Recent Streetsblog NYC posts about Rail

Obama Builds Rail Cred With Biden Pick

By Brad Aaron | Aug 26, 2008 | 10 Comments

Barack Obama’s standing as an advocate for investment in US commuter rail looks to have gotten a boost with his selection of Joe Biden as his running mate. Whereas John McCain is the Senate’s sworn enemy of Amtrak, his colleague from Delaware is known as a "Champion of the Rails." Notes Daily Kos diarist MissLaura […]

McCain Impressed by US Trains, So Long as They Don’t Stay in US

By Brad Aaron | Aug 13, 2008 | 14 Comments

Our friend Sean Roche sent us a link to this brain-bending video of John McCain stumping in Pennsylvania. Just before the 1:00 mark, after McCain gives an ambiguous plug for electric cars, he unloads this doozy: "I was with Governor [Tom] Ridge yesterday, and we visited a General Electric plant in Erie that makes — […]

Obama’s Energy Platform Has a (Small) Livable Cities Plank

By Ben Fried | Aug 7, 2008 | 10 Comments

When Barack Obama gave his big energy speech on Monday, his campaign released an eight-page fact sheet [PDF] to go with it. All the way at the end, at the very bottom of the last page — after the parts about plug-in electric vehicles, oil shale, and clean coal technology — there’s this paragraph: Build […]

Neal Peirce: Cities and Suburbs Must Collaborate to Expand Transit

By Ben Fried | Aug 5, 2008 | 3 Comments

As the push for emergency transit funding moves to the Senate, syndicated columnist Neal Peirce pulls back the lens and sees a bright outlook for local rail systems. The key, he says, is whether cities and their suburbs can set up new revenue streams together: Political reality says few if any state legislatures will enact […]

French Trains Turn $1.75B Profit, Leave American Rail in the Dust

By Ben Fried | Jul 15, 2008 | 53 Comments

The Guardian reports that SNCF, France’s national rail company, is taking advantage of a boom in ridership to make aggressive plans for expansion. While SNCF positions itself to help ease the impact of high fuel prices on the French public, what are American leaders preparing to do? Drilling offshore and taking a few hits from […]

Georgia Governor Comes Around on Commuter Rail

By Brad Aaron | Jun 20, 2008 | 17 Comments

Display of Georgia progress at the Welcome Center on I-85, near the South Carolina border Big news out of Georgia. Governor Sonny Perdue, who in the past would have been about as likely to advocate for transit as to take his iced tea without sugar, is suddenly interested in commuter rail links between Atlanta and […]

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