Joe Biden will nominate Pete Buttigieg to be his transportation secretary, sources familiar with the matter tell CNN, elevating the former mayor and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate to a top post in the federal government.
Our story: https://t.co/SmGVI8Esku
— Dan Merica (@merica) December 15, 2020
If I wasn’t so convinced that Joe Biden pays zero attention to Political Twitter, I’d have to wonder if this was a deliberate tweak. Because, boy howdy are some people big mad!!!
also proof that Joe Biden's "Amtrak Joe" image is totally fake. If he were Amtrak Joe he would have put a rail worker in charge of the Department of Transportation. His sympathies are clearly far more with McKinsey than Amtrak.
— Nathan J Robinson (@NathanJRobinson) December 15, 2020
Seriously, though — I personally underestimated Buttigieg during the primaries, but he worked hard to get Biden elected and he’s shown real flair for communicating political concepts. Murphy the Trickster God knows we need to rebuild our infrastructure, desperately, so getting a high-profile name in there seems like a good start.
The neoliberal in me is going to savor the Twitter outrage. https://t.co/XO6QueBolQ
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) December 15, 2020
Also, like McDonough at VA, I think he'll have the clout and political skills to keep the department from being a budgetary/policy afterthought.
— Zeddy (@Zeddary) December 15, 2020
Mayor Pete wanted a foreign policy job. He should turn DOT into one — take those foreign language skills, figure out how they build highways and subways so much cheaper in Italy and Spain, and bring best practices to the US so we can build back better. https://t.co/UJwHJkxl8E
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) December 15, 2020
All the other stuff Twitter will argue about aside: He'd be the first Senate-confirmed LGBT cabinet secretary. (Ric Grenell was briefly acting DNI, which is cabinet-level, but he was only confirmed by Senate to be an ambassador.) https://t.co/hgmEYwFTMO
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) December 15, 2020
Turns out Joe Biden has been a pretty good politician, all along, the sneaky bastid!
Reminded of this by the Buttigieg stuff today, but the extent to which Biden just sort of skated by unnoticed in some circles despite leading in the polls for all of 2019 while candidates like Buttigieg and Warren and Klobuchar sparked so much vitriol was pretty remarkable.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) December 15, 2020
The Pandemic Cabinet
Baud
Who is Nathan J Robinson?
Baud
Is that true? I remember he was floated as ambassador to China, but I thought that was Biden.
debbie
@Baud:
Looking at his Twitter feed, he’s a guy with a visceral hatred for McKinsey.
Baud
@debbie:
Ok, thanks. Not that I ♥️ McKinsey, but obsessed people aren’t credible.
zhena gogolia
Yes, Nathan, he should have chosen that peasant who was working on the rails when Anna Karenina did her thing
ETA: Forgive me, I’ve been reading papers on Anna Karenina all day.
JanieM
@Baud:
You’re better off not knowing, but if you insist, he founded Current Affairs magazine in 2015.
He specializes in rabble-rousing.
Barbara
I was considering this. There are some cabinet positions that really do require significant expertise in the area. HHS is almost too big for one person, but that person has to know a lot about at least one of the major programs and also have background in managing a large agency. Becerra is a good candidate because he checks a lot of boxes. OTOH, Transportation seems like the kind of cabinet that needs someone who can navigate political and state by state dynamics. Agriculture is somewhere in between, and has more of an international trade component. Anyway, I don’t think there is any obvious choice of background or skill set for Secretary of Transportation. Traditionally it seems to have gone to people from the Midwest, which has not always been a positive because they are automobile centric, as a source of a lot of midwestern jobs.
zhena gogolia
sab
Anne Laurie,
I love you but you seriously underestimated this Buttigieg guy. I heard him on our local NPR station forever ago when he was first running for prez. Cleveland station. Morning late commute station (9 to 10). I had never heard of him. He was awesome.
Everyone hates NPR. I hate the national channel as much as the next guy. But local NPR has these morning talk shows.
Baud
Biden’s base in the primary was black voters, who aren’t as susceptible to Twitter attacks.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
Berniebro.
MisterForkbeard
@debbie: For large chunks of the online left, if you’ve EVER worked for a big corporation then you’re bought off and corrupt.
It’s the same reason they’ve gone after other Biden appointees for being “corporatists”.
JanieM
A guy with a JD from Yale and a PhD from Harvard has a lot of cheek obsessing over McKinsey. But this is his schtick.
zhena gogolia
@Barbara:
My impression (based on being a clerk-typist for the FAA many years ago) is that the Secretary of Transportation isn’t so hands-on — there are directors of agencies under him/her (like the FAA) who do the more knowledge-based stuff. He’ll be great.
Baud
@JanieM:
I am rabble. I’m not aroused.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: if I didn’t know better i would think it was someone Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and the DNC (of leftist imagination) had hired to play an internet leftist.
FTR: I have no idea if Robinson’s parents can or do fund his magazine, or what kind of car he drives
ETA: if memory serves, he speaks with a British accent even though he’s lived in the States since he was five.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I bet his countertops are granite.
dmsilev
@Baud:
A member of the Extremely Online Left.
Emma from FL
I come from a farm/transportation background on my mother’s side (my generation and the newer ones getting college degrees) and a teaching/small business background on my father’s. These people knew their stuff six ways from Sundays. It would never occur to me to put them forward as high-level government officials. They have neither the preparation, the infighting skills, nor the clout to deal with the massive bureaucracy that is the US government.
Buckeye
@Baud:
He, along with Ryan Grim and Katie Halper, pushed the Tara Reade story without vetting her.
He also hated Warren for being a Ivy League elitist, despite his own Ivy League degrees.
sab
@Barbara: Chasten rode a lot of buses and a lot of trains. These guys aren’t all roads for cars.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
We had some big brouhaha over him a while back. I can’t remember what it was, but everyone concluded he was an asshole. For some reason I think it was him being anti-Hillary, but I can’t remember. Maybe he was pushing the Tara Reade story. I truly can’t remember.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
I guess he’s on the B Team, because I don’t remember him.
germy
“We wanted Thomas the Tank Engine but Biden nominated Sir. Topham Hatt instead.”
feebog
All of Biden’s picks so far have been intelligent, grounded people. Some have a lot of experience, some don’t, but I have to believe Biden and his team have given each pick serious thought. Also announced today was former Governor Granholm for Energy. AFAIK she has scant experience, but something tells me she will be rock solid. Buttigieg will be a terrific pick.
Adam Lang
Nate’s comment is hilarious. “Oh gee the old white conservative Democrat just skated by while the people who don’t check all those boxes sparked so much vitriol that’s just an amazing thing” is such a Nate thing to say.
burnspbesq
@Baud:
Hell if I know, but whoever he is he can fuck right off.
debbie
@MisterForkbeard:
Unlike them, we don’t all have trust funds.
geg6
Did I just hear Granholm for Energy? I love her. Good communication skills, too. She’s big on auto fuel efficiency, if I remember correctly.
West of the Rockies
@zhena gogolia:
Oh my god, I soooo do not miss grading papers.
West of the Rockies
@zhena gogolia:
My boy is wicked shmart! He’ll do fine.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
If you look for perfection, you’ll never be content.
Cacti
A nice, profile raising move for the Mayor, despite his lack of qualifications.
But I’m fine with nurturing the up and coming political talent we have.
Baud
Thoughts?
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
Is that a quotation from Anna Karenina? I missed that part.
Lige
He was my mayor and while South Bend isn’t gigantic it’s the center of a several 100k metro area which is not a small town by any means. He had to deal with a lot of transportation as mayor and while the projects were undoubtably smaller than in say Chicago they aren’t all that different in kind. He also did good work helping keep the amazing (and amazing ly inexpensive) South Shore train line to Chicago running smoothly. I have no doubt he’ll do a good job and I think it’s great to have a go getter with a need to achieve involved in what is often a throwaway cabinet position.
NotMax
Smile time. New Rainbow.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Supposedly. I googled.
satby
@West of the Rockies: He’s been thinking about it for quite a while, this is from an announcement of Pete’s infrastructure plan when he was running for president:
patrick II
We need high government officials without any governmental management experience because that has worked out so well with our “businessman” president.
satby
@Lige: Hey neighbor!
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
His twitter bio says he’s political columnist for The Grauniad. That alone is a big warning flag.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
Wow, that is in one of the most secondary or tertiary or quadrupleiary parts of the novel, spoken by a character who appears exactly once in 740 pages. I’m always amazed by what ends up as a bromide on google.
Baud
@patrick II:
Lots of Trump officials had government experience. That wasn’t their problem.
Bill Arnold
@JanieM:
You are too kind. He specializes in helping to elect Republicans by suppressing the Democratic Party vote.
He was all-in on the Tara Reade anti-Biden(/pro-Trump) ratfucking operation. (A google search for the two names will find one the relevant links.)
(He at least writes coherently.)
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne:
I don’t know what that is, but I trust you.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: That said, it’s a good bromide for reading my papers! But I actually did get a couple that were quite perfect. My students are молодцы.
Yutsano
@geg6: I remember more than a few folks being hyped for her possibly being the first female President…until they find out she was born in Canada. I always did have hope for her in a Senate capacity maybe. Possibly soon if Stabenow chooses to retire. Not likely but maybe.
burnspbesq
@Baud:
I think I like it. She has the right background, and judging from the difficulty Obama had getting her confirmed as EPA Administrator she pisses off the right people.
satby
@Cacti: Mayor of a (small) city with both public transportation, freight railyards, an airport, and an Amtrack station. He has experience.
@patrick II: running a city is government experience.
zhena gogolia
@NotMax:
Excellent!
SiubhanDuinne
@feebog:
She’s a longtime champion of alternative fuels and renewable energy initiatives. Just having some one in the job who’s not wedded to the fossil fuel industry will be a huge step forward.
Bill Arnold
@Baud:
You are self-aware.
Some rabble are not, and are easily emotionally manipulated.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
The Guardian. It’s called the Grauniad because I guess it used to have a lot of typos.
patrick II
@satby:
That was meant to be ironic. Mayor Pete is a great choice.
Jeffro
So. Much. Inside. Baseball.
also
Who. Gives. A. F… … …you get the idea.
Pete was a very effective campaigner/spokesperson for Biden/Harris, and has half a brain (and then some, or so I hear) and this is one less thing that will need much if any oversight while the country recovers from four years of trumpov, including nearly a year now of having no coronavirus plan whatsoever. So, go Pete and sorry that you still have to endure all those shivs from Amy K (LOL especially at that last one on Twitter) but that’s just the price of success, I guess! ;)
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
I’m learning a lot in this thread.
patrick II
@Baud:
No, that wasn’t their problem. Being soulless Republicans intent on tearing down the government’s ability to restrict them in any way from making money was their problem. But, having some experience above “worker” would be a plus.
JMG
So what’s the problem? That some lefties don’t like Pete? Who cares about them? This is a bog standard cabinet appointment of the kind made by all Presidents before Trump. Promising young party leader gets job where he can strut his stuff to some extent, but which is really limited and unlikely to ever cause the President any significant political blowback. Also is first non-cis cabinet appointment, which is kind of a big deal for those folks, a nontrivial part of the Democratic coalition.
danielx
IIRC, one European roadbuilding quality control practice is to specify that if a road surface starts breaking up before a specified period has passed, the general contractor has to fix it at no cost. Which is a pretty strong incentive to 1) build to higher specifications than is US practice and 2) do it right the first time. I could well be wrong about this, but it seems a decent idea. Mind you, I can hear the screams of outrage from the roadbuilding lobby(s) already, but anything that makes for-profit lobbyists scream is almost always enjoyable.
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
It’s a mangling of The Guardian (the paper has long been known for howler typos and, shall we say lax, proofreading).
Uh-oh.
Brachiator
I am very happy that Biden is including Mayor Pete in his cabinet.
I guess that Amtrak is still useful in some East Coast corridors. Otherwise, I am not sure that it should continue to exist.
brantl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Oh, THAT type of pretentious asshole?
different-church-lady
DO YOU KNOW HOW GODDAMNED HAPPY I AM THAT WE’RE SQUABBLING OVER CABINET PICKS AGAIN BECAUSE IT MEANS WE’RE CLOSE TO BEING BACK TO NORMAL DYSFUNCTION??
chopper
why the fuck would you put a rail worker in charge of the DOT? do these idiots realize that to run a bureau like that the biggest skill you need is running a large organization?
i mean, whether pete b is good for the job or not, what a fucking stupid take.
different-church-lady
@Baud: You’re better off not knowing.
ETA: If you really can’t resisting knowing, he’s a semi-professional internet thought-haver of very very very limited shtick. Dime a god-damend dozen.
ETETA: Chopper at 65:
Right: Robinson is a semi-professional internet stupid-take-haver. Even cheaper.
geg6
@chopper:
Totally typical with that crowd.
normal liberal
I work in transportation in central Illinois, in a place with some similarities to South Bend. I was a little nonplussed at the announcement, but I’ve suddenly decided its brilliant. From his small-scale experience, he has at least some background in the infrastructure, the bureaucracy and its fetishes, and in the politics, all from being on the receiving end. There’s nothing like being on the lower end of that ladder to motivate learning how to climb, and in dealing with a big federal department or agency, it’s a matter of survival.
DC is awash in suitable deputy secretary candidates (also in some of the states, but not mine) who can wrangle the hordes on a day to day basis, and keep Buttigieg aware of any trouble brewing. Buttigieg can work up front, push a new agenda for serious transportation infrastructure, and use his obvious communications skills to convince the Fox viewers in my neck of the cornfields that yes, regional high-speed rail makes sense, as does fixing our large collection of failing bridges.
Damn. I’m enthused. And it’s well-rounded preparation for the Senate or the presidency, after Kamala is done with it.
Raven
@normal liberal: Kelly’s your homegirl huh?
Splitting Image
@satby:
The thing about Transportation is that if you want a forward-looking government ready to deal with climate change, this is where you want to put the guy who wants to take charge of it.
There are other important concerns in transportation, but fighting climate change has always had the stumbling block that comes from people being interested in electric cars (for example) but not having the infrastructure to make the switch. If there aren’t enough charging stations around to allow people can’t plan a daily trip to work, they will stick with their gas guzzlers, thank you very much.
He’s gonna have an uphill climb to convince people in Trumpland that investing in better transportation alongside repairing existing infrastructure is worth it, but this strikes me as a good use of his talents.
Omnes Omnibus
@patrick II: My guess is that you would complain about old people and not getting new blood into the mix if it had gone a different way.
different-church-lady
@different-church-lady: ETETETA:
BR
Anyone know what might be going on here, beyond the news reports about the hacks?
satby
@normal liberal: actually, South Bend under Mayor Pete got an award from Obama’s DOT Secretary. Deets in this thread
different-church-lady
@different-church-lady: If you put a rail worker in charge of Nathan J. Robinson’s Twitter feed it would probably make 100 times more sense.
WaterGirl
@feebog: Oh my gosh, has anyone checked on Omnes?
normal liberal
@satby:
I know. He did good work, and there are other smaller cities in Indiana that have managed to get some really creative projects past the bureaucrats. I’m a bit envious.
normal liberal
@Raven:
Apparently not, since I’m not catching the reference. Maybe so?
Baud
@satby:
I don’t know about that. I hear it’s a gateway dwelling.
Roger Moore
@Splitting Image:
If we want Transportation to be a big part of fighting climate change, we also need to start electrifying our freight rail. Electric rail is well-established technology, and it makes a hell of a lot more sense as a way of decarbonizing freight than trying to build battery-powered long-haul trucks.
WaterGirl
@patrick II: I’m glad you clarified that!
WaterGirl
@Jeffro: What did Amy K do on twitter? If she is not letting this go, she is demeaning herself.
WaterGirl
@JMG: I think many people will be surprised at what Pete Buttigieg will do in this position.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
normal liberal
@Roger Moore:
Oh, amen! Huzzah, even. The Energy and Transportation departments have to share their work and talk to each other constantly. Also the EPA, to stave of some of the crazies.
Someone please tell Elon (and others I could name, but won’t, since I like my job) to stick with the rockets, at least until they stop exploding.
WaterGirl
@Brachiator:
I am trying really hard to find a nice way to say that you dead wrong about that.
patrick II
@Omnes Omnibus:
That is a guess. And it is wrong.
Ken
@zhena gogolia: If you liked Anna Karenina… well, let’s not go there. But you may still enjoy John Connolly’s “The Caxton Private Lending Library & Book Depository”.
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
He’s fine. From downstairs:
WaterGirl
@Baud: I must be missing something.
Patricia Kayden
Baud
@WaterGirl:
You are just unfamiliar with the hidden subtext of Minnesota nice.
Pete is a dead man walking.
Omnes Omnibus
@patrick II: If you were the kind of person who meant your first comment, my reply would probably have been correct.
JanieM
@different-church-lady:
LOL, perfect encapsulation
ETA, this too:
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: I called it out on the thread below.
Kathleen
@Baud: Nate obviously missed the “Biden is a senile demented pedophile racist” tweets.
Kent
Back during the Clinton Administration when I was getting my start in government I thought it was a pretty open secret that Janet Reno was gay. But those were different times and she never openly came out. So who knows.
Ken
They seem to have three market segments: Daily short-haul commuters, largely confined to the East Coast; less-frequent longer-haul commuters, including holiday travel and college students; and wealthy retirees who think a train trip would be a wonderful vacation.
I deduced these segments largely from their pricing, which is also why I limited the third to wealthy retirees.
rivers
I’m happy about Buttigieg. I read his autobiography when he was running and one of the stories I love in it is his description of being deployed in Kabul. He was on leave from the mayoralty of South Bend, and he mentions that he kept noticing how the city was run, how they managed with trash disposal etc. He couldn’t stop thinking like a mayor even while patrolling a war zone. I just loved that – he’s a natural problem solver and he’s so smart, the sort of guy who’s always observing and learning.
Lyrebird
@Baud: Yeah, and I see two retweets of JrieJrieBoy (switch Js with a B) on his front page, not someone I am gonna follow
@JanieM: Thanks!
Kent
It is useful here on the west coast. the Amtrak Cascades trains that run between Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver BC are popular and often full.
I’m not sure the long distance trains like the Empire Builder between Portland and Chicago are all that useful except for tourists.
geg6
@WaterGirl:
Yeah, I had to ignore that because steam was coming out of my ears. I would have said something I would regret.
thylacine
McCarthy is a good pick for climate czar. She made a couple mistakes at EPA but I don’t see any reason she won’t be really good in her new role.
WaterGirl
@Baud:
Ah. Upon a second reading, I see that she shivved him on big ideas and local government, and then there’s the petty “we were here first” dig.
I think I know who is going to win this battle and it’s not gonna be Amy K. She is making herself look bad. I will take pleasure in seeing Buttigieg handle her.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: I hadn’t seen that. I’m sure you are pleased.
WaterGirl
@Ken: I feel compelled to note that you are wrong about Amtrak.
Lyrebird
@Raven: Hey thanks for sending a link to that benefit concert. Appalachia Rising & the others I watch were awesome.
satby
@WaterGirl: I think Amy K only appeals to her fellow high school mean girls clique.
patrick II
@Omnes Omnibus:
I was actually responding to a tweet by some people who didn’t like Pete because he hadn’t worked at ground level in the transportation industry. The tweets here led to that, but a couple of levels down, and I screwed up responding to them sarcastically here instead of there. People here didn’t have the context. My fault entirely.
Kent
And irrelevant. She’s not the ranking member on any committee that DOT deals with although she is on the commerce, science, and transportation committee but the ranking member there is Maria Cantwell. But I sort of have her pegged to take over for Feinstein on Judiciary. But who knows.
Brachiator
@WaterGirl:
I guess that Amtrak is still useful in some East Coast corridors. Otherwise, I am not sure that it should continue to exist.
You don’t have to be nice. Amtrak loses a ton of money. Here in Southern California, I have no idea why Amtrak even exists, except for nostalgia reasons. But if it is important in other regions, then obviously it deserves some consideration.
WaterGirl
@geg6: I went from an internal “fuck you” to “full of shit” to “dead wrong”. I was pretty proud of myself for getting there because steam was coming out of my ears, too. There’s a lot of arrogance on display in some of the comments about Amtrak.
Emma from FL
@Brachiator: Not only should it continue to exist it should be modernized and expanded. The American idea that “everyone has/has access to/a car” and “most people are happy driving” is a massive dose of subtle discrimination.
AJ - Mustard Search & Rescue Team
When I lived in the UK I was told it’s called The Grauniad bc the union typesetters would insert the typos to troll the management.
If true, I love it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Brachiator: Must Amtrak make money to continue to exist? If so, why?
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
If Biden really cared about transportation he’d appoint Ralph Kramden to lead DOT and Ed Norton to lead EPA.
Baud
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
Shouldn’t Kramden lead NASA?
WaterGirl
@satby: Yep. We dodged a bullet with Amy K. If she wants to continue her petty games with Pete, I predict that she will be the big loser in that game. I hope she enjoys herself while it lasts – it it will be obvious that she has done it to herself.
Bex
@Baud: You don’t think Pete can handle her mean girl bullshit? Think again.
Pete Downunder
@Patricia Kayden: Australia also virus free except a few returned overseas travelers who are in quarantine. Life here is quite normal except we can’t go anywhere else except we soon may have a travel bubble with NZ.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: That’s Alice’s job.
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl:
The shiv is “your experience in local government.”
satby
@Brachiator: It loses money because the Republicans consistently cut its budget, causing Amtrak to raise fares, which loses riders. Another Republican inflicted death spiral of what should be a basic service by government. All that public transportation in the EU is the envy of most Americans who see it, and is subsidized by the various governments.
WaterGirl
@Bex: I’m with you! I think she will rue the day when she picked this fight. She already looks bad, and it’s gonna get worse.
dmsilev
@Kent:
I did that (as a tourist) several years back, and it was enjoyable. Not sure it’s all that competitive with flying if you’re just trying to get from A to B, given that it’s a 48 hour run. The shorter haul routes make much more sense.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: Yeah, after Baud’s comment i went back and re-read it. On second reading, i caught 3 shivs in the second half alone. If there was one in the first sentence, I missed it.
There is no nice in her Minnesota nice.
satby
@Bex: He could even if he was in a coma.
zhena gogolia
I don’t know if this is still true, but back in the 1970s when I worked for the SBA, they had a position in the DC office called Assistant Administrator for Administration.
Spanky
@BR: I see that Blumenthal is on the Subcommittee for Cybersecurity. I would guess he was briefed on the extent of the breach and what they exfiltrated. His tweet doesn’t really help matters, since I highly doubt the nut of the info can be declassified without exposing more juicy tidbits.
Brachiator
@Omnes Omnibus:
Priorities. Public transportation tends not to make money. But the idea is not to waste it.
Here in Southern California, the Metro system executives are debating a plan to eliminate the farebox. An interesting idea. But they have also cut service, including some dumbass changes that actually may make bus travel more dangerous for essential workers without cars. This is a massive system that could not exist without subsidies. But other budget priorities reduce what is available for transit.
The same pressures apply to Amtrak.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kent:
@Omnes Omnibus:
I remember back during the early Obama years, they wanted high-speed long-distance rail. Would Amtrak have played a role in that? Perhaps it still could
prostratedragon
@SiubhanDuinne: Now I know where I’ve frequently seen the name, and why I had a vague notion that the man is a fool, an impression that one can get merely from his article summaries on the front page of the site.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
We’re the home station for Terry Gross and Fresh Air. Everybody loves Terry Gross.
Laura
My acquaintance with Nathan RObinson began and endned with an article he had in is mag purporting to be about my town, Tacoma WA and all about how progressively blue collar it is and all about how what a sell out or Congressman Derek Kilmer is. He doesn’t know a damn thing about Tacoma or Kilmer.
Who is McKinsey?
Calouste
@Brachiator: Tell is again professor Brachiator, how much money does the government make from the interstates? Or from the FAA?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@zhena gogolia:
That sounds like something out of an Ayn Rand novel lol
SiubhanDuinne
@zhena gogolia:
I’m going to go way out on a limb here and assume the Assistant Administrator for Administration had an administrative assistant. “Hi, I’m Sandy! I’m the Administrative Assistant to the Assistant Administrator for Administration!”
zhena gogolia
@Laura:
It’s a consulting firm that a lot of bright young people work for when they get out of college. Some regard it as the source of all evil in the universe.
zhena gogolia
@SiubhanDuinne:
I’m not sure, but this particular one I met claimed to have smoked dope with Spiro Agnew.
Barbara
@different-church-lady: Plus 1000 for the win! Actually, it is serious out of the box thinking to put Granholm at Energy and Buttigieg at Transportation. Biggest political issue with climate change is auto efficiency and to a lesser extent fracking. Granholm knows these people and their stakes and sensitivities really well. She is an inspired choice.
WaterGirl
@Brachiator: If you are blaming Amtrak for anything, you are blaming the victim.
The Republicans have done everything in their power to keep Amtrak from being successful.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Laura:
The Supreme Leader of All Neoliberals! /s
Benw
This is fine. Somewhere below 2,000 in the list of shit I’ve got to worry about
Martin
I’m scratching my head at this one. Pete might be fine, I can’t say as I don’t know enough about what his positions on transportation are.
However, transportation is in a truly transformative time, and this is not the time for a placeholder or someone to return things to the status quo. Ciites are clearing out cars for bikes, everything is electrifying, rail/BRT is surfacing as critical to getting housing affordable again.
Pete’s youth leans into these trends, but South Bend is not exactly an idea factory for this kind of stuff. Fare box based public transit is crashing hard due to covid, and cities are going to be gutted if we can’t find a way to transition federal transportation dollars to subsidize more than cars. We need wholesale migration of buses to electric with the necessary infrastructure. There’s so, so much to do. I really had hoped to see a discipline expert on this.
dm
@Roger Moore: I’m not sure about that as a priority. Freight trains make very efficient use of their carbon. Replacing fossil fuels for freight-hauling trucks probably is a higher priority item.
A train uses 300 BTU to move one ton of freight one mile. A truck uses 3000 BTU to do the same (alternatively: a train uses one gallon of diesel to move a ton of freight 500 miles, a truck uses a gallon of diesel to move the ton of freight 50 miles).
Rand Careaga
@normal liberal:
Jerry Brown mentioned more than once how serving two terms as mayor of Oakland imparted a certain, ah perspective when he thereafter returned to the California statehouse.
normal liberal
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Implementation of regional high-speed (sort of) rail was already underway in the Obama years using Amtrak rolling stock – there’s a stretch of reinforced and fenced track between Chicago and my local train station, from the first phase. Pity we can’t get it through the state capital in Springfield and on to St. Louis.
High-speed regional rail in some ways is more efficient than short and even medium distance airline routes. If the new track here in Illinois could be properly used, downtown Chicago would be an hour by rail, as compared to 2 and a half by car. I used to live in Philadelphia, where a 15-mile trip on commuter rail could take 45 minutes. We can do much better with both commuter and regional passenger rail.
Here endeth the lesson.
sab
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Me too. I love her.
Brachiator
@satby:
There are also fewer trains going to places that can be reached more efficiently by other means. I ride commuter rail. But I have not had to go anywhere by Amtrak since I was 8 years old.
I don’t miss Greyhound or Continental Trailways buses either.
Zzyzx
Amtrack will never be useful as a real option as long as it uses the same rails as freight and they always have priority. There could be ways of making it work – like in the PDX/SEA/VAN or SF/LA/Vegas corridors, and I’m hoping that can happen.
sab
@Baud: I was married to a Minnesotan. Their nice isn’t all that nice and other midwesterners see through it immediately.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@normal liberal:
Thanks for the answer. I don’t normally pay attention to this stuff. I honestly thought the high-speed rail projects had largely been killed, as in none of it materialized
dm
@satby: Passenger rail was only profitable in the United States because the US Post Office used to have a mail-sorting car on nearly every passenger train, subsidizing the cost of operation of the trains. When the Post Office switched to trucks, passenger lines vanished across the country, requiring the creation of Amtrak to keep any passenger rail possible.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Biden’s Ideal Cabinet
FBI: Dana Scully
CIA: Colonel Sam Flagg
Defense: Dick Butkus or Samuel L. Jackson
State: June Cleaver
Dept of Interior: Martha Stewart
NASA: William Shatner
Attorney General: Columbo
DOT: Joe Isuzu
EPA: Stormy Daniels
Press Secretary: the fast talking guy who used to do the FedEx commercials
Martin
@Rand Careaga: That’s a bit of an outlier. I think there are 7 or 8 different public transit agencies just serving the Bay Area. It’s kind of a shitshow. The only one really making progress is CalTrain, run by CalTrans. Not only are they modernizing the line (commuter rail not necessarily being the first place I’d start, but it’s what CalTrans has control over) but they’re also developing the land dedicated to parking for low-income housing, which is an excellent idea.
GeriUpNorth
@Emma from FL: Yes, and get it upgraded in other parts of the country. There are pretty much hourly flights between Minneapolis and Chicago. A high speed rail line that connected Minneapolis-Madison-Milwaukee-Chicago would be great. I think it was proposed under Obama, but Scott Walker wouldn’t let it go through Wisconsin.
Hoodie
@normal liberal:
IIRC, much lower carbon footprint than air travel.
prostratedragon
@Brachiator: Detroit to Chicago. Chicago to Milwaukee. Whenever I was at Chicago Union Station when I was a regular, up until a couple of years ago, I’d see long lines boarding for St. Louis and Texas. Back in the day when John McCain regularly tried to kill Amtrak funding, Trent Lott would oppose him because his region relied on Amtrak for a lot of intercity connections. As South Bend is an Amtrak city, and a city that has a lot of intermodal connections, Buttigieg should be well-attuned to the basics.
Baud
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
I don’t like Jackson’s ties to Capital One.
The Defense Department does not need to know what’s in my wallet.
Brachiator
@Calouste:
The government is not, and should not be, a profit making operation. You cannot run the government like a business. That kind of idiotic thinking got us Trump.
So, you got a real question?
People love trains. All I said was that passenger rail is largely pointless in and out of Southern California. You could slash the fares and it would not make any difference. Freight has priority and you could not increase the frequency of trains.
Amtrak may work elsewhere.
In Southern California we need more buses, commuter rail and alternative vehicles.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
Also, too, that Columbo guy seems kinda dumb. Definitely not AG material. Now, Perry Mason, that’s a lawyer’s lawyer ; )
satby
@Martin: you have no idea what you’re talking about wrt South Bend, do you?
Raven
@normal liberal: Loefller is from Bloomington
Brachiator
@dm:
Yep. This is why there was a big post office located right next to Union Station in Los Angeles. I think they have sold the post office building, or want to.
Bill Arnold
@BR:
I know that the technical reports from a couple of computer security firms directly involved have been careful not to attribute it to any known actor. (Russian an obvious possibility but the opsec of the actor(s) involved was quite competent so attribution remains speculative at least in these firms’ reports.)
Dunno what Blumenthal heard; perhaps similar.
Dark Halo Leverages SolarWinds Compromise to Breach Organizations (December 14, 2020, by Damien Cash, Matthew Meltzer, Sean Koessel, Steven Adair, Thomas Lancaster, Volexity Threat Research)
Highly Evasive Attacker Leverages SolarWinds Supply Chain to Compromise Multiple Global Victims With SUNBURST Backdoor (December 13, 2020 | by FireEye)
If it’s some non-Russia actor, who? State actor, non–State actor? Motive? Etc.
Lacuna Synechdoche
@Splitting Image:
@Martin:
Biden is also expected to announce Jennifer Granholm as Sec. of Energy.
Between that and the Buttigieg pick, it looks to me like Biden is planning on a big push for Electric Vehicle infrastruture. Could be he wants experienced pols with energy and strong communication skills in charge of the Energy and Transportation departments to help push that through.
It certainly seems to portend some sort of major push on a combined transpo/energy project.
Mary G
I rode the San Diego to LA Amtrak all the time I was in college and then my mom would take it up to Glendale to see me all the time. The last time I rode it, it was full of commuters who knew each other, and there’s a stop right in the parking lot of Angel Stadium that sportsball fans I know used a lot in the Before Times. So calling it irrelevant in SoCal doesn’t jibe with my experience.
And I couldn’t tell you why, but Nathan was already blocked on my feed, so I would just ignore his performative bullshit.
Geminid
@Baud: You may have over thought this. Klobuchar might have meant what she said, and not as a “left handed compliment.”
Lapassionara
@normal liberal: this sounds good to me.
Are you close to Normal, Illinois? This is where some of my distant relatives lived.
Roger Moore
@Martin:
Only 7 or 8? My TAP card brags that it can pay for service on 26 different transit systems, and that doesn’t even cover all the ones in LA County.
Roger Moore
@Hoodie:
HSR also has the advantage of much lower security risk than planes, and it can easily take passengers directly to the city center. There are real advantages to rail.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
The Surfliner to San Diego seems to be pretty popular.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud:
A bit too early for Balloon Juice After Dark here on the West Coast.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
It’s never “too” early for Balloon Juice After Dark //
Brachiator
@Mary G:
When were you in college?
The Metrolink commuter rail service is often full at rush hour. I rode it a lot from Buena Park into Los Angeles. There are trains which use to run into Union Station connect with shuttle service to Dodger Stadium and similar service for Angels games. But the full trains are still a tiny portion of the total passenger traffic and the line is losing passengers and has had severe cutbacks in service.
The weird thing is that the Amtrak train in the corridor bypassed some other stops that I used. This was probably so that it could make its schedules and accommodate the freight lines. But inconvenient to some commuters.
normal liberal
@Raven:
I had no idea – most of the coverage about her I’ve seen stresses the Trumpette crazy rather than her bio.
I’ll have to check around with people who went to Olympia and are in the right age bracket. On second thought, I don’t want to know. I’m sure she fit in well with parts of the community.
Please don’t send her back.
prostratedragon
@SiubhanDuinne: Being able to make that introduction should have been good at least for a few free lunches.
Geminid
@Laura: It’s no surprise that Nathan Robinson would rip Pete Buttigieg. The hard core Sanders “supporters” pretend that Buttegieg and Elizabeth Warren cost Sanders the nomination. I say “supporters” because many of them do not love Sanders so much as they hate the Democratic party. Their mockery of Warren when Yellen was nominated to be Treasury Secretary was disgusting, snake emojis and all. People like Robinson are not Democrats, and they do not argue in good faith.
normal liberal
@Lapassionara:
Surrounded by Normal. (Fun fact – our long-time mayor has a standing bet; anyone who tells him a joke about the town’s name that he’s never heard, gets $50. Supposedly he’s never had to pay up.)
My family moved down from the Chicago suburbs about fifty years ago. There was insane growth here until the 2008 recession, when things went splat. Still a nice place, and a blue stronghold in a usually blood red county.
Raven
@normal liberal: Worse she’s an Illini and was in my mom’s sorority!!!
Martin
@dm: Electrified freight is fairly uncommon everywhere, and high speed electrified freight almost unheard of.
The first order of business is revoking the right-of-ways from the railroads, turning them into public assets, The feds can then take easements against those right of ways for pipelines, power lines, etc. They then need to double-track everything. That would allow shared passenger/freight use. And electrify while you’re doing that.
The main barrier to commuter and distance rail is that the freight operators own the lines and have priority. That means for commuter rail from VA to DC, they can only run one train a day each way, because the single-tracked rail bridges all preclude sharing passenger with freight. Only double-tracked areas ever seem to work because the passenger rail operators can increase frequency to turn them into reliable systems.
CalTrain as I mentioned above works well because one Leyland Stanford was smart enough to build double track infrastructure for everything he built when running the Central Pacific back in the 1860s. Though parts are only single tracked, all of the tunnels were dug to be double tracked, etc. It’s just sitting there ready to be used and CalTrans is taking advantage of that now. (I’m an advocate of CalTrain taking over BART, btw)
Anyway, double track everything around urban areas and commuter rail stands a chance, and you have to re-nationalize the right of ways to get there. That would unclog everything. You’ll get new entrants in the market because it becomes viable.
CalTrain got exceptions to run European style lightweight electric engines that don’t pass US crash standards, which are designed for surviving a head-on with a several million ton coal freight train. Stop putting them on the same fucking track and you can run cheap, fast, modern passenger rail. Those regulations mean that until that exception it wasn’t possible to run commuter rail from San Jose to SF with the the kind of frequency that the PacCentral did using steam locomotives, because you couldn’t get diesel or diesel electrics with the kind of acceleration necessary because they were designed for pulling mass, not speeding people home after work. So those regulations need to be updated to bring modern passenger rail along.
But fail to solve the right of way and lack of double tracking and none of it will succeed. Amtrak was doomed once it was spun out of Conrail. With one agency doing both freight and passenger it could balance the two, but split apart and Amtrak couldn’t get access to run reasonable passenger service. I’ve heard of delays of as much as 14 hours because there was passenger train that missed their access window to some bit of single track and couldn’t get a new access until that much later due to the often slow and massive freight trains going through who all get priority.
Also, transportation funding needs to not disincentivize cities for closing their centers to cars, as the current legislation does. More flexibility in how states and cities use those dollars is needed. And fewer vanity projects like multibillion dollar malls built out of transportation funds because it sits on top of a rail line. CalTrain spent less money electrifying their lines than it cost to build one mixed-use mall/station, which contributed no improvements to the transit system.
Raven
@normal liberal: I live in Normaltown in Athens, Ga. I lived in Villa Park as a kid and was born in Urbana and lived there from 69-84.
normal liberal
@Raven:
Okay, that does suck. I did my master’s at the UofI.
trollhattan
@Roger Moore:
Yup. The attraction of the 1.5 hr flight time to LAX has been badly diluted by the interminable and annoying TSA check-in slog. HSR can work, but we’re easily distracted.
And the drive can be anywhere between 5 and 12 hours, depending.
Raven
@normal liberal: I’m watching us crush the Gophers as we speak.
Martin
@Roger Moore: No, he’s right. There are few approaches to SoCal from the north, and the few we have are completely tied up with freight. Tehachapi Loop gets a huge amount of traffic – you can’t run a passenger line through because it’s single tracked. If you want to take the train from Portland to LA, odds are they’ll kick you off the train in Sacramento, put you on a bus down the 5, and then offload you at Central Station. You do have the pacific line, but it too is often single tracked, and that track often has to be shut down for launches out of Vandenberg, etc. It’s a nice recreational line if you don’t need to be anywhere, but it’s too unreliable to use for work, etc.
Dan B
@danielx: I can hear the macho macho roadbuilders hollering that this nancy-boy is making me arnnngry and distressed!! Pete will charm em and shiv em lovingly. He’ll promote quality in a way that the public will believe in quality as bog standard, and always has been.
That is, when he’s on his game.
dm
@Geminid: I know Matt Yglesias is viewed with disdain around here, but he said this in his latest post about Buttegieg at Transportation:
source: https://www.slowboring.com/p/pete-buttigieg-dot
Might even be not paywalled
normal liberal
@Raven:
It’s heartwarming to see the good old interregional hostilities kept alive.
tom
@prostratedragon: I’ve taken the Ann Arbor/Chicago train many times, and it’s so much better than driving – when freight traffic doesn’t get in the way. Better than flying too – by the time you have driven to the airport, parked, cleared TSA, boarded the flight, landed, got a rental, and finally got downtown, you have not saved that much time compared to taking the train. And you are a hell of lot more frazzled flying than training.
normal liberal
@Martin:
Yes! on clawing back all that right of way from the railroads. I blame Abraham Lincoln.
Nutmeg again
@dm: Indeed they did, and I had a Great Uncle (or truly, not so great) who self-murdered with the service revolver the USPS clerks were issued. It was a year past the crash of ’29, he was broke, evidently, and there was money in the mails.
Kids! Don’t rob the trains and shoot yourselves.
Still I would really love decent train service, Europe, points fingers et cet.
Matt McIrvin
Passenger rail in the US, as it exists, is a sad damaged thing and not capable of competing with other forms of transport, except possibly in the Northeast Corridor (and even there, I’ve switched to bus services when I want to get to New York–if the Acela were actually high-speed it would be attractive, but as it is, the ability to get there in equal comfort for a lower fare with more convenient access wins).
But the example of other countries tells us that high-speed rail could be viable in at least parts of the US, if having it were valued as highly as it is elsewhere. And a lot of that is down to poor policy choices made decades ago, sometimes with malice aforethought.
Also (and this is a key thing to me), rail travel has at least the potential to be environmentally benign to a degree that most other modes of transport are not. Jet planes killed the trains as viable long-haul transit in the US, but it’s very, very difficult to come up with a plausible way to make passenger jets low-carbon, whereas with trains you could electrify the line and power it with renewables (or nukes). They’re a lower-emission way to haul passengers than planes even if they’re pulled by diesel engines… provided you can fill the seats, which is an important qualification.
Raven
@normal liberal: Yea, I’m pretty much and Illini and Georgia die-hard.
Jeffro
@Baud: the ‘local government’ thing was sharp-edged
Martin
@trollhattan: I’ve visited nearly every one of the CA community colleges (115 of them), nearly every CSU, and every UC. There are a few I will fly to, but it’s almost always faster and more reliable to drive. Unless I drive I usually need to leave a day early and return a day late, with 2 more days of expense on the taxpayer dime in order to be sure I’m there when I need to be there. But I can leave my house at 3AM and reliably arrive for an 8AM meeting in Merced, and leave after 7 and be back in the office (ha! those were the days) the next morning. Because my local airport doesn’t allow flights to arrive after 10PM, I could fly back to LAX or maybe Long Beach, but that just makes flying even slower.
Butte College? Probably a coin flip between fly/drive in terms of my time. Definitely cheaper to drive.
Dan B
@JMG: Pedantic: Pete is Cis, meaning behaving like a “typical” male. He is openly gay or non- hetero / non-heterosexual.
There are a number of LGBTQ people rising to high ranks. They all seem to be fantastic people, the kind you’d cherish knowing. Unlike the deeply wounded Miloes or Peter Thiel’s. Or Roy Cohn types.
Stacib
@normal liberal: A serious question – do you really think this country is anywhere near electing a black woman as president? As a black woman, and a Democrat, I think we lose the WH in 2024 with her as the candidate. I hope I’m wrong.
normal liberal
@Raven:
I’m compelled to confess that in my two years on the UofI campus I never got to a football game. I was there for the long, drawn-out retirement of Chief Illini, which make be related. The alums were the worst.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Brachiator: If you want to go further than Metrolink’s network, you have to go Amtrak. I took Amtrak to San Juan Capistrano a few years ago.
Jeffro
Btw (and I’m sure folks get tired of me doing this schtick, but today it seems especially appropriate) when we woke up today in the real world, we had
Here’s what Fox News dot com is running right now as its top stories:
Would love it if Biden/Harris would set up an official office of Fox Counterprogramming that operated 24/7…maybe get some of the Media Matters people and have them work shifts or something.
Just unbelievable. Straight down the memory hole, the past 6 weeks of trying to wreck our democracy…onto…um…er…Swalwell! trumpov who?? You crazy libs, always stirring shit up!
Matt McIrvin
@Martin: I used to ride Amtrak’s regular Northeast Corridor service all the way from Boston to DC when I went to visit my folks on holidays. It was mostly because I was too disorganized to plan far enough ahead, and Amtrak had the advantage that you could just hop a train on a moment’s notice.
But it took all day to get there. I’d ride down to Union Station and then take the Metro all the way out to Vienna.
Once, I was on the way back and I accidentally got on the wrong car–one that separated from the main train and ended up on a track to Springfield, MA instead of Boston. I didn’t realize this until it was too late, but fortunately they directed me to a train that actually went to Boston from Springfield.
But then I discovered the joys of riding passenger rail on a single-tracked line with freight trains. The train kept having to wait on a siding while some Conrail freight train came past in the other direction, and it was agonizingly slow.
One good thing about the Northeast Corridor, the tracks may be terrible through Connecticut but at least it’s all double-tracked (and, these days, electrified–it wasn’t then).
Barbara
@Matt McIrvin: It would not make sense to take the train from Chicago to Seattle, but it would make sense to have a series of high speed rail zones in which intercity commerce could replace shorter haul flights. So, for instance, St. Louis to Chicago to Milwaukee, or Milwaukee to Minneapolis.
Martin
@normal liberal: Half of those places weren’t even states yet. One reason why CA has such a rich rail history is that the state was an island for a long time – disconnected from the rest of the US, not unlike Alaska. CA had to build its own infrastructure that didn’t need to interact with any other state. The central valley was already being built out and produce needed to move to the cities before cars came along. SF to LA was like connecting Chicago and NY, but with no other governments to coordinate with. Consider how much progress CA was able to make on rail infrastructure while the Erie gauge war was going on.
Leyland Stanford ended his career by turning Southern Pacific into a monstrosity, but his early days at Central Pacific were really forward looking (there’s a reason he drove the golden spike on the transcontinental).
But here’s what a stretch of rail between Indiana and Ohio looks like. You cannot say that wouldn’t be in better hands with the feds and a national rail strategy.
Amir Khalid
Pete Buttigieg will do fine. He will definitely not be as tied in the wrong way to the transport industry, as Mrs Mitch is.
In other news, I installed LibreOffice last night (my time). Thanks to those wo recommended it. I am now using it to write the letter to Bianca that WaterGirl helpfully suggested. It is helping me work through my feelings, and I need that.
Raven
@normal liberal: I was actually watching hoops but I get it. I coached the son of Prof Kaufman who spearheaded the anti-chief movement. It’s funny, I was born there, my folks went there and I was pals with tons of U of I players in the 70’s but it didn’t bother me when they did away with him. The rationale by the pro-chief people was exactly the same as the confederate flag people down here.
Dan B
@Laura: If no one else has answered: Mc Kinsey is the massive consulting firm that Pete worked for out of college. It does 9 bad things to every 1 very good thing, or you can make up your own ratio depending upon your location on the social justice vs. corrupt corporate shill spectrum.
Pete is the devil incarnate because of the good work he did there. Apparently.
normal liberal
@Stacib:
My scenario is more that Biden is re-elected, and steps down in her favor in time for her to go for two terms of her own. (Realism may not be my strong suit – maybe magical realism.)
Apologies – I already know this is going to be too long. I don’t get much opportunity to think this through.
Harris was at or near the top of my wish list during the primaries, and I was so unhappy when she had to drop out. I think Biden thought long and very carefully when he chose her, I hope with both practical and philosophical counsel from the Obamas and others, with the aim of moving the country in the direction you describe.
And now we have four years to do our own normalizing of change, push back on the ugliness and white terrorism of the Trump years, and make it happen. I saw my then 91-year old mother’s profound disappointment at how Hillary was treated and schemed against. She didn’t live to see this election, but I know she would have backed Harris all the way.
As will I. As a post-middle-age white woman I cannot, nor would, challenge your sense of what is possible in this country. I talk with my 13-year-old mixed-race great-nephew, and I have to hope.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: Speaking of bad choices made long ago: I sometimes wonder what the Washington D.C. metropolitan area would look like if the Metro train system had been built back in the 1960’s when LBJ was spending all that money. A lot of might-have-beens for that decade.
Suzanne
@chopper:
Word. The content knowledge is essentially beside the point. The Secretaries will all have subject-matter experts working for them. Their job is essentially putting money in the right buckets. That’s it.
Martin
@Matt McIrvin: Northeast corridor is fine. It’s not great, but it’s fine. it works. But let’s not oversell what we have. There’s more miles of high speed rail in Africa than in the US.
China has more than 22,000 miles of high speed rail. The US has 34 miles. And our high speed rail is barely faster than their non-high speed rail. Average speeds from London to Edinburgh were higher in the steam era than Acela achieves between Boston and DC.
So, it works, but it’s bad. Japan had faster trains 17 years after losing WWII than anything we have today.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: Speaking of bad choices made long ago: I sometimes wonder what the Washington D.C. metropolitan area would look like if the Metro train system had been built back in the 1960’s when LBJ was spending all that money. A lot of might-have-beens for that decade.
Lapassionara
@normal liberal: thanks. I know the thread is dead, but I hope to see your nym again on another thread. I grew up in Normal, Tennessee. And my great grandmother’s family lived around Normal, Illinois, in the late 1800’s. All German-speaking.
Matt McIrvin
@Nutmeg again: I remember touring western Europe via Eurailpass in 1991 and thinking the low-speed “local” trains on most of the continent would be considered high-speed wonders in the US. Didn’t get the chance to ride actual high-speed rail then–I was going to ride the TGV from Geneva to Paris but was stymied by a failure in their ticketing computer system, and had to ride the “slow” train that was still faster than anything we had here.
Last year I rode the AVE (Alta Velocidad Española) from Madrid to Valencia, a real modern high-speed train. Apart from my inability to get the onboard wi-fi to work, it was a wonder. The existence of an option like that genuinely makes air travel pointless for a trip of, say, 200 to 400 miles, which is a lot of airline business in the US.
central texas
@Baud: Never heard of him but if he hates McKinsey, he can’t be all bad.
Geminid
@Geminid: But I repeat myself.
normal liberal
@Martin:
Ah, but some of those states were brought into the Union in part because Lincoln insisted on continuing the transcontinental railroad during the Civil War. He could so easily have said that bringing the war to an end was too important and the golden spike would have to wait.
And to be clear, I would give my copy of the FRA rules for grant applications (quickly!) for a national strategy and federal control. I want a significant chunk of the national transportation budget spent on transit and rail and everything run on renewables, and while we’re at it, rational electric cars with a 350-400 mile range. (Not so much on the connected and autonomous, which is heresy in my line of work.)
And the interstates? They’re national defense infrastructure. Let the Pentagon cover that cost – they won’t even notice.
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: And everything you said means that there is a great opportunity to improve our rail system in the many places in which it would make sense to do so. If Southern California isn’t one of those places, fine. They do exist though.
WaterGirl
@Lapassionara: I remember the newspaper headline:
Normal boy marries Oblong girl. Or vice versa.
lige
@dm:
My Grandpa always said you could blame Jimmy Hoffa for that (My Great-Grandfather was one the train mailmen).
normal liberal
@WaterGirl:
That is a classic. I remember my father laughing like a madman. He was an advertising copywriter for much of his career, and he used to joke about how Normal was the ideal test market — “Dozens of Normal housewives agree – no more grass stains!” In his defense, this was the early 70s and it was funny.
My college friends (easterners) would play with Normal on envelopes – inserting Ab in front was a mild version.
Kent
Yeah. Anyone who thinks Tacoma or Pierce County is a liberal bastion has never spent time there. I mean compared to eastern WA, yes. But not by any other metric.
stacib
@normal liberal: Thank you for responding. Did you see the nonsense that happened to the churches in D.C today with the group destroying their BLM stuff? The stuff we’re seeing now, trump* didn’t cause it, but he sure as hell made it okay. This genie will never go back in the bottle, and I fear for my country and my fellow person. By the time the Republicans and all the fringe groups (both left and right) get done with her, it will make the nightmares Hillary experienced look less horrible by comparison (and I KNOW that’s hard to imagine).
Again, I hope I’m wrong – I really, really do, but I don’t think I am.
normal liberal
@Lapassionara:
My German-speaking relatives decided to settle near Chicago to farm and build furniture (and coffins, of course). Their last farmhouse (built 1888) was at the intersection of two unpaved country roads. Those now form one of the massive 5-lane intersections that dot the suburbs.
I hope we can chat again sometime.
Lapassionara
@WaterGirl: LOL! I was a Normal girl, at least until I left for College.
Kent
I’m sure Trump hate’s McKinsey too, because they at least expect measurable metrics and are smarter than he is. So you are setting a pretty low bar.
Lapassionara
@normal liberal: Yes. I go by Normal on the interstate, and I have exited a few times to see what is there. I find it interesting, as my relatives were photographed standing outside of white frame houses in the middle of their farm land, very far from any other sign of life.
WaterGirl
@normal liberal: I laughed.
Kent
Not surprising. In the Federal Government, “Administrators” are the heads of the sub-cabinet level agencies called Administrations. Like NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). The head of NOAA is the NOAA Administrator.
Within NOAA, all the line agencies like National Marine Fisheries Service, National Weather Service, National Ocean Service, are all Assistant Administrators or (AAs). I was detailed for a time to work for the Assistant Administrator of NMFS.
Anytime you encounter an Assistant Administrator in the Federal Government they are a bigwig running an agency. Not to be confused with an Administrative Assistant.
normal liberal
@stacib:
I saw the video from Methodist AME and heard about the others, and I can’t describe my anger; really, how dare they? They dared because Trump really did encourage bringing these…people out from under their rocks.
And the violence and racism and the terrorism was never completely in the bottle. In some parts of the country it was always visible, and in others it hid just out of sight. My community (founded by very Godly white men – they made that very clear) was on the less oppressive end of the spectrum, but every other village and town in this county was a literal and ordinance-driven sundown town. Some of those ordinances stayed on the books until the 1970s.
After what we have seen, in the streets and in the Congress and the White House, I’m afraid for our country too. But for all the hideous things we’ve seen, there are signs of genuine change. After the murder of George Floyd, there was a Black Lives Matter march, about 200 people, walking down a major street past the county offices and the court house, and restaurants and shops, with a police escort. As the police walked by ahead of the protesters, they reminded those of us in our cars to be respectful and stay where we were.
I have never seen this here before, and two or three years ago it would have been confrontational immediately. There are cars in the parking lot near my office with Black Lives Matter stickers; I know some of the owners, and those stickers were not there a year ago.
I know these are tiny symbols, but I have come to believe that this can be the beginning of a real push against the bigotry and corruption that are so openly flaunted. I want this to be true, and I want to be part of that effort to finally move away from 400 years of pervasive inhumanity.
I hope I’m right.
Miss Bianca
@WaterGirl: I must be A Idiot because I’m looking at this and thinking, “that’s not SO bad.”
Or maybe I’m just tired.
Ken
@WaterGirl: No details on my error? I am, I hope, still capable of learning.
(I am, or was before the Recent Unpleasantness, a user of the system, visiting family for holidays. For me it’s a 5-hour trip by either car or train, and the train costs a lot less than gas.)
Miss Bianca
@dm: I see no reason not to continue to disdain Matthew Yglesias. He seems just as contemptuous of the Democrats as the young leftists he’s deriding. Don’t need it.
Another Scott
@zhena gogolia: Leo didn’t waste too many words, though he wrote a lot of them!
(The guy I took Russian Lit (in English) from in college – Ralph Matlaw – said that Tolstoy wrote more drafts of War & Peace than the number of times he (Matlaw) had read it.)
Cheers,
Scott.
(“Who realizes he’s taking coals to Newcastle. ;-)”)
Amir Khalid
@WaterGirl:
I just finished writing that letter to Bianca you suggested. Needless to say, it was an emotional experience. The jackaltariat always took an interest whenever I said something about her. Might they be interested to read it?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@dm: @Miss Bianca: I’m kind of meh on Ygeslias, I don’t hate him, but I would never pay to read him, and I think he’s right on a lot there. I do think one big thing he’s missing is one of the most dynamic young Dems out there– Stacey Abrams– is, I suspect, a lot more “normie” than a lot of her fans assume she is.
Another Scott
@Kent: IMHO, we need to invest much, much more in passenger trains. 9/11 (and air travel being shut down for ~ 3 days) should have taught us that we’re too dependent on air travel and all its (even non-terrorist-related) vulnerabilities (weather, swings in fuel prices, etc.). Trains are much, much more efficient than any other land transport AFAIK.
Contra Kevin Drum, it’s only going to get more expensive as time goes on. We need to get moving.
I also think that Mayor Pete may be a great choice for Transportation. He knows what midwest weather does to roads (and may be familiar with the seemingly perpetual road reconstruction on I-70 in the western half of Ohio), also too.
Cheers,
Scott.
prostratedragon
@tom: Yeah, that freight traffic thing that others have alluded to is a real drawback, though I think Amtrak has been struggling to overcome it; on-time performance was much better during the last several years than back in the ’90s. A lot of reconstructed track under an Obama-era program has helped. For me, the frazzle factor and the fact that I don’t like to drive on the interstates much were key, and worth what’s seldom more than an hour’s difference. It’s also kind of convivial.
Origuy
I believe both Normal, Illinois and Normal, Tennessee get their names from the universities they contain. These started out called Illinois State Normal University and East Tennessee Normal University. A normal school is an institution whose purpose is to train teachers.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Brachiator:
It is also one of the few transit options that connects all these smallish towns across the upper midwest / west.
sgrAstar
@Brachiator: So what if amtrak loses money? We subsidize it because train travel is desirable. Public goods don’t have to be profit centers to be useful and necessary. If I were you I ‘d jump on amtrak and ride to SF. The coast is gorgeous and it’s a lot of fun to see it from a vantage point which does not involve cars. The floundering bullet train project provides a cautionary tale to transportation idealists- I think we can win the war but it’s gonna take really tough, honest leadership. Mayor Pete could be that guy.
?
Another Scott
@WaterGirl:
Ooof.
Cheers,
Scott.
Ruckus
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
It does the same for CA’s central valley area.
@sgrAstar:
The Pacific Coast Surfliner is an amazing ride. My oldest sister and I rode it up to the bay area to see family that lived there while the rest of the family drove up. I think I was 6 – 8 yrs old, I don’t remember how old I was but I remember the trip. Absolutely stunning. If I do the trip I talked about above, that’s how it starts out.
Also people who think that trains are a waste has never seen the Metrolink trains in LA. The San Bernardino line runs about 1/2 mile from my house and before COVID I’ve seen it absolutely packed, 6 double decked cars, every one standing room only, and not much of that left. A wild ass guess is that’s about 1000-1200 people leaving Union Station and not driving their cars. And that doesn’t count the Metro lines, also standing room only and often full during the day.
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
Metrolink is commuter rail, not the same thing as Amtrak passenger service. I used to regularly ride Metrolink and often loved it. Know a lot of people who still use it. Even with packed cars it is a tiny fraction of commuter traffic.
And worse, it is horribly unreliable. Part of this is because even Metrolink has to yield to higher priority freight travel. Sometimes a train would break down and be taken out of service. This could be catastrophic if it was the last evening train, effectively stranding some riders. And a slow train would often cause passengers to miss a transfer connection.
When things run well, Metrolink trains are a joy to ride. But when the system has problems, very frustrating. The system has lost ridership because of unreliability. They often give vouchers worth up to $50 so that passengers encountering delays can continue a trip via Uber or Lyft. This is very considerate customer service, but also expensive and does not make up for service breakdowns.
I also think that Metrolink has never quite recovered from the financial after effects related to a terrible train crash years ago where train personnel were at fault. I’m sure there was insurance, but cutbacks in service soon followed.
Despite this, I really hope that Metrolink finds a way to bounce back.
Repatriated
@sgrAstar:
Absolutely. And looked at from a slightly askew perspective, car drivers are buying lighter traffic for themselves by subsidizing mass transit.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
I don’t need a politician to be inspiring. I don’t need Daniëlle van de Donk in the WH. Ygeslias is childish. LBJ was a bore in public and all he did was win legislative battle after battle.
Aleta
@Repatriated: Highways lose money.
burnspbesq
@Martin:
Got a trillion dollars handy? The Constitution says you have to pay fair market value.
lowtechcyclist
Good – give him Commerce, which is a grab-bag of largely unrelated agencies. He can grandstand and communicate all he wants to, without its being a missed opportunity that someone who actually knows his/her stuff could have done more with.
Starting with someone who knows his/her way around transportation policy and has some Capitol Hill skillz would have been a lot better. Pete’s not going to charm the socks off of Mitch McConnell. For the next two years, this is going to be a game of changing regulations, and knowing what unobtrusive things to slip into must-pass bills that make a real difference out in the real world. Pete’s miles over his head here. There HAVE to be Dems who really know this shit.
Matt McIrvin
@Martin: What the Northeast Corridor obviously needs is an inland Acela route from NYC to Boston with modern tracks somewhere near the I-84/Mass Pike corridor. But just getting the right of way seems impossible.
Matt McIrvin
(and while I’m making impossible wishes I might as well throw in a North Station/South Station rail link so I could ride Amtrak all the way down from Haverhill).
zhena gogolia
@Amir Khalid:
Oh, yes!
zhena gogolia
@Another Scott:
Matlaw was a biggie!
zhena gogolia
@Kent:
Yes, I know all that — I worked my way through college and grad school as a clerk-typist for various agencies. The funny part is that at that time the SBA had a subdivision called “Administration.” So instead of being the Assistant Administrator for [insert some noun], he was the Assistant Administrator for Administration.
WaterGirl
@Ken: If I start, I will just get angry.
WaterGirl
@Amir Khalid: I am just now seeing this, after seeing your request to Anne Laurie, and her response.
I, too, would have been honored to publish your letter. When I suggested the letter to you, I thought you might want to share it, but I didn’t mention it because I knew you needed to write it for you, and for Bianca, and I didn’t want the suggestion of sharing to alter what you might write in any way.
I figured there was time to think about sharing after it was written, and you got there on your own, with no help from me. I am really looking forward to reading it, and I’m so glad that you found it helpful.
I have written that letter myself.