Tag: covid-19

Categories : Amtrak FresnoTags : 2 Comments

How much service will Amtrak be cutting this fall?

On By jamesinclair

Like all travel providers, Amtrak has been hit hard by the effects of COVID-19, as the vast majority of people have cut down on their travel. However, unlike airlines that received huge sums of bailout money, Amtrak is less posed to get government assistance. That is because Republicans for years (decades?) have been trying to eliminate Amtrak, so they’re not rushing to save the organization now.

In the short term, Amtrak cut service in order to match reduced demand. For example the San Joaquin line cut three daily round trips on March 26th, and the Capitol Corridor went from 15 to just 5 trips a day. Other Amtrak lines, like the Downeastern (in Maine) and Keystone (in Pennsylvania) completely shut down for a couple of months. Click to read more!

Categories : Amtrak Fresno TransitTags : Leave a comment

COVID-19 Impacts to Fresno Area Transportation as of May 17, 2020

On By jamesinclair

I can’t believe it’s been over a month since my last roundup of how COVID-19 (coronavirus) has affected transportation providers in Fresno and the surrounding areas. Time is really moving in strange ways these days. At this point, it’s clear we’ve reached the bottom in terms of service cuts, short of an airline declaring bankruptcy (cough, AA, cough). How quickly service is restored is an open question. Some transit agencies have already said they don’t expect to return to full service until the end of the year. Agencies that rely heavily on rush-hour commuters are going to be the most affected, as some jobs (such as Twitter) may remain remote forever. It will be interesting to see if those agencies restore more off-peak service than peak-service, which would create a flatter utilization of their fleet, and that may end up being a good thing in the long run. Click to read more!

Categories : Airlines Amtrak Bakersfield Clovis Fresno TransitTags : 2 Comments

COVID-19 Impacts to Fresno Area Transportation as of April 8, 2020

On By jamesinclair

Ten days ago, I decided to make a record of how COVID-19 (coronavirus) has affected transportation providers in Fresno and the surrounding areas – including the Bay Area and LA region. This post is a follow-up, to chronicle what has changed since. I have also added a few agencies I missed last week. It is sort of lucky I waited until today to make this, instead of last Sunday, as a bunch of changes go into effect today!

Local Transit

Fresno Area Express (FAX)

Officially, no changes to the schedule, but the system has been struggling with drivers calling out, as seen in this tweet:

This makes Fresno one of the only transit systems to continue running full service. Click to read more!

Categories : Airlines Amtrak Fresno TransitTags : 4 Comments

COVID-19 Impacts to Fresno Area Transportation as of March 29, 2020

On By jamesinclair

If you’re anything like me, you’ve spent the last few weeks reading a LOT of news about COVID-19 (coronavirus). All the bad news has taken away most of my motivation to write blog articles, and not just because “regular” news is on pause, but because it’s been pretty exhausting. I also figured that because the news has been changing so quickly, there was little reason for me to write. This isn’t like a new trail, where posting two weeks late is still timely. By the time I get around to posting any news, it has likely changed.

That being said, I’m thinking there may be some value in having a static record looking backwards. Because of the volume of news, six months from now, it will be pretty difficult to do a Google search to find exactly what the transportation impacts were. So the goal of this post (and a probable follow up), is to have one place summarizing what the impacts of the virus were on Fresno-area transportation. Here is what the impacts looked like as of March 29, 2020. Click to read more!