the feminist librarian reads

Amtrak and state transit agencies like the MBTA that operate commuter rail networks should be natural allies. Instead, the two sides are now pitted against each other as a result of Congress’s refusal to sufficiently increase funding levels for the country’s passenger rail network. Federal and state transportation officials cannot satisfy the riding public’s appetite for 21st-century rail lines (like the ones in Europe and Asia that American tourists swoon over) with 20th-century trains, tracks, tunnels, and bridges, barely sustained by funding levels so inadequate they would raise the eyebrows of the 19th-century titans of industry who originally established the country’s rail networks.