Free Republic

WALKABLE NEIGHBORHOODS LEAD TO INCREASED USE OF THE SYSTEM All across suburban Silicon Valley, there are single-family homeowners who don't believe people like Jonathan El-Bizri even exist. El-Bizri commutes to work in Sunnyvale by mass transit -- not because he has to, because he wants to. Like a lot of young tech workers, he's here for the jobs, not the lawns. El-Bizri looked for a place to live that was close to a train station, and ended up near the Bayshore Caltrain stop in San Francisco. He takes the train south in the morning, switches to light rail in Mountain...

Our position: Gov. Bush is not above the law when it comes to the bullet train. Another legislative session has come and gone -- the fifth time, and hopefully the last time, lawmakers will convene this year. In their zeal to leave town, however, lawmakers never even considered a critically important piece of business. And Gov. Jeb Bush pointedly is to blame.

<p>U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter yesterday reiterated his support for the proposed Maglev project in Pennsylvania as its backers unveiled a student design for a potential station Downtown.</p> <p>The state's senior Republican senator met with Maglev Inc. officials to assess their long-running program in advance of upcoming budget talks in Washington, D.C. Specter is a senior member of the U.S. Senate Appropriations subcommittee on transportation.</p>

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.Frankfurt, Germany to Southern California Tired of long lines at overcrowded airports?  Airlines that don't service the airports you want to go to? There is a plan in the works that would help solve both those problems.  It's called "Airports Without Runways".   In the long term it would link McCarran with the proposed Ivanpah airport in Primm.  In just a few years it might make your commute to Los Angeles much easier.  And in Frankfurt, Germany, it's being done right now. Robert Payne is a spokesman for Frankfurt International Airport, or "Fraport"....

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.Las Vegas to Primm, later to Anaheim We've been hearing ideas for a magleticly levitated train--or Maglev--tossed around for a couple of decades.  Recently I went to Berlin where the project is based, and spoke with one of the project's planners. The Mojave Corridor seems ideal in terms of right-of-way and engineering, but in 2001 it looked like the outgoing Clinton Administration pulled the plug.  Back in Berlin, they say that's changed. "The Las Vegas Los Angeles corridor is very much back in the game." counters Transrapid's Robert Budell.  "It actually never...

<p>Low-speed maglev, which doesn't get the attention of its faster, bigger sibling high-speed maglev, is moving forward in western Pennsylvania, says U.S. Rep. John Murtha.</p> <p>The Johnstown Democrat said Thursday that an $800,000 prototype of the so-called urban maglev chassis has been shipped to the West Coast, where it will undergo testing on a 400-foot test track now under construction. The testing over a 12-month period will prove the system's guidance, propulsion and levitation capabilities. The chassis was constructed locally by Ellwood City-based Hall Industries Inc.</p>

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.Lancaster County has made financial and written commitments to participate in the creation of a regional rail line that would run between Lancaster city and Mechanicsburg. Last week, Lancaster County commissioners decided to send $25,000 to Harrisburg-based Modern Transit Partnership to fund the county's portion of a preliminary study and design for the regional rail line known as CORRIDORone. On Tuesday, all three commissioners wrote a letter agreeing to work with Modern Transit to establish a regional transportation authority that would design, own and operate CORRIDORone, county Commissioner Pete Shaub said. "They...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. HOUSTON- Harris County should form a commuter rail authority that would service the busy U.S. Highway 290 corridor linking central Houston to northwestern suburbs, a commissioner said Wednesday. Commissioner Steve Radack, in a luncheon speech to the West Houston Association, pitched the concept of improving a lightly used Union Pacific line to handle passenger traffic. The line, an old Southern Pacific freight route, runs from near Memorial Park along U.S. 290 and eventually into neighboring Waller County and on to College Station. Union Pacific officials said the track is only used...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.PARIS (AFP) - Antoine Naso, probably one of the world's most unusual impresarios, has just come off the phone with people from the Kyoto subway. "Kyoto, Tokyo, everyone wants to know how Paris organises its buskers!" For the past six years, Naso has been in charge of the 360 buskers officially authorised to play in the underground by the Paris Metro authority, the RATP. Rotterdam has a similar system, Tokyo and London are putting free music into place on their subway systems after how-to talks with the RATP. And now, as if...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. It has been touted as a high-tech solution to the region's ever-increasing traffic problems: Elevated trains zipping at speeds in excess of 125 mph along a monorail connecting Los Angeles and Orange counties. Riders could travel from Union Station in Los Angeles to Disneyland in 30 minutes at 6 p.m. on Friday. Dubbed the Orange Line, the proposed rail line through a dozen communities moved one step closer to reality last week with the formation of a legal entity needed to get the project rolling. "It's a very good transportation alternative...

<p>BEGINNING SUNDAY, Bay Area commuters and air travelers will be rewarded for years of waiting with the opening of BART service to San Francisco International Airport.</p> <p>Why it took so long is a tangle of politics and money, but the delay can't obscure the welcome results. After a decade of planning and five years of construction, much of the Bay Area will be able to ride within minutes of check-in counters. The train service should be convenient, cheap and quick.</p>

<p>It's about this point in a legislative session when people begin to wonder if this will be the year that something comprehensive and meaningful will be done about the suburban traffic mess. The answer is always disappointing, and will be again this year.</p>

<p>WASHINGTON -- Gov. Ed Rendell said yesterday that the federal government should fund two magnetic levitation train projects, including one proposed for the Pittsburgh area.</p> <p>Rendell, in Washington to testify on state transportation needs, told reporters that Congress "shouldn't have to choose between competing projects."</p>

When you hop a CTA bus or board a Metra commuter train in the morning, chances are you don't give a thought to who's running the transit operation--unless the train or bus is late. Then you want to draw a target around whatever bureaucrat is responsible. So it's not widely known that Chicago-area transit is governed by a nifty structure that forces Chicago and the suburbs to share the decision-making. And that has largely worked well. The commuter trains are a model of on-time delivery. The Chicago Transit Authority has seen significant improvements in service in recent years. And the...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.Canada's cities lag behind in deploying transit technologies developed here Yet Canadian firms are top global players in a growi When the Olympic Games open in Greece next summer, a monorail "people mover" by Toronto's Delcan Corp. is planned to carry spectators to sports venues in Maroussi, a suburb of Athens. Visitors to Ankara, Turkey and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, can ride on state-of-the-art transit systems built by SNC-Lavalin Group Inc., the Canadian company that did systems engineering on the $1 billion Millennium extension to Vancouver's SkyTrain. Montreal's Bombardier Inc. — famous for...

<p>The federal government has given the Port Authority permission to draft the final design of the $390 million project to extend the subway to the North Side by burrowing beneath the Allegheny River. Approval of the so-called North Shore Connector was delayed slightly by a paperwork glitch.</p>

<p>Steven Leal, 12, and Ryan Welker, 13, Thursday demonstrate their trophy-winning science project, a levitating magnetic train at Green Acres Middle School.</p> <p>The levitating magnet train by Steven Leal, 12, and Ryan Welker, 13, shoots through a plastic tube during a science fair demonstration.</p>

ORLANDO, Fla. -- As the tedious work of planning Florida's high-speed rail network inched forward over the past two years, Gov. Jeb Bush has always been nearby with chastening words. If the state has to pay too much, he said, these trains will never leave the station. Now that the public could be on the hook for as much as $2.7 billion to help build the route's first leg, Tampa to Orlando, Bush finally has his answer on the project's cost.  The Four    Bidders For  Florida's  Proposed    Bullet Train   ET3.com CEO: Daryl Oster.Location: Crystal River, Fla.Proposal Finances: Bid of $1.2 billion; did not provide breakdown of...

<p>Federal funding has come to an unexpected stop on plans to extend the Port Authority's light-rail network to the North Shore and the new Downtown convention center.</p> <p>The transit agency's chief executive officer, Paul Skoutelas, confirmed yesterday that the Federal Transit Administration has dropped the status of the $400 million project from "recommended" to "not recommended."</p>

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. This week in his State of the City address, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels called for a new streetcar that would run from Westlake Center through the South Lake Union neighborhood to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. And so, our nostalgia craze continues. We've now built a waterfront trolley, started a Mosquito Fleet-style water taxi to West Seattle, dug up the Kalakala, we're expanding our 1962 monorail, and now a streetcar. Oh, I'm sure it'll be a modern streetcar and all, but aren't we supposed to be riding personal jetpacks by...