Last year I went on an Amtrak adventure. Once again, I have redeemed a bunch of rewards points and have put together a 23-night, 7,292-mile trip. Click on the maps to enlarge them.

Leg 1:
Train 6 — California Zephyr
Monday, May 7 — 3:30 am — Salt Lake City, Utah
Half a night, breakfast, lunch, dinner, night 1, breakfast, and lunch on the California Zephyr.
Tuesday, May 8 — 2:50 pm — Chicago, Illinois
1,608 miles
34 hours, 20 minutes

6-hour layover in Chicago. Amtrak layovers are the exact opposite of airport layovers, since you’re downtown. Unless the weather is bad, I’ll go for a ride on Divvy along the river and along Lake Michigan.

Leg 2:
Train 48 — Lake Shore Limited
Tuesday, May 8 — 9:30 pm — Chicago, Illinois
Night 2, breakfast and lunch on the Lake Shore Limited.
Wednesday, May 9 — 6:23 pm — New York City, New York
959 miles
19 hours, 53 minutes

Nights 3, 4, and 5 in New York City. I’ll have two full days to enjoy it. 🙂 I’m still trying to figure out whether the subway or CitiBike is my favorite way to experience it.

Leg 3:
Train 2249 — Acela Express
Saturday, May 12 — 10:00 am — New York City, New York
Lunch on the Acela Express.
Saturday, May 12 — 1:01 pm — Washington, DC
225 miles
3 hours, 1 minute

Nights 6 and 7 in Washington. Capital Bikeshare is a great way to experience the nation’s capital.

Leg 4:
Train 89 — Palmetto
Monday, May 14 — 10:00 am — Washington, DC
Lunch and dinner on the Palmetto. North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia will be states #34, #35, and #36.
Monday, May 14 — 9:04 pm — Savannah, Georgia
604 miles
11 hours, 4 minutes

Nights 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14 in Savannah. I’ll be spending a week here to attend the 26th Congress for the New Urbanism. I’ll also take some rides on CAT Bike.

Leg 5:
Train 90 — Palmetto
Monday, May 21 — 8:20 am — Savannah, Georgia
Lunch on the Palmetto.
Monday, May 21 — 2:24 pm — Wilson, North Carolina
353 miles
6 hours, 4 minutes

1-hour layover in Wilson. I probably won’t get to venture far from the station.

Leg 6:
Train 79 — Carolinian
Monday, May 21 — 3:55 pm — Wilson, North Carolina
Dinner on the Carolinian.
Monday, May 21 — 6:54 pm — Greensboro, North Carolina
136 miles
2 hours, 59 minutes

5-hour layover in Greensboro. Looks like Lime recently added bikeshare to Greensboro, so I’ll probably give that a ride.

Leg 7:
Train 19 — Crescent
Tuesday, May 22 — 12:22 am — Greensboro, North Carolina
Night 15, breakfast, lunch, and dinner on the Crescent. Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana will be states #37, #38, and #39.
Tuesday, May 22 — 7:32 pm — New Orleans, Louisiana
865 miles
20 hours, 10 minutes

Night 16 in New Orleans. I wish I were going to have more time in New Orleans. Streetcars, the ferry, and Blue Bikes are on my to do list.

Leg 8:
Train 58 — City of New Orleans
Wednesday, May 23 — 1:45 pm — New Orleans, Louisiana
Dinner on the City of New Orleans. Tennessee will be state #40.
Wednesday, May 23 — 10:20 pm — Memphis, Tennessee
406 miles
8 hours, 35 minutes

Night 17 in Memphis. It’s a huge coincidence that I’ll be arriving in Memphis the day that Explore Bike Share is launched! I’ll bike west across the Mississippi, and Arkansas will be state #41.

Leg 9:
Train 58 — City of New Orleans
Thursday, May 24 — 10:40 pm — Memphis, Tennessee
Night 18 and breakfast on the City of New Orleans.
Friday, May 25 — 9:20 am — Chicago, Illinois
528 miles
10 hours, 20 minutes

4-hour layover in Chicago. More Divvy rides.

Leg 10:
Train 5 — California Zephyr
Friday, May 25 — 2:00 pm — Chicago, Illinois
Snacks on the California Zephyr.
Friday, May 25 — 4:38 pm — Galesburg, Illinois
162 miles
2 hours, 38 minutes

Night 19 in Galesburg. There’s a place to rent cars next to the train station in Galesburg.

Nights 20, 21, and 22 in Nauvoo. I have an aunt and uncle serving a mission in historic Nauvoo, so I’ll be renting a car, since I don’t want to miss the opportunity to visit for free.

Leg 11:
Train 5 — California Zephyr
Tuesday, May 29 — 4:38 pm — Galesburg, Illinois
Dinner, night 23, breakfast, lunch, and dinner on the California Zephyr.
Wednesday, May 30 — 11:05 pm — Salt Lake City, Utah
1,446 miles
30 hours, 27 minutes

After my Amtrak Adventure, I will have visited 41 out of 50 states (or 82%). In the map above, the states I’ve been to are in yellow, while the states that I haven’t are in grey. Additionally, I still have yet to visit Alaska and Hawaii.

One great thing about Amtrak is their rewards program. One great thing about Amtrak’s rewards program is the Amtrak Rewards Credit Card, which earns you points on your purchases that can be redeemed for travel on Amtrak. I have redeemed a bunch of points and have put together a 31-night, 11,453-mile trip the second half of April and first half of May. Click on the maps to enlarge them.

Leg 1:
Train 6 – California Zephyr
Saturday, April 15 – 3:30 am – Salt Lake City, Utah
Half a night, breakfast, lunch, dinner, night 1, and breakfast on the California Zephyr.
Sunday, April 16 – 11:41 am – Galesburg, Illinois
1,446 miles
31 hours, 11 minutes

Night 2 will be in Galesburg, Illinois. I’ve passed through Galesburg several times on the California Zephyr and have always wanted to take a look around. Staying a night here also allows me to take a ride on the Illinois Zephyr and experience another state-sponsored Amtrak route.

Leg 2:
Train 380 – Illinois Zephyr
Monday, April 17 – 7:38 am – Galesburg, Illinois
Breakfast on the Illinois Zephyr.
Monday, April 17 – 10:35 am – Chicago, Illinois
162 miles
2 hours, 57 minutes

5-hour layover in Chicago. Amtrak layovers are the exact opposite of airport layovers, since you’re downtown. Unless the weather is bad, I’ll go for a ride on Divvy along the river and along the lake.

Leg 3:
Train 850 – Hoosier State
Monday, April 17 – 5:45 pm – Chicago, Illinois
Dinner on the Hoosier State.
Monday, April 17 – 11:50 pm – Indianapolis, Indiana
196 miles
5 hours, 5 minutes

Night 3 will be in Indianapolis, Indiana. I enjoyed Indianapolis when I visited there in October 2015. On that trip, I arrived on the Hoosier State operated with equipment provided by Iowa Pacific. It will change back to equipment provided by Amtrak in March, and I wanted to see how the change works out. Also, the Indianapolis Cultural Trail is one of the best urban ped/bike trails in the nation and is great to explore on Indiana Pacers Bikeshare.

Leg 4:
Train 50 – Cardinal
Tuesday, April 18 – 11:59 pm – Indianapolis, Indiana
Night 4, breakfast, lunch, and dinner on the Cardinal. Kentucky will be state #28.
Wednesday, April 19 – 9:58 pm – New York City, New York
951 miles
21 hours, 59 minutes

Nights 6, 7, and 8 will be spent in the Big Apple. I’ll have two full days to enjoy it. 🙂 I’m still trying to figure out whether the subway or CitiBike is my favorite way to experience it.

Leg 5:
Train 2203 – Acela Express
Saturday, April 22 – 8:00 am – New York City, New York
Breakfast on the Acela Express.
Saturday, April 22 – 10:57 am – Washington, DC
225 miles
2 hours, 57 minutes

Nights 8, 9, and 10 will be spent in the nation’s capital. I will hopefully arrive in time to participate in the March for Science. I will also be attending the Spring Council Meeting of the National Association of Railroad Passengers. I also love riding around on Capital Bikeshare.

Leg 6:
Train 29 – Capitol Limited
Tuesday, April 25 – 4:05 pm – Washington, DC
Dinner, night 11, and breakfast on the Capitol Limited.
Wednesday, April 26 – 8:45 am – Chicago, Illinois
780 miles
17 hours, 40 minutes

6-hour layover in Chicago. More Divvy rides.

Leg 7:
Train 3 – Southwest Chief
Wednesday, April 26 – 3:00 pm – Chicago, Illinois
Dinner, night 12, breakfast, lunch, dinner, night 13, and breakfast on the Southwest Chief. Missouri, Kansas, and New Mexico will be states #29, #30, and #31.
Friday, April 28 – 8:15 am – Los Angeles, California
2,265 miles
43 hours, 15 minutes

Night 14 in LA. I plan to ride Metro out to Santa Monica and finally experience the Santa Monica pier. I’ll also give Metro Bike Share a try.

Leg 8:
Train 14 – Coast Starlight
Saturday, April 29 – 10:10 am – Los Angeles, California
Lunch, dinner, night 15, breakfast, lunch, and dinner on the Coast Starlight.
Sunday, April 30 – 8:12 pm – Seattle, Washington
1,377 miles
34 hours, 2 minutes

Nights 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, and 22 in Seattle. I’m in town to attend the 25th Congress for the New Urbanism. Saturday I’m doing the ferry ride and tour of Victoria, British Columbia.

Leg 9:
Train 507 – Amtrak Cascades
Sunday, May 7 – 2:10 pm – Seattle, Washington
Snacks on the Amtrak Cascades.
Sunday, May 7 – 2:53 pm – Tacoma, Washington
39 miles
43 minutes

Night 23 visiting my uncle in Tacoma.

Leg 10:
Train 11 – Coast Starlight
Monday, May 8 – 10:21 am – Tacoma, Washington
Snacks on the Coast Starlight.
Monday, May 8 – 12:19 am – Kelso, Washington
98 miles
1 hour, 58 minutes

Nights 24, 25, and 26 visiting my mom and stepdad in Longview, Washington.

Leg 11:
Train 501 – Amtrak Cascades
Thursday, May 11 – 9:47 am – Kelso, Washington
Snacks on the Amtrak Cascades.
Thursday, May 11 – 11:05 am – Portland, Oregon
50 miles
1 hour, 18 minutes

5-hour layover in Portland. “The dream of the ‘90s is alive in Portland.” I’ll be sure to ride Biketown.

Leg 12:
Train 28 – Empire Builder
Thursday, May 11 – 4:45 pm – Portland, Oregon
Dinner, night 27, breakfast, lunch, dinner, night 28, breakfast, and lunch on the Empire Builder. North Dakota will be state #32.
Saturday, May 13 – 2:07 pm – Milwaukee, Wisconsin
2,170 miles
43 hours, 22 minutes

Night 29 in Milwaukee. I made a brief visit in October 2015, and I plan to see more of the city on Bublr.

Leg 13:
Train 334 – Hiawatha
Sunday, May 14 – 11:00 am – Milwaukee, Wisconsin
No snack bar on the Hiawatha. 🙁
Sunday, May 14 – 12:29 pm – Chicago, Illinois
86 miles
1 hour, 29 minutes

1-hour layover in Chicago. Just enough time for lunch.

Leg 14:
Train 5 – California Zephyr
Sunday, May 14 – 2:00 pm – Chicago, Illinois
Dinner on the California Zephyr.
Sunday, May 14 – 10:55 pm – Omaha, Nebraska
500 miles
8 hours, 55 minutes

Night 30 in Omaha. My main reason for stopping in Omaha is to make a visit to South Dakota. Early in the morning, I’ll hop on Greyhound and north ride to Sioux City, Iowa, where I’ll rent a bike and ride up the Missouri and Sioux Big Sioux Rivers to North Sioux City, South Dakota, so I can get state #33. In the afternoon, I’ll ride Greyhound back to Omaha and explore on Heartland Bcycle.

Leg 15:
Train 5 – California Zephyr
Monday, May 15 – 11:05 pm – Omaha, Nebraska
Night 31, breakfast, lunch, and dinner on the California Zephyr.
Tuesday, May 16 – 11:05 pm – Salt Lake City, Utah
1,108 miles
25 hours

After my Amtrak Adventure, I will have visited 33 out of 50 states (or two-thirds). In the map above, the states I’ve been to are in yellow, while the states that I haven’t are in grey. Additionally, I still have yet to visit Alaska and Hawaii.

“High speed rail won’t work in the US, because our density is too low.”
Density definitely matters when deciding which transit mode is appropriate (40-foot bus on an hourly headway vs. a ten-car subway train on 5-minute headways), especially for local trips. However, the longer the journey, the less density surrounding the stations will ridership levels. If this density fallacy were true, only the people living around airports would fly!

“Spending taxpayer funds to support transit is a wasteful luxury, because we already have a system of cars and highways.”
This is one of the typical arguments put forth by Randal O’Toole and others at the Cato Institute. It makes several false assumptions. Chief among them are that the system of cars and highways: 1. works well, 2. pays for itself, 3. exerts no negative externalities on society, 4. is accessible to all, and 5. is what people want.

“People are too in love with their cars.”
We are? Really???

“People don’t want to walk and ride bikes.”
Every year people pay a lot of money to visit highly walkable places like Disneyland. These places tend to be visited more by those Americans living in the less walkable suburbs. When it comes to biking, all I have are two words: Amsterdam and Copenhagen.

“If transit comes to my neighborhood, crime will increase.”
This one especially bothers me, since I’ve seen transit proposals die because of it. It shows how wild people will allow their imaginations to run, while at the same time denying themselves the benefits that should be blatantly obvious to them. Somehow I just can’t imagine someone breaking in to a home, stealing a TV, and then riding away on a train!

So I was in a sour mood when I wrote this.  It was originally titled “Bullshit,” but I changed the title, since I didn’t want to scare away potential readers.  I figured that I should start 2015 off right and do some ranting. 😉 LOL

 

Just as the debate over whether Pluto qualifies as a planet continues to rage, so rages the debate over whether Salt Lake City’s S-Line qualifies as a streetcar or as light rail.  Yesterday Matt Johnson of Greater Greater Washington published an article titled “See America’s streetcar systems at the same scale” which featured the following beautiful diagram.

Noticeably missing from the list is Salt Lake City.  Matt was nice enough to include the following explanation for its absence.

The Sugar House “Streetcar” in Salt Lake City is really a light rail service, though it’s branded as a streetcar by the agency. Since it runs in an exclusive right-of-way and uses the same vehicles as the rest of Salt Lake’s light rail system, I did not include it in the map.

Well, I still wanted to see how the S-Line compares to the other systems, so I made the following “slight” modification to Matt’s diagram. 😉

Update:

Less than an hour after I published this post, Matt tweeted the following:

@MRC_SLC Actually, we duplicated our effort. I updated the graphic a half hour ago to include the Sugar House line.

— Matt’ Johnson, AICP (@Tracktwentynine) December 12, 2014

So here’s what the updated diagram looks like:

Thanks Matt. 🙂

This afternoon I discovered an article titled “The 10 highest sales-generating malls in the U.S.” on Fortune.  I instantly became curious what these malls’ relationship was with walkability.  Almost as instantly I realized that Walk Score could allow me to quickly quantify the malls’ relative walkabilities.

Summary of findings: with the exception of the Woodbury Common Premium Outlets, the malls all had a walk score exceeding 50!  Here is a table of the 10 malls sorted by walk score:

Walk Score	Transit Score	Bike Score	Fortune Rank	Mall
98	96	97	3	Pioneer Place
92	62	57	2	The Grove
82	75	59	9	Ala Moana Center
78	63	–	6	Aventura Mall
62	–	–	1	Bal Harbour Shops
57	27	34	7	The Mall at Millenia
55	42	62	8	Orlando Premium Outlets
51	53	53	5	Forum Shops at Caesars
51	–	–	10	The Mall At Short Hills
27	–	–	4	Woodbury Common Premium Outlets

So then I became curious what the various walk scores for Utah’s malls would be.  Below is the table sorted by walk score:

Walk Score	Transit Score	Bike Score	Fortune Rank	Name
93	70	85	–	City Creek Center
85	52	96	–	Trolley Square
80	70	90	–	The Gateway Mall
78	50	–	–	The Junction
72	36	–	–	Newgate Mall
72	–	–	–	Cache Valley Mall
69	–	–	–	University Mall
69	–	–	–	Layton Hills Mall
65	54	–	–	Valley Fair Mall
64	–	–	–	Fashion Place Mall
62	43	–	–	Provo Towne Center
56	–	–	–	South Towne Center
51	–	–	–	Red Cliffs Mall
48	23	–	–	The District
38	–	–	–	Station Park

Obviously Walk Score is not a perfect system for evaluating walkability.  I feel that it is too heavily weighted towards nearby amenities and doesn’t pay enough attention to the quality of the walk.  However, it does provide quick results and makes it simple and easy to compare locations.

The Utah Transit Authority will celebrate the 15th anniversary of the opening of its first light rail line in December 2014, which started with a 15-mile segment and quickly expanded to the beautiful 135-mile system that we have today.  Since no one has taken the time to actually put together a document to chronicle the system’s expansion, I decided to take on the task and am now releasing the draft that I put together in August.

The resulting “atlas” is 14 pages (25 mb) and can be downloaded here:
http://countingpantographs.org/files/UTA_Atlas_DRAFT.pdf  It can also be viewed and downloaded using Scribd, although viewing on Scribd greatly reduces its quality:
https://www.scribd.com/doc/237967265/The-Evolution-of-UTA-s-Rail-System-DRAFT  You can check out the first and last pages below:

I’m still wanting to make some tweaks on the map and would appreciate feedback.  Even though my creation isn’t the typical transit map since it’s been created to scale, I’m also hoping to get some feedback from Cameron Booth of Transit Maps.  I chose a scale map rather than a schematic diagram, since I wanted to give viewers an idea of the actual distances being connected by the rail system.  For those who are interested, I created it using ArcGIS with data from Utah’s AGRC combined with my own knowledge and a few details clarified using Wikipedia.

Lately I’ve been pondering on the effects of sprawl on my own religious community.  Chuck Marohn at Strong Towns is partially to blame for this.  I enjoy that he speaks openly about his own religious background as evidenced by two recent posts: in “Living in Communion,” where Chuck discusses the impact of the built environment on his local congregation, and in “The Cost of Transition,” which directed my attention to Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation from last November, wherein the Pope makes very clear his feelings toward “a financial system which rules rather than serves” and other ills of inequality plaguing our society.

While I’m going to keep this post secular, I feel strongly that religion still holds an important place in society.  My dad is an electrical engineer, who is also religious.  He raised me to look at the world in pluralistic manner, for which I will always be grateful.  Rather than seeing science and religion as contradictory, I see the two as complimentary and appreciate multiple perspectives.  But enough on that.

Before I can explain how sprawl impacts my own religious community as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or LDS Church (AKA the Mormons), I need to give a brief overview of the basic structure of the church and how strongly tied it is to geography.  The basic congregation of the LDS Church is the ward, which usually consists of around 250 active members.  Having a boundary that delineates the geographic extent each ward is unique among most other religions.  In the LDS Church, geography dictates which ward you attend.

In areas of high LDS membership (like Utah), a ward’s geography may consist of only a handful of city blocks.  Most of the Salt Lake City metropolitan area was developed under land use policies that create the sprawl typically found throughout the United States, complete with the strict economic stratification created by zoning.  The end result is that for a ward covering a small area, there is little economic or demographic diversity among its members.  A good case study is the ward, where my aunt and uncle live in the Millcreek Township.  They describe the demographic makeup of their ward as “the newly-weds and the nearly-deads.”

Examining why the lack of diversity is detrimental to the ability of a ward to function requires a brief overview of the concept of social capital.  Social capital is a term coined by sociologists (and often used by city planners) to describe the exchange of goods and services that occur in a community among friends, family, and neighbors without an exchange of money.  Here’s a simple example: A family with teenagers has their kids shovel the snow from the walkways of the elderly widow’s home next door, and in return, the widow bakes cookies for the family.  The basic idea behind social capital is that everyone has strengths and weaknesses; we all have needs, and we all have something to offer others.  In a community with a high level of social capital, much can be accomplished without actually exchanging a single dollar.  Social capital tends to flourish in a diverse population, where the strengths of some can alleviate the weaknesses of others and vice versa.  However, social capital struggles in homogenous populations, where everyone tends to share the same set of strengths and weaknesses.

Religious communities perform many functions beyond saving souls, and the LDS Church is no different.  Considering the previous paragraph, a LDS ward can be seen as a mechanism for fostering social capital.  When a ward suffers from a lack of diversity, social capital struggles, which makes it more difficult for the LDS Church to achieve its commitment to welfare and self-reliance.  It’s true that the LDS Church can and does transfer the abundance of donations from affluent wards to those wards that are in need; however, I feel that the redistribution of wealth functions much better when we can be personally involved in it.  The more we become personally involved, the less we need formal systems for redistributing wealth.  When we build communities that naturally encourage diversity and promote a natural redistribution of wealth, society has far fewer issues that need to be formally solved later on.

Finally, a shout-out to LDS Earth Stewardship for the great conversation that I had with those who were tabling last Saturday at Salt Lake City’s Downtown Farmers Market.  Hopefully, this post will help to show that stewardship is also critical for creating the proper human habitats.

I live along Redwood Road, which is also known at Utah State Route 68.  In my neighborhood of Salt Lake City, Redwood Road is a 5-lane arterial with a concrete roadbed.  Recently the Utah Department of Transportation embarked on the concrete pavement rehabilitation of Redwood Road.  As stated on the same page, “The project will also repair or replace pedestrian ramps as needed.”

The two photos below show the state of the pedestrian ramps nearest my home as of July 15:This wouldn’t be so much of a problem, if it weren’t for the fact that the pedestrian ramps have been in this same state for weeks!  So, if you’re in a wheelchair, you’re forced out into the lanes of traffic in order to detour around the construction.  And, if you’re in a wheelchair and need to cross the street, good luck trying to reach the button to activate the pedestrian signal.  Once again this has been dragging on for weeks.

It’s obvious that UDOT has continued to view pedestrian facilities as a required formality rather than a legitimate transportation mode, which explains why few pedestrians can be seen walking along Redwood Road.  I hope someday soon UDOT will shift its priority from moving cars to moving people.