Post Tagged with: "Tunnels"

Terror on the tracks – Scientists simulate terror attack on Boston subway

August 20, 2010 at 3:25 pm

The study aims to help researchers understand how toxic chemicals and lethal biological agents could spread through the nation’s oldest subway system in a terrorist attack airflow and also help in studying the characteristics for smoke or unintentional spills of chemicals or fuels.

Amplify’d from www.google.com

BOSTON — Scientists are releasing gases and fluorescent particles into Boston’s subway tunnels on Friday to study how toxic chemicals and lethal biological agents could spread through the nation’s oldest subway system in a terrorist attack.

It’s part of a weeklong study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to figure out ways to quickly minimize the impact of an airborne assault on the nation’s 15 subway systems and protect the nation’s infrastructure. U.S. subway systems include 810 miles of track in tunnels and accounted for about 3.45 billion trips taken last year, according to the American Public Transportation Association.

The scientists are monitoring concentration of the gases — which are invisible to the naked eye and nontoxic — and particles as they move throughout the system and then up into the streets above, pushed by turbulence created by trains thundering through the tunnels. Researchers use electronic devices to take air samples at more than 20 Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority stations and in subway cars.

Test results will be used to craft ways to quickly detect an attack so authorities can shut down subways to limit the spread of contaminants.

Federal officials say similar tests were conducted in 2008 in the Washington, D.C., area, serving as an excellent contrast to the Boston study. The Massachusetts subway system, which opened its first tunnels in 1897, is poorly ventilated, while Washington’s is relatively modern and well-ventilated, DHS officials said.

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Work begins on nation’s largest mass transit project; Offers new link between New Jersey & New York, doubles commuter rail capacity

June 10, 2009 at 4:25 pm

(Source: CNN)

  • Tunnel will link New Jersey with New York, doubles commuter rail capacity
  • Part of project financed by American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
  • ARC, Access to the Region’s Core, expected to create 6,000 jobs

Image Courtesy: Arctunnel.com

The new tunnel, said to be the largest commitment to any transportation project anywhere in the United States in the history of the Department of Transportation, according to administrator Peter Rogoff of the Federal Transportation Administration, will link New Jersey with New York and eventually will double capacity on the nation’s busiest rail corridor, running from Washington to Boston, Massachusetts, officials said.

Officials participated in the groundbreaking for the $8.7 billion project as commuter trains passed behind them in North Bergen, New Jersey, before entering the existing train tunnel, which went into operation in 1908.

“As we start digging this tunnel, I think that what really it means, we are digging our way out of an economic crisis,” said Sen. Bob Menendez, D-New Jersey. “As we’re getting under way, we’re seeing the dividends of the Recovery Act being paid right now.”

The project — known as ARC, for Access to the Region’s Core — is expected to create 6,000 design and construction jobs.New Jersey Transit says 170,000 passengers now travel through the existing train tunnel beneath the Hudson River to New York each day. When completed, the second tunnel will enable that figure to increase to 255,000 passenger trips. The additional passengers will disembark at a new concourse to be built at Penn Station in New York, 150 feet below street level.

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Though Washington, DC is nation’s 4th lastest metropolitan, its transit system “sucks”- Metro rail’s cell phone service plan faces gaps

May 15, 2009 at 2:48 pm

(Source: Washington Examiner)

• Region encompasses Washington, DC; Northern Virginia; and Suburban Maryland — an area 6,000 square miles (15,500 square kilometres)

• The 4th largest population in the United States (6 million people); population expected to grow by 1/2 million by 2010

• Gross regional product (GRP) of $342 billion — 4th largest in the nation

• Led the United States in job growth over past 5 years — 270,000 jobs added from 2000 to 2005

• But still has a Metro system that does not allow for ubiquitous communications.

Metro riders will still hear silence on their phones even when Metro extends cell phone service in its underground rail system later this year.   

The transit agency plans to expand cell phone service to include more carriers in the 20 busiest rail stations by the fall — but it won’t extend into the adjacent subway tunnels yet. And it could remain a patchwork of service for up to three more years.

“We’re going to have a lot of very frustrated customers if they are going to be getting and losing signals going in and out of stations,” warned Peter Benjamin, a Metro board member who represents Maryland.

The problem stems partly from the requirement that forces the agency to add the service. In exchange for $1.5 billion in dedicated federal funding that Congress authorized last year, Metro is required to have cell phone service in the 20 busiest stations by October, then have it in all 47 underground stations by October 2010. Service throughout the entire system wouldn’t need to be finished until October 2012.

Metro’s board of directors agreed earlier in the spring to negotiate a $40 million contract with national carriers Sprint Nextel, AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless to fulfill the requirement.

But Metro board members said Thursday they were worried that meeting the minimums of the federal timetable without going further would just anger and confuse riders.

“We don’t want to build in frustration,” said member Gordon Linton.

Note: TransportGooru wonders what would it take for the Metro management to fix this messy communication system.  This nation holds many brilliant minsd and the city iteself plays home to several technology giants (Lockheed,BAE,  etc).  We, as a nation, have launched manned missions to moon and now working on getting to mars for the past few years.  But we still can’t fix the communications system in an underground network of tunnels? 

We know very well that we have the technology, we have the interest and above all we have the “need”.   But still metro can’t find one person/company who can fix this system?  What we lack is the political will and the sincereity to serve the customers for what they pay. If it is not a technical problem and one that solely involves money, pay some Harvard MBA to workout a business model that benefits everyone, not just the customers who own a Verizon or an AT&T phone.  Bring people who can think outside the box and offer solutions that work.  

TransportGooru would like to challenge the Metro Management to get this done in 100 days.   If Guantanamo Prison(not fully done though) can be closed & $9.3 billions dollars can be spent creating thousands of jobs in 100 days of a President who had to contend with much larger problems, why can’t a damned communications systems in a metro rail system be fixed.  Why do we need to wait for 3 more years?  Doesn’t that tell you how inefficient you are, Mr. John Catoe & company.  Fast track the process and get it done, dammit.  Hire more workers to run the cables inside your tunnels & deploy required equipment.   For the $8 customers pay through their nose everyday to ride your system, they deserve better than “We don’t want to build in frustration.”   For one just do that very thing you don’t want to do.  Who knows you may very well do it right!  If your Board members don’t have the courage to act decisively and quickly, fire them all and appoint folks who know a thing or two about running a system and about relating to “customers’ needs”.   Why do you always come up with an excuse for not doing anything on time – be it running a train or building a communication system?  What more do you need, Metro? Customer service has never been an integral part of the DC Metro system.   It seems to remain only as a lip service even in the years to come.

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