Driving Takes Its Toll New York Times Company September 4, 2004 This summer, Americans continued to rack up highway miles. Even while higher gas prices raised vacationing and commuting costs, most drivers acted as though this was a temporary glitch, complacently looking forward to the return of reasonable prices. For decades, Americans have grown too accustomed to cheap gas, buying S.U.V.’s and V-8’s, driving more and more miles per capita every year. We are now more dependent on imported oil than ever before. But is there any viable alternative? Our own history offers us a possible solution. Starting in 1916, the federal government dispensed millions of dollars in highway grants to states, without collecting a penny from consumers of the new highways. There was no federal gas tax, and tolls were banned on the new roads. But desperate for cash and pressed to pay their share of road-building expenses, states tried to pass on some of the costs to drivers. At first this was only through state gas taxes. But these levies were effectively limited by lobbyists from auto manufacturers, oil companies, tire makers, highway engineers and road builders — all of whom wanted to increase car use as much as possible. With this source of revenue capped, some states turned to toll roads. When Pennsylvania announced plans to build a toll-financed turnpike in 1937, Washington gasped. If other states followed Pennsylvania’s lead, then federal bureaucrats would lose the control they had enjoyed for more than 20 years. They tried to squash the project, issuing pessimistic traffic forecasts to scare away lenders. But the Pennsylvania Turnpike was built anyway, and was hugely successful. Within a year, New York, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maine, Maryland and Massachusetts entered the toll-road business. A decade later, when the Eisenhower administration was preparing the Interstate highway legislation, even more states — New Jersey, Colorado, Indiana, Ohio, Oklahoma, North Carolina and Texas — had joined the movement. It was clear: drivers understood that tolls were a fair way to pass on the high costs of road-building to highway-users, in direct proportion to how much they drive. But despite its proven viability, this alternative became the proverbial road not taken. The Interstate legislation, as enacted in 1956, put a stop to new toll-road construction, and we instead proceeded with a socialized transportation system, available to the consumer at no charge, mostly paid for from general revenue. Toll-road construction ceased, and with the exception of a handful of projects, all new highways built since have been freeways. There is a mistaken notion that American drivers pay for their roads through gas taxes. Actually, even though states collect gas taxes and a modest federal levy was imposed to pay part of the Interstate expenses, the total of these charges never amounted to more than one-third of highway costs. Such taxes, adjusted for inflation, have actually decreased, and efforts to increase them are politically risky, even though each 1-cent rise in the gas tax costs the average driver less than $8 a year. In practice, our roads and highways have been underwritten by general taxation. With gas taxes and tolls capped by effective lobbying, this annual subsidy has grown, amounting to billions of dollars annually. With driving so generously subsidized and the true costs hidden, Americans have driven more and more miles each year. Now we need to reconsider the road not taken. We must stop encouraging over-dependence on oil by under-pricing our roads and hiding the true costs of highway driving. Of course, to impose new gas taxes on top of the recent spike in prices may be politically impossible. But if oil prices drop, we should be ready to raise gas taxes. In the meantime, we should expand the use of tolls to finance expressways. The toll roads built in the 1940’s and 1950’s still exist, although some have been converted to free highways. But instead of removing tolls from these roads, as is occasionally suggested, we should go in the other direction. All of our major Interstates, across the country, should have tolls that are high enough to defray the full costs of building and maintaining the highway network and also high enough to make us change our driving habits. We don’t have to bring back the frustrating traffic bottlenecks at old- fashioned tollbooths now that the logistics of collecting tolls have been greatly simplified by systems like E-ZPass, FastLane and SmartTag. But by permanently raising the artificially low cost of driving, we could encourage people to drive fewer miles and to place a higher value on fuel efficiency, ultimately reducing our dependence on imported oil. Instead of letting drivers onto our expensive, world-class highway system free, we should charge a fair price by imposing more and higher tolls, and raising gas taxes much higher, permanently. Otherwise, our insatiable need for petroleum will continue to distort our foreign policy, to undermine the stability of our economy and to damage the environment. Owen D. Gutfreund, the author of “20th-Century Sprawl: Highways and the Reshaping of the American Landscape,” is a professor of history and urban studies at Barnard College.

Deseret Morning News editorial Deseret Morning News September 4, 2004 Winner: Mass transit is one of those things few people ever consider unless something goes wrong. It’s a rare person who calls to say thank you just because the train came on time. But when the demand is especially heavy, as it was for Thursday night’s University of Utah football game, we feel the folks in charge of TRAX deserve some kudos for handling things in style. The Utah Transit Authority planned for the crush with extra trains, and it also had to keep its normal rush-hour commuters moving, as well. There were some delays. After the game, some fans had to wait a few minutes before they could find space in which to squeeze on board. But all-in-all, there were few complaints. As long as people spent the next day talking about the Utes’ victory, and not about the trains, UTA can chalk it up as a success.

Noise doesn’t deter home buyers; South Pasadena project borders Metro Gold Line Pasadena Star-News September 4, 2004 Many townsfolk rue the day the bell-ringing, 22-hour-per-day Metro Gold Line came to town. Others have clambered to become the train’s next-door neighbor, paying top dollar for the proximity. Mission Meridian Village, a complex of 67 artists’ lofts, townhomes, duplexes, flats and single-family houses, is taking shape a block north of the Gold Line station on Mission Street. So far, 55 homes are in escrow, and some buyers could move in by December, according to the developers, Creative Housing Associates and Lambert Development Company. New homes are a rarity and highly coveted in built-out, small-town South Pasadena, with its good schools, charming neighborhoods and majestic trees. And the prices for Mission Meridian Village reflect all those selling points. The smallest is a one-bedroom, 1 1/2- bathroom flat, 763 square feet, which lists for $334,500. The most expensive is a 2,440-square-foot house on the corner of Magnolia Street and Meridian Avenue, which will sell for $850,000. In light of ongoing efforts by city officials to bring noise relief to those who live within earshot of the Gold Line, why would anyone voluntarily set up housekeeping next to the tracks Haven’t they heard the impassioned pleas of Gold Line neighbors who say sleep deprivation has become a way of life? That earplugs and “white noise’ machines are essential accessories? Michael Dieden, president of Creative Housing, said his Los Angeles company made it clear to prospective buyers that living in Mission Meridian Village means train horns and crossing gate bells all day, every day, from 4 a.m. to 2 a.m. “The bells are extremely annoying buyer beware,’ Dieden said. The units closest to the train station are the lofts, designed with red-brick facades. More important than their retro look meant to match the former Mission Arroyo Hotel, a city Cultural Landmark, next door are the lofts’ dual- pane windows. Those will help buffer residents from the sound of the bells next to the rail crossing at Mission Street and Meridian Avenue. South Pasadena negotiated with the light rail system’s builders, the Los Angeles-to-Pasadena Metro Blue Line Construction Authority, and its operators, the MTA, to enact several changes that would make the Gold Line run more quietly and with fewer vibrations. Those measures are awaiting approval from the state Public Utilities Commission, which regulates railroads. “Hopefully, MTA and the PUC are going to cause some relief here, on both the decibel level and the time those bells go off,’ said Dieden, who testified during an Aug. 24 public hearing before the PUC judge evaluating the proposed settlement. “We’re trying to do (transit-adjacent) projects in communities around California, and we’re pro-train,’ Dieden said. One request is for the bells to go silent when the crossing gates completely lower and reach the horizontal position, another that the bell- ringing cease between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. The project, which broke ground in February 2003 five months before the Gold Line began passenger service will feature underground parking, including 142 spaces for rail riders. Five storefronts below the red brick lofts will serve the neighborhood and rail passengers. Tenants likely will include a bakery cafe, with dining on an outdoor patio; a flower shop, and, Dieden hopes, a small market, international newsstand and bookstore. Designed by Moule & Polyzoides Architects and Urbanists, a Pasadena firm, the complex also features Craftsman-style townhomes, including four duplex buildings with covered front porches that face Meridian; balconies and shade structures; and courtyards with a fountain, mature trees and landscaping. Mission Meridian Village’s buyers run the demographic spectrum. “It’s a nice eclectic mix of single professional people, some DINKS (dual income, no kids), some families with children, some empty-nesters,’ Dieden said. He forgot to mention train buffs. That’s the category that Michael Holden fits into. He and fiancee Janis Eiler are buying one of the village’s three single- family homes, a 1,689-square-foot house on Magnolia Street, the northern edge of the 1.49-acre project. “It was always a vision or dream of mine that I could live somewhere nifty and walk to a train,’ said Holden, 50, a Chicago native who grew up around that city’s elevated rail system. “I’m a bona fide train nut,’ Holden said. He’s not worried about the noise, because the builders “have put pretty good soundproofing in.’ And because his house is the farthest away from the station.

All aboard! Hoboken, Weehawken light rail stations to open Tuesday Hudson Reporter September 4, 2004 OPENING SOON — Riders will be able to take the light rail from the Hoboken Terminal to Weehawken’s Lincoln Harbor starting Tuesday. After years of planning, the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail is about to wrap its way around Hoboken’s west side and into Weehawken. A New Jersey Transit press conference is scheduled for Tuesday to celebrate the train’s maiden voyage through the mile-square city. Three stations will be opening Tuesday: one at the western termination of Second Street in Hoboken, one at the western termination of Ninth Street in Hoboken, and one at Lincoln Harbor in Weehawken. The Hudson Bergen Light Rail system will then have 20 stations in operation running from 22nd street in Bayonne to Weehawken. The new segment from the Hoboken Terminal to Weehawken is approximately 2.6 miles long. Continuing service to Port Imperial in Weehawken, Bergenline Avenue in Union City, and Tonnelle Avenue in North Bergen is expected to be completed in summer 2005. According to NJ Transit officials, service is planned as a “shuttle” operating between Lincoln Harbor and the Hoboken Terminal every 15 minutes throughout the day, and will be open to the public Tuesday afternoon. Passengers heading further south than Hoboken will need to transfer to a southbound light rail train at Hoboken. Hudson-Bergen Light Rail operates with 90-foot Light Rail vehicles equipped with 68 seats, modern heating and air conditioning systems, and wheelchair securements, and are fully accessible to people with disabilities. “It’s an exciting time for Hoboken,” said Hoboken Mayor David Roberts Wednesday night. “We’re adding one more element to Hoboken’s wide array of mass transit options.” He added, “Just look at what we have — light rail, heavy rail, ferries, and the PATH and buses all within one square mile.” The mayor also said that the opening of the light rail signifies the rebirth of a formally industrial neighborhood. When word of the light rail’s western track spread through the city, real estate speculation flourished. Blighted factories are now supermarkets, retail stores, and housing. “In addition to be a great transportation tool for our residents, it will also be an economic engine for the area,” Roberts said. Weehawken stop Weehawken Mayor Richard Turner said that is an important event for not only for Weehawken but for all of Hudson County. “We’re absolutely thrilled,” said Turner Thursday afternoon. “The light rail will make it possible for Hudson County residents to travel north and south within the county without having to get into their cars.” Turner added that the Lincoln Harbor stop would be an economic boon for the city. Currently, Lincoln Harbor’s biggest employer, UBS, has to bus many of its employees from the Hoboken PATH station. The light rail, he said, will make Lincoln Harbor that much more of an attractive locale to do business. And next year, he said, it will connect to Port Imperial with its parking and ferry service, which will tie together all of Weehawken’s transportation options. Bayonne to Weehawken State Senator and Bayonne Mayor Joseph V. Doria said he was very pleased with the progress of the light rail. “The extension to Weehawken is a very positive development,” Doria said. “I’m very happy to see the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail continue. People will be able to travel between Bayonne and Weehawken.” Doria fought hard as an assemblyman and a mayor to make certain the light rail project extended into Bayonne. The initial plans did not call for a Bayonne link. He also served in the Assembly as the chairman of the Light Rail expansion panel. U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg and Hoboken residents U.S. Rep. Robert Menendez and U.S. Senator Jon Corzine played a significant role in bringing in federal funds to the light rail project. The total project, up to North Bergen, will cost approximately $2.3 billion and is being funded by federal and state sources. Safety precautions Because light rail trains cross active streets, NJ Transit reminds residents of the following safety precautions: Cross light rail tracks only at designated areas such as sidewalk or street crossings. Do not use the tracks as a shortcut. Do not go near the overhead wires. Never place foreign objects on the tracks or near the overhead wires. Stay away from electrical substations and fences. Observe all traffic signals and grade crossing protection devices at street intersections. Obey all posted signs. Pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists must be careful when approaching intersections crossed by the light rail system.

Streetcar lane opponents plan attack The Toronto Star September 4, 2004 A streetcar-only right-of-way on St. Clair Ave. W. took another step toward reality yesterday with a city staff report formally recommending the $50 million project. But it’s no sure thing that the TTC and city transportation officials will have their way, as business and residents groups opposed to the plan are gearing up for a special city meeting Sept. 13 to voice their displeasure over lost parking, limited left turns and the notion of dividing the street. “I know it will be a bumpy ride from here on in,” said TTC chairman Howard Moscoe, reached in Italy on vacation. “I’m pretty confident that the majority of neighbourhood residents support it.” Using the official plan — which links land use to transportation and economic growth — as a guide, staff at Urban Development Services, Works and Emergency Services, the TTC and the Toronto Parking Authority developed the pro-transit report after about 50 meetings with the public and various interest groups. Those for and against will have a shot at final public deputations at Sept. 13’s meeting of the planning and transportation committee, works committee and TTC, followed later in the month by a city council debate. “We will be attacking facts and misleading statements,” said Jeff Gillan, president of the Corso Italia business group, one of the more vocal opponents. “We think we have close to 50 percent of (councillors). We think we can sway some of the neutral ones.” A residents’ group called Save Our St. Clair is also trying to organize anti-streetcar depositions for the meeting. If council endorses the recommendation, the environmental assessment for the project would be forwarded to the Ministry of the Environment for approval. The earliest the city could start work on the street would be June 2005, with the project extending to 2006. “If council does not support this, they may as well take the official plan, rip it into small pieces and throw it in the trash can,” said Moscoe. “This is the first public transit initiative that’s been recommended since the official plan’s been adopted. And the official plan is premised on public transit and the ability of our city to be able to handle the growth that’s projected.” The new vision for the six-lane avenue includes two centre lanes reserved for streetcars and emergency vehicles, no parking during rush hours, and some restrictions on left turns. The Toronto Board of Trade supported the plan yesterday in a release, calling it a “means to reducing gridlock and improving the quality of life in the city.” Other vocal supporters include pro-transit group St. Clair Right-of-way Initiative for Public Transit (SCRIPT). “My hope is once people get to see the plan and realize the actual details, they’ll get excited about it,” said Andrew Brooks, a resident of the area and spokesperson for SCRIPT. “I think it’s a vision that’s going to work for everybody.” Gillan said he and other shopkeepers oppose the proposal because it barely increases streetcar time and takes away valuable parking spaces in front of their stores, and even takes some sidewalk away. While many of the city’s other main roads have parking limitations during rush hour, St. Clair does not because it’s so wide. “In the afternoon rush hour there will be a 60 percent decrease in parking,” Gillan said. The TTC says the average streetcar time will improve about three minutes between Gunns Rd. in the west and Yonge St. in the east. But the environmental assessment says a reliable schedule — not the marginal increase in speed — is crucial. “The reliability factor is what’s really important for transit use,” said Rod McPhail, director of transportation planning for the city.

Machine labors in UTA parts warehouse Deseret Morning News (Salt Lake City) September 5, 2004 At the Utah Transit Authority’s parts warehouse, every day is Labor Day. But these days, a machine is doing much of the work. An innovative mechanical sorting system, designed by a Maine company after a UTA employee came up with the idea, has allowed the transit agency to save nearly 5,000 square feet of space in the warehouse — not to mention the $1.3 million it would have cost to expand the warehouse. The Vertical Lift Module — known affectionately by UTA’s 35 purchasing and materials employees as the Very Large Machine — stands 23 feet high and holds up to 160,000 pounds of bus and light-rail train parts. The time- and space-saving device has condensed the previous 5,050-square-foot space previously devoted to parts storage into a 224-square-foot, fully enclosed and fully automated system. Previously, one UTA employee spent the entire day stocking and retrieving parts on the shelves for distribution to UTA’s various divisions. Now, it takes less than half that time for UTA workers to fill those orders. “It’s pretty cool. They custom build them to the inch,” said Mary Kay Bonica, UTA’s manager of purchasing and materials. “I think the biggest thing has been giving us more room to actually function. We handle 35,000 different types of parts for bus and train, and they hand out — at the division level — 80,000 products a month.” That’s a lot of bearings, filters, washers, brake pads and other assorted parts for engine, transmission and suspension repairs. The VLM alone holds more than $1.5 million of UTA’s $2 million inventory of bus and train parts. Before the VLM, the warehouse was so crowded with parts that employees were forced to stack them in the aisles. After learning a 50-foot expansion of the warehouse would cost a prohibitive $1.3 million, a frustrated Bonica asked her parts supervisor, Kyle Stockley, to see if he could find a solution. Stockley went straight to the Internet and eventually discovered Diamond Phoenix of Lewiston, Maine. The company had developed similar storage technologies to help other companies — like Boeing — consolidate parts into a small space while decreasing the time it takes to access the desired parts. Stockley worked with the company to modify the design and create a dual-bay system — meaning two employees can retrieve parts at the same time — that works more efficiently for UTA. It is the only dual-bay parts sorter currently in use in the American transit industry, Stockley said. “Instead of roaming around 5,000 square feet, they have to roam 10 feet to get the parts,” he said of warehouse employees. UTA spokesman Justin Jones said Stockley’s research and ideas for modifying the VLM are typical of the types of ideas and input UTA encourages — and hopes to cultivate more often — from its employees. “His idea saved us over a million dollars,” Jones noted. “This (employee participation) helps us come up with solutions at all levels in the authority.” Bonica hopes her department can soon purchase similar technology for storing the larger parts on stacked pallets. Already, though, the addition of the VLM and plans for additional mechanized sorters has allowed UTA to reduce the space needed in a new parts warehouse, proposed for construction by 2030. Instead of 70,000 square feet, that facility is now proposed for a size of 40,000 square feet — a savings of millions of dollars. E-mail: zman@desnews.com

Sound Transit aims to get light rail users to airport; Free shuttle buses to be used first; extension of rail line envisioned SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER September 6, 2004 Ever since Sound Transit announced in the summer of 2001 that its over- budget light rail line would have to end in Tukwila, about a mile and a half short of Sea-Tac Airport, the line has been derided as “the train to nowhere.” Sound Transit is working hard to turn “nowhere” into somewhere. Not only will the interim terminus in Tukwila provide good service to the airport, according to Sound Transit, but the agency is doing everything it can to accelerate reaching the airport — arriving possibly as early as 2009, the same year the initial line is due to be completed. “Literally, every speaking engagement I have, it’s the first question I get: ‘Why aren’t you going to the airport?’ “ says Sound Transit Chief Executive Officer Joni Earl. But whether Sound Transit will have the money to complete the 1.6-mile extension to the airport without going back to voters for more money or waiting for more tax revenue to roll in is still an unknown. “I’m still hopeful,” says Earl. “But I couldn’t promise it.” King County Councilwoman Julia Patterson included $75 million for the airport extension in a proposed $7.3 billion transportation ballot package, one sign Sound Transit will be short of money for the project. In January 2003, Sound Transit announced with maximum hoopla an agreement with the Port of Seattle on a timetable for planning the extension into the airport. The port, uncertain of its plans at the airport, agreed to have its planning done by June 2005, allowing Sound Transit to start its design work. Now Sound Transit is pressing the port to move that date up to January. Sound Transit needs to complete 30 percent of the design and set a schedule before it can decide on the cost. “People are looking for certainty on when this is going to happen,” Earl says. “Even if it’s an answer we don’t like, it’s an answer.” And if it is not affordable within the existing financial plan, Sound Transit will have better information for including the project in its Phase 2 program that it will take to voters next year or later. The 14-mile line from Westlake Center downtown will initially end at a new station at South 154th Street and International Boulevard (state Route 99) alongside state Route 518 at what is currently a six-acre commercial parking lot for airport users. When the line opens in 2009, free bus shuttles will meet each train. They’ll take passengers the 1.6 miles to the same place in the airport where shuttles today drop off passengers coming from hotels and park- and-fly lots on International Boulevard. To prevent people from driving to the 154th Street station, parking in the 600-space lot and hopping aboard the free shuttle to the airport, shuttle passengers will have to show a light rail ticket or bus transfer. The light rail trains will run every six minutes at rush hour and every 10 minutes at other times. The port at one time had ambitious expansion plans at the airport, planning to build a separate new north terminal building and a second roadway system. But the 9/11 attacks and a weak economy, among other things, caused the port to drop those costly ambitions. Electronic ticketing requires less ticketing space and strapped airlines are willing to share gates, says Michael Cheyne, the airport’s director of planning. The change in plans reduced costs for the light rail line, because it can now run for a longer distance at street level rather than elevated. The elevated airport station will be located at the northeast tip of the parking garage. Passengers will get off trains and walk on either a moving sidewalk or dedicated walkway through the parking garage and across the existing fourth-floor pedestrian bridge into the terminal. Cheyne estimated the walk from the station to the terminal at 1,100 feet, though with future expansion it will reduce to 600 feet. That’s a far cry from the 150 feet that Portland light rail riders hoof it at their airport. But the Sea-Tac station can’t get closer because there’s not enough room between the parking garage and terminal to build a station without shutting down access to the airport during construction, Sound Transit says. Sound Transit estimates there will be 3,000 daily riders using the airport station, half employees, half air travelers. In Portland, about 2,800 MAX line riders a day use Portland’s airport light rail station, says Tri-Met spokeswoman Mary Fetsch. Though Portland’s population is smaller than Seattle’s, MAX has 44 miles of track compared with Seattle’s 14. The half of the 3,000 projected riders that are air travelers would amount to about 2 percent of passengers passing through the Sea-Tac airport each day. The ride from Portland’s airport to the downtown takes 40 minutes. In Seattle, the ride from Westlake Center to the airport station will take 33 minutes. Sound Transit is mulling what to do about passenger luggage. Light Rail Director Ahmad Fazel says the agency is in discussions with the manufacturer of the light rail cars about installing luggage racks on one car of each train. Fetsch says Tri-Met scrapped plans to include luggage racks on its trains after a passenger survey found that riders did not want to be separated from their luggage. “There is space on the train to have your luggage next to you,” she says. Many of the riders are expected to be people who sell lattes, check your driver’s license, move baggage or hold other Sea-Tac jobs. Diane Tucker, president of the local union for United Airlines flight attendants, says flight attendants will welcome the light rail line. “That would be really convenient to us,” she said. “Anything is an improvement over the fiasco of transportation in Seattle.” But many flight attendants live in suburban areas outside Seattle and will still have to drive to the airport, she said. They park in a huge remote lot, run some distance to a shelter and wait 10 or 15 minutes for an airport shuttle. “I just know flight attendants would embrace the idea,” she says of the light rail line. Craig Ward, SeaTac’s assistant city manager, predicts some business travelers will shift from downtown hotels to less expensive SeaTac hotels and take light rail to their downtown conferences. Five bus routes will serve the light rail station at South 154th Street, three existing and two new ones, depending on funding. The existing routes, which will be modified, are Metro’s 140 between Renton and Burien, the 170 between downtown Seattle and McMicken Heights in SeaTac, and the 174 between Federal Way and downtown Seattle. One of the new routes, 184, would come from Des Moines via Military Road South to 154th; the other, Route 199, would run from Federal Way to 154th and then to the Sounder station in Tukwila, near Renton. Under an agreement between the city of SeaTac and the port, the port will pay up to $6 million to build a pedestrian bridge from the airport station over International Boulevard. The spot where the bridge would land is now a rental car parking lot, but what it will be in the future is undecided. Patterson says the bridge will make the airport station accessible to Angle Lake, Bow Lake and McMicken Heights residents. Sound Transit will likely have to pay for a kiss-and-ride lot, elevators, wider sidewalks, bicycle facilities, and widening International Boulevard for buses, Ward says. Sound Transit says these are still to be negotiated.

High Speed Train Network Awarded To Three International Firms And Their Chinese Joint Venture Partners China Metals Report Weekly September 6, 2004 The contracts for China’s high-speed railway network have been awarded to three foreign companies and their Chinese joint venture partners. A spokesman with the International Cooperation Department of the China Railway Ministry (CRM) surnamed Li confirmed the details of the plan to Interfax. The companies who won the bidding for the project are the Montreal-based Bombardier Inc.’s Qingdao-based joint venture, BSP Co., with the Qingdao Sifang Passenger Train Factory; the French firm Alston SA together with its Chinese partner Changchun Railway Vehicle Co. (CRV), which is a subsidiary of the China Northern Locomotive and Rolling Stock Co; and the Shandong-based Nanche Sifang Locomotive and Rolling Stock Co., a subsidiary of the China Southern Locomotive and Rolling Stock Co. (CSR), and its Japanese partner Kawasaki Heavy. Reports in the Japanese media said that Kawasaki will cooperate with several other Japanese firms- Hitachi Ltd, Mitsubishi Electric Corp, Itochu Corp, Mitsubishi Corp, and Marubeni Corp. The firms will supply 200 high-speed trains for China’s sixth railway acceleration project. Total investment in the project is USD 12 bln. According to the plan, five lines high speed lines will be created covering over 2,000 miles of track. The new trains will run at over 200 km/h. Li told Interfax that bidding for the project was handled by the China International Tendering Company (CIT) and the China CNTC International Tendering Company. “The bidding started on July 28 and lasted for around a month, which is somewhat longer than the usual bidding period, due to the large scale of the project.” Li explained. According to the CRM, this is the first time that foreign companies have been invited to take part in a railway acceleration project. Chinese firms provided the technology for the previous five acceleration projects. According to the bidding terms set by CIT, Chinese companies needed foreign technological support to bid for the project. Awarding the contract to three international groups reduces China’s dependability on the technology of a single country. According to Guoji Xianqu Daobao (International Herald Leader), a Chinese newspaper, Germany’s Siemens also showed keen interest in cooperating with Changchun Railway Vehicle (CRV). However, after over a year of negotiations, CRV turned instead to Alstom SA. Furthermore, the CSR’s “China Star high-speed trains were blocked from the bidding process because they are built with only domestic technology. Li said that Kawasaki Heavy will provide Nanche Sifang with the modified version of the technology used for Japan’s famous Shinkansen Bullet Train, marking the first high speed train technology transfer between China and Japan. According to reports in the Chinese media, the project will cover five routes, including a Beijing-Shanghai line and a line connecting Beijing with Shenyang, in northeastern Liaoning Province. China Radio International also reported that a line will extend to the port city of Qingdao in Shandong Province.

Traffic Jams Moving To Smaller Towns KPRC-TV News — Houston September 7, 2004 Los Angeles for years has had the nation’s worst traffic jams, but these days even the streets and highways in small and medium cities from Brownsville, Texas, to Anchorage, Alaska, to Honolulu, Hawaii, are giving rush-hour drivers fits. Snarled traffic is costing travelers in the 85 biggest U.S. cities a whopping 3.5 billion hours a year, up from 700 million two decades ago. The problem worsened over the past two decades in small, medium and large cities, according to the Texas Transportation Institute’s annual Urban Mobility Report released Tuesday. The institute, part of Texas A&M University, looked at data from 1982 to 2002. Over that period, the study recorded the greatest leap in congestion in Dallas, from 13 hours annually in 1982 for the average peak-period traveler to 61 hours annually in 2002, and in Riverside, Calif., from nine hours annually per rush-hour traveler in 1982 to 57 hours on average in 2002. In the Pacific Northwest, Seattle ranked 18th overall with 46 hours a year, followed by Portland, Ore.-Vancouver, Wash., No. 24, 41 hours; Salem, Ore., No. 63, 14 hours; and Spokane, Wash., and Eugene, Ore., part of a four-way tie for 74th with nine hours. The average urban traveler was stuck in road traffic 46 hours a year in 2002, a 187 percent increase over the 16 hours lost in 1982. Even more startling is the decline of free-flowing traffic during rush hour. In 1982, 30 percent of urban highways and arteries were congested. Twenty years later, drivers were delayed on 67 percent of those roads. Alan Pisarski, author of “Commuting in America,” said that escaping to a small city no longer means escaping from traffic. “You’re beginning to see problems in places that you didn’t know had problems, places you’ve never heard of,” Pisarski said. Even in cities with the least bad congestion — Anchorage, Alaska, and Brownsville, Texas — drivers lost five hours a year to traffic. In medium- sized cities such as Honolulu it was 18 hours. The problem is still most severe in cities with more than 3 million inhabitants. The average Los Angeles commuter spent 93 hours snarled in traffic in 2002, the most of any city in the survey. In San Francisco-Oakland area, drivers lost 73 hours to rush-hour slowdowns. And in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, motorists spent 67 hours stuck in traffic on average in 2002. What’s alarming is how congestion outpaces a city’s ability to handle it. In 54 urban areas, traffic snarls increased 30 percent faster than roads could be built to alleviate them. Tim Lomax, the report’s author, said the news was not all bad. Roads were built fast enough to catch up to spreading populations in some cities, such as Anchorage, New Orleans, Pittsburgh, Tampa, Fla., and Charleston, S.C. “They’ve been getting worse, but they’ve been getting worse slower than everyone else,” Lomax said. “In the bizarre world of transportation mobility, that’s progress.” Tampa, Fla., is a good example of a city that has eased traffic in ways other than building roads, Lomax said. Like many cities, it has coordinated its traffic signals, smoothed traffic flow on major roads and created teams to quickly respond to accidents. Such programs have reduced traffic delays in Tampa by 7 percent, or 3.2 million hours a year. With names like Highway Helper, the Minute Man and Motorists Assistance Patrol, accident response teams are used in 71 cities, where they saved drivers an estimated 170 million hours in 2002. Lomax said bigger cities are realizing that they can help fix their traffic problems with operational solutions as well as by expanding roads. “It’s something you can do right away,” he said. The report notes that major highway improvements can take 10 years to 15 years to complete. Traffic in some cities has actually gotten better, but that’s because their economies have done poorly. “In a lot of the places in the past we’ve seen success in cities suffering job declines — Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Cleveland,” Pisarski said. “Unemployment is a great solution.” The biggest time-saver, according to the report, is public transit, which shaves 32 percent off the time drivers spend sitting bumper-to-bumper. “If public transportation service was discontinued and the riders traveled in private vehicles, the 85 urban areas would have suffered an additional 1.1 billion hours of delay in 2002,” the report said. Lomax said the benefits to transit systems are in cities that are already too congested to handle more vehicles. “Typically you’re in a situation where you can’t handle any more transit on the roads, so public transit becomes the way you support economic development,” he said. The report is based on data from the states and the Transportation Department.

First Glance; Jersey keeps its light-rail rolling Newark Star-Ledger September 7, 2004 Three new stations opened for service yesterday on NJ Transit’s light-rail line through Hudson County, expanding New Jersey’s single-most expensive transportation project. The stops at 2nd Street and 9th Street in Hoboken and at Lincoln Harbor in Weehawken take the $2.2 billion system on its way through some of the state’s most densely populated cities. After a slow start in 2000, the light-rail system steadily has gained ridership and now handles about 17,000 passenger trips per day. Officials expect the three new stations that opened yesterday to increase the ridership by 2,400 trips per day over the next year. By then, NJ Transit plans to open stations in Union City and North Bergen, which experts say will be pivotal to the system’s success. “The thing that NJ Transit really did right here was open this system in increments, whenever stations were ready, instead of waiting until it was all done and opening it in one fell swoop,” said Douglas Bowen, president of the New Jersey Association of Railroad Passengers, a watchdog group. “Opening stations as they were ready really built up ridership.” The line now runs 12.6 miles from Bayonne through Jersey City’s bustling downtown financial district to Hoboken Terminal and then out to the three new stops. Eventually, the system is supposed to run into Bergen County, possibly as far north as Tenafly. But state officials have not secured the money for that phase of the project or even put together firm estimates on how much it would cost. “The Hudson-Bergen Light Rail line has proven to be a strong economic driver along the Hudson County waterfront,” said NJ Transit Executive Director George Warrington. “With the opening of this new segment north of Hoboken Terminal, I believe the so-called ‘Gold Coast’ will soon become the ‘Platinum Coast.’” The two new Hoboken stops are on the west side, in the shadow of the Palisades, in the part of the city that had not experienced the same rebirth as the section near the Hudson River. During the planning, there had been much debate on whether the route should go through Hoboken’s east or west side. Martin Robins, executive director of the Voorhees Transportation Policy Institute, said the promise of the light-rail station near 9th Street in Hoboken spurred a wave of new housing. “No one thought that area was going to develop as it has,” he said. “Look at all the development around the station.” Robins pointed out that the 9th Street station also has an elevator connecting it with Congress Street in the Jersey City Heights neighborhood on the Palisades up above. “It’s going to be interesting to see how that works, whether they get many riders from the Heights in Jersey City,” Robins said. By coincidence, NJ Transit opened the three new stations on the same day that a national transportation study group released a report showing that America’s cities are increasingly becoming choked by gridlock. New Jersey officials yesterday praised the light-rail line. “This light-rail system isn’t just about transporting people to work, school or shopping and entertainment destinations,” said Rep. Robert Menendez (D-Hudson), the congressman who fought to ensure that there would be a light-rail stop in Union City when he was mayor there. “It helps New Jersey fight air pollution, reduce traffic and cut down on sprawl,” added Menendez, who is a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. “Finally, our light-rail project shows that we can plan transportation growth carefully, with more thought given to the needs of people who will live and work in the community today and tomorrow.”

BEHIND THE WHEEL; Officials Split on Staying the Course on Bus Lanes; The MTA wants to keep the mile-long route on Wilshire Boulevard. But L.A. city officials and the Auto Club say the path slows traffic flow Los Angeles Times September 7, 2004 Six months after a controversial set of bus-only lanes opened on Wilshire Boulevard, transportation officials are clashing over whether the experimental transit route should become permanent. Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials, touting the benefits to transit riders, hope to make the mile-long lanes permanent in West Los Angeles and to create more lanes along other major streets. “We are going to have to inconvenience some people … otherwise this whole town will be gridlocked someday,” said Mayor James K. Hahn, a member of the MTA board. But others, including the Los Angeles Department of Transportation and the Automobile Club of Southern California, are trying to curb the MTA’s support of the bus lanes. In a report, the Transportation Department said the lanes caused significant traffic delays. The agency is asking the City Council, which has authority over the street, not to make the corridor permanent but to extend the experiment for six months so traffic engineers can study the effect of the lanes and explore allowing vehicles into them. The issue will be heard Wednesday by the City Council’s transportation committee. Though only a small part of the Southland’s streetscape, the Wilshire lanes are part of a larger debate over an increasingly scarce commodity — space — and who is entitled to it. The curbside bus lanes, which extend from Federal Avenue in Westwood to Centinela Avenue at the Santa Monica border, are off-limits to cars from 7 to 9 a.m. and 4 to 7 p.m. on weekdays. Vehicles making right turns are allowed in the lanes. Street parking was previously allowed on about two-thirds of the stretch, and the loss of parking has angered some store owners. Now, parked cars are towed, and drivers who sneak into the lanes are cited. Motorist Ann Brown was stuck in traffic one evening when a red-and-white Metro Rapid bus zoomed past in the bus lane. A few minutes later, as she inched forward, another bus zipped by. “This is a city that’s driving-oriented. It doesn’t make that much sense to devote so much space to public transportation,” said Brown, a 21-year-old Harvard University student commuting between Westwood and Santa Monica for her summer job. “It’s annoying. You see an empty lane, you want to dart over, but you can’t.” But a few blocks away, bus rider Barbara Cattouse said she thought it was about time that riders’ needs got priority. “Before they had the lane, the buses were stuck in traffic,” said Cattouse, a 53-year-old office manager. “Now it allows buses to be on time and buses to move more smoothly.” The MTA found that on average, the lanes shaved 30 seconds off the bus’ mile-long route. But at peak evening rush hour, an MTA study found, cars took 19 minutes to slog through the stretch, while buses sliced through in seven minutes. “This is incredible!” said Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, an MTA director. “It is far superior and far better to be in a bus in that peak hour than in a car. Let’s move quickly to see how we can expand this.” But James Okazaki, an assistant general manager for the city Transportation Department, said the study says a lot about the lanes’ effect on motorists. “This study shows … taking a lane away for MTA buses helps MTA buses — that’s a no-brainer,” he said. “MTA sometimes has blinders and does what’s good for buses and doesn’t realize we still need to move people in their cars.” Steve Finnegan, principal transportation policy specialist for the Auto Club, said that in pushing to make the lanes permanent, the MTA has “ignored the impact on congestion.” The Auto Club will ask the City Council for a more comprehensive study on how drivers are affected. Meanwhile, some store owners are struggling to survive. Like many along the street, dry cleaner Habib Sedghi displays a yellow poster in his window denouncing the bus lanes. “Business is hurting!” reads the yellow sign in Express Cleaner. “We are all inconvenienced!” Sedghi said he has lost longtime customers who used to leave clothes on the way to work and pick them up on the way home, because parking now is inconvenient. “Since they did this, my business [is] down 75%,” said Sedghi, waving his arm at the empty clothing rack behind him. He now minds the counter alone because he had to lay off his three employees. “I don’t know how much longer we can stay. If this goes on … they [will] kill our business.”

Las Vegas monorail closes one day after it reopens San Francisco Chronicle September 8, 2004 The Las Vegas monorail was closed one day after it reopened when a piece of a train’s undercarriage fell off Wednesday and landed in a busy street. A system spokesman said no one was injured. The incident happened about 10 a.m. as the fully automated train was heading south on its elevated tracks, monorail spokesman Todd Walker said. Walker said a slip disk — similar to a large washer — that was connected to the drive train came loose. The 6-inch disk weighing one to two pounds hit a power rail, which supplies electricity to the train. The contact caused electrical arcing but no serious damage to the track before it fell about 25 feet to the street. Walker said the monorail, which travels along a 3.9-mile route, will reopen when Clark County inspectors and system officials say it’s safe. “The monorail is closed indefinitely until safety concerns are satisfied,” Walker said. Ron Lynn, head of the county building division, said the system would undergo intense testing and every train’s undercarriage would be completely dismantled and inspected. The monorail had just reopened Tuesday morning after being closed for six days following a Sept. 1 incident in which a 60-pound wheel fell off one of the trains. Nobody was hurt. Walker said the wheel was installed improperly at an assembly plant. The closure cost the private venture an estimated $480,000 in revenue. The $650 million system was already six months behind when it began operating in July.

Knappster: Monorail HQ plays blame game over falling tire Las Vegas Mercury September 9, 2004 Reports of unidentified flying objects have been pouring in from residents of the Koval-Flamingo area. Eyewitnesses say they saw a strange circular object fly through the air last week before it crashed to the ground just east of the Strip. Could Las Vegas have its own version of the Roswell Incident in the works? Sadly, the UFO turned out to be a UFT — unidentified flying tire. The 60- pound wheel didn’t fall from the heavens. Instead, it fell from the monorail train. Luckily, no one on the ground got beaned and the train didn’t take a header off its elevated track. That said, when pieces of a high-tech train start raining down on neighborhoods, it might be a good time to take stock of where things stand. Readers of this space know that Knappster is not a fan of the monorail project, not because mass transit isn’t a worthwhile goal, but because of the sneaky way its backers have shoved this thing down our collective throat, and because the project seems to represent a Full Employment Initiative for the friends, relatives and political cronies of the late Bob Broadbent, the monorail’s founder. I suppose it would be like shooting fish in a barrel to go ahead and attack the monorail again after its little mechanical snafu caused a five-day shutdown. Yep, that seems just too darned easy. So by all means, let’s do it anyway. Monorail officials figure they lost $480,000 in revenue by shutting down during a major convention and during one of the busiest weekends of the year. They lost around $100,000 a day, but they’re kinda used to it since the project has been losing tens of thousands of dollars every day since it opened in July. Strangely enough, our city did not grind to a standstill because of a lack of monorail service. In fact, people who drive near the Strip corridor saw no difference at all in either the traffic level or air quality. So much for whether we can get along without it. True to form, the monorail PR machine turned last week’s mechanical fiasco into a real coup for we locals. Oh yes indeedy, this was a triumph, not a near tragedy. Sure, someone might have had his skull crushed by a flying tire, but disaster was averted because monorail executives are passionately devoted to public safety. It’s true. They and public safety have become quite an item. Some busybodies in the monorail front office are beginning to suspect there is some hanky-panky going on between the execs and public safety, so deep is their passion. A news release was sent out, explaining that the suspension of monorail service occurred because of the company’s stringent safety procedures. It didn’t happen because pieces of a train fell off. It happened because it’s all part of routine safety procedures. The news release, by the way, was sent out on a letterhead that contains the slogan of the LV Monorail. “It’s more than transportation,” the slogan reads. “It’s a real trip.” I’ll say. Here’s why I think it’s okay to kick the monorail while it’s down. The company was very quick to blame the flying wheel problem on monorail employees. First, it was announced that technicians who were supposed to be monitoring the system failed to shut it down even after warning lights went nuts. It was all their fault, the company said. Now we’ve heard that it was also the fault of factory workers in Canada because they improperly installed the wheel in the first place. Shame on you, Canadian factory workers. You might also recall that when the doors of one monorail train came flying open a few weeks ago for no apparent reason, the problem was also blamed on employees who weren’t doing their jobs. I don’t remember for sure whether an employee was blamed when another chunk of train fell off during tests before the monorail opened, but I would have to guess an unnamed worker ended up taking it in the shorts for that one. Are monorail employees really this incompetent? And if so, who hired them? Or could it be that they are being blamed for mistakes made by persons at much higher levels? I’m sure that Bombardier, the operator and principal builder of the monorail, is getting a little tired of being dumped on, especially after the company and its partner already had to eat $11 million in fines because the monorail opened six months later than planned. The day may come when monorail employees and contractors get fed up with taking all the blame whenever something goes wrong. On that day, we hope to hear some interesting stories about what really goes on over there. One other point to make about the flying wheel incident. While the PR Machine found time later that same day to send a release to news operations, it basically ignored everyone else. No calls were made to taxi companies to tell them the train was shut down for a while. A local TV station called the Regional Transportation Commission on the afternoon of the incident. The RTC said it had received a “courtesy call” from the monorail that afternoon, informing it of what had happened. The RTC noted that it has nothing to do with the monorail, so there is no requirement for the county agency to be informed of any problems. So if the RTC has nothing to do with the monorail and has no oversight of the project, then why is it airing TV commercials that praise and promote the new train system? You’ve probably seen the ads since they’ve been running all over the tube. The RTC explained that even though it has no stake in the monorail project, it supports the concept of mass transit. And besides, RTC said, it didn’t cost anything to tack on a mention of the monorail in the commercials it was already going to air. We should all be so lucky to have the RTC spend public dollars promoting our various private projects. Wonder if the RTC could spare some time in its next ad barrage to promote the Mercury and its stable of bizarre columnists? After all, our slogan over here is “It’s more than a newspaper. It’s a real trip.” Catchy, no? Ours is also a public service, provided in the guise of a private enterprise. So how about it, RTC? The reality is that the RTC is fully behind the so-called “private” monorail and always has been. This column has previously provided a diagram of the byzantine connections between monorail execs and well-placed public officials, many of whom are bound together by blood, by marriage, by religious preferences and by business associations. It comes as no surprise whatsoever that RTC is committing tens of millions of public dollars to the oversight of the monorail’s downtown extension, yet another public favor for a supposedly private enterprise. So no, it’s no surprise that the RTC was protective of its friends at the monorail, even when pieces of trains start falling to the ground.

Las Vegas Monorail Closed Indefinitely KLAS-TV — Las Vegas September 9 There’s no word when the Las Vegas Monorail will be up and running again. And now monorail executives are asking if they have paid for a faulty product. As of Thursday, the trains are being taken apart and inspected. (Sep. 8) — Just one day after re-opening from a week-long shutdown, the Las Vegas Monorail is closed once again. County building officials say a metal washer fell off of one of the cars. Now every train will be inspected, which means the monorail will be shult down for days — if not weeks. The system was shutdown Wednesday morning when a washer fell off of one of the cars near the south end of the Strip. The monorail had only resumed operations Tuesday after being closed due to a wheel falling off of one of the trains. Investigators checked the system and deemed it safe to operate again. Frustration is what passengers, the county and the monorail company are feeling right now. Contracted engineers just went home after inspecting the cars following the incident when the wheel fell off. Now those engineers are heading back to Las Vegas to inspection the cars once again. And county building inspectors are also getting involved. County inspectors say what happened is that a bolt broke that was holding a metal piece, called a flange, on the undercarriage of one of the cars. That’s when a washer, 6 inches in diameter, fell onto the track arching the electricity. The monorail operator instantly shut down the system. Todd Walker, who works for the company who manages the monorail, says the problems plaguing the monorail are unacceptable, but these types of problems are not uncommon with other similar transportation systems in other cities. Walker says the good news is no one was injured. At this time, it’s unclear how long the monorail will be shut down. In addition to the engineers, the county is also going to inspect the undercarriages of all 9 of the monorail cars, which could take at least several days. Another concern is that the washer that fell onto the track also fell to the ground and it could have hit someone. That’s why the county is now considering re-designing portions of the monorail.

Waterfront Streetcar May Face End Of The Line ; Trolley Maintenance Barn To Be Torn Down KIRO-TV September 8, 2004 SEATTLE — The future of the Seattle Waterfront Streetcar is in question because its maintenance barn is to be torn down for the construction of a sculpture park, KIRO 7 Eyewitness News reported. The Seattle Art Museum is building the Olympic Sculpture Park on 8 1/2 acres of land near Myrtle Edwards Park. Both the Art Museum and King County confirmed the barn, at Alaskan Way and Broad Street, must be torn down next summer to make way for the park. As for the trolley, “none of those decisions have been made,” said King County Transportation Director Harold Taniguchi. Taniguchi said the streetcars can’t run without a barn to maintain them, so the county is looking for another place to put one at least temporarily. “We need tracks and right-of-way, the authority to be on the right of way to get the trains there, the streetcars there,” he said. Taniguchi said officials are working on options for maintaining the streetcars and they should know more in about a month. The 1.6 mile-long George Benson Waterfront Streetcar Line is named after a former Seattle City Councilman who found the trolley cars in Melbourne, Australia, bought them for $5,000 each and recruited volunteers to bring them to Seattle.

We’re All for Mass Transit — in Theory Los Angeles Times September 8, 2004 On the morning after Labor Day, the southbound 5 is backed up just north of Dodger Stadium and the northbound 101 is stalled near the Rog Mahal, where a few stressed-out motorists may have paused to pray for an early death. I get to the office and go digging for a report from the Public Policy Institute of California. There it is; here’s what it says: “Two in three [California] residents (67%) prefer to focus on making more efficient use of freeways and highways and expanding mass transit instead of building new freeways (30%).” This has to be a mistake, at least on the mass-transit issue. The report also claims 68% would vote for a sales tax hike to pay for more roads and — I swear on my grandmother’s grave — more public transit. We drive in California, preferably alone. That’s what you and I do. And if we liked taxes, we wouldn’t have voted for the current governor, who expressed his feelings about a car tax increase by dropping a wrecking ball on an automobile. I’m telling you the Public Policy Institute researchers were duped if they think two-thirds of the respondents would rather expand bus and train service than throw every last nickel into laying down more asphalt. A new report by the Texas Transportation Institute crowns greater Los Angeles yet again as national champion for the amount of time we’re stuck in traffic. This is not an achievement you luck into. You have to work at it, with year after year of bad planning, for one thing, and a collective commitment to avoid any personal sacrifice. Traffic has actually taken a dip in these parts since 1992, which could be because of more highways. So why not build more? The same Texas study sent a shout-out to San Bernardino and Riverside counties, which tied Dallas-Fort Worth for biggest increase in traffic nationally. My promise to Dallas and Fort Worth is that they won’t be able to keep pace over the next 20 years. San Bernardino and Riverside will leave them in the dust in both traffic jams and smog, or as we like to call it here, “unhealthful air.” How do I know this? Because population growth was the whole point of the Public Policy Institute survey. We could go from the current 35 million to around 45 million by 2025, and no one in Sacramento is doing a thing to prepare the state for this expansion. “For most people,” said survey director Mark Baldassare, “it seems to be that mass transit is part of the mix they’d like to see for the state’s future.” Don’t believe it for a minute. Sure, you might occasionally hear someone chatting up the merits of mass transit. But the first assumption is that someone else will use it, and the first requirement is that it pass through someone else’s neighborhood. Take the Gold Line, long-awaited and much ballyhooed. Nobody rides it, and neighbors complain of the noise. Take the Orange Line busway in the San Fernando Valley. It may never get built, thanks to neighborhood opposition. Take the Wilshire Boulevard buses-only lane. It could get dumped because car traffic is slowed while bus passengers whisk by. “It’s annoying,” a frustrated 21-year-old driver told The Times’ Caitlin Liu. “You see an empty lane, you want to dart over there, but you can’t.” Don’t just get rid of the bus lane, I say. Get rid of the buses. And what’s with these bike riders clogging traffic?

Euclid Corridor project to begin; Federal agency comes on board to provide money Plain Dealer (Cleveland) September 8, 2004 RTA’s decades-old effort to speed up public transportation between two major employment centers — downtown Cleveland and University Circle — finally appears to be getting off the ground, with construction probably just weeks away. An agreement between RTA and the Federal Transit Administration was laid out Tuesday for members of the local transit authority board. It spells out how the federal government — the last holdout in making the Euclid Corridor project happen — will invest $82.8 million toward the $168.4 million project. Commitments already were in place from the state, city, RTA and a regional transportation board. As part of the deal, RTA was given a Dec. 31, 2008, deadline to finish the job and have the new bus rapid transit system up and running. RTA also will have to cover any cost overruns. FTA spokeswoman Melissa Sabatine said the agreement will be signed by FTA Administrator Jennifer Dorn, barring any objections from Congress during a comment period ending Oct. 15. Sabatine said the project already has passed the FTA’s “rigorous evaluation process.” RTA has set a tentative date of Oct. 19 to break ground on the project. “This is a tremendous milestone,” said Joe Calabrese, general manager of the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority. “The project did take a number of years. I think there were several times when several people, including people here at RTA and maybe even myself, felt like it might not happen,” Calabrese said. Cleveland was one of five cities included in the FTA’s proposed budget for funding and the first to reach a multi-year agreement with the government. Regardless of whether all the paperwork is complete, RTA plans to get started on construction with a provisional OK by late next month, working initially on other downtown streets that will receive more traffic when Euclid is torn up. The project would use buses instead of the more expensive trains and trolleys once considered. It involves: - Creating bus-only lanes on 4.4 miles of Euclid Avenue from Public Square to East 107th Street. - Building 22 stations in the median along the same stretch, where passengers would prepay and board extra-long buses on platforms similar to used for Rapid trains. - Continuing the new route with traditional curbside boarding at 14 stations over 2.7 miles from East 107th Street to the Stokes-Windermere Rapid station in East Cleveland. - Creating a downtown transit zone from East 18th to West Third streets for all other buses, with new 24-hour bus-only lanes on Superior Avenue and on St. Clair Avenue during the rush hours. RTA expects to cut 10 minutes from the current bus ride from Public Square to University Circle, which now takes about 30 minutes during busy times. The new route is to be called RTA’s Silver Line, keeping with the theme of its existing Red, Blue and Green Rapid transit train lines. RTA also predicts both car and bus traffic will move better on other streets such as Superior and St. Clair in the transit zone. “Right now, when we are weaving in and out of parked cars, it is very challenging on Superior,” said Michael Schipper, deputy general manager of engineering for RTA. The biggest work, however, will be on Euclid, including a rebuilt street, sidewalks and landscaping. Though the FTA is being counted on for about 50 percent of the $168.4 million, the federal contribution actually will be about 84 percent because of other money being passed through Ohio Department of Transportation and the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency, Calabrese said. Including related projects, such as building a new bus staging area/station planned for near the Cleveland State University Convocation Center, the total investment is to be about $200 million. RTA, which earlier had picked a Prospect Avenue site for the bus staging area, is now looking at other spots near the Convocation Center. Talk of improving the link between Cleveland’s two main destinations, Public Square and University Circle, once was known as the Dual Hub project. RTA received a $214,000 federal planning grant in 1985. Since 1994, RTA has received more than $20 million from the federal government for the current project — money that will be counted toward the FTA’s $82.8 million commitment. The price tag for the project was as high as $350 million in the late 1990s, Schipper said. RTA had to lower the cost to compete with other cities seeking money for major projects.

Celebration opens 3 light rail stations Jersey Journal September 8, 2004 WEEHAWKEN — Three new Hudson-Bergen Light Rail stations opened yesterday, extending service by 1.6 miles from the Hoboken Terminal north into Weehawken, which officials predict will add a projected 2,400 daily trips within the next year. A ceremony held yesterday with NJ Transit and elected officials kicked off with an inaugural train ride that departed from Hoboken Terminal and made its way past the two new Hoboken stops — one at Second Street and one at Ninth Street — before stopping at the new Lincoln Harbor Station, which is located off Waterfront Terrace near the UBS building on the Weehawken waterfront. “Today we mark not just the opening of three more Hudson-Bergen Light Rail stations, but also the continuing success of this critical project,” said NJ Transit Executive Director George Warrington. “Some people call this the Gold Coast and for good reason. There are a rich array of destinations that rival Manhattan across the river, many accessible by light rail.” The three stations are the latest segment of the $1.2 billion project. The next portion, slated to be completed next year, will entail the opening of stations in North Hudson, including Port Imperial in Weehawken, Bergenline Avenue in Union City and Tonnelle Avenue in North Bergen. The light rail extends south along the Jersey City waterfront — with a western spur to West Side Avenue — to 22nd Street in Bayonne. “I’m looking forward . to the next extension . which is going to be the Union City station,” said Rep. Robert Menendez, D-Hoboken. “It’s going to have the greatest ridership because it links Weehawken, West New York, Union City and North Bergen all together, and it will be the final jewel in the crown of a tremendously important system.” Menendez, who helped secure the federal funding that built the light rail, noted the system is part of an overall effort to get cars off the roads and help protect the environment. “This light rail system isn’t just about transporting people to work, school or shopping and entertainment destinations,” he said. “It is about linking communities, providing options and protecting our environment. It helps New Jersey fight air pollution, reduce traffic and cut down on sprawl.” Officials said they hope to see the light rail eventually extend to Bergen County and to the future Xanadu entertainment site in the Meadowlands. Currently, the light rail has about 17,000 weekday customers, according to NJ Transit. Warrington said the agency projects it will have 20,000 trips by next year. The Ninth Street station features a passenger elevator that connects to Congress Street in Jersey City. The elevator will open today. “We are hoping that as a result of the light rail system, we will remove vehicles from coming through the grid pattern in Hoboken,” said Hoboken Mayor David Roberts. Light rail cars will run every 15 minutes between Lincoln Harbor and Hoboken Terminal. Riders who wish to travel further south will need to transfer at Hoboken Terminal.

St. Clair Streetcar Study team issues staff report Canada NewsWire September 8, 2004 Following extensive public consultation, the St. Clair Streetcar Study project team has finalized its recommendation. The report will be considered by the City’s Planning and Transportation Committee, Works Committee and the Toronto Transit Commission at a joint meeting on September 13. The report details the St. Clair Avenue West Transit Improvements Class Environmental Assessment. It seeks approval from the joint committees and commission for the preferred design concept that calls for exclusive streetcar lanes along St. Clair (Alternative No. 6 in the study), and for staff to continue with the next steps in the Environmental Assessment approval process. The transit improvements recommended in the report will reduce congestion on St. Clair, enhance pedestrian and driver safety and eliminate delays to transit service that are caused by heavy traffic during rush hour and traffic patterns on St. Clair Avenue West. In addition to an exclusive lane for streetcars, the recommendations also include two general purpose traffic lanes on each side of the streetcar lanes during peak periods, enhanced street design with trees, furniture and public art that will beautify the area, and parking spaces on both sides of St. Clair for use during off-peak hours and weekends. Rod McPhail, Director of Transportation Planning, City of Toronto said, “During the study period, over 2,000 members of the public aired their concerns in eight formal public meetings and workshops, 38 special stakeholder meetings, and via hundreds of e-mail and voice mail messages. We listened to all these concerns, then addressed and incorporated them into the various design plans. Their input definitely made a difference.” We not only had to determine how to improve transit operations along St. Clair Avenue, but also how to address the needs of area businesses, neighbourhoods, pedestrians, automobiles, delivery vehicles and cyclists. We listened to everyone’s concerns and used this a basis for developing a transit design concept that would best serve the needs of all stakeholders.” Mitch Stambler, Manager at the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) said, “Toronto Police Services, Fire Services and Emergency Medical Services have been fully consulted and have no objections to the proposed concept, subject to the resolution of a small design detail pertaining to the centre of the reserved lanes. These departments are continuing to work with the project team to identify the best possible design.” The principal elements of the recommended design concept: - Two centre lanes of St. Clair Avenue West between Yonge Street and Gunns Road reserved for exclusive streetcar and emergency vehicle use protected by a raised, but mountable trackbed; - Two general purpose traffic lanes in each direction located on either side of the streetcar tracks during peak periods; - One general purpose traffic lane plus one parking lane in each direction during off-peak periods and weekends; - Left turn lanes provided at signalized intersections to permit left turns and U-turns with their own special signal phases; - On-street parking permitted on both sides of St. Clair during off-peak weekday periods and on weekends; - Enhanced streetscape, urban design, streetcar shelters and platforms, public art and safety features in the overall design and implementation of the transit improvement project. The project cost is estimated at $25 million for trackbed replacement and an additional $20 million for streetcar platforms and shelters, intersection improvements, urban design enhancements, streetscaping, property acquisition and public art. In addition, a number of City divisions have programmed and budgeted for projects on St. Clair Avenue West, totalling $2.7 million in 2005, which will be brought forward to coincide with construction of the project. Additional funding for other components of the project will be brought forward for 2006 budgets, including, street lighting, urban design and parks improvements. If all approvals are given, construction will begin in 2005. Council passed Toronto’s Official Plan in 2002. The Official Plan focuses on city-building and identifies St. Clair Avenue West as one of many avenues for future growth. The staff report goes to City Council for consideration at its September 28-30 meeting. If the project is approved by Council, and environmental approvals are obtained, the City and TTC will continue to consult with the public through the detailed design phase.

History of Las Vegas Monorail’s Mishaps KLAS-TV News — Las Vegas September 9, 2004 (Sep. 8) — The first few months of the monorail’s operation have not gone smoothly. But Wednesday’s shutdown is just the latest in a list of monorail mishaps. The monorail’s troubles began during the testing phase at the beginning of this year. Back in January, an 18-inch drive shaft dropped off the bottom of one of the trains, falling 15 feet to ground at the MGM Grand station. Last month, an employee for a monorail contractor was suspended after opening a set of doors about 25 feet above the ground. The employee was sent to the Hilton station after crews reported a maintenance light was on. The technician overrode the system’s automated controls, allowing him to open the doors manually on the wrong side of the platform. Then just a week ago, a 60-pound tire assembly fell from one of the trains, as it was moving. The pieces slammed into a parking lot near Koval Lane, behind the Venetian. That mishap forced the system to shutdown until just Tuesday. No one was injured in any of those accidents.

Monorail bid low enough; talks given green light Seattle Times September 9, 2004 Though the Green Line monorail attracted only one construction bid, the price is low enough for the line to be built with available taxes, say officials from the Seattle Monorail Project (SMP). The monorail’s governing board last night unanimously approved formal contract talks with Cascadia Monorail Co., a consortium led by Washington Group International, Fluor and train supplier Hitachi of Japan. Cascadia submitted its bid three weeks ago, and monorail staff determined the team is qualified based on its transit experience, price, design and other factors. However, neither the agency nor the contractors have released contents of Cascadia’s bid. Contract talks will be held in secret until both sides reach a tentative agreement, on a timetable yet to be determined. Tom Horkan, SMP director of design and construction, said the Cascadia proposal does not exceed the voter-approved $1.6 billion cap on construction debt or the amount available from a citywide car-tab tax. The line connects Ballard, Seattle Center, downtown and West Seattle. Just getting a qualified bid for the embattled project could itself be considered an accomplishment. Las Vegas is the only other U.S. city to attempt monorail as cross-town transit lines rather than an airport people-mover, downtown shuttle or amusement ride. “For us to reach this milestone is always a relief,” said Fluor executive Jeff Fielder. Though the agency has held dozens of public meetings to discuss station and track concepts, the true details — the shape of a Ballard monorail bridge, the appearance of the stations, and the location of huge switches above the streets — will be determined largely in the confidential talks. Monorail Chairman Tom Weeks said Tuesday the public will have time to examine a final plan before the agency votes on a contract. A public hearing is required by state law. Howard Anderson, who owns the historic Doyle Building at Second Avenue and Pine Street along the route, is skeptical about the agency’s tactics. “The public hearing is just to say on record they had a public hearing, ‘We listened.’ There’s nobody from the public that’s really involved in the process,” he said. Officials say the confidentiality is needed to give the monorail agency a stronger bargaining position for the public interest and to protect the companies from the release of proprietary information about their monorail technologies. Board member Rick Sundberg, an architect, said some negotiations might occur after one or more hearings. Also, the City Council must conduct a financial review before giving permits. Also yesterday, a three-judge panel from the Washington State Court of Appeals heard arguments over whether Initiative 83, the “Monorail Recall” measure, is legal and should appear on the November ballot. The initiative would ban or repeal city permits to build a new monorail. A decision could come within a few days.

City Tunnel Visions Exhibit Fetes Subway Centenary Daily News (New York September 9, 2004 IT HASN’T always been a smooth ride, but straphangers know the subway system has come a long way since the late 1970s, when it was unreliable, filthy and plagued with crime. “Whatever people think of the transit system now, it was much, much worse then,” Gene Russianoff, attorney for the Straphangers Campaign watchdog group, told the Daily News. The Straphangers Campaign is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the city subway system — and its own 25 years of working to make it faster, safer and cleaner — with a new exhibit at the Municipal Art Society in midtown Manhattan. The show is called “The Riders and the Rebirth of City Transit: 25 Years of Transit Advocacy by the NYPIRG Straphangers Campaign.” “We wanted to give riders a sense of what they’ve accomplished,” Russianoff, sporting a tie imprinted with a subway map, said at the exhibit’s opening yesterday. “A lot of people in New York think you can’t fight City Hall. This exhibit says it’s not easy, but it’s possible.” Included in the exhibit are images of dirty, grafitti-covered subway cars from the late 1970s — when the New York Public Interest Research Group started the Straphangers Campaign — as well as poetry praising and lambasting the subway and recent photos of gleaming new turnstiles and the renovated grandeur of Grand Central Terminal. “The Straphangers Campaign played a key role in bringing the New York City subway system back from the brink,” said Paul White, executive director of Transportation Alternatives, a group that promotes walking and using bicycles. “How they effect change in New York City is something not only transportation groups, but environmental and social justice groups, have followed,” White said. Russianoff, who has been the leading voice of the Straphangers Campaign for 23 years — said the group’s biggest accomplishment was helping to usher in the age of unlimited-ride MetroCards and free bus-to-subway transfers in 1997. Also, by constantly releasing reports critical of the MTA and rating the value of the various subway and bus lines, they have helped to secure $30 billion for new equipment and maintenance, he said. Ironically, Russianoff, who lives in Park Slope, was caught in the citywide subway delays caused by flooding on his way to the art gallery yesterday. His reaction: “They were making those annoying canned announcements — ‘Sorry for the delay’ — when they should have told us to get on the local,” said Russianoff, who had spent half an hour sitting on a stalled express train. The exhibit runs through Oct. 30 at the Urban Center Gallery of the Municipal Art Society, 457 Madison Ave., between E. 50th and 51st Sts. Just like a subway-to-bus transfer, entrance is free.

Take the A Train to go sightseeing The Boston Herald September 9, 2004 NEW YORK — It’s almost the 100th birthday of the New York City subway. On Oct. 27, 1904, the first train left City Hall and sped 9.1 miles uptown via Grand Central and newly renamed Times Square (formerly Longacre) to 145th Street on the Upper West Side. The system then began to rapidly expand into all five boroughs. OK, Boston’s T is older by a few years, but New York’s TA (Transit Authority) offers some great rides along elevated lines that date to the steam era in the 1880s. The els, as we call them here, now mostly serve boroughs outside Manhattan, and they provide urban overviews and destinations that often seem very non-New York. From a tangle of 25 rail lines and 722 track miles that serve 468 elevated and subway stations, here is one New Yorker’s sampling of varied transit trips with intriguing diversions at the far end of the line. ``Take the A Train’’ has a familiar ring, and the song celebrates Harlem, but the fast ride there is entirely underground. Instead head south to the Brooklyn-Queens border where the A Train climbs onto an 1888 former steam railway trestle then swings right over to an old Long Island Rail Road line. Following a stop at the new Airtrain station for JFK, the train heads out over Jamaica Bay. Out the window to the right, a wildlife refuge, with access via Broad Channel Station, is a hugely popular stopover for waterfowl on the Atlantic Flyway. Now take a deep breath. You can smell the ocean when the line lands on the 12-mile-long Rockaway Peninsula and begins to parallel the Atlantic breakers. Yes, it’s New York City by the sea in the borough of Queens. The wondrous beach and boardwalk run seven miles between Far Rockaway and an Irish enclave at Rockaway Park. Though the A Train is all underground in Manhattan, the older (1904) No. 1 Broadway Line surfaces just north of Columbia University and soars across a spectacular high trestle spanning 125th Street with views of the Hudson River and Harlem, then tunnels under to again surface at 207th Street for the ride over the Harlem River into the Bronx. The trestle abruptly ends at 242nd Street though numbered streets continue to 263rd on the border with Yonkers. Descend to adjacent Van Cortlandt Park — its 1,112 sprawling acres surpassing Central Park’s 843 acres. A five-minute walk brings you to Van Cortlandt Manor, built in 1748, welcoming visitors and once home to the family who owned all this land and much more. Continue east past the country’s first golf course and swagger into the Moshulu Golf Club bar. From the Irish brogues you’ll hear, with faces to match, you’ll be transported from the Bronx to County Kerry. For one amazing neighborhood of contrasts take the No. 7 Flushing Line to a multiethnic oasis dominated by East Asian immigrants yet still peppered with historic reminders of a 17th century Dutch-English village. The No. 7 ranks as one of the best in the transit system for reliability. The line, completed between 1916-1928, begins at Times Square and surfaces in Queens to snake along an elevated trestle with views of the Manhattan skyline, Amtrak’s vast Sunnyside coach yards and residential row-house Queens. Off to the right appear the old World’s Fair (1939 and 1964) grounds, early space rockets at the Hall of Science, Queens Zoo and other sights, and finally on the left, Shea Stadium, where the Mets play. Arriving underground at Flushing Main Street, the prosperous commercial district above caters almost entirely to the Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese communities, with numerous restaurants near the station. Three blocks east then two blocks north are tranquil pockets of old Flushing where you can find the 1661 Bowne House where clandestine Quaker Meetings were first held and the Kingsland House (1785), which serves as the Queens Historical Society headquarters. Return via Northern Boulevard to pass the decorative brick 1905 Flushing Armory and the former 1864 Romanesque Revival Flushing Town Hall. If it’s Sunday, visit the still-active Quaker Meeting House and burial ground, which dates to 1694. Rising from beneath Brooklyn, the Coney Island-bound D Train lumbers up to a viaduct for sweeping views of Upper New York Bay, Governors Island, the Statue of Liberty and the distant New Jersey shore. Below is Borough Park, a largely Hasidic neighborhood, and then comes multiethnic Bensonhurst before the line halts one long block from the beach just opposite Nathan’s Famous (hot dogs). It’s a stone’s throw to the baseball stadium of the Brooklyn Cyclones, named after the roller coaster at nearby Astroland amusement park. Walk left along the 2.5-mile wide Boardwalk past the New York Aquarium into Brighton Beach, taking in the flavor of this vibrant beachfront Russian/Ukrainian neighborhood. Its commercial strip, tucked under the el, is an entirely other world of ethnic restaurants, fruit and fish markets, delicatessens and clothing peddlers. Return via the B Express or Q local along the ground level Brighton Line, built on a railroad alignment dating to 1878 that soon dives under Prospect Park and downtown Brooklyn, rising for a splendid, slow ride over the north side of the Manhattan Bridge. All of midtown is out the window, and at dusk, the lighted towers seem like friendly lanterns showing the way home. The truest of the true elevateds, el of all els, is Jamaica’s J Train, which begins in Lower Manhattan and rises up and over the center of the Williamsburg Bridge spanning the East River then plunges deep into Brooklyn, stopping at stations that first opened in 1888 and look it. There’s a lot to see as the train travels at eye-level with the top row of tenement windows close enough to see what’s for lunch, and more. At Myrtle Avenue, a spur carrying the M Train heads north ending on the ground opposite Lutheran Cemetery in Middle Village. The J continues above more prosperous Cypress Hills, makes a couple of screechingly sharp turns to parallel Forest Park and ends at Jamaica Center, a busy commercial district serving an African-American neighborhood. Don’t worry about being alone on an empty subway, some 4.5 million of us are out there on a typical weekday and 1.9 million on a Sunday. If you go The basic fare is $2 and a Day Pass costs $7. Metrocards are available at station token booths and ticket machines, at many newsstands, NYC Visitors Bureaus and the Transit Museum & Shop in Grand Central Terminal.

Rail Ridership Hits New Highs; Reagan Funeral, Return Of Tourism Lift Metro Washington Post September 10, 2004 More people rode Metrorail in the past year than in any year since the subway opened in 1976, at one point breaking the record for single-day ridership. Although rail ridership grew by 3 percent overall in the fiscal year that ended June 30, it shot up by 10 percent on weekends, suggesting the return of tourists and conventioneers — a category of riders that nearly disappeared after the terrorist attacks three years ago, Metro budget analysts said yesterday. Average weekday ridership was 652,578 on the trains and 502,971 on the buses. Evening ridership grew 3.5 percent and the expansion of late-night rail service on weekends, from 2 a.m. to 3 a.m., proved more popular than expected. The number of night-owl passengers was 16 percent higher than Metro analysts had predicted. The subway set a record for the most passengers in a single day on June 9, the first day of the state funeral for former president Ronald Reagan, when it carried 850,636 riders. Metro Chief Executive Richard A. White pointed to several factors driving rail ridership: an increase in the local employment rate, the return of tourists, the opening of the new Convention Center, as well as several special events in which the public was encouraged to take transit, such as the Reagan funeral and the dedication of the National World War II Memorial. While trains were packed, bus ridership fell slightly. Metro officials said there were 1.3 percent fewer bus riders than in the previous year. But White cautioned that the statistic may not be accurate because it’s based on data from old bus fareboxes with counting mechanisms that were notoriously unreliable. “We’ve had huge trouble getting accurate ridership information from the buses,” he said. New fareboxes that have been installed on all Metrobuses are expected to deliver better data, he said. MetroAccess, the curb-to-curb van service for the disabled and elderly, logged more miles. Average MetroAccess ridership increased 14 percent on weekdays and 16 percent on weekends, compared with the previous year. Unexpected revenue from joint development projects near stations and tunnel space leased to fiber optics companies yielded a modest surplus of about $1.8 million, which transit managers said they will put in a reserve account for operating costs. It is too early to tell whether fare increases that took effect June 27 will have any effect on ridership in this fiscal year, Chief Financial Officer Peter Benjamin told Metro board members yesterday. Because summer vacations are over, and children have returned to school and their parents to work, Metro officials say, any loss of rail riders should become apparent this month. Despite record-smashing rail ridership — and record revenue from fares — Metro officials say the agency still faces significant financial hurdles and is running out of ways to address them. They expect a $40 million shortfall in next year’s operating budget and a $30 million deficit the year after that. Budget analysts blame the same factors for increasing expenses each year — health insurance for the agency’s 10,000 workers, pension costs and rising diesel fuel prices. One problem Metro faces as it tries to reduce health care costs is union- negotiated contracts that require the transit system to pay 90 percent of health care costs while employees pay 10 percent. In addition, the largest union, Local 689 of the Amalgamated Transit Union, has the most expensive health care coverage, from Blue Cross and Blue Shield. The union represents about 7,600 Metro employees, including train operators, bus drivers and station managers. While Metro routinely seeks competitive bids for health insurance and changes carriers for its nonunionized employees, it has never deviated from Blue Cross and Blue Shield for most of its unionized workers. To do so would require union approval, said Bill Scott, Metro’s assistant general manager for workforce development. “Their members have a comfort level with Blue Cross and Blue Shield,” he said. Scott said the transit system is trying to negotiate a new contract with its unions that would shift the burden of health care costs so Metro pays 85 percent of coverage and employees pay 15 percent. Metro’s operating costs are paid by a combination of passenger fares and parking fees, subsidies from local governments served by the rail and bus system, and revenue from advertising and other sources. Fares and fees were stable for eight years, until the Metro board raised them last year and again in June.

INDEFINITE SHUTDOWN: Monorail extension on hold; Four-mile system to stay closed until safety problems are solved Las Vegas Review-Journal September 10, 2004 The Las Vegas Monorail won’t carry passengers anytime soon, and the rail line’s downtown extension is on hold until officials succeed in fixing problems that have bedeviled the new rail line. The $650 million, four-mile system has been closed since Wednesday, when a metal part connected to a drive shaft fell from a train. That was the third time this year debris has fallen off one of the trains. “We will not open this system until we have confidence and verification that the system is safe for passenger service,” Jim Gibson, CEO of monorail manager Transit Systems Management LLC, said Thursday. “I can safely say we’ll be down for several days, for sure. Beyond that, we don’t know until we look at the results of the investigation.” One official suggested the testing of the system might require its closure for weeks. Gibson said the indefinite shutdown was tough to accept, but necessary. “Since we recognize the public demands a safe system, we have no other course.” Officials had hoped to break ground on a $450 million, 2.3-mile extension to Fremont Street as soon as next summer. That target date will be missed, and the entire extension is in jeopardy due to the initial segment’s woes. “For a transit system to work, it has to be reliable and it has to be safe. Until those concerns are dealt with, there is no downtown extension,” said Jacob Snow, general manager of the Regional Transportation Commission. Snow said the monorail system needs to demonstrate the most fundamental traits of a transit system. “I’d definitely start with no things falling out of the train at all,” Snow said. “Until you see that type of reliable service you’d expect with a transit system, you’ll have more questions than answers.” Central to those answers is monorail builder and operator Bombardier Corp. In the coming days, Bombardier engineers, along with local monorail officials, Clark County inspectors and outside consultants will scrutinize how Bombardier builds trains, maintains and operates the line, and trains its workers. Bombardier already has been contracted to build and operate the extension, known as Phase II, which will rely on about $320 million in federal grants and $130 million in bond sales. Those pending bond sales are dependent on the financial and operational success of the initial Phase I. The first phase is leaning on farebox revenues to pay back a hefty chunk of its price tag to bondholders. While the line is down, it’s losing an estimated $100,000 a day in fares, and problems in keeping the line open is hardly reassuring to bond buyers considering a purchase of Phase II bonds. “We’ve said all along, for there to be an extension, Phase I is going to have to demonstrate that it has the financial capability to pay for itself,” Snow said. “The federal government said they’ll have to see good financial capability and technical capability before they put money into it. “If they can’t bring the projected dollars into this project, there’s no way taxpayers can make up the difference. The thing that made it so attractive to us was that we could have a transit system that can be paid for by itself.” Institutional flaws are suspect behind most of the monorail’s problems, which prior to Wednesday’s failure included the following: - A wheel that fell from a moving train on Sept. 1, prompting a six-day shutdown. The wheel was found to have been improperly installed during manufacture, and Bombardier workers ignored 149 alarm warnings indicating a problem with the system one day before the incident. - On Aug. 16, a door to a steep drop-off from elevated tracks was inadvertently opened by a worker. - On Jan. 5, a drive shaft fell from a moving train during testing. That incident has strong similarities to Wednesday’s failure. - Chronic glitches in the train’s computerized steering system pushed back a targeted Jan. 20 rollout date to July 15. For that, Bombardier and co- builder Granite Construction Co. of Watsonville, Calif., were assessed $11 million in fines. “These events are unacceptable to the monorail company, and we’re looking to Bombardier to resolve them,” Gibson said. “In all candor, we couldn’t help but have serious questions about Bombardier under these circumstances. It’s their responsibility to demonstrate we should have confidence in them.” Michael Shaman, Bombardier’s vice president for operations, expressed regret over the problems and vowed a fix would come, though he admitted he was puzzled over the broad failures in his company’s monorail division. Those failures might be the biggest mystery for a company with a strong reputation in transportation, with high-profile products and clients that include Lear Jet corporate planes, Sea-Doo watercraft, subways in London and Montreal and airport monorails in San Francisco, Dallas and Atlanta. “There’s a lot of concern on my part. We have to get away from the reactionary mode and get to the proactive mode,” Shaman said. “Bombardier has never walked away from its obligation to deliver a product that meets customer satisfaction. We’re going to get this right. We’re not going to walk away from this.” Bombardier is paid based on its ability to run a working system each day, with the contract being worth more than $10 million annually if all conditions are being met. Daily payments are suspended. That, along with a $20 million-plus contingency fund, is helping local monorail officials weather a lack of revenue. So far, bondholders, advertisers and resort corridor hotel “partners” have not bailed from the rail line, Gibson said. What may be harder to overcome is any harm to the reputation of the system as a result of the problems, which have been reported nationwide and might affect the future ridership needed to keep the system fiscally afloat. “Of course, we’re concerned about the reputation of the system,” Gibson said. “Our hope is, in the same way the word has gotten out that the system has problems, the word will get out that we’ve fixed them.” Dumping Bombardier is not on the table, for now. “We haven’t moved to discussions like that at this point,” Gibson said.

Fitch Places Las Vegas Monorail, NV 1st Tier Bonds on Rating Watch Negative BUSINESS WIRE Sept. 10, 2004 NEW YORK — (BUSINESS WIRE) — Sept. 10, 2004 — Fitch Ratings places the $451.4 million in outstanding Director of the State of Nevada Department of Business and Industry Las Vegas Monorail project revenue bonds, 1st tier, series 2000, on Rating Watch Negative. The underlying rating on the bonds is rated ‘BBB-’ by Fitch. The bonds are insured by Ambac Assurance Corporation, whose insurer financial strength is rated ‘AAA’ by Fitch. Fitch’s action reflects equipment problems that have led to the closing of the Las Vegas Monorail on two separate occasions since its delayed opening in July. After a wheel fell off a monorail train on Sept. 1, the system was shut down for inspection for a period of six days. The monorail reopened on Sept. 7 and then was closed down the following day after it was discovered that a flange fell off one of the trains. At this point, the extent of the problem is unknown. The Las Vegas Monorail Co. (LVMC), the non-profit public corporation responsible for the project, is investigating the nature of the problem to determine whether it is an isolated event or a systemic issue. LVMC has indicated that Bombardier, the manufacturer of the trains and monorail operator under contract to LVMC, is strongly committed to solving the on-going equipment problems. An opening date for the monorail is currently unknown. Even if the monorail returns to operation soon, Fitch will look for an extended period of reliable operations given a pattern of system equipment problems that go back to late last year. The availability of about $30 million in uncommitted construction funds, the debt service reserve fund, and $12 million in collected liquidated damages provide an important near term offset to the monorail’s equipment problems. The availability of capitalized interest to cover debt service payments through January 2005 is also an important rating consideration. Nevertheless, an extended closure of the monorail and/or a continuing pattern of service interruptions could lead to a downgrade of the 1st tier bonds. LVMC reports that average daily ridership while the monorail was operating during its first 17 days was 30,811. Although this is about 55% of levels forecasted for the first full year of operations, it is not necessarily inconsistent with Fitch’s expectation for ramp-up of demand for this facility. Fitch will continue to monitor the monorail’s ridership. The rating on the 1st tier bonds may also be negatively affected to the extent ridership levels do not ramp-up adequately or perceived safety concerns constrain ridership growth. The 1st tier bonds are limited obligations of the director of the department of business and industry, payable from and secured by a pledge of senior loan repayments, derived from monorail fare and other operating revenues after operations and maintenance expenses and prior to the payment of second-tier and third-tier bonds (neither of which are rated by Fitch). The monorail project consists of the upgrade of an existing 0.8 mile monorail between the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino to Bally’s Hotel and Casino and construction of three miles of new guideway from Bally’s north to the Sahara Hotel and Casino. Seven stations are located along the alignment serving major hotels, attractions, and the Las Vegas Convention Center along the Las Vegas Strip.

Feds signal light rail OK likely; City has federal contract detailing support but awaits signatures Charlotte Observer September 10, 2004 Charlotte has received the strongest signal yet that its long-awaited light- rail line will be built: a proposed $193 million federal contract that would pay half the cost. The Observer on Thursday reviewed a copy of the draft agreement between the Federal Transit Administration and the Charlotte Area Transit System, which CATS chief Ron Tober received earlier this month. The FTA has not yet signed the document, but the Charlotte City Council is scheduled to vote on it Sept. 27. “They haven’t approved it, but they’re getting very close,” an excited Tober said of his federal partners. “We’re building to a crescendo now.” FTA spokeswoman Melissa Sabatine would not comment on the proposed contract. Mayor Pat McCrory said he is “not declaring victory until the signatures are on the paper.” Congress, which could delay the line, must still review the project. “You can never take that for granted,” McCrory said. CATS plans to build a 9.6-mile, double-track along South Boulevard from uptown to Interstate 485 near Pineville, with service starting October 2006. This is the first of five rapid-transit routes that will cost $6 billion to build and operate over 25 years. Charlotte will apply for federal help for each line and hopes the FTA will pay about $1.5 billion for construction. McCrory says the South Boulevard line will spur development around stations and give drivers an alternative to congested roads. Critics say the trains will not reduce congestion or improve air quality and will cost a fortune. Charlotte hoped to start construction last year, but planning mistakes delayed the engineering work — and the federal money. CATS has scheduled a “demolition ceremony” Sept. 24 as it starts clearing buildings around future stations. The official groundbreaking should come in October when work starts on the light-rail garage, Tober said. A factory in Sacramento is already building the trains. Combined with other federal money, the FTA is expected to pay $199 million, half the cost of the $398.7 million light-rail line. The state and CATS will each pay 25 percent. CATS’s share comes from the half-cent sales tax that Charlotte- Mecklenburg voters approved in 1998. It raises about $52 million a year for bus and train service. Congress appropriates money for rapid-transit projects, and Charlotte is working with legislative leaders to win the first $30 million installment on that $193 million. Once FTA signs the contract, the rest of the money is paid over three or four years without an annual appropriation by Congress. Starting in early October, four congressional committees will review the Charlotte project for 60 days, but Congress itself won’t vote. Winning Congress’ support is important, legislative aides say. A congressional committee, for instance, held up an FTA contract with Seattle last year for several months. Charlotte took several congressional staffers on a tour of the planned route in August. Tober and McCrory also hope to meet late this month with U.S. Rep. Ernest Istook, an Oklahoma Republican who heads the House Appropriations Transportation and Treasury Subcommittee. Istook’s subcommittee this summer refused to include $30 million for the Charlotte project that President Bush sought for the federal budget. A staffer in Istook’s office says the committee did not include that money because the FTA, citing CATS’s planning delays, didn’t recommend Charlotte for a contract in February. Now that FTA appears about to OK a contract with CATS, Charlotte’s project is in a different position, the staffer said. Meanwhile, CATS must reschedule the construction bid for its light-rail garage, which will be built on South Boulevard near Clanton Road. Only one contractor submitted a bid by the Wednesday deadline, not the minimum of three that’s required. Tober said the timing of the bidding apparently was bad, and he thinks more contractors will bid next time. Construction of the garage must start quickly because CATS’s first train will be delivered in fall 2005, with others arriving soon afterward.

Feasibility study touts benefits of light rail line Las Vegas Review-Journal September 10, 2004 A proposed light rail line linking downtown Las Vegas to Henderson and North Las Vegas could cut mass transit travel times by up to two-thirds, according to a feasibility study. But the study, presented Thursday to the Regional Transportation Commission, has yet to firm up three keys to making the rail line a reality: funding, cost and projected ridership. The study claimed that light rail trains could make the trip between downtown and the south Strip in 20 to 23 minutes. Buses plying that route do so in 58 minutes to 1 hour, 8 minutes. “The system would provide significant time savings,” said Charlie DeWeese, a consultant on the project. The rail line would run along a 33-mile route, the likely first segment running along 14 miles of existing Union Pacific railroad tracks between Henderson and downtown. Work could begin by 2009, with completion around 2012. Other future routes could run to the northwest and southern parts of the valley. Planners believe a growing population and an employment base that’s spreading out beyond the resort corridor makes a light rail line doable. Planners also believe many valley roads are wide enough to accommodate both light rail and existing traffic. Planners will now work on firming up how much the system will cost, what precise paths are preferred and how many people can be expected to ride the system. Those various figures should be compiled throughout next year.

Light-rail figures still above goal Minneapolis Star Tribune September 10, 2004 Passengers boarded Hiawatha light-rail trains an estimated 476,800 times during the second month of service — up more than 10,000 rides in July, according to Metro Transit. That’s more than double the 236,700 monthly goal set for the line before construction began. Sports fans riding to 15 Twins games and two Vikings games drove up ridership. The highest daily ridership — 22,100 on Aug. 14 and 24,700 on Aug. 27 — were on Vikings game days. Weekday ridership in August averaged more than 16,700 rides a day, 76 percent above the 9,500 weekday goal set for this year. It’s close to the 19,300 weekday ridership target set for the entire line by late 2005. The higher than expected ridership raises a question: Is the rail line showing real success or were projections too low? “We don’t believe the forecasts were too low,” said Mark Fuhrmann, acting general manager of Metro Transit. Projections were made in 1999 and updated in the following two years, but they didn’t have the benefit of the 2000 census. Ridership goals were based on the 1990 census and adjusted with updated population estimates made later in the decade, Fuhrmann said. “The projections were done with all the best available data and modeling available. We believed those forecasts were very reasonable,” he said. The Federal Transit Administration, which could compare the projections to actual ridership elsewhere, approved the goals, he said. “Two months after Salt Lake City opened its first line, ridership was 36 percent over its goal,” Fuhrmann said. “Our ridership is substantially ahead of the early Salt Lake City experience.” Metro Transit arrives at ridership figures by taking at-station counts for at least 25 percent of trips on weekdays during the month. It uses those counts to estimate ridership on other trips. Special weekend counts were taken during Vikings games. A count tallies all riders boarding trains on the trips selected. A trip is the completion of the full route in one direction. Despite the strong ridership, Metro Transit isn’t yet considering buying more cars. Twenty-four have been ordered and 17 delivered. It is using 14 cars to meet peak-hour demands, and it expects that 24 will meet demands when the full line opens in December, Fuhrmann said. “We have enough cars in our fleet plan … to very comfortably serve our weekday peak [commuter] demands. … And it will continue to be a stretch to serve the crowds,” he said. Fuhrmann said it’s premature to project long-term ridership trends based on two months of service. It’s possible that weekday ridership will dip with the end of summer vacation and the start of school, he said. The first eight miles of the line opened June 26 between downtown Minneapolis and Fort Snelling. The remaining stretch of four miles is scheduled to open in December to the Minneapolis St. Paul International Airport and the Mall of America in Bloomington.

River Line is defying naysayers; After six months, ridership is ahead of where critics — and even NJ Transit — thought it would be Inquirer September 10, 2004 Let Richard Holmes Jr. count the ways he loves NJ Transit’s River Line. He loves that the light-rail service is faster than the bus, cutting 45 minutes out of his trip from his Camden home to work at Burlington Coat Factory in Beverly. He loves that it is comfortable and on time. And he loves that it costs only $1.10. The only problem, according to coworker Mark Brown from Roebling, is that finding a seat at rush hour is often tough. “I think it’s doing a lot better than some people thought it would.” It’s no screaming success. But six months after its debut March 14, the disputed Camden-to-Trenton line is doing better than NJ Transit officials expected. Through the end of August, the line averaged 4,782 one-way passenger trips a day. Last month, the service averaged 5,643 trips on weekdays. That was just shy of the 5,700 daily trips that McGreevey administration officials thought they could eke out by the end of the service’s first year. As with most public transportation, weekend ridership has been lower. Last month, the line averaged 4,626 Saturday trips and 3,601 Sunday trips. “We’re certainly ahead of where we thought we’d be after six months,” NJ Transit spokeswoman Penny Bassett-Hackett said. But ridership is still far below the 11,200 daily trips that Whitman administration officials put forth in 1996 to justify what was predicted to be a $314 million project. That ridership estimate fell steadily through the years. Meanwhile, the project’s cost spiraled to $1.1 billion, prompting critics to pounce. Even transit officials in the McGreevey administration criticized the line as an ill-advised use of coveted transportation money, but resolved to make the best of the situation. They joined supporters in promoting the line not so much as a solution to a transportation problem, but as an economic-development tool that would, over the next few decades, help revive the struggling river towns through which it runs. Bystanders these days may see railcars passing with standing room only and equate that with success. But looks can be deceiving. The line often runs just one railcar at a time, and each holds just 190 people, 96 of those seated. At the end of the fiscal year, June 30, the line was recovering just under 11 percent of its operating costs. NJ Transit rail lines average about 70 percent. And some of the people riding may not become the regular users. Some, NJ Transit officials acknowledge, are likely on board for novelty’s sake, to check out the service and its sleek German-made railcars. Special events during the summer, such as July Fourth celebrations on the waterfront, also inflated numbers. Ridership peaked Friday, July 2, at almost 10,000 trips. But for the most part, officials predict, ridership is rising and will continue to do so because the service is reliable (it has a record of being 94 percent on time), cheap and comfortable. Plus, NJ Transit has spent $900,000 marketing the line, and expects to spend at least $100,000 more. Officials have given the service its own Web site (www.riverline.com) and have bombarded potential passengers with mailers, radio spots and print ads. They have offered free rides and synchronized schedules to improve connections into New York via NJ Transit’s Northeast Corridor and to the Statehouse in Trenton by way of the Capitol Connection bus route. They have also partnered with institutions and venues — including Rutgers University-Camden, the New Jersey State Aquarium, and Campbell’s Field — to promote the line for getting to everything from English class to a baseball game. Transit officials have had their work cut out for them in marketing a line that started out with some major scheduling problems. Because Conrail has overnight rights to the track, the last trains from Camden and Trenton originally left around 9 p.m. — too early, for instance, for many concertgoers streaming out of Camden’s Tweeter Center. Officials have since negotiated limited late-night hours. Officials in June also began running trains every 15 minutes during rush hours. Off-peak trains run every 30 minutes. Transit officials say their efforts are paying off, and not just in ridership. Burlington County and municipal officials say developers have begun taking a serious interest in the depressed corridor, drawn at least in part by the rail line and the easy access it offers. “There’s a lot of activity behind the scenes right now,” said Mark Remsa, Burlington County’s director of economic development. Developers “are saying, ‘We’re here because we like the location, we like the traditional downtown setting, and we like the light rail.’… These are projects that will help reshape the physical and economic landscape.” In Riverside, for example, plans are moving ahead for the redevelopment of the so-called Golden Triangle, a 32-acre site across from the light-rail stop and anchored by the historic Watch Case Tower. Nearby, the owners of the Madison Pub, steady proponents of the rail line, plan an extensive expansion. And municipal officials say more than one developer has shown interest in converting the old Taubel mill, right beside the tracks, into loft apartments or condominiums. In Camden, the River Line has given the struggling waterfront “a big boost,” said Judy London, president of the South Jersey Tourism Corp. and executive director of the Camden Waterfront Marketing Bureau. Taking the River Line “is an adventure — as much of an adventure as our own attractions,” she said. “It’s fun, and the kids love it.” Joe North, general manager of light-rail operations for NJ Transit, called the line’s first six months “a good start.” “I think the public has reacted favorably to the service,” he said. “But by no means will we rest on our laurels. Every year, we’ll just keep building and building.”

LEE’S IRT “The World’s Safest Railroad,” The New York Sun September 10, 2004 An exhibit at the New York Transit Museum Gallery Annex at Grand Central Terminal, explores how public relations pioneer Ivy Ledbetter Lee (18771934) promoted New York’s subway system between 1916 and 1932, when the company went into receivership. The show traces how Lee gained public support for New York’s first subway, the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (known as “IRT”) in its second decade of operation, when facing competition from the rival Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company. The exhibition draws on materials in the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections at Princeton University and is scheduled to run through October 24. A Georgia-born Princeton graduate and one-time New York Times reporter, Lee opened a public relations firm called Parker & Lee. Attracting major industrial clients, he communicated directly with subway passengers with posters and pamphlets. Lee often polled customer opinion and had his firm thank each respondent by letter. One campaign explained that when it’s hot on the subway, there’s a reason — it’s not that the subway “doesn’t care.” Another endeavored to acquaint passengers with turnstiles, where “each gate is an entrance and exit.” The poster series “The Subway Sun” and “The Elevated Express” covered issues such as safety, proper etiquette, and public service announcements. Those attending the exhibition’s opening included author Lawrence Stelter (“By the El: Third Avenue and Its El at Mid-Century”); transportation consultant George Haikalis; Bronx County Historical Society archivist and editor Peter Derrick; Trudy Mason of the New York State Democratic Committee; and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority director of special projects, Roxanne Robertson. New York Transit Museum senior curator Charles Sachs subsequently gave a talk on Ivy Lee at the museum’s main location in Brooklyn, at which pubic relations icon Chester Burger was present.

Shorter late-night trains ruled out The Washington Times September 10, 2004 Metro’s budget committee yesterday voted to cease running the shorter late-night trains because of irate customers, but warned that the experiment shows how bad service could get without dedicated funding. Metro officials reverted to running the regular four-car trains after receiving numerous complaints from riders about overcrowded cars and being stranded on platforms. The transit system had run the two-car subway trains after 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday for five days in late June. “It was a good experiment and it was well-intentioned, but we’ve seen the error of our ways,” said board Vice Chairman Dana Kauffman, a Democrat who also serves on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. The switch to the shorter trains, which jammed more than 150 persons into a car on some lines, would have sliced $1 million from the fiscal 2005 budget over the course of a year. “At this point, if we continue to do things we have done in the past, we’ll be having this discussion about raising fares or cutting services every year,” said Metro General Manager and Chief Executive Officer Richard A. White. The transit agency is facing a $41.7 million spending gap in its proposed $1 billion budget for fiscal 2006, a 10.3 percent increase in the shortfall from the previous year. A $31 million shortage is projected for fiscal 2007.”People need to understand, these are the choices that we have to make,” said Arlington County Board member Chris Zimmerman. “We have to decide whether or not we want our trains to be overcrowded. If we do not, it’s got to be paid for. [The two-car trains] are just a little taste of how bad it could be.” The $1 million needed to return to the four-car trains will be provided by revenue generated by extended fee-collection hours for parking, officials said. Agency managers will present a proposed two-year budget to the board in December. In order to avoid a third straight year of fare increases, the budget plan calls for the District and the Maryland and Virginia