#department of transport

[mostlysignssomeportents]

After Ohio rail disaster, Buttigieg is silent on restoring the safety standards Trump repealed

When a freight train carrying toxic chemicals derailed near East Palestine, Ohio, bursting into flame and sending up clouds of poisonous vinyl chloride smoke and gas, our immediate concerns were for the people in harm’s way and the train crew:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/04/us/train-derailment-fire-palestine-ohio.html

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/11/dinah-wont-you-blow/#ecp

But those immediate concerns were soon joined by a broader set of worries: that the entire rail industry presented a systematic danger, and the Ohio derailment was a symptom of a much deeper pathology that endangered anyone who lives near one of the rail corridors that crisscross America.

The rail industry is the poster child for corporate power, and rail barons were among the first targets of Gilded Age trustbusters who saw the rail monopolies as a threat to the prosperity and wellbeing of Americans, as well as the integrity of the American political system itself.

40 years of neoliberal “consumer welfare” antitrust — starting with Reagan and continuing through every administration since — has seen the American rail sector achieve levels of concentration that meet and exceed the corrupt, untenable degree of the late 19th century.

Like the original rail barons, the current crop (including the self-styled cuddly billionaire Warren Buffett), have gutted rail investment, skirted on safety, maimed and abused their workforce, smashed their unions, and placed the entire US supply chain in a state of brittle precarity:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/04/up-your-nose/#rail-barons

Like all monopolists, the rail industry has been able to capture its regulators, trampling evidence-based policy and replacing it with rules that benefit shareholders at the expense of the public, labor, and customers.

https://doctorow.medium.com/regulatory-capture-59b2013e2526

This regulatory capture is an inevitable consequence of market concentration. When an industry is composed of dozens of small- and medium-sized firms, they are unable to converge on a single story about which rules regulators should favor them with: some of those companies will want things the others don’t, and each will vie to produce evidence disconfirming the others’ claims.

But when an industry dwindles to a handful of cozy giants whose C-suites are stuffed with company-hopping executives who’ve done time at every major company in the sector, they converge on a single fairy tale about the best way to regulate their industry, and convert their regulators’ truth-seeking exercises into rigged auctions that they handily win:

https://locusmag.com/2022/03/cory-doctorow-vertically-challenged/

That’s what happened during the Trump years, when rail lobbyists secured the repeal of a long-overdue, hard-won safety regulation that would have required rail companies to replace the Civil-War-era brakes on their rolling stock with modern electronically controlled pneumatic brakes (ECPs):

https://jacobin.com/2023/02/rail-companies-safety-rules-ohio-derailment-brake-sytems-regulations

The repeal cost millions in lobbying dollars, but it was worth it. Shortly after the ECP rule was scrapped, Norfolk Southern handed millions in bonuses to its execs and did billions in stock buybacks, while laying offf thousands of workers:

https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/10/25/norfolk-southern-implements-massive-buyback-progra.aspx

Elections, we’re told, have consequences. After Biden won the 2020 presidential election, he made a string of excellent appointments — people like FTC chair Lina Khan, who hit the ground running with detailed plans for making sweeping, consequential changes that would blunt corporate power, reverse-Trump era abuses, and correct the dysfunctions that created a political base for Trump:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/party-its-1979-og-antitrust-back-baby

But other Biden appointees arrive in office with much less ambition. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has spent his tenure as King Log, failing to take action on spiraling airline cancellations, confining his major enforcement action to fining foreign airlines while ignoring the out-of-control abuses of America’s domestic carriers, except for the also-ran airline Frontier, which accounts for less than 2% of domestic travel:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/16/for-petes-sake/#unfair-and-deceptive

There are striking similarities between the structural defects in the airlines and the rail companies: both are highly concentrated sectors who have laid off senior staff, attacked unions, and blown billions in public money on stock buybacks and executive bonuses, even as their service degraded.

Both industries have been sharply criticized by experts and industry veterans, who’ve called for specific regulation. In the case of the airlines, SWA pilots and flight attendants had sounded the alarm about antiquated scheduling systems; for the rail companies, it’s experts like Grady Cothen, formerly a top safety expert at the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), who told Congress that without action on braking systems, “[there] will be more derailments, more releases of hazardous materials, more communities impacted”:

https://www.congress.gov/event/117th-congress/house-event/LC69424/text?s=1&r=9

Despite these warnings, and despite the near-misses and smaller disasters that led up to the 100-foot-tall fireball over Ohio, Buttigieg’s DOT has not moved to reinstate the Obama-era brake safety rule, deferring to the monopoly rail owners self-serving claim that there is no need for such a move:

https://jacobin.com/2023/02/department-of-transportation-train-brake-regulation-ohio-derailment/

Indeed, the FRA is currently considering a rule that would further weaken braking rules, reducing obligations to inspect, test and certify braking systems:

https://www.regulations.gov/document/FRA-2019-0072-0005

The rail labor unions — the best source of independent expertise on the daily operation of the freight system — say that this would be a disaster: “Following through with a final rule would only deliver yet another financial windfall to rail carriers by eliminating inspections, testing and repairs, and deferring routine maintenance”:

https://www.goiam.org/news/territories/tcu-union/carmen-division-tcu/rail-labor-files-joint-comments-on-fras-nprm-2/

Serving as Transportation Secretary to the President of the United States of America makes you one of the most powerful people in the history of the human race. The Secretary’s powers, while not unlimited, are extensive. The American people need a DoT that works for them, not one that weakens safety rules:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

Image: Gage Skidmore (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pete_Buttigieg_January_2020.jpg

CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en

James St John (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/jsjgeology/27110172823/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

This week (Feb 13–17), I’ll be in Australia, touring my book Chokepoint Capitalism with my co-author, Rebecca Giblin. We’re doing a remote event for NZ tomorrow (Feb 13). Next are Melbourne (Feb 14), Sydney (Feb 15) and Canberra (Feb 16/17). More tickets just released for Sydney!

[Image ID: A locomotive steaming away from a nuclear explosion. The face of the logo has been replaced with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg's, in the style of Thomas the Tank Engine.]

#pluralistic #railroads #trains #freight #department of transport #pete buttigieg #monopolies #transport #dot #federal railroad administration #ohio #fra #ecp #electronically controlled pneumatic brakes

[onlytiktoks]

#tiktok #schoolhousecaulk #new york #department of transport #department of transportation #train #walkable cities #infrastructure #queens #brooklyn #us govt #us government #new york government #long island #railroad #car centric infrastructure #public transportation #public transit

[whosebirthdayisit]

pete buttigieg

pete buttigieg was born this day (january 19) in 1982

pete buttigieg is an american politician, best known for his 2020 presidential candidacy. he is also the first openly gay man to serve as a cabinet secretary.

#birthday #happy birthday #pete buttigieg #us politics #department of transport #politicians #2020 presidential election #gay men #gay #lgbtq community #lgbt pride #queer community #1898 #on this day #on this date

[reasonsforhope]

"This week, the Department of Transportation (DOT) announced a new rule requiring airlines to make bathrooms more accessible for disabled people. All new single-aisle aircraft will be fitted with fully-accessible lavatories.

Most flights inside the United States are single-aisle and as technology has improved, they are used more frequently for long flights, including coast-to-coast trips that can last as long as six hours. Double-aisle plans are already subject to the regulation but are primarily used for international flights.

Out Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg announced the new regulations, saying, “Traveling can be stressful enough without worrying about being able to access a restroom; yet today, millions of wheelchair users are forced to choose between dehydrating themselves before boarding a plane or avoiding air travel altogether.” ...

The secretary has made it a priority to improve service on airlines during his tenure. In 2022, six airlines were forced to pay millions of dollars in refunds to hundreds of thousands of customers and were also fined millions for causing the issues. The department’s firm stance on the side of customers has continued through this year after multiple companies have had meltdowns, stranding thousands of travelers.

All planes delivered to airlines starting in 2026 must include several upgrades. Planes already in service will not need to be retrofitted unless the plane is renovated.

“These aircraft must have at least one lavatory of sufficient size to permit a passenger with a disability (with the help of an assistant, if necessary) to approach, enter, and maneuver within the aircraft lavatory, to use all lavatory facilities, and leave by means of the aircraft’s onboard wheelchair if necessary,” the DOT said in a statement.

Accessible faucets and controls, grab bars, accessible call buttons and door locks, minimum obstruction to the passage of an onboard wheelchair, and an available visual barrier for privacy are also required upgrades."

-via LGBTQ Nation, July 28, 2023

Wayyyyyyy fucking overdue but I'll take it!! Also, very nice curb cut effect: We all get to be less miserable on airplanes, and older people don't have to worry as much about airplane bathroom fall risks.

#airplane #plane #aviation #airport #airline #airline industry #department of transportation #pete buttigieg #biden administration #democrats #voting matters #disability #disabled #accessibility #ableism #accommodations #wheelchair accessible #good news #hope #they should make them retrofit all the planes too tho #ugh at least the have to retrofit if there's a renovation ig

[generallemarc]

Buttigieg and the current air travel issues

Apparently he went on Face the Nation on Sunday to basically apologize for all the current travel issues. Now, I'm normally never one to ignore an opportunity to criticize Sleepy Joe's administration, but...how exactly is this the DoT's fault? Most of these cancellations and direct delays(as in, delays caused by some issue at the airport/ with the plane , and not because something else got delayed and now they're delayed too) are coming from severe weather, which nobody controls(unless you're Lauren Boebert in which case the Jews control it with their laser beams) and if an airline does a poor job at managing their now-delayed passengers, that's their fault as a private company. Yeah, the DoT is the legal motivator that ensures risky flights aren't sent out into bad weather, but there are very few people who see that as a problem. So what's he apologizing for? Aside from not getting in the way of airlines trying to deal with all these traffic snarls, what can they even do at all?

#airlines #4th of july #pete buttigieg #department of transport

[insidecroydon]

Croydon has 20% more speeding drivers than next worst area

Has anyone seen Suella Braverman behind the wheel of her car going down the Purley Way or over the Flyover recently? What do points make?: as a lawyer and the Home Secretary, Suella Braverman is supposed to uphold the law Only if the Home Secretary was clocked speeding in Croydon, she would be far from alone, as official figures published over the weekend show that one postcode in this borough…

View On WordPress

#30mph limit #CR0 #Croydon #Department of Transport #Suella Braverman

[narwhalsarefalling]

i got a seizure from watching Avatar 2 and now I can’t drive for six months

#the narwhal speaks #the law in tx is that if u have a seizure and usually dont get them u gotta wait six months before driving again #which is fine and dandy except i live in a country where public transport takes 8 hours to travel 2 miles #(it was a fullbody seizure too not one located just in my legs like my normal ones) #avatar the way of water #urgj now my parenrs are gonna habe to drive me to school despite me being 22 years young #IM NOT GONNA HAVE A SEIZURE ON THE HIGHWAY @ TX DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION #UNLESS SOME FUCKER INSTALLS STROBE HEADLIGJTS #anyway this is what i get for watching avatar anyway lol #ok to rb btw! but you are legally obligated to make fun of me

[20th-century-railroading]

Disco Stripes

New Jersey Transit EMD E8A 4334 (ex-Southern Railway) sits forlornly out back of the Elizabethport shop. It's wearing an odd white paint job with classic NJT "disco stripes".

Elizabethport, New Jersey November 1983

#njt #new jersey transit #njdot #new jersey department of transportation #1983 #trains #passenger train #history #elizabethport #new jersey

[umbraastaff]

Six months before departure, I'm standing guard in the Perihelion's hangar.

They've improved security around the Light. Davenport insisted I wasn't left on sole guard duty, but I don't think they've hired more SecUnits either. They're just watching who passes through campus buildings with much more scrutiny, and I have to configure my input filters so SecSystem doesn't serve me a high-urgency ping any time someone goes through a door.

Everywhere is boring most of the time, but the ship's hangar is probably the least bad. The turae who pass through to work on the ship mostly don't bother or look at me, and I can secretly watch media with ease.

The ship's computer doesn't use words, but I'm able to understand it better and quicker than any tura can. As a SecUnit, I'm a bot-human construct -- I was created to interface with bot systems while having organic intelligence. The ship doesn't seem to get a lot of complex concepts beyond those related to its own function, which is the norm for a bot pilot.

Trapped In Active Depart, Chapter 0.3

#the adventure zone #taz balance #the murderbot diaries #murderbot #asshole research transport #trapped in active depart #mine

[kply-industries]

The New KPLY rail sedan. Because the Department of Transportation isn't the boss of us.

#animated gif #animated gifs #gif #gifs #old advertisements #old ads #retro #vhs #90s #KPLY #KPLY industries #train tracks #trains #cars #sedan #Department of Transportation #sass

[dandylion-s]

Sorry but if you're clowning on "down bad crying at the gym" then you've never lived. Like go have a breakdown in the grocery store dairy aisle like a normal person.

#and i do not meant this in the romantic sense #like have yall never had panic attacks in public transport before or something #cant relate #taylor swift #the tortured poets department #down bad

[htfphoto]

lafd station 12.

highland park, los angeles, ca.

my instant gram.

#night photography #fire department #highland park #los angeles #mundane #urban #transportation #architecture

[peppermintbutch]

Happy Novembutch

#had a carabiner freakout at the department store oopsie... same day i started t and transported a sofa that day was a big win for lesbians #novembutch #my face

[thoughtportal]

jaanavi kandula

#tiktok #jaanavi kandula #police violence #police brutality #police abolition #urban design #urban planning #bike lanes #bikes vs cars #department of transportation #critical mass #pedestrian dignity #pedestrians #pedestrian #hit and run

[racefortheironthrone]

Inspired by a joke in The Onion, do you think there's ever been a Secretary of Transportation who couldn't drive a car? My understanding is that you can live and work in Washington without really needing to drive.

If you live in the city proper rather than commuting in from the suburbs like everyone stuck on the Beltway, yeah, there's decent mass transit in D.C if the Metro isn't on fire at the moment.

However, one of the perks of being a Cabinet Secretary is that you are assigned a "portal-to-portal" car and driver, so the Secretary of Transportation doesn't need to drive.

I don't know if there has been a Secretary of Transportation who doesn't know how to drive. It's a pretty new Federal Department, only going back to 1966, which means that the people who have held that title all grew up after the car had achieved dominance in American culture, so they probably learned to drive growing up.

#history #u.s history #u.s government #department of transportation

[aryburn-trains]

B&O 9941 At Brunswick

Baltimore & Ohio Budd RDC #9941 idles at the roundhouse in Brunswick Yard, Brunswick MD, July 29, 1977.

#commuter train #b&o #baltimore & ohio #mdot #maryland department of transportation #wm #western maryland #1977 #washington dc #trains #passenger train #freight train #history #brunswick #maryland