By Kristoffer Munden, Gavel Blogger -

¡Feliz Nuevo Año! Happy New Year!

I’ve been spending the holidays in Spain, and I love it. The buildings and the people are beautiful, the food is delicious, and the wine is cheap and tasty. Thanks to the weak dollar, everything is more expensive but it’s definitely well worth it! So far I’ve been able to hit up Madrid and Barcelona. Both cities are gorgeous, though I think it’s safe to say that Barcelona has more charm.

What’s common to both cities, though, are their amazing public transportation systems. The subway and buses are fast, clean, inexpensive, and run on time.

One of the best things about Barcelona’s Metro and buses is that there are signs indicating when the next train or bus is arriving. They’re incredibly accurate too–by the time the clock gets to zero, for example, the train will have stopped at the front of the platform. Similar systems back in the United States–in the few places that they do exist–are woefully inaccurate. The Washington, DC Metro has timers, but oftentimes the times fluctuate massively and trains hardly ever arrive when they say they will.

The T in Boston has been under renovations for years, and one of the things that they have installed in many stations has been electronic signboards. When I first saw them, I assumed that they would display when the next train would be arriving, like in Barcelona or Washington. But after they started working, they simply displayed the date and time as well as captions to announcements. Why oh why, MBTA, didn’t you install a train tracking system?

Train tracking systems are a necessary part of any modern public transportation system. They allow users to have a good idea of how long it will take to get to their destination, and helps reduce the annoyances of having to wait for the next train or bus. One of the biggest criticisms about the T is that trains run infrequently. Indeed, you can easily spend 15 minutes at Park Street waiting for the next D-Line train. Knowing when the next train will arrive will surely make it easier to plan around these delays and will also make it a less stressful experience. This would undoubtedly increase ridership on public transportation, and help the MBTA get out of its financial hole.

Long-distance trains in Spain are also excellent. Renfe, Spain’s bigger and better version of Amtrak, has an extensive network and an impressive high-speed fleet. The high-speed AVE train, for example, makes the roughly 400 mile journey in about three hours at a speed of 186 mph. It’s also very inexpensive–the same round trip costs roughly 80 Euro, or $120.

Contrast this to Amtrak’s “high speed” Acela trains that run between Boston and Washington, DC. While the Acela has a maximum speed of 150 mph, its average speed on this journey is only 72 mph. This is due to an antiquated track and catenary system, as well as various local speed and safety regulations. Thus, the travel time for the approximately 450-mile trip is roughly 6.5 hours. The cost of a roundtrip is about $350. Thus, a journey of a similar distance in the US takes twice as long and costs three times as much than in Spain.

Our antiquated, unreliable, and expensive transportation systems need to be brought into the modern age. It’ll be expensive, no doubt, to upgrade our subways and buses and to develop a viable high speed rail network. But the investments we make today will pay their dividends in the future, and will help our nation overcome its unsustainable addiction to environmentally irresponsible modes of transportation. Thankfully, we finally have a president that supports the development of a high speed rail system. Let’s hope that this support translates into widespread action.