Seattle: Sound transit today dedicated a TBM for boring from University of Washington to Capitol Hill. The TBM will start this week with a 21 ft bore. Another TBM is being built to go from Capitol Hill to downtown Seattle. 2nd machine is different kind of TBM due to differences in type of soil and rock it will bore thru. 2nd start date has not been announced.
Atlanta’s MARTA ordered 4 Siemens S-70 street cars for September 2012 delivery and early 2013 service
We have 20 of those S-70s here in Charlotte. I like them.
3. MBTA: announced completion of Blue line State Street station with full connections to Orange line.
4. New Orleans: Ground breaking for Canal St street car extension JUN 7. 1.5 mile extension will go to N.O. Union Passenger Terminal. Finally a connection to Amtrak.
- Seattle Link Sound Transit: Announced that final contract arbitration and payment for the Central Link light rail from downtown SEA to Tukwila . Project was completed on time (actually a few weeks early) and underbudget (actual $2.32B $117M under budget [about 2% under])… Great to know someone can do what they promise!!
6. Seattle Link: Announced Wed Jun 29 that tirst of 3 TBMs has started boring from U of Washington station and has gone 320 ft so far.
Light rail has its place. But it is not a panacea. As the folks in Dallas are finding out. Here is a link to an interesting editorial from a recent issue of the Dallas Morning News:
Part of the problem is a failure of expectations. Oftentimes proponents of light rail over estimate the benefits and under estimate the cost. Unfortunately, with light rail, if they get it wrong, correcting it is practically impossible. Tearing up the infrastructure and moving it is usually out of the question. On the other hand, if the proponents of Rapid Bus Technology get it wrong, it is much easier to change the routes, etc.
According to the proponents of light rail, it will attract development (residential, business, etc.) along the rights-of-way and near the stations. But it has not happen that way in Dallas or at least not to the extent claimed by the proponents of DART’s light rail system. In fact, the greatest development in Dallas has been in Uptown, which is not served by the light rail system.
So who pays for the failure of the system to meet its expectations. The taxpayers. Wow, who would have believed it?
7. Seattle south streetcar: Ridership on the short 1.3 Mile route up to a daily 3000 riders for July ; It is above projections and much above critics estimates.
8. Seattle Link: 2nd TBM started boring Jul 8. After more than a week of break in and tweaking + training of additional personel beginning next week a second shift of the TBM begins. A third shift is not scheduled due to truck traffic to remove excavated dirt overnights.
9. Norfolk = The light rail line is scheduled to start free rides next Fri the 19th. So a test train was running yesterday and a hit and run car struck a S=70 test train. Video is hoped to catch the perp’
10. PORTLAND, OR: Tri Met announced July light rail ridership up from 15% - 16.5% based on line. This from last year. Noted that bus ridership stayed flat.
11. Seattle / Tacoma – Sound transit reported 2nd Q ridership increases on Tacoma link of 16% and Seattle link of 10%. Sounder ridership was flat.
- Portland – TriMet ridership up 3.2%
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/09/19/2621933/commuter-alert-falling-debris.html
A large piece of a building facade fell on the light rail tracks.
The light rail is running on schedule but is not stopping at that station.
13. Charlotte — Phoebee how did you miss this one for us? LaHood announces 25M grant to Charlotte for its street car
Because it’s old news. The line, which has been very substantialy shortened, is already half built. About 3,000 feet of track were laid during the reconstruction of Elizabeth Avenue in 2009.
The Streetcar Project is proposed to run from Beatties Ford Road near Interstate 85 in west Charlotte to the former Eastland Mall site in east Charlotte. This grant is only for 1.5 miles of it.
http://theoverheadwire.blogspot.com/2009/02/elizabeth-avenue.html
14. Canada Ottawa – The “O” line is ordering 6 new low floor DMU sets to increase capacity from 1100 pass/hr to 2000. Fate of original equipment 3 DMU sets is unknown. To operate on mostly single track 2 new passings tracks will be constructed allowing headways to decrease from 15 to 8 minutes. Ridership now is 12,000 / day. [ twice original 2001 projections ]
Cool! Can’t wait to see them run, even if I think the route is silly!
Charlotte’s S-70 hit a pedestrian this morning.
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/09/22/2629397/pedestrian-hit-by-light-rail-train.html
New progress report on Seattle Link TBMs:
http://us.mc837.mail.yahoo.com/mc/welcome?.partner=sbc&.gx=1&.tm=
1317411903&.rand=aoh935elnsgp8#_pg=showMessage;_ylc=
X3oDMTBubmxpZHRvBF9TAzM5ODMwMzAyNwRhYwNkZWxNc2dz&mid=
1_309611_AEpVk0UAAQtDToYDGQR0fkIj0Gc&fid=Inbox&sort=date&order=
down&startMid=0&filterBy=&.rand=527011486&hash=06f41a737575a3a4e70e1a65c01fe81d&.jsrand=
731895