Michael J. Quill Quotes

In the same way we have a long-term plan for building roads, we have to have a long term plan to build transit.

Public transportation is like a magnifying glass that shows you civilization up close.

Any urbanist has to appreciate New York City and the way it works. The public transit is astonishing.

If I ever thought it necessary, if I thought a combination of laborers were doing wrong, I would apply for an injunction against them just as quickly as against so many capitalists.

Labor which is too long and too hard and the belief that pay is inadequate not infrequently give workers cause to strike and become voluntarily idle. This evil, which is frequent and serious, ought to be remedied by public authority, because such interruption of work inflicts damage not only upon employers and upon the workers themselves, but also injures trade and commerce and the general interests of the State

The energy crisis has given new urgency to the need to improve public transportation, not only in our cities but in rural areas as well…. Mass transit is an essential element of the improvement of life in our cities and towns.

This rapid transit underground road is necessary for the accommodation and comfort of new York City residents.

From the late 1940s, into and through the '50s, there developed a complex interaction between federal government, state and local government, real-estate interests, commercial interests and court decisions, which had the effect of undermining the mass transit system across the country.

If you could take a subway from the suburbs in Boston, where I live, to downtown in 10 minutes, that improves your life over sitting in a traffic jam. People should see that.

We need a first-class transportation system.

We want transportation as reliable as running water.

I believe building new subways must be a top priority.

Most of the time, I get around perfectly well on my bike and public transportation, even in spite of the Bay Area's almost comically shambolic system.

In March 2005, I was appointed to the board of the Santa Barbara metro transit district. I was incredibly optimistic about how public transportation can be the solution to help people live in the city and not need a car.

I've always been fascinated with how transportation systems work and how cities are designed.

You know you're an Arizona native when you have to look up "mass transit" in the dictionary.

Persons who clamor for governmental control of American railways should visit Germany, and above all Russia, to see how such control results. In Germany its defects are evident enough; people are made to travel in carriages which our main lines would not think of using, and with a lack of conveniences which with us would provoke a revolt; but the most amazing thing about this administration in Russia is to see how, after all this vast expenditure, the whole atmosphere of the country seems to paralyze energy.

I absolutely love the public transportation system in New York. No matter what, no matter how people complain, it is the best in the world.

An advanced city is not one where even the poor use cars, but rather one where even the rich use public transport.

We must invest in our nation's transportation infrastructure.

People want subways, folks... subways, subways. They don't want these damn streetcars blocking up our city!

Here's the dilemma of the modern age: There used to be actions that workers could take, in the form of a strike. But now, that's being pre-empted by lockouts. They don't even have that leverage to protect their jobs.

Republicans turned against organized workers and abandoned the idea of promoting equality at the bottom of the economic scale. They turned their idea of economic harmony into a justification for supporting industrialists, who were the nation's job creators.

Living in N.Y.C. has truly awakened me to the New York elite and their penchant for the city's self-described brilliant public transit system. I think it sucks... just like public transit always does.

It would almost seem that - dare I say this - private transportation is more efficient than mass public-transit!