Virgin Vacations has an article about the "top 11" transit systems in the world (London's tube is #1 - padded seats, Oyster card, train arrival information). It doesn't says "visit here!" - it seems like more of an interest story for their site. But I'm sure they'd be happy to book you a trip anywhere you'd like.
In another of our series of news items about regional train lines with increased ridership, Amtrak's lines in Michigan (all of them feeder lines into Chicago) have seen growth since 2005. The three routes have seen a roughly 7% growth in ridership. The article also mentions that Amtrak ridership as a whole rose nearly 4% between October and January to 8.2 million riders.
On my long flight back from a business trip to Macedonia, I transferred through Zürich International Airport (ZRH) in Kloten. There, as I took the driverless train from one international terminal to another aboard, I fell in love.
Yes, I lost my heart on an underground people mover.
Blowing me a kiss from the other side of moving glass and steel was Heidi, my Swiss love. Calling to me, to my soul, to my tourist dollar, was a beauty you must see to believe:
Now isn't that a metro rail tunnel advertisement you wish you had on the Tube, Subway, or WMATA? And now you know why I am a transit foamer.
New Jersey's gambling center will soon be more easily accessible by rail - just not if you live in New Jersey.
The 2 1/2 -hour Express train service from New York to Atlantic City, scheduled to begin late this year or in early 2008, has no planned stops in the Garden State until it arrives at its final destination.
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Details are being finalized for the new service, dubbed "ACES" for Atlantic City Express Service. But in the current scenario, the trains would run nonstop on the Northeast Corridor tracks from New York to just north of Philadelphia, then head east and continue nonstop to Atlantic City.
The best part is that casinos are paying for the service.
The last issue of Sustainable Transport has a few articles on cities in China, India, and Indonesia (Jakarta) that are going to or already have implemented Bus Rapid Transit. In Jakarta the system is called the 'Bus Way,' phonetically similar to 'Bus Wai' - which means 'bus only' in Indonesian.
Golden Gate Transit and AC Transit riders can start using TransLink smart cards now. This is the all-Bay Area smart card that has been in development for many years now. Unfortunately, there are many other agencies in the Bay Area that still haven't been TransLink-ized, so I guess it's still really in development...
As we reported last September, the new Washington Metrorail route to Dulles Airport will not be built underground through Tyson's Corner. Virginia's Governor Tim Kaine (D) had been pressured by a couple of Virginia congressmen, who warned him that the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) would never provide government money for an underground link, even if the extra cost for such a project was paid for by local, state, or private sources. So the Governor announced that the project would be moved forward using an elevated train over Tyson's.
But suddenly, FTA seems to have changed its opinion. Arguing that Virginia has 15 more months to finalize project plans before it had to submit its final application for federal funding, the government agency suggested that it would be possible to choose either a below-ground or above-ground alignment. Quoting the Washington Post: "The federal officials' statements raised the possibility that Kaine could still switch plans, if he acted quickly."
The Dulles Project, which will run heavy-rail trains from the current Orange Line East Falls Church station to Wiehle Avenue in the first phase (completion 2012) and then out to Dulles Airport and Loudon County in the second phase (completion 2015), will extend the Washington Metro into Virginia's suburbs. Though the majority of the project has always been planned to be built above ground on elevated tracks, the section through Tyson's Corner, the nation's premier Edge City, was at first planned to be underground. But when the government-picked contractor (Bechtel, of course) reviewed the project, it concluded that an underground route would be too expensive. And then the FTA, as already pointed out, intervened through Virginia's congressional delegation, getting Governor Kaine to decide in favor of the elevated route.
Soft porn films are being shown on giant video screens at a bus station in Bulgaria. The plasma TVs at the terminus in the capital Sofia show bus times during the day but switch to porn at night. A station spokesman said: 'We wanted to give the passengers something to take their minds off the cold and to pass the time while waiting for a bus.'
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I mean, come on, it can't be any worse than Skin-e-max. However, I want to know where the bus station in Bulgaria is getting sufficient money to buy Plasma screen TVs. And can you imagine who gets the job of picking out the softcore porn to show to bus passengers?
The House Appropriations Committee voted to just continue Amtrak's 2006 level of funding instead of increasing funding to the level requested by the Amtrak board, supported in a resolution by Senate members Trent Lott and Frank Lautenberg just a couple weeks ago. So much for monetary and political progress. At least they aren't going backwards.
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Virgin Vacations has an 