Hotline #103 - September 10, 1999

The Senate's fiscal 2000 transportation appropriations bill took a big step forward yesterday. First, there was a scheduled cloture vote, which was defeated, 49-49. This vote was necessary because the Senate bill would have limited the amount of transit money going to California and New York, and redistributed the excess to other states. The Senators from those two states promised to filibuster the bill because of that provision, and the failure of the cloture vote upheld their right to filibuster. That could have put the whole bill, including Amtrak funding, into limbo for maybe another month.

But shortly after the cloture vote defeat yesterday, Transportation Appropriations Chairman Richard Shelby (R.-Ala.) -- who had authored the transit provision -- backed off from it and indicated he would allow the bill to go forward without the provision. That clears the way for a Senate floor vote relatively free of controversy, and subsequent House-Senate conference.

Nevertheless, there are very few legislative days remaining in the fiscal year, and some sort of continuing resolution for transportation may be necessary to carry programs forward into October.

Amtrak announced at a press conference at Mystic, Conn., on September 8, that a total of eight quad-gate, vehicle-detection systems will be installed at highway crossings in nearby Waterford and Stonington by next August. Additionally, three crossings will be closed. They are in Old Lyme, Conn., Exeter, R.I., and Attleboro, Mass. The closings and improvements are part of the high-speed rail project.

A light rail proposal for the Orlando area suffered what perhaps will be a fatal blow when the Orange County commissioners narrowly voted yesterday against contributing any money. The commissioner who switched to vote "no" said that the local transit system, Lynx, had not answered enough of his questions about who was paying for what.

New Jersey Transit awarded an $11-million contract to a California company on September 8 to design and install a real-time train information system. The system will provide up-to-the-minute train arrival announcements for every train at every station, with future capability to give riders the same information at monitors and kiosks inside train stations.

Washington Metro will start a program on its web site on September 13 allowing visitors to enter in any two addresses in the region and get detailed information on bus and train service, including schedule times and fares. This service will be available 24 hours a day, which is much better than the current telephone service that is limited to business hours.

Civic leaders and organizations from the western half of Virginia will meet October 12 in Farmville to discuss strategy on winning funding from the state legislature next year to allow passenger service to Bristol to go forward.

Press conferences are planned in Ohio at Cleveland, Galion, and Columbus on September 21 to promote state efforts to restore passenger train service between those cities. The Ohio Association of Railroad Passengers is one of the sponsors.

Nine coaches from the former Florida Fun Train were bought at auction recently by the Alaska Railroad for $3.6 million. The cars will be used for service expansion.