Year: 2010

Home>News>2010

A new light rail line from downtown Los Angeles to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) is moving closer to reality thorough a $546 million federal loan to Los Angeles County, reports the Associated Press.

The almost nine-mile line is expected to create 5,000 jobs; and, equally important, improve transit options in heavily congested Los Angeles County. The new line will link with two other light-rail lines in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles County voters previously approved a half-cent increase in the sales tax to help fund the line, reported the Associated Press. The federal loan is expected to accelerate the $1.4 billion project.

Construction is expected to be completed in 2018. 

Siemens, an international engineering firm with its U.S. headquarters in Washington, D.C., and plants throughout the United States, is hungry to build high-speed train sets for a proposed Florida high-speed rail line.

Tampa Bay online (tbo.com) reports that Siemens, which has built high-speed trains in Austria, Belgium, China, France and Germany, has erected a billboard in Tampa showing one of its trains and proclaiming, “More Speed. Less Gas. With Siemens’ Answers for Florida High-Speed Rail.”

Florida is intent on completing a high-speed rail line between Tampa and Orlando by 2015 – and Miami by 2018 — and some $3 billion is in play for winning bidders, says Tampa Bay online. A lead contractor will be chosen within the next year.

Actually, 40 companies are showing an interest in the project, reports Tampa Bay online.

If the Florida project proceeds as its Department of Transportation expects, Florida’s 88-mile line between Tampa and Orlando will be America’s first, says Tampa Bay online.

“The Federal Railroad Administration has created a set of strict ‘Buy America’ standards for high-speed rail contracts being financed through the Obama administrations $8-billion nationwide high-speed rail program,” reports Tampa Bay online, and Siemens points to its California plant that has built rail equipment in the U.S. for a quarter century.

Florida already has received $1.25 billion in federal money for its project – nearly half the total projected cost for the Tampa-Orlando line.

UTU bus members know the violence aboard school buses all too well.

The latest shocking outbreak occurred on Long Island, N.Y., last week, when a 14-year-old boy was beaten aboard a school bus over allegations he is gay, according to Longislandpress.com.

The UTU is working with other transportation labor unions and the Transportation Trades Department of the AFL-CIO to pressure school districts to provide monitors on school buses and provide more training for drivers in the handling of school-bus violence.

For the first 40 weeks of this year – through Oct. 9 – rail carloadings are up almost 10 percent over last year, and intermodal loadings have soared by more than 15 percent, according to data from the Association of American Railroads.

For the week ending Oct. 9, intermodal was up more than 13 percent versus the comparable week in 2009, while 15 of 19 carload commodity groups showed gains over the comparable week in 2009.

 

By Bonnie Morr,

Alternate vice president, Bus Department

Right now in our country, economics are spelling out what transit and transportation will look like, now and in the future.

The UTU Bus Department has been following politics and the trends for funding that are necessary for passenger and public transportation to meet the needs of an aging population and growing automobile congestion. It does not look good.

In every town and community, hard decisions must be made — and we want those decisions made by lawmakers who understand the importance of adequate, reliable and safe public transportation, including transportation of school children by bus.

We have a responsibility to our families, children and community to make sure that the funding for public transportation stays in place. We can do that with our votes on Election Day.

When we say, “vote your paycheck,” keep in mind that the jobs of UTU Bus Department members depend on adequate, reliable and safe funding for public transportation.

We need to get out the vote for labor-friendly candidates who support adequate, reliable and safe public transportation.

Think jobs, because there are candidates out there who are coming after our jobs.

When you cast your ballot on Election Day, support candidates who will do the right thing when it comes to funding and ensuring adequate, reliable and safe public transportation.

I am a laborer. I drive a bus. I want the labor protections that labor-friendly candidates will honor with laws and regulations that my mother fought for as an organizer for the Ladies Garment Workers Union.

We have protections as unionized bus operators, and we want to extend those protections to the unorganized.

Let us all support candidates who are pledged to increased funding for public transportation, job security, safe working conditions and an environment that respects working families.

With 86 percent voting in favor, UTU-represented signal maintainers, mechanical forces and maintenance-of-way employees on Illinois & Midland Railroad (IMRR) have ratified a new five-year contract covering wages, benefits and working conditions.

Illinois & Midland is a subsidiary of Genesee & Wyoming.

The new agreement provides a general wage increase, retroactive pay to April 1, 2010, a cap on health care insurance contributions, a new short-term disability plan, an enhanced 401(k) plan, and enhanced options for personal leave days.

UTU International Vice President Delbert Strunk, who assisted with the negotiations, praised IMRR General Chairperson Bo O’Leary and Vice General Chairpersons Donnie Maurer and Loren “John” Thomas for their efforts during the negotiations.

Illinois & Midland Railroad is a 97-mile short line in central Illinois that interchanges with BNSF, Canadian National, Iowa Interstate, Kansas City Southern, Keokuk Junction, Norfolk Southern, Tazewell & Peoria, Toledo, Peoria and Western Railway, and Union Pacific.

Its principal commodities include chemicals, coal, food and feed products, forest products, metallic ores and minerals, and municipal solid waste.

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) will extend, by year-end, its commuter rail service from Boston to Providence and Warwick, both in Rhode Island, reports progressiverailroading.com.

Trains will make six stops per day at the soon-to-be-completed InterLink station at T.F. Green State Airport in Warwick, said progressiverailroading.com.

MBTA said that “once complete, the facility will be the closest air-rail connection in the country.”

Norfolk Southern has leased 36 miles of track and trackage rights in New York to Middletown & New Jersey Railroad, reports progressiverailroading.com.

The track connects Campbell Hall, N.Y., to a connection with the New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway in Warwick, N.Y.; and also reaches Walden and Montgomery, said progressiverailroading.com.

 

New technology to improve the safety performance of buses was showcased this week by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

The FMCSA demonstrated the latest state-of-the-art technology to be used by law enforcement to conduct commercial motor vehicle safety inspections.

The new technology includes:

  • Wireless roadside inspection that can conduct up to 25 times more vehicle inspections a year than the current, in-person inspection process. It allows an inspector to obtain driver and carrier identity, vehicle condition and hours-of-service violations while the vehicle is traveling at highway speed.
  • Smart infrared inspection that detects brake, wheel and tire problems by comparing infrared thermal images of wheels as the vehicle enters a weigh station.
  • Performance-based brake testing that assesses a vehicle’s brake force and overall performance.

A new technology to calculate optimal locomotive speed to save fuel has been developed by General Electric’s GE Transportation, reports the website, smartplanet.com.

According to smartplanet.com, the technology, called Trip Optimizer, “can save 3.3 million gallons on the first five million miles of track.”

Smartplanet.com, citing a GE press release, says that “based on a specific train’s makeup and route, the software calculates the optimal speed profile for a trip — and then automatically controls the throttle to maintain that speed.”

GE Transportation said its trip optimizer “generates fuel saving ranging from 3 percent to 15 percent per locomotive, depending on territory.”