Registration Now Open for Making Connections 2017 Conference - October 26, 2017, Silver Spring, MD
Join industry leaders, experts, and partners to exchange ideas, share successes and learn about emerging best practices for public transportation and transportation workforce development.
Click here to register for this event or visit our website for more information.
Note: Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) from existing Center Committees and Consortia should hold off on registering for this event. You will be contacted in the coming weeks with specific instructions from your Center contact.
The demand for public transit services remains near an all-time high and that popularity, combined with meager federal and local funding, is leaving passengers stranded at the station and the bus stop. They are left yearning for better and more reliable service. That is no way to run a commuter transportation system.
We've all been there. The bus is late and then three come all bunched together. Internally, we scream: "Why can't they just keep to the schedule? Isn't this their job?" As it turns out, bus bunching is an incredibly complicated problem that transit agencies around the world spend millions to solve.
But what if this shared-and-automated future arrives, with its low cost and convenience, is so appealing that it becomes the default mode? Transit ridership could plummet. Riders who weren't driving at all before, whether by choice or by circumstance, could jump into backseats en masse.
Lake levels rise and fall two feet a year. Waves, wind and traffic create slight twisting. A full train is heavy enough to plunge the pontoons eight inches. So the railbed must both resist and absorb roll, pitch and yaw.
The Maryland Transit Authority and designer Marc Szarkowski have used what's called a diagrammatic radial style for the official BaltimoreLink system map. The result is quite striking.
The plan includes efforts to advance legislation that would separate the agency's chairman and chief executive officer positions into two roles. Splitting the positions would enable MTA to strengthen the overall leadership team and achieve needed operational improvements, agency officials said in a press release.
There are more than 400 mechanic-technicians working for Metro Transit. More than half of them are over the age of 50. Finding qualified replacements for those mechanics is not easy.
The U.S. Senate voted Tuesday to approve the creation of the Metro Safety Commission - one of the last legal steps necessary to establish a federally-mandated regional safety oversight agency to regulate the troubled transit agency.
In a series of meetings on Capitol Hill, Calabrese led the group known as the Metropolitan Rail Discussion Group (MRDG). Made up of the nation's largest transit systems, it represents 60 percent of transit customers in the USA.
By any measure, one trillion dollars is a lot of money. Given the well-documented maintenance and modernization backlogs in a range of infrastructure sectors, federal attention is welcome. Infrastructure spending has the added benefit of helping to support millions of good-paying jobs.
Within the last year, DDOT has created a total of six new routes and extended nine to 24 hour operation. In all, the increases amount to 1,500 additional bus runs per week. Frequency and weekend service are up significantly with daytime service intervals under 10 minutes on some key routes.
When sidewalks, bike infrastructure, and/or transit projects are proposed, the question of using taxpayer money usually comes into play. We should hold our road infrastructure to the same standards.
Although the area is served by the Eisenhower Metro station and is a half-mile from the King Street Metro station, many developments lie outside their half-mile walking ranges and don't yet have bus service. This is especially troublesome for trips into nearby Old Town, where driving 10 minutes is faster than walking a half mile to Eisenhower station and waiting 8-15 minutes for a train.
Brown has made the construction of a bullet train a cornerstone of his vision for the state's future transportation system, while Trump has touted the need for fast trains nationwide.
Nationwide, 13 states have yet to adopt legislation authorizing some form of public-private partnership deals, according to Moody's Investors Service, and states including Texas, New Mexico and Mississippi tried unsuccessfully to pass P3 measures this year. Now, some advocates say there aren't enough willing public partners, and there's too little predictability for investors.
A recent commuter corridor study shows major growth in three areas: Edmond to downtown Oklahoma City; downtown Oklahoma City to Norman; and Oklahoma City to Midwest City. Solutions to ease congestion include bus rapid transit, light rail or commuter rail.
The companies can't decide if they are for people or freight. If they are for freight, we need to ask how fast you really need that pizza? If they are for people, you might ask how fast you can disgorge that pizza you ate earlier.
The Turnbull-Joyce government, the federal executive government of Australia, is investing $20 billion in rail to cut congestion in cities, grow the regions and create thousands of new jobs.
