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Update on Federal Borrowed Bus Program

May 17, 2009 / / 0 Comments

A colleague at work pointed me to a Government Accounting Office (GAO) report titled, “Olympic Games: Federal Government Provides Significant Funding and Support,” which gives a little more explanation about the so-called “Federal Borrowed Bus Program” I wrote about in the previous post.

The report was published in September 2000. The most relevant part says, “[U.S. Department of Transportation] provided approximately $17 million to state and local transit and transit planning agencies to pay for the delivery, operation, and return of the 1,500 buses, which were borrowed from communities throughout the United States.”

I’m glad to know my question, “What is the federal borrowed bus program?”, has been partially answered. I’d like to know more about it, including how the funding is appropriated (is it in Congressional legislation or within the Department?), which communities provided buses to borrow, and the attitudes of the lending agencies about this program.

Other sections in the report my colleague pointed out:

  • “Another 1,000 troops were also used as bus drivers to transport athletes, coaches, officials, and military and law enforcement personnel to various Olympic venues. According to DOD [Department of Defense] officials, military personnel were used as bus drivers because ACOG [Atlanta Committee of the Olympic Games] and local law enforcement agencies could not provide them. The estimated cost to provide the military bus and van drivers was $978,450, including $105,800 for commercial drivers’ licenses and $300,000 for training.” (Page 31)
  • “EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] provided about $313,000 to build a bike path to access the Olympic Centennial Park area and about $7 million for sewer system construction related to the Olympic stadium.” (Page 33)

Biking to the Chicago Olympics in 2016

March 18, 2009 / / 0 Comments

What does the Chicago Olympic Committee’s bid book say about bicycling as part of the Olympic transportation system? A system that has to move 15,000 Games workforce, 30,000 athletes and their coaches and support staff, as well as 1.5 million everyday “background” users like you and me commuting? This:

“Travel by bicycles, always welcome in Chicago, will be used practically to augment the plan through the use of bicycle valet service near rail stations.”

The end.

This one line was found under section 15.10, “Public-Transport Network.” It’s public transport-related because the bike valet will be at CTA and Metra stations near the venues. Many of those stations are up to 1.6 miles away, according to the plan. These bicyclists will be expected to ride from hotel or home to the rail station nearest the Olympic venue, park, then board a shuttle bus. 

The worst part of the statement within the bid book is that they felt compelled enough to insert the snide comment that bicycles are “always welcome in Chicago” as if readers may have been confused that Chicago would, in some way, disallow their use during the Olympic Games. Or, perhaps, historically, Chicago didn’t welcome bicycles. With this, I feel the bid book authors have never actually seen bicyclists in Chicago and had to learn this through secondhand communication – this is belittling and dismissive to bicyclists around the world.

The Olympic plan should use bicycling as a mode and opportunity to solve the complicated, expensive, and potentially messy transport issue. Bicyclists should be allowed to ride straight to the gate, which is where they would find bike valet service. And volunteers and staff can ride between gates, venues, and operations centers on bicycles. Instead, Olympic games workers will be driving singly in small SUVs or on Segways just like our public transport and police do now.

A final note on the use of shuttle buses: My concern is where these buses will come from, and what the CTA or other agency will do with them post-Games. According to section 15.11, “Fleet and Rolling Stock,” the Chicago Olympic games “will have access to the Federal Borrowed Bus Program.” What is the FBBP? The internet doesn’t know! A web search reveals one result: an entry on the CTA Tattler blog. No agency in this country has buses they can lend. A table in the bid book following this section, Table 15.11, has a column for transit fleet and rolling stock, and it’s conflicting or confusing. One column indicating the number of vehicles in possession now by various agencies, the next, a number to which these inventories will expand, and the third, the number of additional vehicles on hand for the Games. All rows in the third column indicate that NO additional vehicles will be needed for the Olympic Games – all agencies will have the necessary fleet vehicles to provide transport for the Olympic Games.

I don’t get it.

Pilsen pollution

March 15, 2009 / / 0 Comments

Pilsen is a neighborhood in Chicago’s Lower West Side that is made mostly of Mexican immigrants and descendants. It’s sister neighborhood is Little Village, which is close by to the southwest. I lived here for two years from 2006-2008.

When I moved in, the smoke from a nearby, but yet unseen, exhaust stack was quite apparent. An uninformed or malicious local offered that it was a heat generation plant for the nearby public housing homes. This seemed unlikely, and only slightly plausible, but I didn’t question it.

Both neighborhoods have coal-fired power plants. There is Fisk Generating Station at 1111 W. Cermak in Pilsen (which I mentioned above and pictured above), and Crawford Generating Station at 3501 S. Pulaski in Little Village. Both are owned by Midwest Generation

It was not long until I read several news reports in the major Chicago newspapers about the actions of local social advocacy organizations trying to bring awareness about the danger the Fisk plant was causing for the minority residents in Pilsen. The problems became well-known in 2001 after a group of five researchers from Harvard and two private consulting agencies (one for wind, and one for environment) studied coal-fired power plants in the Midwest exempt from the provisions of the Clean Air Act. See “More information” below for a local group’s opinion on these plants’ impacts on health using information derived from the study.

The most recent call for action was from the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, who, in August 2008, demanded that Mayor Daley close the Fisk plant on Cermak.

Now, the Sierra Club magazine is reporting on a new and younger organization ready and willing to fight alongside LVEJO the battle to fix the pollution problems in Chicago’s west side Latino neighborhoods. I recently read this article at work in our “office lending library” – this along with the fact that I pass by the station quite often prompted me to write this blog entry.

More information:

Earmarks: Good and bad, put simply

March 2, 2009 / / 0 Comments

Earmarks are wonderful for the people and organizations for whom they’re designated. It’s a way to bypass normal funding procedures and jumpstart or finish a project. Instead of a bureaucrat in Washington, D.C., and your state capitol analyzing your project for its funding worthiness, you work with your locally elected official to get project funding.

Earmarks also help institutions ineligible for federal funding (for example: many local museums) get projects built for them. Earmarks may mean that your project starts getting federal grants earlier.

What earmarks also do is reduce the amount of money available for formula and Department of Transportation discretionary funding as well as lower the statewide “transportation pot.” It’s also probably immoral to use political instead of objective considerations to decide which projects are funded and which aren’t. 

However, with the right politician and the right group speaking in their ear, earmarks may mean the difference in your town getting that bike lane funded or not, because the state Department of Transportation continues to say no.

In the federal spending bill President Obama plans to sign soon, there are $7.7 billion dollars in earmarks, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS). This, so far, only includes disclosed earmarks (a handy table listing all earmarks and requesting politicians is downloadable), and the group is searching through the bill text to find the billions more in undisclosed earmarks.

Here I note a couple items of interest to Illinoisans in transportation (download searchable PDF with national table or download Excel spreadsheet from TCS):

  • Alternative Analysis Study for the J-Route Bus Rapid Transit (BTR) Project; $237,500; Rep. Roskam
  • Peoria Regional Airport; $950,000; Sen. Durbin
  • DeKalb/Taylor Municipal Airport, Various Improvements; $1,235,000; Rep. Foster, Sen. Durbin
  • CTA Red line Extension (Alternatives Analysis); $285,000; Rep. Jackson, Sen. Durbin
  • CTA Yellow Line Extension (Alternatives Analysis); $237,500; Rep. Schakowsky, Sen. Durbin
  • CTA Brown Line* (Capital Investment Grant); $30,00,000; Sen. Durbin
  • CTA Circle Line** (Capital Investment Grant); $6,000,000; Sen. Durbin
  • Metra Rock Island 35th St. Station Improvements; $712,500; Rep. Rush
  • Multimodal Center in Normal; $237,500; Rep. Weller
  • Paratransit Vehicles, West Central Mass Transit District; $104,500; Rep. LaHood
  • Replacement Heavy Duty Transit Buses, Madison County Mass Transit District; $475,000; Rep. Costello
  • Replacement of Paratransit Vehicles, Greater Peoria Mass Transit District, Peoria; $380,000; Rep. LaHood

And the list goes on. Click Read More for the notes about the CTA, info on Metra’s share, and BRT. Continue reading

CTA ‘L’ station bike enhancements

February 28, 2009 / / 0 Comments

Tune Koshy and Adair Heinz, Columbia College graduates of industrial design, created this 3D video of their ideas for public transit enhancements for bicyclists. The changes are specific to Chicago Transit Authority ‘L’ train stations, as many transit systems around the world already have these features or, in the case of fare gates, an alternative to what the CTA employs.

It was presented to myself and others after a 2008 Mayor’s Bicycle Advisory Council meeting.

The ideas are:
1. Bigger, easier fare gates for people rolling bicycles into the station. (Many transit stations around the world use automatic gates instead of turnstiles like the CTA.)
2. Wheel channels for rolling bike up stairs. (This is a fairly common feature.)
3. Train interior space for holding bicycles vertically. (This is common on light rail in the United States.)

Read the discussion on Flickr.