Eurostar Trains To Serve Turin-Milan Destination
ANSA English Corporate Service
November 27, 2003
(ANSA) - Turin, November 27 - A total 10 Eurostar Etr 500 trains will serve the Turin-Milan destination in northern Italy as of December 14, 2003, Massimo Ghenzer, director of Italian railway operator Trenitalia’s passenger department, reported on November 27, 2003.
The trains will be able to transport a total 6, 000 passengers. Thus the overall transportation capacity of Trenitalia will reach 15, 000 passengers. According to Massimo Ghenzer, the new trains will make the distance between Turin and Milan in an hour and 20 minutes. In this way the overall number of connections between the two cities will be 26 and there will be a train every hour in Milan to make the connection between Milan and Rome.
The new service will be the fastest way of transportation between Milan centre and Turin and is expected to reduce traffic on the Milan-Turin highway in the rush hours, William Casoni, councillor on transport in the Piedmont region, stated.
This service is a step on the way to implementing the Pan-European transportation project Corridor 5, which will link the eastern and the western part of Europe, Ghenzer said. A third destination connecting Turin and Paris by means of a high-speed TGV train will be launched in the middle of December 2003, he added.
Ghenzer also talked about the offered ticketless service since the introduction of Trenitalia’s winter timeable. It is an electronic ticket service which will make it possible to travel in first and second class on all Eurostar trains. Passengers can obtain the ticket by telephone or via Internet.
An electronic ticket is a kind of service in which the ticket is not printed on paper but is stored in the company’s reservation system instead. A reservation confirmation is sent by e-mail or fax.
Corridor 5 is connecting the Iberian peninsula with eastern and southeastern Europe through France south of the Alps and across the highly industrialised northern Italian regions of Piedmont, Lombardy, and Veneto. The project is included in the list of EU priorities in terms of financing, but has so far been neglected, in favour of a corridor north of the Alps that would cut Italy off.
At the beginning of Italy’s EU Presidency semester ending December 31, 2003, the country’s government announced it would take the initiative to boost infrastructure development in the EU, including the Corridor 5 construction. The Corridor 5 launch is expected to double the railway traffic figures of the Veneto region
|
Cash core for Big Apple port: Substantial investment in maritime infrastructure in $ 4.5bn New York/New Jersey budget
Lloyd’s List
December 16, 2003
THE Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has announced a $ 4.5bn budget for 2004 that includes substantial investments in the region’s maritime infrastructure.
The budget includes $ 2.1bn in operating expenses, $ 1.8bn in capital expenditures and $ 568m for debt service, this for a mammoth bi-state agency with responsibility for three major airports, the bridges and tunnels connecting New York City with its suburban hinterland, a commuter rail system and the myriad terminal facilities of the east coast’s largest container port.
The port’s maritime facilities feature prominently in the capital expenditure budget, with New York and New Jersey fighting to keep pace with surging demand and preparing for future growth.
Significant investments are now being pumped into berth and channel dredging, terminal enhancement and expansion, and the modernisation of intermodal links between the marine facilities and road and rail networks.
The port authority expects to spend $ 1.5bn over five years on such improvements, with private terminal operators investing a further $ 400m.
Among the major maritime items singled out in the port authority’s budget statement was the “continuing deepening of shipping channels to accommodate larger, deep-draught container ships, including the start of projects to deepen channels to 50 ft”.
The port authority also cited “constructing of new rail facilities at marine terminals in New York and New Jersey”, including the start of construction of a new rail connection between the Staten Island Railroad and the CSX/Norfolk Southern Chemical Coast Line to improve the movement of freight throughout the region.
In conjunction with an on-dock rail terminal now under construction, this last would have a major impact on the fortunes of the Howland Hook Container Terminal on Staten Island, providing it at long last with an efficient connection to the national rail network.
The budget includes capital expenditure of: $ 47.1m for Port Newark, $ 16.3m of which towards a 15-acre expansion of the Port Newark Container Terminal and $ 9m to help dredge key channels to 50 ft; $ 97.4m for the Elizabeth marine terminal, including $ 10m for the new ExpressRail on-dock rail facility, and a combined $ 60m for enhancements at the Maersk and Maher terminals.
On the New York side of the harbour, Howland Hook will see $ 88.5m in capital expenditure next year, including $ 21m to deepen the Arthur Kill channel from 40-41.5 ft, $ 14m to develop an intermodal terminal at the Port Ivory former industrial site, $ 19m for the Staten Island - Chemical Coast rail line and $ 17.3m towards a 500-ft berth extension. The port authority will also invest $ 15.5m in the Brooklyn piers and $ 2m at the Red Hook terminal, which is currently being targeted for a major redevelopment.
The port authority said it would continue to invest in the region’s infrastructure despite the revenue shortfall it had experienced in the wake of September 11 and an economic recession that hit the area hard.
New York governor George Pataki noted: “These investments will have long-term economic benefits to all New Yorkers and the entire region.”
|
TransLink’s trolley bus order is “in”; New Flyer of Winnipeg gearing up for detailed design
TransLink News Release
January 21, 2004
After more than three years of planning, a contract has been signed for the replacement of the region’s aging electric trolley bus fleet. The value of the contract is $119 million (Cdn) and Euro 69.6 million. The signing took place today (Wednesday) between TransLink and a consortium made up of New Flyer Industries of Winnipeg and Kiepe Elektrik of Germany.
Final negotiations with the New Flyer / Kiepe consortium took place after the TransLink Board approved proceeding with the contract at its October 29th meeting. Christmas holidays and some technical contract details moved the signing to the New Year.
Chair Doug McCallum said the contract award followed an intensive evaluation process in which the New Flyer / Kiepe proposal rated equivalent or higher than a competing proposal in every category. The proposals were evaluated on the basis of product acceptability, price and life cycle costs, risks and management track record.
“We are confident that the New Flyer / Kiepe contract represents the best value for the residents of this region. While the competing consortium made some public statements about its proposal at the October 29th Board meeting, the proposal they were referring to was not provided to us before the evaluation deadline that indicated New Flyer / Kiepe was the preferred proponent,” he said. “We did look at their unsolicited proposal and, based on the evaluation criteria, determined that it would not have changed the ranking.” The TransLink Board had received detailed briefings on the competing proposals prior to its decision on October 29th.
McCallum added, “We knew that this would be one of the largest trolley bus purchases in the world so we needed a process that would ensure we got the best value and that all competitors had a level playing field. That’s why we brought in SNC Lavalin to help us manage the process and why we drew on the Coast Mountain Bus Company’s 55 years of trolley bus expertise to evaluate the proposals. We picked the right bus.”
A pilot of the new trolley will roll off New Flyer’s Winnipeg assembly line in mid 2005. Deliveries of 188 standard 40-foot trolleys and 40 articulated 60-foot trolleys will begin in 2005 and are expected to conclude in 2007. The contract includes an option to purchase additional trolleys.
Chair McCallum said, “We’re proud of our region’s ongoing commitment to electric trolleys. Our busiest transit routes will continue to have quiet, pollution-free service, plus the new advantage of low-floor, accessible coaches that will better serve disabled customers.”
Backgrounder TransLink Trolley Purchase
The two consortia were New Flyer of Winnipeg with Kiepe Electrik of Germany, and Neoplan of Denver with Skoda Electric of the Czech Republic. Each presented an initial proposal and, after consultation with TransLink’s evaluation team, submitted a revised proposal in late July 2003. Both were informed that one would be chosen for contract negotiations based on their revised proposals.
|
KTX train a heady promise; High-speed rail is called a ‘transforming event’
Joong Ang Daily (S. Korea)
January 25, 2004
Koreans were excited at the opening of a new era in July 1970, the start of service on the Gyeongbu Expressway from Seoul to Busan, Korea’s first limited-access highway. People could now reach any point in South Korea by car within a day. “A long-awaited dream of the government and the Korean people, to make Korea a ‘one day life zone’ became a reality in front of our eyes,” a JoongAng Ilbo article said on July 1, 1970, anticipating the highway’s opening a week later.
The four-lane, 428-kilometer (266-mile) highway quickly became Korea’s main artery, especially because they connected Korea’s two largest ports, at Busan and Incheon. Korea’s rail system, already in the red, saw its traffic decline further.
How times have changed. Three decades later, it is the railroad’s turn to claim that it will transform the way Koreans live and do business, again by speeding up the trip from Seoul to Busan.
The new high-speed rail system, called KTX, will begin service in April, although it will not yet show its full potential then. Kim Se-ho, administrator of the Korean National Railroad and is responsible for the successful wrapping up of the decade-long project, calls it a “life revolution.”
“With KTX, people can go to cities in the Chungcheong provinces ¡� Cheonan, Asan, Daejeon ¡� from Seoul in less time than it now takes to go to downtown from the outskirts of Seoul,” he said. “It will contribute to dispersing population and business from the Seoul metropolitan area and bring about innovative changes in the way people enjoy their weekends.”
“High-speed rail” generally refers to systems that permit speeds of more than 200 kilometers per hour, or two miles a minute. In 1964, the Shinkansen train in Japan was the first in that category, reaching a speed of 210 kilometers per hour. Such systems now come in two flavors: One is based on traditional “wheels on a track” technology, and the other on magnetic levitation, a system where magnetic repulsive forces cause the train to actually “float” above the rail. Although not a high-speed system, Shanghai now has such a “maglev” train serving its airport.
KTX is built with the French TGV technology, a wheel-on-rail system. The trains can reach a speed of 300 kilometer per hour after five to six minutes, compared to a cruising speed of 140 kilometers per hour on Korea’s fastest current service, the Saemaeul trains. A KTX ticket from Seoul to Busan will cost 45,500 won ($38), about a third more than the Saemaul trains and 80 percent more than a luxury express bus, but less than three-quarters the cost of an air ticket.
Driving the Gyeongbu Expressway from Seoul to Busan is a 4.5-hour trip under ideal traffic conditions. That was exciting to Koreans in 1970, and given the usual congestion on the highway these days, might be equally exciting to present-day travelers. The Saemaeul express trains take about the same length of time. But the trip will be cut to 2 hours and 40 minutes when the KTX begins running in April. When the remainder of the new roadbed for the system is completed and the trains do not have to slow for stretches where the existing tracks are in use, the Seoul-Busan transit time will be an hour and 50 minutes, rail authorities say.
The 1970 gold standard, “anywhere in a day” will be “anywhere in half a day” using the bullet train plus other trains or buses. Clearing out Seoul
With that kind of faster commuting available, there is a good possibility that people tired of the bad air and crowded streets in Seoul would find it easy to quit the capital. About 47 percent of the Korean population and 48 percent of gross domestic product are concentrated in the Seoul metropolitan area.
The bullet train will bring passengers from Seoul to Cheonan in only 34 minutes and from Seoul to Daejeon station in 49 minutes. That will make those two cities in the Chungcheong provinces essentially a part of the Seoul metropolitan area.
In Japan, population growth in large cities dropped significantly in the 1970s after the bullet trains began operating. Provincial stops along the trains’ routes showed an average population growth of 1.4 percent compared to 1.17-percent population growth for all of Japan.
From 1970 to 1985, the population of small cities through which the Shinkensen run grew more than 10 percent, and the number of businesses in those cities grew by more than 30 percent.
That population dispersal could take some money to encourage, however. The Korea Research Institute for Human Settlements said in a recent report that the government should provide incentives such as transportation cost subsidies to promote population dispersal here, just as Japan did when its bullet trains began running.
New development corridor
But the moves will not only be out of Seoul, but also from less-favored provincial sites to cities along the train’s route. Hyun Won Inc., a maker of digital music players, recently moved its headquarters from Yeongcheon, North Gyeongsang province, to an industrial complex near the Daegu station for KTX.
“I have to meet buyers from foreign countries or from Seoul frequently,” said Song Oh-sik, the company’s president. “I thought that high-speed trains would be the fastest and cheapest means of transportation. It cost a lot to move our company headquarters, but I believe it will make business sense in the long run.”
Provincial governments are busy drawing up plans to make the best use of the trains in their development strategies. Daejeon is trying to spur the development of the Daedeok Research and Development Complex and the embryonic Daedeok Techno Valley. Gwangmyeong in Gyeonggi province is drawing up plans for a high-tech industry incubation center and music industry complex. Gyeongju, Korea’s best-preserved ancient royal city, is planning a new tourist campaign.
A JoongAng Ilbo survey of 1,029 adults late last month showed a high level of interest in the new service. Seoul residents said they would use the trains to attend cultural events or festivals in the provinces; those in other areas said they wanted to shop or attend sporting events in Seoul by using the fast rail service.
Chang Woo-in, a student at Hong Ik University in Seoul, said she visits her parents in Daejeon, 164 kilometer south of Seoul, once a month. She usually takes an express bus, she said, and the total travel time is now about seven hours round trip. “It’s an exhausting trip,” she said. “I would take high speed trains if they were available.”
Airlines may not mind the competition
Korean Air said it planned to cut the number of its flights between Seoul and Daegu, now nine daily, to two, and would cut half of its 27 daily flights from Seoul to Busan. The airline plans to step up its services to nearby international cities.
Asiana Airlines will cut 70 percent of its service to Daegu and 40 percent of its flights to Busan, both from Seoul. That would result in an overall drop of about 20 percent in domestic air service to all destinations, and the two airlines said they could reduce their domestic staffing by about 10 percent.
Kim Se-ho, the high-speed rail service head, noted that Korean Air and Asiana both found domestic service a money-losing proposition. “We have informed the airlines of our plans so they can prepare for the changes coming three or four years from now,” he said. “Except for Seoul- Busan and Seoul-Jeju, airlines are losing money on domestic routes, and may instead beef up their service to Southeast Asia and China, where demand is increasing.”
A boon for freight services
According to the Korea National Railroad, logistics costs in Korea were about 12 percent of gross domestic product in 2001, a proportion twice as high as in Japan or the United States. The cost of traffic congestion here has grown an average 18 percent annually since 1991. Railroads, where efficiency is highest on long-haul, high-volume runs, have been laggards. Only 1 percent of transportation costs went to rail service in 2001, compared to 64 percent for trucking services.
Cutbacks in service on slower-speed trains are planned, railroad authorities say, freeing tracks for more freight trains. When the high- speed tracks are all in place, said Shin Seung-ho of Korea National Railroad, the bullet trains’ capacity between Seoul and Busan will be 520,000 passengers per day. They can now carry 180,000 passengers per day. That will free up tracks for more cargo runs.
“It will be a logistics revolution,” said Mr. Kim of the high-speed rail company. He estimated that the savings in logistics costs could amount to 2 trillion won per year.
Glitches, past and present
The high-speed train project has not always gone smoothly, and some problems remain to be ironed out. The project has been talked about since the 1980s, when Korea’s automobile population began to explode and French and German high-speed rail projects began operating and showed that they could ease traffic snarls. In Korea, the project has been marked by occasional controversy since it got under way in the early 1990s.
After the French company Alstom was selected, the project was halted several times and its budget ballooned from 5.8 trillion to 18 trillion won, according to the Office for Government Policy Coordination.
Most recently, the number of stops the train would make have increased, and critics complain that the administration wanted more stations to attract more votes in the legislative elections in April. But Mr. Kim of the high- speed rail corporation said complaints that the stops would make the trains very slow bullets was “just media talk.”
“Even if there were a few additional stations more than those planned, we could operate both express lines and normal ones. Express trains would run from Seoul to Busan non-stop; ordinary trains would stop at many of the stations.”
But Im Byeong-hoon, a resident of Gwangmyeong in Gyeonggi province, isn’t worried about such problems. He has ridden from Seoul to Daejeon on the bullet train when it was undergoing tests. “I will definitely take this train when it is opened,” he said, speaking of his twice-yearly holiday visits to Daegu. In the holiday rush, he said, his drive was eight or nine hours.
The train seems like a godsend to him, he said, promising a trip of only about an hour. But it isn’t perfect. “The seating on the train is pretty cramped,” Mr. Im complained mildly. “But I guess it doesn’t matter much, since we won’t have to be on this train for long.”
|
Tracking the Metro project
Pottstown Mercury
February 1, 2004
Officials throughout the region have recently begun a push to keep alive the proposal to build a 62-mile rail line between Philadelphia and Reading and prevent what TriCounty Area Chamber of Commerce President Dale Mahle calls “a slow, painful death” of the dream to restore rail service.
The Schuylkill Valley Metro, a $2.1 billion light-rail line proposed to carry 27,000 riders daily along river towns from the City of Brotherly Love to the Queen City, has faded from the headlines in the past 18 months.
Facing the Bush administration’s penchant for cutting the federal share of funding for such projects from 80 percent to 60 percent, the project has a huge financial obstacle to overcome.
U.S. Rep. James Gerlach, R-6th Dist., confirmed that the Bush administration has proposed further cutting the federal share down to 50 percent, but observed “I don’t think that’s going to pass Congress.”
Many have credited Sen. Arlen Specter with keeping the project on life support by procuring congressional funding for the consulting engineers to continue engineering studies and designs for the project. This has been done despite the Federal Transit Administration’s refusal to recommend the project to Congress for funding.
Task force aims to jump-start proposal
“We were making such great progress and then we got kind of stopped on the tracks for a while,” said Dennis D. Louwerse, executive director of Berks Area Reading Transportation Authority, better known as BARTA. “We had a (state) budget where transit got cut 6 percent and we were worried about just keeping what we had, and we were all getting kind of frustrated,” he said. “I’m really encouraged by Gov. Rendell’s and Congressman Gerlach’s interest in this project,” said Louwerse.
On Jan. 14, state Transportation Secretary Allen Biehler, at Gerlach’s urging, convened a new task force aimed at jump-starting the proposal and pushing it forward.
“I think the meeting went really well,” Gerlach said in an interview Friday. “We have hit the reality phase with this project,” he said. “This is a critical year for that as the authorization for funding this expires in March,” said Gerlach, although he noted that the $45 million in federal funding and $2 million in state funding has not been entirely spent on the engineering studies up to this point.
With federal funding being key to the project ever getting off theground, Gerlach said the first priority has to be making the Schuylkill Valley Metro attractive to the Federal Transit Agency and the Congress that has to fund it. That means “a leaner, meaner project,” said Gerlach. “The bottom line is, we have more limited funds, and we have some hard questions we need to answer.”
It was with an eye toward cutting the price tag that Biehler called the recent meeting, which included representatives from SEPTA, BARTA and representatives from Specter’s office and Rendell’s office. “Gov. Rendell is very interested in this project,” said PennDOT spokesman Rich Kirkpatrick. “This is a vital region of the state, and it’s our hope to find a way to bring everyone together so this project can move ahead, not to have everyone throw up their hands and walk away,” he said.
The group convenes again on Feb. 20 when the project’s consultants will report on how they plan to address the issue of redesigning the project to cut costs.
Group touts option of regular rail
One option that may be considered is something the Delaware Valley Association of Rail Passengers has been screaming about from the project’s first inception — regular commuter rail.
Don Nigro, president of DVARP, met with the SEPTA board Jan. 23 to present a proposal written three years ago by Richard Peltz when he was Pennsylvania’s deputy secretary of transportation for the bureau of public transportation.
Boiled down, this proposal calls for the use of a combination of electric and diesel engines to pull rail cars that would run on the existing Norfolk-Southern freight line tracks that already run along the metro’s proposed route — the former Reading Railroad tracks.
SEPTA’s current commuter service, which reaches as far west as Norristown, is entirely electric. And the $2.1 billion Schuylkill Valley Metro proposal would have extended electric service, on a separate but parallel set of tracks, all the way to Wyomissing, with a spur line to the King of Prussia malls.
Peltz’s proposal would have the line from Reading to Norristown pulled by a new type of diesel engine and combined with electric cars at Norristown for the stretch to Philadelphia. Advantages of this approach include eliminating the need to electrify the line up to Reading, as well as the need to build additional tracks.
“While this corridor is wide, there are several areas that could not accommodate additional tracks and several areas which would require bridge reconfigurations,” Peltz wrote in the Jan. 24, 2001, plan. One of those areas is Pottstown, where the train line cuts through town and several bridges, including Charlotte, Washington, Evans and Franklin streets had been identified as requiring re-building if the metro proposal were built.
Even some homes and properties had been identified as having to come down in order to widen the rail corridor through the borough. “Hundreds of millions of dollars could possibly be saved if (the diesel engines) were run on the existing Norfolk-Southern tracks from Reading to Norristown,” the 2001 proposal notes.
The estimated cost of this proposal, $668 million, more closely aligns itself with the original $700 million estimates when the metro was first proposed in 1998, and is more than half the $2.1 billion cost of the electrified light-rail plan that has languished for two years.
It is an idea DVARP has championed for years, and Nigro said it should now be getting a more serious look. “We’ve been vindicated because we’ve been saying this for four years,” he said, adding that the apparent interest of Gov. Rendell and other officials marks “a new beginning for this plan; it’s just too bad we had to waste four years.”
Breaking the whole into parts
Nigro said any new plan should include some kind of rail service along the entire 62-mile route, and not just sections of it. He was referring to another alternative that has surfaced. That would be to build the electric metro as planned, but in phases.
Under this approach, the first leg would reach from Norristown to Phoenixville; the second from Phoenixville to Pottstown and the third from Pottstown to Reading.
Nigro derides that approach as building “a gold-plated railroad” only to Phoenixville as he expresses doubts the second two phases would ever be built.
Nevertheless, it is an approach being closely looked at by this task force. It is also favored by Peter Quinn, executive director of the Greater Valley Forge Transit Management Association, who told The Phoenix newspaper on Jan. 22 that building the metro in three sections makes “fiscal sense.”
Louwerse pointed out that “phasing” could include having diesel trains from Reading to Norristown with electrification coming later.
State Sen. John Rafferty, R-44th Dist., who represents the Montgomery County towns through which the Metro would run from Norristown on into North Coventry in Chester County and into Douglass and Amity in Berks County, said he is not yet entirely convinced the project makes sense at all. “I have constituents who are for this project and those who are against,” said Rafferty, who said he personally leans in favor of it, but is mindful of the concerns of his constituents who are opposed.
Those opposed, primarily in rural areas of Chester County, fear the development a commuter rail line might bring to their townships, Rafferty said.
Those in favor, mostly in the already developed river town areas in Montgomery and Chester, favor the rail line for the same reason their rural neighbors fear it — the development money it could attract.
Build a rail line or widen the road
Rafferty said he puts “transportation on my list of top five issues,” but said he fears funding the state’s share of such a project. Instead, said Rafferty, he favors the more immediate solution of expanding the capacity of Route 422.
That is an prospect that steams Andy Paravis. A North Coventry Township Supervisor, Paravis recently presided over a forum on economic development in the area in his capacity as chairman
of the Pottstown Metropolitan Area Regional Planning Commission.
“So many people feel jammed up on Route 422 that everyone feels we have to do something about it,” Brian N. O’Leary, a section chief with the Montgomery County Planning Commission, told the regional planners during the Jan. 28 meeting. Referring to the Jan. 14 meeting Gerlach initiated, O’Leary said “the metro is on its last legs and they’re trying to keep it alive.”
“Our priority should be the train,” Paravis responded, arguing that a wider highway would attract as much, or even more development, than a commuter rail line. Noting that the Bush administration still funds 80 percent of highway projects, Paravis said “the feds aren’t willing to put money into a smart growth project like the metro, but they’re happy to pour money into making Route 422, six, eight even 12 lanes — it’s unbelievable.”
“The congestion is already at crisis proportions and you’re never going to build enough lanes on 422 to handle all the traffic,” said Louwerse. “What are you going to do when they get to the Schuylkill Expressway? Build a second level? There’s no room to expand there,” he said. “You have to make these decision based on what’s best for the community and the region and these decisions should be ‘modal-neutral,” he said. “There’s no reason why we should be funding highways at 80/20 but have a different formula for transit.”
Nonetheless, the metro, which Mahle said is “dying a slow, painful death,” is “key to the future growth of this region,” she said.
Rendell agrees, said Kirkpatrick. “Gov. Rendell believes very strongly in balanced transportation and he understands what this rail line would mean to a community like Pottstown,” Kirkpatrick said. “And he also understands that the economic success of communities like Pottstown is crucial to the economic prospects of the entire commonwealth.”
“You look at places like Reading, Pottstown and Phoenixville, small cities, that thrived when manufacturing was king and the train was an important part of that,” Louwerse said. “There is a lot of land available in those towns and companies will want that land when the rail line comes through. Do you think if you add lanes to 422 that will fuel the revitalization of any of those towns? I don’t think so.”
But “given the environment the federal government has set up, and the amount of money we have to come up with, we are faced with a very difficult challenge,” Kirkpatrick said. “They have set up this atmosphere of competition where if a project comes to them with 50 percent non-federal funding, it moves to the top of the list and we have to contend with that,” he said.
Louwerse remains optimistic. “Look, the Schuylkill Valley Metro is going to get built, it’s just a matter of how long it takes and what we’ve got to do now is push to make sure it gets built by 2008 and not by 2035,” he said.
|
Houston In Transit: Against all odds; Opponents fought the nation’s newest light rail system tooth and nail. But strong leadership prevailed, and rail transit is now a reality in Houston
Railway Age
FEBRUARY 2004 ISSUE
Houston no longer has the dubious distinction of being the only major metropolitan area in the U.S. without some form of rail transit. On Jan. 1, passenger service commenced on Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County’s (METRO) 7.5-mile, 16-station, 18-vehicle starter light rail system, the core of what transit officials hope will become, long-term, a 65-mile network.
METRORail “goes where the people are,” says METRO Executive Director Shirley A. DeLibero. It runs mostly along Main Street, connecting the city’s revitalized downtown area with Midtown, the Museum District, Hermann Park, Texas Medical Center, and Reliant Park, the new sports stadium. It was built in record time on what DeLibero describes as a rather austere budget of $324 million, without federal funds, only local sales taxes and METRO revenues.
Groundbreaking took place on March 13, 2001; METRORail opened for business in January, 10 months ahead of its original schedule. Service began on 12-minute headways without changes to the existing bus service. When a full-service schedule is implemented this month, trains will run every six minutes on weekdays, every 12 minutes on weekday evenings, and every 12�15 minutes on weekends, with the LRT functioning as a collection/distribution system to a revamped bus network.
That light rail came to Houston at all is remarkable, considering the political and community opposition DeLibero and her cohorts had to overcome. “I call it the system against all odds,” she says, with the satisfied look of someone who has had to endure even personal attacks to see a project through to completion. (The local press dubbed her “the brassy CEO”).
If it wasn’t Houston-area Rep. and former House Appropriations Committee Chair Tom DeLay or his successor, Rep. John Culberson (both Republicans), throwing up roadblocks by denying federal funds, it was a local-developer-led opposition group suing and forcing a vote to stop construction.
None of those tactics worked, and in the end, the voters opted for more rail, approving $640 million in bonding authority for the first 10 years of the METRO Solutions transit plan, which will add 72 miles of rail (64.8 miles of LRT; eight miles of commuter rail); increase bus service by 50%; build nine transit centers and nine park-and-ride lots; and make numerous road improvements, all without an increase in the current one-cent sales tax.
Phase 2 of METRORail, an additional 22 miles by 2008, is included in the bonding authority.
|
Light-rail woes grow
San Jose Mercury News
Feb. 7, 2004
Silicon Valley’s light-rail network, already ranked among the most expensive and least efficient in the nation, has gotten even worse.
Trains that were once near capacity now carry about 15 passengers per car, among the fewest of similar trolley lines in the country. And from 2001 to 2003, fewer riders and growing expenses combined to more than double the cost of providing a trip. Last year, the VTA spent a whopping $8.42 per passenger per trip — even though it charged those passengers $1.50.
Data released recently by federal and local transit officials paints an increasingly grim picture of a network that does not appear to be rebounding despite the Valley Transportation Authority’s efforts to clamp down on costs.
``It’s very discouraging to hear that the cost of our light rail continues to go up,’’ said Pat Dando, San Jose’s vice-mayor and VTA board member. ``Clearly this is something we are going to have to get our arms around and come up with a plan to be more efficient if we are going to continue with light rail.’’
Cutting back
And it’s not as if the agency isn’t trying. The VTA already has eliminated 550 jobs, renegotiated labor contracts, slashed service, raised fares and borrowed money set aside for new projects. Some of those changes are expected to bear fruit in coming years. But even the VTA is not predicting those changes will be enough to transform the picture.
VTA spokeswoman Anne-Catherine Vinickas said the agency’s reform efforts can only accomplish so much because of underlying factors, such as employees’ wages and benefits, the need to provide a minimum level of service and the stagnant economy.
The agency is opening two rail lines — to East San Jose this summer and to Campbell in 2006 — moves that it hopes will attract new riders. When the valley economy rebounds, officials believe, riders will board those lines and return to the existing network as freeways again become clogged.
``There’s only so much you can cut and still maintain service,’’ said Tom Rubin, former controller-treasurer of the Southern California Rapid Transit District and a nationwide transit consultant. ``When you lay people off, you have to lay the cheapest people off because of seniority, for one thing.’’
Low rankings
The federal government recently released data for fiscal year 2002 that compares transit systems around the country in a variety of areas, and shows the VTA at or near the bottom in most. More recent data compiled by the VTA has no comparison to other trolley lines, but shows the VTA losing ground from 2002 to 2003 — particularly in ridership.
The daily number of riders on the system that stretches from San Jose to Mountain View and Milpitas plummeted 44 percent since the peak of the high-tech boom in 2000, from 30,383 passengers to 17,047, as of Sept. 30.
The new data reveals another startling fact: The light-rail system became 46 percent more expensive to operate in fiscal year 2002. Costs shot up from about $37 million to about $54 million, largely because of new labor contracts that the VTA had awarded during the boom and because of a one-mile extension to Milpitas near Interstate 880.
As a result, Silicon Valley’s light-rail system sank even lower among its peers throughout the West compared with the year before. For instance, the VTA’s operating cost per passenger mile for light rail shot up that year from 86 cents to $1.55, the worst compared with Dallas, Sacramento, Denver, Salt Lake City, Portland and San Diego.
In fiscal year 2003, that cost shot up even further — to $1.90, according to the VTA. The VTA had cut its overall annual operating expenses by then for light rail to about $51 million, but ridership continued its free fall, offsetting any major gains. This year, operating cost of light rail is projected to fall to $42 million, which would be about $5 million higher than in 2001.
Because of the relatively low amount the agency reaps from fares, most of that cost must be met by taxes — chiefly the extra sales taxes for transportation Santa Clara County voters have approved.
Across country
Transit agencies across the nation have been slammed by the economic downturn, but few performed as dismally as the VTA. Transit officials blame Silicon Valley’s job losses, coupled with the unplugging of key highway bottlenecks.
Some VTA board members point out the limitations of comparing the VTA to other transit systems, saying each one is unique because of demographics, cost of living and the sprawling nature of the valley. But transit experts consider the data to be the most comprehensive source of operating and financial statistics for the nation’s 600-plus transit agencies, and a valid way of measuring those agencies’ success.
Some experts say many of Santa Clara County’s light-rail problems are likely to persist once the economy improves because they are characteristic of the large county it serves, or are inherent in the design of the system, which creeps along at 3 mph through downtown.
Despite the problems, some VTA board members want to expand the 29.5-mile network, although the agency has said expansion beyond the two lines under construction is unlikely.
Santa Clara County supervisor Blanca Alvarado wants to forge ahead with studies to take light rail down the median of Capitol Expressway to Highway 87.
But Dave Fadness, a longtime county transportation commissioner, said the agency should cut its losses, and even consider halting construction of the Vasona line to Campbell. “What are we going to end up with over there — 23 people are going to use it?”’ Fadness said. “And we’re going to look even worse.”’
|
Bomb kills 39 in Moscow ; Blast on subway train is latest linked to Chechen war
The International Herald Tribune
February 7, 2004
A bomb exploded inside a crowded subway train during the morning rush Friday, killing at least 39 people and wounding more than 130 in what officials said was the latest in a series of terrorist attacks linked to the war in Chechnya.
The bomb — said to be hidden inside a backpack or bag — ravaged the second car of the train as it left the Avtozavodskaya station in southeast Moscow and headed toward the city’s center at 8:45 a.m. The blast shattered the train’s windows, rent its metal seats and bars, and hurled bodies and body parts from the train.
Hundreds of passengers — some of them bloodied and dazed — staggered hundreds of meters through smoke-filled tunnels to reach safety. As they emerged, they described a scene of fear, confusion and carnage deep beneath the heart of the Russian capital.
“I saw five bodies near the tracks and some metal parts,” said Anna Kolmykova, 51, who was riding two or three cars behind the one that was struck. Police officers who happened to be in her car helped escort the survivors out. “Those officers warned us about the bodies and pieces of metal so that we would not stumble,” she said, her face smeared with black soot.
President Vladimir Putin, appearing with President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan, responded indirectly, as he did on Dec. 9, when a suicide bomber killed herself and five others in front of the National Hotel, just a short ways from the Kremlin. Putin did not address the bombing in detail but called for an intensified international effort to combat terrorism. “It is the plague of the 21st century,” he said in televised remarks.
It was not immediately clear who placed the bomb on the train — or whether it was a suicide attack — but it was clearly intended to inflict maximum bloodshed and exploit the darkest fears of Muscovites.
Russia has endured a wave of terrorist bombings stemming from the long, bloody war in Chechnya, but never before has so deadly an attack struck the city’s subway. The Metro, as it is called, is the world’s busiest with more than eight million passengers a day and is a source of city pride. “This makes me feel just awful,” said Ilya Blokhin, 31, a doctor who was aboard the train. “If they are starting to blow up Metro trains, what is next?”
In televised remarks later from the Kremlin, Putin blamed the wave of terror on Aslan Maskhadov, the Chechen separatist leader who served as the republic’s president from 1997 until the outbreak of the second Chechen war in 1999.
Maskhadov has denied ordering attacks, and his chief envoy, Akhmed Zakayev, denounced Friday’s attack in a telephone interview from London. Zakayev acknowledged, however, that Maskhadov could not control those in Chechnya who would organize attacks. “These actions in Moscow against civilians are in no way of benefit to us,” he said.
As he has before, Putin ruled out any talks with Chechnya’s separatists, despite calls from Zakayev and others for a negotiated settlement. “Russia does not negotiate with terrorists,” Putin said. “Russia eliminates them.” Putin’s remarks — at once determined, but also indirect — appeared intended to minimize any political damage from the continued violence and fear that gnaws at the country.
Putin, who rose to power as the second war in Chechnya unfolded, faces re-election on March 14. While he is universally expected to win, he finds himself presiding over a conflict that continues to exact a deadly toll far beyond the battered Chechen republic.
With the bombing Friday, there have been 13 terrorist attacks in the last year, most of them suicide bombings. More than 260 people have died in the attacks, including at least 62 in Moscow itself.
Irina Khakamada, a former parliamentary deputy who has launched a quixotic presidential campaign, said that the Kremlin’s military and political efforts in Chechnya, including a referendum and presidential elections in the republic last year, had proved ineffective at ending the violence. “The peace process that is under way is not guaranteeing people’s security,” she said in a radio interview on Ekho Moskvy.
As they have after each of the terrorist attacks here, officials announced that they had increased security at airports and at subway and railroad stations across Moscow and in other major cities, including St. Petersburg. There appears to be little, however, the authorities can do to halt the attacks, especially those carried out by bombers willing to die.
Officials said witnesses reported seeing a man and a woman who appeared to be from the Caucasus, where Chechnya is located, carrying suspicious bags. It was not clear whether the bombing was a suicide attack, but the authorities later released a composite sketch of the man, suggesting he was not among those killed.
Some politicians called for even tougher measures.
Dmitry Rogozin, the new vice speaker of Parliament and a leader of the nationalist party Motherland, called for a state of emergency and suggested that next month’s election be postponed. Without referring to Chechens directly, he blamed “an ethnic criminal community” with loyalists in Moscow. “The enemy is here, inside,” he told Interfax.
Officials warned that the death toll could still rise. By Friday night, more than 110 people remained hospitalized, some of them with grave injuries. At Sklifosovsky Hospital, the city’s main critical care center, a typed list of 36 of the wounded hung on the front door.
The bomb struck on the Green Line, which courses through the city center from northwest to southeast. At rush hour, the subway is always packed, with passengers jostling shoulder to shoulder.
The force of the bomb, estimated at roughly 5 kilograms, or 11 pounds, of dynamite, shredded bodies, complicating the grim task of counting the dead, let alone identifying them. The survivors were evacuated from the stations on either side of the wrecked train, Avtozavodskaya and Paveletskaya, pouring out into public squares choked with ambulances and rescue workers.
Kolmykova, the 51-year-old passenger, described people trudging out of the train in darkness with their clothes and hair scorched, but she said there was little panic. The bombing, though, struck a deep chord in her that went beyond simple fear. She said she wanted to emigrate to Italy, which she had visited recently, because Russia had become a country where normal, peaceful life is out of reach.
“I feel so offended for us, for our country,” she said. “I want to emigrate not only because of fear. It is a complex of things. Just look at our pensioners. My mother is 77, she is sick and she has to beg for the medicines that she needs and that were prescribed. And in Italy I saw 90-year-olds, happy, laughing and dancing.”
|
MATA sets sights on ambitious plan for light rail system
The Business Journals
February 8, 2004
The Memphis Area Transit Authority’s Madison Avenue Rail Line project is nearing completion and should be hauling medical students Downtown by mid-March.
But MATA’s planning and capital projects department is continuing its work on the Downtown-Airport light rail corridor and expects to get the Draft Environmental Impact Statement back from the Federal Transit Administration in the next few months.
The Madison Avenue trolley project cost about $56 million, but that figure is substantially under initial budget forecasts projecting the $74.6 million cost. FTA funded 80% of the project’s total cost with the city of Memphis and the Tennessee Department of Transportation each picking up 10%.
The leftover $18.6 million is officially federal funds, but MATA could get approval to use the money for initial engineering work on the next big project, the Downtown-Airport light rail corridor. Tom Fox, assistant general manager for planning and capital projects, says engineering work on that project could begin as early as the end of this year.
That project has a price tag of $400 million, with $200 million coming from the FTA and the city and TDOT again picking up matching costs of $100 million each. Planners hope to have a light rail system operational by 2010.
TDOT transportation manager Jim Ladieu says the $100 million funding commitment from TDOT is a possibility, but not within TDOT’s regular appropriations budget. “As far as we’re concerned, it would be dependent upon TDOT’s budget and the budget constraints of the state,” Ladieu says. “These are major dollars we probably couldn’t fit into our regular appropriation funds. I’m sure TDOT will try to do its best to support this project.”
He also complimented Memphis officials and says TDOT has had successful partnerships with the city in the past, including the Main Street Trolley and trolley extension projects.
When the environmental statement comes back from the federal government, the project will then begin moving through the city’s system of checks and balances.
Fox says the project will first be put to public hearings and then move through the Regional Rail Steering Committee, the Memphis City Council and finally the Metropolitan Planning Organization.
Pete Aviotti, chairman of the board of commissioners of the Regional Rail Steering Committee and special assistant to Mayor Willie W. Herenton, says he is confident the project will become a reality. “It will come to fruition as far as the future is concerned,” Aviotti says.
The decision to start the long-term project with the airport corridor was based on cost and employment factors. Aviotti says the route from Downtown to the airport is the cheapest and would add more amenities to an already economically depressed area.
The project has been narrowed to two route alternatives, one running down Pauline to Lamar, where it would connect with Airways. The other route continues down Madison to Cooper and then over to Airways, but Aviotti says the general consensus is leaning toward the Lamar alternative. “I think we studied every possible way to go, and I think for right now, that (the Lamar route) is about the best and the most economical route that we can take,” he says.
The economic development potential is available on both route alternatives, says MATA president and general manager William Hudson Jr., but the key is that there is room for business and residential growth along the light rail line, no matter where it is.
A common misconception people have about the project is that MATA will be using the nostalgic-style trolleys currently used on Main Street and Madison Avenue along the airport route, says Allison Burton, director of marketing and customer service with MATA. The project will implement a modern light rail vehicle along the tracks, an 80-90 foot vehicle that looks more like a bus but is powered by overhead rails and can travel nearly as fast as automobiles. Fox says these vehicles can operate in a street or in a separate right of way.
“The airport corridor is actually going to be served with new light rail vehicles, and not trolleys,” Hudson says. “That’s never been our intent.”
Light rail projects are being implemented throughout the country, as transportation administrations opt for light rail over the more expensive and more destructive subway.
Cities currently using or constructing light rail transportation include Portland, Dallas, Salt Lake City, St. Louis, Houston and Minneapolis. Dave Dobbs, executive director of the Texas Association for Public Transportation and publisher of the Web site lightrailnow.org, says he has seen light rail success in almost every city that has implemented it.
“Dallas has had an enormous success,” Dobbs says. “It’s almost a metro system, one step away from the New York subway. Dallas has now built 45 miles of light rail, and they will double that in the next 10 years.”
An argument that Fox insists the public consider is what light rail can do for economic development and property values in areas where the trains run. The evidence is substantiated by looking at similar projects in other cities. “Most places have seen a lot of economic development around the track,” Dobbs says. “You have to see whether you’re going to keep the inner city alive or have everybody move out to the suburbs.”
Another factor to look at is employment the rail will serve. The city’s three largest employment areas, Downtown, the medical district and the airport, will be served by light rail and trolley transportation, Hudson says. He also says the trolley extension from Main to Cleveland will ease transfer congestion in the area as passengers connect to bus routes running to north and south Memphis.
The timeline for the light rail airport corridor project is set at a 2010 completion. “It’s not just a transportation investment,” Fox says. “We’re getting people thinking about public transportation instead of just jumping in their car.”
The full light rail project divides the Memphis metro area into three major corridors — north, south and southeast. The airport corridor will be the first phase completed, but that line will eventually be a part of both the south and southeast corridors.
“The biggest problem that we’re going to have with light rail is to get the people accustomed to it and to use it, but once they do, I feel like in turn they will accept it very well and they will use it tremendously,” Aviotti says.
The Madison trolley extension will be tested through February and early March, and MATA crews are currently finalizing route work and cable connections on the line. The trolleys will typically run north on Main Street from the Madison line, but Fox says if there’s an event at FedExForum, the technology is in place to swing those cars south down Main Street also.
“We built in a lot of options,” he says.
A ride from one end of the line to the other should take about 15 minutes making all stops, Fox says, and he expects about 2,100 riders a day when the line is fully operational.
MATA is also working with the Urban Art Commission to have artwork in place at six new trolley stations along Madison. The trolleys are in the center of the street, so safety is a concern for pedestrians and motorists. MATA is working with TDOT to implement crosswalks with signage and flashing lights, pavement flashers and rumble strips in advance of trolley stations.
“That (safety) alone is an education process,” Burton says. “There going to be lots of warning, lots of notice and a tremendous amount of flashing lights.”
|
ACCIDENT BLAMED ON CELLPHONE
The Boston Globe
February 8, 2004
A ringing cellphone on the floor of a Kingston driver’s car apparently distracted him enough that he drove past two flashing gates and barreled into an MBTA commuter rail train Jan. 23, according to Abington police.
Stephen Bent, 43, was not seriously hurt in the accident, officers said, but his Ford Taurus was destroyed. “He was pretty lucky,” said Police Chief Richard Franey. No other cars were involved in the accident, which took place on North Avenue.
Franey said Bent had reached down to pick up his cellphone and somehow drove between two warning gates. Franey said two other accidents have occurred at the same intersection within the past several years.
|
Rail network to clog up by 2015 without fast-track fix; Blueprint for high -speed lines that would see journey times from Scotland to London slashed to just three hours
The Sunday Herald
February 8, 2004
Unless Britain embarks on a programme of building new, high-speed rail lines, the current network will reach capacity in just over 10 years, a major report warns today.
The government-backed Commission for Integrated Transport (CfIT) argues that planning must begin now for the first major rail building programme since Victorian times, which should result in rail times between Scotland and London being cut to as little as two and a half hours.
Its report sets out the case for the UK to catch up with continental Europeans, who began planning for a 21st century system 30 years ago. Britain did not follow suit as it still had spare rail capacity, but with growing passenger numbers, that capacity is on track to hit the buffers by 2015.
Building two new lines between Scotland and London would cost roughly (pounds) 30 billion, but only if costs of UK rail building are slashed to European averages. The report argues that such spending could be good value if the government calculates the costs and benefits of rail fairly, when set against other forms of transport.
It says trains should be allowed to compete more effectively with aircraft over distances such as Scotland-to-London if Britain is to avoid air travel congestion and the environmental damage caused by aviation. High-speed trains have proved to be most efficient compared with air and road travel, when used for 200-400-mile journeys. They do not have economic advantages for journeys of less than 125 miles or more than 500 miles.
In proposing a British version of France’s Trains a Grande Vitesses (TGV) - a national icon which travels at nearly 200 mph, and has counterparts in newer rail services in Spain, Italy and Germany - the report argues for Whitehall’s investment calculations to end the bias towards road-building, which even includes the benefit to the Treasury from collecting more petrol tax.
It also warns that planning regulations will have to be eased in Britain if entirely new lines are to be economically viable, and says there should be a relaxation of the UK’s unusually stringent rail safety regime.
Britain’s first high-speed rail line, the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, is to be completed in 2007, linking north London with the Eurostar service, at a cost of £ 5.2bn for seven miles of track. That makes it the world’s most expensive rail construction project. It is calculated that new continental rail lines, even at their most expensive, cost 70% of British prices. At their cheapest, the cost of Spanish tracks per mile is only 30% of the cost of UK tracks. If the UK could get costs down even to the international average of roughly £ 37 million per mile, one line between central Scotland and London would cost £ 15bn.
By contrast with Britain, the report details how the state-owned French rail operator has sweeping powers to purchase land without the owner’s right of appeal. And in a recent section of new track built for high-speed services between Madrid and Lerida in Spain, the cost of project management, planning, design and legal fees was kept to 3% of the total cost, whereas it is estimated that would cost up to 25% in a UK project built under current laws.
The plan, drawn up for the CfIT by transport consultants Steer Davies Gleave, is intended to steer the focus of policy away from the management of the crises which have gripped the rail industry since the Hatfield crash some three years ago, with attention now on whether Network Rail can afford the upgrading of the Glasgow-London Euston West Coast line at a cost of billions of pounds.
Plans in Scotland are seen as ambitious for merely wanting to improve the capacity of Waverley Station in Edinburgh, along with rail links to Edinburgh and Glasgow airport, while there is investment planned also to re-open disused lines, such as the Edinburgh-Galashiels Waverley link.
The CfIT wants London ministers to become more ambitious about the way they plan for rail. Professor David Begg, the commission chairman, warned: “This study demonstrates clearly that high-speed lines are not only desirable for shrinking journey times between main cities, but are essential if we are to deal with capacity constraints that are building up on our intercity network. The year 2015 is a key juncture for us in terms of our capacity limit, but planning needs to start now.”
The proposals do not set out a route map for high-speed rail network, though it is assumed there would be east and west coast lines similar to the current ones, and these would be built in stages, starting from London. It also points to the prospects for the London- Bristol-Cardiff corridor. There is no clear price estimate, but the report claims that the benefits could outweigh the costs by a margin of three-to-one if costs can be driven down. Spin-offs include less demand for road-building, new jobs, inward investment and economic regeneration, as the lines have provided in continental cases.
The lines, which would be in addition to the current rail network, would have the capacity for more than 220 double-deck trains a day, carrying up to 1000 people each. The new lines would able to carry 50% more passengers than a three -lane motorway and at around three times the speed.
|
Banks on the gravy train
Mail on Sunday (London)
February 8, 2004
FIRST, the good news: passengers are flocking to cram on to Britain’s creaking and dilapidated rail system. More than a billion bought tickets last year, the highest figure since 1961 when only a fraction of the population owned cars and before the Beeching Report halved the network.
The bad news: running the rail system is now so expensive that passengers are left stranded on platforms because train operators cannot afford enough carriages. Passengers packed like sardines are rapidly becoming the norm and not just in London and the South-East.
Overcrowding is running at twice the limit set when the network was privatised in 1996. In Birmingham, officials are considering limiting the number of passengers allowed into New Street Station to stop it becoming dangerously overcrowded.
Transport experts insist that adding carriages is the obvious solution. But it is simply too expensive.
Why should this be when operators such as Virgin, Connex and First have earmarked Pounds 4.2 billion since privatisation for 4,500 new carriages of which taxpayers contribute Pounds 760 million to replace ageing slam-door stock?
The answer lies in the rules of privatisation. The operators do not buy rolling stock they have to lease it. And leasing costs have rocketed.
The figures are startling. It costs Pounds 600,000 to replace a Pacer the most basic two-coach unit. Yet the commuter networks pay Pounds 144,000 rent each year for a Pacer. This means the cost of building one is recouped about every four years. Yet the train has a projected life of 30 years or more.
So where does the money go?
Answer: to three train leasing companies set up as part of privatisation.
They are owned by High Street banks Abbey, HSBC and the Royal Bank of Scotland. And the train companies believe they are being overcharged.
According to documents seen by the BBC’s File On 4 radio programme, First, which runs trains between London and Plymouth and London and Ipswich, says leasing companies are ‘an oligopoly’ keeping train rentals artificially high.
And not just for old trains. South West Trains is getting a new fleet of German-built carriages costing taxpayers an extra Pounds 55 million a year in leasing costs. Subsidising South West Trains now costs more than subsidies for the whole London commuter system under the old British Rail regime.
Even this might not be too bad if all new trains worked properly. But South West Trains is sending back a fleet because of its poor performance.
Last week, the National Audit Office fired a broadside, saying that taxpayers are getting poor value. Independent accountancy expert Richard Murphy agrees. He has calculated that last year, the leasing companies made about Pounds 170 million in profits between them.
‘They make about 30 per cent,’ said Murphy. ‘That’s a very good rate of return. A business like Tesco might make five per cent. My suspicion is that we get very poor value for money.’ The leasing companies dispute this, saying they have introduced 4,500 new carriages in ten years, a better record than BR.
The Strategic Rail Authority wants to renegotiate lease rentals. But Gwyneth Dunwoody, chair of the Commons Transport Select Committee, wants an inquiry into the leasing companies and their profits. ‘Taxpayers are handing these companies bags of gold,’ she said.
CAPTION: This Pacer train would cost Pounds 600,000 if rail operators were allowed to buy it. Instead, sell-off rules mean they must lease it from one of only three suppliers. They charge Pounds 144,000 a year so during a 30-year lifespan, each of these two-carriage trains will cost the operator an astonishing Pounds 4.3 million
|
OCTA Finalizes CenterLine Route
University of California - Irvine
February 9, 2004
The Orange County Transportation Authority Board of Directors has approved a final route for the CenterLine light rail project, and construction could begin as early as 2006.
The final route, 9.3 miles in length, will include stops in Santa Ana, Costa Mesa and Irvine, but will not have a stop at UCI, as had initially been suggested.
The route that was approved by the OCTA Board of Directors was approved in a 9-2 vote at a Board meeting on Jan. 12. As part of the route, there will be one stop in Irvine, at John Wayne Airport. Stops in Costa Mesa will be in the South Coast Plaza area, and stops in Santa Ana will be in proximity to the county government and courthouse area, Santa Ana College, Artists Village, the Civic Center and Mater Dei High School.
An additional stop at the Depot of Santa Ana will enable commuters to connect to bus lines or the Metrolink commuter train.
The decision not to have a stop at UCI was the decision of voters, explained OCTA Media Relations Assistant Lisa Sanchez. “The city of Irvine asked voters if they wanted the route to run through the city. They agreed to have it in the city, but wanted it in a certain area,” said Sanchez.
Council member Mike Ward, who serves jointly as a member of the Irvine City Council and as a member of the OCTA Board of Directors, expressed disappointment that there will not be additional stops in Irvine. “I was in favor of the UCI route, but we put it before the people of Irvine, and they made that decision,” said Ward.
Ward explained that the OCTA Board of Directors would have had the power to include UCI as a CenterLine stop despite the vote by Irvine residents, but the transportation authority chose not to do so, in order to respect the vote made by Irvine residents and avoid what Ward called potential “controversy” with the project.
The concern for securing funding was also a reason why Ward thought it best to not have more stops in Irvine. Ward explained, “Why should they fund a project where there is controversy, when there are plenty of projects that have no controversy?”
Sixty percent of the CenterLine route will be at street level, while 40 percent will be underground. The decision to put a portion of CenterLine underground was based upon concerns of traffic congestion, said Sanchez. “Basically it’s just to maximize efficiency and traffic flow,” said Sanchez. “It will help eliminate certain traffic [at the street level].”
OCTA has estimated that the CenterLine project will cost between $900 million and $1 billion to construct. In a move that OCTA Chairman Greg Winterbottom called “a great step forward,” CenterLine was given a “recommended” rating by the Federal Transit Administration this week, a favorable sign that federal funding will be made available for the project.
“We are pleased with the FTA’s ‘recommended’ rating for CenterLine because it demonstrates strong support from our federal partners for this much needed way of moving people,” said Sanchez. The rating means that the FTA believes CenterLine is “on track and making great progress,” Sanchez added.
The next step on the CenterLine agenda is a final environmental analysis and the submission of an environmental impact report for approval at the federal level. If construction begins in 2006 as is anticipated, the project could be finished by 2009.
Council member Ward looks forward to having CenterLine fulfill the increased needs of transit in Orange County. “In the county there will be tremendous growth over the next 40 years and we will need transportation to move people around,” he said.
Jason Lee, fourth-year psychology and social behavior major expressed doubt that the CenterLine route would be useful to him. “If it’s just to John Wayne, I’m not sure it’s useful to me,” Lee said. “I think it would be more useful for people in Santa Ana coming to Irvine.”
|
METRO light rail and transportation service was successful over Super Bowl weekend
News 24 Houston
2/9/2004
Over Super Bowl weekend, more people traveled on METRO’s light rail than on the bus system.
Between the bus and light rail, METRO moved just about 300,000 people over Super Bowl weekend.
Between Thursday and Super Bowl Sunday, the ridership on the rails was more than the ridership on the bus. Almost 177,493 rode the rail, while 125,581 rode the bus.
Saturday was the heaviest ridership for METRO buses. Because of the huge turnouts for the Main Event and other downtown parties, METRO was forced to shut down light rail service through the downtown area on Thursday and Friday nights.
Officials say it wasn’t safe to run the trains with so many people in the streets. But rail crashes have been a problem. Last week another car was hit, making 11 total accidents, and METRO rail has only been up and running for less than a month.
Over the weekend, crews repaired a broken section of the METRO rail line along Main at Holman in downtown. A big truck knocked down the electrical cables above the track.
Houston Mayor Bill White is talking with METRO about concerns. The answer seems to be to bring in Texas A&M’s Texas Transportation Institute to study the system. They will use traffic and engineering people with light rail experience from around the country and propose a few solutions, maybe some suggestion on different signage and traffic signals.
TTI should be in Houston this week.
|
LAWSUITS: Siemens Sues Puerto Rico DOT Over Tren Urbano Completion
February 9, 2004
PROJECT AT PEAK Consortium wants more time to complete work, claiming the contract structure hindered construction progress.
Siemens Transportation Partnership in Puerto Rico has filed suit against the commonwealth’s Dept. of Transportation, seeking “urgent intervention” by the Superior Court in a dispute over completion of a 17-kilometer piece of the Tren Urbano rail line in San Juan.
The partnership, which includes a Puerto Rico-based firm and Alternate Concepts Inc., a Boston-based transportation operations consultant, wants a 284-day extension to complete its part of the $2.25-billion project. It also seeks $50 million, including nearly $10 million for work performed to accelerate the project; a $3-million judgment against PRDOT for not complying with a change order request; and $37 million in damages. Siemens also wants the court to order PRDOT to stop penalizing it for missing a Sept. 29, 2003, completion date. The department has fined the partnership $3 million and imposed $100,000 a day in liquidated damages for not completing the project on schedule.
Siemens officials claim that the problems stem from PRDOT’s structuring of the project’s design-build contact. Tren Urbano’s guideway was divided into seven segments, with design-build contracts awarded to seven contractors. Siemens was awarded one of those civil contracts. It also contracted for Tren Urbano’s train control and communication system, power and distribution and vehicle supply, among other things.
“The work done by [Siemens Transportation Team] depends to a great extent on the timely completion by other contractors in the project,” says Robert Jungkind, Siemens project director. He claims that because work by other contractors was supervised by PRDOT, the company had no control over their operations or schedule. “Construction of the other sections covered by the other contracts did not proceed as scheduled and was consistently delayed for hundreds of days,” the lawsuit claims. PRDOT granted extensions to the civil contractors but refused to apply those extensions to Siemens, says the suit.�
Siemens officials would not comment further on the lawsuit, claiming prohibitions under its contract. PRDOT also declined comment.
Tren Urbano is a high-profile design-build demonstration project for the U.S. Federal Transit Administration. It is being used to assess the value of the design-build delivery method on federally supported transit jobs. But FTA declines comment on the problems associated with the multi-contract approach to design-build. “We are not doing in-depth interviews now,’’ says spokeswoman Drucie Anderson. If granted the extension, Tren Urbano should be ready for operations by July 10.
|
Retimed traffic lights mean less waiting, city claims
Skyway News - Minneapolis
February 09, 2004
For the first time in a decade, the city retimed the Downtown traffic lights and — if the computer models are correct — you should be hitting 10 percent fewer red lights and have at least 20 percent less wait time, according to city estimates.
Roger Plum, senior transportation engineer for city consultant SEH, said the entire signal network changed in mid-January. “Nothing has remained the same,” he said. “We have tried to improve the relationships between the starts of greens at each of the intersections as you pass through the Downtown area.”
The new timing system factored in several significant changes in the Downtown commuter landscape. First, the lights assume congestion has slowed traffic since the last retiming, Plum said. “Ten years ago, it seemed like the predominant speed around Downtown was around 30 mph, now it is closer to 25 mph,” he said. “We did use that speed as a major assumption in how people are traveling Downtown.”
The new system also favors light-rail transit (LRT) and buses, minimizing travel time on a per-person, not a per-vehicle basis. “We had to retime everything else in the Downtown area around [LRT],” Plum said.
Plum continues to tinker with the system. He has received mostly positive comments from people in his office and city Public Works staff, he said.
He did get a complaint from bus drivers. The new system initially caused significant bus backups at Nicollet and Marquette avenues where they crossed the new LRT lines at 5th Street South, the biggest glitch to date, Plum said.
The device that signals the traffic lights of an oncoming LRT vehicle was not working 100 percent of the time, he said. The device was set to assume a train was at the intersection every traffic light cycle — holding up vehicle traffic regardless of whether a train was there or not. As a temporary fix, Plum said the city adjusted the traffic lights to take time away from 5th Street and gave it back to Nicollet and Marquette.
John Hotvet, Public Works’ project manager, said the city plans a second phase for light retiming later this year.
A few months after LRT’s April launch, the city will do traffic counts at all Downtown intersections to better time the system, Hotvet said. Waiting until June or July will give traffic patterns a chance to settle — both those riding LRT and drivers who might adjust their commutes to avoid the LRT.
|
New Decoder Touts Job Creation Benefits of Transit, Road and Bridge Repair
TRANSFER; a publication of the Surface Transportation Policy Project
February 9, 2004
STPP recently released a new decoder, Setting the Record Straight: Transit, Fixing Roads and Bridges Offer Greatest Jobs Gains. The brief report takes a closer look at the oft-cited figure that $1 billion in federal transportation spending creates 47,500 jobs, and finds that investments in road and bridge repair create 9 percent more jobs per dollar than building new roads or bridges. Likewise, spending on public transportation generates 19 percent more jobs per dollar than new road or bridge construction.
“This report will help make the case to Congress as it begins debate on renewal of TEA-21 that when it comes to job creation, investing in new public transportation, and repairing roads and bridges, creates significantly more jobs per dollar invested than does spending only on new highways,” said Anne Canby, president of STPP. “As our findings demonstrate, balanced investment in transportation is not only good public policy but a good deal for America’s workers.”
STPP is finalizing a new Decoder that highlights the need for and timeliness of expanded rail investment. It discusses two emerging trends, an expected doubling in freight traffic over the next twenty years, and steep declines in air service within regions especially in small and medium sized cities.
|
CHUNNEL OPERATOR TO SLASH ACCESS CHARGES
Press Association
February 9, 2004
Channel Tunnel owner Eurotunnel announced plans today to slash access rates for train operators in a bid to increase traffic growth and reverse heavy losses.
Eurotunnel said the cuts would allow high-speed train operator Eurostar to boost traffic to Paris and Brussels and potentially launch new destinations such as Amsterdam.
Freight operators such as EWS would see the biggest reductions - up to 75% - making way for an increase in the size of Eurotunnel’s economically viable cross-Channel rail freight market.
The radical proposal would require agreement from Eurotunnel’s creditors on a major financial restructuring of the company.
Eurotunnel today said it ran up annual losses of £1.3 billion following a “very tough year” in which it was hit by factors such as heavy competition and the Iraq war. The figure for the year to December 31 was affected by a one-off write-down of assets to reflect lower than expected cash flows. Prior to this, losses stood at £34 million against profits of £302.5 million the previous year.
Today’s proposed restructuring would depend upon a reduction in the amount of Eurotunnel’s debt and interest payments. Chief executive Richard Shirrefs said the high tunnel access charges were “strangling” traffic growth. He added: “Taxpayers are not getting the benefit they should for their money and Eurotunnel’s shareholders have seen a substantial loss on their investment.”
Eurotunnel is seeking to reach agreement in principle this year and aims to implement the plans in 2005. It said it now expected constructive engagement with its industrial and financial partners.
Shares in the Folkestone-based group fell nearly 9% after it posted major losses for 2003.
Mr Shirrefs said: “The market is highly competitive and… the economic situation has not been good and the travel industry in particular has suffered hugely from the effects of the Iraq war and various other things. The environment has been very, very tough.” He stressed that the write-down which hit Eurotunnel’s losses was an accounting adjustment and had no effect on the group’s trading position.
The group said operating profits fell to £170 million in 2003 compared with £207 million last year, a drop of 18%. Eurotunnel added, however, that it had seen a recent improvement in passenger numbers and had reduced its debt by £155 million, bringing total debt reduction since 1998 to £1.2 billion.
|
EUROTUNNEL CALLS FOR GOVERNMENT SUPPORT AFTER RECORD POUNDS 1.3BN LOSS
The Independent (London)
February 10, 2004
THE CHANNEL Tunnel operator Eurotunnel issued a plea yesterday for government help after plunging to a pounds 1.3bn loss - the worst in its 17-year history.
The Anglo-French company said that the cross-Channel rail market was in a “state of failure” and called on the government-backed rail operators of Britain and France for aid in bringing down its pounds 6.4bn debt mountain.
Eurotunnel, which has been making heavy losses since services began in 1994, said it intended to slash the amount it charges Eurostar and rail freight operators for using the tunnel in an attempt to generate more traffic. This could result in big reductions in fares on train services from London to Paris and Brussels. In return Eurotunnel said it would require a “significant reduction” in its debt levels and interest payments to reflect the fall in revenues from the railways.
The tunnel operator is understood to have proposed two main ways of cutting its debt burden in preliminary discussions with the British and French governments.
One would be for Eurostar; London and Continental Railways, the company building the high-speed Channel Tunnel Rail Link; and the SNCF, the French railway company, to take a major stake in Eurotunnel. The money raised by issuing new shares would then be used to pay down Eurotunnel’s borrowing. The second would be for Eurotunnel to issue bonds guaranteed against future revenues - or securitisation.
The two governments could agree to underwrite the bond much in the same way that the UK government has guaranteed bonds issued to finance the pounds 5bn Channel Tunnel Rail Link.
Eurotunnel may also ask its creditors to take some of the pain by altering the terms of the debt and by extending its length.
A spokesman for the Department of Transport said the Government welcomed any proposals that would put Eurotunnel on a sounder footing. But he said: “The Government has made it clear it will not put any public money into Eurotunnel. Indeed, it is prohibited by international treaty and legislation.”
The Government has retained Patrick Drayton of the investment bank Citigroup to provide financial advice on the proposed restructuring of Eurotunnel. The company is being advised by Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, Merrill Lynch and Societe Generale.
Richard Shirrefs, Eurotunnel’s chief executive, said it hoped to reach an agreement, in principle, on a new financial structure this year and implement it in 2005. He said that despite pounds 25bn having been sunk into the tunnel and high-speed rail links the market was not working properly. “It is overcapitalised, under-utilised and hugely fragmented. The industry model is in a state of failure,” he said. He added that if the scale of the debt burden and the low numbers of people using the tunnel had been known it would not have been built.
This would be the second major refinancing of Eurotunnel since it began service and the fourth since construction of the tunnel started in 1986. Eurotunnel’s passenger and freight shuttles between Folkestone and Calais are using 80 per cent of the capacity available to them. Eurostar is only using about half the capacity available.
Eurotunnel made a net loss after interest of pounds 34m last year but the bottom- line loss after taking a pounds 1.3bn write down in the value of the tunnel was pounds 1.334bn. Interest charges rose to pounds 318m. The company is able to meet its interest bill by issuing “stabilisation” notes in place of cash. These notes convert to shares in 2006 at which point the proportion of the company owned by its original shareholders will fall to 35 per cent.
At the annual meeting next month in Paris, investors representing Eurotunnel’s 1 million small shareholders will call for the removal of the board and for the governments to bail out the company.
|
ROMNEY FAVORING PUBLIC TRANSIT RTE. 3 WIDENING CALLED UNLIKELY
The Boston Globe
February 11, 2004
Announcing his $1.1 billion transportation spending bill yesterday, Governor Mitt Romney said that he favors train service over highway-widening projects, and suggested the state is unlikely to go forward with the addition of lanes on Route 3 on the South Shore.
“Greenbush has the effect of adding a lane to Route 3,” Romney said, referring to the commuter line along the South Shore now set to be built. “The prospect of widening highways is a nonstarter. The cost is prohibitive.”
Romney said his administration is currently ranking major transportation projects according to their priority, though the list is not ready to be released. He said he supports projects including the Silver Line, commuter rail to New Bedford and Fall River, a Blue Line extension to Lynn, and the Urban Ring, a transit route through and around Boston. The governor did not say how those projects, which add up to billions of dollars, would be paid for, other than that the state would be “highly dependent” on federal funding.
Romney said he favors public transit over new or widened highways that promote sprawl-style development, citing his recent visit to Houston for the Super Bowl as an “eyeful” and an example of “what happens when you don’t have zoning. We don’t want to see strip mall after strip mall. We want to see lovely town centers and villages.”
Environmental groups lashed out at the governor for not having a more detailed blueprint. The Sierra Club issued a statement saying the bond bill and the administration’s transportation planning thus far lacked vision and innovation.
The addition of a lane in each direction on Route 3 from Weymouth to Duxbury, estimated to cost $180 million, has been considered since the 1980s to relieve overcrowding. Told of Romney’s remarks yesterday, Terry Fancher, general manager of the South Shore Chamber of Commerce, said the project might not have to be done right away, but would be needed in 10 years.
“If you’re going to talk about a new way to get over to Cape Cod, widening has got to be part of the plans,” he said, referring to Romney’s proposal to build a $35 million rotary flyover from Route 3 to the Sagamore Bridge. “Once you drop a project out, it’s virtually impossible to get it back,” he added.
The widening of Route 3 through the South Shore would follow the addition of lanes in each direction on Route 3 from Burlington to the New Hampshire line, a $375 million project nearing completion, and the $200 million add-a-lane project on Route 128 from Wellesley to Randolph, which started late last year.
The governor’s transportation bond bill calls for an annual investment of $400 million in roadway and bridge projects other than the Big Dig, plus millions more for cities and towns. There is no category of funding to help the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority pay for major capital projects, but Douglas Foy, chief of Commonwealth Development, said roadway money could be “flexed” to pay for transit.
Foy added that the 25-year transportation plan is still nine months to a year away from being completed, because more public input is needed.
|
COMPANY SUES SOUND TRANSIT OVER FAILED BID
THE SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
February 11, 2004
A contracting team that lost out on getting a contract for a big chunk of Seattle’s light rail project filed suit in King County Superior Court yesterday against Sound Transit.
The move came after Sound Transit Chief Executive Officer Joni Earl denied the bid protest of Rainier Valley Constructors. Earl’s rejection of the protest was the final appeal within the agency.
A court hearing on the suit is scheduled for today. Rainier Valley Constructors seeks to stop the Sound Transit board from awarding the contract to another firm at a meeting tomorrow. Rainier Valley Constructors is a partnership of Coluccio Construction and Gary Merlino Construction, both of Seattle.
Earl warned that delay in awarding the contract could cost the agency millions and seriously interfere with its schedule.
The Sound Transit staff has recommended awarding the $128 million contract to build the 4.3-mile Rainier Valley section of the 14-mile line to RCI-Herzog, a partnership of Robison Construction of Sumner and Herzog Contracting of St. Joseph, Mo.
Rainier Valley Constructors initially complained of a meeting Sound Transit held with RCI-Herzog Dec.12, maintaining that Sound Transit was obligated to meet with other bidders and allow them to rework their bids for a “best and final offer.”
Later, Rainier Valley Constructors complained that Sound Transit had improperly included a mandatory “project labor agreement” in the project, even though President Bush had outlawed such provisions. A project labor agreement sets out working conditions for projects, generally requires use of at least some union workers and forbids strikes or walkouts during the project.
But Earl strongly defended Sound Transit’s handling of the bid process, saying the evaluation of bidders was objective and proper. Earl said that Rainier Valley Constructors failed on two bid criteria - safety and quality control - and therefore would have been ineligible to submit a new bid even if Sound Transit had decided to ask for best and final offers.
Earl said inclusion of the project labor agreement was proper, as were Sound Transit’s communications with RCI-Herzog.
Earl accused Rainier Valley Constructors of making “unsubstantiated claims, which in our opinion, are inflammatory and designed to elicit support from the public, legislators, board members and the press.”
Six Republican legislators wrote Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg, chairman of Sound Transit’s board, this week urging the agency to rebid the project because of the inclusion of the project labor agreement. And the Associated Builders & Contractors of Western Washington made the same request.
Earl said rebidding the contract “would consume a minimum of two to three months of critical schedule time.”
Arne Hedeen, attorney for Rainier Valley Constructors, said he will ask the court today for a 14-day temporary restraining order followed by an immediate trial on the issues.
|
Salt Lake City joins pact to grease light rail project
Salt Lake Tribune
Feb. 11, 2004
Salt Lake City joined several cities Tuesday in approving an agreement with the Utah Transit Authority that grants the agency the right to build commuter rail without abiding by some city regulations.
The agreement must be approved by 40 Wasatch Front communities for UTA to begin building the first leg of the project, which will run from Pleasant View to Salt Lake City.
Salt Lake City, along with the other municipalities, will waive certain fees (totaling $6,600 in the capital city) and certain zoning regulations within the 20-foot-wide corridor once owned by Union Pacific Railroad. The city would continue to regulate billboards, graffiti and nuisance abatement.
Before voting, council members expressed reservations about giving up some of the city’s control over the project, especially because the agreement includes a planned light rail line to Sugar House. Councilman Dave Buhler noted how the city was able to force UTA to concede to the city’s demands on the light rail line to the University of Utah. But in that case, the city owned the street. It doesn’t own the 2.75 miles of rail corridor to Sugar House.
Councilwoman Nancy Saxton voted against the agreement. “This is folly any time we give up our rights. They [UTA] need oversight.”
But Councilman Dale Lambert said the agreement will promote mass transit. And he feared the Utah Legislature would force the cities to accept an agreement less agreeable to the city.
UTA has threatened to seek legislation if the cities do not sign the negotiated agreement. Chris Bramhall, a city attorney, said the proposed legislation was “spectacularly worse” than what council members approved.
|
Whose roads? Pedestrians and joggers can feel like intruders in the car culture
Menlo Park Almanac
February 11, 2004
Those who choose to walk or jog on neighborhood streets — rather than drive on them — can put themselves in harm’s way.
Streets and roads — built for cars — can seem hostile for others, pedestrians say. Many residential streets have an uneven asphalt edge where a flat sidewalk would go. Drivers looking for short-cuts around congested arterials speed through these streets. At night, street lights are often dim and widely spaced — and sometimes completely absent — so as to create a rural ambience.
Sometimes the conflict results in tragedy — as happened on January 9 when 75-year-old Atefeh “Amy” Bijan was crossing Santa Cruz Avenue at a crosswalk near Palo Alto Way and was struck and killed by a car.
Some towns, such as Portola Valley and Woodside, accommodate pedestrians and equestrians with a system of trails.
In other areas, there have been efforts recently to make streets friendlier for pedestrians and kids on bikes — such as the Alameda de las Pulgas streetscape between Avy and Ashton avenues and the stretch of Santa Cruz Avenue heading into downtown Menlo Park.
But listening to those who walk local streets shows that local towns have a way to go to make them feel like first-class citizens of the roads.
Battle over rights
In the University Park neighborhood — between Oak Knoll School and Santa Cruz Avenue — the lots are small and sidewalks and street lights are non-existent.
Residents — young, elderly and in-between — use the narrow, hilly streets to walk, jog and bike. They even use them to stand around and talk.
But the neighborhood is plagued with “cut-through” traffic by drivers violating the speed limits and ignoring stop signs as they detour around the intersection of Sand Hill Road and Santa Cruz Avenue, residents say. Narrow streets worsen the situation since they’re also used for parking.
“I’m just very aware, especially when [I’m] pushing a stroller,” says Vine Street resident Cindy Tipton. When a car comes down the road, she says, “I try to sneak in between two parked cars.”
Compelled to share the road, Ms. Tipton points out: “The pedestrian’s rights are always first.” To drive the point home, she and her neighbors sometimes converse in the middle of the street, particularly when their kids are out riding.
The message to drivers is: “Wait your turn. Our kids are on their bikes. If you don’t like it, you can go down another street.”
Gari Merendino, who has lived on Vine Street for 20 years and walks daily with his wife and their dog, says he sometimes steps alone into the road to flag down vehicles and ask drivers to slow down. Most are going 10 mph over the 25 mph speed limit, he says, and many run stop signs. About half the drivers he stops tell him where he can get off, he says.
Most of the neighborhood children understand the danger on the streets, Mr. Merendino says. “It’s a bit of a shame,” he says.
A 62-year-old Vine Street resident who asked not to be named says she walks four miles a day with her husband. With a fragile sense of balance and having undergone retinal surgery, she says she’s particularly sensitive to the uneven edges of the streets.
Sidewalks and street lights would help, she says, but she defers to neighbors who prefer things the way they are.
One of those neighbors is Tim Unger, who walks single file with his wife on their constitutionals. He’d like speed tables — wide speed bumps — “on every street,” he says. “Some of these people just zip right down the road.”
Street smarts
In the eastern part of Menlo Park, City Councilwoman Mickie Winkler jogs frequently on Woodland Road, a narrow winding residential street that follows San Francisquito Creek east of Middlefield Road. It has evolved into a thoroughfare for traffic between East Palo Alto and Menlo Park. “You have to be careful,” Ms. Winkler says. “Woodland Avenue is not pedestrian friendly.” Parts of the street are used extensively by joggers nevertheless.
Former mayor Steve Schmidt also travels Woodland on foot to downtown Menlo Park from his home in the Willows neighborhood. He says he has to cross the street periodically because some residents are using the public right-of-way for their walls or rose bushes.
It needs a sidewalk, he says. “It’s a beautiful street surrounded by great trees in a community-minded neighborhood. … Streets that are natural for pedestrians should have pedestrian amenities.”
“Flow of traffic seems to be the dominant consideration in the design of most roadways,” Mr. Schmidt says. “It’s a car culture. There are few people that question that kind of paradigm or standard that we have grown used to.”
The Spurlocks and their three young children live on Olive Street in central Menlo Park. About three or four times a week, the strollers come out and they walk Bay Laurel Road, where there are no sidewalks. “Often you find a car that cuts corners and is not careful with pedestrians,” Ms. Spurlock says.
“I kind of feel it’s our job to look after ourselves,” says her husband. But the lighting could be better, he says, and sidewalks would “make things safer.”
In Atherton, Police Chief Bob Brennan says he sometimes walks before going home or to a night meeting. In the summer, he takes the unpaved paths alongside the street, but they’re wet in the winter and it’s dark. “Visibility is a problem [then],” he says. “I tend to walk on the edge of the roadway.”
Last year, the town handed out reflective arm-bands for walkers and wearable glow sticks for kids when they’re trick-or-treating, he says.
Kids and cars
In Woodside, traffic can be an issue for children attending the elementary school on heavily used Woodside Road. With the homes so far apart, most children are driven to school, says Principal John Harter. Steps have been taken to allow walking, however.
Cylindrical orange pylons in the center of the road mark the two crosswalks during the day. This summer, Caltrans is planning to delineate one of the crosswalks by embedding flashing lights in the pavement, Mr. Harter says. The lights will be controlled from inside the school and will flash continuously at oncoming drivers during hours when children may be crossing. “We emphasize walking to school and we’ve done what we can to make it safe,” he says.
At Hillview School in Menlo Park, the bicycle is popular, but Councilwoman Winkler says she would like to see more children walking to school.
It’s a time for socializing, she says, and it frees parents from chauffeur duties, which she says accounts for much unnecessary traffic. With crossing guards at the crosswalks, the routes could be made “absolutely safe” for the little pedestrians.
“I know a lot of the parents would really welcome the opportunity to have their kids walk,” Ms. Winkler says. As for finding the money to pay for the guards, she says the schools, the city and parents might collaborate.
In Atherton, crossing guards are on duty near Encinal and Selby Lane schools, Chief Brennan says.
Santa Cruz Avenue
“We have some streets, such as Santa Cruz Avenue and Middle Avenue, that are very daunting to cross,” Councilwoman Winkler told the Almanac. Installing lighted crosswalks is one of her priorities for the year, Ms. Winkler says. “My dream is that the city can get these on Bayfront [Expressway] and really throughout the city,” she says. “I’d like us, at the very least, to have a plan that will begin to address it.”
Santa Cruz Avenue is “a street that makes a lot of parents nervous,” says Mr. Schmidt.
As mayor in 2002, he oversaw a reconfiguration intended to increase safety for pedestrians between Menlo Park Presbyterian Church and Hillview School. The design included medians as refuges for foot traffic crossing the street and raised concrete curb extensions intruding into and narrowing the roadway to reduce pedestrians’ crossing distance and discourage fast driving.
The changes were unpopular. Almost all of the features were removed after a group of about 200 Santa Cruz Avenue residents demanded that the street be restored to its former state. “If the original design had been more modest in its scope, there might not have been a campaign against it,” Mr. Schmidt says.
The city has applied for a $450,000 grant to build a sidewalk on the south side of the street from the Presbyterian church to Olive Street, says city transportation manager Jamal Rahimi.
At the western end of Santa Cruz Avenue, along a quarter-mile stretch between intersections at Sand Hill Road and at Alameda de las Pulgas, residents of the Menlo Commons retirement community want the county to upgrade an existing crosswalk with warning lights. Many residents cross there to the University Park neighborhood for their walks.
It is this crosswalk where Ms. Bijan was killed. The county, facing a very tight budget, governs the street and is considering removing the crosswalk, county Supervisor Rich Gordon said recently.
Removal would be a step in favor of vehicles by eliminating a potential braking effect on traffic speed. And it could push elderly pedestrians to jaywalk across four lanes of traffic rather than walking to the intersections.
Information
A few statistics
Local towns say they don’t keep statistics that break out pedestrians injuries and deaths, but figures from recent years are available.
In Menlo Park, California Highway Patrol figures show 14 pedestrian injuries and one death in 2001, according to the latest data available from the state Office of Transportation Safety. Over the four years between 1998 and 2001, data show 70 injuries and three deaths.
In Atherton, eight pedestrians were injured over the four-year period, while Woodside and Portola Valley had one pedestrian death each and one injury in Woodside, Mr. Marando said.
Nationally, most pedestrian fatalities happened at night in urban areas away from intersections, according to 2001 data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
|
STRASBOURG LIGHT RAIL EXTENSION, FRANCE
Railway Technology
11 February 2004
As a major city at the hub of the European Economic Community, Strasbourg began moves early in the 1990s to give the city a public transport system which would justify its position at the hub of the continent. The resulting system is one of the most distinctive anywhere in the world.
THE PROJECT
This first section of line opened in November 1994, and ran from Hautpierre-Maillon, in the north-west of the city, via a city centre underground section serving the Gare Centrale, before turning south to serve the main hospital, a major sports stadium and college and terminating in the south-eastern suburb of Baggersee.
A direct interchange between Gare Centrale and the metro system came on stream during 1997. The early success of the system soon prompted pressure for extensions to the network and these were announced in 1995. First to be inaugurated was a 2.8km (1.8-mile) extension to the original line, now known as Line A, from Baggersee to Illkirch, including four intermediate stations. A short spur off Line A now serves a terminus at Etoile-Polygone.
Plans were soon also advanced for a second line. Intersecting Line A at Homme de Fer, Line B opened in May 2000 and runs south-westwards to Elsau where a new tram and bus depot was to be built. Three branches now radiate from the Place de la Republique in the city centre. These are: a south-western arm, terminating at Elsau; a south-eastern branch to Avenue de Gaulle, close to the university; and the longest branch north from the Place de la Republique to Hoenheim Nord, serving the congress centre and the large suburban communities of Schlitigheim and Bischheim.
The system now has 47 stations, of which one is underground (the Gare Central SNCF Station interchange), with two shelters, a pillar with a screen displaying information such as the waiting time in real time, the siren, the automatic ticket vending machine and two ticket validating machines.
Trams run at frequencies between four and six minutes and one every three minutes in peak hours from 0430 to 0030.
ROLLING STOCK
These extensions have doubled the length of the network to 25km and, to cater for this expansion, an order was placed for 27 Eurotram light rail vehicles to add to the fleet of 26 trams built to operate services on the original line. The fleet is broken down into 36 trams with three compartments at 33.10m long with a capacity of 285 passengers, of which 66 are seated, and 17 trams with four sections, 43.10m long with a capacity of 370 passengers, of which 92 are seated.
The first batch of Eurotrams was built to a modular design by Adtranz at York in the UK. But after its closure was announced, the work was inherited by its sister plant in Derby. The export potential of the vehicle has been realised with orders from several other European systems including Spain and Italy.
The Eurotram is futuristic yet functional and is easily accessible to as many potential passengers as possible. The vehicles’ sleek external appearance results in slightly less headroom inside but this has not proved a problem for all but the tallest of passengers.
The initial design was already considered extremely user-friendly, including such innovations as a powered wheelchair ramp, wide internal gangways and ample room for wheelchairs and pushchairs.
SIGNALLING/COMUNICATIONS
The Eurotrams include the latest automated train protection equipment, and the driver has full control of the extra equipment fitted, such as the wheelchair ramps, from his cab.
The fully-automated interlocking signalling system allows short headways between services, especially on the slower-speed sections through the city centre, in common with many other cities.
THE FUTURE
Work on the extension from Elsau in the south-west of the city through the city centre to Hoenheim. A quarter of Strasbourg’s population live within 400m of Line B. They are given an extra incentive to use the system by the provision of four park and ride sites.
Meanwhile, plans have been announced for a direct heavy rail link from Molsheim and Entzheim Airport to the city centre, offering light rail interchanges along its route.
In July 2003, the Compagnie des Transports Strasbourgeois (CTS), awarded a €98.3 million contract to Alstom for the supply of 35 Citadis trams to expand its light rail fleet. The contract includes an option for up to 12 additional trams, an option for spare parts management and an option for rolling-stock maintenance.
The Citadis trams have been adapted to the specific requirements of the Strasbourg environment and have been designed to resemble the earlier batches built by Adtranz and Bombardier. The full low-floor trams are fitted with a small bogie at either end in order to follow the network’s curves more smoothly and provide harmonious movement. They will be 2.4m wide and can carry 288 passengers. They will serve the entire tramway network of the Strasbourg area increasing capacity by 60% by 2006-08.
The trams will be built in France at Alstom’s La Rochelle and Reichshoffen plants and first deliveries are scheduled for mid-2005.
|
Bombardier quits Tel Aviv light rail project; The Ministry of Transport is angry at the company, which previously also withdrew from the Jerusalem light rail project
Globes [online] - Israel’s Business Arena
February 11, 2004
Sources inform “Globes” that Canadian engineering company Bombardier has announced its withdrawal from the Tel Aviv light rail project “for commercial reasons’. Senior transport industry sources said, “Bombardier found the Tel Aviv project not economically worthwhile, and therefore withdrew from the tender.”
A few days ago, Bombardier notified its partners in the consortium, the Dan Bus Cooperative, Property and Building (TASE: PTBL), and Bouyges Construction and RATP of France, that it had made a strategic commercial decision not to participate in the construction of the Red Line of the metropolitan Tel Aviv light railway.
The Adanim group, of which Bombardier was part, is considering whether to join one of the other consortia, or to withdraw from the tender.
The Red Line project is in the request for proposals stage, in which the competing consortia make financial and technical quality offers.
Four groups passed the pre-qualifying round, of which only three are still competing.
One consortium is Metro Transportation Solution, which includes Siemens of Germany, Aecon Group of Canada, Den Haag Tramways of the Netherlands, Africa-Israel Investments, and the Egged Bus Cooperative. Another is the Ashtrom Group, which consists of Alstom and Connex-GEA of France, Ashtrom, and Housing and Construction Holding Co. The third includes Ansaldo from Italy, Daewoo International (KSE: 47050) from South Korea, Shafir Civil and Marine Engineering, Aviv, Granite Hacarmel Investments, and Bateman Engineering.
The tender, published under the BOT (build, operate, transfer) method, is worth $1.3 billion. The Red Line is 22 kilometers long, including a ten-kilometer tunnel.
Bombardier withdrew in January 2002 from the tender for the first line of the Jerusalem light railway project. The Adanim group, which included Bombardier, Housing and Construction, FIBI Holdings (TASE:FIBI), and Etgal, withdrew from the tender, also for economic reasons.
The Ministry of Transport responded angrily to Bombardier’s withdrawal, saying that the company was unworthy of participating in tenders in Israel, after behaving improperly in two important tenders.
Another source claimed that Bombardier’s motives were solely economic. Preparing the Jerusalem tender cost an estimated $4 million, and the Tel Aviv tender an estimated $10 million. The source said these costs were unreasonable.
No response from Bombardier was available. NTA Metropolitan Mass Transit System chairman Yossi Kucik said he had no information about the matter.
Another industry source said that the cost, which was high by international standards, would cause further upsets in the tender. “It’s doubtful whether the cost of the project, set against the number of users, justifies a $1.5 billion investment,” the sources stated.
|
Airport will fight for main line link
THE JOURNAL (Newcastle, UK)
February 11, 2004
Airport chiefs have vowed to fight for funding to secure an extension of the East Coast Main Line running right to their terminal.
Part of the Newcastle Airport Masterplan is to get a so-called “heavy rail” line connecting the airport to the East Coast Main Line north of Newcastle.
Newcastle Airport has already bought land where the line would run along a former branch line near Newcastle to ensure that it is not developed for housing.
It is hoped that by linking Newcastle Airport directly to the mainline, it will become accessible to locations across the country.
Currently, people travelling by train to the airport have to travel to Newcastle Central Station and transfer on to the Metro, travelling for about 40 minutes through Newcastle and its suburbs. Plans are currently being drawn up to improve facilities at Newcastle Central Station for airport users in the short-term.
But Graeme Mason, planning and property manager at Newcastle Airport, said: “We are assembling a group to lobby for the money to put in a new line here. “We are committed to expanding the airport and increasing the number of people who use public transport to get to the airport. “The ultimate aim is get a railway track in here which would connect the airport to many more places and make it easier for people to get here by public transport.”
By 2016, the number of passengers using Newcastle International Airport is expected to have risen from three million to 9.5 million. The increase will see the number of flights rise from around 50,000 to 90,000 per year.
The idea has been put forward to residents at a series of meetings being held to discuss the Masterplan. Other plans include creating 16 new stands for planes, in addition to the 23 already available and that will probably mean an expansion of the terminal.
Extra car parking, a new hotel and petrol station are also planned, along with improvements to the Metro station and public transport interchange at the airport. Residents at several meetings have expressed concern at the effect extra users will have on their villages.
Mr Mason added: “We are committed to raising the number of people using public transport, and our targets are challenging. In the short term, we are looking at improvement to our Metro station, which is one of the few with more passengers using it, and then long-term for a railway. It would be good for the whole region.”
Most regional airports have direct rail links.
Manchester Airport, for example, has trains running to it from across the country including several daily from the North-East. Birmingham International Airport also has a station on the West Coast Mainline.
|
“The car is the future”, US urban planner Edward Glaeser told Scotland last night
The Herald [UK]
February 11 2004
In the US, the car is past and future; the alpha and omega of getting around. Driving is a case of pedal to the metal and hit the highway ? days can go by without seeing a red light. Yet that is not the case in our small part of Europe.
Tell an American the distance to Inverness from Selkirk and they would be happy to drive there for a pint of coffee. The A9 on a Saturday in June is not what they’re used to ? and it’s about to get worse now that Tara Palmer-Tomkinson and her ilk have discovered caravanning. Last summer, Diary readers wrote in to commend caravan manufacturers on their rich sense of irony after being stuck behind vehicles called things like Pegasus and Tornado.
Only 200 years ago, travelling across the interior of the US was akin to a journey in outer space now. And yet, Americans and their car culture are despoiling that beautiful country at a fearsome rate.
Vast suburbs, which Glaeser calls “Cities of the edge”, are thrown up with more regard for parking than the environment. An example of the kind of town he believes we should aspire to is Boulder, Colorado, currently one of the hot destinations for skilled young professionals. There, new, large houses march inexorably across the plain. Unlike in a hot European country where the architecture is designed with the climate in mind, in summer these wooden houses literally vibrate with the air-conditioning machines which keep them like fridges inside, gobbling up power stations-worth of electricity. Each has a large garden, kept green by almost constant sprinklings of fresh water.
These and other depredations mean that not a single drop of water from the vast Colorado river, sometimes called the American Nile, will reach the Sea of Cortez in impoverished neighbouring Mexico.
America produces half of the world’s output of greenhouse gases and it doesn’t give a shit. Even Glaeser refuses to comment on the future effect of that. George W Bush’s administration’s policy is to confuse the public over the greenhouse effect, although the body of reputable world science opinion is now that it is a problem.
Glaeser says Scotland needs to attract the rich ? by building low-density housing served by big box retail parks. But do we really want to live that way?
He claims the car saves 20 minutes per journey. Having lived in a flat in Edinburgh’s Marchmont, I would dispute that. Returning from the supermarket with two sleeping children in the car, what do you do when you can’t park outside your front door? Do you double-park and unload, leaving two toddlers alone in the house while you find a space later? Do you park 10 minutes away and leave them in the car while you carry the shopping home? Or do you ditch the car and do the shopping by internet, or daily with a double buggy?
In most of central Edinburgh you can still pick up fresh food within a few minutes’ walk. Buying fresh food for dinner every day is not only a nicer way to live, but it also saves money, as nothing is wasted. One year’s car money pays for a lot of buses and taxis.
Glaeser castigates trains as being “horribly expensive” but our European neighbours provide fantastic rail infrastructure, unlike the US.
The Scottish Executive should put some trains back on track. Currently, the Leith area must be one of the biggest urban areas in the UK with no station. There is a perfectly good line. No doubt the dog walkers and cyclists who use it would complain, but if the Glasgow express could head on to Leith, it would add only minutes to the journey, putting hundreds of thousands within an hour of Glasgow ? much faster than the peak-time drive and not taking up as much road as the tram.
Efforts to provide alternatives do result in people giving up their cars, which are expensive and inefficient. A fresher approach to some of Scotland’s urban problems was provided this week by a project where 40 kids from inner-city Edinburgh donned hard hats, did site visits and built a scale model of the centre of town currently on display in the Our Dynamic Earth exhibition.
The children decided that cars go too fast, stop them from playing and cause too much pollution. In many areas of the city they took them away completely, replacing them with trams and access only for emergency vehicles.
Other ideas they came up with included roofing part of the old town with glass, laying mirrors down the Cowgate to increase the light, an artificial lake with boats in Queen’s park, abseiling on Salisbury crags, allotments in the old bus garage and a chocolate factory.
It all sounds great to me. But heaven preserve us from the ideas of Professor Glaeser. Americans are more mobile in a big country. They can go to an area of outstanding natural beauty, ruin it with ugly urban sprawl and pollution and then drive away. We can’t. This small country is our future.
|
Tube passengers in tunnel drama
The Evening Standard (London)
February 11, 2004
TEN crowded commuter trains were damaged today after a blunder by maintenance workers left metal brackets sticking out of a tunnel wall. The workers had installed the wrong sort of brackets, which stuck out farther than the old ones. Three trains each had a passenger window smashed and others suffered damage to side panels.
The incident happened between Farringdon and Barbican stations during the height of the morning peak period. Tens of thousands of commuters suffered delays as large sections of the Circle, Metropolitan and Hammersmith & City lines were halted.
The brackets were installed by subcontractors for Metronet, the private sector consortium responsible for maintaining two-thirds of the Tube network.
Metronet spokesman Paul Emberley said the contractors were from Balfour Kilpatrick, part of the giant Balfour Beatty group. They were carrying out “ essential cable works” between Farringdon and Barbican stations.
Three cable support brackets were installed “as part of a temporary works process”. But they were larger and protruded further than the existing brackets. “As a result some saloon cars of 10 trains have been superficially damaged and the outer skin of three saloon car windows was broken,” Mr Emberley said.
Metronet has already begun a formal investigation into the incident.
The RMT union demanded an immediate investigation and repeated their call for 24-hour track inspections.
The chaos came as Tube bosses threatened to tear up private infrastructure contracts unless performance improves. This follows last month’s massive disruption of the London transport network by one night of snow. The private companies - handed 30-year contracts last year - are facing £1 million in fines because huge numbers of trains could not run the morning after the snowfall.
Today London transport commissioner Bob Kiley said the badweather failures were symptomatic of serious underlying difficulties with the public-private partnership (PPP) contracts.
He told a board meeting of Transport for London: “If we don’t see improvements in the maintenance performance or renewal activity which is broadly under way, then we may be at a point where we will have to revisit these contracts in a pretty vigorous way.
“At the end of the second year all forgiveness is over. We have got to stand ready to do what we can to protect the interests of the public, and this board’s interest. The moment of truth will come sometime during the second year.”
Tim O’Toole, the Tube’s managing director, said: “The performance of the Uunderground defies any defence through this period.” He revealed that “robust discussions” with the two infrastructure companies had taken place as a result of the fiasco. “We are determined this will not happen again.,” he said.
Mayor Ken Livingstone also threatened to cut the grants given to borough councils for transport projects unless they ensured bus routes were properly gritted.
|
Emergency Mismanagement
Newsday (New York)
February 12, 2004
More than a decade before New York City Transit’s bungled response to the York Street station fire in July, another Brooklyn blaze exposed similar problems in the agency’s handling of emergencies.
The Dec. 28, 1990, fire at the Clark Street station in Brooklyn Heights left two people dead, 180 injured and 900 subway riders trapped for 45 minutes in a smoke-filled tunnel south of the station.
Passengers on the No. 3 train gasped for air, some vomiting, until the cars were backed away from an electrical cable fire. Some riders suffered heart attacks; others tried to break windows to escape. There were scathing City Hall reports on how transit personnel handled the evacuation. Lethal missteps were chronicled along with recommendations for preventing them in the future.
One disturbing conclusion was that the transit control center failed to ask important questions of workers on the scene. “The extreme pressure of the moment can be no excuse for error,” said a highly critical City Council report. As usual, subway bosses promised to address significant problems with communications and emergency response.
Now, 14 years after Clark Street, some people are questioning the agency’s resolve to address serious mistakes highlighted in a draft report of the probe into the July 19 York Street station fire. “For years, the Transit Authority has given lip service to all these recommendations,” said John Pritchard, inspector general for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority from 1988 to 1993. “But there is no follow-up.”
For all the errors committed by transit personnel July 19, the agency was fortunate no one died. Still, about 130 people required medical treatment in an evacuation fraught with errors.
The draft report, obtained by Newsday, exposed numerous vulnerabilities in the way the agency handles emergencies. Control center personnel, just like in 1990, failed to assess t |
