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Friday, July 24, 2009

Third world commuter conditions, and it's NOT South Florida but Berlin. Wie gehts?

Maybe it's because I lived for so long in
communities like Chicago and Washington, D.C.,
where taking a commuter train was both
de rigeur and common sense, but after
reading the story below about the truly
exasperating and economically brutal
transportation situation in Berlin,
all I could think of was how badly this
situation would've been portrayed on
CNN or more importantly,
CNN International, right before the
height of the South Florida tourist season
for Europeans, if this had happened here
involving an intact and thriving FEC
Corridor commuter train system along
U.S-1 that was logically connected to
both Tri-Rail and the Miami-Dade
Metro system to create the smartest
possible options for people and businesses
in South Florida.

A system that quickly and effortlessly
moved residents and tourists around
the area from airports to seaports to
hotels, museums to nightclubs to theaters
to sports arenas, from work to home and
more.

My educated guess is that it would also
show, once again, that if South Florida
didn't have bad luck/negative stories
shown on CNN, they'd have no stories
at all.

Instead, though I'm a news junkie,
I've yet to see a single TV news story
about this situation in Berlin on any
of the American cablenets, or even
on Channel Four in Britain,
which I watch just about every day
via the Internet.

Have you?
----------
Spiegel Online
'THIRD WORLD' CONDITIONS
Commuter Chaos in Berlin until December

Berlin has had to take two-thirds of its commuter trains out of service due to safety issues.It has resulted in angry locals, crowded platforms, confused tourists, near accidents, amulti-million-euro bill and political fallout. And it's going to go on until the end of the year.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,638049,00.html

See also:
TIME
Train Chaos Brings Berlin to a Standstill
By Tristana Moore in Berlin, Germany

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1912399,00.html