« The District | Main | What's the real problem with Holland Public Schools? »
Take the A Train
October 24, 2004
Every Friday as I walk to class I am pleasantly reminded that passenger rail is not dead in the United States. My walk to school takes me over the Norfolk Southern rail line and Amtrak station here in Ann Arbor. Each and every Friday, the long-term Amtrak parking lot has been riddled with cars, parking on the grass, parking across traffic lanes… the parking lot is always overflowing. Now, I know that an overflowing parking lot may not mean much when analyzing the state of passenger rail in the United States, but these cars are an indicator of how people continue to use Amtrak.
Elsewhere in Michigan, just take a look at the passenger numbers for the Pere Marquette, that goes from GR to Chicago. Its numbers have been increasing the past few years, and are indicitive of how Michiganders really respect rail transportation. Maybe, just maybe, someday I’ll be able to report on Michigan’s (and the Midwest’s) high speed rail network… oh, a boy can dream, can’t he?
Posted by paul at October 24, 2004 09:17 AM
Post a comment
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.meermacatawa.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/25
Comments
rob said on October 24, 2004 10:53 AMI am happy to report that just last weekend I took the train to Chicago instead of the usual drive. Even though the whole trip (Amtrak to "the L" to a Pace Bus) took around 6 hours I found it much more relaxing and plan on doing it again sometime. Heck, I even considered selling my car!
Paul said on October 24, 2004 11:25 AMHey, what do you think about mopeds? I might go moped for next summer.
Mopeds... For just bumming around Holland, I think they're great. I've never actually ridden one myself. However, I'm thinking motorcycle sometime in the next year or two... but we'll see where that wishful thinking goes.
Murph said on October 25, 2004 07:39 PMMotorcycles = far superior to silly mopeds. (Says the guy whose motorcycle lives in his parents garage, somewhat non-functionally. Sigh.) You'll definitely want a motorcycle over a moped if you plan to leave city limits with it.
I'd be interested to see where people are coming from who park in the Amtrak lot--unfortunately, AATA doesn't fit too well with the getting-back-from-Chicago-at-11:30pm Amtrak schedule, so there's not a whole lot you could do in terms of reducing people's car needs even less...But still interesting to see.