I read two pieces of good news yesterday and today that brighten my spirits. First was a story in the Wall St. Journal that said Amtrak will be given double the funding from previous years, and that Congress has just voted in a lopsided YEA to support spending much more on trains.
They’ve heard so much from their constituents about adding cars to crowded commuter trains and so many more people are taking the train now that flying is becoming more expensive, they finally have to do something. Granted, Amtrak is saddled with stupid union rules that make their employees the ones in charge, and the Bush adminstration has been fighting to change work rules to loosen up the hierarchy. But in spite of this, Amtrak is all we’ve got. So doubling th funding for this seems like a good idea to me.
The second piece of good news is that the Franklin county Bikeway is officially open. This connects with other bike routes running from the south and from the north and winds its way from the Greenfield Swimming area across Turners Falls, and onto an old railroad bridge into Deerfield. It’s too bad the path ends there and for most of the rest of the way down to South Deerfield, it will be a shared path with cars. I guess taking that much more land is just too much money, it cost $2.8 million to build this 4 mile stretch.
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I hadn’t seen the WSJ story. What is the reason given for increased funding? A reaction to rising gas prices, not to mention pollution, and an understanding that taxpayers would rather take public transit than drive cars? I would hope so, anyway.
According to the Montague Reporter’s coverage of the bike path ribbon-cutting, it sounds like they’re still planning to join it up with the Greenway Trail in Greenfield and create spurs to Old Deerfield, Sunderland, Mt. Hermon, and Northfield Mountain. I have no idea how those plans are coming along, though.