U.S. Transportation
Secretary Ray LaHood announced $50 million in American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act dollars for the State of Vermont to begin construction to
improve 190 miles of track between St. Albans and Vernon on Amtrak’s Vermonter
line. The improvements will result in increased speeds, reduced travel time and
greater reliability.
After four months of
construction, Sound Transit will open an expanded, upgraded parking lot at 5th
St. SW and 9th Ave SW in Puyallup, Wash., for Sounder riders on Oct. 4. Just
minutes from the Puyallup Sounder station, the lot, which opened for Puyallup
Fair attendees earlier this month, adds 219 parking spaces to 364 slots
currently provided at the station’s main lot and 182 spaces at two lots leased
by Sound Transit. Drainage, new lighting, and environmentally sustainable rain
gardens were also added.
In February, U.S. DOT
announced that the CREATE Program would receive $100 million in Transportation
Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) funds under the American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) to complete five projects. Work on the
first of those five projects began in July. The Broadview/LaGrange
signalization (Projects B4/B5) will install a new bi-directional computerized
Traffic Control System (TCS) along a seven-mile segment of the Indiana Harbor
Belt. This project will upgrade 21 hand-thrown switches to power switches. The
TIGER grant funded $11.7 million of the $13.7 million project. The remainder of
the funds was contributed by the freight railroads.
Plans for a large
transportation hub just east of Angel Stadium in Anaheim, Calif., that will
serve the region’s rail, bus and taxi passengers won unanimous approval from
the City Council on Sept. 28, the Orange County Register reports.
The $1.25-billion FY 2011
budget and updated 20-year financial plan approved by the Dallas Area Rapid
Transit (DART) Board of Directors supports the doubling of DART Rail to 90 miles.
The FY 2010 budget was $1.6 billion. The decrease is primarily due to a lower
capital budget, largely the result of the completion of the Green Line this
December.
The Chicago Transit
Authority is preparing the next phase of its move toward an open fare payment
system that could introduce the use of contactless credit cards, debit cards
and prepaid cards to ride the system.
CTA is issuing a Request for Proposal today on the design,
implementation, and operation of an open fare collection system.
A long-term commitment is
needed to help freight and passenger rail accommodate future U.S. economic and
population growth. U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood today announced
these findings of a new report, Moving Forward: A Progress Report, that updates
the U.S. Department of Transportation’s efforts to develop a first-ever
comprehensive National Rail Plan (NRP).
Transportation experts will
take a closer look at realigning the railroad through North Pole, Alaska, thanks
to nearly $1 million in federal funding announced Sept. 27, the Fairbanks Daily
News-Miner reports.
Long Island Rail Road
customers are advised that during two weekends in the fall – October 23-24 and
November 6-7 – there will be extremely limited LIRR service, especially between
Jamaica Station and Penn Station, as the LIRR cuts over to a modern signal and
switching control system at Jamaica, N.Y. As a result of the extremely limited
service, the LIRR advises that only customers traveling for essential business –
such as first responders (police, fire) and service employees with no other
alternatives – should use the LIRR during these two weekends. Customers
traveling for recreational purposes during this period should consider travel
on the Port Washington Branch or other travel alternatives.
The Santa Clara Valley
Transportation Authority (VTA) will host a Design Build Contract Information
Forum for the BART Silicon Valley Project at the San Jose Convention Center,
Thursday, September 30, 2010.
Washington, D.C., Metro
will close two Blue and Orange Line stations and there will be no Blue or
Orange Line service at the Metro Center Metrorail station during the three-day
Columbus Day Holiday Weekend from 10 p.m., Friday, Oct. 8, to closing on
Monday, Oct. 11, as the agency undertakes a major rehabilitation and rebuilding
project to improve safety, to comply with a recommendation made by the National
Transportation Safety Board and maintain service reliability and a state of
good repair.
What do you get for 30
million bucks? To start, Huron Central Railway has "probably" agreed
to operate its line between Sault Ste. Marie and Sudbury until the end of its
lease with CP Rail in 2017, "possibly" longer, said Tony Martin, the
Sault’s MP, Sault This Week reports.
New
York Governor David A. Paterson announced approval of more than $42 million in
funding for 34 rail and port capital improvement projects in New York State.
Grants from the Renew and Rebuild New York Transportation Bond Act of 2005 and
the Governor’s Passenger and Freight Rail Assistance Program will fund these
infrastructure investments and security improvements, bringing with them
economic development and job creation and retention opportunities across the
State.
A Next-Generation
High-Speed Rail service could be successfully developed in the Northeast with
trains operating up to 220 mph on a new two-track corridor resulting in a trip
time of about three hours between Washington and Boston, cutting in half or
better the current schedules, according to a concept plan released by Amtrak.
When it comes to the
planned multibillion-dollar commuter rail tunnel under the Hudson River, New
Jersey Gov. Chris Christie isn’t doing much to build bridges, U.S. Sen. Frank
Lautenberg says, the Newark Star-Ledger reports. The longtime Democratic
senator said the Republican governor has refused to let NJ Transit engineers
and professional staff meet with federal transportation officials to break a
30-day construction delay that threatens to scuttle America’s largest public
works project.
(The following commentary
appeared in The Virginian-Pilot
September 26, 2010.) The Tide’s financial mismanagement
will cost Norfolk’s citizens millions of dollars more than originally planned. That’s
hardly news.
Michigan Tech is working on
what it believes is a first-ever collaborative study between the U.S. and the European
Union to improve railway education.
Suffolk,
Va., City Council members viewed a proposal to create a combined Amtrak and
Hampton Roads Transit station in downtown Suffolk, near the Saratoga
neighborhood, the Suffolk News Herald reports. City leaders pinpointed the
former site of the Golden Peanut Company, in between Saratoga and Wellons
streets, as a suitable location for a train and bus transportation hub. The
site still includes the company’s abandoned buildings, which feature broken
windows, graffiti and at least one tree growing on the roof.
Michel Labrecque, chairman
of Montreal’s STM Board of directors, said the agency signed the Sustainable
Development Charter of Union internationale des transports publics (UITP) in
Brussels.
West Lake Street in Ft.
Collins, Colo., will be closed to all traffic at the BNSF railroad tracks west
of College Avenue for track repairs and improvements, the Coloradoan reports. The
work is scheduled to begin Sept. 28 and continue through Oct. 5, weather
permitting. A detour route will be provided to direct through traffic to use
College Avenue and Centre Avenue.
