RAMSEY — The state transportation commissioner on Thursday pledged to address residents’ concerns about a $35 million regional train station and five-story parking garage planned for the base of Island Road near Route 17 south.
Commissioner Jamie Fox spoke in a packed council chambers about his mission to get people out of cars and into trains and promised that he and NJ Transit officials would work with the mayor and Borough Council over the summer before final plans for the NJ Transit station are completed this fall.
“We’re prepared to work to mitigate (your concerns),” Fox told an audience of about 150 that overflowed into an adjoining hallway during the 2 1/2 hour meeting.
Fox stressed that the station, which is projected to open in spring 2004, will improve quality of life by cutting highway congestion. But residents questioned his assertion that the borough is the best place for a regional transportation hub.
“It’s an industrial use in a residential area,” said Nancy Abbott. “No matter how many trees you put in (around the station), it’s going to take away from our neighborhood.”
The residents’ main concerns are safety and traffic. The station will be located about one half-mile from Finch Park, a heavily used recreation area. Residents said that many commuters from neighboring towns would cut through local streets and drive past the park instead of using Route 17 to access the new station.
“Every year my corps responds to a child being struck on that stretch of Island Avenue,” said Ambulance Corps Captain David Does. He said he fears an increase in accidents once the new station is built.
Mayor John Scerbo said he might try to restrict access to Island Road from the station, forcing outgoing traffic onto Route 17. That would require state approval because Island Road accesses Route 17.
Some said they’d be happier with the new station if NJ Transit cut down or eliminated stops at its existing borough station.
“We’re the only town around here with tracks going down our main street,” said Linda Dunne. “Traffic is (already) a nightmare.”
A Department of Transportation spokesman said Friday that reducing trains at the downtown station would be a significant loss to the transit system, and that the station provides a key source of business for nearby merchants.
Other issues raised Thursday included the need for sound barriers and a wall or fence to prevent people from crossing the tracks into the surrounding residential neighborhood. Residents also want 24-hour security and surveillance of the area.
NJ Transit says it needs to build a regional station to accommodate an expected surge in ridership once the Secaucus Transfer Station opens next year.
Earlier this year, the borough unsuccessfully tried to coax NJ Transit to build the station across the highway on a Mahwah site. Several residents told Fox he’d made the wrong decision in sticking with Ramsey.
“Your studies are woefully inadequate,” Eugene Sobeck said.
Fox said he understood the community’s anger and frustration. “It’s something you fought tooth and nail,” he said of the project. “You don’t agree with it and I respect that. We want to do as best we can to work with you.”
Transit officials noted they’d already made several concessions to the borough. For example, NJ Transit project manager Glenn Zuber said the station’s platforms have been moved farther east than originally intended, closer to the highway and away from residents.
Zuber added that three traffic signals will be installed to help control traffic: one at the Island Road exit off Route 17 south, a second at Island Road and Spring Street, and a third at the Spring Street exit off Route 17 north.
The New York Post 06/01/2002
A Staten Island transit worker was convicted of stabbing his ex-girlfriend yesterday after prosecutors proved him the killer by tracing his whereabouts with his MetroCard.
It’s the first murder case where a MetroCard was key evidence, prosecutors say.
Christopher Stewart, 36, a subway motorman, was convicted of second-degree murder and criminal possession of a weapon for murdering Angelique Williams, 29, on March 8, 2001.
Williams was killed as she got off a bus along Schmidts Lane, across the street from her house in the Castleton Corners section.
Stewart said that at the time of the murder, he was on the S46 bus to the Staten Island ferry. He claimed he was going to Manhattan to catch an Atlantic City-bound bus.
But the Transit Authority’s computerized records of Stewart’s MetroCard — which also doubled as an employee ID card — told a different story.
They showed Stewart was at the murder scene and that he had boarded a southbound S54 bus, which runs past the Schmidts Lane stop, about an hour before the slaying.
Prosecutors said the same card was used on a northbound S54 bus about 12 minutes after the murder.
Stewart faces 25 years to life in prison at his sentencing, now set for June 14.
Boston Globe 6/1/2002
The MBTA may have to spend as much as $25 million to fix a derailment problem plaguing a controversial new fleet of Green Line trains if adjustments and better track maintenance don’t work, according to a report released yesterday.
Even worse, the report by a panel of the American Public Transportation Association concluded that the T could have avoided growing and unexpected costs if it had tested the trolley cars before buying them, and accepted more of the blame when problems arose.
It was the latest headache for the T in its ongoing struggle to use cars made by Breda, an Italian manufacturer, to replace its aging and crowded Green Line fleet.
MBTA General Manager Michael H. Mulhern met that bad news head-on yesterday. The report “is what it is,” he said.
“I’m hopeful that [the report’s] primary recommendation” of adjusting the cars “solves the problems, but we’re prepared to move forward with a vehicle redesign if that becomes necessary … We can’t afford not to. We have to solve the problem.”
Mulhern called into question the real costs of reconfiguration because the trolley manufacturer was not involved in compiling the report.
Other T officials said they will try to find the proper wheel and flange alignments on the trolleys in tests this summer. After that, T officials plan to get eight to 10 of the new Breda cars back on the tracks by this fall. If that works, they said, they may be able to avoid the high costs outlined in the report.
“We have not had a good experience with this project, and I’d say at this point we’re taking a very careful and cautious approach,” said Mulhern, who is overseeing a system on a historically tight budget. “I’m not prepared to make any firm commitments at this point.”
In the short term, the APTA panel’s report states that simple technical changes to the trolleys and the T tracks, along with speed restrictions, will be necessary to bring just some of the vehicles back into the transit system’s revenue stream.
“However, the panel recommends that MBTA face the long-term reality that much more extensive design changes to the center section of the… car will very likely be required to achieve unrestricted, reliable operation of the full fleet over the entire Green Line at current operational speeds,” the report said.
The cost of doing so is estimated at $250,000 or more per car. Though the T has ordered 100 cars from Breda, just 17 have been delivered. If the full reconfiguration is necessary, it could take up to three years to put the cars into service.
“The panel recognizes the public and operational difficulties in admitting this possibility, but delays in laying the groundwork for this contingency will only make the problem much worse if the eventuality comes to pass,” the report said, adding that “an additional 10 to 20% on top of a $250 million investment is difficult to swallow but may be necessary to achieve a full return on that investment.”
The APTA review, requested by the MBTA, was conducted by transit engineers from municipal systems in Philadelphia, Toronto, and San Francisco.
During three days of briefings and inspections, the engineers learned that the Green Line averages five main line derailments each year, not including the Breda cars. The panel also found that the T didn’t closely examine one Breda derailment because ‘’cars always derail at that location.’’
The panel chided the T for not making “a concerted effort to reduce the number of derailments of existing cars or to make changes at locations where derailments regularly occur,” according to the report. “The transit system panel members agreed that five main line derailments per year is too high and would not be acceptable to their organizations.”
The MBTA removed the Breda low-floor trolleys from service in August 2001 after a rash of at least six derailments since the state-of-the-art cars were introduced on the Green Line in 1999. No one was ever injured, but the problems hampered the transit agency’s busiest line.
The 100-car order stemmed directly from the 1990 American with Disabilities Act, which required transit agencies to guarantee that people with disabilities can board their trains without using specialized lifts.
At the time, the change represented the first attempt outside of Europe to operate modern, low-floor trolley cars on a rail system that dates back a century.
After the new cars were pulled, negotiations between the T and Breda deteriorated to the point where neither side would talk to each other. So far, the T has paid less than half the $250 million contract and is trying to restart talks with Breda, Mulhern said.
Instead of taking a more guarded, experimental approach before bringing the cars to Boston’s streets, the report said, the MBTA used a more traditional procurement contract that placed all of the technical risk on Breda.
The Tampa Tribune 06/01/2002
Proposal Puts Rail In A Historic Area
PLANT CITY — City commissioners tried to make it clear this week that they don’t want an elevated bullet train running through the middle of Plant City.
By next month, the Florida High-Speed Rail Commission is expected to identify a “preferred corridor” for the train that would run from Orlando to St. Petersburg.
Commissioners voted Tuesday to send a resolution to the rail commission supporting the Interstate 4 corridor as the appropriate route for the train.
Florida voters approved a constitutional amendment in November 2000 mandating a high-speed rail system and calling for construction to begin on the first leg of the project by November 2003. That first leg would run from Orlando to St. Petersburg. The train eventually would run between Orlando and Miami, as well.
Both corridors being considered for the first phase — I-4 and one that would run along the CSX Railway tracks — are considered “environmentally disturbed” routes. That makes them more appealing, since they wouldn’t have such an adverse impact on natural areas, said Sharon Phillips, deputy project manager for the bullet train.
Phillips, of PBS&J civil engineering firm in Tampa, spoke to commissioners Tuesday to give them an update on the train project at the request of the city’s Historic Resources Board.
Commissioner Rich Glorioso, before the vote, explained that if the train is built along the CSX route, it could end up as an elevated train going through the middle of downtown Plant City, either on columns or on a solid cement rise, much the same way sections of I-4 are elevated. Both, he said, are unacceptable concepts for the city’s historic district.
“I look at it like the Great Wall of China,” said City Planning Director Rob Anders. “The historic resources board also prefers the I-4 corridor because they don’t want that great wall.”
Phillips said the city’s recommendation would be considered by the committee as it studies ridership and train routes.
Commissioners also strongly recommended the rail commission consider building a station at County Line Road. That location would best serve riders from both Lakeland and Plant City, Mayor Mike Sparkman said.
Commissioner John Dicks said he would like to see City Manager Phil Waldron get together with the Lakeland city manager to develop a mutual proposal for a site to build the rail station.
Two ridership studies should be completed this summer to give the rail commission a better idea of who would use the train and where they would prefer to catch it, Phillips said.
By November, the rail commission will start taking proposals from private companies to fund, design, build, operate and maintain the high-speed rail system, she said.
The Baltimore Sun 06/01/2002
An internal investigation into why wheels have fallen off 16 Maryland Transit Administration buses since August has been taken away from the agency’s acting administrator, Virginia White, and turned over to the MTA’s safety division, Transportation Secretary John D. Porcari said yesterday.
The move comes amid criticism that White belatedly launched an investigation, after the 10th accident, and that internal squabbles and a conflict of interest may have compromised efforts to fix the problem. White also failed to disclose the scope of the problems to Porcari, who learned the number of accidents and injuries only last week.
Five drivers and 15 passengers have filed injury claims from the accidents, which in some cases sent 200-pound wheels rolling down streets and smacking into cars and buildings.
“In practical terms, it’s the best way to get to the bottom of it within the MTA,” Porcari said. “But it’s also an important message that safety is the imperative.”
He said he met personally with the agency’s top administrators to inform them of the change. “I wanted them to hear it from my lips,” he said.
The new leader of MTA’s internal investigation is Deputy Administrator Eric Christensen, who oversees safety. He will work with an independent team, created last week by Porcari, to find the cause of the problems, propose solutions, and investigate how the agency responded as accidents reports mounted.
An article published Sunday in The Sun detailed how White had excluded safety division officials from her investigation team in favor of operations officials, including her husband, Frank White, head of the MTA’s largest bus maintenance facility on Bush Street. White also blocked an independent inspection of buses set up by the safety department and challenged the authority of a safety officer who identified a potential maintenance problem in the Bush Street facility.
Ralph Moore, a member of the Citizen Planning and Housing Association’s transportation committee, said the change announced by Porcari is encouraging.
“In the face of this situation, I think both Virginia and her husband need to be brought out of the picture altogether,” he said. “Clearly these people can’t investigate themselves.”
Del. Peter Franchot, a Montgomery County Democrat who is chairman of a House subcommittee on transportation, described Porcari’s decisions as “concrete steps.”
“What had been an unacceptable situation is now under control,” Franchot said. “I’m personally satisfied that we’re on top of it. We want safety put front and center.”
Virginia White declined to comment last night.
Porcari’s investigators, meanwhile, focused this week on finding a cause of the loose wheels.
They are examining a maintenance decision at the four bus garages to significantly increase pressure in the air lines to inflate tires more rapidly. Those lines also feed the air wrenches used to tighten lug nuts, and the increased pressure could have put significantly more force on the lug nuts. The evidence so far suggests that the lug nuts were secured with too much pressure, causing the bolts underneath to fracture and break.
John Contestabile, a transportation engineer who is leading Porcari’s investigation, said the problem might have been compounded by a lack of training among the mechanics and by the deterioration of a gasket between the double wheels, which could cause the loosening of the lug nuts.
“With a week’s worth of work under our belt, it isn’t like we can say ‘Aha!’” he said. “We really haven’t found the proverbial smoking gun.”
Contestabile said there is no indication of product failure.
Porcari emphasized yesterday that his top priorities are finding a solution and putting it into practice. He has tapped experts from Transportation Resource Associates, a Philadelphia-based consulting firm, and from the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.
But another priority is identifying how the agency responded as the number of incidents grew.
Porcari said auditors have retrieved numerous e-mails to reconstruct the chain of information and the decisions made in recent months.
“Inasmuch as personally I would like to get to step three, we have to absolutely get to the technical part and do it right,” Porcari said.
Ministry Of Public Works Panama WWP-Report on Engineering Construct & Plant Operations in the Developing World 06/01/2002
Project Overview: The local Ministry Of Public Works (MOP) is currently gearing-up to build a new light rail line in Panama City. And according to Hector Castillo, MOP Chief Engineer (Special Programs), construction work could begin by the end of the year 2002. As things currently stand, France-based BCEON is involved with the design phase of the final route and layout. Construction plans under consideration, to be implemented in 2 stages, is expected to require a total investment of $430,000,000 to complete.
The first development phase would involve building a 13 km-long segment along Panama City’s most congested roadway from the northern quarter to the downtown area. The cost to complete this link has been pegged at $200,000,000. And, project completion is scheduled some 24 to 30 months after construction start-up. The second construction stage would involve extending the line for another 17 kms. This undertaking is expected to cost $230,000,000 to complete.
Project financing is anticipated to come from local sources in addition to soft credits from multilateral organizations and from the French government.
The Denver Post 06/02/2002
To get the southeast corridor light-rail line extended another 2 miles south into Lone Tree, some city officials want the community annexed into RTD’s taxing district.
Lone Tree businesses would tack on the Regional Transportation District’s 0.6% sales tax to the bills of customers if city voters support annexation.
The tax would jump to 1% if voters in the seven-county Denver metro area support RTD’s FasTracks proposal to build as many as six light-rail and commuter rail lines in the area.
The proposed RTD tax hike of 0.4%, or 4. on every $10 purchase, would help pay for the $4.7 billion FasTracks project.
Annexation of Lone Tree into the transit district might have the added benefit to RTD of allowing it to bring the Park Meadows shopping mall and its lucrative sales-tax base into RTD’s district.
That’s because Lone Tree encircles the shopping center, and Colorado law allows RTD to make so-called ‘enclave annexations’ of unincorporated land, like Park Meadows, if that land is surrounded by the RTD district.
Financial projections prepared by Lone Tree show that it could bring RTD nearly $6 million in sales and use tax receipts annually. The mall, if included in the RTD tax district, could add another $4 million a year in tax proceeds to RTD.
Park Meadows officials could not be reached for comment.
Such an annexation is not the preferred way of getting Park Meadows into RTD’s tax area, said Lone Tree City Manager Jack Hidahl.
For years, RTD has tried unsuccessfully to get Park Meadows to voluntarily join the transit agency’s tax area.
That’s why RTD’s County Line light-rail station, planned for the southeast corridor light-rail line, will have no direct access to the nearby shopping mall.
Last week, Lone Tree Mayor Jack O’Boyle told RTD officials that the city would like RTD to add three more light-rail stations to the southeast line, now under construction as part of the T-REX project.
It would likely cost $80 million to $100 million to build the three additional stations and extend the southeast line 2 miles into Lone Tree’s RidgeGate commercial development, O’Boyle said. Under Lone Tree’s proposal, the rail extension would be included in FasTracks.
Sky Ridge Medical Center is under construction just south of Lincoln and west of Interstate 25.
The T-REX project currently sets the last station on the southeast light-rail line north of Lincoln. T-REX, which stands for Transportation Expansion Project, is the $1.67 billion highway expansion and light-rail project for Interstates 25 and 225.
Lone Tree’s proposal would add a station near the new hospital and then route the light-rail line, with two more stations, farther south through RidgeGate’s planned commercial development.
One advantage of ending the line at RidgeGate is that it could accommodate parking for as many as 5,000 cars, Hidahl said.
The cost of extending light rail to Lone Tree could be borne by the $10 million in additional sales and use taxes generated by Lone Tree’s inclusion in RTD’s taxing district, O’Boyle said. ‘This project can pay for itself.’
RTD general manager Cal Marsella said of Lone Tree’s proposal, ‘If annexation and the revenue stream that annexation generates is sufficient to build the extension, we’re receptive.’
On Thursday, the Lone Tree City Council is expected to consider the annexation issue.
RTD is weighing a FasTracks vote for either this November or November 2003.
But late Friday afternoon, Hidahl said a new interpretation of state annexation law may make it impossible for a successful annexation vote to occur this year.
RTD might have to go to the legislature next session to adjust the statute’s wording to reflect its intent, RTD lawyer Marla Lien said.
The San Diego Union-Tribune 06/02/2002
The Poor MTDB Members Get No Sympathy Here
Re: “MTDB members increase their pay while facing budget deficit” (B-1, May 24):
What planet are the Metropolitan Transit Development Board members from? How is paying them more going to improve bus service? How is it going to help close a $17 million budget deficit? It isn’t.
Not only did they give themselves a pay raise, but the members also increased the number of the meetings they’re paid to attend from 24 to 32. What do they discuss at these meetings? How to make the people who use public transportation pay for their BMWs?
Fares keep increasing, and the service only decreases. I can’t begin to count how many times I have waited in vain for a bus only to find out later that it had broken down. Very soon, the only people who will be able to afford public transportation will be those who don’t use it — the rich!
Supervisor Ron Roberts’ protests that attending MTDB meetings is such a hardship for him gets no sympathy from me. If it is that much of a hardship for him, he should resign and take care of his personal responsibilities. I’ve seen many mothers drag their children onto the bus because they can’t afford a baby sitter or day care.
This is just another example of elected officials taking advantage of the very people they were elected to serve. — Cecil L. Johnson, San Diego
San Jose Mercury News 06/02/2002
Odor Lingers Over Bid To Kill BART Link To Airport: You hate to beat a dead horse once the cow’s out the barn door, but sometimes you smell a rat.
Though the San Jose City Council and some members of the Valley Transportation Authority have voted to bring BART near — but not directly to — Mineta San Jose International Airport, an odor still lingers.
And though it’s all but certain that a June vote by the VTA and BART boards will plant a wet smooch on the plan, some citizens who want to see the rail service run to the airport are doing some last-ditch lobbying.
Members of the Silicon Valley Rapid Transit Corridor Community Working Group (whew), a band of citizens who’ve been helping advise government bigwigs about extending BART, are grumbling that they haven’t been heard.
Now group members are looking into a ballot measure that would require an airport BART station.
Fast and loose?
Backers of the plan to link BART to the airport via a people-mover are full of reasons why an airport extension won’t fly. The biggest is price.
“This effort would cost about $600 million,” says San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales, who deserves credit for bringing BART to San Jose.
“The ridership numbers just do not justify this kind of expenditure.” The VTA estimates that 7,400 folks would take the people-mover each day, compared with 4,700 who would ride if BART ran directly to the airport, thanks to the people-mover’s more frequent runs.
Those figures don’t come from a poll of prospective riders, a VTA spokeswoman says, but from a “modeling” process that includes looking at other airports.
But you can crunch numbers to reach whatever conclusions you want.
Lisa Jensen, a member of the community working group, says she has talked with other airports and concluded that a direct rail link would bring at least 8,500 riders to the airport each day.
Who’s right? Beats me. But I do know the VTA had no incentive to come up with numbers that would favor the more expensive plan.
Hands off my stack If that sounds unduly cynical, try on this conspiracy theory that’s making the rounds: The real reason government planners are dead-set against bringing BART to the airport is that airport officials are terrified it would cannibalize parking revenues.
San Jose’s airport gets roughly half its yearly budget from parking.
Several folks who were in on the action when the county light-rail system was installed years ago say airport leaders insisted those tracks not extend to the airport, lest people have less incentive to park there.
“I haven’t heard that,” says airport spokesman Steve Luckenbach, adding that there’s been no study on whether BART would hurt parking.
It’s all well and good if the airport wants to protect its parking revenue; I wouldn’t want somebody threatening 50% of my income. But if that’s really what’s going on, the bureaucrats should say so.
Instead, people-mover backers have been trotting out increasingly specious arguments:
“Not enough airport passengers will ride BART.” But if we give passengers an unwieldy system, aren’t we creating a self-fulfilling prophecy?
“Most of the people taking BART to the airport would be airport employees, not passengers.” So? That still gets cars off the road.
“A BART stop would take longer to build.” This seems like a wildly shortsighted argument for a system that’s meant to last decades.
One city leader concedes there’s a credibility gap. “The community is saying, ‘We don’t believe you,’ “ says Councilwoman Cindy Chavez.
At the working group’s urging, Chavez has requested a meeting with Gonzales, BART and VTA leaders to be sure the case against the airport extension stands up.
Such official fact-checking is needed. Otherwise, that nagging odor will linger.
Sacramento Bee 06/02/2002
To bring light rail to Folsom, city leaders are considering removing a protective status from nearly 60 oak trees along Folsom Boulevard.
The trees are on the east side of the street from Blue Ravine Road to Bidwell Street — an area the city had designated as a “scenic corridor.” Because they are considered landmark trees, they may not be pruned or removed.
Light rail is expected to reach the Historic District by October 2004. Construction would require removing 24 trees — 10 of which are diseased or dead, a city report says. An additional 33 trees will have to be pruned or have woody underbrush removed.
Most of the diseased or dead trees are on an existing railroad track embankment south of Bidwell Street. Lowering the new tracks for light rail to street level will require that these trees — mostly smaller oaks — to be removed, city officials say.
The Folsom City Council was to adopt a resolution removing the trees’ landmark status at its meeting Tuesday. But discussion of the resolution was postponed until the June 11 meeting at City Hall, 50 Natoma St.
Michele McCormick, city spokeswoman, said the council continued the item because it didn’t have time to hear it, given a larger discussion of affordable housing. “We had a full house that night, even with the Kings game,” McCormick said. “The meeting went until 1 a.m.”
Steps have been taken to minimize the number of trees affected, city officials say. The original list contained as many as 350 trees. But the rail line between Iron Point Road and Natoma Station Drive will be aligned closer to Folsom Boulevard. At Glenn Drive, the rail line will avoid an existing grove of trees. In addition, the planned park-and-ride lot near Parkshore Drive will fold the trees into the station design.
Sara Myers of Friends of Folsom Parkways said Friday she “hates to see the trees go,” but that she thinks the city needs light-rail service. Her group two years ago filed an application to give the trees from Bidwell Street to Blue Ravine Road landmark status.
“I hope they are careful with their carve-out,” she said. “But you can see where they will need to take out trees for (the project).”
City officials worked with Sacramento Regional Transit to develop the final list of trees that will be affected.
Drivers coming into Folsom from U.S. 50 travel under a large canopy of trees between Natoma Station Drive and Blue Ravine Road. The trees in this section don’t have landmark status, but officials say they have tried to ensure the project has as little impact on these trees as possible.
Light rail is to have stations in Folsom at Iron Point Road, Parkshore Drive and in the Historic District.
Public Works Director Rich Lorenz said Friday that should the council approve the item, the starting date for tree work will depend on Regional Transit’s schedule. He said the Regional Transit contractor will have to obtain a tree permit from the city, either through the transportation agency or on its own.
Lorenz added that city arborist Joe Benassini will oversee the work, partially to ensure trees that are not removed remain healthy.
Regional Transit spokesman Mike Wiley said environmental issues have delayed the extension of light rail to Folsom.
He said that a new light-rail maintenance facility was supposed to be erected on Aerojet property south of Folsom Boulevard. Once officials delved into the design of the facility, however, they found more elderberry bushes than they had once thought were there.
“That is critical because the elderberry beetle is a protected species,” he said. “That basically set us back to get more review and approvals. The process that you have to go through at the federal level is pretty cumbersome. They have their own schedule for the review of those.”
Wiley said officials have found an alternative location for the facility, at the site of a former entertainment center, The Mine Shaft, on Folsom Boulevard. “It does not have the environmental mitigation issues associated with it,” he said, adding that if the agency had stayed with the original site, it would have delayed light-rail service in the Historic District further.
Officials couldn’t finish the track design work until they identified the final location of the maintenance facility, Wiley said.
The Providence Journal-Bulletin (Providence, Rhode Island) 06/02/2002
Reconfiguring a fleet of new subway cars could cost the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority as much as $25 million if a series of adjustments and track improvements don’t work, according to a new study.
The MBTA also should have had better communication with the manufacturer of a fleet of the new trains, which were pulled from service after a series of derailments.
The MBTA bought 100 new cars from Italian manufacturer Breda for $250 million in 1999, but by last August the 17 trains that had been delivered were removed from service following six separate derailments on the MBTA’s Green Line. There were no serious injuries in the accidents.
The study was prepared by a panel of experts assembled by the American Public Transportation Association, a Washington-based advocacy group approached by the MBTA after the derailments.
MBTA officials hope the derailment problem will be solved by adjustments to the wheels and improvements to the tracks on the Beacon Street and Commonwealth Avenue branches, said MBTA general manager Mike Mulhern.
The redesigned wheelfaces should be delivered later this month and be tested in July and August.
However, the panel’s report recommended the “MBTA face the long-term reality that much more extensive design changes to the center section of the… car will very likely be required to achieve unrestricted, reliable operation of the full fleet over the entire Green Line at current operational speeds.”
That redesign could cost as much as $250,000 per car.
The MBTA bought the low-floor cars to modernize the Green Line, which averages 250,000 passengers a day, after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. The new, lower cars would allow people with disabilities to board the trains without using special lifts.
The transportation association also said the MBTA should have tested the trolleys before ordering a new fleet. Instead, the MBTA placed the technical risk on the Italian manufacturer, the report said.
Seventeen cars were put into action before being pulled, and an additional 10 cars were delivered.
Boston’s subway system, the oldest in the nation, started in 1897. The Green Line dates to 1889, when electric streetcars began operating in the city’s Allston neighborhood.
The Salt Lake Tribune 06/02/2002
Some walls, like Berlin’s, must come down. Others, insists a handful of Murray residents, must go up.
And soon.
Residents of Daniel Way (6540 S. 505 West) assembled Thursday night to urge TRAX officials to build a wall between their back yards and the tracks that run along a steep hill behind their homes.
Although the rail line does not currently carry TRAX passengers, it is used to test trains and to reach a large maintenance facility nearby.
“We have really had it with the noise of screeching wheels when they run their back-and-forth brake tests at 5 a.m. and 11 p.m. right behind our houses,” said Glen Mitchell, a four-year resident of Daniel Way, a curving cul-de-sac on the border of Murray and Midvale.
Besides, the several dozen 277-volt lights atop the Lovendahl Maintenance Facility can make it hard to sleep. And residents are tired of hearing, “Hey, Bob, what do you want from McDonald’s?” broadcast over the plant’s loudspeaker in the wee hours.
Utah Transit Authority representative Hal Ryan Johnson paused before writing “noise” on his list of residents’ complaints.
“Noise is funny,” Johnson said, suggesting that nearby Interstate 15 also could be a culprit. “It depends on a lot of things including wind and cloud cover and whether the atmosphere is warming or cooling when the sun comes out.”
The tracks and the maintenance facility contain UTA and Union Pacific trains and are used for storage and repairs, residents said, but rarely for through traffic.
That could change. Johnson says the existing tracks probably will be part of a future light-rail extension to West Jordan, meaning passenger-filled TRAX trains would zip by Daniel Way at 55 mph several times an hour.
“If UTA doesn’t put up a wall to at least address our concerns of noise, privacy and safety, we’ll be forced to move before commuter trains start coming through here and ruin our property value completely,” Al Serrano said. “People on the west side of the street are already putting their houses on sale just due to the noise.”
James Knight says he never imagined he would be worrying about a train derailing into his yard when he bought the parcel seven years ago.
“The tracks curve right behind my house, and they want to have trains coming through here at 55 mph,” Knight said. “I’ve already seen a train derail here before, going slow, so if they derail going 55, they’ll go straight through my living room.”
Johnson vowed to return in three weeks with solutions for Daniel Way residents using the $80,000 that UTA has allotted.
“UTA is really trying to understand the issues and is… committed to being good neighbors,” he said.
Star Tribune (Minneapolis, Minn.) 06/02/2002
Hennepin County is studying the prospects for light-rail transit service between the southwest suburbs and downtown Minneapolis.
The county has hired consultants to scope out the potential ridership and financial feasibility of operating a light-rail line that would connect Minnetonka, Eden Prairie, Hopkins and St. Louis Park to downtown Minneapolis along a rail corridor now in use as a popular bike and walking trail.
The corridor was once a Chicago & Northwestern freight line that the county bought to preserve for future use as a passenger-rail corridor. The first segment of the corridor, which runs from Minneapolis to Hopkins, was bought for $6 million in 1984. The second segment, from Hopkins to Chaska, was bought for $2.5 million in 1990.
(The county also owns a north arm of the same line — from Hopkins to Victoria — but it’s not part of this study.)
The county has held seven public meetings and four city council briefings on the $400,000 study.
At the meetings, St. Louis Park and Hopkins residents said they liked the idea of commuting downtown by rail and of not having to pay for parking. They also expressed interest in taking a rail car to sporting events downtown.
In Eden Prairie and Minnetonka, residents expressed concerns about losing the trail.
Gary Diamond, whose Eden Prairie yard adjoins the trail, said that he likes the idea of light-rail transit but that he would prefer to see it built in a freeway corridor.
Hennepin County engineer Gary Erickson said that if the county decides to proceed with rail development, every effort would be made to leave space alongside the rail line for a trail.
The corridor is 50 to 100 feet wide along most of its length. A rail line would need 30 feet and a trail 10 to 14 feet. This side-by-side arrangement is in use elsewhere, he said.
Diamond said residents are skeptical of this approach and question its safety for children.
Political Pause
The study is being launched at a politically turbulent time for transit projects.
The Legislature this session refused to commit state funds for the proposed Northstar commuter line, which would run on existing freight tracks between Minneapolis and the St. Cloud area, and it revoked funding for a Riverview Corridor busway between St. Paul and the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.
Hennepin County launched the light-rail study before either of those two things happened, Erickson said. Consultants were chosen initially to study the prospects for a southwest suburban busway, but that was nixed by the Legislature a year ago, so the county turned the study into a look at light rail, he said.
The move continues the pattern in the Twin Cities area of the counties initiating major transit projects. Hennepin spearheaded the Hiawatha Avenue light-rail line, which is under construction between the Mall of America and downtown Minneapolis.
The Bus Angle
Diamond said he and his neighbors doubt there is demand to justify a rail line from Eden Prairie and Minnetonka to downtown Minneapolis.
“The people here don’t go downtown every day; the vast majority go all different directions,” he said.
“What we would like them to do is to mail a survey to every household in Eden Prairie and Minnetonka and ask, ‘If LRT (light-rail transit) is built, would you use it? And what is the ZIP code of your place of employment?’
“For those people who want to get downtown, they can get on a Southwest Metro bus from Eden Prairie and do that,” Diamond said. “Buying buses to drive them is… a lot cheaper than building an LRT system.”
County officials said Southwest Metro Transit, which serves Eden Prairie, Chaska and Chanhassen, will be involved in the study. Part of the report will address how Southwest could work in tandem with a rail line.
The Baltimore Sun 06/02/2002
The acting head of the Maryland Transit Administration took an indefinite leave of absence yesterday after a 17th incident in which wheels fell off a transit bus, this time late Friday in downtown Baltimore.
Virginia White, the MTA’s acting administrator, has come under fire in recent days for her handling of the wheel problem, which began last August but only became public a week ago.
The latest incident occurred at 11:05 p.m. Friday as an eastbound bus on Baltimore Street lost its left rear wheels near the intersection of Eutaw Street. One wheel settled near the bus. The other rolled about 50 feet ahead before toppling over, according to transportation officials. The wheels didn’t strike anything, and the driver and two passengers were not injured.
The wheels on bus 9825 were installed with new bolts on April 22 — two days after White began an internal investigation of the problem. But they had not been retrofitted using different equipment and procedures established on May 9 in an attempt to prevent more wheels from coming off, officials said.
Transportation Secretary John D. Porcari pulled 28 other buses equipped with the same bolts off the streets yesterday and intensified procedures for inspecting the rest of the 800-bus fleet.
“No one wants another incident. But it’s reasonable to expect that until every bus is modified, there’s always a possibility, however slim, of another incident,” Porcari said.
As investigators regrouped yesterday morning in response to Friday’s accident, White went to Porcari to request an indefinite leave with pay. “Virginia wants to make sure the focus is on the investigation of the technical issues,” said Porcari.
White could not be reached for comment last night.
Porcari’s second-in-command, Deputy Secretary Beverly Swaim Staley, will head the MTA in White’s absence. Swaim Staley served a similar role, filling in as acting executive director of the Maryland Aviation Administration after the resignation of David L. Blackshear last July.
White has been roundly criticized by legislators, transit advocates and others for belatedly launching an investigation of the wheel problem on April 20, after the 10th accident. Five drivers and 15 passengers have filed injury claims — mostly for minor muscle pulls and cuts. Some of the runaway 200-pound wheels rolled into cars, buildings and, in one instance, a natural gas tank, which ruptured and leaked.
An article published last Sunday in The Sun detailed how White had excluded the agency’s own safety department from the investigation, halted an independent inspection of bus wheels arranged by that department and challenged a safety officer who identified a potential wheel maintenance problem in the Bush Street bus garage, which is run by Frank White, the administrator’s husband. She also failed to disclose the scope of the problems to Porcari.
After learning of the problems less than two weeks ago, Porcari formed a team of independent investigators from outside the agency to resolve the problem. Last week, he shifted control of the MTA’s internal investigation from White to Eric Christensen, MTA’s deputy administrator in charge of safety, saying that “safety is the imperative.”
The agency as of Friday had retrofitted the wheels on more than180 buses and had established three checks of each wheel daily.
In a meeting with his team yesterday, Porcari set further safeguards. The bus in Friday’s incident had last been checked at 12:30 p.m.
The new steps will require each bus to be inspected at the gate by a supervisor before leaving any of the four MTA bus yards. During each shift, field supervisors will spot-check buses on the roads.
Ralph Moore, a transit advocate with the Citizen Planning and Housing Association, expressed alarm over the latest accident.
“This is definitely an emergency situation, and we need to treat it as such,” he said. While commending the safety steps being taken, Moore said he still felt nervous.
“I’ve ridden the buses in the past week, and I worry that something could happen at any time,” he said. “We’ve just been very, very lucky that no one’s been seriously hurt.”
Over the past year, the agency had begun installing a new, gold-colored wheel bolt. And although officials say two independent lab tests revealed no problems with it, a different type is now being installed in buses as a precaution.
The 28 buses pulled from the street yesterday were equipped with the gold-colored bolts or “studs.”
“There has been a great deal of discussion inside the organization about the gold studs,” said MDOT spokesman Jack Cahalan. “Just because some people have raised questions about them, the decision was made to eliminate them.”
The bus in the most recent incident was from the Kirk Avenue garage, which used the majority of the gold studs and has had the most lost-wheel accidents. The incidents have involved buses from three of the four MTA bus garages.
John Contestabile, a transportation engineer who is heading the independent inquiry, said Friday that his team is focusing on three potential causes. The most likely, he said, is that the lug nuts were secured with so much force that the studs underneath fractured and broke. Investigators are looking at whether an increase in pressure in the air lines at the garages over the past six months could have caused mechanics to unknowingly over-tighten the lug nuts with their air-powered wrenches. In addition, they believe outdated maintenance practices and a deteriorating gasket between the dual rear wheels may have contributed to the cases.
The most recent wheel maintenance instructions used in the garages were dated 1991, he said.
Porcari praised the maintenance crews, who he said have been putting in long hours to change hundreds of wheels under the new criteria. “They take safety very seriously, and they’re working their hearts out right now, implementing the fixes,” he said. “We all want the public to know safety is No. 1 and we will implement the changes as soon as possible.”
Another part of the investigation, being handled mostly by transportation auditors, is an analysis of the MTA’s response as the incidents continued.
Buses lost wheels once in August and January, three times in February and twice in March. Four more incidents were reported in April, and six in May, according to MTA records. Yet until recently, the search for a solution was strictly internal. Even wheel manufacturers were not informed of the scope of the trouble. The auditors are reviewing maintenance records, correspondence and e-mails to reconstruct how the matter was dealt with over those months.
The investigation is expected to be complete in about two weeks.
The Dallas Morning News 06/02/2002
DART will officially open seven light-rail stations July 1, the largest number to open in a single day since the starter system’s 1996 unveiling.
And for the first time, Dallas Area Rapid Transit has built aerial stations to accommodate trains and passengers. Four train platforms will be elevated near Park, Walnut Hill and Forest lanes, and at Spring Valley Road.
North Dallas will have four new stations, and three will open in Richardson. Each will have a unique theme and artwork. Most artwork has been installed, but finishing touches will continue after the grand opening.
While the stations are only a mile or so apart, each has its own identity formed through a yearlong community work group process and $50,000 in station art funding supplied by DART.
“This ties the station to the community and helps the community invest emotionally in the station from the earliest stage,” said agency spokesman Morgan Lyons.
A Snapshot Of The Stations:
Park Lane (1,200 parking spaces) — DART’s first aerial station will replace the temporary ground-level platform that has served passengers since Jan. 10, 1997. Because of construction and extended train route time tests, this new station will serve passengers starting June 17, two weeks before the official rail-line opening.
Station designers chose an urban oasis theme for the station, a contrast to the hustle and bustle of cars, buses and trains. Wave-shaped flowerbeds will greet commuters at ground level. A bronze sculpture of a relaxing person, complete with adjacent seating, stands sentry at the bus loading area.
Walnut Hill Lane (about 200 parking spaces planned) — The aerial station will have train platforms directly over the busy thoroughfare. The platforms’ locations will connect Presbyterian Hospital and other medical facilities to the south with the neighborhood to the north.
The station will feature 28 steel columns lighted from the inside. The steel will have words punched out in script, including “nurture,” “care” and “comfort.” In addition, the area between the trains will have four swaying pendulums.
“They indicate that time heals,” said Ren Rodriguez, DART’s chief architect. Another rail station near the VA Medical Center featured a military and veterans’ history theme.
Plans for a parking lot have been approved by the DART board, but the agency must get approval from federal transit officials. Construction probably won’t begin until next year.
Forest Lane (271 parking spaces) — The third aerial station incorporates a nature theme and the history of the nearby Hamilton Park neighborhood, an early residential community built for middle-income blacks.
A mosaic depicts fish swimming upstream, a metaphor for black residents who fought for decent housing and civil rights. The station touches heavily on nature, with much of the lower level jutting out over a hillside that overlooks Floyd Branch creek.
“We built the whole station on stilts,” Mr. Rodriguez said. “It’s going to be a nice view from that station.”
LBJ/Central (568 parking spaces) — The nearby Texas Instruments campus plays an important role. Circuit board designs are imbedded in the columns of the ground-level station. Trellises will welcome commuters from the parking lot, and circuit board designs also can be found on several station fences.
“It’s part of the whole theme of technology and what TI is all about,” Mr. Rodriguez said.
The Seattle Times 06/02/2002
When George Benson was a young boy, he told his parents he wanted to be a streetcar conductor when he grew up. And he planned to spend every night in the streetcar barn.
Although Benson never made a car barn his home, he is certified to drive Seattle’s waterfront streetcars. And yesterday — to his surprise — an entire streetcar line was named after the 83-year-old former Seattle city councilman.
As part of the 20th-anniversary celebration of Seattle’s waterfront streetcars, King County Metro Transit honored the man who was fundamental in bringing the line into existence.
While a City Council member, Benson organized the effort for the historic tan-and-green, wood-paneled cars that now shuttle 400,000 riders per year.
After retiring in 1993 after 20 years on the council, his involvement with the line continued. Benson was known to pick up trash along the tracks and was a weekly visitor to the repair facility near Myrtle Edwards Park, where he could be found touching up the paint on the classic Australian cars.
Although he doesn’t paint much anymore, he still tries to make a weekly visit to the car barn. “Now I bring doughnuts,” Benson said. “I’m a trolley nut.”
To the sound of streetcar whistles, city and county officials at Occidental Park presented Benson with a blue conductor’s hat and read proclamations honoring his work. But the renaming of the line was kept secret until Benson was presented with a placard stating, “The George Benson Waterfront Streetcar Line.”
“There are things that become icons in the community and are just part of the fabric of the community. The streetcar line is one of those things,” said Rick Walsh, Metro Transit general manager. “This is just a fitting tribute to the man who made it happen.”
Seeds Of The Idea
Benson said the idea for the streetcar came from Seattle butcher Robert Hively, a railroad fanatic.
Benson made the dream a reality. He and his wife, Evelyn, even traveled to Melbourne, Australia, to choose which 1920s trolleys would become Seattle fixtures. Evelyn Benson, his wife of 57 years, died April 28. Costing $3.3 million, the line began service May 29, 1982, along a 1.6-mile route. It was extended to its present nine stops in 1990.
“When I look back at the all the work, it was worth it,” Benson said. “It’s gratifying to see the line successful.”
And while the streetcar line remains one of Benson’s most visible accomplishments, his style of politicking — his accessibility and willingness to walk the streets and talk to the people — was the main topic of conversation yesterday.
“Before I got into politics, there were people I just idolized. George Benson was one of those people,” said King County Executive Ron Sims. “He’s a caring human being. “
Sims remembers first meeting Benson in 1977, when Sims was a community activist lobbying for a stoplight at a Southeast Seattle intersection.
“He was just so easygoing and down to earth. Then he said he wanted to visit the intersection,” recalled Sims. “He came down, saw all these kids walking across the street and said, ‘You need a stoplight.’ And he put in a stoplight.”
Surrounded by his children, grandchildren, a great-grandson and many friends, Benson took a streetcar ride during yesterday’s festivities.
“This is all a surprise to me,” he said to those gathered at the celebration. “I hope this won’t be the last one of these, but you never can tell.”
St. Louis Post Dispatch Monday, June 3, 2002.
Riding 700 feet of railroad takes moments. Laying 700 feet of railroad track takes a few months, a fair amount of money and a lot of muscle.
The hammer used to drive the stakes into the ties weighs about 100 pounds. The steel track also is heavy and awkward to carry. Same goes for the wood ties that must be laid out every 2 feet. Why on earth would anyone want to work on the railroad all the live-long day? Aren’t there better ways to pass the time away?
Not for the men who meet every Thursday and Saturday at the Museum of Transportation. Since February, they have been stretching the museum’s streetcar track to 1,600 feet from 900. The extension will create a loop, allowing visitors to experience a longer ride. After they lay the track this summer, they will spend next spring stringing the overhead wire that will power the museum’s three operating trains.
“You don’t think a paid individual would do this sort of work,” said Neil Norkaitis, a retired Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc. executive who had to pull himself off rail duty after undergoing heart surgery this spring. “You’d have to be nuts.”
The $20,000 track extension is part of a larger $6 million capital campaign to update the museum’s water lines and add new bathrooms. Volunteers, however, cover many other costs associated with streetcar restoration. And those expenses are considerable. A 1-foot cylinder liner for an air compressor costs $600, the same as the price of an old Chicago El car.
The volunteers also do much of the work, from digging ditches to drilling tie plates. The work makes them filthy and sore and, by the lunchtime, they are ready to refuel with milkshakes and burgers at a nearby Steak ‘n Shake.
“I’m not young anymore, but I enjoy doing something to help out,” said Bob Leight, 68, a retired McDonnell Douglas machinist. “Now, if we were here every day, that would be a different story.”
Leight started helping out about six years ago, which makes him a relative newcomer. Other streetcar volunteers have known each other for more than a decade. They have restored a 1914 St. Louis Waterworks car to operating condition, traveled to Boston largely on their own dime to collect curved track from an abandoned trolley yard and washed countless windows.
The volunteers can’t explain why they love streetcars more than other touchstones of their youth. Why, Norkaitis asks, do some people love horses or baseball? They just do.
“I just like anything that runs on tracks,” Leight said. “Our generation is enthralled by trains in the same way that my grandsons will be interested in space ships when they grow up.”
Leight used to ride St. Louis streetcars whenever his family visited from House Springs. Retired physician Al Howe would take the streetcar from Brentwood to see movies at the Fox Theatre or visit Forest Park. Norkaitis grew up admiring the Newark, N.J., streetcar system.
“When I was growing up, the thing to do was to pile the family in the car and go for a ride,” Norkaitis said. “I used to beg my father to take us to Newark so we could watch the trolleys.”
And then what?
“And then nothing. We just watched,” he said. “My mother and father never thought to suggest (getting in the streetcar). That would mean having to get everyone out of the car.”
Now Norkaitis enjoys driving the streetcar for visitors. Streetcars, like MetroLink cars, have no steering wheels; they are guided by track. He tells anyone who is interested the history of the trolley, which transported St. Louisans for more than 100 years until May 21, 1966, when the Hodiamont line shut down.
“Most of the kids are sort of ho-hum about it,” Norkaitis said. “But people our age enjoy it more.”
Rocky Mountain News (Denver) 06/03/2002
As I walked back to the Rocky Mountain News’ office the other day, I noticed a recurring sign that it’s really late spring in downtown Denver.
The old Delaware Street trolley track is starting to resurface.
A pothole along the north line of West 14th Avenue at Delaware has bared this rusty old steel rail once again.
It adds a bit of perspective to the debate waged by neighborhoods south of downtown over the Regional Transportation District’s desire to run a third light-rail line, called the Central Connector, into the center of the city.
It is meant to relieve crowding along the old Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad corridor on the west side once the T-REX southeast light-rail line opens and the Lakewood-Golden line is added.
Back not so long ago, but longer than I’ve been here, streetcars covered most of the city. It was not uncommon for a trolley car to tool up and down residential streets. In fact, it was considered an urban amenity.
Not so now.
As the auto became more affordable and the personal transit mode of choice, the trolley system shrank, and most of the tracks were removed. The foundation of public transit became the more mobile and adaptable bus.
And now, the bus may replace the streetcar once again.
Neighborhood opposition pretty much killed RTD’s thoughts of sending light-rail up streets in the West Washington Park, Lincoln Park-La Alma and Capitol Hill neighborhoods. All it had left was Broadway-Lincoln or running a third set of tracks up the crowded railroad corridor west of downtown.
So RTD is on the verge of abandoning its quest for that third light-rail line entirely, in favor of the emerging strategy called Bus Rapid Transit.
In effect, instead of running light-rail tracks up Lincoln Street and down Broadway from Interstate 25 past the Capitol to 20th and Welton streets, RTD would put in exclusive bus lanes where the rush-hour-only lanes exist. Then it would use shuttle bus service to get a portion of its light-rail riders into downtown.
Sound funny? It should, if you remember the original purpose of the light-rail’s Central Corridor.
It was supposed to take a significant portion of air-polluting buses out of downtown. Instead, bus routes were cropped short to have them feed into the light-rail stations and make riders transfer to the train.
Now, because of crowded rail corridors and opposition to rail on city streets — after all, RTD’s train cars are significantly bigger and longer than the old Denver Tramway cars — RTD is thinking of forcing light-rail riders off at I-25 and making them take buses into downtown.
Funny how everything old becomes new again.
Speaking of light rail, the new C Line serving the Central Platte Valley’s sports and entertainment venues has been fit nicely into the train schedules. But wait a minute. Pick up the official printed timetables for light rail — Route 101 — and something seems wrong. There it is. The stop that serves fans headed for the Denver Broncos’ new stadium is listed as “Mile High.”
Austin American Statesman 06/03/2002
Capital Metro’s decision to postpone its light rail election for at least two years came down to two things: money and trust.
The agency felt it still had a good enough chance at the former to wait a bit before calling a second vote. The agency also felt it had too little of the latter to risk an election this year.
So it will be November 2004 before Central Texas voters ponder light rail again. Skipping this fall’s election date disappointed some, gladdened others and surprised few.
The trust issues Capital Metro is still working through are familiar to anyone who has lived here long enough to hear a bus-bashing joke. (About two weeks, in other words.) For those who don’t remember, Capital Metro is continuing efforts to rebound after years of federal criminal investigations into its ethics and spending policies.
But the money issues are perhaps even more important. By choosing to wait, Capital Metro is gambling that its congressional and federal helpers will be able to wring enough money out of a federal budget already billed as being highly unpredictable two years hence.
Capital Metro’s 2000 rail proposal hinged on getting $460 million from the Federal Transit Administration just to build the initial 20-mile segment of a planned 52-mile network. Costs rise as years pass. So even though Capital Metro has saved some of its 1-cent sales tax for rail, it will still need hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal government.
But Capital Metro doesn’t have its new rail plan yet. It needs that before it can ask voters to say OK, and it needs the nod from voters before it can expect substantial federal money. Hence the let’s-wait decision.
“I believe it would be irresponsible to ask the federal government for money without a clear, sensible and publicly supported plan,” said Fred Gilliam, Capital Metro president and CEO.
But the agency has asked for that money in the past and already has a place in line for the federal payout. Preserving that place was one argument for proceeding with a 2002 vote. But by all accounts from federal, congressional and local watchers, Capital Metro’s spot in line for federal money isn’t threatened.
The amount of money might be, though. U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, alarmed Central Texas rail advocates with a warning earlier this year that waiting until 2004 might not be the best bet, given the tightening of purse strings happening in Congress.
“As soon as they start pulling money out of roads, they are certainly going to start pulling money out of transit,” said Dick Kallerman, the Austin Sierra Club’s transportation chairman.
The future financial situation isn’t as dire as it first sounded, and the 2004 decision feels like the correct one, said Capital Metro board member John Trevio. But he still worried about whether Capital Metro could afford to wait.
“If we finally come up with that ultimate plan, the perfect plan, with total acceptance by the community, what about the funding?” Trevio said.
He’s got at least 18 more months to find out.
The Hartford Courant 06/03/2002
The calls have come from as far away as Europe and Mexico.
Designers, architects and artists from throughout North America are looking at Connecticut with interest, waiting for a chance to show what they’d do if selected to design the stations for the planned New Britain-Hartford busway.
For those of you unfamiliar with it, the busway will be a buses-only road on existing railroad rights-of-way.
Commuters will be able to board it on stops from New Britain to Hartford, with each of the stations specially designed to offer amenities to travelers and the surrounding neighborhoods.
If all stays on schedule, the buses would start rolling in late 2005 or early 2006.
Design firms, architects and others will be invited to propose their ideas for the stations, and the five finalists’ work will be shown to the public in a gallery show and catalog.
The contest’s goal: to bring artistic flair to a major public works project, with the idea that the stations can be functional and maybe a little funky at the same time.
But there’s a problem: Nobody knows when they’ll have the chance to submit the design proposals, because the $160 million project is floating in the kind of bureaucratic morass that’s so common to these huge endeavors.
Real Art Ways, which has been picked to administer the design contest, says it’s been waiting since last year to get rolling — but can’t do it until the state Department of Transportation signs a contract with the project manager, which then frees up the $250,000 to run the contest.
Steven Holmes, director of visual arts and public programming for Real Art Ways, said he started receiving calls from companies immediately after the competition was announced in December.
“All the pieces are in place on our end, but we just need (DOT) to get it going from their point of view,” Holmes said. “We are concerned that we need to regain the momentum. The longer the delay goes on, the more concerned we get.”
They worry that more delays might dissuade good firms from applying for the design work if they’ve already committed themselves to another project elsewhere.
Also, some experts who agreed to help pick the winning company might run into other time commitments if the delay continues, according to Real Art Ways.
The DOT, on its end, says it’s working as quickly and diligently as possible, considering the project’s financial and environmental magnitude.
“It is a cumbersome and time-consuming process, but we’re 99% sure we’re going to have a contract signed by the end of June,” said Michael Sanders, the DOT’s transit and rideshare administrator.
The project includes a lot of environmental reviews, road planning, bridges and other details, Sanders said, which makes it far more involved than the average project.
A review of the busway’s potential environmental impact took 24 months to complete, longer than the 12 to 18 months the DOT had projected at the start of the project.
“We’re all on the same page here, but I think we’re also all frustrated by the amount of time it’s taken,” Sanders said. “I don’t think we’re going to lose the momentum, though.”
[Swindler Note: see comment about McDonald’s]
The Boston Globe 06/03/2002
I recently visited New York City and rode the buses and subways extensively. What a difference compared with Boston’s transit system.
New York’s works.
Recently I had to ride the Green Line in Boston. The driver exhibited classic “Freudian displacement” (angry at work, so take it out on the passengers). He could not resist hitting the brake hard and fast to throw everyone around.
Upon exiting at the Hynes stop I went to purchase tokens. They were out. Have you ever ordered french fries at McDonald’s and heard them say “We ran out. Come back later”? The T folks said essentially the same thing.
The T’s management should visit New York. The drivers are cordial, helpful, knowledgeable; the prepaid passes work great, especially for nonregular riders.By comparison, Boston’s T is like a “Six Flags” ride. — Alan W. Young, Brookline
South China Morning Post 06/03/2002
Shenzhen Metro has awarded a 10.5 billion yuan (about HK$9.84 billion) contract to Beijing Hollysys and the world’s largest independent automation company, Rockwell Automation, to install a state-of-the-art environmental control and monitoring system in the first phase of the Shenzhen subway line.
Rockwell also said it would set up an application development centre in Shenzhen this autumn.
New York Stock Exchange-listed Rockwell plans to invest between $2 million and $3 million initially in the application development centre, which will develop mass transit applications not only for Shenzhen but for the entire Asia-Pacific region.
In addition to providing the automated control systems for Hong Kong’s Mass Transit Railway, Rockwell’s control systems are used in subway systems in Thailand, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur.
“We’ve taken that success in Hong Kong and migrated into China and that’s why we’re successful in Shenzhen because we’ve advanced the technology so they have a completely integrated environmental control and monitoring system,” said Rockwell Asia-Pacific president Gregory Geiger.
After Rockwell has installed its new control platforms and software into the Shenzhen Metro, the southern city will have the most state-of-the-art metro system in China once the first phase 21.8km line of the Shenzhen Metro opens in 2004.
Currently, only Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou have subway systems.
Shenzhen Metro and Rockwell are hoping that the southern boomtown’s state-of -the art subway system will serve as a prototype for future subway systems in China.
“Obviously, we’re going to leverage our position in Shenzhen and Hong Kong and target really all the (future) productions. There’s fully 25 to 26 cities in China that are going to be putting in metro systems over the next decade. We’re basically going to be involved in all those projects and try and win as many of those as we can,” said Scott Summerville, Rockwell’s managing director greater China.
Roughly a quarter of Milwaukee-based Rockwell Automation’s business in China comes from providing automation for infrastructure projects.
Besides subway systems, Rockwell also provides automation for infrastructure projects such as airports in Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Beijing and Shanghai, water waste treatment plants and electric power plants.
Last week, the company snagged the largest medium-voltage drive contract ever awarded in China from Beijing Datang Power Generation, worth $2 million.
Rockwell is also involved in the mainland’s steel industry.
Shanghai Baosteel Group, Anshan Steel and Wuhan Iron & Steel are among its largest customers.
90% of Rockwell’s customers in China are mainland firms.
Evening News (Edinburgh) 06/03/2002
THE driver of a bus which ploughed into a low bridge injuring four wedding guests has been charged, police revealed today.
Four passengers were hurt and others dived for safety as the top deck of the double-decker bus struck the rail bridge at Newcraighall in the early hours of yesterday morning.
Police today said it was a miracle no-one had been killed or seriously hurt.
Edinburgh East and Musselburgh MP Gavin Strang immediately claimed warning signs at the bridge had to be improved “before someone is killed.” The accident happened as the specially-chartered double decker was ferrying guests home from a wedding reception.
It is understood that the driver of the First Edinburgh bus was being directed by guests who were being dropped off.
Amazingly none of the passengers was seriously hurt in the accident which happened at about 1.40am on the Newcraighall Road.
But today as investigations got underway to find out why the bus was driving on the road, there were calls for urgent action.
Mr Strang said: “Something has to be done before someone is killed. This is the second time this has happened at the bridge. There was a similar incident about a year ago, again in the middle of the night.
“You only need to look at the bridge to see that the signs are totally inadequate. They are not prominent enough. There is a desperate need for better warning signs, preferably with a flashing light. I will be taking this up with the authorities including Railtrack and the council.”
The bus was hired by guests returning from a wedding at Prestonfield House Hotel in Edinburgh en route to Musselburgh. There were six passengers sitting on the top level when it collided with the railway bridge. Police said guests were lucky to escape alive. Four of the passengers were injured and taken to hospital.
Two women, aged 31 and 28, and a 33-year-old man were taken to hospital and treated for minor injuries including abrasions, cuts and shock.
A 27-year-old woman was treated at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary for shock. All four were released after treatment.
One Lothian and Borders police source said: “The roof came clean off the bus but fortunately only a small number of people were on the upper deck. They were very lucky.” The spokesman added : “A 50-year-old man has been charged with road traffic offences and a report will be submitted to the procurator fiscal.”
The railway bridge was checked after the accident and was not seriously damaged.
A spokeswoman for the Fire Brigade said: “A double-decker bus tried to go through a low-level bridge and the whole roof was ripped off. The people sitting on the upper level actually saw the bridge ahead and ducked.”
A spokeswoman for First Edinburgh said: “The bus had been hired for a wedding party and the driver was dropping people off at various points through town.
“It was not on a designated bus route so presumably it was on unfamiliar roads. I don’t know if the driver was being directed by guests or was driving of his own accord. We will not know any more until we have completed an internal investigation.”
Three Girl Guides and two adult helpers were killed when a bus struck a low rail bridge in Glasgow eight years ago.
The Guides were returning to Drumchapel from a day trip to Wonderwest World in Ayr when the double-decker bus hit the low bridge at the city’s West Street. Fifteen others were injured.
The bus driver was later convicted of careless driving and fined GBP 750. He was cleared of the more serious charge of causing the five deaths by a jury at Glasgow Sheriff Court.
Train services on the East Coast Main line were plunged into chaos last April when a Lotian Buses double decker hit a railway bridge at Abbeyhill in Edinburgh.
The Tampa Tribune 06/04/2002
‘Lousy’ Hybrid Vehicles’ Builder Promises No Suit
TAMPA — After months of bickering, HARTline has dropped plans for a fleet of environmentally friendly diesel-electric buses.
Monday, Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority officials announced that, after reaching a mutual agreement with the manufacturer, it would not use a $2.5 million federal grant to buy 10 of the buses, which cut air pollution by using a combination of diesel-fueled turbine engines and rechargeable electric batteries.
The decision ends a long-running argument between HARTline and Tennessee-based Advanced Vehicle Systems over the buses’ performance.
After test driving the hybrid buses last year, drivers complained of wobbly steering, suspension problems and leaky windows. Several other transit systems across the country reported similar problems with the buses, which cost $250,000 each.
Advanced Vehicle Systems sent crews to Tampa to work on the four buses HARTline had received but decided to move the buses to the company’s Chattanooga headquarters to finish repairs. HARTline refused to accept the remaining six.
Late last year, HARTline gave the manufacturer an ultimatum: Fix the buses or lose the contract.
“It’s time to cut our losses and move on,” HARTline Executive Director Sharon Dent said at the time. “We gave them time to get the technology right. They just built a lousy bus.”
Advanced Vehicle Systems President Rick Hitchcock urged patience, offered contract incentives and promised that the company would fix the buses.
But, faced with a lukewarm reception, Hitchcock wrote Dent in May offering to return HARTline’s purchase order for 10 hybrid buses and dispose of the vehicles at the company’s expense.
“We do not believe that it is in the best interest of either of our organizations to continue to press for a hybrid-electric program without a level of support and enthusiasm for the new technology,” Hitchcock wrote.
“We exercised that option,” HARTline spokesman Ed Crawford said.
Hitchcock’s letter said Advanced Vehicle Systems would not pursue any claims against HARTline, ending the agency’s fears of a suit over the contract.
HARTline Chairwoman Jan Smith announced the deal Monday, calling the resolution “a wonderful thing.”
The Federal Transit Administration has told the bus agency it can use the $2.5 million federal clean air grant to buy clean-running diesel buses that meet new, tougher federal emission standards.
The New York Times June 4, 2002
Delta Air Lines, for one, is plenty worried about business travelers who are so fed up with airport problems that they’re switching to the train on East Coast routes. In an attempt to portray the train as an inferior option to flying, Delta’s ads do everything but imply that train passengers have to watch out for Jesse James and his gang shooting up the lounge car.
The clear recent success of Amtrak’s Northeast corridor rail system, and especially of the high-speed Acela trains that share it, is usually treated as an incidental consequence of the catastrophe of Sept. 11.
Hot-air hurricanes rage in Washington and in airline corporate suites about the future of an air transport system based on huge, speculative passenger-growth projections that some critics contend are unrealistic. But a quiet revolution is gathering force, led by business travelers who, in numbers now big enough to truly frighten the airlines, have either found other ways to get there, or alternatives to going in the first place.
All over the country, ambitious new intercity rail projects are being envisioned, often by states in partnership with private industry. In California, speedy rail service between San Diego and Los Angeles is going to be extended up to San Francisco. In the Midwest, work has already begun on a big high-speed rail project that will link Chicago and other cities in nine states. In Florida, plans are advancing for a high-speed link between Orlando and Miami. In Texas, there’s talk of a high-speed link between Houston and Dallas.
At the heart of this new activity is a growing awareness among transportation planners that business travel demand in the United States is, at least, somewhat similar to Continental Europe, where a vast network of national high-speed train systems has nearly eliminated air trips between cities less than 400 miles apart.
“About 60% of airline flights in North America are less than 400 miles in length,” Louis A. Turpen, the chief executive of the Greater Toronto Airports Authority, told international airport and transport officials meeting in Boca Raton, Fla., yesterday at the Airport Summit, a gathering sponsored by Marcus Evans, a business information company.
High-speed rail networks “bleed the short-haul capacity out of the system,” freeing airports to do what they do best: handle long-distance trips, Mr. Turpen said. Meanwhile, he added, “we must establish airports as intermodal transportation points, and not just places to take off and land airplanes.”
That means airports as modern transportation and business hubs, where high-speed and commuter rail links converge to feed into national and international air-transport networks.
That’s the kind of airport that Juergen E. Bartels, the chief executive of Meridien Hotels and Resorts was showing off the other day as he thumbed through illustrations showing what the Frankfurt Airport’s new AirRail Center will look like once Meridien opens a 680-room luxury high-technology hotel that is under construction there. The soaring edifice is being built on a platform over the high-speed train terminal at the airport.
A passionate advocate of high-speed rail as a vital component of a nation’s transportation system, Mr. Bartels noted that planning in European nations for the current systems began decades ago, after Japan led the way in the mid-1960s with its bullet trains. “It’s almost as if it is revelation to America that this works,” Mr. Bartels said with some astonishment.
In Europe, where even track gauges didn’t match between some countries after World War II, planning has become so coordinated that “they’re now integrating all of Europe into one train model, encompassing even the regional and commuter trains from the inner cities,” Mr. Bartels said.
His native Germany moved aggressively into high-speed rail planning only in the early 1980s. “Germany had lost what they call the train culture,” he said. “The German trains were dirty, they were not on time and the employees were surly.” Inspired by energetic high-speed rail initiatives in France, much of the rest of Europe, Germany included, soon developed its own networks. In Germany, “they’re spending gazillions on new tracks” for expanded high-speed service, he said.
“They are succeeding at establishing a culture that gets the business traveler out of the plane and into the train” for flights within Germany and to nearby foreign cities, “thus freeing the air space for long-distance flights, which is what it should be used for,” he added.
Putting a five-star hotel at the new kind of air-rail transportation hub represented by airports like the one in Frankfurt is a logical, necessary refinement in that plan, he said. Typically, airport hotels are drab and “utilitarian,” Mr. Bartels said, adding: “I want to have the best airport hotel in the world. That title is currently vacant, by the way.”
Facilities for business conferences and small meetings are a major part of the planning for the new Meridien hotel at the Frankfurt AirRail Center. This reflects the reality of modern business travel in which more business is being conducted right at the airport itself, Mr. Bartels said.
“I would be interested to build this type of hotel at major U.S. airports,” he said, pointing out that many airports are deeply into terminal expansion projects costing billions of dollars. At some airports in the United States, airport managers and local and regional government and business planners are already designing accommodations for various kinds of rail links.
Like many outside of governmental transportation planning in the United States, Mr. Bartels is baffled as to why so little has been done to develop rail alternatives to short-distance flying.
Mr. Turpen, the Toronto airport executive who was previously the chief executive of San Francisco International Airport, suggested yesterday at the Airport Summit that the time had come to begin more intense work on building high-speed rail links tied to the air system. “We’ve got to start to reverse this trend that there is an inalienable right to fly” under all circumstances, he said.
In the United States, where Congress is quibbling about renewing an annual budget for Amtrak that would barely pay for a short stretch of Interstate highway or a single airport runway, serious advocates of intercity rail transport have to share both budget and podium with dewy-eyed romantics who want to funnel rail money into maintaining long-distance trains that some in the industry say merely subsidize “land cruises” for leisure travelers.
Lose those 20th Century Limited infatuations, Mr. Bartels suggested. “It has nothing to do with romance,” he said. “It’s about business and the vaunted American productivity. In the United States, you can simply no longer justify the economic costs and lost productivity of traveling short distances by air.”
Fort Worth Star-Telegram 06/04/2002
FORT WORTH, Texas — A proposed light-rail streetcar system got a green light Monday from a city transportation committee, but the $165 million project still needs approval from the Fort Worth Transportation Authority and City Council.
In approving the first phase of the streetcar system, the city’s Transit Study Committee — made up of City Council members, community groups and T officials — did not make any changes to the streetcar’s proposed route or the financing for the project, which includes a $52 million bond election in 2004.
The planned 7.6-mile streetcar route stretches from the museums west of downtown through the Medical District and east to Texas Wesleyan University, along Rosedale Street.
Some speakers at a public hearing last week said they preferred Lancaster Avenue to Rosedale and others suggested that the route turn south on Miller Street, but the committee approved the initial light-rail plan as proposed by the Carter & Burgess engineering firm, which spent 14 months doing a $1 million study of transit options.
“We did recommend further study of the possibility of extending the line down Lancaster east of the university,” said Tom Shelton, the consultant in charge of the study.
The committee also approved a proposed rail transportation plan through 2030 that includes a $45 million commuter rail line from downtown to the Hulen area, skirting Texas Christian University, and streetcar lines to travel north on Main Street to Fort Worth Meacham Airport, along Berry Street and University Drive, and to Ridgmar mall.
The project is expected to increase economic development opportunities adjacent to the rail line.
“I’m excited about it from a transit and economic development perspective,” said Fort Worth Councilwoman Wendy Davis, a committee member.
Critics of the proposal say it did not adequately look at alternate locations for the rail, elevated trains or a combination of downtown streetcars and faster light rail to move people more quickly.
The proposed Fort Worth system, streetcars that travel on city streets at about 30 mph, may be only a few minutes faster than a bus and is not comparable to the Dallas Area Rapid Transit light-rail system that used abandoned railroad tracks to reach far-flung communities.
“People need to know what they are getting, because when they think about light rail, they think about rapid transit. This is not rapid transit,” said Gyna Bivens, board vice chairwoman of the Fort Worth Transportation Authority, known as the T.
Even so, it is the first step in a public transportation plan meant to help people reach work, hospitals, downtown, the airport and other sites across the Metroplex.
The T’s board meets Thursday and the City Council on June 11 to consider the streetcar plan.
The News Tribune 06/04/2002
How Car-Pool Lanes Are Used In Tacoma And Pierce County May Change — And They Aren’t Even Built Yet
In May, the Washington State Transportation Commission ordered a study that will evaluate the implications of opening Puget Sound car-pool lanes to all cars during certain hours. This month, officials are expected to make a recommendation to the commission.
While any changes would be made to existing Seattle-area car-pool lanes, the same rules would apply to lanes planned for Tacoma and Pierce County.
“If there was a different policy, we would have to go through a pretty big education campaign and come up with some kind of transition that makes sense to drivers,” said Linda Mullen, communications director for the state Department of Transportation.
Reworking car-pool lanes when Tacoma and Pierce County are poised to receive them unsettles some local officials, although for different reasons.
It would undermine Puget Sound’s fledgling regional transit system, said Tacoma City Councilman Kevin Phelps, who also serves on the Sound Transit Board.
“We have express bus service on our (car-pool) lanes on a pretty frequent basis,” he said. “If you start slowing those down it takes away the incentive for people to use mass transit in the evening and on weekends.”
And opening car-pool lanes to general traffic won’t alleviate traffic congestion, said Pierce County Councilwoman Karen Biskey (R-Gig Harbor).
“I don’t know what they’re trying to accomplish,” Biskey said. “There’s just too much traffic to make it worthwhile.”
Puget Sound’s “high-occupancy vehicle” lanes are currently reserved for car pools, van pools, motorcycles and buses 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The state study — prompted by requests for flexibility from some commuters and elected officials — will evaluate the implications of opening car-pool lanes to all traffic on weekends, at night and during some hours on weekdays. Highways with car-pool lanes being considered in the study include Interstate 5, Interstate 90, Interstate 405, and Highway 167 and Highway 520.
Most Washington workers chose to drive alone over the past decade, according to Census 2000, and the percentage who car-pooled did not change.
Transportation experts say the car-pool debate is a matter of seeing the glass half-full or half-empty.
“The number of people who carpool hasn’t decreased,” said Neil Kilgren, associate planner for Puget Sound Regional Council. “It really depends on people’s circumstances.
“Car pooling is more restrictive than public transportation because you need to find somebody else who’s going to the same destination as you are.”
Car-pool lanes loom large in Tacoma and Pierce County’s future. State plans call for $357 million to replace the Nalley Valley viaduct in Tacoma and build car-pool lanes on Highway 16 from Interstate 5 over the Narrows Bridge to the Olympic Drive interchange in Gig Harbor. The projects hinge on the statewide tax vote in November.
It’s not uncommon for car-pool lanes to swerve from their original purpose.
In Sacramento and Los Angeles, for example, officials opened car-pool lanes to general traffic during off-peak hours.
In Washington, any changes to the state’s 200-plus miles of car-pool lanes would come slowly, said Charlie Howard, planning and policy director for the state Department of Transportation. The state would have to obtain federal approval, and address operational and safety issues.
The state study is just a first step, Howard added, and it’s a crucial time for Puget Sound commuters to sound off.
“We really want to hear from people on this stuff,” he said.
The San Francisco Chronicle 06/04/2002
Without $1.1 billion in seismic bolstering, a major earthquake could cause the BART transbay tube to fail and structures that support elevated tracks to bend or even collapse, according to a report released Monday.
BART’s seismic vulnerability study, which cost $25 million and took two teams of seismic experts a year and a half to complete, also warns that a large quake on the Hayward Fault could seriously damage the Berkeley hills tunnel, which crosses the fault, and close it for an extended period.
The report recommends that the transit district act quickly to protect the regional rail system against a catastrophic earthquake, which is expected to strike the Bay Area within the next 28 years.
“We don’t know exactly what will happen in a major earthquake,” said Jim Dunn, BART’s chief engineer. “But there is enough evidence that tells us we should move forward with a seismic retrofit.”
How financially strapped BART will pay for the seismic strengthening remains a mystery.
The transit agency has just $125 million set aside for seismic improvements and is already contemplating fare increases and parking charges to balance an operating budget hit hard by a decline in both ridership and half-cent sales tax revenues.
A 1/4. sales tax, some of the money from a potential $1 toll increase on state-owned bridges and a nickel surcharge on BART fares are potential sources. But BART officials seem to be leaning toward a general obligation bond, which would have to be put before voters in San Francisco, Alameda and Contra Costa counties and win approval by more than two-thirds of those voting.
BART directors will discuss the funding options Thursday and consider the level of seismic strengthening that should be done. The study says that in addition to strengthening the entire system, BART has two choices to make sure service can be quickly restored after a quake hits.
Strengthening only the so-called core system — from the west end of the Berkeley hills tunnel to the Daly City station — would cost an estimated $827 million. Under this scenario, it would take eight months to restore systemwide service after an earthquake. Improving the entire system would would cut that time to 70 days but would cost $1.1 billion.
“The prudent thing is to do it all,” said BART General Manager Tom Margro. “We need to do the whole system.”
To prepare the report, researchers broke the BART system into about 15,000 pieces and used computer models to simulate the amount of ground shaking that would occur with quakes of 7.0 on the Hayward Fault between Richmond and Fremont, 8.0 on the San Andreas Fault south of Fort Ross, 6.8 on the northern end of the Calaveras Fault and 6.8 on the Concord Fault in Concord.
The results confirmed what BART engineers had already suspected — that the transbay tube and the system’s 2,000 aerial structures are the system’s weak spots. But they found that the damage could be worse than originally believed.
The study, prepared by Bechtel Infrastructure Corp. and HNTB and reviewed by a panel of independent seismology experts, recommends that BART expand the foundations on the T-shaped posts that support its aerial tracks to keep them from tipping or possibly collapsing.
But the top priority is the transbay tube, which the study found to be susceptible to liquefaction during intense ground shaking. That could create enormous pressure, the study said, causing the tube to move.
“It is possible this pressure could be so high, there could be so much movement that the seismic joints could break, there could be some leaks, there could be something more serious,” Dunn said.
Asked for details, Dunn said seismic experts don’t agree on what could happen. But they do agree that the potential consequences are serious enough to warrant seismic retrofitting — including strengthening of the seismic joints and installing small pilings from the bottom of the tube to restrict movement.
The Baltimore Sun 06/04/2002
The trouble with Maryland Transit Administration bus wheels most likely will be reparable. That is the finite way of mechanical matters: The parts, the tools and the human hand can be fallible alone or in concert, but with proper attention, the fleet can again be made road-worthy.
Far more difficult to repair will be the public’s trust. It has been damaged by officials’ initially inadequate response to the series of accidents since August in which wheels have fallen off buses, endangering passengers, passersby and bus drivers.
There can be no trust without rigorous accountability at all levels, particularly at the top. Virginia White, acting MTA administrator for the past year, has failed badly in that regard — especially given her background in operations.
According to reports by Sun reporter Marcia Myers, managers responsible for the public’s safety failed to see a dangerous pattern in what is now 17 breakdowns and 20 injury claims; launched an internal review but thwarted efforts by the department safety office to do its job; and did not notify superiors or manufacturers of the scope and seriousness of the problem.
That, in effect, delayed the full-scale independent and internal investigation needed to get to the bottom of the problem. Instead of welcoming scrutiny and aggressively protecting the welfare of the bus riders, pedestrians and motorists who share the road with behemoth buses, it appears there were efforts to defend turf.
Technical failures are a shame but are understandable; failures of conscience that endanger lives are unforgivable. “What is not acceptable is less than full disclosure or any systemic attempt to hide a problem,” Transportation Secretary John D. Porcari said in an interview yesterday.
He has called in outside transportation auditors and investigators, pulled buses out of service and ordered regular safety checks of the fleet to try to prevent another incident. He has safety officers talking to front-line mechanics in hopes of determining how procedures, tools and parts interacted with such dangerous results. There are multiple theories now as to cause, including the use of tools that overstress bolts holding the wheels, and a certain kind of bolt.
Mr. Porcari says he has identified a number of areas needing improvement, including communication among the multiple MTA maintenance garages, so that reports of equipment failures and safety solutions are shared quickly among the people who put MTA’s 800 buses on the road.
But streamlining the department and its communications will be only a beginning. When day-to-day safety is ensured, Mr. Porcari must return his attention to the vacancy at the top of his defective department. Perhaps he should present this case study in poor middle management as a test to candidates for MTA administrator, as now more than ever he must choose a leader with the vision and mettle to cut through the bureaucracy and restore public faith in the system’s efficiency and safety.
Los Angeles Times 06/04/2002
A Friendly Man On The Street Is Key To Keeping MTA’s Speedy High-tech Buses Running On Time.
Maybe, as Times columnist Steve Lopez suggested in print a few months back, Derick Mahome really should run the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. One thing’s for sure, he’d be certain to put in a little extra for the agency’s bus riders.
Just look at him now, bolting over a crosswalk on Wilshire Boulevard in the middle of morning rush hour, legs pounding pavement in full sprint, sweat pouring down his brow. “Hey man, stop!” he shouts. “Hey, hey, wait, you’ve got a rider! You’ve got a rider!”
An MTA bus supervisor, Mahome is imploring one of his drivers not to pull out, so a woman can make her connection.
The bus waits. The woman gets on. Mission accomplished, Mahome walks back to the corner at Wilshire and Western Avenue, the spot where every weekday morning he stands watch from 5:45 to 9.
It is from this swatch of sidewalk that Mahome, 38, fills a key front-line role for the nation’s second largest transit agency. He is responsible for the busiest corner on the busiest route of what is arguably the MTA’s most successful traffic-busting innovation in recent memory: Metro Rapid, a fleet of more than 100 buses that use technology to approximate the speeds of a railway.
Officials at the MTA acknowledge that high-tech gadgetry can go only so far.
“Derick Mahome makes this system work,” says Rex Gephart, who oversees the program, more commonly known as Rapid Bus.
Instead of trying to manage the route from headquarters, as is done with other MTA routes, Rapid Bus puts at least one supervisor on the streets during each peak hour.
On Wilshire in the morning, it’s Mahome. “The eyes and ears of this thing,” says Gephart.
A sturdy, roundish man with buzz-saw energy and a 200-watt smile, Mahome tries to make sure not only that the morning parade of buses runs smoothly but that riders get the kind of white-glove treatment more typically associated with a valet service.
“Sometimes,” says Mahome, dressed head-to-toe in the MTA’s navy blue polyester supervisor’s suit, “it feels like I’m a glorified baby-sitter.”
One minute he’s getting drivers to wait for passengers from the nearby Red Line subway stop. Then he’s jammed partway under a bus, pants nearly splitting as he peeks through a front wheel well to check a bad suspension. Then he’s peering into a bus engine, fixing a frozen fuel cylinder by propping open a hatch to let air flow in.
He does all this in the company of riders. Hordes of them, particularly in the middle of rush hour, when you can often find Mahome standing in the midst of 60 to 70 people, each waiting for a Rapid Bus that actually has a seat. They pepper him with questions. “How do I get to bus No. 2?”
“What’s the fare?”
“Where do I connect to go to the Valley?”
Befitting a man who has spent 15 years in the MTA, part of that time as a driver, Mahome seemingly knows every line and every connection in the city. “I’ll take all the questions from riders as I can,” he says. “But one thing, I don’t like people asking questions for more than 21/2 minutes. If they are there that long, that means they’ve been waiting too long … and the Rapid Bus isn’t doing the job it was meant to when it was drawn up.”
The MTA launched Rapid Bus in 2000 with two routes, installing Mahome as one of a small cadre of street-level supervisors.
The system, modeled on one in Brazil and new to this country, has one line that runs 13 miles down Ventura Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley. The other line is Mahome’s route, slicing 26 miles down Wilshire Boulevard, from deep in East Los Angeles to Santa Monica.
The buses, which make fewer stops than most, have several features that make them faster — including electronic gear that makes traffic signals hold green lights longer. The MTA has also unleashed its drivers, letting them roll without a schedule. Rapid Bus drivers are told to cover their routes as quickly as possible without breaking the law.
The result? Faster service: Rapid Buses complete their routes up to 30% faster than normal buses. And more riders: The buses are so popular — jammed, actually — that overall ridership along Wilshire is up 40% in two years. And little criticism — a rarity for the MTA, which usually takes more hits than a crash test dummy.
The street-level supervisors are key to the success of Rapid Bus, MTA officials say, because they provide a human touch.
Mahome usually positions himself under a Metro Rapid canopy, intent on keeping the buses from driving in clusters.
“Seems like the guy does whatever it takes to serve us,” says Ed Bishop, a photographer on his way to work in Westwood one recent day. Bishop recalled the time he left a bag on a bus and reached Mahome soon afterward. Sure enough, the bag was found.
Mahome is an obviously effective supervisor because he’s always moving, always talking, always fixing. Times columnist Steve Lopez took note of that in a January article that blasted the MTA for being out of touch with bus riders.
Lopez spent a morning at Wilshire and Western, to see how crowded the buses are, and came away impressed with the man supervising the fleet. “There’s a terrific bus-traffic supervisor at Wilshire and Western who should be running the entire agency,” he wrote.
“Man, that Lopez got me in trouble,” says Mahome, laughing. After the column it seemed like everyone in the agency, and a ton of his riders, gave Mahome a good ribbing.
Mahome assures the agency’s recently hired chief executive, Roger Snoble, that no, he does not want “the big boss’ job.” Not a chance. Too much pressure. Though he wouldn’t mind the $295,000-a-year paycheck or the hefty housing allowance.
“On the serious side, I do really care about this,” says Mahome, wiping his brow as he scans Wilshire.
“My wife says maybe she should buy some red lingerie and put ‘Rapid Bus’ on it. That way, I’d give her more attention… I live for trying to make this thing work.”
Denver Post 06/05/2002
Maybe It Should Be Called FasTrack$
RTD officials outlined their revised FasTracks light-rail, commuter-rail and bus rapid transit plan for metro Denver, and the price tag is now $4.7 billion, up from an estimate of $4.4 billion in August.
And the $4.7 billion is based on voters in the seven-county metro area supporting a 0.4% hike in the Regional Transportation District’s sales tax this fall to pay for at least six new rail lines and improvements to existing lines. The tax increase amounts to an extra 4 cents on each $10 purchase.
If the sales-tax vote is put off until fall 2003, the price tag jumps to $4.9 billion, RTD general manager Cal Marsella told members of the transit district’s board at a special meeting Tuesday night.
The tax increase, if approved, might cost each resident of metro Denver about $29 a year, Marsella said. Or as RTD’s promotional video put it: Residents can have FasTracks “for the cost of a single fast-food lunch a month.”
The new rail lines would travel from Denver’s Union Station to Golden, Arvada, Longmont, north Adams County and Denver International Airport. Another line would serve the Interstate 225 corridor in Aurora.
One of the more controversial elements of the new FasTracks is a proposed 10-mile, $50 million extension of the Denver-Boulder rail line to Longmont.
Some RTD directors said it would be more valuable to extend the Adams County light-rail line from its current proposed end-of-line station at 124th Avenue north to Colorado 7 instead of running commuter rail up the Diagonal Highway to Longmont.
“If we want Adams County support for FasTracks, then we need more. We’re getting the least amount of the pie,” said RTD director David Rose, who represents Adams.
FasTracks also would extend the existing southwest corridor light-rail line from Mineral Avenue to Highlands Ranch and double the parking capacity at stations along the southeast corridor line, to 12,000 spaces.
The 19-mile southeast light-rail line is part of the $1.67 billion Transportation Expansion Project, or T-REX venture, now under construction in the I-25 and I-225 corridors.
Based on RTD’s experiences with crowded trains and inadequate parking on the southwest line since its 2000 opening, “we think we could have real problems on this (southeast) corridor” if parking and stations are not expanded for an extra $121 million, Marsella said.
After Marsella’s briefing for RTD directors, Lone Tree Mayor Jack O’Boyle proposed to the transit board that still another $80 million to $100 million be added to the price tag to pay for a 2-mile extension of the T-REX rail line south of Lincoln Avenue. It would add three more stations to the line.
Lone Tree would be annexed into RTD’s tax district and help generate as much as $10 million a year in additional tax receipts for RTD, O’Boyle said.
The RTD board will have to act quickly, possibly as early as its June 18 monthly meeting, to endorse the new FasTracks proposal and get it before voters this year, Marsella said. “If there’s any consideration of an early ballot initiative, this has to be wrapped up soon.”
Rollie Heath, the Democratic candidate for governor, said he supports FasTracks and wants the tax-hike measure on the ballot this year. “We need to build it out now,” Heath said.
But through a spokesman, Gov. Bill Owens, who is running for a second term, said “it’s probably best not to rush to judgment on a plan that calls for such a significant tax increase.”
Dayton Daily News 06/05/2002
DAYTON — Company officials told members of the Greater Dayton Regional Transit Authority board on Tuesday that repairs on RTA’s troubled trolley fleet were proceeding on schedule and that all the vehicles should be in service by midsummer.
“We’re here to emphasize our commitment to the trolleys,” said Jackson Bell of Electric Transit Inc., the Hunt Valley, Md., company that manufactured them.
Fifty-four of the $550,000 electric trolleys were recalled last year when cracked rear main frames and suspension brackets were discovered. They were out of service for more than a year. Just three ETI prototypes remained in service.
Then in April, cracks were found in welds on brackets on the rear axel of 30 trolleys, which ETI is fixing with another repair program.
Because of the trolleys’ history, RTA board member James Francis called for an independent, third-party review of the work.
“Meaning no disrespect, I don’t feel comfortable just taking their word for it,” Francis said. “If we are not assured of the work, we’ll pay for it down the road.”
Board President Frank Perez said the trolleys are an integral part of RTA’s program and that it expects the buses to be fixed for a long life of service.
The trolleys have an 18-year warranty, which was suspended when they were recalled. It resumes when they return to service.
Bart Vandenberg, also of ETI, said repairs to the trolleys are being made at the rate on two to three a week. The trolleys then must have a complete electrical system check.
Vandenberg said an analysis of the trolleys’ frame found no other problems.
In other action, the board approved spending $3,965,725 in federal transit funds on the development, with the city of Dayton, of a park-and-ride project in the Wright-Dunbar historical area.
The Boston Globe 06/05/2002
Within six months, riders on the MBTA’s Red Line could see animated advertising as their subways rumble through the tunnels of Boston. Between South Station and the Broadway stop in South Boston, tunnel walls might display what appear to be brief silent movies touting bottled water or running shoes.
A European marketing idea has come to America. Last fall, Atlanta and Philadelphia transit systems began displaying ads on tunnel walls that look like short videos, and New York rail commuters could soon see something similar.
Tomorrow, at a monthly meeting, the board of directors of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority is set to consider a proposal from MotionPosters Co. Ltd. The British company wants to pay the MBTA $320,000 for an 18-month opportunity to test its idea to sell animated ad space on Red Line tunnels.
The MBTA started looking for tunnel-ad companies last fall, a few months after a plan to sell naming rights to subway stations failed to generate much interest.
If the tunnel advertising test is approved and proves successful, a 10-year contract could be drawn up that could yield the MBTA nearly $8 million by putting ad displays in about 20 Red Line tunnel locations. It would take MotionPosters about six months to put an ad display in operation after getting MBTA approval.
Opened in 1897, the MBTA’s Green Line claims to be “America’s first subway.” Given the MBTA’s age, tunnel ads may not work here because the maintenance of the ad displays above the subway tracks could interfere with the maintenance of the tracks themselves, cautioned James H. Scanlan, acting secretary of transportation and MBTA chairman.
Though the MBTA is keenly interested in ways to increase revenue without raising fares, Scanlan said, “We want to make sure there’s no impact on MBTA operations.”
MotionPosters communications manager Tom Griffith described the technology that makes the ads appear to come alive. First, nearly 200 boxes are installed along a tunnel wall, each box with a picture. When a motion detector senses an approaching train, it sends out a command that sequentially illuminates each box for a split second. To someone looking out a train window, the effect is similar to watching a mini movie.
The concept has two things to recommend it. Transit systems are always on the lookout for new revenue, and advertisers are always eager for new ways to make powerful impressions on consumers.
Griffith said MotionPosters already displays tunnel ads in such cities as Athens, Budapest, and Milan. The MBTA could be the first US system to use its technology, he said, though some US cities are showing tunnel ads by other providers. Griffith declined to say how much it might cost to install a tunnel ad display in Boston.
Brands that have advertised with MotionPosters include adidas running shoes, Coca-Cola, and Visa, Griffith said. In Budapest, an ad for adidas had a sprinter seemingly emerge from the darkness to outrace the train.
The Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority claims to be the first US system to test tunnel advertising. Two years ago, its manager of business development, Tony Griffin, said he received a “cold call” from a New York company called Submedia.
Submedia, which was bested by MotionPosters in a preliminary MBTA review, declined to comment for this story. Last fall, it told The New York Times it hoped to charge advertisers between $35,000 and $250,000 a month, depending on the location of a tunnel and the number of consumers that rides by its displayed ads.
Submedia’s display system was inspired by a child’s toy called a zoetrope, a cylinder with images on the inside and slits on the outside. When the cylinder is spun, images seen through the slits seem to move. When the idea is adapted to tunnels, the train’s speed gives a series of backlit images the illusion of movement.
“I broke out and laughed the first time I heard it,” Atlanta’s Griffin said of the concept. “But as they explained it, I stopped laughing.”
The first ad to appear in Atlanta is for Dasani, Coke’s bottled water brand. As riders go by, a soothing waterfall appears to wash over the tunnel wall. “As time goes on and every tunnel has this, it could be old hat,” Griffin said of tunnel advertising’s capacity to make an impression. “But that first time, it really soaked into my head.”
Griffin said he is unaware of any rider complaints about the ad. A six-month test has been extended because Atlanta’s transit authority wants to wait until the economy improves before putting a long-term contract out to bid, he said. That contract could have ad displays in 16 to 20 tunnel locations, and it projects revenues of $15 million over five years, he said.
According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Submedia has also been testing the Dasani ad in the tunnel of the region’s commuter rail system.
Submedia also approached the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey about displaying ads in a Port Authority Trans-Hudson rail tunnel, authority spokesman Steve Coleman said. The installation of a display system is nearly complete, he said.
“They came to us with a proposal,” Coleman said. “We looked at it and said, ‘We’re willing to give it a try.’ “
The Ottawa Sun 06/05/2002
About 100 proponents of Ottawa’s light rail system rallied together yesterday in hopes of pressuring the community to support the quest for a complex rail system.
“The only thing wrong with it is it’s not long enough,” said Coun.
Clive Doucet. “We want to connect the whole city but we need city-wide support.”
The rally came a day after the O-Train was cut down to one train after separate incidents took out a main train and its backup.
The first train was taken off the tracks Sunday after running over a switch. The second was put out of commission Monday after the generator failed. There were 20-minute delays throughout the day until mechanics fixed one of the trains early Tuesday morning.
“That’s the first time anything like that has happened in the six or seven months it’s been operational,” Doucet said.
The setback didn’t dampen the spirits of the community groups that came together to present five goals for Ottawa transit.
Their six-year plan includes spending 50% of the city’s transportation budget on public transit projects in 2003 and completing an inner and outer O-Train ring connecting the city and suburbs by 2005 and 2008 respectively. A petition supporting the plan was distributed during the event.
The organizations plan to present the proposal to Mayor Bob Chiarelli this week.
The Evening Standard (London) 06/05/2002
A RECORD one million passengers used London Underground in an hour at the height of the Golden Jubilee celebrations.
The busiest 60-minute period for the Tube began at midnight on Monday shortly after the firework ended at Buckingham Palace.
Huge queues gathered outside all the main central London Tube stations.
Passengers were helped by 2,500 staff including an extra 800 on duty for the occasion.
At most stations the automatic ticket gates were switched to the open position to allow quick access to the platforms. All trains were packed and the crowds were good natured if a little tired.
Mike Brown, LU’s director of passenger services, said today: “It was our most busiest hour ever.”
For only the third time in its history — the other two being the millennium celebrations and the coronation of King George VI in 1937 — the Tube ran all night on Monday. Although more people packed into London on millennium night, this time the crowds travelling home were far more concentrated.
It all went so smoothly that LU plans more 24-hour services. “I would not rule it out for big events,” said Mr Brown. He paid tribute to those attending. Mr Brown said: “They were fantastic. It was very much a family event and there were lots of people in their twenties and thirties.”
LU staff handed out thousands of chocolates to the waiting crowds courtesy of a deal with Cadbury’s. Three million leaflets, which included a detailed map and list of events, were also handed out.
Jubilee line passengers were also treated to a choice of music on Monday with live performances by students from Trinity College, the Royal College of Music and the Southwark Concert Band. Inevitably there were hiccups in the service getting people home. The worst came in the early hours of Tuesday morning when a signal failure halted services on the District line between Plaistow and Upminster.
Mainline rail operator c2c which runs adjacent services came to the rescue and laid on two extra trains and an emergency bus service was brought in.
On the roads, the getaway was remarkably smooth as people heeded advice and used public transport rather than their cars.
The most congested areas yesterday were Marylebone Road, Victoria Street and Vauxhall Bridge. Minor congestion began at around 1pm, with delays getting longer late in the afternoon.
Motorists experienced 30-minute tailbacks when the traffic was at its worst — between 4 pm and 7 pm — with delays entering and leaving the City. But the traffic eased considerably after 7 pm.
Major motorways leading to London were relatively clear.
A spokesman for AA Roadwatch said: “It has not as bad as we had been expected. The vast majority of people left their cars at home.”
Train services carried the bulk of visitors into central London with Connex and South Central operating additional services until 2 am today.
Connex was forced to use an extra two trains to cope with the huge number of travellers on its Victoria to Dartford service.
South Central trains also used two standby trains for the service connecting Victoria and East Croydon. The biggest number of travellers came late at night and in the early hours of the morning on Monday and Tuesday.
The Jerusalem Post 06/05/2002
Two groups submitted bids yesterday for the construction and operation of Jerusalem’s first light railway line, which is expected to start running in 2006, at an estimated cost of NIS 1.2 billion.
City Pass and Pass Jerusalem submitted detailed proposals, which include thousands of pages and hundreds of technical diagrams. Each group has invested some $2.3 million in preparing the paperwork, which was handed in in 60 boxes.
City Pass is comprised of France’s Alstom Ltd., Elco Ltd., Ashtrom Ltd., Poalim Investments, and the international consortium CGEA. Pass Jerusalem (formerly Pasim Group) includes Canadian High-ways Infrastructure Corporation, Africa-Israel, Feuchtwanger Indus-tries, Siemens, and Hanover-based Uestra.
The municipality said it will make a final decision on the winner within three months. The special committee set up to run the tender estimates that negotiations with the chosen group will take an extra nine months, so that the contract will be signed in the middle of next year.
The first line will be from Pisgat Ze’ev to Mount Herzl, through the commercial center along Jaffa Road. The line will have 23 stations and is expected to serve 100,000 passengers a day. A train, which can take a maximum of 500 passengers, will leave each 3.5 minutes during rush hours. The average speed is 23 kilometers per hour, including stopping at each station, and the whole route will take 28 minutes.
While the concession to operate the line is for 30 years, the state has an option to purchase the line after seven years of operation, paying a penalty.
Six groups originally submitted bids to the tender’s first stage, when it was first published in December 1999. Five were selected. The second stage was published by a committee set up by the Jerusalem Municipality and the Transportation and Finance ministries in July 2001.
The committee has met with all bidders and introduced changes in the original tender, including an agreement to compensate the wining group for delays caused by the security situation.
In addition the committee has agreed to compensate the entrepreneur if the number of passengers does not reach the committee’s expectations. In such a case, the contractor will receive 62% of the missed income.
The light railway project is estimated to cost NIS 1.7 billion, with the company chosen to construct the line covering NIS 1.2 billion and the remainder coming from the government.
The municipality has already begun NIS 400 million of construction work on the 13.8-kilometer route. The work includes transferring underground power, water, and sewer lines. The railway is scheduled to be operational by 2006, with the last of eight lines completed by 2020.
The committee is already planing the second stage of the work and has published an international tender to which three engineering companies from France, Canada, and US have submitted bids.
The Houston Chronicle 06/06/2002
Spring Valley resident Mike Patronella brought a west Houston crowd to its feet Tuesday night after pledging $1,000 and volunteer support to battle the proposed expansion of the Katy Freeway.
Patronella’s action was mirrored by several other residents who are eager to add momentum to the Katy Freeway Coalition’s bid to raise $150,000 to fight the Texas Department of Transportation’s Interstate 10 expansion plan.
“Communities can make an impact on projects like this. There are ways to fight and ways to be effective,” environmental attorney Jim Blackburn told a crowd that filled the Memorial High School auditorium. “We have a more than adequate chance to get the project back to the starting point legally if they will not do it voluntarily.”
Blackburn said the group needs to work toward obtaining a permanent injunction, which could shut the project down until the state revises its plans.
“The bottom line is that we have come together, said this issue is important and started to give it support,” he said. “Now we need to go through the political and legal processes. We’ve got a start.”
A group of residents launched a grass-roots effort in May. The cite concerns about “poor planning” and “lack of choice in mass transit alternatives.”
The $1.4 billion expansion project, which would change the face of the freeway from downtown to Katy, is scheduled to break ground in May 2003.
Polly Ledvina, the coalition’s organizer, said the group is not trying to stop the project from happening. It is, however, trying to get project planners to evaluate various mass-transit alternatives for the Katy corridor, such as a light-rail line. No such alternatives are now being considered, she said.
Ledvina said residents and businesses need to be aware of what may occur if the project moves forward as planned. One proposed plan calls for the expansion of the existing 11-lane highway to 18 lanes, including two new regular lanes, two new frontage-road lanes and a four-lane tollway in the middle to replace the existing High Occupancy Vehicle lane.
“Many people are not aware of the price the community will be asked to pay in terms of businesses and residences,” Ledvina said. “The right-of-way acquisition plan proposed right now would displace 129 buildings primarily along the north side of I-10.”
This includes, she said, 72 single-family homes, two apartment complexes, 53 commercial buildings and two non-profit organizations.
Ledvina said residents should be concerned about flooding, noise, adverse health effects because of an expected increase in air pollution, and a possible decline in property values.
Blackburn said these issues are at the heart of the Katy Coalition’s legal strategy.
“Our approach should be to take a series of steps, and to always be willing to sit down and talk,” he said. “We are not advocating a particular solution, but a range of alternatives.”
The first step in the battle, Blackburn said, is to file a request for a supplemental environmental-impact study. A state study conducted almost two years ago is full of inconsistencies, he said, and it does not take into account the impact of a toll road in the middle of the highway.
Noise expert Arno Bommer said the state study was lacking in information and does not address existing sound barriers — trees and commercial buildings — that would be removed to clear a path for the roadway.
Larry Dunbar, a hydrologist and attorney, said the flooding-impact portion of the study was incomplete and does not take into account new information about the area’s flood plains.
“The different parts of the flooding study either had no information, incomplete information, inadequate information or misleading information,” Dunbar said.
Winnie Hamilton, assistant professor at Baylor College of Medicine’s department of neurosurgery and the Chronic Disease Prevention and Control Research Center, said the state study does not address health effects and barely touches on air pollution.
Three area experts on transportation alternatives told the crowd that there is room for mass-transit options in the corridor, and the transportation department should amend its study to include them.
“Congestion cannot be reduced and highway expansion doesn’t solve congestion,” said David Crossley of the Gulf Coast Institute. “Expanding the freeway will increase the demand and people will make more and longer trips. If you build it, they will come.”
[Swindler Note: Is this a refunding of higher interest bonds from early 1980s?]
Business Wire 06/06/2002
Fitch Ratings assigns an ‘A’ rating to the approximately $400 million Metropolitan Transportation Authority, NY (MTA, or the authority) transportation revenue refunding bonds, series 2002E, which are scheduled to sell June 11 through negotiation by a J.P. Morgan led underwriting syndicate. Some or all of the series 2002E bonds are expected to be insured by one, or more monoline insurers whose insurer financial strength is rated ‘AAA’ by Fitch Ratings. A list of the series of bonds expected to be refunded by the series 2002E bonds, $3.7 billion in recently issued transportation revenue refunding bonds series 2002 A-D (series 2002A bonds underlying rating of ‘A’ by Fitch Ratings), and the expected near term issuance of $750 million in transportation revenue bond anticipation notes appears at the end of this press release. A detailed list of bonds to be refunded by both series and maturity is expected to be available from the MTA in the near future.
The transportation revenue refunding bonds, the expected bond anticipation notes and $450 million of other authority moneys are refunding all outstanding bonds and notes under the existing 1982 transit facilities special obligation resolution, the 1984 commuter facilities special obligation resolution, the 1990 New York City Transit Authority transit facilities special obligation bond resolution and the 1995 commuter facilities special obligation subordinated bond resolution (underlying rating of ‘A-’ for both 1982 transit facilities resolution and 1984 commuter facilities resolution bonds by Fitch Ratings). It is also part of the MTA’s $13.9 billion debt restructuring program that will allow the authority to streamline its credit structure from thirteen debt resolutions into four primary resolutions, of which the transportation revenue bonds is one. The MTA adopted the new bond resolutions at its March 2002 board meeting.
The transportation revenue bonds are secured by a trust estate consisting of all operating receipts and operating subsidies, including transit and commuter rail fares and other operating revenues, surplus toll revenues and certain dedicated tax sources, state and local operating subsidies and reimbursements. Pledged revenues are to be deposited into the revenue fund as soon as practicable, and then transferred to the debt service fund on a monthly basis (a gross lien on pledged revenue). Surplus revenues will be available for any subordinated debt service, and then to the authority for capital and operating purposes of the transit and commuter rail systems. However, until the existing transit and commuter facilities revenue bonds are totally refunded, which the MTA expects to occur by July 2002 debt service payments on the new transportation revenue bonds will remain subordinate to the bonds under the existing resolutions. The existing transit and commuter facilities lien will be extinguished once the existing bonds have been refunded based on the terms of the resolutions and upon the authority’s filing of a notice with the trustee that the covenants, agreements and other obligations of the authority to the bondholders are discharged and satisfied.
The existing 1982 transit facilities revenue bonds are secured on a gross lien basis by transit operating receipts and an allocation of operating subsidies, including surplus toll revenues, dedicated taxes, allocations of general fund subsidies and reimbursements. The existing 1984 commuter facilities revenue bonds are secured on a gross lien basis by commuter rail operating receipts and a similar allocation of operating subsidies. Debt service on the 1990 transit facilities bonds and the 1995 commuter facilities bonds are subordinate to the 1982 transit facilities resolution and 1984 commuter facilities resolution bonds, respectively. The new transportation revenue bonds combine the pledged revenues and debt service of the transit and commuter rail systems on a parity basis. While some bondholder covenants under the new resolution are legally weakened (no debt service reserve fund, lower additional bonds test), the pledge of the trust estate; ample debt service coverage; the essentiality and performance of the transit services supported by pledged revenues; and a strong track record of prudent financial management are expected to provide bondholder protection consistent with this rating. Fitch expects the MTA to issue additional debt secured by pledged revenues under the transportation revenue bond resolution to finance a portion of the authority’s 2000-2004 $17.2 billion transit and commuter capital program. However, debt service coverage is expected to remain ample given the significant demand on pledged revenues to fund the operating needs of the transit and commuter rail network, which are paid after debt service.
Key credit strengths leading to the assignment of an ‘A’ rating on the transportation revenue bonds include the gross lien on consolidated pledged revenues, continuing improvements to the performance, efficiency and demand of MTA’s services, the importance of the authority’s transit and commuter rail networks to the economy of the New York region, and its proven track record in managing financial challenges. In the past, the MTA closed expected gaps through a combination of cost-reduction measures, fare adjustments and increased subsidies from its funding partners. Key credit risks include periodic financial challenges during economic downturns, and a continuing reliance on debt to finance the bulk of its enormous and unending capital needs. The rating also reflects a belief by Fitch that the MTA will successfully complete its near term plans to refund and extinguish the lien on the transit and commuter facilities bonds and issue additional transportation revenue bonds as part of its debt restructuring and 2000-2004 capital program. Fitch expects the MTA will need to seek additional resources from its governmental funding partners in order to fund its capital plans beyond 2004.
On a consolidated basis, pledged transit and commuter revenues equaled $5.4 billion in fiscal 2001 with operating receipts representing 54.6% of total, while operating subsidies were 45.4%. If the consolidation had taken place in 2001, debt service coverage would have equaled 14.2 times (x). Last year, coverage on a separately secured basis was 16.8x for the transit bonds and 9.5x for the commuter bonds. Coverage for the consolidated transportation revenue bonds is expected to be 16.7x in fiscal 2002, primarily due to near term debt service savings associated with the restructuring. Nevertheless, the combined debt service and operating needs of the MTA thoroughly consume the authority’s vast annual resources, as surpluses generated in one year are typically used to cover deficits in succeeding years; a not uncommon practice among transit systems.
The MTA is responsible for North America’s largest transit network, serving 2.3 billion annual riders, or one in four transit riders in the United States. The authority’s network is essential to the economic well being of the region, handling 80% of all daily trips to Manhattan’s business district.
Newsday (Long Island) 06/06/2002
Rose Rothschild stepped off the subway 40 years ago when she first moved to Elmhurst near the Jackson Heights border.
She remembers a pleasant subway station and a bus depot with stores and amenities. It was a perfect doorway to a historic neighborhood like Jackson Heights. But in the mid-1980s, Rothschild watched as the 74th Street-Roosevelt Avenue subway and bus stations deteriorated.
“At one time it was a very beautiful place,” Rothschild said. “When you went down the subway steps, they had everything you needed.”
The Victor Moore Arcade — as it was officially named — had a hot dog eatery, an Italian bakery, a candy stand and a coffee shop. But the two-story structure became an eyesore by 1990, said Rothschild, executive director of Community Board 4.
The bus station that stood above the subway was demolished, and construction of a new terminal is set to begin this summer. The $147-million renovation project is scheduled to be completed by 2004. Its primary purpose is to make the subway accessible to patrons in wheelchairs.
“The building that was there was poorly maintained, and it was frightening sometimes to get through the narrow tunnels and steep steps,” said Assemb. Ivan Lafayette He said the renovation of the “old and dilapidated” station was important because “it’s the entryway to the neighborhood.”
Created as a planned community of courtyards and gardens, Jackson Heights has evolved into one of the country’s most culturally diverse areas. It is now home to immigrants from more than 70 countries. Roosevelt Avenue and 74th Street are lined with Indian, Pakistani and Japanese restaurants, Mexican luncheonettes and Italian cafes.
That intersection is one of several starting points to Jackson Heights’ commercial strips, said Daniel Karatzas, a local historian and author. The bus station opened in December 1941, connecting the IRT 7 train, IND subway and the buses. Victor Moore, a silent film actor who was instrumental in getting the project off the ground, named the facility after himself. The dedication included a bus parade from 82nd Street and 37th Avenue to the arcade, Karatzas said.
“Any resident will say that it is a much-hoped-for- improvement,” Karatzas said of the project. “Most people felt it was aesthetically a turnoff to people going to and from (LaGuardia) airport and that it had outlived its usefulness.”
Government officials agreed. Nearly five years ago the station became the proposed target of a federal update to make it conform with the Americans With Disabilities Act. The original plan was a $48-million project to install two elevators by acquiring property on the north side of Roosevelt Avenue. The plan was expanded to include a new depot and eventually renovate the subway mezzanine below, a Metropolitan Transit Authority spokeswoman said.
“The old site was a privately owned building that was in decrepit condition, and it contained three lanes that the new clean-air buses couldn’t fit into,” Lafayette said. “The new building will be modern, and will surely spur renovations in the neighborhood.”
The city acquired the building through eminent domain proceedings. The former owners, Arnold and Anne Gumowitz, did not return phone calls seeking comment.
The proposed building is a 2 1/2-floor structure with a partially glass exterior. The site will include retail stores and restaurants, Lafayette said. Merchants in the area pay $15,000 to $20,000 a month for storefronts, he added.
Councilwoman Helen Sears (D-Jackson Heights) said the MTA would lease the commercial space. “They will certainly make changes to the businesses that were in there,” she noted. At one point, the terminal included an Off Track Betting parlor and a drug and alcohol outpatient treatment center.
Neighboring business owners are ecstatic about the renovation. Harendra Koya, a certified public accountant with an office on Broadway, directly across from the now-leveled station, hopes the renovation will alleviate the old facility’s problems. “It was very congested, and pedestrian traffic was heavy,” he said.
Shiraz Rayani, manager of Gulzar Hair Salon on Roosevelt Avenue, also said the pedestrian congestion was terrible. “The entrance was too small, and I remember that the place was very old looking,” he said.
Triboro Coach Corp., which leases terminal space, loads passengers onto buses along Broadway, so commuters are eagerly awaiting the new building. Jose Ramirez, who takes the Q33 bus to and from his home near LaGuardia Airport, remembers that the bus station’s appearance declined during the 20 years. “It was just a little better than waiting for the bus out in the rain or cold like we have to do now,” said Ramirez, 68.
Although many commuters will be happy to simply have a warm shelter to wait for the bus, others hope the renovation project will include more.
Rudy Greco, of 81st Street, ran for City Council last year on a platform that included creating a permanent exhibit on the subway mezzanine.
“This subway is an ideal place to display the history of both Jackson Heights and Elmhurst and their cultural diversity,” Greco said. “It was an eyesore for a long time, and that can change. We can make it right for the community.”
Associated Press June 6, 2002
WASHINGTON — Amtrak’s new president is warning the cash-strapped passenger railroad will shut down all service next month unless it gets a $200 million loan in the next three weeks.
President David Gunn is hopeful the loan will come through, Amtrak spokesman Bill Schulz said Thursday. As collateral, Amtrak can use $200 million of the federal appropriation it expects to receive when the new fiscal year begins Oct. 1.
Schulz urged passengers holding reservations in July and beyond to keep them.
Amtrak’s governing board was meeting in Washington Thursday. Schulz said Gunn intended to propose a sweeping company reorganization reducing the number of “vice president” titles from 84 to about 20.
Gunn also wants to consolidate Amtrak’s three railroad operating divisions — Amtrak West, Intercity and Northeast Corridor, which are now distinct business units — into the company’s overall management structure. Gunn said in a memo to employees that he wants Amtrak to “move back to a traditional railroad structure…. We will have an operating department, a mechanical department, an engineering department, etc.”
Under the plan, Schulz said, the existing division offices in Chicago, Philadelphia and Oakland, Calif., will remain open, but only to handle local operations, not to make policy decisions.
Gunn took over Amtrak on May 15, succeeding George Warrington. He previously ran transit systems in New York City and Washington.
Gunn announced the $200 million shortfall in a letter Wednesday to Amtrak employees. He said Amtrak still is asking for $1.2 billion from Congress for the fiscal year beginning in October.
Needing money to survive the final months of last year, Amtrak mortgaged parts of New York’s Pennsylvania Station to get $300 million, and its debt has skyrocketed in recent years as Amtrak has struggled financially.
Amtrak backers in Congress are pushing an additional $55 million for Amtrak to repair damaged cars and locomotives.
In a letter to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a leading critic of Amtrak, Gunn said Congress was wrong to declare in 1997 that Amtrak must wean itself from annual operating subsidies from the federal government by December 2002.
“For the past few years, Amtrak pretended it was on a glide path to self-sufficiency and maintained that fiction far too long,” Gunn wrote to McCain. “No passenger railroad system in the world operates without some form of public support. Why Congress thought Amtrak could somehow become free of public support escapes me.”
The House Transportation subcommittee on railroads approved a bill last week that would give Amtrak the $1.2 billion it requested for the next fiscal year, plus $775 million for security and safety upgrades.
The Senate Commerce Committee has approved a bill by Sen. Ernest Hollings, D-S.C., that would keep Amtrak operating for five more years and spend $4.6 billion a year on improving and expanding rail service.
The Evening Standard Thursday, June 6, 2002
Women Tube drivers are responsible for a dramatic increase in reliability on London Underground, it was revealed today.
They are less likely to take time off claiming to be ill or for other reasons, and they turn up for duty on time, says LU.
Tube chiefs today boasted of setting a new record of running more than 5,000 rush hour trains without a single cancellation due to missing drivers — and that is largely down to an increasing number of women recruits.
LU has concentrated recent advertising campaigns on attracting more female staff to the industry and particularly to the driver’s cab LU also successfully used Cosmopolitan magazine for recruiting women into all grades.
An Underground spokeswoman said today that much of the Tube’s improved service was down to the increasing number of female employees including drivers — in the past a role traditionally viewed as a male preserve. The spokeswoman said women recruits “have come from all walks of life and are keen and motivated.
There is evidence that suggests that women are very reliable employees and they do tend to have a very good work ethic.”
LU now has 176 female Tube drivers compared with fewer than 100 a year ago. Carrie Simpson, a former primary school teacher, said she has tripled her salary since becoming a driver on the Jubilee Line. “I was earning £10,000 and had no pension and now I get £29,000 plus a pension and about £1,000 in overtime,” she said.
Ms Simpson, 41, said that both she and her female colleagues had been quickly accepted by male employees at Wembley Park depot where she is based but that passengers were still shocked at seeing a woman in the driving cab.
She said: “I told one man running past me at North Greenwich station that there was no need to rush because I was his driver and the train couldn’t leave without me. He said: ‘It’s all right, I’ll wait for the next one’.”
The Evening Standard Thursday, June 6, 2002
Senior officials at the Department of Transport today faced astonishing claims that they sent out an email in a bid to smear Paddington rail crash survivor Pam Warren.
Civil servants were said to have circulated the secret email asking for “information” about Mrs Warren, who clashed with former transport secretary Stephen Byers over Railtrack. It is alleged the communication was sent out amid fears that Mrs Warren, so badly burned in the 1999 tragedy she had to wear a mask, was about to “go public” with damaging revelations about a meeting with Mr Byers.
She did so last month, just days before Mr Byers’s surprisingly timed resignation, claiming that he had effectively told her weeks in advance he was planning to place Railtrack in administration. This was at odds with Mr Byers’s insistence to MPs that he had only decided to make his controversial decision a few days before he announced it to the fury of the company’s shareholders.
The email, widely interpreted as a crude attempt to “dig the dirt” on Mrs Warren, is said to have been circulated in Mr Byers’s old department and within Labour’s Millbank HQ. It is thought its author or authors could have suggested trying to find out whether Mrs Warren, a 35-year-old financial consultant, had a political axe to grind against Mr Byers or the Government.
Today a spokesman for the Transport Department, now being run by Alistair Darling after last week’s government reshuffle, said inquiries had been made with those who might have received an email about Mrs Warren but “no one was aware of it”.
Significantly, however, the spokesman did not deny outright the email’s existence.
At Westminster there was speculation that the claims about the email could have been linked to the timing of Mr Byers’s departure, which itself followed reports that his sacked press chief, Martin Sixsmith, had been making a fresh attempt to reveal information about Mr Byers. Mr Sixsmith’s official term of employment at the Transport Department ended last week and senior Labour figures feared he might seize the opportunity to level new allegations at Mr Byers.
Mr Sixsmith, who was forced out at the same time as disgraced spin doctor Jo Moore, has not been at his old desk for months but he is understood to have supporters inside the building. The email claims throw the spotlight back on the departure of Mr Byers and, at the same time, present Mr Darling with his first big headache of his new job as head of the new standalone Transport Department.
The crucial meeting between Mrs Warren, former chairman of the Paddington survivors group, took place on 12 September last year. Mrs Warren subsequently revealed that Mr Byers had been “chuckling and grinning” as he told her and her colleagues that Railtrack “wouldn’t be around much longer”.
Her account of the meeting suggested Mr Byers had already made the decision to place the company in administration. However, the former transport secretary told MPs he only took his final decision on 5 October. The gap between the two dates could have proved crucial in the legal battle between the Government and Railtrack shareholders who protested their investments were suddenly rendered worthless without warning.
Mrs Warren’s account was backed up by three other survivors of the Paddington crash. Downing Street originally supported Mr Byers’s version of events.
In a TV interview after his resignation, Mr Byers admitted her recollection of the meeting had been substantially accurate, but continued to insist his final Railtrack decision had only been taken on 5 October.
A Transport Department spokesman said: “We have made inquiries of a range of officials who we may have expected to receive such an email but no one was aware of it.”
Tory transport spokeswoman Theresa May said: “This is another appalling example of the culture of spin at the heart of government.”
Evening News (Edinburgh) 06/06/2002
Stagecoach, the Scottish bus and train operator, is to begin its first rail project outside the UK after being selected by Wellington Regional Council to purchase and operate New Zealand’s largest commuter railway.
The Perth-based group is the country’s biggest bus operator, and fought off competition from Connex and Transdev for Tranz Metro Wellington, which runs passenger rail services in the New Zealand capital.
Chairman Brian Souter said: “Stagecoach has worked closely with the authorities in New Zealand, and this first move into rail outside the UK fits the strategy of developing our businesses where we have most local knowledge.
“We are excited at the prospects for this public-private partnership with the regional council, which will develop Wellington’s rail system for the benefit of the whole community.”
The two parties will sign a heads of agreement later this month, and then begin negotiations with the current operator, Tranz Rail. Stagecoach and Wellington council are expected to take over the running of the network early next year.
A spokesman said Stagecoach was looking to launch rail services in other countries, particularly the United States.
No value has been put on the deal yet, the spokesman said. “It’s early days, and would depend on the negotiations with Tranz Rail.”
The Herald-Sun (Durham, N.C.) 06/07/2002
It may take 10 years, but RDU commuters and workers will someday be able to take mass transit to and from the airport, area planners say.
The Triangle’s $800 million regional rail project has been criticized because the first phase — running from Duke University Medical Center through Research Triangle Park to Raleigh — does not have airport stops.
But planners say the project’s first phase will move along existing railroad right-of-way, making engineering and zoning and other land-use issues a snap. The airport connection is being treated as a separate phase in order not to delay the project.
Phase I is planned for 2007-08, with the possible airport link by 2011-12, said Durham Mayor Bill Bell, who also chairs the Triangle Transit Authority.
The seeds of the airport-link phase are now germinating after the first meeting Thursday of a group trying to figure out how that connection would look and where it might run. The group doesn’t even know if the link would be a train, buses or “golf carts,” one of the board members quipped Thursday.
John Brantley, the director of the airport, said travel corridors must be purchased so that 25 or 50 years from now a straight line connecting the rail line and airport can be filled with whatever transportation technology is available at that time.
“You figure out how you’re going to get there and then grab your right-of-way,” he said. “By the time this comes along, you might have some fabulous technology. If that doesn’t happen, we’ll keep building parking decks (for people driving to the airport). It’s not a mystery.”
RDU’s master plan calls for adding parking decks as they are needed and building a people-mover system from a new rental car hub that would be built at one end to the two terminals. The airport link from regional rail might use that same people-mover corridor, linking it all together, said Mark Boggs, a consultant who ran the Thursday meeting.
Predicting future airport demand is a tricky business, Brantley said, so the master plan does not have a timeline.
The next workshop in July will address practical issues, such as what type of vehicle would be used.
The questions are many, such as would the airport-rail link be an express service, dedicated only for those headed to and from the airport, or should the project be more integrated into future small-scale development in the area surrounding the airport and RTP? If so, how many stops would there be? Would there even be enough airport riders on the original rail line to use the service? Where would the airport line hook up with the rail line?
The group hopes to have a final report by February.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer 06/07/2002
Sound Transit is pushing ahead cautiously with agreements on its $2.1 billion light rail project although it is months from knowing if a $500 million federal grant, critical to completing the project, is assured.
Yesterday, agency committees took some key steps toward building the 14-mile initial rail line from downtown Seattle to Tukwila:
The Sound Transit board’s finance and executive committees, representing a board majority, approved an agreement with the city of Seattle and King County to jointly use the downtown bus tunnel, at least temporarily, for light rail trains as well as Metro buses.
But the city and county councils have yet to sign off on the deal, and could make changes before the 18-member transit board takes a final vote. Also, the agreement is contingent upon clinching the federal $500 million by the end of 2003.
The Finance Committee gave the final go-ahead to the first light rail construction contract, $4.9 million to prepare a 25-acre operations and maintenance base off Airport Way.
The first dirt could be turned on the 14-mile line as early as August or September, according to agency officials. That contract, too, will be on hold until the Federal Transit Administration approves the $500 million grant application — possibly within a few weeks, the Sound Transit staff said yesterday.
The complete approval process includes a congressional review that could take until late this year.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash, chairwoman of the Senate Transportation Appropriations Committee, remains confident that Sound Transit will get its money.
Press aide Todd Webster said late yesterday, “Right now everything appears to be going well.”
He added, “Sound Transit also understands the pressures it is under, and the deadlines.”
There have been plenty of both.
The regional transit agency’s request for the $500 million was tabled in April 2001 after the U.S. Department of Transportation’s inspector general and Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky., chairman of the House subcommittee on transportation appropriations, raised concerns about dramatically rising costs. The light rail system on the drawing board then was a 21-mile line from South 200th Street in SeaTac to the University District.
Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta said at the time that Sound Transit could receive the money later, provided key issues were addressed. The first phase of light rail was subsequently scaled back to 14 miles between the downtown transit tunnel and a temporary terminus at South 154th Street, north of Sea-Tac Airport.
This delay and scaling down of Link made an earlier tunnel agreement with the city and county obsolete. That agreement called for trains only, and no more buses, in the tunnel. Downtown business interests had balked at excluding bus traffic, forcing coaches onto crowded streets.
Because the light rail section north of downtown is on hold, fewer trains now will need to use the tunnel. And they can share it with Metro and Sound Transit buses, although not as many as now use the tunnel.
Kate Joncas, president of the Downtown Seattle Association, feels a little better about the new tunnel agreement and the provision that Sound Transit in effect leases the tunnel from owner King County rather than purchasing it, thus saving about $100 million. “This is a much better deal with the taxpayer,” she said. “On the other hand,” she added, “we had hoped Sound Transit would not take the tunnel until they had a plan and the finances to go to Northgate.” She referred to a longstanding campaign to extend the northern terminus of the line from the University District to Northgate. Joncas explained that the revised southern route alone “does not bring enough (ridership) capacity to make it worth the upset and congestion” of moving buses to downtown streets during two years of tunnel renovation.
The new proposed agreement leaves open the possibility that the tunnel conversion for rail could be done earlier than planned, possibly by 2006, thus allowing the full complement of buses back into the tunnel until the light rail line is ready for the new trains in 2009.
County Councilman Dwight Pelz, a Sound Transit board member, said he is fairly certain he can muster the necessary seven votes on the 13-member council to approve the tunnel agreement. “I would like it to be unanimous, but if it gets seven votes it is okay,” he said.
If there was unanimity on the board’s Executive Committee about the tunnel agreement, the panel dissented, however, over the transit agency’s policy of using one% of most construction costs on art.
Board member Kevin Phelps, Tacoma deputy mayor, has objected to using money for art when light rail is short of money to get north of the downtown bus tunnel. So far Sound Transit has committed $3 million to art associated with light rail, commuter rail and express bus projects, and has budgeted nearly $15 million more over the entire project period.
“The amenity I want is getting light rail from the (Sea-Tac) airport to Northgate,” he told fellow members of the committee who were being briefed on public art projects.
Another member, Sumner City Council member David Enslow, said he preferred more “functional art,” such as a bench or part of a station structure.
“If we could get Michelangelo to build a station, now that would be art,” he said.
However, the majority on the committee said they preferred the current policy.
Seattle Times 06/07/2002
Sound Transit yesterday approved a $5 million contract to demolish old buildings near the Tully’s roasting plant later this year to make room for a light-rail operations and maintenance center.
The project, along Airport Way South, would be the agency’s first visible step toward building its 14-mile rail line from downtown Seattle to Tukwila.
A maintenance complex, which could cost $50 million, would provide secure overnight storage for up to 104 rail cars, enough to operate the Link system if it is eventually extended from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to Northgate. The initial route requires 31 rail cars.
New rails would connect the maintenance base to the Link corridor a few blocks north, just before it tunnels through Beacon Hill.
The demolition contract, with R.W. Rhine of Tacoma, is nearly $10 million under the engineer’s estimate, in part because scrap steel can be resold. Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels said in a statement the contract brings “us closer to fulfilling my commitment to begin light-rail construction this year.”
Joni Earl, Sound Transit’s executive director, said she was waiting for approval from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) before awarding any contracts.
Sound Transit is asking for the FTA’s approval this summer while continuing to lobby for restoration of a $500 million federal grant for its $2.1 billion line.
The grant was approved by the Clinton administration but frozen by the Bush administration last year, as cost overruns forced the agency to scale back its earlier voter-approved route from the University District to Sea-Tac Airport.
Seattle Times 06/07/2002
Much more money for freeway “mega-projects” like the Alaskan Way Viaduct and Interstate 405.
No money for light rail.
Those are the key elements of a regional transportation-improvement package that Metropolitan King County Councilman Rob McKenna, R-Bellevue, is floating as an alternative to one unveiled last month by King County Executive Ron Sims.
McKenna, a key player in negotiations on a regional package that could be submitted to voters, characterized his proposal as a work in progress.
“This a bouquet of trial balloons — I’m not trying to cast any of this in concrete,” he said yesterday. “I’m trying to advance the discussion, to keep people from throwing up their hands.”
Not surprisingly, his plan got a cool reception from Democrat Sims. “To pass, a regional package has to be balanced,” he said. “This isn’t balanced… he spends more and he does less.”
Councilman Dwight Pelz, D-Seattle, another key figure, also was skeptical. “Rob knows light rail is part of my bottom line,” he said.
But McKenna, a longtime light-rail critic, said including Sound Transit light-rail extensions to Northgate and SeaTac in the package, as Sims proposed last month, would doom it at the polls.
McKenna’s proposal would provide $6 billion in taxes for the four King County “mega-projects” — the viaduct, Interstate 405, highways 520 and 509. That’s more than $2 billion more than Sims and his counterparts from Snohomish and Pierce counties proposed last month.
Even the higher amount won’t pay for the ambitious improvements many favor, McKenna acknowledged.
But he said his plan would provide enough money for partial fixes to address the worst safety and congestion problems.
The executives “didn’t provide enough for anything,” he charged. When combined with other possible funding sources, McKenna said, his plan should pay for: A replacement for the earthquake-damaged Alaskan Way Viaduct, including a tunnel along the waterfront between King and Stewart streets.
Two new lanes in each direction on I-405 between SeaTac and Bellevue, plus one new lane in each direction through Kirkland, one new lane in each direction on Highway 167 in Renton between I-405 and South 180th Street, and transit improvements along the I-405 corridor.
A new, eight-lane replacement for the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge.
The bulk of the regional money would come from a 1/2. increase in the sales tax, the same as Sims proposes. But the executive reserves 40% of that increase for transit, including light rail.
McKenna doesn’t.
That’s unacceptable, said John Healy of the anti-sprawl group 1000 Friends of Washington. “Using the sales tax for roads is a serious problem,” Healy said. “You’re selling out future transit expansion.”
Altogether, about 80% of the $7.5 billion in taxes that would be raised over 10 years in King County under McKenna’s plan would go for the mega-projects. Councilman David Irons, R-Sammamish, said that makes sense.
He said his constituents were telling him the executives’ proposal spreads the money too thinly among too many projects. “I’m hearing, ‘Don’t peanut-butter it — address the major projects and make some impacts,’ “ he said.
But Sims said McKenna’s plan wouldn’t provide enough for other important road projects, including traffic-signal synchronization and arterial improvements that are important to the Eastside.
Sims proposed nearly $1 billion in his package to extend light rail to the north and south. Sound Transit’s proposed line now extends just 14 miles, from downtown Seattle to Tukwila.
Polls show that without light rail, the regional package won’t pass, especially in Seattle, Sims said. McKenna disagreed. “Sound Transit is no more popular in Seattle than it is anywhere else,” he said.
He also said the $1 billion Sims proposed isn’t enough to push the line to Northgate and SeaTac.
The Legislature in March gave the councils of King, Snohomish and Pierce counties authority to craft a regional transportation-improvement package and to ask voters to raise taxes to pay for it. McKenna and Pelz are two of seven council members from the three counties involved in negotiations so far.
McKenna said his plan would be discussed at meetings of the Democratic and Republican caucuses of the County Council Monday. It also will be presented at a Tuesday meeting of the King County Transportation Coalition, a government-business group, he said.
Earlier this week, the state Department of Transportation (DOT) announced updated cost estimates for the four mega-projects. Doing everything everyone wants on each one could cost close to $30 billion, the agency said.
The department also unveiled cost estimates for partial fixes. Those estimates provided the foundation for McKenna’s proposal.
But he said he hadn’t developed detailed financing plans yet for the mega-projects. “These are literally back-of-the-envelope calculations,” McKenna said.
Details on each project:
Alaskan Way Viaduct: The 49-year-old elevated road, built on soils that can liquefy when shaken, was damaged in last year’s Nisqually earthquake. Engineers say it must be replaced.
Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels favors replacing the viaduct and the Battery Street tunnel it feeds with a new tunnel along the waterfront and under Broad Street. The DOT pegged that option’s likely cost at $8.8 billion to $10.3 billion.
But it also said a tunnel along the waterfront only, linked by an aerial structure to the Battery Street tunnel, could be built for $3.6 billion to $4.3 billion. That’s the option that should be pursued, McKenna said.
He proposes that the regional package provide $2 billion in tax money for it, to be coupled with $450 million in Referendum 51, a statewide transportation package already on the November ballot. The rest of the money would come from tolls, the federal government and other local sources, McKenna said, including the city, the Port of Seattle or property owners along the route who would benefit.
Interstate 405: The DOT said the alternative favored by Eastside officials, which includes two new lanes in each direction from SeaTac to Lynnwood, would cost between $9.1 billion and $10.9 billion.
McKenna’s partial fix has a price tag of $5.2 billion to $6 billion. Referendum 51 would provide $1.77 billion, and McKenna proposes another $2.5 billion in the regional package.
The federal government should provide $500 million or more, he said, and tax money Sound Transit already has collected from the Eastside, but not yet spent, could provide another $1 billion for the transit components of the project.
That may be wishful thinking, Pelz said. He also said $2.5 billion in the regional package for I-405 is “a shockingly high number.”
Tolls wouldn’t raise enough revenue on I-405 to be worthwhile, McKenna said. That drew criticism from Sims, who included tolls for single-occupancy vehicles using car-pool lanes in his package.
“He’s using the sales tax to pay for what tolls pay for in our package,” Sims said of McKenna.
Highway 520: Improvements to the highway between Seattle and Redmond, including major interchange improvements at interstates 5 and 405, could cost up to $7.4 billion, the DOT estimated.
But it said a new, eight-lane bridge to replace the aging, four-lane Evergreen Point Floating Bridge between Medina and Seattle’s Montlake neighborhood could be built for $1.5 billion to $1.8 billion.
That’s the interim fix McKenna favors.
One of the two new lanes in each direction would be reserved for car pools and buses.
The second could be for general traffic, rail or some other form of “high-capacity” transit, or could be reserved for drive-alone commuters willing to pay a toll, McKenna said.
Referendum 51 provides $100 million for Highway 520. McKenna proposes another $1 billion in regional money, with the remainder to come from tolls or the federal government.
But Sims said an eight-lane bridge would create bottlenecks at either end, where traffic must squeeze into fewer lanes.
Highway 509: The freeway that leads south from Seattle now dead-ends in SeaTac at South 188th Street, several miles short of Interstate 5.
The DOT wants to complete that missing link and add lanes to I-5 from the new 509 interchange south to Federal Way. It estimates the cost at $920 million to more than $1 billion.
McKenna says the entire project is vital to South King County and should be built. Referendum 51 would provide $500 million; he proposes another $500 million in the regional package.
Denver Post 06/07/2002
A Denver-based development firm said this week that it plans to turn an empty lot near the University of Denver into a $27 million condominium project.
The Gray Group, headed by former Chicago developer Bob Gray, plans to build a three-story, 77-unit condo development called University Park Place Residences at the northeast corner of South Josephine Street and East Asbury Avenue.
The development will be tucked into a neighborhood of single-family homes, apartments and fraternity houses. Gray said he expects the project to appeal to buyers who don’t want to live downtown but want to avoid long commutes from the suburbs.
The condos will be a short walk from the planned University Boulevard light-rail station that’s part of the T-REX highway project, Gray said.
“I can’t help but think that being near a light-rail station is a real plus,” said Chris Politzki of Metropolitan Fine Homes in Denver. She primarily sells homes in central Denver and said more buyers are interested in being close to transit stations.
Gray is building in a neighborhood that doesn’t have many condominiums, so Politzki expects demand to be strong.
“Anything close to the city center is bound to be successful,” she said.
University Park Place is the Gray Group’s second development in Denver. In 1998, the company built Country Club Lane, a clustered community of 21 high-end homes near South University Boulevard and East Alameda Avenue.
Before coming to Denver, Gray built 600 homes and a 40-story high-rise residential building in Chicago.
Neighbors have generally been supportive of the new project. But some worry that it will increase traffic congestion and parking problems in the area, said Rob Nevitt, president of the University Park Community Council, which includes some 7,000 residents who live in the area bounded by I-25, South Colorado Boulevard, East Yale Avenue and South University Boulevard.
The condos will be built over a parking garage that will include about 1 1/2 parking spaces per unit, Gray said.
Units in the development will range from 800 to 1,800 square feet and cost between $200,000 and $400,000, Gray said. He said he expects to start construction by October or November. The entire project should take about 18 months to complete, he said. The Davis Partnership is designing the project, and Gray will use his own in-house construction firm to build it.
The Record (Bergen County, NJ) 06/07/2002
An NJ Transit train carrying 900 passengers derailed outside Newark early Thursday morning, creating rush-hour headaches for thousands of commuters on the Midtown Direct lines from Morris and Essex counties.
No one was injured when the engine and first car left the tracks in an industrial area of Kearny, NJ Transit officials said. Human error by a signal supervisor is suspected as the cause.
“NJ Transit takes this incident very seriously, and we are dealing with this in a swift manner,” said NJ Transit Executive Director George Warrington. “It is important to emphasize that all of the safety systems were working and in place, and if the final determination is human error, we will take any and all appropriate actions immediately.”
Midtown Direct train 6612 traveling from Dover to New York Penn Station derailed at about 7:30 a.m. when the engine’s wheels and four wheels of a passenger coach came off the tracks and onto the ground near Route 280 and the New Jersey Turnpike.
The passengers were transferred to another train at 9 a.m. and taken to Hoboken for connecting PATH and ferry service to Manhattan.
The accident took out two of three lines that lead to Manhattan and Hoboken, leaving only one track for eastbound and westbound trains during the morning rush. Midtown Direct trains on the Morris and Essex lines were rerouted to Hoboken.
“All the passengers who typically ride Midtown Direct moved to Hoboken,” said Port Authority spokesman Steve Coleman. “PATH ridership was up significantly this morning from what it normally would be.” Coleman said numbers on the increase would not be available until today.
The signals, switches, and other train equipment were working properly at the time of the derailment, NJ Transit officials said.
The engineer noticed that the train had been switched to the wrong track at Kearny, a line headed to Hoboken instead of a track to the city. He was told to back up the train and switch to the correct track. That is when the train derailed.
“It appears the switch was lined up incorrectly,” said NJ Transit spokeswoman Penny Bassett Hackett.
The train was rerailed by 1:35 p.m. and minor damage to the tracks was repaired Thursday afternoon, she said.
Jon Gertner, a commuter from Maplewood, heard about the accident when he arrived at the station and decided to get on a train to Hoboken. “I wondered first if anybody is hurt, but then I thought, ‘This is going to be a disaster for my commute today,’-” he said while his train to Hoboken waited for clearance at Newark’s Broad Street station. “I guess I’ll be getting to work about two hours late.”
New York Daily News 06/07/2002
It was a double celebration for MetLife yesterday at the grand opening of the company’s new offices across the street from the Queensboro Plaza subway station in Long Island City, Queens.
“If you take a look at a subway map, it’s amazing how many places you can get to from this one spot,” Mayor Bloomberg said during the ribbon-cutting ceremony at 1 MetLife Plaza.
“We have to continue to make this location a great location for people to come to work at. It will work out. We will do everything we can.”
The event was also the groundbreaking for the second phase of the MetLife project, which includes building a 12-story, 282,000-square-foot office tower next to the existing 404,000-square-foot building that has housed 900 MetLife employees since November.
That’s when the company moved to the renovated Long Island City building from its Madison Ave. location in Manhattan.
The new building — to be completed by October 2003 — will have space for 600 more employees.
“This is a great chance for us to be… (near) great transportation and… to retain all of our employees that moved to this site,” said MetLife Chairman and CEO Robert Benmosche.
“The mayor has already committed to continuing to work on the area. We have made some progress — we have more progress to make, but it’s moving in the right direction.”
Long Island City is “the next New York hot spot,” said local Democratic City Councilman Eric Gioia.
“Thousands of people from around the world will come here to start a business, work in a business, and to stay and raise a family. This will lead to a renaissance of Long Island City and all of Queens.”
The San Francisco Chronicle 06/07/2002
BART directors ordered layoffs of about 70 employees as the transit agency moved Thursday toward a “share-the-pain” approach to balancing its recession-ravaged budget.
Next to come — on June 27 — are likely to be fare increases and the transit district’s first-ever parking charges, at least for reserved spaces in existing lots and garages. The budget must be adopted by June 30.
“It’s going to be a share-the-pain budget,” said Director Dan Richard. “The first step was for us to cut our costs before coming to (passengers) asking for fare increases and parking charges.”
After a 4 1/2-hour meeting overflowing with BART employees, the Board of Directors voted 5 to 3 to have General Manager Tom Margro slash another $7 million from the agency’s projected expenses for the budget year that begins July 1. Directors Willie Kennedy, Carol Ward Allen and Tom Radulovich were opposed.
Rapidly falling ridership and declining revenue from the transit agency’s 1/2. sales tax, collected in San Francisco, Alameda and Contra Costa counties, left BART about $60 million short of the $370 million needed to run the system. Two earlier rounds of belt-tightening — including leaving 77 jobs unfilled and running shorter trains — cut $32 million from the budget without layoffs.
But BART directors need to make another $28 million in expense cuts or revenue increases to close the budget gap. Margro said the cuts approved Thursday will be spread around the system and across departments — including management — but will have to include layoffs.
“We’ll be looking for every opportunity first. Laying people off will be our last resort,” he said. “But there will be layoffs.”
Union officials criticized the decision to order layoffs before considering alternatives and before adopting a final budget.
“What they did today was a slap in the face to BART employees and totally unnecessary,” said Larry Hendel, East Bay Director for Service Employees International Union Local 790, which represents 1,700 BART maintenance, professional and clerical workers.
Exactly how many people will be laid off, and from which jobs, remains to be determined, Margro said. But he said he expects to determine that soon. Layoffs could take effect as early as July 1.
BART’s unions could still avoid layoffs, Margro said, if they agree to a plan floated by board President Joel Keller to waive, for one year only, a $7.5 million pension benefit that BART had agreed to make on behalf of its union employees.
Union officials rejected that offer, saying it was asking employees to give up a significant retirement benefit won during hard-fought contract negotiations.
“Let’s be clear — it hurts,” said Hendel. “It’s money.”
Dozens of union members urged BART directors to avoid layoffs, calling on the board to instead use onetime revenues, such as $20 million from selling the depreciation rights to its rail cars, or divert money from capital spending to balance the budget at least until hiring for the extension to San Francisco International Airport begins late in the year.
“You have that money,” said Antonette Bryant, a train operator and recording secretary of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555, which represents 800 train operators and station agents. “Fund the deficit for six months.”
But directors said it is important for BART to maintain a reserve for unanticipated expenses and to keep spending money on capital improvements such as replacing fare gates and ticket machines.
While the board won’t decide how it should increase revenues until June 27, it appeared there is sufficient board support to impose the district’s first parking charges. They would likely be limited to about a quarter of the district’s parking spaces, where paid reserved parking would be offered.
The Financial Times Friday, June 7, 2002
The ghost of Stephen Byers returned to haunt the government yesterday as the former transport secretary was forced to issue apology over what Tories called a planned “smear” campaign against members of a train crash survivors group.
It followed reports that one of Mr Byers’ political advisers sent an e-mail trying to find out whether any of the survivors had ties to political parties.
Mr Byers said yesterday: “I want to apologise. This e-mail should never have been sent.”
Alistair Darling, the new transport secretary, was said to be “livid” at the news, which undermines his efforts to draw a line under Mr Byers’ tumultuous time at the department.
“He is very, very angry — absolutely livid,” said a senior official. “Alistair needs to be able to get off to a clean start. These sort of things are certainly not helping him do that.”
The latest scandal has all the hallmarks of the Byers era: a political aide and a confidential e-mail leaked to the press. This time the aide was not Jo Moore, but her erstwhile colleague, Dan Corry, a policy aide with a far lower profile, who accompanied Mr Byers when he moved to transport from the Department of Trade and Industry. Ms Moore’s e-mails hit the headlines when she urged staff to “bury” bad news on September 11.
Mr Corry — who left the department along with Mr Byers — sent an e-mail to Labour party headquarters on May 23, asking if people taking over leadership of the Paddington Survivors Group had any known political affiliations.
The day before, the Daily Mail had published an interview in which Pam Warren, who chairs the group, said Mr Byers told her about his plans to put Railtrack into administration on September 12. This was four weeks before he announced the plan to parliament, saying the decision had been reached in the last few days.
Her claims were embarrasing for Mr Byers, and gave ammunition to investors threatening to sue the government.
Mrs Warren yesterday attacked the government over the investigation. “This is a pretty sneaky and very nasty and spiteful thing to do,” she said, and demanded an apology from the prime minister.
The Tories claimed it was an attempt to dig dirt on critics of government policy. “This is another example of the government machine attempting to smear and discredit a member of the public who is attempting to voice genuine concerns,” said Theresa May, shadow transport secretary.
The DoT said: “Alistair Darling strongly disapproves of the fact that this inquiry was made and has made it clear that it must stop immediately.”
Birmingham Evening Mail 06/07/2002
A £15 million railway line linking two of Birmingham’s isolated suburbs to the city centre has been delayed by Government red tape.
Former Transport Secretary Stephen Byers had said thousands of people in Frankley and Rubery would be told of his decision on the scheme in January.
But it emerged today that the transport department has thrown up complications at the eleventh hour.
Whitehall mandarins unexpectedly moved the goal posts over the way Midland transport chiefs had to bid for the millions of pounds of Government money needed to get the new railway built.
Bosses at public transport co-ordinator Centro have now been forced back to the drawing board to put together a fresh bid.
It means the project could now be set back by more than a year.
A Centro spokesman said: “The Department of Transport suddenly changed the bidding procedure for projects of this type so we have had to revise our bid.
“But we will be submitting a fresh one before the end of July. We are anxious to see the new rail line built and remain confident it will be given the go-ahead.”
The scheme involves reopening a disused railway line to link Frankley to the existing Cross City Line just south of Longbridge station and then on to New Street Station.
A new station would be constructed, probably at Frankley’s Holly Hill shopping centre, and a park-and-ride facility opened at the Birmingham Great Park complex.
The line would bring not just Frankley but also Rubery on to the local rail network.
Centro hopes the new line will help relieve road congestion into the city centre as thousands of commuters in the suburbs are offered an alternative to the car.