Center Update  
There's Still Time to Register for our 'Making Connections' Conference

 
October is almost here and our Making Connections conference is right around the corner! The day will feature plenary and workshop sessions presented and moderated by experts and leaders from the fields of transportation, education, and workforce development. It is an exciting opportunity for all our constituents and stakeholders to share across frontline occupational groups and learn from peers in the transportation sectors.
 
Plenary sessions include:
  • Who Will Do the Work: Transit's Ongoing Challenge to Recruit, Train and Retain Its Frontline Workforce
  • A Vision for the Future of Public Transportation: Re-imagining Transportation for the 21st Century
  • Onward and Upward
Workshop sessions include:
  • Not the Usual Suspects: How to Diversify your Workforce
  • The Next Generation: Career Ladders and Pathways into the Public Transportation Workforce
  • Mining the Frontline Knowledge: Industry Training Consortia, Mentorship and On-the-Job Learning
  • Prioritizing Training for New Technologies: PTC & Electronic Communications
  • Registered Apprenticeship: The How and the Why
  • Partnerships in Safety and Health
For more information, and to register, click here. For information on conference sponsorship and vendor space, click here.
Public Transportation
When systems don't have funds for the most basic of needs, like maintenance, workers who rely on public transit to travel even short distances may find their commutes grueling, unpredictable, and sometimes even life-threatening. The men and women who make a living operating and maintaining these systems are often forced to work with outdated equipment and insufficient manpower.
City Lab - September 5, 2017
Hurricane Harvey hit one of the most famously auto-dependent places on Earth: nearly 91 percent of the commuters in the Houston metro travel alone by car to get to work. Somewhere between 500,000 to 1 million cars were destroyed by the storm, the most of any natural disaster in U.S. history.
Governing - September 2017
The number of transit agencies contemplating a bus system redesign continues to grow. This summer, Philadelphia officials announced they would soon undertake one, in part to respond to what they see as competition from private ride-sharing services. Anchorage, Alaska; Austin; Dallas; Richmond, Va.; and even Los Angeles and Staten Island in New York City are working on overhauls as well.
Planetizen - September 2, 2017
TransitFlow allows the creation of animated maps showing the movement of public transit modes around cities and regions. The TransitFlow team created the tool to help illustrate the importance of frequency, among other critical aspects of transit service.
The Nation - August 30, 2017
New York City does not simply depend on its transit system. It is its transit system. About three in five New York City workers commute via subway or bus, more than twice the number who get to work via cars-a far higher percentage than in any other US city. For most New Yorkers, the hyper-simplified subway map forms their mental picture of the city's geography, which is fitting because the subway is where the city's politics, culture, future, and past are all packed together like a rush-hour crowd. The subway is where poverty is impossible to ignore, where street music lives, where the races and cultures meet, where urban crime took on its most sinister aura and where it began to recede.
Transit System/Partners
TransitCenter - August 30, 2017
Few transit agencies invest in street infrastructure around bus stops and stations. Historically, they've subsidized car trips to transit by constructing costly park and rides, but haven't taken on the jurisdictional issues that might come when it comes to improving streets around stations for pedestrians and cyclists. Today, however, Los Angeles Metro is taking a different and noteworthy approach.
Progressive Railroading - September 5, 2017
Built between Madison and Washington streets, the $75 million station replaces two existing ones built more than 120 years ago. The new station is fully accessible for riders with disabilities, CTA officials said in a press release.
September 1, 2017
Building on its status as a public service both in the city of Austin, Texas as well as the state, Capital Metro staff recently were involved in the Hurricane Harvey rescue efforts for people in a medical facility in Corpus Christi.
The Baltimore Sun - September 5, 2017
The redesign is built around a dozen color-coded, high-frequency routes through downtown, with less frequent LocalLink and ExpressLink commuter routes radiating from them. To speed the buses' travel, the MTA cut out many underused stops, added bus-only lanes downtown and installed bus sensors on traffic lights to shorten red lights and lengthen green ones.
CBS News - September 5, 2017
"You can't really privatize it because there are pieces of it that have to be subsidized," [Amtrak president and CEO Richard Anderson] said. "You could privatize if you wanted the pieces that are profitable but that wouldn't make a lot of sense. Look, this is basic infrastructure. I think the subsidy last year for highways was $40 billion, subsidy for aviation was about $16 billion and when you think about what we do and what's sort of fundamental to public policy, it's to fund infrastructure."
Progressive Railroading - September 1, 2017
The extra trains will bring the total number of daily round trips on the South Line to 13. The added service will help boost capacity and frequency during peak times, agency officials said in a press release.
Economic Issues
The Washington Post - September 2, 2017
Contrary to the public display of goodwill for the media after a closed-door meeting last week, the region's top three elected officials clashed sharply over Metro funding, with Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) saying the transit agency would get no additional money from his state.
Building Transportation Infrastructure
The Miami Herald - September 4, 2017
Launched in the spring of 2016, Miami-Dade's Strategic Miami Area Rapid Transit plan - SMART for short - raised expectations for an historic rail expansion after it launched studies on transit options for six of the county's busiest commuting corridors. The routes roughly mirror the new rail lines promised voters in 2002 in exchange for approving a new half-percent sales tax for transportation projects.
The Birmingham Times - August 31, 2017
"When you have transportation options for people, the things that come next are job opportunities. It's going to be a great thing when Smart Growth America, the BJCTA (Birmingham Jefferson County Transit Authority) and the BRT are all combined," [Birmingham City Council Pro Tem Steven] Hoyt said. Along with the federal TIGER grant funding, Birmingham was selected as one of five cities to receive assistance from Smart Growth America, a national think-tank aimed at improving neighborhoods through policy and planning initiatives.
KITV 4 - September 6, 2017
HART teams began the process of energizing the rail guideways Tuesday. Train testing at full speed of 55 miles an hour will start later this month. But the project also got a shot in the arm as the governor signed the rail bailout bill into law.
Safety
Metro Magazine - September 5, 2017
Amtrak is a leader in the deployment and use of positive train control. In December 2015, Amtrak activated PTC on its busiest route, between New York and Washington, D.C., completing installation on most Amtrak-owned infrastructure on the Northeast Corridor.
Labor News
NPR - September 4, 2017
Ask AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka about the climate for unions on this Labor Day weekend, and he starts with something positive: a new Gallup poll showing public support for unions at its highest point since 2003.
Workforce Development
NBC Washington - September 5, 2017
The D.C. Infrastructure Academy is a partnership between D.C. public and private sector companies and aims to create a pipeline for D.C. residents to infrastructure jobs, a press release said.
PBS - August 29, 2017
Some high school students in Colorado may get prime jobs even before they get their diplomas. That's because CareerWise, the nation's first statewide youth apprenticeship program, links students to industries and addresses manufacturers' demand for skills, while offering employment, academic credit and support for college. Hari Sreenivasan reports as part of our Rethinking College series.
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