Jim Cameron

Recent Posts

TALKING TRANSPORTATION: Summer Rail Adventures

If you’re looking for family fun this summer, consider visiting one of Connecticut’s many living museums celebrating our state’s rail heritage. The Shore Line Trolley Museum in East Haven (www.shorelinetrolley.com) was founded in 1945 and now boasts more than one hundred trolley cars in its collection. It’s on the National Registry of Historic Places and is the oldest continuously operating trolley line in the US, still running excursion trolleys for a three-mile run on tracks once used by The Connecticut Company for its “F Line” from New Haven to Branford. You can also walk through the car barns and watch volunteers painstakingly restoring the old cars. There’s also a small museum exhibit and gift shop. Continue Reading →

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TALKING TRANSPORTATION: Whatever happened to Elon Musk’s hyperloop?

It’s hard to believe but this summer marks ten years since the billionaire inventor first unveiled the idea for passenger pods riding like maglev trains inside giant tubes in a near vacuum. So it’s time to see how his vision of this super-fast transportation system is coming along. Spoiler alert: it’s not doing so great. Continue Reading →

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TALKING TRANSPORTATION: Vehicle Miles Tax Trial is Under Way in CT

Full disclosure: I’m one of those who signed up and so far the test has run seamlessly while providing me with great metrics on how many miles I’ve driven, how much CT gasoline tax I’ve paid and what the pricing might have been under a Vehicle Miles Tax. Turns out my hybrid Toyota Prius would pay less under a VMT plan than pay a gas tax. The trial runs through October. – Jim Cameron Continue Reading →

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TALKING TRANSPORTATION: Building Great (And Really Expensive) Things

During construction of Grand Central Maison, 200 of the 900 construction workers digging the huge tunnels were being paid $1000 a day but effectively doing nothing. This was discovered in 2010 and the excess workers were laid off, but the incident was not reported to the public which is paying for the project. – Jim Cameron Continue Reading →

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TALKING TRANSPORTATION: Contemplating the Legacy of Robert Moses, Mid 20th Century Urban Planner

From the 1930’s to the 1960’s Moses directed the building of 416 miles of parkways (Long Island’s Northern & Southern State and Westchester’s Taconic, to name a few), many bridges (the Tri-Borough, Throgs Neck, Henry Hudson, Verrazano-Narrows as well as the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel) and designed Jones Beach and the NY State Parks system. He orchestrated two Worlds Fairs (1939 and 1964) and helped bring the UN’s headquarters to New York City. Continue Reading →

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