Hotline #926

Photo courtesy of Amtrak

An attempted attack by an armed man aboard a train traveling from Amsterdam to Paris has now brought rail security in the United States into the spotlight, including the question on whether current security measures are adequate, reported the New York Times.

Unlike airports, which are guarded with multiple layers of security — including airport police and Transportation Security Administration personnel operating metal detectors and full-body scanners — most railroad stations have minimal scrutiny for those boarding trains.

NARP is calling upon policymakers and the passengers they represent to exhibit the same resolve shown by three American passengers—Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos, and Anthony Sadler—whose swift action helped thwart a tragic attack on a train from Amsterdam to Paris. Rail safety is the number one priority—however, there must be a balance between protecting passengers and preserving their mobility.

Too often transit providers and passenger rail operators are given unfunded safety mandates and left to figure out how to pay for these directives on their own. While instituted with the best of intentions, these provisions can have a negative impact on other safety-critical capital investments. The U.S. rail transportation system is too important to our economy and mobility for us to allow the threat of terrorism to endanger a connected America.

The battle to get funding for a pair of new Hudson River tunnels under the Gateway Project continued this week, with Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) wanting to use more than $550 million in unobligated Superstorm Sandy relief funds to make repairs to the pair of rail tunnels, reports the New York Post. Amtrak had hoped to collect the funds it needed for the repairs from insurance policies it had in place during the 2012 superstorm. But a US District judge capped the amount that Amtrak could collect at $125 million instead of the $700 million it said it needed.

And Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) responded to a New York Times editorial that called for him to take action with the Gateway Project. “Mr. Cuomo Should Get on Board” (editorial, Aug. 20) suggests that I am not `on board’ with a new Amtrak rail tunnel under the Hudson River. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have said repeatedly that I vigorously support the idea of a new tunnel and have expressed the desperate need for expediting its construction. I have even offered to help fund the tunnel and accelerate its review process,” he wrote.

NARP has been a clear voice over the past two decades about the pressing need to provide federal funding for replacement rail tunnels under the Hudson River, the most recently planned iteration of which is dubbed the Gateway Project. The 104-year old Hudson River Tunnels connecting New York City and New Jersey carry 400,000 passengers each weekday. The tunnels will eventually have to be closed to allow for repairs, and unless Amtrak secures funding for a new pair of tunnels to provide alternate routing the existing capacity under the Hudson would plummet by 75 percent. If this scenario were to take place, the experience of travelers along the entire Northeast Corridor earlier this summer would pale in comparison to the daily commuting nightmare faced in the region.

Siemens won a $156 million contract from the New York City's Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) to install communications-based train control (CBTC) on the Queens Boulevard Line, reports Railway Technology. The radio-based technology offers real-time data on vehicle position and speed conditions, allowing system operators to safely increase the number of vehicles on a rail line, as well as help MTA to accommodate more passengers on its system.

It reduces the amount of wayside equipment and, as a result, reduces maintenance costs and service disruptions. And CBTC technology precisely locates each train on the tracks and controls speed, improving on-time performance for riders and employees.

It was another victory for the section of the Southwest Chief rail line that runs through southwest Kansas after the Garden City commission officially accepted the $12.5 million TIGER grant awarded to the project last fall, reports the Garden City Telegraph.

A coalition of Garden City, Dodge City, Newton and Hutchinson, other Colorado communities along the route, BNSF, Amtrak and KDOT pledged $9.3 million in matching funds toward the $12.5 million grant, while four Kansas communities each agreed to provide $12,500 toward the local matching amount and the Kansas Department of Transportation added $3 million. The funds pay to repair and upgrade the worst 54.9 miles of 158 miles of track that needs replaced or repaired between Newton and the Colorado state line.

NARP has worked closely with ColoRail, led by President James Souby, to save the Southwest Chief’s present route through Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico. The Chief serves many rural communities that have no other intercity passenger transportation options, and loss of the present route would greatly harm these communities.

Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter is the author of the book “MOVE: Putting America’s Infrastructure Back in the Lead.” In an interview with PRI’s “The World” radio show, she said that beyond piecemeal improvements, government planning and subsidies are probably essential to building a passenger rail system to rival countries in Europe and Asia.

"The difference in other countries is they do have national plans and national visions and they’re not spending all their time talking about ‘We can’t raise taxes.’"

"We can feel a little ashamed and embarassed in our country that was once at the top of the world," Kanter says. "We should want to be the model for the world again and not a country that lags behind. That's why I'd like the presidential candidates to talk about this."

On Aug. 25, voters in Phoenix approved a slight increase in the sales tax to help fund a 35-year, $31.5 billion package to greatly improve and expand the city’s light rail and bus systems, as well as other transportation improvements, according to Transportation for America. The city will use the bulk of the new revenue to improve and expand bus service and expand the city’s new light rail system, including:

• $8.9 billion to expanding light rail or high-capacity transit—allowing for 42 new miles of light rail, tripling the current system length;

• $2.2 billion for existing light rail service;

• $17.5 billion to improve bus service, including $2.9 billion to increase frequency of current service and and $1.9 billion for new bus service; and

• $2.4 billion for city streets, sidewalks, and bike lanes, which includes a plan to add more than 1,000 miles of new bike lanes.

The city of Buffalo, New York, is hoping it can replicate the success that Cincinnati had when it revitalized its Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal, reports the Buffalo News. The city’s Central Terminal is located in one of Buffalo’s most depressed neighborhoods and has sat empty for 36 years waiting for a private developer to spend tens of millions of dollars on needed repairs.

An example that NARP uses to illustrate the importance of renovating rail stations in a community is by what happened in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Since a 2007 renovation of its historic train station, Mayor Johnny DuPree said his city has seen an estimated $80 million in new commercial development in the surrounding area. Meanwhile, ridership there has increased more than 60 percent, to 11,500 passengers in 2014.

California’s Bob Hope Airport could become a stop on the state’s high-speed rail line if an official from California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) has her way, reports the Burbank Leader. CHSRA would like to build a station as part of a multimodal transportation center on a 60-acre site north of the airfield’s terminal. “You are sitting on something that is an amazing public and private benefit to the future,” said Michelle Boehm, the rail authority’s Southern California regional director told members of the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority.