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US Secretary of Labor Tom Perez was in Cleveland on November 2 to kick off the National Apprenticeship Week and learn more about broad new apprenticeship initiatives in America's public transportation industry. The Secretary was joined by Carolyn Flowers, Senior Advisor of the Federal Transit Administration. The event was hosted by Joe Calabrese, CEO of the Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (RTA) and Ronald Jackson, Sr., President of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 268.
The Secretary's tour at RTA's Rail Shop highlighted the 30-month rail car apprenticeship program sponsored by RTA and Local 268's Joint Apprenticeship Council - the program will soon be submitted for registration with the Ohio State Apprenticeship Council. At Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C), Secretary Perez toured the Unified Technologies Center that provides classroom training for future RTA operations and maintenance workers. He was then joined by a dozen panelists including the Executive Director of the Transportation Learning Center, Jack Clark, for a roundtable discussion of ways to promote apprenticeship in transit and other US sectors.
In his opening remarks, Secretary Perez spoke to the importance of apprenticeship in addressing the skill needs of the transportation workforce: "The American population is aging. When you look at the data, the workforce in the transit industry is actually older. [GCRTA] and so many others have immediate needs. That's why .... the Transportation Learning Center, a national nonprofit has just received one of our DOL grants to build and expand apprenticeship. They are working together with transit systems that are having the identical conversation - we've got workforce needs; how do we work with our union partners; how do we work with our business partners; how do we build a workforce of tomorrow. And that's exactly what you are doing - you are using that apprenticeship onramp to the skills superhighway to do just that."
Cleveland is one of 32 transit systems around the country that are embracing standards-based training and apprenticeship as the best way to meet their needs for quality workforce skills. Sponsored by major national transportation employer and labor organizations, the nonprofit Transportation Learning Center is working with dozens of transit agencies to develop national training standards and then implement standards-based apprenticeship systems in key frontline occupations, including bus and rail car mechanics, transit elevator-escalator technicians, signals technicians and transit bus operators.
"In this industry it is very difficult to hire someone with experience, so developing our own in-house training programs is critical," said Joe Calabrese, CEO of GCRTA as well as Board Secretary of the Transportation Learning Center, during the Rail Shop tour. "We work with the local high schools, with Tri-C to get the basics, and with the Transportation Learning Center that brings union and management together for these programs. You really have to have union backing and support to make these programs happen. The development of training programs is based on national standards, and the cost of that can be shared with dozens of transit systems, operating the same or similar vehicles. So it's really a partnership."
"These industry-education partnerships also help us improve diversity in our workforce," said ATU's Ronald Jackson." "These partnerships will expand employment opportunities for disadvantaged populations, veterans and women," Jackson said.
Jack Clark emphasized the advantages in cost-effectiveness in these new apprenticeship programs. "When the industry develops new standards-based training, 20 agencies can be sharing the cost, and grants from US DOT's Federal Transit Administration provide matching dollars to agency contributions. So each agency is only paying 1/40th of the total cost," Clark said. "It's like the greatest sale ever: Buy one, get 39 free." Common apprenticeship training frameworks provide a common language across the industry
Clark emphasized the range of apprenticeship work being undertaken by the Center and its industry partners from management and labor. These include 32 transit agencies and commuter railroads in 18 states helping develop at least 44 standards-based and apprenticeship training programs and 41 partnerships with career and technical education high schools and community and technical colleges (see the attached list of participating locations and programs).
National sponsors of this national standards-based apprenticeship program include the Amalgamated Transit Union, the American Public Transit Association, the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen and the Community Transportation Association of America.
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One of Paul Ryan's first tests as speaker of the House will be passing a long-term transportation funding bill for the first time in a decade.
Congress has not passed a transportation bill that last longer than two years since 2005, and lawmakers are now facing a Nov. 20 for the expiration of the federal government's current round of infrastructure funding. Ryan (R-Wis.) had identified the highway bill as a top priority before he took the House gavel, but the rubber is meeting the road now that he is official the lower chamber's leader.
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Niagara has to redouble efforts to create a commuter-focused, seamless public transit system. That message was hammered home during a discussion on improving infrastructure and public transit at Friday's Niagara Economic Summit. "Do we imagine what could be, or simply an extension of what already is?" said Brock Dickinson, CEO of economic development consultancy MDB Insight.
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The Montgomery County Council recently made $4 million in cuts to transportation services, including the elimination of proposed Ride On bus service to Tobytown that was scheduled to begin Oct. 1. Tobytown is a historically black and low-income mixed-housing development in affluent Potomac, just a couple of miles from Potomac Chase Estates, where I grew up and attended school with kids from Tobytown. Most of the 60 or so residents of Tobytown are descendants of the freedmen - former slaves - who founded the community in 1875.
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International Transportation News
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I just returned from three weeks in Australia. As an American, it was sobering - bordering on embarrassing - to see the difference between the U.S. and Australia's highway and transportation infrastructure. Every Australian airport was functional, clean and had great service, and every plane I travelled on was clean and in excellent condition. Every city has significant public transportation covering all its' quadrants. In Perth, the capital of Western Australia, the 1.8 million population are served by Transperth, which operates an integrated bus, rail, and ferry system. They also have the Central Area Transit (CAT) system that uses buses to pick up at the end of other lines and make connections to areas that regular routes don't cover, and it is free.
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APTA has moved to its new office space at 1300 I St., NW, Suite 1200 East, Washington, DC, 20005. All phone numbers and email addresses are unchanged. The new offices are conveniently located on WMATA bus routes and between two Metrorail stops-Metro Center on the Red Line and McPherson Square on the Blue, Orange and Silver lines.
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Winter-weary Bostonians, take heart: Your transit authority is attaching plows to passenger trains to prepare for the season's snow. Believe it or not, in past winters, Red and Orange line trains could either clear snow or carry passengers. They could not perform both tasks at once. But this time around, the two lines-which bore the subway's brunt of the transit crisis last winter-will each have 40 trains equipped with sleek, stainless steel plows attached to their front undersides that can function even when passengers are aboard. Each line will have 20 installed by December and another 20 by January.
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DOT Under Secretary for ¬Policy Peter Rogoff recently joined ¬Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh at Boston University to host a session in a series of regional forums on DOT's Beyond Traffic draft framework, a report that studies trends and options facing transportation infrastructure. "Beyond Traffic recognizes that the Northeast megaregion will be uniquely impacted by transportation challenges and opportunities in the next three decades," Rogoff said.
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With only days before MAP-21 was due to expire, both the House and Senate passed by voice vote on Oct. 28 the latest short-term extension of public transit and highway programs, and they agreed to extend the deadline for PTC implementation from this Dec. 31 to Dec. 31, 2018. After this period, the DOT secretary could extend the PTC deadline on a case-by-case basis for two additional years. The extension now goes to President Obama for his signature. Lawmakers are hopeful that the 22-day public transit and highway extension will provide enough time for the House and Senate to reconcile their different versions of a new six-year surface transportation authorization bill.
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Lane Transit District is ordering its first all-electric buses, which officials say will offer passengers a quieter ride and help the transit agency reduce operating costs and move another step toward a low-emission fleet.
LTD is finalizing contracts to buy 10 vehicles - five all-electric buses and five hybrid diesel-electric vehicles - to replace buses in the fleet that have reached the end of their useful life, with an option to buy 70 more all-electric or hybrid buses during the following four years.
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"A few weeks ago at work," Jennifer Lawrence wrote in an essay for Lenny (yup, I guess I'm subscribed to Lenny now! Well played, Lena Dunham). "I spoke my mind and gave my opinion in a clear and no-[BS] way; no aggression, just blunt. The man I was working with (actually, he was working for me) said, 'Whoa! We're all on the same team here!' As if I was yelling at him. I was so shocked because nothing that I said was personal, offensive, or, to be honest, wrong. All I hear and see all day are men speaking their opinions, and I give mine in the same exact manner, and you would have thought I had said something offensive."
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Building Transportation Infrastructure
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Blue Water Area Transit invites the public to attend the Grand Opening on Nov. 6, of the Blue Water Transit Bus Center between McMorran Boulevard and Grand River Avenue, east of Erie Street. A Ribbon-cutting Ceremony will take place at 11 a.m. in the new center, which is designed to improve BWAT's downtown bus transfer process. "We are pleased to introduce this new facility, which will significantly improve our on-time performance, while providing restrooms and other amenities for our passengers," says Jim Wilson, BWAT general manager. "It is in a good central location for serving the community college, the senior center, and the McMorran entertainment complex."
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