L.A. subway idea picking up speed
Los Angeles Daily News
September 25, 2004
I have always liked Tom LaBonge. He’s a big friendly guy who seems to be good at his job, which is councilman for the 4th District. He’s a real schmoozer, a born politician, and I like politicians. I don’t trust them but I like them. Plus Tom once told me I’m much nicer looking in person than my photo, and I’m sure we have all been hoping that was true.
And now Tom has announced he thinks we ought to start building subways again, which is something I’ve been saying since before the Red Line was declared dead and buried. You know, if he agrees with me a few more times I may become convinced Tom is a genius.
Tom and I believe the subway is crucial for the economic and social future of this city. And we believe that Step One in building more subways is to convince taxpayers to overturn what I call the “Chicken Little Law,” which they voted for in 1998 when every sinking merchant along Hollywood Boulevard was predicting the only three stops on the Red Line would be doom, bankruptcy and destruction.
Initially the opponents of the subway railed against the cost overruns, which had never, ever happened on a City Hall or county project every before. Then a section of Hollywood Boulevard caved in and everybody acted as if it was the first time something that dramatic had ever happened on a construction project. Nobody mentioned that during the building of one of the New York City subway lines, an entire street once fell into a tunnel — sidewalks, buildings, everything. But New Yorkers of the early 20th century knew subways were essential to the growth of their city. So they fired the people responsible, cleaned up the mess and kept on digging. They’re still digging subways today.
Not so in L.A. County. Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky introduced a ballot measure to prevent sales tax money from ever being used on subway construction ever again, and it passed easily. The Chicken Littles had won, and when the Red Line finally reached Burbank and Lankershim, that was supposed to be the end of subways for all time. Thank God the Egyptians weren’t as fainthearted as us, or the pyramids would still be on the drawing board.
But it wasn’t the end because even people who had cast ballots against new subway construction voted again, this time with their feet. The first day the Red Line opened in the Valley, and every day since, the North Hollywood and Universal City stations’ parking lots have been filled before 7 a.m. Suddenly it was obvious that Angelenos were eager to get out of their cars if there was a quick, efficient and pleasant alternative. The doomsday Hollywood merchants even witnessed something they hadn’t seen in a century: pedestrians — also known as “foot traffic,” — less than half of whom seem to be tourists and many of whom aren’t even commuters.
I recently traveled the Red Line from North Hollywood to the Government Center to pay my property taxes. I left after 10 in the morning. I was home before noon. I didn’t get a seat on the ride back because the train was so crowded with students and shoppers and mothers with children and workers on their lunch breaks running errands — and many of them were speaking to each other. Try talking to your neighbors in a traffic jam.
Increasing bus service is merely delaying a traffic solution. Eventually our traffic jams will become bus jams. Eventually we’re going to have to build subways, get the traffic below ground so we can use the surface for living. The sooner we start, the cheaper it will be, and the sooner we gain the benefits for having finished. Already in Hollywood the Red Line serves like the thread on a string of pearls, binding neighborhoods together into one city, with vibrant retail centers clustered around every subway station.
Think about reading the paper on your way to work. Think about 45 pleasant minutes from Warner Center to downtown. Think about kids commuting to school without waiting on a bus. Think about how much money and energy you would save if your family only had to own one car.
All this, and more, can be L.A.’s future. All that is required is the will to build it. I think we can get there. So does Tom LaBonge. I could be wrong. But Tom? Never. |
IT’S NO STRETCH TO SAY TRANSIT EXPANSION IS WORTH IT
The Ottawa Sun
September 25, 2004
Go west, Bob Chiarelli. Go west.
The $1-billion dream to bring light-rail transit to the four corners of Ottawa is on the right track.
With a little help from his federal and provincial friends, Ottawa’s mayor is looking into his crystal ball, looking for the answer to free up a congested network of city roads. The answer seems to be a permanent network of light- rail transit.
With a system that now stretches from South Keys to Lebreton Flats, Chiarelli is eager to connect the city’s east and west communities over the next 10 years.
Yesterday morning, many of us got a vision of the architect’s dream. Taking off from the Walkley Rd. train yards, the O-Train was filled with politicians and city staff giving the hard sell to media and a few invited guests.
It didn’t take much to sell the idea to Stephane Geraghty, 75. Geraghty is a retired 37-year transit operator who was decked out in his 1957 uniform from the days he drove the trolley car along Ottawa streets. The O-Train is a far cry from the early days and is late coming, he says. But he believes it’s the future of city transit.
The giveaways thrown at yesterday’s VIP riders didn’t make the idea of an east-west light-rail link any more convincing. It already makes sense when looking at the future growth of the city.
PRACTICAL ALTERNATIVE
Even to someone who most likely will never use rapid transit, it’s practical and makes sense for those who will.
Instead of becoming increasingly frustrated battling bumper-to-bumper traffic along the Queensway, east- and west-end commuters will have an opportunity to put up their feet and read the Ottawa Sun from front to back, catch up on a good book or some lost sleep, or better, plan their weekend.
If the 11/2-hour journey to the rural station was an accurate depiction of the length it will take to make it to the city, don’t plan on making those early morning meetings unless you set the alarm and are on the platform before the sun rises.
The ride was relatively quiet and boring. The highlight was realizing that the leaves had started to change as I gazed out the window.
The ride did take on a bit of a carnival-like atmosphere after we woke up and found ourselves finally pulling into Carp. That’s when the candy floss and candy apples came out along with more than 100 residents excited to see the hi-tech train.
The bottom line is, expanding the O-Train is a good idea, one welcomed by rural residents. If it happens, it will be one of the few bones rural residents have been thrown since amalgamation.
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TRANSIT BOSS UP IN ARMS; SLAMS ADVISOR OVER BRT
Winnipeg Sun (Manitoba, Canada)
September 25, 2004
The head of Winnipeg’s transit system has accused a senior mayoral advisor of misleading Mayor Sam Katz on the merits of a rapid transit project.
Transit director Rick Borland is demanding Bryan Gray apologize to Katz for providing poor advice and to the bus service and one of its private consultants for tarnishing their reputations.
In a letter leaked to the media yesterday, Borland blasts Gray for writing a recent memo that suggests the findings of a cost-benefit study on rapid transit are questionable and unverified. “In the process you have called into question the professional integrity of a number of very credible individuals and companies,” Borland says in the letter.
SIX-PAGE LETTER
Sources and supporters of the proposed Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system say Gray’s memo could have been largely responsible for convincing Katz and his council cabinet to shelve the project’s $50-million first leg on Wednesday.
Borland says in the six-page letter that Gray, manager of Katz’s executive policy committee secretariat, has been “absolutely irresponsible” in suggesting a Markham, Ont., firm provided positive findings on rapid transit “in order to further their financial gain.”
The transit director also accuses Gray of wrongly describing a projected $319,000 annual additional operating cost for BRT as a financial risk. Borland argues that this amount would be more than offset by an expected $800,000 increase in fare revenue on the system of high-tech buses that would run on dedicated roadways.
Katz insisted yesterday Gray did nothing wrong and owes no apologies. “Mr. Gray is very thorough with what he did, and I have no problem with his memo in any way, shape or form. And I’m glad that myself and EPC received a copy of it,” Katz told The Sun.
“You can read a report, interpret it one way and the next person can interpret it another way. Why do people go to court? Because one lawyer sees it one way, and another sees it another way. Interpretation is interpretation, but the facts of life are that everybody should have the information.”
Borland couldn’t be reached for comment yesterday. Gray didn’t return a call to his office.
While Katz suggested Gray’s memo is merely “diplomatic” in asking questions about BRT, Coun. Gord Steeves (St. Vital) said the fuss is unjustified. “People make decisions based on how they feel about the direction of the city,” said Steeves, an EPC member who voted to shelve BRT. “A cost-benefit analysis is a part of it but a part that comes after the dream and after the political decision. It acts more as a safeguard than as a guiding light.”
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Tram decision off the rails
The Advertiser
September 25, 2004
THESE new Glenelg trams seem to be some kind of article of faith within the current State Government.
It happens from time to time that certain decisions seem to be ramped through the process of government regardless of the pros and cons. Philosophers call this a “blik”, but it is sometimes referred to as “up yours”.
If a politician decides they want a new tram, no amount of head-pummelling will convince them they don’t need one.
If a politician decides to waste $50 million to $100 million overseas to replace a perfectly functional and highly desirable heritage tram system, no one is going to stop them.
The new Glenelg trams are a bad decision.
The old ones are one of the State’s icon heritage valuables, and I have argued before about their value. It is true they need maintenance, the stations need upgrading and they are old and rattly. But so are San Francisco’s cable cars and numerous other heritage transport systems around the world. It is an increasingly desirable quality in transport, particularly in cases like the Adelaide to Bay run.
Better still, the maintenance money is spent at home, employing South Australian workers, and boosting the State’s economy rather than robbing ours to fund Germany’s.
This is an established inner suburban line, which has few prospects of changing its clientele or increasing its patronage.
The heritage tram argument put forward by government about retaining a few of the old trams for tourism just goes to show how poorly it understands the attractions of heritage.
If the heritage service is not there all the time, it is pointless being there at all. Even the Victor Harbor to Granite Island horse tram service has a better grip on this than the State Government. But particularly annoying, especially from a Labor Government, is the way the new trams will snub their noses at all the myriad public transport disasters in our outer suburbs.
There are crying needs for better public transport in just about every corridor of Adelaide except the city to Glenelg run.
One interesting possibility that offers itself would actually succeed in making the Glenelg tramway of more service. This is the idea the tramway extend down King William St and up North Tce to join the Port Adelaide railway line.
A light rail service from Port Adelaide through the city and out to Glenelg would double the significance of our tramways. At present both the Glenelg tram and the Port Adelaide railcars stop annoyingly short of the city.
The truth is there are better ways to spend $50 million than on new trams, and there are bigger and better issues to chew over than their colour.
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First of trolley fleet’s new cars on horizon; Transit directors check out 11 next-generation vehicles
The San Diego Union-Tribune
September 26, 2004
SACRAMENTO — The smooth contours were new but the brilliant red was unmistakable even at a distance.
The first car in a new fleet for the San Diego Trolley sat motionless on the manufacturer’s barren test track as a small group from the Metropolitan Transit System walked up to kick the tires, so to speak, and to get a feel for the interior. “There’s your baby,” said project manager Walter Sklomeit from Siemens Transportation Systems.
The gleaming light-rail vehicle with its rounded nose is still at least eight months from carrying its first paying passengers. The interior isn’t finished and there are problems to solve with some of the seats. Yet, even 500 miles from home, the newest trolley is a standout from its older siblings in the San Diego system.
Looks aside, the main attraction of the $36 million, 11-car fleet is a state-of-the-art design with low floors that allow passengers to move in and out without climbing stairs.
The seating configuration is new, windows are bigger and electronic signs inside will identify station stops, a plus for anyone who has ever strained to hear muffled or drowned-out announcements over the older trolleys’ speakers. “People will really like this car,” said Harry Mathis, a trolley enthusiast and nonvoting member of the Metropolitan Transit board. “It’s going to be a comfortable ride on the inside.”
The delivery date to San Diego — possibly mid-to late October — is uncertain because of unresolved questions over a paint job. It goes into service in May or June with the opening of the Mission Valley East extension of the trolley, a $496 million connection between the Mission San Diego station and La Mesa that also runs onto the San Diego State campus. The new line is expected to add more than 11,000 passengers a day to trolley ridership, which currently averages about 73,900.
Limits told
Now for the letdown. Initially, the new S70 model cars will be used only along a 19.4-mile stretch between Santee and Old Town, which will be designated the Green Line. Platforms at existing stations on that line will be modified to handle the new cars, but that’s all the budget can accommodate for now.
In the standard three-car configuration, new cars will be sandwiched between two older models, also for reasons involving the way platforms are built.
With only 11 new cars — which is all the transit budget could support — many passengers will find themselves back in the familiar U2 (cars numbered in the 1000 series) and SD100 (2000 series) vehicles, even along the Green Line. None of the older cars, now approaching 24 years in service, will be replaced.
Yet, after transit officials visited the manufacturing plant this month, they agreed there’s a lot going for the new trolleys. “I obviously like the car very much,” said Leon Williams, chairman of the Metropolitan Transit System board, who snapped pictures of the trolley.
In and out
The biggest innovation is the low floor, which permits passengers to get aboard with a simple baby step instead of two or three big ones. Passengers in wheelchairs will roll in and out of the cars over a short bridge plate that extends from the car to the station platform, creating a short ramp between the trolley station platform and the car. The procedure is faster and easier than the mechanical lifts used on existing trolleys.
Two bridge plates are on each side of the vehicle, serving the middle two doors. Passengers operate them by pressing an illuminated button off to the side of the door; the door remains shut while the plate moves in and out of position. The bridge plate is the reason trolley stations have to be raised two inches to accommodate the S70s. Otherwise, the ramp will be too steep for wheelchairs.
Inside, the low floor accounts for 70 percent of the interior of the car, hence the S70 model designation. In the remainder, where the floor must be elevated to accommodate propulsion equipment, passengers walk up one step in the center aisle and up a second step to reach their seats.
The trolley system carries about 7,100 passengers in wheelchairs a month. But all passengers, including anyone with limited mobility or those with their arms full, should find the low entries easier to use. “Everybody is going to be getting in and out of this car much quicker,” said Robin Stimson, director of business development for Siemens Transportation Systems.
The face-to-face seating configuration of current trolleys was changed to a more conventional setup. Except for a middle section, all seats in the front half of each car face forward; those in the rear face back. “A lot of people don’t like that eye-to-eye contact,” trolley chief Peter Tereschuck said. The cloth-covers to the seats can easily be replaced in case of damage or vandalism.
Trolley doors slide open and shut in one smooth lateral movement, instead of the double-folding type used on the current model. With fewer moving parts, they’re expected to require less lubrication and other maintenance. When closed, they’ll appear completely flush with the wall of the car for a more streamlined look.
Windows up front and along the sides are bigger than those of the current trolleys and are contoured to be flush with the trolley’s side panels instead of being held by a rubber frame. Buttons to open the trolley from the inside are on the doors, instead of on stanchions.
The low floor requires two articulated accordion-like sections in each car, instead of just one.
Problems uncovered
In their visit to Siemens, the San Diego officials uncovered a few problems.
A row of seats near the trolley’s wind screens have so little leg room that transit officials are considering whether to remove one seat and rotate the other so it faces the aisle. That would create a net loss of four seats in each car. “We’re not going to leave the seat the way it is,” Tereschuck assured.
The visitors also were surprised by the amount of black paint along the bottom of the car. With tinted windows and a new touch of black at the top of the trolleys, Williams said the new model looked “like a black car with red on it.”
Trolley officials expected a color scheme in which the band would line up with a similar stripe at the bottom of the older models.
The Metropolitan Transit System decided last week to have the work redone — three cars and 80 doors will have to be repainted — and to seek reimbursement for the estimated $85,000 to $90,000 cost. The work could delay delivery of the first car by two to three weeks, unless the agency decides to have it performed by its own paint contractor.
Trolley officials also were unsatisfied with the texture of the red paint film on the first car, saying it fell short of the mirror finish they expected. “The issues are really minor,” said Paul Jablonski, chief executive officer of Metropolitan Transit. “The nose is very appealing, very contemporary. I think the interiors are nice.”
Gad Shaanan Design of Solana Beach and Montreal designed the interiors, adding color features and a serpentine stripe along the floor, among other touches. The company also custom-designed the shape of the trolley nose.
The S70 was first put to use in Houston at the beginning of the year, with a much rounder beak. It wasn’t just an aesthetic choice, Tereschuck said. Because the San Diego model is more than five feet shorter than Houston’s, its blunter nose will preserve passenger capacity.
The San Diego design on the S70s also is being used on the cars Siemens is building for a new light-rail line in Charlotte, N.C.
The first of the new models, to be numbered 3001, has been operated on the test track at the Sacramento plant, although some trouble-shooting prevented Siemens from offering a demonstration the day of the San Diego officials’ visit.
Inside the 190,000-square-foot plant, several other cars bound for San Diego were in varying states of assembly. Workers were welding sections of an under-frame together at one station and grinding out the welds at another. A fiberglass shell, fabricated at the plant, awaited painting.
Also on hand was an older trolley, trucked up from San Diego to jump-start compatibility testing on brakes, acceleration and other systems.
While the initial order of 11 cars is small, it’s possible the low-floor cars could become replacement vehicles for any older ones that get phased out of the fleet.
The planned Old Town-to-University City extension of the trolley, which transit officials would like to get under way before the end of the decade if funding is available, also likely would be designed to accommodate the newer models.
Wherever the vehicles become available, Stimson said the trolley agency should be prepared for a public preference from Day One. “New cars become very popular,” he said. “Everybody wants to ride on the new cars.”
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Las Vegas monorail stumped on safety
Philadelphia Inquirer
September 26, 2004
All along, operators of Las Vegas’ new monorail system have said they hoped to sweeten revenues by having their sleek passenger cars shrink-wrapped in flashy advertising of such sponsors as wireless phone providers and theme parks.
But it appears the most fitting advertiser for the super-hyped monorail that debuted July 15 might well have been a citrus grower. A fat lemon plastered on the side of the trains — already shut down twice — would pretty much sum up the monorail’s early performance.
On Sept. 8, a two-pound piece of metal fell from the train, prompting an extended shutdown of the line that runs a four-mile route roughly parallel to the Vegas Strip. That mishap followed a Sept. 1 incident in which a 60-pound tire assembly flew from a train and landed in a parking lot, resulting in a six-day suspension of service.
In August, a worker for the Canadian company that assembled the monorail trains and operates the system accidentally opened the doors on the wrong side of the car when it pulled into the Las Vegas Hilton station. Instead of doors opening onto a platform, they opened onto a steep drop to the street.
No one has been hurt in the problems, but confidence in the system’s reliability wears thin with each incident.
All this comes after another incident in January when, during testing of the monorail, a drive shaft dropped from a car. The monorail’s start-up, initially scheduled for the first quarter, was delayed until July. The transportation system is owned by the Las Vegas Monorail Company, and the vehicles are manufactured by Bombardier Transportation.
“We want to become a reliable form of transportation, and we need to demonstrate over an extended period of time we can do that. But our first priority is safety,” said Todd Walker, the monorail company’s spokesman.
After the Sept. 8 closing, Walker said that there was no timetable for a resumption of service and that independent transit and safety experts would examine the line. “We don’t want to just know what happened yesterday and fix that problem,” Walker said. “We want an analysis of the entire system.”
The $650 million Las Vegas monorail system stands apart from most mass-transit operations because it was privately financed. The trains run east of Las Vegas Boulevard from the MGM Grand Hotel & Casino on the southern end of the Strip, north to the Sahara Hotel & Casino. There are seven stations: six at casinos and one at the massive Las Vegas Convention Center. A one-way ride is $3, and the trip from end-to-end is supposed to take 14 minutes.
Expectations have been that the system would provide convenient transport, mainly for visitors, along the busy tourist corridor and help relieve vehicular congestion along Las Vegas Boulevard. The monorail was carrying about 30,000 passengers a day, operators said.
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Light-rail success like Denver’s will take effort; Combination of transit and development work end up benefiting both
Charlotte Observer
Sep. 26, 2004
When I was on vacation a few days ago, I caught Denver’s light-rail train to watch the Dodgers beat the Rockies. Along the way, I came across a lesson for Charlotte.
Denver’s light-rail line now carries 35,000 passengers each weekday.
Our train passed by miles of warehouses, aging factories and vacant lots. The only people boarding the train at those stations came from park-and-ride lots. Plenty of people climbed on, but the stations were grim and sterile.
Then we pulled into Englewood, a city of 32,000 south of Denver and a worthy model for Charlotte as our city tries to encourage the development of villages near transit stations.
Englewood City Center with city hall, a library and traffic court, plus apartments, stores and offices, was next to the station. There’s even that great modern touchstone, a Wal-Mart.
A few years ago, the area was Cinderella City, an abandoned regional mall from the 1960s about the size of South Park mall. Shoppers had moved on to newer stores, said Bob Simpson, community-development director for City Center. Light rail was being expanded southward through Englewood, and the mall seemed destined to become a sprawling park-and-ride lot.
But the city figured on another Cinderella story. It bought the 55-acre mall, tore down all but one building and became a developer. Englewood built streets, moved its city offices there and sold land to builders like Trammel Crow but kept development control.
Five years later, the center has 458 apartments, 350,000 square feet of retail, 40,000 square feet of offices. And lots of people riding the train. About 3,800 riders a day board at the Englewood station, which has 950 parking spaces. Many riders come by bus, others live nearby.
Can this happen around Charlotte’s stations? Not without a lot of effort. A consultant has warned the city not to believe in magic. It will take a guiding hand, civic money and incentives to give us something beyond old warehouses and park-and-rides.
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Cap Metro aims to avoid bumper cars
Austin American-Statesman
September 26, 2004
With Houston motorists still playing demolition derby with the city’s 9- month-old light rail system and Central Texan voters pondering a November commuter rail referendum, an obvious question arises: Are insurance adjusters in for some boom times ahead?
Probably not, based on what Capital Metro is building — as opposed to the Houston line — and the safeguards that Capital Metro intends to install.
In Houston, the main problem is that the light rail line, dual tracks running from near the Astrodome to the Buffalo Bayou downtown, is embedded in the middle of the street and replaces a lane of traffic in each direction.
Most of the accidents there have occurred when a left-turning driver, not realizing that there is a light rail train approaching from behind at a greater speed, turns in front of the train.
That situation, with the exception of about two blocks or so on the east edge of downtown, wouldn’t exist with the 32-mile Austin-to-Leander line. After the line, existing tracks that have seen a virtual face-lift in recent years, passes under Interstate 35, it basically has its own right of way.
However, as it turns north through East Austin and then gradually tracks northwest to Cedar Park and Leander, the line passes over 53 public roads and 20 private drives into businesses and residential and agricultural-type properties. And right now, with only about five slow- moving freight trains a day (and night) running on that line, two dozen of those have only a sign of some sort alerting people that there’s a railroad track there.
However, only five of those are public roads. On one of them, County Road 272 in Cedar Park, installation of gates and flashers will begin next week. The others will be outfitted with a gate system before passenger service begins in 2007 or 2008.
Bill Le Jeune, Capital Metro’s rail manager, said that if voters approve the system, all 53 public roads will have a more advanced type of signal technology in place that allows the gates to open sooner or later, depending on the speed of an approaching train.
The gates, in other words, would open sooner if a commuter car is headed that way at 30 to 50 miles per hour than they would for a freight train coming at 10 to 20 miles per hour. That project will cost about $4 million, Le Jeune says.
At least eight intersections will have “quad” gates, with four arms coming down rather than two, to make it impossible for folks to illegally detour onto the track.
Collisions are not out of the question, of course. Federal law does not require the private roads to have anything other than signs, whether it’s traditional railroad “crossbuck” with the X configuration, a stop sign or a regular sign that says only that there’s a railroad just ahead. So those would remain a concern.
When a road parallels the track, such as on Airport Boulevard or U.S. 183, a driver could still attempt to make a turn toward the track with a train in the blind spot. But unlike many intersections in Houston, on the public roads in Central Texas, there will be gates in the way. Le Jeune says, “We’re going to spend $4 million to make it foolproof.”
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THE REAL LOWDOWN ON BUS RAPID TRANSIT
Winnipeg Sun (Manitoba, Canada
September 26, 2004
I don’t think some people realize just how large and expensive the proposed bus rapid transit system truly was. If they did, they would probably have a better understanding of why Mayor Sam Katz has put the project on hold.
The first leg of BRT, from downtown to the University of Manitoba campus, was just the first phase of what was supposed to be a six-corridor transit system.
Each corridor would consist of dedicated roadways used exclusively for fuel-burning buses. The idea is to separate the buses from regular traffic, allowing them to travel faster between locations. All told, the project was estimated to cost some $400 million.
It’s big money, especially for a project that was based on a stunning lack of homework. The more I talk to people about this project, the more I discover that a lot of folks don’t really know what this thing is about.
For example, some people don’t know that the $76 million costs for the first phase of this project would only have paid for the first half of the first corridor. Under the proposal, which is expected to be officially shelved this week by city council, the BRT system would have run from downtown to Jubilee Avenue. Once there, the BRT bus would travel along regular roads, just like they do now. In other words, for $76 million, the first corridor would be half rapid transit and half regular bus.
One of the reasons this project is so expensive is because the city would have had to purchase land for the busway as well as build overpasses, underpasses and at least one bridge. It’s something that hasn’t received much media attention.
For instance, between downtown and Jubilee alone, the city would have to build one overpass at Osborne Street and an underpass south of there to pass through railway tracks.
The second half between Jubilee and University Crescent would require moving an entire railroad to the west to facilitate the construction of the dedicated busway. There are no cost estimates on that — at least none that have been made public — nor has a price tag been put on the second half of the first corridor.
The next phase of rapid transit would have seen a second corridor built between downtown and Transcona. The city would have to erect a bridge, at considerable cost, over the Red River to accommodate the corridor.
The plan was for the city to build four more corridors throughout Winnipeg after that. There is no timeline on when those would be built. And there is no agreement between the city and the senior levels of government on who would pay for it. In fact, the only commitment the city has right now from the province and Ottawa is $34 million towards the $75-million cost of the first half of the first corridor.
Meanwhile, there are conflicting projections on how much ridership might increase under BRT.
Winnipeg Transit has always said it believes ridership would go up 15% to 20%. The MKI report released by executive policy committee this past week says it’s more like 25%.
None of the projections are justified and are at best speculative. The obvious question then becomes, is spending $400 million worth a ridership bump of, say, 20%?
I think not.
Winnipeg’s population is barely growing and there is no demand for an expanded public transit system. We’re not planning for a population boom.
Rather, the argument behind the BRT system is to convince more people to leave their cars at home and take public transit. The goal is to alleviate traffic, cut down on greenhouse gas emissions and reduce government subsidies to operate public transit.
Those are laudable goals. But they can’t be achieved at any price. It has to make financial sense.
The real solution, then, is to take a few steps back and determine what Winnipeg’s public transit needs are. Could we achieve higher ridership through improvements to the existing system (more diamond lanes and priority signals and more heated bus shacks, etc.)? How would lower fares affect ridership? Do we need to privatize the feeder routes to the main lines (something that’s been proposed internally as a money saver but never implemented)?
Hopefully those, and many other options, will be analysed under Katz’s new task force on rapid transit. It’s a worthwhile exercise. And it will bring some levelheaded thinking back to the process. We’ve been missing that lately.
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MOBILITY 2030: METRO ATLANTA’S 25-YEAR TRANSPORTATION BLUEPRINT: End of the rail; Metro transit, MARTA’s role being scrutinized
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
September 27, 2004
For the first time since MARTA was hatched in the 1960s, the region has no long-term plan to extend heavy rail into the suburbs.
Regional leaders say that’s because no one has stepped up to pay for its future. After 2032, the penny sales tax that largely supports the transit system will drop to a half cent.
In this case, a ha’penny will not do. Extending the rail line even a few more stops would cost billions. And the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority is having trouble bringing in enough money to operate its bus and train service.
Even after eliminating underused bus routes, laying off 20 percent of its work force — — more than 1,000 people — — and furloughing managers, the authority is still expected to spend $20 million more this year than it will bring in. MARTA’s reserves are expected to run out in 2007, according to the authority’s estimates.
Ridership has declined, federal dollars are getting harder to come by, and there’s no fairy godmother in sight. The Federal Transit Administration, which controls the flow of federal funds for public transportation projects, is unwilling to commit money to any more of metro Atlanta’s sketchy ideas. In the last 25-year plan, commuter rail from Atlanta-to-Athens never got off the drawing board, and express bus service from Atlanta to Macon ended in failure in under two years.
Metro Atlanta’s “financial planning assumptions have been off,” said FTA spokeswoman Velvet Snow. “Unless there’s a commitment for future funding from the highest of levels of government, that [federal] funding will not be forthcoming.”
Tom Weyandt, comprehensive planning director of the Atlanta Regional Commission, the planning agency for the 10-county region, said it’s time to face facts. “For 30 years we’ve been promising people transit, and we haven’t been able to deliver,” Weyandt said. “We’ve got to come to grips with the financial issues and the institutional issues. How are we going to build it? Who’s going to operate it?”
No more deep pockets
Who’s going to pay for it? >From the beginning, the system’s biggest pocket has been the 1-cent sales tax charged in DeKalb and Fulton counties, and the city of Atlanta. This year, the sales tax accounts for 46 percent of MARTA’s total revenues, or $158.8 million. Passenger fares account for 28 percent — — $93.7 million.
But that’s not enough to maintain the status quo. MARTA continues to dig a financial hole. In 2001, DeKalb and Fulton county commissioners, and Atlanta City Council members voted not to extend the penny sales tax past 2032, making it clear those governments no longer want to carry the system.
Yet the ailing system has been the most talked about item in the ARC’s $52 billion transportation plan through 2030. People want more money for MARTA. The plan calls for more than $8 billion to expand roadways. The $5 billion for new transit would mostly go to pay for a new bus rapid transit system of trainlike buses running in dedicated lanes along freeways.
Ross Goddard, a 77-year-old Army veteran who lives in Decatur, says, “It is preposterous that the ARC plan has no provision for extending MARTA heavy rail lines both inside and outside the I-285 Perimeter to serve more riders, both in the growing intown area and in suburban county seat towns and population centers.”
Molly Read Woo, 43, a writer who lives in Buckhead, says, “We need to start thinking 20 years down the road, and the last thing we need is a bunch more cars and a bunch more roads. . . . Most people want to use MARTA, but they can’t because it doesn’t run 24 hours, it’s overpriced, and it’s not going anywhere.”
Something’s got to give. Everybody knows it, but very few have an answer. “I don’t know how we fund it,” said Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin. “The region has to respond. . . . One day there will be a solution, and I hope I’m part of it.”
Clayton County and ARC Chairman Crandall Bray said he has ideas but isn’t ready to share them. “I don’t want to cut off my nose before I go to the governor’s office,” he said.
Catherine Ross, an urban planner and a former executive director of the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority — — the state’s uber-transportation agency — — said the state is going to have to step up. “I think the state will become involved in public transportation throughout the state — — from Statesboro all the way up to Atlanta,” said Ross, who is now director of Georgia Tech’s Center for Quality Growth and Regional Development.
MARTA General Manager Nathaniel Ford says he and his board are busy putting their financial house in order. Until that job is done, they won’t be asking for a handout from the state or anyone else. “Our financial stewardship is key in this,” Ford said. “We’re tightening our belts.”
He also knows MARTA has to change its image, starting with its own customers who wonder why buses don’t run on time, trains break down on the tracks, and some fare gates won’t let paying passengers through.
But Ford also wants to convince regional and state leaders that MARTA has a lot to offer as the backbone of mass transit. “You give us about a year or two and we think we’ll be able to build support for transit across the state,” Ford said.
Non-MARTA projects
Gov. Sonny Perdue is prepared to listen. Perdue spokesman Derrick Dickey said “Everybody’s working together. We understand [MARTA’s funding] situation, but we have to take one step at a time.”
The regional transportation plan provides plenty of money for non-MARTA rail projects. More than $3 billion in federal, local and borrowed money is committed to introduce bus rapid transit, or BRT, on I-75, I-85, I-285, I-20, Buford Highway, U.S. 41 and Memorial Drive.
An additional $680 million is for two in-town transit systems, one that would use the mostly abandoned rail lines ringing the city. MARTA could run parts of the BRT routes and the intown systems.
A recently formed group of regional leaders has taken up the question of who pays for MARTA and how to best tie its trains and buses with GRTA’s Xpress bus service to the suburbs and with bus systems in Gwinnett, Cobb and Clayton.
Over the next year and a half, the group will consider what other cities and states are doing, and come up with some solutions.
ARC planner Weyandt said, “This is the first time in decades we’ve addressed the issue . . . Governments here are spending a lot of money on transit, spending a lot of money on transportation generally, and we need to figure out a way to spend it more effectively.”
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MTA FARE HIKES HELP BOOST BIGWIGS’ PAY
The New York Post
September 27, 2004
The money train has pulled into the MTA’s executive offices.
The year straphangers and drivers were slapped with fare and toll hikes, six of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s 10 highest earners were able to fatten their wallets with big pay raises, The Post has learned.
Leading the list of top-paid executives who got big pay raises in 2003 are Metro-North President Peter Cannito and Long Island Rail Road President Jim Dermody.
Cannito, who made $172,500 in 2002 and is second overall on the list of highest-paid employees, pocketed $215,000 last year.
Dermody, who made $172,010 in 2002 and is third overall, saw his salary balloon to $214,999 when he was promoted to LIRR president after serving as acting chief. His predecessor, Ken Bauer, was only making $172,499. “This is the prevailing wage for people in that job with their knowledge and expertise,” said MTA spokesman Tom Kelly.
The list of fat cats includes executives who work for the MTA and the five subsidiaries it oversees — the Transit Authority, Metro-North, LIRR, Bridges and Tunnels, and Capital Construction Company. MTA officials got the raises — in some cases tied to job promotions — at a time when the agency was pleading poverty because it faced a $952 million budget gap.
The MTA raised bus and subway fares 50 cents to $2, increased Metro-North and LIRR ticket prices 25 percent and jacked up tolls 50 cents on major crossings. “They asked the public to pay more,” said Gene Russianoff, staff lawyer for the Straphangers Campaign. “They should have tightened their own belt.”
Kelly said there was a pay freeze last year and that salary hikes — which ranged from 3 percent to 25 percent — were given to agency heads who negotiated a new contract and those who either got a promotion or were given additional duties. “It’s a very specific few who got this,” he said.
Leading the list of highest-paid execs is TA President Larry Reuter, who made $225,000 last year. He made the same salary in 2002. MTA Executive Director Katie Lapp, who is fourth on the list, made $192,500, the same as in 2002.
A handful were given pay boosts because they were promoted.
MTA Chief Operating Officer Tom Savage got an 18 percent raise last year after he was promoted from his former post as the TA’s chief of operations. Savage went from making $154,971 in 2002 to $183,000 when he was moved to the newly created position.
MTA Capital Construction President Mysore Nagaraja got a 13 percent raise when he was promoted to head the new agency in charge of expansion projects like the Second Avenue subway. Nagaraja, who worked as the TA’s vice president for capital programs, went from $161,340 to $182,500 when he was promoted to the newly created post.
Bridges and Tunnels President Michael Ascher was granted a 9 percent raise, from $167,500 in 2002 to $182,500 in 2003.
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600 TOKEN CLERKS FACING METROCUT
Daily News (New York
September 27, 2004
THE CASH-STRAPPED Metropolitan Transportation Authority plans to yank 600 token booth clerks from the subways — workers many riders say make them feel safer underground.
The proposed job cuts, aimed at helping plug a $436 million deficit, would come as part of a plan to close 49 around-the-clock token booths and all 115 part-time booths next year. Riders also face higher prices for unlimited-ride MetroCards, steeper bridge and tunnel tolls and increased commuter railroad fares under the MTA’s bitter budget fix.
The booth closures, which still must win approval from the MTA board, came as bad news to riders. “We need people in the booths. They are the eyes and ears of what goes on down here,” said Gary Ivey, 50.
“It’s good to have someone here because the subways sometimes are not safe, especially at night,” said Leslie Koram, 27, a D train rider from Norwood in the Bronx. “If something happens, you could always get someone to help.”
Under the controversial 2005 budget proposal, the number of workers in the Transit Authority’s stations division would be cut by 10.7% by the end of 2005 — down to 5,645 from 6,324. In addition to the 600 token clerks, 79 other positions, including supervisory jobs, also would be trimmed.
The overall MTA plan calls for the elimination of 2,680 jobs through attrition. But MTA Executive Director Katherine Lapp has not ruled out layoffs.
Crime in the subway has fallen steadily over the past decade to where there are now an average of nine felonies a day in a system that carries millions of riders daily. “People feel less safe when they don’t see a token person there,” said Beverly Dolinsky, executive director of the New York City Transit Riders Council. “Whether it is perception or reality, that’s the way they feel.”
There has been no increase in crime at stations where 62 part-time booths staffed by 44 clerks were closed over the past two years, TA spokesman Paul Fleuranges said. Each station to lose a booth will still have one that is staffed full time, he said.
The TA also will install intercoms for passengers who need to speak with the clerk in the full-time booth or to someone at a TA command center.
Still, riders said, unstaffed subway entrances also pose other problems, leaving them with no one to sort out MetroCard woes or buzz them through gates with strollers or shopping carts. “I can’t talk to a machine,” said Emanuela Froment, 42, as she nodded toward a MetroCard vending machine at the Norwood station.
Riders at least will have some more opportunities to weigh in on the planned cuts. After the Daily News revealed that the MTA planned to hold just one hearing on the budget proposal in the city, the agency changed its schedule. It now plans three hearings in the city in November, one in Westchester and one on Long Island.
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LAWS AIDING DISABLED OFTEN IGNORED, ACTIVISTS FIND
IPS-Inter Press Service
September 27, 2004
Activists in Brazil agree that the country has good laws in favour of the disabled. But they say they are not always enforced, and that in practice only a small proportion of people with disabilities have access to public transportation or adequate health services.
Activists interviewed by IPS said that Brazil’s strong showing in a recent international study that ranks South America’s giant among the top five countries in the Americas with respect to the situation of the disabled — along with Canada, Costa Rica, the United States and Jamaica — is due largely to the country’s strong legislation.
The study by the Centre for International Rehabilitation (CIR) formed part of its International Disability Rights Monitor (IDRM) programme.
The IDRM Regional Report of the Americas documented the situation of people with disabilities in 24 countries, focusing on six broad areas: legal protection, education and employment, mobility, health services and housing, communications and compliance with international treaties.
Ten of the 24 countries were classified as moderately inclusive, such as Argentina, Chile, Mexico and Uruguay, while the nine least inclusive countries were the poorest nations of South and Central America, including Bolivia, Guatemala, Guyana and Honduras.
CIR is a Chicago-based non-governmental organisation that seeks to improve the lives of people with disabilities in poor countries by providing rehabilitation and training programmes and mobility aides, and advocating the rights of people with disabilities worldwide.
It was founded in 1996 and operates in collaboration with the renowned Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago and Northwestern University.
The assessment was heavily based on national laws and adherence to international conventions on the rights of the disabled, which is why Brazil scored so high, Claudia Werneck, president of the Escola de Gente, an NGO in Rio de Janeiro that specialises in communication aimed at social inclusion, told IPS.
Brazil is a pioneer in Latin America with respect to ratifying international treaties, and it has passed advanced legislation recognising a broad range of rights for the disabled.
The most visible advances establish architectural and city planning requirements to facilitate access to public areas and buildings, and set quotas requiring large businesses to hire people�with disabilities, who must make up between two and five percent of the payroll depending on the size of the company.
But the biggest challenge is to modify society’s attitude towards the disabled, said Werneck, a journalist who has written several prize-winning books on the issue.
She noted, for instance, that the disabled continue to be deprived of “the right to communicate”. The media and public meetings and activities tend to be exclusively conceived of for people who see, hear and speak normally. Sign language interpreters for the deaf and information in braille are rarely included, said the activist.
“No one bans deaf people from attending, or rejects blind people at public events,” but that does not mean they are included, because true inclusion would require conditions under which everyone could participate and express themselves, she said.
Brazil’s laws are fairly close to excellent, said Marta Gil, head of the Saci Network, created by university institutions to disseminate information aimed at improving the lives of the disabled.
For example, there are no regulations for ensuring access to computers and the Internet, although draft laws to that effect are being studied in parliament, she pointed out.
But in real life, only a small portion of disabled people in Brazil have access to prosthetic devices, public transportation or adequate health services. “Without transportation, they can’t go to school, and without an education it is impossible to get a job,” Gil commented to IPS.
There are relatively few disabled people in Brazil with a steady job: just 537,000, or two percent of all employees in the formal sector of the economy, according to a census by the Getulio Vargas Foundation, a centre for education and research on the economy and public administration.
According to the 2000 census, there are 24.5 million disabled people in Brazil, or 14.5 percent of the total population of 178 million.
But Marta Gil said the visibility the issue is acquiring is “encouraging”. It has been bolstered, for instance, by the strong performance of the country’s athletes in the Paralympics, which opened Sep. 17 and run through Sep. 28 in Athens.
As of Sep. 25, Brazil had won nine gold medals — three more than in the last Paralympics in Sydney, in 2000.
The scholarships granted to high-performance disabled athletes, based on funds collected through a government lottery, are producing champions.
The most important thing is that for the first time, TV and other media in Brazil are providing broad coverage of the Paralympic Games, giving more visibility to the disabled and showcasing their abilities, said Gil.
The day-to-day, painstaking efforts for the rights of the disabled, which have slowly been gaining ground, were given a major boost by the Games in Athens, she said.
But the results of the Paralympics can present an overly rosy picture of how the disabled are treated in Brazil.
Cintia Regina Ribeiro, who was left paraplegic by a car accident in 1987 and went on to become a star of the women’s wheelchair basketball team, which took eighth place in the Atlanta Paralympics in 1996, told IPS that there is no state support enabling disabled female basketball players to practice regularly.
This year, Brazil did not take a female wheelchair basketball team to Athens.
While the country has good laws, they are separated from reality by a large gap, said Ribeiro, who works in an institution that�assists the disabled in Rio de Janeiro.
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Light rail’s next phase opens Dec. 4; Officials hope the Hiawatha line also will prove to be popular with suburban commuters
Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN)
September 28, 2004
The first leg of the Hiawatha light-rail line has scored big with sports fans headed to the Metrodome. Come December, the completed line will be put to another test: Will it be as popular with shoppers, travelers and suburban commuters?
The second leg will open Saturday, Dec. 4, extending service to the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and the Mall of America. “This is a key and very important addition to the line,” Metropolitan Council Chairman Peter Bell said Monday. “It will allow people who might not otherwise ride the line to take advantage of it for holiday shopping and travel.”
The completion of the line along with the opening of a 600-space park-and-ride lot at the 28th Avenue station in Bloomington also will make it clear just how many people will use it to get to work downtown.
Bell predicted it will be popular with commuters. “Park-and-rides for both our bus system and with our light rail just can’t be built fast enough,” he said. “The public really does understand the advantages of it.”
In addition, commuters coming from the east on Interstate Hwy. 494 will be able to connect with the train at the airport’s Humphrey Terminal, where covered parking will be available by the month in the terminal ramp.
The train has been wildly popular with fans heading to Twins and Vikings games. Adding the extra four miles of service will draw new ridership, which since June has topped goals by 100 percent. In August, passengers boarded an estimated 476,800 times — more than double the 236,700 monthly goal set for the line before construction began.
Eleven new drivers have been hired to operate the second half of the line. And so far 18 of 24 rail cars have been delivered for the entire $715 million line, which is owned by the Metropolitan Council. The Minnesota Department of Transportation oversaw construction of the line, built with a combination of local, state and federal funding. Three or four more cars will be delivered by early December.
The Federal Transit Administration, which contributed $334 million, required that the complete line open by the end of the year. The Bloomington segment of the line was completed ahead of schedule, permitting the opening in early December. “We were able to maintain a fairly aggressive schedule which allowed us to finish early,” Bell said.
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Fire’s dire for the p.m. commute; Tunnel blaze leads to evacuation of Penn Station and causes delays and cancellations on the LIRR, New Jersey Transit and Amtrak trains
Newsday (New York
September 28, 2004
Tens of thousands of commuters were stranded yesterday when a fire in a tunnel underneath the East River forced the evacuation of Penn Station during the evening rush, creating chaos and suspending trains on three major lines, officials said.
The fire, which began when a transformer exploded in a tunnel linking Queens and Manhattan, created cancellations or delays of Long Island Rail Road trains, as well as New Jersey Transit and Amtrak trains along the Eastern Seaboard. It was not yet clear yesterday if the fire would cause disruptions in today’s service.
The fire also created problems on the E line, where overcrowding and delays were reported on trains headed to Jamaica Center. “It’s going to be a nightmare,” said Maria Malino, 34, a producer for a Manhattan advertising agency, when told she would have to take the subway to Jamaica for the LIRR. “Everyone and their mother is going to go to Jamaica,” said Malino, who decided to stay with a friend in Forest Hills last night rather than return to her Massapequa home. “It’s going to take forever to go home.”
Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) said the fire should alert transportation officials to the need for safety improvements in the nation’s largest commuter railroad. The tunnels that run under the East and Hudson rivers serve about 250,000 riders a day. “This was not a major fire, and look at how it paralyzed us,” King said.
Delays, cancellations
The fire began at 1 p.m. in one of Amtrak’s four tunnels under the East River, forcing officials to cancel 100 trains. By 4 p.m., the station had reopened with limited Amtrak and NJ Transit service. The LIRR resumed limited service at 6:37 p.m., officials said.
Despite the delays, several passengers were not bothered. Kelly Lobdell was resigned to the trip home to Huntington. “Whatever happens, happens,” Lobdell said.
In Jamaica, supervisors shouted instructions through bullhorns to confused commuters.
Brian Dolan, a spokesman for the LIRR, said there were 30-minute delays for trains leaving Brooklyn, Jamaica, Hunts Point and Woodside. He said the railroad implemented its emergency action plan to deal with overcrowding. “We will work with Amtrak to assess the damage that the fire did to the power and signal system to get a better idea of what the morning rush hour will be like,” Dolan said.
New Jersey Transit rerouted its Midtown Direct trainsto Hoboken, spokesman Dan Stessel said. New Jersey Transit’s North Jersey Coast Line and Northeast Corridor trains were terminating at Secaucus and Newark. Passengers were told to take PATH trains to and from Newark. Stephen O’Rourke, who was standing near 33rd Street and First Avenue, where an Amtrak ventilation unit is situated, said he heard two explosions shortly after 1 p.m.
Getting fire under control
Officials said fire erupted a short time later in the tunnel under the NYU Medical Center’s Wollman Pavillion. “It appears that it’s an electrical fire,” said Howard Hill, an assistant deputy fire chief. He said the fire apparently started 90 feet underground at the base of a steep spiral staircase in a “difficult area to reach.”
About 70 firefighters responded to the scene where Purple K, a chemical compound that is used to snuff out electrical fires in tunnels, was used. The fire was extinguished by 5:25 p.m., Hill said. “The biggest problem was shutting down power to everything to figure out where the fire was and to make sure it was safe for our guys to get down there,” said Tim Hinchey, a Fire Department spokesman.
Traffic snarled to a crawl along First Avenue and surrounding streets as the smell of burning wires permeated the area. A second fire in an electrical room on tracks near a Penn Station entrance at 33rd Street and Seventh Avenue was quickly extinguished, Hinchey said.
Five people who suffered minor smoke inhalation were treated and released from St. Vincent’s Hospital Midtown, Hinchey said. Three firefighters were also injured, with two being treated at the scene and released. The third was treated at New York Hospital.
Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari said a preliminary investigation centered on two wires that may have crossed and sparked the transformer fire.
Fire in the hole: Ninety Long Island Rail Road trains carrying 100,000 passengers usually run between Manhattan and the Island every day between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. Yesterday, those passengers along with hundreds of others from Amtrak and N.J. Transit were stuck when service was suspended.
What happened? Transformer exploded around 1 p.m. in Amtrak tunnel under the East River. LIRR, Amtrak and N.J. Transit service was suspended while firefighters tried to get to the fire, while Penn Station was evacuated.
Is service affected today? Penn Station reopened just after 4 p.m., when Amtrak and N.J. Transit resumed limited service. At 6:37 p.m., LIRR restored some service. But the LIRR warned of delays of up to 20 minutes this morning, as well as possible diversions to Brooklyn and Jamaica.
What caused the fire? According to Amtrak, two wires that should not come into contact did so, causing a spark or a short.
Who’s in charge of the tunnel? The railroad’s four tunnels are owned, operated and maintained by Amtrak; two tunnels are used exclusively by the LIRR, which shares use of the other two tunnels with Amtrak.
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Foes want limits put on light rail
Arizona Republic
September 28, 2004
Light rail is the lightning rod, the most contentious issue facing voters in the Proposition 400 regional transportation plan.
It is the focus of the hottest opposition, which is ready to sacrifice the 20- year tax package for freeways, highways and bus systems just to stop light-rail expansion. “We’re forced to defeat the whole plan because we couldn’t separate out light rail,” said Becky Fenger, an outspoken light-rail opponent.
Light rail also is the most misunderstood component of Proposition 400. Many voters believe erroneously that they will be deciding Nov. 2 whether to build the first 20-mile light-rail line.
But that first 20 miles of track, rail cars and facilities is going to happen, regardless of the November vote. The initial “starter” segment, which runs through central Phoenix and Tempe and just over the border into Mesa, is funded and approved by those cities. It’s in the early stages of construction and due for completion in 2008.
“It’s important for the voters to understand, even if we didn’t have Prop. 400, and whether it wins or loses, light rail is going to be built,” said Doug Pruitt, a leading proposition supporter and chairman of Yes on 400.
The decision is whether to expand the system with 27 miles of extensions in Phoenix, Glendale and farther into Mesa. In other words, voters will be asked to approve additions to a light-rail system that does not yet exist.
Part of larger plan
Light-rail expansion is a $2.3 billion piece of Proposition 400’s transit offerings. The plan also would spend $2.7 billion for a regional bus system with more than 30 additional local routes with expanded operating hours, an additional 30 Rapid and express routes, and service extended to the outskirts of the metropolitan area, including more rural bus routes.
The 20 years of funding is budgeted to buy 2,100 buses, 1,000 Dial-a- Ride vans and 1,400 vanpool vans, plus 13 park-and-ride lots, bus pullout lanes, transit centers, maintenance centers and other transit facilities.
The overall plan is to create a cohesive, connected regional transit system designed to meet the needs of a crowded future, said Eric Anderson, transportation director of the Maricopa Association of Governments, the regional body that coordinated the proposition planning.
“Obviously, we’re looking at our horizon year of the plan, 2025, when we have close to 6.5 million people in the region,” Anderson said, noting MAG’s population projections. “There’s going to be more traffic congestion throughout the Valley. There are going to be more cars and people trying to get from here to there, and we need options for people to get around.”
Some opponents protest the amount of money being spent on buses and streets, preferring that more go to freeways. Gilbert businessman Dave Thompson, who recently emerged as head of the No on 400 campaign, says the plan should spend 90 percent of its money on freeways instead of the current 57 percent. He’d do that by scaling way back on public transit spending.
Transit opponents also point to empty buses, saying that bus ridership will never have an impact on congestion. “People will not get out of their cars, and that’s a fact of life,” Fenger said. “So you deal with that reality.”
Valley Metro, which operates the transit system, said increases in bus service during the past few years have boosted ridership, especially the new Rapid buses and express service that bring passengers downtown from outlying suburbs.
Overall boardings have increased more than 44 percent since 2000, Valley Metro’s figures show. Rapid bus ridership has gone up 27 percent after one year of operation.
Supporters say the “intermodal” mix of transportation types will be crucial in the future. Light rail is an important piece of the transportation puzzle, Anderson said, because of its ability to move large numbers of people in a densely populated regional core, and it’s worth the high cost to construct.
“As you move up into highly congested corridors, how you move the next increment of people gets more expensive,” the planner said. “On Central (Avenue), we already have a tremendous number of buses operating. You’ll have buses nose to tail at some point, and you still won’t have enough capacity.”
Light-rail audit
Would light rail be used by enough people to justify its price tag? Anderson said a performance audit of the 20-mile starter line in 2010 would determine if the rail system was working up to expectations, carrying enough people to justify the expenditures.
If Proposition 400 is passed and the starter line passes the audit, the extensions would be built. If not, there would be no extensions and planners would have to go back to the drawing board.
Opponents contend there is no way that light rail will be successful. The costs will spiral, Thompson said, and ridership will be disappointing.
But supporters such as Judith Tunell said light rail has shown its value in other cities and will be popular here. A transportation activist who has served on several citizens panels, including MAG’s Vision 2020 planning board and the Mayor’s Commission on Disability Issues in Phoenix, Tunell spoke confidently about light rail’s future.
“We know from the experience in other regions that this system is going to be used dramatically by the public,” Tunell said. “Other parts of the region are going to want to have this capacity to attach (extensions) to it, and this is what this funding is going to allow us to do.”
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Pelz criticizes monorail’s assumption on bus service; He says Metro would supply far fewer riders
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
September 28, 2004
The Seattle monorail project has overestimated the number of riders it can get from the Metro bus system, and the county is unlikely to provide enough bus service to produce that many riders, a King County councilman said yesterday.
Councilman Dwight Pelz said a Metro study concluded that the monorail agency’s assumptions of high-frequency bus routes to monorail stations would require another 60,000 hours of bus service in and out of the14- mile corridor each year, something he said the county isn’t likely to provide.
That number was provided by Metro staff at the request of Pelz, a longtime monorail critic. The monorail, in its plan, estimates that its system, if built, will carry an average of 69,000 riders a day by 2020.
A monorail board member said the higher service figure is more than the monorail is assuming will be needed. But the new Metro study will likely provide grist for a financial-viability study of the monorail system about to be undertaken for the Seattle City Council.
Metro director Kevin Desmond told Pelz in a letter last week that about 30,000 hours of possible new service will open up if the monorail is built, because two dozen existing bus routes will be eliminated or shortened where they meet monorail stations.
But to “deliver a high quality of service, our preliminary estimate is that an additional 60,000 annual services hours beyond the 30,000 redeployable hours will be needed,” said Desmond’s letter, released by Pelz yesterday.
Metro officials assumed that to attract riders and encourage them to transfer to the monorail trains the buses should run at 7.5- to 15-minute intervals, requiring the 60,000 extra hours at an estimated cost of $5 million to $7 million. Desmond said the figures haven’t been confirmed.
Monorail board member and former Metro Director Paul Tolliver said the monorail’s rider estimates are conservative, if anything, and can be achieved with some reconfiguring of bus routes if the 14-mile system is built. “He raised some issues,” Tolliver said, but “we’re saying two different things.”
Pelz, chairman of the County Council’s transportation committee, charged that monorail officials “overestimated the number of riders which Metro will deliver to the (monorail) Green Line stations,” and he doubts the county council will allocate all of the hours needed for additional monorail- connected bus service.
Given shortfalls in sales tax receipts, “we don’t see many new (bus service) hours,” agreed Jon Scholes, an aide to Councilwoman Julia Patterson, another transportation committee member. “We’re trying to hold onto the hours we have.”
The issue turns on the frequency of bus service.
Tolliver said the monorail’s ridership figures are more conservative than the number Metro assumes in arriving at the 60,000-hour figure. He said the 30,000 reallocated hours would help get the monorail to the average of 69,000 riders per day that it estimates the system would have by 2020. If more than 30,000 hours were added, he said, even more riders could get to the monorail.
He said the monorail’s numbers assume greater waiting times on some routes than the “high-quality” service Metro examined, and he said “all that is taken into account in our ridership forecast.”
Tolliver said that even if Metro doesn’t change any of its routes after the monorail is built, the new system would still carry nearly 67,000 riders a day by 2020. He said that a monorail ridership study assumed riders would pay 75 cents to transfer between the two systems but that the final fares and transfer arrangements haven’t been decided.
Tolliver said Pelz may be looking for an election issue as he approaches a planned Seattle City Council bid next year. “If he can raise some question in the minds of people that there’s going to be a lot more money needed, that could become an issue,” Tolliver said. “I don’t think that is an issue and should not be an issue for him.”
Pelz, contacted later, denied that.
The monorail system would connect Crown Hill with West Seattle via Queen Anne, downtown and Sodo. City voters approved the system in 2002, but now they’ll vote in November on Initiative 83, which would kill the system.
The City Council is close to hiring a consultant to review the monorail’s finances and may announce the person’s name as early as today, council spokeswoman Jackie O’Ryan said. The consultant’s study must be completed and sent to the council for review before the monorail can build its system in city streets. It is not clear how long that study will take.
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Northeast light-rail extension likely ready for 2010 Games; Proposed route runs from Burnaby through Port Moody
Vancouver Sun
September 28, 2004
The northeast rapid-transit SkyTrain extension to Coquitlam Town Centre should use light-rail or guided-light-transit technology, and should run from Burnaby north and east through Port Moody rather than Port Coquitlam, a new regional district report recommends.
“It appears there’s finally some relief in sight for the northeast sector,” said Port Coquitlam Mayor Scott Young. “We’re within striking range of getting light rail to Coquitlam Town Centre.”
The report, made public Monday, will be voted on Friday by Greater Vancouver Regional District directors and the recommendation passed on to the regional transportation authority, TransLink, which will make the final decision.
Rapid transit to the northeast has been on provincial, regional and local government agendas for decades, but has always fallen victim to politics or lack of funding. But now it appears that the northeast line and its longtime rival, a rapid-transit line linking Richmond and Vancouver, will both be built before 2010. “It has taken a long time to get to this point,” Young said.
Also Monday, the two consortiums still in the running to build and operate the Richmond-Airport-Vancouver line filed their “best and final” offers with TransLink subsidiary RAVco.
No details of the offers were made public. RAVco said it will probably release summaries of the two proposals in three to four weeks, and finish evaluating them by mid-November.
The GVRD report said the northeast line should follow a “northwest corridor” route from the Lougheed Town Centre SkyTrain station in Burnaby north to the northwest corner of Coquitlam, and then go east through Port Moody and to Coquitlam Centre.
An alternative route, the so-called southeast corridor, would run from the Braid SkyTrain station in New Westminster along the eastern fringes of Coquitlam to Coquitlam Centre.
But it poses several difficulties, and the most likely option now appears to be a light-rail system through the Burnaby-Port Moody-Coquitlam corridor.
Finances largely rule out a SkyTrain system for the northeast, which would cost around $840 million. TransLink has set aside $400 million for the project and the provincial government has pledged up to $170 million — - enough for guided light transit and nearly enough for light rail, but not enough for SkyTrain.
A fourth technology option, a heavy-rail diesel system, works only in the southeast corridor where suitable rights of way are available. But that route would require a change to the GVRD’s Livable Region Strategic Plan, and that would require a unanimous vote of the deeply divided
GVRD board.
The GVRD report said the northwest corridor has been identified for decades as the preferable rapid-transit route. “It is more developed, has higher capacity for growth, and fully includes Port Moody and its town centre,” said the report by regional-development division manager Hugh Kellas.
The southeast corridor would lead to more dispersed development, which is contrary to the region’s strategic plan, the report suggests. That leaves the northwest corridor as the likely route, and light rail and guided light transit as the remaining technology options.
Light rail runs on tracks, while guided light transit operates on rubber tires and is guided by electronic strips under the road surface.
Both are primarily at-grade transit systems. Light rail would be more expensive — $670 million compared with $285 million for guided light transit — but Young said guided light transit is relatively unproven, with only two operational systems in the world and only two technology providers, one of which is getting out of the business.
Light rail, on the other hand, is “proven, reliable, and can serve the area with comfort and reliability and be very cost-effective over the long term,” he said.
Young and Coquitlam Mayor Jon Kingsbury spent last week with a TransLink delegation touring rapid-transit systems in France and England, and will make their own recommendations to the TransLink board. “I’ve come to the conclusion that we should be proceeding with light rail to the northeast sector,” Young said.
Young, a former TransLink director, wants the northeast line eventually to be extended to his own municipality of Port Coquitlam and further east to Pitt Meadows and Maple Ridge.
The two remaining bidders for the RAV Line are RAVxpress, a consortium headed by SkyTrain manufacturer Bombardier, and another led by SNC- Lavalin Inc. RAVco chief executive Jane Bird said RAVco will identify, by mid-November, “the preferred proponent that may be selected to enter into final negotiations leading to a fixed-price, date-certain, turn-key contract.”
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Council Backs Expansion of the Red Line; The officials agree that ‘congestion has reached a breaking point’ and support building the subway system westward along Wilshire
Los Angeles Times
September 29, 2004
The idea of expanding the Red Line subway westward along the Wilshire Corridor — a prospect once thought to be all but dead — is gaining new political traction.
On Tuesday, the Los Angeles City Council gave unanimous support to working to overcome the formidable legal and financial obstacles that block additional subway construction in the city.
The subway motion, which passed without discussion, was sponsored by Councilman Tom LaBonge, who said that “congestion has reached a breaking point” and something must be done. “Imagine if we stopped building freeways after the Pasadena Freeway,” he said.
Though the council does not have authority over the Red Line, its backing is an important first step in a long, complicated process toward possible subway extension, transportation officials say. “It creates some momentum … to get the ball rolling,” said Roger Snoble, chief executive of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which builds and runs the subway. “Thirty years from now, it’ll be a huge mistake if we didn’t have more subways.”
The MTA two years ago said it wanted to extend the subway to the Fairfax district, part of its original plan from the 1980s, because of the population density there. The 17.4-mile Red Line now has a spur along Wilshire Boulevard ending in Koreatown at Western Avenue.
But others say spending local funds on subway construction would be a mistake. “To invest in $300 million per mile — money we don’t have — just makes no sense. We can’t afford to pay for it,” said Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, an MTA director. In the wake of construction problems, such as the sinkholes in Hollywood, he proposed the measure, passed by voters in 1998, that prohibits using local sales taxes on subway construction.
Another obstacle is in Washington. After a 1985 methane gas explosion near the corner of Fairfax Avenue and 3rd Street, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Los Angeles), who represents the Westside, sponsored legislation barring the use of federal funds for tunneling in the area. Waxman could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
The City Council’s motion urged the reversal of those bans and directed city staff to work with the MTA for the subway extension. The measure did not mention specific stations.
Transit advocates expressed mixed emotions. “The big issue, as always, is funding,” said Bart Reed, spokesman for Friends of the Red Line. “The subway costs a humongous amount of money.” The Red Line cost $4.5 billion to build. To extend it to Fairfax Avenue would cost $1 billion more, according to MTA estimates.
Cynthia Rojas, an organizer with the Bus Riders Union, would rather officials focus on improving the city’s bus system. “The subway, we don’t think is a viable transit mode for Los Angeles,” she said.
In a separate action, the council voted to continue the mile-long bus lanes on Wilshire in West Los Angeles for another six months — pleasing Rojas and other transit riders but angering business owners in the area who say customers cannot find parking.
Car traffic and parking are prohibited in the curbside lanes during morning and afternoon rush hours. “We’ve had three businesses — the latest being Starbucks — closing because of this,” said Jay Handal, president of the West L.A. Chamber of Commerce, which conducted a survey showing that 57 shops have had a 20% or more drop in revenue because of the six-month experiment.
According to a study by the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, the transit corridor improved bus speeds by 9%, or 30 seconds, but worsened delays for motorists by 67%, or 2.6 minutes.
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As monorail idles, who pays? Rail line losing out on about $100,000 per day in fares during shutdown
Las Vegas Review-Journal
September 29, 2004
This week, readers want to know if the Las Vegas Monorail will be taking their wallets for a ride, and who to call for help when straddling a city border.
And the Road Warrior gets a traffic rant from somebody who badly needs to take a deep breath, count to 10 and think of a happy place filled with sunshine and joy.
- Ian DeVaney asks: Who will pick up the tab when the monorail is losing money?
Not you and me, monorail officials claim. “The idea that mom and pop in Summerlin will end up paying for the system, that’s a misconception,” said Todd Walker, a monorail spokesman.
The quasi-private Las Vegas Monorail Co. is counting on farebox and advertising revenues to pay off bonds that helped underwrite $650 million in construction costs. But if the rail line’s piggy bank gets hollow, an insurance policy will cover bond payments.
That insurance policy, purchased for $23 million from Ambac Assurance of New York City, seems especially wise right now.
The monorail has been shut down indefinitely since Sept. 8 after a metal part fell from a train. It’s the third time this year — and the second time this month — that parts have fallen from a moving train.
The monorail is missing out on about $100,000 per day in fares during the shutdown. Since the monorail has been shut down for part or all of 28 days so far this month, those losses total nearly $3 million in September.
The losses are being absorbed by $40 million in contingency funds, dollars previously set aside for bond repayment and monies owed to the monorail company. Financial analysts believe there’s enough cash to keep the monorail solvent into at least January without any ticket revenues.
If the monorail went broke and out of business, the bigger question would be what to do with the system and who’d pay for the aftermath.
Unless Las Vegans are happy with an unused elevated concrete track running behind the Strip, somebody would have to tear down or restart the system. Basic operating costs run in excess of $10 million per year right now.
Bondholders would probably get the first crack at running the system, if they wanted it. If not, the Clark County Commission would probably have the say on whether to tear it down or find a new choo-choo operator, according to Ingrid Reisman, a spokeswoman for the Regional Transportation Commission.
In theory, it’s possible that the resort industry could pick up the slack, reprising the role the resorts once had in running a more limited system in the 1990s. Or a taxpayer-supported group such as the commission could be asked to step up, though it is not obligated to. “It would be crunching numbers and seeing if it made sense for us to operate it,” Reisman said.
Such a choice would be subject to a vote by the elected officials on its board before the system could be (depending on how you view it) dumped on/acquired by the commission. “It would be their choice,” Walker said.
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Supes OK taking of Transbay site
The San Francisco Chronicle
SEPTEMBER 29, 2004
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to use its powers of eminent domain Tuesday to take a Natoma Street property held by a high-rise developer in a decision that ends a nasty downtown real estate dispute.
The unanimous vote to condemn the 80 Natoma St. parcel clears the way for planning to continue on a new Transbay Terminal project around the site of the current transit depot at Mission and First streets.
Condemning 80 Natoma will cost $32 million, according to an appraisal done for the city, but the supervisors are on the hook for only half that amount.
The other half will be paid by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the supervisors were told by an MTC official.
Developer Jack Myers, who saw his plan to build a 423-unit condominium tower come to an end with the vote, said the land is worth more than what the city is offering. But he acknowledged that his tower plan is all but dead. “This pretty well does us in,” Myers said.
But the developer said he would press ahead with lawsuits challenging the Transbay Terminal project’s environmental impact report and the Department of Building Inspection’s suspension of his work permit, even though that permit has been reinstated.
The vote was a vindication for planners of the new terminal, envisioned as a $4 billion hub for Bay Area buses, Caltrain and possibly high-speed rail service.
The project also would incorporate state-owned land and parcels that were once used for elevated bus ramps. That land would be redeveloped into a new retail, residential and office district.
The estimated cost of the project — the $4 billion price tag is almost as large as the city’s annual budget — and the funding plan, which relies heavily on a high-speed rail bond that has yet to go before state voters, has raised eyebrows among critics.
Addressing those concerns, Maria Ayerdi, director of the Transbay Joint Powers Authority, the regional agency planning the project, said Transbay planners are already trying to cut costs by 20 percent.
In voting for eminent domain, the supervisors rejected a compromise solution offered by the city’s Transportation Authority, which said both the terminal and the Myers tower could be built.
That plan envisioned a huge concrete foundation to support the Myers high-rise and underground rail lines under the tower when funding becomes available for the terminal. Myers had agreed to drop his lawsuits if supervisors adopted that plan.
In the end, the supervisors said the Transportation Authority plan was too costly.
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DRIVE FOR SUBWAY $$ — CALL TO SLASH TOLL DISCOUNT
The New York Post
September 29, 2004
Discounts for drivers who use E-ZPass should be taken away, with the annual $98 million savings going toward avoiding service cuts on city buses and subways, a transit-advocacy group said yesterday.
Motorists who use the electronic toll-collection tags currently receive a 50-cent discount on $4 one-way crossings on MTA bridges and tunnels. Similar percentage savings are had on crossings that carry $2 tolls.
Community Consulting Services, a Brooklyn-based group, also said it endorses the Metropolitan Transportation Authority plan to add a $1 monthly fee to each tag.
The MTA plans next year to raise the prices of discount transit MetroCards, commuter rail tickets and tolls. It has also proposed cuts in bus and subway service to help plug a $436 million deficit.
The Transit Authority, the MTA subsidiary that runs city buses and subways, has outlined $71 million in cuts. “Tolls pay for the operation of running buses and subways,” said CCS chair Carolyn Konheim. “The discount is a gift to drivers.”
Konheim said putting the funds generated by dropping the toll discounts toward the TA’s budget would eliminate the need to shut down 164 station booths and reduce service.
State law calls for the TA to get $24 million annual from toll revenues. Additional toll revenues are split 50-50 between the TA and the commuter lines.
Konheim called the formula “unfair” because the TA carries more riders than the commuter rails.
She added the bulk of drivers who pay MTA tolls live in the city and should not be subsidizing suburban riders.
MTA spokesman Tom Kelly said eliminating E-ZPass discounts would “discriminate” against drivers who have no choice other than cars.
The MTA in November will hold five hearings on the proposed fare hikes and service cuts.
The agency will adopt a new budget in December. Fare and toll hikes would go into effect next year.
E-Z money
- Eliminating the 50-cent E-ZPass discount and slapping drivers with a $1 surcharge for each tag could help fill the Transit Authority’s portion of the budget gap.
- Funds generated by no-discount E-ZPass: $105 million
- $1 monthly E-ZPass account fee: $7 million
Total: $112 million
Extra revenue generated: $98 million (MTA plan already calls for $1 monthly fee)
- MTA crossings and tolls
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Drenching Rains Force Subway Lines To Close
The New York Sun
September 29, 2004
Forget the terrorists; all it takes to stop New York City is some rain.
Tropical Depression Jeanne smote New York City last night, flooding out the second most traveled subway corridor in the city, the E, F, V, R, and G trains along the Queens Boulevard line around 11 p.m. The FDR Parkway quickly became impassable, minor puddles became virtual lakes, and bridge and tunnel entrance and exit ramps were closed because of the water.
The storm’s downpour made September 2004 one for the record books as the second wettest September on record and the rainiest in over 100 years with 11.39 inches of rain at Central Park by 11 p.m. — and the it was still coming down in buckets.
An Accuweather.com senior meteorologist, Alex Sosnowski, had to research all the way back to 1882 to find the wettest September on record, when the city got 16.83 inches of rain.
Last night’s intense rain overwhelmed the pumps that haul 16 million gallons of water out of the subway tunnels every day, resulting in flooding in the tunnels.
For the third time this year — the other two were both in September after Ivan and Frances — water levels in the subway tunnels were nearly high enough to short out the third rail that powers the trains. “There’s no subway in any city that could cope with 2 inches of rain in two hours,” said the New York City Transit president, Lawrence Reuter, after a Capital Construction Committee meeting on Monday.
Jeanne toyed with the city all day yesterday, before delivering her haymaker after dark, when the skies really opened up. Areas that had been clouded already during the day — the day on parts of the Whitestone Expressway in Queens, the FDR Drive in Manhattan, and the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn — became completely blocked. Entrances to nearly every bridge and tunnel in the city were impeded by reservoirs of water that literally appeared over night.
Any delays on the commuter rails were caused directly by the storm, and not by any aftereffects of the electrical fire that affect for East River Tunnels that serve Amtrak, New Jersey Transit and the Long Island Rail Road. The systems were repaired by 3:30 p.m. yesterday, and the evening commute ran with few problems. An Amtrak spokesman, Marc Magliari, said Amtrak is “confident that repairs will be sufficient” to withstand the weather.
The heaviest rain was expected to fall after midnight last night and leave the area by 6 a.m. as the storm worked its way eastward and then north up the coast, according to the National Weather Service.
After Tropical Depression Ivan hit the city September 18, the Lexington Avenue line closed in Manhattan due to “water conditions.”
If the storm sewers flood, water in the tunnels could reach the level of the electrified third rail and force subway lines to shut down, as they did after Tropical Depression Frances dropped 3 inches of rain in three hours earlier this month.
Farther south, Jeanne may have spawned a tornado at Cherry Hill, N.J. Eleven buildings, including a church, a drugstore, and a bank were damaged, along with several cars in the parking lots, but no one was reported injured, the Associated Press reported.
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SIGNATURES FROM THE GRAVE; EDITORIAL
The Ledger (Lakeland, FL)
September 29, 2004
Officials from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement acknowledged this week that they are investigating petition drives in South Florida because some of the names on the petition appear to be those of dead voters.
The signatures were found on petitions for Amendment 4, which asks voters statewide to approve slot machines at pari-mutuels in Broward and Miami-Dade counties if voters in those counties approve the issue in a separate ballot.
The FDLE investigation is long-overdue. In late June, Pasco County Elections Supervisor Kurt Browning told the Fort Myers News-Press that he had found several dozen signatures of dead voters on petitions to place the high-speed bullet train issue back on the ballot. “This is a systemic problem all across the state,” Browning said. Three counties in the Panhandle had identified about 1,400 apparently forged signatures. Those led to the arrest of two men who were being paid to collect the signatures.
Investigators said the two were obtaining voters’ signatures for a petition supporting a state minimum wage and then copying the signatures to three other amendment petitions: the slot machine question, the bullet train amendment and an amendment affecting patients’ malpractice awards. The two were paid $ 1 for each name collected on the bullet-train and slot machine petitions; $ 2 for the patients’ liability issue.
Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist told reporters then that while no statewide investigation was in progress, his office “would be more than happy to look at it” if there were “evidence that indicates there is some kinds of problem.”
Indeed, the problem is hardly new — or limited in scope. In 2002, prosecutors in Monroe County discovered two women forging signatures on a petition to limit the number of students in classrooms. “It is believed that this occurrence was not limited to Monroe County, but was being perpetrated in the same manner throughout the entire state of Florida,” wrote Paul Meyers, an investigator for the Monroe County State Attorney’s Office, in a letter to Crist.
This year, about 1,000 suspicious signatures were rejected on the high-speed rail amendment by Miami-Dade County Elections Office. Lakeland businessman C.C. “Doc” Dockery, the backer of the amendment that voters approved creating the High Speed Rail Authority, of which he is a member, filed suit this year saying petitions supporting repeal of that amendment should be thrown out because they did not contain the name and address of the person paid to collect those signatures. Recent developments show how important that information is.
Mark Wilson, senior vice president of the Florida Chamber of Commerce, which is working to defeat an amendment that would raise the minimum wage in the state, said the state chamber had “found a ton of fraud” in those petitions.
The Humane Society of the United States, which is working to defeat the amendment allowing slot machines at greyhound race tracks, said about three dozen signatures in Broward County in support of that amendment were the names of dead voters. “We think they’re trying to pull a fast one on the voters, and they seem to have qualified it by very questionable and illegal means,” Wayne Pacelle, president of the society, told the St. Petersburg Times. The signatures were collected by ARNO Political Consulting of California.
Company president Michael Arno said, “We want anyone who commits fraud to go to jail.” But he also said, “This is a pretty well-worn trick that gets done right before an election where people try to throw in everything to keep something off the ballot. You have to wonder what they’re afraid of.”
Exposing fraudulent signatures is hardly a last-minute “trick” to keep something off the ballot. If signature collectors have to make names up and steal them off tombstones, it also should make people wonder how popular some of these causes are in the first place.
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DART rail, buses target fairgoers
Dallas Morning News
September 30, 2004
DART will have a few rides of its own for State Fair of Texas patrons who would prefer not to drive to Fair Park this year.
The transit agency wants weekend fairgoers to hop on a train and then ride a bus from the Cityplace rail station. DART used the same setup last year.
That dismays some potential fairgoers, who said long waits at Cityplace forced them to give up and go home. “It was supposed to be every 15 minutes. Last time, it was 45 minutes between buses. There were a bunch of [upset] people,” said Richardson resident Carl Crain, who waited 90 minutes one Sunday morning with his wife before turning back. “If they stick to the published schedule, it might not be so bad.”
The major problems with crowds occurred during the fair’s big football weekends featuring games between the University of Texas and Oklahoma University, and Prairie View A&M vs. Grambling, said Tim Newby, DART’s assistant vice president for service planning and scheduling. “We didn’t have enough buses out there early enough for Texas-OU,” he said. “We didn’t anticipate having people out there that early.”
This year, DART will have eight to 10 shuttle buses making the roughly five-mile round trip and up to 30 buses during peak demand. Buses should be available every 10 minutes, DART says.
The Cityplace shuttle replaces the State Fair Flyer shuttle, which DART eliminated last year along with shuttle buses to Dallas Cowboys games. The move saves $400,000 a year.
About 50,000 people used the Cityplace shuttle bus service last year. That compares favorably with the reported 29,000 in 2003 who rode the flier buses from various transit parking lots or who rode a shuttle bus from a rail station, according to DART figures.
The move eliminates most of the easy weekend transit options for residents not near rail lines to get to Fair Park without driving to Plano or North Dallas rail stations. One State Fair flier bus veteran said the hassle forces him to forgo his family’s annual trek.
“It was an annual event the whole family looked forward to,” said Colleyville resident Jay Berman, who previously rode the State Fair Flyer buses from Las Colinas. “They need to look at what the community needs not only during the business week, but other things to accommodate our lifestyles,” he said.
Love it or hate it, the shuttle bus likely will run at least until rail reaches Fair Park, around the end of 2009. “In the future, it’s going to get even better,” said Mr. Newby. He said it made more sense to rely on DART’s 44-mile rail system and 20,000 rail station parking spaces for State Fair service. “We will be right there at the front step of Fair Park with light-rail trains.”
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MILLIONS FOR RAIL UPGRADES UNSPENT; LINE TO WASHINGTON AWAITS WORK BY CSX; FUNDS OK’D IN 2000
Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
September 30, 2004
Virginia’s top public rail official yesterday said she was “disappointed and frustrated” with CSX Corp. for delaying a $65.7 million upgrade of the rail system between Richmond and Washington.
The improvements are a cornerstone of the state’s efforts to make Amtrak more reliable and faster between the capital cities. Better service, in turn, is considered key to luring passengers back to Richmond’s reopened Main Street Station.
“Why isn’t the railroad spending the $65 million?” asked Karen J. Rae, director of the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation at a conference at Main Street Station.
The 2000 General Assembly allocation was meant to improve the rail system along the busy I-95 corridor. The goal is to give motorists an incentive to take an Amtrak train rather than add to traffic congestion.
Only about $2 million of the allocation has been spent to date, mostly for environmental studies. The bulk of the work has been awaiting the final go-ahead from CSX.
Rae delivered a frank assessment of the sometimes rocky relationship between Virginia transportation officials and CSX, which owns and operates the 100 miles of track from Richmond to Washington.
Rae said she is concerned about Virginia’s inability to get CSX, the nation’s third-largest railroad, to stay on track to do the improvements. “We have some cooperation at CSX, but I’m not sure it’s through the whole corporate structure,” she said in an interview. I am most frustrated, as is my staff, the secretary of transportation and the governor that the money is not in the ground yet,” Rae said.
In mid-July, Rae and CSX officials announced an agreement that allowed six projects to move forward. Since then, she said, CSX has raised new issues such as insur- ance coverage that have delayed the start of construction. “I’m disappointed and frustrated that we’re still not at the point to dig dirt on these projects,” Rae told more than 100 members of the Richmond Friends of Rail, a passenger rail-advocacy group.
Rae has requested a meeting with CSX’s chairman and CEO, Michael Ward, to discuss her concerns.
CSX spokesman Bob Sullivan, asked about Rae’s remarks, said his company remains committed to the work.
The Jacksonville, Fla.-based railroad has sustained widespread damage from the recent hurricanes and tropical storms that have hit the Southeast the core of CSX’s operations. “Bonnie, Charley, Frances, Ivan every single one of them have had a tremendous impact on this railroad,” Sullivan said. “We’ve had power outages, we’ve had floods, we’ve had thousands and thousands of trees across our line.”
The railroad, though “very committed” to the Virginia projects, has been swamped by other concerns, he said. The hurricanes have “taken a lot of the focus of virtually everybody on this railroad,” Sullivan said.
Gov. Mark R. Warner’s top transportation official said yesterday that he also wants to meet with CSX. “CSX has a unique opportunity to capitalize on the use of this $65.7 million,” said Whitt Clement, secretary of transportation and Rae’s boss. “I’ve made no secret of my willingness to consider a redirection of those funds,” he added.
Clement said he plans to recommend that future rail funding include a competitive component. If railroads knew they could win state funding by putting up their own capital, he said, “that would bring competition, and possibly better partnership opportunities.” The $65.7 million allocation has been “just dangling out there” for CSX, he said.
Clement praised the other major railroad operating in Virginia Norfolk Southern Corp. for “sending a clearer message than CSX” about its plans to work on joint projects geared toward taking trucks off the highway and restoring passenger rail service in western Virginia.
On the line
Without improvements to CSX tracks between Richmond and Washington, Amtrak trains will not be able to run faster and Main Street Station may attract fewer travelers. |
Light-rail lifeline
San Gabriel Valley Tribune (San Gabriel Valley, Calif.)
September 30, 2004
THE battle for control of the $1.3 billion Gold Line extension from Pasadena to Montclair has been vitriolic and very public. Now, yet another compromise is being offered by the creator of the original enabling legislation, Rep. Adam Schiff that could end the fighting.
At first glance, the Pasadena Democrat has come up with a workable solution that should be adopted by all five cities on the light rail’s construction authority board. More balking only jeopardizes federal transportation funding for the line’s completion.
Stepping into shark-infested waters, Schiff has hammered out a proposal that gives the 10 San Gabriel Valley cities of Arcadia, Monrovia, Duarte, Irwindale, Azusa, Glendora, San Dimas, La Verne, Claremont and Montclair a dominant say in the building of the line that will bisect their communities.
Schiff’s proposal calls for the 10 cities plus Pasadena and South Pasadena to form three clusters. South Pasadena, Pasadena and the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments [COG] would each appoint a representative to the construction authority board from one of the three clusters. In order for the foothill cities to have three representatives on the five-member board, the original three would have to agree to give up their seats to the respective designee. Seats held by the MTA and the city of Los Angeles would not be affected.
Already, Pasadena’s representative, Councilman Paul Little, is balking. Not surprising, since Little has stood in the way of other attempts at re-organization. Sadly, Little is tainting his accomplishments in building the first phase by stubbornly holding onto power.
The beauty of Schiff’s proposal is that it does not require the stamp of approval of the state Legislature. This was tried by Assemblywoman Carol Liu, D- Pasadena, but her legislation was commandeered by MTA-favored legislators who amended it to death.
Schiff’s idea may not even require a Memorandum of Understanding, a heavily lawyered process that failed the San Gabriel Valley cities in the past.
These cities deserve the majority say over a train line that will go through their cities, and for which they are investing money for stations and other related developments.
Just as important is the funding. The Gold Line II has a route mapped out and right-of- way purchased, which makes it an attractive project for members of Congress who hold the purse strings. A successful Stage 1, built on budget and on time, makes for a good track record. But if the cities can’t form a board to oversee construction of the next leg, funding is doomed.
We agree with Pasadena Mayor Bill Bogaard who said: “Everything we do during the next 15-18 months should treat funding as the priority. The controversy over governance jeopardizes the funding effort.’
Schiff’s proposal is a lifeline for a sinking light-rail effort that is greatly needed to move commuters, students and shoppers from one side of the Valley to the other. Our advice is for the board to reach out and grab it and save the Gold Line eastward extension.
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PRIVATE SECTOR PARTICIPATION IN TRANSPORTATION
Federal Document Clearing House Congressional Testimony
September 30, 2004
Opening Statement Chairman Doug Ose; Committee on House Government Reform Subcommittee on Energy Policy, Natural Resources and Regulatory Affairs
On May 18, 2004, this Subcommittee held its initial hearing on maximizing private sector participation in transportation. Witnesses included the Department of Transportation (DOT), think tank experts, and three adversely affected small business operators of mass transit services. Today, we will focus on mass transit and highways, and we will further explore DOT’s record in implementing the various statutory and regulatory private sector participation requirements.
There are many advantages to participation by the private sector in improving America’s transportation system. For example, infrastructure improvement projects can often be completed more quickly and at reduced cost, transportation services can often be delivered more cost effectively, and Federal and State funds can be devoted to other pressing needs. In 1964, Congress began to enact laws to encourage private sector participation in transportation.
The 1966 law that established DOT identified six reasons for the Cabinet-level department. The second reason was to “facilitate the development and improvement of coordinated transportation service, to be provided by private enterprise to the maximum extent feasible.” DOT’s implementing rules assign primary responsibility for “evaluation of private transportation sector operating and economic issues” to the Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy, who is organizationally located within the Office of the Secretary.
In addition to laws requiring private sector participation to the maximum extent feasible, Federal regulations support this objective. For example, the government-wide grants management common rule provides that Federal grantees and subgrantees “must not use equipment acquired with grant funds to provide services for a fee to compete unfairly with private companies that provide equivalent services.”
I became especially interested in this subject in March 2003 when I learned of a public takeover of an over 25-year competitively awarded contract for mass transit services in Sacramento, California. Since then, I found: (a) unneeded expenditure of substantial Federal funds, (b) noncompliance by a federally- funded local transit grantee with the Federal law requiring private sector participation to the maximum extent feasible, and (c) inadequate enforcement by DOT. Now, after the public takeover, peak hour bus service is every 15 minutes (vs. 5 minutes) and the service costs 76 percent more ($152,535/bus vs. $86,503/bus).
In August 2003, I recommended that: (a) DOT initiate a rulemaking to ensure implementation of the statutory private sector participation requirements, and (b) DOT take an appropriate enforcement action against the noncompliant Federal grantee. To date, DOT neither initiated a rulemaking nor took an enforcement action. DOT argued that it is a grant-making, not rulemaking agency, and it has a reduced enforcement role. However, DOT has fiduciary responsibility to assure that Federal grant funds are expended in accordance with Federal law. Since my investigation of this case, I learned of additional cases involving federally- funded.2 grantee noncompliance with existing Federal statutory or regulatory protections. In some cases, DOT has not enforced its own rules and, thus, allowed local transit authorities to compete unfairly with existing private mass transit service providers. In another case, the New York City Council stated that a proposed takeover by a local transit agency of franchised private sector bus services “potentially makes the City responsible for paying hundreds of millions of dollars in transfer costs arising from necessary purchases of infrastructure.”
Our witnesses today include DOT, current and former expert public officials, and three more adversely affected small business operators of mass transit services. Small businesses are the backbone of our economy. Congress wants and Americans deserve a reliable and cost-effective transportation system, and one that does not harm existing small business operators of transportation services. I want to welcome our witnesses today. They include: Jennifer Dorn, Administrator, Federal Transit Administration (FTA), DOT; Dan Tangherlini, Director, DC Department of Transportation; Tom Mack, Chairman, Tourmobile Sightseeing, Washington, DC; David Smith, Director of Marketing and Sales, Oleta Coach Lines, Inc., Williamsburg, Virginia; Jerome Cooper, Chairman, Transit Alliance & President, Jamaica Buses, Inc., Jamaica, New York; and, Steven Diaz, Esq., former Chief Counsel, FTA, DOT.
In addition, Shirley Ybarra, President, Ybarra Group & Council Member, The National Council for Public-Private Partnerships, & former Commissioner, Virginia Department of Transportation accepted our invitation to testify on September 29th but was unavailable for today’s rescheduled hearing; therefore, her testimony will be made part of today’s hearing record. Lastly, Iris Weinshall Schumer, Commissioner, New York City Department of Transportation was invited to testify but declined to do so.
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This week’s Monorail Moment
Las Vegas Mercury
September 30, 2004
As we all await the results of the intensive, ongoing inspection of the troubled Las Vegas Monorail, alert reader Jim C. asks a pertinent question. He wonders why this monorail has had so many mechanical problems, while the smaller, cheaper systems operated for years by the Mandalay and MGM properties ran just fine? We don’t recall hearing any stories about tires falling off or doors opening of their own accord during all of the tens of thousands of trips made by those lesser monorails.
The MGM’s monorail, since absorbed into the Las Vegas Monorail system, featured trains that were originally purchased from Disney. That’s right. MGM bought used Disney technology and it worked just fine. It would seem that the inexperience of LVM’s well-connected juice merchants is starting to show. If they wanted to build a pie-in-the-sky fantasy train, they probably should have consulted with the experts in all things make-believe.
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CITY HALTS BRT PLANS; COUNCIL VOTES 11-5 TO PUT BRAKES ON RAPID TRANSIT
Winnipeg Sun (Manitoba, Canada)
September 30, 2004
Winnipeg’s rapid transit plan is officially off the tracks.
Following hours of debate at City Hall yesterday, councillors voted 11-5 to delay the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system’s $50-million first leg and instead pour most of that cash into recreation centres.
The unofficial killing of the city’s long-planned dedicated busway system prompted not only anger from students and environmentalists, but the sudden resignation of Rick Borland, Winnipeg Transit’s director of the past 25 years.
‘NOT RESPONSIBLE’
Borland’s stunning resignation — he’ll step down tomorrow and retire in January — comes after he blasted a senior mayoral advisor for misinformation on the BRT plan. However, Mayor Sam Katz denied any responsibility for the loss of the highly respected bureaucrat. “I don’t believe we are responsible for his resignation,” he told reporters. “Being responsible is about making tough decisions and identifying priorities. This resolution supports the right priority for Winnipeg.”
The adopted resolution — to launch a $200,000 task force to again study rapid transit options after similar previous efforts — means only $7 million of the $50-million pot will soon go into Winnipeg’s bus service improvements.
Dozens of frustrated university students and green-minded advocates vowed to continue pushing for BRT or another form of transit that encourages dense development, fuel consumption and convenience. “I wish I could have understood what the reversal is all about,” pro-BRT coalition leader Kaj Hasselriis said, noting council’s support for the project last year. “I think most city councillors are living on a different planet than me.”
The argument was among the Main Street chamber’s most heated in some time. Coun. Lillian Thomas, a BRT booster, became enraged by mid-afternoon. “Stand up for rapid transit, stand up for progress,” Thomas (Elmwood-East Kildonan) said to applause from the gallery. “Not one more report! The time for action is now!”
After the debate and several delegations, the vast majority in favour of rapid transit, only Thomas and councillors Jenny Gerbasi (Fort Rouge-East Fort Garry), Harvey Smith (Daniel McIntyre), John Angus (St. Norbert) and Donald Benham (River Heights-Fort Garry) opposed the move to stall the transit dream of former mayor Glen Murray.
Adrienne Batra of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation applauded council’s decision to hold off on starting a project whose total cost is pegged at more than $400 million. “It was a good day for taxpayers,” Batra said.
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St. Clair streetcar plan approved by council
The Toronto Star
September 30, 2004
The slow wheels of the St. Clair streetcar project ground ahead yesterday, with city council approving a controversial right-of-way plan that locals say will cut into profits and chip away at their sidewalk culture.
The $67 million proposal passed in a 36-7 vote, a surprisingly wide margin given the long delay it engendered at Toronto City Hall. The decision followed a year of rancorous debate, with more than 55 public meetings and acrimony between residents, businesses and councillors.
The project is supposed to improve public transit on one of the city’s main east-west thoroughfares and will transform St. Clair Ave. W. into a construction zone from Yonge St. all the way to Keele St. for almost two years, from next spring into the winter of 2006.
City workers will raise tracks by 15 centimetres, narrow traffic lanes and cut into sidewalks in places like the Corso Italia strip around Dufferin St., all to create a dedicated streetcar right-of-way like the one along Spadina Ave.
Local business owners say the changes will keep pedestrians, drivers and their dollars away from St. Clair. “We’re disappointed, but we’re not surprised,” said Jeff Gillan, chair of the Corso Italia Business Improvement Area, whose wife owns a clothing store on the street.
In a nod to the plan’s opponents, council last night included an amendment requiring the number of public parking spaces in the area to remain stable. Councillors also agreed to include bike lanes in the amended proposal.
About 22 streetcars carry 32,000 commuters along St. Clair every day, with 18,000 Torontonians using the line during peak hours. After the proposed improvements, the same number of vehicles will be able to carry up to 40,000 passengers, said Mitch Stambler, manager of service planning for the TTC.
The St. Clair line cuts through the ward of Councillor Joe Mihevc (Ward 21, St. Paul’s), one of the project’s biggest supporters. He says council’s decision is a vote of confidence for public transit. “If you couldn’t do it on St. Clair you couldn’t do it anywhere,” Mihevc said. “It says city councillors are able to see the bigger picture and see this as a priority.”
But the result was a blow for opponents like Councillor Cesar Palacio (Ward 17, Davenport), who complained the process was rigged from the start. “There was an amazing, unprecedented lobbying campaign from the TTC,” Palacio said. “It was a top-down approach — somehow the democratic process didn’t have much value.”
The right-of-way also came in for criticism as a threat to St. Clair’s distinctive Italian Canadian culture. Along the strip west of Dufferin St., the heart of the Corso, pedestrians take part in the see-and-be-seen Italian institution known as passagiata, the evening stroll that defines urban life in Italy.
Opponents worry that construction will keep visitors away and that narrower sidewalks — from about 5.2 to 3.3 metres in some places — will detract from the experience for flaneurs who maintain the tradition.
Ida Vivacqua, who owns a gift-basket shop on the Corso, opposed the right-of-way and attended all public meetings on the issue. “The community really doesn’t understand how it’s going to impact on their daily lives until they start to rip the road apart,” she said. “Then they’re going to wake up.”
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SPARKS FLY OVER TRAM LINK PLANS; FEARS OF DELAY TO POUNDS 750M SHOPS SCHEME AS COUNCIL AND
Daily Post (Liverpool)
September 30, 2004
MERSEYTRAVEL chief executive Neil Scales yesterday made his latest move to increase pressure on Liverpool City Council over the proposed route of Line Two of Merseytram.
Mr Scales said any change to the proposed route of Merseytram Line Two could threaten the Line One link into Grosvenor’s pounds 750m Paradise Street redevelopment.
The Daily Post revealed earlier this month the council was demanding that John Lennon Airport (JLA) should be served by Line Two rather than Line Three, as envisaged.
The council favours using a route along the old Loop Line through Belle Vale, Halewood and Garston to JLA. But Merseytravel is determined Line Two should serve Whiston Hospital as intended and says any change now would actually put an airport link back from 2010 to at least 2012.
Mr Scales said: “Plans for Line Two are like a supertanker. Once they’ve started they are very difficult to turn round. We’ve already agreed to accelerated work on Line Three to bring the airport link. Lines One and Two come as a package and if Line One is jeopardised, how is traffic going to get to Paradise Street?”
Grosvenor estimates that two-thirds of shoppers will use public transport to reach the development, giving the tram system crucial importance.
Merseytravel and Liverpool City Council have been at loggerheads over the trams for months.
The council only withdrew objection to Line One after an eleventh hour deal during the public inquiry in April. But Cllr Peter Millea, Liverpool’s executive member for regeneration, said: “It is not correct to say that the council is jeopardising the building of Lines One and Two, because the funding for Line Two isn’t even in place yet. “
The Government has offered pounds 170m for Line One and a bid for funding for Line Two went to the Department for Transport last year.
Business leaders are urging the parties to reach agreement to prevent another disaster after the collapse of the Fourth Grace. Peter Ralphs, chief executive of Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, said: “We are not interested in politics — we just want Paradise Street development to go ahead. If it stumbles so soon after the collapse of the Fourth Grace, Liverpool will be an international laughing stock. The investment world will think we are incapable of managing a single major project. “
A Liverpool City Council spokesman said: “We are continuing to work with Merseytravel and what we both want is the right tram for Merseyside. “
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Cuts to network may be price of saving the Supertram
Yorkshire Evening Post
September 30, 2004
TRANSPORT chiefs admitted today that part of the Leeds Supertram’s proposed route may have to be sacrificed in a bid to save the scheme from oblivion.
If revised plans for the long-delayed light rail system get the go-ahead from the Government, its southern line could end up being significantly shorter than previously thought.
Instead of running from the city centre to Tingley via Belle Isle and Middleton, trams would only go as far as Balm Road in Hunslet.
Dropping the seven-kilometre stretch of track from the plans is one of the favoured options being considered as Leeds attempts to rescue its Supertram dream.
In January, Transport Secretary Alistair Darling withdrew the financial support needed for the scheme after discovering its estimated price tag had soared from £ 500m to nearly £ 1bn. Since then, Metro — the body that co-ordinates public transport in West Yorkshire — has been working with Leeds City Council to try to cut costs.
Until now they have been publicly optimistic the bill could be reduced to an acceptable level without compromising the size of the three-line, 2 |
