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Thursday, June 5, 2008
NC gets railroaded, Ga. gets stuck in traffic
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
From the Raleigh (NC) News and Observer…
“A third passenger train between Raleigh and Charlotte will be added to the current service to help meet growing demand, Gov. Mike Easley’s office announced Wednesday.
The new train service will run at midday, with departures from both cities, a news release from the Governor’s Office said.
From October 2007 to April 2008, ridership was up more than 22 percent, with 197,126 travelers riding either the Piedmont or Carolinian trains, according to the release. On the Piedmont, ridership was up almost 26 percent from 28,309 to 35,681 passengers; the Carolinian was up 18 percent from 136,358 to 161,445….
Each train makes a morning and evening run between Raleigh and Charlotte, which takes 3 hours and 9 minutes, including stops at Cary, Durham, Burlington, Greensboro, High Point, Salisbury and Kannapolis. The Carolinian also makes stops in Selma, Wilson and Rocky Mount, in the eastern part of the state. Fares for the round trip between Raleigh and Charlotte start at $50.
The estimated cost to operate the additional route is $3 million a year, the release said. The money will come from the federal Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality program.”
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Nothing more dire than this….
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We face a lot of challenges as a country, from the situation overseas to the national economy. But none of them is more important than this one.
Georgia has one of the lowest high school graduation rates in the country, according to a national study released Wednesday.
About 58 percent of Georgia students graduated on time, compared to the national average of about 71 percent, according to the report. The data comes from the 2004-05 school year, the most recent year for which national comparison data was available. Only four states and the District of Columbia performed worse.
A high school graduation rate of just 58 percent? Even the national number of 71 percent is stunningly low.
Think about those numbers, and what they mean about the future. Forty-two percent enter adulthood without even a high school diploma? The lives wasted, the opportunities lost, the future costs to taxpayers in terms of prison budgets and law enforcement and health care…
Blaming public schools is easy, but it’s not the answer. The answer lies in changing cultural norms so that dropping out carries a serious social stigma among young people. And while it may sound crazy, a concerted, longterm marketing campaign should probably be a key part of our approach, because if anybody knows how to change mass behavior, marketing people do.
