Street Talk: The Las Vegas Monorail
KLAS-TV — Las Vegas
Sept. 9, 2004
(Sept. 9) — The assorted mechanical problems that have kept the Las Vegas Monorail stopped in its tracks have been blamed, so far, on lower level employees and the monorail manufacturer. In Thursday’s Street Talk commentary, George Knapp asks whether the company that runs the train will ever assume any responsibility on its own.
To hear monorail managers tell it, you might think they woke up one Christmas morning and found the shiny new train under the tree, a gift from Santa Claus. The latest shutdown of the train, which came just one day after it had reopened from its previous shutdown, occurred after a chunk of pipe fell of the drive shaft.
Last week, it was a tire that went airborne. Days before that, the doors to the train flew open, exposing passengers to a potentially nasty fall. Who’s to blame for all for all of this? Employees, that’s who. An employee failed to sound the alarm about the door, an employee failed to stop the train when the wheel fell off, another employee installed the wheel incorrectly, and we’ll bet that somewhere, there’s an employee who caused this drive shaft fiasco.
A monorail spokesman put it this way; it’s unacceptable that the system ‘given to us’ is operating like this. Given to us? What? Did the tooth fairy leave it under the pillow? Was it a birthday gift from mom and dad? Before monorail spin doctors rewrite history again, keep in mind that this private company, comprised of well-connected big shots, thrust this system upon the public.
They promised it would be free, wouldn’t cost us a dime, and then went behind closed doors to obtain millions in state tax breaks, got state bonds to raise the money to build it, had the monorail declared a charity for tax purposes without ever telling the public, and got millions more in tax exemptions from the county.
Ironic, isn’t it, that county inspectors are now out there to see if the train is safe. It’s the monorail company itself that not only chose this technology and these contractors, but also used its political juice to make sure that rival technologies never had a chance. They went out and picked this lemon off the lot and are now griping that no one looked under the hood or kicked the tires beforehand.
Die-hard fans of the TV show The Simpson’s know that this scenario seems awfully familiar. In one classic episode, the town of Springfield gets monorail fever because of promises made by a fast talking flim-flam man. Marge Simpson had argued the town should fix up its roads instead of building a train. It turned out the new monorail was a bucket of bolts with pieces falling off and mechanical problems from the get go. Sound familiar? The salesman made a ton of money, while the town barely escaped disaster.
Unlike the Springfield monorail, the one in Las Vegas only travels to and from casinos. Its well-connected owners say it’s a public project when they want public help, but say its a private project when they don’t want to answer questions. Instead of blaming their troubles on Homer Simpson type employees, maybe they’d better start asking whether there’s a Homer or two in the boardroom.
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Monorail’s motto: Look out below
Las Vegas Sun
September 10, 2004
How do you operate a $650 million monorail system that doesn’t work?
The answer is you don’t, which is why Transit Management Systems, the high-powered company that runs the Las Vegas Monorail, has been forced to shut down service twice in the past week.
It turns out that the privately funded monorail, which has received millions of dollars in tax breaks from the state and county, is unsafe and never should have opened to all of its red carpet fanfare back in July. And it should remain closed until monorail officials can assure us that we aren’t putting our lives in jeopardy every time we get near this high-tech contraption.
In hindsight we should have seen this coming when the monorail’s much-hyped opening was delayed for six months because of a variety of software and technical problems. On one test drive in January, a drive shaft separated from a train and fell to the street 20 feet below. Nine months later objects are still dropping from the sky, which seems fitting when you consider the company that built the monorail is called Bombardier Transportation.
Last week a 60-pound tire from a moving train fell into a parking lot near Koval Lane and Sands Avenue. On Wednesday, a two-pound steel washer used to help secure a drive shaft on another moving train broke loose and hit the ground along Audrie Street behind Paris Las Vegas.
In each case no one was hurt, but that may be just a stroke of luck. The monorail is built above well-traveled thoroughfares and pedestrian walkways, including those along South Paradise Road on the front doorstep of the busy Las Vegas Convention Center.
As they lay blame for their troubles on Bombardier, the closed-mouthed Canadian-based conglomerate, Transit Management officials are now admitting that they might have launched the trains prematurely in July. Ya think? “At the time we were given full confidence from the experts that the system was ready,” monorail spokesman Todd Walker said. “But maybe it wasn’t ready.”
Ron Lynn, the county’s building department chief, said he’s so concerned about fallout from the monorail that he may order its operators to install a permanent shield or safety net under its four-mile concrete guideway to catch any future objects that might break off.
Another possibility, Lynn said, is requiring a steel cage underneath and alongside the trains.
Both ideas would be unprecedented in the annals of monorail history and not exactly a vote of confidence in the people associated with a project once billed as “the most technologically advanced public transportation system in the world.” But either option would be a good way to calm the public’s fears.
The alternative is asking pedestrians and motorists to put on helmets every time they enter the danger zone, which isn’t very tourist-friendly and is unlikely to provide much protection from a 60-pound falling object.
For the time being Bombardier, which has said very little publicly, is accepting responsibility for the mishaps and wants to make things right, according to Transit Management CEO Jim Gibson. “We didn’t bargain for anything other than a first-class system,” Gibson said. “We are holding Bombardier accountable for whatever is required to make it a first-class system.”
Translated, that means a system that is safe. Until that happens, for as long as it takes, this $650 million embarrassment should remain idle.
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Valley Busway Project Is Months Behind; A court-ordered work stoppage and other woes have plagued the line, but MTA officials still say it will open in August 2005
Los Angeles Times
September 11, 2004
The construction of the San Fernando Valley’s Orange Line busway, which has been plagued by litigation, design issues and the discovery of contaminated soil, is now nearly four months behind schedule, officials said.
Though Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials still say the transit line will open in August 2005, they acknowledge the $329.5-million project is falling further behind each day.
Unless there is a major change in the agency’s construction plan — such as paying crews overtime to work around the clock — it will be virtually impossible for the busway to be completed on time, officials say.
Since the latest 24-day construction stoppage, which had been ordered by a court, ended two weeks ago, the MTA has not been able to get enough workers to return to the site. “We’re having trouble remobilizing,” said Rick Thorpe, chief capital management officer for the MTA. “We have subcontractors who have taken on other work. We don’t know when we’ll get them back.” Last week, only 25% of the Orange Line’s workers actually worked. This week, staffing remains at less than 50%.
Falling behind on a big project is costly to the MTA. Consultants bill more hours, equipment leases must be extended and agency staff cannot move on to other projects. But it is also expensive to pay overtime to speed up construction. MTA officials are trying to figure out the cost of accelerating the project versus doing nothing to reduce delays.
The 14-mile busway, which will stretch from the North Hollywood Red Line subway station to Warner Center in Woodland Hills, roughly parallels the Ventura Freeway. The MTA projects the Orange Line will serve 20,000 riders a day.
Early this year, the MTA repeatedly halted construction on the project because hazardous levels of arsenic and lead were detected in the soil and had to be removed. Additional delays resulted from a contractor submitting unsatisfactory design plans.
In August, a citizens group successfully sued to suspend construction. A state appellate panel issued a temporary injunction after finding that the MTA had failed to adequately consider alternatives. The order dissolved when the court’s jurisdiction ended.
The MTA has appealed the underlying case to the California Supreme Court. In the meantime, the citizens group filed a request with the same court Friday to seek another order to halt the busway’s construction. “We do not want them to build the Orange Line. It is a waste of taxpayers’ money,” said Diana Lipari, chairwoman of Citizens Organized for Smart Transit, which contends a network of rapid buses on regular streets would better serve riders than a bus-only corridor. “The MTA should not have started construction knowing the litigation was pending.”
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More L.A. subways? Councilman wants to reopen doors in transit debate
Los Angeles Daily News
September 18, 2004
With the population booming and freeway gridlock at a “crisis stage,” one Los Angeles politician says the time has come for Los Angeles County residents to reconsider the ban on building new subways, and some others agree with him.
City Councilman Tom LaBonge wants to ask voters to overturn the county law they passed overwhelmingly in 1998 — during the $4.5 billion spending fiasco over the Red Line subway — that prohibits the use of sales tax revenue to build subways.
After a study released this month found that Southern California motorists spend 93 hours a year stuck in traffic, LaBonge says transportation planners need every available tool to bring relief. “I truly believe it is in a crisis stage and we have to remove any hurdles,” said LaBonge, who also serves on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board. “I think it is horrible in the past that others abused whatever challenges were there in building this system. But still the people are sitting on that freeway. Every hurdle should be removed so we can have a clear discussion.”
But LaBonge faces an uphill battle in persuading colleagues and constituents to overlook the spending and construction problems that plagued the Red Line project a decade ago. A measure would have to be placed on a countywide ballot, and it would have to be approved by a majority of voters.
Additionally, a federal law remains in place preventing a subway from being built to the Westside under Wilshire Boulevard, where it initially was planned, because of concerns over methane gas trapped beneath the surface.
MTA Chairman Frank Roberts said overturning the restrictions is certainly an idea the MTA should consider — but may not be one whose time has yet come. “While I agree with Tom LaBonge we should consider all things, that one may be a little premature,” said Roberts, who is also the Lancaster mayor. “His motion is something that certainly needs to be considered.”
County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, an MTA board member and longtime subway critic, said the proposal is nothing short of a Trojan horse that would divert scarce transportation dollars from higher-priority projects.
But Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke said it’s an issue worth debating. “It provides an excellent first step,” said the supervisor, also an MTA board member who has pushed for finishing the Red Line under Wilshire Boulevard. “You’ve got to plan ahead. More and more people will start to recognize we need to start doing something.”
LaBonge sits on the council’s Transportation Committee, which earlier this month passed a motion saying the city would support efforts to overturn the 1998 proposition and rescind the 1985 Wilshire tunneling ban. The motion will be considered by the full City Council before going before the MTA board.
Southern California’s sprawl of homes and jobs makes mass transit difficult to plan and build because, unlike in New York City or Chicago, the downtown area isn’t the primary employment magnet.
Still, voters supported building mass transit, approving half- percent sales tax increases in 1980 and 1990 to fund the system. Then a methane gas explosion a few blocks away from the Wilshire Boulevard route prompted Congress to ban any further tunneling in that area.
By 1998, voters were outraged over the spending and construction problems on the Red Line, and Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky found overwhelming voter support for his ballot measure that prevents any more sales tax revenue from being used to build subways.
Yaroslavsky says it’s too early to overturn the restriction. “I think the people, the taxpayers, are gun-shy — and rightly so — about allowing this option.” He said there just isn’t money or time to build all the wished-for subways across sprawling Los Angeles, and funds should be spent on light rail or busways that can be built for a fraction of the cost. “I love the subway,” he said. “I was a supporter of the subway for many years. I use the subway. But it took 17 years to go 18 miles.”
“If you give the MTA the option to spend the money on subways, they’ll use it on subways and it won’t go very far and it’ll suck up every dollar. If you don’t, it forces the MTA to use its head to be functional, as we’re trying to be now.”
Subways cost on average $300 million a mile — which is almost the entire price tag of the new 14-mile Orange Line busway being built across the San Fernando Valley. By comparison, the 13-mile Gold Line light-rail project cost $900 million.
Nationally, light rail has replaced subways as the transit mode of choice, accounting for most of the 26 projects now being built and in line for federal funds on Capitol Hill this year. But subways can go much faster than light rail, supporters argue, and would attract more riders than above-ground trains.
Extending the Wilshire subway through the Miracle Mile area remains part of the region’s official long-term plan.
For LaBonge, fixing L.A.’s transportation problems is on par with great civic feats of days past — bringing water down the Los Angeles aqueduct or hosting the 1984 Olympics. He envisions routes that could crisscross the city. “As an elected official, my time at the plate is short,” he said, alluding to the eight-year limit on council terms. “We’re always going to have challenges, but I want to remove obstacles so we can discuss this,” he said. “It could take 18 years. In 18 years, (traffic’s) only going to get worse.”
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Traffic-choked L.A. a model for future of mass transit?
San Diego Union-Tribune
September 18, 2004
LOS ANGELES — Mass-transit experts from across the nation and beyond are gathering here this weekend to study the city as a 21st century model for communities built around efficient public transportation.
Local residents who routinely grapple with the nation’s worst traffic congestion might well ask: Have these guys come to the wrong place?
A recent study by the Texas Transportation Institute found that Los Angeles residents lose nearly four full days a year sitting in cars waiting for the traffic in front of them to move faster, or move at all. They lead the nation in this dubious regard, losing about twice as much time to traffic delays as their counterparts in San Diego.
Moreover, large swaths of this sprawling metropolis aren’t served by high-speed transit, just standard buses that often have to slog through the same gridlocked streets and freeways lanes as rank-and- file vehicles.
It’s true Los Angeles is making progress on a variety of automobile- avoidance fronts, including “smart growth” housing developments close to mass transit, high-speed bus routes and colorful, airy subway and light-rail stations that invite passengers to climb aboard. But for residents, experts say, the hard truth is these improvements won’t dent the city’s infamous congestion.
Nevertheless, during the Rail-volution 2004 conference here, which runs through Wednesday, municipal planners and transit advocates from places such as Florida, Maryland and Illinois will explore a city that, as one brochure notes, is using mass transit to “reinvent” itself as a more livable place. A smattering of foreign experts, from places such as Venezuela, Colombia, Germany, Canada and Australia, will also attend.
Gloria Ohland of Reconnecting America <http://www.reconnectingamerica.org>, a transportation think tank and one of the participating groups, conceded that until recently, “it seemed inconceivable that all these people would come to Los Angeles to talk about this subject. … But it isn’t so far-fetched anymore to say that L.A. is on the cutting edge.”
Other experts see things differently. “It’s hard for me to think of Los Angeles in those terms,” said Genevieve Giuliano, a transportation and planning specialist at the University of Southern California. “There are some encouraging things going on in terms of providing more (transit) service and better service … but I can’t call this an innovative place.”
Among the positive signs for mass transit in Los Angeles:
- Daily ridership on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s buses, subway and light-rail lines is creeping up again after last fall’s mechanics strike. Weekday ridership on the subway and three light-rail lines is 218,000, compared with 82,000 on the San Diego Trolley.
- Car ownership in Los Angeles, known as “the car capital of the world,” is 1.44 per household, according to the 2000 Census. That is lower than a number of other cities, including San Diego (1.65) and Phoenix (1.61).
- The MTA is building a transitway for buses in the San Fernando Valley, and plans to experiment with traffic lanes for high-speed buses elsewhere.
- There are 27 multistory housing and commercial developments, worth $4 billion, planned or being built along the MTA’s subway and light- rail lines, putting dense concentrations of residents conveniently close to the tracks.
That strategy is touted by many mass-transit advocates as a key step toward addressing the region’s chronic housing shortage, absorbing its projected population growth and creating so-called livable cities in which public transportation is a practical alternative for more of the population.
A regional blueprint for San Diego embraces the concept of smart growth. It aims to get the region’s 18 cities and county government to work together to stem sprawl by building higher-density housing close to transit lines and jobs, while preserving open spaces and far-flung rural areas that planners say are unsuitable for development.
For Los Angeles residents, however, the bad news is that while denser developments could accomplish those things, they’ll also lead to more traffic congestion. The math is unrelenting: With an average of 1.47 cars per household, more households means more cars.
“In the near term, without question, you get more traffic at intersections and longer lines at Safeways” near transit-oriented developments, said Bob Cervero, a professor of city planning at the University of California Berkeley.
“High-density cities are really congested cities, (such as) New York, London,” Giuliano added.
The Texas Transportation Institute has found that traffic congestion correlates more with population than density, said Tim Lomax, a TTI research engineer. The more residents in a city, the worse its traffic congestion. But that doesn’t spell relief for Los Angeles, either. With 3.9 million residents, it is the nation’s second-largest city, behind New York.
Mark Pisano, executive director of the Southern California Association of Governments, a regional planning agency, conceded that with Los Angeles County expected to swell by more than 1 million people by 2030, traffic congestion will undoubtedly get worse.
But, he insisted, it will get twice as bad if high-density, mixed- use developments aren’t built along major bus and rail lines. Such “smart growth” enables people to shop, dine and work closer to home, with the result being that “the average trip, in length and in time, will be less in the future,” Pisano said. “Even with more people.”
During the past 25 years, he pointed out, Los Angeles County has switched from spending more than two-thirds of its federal, state and local transportation funds on freeways to spending the same percentage on mass transit. “And we’re now in the process of bringing land-use and development patterns into association with the transit expenditures,” Pisano said. “That’s really the essence of what Rail-volution will be highlighting. … At a vision level, it’s fair to say we’re at the vanguard of the country.”
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MONORAIL WOES: Bombardier scores hits, misses; Company that built Las Vegas rail line plagued with problems in past
Las Vegas Review-Journal
September 18, 2004
The Las Vegas Monorail is just one among dozens of high-profile rail lines built by the world’s largest train maker, Bombardier Corp.
Like the troubled monorail, some of those other projects have had some serious growing pains. Train crashes, faulty parts, late deliveries and even a worker’s death have plagued the testing and startup of various Bombardier rail systems in recent years.
Whether an occasional problem is to be expected when producing high- tech trains or a sign of deeper problems within the Canadian builder is subject to debate.
In recent months, the company has suffered a prolonged financial slump with its stock having lost more than half its value and its credit rating at risk.
Company officials say finances aren’t behind problems that often stem from testing new technology. In many cases, kinks get worked out and clients are pleased in the end. “We don’t brag about our successes, but we’ve had a lot of successes,” said Kathryn Nickerson, a Bombardier spokeswoman. “There have been some hiccups in some of the systems, but we work through it. We don’t walk away from any of them.”
Kenton Frietag, an analyst with Standard & Poor’s in Toronto, agreed: “When you create new projects, particularly on the rail side, the technologies can be new. It’s not uncommon for there to be some initial startup problems.”
Others say the problems here are unique. The $650 million driverless monorail has thrice shed parts from moving trains this year, and opened months late because of computer glitches.
Project managers also have been accused of ignoring alarms and other dangerous oversights. “It’s a bit of a mystery,” said Kim Pedersen, president of The Monorail Society, a Fremont, Calif.-based advocacy group. “I know that new systems have problems, but this seems to be a bit over the top.”
Monorail officials have pinned blame on Bombardier, which has largely accepted responsibility. The system is closed indefinitely for inspections and repairs. “The events that take place here in Las Vegas are the ones we are focused on, and that we need to get resolved,” said Todd Walker, a monorail spokesman.
Hits and misses
Born as a snowmobile maker in 1942, Montreal-based Bombardier rakes in more than $15 billion in annual sales as the world’s dominant train- builder and third-biggest commercial jet maker.
Bombardier has landed notable clients such as London’s subway system and the Walt Disney World monorail in Florida. Yet, that A-list of clients has not ensured reliability. “They’ve had some problems in some of their rail division products,” Pedersen said. Namely:
- In New York, Bombardier worker Kelvin DeBourgh Jr. died Sept. 27, 2002, when a John F. Kennedy International Airport AirTrain he was driving derailed in testing. DeBourgh had been speeding. A National Transportation Safety Board report partly blamed Bombardier for failing to ensure protocols were followed in testing the $1.9 billion system.
- In California, a software glitch caused a driverless AirTrain to jump its tracks and hit another train during testing at San Francisco International Airport in 2002.
- In Minnesota, trains for the new $715 million Hiawatha light rail line in Minneapolis-St. Paul were delivered two months late this year.
- On the East Coast, Amtrak’s high-speed Acela Express trains running between New York City, Boston and Washington, D.C., suffered suspension system cracks in 2002, leading to a system shutdown.
Bombardier and Amtrak blamed each other for the faults, filing dueling lawsuits that were eventually settled out of court. Cliff Black, an Amtrak spokesman, said the $611 million Acela line is “running well now.”
Likewise, San Francisco’s $400 million airport train has been “very reliable” since its 2003 public launch, said airport spokesman Mike McCarron.
Bob Gibbons, a Hiawatha spokesman, said the 17 trains delivered to date have performed “almost flawlessly” since the system opened in June.
Nickerson said officials in New York are considering extending AirTrain, which opened last year: “They would not be considering an extension to the system if they had problems with it.”
Officials at Vancouver, Canada’s SkyTrain line say they’ve never encountered a crippling problem with $123 million in Bombardier trains it received for a 2002 line extension. “Everything was great,” said Margaret McInnis of that city’s Rapid Transit Project 2000. “We found that we could go to Bombardier with any problem, and they’d find a fix for it, a very reasonable fix. We just didn’t have any problem.”
Pedersen hopes the local monorail’s story will have its own happy ending: “I’m rooting for them to get this fixed, but we’re not pleased with the way it’s going.”
The monorail is one of two Bombardier projects in Las Vegas. The other is the $80 million McCarran International Airport D-Gate tram, which opened in 1998 and was built by a firm acquired by Bombardier in late 2000, just weeks before Bombardier was chosen for the monorail project, according to Walker.
Contractor picks for both the airport and monorail projects came under the auspices of the late Bob Broadbent, who headed the airport as tram plans were being made and was in charge of the monorail’s management company when its vendors were hired.
Walker, whose brother, Cam Walker, is Broadbent’s son-in-law and heads the monorail management firm, said Bombardier’s history, heft and range of work played into its selection for monorail work. “They have a history of delivering on their promises,” he said. “We expect them to do the same here.”
A fiscal storm
Since the 1970s, Bombardier has expanded into widely diverse product lines. In addition to trains, its past and current products include Learjet corporate planes, Canadair regional jets, Sea-Doo watercraft and even missiles. Analysts say diversification typically helps a company weather tough times, but as of late Bombardier has hit a fiscal perfect storm of sorts.
The prospects of its aerospace division are iffy because of a weak airline industry; its rail division is downsizing because of soft profits; and there are worries about the company’s $7 billion debt load, analysts said. “In this case, both divisions are having some hard times,” Frietag said.
As a result, Bombardier’s stock price this year has plunged from around $7 a share to roughly $3 now, and credit rating firms have issued warnings on the company’s debt. However, Frietag and National Bank analyst Steve Laciak said the company is under no real risk of going under.
Whether local monorail officials could replace Bombardier is uncertain. There are only a handful of companies that build monorails using disparate formats, but that is changing. “In the last couple of years, a lot of new manufacturers have popped up and are quite capable of replacing the train stock,” Pedersen said.
Local monorail officials say such a move isn’t on the table, for now. More likely is that Bombardier may be asked to pick up expenses related to the shutdown here. Bombardier and its partners already have been assessed more than $11 million in fines for delivering Las Vegas’s monorail late.
“We are sure there are financial consequences, but at this time we don’t know to what extent,” Nickerson said. “Our first priority is opening the system. We’ll deal with the financial matters after that.”
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Four injured as two Luas trams collide at St Stephen’s Green
The Irish Times
September 18, 2004
Four people were receiving medical attention last night after two Luas trams collided at St Stephen’s Green. The two trams were badly damaged. Seven large glass panels on the Sandyford-bound tram were shattered, with shards of glass falling in on passengers in the front carriage, which was packed with commuters.
The other Luas tram, which was just about to reach the St Stephen’s Green stop, was also badly damaged. Some of its windows were broken. The gray and silver panelling on both trams was also badly damaged as was the undercarriage on both trams.
Two units of Dublin fire brigade and four ambulances rushed to the scene. The accident happened at around 4.10 p.m. Passengers and eyewitnesses said those on board the Sandyford-bound tram were trapped inside for between five and 10 minutes before they could get the doors open.
Mr Paul Barrett (24), a student from Ballina in Co Mayo, was on the Sandyford-bound tram when the accident happened. “The impact was similar to something like a bumper car. A lot of people were standing and some of them were jolted forward. There was a woman and man at the very front with young kids, the glass seemed to come in on them most.
“There were a few screams and then the Luas seemed to rumble and we hit the other one. People stayed calm. We didn’t realise the damage was so bad. We couldn’t get the doors open so one guy just kept pressing the button until it worked. Most people then just got out and walked off. There was nobody on the speaker telling us to stay calm. I was surprised at that.”
Another passenger, 14-year-old Stephen Conkey from Swords, Co Dublin said: “At first we didn’t really know what had happened. You could feel a few bumps. But people stayed fairly calm, apart from one or two babies crying.”
It was the second incident in three weeks in the St Stephen’s Green area involving the Luas. On August 27th a tram left the track. Nobody was injured.
Three days later a car hit a Luas tram on Capel Street, and there was a similar accident on Harcourt Street in July.
Fine Gael’s transport spokesman, Mr Denis Naughten TD, said yesterday’s incident would not be investigated by an independent body because the Railway Safety Bill 2001, which provides for such investigations, has still not been enacted by the Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan.
The collision occurred when the tram leaving St Stephen’s Green switched to a parallel track, at a link point, as an incoming tram was approaching on that track. The front carriages collided and scraped along each other before both came to a halt.
A spokesman for the Rail Procurement Agency said the linking mechanism, which allows trams to switch tracks, is controlled from the Red Cow depot.
He said the RPA would await a report from Connex, the company which operates Luas, on the cause of the accident. Connex’s contracts manager, Mr Eamonn O Modhrain, said it was still not clear what had caused the accident. “It’s unfortunate but Connex can only apologise to the people who have got injured,” he said. A spokesperson said the incident would be fully investigated.
Supt Tom Conway of Pearse Street Garda station said: “The two trams appear to still be on the tracks, but obviously we’ll have to investigate that a bit further.”
He confirmed the driver of the Sandyford-bound tram was taken to hospital suffering from shock. A three-year-old boy and his two-year-old sister were treated at the scene. Supt Conway said they had sustained minor cuts and bruises from the broken glass. Their mother was also treated for shock at the scene.
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Tapping the subway code
The Weekend Australian
September 18, 2004
I’M being shown the ropes on the Tokyo subway system and we’ve popped up at Omote-sando, a fashionable district near Shibuya. It has taken us 50 minutes underground to get from one side of the city to the other. There are about a dozen privately owned subway lines criss-crossing Tokyo — each reading and deducting their share of the fare from the same clever ticket, typically bought for Y=1000 ($12.60) from vending machines at any station — and we’ve just ridden two of them.
Omote-sando station is unusually compact. You could almost leave by any exit and still have a chance of figuring out where you were. But don’t try this at the mighty Shinjuku station, just four stops (and a line change) from there. Shinjuku, used daily by a million commuters and notorious for its peak-hour crush, has about 50 exits spread across several large blocks. If you come out the wrong hole you’ll be lost, with everything looking vaguely familiar but totally different.
Know your exit and follow the signs. The convenience of having directions in English ends abruptly as soon as you hit Tokyo’s streets, so enjoy it while you can. Away from the showy neo-Manhattan bits, Tokyo is higgledy-piggledy, an Asian maze of former villages joined into a fascinating but bewildering urban sprawl.
A free English-language map of the subway system becomes a lifeline. And carry a stash of currency — Tokyo is mostly a cash economy.
It’s Saturday afternoon and we walk for a while, eventually reaching the suburb-village of Harajuku, famous as a show place for misfit teenagers in pop-collage outfits. Sunday is their big day out, but a smattering of cartoon punks with white sockettes, tartan samurais and demure gothic Lolitas are on show. This is the land of cute.
Harajuku is serviced by the government-owned Yamanote line, which circles the city. It requires a different ticket, but it’s always handy to have one in your wallet. Remaining credits on any ticket are displayed as you go in and out of turnstiles, and to get out you have to present the same ticket you used to get in, otherwise the machines get confused. If the ticket has run out of credits, there are special machines to top them up before you can leave.
It doesn’t take long to get the hang of it and station attendants who only speak Japanese will try to sort out confused foreigners using sign language and, if you keep smiling, something between a nod and a bow.
It’s one stop to Shibuya and we take the Hachiko Crossing exit to come out at the intersection featured in Lost in Translation. (Hachiko was a faithful dog and people often arrange to meet by his little statue outside the station.) There’s a good late-night music club called Eggman in Shibuya, but since it’s not quite sundown we pause for coffee, then move on to Roppongi. The Mori modern art gallery is on top of Roppongi Hills Tower, a dominating landmark offering a 360-degree view of Tokyo, spectacular at sunset.
The metropolis appears to go on forever. But having grasped a way of getting about, it seems less daunting. We find happy hour in a smart, wood-panelled bar at the base of the tower and celebrate my new mobility with a raspberry martini. It’s sweet and glamorous, potent and very cute. Hello, Tokyo.
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Flashing back to St. Clair’s future; A decade ago, the battle raged over streetcars on Spadina
Toronto Star
September 18, 2004
Back then it loomed like an ugly concrete scar — a desecrating divide up the spine of one of Toronto’s most beloved arteries.
“Many people thought it was going to be a Berlin wall,” says Mitch Stambler, head of service planning for the TTC. “Outside of some diehard transit guys, there was no one on our side. There was just incredible opposition.”
Now, some seven years after a dedicated streetcar line was completed up the centre of Spadina Ave., that opposition has virtually vanished, according to local business owners and community leaders. And for the most part, area merchants and residents appear to view the downtown transit right-of-way more as a pathway to prosperity than a road to ruin.
With the battle now being roundly joined over the proposed construction of a similar streetcar right-of-way across 6.7 kilometres of St. Clair Ave. W., the Spadina experience may hold some soothing lessons for concerned residents to the north, says Councillor Olivia Chow (Ward 20, Trinity-Spadina). “It (the streetcar project) has been good for us.”
A joint session of the city’s planning and transportation committee, works committee and the transit commission voted 20 to 1 this week to approve the $65 million St. Clair project, which will take over the two centre lanes of the thoroughfare between Keele and Yonge Sts. for exclusive streetcar and emergency vehicle use.
The $65 million price tag would not only include construction of the raised right-of-way, but sidewalk improvements, streetscaping, buried overhead wiring and roadwork. A barebones project centred solely on the right-of-way would come in around $47 million, according to TTC estimates.
The project, which will go before full council later this month, has St. Clair residents and merchants split over its merits, with a vocal group of opponents expressing loud dismay during Monday’s marathon meeting.
But several Spadina merchants weighed in this week, saying such projects, though disruptive during the construction phase, can substantially increase patronage and profits when completed.
In the 4 1/2 years it took to build the 3.65-kilometre LRT (light rapid transit line), businessman John Tran saw several of his Spadina Ave. neighbours close shop. “I was very worried about loss of business, but after it was built, I knew it was the better way,” he says, while serving customers at his family’s busy Tap Phong Trading Co. hardware store, a fixture on the avenue for some 20 years. “If people on St. Clair can hang on until construction is finished, I know the streetcar line there will help them too.”
Initially — like the current battle on St. Clair — plenty of Spadina merchants balked, fearing the chaos of construction would drive customers away and kill business, recalls Barbara Kwan, president of the Toronto Chinatown Community Development Association. “There was some inconvenience while the line was being built, but in the long run, it was good for the community,” she says. “People along St. Clair should not be afraid of the LRT.”
Not all Chinatown merchants agree with the rosy, post-construction assessments.
Chu Wai Ng, owner of Chung King Szechuwan Restaurant at Spadina and College, says restaurateurs were anticipating big gains at the end of a long wait. “We were hoping that the streetcar would bring in more people, but our business has been more or less the same before and after the new route was launched,” notes Ng, who has been in business on the avenue for over 20 years. “You don’t really see any direct benefit.”
A survey of about 60 area merchants conducted for the city and TTC showed that 34 percent believed their business had improved since the $105 million line opened, while only 19 percent said it had declined. Some 47 percent believed the project had little or no economic impact.
The study also showed that property values in the Spadina area went up 73.6 percent between 1998, the first full year the line was open, and 2003. That compares to 68.2 percent in the rest of Toronto.
The amount of retail and services space also increased along Spadina during those same six years by 34 percent, or about 300,000 square feet. The rest of the city experienced a decline. “The LRT certainly contributed to this growth,” says area real estate broker Tonny Louie, who also owns Grossman’s Tavern. “People did suffer during the construction and for a year after that … but since then, things have improved a good deal.”
While it did eat away at street parking and car traffic, increased streetcar speed and reliability have actually increased business in the area, Louie says. “It’s a joy to ride the TTC because it is dedicated and it arrives on time. “So people (up on St. Clair) have to realize it’s going to carry a lot more people and that it’s not what it can bring today, but what it can bring tomorrow.”
Chow, who had misgivings about the Spadina project before it began, agrees that the same concerns about traffic, parking, construction chaos and lost business now being voiced by many St. Clair residents have largely been allayed among her constituents. “The merchants along Spadina have done better business … and the property value of the buildings have jumped significantly,” she says.
Indeed, virtually every objection that was voiced before construction began has proved unfounded, Chow says.
While the plentiful “angled parking” disappeared, limited street parking still exists along indented, curb-side parking bays, and most people have “found their way to the parking lots,” she says.
Chow says the substantial landscaping that she and other city officials fought for also mitigated the expected aesthetic degradation of Spadina. “It was a big fight, but we added 600 more trees and the public art was a good process, which people really like,” she says.
As for fears that reduced car traffic would hurt business, Chow says the opposite has occurred. “The area revitalized itself because of the large number of people taking the Spadina streetcar. The ridership has jumped substantially, it’s a lot faster, it’s predictable, the streetcar comes every few minutes … so it’s bringing in a huge number of people to the area.”
TTC numbers back her up.
Stambler says ridership has jumped from about 26,000 when the “bump and grind buses” were inching down the perpetually congested artery, to about 35,000 on the dedicated streetcar line. And travel times along the 3.7-kilometre route, which stretches between Bloor St. and Queens Quay, has been reduced by a substantial eight minutes on an average trip.
Spadina furrier Paul Magder was one of the few area merchants who were behind the streetcars from day one. “Any improvements to public transit is money well spent — it creates jobs, brings money to the city and helps move people around,” he says. “Personally, I think the Spadina line has been a bigger success than anyone thought. I use it a lot. It’s great.”
But he does have a gripe about the parking. The street-side bays keep vehicles off driving lanes, he says, but more spaces are needed to accommodate those who don’t take the better way. “You’ve got to give people choices,” Magder says, adding that, like it or not, motorists will still drive downtown. “Parking is a problem here and I think it will be on St. Clair unless the city does something.”
And although he likes the tree-lined boulevard, Magder says the city isn’t maintaining it. Some $2 million was spent on the Spadina streetscape, including hundreds of trees along the streetcar platforms. But after seven years, they’re still scrawny and surrounded by weeds. “The landscaping wasn’t done properly and isn’t being maintained,” Magder beefs. “It’s a disgrace.”
But in the end, he says, while construction did hurt many businesses, the project was short-term pain for long-term gain.
Spadina construction took 4 1/2 years from start to finish. Stambler says St. Clair should take less than half that. Officials are hoping to begin early next summer and finish by September, 2006. “We feel confident we can do this in less than two full construction seasons,” Stambler says.
Improvements in construction techniques and materials, and the need for fewer custom-built track switches — which intersect with connecting lines — will make St. Clair quicker and less expensive to complete, he says.
Also, the roadbed and sidewalks along Spadina were in far worse shape than those on St. Clair, meaning far less co-construction will be taking place while building the new line. And, unlike Spadina, St. Clair will require no tunnelling work. A 183-metre tunnel leading to the Bloor subway from Spadina pushed the cost up by about $48 million.
Stambler says the TTC has also pledged to stage construction on St. Clair so that segments of the street, like the popular Corso Italia between Lansdowne and Westmount Aves., will be open during high tourist and shopping seasons.
One problem that did mar the Spadina line significantly after it opened was a large spike in accidents, as cars making left turns along the roadway began bashing into streetcars at an alarming rate. At one point there were more than two accidents a week, disrupting service.
Stambler says drivers weren’t in the habit of looking behind for approaching streetcars as they entered the right-of-way at lighted intersections. To fix the problem, the TTC two years ago extended the barriers that keep traffic out of the streetcars’ pathway right up to the intersection.
Accidents, he says, have fallen to insignificant levels. And, learning from its mistakes, the TTC plans to install similar measures along St. Clair.
Al Grieve, who’s been driving up and down Spadina delivering produce for ProOrganics for years, says “the streetcar hasn’t been a problem for me. “Getting here isn’t easy, but it’s not because of the streetcar. It’s pedestrians. They just don’t care,” he says, standing outside his cube van on St. Andrews St. And once you figure out the lighting system that splits streetcar and vehicle traffic at intersections, he says, it’s a breeze.
Left turn lights off Spadina are clearly marked and they’re short — just enough time for three vehicles to get through and keep traffic moving. “Manoeuvring the cube van along the street is easy,” he says, acknowledging that road construction was a pain on Spadina as it certainly will be on St. Clair, “but it goes with the territory of being in the city.”
Spadina businessman Vik Gulati opposed the line from the get-go, worrying that the long construction would erode business. As far as he’s concerned, he was right on. “The city ripped up the street — it was like open heart surgery — rather than doing the work in sections,” he says. “There was an immediate loss of business during construction. Problem was, people didn’t want to come back, figuring the street was still a mess even after construction was over.”
A word to the wise on St. Clair.
Marketing. When it’s all over, advertise across the city that it’s business as usual. That’s his advice for his northern counterparts — “pity their souls” — now bracing for the line to be approved and work to begin.
As for taking the TTC to the Spadina strip, why go any other way? That’s the question friends Grace Elliott and Joan Corvera asked as they waited for the 510 streetcar after a day of shopping and a dim sum lunch.
“On a scale of 1 to 10, the Spadina LRT is a 12,” says Elliott, explaining that she never has to wait more than a few minutes for the streetcar. “When you get to be an old darling like me, you’re grateful for good service. This is outstandingly good. I wouldn’t dream of driving here.”
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Old trains discovered off N.J. coast are called ‘real archeological find’
Philadelphia Inquirer
Sep. 19, 2004
Two rare, pre-Civil War steam locomotives, almost completely intact, have been discovered sitting upright, side-by-side, at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, several miles off the central New Jersey coast.
The submerged engines were discovered in 1985 by a charter-boat captain. But the significance of the find was not realized until two years ago, and not made public until Friday, when a federal judge ordered the relics protected.
In the next few days, a surrogate U.S. marshal will dive 90 feet to the ocean floor a few miles east of Asbury Park, to attach a laminated notice to one of the locomotives. The notice includes a marshals’ warning that tampering or poaching is now illegal.
Two organized groups of amateur railroad and diving enthusiasts obtained the court order. They hope to retrieve and restore the distinctive and decorative steam engines, which are encrusted with a century and a half of barnacles and other sea life.
“It’s a real archeological find — there are only a handful from that era that still exist,” said David Dunn, director of the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, which is not involved. The six-wheeled engines are among the earliest American workhorse locomotives, designed during “an era when these machines were considered the space shuttles of the mid-19th century.”
Jim Wilke, a railroad historian who lives in Los Angeles, said the find is unusual because “these machines are exactly as they were when they went down in the early 1850s.” Most similar engines that survived to become museum relics, he said, were refitted again and again over decades, and represent hybrids with modernized parts. “These engines are extremely rare,” he said.
The Smithsonian Institution, for example, owns a similar one, the Pioneer. A somewhat smaller, slightly younger, eight-wheeled steam engine, the People’s Railway No. 3, is on display at the Franklin Institute.
John H. White, a former railroad curator for the Smithsonian, described the discovery of the two steam engines near New Jersey as “unusual, an oddity.”
“They don’t tell anything we don’t already know,” White said. “It’s just interesting that they survived all this time. We don’t have much from the 1850s. These are new pieces that were unknown.”
To recover the steam engines from the Atlantic, the leaders of the diving and train enthusiast groups acknowledge they will need professional help. “This is, really, out of our realm,” said Victor Crisanto, chair of the New Jersey Museum of Transportation, which won the legal protection for the engines. The private museum has operated the Pine Creek Railroad, a railroad preservation organization at Allaire State Park, since 1952.
The group took the first legal step on Friday, when it appeared before U.S. District Judge Joseph Irenas to ask for custody of the abandoned steam locomotives. They presented him with several pieces of physical evidence removed from the engines, including a foot-long bell and a 38-inch piece of decorative trim that hung above a wheel. “They could probably raise this thing without a court order because they are outside of New Jersey waters, but the real reason to do it is to protect their rights and keep interlopers away,” said Peter E. Hess, a Wilmington lawyer who represented the group.
The discovery is bound to become more publicized this month, Hess said, and will be featured on a History Channel documentary tomorrow at 9 p.m.. “Everyone and their brother will want to go and try to grab a piece of brass off the trains,” Hess said.
Crisanto and historians said they have little information about the engines’ history — the precise year they were built, for example, or how they landed at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. But by analyzing certain clues — the wagon-top boiler and the valve controls, for example — historians believe the steam locomotives were manufactured in New England, probably Boston, between 1851 and 1854.
Beyond that, they say, little is certain, because railroad records were poor. Some historians suspect the engines slipped off a freighter headed south during a storm. But that is just a guess.
Apparently, the engines sat undisturbed several miles from Asbury Park for more than a century, until 1985, when a charter-boat captain, Paul Hepler, found them while checking netting. “The captain told me about them years ago,” said Dan Lieb of Neptune, the president of the New Jersey Historical Divers Association. “We were out on his boat, looking for lobsters, exploring shipwrecks. And when he told me about the locomotives, I thought, ‘I don’t want to look at trains,’ I want to see shipwrecks.”
Years later, Lieb said, he finally decided to see the trains for himself. He and fellow divers soon became infatuated. They took pictures and made drawings. Then he began making inquiries via the Internet.
At first, some speculated that the trains were sunk by the Germans during World War II, citing well-known attacks in the area at the time.
Eventually, the divers’ information and details reached White, the former Smithsonian curator. “They finally sent me a videotape — and I said, ‘Aha! I think I know what these are,’ “ White said. “The cylinders were on an angle, a very antique feature. The double valves, one on top of each other, another antique feature.” They were tank engines, circa 1850.
Lieb, who had been reading White’s book, American Locomotives: An Engineering History, 1830-1880 , took the news to Crisanto and his fellow train enthusiasts. “They came to one of our board meetings and brought drawings, pictures, a few artifacts,” said Crisanto, the all-volunteer museum’s chairman. “And… our jaws kind of hit the ground.”
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FREEWAY BILL IN A JAM; $20 BILLION IN STATE PROJECTS WAITING ON WASHINGTON FUNDS
The Daily News of Los Angeles
September 19, 2004
WASHINGTON — A crucial federal funding bill that would provide more than $20 billion for California highways is stuck in political gridlock, threatening dozens of transportation projects in Los Angeles County and around the state.
Already nearly a year overdue, the bill also would provide money for freeway improvements needed to secure some $800 million a year in clean-air funds and gas-tax revenue.
“It’s huge,” said Michael Lawson, executive director of Transportation California, a Sacramento-based coalition of highway contractors, engineering firms and business groups that advocates for transportation investment. “If we don’t get a reauthorization bill and we don’t get an ethanol (subsidy) fix, it’s quite likely that, come Jan. 1, you could see construction projects that are already in progress come to a stop. It’s that draconian.”
David Yale, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s director of regional planning, said Washington’s foot-dragging could seriously harm Los Angeles County, especially when combined with the state budget crunch that has diverted $5 billion from transportation to the general fund over the past three years. “It is a real possibility that capacity-enhancing projects could be stopped in their tracks.”
State and local officials said they could not determine this early what projects already under way might come to a standstill. But Yale said there are a number of identified improvements — ranging from car-pool lanes to light-rail projects — that would face major delays if Congress doesn’t act by the end of this session.
Already, local agencies are taking steps to prepare for project delays.
Ventura County leaders are pushing a half-percent sales tax increase on the November ballot that would finance transportation projects, while the MTA is floating the idea of issuing $1.1 billion in bonds to finance its five most important projects. “We’ve punted this ball so many times, it’s to the point now where it’s a critical phase,” said Raffi Hamparian, the MTA’s government relations manager.
Waiting much longer to pass the transportation bill, officials say, would be bad news for many Southland transportation projects. “There are a lot of transportation projects that are ready to go, but for lack of funding at the state and federal level, those can’t get started. We need that funding and we need it now,” said Moorpark City Councilman Keith Millhouse, a member of the Ventura County Transportation Commission.
The bill in question is called the Transportation Equity Act: a Legacy for Users. Its convoluted name was carefully crafted at the behest of House Transportation Committee Chairman Don Young, R-Alaska, so the final acronym would spell his wife’s name, Lu.
The authorization bill is a six-year blueprint showing how the federal government intends to fund highway and other transportation projects in the coming decade. Local agencies rely on it when they make their plans — and they count on receiving the federal funding. But at the moment, the bill’s title is about the only part of it not being challenged.
Under pressure from the White House and GOP leadership, Young already has shaved $100 billion from his original plan to increase highway spending 72 percent, to $375 billion. His proposal to pay for the additional spending by increasing the gas tax — equally unpopular with Republicans — also was killed.
That, however, hasn’t ended the squabbling. The Senate is pushing for $318 billion, putting it at odds with the House and the White House over just how much to spend.
Rep. Gary Miller, R-Brea, the only Californian on the conference committee hammering out the differences, said the groups may have reached an agreement at $299 billion.
Miller is one of the few people involved in the authorization bill who remain optimistic about finishing it before Congress adjourns in mid-October for the final campaign stretch. “We have to wrap it up. There’s no reason not to get this done now. It’s a real negative, and a drain on the state if we don’t get it done,” he said.
Besides, with the November election just six weeks away, Miller said, “people are trying to get back home and give campaign speeches about what they brought home. It’s important.”
Yet even if the bottom-line dollar amount is resolved, a raft of other policy squabbles critical to California’s economic health remain. Topping that list are ethanol taxes and funding for air quality mitigation. If not resolved, those two issues alone could cost the state nearly $800 million annually.
With California’s phase-out of the gasoline additive MTBE, ethanol has taken its place. Yet the grain-based product receives federal subsides that allow it to be taxed at a fraction of the 18.3 cents per gallon federal gas tax that is deposited in the state’s general fund. The end result: less money will be pumped back into California.
At the same time, the Senate is exploring a formula that would allow more states and regions to become eligible for air quality mitigation money, potentially draining the pot for California.
MTA officials say the annual loss to the South Coast Air Quality Basin could be $160 million — including $100 million from Los Angeles County alone. “In an era when we’re doing everything possible to fight back air pollution, we need every tool we can get,” Hamparian said.
Miller said he is fighting the provision. “It’s an absolute negative for California. It’s stupid,” he said.
With so many unresolved problems in the bill, state and local leaders said they are starting to resign themselves to doing without a bill until next year. The frustration, however, is trickling down to the companies hired to plan and build California’s roads.
“We’re crunched as it is, and the (state) government is taking money out of transportation. This could crunch us further,” said Steve Lewis, vice president of special projects at Tudor-Saliba Corp., the Sylmar- based construction giant. “A lot of people are nervous until this bill gets done.”
THE FACTS
Congress is debating a $375 billion transportation funding bill that includes more than $20 billion for California projects, including:
— Building a car-pool lane on the northbound 405 Freeway between West Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley.
— Closing the 710 Freeway gap through South Pasadena to the 210-134 interchange.
— Completing the Exposition Light Rail Line, connecting downtown Los Angeles with the Santa Monica Pier.
— Extending the Gold Line from Sierra Madre Villa Avenue in Pasadena to Montclair.
— Extending the widening of I-5 from the 710 Freeway to the San Gabriel River Freeway.
— Making safety improvements on the 710 Freeway where trucks exit from the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles.
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VIA debate centers on roadways ; Only half the money raised by tax would go to local bus system
San Antonio Express-News (Texas
September 19, 2004
As Election Day nears for VIA Metropolitan Transit’s request for a 1/4-cent sales tax increase, concerns are being raised that not all the extra money — only half, in fact — would be spent to improve the bus system.
In a debate last week sponsored by Smart Growth San Antonio, critics took aim at the proposal to use sales tax money to build highways.
While the sales tax long has been a major subsidy for public transit, no community ever has turned such revenues over to the Texas Department of Transportation, said Bill Barker, a local consultant who participated in the debate. “We have plenty of taxes and fees for building and maintaining roads. And now we will be voting on yet another tax paid by everyone, not just road users,” Barker said. “We need accountability instead of a new tax.”
But the state lacks money to keep up with growing highway congestion, and raising the sales tax is one way San Antonio can help itself, said Donze Lopez of Martin Marietta Materials, who debated Barker. “We’re going to be reducing congestion,” Lopez said.
A fourth of the quarter-cent per dollar sales tax increase VIA Metropolitan Transit put on the Nov. 2 ballot would be given to TxDOT and spent on area highway projects. Another fourth would be handed to the city to improve streets. VIA would use the remaining half of the tax increase to expand bus service.
About $34 million a year would be divvied up among the three entities.
State officials plan to use their $8.5 million a year share to speed up work by as much as 12 years to widen roadways and make other improvements.
The city, which would see its street budget boosted 50 percent, intends to make traffic flow better by timing signal lights, expanding roads, putting in turn lanes and other methods.
VIA, which now collects a half-cent sales tax, could expand its system 20 percent in the next decade rather than continuing to cut service as it has the past several years. “Keep VIA in business as we know it and growing with our community and not shrinking,” pleaded VIA Chairman Tim Tuggey, who also took part in the debate.
Barker, a former planning director for VIA, said the transit agency should raise fares before seeking a sales tax increase. For example, the $20 monthly pass is nearly $10 lower than the state average, he said.
But Barker’s sharpest criticism was directed at the highways portion of the proposition. He said San Antonio is fifth in the nation and highest in Texas for freeway miles per capita, and that has spurred more driving and traffic fatalities per person than in many other cities.
He also said the economic return from road building has declined in recent decades, and that Census Bureau and Federal Highway Administration data suggest personal incomes are lower in cities that have more access to freeways. “Many are finding that additional freeways are more likely to add to urban sprawl while doing nothing to reduce congestion over time,” he said. “We need to ask if this is the best use of public funds, and who is this new tax intended to benefit.”
Lopez, whose company supplies road and construction materials, disagreed. He said sales tax money would be used to expand roads rather than build new ones that would encourage sprawl, and that the high number of fatalities shows more needs to be done.
He also said San Antonio has been fortunate to have its freeways, and that more highway lanes would help bring additional businesses and commerce to the city. “As a result of that, we have had tremendous economic development,” he said.
The local Smart Growth group, a coalition of urban development interests, hasn’t taken a position on the election. But some members, while supporting increased funding for VIA, echoed Barker’s concern that a non-user tax would be used to construct highways. “It’s combining the good with the bad,” said Geert Aerts. “The good is VIA, the bad are the roads.”
Other problems cited include building road lanes over the Edwards Aquifer recharge zone, adding continuous turn lanes without medians, and fostering more suburban sprawl. “I’m concerned about some of the details on the road side,” Smart Growth President Chris Brown said. “If we could just vote on the bus thing, I’d have no problems.”
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SALES TAX HIKE UP FOR VOTE; MEASURE B WOULD FUND FREEWAY PROJECTS
The Daily News of Los Angeles
September 19, 2004
SIMI VALLEY — With traffic worsening on Ventura County roads, voters will consider boosting the county sales tax by a half-percent to raise about $50 million annually to ease congestion.
Measure B, on the Nov. 2 ballot, would fund projects such as widening the Ventura Freeway, the Ronald Reagan Freeway and the 23 Freeway that connects them.
“Measure B is the only way you are ever going to get our freeways and soundwalls built,” said Bill Davis, the mayor of Simi Valley and a board member of the Ventura County Transportation Commission. “The state doesn’t have the money. Projects that were slated to be completed next year now could very well be from six to 10 years. Measure B is the only answer.”
Traffic has become one of the biggest complaints in Ventura County, where bumper-to-bumper congestion occurs on almost a daily basis for miles west of the San Fernando Valley.
But opponents, who include some environmentalists, say Measure B will raise more money than is needed and wind up supporting development, which would then create more congestion on the roads.
Supporters of the measure say it would raise about $50 million a year over the next 30 years, but opponents say the potential total of $1.5 billion is “far more than what’s required.”
“I don’t support the measure because it is growth-inducing and because it is excessive,” said Ventura County Supervisor Linda Parks, who represents the Thousand Oaks, Lake Sherwood, Oak Park and Bell Canyon areas.
“For $1.5 billion you could have light rail, a monorail — something that would reduce the number of cars on the road. This measure would add cars, noise, pollution and development,” said Parks, who voted against putting Measure B on the ballot. “We can take care of the problems today for a fraction of $1.5 billion. I think more should go to public transit also. Measure B lacks vision. … I would like to see a more prudent, more responsible transportation measure in the future.”
In ballot arguments against Measure B, opponents say, “It won’t stop congestion or reduce traffic growth, like that which ruined the San Fernando Valley. … Los Angeles has a transportation tax. It hasn’t helped them reduce congestion.”
But Keith Millhouse, a Moorpark City Councilman and chairman of the “Yes on Measure B” campaign, said the opponents’ arguments are misleading. “Opponents would lead you to believe that it is a road-building measure, but we have money for mass transit and money for local municipalities,” he said. The measure would provide money for bike paths and soundwalls, and reduce fares and provide better public transportation services for senior citizens and people with disabilities.
“This provides a balanced revenue source for our children and grandchildren over the next 30 years, who would have to face these transportation problems if we don’t address them now,” Millhouse said. “Measure B is necessary to protect our quality of life and economic vitality in the community. Relying on the state and federal government is not going to get us out of our traffic congestion.”
Measure B is supported by the cities in Ventura County, the Automobile Club of Southern California, and the Ventura County Economic Development Association, which is helping to lead the pro Measure B campaign.
It is even supported by the Ventura County Taxpayers Association, a group that often opposes new taxes. “We feel strongly there shouldn’t even be a need for a half-cent sales tax if the state was doing its job, but it’s not,” said Don Facciano, president of the Ventura County Taxpayers Association. “We already pay taxes for roads. But traffic is one of the most serious problems in Ventura County, and we’re the largest county that does not have a one-half cent sales tax. We can’t wait until 2030 to address these problems.”
The measure, if passed, would authorize the Ventura County Transportation Commission to borrow money to accelerate transportation improvement projects by issuing bonds that would be paid off with future tax revenues, but the total principal of such debt could not be more than $500 million at any one time. The measure also provides for an annual spending limit of $400 million.
Passage of Measure B would “start to reduce gridlock on Highway 23 from Thousand Oaks to Moorpark within six months, instead of waiting until 2013,” and also within six months reduce traffic congestion on Highway 118, the supporters say in their ballot arguments.
Improvements on Highway 101 from Thousand Oaks to Santa Barbara would begin within 36 months. “We’re pretty well strapped because of the traffic, and it’s apparent that the state is not going to help us in this regard,” said Paul Miller, mayor pro tem of Simi Valley and former Simi Valley police chief. “If we are going to ease traffic in the county we are going to have to take care of it ourselves at this point. I think Measure B will definitely provide some relief.”
The measure needs approval of a two-thirds majority of voters, and the tax it imposes would be in addition to any existing state sales tax.
According to the Ventura County Counsel’s office analysis, the Ventura County Transportation Commission would allocate the tax revenues, with 40 percent going to road and highway projects, 20 percent to public transit, bicycle and pedestrian projects, and 40 percent going to county and city governments on a per capita basis for local street purposes.
Millhouse said the tax could be used to provide local money to match federal and state funds when available to leverage up the amount available for Ventura County.
He said 18 counties representing more than 80 percent of California’s population already have local transportation sales taxes, “making Ventura the only county in Southern California without this vital resource.”
Supporters of Measure B say in their ballot argument that an annual audit would ensure the sales tax revenue will be spent on the county’s transportation needs. “Unfortunately, traffic congestion is bad and getting worse. … Ignoring traffic and congestion problems won’t make them go away,” they say.
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EUROSTAR ON TRACK FOR DOUBLE-DECKER TRAINS AND ST PANCRAS AS HUB
The Business
September 19, 2004
Eurostar is considering bringing in double-decker trains to maximise the use of pathways through the Channel Tunnel, on which it has to pay tolls.
The Business can also reveal that Eurostar management is leaning towards St Pancras in north London as the service’s new hub once the second section of the high-speed rail link in the south-east of England is opened in 2007. At present, Eurostar’s terminal is in Waterloo.
The train service, under chief executive Richard Brown, is looking ahead to the next 10 years as it approaches its 10th anniversary this November.
The use of “Duplex” trains — which would not come until next decade — is part of a drive to reduce costs at the high speed passenger train service. It is the next stage in the recovery plan devised by Brown. So far he has improved punctuality and reliability, and simplified the service’s fare structure.
Eurostar’s track access charges work out at £30 (E44, $ 53) a passenger for each return journey through the Channel Tunnel. Duplex trains, like those already used by French railway com- pany SNCF, could carry 500 passengers on each deck, meaning each train could carry 1,000 people compared to 750 today on the same pathway.
The train pathways are akin to take off and landing slots for airlines; access charges for the slots go to tunnel operator Eurotunnel and infrastructure companies in Britain, France and Belgium. The trains would not be introduced for some years if they are given the green light because the present fleet is still running well below capacity on many services.
A move to St Pancras would give Eurostar a much bigger catchment area and allow it to compete with many regional airports. It believes the service would then attract hundreds of thousands more passengers from as far afield as the north of England without losing those that already come in from the south-east.
No firm decision will be made on whether to relocate until later in the year. Eurostar is waiting for the outcome of a consultancy study into the cost of a move, but it believes this would be negligible compared to the cost of operating two terminals.
Eurostar has already grown its market share against low cost airlines flying from the UK to France and Belgium. Last week it announced it had won 59% of the rail/air market between London and Brussels in July, up from 47% a year ago. On the London to Paris route, Eurostar had 66% market share, up from 60% in July 2003.
Eurostar’s new found success has been put down to lower fares, internet booking and clever marketing as well as to the completion of the new, 186mph high-speed rail link between the Channel Tunnel and north Kent.
Since it opened last September, it has slashed 20 minutes from the journey time between Waterloo and Paris — now 2 hours 35 minutes.
Passenger numbers grew to 6.3m last year and the service is on course to carry 7m people this year. Brown is hoping for 8m passengers when the second phase of the line opens in 2007, saving a further 15 minutes in journey time. This will cut the time to Paris to 2 hours and 15 minutes and bring the journey to Brussels to under two hours.
The new cost-cutting drive will also see Eurostar’s three P&L accounts rolled into one next year.
The resulting transparency should enable Brown to see more clearly where savings can be made.
Brown has already succeeded in combining the two management teams — one English, one French — which were in place when he arrived in 2002.
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Human error blamed for Luas accident
Sunday Times (London)
September 19, 2004
HUMAN error appears to be to blame for the Luas collision on Friday when several thousand euros-worth of damage was caused to trams. Four people required medical attention.
Emma Rafferty, a spokeswoman for Connex, the Luas management company, said yesterday that a preliminary investigation into the collision had been completed.
The accident involved two passing trams running at a very low speed near the St Stephen’s Green terminus in Dublin city centre. “Defects in the system have been ruled out,” said Rafferty. “Operational procedures provide for one tram to move in this area at any one time. In this case two movements occurred.”
Usual operational procedure for the Luas at St Stephen’s Green requires the tram loading passengers at the terminus to remain stationary until trams arriving from the opposite direction have moved into position. It is believed that this procedure was not adhered to prior to Friday’s accident.
A tram that had loaded its passengers began to move and collided with another packed tram moving into the terminus area. Rafferty said: “The drivers have control of the trams. They are like any other vehicle on the road.”
The accident happened at 4.10pm. Passengers and eyewitnesses said those on board the Sandyford-bound tram, which was leaving the terminus, were trapped inside for five to 10 minutes before they could get the doors open.
Seven large glass panels on the Sandyford-bound tram were shattered, with shards of glass showering passengers in the front carriage. The gray and silver panelling on both trams was also badly damaged as were their undercarriages.
The driver of the Sandyford-bound tram was taken to hospital suffering from shock. A three-year-old boy and his two-year-old sister were treated at the scene for slight cuts and bruises while their mother received attention for shock.
Full passenger service resumed from St Stephen’s Green at 9.30pm on Friday. The two damaged trams were towed to the Luas Sandyford depot for repair. There are 14 trams available but only eight are needed to maintain the usual service of one tram every five minutes during peak times and 10 minutes off peak.
Tom Manning, a spokesman for the Railway Procurement Agency, said: “Our operational managers are working in conjunction with the Connex investigation. The main control centre for Luas is at the Red Cow depot, but this incident is due to problems at the Green rather than there.”
The rail safety inspectorate, which is answerable to the Department of Transport, is now conducting an independent investigation.
Friday’s accident will not delay the opening of the second Luas line next week. Travel on the Tallaght to Connolly station line will be free for the first six days. More than 400,000 passengers used the Sandyford line during its free period.
The Tallaght line is 66% longer than the Sandyford service at 15km compared with the Green Line’s 9km. The Railway Procurement Agency said that journey times would be longer until the service is fully up and running.
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Sound Transit LRT $18 million under budget
Metro Magazine
September 20, 2004
Sound Transit’s (Seattle) light rail program is running under the budget established three years ago for the $2.4 billion dollar project.
According to the Associated Press, engineers estimated contracts for the communications, train signals and traction power systems would cost more than $114 million. They came in at just under $96 million.
With two-thirds of the construction work for the 14-mile light rail line now under contract, the project is running about 5% below the budget set for it in 2001.
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Third light rail contract 30% under budget
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
September 20, 2004
With the last of three systems contracts coming in nearly 30 percent under the engineer’s estimate, Sound Transit’s Seattle light rail program is running comfortably under the budget established three years ago for the $2.4 billion project.
The three systems contracts — for communications, train signals and traction power — were estimated by Sound Transit engineers to cost just over $114 million. In fact, the bids for the three totaled $95.8 million, or about 16 percent under the engineer’s estimates.
Bids for the last of the three, the communications contract, were opened Friday.
The 14-mile light rail line will run from Westlake Center to a station at International Boulevard and South 154th Street in Tukwila. Shuttles will meet trains there and carry passengers the 1.6 miles to Sea-Tac Airport.
With two-thirds of the construction work for the light rail project now under contract, the project is running about 5 percent below the budget set for it in 2001. Two contracts remain to be awarded, both for the Tukwila segment of the line.
Construction is under way in the downtown, Sodo and Rainier Valley areas. Obayashi, the company that will bore the one-mile tunnel through Beacon Hill, has cleared the western hillside of Beacon Hill next to Interstate 5. The gigantic tunnel boring machine is supposed to arrive next June. Work in Tukwila is expected to start in March.
Trains are to begin running in 2009.
General Electric Transportation Systems was the low bidder on both the train signal and communications contracts. Mass Electric Construction Co. was the low bidder on the traction power contract.
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A London Classic Nears End of the Line
Los Angeles Times
September 20, 2004
Ding-ding! That old-fashioned red double-decker bus, the one that has graced scores of movies about London and become an international symbol of Britain, is tooling off into the Waterloo sunset.
Transport for London, the transit authority that is aiming for efficiency and modernity as it serves a growing commuter population, has its reasons for getting rid of the British-built Routemaster and substituting sterile models from Germany and Sweden.
Along with twice-a-day mail service, the red telephone box and (gads!) foxhunting, it is the latest symbol of old England to come under assault in the age of Cool Britannia.
The transport authority, which incidentally is led by an American expert in transit efficiency, says that sentiment aside, the Routemaster is costly because it requires both a conductor and a driver; passengers are forever injuring themselves when they alight from its open back platform while the bus is still moving; and its narrow aisles and steps are a nightmare for people with wheelchairs or baby strollers.
Logical reasons all, but there is no accounting for love.
A small army of Routemaster lovers has mounted a vigorous campaign to try to keep the buses going beyond their planned retirement next year. Their efforts look doomed to fail, although Transport for London has conceded that it will retain a few “heritage” routes in the middle of the city — a sort of rolling museum to let the tourists know what a real London double-decker was like. (Modern, boxy double-deckers will remain, but they just aren’t the same.)
“Disgusting,” said Charlie Scott, general manager of the charter company Blue Triangle Buses and a former Routemaster driver. “They are a traditional London bus and always will be seen that way. In my view, they should continue to be used.”
The phasing out of the Routemaster has unleashed a tidal wave of nostalgia, and Lisa Rooney, a spokeswoman for Transport for London, has had just about enough of it. “It is important to look at the real reasons why it is going,” she said, with a hint of exasperation. “It is time to look forward now and say, this is a modern city and we need modern transport. We want to be as efficient and modern as London needs to be, and the buses need to be that as well.”
The RMs — as aficionados know them — have driven their way into the hearts of Londoners for many reasons. They have been a fixture on the streets since the 1950s; so most people have grown up with them. Their curvy, aerodynamic design is as comforting as an old Electrolux refrigerator, with rivets that recall World War II airplanes.
In another throwback, the buses have a uniformed conductor in the back who sells tickets, makes change, gives directions and inspects bus passes. He or she — often an immigrant these days — will also probably be able to say whether there are any vacant seats in the upper deck before the passenger makes the steep and narrow spiraling ascent.
The dimensions feel tighter than more modern buses. The RM was built tall and narrow to negotiate city streets, and the upper deck is so low-ceilinged that a 6-foot-tall commuter must stoop to stand in rush hour. But, compared with modern buses, there are a lot of seats, and they are padded. This is a bus that was built for sitting, not for standing.
Perhaps most important, the aspect that many riders like best: There is no door. Riders hop on and off the open gateway, and fresh air circulates whenever it is in motion.
The bus also has the advantage that the driver can concentrate on driving, and not on the customer struggling to find correct change or fumbling for a ticket. Stops are shorter and the bus rolls off as soon as everyone is aboard, shaving a precious few minutes off each trip for harried travelers.
The Routemaster was conceived in 1947 to succeed London’s high-capacity trolleybuses. Its designers drew on wartime aircraft manufacturing techniques, creating an aluminum body that was light and flexible — this in an era before aluminum was commonly used in vehicles. The aim was for high performance and low maintenance. It was also made to be cozy, its curved ceiling painted a comforting tan.
About 2,760 Routemasters were put into service between 1956 and 1968; up until the 1990s, 1,000 remained in use. But now they are down to just 230, and by the end of next year, none will be on London’s streets other than the 20 or so “heritage” vehicles. The rest are to be sold off to private collectors and charter companies such as Blue Triangle.
For Routemaster lovers on three central London routes — 73, 390 and 9 — Sept. 3 was “Black Friday.” More than 100 were retired and replaced the next day by a fleet of modern, articulated single-deck buses from Mercedes.
Andrew Gilligan, writing in the Evening Standard newspaper, was less than pleased with his new ride. “A cattle-car journey from Third World hell,” he pronounced it.
“It’s a great shame,” Andrew Morgan, chairman of the Routemaster Assn., a group fighting for preservation, told Reuters news agency. “They are the classic icon of London — British-built and British-designed. The design is superb — look at the way it has lasted.”
For Lorna Zaitzeff, a law firm employee who takes the No. 13 Routemaster nearly every weekday, retiring the buses means the end of “an intrinsic part of being in London — we’ve always had them.”
Sitting on the back bench near the open platform, she said she treasures the friendliness, the speediness in traffic and especially the superior ventilation of the Routemaster. “Those other buses — they’re hot in the summer and they’re hot in the winter — sweatboxes,” she said. “They’re horrible.”
“It adds to the character of the country generally,” agreed a passenger seated across from her, oil analyst Haz Mataz, 29. “Then again, I can imagine there could be some issues regarding safety.”
At 8 feet wide and a little over 27 feet in length, the standard Routemaster had seating for 64 people, with room for another 10 to 15 standing. Later, a longer version was introduced that seated 72. Passengers on the upper deck enjoy birds-eye views as their bus lumbers along past Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square.
Rooney, the spokeswoman, said Transport for London recognizes that the Routemaster is a fine bus but that issues of safety and accessibility mandate that it be replaced. Last year, three people died falling from the open rear platform or stepping off prematurely into traffic, she pointed out.
And people in wheelchairs, pushing prams or carrying lots of packages were “just stuffed” by its confining interior dimensions, she said. A Europe-wide disabilities act decrees that all buses must be wheelchair accessible within a decade.
The Routemasters’ passing has been taken out of proportion, she said. Already, they represent only a fraction of the 8,000 buses on the road in London, including many of the modern, boxy-shaped red double-deckers that can be operated without a conductor. The articulated “bendy” buses being introduced now are 59 feet long and therefore can carry nearly 100 people.
Recent years have seen a resurgence in bus usage, and Transport for London — whose current commissioner is Bob Kiley, the American who previously oversaw the New York subway and the Boston Metro — thinks its modernized fleet is drawing back people who used to drive. In the past decade, ridership is up nearly 50%, from 4.1 million to 6 million a day, making London the world’s busiest metropolitan bus network.
Part of the reason also is a $9 “congestion charge” imposed by London Mayor Ken Livingstone to discourage private cars from entering the center of the capital, and the designation of special bus lanes.
Although the new buses may lack a conductor, Rooney said, they have other amenities not found on the Routemaster: wide aisles, seasonal air-cooling, closed-circuit cameras for security, video monitors and the capacity to stoop to pick up people with disabilities.
Conductor Mahari Merhane, still working a Routemaster on the No. 14 route that passes Piccadilly and Harrods department store, said he would be sorry to see them go, not least because it means he will have to find a new job — probably as a driver.
Eritrean-born, Merhane said he had learned a lot about his adopted country aboard the Routemaster — how to read moods, when to greet people and when it is better to be quiet. But he will be happy that fewer people will be hurt getting on and off the new buses. On the Routemasters, he said, too many people jump off when they shouldn’t. “I tell them, but they won’t listen,” he said. “I can’t order them. I can only advise.”
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Tukwila gives green light to 14-mile light rail line; City Council OKs land-use permits, transit-way accord
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
September 21, 2004
TUKWILA — The last major hurdle facing Sound Transit’s 14-mile light rail line fell as the Tukwila City Council last night approved three land-use permits and a transit-way agreement that will allow the line to snake five miles through the city to a station at International Boulevard and South 154th Street. “This is huge,” said Joni Earl, Sound Transit’s chief executive officer, after the meeting. “I just think this is a really positive step, and we’re going to recommend it to the board.”
Two years ago, the Tukwila council, unhappy the light rail line was bypassing Westfield Shoppingtown Southcenter, caused an uproar when it refused to enter into a memorandum of agreement with Sound Transit that would have smoothed the permit process.
Last night was a different story.
Speaking in favor of approving the permits and agreement, Tukwila City Councilwoman Pam Carter said, “It’s very fair the way it’s worked out.”
The council’s vote on each of the three permits and transit-way agreement was 6-1 in favor, with Councilman David Fenton dissenting without comment. Councilman Joe Duffie thanked the Sound Transit and Tukwila staffs for working together, but said he “would have felt better” if the line had gone to Southcenter.
But as happy as she was, Earl acknowledged that the Sound Transit board might be distressed over some of the conditions on the permits. In July, some board members expressed unhappiness with parking requirements at the light rail station set in a separate decision by the city’s director of community development. Earl decided not to appeal those, saying it was important to keep the project moving forward.
After hearing public comment earlier this month on the three land-use permits and transit-way agreement, the City Council instructed Tukwila staff to go back and add further conditions. The council approved the permits with the added conditions last night.
Earl acknowledged that one of those — the requirement to build a noise wall to protect seven residences in the vicinity of Macadam Road South — may cause further heartburn among Sound Transit board members.
Light Rail Director Ahmad Fazel estimated the cost of the noise wall at about $1 million to $1.2 million — or more than $170,000 per residence.
Sound Transit had proposed to install sound insulation in those houses that would have cost roughly $1 million less, Earl said.
The Sound Transit Board now must decide whether to appeal any of the permit conditions and whether to approve the transit-way agreement. Construction on the Tukwila segment is scheduled to begin around March.
Earl and her staff said they were going to celebrate last night after two years of intense negotiation and discussion over the permits.
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DUH! ON THE TRACKS
Daily News (New York
September 21, 2004
TALK ABOUT YOUR stupid driving tricks.
When a trucker from Colorado got stuck trying to turn his 18-wheeler around on Westchester railroad tracks yesterday, he didn’t call 911 or notify transit cops.
He called for a tow truck instead.
And as driver See Singchaichana waited nearby, a Metro-North train barreled into his rig, tossing the New York-bound passengers like rag dolls, ripping the truck to shreds and snarling the morning commute for hours.
“People were screaming. No one knew what happened. Everyone was shaking and crying,” said passenger Aurora Diaz, 24, of Sommers. “I was thinking it was a bomb.”
Twenty-five riders were taken to hospitals after the 8:37 a.m. accident with injuries, including one broken leg, Metro-North Railroad officials said.
But no life-threatening injuries were reported.
The train was traveling about 50 mph on the Harlem line, near Bedford Hills, when the engineer threw it into emergency brake mode. But it was impossible to prevent the collision, which split the tractor-trailer in two, officials said. “There’s a curve there and there was no way to stop the train,” Metro-North spokeswoman Marjorie Anders said.
Some of the train’s 200 passengers said they feared a terrorist attack as seats, laptop computers, briefcases and dust flew into the air. The train’s front window shattered in a spiderweb pattern. “There was a small bang and a big bang and then all the seats behind me just got ripped up,” said Chris Neylan, 43, an engineer from Yorktown Heights who was riding in the first car.
After the initial impact, the truck’s trailer swung around and slammed into the right side of the train, carving a gash 3 feet high and 12 feet long, Neylan said.
The crash remains under investigation. But preliminary findings indicate that Singchaichana, 43, got stuck as he was trying to turn his truck around at an at-grade crossing, Anders said.
An area businessman called 911 to report the truck about 8:36 a.m., cops said.
Local police called the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s police department, he said. The MTA police were on the telephone with a Metro-North rail traffic controller when the train crew reported the accident, Anders said.
Singchaichana — who had jumped out of the cab to wait for the tow — was hit with four traffic tickets, including failure to clear a railroad crossing. Metro-North train service was delayed for about five hours.
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PUC will have final say on Gold Line dispute; South Pasadena’s attorneys ask changes
Pasadena Star-News (Pasadena, CA)
September 21, 2004
Lowering the volume and shortening the duration of the Gold Line’s crossing gate bells at several intersections wouldn’t jeopardize safety, attorneys told a Public Utilities Commission judge.
The arguments are part of an 18-page brief filed Monday by the city of South Pasadena with the PUC, the state agency that regulates railroads.
The biggest complaints about the Los Angeles-to-Pasadena light-rail system are that the bells are louder than required by PUC standards and that the trains’ wheels make a high- pitched grinding sound against the steel tracks. Neighbors said the noise is harmful to their health, considering the Gold Line’s 4 a.m. to 2 a.m. daily schedule.
“The [Gold Line] light-rail vehicles themselves, the track-to- [train] wheel interface, and other noise sources turned out to be much louder than the parties anticipated during the design or construction process,’ South Pasadena’s special legal counsel Michael Montgomery wrote in the brief. “There appears to be a consensus that the [Gold Line] contractor and certain suppliers … failed in their obligation to give special attention to those areas adjacent to the [railroad tracks] that are noise- and vibration- sensitive,’ the brief says.
In 2003, the city filed three requests with the PUC, asking for assorted changes to the Gold Line to reduce the trains’ speed, noise, vibrations and privacy intrusions in residential neighborhoods next to the railroad tracks in South Pasadena.
After a year of negotiations with the light-rail’s builder the Metro Blue Line Construction Authority and its operator, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the three sides reached a proposed settlement. That deal must be approved by the five-member PUC board, which is being advised on this case by Administrative Law Judge Anne Simon.
“The city supports the settlement and encourages the [judge] to recommend its approval by the commission,’ Montgomery wrote.
He recapped the changes MTA agreed to enact:
- to use its 75-decibel train horn, using the 85-decibel horn only in emergencies;
- to install automatic rail lubricators to reduce “wheel squeal’ at two parts of the route in South Pasadena;
- not to oppose the city’s quest to shorten the crossing-bell rings at three remaining street- level rail intersections. Such changes already have been made at five others.
The construction authority agreed to the following terms:
- to build additional sound walls;
- to install clear Plexiglas sound-wall extensions near intersections where the walls are shorter;
- to add sound insulation at structures where noise levels exceed allowable levels;
- to erect “privacy screens’ to block views from Gold Line trains into homes and yards;
- to calibrate and decrease the volume of the crossing gate bells;
- to install noise shrouds around the bells to direct the sound down to the street level;
- to reconfigure the crossing gates at two intersections including Mission Street and Meridian Avenue;
- and to fund a program to buy homes in South Pasadena where the noise can’t be lessened to meet standards.
In a few portions of the brief, South Pasadena seems to be angling for more concessions.
“The city supports the settlement, but would have no objection if the [judge] believed that further mitigation would be in the public interest,’ Montgomery wrote. He cited additional soundproofing of homes, along with more “absorptive’ masonry materials to be used in construction of the new sound walls.
Rick Thorpe, former CEO of the construction authority, said that wasn’t what the agency negotiated. “If the city wanted to bring that up, and we negotiated that as part of the settlement agreement, then that would be fine,’ Thorpe said. “The city is taking this as an opportunity to ask for more stuff than they already agreed to.’
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WEST COAST LINE FINALLY LEAVES THE STATION
The Independent (London)
September 21, 2004
THE PRIME Minister joined his favourite entrepreneur yesterday to launch a rail network that is billions of pounds over budget, years late and may never be completed as envisaged.
Amid the razzmatazz associated with Sir Richard Branson and his Virgin Group, Tony Blair attended the inauguration of faster services on the west coast route between London and Manchester, helping the company celebrate when a special service made the 184-mile journey in a record one hour and 53 minutes.
The trains will start running on the West Coast Main Line from next Monday, but not as fast as was predicted. The industry was forced to abandon its plan for trains running at up to 140mph on the London to Manchester route and has settled instead for 125mph, a velocity routinely reached elsewhere by inter-city trains.
The higher speed is attained courtesy of new Pendolino tilting trains which will “lean” into bends so taking them at greater speeds.
The project will cost taxpayers — not Sir Richard — pounds 7.6bn. The erstwhile Rail Regulator Tom Winsor reined back on the 140mph objective as estimates of its cost soared towards and beyond pounds 10bn, compared with an original estimate of pounds 1.5bn. No date has been set to achieve the 140mph target and the inauguration of the 125mph services was 18 months late.
Even Mr Blair, who said it was “genuinely a great day” for the industry, had to concede that he had been frustrated by constant delays to the scheme. He admitted that the West Coast project had made regular appearances in his diary and he had been daunted by the prospect of making another enthusiastic speech. He wondered if the work would “ever finish”. His frustration pales into insignificance beside the reaction of commuters using lines out of Euston who had to put up with months of shutdowns as the work to modify signalling and track was carried out.
Sir Richard described the new route as “perhaps one of the best rail networks in Europe”. However the TGV long-distance services in France run at 186mph — as does the Channel Tunnel Rail Link in Kent, the only truly high-speed service in Britain.
Railway observers believe the new journey times are unimpressive when set against the billions invested. Typical journey times between London and Manchester will be two hours 16 minutes. When the route was first electrified in 1966, the fastest time was two hours 30 minutes, which came down to two hours 20 minutes in the 1980s.
Most of the 53 trains have been named after cities, although the first was christened “Mission Impossible”.
Sir Richard said that when he named the first train five years ago, it seemed like an impossible mission to upgrade the track and improve the “dreadful” reliability.
What is irrefutable is that the number of services between London and Manchester will increase from 19 a day to 33. Trains outside peak hours will run every half hour instead of every hour.
Since May 2003, a 9,000-strong workforce has worked a total of 24 million hours to rebuild the railway between London, Birmingham, Crewe and Manchester. An army of engineers has installed more than 460 sets of points, 600 miles of overhead wiring and more than one million tonnes of ballast.
It was very much “plan B”. Originally the route was to use a hi-tech “moving block” signalling system whereby the speed of trains was controlled by radio beams. Eventually it was decided that old- fashioned signals were the only option.
Plan B will continue to develop with further work on the line in December improving journey times between London and other cities, including Liverpool and Preston. Further upgrades next year will accelerate journey times to Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Despite the smiling faces of red-coated Virgin staff at yesterday’s launch, they are less than pleased that on the new services they will not have their own facilities to use the loo and wash their hands before preparing food.
Even less enthusiastic will be hapless passengers who will turn up at the station and ask for a first-class return from London to Manchester. They will be charged pounds 182.
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Consultants hired to investigate monorail problems
LAS VEGAS SUN
September 22, 2004
The Las Vegas Monorail Company took the first step toward getting back on track Tuesday when it hired a consulting team to review the problems that have kept the shuttle closed since a two-pound industrial washer hit the ground Sept. 8.
That event was the second accident in a week, following the fall of a 60- pound wheel from the rails dozens of feet above the ground. Those incidents came after delays in starting the $650 million system, which was to open in January but didn’t take its first passenger until July 15.
Following the latest problem Sept. 8, the company managing the operation — Transit Systems Management — had harsh words for Bombardier, the contractor that built and runs the system. The system is owned by the non-profit Las Vegas Monorail Company.
In a news conference the next day, Transit Systems Management announced it was talking to independent experts to evaluate the system prior to seeking permission from Clark County to reopen.
Tuesday, the management company hired Exponent, which investigates, analyzes, and documents issues ranging from the technical to the financial.
“We have investigated most of the major disasters that you read about, such as the grounding of the Exxon Valdez, the walkway collapse at the Kansas City Hyatt, and the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City,” the company’s Web site notes. “However, most of our work is actually helping clients with their day-to-day technical issues or challenges, and the average consultation we perform costs under $20,000,” states the Exponent site.
Monorail spokesman Todd Walker said Tuesday he did not know the terms — the cost, timing and scope — of the contract with Exponent. “The cost is not the primary concern of the Las Vegas Monorail Company.
The cost is insignificant if we look at the overall safety and the customer perception of the safety of the monorail,” Walker said. “Whether it’s $10 or $10,000, we’re going to spare no expense on ensuring this system, when it reopens, is the system we all anticipated.”
He said the system could stay closed for “quite a bit of time” without hurting its bond ratings. “We had bondholders here recently. We have adequate finances. We can go quite a bit of time before the system had to reopen without it really affecting the bottom line,” Walker said.
He said it’s too early to determine exactly what Exponent will do. “The next thing would be identifying some of the things they’d be doing on our behalf, the scope, and a rough timeline,” Walker said.
Walker said that the scope would be limited to the systems — “the moving components as well as what makes those components move” — as opposed to the “civil construction,” the guideways and tracks.
County officials have said the monorail company is responsible for all repair costs, including the $75-an-hour the system is billed for each county engineer to inspect the repairs. To reopen, monorail officials must prove to the Clark County Building Division, which oversees the system’s safety, that the problems have been adequately repaired. Transit System Management already had brought in the McLean, Va.-based consultant, Booz Allen Hamilton, to investigate the incident. Canada-based Bombardier has a $10 million annual contract to maintain the monorail and its existing four-mile route from the MGM Grand to the Sahara hotel.
Plans for an extension to downtown Las Vegas were put on indefinite hold after the closure. A $233 million contract awarded to Bombardier in October 2003 will expire at the end of this month, according to the monorail company.
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Frayed steel rope forces closure of 2 cable car lines
The San Francisco Chronicle
SEPTEMBER 22, 2004
Two of San Francisco’s three famed cable car lines were shut down Tuesday, disappointing thousands of tourists and costing the San Francisco Municipal Railway an estimated $10,000 in lost revenue.
Muni halted the popular Powell-Hyde and Powell-Mason street lines, which travel up and down the city’s most impressive hills between Market Street and Fisherman’s Wharf, after operators discovered a frayed cable on the Hyde line.
A cable sensor under Hyde street sounded an alarm about 10:30 a.m. to let the operators know a portion of the cable that pulls the Powell-Hyde cars was fraying, Muni spokeswoman Maggie Lynch said. The problem should be fixed by this morning.
The Powell-Mason line had been operating partially before Tuesday’s shutdown. The wharf end of the line was closed Sept. 13 so Muni could begin reconstructing the cable car turnaround at Bay and Taylor streets. The work won’t be completed until October.
Tuesday’s service disruption meant an estimated 5,000 passengers didn’t get to jump on the red- and-tan cars with the clanging brass bells and, as the song goes, “climb halfway to the stars.” Instead, passengers could take Muni shuttle buses or ride the only other cable ride available, the California Street line.
“I wasn’t trying to ride it (as a tourist), I just wanted to get up that hill. Do you see that hill?” said Enjoli Smith of Walnut Creek while pointing up steep Powell Street as she stood at the cable car turnaround at Powell and Market. She said she needed to get to the Fairmont Hotel on Nob Hill for an awards ceremony.
The typically crowded turnaround at Powell Street was empty, and many tourists who wanted to ride the cable car trekked along Market Street to the California Street line.
While it’s not uncommon for a strand on a cable to fray and cause a temporary shutdown of a line, it is unusual for two lines to be down at once.
The cables are 1 1/4 inches in diameter and consist of six steel strands of 19 wires each, wrapped around a sisal rope core, according to the Cable Car Museum. The cables run 9 1/2 mph under the street powered by noisy engines at the cable car barn at Mason and Washington streets. It’s basically the same technology that was used when the first cable car climbed a San Francisco hill in 1873.
The estimated $10,000 loss is a drop in the bucket for Muni’s $450 million budget
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Syntroleum fuel to run D.C. buses
The Tulsa World
September 22, 2004
The gas-to-liquid diesel is produced at a Tulsa Port of Catoosa plant. A low-emissions diesel fuel made at a plant near Tulsa is being tested on several city buses in Washington, D.C., by the Department of Energy.
The fuel is produced from natural gas, not oil, and is manufactured at a newly constructed facility at the Tulsa Port of Catoosa. The gas-to-liquids plant can turn out up to 70 barrels of diesel a day.
Officials of Tulsa-based Syntroleum Corp., which owns the process used to make the fuel, says the cleaner-burning product can reduce tailpipe emissions by as much as 40 percent and will work in any vehicle that uses a conventional diesel engine.
The fuel is being tested under the DOE’s Ultra-Clean Fuels program, which develops fuels designed to reduce emissions from automobiles.
“The goal is to show that it’s totally compatible with existing infrastructure,” said Ken Agee, chairman and chief executive officer of Syntroleum. “You can put this fuel in without making any changes, and you get improved performance and a reduction in emissions.”
To mark the use of Syntroleum’s “S2” diesel fuel by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, a press conference is scheduled Wednesday on Capitol Hill. S2 is also being tested in vehicles at Denali National Park in Alaska.
In addition to reducing air pollution from automobiles, GTL technology could help the United States become more self-sufficient in meeting its energy needs, said U.S. Rep. John Sullivan, R-Okla. “Our ongoing effort with Syntroleum assists in moving America towards reducing our nation’s dependence on transportation fuels from foreign sources,” Sullivan said in a statement.
Until recently, the commercial use of GTL technology has been ruled out because of cost. For years, the expense of refining fuel from crude oil has been cheaper than converting it from natural gas. But higher oil prices and major improvements in GTL technology have brought the cost down to a competitive level, Agee said. “The economics are very good,” he said.
But to be cost-effective, the concept requires low-price natural gas. Fortunately, the world has abundant supplies of “stranded” gas, advocates of GTL fuel say.
Stranded gas is essentially worthless because there are no pipelines or other means to ship it to market. Of the world’s 6,000 trillion cubic feet of proven gas reserves, about 2,500 tcf is considered stranded. Those supplies are tantamount to 250 billion barrels of oil, Agee said. “That’s about the size of Saudi Arabia’s oil reserves,” he said.
Syntroleum plans to build a floating GTL barge capable of reaching and utilizing stranded reserves. The vessel is designed to produce about 20,000 barrels of liquid fuel a day.
Syntroleum recently announced a tentative agreement to develop a large supply of stranded gas off the coast of Nigeria. The company’s GTL barge could be used to develop those reserves, Agee said. “We’re one step away from commercial,” he said.
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MBTA loses big over Greenbush land grab; Scituate man awarded $820K; higher total costs anticipated
The Patriot Ledger (Quincy, MA)
September 23, 2004
A jury has awarded a local businessman three times the amount the MBTA offered for his small lot when the agency grabbed his land for Greenbush construction.
In a decision that could force the MBTA to spend millions more for other contested land takings along the Greenbush rail corridor, a Plymouth County jury awarded Scituate businessman John Ulanowski $820,000 for 27,000 square feet of prime commercial land the T took by eminent domain.
The MBTA had offered $270,000 for the land where the Greenbush station is being built, which is located off the Driftway across from the Dunkin’ Donuts near Route 3A. “He’s thrilled,” said Peter E. Flynn of Saugus, Ulanowski’s lawyer, who specializes in eminent domain disputes.
To build the 17-mile-long rail line from Scituate to Braintree, the MBTA has had to take by force millions of dollars worth of property from about 70 landowners along the corridor, spokesman Joseph Pesaturo said. Public entities are allowed to take land by eminent domain for public use provided they pay the property owners fair market value.
Seven property owners, including Ulanowski, have challenged the MBTA’s taking price. Ulanowski claimed his property was worth $860,000 when the MBTA took it on July 1, 2002. Flynn said the MBTA never offered to work out a settlement with his client before it went to court. Pesaturo declined to comment on negotiations.
Following a three-day trial last week, a Plymouth County Superior Court jury largely sided with Ulanowski. The land was used to house his Scituate Yacht Co. Flynn successfully argued the site’s location near the water and its potential to be used for a variety of commercial purposes made its value far higher than the offer.
Flynn was also the attorney who won a judgment in 2000 on behalf of Mary O’Donnell, which forced the MBTA to pay the former Kingston landowner $2.3 million extra for land the MBTA took to build the Kingston station along the Old Colony line. She sued after turning down the MBTA’s offer of $2.95 million for her 33 acres.
Pesaturo said MBTA attorneys are reviewing trial transcripts from the Ulanowski case to set up a possible appeal. “We do plan to file some post-trial motions next week,” he said. With six cases remaining, yesterday said the MBTA has no plans to change how it calculates fair market value based on the trial’s results. Project critics, however, say the decision may validate their concerns that the project’s $470 million price tag will continue to rise.
“I, along with others, have always said the project is going to cost more than estimated,” Rep. Garrett Bradley, D-Hingham, said. “That price tag is built on faulty areas, and one of those areas is that the MBTA undervalued the cost of those parcels of land.”
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LATEST BRT ‘REPORT’ STUFFED FULL OF HOLES
Winnipeg Sun (Manitoba, Canada)
September 23, 2004
If you take the time to read the latest “independent study” praising Winnipeg’s proposed bus rapid transit, you’ll find that it’s not really a study at all. Rather, it’s a marketing paper written to help secure federal funding for a $75-million project.
The study, inaccurately described as a cost-benefit analysis, was penned by a group called Metropolitan Knowledge International for Winnipeg Transit. It was circulated among city councillors yesterday. And it’s supposed to be the latest evidence that rapid transit would be a “boon” to Winnipeg.
Trouble is, the study is full of holes.
For starters, the report fails to include the $25-million cost of buying the rapid transit buses in its analysis. None of the ridership data and other information used in the study was independently verified. And estimates that rapid transit would increase ridership by 25% is purely speculative and not adequately explained.
COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS
On top of that, the report is dated Sept. 3, 2004 — nearly six months after the city approved rapid transit.
How can this be the cost-benefit analysis used to support the decision to approve rapid transit if it came out six months after the decision was made?
A real cost-benefit analysis would have provided evidence-based projections on ridership levels. And it would have weighed rapid transit against other viable options to increase ridership.
For example, the study says diamond lanes and priority signals on regular roads between Jubilee Avenue and the University of Manitoba campus would substantially improve service under rapid transit.
So why don’t they have those for regular buses now along Pembina Highway?
In fact, what would happen if transit implemented those, increased the frequency of express and super express buses along Pembina, improved bus shacks and brought in computer-based scheduling?
How much would that increase ridership? How much time would that slice off the average travel time? How much would that cost versus a massive capital project like BRT?
None of those questions has been answered.
Transit has to examine these options, cost them out and weigh them against each other. You don’t jump into a $400-million project without that kind of analysis.
What’s laughable is the argument in the report that somehow rapid transit would pay for itself. “Most transit systems in Canada are subsidized by government,” the report says. “However, this project unto itself should result in a net financial benefit to Winnipeg Transit and is therefore a strong investment, from a fiscal sustainability perspective.”
CONFIDENTIAL MEMO
A few pages earlier, though, the report concedes that it did not subject the project to the kind of “due diligence required for financial markets,” and “does not reflect the actual fiscal performance of the project from the point of view of the transit authority.”
So which one is it?
A confidential memo from the city’s executive policy committee secretariat on the report, obtained by The Sun, says it best: “The MKI study affirms that proceeding with the proposed BRT southwest corridor at this time will create substantial financial costs for the city of Winnipeg while generating limited, speculative and difficult to quantify socio-economic benefits.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
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MTA to Borrow $1.1Billion to Speed Up Delayed Projects
Los Angeles Times
September 24, 2004
Hit hard by state budget cutbacks, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority plans to borrow more than $1.1 billion over the next 10 years to jump-start freeway and rail projects throughout Los Angeles County.
The borrowing plan unanimously adopted by the MTA board Thursday is intended to speed up — by as much as six years — the construction of several major projects that have been delayed by funding shortfalls. The projects include widening portions of Interstate 5, building the Exposition Boulevard light rail line from downtown Los Angeles to Culver City and improving the Alameda Corridor East freight rail corridor in the San Gabriel Valley.
At stake, officials say, is more than alleviating congestion. If the projects continue to be delayed, the region — including Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties — risks violating clean air laws and losing hundreds of millions of dollars a year in federal funding. “Frankly, we don’t have a lot of other options right now, given the times,” said Los Angeles City Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa, an MTA director.
During the last four years, Los Angeles County lost $1.35 billion in transportation funding, mostly because the cash-strapped state government has been diverting gasoline sales tax revenues intended for freeway and transit projects to other uses, MTA officials say.
Two months ago, the U.S. Department of Transportation expressed concerns that major transportation projects in the region lacked funding. Clean air laws require regions to implement projects on a “timely basis” or else possibly lose federal funding.
Thursday’s plan permits the MTA to sell, as a last resort, up to $1.143 billion in bonds to be paid back by future Proposition C tax revenues and to use $171 million in cash from that measure. Approved by voters in 2000, Proposition C added half a cent to the county sales tax to fund transportation projects. No further ballot measure is needed for the borrowing.
The plan would provide up to $541.4 million for carpool lanes for the Santa Ana Freeway, from the 605 Freeway to the Orange County border, and $254.2 million for carpool lanes on the Golden State Freeway, between the Ventura and Hollywood freeways in the San Fernando Valley.
It also would provide up to $240.9 million for the Exposition Boulevard line, $85 million for Alameda Corridor East and $192.7 million for smaller projects, including a connector between the Golden State and Antelope Valley freeways.
Some questioned the wisdom of taking money from future projects. “What |
