BRT!
Infrastructure:  one example illustrating the fact that investment in this critical need is overdue in U.S.A.  Read paper here on the subject!  Get transit news. 

T R A N S P O R T A T I O N :   N E W S




Falling down: The Tappan Zee Bridge needs replacing — but to get the job done fast, Gov. Cuomo must truly resolve some tough issues/Robert Kalfus

Cuomo mulls new effort to replace Tappan Zee
Michael Gormley, Stamford ADVOCATE
Published 07:01 p.m., Thursday, May 3, 2012

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Thursday that he is considering new ideas for paying to replace the Tappan Zee Bridge after the federal government initially rejected a $2 billion loan application because it doesn't have enough money at this time.

Partnerships with private companies that could provide financing based on fares are among the many possibilities, though Cuomo didn't disclose any new approaches. Cuomo downplayed rejection of the loan by the Obama administration on April 26. He said there will be future rounds of the competitive loans and New York will have a strong application for the next opportunity. The $5.2 billion project would build two spans to replace an aging, overcrowded bridge across the Hudson River in New York City's northern suburbs.

The U.S. Department of Transportation's Duane Callender said in a letter to the state that the bridge project scored well in its review, but the federal department didn't have enough money for it this spring. Instead, smaller projects were chosen to compete for $13 billion in funding.

Callender said that if federal funds are significantly increased, the department will create a list of projects to be expedited. Although Callender didn't say the Tappan Zee Bridge would be on that list, another application was encouraged while noting lending could still be "constrained" even with more funding.

"We encourage you to continue the planning and financial work necessary to move your project if and when that review process takes place," Callender stated.

Cuomo spokesman Josh Vlasto said the initial effort was banking on a win as much as securing a spot for more favorable designation in subsequent rounds. Cuomo spokesman Matt Wing said the state's "letter of interest" wasn't rejected. He said New York's request remains alive and will be considered this year when more federal funding is approved by Congress, although some other states' proposals were rejected. Congress is debating the additional spending now.

The rejection was a stumble for Cuomo's plan to do a major project fast. The high-profile project is a top priority for Cuomo, who sees it as a symbol of his administration.

"The Tappan Zee Bridge is a project that has been talked about for decades," Cuomo said Thursday. He said inaction was the result of the political "enemies of progress."

"We are trying to do the exact opposite with the Tappan Zee. We are saying that when there is a need, and a pressing need, government should be able to respond quickly, expeditiously, efficiently."

"It's going to be about making a statement that government can work ... and we can still do big things," Cuomo said.

State Director of State Operations Howard Glaser said announcements about the project are expected in coming weeks. He said environmental considerations are among the issues being worked out now.

In April, the environmental group Riverkeeper said the state should slow down the "breakneck" push to build a new bridge and take another look at alternatives including simply rehabilitating the existing Hudson River span. Riverkeeper urged consideration of adding new mass transit systems on the bridge and digging a tunnel instead.

Riverkeeper said the state has dismissed alternatives without enough public review and already started riverbed tests. The massive work of replacing the bridge could endanger Atlantic and shortnose sturgeon, Riverkeeper said.

The bridge carries Interstate 287 over the Hudson River between Rockland and Westchester counties.
Risky bridge-ness
Cuomo’s Tappan Zee decisions
NYPOST
Nicole Gelinas
Last Updated: 1:03 AM, February 29, 2012
Posted: 12:20 AM, February 29, 2012

‘I’m going to build Tappan Zee just to show we can,” Gov. Cuomo told construction-company honchos last month. Deliberate speed is welcome — but if Cuomo doesn’t map out the full route now, the project could crash.

The governor has fast-tracked the long-stalled plans to replace the dangerously obsolete Tappan Zee Bridge between Westchester and Rockland. Two weeks ago, the state short-listed four big engineering groups who will bid soon to design and build the bridge. It should cost $4.64 billion and take five years.

This process sounds smooth and straight. This week, though, Cuomo will get an idea of the obstacles in the roadway. The state started holding public hearings (one each in Rockland and Westchester) last night.

The cliché is that it will be environmental issues like “fish mortality” that will push up costs and time. But fish or no fish, New York will build a bridge if it wants to. (It wasn’t the fabled striped bass, even, that killed the Westway underground highway project on Manhattan’s West Side in 1985, after a decade of planning — the pols just used the fish, in the end, as an excuse for backing down from a plan whose costs increasingly outweighed its benefits.)

No, it’s other issues that could really push up costs and delay ribbon-cutting. To avoid trouble later, Cuomo needs to genuinely resolve three issues up front: bus lanes, noise and ugliness.

Bus lanes: Drivers probably will see tolls double to pay for this thing; in exchange, they’d better get reduced congestion. But extra lanes will fill up with extra cars, as they always do; the only way to reduce traffic is mass transit.

Cuomo has said (rightly) that it’s too expensive to build Metro-North over the bridge, at least for now. But he can design the crossing with express bus lanes built in: Every bus can replace 50 cars; that’s good for drivers paying the higher toll.

The Rockland and Westchester county execs seem to get this. Both Rob Astorino and Scott Vanderhoef support building bus lanes now, because, as Vanderhoef says, “we’ve got to come out of this better than we go into it.”

Adding a bus-lane requirement after the initial bids will add delays and costs. Cuomo needs to be firm and clear now.

Noise: The state admits that construction will be “intrusive and noisy” for folk who live and work nearby. Lots of work will happen at night, so that people could use the existing bridge and ramps during the day.

To “mitigate” this, the state will make contractors use insulation and other techniques to reduce the sound. But the state has a history of addressing noise problems on paper better than in real life. If Cuomo rushes without enough attention to noise, nobody will think about it seriously until voters are making noise — not unlike the limits on blasting now seen at the Second Avenue Subway dig.

Ugliness: Will the bridge be pretty enough? Sounds silly, but a similar issue forced a late change in the Big Dig job in Massachusetts — the state wound up shelling out an extra billion.

Already, tourist-attraction writer Nicholas Dagen Bloom and White Plains environmental consultant Adrian Berezowsky have complained that the Tappan Zee proposal “is not a bridge at all, but a 10-lane highway that happens to go over water.”

Some of these things — like bus lanes — should happen. Some — like building the most beautiful bridge in the world — shouldn’t. Yet Cuomo has to anticipate and answer these questions now, before he awards contracts, and way before he green-lights construction.

Otherwise, he’ll have to fix the noise problems, for example, when he’s already committed to paying crews hundreds of thousands of dollars for work they can’t do because it’s too noisy.

Remember: Contractors only pay for their own mistakes (sometimes), not for when the state changes its mind about what kind of bridge it wants or how many nighttime hours it allows construction.

Cuomo should note now, too, that there are no excuses for what goes wrong later. From the Big Dig to the Second Avenue Subway to the World Trade Center site, issues like these have come up time and time again.

Punting on any of these questions now means going nowhere fast later — while the meter runs.

Nicole Gelinas is a contributing editor to the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal.

REMEMBER MINNISOTA?
Tappanzee like the one in the upper left at the top of this page...

Thousands of U.S. bridges 'structurally deficient'
By CAROL WOLF Bloomberg News
Article published Feb 5, 2012

Built decades ago, they're reaching the end of the road

Washington - Three months before proposing in his State of the Union speech to speed up construction projects, President Barack Obama designated replacement of New York's Tappan Zee Bridge for "fast-track" approvals, saying he wanted to cut red tape and create jobs.

He didn't mention another reason: The failure of one main part could send the structure, which carries about 140,000 vehicles a day, tumbling into the Hudson River.

The Tappan Zee is one of the U.S.'s 18,000 so-called fracture-critical bridges, of which about 8,000 are classified "structurally deficient," according to Federal Highway Administration records. The bridges require inspections that may cost cash-strapped state and local governments five to 15 times as much as routine checks.

"Fracture-critical bridges work fine if maintenance is perfect and everything goes as designed," said Thomas Fisher, dean of the College of Design at the University of Minnesota. "But if you start to change anything, they become very fragile. Their fracture-critical nature means they don't give any warning at the point of collapse. It is sudden and catastrophic."

The Minneapolis I-35W bridge, a fracture-critical design, collapsed without warning in August 2007, killing 13 people and injuring 145 others.

Many fracture-critical bridges were built in the 1960s and 1970s to finish the interstate highway system quickly and inexpensively, said Andrew Herrmann, president of the American Society of Civil Engineers, a Reston, Va.-based industry association.

The average bridge is functional for about 50 years, depending on weather and other conditions, he said.

"These bridges have an amazing safety record to this point, but they are getting old and have to be watched," he said in a telephone interview.

Bridges rated structurally deficient require "significant maintenance and repair to remain in service and eventual rehabilitation or replacement to address the deficiencies," according to the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.

Every U.S. highway bridge must be inspected at least once every two years, he said. Fracture-critical bridges may need to be inspected more often. How frequently depends on their condition. While many bridges can be checked visually, engineers need to use boats, cranes, cherry pickers and other equipment to inspect fracture-critical bridges up close, he said.

Inspectors look for cracks as small as one-eighth of an inch, Michael Johnson, chief of special investigations for the California Department of Transportation, said in a telephone interview. "If the crack is not arrested, it can run the length of the steel and jeopardize the integrity of the structure," he said.

Underwater inspections using divers are required every five years, he said.

"These hands-on inspections have revealed numerous fatigue and corrosion problems that otherwise might have escaped notice," according a report by Transportation Research Board, part of the National Academy of Sciences that provides inspection information to engineers.

Fracture-critical bridge maintenance "consumes a large portion" of states' inspection budgets, the report said. A fracture-critical inspection can cost "well into the six digits," compared with $15,000 or less for more routine work, said Todd Niemann, a bridge inspection engineer for the Minnesota Department of Transportation.

It cost about $100,000 to hire a consultant to inspect the Milton-Madison bridge, which carries US 421 across the Ohio River between Milton, Ky., and Madison, Ind., according to data compiled by Michael Baker Jr. Inc., an engineering services company. A more general bridge inspection by Kentucky Department of Transportation employees cost about $10,000, according to the data. Michael Baker Jr., a unit of Moon Township, Pennsylvania-based Michael Baker Corp., is a consultant working on the 81-year-old bridge's replacement.

The Sherman Minton Bridge, another span connecting Kentucky and Indiana over the Ohio River, was closed Sept. 9 after cracks as wide as a 12-ounce can were found. The discovery prompted the Federal Highway Administration on Sept. 12 to "strongly" recommend that states double-check fracture-critical bridges using the same type of steel.

"When you notice something on these bridges, they have to be shut down right away because they don't give a warning before collapsing," the University of Minnesota's Fisher said. "It's not like they sag or start to shake first."

The bridge, completed in 1961, carried about 80,000 vehicles a day, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The New York State Thruway Authority spent $389 million from 2007 through 2011 to maintain and improve the Tappan Zee Bridge, Betsy Feldstein, a spokeswoman for the agency, said.

The Federal Highway Administration estimates it will cost $5.2 billion to $16 billion to replace the bridge, depending on whether it has bus lanes and tracks for rail.

"The Tappan Zee is being held together with glue and duct tape," said Barry LePatner, founder of LePatner & Associates, a construction-law firm in New York, and author of "Too Big to Fall" about the state of the nation's bridges.

"It is inexcusable why each of these bridges cannot be structurally given redundancy to ensure that they will be safe," LePatner said.

Repairing all U.S. bridges would cost about $140 billion, three times what the federal government receives in taxes annually for road, mass transit and bridge projects, according to the engineering society.

Funding for bridge repairs comes in part from U.S. surface- transportation legislation, the last of which provided $20 billion between 2005 and 2009. That bill has been extended at about the same funding levels since 2009. The current extension expires March 31.

The Highway Trust Fund, which receives fuel taxes for use on highway, bridge and mass transit projects, is spending more money than it takes in and will probably be insolvent by the first quarter of 2013, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The shortage of repair money means the U.S. should inspect fracture-critical bridges regularly and allocate inspection money to the structures in the worst state of repair, said Robert Connor, associate professor of civil engineering at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind.

"I don't think the sky is falling today," Connor said. "But if we don't train the future workforce in at least how to maintain these structures, we're going to have some pretty bad things eventually happen."


Not one but two school bus vehicles involved.

Reframing the Debate Over Using Phones Behind the Wheel
By MATT RICHTEL, NYTIMES
December 17, 2011

For years, policy makers trying to curb distracted driving have compared the problem to drunken driving. The analogy seemed fitting, with drivers weaving down roads and rationalizing behavior that they knew could be deadly.

But on Tuesday, in an emotional call for states to ban all phone use by drivers, the head of a federal agency introduced a new comparison: distracted driving is like smoking.

The shift in language, in comments by Deborah Hersman, the chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, opened a new front in a continuing national conversation about a deadly habit that safety advocates are trying desperately, and with a growing sense of futility, to stop.

Her new tack also echoes a growing consensus among scientists that using phones and computers can be compulsive, both emotionally and physically, which helps explain why drivers may have trouble turning off their devices even if they want to. In effect, they are saying that the running joke about BlackBerrys as “CrackBerrys” is more serious than people think.

“Addiction to these devices is a very good way to think about it,” Ms. Hersman said in an interview. “It’s not unlike smoking. We have to get to a place where it’s not in vogue anymore, where people recognize it’s harmful and there’s a risk and it’s not worth it.”

She added: “If you can’t control your impulses, you need to lock your phone in the trunk.”

Policy makers are eager to find a new way to attack distracted driving because, for all their efforts in the past few years, multitasking by drivers is on the rise.

In a study conducted last year and released this month by the federal government, about 120,000 drivers were estimated to be sending text messages or physically manipulating phones at any given time during the day, up 50 percent from 2009.

And according to the research, from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 660,000 drivers were holding phones to their ears at any moment last year.

Even as more people multitask behind the wheel, polls show that there is widespread recognition of the risks.

Previous efforts to change societal views about drunken driving and to increase compliance with seat belt laws and motorcycle helmet requirements took root over years, traffic safety experts said, with a three-pronged approach of tough laws, enforcement and education.

Safety advocates added that distracted driving poses a challenge similar to that posed by smoking: being able to communicate with friends or loved ones at all times may carry a certain cool factor, as cigarettes did in the 1950s and ’60s. Like cigarettes, they can be the default solution to restlessness or boredom.

And, scientists said, the phone is very hard to resist. “There is absolutely an issue with compulsion,” said David Greenfield, a psychologist and assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine who runs a clinic called the Center for Internet and Technology Addiction.

“Anyone who doubts that, take away your phone for a day,” Dr. Greenfield added. “You’ll feel weird, ill at ease, uncomfortable.”

Or even try it for a short car ride, he said. Part of the lure of smartphones, he said, is that they randomly dispense valuable information. People do not know when an urgent or interesting e-mail or text will come in, so they feel compelled to check all the time.

“The unpredictability makes it incredibly irresistible,” Dr. Greenfield said. “It’s the most extinction-resistant form of habit.”

He finds the cigarette analogy more apt than drunken driving because, he said, people who drive drunk do not find any satisfaction in doing so. In contrast, checking e-mail or chatting while driving might relieve the tedium of being behind the wheel.

The lure of multitasking may be, in at least one respect, more powerful for drivers than for other people, said Clifford Nass, a sociology professor at Stanford University who studies electronic distraction. Drivers are typically isolated and alone, he said, and humans are fundamentally social animals.

The ring of a phone or the ping of a text becomes a promise of human connection, which is “like catnip for humans,” Dr. Nass said.

“When you tap into a totally fundamental, universal human impulse,” he added, “it’s very hard to stop.”

Paul Atchley, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Kansas, conducted research this year and last to determine whether young adults had enough self-control to postpone responding to a text message if they were offered a reward to do so. The idea was to determine whether the lure of the device was so compelling that it would override a larger reward.

The research found that young adults would postpone the text. Dr. Atchley concluded that the phone, while not classically addictive, nevertheless has a powerful draw, in part because it delivers information that often becomes less valuable with each passing minute.

“What looks like an addiction, in my opinion, based on this data, is a reflection of the fact that information loses value over time very rapidly,” he said. “If people can make choices, it’s not addiction.”

That analysis offers hope to safety advocates, who would obviously rather not battle a behavior that is irresistible. The hope is shared by Keith Humphreys, a professor of psychiatry at the Stanford University Medical Center, who in 2009 and 2010 was a senior drug policy adviser to the White House.

As more information about the dangers of smoking came to light, he said, many smokers stopped, suggesting that even though nicotine is addictive, some people can choose to avoid it. And even addicted smokers, he said, do not light up in theaters or churches.

The same thing can happen with distracted driving. “If we create a different culture,” he said, “some of the people who feel addicted will stop.”

At a news conference on Tuesday, Ms. Hersman of the National Transportation Safety Board said something must change because the current measures and messages were not working.

“As a society, we’ve accepted this level of connection and distraction,” she said. “We’re not advocating that people have to go cold turkey, but people do need to take a timeout.”

She knows how hard it can be. Two years ago, the board implemented a policy that employees were not allowed to use phones while driving. Sometimes, she said, she would be driving and feel the lure of the device.

“It’s very tempting for people,” Ms. Hersman said. “For me now, it’s about turning off the phone or physically putting it far away from me, sometimes putting the purse in the back seat or the trunk.”



With federal funds threatened, state looks for new ways to pay for transit
Deirdre Shesgreen, CT MIRROR
September 20, 2011

WASHINGTON--Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has asked his top transportation advisers to look at creative financing mechanisms, including setting up a state infrastructure bank, to fund critical highway and transit projects. The move comes as Malloy and other governors brace for an anticipated drop in federal transportation dollars.

It also comes as Congress gears up for a partisan clash over such infrastructure banks, which seek to use public funds to leverage private investment for high-priority, big-ticket projects.

President Barack Obama and other Democrats, including Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3rd District, have called for a generously-funded national bank to finance major infrastructure initiatives. But congressional Republicans have balked at the idea, saying it smacks of a second wasteful stimulus proposal.

The middle ground, some experts say, might be more federal funding for state-level infrastructure banks, an idea embraced by Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., the chairman of the House transportation committee. More than 30 states already have such entities--but Connecticut does not.

So it's no wonder that today, Connecticut Transportation Commissioner James P. Redeker, Malloy's Policy Director Elizabeth Donohue, and state Rep. Ed Jutila, an East Lyme Democrat and member of the transportation committee, are all in Washington to attend a conference on state infrastructure banks.

"It's an idea we're interested in, and we're starting to explore," said Donohue. While there's still some uncertainty about how beneficial a bank would be and how best to structure one, "the one thing we can all agree on is we're not going to have as much money coming in the same form as it has in the past."

Indeed, Donohue and others breathed a sigh of relief last week when Congress approved a short-term bill that keeps federal funding for highway and transit programs at current levels until March 31. That stop-gap measure gives Congress an extra four months to find common ground on a longer-term bill. Right now, the divide is gaping: On one side is a House Republican plan that would slash federal transportation spending by nearly 34 percent over the next six years and on the other, a Senate Democratic proposal that would give states a small bump in funding for the next two years.

"Four months of level funding may be the best deal we can get right now," said Donald Shubert, a spokesman for Keep CT Moving, a transportation advocacy coalition. "It's far better than a 30 percent immediate cut. It's far better than any kind of glitch in funding."

And it will give Connecticut and other states more time to prepare for an altered landscape, which experts say will bring fewer federal dollars and a greater emphasis on public private partnerships. "I don't know if we're ready for that," Shubert said. "If state infrastructure banks are going to be part of a proposal, then an extra four months... gives our state DOT, our state legislature, and the governor's office an opportunity to compete for that funding."

When Obama unveiled his jobs plan earlier this month, he called on Congress to create a national infrastructure bank, with $10 billion in federal funds available to leverage private capital for high-priority transportation projects. It's a narrower version of a concept DeLauro has championed for years to create a large, new bank to fund everything from energy and broadband initiatives to transportation and water projects.

House Republicans and some Democrats have expressed skepticism about the need for a new federal entity. But they've embraced increased funding for a similar existing program, known as the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA), which doles out loans for projects of "regional and national significance." It's now funded at about $122 million a year; Mica, the GOP transportation committee chairman, has called for boosting that to $1 billion a year.

Mica has also called for providing states with additional federal dollars for their own infrastructure banks. Under his plan, states could use the federal money and a state contribution to leverage private investment. Currently, states can already devote 10 percent of their federal funds to a state infrastructure bank, but Mica wants to increase that to 15 percent. He also wants to devote a specific pot of money--he hasn't said how much--that would automatically flow into a state infrastructure bank's coffers.

Unlike a national infrastructure bank, House Republicans say such an approach would restrain federal bureaucracy and maximize states' flexibility.

Donohue said the concept of a state infrastructure bank is appealing because it would provide a formal structure and incentive "to move public-private partnerships" in a way the state simply doesn't do right now. Asked what kinds of projects it could help finance, she said it would probably be major priorities, such as the completion of Route 11.

DeLauro said state banks are a great vehicle to bolster support for key projects, and she cheered Connecticut's move to examine the option. But she said that's no substitute for a national bank, which would have greater leverage to win investments from the capital markets, including pension funds and other major investors.

"You don't get the same heft in terms of leveraging the private dollars" with a state bank, DeLauro said. "It doesn't give you the kinds of leverage to do these very big projects."

While the prospects for a federal infrastructure bank remain uncertain, state level banks appear to be gaining in popularity. "What we're seeing from states is they aren't just sitting around waiting and worrying about what is going to happen in Washington," said Sean Slone, senior transportation policy analyst at Council of State Governments and author of a June 2011 report on state infrastructure banks. "They're exploring things like public-private partnerships, increased tolling and other mechanisms to generate additional revenue they know they're likely to need in the years ahead to meet ever growing infrastructure needs."

More than 30 states already have set up such entities since Congress granted them the authority to do so in 2005. "State infrastruc­ture banks already have clearly proven their worth in helping to finance key transportation projects around the country," Slone's report concludes.

South Carolina, for example, has one of the most active banks. It is capitalized with federal, state and private funds and has made more than $3 billion in loans since 1997. "If uncertainty about the future of the federal highway program continues, the role of the state infrastructure bank could grow in the years ahead as states seek additional tools to help them meet their infrastructure needs," the CSG report states.

Slone said that states have experienced a "period of great uncertainty the last two years," as Congress has repeatedly passed short-term extensions of highway and transit programs, instead of agreeing on a long-term policy plan. And states' need to look elsewhere for transportation dollars is likely to grow, no matter how the infrastructure bank debate plays out.

"Whatever Congress decides, it's likely to be a reduced federal commitment if they can't come up with additional revenues from somewhere," he said, noting that the gas tax doesn't produce enough revenue to cover the current outlays for federal transportation.

Malloy's policy director said that message has already been digested in Connecticut; the question is how best to respond. "The status quo is not going to be maintained and our list of infrastructure projects and our desire to do things is greater than what's available to us," said Donohue. "So we have to look at creative financing."

Whether that means an infrastructure bank or some other avenue is still an open question, she said.
New D.C. power structure on display at Hartford rail forum
Mark Pazniokas, CT MIRROR
January 28, 2011

The new realities of Washington politics came to Hartford today as rail advocates and congressional Democrats publicly courted a Republican critic of Amtrak and President Obama's vision of a national rail network.

The GOP takeover of the House means that a key railroad subcommittee now is in the hands of U.S. Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa., who believes that Amtrak should shed unprofitable routes and that Obama must focus his mass-transit goals.

The good news for Connecticut is that Shuster sees the Northeast Corridor stretching from Washington through New England as exactly where investing federal infrastructure dollars on rail makes sense.

"It's essential we have a success story," said Shuster, the featured guest at a high-speed rail forum organized by U.S. Rep. John B. Larson, D-1st District.

A measure of Shuster's importance to the success of high-speed rail in New England was evident in the Who's Who of Connecticut Democrats surrounding the Republican: Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, Sen. Richard Blumenthal and four of the five House members, Larson, Joe Courtney, Rosa DeLauro and Chris Murphy.

U.S. Rep. John Olver, a Democrat who represents western Massachusetts, wondered aloud if Connecticut's government had "come to a halt" in honor of Shuster's visit. But, of course, he also found it important to come south to spend time with the new subcommittee chairman.

Such public issues "roundtables" have several agendas. For Larson, it was an opportunity to demonstrate that, even in the minority, he can bring key players to Connecticut to meet with local business leaders and transportation advocates.

The irony in the Republican takeover is that some of the Democratic state delegation's agenda may get a better hearing. Shuster and U.S. Rep. John L. Mica, R-Fla., the chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, have complained that Obama ignored the Northeast to fund rail projects elsewhere that might never be financially sustainable.

Shuster said that he hopes that the House will pass a comprehensive transportation authorization bill later this year, which would place the rail initiative on more solid footing. He called it a personal goal.

"If this guy can move that bill, I mean, that's pulling a rabbit out of a hat," Courtney said. "Frankly, the administration was not really stepping up. They were ones who were holding things back."

The rail corridor project has relied on spurts of funding.

"The transportation authorization bill to me is the real significant milestone," Courtney said. "If we just keeping limping along with extensions of the last plan, then in my opinion this is going to continue to live in dribs and drabs."

The Northeast Corridor is perfect for rail, and Hartford was a logical place for him to visit, Shuster said.

Midway between New York and Boston, Hartford is at the heart of one of the nation's densest population corridors; and population density makes rail economically viable, Shuster said.

DeLauro seemed to cringe when Shuster criticized Obama's goal of establishing passenger rail service that can reach 80 percent of the nation's population, but overall his message was well-received by his Democratic audience.

Shuster said his visit was more than an opportunity for congressional colleagues to get media attention.

"It's hearing local leaders and their commitment about what they are willing to do. We've got to go forward a different way. You can't just say, federal government come in and fund it," Shuster said. "You've got to work with the states. You've got to bring the private sector in. The local people have got have skin in the game."

Oz Griebel, the president of the MetroHartford Alliance, the region's major business group and a backer of high-speed rail connecting Hartford to New York, said his group is willing to pay for transportation improvements through electronic tolls or higher gas taxes.

Malloy was not ready to sign off on a new revenue stream for transportation, saying his focus now is resolving the state's structural deficit before delivering his budget address on Feb. 16. Transportation funding, he said, is a topic for the spring.

NE states team up for high-speed rail funds
Courant
Associated Press
November 14, 2009

NEWINGTON, Conn.

Transportation leaders of the six New England states say they're teaming up to boost the region's chances for federal stimulus grants for high-speed commuter rail and freight service.

Top transportation officials from all six states met Thursday in Connecticut and will get together again in February in Portland, Maine.

Joseph Marie, Connecticut's transportation commissioner, says the states want to coordinate strategies to achieve a common goal. And David Cole, Maine's transportation head, says a team approach boosts everyone's chances at winning some of the federal money.

All six states have applied for stimulus grants for regional high-speed rail service, but don't yet know if they'll get the money.

AP-ES-11-14-09 1033EST

Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Conference in Westport discusses changing Federal, State and Regional roles.
Read interesting paper about climate change as it may relate to transportation.


W E S T P O R T    M E E T I N G : 

NOTE:  a member of the Westport Planning and Zoning Commission spoke during the Q. & A. of their newly adopted "green plan" Town Plan - does Weston consider this issue? 

Transportation Forum Invitees listen to Robert Yaro of Regional Plan Association, Dr. Floyd Lapp of SWRPA and others: covered by CT-N and Channel 12!

In an effort to save on paper as well as provide you with transportation resource materials in advance, below please find background materials as well as our agenda and panelist biographies.  We look forward to your attendance on Monday, June 16, 2008 at 9:00 A.M. at Westport Town Hall.

1.         The Transportation Planning Process: Key Issues -A Briefing Book for Transportation Decision-makers, Officials, and Staff

2.         Transportation for Tomorrow: Report of the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission

 

Table of Contents (.pdf enclosure 1)
 
1.         New England Association of Regional Councils (NEARC) Recommendations of Federal Transportation Law in 2009  
2.         Coalition of Northeastern Governors (CONGEG) Transportation Policies Recently Adopted  
3.         Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations (AMPO) Review of 2007 and 2008 Capitol Hill Outlook Presentation  
4.         “A Transportation Crossroads” Connecticut Post May 18, 2008

Forum Agenda and Panelist Biographies (.pdf enclosure 2)

Los Angeles Transportation Facts and Fiction:  Six-part series
  1. Introduction
  2. Sprawl
  3. Smog
NYTIMES
By Eric A. Morris
February 17, 2009, 10:38 am
 
Los Angeles

As part of an ongoing quiz about transportation in Los Angeles, in the last post I challenged the notion that the city is sprawling. But sprawl or no, Los Angeles’s air is choked with its world-famous smog. Isn’t it?

Answer: A half-truth.

Thanks to clear and sunny skies, warm temperatures, stable air, and an onshore sea-breeze, the Los Angeles area is an outstanding natural smog cooker.

Indeed, air pollution in the region long predates the arrival of the automobile. In 1542, Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, the first European to lay eyes on Santa Monica Bay, saw the area shrouded in smog from native campfires and named it the Bay of Smoke.

Now, 450 years later, no one is rushing to rechristen it the Bay of Healthfulness. Each year, Los Angeles violates the national air-quality standards for ozone by a factor of more than two. Moreover, Los Angeles has serious problems with fine particles (PM2.5). This is especially true near the city’s ports, where thousands of trucks spew diesel exhaust that we Angelenos breathe so that those of you in the rest of the nation can enjoy the imports from Asia that underpin your standard of living.

But while the situation is far from ideal, the numbers from the California Air Resources Board make it clear that Los Angeles has come a remarkably long way toward cleaning up the air.

In 1979, the South Coast Air Basin (of which Los Angeles is a part) experienced 228 days above the state one-hour ozone standard; in 2007, the number of days in violation was down to 96. The change is even more dramatic when looking at individual communities. From 1979 to 2007, Pasadena dropped from 191 days over the limit to 13, Reseda from 138 to 22, Anaheim from 61 to 2, Pomona from 167 to 19, and West Los Angeles from 76 to 2. This story is replicated across the region. It is also broadly true for the other pollutants that comprise smog.

The cleanup has not come due to reduced population or driving (both of these have risen rapidly in past decades), but to technological solutions: catalytic converters, unleaded gasoline, smog checks, etc.

According to the American Lung Association, Los Angeles doesn’t even have the worst air quality in the nation any more — sorry, Pittsburgh. Second place is hardly a badge of honor for Los Angeles, but things have definitely been moving in the right direction.

So the air is not great, but it is vastly better — hence the designation of this stereotype as a half-truth.

Four cliches to go:

Your pick?
New York’s Boom Years Were Good for Transit, Too
NYTIMES
By WILLIAM NEUMAN
December 14, 2008

As the city’s economy soared and its population grew between 2003 and 2007, something unusual was happening on the streets and in the subway tunnels.

All those tens of thousands of new jobs and residents meant that more people were moving around the city, going to work, going shopping, visiting friends. And yet, according to a new city study, the volume of traffic on the streets and highways remained largely unchanged. Instead, virtually the entire increase in New Yorkers’ means of transportation during those robust years occurred in mass transit, with a surge in subway, bus and commuter rail riders.

“What you see is that for the first time since at least World War II, all of the growth in travel in the city has been absorbed by non-auto modes, primarily by mass transit,” said Bruce Schaller, New York’s deputy transportation commissioner for planning and sustainability, who wrote the study to be released on Monday.

“Now we’ve really turned a corner in the city in that all of the growth in travel over the last four years has been absorbed by mass transit and so, in terms of the city’s sustainability goals, this is very encouraging to see.”

The city’s sprawling public transportation system was able to handle such a surge because of vast improvements in service in recent years, Mr. Schaller said, as well as the advent of the MetroCard, which made using the system more efficient. A steep drop in crime made people more willing to use the system, and the construction of housing in areas well served by subways also brought in many more riders.  But now the system faces its worst financial crisis in more than two decades, with officials proposing raising fares and cutting service, measures which threaten to unravel the system’s gains and hamper its ability to carry riders when the economy recovers.

“The increase in transit has paced the economy,” said William M. Wheeler, the director of planning for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, who was not involved in the study but reviewed some of the data at the request of The New York Times. “They’re going hand in hand. I think it’s pretty compelling.”

“I guess now the question is what’s in the future,” Mr. Wheeler said. “The challenge is going to be, can you have an adequately funded transit system to be there for that economic growth.”

The study is the first analysis to take an overall look at traffic and transit patterns in New York during the boom years from 2003 to 2007 when, according to the report, the city added more than 200,000 jobs and its population increased by more than 130,000.  Of course, the outlook today is very different, with the city shedding jobs and sliding into a deep recession as the transportation system grapples with its own financial free fall. The authority’s next budget, facing a $1.2 billion deficit, is expected to be grim.

The authority is hoping for a bailout from Albany early next year along the lines of a rescue plan proposed by a special state commission. The plan would create a new payroll tax in an effort to halt the service cuts and limit the amount of the fare increase.

“We’re in a recession at the moment, but when we come out of that I think we’re well positioned to continue in the direction of sustainable growth, provided that the support is given to transit,” Mr. Schaller said.

The trend of stable traffic volumes and rising transit during the recent economic boom was in contrast to previous periods of growth, Mr. Schaller said. In the 1990s, as the economy expanded, both street traffic and transit ridership grew, though the increase in transit was greater.  In earlier decades, however, there was a general trend toward increased vehicle traffic while, for many years, transit ridership declined.

Mr. Schaller said that vehicle trips citywide peaked in 1999 and then leveled off, with a dip in 2001 as a result of the terror attack on the World Trade Center. The overall trend has been largely stable traffic volumes across the city from 1999 through 2007.

In contrast, during the years when the economy was most buoyant, from 2003 to 2007, transit ridership soared, increasing about 9 percent during those years, according to the city study.

The difference is even greater when the focus is on the core commercial district of Manhattan, south of 60th Street. From 2003 to 2007, the study found, traffic entering that area fell by 8 percent. During the same period, transit ridership into the same zone rose 12 percent.  However, the most marked change occurred in the level of travel in Manhattan that crossed 60th Street heading south. Traffic from this direction accounted for the entire decline in volume in the core district, even as vehicle traffic from Brooklyn and New Jersey was largely unchanged. At the same time, transit and commuter rail ridership going south and crossing 60th Street increased.

“It’s the one place in the city that we see evidence of people getting out of their cars or taxis and getting into transit,” Mr. Schaller said. “Elsewhere what we see is the growth in travel being absorbed by the transit system, but 60th Street is the one place that we see traffic declining and transit increasing.”

He said the area was particularly well suited to such a shift. “You have very rich transit service and very heavy traffic congestion,” he said.

The flattening of overall traffic volumes, with an actual decline in Manhattan’s main business district, raises questions about the need for congestion pricing, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s failed plan to charge drivers to enter the busiest parts of Manhattan.  But Mr. Schaller, whose department was deeply involved in supporting congestion pricing, said that the data did not undermine the basic principles behind the plan, since traffic levels remain well above what they were a decade or two ago.

“People can make a judgment as to whether it’s acceptable that the traffic is as heavy as it is,” he said. “If it’s stable, I think that’s good news. It doesn’t mean that it’s stable at an acceptable level.”

The study was produced in response to a city law passed in the summer requiring the transportation department to make an annual report on traffic and transportation trends. It is based on data that has long been collected by a variety of public agencies, including counts of vehicles made every fall at key points throughout the city. Those tallies tend to count individual vehicles multiple times as they move around the city, so they do not produce an accurate picture of the actual number of vehicles on city streets, but they do allow useful year-to-year comparisons of traffic volumes.

The transportation department now plans to expand its data collection to more areas of the city to give the agency a more detailed understanding of traffic trends.  It will also start analyzing data from taxis equipped with G.P.S., which will help the city to have a better understanding of vehicle speeds in Manhattan.



By Degrees: Buses May Aid Climate Battle in Poor Cities
NYTIMES
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
July 10, 2009

BOGOTÁ, Colombia — Like most thoroughfares in booming cities of the developing world, Bogotá’s Seventh Avenue resembles a noisy, exhaust-coated parking lot — a gluey tangle of cars and the rickety, smoke-puffing private minibuses that have long provided transportation for the masses.

But a few blocks away, sleek red vehicles full of commuters speed down the four center lanes of Avenida de las Américas. The long, segmented, low-emission buses are part of a novel public transportation system called bus rapid transit, or B.R.T. It is more like an above-ground subway than a collection of bus routes, with seven intersecting lines, enclosed stations that are entered through turnstiles with the swipe of a fare card and coaches that feel like trams inside.

Versions of these systems are being planned or built in dozens of developing cities around the world — Mexico City, Cape Town, Jakarta, Indonesia, and Ahmedabad, India, to name a few — providing public transportation that improves traffic flow and reduces smog at a fraction of the cost of building a subway.

But the rapid transit systems have another benefit: they may hold a key to combating climate change. Emissions from cars, trucks, buses and other vehicles in the booming cities of Asia, Africa and Latin America account for a rapidly growing component of heat-trapping gases linked to global warming. While emissions from industry are decreasing, those related to transportation are expected to rise more than 50 percent by 2030 in industrialized and poorer nations. And 80 percent of that growth will be in the developing world, according to data presented in May at an international conference in Bellagio, Italy, sponsored by the Asian Development Bank and the Clean Air Institute.

To be effective, a new international climate treaty that will be negotiated in Copenhagen in December must include “a policy response to the CO2 emissions from transport in the developing world,” the Bellagio conference statement concluded.

Bus rapid transit systems like Bogotá’s, called TransMilenio, might hold an answer. Now used for an average of 1.6 million trips each day, TransMilenio has allowed the city to remove 7,000 small private buses from its roads, reducing the use of bus fuel — and associated emissions — by more than 59 percent since it opened its first line in 2001, according to city officials.

In recognition of this feat, TransMilenio last year became the only large transportation project approved by the United Nations to generate and sell carbon credits. Developed countries that exceed their emissions limits under the Kyoto Protocol, or that simply want to burnish a “green” image, can buy credits from TransMilenio to balance their emissions budgets, bringing Bogotá an estimated $100 million to $300 million so far, analysts say.

Indeed, the city has provided a model of how international programs to combat climate change can help expanding cities — the number of cars in China alone could increase sevenfold by 2030, according to the International Energy Agency — pay for transit systems that would otherwise be unaffordable.

“Bogotá was huge and messy and poor, so people said, ‘If Bogotá can do it, why can’t we?’ ” said Enrique Peñalosa, an economist and a former mayor of the city who took TransMilenio from a concept to its initial opening in 2001 and is now advising other cities. In 2008, Mexico City opened a second successful bus rapid transit line that has already reduced carbon dioxide emissions there, according to Lee Schipper, a transportation expert at Stanford University, and the city has applied to sell carbon credits as well.

But bus rapid transit systems are not the answer for every city. In the United States, where cost is less constraining, some cities, like Los Angeles, have built B.R.T.’s, but they tend to lack many of the components of comprehensive systems like TransMilenio, like fully enclosed stations, and they serve as an addition to existing rail networks.

In some sprawling cities in India, where a tradition of scooter use may make bus rapid transit more difficult to create, researchers are working to develop a new model of tuk-tuk, or motorized cab, that is cheap and will run on alternative fuels or with a highly efficient engine. “There are three million auto rickshaws in India alone, and the smoke is astonishing, so this could have a huge impact,” said Stef van Dongen, director of Enviu, an environmental network group in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, that is sponsoring the research.

Bus rapid transit systems have not always worked well in cities that have tried them, either. In New Delhi, for example, the experiment foundered in part because it proved difficult to protect bus lanes from traffic. And a system that does not succeed in drawing passengers out of their cars just adds buses to existing vehicles on the roads, making traffic and emissions worse.

But with its wide streets, dense population and a tradition of bus travel, Bogotá had the ingredients for success. To create TransMilenio, the city commandeered two to four traffic lanes in the middle of major boulevards, isolating them with low walls to create the system’s so-called tracks. On the center islands that divide many of Bogotá’s two-way streets, the city built dozens of distinctive metal-and-glass stations. Just as in a subway, the multiple doors on the buses slide open level with the platform, providing easy access for strollers and older riders. Hundreds of passengers can wait on the platforms, avoiding the delays that occur when passengers each pay as they board.

Mr. Peñalosa noted that the negative stereotypes about bus travel required some clever rebranding. Now, he said, upscale condominiums advertise that they are near TransMilenio lines. “People don’t say, ‘I’m taking the bus,’ they say, ‘I’m taking TransMilenio,’ ” he added, as he rode at rush hour recently, chatting with other passengers.

Jorge Engarrita, 45, a leather worker who was riding TransMilenio to work, said the system had “changed his life,” reducing his commuting time to 40 minutes with one transfer from two or three hours on several buses. Free shuttle buses carry residents from outlying districts to TransMilenio terminals.

To the dismay of car owners, Bogotá removed one-third of its street parking to make room for TransMilenio and imposed alternate-day driving restrictions determined by license plate numbers, forcing car owners onto the system.

With an extensive route system, TransMilenio moves more passengers per mile every hour than almost any of the world’s subways. Most poorer cities that have built subways, like Manila and Lagos, Nigeria, can afford to build only a few limited lines because of the expense.

Subways cost more than 30 times as much per mile to build than a B.R.T. system, and three times as much to maintain. And bus rapid transit systems can be built more quickly. “Almost all rapidly developing cities understand that they need a metro or something like it, and you can get a B.R.T. by 2010 or a metro by 2060,” said Walter Hook, executive director of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, in New York.

Although TransMilenio buses run on diesel, their efficient engines mean they emit less than half the nitrous oxide, particulate matter and carbon dioxide of the older minibuses. Cleaner fuels were either too expensive or did not work at Bogotá’s altitude, 9,000 feet above sea level.

TransMilenio is building more lines and underpasses to allow the buses to bypass clogged intersections, but for the moment the real challenge is overcrowding. Juan Gómez, 21, a businessman, takes TransMilenio only on days when he cannot drive, and he griped that it was often hard to find a seat.

“It’s O.K., but I prefer the car,” he said.