North Carolina is tends to be seen as fairly conservative state. And, for some strange reason, conservatives tend to hate public transportation. I've never been able to understand it.... So I was quite surprised to see that North Carolina Department of Transportation has done a pretty cool job of renovating
the state's Amtrak stations. I was particularly impressed with the way it renovated old
industrial buildings into Amtrak stations. It's great to see old buildings getting reused, and I would definitely prefer the roomy, more old-school building to modernist "Amshacks" - very barebones station buildings Amtrak tends to build when it has to pull something together from scratch. I am also intrigued by the concept of temporary stations - stations that are put up for large-scale events such as the
North Carolina State Fair and the
Lexington Barbecue Festival. I wish other states would utilize them.