A beautiful alternative universe. The fact that our car-oriented, low-density built environment reflects compounded policy choices gives me hope because it means none of this is predetermined. We have agency to choose different policies that make our cities better 🌇
In this alternate universe where we prioritized transit and walkable urbanism, “elderly” has been revised up by a couple decades. But I’ll leave his exact age to the reader’s imagination.
As someone routinely subjected to the dysfunction of Amtrak’s northeast corridor this was cruel and unusual 😭
“The seen and the unseen” comes to mind here. Imagining a better world this vividly is so crucial to understanding how we suffer from so many unforced errors.
I am a weirdo among urbanists in that I am critical of hypermobility in all its forms. Trains are a better way to move fast than cars, but there are problems with moving long distances every day.
I took a very real Amtrak ride from New Haven to northern Maryland yesterday, seeing much of this landscape as it actually is today (it’s familiar territory between where I grew up, where I lived for a long time, and where my in-laws live). At nearly five hours, it’s certainly not a trip I’d want to do often, but it’s an interconnected economic region where many people already spend long hours driving on dangerous roads, or flying, for work. A faster, more frequent train in the region would serve existing travel patterns, but more conveniently, safely, etc.
I have taken the Amtrak Metro North various times and the run between New York and DC a couple of times. I love train travel! There’s plenty of time to read, sometimes people talk, you can get up and stretch your legs, and there’s no chance that you will accidentally kill someone. But all the CT stations I have used are just parking lots on the wrong side of I-95. Of course, the advantage of the less-than-ideal stations is that trains take people into the city instead of cars. That’s big.
However, when we emphasize hypermobility, we are speaking sprawl language. Although Todd Litman is not discussing this anymore, but I believe that access-based transportation is the basis of coherent urban theory. This is was my first post in What Are Streets For.
Valiant counterfactual, but may I quibble with several of the geographical details?
The Amtrack main line runs through the Boston neighborhoods of Roxbury and Roslindale, not several miles to the east through Dorchester.
High speed rail could never run through existing "historic rail stations and town centers", as the existing track line undulates along the beautiful Connecticut coastline. High speed rail needs a lengthy straightaway, meaning the line would have to run inland, roughly following the I-95 path. One reason why the estimated expense for Northeast High Speed Rail is so astronomical.
The lovingly restored Union Station (ca. 1985) is more beautiful than anything Saarinen could have conceived. The imagined Church St overpass to Long Wharf has actually existed since 2003, though no trolley trundles upon it.
Thanks for the comment! I made half of this fictional journey today on the existing Amtrak line from New Haven through New York (I remain en route to Aberdeen, MD, as I type). I take your points on the specifics of the rail alignment, but I’m imagining a counterfactual in which many things would have happened differently.
Neither the Providence glide-through nor the Quinnipiac Viaduct exist; the latter, which would remove a tricky bend around New Haven Harbor, is roughly where the I-95 Q Bridge is today. New Haven’s former streetcar system used to run down Church St; that it might continue (over the existing rail overpass), imagines it was preserved and that Long Wharf wasn’t subjected to urban renewal or I-95 construction. Union Station, lovely as the hall is, does not have a continuous canopy over its platforms, which are approached from a subterranean tunnel. The nod to Saarinen was to reimagine his talents put to transit instead of urban renewal in New Haven. The historic towns along the shore are those the train already passes through, more built up around the rail stops. Imagining if suburban Connecticut grew in a more rail-oriented fashion in the early 20th century, perhaps straighter alignments would have also existed before the suburbs carved up the state.
Nevertheless, this is fantasy—and the intent was to show that no one thing is responsible for the world that was built in reality. Which also shows the difficulty of remaking the world today…
It is, though, loads of fun to play the "what if" game. 😊 I live outside of Boston, and frequently ride Amtrack to visit family and friends in New Haven and New York, so I am quite familiar with the "undulations" of the track line along the eastern CT coast (to the west of New Haven the track bed runs straighter). As it is, the line forms a near figure 8 loop going through New London. Great for scenic views of historic New London; not so great for maintaining speed.
Nice touch noting the long-defunct Boston Record and New York Sun. Displeasingly, I am old enough to recall both of them from my childhood.😒
Ha! Not living in the Northeast anymore, I rarely ride the train. I ended up on a Philly to Providence Acela in June due to a canceled flight connection. It was a foggy day, so most of Manhattan and the entire Connecticut coast was invisible, but I remember wondering what was going on in New London. I should have put a fictional viaduct there, too! Glad you noticed the defunct papers. Perhaps this “what if” game is a little too fun!
Brilliant piece. The compounding effects angle really captures someting we miss when debating transit today: these weren't just isolated failures but systems that reinforced eachother. I worked on a regional rail project few years back and the jurisdictional fragmentation problem felt like the biggest barrier even moreso than funding. What haunts me most is the fact that redlining and fare controls happened simultaneously, creating this doom loop where transit lost ridership precisely when neighborhoods needed it most.
Thank you! Yes, I think the interconnectedness of all these past policy choices is what makes our present-day urban aspirations so challenging. There are no quick fixes to the problems of history!
A beautiful alternative universe. The fact that our car-oriented, low-density built environment reflects compounded policy choices gives me hope because it means none of this is predetermined. We have agency to choose different policies that make our cities better 🌇
Thanks, Jeremy! I agree: our urban future is not written yet!
Excellent! Sad. We must find a way forward!
Thank you, and yes, agreed. There’s much work to be (un) done!
How old was the elderly man who got on the train in New Haven?
In this alternate universe where we prioritized transit and walkable urbanism, “elderly” has been revised up by a couple decades. But I’ll leave his exact age to the reader’s imagination.
If I would be considered elderly I am pissed off. Your utopia needs to allow for distinctions devoid of age unless medical assistance is warranted :)
As someone routinely subjected to the dysfunction of Amtrak’s northeast corridor this was cruel and unusual 😭
“The seen and the unseen” comes to mind here. Imagining a better world this vividly is so crucial to understanding how we suffer from so many unforced errors.
I am a weirdo among urbanists in that I am critical of hypermobility in all its forms. Trains are a better way to move fast than cars, but there are problems with moving long distances every day.
I took a very real Amtrak ride from New Haven to northern Maryland yesterday, seeing much of this landscape as it actually is today (it’s familiar territory between where I grew up, where I lived for a long time, and where my in-laws live). At nearly five hours, it’s certainly not a trip I’d want to do often, but it’s an interconnected economic region where many people already spend long hours driving on dangerous roads, or flying, for work. A faster, more frequent train in the region would serve existing travel patterns, but more conveniently, safely, etc.
I have taken the Amtrak Metro North various times and the run between New York and DC a couple of times. I love train travel! There’s plenty of time to read, sometimes people talk, you can get up and stretch your legs, and there’s no chance that you will accidentally kill someone. But all the CT stations I have used are just parking lots on the wrong side of I-95. Of course, the advantage of the less-than-ideal stations is that trains take people into the city instead of cars. That’s big.
However, when we emphasize hypermobility, we are speaking sprawl language. Although Todd Litman is not discussing this anymore, but I believe that access-based transportation is the basis of coherent urban theory. This is was my first post in What Are Streets For.
https://bnjd.substack.com/p/todd-litman-and-the-access-revolution
I’m very curious to know what your alternate universe would look like now!
What a great idea. I will need to give this some thought.
Do it!!
Valiant counterfactual, but may I quibble with several of the geographical details?
The Amtrack main line runs through the Boston neighborhoods of Roxbury and Roslindale, not several miles to the east through Dorchester.
High speed rail could never run through existing "historic rail stations and town centers", as the existing track line undulates along the beautiful Connecticut coastline. High speed rail needs a lengthy straightaway, meaning the line would have to run inland, roughly following the I-95 path. One reason why the estimated expense for Northeast High Speed Rail is so astronomical.
The lovingly restored Union Station (ca. 1985) is more beautiful than anything Saarinen could have conceived. The imagined Church St overpass to Long Wharf has actually existed since 2003, though no trolley trundles upon it.
Thanks for the comment! I made half of this fictional journey today on the existing Amtrak line from New Haven through New York (I remain en route to Aberdeen, MD, as I type). I take your points on the specifics of the rail alignment, but I’m imagining a counterfactual in which many things would have happened differently.
Neither the Providence glide-through nor the Quinnipiac Viaduct exist; the latter, which would remove a tricky bend around New Haven Harbor, is roughly where the I-95 Q Bridge is today. New Haven’s former streetcar system used to run down Church St; that it might continue (over the existing rail overpass), imagines it was preserved and that Long Wharf wasn’t subjected to urban renewal or I-95 construction. Union Station, lovely as the hall is, does not have a continuous canopy over its platforms, which are approached from a subterranean tunnel. The nod to Saarinen was to reimagine his talents put to transit instead of urban renewal in New Haven. The historic towns along the shore are those the train already passes through, more built up around the rail stops. Imagining if suburban Connecticut grew in a more rail-oriented fashion in the early 20th century, perhaps straighter alignments would have also existed before the suburbs carved up the state.
Nevertheless, this is fantasy—and the intent was to show that no one thing is responsible for the world that was built in reality. Which also shows the difficulty of remaking the world today…
It is, though, loads of fun to play the "what if" game. 😊 I live outside of Boston, and frequently ride Amtrack to visit family and friends in New Haven and New York, so I am quite familiar with the "undulations" of the track line along the eastern CT coast (to the west of New Haven the track bed runs straighter). As it is, the line forms a near figure 8 loop going through New London. Great for scenic views of historic New London; not so great for maintaining speed.
Nice touch noting the long-defunct Boston Record and New York Sun. Displeasingly, I am old enough to recall both of them from my childhood.😒
Ha! Not living in the Northeast anymore, I rarely ride the train. I ended up on a Philly to Providence Acela in June due to a canceled flight connection. It was a foggy day, so most of Manhattan and the entire Connecticut coast was invisible, but I remember wondering what was going on in New London. I should have put a fictional viaduct there, too! Glad you noticed the defunct papers. Perhaps this “what if” game is a little too fun!
Brilliant piece. The compounding effects angle really captures someting we miss when debating transit today: these weren't just isolated failures but systems that reinforced eachother. I worked on a regional rail project few years back and the jurisdictional fragmentation problem felt like the biggest barrier even moreso than funding. What haunts me most is the fact that redlining and fare controls happened simultaneously, creating this doom loop where transit lost ridership precisely when neighborhoods needed it most.
Thank you! Yes, I think the interconnectedness of all these past policy choices is what makes our present-day urban aspirations so challenging. There are no quick fixes to the problems of history!