City officials hear a lot
of complaints from residents who hear too much noise from train horns, the Longmont
Times-Call reports. In fact,
Longmont City Councilwoman Sarah Levison calls it "Sleepless in Ward 2." But
the only way the city could put a hush on train horns through Longmont is by
developing "quiet zones" at the 17 BNSF crossings in the city – a project that
city officials have never fully studied.
The next phase of DART Rail
will be the return of rail service to Deep Ellum, Baylor, Fair Park and South
Dallas after an absence of more than 50 years and will bring new opportunities
for development and offer new destinations to thousands of new passengers when
the first four stations of the 20-station, 28-mile Dallas Area Rapid Transit
(DART) Green Line open on September 14.
U.S. Transportation
Secretary Ray LaHood said that the Federal Transit Administration achieved a crucial
milestone: it beat the September 1 deadline to provide all states and local
communities 50 percent of their Recovery Act transit formula dollars. In fact,
FTA provided nearly 90 percent of its $7.5-billion transit stimulus money to
states and local communities. FTA is managing an additional $900 million in
discretionary funds for New Starts projects, the Greenhouse Gas and Energy
Reduction and Tribal Transit programs and oversight for a total of $8.4
billion.
The collapse of the Union
Pacific railroad bridge in downtown Waterloo, Iowa, during last year’s historic
flood has cost the Iowa Northern Railway, the primary user of the span,
millions of dollars. Farmers, grain cooperatives and ag manufacturers have also
suffered economic and efficiency losses due to costly detours, according to the
Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier.
Before highways, there were
railroads – Houston’s first circulatory system. Civic boosters bragged in the
1920s that Houston was the place "where 17 railroads meet the sea." The trains
hauled cotton and grain. Downtown had three passenger stations, the Houston Chronicle
reports.
Northstar, the state’s
first commuter rail service, will offer five morning trips from Big Lake,
Minn., to downtown Minneapolis and five return trips in the afternoon along a
40-mile corridor, with stops at Fridley, Coon Rapids, Anoka, Elk River and Big
Lake. One reverse commute roundtrip also will be offered on weekdays, and three
weekend roundtrips are planned on Saturdays and Sundays.
The leader of the effort to
build the proposed DesertXpress high-speed train between Las Vegas and Southern
California said his company has launched a worldwide search for vendors and
suppliers so that construction on the $4 billion project could begin by the end
of March, the Las Vegas Sun reports.
The
Illinois Commerce Commission’s Transportation Policy Committee will host a
policy briefing on a proposed high-speed rail corridor from Chicago to St.
Louis at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, September 9, in hearing room A of the ICC’s
Springfield office. The ICC is located at 527 E. Capitol Avenue.
At a ceremony in
Belleville, Ontario, Prince Edward-Hastings MP Daryl Kramp, Mayor Neil Ellis
and Pierre Santoni, VIA Rail Canada’s Senior Director, National Sales,
announced VIA’s plans for a new station with improved and expanded facilities.
VIA estimates that it will invest as much as C$7 million for the new station
and related improvements from recent capital funding for VIA announced by the
Government of Canada. C$2.5 million of the project’s cost will come from the
government’s Economic Action Plan.
The V&T Railway
Commission was told Monday that the latest section of tracks begins going down
within the week, according to the Nevada Appeal. Project Engineer Ken Dorr said
this extension takes the tracks into the canyon above the Carson River which,
when completed, will be the most scenic part of the 17-mile ride between
Virginia City and Carson City, Nev.
The Village of Montgomery
now has a plan in place in the event Metra commuter rail service is one day
extended from downtown Aurora along the BNSF tracks into the village, according
to the Oswego Ledge Sentinel. In a split, 5-1 ballot Monday evening, the village
board adopted an ordinance to amend the village’s comprehensive plan to include
the new Transit Oriented Development Plan and Park-n-Ride Location Study.
The historic railroad
station north of 23rd Street could be back in service for customers under
proposed passenger rail service in the region, the South Florida Sun Sentinel
reports. Other possible station locations being considered for Vero Beach
include the area of downtown near Pocahontas Park and at the old Diesel Power
Plant south of eastbound State Road 60. Possible start date for the service is
October 2012.
CSX Transportation says
there is no danger to residents, but it is letting one Jacksonville, Fla.,
Westside neighborhood know that it has found some contaminants in ground water
near an old rail yard site, the Florida Times-Union reports. The rail yard
south of Beaver Street between McDuff Avenue and Edgewood Avenue ceased
operations in 1985. But Jacksonville-based CSXT still owns the property and has
a dispatch center and other operations adjacent to the site.
Port Authority of Allegheny
County in the Pittsburgh area released a proposal to improve bus and light rail
service starting next year and keep its base fare at $2. The final draft
proposal of the Transit Development Plan would bring sweeping improvements for
the majority of Port Authority’s 220,000 daily riders. Changes would begin in
March 2010 and be phased in over the next few years.
NJ Transit Executive
Director Richard Sarles and Board Member Susan Hayes greeted rush-hour
commuters August 31 at the grand opening of the new 31st Street
entrance to the NJ Transit Concourse at New York Penn Station, a direct and
spacious gateway between the concourse and street level.
Picture Lewis and Clark
splitting up at some point between present-day Umatilla and Boardman and racing
to the Pacific Ocean, the East Oregonian reports. Two contemporary economic
explorers, the general managers of the ports of Umatilla and Morrow, are doing
just that. Their goal, however, is developing a better shipping route from the
mid-Columbia River to Puget Sound.
State transportation
engineers are preparing a series of railroad track improvements they hope will
ease bottlenecks for ever-increasing rail traffic in central Charlotte, N.C.,
the Charlotte Observer reports. The N.C. Department of Transportation wants to
make upgrades to a 10-mile stretch of Norfolk Southern track from near
Charlotte-Douglas International Airport to Orr Road in northeast Charlotte.
The future of downtown rail
– for right or wrong, better or worse, for whatever it turns out to be – is now
firmly in the City of Austin’s hands, writes Ben Wear in the Austin Statesman. Capital
Metro, carrier of the passenger rail flag around here for more than 20 years,
will still open its MetroRail commuter line (sometime soon). And conceivably
the agency could be hired to operate a rail line built by the city. But Capital
Metro, nearly out of money and tarnished by its halting MetroRail performance
so far, won’t be the prime mover.
Quixote Corporation, a
leading manufacturer of transportation safety products and advanced
technologies, celebrated its 40-year anniversary in July 2009.
Construction in downtown
Minneapolis continues as crews work on the Hiawatha Light Rail Transit extension
and the Northstar Commuter Rail station. Punchlist work continues at the
commuter stations in Big Lake, Elk River, Anoka and Coon Rapids. System testing
also continues as crews are testing both the Northstar train system and the LRT
extension.
