Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and
Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation said they have been granted early
termination of the mandatory waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino
Antitrust Improvement Act of 1976, as amended, in connection with the
previously announced Berkshire acquisition of BNSF. This regulatory action is
an important step in satisfying the closing conditions as set forth in the
merger agreement. BNSF and Berkshire continue to expect the transaction to
close in the first quarter of 2010.
Starting Dec. 7, Sound
Transit contractors will begin smoothing the surface of the light rail tracks
between Seattle and Sea-Tac Airport. The work will impact evening light rail
service through the end of the month. The work is expected to reduce the
high-pitched noise some residents near the tracks have expressed concern about.
Lattes flow for commuters
at Tinley Park’s $5-million Metra station, an architectural gem. But the only
thing flowing at Cicero’s dreary train stop is the rainwater that blows through
the corrugated-metal shelter, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Construction to replace
the 80-year old Vandeventer Bridge in St Louis will result in the closure of
Vandeventer Avenue for approximately two months, beginning on December 7. Recognizing
that Vandeventer Avenue is a major thoroughfare for area commuters, Metro has
partnered with the City of St. Louis to plan a detour to keep traffic flowing
through that area while work to replace the bridge continues.
Enough people would board a
train in the Phoenix area’s suburbs that a future commuter-rail system would be
as popular as some of the busiest lines in the West, new studies have found, The
Arizona Republic reports. A trio of yearlong rail studies, in nearly final
form, indicates commuter rail could carry almost 18,000 passengers a day by
2030. Planners at the Maricopa Association of Governments say, based on the
findings, they favor a 105-mile, X-shaped system that could feature 33 stations
and cost roughly $1.5 billion. That’s a little more than the Valley’s 20-mile,
light-rail starter line. The commuter-rail network would use existing freight
track through downtown Phoenix, with lines from Queen Creek to Buckeye and from
Chandler to Wittmann. The northeast Valley, whose light-rail line lacks
funding, would remain without commuter rail.
(The editorial below appeared
in the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot
.)This much is sure: Light
rail will transform the city of Norfolk, Va. How, and to what extent, nobody
knows. But the ripped-up streets and chaotic traffic downtown will end, and
Norfolk will get back to the business of reinventing itself. This time, though,
the landscape will be fundamentally different, bisected and improved by a new
mass transit system. The experience of several U.S. cities offers some clue to
what the next few decades will hold in Hampton Roads.
By the end of next year,
the $288-million light rail line – more trolley than Amtrak – will connect the
eastern border of Norfolk with the western, linking Norfolk State University
with Harbor Park with City Hall with downtown businesses with the new library
with MacArthur Center with Eastern Virginia Medical School.
It will take time, but
those destinations will build significant gravity, attracting customers and new
businesses. Neighborhoods strung out along the Elizabeth River will become as
central to city life as anyplace. Stores will sprout around each station.
A few thousand cars will
be diverted off streets and highways by people taking the train. But until the
cost of commuting rises radically or traffic worsens massively, the primary
effect of The Tide will be on where people live and work.
Even as The Tide’s
opening gala starts to appear on municipal calendars, light rail’s opponents
still point to that impact as if it were some sort of secret, proof of depraved
intent on the part of city fathers. Changes to development and commuting
patterns were, of course, the goal all along.
"The way people use
downtown will change," Cathy Coleman, president of the Downtown Norfolk
Council, told The Virginian-Pilot’s Debbie Messina. "People will be in places
they’ve never been before.
Highways – which can cost
more to build, especially in an area like this – wouldn’t do that. And adding
capacity to highways is expensive, as every commuter in Hampton Roads knows all
too well. Once light rail’s tracks are laid, adding more capacity is both trivial
and cheap.
Think of light rail –
even a starter line like The Tide – as an amenity. Good schools, safe streets
and reasonable taxes will not individually attract many people or businesses.
But put them all together into a livable community, and over time, things will
change for the better.
It doesn’t have to stop
there, of course.
Add an extension to the
Navy’s facilities, to the Oceanfront or across the Elizabeth River, and the
transformation would reach well beyond Norfolk. Virginia Beach is looking for a
way to transform Virginia Beach Boulevard from a collection of outdated strip
malls into a place where people go because they want to. Chesapeake and
Portsmouth have taken painful note of Richmond’s failure to pay for roads and
see a commuting alternative.
Expect every step along the
way to be opposed by the same folks who rail against The Tide, who rail against
every penny spent on any amenity. Opposition to light rail isn’t a failure of
mass transit to make a difference in the lives of people who use it and live
nearby. Opposition is a failure of imagination, and Hampton Roads can dream
bigger than that.
BNSF Powder River Division
employees celebrated the Orin Line’s 30-year anniversary in honor of the first
unit-coal train that traveled the 116-mile rail line across the Wyoming prairie
on Nov. 6, 1979, according to the company newsletter.
Mayor Paul Winfield
returned to Vicksburg, Miss., from a three-day trip to Washington, D.C., where
he visited local delegates in a continued effort to wrest from federal sources
nearly $4 million to get the stalled Washington Street bridge replacement under
way, according to the Vicksburg Post.
The city of Lincoln,
Neb., is moving closer to closing J Street railroad crossings in the South Salt
Creek Neighborhood at Second and Third streets, the Lincoln Journal Star
reports. Closing the crossings would please Burlington Northern Santa Fe, with
which the city is negotiating to buy a railyard near the Haymarket for a new arena, if voters approve building one in the spring.
Work on Caltrain’s Grade
Crossing Improvement Program, which will enhance safety at 25 grade crossings
in San Mateo County, continues in Atherton and Menlo Park. Work will take place
Dec. 5 and Dec. 7 – 10 between the hours of 8 p.m. and 4 a.m. at Fair Oaks Lane
and Watkins Avenue in Atherton and Ravenswood and Oak Grove avenues in Menlo
Park. Work also will be done from 10:00 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 5 to 1:00 a.m.
Sunday, Dec. 6 at the Broadway crossing in Burlingame.
The Cedar Rapids and Iowa City Railway Company (CRANDIC) will receive $6.965 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation for repair of the CRANDIC railroad bridge in Cedar Rapids.
The bridge sustained substantial damage during flooding of the Cedar River in 2008, resulting in the disruption of freight shipments in the area.
CRANDIC’s infrastructure sustained $11 million in damage from the spring floods. Of that, the CRANDIC bridge suffered $9 million in damages. The grant is designed to cover 80 percent of the total cost of the project. The award will rebuild a portion of the bridge, repair or replace damaged signals and repair the main line infrastructure.
Funding comes from the Consolidated Security, Disaster Assistance and Continuing Appropriations Act 2009 for the Railroad Rehabilitation and Repair competitive grant program. The award requires a $1.741 million match by the Iowa DOT.
Utah Transit Authority’s TRAX light rail system will
celebrate 10 years since its launch on Dec. 4, 1999.
The light rail system began with a single 15-mile
north-south line connecting Sandy City to downtown Salt Lake City with more
than 600,000 riders during its first month of operation. To date, TRAX has
provided more than 110 million rides and now averages between 40,000 and 50,000
riders every weekday.
A second light rail line from downtown Salt Lake City to the
University of Utah Rice-Eccles Stadium opened in December 2001, just prior to
the 2002 Winter Olympics. During the two weeks of the Olympics, UTA carried
more than four million Olympic riders. Additional light rail extensions opened
to the University of Utah Medical Center in 2003 and Salt Lake Central station
in 2008. UTA also introduced its first commuter rail line, FrontRunner, in
2008, which runs 44 miles from Salt Lake City north to Pleasant View.
As part of the FrontLines 2015 program, UTA will expand its
passenger rail network more than 70 miles by 2015. Three new TRAX lines are
currently under construction-to the Salt Lake International Airport, South
Jordan,and West Valley City-with a fourth project to extend the north-south
TRAX line further south into Draper, currently in the environmental study
phase. UTA is also extending FrontRunner commuter rail 45 miles south from Salt
Lake City to Provo.
In other milestone news, BNSF Powerder River Division
employees celebrated the Orin Line’s 30-year anniversary in honor of the first
unit-coal train that traveled the 116-mile rail line across the Wyoming prairie
on Nov. 6, 1979.
"For the last 30 years, we’ve seen incredible growth on
the Orin Line," said Tom Albanese, general manager, Powder River Division.
"Moving 40 trains per day in 1979 was considered a ‘busy day.’ Today, it’s
normal to handle more than 100 trains during a 24-hour period. Employees who
were there on Day One were at the celebration, sharing stories about the many
changes they have seen over the years and the impact the line will have for
years to come."
The Maryland Transit Administration began rehabilitation of 17-1/2
miles of the state-owned freight rail line from Massey to Worton in Kent County.
The $1.5 million project, awarded to Bullock Construction of Easton, began in
mid-September and is scheduled for completion in early May 2010. As of the end
of November, 40 percent of the work is complete.
The project includes the replacing rail, more than 6,000
ties and installing new ballast. According to MTA, the improvements will
improve safety along the line and will reduce the level of maintenance needed.
The line is leased by the State of Maryland to the Maryland
& Delaware Railroad, which carries lumber, soy meal, corn, wheat and barley
and dry fertilizer supporting the poultry industry on the Eastern Shore.
The Shaw Group Inc. has been awarded a contract from the
U.S. Department of Transportation to provide project management oversight
services to the Federal Transit Administration for the fifth consecutive time.
Under the five-year, Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity contract, Shaw
will be issued task orders to evaluate and oversee the execution of selected
federal transit projects across the country.
Shaw has managed many infrastructure projects for the FTA,
including the Dallas Area Rapid Transit, Port Authority of Allegheny County in
Pittsburgh, Pa., and the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County,
Houston, Texas. With its current contract, Shaw’s scope of services will include
continuous review and evaluation of FTA processes for transit project grantees
to ensure compliance with statutory, administrative and regulatory
requirements, as well as monitoring of projects to ensure they are progressing
on time, within budget and in accord with approved grantee plans and
specifications.
The strike by locomotive engineers at CN will end
immediately as a result of an agreement to resolve the parties’ contractual
disagreements through further negotiations and, if necessary, binding
arbitration. The union began its strike Nov. 28 and the agreement came after
Ottawa introduced "back-to-work" legislation on Monday to end the strike.
CN and the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference have agreed to
continue negotiations to resolve all issues related to wages, benefits and work
rules. If there is no agreement, the parties’ wages and benefits offers will be
subject to final, binding arbitration.
The key issue leading up to the strike was CN’s decision to
increase engineers’ wages by 1.5 percent and raise its monthly mileage cap to
4,300 miles from 3,800 miles. TCRC-represented conductors currently have a
4,300-mile monthly cap and TCRC-represented engineers have a 3,800-mile monthly
cap. Under the new rule, both groups working in a cab would be held to one
consistent standard.
As part of this process, CN will roll back the monthly
mileage cap for locomotive engineers to the previous 3,800 miles from the
4,300-mile cap initiated Nov. 28, and withdraw its plan to apply a 1.5 per cent
wage increase to TCRC members. The union’s current contract expired on Dec. 31,
2008.
The parties can also agree to submit work-rule issues to
binding arbitration but only if they mutually agree on the ones that should be
subject to arbitration. If there is no agreement, the issues in dispute will
not be subject to arbitration.
E. Hunter Harrison, president and chief executive officer,
said, "CN is pleased that an agreement has been reached to end the strike by
the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference immediately and to move forward with a process
that gives the parties flexibility to negotiate issues further, but also
ensures finality through binding arbitration of issues that remain in dispute.
We have always sought, since starting negotiations 14 months ago, to achieve a
settlement with the TCRC through negotiations or binding arbitration."
If the American Public Transportation Association and House
Transportation Committee Chairman James Oberstar are correct, the answer to the
nation’s jobless rate and economic woes is funding for transit. APTA wants $15
billion for public transportation, while Oberstar wants $69 billion for highway
and transit projects.
APTA called on Congress to invest at least $15 billion in
public transportation citing it’s recently completed survey of public transit
systems nationwide, which identified more than $15 billion in public
transportation capital projects that can be started in 90 days. It is estimated
that this investment in public transportation would support and create more
than 450,000 jobs. The vast majority of public transit systems also identified
additional needs beyond $15 billion for federal assistance to avoid employee
layoffs and service cuts.
According to APTA, research has shown that new jobs in
public transportation provide jobs to American workers in industries, which
have been hit hardest by the economic downturn, particularly construction and
manufacturing.
Meanwhile, Mr. Oberstar (D., Minn.) called for a second
stimulus bill to provide at least $69 billion for highway and transit projects.
About $48 billion was secured for highway, transit and rail projects in this
year’s economic stimulus package. According to a report in the Wall Street
Journal, Mr. Oberstar said stimulus spending on transportation has directly
sustained 21,000 jobs and supported an additional 130,000 indirectly.
The Central Alabama Intermodal Container Transfer Facility
in Bessemer, Ala., has been operating since September, but had its official
opening on Dec. 1. The $6 million hub operates on 25 acres, with an option to
develop 25 additional acres, has 5,000 feet of working track, parking for 1,000
stacked 40-foot containers and 307 40-foot containers on truck chassis. The
facility can move more up to 40,000 containers annually.
According to CSXT, initial demand should be
about 10,000 to 15,000 containers per year, but the railroad is pursuing
additional business.
The Federal Highway
Administration has issued its authorization for the Chester Branch
Rehabilitation project, enabling Morris County to seek bids to improve the
four-mile active freight line in Roxbury, NJ.
In February, the county applied
to the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority for $5.8 million in
federal stimulus funds through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for
this project, contingent upon federal authorization being received.
The freight line was donated to
the county by Chester Branch, LLC, and the Morristown & Erie Railway has a
management agreement with the county to continue to operate on the Chester
Branch, as well as two other county-owned rail lines.
Advocates for the plan say efficient use of
the rail line has the potential to reduce truck traffic along major roads
including, Route 10, Sussex Turnpike, Route 46, Interstate 80 and other
arterial roads throughout Morris County.
Approximately $9 million in track improvements will allow UP
to increase the speed limit of its trains to 50 mph on nearly 26 miles of its
rail line between Eau Claire and Fairchild, Wis.
The train speed limit will be increased 10 miles per hour
starting December 11, 2009, and another 10 miles per hour starting December 18,
2009, to reach the new maximum speed limit.Trains currently operate through the area at 30 mph because
of track and operating constraints. Recent track improvements are permitting
the higher speeds.
Union Pacific invested $9 million this year on track
improvements between Eau Claire and Fairchild. Crews replaced the rail,
installed seven switches, replaced the road surfaces at 37 crossings, replaced
25,000 ties and spread 15,600 tons of ballast. Work was completed at the end of
October.
