Alex Goldmark

(Photo: David Schultz)

(Washington, D.C. -- David Schultz, WAMU) Ron Ball of Fairfax County was one of the first people in Virginia to buy the Chevy Volt, a new eco-friendly electric car. As an avid environmentalist, he had been dreaming of owning a Volt for years. But now that he has one, he's discovering life as a proud Volt owner is more complicated than he realized.

Make no mistake, Ron Ball loves his new ride. People at stoplights roll their windows down and tell him what a great car it is, and ask him how he likes it. He says it's even done wonders for his social life.

"I've given 15, 20, 30 people a ride in the car," says Ball. "Just strangers, people that I've picked up who expressed an interest in it."

First, a little about Ron.

New rules for air traffic controllers take effect this week, increasing the time between shifts in an effort to reduce sleeping on the job. U.S. Transportation Secretary says he won't pay controllers to doze off. (CBS)

A European plan to cut carbon emissions by 60 percent over 40 years argues for grounding short air flights in favor of high-speed rail. (Guardian)

Atlanta wants "wider, safer roads. They want better sidewalks and more bike paths. But most of all, they want mass transit," at least according to a "wish-list" being sent to the state Dept. of Transportation. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

That squares with this survey from realtors that shows Americans overall prefer smart growth to sprawl. (Infrastructurist)

Auto theft is the most common crime in Houston, possibly because first time offenders get a slap on the wrist. So Texas law enforcement officials want to make it a felony with mandatory jail time. (KUHF)

States want the right to sue polluters, including power plants. (Marketplace)

If you missed this video on Friday, get clicking. The latest escalation of the crackdown on cyclists in New York City led cops to arrest a man for "ridiculing" the cyclist they were ticketing, captured on tape by snarky neighbors. (Gothamist)

Meanwhile a broad inquiry may snare hundreds of NYPD officers for helping people get out of traffic tickets. (New York Times)

Gas prices have climbed for more than three straight weeks pushing average prices above $4-per gallon in six states already, including NY. (WAMU) So why isn't inflation rising? (Marketplace)

Meet the missionary owners of electric cars. This ain't no Volt. This crowd drives retro-fitted older vehicles, letting people kick the tires in hopes of making a few converts. (WAMU)

It's not exactly an electric car, but it is alternative fuel. Here's a wood-powered El Camino. Not sure it's the kind of alternative fuel that helps the environment though. (Gas2)

Lightning powered DeLoreans are now banned from China. The government there has made it illegal to travel ... through time. (TV Guide)

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In case you missed it on Transportation Nation

--We made a rustic podcast of six public radio stories on transportation from last week. Have a listen.

-- In killing high-speed rail, Governor Rick Scott misstated what Florida spent on the project. (Link)

-- NTSB preliminary report on the Bronx bus crash that killed 15 finds speeding, a guardrail that didn't guard, and no evidence for the driver's version of events. (Link)

Cunard Line's Queen Mary 2 is one of the ships that calls at Brooklyn Cruise Terminal. (Photo CC flickr user Jill Clardy)

(Alex Goldmark, Transportation Nation) Cruise ships that dock at New York's Brooklyn Cruise Terminal will get a little greener. New York will connect three berths for the massive vessels with plug-in power from the city's electrical grid, allowing the ships to shut off their diesel generators.

"By bringing the first cruise ship shore power operation on the East Coast to Red Hook [Brooklyn], we'll lower fossil fuel emissions and improve air quality for local residents," NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in a statement.

The City says, cruise ships typically berth for up to eleven hours while passengers load and unload. The Mayor's office estimates the shift from high-sulfur diesel to electric grid power for as many as three ships at a time could result in the elimination of 1,500 tons of carbon dioxide annually.

(Alex Goldmark, Transportation Nation) It's been a busy week on the radio side of Transportation Nation. So we thought we'd assemble the great reporting work our partners have been doing from around the country into one ad-hoc podcast for your weekend listening pleasure.

It's about half an hour long, just right to keep you company making that Sunday brunch, or driving home from visiting mom.

What's in the Transportation Nation ad-hoc podcast you ask?

WNYC had reporters in New York City and in Denmark compare the copacetic world of cycling in Europe with the contentious attempts to build a bike lane network back home.

The Takeaway tackled the details of the latest budget deal that appear to have derailed high-speed rail funding in many ways.

KALW introduces us to the most dangerous mile of public transit in the San Francisco area, gun shots, on-board assaults and all.

Marketplace checks in on the trend of cash-strapped cities trying to privatize their parking spots. Hint: it looks like you'll be paying more for meters.

The Takeaway also looked into the latest spat over sleeping air traffic controllers. Just how overworked are they? And hasn't this always happened occasionally on the night shift?

WNYC tried to find out what regulations need to change to improve bus safety after a series of crashes left 17 dead. Here, the former head of the NTSB says he doesn't need to wait for the official report, the whole industry needs to change. (TN version of the story)

The National Transportation Safety Board has released a preliminary finding from their investigation into the March 12th Bronx tour bus crash that killed 15.

Here's the report.
Bronx Bus Crash NTSB Preliminary Report 04-14-2011

The official in charge of air traffic control at the FAA resigned yesterday, following a second controller falling asleep on the job. (Politico) An overhaul to the whole system is coming. (Marketplace)

Can mayors save the planet? We published our first Portuguese language post ever yesterday on this topic, but if you want a related post in English asking the same question, well, that's OK too. NYC Mayor Bloomberg teams up with Bill Clinton to take the C-40 cleaner cities initiative global. (WNYC)

The struggling commuter rail line in Minnesota's Twin Cities, the North Star Line, is doing a little better at meeting ridership expectations. Part of the reason is higher gas prices. (Pioneer Press)

Motor Trend tested out the Chevy Volt. After 818.3 miles, the team testing it say they used 6.6 gallons of gas. That's worse than expected. But Motor Trend concludes, it's worth buying. (Motor Trend)

A tougher test for one hybrid vehicle is coming up. A team plans to enter the most punishing race on four wheels, the Dakar Rally, with a hybrid-electric truck. Can the delicate electronics survive the sandy trek? (Autoblog)

Look how shiny and new. San Francisco gets a new airport terminal. (SF Gate)

"The good news is the dam is still there and it's holding steady..." A North Dakota dam is in danger of collapse, which would flood 30 homes. (AP, via Infrastructurist)

Yesterday in this post, we linked to a report that trucking freight was down 1.5 percent in February. So here's some cargo data that points in the opposite economic direction. Rail freight was up 7.9 percent in the last quarter of 2010. (Bloomberg)

The tightly watched ticketing of cyclists in New York City for road offenses continues, now handbags are a hot button issue. The dean of students at an elite prep school was ticketed for riding with a handbag on her handlebars. (NY Post) And apparently, you can blame all the bike beef on Paris. NYC Mayor Bloomberg was smitten with the bike network there after a visit and came back with the idea to replicate it in NYC. (NYT)

Next month, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood will deliver the commencement address at Boston College. Chances he tells the graduates not to text and drive? Very high. (Boston Globe) Or maybe he'll tout the good work students can do. Like this impressive bunch form California in a contest to build a vehicle that uses the least fuel possible. Last year's winners got almost 2,500 m.p.g. Yes. 2,500. (Wired)

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(File Photo CC by World Economic Forum)

(Alex Goldmark, Transportation Nation) President Clinton was in New York City today to join NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg in announcing the merger of  C40 cities, a global coalition of world capitals led by the Mayor to head off Global Warming and the Clinton Climate Initiative.

At the announcement at Gracie Mansion, President Clinton gave high marks to China's high-speed rail progress. "Just as our Congress is defunding rapid rail, they have tested a train that runs 306 m.p.h almost 100 m.p.h. faster than the fastest Japanese and German trains. I would give them a good grade on that. They are doing great."

Listen to Bill Clinton on China's high-speed rail.

Clinton also spoke about green jobs among other environmental topics, WNYC's Bob Hennelly asked the President, "In this last budget deal to keep the government open, one of the things that took s terrible hit was both the EPA and the kind of green jobs you talk about. How can we overcome the kinds of setbacks and develop this long term view?"

Listen to Bill Clinton on green energy and jobs:

Transcript:

One of the real challenges that the President faces in negotiating with the Republicans--and it’s a similar to what I faced in 1995--was captured in the Wisconsin debate. That is, there’s a difference between finding the most effective way to reduce the deficit and the debt and using that to further some ideological goal.

Now, a lot of people in the new majority don’t believe in climate change and don’t believe in green energy. In the tax compromise at the end of the year, the only bad thing about it was they got rid of that payment which was the equivalent of a 30 percent per employee tax credit for green manufacturing jobs.

But, you know, neither the mayor nor I can have an enormous amount of influence on that. I hope that there will be some thought given to that. All this business about they have to subsidize green energy. That’s just, more than others, not true.

Coal doesn’t pay for the air pollution, external costs that they make. We give…  the administration is supporting, and the Republicans voted for subsidizing nuclear giving them big low interest loan.

And in 2005, the Congress recognizing that no insurance company would write insurance on a nuclear power plant, basically said the federal government would do it. How much bigger subsidy can you get?

Full screen.

(New York -- Ilya Maritz, WNYC) Last winter New York City endured the third snowiest season on record, and the City doled out more than 4,500 tickets for snow and ice violations. Building owners are required to shovel the sidewalks in front of their properties, if they don't, they risk a $150 ticket.

Ice-coated sidewalks in New York can be dangerous for pedestrians, not just the residents of the property, in some cases forcing them to walk in the snowy streets.

While blizzards typically dump snow fairly evenly across the city, tickets for failing to clear snow and ice are spread unevenly, according to an analysis by WNYC.

More than 1/3 of all tickets were handed out in the Bronx. Manhattan, where apartment buildings predominate, had only 1 percent of the violations.

The most ticketed block in the city was a tree-lined residential strip in the Bronx with two- and three-story homes. Freeman Street — between Union and Prospect avenues — tallied an astonishing 41 violations for failure to clear snow from the sidewalk including several that neighbors say have fallen into foreclosure.

"It's no maintenance man, it's no owner, it's nothing," said Mac, who lives in one of the buildings and only provided his first name.

He said he hasn't paid rent there in over a year, and there's no hot water. No surprise, then, that the sidewalk wasn't shoveled.

"I think the Sanitation [Department] made this building a part of their training route for training new employees how to put tickets on the building," Mac said, "because they know they gonna guarantee a ticket over here."

For the full story of Freeman street and NYC snow and ice violations, go to WNYC.

KEY: Each pin marks an address receiving at least one snow/ice violation this past winter, between 12/27/2010 and 2/25/2011. Citations dismissed as of April 1, 2011 are omitted, and some violations shown may yet be dismissed. Source: NYC Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings/Environmental Control Board

(Alex Goldmark, Transportation Nation) Here's what the NYC DOT says about rumors of a change to the traffic signals in Central Park:

"The current light synchronization for 25 mph is not a new timing plan. DOT adjusted the timing for several signals on March 26 on Central Park's drives after an inspection determined that some had fallen out of synch."

Tweaking traffic signal synchronization may not seem like hot news, but it could be a partial solution to the increasingly heated brouhaha over ticketing cyclists in Central Park for running red lights and for one day, speeding. If the lights are synched, then there will be fewer reds to run.

This morning New York Cycle Club's President Ellen Jaffe posted that she had news of the signal synchronization and that there may be other changes afoot in policing of red light running in the park. Transportation Nation is still trying to confirm that with NYPD. We'll update you if we learn anything.

This just in from the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The DOT is giving New York $3.3 million to add capacity and track along a two mile stretch in what NY and the DOT hope will eventually become part of a statewide high-speed rail network.  This is a barely more than one percent of the amount that was allocated to Florida's planned high-speed rail project before it was killed by Governor Rick Scott.

Read on for details from the DOT on this latest grant to NY. --TN

PRESS RELEASE:

U.S. Transportation Secretary LaHood Announces $3.3 Million for New York High-Speed Intercity Rail Project

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced $3.3 million for the State of New York to add track and rail capacity in the congested Upstate New York area, advancing the state’s high-speed intercity passenger rail program.

The project will relieve congestion, leading to greater reliability and faster travel times, and is necessary to achieve the faster speeds for future high-speed rail development.  The project is being funded from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

(Alex Goldmark, Transportation Nation) In the wake of a string of deadly bus accidents, a Senate hearing, and chilling preliminary findings from the NTSB, Congressman Bill Shuster (R-Penn.) has introduced a motorcoach safety bill, Wednesday. It's not the only one either.

Shuster's bill has two Democratic co-sponsors already. The Bus Uniform Standards and Enhanced Safety (BUSES) Act of 2011 calls for a tighter controls and enforcement of bus driver screening, including calling for federal oversight of state requirements for commercial licenses. What the bill does not do, is mandate safety reforms to the buses themselves by a certain date.

“My legislation also recognizes that the best safety improvements come from sound science and empirical study, not from bureaucratic government mandate,” Shuster said in a statement. Shuster's spokesman Jeff  Urbanchuk explained to Transportation Nation, "The idea here is government putting a mandate with a date certain on an entire industry generally does not work out too well."

That's in contrast to the other bus safety bill that was previously introduced, the Motorcoach Enhanced Safety Act of 2009. That bill introduced in the last session of Congress by John Lewis (D-Georgia) , along with a version in the Senate introduced by Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tx), calls for specific alterations to buses themselves, like adding seat belts, and strengthening the windows and structure of the buses to prevent passengers from being ejected during accidents.

Bus industry officials say this kind of requirement would impose a prohibitive cost burden on them and prefer voluntary safety improvements already underway.

The Brown-Hutchison bill -- like the Shuster bill -- suggests new measures for preventing unqualified drivers from getting behind the wheel of a passenger bus.

Either bill could be incorporated into the transportation reauthorization bill.

(Alex Goldmark, Transportation Nation) The number of short haul flights has declined 25 percent in the past five years due in part to higher fuel prices and increasing airport fees, leaving business travelers with fewer options. These frequent fliers are turning to other modes of transportation for trips shorter than 500 miles.

(Listen to the radio version of this story on Marketplace)

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Neil Shah used to fly eight to 15 times a month as a management consultant, but he started to feel it wasn't the best use of his time. "Getting to the airport, waiting in the security lines, the potential for delay," he said, all add up to make flying less convenient on shorter trips. From Boston to New York in particular, Shah said, he started to take the train more often because of amenities like on-board WiFi, and hassle-free last minute ticketing.

"If all things were equal, my preference would be to fly." He said he likes the affinity programs offered by airlines including frequent flier miles. "However, all of the other things have accumulated that make other means of travel just more convenient," he said.

For one, business travelers need flexibility more than other fliers. They want to be able to show up at the airport at the last minute at get right on a plane, according to Scott Gibson of ICF Skyworks, an airline advisory firm. If a meeting is canceled, or runs late, business travelers want to be able to head to the airport as soon as they can and find a flight on their timetable, not the airline's.

"So what we now find is: choice, which is really important for business travelers, is gone. So you end up sitting at airports where you used to be able to have a flight literally every hour in a lot of markets," said Gibson.

There are just fewer flights available on these short haul markets. The trend has been happening for decades, Gibson says, though a Transportation Nation analysis of Department of Transportation data show it has grown especially acute in the last half-decade. (See charts above.)

One factor is cost-per-flight. "A lot of the fuel burn is in takeoff and landing," Gibson explained. "The airplane is really efficient when it's up high in the air. And so as fuel costs have gone up, it actually impacts short-haul flights as a percent of the airfare more than it impacts long-haul flying." He added that per-passenger fees charged by airports are also increasing, often to pay for swanky redesigned terminals. So if it costs an airline an extra $25 per person per flight, that might not matter that much on a transatlantic flight, but for a trip from Phoenix to Las Vegas that could be a big percentage of the ticket cost.

In response to these cost trends, airlines have cut back on the number of flights they operate each day on short-hop routes. In some cases though, carriers are compensating by using bigger airplanes, so the net number of seats could remain the same, or even increase on some routes, while the scheduling options are curtailed.

More people are flying, but business traveler just are not flying last minute short distances as often as they used to, data show and experts like Gibson confirm.

The U.S. Department of Transportation released 2010 statistics on U.S. traffic fatalities. Last year was the safest year on American roads in recorded history with 32,788 deaths, down three percent from 2009.

Here's the official DOT release. -TN

TRAFFIC FATALITIES IN 2010 DROP TO LOWEST LEVEL IN RECORDED HISTORY

DOT Estimates Three Percent Drop Beneath 2009 Record Low

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood today announced that the number and rate of traffic fatalities in 2010 fell to the lowest levels since 1949, despite a significant increase in the number of miles Americans drove during the year.

“Last year's drop in traffic fatalities is welcome news and it proves that we can make a difference,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.  “Still, too many of our friends and neighbors are killed in preventable roadway tragedies every day. We will continue doing everything possible to make cars safer, increase seat belt use, put a stop to drunk driving and distracted driving and encourage drivers to put safety first.”

Here's the full text of the President Barack Obama's remarks on clean fleet technology. -TN

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT

ON THE CLEAN FLEET PARTNERSHIP

Landover UPS Facility, Landover, Maryland

12:33 P.M. EDT, April 1, 2011

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you.  Hello, everybody.  Thank you so much.  Everybody, please have a seat.

I am thrilled to be here, proud to be joined here today by two of our outstanding Cabinet Secretaries, Steven Chu and Ray LaHood.  Where are Steven Chu and Ray?  There they are over there.  We’re here today for a simple reason:  Ray wasn’t home when they tried to deliver a package yesterday -- (laughter) -- so we thought we’d just grab it and be on our way.  (Laughter.)  I’ve been working them too hard.

In addition to Steve and Ray, we also have the Attorney General of Maryland, Doug Gansler, is here.  (Applause.)  And we’ve got one of the finest senators in the United States Senate, from Maryland, Ben Cardin is in the house.  (Applause.)

We actually didn’t come here for -- to grab a package.  We’re actually here to announce an exciting new partnership between the federal government and some of America’s leading companies –- a partnership that will help reduce our dependence on oil, that will protect our planet, and will spur economic growth.

(Alex Goldmark, Transportation Nation) The Senate Commerce Committee held a wide-ranging hearing on motor coach safety Wednesday. You can watch an archived webcast here.

During the hearing New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg announced the company that operated one of the buses involved in this month's deadly crashes was taken out of service. National Transportation Safety Board Chair Deborah Hersman also updated the committee on federal investigations, including a mention that calls one driver's version of events into doubt.  Read the full story at WNYC.

The budget bus that crashed in the Bronx and resulted in the deaths of more than a dozen passengers was going up to 78 miles per hour when it flipped on its side, it was revealed Wednesday during a Senate committee meeting on motor coach safety in the wake of three crashes in recent weeks.

This just in. The Department of Transportation's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is taking out of service one of the two so-called Chinatown bus companies involved in deadly crashes earlier this month.

Here's the statement from DOT:

Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Places Super Luxury Tours Bus Company Out-of-Service for Violating Federal Safety Regulations

FMCSA’s Investigation of Bus Company’s Involvement in Fatal New Jersey Crash Ongoing

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) today placed Pennsylvania-based passenger bus company Super Luxury Tours out-of-service and suspended the company’s U.S. Department of Transportation operating authority for violating insurance requirements for commercial motor carriers. Under the out-of-service order, Super Luxury Tours is prohibited from operating in interstate transportation services.

“Safety is our number one priority,” said FMCSA Administrator Anne S. Ferro.  “FMCSA will use every available resource to pursue and shut down passenger bus companies that evade federal safety regulations and put motorists at risk.”

On March 14, 2011, Super Luxury Tours was involved in a fatal New Jersey Turnpike crash that killed two people. FMCSA’s investigation of the bus company’s involvement in the crash is ongoing.

(Alex Goldmark, Transportation Nation) Almost 70,000 bridges and overpasses in America are in need of serious maintenance or they could become dangerous according to a report released Wednesday by Transportation for America.

The transportation reform coalition study, The Fix We're in For: The State of the Nation's Bridges, found that "despite billions of dollars in annual federal, state and local funds directed toward the maintenance of existing bridges, 69,223 bridges – representing more than 11 percent of total highway bridges in the U.S. – are classified as “structurally deficient,” according to the Federal Highway Administration (FHA)."

Structurally deficient bridges require significant maintenance, rehabilitation or replacement and can be subject to speed and weight restrictions, but they are not unsafe. President-Elect of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Andy Herman, pointed out, "the nation has a very efficient bridge inspection system ... every bridge is inspected every two years." Unsafe bridges are shut down or emergency repairs are immediately ordered.

But the slew of structurally deficient bridges pose a major financial burden on federal and state governments, and will increase in need as time goes on. The study points to the age of America's infrastructure: the average age of an American bridge is 42 years-old. "I think we all know that America's infrastructure is decidedly middle aged," said James Corless, Director of Transportation for America, in a press conference Wednesday. "Most, when they were built, were built for about a lifespan of 50." Many bridges are already older than that. Corless says, that suggests the problem will grow in the years ahead "if we don't address this soon."

The report looked at FHA data on the nation's nearly 600,000 bridges and overpasses. Transportation for America cites FHA statistics estimating $70.9 billion needed to address the backlog of deficient bridges, "far more than what we are currently spending," according to Corless.

Herman added, "right now we're just not spending enough on our bridges. If you look at the current budget that is actually being spent, it's about $10.5 billion per year on our bridges." He cited FHA estimates that call for about $17 billion in annual bridge maintenance spending.

(Image: CC by Flickr user bearclau)

(New York -- Brian Zumhagen, WNYC) New York City's effort to create a fuel-efficient taxi fleet is getting a new legislative boost. The City's plan to require new taxi's to be  hybrids was struck down by a federal appeals court. Now, members of New York's congressional delegation are looking to change the federal law to allow cities to set their own fuel-efficiency standards for taxis. U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand says the Green Taxis Act will be re-introduced in both houses of Congress this week.

"This is a common-sense proposal that would update antiquated laws and give New York the authority, and other cities around the country the authority, to set their own fuel emissions standards," she said.

Under current law, only federal officials can regulate those standards, and that was the reason a federal appeals court rejected New York City's policy last summer. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to consider the city's appeal last month.

Gillibrand and Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) originally introduced their bill in 2009.

The Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade issued a statement saying the city can improve fuel efficiency without the legislation, if officials simply work with the taxi industry and permit owners to purchase next generation commercially-built taxis.

Via WNYC.

(Alex Goldmark, Transportation Nation) The Detroit Free Press is reporting sluggish demand for fuel-efficient cars despite gas prices climbing above $4-per gallon in many parts of the country.

The Free Press: "Hybrid car sales actually shrunk from 2.9 percent of new vehicle sales in 2009 to 2.4 percent last year. Sales of light trucks -- pickups, SUVs, crossovers and minivans -- rose to 51 percent from 48 percent over the same period."

Car companies have to meet government standards for fleet-wide fuel efficiency. Meeting those targets requires increasing sales of  smaller cars with higher miles-per-gallon performance, and hybrids, which earn carmakers credits under the system.

The government's average fuel economy standards call for a fleet-wide average of 35.5 m.p.g. by 2016. "The 2010 average of all new vehicles actually slipped to 22.2 m.p.g. from 22.3 m.p.g." the Free Press reports.

For a sense of sales numbers of the newest generation of electric cars as compared to SUVs The Free Press offers this: "In the first two months of the year, Chevrolet sold 602 Volts while Nissan sold 154 Leafs. In the same period, by contrast, Cadillac sold 2,793 Escalades and Lincoln sold 1,193 Navigators."