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Center Seeks Qualified Consultants to Assist in Building Local Labor-Management Partnerships for Training
The Transportation Learning Center is releasing a Request for Qualifications today for consultants to assist in building and sustaining local and regional labor-management partnerships in the transit industry to improve training for front-line workers. The Center seeks people who can assist in developing jointly owned data that partnerships can use for decision-making. Two examples of useful data developed for partnership decision-making involve either conducting a skills gap analysis or documenting standard operating procedures. The initial deadline for submitting statements of qualification will be Monday September 16, 2013. This Request for Qualifications will remain open, and qualifications submitted after September 16 will be reviewed by the Center based on its business needs. The full RFQ is available on the Center's website.
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Earth Techling - August 27, 2013
Choosing public transportation over a personal vehicle is a great way to reduce your carbon footprint, but the transition can be challenging. First, you'll have to adhere to someone else's schedule, and then there's the task of keeping track of your fare, ticket, or commuter pass card. For those that utilize Boston's mass transit system, this pass is known as a Charlie Card. There's nothing worse than getting to the bus or train station in the nick of time, only to fumble for your card. A new project out of MIT aims to replace these cumbersome cards with a 3D-printed bauble called the "Sesame Ring". Using scientifically-approved magic to open doors, the aptly-named ring will ensure you never miss your ride again.
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Progressive Railroading - August 28, 2013
Metra's board has selected Deputy Executive Director/Chief Operations Officer Donald Orseno as the agency's interim executive director and chief executive officer. A lifelong railroader, Orseno's understanding of the Chicago Railroad Terminal District will "assure that Metra continues to operate safely and efficiently," agency officials said in a prepared statement. Orseno's appointment follows months of agency turmoil, including the resignation of previous CEO Alex Clifford and several board members.
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International Transportation News
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The Atlantic Cities - August 23, 2013
"It is amazing what we can find on the internet," writes Bruno Imbrizi, "it's all there." In this case, Imbrizi is referring to the longitude and latitudes of London Underground stations as well as their precise depths below sea level, information that a diligent citizen obtained by filing Freedom of Information requests.
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CBS - August 26, 2013
The U.S. Energy Department is investing $1 million to look into improving New Jersey Transit's train system after super storm Sandy. The grant announced at the Frank R. Lautenberg Rail Station in Secaucus on Monday is the first step toward building a new microgrid to power trains during major power outages. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz joined Gov. Chris Christie and transit officials in making the announcement.
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Time - August 27, 2013
The agency that runs New York City's subways and buses is inviting the public to try out and weigh in on dozens of new apps designed to ease getting around. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority and AT&T released 49 new apps on Tuesday. They were developed in a competition to create new mobile tools that draw on real-time MTA data. Users can vote through Sept. 10 on their favorite app. Winners will be announced at the end of September. Competitors are vying for $40,000 in prize money, provided by Dallas-based AT&T Inc.
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Cites police crackdown at key stations; revenues up
Boston Globe - August 26, 2013
The number of T riders caught sneaking past fare gates has dropped significantly from a year ago, according to figures released by the MBTA. So far this year, transit police have issued 2,838 citations for fare evasion compared with 3,187 citations through the same period last year, an 11 percent drop. Transit Police said they believe the reduction reflects word circulating among would-be scofflaws about increased vigilance for fare jumpers.
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The Province - August 25, 2013
Bus drivers in British Columbia have been choked, punched and jabbed with dirty needles. The complaints came out on Friday at a roundtable discussion in Burnaby seeking ways to stiffen penalties for convicted assailants. "A sleepy little town like Kelowna has had two serious incidents in a month and a half," said Les Milton, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union, which represents transit drivers in Kelowna and Merritt.
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AFL-CIO - August 24, 2013
Raymin Diaz wants to "break this counterrevolution" that takes away workers' rights. Bob King wants to "honor the same principles" Dr. Martin Luther King stood for, while "fighting suppression of the right to vote." Larry Greenhill wants to energize his union's members "while ensuring the community knows our concerns" about workers rights, jobs, and justice.
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PBS - August 22, 2013
Paul Solman: Bob Lerman began life on the NewsHour as a gadfly, contesting the data of Dan Ariely, among others, that US wealth distribution is scarily skewed. It's not nearly so lopsided, argued Lerman,, if you take into account the implicit "wealth" that Social Security and Medicare represent. That said, Lerman, a centrist economist with the Urban Institute and American University, worries plenty about the problems of those who have been falling behind economically in America, especially our non-advantaged youth.
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CBS - August 17, 2013
Gov. Martin O'Malley has named 11 people to serve on a task force that will look for new and different ways to fund local and regional transportation projects. The governor's former chief of staff, Matthew Gallagher, will chair the Local and Regional Transportation Funding Task Force. Gallagher is president of the Goldseker Foundation, a Baltimore grant-making group.
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SmartPlanet - August 28, 2013
How many people do you know who have been paid by their company to take a sabbatical? If you're from the United States you probably don't know many people who have been fortunate enough to get that long, paid break from work, unless they're in academia. Just how rare are fully-paid sabbaticals from work in the United States? According to a recent Society for Human Resource Management survey [PDF], only four percent of U.S. companies offer paid sabbatical benefits and 16 percent offer unpaid sabbaticals. Even at CNN's so called "100 best places to work," less than one-quarter paid their employees to take paid sabbaticals.
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Building Transportation Infrastructure
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Progressive Railroading - August 22, 2013
Yesterday, MTA Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) began the next segment of a two-year, $40 million rehabilitation project at Massapequa Station. Begun in spring, the project involves replacing the station platform, canopy, staircases, elevator and escalator, as well as the platform waiting room, lighting, public-address system and signage.
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Passenger Transport - August 23, 2013
In anticipation of the return of streetcars to the nation's capital, the District DOT (DDOT) recently held a community open house at the DC Streetcar Testing and Commissioning Site in Southeast Washington. About 200 guests attended the event, where they could view and touch the three new vehicles manufactured by the Inekon Group in the Czech Republic.
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Star Tribune - August 24, 2013
The Southwest Corridor light rail once seemed like a done deal. The elected leaders of more than a million metro residents approved its route after years of planning and the federal government gave it the green light. Then the project ran into opposition from determined activists in St. Louis Park and Minneapolis who have spent money and influence on campaigns with rhetoric that sometimes obscures their own interests. At a rally along the shore of Cedar Lake in Minneapolis, a speaker asserted that they were fighting to prevent a wooded corridor popular with bikers "from being destroyed" by light rail.
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Maryland Gazette - August 23, 2013
By the time Maryland finishes handing out $4.4 billion in new transportation funding, the money should spread evenly among road and transit priorities, according to the state. Maryland lawmakers this spring passed the Transportation Infrastructure Investment Act, which raises the tax on gasoline and diesel, to bring $4.4 billion in new investment and 57,000 jobs in the next six years, officials said. The new law indexes the state's current 23.5-cent-per-gallon gas tax, which has not been increased since 1992, to inflation but limits increases to 8 percent per year.
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