Hannemann says he’ll change routes of ‘E’ buses

Honolulu Advertiser

December 11, 2004

Mayor-elect Mufi Hannemann said he will probably divert new hybrid city buses from their Downtown-to-Waikiki route because few riders seem to be using them and they are competing with private bus companies.

The “Route E” buses should ply longer routes that serve outlying areas, rather than a short route through town, Hannemann said.

He said he had not made a decision about where the buses should go, but did not believe they were being used fairly or effectively. “It’s fair to say I will not operate the E buses the same way as the present administration,” he said. “I’d like to have these buses be dispersed through all of O’ahu, and including the furthest points, from the North Shore, from Wai’anae, from Waimanalo.”

Hannemann said private bus operators had complained that the new buses draw visitors away from their operations in Waikiki and could harm those businesses. “I don’t necessarily believe that’s a prudent use of those buses,” he said. In Waikiki, the buses run down Kalakaua Avenue and return via Kuhio Avenue. Some of the buses have remained nearly empty since the route began.

City spokeswoman Carol Costa said it normally takes time for ridership to build up on any new bus line, and that the E route is no different. The new buses are not meant to primarily serve tourists or to compete with private bus companies, she said.

Mayor Jeremy Harris launched the route last month as part of the controversial Bus Rapid Transit system he had planned. The 75- passenger, hybrid diesel-electric buses will be cleaner, quieter and more fuel-efficient than conventional diesel buses, Harris said.

Hannemann had long opposed the BRT plan, which includes traffic lanes reserved solely for buses, and said he will not expand it after he takes office next month.

The city bought 10 of the buses, which cost $749,000 each.

TRAMS CAN GIVE THE CITY A COSMOPOLITAN EDGE; OTHER EUROPEAN CITIES HAVE THEM A PLENTY, SO WHY NOT BIRMINGHAM

Birmingham Post

December 11, 2004

Smooth, slick and reliable. It’s how I like my trams, and France is undeniably setting the pace in its approach to light -rail public transport.

Having lived in Strasbourg for a year, I have been fortunate to experience a truly cosmopolitan lifestyle. Its interurban tram system gives this city an undoubted edge over its British counterparts. Not only has the system modernised and revitalised the historic city, it puts Strasbourg well and truly on the map.

Granted, housing the European Parliament will support this (irrespective of concerns over its usefulness), though Strasbourg’s public transport system justifies its position as a major hub of Europe.

Since introduction to the city in 1994, trams have won both the hearts and minds of their public, proving essential in terms of economic and social development, serving business, leisure, retail and residential domains. Already with four lines in operation, plans are to extend the network further.

With over 200,000 passengers daily, trams are a commercially and economically viable alternative to buses and cars. More crucial perhaps is the issue of ‘green’ transport. Run on electricity, thus noiseless and virtually emission-free, trams are the backbone of an environmentally-friendly transport policy.

Gliding through the narrow streets of Strasbourg, I took delight in its congestion-free centre. In a city dominated by deft and punctual trams, it was a true pleasure not having to watch out for a constant barrage of buses when crossing the rue. This, incidentally, was the very motivation behind the system’s birth, where the number of buses previously operating in the centre was considered unacceptable.

Plus, trams take up less road space than buses and cars. They also get motorists out of their cars and more people using public transport. Strasbourg has seen a dramatic rise in the number of people opting to use public transport since the advent of trams.

A green dream indeed, and for me it was an altogether more fulfilling experience, perusing the city by tram, absorbing its sights and delights through wide windows instead of being cooped up on a sweaty, airless bus. Summer was bliss thanks to the air-con, though admittedly somewhat unpleasant if the system was disrupted, which it was on one, rare occasion.

Accessibility-wise, with low floors and wide gangways, these gentle beasts were user-friendly and easily accessible for all. Time-wise, they were fabulous. Given priority of the road, they simply slid past traffic. With four-minute intervals at peak hours , I was at A to B in no time. Much quicker than being stuck in the middle of rush hour at gridlock.

Having witnessed the benefits of Strasbourg’s surface-tram system firsthand, it seems a shame that Birmingham is currently deprived of a city centre network and prevented from enjoying the quality of living that many citizens of Europe are fortunate to have.

Other cities in Britain, such as Manchester with their Metrolink, have got their act together, with trams running throughout the city and its centre, but it appears Birmingham is still musing over the subject.

Birmingham does currently have a light-rail line, the Midland Metro, running from the city centre’s Snow Hill Station through to Wolverhampton. With approximately five million users a year, when compared to the Eurostar’s seven million per year figure, this isn’t bad going.

As a major positive, the Metro has helped decrease the number of car trips into the West Midlands. Certainly a bonus for the environment then. However, the system is still restricted to just one line linking the suburban to the urban. Though current talks are in process to extend the existing line, a decision is still awaited. Proposals for city centre extension include stretching the line to link St Paul’s, Snow Hill, Upper Bull Street, Corporation Street, Stephenson Street, Broad Street and the Hagley Road. Given the huge influx of shoppers since the opening of the Bullring, Birmingham would well benefit from this comfortable and rapid mode of transport.

What is interesting is the fact that the majority of the public do support extending the network and re-allocating road space to allow the Metro priority over the car.

Essentially, a light-rail system throughout Birmingham would do wonders for a dynamic city renowned for its modern living and development. Not only ‘safer, cleaner and greener’, a state-of-theart tram system would certainly reaffirm Birmingham’s position as a city of worldclass status.

Govt, coalition OK 3 Shinkansen projects

The Daily Yomiuri (Tokyo)

December 11, 2004

The government and the ruling parties at a working group meeting Friday approved the start of construction in fiscal 2005 for Shinkansen bullet train projects on sections of three lines.

Following the approval, lawmakers also decided to allocate more than 70 billion yen in the fiscal 2005 budget for the projects, including construction work on existing bullet train lines. The figure exceeds the 68.6 billion yen earmarked for related projects in the budget for the current fiscal year.

The details of the budget and when the new lines will open will be officially decided next week at a meeting of the government and ruling parties examination commission.

The sections on which construction will be carried out are: Shin-Aomori Station in Aomori Prefecture to Shin-Hakodate Station in Hokkaido on the Hokkaido Shinkansen Line; Toyama Station to Mattou Station in Ishikawa Prefecture on the Hokuriku Shinkansen Line; and Takeo-Onsen Station in Saga Prefecture to Isahaya Station in Nagasaki Prefecture on the Kyushu Shinkansen Line.

The approval was made on the ground that the new sections meet the following conditions agreed upon by the government and the ruling parties:

— Stable financial resources can be secured for the projects.

— Investment in the projects will return positive effects, such as a reduction in travel time.

— The projects will be profitable.

— Local governments agree to the projects.

How to finance the projects was the main point of discussion.

The ruling parties and the Construction and Transport Ministry previously suggested that the government borrow about 300 billion yen from financial institutions to cover construction costs, using profits gained from selling existing Shinkansen facilities to Japan Railway firms as security.

At Friday’s meeting, the dispute over whether to implement the Shinkansen projects was settled as the Finance Ministry, which had been opposed to the proposal, finally agreed that the loan would cover the majority of the cost of the projects, initially estimated as 1.16 trillion yen.

Even after adding contributions by central and local governments to the loan, the funding was estimated to be short by about 200 billion yen. Therefore, the Construction and Transport Ministry will squeeze the costs by reviewing plans for related facilities.

The ministry also suggested a proposal to hold down the total budget for public work projects by cutting budgets allocated for other projects, and finally gained the understanding of the Finance Ministry.

The Construction and Transport Ministry reported at the meeting that Saga Gov. Yasushi Furukawa has agreed to the the projects. Furukawa was the last “undecided” about the projects among heads of municipalities and prefectures involved in the projects. However, three municipalities located along the Shinkansen line in Saga Prefecture are still opposed to the start of the construction.

The Construction and Transport Ministry and other bodies are trying to obtain approval from them by the end of the month when the next fiscal year’s budget is passed. To make up for the financial shortfall, the ministry is considering asking East Japan Railway Co. and other firms, which are expected to turn a profit of 61 billion yen per year after the opening of the three sections, to finance the projects.

Nancy Bus-Tram network: the slowest in France

Republican East

December 11, 2004

The Palm Award [comes from La Palme d’Or, the Cannes equivalent of the Oscar for best film] of Slowness

With an average operating speed of 12.7 km/h, Nancy snatches The Palm of 2003 for the slowest tram-bus system in France. It’s 16 in Lyon and 17.5 in Orleans. Explanations. Connex promises, after some progress already effected in 2004, “a noticeably improved speed in 2005.”

Almost paradoxical. Bus speed issues sometimes attract attention in areas where there are particular safety concerns. At the same time, the trams and buses of Nancy hold the national record for slowness! This is at least the result of the annual study that was just published by the Public Transport Union (professional union comprising 160 undertakings). This reference document has put under the microscope the 2003 operations of140 systems. And with an average operating speed of 12.7 km/h, STAN [Service de transport de l’agglomération Nancéienne] is the red flag of the first category (metropolitan areas of more than 250,000 souls). And even all categories!

Of course, this speed - for as much as this situation has improved in 2004 - isn’t quite that of which the passengers are aware. Since this includes stopping times but also at termini. The duchy city does not show up any less far behind Strasbourg (18.2), Nantes (17.1 km/h), Rennes (19.1) or still Rouen (16.3). This is grist for the mill of bicycling or walking advocates!

Without mentioning automobiles. In Greater Nancy, this shocking number is rationalized. First because the tram line is under (almost 40% of the traffic) speed limits imposed by the State (15 km/h on sharp turns, 5 in the République area), limits that were even more restrictive in 2003.

In Traffic

Next “because the change of the traffic plan, which implies a delay in the adaptation of motorists, difficulties have arisen with which buses put into traffic are also confronted,” stresses Pascal Gaire, the traffic manager. “We have called on the research bureau to work line by line, to look for or arrange new corridors, to improve the travel time of buses. It’s also about avoiding important variations in running times.”

Otherwise, the study also targets the famous “relation study” (adapting schedules and speeds depending on the periods of the day). “The operator sometimes calculates long travel durations to take into account the unpredictability of traffic.” Simply, the real speed on the asphalt would be better than that “established by the relation study of the Public Transport Union.” But with one consequence: the bus is sometimes ahead of schedule. That’s what the users regularly complain about.

At Connex they recognize having perhaps allowed for a somewhat wide maneuvering room. In the name of caution.

Cost

“We’ve had no negative impact as a result of the change of traffic plan and the restructuring of the system,” claims Yves Schenker, recalling that, since then, things have been fine-tuned. And promising still “for 2005 a noticeably improved speed.”

Another striking number of the Public Transport Union investigation: expenditure by trip. Stated plainly, how much it costs on the average to provide the transportation for a rider. It is 2.21 € in Nancy against only 1.06 in Montpellier, 1.88 in Bordeaux, 1 € even in Strasbourg.

Is the culprit the maintenance cost of trams? Not really if one believes the transport operators. Rather the lack of use. “[…] Which has however followed its regular progression throughout 2004,” insists Christian Parra, vice president of Greater Nancy.

In 2003, each Nancy resident has in any case had on the average 69 trips on the system. There is evidently an evolving margin since Orleans was 101, St. Etienne 138. And Strasbourg was 177!

But there, the history of transportation - and of trams - is otherwise longer. But the speed is faster also

Salt Lake City: Proportion of population using transit triples after introduction of light rail

Light Rail Now! NewsLog

12 December 2004

The proportion of Salt Lake City residents using the metro area’s transit system has tripled since the introduction of light rail transit (LRT), according to a recent Utah Transit Authority (UTA) survey. UTA general manager John Inglish reported the results to a session of the 2004 Rail-Volution conference in Los Angeles on Sep. 21st.

According to the UTA’s survey, the proportion of Salt Lake City residents who say they use the transit system has skyrocketed from 20% before the introduction of LRT, to 60% recently.

Minneapolis: Final segment of light rail starter line opens

Light Rail Now! NewsLog

12 December 2004

Enthusiastic passengers, taking advantage of free fares, jammed into Minneapolis’s Hiawatha line light rail transit (LRT) trains on Saturday, Dec. 4th, as the metro area’s LRT starter line debuted its final 4 miles of track, at the south end of the route, into suburban Bloomington, the Mall of America, and the urban area’s major airport. The opening – 4 weeks ahead of schedule – marked the basic completion of the $715.3-million project.

[Minneapolis Star Tribune December 5, 2004; Metro Transit, 6 Dec 2004]

As the transit agency and other partners hosted an opening celebration, passengers seemed particularly eager to ride through the rail tunnel under the airport and on to the south terminus of the line — the Mall of America. The final segment’s five new stations include both terminals at the airports well as the mall and other stops. At the 28th Avenue station in Bloomington, Metro Transit has added 600 park-’n’-ride spaces. Metropolitan Council Chair Peter Bell congratulated construction and transit officials for opening the light-rail extension 27 days ahead of schedule so that shoppers and travelers could access the LRT service during the busy holiday shopping and traveling season.

[Minneapolis Star Tribune, 5 December 2004; WCCO-TV, 3 Dec 2004; Metro Transit, 6 Dec 2004]

Even with frigid weather, opening ridership was nothing short of spectacular. On opening day, Saturday, Dec. 4th, 56,200 boardings were estimated; on the following day, Sunday, ridership was estimated at 31,300. “We are very pleased with the high level of customer enthusiasm for light-rail over the weekend” said Brian Lamb, Metro Transit’s general manager. “We hope the experience of the past two days will spark an interest in making buses and trains part of everyone’s daily commuting.”

[Metro Transit, 6 Dec 2004]

The first section of the Hiawatha starter line, from downtown Minneapolis to Fort Snelling, opened in June. (See Minneapolis: First Segment of Hiawatha LRT Line Opens.) The line has already started to attract significant transit-oriented development (TOD), such as that at the Bloomington Central Station, a $600 million, 43-acre development with condos, a resort, and commercial space planned by McGough Construction and the City of Bloomington. Metro Transit and city leaders are promoting this as “a great location to live, work, shop and play.”

[WCCO-TV, 3 Dec 2004; Metro Transit, 15 Nov 2004]

Even before the opening of the Bloomington extension, the Hiawatha line was already demonstrating impressive ridership by this past October, with an average 2,674 weekday rider-trips during the morning rush hour alone – a 19.5 percent increase over September and a 31 percent increase over July. Metro Transit noted that “Morning rush-hour ridership is the best indicator of a rail line’s growing impact on congestion relief.” Combined bus and rail ridership for October was 1.2 percent higher than for system ridership in the same month in 2003. The entire line now is 12 miles long, with service to 17 stations, and riding it from end to end takes about 35 minutes, for an average schedule speed of about 21 mph.

[Minneapolis Star Tribune, 5 December 2004; WCCO-TV, 3 Dec 2004; Metro Transit, 15 Nov 2004, 6 Dec 2004]

MBTA halts purchase of Green Line ‘lemons’

Boston Globe

December 12, 2004

A quarter-billion dollar effort to provide sleek new trolleys for the century-old Green Line has collapsed in a tangle of breakdowns and recriminations, with the MBTA halting all payments to the manufacturer and refusing to take delivery on 53 of 100 of the vehicles ordered nearly a decade ago.

The T’s 47 Italian-made Breda cars, even after a derailment problem was fixed, are breaking down at three times the normal rate for subway vehicles, MBTA officials say. The braking, propulsion and electrical systems don’t always work. The air conditioning units leak. The doors sometimes don’t close all the way, or the on-board computer thinks the doors haven’t closed, keeping the brakes on. ‘’We bought a lemon,” said T General Manager Michael H. Mulhern.

The T has already paid $140 million of the $225 million contract with Breda and spent $9.5 million modifying Green Line tracks and altering the wheels of the cars so they won’t derail. Mulhern said last week he will take Breda to court to recoup the millions of dollars that continue to be spent on fixes.

Regardless, Mulhern said he may be forced to order new trolleys from a different manufacturer to avert a crisis for the 200,000 weekday riders on the Green Line, the system’s busiest. Without new cars to replenish the fleet, aging trolleys made by Boeing three decades ago will also continue to break down, possibly leading to extensive delays for riders.

Those delays will spoil the T’s effort to attract riders with reliable service, a major goal after January’s subway fare hike from $1 to $1.25 The system has not attracted many new riders despite widespread frustration with traffic, and Mulhern earlier this month indicated that the T’s ailing finances might require cuts in service.

Seth Kaplan, a staff lawyer at the Conservation Law Foundation who has closely monitored the Breda purchase, said that car shortages and breakdowns in the aging fleet ‘’means more times when you’re on your way home to Newton and you find yourself standing outside at Copley in line for a bus. And the lack of reliability of the system drives people away from transit, and into cars and taxis.”

The T says it still hopes to fix the problems on the 47 Breda cars it has, about half of which are in service, but has bypassed the Italian manufacturer and turned to subcontractors.

‘’My approach has been, fix the problems first, and then have the legal fight later,” Mulhern said in an interview Thursday. ‘’But I am very discouraged. Despite my best efforts to get their attention, Breda has not allocated the resources to fix the problems. They are losing money, and when your business partner is losing money, they lose the profit motive and the level of effort that’s required here.”

‘’It’s not a good situation,” he said.

A spokesman for the company, which assembles the cars at a plant in Littleton, Mass., did not respond after requesting questions in writing.

Depending on how things go in the next several months, Mulhern said he may propose using the $85 million withheld from Breda to pay another manufacturer, possibly the Japanese company Kinki-Sharyo, which finished second in the 1995 bidding that Breda won, to furnish trolleys as quickly as possible.

Those vehicles may or may not be so-called low-floor vehicles, he said. The T initially sought to buy new trolleys that would help the Green Line comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act by making it easier for wheelchairs to roll from station platforms onto the cars.

The experience with the Breda cars ranks as one of the worst purchases in the history of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.

Braking problems emerged shortly after the first Breda cars were deployed in 1999. The first derailment was in 2000, and the T pulled the cars out of service from the summer of that year to the spring of 2003, during which time the T refurbished 13 miles of track and reshaped the Breda cars’ wheels to improve traction.

After a total of nine derailments — including one last year and one this year — the T gradually returned the Breda cars to the B (Boston College) and C (Cleveland Circle) branches, though they were kept to a speed limit of 25 miles per hour. MBTA officials are unsure whether the cars can ever be used on the D (Riverside) branch, where speeds of 40 miles per hour are allowed.

But while the derailment problem was managed, the other problems persisted. These stubborn glitches trigger warning lights in the driver’s cabin, or keep the trolleys stuck at stations, and have resulted in 329 failures in service — three times the norm for subway cars, Mulhern said.

The T is asking several subcontractors to fix all those problems on 10 cars, Mulhern said. If they succeed, the 37 remaining Breda cars in the fleet will be retrofitted. But Mulhern said he almost certainly won’t accept the remaining 53 cars on order.

To make up for the lack of new cars, the T might keep some of the 86 Kinki-Sharyo cars — about 18 years old — in service longer. But the 34 Boeing cars, he acknowledged, are closer to 30 years old and will have to be retired soon.

The Breda purchase — and its long-term implications for the Green Line fleet — is a source of deep dismay among top managers at the T. Mulhern said one lesson learned is that future major purchases will not be based solely on the low bid, as was the case with Breda. If the agency were buying new cars today, Mulhern said it would also consider the overall financial health of the bidder, and the company’s level of technical expertise and quality assurance.

But some say the agency could have caught the problems sooner.

Michael Garvey, a former T employee who worked on the Breda car program for two years as a warranty administrator, said there was never adequate oversight during the manufacturing process. Garvey said he warned top officials at the T about myriad problems with the cars, which he said included leaky air conditioning and shoddy construction.

‘’The initial blame I would lay with Breda. The way it’s been handled, I would lay with the T,” Garvey said, who suggests that the T should have withheld payments to Breda as soon as the problems first emerged.

There are mixed reviews for Breda at other transit agencies.

San Francisco has had problems with some Breda streetcars, but officials there say the issues are being addressed. The Washington Metro system relies on Breda for much of its fleet, but those are heavy rail cars, not light rail cars like those on the Green Line. Officials at Dallas Area Rapid Transit say they have had good experience with Kinki-Sharyo light rail cars — purchased at about the same time the T went with Breda.

The T is now also acquiring new cars for the Blue and Orange lines. The Blue Line cars, manufactured by Siemens, are over a year late, due to a major supplier going out of business. The Orange Line cars are on hold after the T spent $1 million determining that old Blue Line cars couldn’t be retrofitted to run on the Orange Line.

Procuring new vehicles for older systems is a challenge, and ‘’retrofitting systems becomes more of a challenge the older the system is, whether it’s Boston, New York or Chicago,” said Greg Hull, director of operations and safety and security programs for American Public Transit Association.

But the Conservation Law Foundation says the T should devote more energy to its major purchases. ‘’The T is mostly focused on delivering service day in and day out, but that’s a different mentality than the procurement culture that’s needed,” said Kaplan.

Light rail always will slow the flow

Minneapolis Star Tribune

December 12, 2004

Officials poorly planned the traffic-signal system along the Hiawatha light-rail line, subjecting drivers on south Minneapolis streets to unnecessary waiting at train crossings, according to a review by federal highway experts.

A Federal Highway Administration team that reviewed the planning and engineering of the signals said, “more time, effort and money should have been allocated to ensuring that they operate as efficiently as possible before committing to construction.”

Some relief may be in sight for drivers waiting at train crossings, because officials plan to adjust the timing of safety gates. But Hiawatha Avenue traffic will never flow as smoothly as before trains started running, the experts concluded.

Since the line opened in June, drivers have faced traffic tie-ups and excessive waiting on cross streets, where the light-rail trains always have the right of way. Hiawatha Avenue traffic also has slowed because traffic lights no longer can be coordinated to minimize stops.

Waiting at E. 46th St.Richard SennottStar Tribune

The federal report, done at the request of city officials, said the most obvious and easily correctable problem is that safety gates at cross streets come down too early and stay down too long. The cross streets most affected are 32nd, 38th and 46th streets, the report said.

Some drivers’ responses to long waits, such as U-turns and signal violations, represented “potential severe safety issues,” the report said.

Federal experts faulted the project’s approach to rail-motorist conflicts starting with the 1999 decision to give trains absolute priority over traffic through south Minneapolis.

That year, a consultant warned rail planners that giving trains uninterrupted passage would disrupt traffic and require “a significant amount of design coordination” between the rail designers and city traffic officials.

Despite this warning, the traffic-control plan for light rail wasn’t finished until May 2003, late in the project after most construction was finished.

That plan underestimated how often trains would block cross streets. Computer simulations that might have revealed the problems were not done, the federal report said. “Having the traffic control system report completed earlier would have increased the chance to address these problems while it was still relatively inexpensive to make changes,” the report said.

Officials from the Metropolitan Council, which owns and operates the line, and the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) said that the signals and traffic controls didn’t work as desired and that the extent of traffic disruption was a surprise. They said they did extensive planning. They said assumptions behind the plan proved to be wrong because of unanticipated events.

“But until you actually had the trains moving along that corridor we didn’t know whether those assumptions were exactly correct,” said Pat Hughes, metro district engineer for MnDOT. “In reality the speed of the train is slower, the number of people using the train is requiring that the train wait longer at the stations, and the speed limit was raised on Hiawatha.”

Train speed was cut from 55 miles per hour to 45 mph when neighbors complained about noisy whistles required at the higher speed. The federal report also noted that train speeds affected signal timing.

The speed limit on Hiawatha Avenue was raised from 35 mph to 40 or 55, depending on the stretch. Boarding delays at some stations near cross streets caused safety arms to remain down longer than anticipated.

“We were hoping that there wouldn’t be a major disruption to traffic,” said Hughes, whose department built the line. “We assumed that there would be some. The disruption that is occurring is more than we would like to see, and those are the things that we are going to work on to try to minimize.”

Possible fixes

At MetroTransit, MnDOT and City Hall, officials say they are considering ways to change the timing of crossing signals to reduce drivers’ waiting time

Mark Fuhrmann, chief of staff for the rail project, declined to predict the cost of such changes but said contingency money in the project budget could cover costs.

Adjustments to gate-arm timing will be made over the next three months and should provide noticeable improvements at cross streets, project officials say.

Jon Wertjes, Minneapolis’ director of traffic and parking services, said he thinks it’s possible to shave about 10 seconds off the 25 to 35 seconds that a safety arm is down now. To further reduce waiting time for motorists, the built-in cycle for pedestrian crossings will be eliminated. Instead, pedestrians will have to push a button to activate crosswalk signals.

All of this will be good news for Ted Buhl, whose drive to work requires him to cross the light-rail line every day, usually at 35th or 38th Street. He said he often waits five minutes for a chance to move at signals.

“Sometimes, the light I’m waiting at will be skipped completely in the light rotation for crossing Hiawatha Avenue due to the frequency of the light-rail cars, especially at rush hour,” said Buhl, who lives in south Minneapolis. “It’s frustrating to sit at a light waiting for a chance to cross Hiawatha Avenue, and just when you think you are finally going to get your turn, the white light at the intersection starts flashing for another light-rail car coming to interrupt traffic flow.”

Motorists shouldn’t expect Hiawatha Avenue traffic ever to flow as smoothly as in the past, the federal report said. Before the trains, traffic signals had been timed so that motorists typically confronted only one or two red lights from Lake Street to 50th Street, Wertjes said. Now, trains disrupt the traffic-signal coordination, the report said.

Uninterrupted trains

The policy of not requiring trains to stop at south Minneapolis cross streets also is not likely to change.

When MnDOT made the decision in 1999, officials knew that motorists would face some inconvenience, said Hughes, the metro-area MnDOT engineer. “We needed to give an advantage to the transit,” he said. “If we were going to carry more people through this corridor, transit had to have an advantage.”

The decision was later endorsed by the Federal Transit Administration, which made it a requirement for federal funds. Trains are required to stop at downtown traffic signals.

During rush hours, trains pass Hiawatha Avenue cross streets as often as every three minutes, causing crossing gates to close and open each time. The effect of such frequent trains can be studied using computer modeling software, and the federal experts said that should have been done in Minneapolis, as it was in other cities planning rail lines.

The federal report concluded that the computer software used for the Minneapolis project wasn’t up to the task. If a proper computer simulation had been done, it “could easily have revealed fundamental errors in the analysis prior to putting the system in operation on the street,” the federal team said.

Josh Collins, a spokesman for the light-rail line, said that standard traffic-modeling software was used and that project engineers were aware of its limitations.

Even now, a simulation would be helpful as officials make adjustments to ensure that they are done correctly, the report said. Transit officials said they have no plans to conduct simulations, but will monitor the changes along the line.

Transit projects on track

Deseret Morning News (Salt Lake City)

December 12, 2004

Utah proponents of public transit, hoping for increased funding in the not-too-distant future, had to be encouraged by the way voters responded to transit-related election issues across the country in November.

Of the 30 ballot initiatives, bond issues, referendums, tax increases or other transit-related questions posed to voters in the Nov. 2 election, 22 of them were approved.

The Center for Transportation Excellence reported those approvals are worth an estimated total of more than $40 billion.

The winning measures include a long-term plan for transit expansion in Denver that calls for new light-rail mass transit lines and a Bus Rapid Transit system; light rail construction and bus system improvements in Phoenix, worth $16 billion; and a tax increase to keep buses running at current operating levels in Spokane, Wash.

“This has been a record year for transit initiatives,” Stephanie Vance, program manager for the Center for Transportation Excellence, said in a recent edition of Passenger Transport. “We’ve seen a significant jump in the number of transit initiatives on the ballot and in how many passed. Citizens across the country, regardless of party, strongly support transit investments and more transportation choices.”

Another 21 transit initiatives were on ballots in August or other special-election dates during the year and 17 of those also were approved.

“From suburban to urban to rural communities, the success of these initiatives proves that people are willing to invest in quality transit services that will pay dividends for years to come,” American Public Transportation Association president William Millar told Passenger Transport. “Voters clearly said that they deserve a better quality of life that available public transportation brings — namely, less congestion, cleaner air and access to jobs.”

The same rhetoric is being bandied about here in Utah as transit supporters eye a possible ballot measure in 2006. The minimum they are likely to seek is an across-the-board equalization in the sales tax support the Utah Transit Authority currently receives.

Thanks to a successful ballot measure in 2000, UTA’s sales tax revenue increased from a quarter of a cent in Salt Lake County to 7/16 of a cent. (A quarter of that quarter-cent increase in 2000 was reserved for road construction projects.)

But in Weber County, residents already contribute a full half-cent in sales tax revenue. And in the Utah County locales served by UTA, only a quarter cent of sales tax is dedicated for use by the agency.

The Wasatch Front Regional Council, the metropolitan planning organization for all the Wasatch Front counties except Utah County, recommended in October a number of tax and fee hikes to fund future transportation projects. Among them was a suggestion that UTA’s sales tax share be increased to a uniform half cent throughout its service area.

It also recommended increasing property taxes by .0012 in UTA’s service area to fund general obligation bonds, which UTA general manager John Inglish said would give his agency greater ability to construct planned light rail extensions and a commuter rail network between Provo and Ogden.

“If we get funding in 2006, then we will go all out to build all of those things we’ve talked about in the next 10 years. It’s doable,” Inglish said. “If we do it with the resources we have, then it’s going to be a slow, painful process.”

Several of the ballot measures passed in November are similar to what UTA and its supporters could be looking for in 2006:

— Voters in San Mateo County, Calif., approved a half-cent sales tax increase, 30 percent of which will go to transit projects.

— Voters in Sacramento, Calif., agreed to extend a half-cent sales tax for transit and road improvements, which was scheduled to expire in 2009.

— Lexington, Ky., voters approved $6 million in property tax increases to fund transit expansions.

— Voters in Charleston, S.C., and Port Huron, Mich., also approved sales tax increases to fund public transit, and Branson, Mo., residents did likewise in August.

The growing tide of support for transit in the United States is something Inglish has seen, in microcosm, here in Utah. UTA’s TRAX light rail system, which opened five years ago, was not universally accepted. Salt Lake County voters, in fact, rejected a tax increase in 1992 that would have given only partial funding to light rail (but it was that association that doomed the initiative).

“Certainly, over a couple of years, communities that had been opposed to us — in fact, passed resolutions opposed to what we were doing in the early ‘90s — became advocates, and in fact began looking for funding to move their projects along,” Inglish said of current plans for light rail extensions in the Salt Lake Valley. “And that’s the process we’re going through right now.”

It’s a process that could be advanced or hindered by local voters two years from now.

EASYJET UNDERCUT ON KEY PARIS ROUTE

The Business

December 12, 2004

British low-cost carrier EasyJet is ending Paris-Marseilles flights next spring after the French state railway company, Societe Nationale des Chemin de Fer Francais, launched a new high-speed train service priced aggressively against its airline rival.

Last week, a newly-created SNCF subsidiary, iDTGV, began offering one-way fares from Paris to Marseilles for just E19 (£13.20, $ 25.00) with first class fares of just E39. The trains were an instant sell-out.

Tickets are available only to those who book on line, and from next Thursday ticket pricing will follow the budget airline model, with only 10 per cent of seats available at the promotional price to those who book earliest.

The goal of SNCF, which already has a 62% share on the route with its TGV Mediteranee, is to capture additional business from leisure travellers, and combat low-cost carriers, notably easyJet, which is offering fares for as little as E8.49.

The launch of iDTGV serving Paris-Avignon-Marseilles-Toulon is the first in a series of routes planned by SNCF. The company is also planning to introduce low-cost style services to Bordeaux and Montpellier. “The new concept is designed to compete with the low-cost companies because it aims, progressively, to service destinations less than three hours from Paris,” said SNCF.

But to add to the appeal, iDTGV will kit out its train sets with a young and funky image, offering on-board entertainment, and the hire of DVD players and discs as well as special quiet zones.

And unlike easyJet, whose aircraft fly from Orly Airport, some 40 minutes south of Paris, and arrive at an airport some 20 minutes west of Marseilles, the high speed trains go directly from city centre to city centre. As a result, although the 180mph train journey takes 3 hours 10 minutes, it can deliver shorter overall journey times for many travellers.

Easyjet, acknowledges that it has faced fierce competition from high-frequency rail services on the Orly-Marseilles route, but says its decision to end its Marseilles services was taken before the iDTGV launch. “We have had occupancy rates on this route of more than 80%,” said an EasyJet spokeswoman, “but we have take-off and landing slots for only three flights each way per day. To be really successful on a high-volume route you need six flights a day - as we have from Luton to Edinburgh.”

Unable to persuade French aviation authorities to allow it more take-off and landing slots at Orly, although it is now the second-biggest carrier in France after partially state-owned Air France-KLM, easyJet has decided to switch the slots to international routes.

It will end Orly-Marseilles flights on 29 March, and instead open routes from Orly to Pisa and Turin, plus a third destination yet to be decided.

That leaves the company’s internal French flights focused on two destinations where rail journey times are much longer: Toulouse and Nice. The company also serves Britain, Spain and Italy out of Paris.

But the creation by SNCF chief Louis Gallois of a subsidiary priced like a budget airline has alarmed French rail unions. Amidst allegations of “creeping privatisation,” they have begun industrial action, despite being straight-jacketed by a new no-strike deal.

Hybrid buses’ fuel economy promises don’t materialize; Older models have gotten better mpg

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER

December 13, 2004

Expensive new hybrid diesel-electric buses that were portrayed by King County Metro as “green” heroes that would use up to 40 percent less fuel than existing buses have fallen far short of that promise.

In fact, at times, the New Flyer hybrid articulated buses have gotten worse mileage than the often-maligned 1989 dual-mode Breda buses they are replacing. Yet the hybrid buses cost $200,000 more each than a conventional articulated diesel bus.

The disappointing results are a far cry from the rosy predictions made by officials.

In May of this year, when Metro held a public event to herald the arrival of the first of the new hybrid buses, County Executive Ron Sims said they would save 750,000 gallons of fuel a year over the Bredas.

Metro was the first agency in the country to buy a 60-foot articulated bus with a hybrid diesel-electric technology. It ordered 235 of them, 213 for itself for $152 million and 22 for Sound Transit. Metro now has the largest fleet of hybrid buses in the world.

Hybrid diesel-electric buses use a battery-powered electric engine to assist a diesel engine. The batteries, carried on top of the bus, are charged both by the diesel engine and by capturing energy from braking action. The electric engine is especially valuable during acceleration from 0 to 12 mph, when a diesel engine would otherwise be gulping fuel, said Michael Voris Metro’s procurement supervisor.

Of Metro’s active fleet of nearly 1,400 buses, 1,005 are conventional diesel buses, 210 are hybrid diesel-electric, 144 are trolley buses and 28 are Bredas.

Despite the significantly higher cost and the underwhelming fuel efficiency of its hybrid buses, Metro had little choice but to get them, said Jim Boon, Metro’s vehicle maintenance manager. That’s because they are the only feasible bus Metro can use when it begins sharing the downtown bus tunnel with Sound Transit’s light rail line in 2009.

Besides, the hybrids have their good points, Boon said. The hybrid fleet as a whole is saving $3 million a year in maintenance costs over the Bredas. And they’re quieter than regular diesel buses and faster than the Bredas on hills and the highway.

They also have very low emissions — as do all the new buses Metro is buying these days, hybrid or not.

But the expected fuel efficiency has not been there. One apparent culprit is stricter federal emissions standards. Another could be that the hybrids are used on routes — suburban express routes with more highway mileage — where their advantages don’t shine.

In July, Yaz Yambe, a Metro schedule planner, asked Dennis Pingeon, Metro’s vehicle maintenance supervisor, whether the new hybrids could be assigned to 400-mile routes. Pingeon said he initially assumed it would be no problem, but when he checked, he found otherwise. “Yaz, it does not appear we have very good news for you on hybrid miles per gallons,” Pingeon e-mailed Yambe.

The hybrids were not getting much better than 3.6 miles per gallon, yet they needed to average better than 4 mpg to be put on 400-mile routes. Pingeon suggested the hybrids not be put on any routes of over 300 miles for September. “This is an unanticipated development,” Pingeon wrote. “We had expected the mileage figures to be much better — these figures are below our current Breda and conventional diesel New Flyer.”

Boon said that today, the hybrids sometimes get better mileage than the conventional diesels and the Bredas. But it’s difficult to compare different models, he said. “It’s comparing apples and oranges and pears.”

And mileage performance varies from bus to bus, from route to route, and season to season, he said.

When he checked recently, Boon was told that Bredas are running at about 3.8 miles per gallon, while the conventional diesel older New Flyer articulated buses are running about four miles per gallon. The hybrids were getting 3.75 miles per gallon in September, but that has improved as the engines are getting broken in, Boon said. He expects further improvements with software tweaks. “I’ve got hybrids that are getting four,” he said recently. And Boon said he was surprised when he was told that Bredas were getting 3.8, because they’ve more typically been below 3.5.

Overall, the hybrids are getting about equivalent mileage to the older buses, Boon agreed. That’s not what was expected of the bus. In an October 2002 e-mail, Boon said, “The vendor indicates that hybrid buses can achieve up to 60 percent in fuel savings, but I am only projecting 20 percent to 30 percent given our hills and traffic congestion.”

A year later, as Metro ordered the buses, the agency said they could reduce fuel consumption by 20 percent to 40 percent.

TriMet, Portland’s regional transit agency, has only two hybrid buses, both the more common 40-foot hybrids.

Spokeswoman Mary Fetsch said the agency has been testing them since 2002. “We like them,” she said. “The question is about the price and when they get into full production, will the price come down. What we see with the fuel economy is there is improvement, but it may not be as much as we like,” Fetsch said. But the bus has exceeded expectations for emissions reductions.

TIAX, a Cambridge, Mass., consultant, said a year ago that many transit agencies appeared to be delaying purchases of hybrid buses to see whether they would become “less expensive and more reliable.”

Metro may have been a victim of bad timing. The agency began road testing its first hybrid bus — Coach 2599 – in October 2002. The bus was put through grueling paces. It was run 20 hours a day, seven days a week loaded with barrels of water weighing 130 percent of normal capacity, to try to accumulate a year’s worth of wear and tear in a short time.

Metro technicians examined its transmission, its repair record, its use of oil and its fuel efficiency, among other things.

The early tests were very encouraging. In December, Boon reported to his bosses that the buses were at 15,000 miles and had experienced hardly any mechanical problems. The hybrid was achieving about 32 percent better fuel economy than the Breda — 4.46 miles per gallon compared with the Breda’s 3.37 miles per gallon, he reported.

In January 2003, Todd Gibbs, manager of the hybrids project, said on a posting on Metro’s Web site that the hybrid bus was achieving 40 percent better fuel economy than the Breda, even though it was overloaded with the water barrels. “We expect the numbers to go even higher,” he said.

As the tests continued, Metro staff members called the results “impressive” and “remarkable.” But in July 2003, almost at the end of its testing period for the hybrid buses, Metro suddenly announced that it needed to switch engines.

The federal government had imposed stricter exhaust emissions standards, and the Cummins engine was not federally certified. Metro sent the bus to the Winnipeg, Manitoba, manufacturer to have a certified Caterpillar engine installed in its place. The fuel economy results were never the same after the switch to the Caterpillar engine. Boon said it wasn’t just a switch in the engine but also a switch in the emissions control system.

Caterpillar spokesman Jim Dugan said it isn’t fair to compare today’s buses with 1989 buses like the Bredas, which were much dirtier. “Emissions coming out of our engines today are dramatically better than for a bus of 1989,” he said. “The tradeoff is your fuel economy is not as good.” Dugan said Caterpillar “optimized” the Metro hybrid engines for lower emissions rather than for better fuel economy.

“As the EPA tightens emission control requirements on truck and bus engines, fuel economy suffers,” Boon said. “The trucking industry is just going crazy over this right now.”

A week before the media event to announce the arrival of the hybrids in May of this year, Metro’s spokeswoman, Linda Thielke, exchanged e-mail with Voris. She wanted to break the supposed 750,000-gallon savings down into a per-bus savings. Voris replied: “We have no revenue service experience with a Caterpillar- powered hybrid (articulated bus), so I am reluctant to make fuel economy claims.”

But a week later, a Metro statement said the hybrid fleet overall would save 750,000 gallons of fuel annually.

Despite that public claim of fuel savings, Boon said that when Metro prepared its budget for 2004, it projected no fuel savings.

The hybrid has allowed Metro to eliminate 14 technicians from its staff, but Boon agreed that comparing the hybrid bus’ maintenance savings to the Bredas is setting the bar rather low.

The Italian-made Bredas are notorious for the expense of their repair. Metro initially ordered spare parts from the manufacturer until Metro technicians could become more familiar with the buses and learn how to substitute lower-cost American parts. That resulted in $258 oil filters that could be bought locally for $4 and radiators costing Metro $6,292 that could be bought in Seattle for $742.

In more recent years, Metro has complained that the Bredas are difficult to repair because their original European-made parts have become more difficult to locate and often entail a long wait. At other times, a local manufacturer custom-makes parts for the buses. “They’re a very unreliable bus,” Boon said, “It’s a bad marriage of many technologies.”

The dual-mode Bredas carried both diesel and electric trolley-powered engines and were bought in 1989 to deal with Seattle’s 1.3 mile-long downtown tunnel. Their rarity made them expensive.

The hybrids share some of that problem. Only one company, New Flyer, bid on the buses. But the only other alternative was even more unappealing, Boon said.

Boston recently bought a dual-mode trolley-diesel made in Germany for its tunnel. It cost $1.6 million per bus, compared with $645,000 per bus for Metro’s hybrid, Boon said. “We didn’t buy this (hybrid) bus because of fuel economy,” Boon said. It has other desirable attributes, such as being cleaner, quieter, and saving on oil consumption and operating costs, but the tunnel forced the choice of the hybrids.

Regular diesels can’t be used in the tunnel because they are too noisy, Boon saids, and older diesels put out too many toxic, smelly fumes. A trolley would be difficult if not impossible in the tunnel now, because Sound Transit needs to use overhead power for light rail.

Ironically, when the new hybrids are booted out of the tunnel next September to make way for light rail construction, their fuel economy may well improve. They can then be put on the kinds of routes — city routes with lots of stop-and-go — where they might well show a fuel consumption advantage over other buses.

The buses will be removed from the tunnel for about two years for tunnel alterations. When the tunnel is reopened, the hybrids will share it with light rail until the time when the trains are running so frequently they will replace buses in the tunnel.

At the end of October, a statement appeared on Metro’s Web site. The headline: “Hybrid performance exceeding expectations.” Prominently mentioned were the reliability, the lower operating costs, the noise reduction. Missing from the statement? Emissions and fuel economy.

Dallas streetcar plan pitched; Council, DART agree to study idea to bolster economic development

Dallas Morning News

December 13, 2004

As revolutionary as they are retro, streetcars should play a starring role in downtown Dallas’ economic redevelopment, some city officials say.

Specific plans and cost estimates for lining downtown streets with rails, as they were decades ago before burgeoning automobile use prompted their demise, are very preliminary. A proposal presented by supporters to the Dallas City Council’s transportation and telecommunications committee on Monday suggested a three-line system linking with the Dallas Area Rapid Transit light rail system and administered in part by DART.

City Council and DART board members agreed to investigate the idea, which might lead to the formation of a public/private streetcar investigation committee or a more powerful, semi-private “local government corporation” under the name Dallas Streetcar Inc.

“We’re not asking the city to give us money,” said Miguel A. Del Valle II, chief executive officer of Pegasus Parking Ventures, who with Raymond E. Stanland of the Dallas-based Stanland & Associates urban design and planning firm presented a 14-page streetcar plan to the council and DART members. “The only critical thing now is to get a high-level policy group in place that we can work with. We’re not asking anyone to buy a pig in a poke here,” Mr. Stanland added.

Skepticism among some DART officials lingered, however. “Dallas is not a tourist city downtown, although I’m willing to look at exploring it. But at what expense?” DART board member Beatrice Alba Martinez said. “I know you’re not asking for money now. Everything costs money.”

Said DART board member Terri Adkisson, “I wouldn’t want to commit DART to it unless I know we could do it right.”

The lone active streetcar system in Dallas runs along the Uptown section of McKinney Avenue to the northern edge of downtown.

The new system suggested in the streetcar presentation would connect with the McKinney Avenue trolley line and might circulate throughout downtown’s arts district, down Ross Avenue and back up San Jacinto Street and along Main Street.

Like the McKinney line but unlike DART light rail trains, Mr. Stanland and Mr. Del Valle said, the streetcars would share roads with automobile traffic. The streetcars themselves may also look similar to DART trains, as opposed to the McKinney line’s vintage streetcars.

Federal transportation grants, parking meter fees from private auto garages and money from downtown business owners are potential funding sources, Mr. Stanland and Mr. Del Valle said.

Council member Bill Blaydes, for one, is sold. “If DART doesn’t want to do it, the city of Dallas better darn well sure get into the middle of it and get it done,” Mr. Blaydes said.

To get from one side of downtown to another, Mr. Blaydes said, he’s forced to drive, then search in vain for parking. “I’m a fat white man who doesn’t like to walk,” he said jokingly. “For people living and working downtown, it is a need now, and we need to get it done as quickly as possible.”

Transportation and Telecommunications Committee Chairwoman Sandy Greyson described the proposal as “intriguing.” Council member Lois Finkelman called it “exciting.”

But Ms. Finkelman cautioned against creating a local government corporation to explore streetcars, especially because the council is already considering such an entity to coordinate general downtown Dallas redevelopment efforts.

Editor’s Report

Rocky Mountain Construction

December 13, 2004

Big news in Rocky Mountain Construction territory is the passage of three major transportation-funding measures in the recent election. Fully 59 percent of Denver area voters voted to increase the sales tax by 0.4 cents on the dollar to fund FasTracks, the Regional Transportation District’s $4.7-billion program that will add 119 miles of new light rail and commuter (heavy) rail in six new corridors, a good many miles of dedicated lanes for bus rapid transit, 21,000 new parking spaces at existing and 31 new Park-n-Ride lots and a renovated downtown Denver Union Station serving as a transit hub, all in the next 12 years. To the south, in Colorado Springs, 55 percent of voters endorsed a Rural Transportation Authority program authorizing as much as $1 billion in spending to improve traffic congestion. The one-cent sales tax increase included in the measure will be split, with 55 percent going to road construction, 35 percent to maintenance and 10 percent to transit improvements. And down in the Phoenix area, voters readily agreed to extend Maricopa County’s half-cent sales tax for another 20 years to help fund a $15.8-billion regional transportation plan that includes new and expanded freeways, expansion of bus and light rail systems, and improvements to major city streets.

City of South Pasadena Launches ‘Streetcar We Desire’ Program; Seeks to Limit Noise From Light Rail Line, Move Forward With Mitigation Plans

PR Newswire US

December 13, 2004

The City of South Pasadena is seeking to settle disputes and begin mitigation of noise issues caused by the Gold Line light rail system which passes through the city. In legal papers filed with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and its Administrative Law Judge, the city is seeking to replace legal wrangling with funding of sound walls and other measures.

“Our goal is to give city residents and merchants the streetcar we desire rather than the streetcar we were given,” says Mike Ten, Mayor of the City of South Pasadena, adding, “We know the Gold Line can be a great asset to the city, and with enhancements we can remove some of the noise issues that have generated complaints about the line from residents living near the tracks. We want to be mitigating not litigating.”

City officials have prepared a “Streetcar We Desire” brochure with answers to frequently asked questions on the Gold Line and the city’s plans to improve the system. A map detailing improvements and the locations for those improvements is also included. Both the brochure and large maps will be available at City Hall and the City Library starting December 20, or downloadable from the city’s website at http://www.ci.south-pasadena.ca.us/ . A new website to keep residents updated at http://www.streetcarwedesire.com/ will also be available December 20.

“Our city can benefit from improved transportation options for our residents and the businesses based here in South Pasadena. With some enhancements, we can make the Gold Line part of what makes the City of South Pasadena such a desirable place to live and work,” says City Manager Mike Copp.

A settlement agreement between the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), the Los Angeles to Pasadena Metro Blue Line Construction Authority, and the City of South Pasadena is currently under review by the CPUC’s Administrative Law Judge. Pending the outcome of that review, improvements to the Gold Line could begin within the next few months. The settlement agreement’s mitigation measures include:

CURITIBA TO BUILD “LIGHT METRO” ALONG BUSWAY

PublicTransit.us website

Dec 13, 2004

Curitiba Mayor Cássio Taniguchi announced on July 15, 2003, that a 19.5-km (12.1-mi) Metr� Leve (“Light Metro”) light rail (LRT) line would be built along the Eixo Norte-Sul (North-South Axis), replacing bi-articulated buses.

(Bondenews, Curitiba poderá ter metr� leve nas canaletas de �nibus, July 17, 2003 www.bonde.com.br/bondenews/bondenewsd.php?retranca_id=24&noticia_id=664&data_AAAAMMDD=20030717

We found a link to this story on the Curitiba page of Allen Morrison’s “Electric Transport in Latin America” website www.tramz.com/index.html. We could find no evidence online that this story was reported through English-language channels.)

The North-South “structural axis” extends between Santa C�ndida and Pinheirinho via the city center. This received Curitiba’s first canaleta or busway, completed in 1974. Four-axle �nibuses biarticulados (bi-articulated buses, or biarticulados) replaced smaller vehicles in 1995. The stated reason for building LRT was that busway services are at the limit of capacity and cannot accommodate additional traffic.

The Metr� Leve will have 23 intermediate stations, and will serve eight interchange terminals. Each vehicle would have a capacity of 450 passengers, compared to 270 passengers per biarticulado. The railcars will presumably be built for high-platofrm loading, as are the biarticulados.

Four previous attempts to build rail or monorail lines in Curitiba stalled because of financial considerations. These included a 1998 plan for a 15- km (9-mi), US$ 1.2 billion subway beneath the two busiest busways. The 2002 plan for a 13.5-km (8.4-mi) monorail extending southwest from the business center was estimated to cost $343 million.

The current Metr� Leve project is estimated to cost $ 291 million, about $15 million per km ($24 million per mi). This is significantly less than the previous metro ($80 million per km; $130 million per mi) and monorail ($25 million per km; $40 million per mile).

A World Bank loan of $174 million would pay 60 percent of the project cost. The Brazilian federal Ministry of Transport would pay US$48 million (16 percent) and the Curitiba municipal government would pay US$ 28 million (10 percent). The remaining $48 million, for vehicle purchase, would be provided by private investors who would also operate the system.

Following environmental and engineering studies, public hearings and conclusion of agreements for financing, the city would begin construction in 2005. Construction was anticipated to require four years.

The newly-elected Mayor of Curitiba, José Alberto (“Beto”) Richa, supports the Metr� Leve project. In November 2004, Richa announced his intention to implement the project, described as “already approved,” during the “coming year.” The incoming administration also intends to conduct a public debate on the future of transit in Curitiba (Gazeta do Povo, Prefeito deixa legado de projetos para o transporte coletivo, November 14, 2004).

Metro Claims It’s Ready for Snow

WJLA-TV Washington

December 13, 2004

After complaints about the subway’s performance – or lack thereof - in the snow, Metro officials said Monday they are ready this winter with better snow fighting equipment.

The transit agency plans to equip its front train cars with deicing equipment when snow and ice are in the forecast. In the past, deicing was only done with a special non-passenger train.

Metro has also treated the undercarriage of 200 additional railcars to better protect the motors from snow ingestion and electrical problems. Crews have replaced 8,000 feet of heater tape to keep ice off the third rail, which provides electricity to power the trains.

“We plan to stay way on top of it and treat the system ahead of time,” said Steven A. Feil, chief operating officer for rail, who joined Metro in June. Feil has experience with snow, having worked for the New York City subway system.

Metro was criticized during repeated snowstorms in 2003. At one point that February, some 40 percent of the subway cars were either snowbound in yards or broken. “It’s going to be better. How much better? It depends on the conditions,” Feil said.

Snow of eight inches or more will still be a problem. If that happens, Metro plans to run only underground rail service at 30 minute intervals.

Feil said part of the reasoning is not just safety, but risk to the equipment, which impacts how quickly Metro can return to normal service after a storm.

Twenty six-car trains will have the deicing equipment. Those trains would also be equipped with ice scrapers.

Metro officials said riders had criticized the old deicing trains because they slowed down passenger trains. They warned that the new deicing equipment will take up room in the front car, including two rows and the door area. But Metro management saw the equipment working in Chicago and Toronto, where they said riders didn’t mind giving up space if it kept the trains rolling.

Public transportation spurs nearby housing; Dallas residents increasingly interested in housing near rail

GULF COAST GROWTH NEWS

December 13, 2004

Dallas-area developers are increasingly finding that their for-sale and rental units near DART stops are big sellers, according to the Dallas Morning News. That trend is only expected to increase, with the number of Dallas housing units within a half mile of mass transit stops expected to grow by more than 300 percent by 2025. Dallas ranks with Portland, Boston, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York as a leader in the nation-wide trend to build housing near rail stops. “Today location, location, location is synonymous with transit-oriented development,” Jennifer Dorn, administrator of the Federal Transit Administration, recently told a real estate agents’ meeting. “Over the next 20 years, at least one-quarter of all American households are likely to seek housing near transit.? The National Association of Realtors calls this transformation one of the biggest shifts in housing since the post-war move to the suburbs.

Surprisingly, one developer has found that few residents in his Plano apartment projects use light rail to commute. They simply want to live near it. The developer said. “Having DART light-rail access is something they [residents] still want, whether they use it or not.”

Virginia Governor Unveils Plan to Spur Transportation Projects

The Bond Buyer

December 13, 2004

Virginia Gov. Mark R. Warner last week proposed $ 824 million in one-time funding for the state’s roads and public transit, a portion of which Virginia officials say could eventually lead to the issuance of tax-exempt municipal bonds for projects under the state’s public-private partnership law.

The plan includes $ 140 million to create a revolving loan fund to encourage private firms to participate in projects with the state under Virginia’s Public Private Transportation Act of 1995.

Although the plan does not specifically call for the creation of any state-level tax-supported debt, bonds could be issued for transportation projects carried out by public-private partnerships under the PPTA statute, state Treasurer Jody Wagner said in an interview Friday.

The Warner administration’s goal is “to encourage and jump-start public-private partnerships to promote rail and transit and other road projects,” Wagner said.

Deborah E. Brown, director of innovative finance and revenue operations at the Virginia Department of Transportation, agreed with Wagner. Under the 1995 act, VDOT is “always open to any number of innovative financing proposals, although we typically stay away from the issuance of state debt for these projects,” Brown said. “I wouldn’t expect an onslaught of Virginia transportation paper as a result of the financial infusion.”

In unveiling the plan Thursday, Warner said it would “improve the quality of our citizens’ lives, ease traffic congestion, and help sustain Virginia’s rebounding economy.” Of the $ 824 million, $ 147 million would be spent on transportation projects, $ 97.4 million on the maintenance of bridges and highways, and $ 23 million for rail upgrades. Currently, there is no dedicated funding source in Virginia for passenger or freight rail improvements.

The governor’s plan proposes spending $ 256.4 million to eliminate deficits on state transportation projects that were completed by July 1 of the current year. “Cleaning up the books isn’t just the right thing to do from some abstract, accounting point of view,” Warner said. “By paying off debts, we hasten the day when new projects can move from the drawing board to construction to actual completion.”

State lawmakers are expected to consider Warner’s proposal at the General Assembly’s annual legislative session that begins Jan. 12.

Meanwhile, Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Area Transit Authority staff on Thursday proposed an operating budget of just over $ 1 billion for fiscal 2006, which represents a 6.5% increase over the budget for the current year. That fiscal year will begin July 1, 2005.

The proposal would keep passenger fares and parking fees at their current level but would seek a 10.4% increase in subsidies from localities that are served by the authority under the terms of an interstate compact.

Unlike most of the nation’s transit systems, which are typically subsidized by dedicated tax dollars, WMATA depends primarily on operating subsidies appropriated from the general funds of the eight localities it serves in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia, which leaves funding for the agency subject to the local political climate.

The budget proposal calls for “expanded services and programs, recommends an approach to support system safety, enhance service reliability and system cleanliness, recommends methods to improve customer service and outreach … does all of this without a fare increase,” said Richard A. White, the authority’s general manager and chief executive officer.

In October, the authority’s board approved a separate plan to make $ 1.5 billion of improvements to the subway and bus system over six years, after receiving funding commitments from the national capital region’s eight local governments, some of which are expected to finance their share by selling tax-exempt bonds.

A blue-ribbon panel charged with analyzing and identifying dedicated funding sources for the national capital region’s public transit system plans to recommend that a 0.28% regional sales tax be implemented to cover an estimated 10-year, $ 2.6 billion capital and operating funding gap.q

Capital Metro gets rail team on board; Agency approves spending up to $8 million on management team for train, bus projects

Austin American-Statesman

December 14, 2004

The Capital Metro board, with voter approval finally in hand, kicked its commuter rail project into gear Monday by agreeing to spend up to $8 million for a team of consultants to oversee planning and construction.

Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam Inc., a Houston-based engineering and architecture firm with an Austin office, will also work on other elements of Capital Metro’s All Systems Go long-range plan, most notably adding 10 “rapid bus” lines and a handful of express bus routes.

The “program management support consultant” team, which, according to Capital Metro documents could include contract managers, construction inspectors and clerical staff, will move full time into a Capital Metro project office and work with project manager John Almond for the next five to eight years.

Almond indicated that he expects about 10 people could be on the job by February, assuming the firm and Cap Metro can agree on a final contract. “This is basically providing us the additional staff to manage the work, not to do the work,” Almond said Monday. Contracts for design and construction services, and purchases or leases of train cars and buses, will be awarded separately.

Last month voters in the Capital Metro service area approved the $60 million commuter rail initiative. That election authorizes Capital Metro to build a 32-mile commuter line on existing freight rail track between the east side of downtown Austin and Leander. Capital Metro, which hopes to open the line in 2008, initially plans to have nine stations and run about 14 trains a day.

That $60 million cost estimate did not include about $30 million for six diesel trains, which probably will be brought in on a lease-purchase basis. But it does include some portion of the not-to-exceed-$8 million granted by the board Monday. Almond said his estimate is that 62 percent of the costs, or at most $5 million, could be attributed to the commuter rail project.

With commuter rail scheduled to open about three years after the management consultants begin work, board members Monday wondered why the contract would be for five years, with the option of three one-year renewals.

Almond and Capital Metro President Fred Gilliam said that the rapid bus program will take at least five years to get fully under way and that the consulting team would help manage other rail projects if voters give Capital Metro the go-ahead for expansion.

Capital Metro first put the management bid out on the street in early October, before the election, with a Nov. 5 deadline for proposals. Three teams turned in proposals. Lockwood, Andrew & Newnam, the general engineering contractor for the Dallas Area Rapid Transit agency’s light-rail program, beat out Houston-based STV Inc. and URS Corp., a San Francisco company that did some planning work for Capital Metro before the election.

Capital Metro also has solicited bids for design services on track improvements and for train station designs.

Busway Gets $7.9 Million More; MTA approves funds to speed work on Valley project, and delays vote on subway expansion

Los Angeles Times

December 14, 2004

Transportation officials voted Monday to spend up to $7.9 million to speed construction of San Fernando Valley’s Orange Line busway, which is six months behind schedule.

In a separate action, directors of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority also postponed a controversial vote aimed at removing legal obstacles to extending the Metro Red Line subway.

“It’s going to be a long march for all of us to put together a [subway] plan,” said MTA board member and Los Angeles Councilman Tom LaBonge, who sponsored the motion intended to lay the groundwork for someday expanding the subway. After more than an hour of rancorous debate, the directors sent the motion back to an MTA committee.

On the Orange Line, after approving a revised environmental impact report, MTA directors authorized the extra spending for contractor overtime and the hiring of additional work crews. They had been told that it would cost $8 million to $10 million if they did nothing to reduce delays, because the agency would have had to extend building and equipment leases and pay for extra contractor and consultant time, said Rick Thorpe, the agency’s construction chief.

Under the new plan, contractors must complete the busway by Aug. 26 or repay $2 million to the agency as a penalty.

In the last year, the $329.5-million, 14-mile dedicated bus corridor has been dogged by design problems, litigation and the discovery of contaminated soil. In the summer, a state appellate court found that the MTA had failed to adequately consider a network of rapid buses as an alternative, and halted construction for a month.

The courts later permitted construction to resume. But the MTA then had trouble getting subcontractors to return, because many had found other work.

The east-west busway will run between the Red Line subway station in North Hollywood and Warner Center in Woodland Hills. The new environmental report, prepared in response to the appellate ruling, found that the busway would lure more people from their cars than would a network of rapid buses running on city streets.

At Monday’s meeting, busway advocates urged the MTA board to expedite the project, even as they expressed longing for a light-rail line instead. “The Orange Line is not the best solution, but it’s the best solution that is currently feasible,” said Peer Ghent, a Valley Glen resident.

Opponents criticized the new environmental report as flawed and vowed to continue pressing their case in court to halt the half-built project. The report had “extremely poor selection of rapid bus lines” to ensure that they would compare poorly against the busway, said Tom Rubin, a former MTA official who now works as a consultant for busway opponents.

On the subway issue, LaBonge’s motion spurred heated disagreement among the directors over whether a more extensive network of underground trains was a good idea for the region.

The motion would have directed the board to support lifting a 1986 ban against using federal funds for tunneling in the Mid-Wilshire area. The legislation was passed after a methane gas explosion at a Ross Dress for Less in the Fairfax district raised doubts about the safety of building an underground rail line.

The motion also would have directed MTA planners to analyze the effect of overturning a ban on using local tax dollars for subway expansion. In 1998, after cost overruns and construction debacles that included a giant sinkhole developing along Hollywood Boulevard, outraged voters passed a ballot measure prohibiting the use of local transportation sales tax revenue on new subways. A reversal would require voter approval.

“We’re not saying we’re going to do it right away,” said board member and L.A. Councilman Ed Reyes, in support of subway expansion. “But we need to start expanding our toolbox … to give people options.”

People “shouldn’t be so afraid” of tunneling through the Mid-Wilshire area, L.A. Mayor James K. Hahn said. “As any engineer will tell you, methane is just an issue with an engineering solution.”

But others decried new subway construction as too expensive and perhaps too problematic. “What you’re really doing is opening Pandora’s box again,” said board member and L.A. County Supervisor Mike Antonovich. “Let the city — if this is their will — do this on their own.”

TRANSIT BOARD LOOKS FOR 3RD WAY; SOME WILLING TO BET HARRISBURG WILL RUSH IN TO STOP A SHUTDOWN

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Pennsylvania)

December 14, 2004

The Port Authority board surprised its own administration yesterday with a proposal to maintain present fares and service levels until the cash-strapped agency goes broke, probably in March, betting that someone in Harrisburg will come to the rescue fast enough to avert a shutdown.

At stake is $30 million that the Port Authority needs for the present fiscal year that’s already 6 months old and an estimated $45 million for the 2005-06 budget year that begins July 1.

The outcome will affect people who account for 225,000 daily rides on buses, trolleys, the Mon Incline and ACCESS paratransit system.

The proposal by some members of the nine-member board came after the authority staff presented a new plan to cut weekday service further in order to retain a modest amount of transit service on weeknights and weekends.

The staff alternative included raising the base fare to $2.50, the same as it proposed in October. But it dropped the prospect of eliminating all service after 9 p.m. weekdays, and all day Saturday, Sunday and holidays. Instead, the authority would offer vastly scaled-back service at those times.

A majority on the board now seems to favor putting the onus on the General Assembly to pass special transit assistance legislation when it returns next month, or on Gov. Ed Rendell to provide stopgap funding.

The board is to vote at its monthly meeting Thursday, a milestone day for mass transit in the state. It’s the same day that the Philadelphia-based Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority is to decide on a base fare increase to $2.50 and eliminating weekend service to solve a larger, $62 million budget shortfall.

Coincidentally, Rendell is sending a delegation, including Transportation Secretary Al Biehler, to Washington, D.C., on Thursday to discuss the possibility of using traditional highway funds for mass transit. “It’s a very big decision,” Port Authority Chief Executive Officer Paul Skoutelas said of Thursday’s board vote, one that could change the future of the 40-year-old agency.

Board member James Dodaro, of White Oak, made the motion to keep the status quo “with the hope and belief that the administration or General Assembly will intervene with stop-gap and/or long-term, dedicated funding.” Member Catherine Armstrong, of North Braddock, seconded Dodaro.

“The rhetoric I’ve heard out of Harrisburg has been positive,” said member Jim Burn, mayor of Millvale.

“I can’t believe [Harrisburg] would abandon us now,” said member Guy Mattola, who chaired yesterday’s joint meeting of the board’s Administration-Finance and Operations Committee.

Authority Finance Director Claudia Allen predicted that continuing to operate and spend at current levels would cause the transit system to experience “a serious cash flow problem by spring, in the March-April time frame.”

If the state fails to come through, key administrators said privately, the authority would, in effect, go bankrupt. All transit service would come to a halt; vehicles and garages would be mothballed.

They also said that the authority would face such further problems as paying unemployment compensation and utilities, providing security to protect equipment and facilities, and maintaining a skeleton staff to handle basic obligations and functions that accompany a shutdown.

It’s a gamble that received the support of some people who testified at November public hearings and continues to be supported by Save Our Transit, an ad hoc group of riders who have been lobbying lawmakers for two years now to solve transit funding once and for all. “If the Port Authority cuts expenses by cutting service, the state will say that we don’t really need the money,” said Jonathan Robison, of Oakland, the group’s co-founder. “The more we cut, the less we’ll get.”

Save Our Transit wants Rendell to exchange unexpected new revenue from a gasoline tax increase that automatically kicks in Jan. 1 for federal highway funds, which could be “flexed” to bail out transit in the same way that the state provided $10 million in last-minute help to the Port Authority last year.

Transit advocates claim Rendell has another option by using savings from a new state purchasing program.

The General Assembly knew of transit funding problems early this year. But it ended its two-year legislative session without raising a cap on sales taxes that support transit and taking action on another bill that would have increased feeds and taxes on car rental, tire sales, emissions stickers and vehicle registration records.

Here are the three scenarios that Port Authority board members face prior to Thursday morning’s meeting:

Scenario 1 — Raise the base fare by 75 cents, to $2.50, and all tickets and passes proportionately. Eliminate 70 of 210 weekday routes, but restructure the routes to be eliminated in order to provide service for affected riders. Eliminate all service after 9 p.m. weekdays and all day Saturday and Sunday and on holidays. Close the Harmar bus garage. Lay off 525 employees.

Scenario 2 — Raise the base fare by 75 cents, to $2.50, and all tickets and passes proportionately. Eliminate 68 weekday bus-rail routes and restructure 92 of them, providing less frequent service (four buses instead of six for morning rush hours, for example). Eliminate 67 of 101 Saturday routes; 52 of 75 Saturday routes; and 77 of 100 routes after 9 p.m. weekdays. Close the Harmar bus garage. Lay off 500 employees.

Scenario 3 — Maintain all current fares and all current service. When funds run out, probably in March, close the doors. Meanwhile, lobby the Legislature and the administration in Harrisburg for stop-gap and/or dedicated funding to prevent such a calamity here, for SEPTA’s five-county service area and at 40 smaller transit systems around the state.

Scenario 2, outlined by Skoutelas for the first time yesterday, would generate $45.6 million in annual savings and reduce annual ridership by 5.4 million. Combined with revenue from a fare increase, the authority could dig itself out of a deep financial hole by June 30, 2006, he predicted.

He said the scenario was drawn up because “long-pursued efforts for long-term, dedicated funding did not materialize” in Harrisburg.

Skoutelas also is not as optimistic about stop-gap funding as most board members appear to be.

“We have not heard anything definitive from the administration, so we have to categorize all that as rhetoric,” he said. “There is some activity but nothing coming that we can see.”

He said the modified plan that saves some off-peak service is designed to preserve a critical core of service at all times for people who use transit as a convenience and for those who have no other means of getting around. “It’s a better proposal [than Scenario 1] albeit still a pretty draconian one,” Skoutelas said. “Service may not be as frequent, it may not be as convenient, but we’ve retained as much service as possible.”

Light rail’s expansion boosts ridership

Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN)

December 14, 2004,

Weekday ridership on the Hiawatha light-rail line jumped dramatically to 19,900 rides in the first week after the line was extended into Bloomington, Metro Transit officials said Monday.

The counts, which do not include free rides given the first weekend, might reflect opening-week enthusiasm, but transit officials said they believe the completed line is attracting new riders. “We are very encouraged by the numbers,” said Brian Lamb, general manager of Metro Transit. “We are introducing service to a brand-new customer base.”

The last segment of the 12-mile line opened Dec. 4, adding stops at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, the Mall of America and two other Bloomington locations. The first segment of the $715 million Hiawatha line was opened in June.

Weekday ridership in the first week of December was up 50 percent over weekday ridership in November, although last month’s count was affected by Thanksgiving, a day with few riders, officials said. Weekday figures are averaged over the week, based on a sampling of 25 percent of train trips.

Lamb said ridership during rush hours, when trains run every 7 1/2 minutes, has steadily increased, a sign that commuters are turning to light rail. In November, 57,400 riders rode during rush hour, a 34 percent rise over July, officials said.

In Bloomington, a new 600-space park-and-ride lot at the 28th Avenue station was 70 to 80 percent filled during the first week of December, Lamb added.

Weekend ridership also has been strong, especially for events downtown, such as the Holidazzle parade. Transit officials said they still are analyzing rider counts to assess how many people are heading to the mall and the airport.

The trains carried 19,000 riders on Sunday, many of them before and after the Minnesota Vikings game. Even with all of Metro Transit’s 21 train cars running, the last fans to walk out of the Metrodome after the game had to wait 55 minutes to board a train, officials said.

Light rail riders

The average weekday ridership jumped in the first week that service was extended into Bloomington.

Average weekday ridership in thousands

July 2004: 16,000

Nov. 2004#

Dec. 2004#: 19,900

(See microfilm for complete chart.)

# First week of extended rail service

## Lower November count affected by Thanksgiving holiday

Source: Metro Transit

Magnetek Receives Contract For New Subway Cars in Milano

FinancialWire

December 14, 2004

Magnetek, Inc. said it has received a contract from Firema Trasporti S.p.A., a leading Italian railcar manufacturer, to develop auxiliary power units (APUs) for new subway cars for the Milano Transit Authority in Milano, Italy. Upon completion of the development contract and delivery of the “first article” prototype next Spring, the Company has been assured of an initial production order for 170 APUs valued at approximately of $5 million.

This contract marks the beginning of a multi-year expansion and modernization of Milano’s subway fleet, which currently numbers approximately 600 cars. Each group of three subway cars requires two APUs. Magnetek’s APUs convert high-voltage power from the subway “third rail” into low-voltage power needed for on-board car services such as air conditioning, lighting, door operation and battery charging.

Delivering 60 kilowatts of power each, the APUs represent a new Magnetek product platform that can be applied in additional subway and light rail applications anywhere in the world. Advanced features of the APUs include very high power conversion efficiency, natural convection cooling, and NEMA 4X protection for maximum reliability in a lightweight, compact enclosure.

In August, Magnetek received another $6.6 million order from Firema Trasporti S.p.A. for 220 power conversion systems to retrofit railcars operated by Trenitalia, Italy’s leading passenger train operator. The company said equipping and retrofitting electrically operated rail and subway cars with reliable, compact, lightweight power conditioners and APUs can reduce transportation costs and increase passenger safety and comfort substantially.

Magnetek management estimates that the electric surface/subway car market for advanced power conditioners and APUs exceeds 5,000 cars in Europe and may exceed 10,000 cars worldwide.

Council, bus operator at odds over fare increase

Cleveland Plain Dealer

12/15/2004 [2004/12/15]

CINCINNATI (AP) — Operators of the city’s bus service say Sunday routes may have to be discontinued unless the City Council relents and allows a fare increase.

Increases are subject to approval by the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority board, which operates the Metro bus system, and the City Council. Revenue from Cincinnati’s earnings tax funds half of Metro’s $73.5 million budget.

SORTA told City Council it faces a $2.6 million shortfall next year, but the City Council rejected a fare increase request last week. That prompted SORTA officials to threaten cutbacks at Tuesday’s board meeting.

“SORTA has few options to balance the 2005 budget other than fare increases or service reductions,” said Michael Setzer, Metro’s general manager. “There are not enough additional internal cost cuts to even come close to bridging the gap.”

Metro wants to standardize bus fares within Cincinnati at $1, compared with 65 cents now for off-peak hours and 85 cents at rush hour. Service to Cincinnati suburbs within Hamilton County would rise from 65 cents to $1.50 and in neighboring Clermont County from 65 cents to $2.

Eliminating Sunday service would save about $2.5 million, Setzer said. About 19,000 people ride the bus each Sunday, compared with 90,000 riders on a busy weekday. Setzer said Sunday riders are less likely to need the service to get to work.

If the impasse is not resolved, Sunday service could be discontinued March 6, Metro said. Service for special events — such as Riverfest, OOktoberfest, the Black Family Reunion and Bengals games — also wouldd be eliminated.

John Cranley, chairman of City Council’s Finance Committee, called the threat “outrageous” and said he would ask council members to revoke Metro’s city funding if it raises fares or cuts routes. “We will be budgeting by blunt instrument,” Cranley told the transit board.

Setzer said the elimination of Sunday routes would be a last resort, “the least awful of the awful alternatives.” Rising fuel and health-care costs, combined with a slow decline in ridership, make drastic changes necessary, he said.

Service changes, unlike fare increases, do not require the approval of City Council under SORTA’s 30-year-old contract to provide bus service. SORTA would have to hold a public hearing, which it scheduled for Jan. 6.

STATE IS ACCUSED OF BREAKING PROMISES

The Boston Globe

December 15, 2004

Angry residents from Somerville and Jamaica Plain packed a State House hearing yesterday, vowing to sue if state officials back away from plans for light rail lines in their neighborhoods, promised 15 years ago as a condition for building the Big Dig.

“A deal is a deal,” said Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone, comparing the state’s move to Red Sox pitcher Pedro Martinez’s joining the New York Mets. “But here’s the difference. Pedro made a verbal commitment to stay in Boston. The state signed on the dotted line.”

He was referring to the 1990 agreement, signed by state officials, promising to expand and modernize the Boston area’s transit system, as work was getting started on the Big Dig. Now state officials are reconsidering three promised projects: the extension of the Green Line through Somerville, the restoration of trolley service through Jamaica Plain, and a Red Line-Blue Line connector in downtown Boston.

State officials, including transportation secretary Daniel A. Grabauskas, called the hearing to establish a process for dumping the projects, which together would cost about $700 million.

About 300 people filed into the State House auditorium, cheering wildly as elected officials and others accused Governor Mitt Romney’s administration of reneging on legally binding commitments. They brandished bright-yellow signs reading, “Accept No Substitutes” and “Give Us Justice.”

Advocates for the Green Line extension from Lechmere to West Medford, which would cost roughly $400 million, were joined by Jamaica Plain residents seeking the proposed $100 million restoration of trolley service on the Green Line’s E branch, discontinued in the mid-1980s.

The other promised project the $193 million extension of the Blue Line from Bowdoin station under Cambridge Street to the Charles/MGH stop on the Red Line did not receive vocal support. State transportation planners have noted that the new Silver Line service, scheduled to open Friday, will provide good access from the Red Line to Logan Airport, a major goal for the Red-Blue connector.

And some elected officials touted the extension of the Blue Line from Revere to Lynn, which is not part of the package of Big Dig-related promises, as a more worthy project than the Somerville or Jamaica Plain projects.

But Bill White, a Somerville alderman, warned that the state would face a lawsuit should the Green Line not be built, for failing to provide “environmental justice” to a crowded city suffering from air pollution from vehicles.

White noted that in contrast, the Romney administration pushed ahead with the $479 million Greenbush commuter rail project through South Shore suburbs. “You’re going to have to explain that to a federal judge,” he said.

There are two legal fronts in the dispute. The Conservation Law Foundation is planning to file suit in January, accusing the state of reneging on the 1990 agreement, which was affirmed by a court order calling for action on the projects in 2000. Another tactic is to link the foot-dragging on transit projects to the state’s failure to meet air quality standards in the Clean Air Act.

State Senator Jarrett T. Barrios, a Cambridge Democrat, said the administration is vulnerable in both areas.

Technically, before state officials can withdraw a promised transit project, they must show that it can’t be built because of engineering, economics, or environmental impact, Barrios said. That is not the case with any of the three projects, although MBTA officials say it will be impossible to run trolleys down Centre Street in Jamaica Plain.

Barrios also said he is puzzled that the Romney administration would seek to slip out of the commitments because the projects match its goals for smart growth and transit-linked development.

Romney has said that he is a big proponent of transit and urban redevelopment, but that the state cannot afford to undertake massive expansion projects all at once.

More Than $300 Million Could Be Siphoned Off in Next Fiscal Year; LA County Fights to Block Another State Raid on Funds Earmarked for Traffic Relief

PR Newswire US

December 15, 2004

Business leaders, transportation providers, and elected officials today urged Sacramento to stop using transportation funds to balance the state budget, warning that Los Angeles County could lose more than $300 million in state gas tax monies earmarked for critical traffic-relieving street, highway and public transportation projects in the next fiscal year.

“It’s penny-wise and pound-foolish to raid these dedicated transportation dollars,” said Rusty Hammer, President & CEO of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. “Californians voted overwhelmingly for Prop. 42, specifically to fund projects that will ease congestion. Mobility is the linchpin of the California economy; if people and goods can’t move, the economy suffers.”

Metro CEO Roger Snoble noted that in the last three years, Sacramento has siphoned off $5.5 billion in transportation funding statewide from mobility projects, which includes more than $1.35 billion earmarked for Los Angeles County. These include Prop. 42 gas taxes and other transportation funds.

Prop. 42 won approval by 69 percent of California voters in March 2002. It requires state sales taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel be used only for transportation programs. However, in a fiscal emergency the Governor and the Legislature can suspend Prop. 42. Under this loophole, more than $2 billion in Prop. 42 monies have been redirected to the state’s General Fund since 2003, the year it took effect.

“It would be typical of Sacramento politicians to raid Proposition 42 funds once again to balance their budget on the backs of local cities,” said Mayor Jim Hahn. “But the residents of Los Angeles County have had enough, and we urge the Governor and Legislature not to go that route. That money belongs to the people and should be used to fund projects that will ease traffic congestion.”

“The more than $300 million earmarked for LA County next year could be leveraged with other funds to get an early start on more than $5 billion in highway, bus and rail projects that would make a serious dent in traffic in this region and also generate an estimated 70,00 full-time equivalent jobs,” said Dan Beal, Managing Director, Public Policy, at the Automobile Club of Southern California.

Conversely, there are many local transportation projects that could be kept on hold indefinitely if Prop. 42 funds are diverted next year. Among these are construction of a I-405 northbound carpool lane from I-10 to US-101, a Crenshaw Corridor transit way and an extension of the planned Exposition Light Rail Line to Santa Monica.

Metro has been scrambling to push forward transportation improvements but its resources are constrained. Metro already has agreed, if necessary, to advance the state $1 billion in local funds to move forward with construction of the Metro Gold Line extension to East Los Angeles, the Metro Orange Line in the San Fernando Valley, the Exposition Light Rail Line, Alameda Corridor East grade separations, various street and highway projects, and the purchase of hundreds of high-capacity buses.

“We can’t afford to sit idly by as LA County grapples with the nation’s worst traffic congestion, now for 18 years running,” said Hammer, LA Area Chamber President & CEO. The Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) recently reported that the average commuter here wastes 93 hours a year stuck in traffic at a cost of $1,668 each. While retaining the dubious distinction of having the nation’s worst traffic, Los Angeles was able to prevent traffic from getting worse last year by pushing forward with an array of transportation improvements, according to the TTI report.

“We can actually reduce congestion if we can proceed with our improvements but that hinges on whether or not the state siphons off Prop. 42 funds again,” Metro CEO Snoble said.

About Mobility 21

Led by the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro), in partnership with the Automobile Club of Southern California, Mobility 21 is a countywide effort to bring together elected officials, transportation providers, businesses, local municipalities, labor and community leaders to develop solutions to the transportation issues facing Los Angeles County.

N.Y. MTA Entered Into $ 1.5B in Swaps This Year

The Bond Buyer

December 15, 2004

New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority has entered into $ 1.5 billion of forward interest rate swaps this year with the expectation that it will terminate the deals when it sells the bonds next year.

The MTA said yesterday it “entered into three forward-starting interest rate swaps to hedge future new money bond issues by locking in low long-term rates. The budgeted long-term fixed-rate cost being hedged against was 5.51%.”

The disclosure was made as part of the year-end review presented to the MTA board’s finance committee. Finance director Patrick McCoy later said the authority entered into the swaps with the expectation that, when the time comes to sell the bonds, the swaps will be terminated.

“The intention is to capture the market environment,” at the time the forward swaps are priced, McCoy said. The swaps are done within the “context of the [MTA’s] debt service model.”

The authority will benefit if interest rates go up between the time the forward swap was priced and the time of the long-term bond sale. However, if interest rates go down, the cost of the new bonds will be higher than a conventional issue because the MTA will have to raise money at the time of the bond sale to pay for the swap termination.

McCoy said the authority has entered into forward swap agreements before with the intention of terminating the swap at the time of the bond sale. The MTA plans to sell $ 2.5 billion of bonds next year for ongoing capital projects.

The agency’s debt management policies are significant because the authority is under increased political pressure to cut costs and avoid future fare and toll hikes and service cuts. The MTA’s board is meeting tomorrow and is expected to approve proposed hike fares and tolls for next year. The authority has said it expects to seek another hike in 2007.

Fitch Ratings analyst Scott Trommer said the swaps do not appear to pose an undue risk. “In the end they are using it as an interest rate management strategy,” he said. “Since the MTA is a frequent borrower, they use a combination of fixed-rate and variable and synthetic.”

According to the year-end review presented yesterday to the finance committee, the authority this year has sold $ 370 million of long-term fixed-rate bonds, $ 750 million of auction-rate, $ 780 million of variable rate demand notes, $ 300 million of commercial paper, and done a $ 357 million swap on certificates of participation.

The authority has outstanding $ 12 billion of fixed-rate bonds in all, $ 3.8 billion of variable-rate, and $ 2.2 billion of synthetic fixed-rate debt.

In March, it negotiated a floating-to-fixed rate swap on $ 500 million of bonds with Merrill Lynch & Co., securing a synthetic fixed-rate of 3.4%. In September, it invited the eight broker-dealers from the MTA senior underwriting syndicate to competitively bid on two $ 500 million swaps.

It awarded the first swap to UBS AG, and First Albany Capital Inc. at a synthetic rate of 3.5% and the second to Lehman Brothers and First Albany at a rate of 3.5%. AIG Financial Products Corp. bid with First Albany on both deals. All three deals were based on the authority receiving a variable of 67% of one-month Libor. Goldman, Sachs & Co. was swap adviser.

$20 million committed for streetcars Money to be given in $5 million increments with yearly approval

Birmingham News (Alabama)

December 15, 2004

The Jefferson County Commission committed $20 million for streetcars and transit Tuesday, but decided to dole the money out in $5 million increments that must be ratified annually.

The 4-1 vote put the brakes on earlier discussions that the county might start on its own to get a streetcars system operating by 2007. But it showed that the county is willing to provide money and work with other interested governments on enhanced transit options for the county, said

Commissioner Gary White, who suggested the incremental funding approach. ‘’We wanted to get this issue off dead center and move it forward,’’ White said. ‘’We can’t do this by ourselves. We’re going to have to have the other players.’’

The county will have two studies done by consultants in 2005 on reviving the streetcar system that ran throughout downtown Birmingham and out to the suburbs, commissioners said.

Jordan Jones & Goulding has been studying the feasibility of streetcars and funding options for several months. Its $215,000 contract expires in April, but a renewal is likely, Commissioner Shelia Smoot said.

Burk Kleinpeter is expected to be hired in January to conduct a $100,000 environmental impact study on streetcars.

Commission President Larry Langford earlier had proposed creating a railroad authority to run the streetcars, but the item was removed from Tuesday’s agenda after a commission majority said last week they would not support it.

Research into the state law allowing a railroad authority showed that it would not do what the county wanted - provide an agency to draw federal money without involving the Birmingham Jefferson County Transit Authority. The authority’s board is mired in an internal battle over whether to fire its 17th executive director in 32 years.

Commissioners said they also will push the Legislature to drop an amendment to the regional transit authority bill, which requires funding to qualify for federal transit money to be in place before the 14-member authority can be formed.

A meeting of county and Birmingham leaders, as well as other potential transit funding partners is scheduled for today.

Collins criticized

Commissioner Bettye Fine Collins voted against the transit money. She linked her opposition on streetcars and another commmission funding vote to the commission’s decision not to follow through on its pledge earlier this year to spend $5 million on school needs.

Several commissioners said they believed a subsequent commitment to provide $1 billion in capital funding for schools eliminated the need for the $5 million grant program.

The other four commissioners rebuked Collins for several comments she made Tuesday. Langford accused Collins of championing the school grant for her own political enrichment after voting down a sales tax increase to pay for $1 billion in school construction.

Langford also brought up a 1998 economic-deveolpment trip to China that Collins made. He said it was not authorized by the commission and her expenses were hidden in a departmental budget.

After the meeting, Collins said the trip was authorized by the commission. She accused Langford of bringing it up to tntimidate her so she’ll stop criticizing county spending under Langford’s leadership. “He can keep hurling accusations at me,” she said. “But that doesn’t hid the fact we’re on a rapid rail to financial difficulty.”

$1b JOLT; Rail costs boost state blowout; Rail cost blow-out causes $1b jolt

Herald Sun (Melbourne, Australia)

December 15, 2004

THE combined blowout on Bracks Government major projects is soaring towards $1 billion after a jump in the cost of the regional fast rail project.

The State Government yesterday revealed spending on the election-winning project had risen $133 million. Upgrading the four lines to regional centres will now cost $750 million — $670 million over budget.

The admission coincides with a Herald Sun investigation that found 16 of 18 government projects were either late, over budget or both. Almost half the projects suffered cost blowouts and the Government will take at least six years to deliver the fast rail.

It also faces criticism over the slowness of projects such as the Eastern Freeway tunnels and the Sandridge Bridge.

Shadow major projects spokeswoman Louise Asher criticised the Government’s performance. “Everything’s late or suffering from increased costs,” Ms Asher said.

But Major Projects Minister Peter Batchelor said Labor had tackled tough projects and doubled the previous Kennett government’s spending on infrastructure. “We’re prepared to tackle projects that the previous government were not prepared to tackle because they were too hard,” Mr Batchelor said.

The Herald Sun investigation also found:

THE combined major projects blowout would double to $2 billion if design changes to the Mitcham-Frankston Freeway and Spencer St station projects were included.

THE $146 million Showgrounds revamp will not be finished until 16 months after the first target date detailed by the Government.

PRESSURE is growing for further major projects to fill a forecast downturn in construction after the Commonwealth Games.

A SIX-YEAR delay is likely between the launch of plans for a toxic waste dump and the project being built.

THE $670 million fast rail blowout bill excludes the $530 million worth of rolling stock, making it a $1.28 billion project.

Mr Batchelor said the extra $133 million for the fast rail project was required to install a train-stopping safety system. “In the wake of the recent Tilt Train crash in Queensland and the Waterfall crash in NSW, fitting a comprehensive train safety system to Victoria’s main regional lines is the right thing to do,” he said.

The decision will delay the start of fast train services on the Ballarat, Bendigo, Geelong and Latrobe Valley lines for six months until mid-2006. “We’re getting a safer rail system and it’s worth the money,” Mr Batchelor said.

The Herald Sun investigation is based on scores of documents from Government statements and Auditor-General and media reports. The probe only covers projects initiated by the Bracks Government projects or, in the case of the National Gallery of Victoria, when construction started after the Kennett government was ousted in 1999. This means that huge over-runs in projects including Federation Square — finished under Labor’s watch — are not included in the audit.

Ms Asher said Mr Batchelor had failed to manage major projects on a broader scale. “He’s got way too much on his plate,” she said. “The minister has taken his eyes off the ball because he’s too busy looking at the TV cameras.”

The fast rail project was originally expected to cost the state $80 million with the rest to come from the private sector. But there was limited private interest, which led to the large injection of government funds.

The Government, combined with the private sector through public-private partnerships, will spend an extra $10 billion over the next four years on infrastructure, which includes hospitals and schools.

City ‘erred’ in scrapping trams

Melbourne Herald Sun

15 Dec. 2004

SCRAPPING trams in Sydney was a big mistake that had left the city with “traffic sewers”, an urban transport expert said today.

Trams would make Australia’s biggest city more livable, dignified and green by reducing traffic, cutting pollution and increasing public spaces, Associate Professor Jeff Kenworthy of the Institute for Sustainability and Technology Policy at Perth’s Murdoch University said.

He was addressing a light rail forum hosted by Sydney City Council. “I think all cities around the world, not just Sydney, have realized they made strategic mistakes in removing the trams,” he said. “The car came along at a critical juncture, people said why would we bother to revitalise and invest all that money in an upgraded system when everyone could see people are going to be using cars?

“When you look at Melbourne, the corridors along which the trams operate are far more attractive, liveable corridors than what you’ve got in Sydney - which are these very large traffic sewers, essentially.”

Sydney used to rely on a huge tram network, which began with horse-drawn carriages in 1861, upgraded to steam in 1879, reached Manly and Parramatta and covered 290km at its peak in 1933. The last line closed in 1961 because the car became popular and the poorly-maintained trams, which had been heavily relied upon during World War II, were seen as flea-ridden, rickety and unreliable.

Dr Kenworthy told the forum Australians were now too car-dependent and all the nation’s cities needed a better transit and pedestrian system because roads and motorways were slowly eroding public space.

Light rail, in the form of modern trams found in more than 100 cities, reduced the number of cars and buses in the city, offered a reliable service with clear routes, and prioritised pedestrians and cyclists. It also increased property values, encouraged economic activity in the CBD and had been known to increase public transport use by up to 86 per cent, Dr Kenworthy said.

The cost was not prohibitive, he said. “Roads are considered an unassailable public good and always get funding in terms of grants … public transport is like a naughty child that needs to justify itself to the nth degree,” he said. But Sydney was ahead of most Australian cities because it had a heavy rail system, even though it had shortcomings.

Streetcars will get a look in $613,000 study; The Miami City Commission has OK’d a study that will look at putting streetcars through a large Wynwood development.

Miami Herald

Dec. 16, 2004

Streetcars are one step closer to appearing in Wynwood.

The Miami City Commission has approved a study that will examine putting old-fashioned streetcars through the Midtown Miami development in Wynwood.

The $613,000 study, part of a larger plan to run streetcars through Northeast Miami, passed unanimously and with little discussion on Dec. 9.

Miami Mayor Manny Diaz said although the streetcar concept — and stops at Midtown — are still in the planning stages, it made sense to use the Wynwood project as a ‘’major hub’’ along the route, given its large-scale mix of retail shops and residences. ‘’It’s an integral part of that rail system,’’ Diaz said.

Although the city has yet to approve the wider plan, administrators said it was important to begin incorporating ideas for the streetcar stops and tracks into Midtown Miami, the 56-acre residential and commercial development in Wynwood.

Construction there already has begun. ‘The worst thing we could do is build all this stuff and then say, `OK, we’re going to do a streetcar, and oh, we have to bust up 10 city blocks to do it,’ ‘’ City Manager Joe Arriola said at after last week’s commission meeting.

The study will look at how at least one station and a two-track route, estimated at a length of 3,000 feet, would be integrated into Midtown Miami. It will examine everything from electric wiring for street lamps to soil condition at the site.

The development is expected to be a catalyst for change in Wynwood, a blue-collar neighborhood that has seen major improvements in recent years, including many new art galleries.

The development features thousands of residential units and big-box retail stores at the old Buena Vista rail yard between Northeast 29th and 36th streets. ‘’It’s a way for people coming from Midtown Miami going downtown to travel around in ease and comfort,’’ said Michael Samuel, one of the project’s principal developers. ``We’ve very excited about it and think it’s a great idea for Midtown Miami.’’

Merry Monorail, Mr. Potter!

Las Vegas Mercury

December 16, 2004

Las Vegas Monorail executives are crossing their fingers that their occasionally operative train might be up and running again by Christmas…or New Year’s…or Memorial Day. A decision on whether the monorail is safe enough to reopen will eventually be made by Clark County officials. County inspectors, county safety experts and county supervisors have spent weeks checking the monorail to try to figure out how it developed the nasty habit of raining metal parts down onto the street.

Funny, isn’t it, that county employees have the responsibility for making sure the monorail is safe, even though the monorail secretly finagled an exemption from county taxes? The next time monorail bosses tell you again how the train didn’t cost the public anything, ask them if all of this work being performed by county employees is also free.

By the way, a book of monorail passes would make a dandy stocking stuffer this Christmas. But make sure there isn’t an expiration date on the passes.

Red monorail train resumes service today

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER

Thursday, December 16, 2004

One of the Seattle Center Monorail trains will return to service Thursday afternoon, after a ceremony featuring Mayor Greg Nickels and a Santa Claus as a “special guest.”

It could be the beginning of the Red Train’s last run before it is replaced by a new system.

An opening ceremony was scheduled for 1:30 p.m. at the Seattle Center Monorail station. Service on the Red Train, which was sideline for safety upgrades after a Memorial Day fire damaged and sidelined its twin, the Blue Train. “It’s great to have the monorail back in service during the holiday season because it takes us right to the heart of holiday celebrations downtown and at Seattle Center,” Nickels said.

The Blue Train’s fire was caused by a chain of events triggered by a broken driveshaft. It will remain out of service until next spring while repairs and upgrades are completed as part of a $2.5-million upgrade of both trains.,

Until then the Red Train will run limited hours: Monday-Thursday, 11 a.m. - 7 p.m; Friday, 11 a.m. - 9 p.m; Saturday, 9 a.m. - 9 p.m. and Sunday, 9 a.m. -