Transportation Nation

(Billings, MT - Jackie Yamanaka, Yellowstone Public Radio) -- This is Bike to Work Week across America.  There are refreshments, discounts at businesses, and benefits for bike commuters around the country.  While commuters getting those perks and marking this moment hopefully enjoy the change in routine, there's also a population in the working world doing their job on a bike.  One of them is office Shane Winden of the Billings Police Department (left).  Riding on the job can't stop him from changing bikes and riding home from work.  Hear why.

Toyota pays $16.4 million over recall of sticking gas pedals (nyt)
Civil fine is the largest allowed, but car company avoids admitting fault.  Hey, the proceeds go to the Treasury!

DOT to expand cellphone ban to all who work on commuter trains (kpcc)
Rail operators are already prohibited -- this would extend the ban to conductors, switchmen, and other crew members.

New iPhone app will find you a parking place in San Franciscio (Chronicle)
Tool will find spaces, provide rates and meter info.  Will drivers spend less time in traffic, or become more distracted?

This was supposed to be the year of the mighty Transportation Reauthorization in Congress, and Jim Oberstar (D-Minn.) was supposed to get his chance to write the six-year, $500 billion plan for the nation's transportation and infrastructure.  But the signs are looking dimmer that something will get done.  One of them is this piece by Elana Schor on Politico.

Among the choice quotes is “I don’t know why they [the White House] don’t want to move forward” on a new highway bill, Oberstar’s top lieutenant, Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), lamented in a recent interview. “Somewhere in the bowels of the White House economic team, they said, ‘Hey, we don’t want to deal with transportation."

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(The Woodlands, Texas -- Wendy Siegle, KUHF News Lab) -- Houston has long been an oil man's town and a booming city that loves its cars and parking lots.  That's changing.  Just to the north, in The Woodlands, a tony suburb, people like 64-year old David Hitchcock are adding up the benefits of biking to work.  “Bicycles are really the most efficient way to travel. On my trip to work this morning, which is about seven miles, I used about 360 calories. I did the math when I got to work and found out that’s about 775-thousand miles per gallon for the equivalent energy in a gallon of gasoline."  With Hitchcock's help, The Woodlands may earn recognition in the Bicycle Friendly Community Program, a nationwide distinction previously placed on places like Portland, Davis, California and yes, Austin.

Take a listen inside the movement, as a community takes on traffic, bike paths and a new way of getting around Texas.

That's right: go to Billings, Montana and the bikes, helmets and locks are free to pedal around downtown during the day.  It's a project run not by B-Cycle, or another company launching big city bike shares in the U.S., but the Downtown Billings Alliance.  Joe Stout of the Alliance says they hope locals will "think bike" for the short trips that people would usually do in their car at lunchtime.  "You don't have to be Lance Armstrong to ride your bike to the grocery store and get a backpack full of groceries," he says.  Hear more from Yellowstone Public Radio's Jackie Yamanaka.

7th and H Streets in Northwest D.C, where pedestrians can now cross in any way they please. (photo: David Schultz, WAMU News)

(Washington, DC - David Schultz, WAMU News) - Transportation pros in Washington think about 27,000 people and 26,000 cars use 7th and H Streets in Northwest D.C. every day.  Getting them to avoid each other safely is a challenge, and there's no sign that city officials are giving up.

This week, they changed traffic patterns at 7th and H Streets to allow pedestrians to cross any way they like at regular intervals.  The approach is called the pedestrian scramble or "Barnes Dance," after traffic engineer Henry Barnes, who first set up the pattern in Kansas City.  These days, it's being used from London to Tokyo.  Hear how DC pedestrians are taking to their new freedom to jaywalk.

Over the next four years, the Brooklyn Bridge will undergo more than $500 million worth of upgrades.  It's a sign of how the City of New York, and the world loves the 127-year old span.  And so WNYC is asking you to watch as the work begins, in an effort to keep an eye on how the bridge changes, and to celebrate its many uses.  For these two, it was a wedding spot on a rainy day last July.  Keep up on how the bridge is changing, browse photos, and submit your own here.

(Collin Campbell, Transportation Nation) - Ever since President Obama announced billions in funding for high-speed rail projects in the U.S. early this year, the excitement over a transformation of transportation has built.  But the projects being funded by that money have also abused the definition of "high-speed" a bit.  Most of the money is going to improving on-time performance in places like Chicago and Seattle, as well as speeding up trains across the country, and not to rates that will blow your socks off.

And even the marquee high-speed rail projects in California and Florida aren't likely to deliver what Secretary Ray LaHood called "the thrill of a lifetime" today.  That's him above riding a MAGLEV train in Japan (above), with Central Japan Railway Chairman Yoshiaki Kasai.  It's a train that actually floats above its rails, and can hit over 350 mph.  Japan only has a short route running now -- it's incredibly expensive to build -- by they plan to have a web, speedily connecting major cities by mid-century.  The technology has been universally ruled too expensive to build in the U.S., at least with stimulus funds.

It's technology and photo-ops like this that Central Japan Railway, the company making MAGLEV and other high-speed trains for export to the U.S., hopes will get it the multi-million dollar contracts to set up the California and Florida's rail systems.  They've also hired people like Richard Lawless, a seasoned veteran of the CIA and State Department, to navigate the corridors of Washington and get federal backing to beat off competing proposals from Spain's Talgo or Germany's Siemens.  The world is still waiting to hear who will build America's (semi) high-speed future.

A rare, empty moment on the platform of DC's Metro (photo: David Schultz, WAMU News)

(Washington, DC - David Schultz, WAMU News) -- There are all sorts of interesting tidbits in the Brookings Institution's new study, "State of Metropolitan America." Here's one of them:

From 2000 to 2008, the percentage of commuters in the Washington D.C. region who use public transit to get to and from work grew faster than in almost any city in the country. Only New York City's percentage grew faster.

The D.C. area's Metro system has strained mightily to keep up with this rising demand. It's one of the only big-city transit systems in the country that doesn't enjoy a dedicated funding source. Consequently, Metro never really knows how much revenue it's going to have from year to year.

The Brookings Institution's Emilia Istrate says this is one of the first things Metro needs to change for it to be able to handle more ridership growth in the future.

To hear what else she has to say, check out WAMU's coverage of the Brookings study.

The nation has gone through dramatic demographic and economic change over the last 10 years, in what history may end up calling the "lost decade" because jobs and economic change didn't keep pace.  That loss is coming home to roost now, says the Brookings Institution, which has turned its gaze and powers of analysis to The State of Metropolitan America.  One focus is on commuting, where the latest Census data and research points to a small drop in the number of people driving alone to work.  There is also a stark illustration of transit use: in only two major U.S. do more than one-quarter of residents do something besides drive to work alone (they are SF and NYC).

Today on The Takeaway, Bruce Katz, the Director of Brookings' Metropolitan Policy Program, shares his findings.  Among them, "if we keep building out low-density sprawl -- subsidized, frankly by government -- people won't choose a (transit) option."  Steve Dutch, Professor of Applied and Natural Sciences at the University of Wisconsin Green-Bay shares his research and views on why people don't use mass transit.  More.

Photo by Laurence via Flickr

Phil Pagano had been the Executive Director of Metra, Chicago's commuter rail since 1990.  In the last few years, the service has been expanding, across the six counties around Chicago, with plans on the horizon to stretch train track to Milwaukee.  But Phil Pagano was allegedly rewarding himself for this boom as well.  During an emergency meeting last week, Metra's board placed him on paid leave and hired an independent attorney to probe an unauthorized $56,000 bonus that he paid himself.  There were also concerns about more serious allegations of official misconduct -- in recent weeks, the federal DOT and Senator Dick Durbin were also encouraging an investigation.

This morning, Pagano jumped in front of an oncoming train and killed himself, sources tell Chicago media.  More from Chicago Public Radio and the Sun-Times.

(New York - Collin Campbell, Transportation Nation) -- It's a strange sight, the bright blue uniforms of the agents who run the long lines and security machinery at airports, down in the crush of the New York City subway.  But here they are, the men and women of the Department of Homeland Security's Transportation Security Administration.  For now -- there are two teams working with the NYPD to check the bags of transit passengers.  This summer, the city and the federal government will discuss adding more.

"We're currently working with Amtrak and freight rail as well," said John P. Sammon, Assistant Administrator with the TSA's office of Transportation Sector Network Management.  "So no, there are not limits on which modes of transportation the TSA can work on securing." 

(Houston, TX - Melissa Galvez, KUHF News Lab) -- If you don’t have a car in Houston, life can be very difficult.  So you might think that communities would be clamoring to get the new light rail line through their neighborhood; but in fact, there’s been opposition across the city, even as construction plows ahead on 3 of 5 proposed new lines. Concerns about eminent domain, gentrification, danger to children—even a tree—stand in the way of a harmonious ground-breaking.  But other residents welcome rail with open arms.  They look around at their crumbling neighborhoods and hope the train will being the economic development they so desperately need.  A look at the perhaps unlikely outlines of the light rail debate.

Thirty-six year old Scott Walker has played all over the National Hockey League -- Vancouver, Nashville, Raleigh. This year, the journeyman arrived on the Washington Capitals. He hoped he'd get another appearance in the Stanley Cup playoffs, and he did. But his wife and kids stayed behind, and kept the car in Raleigh. So how does Walker get to work? Takes the DC Metro, it turns out.

Below, Walker describes his first ride. Turns out DC's distance-based fare system flummoxed him a bit. When he got off the train near Verizon Center, where the Caps play, he had it easy though -- just follow all the jersey-wearing fans and you'll find your way to work, buddy.

This story doesn't have a happy ending, though: the Capitals were eliminated last night by Montreal, ending one of the most-hyped and star-studded runs at the Stanley Cup. Walker, Alex Ovechkin and the rest of the Capitals have a hot DC summer to ride the train and think about what today is being called the "Capital Collapse."

The jury deciding the fate of the New York police officer who shoved a biker has gone home after a second day of deliberations.  Rookie officer Patrick Pogan faces seven counts for knocking cyclist Christopher Long to the street during a Critical Mass ride, and then lying about it in the police paperwork he filed on the incident.  After this video hit the web, it didn't seem like the trial or the verdict would take long.  But a sick juror slowed things down today.  We'll be waiting for the verdict tomorrow.

Jay Sitter, the sales manager for The Electric Vehicle Store in St. Louis Park, sells the $19,000 Wheego Whip, a 35 mph speed vehicle for neighborhood commuting. (MPR Photo/Dan Olson)

(Minneapolis, MN - Dan Olson, MPR News) -- Nissan and GM hope to electrify the auto market with the Leaf and Volt models this fall, both of which run on batteries that can be recharged by plugging into household 100-volt outlets.  But those cars will only be available on the West Coast to begin with, where consumers have been speedy adapters and consumers of green technologies.

But out in Minnesota, drivers aren't waiting.  The Wheego Whip, a fire-engine red, two-seat electric vehicle that runs about $19,000 is already on sale at the Electric Vehicle Store in St. Louis Park, Minnesota.  It won't go more than 35 mph, but may satisfy environmentally-conscious drivers satisfied with a city-driving lifestyle.  Still, electric vehicles of any type will have to go farther to be green.  Sixty-four percent of Minnesota's energy comes from burning coal.  Hear what it's like to ride in a Wheego, and how Minnesotans size up the electric car future.

(Collin Campbell, Transportation Nation, April 26) The Secretary of Transportation mentions his fight against distracted driving once a day, it seems -- his tenure will certainly be marked by this effort against drivers and their cell phones. In a sign of how tough that fight is amidst our tech-loaded lives though, the FAA announced today that it's bulking up crew training requirements to address temptations in the air. “Every aviation professional needs to take distractions in the cockpit seriously,” said FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt. Who can forget to two Northwest pilots who flew past their destination because they were playing with personal laptops. Who writes the tickets at 30,000 feet?

(Collin Campbell, Transportation Nation, April 26) We're following the changes in how public transit projects are planned and funded under the Obama Administration's DOT, which has made it quite clear that it wants to see new lines and routes serve wide groups of riders, especially those traditionally underserved. Nathanael Johnson of KALW News has been following BART's efforts in San Francisco to reconnect with the community, after its plans failed to meet new criteria and lost $70 million.

Guillermo Mayer is the lawyer who fought BART and found himself backed by a new White House. He won, and is now looking at ways the new Transportation Reauthorization in Congress can be used to fund this kind of civil rights argument for transit. "This breathes life back into Title VI Civil Rights enforcement," Mayer said. "We didn’t win much under Bush."

Today on The Takeaway, Mayer said "at this time we're pretty much seeing transit service in the Bay Area get decimated. The buses are running with much longer headways. They're much more expensive to ride now. Transit drivers are being laid off." And so why should agencies be building expensive new ways for well-off riders to get to the airport?

The BART system map. A recent expansion lost federal funding because it failed to serve local communities.

(San Francisco - Nathanael Johnson, KALW News) -- Earlier this year, the Federal Transit Administration determined that the way BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit in California) was doing business did not comply with the Civil Rights Act. The main problem? Basically BART was planning expensive projects without asking the low-income people (over whose neighborhoods the trains would pass) what they wanted. Because of those violations, BART lost $70 million that the federal government had set aside for a proposed line to the Oakland Airport.

Now, BART is trying to come into compliance with the law. To do that, it held 18 meetings around the Bay Area, making an effort to listen to people BART doesn't usually hear from: low-income, minority, and non-English speaking riders. The idea is to develop a better public participation plan. If the FTA likes this plan it BART will be on its way to repairing relations with the federal government.

(Collin Campbell, Transportation Nation) --Assemblymember Diane Harkey had a good narrative going.  Before going into government, she was a banker.  She majored in economics in college.  She has been raising the red flag over California's bad bond rating and endless borrowing in Sacramento earlier and more loudly than many of her colleagues.

So, as she searched for ways to help right the ship of spending, she settled on the $9.95 billion in voter-approved bonds for high-speed rail.  Huge amounts of the money has yet to be spent.  A rarely-used article of the California Constitution allowed her to propose a reduction in the amount of borrowing for the project.  And so she did -- AB 2121 could have taken more than $9 billion out of the project's bank.

Today, her effort failed.  Assembly Democrats (Harkey is a Republican) amended her bill to save the bonds, but added stiffer requirements.  "The amendments basically present a six-year finance plan, so that we know what it is we're doing," Harkey said.  If passed, it would add more financial reporting, tracking mechanisms and long-term financial planning to the project.  The move shows two important things: the state is strapped and the California High-Speed Rail Authority cannot stumble in the footsteps of projects like the Bay Bridge, which went dramatically over cost.  Second, Markey, who is friendly with Tea Party people in her district, may represent forces Democrats everywhere will be listening to this year.  Even this proposal, in climate-conscious and transit-loving California, may face questions about the green of the money it costs before the green of the environmental impact it promises to have on the state's climate.