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Rail Vehicle Technician Qualification Pilot Held at MBTA
The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) hosted a pilot of the National Rail Vehicle Technician Qualification Program at two of its rail facilities in Boston, July 9 and 10. Written assessments were administered to nineteen technicians in four subject areas: Couplers, Propulsion and Dynamic Braking, Car Body, and Doors. Their voluntary  articipation was part of a process to help validate questions developed by a joint national labor-management committee on rail vehicle maintenance. The committee is also responsible for developing standardized rail car training on a national level that serves as a prerequisite to qualification. Eight additional MBTA technicians piloted a complete assessment on Couplers where in addition to taking written questions they demonstrated their hands-on ability to conduct a coupler inspection and identify three planted defects.
The Qualification Program assessments were administered by Mike Keller, delegate for equipment maintenance, Boston Carmen's Union, ATU Local 589, and Brian Long, an MBTA instructor. Bob Perry, a committee member and former instructor recently promoted at MBTA, also assisted with developing the pilot tasks. According to Mike Keller, "I'd like to thank both light and heavy rail employees at the T for their assistance with the pilot program that elevates the skills and standing of rail car workers nationally". Brian Long added "It was rewarding to see the eight technicians do so well in the hands-on coupler inspection because of the instruction they received here at the T." For more information on the pilots and the Rail Vehicle Training and Qualification Project more broadly contact Senior Associate Mark Dysart.
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The Atlantic Cities - July 8, 2013
When the city of Wellington, New Zealand, decided to expand its public transit system, Mayor Celia Wade-Brown initially favored light rail as the so-called sexy option. Then the project estimates came in. According to the Dominion Post, the capital budget for light rail came to $940 million, while those for bus rapid transit came to $207 million. And this despite the fact that BRT was expected to reap a greater return for the city. That was enough to convince Wade-Brown, who subsequently called BRT "nearly as sexy as light rail and a lot cheaper."
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International Transportation News
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Venture Beat - July 2013
Real-time bus and train schedule startup Transit, which has been riding a wave of Apple-fueled popularity to a first-place app store ranking in Canada and eleventh in the U.S., has launched transit directions in the world's most populous metropolis, Mexico City, and Paris. Mexico City's mayor was so impressed, I heard, that he said something unprintable.
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CBS Channel 5 - July 15, 2013
Labor contract talks resumed on Monday for Bay Area Rapid Transit after negotiators took a break over the weekend. So far neither side sounds terribly optimistic. With less than three weeks to go until the August 4th deadline both sides agreed to before the BART strike ended, President of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555, Antonette Bryant said things aren't looking so good.
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Time - July 12, 2013
With the struggles in recent weeks over Obamacare implementation, immigration reform, and the debt ceiling, you would be forgiven for not noticing the fierce battle being fought in the United States Senate over an obscure federal agency called the National Labor Relations Board, which is tasked with enforcing federal labor law and protecting worker's rights to collectively bargain. The Senate and the President have been locked in a multi-year battle to fully staff the agency with 5 commissioners, and if some sort of deal isn't reached by late August, the NLRB will be incapable of reaching a quorum, rendering the agency unable to function.
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SmartPlanet - July 11, 2013
If you want to create a collaborative office setting you can use an open design, but you better make sure the tables are round. That's because researchers have found that circular seating arrangements lead to people feeling a need to belong, while angular tables cause people to have a need to be unique. In a new study from the University of British Columbia, researchers asked volunteers sit around round and angular tables and respond to various advertisements.
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Chillico the Gazette - July 13, 2013
U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown this week announced plans to reintroduce legislation he feels will give local communities more control over the type of job training their workers receive. The Strengthening Employment Clusters to Organize Regional Success, or SECTORS, Act originally was introduced in 2008 as part of the Workforce Investment Act, a bill that Brown said on a conference call with reporters Wednesday "collapsed under its own weight."
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Building Transportation Infrastructure
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CBS Philadelphia - July 16, 2013
SEPTA is considering building a high-speed line to the King of Prussia/Valley Forge area, and a Public Scoping Meeting was scheduled for Tuesday night at the Radisson Hotel at the Valley Forge Casino to get input. SEPTA's Director of Strategic Planning Byron Comati says from 4-to-6 p.m., the public will be able to examine possible routes and maps for the rail line, architectural renderings and more.
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Kansas City - July 12, 2013
A summer shower in Kansas smells nothing like rain in Oregon. Rivers and lakes look different, too. Midwest cottonwood trees have a softer tint than that of Northwest fir trees. Mount Sunflower at 4,039 feet cranes its neck to look up to Mount Hood at 11,249 feet. The cardinal's song has an upward whistle before modulating into a chirped cadence in contrast to the screeches of the western scrub jay.
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