Charlotte and Light Rail

Governing Magazine has a pretty good article about the light rail line under construction there, and development and controversy surrounding it. Seems like it has all the problems of an area trying to take its first steps away from total auto-dependancy. There are the constant nay-sayers who are concerned about density and taking away from funding for roads. There are low ridership projections - yes, they have buses, but an isolated light rail line can hardly be expected to materialize full ridership by itself. And so common in this recent few years, the escalating costs - not that transit is the only infrastructure area that has problems with cost escalation. Will Charlotte surmount these problems and be able to continue on the transit path?

Dulles Costs More

The USDOT Office of the Inspector General has released a report saying that the the Dulles Corridor Metrorail project has serious cost control issues. The budget for the first phase has gone up by 78%, and construction hasn't even started yet. The OIG seems to have doubts about the funding sources and the Metro Washington Airport Authority (MWAA), who is going to be overseeing the project, getting bogged down building a rail line and running airports at the same time.

I was thinking about complaining about how road building projects probably don't get this much scrutiny, just the transit projects - and the total budget in transit projects through the FTA is much lower - but as cursory scan through the USDOT OIG 'reading rooms' don't do much to back me up, so I won't really talk about it.

Water, water everywhere

Is there any subway service running in NYC at all?

Posted on:8/8/2007 8:09:25 AM

Due to severe flooding throughout the subway system, there are extensive delays on all subway lines. Customers are advised when at all possible to use bus service. The detours are as follows:

The r train is running on the n line in both directions between the Canal Street Station and the DeKalb Avenue Station.

There is no 1 train service in both directions between the Van Cortlandt Park-242nd Street Station and the South Ferry Station.

There is no 2 train service in both directions between the Wakefield-241st Street Station and the Brooklyn College-Flatbush Avenue Station.

There is no 3 train service in both directions between the Harlem-148th Street Station and the New Lots Avenue Station.

There is no a or c train service in both directions between the Euclid Avenue Station and the Jay Street-Boro Hall Station.

There is no e train service in both directions between the World Trade Center Station and the Jamaica Center-Parsons-Archer Station.

There is no f train service in both directions between the Jamaica-179th Street Station and the Forest Hills-71st Avenue Station.

There is no f train service in both directions between the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue Station and the Jay Street-Boro Hall Station.

There is no 4, 5 or 6 train service in both directions between the 149th Street-Grand Concourse Station and the Borough Hall Station.

There is no l train service in both directions between the Canarsie-Rockaway Parkway Station and the 8th Avenue Station.

There is no 42nd Street Shuttle s train service in both directions between the Times Square-42nd Street Station and the Grand Central-42nd Street Station.

There is no j train service in both directions between the Jamaica Center-Parsons-Archer Station and the Broadway Junction Station.

Astoria-bound n trains are running on the d or m lines from the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue Station to the 36th Street Station.

In addition, due to debris on the track at the Church Avenue Station, the b and q trains are running on the d or n line in both directions between the DeKalb Avenue Station and the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue Station.

Please expect delays in service system wide at this time.

Wow.