Shanghai ‘04
Economist
Jannuary15, 2004
Whether you call them delusions of grandeur or visionary thinking, China’s biggest city has plans that are nothing if not bold
APART from a dozen Chinese tourists posing for a photograph, the platform at the oval dome-covered Longyang Road Station is nearly empty as the world’s fastest train pulls in. Minutes later, with all but a handful of its 500 seats unoccupied, the train glides off, levitating on an electromagnetic cushion that propels it with barely a judder to its top speed of 430kph (267mph). It takes just eight minutes to complete the journey to Pudong International Airport, an ultra-modern structure of glass and steel 30km (19 miles) away.
Considering the thrill of being on the world’s first maglev train in commercial use — and the half an hour or more saved on the journey — it might seem odd that so few people are trying it out. Since daily services were launched on December 29th, about 1,000 tickets a day have been sold on weekdays (out of 12,000 available). At weekends, when novelty- seekers are out in greater numbers, the total still only rises to about 5,000, according to Song Xiaojun, general manager of Shanghai Maglev Transportation Development Co. If the arrival of maglev is a great boon to Shanghai’s overburdened transportation system, few appear to be aware of it.
It is more than just a cautious approach to rolling out this new, German- supplied, technology that is keeping numbers down. While other countries, including Germany itself, have hesitated about adopting maglev because of the high cost and uncertain returns, Shanghai has happily poured $1.2 billion into its track — even though a glance at a map immediately suggests the risks involved. Longyang Road Station, the only stop apart from the airport, is on the city’s eastern fringe, a considerable distance from most residential areas. A taxi ride between the airport and Longyang costs little more than the 75 yuan ($9) price of a maglev ticket and saves the hassle of a transfer.
Shanghai’s gamble on maglev, in which seven big state-owned companies have a stake, reflects an approach to the city’s development that places great store on massively expensive and commercially dicey projects. Since the early 1990s Shanghai has been driven by a desire to reclaim its pre-communist era status as a regional financial capital and a cosmopolitan haven for international capitalists eager to penetrate the Chinese market — that lavish but raffish world immortalised in Vicki Baum’s novel, “Shanghai ‘37”. China’s former prime minister, Zhu Rongji (who previously served as Shanghai’s party chief and is normally known for his hard-headedness), strongly backed the maglev project when it got under way in 2000.
Cynics should perhaps beware. The city’s “build it and they will come” mentality has, after all, paid off handsomely before. Many people scoffed when Shanghai announced plans in 1990 to develop what was then just an expanse of marshy land, villages and old factories into the city’s new financial district. Today Pudong, as the area is called (and where the maglev is located), is a stunning conglomeration of soaring office towers and hi-tech factories (pictured above) that has attracted tens of billions of dollars in foreign investment. Last year, it is reckoned, it sucked in just under $6 billion, more than a tenth of the total for the entire country.
In the next few years, changes in Shanghai — whose GDP, according to the official figures, grew last year by a sizzling 11.8% — could be similarly dramatic. In September, the city is due to host China’s first Formula One car-racing event. This has involved one of the biggest outlays of any Formula One venue in the world, with $310m being spent on a 5.5km circuit and related facilities now under construction on the western outskirts of the city.
The plan is to turn this into the centrepiece of a new “auto city” in which all aspects of the industry from manufacturing to sales will be concentrated. Yu Zhifei, deputy general manager of the track’s developers, Shanghai International Circuit Co, admits that a lot of Chinese do not know what Formula One is and that many who do are sceptical about the track’s ability to make money. But he says he is confident that the facility, with a seating capacity of 200,000, will turn a profit as Chinese consumers’ new- found penchant for cars continues to grow apace.
The car craze is evident in the worsening congestion of Shanghai’s streets. But to the maglev’s operators, this is comforting. “Within a few years, it’ll be very inconvenient to take the road to the airport,” enthuses Mr Song. And next year, he says, work should begin on extending the line another 7km to the site where the World Expo will be held in 2010 on the banks of the Huangpu River, much closer to the city centre. The hope is that it will become the main way to visit the fair, an event that lasts several months.
Shanghai’s planners regard the World Expo as the city’s greatest opportunity to show off its resurgent glory. Scepticism may abound about the ability of World Expos to generate profits. Hanover, site of the last such event in 2000, suffered a disappointing turnout. But Shanghai sees it as comparable to Beijing’s hosting of the Olympic Games in 2008: an event that will fix the world’s attention on the city’s, and the country’s, achievements. Compared to that, the $3 billion needed to build the facilities and relocate tens of thousands of residents to the outskirts is a trifle. And, anyway, by then the maglev’s operators hope to be making a profit.
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LAS VEGAS MONORAIL: Project hits speed bump
Las Vegas Review-Journal (Nevada)
February 21, 2004
The Las Vegas Monorail won’t be running as soon as its operators had hoped, but the city’s first rapid-transit system is still in line to launch by the end of March, officials said Friday.
Monorail builders had aimed for a start date of around March 1, but the current pace of testing on the $654 million system will push that start to sometime before the end of the initially targeted first quarter of 2004.
An exact start date has yet to be determined.
‘On a project of this size, that is not terribly late,’ Las Vegas Monorail Co. Chairman John Haycock said. ‘We set a date for operating because you had to have something to drive toward. We’re not disappointed. We’re about where we want to be.’
Haycock said the start date was not pushed back because of a Jan. 5 accident in which a drive shaft fell from one of the monorail cars. No one was hurt. But the accident necessitated a three-day shutdown of testing.
‘We took that pretty seriously. The reason you test a system like this is to make sure you find the weak links and flush them out during the testing process,’ Haycock said. ‘We learned a lot from that.’
Current testing involves running cars along the monorail track, opening and closing doors and having the cars carry weights to simulate passenger loads. ‘We’re operating the system as if it were open, except without passengers,’ said monorail spokesman Todd Walker.
Once the monorail begins operations, fares are expected to be $3 for one-way trips, $5.50 for round-trips and $10 for all-day passes. Operating hours probably will be 6 a.m. to 2 a.m., though originally hours may be closer to 8 a.m. to midnight.
The late opening didn’t dampen spirits at a reception Friday at the Las Vegas Hilton station celebrating the finish of monorail line and station construction. The only work left besides testing the cars is to make cosmetic additions to the stations, Haycock said.
‘Boy, have we come a long way,’ said Las Vegas City Councilman Michael Mack, who also serves as vice chairman of the Regional Transportation Commission.
The event gave local VIPs a chance to take their first peek inside a monorail car, where seats were outfitted with blue fabric and the floors were covered with protective cardboard.
U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., called the monorail ‘a sweet deal for everybody who lives here and works here.’
The initial leg of the monorail, which will run from Sahara Avenue south to Tropicana Avenue behind the Strip, was built with tax-free bonds that will be repaid entirely with private dollars and fare revenues. Project backers hope 19 million people will ride the system in its first year of operation.
Earlier, transportation commission officials said 15 million annual riders each paying $3 fares will be needed for the monorail to break even.
Officials also are planning a $450 million downtown extension that will require about $178 million in federal grants. Work could start this year and finish as soon as 2007.
Until that extension is finished, Citizens Area Transit plans to run a new bus route, designated Route 551, to link the Sahara station to the Fremont Street Experience. ‘The second the monorail starts running, that route is in service,’ said transportation commission spokeswoman Ingrid Reisman.
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Bus transit lawsuit is kept alive in court
Honolulu Star Bulletin
2004/02/21
A federal judge has left standing the central part of a lawsuit seeking to block the city’s Bus Rapid Transit system, project opponents say.
U.S. District Judge Susan Oki Mollway threw out some of the allegations made by the nonprofit group, Alliance for Traffic Improvement. “In short, she kept in play all the important ones,” said spokesman Cliff Slater.
The group, also known as Sensible Traffic Alternatives and Resources Ltd., is made up of transportation companies and business leaders.
The organization sued the federal government and the city to stop construction of the first phase of the BRT project, a 5.6-mile stretch from downtown through Kakaako and ending in Waikiki using hybrid gas and electric buses.
The project — part of a larger in-town line running 12.8 miles — is planned to include sidewalk improvements, landscaping, underground utilities, bus stop upgrades and the addition of extra lanes on Ala Moana and Kalia Road.
The city, joined by the Federal Transit Administration, had asked Mollway to throw out the whole lawsuit.
In a written ruling filed Thursday, Mollway said ATI is barred from challenging the project based on state environmental laws because the group didn’t previously comment on the state’s acceptance of required environmental reviews.
Mollway also dismissed counts claiming that federal environmental laws were violated based on allegations that no joint environmental impact statement was prepared and because there was no coordinated review.
But the judge kept eight counts alive relating to other alleged violations of federal environmental law, including whether the environmental impact statement was valid. ATI also contends that the project should not proceed until the federal government approves the entire project, not just the initial segment.
“I felt (the decision) was very thorough and she carefully considered all the issues,” city Transportation Director Cheryl Soon said.
Soon said the city is proceeding with the project because there has been no indication from the court that it cannot move forward.
Soon said the city also is waiting for the judge to decide whether a hearing on a request by ATI for a preliminary injunction will take place.
The city maintains that the steps and actions taken so far in the environmental review process have been appropriate and proper, she said.
Slater said the project should not move forward while the lawsuit hangs over the city’s head.
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Rail chiefs head east for clues to perfection
The Times (London)
February 21, 2004
Teams of rail managers are to be sent to Japan to study how the country has managed to achieve near-perfect punctuality without a single fatal train crash in 40 years of running the Shinkansen “bullet” trains.
The not-for-profit company that replaced Railtrack wants to measure its performance in every area against the standards achieved in Japan, the only other significant economy with a privatised railway.
Train delays will be top of the agenda. On the 170mph (270km/h) Shinkansen services, a delay is recorded if a train arrives 15 seconds late. Britain’s 125mph intercity trains are not considered late unless they arrive more than ten minutes behind schedule.
Instead of leaves on the line or the wrong type of snow, the only excuse for delays that Japanese passengers are ever likely to hear is that their line has been disrupted by an earthquake.
On the Tokaido Shinkansen, which carries 355,000 passengers a day between Tokyo and Osaka, the average train was 26 seconds late last year.
On Virgin West Coast in the same period, the average delay was 7 minutes 30 seconds.
Network Rail hopes to glean ideas and measure its progress through “international benchmarking”.
Ian McAllister, the chairman of Network Rail, said that the company was conscious that its monopoly made it difficult to assess its own performance.
“If we are not careful we can be fat, dumb and happy. So we have to create a substitute for competition by doing international benchmarking. We are setting up a series of structured information exchanges which go right into the detail of how the Japanese do things like rail maintenance, repairs and customer focus. We want to find out who is better in each area.”
Keiichi Kagayama, the manager of Tokyo’s Shinkan-sen control centre, said: “For us the constant pursuit of accuracy is a way of life. We try to spot potential problems before they cause delays, which means carrying out preventive maintenance.”
Network Rail believes that the quality of staff training on Japanese railways will be one of the first things it imports to Britain. Roderick Smith, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Imperial College and an expert on Japanese railways, said: “We regard staff training as a luxury that can be sacrificed. In Japan the training is so thorough that even people with the humblest jobs do them very well.” But he said Network Rail would struggle to teach its staff to embrace the Japanese attitute to work. “The mindset of the Japanese is suited to the rule- driven process of running railways like clockwork. In Britain we tend to think we can do better and don’t bother to observe the rules. It’s individualism versus collectivism.”
Professor Smith said railway workers in Britain usually focused on their individual tasks and had little experience of how the railways were run as a system. Japanese train drivers remain versatile, driving the train one day and collecting tickets the next. “This means they don’t lose contact with the passengers and can see the effect on people of delays.” Professor Smith said that Japanese staff were highly motivated because they joined one of the six regional railway companies for life. “The situation in Britain is musical chairs, with people jumping from company to company as short-term franchises come to an end,” he added.
There are no train franchises in Japan, which decided to keep track and trains under the control of a single company in each area when it privatised its railway in 1987.
Senior Network Rail officials privately admit that their preliminary visits to Japan have highlighted the benefits of keeping wheel and rail under the same ownership.
The secret of Japan’s train punctuality also lies partly with having well behaved passengers who form orderly queues at painted markings on platforms. The markings show precisely where the doors will be when the train stops. The waiting passengers do not surge forward and block the doors but wait patiently until everyone has alighted. Such orderly queues mean that Shinkansen trains spend only 40 seconds at stations, half the time trains wait in Britain.
The co-operative attitude of Japanese passengers might also partly be explained by the freeze on rail fares since privatisation 17 years ago.
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Riding The Rails To Less Traffic Snarls
Washington Post
February 22, 2004
For a nightmare scenario of the world you drive in, imagine the year is 2020. The freight railroads of America are carrying close to the same volume of goods they do today — about 14 billion tons yearly, with no adjustment for market expansion.
And what do you face when you head out on the road? Answer: more slowdowns, massively increased congestion. And most visible: tens of millions more trucks — many of them 18-wheel rigs with tons of cargo on board, filling up roadways, surrounding and frightening many auto drivers.
Here are actual projections of cumulative impact, 2000 to 2020, if freight railroads stall: about 900 million tons of freight will shift onto the roads; cost to shippers will rise $326 billion; taxpayers will be charged $21 billion to $40 billion in extra highway and bridge upgrades; cost to highway users — in travel time, accidents, operating costs — will rise $492 billion.
Do these figures come from the rail lines? No! They were put together by two highly-regarded transportation consulting teams (Cambridge Systematics, Reebie Associates). And they’re published by the group long considered the top voice for expanded road building in the U.S. — the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO).
“We cannot afford for freight rail to carry any less than its current market share,” says John Horsley, AASHTO’s executive director. “Domestic freight will grow 60 to 100 percent in the next 20 years, and international freight will double or triple. Rail freight is vital to a balanced national transportation system.”
Right now, Horsley notes, rail lines carry 16 percent of America’s freight tonnage. Just to keep up that share, they need $2.65 billion in capital investment they simply don’t have.
So why can’t the rail lines — the Union Pacific, Burlington Northern Santa Fe, Norfolk Southern and others — raise the capital themselves? They’re already intensely capital-intensive, obliged to plow 18 percent of earnings back into improvements compared to 4 percent for average companies.
The freight-rail system was a triumph of 19th century America, opening up our heartland, freeing business and industry from the need to be near rivers or seaports. But highways and trucking, this time freeing shippers from a need to be near rail lines, eclipsed freight rail in the 21st century. With mergers and abandonments — and the federal and state governments creating and maintaining the competing new highway “roadbeds” — rail system mileage halved from 380,000 track miles in 1920 to 172,000 miles today.
In recent years the rail industry has upped its productivity and efficiency. It’s “stable, productive and competitive enough,” notes Horsley, “to profit and operate — but not to replenish its infrastructure quickly or grow rapidly.”
And the rails are plagued with choke points that cry out for repair or replacement: antiquated bridges (some a century or more old), low-ceiling tunnels, highway crossings at grade, single line tracks without adequate sidings, and signal systems incapable of handling both high-speed passenger trains and slow-speed freight trains.
So AASHTO endorses a “public-policy-driven expansion” of the rail system — federal and state co-funding of upgrades that would clear the track for rail to maintain its current share of national freight, conceivably even increase it and relieve road congestion even more, pushed along by federal funding of as much as $4.15 billion a year.
Of course there’s a limit to all generosity — first, says AASHTO, Congress must fund highway and transit at levels the organization believes necessary.� The mega-reauthorization bill for transportation — “SAFETEA”, now making its way through Congress — has dollar levels well below AASHTO’s targets.
Another complication is that assistance for freight railroads quickly gets entangled with efforts to keep Amtrak rolling, or to help the 30 states interested in new high-speed rail corridors start moving their projects forward.� Often — but clearly not always — track can be shared, but the critical issue is maximizing rail infrastructure for both uses. The just- passed Senate version of “SAFETEA” does include some authorizations to support freight and passenger rail investment by the states, plus a $2 billion annual authorization for Amtrak.
A big related issue: the air industry (already heavily subsidized by federal taxpayers) has been cutting back sharply on service, especially to small and medium-sized cities.� Result: More cars crowding roads to reach major hubs.
But rail could pick up much of the slack. Reconnecting America, a transportation advocacy group, notes that trips of 100-400 miles are the most effective market for rail service.� It has ingenious ideas of turning airports into travel ports where rail, bus and urban transit would be added to today’s mix of aviation, parking and rental cars.
The bottom line’s clear: whether for freight or passengers, we need to invest seriously to once again make rail a major part of our national transportation system. If we don’t, our future may be one great snarled traffic mess.
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‘Trevithick’s children’ turn 200 years old
The Daily Yomiuri (Tokyo)
February 22, 2004
On Feb. 22, 1804, on a colliery and ironworks tramway in South Wales, the first-ever steam locomotive was put into operation by the Cornish mining engineer Richard Trevithick. His crude engine with its huge flywheels won a bet made by a local ironmaster Samuel Homfray: “Mechanical Power subduing Animal Speed” as its inventor put it. But it was too heavy for the cast-iron rails of the Penydarren tramway, and after trying in vain to sell it to the London public, Trevithick went off to prospect for minerals in South America, only to return in 1827 to find the legendary George Stephenson leading the new industry. Sixty years after Trevithick’s death in 1833, however, his grandsons Richand and Francis were instrumental in setting up the Japanese railway manufacturing industry, and their families have stayed in Japan to the present day.
The railway turned out to be fateful for Japanese transport and economic development. Although Japanese car-ownership is only slightly less dense than that of Britain — one car per 2.5 people, against one per 2.2 in Britain — Japan is the world’s most railway-minded country, with each Japanese citizen traveling 2,240 kilometers a year by train, against a British figure of 640 kilometers. Switzerland is Europe’s best, with 1,600 kilometers traveled per Swiss per year.
Japan in fact was in the younger Trevithicks’ days a classic case of a “cheap” colonial-style system. Its lines were pretty rapidly built, after 1872, to the British “colonial” gauge of 1 meter 6.7 centimeters (otherwise found only in Africa and parts of Australasia). Mileage was 4,800 kilometers in 1890, 11,200 kilometers by 1914, 22,400 kilometers by 1950. But it was particularly unsuited to the intercity traffic demands of the late 20th century and demanded drastic reform. The first bullet train on the Tokaido Shinkansen line, put on standard-gauge rails in 1961 after only two years’ construction, was a necessary form of “catching up.” It also proved to be wildly successful and generated worldwide imitation.
The effect of the bullet train registered in Europe within a decade, notably on the French TGV program, reluctantly backed after 1971 by then French President Giscard d’Estaing (he would rather have spent the cash on Concorde). When the first route between Paris and Lyons — using the same sort of gradients as the motorway — opened a decade later, however, the 240-plus-kph railway became “sexy” again, with a huge increase in traffic. As well as high-speed lines to Marseilles, to Brittany, to the southwest, and (almost) to London via the Channel Tunnel, there has been emulation by the Spanish, the Italians and the Germans, and the Italian Eurostar and German Inter-City-Express trains are now far superior to the rather cramped TGVs and the Thalys trains that connect Paris and Cologne.
The situation in the railways’ old strong point of freight is much less happy. This problem is not one much encountered in Japan, where freight traffic is comparatively light, but in a rapidly uniting Europe the essentially military motives that went into building the 19th-century rail network have placed a series of barriers between national systems. “Core Europe” (France, Germany, Italy) for example, is standard-gauge, but Spain and Russia are broad-gauge. Even the standard-gauge systems often have quite different operating practices. French railways run on the left, German on the right. Electrification voltages are different — 25,000 volts in France and Britain, 15,000 volts in Holland and Germany. Signaling can be quite distinctive, along with couplings between wagons and braking systems. Some integrated freight operations have got under way, notably across the Alps, but there have been spectacular failures. Ten years after the opening of the Channel Tunnel between Britain and France, less freight is carried by rail than in the days when trucks were shunted onto train ferries. The heavy lorry, with no track and signalling problems, has had things pretty much its own way in the era of “just-in-time” delivery, and costs have been ruthlessly lowered by sharp practices, in which big Western firms run their trucks with cheap former Soviet bloc labor.
The railway, however, has fought back where it seemed at its most vulnerable. There has been a renaissance in the regional railway. Since 1992, the Germans have been introducing the “supertram” that links urban transit systems directly with the hinterland, and permits great flexibility in high-tech regions such as Baden-Wuerttemberg. The Karlsruhe Tramway system, under its dynamic manager Dieter Ludwig, is foremost among the German regions for innovation, and its dual-voltage trams, capable of running from electrified Federal Railway lines right into town centers, now link up much of the dynamic southwestern industrial region: Frequent, convenient, fast, comfortable — some even have buffet cars and toilets! Surveys found that 40 percent of motorists would transfer to these tram-trains, only 3 percent to buses.
Europe’s national railways were in the 1960s — the last decade of the steam locomotive — being elbowed aside by road and air transport. But congestion and pollution have shown their limits. The problem is to adapt rail concerns to become prospects attractive enough for private capital to make them capable of shifting large quantities of passengers and goods off-road and off-air. In this privatization in Japan has been cautiously successful, but in Britain almost wholly disastrous. Although passenger numbers have increased, the privately run but state-subsidized system devised by the British Conservatives in 1993 seems to stagger from crisis to crisis. Yet, with the road system congested and global warming making its presence felt in sweltering summers, there is a pressing need for a coordinated railway policy in Europe, with international journeys facilitated and regional control used, Karlsruhe-style, to get the commuters out of their cars.
In this, Japan, the world leader, has yet to flex its muscles, but surely the time has come to make its expertise, particularly in high-speed rail technology, available to Europe. There are three areas where progress is needed and can be very profitable. First, replacing the “adhesion weight” that keeps the train on the track by “intelligent wheels” that through computers steer the vehicle. This can make passenger railcars much faster, lighter and cheaper to run. Second, replacing traditional visual signaling by direct information to the driver — if he or she is needed at all. Third, coping with “just in time” freight deliveries with small, remote-controlled locomotives. None of these is as easy as the simple business of selling cars, but precedents exist. If affordable “hybrid” solutions — for instance, using computerized information and control equipment to overcome the mechanical differences of the old national rail systems — were to be devised, the dividend that could be reaped would be enormous.
A rapidly deindustrializing Britain is not well placed to do this. The disruptions of privatization led to the collapse of train-building, and even innovations like the world’s first Maglev train at Birmingham Airport failed because spare parts ran out. The next Trevithick will have to come from Japan to Britain.
Harvie is professor of British studies at Tuebingen University in Germany, and honorary professor at Aberystwyth University in Wales and Strathclyde University in Scotland
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Desire streetcar line plan hits bump; Project put on hold, but not canceled
Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA
February 23, 2004
Plans for the so-called Desire Corridor streetcar project, touted for years by Regional Transit Authority officials as the next logical step in New Orleans’ streetcar renaissance, have been put on hold.
Consultants overseeing the proposal to provide downtown streetcar service between Canal Street and the Industrial Canal were told by the RTA recently to suspend work while the agency re-evaluates where the line fits on its priority list of capital needs.
“This is not the death knell for Desire,” RTA Chairman James Reiss said. “We just want to take a step back and look at this project in terms of an overall strategic plan that will allow this agency to go forward in a very orderly and financially responsible manner.”
Since the spring of 1998, the RTA has been examining the feasibility of and gauging community support for a streetcar line that would link the Central Business District with the Bywater and Faubourg Marigny neighborhoods by way of North Rampart Street and St. Claude Avenue.
Although the Desire line would bear the name made famous by playwright Tennessee Williams, the streetcars would only cross Desire Street as they travel along St. Claude.
The RTA, which is in the final stages of an environmental impact study required to apply for matching federal dollars, had hoped to move the Desire initiative into its final design phase shortly after it launches service this year on the Canal Street streetcar line that will run between the Mississippi River and City Park Avenue.
RTA to-do list
Transit officials, who estimate the price tag for the 3-mile Desire route at $108 million, likely would have to come up with 40 percent of the expense, with the federal government picking up the balance.
To date, the agency has spent $7.4 million on the Desire project. RTA officials say only about 20 percent of the money, about $1.4 million, is local dollars.
But before the agency incurs any further expense, Reiss said he first wants to review a number of other big-ticket projects under discussion, including:
— Extending the Riverfront streetcar line upriver to Jackson Avenue and/or downriver to Poland Avenue.
— Building a light-rail line from the CBD to Louis Armstrong International Airport.
— Initiating first-time commuter bus service from St. Tammany and the River parishes to downtown New Orleans.
Reiss also said the RTA must begin planning for a phased-in replacement of its aging fleet of buses, many of which have passed the halfway point in their 12-year lifespan.
“We’re trying to look at everything that we have on our plate,” Reiss said. “And we want to look at them strategically as to what’s best for New Orleans. Yes, there’s a (Desire) project under way, but we need to ask, ‘Is this the right way to go?’ “
Reiss said the RTA hopes to make a decision on whether to resume work on the Desire line in about six months.
On Feb. 6, the RTA sent a stop-work order to Parsons, Brinckerhoff, Quade and Douglas Inc., a New York engineering firm with a New Orleans office that was hired in 2001 to oversee preliminary design work and the environmental impact study.
The correspondence instructed the company, which has hired several local subcontractors, “to immediately stop all work and incur no additional costs of any kind. . . . Any work performed or costs incurred for this project after receipt of this notification will be at (Parson Brinckerhoff’s) expense.”
Rail crossing a big issue
Even as the RTA has moved forward with plans for the Desire line, transit managers have been grappling with a critical design issue they said threatens to scuttle the project. The sticking point centers on how streetcars would traverse a railroad crossing near the midpoint of the route.
The RTA, local residents and politicians all favor the simplest option: having the streetcar tracks cross the railroad tracks at ground level at the intersection of St. Claude and Press Street. But Norfolk Southern Railway, which has final say in the matter, vehemently opposes that approach.
Citing concern about collisions between trains and streetcars, the railroad is demanding that either an underpass or an overpass be built for the streetcar line and automobile traffic at Press Street.
In an attempt to allay Norfolk Southern’s safety concerns, transit officials have suggested installing an electronic warning system and automatic gates instead. But RTA executives said ongoing discussions have failed to sway the railroad from its position.
The RTA said it has ruled out any possibility of an underpass, citing the potential for flooding at the site. And when it comes to an overpass, the RTA estimates such a move would boost the Desire line’s costs by $27 million, money agency officials said they don’t have.
Beyond monetary concerns, RTA officials and community leaders said they would never accept a bridge at Press Street, arguing that it would negatively impact the area in much the same way construction of Interstate 10 in the 1960s forever changed neighborhoods on both sides of North Claiborne Avenue.
Riverfront alternative
If the railroad crossing issue becomes a deal-killer, some RTA officials said they may explore an alternative approach to providing downtown service: extending the Riverfront streetcar line, which now terminates at the foot of Esplanade Avenue, downriver to Poland Avenue.
While cost estimates are not available, transit planners said the costs of expanding the existing line would be considerably less than building a new one from scratch. The downside of that approach is that the riverfront line would be less accessible to the much larger transit population that would be serviced by a St. Claude/North Rampart route.
“Like the city, our revenues aren’t growing exponentially, so we’ve got to make sure the next step we take maintains the integrity of the system,” said Pat Judge, the RTA’s director of public affairs. Many of us still want to see this project go forward. But we want to make sure we look before we leap.”
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Silver Line not the shiniest commute; Other T branches go downtown faster
Boston Globe
February 23, 2004
Getting downtown in the morning on the Silver Line takes approximately 25 percent longer than on the Red, Orange, and Green MBTA lines, according to a weeklong test conducted by the Globe this month.
During evening rush hour, the ride on the Silver Line takes about twice as long as on the Red and Orange lines, the survey found, though about the same amount of time as on the Green Line.
T officials downplay the results, saying they never promised the Silver Line would match subway cars in speed.
Still, the results echo the complaints of people of the Roxbury neighborhood — among Boston’s poorest, where many residents don’t have cars and rely on public transportation — that they don’t get the service other parts of the city enjoy.
“The service has been pretty good, but I think it should have been light rail,” said Robert Pritchett, 64, of Dorchester, riding the Silver Line bus on a recent evening. The elevated Orange Line down Washington Street, which was discontinued in 1987 and replaced by the Silver Line, “was old and it was an eyesore, but it got you to and from downtown extremely fast.”
During the week of Feb. 9 through 13, the Globe sent correspondents to travel each morning and evening on the Red, Green, Orange, and Silver lines, and record their travel times. A central destination was chosen — 30 Winter St. at Downtown Crossing — for the riders to report to in the
morning and leave from in the evening. Each of the MBTA lines has a stop within a block of that address.
The trips on each line covered about 2.2 miles. The morning trips began at 8 a.m. and the evening trips began at 5:30 p.m.
The results showed that, on the Silver Line, the inbound trip from Dudley Square took an average of 19 minutes. The same trip in reverse, beginning at 5:30 p.m., took a little over 22 minutes.
Riders on the other lines arrived more quickly. An Orange Line ride from Ruggles station took an average of 15 minutes; the evening trip back took nearly 12 minutes. The Red Line trip from Central Square to the downtown destination lasted an average of 15 minutes in the morning and just 13 minutes in the evening.
The trip downtown on the Green Line from the Museum of Fine Arts took an average of 15 minutes in the morning, but 22 1/2 minutes in the evening — about the same time as the evening Silver Line journey.
“It’s better than a bus, but not as convenient as a train,” said Theo Young, a South End resident riding the Silver Line on a recent evening, adding that the vehicles sometimes get bunched up. “I think the underground would have been better,” he said.
Robert Terrell, head of the Washington Street Corridor Coalition, said the Silver Line is a poor substitute for rail service. He accused the T of shortchanging the neighborhoods of Roxbury and the South End. “The reason is, different standards for different communities,” Terrell said. “We get the buses, and rail projects get put in other communities. Brookline has three light rail systems and stops all over the place.”
Most riders on the Silver Line say that the service is an improvement over the No. 49 bus that used to travel the route, after the elevated Orange Line was torn down. They say the 60-foot buses are clean and come frequently, and generally don’t get stuck in traffic except in the area around the New England Medical Center.
But despite that, they complain that the buses do not easily connect with the rest of the MBTA system, disadvantaging riders from Roxbury and the South End.
Trolleys on rails would connect better with the rest of the T system, they say, allowing easy transfers and access to a range of destinations downtown, at the FleetCenter, and in Cambridge.
With the old Orange Line, “we had five stops downtown,” Terrell said. “We feel the replacement service should get us into the system downtown, at a minimum to Park Street, but ideally to Government Center, the FleetCenter, and Lechmere for the Galleria mall. That would be an extremely profitable line for the T.”
The Silver Line debuted in 2002, after years of intense debate over what should be built to replace the old elevated line. A half-dozen options were considered, but the choice ultimately came down to a light rail line down the median of Washington Street or improved, rapid bus service.
T officials say neighborhood opposition, first from Chinatown and then from the gentrifying South End, killed the light rail idea. Community activists say the choice came down to money.
The Silver Line cost $40 million, less than half of what it would cost to build light rail, according to T estimates. The T touts the new service as “bus rapid transit” and chose the color silver because “from race cars to rockets, silver symbolizes speed and high performance,” according to the T website.
However, unlike many “bus rapid transit” systems, the vehicles do not travel in their own separate, barricaded lanes that no other traffic can use, except for during a short outbound stretch crossing the Massachusetts Turnpike. The Silver Line lane is marked with painted white lines on Washington Street from Dudley Square through the South End.
Throughout the route, Silver Line buses must contend with occasional traffic in the lane, swerve around double-parked cars and trucks, and wait at stoplights. Traffic is not an issue for fixed-rail systems like the Red, Orange, or Green lines, making them generally faster, though Green Line
trolleys do stop at lights when traveling above ground. Boarding times are also generally faster with trolleys and subways.
Michael Mulhern, general manager for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, was not made available for an interview. His spokesman, Joe Pesaturo, said that critics of the Silver Line “are incapable of thinking outside the box” and accepting that “safe and reliable transit service
does not have to be on a rail to be successful.”
Pesaturo cited growth in ridership and survey results that showed satisfaction with the service. Only about 30 percent of the riders surveyed by the T take the Silver Line because they have no other means of transportation, he added, suggesting that people were not “stuck” with
the service, but choosing to use it.
Silver Line riders seem most pleased with the frequency with which Silver Line buses arrive. Damian Thomas of Roxbury said that “you’re never out in the cold waiting for too long,” because a bus comes along quickly.
T officials view the Washington Street Silver Line service as the first phase of a route that will ultimately go from Roxbury to Logan Airport via South Station and the South Boston waterfront. But Terrell and others say the neighborhood mostly yearns for fast service downtown, and they urge the T to abandon the most expensive part of the envisioned line — a tunnel under Essex Street — and instead put the money toward a conversion to light rail for the Washington Street segment.
Khalida Smalls, coordinator of the T Riders Union, said that the trip downtown on the Silver Line is reasonable, and that the service “isn’t so bad. But we weren’t looking for `isn’t so bad.’ . . . It’s an equity issue, and you have to understand the lack of response to our community for
years to understand why this issue has so much fire.”
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Fairfax Approves Tax Plan for Metrorail Extension
Washington Post
February 24, 2004
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors approved a tax plan to help pay for extending Metrorail after a public hearing last night during which several dozen people spoke for and against the project.
The supervisors voted unanimously for a plan put forward by a group representing landowners in and around Tysons Corner. It would levy additional real estate taxes on businesses in that area to pay for the county’s share of the 23-mile project’s first phase, an extension of Metro from West Falls Church to Wiehle Avenue in Reston.
“I have long felt rail had to come to this corridor,” said board Chairman Gerald E. Connolly (D). “It’s very clear that our future is dependent on improving mobility.”
The decision came after more than three hours of comments from a public split over whether rail is the best option for the corridor and whether the tax district is the best way to pay for the line, which supporters hope will eventually reach Dulles International Airport.
Supporters said the plan was the last, best hope to secure the local funding necessary to capture the federal money needed for the project. “The consequences of any additional delay … would be enormous,” said Charles S. Robb, former governor and U.S. senator, who along with former governor A. Linwood Holton is a co-chairman of Landowners Economic Alliance for the Dulles Extension of Rail.� The group drafted the tax district plan submitted to the county board.
Opponents, who included anti-tax activists and those who prefer a rapid bus system to serve the airport, contended that the $3.4 billion project was too expensive to build under any circumstances and that the tax district unduly burdened businesses.
“I think you should adjourn this meeting and have an outside consultant do an analysis . . . because Metrorail is not the only technology available,” said John F. Herrity, former Republican chairman of the county board, who was joined by former Democratic board chairman Audrey Moore in opposing the project.
Last night’s public hearing became necessary when the Herndon Town Council rejected a plan in December that would have created a single tax district for the entire transit corridor.� Some landowners told the council they were concerned that they would be paying taxes without assurances of when, or if, service would reach the western area.
It remains uncertain whether landowners along the western portion of the proposed route will come up with their own plan for a tax district to fund the second phase, the one that would bring Metrorail to the airport. Backers said a plan is being developed.
The general terms of the financing of the Metrorail line call for the federal government to pay half of its cost. The state would raise 25 percent from a fare increase on the Dulles Toll Road. The other 25 percent would come from Fairfax and Loudoun counties and the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority. The cost of the first phase, to Wiehle Avenue, is estimated at $1.5 billion, and the second phase to Dulles at $1.9 billion.
Establishing a funding plan for Fairfax’s portion of the project is critical to getting money from Congress, which is debating the scope of its six-year transportation funding program.� A vote could come in a few weeks.
Congress would be unlikely to include a project that doesn’t have its full financing in order.� If the rail line is not included in the transportation funding bill, it would be much more difficult to get federal money until Congress considers the next round of funding in 2010.
Many speakers focused on whether the rail project is needed. Mary Gayle Holden, a representative of the Committee for Dulles, thought so. The extension of rail “will do as much to stimulate the economy as Dulles Airport and the Dulles Toll Road,” she said.
But Ron Weber, a Reston resident, voiced the concerns of many opponents who worried about the cost of the projects. “Rail in the Dulles corridor is not required,” Weber said. “We have an excellent bus system.”
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Could the Bamberger ride again?
Davis County Clipper
February 24, 2004
CENTERVILLE — Years ago, the Bamberger electric rail line carried commuters through Davis County between Ogden and Salt Lake City. The system was scrapped in 1952 because of the growing importance of the automobile.
But something like the Bamberger may be revived, as Wasatch Front Regional Council adds streetcars to the list of transit alternatives being considered in south Davis County.
A number of transit options were presented to South Davis area residents during an open house held at Centerville City Hall on Wednesday night. About 200 people attended. “Every meeting we’ve had on South Davis transit needs recently has drawn numerous people. It’s very gratifying,” said Greg Scott of the Wasatch Front Regional Council
Transit options presented included light rail, streetcars and several alternatives of Bus Rapid Transit, as well as maps and information for the public. Representatives of WFRC and local cities were available to answer questions. An important part of the evening was the opportunity the public had to share input and ask questions about transit needs here.
While the streetcar option is more expensive than Bus Rapid Transit to build, it’s less expensive than a full light rail system. Scott said that one possibility for south Davis County would be to begin with the bus system and then add streetcars or light rails in increments.
The only city using a modern streetcar is Portland, Ore., but it seems to be working out well there. Scott said that Portland’s situation can’t be compared exactly to that of South Davis because Portland’s streetcar system was built in a run-down area of town, but the mass transit system has revitalized the area.
Modern streetcars travel in designated lanes on arterial streets, but can easily share the street with motor vehicles if necessary.
The streetcars themselves are similar to light rail trains, but are smaller and lighter, specifically designed for operation in mixed traffic and generally operated singly. Because they are smaller and lighter, with a tighter turning radius, it lowers the cost of construction — but that also means they don’t travel as fast and have a smaller capacity. Travel time can be improved if the streetcar is given a dedicated lane.
Stations would resemble smaller versions of the TRAX stations.
All alternatives discussed differ from commuter rail, because they are meant to be used in different travel markets.
Information provided by WFRC said that commuter rail is designed to serve those traveling more than 15 miles. Commuter rail travels at high speed with few stops. South Davis County will have two commuter rail stops.
Local transit alternatives will handle commuters who remain in South Davis County. No matter which community-level transit mode is chosen, the new service would form a transit spine for the southern portion of the county; include stations spaced approximately every mile; operate every 15 minutes; and include a feeder bus system.
Studies conducted by WFRC show that while 33 percent of Davis County commuters travel to Salt Lake County or Ogden to work, another 56 percent work within the county, many working on Bountiful’s Main Street, or Centerville’s Parish Lane, which would be served by any of the local alternatives.
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Proposed rail link would span Bay; Service would connect with ACE, BART, Caltrain and Amtrak
The Daily Review (Hayward, CA)
February 24, 2004
Closing the Bay Area’s rail loop by 2010 with trains over a rebuilt Dumbarton trestle is feasible, according to a report released Monday, one week before the public decides a key ballot measure to pay for it.
The proposed Dumbarton Rail ser-vice promises a real alternative for commuters between San Mateo County and southern and eastern Alameda County, where BART does not cross the Bay.
The Project Study Report released Monday details the cost, construction, benefits and challenges of building a $278 million system, with 21 miles of track and three new stations.
The six-station line would carry 12 commuter trains and 4,800 passengers a day if it opened in 2010, concludes the report issued by the San Mateo County Transportation Authority. Work could begin next year.
A new Union City station would allow rail transfers to BART and the Amtrak Capitol Corridor service, and an improved Fremont/Centerville station would connect to the Altamont Commuter Express and the Capitol, while new stations in Newark and on Willow Road in East Palo Alto would provide new transit choices in those communities.
Each morning three East Bay trains would cross a trestle to replace the remnants of the 1908 span, and merge with Caltrain service near Redwood City. There, three trains would head north to South San Francisco and three south to San Jose.
Riders would pay between $2.03 and $2.15 per ride, covering a third of the $7.5 million annual operating cost.
The rest would be subsidized by an increase on Bay Area bridge tolls, if a majority of voters approve Regional Measure 2 next week. Measure 2 would bring tolls to $3 on seven state-owned bridges. It’s a critical vote for Dumbarton rail proponents, because it would also devote $135 million for construction of the track and stations.
The rest of the money would come from local county tax measures — $117 million from Alameda, San Mateo and Santa Clara voters, and $26 million from pledges of state cash.
Building the system presents safety and environmental challenges, according to the report. Because tracks would traverse seasonal wetlands and tidal salt marshes, nine threatened animal species would be disrupted, including the California red-legged frog, a harvest mouse and two kinds of vernal pool shrimp.
In 21 places, Dumbarton service would carry more trains past dangerous at-grade pedestrian crossings where tracks cross streets. Middlefield Road and University Avenue in Palo Alto and Fremont Boulevard in Fremont would see the most train traffic.
Initially, East Bay riders would derive relatively little benefit, beyond avoiding the Dumbarton Bridge.
In 2010, a train from Livermore to Stanford would take 30 minutes longer than solo driving, the rail report found. From Union City the train would take 65 minutes instead of 48 minutes on the road. But by 2025, the number of drivers over the bridge is expected to swell 40 percent, according to Metropolitan Transportation Commission estimates.
By then, train passengers from Livermore would save an hour to Stanford, half an hour to South San Francisco and three-quarters of an hour to San Jose. Union City riders would save about a quarter of an hour to most places.
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TRANSPORT CHALLENGE FOR AIRPORT EXPANSION
Birmingham Post
February 24, 2004
The biggest challenge facing Birmingham International Airport before it opens a second runway is improving its transport links, according to a leading planning barrister.
Birmingham-based Chris Young has a long track record of work on transport infrastructure projects and believes the Government has given BIA some tricky hurdles to negotiate before it can move forward with expansion plans scheduled for completion in the next ten years.
Last December, Transport Secretary Alistair Darling gave the second runway proposal initial approval in the Aviation White Paper. However, transport links represented two massive caveats.
Mr Young, who works from No 5 Chambers, Fountain Court, said: ‘Currently congestion is a huge problem between junctions 3 and 7 on the M42. This was highlighted in the White Paper and this needs to be considered within the proposal. Alongside that is the challenging target of 25 percent of passengers using the airport coming by public transport.
‘Such a modal shift towards bus and rail will require serious effort to achieve. Significant investment and very detailed proposals will have to be worked up before the final planning applications for the second runway can be submitted.’
BIA said 13.4 percent of passengers, staff and visitors currently arrived at the airport by public transport.
Passenger transport body Centro and Birmingham City Council are due to complete consultation on a metro line from the city centre to the airport via the A45 Coventry Road. However, this is one of five lines being looked at, with only one or two likely to get the go-ahead initially.
Mr Young said: ‘In my opinion this is a big issue for the airport — can they deliver a package which includes enough investment and opportunities for encouraging more people to decide against coming by car in favour of rail, light rail and bus? ‘The easy way to do that, in my view, would be to reduce the amount of car parking at the airport but I suspect that will not be an option favoured by the airport operator.’
Mr Young also highlighted the White Paper’s insistence that the congested M42 near the airport must be addressed. However, he suggested that whichever party pays for the scheme it might need lengthy negotiations. ‘The issue of widening the M42 is going to have to be looked at again before 2016. If the proposal does go further, whether or nor the airport itself will have to contribute to that expansion is a moot point. My guess is the Highways Agency would seek some contribution and the airport operator might not necessarily agree it should.’
A spokesman for the HA said the Department for Transport would co-ordinate any discussions over widening the M42, if and when they arose.
Richard Heard, managing director of BIA, said the target of 25 percent would be taken on board as part of the ongoing reviews of the airport’s masterplan and surface access strategy. ‘It is essential for the successful and sustainable operation of any airport that it is integrated with other forms of transport. Birmingham’s location gives it unique advantages in that respect and we will continue to work closely with all the other transport agencies and regional bodies.’
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Toll Road Bonds May Soon Be Junk; Wall Street rating firm says it will downgrade San Joaquin Hills if officials don’t act soon
Los Angeles Times
February 25, 2004
About $1.9 billion in bonds sold to finance the San Joaquin Hills tollway might be downgraded to junk status if nothing is done to prevent the failing west Orange County turnpike from sliding into default, a Wall Street ratings agency warned Tuesday.
Moody’s Investors Service notified the Transportation Corridor Agencies in Irvine that it would reconsider the San Joaquin’s Baa3 rating, which is Moody’s lowest investment grade. A decision could be made within 90 days.
“We have placed the toll road bonds on our watch list for possible downgrade,” said Maria Matesanz, Moody’s lead analyst for the San Joaquin Hills corridor. “This is not a good thing.”
Ratings are an important gauge of risk to investors because they indicate the ability of the issuing company or government agency to pay interest and principal. Financial experts say that downgrades to speculative ratings or so-called junk status can hurt individual investors and institutions, such as mutual funds, by lowering the market value of their bonds.
Analysts for the ratings agency said they took the action because TCA board members had postponed a decision on whether to merge the operations of the San Joaquin Hills and the successful Foothill-Eastern toll road in eastern Orange County.
The plan calls for the combined debt of the highways to be refinanced with a massive $4-billion bond issue at the current low interest rates.
Moody’s views the proposed merger as a way to keep the San Joaquin Hills from defaulting on its bonds. The toll road, which has seen lower than expected traffic and revenue, could be in the first stages of default by 2006.
Last week, TCA board members delayed the vote on the merger for as long as 50 days to evaluate other financing possibilities. An ad hoc committee is scheduled to meet Thursday to begin discussing the options.
“Since we began studying consolidation two years ago, we knew that a long-term financial solution for the San Joaquin Hills was needed,” said Clare Climaco, a TCA spokeswoman. The warning from Moody’s “puts us on notice that they will continue to closely watch the board’s actions.”
Over the last year, two other Wall Street rating agencies — Standard & Poor’s and Fitch IBCA — have lowered their ratings of San Joaquin Hills bonds to junk status. Moody’s is the only agency to retain its investment grade rating for all the San Joaquin Hills bonds.
PTP NOTE: According to the article below, Indianapolis planners have apparently predicted that: While AGT has the highest capital investment costs, it would offer the lowest operating costs of the three [AGT, light rail transit, and “bus rapid transit”]. It is the only system with the potential to recover all of its annual operating costs through rider fares.
It is useful to consider the latest US federal data available (Federal Transit Administration, 2002 National Transit Database) relating to the operating urban AGT (automated guideway) systems in Jacksonville, Detroit, and Miami:
AGT operating costs and revenue
Detroit — $4.85 per trip … $3.40 per p-m
Annual op. expense $10,597,896 … Fare revenue $766,995
Fare recovery: 7.2%
Miami — $3.69 per trip … $3.59 per p-m
Annual op. expense $17,571,665 … Fare revenue $440,830
Fare recovery: 2.5%
Jacksonville — $5.05 per trip … $14.46 per p-m
Annual op. expense $3,695,486 … Fare revenue $326,435
Fare recovery: 8.8%
For comparison, the nationwide operating cost and revenue data for bus and light rail (LRT):
Bus — $2.40 per trip … $0.60 per p-m
Annual op. expense $12,585.7 million … Fare revenue $3,731.3 million
Fare recovery: 29.6%
LRT — $2.30 per trip … $0.50 per p-m
Annual op. expense $778.3 million … Fare revenue $226.0 million
Fare recovery: 29.0%
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City seeks input for mass transit plans; One proposed route would pass through and even have stops on the campus.
The Sagamore — Indianapolis
Feb. 25, 2004
One corridor of a proposed region-wide rapid transit system could include stops on the IUPUI campus and possibly connect to the new student center to be built at the southwest corner of Michigan Street and University Boulevard.
That is one of several possible route alternatives presented by representatives of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Planning Organization at a public meeting in Zionsville Feb. 17.
The MPO has entered the second phase of its regional rapid transit study and has begun a series of public meetings to present possible routes and transit technology recommendations.
When the study concludes at the end of this year, the MPO should have enough data to determine whether a regional rapid transit system would be feasible. If it is, the organization would prepare a formal proposal.
The current plan envisions six primary corridors originating from a transit center in downtown Indianapolis and radiating northeast to Fishers, east to Cumberland, south to the Greenwood Park Mall, southwest to Indianapolis International Airport, west to Avon and northwest to Zionsville.
The Northwest Corridor could pass through the IUPUI campus before heading off to its final destination in Zionsville. Assuming that planning continues on schedule, the first increments of the system could begin construction within the next seven to 10 years.
The transit system could provide much needed relief from traffic and parking congestion on campus and help to facilitate future campus expansion.
“The ability for students and faculty to commute to campus from their homes without their cars is obviously a major benefit,” Philip Roth, said a senior planner with the Metropolitan Planning Organization. “The ability of the campus to expand beyond its current borders is somewhat limited,” he said. “The less space that has to be devoted to parking makes more space available for other improvements.”
Three transit systems, each with its own advantages and disadvantages are currently under consideration.
A Bus Rapid Transit system (BRT) would use standard buses traveling along fixed paths such as reserved lanes on streets and interstate highways. This system has the lowest capital investment costs, but higher operating costs and lower potential for riders.
A Light Rail System (LRT) could operate on existing rail lines as well as elevated tracks above city streets. The system can operate with either diesel powered or electrically powered cars. The LRT offers the highest passenger capacity, because cars can be easily added.
A third option under consideration is an Automated Guideway Transit system (AGT). AGT is a fully automated system that requires no operator. The system would operate on elevated tracks.
While AGT has the highest capital investment costs, it would offer the lowest operating costs of the three. It is the only system with the potential to recover all of its annual operating costs through rider fares.
The decision on what systems will ultimately be chosen will depend on more than capital and operating costs, however. Planners will have to consider how well each of the systems can integrate with the existing infrastructure, what power sources are available and most appropriate for the area as well as future expansion of the system.
They will also have to consider which systems would minimize environmental impact and displacements of persons or property.
The IUPUI campus will present several challenges. Planners will have to consider future campus development plans when selecting routes and systems. Some systems may not integrate well with existing roads, sidewalks and pathways, but MPO representatives believe that an automated guideway system would work best.
Columns for the elevated tracks could be run along the medians of campus streets and would be less obtrusive and expensive than an elevated track system for an LRT.
IU Vice Chancellor for Administration and Finance Robert Martin said he believes a rapid transit system will be a necessity for the city. “There simply has to be a way to manage transportation in a different way than exists today if growth continues in the center of the state and, particularly, if we are going to encourage growth,” he said.
On a larger scale, the members of the MPO believe a rapid transit system can benefit the entire central Indiana region. “The time to start planning for this is now,” Mike Dearing, the MPO’s Manager and Master Planner, said.
According to a 2003 urban mobility study conducted by the Texas Transportation Institute, Indianapolis motorists drive a combined 31.4 million miles a day, up 50 percent from 1990.
The study also shows that Indianapolis highways are congested during rush hour 66 percent of the time. “We’re running out of places to build highways,” Dearing said. Additional highway construction can only offer temporary relief from congestion. “It becomes a field of dreams,” Dearing said. “If you build it they will come, and then you’ve got more cars on the highways which means you’ll have more congestion than before”.
More cars on the highway also mean higher highway maintenance costs and higher demands on parking. Dearing estimates that adding one more lane all the way around I-465 would cost in excess of $1 billion.
The entire rapid transit system would cost between $2 and $2.5 billion with most of the tab picked up by the federal government.
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Judge stops SEPTA contract; $236M rail car pact halted till hearing
Daily News
February 25, 2004
A Philadelphia Common Pleas judge yesterday granted an emergency restraining order preventing the SEPTA board from awarding a $236 million contract for new rail cars.
Judge Matthew Carrafiello’s order will stop SEPTA from giving the nod at tomorrow’s board meeting to United Transit Systems (UTS), a consortium of the Korean Rotem Co. and Nissho Iwai American Corp.
The SEPTA staff has recommended that UTS — the lowest bidder and the recipient of influential backing — get the contract to build 104 new rail cars. The contract would create 140 factory jobs at the old Philadelphia Naval Yard.
Dick Sprague and William Lamb, attorneys for losing bidder Kawasaki Rail Car Inc., request-ed the temporary injunction in a hastily arranged hearing yester-day.
Sprague argued that the recommendation to hire UTS, or “Ro-tem,” its parent company, had been “rigged.” “One of our claims, which we will be able to prove when we get to a [hearing for a] preliminary injunction, was that, from the beginning, this thing was rigged to favor Rotem,” Sprague said.
Sprague said the bid specifications for the job had been changed in “mid-stream” in 2002 to accommodate UTS’ lack of specific experience in manufacturing stainless steel railcars “which comply with” federal regulations. Instead, Sprague told the judge, SEPTA opened the process to
companies that have “prior experience” with federal regulations.
UTS, he said, should have been knocked out of the process from the beginning because it failed to meet the original requirements. Kawasaki, a Japanese company, meets the more stringent requirement, he said.
Kawasaki’s bid was for $251 million, $14 million more than UTS’ proposal.
SEPTA attorney Penny Ellison said the language amendment had not been changed to favor UTS, but merely to clear up an “ambiguity” in the request for proposal documents. “It is a huge contract of immense importance to SEPTA,” she said. “… The last thing we want to do is spend $250 million and not get railcars that meet their specifications.”
Ellison said that if the language had not been changed in the contract, a strict reading would have knocked all bidders out of the process — including Kawasaki. “We went the conservative route,” she told the judge. “It’s a balancing, it’s a very delicate balancing.”
UTS has received support from Gov. Rendell and Mayor Street, who both want to add manufacturing jobs to the city.
The firm also is aligned with members of the local Korean community and some high-powered lobbyists, including former Street administration Chief of Staff Stephanie Franklin-Suber, former SEPTA general manager Jack Leary and state Republican party chairman Alan Novak.
Carrafiello scheduled March 15 for a hearing to consider a preliminary injunction.
TWO SIDES
SEPTA’S SIDE: The SEPTA staff has recommended that UTS-the lowest bidder and the recipient of influential backing-get the contract to build 104 new rail cars. The contract would create 140 factory jobs at the old Philadelphia Naval Yard.
KAWASAKi’S SIDE: Dick Sprague and William Lamb; attorneys for losing bidder
Kawasaki Rail Car Inc, requested the temporary injunction in a hastily arranged hearing yesterday. “One of our claims, which we will be able to prove when we get to a (hearing for a) preliminary injunction, was that, from the beginning, this thing was rigged to favor Rotem,” Sprague said.
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Sound Transit signs light rail contract
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
February 25, 2004
After nearly two months of delay because of a bid protest, Sound Transit yesterday signed a $128 million contract with RCI-Herzog to build the 4.3- mile Rainier Valley segment of Seattle’s 14-mile light rail line.
Attorneys for Rainier Valley Constructors, the company that had sued Sound Transit over its decision to award the contract to RCI-Herzog, did not file a motion by a 5 p.m. deadline yesterday to overturn the ruling Monday of a commissioner of the state Court of Appeals.
As a result, an injunction that had barred Sound Transit from signing the contract expired, and it was free to sign the contract that it had intended to sign in December or early January.
Construction already has started on the first part of the light rail line between the downtown transit tunnel and Beacon Hill. Work on the Rainier Valley section will start this spring. The boring of the Beacon Hill tunnel and construction of the Beacon Hill and McClellan stations is expected to start this summer. And in the fall, workers will begin digging a short cut-and-cover tunnel on Pine Street downtown.
“Sound Transit is moving ahead aggressively to build this important element of the regional mass-transit system that the voters mandated,” said Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg, chairman of the Sound Transit board.
RCI-Herzog is a joint venture of Robison Construction of Sumner and Herzog Contracting of St. Joseph, Mo.
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US CENSUS BUREAU: New York has longest commute to work in nation, American Community Survey finds
M2 PRESSWIRE
February 25, 2004
New York City residents spend an average of about one full week a year getting to work — the longest commute time in the nation among large cities, according to a new ranking of American Community Survey data released today by the U.S. Census Bureau.
New York City residents take an average of 38.4 minutes to get to work each day — more than five minutes longer than Chicagoans, who face a commute of 32.7 minutes.
Other large cities with populations of 250,000 or more with long commutes include Philadelphia (30.3 minutes), Riverside, Calif. (29.8), Baltimore (29.7), Washington, D.C. (29.4), San Francisco (29.2), Oakland, Calif. (29.1), Los Angeles (28.5) and Boston (28.2). (See Table 1.)
“Planners and policy-makers have told us that they need these data to develop a local transportation infrastructure,” said Census Bureau Director Louis Kincannon. “Commuting trends are critical as a city decides whether to increase its public transportation or build new roads.”
Of the 231 counties ranked in the American Community Survey, four of New York City’s five boroughs — Bronx (41.8 minutes), Queens (41.4), Richmond (Staten Island) (41.2) and Kings (Brooklyn) (39.9) — have the longest commute times by far. Other counties in the New York metropolitan area with long average commute times include: Nassau in New York (34.1) and Monmouth in New Jersey (32.4). Additionally, three counties neighboring Washington, D.C., also face long commutes: Prince William, Va. (35.5); and Prince George’s (34.6) and Montgomery, Md. (30.9). (See Table 2.)
States with some of the longest commute times are New York (30.8 minutes), Maryland (30.0), New Jersey (28.3), Illinois (26.7) and California (26.6) — all above the national average of 24.4 minutes. States with the shortest commute times are North Dakota (14.8 minutes), South Dakota (15.0), Nebraska (16.1) and Montana (16.7).
Other survey highlights:
- Approximately two-thirds of states have shorter commute-to-work times than the national average of 24.4 minutes.
- Lancaster County, Neb. (15.8 minutes), Erie County, Pa. (16.5), and Polk County, Iowa (16.9), have some of the shortest commutes among counties surveyed.
- Only a handful of large cities have an average commute of 20 minutes or less; these include Toledo, Ohio (18.1 minutes), Lexington, Ky. (18.0), Oklahoma City, Okla. (17.8), Omaha, Neb. (17.3), Tulsa, Okla. (16.8) and Wichita, Kan. (16.5).
The American Community Survey annually provides communities with socio-economic data previously available every 10 years. The survey will be conducted monthly in every county in the country beginning in July 2004, eliminating the need for the census long form in 2010.
The findings are based on responses from a sample of households interviewed in 2002. As with all surveys, the estimates and rankings may vary from the actual values because of sampling or nonsampling variations. The above statements have undergone statistical testing, and comparisons are significant at the 90 percent confidence level.
10 Largest Cities Average Total Days Spent Commuting To Work: New York-6.7; Los Angeles-4.9; Chicago-5.7; Houston-4.4; Philadelpia-5.3; Phoenix-4.3; San Diego-3.9; Dallas-4.4; San Antonio-4.1; Detroit-4.3 *Assumes 250 workdays per year Source: American Community Survey 2002, US Census Bureau
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Our say:Chinese decision becomes factor in Maglev debate
The Maryland Gazette
February 25, 2004
GLOBALIZATION marches on. You wouldn’t think a state legislator would be monitoring Chinese government decisions on rail systems. But state Sen. Ed DeGrange of Glen Burnie is doing just that — because this ties in with the ongoing effort to have a magnetic levitation train route slice through parts of northern and western Anne Arundel County.
Maglev’s backers would like to see the federal government spend more than $3 billion — with Maryland, according to the last estimates, kicking in something like $500 million — to put a route between Washington and Baltimore, with a stop at Baltimore-Washington International Airport.
Trains would streak between the two cities in 20 minutes. Ticket prices, estimated at $52 for a round trip, would make the system suitable for joyriding tourists and a few expense-account business travelers, but not local commuters.
As we’ve said in this space before, it makes no sense for the federal government to spend money on this when it can’t even put enough in its budget to properly maintain the Amtrak system.
It makes even less sense for fiscally stressed Maryland to think of putting a single cent into it now — and the Ehrlich administration, to its credit, seems to be aware of this. There’s no state money for Maglev in this year’s budget. (Last year, Mr. DeGrange got language inserted in the budget to bar such funding.)
The governor, however, also seems to want the door left open for Maglev.
So far, Maglev technology has never been commercially practical. The one project advocates can point to is an 18-mile, $1.2 billion system connecting Shanghai to that city’s new airport. Opened on Jan. 1, this system was supposed to be the pilot project for a Maglev line between Shanghai and Beijing.
But shortly after the airport line opened, Chinese officials reportedly dropped the idea of using Maglev for the Shanghai-Beijing rail link. According to Chinese sources, quoted in stories by the Associated Press and on the People’s Daily Web site, Maglev was deemed impractical, as it is incompatible with existing railroads — not to mention expensive.
No kidding. Isn’t that exactly what opponents of this monstrosity have been claiming for years?
Wrote Mr. DeGrange to state Secretary of Transportation Robert Flanagan: “If this doesn’t prove Maglev is an expensive disaster, I don’t know what will.”
Not so fast, Mr. Flanagan cautioned — the report the senator is using may not be accurate, and the department is still carefully scrutinizing Maglev.
In any case, no one can expect Mr. Flanagan and his federal counterparts to base their decisions wholly on what the Chinese do. This country is far richer than China. But it didn’t get that way by having the government spend billions on unnecessary pilot programs while deficits were rising and basic services decayed.
No decision in China — or Annapolis, or Washington — will entirely kill Maglev. A project with adherents in the bureaucracy always finds a way to crawl back into budgets, sooner or later. Local legislators will just have to keep an eye out.
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Bombardier awarded $208-million maintenance services contract by Spanish National Railways
M2 PRESSWIRE
February 25, 2004
Montreal: A consortium comprising Bombardier Transportation and Patentes Talgo was awarded a $433-million Cdn (258 million Euros) services contract by the Spanish National Railways (RENFE).
Bombardier’s share in the contract is approximately $208 million Cdn (124 million Euros). Under the contract, Bombardier and Patentes Talgo will maintain RENFE’s fleet of 16 AVE* 102 very high-speed trains for a period of 14 years.
During the announcement, Rik Dobbelaere, President, Services, Bombardier Transportation, said “This award, which encompasses one of the most advanced very-high speed trains in the world, contributes to consolidate Bombardier’s leadership position in the services area of our business.” Within this services contract Bombardier will be responsible for the preventive and corrective maintenance of the train power heads, power supply, signalling and propulsion system and auxiliaries.
Bombardier, together with Talgo, is currently producing RENFE’s fleet of 16 AVE 102 trains which will be used on Spain’s high-speed line which runs between Madrid, Barcelona and the French border town of Le Perthus. Deliveries of the trains started in October 2003 and are scheduled to end in December 2004. Bombardier Transportation’s scope of supply within the vehicle production comprises of the development and manufacture of the lightweight very-high-speed power heads, including all electrical equipment, propulsion system and bogies. Bombardier also participates in the final assembly and testing of the trainsets.
The characteristic shape of the AVE 102 power head was developed in a wind tunnel. Its special design decreases the pressure waves that occur when a train passes through tunnels and reduces the effect of crosswinds. Although certified for a maximum speed of 330 km/h (per contractual request) the AVE 102 still holds considerable reserves: in December 2002 the pre-series train, developed by Bombardier and Talgo, set the railway speed record in Spain, reaching a top speed of 362 km/h.
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Planners OK buying 16 trains for $53 million; City Council members confident federal dollars will come through
Charlotte Observer
February 26, 2004
The California firm that built light-rail trains for Houston, St. Louis, Los Angeles, Portland and San Diego is the top choice to furnish trains for the south Charlotte line.
The Metropolitan Transit Commission voted unanimously Wednesday night to recommend the purchase of 16 trains from Siemens Transportation Systems for $53 million.
The price was lower than expected. Charlotte Area Transit System expected to get 15 trains for that amount, transit chief Ron Tober said.
Even though the federal government has not yet committed to paying half the line’s cost, transit commissioners felt strongly that the money would come through.
So does the Charlotte City Council, which will vote on the train contract on March 22. A majority of the council told The Observer earlier on Wednesday that they would buy the trains. Council member Susan Burgess said CATS officials believe they have, at worst, a 98 percent chance of receiving federal money to pay half the line’s cost. “I’m not much of a gambler, but those are good odds,” Burgess said.
Tober had expected the Federal Transit Administration would recommended CATS for a formal contract that promises to pay half the south Charlotte’s line’s cost. But that federal agency put Charlotte on a waiting list of sorts, saying its plans were not far enough along. Tober hopes to reverse that decision later this year and win a federal commitment.
CATS wants to order the trains next month so it can stay on schedule to have them running by October 2006. That means it will be ordering the trains before it knows for sure if the FTA will pay half the $371 million line’s cost.
Tober said he expects a letter from the FTA next week stating that the train purchase would be eligible for reimbursement with federal money — if that agency decides this fall to approve about $185 million for CATS.
Council members said they would not buy the trains if the FTA does not provide that letter.
The $185 million would be paid out over about five years. CATS has already received $40 million and President Bush has recommended Congress appropriate $30 million more.
CATS plans to seek a short-term $105 million loan, which will be used to buy the trains and start building a garage for them. That loan would be repaid with federal and state money. CATS and the state would each pay one-quarter of the line’s cost.
The electric trains will be silver with blue and black accents. They can be operated as one-, two- and three-car trains, with each car large enough to seat 68 passengers or carry up to 236 if most of them stand. The trains will have low floors so passengers can step directly onto the vehicles. CATS has an option to buy 25 more trains.
The first train would be delivered in late 2005, and the others would arrive on a staggered schedule until passenger service starts in October 2006.
The 9.6-mile line runs along South Boulevard next to the freight track and will connect uptown to Interstate 485.
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Sprawl Is on Ballot in Calif. County
Associated Press
February 26, 2004
SAN DIEGO — Voters in one of the nation’s hottest housing markets will decide Tuesday whether to protect open spaces from the crush of advancing housing developments.
The Rural Lands Initiative would put a 20-year ban on the subdivision of more than 1,000 square miles of unincorporated land in eastern and northern San Diego County. Any new developments would require voter approval in future elections.
Supporters argue it would slow sprawl and help protect the environment and the quality of life in San Diego, where civic boosters pride themselves on being “south of Southern California” and its endless suburbs. “The issue is this: Are we going to really build beautiful and livable cities or are we going to create this junkyard of sprawl?” said Duncan McFetridge, a woodworker and rural resident who is spearheading the initiative.
Farmers, rural residents and the real estate industry oppose the measure, complaining it allows urban voters to dictate land-use decisions affecting rural communities and derails a county growth plan that has been in the works for years. “It’s grand theft. Period,” said San Diego County Supervisor Bill Horn. “It’s taking land and removing the ability to use that land for about 20 years without any compensation.”
Firefighters who battled a wildfire that roared through San Diego County last fall said growth in rural, fire-prone areas forced them to save homes instead of containing the blaze. The blaze killed 15 people and destroyed 2,200 homes.
The measure would redirect growth back into existing communities by setting minimum size allotments of 40 acres to 160 acres in the “backcountry” — an area of dry hills, farms and brush-covered mountains. County voters rejected a similar proposal in 1998, but McFetridge said
residents have since soured on sprawl.
Over the past six years, more people have flocked to San Diego, median home prices have doubled to more than $400,000 and more than 45,000 rural acres have been marked for development, supporters of the initiative said. Air quality, beach pollution and traffic have all gotten worse, McFetridge said.
As concern over sprawl has mounted across the West, voters and governments have taken action. Utah has a private-public partnership to manage growth and curb sprawl in the state’s 10 largest counties. Portland, Ore., became a national model for curbing sprawl in 1979, when planners drew a line beyond which homes could not be built. Last year, voters in 23 states approved nearly 100 conservation-related ballot measures, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Land Trust Alliance.
Since 1986, voters in four California counties have approved anti-sprawl measures similar to the one proposed for San Diego.
Ventura County Supervisor Steve Bennett, who championed the county’s successful 1998 initiative to thwart Los Angeles’ advancing sprawl, said voters make better planners than elected officials in Southern California. “The development industry is just too good at buying the votes they need at the local government level,” Bennett said. “There’s too much money involved. There’s too much political pressure involved.”
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Metro eager to extend rail; Seeking community input on plans for North line extension
Houston Chronicle
February 26, 2004
Trains have been carrying passengers on the Main Street light rail line for only two months, but Metro is already eager to get comments on the next segment it wants to build.
The transit authority is conducting a public meeting from 9 to 11 a.m. Saturday in the near northside on the 5 1/2-mile rail extension from the University of Houston-Downtown — the northern end of the existing track — to Northline Mall. It’s the first open house on rail expansion since voters approved a 22-year transit plan in November, the centerpiece of which is adding 73 miles of rail by 2025.
The Northline segment will be the first segment added to the current 7 1/2-mile line. Under a first-step planning process that concluded last year, planners have sketched a zigzagging route along six streets. The tracks would head north along Main from UH-Downtown through heavily Hispanic neighborhoods to the North Loop, then stop at Northline Mall. They would later be expanded farther north to Greenspoint and Bush Intercontinental Airport.
The Metropolitan Transit Authority is putting together a draft environmental impact statement on the corridor this year, which includes obtaining feedback from the community regarding how to mitigate any negative effects the rail line could create. That might include adjusting the route.
“This is an effort to continue a community outreach toward gaining consensus from the community as to the final location of where we would make our transit improvements,” said John Sedlak, the Metro vice president who oversees planning. “If the community has feelings that it really likes a particular location, not only for the line but for a station, that’s want we want to hear.”
The current concept includes five stations. They would be at Main/Quitman, Irvington/Patton, Fulton/Cavalcade, the North Loop and the mall. Metro’s schedule calls for starting construction of the $309 million extension in mid-2006 and running trains beginning in 2008.
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A billion would go further for Long Island
Newsday (New York
February 26, 2004
To paraphrase Winston Churchill, “Never would so much be spent for so little benefit.”
That’s my reaction to the recent decision of the Port Authority, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. and the Empire State Development Corp. to review four options for providing new mass transportation service to Lower Manhattan. Each option would cost more than $1 billion, provide no significant economic benefit to Long Island, and use up scarce federal and state funds that really could help both Long Island’s transportation system and our economy.
It is understandable that after 9/11 state and city officials want to provide new transit service to lower Manhattan. But fewer than 5,000 Nassau and Suffolk residents who currently work in lower Manhattan use mass transit. Spending $1 billion to improve the commute for so few people would make sense only if there were no better use for all that money.
But we know from our experience that there are other projects that would benefit far more people than just those from Long Island who work in Lower Manhattan. And before the funds are finally allocated, the Long Island Association has come up with a priority list of transportation projects to consider that clearly are more important to our region’s overall development than the lower Manhattan projects. They include:
Construction of a third track on the mainline of the Long Island Rail Road. This is the most important transportation project on Long Island. It has been studied by the MTA since 1988 but construction has yet to begin. A third track is urgently needed to permit significant mass-transit reverse commuting, which would provide Long Island employers access to many more skilled workers in New York City. The third-track project also would permit increased regular LIRR service, add capacity for passenger and freight service, and implement grade crossings at various roadway intersections to allow for better and safer service.
Completion of East Side Access to allow the LIRR to provide service directly into Grand Central Station. That project, which has begun but is not completely funded, would allow more than 60,000 Long Islanders to commute directly to the East Side of Manhattan every day.
Construction of a new freight tunnel between New Jersey and Brooklyn would finally allow Long Island to use modern rail freight systems that we cannot employ now because of the lack of a direct connection from Long Island to the national rail-freight network. Currently, more than 97 percent of all freight coming in and out of Nassau and Suffolk counties is transported by truck, the largest percentage of any metropolitan area in the country.
The development of the Nassau Hub area into a transit-friendly area of shops, office buildings and a new Nassau Coliseum. The Hub area generates more than 50 percent of all of the economic activity in Nassau County. The project has been discussed for the past 10 years and is still in the planning stages.
The development of Route 347 on the North Shore of Suffolk County into a major Long Island arterial highway. That is what it was designed to be almost 40 years ago. This project has now been delayed three times in the last 10 years because of funding constraints. Limited construction is planned for 2009, but that may only continue to aggravate traffic congestion, both on Route 347 and many surrounding local roadways.
These five projects are far more important to Long Island’s future than anything that would hasten a few thousand commuters to their jobs in Lower Manhattan. We need to help more workers move from New York City to Long Island jobs. That would help us offset the Island’s “brain drain.” We need to take freight off our highways and join the nation’s rail-freight system. We need to unclog our river crossings and develop better transportation systems within our major commercial areas. These are all things Long Island needs. And they shouldn’t have to take a backseat to helping just Lower Manhattan.
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City News Service LOS ANGELES
City News Service
February 26, 2004
The MTA board today voted to give higher priority to the Mid-City/Exposition light rail line than the Wilshire Boulevard rapid transit bus line in another agency’s report to federal transit officials.
The Wilshire project, which would dedicate right-hand lanes on the boulevard for buses only, was moved down partly because city officials have raised concerns on behalf of merchants in that area. Business owners fear their customers would have fewer parking spots, said Marc Littman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. On Monday, MTA drivers will begin a dry-run in West Los Angeles. The buses will have exclusive access to the curbside lanes from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. and from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., Monday through Friday, on a 13-block stretch of Wilshire, between Federal and Centinela avenues.
The Mid-City/Exposition line has been a priority for more than a decade, and that will be reflected in the Southern California Association of Governments report to the Federal Transit Administration. Under the plan, an above-ground light rail would be built from downtown to Santa Monica, thereby pulling the Westside into the Metro system. But the FTA, the funding arm of the U.S. Department of Transportation, has concerns about the project. The MTA might have insufficient money for construction — even with federal assistance — not to mention operational costs. Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke suggested the MTA try first to get funding to take the rail from downtown to Culver City.
Although the board supported the Exposition line over the bus plan, some MTA directors wanted additional changes to the report. Duarte City Councilman John Fasana — with the backing of Supervisor Mike Antonovich and Lancaster Mayor Frank Roberts — submitted an amendment that would classify a Metro Gold Line extension from Pasadena to Montclair as equally important as the Expo line. Los Angeles City Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa, another MTA member, said he understood that Fasana was looking out for his constituents, but that the Expo Line has been one of the top light rail projects since 1992. Supervisor Gloria Molina said the board should focus on what’s best for regional mobility as a whole. Fasana’s amendment was sent to the MTA planning committee.
Construction on the Metro Gold Line extension into East Los Angeles is expected to start in June, said Littman. The MTA is waiting on a federal grant that would pay about $490 million of the estimated $898 million project. Congress is expected to review the funding request next month, Littman said. The project is expected to be completed in 2009.
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PROVEN MAX CONTRACTORS WILL DESIGN THE I-205 LINE
The Oregonian
February 26, 2004
Summary: Companies that finished the Interstate line early are in the joint venture that wins the contract
With construction on the Interstate MAX coming in under budget and four months early, TriMet’s board of directors agreed unanimously Wednesday to use the same contractors on the first phase of the upcoming I-205 light rail project, slated to begin in 2006.
The innovative design-build contract that will be used in the I-205 MAX project combines both design and construction under one contract, said Neil McFarlane, executive director of capital projects.
It is modeled after a similar approach used in construction of the Interstate MAX, which was completed at $23 million under budget and four months ahead of schedule. TriMet also used design-build contracting on the Airport MAX line.
The contract for the initial design phase of the I-205 line was awarded to South Corridor Constructors Joint Venture. Its bid, $678,060, was far below the second-lowest bid, $1.67 million by Kiewit.
South Corridor’s total bid, $9.86 million for design and construction management for the entire project, was the lowest of the four bidders’. Wednesday, however, TriMet awarded only the initial design phase.
South Corridor comprises F.E. Ward Constructors and Stacy and Witbeck Inc., both of which worked on Interstate MAX, and Granite Construction Co.
F.E. Ward, based in Vancouver, worked on the 1.1-mile stretch of the Interstate MAX from Kenton to the Expo Center.
Stacy and Witbeck, based in the San Francisco Bay Area, was the general contractor on 4.7 miles of the Interstate MAX project, from the Rose Quarter to Kenton. The company also built the Portland Streetcar, which is not part of the TriMet system, under a design-build contract.
Granite has worked on rail transit projects in the San Francisco and Los Angeles areas but has not done any work in Portland, said Mary Fetsch, TriMet communications director.
TriMet officials, pleased with the work done by the two companies on Interstate MAX, hope to repeat the success in the I-205 project, which will run 6.7 miles to connect the Gateway Transit Center to Clackamas Town Center. Eight stations and five parking lots will be built along the line. “We do rely on a track record,” said TriMet general manager Fred Hansen. “These are the two firms that delivered the Interstate MAX, and I think we’re happy.”
Although federal money has yet to be granted for the $325 million project, TriMet officials say they are confident of funding. Federal grants will cover 60 percent of the project.
The I-205 project will be financed together with the Portland transit mall project, which will bring light rail to Fifth and Sixth avenues in downtown Portland. MAX riders will be able to go from Clackamas Town Center to Portland State University.
The transit mall portion of the project will cost $150 million, for a total of $475 million. Federal grants are expected to bring in $285 million.
The construction of the two projects, however, will be handled separately, McFarlane said. “Financially, they are tied together, but they call for very different approaches in construction,” he said.
Because of its complexity and its urban setting, the mall project will require a traditional approach of separate contracts for design and construction, he said.
Construction on the mall will coincide with construction of I-205 MAX in 2006, with completion projected in 2009.
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PLANNERS WINNOW SOUTHWARD ROUTES/ SURVIVORS LIE ALONG RAIL TRACKS, RIVER DES PERES AND WATSON ROAD
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri)
February 26, 2004
Planners of a MetroLink expansion in south St. Louis County have made it official: They will study long routes mainly along the River Des Peres or Burlington Northern railroad tracks and a short route mainly along Watson Road. They will drop routes that would have run mainly along Laclede Station and Tesson Ferry roads and along Mackenzie and Reavis Barracks roads.
For more than a month, the planners have said that they may make that decision. But they said that they wanted to have several meetings with officials from the area before making the decision final. The last of the meetings, with officials of municipalities in south St. Louis County, was on Feb. 11.
Nothing that participants said at the meetings made the planners change their minds, says Justin Carney, deputy project manager. The other meetings were with officials in St. Louis and Shrewsbury.
The planners, who work for the East-West Gateway Coordinating Council, will add details to the routes they have selected and estimate the cost of building them.
For example, they would consider on which sides of the River Des Peres and Burlington Northern right of way the MetroLink line should run, Carney says.
The planners hope to recommend a route to East-West Gateway directors by their meeting in July. After directors approve a route, the council would ask the federal government for money.
Neither federal money nor local funds to match it are available for that project. If Metro’s current financial situation continues, the agency would be unable to finance the southern extension for about 30 years because it has committed sales-tax money to retire bonds for an extension from Forest Park to Shrewsbury that is now under construction. If money became available, the southern expansion could open in 2012, Carney told Lakeshire officials last November.
The longer routes would run either along the Burlington Northern right of way or the River Des Peres, to Interstate 55 and then to Butler Hill Road. The short route would go about 1 1/2 miles from the Lansdowne station at the end of a MetroLink extension now under construction to the Kenrick Plaza shopping center on Watson Road.
Gus Nelson, a trustee of Grantwood Village and the village clerk, last week told the trustees about the planners’ decision. Along with officials from Green Park, Lakeshire and Marlborough, he met with the planners on Feb. 11.
Grantwood Village objected to the route that would have gone along Laclede Station Road. “It’s permanently over, as far as Grantwood Village is concerned,” he said.
After the meeting, Nelson said the municipality had distributed surveys to Grantwood Village residents, so that the residents could send them to MetroLink. Nelson said he believed that the responses by Grantwood Village residents to the survey had played a role in MetroLink’s decision to abandon the proposed route.
Carney said the planners would have workshops on station design in March. At their meeting with the planners, St. Louis officials had suggested a station near River Des Peres and Morganford Road, he said. The meeting with Shrewsbury officials had yielded information on how the short route could promote development around Kenrick Plaza, he said. The planners would have public meetings in the open-house style, to show the pu blic the latest version of their plans before they make a recommendation to East-West Gateway directors. Planners have not determined the dates of these meetings
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Hong Kong to wed rail to subway; Merger would unite transit system with trains to mainland
The International Herald Tribune
February 26, 2004
The government here announced plans Tuesday for the publicly traded mass-transit system to merge with Kowloon Canton Railway Corp., one of the most famous railroads in Asia.
KCRC, as it is now known, has its roots in the construction a century ago of the railroad from the Kowloon Peninsula up along the Pearl River to Canton, which is now known as Guangzhou. Japanese armies battled Chinese Nationalist and Communist forces repeatedly through the late 1930s and much of World War II for control of the route, said Philip Snow, a historian of Hong Kong.
The Hong Kong border with mainland China was heavily guarded and sometimes closed during much of Mao’s rule of China, but the railroad bridge over the Shenzhen River at the border remained in use for freight and served as Hong Kong’s lifeline for food imports.
Britain handed Hong Kong over to Chinese control in 1997, and while Hong Kong and the mainland maintain separate immigration procedures, the border has become one of the world’s busiest land crossings, with most people crossing on foot or by car or bus. But passenger trains still creep slowly across the aging railway bridge, past barbed wire and guards who check for anyone trying to slip across without proper papers.
On Tuesday, Hong Kong officials called for MTR, the mass-transit system that is 76 percent-owned by the local government, with the other 24 percent publicly owned, to conclude merger talks by the end of August with KCRC, which is entirely owned by the Chinese government. MTR has 400,000 shareholders in a region of 6.8 million people because the Hong Kong government has encouraged retail ownership of its stock.
Hong Kong’s financial secretary, Henry Tang, said that those shareholders would cast the deciding vote on whether to complete the merger and that the government had no intention of buying them out. “I think this is a very democratic process,” he said.
Mary Ellen Olson, a credit analyst at Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services, said a merger would help both companies by reducing competition and possibly making room for cost savings. MTR is starting to expand on the mainland as well, having reached a deal last month to invest $725 million in the construction and operation of a subway line across the border in Shenzhen.
Tang said the government would approve a deal only if it was in the interest of the public. A common complaint now is that people who ride the city’s rail system, operated by KCRC, and connect to the subway system, run by MTR, must pay two separate fares, and Tang said this would be addressed.
There has been frequent speculation here that Hong Kong might sell more of its stake in MTR to reduce its budget deficit, which is equal to nearly a third of government spending. Tang said that the merger was not intended as a budgetary measure but that the final structure of a merger might be to the government’s benefit. “We are not looking for any short-term monetary gain from it,” he said, “although we will probably end up with some.”
KCRC owns the railway up to the Chinese border. Britain obtained permission from Beijing in 1898 to build a railroad from Hong Kong to Canton, as part of the same treaty that granted Britain a 99-year lease on the New Territories. The British finally completed the project in 1911 after an agreement that allowed the Chinese provincial government to operate the railroad, with British help, on the Chinese side.
The railway terminus originally was next to the Star Ferry terminal, on the Kowloon side. The clock tower, all that survives at the site, is one of Hong Kong’s most famous landmarks
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Horns’ sound could be off: Federal rule would allow locales to stop whistles, but some fear the plan would put many in danger
Newsday (New York)
February 27, 2004
Ruth Divis can’t hold a conversation in her Bayport yard any time a passing Long Island Rail Road train sounds its horn. “The bad part is there are five crossings and they are always blowing these things,” she said.
A newly proposed requirement by the federal government could offer a respite to residents who live near grade crossings. The Federal Railroad Administration, in a ruling that would take effect Dec. 18, is proposing the creation of “quiet zones” that would supersede state law requiring trains to sound their horns before approaching a grade crossing.
“Train horns are important safety devices, but they also can be a nuisance for residents,” said U.S. Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta. “This rule means less noise for millions of Americans living near railroad crossings.”
But some transit watchers, and even those who have complained in the past about horn noise, also worry about safety. Divis, for example, would like to see a quieter horn but not for it to disappear entirely. “As much as I would love to have no horn, I live on a street that kids come from the high school and they are absolutely the most irresponsible drivers that I have ever met,” she said, adding she fears an accident. “I wouldn’t want that on my conscience.”
Joan Nemarich, an Old Bethpage resident who has been lobbying the railroad and local municipalities to improve crossings, said relaxing the existing requirement is a mistake. “There are a lot of people who don’t pay attention until they hear the horn blasting,” she said. “It’s important to sound the horn when the train comes in, it alerts people.”
It is up to the local municipalities that maintain the roads at grade crossings to request quiet zones, and a number of safety requirements must be taken into consideration.
New quiet zones must have flashing lights and gates at all public highway-rail grade crossings. Each highway approach must have an advance warning sign advising motorists train horns are not sounded at the crossing.
While grade crossing could qualify for quiet zone designation, engineering improvements may be necessary, too, such as gate upgrades and road changes.
Municipalities would be responsible for paying for any upgrades or safety enhancements to have such a zone. The cost for each grade crossing could be in the millions.
LIRR president James Dermody said he is unaware of any local governments on Long Island that have requested such zones so far. “I think if done properly it might be a good idea,” Dermody said. “I think you are going to see some people try for it, but I know it’s going to be expensive.”
Mark Cuthbertson, a Huntington Town Board member, said the town has received numerous horn-noise complaints and will look into quiet zones. “We don’t want to compromise safety, but we want to see if there is a way to mitigate noise,” he said.
Town of Oyster Bay officials said the town attorney is researching the proposal.
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Study will assess need for MetroLink
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri
February 27, 2004
A $175,000 study will determine whether Madison County needs MetroLink service despite voters’ opposition to the idea in the past.
URS Corp. will conduct the study, which was approved by the East-West Gateway Coordinating Council during its monthly meeting Wednesday. The Madison County Transit District will pay for the study, which is expected to take up to 18 months.
Officials have said there are two probable routes. Both would start just east of the Emerson Park station in East St. Louis and head into Granite City, Madison and Venice.
In November 1997, voters rejected a sales tax for such an expansion.
Madison County Board Chairman Alan Dunstan said he would consider pushing for a quarter-cent tax next year to help finance a MetroLink expansion.
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Go Metro to Avoid High Price of Gasoline; Metro is a More Cost-Effective Alternative as Gasoline Prices Spike To More Than $2 Per Gallon
Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority
February 27, 2004
Is filling your gas tank draining your pocketbook? As the prices for regular unleaded gasoline spiked above $2 per gallon, Metro Bus and Rail and Metro rideshare options are an even more attractive solution for anyone seeking to avoid paying rising fuel costs.
According to the Automobile Club of Southern California, gasoline prices in Southern California have climbed for seven consecutive weeks. Gasoline prices are expected to remain at the $2 per gallon level or move higher for the rest of the year as oil refineries move to retool their fuel-making operations and the wholesale oil market remains tight.
Why not “Go Metro” instead? L.A. County’s expansive Metro transportation system gives daily commuters the option to rethink how they get around L.A. using Metro’s 74 miles of rail lines and 180 bus lines. Services connect people from Pasadena, Long Beach, El Segundo, Norwalk, the San Fernando Valley, Hollywood and downtown L.A. and points in between.
A one-way cash fare for Metro is just $1.25. Weekly and monthly fares are $14 and $52, respectively. Transit riders can easily navigate the Metro system for $3 a day using the Metro Day Pass. Unveiled January 1, the pass gives riders carte blanche access to Metro’s 2,400 buses and Metro Red, Green, Blue and Gold Lines from the time of purchase until 2 a.m. the next day. Riders now have the flexibility to jump on and off the system as their needs require without having to buy transfers. In comparison, the same $3 now buys only 1.5 gallons of gasoline. A vehicle that gets 19 miles per gallon can only travel 28.5 miles for the same cost.
“There is no better time to start thinking about lower-cost transportation alternatives,” said Roger Snoble, CEO, Metro. “Those who choose to take public transit or to share a ride can, over time, save substantial sums of money in fuel and vehicle operation and maintenance costs. It’s the best way to combat the high fuel prices we’re experiencing today.”
Metro supports many programs and incentives for working commuters to use public transit and to explore other rideshare options such as carpooling, vanpooling, bicycling, and telecommuting.
A variety of Metro Pass options are available to employers whose employees are interested in taking public transit. Both employers and employees may take advantage of federal tax incentives under this program.
Metro’s carpool and vanpool programs provide tools, information and marketing support for arranging company ridesharing. Prospective ridesharers can access a regionwide ridematching and park and ride database sponsored by Metro and other county transportation agencies.
Available at www.ridematch.info , the site provides match lists, maps and other resources needed to initiate rideshare relationships. There are about 190,000 participants in the database who are either ridesharing or interested in finding rideshare partners.
Metro has a similar program for public, private and charter schools and school districts. Called “Metro School Pool,” the program provides an database of families interested in forming or joining a carpool at specific elementary and secondary school campuses within L.A. County.
Metro also encourages bicycling for short distance commuting and connecting with Metro Bus and Rail stations. Bicycles can be brought onboard trains with some restrictions, and many Metro Buses are equipped with bike racks.� No bike permits are required on buses or trains.
Metro promotes a Guaranteed Ride Home Program that gives employees who normally take public transit or rideshare to and from work the opportunity to get home in case of emergency or unexpected overtime.� The program pays for a guaranteed taxi ride to eligible employees free of charge.
Telecommuting is another strategy available to employers to meet trip reduction requirements, decrease absenteeism and reduce overhead expenses. Metro provides employers with telecommuting resources and offers a list of consultants specializing in these types of programs.
Metro rideshare incentives range from $5 gift cards from a famous coffee house to other cash incentives up to $120 (certain restrictions apply).
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MTA TO BORROW TO KEEP PROJECTS ROLLING; $1.7 BILLION PRIORITY LIST SAFEGUARDS WORK DESPITE CUTS MADE BY GOVERNOR
The Daily News of Los Angeles
February 27, 2004
The MTA board approved a $1.7 billion priority list Thursday that salvages freeway and transit improvements by borrowing money to protect against anticipated state budget cuts.
The agency will borrow $360 million from future sales and gas tax revenues to avoid postponing transportation projects that officials expect can bring jobs and gridlock relief. “This begins to mitigate a severe shortfall,” MTA programming director David Yale said after the meeting. “But it doesn’t solve all of our problems … and we’re running out of tricks.”
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposes cutting $1.1 billion from transit programs statewide in fiscal 2004-05 — funds that already were raided in previous years. Because of that, the MTA faces $280 million in cuts in its $2.8 billion budget, forcing it to delay many crucial improvements as long as five years.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority previously borrowed against future revenues in order to expedite construction of the San Fernando Valley’s Orange Line busway, continue making improvements to the 101-405 interchange, and building car-pool lanes on Interstate 5.
Under the plan approved Thursday, the board will take out an additional $360 million. Separate loans will cost $4 million annually in interest for 11 years and $7 million in interest for 30 years.
That money will allow work to continue on the 101-405 — making ramp improvements and building a car-pool lane on the northbound San Diego Freeway into the Valley.
The board also reaffirmed the Exposition Line in Mid-City as its next big rail project after the Eastside light rail, which is slated to get under way this year. It transferred $100 million from the stalled Wilshire Boulevard busway project to get Expo done by 2012.
Rail activists, including Friends for Expo members, praised the decision. “This is good news,” Sherman Oaks resident Roger Chirstensen told the board. “It reasserts what is the highest priority.”
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NJ Transit director bubbling over River Line’s fare, kickoff
Courier-Post
February 27, 2004
Calling it “the best deal in the Western world” at $1.10 per ride, the head of NJ Transit on Thursday officially kicked off the campaign to promote the South Jersey light rail line.
“That’s substantially less than a gallon of gasoline,” George Warrington, the executive director of the state’s mass transportation agency, said of the $1.10 price to ride anywhere on the 34-mile Camden-to-Trenton line.
Warrington announced a “champagne christening” of a train on Saturday, March 13. Public service on the so-called River Line will begin the next day.
The billion-dollar line is more than a year behind schedule, and problems with crossing gates and signals forced Warrington recently to abandon the Feb. 15 opening date he set last fall.
Speaking Thursday at a luncheon meeting of the Women’s Transportation Seminar at Rutgers-Camden, Warrington said he believes the contractor responded to his ire over the missed date and will have the line ready to operate safely and efficiently by the new date. “Reliable service out of the gate is crucial to the success of any line,” he said.
The contractor, South Jersey Rail Group, is a consortium consisting of Bechtel Corp., an international construction giant, and Bombardier, a Canadian-based manufacturer of rail cars.
Following Thursday’s meeting, Warrington assured reporters that he is “comfortable, confident and optimistic” that the line will begin operations
He conceded there have been problems with some crossing gates, but added he could “count on the fingers of one or two hands” the number of problem gates remaining. There are 70 grade crossings on the line and 20 stations.
The line has generated substantial curiosity among South Jersey residents, if not widespread commitment to riding it regularly. “I’m going to take it to Trenton to see what it’s like,” said Al Thomas, a 23-year-old Rutgers student who lives in Camden. Thomas said he hadn’t heard much discussion of the line among fellow students but added he expects that to change “once they get it up and running.”
An ad that NJ Transit expects to direct at students is headlined “Big Car on Campus” and, like other more general ads, prominently features the message “Just $1.10 a ride.”
Jim Gross, a Riverton resident who has been a vociferous critic of the line since its inception eight years ago, said Thursday that he is not impressed with the price. “The bottom line is you’re not going to ride it if it’s not going where you want to go,” he said. Gross said he expects a lot of people to ride the line in the early days, including himself, out of curiosity. “Its a wonderment,” Gross said.
The line is projected to carry about 5,900 fares on an average weekday when it opens, about a sixth of what the PATCO Hi-Speedline carries between Lindenwold and Philadelphia.
The line will operate on a modified honor system. Patrons will buy tickets from vending machines, then validate them at another machine before boarding, giving them a two-hour window to use the tickets.
There will be no ticket takers on board the trains but there will be inspectors who make random checks. About a quarter of all trains will have inspectors on board, NJ Transit officials say.
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SEPTA defends railcar decision: The transit agency hired another law firm. It also sought to move the case to a different court.
Philadelphia Inquirer
February 27, 2004
SEPTA general manager Faye Moore yesterday defended the agency’s pick of the lowest-cost and lowest-rated firm for a $236 million contract to build Regional Rail cars.
“This was a long and hard procurement process. I will tell anybody it was done well,” Moore said after a Regional Rail employee, speaking at the agency’s monthly board meeting, questioned a preliminary decision to give the award for 104 cars to a South Korean consortium, United Transit Systems.
SEPTA has maintained that while United Transit has little experience building cars to U.S. standards, it is otherwise a successful worldwide producer.
The top-ranked technical firm, Kawasaki Rail Cars Inc., has filed suit and on Tuesday persuaded a judge to halt a final contract award to United Transit pending a March 15 hearing.
Kawasaki contends that SEPTA improperly revised specifications midway through the two-year-long procurement process to favor United Transit.
Yesterday, Thomas Dorricott, a spokesman for the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, said, “Our concerns are the fact that the process and philosophies of this project have been flawed.”
Dorricott, who represents the men and women who drive Regional Rail trains, questioned SEPTA’s decision to save $14 million with United Transit, which received the agency’s lowest technical ranking: 125 out of 175. Runner-up Kawasaki had a
rating of 162, and bid $250 million for the work.
SEPTA’s decision to recommend United Transit “made it sound like, ‘We’re willing to undergo a certain amount of risk just to save $14 million,’ “ Dorricott said. “Is that amount of savings appropriate? I don’t believe… that any board would approve of a project that he or she did not think would work,” he said.
Meanwhile, SEPTA began the process of trying to move the case to a court that specializes in commercial litigation.
It wants Commerce Court to hear the case rather than Court of Common Pleas Judge Matthew Carrafiello, who issued the injunction.
“Carrafiello is a regular, day to day, Common Pleas Court judge,” SEPTA spokesman Richard Maloney said. “The effort is to ha |
