Hotline #940

For the first time in a decade, Congress has successfully passed a long-term surface transportation bill, sending the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act to the desk of President Barack Obama. The bill cleared the Senate (by an 83-16 vote) and the House (by a 384-40 vote) on Thursday. The White House has indicated the President will sign the bill today.

NARP Vice President Sean Jeans-Gail went through all 1,300 pages of the transportation bill to analyze items including the national network, the Northeast Corridor, the Gulf Coast Working Group, rail infrastructure and safety improvement, restoration and enhancement grants, composition of the Amtrak board and route and serving planning decisions, among other items. His complete analysis is here,

The Southern Rail Commission meeting.

The Southern Rail Commission is holding a meeting today in Mobile, Ala., to discuss the possibility of restoring a passenger rail line along the Gulf Coast, reports the Pensacola News Journal. It's been 10 years since Amtrak's Sunset Limited has made its way through Pensacola along the lengthy transcontinental route.

NARP CEO Jim Mathews is continuing his efforts in coalition building at the federal, state and local level by attending the meeting. It will feature nine mayors from Alabama and Mississippi who will discuss ways to accentuate the economic positives and potential of passenger rail service to communities and regions and how to keep them engaged and supportive with efforts to improve it.

We understand that it is our members who are doing the work at the grassroots level, explaining to mayors and other local political and business leaders on the importance of maintaining or enhancing their community’s connections to a regional and national transportation network. These leaders across the political spectrum now, more than ever, recognize the importance of preserving and enhancing rail options.

This recognition stretches across party line, and builds coalitions in our communities, similar to the efforts of the Southern Rail Commission. These citizens and their elected leaders know that only connected communities and regions have a chance of attracting the jobs and people that make an economy grow and create vibrant places to live and work. They’re willing to put politics aside to advocate for what is needed for their communities.

As plans to build the Gateway Project to build new Hudson River rail tunnels continue, an article in NJSpotlight.com asks how will cash-strapped New Jersey pay for its share of the $20 billion effort. A report issued by Moody’s Investors Service drove home that challenge, offering up some sobering facts about New Jersey’s ability to help fund the tunnel project, including a tight state budget, significant debt and a fund for new transportation projects that’s on course to run out of money by the middle of next year.

NARP notes that the Northeast Corridor, which carries more than 2,000 trains each weekday, has dozens of critical-yet-obsolete infrastructure elements, most notably the 104-year old Hudson River Tunnels connecting New York City and New Jersey, which carry 400,000 passengers each weekday. The NEC needs $52 billion in capital investment over the next 20 years just to maintain existing levels of service. This doesn’t include a separate $117 billion plan to build a next-gen high-speed rail between Washington, D.C., New York City, and Boston.

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Two 30-second public service radio spots have been professionally produced by NARP and sent to more than 350 radio stations across the southern tier of the United States. The first spot calls for restoring rail passenger service between Orlando and New Orleans; the other advocates increasing the Sunset Limited’s frequency to daily service. Each spot also refers the listeners to NARP’s website and invites them to become a member.

In addition to the two radio spots, each station received a cover letter from NARP President and CEO Jim Mathews explaining the importance of the two messages and thanking the stations for putting the spots on the air. Members of Congress representing districts through which the Sunset route passes have also been sent letters informing them that their constituents will be hearing these messages. A link to the two spots was also included.

The timing of this effort couldn’t be better because the FAST Act, passed by Congress on December 3, calls for creating a Gulf Coast Working Group to study the issue of restoring passenger service on the NOL-ORL segment of the Sunset Limited’s route.

Ken Kramer, a NARP member from the San Diego area, located and recorded the professional voice talent and more than a dozen other NARP members volunteered to look up contact information for radio stations located along the Sunset Limited’s original route of Los Angeles-New Orleans-Orlando. Click here and here to listen to the PSAs.

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Rail leaders in the Midwest feel that double-tracking the entire track along the approximately 300-mile route between Chicago and Detroit, called Wolverine Service, is the best way for the region to achieve faster, more frequent Amtrak train trips, including stops in Niles, Dowagiac, Kalamazoo and Ann Arbor, reports the South Bend Tribune. The Michigan Association of Railroad Passengers and Midwest High Speed Rail Association are seeking public support throughout Michigan for the proposal — starting with the groups’ community meeting held at the Niles Public Library on December 2.

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The Rail Passenger Association of California and Nevada (RailPAC) will hold its annual meeting, "Steel Wheels Conference 2016: A Year of Possibilities," this Saturday, December 5, 2015. The event will be held at the Los Angeles Metro Board Room at Union Station. The keynote speaker will be Amtrak board member Yvonne Brathwaite. Attendees will also hear from industry leaders who will present their thoughts on growing a mobility network for California. Registration is open, and we're encouraging NARP's California members to attend this event. Click here for more details and to register.

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And further east of Michigan, residents of New England are seeing hope for high-speed rail in the region as the Federal Railroad Administration continues its planning study for the Northeast, according to an editorial in the Boston Globe. FRA is currently exploring three blueprints for upgrading the Northeast Corridor between Boston and Washington, D.C., with New England’s governors and congressional delegation being asked to favor the version that would offer a faster, more direct route from Boston to New York via Hartford. This proposal would bring New York City to within two hours of Boston’s South Station by building an entirely new route through southern New England.

NARP member John James used an editorial on NPR station KJZZ to make the case of why intercity rail service should stop In Phoenix. “In Arizona we are lucky to have not one but two transcontinental trains serving our state. But there is a challenge with Maricopa. There is no scheduled way to go from the train station to central Phoenix,” he wrote. “Amtrak has connecting bus service from the Sky Harbor Airport bus station to Flagstaff -- a distance of over 147 miles -- to meet the daily East and Westbound Southwest Chief, but no options connecting to Maricopa. In my case, my wife drove down to meet me, two hours out of her day.”

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Now that NARP’s new membership management system is up and running, we encourage members to take control of their profiles. After logging in here, members can manage all their details, including updating a profile, make address changes, make and check on donations and changing passwords. It’s a win-win for everyone: members can make their own changes to ensure accuracy, while NARP staff can focus on ongoing advocacy efforts.

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The Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber’s Agenda 360, Skyward and the Urban Land Institute Cincinnati recently released a Regional Indicators Report on Transit called The Connected Region, writes three millennials for an op-ed in the Cincinnati Enquirer. The reports benchmark the 15-county Cincinnati Metropolitan Statistical Area against 11 peer regions that it competes with for talent and jobs.

“In Cincinnati, just over 21,000 workers use transit to commute on a daily basis. For some people it’s a choice; for some it’s a necessity,” wrote Erika Fiola of the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber, Kristine Frech of Skyward and Dan McCarthy of Carter and chair of the Urban Land Institute Cincinnati. “Many parts of the Cincinnati region are inaccessible by transit, placing almost half of our jobs out of reach of transit users. As our region continues to grow, both in geography and in population, we need to remember that transit plays an important role in connecting people to work.”

Millennials from around the Indianapolis region came up with their own ideas of what public transit should look like during two sessions at NARP’s Fall Meeting, as outlined in the November/December newsletter.

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NARP thanks those members who have sent in industry-related news stories, op-eds, editorials or letters to the editor from your communities. We include them in our social media efforts, along with the weekly Hotline. Please continue to send your news to NARP’s communications director ([email protected]) and we will continue share it with the membership. Finally, please follow NARP on Facebook and Twitter.

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