New England Depot: May 2015

Sunday, May 31, 2015

Vintage View: Belmont MA Boston & Maine Station

New Hampshire - Commuter Rail Service Alone 'does not create jobs'

A commuter rail connecting Boston to Manchester probably wouldn’t create jobs on its own, according to a study released yesterday by the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy.

The conservative-leaning center’s report flouted the notion that commuter rail is a tool to spur job creation and instead found that passenger rail can influence growth where already planned investments will happen.

The study strikes a different tone than the Capitol Corridor Rail Study released earlier this year, which was paid for with federal money and found that a commuter line with stops in Nashua and Manchester would bring thousands of new jobs to New Hampshire. Rail advocates are currently calling on the Senate to restore $4 million for commuter rail engineering and planning work that the House stripped from Gov. Maggie Hassan’s capital budget.

The study’s conclusions were based on an analysis of projects in California, Missouri and Pennsylvania, and the Amtrak Downeaster line that runs 10 times a day between Boston and Maine with stops in Exeter, Durham and Dover.

“I like seeing people who are worried and thinking New Hampshire needs more people who are employed, and it would be great if it would create jobs, but the track record kind of speaks for itself,” said Josh Elliott-Traficante, a policy analyst at the Bartlett Center.

Elliott-Traficante used U.S. Census Data from the three New Hampshire towns with stops on the Downeaster to look at job creation. Though the line isn’t technically a commuter rail, the study used it as a functional equivalent, offering multiple departures a day and running over a fairly short distance. Since the Downeaster began running in 2001, Exeter has lost about 300 jobs since the commuter rail started running, while Dover has gained about 1,000 jobs. The number of jobs in Durham remained the same.

The study also looked at the Coaster commuter rail line near San Diego, which is roughly the same length as the Manchester/Boston proposal and connects similarly sized cities. There were minor gains in value for some types of residential property, but commercial property values fell nearly 10 percent, the report said.

“More or less, the studies we looked at came up with the answer that there are benefits to it in certain areas, but by and large it doesn’t really create jobs,” Elliott-Traficante said.

The Capitol Corridor Rail Study, released in February, said a Boston/Manchester line would draw 668,000 riders annually. It would also create 5,600 permanent jobs supporting 3,600 new residential units along the corridor by 2030, the study said. From then on, the expansion of passenger rail would create 1,700 new jobs every year, the study said.

“The New Hampshire Rail Transit Authority, the Greater Nashua and Manchester Chambers of Commerce, the hundreds of companies they represent and a growing bi-partisan coalition of elected officials believe that rail can play a key role in jumpstarting New Hampshire’s economy,” said Michael Izbicki, chairman of the New Hampshire Rail Transit Authority, in a statement. “The result of an extensive two-year study on the expansion of passenger rail service along the 73 mile NH Capitol Corridor conducted by globally recognized transportation experts support(s) those assertions.”

Rail alone isn’t the sole answer for solving the state’s economic woes, but it is a part of a system that could be a catalyst for growth, he said.

“However a complete multimodal transportation network that includes passenger rail could serve as a catalyst to promote economic development and should not be dismissed outright because it requires public investment,” Izbicki said.

Removal of Old Rail Ties First Step in Cleanup

(SOURCE: Daily Hampshire Gazette)

Load by load, old railroad ties that pose a fire hazard are being hauled away in Northampton and Holyoke MA, days after a Northampton lawmaker called for the state Department of Transportation to act. Now that it has acknowledged the problem, the DOT must accelerate the removal of ties along the entire rail corridor.

State Rep. Peter V. Kocot, who contacted transportation officials after reading a May 11 Gazette story about debris and rail ties along the Pan Am Railways line, said he wants to get all parties involved in the $131 million track renovation project to meet and plan a cleanup.

Rather than vague dates earlier cited by the DOT, a specific timetable is needed and railroad contractors must be held to deadlines. Pan Am Railways has not responded to Gazette requests for information about its plan to clear away old ties and unsightly piles of discarded construction material.

Until the estimated 95,000 used ties are gone, they continue to pose a threat to the public. Just this month, a major brush fire in Athol spread to abandoned rail ties that when ignited produced heavy smoke and forced state officials to issue an air-quality alert. Rail ties contain creosote and oils and are considered a heavy fuel source for fire.

The state DOT says ties will be removed from within Northampton by the end of June. But that addresses only part of the problem. While it makes sense to focus first on Northampton and Holyoke, due to the dense development along the line, rail ties piled along other sections of the route also pose risks to public safety. It is unacceptable that the DOT, according to a statement to the Gazette by spokeswoman Amanda Richard, plans to allow cleanup work to continue for the remainder of the year.

Pan Am Railways for years ignored requests by the city of Holyoke to remove debris considered a fire hazard from several locations in that city. Someone got the company’s attention this past week, though. Steps to start a cleanup in Northampton and Holyoke show that the state, which is overseeing the project, can get the job done if pushed to do the right thing.

More pushing is needed. Kocot is working with the office of U.S. Rep. James McGovern to get the rail company to the table to provide these sorts of answers. State Rep. Stephen Kulik, D-Worthington, says he wants the state fire marshal’s office to attend this meeting as well to, as he said, “bring some extra heft to the conversation and put some pressure on MassDOT to understand the fire hazard situation.” Quick work by lawmakers to address this problem serves people across the region.

Firefighters in Three NH Communities Battled Brush Fires Along Railroad Track

(SOURCE: Union Leader)

MANCHESTER — Four brush fires along railroad tracks late Wednesday afternoon in Merrimack, Bedford and Manchester remain under investigation, a state forest ranger said.

Ranger Doug Miner of the state Division of Forests and Lands said the first fire was reported in Bedford at 5:06 p.m., followed by a blaze spotted in Merrimack about 5:15 p.m. and then two fires along the tracks in Manchester.

At the time, a Pan Am Railways train, which had 20 cars hauling telephone poles, lumber and other goods, was making its way north on the tracks.

The train stopped behind Northeast Delta Dental Stadium in Manchester to change crews, according to Miner.

A B&M police officer, Miner said, told him the crew reported seeing brush fires along the tracks as it headed north.

Miner said Pan Am sent a mechanic to check the diesel engine and to clean out the smoke stack. When the train was restarted, he said, sparks were emitted.

"It's a little early to make any conclusions," Miner said.

He explained there were many people walking along and across the tracks in Manchester, which is prohibited.

District Fire Chief Al Poulin said there were two brush fires, one near Riverdale Avenue and the other near Gay Street, both along the Merrimack River and the railroad tracks.

About 25 minutes earlier, a brush fire on Railroad Avenue in Merrimack burned about 1½ acres, Poulin said. The fourth fire was in the area of 59 Iron Horse Drive in Bedford.

Less than an acre was burned in the two fires in Manchester, Poulin said.

He said, it took 10 to 15 firefighters to extinguish the blazes. He said drought conditions and heavy snow the past few winters have left woodlands filled with dry bone brush and broken tree limbs.

"What happens, because conditions are so dry, is the fire deep-seeds itself in the underbrush and burns in the ground," he said. The trees are so dry and broken that they easily catch fire.

"The woodlands are basically just a tinderbox, far more than normal," Poulin said.

For safety reasons, the firefighters cut down the trees that were charred and burned and dug up the area of the brush fire because flames are known to hide deep inside the ground.

About 1:45 p.m. firefighters put out a much larger brush fire in the Upland Street area, where several acres burned.

Poulin said investigators determined the fire was caused by a man who was burning personal files in the woods. In that blaze, two forestry units, four-wheel drive vehicles modified with pumps and other firefighting equipment, were brought in along with five other pieces of equipment.

The district chief explained the city's usual fire trucks are too heavy to go into wooded areas. - See more at: http://www.unionleader.com/article/20150528/NEWS07/150529160#sthash.7AGfJtB9.dpuf

MANCHESTER — Four brush fires along railroad tracks late Wednesday afternoon in Merrimack, Bedford and Manchester remain under investigation, a state forest ranger said.

Ranger Doug Miner of the state Division of Forests and Lands said the first fire was reported in Bedford at 5:06 p.m., followed by a blaze spotted in Merrimack about 5:15 p.m. and then two fires along the tracks in Manchester.

At the time, a Pan Am Railways train, which had 20 cars hauling telephone poles, lumber and other goods, was making its way north on the tracks.

The train stopped behind Northeast Delta Dental Stadium in Manchester to change crews, according to Miner.

A B&M police officer, Miner said, told him the crew reported seeing brush fires along the tracks as it headed north.

Miner said Pan Am sent a mechanic to check the diesel engine and to clean out the smoke stack. When the train was restarted, he said, sparks were emitted.

"It's a little early to make any conclusions," Miner said.

He explained there were many people walking along and across the tracks in Manchester, which is prohibited.

District Fire Chief Al Poulin said there were two brush fires, one near Riverdale Avenue and the other near Gay Street, both along the Merrimack River and the railroad tracks.

About 25 minutes earlier, a brush fire on Railroad Avenue in Merrimack burned about 1½ acres, Poulin said. The fourth fire was in the area of 59 Iron Horse Drive in Bedford.

Less than an acre was burned in the two fires in Manchester, Poulin said.

He said, it took 10 to 15 firefighters to extinguish the blazes. He said drought conditions and heavy snow the past few winters have left woodlands filled with dry bone brush and broken tree limbs.

"What happens, because conditions are so dry, is the fire deep-seeds itself in the underbrush and burns in the ground," he said. The trees are so dry and broken that they easily catch fire.

"The woodlands are basically just a tinderbox, far more than normal," Poulin said.

For safety reasons, the firefighters cut down the trees that were charred and burned and dug up the area of the brush fire because flames are known to hide deep inside the ground.

About 1:45 p.m. firefighters put out a much larger brush fire in the Upland Street area, where several acres burned.

Poulin said investigators determined the fire was caused by a man who was burning personal files in the woods. In that blaze, two forestry units, four-wheel drive vehicles modified with pumps and other firefighting equipment, were brought in along with five other pieces of equipment.

The district chief explained the city's usual fire trucks are too heavy to go into wooded areas. - See more at: http://www.unionleader.com/article/20150528/NEWS07/150529160#sthash.7AGfJtB9.dpuf

PAT GROSSMITH

Construction Equipment Falls Through Bridge onto Revere MBTA Tracks

(SOURCE: WCVB.com)

REVERE, Mass. A piece of construction equipment fell from a Revere bridge onto nearby train tracks on Saturday morning.

An excavator fell from a bridge on Route 145 westbound at Route 16 in Revere onto nearby train tracks during scheduled demolition at around 6:25 a.m, according to Massachusetts Department of Transportation officials.

During demolition a floor beam of the bridge shifted and caused the excavator to tip, according to MassDOT officials.

Crews used cranes to stabilize the side of the bridge being demolished and removed the excavator by about 12:30 p.m., according to MassDOT.

The operator of the excavator was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital with a laceration to the head, according to police. The injury is not considered serious.

Police identified the operator as a 50-year-old man from West Bridgewater, but did not release his name.

Commuter rail officials said service would not be impacted by the incident, as buses were set to replace trains between Lynn and Boston on the Newburyport line this weekend due to construction.

MassDOT officials said they do not expect the incident to affect the bridge's reopening on Monday

Massachusetts Senate Agrees to State Study of Boston-Springfield Rail

(SOURCE: MassLive - By Shira Schoenberg)

BOSTON — The Massachusetts Senate has adopted an amendment that would require the state to study the feasibility of developing high-speed rail between Boston and Springfield.

"This study will be a first step toward establishing a rail link between Boston and Springfield," said State Sen. Eric Lesser, D-Longmeadow, who sponsored the amendment. "For our economy in the Pioneer Valley to grow, we need to connect ourselves to the red-hot growth we've seen in other parts of the state. Rail will help make that happen."

The amendment was adopted on voice vote on Thursday as the Senate finished debating its $38.1 billion budget. The budget must still go through a committee of House and Senate negotiators.

The amendment would require the Department of Transportation to look at the costs and economic opportunities related to developing high-speed rail between Springfield and Boston. The study must look at capital costs, operating costs and revenue estimates, projected ridership, required upgrades, environmental impacts, availability of outside funding sources and general benefits to Springfield and the state. The report would be due Dec. 1, 2016.

The amendment was based on a similar bill that Lesser sponsored, which was backed by several Western Massachusetts lawmakers.

Maine Train Advocate Aays Downeaster Engineers Vigilant About Speed Limit

(SOURCE: Portland Press Herald - Dennis Hoey)

The leader of a train advocacy group in Maine said an accident like the fatal crash in Philadelphia on Tuesday night is unlikely on the Amtrak Downeaster because engineers on the service between Brunswick and Boston are vigilant about not exceeding the line’s 79 mph speed limit.

Wayne Davis, chairman of TrainRiders/Northeast, said Wednesday night that the Downeaster can go up to 125 mph, but the current track configuration can not safely accommodate speeds higher than 79 mph, and only in certain sections.

The train that crashed in Philadelphia, killing at least seven people and injuring more than 200, had been going 106 mph before it went off the rails on a curve where the speed limit is 50 mph.

Davis wouldn’t speculate on why the engineer in Philadelphia was traveling more than twice the speed limit, but said Downeaster engineers are keenly aware of the 79 mph rule and know where they must go slower.

“An engineer is not about to mess with federal law,” he said. “No one in their right mind would exceed the (79 mph) speed limit.”

All Amtrak engineers are monitored by GPS tracking systems, according to Patricia Quinn, executive director of the Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority, which contracts with Amtrak to operate the Downeaster.

“Keeping to the required speed limits is something that is strictly monitored and enforced,” Quinn said Wednesday night. “They take these regulations and rules very seriously. There are many checks and balances.”

She wasn’t aware of any Downeaster engineers being cited for speed violations.

Despite Tuesday’s tragic crash, Davis remains convinced in the safety and efficiency of rail travel and would someday like to see the Downeaster be authorized to travel up to 110 mph. He believes that, with the proper upgrades, running faster trains between Brunswick, Portland and Boston would increase ridership.

“All it would take is for Congress to allocate the money,” Davis said, acknowledging that the rail line would have to undergo major improvements, such as a new signaling system and track upgrades. “It’s our goal to someday raise the Amtrak Downeaster speed to 110 mph. Time is money to people.”

By making the trip from Portland to Boston much quicker – it now takes the Downeaster about 2 hours, 25 minutes – more people would take the train, Davis said. The 110 mph speed could reduce the trip to two hours. An express going that speed and making two stops would arrive in just over an hour, Davis said.

TrainRiders/Northeast is a nonprofit that was formed in 1989 to bring modern and efficient passenger rail service to Northern New England.

Quinn is skeptical that the funds needed to upgrade the Portland to Boston rail line to allow higher speeds will become available in the near future.

“It’s not something we are pursuing,” she said.

MBTA Union Vows Fight Over Baker’s Plan for Agency

(SOURCE: Boston Globe - By David Scharfenberg)

The MBTA’s largest employee union is vowing to sue the state, or petition the federal government to cut off millions of dollars in aid for the agency, if state lawmakers approve a key provision of Governor Charlie Baker’s T overhaul plan.

Union officials argue the proposal, which would give a new Baker-appointed board final approval of labor contracts, runs afoul of a federal law designed to protect the collective bargaining rights of the nation’s public transit employees.

Specifically, the governor’s board would be able to reject the binding ruling of a neutral arbitrator, an arrangement used for decades to decide MBTA contract disputes.

James M. O’Brien, president of the Boston Carmen’s Union Local 589, said he does not relish the idea of choking off federal transportation funds. But the governor’s plan, he said, amounts to a reckless and fundamentally unfair shift in the bargaining process.

“It doesn’t make sense,” he said, of Baker’s push. “You’re [risking] hundreds of millions of dollars in grants.”

State official lobbies for changes at MBTA

Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack asked lawmakers for a range of changes at the MBTA.

Baker administration officials play down the risk. They note the courts have given states wide latitude to alter public transit labor policy and they argue their proposed change is a modest, procedural one rather than a substantial blow to collective bargaining.

Tim Buckley, a spokesman for the governor, said the administration “is confident that the limited changes that we have proposed” will be approved by the federal government. And he hinted that the state, after passage of the law, could simply rewrite it if the federal government moved to withhold funds and the courts upheld the move.

“The administration will not forfeit any available federal dollars under any circumstances,” he said.

The conflict, if it comes to a head, would be the latest in a string of high-stakes fights over workers’ rights and federal funding for mass transit — some breaking for labor and some for management.

Wisconsin lawmakers, fearing losing millions in federal funding, exempted certain transit workers from Governor Scott Walker’s high-profile push to roll back public employees’ collective bargaining rights four years ago.

But in California, a federal judge ruled in February that US Labor Secretary Thomas Perez had gone too far in cutting off funds for transit agencies in that state after the Legislature passed a pension reform law that trimmed benefits for transit employees, among others.

The disputes here and elsewhere turn on a transportation law signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 that launched an era of substantial federal funding for the nation’s transit system.

One section of the legislation requires the US labor secretary to certify that a public transit agency is protecting its employees’ collective bargaining rights before the federal government disburses funds.

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority and its unions came to a 20-page agreement in 1974 meant to satisfy the requirements of the law. The secretary has repeatedly cited it, in the decades since, to authorize federal grants for the agency.

The agreement, among other things, mandates that labor disputes should be settled by arbitration procedures set out in any “then-applicable collective bargaining agreement.”

The current Carmen’s agreement mandates binding arbitration when the union and the T come to an impasse in contract negotiations — allowing a neutral arbitrator to impose changes in wages and benefits.

Baker’s legislation, now before the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Transportation, would give a new MBTA fiscal and management control board the right to approve or deny any arbitrator’s award.

Douglas Taylor, a lawyer representing the Carmen’s union, said the move would make the arbitration no longer binding, giving veto power to management and fundamentally altering the balance of power between the T and its workers.

“Collective bargaining means co-determination,” he said. “Co-determination means that both sides have a say. . . . Binding arbitration accomplishes that. It does it in an imperfect way. . . . But at least each side’s got an equal shot.”

Baker officials maintain they are not doing away with binding arbitration but merely adding another step to the process. They point out that, under state law, city councils, town councils, and town meetings have the right to vote up or down on arbitrators’ awards for police and fire contracts.

Harold Lichten, a labor lawyer who represents unions, said the police and fire system works “relatively well.” But he said there is a difference between giving a representative body such as a city council veto power and handing that authority to an arm of the executive branch.

“I think by giving the governor veto power, it really does render fairly meaningless the whole process,” said Lichten, who has represented a union of mid-level managers at the T.

Joseph E. Slater, a professor at the University of Toledo College of Law who has written about public sector labor law, said in an e-mail that he has “never heard of a body that is that directly involved in day-to-day managing having the power to reject a contract ordered by an . . . arbitrator.”

A spokesman for the US Department of Labor declined to comment on the debate in Massachusetts.

Supporters of Baker’s proposal say binding arbitration has long favored the T’s unions. In their view, the changes would help rein in costs.

“There is no chance that the state government will be able to bring T costs under control unless they address this question of binding arbitration,” said Gregory Sullivan, research director for the conservative-leaning Pioneer Institute, who testified before the Legislature in favor of the measure.

Sullivan and administration officials add that the courts have given states broad discretion to alter transit labor policy. But Taylor said effectively eliminating binding arbitration — particularly for a union that does not have the right to strike — would be such a blow to collective bargaining that the courts would be compelled to side with the union.

And whatever the legality of the move, he noted, the union could go to the US secretary of labor and attempt to block federal grants for the T, arguing the state is not protecting workers’ collective bargaining rights.

The federal Labor Department does not always side with the unions. In the 1980s it sided with the state in a dispute over management rights such as the power to hire part-time workers. But when T unions objected to a 2009 state attempt to change workers’ health care plan, federal officials sided with labor and directed both sides to negotiate a resolution.