Kerry visits New Bedford, vows action on rail

[globalvillage]

NEW BEDFORD — U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry, visiting the city yesterday, said he will fight for more transportation dollars to help extend commuter rail.
Sen. Kerry said he supports federal money for New Bedford-Fall River commuter rail and other rail projects, but the Bush administration has resisted increased transportation funding.
"Now that we are in control in Congress, I hope we can get it for you," the Democratic senator told an audience of nearly 100 seniors at the Whaler's Cove assisted-living facility.

http://www.southcoasttoday.com/daily/03-07/03-04-07/12local.htm

[rox63]

1. Nice to see him back in Mass

Taking care of local business. :)

[MarjorieG]

2. Seems to be enjoying his decision and focus.

He couldn't have given the presidential bid any more heart and good decisions, given the challenges. Other than he probably won, but we'll never know for sure, he must know too many others and the Party failed us at what should have been unity.

Rail has long been his answer for the US, really.

[MH1]

3. Excellent.

Personally, I'd like to see highway funding reduced, and the funds shifted to public transit. With some effort to identify ways to improve public transit in non-urban areas. That's a big challenge but something that needs to be addressed in order for public transit to improve its political viability.

[TayTay]

4. Thank you Senator Kerry! This can't be emphasized enough

The Boston Globe did a series of articles on how to deal with the regional problems the New England states face. Transit problems and all the related issues they touch, from the environment to jobs to housing to many more is at the top of the list. It is extremely gratifying to hear Sen. Kerry talk about this. (Indeed it is yet another absolute reason that the good Senator MUST be returned to the Senate in 2008. He 'gets it.') It is sad beyond reason that the Republicans in Congress and the Bush Administration do not see the value of or care about these problems. Thank God Massachusetts does have good people in the Congress willing to fight for this.

Read this from a series the Boston Globe did on regional New England problems that ran in late 2004: (This section was just on transportation, but the whole series is worth reading for the concise review of problems that affect this region of the country.)

Invest billions in transit. Lots of debate centers on stemming sprawl that devours the region's classic New England landscapes. But there's need for a vital, companion strategy: to "remagnetize" the region's array of cities, either grand today or potentially grand tomorrow -- Boston to Lowell, Somerville to Worcester, Lawrence to New Bedford to Providence. These are the communities where critical answers to the region's housing crisis will emerge. And they're where business increasingly needs to locate and relocate operations. More development along I-495 and beyond just feeds congestion, imperils water supplies, saps cities' strength. Let Nevada specialize in sprawl; let New England be itself, and rebuild on its grand urban tradition.

Commonwealth investment practices -- channeling money, skill, and ideas to the cities -- can do a lot to make this happen. Public transportation is critical -- improvements in a creaky and overextended MBTA on one hand, commuter rail improvements on the other. The Conservation Law Foundation is on the right track, we'd guess, in pressing the state to fund the MBTA extensions and rail service to T.F. Green Airport in Rhode Island it promised in 1990 as a condition for building the Big Dig.

But a bigger commitment is needed: to channel significant new capital into the MBTA, now operating beyond design capacity. The region needs to shake off its post-Big Dig exhaustion, the belief that one mega-project a century is sufficient. The proposed Urban Ring (emphasizing suburb-to-suburb travel) is a potential national model for adapting transit to the realities of modern commuting.

Would the Ring cost billions? Yes. Could the money be found? It's easy to say no, certainly to outright government appropriations. But how about tapping the minds and skills of the region's extraordinary set of super-economists, lawyers, and consulting firms?

For example: Several universities and major hospital complexes would be served by the ring's proposed line, touching Boston University's main campus, the Longwood Medical Area, Northeastern, BU's Medical Center, and -- depending on the precise route finally selected -- MIT, Harvard, and Tufts. Can these institutions contribute ideas or support? How about Harvard exercising leadership by offering a large bonding guarantee out of its endowment? What are creative financing possibilities that build on the value of MBTA-held lands near stations?

If the Boston region can't deploy its world-class set of legal and financial minds to solve these critical mobility problems, maybe throw in a measure of its fabled political acumen to get the strategic approvals, one fears for the region's future. Solutions aren't just optional: They're critical for the region's economy and viability.

It's worth noting that a successful Urban Ring would also be a godsend for such neighborhoods as Roxbury and Dorchester, and possibly later Chelsea and Everett, providing their low-income residents transit access to downtown, the hospitals, universities, and other job-rich locations.

This piece came from: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/12/20/how_to_change_the_future?pg=2

The whole series is available at: http://www.boston.com/news/specials/better_boston/

Thank you Senator.

[MarjorieG]

6. Having lived west, south and east, traveling everywhere,

I know the differences of driving long distance with never-ending population and barely any. The problems of connecting towns and sprawl, desert, flat and hilly, pose real challenges for the viability, funding, and unifying will to promote this. I think we still have to decide that problems go beyond the hyrid car, which for many is still an intellectual and real leap.

We have to go back to the dreams of the railroad, which is also inadequately funded, and connect with the light rails of the cities. I went to high school when Boston's Riverside line was being built. Now that we've mismanaged our automotive industry, and years behind invention there (see "They Killed the Electric Car for the short-sighted GM to kill its own electric car and patents), we need to stop being more concerned with subsidizing auto parts dealers.

My husband was a business editor at those regions' dailies late 70's and 80's, when they did a better job of informing, businesses actually talking, and at inter-relatedness, as everything was a business. People outside of DC were concerned in a very real way, but always succumbed to bad city planning, boom and bust, creating urban and rural blight without adequate delivery of customers and residents.

Someone, like our inside guy, can try to convince, thanks to a great movie with good visuals of disappearing glacial fields, and, hopefully, a successful book tour.

I enjoy the Tay Tay and MH1 inside knowledge of legislative solutions and history. Thanks. Keep it comin'.

Forgot to mention my '60s six month residence in New Bedford, under joint SMTI and RISD textile program. Like most towns of changing and struggling industry, with shared employees, they need this rail. I love New England coastal towns.

[Luftmensch067]

7. Wow, that's awesome!

Thanks for the links, Tay -- I'd really like to read more about that and the other thinking about what needs to be done in this region!!! As an urban dweller with no car, I can see a real personal need for better transit and more focus and investment in the great and formerly great urban areas, but the overall vision of this applies to everyone everywhere here, urban or not, carless or not!

[wisteria]

5. Thanks for posting GV, nice picture. n/t

[MBS]

8. JK has always been great on this issue

I'm glad to see he's keeping at it. When he received his award from the JFK Library in early 2005, an Amtrak conductor asked him his opinion on support for Amtrak. Not only was he clear in his support for Amtrak, but for rail transportation generally. He said we needed not only to support what's there, but to bring our rail network into the 21st century. He said, "There should be high-speed rail north to south, east to west". . One of the many things that people seem not to know about JK is how ahead of the curve he's always been on ALL aspects of environmental issues