The Denver Colo., Regional Transportation District Board’s FasTracks Monitoring Committee endorsed the RTD staff’s hybrid option recommendation on how to proceed with the FasTracks Northwest Rail Line. The vote was 13 – 2 moving, the motion to the full RTD Board of Directors for a final decision will take place March 27.
Last month, I wrote about safety as it pertains to the elimination of the Harriman awards. Safety is again at the forefront, this time thanks to legislation introduced to the Illinois General Assembly.
Recent Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority system ridership numbers show an increase in weekday boardings during January and February of 2012.
Improvements to make Newark Light Rail’s Bloomfield Avenue Station accessible to customers with disabilities and more convenient for all customers will begin this spring, under a contract approved today by the NJ Transit Board of Directors.
CTA ridership grew by more than 15 million (three percent) in 2011, with more than 530 million boardings on trains and buses across the city, the highest total in 20 years and one of the highest increases among big-city transit operations across the United States.
Invensys Rail Corp. and Lilee Systems have joined forces to bring a new Wayside Messaging Server (WMS) to PTC applications across North America. Invensys Rail will provide sales, application engineering and field service support for the WMS-2000, which was developed by Lilee.
The Maryland Transit Administration’s MARC Train service recorded some of the best on-time performance numbers ever during the month of February.
Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority provided an update on its progress to rebuild the system following years of underinvestment. In the six-month period from July 1 to December 31, 2011, Metro spent $307 million on capital projects ranging from replacing railcars, switches, rail and track components to rehabilitating station platforms, escalators and elevators.
Union Pacific Railroad will improve the transportation infrastructure in Colorado by investing nearly $1 million in the rail line that runs in the Grand Junction area. Crews will be stabilizing the railroad track banking along the Colorado River. The bank stabilization project will begin March 12 and is scheduled to be completed by the end of May.
The nation’s mayors renewed their call for enactment of job-creating bipartisan transportation legislation now pending in Congress.
The National Transportation Safety Board made safety recommendations regarding storm water issues that push for greater collaboration between entities affected by these issues. The following recommendation was sent to the U.S. Department of Transportation:
KONE has been chosen by Jones Lang LaSalle and the Union Station Redevelopment Corporation (USRC) to supply 18 new escalators in Washington, D.C.’s historic Union Station. The escalator modernization project was designed by Newmont Elevator Analysts, Inc. of Stone Ridge, N.Y.
CSX Transportation presented its Partnershipping Award to the Regional Economic Development Partnership in Wheeling, W. Va., in recognition of its efforts to locate three energy-related projects that will be served by CSX. The organization also supported state legislation providing incentives for energy companies investing in the state.
San Francisco-area Caltrain and its partners celebrated the completion of a $61 million station improvement project that will allow it to offer more service now and in the future.
Houton, Texas-area METRO’s ridership is on the rise for a sixth consecutive month, recording a 5.2 percent increase to 6,357,131 boardings in January 2012 compared to 6,043,280 in January 2011.
The California Transportation Commission allocated $3.7 million to fund safety enhancements to one of Metrolink’s busiest crossings, the Broadway/Brazil crossing in Glendale, Calif.
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, which manages transportation in the city, said it has completed the acquisition of the property that will be the future home of the Central Subway’s Chinatown Station.
The Seattle-area’s Sound Transit Board of Directors unanimously approved an amendment to the agency’s 2012 budget to provide $24.3 million in additional funding for establishing a shovel-ready plan to extend light rail from S. 200th Street to the heart of Federal Way.
The Metropolitan Council has approved the final piece of the identity and branding framework for the Minneapolis-St.Paul developing transitway network of light-rail transit and bus-rapid transit.
Federal Transit Administrator Peter Rogoff on February 23 visited three stations along the 28-mile Dallas Area Rapid Transit Green Line light-rail expansion project in Dallas, Texas, to see firsthand the economic development resulting from the federal government’s investments in the region.