Hotline #840

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) issued an Emergency Order to Metro-North Commuter Railroad to take specific, immediate steps to ensure its trains do not exceed speed limitations, the cause of a deadly crash last Sunday.

The FRA is directing Metro-North to modify its signal system to ensure speed limits are obeyed. Until that system is in place, Metro-North will be required to have two qualified railroad employees to operate trains over lines where major speed restrictions are present.

“Safety is our highest priority, and we must do everything we can to learn from this tragic crash and help prevent future derailments,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. “While we assist the National Transportation Safety Board in carrying out its investigation, this Emergency Order will help ensure that other Metro-North trains travel at appropriate, safe speeds.”

Further details of the Executive Order can be found here – there is a short summary and a link to the 14-page order (pdf). The order requires that, immediately, a second employee be in the cab or “space immediately adjacent to the control compartment … where reductions in maximum authorized passenger train speed of greater than 20 mph occur.” This remains in effect until Metro-North has taken “certain actions to control passenger train speed” at these locations.

While insisting on actions that will improve operational safety, U.S. DOT officials stressed that rail is still one of the safest transportation modes in the U.S., and that operators have made great strides in recent years to improve passenger safety.

“Last year was the safest on record for our nation’s rail industry,” said FRA Administrator Joseph C. Szabo. “Even with a 43 percent decline in train accidents nation-wide over the past decade, we must remain steadfast and vigilant to ensure passengers and employees are safe. The public deserves better and our mission is to drive continuous safety improvement.”

A coalition of counties from southern Colorado officially endorsed a resolution to maintain the current route of the Southwest Chief in a December 3 vote. The resolution was endorsed by 40 Coloradan commissioners.

The current route uses tracks owned by Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF), which has warned Amtrak and the states of Colorado, New Mexico, and Kansas that maintaining the route at speeds sufficient for passenger operations will cost $200 million over 10 years.

“Right now there is a bipartisan group of legislators working on the issue and there is likely to be a bill at this upcoming session to support the Chief and to add a stop in Pueblo, while keeping the existing stops,” Pueblo County Commissioner Sal Pace told the Pueblo Chieftain.

Amtrak, BNSF, and the states in question will need to reach an agreement well in advance of January 20, 2016, when the current contract runs out.

Louisiana’s Department of Transportation (LDOT) is on board with a Texas study to connect Dallas to the Shreveport/Bossier region of North Louisiana.

LDOT’s Development Secretary Sherrie LeBas told the Minden Press-Herald that the department is ready to use $250,000 in funds, secured by State Representative Roy Burrell (D-Shreveport), to examine stops in Shreveport, Ruston and Monroe on the Dallas – Atlanta rail corridor.

The work in Louisiana will build upon a study being done by Amtrak and the Texas Department of Transportation.

“The people with Amtrak indicate to me that the Bossier City route would be at least as attractive as the DFW to Oklahoma City and Tulsa route—and probably more desirable," said Richard Anderson of the East Texas Corridor Council to WWNO. "It’s looking promising at this point. Of course, we have the preliminary [report]. We don’t have the final. The final will be the proof in the pudding.”

Former Harrison County Judge Anderson is a resident of Marshall, Texas, an East Texas community that would also be served by the train (his wife, Christina Anderson, is a member of the NARP Council of Representatives).

MARC’s Penn Line will run its inaugural weekend train service between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. this Saturday, December 7.

The service will operate 9 round trips on Saturdays and 6 round trips on Sundays. The Maryland Department of Transportation has set the cost of a one-way fare between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. at $7.

In addition to improving connections between the two cities and all the intermediate communities along the rail corridor, weekend service will enhance access to BWI Marshall Airport. The added service is part of a plan to double the state’s transit ridership by 2020, set by Governor Martin O’Malley.

The weekend train will serve Martin State Airport, Baltimore (Penn Station), West Baltimore, Halethorpe, BWI, Odenton, Bowsie, New Carrollton and Washington, D.C. (Union Station). MDOT is publicizing details of the new timetable here:

Saturday will offer 9 round trips between Penn Station and Union Station:

• Penn Station Departures – 7:35 a.m. to 9:15 p.m.
• Union Station Departures – 9:02 a.m. to 10:35 p.m.

Sunday will offer 6 round trips between Penn Station and Union Station:

• Penn Station Departures – 9:15 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
• Union Station Departures – 10:40 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.

The American Public Transportation Association’s (APTA) Board of Directors issued a legislative proposal calling for intercity passenger rail including, where appropriate, High Speed Passenger Rail Corridors, to become an integral part of federal transportation policy and funding.

The group is calling for no less than $50 billion during the next six years to facilitate the development of a modern passenger rail system, which should “integrate and connect high-speed and intercity passenger rail corridors across the United States with the existing Amtrak network, and with commuter rail and transit operations wherever possible to create a national passenger rail network.”

APTA cited the importance of meeting the critical mobility needs of Americans—simultaneously promoting economic development—as a rationale for adding capacity to and upgrading the performance of the U.S. rail network.

The legislative proposal also calls for a dedicated federal revenue source, separate from the current 18.3 cent gas tax that funds the Highway Trust Fund and transit. This dedicated source of revenue, which should be indexed to inflation, would pay for planning, design and construction of the high performance passenger rail network.

A report released this week by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG) Education Fund found compelling evidence of the steady decline of driving in America’s most populous cities, with an attendant upswing in use of public transportation.

The shift in transportation patterns away from one of total car dependence to more multimodal behavior was widespread, and should affect the rationale for transportation investment by state and federal government.

“There is a shift away from driving,” said Phineas Baxandall, Senior Analyst for the U.S. PIRG Education Fund. “The cities in this report are home to most of America’s population and are engines of the economy. Policy leaders need to wake up and realize the driving boom is over. Instead of expanding new highways, our government leaders should focus on investing in public transit and biking for the future.”

These findings are far from surprising, but it should be noted that the urban-centric tone of U.S. PIRG’s report does not preclude growth in rural rail transportation. In fact, Amtrak’s long distance routes combined in Fiscal Year 2013 for the best ridership in 20 years, carrying 4.8 million passengers. Americans of all regions are looking for access to a more balanced transportation network.

Two highlights from the data collected by U.S. PIRG study are especially eye-opening:

• The proportion of workers commuting by private vehicle—either alone or in a carpool—declined in 99 out of 100 of America’s most populous urbanized areas between 2000 and the 2007-2011 period averaged in U.S. Census data.
• The number of passenger-miles traveled per capita on transit increased in 60 out of 98 of America’s large urbanized areas whose trends could be analyzed between 2005 and 2010.

“Government should support transportation initiatives that reflect these travel trends,” said Baxandall. “Instead of wasting taxpayer dollars continuing to enlarge our grandfather’s Interstate Highway System, we should invest in the kinds of transportation options that the public increasingly favors.”

Travelers Advisory:

—Amtrak is offering Thruway Bus Connection for the holiday season to and form Des Moines or Ames, Iowa. The Thruway Bus will connect to Amtrak trains at Osceola, Iowa, connecting Iowan passengers to the over 500 Amtrak stations nationwide. Amtrak will be offering this service from December 18 to 20, 2013, and from January 11 to 13, 2014.

From the NARP Blog

—Follow the money: The concept of treating transit users and automobile commuters equitably when it comes to employer-provided pre-tax parking and transit fares sounds incredibly logical, but Congress still can’t get it right. They do a periodical “fix” for transit, not always on time. By contrast, the parking allowance is permanent and keeps rising with inflation -- always on time because it’s embedded in the law.

Here we go again. Effective January 1, 2014, the maximum Federal transit allowance (before taxes) will drop from $245 to $130 a month, giving some people the message that they better start driving again. At the same time, the parking allowance will rise by $5 to $250.Every indication is that Congress will not pass a tax bill this year, which means that the we fall back into “anti-transit” mode by default. [Read More]

—The Metro-North Accident Was Preventable: The story about Sunday’s tragic Metro-North accident got more puzzling yesterday. NTSB Member Earl Weener, in an interview with Wolf Blitzer, said this: “We do know that two minutes before the curve, the train was going at 60 miles per hour and had accelerated then, up to 82, prior to entering the curve.” [Read More]

—Millennials and trains: positive forces for 21st-century growth: Last August, I was one of 23 very fortunate individuals who each raised $5,000 through online crowd funding to participate in the inaugural journey of the Millennial Trains Project. This was the first in what should become a series of such journeys, occurring every six months or so, that use a transcontinental train ride as a vehicle to inspire creativity, entrepreneurship, civic engagement and principled problem solving amongst members of the Millennial generation (those currently in their late teens, twenties and early thirties). The Project is founded on the idea that journeys build leaders, and that train journeys—because they allow for reflection, facilitate community, and offer transregional perspectives—are uniquely suited for fostering the kind of leadership that America and the world need to face the challenges of our time. [Read More]

—The Inconvenience of Driverless Cars: While the fascinating and complex technology behind driverless cars becomes more and more of a reality, there are worrisome externalities and lessons from the past that will need to be confronted. “The Google car is an old-fashioned sort of science fiction: this year’s model of last century’s make” proclaims a recent opus in the November 25th edition of The New Yorker. “Auto Correct” by Burkhard Bilger is a very astute review of the developing technology of driverless cars. The ascent has been rapid. Only in 2004 was the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s ‘Grand Challenge’, a 142 mile race specifically for driverless vehicles through the Mojave Desert. [Read More]

—Will Cincinnati's leadership learn from past mistakes?: Cincinnati once again has been stopped in its tracks trying to improve the lives of community members and business developers by a misguided and selfish political agenda. This is at least the second time a Cincinnati Mayor deliberately shut down a project that didn’t quite align with his plans for the city. I call them “his plans” because the decision was not based on what was best for the community. [Read More]

—Amtrak, NARP thank Hoosiers for saving and riding their train: To celebrate the successful work of citizen advocates on the grassroots level--with the help of NARP, the Midwest High Speed Rail Association and other organizations—to preserve Amtrak’s Chicago-Indianapolis Hoosier State by winning state support for its operation, and to thank Hoosier State riders for their patronage, NARP members Doug Yerkeson and Joe Krause, along with volunteers Ed Ufkes and Derek Zollinger, organized a unique mobile thank-you event. They arranged for Amtrak to add a café car to last Sunday’s (Dec. 1) round-trip of the Hoosier State, which doesn’t usually offer food service. An Amtrak attendant gave free coffee, water, soft drinks and snacks to many of the 320 passengers who rode that day. Twelve of them signed up for NARP’s email list. [Read More]