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ALBION DISTRICT LIBRARY BY PERKINS + WILL IS A 2018 COTE TOP TEN RECIPIENT. IMAGE: DOUBLESPACE PHOTOGRAPHY

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The Committee on the Environment (COTE®) is an AIA Knowledge Community working for architects, allied professionals, and the public to achieve climate action and climate justice through design. We believe that design excellence is the foundation of a healthy, sustainable, and equitable future. Our work promotes design strategies that empower all AIA members to realize the best social and environmental outcomes with the clients and the communities they serve.

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  • 1.  A new way of running Amtrak?

    Posted 07-29-2019 11:20 AM

    An all new way of running Amtrak? 

    The usual discussion is binary: trains or planes, trains or cars, rail or Maglev etc. In Congress Democrats usually want to prop up Amtrak and Republicans side on anything but rail. This configuration hasn't helped Amtrak to become a healthy passenger rail service. Some say, the quest to beef up Amtrak is a fools errand anyway after US  passenger rail was essentially abandoned nearly 50  years ago when Amtrak was created as a consolidated successor of the by the ailing remaining 26 private passenger rail companies. Back then railroads transferring passenger service to Amtrak were required to only pay one-half of the railroads' financial losses from intercity passenger operations in 1969. In addition, the the federal railroad act authorized $40 million federal money and a $100 million loan guarantee program to assist Amtrak's start-up. Ever since Amtrak has remained underfunded, even though it increased ridership and revenue.
    Amtrak: 50 year old coaches, antiquated stations: Quaint but
    ill equipped for the future (photo: Amtrak)

    Relentless car-centric policies and the transfer of all rolling stock and tracks to freight railroads lie at the root of the fact that passenger rail in the US is just a pale shadow compared to its robust brethren in Japan, Europe or China. The usual conclusion: America is too big for railroads and Amtrak is a lost cause. End of story.

    Two more recent events begin to change this narrative. First the opening of the first private passenger line in 30 years from Miami to Orlando in 2014,  and now a new Amtrak leader who isn't just in the defensive against those who want to take starve Amtrak to be self sustaining, but who counters the swan song with a vision for the future.

    His new vision sounds convincing to some, but also has quickly garnered concerns, criticism and opposition. Some deride the CEO's plans as "airline thinking" because Amtrak President Anderson used to be a the executive of Delta Airlines.

    What is is his plan? The Wall Street's Journal illustrates the different positions in a video in which Amtrak's chief of operations Gardner explains the new approach. As the New York Times described the current situation in its magazine in March of this year:
    there are either 61 or 960 immediate reasons not to travel by Amtrak trains from New York City to Los Angeles. Those are the extra hours and dollars, respectively, that you might reasonably expect to forfeit if you forgo a six-hour $129 nonstop flight and opt instead for an Amtrak sleeper car. Covering the interjacent 2,448.8 miles can easily consume some 67 hours for a mind-boggling $1,089. (New York Times, 03-22-19)
    The Wall Street Journal had already reported as early as February that Amtrak is considering to eliminate long distance routes across the country in favor of shorter and faster intercity connections that mimic Amtrak's only success corridor, the so called Northeast Corridor between Boston and Washington DC, the only Amtrak line that is .....

    Read full article HERE

    ------------------------------
    [Klaus] Philipsen FAIA
    Archplan Inc. Philipsen Architects
    Baltimore MD
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: A new way of running Amtrak?

    Posted 07-30-2019 05:22 PM
    Thanks for an important post. Architects, and everyone really, must see our planet in its entirety. Transportation thoughtfully linked with energy is one step.

    Nick Peckham, FAIA
    Peckham Architecture, LLC
    2009 North Country Club Drive
    Columbia, MO 65201

    573-777-4444 (o)
    573-489-0901 (m)
    nick@peckhamarchitecture.com




  • 3.  RE: A new way of running Amtrak?

    Posted 07-31-2019 06:11 PM
    Hear, hear, Nick -

    btw COTErs - I have just found, with the aid of AIA staff, resolution 19-11 and the 10 principles of architectural practice as enumerated in the call of entries in our Top Ten Awards program.

    I trust the code of ethics will be amended, and the 10 objectives of good design observe way more attention that they are getting, it seems to me.

    As I teach about sustainability at the Univ. of Maryland, I will certainly feature them. Don't they deserve more attention and focus than they are getting?

    Just asking.

    Ralph Bennett FAIA, LEED AP bd+c, Prof. Emeritus
    Bennett Frank McCarthy Architects
    Sil ver Spring, MD