Soliciting New Transit Geeks

Live from the Third Rail is now looking for several additional writers to join our transit crack blogging team. What does this mean for you? Well, if you happen to have a passion for (or at least a strong interest in) mass transit and have decent writing skills, we would like to invite you to join the Smorgasblog family of bloggers and come onboard as a Third Rail writer. Blogging is, of course, unpaid, although you will be invited to future Smorgasblog drinking events (if you happen to be in the D.C. metropolitan area) and you'll gain everlasting notoriety among transit nerds everywhere.

We're open to transit bloggers from all over the world, although we've historically covered U.S. issues more heavily than world issues. And while we quite appreciate our libertarian friends, we tend to be less libertarian and more pragmatic, so please at least be of the opinion that a) public transit is good and b) its acceptable for taxes to go to paying for public transit.

You don't have to post everyday, but we'd like you to post at least once every other week. We're powered by Movable Type, which is very easy to use, so don't be afraid if you've never blogged before -- it's easy, and we'll show you how to do it.

If you're interested, please send an email with links to a couple of articles, online postings, rants, etc., plus a note about yourself and your transit interests to livefromthethirdrail@gmail.com.

New York Booths...Again

Does anyone else feel like New York Tranist employees spend a disproportionate amount of time bitching about potential changes? Now, female booth employees are worried that transit riders will attack them once they've left the safety of their booths, according to Newsday.

"You have the opportunity to physically abuse me now," Brooklyn station clerk Lorna Smith said. "You put me in a very compromising condition. We're not as strong as men to begin with."

Now come on. It's your JOB to deal with customers. WMATA clerks get in and out of their booths everyday.

And think of it this way. If MTA clerks are afraid to walk the subways alone, what does it mean for passengers?

Don't

...try to "beat the train".

How not to wait for a train

In this San Francisco Chronicle article on the Altamont Commuter Express, we learn two things. First, that ACE trains are often late. Second, that ACE riders don't value their legs.

Shouldn't there be Hell's Angels with pool cues and heavy chains keeping riders in line, like at that other Altamont?

Build it up, tear it down

It's nice to see that people in Baltimore are finally considering tearing down the Jones Falls Expressway, an awkward highway-to-nowhere that peters out at the western edge of downtown because it was never extended to meet Interstate 95. The highway splits neighborhoods in two, prevents redevelopment of places like Mount Vernon and Fells Point from going west and east respectively and generally sits like an eyesore.

The only problem with tearing down the highway is that people use it to get downtown. I can remember many a trip down the JFX in an overstuffed taxi to drink in Fells or... ummm... yeah, I only used it to get to Fells. With no highway, the only thing keeping motorists off the local streets is the woefully awful transit system, which makes DC look like London. Sometimes I wonder if Baltimore will ever get it right, or if screwing up consistently is part of the town's charm.

Streetcar Revival

The Charlotte Observer has an interesting article on the plan to use streetcar lines as drivers of urban revitalization.

Bloomberg Gets Mixed Rating

Newsday reports on Mayor Bloomberg's transit initiatives for New York City.

He gets a positive ranking for reducing traffic congestion and pedestrial fatalities and for increasing mass transit use citywide. He gets slammed for providing insufficient funding for the LIRR connection to Grand Central and the Second Avenue subway.

At least people have stopped bitching about the "automated" L trains.