Cameron on Roads 2020
Jim Cameron Jim Cameron 8-2-16

By 2025 a Quarter of All Drivers Will Be Older Than 65 (Hey, They’re Still Safer Than Teens): Cameron on Transportation

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When you think of the AARP (formerly the American Association of Retired Persons) you probably conjure up thoughts of senior discounts, health insurance and retirement, so it might surprise you to learn that they’re also actively engaged in driver safety and promoting access to mass transit. The statistics on these issues they shared with me are quite interesting. By 2025 a quarter of all drivers in the U.S. will be over age 65. And while they are involved in more accidents per capita than younger adults, they are far safer than teens. But over age 70, traffic fatalities increase with age; by age 85, drivers have probably outlived their ability to drive safely.

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

The Engineering Marvel Beneath Your Car: Cameron on Transportation

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The 47,000 miles of highways that comprise America’s interstate highway system are nothing short of an engineering marvel, perhaps surpassed only in mileage and design by what China has built in the last few years. We take them for granted, but when they were designed almost 60 years ago these superhighways presented both great opportunity and vast challenges. Mind you, the U.S. wasn’t the first with superhighways. Those bragging rights go to the Germans, whose Reichsautobahn saw cars zooming along at 100+ mph in the 1930s. Most credit President Dwight Eisenhower, whose troops rode the Autobahn in World War II, for seeing the military value of an American equivalent, though engineering such a complex across the U.S. was far more difficult.

Of course by 1940 the US already had the Pennsylvania Turnpike and by 1954 the New York State Thruway, but those private toll roads were just the beginning.

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

How Connecticut Officials Look at Fare Prices for Trains vs Buses: Cameron on Transportation

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Ridership on Metro-North is still down 85% from pre-pandemic levels, but in-state bus ridership is coming back — up to 70% of normal from a March low of 40%. Why the difference? Because bus riders and rail riders are very different. Surveys by CDOT and Metro-North showed the average income of a Metro-North rider was about $150,000, given that many were living in affluent Fairfield County towns and commuting to good paying jobs in New York City. Bus riders are predominantly working class, urban dwellers who make less money and, in many cases don’t own cars.