Salem, OR — Downtown Trolley Study Rail Transit Online August 2004 The city of Salem has selected a team of consultants to conduct a feasibility study for a streetcar line that would connect downtown, a new conference center, the state capitol, Willamette University and Salem Hospital. Nelson\Nygaard Associates and URS Engineering will evaluate alignment and service options, capital and operating costs and economic development potential. The initial loop would be three to four miles (4.8 km to 6.4 km) in length. The proposal has already generated significant political and community support.

CHARLOTTE, NC — Borrowed Trolley Rail Transit Online August 2004 The first week of heritage streetcar operation linking Charlotte’s Historic South End to Uptown (Center City) attracted 8,354 passengers, with the highest single-day total — 1,535 — recorded on July 3. Severe crowding on some runs has prompted the Charlotte Area Transit System to lease a replica open-bench trolley from Gomaco. Car No. 1776 was built in the mid-1980s, about the time when two similar cars were manufactured for the line in the Lowell (Massachusetts) National Historic Park. According to Gomaco Sales Manager John Kallin, No. 1776 briefly operated in Mason City, Iowa, before returning to the company plant in Ida Grove, Iowa. It has remained there ever since. Kallin said the 15-bench car has seating for 90 and is powered by a set of Milan trucks with 25 hp motors. The car is scheduled to be returned to Gomaco after the arrival of the last of three new replica Birney cars being supplied to Charlotte. The first car is scheduled for delivery in late August, the second in late September and the third in late October.

Airport beckons Railway Gazette International August 2004: City News OFFICIALS from the Praha city transport department have backed plans to extend metro Line A to the international airport at Ruzyne, and endorsed private-sector proposals to upgrade an existing heavy rail line to carry airport express services. On June 17, the city transport committee approved plans to develop an airport station on SZDC’s Masaryk - Kladno line, in the hope that the PRAK consortium will launch an airport express service in 2006. Total cost of the project is put at KC20bn to KC25bn. According to committee chairman Frantisek Laudat, two options are being considered for the Line A extension between Dejvická and Ruzyne, which would serve the western suburbs of Cerveny Vrch and Petriny. One option would run via Motol Hospital and Bila Hora, and the other would run directly to Dlouha Mile. In the longer term, the city hopes to build a spur to link the airport extension with Line B at Zlicín. Laudat says the city is also in discussions over the proposed metro Line D linking Pisnice and Hlavni Nadrazi via Namesti Miru, although no timescale has been set for construction of this route.

Madrid places mammoth orders Railway Gazette International August 2004: City News ON JUNE 23 the Madrid regional government announced ‘the largest rolling stock contract in the history of the metro’, which will see a total of 698 cars supplied at a cost of €1.04bn. In addition to 52 wide-profile Series 9000 trainsets that AnsaldoBreda is supplying for €392m (RG 7.04 p393), a consortium of CAF, Bombardier and Siemens is supplying 90 narrow-profile Series 3000 trains worth €611.8m to operate on Lines 1, 2 and 3, plus 14 Series 8000 intermediate motor cars for €34m which will augment the existing three-car units used on Line 8. Deliveries of the Series 3000 and 8000 cars are scheduled to take place between November 2005 and August 2007. The cars will be equipped with Mitrac traction equipment from Bombardier. ‘Since the 1960s we have supplied over 1000 propulsion sets to Metro Madrid, and we will continue to work closely with our customer to ensure that we meet their expectations’, said Anders Lindberg, Acting President, Propulsion & Controls, at Bombardier Transportation.

Metropolitano goes to law Railway Gazette International August 2004: City News BUENOS AIRES suburban operator Metropolitano has mounted a legal challenge to the federal government’s attempt to revoke its concession to operate the San Martín commuter route between Buenos Aires and Pilar. Neither Transport Secretary Ricardo Jaime nor Gustavo Simeonof, Head of the Contract Analysis & Renegotiation Unit, appeared at a hearing to consider the case on July 6, with the government instead contesting the judge’s earlier decision to suspend the process of removing the concession pending further evidence. Following several weeks of media speculation, President Néstor Kirchner had signed a decree on June 23 rescinding the concession contract on the grounds of ‘serious and repeated breaches’ by Metropolitano, particularly in respect of service provision, punctuality, passenger comfort and rolling stock maintenance. Under the terms of the decree, suburban concessionaires Ferrovías, Metrovías and Trenes de Buenos Aires were to form a management unit to operate the San Martín route until a new concessionaire was chosen by competitive tender. Metropolitano has argued that the government has behaved in a discriminatory manner towards it, failing to provide the operating subsidy or investment support paid to other suburban concessionaires.

Málaga light metro awarded Railway Gazette International August 2004: City News ON JULY 14 the Andalucía regional government’s Department of Public Works & Transport announced that it had awarded a 35-year concession for the construction and operation of two light metro lines in the Spanish city of Málaga. The second of three light metro networks being tendered by Andalucía (RG 3.02 p168), the Málaga project is valued at €403.7m. Of this €342.8m is for infrastructure and €60.9m for rolling stock. The two routes totalling 13.8km are scheduled to open in February 2009. The winning consortium is led by civil engineering group FCC, with Comsa, Azvi, Sando, Vera, Caja Mar and SCH. Comsa SA has a 14.8% stake. The three other bidding consortia were led by Ferrovial, ACS and Sacyr & Vallehermoso. Both routes will start from Malagueta in the city centre and run west in a shared tunnel section for 1.9km to Guadalmedina. Line 1 will turn inland to La Barriguilla, the University and Teatinos, where the depot will be located. Line 2 will serve the Renfe station and then continue along the coast to Huelin and the Martín Carpena stadium. The network will initially be worked by a fleet of 15 LRVs, running every 6min on each branch. Journey time is put at 17min for Line 1 and 15min for Line 2. The network is expected to carry 17.1 million passengers in the first year of service. This would rise to 21 million after 10 years, by which time the rolling stock fleet is to be increased to 30 vehicles.

Streetcars May Return To Downtown Miami Project Would Connect Downtown To Miami Beach NBC6.net July 30, 2004 MIAMI — Downtown Miami may soon look and sound a little different. The city is considering bringing back streetcars, which haven’t rolled through since the 1940s. It’s an age-old concept to deal with new traffic. “You can’t build a world-class, dense city and have everybody driving. There’s not enough space,” said engineer Charles Hales. HDR Engineering is conducting a feasibility study in which streetcars would run in a loop through the downtown business district along Second Avenue to the Miami design district. Another proposed streetcar project, called Baylink, would connect downtown to Miami Beach. Baylink has opponents who worry about disruptive construction and some who favor buses instead. But supporters say streetcars are a more appealing alternative. “It really is going to attract people to get in and out very quickly, efficiently and nonpolluting,” said Lilia Medina, Miami assistant transit coordinator. Phase one of the plan would cost around $120 million, and officials say the track record of streetcars makes the price worth it. Hales says in Portland, Ore., for example, ridership is double what they projected at about 6,000 daily riders. And, Hales attributes the bright yellow streetcars in Tampa with sparking $1 billion in redevelopment. “Every booming sunbelt city in the country is looking at or has already built light rail or streetcar transit,” Hales said. However, NBC 6’s Tina Conte learned the Tampa streetcar system is soon expected to run a deficit of $4 million a year. In response, Hales says transit systems usually don’t pay for themselves — the payoff comes with sparking new development and higher real estate values. “If we don’t do something, we’re going to have a major transportation problem and a major traffic problem in that area,” Miami Mayor Manny Diaz said. Engineers will present their findings to city officials in September or October. Commissioners will then decide whether the city is on the right track in bringing streetcars to Miami. To pay for the project, the city would request federal and state funding, as well as transit and gas taxes.

Gas tax stalls LRT cars; $57M C-Train deal held up as city awaits PM’s promised pump refund Calgary Sun July 31, 2004 The federal government’s promise to return a portion of the gas tax to cities has gone off the rails, charges an alderman. And Diane Colley-Urquhart, chair of the city’s transportation committee, said it’s time for the city to swallow $57 million in debt in order to get 14 badly needed new LRT cars. “I have absolutely no confidence they’re going to follow through,” said Colley-Urquhart, referring to Prime Minister Paul Martin’s campaign promises to return the gas tax to help cities with infrastructure needs. “We can’t allow this (LRT order) to lapse any further past September, our drop-dead date, holding our breath for the federal government,” she said. “Rigor mortis will set in.” Last Monday, aldermen put off buying the 14 cars, hoping negotiations with the federal government could result in some help paying for the cars. But Colley-Urquhart said news from new cities minister John Godfrey indicates the five-cent-a-litre in gas taxes would likely be cut down to two cents and doesn’t bode well for Calgary’s $1-billion infrastructure deficit. If ordered by September, Calgary won’t lose its place in queue for the cars, which would be in service by the end of 2006. Colley-Urquhart said the city still has about half of the $350-million credit line it opened at the start of council’s term in 2001. She said she’s hoping aldermen decide in September to at least borrow the $12-million downpayment needed to get the order in. Earlier this week, Godfrey said it would take the federal government five years to dole out the $4-5 billion promised to cities in gas tax rebates, with $2 billion coming in the final year. Calgary’s share of the gas tax revenue, based on five cents a litre, would result in more than $90 million a year. As recently as this month the prime minister and Mayor Dave Bronconnier met, prior to a Stampede breakfast. Bronconnier once again pushed for a return on the tax and said he was hopeful to see it next year.

Greyhound cuts worry America’s small towns Austin American-Statesman July 31, 2004 GOLDENDALE, Wash. — Twice a day a Greyhound bus emerges from the wheat and alfalfa fields of eastern Washington and cruises into the parking lot of John Willsey’s bowling alley. Some days there are no passengers in this farm town of 3,700, so the bus doesn’t bother to stop. But those who use it often rely on it. Goldendale is among 267 communities in 18 states across the West and Midwest that will be losing Greyhound service Aug. 18, leaving only 99 communities in the northern region where the interstate bus line will pick up passengers. “We have an elderly woman who uses it twice a week to go to Portland,” said Willsey, whose bowling alley has doubled as a depot for 25 years. “I don’t know what she’s going to do. She’ll have to go plumb to The Dalles (35 miles away) to get a bus,” he said. “They’ve been telling us for 10 years they were going to cut and run, and boy, they did.” The vast majority of the cuts are to communities that have no commercial rail or air service, causing potential problems for people wanting to get to places that do. Dallas-based Greyhound says it has to streamline operations to stay in business. But cutting 267 communities — from busy towns like Steamboat Springs, Colo., to more obscure places such as Big Timber, Mont. — weakens a web that has held the small towns of America together for decades. Just across the Columbia River from Goldendale is the town of Biggs, Ore. Interstate 84 and U.S. 97 meet in Biggs, and nine or 10 buses stop there each day. But Biggs is losing Greyhound service as well. Phillip Jenks was on a bus that pulled into Biggs. A frequent Greyhound rider, he was traveling from Utah’s Ute Indian Reservation to visit a niece in Warm Springs, Ore., a town also due to be cut. “I’ll have to take to hitchhiking, I guess,” he said. Biggs is a small cluster of truck stops, motels and gas stations that Columbia Gorge winds tend to roast in summer and freeze in winter. The official stop, Linda’s Restaurant, is the quintessential truck stop. It’s open 24 hours a day, feeding passengers, pumping gas and serving truckers. Also at the Biggs bus stop was Diana Leyva, who was traveling from Texas to Seattle to be introduced to her boyfriend’s family, a 2 1/2-day trip. She said the bus went 10 hours in one stretch without passengers being allowed off the bus. “They need more stops, not fewer,” said Leyva. Greyhound says it lost $140 million in 2002 and 2003 as ridership dropped and costs rose, and must concentrate on more profitable routes. Ridership throughout the industry dropped after the Sept. 11 attacks, said Lori Levy, spokeswoman for the Washington, D.C.-based American Bus Association. She said the industry began recovering last spring but still has not reached the high attained in 2000. Of the stations being eliminated, about half had no outbound ticket sales in 2003, Greyhound spokeswoman Lynn Brown said. The cuts are hitting some states harder than others. Minnesota will lose service to 43 of its 57 communities and see it reduced in 11 of the remaining 14. In North Dakota, Greyhound is cutting 11 stops, leaving only Fargo. North Dakota’s capital, Bismarck, is among the towns cut. So is Wyoming’s capital, Cheyenne. Oregon will lose 35 stops, only one or two of which have commercial air or rail service. Several ticket agents said smaller local lines may eventually fill some of the gaps. Greyhound says the cuts are effective Aug. 18 but some depot operators say they’ve been told they will come faster than that. Stephen Young, whose Chevron station is the depot in Lovelock, Nev., says he was told his contract was up Aug. 8. Most of the tickets he sells, he said, are to prisoners released from a medium-security prison there. As it stands, Young said, prison guards bring the freed convicts into town. “They make sure they get on the bus, and the officer stays until the bus is gone,” he said. “Now I guess they’ll have to drive them to Winnemucca, 70 miles from here.” He said some elderly people without cars are shelving plans to use the bus to visit relatives. Young says he sells about $1,200-$1,500 worth of tickets a month, of which he keeps 10 percent. “It’s not a huge sum,” he said. “But to my thinking it doesn’t make a lot of sense. They’ll be driving by here anyway.” Six U.S. senators signed a letter to Greyhound President and CEO Stephen Gorman urging the line to cut fewer stops. “As you know many people are not able to or do not wish to drive and rely on the bus as a vital transportation mode,” the letter said, adding the cuts “will have a negative impact on many of our constituents.” Geoffrey Stuckart, a spokesman for U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., one of the six, said many veterans from northeast Oregon use the bus to get to a Veterans Affairs hospital in Walla Walla, Wash. “We just got an extension on the facility, now we may lose the bus connection,” he said of Walla Walla, where service will be axed. Gorman replied that the smaller routes had to be cut to provide better service on more heavily traveled routes used by the vast majority of Greyhound riders. He said some routes in Iowa and Wisconsin were losing money even with federal subsidies. Lynn Brown, the Greyhound spokeswoman, said the cuts will eliminate about 14 million miles of the 267 million miles the company travels each year in the United States. While the geographical area is large, she said, it is a relatively small part of Greyhound’s business. The cuts account for about 10 percent of Greyhound’s North American stops, but only about 2.5 percent of its sales and 2.8 percent of its revenues. In Goldendale’s bowling alley parking lot, a bus driver said riders are upset, uncertain and prone to blame the drivers for the cutbacks. “It isn’t anything we did,” said the driver, who said he and his co-workers had been told not to give interviews. “But I’ve never been given the finger so often in my life.”

DART looks forward to Victory Dallas Morning News July 31, 2004 A new $79 million player will arrive at American Airlines Center this fall. Rather than sporting a Dallas Mavericks blue or Dallas Stars green uniform, this one will be clad in yellow and hang out in the arena parking lot. Dallas Area Rapid Transit will open its Victory light-rail station Nov. 14, bringing to North Texas a new two-sport player that won’t demand a new contract in a few years. When open, the 1.25-mile rail extension will bring curbside rail service to people attending hockey and basketball games, concerts and other events. “This is the gateway into the future northwest corridor,” said Tim McKay, DART senior vice president for project management. The rest of the northwest rail line through the Dallas hospital district and into Farmers Branch, Carrollton and Irving will be open around 2009 to 2010. Until DART expands past Victory Station, trains will stop at the station only during events. So far, the Victory station has come in slightly under budget, but crews could not make the original but overly optimistic September opening date. “We artificially tried to push it forward, but that left us too little time for training,” Mr. McKay said. The station has a different feel from many others in DART. Light-rail vehicles, commuter trains and freight trains will run side by side. Currently, only Union Station can handle all three types of rail lines simultaneously. In addition, the platforms are much longer 400 feet rather than the standard 300 feet. The extra length will help the station accommodate the 2,000 light-rail passengers and 1,000 commuter rail passengers who are expected to flock to the station after events. Building the station cost $15 million, with $10 million more for installing track and moving freight lines. A typical rail station costs about $6 million to $8 million. Cost concerns prevented DART from adding a color-coded touch to the station. Station designers had hoped to install fiber-optic lights above the 20 station canopies that would have shone green on Stars hockey game nights and blue for Mavericks basketball game nights. Instead, designers installed decorative tile work on the platform-walking surface, including designs reminiscent of sports, board games and card games, as well as a hopscotch pattern that probably shouldn’t be used while trains are approaching. DART is still figuring out exactly when those trains will be approaching the arena. The transit agency is considering a schedule that would bring about six trains directly into Victory station before an event. Those trains, which are used daily to handle afternoon peak commute times, would pick up arena passengers on what ordinarily would be their final afternoon runs from Plano and Garland. They would make all regular stops, drop off passengers at the arena and continue to the DART garage. For rail riders who can’t get a direct train, DART will have a downtown shuttle train running from Victory to the Pearl Street station. The shuttle train, which will run about every 10 minutes, also will serve all arena customers on weekends. After an event ends, DART plans to have several light-rail trains ready to handle the expected crush of passengers. “It will be a little awkward from our standpoint, but we’re trying to make it where it’s not awkward for our customers,” said Tim Newby, DART’s assistant vice president for service planning.

River Line collision leaves two injured Courier Post July 31, 2004 BURLINGTON CITY - A driver who a witness said sped up to get ahead of a River Line train was injured when he turned left in front of the train here yesterday. It was the first accident involving a train and a vehicle since service opened in March on the Trenton-to-Camden light-rail passenger line, which was dogged by controversy, delays and cost overruns. The driver and a train passenger were taken by ambulance to a local hospital. Their injuries were not considered to be life-threatening, said Janet Hines, an NJ Transit spokeswoman. The names of the two injured were unavailable yesterday, Hines said. She said NJ Transit police were investigating the crash, which occurred about 12:30 p.m. at West Broad Street and Washington Avenue. Rail service was suspended in the area of the accident for about an hour and passengers were shuttled around the affected area by bus. A passenger on the train told a Times reporter the car’s driver sped up in an apparent effort to beat the train to the crossing. The front of the train struck the driver’s side of the sedan, Hines and witnesses said. In the area where the accident occurred, the single track used by the River Line runs down the middle of West Broad Street, dividing the road’s eastbound and westbound lanes. The car was westbound on West Broad Street - the same direction as the Camden bound train - and was trying to turn left onto Washington Avenue when the collision occurred, said witness Luddie Baxter. Baxter, a Willingboro resident, was on his way home from Trenton on the train. He said he watched the car speed up alongside the train and try to dart left across the railroad track in front of the train at the grade crossing that allows westbound traffic on West Broad Street turn onto Washington Avenue. Baxter said the car’s driver apparently ignored the red “no left turn” arrow at the crossing as well as the train’s horn, which, he said, the operator was sounding urgently. The collision caused extensive damage to the driver’s side of the car, then spun it about so it came to rest alongside the train. The train appeared to have sustained scrapes and other minor damage. West Broad Street resident Sam Polito said he was inside his house when he heard the train’s bells and horns sound. He went outside to look and saw the driver stagger from the wrecked car. “He was all banged up,” Polito said. The other injured person was one of the train’s 38 passengers, Hines said. Hines said the accident forced NJ Transit to suspend service on the River Line between the Florence and Burlington South stations for about an hour. Shuttle buses were used to ferry passengers between those stations, as well as the Burlington Town Center station, which lies in between the two, she said. The rest of the River Line continued to operate during that time but with some delays, she said. In March, a River Line train hit a deer near Bordentown. In April, a woman who ignored the safety gates and other warning signals at a Trenton grade crossing suffered minor injuries when she was clipped by a River Line train. Other residents whose homes stand a stone’s throw from yesterday’s accident scene were wondering how the car’s driver could have put himself in a position to get hit. “That is a huge thing to have next to you, and it makes noise! How can you not see or hear it?” said Maria Cavacini. A resident of West Broad Street since 1961, she said she was “not surprised” by the collision. “We’ve lived here so long without a train, people aren’t used to it,” she said. She said her greatest fear is that one of the neighborhood children might one day be injured by the train. But 16-year-old Ryan Muller said he knows to steer clear of the railroad line, thanks to a 45-minute presentation given by NJ Transit officials at his school, St. Mary’s Hall-Doane Academy in Burlington City. During the presentation, students were told about real accidents involving trains and juveniles that have occurred in other parts of the country. “They gave examples of accidents,” he said. “In one a kid lost his leg. In another, someone died.” He said officials explained how you should only cross railroad tracks in designated areas and how you can be arrested by the police and cited for trespassing for crossing the line in other areas.

MAKING IT WORK Newsletter, Seattle City Councilmember Richard Conlin July 31, 2004 CONTENTS: - MONORAIL TRANSIT WAY AGREEMENT - SOUTH LAKE UNION STREETCAR On Tuesday, July 6, the Council approved the Transit Way Agreement between the Seattle Monorail Authority (SMP) and the City of Seattle, which allows use of the City’s Rights-of-Way for the Ballard to West Seattle monorail line. Although I voted against the Monorail Alignment Ordinance because of serious concerns about some alignment issues and about the finances of the current monorail project, I voted for the Transit Way Agreement, for two principle reasons. First, the Council made it clear that this is not a ‘green light’ for the monorail, but rather a ‘flashing yellow’, which says proceed with caution. The Council specified that no construction permits may be granted unless and until the Council votes affirmatively that the results of an independent financial review demonstrate that the line can be constructed within the financial resources available. While the SMP is the agency charged with constructing the monorail, the Council is responsible for protecting all of the interests of the citizens of Seattle, and took on this formidable assignment of making the financial call. We did so because my concerns about the finances of the monorail are shared by most of my colleagues. While we are respectful of the autonomy of the SMP, it is our job to determine if it is appropriate to use the rights-of-way that we hold in trust for this purpose. The basis for the financial analysis was laid out in a resolution authored by Councilmember Jim Compton. The Council accepted amendments I offered to ensure that the analysis includes an assessment of appropriate reserves and contingencies, a range of sensitivity analyses to test varying assumptions about issues such as the growth of license tab revenues and changes in interest rates, and a provision that the analysis must use a conservative estimate of farebox revenues shared with Metro buses unless there is an agreement that defines these more clearly. My second reason for supporting this agreement is that it is a carefully designed system that ensures that a monorail system would be built in a way that works, using principles that would be applied to any similar transportation system. The City is fully protected from liability through insurance provisions, and a removal bond that must be posted in the event that construction is unable to be completed. The agreement gives the City control over construction sequencing, especially important downtown with Sound Transit construction underway and Viaduct replacement pending. The agreement also includes mitigation provisions for affected businesses, for Metro transit, and for parking issues that may arise at stations, and includes requirements for pedestrian connections and access improvements to ensure that connections can be made, including a pedestrian bridge over the railroad tracks at Safeco Field. The Executive negotiated a very strong agreement, and the Council’s amendments strengthened it still further. I am still concerned that, because the system has so little actual design completed, it is not possible to specify the mitigation as much as would be optimum, and many important details are left to the permitting process. The Council’s financial analysis must include a substantial reserve to meet these requirements. The next step for the Council is to engage the independent financial consultant, while SMP will select and negotiate with a contractor. With the Monorail Recall Initiative certified for the ballot, and the dramatic rise in steel prices likely leading to increased construction cost estimates, there will be a number of challenges for this project in the fall. SOUTH LAKE UNION STREETCAR On Tuesday, July 27, I announced two ordinances relating to the proposed South Lake Union streetcar. The ordinances have the support of a majority of the Council, and I expect passage at Transportation Committee on Tuesday, August 10 and full Council on Monday, August 16. The legislation encourages the development of the South Lake Union streetcar and releases certain non-City generated funds for additional preliminary design and engineering work. It also funds study of a possible extended streetcar network, with an immediate priority for extending the current streetcar into the Chinatown/International District and along the Jackson Street corridor.� Seven Councilmembers have signed a letter to Sound Transit asking that the Jackson Street extension be reviewed as part of Sound Transit Phase II. The legislation also includes a series of provisions that condition possible future final approval of a streetcar, including: The City of Seattle will not financially contribute to or be responsible for any costs for design, engineering, or construction, including any project cost overruns, except for any assessment the City may be responsible for as a property owner within a streetcar LID. A capital funding plan and plan for cost overruns must be developed and reviewed, and grants and other funds required must be secured. No City General Fund dollars will be used to subsidize streetcar operations and maintenance, and there must be a long-range, sustainable business plan. Funding of operations and maintenance will not require the use of Metro service hours that the City is entitled to. An existing transit agency is willing, able, and legally committed to operating and maintaining the streetcar. This is a compromise proposal that advances the streetcar idea, while making it clear that scarce City resources must be conserved for longstanding needs in other neighborhoods and the challenges of maintaining transportation infrastructure. Streetcars can be a helpful transit option and an amenity for development, but the proposed streetcar is not a cost-effective transit option nor is it essential to further development in South Lake Union. Given the tight City budget, we must be cautious in funding amenities. Many businesses have offered to partially fund the South Lake Union streetcar, and Mayor Nickels has secured a number of grants for the project. I welcome the interest of the business community, and have discussed this proposal with them. As Co-Chairs Ada Healy and Jim Falconer wrote on Friday, July 24: “Build the Streetcar agrees that the City’s financial participation in the project is limited to the City’s share of the local improvement district.” In addition to the work on the South Lake Union Streetcar, the Council legislation also supports technical work for a line continuing it to the University of Washington and a possible extension of the Waterfront Streetcar through the Chinatown/International District and along South Jackson Street. Future connections could link the two lines, allowing for a single maintenance base. Community members in the Chinatown/International District have long been asking for the Jackson Street extension. A streetcar network has many potential benefits. While it would be difficult to commit scarce City dollars, the Council fully supports finding creative ways to finance such a network

SUBWAY RIDE BACK IN TIME Daily News (New York) August 1, 2004 WHEN I called Stan Fischler, author of the wonderful new coffee table book “The Subway and the City,” I caught him on his cell phone. The line was full of static and blanks. But I could hear the warning ding of the closing doors of a subway car. And a conductor announcing that this was 96th St. on the No. 2 line. And then the sounds of squealing steel wheels. And the great lion’s roar of another train thundering into a station. And the neverending human commotion of a weekday morning rush hour. “Listen, the cell phone works on the station,” Fischler shouted, “but I’m gonna lose you in the tunnel and it won’t work again until we reach the Pelham Parkway el!” Then, as promised, the phone went dead as Fischler disappeared into that deep, dark, magical place he has spent a great portion of his life as a citizen, sports nut, transit-beat reporter-editor and a book author - the hole in the ground we call the New York City subway, the greatest mass transit system in the world. It was like listening to a soundtrack to Fischler’s new book, which races into stores this month from Frank Merriwell Inc. press, on time to commemorate the centennial of the subway system. The book traces much of that history through a Brooklyn-born sports fanatic’s tireless odyssey on the iron centipede from Ebbets Field, to Yankee Stadium and the Polo Grounds and to a mostly forgotten 15,000-seat, semipro stadium called Dexter Park in Cypress Hills where, before he broke the major league color line in 1947 as a Brooklyn Dodger, Jackie Robinson thrilled the fans of the Brooklyn Bushwicks. “My father took me to Dexter Park, next to Franklin K. Lane High, for doubleheaders - a half a buck for adults and a quarter for a kid,” remembers Fischler. “We’d take the Myrtle Avenue el, the whole route above ground, on unique track bed with short stops that gave off a wonderful bad-a-dum-da-dum-dam-dum rhythm for a kid like me who was in a jazz band. Other teams played at Dexter Park, including the Bay Parkways that years later featured Sandy Koufax, and The House of David, which fielded all bearded ball players.” Far from a coma-inducing textbook history, this is a wild and personal journey through New York’s tunnels of time, as Fischler rattles us to a pair of World’s Fairs, the great White Way of Broadway, all of the Madison Square Gardens, the Bronx Zoo and the great parks and museums of the city. Rich with historical sepia-toned photographs, the book lets us circulate through the city’s black veins with Fischler. We see immigrants with strong backs dig the subway tunnels with sweat and shovels, see stations created, tracks laid, full lines bored beneath the skin of New York. We see how the labyrinth of the Times Square stop was formed, and watch newly arrived immigrants following the railhead from Manhattan into the slums, bedroom communities, and seaside escapes of the outer boroughs, creating our ethnic neighborhoods. This is Fischler’s seventh book on the subway, including “Confessions of a Trolley Dodger from Brooklyn,” 1995. “At the launch party for ‘The Subway and the City’ at the Transit Museum recently, I gave the curator a dollar,” says Fischler, who also is well known as The Hockey Maven, a FOX Sports Net New York announcer. “He asked what it was for. I told him when I was a kid I snuck on the subway about 20 times when it cost a nickel and I wanted to clear my conscience.” How did this subway fascination begin? “I can remember when I was 2 in 1934 coming out of our brownstone on Marcy Ave. in Williamsburg and seeing men digging in the street with shovels,” Fischler says. “I asked my mother what they were doing. She said they were building a subway. I fell in love with trains that day, and got a set of Lionel toy trains that year. And when I was 5, the Myrtle Ave. station of the GG line opened and it was like a bigger set of toy trains, but also my gateway to the world.” After graduating Brooklyn College in the early 1950s, Fischler became the New York Rangers’ publicist, and then the subway editor of the Journal American for 11 years before going into TV and writing many books on hockey and subways. “I am thrilled to see so many stations being rejuvenated now,” says Fischler. “On the ride uptown this morning, I saw Art Deco stations being rescued. And on 180th St., I also discovered railroad crossing signs on subway work-train tracks that I didn’t even know still existed outside of Canarsie. I learn something new on the subway every day.” You’ll learn plenty you never knew on every page of “The Subway and the City.” It’s a helluva ride through a helluva town.

Bailout Feared if Airlines Shed Their Pensions New York Times August 1, 2004 In an echo of the savings and loan industry collapse of the 1980’s, the federal agency that insures company pensions is facing a possible cascade of bankruptcies and pension defaults in the airline industry that some experts fear could lead to another multibillion-dollar taxpayer bailout. “The similarities are incredible,” said George J. Benston, a finance professor at Emory University in Atlanta who has written extensively on the regulatory failures that led to the costly savings and loan bailout. Deposits in savings institutions are, like pensions, guaranteed by a federal insurance program. The savings industry first sickened because changes in market conditions made the traditional way savings and loans operated unprofitable, but government delays and policy missteps then made the situation much worse. In the end taxpayers bailed out the industry — at a cost, according to various estimates, of $150 billion to $200 billion. Now experts say they see similar forces gathering in the pension sector, with United Airlines perhaps the first to go down the path. Operating in bankruptcy, United is striving to attract the lenders and investors it needs to survive. It said last month that it would no longer contribute to its pension plans; United also seems intent on shedding some or all of its $13 billion in pension obligations as the only way to succeed in emerging from bankruptcy proceedings. If United manages to cut itself loose from the costly burden of its pension plans, it might force others determined to keep their costs similarly under control to emulate its move. “Rivals may feel they are at a competitive disadvantage and follow suit, raising the specter of a domino effect in the industry,” said Bradley D. Belt, the executive director of the government’s Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, which insures pensions. If every airline with a traditional pension plan were ultimately to default, the government would be on the hook for an estimated $31 billion. Its insurance coverage is limited, so some employees would have their benefits reduced. “The pension insurance program is there to protect workers’ benefits,” said Mr. Belt, who took over the agency in April. “It shouldn’t be used as a piggy bank to help companies restructure.” Already, some airline employees are taking steps to protect themselves against future pension losses. Each month, for example, about 30 pilots normally retire from Delta Air Lines. But in June, almost 300 did. Andrew Dean, one of the new retirees, said he and his colleagues watched in dismay as the financial debacle unfolded at United. He said that he and many of his fellow pilots decided they had better grab their pensions right away - while the money was still there. “These are very scary times right now for someone in my position,” said Mr. Dean, who at 58 walked away from his job just as he was reaching the peak earning period of his career. His pension was also reduced because he retired early. But his decision now looks prescient. On Friday, Delta asked its pilots for a 35 percent pay cut and proposed a smaller pension plan. Foremost on the minds of the departing pilots, Mr. Dean said, were arcane pension rules that can offer advantages to workers who quit before a pension plan fails. At Delta, for example, as long as the pension plan stays afloat, pilots are allowed to take half of their benefit in a single check when they retire. But if the plan fails, the pilots lose their chance to take a big payout. “What I’ve managed to do is secure half of my retirement,” Mr. Dean said. He may still lose the rest if the government takes over the program and limits future payouts. “I really lose sleep over that,” he said. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation is already hobbled by debt, having picked up the pieces of more than 3,200 failed pension plans in its 30-year life. The scale of the failures has risen sharply in the last three years, but the agency has few tools at its disposal to prevent the situation from becoming worse. Now it faces a possible $5 billion default by United - which would be a record - and the possibility of more big airline defaults after that. “The agency can’t take a lot of $5 billion hits, multiple times per year, year after year, and survive,” said Steven A. Kandarian, the pension agency’s immediate past director. “Eventually, you’ll run out of money.” It is impossible to predict the exact size of any pension bailout, although economic projections by the agency suggest that in the worst case, a bailout within the next decade involving failures beyond the airlines could cost taxpayers up to $110 billion. But because pension obligations, unlike bank deposits, do not have to be paid off all at once, it is difficult to raise alarms about the threat. “The real blowup doesn’t happen right away; it happens over time,” Mr. Kandarian said. “You’ve got to address it now, but it doesn’t look like a crisis now. The crisis is always over the next hill.” The risk is that the longer the problems are avoided, the worse they can get. “With the S.&L.’s, what was a relatively small problem in the early 1980’s became over a $100 billion problem in the late 1980’s,” said Mr. Kandarian, who fears the same thing will happen to the pension system. United, the nation’s second-largest carrier behind American, is one of the worst off of the airlines. The entire industry has been coping with high fuel prices and flagging demand, particularly since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But United and the other five remaining major carriers that grew up in a world of regulated routes and ticket prices - American, Continental, Delta, Northwest and US Airways - face even more fundamental problems. In recent years, all of them have struggled to compete with the new, low-cost carriers like Southwest, JetBlue and AirTran that have much lower overhead. United has been operating in bankruptcy proceedings since December 2002. Already, it has negotiated significant concessions from its workers, suppliers, landlords and others. United says it is still analyzing what to do with its pension plans. In June, the Air Transportation Stabilization Board turned down United’s request for federal loan guarantees, saying it believed the airline could get financing without government help. So far, United has not been able to. Until it does, it cannot emerge from bankruptcy proceedings. It is an open secret that prospective financiers are turned off by the roughly $13 billion of pension debt United is carrying on its books - the one big block of debt that the airline has left untouched so far. That figure is the value, in today’s dollars, of the pensions that United’s pilots, flight attendants and other workers and retirees have earned. Once a pension has been earned, it cannot legally be taken away. By law, this debt to the work force is to be secured by the money United sets aside in its four big pension funds. But as things have turned out, United had only about $7 billion in the pension funds as of last December. The remaining $6 billion is unsecured debt. Pension law and bankruptcy law differ on the implications of this: pension law says the $13 billion owed to the workers cannot be taken away, while bankruptcy law says the workers are unsecured creditors with respect to the $6 billion shortfall. And unsecured creditors usually lose in a bankruptcy case. If, in the coming months, United persuades its bankruptcy judge that it cannot survive without canceling its pension debts, then the airline will be allowed to unload some or all of its $13 billion obligation, helping it line up the financing it needs to emerge from bankruptcy proceedings. The pension debt, and the $7 billion United has already set aside in pension assets, will go to the federal pension agency, which will pay the airline’s retirees their benefits, but only up to certain limits. Hard as that would be on the employees of United, it is also an alarming prospect to the employees of the other major carriers. “Things start to set a precedent,” Mr. Dean, the retired Delta pilot, said. “If a bankruptcy court allows a company to terminate its pensions, then that becomes a very tempting business tool.” That is what happened in the steel industry. LTV Steel’s pension fund fell to the government in March 2002, and its unencumbered assets - steel mills, coke and lime plants, railroads and other properties - were snapped up at once. That put pressure on other tottering steel companies to shed their pension plans as well. Seven more failing steel plans went to the government before the year was out, including the current record-holder among pension defaults, the Bethlehem Steel plan, which cost the pension agency $3.9 billion to take over. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. In 1974, Congress responded to an ugly string of pension failures in the auto industry by passing landmark legislation. From then on, any company that promised pensions to its workers would be required to set aside enough money to pay them. Rules were written to determine how much money was enough. To weave the retirement safety net even more tightly, Congress also created the pension insurance program. Those protections were hailed as “the greatest development in the life of the American worker since Social Security” by Senator Jacob K. Javits, the New York Republican who died in 1986. But for many workers, those protections no longer look so secure. “You see that the whole thing could really be a house of cards that could come crashing down,” Mr. Dean said. United’s pension plan developed its multibillion-dollar shortfall, in part, because pension law allows companies to fund their plans with the assets that any prudent investor would select. Over time, that has meant a shift away from the very conservative bonds that companies used to secure pensions before the 1974 law, in favor of more aggressive investments. Stocks have become the investment of choice, but today many pension funds seek to bolster their returns even more by adding relatively small amounts of hedge funds, junk bonds and other risky assets. This investment approach can produce attractive returns over time, but can be very volatile and much more dangerous if companies are forced to pay off some of their pension obligations in a down market. As the pension system has weakened, some specialists have called for measures that would discourage the riskiest investments. As director of the pension agency, Mr. Kandarian proposed charging higher insurance premiums to companies that invested their pension funds in riskier assets, particularly companies that were in bad shape themselves. No one paid attention. “I was naive,” Mr. Kandarian said. Along with Mr. Kandarian, current officials at the pension agency and at the Treasury Department have also been calling for a tightening of the rules requiring pensions to set aside enough money to meet their obligations. In April, Congress loosened the rules instead. The biggest flexibility was given to the most troubled industries, making their pension funds look healthier. “Doctoring the numbers is all they’re doing, and they’re especially doing it for steel and airlines,” Mr. Benston said. “Shades of the savings and loan crisis. Same darn thing.”

Minnesota Public Radio August 1, 2004 One block west of the 38th St. LRT station in south Minneapolis, a crew upgrading residential gas lines is running into the same problem that’s been frustrating local residents since LRT came online in late June. They need to be digging in the streets, but they can’t find the owners of several cars because they’re gone on LRT trains. On this weekday morning it’s really not even that bad. There are several open spaces on either side of 29th Ave., where some residents of the street have posted homemade signs along the boulevard which read, ‘Don’t live here? Don’t park here!’ Emile Bernier, who says he’s lived on 29th for 35 years, complains LRT riders are using his street as a park-and-ride lot. “They’re all very unhappy. You can’t park in front of your place,” Bernier says. Bernier, 75, says he sometimes has to park blocks away because his street is often packed with cars from outside the neighborhood. “Anywhere you can find a spot — six, seven blocks down, or wherever you have to,” he says. “I mean, all the streets are the same. They’re all invaded by the railroad.” Across the street, Myrtle Loch echoes her neighbor’s sentiment. They both like the train, but they can’t stand all the cars. “We thought, everybody thought, that they would be taking the buses downtown to the rail station, but they’re not,” says a frustrated Loch. “They’re taking their cars down and parking all over, up and down, anywhere that they can go.” Transit officials label these unwelcome commuters — people like Jane Nordmeyer — “hide-and-riders.” “I just started this job downtown and I probably wouldn’t have taken it if I had to drive and park downtown,” says Nordmeyer. For $40 per month, Nordmeyer can ride LRT whenever she wants. She says it would cost nearly four times that just to park in downtown Minneapolis. She says she feels badly for the people who live where she and other hide-and-riders are parking. On this day, she moved from the spot she initially chose, to avoid a possible confrontation with some people out on their front porch. “I don’t blame them. I was just hoping where I parked, maybe they’re away at work today,” she says. Minneapolis City Council staff say they’ve heard complaints about outsider parking from numerous people who live near the LRT line. Some are petitioning the city for what’s called critical parking declarations. That would restrict parking to local residents who have a permit. Metro Transit is planning to add 250 park-and-ride spaces near the Lake St. stop in October. In November, the size of the park-and-ride lot at Fort Snelling will nearly double. And in December, when the LRT route is extended to the Mall of America, another 600 spaces will become available. Mike Sachi, who oversees public parking for the city of Minneapolis, says those additional spots should ease the strain on street parking. Sachi says officials want to collect more information before they begin imposing parking regulations around LRT stations. Sometime around September, after the line has been up and running for two months, Sachi says officials will analyze data to determine what can be done. “We will work to continuously monitor the issues — the parking pressures,” Sachi says. “Each neighborhood has to be looked at individually, and the situation or the solution that works best for them may not work best for another station. So, we’re kind of taking it on a case-by-case individual basis in dealing with the issues that way.” So far, according to Metro Transit, LRT ridership is dramatically outpacing expectations. In its first two weeks, nearly 70 percent more riders than projected boarded the new trains. Looking closely at how LRT stations affect neighborhoods along the Hiawatha corridor could provide planners with important insight as they work to expand LRT, possibly to include a route linking the downtowns of Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Don’t blame the train Houston Chronicle August 1, 2004 Another collision of motorist and train. But trains don’t slow commuters down: Bad drivers do. Motorists need to start driving their vehicles as if someone else were out there. Editorial: They’re still happening too frequently. Train-car collisions, and their attendant service delays, have occurred 51 times since the Main Street light-rail line opened in October, and riders who otherwise might love the sleek, cheap public transport definitely are counting. When the most recent contretemps occurred Thursday, the wait was only slightly softened by the rail system’s still-immaculate stations, crisp landscaping and, truly Houstonian, the widely diverse occupations and ethnicities of the riders who filled the next train when it arrived. The continued and vexing interruptions in service should have abated by now — and if they continue too much longer, they could imperil needed ridership growth. Imperfect signage, scant traffic patrols and the light rail’s location at ground level certainly make car/rail coexistence more fraught. But Metro planners, for their part, have worked hard to perfect the system. Open to any decent suggestion, planners have increased and improved warning signs and replaced street “buttons” with more easily understood stripes. Between Montrose and Pierce, an area that saw about two-thirds of the line’s accidents, pre-emptive red lights now halt vehicle traffic in all directions. In truth, though, the crash problem would all but evaporate if motorists improved their skills. As Chronicle reporter Lucas Wall wrote in April, Houstonians were driving dangerously long before light rail even seemed viable. Local drivers run a risk of injury or death 2.5 times greater per mile traveled than average Americans. To date, all but one of Houston’s car/light-rail crashes were due to driver error. (One collision stemmed from a train operator’s failure to control his speed.) The problem merits attention for reasons that transcend the fate of Metro or that of individual drivers. At best, Houston thrives on its residents’ independence, initiative and energy. At worst, though, these same traits translate to recklessness and disdain for others. Traffic safety is not all that suffers. Train or no train, some drivers will always find something to hit. Joseph Cugnot may have been first to demonstrate this in 1770, when he ploughed his steam-powered car into a wall. Since then, cars have multiplied and motorists adjusted to their surroundings impressively. Surely Houston drivers can adapt a little further and share the city safely with a train.

New Belgian high speed; All Aboard! International Travel News August 1, 2004 Prince Phillippe of Belgium inaugurated his nation’s second high-speed line on Dec. 10, 2002, between Leuven, 20 miles east of Brussels, and Liege in eastern Belgium near the German border. The line, which was built to the same engineering standards as the high-speed line south to the French border, allows trains to run up to 186 mph and cuts 11 minutes from the Brussels-Liege timetable. Unfortunately, when it opened on Dec. 15 it was overshadowed by the simultaneous opening of the longer German high-speed line between Frankfurt and Cologne. Taken by itself, the new 40-mile line would hardly be noticeable to passengers, but it is a piece of the larger picture that will reduce the time between Cologne and Paris from four to three hours by 2007 and will best air travel between the two cities. Eastbound passengers depart Brussels’ South Station, pass through the tunnel below Brussels’ city center to the North Station and then continue to Leuven past the Zaventem Airport cutoff over double-tracked line, which soon will be quadrupled, with additional time savings of six minutes. Shortly out of Leuven Station, which has been massively rebuilt with soaring arches over the platforms and escalators to the platforms, the train’s air-conditioning ceases and passengers coast without power while the driver changes from the usual Belgian 3000V DC electrical power to 25kV AC on the high-speed line. The ride on the high-speed line is as smooth as a shave on a razor blade commercial and travelers quickly arrive in Liege Guillemins Station. From Liege Guillemins, a 150-mph line under construction for opening in 2006 will continue through a nearly 4-mile-long tunnel past Welkenraedt and connect to the 87-mph German line to Aachen. Liege Guillemins Station The new Liege Guillemins Station, 500 feet from Liege’s old station, will be astonishing, and no wonder: Santiago Calatrava, the preeminent railroad architect of the modern era and the man responsible for the stunning Lyon Airport train station and the amazing Lisbon Oriente Station, designed it. Liege’s new Guillemins Station will have a gigantic steel-and-glass vault arching elegantly over the tracks to connect the district of the Cointe Hill to the Guillemins District. On the city side, the station will open on three levels linked together by escalators and elevators. On the Cointe Hill side, the station will be organized on five levels, including three levels of parking. Belgium’s new line allows two scheduled high-speed trains to accelerate to 186 mph over this route. Using the line, multivoltage Thalys trains cut the time between Cologne and Pads, and GermanRail’s ICE3M trains blaze like lightning between Brussels, Frankfurt Airport and Frankfurt. Thalys (www.thalys.com) is a network of high-speed TGV trains. It connects Paris six times daily via Brussels, Liege and Aachen with Cologne Hbf and Cologne’s Deutz Station, which became the new terminus for Thalys after Dusseldorf service was discontinued. At Deutz you may change to the high-speed ICE trains to Frankfurt Airport, but allow seven minutes to change between Deutz’ upper and lower levels. ICE 3M is an ICE 3 adapted for running on multiple power supplies. ICE 3s are the newest generation of high-speed and comfortable ICE trains that passengers can ride in Germany. These third-generation trains are rated at 205 mph maximum speed but run only up to 186 mph because they aren’t permitted to go full throttle. ICE 3s are a complete break from the design of the earlier ICE trains because ICE 3’s design replaces the traditional locomotive with individually powered axles distributed beneath the passenger carriages, although the powered driving carriages do not have pantographs, which designers placed on intermediate carriages to permit roller-coaster running over the German high-speed line through the Taunus hills. A third high-speed option is available to travelers to or from Liege by Call 800/486-4968 to subscribe using the new Any Belgian Station fare between any station in Belgium and London aboard 186-mph Eurostar trains that pass through the Channel Tunnel between London and Brussels. From Liege, passengers pay no more than the simple Eurostar Brussels-London fare. From Brussels, travelers can reach London in a record two and a quarter hours using the nonstop 8:13 a.m. weekday departure. More to come Soon travelers will be able to ride an even more dramatic high-speed line under construction in segments between Brussels and Amsterdam, and they also will pass through the new high-speed level three of the completely rebuilt Antwerp Central Station and all-new stations in the Netherlands. Both Thalys and ICE 3M honor Eurail products. ICE 3M trains also honor the German-Benelux 2-country railpass, Reservations are required for travel on Thalys and a supplement is payable on weekdays, when a meal is included. On weekends, no supplement is required and no meal is served. ICE 3M passengers do not require a reservation or pay a supplement.

WHY MUST THE LAST BELL SOUND FOR PROPER BUSES? The Business August 1, 2004 Age has not wearied them, nor the years condemned their appeal, yet Routemasters, the red buses which have heroically worked London’s streets for 50 years, are reaching the end of the road. This will be their last full summer in operation - then these double-deckers will be scrapped. By 2005 all will be gone, except for those in museums and in private hands. Some will be auctioned for between £2,000 (E3,020, $ 3,640) and £10,000. With their shiny red exteriors, boxy design, properly padded seats, rope-pull bells, open platforms and rumbly engines, Routemasters have carried passengers since the age of London smogs, trolleybuses and horse drawn vehicles. They have survived Hitler’s bombs but not the attention of politically correct Transport Man. He has deemed that the 600 or so survivors which continue to struggle through London’s heavily congested streets, out of the original 2,876 built during the 1950s and 1960s, are for the chop. Routemasters were revolutionary when launched in 1954. Instead of having a traditional steel body and chassis, they had strengthened aluminium bodies which didn’t require a chassis to take the stress. This gave them their enduring qualities. Other novel features for a bus of the 1950s, but which were fitted as standard on Routemasters, included independent front suspension, power steering, fully automatic gearbox and power-hydraulic braking. In 1961, 24 vehicles were built and then lengthened by the insertion of an additional 2ft 6in bay in the centre of their body. Called RML, this version with its 72-seat (32 downstairs, 40 upstairs) bodywork became the standard product from 1965 and remains the most common type seen on London streets today.. Nearly 1,500 Routemasters were scrapped through the years, but many were sold and are still in service elsewhere in the UK or around the world. The original 64-seater Routemaster (28 down, 36 up) was designed by London Transport to complete the replacement of the once large London trolleybus fleet. Built between 1954 and 1968 it was designed for a 17-year life. They were built at various locations and different models were powered by engines built by Leyland, Cummins, Scania, AEC and Iveco. These Rolls Royces of buses could hit 70mph with ease. Loved by commuters and much photographed by visitors, London Transport’s engineers admit there’s probably another 10-20 years of operating life in these London icons. But that’s not good enough for Transport Man. In these Blairite days, the double-decked, open-platformed Route-masters offer freedom of choice, risk and, by not catering for the disabled, infirm or elderly, are regarded as “socially exclusive”. Although Transport Man won’t admit it, what is really consigning them to the scrapyard are concerns that these old workhorses don’t conform to modern ideas of political correctness. Transport Man views them as clapped-out relics and dangerous ones at that. They’re not a serious transport proposition anymore, argues Peter Hendy, who heads transport group Tfl’s (Transport for London’s) surface operations. He views them as moving museum pieces. Transport Man is also fearful that because passengers sometimes fall off Routemasters’ open platforms and kill themselves this leaves them vulnerable to legal action. The facts suggest otherwise - although the non-fatal accident rate of Routemasters runs at about double that of modern buses with doors, the last fatality involving a Routemaster was almost a year ago. Another big black mark against them is that they’re not disabled-friendly. That’s undeniable, but what’s forgotten is that following a few minutes behind Routemasters are the capital’s more modern buses providing easier access. Anyway, the Disability Discrimination Act doesn’t prohibit the use of Routemasters until 2017. “London’s buses are nearly 100% accessible and play a vital role in getting people to work and to shops, to the healthcare, education and job opportunities that London provides,” says Transport Man. What he means is that his modern buses are socially inclusive. Nothing wrong with that as far as it goes. But it that enough to condemn Routemasters to the scrapyard? No, for the figures suggest that there are only about 1,000 wheelchair journeys a day compared with 6m passenger journeys on the entire London Transport bus network. It is indisputable that the capital’s new, single decker bendy buses are more friendly for the disabled, infirm and elderly - with one exception. Bendy buses have an unfortunate tendency to transform themselves into “chariots of fire” by bursting into flames. Another downer is that Routemasters, as well as drivers, need bus conductors, a species viewed by Transport Man as another relic of the past. And, of course, they’re not fuel efficient compared to their modern equivalents. Wrong! Routemasters are very fuel efficient. Because of their lightweight aluminium bodies, they provide an average of 8 miles to the gallon compared with the five and half miles delivered by heavier modern buses. Loud protests from Routemaster’s many fans will be to no avail. Transport Man has made up his mind. Routemasters are no longer fashionable. Part of London’s heritage they may be, but Routemasters are on the road to nowhere. They are seen by Transport Man, and London’s left-wing mayor Ken Livingston, as dinosauric as Beefeaters, Pearly Kings and Guards on Parade. We should not spurn new ideas or innovations just because we have become attached to the familiar. But compared with Transport Man’s modern buses, Routemasters are lighter, cheaper to maintain, more fuel efficient, carry more seated passenger - and they do not burst into flames. The case for their early retirement is not made.

The little trolley that could in downtown S.D. Ridership hits record high San Diego Business Journal August 2, 2004 It is the best of times, it is the worst of times, depending on what you do in Petco Park’s immediate neighborhood. But, either way, moving the masses in an orderly fashion — whether by personal vehicle, public transit or cabs — is a common concern. On the upside, for the San Diego Trolley, April was indeed the coolest month, with a little help from the Padres. In its latest report, the Metropolitan Transit System announced record ridership, averaging more than 93,400 boardings on an average weekday in April — a 36.3 percent hike over April 2003 — with the Padres contributing about 7.3 percent. On a typical day, Padres ridership increased daily trolley trips by 15 percent to 20 percent. Padres’ game attendance was up 38.6 percent from last season, while trolley ridership to the games increased — 258 percent. In April, the trolley carried about 27 percent of Padre fans to the games. Other trolley tidbits: - In April, the trolley reached six of its top 50 highest daily ridership records, ranging from 130,399 to 140,129. - In May, the Padres’ game attendance was up 73 percent over May 2003; ridership to the games was up 335 percent over last year, representing 25.3 percent of the gate. - On May 14, when the Padres played the Chicago Cubs, ridership soared to 144,473 passengers, making it the 14th highest ridership day ever for the San Diego Trolley. Big Numbers Overall, the San Diego Trolley provided service to 367,351 fans for the 49 games played through June 11 at Petco Park, said Tom Doogan, special event/operations coordinator. “One out of four people who went to Petco has ridden the trolley,” he said. “Petco Park has put us way over the top.”

Landlords emerge as foes to monorail Seattle Times August 2, 2004 Two years ago, Patrick Callahan cut a $1,000 personal check to support the campaign to build a 14-mile monorail from West Seattle to Ballard. But now the senior vice president of Equity Office Properties considers himself squarely among the system’s skeptics. And that’s bad news for monorail advocates. With a possible vote to kill the monorail project looming in November, Seattle’s major commercial-property owners have emerged as the most vocal and powerful critics of the $1.75 billion elevated transit system. It’s a dramatic change from 2002, when landlords split over the successful monorail ballot measure, which narrowly was approved by city voters. Some large-property owners remain supportive of the monorail. But overall enthusiasm has waned as landlords perform their own calculus of whether the Green Line will harm or help the city’s commercial core, where they have billions of dollars tied up in land and buildings. What Callahan says about the monorail in meetings and at cocktail parties carries a lot of weight. His company controls 5 million square feet of prime office space in downtown Seattle — much of it along the proposed line. And he changed his mind about the monorail after construction started on the first segment of the Sound Transit light-rail line and the costs of replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct became clear. “The world has changed since 2002,” Callahan said. “We need to invest our limited resources in projects that provide the greatest benefit for the community in terms of transportation.” The monorail recall effort, Initiative 83, has been fueled largely by money from property owners. The vast majority of that money has come from maverick developer Martin Selig, who owns a lot of property along the proposed route. He has poured more than $136,000 in cash and in-kind contributions into Monorail Recall. Ken Alhadeff of Alhadeff Properties, a longtime civic activist, has contributed $2,500 to the campaign. Developer Greg Smith, another downtown property owner, has donated $1,000 through his Marion Building partnership. The measure, which would block or revoke city permits to construct the Green Line, will go on November’s ballot unless the Seattle Monorail Project succeeds in blocking the effort in court. Other landlords have thrown their support to OnTrack, a watchdog group that is sharply critical of the monorail project but not directly associated with the anti-monorail vote. The list includes Equity Office, which controls six downtown skyscrapers and is the region’s largest office owner; Unico Properties, which manages four blocks of downtown Seattle, including Rainier Square and the IBM Building; and Matt Griffin of the Pine Street Group, which built the Pacific Place mall and is developing Washington Mutual’s downtown high-rise. OnTrack, a private group, does not disclose how much money supporters have contributed. Taken together, the landlords behind OnTrack and the recall effort control some $2 billion in property downtown, based on tax records. “To some extent, you can look at this as the big-time NIMBYs [people who say ‘not in my backyard’],” said Peter Sherwin, who sponsored a pro- monorail initiative, which was approved by a narrow margin of city voters. “This is where they own buildings. And similar to every neighborhood with a sewage-treatment plant or transit line, they just don’t want it where they are.” Seattle Monorail Project spokeswoman Natasha Jones says the Green Line is being built to benefit more than just commercial-property owners. She said a host of other groups, including environmentalists, commuters and many businesses owners, back the line. “A large number of people have worked night and day to bring this to fruition. You can’t discount them just because they don’t own a building,” she said. “This came from grass roots and people who were tired of being stuck in their cars. You have to look at that, too.” Questioning logistics Two years ago, Selig contributed $2,500 to Citizens Against the Monorail. This time, he’s staking far more on the fight. Selig’s money allowed the I-83 campaign to hire the workers who helped collect some 36,700 signatures, which monorail foes hope will assure a place on the ballot. He also is providing office space for the recall effort in one of his office buildings. The monorail would cut through a cluster of low-rise office buildings that makes up the brunt of his real-estate holdings these days. But Selig insists he is not a NIMBY, and that he is motivated not by how the monorail will affect his property but by a desire to stop what he considers a deeply flawed project. Like Selig, the other landlords who have been most vocal say their concerns with the monorail run deeper than property values. They question whether the current car-tab tax will generate enough revenue to pay for construction of the line, as promised by the Seattle Monorail Project. They also question whether the agency can build a critical station at Second Avenue and Madison Street on property now owned by the federal government. That station, they say, is essential to serving riders who need to get downtown. Most say they’d rather see money spent on replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct with a tunnel and fixing the waterfront’s ailing seawall before pouring it into the monorail. “How much money is the average person going to dig in their pockets for to pay for the viaduct, light rail and monorail,” said Greg Smith, who is planning to build a 36-story condominium at Second Avenue and Pike Street. “The real-estate community is just trying to raise these points before they are overlooked.” More than any other landlord, Equity Office, along with its largest tenant, Washington Mutual, would feel the monorail’s effect. Four of Equity’s office buildings sit along Second Avenue, where the line would run through the heart of downtown Seattle. Washington Mutual, which supports OnTrack, also is building a 40-story tower at Second Avenue and Union Street. Property owners along Second Avenue successfully lobbied to move the monorail track farther from their buildings. Officials with the Seattle Monorail Project released a study last year that found property values near rapid-transit stations in San Francisco, Vancouver and Portland all increased. The study also found that rental rates for offices along the existing monorail line haven’t suffered. But Griffin, who is developing Washington Mutual’s tower, argues that the monorail will make it harder to rent floors near the elevated tracks and will ruin sidewalk life by casting shadows on the shops and restaurants along the line. “Basically, the people who are supposed to benefit believe it is actually a negative,” Griffin said. “Negative not just for the value of their property but for all they have tried to do downtown to build a great pedestrian environment.” Despite increasing opposition from property owners, the larger real-estate industry remains divided. The Building Owners and Managers Association, or BOMA, which represents nearly 600 real-estate companies, continues to support the project as long as an independent review of monorail finances finds no major problems. “There are more members with concerns today than when this started,” said Rod Kauffman, executive director for Seattle. “But we have a significant number of members on both sides.” One of the few major downtown property owners to embrace the monorail in recent months is Al Clise of Clise Properties. Clise long has owned property along the current monorail line, and he is planning to build a 17- story office building at Fifth Avenue and Bell Street, where the new monorail plans to build a stop on his property. He expects the monorail will hurt the value of some properties — including the historic Securities Building he owns on Stewart Street — but boost the value of others by providing a convenient way to move thousands of people through the city. “When you net it all out, we will benefit,” he said. “Anytime you build a major public-works project, people will get hurt. But on the whole it will be a positive.” But Clise finds himself increasingly isolated from the rest of his land-owning colleagues. Enthusiasm even has cooled at Vulcan, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s company, which lobbied hard to have the new monorail route pass through Allen’s Experience Music Project at Seattle Center. The route also would serve Qwest Field, where Allen’s Seattle Seahawks play. Spokesman Michael Nank declined to say whether the company still supports the monorail. “Regardless of whether one supports or opposes the monorail, it looks like it is heading back to the ballot,” he said. “We are going to have to see what the voters say.” Recall attempt The proposed Initiative 83, nicknamed the “Monorail Recall” measure, would ban city permits to the Green Line monorail on Seattle streets and sidewalks, effectively halting the project. Paid signature gatherers and volunteers, bankrolled mainly by developer Martin Selig, have collected enough names to put I-83 on the November ballot. However, it might be thrown out because of two legal challenges filed by the Seattle Monorail Project and its backers. A key hearing is scheduled Aug. 13 to consider SMP’s argument that I-83 violates land-use codes and the state Growth Management Act, which protects transit projects.

Support dwindles for BART to S.J.; SOME ADVOCATES ADVISE SHORTER EXTENSION San Jose Mercury News August 2, 2004 San Jose’s mayor doesn’t want to look at it. Nor does the head of a powerful Silicon Valley industry group or top local transit administrators. But an idea that’s become the proverbial third rail of local transportation politics — shortening a planned BART line so that it doesn’t reach downtown San Jose — is gaining momentum as transportation leaders face the reality that they can’t afford to pay for everything they promised voters four years ago. A BART extension from Fremont that ends in Milpitas — where it would connect to existing light rail — or Berryessa Road in East San Jose would provide many of the transportation benefits at a significantly reduced cost, advocates say. ``A $4 billion project if you stop in Milpitas becomes a $2 billion project,’’ said Santa Clara County Supervisor Don Gage, who serves as chairman of the Valley Transportation Authority’s board of directors. ``When you’re strapped for cash, you have to be realistic.’’ Formal discussion of a shorter line has been off-limits as San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales has sought to protect his promise to voters and downtown property interests who helped finance the Measure A sales tax in 2000. During that campaign, he vowed BART would extend through downtown and end in Santa Clara. In recent weeks, a number of voices — including two VTA directors, a neighboring transit agency and a transit advocacy group — have raised the need to study a phased project. When a BART director broached the subject of a shorter line at a joint meeting of the BART and VTA boards in May, Gonzales declared that was not an option because the ballot measure included the full 16.3-mile line, putting a quick end to the discussion. But with projections showing that Measure A may raise as little as two- thirds of the originally expected $6 billion to pay for BART and other transit projects, pressure is mounting to study a phased project, one that would get BART into the county within 10 years while putting off the full extension to a later date. Advocates for improved bus and Caltrain service fear VTA’s commitment to BART will gobble up money that was supposed to be available for a host of transit improvements. Carl Guardino, president of the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group and a leading BART advocate, insisted, however, that the full line has to be built. ``The only reason Measure A passed was because of the promise to bring BART to Silicon Valley,’’ he said. VTA administrators dismiss the short line option because any extension needs a maintenance yard, and they say the only place to put one is at the end of the proposed line, at Union Pacific’s 43-acre Newhall Yard in Santa Clara, which VTA would buy. But Newhall may not be the only option. Just north of the planned Milpitas BART station is a far larger, 105-acre Union Pacific yard, which could serve a line that ended on the east side or one that continued on to Santa Clara, if BART is built in phases as finances allow. While maintenance and storage yards at the end of the line are preferable for operational efficiency, recent BART extensions have been built to Pittsburg, Pleasanton and Millbrae without yards. Union Pacific says it won’t sell the Milpitas yard because it’s an important location for railroad operations — particularly to transfer new cars on their way to area dealerships. But the availability of the Newhall Yard is also questionable. The railroad terminated talks with VTA over the yard last November. ``They weren’t willing to pay what we thought the property was worth, and even what they thought it was worth. They didn’t have the money to buy it,’’ said Rick Gooch, the railroad’s chief real estate negotiator in San Francisco. Under federal law, VTA does not have the right to condemn active railroad property, so it must negotiate with Union Pacific for its maintenance needs. The BART extension is estimated to cost $4.2 billion. The line would travel above ground for about nine miles from Warm Springs in Fremont, south to U.S. 101 in San Jose. But from there, construction costs get much higher because the line would tunnel underground through downtown San Jose, past HP Pavilion and resurface north of Interstate 880, near the Santa Clara station. Recent VTA ridership estimates show the Milpitas station — with its light rail connection to job-rich parts of the valley — will be the most heavily used destination for BART users coming from the north. Stuart Cohen, executive director of the Oakland-based Transportation and Land Use Coalition, has suggested that a line that ends at Berryessa Road — if bolstered by improved bus connections to downtown and San Jose International Airport — could capture as much as 70 percent of the full BART extension’s expected ridership for less than half the cost. AC Transit, the public transportation agency that serves Alameda and Contra Costa counties, suggested in a recent letter to VTA that the short line be examined to deal with financial realities. ``It could allow a portion of the BART line to begin operating years sooner than if the whole project waited to be built at one time,’’ wrote Nancy Skowbo, an AC Transit executive. To pay for the full BART line and other transportation projects promised by Measure A, VTA leaders might seek voter approval of an additional sales tax in 2006.

MTA Is Told to Halt Work on Valley Bus Corridor Los Angeles Times August 3, 2004 The Metropolitan Transportation Authority could suspend construction of a $330-million busway in the San Fernando Valley as early as today, following an emergency court order Monday. The order, issued late in the afternoon by the state appellate court in Los Angeles, bars the MTA from “carrying out the busway project” until the court issues a formal ruling on a challenge to the project. Busway opponents, many of whom live near the 14-mile designated bus corridor between North Hollywood and Woodland Hills, hailed the ruling. “It means the busway has been temporarily stopped,” said their attorney, John Henning. “They shouldn’t be building the busway right now, whatever they do.” MTA officials said they were confused by the order and that agency lawyers would go to court this morning to seek clarification. “According to our legal counsel, [the order] is confusing…. If it means stopping all construction, we’ll have to look into what to do,” said Rick Thorpe, who oversees construction for the MTA. The busway, now more than 30% complete, had been scheduled to open in August 2005. In 2002, the residents’ group, Citizens Organized for Smart Transit, sued the MTA, alleging that its environmental impact report for the busway was flawed. A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge threw out the lawsuit. Last week, the state appellate court reversed that decision, holding that the agency failed to adequately consider a network of rapid bus lines as an alternative to the busway project. In response, MTA officials said they would appeal that ruling to the state Supreme Court while continuing construction.

Next stop: Lunchtime; Eateries near light-rail line pull in a downtown crowd Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN) August 3, 2004 Call it the gravy train. Restaurants along the Hiawatha corridor are getting a boost from downtown Minneapolis workers riding the rails, with many reporting their lunch business is up 20 to 30 percent since light-rail trains began running in June. I didn’t think it would affect me one way or the other - but, boy, was I wrong,” said Don Mattson, owner of Cap’s Grille, which sits alongside the rail station at E. 50th Street. The first day the trains ran a regular weekday schedule, Mattson said, he had 50 rail-borne diners at his barbecue joint. A month later, that number has settled at about 25 to 30 a day. Among his recent customers were Katie Hood, Peggy Schultz and two other co-workers from the trust department at Wells Fargo downtown. “We needed an adventure, so we thought we’d ride the train and see if we could find a place to have lunch,” said Schultz. At the Cardinal tavern on E. 38th Street, groups as large as 45 people have ridden the train for lunch, said Viva Beck, who has waited tables at the Cardinal for nearly 30 years. The light rail is the best thing since buttered popcorn,” Beck said. “It’s bringing business to everybody.” Cardinal manager Noel Casey said the tavern’s lunch business is up about 25 percent since the trains started running. One day last week, Beck was waiting on a table of seven co-workers from Seren Innovations. The group hopped the train in downtown Minneapolis and made the 10-minute trip to the Cardinal “just for fun, for something different to do,” said Steve Pierson, who organized the outing. That’s a typical response to new dining options, said Tom Day, a spokesman for the Minnesota Restaurant Association. “Whenever you change modes of transportation, people will get more adventuresome,” Day said. “The people who are riding the train are probably your veteran downtown workers who have seen everything, eaten everything and are looking for some new experiences.” Day said he hasn’t heard any complaints of lost business from downtown restaurateurs. With more than 160,000 people working in downtown Minneapolis, a few hundred train riders aren’t going to change the overall picture, he said. Besides, any gap at this time of year is likely to be filled by tourists visiting downtown. A quick survey showed at least two dozen restaurants within two or three blocks of the six rail stations between Cedar/Riverside and E. 50th Street. At Ted Cook’s 19th Hole Barbecue on E. 38th Street, lunch business is up about 30 percent, said Brandy Sparrow, assistant manager. Sparrow said downtown workers are calling ahead to place their orders, then riding the train to pick them up. Some restaurants are seeing a baseball boost, as well. Mattson and others said they’re getting a fair amount of business from Twins fans who park their cars, eat dinner and then ride the train to the Metrodome for the game. Restaurateur Dave Koch renovated an existing restaurant with the train in mind. The Rail Station Bar & Grill, formerly Jimmy’s, opened three weeks ago at 3675 Minnehaha Av. S. “I have noticed a lot of men in suits,” Koch said. “People have really accepted the train, compared to a few years ago when they were strapping themselves to trees” to protest development of the line. Not all restaurants have seen a jump in business. Jeff Hovelsrud, owner of Minnehaha Coffee at 4554 Minnehaha Av. S., also bought his business with the train in mind. Hovelsrud said he hasn’t gotten a boost yet, but expects one in the future. “It’s still new, so we don’t have a good handle on it,” said Hovelsrud, whose shop opened seven months ago about two blocks from a rail station. “Wait until the train runs out to the airport and the Mall of America [scheduled in December], and then we’ll see. “Right now, it’s backed up all the traffic with the signal on 46th Street, so I think people are actually avoiding the area because of the traffic. But we’re definitely looking at it over the long view, and we’re very optimistic.”

Key L.A. Officials Announce $9 Billion Plan for Top Ten Traffic Busters at Third Annual Mobility 21 Transportation Summit PR Newswire August 3, 2004 Metro, L.A. Area Chamber of Commerce and Automobile Club of Southern California Lead Initiative to Help Region’s Traffic Congestion The following press release is being issued on behalf of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Top leaders from Metro, Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce and the Automobile Club of Southern California, along with Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn today announced the kickoff of a $9 billion plan to fund Los Angeles County’s Top Ten Traffic Busters at the third annual Mobility 21 transportation summit held at the Hilton Burbank Airport and Convention Center. Los Angeles’ Top Ten Traffic Busters include the expansion of light rail lines, addition of carpool lanes, improvements to streets and highways, as well as improvements to key corridors to improve the movement of goods. The total price tag for the projects is close to $9 billion. “These Top Ten Traffic Busters represent what it will take to just keep up with anticipated growth and traffic,” said Metro CEO Roger Snoble. “We need to continue to build a more efficient and comprehensive transportation network, and these ten initiatives will help keep us moving in that direction.” Sponsored by Metro and the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, in partnership with the Automobile Club of Southern California, Mobility 21 is aimed at bringing together leaders from transportation, government, business, labor and the community to develop solutions to the region’s transportation challenges. Members of the Mobility 21 coalition have traveled extensively to Sacramento and Washington, D.C. over the past two years to advocate for more investment in transportation for Los Angeles County. “We want our legislators to hear this region speak with one voice when it comes to transportation funding,” said Lancaster Mayor and Metro Board Chair Frank Roberts. “Through Mobility 21, we are making progress in building consensus and getting projects funded.” As an example of the coalition’s effectiveness, Snoble pointed to the successful effort to secure the federal full funding grant agreement for the extension of the Metro Gold Line Eastside extension, which broke ground in July. “Without Mobility 21’s help, we would not have received the funding and been able to move ahead on this important project,” said Snoble. A main focus of this year’s summit is the movement of goods from the region’s ports, and the resulting truck traffic and rail congestion. “This is a critical issue in terms of our economy,” said Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce Board Chair George Kieffer. “We need to be able to move goods through our ports more efficiently, and we have to find better solutions to the growing truck congestion on our transportation corridors. Mobility is not simply a transportation issue, but is vital to the growth and vibrancy of our local, and in many cases, national economy.” In addition, Mobility 21 has been involved in joining together eight organizations including the Auto Club, the California Department of Transportation, the California Highway Patrol, the Department of Transportation for the city of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Department of Public Works, the Greater Los Angeles New Car Dealers Association, the Southern California Association of Governments and the Los Angeles Metro, to form Operation Traffix. Operation Traffix has launched a public awareness campaign called “Watch the Road” that is aimed a changing the small, unsafe behaviors that cause traffic accidents and are the source of much of the freeway and street congestion. Crashes in Los Angeles County have claimed more than 3,500 lives and caused more than 440,000 injuries over the past five years,” said Alice Bisno, vice president of legislative and regulatory affairs for the Automobile Club of Southern California. “Many of these accidents could be avoided by reducing unsafe roadway behaviors including aggressive driving and driving while distracted or drowsy. We can all help to make driving safer and reduce traffic congestion simply by paying attention to the road.” The opening session of the summit included addresses by several speakers including Metro CEO Roger Snoble, Alice Bisno, vice president of legislative and regulatory affairs for the Automobile Club of Southern California, Metro Board Chair and Lancaster Mayor Frank Roberts, Billie Greer, director of Gov. Schwarzenegger’s Los Angeles office, Assemblyman Keith Richman and Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn. In addition, a wide range of topics were discussed as part of breakout sessions including creating links between housing and transportation, strategic opportunities for transportation funding, improving traffic safety to reduce gridlock and save lives and Los Angeles as the center for global trade, transportation and economic growth (see list of recommendations). The Julian C. Dixon Award was presented to the entire California Congressional delegation for their successful efforts in securing the Full Funding Grant Agreement for the Metro Gold Line Eastside Extension. The Julian Dixon award is named after the late Congressman who was an early advocate of transportation and rail for Los Angeles County. Moderators for the breakout sessions included Dowell Myers, professor of urban planning, USC; Sara Catz, director, Center for Urban Infrastructure, UC Irvine; Dr. Sandra Rosenbloom, professor of planning, University of Arizona and author of The Brookings Institution study, The Mobility Needs of Older Americans; and Dr. Steven Erie, professor of political science and director, urban studies and planning program, UC San Diego, and author of Globalizing L.A.: Trade, Infrastructure and Regional Development. Mobility 21 executive co-chairs include Congressman David Dreier, Los Angeles Mayor and Metro Board Member James Hahn, Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce Board Chair George Kieffer, Los Angeles Supervisor and Metro Board Member Don Knabe, Thomas McKernan, president and ceo, Automobile Club of Southern California, Senator Kevin Murray, Chair, California State Senate Transportation Committee, Lancaster Mayor and Metro Board Chair Frank Roberts and Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard. Sponsors for Mobility 21 include: Majestic Realty, Antelope Valley Transit Authority, Arcadia Transit, Claremont Transit Services, City of Commerce Municipal Bus Lines, Culver City Bus, Foothill Transit, Gardena Municipal Bus Lines, Los Angeles Department of Transportation, Long Beach Transit, Montebello Bus Lines, Norwalk Transit, Redondo Beach Wave, Santa Clarita Transit, Santa Monica Big Blue Bus, Torrance Transit, Port of Los Angeles, Carter & Burgess, Inc., Ch2M HILL, The Gas Company, a Sempra Energy utility, Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority, Booz Allen & Hamilton Inc., Golden State Gateway Coalition, Port of Long Beach, Southwest Airlines and Wilbur Smith Associates. Mobility 21 2004 Transportation Summit Recommendations - Housing the Future: Creating Links Between Housing and Transportation - Support in concept the Governor’s proposal to integrate infrastructure planning at the state level by consolidating housing, transportation, and related public works under one umbrella agency - Explore reforming the environmental review process to streamline cumulative traffic analysis. For example, promoting a comprehensive program-level traffic analysis for a region or area can minimize the need for individual project traffic analysis. This can streamline the construction of needed infill housing projects that enhance the transportation system. Strategic Opportunities for Funding - Support a constitutional amendment allowing for a 55% vote requirement for passing local transportation sales tax; and support implementation of an additional local 1/2 percent sales tax for transportation according to terms set out in SB 314. - Support Governor’s effort to repay transportation loans through use of Indian gaming revenue, but seek long-term solutions. Safer & Faster: Improving Traffic Safety to Reduce Gridlock and Save Lives - Support Operation Traffix and the Watch the Road public awareness campaign that is aimed at changing the small, unsafe behaviors that cause traffic accidents and are the source of much freeway and street congestion. - Focus on improving railroad grade crossings, upgrading signs and signals; improve speed of clearing freeway incidents. Trade, Transportation and Economic Growth - Establish grassroots educational campaign for stakeholder participation to better understand everyone’s role in the nexus between trade, transportation, economic growth and quality of life. - Endorse exploring short haul rail initiative. TOP TEN TRAFFIC BUSTERS (Estimated Total Cost $ in Millions) - Alameda Corridor East Railroad/Street Crossing Improvements $920 - I-5 Regular and Carpool Lanes (I-605 to Orange County Line) and Carpool Lanes (Route 134 to Route 170) 910 - I-10 Carpool Lanes (I-605 to Route 57) 350 - I-405 Northbound Carpool Lanes (I-10 to US-101) 1,500 - I-710 Corridor Improvement Program - Phase 1 1,000 - Los Angeles International Airport Ground Access Improvements (Metro Green Line Connection and FlyAway System Expansion) 120 - Metro Exposition Light Rail Project (Downtown Los Angeles to Santa Monica) 1,350 - Metro Gold Line Eastside Extension 900 - Metro Gold Line Foothill Extension - Pasadena to Montclair 1,300 - Metro and Municipal Operators Bus Expansion and Improvements and Metrolink Rail Expansion and Improvements 300 Total $8,650 SOURCE Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority

Metro OKs funding for next light-rail project Hillsboro Argus August 3, 2004 Metro has approved a “local funding plan” for the Portland area’s next light-rail project. It would run along the Interstate 205 freeway in Multnomah and Clackamas counties and through the transit mall in downtown Portland to Portland State University. A local funding plan has to be in place before local governments can apply for construction assistance from the Federal Transit Administration. The proposed 8.3-mile line would run north-south from the Clackamas Town Center mall to connect with the existing east-west (Blue) line at Gateway and the Red line to the airport. In downtown Portland, tracks would be built along the existing transit mall (along Fifth and Sixth avenues) to provide a connection between the east-west line and Portland State which, Metro says, is the region’s No. 1 transit destination. Construction costs for the new line are estimated at $493.7 million. Local funding would cover 40 percent of the cost, and the federal agency will be asked to provide 60 percent. The local funding plan was approved by the Joint Policy Advisory Committee on Transportation, which includes representatives from all local governments, TriMet and the Oregon Department of Transportation. Metro, TriMet, Clackamas County, the City of Portland and ODOT will provide the $197.5 million needed to qualify for federal assistance. Construction could begin next year, and the line could start operating in 2009. TriMet projects it will carry 47,000 passengers a day by 2025

L.K. Comstock & Company Wins New Signal Contract for New York City Transit Flushing Line Business Wire August 3, 2004 Electrical Contracting Subsidiary Awarded $48 Million Contract To Rehabilitate Phase II of Flushing Line L.K. Comstock & Company, Inc., an operating subsidiary of RailWorks Corporation and one of the nation’s largest specialty electrical contractors, has been selected to rehabilitate the signal system on phase II of the Flushing Line, part of MTA New York City (NYC) Transit’s subway system. NYC Transit awarded the $48,433,000 contract to complete the signal modernization program under way on its Flushing Line, a key subway artery in the Borough of Queens in New York City. During this phase of the program, L.K. Comstock & Company will install, test and place in service signal equipment for the Queensboro Plaza, 33rd Street and 74th Street interlockings in Queens. The contract calls for installing complete wayside and relay room signal equipment. Most of the work will be self-performed by L.K. Comstock & Company. Work on this 48-month project begins this summer and continues through July 2008. It follows L.K. Comstock & Company’s successful completion of the phase I of the Flushing Line signal system rehabilitation from the 111th Street interlocking to Main Street in late 2003. “We are delighted to continue our work to modernize the signal system on the Flushing Line,” said Ben D’Alessandro, executive vice president of L.K. Comstock & Company. “This new award marks another key milestone in our proud association with the MTA and New York City Transit. Everyone on the Comstock team takes great pride in our work together over the past century to make the New York City subway system among the very best in the world.”

£30m a year just for London’s rail plans Manchester Evening News August 3, 2004 TAXPAYERS are being landed with an estimated annual bill of £30m for London’s Crossrail - just to draw up the plans for the project. In the same speech that Transport Secretary Alistair Darling scrapped the “Big Bang” extension to Manchester’s Metrolink, he said he would back the £11 billion east-west rail link for the capital. But even though Crossrail has yet to receive the final go-ahead and building work has not started, the project is already racking up huge bills in the planning stage. A total of 265 staff are already employed, with an extra 100 staff due to be recruited - taking the total wage bill to more than £2.7 million a year. There is also the cost of the rent for Cross London Rail Links’ prestige offices - coming in at £745,000 a year - and the annual wages for directors and staff adds another £2,762,000. Already, £472,000 has been spent on information technology and £149,076 on route surveys, maps and licenses. Despite the massive expenditure, the government has not yet given the final go-ahead for the scheme. And critics claim it may never happen because there is a funding gap of £8 billion. Manchester’s plans have been in place for six years and the preparation work is complete, but the government is now refusing to come up with any cash to let building work continue. It is estimated that the cost of the three Metrolink extensions to Oldham and Rochdale, Ashton and south Manchester would cost around £900 million. In 2002, the project was valued at £520m and the government promised £390 million, with the rest coming from the private sector and the 10 local authorities of Greater Manchester. Since then, the costs have gone up. This is due to a combination of rising costs of labour and materials and fears about the risks associated with light and heavy rail, which mean the bidders push up their estimates to protect their investments. Roger Jones, chairman of Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Authority, said: “When Alistair Darling announced £10 billion for Crossrail, he didn’t say he would find the money or how much would have to be found by businesses. “I think the government will have to find at least £2 billion toward the costs and that is a massive amount of money. “I don’t begrudge London a good transport system, but not at our expense. “To be cancelling light rail and having such a large amount of money going to Crossrail is unacceptable. They are looking at getting Crossrail up and running by 2012, so they have got many years of decisions before they can get under way - whereas we are ready to go now. We’ve already spent £200m and to have to stop work now is diabolical.” The Crossrail project was first announced in 1989 and since then, more than £150 million has been spent on preparation work. Transport for London and the Strategic Rail Authority, who run Cross London Rail Links, have given the project a further £154 million, which is now being eaten into. It is estimated that the rate of spending will be just over £30 million a year until 2006. Final approval for Crossrail is due to be announced in the Queen’s Speech this autumn. No-one from Cross London Rail Links was available to comment on the figures.

Operator fears it’ll soon be ‘so klong’ to canal boats The Nation (Thailand) August 3, 2004 Operator fears it’ll soon be ‘so klong’ to canal boats The canal boat operator on Klong Saen Saeb says his business is in danger of being phased out when the city expands the skytrain and subway lines, luring away commuters. ‘I think I may have to halt operations within the next six years,’ said Chavalit Methayaprapas, 52, whose Transportation Family Company is the sole operator of boat services on the canal. The boats ply the canal between Bang Kapi in the eastern suburbs and Pan Fah Bridge in the older part of the city. The company’s fleet of 67 boats serves more than 30,000 passengers a day, with a maximum fare of Bt15. Many people have continued to use the canal boats for the past 15 years despite the inconvenience of using shaky platforms to get on and off the wobbly boats and the risks of getting splashed by dirty canal water. The boats’ strong point was their speed, often beating the commuting time on car-jammed roads during rush hour. So far, Chavalit said his business had not yet been hurt by the impact of the underground and skytrain because they took different routes. ‘But as soon as the government completes its expansion of the subway and skytrain routes, my business will go bust, even if I provide the best services. I expect this to happen within six years,’ he said. He saw no reason why passengers would stick to using boats on a dirty canal if they were offered convenient rail-based systems. However, Chavalit insisted he was not dreading the day when Bangkok possesses efficient city rail systems. He said he was already preparing to venture into a new business, operating tour boats on the Chao Phya River. ‘I don’t feel any sadness. I have always dreamed of a Bangkok free of traffic congestion. If that dream comes true, it will be much better for people,’ Chavalit said. Vinij Pongsomsak, 57, who has been riding boats between Bang Kapi and Pratunam piers for six years, said the boats save him more than an hour a day compared to using the roads. ‘The boats will remain my favourite mode of transportation until the skytrain and subway reach the outer areas of Bangkok,’ he said. Vinij lives in the outer suburbs but works in an office that is located in the inner city. ‘If the city’s rail system reaches the outer areas, I am sure no one would want to use boats and be sprayed by dirty water,’ he said. However, 39-year-old Somjit Khamsingka was reluctant to embrace the subway and skytrain because of the higher fares, when compared to boats. She said she did not mind having to pull down canvas curtains to avoid being splashed when she sees an oncoming boat approaching. ‘I am already used to them. The worst thing that happened to me on a boat was the time my shoes fell into the canal,’ she said. Wet and wild The canal boats on Klong Saen Saeb run between Bang Kapi and Pan Fah Bridge, making 27 stops. A 2003 survey by the Transport Ministry found 77,987 passengers used the boats on an average workday and 31,569 on weekends and holidays. The service runs from 5.30am to 7.15pm on weekdays, and 6am to 7.15pm on weekends.The maximum fare is Bt15.

Group Draws Up Transit Priorities Government and business leaders hope to focus lobbying efforts on 10 regional projects. Los Angeles Times August 4, 2004 Officials from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, businesspeople and local elected officials unveiled a $9-billion top 10 list of “traffic buster” projects Tuesday that included new carpool lanes on the San Diego Freeway and a light-rail line to Santa Monica. Assembled for an annual transportation conference in Burbank, the officials said they created the consensus list to focus the county’s often- divergent lobbying efforts in Sacramento and Washington. “I lived in San Diego and Texas and we always knew L.A. was a weak target,” said the MTA’s chief executive, Roger Snoble. With this list, he explained, “We’re going to speak with one voice from Los Angeles County, saying, ‘These are the ways we can solve the problems,’ and hopefully give our elected officials the energy and the will to go ahead.” Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn said he hoped that a united lobbying effort could finally help Los Angeles get its proportional share of transportation dollars. “We pay over $1.4 billion in gas taxes here in Southern California and we get $1.2 billion if we’re lucky,” he said. “We think those taxes ought to stay here.” This is the first-ever top 10 list for the group, known as Mobility 21, that advocates for transit funding. The list was expanded because more members have joined the group and managing freight traffic is more important now, Snoble said. Recent additions to the priority list include $1.3 billion for an extension of the Gold Line from Pasadena to Montclair; $1 billion for the Long Beach Freeway to add lanes, a new bridge and other improvements aimed at improving freight transit; and $350 million for carpool lanes on the San Bernardino Freeway from the 605 Freeway to the Orange Freeway. Another new proposal asks for $120 million for improvements at Los Angeles International Airport that include connecting the Green Line to a people-mover and expanding the number of remote check-in desks, where passengers can take a shuttle directly to LAX. Other items on the list are: - Carpool lanes on the northbound San Diego Freeway between the Santa Monica and Ventura freeways. Cost: $1.5 billion. - A light-rail line from downtown Los Angeles to Santa Monica. Cost: $1.35 billion. - Bridges at street crossings along 35 miles of railroad tracks in the San Gabriel Valley known as the Alameda Corridor East. Cost: $920 million. - Additional lanes on the Santa Ana Freeway from the Orange County border to the 605 Freeway and on the Golden State Freeway between the Ventura and Hollywood freeways. Cost: $910 million. - Extending the Gold Line six miles from downtown Los Angeles to East L.A. Cost: $900 million. - Adding municipal bus service and Metrolink commuter trains. Cost: $300 million.

Residents Plan Gold Line Lawsuit; In South Pasadena, some say that noise from the MTA commuter trains is threatening their quality of life. Los Angeles Times August 4, 2004 Karolyn Kiisel said the high-pitched screeches of the Gold Line train are so grating that she has stopped barbecuing in her backyard, installed a $5,000 fence to block the noise and turns up the radio when she’s working at home. The whine, she says, interrupts her day and night. “I’m so sleep-deprived,” said the 52-year-old South Pasadena resident. “It’s kind of like a big truck going by.” Despite steps taken by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to dampen the sound, Kiisel and at least a few dozen other South Pasadena residents are fed up. Some of them are planning to file suit against the MTA, the separate authority that built the light-rail line and the contractors. Residents who have fought the extension of the Long Beach Freeway through their town see the Gold Line as another front in the war to guard their “Mayberry” way of life. The line threatens to ruin South Pasadena’s quiet atmosphere, said David Margrave, a city councilman who owns a plumbing business near the line and who promised while he was campaigning to press the MTA to reduce the noise level. “We don’t want to be L.A.,” he said. “We don’t want to be Pasadena. We hate the idea of Alhambra.” The $859-million Gold Line light rail from Union Station to Pasadena opened a year ago and runs along a right of way that was last used by Amtrak in 1994. Along some parts of the route, thick concrete walls box in the train. Along others, though, a wire fence and a few trees are all that separate the tracks from residential streets. The train’s rumbling interrupts the suburban sounds of chirping birds and barking dogs all day, except between 2 and 4 a.m. Even in off-peak hours, the bells clang at intersections about every 10 minutes, followed by the train’s whipping sound and high-pitched squeal. A South Pasadena citizens group, the Pasadena Avenue-Monterey Road Committee, started complaining about the potential noise and vibrations to the state Public Utilities Commission in 2002, even before the line opened. In June, officials at the MTA and the Metro Gold Line Foothill Extension Construction Authority, which built the line and plans to extend it to Montclair, agreed to some remedies for the noise, such as adding more 6- foot-high concrete walls to block sound and finding softer bells for the crossings. The South Pasadena City Council narrowly approved the agreement. But the citizens group and other residents weren’t satisfied and hired a lawyer. “It just scratches the surface,” said Wayne Kreger, a lawyer with the firm of Verboon, Milstein & Peter in Santa Monica. Kreger said he was hired “to take the fight to another level” and said the planned lawsuit would ask for millions of dollars in damages and remedial measures to reduce noise and vibration. “It’s amazing to think people are forced to live like this and there’s nothing done to protect them,” he said. “Houses that are on the tracks shake and vibrate like it’s an earthquake.” Kiisel, whose two teenage daughters regularly use the Gold Line, said she supports the railroad, she just wants a higher sound barrier than the 4-foot one near her house. She would be satisfied, she said, “if they just raised the wall a little bit … or helped the people right bordering the Gold Line to defray some of the cost.” Rick Thorpe, who oversaw the line’s construction and now serves as the construction chief for the MTA, said he was disappointed the citizens group is planning a lawsuit. “I thought we had worked out some things that were going to substantially improve the situation,” he said. Thorpe said the agency lubricates parts of the track by hand to reduce screeching and plans to install new sound walls in about a month. Thorpe and Habib Balian, the Gold Line authority’s interim chief executive, said newly elected South Pasadena council members are trying to change the terms late in the game. “There’s been a different emphasis on what is an acceptable threshold for sound,” Balian said. “We froze the design on an understanding we had with the city, the contractor and the operator.” Residents in other areas, such as Mt. Washington and Highland Park, have complained about the noise and vibration, but no one has mounted an effort as concerted and organized as South Pasadena’s, said Balian and Thorpe. “I think there’s less tolerance for the system in some parts of the alignment than others,” Balian said. Eileen Johnson, who lives on Orange Grove Avenue, benefited from some of the attempts to remedy the disturbances. Transit officials replaced several single-paned windows in her home with double-paned ones, but the 55-year-old said they don’t help much. “I haven’t slept through the night since they began testing on April 18, 2003,” she said. When no trains are rolling by, the only sound in her living room comes from a wall clock. But when a train rushed by, the noise was so loud she stopped talking until it passed. “Some are louder,” she said. Friends can hear the bells and horns over the phone, prompting them to ask, “What’s that? Are you outside?” Trains often shake the bedroom wall when she is trying to sleep or jostle the porcelain in her curio cabinet. “You cannot even complete a thought,” she said. One neighbor across the street now sleeps in his office in Orange County, and another on Hawthorne Street has rented an apartment in Alhambra, she said. Some residents use fans or air conditioners to drown out the noise at night. Johnson, however, is not sure she would join a lawsuit. She said she knew she would have to deal with some hassles when she bought her 1916 Craftsman cottage right next to the tracks. “We are very pro-public transit,” she said. “During the 2? years of construction, we welcomed it. We provided dessert and drinks and shade to the workers.” “I don’t hate the train,” she said. “I just want the train to be a good neighbor, that’s all.”

Two Green Line rivals rework agency design Seattle Times August 4, 2004 As the deadline looms to offer construction proposals for the 14-mile Seattle monorail, the rival bidders are rewriting the plans you’ve previously seen from the Seattle Monorail Project (SMP). The agency’s visions of lean single-track design, tall “iris” columns and gleaming station designs by Seattle architecture firms — the fruit of countless public meetings and millions of dollars worth of consulting contracts — are mostly optional when the teams submit their Green Line bids on Aug. 16, bid documents say. If the teams are right, their own plans would be simpler and cheaper and would move people more efficiently. Some changes from the original plans were meant to happen. Under the monorail’s contracting process, in which private firms design, build, operate and maintain the line for a fixed price, each team is expected to “give us your best ideas,” spokeswoman Natasha Jones said. The bids will remain concealed until a winner is nominated for approval at an SMP board meeting. The agency says confidentiality ensures a fair selection, but the public will be out of the loop while basic decisions are made to shape the $1.75 billion public-works project. One group, the “Team Monorail” consortium, led by Canadian train maker Bombardier, has divulged some of its game plan. The competing “Cascadia Monorail Co.,” with Hitachi trains, says it will be more tight- lipped. “Everything that came before this point was pretty much ephemeral,” said agency critic Geof Logan, who called the SMP’s earlier planning a waste of time. “It looks like the bid teams are actually going to dictate what the designs are going to be.” Here’s what to expect: More tracks: SMP has proposed converting four miles of the 14-mile Ballard-to-West Seattle route from twin tracks to a single track, where northbound and southbound trains take turns sharing the lone beam. Single-tracking began as an urban-design breakthrough, allowing slimmer support posts. Then the agency announced that single-tracking also would save $100 million to compensate for a shortage in car-tab taxes. Single-tracking would add two to three minutes per ride and would cause longer waits between trains. Another drawback is the need for more overhead switches, to shuffle the trains on and off the shared beam. Team Monorail said recently it would build nearly all the line with dual- tracking, including the West Seattle Bridge deck, which had been proposed for single-tracking. The Cascadia team declined comment on whether any single-track area would remain, or where, in its plan. However, Cascadia executive Six Silva, of Washington Group International, said, “We will propose something that has better operational functionality, at reduced cost, compared to the single guideway with switches.” Fewer irises: Early last year, lead monorail designer Alan Hart invented the “iris” column, which positions the northbound track above the southbound track on two separate branches. People could board trains in either direction from a small station off to one side of the street, since boarding ramps can protrude from different floors of a station building. At one point, the agency considered irises for 14 of the 19 stations, reducing that to eight after builders complained about cost. Engineering studies showed column widths up to 6 feet to support the iris. And if trains need to rise and descend more frequently to reach iris stations, that could slow down trains. Silva said yesterday Hitachi trains can run on irises, and “that’s part of our plan.” But Bombardier’s group proposes not to use irises, instead relying on shorter columns 4 feet wide. Simpler stations: Instead of custom designs, the Bombardier group is planning a standard downtown-station style that extends a platform above the dual tracks. Riders would take elevators to the large upper floor, then descend to either the northbound or southbound boarding area. The existing bus lane, all three car lanes and the bike lane would remain, says Team Monorail organizer Tom Stone. Cascadia would not divulge its plans. Even the station lengths, which pr