America's Railroads Assist With Economic Recovery

One of the nation's oldest modes of goods movement, and a pillar of the national economy for nearly 150 years, is now providing much needed employment and investment to spur economic recovery. According to the Association of American Railroads (AAR), the nation's seven major railroad companies are hoping to hire a combined 15,000 people in 2012. AAR represents the nation's major freight haulers and Amtrak. Norfolk Southern, the Pennsylvania's largest freight rail hauler, intends to hire 2,800 people this year. CSX, the state's second largest freight railroad, hired 4,000 people last year and intends to hire more than 3,000 this year. Short-line and regional railroads are expected to hire thousands more.

Railroad employment is on pace to rise for the second year in a row. It averaged about 232,000 through the first 3 months of 2012, and 229,000 employees for all of 2011, up from 216,525 in 2010 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It would be just the 12th time since 1947 that average annual railroad employment increased, and just the fourth time that railroads posted two or more years in a row of increased employment. Of the new hires at major railroads, about 3,000 are planned because of growth, while the remaining 12,000 are because of attrition, including a wave of retirements that is expected to continue and open up tens of thousands of jobs in the years to come.

Beyond the employment opportunities offered at these railroad firms over the next year, their collective investment in rail infrastructure within Pennsylvania will spur additional job creation. Railroads plan to spend a record $13 billion of their money on system improvements, says AAR. According to the Pennsylvania Intercity Passenger and Freight Rail Plan, the Commonwealth's railroads plan to invest $376.6 million in their infrastructure over the next three years. Noel Perry, Managing Director and Senior Consultant at Freight Transportation Research Associates, notes that rail freight haulers have improved service and profit margins over the past decade, allowing them to put more money toward infrastructure improvement and training new employees. "As the economy grows," Perry says, "most railroad will be able to grow along with it."

The Marcellus Shale has created an emerging railroad market in Pennsylvania, which boasts 55 railroads, more than any other state according to the Keystone State Association of Railroads. Joe Gerdes, Executive Director of the Keystone State Railroad Association, believes that the Marcellus Shale has been a "godsend" particularly to short-line railroads. Wellsboro and Corning Railroad, for example, which operates a 35-mile between Tioga County, PA and Steuben County, NY hauled roughly 300 carloads of scrap metal a year before the Marcellus Shale industry took off. It now moves thousands of carloads of sand and water from drilling sites, according to Gerdes.

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The True Cost of Commuting

One of the many services GVF offers to its partners is zip-code analysis. The first step in conducting a zip-code analysis is to obtain all of the employee’s home zip codes for the company. After that we are able to develop an in depth study to find out where employees are coming from, how long their commute is, and most importantly, how much their commute is costing them.

Recently GVF participated in an event for one of our partners where we presented the results of a zip-code analysis to the employees. Judging from the reactions, most were shocked to find out the actual cost of their daily commute. Sure, everyone is aware that rising gas prices are putting a squeeze on their wallet, but this cost is only seen at the pump every week or so. It doesn’t take into account the cost of maintaining a vehicle or the cost of your time spent sitting in traffic. It also doesn’t come in a convenient yearly cost, where the price can really add up to a shocking figure.

The following infographic, created by StreamlineRefinance.net, illustrates the true cost of commuting:


Click image to enlarge

Via: StreamlineRefinance.net

GVF offers a number of ways to cut down on the cost of your commute, we have information on carpooling, vanpooling, and utilizing public transportation on our website. We also offer GVF’s Bike to Work Challenge over the summer. In fact according to BusinessInsider.com, if one-third of the US biked a mile every day, we could save $17 billion.

Interested in having your company conduct a zip code analysis? Contact us today at info@gvftma.com.

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Amtrak On Pace To Set Ridership Record; Stresses Need For New Rail Tunnels

Amtrak is on pace to set to set another annual ridership record as passenger counts across its national network for the first six months of fiscal year 2012 (October 2011-March 2012) are up 3.7% over the same period last year when the current record was established. Amtrak has set ridership records in eight of the past nine years, including last year, when it carried 30.2 million passengers. Ridership along the Northeast Corridor (Boston to Washington D.C.) has increased 5.2% from the same point last year, and the Keystone Service (New York to Harrisburg) is up 4%. Since 2000, Amtrak's overall ridership is up 44%.

In applauding these gains in ridership, however, Amtrak President and CEO Joe Boardman stressed the need for more infrastructure investment, particularly along the Northeast Corridor (NEC). Boardman highlighted Amtrak's Gateway Program, which the railroad corporation hopes to complete by 2025, and is a key part of Amtrak's efforts to increase capacity on the over loaded NEC. The long-term plan is to build a new high-speed rail route along the NEC that would allow trains to make the 426-mile trip from Boston to Washington D.C. in 3 hours and 23 minutes. Presently, Amtrak's Acela Express currently makes the trip in 6 hours and 37 minutes.

"Amtrak achieving ridership records is important, but it is more critical that the right infrastructure be in place to continue this trend in the years to come and provide safe, efficient, and reliable rail transportation for all current and future passengers," Boardman said. "To do this in the Northeast, we must advance our proposed Gateway Program, as it is essential for the future growth and economic development of the region."

Amtrak is seeking $35 million this year from Congress to advance plans for its $13.5 billion Gateway Program, by adding two tunnels under the Hudson River, replacing the century-old Portal Bridge near Newark, NJ, and expanding Pennsylvania Station in New York City. As Boardman noted, "We're out of space - in the tunnels, on the tracks, in Penn Station". Boardman explained that the NEC is expected to see significant increase in demand as population in this corridor grows, highway and airport congestion worsens, and gas prices rise. The Gateway Program is Amtrak's response to these conditions.

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CSX Corporation Works To Limit Carbon Footprint

CSX Corporation, one of the nation's leading freight rail and intermodal transportation companies, today announced the results of its participation in the Environmental Defense Fund's (EDF) 2011 Climate Corps program. This collaborative effort places specially-trained graduate students, known as "fellows" under the EDF program, from the nation's leading universities and colleges into a three-month fellowship with major employers to addresss climate-change related issues, such as reducing carbon emissions and improving energy efficiency. With a transportation network that extends 21,000 miles in 23 eastern states and the District of Columbia, connecting 240 short-line railroads and 70 ocean, river, and lake ports, CSX is one of the largest businesses to participate in the program.

In 2011, CSX and an EDF Climate Corps fellow examined the company's railyard air compressors and the CSX Data Center in Jacksonville, Florida. Using data gathered from both the railyard and the data center, he helped CSX to identify potential cost savings of $1.2 million and greenhouse gas emissions of savings of nearly 3,000 metric tons annually.

This marks CSX's second year of participation in the EDF Climate Corps program. In 2010, the CSX Climate Corps fellow identified annual savings of $165,000, 1.5 million kWh of electricity (enough to power 140 homes), and 940 metric tons of CO2 (equal to removing 150 SUV's from the road).

Partnering with EDF is part of CSX's overall climate change strategy, which also includes setting and achieving a voluntary eight percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions since 2006, as well as introducing 23 ultra-low emission GenSet locomotives throughout the CSX network. CSX has also invested more than $1.5 billion in the past decade to upgrade its locomotive fleet, including technological advancements that reduce air emission and fuel consumption. Through these collective efforts, CSX has improved its fuel efficiency by more than 90% since 1980.

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What it Would Take for a Truly Car-Free Day

Today is International Car-Free Day, a day in which motorists are asked to leave the car at home and find another way to work. Sounds good, but it is rather impractical. The problem with asking people to leave their car at home is that it implies that most commuters have a choice of transportation options to get to work. Unfortunately, in greater Philadelphia, as with most of the United States, that is simply not the case.

In 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Interstate Defense Act, which created the Interstate Highway System. It was in that moment that we would set forth the transportation priorities of our nation. We have hardly looked back, and for the past sixty years did not see a problem with the decision. Then, in 2008, something unexpected happened, Americans drove less than the previous year. In every year since the invention of the automobile, vehicle miles traveled (VMT) increased, until 2008, when they declined. The decline can be attributed to a number of factors including a national recession undercutting the disposable income of the middle class, rising unemployment causing fewer people to need to commute daily, and the rise of gasoline prices to over $4.00 per gallon.

The drop in VMT could have long lasting implications on how we build our infrastructure, that is, if we allow it. Americans, for the first time in history made a collective statement that said, “I will leave the car at home.” What they did not say is “I no longer need my car.” The hard truth is that over the past sixty years we have invested heavily in and built an infrastructure that accommodates a single mode of travel: the private automobile. Who could blame us? We were enjoying a strong economy, rising disposable income, inexpensive gasoline, single family homes on half acre lots, and a federal highway program that provided seemingly endless money to build more roads. We never could imagine a day where gasoline become prohibitively expensive, our roads were congested day in and day out, and a single family home was worth less than the amount paid. Here we are, sixty years later. Gasoline is hovering near the $4.00 per gallon mark, daily congestion extends the morning and evening rush hours, our air quality is the worst it has ever been, our infrastructure is crumbling, and yet we still march forward using the plans of yesterday to build for tomorrow. How can we change this pattern? Can we truly rebuild America’s infrastructure, or will we simply repair? If we want a truly car-free day, we are going to need a dramatic change in priorities. Just as the horse and buggy made way for the automobile, the automobile will have to yield to new mobility choices.

Where does it all start? How do we begin to change sixty years of investment? It all starts locally, at least in Pennsylvania. Local land-use decisions dictate so much of what kind of infrastructure we require. The old way of doing it meant strict separation of land-uses, not allowing new construction of houses, office, and retail to be intertwined. The separation means that distance between zones can be lengthy often inaccessible by foot. Along with the separation of uses, the density of use was decreased, causing more land to be used for less people. Because of the separation, most people take their cars to travel between zones. For a car-free day to work, the separation of uses must be reconsidered and greater density must be implemented. Once municipal governments allow for communities to grow up, not out and to grow mixed, not separated, the region can rethink how these places are connected.

Just as the automobile allowed single use sprawling zones to be conveniently connected, transit is the convenient connection for dense, mixed use communities; traveling between these communities can be best accommodated with transit. Transit is most effective when connecting dense core communities, since the higher density of people creates an inherent demand for travel to other dense core communities along the transit lines. By encouraging our region’s employers to locate near transit stops, and encouraging our region’s commuters to live near transit stops, when a person needs to leave their neighborhood, their destination will be served by transit. If this sounds like an unachievable dream society, we need only look to our past, pre-automobile, to realize it works. The famous Mainline provided this type of connectivity for employees living in the suburbs yet working in the city. Many of our region’s communities were once served by trolleys, allowing for localized mobility and providing connections to the greater system. These were all in place, and used heavily until the automobile became the primary mode of transportation.

The concept of choice over mandate was the principle that founded our nation. Americans are beginning to recognize that the automobile has gone from being a choice to being a mandate. The dream of mobility and freedom is no manifested by the automobile anymore. Realigning our priorities to reflect this change will take time, and will be met with challenge. The future of mobility in America will not eliminate the automobile completely, but rather make it one option in a field of many choices. That is how we can achieve a truly car-free day.

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New Subway Virtual Store Concept Could Save Time, Gas and Improve Public Transit

With the increasing gas prices we all know the importance of utilizing public transportation. However what do you get done while waiting for a train? Check your email? Facebook? Tweet about waiting for the train?

During this downtime, wouldn’t it be great to get the weekly chore of grocery shopping finished and never have to put up with pushing a shopping cart through aisle after aisle of crowds, hassle and headache?

Well this shopping fantasy could soon be a reality, thanks to the world of smart phones and QR Codes that we live in today. A company in South Korea is already implementing and expanding one such system.

This type of service would add another benefit for our transit commuters, saving them time, money, and a separate trip to the grocery store. If this makes its way to the US, we could also open up the possibility of adding a surcharge to each transaction that would go towards improving the transit system. This would improve the user experience, commute, and “store” all at the same time.

Another benefit of implementing this system would be a decrease in carbon emissions, this report from Carnegie Mellon finds shopping online results in less of an environmental impact than buying locally. Not only do we increase the benefits for the commuter, we also keep cars from making dedicated trips to the grocery store.

Last month, I talked about Google implementing live transit updates as part of their maps’ service, and now these virtual subway stores are just an additional example of how we can use new technology to improve a commuter’s transit experience. All it takes is a creative idea on how to pair the two.

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Have you watched a 'Street Film'? [VIDEO]

Streetfilms is a non-profit transportation advocacy group dedicated to informing and educating the American people on the different modes of transportation and the trends in transportation. The approach Streetfilms takes is unique in that they present the topic at hand in a short, fun, easily understood video. The videos cover topics such as: bicycling, cars and parking, pedestrians, traffic calming, and moving beyond the automobile. Each video is short, generally less than five minutes, and incredibly informative. Their approach to presenting the information is keeping with the trends in video media and includes high quality graphics and charts, interviews with topic experts, and fun background music.

Streetfilms produces the videos with the purpose of educating people about the easy changes we can all make that will have lasting impacts on the future of our nation's transportation system. Their focus on innovative ideas such as market based parking pricing demonstrate that changes can be implemented to our transportation system that shift the decision making process from a solely automobile centered society to one that employs all modes of transportation. Their approach to the video production is intended to reach non-industry people, so the language and presentation of information is light and informative.

Making Streetfilms unique is their publication. They use the Creative Commons license, which allows for any person or agency to share, use, and distribute the videos, so long as Streetfilms is credited and the videos remain unedited. Because there is no threat to copyright infringement, Streetfilms are going viral on the internet. Streetfilms is on the cutting edge of transportation advocacy, and have successfully employed the modern methods of reaching people.

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Amtrak Pursues High-Speed Rail Funding For NEC

Amtrak has recently filed an application for $1.3 billion in high-speed rail funding, from the pot of $2.4 billion turned back by the state of Florida, to upgrade its high-speed rail service along the heavily traveled Northeast Corridor. The funding would go towards a series of infrastructure improvements, including elements of Amtrak's Gateway Project, that would provide critical first steps to bringing high-speed rail service to the Northeast mega-region. The Gateway Project represents Amtrak's vision for next generation high-speed rail in the Northeast Corridor.

"The Northeast Corridor is a premier region in the country to advance the nation's high-speed rail program," said Amtrak President/CEO Joseph Boardman. "The Gateway Project improvements to increase passenger rail capacity and accesss into the heart of Manhattan are absolutely essential to make next generation high-speed rail a reality."

Amtrak worked closely with state partners to prioritize project selection in its application, ensuring that projects submitted by Amtrak were vital for the reliability and capacity of the current NEC network, in addition to being critical building blocks for expanded high-speed rail service.

The three Gateway Projects requests within the applicaiton include:

- A $720 million replacement of the more than 100 year-old movable Portal Bridge over the Hackensack River in New Jersey with a new, high-level fixed bridge. Amtrak has requested $570 million for this, and the state of New Jersey will contribute up to $150 million.

- A request of $188 million for preliminary engineering and environmental analysis for two new tunnels under the Hudson River into Manhattan with related infrastructure improvements.

- $50 million for preliminary engineering and environmental analysis for the development of a new Penn Station South facility to accomodate more tracks and platforms in downtown New York.

- $450 million to support capacity increases and improve trip times between Philadelphia and New York, one of the busiest sections of the NEC. The project will upgrade electrical power, signal systems, and overhead catenary wires in New Jersey and Pennsylvania to improve reliability, increase speeds up to 160 mph, and support more frequent high-speed service. Track switches at the western end of New York's Penn Station will also be reconfigured to avoid congestion issues.

Separate from the Gateway Project is an application for $15 million for the necessary environmental and preliminary engineering design to examine replacement options for the 100+ year-old, low-level movable Pelham Bay Bridge over the Hutchinson River in the Bronx on the Hell Gate Line that connects New York to New England.

Boardman emphasized that the Gateway Project is key for the future growth and economic development in the entire NEC region. The Gateway Project represents the cornerstone from which Amtrak plans to build a new, two-track 220 mph next generation high-speed rail system.

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DEP Announces Funding is Available for Alternative Fuel Transportation Projects in Pennsylvania

Department of Environmental Protection Secretary John Hanger announced today the opening of reimbursement grant funding for clean, alternative fuel transportation projects in Pennsylvania. A total of $7 million is available for innovative, advanced fuel and vehicle technology projects resulting in cleaner, advanced transportation within the state.

Eligible projects would focus on the use of alternative fuels and the use of fuel saving vehicles, fleets and technologies.

The application package (including guidance and application forms) can be found at www.depweb.state.pa.us, keyword: "Alternative Fuels" or by contacting the Department of Environmental Protection, Office of Energy and Technology Deployment, 15th Floor, Rachel Carson State Office Building, 400 Market Street, P.O. Box 8772, Harrisburg, PA 15105-8772, 717-783-8411.



Click Here to read full article on the AFIG Grant Program
A link to the specifics of the AFIG Grant program can be found Here

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