Center Update
Workforce Stakeholders Share Strategies at DOL Transportation Apprenticeship Accelerator Conference

Jim Reid (center), Machinists' Director of Apprenticeship, Safety and Health, and Rick Inclima (right), Director of Safety for the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees, at DOL Transportation Accelerator conference.  June Taylor of Ryder Systems is on the left. 

Jim Reid (center), Machinists' Director of Apprenticeship, Safety and Health, and Rick Inclima (right), Director of Safety for the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees, at DOL Transportation Accelerator conference. June Taylor of Ryder Systems is on the left.

John Ladd, Administrator of US DOL's Office of Apprenticeship, opened the conference by tracking initial progress toward the goal of doubling the number of apprentices in America.   The norm in other advanced countries, he said, is integrating school-based and work-based learning so that everyone can have effective education and training beyond secondary school to prepare them for quality careers. Up to now in the US, the majority who enter the workforce without a college degree have had only limited access to apprenticeships that combine classroom and on-the-job learning.
 
Brian J. Turner, the Center's founding director, emphasized the urgent need for more apprenticeship training across all transportation sectors.   Standards-based apprenticeships in transportation, he said, can meet the industry's growing needs for skilled workers while providing career pathways for young people who may not be headed straight to 4-year colleges.
Transit System/Partners
With the help of a Capitol Hill nonprofit, Seattle will pilot two innovative programs designed to make public transportation more affordable and better utilize the neighborhood's apartment building parking. Tuesday afternoon, the Seattle City Council's transportation committee will discuss and possibly vote on the two pilot transit projects to be run by the non-profit Capitol Hill Housing and funded by the city of Seattle and King County. The projects - collectively dubbed the CHH Transportation Demand Management Pilot Project - consist of a discounted ORCA pass pilot program for low-income residents of three CHH housing projects and funding to develop a prototype sensor to gather data on parking garage usage in apartment buildings.
Progressive Railroading - May 17, 2016
Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) and financial services startup PayNearMe are partnering to enable riders to load transit payments onto the GoPass app or new GoPass fare cards using cash. The new cash-loading option and GoPass cards will be available starting in March 2017 at nearly 800 retail locations. The new GoPass is DART's first reloadable near field communications-enabled transit card, PayNearMe official said in a press release.
Safety
The engineer of Amtrak Train 188 was distracted by radio communication just before the train derailed in Philadelphia last May, killing eight people, investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday. Investigators believe Brandon Bostian was distracted by reports that a nearby SEPTA train had been struck by debris. Bostian was concerned there were SEPTA workers on the track near the disabled train and worried for the safety of the SEPTA train and its passengers, the NTSB said during a meeting just days after the one-year anniversary of the May 12 crash.
Operation Lifesaver Inc. (OLI) last week recognized Lynn Selby and Dr. Lanny Wilson for individual achievement in preventing death and injury around tracks and trains. Selby received the F. Tom Roberts Memorial Volunteer Award for his rail safety education outreach efforts in Arizona. Wilson received the OL Champion Award for being a champion of rail safety education to prevent vehicle-train collisions in Illinois and nationally, according to an OLI press release.
Labor News
Portland Tribune - May 16, 2016
The union representing most TriMet workers says it is willing to consider management's offer to extend the existing contract two years. TriMet made the offer to the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 757 in a letter Friday. The current contract ends in November, and TriMet said the extension would include 3 percent salary increases in December 2016 and 2017, and avoid protracted and potentially divisive negotiations.
The Mercury News - May 12, 2016
OAKLAND -- The BART board of directors voted 7-2 on Thursday to approve a new labor contract with the unions representing the agency's 3,500 workers, stemming any possible strikes for the next five years. The four-year contract extends the workers' current agreement, which was set to expire next year, to 2021. The deal, which union membership approved this week, includes 2.5 percent raises in the first two years and 2.75 percent raises in the third and fourth years of the contract. 
Building Transportation Infrastructure
Voice of OC - May 12, 2016
Today, Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez (CA-46) led a letter with 16 members of the California delegation urging the House Appropriations Committee to fund $2.3 billion for the Federal Transit Administration's Capital Investment Grant Program. This grant program would fund important transportation projects across California and in Rep. Sanchez's district, including the proposed OC Street Car project in Santa Ana and Garden Grove.
Like us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter