LAS VEGAS — The trains will zip through the heart of the Strip, curving along an elevated track that rises 50 feet above the ground and dimming their lights on nighttime trips so passengers see the city flash by in all of its gaudy neon splendor.
"We want them to think it's like a ride at Disneyland," said Bob Broadbent, who leads the project, "not public transportation."
Las Vegas, which never stops thinking big, has just embarked on its most ambitious, costly attempt to solve a problem that once seemed impossible to have in this sprawling desert valley: gridlock. It is building the nation's largest monorail system.
Plans call for the line to stretch up to seven miles by the time construction ends later this decade, with stops at most casinos, downtown and the local convention center. Sleek bullet-shaped trains will be run by computers, not drivers, and travel up to 50 miles per hour on a winding route above roadways.
There will also be unusual safeguards. Since more than a few riders here are bound to be sloshed by more than a few drinks, every stop will be walled and sealed in glass, with doors timed to open only at the moment trains arrive — so no one in a stupor falls from a platform.
"We had to keep the nature of the city in mind," said Todd Walker, director of communications for the company managing the monorail.
The $650 million project is unique — it will be America's first urban monorail built on a grand scale. But it is not just another Vegas thrill. It is also a sign of a budding revolution in the West. The region is growing faster than any other part of the country. And its population boom is creating so much congestion on roads that for the first time many western cities are getting desperate to coax residents out of their cars and on to some form of mass transit.
In Phoenix, officials are making plans for a 20-mile commuter rail, now that voters there have taken the rare step of raising taxes to help pay for the project. Denver is extending some of its new commuter rails and a proposed monorail downtown is a subject of fervent debate. Salt Lake City just opened it first light-rail line. In Seattle, one of the few places in the country besides theme parks that already has a monorail, a measure to expand the one-mile line is heading to the ballot this fall.
"Forget about the mentality that this is the frontier. It's not anymore, it's getting crowded," said Robert Dunphy, a senior fellow at the Urban Land Institute. "Cities in the West are realizing that they've got to get more serious about transit. And in some places, they're starting from scratch."
No place is trying harder to change its mindset than metropolitan Las Vegas. Its population has nearly doubled in the past decade, and many of the 1.5 million people now living here work or play along the four miles of the Strip. Then there are the tourists. About 35 million of them also swarm the city every year, and most of them arrive or get around in cars.
The local bus service has three times as many riders as it did a decade ago. Roads have been widened, and widened again. Local leaders have even gone to the extreme of paying some residents to stop driving.
One new program is a citywide game of chance: Anyone who comes to work by bus, bike or commuter van at least four times a month is eligible to enter a weekly drawing that rewards 100 people with $100 each. Dozens of local companies are participating in that campaign by recording how their employees get to work.
But the streets are still clogged. Even one recent Monday afternoon, when Las Vegas seemed to be taking a rare nap, several dozen cars were still stacked bumper-to-bumper waiting for traffic signals near the Strip to change. Traffic gets choked so often on Las Vegas Boulevard, which rolls through the center of the Strip, that transit officials no longer print schedules for that bus route. It's anyone's guess when a bus will arrive.
At some hours of the day, and especially on weekends, walking from one end of the Strip to the other can take less time than driving. But the gridlock also fouls sidewalks with exhaust fumes. Many residents here say they have stopped coming downtown to restaurants or shows because they are sick of the traffic.
"We don't have a way to solve this problem anymore just by continuing to add more roadways," said Jacob Snow, general manager of the Regional Transportation Commission here. "We've become a big city, and we have no choice but to deal with this in a big and a different way."
Las Vegas has been contemplating a monorail for nearly 30 years. Twice, plans to build a system similar to the one now being built, collapsed. But the latest attempt appears to have all the financing and political support that it needs.
The first four miles of the rail project are being funded entirely with private money raised through tax-free bonds. The second phase, which will add another three miles to the line, will take $300 million in public money. Eight casinos, worried that traffic is beginning to hurt business, also are spending about $5 million each to build monorail station stops on their properties.
The monorail's initial line is scheduled to open in two years. Eventually, its backers hope to extend the system to the airport and to the city's expanding suburbs. Monorail officials predict more than 19 million people a year will pay $2.50 for a ride around town that will be cheaper than cabs and faster than buses or cars. The trains will come a few minutes apart and be able to transport 400 people.
But the project, in keeping with the Vegas spirit, is a big gamble. Several neighboring casinos already are linked by free trams that are popular, but Las Vegas has never placed a larger bet on a form of public transportation that is foreign to many of its residents and visitors.
Other western cities are facing similar doubts that rails will cure their growing problems with gridlock. In Arizona, voters placed a 20-year limit on the transportation tax they approved for a rail system, in case it flops. Some western lawmakers also say such projects are unnecessary or too expensive.
"This is the kind of place where the car has always been such a big part of your life, some people hardly even know that we have buses," said Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman. "We're trying to give them incentives to get out of their cars, but it takes more than a pittance. It could be very difficult to change people's habits. But there's no question we'll have to if we keep growing like this. What's happening is phenomenal, and there's no end in sight."
Planners already are working on strategies to make the monorail enticing. New technology may allow passengers to ride trains by using the same key card they use for their hotel rooms, with charges showing up on their bill when they check out. Frequent riders also may get discount passes.
Walker, a Las Vegas native, expects locals to board, too. "It used to take only about 10 minutes to get pretty much anywhere in town," he said. "Now, you almost always have to figure that it's going to take at least half an hour. People are really getting tired of all the headaches of traffic."
A nonprofit corporation whose board is appointed by Nevada's governor is managing the monorail system. The state legislature also backs the project. Delegations from other western cities have come to study its blueprint.
Monorail officials say they are confident the system will eliminate millions of car trips. They are already promoting it with heavy doses of Vegas glitz. The groundbreaking ceremony last fall featured an Elvis impersonator and showgirls.
"Everyone has known for years we need something like this," said Broadbent, the monorail chairman. He is a former county commissioner in Las Vegas who saw the earlier projects fail. "This is just the first time we've got just about everyone to agree it's feasible. We really don't have any other choices.
"We're growing so much," he said, "it has to be successful."
City News Service 04/25/2002
A system of five service sectors the MTA claims will be community-based and better able to manage bus routes in Los Angeles County was approved today by the transit agency's board.
Marc Littman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said the hope is that it will allow the agency to "run a more efficient service by decentralizing MTA operations."
The MTA board voted unanimously to create the service sectors and governance councils to run them. The budget for the sectors will be established next month, Littman said.
Managers of the service sectors "would be able to change the schedules and the routes to meet community demands," Littman said.
The MTA's central office still will be responsible for scheduling and running Express and Rapid buses, Littman said.
The sector managers will be responsible for local bus lines, shuttles and operation of the MTA's Dial-a-Ride program in their service area, he said.
The new service sectors will be for: the San Fernando Valley, the San Gabriel Valley, the Westside and Central Los Angeles, the South Bay and the southeast part of the county.
The board members had differences of opinion about the composition and pay schedules of the governance councils of the sectors, but a preliminary plan for the councils was ultimately approved by the board.
On a 10-2 vote, the board decided the councils will comprise elected officials and/or private citizens. The MTA board will appoint members to the councils based on the recommendations of local government associations, Littman said.
The service sectors for the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys are scheduled to begin operating July 1, and the MTA plans to get the other sectors going by the end of the year.
The MTA board also voted 10-1 to allocate $58.6 million in the fiscal year that starts July 1 to Access Services Inc., a company created eight years ago to transport disabled people.
Littman said the company's costs have been rising and the MTA will be giving the company $5 million more than was penciled in for this year.
To reduce costs, the company has a plan to eliminate a service it now runs that allows riders to call and get picked up the same day for $1.50 to $4, said Ruben Gonzalez of ASI.
The federal government's Americans with Disabilities Act only requires transportation agencies to provide next-day service, Littman said.
The MTA board will decide in May whether to allocate more money to ASI to bolster services beyond the level allowed for with today's allocation, Littman said.
Thu Apr 25, 2002
After more than 2 dozen public meetings, last night April 24, the Los Angeles to Pasadena Metro Blue (Gold) Line Construction Authority voted unanimously to adopt the Locally Preferred Alternative consisting of:
an extension of the Metro Gold Line (phase 1 due to open in 2003) light rail transit from its present terminus in eastern Pasadena to the City of Claremont
preparing an EIR/S and conducting PE on the LPA
addressing of all issues and concerns raised through public participation in the EIR/S and PE
developing an intermodal station in each of the cities along the extension to be served by the Metro Gold Line; and
expanding bus service and bicycle, pedestrian and auto access facilities at each of the intermodal stations.
April 18, the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments also unanimously passed a similar endorsement. Each of the 11 cities along the proposed route are formally voting their own LPA before May 21. The eleven cities along phase II would be Pasadena, Arcadia, Monrovia, Duarte, Irwindale, Azusa, Glendora, San Dimas, La Verne, Pomona, and Claremont.
LRT was selected over the competing BRT and DMU alternatives because:
1. using LRT would provide seemless travel all the way from downtown LA (and East LA, Chinatown, Highland Park, South Pasadena) to Claremont. In the San Gabriel Valley. If another technology were selected, passengers would need to disembark in Pasadena to change modes.
2. Electric LRT would help the San Gabriel Valley and region meet stringent clean air requirements better than BRT or DMU.
3. Initial projected LRT ridership is about 50% than BRT.
4. Each city and public commitment is viewed by private sector as greater with rail than with bus, thus enhancing probability for transit oriented development.
5. While capital costs are somewhat higher for LRT, the costs for acquiring and repairing vehicles will be cheaper as they are the same rail cars being used on the other parts of the MTA rail network DMU cars would require new special maintenance yards.
6. On a per unit carrying capacity basis, LRT is most affordable option to operate and maintain
The San Gabriel Valley elected officials, local community and business leaders, and Governor Davis have requested $9M dollars from the federal government in next year's federal budget to match another $9M local match (hopefully from LA county MTA?) to begin preparing EIR/S and preliminary engineering on phase 2.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 26, 2002
The maker of Metro's long-delayed new rail cars says it will be able to deliver the 192 cars by April 2003, 10 months later than originally scheduled.
The delivery date from Madrid-based CAF Inc. is the latest change in a schedule that has shifted every few months as the company has grappled with a disorganized Maryland assembly plant, poor materials from suppliers, change orders from Metro and technical mistakes on the shop floor in Spain.
Three dozen of the cars are running on the Green Line, but the delay of the remainder has annoyed Metro officials.
"It's fairly apparent this... is turning into a significant disappointment," said John Davey, who represents Prince George's County on the Metro board. "It's certainly contributing to the pain of our customers."
Metro directors tentatively agreed yesterday to modify their original $348 million contract with CAF Inc., setting a new deadline that calls for the company to deliver all the rail cars by December, despite its claims that it won't finish until April 2003.
The contract change is an acknowledgment by Metro that it is partly responsible for the delay in the rail cars, because Metro asked CAF to make time-consuming alterations after the contract was signed. The original contract called for 192 rail cars to be built and delivered in three years — a timetable many in the rail car industry said was ambitious and difficult.
But Metro lays plenty of blame on CAF, which made its American debut with the Metro contract and hoped to use it to gain a foothold in the U.S. market.
Company officials have acknowledged difficulties at the manufacturing plants in Spain and in Hunt Valley, near Baltimore. Electronic problems came first, with different computers installed in the sophisticated rail cars unable to communicate with each other. Last spring, Metro ordered CAF to shut down its Hunt Valley plant because cars were coming off the line with door and braking problems.
In January, a 58-year-old woman was dragged along the platform at the Gallery Place Station by a CAF car after a door circuit malfunctioned. The problem was later traced by investigators to "shoddy workmanship" at the plant in Spain.
Last month, Metro discovered that floor heaters were incorrectly wired, after a small fire occurred in one car that was out of service. The wiring problem raised questions about why inspectors for CAF and Metro failed to catch the defect and led to a reorganization of Metro's quality assurance department.
CAF has also had trouble with its subsuppliers, who installed windscreens and seat cushions that didn't meet Metro specifications and were rejected by inspectors.
As part of the agreement approved yesterday, CAF will open a second U.S. final assembly plant, in Elmira, N.Y., to accelerate production. The company also plans to beef up the senior management team overseeing the contract.
"We're really focused on just getting a top-quality car to [Metro] as soon as possible," CAF spokeswoman Virginia Verdeja said. "We have many satisfied customers throughout the world; we just want [Metro] to be one of them."
The 36 CAF cars running on the Metro system have been less reliable than other Metro rail cars. Last month, each CAF car ran an average of 72,000 miles between delays, while the rest of the fleet averaged 150,000 miles between delays, said Lem Proctor, Metro's chief operating officer for rail. This month, the CAF cars have been improving, Proctor said.
As part of the contract changes that received initial approval yesterday, Metro officials excused CAF Inc. from more than $6 million in late fines accrued to date. Instead, if the company delivers the rail cars by next April, it will owe Metro about $2 million, said James Gallagher, Metro's deputy general manager for operations.
It is not unusual for transit systems to experience delays when buying rail cars. Because every subway is different, rail cars must be designed to fit a particular system. Metro's system is especially complex because of its high degree of automation and the sophisticated software needed to operate its trains.
Metro is looking for a manufacturer for its next purchase of about 68 rail cars. Sources said three companies submitted bids yesterday: Breda Construzioni Ferroviarie, an Italian-based rail manufacturer, Alstom Inc. and CAF.
City News Service 04/26/2002
A regional pass that will allow transit riders to travel throughout Los Angeles County will be in use by summer, officials said today.
Called EZpass, the monthly pass card will be honored by a dozen Southland transit companies, including the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
"Many riders use more than one transit system, a situation which up until now has produced confusion and frustration by forcing them to carry extra cash or purchase additional transit passes," said MTA board Chair John Fasana.
"Much like the European Union, MTA and these 11 operators have agreed on a common 'currency' that will end the confusion and frustration and, we believe, encourage thousands of other commuters to try public transit," he said.
An EZpass will cost $58, but seniors and people with disabilities will pay $29, according to the MTA.
The MTA board voted unanimously yesterday to implement the pass program, which will cost the agency about $2 million next fiscal year.
Passholders will enjoy unlimited local travel on all MTA buses and trains.
The pass will also be valid on the fixed-route bus systems of Culver City Municipal Bus Lines, Foothill Transit, Montebello Bus Lines, Gardena Municipal Bus Lines, Commerce Municipal Bus Lines, Long Beach Transit, Norwalk Transit, Santa Monica's Big Blue Bus, Torrance Transit, Santa Clarita Transit and the Los Angeles Department of Transportation.
EZpass is a precursor to an electronic pass the MTA plans to implement that would be accepted throughout the county as part of the agency's universal fare system.
The Palm Beach Post 04/27/2002
Tri-Rail will ask a state hearing officer to help resolve a dispute over who should operate its commuter trains for the next five years.
The agency's board was poised Friday to award a new contract to current operator Herzog Transit Services, after the St. Joseph, Mo.-based company agreed to slash $2.2 million from its original $61.9 million bid. Most of the savings were in maintenance costs.
But the board postponed action because a second company seeking the contract, Florida Transit Services, filed a protest. Its $57.9 million proposal was tossed out last month.
Florida Transit's attorney, Harry Stewart, said the board was wrong to reject its bid. Tri-Rail officials said the proposal included limitations on some cost items, giving the company a "competitive advantage" over Herzog.
"All FTS is asking for is a level playing field," Stewart said. "I would suggest maintenance is not the place to save dollars."
Florida Transit is a partnership that includes Connex, the leading passenger train operator in Europe, Canadian rail car manufacturer Bombardier and the Florida East Coast Railway.
The Tri-Rail board decided not to try to negotiate a settlement with Florida Transit but rather to ask the state Department of Administration to conduct a hearing and make a recommendation, Tri-Rail attorney Gary Brandenburg said.
Board member Carol Roberts, a Palm Beach County commissioner, said the agency should seek a speedy hearing.
Herzog's contract expires in July, about the same time work is scheduled to get under way in southern Palm Beach County on building the last 46.5 miles of a second track on the rail corridor between Mangonia Park and Miami. The expansion will bring rush-hour trains every 20 minutes.
"We need to go forward with this," Roberts said. "We need to stay on our schedule."
The Houston Chronicle 04/27/2002
A contractor on Metro's light rail project was indicted Friday on charges of engaging in organized crime.
Harris County grand jurors indicted Bencon Management and General Contracting Corp., its vice president, 41-year-old Eddie Baaklini of Houston, and four other employees.
The organized crime charges were related to the theft of 41 fire hydrants to be installed along the light rail line and Milam Street, said prosecutor Margaret Harris.
Valued at about $35,000, the hydrants were stolen from two Houston-based suppliers and sold to the Metropolitan Transit Authority between Jan. 1, 2000, and Jan. 31, 2002, Harris said.
The suppliers are Municipal Pipe and Fabricating Co. and ACT Pipe & Supply.
Metro awarded Bencon, one of three contractors building the light rail project, a $13 million contract last year to construct one of seven segments.
Paula Alexander, Metro's general counsel, said she hoped the indictment would have no impact on the light rail project, which will run 7.5 miles between the University of Houston-Downtown and the Reliant Park complex on the site of the former Astrodome.
"We would hope that the construction can proceed," Alexander said. "We're cooperating fully with the district attorney's office."
The fire hydrants, to be installed in the right of way next to the light rail tracks, have a wholesale value of $800 to $1,000 each, Alexander said.
Bencon's section of the project will run between Pierce and Wheeler, with three stops. It is proceeding on schedule and is due to be completed in early 2004, Alexander said.
In October, Metro chose Bencon to reconstruct a mile-long Midtown segment of Milam Street from Spur 527 to Pierce for $5.5 million.
The Philadelphia Inquirer 04/27/2002
Amtrak yesterday named David L. Gunn, the veteran transit executive who cleaned up graffiti and improved service as SEPTA general manager from 1979 to 1984, as its new president.
Gunn, 64, will take over the leadership of the national passenger railroad from George Warrington, the former Delaware River Port Authority executive director who is returning to New Jersey to head its state transit agency.
As SEPTA chief, Gunn presided over major improvements to its city bus network and Broad Street subway. His tenure also included negotiating and planning takeover of a rundown regional commuter rail network from Conrail, the freight railroad Congress created in 1977 to replace six bankrupt lines.
From here, Gunn moved to New York City for six years to run the nation's largest transit system. He is also a former chief general manager of the Toronto Transit Commission, from 1995 to 1999 — with 10,000 employees, Canada's largest system.
He ran the Washington Metro system from 1991 to 1994.
He spent his early career on railroads: the old New York Central, Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe, and Illinois Central Gulf lines.
While at SEPTA, he used the transit system to get to and from work, as well as for travel to meetings.
Gunn will take over Amtrak with ridership increasing on its new high-speed Acela Express Northeast Corridor trains and its long-distance network.
But the railroad is fighting for increased federal support for new train equipment as well as for improved switching systems, terminal facilities and trackage.
Last year, it launched an effort to generate additional revenue from property it owns.
On that front, Amtrak confirmed yesterday that it had awarded a two-year option to Brandywine Realty Trust of Newtown Square to develop a 500,000-square-foot office tower adjacent to its 30th Street Station in Philadelphia.
Brandywine won't discuss its plans at 30th Street Station, but it has mailed invitations to a May 8 announcement that bear a sketch of an office tower, being designed by renowned architects Cesar Pelli & Associates, of New Haven, Conn., and Bower Lewis Thrower Architects, of Philadelphia.
Amtrak also confirmed that it has selected the Berwind Property Group of Philadelphia as developer of a 1,500-car garage at 30th Street Station.
Amtrak plans to extend the 30th Street Station's suburban concourse onto a new bridge over John F. Kennedy Boulevard to the proposed new office tower that would replace the western third of its public parking deck.
The proposed parking garage will be just north of the proposed office tower.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch 04/27/2002
The cars are for the Shrewsbury extension. Officials had to buy them now because of the time needed to manufacture them.
Commissioners for the Bi-State Development Agency on Friday agreed to buy 22 MetroLink train cars that will be needed when light-rail is extended from Forest Park to Shrewsbury.
They also hired a consultant to oversee manufacturing of the cars.
The cost of the cars, from Siemens Transportation Systems Inc., will be slightly more than $53 million. The consulting work by Booz-Allen & Hamilton is expected to cost slightly more than $l million.
The cars and consultant contract would consume nearly 10 percent of the $550.3 million budget for the MetroLink extension. The money will come from proceeds of a quarter-cent transit sales tax set aside for the expansion.
Officials said they had to buy the cars before Bi-State begins building the extension because of the time needed to manufacture them.
Siemens has built all 65 current MetroLink cars and Booz-Allen & Hamilton has overseen their construction.
The commissioners awarded both contracts without seeking bids.
A Bi-State staff report said the transit agency would benefit from buying from Siemens because it:
Could use the same facilities and spare parts to maintain the new cars as the current cars.
Is satisfied with the performance of the current cars and is receiving a fair price.
The memorandum said Bi-State negotiated a reduction in the price of a car to $2.41 million from $2.58 million proposed in January.
The district should hire Booz-Allen & Hamilton because it has been involved in the design of the cars and familiar with Bi-State's maintenance practices, the memorandum said.
BAA wants 50% of passengers to use public transport
Estates Gazette Saturday, April 27, 2002 Airtrack: This proposed 2.5-mile line, linking terminal 5 to Staines, would create a direct link to the airport from the south and west and would also open up a new north-south route by connecting the Heathrow Express and the Network SouthEast lines.
Heathrow Express: The existing service will be extended to run to the terminal 5 building. BAA also proposes running a new Heathrow Express service to St Pancras, stopping at Hayes, Ealing Broadway and West Hampstead. Passengers on intercity and Thames Trains networks could also link to the Heathrow Express service at Hayes.
Piccadilly Line: The Tube line will be extended to the terminal 5 building.
Crossrail: The cross-London, Liverpool Street to Paddington link is likely to be extended west as far as Heathrow, in Crossrail's route proposals to be submitted at the end of 2002. A further extension as far as Reading has also been suggested. No Crossrail services will be running until 2011 at the earliest.
North West Link: Linking Heathrow to the Great Western main line outside West Drayton, along track that will also be used by the London International Freight Exchange development, this line is only at the feasibility stage.
Southern Link: A possible alternative to the Airtrack route, but more expensive, this would link terminal 4 to the Staines/Waterloo line.
The Northern Echo... 04/27/2002
THE final piece of the Sunderland Metro extension will be completed tomorrow with the opening of Park Lane station.
The underground station is below the Park Lane public transport interchange in central Sunderland and on the extension run by Nexus.
It will be open to the public when the first train leaves at 6.48am bound for the terminus station of South Hylton.
Finishing touches have been made to Park Lane by partners in the project, Nexus and Railtrack.
The station features passenger lifts to the concourse area which can accommodate wheelchair users and those with prams.
Lifts are supplemented by an escalator from platform to concourse level.
To help passenger security, a security TV system is in place at Park Lane with 43 cameras.
Nexus director general Mike Parker said: "We're absolutely delighted that the flagship station on the new Sunderland line is now ready to receive its first passengers.
"When people see and use the station, I think they'll agree that it really is a wonderful facility. "The location, right in the heart of Sunderland City centre, is superb, making it very convenient for work, shopping, leisure and life in general."
The New York Post
04/28/2002
So, the transit-workers union gets its way in negotiations, doesn't fulfill its part of the bargain, demands more benefits and then decides to shut down Midtown when it doesn't get its way.
Talk about chutzpah.
Local 100 of the Transport Union Workers claims that by reneging on agreements, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has helped cause a $10-million shortfall in the union's health-benefits fund.
Because of the shortfall, the fund could dry up as early as June.
The MTA, which already kicks $250 million a year into the kitty, refuses to boost its contribution.
And rightly so: In collective-bargaining negotiations, the MTA agreed to boost the health fund — provided the union reached certain productivity increases. But productivity didn't rise.
Of course, the politicians are getting into the middle of it. Former city bookkeeper Alan Hevesi — now a candidate for state comptroller — declared, "It is unconscionable to use (a) health plan as a bargaining chip... this is terribly unfair."
But since when are benefits not part of a negotiated agreement? The union didn't mind making funding for the health plan a "bargaining chip."
The MTA is clearly in the right here.
The union has two options: either figure out how to reach the productivity-increase figures that will warrant a rise in the MTA's contributions — or figure out why the costs on the fund are so high that it's running out six months before the contract's Dec. 15 expiration.
Such considerations, of course, would put the onus on the union's leaders.
They don't want that. So they foul up rush-hour traffic for tens of thousands of their fellow New Yorkers.
That's pretty petty.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 04/28/2002
The Port Authority has been placed on a federal "recommended" list for funding needed to build light-rail extensions to the North Shore and David L. Lawrence Convention Center, positioning it to receive up to 80 percent of an estimated $390 million cost of construction.
"It's no small feat to receive the recommended rating," Port Authority Chief Executive Officer Paul Skoutelas said. "It significantly bolsters our chances for acquiring the federal dollars to move forward."
Notification from the Federal Transit Administration arrived at the authority just as it was finishing a fine-tuning of preliminary plans for the light-rail extensions — 1.6 miles total, including dual tunnels that will be bored under the Allegheny River, tying together key parts of Pittsburgh with modern transit for the first time.
Henry Nutbrown, Port Authority manager for engineering and construction, said the new legs of the T, which now stretches over 25 miles from Downtown to the South Hills, could be ready to carry riders by spring 2007.
Nutbrown said the authority and its consultants had to respond to any further public comments about the project to satisfy federal officials. But formal hearings held last year after the "draft" environmental impact statement was issued represented the public's best opportunity to raise questions, complain or make suggestions that had to be formally studied and addressed.
Based on input from riders, businesses and city officials, and as the engineering became more focused, the Port Authority and its consultants already have made a number of changes in the draft environmental impact statement put out for public comment last year and the final statement it's put together now:
A three-track section that extended almost to the West End Bridge will now end about two blocks nearer, at Fontella Street. The middle track will be used to "store" light-rail vehicles during Heinz Field and PNC Park events, so enough LRVs will be able to handle the surge of riders when events end.
The location of Allegheny Station has been moved closer to Heinz Field, elevated and modified, putting it in better position to serve Carnegie Science Center, Community College of Allegheny County and the Allegheny West and other North Side residential areas. A once-proposed, separate "Steelers Station" on Reedsdale Avenue is no longer part of the plan.
"Allegheny Station will be a gateway station not just a station incorporated as part of an intermodal parking facility," Nutbrown said. "But it will still be only a good football toss away from Heinz Field."
All at-grade crossings have been eliminated on the North Shore — Martindale Street, Arthur Rooney Way and Allegheny Avenue — by elevating the line beyond PNC Park.
By boring tunnels under the Allegheny River, instead of excavating trenches in the river bottom and burying prefabricated tunnel sections, construction will be less disruptive on the North Shore and in the Golden Triangle. The tunnel will be bored under Stanwix Street to Penn Avenue, where a "cut-and-cover" form of open street excavation will be used to build a new Gateway Center Station and connect the tunnels and Downtown subway.
During construction, the authority will keep the existing, single-platform Gateway Center Station in operation.
Boring the dual 22-foot-diameter tunnels, one tunnel at a time, is expected to eliminate public concern about polluting the Allegheny River, interfering with aquatic life and restricting traffic on For Duquesne Boulevard and 10th Street Bypass.
The location of PNC Park Station has been relocated about 100 feet east of the previously proposed site in order to preserve parcels earmarked for future development by the Sports & Exhibition Authority. The authority will use one of the SEA's two-acre parcels as a construction staging area and a center for hauling away thousands of tons of rocks, earth and spoils from excavating the tunnel and underground PNC Park Station.
"The dirt will be hauled out on the interstate, not out of Downtown," Nutbrown said. "Also, we've decided to make the tunnels a little deeper than first planned."
Dual tracks will lead to the Convention Center Station, approximately across from the Greyhound Bus Terminal. They will begin to emerge from underground under the Interstate 579 Veterans Memorial Bridge, providing a stub to expand east in the future.
The $390 million construction cost includes the estimated $21 million cost of acquiring nine additional LRVs.
Nutbrown said the Port Authority hoped to gain a "record of decision" from the Federal Transit Administration by the end of July, making the project eligible to capitalize on its "recommended" status for federal funding. The FTA must grant another, separate approval in order for the agency to move into final design, however.
"They want other documents such as rail-fleet and bus-fleet management plans," he said. "They want to make sure we can carry out this project without negatively affecting the existing operation."
Final engineering, consultant reviews, property acquisition and utility relocations that preclude advertising for actual construction are expected to cost about $45 million. Right now, the Port Authority has about $15 million. It's asking for $24 million from the federal government, with the balance to be provided by the state and county.
A "public open house" on the extensions, called the North Shore Connector Project, will be held from noon to 2 p.m. and from 6 to 8 p.m. May 16 in the fourth-floor conference room of Two Gateway Center, Downtown.
The Final Environmental Impact Statement will be made available for public review starting Friday and continuing through June 3 at seven Pittsburgh locations. They are:
Northside Leadership Conference, 415 East Ohio St., North Side.
Port Authority headquarters, third floor, 345 Sixth Ave., Downtown.
Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Library Center, 414 Wood St., Downtown.
Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Allegheny Regional Branch, Five Allegheny Square, North Side.
Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Main Library, 4400 Forbes Ave., Oakland.
Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission, Regional Enterprise Tower, 425 Sixth Ave., Suite 2500, Downtown.
City of Pittsburgh Planning Department, fourth floor, 200 Ross Street, Downtown.
Stations: New Gateway Center station, Downtown, and PNC Park Station and Allegheny Station on North Shore extension. Convention Center Station on Steel Plaza Station extension.
Construction cost: $389.9 million estimate includes provisions for inflation, based on $311.9 million from the federal government, $65 million from the state and $13 million from the county.
Length: .2 miles to Convention Center Station; 1.4 miles to end of the line on the North Shore.
Cost of bored tunnel: $119 million.
Maximum grade: 7 percent, compared with Arlington Avenue on Allentown line, 9 percent, and with Mount Washington Transit Tunnel, 6 percent.
New LRVs: Nine, costing a total of $21 million and included under "construction costs."
Daily ridership: Weekday ridership projected to average 10,942 by 2015, including 1,876 to the convention center.
Events ridership: Estimated averages are 6,126 to Pirates games, 15,912 to Steelers games and 4,680 to Pitt football games.
Travel time: Trips of 2 minutes between Gateway Station and PNC Park Station. LRVs would reach speed of 35 mph in tunnel below Allegheny River.
Depth of tunnels below 10th Street Bypass: 25 feet.
Money spent so far: $15.9 million for various, federally mandated studies of needs, alternatives, preliminary alignment and environmental impacts.
Fort Worth Star-Telegram 04/28/2002
WESTLAKE, Texas--A multimillion-dollar bond package to build a light rail system for Fort Worth could go before voters in the next 18 months, city officials predicted Saturday.
If approved by voters, a light rail system — at a projected cost of $120 million to $200 million — could be operating by 2008.
"I think this is a major community decision, a major community commitment," Fort Worth Mayor Kenneth Barr said Saturday during the City Council's biannual retreat.
"We would spend millions of dollars on this and lay the groundwork for spending millions more," he said. "We need community feedback."
The light-rail method officials are considering focuses on electric vehicles, such as streetcars, that would run on rails along city streets at up to 65 mph. Officials say such a system has been successful in other communities, including Denver and Portland, Ore.
Several proposals are being considered for Fort Worth, officials said.
The most expensive route, at a cost of about $200 million, would include West Seventh Street, East Rosedale to Texas Wesleyan University, downtown and Hemphill Street, and would extend the Trinity Railway Express commuter rail program.
The option would have an annual operating cost of $7 million, Assistant City Manager Charles Boswell said.
A smaller system — which would leave out the western leg and extension of the commuter rail — would cost about $120 million, with a $4 million annual operating cost, Boswell said.
A bond election to let voters decide the issue could be held as soon as 2004, Boswell said.
Barr, who said he prefers the broader option, said the city and residents must be cautious before deciding to scale back plans simply to cut costs. "If we start with too small a system that doesn't connect the corridors ... it just doesn't go anywhere," he said.
Council members discussed the rail plan during the second day of their biannual weekend retreat, held at a Westlake hotel. Other issues discussed included budget priorities, annexation, central city revitalization and economic development.
City officials have long touted the benefits of a light rail system, saying it can boost increased mobility and economic development and cut down on pollution by getting motorists out of their vehicles.
A new survey, released Saturday, indicates local support for light rail.
Seventy-one percent of residents surveyed say they are very or somewhat supportive of developing a light rail system in Fort Worth that connects surrounding suburbs with downtown.
Twenty percent are not sure, and 9 percent are not supportive, according to the survey.
"It's a clear mandate," City Manager Gary Jackson said.
City officials said local residents may support light rail because they've seen a nearby example that works, the Dallas Area Rapid Transit system.
At the same time, 56 percent say they are very or somewhat supportive of a slight increase in taxes if the funds were used to develop a light rail system in Fort Worth. Twenty-one percent said they don't support a tax increase and 23 percent are not sure, according to the survey.
Christopher E. Tatham, vice president of the Kansas- based ETC Institute, conducted the survey and presented early results to the council Saturday. The city- sponsored poll was a telephone and mail survey of 1,600 residents, conducted April 13-25. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.5 percent.
"This is an OK position to be in," Tatham said. "A campaign to do this could be successful, but it would have to be a good campaign.
With a bad one, you could lose."
The Daily News of Los Angeles 04/28/2002
IT'S long been clear to everyone outside the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's top brass that the only way to reform L.A. mass transit is to decentralize it.
Now, under Roger Snoble, even the MTA top brass seems to be catching on.
On Thursday, the MTA's board unanimously approved the new transit chief's plan for creating five separately managed transit sectors throughout Los Angeles County, including one in the San Fernando Valley. The sectors, with their own bosses and boards, would oversee regional budgets and manage some local bus routes.
It's a far cry from the autonomy that Valley leaders want, but it's a step in the right direction. Ultimately, the value of transit sectors will depend on how much input local communities get, and whether the MTA genuinely becomes more responsive.
Angelenos have seen bogus decentralization schemes before, so our optimism about Snoble's reforms is necessarily guarded.
Snoble is still a relative newcomer downtown. The success (or failure) of his sector plan should be a good indicator of whether he can change the system, or whether he's let the system change him.
The Herald-Sun (Durham, N.C.) 04/28/2002
Triangle Transit Authority has been around long enough to know it is subject to the state Open Meetings Law, yet the agency continues to push the envelope. It happened again Wednesday, when the TTA board voted in closed session to approve an agreement with the N.C. Railroad Co. for use of 27 miles of track between downtown Raleigh and Ninth Street in Durham.
The agreement, which the railroad's board ratified Thursday, is a major step forward for a light-rail system. Unfortunately, TTA tainted the vote by snubbing the Opening Meetings Law.
There was no compelling reason for the TTA board to vote on the railroad agreement behind closed doors. Durham Mayor Bill Bell, chairman of the TTA board, should have scotched the closed session on the spot.
According to Bell, TTA attorney Dora Torseth said a vote in closed session was allowable because the issue involved a real estate transaction. Say what? The N.C. Railroad Co., a state-owned corporation, controls the tracks. All TTA wanted, and got, was permission to use 27 miles of track. No real estate changed hands, but the public trust got derailed. Come on, TTA — read the law.
The Herald-Sun (Durham, N.C.) 04/28/2002
Imagine it's 2008 and you're shopping and eating lunch on Ninth Street. You finish and stroll down to the railroad trestle at Main Street, where today freight cars and Amtrak trains rumble by.
But in 2008, you cross the street and climb stairs or ride an elevator to a new platform.
There you wait for an eastbound train that will be along within 15 or 30 minutes, depending on the time of day, to take you downtown, to N.C. Central University, Research Triangle Park or central Raleigh.
Having paid $1 to $3 for the ticket, according to your destination, you board the diesel-powered car and are whisked away.
Well, it may not be that romantic, but building a regional rail system has been a passionate dream for some area planners and Triangle residents for years. That dream is moving toward reality with all six Durham station locations set and approved. Also, a state-owned railroad company pledged 27 miles of rail corridor from Durham to Raleigh to the project last week.
Supporters and officials at the Triangle Transit Authority, which is in charge of the project, see the rail as preventative medicine for the region.
They argue it's better to build a train system now so it can be a force in directing the future growth of the region. Also, there may not be money or the political will to do so later, they say.
"Would we even have the opportunity to build it in the future? This area is growing like crazy, and if we don't do it now, we may never have the chance," said John Roberson, chief engineer for the Triangle Transit Authority. "Just ask a person who lives in Atlanta."
The rail system eventually would extend between northern Raleigh to Duke University Medical Center in Durham. The stations will feature park-and-ride lots and so-called "kiss and ride" drop-off points.
Station No. 1, on Elba Street near Duke University Medical Center, would be one of the last built. The Ninth Street station, which is No. 2 on the line and would be among the first built, will serve as the main transfer hub for mass transit of some type to Chapel Hill.
The 35-mile phase I of the system, which will cost an estimated $650 million to $750 million, has its passionate detractors, too, who believe the line a colossal waste of taxpayer dollars in an area that doesn't need a rail line. The money could be used for better purposes, they say.
"Arguably, the only rail system that is economically viable is in New York. There are real urbanized, high-density cities where transit options make real economic sense. But North Carolina doesn't have any," said John Hood, president of the John Locke Foundation, a government watchdog group based in Raleigh, and a chief critic of regional rail plans in the state. The rail thing
If only two stations are built, they would be at the corner of Ninth and Main streets and in downtown Durham. The latter would offer connections to Amtrak service and buses.
That initial leg of the rail system should be running by late 2007 or early 2008, Roberson said.
The downtown hub would be built where the vacant Heart of Durham hotel now sits, near the intersection of Chapel Hill and Pettigrew streets, near the existing rail line. The TTA would build new tracks for the regional rail line in the existing railway's right-of-way.
A parking lot and deck for riders is planned across from the N.C. Mutual Life Building, where the current Amtrak station, a utilities payment center and the Unfinished Furniture Express store now stand. The boarding platform would be on the railroad trestle over Chapel Hill Street, with elevator and stair access.
The Ninth Street rail stop would be on the south side of the railroad trestle, facing Sam's Blue Light store and a car wash. Onward to RTP After the train rolls out eastward from the downtown site, riders could see the downtown buildings of the Bull City, the Durham Bulls ballpark and American Tobacco Campus roll past. A high-speed train planned for other tracks that could take riders from Charlotte to Raleigh in two hours, might stream by at the top urban speed of 80 mph.
At the next stop, at Alston Avenue and Pettigrew, riders will be able to catch buses or walk to the Hayti area or N.C. Central University. The station and a four-story parking deck would sit just north of the Durham Freeway along Pettigrew Street, next to the existing large, white water tower.
From Alston Avenue, the train rolls into the countryside toward RTP.
Transportation planners hope IBM employees, the largest group of workers in RTP, will ride the train during rush hours and use station No. 5 at Miami Boulevard near the company's southeast entrance. Planners hope this will become a major commuter destination, along with the next station, near Nortel Networks, another large employer.
Station No. 6 would be more elaborate than its North RTP counterpart to the west. The stop is called the Triangle Metro Center and will sit across from the Creekstone Shopping Center near Miami Boulevard.
Here, TTA plans to relocate its administrative offices, which are now on the second floor of a building at 40 Park Drive off Davis Drive. No airport? What about Chapel Hill?
Critics of the rail line and its multimillion-dollar price tag point out that the line, unlike the famed Metro network in Washington, D.C., does not even stop at the airport. TTA and the Raleigh-Durham Airport Authority are studying how to connect it. TTA hopes to use some sort of mass transit line, such as buses, from Station No. 7 serving Morrisville. It would also connect to Station No. 5 in northern RTP.
"The TTA and Airport Authority will determine the best mode. It might be some sort of a loop concept," said Juanita Shearer-Swink, a TTA senior transportation planner. Likewise, a non-train system would connect Chapel Hill to Durham's Ninth Street station.
Corridors also are being assessed and set aside in northern Durham along U.S. 501, from a Cary stop south to Apex, from downtown Raleigh east to Zebulon and from downtown Raleigh southwest to Fuquay-Varina, for future phases of the regional rail line or for some other type of mass transit.
The TTA and state and federal politicians who have been the most vocal proponents for the rail project, such as state Democrats Sen. Wib Gulley and Rep. Paul Luebke and U.S. Rep. David Price, have envisioned a mass-transit rail system that would connect Triangle cities and universities for commuters, shoppers, vacationers or students.
With the approval of a site for a Duke Medical Center rail stop on Elba Street last week, the locations of Durham County's six stations on the first phase of the regional rail system are set.
A sidewalk and perhaps a platform across Hillandale Road to the Veterans Administration Hospital and another planned building on the site might extend from the raised train platform at the Duke station.
The train would come into that station from Ninth Street about 23 feet above grade because the land slopes and the train needs to stay level, Shearer-Swink said. Great waste?
In total, the nonprofit Triangle Transit Authority has secured sites for 15 of the 16 stations planned for the 35 miles from north Raleigh to the Duke Medical Center.
As long as Congress continues to support the $750 million project, the first diesel-powered heavy rail cars should be shuttling between the Ninth Street station and a downtown Durham station by 2008, TTA officials say.
The TTA has secured $50.5 million in federal funding and has spent $38.6 million of it on the project thus far, said Karen Clark, spokeswoman for the Federal Transit Administration.
In addition to siting nearly all of the stations on the line, the TTA received permission this week from the N.C. Railroad Co. to build regional rail tracks on 27 miles of railroad right-of-way from downtown Raleigh to Ninth Street. The agreement has pushed the project forward, to the groans of some critics.
The John Locke Foundation's Hood has been an outspoken opponent of the project. He said the TTA and others used to argue that the train would relieve congestion, but recently have said only that it would offer another transportation choice. The same amount of money could buy every commuter a luxury sedan, he said facetiously.
"The amount of traffic is not going to be impacted one way or another by regional rail. That's why they're saying, 'We're just saying give people an option so they don't have to suffer through the congestion.' It's not worth spending $1 billion for that. I'd rather use the money and buy them all Beemers. It would be cheaper, in reality," he said.
Federal officials may agree with him, Hood said.
"I doubt seriously if you analyzed it they would waste scarce transit dollars on a Triangle project when you could fund a project somewhere else that will actually serve urban residents," he said.
Hood also argues that building more roads would keep traffic moving, which would cut down on air pollution from cars idling. He does not buy the argument that building more roads creates more traffic.
"I admire their ability to turn reality on its head," he said. "But even my 5-year-old understands that if you build more roads, there's more space for the cars," he said. "We're not going to convince people not to drive, and roads encourage development; that's one of the reasons you build them." More filling?
Roberson of the TTA pointed out that unlike highways, a rail system can increase its capacity in the same space.
By 2025, the line should be carrying 28,500 riders a day, he said. Its yearly operating costs would be about $13 million.
There isn't enough space to keep building roads, he said in response to Hood. And paved roads create environmental problems from water runoff.
Buses are less expensive than trains but carry only 30 to 40 people at a time. Trains cost more initially, but each car carries 200 to 300 people, "so you're able to condense your operating costs over time," he said. "There's only limited land out there for building roads, and putting more people in single-occupancy vehicles has environmental problems."
New York Daily News 04/28/2002
New Yorkers are getting slammed with property insurance rate hikes up to 200% as the economic fallout of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks continues to take its toll.
Yankee Stadium, the city's subway system, airports, co-ops and condos, museums, the Empire State Building — nearly every structure built on hundreds of square miles of prime real estate has been subjected to tremendous premium increases on policy renewals.
Many premiums are double and even triple what they were a year ago.
And acts of terrorism, routinely included in policies before September, are now generally excluded.
"It is getting ridiculously expensive," said Lauren Gregory, director of risk and insurance management for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which pays the premiums for the city's subway and bus systems, bridges, tunnels and railways — including Metro-North, the Long Island Rail Road and their terminals.
Before the MTA's policy expired Oct. 31, it paid an annual premium of $6 million for $1.5 billion in coverage that included damage from terrorist attacks.
Under its new policy, the MTA is paying $18 million for $500 million in coverage.
"We're paying three times as much for one-third the coverage," said Gregory, "and terrorist acts were excluded from the policy." Coverage cutbacks
In other words, because of the 200% rate increase, the agency opted for only a fraction of the coverage it had before, in effect laying out nine times the cost per unit of coverage. The MTA separately bought a policy providing $70 million worth of terrorism coverage, but it came with a $7.5 million premium.
"That was crazy, unheard of, and we wanted to buy more, but above $70 million the rate went even higher, so we refused to pay," she said.
Property owners and managers who are buying separate expensive terrorism policies also have to settle for the fact that the coverage generally excludes bioterrorism and other attacks.
"No vapors, no anthrax, nothing subterranean, like a bomb that was planted in the subway train or in the Holland Tunnel and affected property — although we negotiated the subterranean out of one policy — and nothing chemical," said Scott Adams, director of risk management for Insignia/ESG, which manages 50 commercial properties in the city.
That pattern is striking nationwide as insurers try to make up for their losses, not just from Sept. 11 but also from their investments in the stock market, according to industry experts.
For example, before Sept. 11, it cost $550,000 a year to insure San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge. The new policy, which went into effect last week, is twice as expensive and no longer covers acts of terrorism, said Mary Curry, a spokeswoman for the agency that oversees the landmark span.
And there is no government protection for policy buyers in the commercial market, no regulations, no rate hike hearings or approvals necessary.
In New York State, the market for policies covering properties worth more than $10 million is entirely unregulated, and terms and rates are negotiated through brokers with insurance companies.
And New York City is getting hit the hardest of any place in the nation by the increases, which affect residential property as well.
Premiums for co-op and condominium buildings are soaring 30% to 50%, particularly in Manhattan, according to James O'Connor, executive vice president of Insignia Residential Group, which manages more than 300 of those buildings.
Those costs are reflected in increased maintenance charges for apartment owners, he explained.
Rental buildings are similarly affected, and landlords are passing along the costs in rent hikes, with the exception of rent-stabilized and rent-controlled apartments, said industry experts. Billions in increases
Individual home and apartment owners are being slapped with increases ranging from 6% to 10% for property and liability coverage in regulated increases, according to Robert Hartwig, economist for the Insurance Information Institute.
Overall, the increases amount to billions of dollars.
"The reality is that this is an economic crisis," said Deborah Beck, executive vice president of the Real Estate Board of New York. "It's affecting everybody from major hotel chains to apartment renters."
The hikes also are crimping development in the city, along with the jobs that come with new construction.
"I have two big projects on hold — I won't tell you what they are — because of insurance," said Douglas Durst, president of the Durst Organization, which owns 10 office buildings comprising more than 7 million square feet of space.
"Three hundred percent, that's what they're asking and getting," he said.
Premium costs are paid by commercial tenants with new leases, or in the cases of co-ops and condos, by shareholders.
There are some exceptions to the pass-along process, at least for now.
Professional sports teams, including the football Giants, have set their ticket prices for the year, and Gregory said the MTA is not planning any fare increases for this year as a result of premium hikes. The teams and the MTA are absorbing the costs.
"It is absolutely staggering, and we're paying more for less coverage with a higher deductible," said Lonn Trost, chief operating officer of the Yankees. He said the insurance premium for Yankee Stadium jumped 125%, although he declined to be specific about the actual cost.
John Samerjan, spokesman for the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, which manages the Meadowlands, said the annual premiums for the complex went from to $2.1 million from $700,000, "seriously impacting our costs.
"We negotiated with insurers, that was the best we could get," he said, referring to the policy for insuring Giants Stadium, Continental Arena and the Meadowlands race track.
Even though they are not responsible for property where they compete, the New York Giants' property and liability coverage is jumping 30% in a policy that is being negotiated, according to Pat Hanlon, spokesman for the team.
"That would be for any lawsuit, like a player accidentally falling into a TV cameraman," he said. Hush hush
Several major insurers were asked to explain and comment on the rate hikes, but they either declined to comment or their executives were not available.
However, top executives at the several of the nation's biggest insurance brokerages, along with major city real estate brokers, said some increases were occurring even before Sept. 11.
"Until two years ago, the market was soft. There was a lot of supply, there was cheap pricing and a lot of competition, but then with stock market losses, and some lesser catastrophes, tropical storms, the market began to tighten and rates went up," said Chris Treanor, managing director of Marsh Inc., a major insurance broker.
"Then, with 9/11, there was not only the losses, 10 times the losses of the next-biggest catastrophe, the insurers got more conservative in their underwriting philosophies," he said.
"A lot of players left the playing field or significantly reduced their appetite for risk. Now there's a new level of uncertainty for what kind of catastrophic event could happen," said Treanor.
Insignia/ESG's Adams said that since Sept. 11, the procedure for setting up property insurance has changed, particularly when it comes to terrorism insurance.
"There's no formula. They're not looking at the size of the building and determining the risk. ... If you want to drive people and businesses out of New York City, this is the way," Adams said.
To help ease rates and promote underwriting of terrorism policies, the insurance industry has been lobbying Congress to approve measures that would pay for losses from future terrorist attacks.
President Bush has urged Congress to adopt a measure that would provide as much as $100 billion in government loans to the insurance industry to cover future attacks. The bill passed the House but is stalled in the Senate because of restrictions on victims' compensation from insurers.
NEw York Daily News 04/28/2002
When transit manufacturer Bombardier decided to move into its exclusive midtown offices several years ago, company executives recalled being impressed by its proximity to Grand Central Station, just steps from the revolving doorways.
Advertisements for the glass-and-steel high-rise — 101 Park Ave. — promise its tenants "influence" and "prestige." And the location is just a quick hustle from the Madison Ave. headquarters of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, where Bombardier has a major contract to build subway cars.
But the move has, over time, provided another potential advantage for the Montreal-based company, which is one of three firms jockeying to win the largest subway-car contract in city history: The offices are in the same building as the most powerful person at the MTA, board chairman Peter Kalikow.
And Kalikow isn't just a neighbor. He owns the building.
In fact, some of the tenants of 101 Park Ave. comprise a web of influence and political connections in and around the MTA. Real estate empire Kalikow — who manages a family real estate empire, H.J. Kalikow & Co., from the building — occupies offices on the 25th floor, just one floor below Bombardier, according to the building directory.
Another 25th-floor resident with Kalikow: Alfonse D'Amato, the former U.S. senator whose lobbying firm, Park Strategies, is schooling another bidder in the pending $3 billion subway-car contract, Alstom of France.
The chief financial officer of Kalikow's real-estate firm, Richard Nasti, was until days ago Kalikow's top aide at the MTA. His departure from MTA was disclosed Monday — the same day the Daily News reported possible conflicts of interest in his behind-the-scenes involvement in the subway contract and an unusual, off-the-books employment deal that lasted for months at the state-run agency.
D'Amato and Kalikow have been close friends and political allies for years. Kalikow, a major GOP fund-raiser, has donated thousands of dollars to D'Amato's political campaigns.
They both have ties with Gov. Pataki, who appoints or signs off on MTA board members, its chairman and executive director.
Nasti, the in-house lawyer for Kalikow's real-estate firm, is a D'Amato protege, who served as the senator's chief counsel.
Also listed on the 25th floor with D'Amato and Kalikow is former MTA chairman Virgil Conway, a consultant, Pataki loyalist and one-time banking official in the Rockefeller administration.
Top Bombardier executive Peter Stangl, another former MTA chairman, has an office on the 26th floor.
Real estate listings show office space at the building rents for $60 a square foot.
The rent checks signed by Bombardier enrich Kalikow, who in turn is in a position to vote on awarding Bombardier a decade-long contract.
Under the pending deal, the winning contractor will design and build 660 subway cars, with options to make as many as 1,040 more over a decade — a pact that eventually could be worth $3 billion.
"Is it the wisest thing for an MTA contractor to be a tenant of the MTA chair? It's probably not the best thing," said Gene Russianoff, a lawyer with the New York Public Interest Research Group.
Bombardier spokeswoman Francine Durocher said the company moved into the Kalikow-owned building in 1998. "At that time, Mr. Kalikow was not chairman," she noted.
MTA spokesman Thomas Kelly said it was "premature" to discuss whether Kalikow will vote on the subway contract. Advising on contract A committee at the Transit Authority — headed by longtime Pataki aide Katherine Lapp — is reviewing proposals from Bombardier, Alstom and Kawasaki of Japan. That recommendation will go to the MTA, which will vote on the contract.
William Powers, former state Republican chairman, is advising Kawasaki on the pending contract. William Plunkett, Pataki's former law partner who runs a lobbying and law firm, has been retained by Bombardier to assist in its bid.
In 1997, Bombardier and Kawasaki split a $1.4 billion MTA deal to build 1,080 subway cars.
At least one other MTA contractor occupies space in a Kalikow-owned building — EA Technologies at 195 Broadway.
In 2000, when Kalikow was vice chairman of the MTA board, the company was part of a joint venture awarded a $141 million contract to install a fiber-optic communications network for the Transit Authority.
Kelly said Kalikow did not vote on the EA contract.
The Boston Globe 04/28/2002
The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's Silver Line Transitway has been under construction since 1995 and is nearing Washington Street leg, from Dudley Square in Roxbury to New England Medical 31, 2010. Projected completion date of connector tunnel; the silver scene the other big dig while workers continue to submerge the central artery, another subsurface project is taking shape under Boston. and this one is a marvel in its own right.
Camouflaged by the chaos of Central Artery construction, a small army of laborers has built thousands of feet of road beneath Boston, massive concrete tunnel boxes that will float down the Fort Point Channel, and a sparkling subterranean transit station with a glass tower emblazoned with a big "T" on top.
After seven years of toil, the MBTA's $601 million Silver Line Transitway, a bus rapid transit line that will run underground from South Station to the South Boston Waterfront, is fast nearing completion. When done, futuristic, electric-and-diesel propelled buses will shepherd riders to the federal courthouse, the World Trade Center, the new convention center, Marine Industrial Park, and Logan Airport.
But if the Silver Line Transitway will transform the city's map on a scale not seen in decades, few Bostonians seem aware of the megaproject, thanks to the Big Dig, which is so massive and sprawling that it has blanketed the MBTA's busway in a cloak of invisibility.
Michael Mulhern, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's general manager, said he hopes the finished transitway will at last earn the T a piece of the spotlight when it is scheduled to open in December 2003, about a year before the Big Dig is complete. Such attention would befit what he calls "Boston's fifth rapid transit line," Mulhern says, and what transportation specialists say will be among the most advanced bus rapid transit projects in the world, one that's expected to attract 32,000 riders daily.
"If it weren't for the Big Dig, I think everyone would be talking about this," said Mulhern, as he toured the work zone last week in a hard hat and orange reflective vest. "This is a major, major public works project that will have a profound effect on the mobility of people in this city. I try to remind people here that we're very fortunate to be here at this moment. There aren't a lot of cities doing something like this."
The obscurity has not been all bad, however. While many have oohed and aahed at the sleek Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge — often called the crown jewel of the Central Artery project — the Big Dig's ballooning price tag and occasional scandals have earned the project more than its share of detractors.
The Silver Line Transitway, meanwhile, has evolved quietly, even though the bottom line has risen by 50 percent, from $400 million, and will open much later than originally promised in 2001.
The Washington Street portion of the Silver Line, which was supposed to debut this month without a connection to the transitway, has also been delayed, and officials say they cannot pinpoint an opening date right now, although the construction work appears to be nearing an end.
In many ways, the transitway has grown like a sapling in the shadow of a sequoia, emulating the mammoth project beside it. Devised as an offset to the increase in car traffic the Big Dig may bring to the city, the transitway involves complex construction techniques remarkably similar to the Central Artery. Workers have frozen soil and jacked up historic buildings with busy offices in them, but they have employed a complex "New Austrian" tunneling method never attempted on the Big Dig.
And this fall, if all goes according to schedule, Modern Continental Construction Co., the firm that has done more Big Dig work than any other, will float three 230-feet-long tunnel tubes from a dry dock at Marine Industrial Park in South Boston to the Fort Point Channel, completing the transitway tunnel. The job, far simpler and smaller than Modern Continental's problem-plagued Fort Point Channel work on the Big Dig, is still quite precarious. Once push boats have steered the tubes to the mouth of the channel, workers will have only a six-hour tide window to maneuver each down the narrow waterway and into position, said Steve DelGrosso, Modern's senior project manager on the job.
And just like the Big Dig, the transitway will deliver less than hoped for.
For example, when the transitway opens, riders will not have a chance to ride the newfangled $1.5 million buses Neoplan USA will build for the route. Because of unforeseen delays in the environmental review process, the 60-foot-long, accordion buses will not even begin to be manufactured until spring 2004, said Neoplan special projects manager Charlie Hahn. The entire 32-vehicle fleet will not arrive for months afterward.
The T will resort to using new electric trolley buses for opening day, and they will be able to go only as far as the as-yet unnamed Connector Road station in South Boston, where the overhead catenary wiring ends. That means the Silver Line's debut will not include a trip to Logan Airport, expected to be one of the most popular and profitable of the Silver Line's routes.
Such problems could have profound consequences, said Seth Kaplan, a senior attorney at the Conservation Law Foundation and a close observer of the project. If the Silver Line suffers from a bad public image, it could do much harm to the MBTA's future plans for bus rapid transit and the Silver Line in particular.
"What's important is that (the transitway) not suffer from the concerns of the Big Dig," Kaplan said. "You don't want people to look at these new stations and say, 'Man, if only we spent the money shoring up our new system rather than build this.' We can't have people walk into it and think it was a waste of time and money."
Other problems have arisen, too. Many in South Boston and at the MBTA had originally hoped that the transitway would continue beneath D Street, rather than force bus drivers to confront a traffic signal immediately after ascending from the tunnel. But the "T under D" equation, which could add $20 million to the project, appears to be too complex for now, Mulhern said. The agency hopes that, someday, such an underground access road will get built. (A joint study of the T under D plan, undertaken by the MBTA and the Massachusetts Port Authority, which owns the property across D Street, has begun, Mulhern said, and Massport has agreed not to obstruct such an extension with any future development.
Yet another glitch may be looming. The MBTA and Massport, which operates Logan Airport, are both pushing for the Silver Line's airport-bound buses to use entry ramps to the Ted Williams Tunnel in South Boston, ramps currently used exclusively by emergency vehicles. The T argues that their buses will use the ramps only six times an hour, and that the ramps are wide enough to accommodate their vehicles. Without the ramp access, they argue, the Logan route could be lengthened as much as 10 minutes, deterring potential riders.
But emergency agency officials and the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, which owns the ramps, are concerned about buses blocking the vital entryways. Talks among the agencies are ongoing.
Even if all those problems are resolved, the success of the Silver Line Transitway is by no means certain. From the outset, planners have banked on another subterranean busway that would link the transitway to the new and improved Washington Street service. The new busway would run from New England Medical Center — via one of Boston's original, now unused, subway tunnels — to Boylston Street Station in the Back Bay, and from there it would follow a newly constructed tunnel to South Station. The tunnel would make connections with the Orange and Green lines, and would offer the coveted one-seat ride from Back Bay hotels to the convention center and the airport. Early projections indicate that the completed Silver Line would accommodate 60,000 riders daily, more than the Blue Line, which transports 56,900 people daily.
The T signed a consent order in September 2000 to complete the Silver Line's $900 million connector tunnel by Dec. 31, 2010. But the project's fate will rise and fall on the response of the US government, which this spring will decide whether the connector merits federal backing. Without that, Mulhern said, the Silver Line as envisioned for the past decade may never be.
"We think the next phase of the Silver Line is the best chance Boston has in the pipeline to employ the city's construction and design forces after the Big Dig," Mulhern said. "We have to think as a city about what comes after 2005."
The Boston Herald 04/28/2002
It may be the T's biggest tease — extending the Blue Line through Lynn to Salem.
But despite being an idea that's been kicked around more than the tires at the used car dealerships up and down Route 1A, the MBTA is once again taking a hard look at taking rapid transit beyond the dogs.
"Love it," said Wayne Brown of Swampscott, whose one-hour daily commute to Charlestown starts with a bus ride to Wonderland, where he boards the Blue Line. "I've been hearing about it all my life... but I've always thought it was a great idea."
And suddenly, it seems, an idea with legs.
Spurred on by the $1 million North Shore Major Investment Study, the T is looking at three ways of beefing up service to the region.
The Blue Line currently ends at Wonderland in Revere, leaving commuters to either get off there and board a T bus for points north, or forcing them to avoid the rapid transit line altogether in favor of the more expensive commuter rail lines that run to Newburyport and Rockport.
Two of the proposals being studied by the T involve extending the Blue Line to Salem — either along an existing right-of-way known as Point of Pines or adjacent to commuter rail tracks. The third entails adding a commuter rail stop in Revere to connect it with the Blue Line, possibly combining the two modes at the same station.
With solid support for each of the three proposals — last fall a survey of 1,300 North Shore T riders showed a commuter rail improvement running neck and neck with a Blue Line extension on riders' wish lists — T officials say some sort of service enhancement is on its way.
"The idea has been kicked around for years, but it's a real project... that's going to remain in the pipeline in some form or another over the next few years," said T general manager Mike Mulhern, who remembers hearing about a possible extension when he was a train attendant on the Blue Line in the early 1980s.
In recent weeks, the T has been soliciting input from North Shore commuters as to what kind of service enhancements they'd like to see.
Riders on the upper North Shore seem to favor the commuter rail proposal, while those around Lynn, Salem and the surrounding communities would like to see the increased frequencies that accompany the subway to make up for the highway planners that years ago cut them out of the loop.
"Lynn and to a lesser degree Salem have severe transportation access problems, absolutely horrendous," said Lynn Mayor Chip Clancy. "It's a nightmare... (and) we're not going to see any more roads built, that's a given."
Mulhern likens the situation in the north to that on the South Shore, which has seen two of the three spokes of the Old Colony branch of the commuter rail built over the last five years. The third, the controversial Greenbush line to Scituate, is on the way.
"It's similar to what's going on in the southeast corridor of the state with Greenbush," said Mulhern. "You have some communities that are sort of landlocked and not served well by the highway network, so with that kind of situation you look for other transportation solutions."
The fresh look at the previously studied-and-discarded "Coastal Corridor" comes as the T angles for federal money to pay for improvements on the North Shore. The commuter rail proposal would cost anywhere between $10 million and $60 million, depending on how it's configured, while extending the Blue Line would require about $300 million.
"It's certainly not something we could pay for on our own, so for that reason we're doing everything we can to keep this project federalized," said Mulhern.
Whatever option the T eventually settles on, officials say North Shore riders shouldn't expect it to arrive overnight.
"We're talking about four years before you could even put a shovel in the ground, and that would be the most optimistic (scenario)," said Dennis DiZoglio, the T's assistant general manager for planning and real estate. "If everything clicked and everything worked out... you're looking at eight to 10 years to realize the new service."
Those who already have waited decades for the Blue Line extension that never came say better late than never.
"It's an economic thing," said Clancy. "Where people can come and go, jump on (the subway), it's had a huge economic inflative effect.... When you look at the economic vitality that has followed other spokes of the MBTA, that is the model we'd like to emulate."
By Alistair Osborne
VIRGIN Rail has received the first £90m of compensation from for the network operator's failure to provide the agreed track infrastructure for its new tilting trains, it emerged yesterday.
Stagecoach, which owns 49pc of Virgin Rail, disclosed the sum in a pre-results trading statement that also revealed that "revenues have still not recovered" at its problematic Coach USA business.
Railtrack, whose financial problems were largely caused by the trebling of costs on the West Coast Main Line upgrade, has deferred track access charges on the route for the six months to July 20.
Meanwhile, the company, its administrators Ernst & Young and the Strategic Rail Authority are thrashing out a compensation deal for Virgin Rail that could run to hundreds of millions of taxpayers' money. Without a deal, it will be hard to take Railtrack out of administration.
The talks are particularly sensitive because SRA chairman Richard Bowker was the former chairman of Virgin Rail. He is playing no direct part in the talks.
Yesterday Stagecoach said the new trains were expected to be in service this year, but the tracks and signalling required to operate them at 125mph would not be ready "until at the earliest summer 2003". The trains make their first appearance at Euston station today.
Martin Griffiths, Stagecoach finance director, added that he thought it was "very unlikely now" that Railtrack would provide the infrastructure to run them at 140mph.
Chris Green, chief executive of Virgin Rail, said he was hopeful of a deal by July. He wants: "Eleven slots an hour out of Euston. Nine is not in dispute, but 10 and 11 are. Big money rides on this," he said. Freight operators oppose the plans.
Mr Griffiths said: "Our business plan has been severely damaged by the failure to upgrade the infrastructure." He warned: "Those people who think we are going to get a big cheque out of this are wrong." Instead, Virgin Rail may receive more subsidy.
Stagecoach said six days of strikes by the RMT Union on South West Trains had cost it £9m. It expects to sign the contract for a 20-year franchise extension in July.
Coach USA's revenues for the first 11 months were 5pc down on the previous year, with the international tour market "remaining weak" after September 11.
Mr Griffiths said: "It probably has not bounced back as quickly as we envisaged, but there's no reason why Coach cannot bounce back next year."
Stagecoach said full-year profits would be "in line with current market expectations", though analysts trimmed their forecasts to £95m-£100m. The shares fell 1/2 to 78p.
By Will Hutton 28 April 2002
Business & Media — Special support — Public private partnerships – Risky no matter how you slice it — Will Hutton on how one of the central planks of British public finance has come to rest on a novel accounting method that offers no genuine value for money.
CHANCELLOR Norman Lamont first devised the private finance initiative to allow those parts of the public sector with an income stream to use it to finance capital investment off the public sector's balance sheet. It was, first and foremost, an accounting device for limiting the growth of public borrowing. As he disarmingly admits, he never thought it could — or should — be deployed to create artificial public sector income streams, artificial risk transfer and wholly notional efficiency gains. That would be largely pointless and end up costing the public purse more.
It was New Labour's determination to prove itself a friend of the private sector, coupled with the technical ingenuity of Treasury knight Sir Steve Robson, that was to make the private finance initiative and the public-private partnership flagships of the current government. The PPP for the London Underground is the largest ever attempted in the world. By the next election, the cumulative value of PFIs and PPPs together will exceed £40 billion. A novel accounting device has become one of the central planks of British public finance.
The transformation has been underpinned by the claim that the private sector delivers in ways the public sector cannot. It is argued that if the private sector assumes contractual responsibility for delivering public projects and financing them over a 30-year period, it accepts the risk of cost overruns during construction and of mismanagement of long-life assets thereafter.
And as the public sector has shown itself to be historically weak at procurement, meeting contractual deadlines and managing both large construction projects and longlife assets, this must bring efficiency gains.
The first risk transferred to the private sector, it is argued, is the risk that the public sector is unable to compute accurately the costs of the construction and management of a contract. Its own comparators for assessing costs are necessarily those within its own experience, and these will be within the confines of the public sector. Turning the assessment of costs over to a profit-seeking private contractor who is going to suffer from any bad forecasting creates a new incentive to get the base costs right.
The second risk is that of cost overruns during a project's construction. The most quoted examples are the Jubilee Line extension and Guy's Hospital, where the public sector, it is alleged, lost control of the project and landed the taxpayer with large avoidable bills.
London Underground, justifying the PPP, reckoned, on the basis of 225 projects, that the average cost overrun was 17 per cent. Passing a project over to a PPP or PFI entails a contractual demand that the private sector assume responsibility for overruns, and so such risk is removed from the public sector completely.
Lastly there is the risk that cost inflation may be higher than the retail price index used in the PFI or PPP contract — a risk that is, again, borne by the private contractor.
The first and last of these three risks are relatively small; the biggest risk is cost overruns. In London Underground's case, based on its experience, £1.6bn of the £2.3bn risk adjustment was for cost overruns — comfortably the most important single justification for using PPP rather than sticking to public sector control; this adjustment more than offset the private sector's increased financing charges.
The difficulty is whether this risk really is being transferred, and whether the only way to avoid this is a PFI or PPP. Part of the reason for both the Guys Hospital and Jubilee Line Extension cost overruns was respecification in the light of changing assessments of needs and, in the latter case, the actual experience of tunnelling. Both would have been incurred under PPP or PFI.
In both cases the private sector would have turned to the Government and argued that, as the reason for the cost inflation could not have been forecast, the state should pick up the bill. Otherwise, it would say, it could not continue the contract. As the Government wanted both projects, it would have had to pay up.
The truth is that little risk is being transferred. If the private sector judges the risk to be real, it either builds it into its tender price, or asks for some form of agreement to cover particular eventualities.
This is not to argue that the public sector does not experience cost overruns or is good at procurement. It is deficient in both. The open question is whether PFIs and PPPs as currently structured are genuine value-for-money alternatives, resting as they do on what are often inflated guesstimates about the degree of risk that is being transferred.
Federal Document Clearing House, Inc. 04/29/2002
MINNEAPOLIS — U.S. Secretary of Transportation Norman Y. Mineta today announced a grant of $49.5 million in Federal Transit Administration (FTA) funds to the Metropolitan Council for the construction of the Hiawatha Light Rail Transit project in Minneapolis. The Secretary made the announcement in Minneapolis at the James L. Oberstar Forum on Transportation Policy and Technology Luncheon. "President Bush has proposed $7.2 billion for the Federal Transit Program as part of the FY 2003 budget, further reinforcing this Administration's commitment to public transportation as a strategic investment," said Secretary Mineta. "This grant strengthens that commitment and will help provide safe, efficient and reliable transit service to the residents of Minnesota."
Funds authorized under the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21) support today's grant of $49,500,654, which will be used to continue construction for the Hiawatha Avenue light rail line. The Hiawatha Corridor extends from the transit mall at Fifth Avenue in downtown Minneapolis along Hiawatha Avenue to a terminus, across 24th Street to the Mall of America in Bloomington. The line will be 11.6 miles long and will include 17 stations, providing transit access to the Humphrey Metrodome, the west campus of the University of Minnesota and a major Veterans Administration Hospital complex. In addition, the line will tunnel under runways and taxiways to provide two new stations serving Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, which also includes the headquarters of Northwest Airlines. Revenue service is scheduled to commence in December 2003.
The Federal Transit Administration and the Metropolitan Council entered into a Full Funding Grant Agreement (FFGA) for the project on Jan. 17, 2001. Today's grant and the FTA's previous commitment of $118.85 million will provide a total of $168.35 million for this project. An FFGA is the federal government's commitment to support a transit project over the course of several fiscal years, contingent upon the availability of funds. As funds are appropriated, the full funding projects receive priority consideration.
Saint Paul Pioneer Press 04/29/2002
When normal people visit a different city, they check out the major tourist attractions. For me, the first order of business on a recent trip to St. Louis for a writing workshop was to check out MetroLink, the light-rail line serving St. Louis and other communities in Missouri and Illinois.
Like many Minnesotans, I had never taken light rail and wanted to see what we might expect in 2004, after the opening of the 11.6-mile Hiawatha light-rail line between downtown Minneapolis and the Mall of America in Bloomington. I persuaded my luggage-toting co-workers — seven of us in all — to take the MetroLink from Lambert-St. Louis International Airport to our hotel in downtown St. Louis.
The fare from Lambert-St. Louis International Airport was $3, but we fed the ticket machine $4 for a day pass that entitled us to unlimited rides on light rail and buses. My initial assessment upon boarding? It wasn't bad at all. The two-car train was clean and inviting and offered a smooth, quiet ride, although it was extremely slow at times.
"Our system is the fastest in the country," said Thomas Shrout, executive director of Citizens for Modern Transit in St. Louis. The train's average speed including stops is 32 mph, but it can reach a top speed of 55 mph.
MetroLink opened in 1993 and Bi-State Development Agency, which operates MetroLink, will break ground on a third extension in Missouri later this year. The 34.4-mile line from Belleville, Ill., to the airport carries 42,000 people on weekdays and operates on a combination of fare box collections and voter-approved increases in the sales tax.
The line, part of which was built on existing railroad right-of-way, seemed removed from the rest of the world; it didn't run side-by-side with traffic, as Hiawatha will. We went through industrial areas, junkyards, cemeteries and a yard full of porta-potties. Where's the transit-oriented development that's supposed to crop up alongside light rail?
There has been some recent redevelopment, officials say. An old downtown St. Louis warehouse has been converted into a Westin Hotel and in Illinois, 300 market-rate and subsidized rental housing units have opened — the first new housing to be built in East St. Louis in 50 years, Shrout said.
A co-worker remarked when we got off at the Busch Stadium stop that transit authorities had not checked our tickets. Light rail employs a self-service fare collection system. Passengers get tickets from a machine before they get on and are only randomly checked to see if they've paid.
Later that day, some of us took the train to Union Station, a mall on the light rail line, in part to make sure we got that extra dollar's worth. On that outing, we were asked to produce our tickets.
That, I tell you, was one of the highlights of our light-rail experience. We happily displayed our tickets. We felt righteous. We felt validated. We wanted to be recognized. It's weird, but to pay for the trip, even though it got you from point A to point B, and not be acknowledged for it makes you feel like you threw your money away.
We didn't ride again until it was time to go to the airport for the return trip home. Initially, I thought the three bucks for a trip to the hotel was a far better deal than the $11 shuttle the hotel offered. But then, on our way back, we learned the base price for riding light rail was $1.25. Still a good deal, but now I felt like a ripped-off tourist.
Why does it cost $3 to leave the airport, but boarding at any other stop means a one-way fare of $1.25? It was a way to generate additional revenue, said Linda Ross, spokeswoman for Bi-State Development Agency. Local residents have found a way around it — by buying passes that can be used when they return from a trip.
Visitors just have to pay more.
"I don't mind," said one co-worker. "You gouge who you can gouge.
It's still cheap."
Officials planning our very own Hiawatha line have not discussed what they call "value-based" fare system or charging more to leave Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport or other destinations.
When the packed, airport-bound MetroLink arrived at the Busch Stadium station, a sea of red-and-white-clad St. Louis Cardinal baseball fans gushed out of the train. On our way to the airport, Cardinal fans were waiting on the platform at almost every stop.
MetroLink is a "destination-designed" and "event-driven" system, hitting major attractions including museums and the TWA Dome, where the St. Louis Rams play. Some families treat taking light rail to events like a field trip, Ross said.
Then, of course, there are the commuters. One thing MetroLink offers that some fear Hiawatha won't is adequate parking. The MetroLink system has 17 park-and-ride lots providing nearly 8,000 parking spaces along the 27-station line. Only two lots are planned for Hiawatha — 855 spaces at Fort Snelling and 200 at the Mall of America — on a line expected to serve 19,000 people daily in late 2004.
Although the local bus system was reconfigured to serve MetroLink, parking is an important component to the system, particularly for suburbanites who drive to the park-and-ride facilities to take light rail into downtown St. Louis.
"(In) the Twin Cities, you've maintained a strong base of (bus) ridership. In St. Louis, that's not the case; bus ridership has been declining," Shrout said, explaining why the city could not rely on buses to feed light rail. Even with Metro Transit's ridership, which dropped slightly last year from 73.5 million to 73.3 million, Shrout suspects Hiawatha will have to offer more parking opportunities.
"I have a gut feeling you're undersized without seeing it. Even Portland has more than (two park-and-rides)," he said.
Experts from Calgary, Alberta, and Seattle, commissioned by light-rail officials here to suggest parking management techniques, recommend that more parking spaces be added. While the last Minneapolis City Council thought there were better uses for city land than building more parking, some members of the new City Council want to revisit the issue, said Jennifer Lovaasen, Met Council outreach coordinator.
A parking management task force, made up of representatives from Minneapolis, Bloomington, Metro Transit and the Metropolitan Council, will look at the parking experts' recommendations.
Newsday (Long Island, NY) 04/29/2002
More than a dozen years after the last graffiti-covered subway train was taken out of service, a little-known police squad combs the tunnels and hideouts of the subway system each night for signs of trouble.
"It's not as glamorous as homicide," said Lt. Steven Mona, commanding officer of the Vandals Squad.
It is filthy but essential work that became more important for this city after the September terrorist attacks.
"We're out there every night, inspecting tunnels and rooms, alcoves and storage areas and equipment boxes," said Mona, 42, who has made a career in the squad. "We make sure they're all locked and secure. This is something we've been doing since way before 9/11."
They're among a select group of police officers allowed on the subway tracks when the third rail is alive with power. They receive the same training as the grunts of the transit workforce, the undervalued men and women known as subway track workers.
"The subway is the lifeblood of the city," Mona said. "If you shut the subways down, the city comes to a standstill."
Still, fighting graffiti is their bread and butter. Their beat is a city and subway system widely acknowledged as the Mecca of graffiti art, the place where it all started with a handful of rebellious South Bronx vandals in the late '60s.
In graffiti's heyday, in fact, underground artists would routinely gather at the 149th Street-Grand Concourse subway station in the South Bronx to study and admire the pieces painted on the IRT's No. 2 and 5 trains.
Today, graffiti artists from Germany, Italy, Japan, Norway and Sweden make pilgrimages to New York. They don't come to see the skyscrapers or visit the Statue of Liberty, but to experience up close the birthplace of their waning movement. Many return home disappointed with the state of graffiti in this city, especially in the subway.
Since the last spray-painted subway went out of service in 1989, New York City Transit has done a marvelous job of keeping graffiti off the trains. Each year the transit agency spends millions of dollars cleaning the stuff almost as soon as it appears.
But the subterranean culture never went away, and graffiti has evolved from the spray-painted murals on the side of subway cars to the annoying "scratchiti" writing on subway car windows. Scratchiti is the etching of nicknames into subway car windows and walls with keys, blades or sharp rocks formed from lava.
"The graffiti world looks down on scratchiti," said Det. Jim Bogliole of the Vandals Squad. "For some, scratchiti is the lowest."
The graffiti subculture has developed into an international circuit, linked partly by hundreds of Internet sites and cheap airfares.
In recent years, authorities in Germany and other European countries have replicated the Vandals Squad in an attempt to deal with the burgeoning graffiti problem there.
Still, no country has anything on the size or scale of the NYPD, which began its anti-graffiti campaign in earnest during the early '80s.
"The perception of crime in the subway was that it was absolutely the most dangerous place in the city to be," Mona said of the turbulent '70s and '80s. "The perception was that, at best, no one was in control of the subway system and, at worse, the criminals were in charge."
Now, the Vandals Squad has eight sergeants and 60 officers who patrol the city's train yards and tunnels, monitor the hundreds of graffiti sites on the Internet and conduct surveillance operations on graffiti writers from here and abroad.
"We're out in the yards and tunnels every night," Mona said.
Evening Standard Monday, April 29, 2002
BISHOPSGATE GOODSYARD has had a colourful history, from the pioneer days of steam railways to shows during London Fashion Week.
It is a gigantic Victorian construction covering 10 acres at the north end of Brick Lane. It was London's second railway terminus after Euston. In 1875 it ceased to be a passenger terminus with the opening of Liverpool Street station, after which it became London's biggest goods terminus. Its oldest part, the Braithwaite Viaduct, was built from 1839 to 1842 and is one of the oldest railway constructions in the world.
Its superstructure was destroyed by fire in 1964, since when its imposing brick vaults have been largely empty.
Over the last few years it has been partly occupied by small businesses on temporary leases, and has housed indoor football pitches, a swimming pool, a health club and fashion shows.
Now these have left or are due to leave.
The East London Line extension, which will run from Whitechapel to Highbury, is due to be built over part of the site.
But English Heritage claims that demolition is not necessary. It commissioned reports from the engineer Alan Baxter, who says there is "ample structural capacity" for the new line, and the architect Kim Wilkie, who has produced an alternative plan.
Wilkie's scheme proposes that the Goodsyard's vaults could house "a mixed development that responds to local character". A "park in the sky" could be created on top, linked to other East End parks, while still allowing space for commercial development.
At English Heritage's request the Braithwaite Viaduct was recently listed, a move criticised by London Underground. This means that the viaduct cannot be demolished without a compelling reason. But the rest of the Goodsyard is not protected in this way.
Evening Times (Glasgow) 04/29/2002
TRANSPORT bosses have launched a legal bid to ensure a new (pounds) 23million commuter rail line goes ahead.
Last August struggling Railtrack pulled out of the project to open the new route, which would allow services to run between Larkhall in Lanark-shire, and Milngavie. The move came despite the fact that funding had been approved.
Now Strathclyde Passenger Transport wants to be given the right to carry out the work instead and ensure the new line can open within three years.
SPT, which is responsible for Britain's second-biggest commuter rail network, has the cash to lay the track which would be Scotland's first major new railway line in nearly 40 years but is blocked by red tape.
Railtrack was granted rights to build the line by MPs in 1994 when it was still part of British Rail.
SPT operations manager Douglas Ferguson said he hoped lawyers would cut through the red tape 'within weeks'.
He said today: "What we are looking for is an assurance that we can go ahead with the project. Otherwise we may have to go back to the House of Commons."
Mr Ferguson said Railtrack's withdrawal from the scheme after the Government put the company into administration had delayed it by as much as a year.
The Scottish Executive stepped in to rescue the project financially when Railtrack, which was to fund the line, pulled out.
Ministers agreed to put up (pounds) 16m for the reopening which it is hoped will breathe new life into Lanarkshire with two new stations at Larkhall and Merryton.
The SPT will provide (pounds) 7m for track and infrastructure and another (pounds) 5m for new trains to run from Lanarkshire to East Dunbartonshire.
Eventually rail chiefs hope to secure funding for another two stations on the line.
The scheme involves building a railway line from Hamilton's Haughhead junction to Larkhall, just under four miles away.
Commuter trains would operate between Larkhall and Milngavie, via Glasgow city centre.
It would be the first substantial piece of new track laid in the West of Scotland since the Beeching cuts of the 60s.
The last railway opened was the short Argyle line in 1979 but it largely used existing track.
New railways anywhere in Britain may only be built with special permission from the House of Commons and the right to build the Larkhall line lies with Railtrack.
But the company effectively went bust in October last year when it was put into administration by Transport Minister Stephen Byers.
It is now run by managers appointed by its administrators, accountants who represent creditors and not shareholders.
Mr Byers now hopes to set up a new 'not-for-profit' company, Network Rail, to take over Railtrack's assets.
Federal Document Clearing House, Inc. GAO Reports GAO-02-603 April 30, 2002
The Honorable Paul S. Sarbanes Chairman The Honorable Phil Gramm Ranking Minority Member Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs United States Senate
The Honorable Don Young Chairman The Honorable James L. Oberstar Ranking Democratic Member Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure House of Representatives
Since the early 1970s, the federal government has provided a large share of the nation's capital investment in urban mass transportation. Much of this investment has come through the Federal Transit Administration's (FTA) New Starts program, which helps pay for certain rail, bus, and trolley projects through full funding grant agreements.' The maximum amount of federal funds available to a project cannot exceed 80 percent of the estimated net cost. In the last 9 years, this program has provided state and local agencies with over $7 billion to help design and construct transit projects throughout the country.
The Transportation Equity Act for the 21" Century (TEA-21),' enacted in 1998, authorized about $6 billion in "guaranteed" funding for the New Starts program through fiscal year 2003. Although the level of New Starts funding is higher than it has ever been, the demand for these resources is also extremely high. TEA-21 identified over 190 projects nationwide as eligible to compete for New Starts funding. FTA was directed to prioritize projects for funding by evaluating, rating, and recommending potential projects on the basis of specific financial and project justification criteria. Furthermore, TEA-21 required FTA to issue regulations for the evaluation and rating process. The final rule became effective in 2001.
In addition, TEA-21 requires us to report each year on FTA's processes and procedures for evaluating, rating, and recommending New Starts projects for federal funding and on the implementation of these processes and procedures.' In light of what we saw as an impending "budget crunch," we recommended in March 2000 that the Department of Transportation (DOT) further prioritize among the projects it rates as "highly recommended" and "recommended" for funding purposes.' DOT has not fully implemented this recommendation. This report discusses (1) FTA's evaluation and rating process, including its implementation of the final rule; (2) FTA's fiscal year 2003 New Starts report and budget proposal, including new projects that FTA is proposing for grant agreements; (3) FTA's remaining New Starts commitment authority, and (4) the impact of imposing a cap of 50 or 60 percent of project costs on New Starts funding for transit projects. Results in Brief
FTA's finalized New Starts evaluation process assigns candidate projects individual ratings for project justification and local financial commitment criteria contained in TEA-21. The process also assigns an overall rating that is intended to reflect the project's overall merit. FTA considers these overall ratings to decide which projects will proceed to the preliminary engineering and final design phases, be recommended for funding, and receive full funding grant agreements. Although FTA's New Starts project evaluation and rating process for fiscal year 2003 was very similar to that of fiscal year 2002, the agency made a number of refinements to the process. For instance, for fiscal year 2003, potential grantees were more strictly assessed on their ability to build and operate proposed projects than in the past. Such assessments are meant to ensure that no outstanding issues concerning a project's scope or cost or a locality's financial commitment could jeopardize the project once a full funding grant agreement is signed.
In addition, FTA made a number of technical changes in its evaluation of proposed projects based on the final rule for the New Starts evaluation process, which became effective in 2001. For example, FTA has replaced the "cost per new rider" measure of cost effectiveness with a new measure of "transportation system user benefits," which emphasizes the potential reduction in the amount of travel time and out-of-pocket costs that people would incur taking a trip. FTA is currently in the process of phasing in this measure.
FTA's evaluation process led it to recommend four projects for funding commitments for fiscal year 2003 in its New Starts report and budget proposal. FTA evaluated 50 proposed projects for fiscal year 2003 and developed ratings for 31 of them.' Twenty- seven of these projects were rated as highly recommended or recommended. FTA proposed grant agreements for two of these projects because they met its "readiness"' and technical capacity criteria. The remaining 25 highly recommended or recommended projects were not proposed for grant agreements for several reasons. According to FTA, the majority of these projects did not meet tests for readiness and technical capacity. FTA is recommending two additional projects for funding commitments in fiscal year 2003 that were rated last year and proposed for grant agreements. FTA considers these "pending federal commitments."
Although FTA has been faced with an impending transit budget crunch for several years, the agency will end the TEA-21 authorization period with $310 million in unused commitment authority for several reasons. First, in fiscal year 2001, the Congress substantially increased FTA's authority to make contingent commitments, subject to future authorizations and appropriations. Second, to preserve commitment authority for future projects, FTA did not request any funding for preliminary engineering activities in the fiscal year 2002 and 2003 budget proposals-a routine practice in prior years. Third, in determining which projects are ready for grant agreements, FTA has applied strict tests for readiness and technical capacity. As a result, fewer projects than expected were recommended for New Starts funding for fiscal years 2002 and 2003. For instance, only 2 of the 14 projects that FTA officials estimated last year would be ready for grant agreements are being proposed for funding commitments in fiscal year 2003. We note, however, that the timing and magnitude of New Starts projects dictates how much commitment authority is available for future projects. Finally, about half of the unused commitment authority ($157 million) results from FTA's response to the recommendation in our August 2001 report to "release" the commitment authority reserved for a Los Angeles subway project for which the federal funding commitment had been withdrawn.
Proposals to limit the amount of New Starts funds that could be applied to projects would allow more projects to receive such funding, but could negatively affect specific projects being developed and the local transportation planning process. For example, based on current estimates of project costs, limiting New Starts funds to 60 percent of a project's cost for the 49 projects' currently in final design or preliminary engineering would "free up" about $500 million for additional projects. However, only 20 percent of these projects currently being developed plan to use New Starts funds for over 60 percent of project costs and would be affected by such a cap. While some project officials indicated that they may be able to make up for the reduced New Starts commitment with other federal or local funds, others would not be able to tap into any other funding sources and therefore would have to modify their scope or schedule or even terminate the project. Furthermore, any decision to make up the difference with additional federal or local funds could affect other transportation projects. For example, one project official indicated that redirecting funds from highway or other transit projects would indefinitely delay these projects until additional funding is available. Finally, officials from several Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPO) stated that a cap on New Starts funds could influence their selection of highway over transit projects since the decisions are often affected by the availability of funds from various federal programs and which projects will receive the highest federal share. Background
TEA-21 authorized a total of $36 billion in "guaranteed" funding through 2003 for a variety of transit programs, including financial assistance to states and localities to develop, operate, and maintain transit systems. One of these programs, the New Starts program, provides funds to transit providers for constructing or extending certain types of mass transit systems. A full funding grant agreement (FFGA) establishes the terms and conditions for federal participation, including the maximum amount of federal funds available for the project, which by statute cannot exceed 80 percent of its estimated net cost. The grant agreement also defines a project's scope, including the length of the system and the number of stations; its schedule, including the date when the system is expected to open for service; and its cost. To obtain a grant agreement, a project must first progress through a local or regional review of alternatives, develop preliminary engineering plans, and obtain FTA's approval for final design. TEA-21 requires that FTA evaluate projects against "project justification" and "local financial commitment" criteria contained in the act. FTA assesses the project justification or technical merits of a project proposal by reviewing the project's mobility improvements, environmental benefits, cost- effectiveness, and operating efficiencies. In assessing the stability of a project's local financial commitment, FTA assesses the project's finance plan for evidence of stable and dependable financing sources to construct, maintain, and operate the proposed system or extension. In evaluating this commitment, FTA is required to determine whether (1) the proposed project's finance plan incorporates reasonable contingency amounts to cover unanticipated cost increases; (2) each proposed local source of capital and operating funds is stable, reliable, and available within the timetable for the proposed project; and (3) local resources are available to operate the overall proposed mass transportation system without requiring a reduction in existing transportation services."
Although these evaluation requirements existed prior to the enactment of the act, TEA-21 requires FTA to (1) develop a rating for each criterion as well as an overall rating of highly recommended, recommended, or not recommended and use these evaluations and ratings in approving projects' advancement to the preliminary engineering and final design phases and approving grant agreements; and (2) issue regulations on the evaluation and rating process. TEA-21 also directs FTA to use these evaluations and ratings to decide which projects to recommend to the Congress for funding in a report due each February. These funding recommendations are also reflected in the department's annual budget proposal. In addition, TEA-'21 requires FTA to issue a supplemental report to the Congress each August that updates information on projects that have advanced to the preliminary engineering or final design phases since the annual report. FTA's Evaluation and Rating Process for New Starts Proposals Finalized
In April 2000, we reported that FTA had made substantial progress in developing and implementing an evaluation process that included the individual criterion ratings and overall project ratings required by TEA-21." Before TEA-21 was enacted, FTA had already taken steps to revise its evaluation process of the New Starts program because most of the evaluation requirements contained in the act were introduced by the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA). FTA uses the results to approve projects for the preliminary engineering and final design phases, to execute grant agreements, and to make annual funding recommendations to the Congress. FTA's final rule, issued in December 2000, formalized the evaluation and rating process.' This year's process used most of the procedures set forth in the final rule. New Starts Evaluation and Rating Process Assesses Project's Justification and Local Financial Commitment
FTA's current New Starts evaluation process assigns candidate projects individual ratings for each TEA-21 criterion to assess each project's justification and local financial commitment. The process also assigns an overall rating that is intended to reflect the project's overall merit. FTA considers these overall ratings to decide which projects will proceed to the preliminary engineering and final design phases, be recommended for funding, and receive full funding grant agreements (see fig. 1 for an illustration of the process).
A project's overall rating is a combination of the project's justification and local financial commitment ratings. With respect to project justification, FTA provides individual ratings for the four criteria identified by TEA-21mobility improvements, environmental benefits, operating efficiencies, and cost- effectiveness-as well as the degree to which existing development patterns and local land-use policies are likely to foster transit- supportive land use. According to FTA, the agency also considers a variety of other factors when evaluating the project's justification, including the degree to which policies and programs are in place as assumed in the forecasts, the project's management capability, and additional factors relevant to local and national priorities. To evaluate a project's local financial commitment, FTA rates the project on its capital and operating finance plans and the local share of its costs.15 Due to the competitive nature of the New Starts program, FTA is continuing to encourage project sponsors to lower the requested New Starts funding.
After analyzing the documentation submitted by the project's sponsors, FTA assigns a descriptive rating (high, medium-high, medium, medium-low, or low) for each of the project justification and local financial commitment criteria. As figure 1 shows, once the individual criterion ratings are completed, FTA assigns summary project justification and local financial commitment ratings by combining the individual criterion ratings. In developing the summary project justification rating, FTA gives the most weight to the criteria for transit-supportive land use, cost-effectiveness, and mobility improvements.' The summary local financial commitment ratings, the measures for the proposed local share of capital costs and the strength of the capital and operating financial plans are given equal consideration. FTA combines the summary project justification and local financial commitment ratings to create an overall rating for the project of highly recommended, recommended, or not recommended. To receive a highly recommended rating, a project must have summary ratings of at least medium-high for the project justification and local financial commitment. To receive a rating of recommended, the project must have summary ratings of at least medium. A project is rated as not recommended when either summary rating is lower than medium. FTA has also added one-letter indicators to the not recommended rating that explain where an improvement is needed- "j" for project justification, "o" for the operating finance plan, and "c" for the capital finance plan.
In preparing its New Starts funding proposal each year, FTA first accounts for projects with existing grant agreements. Consideration is then given to projects with an overall rating of recommended or higher. However, some projects rated as highly recommended or recommended may not meet FTA's readiness test for funding. A project passes the readiness test when there is a minimum of risk associated with the project being constructed on time and within budget. FTA uses a number of milestones to make this determination. For example, FTA determines whether the necessary real estate has been acquired, utility arrangements have been made, and local funding sources are in place. According to an FTA official, this ensures that there are no "red flags" signaling that the project has outstanding issues it must address. In addition, FTA considers the following issues in evaluating grantees:
the degree to which the transit agency has a satisfactory plan to manage an existing bus fleet to ensure no degradation of service for users of a current system;
compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, including obtaining financial commitments necessary to maintain accessible service, make necessary improvements, and comply with key requirements for stations; and
compliance with air quality standards in the region.
For its New Starts report for fiscal year 2003, FTA evaluated a total of 50 projects and provided overall ratings for 31 of these projects." Of the 31 projects that were rated, 25 were rated as recommended, 2 projects were rated as highly recommended, and 4 projects received not recommended ratings. According to FTA, few projects received highly recommended ratings because FTA has set the bar high for such ratings.' Projects must have a good strong rating for justification (i.e., at least a medium) and a strong local financial commitment rating (i.e., at least a medium-high) to receive such ratings. FTA believes that few projects received a not recommended rating because project officials have a better understanding of the evaluation and rating process and criteria being used to assess a project's justification and local financial commitment.
In assigning overall project ratings, FTA emphasized the continuous nature of project evaluation. Throughout the New Starts report, FTA underscored the fact that as candidate projects proceed through the final design stage, information concerning costs, benefits, and impacts will be refined. Consequently, FTA updates its ratings and recommendations at least annually to reflect this new information, changing conditions, and refined financing plans. Thus, a project that is rated as recommended in the fiscal year 2003 report could receive a higher or lower rating in the fiscal year 2004 report to reflect changes in the project. For example, in the fiscal year 2002 report, the Charlotte (South Corridor Light Rail Transit) project received a recommended rating. However, this year the project received a highly recommended rating. FTA attributed the project's improved rating to strong transit-supportive land-use policies in place to support the proposed light rail project and an improved finance plan. Final Rule Refines New Starts Evaluation Process
Although the criteria and measures in the New Starts evaluation and rating process have not changed, FTA's final rule, issued in December 2000, made a number of refinements to the process. The final rule was used as FTA considered its New Starts proposals for fiscal year 2003. The most significant changes to FTA's evaluation process focus on four key issues: — the measure of cost-effectiveness, the use of a no-build and Transportation System Management (TSM) alternative for evaluation purposes, the overall project rating, and the measure for mobility improvements.
Historically, FTA used a cost per new rider measure to indicate the cost-effectiveness of a proposed project. The consensus of commenters on the proposed rule was that the focus on new riders ignores benefits provided to other riders, which may bias the measure against cities with "mature" transit systems, where the focus of a proposed project may be to improve service, not attract new riders. In response to comments on the proposed rule, FTA replaced the cost per new rider measure with a new measure of' transportation system user benefits. According to FTA, this measure is based on the basic goals of any major transportation investment-to reduce the amount of travel time and out-of-pocket costs that people incur for taking a trip (i.e., the cost of mobility). This approach deemphasizes the number of new riders by measuring not only the benefits to people who change transportation modes (e.g., highways to transit) but also benefits to existing riders and highway users.
FTA no longer evaluates a proposed project (such as light rail) against both a separate no-build and TSM alternatives. For fiscal year 2003, FTA evaluated proposed New Starts projects against a single "baseline alternative" agreed upon by project sponsors and FTA. The baseline alternative involves transit improvements that are lower in cost than the proposed New Start project, which result in improved transit mobility compared to the no-build alternative. The purpose of the baseline comparison is to isolate the costs and benefits of the proposed major transit investment.
FTA has also added one-letter indicators to the not recommended rating to explain where improvement is needed-j for project justification, o for the operating funding plan, and c for the capital finance plan. For example, in the fiscal year 2003 New Starts report, the Cincinnati (Interstate 71 Corridor Light Rail) project was found to need improvement in the capital finance plan and was rated as not recommended (c).
Finally, FTA refined the measure for mobility improvements. In the past, this measure was based on (1) projected savings in travel time and (2) the number of low-income households within a half-mile of the proposed stations. In response to concerns about the scope of this measure, FTA added a new factor for destinations of jobs within a half-mile of boarding points on the new systems. This new factor complements the existing factor of low-income households within a half-mile of boarding points. FTA Proposes Four Projects for New Starts Funding in Fiscal Year 2003
FTA's New Starts report and budget for fiscal year 2003 requests that $1.21 billion be made available for the construction of four new transit systems and expansions of existing systems through the New Starts program (see app. I for FTA's 2003 budget proposal and project ratings). After amounts for FTA oversight activities and for other purposes specified by TEA-21' are subtracted, a total of $1.19 billion would remain available for projects in fiscal year 2003. Of this amount, a total of $1.03 billion would be allocated among 25 projects with existing grant agreements. An additional $134.1 million would be allocated to the four projects proposed for grant agreements .2' The remaining $31 million would be allocated to five "meritorious" projects to continue project development.21 (See fig. 2.)
For fiscal year 2003, FTA evaluated 50 projects and prepared ratings for 31 of them. Of the 31 projects that received ratings, FTA rated 27 projects as highly recommended or recommended, and proposed executing new grant agreements for 2 projects that are expected to meet the readiness criteria by the end of fiscal year 2003. In addition, FTA is proposing two other projects for grant agreements for fiscal year 2003. These two projects New Orleans (Canal Street Spine) and San Diego (Oceanside-Escondido Rail Corridor) were not rated this year. Although they were proposed for funding commitments last year, the grant agreements were not executed, and FTA characterizes the projects as pending federal commitments. According to FTA, the ratings for these two projects from last year are still valid. (Table 1 shows the ratings for the four projects recommended for New Starts funding in fiscal year 2003.)
As table 1 shows, one of the four proposed projects received a highly recommended rating on the basis of its strong cost- effectiveness rating, good mobility improvement rating, and a demonstrated local financial commitment to build and operate the project. The proposed San Diego (Oceanside-Escondido Rail Corridor) project received a medium-high rating in mobility improvement because it is expected to serve 15,100 average weekday boardings in 2015, and 8,600 new daily riders. According to FTA, it will also help to eliminate the heavy congestion of northern San Diego County along the Route 78 corridor, saving 700,000 hours of travel time a year compared to the TSM alternative. In addition, according to FTA, the high ratings for the proposed project's capital and operating financing plans reflect the solid financial condition of the transit agency and the other funding partners, as well as the sufficient projected revenue growth and contingencies.
The other three projects proposed for grant agreements received overall ratings of recommended. All were rated medium or medium- high on the project justification and local financial commitment criteria. For instance, the New Orleans (Canal Street Spine) project's recommended rating was based on its strong cost- effectiveness rating and demonstrated local financial commitment. According to FTA's New Starts report, the transit agency has committed 100 percent of its local capital and operating funds through funding sources such as a loan that would be paid back by a new sales tax on hotels and motels. In contrast, the sponsor of another project that was not recommended for funding in 2003 has been unable to designate specific capital funds or identify specific revenue sources for operating the proposed project. The New Orleans (Canal Street Spine) project's strong financial rating also reflects FTA's favorable assessment of the transit agency's action to reduce recent deficits through fare increases, tax increases, and use of leases for new buses.
Twenty-five other New Starts projects received highly recommended or recommended ratings but were not proposed for grant agreements. Two of these projects, San Diego (Mid-Coast Corridor) and Charlotte (South Corridor LRT), received highly recommended ratings based on their strong cost-effectiveness, transit- supportive land-use, and local financial commitment ratings but were not proposed for funding. Charlotte did not meet FTA's "readiness" test. FTA officials told us that the San Diego (MidCoast) project met FTA's evaluation and rating criteria as well as its readiness test but was not selected because completing the San Diego (Mission Valley East LRT) extension (an ongoing project) is the transit authority's top priority, and FTA officials believe that the authority may not have the financial capacity to fund both projects at this time. The other 23 projects were rated overall as recommended. Many of these projects were not proposed for grant agreements in fiscal year 2003 because they are in the early stages of development and are not ready for final design or construction.
Finally, FTA rated four proposed projects as not recommended primarily because of low local financial commitment summary ratings due to the lack of committed local funding to build and operate the systems or the lack of clearly defined cost estimates and contingencies. For instance, one of the four projects received low ratings for the stability and reliability of its capital and operating finance plans, reflecting FTA's concern about the large share of uncommitted and/or unidentified local funding, and the absence of an operating plan. Other reasons for receiving a not recommended rating include a lack of demonstrated progress since last year's rating, the relatively high level of New Starts funding proposed, and the reliance on the passage of a sales tax referendum for a portion of the local share. FTA Ends TEA-21 Authorization Period with Unused Commitment Authority
Implementing FTA's New Starts report and budget proposal for fiscal year 2003 would leave FTA with about $310 million in unused commitment authority. Although FTA has been faced with an impending transit budget crunch for several years, the agency would end the TEA-21 authorization period with unused commitment authority for several reasons. First, the Congress in fiscal year 2001 substantially increased FTA's authority to make contingent commitments, subject to future authorizations and appropriations. Second, to preserve commitment authority for future projects, FTA did not request any funding for preliminary engineering activities in the fiscal year 2002 and 2003 budget proposals-a routine practice in prior years. Third, in determining which projects are ready for a grant agreement, FTA has applied stricter tests for readiness and technical capacity. As a result, fewer projects than expected were recommended for New Starts funding for 2002 and 2003. For instance, only 2 of the 14 projects that FTA estimated last year would be ready for grant agreements in fiscal year 2003 are being proposed for funding commitments. Finally, about half of the unused commitment authority results from FTA's response to the recommendation in our August 2001 report to release $157 million in commitment authority reserved for a Los Angeles subway project for which the federal funding commitment had been withdrawn. Record Amounts Provided for New Starts Program
FTA was authorized to make a record level of funding commitments- about $10 billion-for the New Starts program from 1998 through 2003. TEA-21 provided the majority of FTA's commitment authority, authorizing $6.09 billion in "guaranteed" funding for the New Starts program. In addition, TEA-21 and the Department of Transportation's Appropriation Act for fiscal year 2001 authorized FTA to make an additional $3.4 billion in contingent commitments, subject to future authorizations and appropriations. Contingent commitment authority is designed to allow FTA to execute grant agreements that extend beyond the 6-year period of TEA-21. TEA-21 authorized contingent commitments in an amount equivalent to the last two years of "guaranteed" funding authorized by the act. The fiscal year 2001 appropriations act increased FTA's contingent commitment authority to an amount equivalent to the last 3 fiscal years of funding. According to FTA officials, after accounting for required projects for Dulles, Chicago, and Minneapolis, this "extra year" of contingent commitment authority provided FTA with about $500 million beyond that provided by TEA-21 that could be used to fund additional projects.
According to FTA, it has already committed approximately $8.9 billion for New Starts projects and program activities. Specifically, about $7.2 billion is committed to the 2521 projects with existing grant agreements.2' After accounting for other requirements (such as the cost of project management oversight), which are expected to total about $1.7 billion, about $1.1 billion remains for new grant agreements in fiscal year 2003. (Table 2 summarizes FTA's commitment authority and funding commitments, as of March 2002.)
Implementing FTA's New Starts report and budget proposal for fiscal year 2003 would leave FTA with about $310 million in unused commitment authority. The budget proposes $55 million for two new projects and $79.1 million for the two projects with pending grant agreements for fiscal year 2003. However, the $134.1 million requested for these projects for 2003 will only be a "down payment" on what would amount to a total federal commitment of $785 million's for these four projects over the next, several years, if no changes were made to the current project proposals. This amount also includes $27 million for four meritorious projects without grant agreements, as well as a fifth project that was mandated by the Congress in fiscal year 2001 with funding of $4 million. Therefore, FTA ends the TEA-21 authorization period with $310 million in unused commitment authority.
To preserve commitment authority, FTA did not request any funding for preliminary engineering activities in the fiscal year 2002 and 2003 budgets." According to FTA, it has provided an average of $150 million a year from fiscal year 1998 through fiscal year 2001 for projects' preliminary engineering activities. However, FTA did not recommend any funds for preliminary engineering activities in fiscal years 2002 and 2003. According to a senior FTA official, this approach allowed the agency to conserve funds for existing and new grant agreements and ensured that funds were only provided to projects that were ready to move forward. The official further noted that projects may use other federal funding for preliminary engineering activities and no project should be negatively impacted if New Starts funding was not provided for these activities in 2002 and 2003. Officials from several transit projects in the preliminary engineering phase that we contacted in 2001 indicated that they would use other federal funds and/or state and local funds to pay for their preliminary engineering work. Fewer Projects Than Anticipated Receive Grant Agreements
More state and local transit agencies than ever are competing for New Starts funds. However, FTA's stricter tests for readiness and technical capacity resulted in fewer projects that were ready for a grant agreement and thus recommended for funding for 2002 and 2003. As mentioned earlier, FTA uses a number of milestones to determine whether a project is sufficiently developed to be considered for a grant agreement. For example, FTA determines whether the necessary real estate has been acquired, utility arrangements have been made, and local funding sources are in place. According to an FTA official, this ensures that there are, no red flags signaling that the project has outstanding issues it must address. For instance, only 2 of the 14 projects that FTA estimated last year would be in or ready to enter the final design phase at the end of fiscal year 2002signaling that they were ready to execute a grant agreement-are being proposed for funding commitments in fiscal year 2003.Several of these projects have not yet been approved to enter the final design phase. Like the approval to enter preliminary engineering, FTA reviews the project's costs, benefits, and impacts under the project evaluation criteria to determine when a project is ready to enter the final design phase.
FTA identified five meritorious projects that it is recommending for $31 million in funding in fiscal year 2003 to continue their development." These projects have met the planning requirements of the New Starts program and have strong local financial commitments. However, they all have outstanding issues, such as environmental and financing concerns, which prevented them from passing FTA's readiness test. For instance, one project must resolve technology issues that relate to bus rapid transit buses- 60-foot hybrid-electric buses with left and right side doors for access. Another project is addressing historic preservation issues related to several stations that would be reconstructed as part of the project. Finally, the scale of one project requires further work before a federal commitment can be made. The project is too large (estimated total project cost of $4.4 billion) for the normal minimum operable segment concept on which a grant agreement is based to work and is expected to require funding over several authorization periods. According to a senior FTA official, the project's sponsors and FTA need to determine how to resolve this issue and proceed forward.
In addition, the timing and magnitude of individual New Starts projects dictates how much commitment authority is available for future projects. For example, the total New Starts share for the five meritorious projects is about $2.8 billion. If one or two of these projects had matured faster and been ready for a grant agreement, FTA would have essentially exhausted its commitment authority. A senior FTA official acknowledged that it would have been "a very different ball game" if more projects had been ready for a grant agreement this year or if one large project, such as New York (Long Island Railroad East Side Access)-with a New Starts share of $2.2 billion-had matured faster.
Finally, FTA recently increased its available commitment authority by $157 million by releasing amounts associated with a project for which the federal funding commitment had been withdrawn. As of August 2001, FTA had reserved $647 million in commitment authority for a New Starts project in Los Angeles. At that time, we reported that two segments of that project had been suspended for over 3 years and that FTA had informed the project sponsors that it no longer had funding commitments for these segments. We also stated that releasing the commitment authority attributable to projects for which the federal funding commitment had been withdrawn would significantly increase FTA's flexibility to execute grant agreements for additional projects. Therefore, we recommended that FTA adopt the practice of releasing such commitment authority and, specifically, that it release the $647 million reserved for the two segments of the Los Angeles project.28 In its New Starts report and budget proposal for fiscal year 2003, FTA has proposed a funding commitment for one of the previously suspended segments (Eastside); however, because the other suspended segment (Mid-City) is not a candidate for a funding commitment at this time, FTA has released the associated commitment authority, increasing its available commitment authority by $157 million. Proposals to Cap New Starts Funding May Bring Mixed Results
Since the potential demand for New Starts funding is extremely high, the administration and others have proposed limiting the amount of New Starts funds to less than the authorized 80 percent share. A cap on New Starts funds would allow more projects to receive funding but could have an effect on specific projects that are currently being developed. For example, based on current project cost estimates, a 60-percent cap on New Starts funds for the 49 projects currently in final design or preliminary engineering would result in about $500 million that could be used to fund additional projects." Two projects that currently have a New Starts share at 80 percent, account for the majority of funds that could be redirected. According to officials from several transit agencies, the impact of a proposed cap on individual projects would vary. Some projects would be able to make up for the reduced New Starts funding while others would not be able to tap into any other funding sources and would have to modify their projects' scope or schedule or even terminate them. Finally, several officials from MPOs pointed out that limiting the New Starts funding share to 50 or 60 percent could have an affect on the transportation decisionmaking process. Specifically, officials from several MPOs stated that a cap on New Starts funds could influence their selection of highway over transit projects since the decisions are often affected by the availability of funds from various federal programs and which projects will receive the highest federal share. Several Proposals Would Limit New Starts Funding
In order to manage the increasing demand for New Starts funding, there have been several proposals to limit the amount of New Starts funds that could be applied to a project. For instance, the president's fiscal year 2002 budget recommended that New Starts funding be limited to 50 percent of project costs starting in fiscal year 2004.3' (Currently, New Starts funding and all federal funding-is capped at 80 percent.) In addition, the conference report that accompanied the fiscal year 2002 Department of Transportation appropriations act directs FTA not to sign any new full funding grant agreement after September 30, 2002, that has a maximum federal share higher than 60 percent. According to FTA, these proposals are consistent with its recent practice of seeking a local share of more than 20 percent in order to manage the increasing demand for New Starts funding."
FTA officials told us that limiting the New Starts funding to 50 or 60 percent would ensure that local governments play a major role in funding New Starts projects. Under such a cap, local governments will need to decide to apply either other federal funds or local funds to proposed New Starts projects based on their priorities. An FTA official also pointed out that a 50 or 60 percent cap would allow more projects to receive New Starts funding; however, the official acknowledged that limiting New Starts funding may prevent some projects from being developed or moving forward because of limited local funding. Additional Projects Could Be Funded with A Cap
Lowering the share to 50 or 60 percent may provide an opportunity to spread available New Starts funds more widely. In the last 10 years, the New Starts share for projects with a grant agreement has averaged around 50 percent and has been trending lower. For the 18 grant agreements signed between October 1999 and November 2001, the overall New Starts share was 46 percent, somewhat below the 56 percent average share of grant agreements signed in 1992- 1997.33 For individual projects, the New Starts share has varied considerably from the mean-from a low of 19 percent to a high of 80 percent. If the 18 grant agreements signed in the 1999-2002 timeframe had been capped at 60 percent, $4.05 billion of New Starts funding would have been committed to these projects instead of $4.30 billion (a difference of about $250 million). With a 50-percent cap, the New Starts commitment would have totaled $3.65 billion (a difference of about $650 million).
A cap on New Starts funds for the 49 projects currently in final design or preliminary engineering would have a much greater effect. These 49 projects are currently proposing $20.59 billion in New Starts funding. A 60percent cap would result in about $500 million that could be used to fund additional projects; a 50- percent cap would result in slightly over $1 billion that could be allocated to other projects. Two projects (Philadelphia Schuylkill Valley MetroRail and San Juan Tren Urbano Minillas Extension), that currently have a New Starts share at 80 percent, account for the majority of funds that could be redirected-85 percent of the $500 million and 61 percent of the $1 billion. According to FTA officials, the proposed projects' local share and percentage of New Starts funds could change as the projects proceed through the final design stage. Many of the project sponsors that initially proposed a New Starts share of over 50 percent have responded to FTA's suggestion to lower their planned New Starts funding in order to be competitive with other projects. For example, several projects have adjusted their financial plans for fiscal year 2003 to reflect a decrease in the New Starts share of their total cost. Seven projects that initially proposed New Starts shares from 63 percent to 80 percent in fiscal year 2002 lowered them this year to between 32 percent and 60 percent. Several project officials told us that they lowered their New Starts proposals to become more competitive in response to FTA's suggestions. A Cap on New Starts Funds Could Affect Specific Projects and the Planning Process
The proposed caps could affect a number of projects currently being developed. For example, 10 of the 49 projects that are currently in the final design or preliminary engineering stages plan to use New Starts funds to pay for over 60 percent of their total costs; an additional 9 projects plan to use over 50 percent (app. II provides a list of the 19 projects).The projected use of New Starts funds for these 19 projects ranges from 51 percent for Little Rock (River Rail Project) to 80 percent for Galveston (Trolley Extension), Nashville (East Corridor Commuter Rail Project), Alaska (Knik River to Wasilla Track Improvements), Philadelphia (Schuylkill Valley MetroRail) and San Juan (Tren Urbano Minillas Extension). According to officials from several of these transit agencies, the impact of a proposed cap would vary. For example, officials from several projects stated that their projects' scope or schedule would have to be modified or even terminated because they may not be able to tap into any other funding sources to account for lower than planned New Starts funding. An official from one project added that a change in the project's scope would also have a negative impact on service, ridership, and overall cost-effectiveness. In contrast, officials from several projects indicated that their projects would continue as planned because they would seek other federal or local funds to make up for reduced New Starts funding. For example, an official from one project stated that, if necessary, it would issue bonds to offset any shortfall in New Starts funding.
Any decision to make up the difference with additional federal or local funds could affect other local transportation projects. For example, officials from several projects stated that providing additional funds to their New Starts projects would most likely result in other projects in the area receiving less funds, being delayed, or terminated. An official from one project stated that redirecting funds from highway or other transit projects would indefinitely delay these projects until additional funding is available. However, according to several project officials, obtaining additional funding could be difficult since many states and localities are currently facing significant budget deficits or funding shortfalls. Several project officials noted that a cap could mean that localities would have to reevaluate the priority of transportation projects, including New Starts projects, in the area and make difficult decisions such as delaying or even terminating projects until the local share is raised. Finally, officials from several projects noted that the cap would have a greater impact on areas trying to develop a first time, fixed- guideway or bus rapid transit system where the benefits of the system have not yet been proven.
Finally, a cap could also affect the transportation decisionmaking process. For example, several of the MPOs we contacted told us that they are concerned that having a New Starts match for transit capital projects that is lower than the match for highway capital projects could affect balanced transportation decisionmaking and create a bias towards highway projects. In addition, according to some MPOs, a cap on the New Starts share could also influence the planning and selection of transportation projects in their city or state's long-range plan. For example, one official indicated that his area's long-range plan would probably move towards more highway investments. Another official pointed out that a cap could severely hamper the region's ability to construct the new transit projects in its long-range plan, thus endangering its air quality conformity status. In contrast, some MPOs indicated that their regions prefer a multi-modal system and the types of projects selected for such plans may not be impacted by a cap on New Starts funds. Concluding Observations
Although FTA has been faced with an impending transit budget crunch for several years, the agency will end the TEA-21 authorization period with unused commitment authority impart because fewer projects than expected were ready for grant agreements. FTA proposes projects for funding after they have met its readiness test. However, in the last several years only nine projects were determined to be ready and were proposed for New Starts funding commitments. Given the tremendous pipeline, if more projects (or a few large ones) had matured faster FTA would have been forced to make difficult funding decisions. If this were to occur in the future, FTA may have a difficult time making these decisions because it has not adopted our recommendation made in 200034 to develop a process for further prioritizing among the projects it rates as recommended or higher. Such a process would ensure that the "best" projects receive New Starts funding and allow for a better understanding of why certain projects with similar ratings may receive funding while others do not. Finally, if many projects are ready at the same time for a grant agreement, FTA may also have to adopt an ongoing practice of releasing the funding set aside for projects when the federal funding commitments have been withdrawn.
A cap on New Starts funds could allow more projects to receive funding if a significant number of projects are ready for a grant agreement at the same time. Since FTA is ending the TEA-21 authorization period with unused commitment authority, a cap imposed over the last several years would not have resulted in funding additional projects. In addition, a cap could have a negative impact on specific projects that are currently being developed as well as the transportation decision making process. Agency Comments
We provided the Department of Transportation with a draft of this report for review and comment. FTA provided some technical comments on the draft, which we have incorporated where appropriate. Scope and Methodology
To address the issues discussed in this report, we reviewed the legislation governing New Starts transit projects, FTA's annual New Starts reports for fiscal years 2002 and 2003, the new regulations for New Starts transit projects, and documents related to New Starts funding. We also interviewed appropriate FTA headquarters officials, 22 officials from transit agencies with New Starts projects currently in the final design or preliminary engineering phases, and officials from selected MPOs (see app. III for a complete list of projects and MPOs contacted). We performed our work in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards from February through April 2002.
We are sending copies of this report to the secretary of Transportation, the administrator of the Federal Transit Administration, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, and other interested parties. We will make copies available to others upon request.