The election is over and from an urbanism/transportation perspective, the results are mixed.

Locally the news is mostly good. O’Malley beat Ehrlich, ensuring the Purple and Baltimore Red light rail lines will continue to move forward. Tommy Wells and Chris Zimmerman, two of the loudest local voices for smart growth and multi-modalism, both won reelection to their city/county council positions. Arlington and Fairfax Counties passed bonds for transportation spending worth over $150 million dollars.

Nationally things were more bleak. The Republican takeover of the House will make passing a progressive transportation reauthorization bill much more difficult. Ohio and Wisconsin elected new anti-rail governors likely to squash the nascent intercity rail programs in those states. And perhaps the biggest loss: Minnesota Congressman Jim Oberstar – one of the two leading voices for progressive transportation in Congress – lost his seat.

Overall, transportation fared well enough considering the tide of the election as a whole. Oberstar is a monumental loss, but the reauthorization bill probably wasn’t going to live up to our expectations anyway, and if Ohio and Wisconsin cut their rail projects the federal money allocated to them will be redistributed to other rail projects elsewhere; it’s conceivable some of it could land in the Northeast or DC-Richmond corridors, to our local benefit.

The election was unfortunate, but it could have been a lot worse.

Point of Rocks station

Train stations are the perfect nexus of transit and architecture geekdom. Obviously, I love them. Since I also like to make lists, and since the DC area is fortunate enough to have several excellent examples of historic depots, here is a list of what I think are the best ones:

Number 10: Manassas
I’m a sucker for turrets and covered platforms, which help this otherwise unextraordinary station squeak in at number 10. Used by VRE and Amtrak.

Number 9: Chesapeake Beach
Click the link and look at the picture with the station all prettied up for Christmas. Isn’t that adorable? Too bad it’s no longer a functioning depot.

Number 8: Harpers Ferry
Solid all around, and it gets bonus points for being next to an awesome mountain tunnel. Used by MARC and Amtrak.

Number 7: Rockville
B&O Railroad architect Francis Baldwin designed a ton of great Victorian stations in Maryland. More will appear further down. Rockville’s is no longer in use as a depot.

Number 6: Fredericksburg
This big brick station is best remembered for its industrial looking covered platforms. We don’t have much of that steel look in DC, so it’s fun to find nearby. Used by Amtrak and VRE.

Number 5: Martinsburg
It used to be common for hotels and train stations to co-locate (especially out west). This is the only local example I know of. Used by Amtrak and MARC.

Number 4: Gaithersburg
Another of Francis Baldwin’s B&O depots, this one seems straight out of a fairy tale. Used by MARC.

Number 3: Frederick
This vintage 1854 building is reminiscent of Washington, DC’s old B&O station, which was demolished when Union Station was built. No longer in use as a depot.

Number 2: Point of Rocks
The best of Baldwin’s B&O stations, this one is just gorgeous. Used by MARC.

Number 1: Washington Union Station
Really, could there be any other answer?

Honorable Mentions: Fairfax Station, Laurel, Kensington (the latter two are Baldwin stations). Also note that I excluded the Baltimore area, which has a ton of good stations as well.

In June we learned that Amtrak will soon begin running trains to Norfolk, but that the yet-to-be-built station will be adjacent to Harbor Park rather than in Norfolk’s immediate downtown.

Reader Adam Forehlig follows up on the story by calling BeyondDC’s attention to Norfolk’s station plan, which was submitted to the federal government for consideration in the TIGER2 program (meaning it will compete the Washington region’s bikesharing request).

The plan would develop one of Harbor Park’s surface parking lots into a new multi-modal transportation hub for the city. In the image below you can see the Amtrak platform (at bottom left), light rail platforms (top right), a regional bus facility, and a passenger drop-off area, in addition to station buildings and connecting arcades.

Given the constraints of the site it is an attractive and well-conceived plan, but as I did in June, I still worry that that chosen site is not the right one. If indeed this becomes Norfolk’s main hub for transit then it’s an even bigger problem that it is not located in easy walking distance from downtown.

Norfolk’s proposed Harbor Park multi-modal transportation center.

Acela NE Regional train at Boston’s South Station.

For most Americans Amtrak is a curiosity, but for those of us along the east coast it is an actually useful mode of transportation. The three busiest Amtrak stations are New York, Washington, and Philadelphia, after all. So with that in mind, here is BeyondDC’s list of the top Amtrak destinations from DC.

The list is based on a subjective combination of ease of travel via Amtrak and, y’know, whether the destination is a place anybody would want to go.

Number 10: Boston Big city, plenty of frequent trains, Acela the whole way. Boston would be much higher on the list if it weren’t so far. At 450 miles it’s on the outer edge of a reasonable distance for travel by train.

Number 9: Coastal Connecticut From cosmopolitan New Haven to touristy Mystic Seaport, there are plenty of places to go, and it’s on the high-qualify Northeast Corridor.

Number 8: Charlottesville Virginia’s likable college town makes for a perfect day trip. Unfortunately there aren’t many trains, so scheduling can be tough.

Number 7: Williamsburg Ditto Charlottesville, but the train schedule is a little easier.

Number 6: Hudson Valley With light houses and fortresses perched atop rocky riverside embankments, the views are nothing short of stunning. As long as you’re staying south of Albany the trip is easy and relatively cheap. For extra savings, take Amtrak to New York and then use Metro North for the second leg.

Number 5: Atlantic City OK, you have to transfer to a New Jersey Transit train in Philly, but that ain’t no thang.

Number 4: Richmond At two-and-a-half hours it’s a comfortable ride, and even though it’s south of DC there are enough trains that scheduling is pretty easy. Use Main Street station rather than Staples Mill for a more urbanistically and architecturally interesting trip.

Number 3: Baltimore Everybody loves the Inner Harbor, right? The only problem with Amtrak to Baltimore is that it’s almost too close. On weekdays those $7 MARC tickets trump the faster but more expensive Amtrak trip.

Number 2: New York America’s unquestioned king of all things passenger rail would be number 1 if the bus from DC wasn’t such a competitive option. Still, there’s something magical about arriving in Penn Station via train (even if Penn Station is a hole).

Number 1: Philadelphia It’s a relaxing-length ride along the high-quality Northeast Corridor, and it’s to a fun city. Amtrak is always my mode of choice to the City of Brotherly Love.

Dishonorable Mentions: Amtrak is what it is, and so even though we’re on the east coast there are some nearby destinations that *should* be easy to reach via train, but unfortunately aren’t. Pittsburgh is almost exactly the same distance from DC as New York, but the one train there per day dumps you off in the middle of the night and is essentially unusable. Harrisburg is as close as Richmond and has decent Amtrak service, but you have to go out of the way to Philadelphia and then backtrack to use it. Norfolk and Virginia Beach are too far from the Newport News station for it to be very useful, although that is due to be fixed.

This is worth about $50 to me. Photo by Kynan Tait.

What’s the best way to get between New York and Washington?

Depends how you define “best”, of course. Just about everybody knows that the cheapest way to do it is via bus, but cheapest isn’t always best. For the extra price of an Amtrak ticket you get more seating space, nicer and bigger bathrooms, a faster ride (even on the slow train, never mind Acela), the ability to get up and walk around, and a cafe car. Buses these days are pretty nice, but they’re not nearly as comfortable as Amtrak.

So just how much extra cash is that comfort worth?

It’s usually about $20 one-way on a bus and $100 one-way on Amtrak’s NE Regional train. For a round trip, that’s a difference of $160. If you’re traveling with a partner (as I usually am), then that’s a round-trip two-person cost difference of $320. I like the cafe car, but not that much. For those prices, I’ll take the bus every time.

But what if the price difference were less? How much closer would it have to get for Amtrak to start looking reasonable?

It so happens that this weekend I’ll be driving up to New York with family, but coming home alone and without a car. For that one-way, one-person trip, the cost difference between Amtrak ($100) and bus ($20) isn’t as severe. It isn’t negligible though. $80 still seems like too much, at least on my budget.

However, I’ll be traveling fairly late at night, and Amtrak’s night discount is bigger than Bolt’s. The train I want is only $74, while the bus I want comes out to $23. That’s a difference of only $51. That cafe car is looking a lot more attractive now.

After thinking about it a few minutes, I booked on Amtrak. Being able to walk around, use a nice restroom, and get food when I want was worth the extra $51 to me, but just barely. If the difference had been much more I don’t think I could have justified it to myself. $30 difference: Done in a heartbeat. $60 difference: I’m not so sure.

What would you do? How much extra will you pay for the luxury of a train?

Cross-posted at Greater Greater Washington.

The good news: Amtrak will soon start a new line to Norfolk, meaning passengers to the Hampton Roads area will no longer have to trek across the James River to Newport News to catch a train. Hooray!

The bad news: The train won’t actually stop in either downtown Norfolk nor downtown Richmond, by far the two largest walkable and transit-friendly destinations in Virgina outside the DC area.

Although Amtrak operates a gorgeous station in downtown Richmond, it’s more expensive for trains to stop there, so only a handful do. Instead, most Richmond trains stop at Staples Mill Station, a shack in the middle of an industrial park, miles from anything walkable.

The Norfolk situation is better. The proposed station, at Harbor Park, is almost downtown, and although it’s more or less impossible to walk, at least there will be a handy light rail connection. Imperfect, but far preferable to what you get in Richmond if you have to stop at Staples Mill.

Here are a couple of maps to illustrate what’s going on.

Both maps by BeyondDC. Click to enlarge.