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Darienite (https://darienite.com/category/opinion/page/3)

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Opinion

  • Related Topics:
  • Cameron on Transportation
  • Jim Cameron's Transportation Column
  • Talking Transportation
  • Jim Cameron's Transportation Column 2020
  • Cameron on Transportation 2020
Cameron on Transportation
Jim Cameron

Talking Transportation: More Speeding, Lack of Enforcement, More Death on the Roads

By JIM CAMERON | October 18, 2021
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A friend of mine got hit by a car last week walking on Norton Avenue. He’s OK, but could have been killed. Speeding on our roads is linked to over 38,000 deaths each year in the U.S. That’s almost 730 deaths a week — 100 a day. If a hundred people die in a plane crash, we go nuts. (Never mind that COVID deaths average about 1,400 per day).

Cameron on Transportation
Adironack Amtrack Dome Car

Talking Transportation: Trip to Vermont? You Could Leave the ‘Driving’ to Amtrak

By JIM CAMERON | October 11, 2021
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Like many, I love Vermont. But I’m not crazy about getting there. From my home to Burlington is about 300 miles. By car, that’s at least five hours and about $50 in gas roundtrip. Flying may seem quicker, but with the airport drive it’s not much faster and will set you back about $250.

Cameron on Transportation
Jim Cameron

It’s Easy to Identify the Problems on Interstate 95 — Much Harder To Pay To Fix Them

By JIM CAMERON | October 4, 2021
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Have you noticed how terrible our traffic is lately? Not just in comparison to the empty roads and blue skies during the pandemic lockdown, but even compared to pre-COVID times. The rush hour on Interstate 95 starts earlier and runs later, pretty much all day long. The increased volume is due in large part to the return to the office but by car, not mass transit (where ridership is still only 50% of the good old days). If there were easy answers to this congestion, they’d have been implemented by now.

Talking Transportation
Jim Cameron

State Makes Rules More Strict for Drivers When Pedestrians Are at Crosswalks

By JIM CAMERON | September 27, 2021
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Some big changes are coming for pedestrians and motorists alike starting this week: a new set of Connecticut laws giving far more power (and, hopefully, safety) to those traveling on foot vs. vehicles. Long before we had cars (or even horses) and trains, folks took to the roads on foot to get where they were going. But with motorized transport came the inevitable conflicts. Why the new laws now?

Talking Transportation
Jim Cameron

Metro-North Just Won’t Enforce the Railroad’s Own Mask-Wearing Rule

By JIM CAMERON | September 20, 2021
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Why is Metro-North shooting itself in the foot? While adding more trains and encouraging (no, praying!) that commuters will come back to the rails, the railroad is still refusing to make those passengers feel safe by enforcing the federal and state mask rules. Sure, they’ve been passing out masks on trains, but what good are they if they’re not worn? I hate to keep harping on this issue, but we’re talking about a serious public health threat. Unmasked passengers, even if they’re vaccinated, can be asymptomatic and spread the COVID-19 virus to hundreds of fellow riders in a matter of minutes, let alone the hour-plus ride to NYC in a sealed tube.

Cameron on Transportation

You Can Still Ride the World’s First Cog Railway in New Hampshire: Cameron on Transportation

By JIM CAMERON | August 23, 2021
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New England is home to many railroad “firsts,” but none is more impressive than the Mount Washington Cog Railway, the world’s first cog rail line. And it’s still running, at a profit, 152 years late, using some of the original equipment. Unlike most railroads, “The Cog” doesn’t pull its coaches along a relatively flat line with flanged wheels on two parallel tracks. A cog railroad’s locomotive directly connects its gears to a center rack of iron teeth, pushing the train up the mountain very slowly, but surely. On a normal railroad the train can handle a 2% grade (or climb) at best.

Cameron on Transportation
Jim Cameron

Government Agencies Ignoring Our Safety — Two Glaring Examples: Cameron on Transportation

By JIM CAMERON | August 8, 2021
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What do Metro-North and the Merritt Parkway have in common, I mean, aside from often crawling at a snail’s pace? Well, both seem to be hotbeds of unenforced safety rules. Anybody who has driven the parkway knows that its 1930s design cannot accommodate trucks, but they are there all the time. Tom Lombardo, a fellow board member on the Merritt Parkway Conservancy, recently conducted an unscientific survey to quantify the problem. In a single hour one weekday morning he logged 212 trucks, buses and commercial vehicles traveling in both directions on the highway.

Cameron on Transportation
Jim Cameron

Amazon.com — Built on the Logistics of Getting Goods to You: Cameron on Transportation

By JIM CAMERON | July 26, 2021
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These days getting there doesn’t just mean moving yourself from point A to B, but the logistics of moving stuff from dozens of locations to your doorstep. And nobody does that better than Amazon. Want a new pair of jeans? Click once and they’re delivered the next day. Need a new printer?

Cameron on Transportation
Jim Cameron

Lots of Work Needed to Keep the New Haven Line Running: Cameron on Transportation

By JIM CAMERON | July 12, 2021
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In 1955 a New Haven Railroad commuter train could run non-stop for the 36-mile distance from Stamford to Grand Central in 48 minutes. Today that Stamford-to-NYC run takes 59 minutes at best, despite Governor Lamont’s long-promised dream of a 30-minute trip time. But now there’s a new effort to speed up the New Haven line: CDOT’s ambitious “Time for CT” $8-to-10-billion plan. It promises 10-minute faster running times from New Haven to New York City by next year and a 25-minute quicker run by 2035. While some dream of a new high speed rail system running from Washington to Boston at 200+ mph speeds, CDOT and Metro-North are taking, in my view, a much more realistic approach to fixing our existing system.

Cameron on Transportation
Jim Cameron

Travel Tips for Summer Road Trips: Cameron on Transportation

By JIM CAMERON | June 15, 2021
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The summer travel season is starting with a vengeance. After a year of quarantining, we’re all anxious to get back on the road again. But where to go? And what can you expect when you get there? A recent mid-week mini-vacation to the Berkshires taught our family some important lessons.

Cameron on Transportation 2021
Jim Cameron Jim Cameron 8-2-16

Metro-North Plays With COVID-19 Disinfecting But Won’t Enforce Mask Rules: Cameron on Transportation

By JIM CAMERON | May 16, 2021
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Is it safe to get back on the train to New York? Casey (not her real name) thought so when, a couple of weekends back, she wanted to see some millennial friends in Manhattan for brunch. But boarding the Saturday morning train she immediately started to worry and texted me. The train was jammed, she said. Very few empty seats.

Cameron on Transportation
Jim Cameron Jim Cameron 8-2-16

Connecticut Has Freight Railroads, and We Need to Invest in Them: Cameron on Transportation

By JIM CAMERON | May 2, 2021
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How would you like a plan to remove thousands of trucks from Connecticut
highways, clean up the air and create new jobs? Who wouldn’t? It’s a win-win-win plan that you’d expect Governor Lamont to
embrace, especially in this time of TCI (the Transportation Climate Initiative). The solution? Invest in our state’s freight railroads.

Cameron on Transportation
Jim Cameron Jim Cameron 8-2-16

Biden’s Infrastructure Proposals Have a Months-Long ‘Journey’ Ahead: Cameron on Transportation

By JIM CAMERON | April 17, 2021
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Hurrah! It’s finally “infrastructure week” in Washington. In his first 100 days as President, Joe Biden has delivered a plan that his predecessor just kept teasing us with for four years: a complete rehabilitation and expansion of the nation’s infrastructure. Of course, Biden’s “American Jobs Act” goes way beyond just rebuilding roads, bridges and rails. It also covers our water supply, electrical grid, internet, sea and airports, our housing stock and our very jobs.

Cameron on Transportation
Jim Cameron Jim Cameron 8-2-16

What CT’s Transportation Commissioner Says About the Future of the New Haven Line

By JIM CAMERON | April 4, 2021
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Joe Giulietti loves to talk, especially about trains. And when the commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Transportation calls me and says, “Jim — let’s have a chat,” I’m all ears. In a recent exclusive one-on-one, here’s what he said:

Will rail come back? The commissioner says yes, but maybe not until the fall. “Am I optimistic?

Cameron on Transportation
Jim Cameron Jim Cameron 8-2-16

Here’s What Metro-North Customers Say Would Keep Them Riding (in an Unscientific Survey): Cameron on Transportation

By JIM CAMERON | March 21, 2021
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How are we going to get riders back on the trains and save Metro-North from ballooning deficits, potential service cuts or fare hikes? That’s the question I crowd-sourced on social media last week and found dozens of great answers! Most respondents said they won’t be commuting as much as before because they will continue working from home. It’s not that they are shunning the rails out of fear, just that commuting won’t be necessary. “Most of us have figured out how to work without riding a train every day,” one rider opined.

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