All Articles Tagged "public transporation"
Nearly 200,000 D.C Households Survive Without Any Cars
(TBD.com) — The Brookings Institution has released on a new report on the millions in America who live the zero-vehicle life. The new breakdown, which pulls its numbers from the American Community Survey as well as 371 transit providers, shows that 7.5 million households in America’s 100 biggest metropolitan areas don’t have access to a private car. That reality holds especially true in D.C. — here, 193,558 households survive without access to personal automobiles. That’s just under 10% of all households in the D.C. metro area.
Red Line Crash: Two Years Later
(Washington Post) — Two years after a crash on Metro’s Red Line killed nine people, the transit authority is still working to replace aging rail cars, install new equipment and make other changes that a federal agency said are necessary to ensure passenger safety. Metro has made progress, but senior executives, congressional leaders and oversight groups say the transit agency has a lot of work ahead. “The good news is Metro did pay attention,” said Deborah A.P. Hersman, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board. “They listened and they’re committed to taking action to address the deficiencies. They’ve done what we asked for, and they’re still making progress.”
Local Officials Step Up Security on Transportation Networks
(Washington Examiner) — The news of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden’s assassination sent local law enforcement officials in the Washington region scrambling to step up security Monday in case of a retaliatory attack. Transportation officials in the nation’s capital increased their efforts especially since a strike to their systems could cripple the federal government, which relies on their trains and buses to get workers to their jobs. But officials cautioned that no threats had been made directly to the region. ”This increase is not related to any specific threat to our system, rather it is out of an abundance of caution,” Metro Police Chief Michael Taborn said Monday. Officials were generally coy about their tactics, saying that surprise and randomness are their best deterrents. But they said travelers from Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport to Amtrak’s Union Station to Virginia Railway Express trains to Metrobuses could expect to see more uniformed officers.
Atlanta’s Transit Future?
(AJC) — Metro Atlantans want wider, safer roads. They want better sidewalks and more bike paths. But most of all, they want mass transit. At least, their local leaders think so, if dollars are any guide. Local governments have asked for a massive, expensive mass transit expansion from a regional sales tax that voters will consider next year. For the first time, there’s a wish list that reflects metro Atlanta thinking as a region when it comes to transportation. Local governments had until March 30 to submit their wish lists. The Atlanta Regional Commission put them together in one batch of 436 projects, and handed the list over to the state transportation planning director for his review. In summer, a regional group will choose the final projects. The pool of projects submitted Friday is far from final. It likely includes ineligible projects and overlapping requests. It still must endure state scrutiny and debate on the regional level before it is cut to an affordable size and goes to voters, who will decide whether the projects are worth a 1-cent sales tax for a decade. That tax could raise $8 billion.
Politics of a Bus Stop
(Christian Science Monitor) — Outside the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority building, protesters chanted, waved signs on cue, and gleefully celebrated a decision they hope will affect city transit authorities coast to coast: The Federal Transit Administration will conduct a comprehensive civil-rights audit of the MTA. At issue is the long-running allegation that the MTA, the nation’s second-largest metropolitan transit agency, discriminates against minorities and low-income residents by cutting their bus routes first in times of financial belt-tightening. Other transit systems have come under similar federal scrutiny in the past, but the saga in Los Angeles dates to 1997, when a federal court forced the MTA to provide transit “without regard to race, color, or national origin.”
Robin Kelley, an urban history professor at New York University, called the 1997 ruling “the most important civil rights ruling since 1954’s Brown v. Topeka” to end US school desegregation. What followed that was a consent decree, forcing the MTA to buy new buses and create new routes, but when the consent decree ended in 2006, the MTA began making cutbacks again. Recently, the MTA announced that it would reduce bus service 5 percent in June, in addition to eliminating nine bus lines in three years.
