Talking Transportation 2022
Old Saybrook Railroad Station Old Saybrook Train Station

What If You Could Take a Train to Mystic and Make a Quick Connection to the Casinos?

By |
Download PDF

Imagine taking a train — a one-seat ride — all the way from Grand Central Terminal to the sandy shores of Mystic. Or connecting there for a quick run up to the Indian casinos. Such a thing should be possible and may yet happen — if Shore Line East gets its act together. Shore Line East is the state-owned commuter line from New Haven to Old Saybrook opened in 1990 in anticipation of heavy traffic delays on I-95 during reconstruction of the Q Bridge. Initially it was only rush-hour service, west to New Haven in the morning and back east in the evening.

Talking Transportation 2022

More Deaths and More Aggressive Driving on Our Highways: Something Must Be Done

By |
Download PDF

What the heck is going on with our highways — and why is nobody talking about it? Did you know that 20,000 Americans died on our roadways in the first half of this year, and that that number has been increasing since the pandemic? Have you noticed how aggressive drivers have become in the past year? Or how much speeding is going on, unchallenged? Why is traffic getting so bad, all day long, on our interstates and parkways?

Cameron on Buses 2022
AAA Mature Driving Course AAA Northeast

Talking Transportation: The Effort to Keep Seniors Mobile When They Stop Driving

By |
Download PDF

When you think of the AARP, 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 seniors are involved in more accidents per capita than younger adults, they are far safer than teens.

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

A Homeowner Describes the Noise Living Close to the Train Tracks

By |
Download PDF

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a column about NIMBYs, the “Not In My Backyard” crowd that moves to a home near the train, airport or highway and then complains about the noise. I received a very thoughtful reply from one reader which I’d like to share, in edited form, to give us all a different perspective on this issue of housing vs. transportation:

“I write this as someone who lives 500 feet from the Waterbury (train) branch, who gets regularly blasted by the train whistle. The situation is not as simple as someone moved next to the train and then complained about it. Sometimes people make decisions to live somewhere based on what they can afford.

Cameron on Transportation
1908 Easter postcard 3-23-16

If Wishes Were Horses … Maybe We’d Have Better Transportation

By |
Download PDF

Simple problems require simple solutions. And when it comes to solving our transportation woes, we consumers always wonder whey “they” can’t fix things quickly by doing what seems obvious and simple. Consider the following questions I’m often asked:
OUR TRAINS:
Why can’t they make the bathrooms on the trains stink less? Why can’t we have heat in the winter and AC in the summer, instead of vice versa? Why can’t conductors enforce the MTA’s mask rules instead of hiding from passengers?

Cameron on Transportation
Clear Cutting along highway Jim Cameron column

Talking Transportation: Neighbors Shout About the Noise While Benefiting From the Proximity

By |
Download PDF

“Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” — that’s what the Declaration of Independence sought for us. But how can we be “happy” with so much noise in our lives? Boom boxes, leaf blowers, trucks’ jake-braking on the highway — you know the annoyances. But what can be done and who is responsible? Sometimes, dear reader, it’s our own fault. Consider the following:

· People living near New Haven’s Tweed airport complain about expansion of Avelo airline’s flights and their jet noise.

Talking Transportation 2022
Anise Hyssop White Coneflower

Beautified Train Stations Make for a Better Train Trip — and Could Help Housing Sales a Bit

By |
Download PDF

Every train journey, whether a cross-country adventure on Amtrak or a mundane daily commute on Metro-North, starts with the same thing: a train station. Consider Grand Central (Terminal, not Station). The architecture is so rich, the spaces so varied, that any time spent in this cathedral to transportation is time well spent. You can have a sit-down meal or grab a beer and a sandwich, pick up a newspaper, or a new iPhone — it’s all there. GCT is clean (mostly), well patrolled and filled with people, each giving the others a shared sense of safety and community.

Talking Transportation 2022

CT Has Plenty of Railroad Museums, and This Summer They’re Free for Kids

By |
Download PDF

If you’re looking for family fun this summer, consider visiting one of this state’s many living museums celebrating our state’s rail heritage. And remember — kids get in free at Connecticut museums this summer! The Shore Line Trolley Museum
This museum in East Haven was founded in 1945 and now boasts more than 100 trolley cars in its collection. It’s on the National Registry and is the oldest continuously operating suburban trolley line in the U.S.

The museum is still running excursion trolleys for a three-mile run on tracks once used by The Connecticut Company for its “F Line” from New Haven to Branford. You can also walk through the car barns and watch volunteers painstakingly restoring the old cars.

Talking Transportation 2022

The MTA Rings the Alarm: It’s Running Toward a Fiscal Cliff

By |
Download PDF

The MTA, parent of Metro-North, did something rare last week: They told us the unvarnished truth. Not that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has outright lied to us before. Well, at least not very often. But they are the masters of obfuscation and garbled communication. Consider these gems:

“Wear A Mask,” now part of their daily mantra.

Cameron on Roads 2022
Truck on the Merritt Parkway

The Merritt and Those Trucks: The Problem, the Ineffectual Efforts to Solve It, and What Else Might Be Done

By |
Download PDF

A faithful reader of this column sent me some disturbing pictures last week. Joe C was driving on the Merritt Parkway in Norwalk when he saw a FedEx tractor-trailer moving southbound. His passenger snapped these pictures:

This is so wrong — a serious accident waiting to happen. Trucks are, with few exceptions, not allowed on the Parkway — and with good reason. All of the bridges on the Merritt Parkway, originally built to a minimum standard of eleven feet at the abutments, are too low for big trucks.

Talking Transportation 2022
Acela tunnel Amtrak

Decrepit, at Risk: No Way for Weakest Yet Most Crucial Northeast Transportation Link to Go Through Life

By |
Download PDF

It should have been done by now. 2018 was the expected completion date of the new railroad tunnels under the Hudson River, first proposed in 2009. At that time the $9 billion project was the biggest infrastructure project in the country. Now it may finally happen. Why do rail tunnels from New York’s Penn Station to New Jersey matter to us here in Connecticut?

Talking Transportation 2022
Metro-North New Haven Line MTA Metropolitan Transit Authority An M8 car on the tracks

Talking Transportation: Progress Around the Edges of Metro-North, Not Much at the Heart of It

By |
Download PDF

Yes, there are new trains on the Waterbury branch — and three new express trains from New Haven, but overall our rail service in Connecticut is still too slow. Why? Governor Lamont and CDOT Commissioner Guilietti ballyhooed their new train PR last week as if they’d solved the commuting problem. They have not. Still, kudos to Commuter Council Chair and Waterbury branch rider Jim Gildea for his tireless efforts to build up service on that branch line.

Cameron on Transportation
Amtrak train crash

It Can Happen on Trains: ‘We Were Crashing. The Sound of My Own Scream is the Last Thing I Remember’

By |
Download PDF

When we get on an airplane we buckle up, read the safety card and are given a demonstration on the oxygen masks and emergency exits. Those things can save lives should something go wrong. But when we get on a train, either Metro-North or Amtrak, we settle into our seat and zone out. We assume we’re safe. That’s what passengers on an Amtrak train in Missouri thought this past week… until their train’s locomotive hit a dump truck on an unguarded private grade crossing and derailed.

Cameron on Transportation
Letter to the Editor Train

Talking Transportation: Taking Reader’s Comments From the ‘Mailbag’

By |
Download PDF

I love getting feedback from you, my faithful readers. So I thought I’d share some recent comments. Last week I wrote about the railroads’ history of naming their best trains and stations. One reader, CL, reminded me that Metro-North names its express train to Yankee stadium “The Yankee Clipper”, a nice homage to baseball great Joe DiMaggio. Another reader, BW, wrote “In Ireland, all the inter-city trains have names; they are named after Ireland’s rivers.” That’s classy.