Today’s Headlines

Why Cities Are Increasingly Skeptical of Streetcars (Minneapolis Post)
The Rising Prevalence of Single People in American Cities (WaPo)
The Eight Most Important Rail Projects That Amtrak Can’t Afford (CityLab)
City Observatory: To Reduce Income Gap, Reduce Housing Segregation
Colorado Wants to Borrow $3.5 Billion to Pay for Roads (Denver Business Journal)
Poll Finds Strong Opposition in Dallas to Trinity Toll Road (Morning News)
Cyclists Share Their “Near Miss” Stories with The Guardian

94110

The Amtrak projects article starts off with a 424 million request for D.C.s Union Station: “If you travel through Washington, D.C.’s Union Station often, you’ll no doubt have noted… lines of travelers ready to board routinely spill out of the gate and block the main concourse.”

There’s a solution to that–let people wait on the platform:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/07/10/_.html
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/11/27/union_station_dc_boarding_hack_the_best_i_can_do.html

Unless $424 million essentially drops out of the sky, this project should go to the bottom of the barrel. Please note more than $400 million just appearing practically out of nowhere has happened recently. Amtrak’s upgrade to the “New Jersey Raceway” where it is using $450 million in high speed rail money that a state (Ohio?) rejected to shave a minute and a half off their running time (my rough math).

http://www.gannettfleming.com/Projects/2015/02/27/08/19/amtrak-high-speed-rail-improvement-project

Amtrak probably put forth their best contender for that money rather the most important project and that’s okay.