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.
Officials with the N.C.
Department of Transportation’s Rail Division didn’t exactly quell the concerns
of those who gathered at a town hall meeting in Landis, N.C., the Salisbury
Post reports. The meeting, which was an informal session held at Landis’ town
hall, was for area residents to ask rail officials questions about proposed
rail corridor projects.
Shovels
will start digging for the Central Corridor LRT line in August east of the
Capitol where work will begin on Robert and 12th streets north of Interstate
94, the Central Corridor Project Office said today. Utility relocations in this
area will be done concurrently with LRT construction.
Some Ramsey, Minn.,
residents living near railroad tracks should be sleeping a little better, the
Minneapolis Star Tribune reports. Two of the city’s five rail crossings have
been designated quiet zones where engineers no longer must sound train horns as
they approach. The zones, which went into effect late last month, will extend
more than a mile from Sunfish Lake Boulevard west along the BNSF tracks to
Ramsey Boulevard.
Union Pacific will improve
Seattle’s transportation infrastructure with a $5.7-million investment to enhance
its track from Seattle to Fife, Wash. Running generally parallel to Interstate
5, this section of Union Pacific track is critical to the movement of goods in
Washington and helps keep local and regional economies competitive. The project
is under way and will continue through the middle of 2010.
Medina City, Ohio, will
not be a railroad quiet zone, at least not any time soon, the Medina Sun
reports. At its most recent meeting, Medina City Council chose not to pursue a
quiet zone in city limits as part of the city’s planned railroad improvements.
A quiet zone would eliminate the use of train horns while traveling through the
city.
Having been largely shut
out of federal high-speed rail funding, New York transportation officials are
turning their attention to a handful of rail projects that did win federal
support – including the first tangible piece of the long-sought high-speed
passenger rail corridor across upstate New York, the Rochester Democrat and
Chronicle reports.
A proposed 3.3-mile rail
spur linking the Omya quarry on Foote Street in Middlebury, Vt., with the main
line west of the Otter Creek can now proceed to final design and property
acquisition, as the Federal Highway Administration has determined the estimated
$34.3-million project could meet federal environmental standards, the Addison
County Independent reports.
At a recent meeting, the
Moses Lake, Wash., City Council unanimously approved sending letters to
lawmakers requesting federal funding to purchase a segment (Segment 4) of the
Columbia Basin Railroad line that runs through the City of Moses. As part of
the Northern Columbia Basin Railroad Project, Segment 4 is slated to be vacated
once a new bypass segment (Segment 1) northeast of Moses Lake is built.
Kansas has received a
grant to develop a business plan for an expanded Amtrak passenger rail service
south from Newton to Oklahoma City – but no money to actually develop the line,
The Hutchinson News reports. The $250,000 award from the $8 billion American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act High-Speed Intercity Passenger Rail program also
must be locally matched, which is not a foregone conclusion with the fiscal
crisis facing the state, officials acknowledged.
It’s gotten a little
quieter for residents living along the Canadian National Railway in three western
suburbs, the Chicago Tribune reports. A long-anticipated quiet zone in Berwyn,
Riverside and North Riverside, Ill., went into effect Jan. 28, preventing
trains from sounding their horns at nine crossings except in emergencies.
TriMet WES Commuter Rail
line marks its first year in service on February 2. Oregon’s first commuter rail
line connects the Portland suburban cities of Beaverton, Tigard, Tualatin and
Wilsonville with weekday rush hour service.
Plainfield, Ill., and
some other towns have stopped fighting the Canadian National Railway, but other
municipalities aren’t ready to do that yet, the Aurora Beacon News reports. Will
County is among them.
This city (Chicago) was
built on railroads that moved meat from its famous packing houses, steel from
its mills, corn from surrounding fields. Today Chicago is still the nation’s
leading rail hub, with about 37,500 rail cars passing through daily, the Washington
Post reports. But massive congestion on Chicago tracks costs millions of
dollars in shipping delays, and it causes substantial noise and air pollution
as trains idle for hours, waiting for track clearance. The problem threatens to
get worse since freight traffic is expected to double in the next 20 years.
At the board meeting on
December 10, 2009, the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority Board of
Directors authorized $5.8 million for the construction of Caltrain safety
improvements. These improvements include modifications to railroad crossing
gates, installation of guardrails, fencing, pedestrian gates, emergency swing gates,
sidewalk, crossing panels and tactile warning panels as well as grading
modifications to crossings within the Joint Powers Board owned segment (between
Sunnyvale and Palo Alto).
Assistant Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said that the final Omnibus Appropriations Act that includes $126,432,544 in funding for several Illinois projects was approved by a joint House and Senate Conference Committee of which Durbin is a member. The House and Senate are expected to take up and pass the legislation before the end of the year. The bill will then go to the President for his signature.
The first quiet zone for Lincoln, Neb. — a six-mile stretch of railway where trains no longer have to blow horns before crossings — isn’t as quiet as it should be, some Lincolnites say, according to the Lincoln Journal Star. Trains along Cornhusker Highway were much quieter after the zone went into effect Sept. 18, but people have since told the city they’ve gotten noisy again.
Unlike a normal railroad
grade crossing, at which cars must stop to let trains go by, the one proposed
for the rail spur leading into the Calverton Enterprise Park would be just the
opposite, the Riverhead, N.Y., Times Review reports. A freight train using the
spur would come to a complete stop prior to crossing River Road, a conductor
would get off and check for any cars, and would then signal the train to cross
the street.
Illinois State Rep. Don
Moffitt called Galesburg, Ill., "the crossroads of America," while delivering
the keynote address at the 31st annual Community Thanksgiving Luncheon,
according to The Register-Mail. Moffitt spoke of things for which he was
thankful. Topping the list was a vision to help BNSF as the foundation of
economic development in Galesburg.
