation: TSA Screening: ‘You Can Have It Fast, Good or Cheap. Pick Two.’

Cameron on Transportation: Staying Safe on the Train

Cameron on Transportation: The Billion Dollar Bridge

Cameron on Transportation: Politicians and Promises

Cameron on Transportation: Ferry Boats Are Not the Answer

Don’t Blame the Trucks for I-95 Congestion: Cameron on Transportation

Talking Transportation: Bikes on the Train

Talking Transportation: Take a Daytrip and Ride Connecticut’s Rail History

Opinion

By JIM CAMERON | December 30, 2016

Opinion

By Jim Cameron | December 25, 2016

Opinion

By Jim Cameron | December 16, 2016

Opinion

By Jim Cameron | December 9, 2016

Opinion

By Jim Cameron | December 4, 2016

Opinion

By By JIM CAMERON | November 28, 2016

Opinion

By Jim Cameron | November 26, 2016

Opinion

By Jim Cameron | November 21, 2016

Opinion

By Jim Cameron | November 19, 2016

Opinion

By Jim Cameron | November 17, 2016

Opinion

By Jim Cameron | November 15, 2016

Opinion

By Jim Cameron | November 13, 2016

Opinion

By Jim Cameron | November 12, 2016

Opinion

By Jim Cameron | August 29, 2016

Arts & Entertainment

By Jim Cameron | August 15, 2016

What happens when a good idea goes bad? Consider Metro-North’s quiet car initiative. Sixteen years ago, a group of regular commuters on Amtrak’s early morning train to D.C. had an idea: Why not designate one car on the train as a “quiet car,” free from cellphone chatter and loud conversations? The railroad agreed, and the experiment proved a great success. Now all Amtrak trains in the Northeast Corridor have a quiet car.

With the arrival of winter, now is the time to be sure you’re ready to stay mobile, whatever Mother Nature may throw at us. Here are a few tips:
For Your Car
Get your car’s battery checked. If it is weak or the terminals are corroded, you won’t be able to start your car, especially in cold conditions. New batteries are worth the investment, if only for the peace of mind. Check your tires.

Riders on Metro-North just got an early holiday gift from the railroad and the state Department of Transportation — a bright, shiny new train set. It’s not a toy, but real! We’ve been promised 94 more M8 rail cars! And just in time (though they won’t start arriving until 2019). We’ve been enjoying the new M8 cars since their introduction in 2011 and they have proved highly reliable.

You’ve seen the signs in many neighborhoods, “Drive like your kids lived here” or “Slow down in town.” They’re probably as effective as bumper stickers that say “Drive now, Text later,” in other words, not very. In our own neighborhoods we want everyone to chill behind the wheel. But when we are driving in someone else’s area, it’s pedal to the metal, the kids be damned. When the major roads are jammed, quicker shortcuts through the back roads seem attractive, often at higher speeds than may be safe. First of all, why is it that kids are playing in the streets anyway when they have perfectly good lawns and nearby parks?

Imagine you’re in a store and you see somebody shoplifting. You’re embarrassed to say anything or to make a scene, but inside you’re ticked-off. You pay for your merchandise, so why should that guy get it for free? And if he’s ripping off the store, doesn’t the merchant actually make you pay more to make up for that loss? It’s morally wrong and it’s just not fair.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy wants to widen Interstate 95 to alleviate traffic congestion and commissioned a $1.2 million study to support the idea. But I found a similar study from 2004 — State Project No. 56-245, I-95 Commuter Shoulders — that looked at the idea and rejected it for a number of reasons. Trust me, it wasn’t easy to get hold of the earlier study. I knew it existed, but somehow it had disappeared from the state Department of Transportation website.

What is more beautiful than fall in New England? The autumn leaves make even the most mundane daily commute seem idyllic — unless you’re taking the train. Yes, it’s time for our annual battle against “slip slide,” that dangerous rail condition caused by wet leaves on our tracks. Mind you, this is no small problem. In past years as many as 50 or 60 trains a week were delayed by the issue when sloppy, wet leaves turned steel rails into the railroad equivalent of a skating rink.

Who do you think has the toughest job in the transportation business? Long-haul truckers? Highway crews? Metro-North engineers? While all of those folks certainly pay their dues, to me the toughest job in transportation is being a TSA agent.

“I’m afraid to get back on the train,” said the trembling woman, obviously shaken and possibly injured in the Hoboken terminal train crash of a NJ Transit train earlier this year. The shock of what she had seen was slowly sinking in and she was wondering how she was going to resume her life and its daily train commute after this horrific experience. Whether it’s a derailment, collision or act of terrorism, riding the train is proving potentially perilous. The Fairfield – Bridgeport collision and derailment in May of 2013 left 65 of the 250 passengers injured, Months later, the Spuyten Duyvil derailment was even worse, killing four and injuring 61. The recent Hoboken crash killed one and injured more than a hundred.

Could it really cost $1 billion to replace the 562-foot Walk railroad bridge in South Norwalk? Or is there a cheaper alternative that CDOT is hiding from us. We all know the woes of this 120-year-old swing bridge that sometimes refuses to close, stranding thousands of Metro-North and Amtrak riders. But the plan to replace it (using $161 million in Federal Sandy relief money) has ballooned from $600 million to $1 billion thanks to added rail yards and such. Many in Norwalk are opposed because of the cost, others because they will lose their land by eminent domain.

I don’t trust politicians. They tend to over-promise and sometimes just plain lie, telling you what you want to hear and then doing the opposite. I’m not talking about Clinton and Trump. I mean right here in Connecticut where our state representatives and state senators were all recently up for election. They’re all talking about “fixing transportation”, but I don’t trust them.

You’re crawling along I-95 or cruising on Metro-North and you look out your window to the south. There’s Long Island Sound, glistening in the sunlight. “Wow,” you think, “I sure wish I was commuting out there on the water.”

So why is it that we’ve never harnessed ferry boats for our commutation? There are many good reasons:

SLOWER SPEED: Fast ferries can make about 30 knots (35 mph) in open waters, half the speed of a train. But to reach downtown areas in major cities like New Haven, Bridgeport, Norwalk and Stamford, they have to sail up rivers and inlets with 5 knot speed limits.

When it comes to our horrendous traffic, especially on I-95, everybody wants to find blame with someone other than themselves. “Who are these people and why are they driving now, on “my” road?” they ask. The easiest scapegoats are trucks: those behemoths that lumber along in the right and center lanes (because they are not allowed to drive in the left-hand lane). But I suggest that it’s not trucks that are responsible for our traffic. It’s the rest of us in our single-occupancy vehicles (SOVs).

Days before the CDOT opens public hearings on proposed 5% fare increase on Metro-North, Governor Malloy held a media event to promote good news about “improved service” on our highest-fares-in-the-nation railroad. What? A return of the bar cars? More seats on crowded trains? No, nothing that monumental: just a new e-ticketing app and word that bike racks have been installed on our trains.

« August 2022 »

If you’re looking for family fun this summer, consider visiting one of Connecticut’s many living museums celebrating our rail heritage:

The Shore Line Trolley Museum in East Haven was founded in 1945 and now boasts more than one hundred trolley cars in its collection. It still runs excursion trolleys for a short run on tracks once used by The Connecticut Company for its “F Line” from New Haven to Branford. You can walk thru the car barns and watch volunteers painstakingly restoring the old cars. There’s also a small museum exhibit and gift shop. The Connecticut Trolley Museum in East Windsor began in 1940, making it the oldest trolley museum in the U.S. It too was started on an existing right-of-way, the Rockville branch of the Hartford & Springfield Street Railway Company.