GML's Advice for New Passenger Rail Advocates

[neroden]

One thing I should point out is that there's a lot of things that can be done to make existing transit much better without super major capital investments like the fantasy rail lines have. That can range from better use of existing equipment for more frequencies (such as is currently being looked at for the Surfliner) to mobile ticketing to proof of purchase ticketing (SEPTA, looking at you here) to level boarding or other means of decreasing dwell time (painted queue lines aligned to where doors should be is one cheap possibility). But for some reason this stuff gets a lot less push than the fantasy maps and whatnot.

I'll call it the "shiny" problem: A new train is shiny. A new high-speed train is very shiny (regardless of actual paint job). These things get attention easily, while incremental improvements like you mention (even if they might do more) simply don't get the easy attention.

At least some of these "simpler" things have the backing of the disability advocacy lobby... and delays in train boarding due to bad procedure obviously attract the attention of everyone who is delayed boarding... perhaps the key issue is that these things don't affect most Congressmen.
If we broke the legs of all our Congressmembers and put them on the no-fly list, I wonder how fast things would get changed? ;-)

 

[jis]

They'd pass a law making no fly lists illegal, and require the availability of more of those electric go carts at the airports. That's all that will happen unfortunately.

 

[Bob Dylan]

They'd pass a law making no fly lists illegal, and require the availability of more of those electric go carts at the airports. That's all that will happen unfortunately.

I think they'd call the Air Force and demand an Executive Jet to transport them and Liter Bearers to take them to the Jet from the VIP Lounge! Needless to say they'd skip the Blue Shirt Inquisition!