Across the country, investment in freight railroads has started to increase, reversing the reduction in trackage and disinvestment in equipment seen in the decades following the development of the Interstate Highway network. As noted by the Wall Street Journal, “once a dying industry, railroads have made a strong comeback and are poised to become busier places in the years ahead. Forecasts for freight growth are substantial, prompting railroads to plan capacity additions.” According to one analyst “rail activity could possibly even double by the midpoint of the century. North American rail-freight rates would continue to be the lowest or one of the lowest in the world, and the industry would finance most or all of its capital requirements without public support.” According to another, “the public-sector financial situation will actually be an advantage for freight rail: Highways are not being funded, and the prospects are dim in that arena unless taxes are increased [which in turn raises the cost of trucking, which also helps the rails].”

Somehow, however, all this activity has bypassed New York State. Take the National Gateway project, a public-private partnership. “The National Gateway project will improve the flow of rail traffic throughout the nation by increasing the use of double-stack trains, creating a more efficient rail route that links Mid-Atlantic ports with Midwestern markets.” The project is expected to create 50,000 jobs, is expected to cost $842 million in federal and state funds and $395 million in private funds, and “is supported by a broad and diverse group of 336 public and private sector organizations and individuals, including Big Lots!, UPS and The Limited.” And unlike subsidies for individual companies, the preferred form of “economic development” in New York, this infrastructure improvement will continue support job creation into the future. The project is described in this video. Projects are located in Ohio, West Virginia, and Virginia and North Carolina. Not in New York and New Jersey, whose port will thus NOT be linked by a more efficient rail network to Midwestern markets. Why not?

To the problems with freight movement in Downstate New York laid out in my prior post, New York’s politicians and planners have either had no solution or just one solution – a cross harbor rail freight tunnel from New Jersey to Brooklyn, linking into the Bay Ridge Branch of the Long Island Railroad between the Sunset Park and Bay Ridge neighborhoods. First proposed in the 1920s but repeatedly found to be impractical since, this proposal has been kept alive by a few die-hards and one politician – Congressman Jerry Nadler.

To Nadler and the die-hards, the reason manufacturing left New York City cannot be wages, benefits, work rules, taxes, and the desire for large horizontally arranged plants. And the reason the port moved over to New Jersey can’t be because it doesn’t make sense to unload freight from a ship onto an island (Long Island, on which Brooklyn sits), and then try to get it off the island to the rest of the country. Those ideas conflict with New York City as they would like it to be, which is what it was, unionized and blue collar, with thousands of dock workers and tens of thousands of workers in low-skill, low-wage manufacturing industries such as garments and electronics, all earning rising wages. If, however, the goal is to improve freight distribution, not to bring back the port to Brooklyn or manufacturing for national markets to New York City on a large scale, then alternatives other than the New Jersey to Brooklyn crossing could be thought of. This post contains two of them.

Just as the Occupy Wall Street encampment at Zucotti threatened to become a boring Quality of Life story nearly irrelevant to the movement it helped to spawn, the Mayor decides to prove Alinsky right:

"The real action is the enemy’s reaction.

The enemy properly goaded and guided in his reaction will be your major strength.

The following series of posts is an indulgence. For the past 18 years, and in some ways for the past 30, I’ve become increasingly upset about the way this country and state have sold out the future, and the way the accretion of privileges by entitled special interests has prevented much from being done to turn things around. As a result a resurgence by the City of New York over the past 30 years, previously laid low by similar future self-dealing and future-selling a generation or two ago, is now threatened from without. This frustration is reflected in my writing here on Room Eight.

But it isn’t the case that I am no longer capable of thinking big thoughts about what could be done to improve the common future. These thoughts could be useful in a different place, as in parts of Europe or Asia, or in another time, like the United States at any point in its history until the recent past – back when building a better future for those coming after is something most Americans aspired to. Today all the money is going to debts and pensions and health insurance paid to those 55 or over, at the expense of those 54 and younger, not to investment in a future very few care about. Because those 55 and over wanted benefits for themselves, but didn’t want to pay for them – and now that the country is broke and would prefer to deny to those coming after so they can keep borrowing. But I might as well indulge myself. The following posts describe a pipedream, not a proposal, not because what is laid out is impractical, not useful, or is inherently (as opposed to politically) expensive. It is a pipedream because we are in the Vampire State not Empire State, and this is the era of Generation Greed.

Recently, the USA commemorated the 10th anniversary of the tragic series of events that transpired on September 11th, 2001. At some point in the future, some people might review contemporary media accounts and question the impact of “9-11” on African Americans; since mainstream media has focused on white families affected by the overall tragedy: much to the chagrin and dismay of many in the black community.

Some say we live in a post-racial society with the advent of Barack Obama’s ascendancy to the US presidency; but is that true?

The most frightening thing about the Jock Culture is the thought that its tolerance (actually too mild a word, since tolerance normally doesn't involve rioting) of same sex relationships is limited those involving statutory rape by the right sort of people. This scandal also serves as one more proof that football really is a religion.

Yesterday, almost simultaneously, I got both a Facebook Message and an email from “Reform” Brooklyn District Leader Lincoln Restler. He asked but one question:

“WHO IS BILLY PHELAN?”

DeBlasio, Stringer and the unions whine about the Liu/Bloomberg Pension proposal, seemingly mostly because they didn’t get a head’s up.