A Streetcar for Omaha?
Omaha might get a new streetcar line in a few years, at least if Mayor Jean Stothert has her way, but a local senator objects to the plan because he does not like the way downtown Omaha would be described.
Omaha might get a new streetcar line in a few years, at least if Mayor Jean Stothert has her way, but a local senator objects to the plan because he does not like the way downtown Omaha would be described.
Steven L. Abrams on Jan. 28 resigned as Executive Director of the South Florida Regional Transit Authority (SFRTA), whose railroad, Tri-Rail, is the regional carrier between Miami Airport and Mangonia Park, just north of West Palm Beach.
For a short time, it looked like the end of the line for James Frederick Miles and his supporters. Miles is the landowner from a rural county between Dallas and Houston who had fought fiercely against the proposed Texas Central high-speed rail (HSR) line between Dallas and a point near Houston. He had defeated the Texas Central Railroad & Infrastructure, Inc. (TCRI) and Integrated Texas Logistics, Inc. (ITL, known collectively as “Texas Central”) in a local court. When Texas Central appealed, the appellate court reversed the lower court’s verdict and ruled in favor of Texas Central. Then Miles petitioned the Texas Supreme Court for review, and the Court denied his petition on June 18, 2021.
Brightline West, the planned private-sector high-performance passenger railroad, is moving toward its goals of bringing passengers to Las Vegas and giving them a way to get there from Los Angeles. The railroad announced that plans are now set to bring its trains into Rancho Cucamonga, a community on Metrolink’s San Bernardino line, for a connection to Los Angeles Union Station.
A landowner in rural Texas is locked in a legal battle with the companies that are planning to build the Texas Central high-speed rail (HSR) project, which would establish a line between downtown Dallas and the intersection of two highways northwest of Houston. Texas Central plans to offer a 90-minute trip time point-to-point, using Japanese Shikansen equipment.
Amtrak has been impacted by the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, which has sickened, albeit not killed, millions of people, even the fully vaccinated, creating staff shortages. Seven months after Amtrak restored full service, the cuts are coming again. Most long-distance trains will be affected, along with some trains on a number of corridors in the East and Midwest, including the Northeast Corridor (NEC). The severity of service reductions will be uniform for most of the long-distance routes, but less so on the corridors in the Northeast and around Chicago.
When is a railroad not a railroad? Maybe “when it’s getting started in Texas.” The official answer to that question will come from the state’s Supreme Court within a few months. In a case with more twists and turns than a mountain railroad, the Court will decide whether Texas Central is a genuine railroad that can use a landowner’s private property by exercising eminent domain to build its right-of-way.
The year was 1964. Lyndon Johnson was campaigning for re-election as President, hoping his “Great Society” and “War on Poverty” programs would help the country, although the nation’s involvement in the Vietnam War was escalating and would later trigger his downfall. “Beatlemania” swept the country, as the “Fab Four” from Liverpool dominated the charts, with only the emerging Motown Sound from Detroit giving them any competition. The nation’s passenger train network was still gigantic compared to what we have on Amtrak today, but it was shrinking fast. Rail transit in the cities that still had it was shrinking, too. In New York, though, the second World’s Fair in 25 years was taking place in Flushing, Queens, and the “Brightliner” subway cars made their first appearance.
In November, Railway Age reported on the provisions of the new infrastructure statute, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), that relate to passenger rail—Amtrak and rail transit. the report came to you on Nov. 15, the day President Biden signed it into law. While that article constituted a report about what the statute says about rail, this one is a companion commentary that will examine what it does not include. In some ways, the bill’s omissions may have a greater impact on future policy concerning Amtrak and transit than the provisions that were actually enacted.
In what has become a contest between two groups who strongly back Democrats, the Biden Administration has come out for labor by refusing to certify grants that would help California’s transit providers and, eventually, the state’s riders. The decision by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) could eventually affect transit projects in other transit-rich states that are facing financial woes due to the pandemic.