With the recent Amtrak crash, media has once again taken interest in the sorry state of passenger rail in the US.

I get quoted in an article by Alan Neuhauser for US News and World Report: With Amtrak, Smaller May Be Better: Slashing the rail service’s budget may be just the thing Amtrak needs. We talked for 17 minutes. My soundbite:

“Getting rejected by Congress might be the best thing for rail in the Northeast,” says David Levinson, a transportation engineering professor at the University of Minnesota. “It would have a short-term disruptive effect unless something else is put in place,” he allows, but “for real change, you have to change the governance: who’s getting the money, who’s spending the money, how much they’re getting.”