Hotline #913

Key highway and transportation groups said they are “disappointed” with the two-month highway patch passed by Congress that is expected to be signed soon by President Obama, reportsBloomberg BNA. The Senate cleared the Highway and Transportation Funding Act of 2015 (H.R. 2353) (96 DER A-12, 5/19/15), a two-month extension of highway and transit programs, by voice vote during an early morning session May 23.

The bill will extend federal spending authority for surface transportation programs through July 31, aligning with the timeline for the near depletion of the Highway Trust Fund. The trust fund supports highway and public transit programs; spending authority for these programs is set to expire May 31.

The Senate Commerce Science and Transportation Committee won’t be able to move ahead with plans to mark up a passenger rail reauthorization bill in May, but is expected to file one that includes strong safety provisions by June, said Committee Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.), reportsBloomberg BNA. The bill is being spearheaded by Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), who delayed introducing it after the May 12 Philadelphia Amtrak accident. After the bill was marked up on May 20, Thune said he expected the legislation to be filed when the Senate returned from recess June 1.

But that date has been pushed back in order not to conflict with a June 3 House Transportation Committee hearing on the Amtrak derailment. Those scheduled to testify include Amtrak President Joseph Boardman, NTSB Chairman Robert Sumwalt, Federal Railroad Administrator Sarah Feinberg and Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers President Dennis Pierce.

Republicans have decided to pick a fight with President Obama on infrastructure funding, a normally bipartisan issue, said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). “It was a place we could all come together,” she told former Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Pa.), host of MSNBC’s “Taking the Hill.”

“Under President Obama, Republicans have resisted his efforts to improve infrastructure,” she added. “This has been a challenge for a while.”

Amtrak announced it would begin installing forward-facing cameras aboard its trains in the wake of the derailment of Train #188, reports CNN. The first trains to receive the cameras will be those on the Washington, Philadelphia, New York and Boston corridor, along with the Keystone lines into Pennsylvania. Amtrak says it will eventually install cameras on Acela trains.

Colorado is stepping up in the effort to keep Amtrak's Southwest Chief railroad line runningthrough the state, reports the Denver Post. The state’s Transportation Commission approved $1 million in funds through a TIGER grant that will help pay to repair Colorado’s section of the Southwest Chief's tracks. The Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad said it would not maintain the track for Amtrak past January 2016. Communities in Kansas are also trying to find ways to upgrade the track in their state to avoid having the train routed away.

Delaware’s Wilmington News Journal reports on plans by the state Department of Transportation to spend $2 million to rebuild a rail crossing at Old New Castle along Del. 273 and re-engineer the roadway itself as part of a larger initiative to rebuild rail crossings in the state. But because of the state funding cycle, the project won't begin until the fall of 2016 at the earliest. Antiquated signals, no gate, and a side street that intersects the highway at the crossing itself are all factors that cause Bob Perrine, a railroad engineer at Delaware’s DOT, to say this intersection has "major safety issues."

The New York City Council voted on a plan to allow a developer to build a 63-story office tower just west of Grand Central Terminal in exchange for $220 million in transit upgrades, reports the New York Times. Developer SL Green Realty will build new subway entrances, a pedestrian plaza at street level, a public hall in the building’s lobby and other upgrades. The deal will improve the busy subway station at Grand Central, particularly on the overcrowded 4, 5 and 6 trains on the Lexington Avenue subway line.

Four transportation studies have been launched by transportation organizations in Michigan to look at planes, trains and automobiles in the state, reports the Great Lakes Echo. State transportation experts feel that having more public transit options could help Michigan attract and retain young and old people young and old. “About one-third of Michigan’s population is too young or too old to drive or they are physically or financially unable to,” said Elizabeth Treutel, a Michigan Environmental Council policy associate. “And rail is the friendliest motorized transportation for the environment. It helps attract and retain recent college graduates who care about protecting it.”

The four major proposals for railways between cities in Michigan include: a commuter line between Howell and Ann Arbor; a line between Ann Arbor and Detroit; a line between Ann Arbor and Traverse City; and a line from Detroit through Lansing and Grand Rapids, ending in Holland.

It was good news/bad news for rail supporters in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The good news is that the city is exploring the possibility of building a light rail system, said Mayor Andy Berke in theTimes Free Press. But the bad news is Berke has nixed a 17-year-old plan to connect his city with Atlanta via a bullet train. "Any kind of intercity rail doesn't happen without large-scale federal investment," Berke told the newspaper. "It's pretty clear that the federal government is not in a position right now to do large-scale infrastructure investments."

Chattanooga has spent $1.3 million in city funds toward the first part of a $17.1 million study. The first tier of the environmental study is finished, and the second tier is slated to begin this year.

High-speed rail can work hand-in-hand with infill development near train stations, writes Curt Johansen, president of the Council of Infill Builders, a nonprofit group of California real estate professionals, in an op-ed for the Sacramento Bee. “We know that the most damaging contributors to our climate are greenhouse gases emitted primarily by cars and trucks. More fuel-efficient and electric vehicles can help, but are not enough,” he wrote.

But as other countries have found, high-speed rail can be part of the solution – with the right land-use policy, said Johansen. “High-speed rail is about providing California travelers a choice they do not have,” he said. “It also offers Californians more choice about where and how they live by spurring new infill development in urban areas near high-speed rail stations and other locations connected by transit.”

Talk of a new high-speed passenger rail service has mostly centered around its long-distance linkage of South Florida and Orlando, but a new study shows roughly half All Aboard Florida’s business will come from customers in Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, reports the Miami Herald. The study also covered what it calls an “optimized’ fare structure, which includes round trips between Miami and Fort Lauderdale costing from $11 to $15, and Miami and Orlando from $85 to $130.

Maryland’s Mass Transit Administration is planning upgrades to the Amtrak/MARC station at BWI Airport, along with several other projects along the Washington-Boston Northeast Corridor within the state, reports Greater Greater Washington. The projects will make Amtrak and MARC trains in the area more reliable as well as allow more trains to pass through the overcrowded rail corridor.

The project will reconfigure the station to have four mainline tracks, each with access to a platform. It will also include a nine-mile fourth track that will run alongside the existing ones, and a new station building with a larger waiting room.

A light-rail subway system beneath Las Vegas Boulevard is among the ambitious recommendations that have emerged from a transportation plan that has taken more than two years to complete, reports the Las Vegas Review-Journal. That, along with a proposed double-deck tunnel under McCarran International Airport to connect the east and west sides of the airport and possibly a light-rail link to the Strip line, was part of the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada’s draft of its 15-point Transportation Investment Business Plan.

The Vermont Digger writes about an effort to bring back part of the Montrealer, a train line operated by the Boston and Maine Railroad from Montreal to Washington, D.C., going through Vermont. Financial constraints forced Amtrak to end the train in 1995, replacing it with service between St. Albans, Vermont, and Washington, D.C., on the Vermonter. The line, subsidized by the state, severed the link to Vermont’s second-largest metro area cut seriously into the patronage and farebox revenue.

“Recent efforts, such as a plan to eliminate tedious on-the-border customs checks, has revived hopes that Vermonters might soon be able to travel to the Botanical Gardens or a Canadian hockey game and leave their car at home,” it wrote.