Cameron on Rails 2021
Connecticut Department of Transportation Commissioner Joe Guilietti

Speed Past Construction on I-95? A State Camera May Get You Ticketed: A Talk with the Transportation Commissioner

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Connecticut Department of Transportation Commissioner Joe Guilietti has a holiday gift for rail commuters — and maybe a lump of coal for the stockings for highway speeders. Once a year I get a sit-down with the commissioner. We’ve known each other for many years since his days as president of Metro-North. He knows I always ask him the tough questions but once told me “You’re always fair, Jim”, a comment that brought a tear to my eye. So when I asked him when train service was going to get faster, he didn’t blink — or over-promise.

Cameron on Transportation
Talking Transportation Jim Cameron MTA scented candles

Appropriate Holiday Season Gifts for the Commuter (or Ex-Commuter) in Your Life

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Looking for the perfect holiday gift for a friend who misses their daily commute amid the pandemic? Consider an item from the exclusive Cameron Commuter Collection:

SCENTED CANDLES: Nothing says the holidays like a fragrant candle to remind you of the old days of commuting. How ’bout the “M2 Lavatory” scent to revisit the pungent smell of the railroad’s old bathrooms? Or the “Bar Car Memories” fragrance that smells faintly of stale beer and cigars? For sports fans, there’s the “Yankee Express-ions”, which smells like sweaty baseball fans tailgating on their way to the game.

Cameron on Transportation
Metro-North passengers

The World is Changing Pretty Abruptly, and Transportation Issues Along With It

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Don’t look now, but we’re making history. The changing forces now at work in our society, including our transportation network, will have a profound effect on our lives for decades to come. THE BIG QUIT: According to federal statistics, 4 million people quit their jobs in July of this year, with almost 11 million jobs nationwide now unfilled. As a result, our ports are jammed, the supply chain broken and holiday purchases seem in peril. Don’t expect any bargains for Christmas.

Talking Transportation
Fall leaves train tracks slippery when wet

How Metro North Tries to Keep Trains from Sliding as Leaves Fall on the Tracks: Talking Transportation

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It sounds like a question on a kid’s quiz show: “How do you stop a train?” A) Hail it like a cab? B) Pull the emergency brake? C) Put wet leaves on the track? If you chose “C”, you were correct … and you must be a regular commuter on Metro-North. This is the time of year that tries train engineers’ souls and commuters’ patience.

Cameron on Transportation
GCT East Side Access Project photo

Underground NYC Project Will Give CT Commuters a Faster Ride to Part of Manhattan

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Last week was a good one for our transportation future, on several fronts. First, of course, was Congress finally passing the massive infrastructure bill. This once-in-a-generation, trillion-dollar package will bring a massive rebuilding of our crumbling bridges and highways as well as expansion of the nation’s power grid and internet infrastructure. It will also invest in the ways we must prepare for the impact of global warming. The bill will also mean thousands of construction jobs over the next decade, what the White House called a “blue collar blueprint” for decades-delayed repair and enhancement of the nation’s infrastructure.

Cameron on Transportation
Jim Cameron

The Ultimate Guide on How to Save Money Riding Metro-North

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Are you paying too much to ride Metro-North? Maybe. As we slowly return to semi-regular commuting by commuter rail in Connecticut, ridership on Metro-North is about half of pre-COVID levels, below the railroad’s hopes and its consultants’ predictions — but not mine. But however often you’re taking the train these days, here are some money saving tips:
Buy Your Ticket Before Boarding

First tip: Always buy your ticket before boarding the train. Conductors can charge you a hefty on-board surcharge up to $6.50 (but not for seniors) if you don’t have a ticket.

Cameron on Transportation
Brighline railroad train

Talking Transportation: Railroad Leaders Need to Keep in Mind That Trips on Trains Extend Beyond Stations

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Imagine this: using an app to book a car, a train ride and another car to your destination in one step. Such a service has just been announced by the innovative Brightline rail service in south Florida. It’s the “last mile” that’s always been a challenge for would-be rail riders. Assuming you can get to your “home” train station (maybe if you’ve waited 5+ years for a parking permit), when you get off the train in an unknown town, how do you get to your final destination? Visit the smallest town in Europe and on arrival at the train station there will be a map to help you orient yourself.

Cameron on Transportation
Jim Cameron

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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.