Transportation Odds & Ends: Is the news that Ray LaHood is staying on as U.S. Transportation Secretary good or bad for Florida? Especially now that straight-shooter John Mica is no longer chair of House Transport. Comm.?; SFRTA's current Fast Start plan for "Tri-Rail Coastal" completely ignores and skips over Hallandale Beach and Gulfstream Park Race Track & Casino, Village at Gulfstream Park retail complex

SFRTA Fast Start Plan from SFRTA IT on Vimeo.
SFRTA IT Vimeo video: SFRTA Fast Start Plan for Tri-Rail Coastal, Uploaded June 2012. This is one of the two competing proposals for a commuter line on the FEC railroad tracks connecting downtown Miami and Palm Beach County, but this plan as written does NOT currently envision a stop where I live -and where Gulfstream Park Race Track & Casino and the Village at Gulfstream Park retail complex are located - Hallandale Beach. Not that you've read that anywhere in any of the local newspapers or heard it mentioned on local TV newscasts. Or even heard it publicly discussed at HB City Hall. Well, now you know! As planned, we are completely skipped-over and screwed! 

Transportation Odds & Ends: Is the news that Ray LaHood is staying on as U.S. Transportation Secretary good or bad for Florida? Especially now that straight-shooter John Mica is no longer chair of House Transport. Comm.?; SFRTA's current Fast Start plan for "Tri-Rail Coastal" completely ignores and skips over Hallandale Beach and Gulfstream Park Race Track & Casino, Village at Gulfstream Park retail complex

Bloomberg News
LaHood Says He’s Staying On as Transportation Secretary
By Jeff Plungis - Jan 22, 2013 11:25 AM ET
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-22/lahood-says-he-s-staying-on-as-transportation-secretary.html

Transportation Nation 
Mica Gets Transportation Subcommittee Posts 
By Matthew Peddie | 01/23/2013 – 4:06 pm

http://transportationnation.org/2013/01/23/mica-gets-transportation-subcommittee-posts/

POLITICO.com 
A picture-perfect end to John Mica's chairmanship
December 5, 2012 04:38 AM EST
By Burgess Everett

http://www.politico.com/story/2012/12/a-picture-perfect-end-to-micas-chairmanship-84595.html

Meanwhile, this email was sent to you from a city where the most-popular place on the city's 4 FREE Mini-bus routes, the Publix on Hallandale Beach Blvd. & S.E. 14th Avenue, does NOT and has never had a simple timetable posted there so that riders would actually know when the bus departs. 

Yes, as most of you know, I'm a big, longtime supporter of transit, esp. the South Florida East FEC Corridor study effort, have gone to all manner of transit-oriented forums in South Florida  since moving here nine years ago from the Washington, D.C. area, where I rode the DC Metro twice a day, 6 days out of 7.

I'm all for thinking globally and acting locally, but what if your city's elected officials and highly-paid city administrators are, simply put, stone-cold incompetent?

What then?

Then, all the clever and punchy public policy platitudes in the world, and attending or watching all the seven50.org forums in the world, can't help you.

That seems to be one of the South Florida news media's remaining no-no's.

You can't publicly talk about certain cities or pols having devolved into -accurately- becoming labeled as incompetent until further notice, unless they do something to show that they have applied remediation efforts and succeeded.

And besides, why would Hallandale Beach actually want to let riders know when the bus actually departs the most popular destination, when they can, instead, erect those useful timetables at numerous sites throughout the city where no riders are ever present in large part because of the chronic lack of bus shelters to keep the sun and the rain off of riders?

The ones we have less of now than we did three years ago.

The city-controlled bus shelters that were nearly 90% dark at night for YEARS because the city was so damn negligent in properly maintaining them, something that Mayor Joy Cooper did not like my reminding people of at transit forums throughout the area where important people were in attendance.

My fact-telling ruined the illusion of the city she wanted to create and foster.

Just another small reminder why there is no street in Hallandale Beach where logic and reason intersect.

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http://www.sfeccstudy.com/

I sure hope that your outreach efforts to the public and the pro-transit populace will be better than it has been in the past.

http://www.tri-railcoastalservice.com/

I will have more news next week about SFRTA's Fast Start plan and what it would mean to Hallandale Beach if the city is intentionally passed-over and does not get a train station on the FEC tracks, despite the fact that it would do more for this city -more quickly- than any other city in Broward on the route, in part because there is so much space. 

John Mica on Northeast Corridor high speed rail/transit legislation that works for taxpayers and commuters -open up NEC to competition

Fox Business News Channel - House Transportation chairman John Mica Discusses High-Speed Rail. June 7, 2011.
http://youtu.be/9V2mGU3z81g




U.S. House Transportation Comm. chairman John Mica discusses efforts at reforming American transit/transportation policy, high speed rail legislation in the Northeast corridor, i.e the Mica-Shuster Intercity Rail bill and the importance of having a meaningful public-private partnership (P3) rather than continue to rely on the failed current template, wherein AmTrak makes ALL the decisions.

June 15, 2011 http://youtu.be/k3oDTsp2Bv8

The best story I've seen on this effort to take AmTrak out of the driver's seat, which I agree with, is this one from the National Journal's Transportation Experts blog:

National Journal

Amtrak: Is It Really the Same Old Debate?

By Fawn Johnson

June 20, 2011

House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica, R-Fla., last week came up with a pretty cool way to unveil an idea that he has been tossing around for some time. His policy proposal, which comes as no surprise, is to separate Amtrak from the Northeast Corridor and open the heavily trafficked route up to private competition.

Read the rest of the post at
http://transportation.nationaljournal.com/2011/06/amtrak-is-it-really-the-same-o.php

http://youtu.be/2KmU2Ge_XPo

An advertisement for the X2000 train used by SJ AB -Swedish Railways

http://youtu.be/CaiP2f-s0C4

The jazz music played here in the advert made me think of the pseudo-sophisticated feel we were supposed to get from the Harrison Ford-Kristin Scott Thomas relationship in the 1999 film Random Hearts.

I love Kristin Scott Thomas, but... the constant over-the-top jazz just got me irritated instead of engaged in the narrative!

See also:

http://transportation.house.gov/

Fast Tracks USA YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/USHSR

Fast Tracks USA homepage: www.ushsr.com

Reconnecting America homepage: http://reconnectingamerica.org/

http://transportation.nationaljournal.com/

English language homepage for SJ AB -Swedish Railway:

http://www.sj.se/start/startpage/index.form?l=en

John Mica's great new idea for U.S. taxpayers, art lovers and tourists to Washington, D.C.

I saw this story on Sunday night while looking for some other information on the Washington Post's excellent website, http://www.washingtonpost.com/

I repeat, this is a great idea!

As someone who spent hundreds and hundreds of hours at the National Gallery of Art over the 13 years I lived in the Washington area, there is absolutely nothing to fault in this idea from Central Florida congressman John Mica, whom I usually mention here on the blog in relation to transportation-oriented stories, as he has been both the Ranking Minority member and the Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

http://transportation.house.gov/

More personal thoughts of mine on the NGA are below the article.

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The Washington Post

Congressman Mica’s quest pits FTC against National Gallery

By Ned Martel

Published: June 19, 2011

Rep. John L. Mica has what he calls a “weakness,” an obsession with art. He has fulfilled it as any aspiring connoisseur might. He scours odd shops and auction sites for objects treasured only by dust mites but still accruing worth with each passing year. He makes frequent trips to the National Gallery to research what he has bought and what he could buy. One day, while at the museum, he looked across the street and saw something old and undervalued: the Apex building, home to the Federal Trade Commission.

Read the rest of the story at:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/congressman-micas-quest-pits-ftc-against-national-gallery/2011/06/16/AGqkC4bH_story.html

Back on May 1st, 2005, I wrote an email to a friend whose very popular non-fiction book was to be the basis for a then-forthcoming film, and this excerpt about the NGA seems a propos:

Hey movie star!

Found these two Enron movie related postings on pullquote.typepad.com, which, to my way of thinking, is one of the best written film blog/culture sites around, due to its smart and knowing sensibility and encyclopedic film knowledge.

It's smart not snarky, and since any site that -in one month- acknowledges the talent of the wonderful Jena Malone, blisters NYT film critics for both their fashion and literary faux pas, and intelligently discusses Italian docs, is MY kind of site.

A number of summers ago, maybe '96, the National Gallery of Art ran what amounts to a summer-long film course on Italian Masterpieces, and I must've spent just about every Saturday and Sunday afternoon there that summer, except for a few when I had tickets to Oriole games up at Camden Yards.

The NGA, while focused on art and sculpture, has a really great, though smallish film theatre, equipped with excellent sight lines, terrific speakers and a great A/C.

One that made me forget that it was about 96 very humid and miserable degrees outside most of those days.

Seeing practically every great Italian film ever made in just a few weeks, sometimes double-features, often on brand-new prints, was a great experience for me.

I gradually became a regular at their film series on weekends when they focused for 5-6 weekends in a row on French and other international hits as well as classic Westerns -American, Japanese & spaghetti- it was like cowboy heaven.

The famous scene of John Wayne standing in the middle of the door jamb in John Ford's The Searchers never looked like that on my TV screen.

Over the years, I've had the proverbial subscriptions to Premiere, Movieline, Film Comment, BFI, et al, and I used to read them the night before heading over to The Mall.

Those afternoons of great double-features on good film prints in comfortable chairs and a great A/C, while it was sweltering like crazy outside, are some of my best memories of DC.

Then, either going solo or with some friends in tow whose horizons I had just tried to expand, I'd head over to Georgetown or Washington Harbour for cool drinks and some quality people-watching.

After a French film, maybe head over to Au Pied du Cochon for some wine and great bread, and pretend there were actually a lot more people like me than there really were.

But finding parking in Georgetown quickly bursts any illusions that you're living la dolce vita.

Because the NGA theatre was, relatively speaking, towards the small size, I always liked to be there early and grab a seat in the first few rows, towards the middle if possible, so I could see and hear everything without too much distraction.

The few minutes before the film started always struck me as something straight out of a New Yorker cartoon or Will & Grace, before I finally stopped watching it.

Or, where Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David would overhear something they'd incorporate into a classic episode of Seinfeld about human behavior.

With few exceptions, I'd be surrounded by people straight out of Central Casting's bohemian/SoHo/culture vulture dept., complete with their all black ensemble or tweeds -and not just in the fall- berets and oversized egos.

Like a quarterback working the ball downfield in a two-minute drill, they'd wax philosophical in a short period of time about things they appeared to have memorized from some highbrow magazine they'd recently read.

It recalled nothing so much as the Marshall McLuhan scene from Woody Allen's Annie Hallm below.

http://youtu.be/bBtXfBdEXEs

http://www.nga.gov/programs/film/

http://www.nga.gov/podcasts/index.shtm