The urban rail OUTLOOK - Industry Overview

Railway Age, Feb, 1999 by Julian Wolinsky, William D. Middleton

With the powerful push towards the new millennium represented by the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21), which authorized a record $42 billion for transit over a six-year period, Congress assured a continuation well into the first decade of the new century of the steady expansion of rail transit systems that has been under way for the last several decades. Here's a summary of urban rail transit expansion in progress or planned all over North America.

BOSTON METROPOLITAN AREA

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority is studying an Urban Ring circumferential transit corridor that would intercept the agency's radial rail routes that converge on the city center, permitting MBTA to better serve riders moving between origin and destination points outside the city center and shifting some traffic from congested downtown routes. Last year's TEA-21 legislation authorized $50 million for a proposed extension of MBTA's Blue Line metro in a north shore corridor to Beverly that would cost anywhere from $250 million to $350 million. The project would involve a conversion of existing MBTA commuter rail tracks to metro operation.

NEW YORK METROPOLITAN AREA

MTA New York City Transit is completing studies for two projects that could represent the first major extensions to the New York subway system in several decades. A Manhattan East Side Alternatives Study is considering alternatives that will add capacity to Manhattan's East Side area. One alternative under consideration is a new Second Avenue subway that would extend from 125th Street to 63rd Street, where it would join the Broadway line, A second alternative includes the same subway segment, plus a light rail line beginning at 14th Street that would serve the lower East Side.

Also due for completion late this quarter is an alternatives analysis for a long-sought subway extension to the LaGuardia Airport in Queens. Alternatives under consideration include an extension of the Astoria elevated N Line to the airport via 19th Avenue, and a branch from the N Line at Queensboro Plaza Station that would follow Sunnyside Yard, Amtrak's intercity line to New England, and Grand Central Parkway to the airport.

New York's other two principal airports are even closer to getting rail transit connections. The Port Authority held ground-breaking ceremonies in mid-September for on-airport construction for its $1.5 billion, 8.4-mile automated light rail Airtrain line that will link the John F. Kennedy Internatinonal Airport with rail transit lines. In New Jersey, the Port Authority and New Jersey Transit are constructing a $415 million extension of Newark International Airport's monorail line to a new Northeast Corridor intermodal rail station that will be served by Amtrak and NJ Transit trains.

In New Jersey, too, construction continues under a fast-paced $1.1 billion design-build-operate-maintain (DBOM) contract for an initial segment of New Jersey Transit's 20.5-mile Hudson-Bergen Light Rail Transit System, expected to open for revenue service on March 1,2000. NJ Transit has also awarded contracts for a half-mile extension of the City Subway rail line to a new vehicle maintenance facility now under construction in Bloomfield.

Consultants Parsons Brinckerhoff-BRW, Inc. have begun final design for still another NJ Transit light rail project. An FTA record of decision was received last November for an initial operating segment of the 8.8-mile, $640 million Newark-Elizabeth Rail Link.

PHILADELPHIA METROPOLITAN AREA

The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority continues work on a comprehensive $1.5 billion rehabilitation and modernization program for the Market-Frankford Elevated. Reconstruction of the Frankford elevated segment of the line is already complete, while construction begins in June for a $365 million, six-year reconstruction project that will include replacement of more than two miles of elevated structure and rehabilitation of six stations. Equipment modernization now beginning for SEPTA's light rail routes in urban Philadelphia will allow restoration of rail service on the Route 15-Girard Avenue surface line in North Philadelphia. Technical proposals were due at the beginning of this month for a base order for 12 articulated, low-floor vehicles, with an option for up to 60 additional vehicles.

Two transit projects now under study by SEPTA could emerge as innovative, long distance light rail routes. Furthest along is a Cross County Corridor project that would establish a suburb-to-suburb service across three counties north of Philadelphia in a 48-mile corridor extending from Morrisville to Glenloch. Also completed last year was a feasibility study for a 62-mile Schuylkill Valley Metro project for SEPTA and the Berks Area Reading Transportation Authority that would convert SEPTA's R6 regional rail line between downtown Philadelphia and Norristown into a high speed LRT and extend it over Conrail tracks to Pottstown and Reading.

PITTSBURGH

Final design has begun for the Port Authority of Allegheny County's $492 million Stage II Light Rail Transit Project, which will complete reconstruction of PAT's 25-mile "T" South Hills rail system to modern LRT standards, Track, power supply, and signaling for the 5.3mile Library Line and the 1 .2-mile Drake Line are being upgraded. Work for the 5.5-mile Overbrook Line will include five major new bridges and the completion of double-tracking over the entire line. The project also includes the procurement of 28 new LRVs, a mid-life overhaul of the Authority's existing 55-vehicle LRV fleet, modernization of the Operations Control Center, and the construction of 2,400 new park-and-ride spaces at five locations. The City of Pittsburgh and the Southwestern Pennsylvania Regional Planning Commission are completing a major investment study for a North Shore/Central Business District Transportation Corridor that would link the downtown area with commercial development, an expanded convention center, and two planned stadiums on the north shore of the Allegheny River.