BART has a lot of elevators and escalators to maintain. In a recent article, the Elevator/Escalator Consortium member recognized its involvement in the Consortium as an important part of its ability to maintain the 175 escalators, 132 elevators and three wheelchair lifts within the agency's system. In order to keep the pipeline of highly skilled El/Es technicians moving, BART runs an in-house, formally recognized, registered joint labor-management apprenticeship training program. BART's frontline maintenance workforce is represented by SEIU Local 1021.
The program, established with help from the Center is based on the Elevator/Escalator Consortium model. Andrew Lee, Apprenticeship Consultant with California's Division of Apprenticeship Standards, stressed, "There are so many things that you need to do to stay in compliance, each apprentice needs to be exposed to all of the different duties and have classroom instruction as well as many hours of on-the-job training." "There is a shortage of transportation workers, absolutely, and the apprenticeship program seeks to fill that void. Across many different industries, businesses are having a hard time finding skilled workers. The best way is to train them in-house so that you are investing in them, and then you reap the rewards. It really helps in terms of loyalty to the organization," he said. Two El/Es Consortium Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) featured in the article, George Younger and Phill Collins, are involved in the training of BARTs "newly skilled workforce."
For more information on the Transit Elevator/Escalator Training Consortium:
Apprenticeship Highlighted at National Skills Coalition Skills Summit
Center program manager, Tia Brown, participated in the 2017 National Skills Coalition (NSC) Skills Summit on February 5-7, 2017. The focus of the summit was to tackle a range of federal policies that impact the shared skills agenda. Topics included the Apprenticeship, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) reauthorization, the Higher Education Act and Perkins Act Reauthorization, and rebuilding and up-skilling the workforce. There were over 300 participants that came from across the country to participate in this skills summit. The final day of the conference consisted of over 200 meetings with congressional staff and members on Capitol Hill. These meetings were held with state delegations to discuss the future of the workforce within the new administration. For more information about the National Skills Coalitions and/or the skills summit, please visit their webpage at: http://www.nationalskillscoalition.org/.
Chris Balish hasn't owned a car since 2005. After discovering that his massive SUV wouldn't fit in his cramped apartment parking garage, he quickly sold the vehicle. Balish, who was living in St. Louis at the time, figured out how to get to work on public transit and bicycle. "By the end of the month, I was like, 'Wait a minute, that can't be right. I have $800 in my bank account,'" says Balish, author of "How to Live Well Without Owning a Car: Save Money, Breathe Easier, and Get More Mileage Out of Life." "I never looked back."
Courtney is objecting to the plan in response to constituents' concerns about a proposal that would change Amtrak's Boston-to-Washington route. One recommendation calls for a new route dubbed the "Kenyon Bypass" that would allow higher-speed trains to travel through coastal towns in Connecticut and parts of Rhode Island.
Which roads are the most congested in Washington? Where would you have budget two or three times the normal amount of time to battle traffic? Where are the most crowded bus stops? Which neighborhoods offer comfortable bicycling? A new website, districtmobility.org, launched today by the District Department of Transportation aims to answer those questions.
Federal Transit Administration - February 10, 2017
The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) has notified the transit systems in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia that effective immediately it will withhold five percent of Fiscal Year 2017 transit formula funds until a new State Safety Oversight Program (SSOP) is certified for the rail operations of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA). The funds will be withheld until the jurisdictions pass identical legislation and meet related requirements in order for FTA to certify a new SSOP for WMATA Metrorail.
VTA is in a position that many agencies are facing: 40 percent of its workforce could retire at any time. Chief Operating Officer Inez Evans said looking at the retirements VTA had coming up, "Forty percent of my operators, light rail operators, supervisors, could all walk away and all of that institutional knowledge could walk out with them. We had to come up with a different strategy."
The PLA and CCP promotes employment opportunities in the construction industry on Metro transit construction projects. The agreement sets the terms of employment and includes targeted hiring requirements of 40 percent, apprentice hiring of 20 percent and disadvantaged worker hiring requirements of 10 percent.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution - February 10, 2017
An arbitration board has overturned MARTA's decision to outsource its bus service for the disabled and elderly to a private company - a move the agency says could lead to poorer service at a higher cost.
If BART does end up designating itself a sanctuary in transit, it would be the first such agency to do so. But it would join dozens of cities, including San Francisco, across the country that have declared themselves sanctuaries.
Reducing drinking as a public policy has never been successful. While campaigns against drunk driving have shown some moderate successes, developing high quality public transportation infrastructure has a major effect on DWI associated injury and death. Researchers at Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health found that urban density and availability of public transportation starkly reduce automobile fatalities.
THE European Commission (EC) is inviting transport infrastructure investment proposals which combine €1bn of grants through the Connecting Europe Fund (CEF) with other sources including the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) and public and private finance.
When Copenhagen set out toward carbon neutrality, it had to look for solutions across various sectors. The climate plan focuses on four key areas representing the primary emissions sources in Copenhagen: energy production, energy efficiency, mobility and the municipal emissions. However, the challenge for cities often lies in their ability to influence these sectors when, most of the time, they actually do not have a mandate or any regulatory authority over them.
Established in 2016, the coalition includes about 2,000 local organizations, including neighborhood groups, cyclists, real-estate developers, and even some cost-conscious Tea Party members, along with stalwarts like the Nature Conservancy, Clean Water Action, and the Congress for a New Urbanism. The coalition delivered a clear message to the state officials: A newly designed boulevard would cost less to build and maintain, offer new development opportunities, and reconnect the urban grid in a way that would allow pedestrians, cyclists, transit riders, and cars to co-exist.
Less than a month into his presidency, President Trump has moved quickly to fulfill his major campaign pledges on trade and immigration but has yet to announce an infrastructure program. The details of an infrastructure proposal are murky, particularly given Republican opposition to any move that could heavily increase spending.
Texas' new pot of transportation funds will be protected, even though the state faces a funding shortage in many other areas, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick recently told a large gathering. "Last session we put billions into transportation and locked it away," Patrick told about 1,000 people during a gathering known as the Texas Transportation Forum last week in Austin.
Democratic lawmakers unveiled their proposal to help fund transportation projects statewide, the plan would raise the state's gas tax, but the increase would be two cents lower than Governor Haslam's proposed IMPROVE Act. Democratic legislators announced the plan Monday; it was named TNForward. If passed, it would raise the gas tax by five cents, indexing those taxes to the rate of inflation. Similar to Haslam's plan, it would also increase motor vehicle registration fees and address Tennessee's open container law which is currently costing the state $18 million in federal funds.
The collective bargaining reform bill working its way through the Iowa Legislature could put the federal funding Sioux City and other cities receive for transit operations and capital projects in jeopardy if it's not amended to exempt local transit employees.
