Just got wind of a BNSF derailment in Gold Bar, Washington. It is unknown how bad the accident may be at this time. It is known to be a intermodal/container train bound for Tacoma, Washington.
This occurred on the Stevens Pass route, about 32 miles Northeast of Seattle. This will most likely affect Amtrak’s Empire Builder trains 7 and 8 depending on the location and severity of the derailment. It is unknown if Amtrak will bus passengers or detour the train if it is blocking the main line.
More details to come as I get them.
UPDATE 4:50pm: Train was the S-LPCTAC with one, maybe two cars on the ground.
This is a lighthearted interview about some of the priorities that LaHood and the administration are pushing. While he has many priorities one that seams particularly close to his heart has been to improve the safety of all road users by starting to make sure that the public is aware of the significant risks posed by drivers using cell phone to talk or text message. A few months ago he held a Distracted Driving summit in DC to highlight these issues and get the ball rolling on addressing the problem. Locally the Driven to Distraction Task Force, which from what I can tell is pretty new, is starting to organize and tackle these problems as well. They created the video below.
[UPDATE: New media added below.] No more getting off at Tukwila and hopping aboard a musty old connector shuttle to the airport. SeaTac/Airport Station officially opened this morning to the cheers and applause of many.
By all accounts, the opening of Airport Link was a success. Dignitaries, politicians, members of the press, laborers, and those involved with the project were all on hand to christen the new station this morning. Attendees were treated to refreshments and live music from the Highline High School jazz band. After cutting the ribbon from the East entrance at the International Blvd skybridge, a speaking ceremony was held where all the important project people had words to say about the milestone, with Mayor Nickels emceeing.
The Mayor took a brief swing at Gabriel Campanario of the Seattle Times for titling an Airport Link editorial as “Light rail reaches airport, no longer a train to nowhere,” apologetically considering Columbia City, Othello, Beacon Hill, and all the other stations from end to end. It wasn’t without irony, though, that the Mayor followed-up by saying that the train was already going somewhere, but now it’s going “somewhere better.”
Following the speaking ceremony, the second ribbon was cut at the West entrance from the parking garage skybridge. And it goes without saying that we all agree– the walk to the terminal is nothing. I had more trouble getting from the bus bays at the south end of the terminal to the north end. To honor the leaders that worked on the entire Central Link project, Joni Earl unveiled two bronze plaques dedicated to the Board and other influential persons, one to be placed at SeaTac Station, and the other at Mt. Baker Station, where the dedication ceremony of the initial segment was held.
After the second ribbon cutting, everyone trooped up to the platform to witness the first inbound train, which came in to break through the third ribbon shortly after 10am. The entire blog staff, with the exception of Brian, gathered to meet some regular commenters and pose for a quick photo op. By luck, John was able to join us via the first revenue train coming all the way from Westlake, without knowing it until reaching Tukwila.
Here is some media from the event:
Arrival of the first inbound train into SeaTac Station, as shown above. (by Eric)
Wouldn’t it be nice if Link light rail stations had signs telling you that the next train was arriving in, say, five minutes? Time enough to busily inspect your smartphone and look social, to be sure.
Sound Transit has been planning to install these arrival signs for a while, but apparently they’ve hit hiccups. First, we heard rumors from Sound Transit staff that the signs would be operational within weeks of the initial segment’s opening.
Then, Sound Transit officials told folks who had contacted them that things were more complex than anyone on the outside could have known was possible. “We have been working on integrating this station into the Central Link system and it requires us to use two different train tracking approach one for the Central Link and different one for expanding to the Airport.” Due to these issues, “the train arrival message will not be activated until the end of November.” That time came and went. With the new Airport station opening tomorrow, Sound Transit representatives diligently sent us an update.
“It sounds like we’re really looking at mid to late January for it to be up and running,” said Bruce Gray of Sound Transit of the next train arrival signs. “It’s about 97% ready to go, but we expect it to need a few tweaks after the new segment is up and running.”
Hopefully the arrival signs are more accurate than the signs of the arrival of the arrival signs.
We’ve mentioned these issues briefly before, but Mike Lindblom has a really important article in the Times today about privacy and ORCA:
Whenever someone buys an employer-subsidized fare card through one of 2,000 companies or institutions, the employer has the right to see that person’s travel records. A boss could check to see, for example, whether someone is abusing a subsidy by reselling ORCA cards or find out if an employee called in sick but rode the bus to the mall or the beach…
Personal fare-card information is technically available to news media and other groups, as well, though it’s unclear how forthcoming ORCA would be in providing it.
Read the whole thing.
ORCA hasn’t been a particularly well-run project, and I suspect it’s partly because no one is really in charge. So it’s important that the mainstream media shine a spotlight on the issues here.
I’m not really a privacy absolutist, but there some basic policy decisions that could improve things while still maintaining some fraud-prevention features. For instance, ORCA could notify card holders when an outside party requests their records. Deleting records after a time would also be helpful, except as anonymized data for traffic analysis.
In preparation for the grand opening of Airport Link tomorrow, Sound Transit invited members of the press aboard Link for a quick preview ride to the airport and back. With the Certificate of Occupancy signed, crews are now working on polishing up the station for Saturday’s big event. You can read Martin’s detailed coverage last month of SeaTac Station and the opening day announcement, where Senator Murray was there to break the news, along with several other dignitaries. Oran and Brian were on hand yesterday to take video and photos, along with Cian Hayes, who Ben mentioned was officially the first passenger to board a plane from Link. You can visit our Flickr Pool with some new photos of the station, as well as the video of the preview ride above, shot by Oran.
After hearing from the County Council that there would be no “significant” reduction in service over the 2010-11 biennium, I was finally able to chat with Metro Manager of Service Development Victor Obeso to get more details.
A total of 200,000 service hours are to be cut over the next two years, about 5% of the total, of which 50,000 will be this February. In terms of losses perceived by the user, about 2% of existing service will be cut over 2 years:
Scheduling efficiency
Supplemental low-impact reductions
Feb 2010
25,000
25,000
Sep 2010
50,000
25,000
Jun 2011
50,000
25,000
The “Scheduling Efficiency” side amounts to changes in how routes are allocated to Metro’s operating bases, plus reductions in layovers at the end of routes. There should be no impact on riders from these other than a possible slight decrease in reliability. Obeso is hopeful that in the February round the efficiency savings will actually be as high as 30,000 hours, sparing some cuts.
The “low-impact reductions” will, as per County policy, be doled out to subareas in proportion to the resources they receive. In conjunction with the budget, the council adopted an update to the Metro 10 year Strategic Plan which identified these reductions as “suspensions,” not “cuts.” This leaves open the possibility that restoration of the service would not be subject to 40/40/20, but doesn’t necessarily mean that restoration is first in line.
There will not be the proposed route-by-route blanket cuts, but cuts targeted at the least productive trips in each subarea. Metro is first looking at opportunities to eliminate the last trip of the night, eliminating trips that allow them to pull an entire bus out of service while not increasing headways too much, and trips where other good, nearby options exist. Obeso expects the number of riders inconvenienced to be small.
A 2% service cut targeted at unproductive trips, while not desirable, is clearly not a catastrophe for public transportation. Indeed, with Transit Now, WSDOT viaduct mitigation, and dedicated SR520-related revenue funding additional improvements, the net change is positive. However, Metro’s budget crisis is not solved, but merely deferred. The numbers are sensitive to small changes in revenue projections, but past estimates indicate about 385,000 service hours could be at risk in 2012-2013 without new revenue sources.
