After the Amtrak Crash, It’s Time to Get Serious About Transportation Infrastructure

This post has been updated to reflect new information about the crash.

Last week, I took Amtrak’s Northeast Regional service from Washington, D.C., to New York. It’s a lot cheaper than the Acela Express, and when it’s on schedule it does the trip in under three and a half hours. Unfortunately, it runs late about thirty per cent of the time, and this was one of those occasions. As we slowed to a crawl somewhere in Delaware, I happened to be reading the China Daily newspaper, which I had picked up at Union Station. It included a color spread on a new superhighway that the Chinese have carved through the mountains in Sichuan province. With great stretches of roadway raised on high concrete stilts, and long tunnels disappearing into the side of hills, it looked amazing.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
If Amtrak Were an Airline
The Plot Against Trains
What Roads Have Wrought