Transit Tangents

Colorado’s Front Range is growing fast, and I-25 is already paying the price. When the only real north-south artery turns into bumper-to-bumper gridlock at 9 a.m., “just add lanes” stops sounding like a plan and starts sounding like a loop. That’s why we sit down with James Flattum, Director of Outreach for the Coloradans for COCO campaign, to talk about Colorado Connector and the November ballot measure that could reshape regional mobility.

We dig into what Colorado Connector actually is: an intercity passenger rail service designed to connect major Front Range communities like Fort Collins, Boulder, Denver, Colorado Springs, and Pueblo, anchored by Denver Union Station. James explains why the project is structured in phases, how the Phase 1 starter service gets trains moving sooner, and why Measure 7A is focused on scaling to the kind of frequency people will truly use. We also get specific on funding, including the proposed 0.333% sales tax, the multi-year ramp-up to more daily round trips, and why the plan is intentionally not dependent on federal dollars to succeed.

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A shiny new rail proposal just dropped for the Austin to San Antonio corridor and the details are going to spark arguments. The headline sounds great: “higher speed” passenger rail along SH 130 with top speeds around 125 mph and a trip time near an hour. But the route starts at Austin’s airport, ends near the Alamodome, and completely skips two of the biggest demand generators between the metros: San Marcos and New Braunfels. If you care about real ridership, downtown access, and making rail competitive with I-35 traffic, those choices are not minor.

We walk through why local leaders are drawn to the SH 130 idea anyway, especially the promise of avoiding negotiations with Union Pacific. Then we dig into the hard parts: why more than half the line may need to be elevated, how that drives the roughly $13.5 billion cost, and why “just upgrade the existing tracks” runs into the same wall again and again. Union Pacific freight rail has customers to serve, schedules to protect, and very little incentive to welcome more passenger trains.

If Texas can spend tens of billions on highway expansion, what would it take to fund a regional rail spine in the Texas Triangle? Subscribe, share this with a friend who sits on I-35, and leave a review and a comment with the plan you’d choose.

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A two-hour train ride from Chicago to St. Louis should sound normal. In the United States, it still sounds like science fiction, yet Illinois is quietly laying the groundwork for exactly that: a 220 mph high-speed rail corridor that could turn a 4 hour 45 minute Amtrak trip and a 5.5 hour drive into a fast, frequent rail connection between two major Midwest metros.

We dig into why Illinois is a uniquely strong candidate for true high-speed rail. Chicago is already the nation’s rail crossroads, with long-distance Amtrak routes funneling through the city, strong state-supported corridors, and everyday rail usage via Metra and the Chicago L. That existing rail culture matters, because high-speed rail is not just about speed, it’s about making trains the default choice for regional travel and building on a network people already use.

If you care about Midwest transportation, U.S. infrastructure, or the future of passenger rail, this one is for you. Subscribe for more deep dives, share the episode with a friend who loves trains (or hates traffic), and leave a review so more people can find the show.

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From a U.S. perspective, a city about the size of Tucson shouldn’t be able to pull off a dream transit system, but Dresden does. We set out to explore all public transit available in Dresden, starting at Dresden Hauptbahnhof and hopping straight into a tram network that’s frequent, citywide, and refreshingly simple. No “signature station” theatrics, no mystery routes, just service that shows up often enough that the city feels effortless without a car. 

From the rebuilt historic center and the transportation museum, we ride out to the Grand Garden and stumble into one of the most legit miniature park railways we’ve ever seen. Then we shift into a bus transfer to the Elbe, a hillside ride on the Schwebebahn hanging monorail, and a funicular that slips through tunnels before dropping us back into the tram grid. We even squeeze in a tiny ferry crossing that runs like real transit, not a tourist gimmick. 

To round it out, we test bike share along the river paths and finally give Dresden’s S-Bahn its turn, including how it connects to the airport and beyond the city. Along the way, we talk about what US cities could learn from Germany’s approach to frequency, basic-but-good stations, and building useful right-of-way without turning every detail into a budget crisis. 

If you enjoy practical transit talk and car-free travel stories, subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

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Canada has talked about high-speed rail for half a century, and we might finally be watching the moment it turns into steel in the ground. Alto, a new federally owned Crown company, is proposing a 1,000 km high-speed rail line from Toronto to Quebec City with fully grade-separated, electrified tracks and top speeds up to 300 km/h. That’s not “slightly faster rail” that’s the real global standard, and it would instantly change how people move between Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and Quebec City.

We dig into the part that surprised us most: once Canada started studying high-frequency rail, the math pushed them toward true high-speed rail because the jump in cost looks more like a step than a leap. We compare the early cost ranges, talk about why this corridor is uniquely strong for ridership, and explain why a three-hour Toronto to Montreal trip competes with both Highway 401 congestion and the real door-to-door time of flying.

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Berlin is one of those cities where you can feel history in the street layout and then confirm it by looking at the transit map. We start at Berlin Hauptbahnhof, the modern central station that finally brings together rail lines that were once split by politics, operators, and the literal division of East and West. From there, we ride our way across the city to answer a simple question with big implications: what does a truly integrated public transit system feel like day to day?

We stop at Alexanderplatz to talk S-Bahn frequency and how a regional rail network can function like rapid transit when the service is dense and the transfers are clear. We walk through Museum Island for a quick hit of Berlin’s layered urban history, then head to Tempelhof, the former airport that played a role in the Berlin Airlift and now lives on as Tempelhofer Feld, a massive park on historic runways. Along the way, we get into a real-world planning tension: preserving iconic public space versus adding housing where the city can actually support it.

If you enjoyed traveling Berlin with us by S-Bahn, U-Bahn, tram, and bus, subscribe, share the show, and leave a review. What city should we ride entirely on public transit next?

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$1.2 billion doesn’t just buy track and trains. It buys time back in your day, the kind you lose when your “commuter rail” only shows up every 30 to 60 minutes and a single delay wrecks every connection. We dig into the newly awarded federal Capital Investment Grant for Utah’s FrontRunner and why it’s one of the biggest pieces of positive news for public transit in the U.S. in a long while.

We start with a refresher on what FrontRunner is today: an 82-mile commuter rail corridor connecting Provo, Salt Lake City, and Ogden with 16 stations, broad service hours, and strong links to TRAX light rail, buses, and BRT. Then we get specific about what the grant funds: over 26 miles of new double tracking in multiple segments, critical signal upgrades, 10 new DMU trainsets, a new maintenance facility, and a new infill station south of Draper (yes, with park-and-ride spaces) tied to a planned transit-oriented development. The headline outcome is frequency: pushing peak service toward 15-minute trains, a reliability upgrade that changes how usable the whole region feels.

If you care about commuter rail, regional rail, transit funding, and what actually makes projects “happen,” listen through and tell us what you think. Subscribe, share the episode with a friend, and leave a review so more people find the show.

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People keep telling us self-driving cars are going to make public transit irrelevant. So we pressure-test that claim using the stuff that actually decides whether a city works: speed between cities, traffic and reliability, passenger capacity, comfort, safety, and what happens when 20,000 people all need to get home at the same time.

We also bring real-world perspective from riding the tech ourselves and talking with autonomous vehicle enthusiasts. We’re not anti-autonomous vehicles at all. We like the promise of safer streets and better on-demand rides, and we can absolutely see how robotaxis can help with accessibility, seniors aging in place, and trips that don’t fit neatly on a bus or rail line.

Our bottom line is “freedom of mobility,” where you can choose a train, a bus, a scooter, your own car, or an autonomous vehicle, and each option works better because the system isn’t forced into one mode. Subscribe, share this with a friend who argues “AVs will replace transit,” and leave a review with your take: what should cities build first?

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New York dominates rail conversations in the country, yet the most realistic statewide upgrade might be hiding in plain sight. We’re talking about the Empire Corridor and a plan that could make intercity passenger rail in upstate New York faster, more frequent, and far more reliable without needing a full greenfield high-speed rail build.

We start with what’s already running: Amtrak’s Empire Service, Maple Leaf, Lake Shore Limited, Adirondack, and Ethan Allen Express, plus the surprisingly strong frequency between New York City and Albany. Then we look at what ridership says about demand today, why schedule changes and reliability problems hit numbers hard, and why the Albany to Niagara Falls corridor has a much bigger audience than most people assume. Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany, and the Niagara Falls tourism draw add up to a corridor where highway traffic is constant and winter driving can be punishing.

If you care about Amtrak, rail infrastructure, or making upstate New York feel closer to New York City, you’ll come away with a clear picture of what’s possible and what would need to happen next. Subscribe, share this with a friend who drives the Thruway, and leave a review with your take on whether this is the right rail bet for New York.

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Passenger rail in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama doesn’t get the spotlight often, but the story behind Amtrak’s new Mardi Gras service proves how much demand has been waiting on the sidelines. We sit down with Knox Ross, chairman of the Southern Rail Commission, to unpack how a three-state compact built the coalition, the funding path, and the political momentum needed to bring New Orleans to Mobile passenger trains back to the Gulf Coast after years of false starts.

We get into what the Southern Rail Commission actually does day to day: stitching together state DOTs, local leaders, congressional champions, Amtrak, and freight rail operators who own the tracks. Knox explains why launching a new passenger route can feel like “almost a miracle,” from changing governors to local supermajority votes, and why persistence matters as much as any technical plan. We also talk candidly about the freight railroad reality: dispatching conflicts, liability concerns, capacity constraints, and why infrastructure upgrades like longer sidings can be the key to making passenger rail coexist with freight.

If you enjoy smart, realistic conversations about passenger rail in the United States, subscribe, share this episode with a friend, and leave a review with the corridor you want to see connected next.

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