(Source: USDOT Press Release)

 President Barack Obama today announced funding for the 2,000th transportation project under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), only six weeks after approving the first project.  The President made the remarks at the U.S. Department of Transportation with Vice President Biden and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

“Just 41 days ago we announced funding for the first transportation project under ARRA and today we’re approving the 2,000thproject,” said President Obama.  “I am proud to utter the two rarest phrases in the English language – projects are being approved ahead of schedule, and they are coming in under budget.”

“The Recovery Act is being implemented with speed, transparency and accountability,” said Vice President Biden.  “Don’t take my word for it – just look at what’s happening today. We have the 2000th transportation project now underway – that’s going to help create jobs, make it easier for folks to get to the jobs they have, and improve our nation’s infrastructure all at the same time. The Recovery Act is full- steam ahead on helping us build an economy for the 21st century.”

“This is the government working for the people, creating jobs today and laying the foundation for a bright economic future,” said Secretary LaHood.

The 2,000th project is in Kalamazoo County, Michigan.  The $68 million project involves widening of I-94 from two lanes both east and westbound to three lanes in each direction.  The project will improve safety and ease congestion by providing a more efficient interchange.  

State departments of transportation around the country have reported to FHWA intense competition by contractors for ARRA projects.  Bids have been roughly 15 to 20 percent lower on average, and as much as 30 percent lower in some cases, than engineers anticipated.  For example, in Colorado, the state’s first five ARRA transportation projects announced on April 2 were 12 percent lower than anticipated.   In Maine, one bridge project was 20 percent lower than estimated.  In Oregon, during February and March 2009, bids have averaged 30 percent lower than expected. 

President Obama secured passage of the ARRA and signed it into law on February 17, less than one month after taking office.  Less than two weeks later, on March 3, the President, Vice President Biden and Secretary LaHood released the first funding to the states and localities for highways, roads and bridge projects.  That release of funds came eight days earlier than required by law.   

ARRA provides a total of $48.1 billion for transportation infrastructure projects to be administered by the U.S. Department of Transportation.  Of that $27.5 billion is for highways and bridges, $8.4 billion is for transit, $8 billion is for high speed rail, $1.3 billion is for Amtrak, $1.5 billion is for discretionary infrastructure grants $1.3 billion is for airports and Federal Aviation Administration facilities and equipment and $100 million for shipyards.   

In early February, prior to the passage of the ARRA, Secretary LaHood established within the U.S. Department of Transportation the TIGER (Transportation Investments Generating Economic Recovery) team to ensure that economic recovery dollars for transportation infrastructure projects is rapidly made available and that project spending is monitored and transparent.  On March 3, the President unveiled a TIGER logo, as well as an ARRA logo, that will be placed on construction signs across the country, to mark projects being built and jobs created with Recovery Act funds. 

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Due to heightened competition among contractors for recovery construction work, Transportation agencies across the nation are receiving project bids substantially lower than engineers’ initial estimates.  These lower than expected bids are allowing states to stretch economic recovery funds to pay for additional projects, which the Department of Transportation predicts will create even more jobs and yield further infrastructure repair nationwide. Below is a sampling of state transportation projects set to break ground across the country at a fraction of initial estimates. 

“At Baltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport, a recent project to reconstruct the area around Piers C and D received six bids instead of the usual two or three. The result: The estimated $50 million project will be built for $8 million less than was budgeted, and the savings will be allocated to other projects. There were 21 bidders for a $200,000 drainage project in Carroll County, more than anyone could remember.” [Washington Post, 4/8/09] 

Click here to read the entire presser.

(Source: Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) of the U.S. Department of Transportation)

This report is intended to provide timely, easily accessible information for the transportation community. It was developed by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) of the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), and is updated on a regular basis on the BTS website.

The indicators fall under two broad categories: those that provide context about the economy and society in which transportation functions, and those that convey information about an aspect of transportation. To the extent possible, these latter indicators are transportation-wide in scope; however, some apply to only part of the transportation system. Reference tables at the beginning of the document provide key statistics about U.S. social and economic characteristics, and about the extent of the transportation system.

For indicators that are highly seasonal, the current value of that indicator is compared to the same time period in the previous year (e.g., April 2001 compared to April 2000). Otherwise, the tables show a comparison of the current value to a comparable preceeding period of time (e.g., the data for the month of April 2001 compared to that of March 2001).

(Source: TreeHugger)

President Barack Obama’s trip to Turkey may prove to have been a similar turning point for Istanbul.

(Source: CNN)

Their livelihood was being threatened, and they were tired of waiting for government help, so business owners and residents on Hawaii’s Kauai island pulled together and completed a $4 million repair job to a state park — for free.

The state Department of Land and Natural Resources had estimated that the damage would cost $4 million to fix, money the agency doesn’t have, according to a news release from department Chairwoman Laura Thielen.

“It would not have been open this summer, and it probably wouldn’t be open next summer,” said Bruce Pleas, a local surfer who helped organize the volunteers. “They said it would probably take two years. And with the way they are cutting funds, we felt like they’d never get the money to fix it.”

And if the repairs weren’t made, some business owners faced the possibility of having to shut down.

Ivan Slack, co-owner of Napali Kayak, said his company relies solely on revenue from kayak tours and needs the state park to be open to operate. The company jumped in and donated resources because it knew that without the repairs, Napali Kayak would be in financial trouble.

“If the park is not open, it would be extreme for us, to say the least,” he said. “Bankruptcy would be imminent. How many years can you be expected to continue operating, owning 15-passenger vans, $2 million in insurance and a staff? For us, it was crucial, and our survival was dependent on it. That park is the key to the sheer survival of the business.”

So Slack, other business owners and residents made the decision not to sit on their hands and wait for state money that many expected would never come. Instead, they pulled together machinery and manpower and hit the ground running March 23.  Watch the volunteers repairing the road »

And after only eight days, all of the repairs were done, Pleas said. It was a shockingly quick fix to a problem that may have taken much longer if they waited for state money to funnel in.

“We can wait around for the state or federal government to make this move, or we can go out and do our part,” Slack said. “Just like everyone’s sitting around waiting for a stimulus check, we were waiting for this but decided we couldn’t wait anymore.”

Thielen has been waiting, too. She wants the legislature to approve her Recreation Renaissance project, a $240 million booster shot to help fix parks across the state. Without it, at least five state parks may be forced to close, and there would be no emergency repair money to fix Polihale State Park.

“We shouldn’t have to do this, but when it gets to a state level, it just gets so bureaucratic, something that took us eight days would have taken them years,” said Troy Martin of Martin Steel, who donated machinery and steel for the repairs. “So we got together — the community — and we got it done.” 

Click here to read the entire story and to view awesome pictures from this wonderful community initiative.

(Source: Jalopnik,  Freep & World Car Fans)

Looks like American automakers have found at least one more buyer for their vehicles. The U.S. government is planning on the purchase of $285 million worth of fleet vehicles that get better gas mileage than the current fleet. Under the plan, the General Services Administration will purchase more than 17,500 vehicles as a part of their existing deals with Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors.

U.S. President Barack Obama, and his administration, have said the purchases will take place by 1 June. Although it is unclear what will happen to the older fleet vehicles being replaced, many will likely be sold at government auctions.

The purchase is hardly a surprise. In the much talked about stimulus package approved by Congress, $300 million was included for the automotive purchase. This is not a gigantic purchase in the grand scheme of things, as the Big Three sold a combined total of 380,000 vehicles for March 2009. Still, the move may help to bolster confidence in the sector, while even a marginal increase in revenue would be welcomed by the automakers.

More than 14% of the vehicles will be hybrid sedans. 2,500 orders for the vehicles, which will likely include the Chevy Malibu, Ford Hybrid Fusion, and Saturn Aura, will be placed by the end of next week.

Hope all is well at your end. I am not doing so well, as you could see from the below paragraphs, after experiencing yet another bad commute on your trains, prompting me get on the computer and write you a letter at this ungodly hour.  As a resident of the DC metro region, like millions of others, I have been commuting from a Maryland suburb to the District.  Like many of your riders, I take the metro five days a week commuting on the Red Line and Green Line and almost always enjoyed the convenience of the commute.  Except, there are those occasional days when I experience some discomfort, not one of the minor kind.  The kind that makes you wonder how on earth a human being with a wee bit of logic can do such a dumb thing.  The kind that defies logic! Oh, the human beings I am referring to are your train operators, who in my humble opinion are the primary carriers of your service-oriented message – Metro cares!

Unfortunately, this evening was one of those days that I simply came home wondering if you or your staff will ever “get it”.   I mean, get the message that the trains are actually operated for the very people who pay for a service that you offer. Let me walk you through what happened so that you will somehow try and make sense out of why such a thing can happen repeatedly.

After a long stressful day at work, I arrived at the Gallery Place/China Town station hoping to catch the Redline to Shady Grove that (usually) arrives just about 9:23PM.  See, I told you I am a regular commuter, evident from the memorized train timings!  Back to the story again.  When I arrived at the platform towards Shady Grove, I saw a ton of people, most of whom were Hockey fans returning from the Verizon Center after watching the Frozen Four (the NCAA Mens Hockey Tournament Semi-Finals).   As you can imagine, the platforms were pretty crowded and the train was approaching.  Guess what!  Today, your over enthusiastic train operator decided to give a lot of the Washingtonians a free workout on the platform and pulled way past the usual position.   The 6 car train that arrived overshot the target and went past the point from where I normally board ( FYI, I normally board the middle doors on the 2nd last car).   I am sure you can imagine the helter-skelter that ensued when this happens.  The flood of people who were standing in positions where the last car will usually stop all started running with hopes of somehow making the train and getting home in a decent time.

Little do they know that the “wonderfully trained” operator of the train was in a great hurry to close the darn doors of the already crowded train that just arrived.  Before the last passenger disembarked (an older lady) who was supposedly awaiting her turn to step out, your operator thought he waited long enough and proceeded to signal his intentions to close the door with a “Doors Closing” chime! Panic ensues as the people waiting to board rushed in and the poor old lady was trying to get off the train.  Thank god she somehow made it out alive.   But many of us who were waiting on the platform were left wondering what on earth could push a your train conductor to close the doors knowing all well there are a lot of people waiting to board the train. Oh you know what, there was still so much empty space inside the train cars as most of the passengers got off at the station in question.

Now things got a little more interesting.  After the doors chimed and only a four people have gotten in through that last set of doors in that last car.  Mind you that the case was very similar in almost all the cars as far as the eye could see ( I am not too tall to see all the way to the other end of the train).  With only four people inside and at least 60 people waiting outside to get in, the driver decided to show some courtesy and opens the door briefly to allow for a passenger whose bag was stuck half-way through the door as he got on the train.  Let me ask you to guess how “brief” the window of opportunity was for that poor customer of yours to retrieve that bag?  ONE SECOND, I kid you not!

Some of the passengers who got on the train, including a couple of Mr. Hercules types, summoned all the strength in the world to hold the set of doors that had one mission – SHUT/CLOSE! In the fight between man and machine (operated by a mad man who gets paid by these commuters), the men had a brief victory, which allowed a bunch of more people to get on the train.  With swelling crowds on the platform and the next train arrival showing 12 minutes later, you can see the anxiety-laden faces of people go into further panic.  This tug of war between your train operator (who lost his mind when he arrived at Gallery Place) and the brave commuters (who were hell bent on adding a few more people to your train cars to make it worth your while to operate them at a cost/benefit ratio that somehow can justify you next round of federal funding) continued for a few more minutes.   As you see, we are simply trying to help you move more people in the limited amount of time we get to use your trains.

The story was the same when the train arrived at the next stop – Metro Center, which thankfully was not so crowded but the tug of war continued to happen with the bunch that was trying to get in.  I am not sure how many of your customers returned home with bruises & scars that can rival those of a soldier fighting to save this country in a Iraq or Afghanistan.   Unlike them, we are not trained to fight and have no “weapons” to protect from your agressive train operators.  Somehow we all managed to get home without having any major casualties in the war on Metro train this evening.

Well, this is just a sample from a day that is not very unusual.  I have seen this happen many times in the past and I witnessed and participated in this today.   Let me tell you that I do enjoy those days when you get some courteous operators who are patient enough to wait for the customers to board and show up for work with an attitude that says “customer is my god”.  If you really like to hear this, I am a transportation expert myself (hence the name TransportGooru) and I am here to offer you a friendly tip or two — purely from an expert/customer point of view. Let’s now discuss the “potential; solutions to this recurring problem:

1.  Train your operators to understand that they work for people who pay to get around safely, not just swiftly.  Safety is paramount for everyone involved – not just for the Metro operator who stands well shielded in his hardened aluminum cocoon.

2.  Run more trains on days (not all day but at least at for a couple of hours before the games start and after they end) when you know there is a game or a major event at one of our area’s sport arenas/centers.  This should be very easy to do by coordinating with the organizers of such events (Verizon Center, Nationals, etc).  BTW, you guys did an amazing job during the Cherry Blossom Festival.  Kudos!

3.  Deploy your highly trained & poorly paid police officers who always help immensely in dealing with such issues.  I have seen on many occasions people are lot more obedient and well behaved when the officers are on the platform during such “rush” hours after the game.  They also help your train operators to understand that the passengers need time to get on the train.  If this would be a surprise for you, the above mentioned situation never happened in all these years when I took the train when the police officers are standing next to the trains at Galley Place, regulating the flow of passengers into the vehicles.  I think your officers have some “fear” of getting arrested when they see police, because they do their job pretty well without screwing up.

4.  If you think all the above solutions are not good, for Pete’s sake add a couple of cars on trains that arrive that time. Make it an 8 car train so that we have more doors to board and we don’t have to run a marathon on the platform to get close to the train.   I did learn today that you are going to run 8 car trains on Red and Green lines when a bunch of train cars get delivered.  Its about time you did this as you realize we are an active bunch in the DC area and there is always something to do around the town.  We consider you to be the best option to get around from point A to point B, without polluting the environment or making some petro-terrorist nation richer by shelling for gasoline to drive our sexy cars into the City.

5.  If possible, conduct a psychiatric evaluation of your current train operators, all of them, and re-train those who are borderline psychotic/neurotic.   Before they injure someone or mangle some human body part, they be told that it is inappropriate to operate a vehicle in the above described manner.  If it does not change, you may very soon have to print the following message on your Tickets:  WARNING: RIDING METRO IS INJURIOUS TO HEALTH.  WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR LOSSES OR BODILY HARM WHILE ON THE METRO SYSTEM BECAUSE WE DON’T KNOW WHAT WE ARE DOING IN OUR JOBS.

6. Your hiring and training policies need to be revisited if the situation persists or deteriorate any further (which is highly unlikely as I already saw your staff hit the rock-bottom this evening with such appalling behavior.  It can’t get any worse than what it is now).

7. The final suggestion:  If you can’t fix it, just accept the failure and simply walk away.  Some of your customers have done that – they are resigned to the fate they suffer in the hands of your egregious operators and have decided to move on to alternative modes of transportation (read as personal vehicles a.k.a. cars, mopeds, bicycles) and happily driving around polluting the air that you and your children breathe.   If you want these people to return to your system, you have to correct these above mentioned deficiencies.. Or at least show them that you are making a sincere effort to do that.

If you still think none of the above suggestions are agreeable and you would still like to justify what your operator did is the right thing and there was a very good reason for doing so, please feel free to call me and explain what that reason would be.  Because, I am already close to being “insane” trying to find a logic/reason for how a train/system could be operated in this fashion.  Where I grew up, such a thing would be STOPPED and REEVALUATED COMPLETELY BEFORE IT IS DEEMED SUITABLE FOR SAFE OPERATION.

Before you tout the safety records of your system in yet another forum and plead your case for additional funding, I recommend you to prove to the general public that you and your staff are capable of running a system safely, smoothly and efficiently.  Safety doesn’t always mean prevention of fatalities. It can also be interpreted as prevention of loss (of limbs & other body parts) to your customers. It is a shame that no one has challenged you before and I am glad to do so with this open letter. Or may be it happened and you/your predecessors simply ignored it.

Above all, you have to understand that all your good deeds may simply be ignored when a passenger on your system experiences something so disastrous of this kind.  You and your staff are working hard all year and try to project a positive image to our city’s visitors and residents.  But the actions of a dumb few in your crew negate all the good things you accomplish or try to accomplish within your means.

Alright!  I probably sucked away a good chunk of your time reading this letter (which by now qualifies for the world’s longest complaint letter ever). Now, I’ll allow you to get back to fixing things around the Metro.  In the meanwhile, if any of the above mentioned items or issues are hard to understand or difficult to reason with, please feel free to write to me.  I’ll be glad to spend a couple of my hours to visit you and chat with you (very cordially, as you seen above) over a cup of coffee. Of course, I’ll pay for your coffee too and show our loyalty and generosity towards someone who has a keen interest in our commutes a pleasant one!

Look forward to hear from you soon. Take care, and enjoy a wonderful weekend!

Sincerely,

TransportGooru@gmail.com

(Signed on behalf of the all the suffering metro riders)

P.S: Apologies for the erratic spelling and any/all grammatical flaws you may have encountered.  It is too late to proof-read but I am sure you are a smart man who is capable of looking past the mistakes and understand the “gist” of the letter, which is:  Your service sucks!  Help us, please!

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Now Hiring: Deputy Communications DirectorTransportation for America seeks an experienced, energetic communications professional to help manage the communications activities of a dynamic, fast-paced campaign to reform the nation’s transportation spending and policies.

Now Hiring: Policy Director

The Transportation for America Campaign is looking for a highly-skilled individual with extensive knowledge and interest in federal transportation policy to serve as Policy Director for this national advocacy campaign.

 To learn more about the organization and to explore other currently open positions visit http://t4america.org

(Source: Washington Post)

 WASHINGTON — Lying on her chest in a small crawl space, Staff Sgt. Dana Fernkas watches the gray Air Force jet emerge from the clouds and ease up just behind the rear window in the belly of her plane.

(Source: Infrastructurist)

Everywhere you look, from Argentina to Saudi Arabia, there’s a country planning a new high-speed rail line.  Contributor Yonah Freemark offered this incredible, easy to understand graphical depiction on Infrastructurist, which compares seven lines on four continents that are either in the engineering phase or already under construction. They range in size from the diminutive 34-mile project that will connect Jerusalem and Tel Aviv to the gargantuan 818-mile link between Beijing and Shanghai. The variations in construction cost per mile and local meaning of the term “high speed” are almost as great.

(Source: Telegraph, UK) Germany is more than tripling the incentives on offer to buyers of new cars as it attempts to boost its auto industry, which employs around 15pc of the nation’s workforce.

The scheme offers German consumers €2,500 for trading in vehicles more than nine years old if they buy a car that is less than one year old.

Click here to read the entire article.  

TransportGooru has compiled several articles in the past reporting on similar efforts in UK (which is now contemplating introduction of  a similar program after watching the Germans successfully implement the program) & USA.  Here are the links to some of the earlier articles:

Consumer Assistance to Recycle and Save (CARS) Act revives “Cash for Clunkers” scrapping plan in U.S

Germany plans to extend Abwrackprämie aka “Environmental Bonus”

The bickering starts over the implementation of the Cash for Clunkers legislation

Obama Favors “Cash for Clunkers”