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Monorail looks at taking over Second Avenue lane

Seattle Times February 14, 2004 The Seattle Monorail Project is considering what was once unthinkable: removing a lane of traffic along Second Avenue in downtown Seattle to make way for its overhead train tracks. Monorail Executive Director Joel Horn said the agency will begin discussing alternatives next week to its controversial plan to build the monorail over the sidewalks of Second Avenue, which would bring trains within 6? to 8 feet of buildings. Officials will now study whether to place the columns in the middle of the one-way, southbound street. That design would probably eliminate one general-traffic lane, according to Ethan Melone, the city’s liaison to the monorail project. Metro buses would travel in a buses-only lane between the monorail and the existing sidewalk, with car lanes running left of the monorail. But that idea runs contrary to a monorail campaign promise in 2002 not to eliminate traffic lanes. “The last thing we need on Second Avenue is to lose a lane of traffic,” said Henry Aronson, a leader of the group OnTrack, which opposed the monorail plans. The new concept is meant to placate downtown property owners, who protested that the earlier plan to bring the trains much closer to the buildings would have created a number of difficulties, including making it difficult to construct new towers or wash windows. Until yesterday, monorail officials replied that they couldn’t build farther out because it would cost $30 million to relocate an underground electrical cable vault. But after taking a great deal of heat for the sidewalk alignment, the agency decided to explore locations where the monorail’s deep underground foundations could fit between the cables and a huge sewer pipe. “It’s pretty cool that here we are, a day or two later, and we’re ready to go out and attack these issues, to figure out what’s the best west-side (of Second Avenue) alignment we can do,” said Horn, the monorail executive director. On Wednesday, Horn informally mentioned to Rod Kaufman, executive vice president of the local Building Owners and Managers Association, that he was looking at new ideas. “We’re encouraged by any possible idea that might be out there to pull the monorail farther from the existing structures, and we look forward to hearing any more detail they might provide,” Kaufman said yesterday. Representatives of the monorail agency, the city and Metro Transit all said they have no detailed diagrams yet, only sketches on a whiteboard. “We’re a long way from knowing if the alternative can work for us or not,” said Melone. Horn said that the 2002 promise not to remove a lane of traffic was made at a time when downtown and other neighborhoods didn’t want to lose a road lane. “It’s really up to the community and the city to tell us whether they want to keep that constraint,” he said. Before the monorail agency can get city permission to build on the streets or sidewalks, the City Council will hold several public meetings to scrutinize the route.

Charge has helped break love affair with car: One year on, statistics reveal success of congestion fee

The Guardian (London) February 14, 2004 More than 400,000 Londoners have abandoned their cars in favour of travelling each day by public transport, thanks to a combination of better buses, traffic restraints and mayor Ken Livingstone’s controversial congestion charge. The mayor’s Transport for London authority said the drop in daily car travel had taken place over four years and was in stark contrast to cities elsewhere in Europe, where public transport use is typically either static or falling. It revealed the figure days ahead of Tuesday’s first anniversary of the congestion charge, which continues to provoke huge disagreement. Labour and Conservative groups on the London assembly yesterday both refused to endorse an all-party scrutiny report on the scheme’s impact. The charge is part of a package of measures introduced by Mr Livingstone in an attempt to revolutionise travel in London, alongside bus lanes, slower traffic lights and electronic ticketing. According to TfL, an extra 1.1 million people are taking the bus each day, taking the total number of journeys to 4.7m. During the morning peak, bus journeys into the centre of the capital have rocketed by 47% to 103,000 a day. The capital’s notoriously overcrowded trains and tubes have also accommodated an increase, with passenger numbers up by between 5% and 10% since 1999. Professor David Begg, chairman of the Commission for Integrated Transport, said the findings proved that it was possible to break the British love affair with the car: “A lot of sceptics say that you can’t get people out of their cars and on to the buses. This proves them wrong. No other city in the world is achieving anything like the shift that London has got.” According to a study by the European commission, only six out of 17 European cities have persuaded people to forsake cars in favour of public transport since 1991. London’s Olympic rivals have fared poorly - in Paris, public transport’s share of travel is declining by 0.3% annually. Madrid has achieved only a 0.2% shift on to buses and trains, compared with London’s 4% annual switch. Despite the findings, the congestion charge has yet to win a political consensus. A London assembly report published yesterday said the “full impact on our city remains unknown”, arguing that there was little evidence that businesses were gaining from any extra productivity from faster journey times. The study, by the assembly’s transport committee, has provoked a bitter row. Labour members have refused to endorse it for being too harsh about the charge, while the Conservatives have rejected it for being insufficiently critical. Angie Bray, the Conservative spokeswoman on congestion charging, said administration of the charge by the management firm Capita had been “beset by problems”. She said the scheme had cost too much and was raising insufficient money: “Did anyone voting for Ken Livingstone in 2000 really believe they would be boosting the share price of Capita?” Enforcement of the scheme has come in for particular criticism. The AA yesterday accused TfL of adopting a “zero tolerance” approach during the final seconds of daily charging hours in a desperate attempt to generate more cash. Paul Watters, the AA’s head of transport policy, cited a mo torist who was fined for entering the zone just 23 seconds before the charge’s 6.30pm finishing time: “They’ve started doing this since they changed their contract with Capita. Natural justice would seem to suggest that it’s pretty unfair to apply it to the absolute second.” Senior sources at Capita have suggested to TfL that the scheme should be amended to allow motorists to pay the day after they enter the zone, to avoid stiff fines for “forgetfulness”. The mayor is believed to be considering adjustments including a simplified appeals procedure. Many Londoners are exploring new ways to get into town. Piaggio, the moped manufacturer, said the congestion charge had reversed a two-year decline in the scooter market. It said that in some moped shops, four out of five customers had cited the charge as a reason for switching to two wheels. The charge will be a key issue in May’s mayoral election. Conservative candidate Steve Norris has pledged to scrap it, while the Liberal Democrat, Simon Hughes, yesterday proposed a series of changes including five “free goes” for every motorist before the charge kicks in. Fewer and faster - Car travel in London has fallen by 4%, or 400,000 trips daily, since 1999. - Some 50,000 fewer vehicles have entered the central zone each day since congestion charging began. - The charge is expected to raise £68m in its first year, compared with an initial forecast of £200m. - Bikes, motorcycles and mopeds have risen by a fifth in London as motorists abandon their cars. - London ambulance service says the charge has cost it £245,000 in getting its staff to work. - Traffic speeds on key London routes have risen from 2.9mph to 7.4mph, according to the RAC. - Three-quarters of the 35,000 appeals against penalty charge notices have been won by drivers. Links

All aboard? Well…not yet; Light Rail makes test run into Weehawken

The Hudson Reporter February 15, 2004 If anyone was motoring around the Weehawken waterfront Thursday afternoon and happened to see what appeared to be a train making its way through the planned Hudson-Bergen Light Rail route, you weren’t imaging it. While the NJ Transit Hudson-Bergen Light Rail continues to proceed toward Weehawken and points north, officials took one of the trains on a little test run Thursday for the first time, just to see if things are operating properly. According to Charles Ingoglia, NJ Transit’s director of public affairs for new Light Rail construction, the test run went smoothly and all systems are go to have the Light Rail making regular runs through Weehawken by the end of the summer. “It was a one-time test run, but we might make other test runs in the future,” Ingoglia said. “According to our reports, everything ran very [well]. There were no issues. We’re moving forward as scheduled. If there were any major issues, I would have heard something.” “The way we’re looking at it, we should be to Second Street and Ninth Street [in Hoboken] and to Lincoln Harbor [in Weehawken] by this summer. As the project continues, it will increase the usefulness the Light Rail has to the residents along the waterfront, who will be able to get to Newport Mall and downtown Jersey City fairly easily.” Ingoglia said that the work to secure the rock face of the Palisades had been “virtually completed,” which meant that the test run with an actual train along the line could take place. “That was one of the most important issues we had to handle,” Ingoglia said. “We had to secure the rock and ensure that there were no hazards from falling rock to the roadways below.” Weehawken Mayor Richard Turner believed that the simple test run was highly significant and symbolic of what has become a long road. “The whole odyssey of Light Rail started in 1987,” Turner said. “So this was the culmination of that odyssey. There are only a few people still involved from when the project began, with Gov. Tom Kean and his ‘Circle of Mobility’ plan designed to encourage regional mass transit. There was a deal to include more bus routes back then and not Light Rail. But a committee of citizens took the lead in convincing the proper agencies that what was needed was mass transit.” Added Turner, “When you see the first testing, you realize that the Light Rail has finally reached Weehawken after all this time. The testing that took place is a great testament to a lot of people who worked hard to see a mass transit network along the waterfront.” Turner said that the Light Rail station at Lincoln Harbor has already been constructed. “There are still some details that need to be worked out,” Turner said. “But we’re soon going to be providing a variety of mass transit possibilities.” Included in that is the new NY Waterway ferry terminal, which is also slated to be built later this year. Ingoglia said that after the Light Rail makes its way into Weehawken at the Lincoln Harbor station and another station eventually outside the Lincoln Tunnel, the project will continue through the old Conrail tunnel into Union City, where an underground station will be constructed. “In terms of engineering, it becomes a pretty big accomplishment by the time we get to Union City,” Ingoglia said. “It’s a very unique construction and the first station that we’ll have not on the surface. It will take a lot of work, but we’re moving according to schedule, including getting into Weehawken. It’s exciting, because this is the second piece of the line and it continues to show that the line is advancing.” Ingoglia said that once Weehawken becomes a regular stop, there should be an increase in riders who will use the Light Rail from Weehawken into Hoboken and points south. “For the people of Weehawken, it brings a lot of people closer together,” Ingoglia said. “I credit Mayor [Richard] Turner’s excitement in seeing the test run, because he knows what this will mean to his community.”

ABC’s of subway swap Manhattan Bridge fix changes 7 lines

Daily News (New York February 15, 2004 Brooklyn straphangers, get ready for alphabet soup. It might be messy at first, but the Metropolitan Transportation Authority thinks that eventually you’ll learn to like it. After 18 long years, repairs on the Manhattan Bridge have finally come to an end, setting the stage for the introduction next week of the most extensive set of subway service changes in decades. As a result, MTA officials promise, a number of subway lines will run faster, more frequently and with less crowding. “This is great news for transit riders,” said MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow. Seven lines - the B, D, M, N, Q, R and W - are affected. In addition, the S and Q-diamond trains will be discontinued, officials announced, because the service changes have made them redundant. In an effort to minimize confusion for the 600,000 daily riders on the affected lines, last week the MTA began passing out brochures and maps in Brooklyn stations and putting up signs in subway cars. Rather than the agency’s somewhat apologetic “Sometimes, you have to go backward to go forward” slogan about weekend track work, these ads excitedly declare “New Subway Service!” Service can finally be expanded, explained Transit Authority spokesman Charles Seaton, because for the first time since 1986, when the repair work began on the Manhattan Bridge, all four subway tracks over the span will be used. The MTA made the most of the city Department of Transportation’s bridge work by making $33 million worth of infrastructure improvements to the subway lines that use the bridge, Seaton added. Attorney Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign advocacy group said that while the expanded service would be a boon to many Brooklyn riders, initially the changes could leave them mixed up. “The D is becoming the W, and the Q is becoming the B, which is not so easy to follow,” Russianoff said. “But I think overall it’s good news for Brooklyn - particularly for neighborhoods like Bay Ridge, where the N express is going to come roaring back after 18 years.” Soon, riders who board the N at 59th St. in Bay Ridge will be in Manhattan after only three stops. Craig Eaton, chairman of Community Board 10 in Bay Ridge, said many residents have been eagerly awaiting the return of the N express. “We’re very happy about that,” Eaton said. “We’ve had a lot of complaints from residents about the loss of that express.” Some Bay Ridge residents were upset, however, at the news that the MTA is ending weekend express bus service to the neighborhood because riders will soon have an express train. But clear winners in the new subway configurations are southern Brooklyn commuters who use the Brighton line. Soon, they will have two options for getting to Manhattan: the Broadway Q line or the Sixth Ave. B line. Graphic: These Brooklyn subway service changes will be in effect starting Sunday, Feb. 22: N - On weekdays, runs express from 59th St. in Brooklyn to 34th St.-Herald Square on the Broadway line. Stops at DeKalb Ave. only at late nights. R - More trains will run during rush hour. Late nights, runs only between Bay Ridge-95th St. and 36th St. in Brooklyn. B - Replaces the Q express in Brooklyn; it runs express between Brighton Beach and 59th St. Columbus Circle. D - Replaces the W in Brooklyn, it runs express between 36th St. in Brooklyn and 145 St. in Manhattan. Late nights, it makes all local stops in Brooklyn. M - Rush hour service doesn’t change. Q - Doesn’t change, it will still terminate at Brighton Beach until spring 2004, when Coney Island station rehab is done. W - Operates between Astoria and Whitehall St. in Lower Manhattan weekdays only, making all local stops.

TRANSIT TROUBLE AHEAD; CAR-POOL LANE ADDITIONS, FREEWAY WIDENING MAY FACE AX

The Daily News of Los Angeles February 15, 2004 WASHINGTON - The three-way battle among the House, Senate and President George W. Bush over funding for the nation’s highways could spell trouble for Southern California transit projects, local leaders warn. Bush wants to hold highway funding to $256 billion over the next six years, while the House is willing to spend $375 billion. The Senate last week approved a $318 billion transit package. The White House has vowed to veto any bill that includes new taxes or budgetary maneuvers to cover spending above what it has proposed. “We’re in trouble,” said Bev Perry, president of the Southern California Association of Governments, who headed a coalition of regional leaders that set out Thursday for Capitol Hill to lobby for highway funding. If Bush’s number stands, Los Angeles and Ventura County officials say, it could threaten major local projects like improving commuter rail service, adding freeway car-pool lanes or widening State Route 118 between Simi Valley and Moorpark. “There clearly isn’t going to be enough money to do all these projects,” said Moorpark Councilman Keith Millhouse, past chairman of the Ventura County Transportation Commission. “I’m not sure people back in Washington appreciate how central Southern California is to the nation’s economy.” Added MTA board member Beatrice Proo: “If we don’t find some solutions to this quagmire, the economy suffers greatly. Let’s see if it can be recognized that what comes through our region has national significance.” The multiyear law actually expired in September, but extensions are keeping it in place for several more months. In the meantime, the Senate on Thursday approved its version, despite the White House veto threat. The House is expected to take it up when they return from congressional recess Jan. 23, but a final funding agreement between the two bodies is not expected before July. In Los Angeles County, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority counts on about $500 million annually from the federal spending bill. Tops on the MTA’s priority list this year is the construction of the Eastside light-rail line from Union Station to East Los Angeles. The agency hopes to secure a commitment for approximately $490 million over several years toward the $880 million project. That includes $80 million in its first year, and the Bush administration’s proposed budget this year includes that amount. The MTA also is pressing for funds to build car-pool lanes on the northbound San Diego Freeway from the Westside to the San Fernando Valley, as well as along the Golden State Freeway partway through the Valley. The highway bill also would fund smaller road construction and improvements. Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Sherman Oaks, for example, has requested, among other items, $784,000 to repair pedestrian walkways around California State University, Northridge; $1 million to build the Empire Area Transit Center near the Bob Hope Airport; and $575,000 to build a bikeway on the north bank of the Los Angeles River in Sherman Oaks. Rep. Howard Berman, D-Van Nuys, meanwhile, has asked for about $14 million in projects, including $6.5 million to widen streets and create a bicycle lane and parking facility near Hansen Dam Recreation Area; $3 million to install an irrigation system along the new Orange Line Rapidway; and $1.3 million to help the city of San Fernando buy a compressed natural gas fueling station for its bus fleet. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Pasadena, requested about a dozen projects, including a bikeway extension project in Burbank. He did not, however, release the amount of money being sought for his projects. Reps. Buck McKeon, R-Santa Clarita, and Elton Gallegly, R-Thousand Oaks, declined to release their lists of transportation requests. The proposed transportation bills also would change the formula for funding road projects. California still won’t get back as much as its residents pay in taxes, but the number could increase from 91 to 95 cents on the dollar. Federal highway construction is funded through gas taxes and other user fees. In order to reach his $375 billion funding figure, House Transportation Committee Chairman Don Young has backed a 5-cent-a-gallon increase in gas taxes. But the Bush administration said it will not accept any form of tax increases. Southland Republican lawmakers also object to raising the gas tax. The Senate’s $318 billion package is in part funded by various shifts in the budget. Among them, the Senate has proposed shifting the cost of transportation breaks, like the lower tax for ethanol-blended fuels, from the highway trust fund to the general treasury. The administration, in turn, has proposed other funding sources like loosening restrictions on how and when tolls on interstate highways could be levied. The White House number is a $9 billion increase over the executive branch’s original proposal last spring. Martin Whitmer, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta’s deputy chief of staff, spoke late last week to the Southern California Association of Governments, but did not hold out much hope that the president would budge. “This is pretty firm,” Whitmer said. But John O’Donnell, SCAG’s lobbyist in Washington, D.C., held out the possibility that funding levels could expand over the next several months. Coaching local leaders in a conference room overlooking the U.S. Senate as the coalition prepared to meet with lawmakers and Hill staffers, O’Donnell pointed his thumb toward the U.S. Capitol. “You hear people saying they’re drawing a line in the sand,” he told the group. “Well, that line over there moves every day.” A PLETHORA OF PLANS Here are some of the projects on Southern California’s wish list for the six-year federal Highway Transportation Reauthorization Bill: Multicounty projects: — East-west corridor truckway from ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to Inland Empire distribution centers; $3 billion — Alameda Corridor East; $1.25 billion — Metrolink improvements; $177 million Los Angeles County projects: — Adding car-pool lane on the San Diego Freeway from Interstate 10 to the Ventura Freeway; $1.6 billion — Light-rail service linking East L.A. and Union Station; $491 million — Adding car-pool and traffic lanes to the Golden State Freeway, from Rosemead Boulevard to Orange County line; $471 million. — Extending light-rail service from downtown L.A. to Robertson/Venice boulevards; $315.6 million — Car-pool lane improvements on I-5, from the 134 Freeway to the 170 Freeway; $290 million — Hansen Dam access improvements; $6.5 million — Glendale, construction of pedestrian bicycle bridge; $4.5 million — Northridge, Granada Hills and Porter Ranch, street rehabilitation; $3.7 million — Reseda, Canoga Park and Winnetka, street rehabilitation; $3.2 million — San Fernando Valley Rapidway irrigation system; $3 million — Metrolink parking/signage improvements; $2 million — Burbank, bikeway extension; $1.78 million — San Fernando, natural gas fueling station; $1.3 million — Glendale, trolley construction; $1.3 million — North Hollywood, streetscape improvements at Laurel Canyon and Victory boulevards; $1.2 million — Sylmar, Lake View Terrace and Mission Hills, street rehabilitation; $1.2 million — Burbank, Empire Area Transit Center construction; $1 million — Reseda Boulevard, Rapid Bus Route; $1 million — California State University, Northridge, walkway repairs; $784,000 — Van Nuys, street rehabilitation; $750,000 — Pierce College, repair of Brahma Drive and Winnetka Avenue; $600,000 — Sherman Oaks, bikeway construction; $575,000 — Mission College, transit center construction; $500,000 — CSUN, propane-powered tram service; $325,000 — Sherman Oaks, street rehabilitation; $214,000 Ventura County Projects: — State Route 118, freeway widening from Tapo Canyon Road to Route 23; $115 million — Transportation Management System, installing technology; $20 million — Port Hueneme, dock, rail yard and road improvements; $17 million — Piru Rail Bridge restoration; $4 million Source: Staff research

BLUE LINE DECISION APPROACHING

The Boston Globe February 15, 2004 Area communities should learn by spring whether the MBTA plans to pursue an extension of rapid transit service to Lynn or Salem. The MBTA has been considering a series of options for addressing the public transportation needs in the corridor between Revere and Salem. Two of the options involve extending the Blue Line from its present terminus at Wonderland Station in Revere to Lynn. An additional option is to extend the line through Lynn to Salem, according to Dennis DiZoglio, the MBTA’s assistant general manager for planning and real estate. Still other options include building a new commuter rail station near Wonderland and providing a way for passengers to transfer from that stop to the Wonderland station or expanding commuter rail and bus service or doing nothing. The MBTA, which is working with a steering committee of municipal and business leaders, has prepared a draft report outlining the environmental impact of the various options. The MBTA needs federal approval of the environmental impact report to secure federal funding. Bringing the Blue Line to Lynn has been a dream of Lynn politicians for decades, who see it as a key to the city’s revitalization. The concept has seemed to gain momentum in the last year, with the Romney administration expressing strong interest and with the MBTA’s review of transit options. US Representative John F. Tierney of Salem is poised to seek federal funds. Mayor Edward J. Clancy Jr. of Lynn said last week that despite the funding and other hurdles ahead, “we are certainly more confident and optimistic now than ever before.” DiZoglio said the MBTA expects to receive feedback on its draft report in April from federal and state agencies, including the Federal Transit Administration and the US Army Corps of Engineers. Based on the feedback, the MBTA will select a preferred transportation option. DiZoglio said the T will outline that option at a public hearing in the area in May or June. The MBTA would then present the proposal to the Boston Metropolitan Planning Organization, the state entity whose approval is needed for transportation projects within Greater Boston to be eligible for federal funds. If the project receives the Boston MPO’s backing, the MBTA would prepare a final environmental report, in which it would state its preferred option. That process could take from several months to a year. If it involves a Blue Line extension, the project would require federal funds, which would have to be sought through a competitive process, DiZoglio cautioned. “I don’t want to give people the impression that [if] we come out with a preferred alternative, funding is readily available,” he said. But supporters of the Blue Line extension are buoyed by the prospect that the MBTA may embrace the idea. Clancy said he is confident that the MBTA will propose extending the Blue Line. He is also optimistic that the T will favor building the extension along existing commuter rail tracks. Clancy said Lynn favors that plan because it would not cause the disruption to Revere homeowners that could result from the other option, which is to extend the line through the Point of Pines area in Revere. If the MBTA proposes a Blue Line extension, “It’s a watershed decision in the right direction,” Clancy said. (NOTE: proposed line would use former Denver & Intermountain right of way)

Jeffco riled by CDOT’s request to delay light rail

Denver Post February 17, 2004 GOLDEN - Jefferson County officials say a last-minute request to halt the proposed west corridor light rail is an unnecessary snub of a major transportation project the county desperately needs. Colorado Department of Transportation chief Tom Norton asked the Federal Transit Administration not to approve the environmental impact study for the 12.1-mile west line until several issues are resolved. That request has, for the moment, stopped the approval process for the line, which ultimately must be supported by voters as part of the $4.7 billion FasTracks plan. Norton’s primary concern is over right of way, especially along the final 4 miles of the line which would run along West Sixth Avenue from the Denver Federal Center to the county government complex. Other questions remain on costs, impact on area roads and environmental issues, he said. Commissioner Rick Sheehan said the request “came out of left field,” since CDOT had been involved in the lengthy environmental evaluation. The state also has no plans to widen West Sixth Avenue through 2030, he noted. Norton, however, said that back in June he asked questions about West Sixth Avenue right-of-way. “It shouldn’t be new to them,” said Norton, who asked for the delay last month. “Whether they understand the depth and magnitude of the concerns - they may not have understood that.” Though the proposed line likely will make the ballot, Jeffco officials are concerned that the line might be shortened, arguing it would be nonsense not to extend it to the county government complex. “This is a major governmental center where a lot of people work, do jury duty and get certain services regularly,” Commissioner Michelle Lawrence said. The county complex would be the “logical place” to end the line, Lawrence said, since “this is where all roads meet literally - Interstate 70, Colorado 93, U.S. 40, Sixth Avenue.” Proponents say light rail will offer Jeffco residents a critical transportation alternative in a county where the population increased nearly 42 percent between 1980 and 2000. The Regional Transportation District - the agency that operates bus and light rail in the Denver metro area - estimates that at least 31,000 people would ride the west line daily after its projected completion date of 2013. About 15 miles of the 119 miles of rail in the FasTracks plan would be in Jefferson County - 5 miles for the Gold line through Arvada ending at Ward Road, and 10 miles for the west line that travels along West 13th Avenue before swinging south to the Federal Center. “We’re hardly getting anything as it is” from the FasTracks plan, Sheehan said. The commissioners said the situation underlines how Jefferson County is not getting its fair share of the transportation pie. The county’s 529,000 residents represent 21 percent of the metro area’s population, but the county received 13.6 percent of transportation funds from 1993 to 2002. A year ago, the Jefferson County Transportation Advisory and Advocacy Group was formed to increase transportation funding. The group is composed of representatives of the county, Arvada, Golden, Lakewood, Westminster, Wheat Ridge, RTD and the Jefferson Economic Council. While the group and the commissioners strongly support rail, Sheehan and Lawrence said the county’s residents should have several transportation options. “We will continue to fight for the asphalt portion,” Sheehan said. Lawrence said both roads and rail are needed. “Asphalt and light rail can co-exist,” she said. “I think we can work this out.” Norton said he thought the issues also can be resolved with RTD and CDOT working out details in an intergovernmental agreement. “Everything can be resolved if everybody stays at the table,” Norton said, “whether it can be worked out in a month, two months or whatever.” In a Feb. 10 letter to RTD General Manager Cal Marsella, Norton stressed that an integrated transportation system is needed, and the two agencies “have yet to come to an overall policy agreement on corridor issues.” A meeting between RTD and CDOT is to be scheduled in the next week or two.

Push to scrap Maglev renewed

The Capital (Annapolis, MD) February 17, 2004 The way state Sen. Ed DeGrange sees it, if Maglev isn’t good enough for China, it isn’t good enough for Maryland. The Glen Burnie Democrat is kicking into high gear his push to scrap the state’s pursuit of the high-speed magnetic levitation train through north and west county after the Chinese government did the same in January. Mr. DeGrange said he found out about China’s decision after reading a report in the Jan. 18 The CalTrade Report, a California-based Internet magazine that covers international trade news and developments in California. The story, which quoted a similar story in The China Daily, said Chinese officials decided to scrap the project based on cost and incompatibility with existing rail systems. “Besides cost, ‘the maglev technique was excluded because it does not match the wheel-track technique used by railways in China,”’ The CalTrade Report stated, quoting The China Daily story. “I was happy to see the headline,” said Mr. DeGrange, who successfully got language banning state funding for the project inserted into the state budget last year. “It was heartwarming because when I read the article, it was saying everything we were saying all along,” he said. China began daily runs of the world’s first commercially operated Maglev in Shanghai on Jan. 1, but the $1.2 billion, German-built system covered only 18 miles and connected the city to the airport, according to The CalTrade Report. In contrast, Maryland’s proposed system would run 40 miles between Baltimore’s Oriole Park at Camden Yards and Washington’s Union Station and include a stop at Baltimore-Washington International Airport. The Maryland Transit Administration is vying with Pittsburgh officials for a $950 million federal grant to build the country’s first Maglev. It’s unclear when the Federal Railroad Administration will make a decision about the grant. In a Feb. 6 letter to state Department of Transportation Secretary Robert L. Flanagan, Mr. DeGrange wrote, “Maglev technology has been available for over 10 years, to date, there is not one Maglev system in operation anywhere in the world, except for a short stretch in Shanghai. China scrapped its 9-year Maglev project, just two weeks after the country’s first Maglev in Shanghai began regular operation. If this doesn’t prove Maglev is an expensive disaster, I don’t know what will.” Half of Maglev’s financing would come from private bonds, with federal money making up the other half. No state money is included in this year’s budget, Mr. DeGrange said. Residents of Linthicum, Severn and Odenton, where the Maglev line would run, have been the most outspoken against the project after raising concerns about its cost and environmental impact three years ago. State transportation officials had not seen Mr. DeGrange’s letter as of Thursday, department of transportation spokesman Erin Henson said. When Mr. DeGrange gave the letter to Mr. Flanagan, he said Mr. Flanagan told him Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. supports the state seeking full federal funding of Maglev. But Shareese DeLeaver, Mr. Ehrlich’s spokesman, disputed Mr. DeGrange’s account. “Regarding any committment of the governor requesting full federal funding of Maglev … the governor hasn’t taken a hard and fast position with regard to its funding,” she said.

EDITORIAL; PHONE STATIC; THE MTA IS SLOW TO RESPOND TO EMPLOYEES’ CELLULAR ABUSES

The Daily News of Los Angeles February 17, 2004 WHAT’S the only thing scarier than the sight of a distracted SUV driver barreling down the street while mindlessly blathering away on a cell phone? The sight of a distracted MTA bus driver barreling down the street while mindlessly blathering away on a cell phone. It’s a sight that’s not uncommon in greater Los Angeles because, due to deficient communications systems, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority issued cell phones to many of the harried drivers of its behemoth buses. Moreover, the agency lacked any serious rules governing how and when drivers might use their phones. So some drivers took full advantage of the gab opportunity, chatting away with friends and family members while trying to navigate the city’s jammed streets and being attentive to their passengers. It didn’t work. Bus riders complained of gabbing drivers zooming right by their stops. And at least one accident occurred while a driver was on the phone, prompting the inevitable lawsuit and settlement, paid for by the taxpayers. This is the sort of problem - the sort that literally puts lives at peril - that any other business would tend to immediately stop. But the MTA, of course, isn’t any other business; it’s a bloated and slow bureaucracy. So the cell-phone issue couldn’t be addressed until the union had its say, and a new bus drivers’ contract was inked. Now, we are told, the problem has been solved. MTA officials are taking the phones off the buses. New communications systems are being installed. And new, stricter rules will discourage drivers’ cell-phone usage with the threat of possible suspension or termination. Let’s hope that’s true, because when it comes to speedily cleaning up its act, the MTA’s history is less than impressive. And for some odd reason, cell-phone problems have proved especially tricky. Back in 1996, an MTA audit found that many of the agency’s cell phones were unaccounted for - no one knew, for sure, who was actually using them. Worse yet, no one made much effort to review the bills for accuracy or fraud. Taxpayers spent tens of thousands of dollars on bogus or illegitimate charges. Last year, the agency conducted another audit and found more of the same. Seemingly, one audit exposing systematic problems and seven years to address those problems weren’t enough for the MTA’s overseers to get to work. And now, in 2004, there’s yet another audit documenting still more failures to properly manage the agency’s cell-phone collection. According to the latest numbers, more than 100 phones can’t even be accounted for, and the bills from some 500 phone accounts have not been properly reviewed. At this rate, we can only imagine what things will be like at the MTA in eight more years. By 2012, there could be thousands of phones in circulation, and the only way to tell who has them will be to watch closely as the bus drivers come barreling down the street - mindlessly blathering away.

Japan in Suspense over China High-Speed Railway Project

February 17, 2004 Jiji Press Ticker Service Japanese business leaders and politicians are keeping their fingers crossed as China nears a decision on whether it will award the contract for its Shanghai-Beijing high-speed railway project to a Japanese consortium or a European rival. The issue temporarily heated up last Thursday, when Ta Kung Pao, a Chinese-language Hong Kong news daily, reported that the Chinese government had decided to give the contract to France, which is pushing its TGV high-speed train system. The report was swiftly denied by the Chinese and Japanese governments and Alstom, the manufacturer of TGV trains. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman told Jiji Press that the selection process is still going on as China seeks expert opinions. Although the latest news report apparently provided a premature conclusion, the story was yet another episode in the colorful race to win the huge contract, which has seen ups and downs in the fortunes of the contenders and involved lobbying by top politicians as well as business executives. The railway project, at an estimated cost of 100 billion yuan, or about 1.3 trillion yen, will link Shanghai and Beijing, 1,300 kilometers apart, in five hours or less. China initially hoped to complete the high-speed line by 2008, when it will host the summer Olympic Games, but a more realistic deadline now seems to be 2010, when an international expo is to be held in Shanghai. Construction is expected to take five or six years. The race to win the contract is a three-way battle between Japan, which has proposed its “Shinkansen” bullet train system, France and Germany. It also represents a return match between the Japanese and the Europeans, following battles for similar contracts in South Korea and Taiwan. Japan won the Taiwanese contract, while France snagged the South Korean deal. In the Shanghai-Beijing project, a maglev, or magnetically levitated train system, proposed by Germany initially appeared to have the edge over the Japanese and French systems because it was favored by Zhu Rongji, who was China’s prime minister until early last year. Maglev trains achieve high speeds by gliding above a track, through the use of powerful magnets. Following the retirement of Zhu, however, the maglev option seems to have lost popularity and now appears to be out of contention due to problems of high cost and an unproven safety record, although the German consortium is still in the race with an alternative proposal for a conventional railway system like the Japanese and French ones. POLITICS OVERSHADOWS JAPAN’S BID The European bidders have strenuously lobbied China on both business and political fronts, with French President Jacque Chiraq and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder engaging in salesmanship to push their respective countries’ systems. But Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has remained on the sidelines, although lesser figures visited China last year to press the Shinkansen case, including the foreign and transport ministers and Hiroshi Okuda, head of the Japan Business Federation, Japan’s most powerful business group. Koizumi’s inaction was forced by the storm of outrage he sparked in China and other Asian nations by repeated visits to Yasukuni Shrine, which honors the war dead, including executed war criminals, and is seen as a symbol of the militarism that dominated Japan before and during World War II. A Chinese source warned last week that the Chinese public would be angered if the railway contract is awarded in full to Japan amid the strained bilateral ties caused by Koizumi’s Yasukuni visits. In an incident underscoring the intensity of the outrage at grassroots level in China, a group of Chinese citizens launched an anti-Shinkansen campaign via the Internet last summer and collected more than 80,000 signatures opposing the adoption of the Japanese system. The move was prompted by a series of news reports predicting that the Japanese consortium was likely to win the Shanghai-Beijing railway contract, with one weekly Chinese magazine quoting a Chinese railway ministry official as saying that the chance of Japan clinching the deal was more than 90 pct. Reflecting the poisonous political atmosphere, a Japanese source cautioned at the time, “If the Shinkansen starts running in China in circumstances like this and an accident occurs, Japan would be forced to take the whole responsibility and it could become a diplomatic issue.” Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said in December that China would pick the contract winner through a public tender. This was expected to be held in early 2004, but no date has yet been fixed. Japanese Transport Minister Nobuteru Ishihara said at a press conference last week that there is no information other than that China is planning a public tender. NO LUCRATIVE DEAL? Even if Japan clinches the high-speed train deal, it may yet turn out to be less lucrative than once seemed likely. One reason is that China is nurturing its own high-speed train technology, which it has been testing on a Beijing-Shenyang line since last summer. Chinese officials have indicated that for the Shanghai-Beijing project China hopes to use foreign technology to supplement its own technology, rather than purchasing a foreign system outright. Another possibility is that the contract will be awarded bit by bit, with Japan asked to provide train cars while France supplies signal systems and other equipment, for example. Due to the prospects of an unattractive deal, Takayuki Kasai, president of Central Japan Railway Co. (JR Tokai), the operator of the Tokaido Shinkansen line between Tokyo and Osaka, has indicated his company may pull out of the Japanese consortium. China’s purchase of the Japanese system in full is a prerequisite for JR Tokai’s participation in the project, he said. As China continues to scrutinize the proposals of the rival bidders, Japanese officials may still have to endure many more weeks, or even months, of sleepless nights. Now that the chance of completing the project before the Beijing Olympics has diminished, the matter has lost urgency, a source knowledgeable on Japan-China relations said.�

Faith in progress shaken by Toll Collect cancellation

Deutsche Presse-Agentur February 17, 2004 An ambitious German project to track every truck on the highways collapsed Tuesday, wiping out hundreds of millions of euros already invested, and leaving a gaping hole in Berlin’s future revenue stream. The technology, which was unveiled in January 1994 by Deutsche Telekom of Germany and Sagem of France, fascinated technology buffs from the start. Every truck over 12 tons would carry a meter, like that in a taxi, and a global positioning system (GPS) receiver. A tiny sealed computer would then chart whether the truck was on the 12,000-kilometre German autobahn network or not. The distance travelled would be radioed to a national computer by GSM (global system for mobile) wireless. Deutsche Telekom has millions of customers in Germany using its GSM mobile phones, so the data traffic would provide it an extra source of revenue. Bank computers would do the rest, charging truck owners an average 12 cents per kilometre travelled, usually by direct debit. In 1995, German Transport Minister Matthias Wissmann announced Germany would charge trucks for precisely the distance travelled, rather than imposing a flat-rate monthly or annual tax on trucks, and preparatory work began. The government of Social Democrats and Greens that took power in 1998 pushed the project forward, passing legislation in 2002 and awarding a concession the same year to a consortium later to be named Toll Collect and led by Deutsche Telekom and DaimlerChrysler. Germany prides itself on making fine cars, but its ambitions in transport technology have suffered several blows recently, shaking the country’s faith in technological progress. A scheme to build huge airships to deliver heavy-engineering products worldwide turned out flawed: there was no safe way to unload the cargo. Unless ballast was taken on board simultaneously, the airship would shoot out of control into the sky. The stockmarket-funded development company, CargoLifter, went bankrupt. Testing of a magnetic-levitation (maglev) train, which hovers on a “cushion” of magnetic force, began in 1984 with massive state subsidies, and a first commercial track went into operation a year ago in Shanghai, China. This time the flaw was economic: the scheme was vastly more expensive and only slightly faster than trains running on wheels. The Shanghai track has been an economic failure and China decided against building a Shanghai-Beijing maglev line. The Toll Collect scheme, so neat at first glance, turned out to be a practically insoluble technical puzzle. Hundreds of thousands of “onboard units” were been installed in truck cabs. But the software in them turned out faulty. “That was just a teething problem,” said Wolfgang Lechner of the University of Dresden. “The big problem is that the system cannot detect the location of the trucks with 100-per-cent certainty.” Since no charges are planned for the use of ordinary roads, the devices must understand the difference between a truck using a congested autobahn and one speeding along a parallel road. In other places in the landscape, the signals from the United States’ GPS satellites are unreliable. “There can be reflections, or ‘shadows’ behind buildings, hills or even wet trees,” said Lechner. The accuracy of the positioning would be to the nearest 15 metres at best, but sometimes only to 50 metres. There have also been fears that the system could be deliberately disrupted by jammers, or by the United States switching off its GPS satellites in time of war. By the official launch date, August 31 last year, it was plain that the German system, known as the Global Navigation Satellite System plus Cellular Network (GNSS/CN), was good but not perfect. Only a few instances of overcharging would prompt millions of users to challenge their bills, creating a quagmire in the courts. Delay followed delay. Legally, Toll Collect has two more months to try to rescue the system, but Transport Minister Manfred Stolpe commented Tuesday, “One must suppose that the consortium itself has no confidence in its technology.” Serving notice of cancellation, Stolpe said he was still convinced satellites had a place in road charging. But observers say it is more likely that Germany will install a less sophisticated but more reliable system of electronic tollgates known by the abbreviation DSRC (dedicated short range communication). As a truck passes each checkpoint, a tiny transmitter called a transponder will radio a click, along with the truck’s identity number, to a nearby aerial. A central computer collects the signals, and truck owners are charged according to the number of clicks. A DSRC system has been in successful use since the start of this year, which said it would wait till 2012 before trying GNSS/CN. Industry Federation president Michael Rogowski was one of many Germans who voiced reluctance to believe the collapse of the GNSS/CN dream, insisting it was “better than all the other systems and could be an export winner”. Gerd Aberle, a Giessen professor who studies transport policy, insisted GNSS/CN might be technically viable by 2011 or 2012. He called for a German DSRC system to be set up in the meantime, using 200 camera checkpoints that Toll Collect set up to detect cheats. Switzerland has launched a “light” version of GNSS/CN. But Swiss highway tolls apply on all roads, not just motorways. In the Swiss system, the GPS signals are mainly to tell if the truck is in Switzerland or across the border in another country. About 1 billion euros (about 1.25 billion dollars) has been invested so far in the failed technology by the Toll Collect, which is likely to demand compensation from the government for its losses. Stolpe in turn says that just the 28 months of delay demanded by Toll Collect would mean the federal government losing 6.5 billion euros (8.34 billion dollars) in revenues. A sticker system is to be introduced in the interim, but will not make up all those losses.

When It Comes to Politics, It’s a Two-Way Race

Newsday (New York) February 18, 2004 NASCAR dads don’t ride buses. They don’t stand on windy Long Island Rail Road platforms and suffer the serial indignities of daily round-trips into Penn Station. And they would never think of boarding a New York City subway train without a sidearm handy. No way, hoss. NASCAR dads know what Americanism is all about. It’s about a wide open road with no cops in sight and the sun in your rearview mirror and a hot cup of coffee or a cold beer nestled snugly in your beverage holder. It’s about a high-performance vehicle - one that’s large, and preferably one that comes from a country we haven’t fought a war against lately. I bring all this up because right now on Capitol Hill the NASCAR dads of the sunbelt and the straphangers of the snowbelt are warily circling each other for a king-sized bite out of the same chunk of federal cash. The NASCAR dads want the boodle for more highways - with here and there an expenditure for a cute little mass-transit project in one of their shiny new cities. Led by Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas), the NASCAR dads have already cast a covetous eye on the funding formula that sends back to New York about 120 percent of the amount we pay to Washington in gasoline taxes for road and transit projects. This is maybe the only break we get from the feds. But forget about reason or fairness. The policy wonks of Washington like to tell the NASCAR dads that other nations don’t do things quite as strangely as America does them. They like to remind them that fossil fuels are a finite treasure. Europe has long invested heavily in mass transportation and it works hard to keep people out of their cars. This policy, they like to say, is only rational and prudent. But the NASCAR dads don’t care. They don’t care what the citizens of France and England do. They don’t really care what the folks of Farmingdale and Forest Hills do. And they’re in no mood to hear old energy crisis lectures that resound in Capitol meeting rooms like unwanted sound bites from the Carter administration. Limitations are not what America is all about, the NASCAR dads think. America is about free choice and individualism and new horizons and moving on. It’s about rapid acceleration. But here’s the remarkable thing. America is also about politics. And when it comes to politics, New York has so far held its own in the games for a fair share of a six-year federal transportation bill that could wind up totaling as much as as $375 billion or as little as $256 billion. In fact, says Katherine Lapp, executive director of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, it is possible that the New York region could grab about $1 billion a year more over the next six years to expand the largest mass-transit system in North America. Why? Well, part of it is the assiduous way in which the New York region has courted transit titans on Capitol Hill such as Republican Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama and Republican Rep. Ernest J. Istook, Jr. of Oklahoma. The MTA and the New York congressional delegation have worked overtime to make the local case. And to be fair, not all sunbelt politicians are NASCAR dads and not all NASCAR dads are rubes. Who knows? When President George W. Bush swept into the Daytona Speedway like the great Fireball Roberts himself Sunday, the 180,000 fans on hand may have included - as some people imply - contributors to National Public Radio stations, a rocket scientist or two, and members of Save the Whales, Greenpeace and Amnesty International. But mainly it’s gut politics, not an epiphany over policy, that has kept the case for transit alive. This may seem counterintuitive. In the last census, the NASCAR states of Texas, Florida and Georgia each gained two congressional seats. The snowbelt states of Pennsylvania and New York each lost two. But the NASCAR crowd isn’t strong enough yet to get its way without a nod to the rest of us. So if the old boys in the suburbs of Houston want billions of dollars more for miles of new asphalt, they must settle up first with us straphangers. Hey, is this a great country, or what?

LIRR Ridership Declines; Rush hour travel drops for 2nd year

Newsday (New York February 18, 2004 A dip in the number of Long Island Rail Road rush hour commuters has led to an overall 3.6 percent decline in ridership in 2003, the second year in a row that ticket sales have dropped. LIRR officials blamed the decline on a weakened economy, the impact of Sept. 11, the bad weather and particularly a 25 percent fare increase instituted in May. “We know historically that after a fare increase, ridership drops,” LIRR President James Dermody said after a Metropolitan Transportation Authority meeting in Manhattan yesterday. “We lose riders in the beginning and then slowly they start to come back.” There were 80.9 million riders who took the railroad in 2003, compared with 83.9 million in 2002. There were 85.6 million in 2001. The railroad posted its best year ever in 1949 when 91 million riders took the railroad. Rush hour travel was down in 2003 by 4.5 percent, with 49.6 million riders last year. Dermody said the railroad relies heavily on commuters working in the financial, real estate and insurance industries. “The financial sector is beginning to come back and, hopefully with all the development going on in the city and the development of lower Manhattan, the real estate market will come back and we will see an upturn,” he said. Riders during the non-rush hour dipped slightly from 32 million in 2002 to 31.3 million. Dermody said the bad weather and elevated security alerts may have kept day-trippers away from Manhattan. While ridership may be down, revenue jumped by nearly 12 percent because of the fare increase. In 2003, the railroad took in $393.3 million compared with $351.6 million in 2002. Some transit watchers warn a continued decline in ridership could affect services and that the increased expense of commuting will continue to drive riders away. “If ridership keeps dropping, they are going to have to cut expenses, and the only way they can do that is by service cuts,” said Peter Haynes, president of a transit advocacy group, the LIRR Commuters Campaign. The railroad is forecasting 81.8 million riders in 2004. Dermody is hoping a revenue increase could mean adding service this year, possibly for the Ronkonkoma line. “We are going to do everything we can to encourage riders to come back,” Dermody said. James McGovern, chair of the LIRR Commuters Council, said he expects ridership to rebound. “The railroad is on time more often than the LIE,” he said. “I believe the railroad ebbs and flows with the economy.” LIRR officials also released January performance figures, showing 85 percent of 19,826 trains arrived on time in January. Nearly 3,000 were late, with 980 delays because of two major snowstorms. The average delay was 16 minutes. Earlier this year, LIRR officials had released year-end performance figures for 2003, which declined to 93.1 percent from 94 percent in 2002. Ridership also was down at Long Island Bus with 2.4 percent fewer riders, said its president, Neil Yellin, at yesterday’s MTA meeting. Bus fares jumped from $1.50 to $2 last year. “The weakened economy, fare increase in May, harsh winter and wet summer impacted our services,” Yellin said. “I do expect it to come back this year.”

Road salt sharpens railway woes; Many towns unaware of potential danger

Rochester Democrat and Chronicle February 18, 2004 In the wake of a double-fatal car-train accident two weeks ago, reports of malfunctioning rail crossings have surfaced throughout the Rochester area. Local leaders say they have gathered reports of problems in at least six Monroe County towns and villages. In many of those cases, warning lights flashed and gates descended with no train coming. At the root of many of those malfunctions, railroad officials say, is a staple of upstate winters: common road salt. In the island of shared responsibility that exists where street and railroad meet, road crews apply salt to protect motorists, while the railroads wish the crews would abstain. Railroad experts and officials say that road salt, when mixed with water, becomes a highly conductive solution that can seep under tracks. There, it can confuse electrical circuits used to detect the presence of a train and cause warning devices to deploy when they shouldn’t. “We spend a lot of time this time of year dealing with issues caused by salting,” said John P. Casellini, a CSX regional vice president. Well-known though the problem seems to be in railroad circles, word has not spread much further. Local highway officials said they had no idea that the salt they spread during snow and ice events can trigger such malfunctions. Most local and state highway departments contacted have a policy to spread salt over crossings at the same rate they do on the rest of the road. “I’ve never heard the issue come up before,” said Thomas Low, Brighton’s public works commissioner. “I go to trade shows, conventions, superintendents’ meetings. I can honestly say I’ve never heard anybody saying, ‘Hey, we’ve got to think about this.’ This is news.” Casellini said CSX has notified highway officials of the problem and asked them to avoid salting the crossings. “We have conversations with highway departments about this,” he said. Highway and town officials beg to differ. “I was public works commissioner for 13 years, and I’ve been supervisor now for 10, and I just don’t remember that,” said Pittsford town Supervisor Bill Carpenter, a leader among local officials raising questions about the malfunctions. In fact, the Democrat and Chronicle could not find any highway officials who could find any record that they had received written or oral notice on the matter — not even the state Department of Transportation, which regulates railroads in addition to maintaining state highways. “To our knowledge, there has been no correspondence or outreach by the railroads to us involving any request for us to discontinue salting at approaches to at-grade crossings,” said DOT spokesman Peter Graves, after checking with highway maintenance headquarters in Albany and the regional office in Rochester. Rash of reports At one time, highway crews knew quite well that road salt and rail crossings didn’t mix. Unfortunately, that was a half-century or so ago, said Bob French, a local rail fan and retired employee of General Railway Signal, which made crossing equipment. Prior to that period, he said, railroads left piles of sand next to road crossings for municipal crews to use to make the crossings less slippery. Rochester began experimenting with road salt in 1936. When salt went into common use on this nation’s roads after World War II, it began causing rail crossing problems. “Forty years ago, New York Central threatened to charge highway departments for the problems caused by salting,” said French, who lives in Rochester. “This is one of those cases where if you forget something for long enough, it becomes the other guy’s problem.” Over the last several weeks, local officials say, there have been several dozen complaints of crossing-equipment problems in Gates, Henrietta, Pittsford, Brighton, Perinton and Fairport. Many of them occurred on the crossings on CSX’s West Shore line, which runs from Fairport to Chili. The rash of reports may be caused partly by heightened awareness in the wake of the accident on Feb. 3 at the West Shore crossing at South Winton Road in Henrietta. John “Jack” O’Connor, 78, and his wife, Jean, 75, were killed when crossing gates failed to activate and they drove onto the tracks into the path of a CSX freight train. Crew members of that train failed to heed a written directive that they stop before entering that crossing, CSX officials have said. The directive was issued because of previous reports of crossing- equipment malfunctions at the crossing. The nature of those problems is not clear, and Casellini has declined to speculate whether road salt was a factor in those failures. But many of the other problems that have been reported in recent days, CSX and others say, are clearly attributable to the effect of road salt. “All the things these politicians are complaining about may come back to their own highway departments. They’re not supposed to salt on the tracks,” said French. Railroads other than CSX are also aware of the problem. “That is an issue. Road salt will do that,” said Dave Baer, chief engineer in this region for Genesee & Wyoming Industries Inc., which operates several regional railroads in upstate. Among them is the Rochester & Southern, which carries, among other cargoes, road salt mined in Livingston County. Saltwater in the circuits Compounding the problem is trouble with the ballast, the uppermost level of gravel. Ballast is “what anchors the track in place, anchors the ties and holds them in position,” said Ernest Selig, a retired University of Massachusetts professor who studies the ways in which ballast becomes “fouled,” or contaminated with fine particles that “turn to mud when water gets in there.” Fouled ballast hinders runoff and keeps rain, snow and melted ice close to metal railroad tracks. Railroad tracks near road crossings that have flashers and/or gates detect approaching trains by measuring changes in a low-voltage electrical signal that travels through the rails. The charge travels 2,000 to 3,000 feet out from the crossing in either direction, creating an electrical loop called an approach circuit. A second, smaller loop, called the island circuit, extends only 70 to 100 feet to each side of the crossing. In the approach circuit, a grade crossing predictor measures the decline in voltage caused when a train moves through the loop. The predictor calculates the train’s speed and deploys the warning devices so that motorists have consistently timed notice a train is coming. When a train is in the island circuit, warning devices remain on and crossing gates remain down. Robert Halstead, a former Conrail supervisor who now runs the Syracuse- based train accident reconstruction firm IronWood Technologies Inc., said that if the ballast is severely fouled, even a moderate rain shower can cause enough current to leak between the rails and confuse the predictor or island circuits. That can cause the crossing to malfunction and enter a fail-safe mode, called “false activation,” which causes flashers and gates to remain deployed continuously until maintenance crews can fix the problem. “But you need a lot less salt water than you would fresh water,” said Halstead, adding that during his time with Conrail, road salt was a “common cause” of false activations in winter. That’s because salty water is a much better conductor of electricity than plain water. When common salt (sodium chloride) dissolves in water, it breaks down into charged particles, called ions, of sodium and chloride. Unlike salt in its solid form, where the ions are locked together because of their opposite electrical charges, salt ions in water are free to carry a current from one place to another. Saltwater in fouled ballast can cause gates and flashers to activate when there are no trains coming, or can interfere with the predictor’s ability to calculate the speed of an oncoming train, leading to unpredictable warning times. If two crossings are close enough to each other, a salt problem in one’s island circuit can affect the other’s approach circuit. “That’s why the railways prefer that plow truck drivers do not dump salt on the track,” said Halstead. Hold the salt? Highway officials draw a blank on the issue. “We don’t turn salt off at the tracks. I don’t ever remember seeing any memos or anything else suggesting that we don’t do it,” said Greece public works commissioner Edward Marianetti. Nearly all the highway officials surveyed by the newspaper reported that their trucks raise their plows as they approach a rail crossing but do not cease salting. “When they come to a railroad crossing, they follow the same procedures there as they do elsewhere on the road they are plowing,” said city environmental services commissioner Edward J. Doherty. Casellini of CSX, noting that most municipalities don’t plow the crossings, speculated that some crews, “as a response to that, will put down additional salt.” He said the railroads do attempt to clean away salt and other debris. Trains moving through road crossings will scour some of it away, as do train-mounted plows and equipment with huge engines that blow away the debris. Railroads also can replace or clean the ballast. Casellini said CSX had not done so on the West Shore line since acquiring it in 1999, though it does inspect the track and ballast at least twice a week. Some highway officials say that failing to salt the road as it passes over railroad tracks would be dangerous. “You could create conditions that would be slicker than you would want. If a car had to stop suddenly, for example for the railroad crossing gates, … they might keep sliding right on through. And if they ended up on the tracks, they could get struck,” said Graves, the DOT spokesman. In Perinton, public works commissioner Thomas Beck said highway crews usually shut off salters before they pass over the town’s two at-grade crossings on O’Connor Road. Riga highway superintendent Tom Klafehn said crews there have a policy of turning off their computer-controlled salt spreaders as they near the pair of at-grade rail crossings in the town. “There’s a control box right by the driver. All you’ve got to do is flick a switch and shut it off or turn it on. It’s very simple,” he said. Klafehn, who has been superintendent since January, couldn’t find any record that railroad officials had requested the no-salt policy, and wasn’t sure of the policy’s genesis. “It’s just the way they’ve always been doing it,” he said. Beck, in Perinton, also said he had never heard from CSX about the issue. Even if all road crews followed Riga’s lead and did stop laying down salt as they approach crossings, that wouldn’t necessarily solve the problem. “Even if a municipality shuts off the salters 50 feet ahead of the crossing and doesn’t turn them on until they get beyond the crossing, road traffic will carry salt with it on the tires, on the undercarriage, on the sludge on the undercarriage, so the whole roadway becomes salted,” said Low of Brighton. “Practically speaking, in upstate New York, any railroad crossing is going to get salt on it in some concentration, even if the municipality isn’t salting that piece of road.” Casellini said the railroad has warned highway officials of the problem, but he was unable to locate copies of any letters or memos on the subject. Halstead, who was a Conrail maintenance supervisor in Syracuse, said he sent letters regularly to local highway crews and noticed a decline in crossing malfunctions as a result of reduced salting there. Some local highway officials remain a bit dubious about the matter. Joseph Amico, superintendent in Gates, said one of the town’s three at- grade crossings, on Trabold Road, is visible from the highway office. “It has its problems in the summer as well as the winter,” he said, “and I know we don’t salt in the summer.” Who’s in charge? Exactly who is ultimately responsible for the actual crossing, and who has the authority to turn on or turn off the salt, is not clear. A section of state railroad law suggests it may be up to the railroads to maintain the vehicular road as it crosses the tracks, but it doesn’t seem to give the railroad total control. Casellini said his understanding was that CSX does not have the legal authority to ban salting. Highway officials and several lawyers familiar with railroad law could provide no clear answer. Who prevails? “Inside the crossing has a number of parties to it,” Casellini said. Several highway officials suggested that railroads should develop new signal systems that are impervious to salt’s effects. Experts say such systems have been tested, but none has proved as reliable as the electric circuits that have been in use for decades. If something new were developed, railroads still might prefer the existing technology, French suggested. “Effectively, they’re doing it because that’s the way it’s been done, that’s where all their investment is.” The road salt-rail-crossing problem faded from memory, he speculated, because there are fewer at-grade rail crossings than there once were, and highway crews use less salt than they once did. “It ceases to be a major problem until you get into a winter like this one when you get a lot of snow and a lot of salting,” he said.

Worst rail accidents of the past 15 years

Agence France Presse February 18, 2004 Following the explosion of a runaway train loaded with chemicals in Iran, which reportedly killed between 50 and 200 people on Wednesday, herewith a list of the most deadly train accidents worldwide since 1989: — June 4, 1989: Soviet Union: A gas explosion followed by a fire in a crowded Russian station east of Moscow kills 645 people, 181 of them children. — August 9, 1989: Mexico: a bridge collapses as a train travels over it in the state of Sinaola, killing 104 people. — January 4, 1990: Pakistan: More than 350 people are killed and 700 injured when a goods train collides with a passenger train near the station in Sangi, 500 kilometers (300 miles) north of Karachi. — June 8, 1991: Pakistan: A train packed with travellers collides with a goods train in the town of Ghotki, killing 50 people according to authorities and between 100 and 200 according to press reports. — September 6, 1991: Republic of Congo: More than 100 people die when two trains collide. — January 30, 1993: Kenya: Over 140 people die when their train plunges into the river after a bridge collapses near the town of Darajani. — September 22, 1994: Angola: A derailment kills around 300 people and injures nearly 150 in Huila province. — December 30, 1994: Myanmar: A train falls into a ravine after its brakes fail. 102 people are killed. — August 20, 1995: India: 305 people die and 344 are injured when two trains collide in the northern city of Ferozabad. — March 3, 1997: Pakistan: At least 121 people die when five cars go off the rails on a train headed from Peshawar to Karachi. — September 14, 1997: India: At least 100 people die and over 200 are injured when five cars fall into a river in Madhya Pradesh state. — February 14, 1998: Cameroon: At least 220 people are killed when a goods train derails near Yaounde, the capital of the west African state, and two wagons carrying petrol explode. — June 3, 1998: Germany: A high-speed train on the Munich-Hamburg line derails, killing 101 and injuring 88. — November 26, 1998: India: Two trains collide in northern Punjab state, killing 209. — August 2, 1999: India: A head-on collision in the state of West Bengal kills 285. — February 20, 2002: Egypt: 361 people are killed and 66 hurt in a fire on board a train running from Cairo to Aswan. — May 25, 2002: A train derailment in Mozambique leaves 192 dead and 169 injured. — June 24, 2002: Tanzania: 288 people die when a passenger train derails in central Dodoma region. — Sept 9, 2002: India: The derailment of the Rajdhani Express on a bridge kills 119 people as the train plunges into a river in eastern Bihar state. — February 19, 2003: South Korea: an arson attack in the Daegu subway kills 198 people and wounds 147.

Congestion: they clone, he crushes

The Guardian (London) - Final Edition February 18, 2004 London’s congestion charging cameras have pinpointed 100 “cloned” cars with bogus number plates during the first year of the scheme’s operation, as motorists use elaborate techniques to avoid paying the £5-a-day fee. The mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, yesterday revealed that in a sophisticated operation to clamp down on cheats, his Transport for London authority had towed away or clamped 255 vehicles, while 40 persistent offenders have seen their cars crushed. On the first anniversary of congestion charging, the mayor described the scheme as the greatest success in his political career and predicted that it was most likely to be copied in developing world cities which have failed to invest in public transport. “It’s the only thing I’ve done in 33 years of public life which has turned out better than I thought it would,” said Mr Livingstone. “It has beaten all of our expectations.” According to TfL’s latest figures, the congestion charge has triggered an 18% reduction in central London’s traffic. The number of cars has fallen by 30% while buses, taxis and motorcycles have all become more common. However, TfL’s contractor, Capita, has been criticised for accidentally sending penalty charge notices to motorists who have never visited London. It has blamed a proliferation of “cloning” - where motorists attach a similar car’s number plate to their own vehicle in the hope of escaping fines and penalties. TfL is working with the Metropolitan police to track down the owners of cloned vehicles. Information from congestion charging cameras has already been used for 20 arrests. Mr Livingstone said the charge had caused a change in travel habits in favour of public transport which he dubbed “the most dramatic shift in any major city in the world in the post-second world war period”. He predicted that congestion charging would be equally suitable for Edinburgh, but said he did not expect many other cities in Europe to take it up because most had spent money on modern public transport networks, while US cities are typically designed on a grid system which minimises traffic congestion. Critics have called on Mr Livingstone to end the charging hours early, so that commuters are deterred from driving to work during the morning peak but allow shoppers to enter central London later in the day. Colin Stanbridge, chief executive of the London Chamber of Commerce, claimed a quarter of retailers within the central zone had laid off staff because of a downturn in trade. “In the late morning and mid-afternoon there is little or no congestion in much of central London,” said Mr Stanbridge. “The principal effect of the charge at these times is to deter shoppers from driving into the centre of town.” TfL dismissed this, claiming the charge had pro vided £50m of net benefits to London’s economy. Mr Livingstone cited the benefits to his piano tuner, who recently informed the mayor that he had been able to fit more jobs into the day because journey times had become much quicker. “The truth is we most probably should extend it later on into the evening,” said Mr Livingstone, saying congestion remained a problem after the charging hours end at 6.30pm. “But there would be a huge impact on West End theatres and restaurants.” Around 110,000 people are paying the charge each day, fewer than had been anticipated. TfL is sending out 165,000 penalty notices every month to people who are caught on cameras without paying. The mayor is under pressure to amend the rules so that motorists are given an extra day to pay the charge, cutting the number of people fined for “forgetfulness”. Lynne Featherstone, the Liberal Democrat chairwoman of the London Assembly’s transport committee, said: “Honest citizens are being penalised because 165,000 penalty notices a month demonstrate the customer-hostile nature of the charging regime - they should be given an extra 24 hours to pay.”

PUBLIC transport services to Docklands will be boosted with a $7.5 million tramline extension.

Herald-Sun (Melbourne) February 18, 2004 Residents, workers and visitors to the booming New Quay precinct will be able to catch trams up Docklands Drive. The new track will carry modern and heritage trams, including an extended W-class service from La Trobe and Brunswick streets. It will also feature the extension of route 48 from North Balwyn. Transport Minister Peter Batchelor said yesterday the 1km extension should be finished this year. “New Quay and Docklands have quickly become a hot spot for business and leisure activities, and the extension will provide better public transport access for both Melburnians and visitors to the city,” he said. The new line will go from the Harbour Esplanade and La Trobe St corner and finish to the west of Sudholtz St on Docklands Drive. It will include four wheelchair-accessible platform stops and real-time passenger information. Yarra Trams, which is to take over the entire metropolitan tram network, will design and construct the $7.5 million extension. It will be funded by the Department of Infrastructure and VicUrban — the body formed from the merger of the Docklands Authority and the Urban and Regional Land Corporation. Docklands tram services started in January last year when the free City Circle route was extended to Harbour Esplanade. The idea dates to options considered by the Kennett government. Mr Batchelor said Yarra Trams had an excellent record for such projects, including the Box Hill tramline extension.

Study: Bottlenecks choking U.S. roadways; Lobby group says road system not keeping up with growth

CNN February 19, 2004 The number of traffic bottlenecks on U.S. highways and interstates has risen 40 percent in five years, according to a study released Thursday by an advocacy group for the transportation industry. “Major bottlenecks … have grown by 40 percent — up from 167 bottlenecks to 233 bottlenecks over the past five years,” said Bill Buff, of the group that sponsored the study, the American Highway Users Alliance (AHUA). Buff said the definition of a major bottleneck is one in which motorists lose at least 700,000 hours a year stuck in traffic The study also notes that seven of the 18 previous top bottlenecks were fixed by construction projects. “The good news is, there are a number of success stories — major bottlenecks we identified in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Denver, Colorado, and in Houston, Texas, that aren’t on our ranking anymore thanks to improvement projects,” Buff said. The report also says traffic clogs have been eliminated in Boston, Massachusetts; Chicago, Illinois; Los Angeles, California; and Washington, D.C. It said modest improvements at the 233 choke points would prevent 449,500 crashes and 1,750 fatalities over 20 years. “What this study really shows is that there’s hope for curing congestion,” Buff said. “Sometimes there seems to be this myth that we’re just stuck and there’s nothing we can do to improve it. If you focus on these choke points — which are a significant cause of area-wide congestion — unclog these bottlenecks you can see major benefits across the nation.” Recent major road improvement projects have paid off, the study said. The group points to $293 million reconstruction of the “Big I” interchange of Interstates 25 and 40 in Albuquerque as a success story. Hours of annual delay dropped from 16 million in 1997 to 1.1 million in 2002 as a result. The AHUA is a nonprofit advocacy group that lobbies for more federal spending on highways and mass transit. Members include state highway departments, automakers, petroleum, trucking and construction compnaies. It commissioned Cambridge Systematics to conduct the study, which said bottlenecks account for half of all traffic congestion. “We have a growing economy and a growing population and our road system’s just not keeping up with that growth,” Buff said. In addition to bottlenecks, traffic congestion is caused by accidents, work zones, bad weather and poor signal timing — according to the report — which was compiled using state transportation departments’ information collected by the Federal Department of Transportation. Bridges and toll roads were excluded from the study. Buff said the new study includes a number of new bottlenecks. “Surprisingly, one in Providence, Rhode Island, just shows that big-time congestion can come to small and medium size cities,” Buff said. “In addition, Tampa, Florida; San Jose, California; Las Vegas, Nevada; San Diego, California; and Cincinnati, Ohio; are all new to the top ranking this year.” Study: Worst U.S. bottleneck is in Los Angeles The worst bottleneck in the study is the Ventura Freeway at Interstate 405 in Los Angeles. In 1999, the Ventura Freeway ranked No. 5. Four of the 10 worst bottlenecks are in the Los Angeles area. After the Ventura Freeway, the worst bottlenecks were the Interstate 610- Interstate 10 interchange in Houston; Chicago’s I-90/94-I-290 interchange; the I-10 interchange with state roads 51 and 202 in Phoenix; and the San Diego Freeway-Interstate 10 interchange in Los Angeles. Highway Users is lobbying to support the passage of the SAFETEA highway reauthorization bill. The bill includes a $318 billion budget for federal road improvements. On February 12, the Senate voted 76-21 to pass the legislation. The bill is opposed by the White House, which proposed spending $256 billion on highways and mass transit over the next six years. The House recently voted to approve the extension of funding until the new spending bill can be considered. “Congress, this month, has been debating long overdue highway legislation and we’re urging them to end the debate and pass a new six- year highway bill that will dedicate significant funding to fixing these choke points,” Buff said.

Forty Years Later - They’re Back!

New Orleans Regional Transit Authority February 19, 2004 NEW ORLEANS-February 19, 2004-New Orleanians have waited 40 years and the wait has come to an end. Beginning Sunday, April 18, 2004, streetcars will once again proudly traverse Canal Street from the Mississippi River to the Cemeteries. An added feature of the line is the new access through the Mid-City area via Carrollton Avenue. “We are excited to be able to bring these streetcars to the people of New Orleans and all those who come to visit us,” said James Reiss, Chairman of the Regional Transit Authority Board of Commissioners. “We promised a first class project and that’s what we’re going to deliver.” According to Reiss, there are still construction issues to be dealt with before opening the line for revenue service. “In accordance with the federal mandate, the Canal Streetcar line will conform with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) through its accessible vehicles and its accessible car stops,” Reiss said. “This line is for all, and we welcome all who want to ride with us.” Several local firms have been working side by side with the RTA throughout the construction, however, Reiss today added a special thanks to Boh Brothers Construction - the team that was responsible for building the track on Canal Street and is currently responsible for the installation of materials that conform with ADA requirements at the streetcar stops. “Boh Brothers has assured me that they will undertake this ‘Herculean effort’ and have this line open in time for our visitors for Jazz Fest.” The Canal Streetcar will start to carry passengers on Sunday, April 18th beginning at 3:10 a.m. Car stops along the line are located in the middle of the neutral ground and are all labeled Plans are also underway for a citywide celebration with a date to be announced in the near future.

Metro board approves light rail for Anacostia

The Common Denominator February 19, 2004 Metro’s governing board gave a green light today to begin construction of an above-ground, light-rail system aimed at connecting more of the District’s residential neighborhoods to mass transit. Officials said work could begin as soon as April on the 2.7-mile demonstration line that will operate along the eastern shore of the Anacostia River on an existing CSX railroad spur. Completion of the $45 million pilot project is expected in 2006. The Anacostia Light Rail Line would run from Bolling Air Force Base’s security gate, near the Defense Intelligence Agency access road, to a northbound terminus just south of Pennsylvania Avenue near Nicholson Street SE, on the east side of the Sousa Bridge. Additional stops along the line would be at Barry Farms, the Anacostia Metrorail Station, Old Anacostia and Fairlawn. The “Old Anacostia” stop would be located near the Historic Anacostia Gateway at Good Hope Road and Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE. “It’s a good beginning,” said Councilwoman Sandra Allen, D-Ward 8, who represents the area through which the initial light rail line will run. “I’m kind of excited we’re usually the last to get something, but this time we are the pilot.” Allen said she is especially happy that planners recognized the need to connect low-income neighborhoods, such as Barry Farms, to more convenient modes of public transportation to help facilitate greater economic opportunities. “Stopping at Barry Farms … Wow!” an obviously elated Allen said. If the three-year pilot project is deemed successful, plans call for the Anacostia Line to be expanded to the Minnesota Avenue corridor and to National Harbor. Three additional light rail lines are envisioned for the Metro system, running from Anacostia to Silver Spring, from Woodley Park to the Stadium-Armory area and from Georgetown to the Stadium- Armory area. Mayor Anthony A. Williams hailed approval of the project by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority Board of Directors as “the first major step toward realizing the Anacostia Waterfront Initiative and bringing light rail back to the District after an absence of over 40 years.” The Anacostia Waterfront Initiative is an ambitious public-private, federal- local effort to develop parkland, housing and businesses along much of the Anacostia River waterfront in the District. Current plans call for the D.C. government to cover the cost of building the Anacostia Light Rail Line. The D.C. Department of Transportation’s fiscal 2004 budget includes $16.1 million to begin the project, with the initial investment expected to pay railroad right-of-way fees and for ordering light rail cars. Funding to complete the demonstration project “is still subject to negotiation,” said Bill Rice, a spokesman for the District’s transportation department. He said part of the funding might come from escrow accounts that the District paid into as part of the original plan for building the regional Metrorail system.

Vic: Melbourne train, tram deal worth $2.3 bill over 5 years

AAP NEWSFEED February 19, 2004 Victorian taxpayers will pay two private operators $2.3 billion over the next five years to run Melbourne’s trains and trams. Under the deal announced by Premier Steve Bracks today, Yarra Trams will be the sole operator of tram services while Connex runs the metropolitan trains. Mr Bracks defended the agreement to pay an additional $1 billion to the operators on top of the $1.3 billion already earmarked under the existing arrangement. “We were living in a fool’s paradise somehow expecting that you could run a public transport system and not pay for it,” he said. Mr Bracks said it would cost a similar amount for the public sector to run the system but the private operators would do better: “because of their continuity, because of their performance, because of the risk they’ll be assuming.” Under the new deal Connex will be paid $345 million annually and Yarra Trams will get $112 million each year when the contracts begin in mid-April. The new deal will result in 100 extra railway staff, 30 more stations staffed during the morning peak and 20 more on weekday afternoons. Fifty additional tram system staff will be recruited and trams will run until 2am at New Year under the deal. Transport Minister Peter Batchelor said the arrangements offered financial security and dealt with a “funding black hole” of $200 million per year under franchises set up by the previous government. The two operators will take over the remainder of the train and tram system left in government hands after National Express pulled out in December 2002 after losses. Had the government not pitched in the extra $1 billion, Yarra Trams and Connex would also have gone broke “and it would have led to chaos and disruption”, Mr Batchelor said. The new deal won scant praise from Public Transport Users Association president Daniel Bowen who said it offered a “small improvement” for commuters. “But we’re not seeing the sort of changes that are really going to encourage a lot more people to use the public transport system,” Mr Bowen said. “We would like to have seen a much better improvement to frequencies, level of service on trains and trams and more staff on to the system.” Rail, Tram and Bus Union state secretary Trevor Dobbyn was more optimistic, describing the extra staff and stations as a “big step forward”. “Forty-five down, 75 stations to go and we know the public want to see all of those stations reopened and restaffed,” Mr Dobbyn said. State opposition leader Robert Doyle attacked the decision to give the two private operators an additional $1 billion funding over five years. “We’ve just paid out $1 billion for something we already have,” he said. Mr Doyle said the government should have held the two operators to existing franchise contracts requiring them to boost patronage and he said the transport arrangements should have been put up for open tender.

Race to finish in city of chaos

The Mercury (Australia) February 19, 2004 A FAVOURITE joke in Athens at the moment has Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis touring Beijing to inspect work on the 2008 Olympics. “I’m impressed,” Simitis says. “Yes, we’ll have everything ready by 2006,” says his Chinese host. “So will we,” Simitis replies. But it’s no joke for Olympic organisers who insist all will be ready for the Games’ homecoming on August 13, despite the chaos enveloping Athens and the scepticism of its locals. Athenians have long been disillusioned by the disruption Olympic preparations have brought to their ancient city and many question what benefits the Games will bring. The biggest redevelopment in the city’s fabled history had to strike a balance between respecting its ancient past and pitching an under-developed country into the 21st century while satisfying the locals who aren’t as willing as Australians to accept major disruption for the sake of sport. The appeasement has not been universal but a neat balance has been found and Athens organising committee (ATHOC) president Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki believes the Games and their legacy will be a revelation for the Olympics, Greece and the rest of the world. “This Olympic homecoming will be an opportunity to reawaken the true spirit and meaning of the Olympic Games, by educating people around the world about the Games’ ancient roots and values,” Angelopoulos-Daskalaki said. “In addition, it is an opportunity to reintroduce Greek history and to introduce our contemporary accomplishments to the world. “Most people know our history but the Olympic Games are helping us show that we are a vital and growing 21st century European nation. We are proud of our past but we are a nation of new technologies and works as well as ancient marble and bronze.” The marriage of ancient and modern is best embodied in the new underground metro train system, the biggest gift to Athenians from the Games. Almost every station on the state-of-the-art system, which will carry a million passengers a day, houses a museum of the ancient artefacts uncovered during its construction. Above ground, the history lesson continues as the Acropolis and Parthenon oversee the Games, as they did in 1896. The Games literally return to their roots with the shot put to be staged in the ancient stadium at Olympia, about four hours’ drive from Athens. And the marathon will be run over its original 2000-year-old course, starting in the town of Marathon and finishing in the heart of Athens at the Panathinaiko Stadium, the site of first modern Olympic Games in 1896. Looking to the future, Angelopoulos-Daskalaki says the Games will create 95,000 jobs, with 50,000 expected to be permanent. She said 100,000 Greeks will receive technical, managerial or vocational training, while Athens has been transformed by the metro system, 210km of new roads, a renovated port at Piraeus and a vastly improved airport. But is all that enough for the 3.5 million locals? Their tree-less streets are choked with dust, their neighbourhoods are construction sights and commuting through the city remains a tangled concrete and metal obstacle course — and they’ve put up with this for three years. “The city of Athens is in a mess,” said Sotiris Triantasillou, Olympics reporter on Greece’s biggest daily sports newspaper, Goal News. ‘You cannot go easily to your home or to your work. Everyday life has been upset because of the Olympics.” This is just one of the reasons, says Triantasillou, why only 40 per cent of Athenians approve of the Games, according to a Gallop poll taken last month. Greeks fear extra taxes to make up for the seven billion Euros spent by the Government and they also feel some patriarchal disapproval of what’s happened to the Games they invented. “Greeks have an ideal image of the Olympics,” Triantasillou says. “Now they realise the Olympic Games is not only an athletic event, it’s a social event, a finance event, a political event, not just sport. They are upset by this.” Economists also defy Angelopoulos-Daskalaki’s optimistic post-Games hopes for Greece’s fragile economy. “We have new jobs but only for this period — we will have problems, the economists say, after the Games,” one said. And he said it would only be after the Games that people would appreciate the new tramway, suburban railway and roads, because they wouldn’t be finished until the expected two million visitors go home. But Gilbert Felli, the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) executive director of the Olympic Games, was satisfied — after a panicky IOC gave ATHOC a serious hurry-up last year — that all the venues will be ready. “We have 33 sporting venues, the situation is a bit tight with two of them only, so altogether we are quite satisfied with the preparation of the venues,” Felli said. “The two are the roof on top of the Olympic stadium and the velodrome . . . but we are confident the roof will be there for the Olympics. “We would like to have it earlier for preparation and testing. “But everything will be ready in May — finished. Then we need to have the three months to test all the facilities.” A forecast change of Government at the March 7 election, however, poses another potential threat to smooth final preparations, although ATHOC and the IOC have received assurances from both major political parties. Simitis has effectively stood down as leader of the ruling socialist PASOK party to be replaced by Foreign Minister George Papandreou, who is trailing opposition New Democracy leader Costas Karamanlis in the polls. Felli said Karamanlis vowed to leave all Olympic personnel in place, and although observers predict some minor changes, there’s no danger for Angelopoulos-Daskalaki, who was an MP in the New Democracy government of the early 1990s. Every venue will host a test event, ranging from international meetings and national championships to local events. By the end of January, 1,700,000 tickets had been sold and 44,000 stray dogs were being rounded up. And by the end of August, Angelopoulos-Daskalaki is hoping for the last laugh.

The $327 million Yellow Line on Interstate Avenue is finishing below budget and ahead of schedule

The Oregonian February 20, 2004 The phoenix rode not wings but steel wheels and rails. A light-rail line once seemingly killed by voters took its first 5.8-mile run through North Portland on Thursday, filled with politicians, neighborhood activists, transit fans and construction representatives. TriMet will open the $327 million Interstate Avenue MAX line on May 1, carrying passengers between the Rose Quarter and the Expo Center. TriMet General Manager Fred Hansen called it the “phoenix line” after the bird of folklore that rose from its own ashes. The original idea for a line between Vancouver and Clackamas Town Center died at the hands of the region’s voters in 1998. But a handful of business and government executives, led by Richard Reiten, former chief executive of Northwest Natural Gas Co., realized that voters in North and Northeast Portland had voted in favor of the line. “That made us believe that we could do the project without having to go back to the voters,” said Reiten, whose fellow passengers on Thursday included two U.S. senators, two U.S. representatives, a mayor, a county commissioner and Metro’s president. Mayor Vera Katz pushed the Interstate project forward by having the city create an urban renewal district to raise $30 million in property tax money as the local match for federal grants. Between now and the public opening, TriMet will continue training MAX operators, perform numerous train tests, add more landscaping and undertake safety training in several nearby schools. The Yellow Line, as it will be called, is the first to have island platforms in the middle of street. That means that transit riders will have to cross as least one lane of North Interstate Avenue to get to the train, and pedestrians simply wanting to cross Interstate will have to learn to watch for trains. Hansen complimented the major contractors, Stacy & Witbeck and F.E. Ward, for completing the project ahead of time and about $23 million under the original budget. The starting date had been early September this year. What happens to the construction savings is not clear. TriMet wanted to use them to buy additional rail cars for use through the rail system. But the Federal Transit Administration rejected that request, saying the money had been dedicated to the Interstate line only. Looking at Clark County “The finish line for a city never comes to an end,” Katz said while riding the train. “There is no finish line for light rail. We’re moving on.” Officials on the Oregon side still see advantages in extending the line to Vancouver. Katz said she thinks there is a “crack in the door” for rail on the Washington side. She said rail should be an element on any new bridge that also carries trucks and cars. Meanwhile, TriMet and regional officials are working on plans for the next light-rail leg. It would run in the Interstate 205 corridor to Clackamas Town Center. Unlike earlier light-rail legs that offered barren suburban land for development, the Yellow Line runs through urban but somewhat economically disadvantaged neighborhoods. It is expected to attract about 13,000 daily riders in its first year and grow to 20,000 by 2020. Hansen said approximately 50 new small businesses have opened along Interstate, and two major retail chains are building new or replacement stores. He noted that contractors exceeded their goals for using community-based contractors on the rail project. The new train comes with a high price tag for its neighborhoods. The $30 million local match ate up almost all the urban renewal money for the first few years of the Interstate Corridor Urban Renewal Area. Now officials want to take another substantial chunk for the New Columbia project being built by the Housing Authority of Portland at the former Columbia Villa. Neighborhood urban renewal advocates had hoped there would be more money for housing, parks, economic development and other uses.

SEPTA to OK deal to build rail cars at old Navy Yard

Daily News Fri, Feb. 20, 2004 Unless something big happens between now and next Thursday, the SEPTA board is poised to approve a contract that would create 140 factory jobs at the old Philadelphia Naval Yard. Four global manufacturing companies are vying for the contract to build 104 shiny new rail cars for SEPTA’s Regional Rail fleet. But the one that yesterday earned the recommendation of SEPTA staff and a vote of support from the SEPTA operations committee is the one that will do the final stage of rail-car assembly at a plant to be built in South Philadelphia. The company also happens to be the lowest bidder. United Transit Systems (UTS), a consortium of the Korean Rotem Company and Nissho Iwai American Corporation, has no significant track record in the North American rail-car industry but says it hopes the SEPTA contract could open doors to additional deals in other cities and the creation of even more jobs in Philadelphia. The thought of new manufacturing jobs in a city where heavy industry has been in decline has local boosters smiling and singing the praises of the Korean company. But the choice of UTS is raising eyebrows among some industry experts who fear the transit agency is choosing price over quality and taking an unnecessary risk with an unproven company that happens to have the backing of influential political leaders. Among those supporting UTS are Gov. Rendell and Mayor Street, both of whom cited job creation in their praise of the deal. The firm also has the backing of politically connected members of the local Korean community and a team of high-powered lobbyists, including state Republican party chairman Alan Novak, former Street administration Chief of Staff Stephanie Franklin-Suber and former SEPTA general manager Jack Leary. “We are very much suspicious about what they have in their proposal and what is going on behind the scenes,” said Jitendra Tomar, of Kawasaki Rail Car, Inc., one of the bidders that did not get the recommendation. Kawasaki’s bid would cost SEPTA $14 million more than the UTS bid, but Kawasaki scored a technical rating that was significantly better than UTS’s on the scale SEPTA used to rate the qualifications of its bidders. UTS rated 125.2 points out of a possible 175 points for technical merit while Kawasaki scored 162.8 points. The other two bidders, Sumitomo Corporation and Bombardier Transit Corporation, scored 157 and 132 points respectively. UTS offered to do the work for significnatly less money than the others. The company, which is partially owned by Korean manufacturing giants Hyundai and Daewoo, said it could deliver the 104 new train cars including 34 single cars and 35 “married pairs” for $237 million in contrast to Kawasaki’s bid of $251 million, Sumitomo’s bid of $323 million and Bombardier’s bid of $340 million. The cost was a primary reason for the recommendation, said John Holak, SEPTA’s chief procurement officer. “We are an organization that is faced with budget crises,” he said. “There is nothing in this procurement that suggests that this company could not ever perform and manufacture these rail cars to the schedule SEPTA has provided and to the quality assurance issues that SEPTA has provided. SEPTA would have a very difficult time trying to rationalize how we could leave $14 million on the table or spend more when we’re also trying to appeal for further budget support.” The local jobs, said one SEPTA board member, are just “icing on the cake.” Not all of the work will be done in Philadelphia, a UTS spokesman said. Most of the rail-car production and all of the engineering will be done in South Korea. Also, top managers and supervisors will come from other rail car construction plants in North America. The 140 people hired and trained locally will work among the rank and file. UTS doesn’t know yet whether the jobs will be unionized but the contract requires that UTS pay workers the prevailing wage. The SEPTA contract would be the first major business deal in North America for UTS and its parent company, Rotem. “I am not surprised that they came in at such a low price,” said William Vantuono, editor in chief of Railway Age, a monthly trade magazine and worldwide railroad expert. “Rotem wants to get into the North American market because it’s a growth market. I wouldn’t be surprised if they would be willing to take a loss just to get their foot in the door.” While Kawasaki and Bombardier have factories in New York and other parts of the country, the Philadelphia site would be Rotem’s first U.S. facility.

Retooled Subways on a Roll; Bridge Fix Means Quick Trips

Daily News (New York) February 20, 2004 A major revamping of subway routes - which officials say will mean smoother and faster rides for hundreds of thousands of daily riders - is around the bend. For the first time in nearly 20 years, the Transit Authority will use all four tracks on the Manhattan Bridge this Sunday as city repair work has finally ended - and Mayor Bloomberg and other officials will herald the changes with a subway ride over the bridge today. There will be a return of express N train service over the bridge not seen since the days of Ronald Reagan’s presidency. Shuttle service to the Grand St. station in Chinatown will no longer be necessary as direct connections will again be provided from Manhattan and Brooklyn. And B and D trains will no longer have their southern terminals at Herald Square but will again roll throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn. “This is great news for transit riders,” Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman Peter Kalikow said in a release. “These changes will mean more service, less crowding, fewer transfers and a simpler service plan for hundreds of thousands of our customers. Seven subway lines - the B, D, M, N, Q, R and W - carrying 600,000 daily riders will be affected, officials said. The TA has been alerting riders for months with new maps in stations and subway trains, brochures, conductor announcements and MTA Web site notices. Still, some will no doubt find it difficult. “In the short run, it’s going to be a challenge to figure out the changes,” said Gene Russianoff, of the Straphangers Campaign. Still, he gave an overall positive review. “This is a major step forward,” Russianoff said. “It should mean shorter waits, less crowding and more options for hundreds of thousands of riders.” But Russianoff noted there are some losers, among them N train riders who travel between Brooklyn and lower Manhattan. Except for one brief period in 1990, the TA has been restricted to two tracks on the Manhattan Bridge by a city renovation of the East River span that started in 1986. City work ended late last year, and the Transit Authority has been inspecting tracks, signals and other equipment, and training crews about the new routes. With four tracks in service, the authority has said it will boost the number of trains using the bridge to 36 per hour - and then to 40 per hour later in the year - from 27 during current rush hours. Graphic: A NEW MOVEMENT. The subway map is changing again - mostly for the better. The highlights: - B and D trains extended beyond Herald Square and will resume running through lower Manhattan and Brooklyn. Run express on Sixth Ave. in Manhattan. Both stop at Grand St. in Chinatown. - D replaces W in Brooklyn. B replaces Q-Diamond in Brooklyn. - N runs over Manhattan Bridge. Runs express from 59th St. in Brooklyn to Herald Square weekdays. - Q travels over Manhattan Bridge to Broadway stations. Local in Brooklyn, express in Manhattan. - Q-Diamond replaced by B in Brooklyn and N in Manhattan. - W runs local weekdays on Broadway between Whitehall St. and Astoria, Queens. - M unchanged during rush hours but will not run south of Chambers St. middays. Evening extension to Brooklyn also discontinued. - No change in R route, but more service between Brooklyn and Manhattan during rush hours

Deficiencies delay debut of streetcar to April 18; People with disabilities hindered by ramps and grates, report says

Timespicayun February 20, 2004 The good news is that the long wait for streetcars to return to Canal Street appears to be nearing an end, with Regional Transit Authority officials now targeting April 18 as the debut of the three-year, $161 million line. The bad news is that the delay of about a month from the previous March target is the result of a rash of design and construction deficiencies that appear to violate the Americans with Disabilities Act, and that could wind up costing nearly $2 million to fix. It was unclear Thursday who will pay for the changes, which RTA contractors began performing along the 3.1-mile route several weeks ago. The problems, discovered during a recent review by a consultant specializing in ADA compliance, involves aspects of construction that likely wouldn’t be noticed by the average transit customer, including the slope and texture of curb ramps near streetcar stops and the width of drainage grates. “There were places where things were done and were done incorrectly, and places where they weren’t done at all,” said a transit system employee who requested anonymity. While such design details might sound inconsequential to most people, they can be anything but trivial for riders who are visually impaired or use wheelchairs. Nonetheless, transit officials say ADA regulations, which the federal government mandates but does not specifically earmark money for, are extremely complex and can be subject to interpretation. In fact, RTA officials are trying to determine whether some ADA requirements cited in the Canal Street streetcar review were suspended during a ten-year period that ended in July 2001. While construction on the Canal line was begun in January 2001, the project’s final design was completed about two years before. “This is a complicated issue,” RTA Chairman James Reiss said Thursday. “I don’t know if there were any design or construction errors, but we’re certainly going to look into it.” Repeated delays In light of past problems the RTA has had with ADA compliance, Reiss said the agency decided “to proceed with extreme caution to make absolutely sure we meet the letter of every regulation.” Reiss met for more than an hour Thursday with parties involved in the project to discuss how quickly the necessary changes could be made. Pledges made by contractors led to the decision by the RTA to formally announce the April 18 launch date. Last spring, RTA officials planned to inaugurate the Canal Street line on Oct. 11 with a two-day blowout to mark the first streetcar to roll along Canal Street between the Mississippi River and City Park Avenue since May 1964. But a rainy June and a desire to accommodate the busy fall schedules of politicians and federal bureaucrats who planned to attend the event prompted a delay of the ceremony to Dec. 6. In November, the RTA announced that the start of service would be pushed back again — to March — because street and sidewalk repairs and neutral ground landscaping were behind schedule. Late last year, concerns about ADA compliance began to circulate among RTA staffers, prompting the agency to hire SEB Associates of Alexandria, Va., a firm that has worked with numerous transit systems on handicapped accessibility issues. A study done in early January by the company found a number of deficiencies along the Canal Street route. ‘Commendable’ dedication For example, a report submitted early this month by the firm said that many of the 800 curb ramps on the line “are not properly sloped, are too narrow and have excessive lips at their transition to the street/gutter surface.” Among the other findings: — Drainage grates in walking surfaces near some streetcar stops had spaces greater than the maximum one-half inch allowed by law. The report recommended replacing them. — The pedestrian walkway at the end of the Canal line where it intersects with City Park Avenue has changes in elevation greater than one-half inch. The report recommended “grinding’ the walkway. — Tree boxes along the walkways of the streetcar median feature drop-offs greater than the law allows. The report recommends filling the boxes with stone, earth or other landscaping material. Noting that the Canal Street line was a major undertaking, the report’s author, Don Kloehn, said in his summary that the “RTA’s serious and dedicated approaches to the accessibility of all aspects of the project are commendable.” RTA sources have pegged the costs of bringing the streetcar project up to code at $1.9 million. Reiss, the RTA chairman, declined to comment on the extra costs, and said he is not interested in assessing blame at this time. “I’m not pointing fingers and I’m not dealing with numbers right now,” he said. “I’m just trying to get this project finished and finished right. We’ll sort it out later to determine responsibility for completion and cost and everything else.” Oversight of the Canal Street project has been spread among several entities, including the RTA’s capital improvements staff; the contractor, Boh Bros.; Parsons, Brinckerhoff, Quade and Douglas Inc., a New York engineering firm with a New Orleans office that heads the design team; and the project manager, Gannett-Fleming Inc., a Pennsylvania company. Simultaneous openings By pushing the start date to April 18, the RTA hopes to open both components of the project simultaneously. Streetcar service on the line is scheduled to resume at 3:10 a.m. on a Sunday, which is the time when shifts change for drivers under the RTA’s union contract. Earlier plans had called for the RTA to initiate streetcar service between the Mississippi River and City Park Avenue first, and then, months later, to phase in the 1-mile spur along North Carrollton Avenue linking Canal Street to the City Park entrance. Construction workers finished laying track and hanging overhead wiring along Canal Street in late September. Since then, the RTA has been testing the 24 apple-red cars that will run along Canal and training dozens of drivers who will operate them. Except for their color, the Canal line streetcars will look much like the venerable green Perley Thomas Car Co. streetcars that run on St. Charles Avenue. Among the notable differences are the addition of air conditioning, a modern propulsion system and hydraulic lifts on both sides to accommodate wheelchairs. Installing those amenities on the St. Charles line would jeopardize its inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places, according to RTA officials.

SEPTA may hire firm it rated low; It has cheapest railcar bid but little U.S. experience.

Philadelphia Inquirer February 20, 2004 SEPTA is poised to award a quarter-billion-dollar contract to a South Korean rail-car builder with virtually no U.S. experience, and which received the lowest technical rating from the agency’s own staff. United Transit Systems Inc., named yesterday as the preliminary choice by the SEPTA board, was ranked fourth out of four bidders to build 104 cars for the Regional Rail system. It did not meet a key element of SEPTA’s specifications - that it have experience in the highly regulated U.S. market. It was the low bidder by 6 percent. The full SEPTA board is scheduled to make a final decision on Thursday. Board members endorsed United Transit despite SEPTA’s experience with a low bidder on its last major train purchase. In 1993, a contract for 220 cars was given to the low bidder, Adtranz, as the law then required. The cars arrived two years late and had a variety of technical problems, including faulty door mechanisms that cost SEPTA $6.2 million to replace. This time, SEPTA changed its process so that the contract did not have to go to the low bidder. It drew up specifications that put greater emphasis on technical expertise and experience, particularly in the United States. United Transit’s technical approach and experience was scored at 125 out of a potential 175 points, while Japan’s Kawasaki Rail Car Inc. received a score of 162.8. The United Transit bid of $236 million bid was $14 million less than Kawasaki’s. SEPTA officials said cost-saving was key. They also cited United Transit’s promise to hire 140 residents to do final assembly of the cars at a converted warehouse at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard site. The size of the local workforce will not be a contractual requirement. “I don’t see us as selecting a technically inferior product,” SEPTA deputy general manager Patrick Nowakowski said. “What I do see is us taking on a certain amount of… risk in being able to deliver,” but that’s worth it to save $14 million, Nowakowski said. SEPTA is facing a $70 million budget deficit in fiscal year 2005, beginning July 1. Its $880 million operating budget largely depends on state and local dollars. The rail-car purchase would be paid for with federal funds or with money raised by a bond issue. To help get the bid, United Transit launched an intensive two-year lobbying campaign. The company hired Alan Novak, chairman of the Pennsylvania Republican Party; SEPTA’s former general manager, John K. Leary; and others. SEPTA general manager Faye Moor dismissed suggestions that “politics drove our decision.” “These are normal sour grapes. It’s disappointing, but it’s not surprising. Everybody wanted to have a $300 million contract,” the original SEPTA cost estimate. Saving $14 million is the fiscally responsible move, she said. Kawasaki is considering “all its options,” including a lawsuit, Jitendra S. Tomar, Kawasaki’s manager of marketing and business development, said yesterday. Tomar called the selection of United Transit “disappointing” because SEPTA’s technical staff had told Kawasaki the award was “not going to be a low bid, it will be bid on the technical expertise. And what happened today, they just went to the lower bidder.” Kawasaki said it has been building rail cars in the United States for two decades, and has sold cars to Philadelphia and New York City. The other two bidders were Japan’s Sumitomo Corp. and Canada’s Bombardier Transit Corp. United Transit, a consortium of Korean firms, was unhappy with its low rating. “We were very surprised, to say the least,” said Richard S. Lewis, the firm’s spokesman. “We know one of the key components of the rating system is U.S. experience, but that’s the one thing we don’t have a lot of. But we have built 32,000 cars,” for other countries over the last 30 years, he said. One of United Transit’s corporate parents sold 12 cars in the 1990s to the Alaska Railroad, SEPTA said. Lew