Talking Transportation 2025
Catherine Rinaldi Metro North president departing

Departing Metro-North President Catherine Rinaldi Refects on a Sometimes Smooth, Sometimes Bumpy Ride

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“It’s been the job of a lifetime,” says Catherine Rinaldi, Metro-North’s first female president, who is set to retire at the end of the month. “It’s been just such an honor and a privilege to be able to lead this amazing organization… these heroes who performed the daily miracle [of running 700 trains] every day.”

Miracle? Hardly. But with such an aging infrastructure and so many moving parts, I’ve got to give Metro-North (and Ms. Rinaldi) credit for a job well done. Rinaldi came to the railroad in 2003 as a lawyer and helped run Metro-North (and the Long Island Rail Road for a while) through the dark days of COVID, when more than 100 MTA workers died, as the railroads kept service going — even as 90% of riders hunkered down in quarantine.

Talking Transportation 2025
Plow Trucks winter

What the Darien DPW Does to Keep Town Roads Safe

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So, how have you been enjoying this winter so far? We’ve already had eight inches of snow in Hartford, compounded by heavy winds, downed power lines and wind-chills in the single digits. February is the cruelest of months. But thanks to local and state road crews, our highways get cleared and we can, though bundled up, get on with our business. Before a storm hits local TV stations do the inevitable lame stories showing salt being loaded into trucks and road crews honing their plows.

Cameron on Transportation
Metro-North railroad train car New Haven Line

Lots of Connecticut Transportation News: Here’s the Good, the Bad and the Impractical

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There’s so much news to cover this week on the transportation front! The Good
Kudos to Gov. Ned Lamont’s budget team for promising to prioritize long-planned transportation construction in their proposed $55.2 billion, two-year budget. Despite President Trump’s promise to tie federal funding to states’ compliance with policies on masks, vaccines, tolls and immigration enforcement, the Connecticut Department of Transportation says their work will continue. Congrats also to CDOT for their planned $32 million rebuild of the Derby-Shelton train and bus station on the Waterbury branch. Ridership on that line is up significantly since more trains were added (a 47% increase) and there are several TOD (transit oriented development) projects underway in those two towns.

Amtrak 2025
Avelia Liberty Train Amtrack

Should Amtrak Be Replaced by AmeriStarRail LLC? And Could It Happen?

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As President upends the way things are done in D.C., I thought I’d revisit an idea I wrote about two years ago that he might just consider. Trump is big on privatizing government services (like the post office), so why not Amtrak, too? Why does the U.S. have only one serious passenger railroad? And given its monopoly and high fares, wouldn’t a choice of rail carriers bring better service and lower prices? Sure, Amtrak competes against the air shuttles (which are faster, but even more expensive), buses (much cheaper and slower) and, of course, cars (also slower).

Talking Transportation 2025

Some Good News For Commuters: Faster NYC Traffic; More Trains on Time, Happier Riders

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There’s just too much news. Trying to keep up with everything that’s happening is like drinking out of a firehose. But I’m not going to write about the horrific plane crash last week in Washington, D.C. Unlike President Trump, I’ll wait to hear from the experts on what happened and why. Nor am I going to write about the president’s threats to cut funding for already-approved transportation projects in Connecticut, tying that money to immigration enforcement, marriage and birth rates, vaccination and mask rules. My colleagues at CTMirror have already covered that well.

Talking Transportation 2025
Joe Biden Amtrak

Our Transportation President Left Connecticut with $9.6 Billion for Upcoming Rail Projects

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With the changing of power in Washington this Monday, let’s say thanks to Joe Biden, the president who has done the most for transportation in our country in the almost 70 years since Dwight Eisenhower built our interstate highways. While his predecessor (and successor) Donald Trump talked a lot about investing in transportation, Biden (and the Connecticut delegation to Congress) actually got it done. Biden’s major initiative was …

… The Infrastructure & Investment Jobs Act — $110 billion for roads and bridges, $105 billion for public transit, and $7.5 billion for electric vehicle (EV) charging stations. That means funding for more than 66,000 projects nationwide, encompassing road and bridge repairs, public transit enhancements, and airport modernizations.

Cameron on Transportation

Comments Worth Sharing in Reaction to Last Week’s Talking Transportation Column on Congestion Pricing

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Last week’s column about New York City’s congestion pricing experiment seems to have struck a nerve, generating a huge number of comments. Yes, friends, I do read all your emails and I try to reply, valuing your feedback — though not always agreeing with you. But I thought some of the comments posted below were worth sharing. David wrote: “ Some people maintain that tolls aren’t taxes, but really anytime government takes money out of citizens’ pockets, it’s a tax. Adding one more arrow to Hartford’s already full quiver of ways to shake money out of CT residents and those passing through is a bad idea.”

A train rider turned driver noted:

“For many years I rode the train five days per week.