HOW A.I. MAY CHANGE YOUR COMMUTE

 I love AI (artificial intelligence).  I rely on it daily to help with my research.

“How many bar cars did Metro-North operate in the 1990s?”  Answer: 10

“How many people died in auto accidents on CT highways in 2019?”  Answer: 254

“Create an image of a Metro-North club car”  And poof, it’s done!

Fasntasy Image of MNRR Club Car by Chapt GPT

But what exactly is AI?  Let’s ask ChatGPT:

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is like teaching computers to think, learn, and make decisions, similar to how humans do. It uses large amounts of data and clever math to recognize patterns, solve problems, and even predict outcomes.

AI gets its information from data—lots of it! This data can come from:

• Things people create, like books, articles, or videos.
• Sensors, cameras, or microphones that gather real-world information.
• Interactions, like how we use apps, websites, or devices.
• Databases or other stored information, like maps, medical records, or customer reviews.

The more data AI has, the better it can learn and perform, but it’s only as good as the data it’s trained on!

So AI is great for finding information and creating fantasy images.  But have you ever stopped to think about how it might affect your commute?  I have… and yes, I also used AI to help come up with some predictions.

THE GOOD NEWS:          On the plus side, AI could improve commuting by better handling rail scheduling, matching train capacity with demand.  Driverless buses and trains (using AI) will save money and avoid the “human error” factor tied to potential mistakes. 

Apps using AI will be able to personalize your travel planning, alerting you to delays and immediately offering suggested alternative routes.

Traffic signals and variable tolling could be modified to meet changing demands.  The NY-NJ Port Authority already uses AI to monitor traffic flow, adjusting their reversible traffic lanes to meet demand.

Sensors tied to AI and built into our roads and bridges can alert engineers to potential defects and schedule maintenance before critical systems might fail.

Soon you’ll be able to chat with your AI, even in your car.  Need a charging station for your EV?  Or looking for cheaper gas than at the service areas?  Just ask.

AI is already being used to keep you safe, detecting weapons that are being carried onto subways in NYC.  Maybe those TSA security lines at airports will move faster, too.

THE BAD NEWS?:          AI may be threatening your job.  If you’re an information worker, especially one working from home, your job may be in jeopardy.  AI is increasingly being integrated into business and is cheaper than paying humans.

We’ve already seen the impact of WFH (work from home) on our trains.  Fewer jobs will mean fewer commuters.  That could mean even bigger operating losses for transit operators, provoking service cuts and higher fares.

While AI can teach itself, it still needs some human supervision, so dozens of new job titles are being created from the engineering, design, training and yes, even ethics perspectives of working with AI.

How to adapt your career and survive?  Well, maybe you should ask AI.

THE GRANDMOTHER WHO SAVED OUR TRAINS

Jodi Rell saved our trains.  There is no Governor in recent decades who did more for rail commuters than she did. 

Governor Jodi Rell

Governor Rell, who died this past week at age 78, came to office (when she was Lt Governor) in the midst of a scandal as her predecessor, Governor Rowland, resigned when caught accepting illegal gifts and did ten months in a Federal prison.  Rowland, you should remember, was no fan of Connecticut’s railroads.  He actually proposed replacing the trains on Shore Line East with buses due to that line’s high subsidies.

Rell’s attitude toward mass transit was just the opposite.

In Governor Rell’s first budget address to lawmakers in February 2005 she told lawmakers they must order 300 new rail cars, and they did.  Mind you, she told us then the cars would be in service by 2008. That proved a bit optimistic.

I watched the Governor ride the first of the new M8 rail cars in March 2011, and was struck by it had taken her entire six and a half year tenure in office to order, design, build, test and finally deliver these new cars.

The Governor suggested that rail riders should pay a small part of their cost with a modest fare hike, and that too was passed by lawmakers.

But Governor Rell also said that commuters shouldn’t pay more until they were actually riding in the new cars… a promise she kept.  As manufacturing delays by Kawasaki slowed delivery of the M8’s, a planned 1.25% fare hike was deferred.   A politician who keeps a promise.  Imagine that.

Governor Rell also told the New York MTA, parent of Metro-North, there was no way she was going to raise fares in Connecticut to pay for the budget problems of New York’s own making.  

Governor Rell changed Commissioners in the Dept. of Transportation at a pace that left many people wondering who was in charge:  five Commissioners in six years.  One was a former State Trooper, another had run Bradley airport.  Two of them actually had experience in rail transportation.

Wracked by scandals, Governor Rell was embarrassed on several occasions by her DOT, eventually asking local businessman Michael Critelli to study the agency and issue recommendations for reform.  Sadly, few of the group’s suggestions were ever embraced.

Long promised repairs to our dilapidated train stations took four years to happen, thanks mainly to Federal stimulus money.  If that work wasn’t “shovel ready”, nothing was.

Still, Governor Rell was a big rail fan, realizing the importance not only of fixing Metro-North, but planning for the future.  Together with fellow lame-duck US Senator Chris Dodd, she secured a serious down-payment on “high-speed rail” between New Haven and Springfield.  Thus was born The Hartford Line, still CDOT’s favorite.

So the next time you’re on the train, pause to give thanks for Jodi Rell, the grandmother Governor who made your ride possible.

 

 

HOW CT COMMUTERS SUBSIDIZE NYC'S MTA

Heading to New York City?  Take the train, because driving is going to become even more expensive:  the NY plan for “congestion pricing” is back!

As everyone predicted last June when NY Governor Kathy Hochul suspended plans for a $15 toll for driving into midtown Manhattan, she has now reversed her decision.  She is now proposing a $9 charge for passenger cars ($2.25 off-peak, and $14.40 for small trucks).

It seems ironic that New York City doesn’t control its own mass transit system, but that responsibility is left to the state.  While Governor Hochul claimed just months ago that her decision to suspend the toll was a win for commuters (who drive), now she’s added a new twist.

By lowering the toll to just $9 she now claims she will be saving drivers $1500 a year.  That’s an amazing spin, no?

While the MTA is notorious for wasting money on multi-billion projects, there’s no doubt that the funding is badly needed to keep mass transit running.  But that agency’s $15 billion plans were dependent on the higher tolls, not the new reduced tolls to go into effect in January 2025.

New York Governor Hochul says this has nothing to do with President-elect Trump’s plan to kill the congestion pricing scheme, but her timing says otherwise.  Once initiated, these tolls may be difficult to overturn. Difficult but not impossible.

But these are not the only ways that Connecticut residents help subsidize the city’s mass transit.

Most Connecticut residents working in New York City contribute to the Payroll Mobility Tax, which is a significant source of funding for the MTA.  In 2020, this tax was expected to generate $1.1 billion annually for the MTA.

This makes perfect sense, as most Connecticut commuters depend on Metro-North and the city’s subways to get to their destinations. And those who chose to drive to Manhattan should clearly pay for privilege.

While New Jersey Governor Murphy is suing the MTA over its toll plan, Governor Lamont has been only mildly supportive of congestion pricing, but adds "it's a good thing for all if more people took the train".  According to the MTA, 3100 Connecticut drivers travel to the city’s central business district each workday.

Connecticut is dependent on Metro-North for running “our” trains and maintaining the infrastructure: we own the tracks between Greenwich and New Haven but it’s Metro-North that fixes them.  If / when we order new railcars (which also run in New York state), Connecticut pays two-thirds of the cost and New York picks up the rest. 

Meantime, we are enjoying a flood of federal money for our rails as part of President Biden’s infrastructure law… $291 million to be spent on our tracks and power system, bridge replacements, double-tracking of the Hartford Line and relocating Hartford’s Union Station.

Clearly, the rush is on to get as much money as possible invested in mass transit before the Trump team returns to power.  The President-elect seems determined to cut federal spending and prioritize road repairs over transit, pedestrians and cyclists calling the Hochul plan for congestion pricing “a regressive tax”.

NEW LOCOMOTIVES FOR METRO-NORTH

Finally, there’s some good news for Metro-North riders, especially those who take the Danbury, Waterbury and Hartford lines:  new locomotives are coming… eventually.

Meet the Siemens Charger model SC-42DM, the first of its kind in the US.

Being built in Sacramento CA, these new engines are the latest innovation in the long history of this German manufacturer.  It was Siemens that built the first electric tram in the late 1800’s.  They even partnered to build one of the first commercial maglev trains, in Shanghai.

The Charger is a great machine and there are hundreds already in use in the US and abroad, running on railroads ranging from Amtrak and Brightline to commuter lines in Maryland, California and many other states.  They’ve already accumulated 10 million miles of operation.

But our Charger locomotives will be different. 

The DM in their name means they are “dual mode”, operating under diesel power and third rail.  Unlike the older GE-built P32 Genesis locomotives, these new Chargers can “go electric” all the way from Pelham (in Westchester County) to Grand Central.

But they can’t run “under the wire” in Connecticut like our Kawasaki M8 cars (which are also dual-powered, equipped with pantographs and third rail shoes).  That means that when running in Connecticut, the Chargers be using diesel power.

The good news is that, even running diesel, these are some of the cleanest, least polluting fossil-fuel engines available. They are Tier 4 certified, meaning they reduce pollutants by 85%. They also accelerate faster.

Connecticut’s branch lines, especially the meandering Danbury line, will never match the speeds of the mainline.  But with so many stations, on a steep upward grade, if every departure can be quicker, there will be time savings.

The new Chargers are equipped with electronic monitoring and diagnostics to alert the crew to any problems. They’re even quieter, thanks to active noise cancellation technology.  

But all of this innovation comes with a hefty price tag: $15 million per locomotive.

Metro-North has 27 of the new Chargers on order and just received their first two.   If testing on the new Chargers goes well, the railroad has an option to buy dozens more.  CDOT is also buying six of the same model.

Siemens has also built dual-mode Chargers for Amtrak. But in that case they operate “under the wire” on the Northeast Corridor.  Realistically, the third-rail version makes much more sense for Metro-North which has over 100 miles of electrified track (on its Hudson and Harlem lines) where third-rail is the only power source.

The Metro-North locos were ordered in 2020, paid for in part by a grant from the Federal Transit Administration which is pumping $1.5 billion into new rolling stock for mass transit nationwide through 2026.

These first two new Chargers for Metro-North now have to undergo testing, first at the FRA test track in Pueblo CO, then running on Metro-North tracks. 

This first duo of the new model should be in service, they say, by 2025.

 

 

LIFE AS A VAN NOMAD

Lorrie Sarafin is a van nomad in the American Southwest, one of the estimated three million Americans who live on the road.

For three years she has been without a house, but not a home, not just surviving but thriving in the desert and mountains of Arizona and New Mexico, living in her van “LokiMotion”, named after her cat.  Now in her mid-60s, Lorrie is living off her Social Security checks.

Raised in central Connecticut she describes herself as a “small town girl, but not rich”.  Not loving the big city, she moved to Arizona in 1993 and reinvented herself as a self-taught musician and artist, recording two CD’s of native American flute music. She even took extension classes through Julliard.

In 2014 she discovered minimalist and van-lifestyle guru Bob Wells and she started thinking about different housing options.

Unlike the van nomads whose lives were so well documented in the 2021 Oscar winning movie “Nomadland”, Lorrie didn’t lose her job and house, but walked away from both, choosing instead to spend her retirement living on the road.

“I asked myself ‘why am I doing a job just to have money to pay rent?’”.  (Doubtless there are housing-squeezed folks around here who may be asking the same thing.)  “Now I don’t have to pay rent or utilities, just car insurance and van payments.” 

After working all through Covid (without vaccination or getting sick), in 2021 she fitted out her new van’s interior herself complete with a bed, cabinets, shelves, a small refrigerator, Sirius XM radio and lights.  It’s all powered by a 500 watt battery she charges with solar panels for about six hours each day.

Solar cells charge up her battery

She can’t cook in her van but has mastered campfire cuisine.  Her biggest worry is bears so she keeps her bear spray close by and is considering getting a gun.

In the winter she heads to the warm side of the state where overnight lows are in the mid 30’s and daytime highs in the mid 70’s.  In the brutal summer heat she abandons the desert for the mountains.  “Above 8000 feet it stays in the mid 80’s,” says Lorrie. “But when it’s cold and raining, it’s not a lot of fun (being cooped up in the van).”

She can camp for up to 14 days on BLM (Bureau of Land Management) or US Forest Service land, then has to move on.

Sanitation depends on buckets, her laundry being done at a laundromat.  She takes sponge baths in her van and says that daily showers are over-rated.  As for her health, “I haven’t seen a doctor in 20 years but take a lot of supplements and must have a great immune system.”  She swears by Wild Oregano Oil as a preventative.

While she prefers to camp alone or with her friend, she actually likes being out of cellphone range.  She visits a small town PO Box for her snail mail and uses her cellphone for internet and email.

Camping in the mountains

She describes her fellow van nomads as “really nice people” who share her love of being alone. 

“If you’re a curl-up-on-the-couch and watch Netflix kind of person, this life is not for you,” she warns.   “But for me, I just have so much freedom and am in love with nature.”