The Sound Transit Board’s
Capital Committee reached consensus on a recommendation to the full Sound
Transit Board to modify the East Link preferred alternative alignment. East
Link is the 14-mile light rail extension between East King County and Seattle.
Stations are planned for Rainier Avenue in Seattle, Mercer Island, Bellevue and
Overlake in Redmond with service starting in 2020/2021.
A
bond issue, which must be approved by voters, isn’t the best way to keep a
railroad in business, according to an editorial in the Bangor Daily News. But
given that the railroad owners have threatened to abandon the northern Maine line and that
lawmakers are set to end their annual session, agreeing on a bond package that
includes funds for the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway is the best
readily available way to preserve the transportation link.
Teamsters Canada Rail
Conference – Maintenance of Way Employees Division (TCRC-MWED) and Canadian
Pacific reached a tentative three-year contract. The Memorandum of Settlement
will be sent to the union membership for ratification.
The city of Spokane Valley,
Wash., is using state grant money to protect a handful of drivers from their
own impatience, The Spokesman-Review reports. Too many drivers have been
weaving around railroad crossing arms after they’ve been lowered at Park Road
just south of Trent Avenue. The result is a dangerous situation for them and
for train crews.
Sonoma-Marin Area Rail
Transit (SMART) is an overwhelmingly popular rail initiative in Northern
California, according to an article in The American Surveyor. Measure Q had an
amazing 70-percent support of the two-county (Sonoma-Marin) SMART District.
It wasn’t a good day for
Caine Hlavaty, who was ticketed for trying to beat the crossing gates — and an
oncoming train — while riding his bike across the tracks in Elmhurst, the Chicago
Tribune reports. Now he was complaining he had missed his bus for work.
A wall
collapsed around 1 p.m. Saturday at the Lee Road Station on the Blue Line of
the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority. The track was not damaged,
but pedestrians cannot board there. The station was shut down immediately, and
the Blue Line ceased operation. On Saturday and Sunday, RTA operated shuttle
buses on the Blue Line, from Shaker Square to the end of the line at the
Warrensville-Van Aken Station.
Work to reconstruct the
pavement and track at the Villa Terrace crossing in San Mateo will begin April
16. The crossing will be closed from 8:00 a.m. Friday, April 16, until 6:00
a.m. Tuesday, April 20.
The Section of
Environmental Analysis at the Surface Transportation Board issued a draft
environmental assessment on the proposed abandonment of 233 miles of rail line
in the northern Maine counties of Aroostook and Penobscot. The draft review
found that the abandonment of this line could divert onto Maine’s highways as
many as an additional 73,344 truck trips per year, consuming an additional 3.3
million gallons of fuel per year.
A
two-stage borate treatment has been used for years to help increase the life of
a crosstie. Stella-Jones recently developed a new single-stage treatment process
that allows for less handling of the crossties and reduced costs.
The formidable Cooper
Tunnel on the Norfolk Southern main line in Mercer County, W. Va., is now open
for larger loads, opening another key impediment to the railway’s ambitious
Heartland Corridor project, the Bluefield Daily Telegraph reports.
The Orange County, Calif.,
Transportation Authority has received $357 million from the state for freeway
and rail projects, the Orange County Local News Network reported. The
California Transportation Commission sold bonds last month to free up the money
for OCTA.
A deal is imminent for a
$90-million rail and trucking facility at Charlotte/Douglas International
Airport that could bring the region $7 billion in business over the next two
decades, the Charlotte Business Journal reports.
The federal government
could be the last to invest in plans to save 241 miles of northern Maine rail
lines, but it won’t be the first, the Bangor Daily News reports. Joseph C.
Szabo, administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration, told representatives
of 22 northern Maine manufacturers during a meeting April 8 that they must form
a public-private partnership with the state and contribute money or other aid
to acquire federal funding to save the rail lines.
A new parking garage on
the Metro Gold Line Eastside Extension at the Atlantic station will open to the
public Friday, April 16, with a total of 266 free parking spaces for Metro
patrons that use the light rail line to commute.
Faced with a $30-million
budget deficit in the coming fiscal year that is reflective of a long-term
unsustainable economic model, Caltrain is urging the California High-Speed Rail
Authority to retain the current route between the Central Valley and San
Francisco and preserve the opportunity for Caltrain to access funding for
improvements that will help secure the operating and financial future of the
Peninsula commuter rail service. The high-speed rail authority is soliciting
public comment on the Revised Draft Program Environmental Impact Report.
An 11th-hour
clarification in when federal officials need an approved agreement on the
Colton , Calif., Crossing railroad overpass has given local and train industry
officials four more weeks to work out the details, The Press-Enterprise
reports.
In January, President Obama
presented Florida with $1.25 billion in high-speed rail stimulus money for the
Orlando to Tampa bullet train. It was about half of the $2.5 billion needed to
get the project up and running, but that isn’t slowing down the state
Department of Transportation and its Florida Rail Enterprise, The Lakeland, Fla.,
Ledger reports.
Canadian National Railway
is trying to scale back its contribution to the most expensive of the 182
projects it’s required to do as part of the 2008 EJ&E takeover, the Daily
Herald reports. CN filed a brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals saying it
should not have to pay 67 percent of a $40.4 million overpass or underpass at
the Ogden Avenue crossing in Aurora, Ill., or 78.5 percent of a $52.5-million
overpass or underpass on Lincoln Highway in Lynwood, Ill., as ordered by the
Surface Transportation Board.
With transportation funds
running short at every level, regional planners for the North Central Texas
Council of Governments are seeking permission to lead an unusual partnership
with private investors so they can fast-track a 62-mile rail line known as the
Cotton Belt corridor, The Dallas Morning News reports.
