(The following editorial
appeared in the Newark, N.J.,
Star-Ledger Sept. 16, 2010.) If
Gov. Chris Christie abandons the Hudson rail tunnel project, it will make his administration’s
$400-million blunder over Race to the Top seem like only a warm-up exercise.
The federal government has already agreed to devote $3 billion to the project,
the largest dedication of federal support for mass transit ever.
Chicago-area Regional
Transportation Authority officials predicted that there will be no major
expansion of the Chicago area’s transit system for many years and that fare
increases are likely as early as next year just to keep the existing system
operating, the Chicago Tribune reports.
The Illinois
Commerce Commission’s Railroad Safety Section has issued a Request for Grant
Proposals for local railroad safety education and enforcement programs. The ICC
recently received a grant from the Federal Railroad Administration to continue
working with local communities and railroads in Illinois to implement railroad
safety education or enforcement programs.
Sound Transit contractors in the Seattle area
will adjust light rail track switches on Martin Luther King Jr. Way South the
weekend of Sept. 1 8-19. Link trains will be delayed from 5 a.m. to 9:30 a.m.
Saturday and Sunday because of the work.
In as little as seven
years, passenger service could return to the Florida East Coast Railway for the
first time since 1968. But it’s going to take a mountain of cash and political
will to make it happen, the Sun-Sentinel reports.
September 17-19,
Washington, D.C., Metro will upgrade its platforms and replace a track switch
on the Red, Yellow and Green lines to improve long-term reliability and
service. As a result of this crucial work, which is critical to maintain the
railroad in a state of good repair, riders can expect delays of up to 30
minutes.
In anticipation of a
hearing on federal rail policy, Senator John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), Chairman
of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, released
a Committee staff report, The Current Financial State of the Class 1 Freight
Rail Industry, showing that the largest American freight railroad companies
have been earning record profit margins at the expense of their shipper
customers. The findings of the report suggest that the Staggers Rail Act of
1980, a 30-year-old law giving railroads the authority to charge many U.S.
businesses extraordinarily high shipping rates, needs to be reformed.
The new parking
garage at Tri-Rail’s Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport Station at
Dania Beach, Fla., is scheduled to open for use by Tri-Rail passengers on
September 21, 2010. The first covered garage on the corridor, the new facility
offers 402 parking spaces, considerably more than the 180 spaces that were
previously available at the station.
Axion International said
one of the largest railroads in North America has placed the first purchase
order under a letter of intent for the ongoing purchase of Recycled Structural
Composite (RSC) railroad ties.
Caltrain Executive Director
Mike Scanlon has called on the California High-Speed Rail Authority to refocus
the project’s environmental impact report on design and construction of an
initial phase that could deliver the benefits of high-speed rail to the
Peninsula and Caltrain while significantly minimizing or eliminating any
adverse impacts on adjacent communities.
Jacobs Engineering Group
Inc. said that it received a contract from the Highways Department of the
Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to provide
engineering services for the construction, testing and commissioning phase of
the Hong Kong section of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link
(XRL).
Canadian Pacific Railway
has been notified by the Canadian Signals and Communications System Council No.
11 of the I.B.E.W that the Memorandum of Settlement reached in July 2010 by
Canadian Pacific and the IBEW has now been ratified by the membership.
It’s a done deal. Virginia
Beach, Va., will soon own the old rail line long coveted by some leaders as the
ideal spot for a future light-rail project,
The Virginian-Pilot reports. The
City Council on Sept. 14 voted unanimously to spend $40 million to buy a
10.6-mile corridor from railroad giant Norfolk Southern.
In response to questions
Amtrak has received regarding suspension of New Jersey Transit’s Access to the
Region’s Core (ARC) Tunnel Project, the following statement was issued today:
CSX Transportation is
putting in place new energy efficiency initiatives as part of its participation
in the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) Climate Corps, an innovative program in
which MBA student "fellows" work with leading companies to improve
energy efficiency.
The Greater Cleveland
Regional Transit Authority is planning five weekends of Blue/Green line
closures to perform needed updates to the light rail train system. Replacement
buses will pick up and drop off riders at every station on both the Blue and
Green Lines on each of these weekends.
Bentley Systems,
Incorporated, said that the call for submissions for its 2011 Student Design
Competition is now open. University, college, community college, technical
school and high school students are invited to submit projects designed using
Bentley software, along with a short essay describing their work.
URS Corporation has
completed its acquisition of Scott Wilson Group plc, a London-based
infrastructure engineering and construction company. The addition of Scott Wilson expands URS’
international presence by adding a network of 80 offices around the world,
including offices in key regional centers such as London, Hong Kong, New Delhi,
Warsaw and Dubai, and more than 5,500 employees.
Officials broke ground on
the $53.5-million parking structure at the MBTA Wonderland Blue Line Station in
Revere, Mass. The project received $22.7 million in American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act dollars earlier this year from the U.S. Department of
Transportation’s Federal Transit Administration.
The Santa Clara Valley
Transportation Authority (VTA) said that a bid solicitation has been issued to
construct a pedestrian overcrossing alongside the south side of Blossom Hill
Road where it crosses Monterey Highway and Union Pacific tracks in south San
Jose, Calif.