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Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood: “Amtrak runs in the fog”

December 16, 2009

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Ray LaHood
www.thedailyshow.com
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Hilarious interview with Ray LaHood on The Daily Show.

He has a few thoughts about it on his blog.

I’ve already heard from Peoria folks on Twitter who are wondering where I found a sense of humor. For that, the credit goes to Jon, who is a total pro and really put me at ease.

One thing Jon and I both agree on is trains. We both know that if Jon ever needs to be at the White House on a foggy day, he’ll get there on time with Amtrak. His show was also a great place to make it clear that, “This is the start of high-speed rail in America!”

Most telling, to me, is the URL title of the blog — apparently revised from “Another activity I never imagined doing — appearing on the Daily Show” to “Daily Show interview — this is not your grandfather’s DOT.” I hear that!

I think LaHood did a nice job.

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4 comments

  • Brian C

    We should definitely take a page from the Europeans, Japanese, and even Chinese. High speed rail should the future, particularly in the Midwest centered around Chicago, the West Coast between San Francisco and Los Angeles.

    If I had a choice between taking a train, driving, or flying, I would take the train. I can show up 2 minutes before my train leaves, and still make it. I don’t have to disrobe to get through security, and I don’t have load up on coffee to stay awake for the trip. You get dropped off in the heart of the city instead of 20 miles away.

    It doesn’t make much sense for a New York-Los Angeles trip, but it makes a lot of sense for Cleveland-Chicago or San Francisco-Los Angeles.

  • Ames

    That was a good job and I like the fact that high speed trains are in the plans. I had planned to attend a conference in San Francisco last year and plotted the train ride from New Hampshire. For a variety of reasons I did not get to do this but if I were willing to spend three days and about $1000, I could walk from my house to the local train station, transfer from train to train including a sleeper compartment through the middle of the country and walk to the convention center in San Francisco. Certainly an alternate to flying but it takes a lot of time and it is very expensive.

  • Eric

    High speed rail will never happen in America, and here’s why. Ignoring for the moment that we don’t have the money to build such a system, in order to be practical, a high speed rail line needs to be a point-to-point system, with as few stops along the way as possible. Only major (and I stress the word major) cities would be served by the line. This is because a high speed rail line needs long, uninterrupted runs in order to achieve its efficiency.

    However, this is not the way it will happen. Every stinkin’ congressman, whose district a high speed rail ink crosses, is going to demand a stop in HIS district before he’ll vote for it. So a whole boatload of podunk towns, which don’t have any need for a stop on a high speed rail line, are going to get one. The end result will be that the “high speed” rail line won’t be appreciably faster than the rail service we have now. More expensive? Yes. Faster? No.

  • Kathleen Eaton

    Sure Eric is correct about how things go but there is a solution. Rail and bus lines in their day included express and local transportation. If high speed rail can get started by acquiring ownership of the tracks so that they can run when they need to and without stops to allow freight trains through first, local service can follow and both needs will be served.

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