The Daily News of Los Angeles
December 25, 2004
PALMDALE - The cost of building a high-speed rail system in California has soared so high that even supporters are wondering whether the project is feasible.
With the most recent estimates putting the price tag at about $37 billion, the proposed system of 200-mph trains is potentially the most expensive public-works project in United States history.
The project’s success rides on the approval of a $9.95 billion bond measure expected to go before California voters in 2006, as well as on matching government funding, high-speed rail officials say. “It’s on life support now,” said Richard Silver, executive director of Rail Passengers Association of California. “It’s going to be a really hard battle getting it approved.”
But even if the measure passes, it might be hard to find enough money to finance the project, analysts said. When the bond measure was first proposed, the cost of building the system was estimated at $20 billion.
With the reassessment of costs, some supporters say the bonds will no longer be enough to finance the project.
The state would need the bonds and probably matching federal funds to build the rail system, which is to cover 710 miles linking San Francisco to Los Angeles, with extensions in the Bay Area, Central Valley and San Diego.
Routes have been recommended, and the California High Speed Rail Authority board is set to approve them in January.
In Southern California, high-speed rail officials have tentatively adopted a route that would put the new rail line through Palmdale and Lancaster in the Antelope Valley. The Antelope Valley route won out over an Interstate 5 alignment after years of lobbying by Antelope Valley officials.
The $9.95 billion state bond measure was originally intended for the Nov. 2 election before being withdrawn as unlikely to pass.
Palmdale city government has spent nearly $600,000 studying and promoting the Antelope Valley route, which officials say would add just a few minutes to travel time but would serve 750,000 more residents than along Interstate 5.
They also argued the route would not require tunneling or raise as many environmental concerns as a rail line over the Grapevine.
High-speed rail commission staffers, in a report presented in October to the commission, agreed that the Antelope Valley route would be less expensive to build, has fewer potential environmental impacts, less challenging terrain, requires less tunneling, and is less subject to seismic hazards.
The biggest factor against the Interstate 5 route was the environmental concerns, including the necessity to cross Angeles National Forest and the presence of the Castaic and Pyramid reservoirs and the Hungry Valley off-road-vehicle area, officials said.
The proposed Antelope Valley alignment would follow Highway 58 from Bakersfield to Mojave, then run south along the Union Pacific railroad tracks through Lancaster, Palmdale and Soledad Canyon. Trains would stop in Palmdale.
Rocky Mountain News
December 25, 2004
The largest private provider of transit services in Europe will begin operating 13 bus routes in suburban Denver next month, but with its eye on a larger job down the line - running the FasTracks train system.
Connex, a subsidiary of French utility and transport conglomerate Veolia Environnement, won a $58 million contract with the Regional Transportation District in June. It will operate 66 buses up to five years over routes covering the southern and eastern metro area, including Highlands Ranch, south Jefferson County and Aurora.
But the company also has extensive experience operating commuter and light rail trains on three continents. When RTD’s FasTracks rail network is built out in a dozen years, Connex would be positioned to bid on operating it - if the concept of privatization spreads to rail.
“We’re watching what goes on at RTD,” said Deborah Pester, a Connex spokeswoman in London and Baltimore, its U.S. headquarters. “Obviously we’ve kept a close eye on FasTracks. This contract is a chance to show what we can do. We’re in for the duration.”
It would take a change in state law to permit that. Currently, the law requires RTD to put half of its bus service out for private contracting instead of running it in-house. The existing light rail system isn’t included.
RTD intends to run the expanded light rail and commuter rail FasTracks network itself. “At this point, based upon the quality of our light rail operation, I would have no intent to recommend a change,” said Cal Marsella, RTD general manager.
But given the increasing privatization of public services such as transit, it’s possible future legislators would require RTD to turn over operation of the trains to a private company.
Connex begins bus service Jan. 2. It will be based at a former manufacturing and distribution building in Englewood that it spent $3 million renovating into a bus maintenance center. It joins two other private companies, First Transit and Laidlaw, in operating a portion of RTD’s regular bus routes.
Connex traces its roots to operation of a French railway in 1868. In 1980, it became part of the French conglomerate that provides water, energy, waste treatment and transport services worldwide. Connex now runs transit operations in 23 countries.
It has 55,200 workers worldwide - bus drivers on the south Pacific island of New Caledonia and the Isle of Jersey, in Tel Aviv; Beirut, Lebanon; and Bogota, Colombia; ferry captains in the Netherlands; light rail operators in Dublin, Ireland; Sydney, Australia; and Barcelona, Spain; commuter train operators in Auckland, New Zealand; Melbourne, Australia; and Boston; and locomotive engineers in France, Germany and Sweden.
Since expanding to the United States in 2001 through its acquisition of bus companies in Baltimore and Knoxville, Tenn., Connex’s bus operations include Fairfax, Va.; Prince George’s, Howard and Charles counties in Maryland; Bridgeport, Conn.; Columbia, S.C.; Dallas; Raleigh, N.C.; and Los Angeles.
In February 2003, a Connex-led partnership won a five-year, $1 billion contract from the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority to operate commuter rail service formerly run by Amtrak in the Boston area.
Connex said at the time that the Boston deal positioned the company for future growth in the U.S. commuter rail market.
On Nov. 12, Connex began that expansion by winning a five-year deal from the Southern California Regional Rail Authority. Starting in July, in partnership with the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad, it will operate the seven-line Metrolink commuter rail system in the greater Los Angeles area. Amtrak also had run that system.
Connex suffered its biggest flop in London, where it lost two commuter rail contracts and a bus service contract in the past two years, following passenger complaints of poor service.
Pester said Connex picked up the London rail contracts when privatization started there in 1996 and discovered the task was made more difficult by the poor condition of the rail system in the United Kingdom.
“You have to understand the state of the rail industry in the U.K. following 30 years of lack of investment in the infrastructure,” Pester said. “The expense of the job was just too huge. We learned we needed to be upfront with our passengers about what they can expect.”
As part of showing a commitment to the Denver market, Connex followed up its RTD contract with the pending purchase of Yellow Transportation LLC in Denver, which operates Denver and Boulder Yellow Cabs and Boulder Super Shuttle. “Connex is determined to be a key transportation service provider in Colorado,” said Olivier Brousse, president of the company.
Connex was one of five bidders, including the two companies already holding other RTD contracts, for the southern and eastern bus routes.
Privatization of RTD routes began with 1988 legislation that required 20 percent of the bus routes be turned over to contractors as a step toward saving money. In 1998, the legislature raised the minimum for privatization to 35 percent, then in 2003 it went to 50 percent.
The savings come almost entirely from lower wage and benefit packages that private companies provide compared with the unionized RTD work force.
RTD pays its drivers from $13.69 per hour to start to a top wage of $18.05. Connex proposed a starting driver salary of $12 an hour, with $14.59 as top wage. As for RTD’s other private contractors, First Transit pays its drivers $11.50 to start and $15.50 at the top, and Laidlaw pays $11.75 to start and $15.25 at the top.
Along the way, RTD learned a hard lesson about picking contractors who bid too low. A few years ago, RTD chose a private company that was the low bidder, as required, only to find the company couldn’t meet its business plan because it had based its low bid on paying just $8.50 per hour to bus drivers.
The company couldn’t hire enough qualified drivers at that scale and had to turn back the contract. Since then, RTD has been permitted by the legislature to evaluate more than simply the lowest bid. The total evaluation includes the bidders’ qualifications and experience.
Annual bus service hours
• First Transit: 618,000
• Laidlaw: 350,000
• Connex: 177,000
Light Rail Now! Website
Updated December 25, 2004
Analysis and Commentary by Edson L. Tennyson, P.E.
December 2004
The latest available data on the growth rate of transit ridership in the USA and Canada shows that rail transit, among all transit modes, continues to lead in the growth rate of its ridership – while ridership on buses and “exotic” transit modes like cable cars, monorails, and automated guideways (AGT) shows a decline. Railway Age of December 2004 tabulated the transit ridership data for the first half (quarters 1-2) of 2004 (I have calculated percentages more accurately where the magazine article just rounded to zero percent).
The complete tabulation is shown in the table and graph below. Of particular interest is the fact that light rail transit (LRT) leads in ridership growth, both among rail transit modes and in the entire industry.
Ridership Growth or Loss Rate
USA & Canada, Quarters 1-2, 2004
Light Rail 4.6%
Rapid Rail 2.1%
Regional Rail 0.1%
Urban Bus -0.2%
Cable Car, Monorail, AGT, DPM -2.5%
Trolley Coach -9.7%
Total rail and bus ridership are compared in the table and graph below.
Ridership: Rail Growth vs. Bus Loss Rate: USA & Canada, Quarters 1-2, 2004
Rail transit 2.3%
Bus transit -0.4%
According to the Railway Age tabulation, actual ridership totaled 4.7 billion for just half a year. Canada added almost a billion with its higher riding habit. Ridership growth rates for the USA and Canada are compared in the table and graph below.
Ridership Growth: USA vs. Canada
USA & Canada, Quarters 1-2, 2004
USA 0.5%
Canada 1.6%
It should be noted that electric trolley coaches showed a significant decline because Philadelphia’s SEPTA agency shut down its services. It’s also noteworthy that even adding the Silver Line “BRT” in Boston (supposedly, the city’s “newest rapid transit line”) has not seemed to have helped boost the bus ridership data significantly.
Cincinnati Post
December 25, 2004
As the city of Cincinnati and the operator of the Metro bus system squabble over possible fare increases and service reductions, a dispute has arisen over how much control was given to City Council in the 1973 contract between the two sides.
The Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority, Metro’s operator, has argued that the contract requires the agency to submit only an annual funding request to the city.
SORTA’s attorneys contend that the contract doesn’t require the agency to submit a detailed operating budget, and doesn’t give the city line-item veto power over specifics in the agency’s budget. More importantly, the contract allows SORTA to make all decisions about service levels, said Mark A. Norman, the agency’s attorney. “At no stage in the city’s funding appropriation process is a city line-item veto of the SORTA operating budget authorized by the agreement,” Norman said.
But city attorneys counter that SORTA isn’t automatically entitled to Cincinnati’s transit funds, and that a clause in the contract allows Council to set parameters about how the money is spent. “It is well within the discretion of (the city) to establish appropriate parameters regarding the manner in which their dollars are expended, which is the function Council is performing in this case,” said City Solicitor J. Rita McNeil.
Interpreting the meaning of the nearly 32-year-old contract is key to resolving the impasse over SORTA’s request for a fare increase.
Earlier this month, City Council rejected the fare increase and demanded that the agency instead make budget cuts to avoid a $2.6 million deficit next year.
SORTA wanted to increase base fares — which are 80 cents during rush hour, and 65 cents at other times — to $1. Also, the agency wants to increase Access fares for disabled people from $1.50 one-way to $2 or $3 one-way, depending on where the trip occurs.
SORTA officials said there is no fat to be found in its administrative costs, adding it will end Sunday bus service starting this spring if the fare increase isn’t approved.
That prompted City Council to delay approving enough funding for SORTA to cover all of 2005, authorizing only an amount to last through January. Further, Council ordered an audit of the agency’s books, which will be done before Feb. 1.
In a related move, Hamilton County commissioners this week decided not to approve SORTA’s request for $550,000 to fund the Access bus service for disabled people in 2005.
Similar to their city counterparts, commissioners approved $100,000 to last through March. In the meantime, commissioners want to hold discussions about possibly revamping how the Metro system is funded.
The decisions set the stage for a showdown on who should make broad policy decisions about how SORTA is operated.
SORTA was formed by county commissioners in 1968, but floundered for a few years due to funding problems.
In 1972, city voters approved allocating 0.03 of Cincinnati’s earnings tax to fund the bus system after several attempts for a countywide tax levy failed.
A contract — hashed out in the following months and signed in February 1973 — established the relationship between the city and SORTA.
In recent years, however, the relationship soured as some city officials accused the agency of excessive overhead costs and reconfiguring service to favor suburban riders in outlying counties.
Twelve top staffers account for $1.3 million of the agency’s $7.6 million annual payroll, city officials noted, with the interim general manager making $181,000 last year.
Also, they want SORTA to cut back on the $400,000 spent annually on advertising and related services, and begin charging Butler, Clermont and Warren counties the full cost of bus service.
SORTA board members, though, have refused to negotiate, saying any potential savings already were included in its funding request to City Council. “I would prefer if SORTA would compromise, but so far they’ve been unwilling to do that,” said Council Member John Cranley. “We would agree on a modest fare increase if they’re willing to cut their exorbitant administrative costs,” he added.
If a compromise cannot be found, some Council members want to accept bids for providing bus service from other vendors, and earmark the tax money to the one that submits the best offer. “We should not be taking any option off the table,” Cranley said.
SORTA wants a fare increase to cover rising diesel fuel costs and a 25 percent increase in its health care insurance plan. “Contrary to some statements, there isn’t fat to cut to cover this gap,” said Michael Setzer, Metro’s general manager. “These are stark choices.”
SORTA board members noted that the portion of earnings tax received by Metro exists only for transit service, and couldn’t be used by the city to fund other items like snow removal.
Additionally, about 65 percent of that revenue is generated by people who work in Cincinnati, but live outside city limits, making it a regional tax, they said. City Council is trying to micro-manage SORTA, its board members said, and is exceeding authority allowed by the contract.
City attorneys reply by noting a contract provision that allows City Council to decide on approval for “fare levels, appropriation of funds for operations or capital items, or for new route extensions beyond the city limits.”
County Commissioner Todd Portune wants all parties involved with SORTA — including Hamilton County — to talk about making funding changes. “The current situation is, frankly, a mess,” he said. “It is an untenable situation.”
The Orange County Register (California)
December 26, 2004
Trains have passed though north Orange County since the late 1800s, helping build economies and create city identities. And while they may now be considered an old form of transportation, trains made big news in 2004 throughout the region and promise to be a key issue in the new year.
They caused turmoil and a political shakeup on the Placentia City Council.
On display in Fullerton, trains attracted crowds to what has become the city’s largest annual celebration — Fullerton Railroad Days.
And in Yorba Linda, residents banded together to fight a proposed Metrolink station and approved of a sound wall to block the sound of train whistles. “Many of these cities were founded by the tracks,” said Supervisor Chris Norby, who oversees much of north Orange County. “Some have made peace with them, some are struggling, but everybody should be looking to take advantage of what they offer.”
PLACENTIA
No city has battled more than Placentia to balance the negative effects of increased train traffic with the desire to reap the financial benefits. The city is in the midst of a $543 million project to ease traffic congestion and noise by lowering a three-mile stretch of track that runs through the heart of town.
Critics say project costs are out of control and have robbed money from community programs and public works projects. Former Mayor Judy Dickinson, a supporter of the OnTrac project, was voted out of office in November.
The project still has majority council support, but the city has promised to rein in costs and keep closer watch on where the money goes.
Plans to capitalize on the commuters who use the trains are moving forward. TOD Properties LLC envisions major redevelopment in the city’s historic downtown that would include a Metrolink stop, new housing, and businesses catering to commuters. The first houses could rise by spring.
FULLERTON
In 2004, Fullerton took steps to capitalize on its increasing rail traffic by approving plans to redevelop six acres of boarded up homes with 120 townhouses. The Olson Co.’s Transit Village, just south of the train station, will target young professionals seeking easy access to the transportation center and the downtown’s shops, restaurants and bars. Construction is set to begin in 2005.
Just across the tracks, Fullerton Railroad Days drew tens of thousands of people to the train station in May. In its sixth year, the event features full-size and model trains. The intent has always been to generate public support for a planned train museum at the Transportation Center.
The cost of the museum is estimated at up to $20 million. “We’re talking to several developers and we expect to make good progress in 2005,” said Stan Swanson, a board member of the Fullerton Railway Plaza Association.
YORBA LINDA
In March, dozens of residents packed City Hall and successfully opposed plans to build a Metrolink stop at Esperanza and New River roads.
The train station was denied, but the city still must battle with how to handle a growing regional transportation problem — streets congested in part by commuters looking to avoid the packed Riverside (91) Freeway.
Yorba Linda also compromised on a long-awaited sound wall at its border with Anaheim Hills.
Work is being completed on a sound wall from Imperial Highway to Weir Canyon along the BNSF corridor. The $12.5 million wall is intended to shield residents from the blaring whistles of trains that rumble through the corridor as often as 50 times daily. “For me, the sound of the train is reassuring,” said Norby, a Fullerton resident. “It says all is right with the city and the economy.”
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Pennsylvania
December 26, 2004
Over the years, the Wabash Railroad Tunnel has been studied as a traffic alternative to the Liberty Tunnels, rebuilt for a Skybus transit system that never happened, used to warehouse old buses and suggested to be the world’s longest bowling alley.
For much of that time, its northern portal, about 75 feet above West Carson Street, has stood out as an isolated hole — some have said an eyesore — on the face of Mount Washington, an unusual sight from Downtown.
But starting tomorrow, the 101-year-old Wabash Tunnel will no longer be Pittsburgh’s Tunnel to Nowhere.
The Port Authority will open it as a “mixed-use” facility. That is, for car and van pools of two or more people during weekday rush hours, and for any motorist the rest of the time. It will mark the first time for public access since passenger trains quit running through the Wabash Tunnel in 1931, although freight trains used it until 1946. Two stone piers still stand in the Monongahela River from the railroad bridge that once connected the narrow tunnel to Downtown.
Once people become accustomed to the tunnel, the Port Authority estimates it will be used by as many as 4,500 vehicles a day, either as a convenience because of its proximity to Station Square and the South Side or as an option to the traffic-clogged Fort Pitt and Liberty tunnels.
That’s still only about half of its capacity, even though its single lane is reversible: Inbound weekday mornings, outbound weekday afternoons and all holidays and weekends.
Nevertheless, Henry Nutbrown, engineering-construction manager for the authority, said the Wabash Tunnel would positively impact traffic flow. “Every vehicle that uses the Wabash Tunnel means one less vehicle in the Liberty Tunnels or the Fort Pitt Tunnel,” he said.
Nutbrown predicted twice as many vehicles would use the tunnel in the outbound direction as inbound. In the morning, once traffic gets to the bottom of West Liberty Avenue or Green Tree Hill on the Parkway West, drivers are likely to stick with the existing tunnels rather than divert to Route 51 and the Wabash Tunnel unless the South Side or Station Square happens to be their destination.
In addition, a minimum two-to-a-vehicle requirement applies during rush hours, limiting who can use the 1.1-mile route, from West Carson Street at the north end to Saw Mill Run Boulevard (Route 51) at the south end, via a short stretch of Woodruff Street.
In the afternoon, especially when a breakdown or accident snarls the Liberty or Fort Pitt tunnels, “The Wabash Tunnel can be a quick getaway for lots of people who otherwise would be sitting in traffic,” he said.
On weekends, when the Wabash will be open outbound to all vehicles regardless of occupancy, the authority will provide a time-saving outlet for patrons of Station Square and people who park in its lots and garage for special events. That includes Steelers fans who take the nearby T or Gateway Clipper boats for transportation to the North Shore.
Nutbrown said three traffic signals at the Station Square end of the Smithfield Street Bridge have been interconnected to expedite flow.
The Port Authority is not planning any ceremony when the Wabash officially opens at 6 a.m. tomorrow because of financial problems that are bringing record fare increases, service reductions and employee layoffs.
At a time when Port Authority budget shortfalls are $30 million this year and an estimated $45 million for the 2005-06 fiscal year, the Wabash Tunnel is going to add $1 million a year to the tab. Some of that money initially will come from the federal government as part of start-up operations.
Bruce & Merilees, a private company, will be paid the $1 million fee to provide a supervisor and two workers to change gates and signs controlling the reversible lane, monitor closed-circuit video surveillance and carbon monoxide detection systems, clear snow and respond to accidents and breakdowns.
The tunnel is 20 feet, 10 inches wide, wide enough for vehicles to get around a crippled vehicle but about 4 feet shy of being capable of creating two lanes to safely carry traffic in both directions at once. The speed limit will be 25 mph, except at the north portal, where there’s a 90-degree turn to and from a 1,500-foot ramp, where it will be 15 mph.
The Port Authority capital cost for the Wabash Tunnel is at least $30 million, including the latest construction, electrical and signal work, and $11 million that a court has ordered it to pay for land where a 160-space parking lot has been built at the north end. The authority took property by eminent domain and paid the owner, Buncher Corp., $5.7 million, but Buncher challenged the amount. The Port Authority plans to appeal Commonwealth Court’s order.
But the Wabash Tunnel has been a money pit for far longer than the latest venture, dating to 1931, when Allegheny County bought it from the Pittsburgh & West Virginia Railroad for $3 million. The idea at the time was to convert it to a traffic tunnel to provide relief for the Liberty Tunnels.
The Port Authority paid $6 million to remodel the tunnel for a rubber-tired, sophisticated Skybus transit system. The system never materialized. The Port Authority later paid $3.2 million to tear out the concrete guideways on which the high-tech vehicles would have run.
As much as $10 million has been spent on studies, engineering and designs for various proposals over the years. Consequently, more than $50 million of taxpayer money has been poured into the Wabash Tunnel.
The old hole in the wall has been the butt of jokes and suggestions, too. A bowler once asked the Port Authority to use the tunnel to set a world’s record for bowling the longest strike ever. Someone also submitted a proposal to convert it into a restaurant-cocktail lounge named “The Cave.” Other ideas included a mushroom farm, skateboard court and a unique housing for the elderly project.
Controversy over the Wabash Tunnel dates to the 19th century. The plan for the tunnel was born in the late 1800s, when railroads considered the city a gold mine for freight and passenger trains.
The Wabash Railroad, trying to build a 60-mile link into Pittsburgh, waged a long, bitter war with the old Pennsylvania Railroad for property rights.
The Pennsy controlled a tight market of lucrative customers — and many politicians — but city residents became fed up. They blamed inadequate freight service and high shipping rates for paralyzing business and causing mass unemployment because of the railroad monopoly. The fight for the 3,450-foot tunnel began in 1890, but what headlines of the day referred to as the Battle of the Wabash delayed completion for 13 years.
In 1903, in retaliation against the inroads the Wabash Railroad was making in the city, paid vandals ripped out thousands of miles of telegraph wire owned by the Wabash interests.
The Wabash Railroad won its fight but ended up a financial catastrophe, leaving the tunnel to become a seemingly worthless hole punched through Mount Washington’s basement. Pittsburgh & West Virginia Railroad took over and used it until 1946. Now the region’s motorists can have a turn.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
December 26, 2004
I’m happy to pay the fare to ride the Hiawatha Line, the new light-rail train. I know it doesn’t come close to covering the cost of carrying me, and even though my taxes do, paying the $1.25 to ride is the responsible gesture. The line’s honor system may offer a big loophole for deadbeats, but I’m not one of those.
But on Wednesday, Dec. 15, the ticket machine at the Metrodome station wouldn’t take either of the two dollar bills I tried to feed it. And I didn’t have five quarters. So when the train arrived, I hopped on, figuring I’d just pay on the way back from my quick airport run.
But I couldn’t even find a ticket dispenser at the airport station. I walked the length of the platform and back, wallet in hand, but no machine.
As the train pulled in, I noticed there was an entire other half of the station, back under the long stairway I’d just come down. I suppose there was a ticket machine back there. But now the train’s doors were open. I had to get back to the office. I jumped on.
This train was maybe half full, and many of the passengers were kids, mostly teenagers, who’d apparently boarded at the Mall of America. I’ve heard the predictable conversations about how the mall terminal would kill all the good feelings the light-rail line had generated in its first few months — that the kids would trash the cars and harass passengers. We will see.
Minutes later came the command: “Please show your tickets! Please show your tickets!”
Just my luck: a transit police officer in reflective vest and other gear, standing rock-steady right behind my shoulder, demanding that we all produce the local version of citizenship papers.
Which everyone around me, all those youthful troublemakers, did. I was the one with the back turned and no ticket. The freeloader. The fraud. The subsidy-rider. The drag on society. The trick-or-treater in street clothes.
I turned and explained, as earnestly as I could, my attempts to buy tickets. “Didn’t you see the box at the station?” the officer asked. “Have you ridden the train before?” Thankfully, he didn’t escort me off at the next stop to buy a ticket. In fact, he said, “I’ll take your word for it.”
I’m sure those around me had tuned into every word of the exchange. Was I leading the charge for scofflaws? Showing others how to game the system?
I turned back to the window for the rest of the ride to think about my shame, accidental as it was. Minutes later, as the train pulled into the Lake Street station, the two teenagers across from me, obviously boyfriend and girlfriend, stood to get off. Urban youth.
The young man caught my eye. Then he extended his hand toward me, holding his ticket. “Here you go, man,” he said. “In case they come around again.” I took it and thanked him, grateful that honor works in strange ways.
New York Times
December 26, 2004
WASHINGTON, Dec. 25 - The fleet of hybrid buses that General Motors promised would save Seattle more than 750,000 gallons of fuel a year will actually save less than half that amount, according to the fleet operator, and although G.M. said the hybrid buses would show a fuel economy improvement of up to 60 percent, the savings around the country appear to be in the range of 10 percent to 20 percent, transit managers say.
General Motors, which got a late start bringing hybrid technology to market in cars, has argued that buses are a better vehicle to convert to hybrid drive, because they are used more heavily than cars. “We decided we would go after hybrids by going after the highest consuming vehicles first” because that would save the most petroleum, said Tom Stephens, a G.M. vice president for powertrains.
The company is also creating hybrid versions of its pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles, although their hybrid systems are relatively small adjuncts to the gasoline engines.
But the fuel savings for G.M.’s bus hybrids, which it named “magic buses,” are more modest than for some bus hybrids already in use, and even at the current elevated price for diesel fuel the savings are unlikely to repay the cost premium for a hybrid, about $200,000, experts say. There are other benefits, however, including lower maintenance costs and smoother, cleaner operation.
All hybrids are powered by both an internal-combustion engine and an electric motor, but G.M. chose a “parallel” approach, in which the engine and the electric motor turn the wheels simultaneously, a technology more suited for freely flowing traffic. Some bus agencies report greater fuel savings using a “series” hybrid, in which the engine is connected only to an electric generator, with all the power to the wheels coming from an electric motor.
Some of the best results for hybrid buses have been for series hybrids running in extremely congested cities. New York City, for example, has more than 100 series hybrids on the streets and next month will begin receiving the first of an additional 200 buses with a hybrid drivetrain built by BAE Systems of Johnson City, N.Y., with a fuel savings of 35 percent to 45 percent, according to transit officials.
Electric motors excel at getting a heavy bus moving from a standing start, and when it is time to stop again - which in New York is often only a few yards later - the hybrid system recaptures a lot of that energy by converting the momentum of the bus into electric current, which flows back into the batteries. The batteries are also directly charged by the diesel engine.
But the series system is not well suited to buses in highway use, experts say, because converting the energy from the diesel engine into electricity, and then putting the electric current through a motor to turn the wheels, is not as efficient as simply connecting the diesel engine to the wheels through a conventional transmission. In the parallel system, the bus wheels are driven by both a conventional transmission and an electric motor. Either type can reduce air pollution, by cutting the amount of time that the diesel engine operates at very high strain and low revolutions per minute. As is obvious to any urban pedestrian, that is when diesels give off great clouds of dark smoke. With an electric motor to assist or take over at start-up, though, the diesel engine can run at a higher speed and lower strain, a range in which it is cleaner.
The buses in Seattle, which ordered 235 hybrids, were chosen mostly for cleanliness, said Jim Boon, the maintenance manager at King County Metro Transit. The buses go through a tunnel under the downtown section, a little more than a mile long, which has limited ventilation.
“We’re quite happy, actually,” said Mr. Boon. “We did not buy these for fuel economy.” According to G.M., both the company and the King County transit authority concluded from early tests that a fuel savings near 60 percent was possible.
Connecticut Transit, a state bus agency, is running two 40-foot buses with the G.M. hybrid transmission. They started in Hartford and have been running in Stamford since June. Stephen W. Warren, the assistant general manager for maintenance, said that drivers and customers liked them because they were smooth and fast. But, he added, “We were slightly disappointed with the fuel economy,” which he said was 10 percent to 15 percent better than new buses of conventional design.
New Jersey Transit runs seven of the buses. The agency bought them believing they would save 20 percent to 40 percent on fuel, and the actual savings have been at the bottom of that range, said Penny Bassett Hackett, a spokeswoman. New Jersey paid $600,000 to $800,000 extra
for each of its buses, and had no possibility of earning that back, she said, but paid for the extra cost with a grant meant to stimulate new technologies. “The buses are achieving what they are intended to do, and that is emissions reduction,” Ms. Bassett Hackett said.
At the American Public Transit Association, an association of transit agencies based in Washington, Lurae Stuart, senior project manager of Bus Technical Programs, said: “We don’t define ‘good’ as fuel economy. We define good as the combination of emissions, brake savings and acceleration, which saves time and scheduling.”
Still, many experts expected the hybrid to do better, and they disagree about why it does not. Mr. Boon, of Seattle, said that at the time his agency switched buses, it also switched to new engines, which comply with a 2004 Environmental Protection Agency standard for reduced emissions of nitrogen oxides and soot, and that the new engines were less fuel-efficient than the old ones. In fact, he said, an old engine would make the hybrid nearly 60 percent more fuel efficient.
But Caterpillar, the company that makes the engine used in the Seattle buses, said that while some competitors’ engines that met the new standard were about 5 percent less fuel efficient, its engine used a different approach, which it has patented, that unlike the others did not reduce fuel economy.
An E.P.A. spokesman, John Millett, said his agency certified the engines only for emissions, not fuel economy, and did not know what effect, if any, its requirements had had on mileage. A more stringent set of emission rules takes effect in 2007.
At General Motors, Larry Nitz, director of hybrid powertrain engineering, said the 60 percent estimate was based on a treadmill-type test, and the 750,000 gallon estimate was a separate calculation based on side-by-side tests using a hybrid and a conventional transmission, and older engines. “I think we’re doing what we expected to do in Seattle,” Mr. Nitz said in a telephone interview.
Others say that the technology has promise for several reasons, and that fuel economy could improve as the vehicles are tweaked, with better software controlling the hybrid powertrain.
In the Philadelphia area, the Southeast Pennsylvania Transportation Authority is operating 32 G.M. hybrid buses but is not tracking their fuel economy, which would require precise comparison with conventional buses running on exactly the same routes.
But Patrick Nowakowski, the assistant general manager of operations, gave an indication of how well the buses were performing. “We’re not getting worse mileage,” he said, “but if somebody’s justifying the cost differential based on fuel savings, it’s a stretch.”
PTP NOTE:. The following commentary from the Cincinnati Enquirer states, “A busway system uses rail rights-of-way but is operated by buses. The latest to install one is Cleveland.”. These statements are misleading. The Cleveland Euclid Ave. “BRT” project is routed on dedicated transit lanes in the thoroughfare; there is no rail right-of-way.
For alternative perspectives on busway (or “BRT”) vs. light rail cost and performance issues, see:
“Bus Rapid Transit” or “Quality Bus”? Reality Check http://www.lightrailnow.org/facts/fa_brt007.htm
Myth vs. Reality: Has Ottawa “BRT” Provided Light Rail-Type Service at Much Lower Cost? http://www.lightrailnow.org/myths/m_brt003.htm
“BRT” - You Can Build It … But Will They Come? http://www.lightrailnow.org/facts/fa_brt001.htm
How Light Rail Saves Operating Cost Dollars Compared With Buses http://www.lightrailnow.org/facts/fa_lrt02.htm
Research Study: Riders Prefer Light Rail to “Bus Rapid Transit” http://www.lightrailnow.org/facts/fa_00012.htm
Transit Capital Investment Per Route Mile http://www.lightrailnow.org/facts/fa_00002.htm
Cincinnati Enquirer
December 26, 2004
Thank you for printing the column by Curt Parrott (“How mass transit can compete with cars,” Dec. 14) concerning an improved transit system which can compete with automobiles. The system he describes is a busway system and is in use in some other cities. A busway system uses rail rights-of-way but is operated by buses. The latest to install one is Cleveland.
The current SORTA board, seven of whom were appointed subsequent to the sound voter defeat of light rail, are currently reviewing with SORTA staff the ramifications of having such a system in the Cincinnati area. It includes, as does the Cleveland system, new buses that have the appearance of railcars and the amenities of a light rail system. When we have completed our internal studies and decision, we will consult with public officials before announcing any recommendations or asking any expenditures of public funds.
I must correct one statement by Mr. Parrott, namely, that a busway system “might come with a similar price tag as light rail.” Preliminary review shows that the installation of a busway system would cost substantially less than light rail. I can state with complete confidence that the cost of a maintenance system for busways will be far less than for a light rail system. The reason is self-evident. We already have garages, equipment, parts, and trained personnel for rubber-tired vehicles. Rail cars would require a totally new maintenance system.
Benjamin Gettler, chairman, SORTA
Winnipeg Sun
December 26, 2004
A turnover in the mayor’s office marked one of city hall’s most turbulent years in recent memory. The departure of former mayor Glen Murray, who ran for the Liberals in the federal election, left the door open for the more conservative-minded Sam Katz to win the mayor’s seat in Winnipeg’s first by election for the top job in 25 years. And with the change in regime, Murray’s contentious “new deal” revenue-sharing project all but died as did his dream of a rapid transit bus system.
Following his landslide victory over four other credible candidates on June 22, Katz, a longtime entertainment promoter and Winnipeg Goldeyes owner, wasted no time demonstrating that his office would take a more business-like approach to municipal management.
DIFFERENT
“The new mayor wanted to establish his own profile,” says Christopher Leo, an expert in urban politics at the University of Winnipeg. “You could make the case that he really wanted to make sure he’s not associated with what Glen Murray had done. He wanted to establish clearly that he’s a different person.”
Did he ever — a different person with completely different ideas for getting Winnipeg moving.
The baseball magnate’s takeover brought a slew of young Conservative party-affiliated handlers and advisors to City Hall. And within his first few months, Katz stunned civic employees by abruptly showing the door to three veteran administrators in the mayor’s office — two of whom had been on staff since the days of Steve Juba.
PET TRANSIT PROJECT
The 53-year-old entrepreneur also scrapped Murray’s pet transit project — one that would have immediately poured $50 million from the three levels of government into the first leg of a citywide system of designated corridors for high-tech, high-speed buses.
Soon after slamming the brakes on the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) initiative, Katz returned from an Ottawa trip apparently excited about a more expensive light rail transit (LRT) concept, and launched a task force to examine its potential.
“I’ve always believed that a rapid transit system such as LRT is feasible in our city,” Katz said following his ride on the O-Train in the nation’s capital, calling BRT “nowhere near as progressive” as a rail system. “I just cannot believe that we never, ever even called just to get some information on it before. Not one phone call. I’m very, very surprised.”
In addition, the new mayor served notice that the ‘Peg’s notoriously bloated bureaucratic blockades on development and quality customer service will no longer be tolerated. A red tape commission is expected to streamline operations on several fronts as early as next fall.
The transit turbulence and Katz’s push to fulfil key campaign promises — among them, a 2% cut in business tax for downtown entrepreneurs and free transit rides for seniors during off hours — came while he repeatedly butted heads with opposition councillors.
New River Heights-Fort Garry representative Donald Benham — a former Glen Murray media aide — and Coun. Jenny Gerbasi (Fort Rouge-East Fort Garry) attacked Katz’s killing of BRT, which they insist is the right transit upgrade for Winnipeg.
As many expected, Gerbasi was soon dumped from her longtime seat in the mayor’s cabinet — the executive policy committee. “Gerbasi, from the outset, made it clear that she’s unable to work with the new mayor. So a decision had to be made,” says Adrienne Batra, Manitoba head of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. “Time will tell whether it was the right one.”
TriMet News & Info
December 27, 2004
TriMet, which was formed in December 1969 from the failing Rose City Transit, is well on its way to achieving ridership growth for its 16th consecutive year, having broken monthly ridership records several months this fiscal year (which ends June 30).
“In recent years, we’ve focused investments on improving service, amenities and efficiency on our Frequent Service Lines and seen significant ridership gains because of it,” said Fred Hansen. “The addition of our Yellow Line this year lets people ride MAX to more places than ever before and improves connections to our transit network.”
Ridership growth
November ridership growth occurred on both MAX and bus service, with TriMet’s 16 Frequent Service bus lines leading ridership gains. Frequent Service lines now carry 56 percent of all bus ridership, up 20.3 percent from a year ago.
Additional ridership gains:
Combined weekly boardings grew 9 percent, totaling 1.85 million each week.
MAX weekday ridership gained 20 percent, averaging 96,000 rides each weekday, including the Yellow Line, which opened in May.
MAX Red Line daily ons and offs at Portland International Airport averaged 2,700 for a 16 percent increase.
Regular bus service posted a 4.4 percent gain over a year ago.
THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS
December 27, 2004
At first glance, the $6 billion Trans-Texas Corridor proposal unveiled this month appears to be little more than a Texas-size toll road.
Aside from a small rail relocation project around Austin, the plan for a privately operated toll road from the Red River to San Antonio made virtually no mention of potential rail and utility lines that have been prominent in discussions about the corridor.
Plans for high-speed or intercity rail, which set off furious opposition from Texas landowners and some business heavyweights a decade ago, will not be part of the winning bidder’s plans anytime soon. “We don’t see at this time any high-speed trains happening,” said José M. López, director of U.S. and Latin American operations for Cintra, the Spanish company hired to build the first leg of the corridor plan by 2013.
Rail lines may be part of a long-term master plan, which mentions rail projects after 2025. “Highways are much easier to plan and can come to fruition faster than railroads,” Mr. López said.
Still, Gov. Rick Perry’s ambitious Trans-Texas Corridor plan features echoes of the high-speed rail battle from the 1990s.
In both cases, a foreign consortium promised to build a major public works project with no public financing. The high-speed rail proposal faced fierce opposition from rural landowners, who are now worried about the corridor plans. Concerns about property rights led the state Republican Party and the Texas Farm Bureau to oppose the corridor.
“Taking private land for lease to a company that will use our land to generate a profit by charging us tolls and rent is offensive. It should be illegal,” said David Stall, founder of Corridor Watch, based in Fayetteville, east of Austin.
One previous opponent to high-speed rail has no plans to enter the corridor discussions. “We don’t have a role in the current policy talks,” said Linda Rutherford, a spokeswoman for Dallas-based Southwest Airlines, which opposed the rail plans in the 1990s. “It was not an issue of competing with high-speed rail as a mode of transportation, it was competing with it on the amount of subsidy it would have received.”
This time around, some of the same players may eventually end up on different sides of the debate. Texas Transportation Commission Chairman Ric Williamson said he “fully expects” Southwest Airlines to eventually work with the state on building a rail network.
“Rick Perry is focused on commuter rail that the market will support,” Mr. Williamson said. “I expect it [Southwest Airlines’ participation] because I understand the economics of the oil and gas business. I don’t think the price of fuel is going to go down. It’s only going to go up.”
Toll-rate debate
With no plans for high-speed rail and only marginal discussion of commuter rail, the debate over such a large public works project will focus on other issues this time, including the setting of toll rates and the use of private capital to build major roads.
Cintra’s proposal calls for building several hundred miles of a four-lane toll road from North Texas to San Antonio, but other projects could follow, Mr. Williamson said last week.
The key to building connecting or related projects may lie in the state’s plans for a proposed $1.2 billion payment from Cintra. “It would be entirely logical and not surprising to take that $1.2 billion and leverage it into $3 billion or $4 billion to use for several purposes,” Mr. Williamson said. “We will turn that $1.2 billion into a lot more and take care of a lot of problems up and down the corridor.”
The state and Cintra have until mid-February to negotiate important details of the proposed $7.2 billion initial agreement or cancel the deal. The two sides then would have another year to iron out more specifics on what construction officials are calling the largest privately funded public works project in history.
Precise routes for the corridor are far from being chosen. The state could narrow the possibilities to a single, 10-mile-wide swath by early spring. In North Texas, the study area includes the southeast corner of Dallas County and extends as far east as Wood County about 75 miles away. Area residents will be able to give their input on possible routes at public hearings in the spring. The toll road could open to San Antonio by 2014.
While no firm construction plans have been announced, Mr. Williamson said the state might be interested in extending the corridor to the Rio Grande Valley, dredging the port of Corpus Christi to allow for bigger ships, and moving freight rail off a congested Austin-to-San Antonio line to make room for commuter trains.
Although relatively new to the United States, the private-public partnership model has been used successfully elsewhere. Cintra, which has been in business since 1968, recently went public on the Spanish stock exchange. It also has been around long enough to have a mixture of older and newer toll projects, including one road in the Basque area of Spain that it returned to the Spanish government after a 35-year lease.
“This is a business that is well-developed and mature in parts of the world,” Mr. López said. “In the United States, for a number of reasons, it is not.”
Questions about Cintra
Still, officials in other parts of the world have raised questions about Cintra’s practices. Toronto-area officials waged an unsuccessful legal battle to prevent Cintra from raising tolls on Highway 407. And in the Chicago area, the company has drawn attention for its plans to raise tolls on the Chicago Skyway, which it is in the process of acquiring.
In both cases, Mr. López said, the company negotiated a deal with local governments that included toll limits. The company would not have bid the same amount if it did not have the right to set tolls under established parameters. “We expect to set tolls based on market demand,” Mr. López said. “If not, we won’t have cars. And if we don’t have customers, we won’t have cash.”
With toll roads not generating much revenue for investors for at least eight to 10 years, Cintra will be in the toll road business for the long haul, Mr. López added. Cintra probably will have the rights to the corridor and its tolls for 50 years. “This is a very specialized business,” he said. “People who try to see this business as a quick way to make money will fail.”
The state probably will retain the right to set tolls, and it may even attempt to enter a toll revenue-sharing agreement with Cintra, Mr. Williamson said. The company’s current Texas business proposal, if left unchanged, would keep tolls between 10 and 20 cents per mile.
So will Texans pay $30 or more to travel up to 85 mph on an unclogged traffic artery between North Texas and San Antonio? “We believe it will work, as it has in many places worldwide,” Mr. López said.
IT World
12/28/04 [2004/12/28]
Visitors to January’s International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) should find getting to and from the exhibition site a little easier than previous years thanks to the reopening of Las Vegas’ US$650 million monorail system, which had been closed for several months for safety checks.
The new monorail system began operation in July this year and links many of the city’s largest hotels with the Las Vegas Convention Center, the site of CES. However, service was suspended in September following mechanical problems with one of the trains and the service operator, Las Vegas Monorail Co., had been unable to say if the system would be back in operation in time for CES.
The annual consumer electronics exhibition has grown immensely in size in recent years with the convergence between consumer electronics products and computing — especially since the popularity of Comdex began to wane. Organizers are expecting more than 100,000 people will visit the city for the exhibition this year. Such an influx of people has typically meant heavy traffic around the convention center and long waiting lines for taxis, particularly in the morning and evening.
The monorail began operation again at 10a.m. on Dec. 24, according to the operator.
A one-way fare is $3 and a one-day pass is $10. The system currently covers 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) and consists of 7 stations: MGM Grand; Bally’s/Paris; Flamingo/Caesars Palace; Harrah’s/Imperial Palace; Las Vegas Convention Center; Las Vegas Hilton; and the Sahara.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
December 28, 2004
The vote last Tuesday by the Piedmont Park Conservancy approving a six-story parking deck in Atlanta’s signature park was certainly disappointing but not unexpected.
For starters, its members had OK’d the plan during an earlier meeting that was closed to the public in violation of the state’s sunshine laws. A subsequent rebuke from the state attorney general’s office forced the vote into the open where it rightfully belonged, but it unfortunately did nothing to improve the board’s judgment.
By trying to hide from critics the first time, the conservancy only succeeded in fueling speculation that its support for the parking deck was fated even before the votes were cast. That’s too bad, because the conservancy’s hopes for a 53-acre expansion of Piedmont Park are worthwhile even if its plans for funding the expansion with parking revenues are not. From the outset, conservancy staffers have been blinded by the neighboring Atlanta Botanical Garden’s offer to pay the roughly $15 million in construction costs. But this is one gift horse that bears closer examination.
The conservancy, a nonprofit caretaker for the city-owned park, contends that the 800-space structure will relieve traffic congestion and ease the parking crunch in the surrounding neighborhoods. But a far more likely scenario is that the proposed deck could worsen the problem by encouraging visitors to drive instead of riding MARTA, biking or walking to the park.
Given the abundance of underutilized, privately owned parking lots in the area, it makes more sense to link them to Piedmont Park with a dedicated trolley service. That alternative would be a more effective way to minimize the impact of vehicular traffic, especially when the park is packed on sunny weekends and during special events.
So is there any way the conservancy can continue to honor its mission as a responsible steward of Piedmont Park without turning it into a parking lot with trees? A far superior, long range plan to create a citywide parks district backed by Mayor Shirley Franklin deserves a second look. Administered by a board comprised of the mayor and other city officials, the park district would serve as a conduit for charitable gifts and foundation grants for green space and would leverage those monies to pay for improvements at Piedmont Park and other facilities.
Similar districts in other municipalities have become magnets for contributions from philanthropists and others unwilling to give directly to private foundations or to city parks departments. A majority of the City Council initially rejected the idea, with some fearing it would dilute control over how money for green space is spent in their respective districts. Given the sorry state of the city’s parks in general and the misguided parking deck proposal in particular, the council should reverse its objections to the parks district.
USA TODAY
December 28, 2004
New Yorkers call it the subway, Bostonians the T and Washingtonians the Metro. Whatever the vernacular, relatively few business travelers follow the lead of local residents and use big cities’ heavy rail systems.
Business travelers such as Steven Daris, the San Diego-based CEO of dk Holdings, an Internet media company, say subways and over-ground rail systems where he visits are “sometimes hard to figure out quickly.” Daris, who grew up in the country, says he would use them more if he better understood them.
But for those travelers who take the time to learn how to navigate, say, the New York subway, the payoff can be substantial. Such transit systems are often faster than a taxi, and much cheaper. They’re also reliable.
“Taking a taxi or even a bus in Manhattan isn’t practical,” says Michael Sommer, a technology consultant in Jacksonville who travels to New York about every six weeks with a subway map in his personal planner. “After you take the subway a few times, you realize it’s the only way to effectively get around.”
Known as subways, rapid-rail systems, elevated or metropolitan railways, there are 14 heavy-rail systems in 11 U.S. cities. Each was designed to move a large volume of passengers through a city center and outlying areas.
Unlike commuter rail, which feeds suburban passengers into one or two stations in a central business district, heavy rail has many inner-city stations and usually operates on rights-of-way that exclude other vehicles and pedestrians. Of 2,100 miles of track operated by the nation’s 14 heavy-rail systems, about 36% is underground, according to the American Public Transportation Association.
Some business travelers don’t use heavy rail because trains can be crowded, and some older stations dingy. Jumping into a taxi might avoid any confusion about navigating through a rail system and can be faster to some destinations.
William Middleton, author of Metropolitan Railways, says perceived complexity is a major problem for public transit systems. “They have intimidating procedures, and people don’t know how they work.”
To help business travelers, USA TODAY gathered data on all the U.S. heavy-rail systems. They combined to carry about 2.7 billion passengers last year, APTA data show.
The most extensive heavy rail network is in New York, which has three systems. The largest unit, operated by MTA New York City Transit, has 25 train lines, 468 stations and 835 miles of track in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx. At three Manhattan stations, it connects with the Port Authority Trans-Hudson system, which serves New Jersey. A third operates on Staten Island.
Washington, Chicago and San Francisco also have large systems, each with more than 200 miles of track.
Rail experts say heavy-rail systems have made substantial improvements to make them more consumer friendly in recent years. Such improvements have included better signs, maps, timetables and Web site information. Here’s information that might be valuable for prospective heavy-rail users.
- Hours of operation. The New York City Transit system never closes. All other heavy-rail systems begin by 5 a.m. on most days and run until at least midnight. Washington’s Metro operates until 3 a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights.
- Method of payment. New York’s system once was renowned for its token machines, but those days are gone. New York and most cities use fare cards that can be bought at stations and other sites, including newsstands and retail shops. Exact change is often needed, but some systems, such as Miami’s Metrorail, have change machines at stations. Some systems, including New York and Baltimore, charge the same fare regardless of the destination. Others, such as San Francisco and Washington, base the price on the distance traveled.
- Best deal. Compared with taxi fares, every heavy-rail system can be a bargain for a business traveler on a tight budget. The cheapest fare is $1.25 in Boston, Cleveland, Los Angeles and Miami, and between some San Francisco stations. Daily passes are always the best option if you plan to travel frequently on a single day. The most expensive one-day pass is $7.50 for Boston’s T. Weekly and monthly passes provide more savings.
- Entering/exiting. Many systems require passengers to insert a fare card or ticket in a slot. Chicago offers a choice: inserting a fare card, tapping a Smart Card against a reader or putting coins into a turnstile. Washington’s Metro and San Francisco’s BART require passengers to insert the card or ticket again when exiting. Frequent traveler Sommer says he wasn’t aware of this and threw away his ticket the first time he used the Metro. He had to seek assistance from a policeman and Metro personnel to exit.
- Ridership information. Each city’s transit authority has a Web site with detailed information about its heavy-rail system and other mass-transit options. APTA has a handy Internet link to all the heavy-rail systems: www.apta.com/links/transit_by_mode/heavyrail.cfm. Every transit authority also has a consumer information phone hotline.
Most cities with heavy-rail systems have “horrendous” traffic and congestion that can ruin the workday of a business traveler sitting in a cab during a traffic jam, says APTA President William Millar. “Once you learn how to use the systems, you ask yourself: ‘Why did I ever have to take a cab?’ “ he says.
Brian Cudahy, author of A Century of Subways, says heavy-rail systems are often the fastest way to travel, particularly during rush hours, between airports and the center of a city. He cites Atlanta and Cleveland as the best systems for airport-downtown travel.
There are other benefits of using heavy rail, says Clifton Hood, author of 722 Miles: The Building of the Subways and How They Transformed New York. “It forces you to better know the geography of a city and to interact with its residents,” he says.
Daily Journal of Commerce (Portland, OR)
December 28, 2004
Plans to build a light-rail project that will eventually add 8.3 miles of service to the region’s transit system and provide a link from the Clackamas Town Center to Portland State University took a major step forward as Metro recently published its Final Environmental Impact Statement for the project. “This is an important milestone,” said Ross Roberts, transportation planning manager for Metro, a regional government agency. “It is a real big step to have this piece of the work done and is a necessary step to get federal funding.”
The impact statement concludes federal environmental review of the project, which clears the way for the federal government to provide approval to begin the final design of the project. “In this process, Metro’s role has been as the planning body,” Roberts said. “Now it’s just a matter of federal approval and designing the project. Metro’s role from here on drops off. We leave it to TriMet to design and build the project.”
The approximately $490-million project, expected to carry 46,000 riders a day by 2025, would reduce travel time from Clackamas Town Center to downtown Portland by one-fourth compared to bus service. “There is a huge trip generator that is not currently on the system,” Roberts said. “This extension will give people the opportunity to make trips that they couldn’t make before.”
The project includes eight new light-rail stations and five park-and-ride lots along Interstate 205 from the Gateway Transit Center to the Clackamas Town Center, and seven stations on Fifth and Sixth avenues along the Portland Mall between the Steel Bridge and Portland State University.
“This is one of many steps necessary to bring the project to construction, but it is one of the most important steps,” said Neil McFarlane, executive director for capital projects and facilities with TriMet. “(Concluding the environmental review) is a major milestone, and it represents a lot of work by a lot of people.”
Construction of the project is expected to begin in 2006 and be completed by 2010. When the project is done, it will serve the outer Southeast neighborhoods and communities of Lents, Happy Valley and Pleasant Valley among others on the I-205 section and will extend from Union Station to Portland State in downtown. “This project will revitalize the transit mall and provide direct light-rail service from much of Portland to Portland State University,” McFarlane said. “We’re excited to see direct light-rail service to Portland State.”
In additionto the I-205 and downtown transit mall work, TriMet also plans to extend light-rail service to Milwaukie as part of a second phase of its South Corridor project. “Extending light-rail service to Southeast Portland is important,” McFarlane said. “It will help to serve the transportation needs of that region.”
The second phase will extend from the south end of the downtown mall, positioning light-rail stops at Portland State University, in the new South Waterfront area, at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry and at eight other locations through inner Southeast Portland, ending at Lake Road in Milwaukie. In total, eleven stops are being proposed for the line, as well as several park-and-ride garages.
A tentative timeline puts preliminary engineering and design work for phase two of the project between 2007 and 2009, with construction to begin between 2009 and 2011. Service on the Milwaukie light-rail line could begin between 2012 and 2014, depending on the progress and funding of the first phase of the project.
The Milwaukie line is expected to cost between $514 million and $516 million.
Xinhua Economic News Service
December 28, 2004
Increasing public awareness of environmental protection and health have quickened the step of renewing public transport vehicles to make them more environment- friendly in major Chinese cities. The move demonstrates the Chinese government’s determination to alleviate auto emission which is blamed for causing serious air pollution in urban areas, insiders said.
Tianjin, a north China port city and the fourth largest auto production base of China, saw an energy-saving and environment- friendly passenger bus rolling off production line recently.
The first batch of 15 such buses, which burn compressed natural gas, are expected to run on Tianjin’s express public transport routes at the end of this year, according to local transportation department.
Xu Yajian, general manager of Irizar (Tianjin) Co., Ltd. which produces the novel bus, said that his company plans to manufacturemore these buses for major Chinese cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.
Operation of Irizar buses, which meet both requirements of energy- saving and environmental protection, marks the beginning of a new era of environment-friendly public transport in China, insiders said.
Previously, Liu Xiaoming, deputy head of the Beijing Municipal Committee of Communications, announced that Beijing would renew its public transport vehicles which do not meet the environment-friendly requirements set by the government before the 2008 Olympic Games.
Beijing began renewing its public transport vehicles in 1998 and so far the city has renewed and put into use a total of 2,978 electrified urban buses and long-distance buses that meet the EuroIII emission standards, Liu said.
The Chinese government has intensified the research and development of environment-friendly public transport automobiles and clean energy resources to deal with pollution caused by motor vehicles in recent years.
Currently, Dalian, Shenyang, Changsha, Chengdu, Lanzhou, Xi’an and Xiamen cities have begun popularizing environment-friendly public transport automobiles and clean fuel such as compressed natural gas, liquefied natural gas, and liquefied petroleum gas.
China designated 12 cities including Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghaiand Shenzhen as pilot cities to promote the use of clean fuel automobiles in 1999. In 2003, 16 cities were approved as key areas to popularize clean-fuel automobiles. Enditem (?)
Japan Economic Newswire
December 28, 2004
Full service was resumed on the Joetsu Shinkansen line Tuesday after operations between Echigo-Yuzawa and Nagaoka stations in Niigata Prefecture had been suspended for 66 days following the derailment of Toki No. 325 during the Oct. 23 Niigata Prefecture Chuetsu Earthquake.
The line is a major transportation artery between Niigata Prefecture and the Tokyo metropolitan area. After the quake, the number of holidaymakers visiting the prefecture nosedived, and traditional industries in the area were badly damaged.
With the skiing season just around the corner, the reopening of the line is good news for the tourist industry in the prefecture. It will also make it easier for people with parents in the region to make the visit home for the New Year. The reopening will reinvigorate the quake-affected area both physically and spiritually.
Toki No. 325 was hit by a shallow-focus earthquake while it was traveling through Nagaoka in the prefecture at about 200 kph. Although it was derailed, it did not overturn, and none of the 151 passengers were injured, averting a terrible disaster.
The damage threatened to give lie to the legendary safety of Shinkansen trains, a proud boast earned during the 40 years since the opening of the Tokaido Shinkansen line.
Shinkansen lines have advanced earthquake-safety technology, with seismometers placed along the line to detect preliminary tremors and cut off the power supply to the train, automatically triggering the brakes on a train. But the system had only a limited effect when it was struck by an earthquake with a shallow focus, but a strong shock.
But an investigation has revealed there was no major disaster on the line, except for the derailment, and has proved the safety of Shinkansen lines.
Learning the lessons of the Great Hanshin Earthquake, during which girders supporting the elevated track of the Shinkansen line gave way, JR group firms reinforced their lines by, for example, enclosing pilings in steel sheet.
In the section where the Joetsu Shinkansen train derailed, similar reinforcement helped to limit damage to the elevated track. If these pilings had been badly damaged during the quake, a major disaster could have occurred. This shows the importance of diligent, continuous efforts to improve safety.
The central government and JR companies are investigating how the derailment occurred. When we learn more about the accident, which was caused by an unexpectedly severe quake, we should adopt any lessons that can be put to practical use.
The Shinkansen train system symbolizes Japan’s technological prowess and we hope its safety will be enhanced even further. (Dec. 29)
Courier-Post Staff
December 29, 2004
After reaching a peak in July, ridership on the River LINE has declined, raising questions anew about the nature and viability of South Jersey’s new light rail line. “Normally ridership picks up in the fall, as workers return from vacation and students return to school,” said Don Nigro, president of the Delaware Valley Association of Rail Passengers.
Ridership on PATCO, the region’s high-speed line to Philadelphia, showed an uptick in September and October, before tapering off with the onset of colder weather in November.
The pattern on the River LINE has been different. If not exactly the “trains of summer,” the diesel-powered cars of the 34-mile, Camden-to-Trenton line have certainly proved more dependent on leisure travel than the average passenger line. “Certainly the numbers are down since September,” said Dan Stessel, a spokesman for NJ Transit.
Stessel said a drop-off in concerts and other events on the Camden Waterfront and the closing of the state aquarium for renovations have been major factors. The drop in leisure riders has not been offset by an increase in commuters. While confirming that overall ridership is down - “anecdotally” – Stessel declined to release the numbers NJ Transit has compiled for October and November.
It is policy to release ridership numbers only on a quarterly basis, he said, although NJ Transit compiles monthly reports and has previously released them. “In the early days we felt that was important,” Stessel said, “but now we feel it serves no purpose. There’s no sense taking the temperature that often.”
The light rail line opened in March of this year to enthusiastic crowds who packed the cars and praised the comfort, efficiency and price of the service. In an effort to boost ridership, NJ Transit set the fare at a “special introductory rate” of $1.10.
At the outset, leisure riders outnumbered commuters and ridership was higher on the weekends than weekdays.
More than 80 percent of PATCO’s passengers commute to or from Philadelphia. In contrast, only about 18 percent of the River LINE’s riders get on or off at the Rand Center in Camden, the point for transferring to PATCO to get to Philadelphia.
Another 20 percent get on or off in Trenton, ridership that would include commuters to that city or to points north via transfer at the station there.
By August, weekday ridership had overtaken weekend use of the line.
With ridership topping 5,600 fares (one-way trips) on an average weekday in August, NJ Transit officials announced that they were close to meeting their first year projections of 5,900 fares per day. But overall ridership dropped in August.
By September the average weekday numbers had dropped to 5,200. And they have apparently continued to drop since.
Those who ride the line continue to give it high marks.
John Pucher, a Rutgers professor who specializes in transportation policy and planning, rode the line this fall, concluding that “the system is certainly pleasant, clean, comfortable, attractive enough.”
“But that is not the issue here,” continued Pucher, a passionate advocate of mass transportation who does not own an automobile and describes himself as ‘Car-less John.’
“The problem is not that the system is poorly engineered or that it doesn’t work properly,” Pucker wrote. “The problem is that it’s in the wrong place and costs about 20 times more than it will ever generate in passenger revenues.”
The line was built without federal help because its supporters in the administration of then-Gov. Christie Whitman decided to forgo the rigorous scrutiny a federal application would have entailed.
The original plan was to charge fares based on distance and the charges on comparable bus routes. In an effort to increase ridership, new transit leadership under a new governor, decided to establish a single rate for the entire 34-mile route and to offer the “special introductory fare” of $1.10.
Nigro predicts “at least some increase” in that fare by next summer, when a new fiscal year begins for NJ Transit and the system will face the prospect of raising fares on all its lines.
NJ Transit has not raised fares since 1999 and has incurred substantial increases in everything from health care to energy costs since then. Stessel declined to say when the introductory rate might be raised.
George Warrington, who took over as NJ Transit’s executive director under the administration of former Gov. James E. McGreevey, has long said that economic development is the only real justification for the line.
A consultant hired by NJ Transit to help stimulate development, Tony Nelessen, describes the towns along the line as a “string of pearls” and predicts development there of “$2.5 billion to $4 billion.”
There are some signs that such development is coming to the old riverfront communities along the light rail line, for a variety of reasons, including state policy directing development into older areas; the newfound popularity of government-designated “redevelopment” zones; the high cost of and scarcity of housing elsewhere; and the convenience and attractiveness of mass transit in an era of rising gasoline prices.
Housing developments have sprung up close the light rail line in Cinnaminson and Delanco.
Riverside, which has talked about developing its “Golden Triangle” for a decade, recently named Keating/Pulte, a Philadelphia-based consortium, its official “redeveloper” of the old industrial area, with plans to convert it into a village featuring townhouses and “lofts” designed to attract commuters to Philadelphia.
With the amount of preliminary work necessary, particularly in cleaning up pollution left from the old industrial uses, construction on the Golden Triangle is not expected to begin until 2007.
Nelessen cited NJ Transit in predicting that by 2007 the River LINE wil be carrying 8,700 fares on an average weekday.
Herald News (Passaic County, NJ)
December 29, 2004
Some residents and members of the Borough Council are planning to confront NJ Transit’s board as early as its Jan. 12 meeting to complain about noisy buses on Lincoln Place and Washington Place.
The decision to band together came after last week’s council meeting, when a series of residents complained about the bus problem - a recurring theme for the past year. “These buses don’t belong on residential streets,” said Maurice Nafash, who has been living on Lincoln Place since 1963. “Within the last couple of years, they changed the structure of the bus, which causes a noise and a vibration that is totally, totally unbearable.”
Frustrated council members said that they had no authority to reroute NJ Transit buses. “We have tried everything we could, but the fact is that it is falling on deaf ears because they don’t live here,” Mayor James Cassella said.
Residents said the bus problem has been made worse since 2001, when NJ Transit began operating bigger “Cruiser” buses with louder brakes, which the state-run transport company claims improves performance and enhances safety.
According to NJ Transit, about 90 buses pass through Lincoln Place daily en route to Hackensack, with buses passing through every eight minutes from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. About 102 buses pass through Washington Place en route to New York, with most passing through every five to eight minutes during the morning rush hour.
In July 2003, the borough set up barricades at Lincoln Place and Paterson Avenue, blocking a NJ Transit bus route for 90 minutes. NJ Transit police ordered road blocks to be cleared.
Peter Melchionne, the borough attorney advised residents to hire an attorney and file suit. He said that the buses are affecting the quality of life of some residents, but “not having a (negative) impact on the borough per se.”
While residents are welcome to attend the NJ Transit board meeting, they would be better off talking to their own borough officials to affect change, said Dan Stessel, a spokesman for New Jersey Transit.
Although the last time Transit officials came to a borough meeting was in Sept. 2003, Stessel said that the state agency has spoken with the borough several times since then.
On Tuesday afternoon at rush hour, Nafash sat in his kitchen, as the rumble of buses resounded through the house. Downstairs in the recreation room, photographs were slanted on the wall from the vibrations.
New York Times
December 30, 2004
It was late afternoon on July 14, 2002, when Amtrak train No. 391 pulled out of Union Station in Chicago, bound for Southern Illinois. Several hours later, the train began to run a gantlet of hazardous highway crossings where gates and warning lights malfunctioned, endangering both passengers and motorists.
The first problem arose at a crossing in Cumberland County. Eight miles down the track, it happened at another crossing. Then another. And another. By the time Amtrak 391 reached the small town of Odin, signals at seven crossings had failed to give drivers proper warning of at least 20 seconds, according to federal records.
And on the same day in the same general area, northbound Amtrak train No. 392 encountered “short warnings” at another four crossings. Two days later, the trains ran through a total of seven more short signals.
No one was injured on either day. But three years earlier, on the same track north of these crossings, 11 Amtrak passengers were killed and 89 injured when a train slammed into a truck loaded with steel at a crossing in the town of Bourbonnais. Federal investigators blamed the truck driver for ignoring a proper warning signal, but the state police, witnesses and most recently a judge concluded that a short warning was a factor in the crash.
The railroad industry and its overseer, the Federal Railroad Administration, have long maintained that signal malfunctions pose little danger and that accidents caused by them are “extremely rare.”
But last week, after The New York Times began asking questions about signal problems, federal regulators disclosed that since a fatal accident in Michigan in the spring, they have been investigating whether a “type of Amtrak train” might be failing to trigger warning signals properly. And an examination of reported signal malfunctions indicates that they may constitute a wider problem, also involving freight trains.
A Times computer analysis of government records found that from 1999 through 2003, there were at least 400 grade-crossing accidents in which signals either did not activate or were alleged to have malfunctioned. At least 45 people were killed and 130 injured in those accidents, according to the records, although in most cases the role of signal malfunctions was unclear. Federal rules require that railroads maintain signals on tracks they own.
The accident reports, all prepared by the railroads, also raise questions in many cases about whether unsafe behavior by drivers contributed to the accidents. In addition, since 2000, railroads filed about 2,300 reports of the most serious types of signal malfunctions: short signals or no signals at all. Most of these malfunctions did not involve accidents.
“My concern is that this is just the tip of the iceberg,” said James E. Hall, a former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board. “If we had that type of record in aviation, it would be unacceptable.”
In February, after a husband and wife were killed near Rochester, at a crossing where the signal had been disabled for maintenance, the Federal Railroad Administration inspected 199 area rail crossings maintained by the railroad company CSX. The agency found that nearly half had defects. Though most of the defects were deemed “relatively minor,” they were found to be serious at 12 crossings, the agency said. CSX has since made major repairs to crossings in the area.
The railroad administration’s investigation of Amtrak began after a woman and her 15-year-old daughter were killed by a train in Charlotte, Mich., in April when, the police say, a warning signal activated too late. The same railroad that owned the Illinois tracks in the 2002 incidents – Canadian National Railway - also owned the tracks in Charlotte and was responsible for maintaining the signals in both areas.
Canadian National said in a statement to The Times that it did not believe that the short signals in Illinois showed “a significant or persistent problem, or otherwise reflected systemic issues regarding CN signal performance, inspection, maintenance, or repair.” The railroad declined to comment on the Charlotte fatalities until the railroad administration completed its investigation.
Warning signals are triggered when an approaching train causes an electrical current to pass from one rail to the other. Last week, the railroad administration said its preliminary investigation of the Charlotte crash had concluded that the warning signal malfunctioned, possibly because Amtrak’s braking equipment and practices, along with accumulated material on the tracks, had impeded the electrical current.
The agency said there was no connection between the short signals in Illinois and the Charlotte accident, though both appear to have involved a buildup of different substances on the tracks. “Passenger locomotives are generally lighter than freight locomotives and use different types of braking equipment,” a government official involved in the Michigan investigation said. He added that the problem was “very intermittent” and had been detected only “regionally.”
In a statement, an Amtrak spokesman, William Schulz, said that all of its locomotives and most of its cars had the same kind of brakes, and that there have been “no instances” where Amtrak trains have been found to cause short signals. But with an “abundance of caution in mind,” Mr. Schulz said, the passenger service changed some braking equipment and procedures on the Michigan line after the Charlotte accident.
The frequency of signal malfunctions is difficult to assess, because railroads do not have to report all malfunctions and because proving that an error occurred is often difficult after an incident.
According to government data, some 9,500 calls about signals were lodged in 2003 in Texas, which has the only statewide government hot line for problems at grade crossings. Several Texas crossings have been the subject of scores of complaints in recent years. Some callers were reporting the same problem.
Chronic signal malfunctions are not only hazardous, but also burdensome for police departments, especially smaller ones, because they must often send officers to safeguard motorists at problem crossings.
Peggy Wilhide, a spokeswoman for the Association of American Railroads, played down the significance of signal malfunctions, saying a recent federal report found that the great majority of crossing accidents were caused by unsafe drivers. Ms. Wilhide also emphasized that most of the reports of signal malfunctions could not be confirmed. “I would put our safety record up against any industry,” she said.
A spokesman for the Federal Railroad Administration, Steven W. Kulm, said his agency’s efforts had “contributed to the dramatic decrease in the loss of life and injury at highway-rail grade crossings.” The federal authorities “aggressively review” all reports of signal failures, Mr. Kulm said, adding, “More than 9 of every 10 accidents occurred when the grade crossing warning system was functioning properly.”
Federal rules define signal malfunctions as those that give drivers a warning of less than 20 seconds, or that activate when no train is approaching. The latter, called a false activation, is potentially dangerous because drivers may be led to ignore signals that they believe are not working. False activations are the most common signal problem, officials say. “Americans are impatient, they are only going to sit for so long,” said George Gavalla, a former top safety official with the railroad administration. “They will say the gates or lights are not functioning, and they are just going to go.”
For that reason, Mr. Gavalla said, after accidents the agency requires railroads to report any possible or confirmed signal that lasts more than 60 seconds without a train entering the crossing. “That’s outside what is considered to be a reasonable time frame,” Mr. Gavalla said.
Mike Stead, who oversees rail safety for the Illinois Commerce Commission, said he was unaware of any warning system in his state that was designed to operate longer than 60 seconds with no train present.
Warning signals can fail for various reasons, experts say. Salt, dirt, heavy rain and other substances can interfere with electrical conductivity and wiring. Poor maintenance by the railroads contributes to the problem. So does aging equipment, said Tom Woll of the railroad administration.
In some cases, records show, railroad workers have accidentally disconnected the warning system, or disabled signals during maintenance without providing alternate ways to warn drivers, like flagging them at the crossing. The latter issue was the subject of a 2002 agency advisory.
Even so, the problems have continued. In the crash near Rochester this year, CSX disabled a signal while trying to learn why it was malfunctioning. With no warning signal, trains were supposed to stop at the crossing, then have crews flag motorists, but on the morning of Feb. 3, a CSX train failed to stop, striking the car of John O’Connor and his wife, Jean, killing them.
Of the grade-crossing accidents in the Times analysis, roughly 17 percent involved rail maintenance or inspection equipment that, according to the rail industry, is not designed to activate the warning signals. Most of this equipment, the railroad administration said, weighs too little and has too few wheels to trigger the warning signal. Nearly 30 people were injured in these collisions from 1999 through 2003, government records show.
Proving that a signal malfunctioned can be difficult. In the more than 400 accidents in the Times analysis, 30 percent of the signal problems were listed as confirmed. The rest were listed as “alleged,” meaning that a technician checked the signal later and found no problem, said Ms. Wilhide, the spokeswoman for the Association of American Railroads.
But determining what happened at the time of an accident is possible only at those signals equipped with devices to record when a warning is activated and the position of the gates when the crash occurred. Most signals lack such devices. More often, the determination comes down to what witnesses say, and their accounts may differ.
Even when no accident occurs, the Federal Railroad Administration requires railroads to report to a separate database when signals fail to give drivers a sufficient warning. The required 20 seconds are necessary because gates do not descend instantly. They typically begin to lower four to five seconds after signal activation and take about five seconds to be fully deployed. The reports in this federal database, however, often provide few or no details on the signal malfunctions.
This database does not reflect every signal that fails to operate properly. The most common problems, false activations, are not included. Also, according to the rail industry, if a malfunctioning signal is taken out of service so it can be worked on, it does not have to be reported separately to the signal problem database - even if an accident occurs - because the signal did not technically fail; it was simply out of service.
In the summer of 2002, 27 short signals on the Canadian National tracks in Illinois were reported to the federal database. Some signals were short by only a second or two, but most reports did not specify the length of time. Records show that after the malfunctions were discovered,
Canadian National temporarily lowered the allowable train speed for all railroads using the affected tracks. The railroad administration said the problems “were primarily related to deposits from freight spillage that caused a buildup of material on the rail surface.” Since then, it said, steps have been taken to improve the sealing of railroad cars that carry grain.
An Amtrak spokesman said he was unaware of the Illinois short signals until The Times asked about them. The passenger service, he added, does not keep records of signal malfunctions that involve its trains. Amtrak’s president, David L. Gunn, said in an interview that he believed that freight railroads tried their best to maintain warning signals.
Even so, Mr. Gunn said he found the apparent breakdown in Illinois troublesome. “Absolutely,” he said. “Any failure like that will put somebody in danger.”
In the Michigan crash last April, that danger proved fatal to Melanie Pouch and her daughter, Meghann, according to witness accounts. Ten people said the train had entered the crossing when the warning gates began to descend. About a month later, the police officially concluded that the signal malfunctioned.
Nonetheless, Canadian National’s accident report still states that the signal is only alleged - but not proved - to have malfunctioned. “It’s clearly inappropriate of the railroad to call this an alleged malfunction,” said Bryan J. Waldman, a lawyer representing Mrs. Pouch’s estate. “Corporations speak about how injured people need to take responsibility for their own actions, and corporations need to take responsibility for their actions.”
In several fatal accidents, signal problems were reported before and after the accidents. For example, at the Bourbonnais crossing where 11 Amtrak passengers died, four false activations were confirmed in the year before the crash and two short signals occurred within a month afterward, records show. (Canadian National Railway did not, at the time, own that track, so it had no maintenance responsibility for that signal.)
The Rochester-area crossing where two people were killed had also been the subject of repeated complaints. And in the month after the Michigan crash, the police received two reports of Amtrak trains going through the crossing without the gates being properly lowered, records show. In that same period, two other crossings with signals on the Amtrak line in the area were reported to have malfunctioned.
A Canadian National spokesman denied that those malfunctions occurred.
Plain Dealer (Cleveland)
December 30, 2004
Thirty years ago today, the Cleveland City Council and the Cuyahoga County Board of Commissioners passed legislation creating the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority. They envisioned a countywide transit system that would absorb seven municipally run bus and train lines, all of which were hemorrhaging money. County voters overwhelmingly agreed to dedicate a penny sales tax to the new enterprise in July 1975, and the RTA began operations that September.
Initially, the RTA signed operating agreements with five suburban bus lines that enabled each to preserve a modicum of independence while transitioning into a single system. Nearly three decades later, two of those suburban systems — in Maple Heights and North Olmsted — still exist, to a degree, anyway. The RTA owns their buses, supplies replacement parts and sets routes and schedules. It also supplies the money to pay each line’s drivers, mechanics and managers, though they officially remain city employees and receive paychecks with two logos.
If money were bountiful, these arrangements — set to expire March 31 — would be harmless, even quaint. The North Olmsted line was established in 1931; it’s the oldest municipally owned and operated bus system in Ohio. Maple Heights started its service three years later. Both are objects of civic pride.
But these are tough budgetary times for the RTA and every other arm of government. RTA officials estimate that duplication, notably at the administrative level, in Maple Heights and North Olmsted comes to $4 million a year. For the RTA — whose sales tax revenue plunged in 2001 and has yet to recover — that’s an expense it can no longer bear if it wants to avoid fare hikes or service cuts.
And so, RTA General Manager Joe Calabrese and his board have told North Olmsted and Maple Heights that they want to move all employees on to the RTA payroll. They have promised that none of the 100 or so workers will be out of a job. They have also told the two communities that if they insist on maintaining independent systems, they will have to raise that extra $4 million themselves.
Officials in the two suburbs know that would be next to impossible. So they complain about their citizens losing a special service. Rep. Dennis Kucinich has joined the protest, railing against the RTA’s “hostile takeover effort” and suggesting that North Olmsted was targeted because it successfully resisted an attempt to cancel one of the RTA’s least-used routes.
No, Congressman, the RTA is doing what it should have done long ago: It is putting a stop to a waste of limited public resources. Change is never easy, but this one is coming almost 30 years late
Huntington Herald-Dispatch
December 30, 2004
HUNTINGTON — A citizen-based group is urging local officials to review its proposal for putting a rail-based electric streetcar line in downtown Huntington.
The newly formed Huntington Electric Trolley Association has proposed that the line be placed on 4th Avenue between Hal Greer Boulevard and 8th Street, said Sam St. Clair, a member of the group who has created a Web site and conducted a feasibility study on the idea. “We’re not a bunch of out-of-town experts,” St. Clair said. “We’re just trolley people who want to see this idea become a reality.”
An electric streetcar line, a form of transport that was prevalent in the Tri- State from the 1880s to the 1930s, would provide several significant benefits to the downtown, St. Clair said.
In addition to enhancing tourism and transportation options, an electric streetcar line would be a vital component in attracting Marshall University students to Pullman Square and the rest of the downtown, St. Clair said. “It would bring a lot of fun and creativity to the downtown and create a conduit for commerce along 4th Avenue,” he said.
The streetcar system would consist of one track with an overhead electric wire, similar to vintage cable cars in San Francisco. St. Clair said he envisions a replica streetcar from the early 1900s moving up and down 4th Avenue, stopping on every block as it would pick up and drop off passengers.
Based on existing streetcar systems across the country, the association estimates that the system proposed for Huntington would cost about $2.8 million. That estimate includes track, power distribution, vehicles, passenger stops and a maintenance facility. It also includes roadway and parking mitigation costs.
On the Web
For more information about the Huntington Electric Trolley Association’s proposal for a rail-based electric streetcar line in downtown Huntington, go to www.huntingtontrolley.com.
The association also suggests that the streetcar system could be operated either by The Transit Authority, a nonprofit organization with a combination of paid and volunteer help, or contracted out to other existing transportation companies.
The primary source of funding for the system would be provided by federal dollars, most of which would come from the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century, according to the association’s Web site. There are two sections of the legislation which have funded existing vintage streetcar projects, the Web site states.
The next step of the association’s proposal is to build a “grassroots” movement that can capture public and private financial support, St. Clair said. “We need the city and The Transit Authority to jump on board,” St. Clair said. “We have all of these synergies right here, so let’s put our heads together and keep the momentum going for Pullman Square and the redevelopment of the downtown.”
Vickie Shaffer, general manager of TTA, said she has had brief discussions about the proposal with St. Clair, but knows very little about it. “I know that The Transit Authority certainly wouldn’t have any money to build a streetcar line and operate it under its current funding structure,” Shaffer said. “By no means am I opposed to it. It’s a wonderful idea, but I know there is a lot of devil in the details.”
Mayor David Felinton, who met with St. Clair a few weeks ago, said the streetcar proposal is worth pursuing. “It could bring something very unique to the downtown and the region, and I think it really goes well with the theme of trying to bring the Marshall economy into the downtown,” Felinton said.
Huntington Herald-Dispatch
Dec. 30, 2004
The beginnings of electric streetcars in Huntington are unclear, but some reports say the groundwork was laid in 1883 when a horse-drawn rail car line was built along 3rd Avenue between 7th and 23rd streets.
On June 13, 1888, local businessman J.L. Caldwell was granted a charter to operate the Huntington Electric Light and Street Railway on the route of the old horse car line. Caldwell extended it to the west bank of the Guyandotte River, and operations began Nov. 1, 1888.
A second route, the Huntington Belt Line, was chartered to run south from 4th Avenue and 10th Street to 6th Avenue, then to 16th Street, under the C&O Railway yard to 8th Avenue, then to the railroad’s shops at 26th Street.
In 1892, the new line was extended westward on 4th Avenue/Washington Avenue into Central City (now West Huntington). That’s also the year the Belt Line converted from mules to electric power.
The companies were merged on July 18, 1892, becoming the Consolidated Light and Railway Co., with 7.5 miles of track.
Shortly thereafter, Consolidated built a horse car line to shuttle passengers from the new B&O station down 2nd Avenue from 11th Street and out 9th Street to 7th Avenue and the C&O station.
The Ohio Valley Electric Railway was organized Sept. 27, 1899, and bought out Consolidated. Backed by U.S. Sen. Johnson Newlon Camden, the company bought the Ashland and Catlettsburg Street Railway and the Ironton Petersburg (later Coal Grove) Street Railway. By the fall of 1900, new track had connected the West Virginia and Kentucky segments of the line and the combined properties — including the route in Ohio, which was reached by ferry boat — became known as the Camden Interstate Railway Co.
Several growth projects followed. Several routes were double-tracked and a loop that connected the two main lines in downtown Huntington was enlarged a couple of times. The Ironton line was extended to Hanging Rock, Ohio, in 1904; the company opened a branch from the mainline along 29th Street to Moore Street in Ashland in 1906; the 3rd Avenue line was stretched across the Guyandotte River to Buffington Street in 1907.
The company — now boasting 33.7 miles of track — changed its name back to Ohio Valley Electric Railway Co. in 1908.
In 1913, OVE leased the defunct Huntington-Charleston Railway and opened a new route up 8th Street, then east on 12th and Charleston avenues and up Norway Avenue to Spring Hill Cemetery. This Ritter Park line was extended a few blocks to Olive Street in Gallaher Village in 1922. The final new route, opened in 1916, ran down 11th Avenue from 8th Street to 5th Street West.
The company was bought by the American Railway Co. in 1914, which in turn was purchased by the American Gas and Electric Co. in 1926. That’s about the time private automobiles began eating into the streetcars’ fare box receipts, and the company began experimenting with buses. Beginning in 1930, it began abandoning routes — a process accelerated by damages from the 1937 flood.
The last streetcar ran from Guyandotte to Vernon Street in Westmoreland and back to the car barn at Adams Avenue and 18th Street West, arriving there at 1 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 7, 1937. When the hum of the wires was silenced forever, motorman “Uncle Billy” Jordan cried, several of his peers told a reporter years later.
The Patriot Ledger (Quincy, MA)
December 30, 2004
The MBTA has won another legal battle in its attempt to restore commuter rail service to Scituate, bringing the 12-year permitting process one step closer to finality.
An administrative magistrate has upheld the state’s decision to award the MBTA a needed environmental permit, dealing yet another blow to the efforts of a local anti-train group determined to delay the project or derail it altogether.
While boasting about another victory for the project, state transportation officials bashed the efforts of the group, the Hingham-based Advocates for Transportation Alternatives, saying their “frivolous” legal actions will only delay the project and drive up its $470 million price tag.
“For the eighth time in a row, a judge has found in favor of the MBTA and against the delaying tactics of AFTA,” state transportation spokesman Jon Carlisle said. “These legal actions taken against us by AFTA just constitute more delays and more cost to the public as these opponents use tactics that everyone knows won’t prevail.”
The latest legal decision clears the way for Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Robert Golledge to issue a water quality certification permit for the rail project. A permit is needed for projects that involve filling in wetlands or other water bodies, and ensures the project meets federal and state clean water standards.
The water quality certificate was one of the last remaining permits needed for the project.
Advocates for Transportation Alternatives had argued that the Department of Environmental Protection did not take into consideration new information about the Scituate water supply when it approved the permit last summer.
The group, led by former state Environmental Affairs Secretary John Bewick, said construction of the Greenbush station and storage yard in Scituate could harm a pair of newly mapped tributaries and an underground aquifer located on the site. “My concern is for the future growth of the Scituate water supply,” Bewick said yesterday.
The town’s main reservoir is located several hundred feet from the station site, however, the MBTA has insisted that its project will not have any effect on Scituate’s water supply.
The Advocates for Transportation Alternatives lawsuit was dismissed after Administrative Magistrate Mark L. Silverstein found the group lacked the ability to appeal because it failed to participate during the certificate’s public comment period in 2002, that the project hadn’t changed in size or scope, and that the project is in the public’s interest.
Bewick said he hadn’t read the decision, and withheld comment on it.
The project has been under constant environmental review since 1992. Carlisle said Silverstein’s decision shows that the MBTA has been doing everything by the book.
Business Journal of Phoenix
December 30, 2004
Valley Metro Rail is inviting bids to construct the first eight miles of the 20-mile light rail system stretching from northwest Phoenix to Tempe and Mesa.
The section includes Phoenix’s central business district and stretches north and east from downtown Phoenix.
The scope of work for the contract includes:
- Installation of embedded track.
- Station platform foundations.
- Roadway widening and pavement.
- Traffic signals, signing and marking and street lighting.
- Bridge and building structures and retaining walls.
- Relocation of utilities, including water, sewer and storm drain, and roadway drainage.
- Landscaping, irrigation and electrical systems.
Bid documents are available at the Valley Metro Rail offices at 411 N. Central Ave., Suite 200, in Phoenix. A complete set of bid documents is $250, and may also be purchased on CD in PDF format for $5. Contact Valley Metro Rail at 602-271-9324 prior to picking up the bid documents.
Any addendums to the documents will be sent only to plan holders and designated plan rooms. Sealed bids will be opened on March 2 at 3 p.m.
Denver Business Journal
December 31, 2004
Although the first groundbreaking is years away, FasTracks — the $4.7 billion, 12-year construction project that will build 119 miles of railways throughout the metro area — will move into 2005 with the start of its new tax and the search for a company to oversee the effort.
On Jan. 1, the Regional Transportation District, which covers all or part of seven counties in the Denver metro area, will begin collecting the new tax dedicated to the FasTracks project. Voters approved the tax increase – of four-tenths of a cent per $1 worth of goods, to a total of one cent per $1 — Nov. 2, and the increase is intended to cover 51 percent of FasTracks’ cost. Federal funds will pay for the remainder.
The money will help pay for 119 miles of rail lines, parking garages, suburb-to-suburb bus routes, buses and rail cars that will snake from Boulder to Douglas County, from Denver International Airport to Golden, when the project is complete in 2017.
And on Jan. 3, the first business day of the new year, RTD expects to issue a Request for Proposals to engineering, design and construction companies to help the mass transit agency steer the massive construction effort.
FasTracks is the largest mass transit project in the nation. With the new tax giving a solid funding base, engineering companies from across the country and the world have been eagerly awaiting the competition to get FasTracks’ first multimillion-dollar contract for program management.
The winner of the competition essentially would be “an extension of our staff. That’s a very important contract,” said Cal Marsella, RTD’s general manager.
The company, or team of companies, will help RTD manage the cost of construction, the RFPs to build the lines, and help decide whether large chunks of the project — such as the train from downtown to DIA – should be a design-build package or broken into separate contracts limited to design-only and construction-only, Marsella said.
The program-management contract will run for six years, with an option to extend it for another six, or the expected duration of FasTracks, RTD officials said. Responses are due Feb. 21, and the contract is expected to be signed by summer.
Marsella said the winning company or team must have experience building mass-transit projects. He said he’ll also look closely at the people who would be assigned to FasTracks if the company wins the job. “We’re purchasing professional expertise,” Marsella said. “We need to know their background and skill sets and skill levels. If there are project management staff that has had problems with cost containment and overruns, that would not weigh favorably upon them.”
Proposals also would be reviewed for how the winning company or team expects to be paid and what innovations it might suggest to help RTD run FasTracks.
Also in 2005, RTD will seek proposals for companies to do Environmental Impact Studies on parts of FasTracks that still need one. And during the first quarter, RTD will be looking for an appraiser to help it figure out the value of corridors and buildings the agency wants to buy from the Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad companies, Marsella said.
The corridors would be used for FasTracks. “We’ve been meeting with both railroads to determine what to look at,” Marsella said. “Now we’re in purchase-driven negotiations. No one was going to spend a lot of money on this before [FasTracks] was passed.”
RTD can’t condemn railroad lands it needs, as it can do with private property, and must reach a negotiated purchase price. “They are going to make a business decision based on their needs,” Marsella said of the railroads.
Denver’s huge transportation project, T-REX, will continue forward on Interstate 25 south of downtown to Lincoln Avenue in Douglas County, and on I-225 from I-25 to Parker Road.
The $1.72 billion project is 78 percent complete, on schedule and on budget, said Pauletta Puncerelli, spokeswoman for the oversight team made up of employees from RTD and the Colorado Department of Transportation. “The contractor has done a great job of keeping this project on schedule and on budget, and minimizing inconvenience to the public every day,” Puncerelli said. The project will widen the highways along I-25 and I-225 as well as build a light-rail line and station stops along the highway. It’s expected to be complete at the end of 2006.
RTD’s new maintenance facility for the light-rail trains, at Elati Street and Santa Fe Drive, planned to begin operations Jan. 2, Puncerelli said. “All operators will start and end their shifts there,” she said.
The first light-rail cars will begin testing the line between Broadway and Steele Street in March, and construction of the new Colorado Boulevard and Hampden Avenue bridges over I-25 will be done by the end of the year, Puncerelli said.
Work also will continue on the interchange of I-25 and I-225. The tunnel from I-225 to southbound I-25 will open to two lanes, alleviating a bottleneck, and the flyover from Belleview Avenue to northbound I-25 is expected to open in the spring, she said.
The parking garage at Arapahoe Road and I-25 will be finished and put into use as a new Park-n-Ride, and new lanes will open on I-25 between Broadway and University Boulevard.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
December 31, 2004
A plan to build a Belt Line of parks flanked by shops and residences in Atlanta took a small but important step forward Thursday when an investor bought a crucial strip of land.
A consortium led by Gwinnett County investor Wayne Mason closed a deal with Norfolk Southern Corp. on a dormant railroad corridor. The sale price of the 66 acres was not disclosed, but is thought to be about $25 million. That is nearly $380,000 an acre for a sliver no more than 200 feet wide. The piece of land runs 4.6 miles from I-85 near the Ga. 400 interchange to DeKalb Avenue, east of downtown Atlanta.
The land Mason’s group bought is the only segment of the Belt Line likely to be developed anytime soon. The owners of the other stretches have said they have no interest in selling their pieces. Atlanta is interested in helping to provide funds to jump-start the project, but it will be more than a year before a system can be created.
One of the landowners, CSX, is running about 1,400 cars a day along its tracks in northwest Atlanta. The state’s railroad lines along the Belt Line are either leased to CSX or reserved for commuter rail service.
Mason wants to develop his tract as swiftly as possible. He’s talked with several metro developers whom he said have the appetite and money to start projects soon. Mason, 64, said the entire project probably will not be finished in his lifetime, but he does expect to see a good bit of it completed. “This area represents an incredible revitalization opportunity for the city,” said Mason, who has marveled at the development potential of intown Atlanta. “We remain interested in the opportunities for a live-work-play environment, including the feasibility of greenways and park spaces, transit possibilities and housing choices.”
The idea of creating a Belt Line around the urban core has captured the attention of groups that want to create new parks that would be linked by some form of transit running along trails for cyclists and pedestrians.
Over the past several years, Atlanta’s population has grown by about 5,000 a year. Developers have been on the lookout for new areas that could be turned into residential use.
The tract bought by Mason’s group is well-situated for such use. It passes by communities that helped lead the intown renaissance — those around Ansley Park and Piedmont Park — before cutting into less upscale neighborhoods and ending at DeKalb Avenue.
On Thursday, Mason said Jordan, Jones & Goulding would conduct feasibility studies for the new purchase. The firm has worked on a number of urban renewal projects in metro Atlanta, including the Town Green project in Duluth.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
December 31, 2004
For seven years, I have been proud to serve on the MARTA board of directors as a representative of the residents of Fulton County. It is a responsibility I take very seriously, as should all of our members and the authorities who appoint us.
As directors, we are tasked with setting policies that will allow MARTA to continue to provide successful public transit well into the future, along with governance that instills confidence in the taxpayers who rely on, and invest in, the MARTA system.
Last week, the MARTA board voted to approve a piece of proposed legislation that would modify the state MARTA Act and allow us to remove individual members who have violated MARTA’s code of ethics.
Currently, this is the sole responsibility of the member’s appointing jurisdiction. I strongly oppose this proposed modification.
The fact remains that local governments have a responsibility to appoint quality people to serve on the board, to respect rules and regulations under which directors serve, and to provide oversight for individual service. We should not make changes to absolve appointing entities of that responsibility.
Rather than asking for the ability to remove directors, we should remain focused on strengthening service standards and ethics requirements for those we serve — - all of which should be considered as monitored appointments.
This legislation would be a knee-jerk response to a situation requiring more of a thorough, objective review, as well as responses from respective local government. It also appears to be an interim solution to Gwinnett County’s refusal to address the ethics accusation against its appointee.
Neither Gwinnett nor Clayton counties should have the right to appoint individuals to the MARTA board when those counties are not mandated to pay into the authority. Gwinnett’s refusal even to address the ethics issue shows a blatant lack of respect for residents of DeKalb and Fulton counties and Atlanta whose money is being spent.
Additionally, Gwinnett’s refusal to address the issue is a clear and telling indication that the county has “no dog in the [MARTA] hunt,” and is totally unaffected by anything concerning the nation’s ninth largest transit system.
If it were their tax money, however, one can definitely believe there would be screams aplenty from Gwinnett leaders and residents alike.
Although Clayton County has its C-Tran and Gwinnett County treks county-financed buses into downtown Atlanta for residents at peak morning and evening hours, this self-serving legislation should be collectively defeated. The end result could be nothing more than a hindrance for taxpayers who depend on viable and efficient public transportation.
Altamont Press Newswire
Dec. 31, 2004
Out of a pile of rusted abandoned junk rescued from a pasture, a group of orical enthusiasts hopes to restore a piece of Texas transportation history.
Known as Car 524, it’s touted as the last surviving electric interurban passenger car from what once was a thriving commuter rail line that connected Houston to communities east of the city.
Starting in 1927, the Houston North Shore railway was the first line to connect Houston to the rural area of Goose Creek, which later combined to become part of Baytown. A major purpose of the line was to ferry workers to the Goose Creek Oilfield and what then was known as the Humble Oil Refinery in Baytown.
Highlands, about 20 miles east of Houston and just northwest of Baytown, was one of the stops along the way. “The railway system was such a significant event coming through Highlands,” said Jim Strouhal, a restoration volunteer. “It is the reason Highlands is here today.”
The restoration of Car 524 is the work of the Highlands Heritage Museum and Preservation Project. The finished product, which could take years to complete, will be displayed in a downtown Highlands park. The group’s acquisition of the car from a weedy field in Channelview would appear to be the result of good luck and good timing.
With the car deteriorating on the private property, the Gulf Coast Chapter of the National Railway Society had been trying unsuccessfully to buy it for nearly 10 years. When Highlands preservation project leaders inquired about the car in October, it was only a matter of days before its scheduled trip to a scrap yard. “The key to getting the car was not letting it go to waste,” Strouhal told The Baytown Sun.
But when the land the car sat on recently was sold, the new owner just wanted it off the property. Strouhal and others using a flatbed truck got to haul it away for free.
Decades of weathering rotted wood window frames and left metal parts rusty. At some point, somebody painted it pale blue. “We’re going to have to do a lot of woodwork and sandblasting to stabilize it,” said Gary Wiggins, a volunteer. “The main thing is it won’t deteriorate any more.”
Restoration experts from across the state have assured project leaders the job is possible since the original structure remains intact. “It suffered from a lack of attention, but there is enough metalwork left to be an authentic replacement,” Strouhal said.
The electric interurban railway had replaced the traditional steam engine rail system. Then it became obsolete with improvements in roads and the switch to bus transportation. Car 524 made its last official trip in 1948. It was bought by a company that used it as office space. Most of the interior seating was removed, shelves were added and a steel cage around the exterior served as a type of burglar bars.
Harry K. Johnson, a Highlands settler, invested $2 million in the 1920s to build the system tracks, which he eventually sold to the Missouri Pacific Railroad.
The restoration workers moved the car to a site behind the home Johnson also built in the 1920s and where Johnson’s daughter-in-law, 85-year-old Clothilde Johnson, still lives.
She says she doesn’t mind having the large blue monstrosity in her back yard, and she likes all the visitors who come to repair it. “It’s been in my life a long time,” she said. “I thought it was nice they brought it back here.”
The Boston Globe
December 31, 2004
Riders resigned to dingy environs and surly workers in Boston’s century-old subway system got a glimpse of the future yesterday, as the T opened state-of-the-art security monitoring booths at South and North stations that officials say are the first steps in a $204 million upgrade.
The makeover includes new security and communications systems, automated fare collection, and a new focus on customer service.
The two security hubs, opened just in time for the New Year’s Eve crowds tonight, will be followed by four more glass-walled monitoring booths, to be installed at the Downtown Crossing, Government Center, Airport, and Back Bay stations.
Over the next several months, all stations will get a new streamlined look, including retractable smoked-glass entry gates to replace the three-pronged metal-pole turnstiles. And over the next year, vending machines will be installed to replace token booth workers, who will be retrained to be customer service agents roaming the stations.
“Nobody else in the country is doing anything close to this,” said MBTA general manager Michael Mulhern. “People say, ‘Oh, the MBTA always does things badly,’ but we’re going to be a model. For the subway environment, this is going to be a remarkable transformation.”
Mulhern acknowledged that the improvements, financed out of the T’s capital budget, are a contrast to the cuts in late-night and regional bus service that the agency may have to make by next summer to close a $16 million gap in its operating budget. But he said the upgrades, which will be phased in next year, will ultimately save $36 million a year, through labor savings, decreased fare evasion, and other efficiencies.
Officials of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority combined the best practices of the London, Vienna, and Singapore subway systems for the “new approach to station management” and paid special attention to post-Sept. 11 security concerns, Mulhern said.
Once a station is upgraded, passengers will be able to push a call button and ask the security monitors for assistance or ask questions; the security monitors can either answer or summon one of the roaming customer service agents. The security monitors can also watch the bank of flat-panel screens for trash fires, broken-down escalators, pickpockets, or other suspicious activity.
“We can see what’s going on in any of these stations,” said Cheryl Vaughan, a former fare collector who was retrained and now watches four computer screens inside the South Station security hub. “As a fare collector it was always rush, rush, rush. We can inter act with passengers better, and it’s more relaxed.”
The South Station security booth is in a prominent place on the mezzanine entrance level for the Red and Silver lines. “We deliberately put this where it would be most visible,” said Stephen Berrang, who is leading the conversion to automated fare collection. “It makes the customers feel better and the people up to no good more wary. They know they are being watched.”
Now, the T monitors delays and mechanical problems at its Operations Control Center on High Street, where the entire subway system is displayed on a giant screen. But the new security monitoring hubs will provide a new way to share information with riders, said Jeffrey Parker, head of the subway division.
The new system is partly a response to longstanding complaints about the T’s antiquated public address system, in which announcements are often inaudible and inadequate, usually merely annoying but possibly dangerous in emergencies.
In addition to the new wiring and dozens of new closed-circuit video cameras, the subway system will soon get a new radio communications system.
The shift to automated fare collection the use of the new Charlie card, as well as tickets dispensed by vending machines was set in motion 10 years ago. The first automated fare collection boxes will go on Washington Street Silver Line buses in February, followed by the Blue Line in the spring. All other subway, bus, and ferry lines are set to be converted starting in the fall, with completion targeted for summer 2006.
The T decided to change the way stations are managed and monitored at the same time the new automated fare equipment was being installed, Mulhern said.
While the 340 fare collectors currently dispensing tokens will become security monitors or roaming customer service agents or fill other positions, 57 positions will be eliminated, which the T hopes to do through retirements and attrition.
Steve MacDougall, business agent for the Boston Carmen’s Union Local 589, said the union is negotiating with the T on new job classifications and pay. There may be tensions about how many positions are reduced, he said, but “our hope is we don’t get to that type of battle.”
The Houston Chronicle
December 31, 2004
THE Metro light rail line from downtown to Reliant Stadium and the South Loop made its debut last January with much fanfare, a Super Bowl rush and a big bang, or rather, a lot of them. Houston drivers initially reacted to the sleek, quiet electric trams the way a deer reacts to headlights on a roadway through the woods, either freezing in fear on the tracks or making illegal turns into the oncoming train’s path.
While Metro officials hailed an initial ridership of more than a half million that first month, rail opponents instead highlighted the eight train-auto collisions that occurred. Jokes abounded about light rail being a Darwinian solution that applied the principle of survival of the fittest to winnow the city’s swarms of reckless drivers.
Things would get worse, culminating in a record 11 wrecks on the rail in March. Metro officials blamed bad drivers for the problems, pointing out that the accident rate in the city is two and a half times the national average. In the Texas Medical Center the accident rate was four times the national average before the light rail was built.
The embarrassment of leading the nation’s light rail systems in accidents in the first year of operations forced Metro planners to invite several groups of transit experts to visit the city and make recommendations. The agency acted quickly to improve warning signs along the light rail route and boosted police presence to ticket errant drivers.
A combination of the improvements and the passage of time seemed to work. Of 61 rail-auto collisions this year, only 9 have occurred in the last quarter of 2004. According to Metro, of all the mishaps, only one could be blamed on a train operator. By the end of November, the train ridership had reached nearly 7 million boardings, with mostly positive feedback on the experience.
Now that drivers in downtown and the corridor through the Medical Center apparently have learned to live with light rail, Metro planners must absorb the lessons of those early months of operation. There is no excuse for allowing another rash of accidents when future light rail lines are extended into other communities unfamiliar with trains at grade level.
Let’s hope the improvements that worked to cut the number of accidents involving the current rail line will make the inauguration of new routes far less traumatic to both drivers and passengers.
AFX - Asia
December 31, 2004
China has earmarked more than 240 bln yuan to extend the country’s railway network over the next six years in a plan to ease transport bottlenecks and encourage motorists to leave their cars at home.
The Ministry of Railways and several provincial governments have agreed to invest in a slew of new passenger-transport rail lines, cross-city lines and stations.
The new infrastructure is part of an ambitious plan to extend the country’s railway network to 100,000 km from the current 73,000 km by 2020, at a cost of 100 bln yuan a year, according to state media reports. “Although economic growth next year is expected to fall, railway capacity is still far from meeting increased demand,” Wang Derong, executive president of the China Communications and Transportation Association told XFN-Asia. “It’s a problem that cannot be resolved in the short-term.”
Work has already started in the southeastern province of Fujian, where the government will invest 100 bln yuan over five years to construct five new railway lines, according to the Hong Kong-based Wen Wei Po newspaper. Ground has already been broken on the first line, which will connect the province’s capital Fuzhou with Wenzhou in the eastern province of Zhejiang.
Elsewhere, as much as 80 bln yuan will be spent to build 12 new railway lines in the southwestern province of Yunnan, the China Daily reported.
But the jewel in the crown of the new system will be in the nearby province of Guangdong, where work has begun on a 13 bln yuan mega-station. Located in Guangzhou, the rail station, which will be able to handle 80 mln passengers a year by 2020, is part of a plan to create a new multi-billion dollar rail network in the province.
It will be the terminus of the Beijing-Guangzhou express line and will also connect with the future high speed Wuhan-Guangzhou railway, which will begin construction next year at a cost of 8.2 bln usd, Xinhua news agency reported.
The station will also be the hub of a 16.8 bln usd high-speed train network for the Pearl River Delta that will link Guangzhou to Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Macau and Zhuhai. The network is expected to go into operation by 2010, while construction on nine new lines in the network will begin in 2005.
In the north, Beijing and Tianjin have finalized plans to build a high-speed rail link, costing 14.3 bln yuan, the China Daily reported. Work is expected to start in June 2005 and the service should be operating in 2007.
The capital is also expected to finish building four subway or light-rail lines before the Olympic Games.
Meanwhile, Shanghai has won approval to start work on its 7.6 bln yuan Pudong railway project which will link the districts of Jinshan, Fengxian, Nanhui and Pudong, connecting to the existing railway stations of Ruanxiang in the south and Zhangmiao in the north, the paper said.
(1 usd = 8.3 yuan)
The Scotsman
December 31, 2004
MORE journeys were made on Britain’s railways in 2004 than in any of the previous 45 years, figures have revealed.
The Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC) said 1.05 billion journeys were made on the network this year - the highest since 1959 and 4 per cent up on 2003. The increase on last year means more than a million extra journeys are being made every week.
In Scotland, the line with the greatest increase in journeys is the Edinburgh to Bathgate service, with the number of trips rising by 71 per cent compared with 2003, from 747,959 to 1.2 million.
The service between Bristol to Plymouth enjoyed the greatest increase in Britain - up 100 per cent, from 25,000 to 50,000 journeys.
The routes from Manchester to York, Birmingham to Sheffield and Brighton to London have also had large increases in passenger numbers.
George Muir, the director general of ATOC, said Britain had the fastest -growing railway network in Europe. “More people than ever are voting with their feet and travelling by train, which is good news for the environment,” he said. “With nearly 1,400 new trains introduced this year alone and an additional 320 new timetabled services running in the new annual timetable, rail travel is attracting more passengers than in the late 1950s when we had a much bigger rail network. It also means that we have the fastest-growing railway in Europe.”
The figures were also welcomed by Alistair Darling, the Transport Secretary. “The railways are now carrying more people than at any time since 1959,” he said. “The changes we are putting in place, together with increasing investment, are essential if we are all to see even more improvement in services in the future.”
However, the SNP sounded a note of warning, claiming that much work needed to be done to keep people using the railways. A spokesman said: “While we welcome any increase in rail passengers, it is still the case that Scotland’s rail infrastructure lags behind a lot of our European competitors and much needs to be done to bring it up to standard.
“The development of a bullet train between Edinburgh and Glasgow would be one initiative which would bring people back to the railways in their droves and keep them there. We must also bear in mind that there are great variations across the country in terms of levels of service and this also needs to be addressed.”
ATOC said there had been significant increases in the number of journeys in all three categories of passenger rail travel during 2004, compared with the previous year. The number of regional journeys rose 7.8 per cent, long -distance trips were up 4.1 per cent and journeys in London and south-east England increased by 2.6 per cent.
The number of passenger trips made in 2004 is up about 38 per cent on the 1995 figure, although certain routes have experienced even greater increases in usage.
Bob Crow, the general secretary of the RMT, the UK’s biggest rail union, said the figures were “excellent news” for Britain’s railways and a welcome boost to the environment. He also called for the entire network to be put back into state ownership.
“Let’s hope that this is the start of a new golden age for rail,” he said. “We need to ensure that more people are encouraged out of their cars and on to the railways - a safe, efficient and environmentally-friendly means of travel. Public ownership has already proved to be good for Network Rail and its maintenance and for South Eastern Trains. The government should now go the whole hog and bring the entire network back into public ownership.”