Could Cars Have Caused the Mortgage Meltdown?
In yet another analysis of the causes behind the current financial crisis, it turns out that vehicle ownership and a lack of access to public transportation may be just as predictive of mortgage foreclosure rates as low credit scores and high debt-to-income ratios.
City of Austin
Tuesday, January 26, 2010, 9:31am CST
The city of Austin is asking for public input on future transportation planning during four meetings early next month.
Officials have collected 1,200 citizen-suggested transportation projects and need help identifying priorities for improving mobility in the city either by bus, bike, rail, on foot, car of otherwise.
[via Austin Business Journal]
US Department of Transportation
Tuesday, January 26, 2010, 12:58pm CST
The U.S. Department of Transportation Tuesday banned commercial truck and bus drivers from texting while driving.
DOT Secretary Ray LaHood said violators could face fines of up to $2,750. He said the ban will help reduce accidents, citing studies that show drivers who are texting while driving 55 miles per hour have their eyes off the road for the length of a football field. Texting drivers are 20 times more likely to get in an accident than those not distracted while driving, according to DOT.
[via Austin Business Journal]
After much delay, drama and uncertainty, it appears Austin’s rail is back on track.
Capital Metropolitan Transportation Interim CEO Doug Allen on Monday got to tell his board and a roomful of attendees the delayed MetroRail line will open in March, just like he promised when replacing his under-performing boss last year.
Despite the good news, the board approved executive search firm Gilbert Tweed International to decide if Allen should be replaced with a different permanent CEO.
[via Austin Business Journal]
Please help us welcome the new Capital Metro board members at a reception in their honor.
Hon. Mike Martinez; Hon. Chris Riley; Hon. John Cowman; Norm Chafetz; Frank Fernandez; John Langmore; Beverly Silas; Ann Stafford
Date: January 27, 2010
Time: 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
Place: Stephen F. Austin Hotel, Second Floor
A short program to discuss each board members’ priorities for the agency will begin promptly at 6:15 p.m.
Sponsors:
Downtown Austin Alliance; Alliance for Public Transportation; Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce; Greater Austin Hispanic Chamber of Commerce; Real Estate Council of Austin
RSVP to cmisrael@lan-inc.com
Cap Metro Board Reception
TxDOT
New TxDOT rail director looks into future of state’s transportation
By Jacob Cottingham
Bill Glavin, the Texas Department of Transportation’s recently appointed Rail Division Director, has a lot to be excited about. As the first head of the new department, his decades of freight industry experience will be instrumental in shaping the future of the state’s passenger rail network. Glavin spoke with In Fact Daily about his vision for the state and the long road ahead for high-speed trains.
Before TxDOT, Glavin spent 30 years working for Burlington Northern-Santa Fe, North American RailNet and RVBA and Associates. He said there are many advantages to his freight experience, where among other duties he was chief engineer at BNSF.
He stressed that it’s important for the department to bring in technology and ideas that had been working in other countries. “We do not have the patent on knowledge,” he said, “Other people do and we’re anxious to be able to take that and see what applications we have to benefit Texas.”
Before any high speed network could be established there are several initial hurdles that must be overcome. The lack of funding for rail in Texas looms largest – though that was a topic Glavin didn’t yet feel comfortable discussing at length so early on the job. Another issue is defining what, exactly, constitutes high speed rail. Currently different industry and government entities are calling anything from 90 – 200 mph “high speed,” and it remains to be seen what Texas’ ultimate goal will be.
The average speed at which a train could operate depends on the tracks it travels on. Glavin said a major question for Texans is whether to overlay passenger rail service on top of existing freight lines, or begin building a dedicated independent network. “People are concerned that if we make an investment in improving the freight network for higher speed trains it will preclude a real bullet train,” Glavin said, “But the capacity we build there isn’t going to be wasted because the freight network is going to be growing.”
He said the issue then becomes whether or not the people of Texas want to invest in cheap capacity or more expensive capacity. If passenger rail needs end up requiring that rail bridges be widened, that can be an expensive proposition – especially if freight lines would not have needed that additional capacity for several decades.
Glavin noted that railroads that are under capacity tend to be in city pairs that are not primed for high speed rail. “Where a market for passengers exists, there’s such a demand for freight that there’s not a heck of a lot of additional capacity to overlay passenger on there,” he said. Another funding issue is how much of the initial capital costs the state is willing want to take on. Although public-private funding schemes are popular, often the public aspect relies on taxes generated from freight lines, effectively hitting those companies twice when they are also expected to pick up the “private” portion of investment.
One thing seems certain: interconnected networks will be important to any future system. Glavin cautioned against viewing rail as an end-all solution to traffic and mobility problems, pointing out, “You can’t just dump a trainload of people in a field of crickets without having an interconnected network to distribute the people throughout the area.” To this end, Texas will need to ensure that regional rail systems link up with metro or urban links, and fit in with existing highways and airports.
Freight has a similar strategy, Glavin said, as they deal with different requirements for intermodal, general merchandise strategies, and coal – all of which operate at different speeds, frequencies and plans of operation. Glavin sees this as essential to a transportation network. “My view is that when you’re working with highway solutions you have a number of solutions, be it toll roads, express lanes, carpool lanes, interstates, connectors, bike path… You have to look at the same thing in rail.”
In regard to an Austin-San Antonio rail corridor, Glavin said, “The longer we wait, the more difficult and expensive it gets.” Glavin speculated that such a line could require Union Pacific to “move off its current lines and go around the city. Each year we delay it, the further out that bypass has to be because growth is continuing to push out the inexpensive green fields.” Additionally, adding mileage to go around the city in ever widening loops adds cost on for the Class I rail carriers which would utilize a new freight line.
Glavin said other issues are problematic to expanded rail on top of freight lines. If a passenger train runs at higher speeds, anywhere from 79-110 mph, the class of the track changes and the maintenance standards required for that also change – and become more expensive. Although Class I’s benefit from the improved maintenance, they don’t get any additional speed. Furthermore, new national standards requiring Positive Train Control, which automatically slows and stops trains headed for a collision, further increase the costs.
Glavin also pointed out that although people object to subsidizing rail and specifically cite Amtrak as a failure, he said “there’s no commuter system in the nation that’s not subsidized,” including highways, airports and every other mode of transportation.
Another area of concern for the new rail division is safety – especially if higher speed trains were to use tracks currently slated for freight. “If you take a crossing that usually has 60 or 40 mph freight trains and people get up to the gate, and don’t hear or see anything, they’ll go around even though the fast moving passenger train may be heading toward them,” Glavin said. The new division will “need to come up to a way to secure the corridors,” in order to prevent such accidents.
Although Texas recently applied for $1.8 billion in federal stimulus funds, those are not expected to pave the way for a high speed network. Only a fraction of the federal funds allocated to rail projects could be used for planning and design – the areas that Texas needs the most work. The rest were intended for “shovel ready” projects and grants that required state matching funds, an acute problem for a state in which the Legislature has not yet appropriated funds for rail. The money that Texas did apply for are short-term improvements to signal time, freight speed, and grade improvements.
Glavin stressed the affect rail has on local and state economies, saying that land values near passenger rail tend to increase and businesses flourish when potential customers are let out at stops near them. Given these advantages and the potential for additional federal matching funds, Glavin said it is important to get a plan in order and start buying right of way. “Even if we’re 10 years, 50, or 150 years out from the ultimate solution, we really need to start preserving ROW right away today.”
As he juggles meetings with foreign rail companies from across the globe, all of whom see America as an untapped market, Glavin will begin rolling out “visioning workshops” with the public, while staff sorts through any existing data on connection points for a future system.
[reprinted with permission from InFact Daily]
Federal Railroad Administration
By MICHAEL A. LINDENBERGER / The Dallas Morning News
mlindenberger@dallasnews.com The federal government is about to hand out a river of cash to states willing to build a network of bullet trains, as the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress seek to slowly ease the country’s dependence on automobiles and airplanes to make short trips between its biggest cities.
[via dallasnews.com]
Recently fired rail contractor Veolia Transportation Inc. said Capitol Metro broke state and federal procurement laws when officials signed contracts without a bid process.
Cap Metro
The Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority last week terminated its five-year, $105 million rail operation and maintenance agreement with Veolia and almost immediately signed two replacement contracts with Missouri-based Herzog Transit Services Inc. and Watco Companies Inc. of Kansas.
Veolia sent an official protest today that does not challenge the authority’s right to terminate its contract, but “its right to mislead us, disrupt our contractual relationship, and to violate state procurement laws.”
[via the Austin Business Journal]
http://www.capmetro.org/images/logo.jpg
Capital Metro Terminates Rail Contract with Veolia
Capital Metro terminated its rail operations and maintenance contract with Veolia Transportation today. At this afternoon’s Board of Directors Work Session and Board Meeting, staff will present for approval two new contracts:
Herzog Transit Services is prepared to begin work immediately to complete the remaining steps in the MetroRail project. This change will not affect the estimated timeline for beginning passenger service in the first quarter of 2010. Capital Metro made this decision to ensure the timely completion of the MetroRail project and a successful launch of the system, and to meet existing freight obligations.
Herzog currently operates passenger rail systems in Dallas-Fort Worth (Trinity Railway Express), Albuquerque, NM (Rail Runner), Stockton, CA (Altamont Commuter Express), and Oceanside, CA (Coaster), and has been in the railroad industry for 40 years.
Watco has been operating Capital Metro’s freight line since October 2007, and runs a total of 22 short line railroads on more than 3,500 miles of track in the United States.
During recent contract negotiations, Veolia demanded changes to the terms of the existing contract as a condition for completing the remaining work. Capital Metro could not agree to these changes because they would have exposed the Authority and the community to additional costs and risks. Capital Metro immediately took the responsible step of considering other options which included securing agreements with Herzog and Watco.
This action is a responsible business decision in the best interest of not only Capital Metro but the Central Texas community.
[via Cap Metro]
Public Transportation Takes Us There
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Transit Investment Leads to Jobs & Economic Growth! |
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Support and Create Opportunties for a Better America |
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Yesterday, President Obama called for more transportation investment to support job creation and economic growth. Public transportation can implement more than $15 billion projects in 90 days!
More transit means more jobs and a better economy. Contact the President and your Congressional representatives today and tell them to support more investment in public transit! Public transportation projects create more than 450,000 jobs and for every $1 invested in public transportation, an average of $4 is generated in economic returns.
Act NOW! |
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NAPTA / 1666 K Street NW / Washington DC 2006 / 202-496-4807
info@napta.net / here.
