transportation

South Station to Capitol Hill in Three Hours

Amtrak unveiled its vision for a Next-Gen High Speed Rail system along the northeast corridor, and it's pretty spiffy. The Super Express would travel non-stop between Boston and New York City in just 83 minutes - and, after stopping at Penn and Grand Central in New York, and again in Philadelphia, get passengers all the way to Union Station in Washington DC in just 3 hours and 23 minutes. That's about as long as the typical Sox game - and probably a little faster than flying, once travel to the airport and security screenings are factored in.

Globe highlights Portland OR's transportation policy

The Globe piece puffs up Portland transportation policy and quotes Aloisi.

See also Wikipedia.

Obama's high-speed rail plan

Obama unveiled a plan for high-speed rail projects, which may include money for improving the existing line serving Boston, the NYT reports.

The current Acela to New York is little faster than ordinary rail service.

When policy wonks get mad

Deval Patrick came out of a meeting with Therese Murray and Bob DeLeo and said he angrily wagged his gubernatorial finger at them for failing to squeeze enough reform and money out of state transportation agencies. Murray replied:

I'm a little confused. He just gave us a spreadsheet, and we said we'd go and look at it.

You do that, Ms. Murray. See if you can miss the angry red borders around all those cells.

Revenue before reform, or reform before revenue?

If the Daily Show covered Massachusetts transportation issues:

Via Red Mass. Group.

Car, T, walk... why not cycling?

Beantown, The Hub (of the Universe), The Cradle of Liberty, The Cradle of Modern America, Athens of America, The Walking City, we are all of these.

Imagine if we had a well developed cycling infrastructure as an alternative to cars and the T. If you could cycle safely from your home to your grocery store or from home to your place of work, would you?

Compare Boston with another world-class city:

Between 2005 and 2007, Amsterdam residents rode their bicycle 0.87 times a day on average, compared to 0.84 trips by car. It was the first time on record that average bike trips surpassed cars, the research group FietsBeraad reported last month.