As we hear more about the troubles Metro has had with its track circuits I can’t help but picture some slimy lawyer rubbing his hands together as he sees the dollar amount of his intended lawsuit go higher and higher. Metro officials seem to be doing a bit of a tap dance around the issue of their knowledge of the problems which go back several years. Again, was this work not done in order to save money or was it simply an omission on the part of some repair person? I don’t know about you but I just can’t feel as safe as I used to when boarding a Metro train. Something has to be done to correct these issues and to make passengers feel confident. It should be noted that all of these issues have apparently done little to reduce the number of passengers the system is carrying each day.
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Interesting piece earlier this month in BusinessWeek magazine. At issue was the amount of money that was being spent to promote work projects being done with federal stimulus money. Alongside many of the highway projects that you might pass these days are signs that say “Putting America to Work” and “Project Funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act." While it’s good to know that all of that money is actually being spent on something worthwhile it turns out that the signs themselves have cost taxpayers a few dollars. In fact, the $500 to $1,200 cost of these self-promotion signs are rubbing a lot of people the wrong way. The thing that some seem to miss is that the companies making the signs are also putting people to work. I’d like to see as much infrastructure improvement as possible during this whole government stimulus program.
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If you think that some of our local Metro bus and rail operators have been making bad decisions, imagine how they must be feeling in New York. According to the Buffalo News an engineer for the Long Island Rail Road let a passenger drive a double-decker train that was carrying 400 passengers. According to reports the engineer didn’t even know the passenger’s name (uh huh). A witness told police that the passenger was operating the train and that the engineer wasn’t even in the cab. The engineer has been suspended. Of course if the train operator had been texting then he might have faced a stiffer penalty. It should be noted that the train ran smoothly and no one was injured.
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Telecommuting is one of the most energy neutral ways of working. No cars, no buses, no trains are required for a person to connect to the office from their home. Several legislators are trying to make sure that telecommuting is considered in the latest version of the transportation funding bill. The good thing is that stimulus funding has included $7 Billion to improve and expand broadband access. This is key because it will take broadband to transfer files and images and data between home and workplace. I have been a fan of telecommuting for a long time and am very happy to see it getting so much attention on Capitol Hill. Some lawmakers are even attempting to get telecommuting recognized as a full-fledged transportation mode. That will allow it to get additional funding consideration in years to come. Virginia residents and employers, a great day to try this would be on Virginia's Telework Day, August 3.
Steve Eldridge is a long-time reporter, observer and commentator
on the Washington region's transportation issues. You can contact him
directly by writing to: Steve@SprawlandCrawl.com.
Unless otherwise requested, letters or portions of letters can be used
within future columns. Letter writers will be identified by their first
name and city/neighborhood.
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