Transportation Development Quotes

In America, we happen to be living in a third world country from the point of view of economic and social development. I came back from New York yesterday and I took the fastest train in the country, the Acela. My wife and I took the New York-Boston train sixty years ago - it wasn't called the Acela then - and I think it's improved by about fifteen minutes since then. Any other country in the world would be about half the time. In fact when it's riding along the Connecticut turnpike it's barely keeping up with traffic, which is just scandalous.

In the United States three new methods of transportation made their appearance at almost the same time - the steamboat, the canal boat, and the rail car.

All the arguments given for building the Trans-Continental Railroad at the time were plausible but turned out not to be true.

We shall yet place an iron belt from the Atlantic to the Pacific, a railroad from Halifax to Nootka Sound …

The passage of time is likely to make high-speed rail more and more desirable, making it critical that politicians of today think ahead to tomorrow.

New highways, ports, and runways appear economically foolish if we don't understand the economic growth that flows from such investments.

You may know that in India now the Tata car is becoming all the rage; you can buy it for one lakh - $2000 dollars - it's very, very cheap. So India seems to be going the route that China went a few years ago and that developing countries all over the world seem to want to follow, namely, to rely on these personal vehicles, which is just an irrational way of organizing transport.

The northern and western companies of inland lock navigation, having, agreeably to law, produced authentic accounts of their expenditures, I have given the necessary certificate to entitle them to receive from the Treasury the sum of ten thousand pounds, as a free gift on the part of this State towards the prosecution of those interesting objects. Although the care of improving and opening these navigations be committed to private companies, they will require, and no doubt from time to time receive, from the Legislature, every fostering aid and patronage commensurate to the great public advantages which must result from the improvement of the means of intercourse

The railroads were built at the expense of the destruction of agriculture.

My favourite British line is the West Highland line. It was built across moorland where no one had succeeded in building a road. So everything in that area is there because of the railway line.

If we are to avail ourselves fully of the benefits of civil aviation, and if we are to use the automobiles we can produce, it will be necessary to construct thousands of airports and to overhaul our entire national highway system.

Instead of letting the driver-base grow organically, we are setting up driver-training schools across different districts in the country.

Every new development, highway, railroad, steamship line, building operation, whether it be a drainage project in old Greece or a new water system in Peru, means an added use of the automobile.

The waste of capital, in proportion to the total capital, in this country between 1800 and 1850, in the attempts which were made to establish means of communication and transportation, was enormous.

Some infrastructure projects clearly require massive, coordinated investment - interstate highways or a new trans-Hudson tunnel, for instance. Others don't have to. We should be unafraid of pilot projects and learning.

The progress that we see going on in transportation is practically abolishing the distances which separate various sections of mankind. As a result of the exploitation of its natural and economic resources, each particular portion of the earth's surface is undergoing ceaseless alteration; the development of transportation is constantly creating new conditions.

People generally have more feeling for canals and roads than education. However, I hope we can advance them with equal pace.

I am glad to learn that the Parliament Bill has been passed for the Darlington Railway.

For this reason, it is essential that our Nation's rural transportation professionals be provided with the necessary tools and support to promote and showcase the value, benefits, and accomplishments of rural transportation planning and development.