Oh, and Portland, OR has a walkable train station, especially with the new MAX lines.

Here are some additions to your Amtrak station list:

Syracuse: No (but it used to be)
Westport, NY: No
Yonkers: Yes
New Rochelle: Yes
Amherst, MA: Yes
Hartford: Yes
New Haven: Yes*
Rocky Mount, NC: Yes
Wilson, NC: Yes
Albuquerque: Yes
Champaign, IL: Yes†

* Walking distance of downtown New Haven, but not near enough to Yale
† Walking distance of downtown Champaign, but not near enough to Urbana or to the University of Illinois

Does anyone know of an airport that has walkability to a core?

Amtrak Stations and Whether or Not They Are a Reasonable Walking Distance from Downtown(s) of Their Named City/Town

Washington, DC Yes
Jacksonville, FL No
Chicago, IL Yes
New Orleans, LA Yes*
Boston, MA Yes
Jackson, MS Yes
Newark, NJ Yes
Trenton, NJ Yes†
Albany/Rensselaer, NY No/Yes
Hudson, NY Yes
New York, NY Yes
Philadelphia, PA Yes
Rome, NY No
Saratoga Springs, NY No
Schenectady, NY Yes
Ticonderoga, NY No
Utica, NY Yes
Alpine, TX Yes
Fredericksburg, VA Yes
Harpers Ferry, VA Yes‡
Richmond (Main Street), VA Yes
Williamsburg, VA Yes
Seattle, WA Yes
Niagara Falls, Ontario Yes§

*Near a "downtown" (the central business district) but not near enough to the French Quarter.
†Reasonably centrally located within the city, but not near enough to most of the state government offices.
‡In the tourist downtown, but not near enough to the "real" town (i.e., where most people live and carry on business), which is up a steep hill from the station.
§In downtown, but far from the Falls.

There certainly are differing opinions of when peak oil will be....One interesting point that hasn't gained much notorioty is that many of the oil exporting countries have been, in the recent past, exporting far less then they produced. For instance if Sauda Arabia's oil production has been decreasing by 4%, their exports has been decreasing by 8% (for development reasons, political reasons, etc)

I also think that you over estimate the political power of ex-urbanites...what's happened in the recent past has been that those that can't afford housing in the inner ring suburbs have been moving out for cheaper housing, thus driving their commute times through the roof..This fringe group will obviously be those that are first effected by the increase in costs...

i agree with your point about the increase in demand which has lead to an increase in the price. What Kunstler argues is that within the next 5 years, we will hit the peak of oil production, ie production from then on will diminish therefore, coupled with the increase in demand, creating a perfect storm for the supply demand curve.

Todd

http://capntransit.blogspot.com/2007/10/geography-of-saratoga.html

Both the questions of how fast it would need to occur in order to make suburbia unsustainable on a market-basis and how soon it will actually occur are questions involving modeling far more complicated than anything than I could understand. There is one point such models probably fail to include: the political power of suburbanites, who, as prices rise, will almost certainly manage to get more government subsidies to have living in suburbia remain economically feasible for them. Note what a hot political issue gas prices are already.

Maybe I am sounding pessimistic but it would seem to me that we have to try hard to eliminate subsidies to oil now and add a tax to reflect externalities not captured by the price because I just have trouble believing supply will dry up fast enough. I also think that political action is needed now to discourage oil use - both because the market will not fix things fast enough, if ever and because, as prices rise, there will be significant political pressure to increase subsidies of oil.

Apparently, at least one presidential candidate agrees, although this always changes as soon as they are elected: http://www.sightline.org/daily_score/archive/2007/10/10/uh-wow

Amtrak currently has three major problems- board members appointed by Bush to destroy Amtrak, legacy debt Amtrak assumed on formation in about 1970, and the fact that they share- actually, lease rails from the freight railroads. Passenger trains and freight trains need to be on separate tracks. Trackage needs to be engineered for passenger trains for them to work right at high speed, and, as matters stand, Amtrakers often have to wait on a siding for a freight train. Freight trains are usually much longer than passenger trains, like over a mile in modern railroading, which makes it hard to put them on a siding to let the Amtraker go through.

Kunstler is all wet about Amtrak management, but his larger point is 100% correct.

The main issue right now is funding; there is nobody, absolutely nobody who cares about the rail system. Everyone is determined to keep driving everywhere, even in NYC - hence this blog.

His claims about "driving ending within 5 years" refers to peak oil: a theory regarding the imminent and irreversible decline of oil production in the face of ever-rising demand (such as in our auto industry). It sounds like crazy talk but most oil companies have accepted it as a fact of life now, even if they don't admit to it publicly. I can't possibly explain it in detail here; there's more reading on it here: http://www.theoildrum.com/

Surprisingly, Kunstley has a lot of faith in the market: he thinks that whatever subsidies we give to automobile travel and sprawl-growth now will soon simply not be able to keep up with the price of oil. And therefore, the market will see to it that people don't live in exurbia or travel around in cars any more (within the next five years, he predicts).

The reason that driving and sprawl are unsustainable though is precisely because their many of their enormous costs are not internalized by the market. No one pays a fee for emitting greenhouse gases and that's exactly the problem. Without government intervention to correct this market failure (read: a carbon tax, and probably a fairly steep one at that) people will continue to drive two hours to work every day in order to have a cheaper house. The reason that the price of oil is going up is not because supply has decreased, but because demand has. Without meaningful demand-side restrictions (taxes), greenhouse gas emissions will only increase, not decrese. So let's not get complacent, shall we? Market failure is precisely what got us here and I see no reason to think the market will correct itself.

(Admittedly, for the other reasons we don't like driving: public health, accidents, urban vitality, habitat destruction etc. etc. the increase in foreign demand for oil does force people out of driving in the US and which does reduces these problems to some extent. Of course, we're just passing them off to other parts of the world).

Trains will take you from downtown to downtown, and there is no need to walk through a metal detector.

The Acela express will get you to downtown Boston faster than an airplane would if you factor in waiting and travel to and from the airports. If Amtrak (or some other agency) were to somehow invest in comfy high-speed trains akin to bullet trains in Japan, then there would be no question about what would be faster to go up and down the east coast (or the west coast, where I am).