Eureka City Councilmembers Chris Kerrigan, Jeff Leonard and Larry Glass had some very encouraging comments tonight on the Traffic Signal synchronization project which the city is pursuing in cooperation with Caltrans. The project installs compatible electronis in both Caltrans' and the City's traffic signals to improve the flow of car traffic.

This article appeared in the Times-Standard on 15 November 2007 and in the Eureka-Reporter on 20 November 2007.

Imagine a scene from Humboldt County's future: Eureka, March 22nd, 2010. Doctors, lawyers, clerks, production workers, secretaries, professors and students wait on the platform. When the vehicle arrives at the station, they board, tickets in hand and take to the comfortable seats. Their ride smoothly accelerates and begins to breeze along toward Arcata. As they depart, a few passengers look up from their reading to see the traffic congestion they are passing. In a few minutes, most of the passengers de-board and walk to work or catch a connecting bus.

My nephew is obsessed with trains. In fact, last weekend he traveled from suburban New Jersey into New York City with my stepfather to ride the Number 7 subway line in his quest to ride every subway line in NYC from end to end. There are some folks here in Arcata and Humboldt County who seem to be almost as obsessed as my nephew, to the point of losing sight of what rail is for: moving people and goods from place to place.