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242K views 699 replies 119 participants last post by  Jim856796 
#1 ·
Washington D.C. Metro Unveils New Plan For Buses

If Metro CEO Richard White has his way, the transit company's bus service is about to get a facelift.

Board members, including D.C. City Councilman Jim Graham, have long criticized the transit system for having a bus service that takes a back seat to the rail service.

White's proposal calls for spending $829 million to improve bus service. And $600 million will be used to purchase 450 new buses, including 250 that run on natural gas, which will arrive by next spring.

Right now, the average age of a Metro bus is 11 years. White said the new buses would help bring that down to about six years.

Other improvements outlined in the plan include outfitting busier bus stops with real-time information by June 2006, letting riders know precisely what time the next bus will arrive.
 
#553 ·
From Railway Gazette:

http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/...er-to-overhaul-maryland-commuter-coaches.html

Bombardier to overhaul Maryland commuter coaches
05 Feb 2016



USA: Maryland Transit Administration announced a $36·8m contract for Bombardier Transportation to overhaul 63 MARC III coaches on February 4. The double-deck commuter cars have been in service for coming up to 17 years.

‘Overhauling our MARC III cars is a cost-effective way to improve the safety and reliability of our fleet’, said MTA Administrator & CEO Paul Comfort

...
 
#554 ·
From WUSA:

http://www.wusa9.com/story/news/loc...etcar-system-could-open-soon-feb-26/80318682/

DC streetcar system could open as soon as Feb. 26
Associated Press, AP 8:38 p.m. EST February 12, 2016



WASHINGTON (AP) - City safety officials say Washington could launch passenger service on the rail cars by the end of the month.

The D.C. fire department said in a letter to the Federal Transit Administration that the streetcar system's grand opening could be "on or about Feb. 26" if "all final requisite activities are successfully completed by" transportation and safety officials"

...
 
#556 ·
Only about seven years behind schedule, too. :bash: I'm glad that it's finally opening, but the whole construction (and testing) process has been pathetic on the part of DDOT and has given streetcar-haters (and just general transit-haters) ammunition to attack any further extensions beyond the one route already built. At this rate, it would take more than a century to give DC a real streetcar network.

No adequate explanation has ever been given why this short stretch of proven technology needed several years of "safety testing" to be allowed to open. We're talking about a streetcar running down an asphalt road. I'm pretty certain that NASA's Apollo space program was developed and tested in less time than the DC Streetcar was. Some other cities have built entire metro lines (or systems!) in the time it took DC to build one tram line.

The DC streetcar was sold as an economical complement to the DC Metro but it doesn't look like it's turning out that way. It remains to be seen if there will be any streetcar routes opened after the initial segment.
 
#557 ·
I hope no one gets offended if I articulate my agreement with the tone of this article.

The Economist
http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2016/02/streetcar-mire

Washington, DC's pointless streetcar service finally opens

Feb 25th 2016, 16:47 BY A.W. | WASHINGTON, DC

“LATE and over budget, streetcars are finally rumbling to life in Washington, DC. The long-awaited service, which has cost at least $135m to build, spans 2.4 miles along H Street in the city’s north-east. But it is not taking passengers yet.”

This newspaper printed those words in August 2014, but it really could have done so at just about any point this decade. The streetcar was originally supposed to launch in 2009, in an impoverished part of the capital’s south-east quadrant. Those plans fizzled, and were replaced by a promise to bring the trolley to H Street in 2012. Then 2013 passed. So did 2014. As late as December 30th of that year, Mayor Vincent Gray’s administration wouldn’t say for sure whether the streetcar would be operational by the year’s end (it wasn’t). Mr Gray was ousted in an election in which he wasn’t helped by the project’s continued embarrassments. His successor, Muriel Bowser, failed to learn from his mistakes and promised a streetcar service by the end of 2015. That deadline came and went, too.

Now it is 2016, and at long last the streetcar will begin carrying passengers. It is not quite Berlin’s disastrously fated airport, which was scheduled to open in 2010 but will be lucky to see its first flyers by the end of this decade. But it is close. At least few in the German capital doubt that a new airport will be useful. The same can’t be said of the streetcar. It will run westward in a straight line from an economically depressed and largely residential stretch of Benning Road until it terminates atop a bridge, across the street from the parking garage attached to Union Station. Even for those few Washingtonians for whom that route is useful, it is made less so by the fact that it is already covered exactly by the X2 bus. Indeed, the X2 holds two distinct advantages. First, it can move around double-parked cars or other obstructions, while the streetcar must patiently wait for them to correct themselves. Second, it actually continues on to somewhere useful—namely, over the bridge and downtown to DC.

The catastrophic execution of the streetcar project has somewhat obscured the fact that even if everything had gone smoothly, the planning itself is rotten. Streetcars are a wonderful addition to transit networks in cities across Europe—including Berlin—because they are sensibly laid out, usually with dedicated lanes. While they may not move quite as quickly as subways, they function essentially in the same way, not having to contend with cars and getting priority signalling. And of course they are much cheaper to build than an underground line. But Washington’s planners seem to have been so fixated on the low price tag that they have not asked themselves the central question that should guide any transit plan: will it actually be useful in moving people? In DC, for the time being, the answer seems to be no. (There are separate questions that have less definitive answers, such as whether the streetcar plans have helped spur development, and whether people who think the bus is dirty or dangerous might be more amenable to taking the streetcar, despite its drawbacks.)

That won’t change anytime soon. The only other streetcar line that is firmly in the city’s plans is an extension of the current one through downtown to Georgetown. That would finally provide geographically beneficial connections, and a portion of it might even get a dedicated lane. But the bad news is that the city is projecting that it will be completed in 2022. Which, given the track record on the inaugural line, likely means around the time that today’s preschoolers are learning to drive.

Two hundred miles to the north, New York’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, has observed the low-speed car crash that is happening in DC and decided he wants one, too. This month, Mr de Blasio announced plans for a 16-mile line connecting Brooklyn and Queens. The estimated cost is $2.5 billion, which may be optimistic given that it might require building two new bridges. And what portion of the route will have the all-important dedicated right-of-way? Mere details to be sorted out later.

The sad thing about the current streetcar folly is that this technology was once vital to American cities. The Dodgers baseball team are so called because residents of their native Brooklyn spent so much time dodging trolleys, which transported a huge number of New Yorkers to work. (Then the trolley went defunct, and the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles where the only thing people have to sidestep is freeway traffic.) In Washington, streetcars ran for 100 years, from 1862 to 1962, when the advent of mass car ownership and the flight to the suburbs rendered it more of a nuisance than a benefit. These days, resurgent population growth and an emphasis on transit-oriented development mean the streetcar could once again be a boon to the city—if only it were designed well.

The good news in all of this mess is that when it starts transporting passengers on Saturday, the streetcar will offer free rides. That’s because the city hasn’t yet decided how much to charge, or even how to collect the fares. Again, mere details to be sorted out later.
 
#560 ·
So was it worth it?
 
#562 ·
I'm sure it would make a lot of sense if actually went to Union Station (the current terminus is still ~1km from the entrance).And if it was longer than 4 km and went to some place.
For instance it could cross the Anacostia and terminate at Minnesota Ave metro Station
 
#567 ·
I was able to find this - the walk from streetcar to Union Station passenger terminal.

152 by Matt' Johnson, on Flickr

154 by Matt' Johnson, on Flickr

157 by Matt' Johnson, on Flickr

159 by Matt' Johnson, on Flickr

162 by Matt' Johnson, on Flickr

165 by Matt' Johnson, on Flickr

166 by Matt' Johnson, on Flickr

167 by Matt' Johnson, on Flickr

168 by Matt' Johnson, on Flickr

169 by Matt' Johnson, on Flickr

170 by Matt' Johnson, on Flickr

171 by Matt' Johnson, on Flickr

173 by Matt' Johnson, on Flickr

175 by Matt' Johnson, on Flickr

176 by Matt' Johnson, on Flickr
 
#573 ·
From Railway Gazette:

http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/...land-purple-line-ppp-contractor-selected.html

Maryland Purple Line PPP contractor selected
03 Mar 2016





USA: Maryland Department of Transportation has selected the Purple Line Transit Partners consortium of Meridiam (70%), Fluor Enterprises (15%) and Star America (15%) as preferred bidder for the 25·7 km Purple Line light rail line serving the northern suburbs of Washington DC.

The PPP contract for the $2bn project was announced on March 2 and is expected to reach financial close in the second quarter of the year

...
 
#575 ·
news from Baltimore

Baltimore Metro partial summertime shutdown

Maryland MTA press release
http://mta.maryland.gov/news/mta-partially-shut-down-metro-subway-service-summer

MTA to Partially Shut Down Metro Subway Service This Summer

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Maintenance Work Scheduled from July 23 to August 12 to Increase Safety, Reliability

BALTIMORE, MD (MARCH 4, 2016) – The Maryland Department of Transportation’s Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) will shut down Baltimore Metro Subway service from the Milford Mill to Mondawmin stations for 21 days – July 23 to August 12 – for replacement of major components of Metro rail.

. . .

Expansion of express bus service in the Baltimore region

On 2016.06.19, the following suburb-to-suburb express bus services will be introduced:

Bus 102 - Towson-White Marsh
Bus 106 - Towson-Owings Mills
Bus 107 - BWI Airport-Old Court metro station

Bus 150 will be extended from downtown to Harbor East.

Source: http://mta.maryland.gov/news/mta-hold-six-public-hearings-proposed-express-buslink-service

http://mta.maryland.gov/sites/default/files/ExpressLinkServiceChangesNoticeVer11web.pdf







 
#578 ·
According to 2010 revised plan, expected daily ridership for the first year of operation would be 6˙350 passengers; this forecast includes also the 0,75 miles Anacostia line first phase but its share would be likely very low, under 10%, since the expected ridership for this line was 1˙800 pass/day when the project was long 2,7 miles.
However, in one of this tweet answers it's said they thought to start with 1˙500÷2˙000 pass/day, so actual figures are slightly higher than expectations.

If this trend is kept on in the coming days, DC streetcar will overcome Atalanta streetcar (~65˙000 passengers in the first month of operation, running also on Sunday): not really a challenge, frankly speaking :devil:.
 
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