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Rhode Island Commuter Rail Proposals

Cotuit

By Cotuit
in Rhode Island

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basachs Burg

basachs

Posted
Posted

Ribbon cutting may be today, but it has been in operation for at least a few weeks.

Weekday Schedule increased as of last Monday and weekend service started only this past saturday.

So still pretty close to actual ribbon cutting. I for one am very happy to have the increased service to Boston, especially on weekends. I have friends there and things I like to to do and being able to walk to a train on the weekend in my own city to go to a neighboring city is another reason to love living in PVD.

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mental757 Burg

mental757

Posted
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Took the family to Boston all day Sunday (depart PVD at 12:55pm, depart BOS at 8:45pm) and it was great!!! $24.00 for a 'family' roundtrip (4 of us equalted to $3 each person, each way) from PVD and $7.70 to park right in the PVD station garage. The new weekend service is great - I asked the conductor how the rideship was on the new service and he said it has been VERY good.

No change on the conditions of the facilty (including the escalators) but I also just emialed AMTRAK to 'complain.'

BTW - the Panko Chicken and the sweet potato fries at Boston Beer works is really good (oh yea, so was the beer!)...

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Mij Whistle-Stop

Mij

Posted
Posted

Nice friggin sign. Annual budget crisis aside - is this the best AMTRAK can do???

embarassing...

Yeah tell me about it. Everyday I see this sign and I want to kick it. I'm pretty sure it has been like this for some time.

The sign reads under repair. One day i seen a crew of people looking at the parts. not much has happened since. embarassing is deffinitly the key word word here....

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brick Burg

brick

Posted
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my 8 year old - no wait, my 6 year old (with some spelling assistance) could make a better sign that that. This makes me so mad - I can't believe I didn't see that sign on Sunday (arrived just minutes before departure).

WTF AMTRAK...

Why insult the sign? It's just a stupid little sign that the contractor or security guard probably scribbled quickly.

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brick Burg

brick

Posted
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because its completely hack. This is a public use facility which acts as a gateway to the city and the State - it should at least look presentable. It's bad enough the place is in such disrepair...

Look, I understand the frustration. But whenever you see things like this where repairs are being made, etc., this is what you see. It's not like when you go to Paris and the escalator is broken they have Hector Guimard make the signs.

That the repair is taking so long is certainly frustrating, but I can't see the sign as a problem in and of itself.

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RLucas83 Whistle-Stop

RLucas83

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I had take Amtrak up from Stamford a couple weeks ago and we arent talking about major capital improvements to brign the place up to par. A good pressure washing would go a LONG way on the grimey staircases up from the platforms. Maybe a little better lighting or some new paint down on the platform level would also help brighten it up a little.

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DaveRPI Whistle-Stop

DaveRPI

Posted
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http://www.azcentral.com/community/phoenix...emover0816.html

check out this article about rail & airport links for phoenix, az, the nation's 8th largest airport hub

it brings up some very interesting points about rail construction and airport access...

tf green should be positioned very nicely in the coming years as there are only a dozen or so cities with rail access to their airports; great selling points for passengers looking for good prices & quick n easy access

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RLucas83 Whistle-Stop

RLucas83

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amtrak has never been profitable

where would the money come from to pay for such things

i wonder what their budget looks like

The biggest thing many forget when comparing Amtrak and airlines is the way capital improvements are paid for.

Airlines dont build airports or runways, and in most cases, they dont build the terminals, they pay landing fees and lease space

Amtrak has to build and maintain tracks, as do other railroads.

Amtrak building tracks is like Delta building a runway...

The FAA airport improvement $$ and ATC costs come from ticket taxes and taxes on aviation fuel.

They cant expect Amtrak to be profitable until they change the set up from which infrastructure/ improvements are funded, and probably have to put "taxes" on tickets like airlines have.

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runawayjim Metropolis

runawayjim

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The biggest thing many forget when comparing Amtrak and airlines is the way capital improvements are paid for.

Airlines dont build airports or runways, and in most cases, they dont build the terminals, they pay landing fees and lease space

Amtrak has to build and maintain tracks, as do other railroads.

Amtrak building tracks is like Delta building a runway...

The FAA airport improvement $$ and ATC costs come from ticket taxes and taxes on aviation fuel.

They cant expect Amtrak to be profitable until they change the set up from which infrastructure/ improvements are funded, and probably have to put "taxes" on tickets like airlines have.

airlines also don't pay for the air. :D

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RLucas83 Whistle-Stop

RLucas83

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airlines also don't pay for the air. :D

Well technically thats the nations Air Traffic Control (ATC) system, but thats funded through aviation taxes.

The other problem is since each rail company owns and operated tracks, it results in less competition and inneficent use of the existing infrastructure.

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runawayjim Metropolis

runawayjim

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So are you suggesting that local or federal government/s supply the infrastructure and allow any private rail companies to run on the tracks for a fee so as to emulate the airline industry a bit?

hmmmm... might not be a bad idea, but it shouldn't cost more for me to take amtrak than for me to fly, which is the case when i go to philly from providence. it's like 6 hours on the train or 1 hour to fly (add in getting to the airport an hour early and getting out of it and it's about 3 hours total flying, unless the flight is delayed). the train should not cost that much.

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