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SNIPPET: "A team of researchers convened by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security began a series of tests today at 20 MBTA stations to determine how airborne contaminants would spread in a terrorist attack on Boston's subway system." SNIPPET: "The findings will help guide the design of future detection systems and help strengthen evacuation, ventilation, and other emergency response plans on mass transit across the country. "We hope to use the data from the two to come up with a model to predict the behavior (of chemicals) in other subway systems," Lustig said."

DENVER – An airport shuttle driver under arrest in Colorado may have been planning with others to detonate backpack bombs on New York City trains in a terrorism plot similar to past attacks on London's and Madrid's mass-transit systems, officials said. The investigation into the possible terror plot has prompted counterterrorism officials to warn mass-transit systems around the nation to step up patrols.

The social and economic costs of lost productivity and wasted fuel from traffic-choked streets are estimated to be $87 billion a year, according to the Texas Transportation Institute’s 2009 Urban Mobility Report. So far, federal, state and local efforts — focused mostly on expanding road capacity — have been largely unsuccessful at slowing the growing congestion on U.S. roads. Transportation experts now advocate a different approach, changing the emphasis from increasing supply to reducing demand. To reinforce smart growth policies, plug mounting transportation funding gaps and achieve immediate traffic relief, London, Stockholm, Singapore, Milan and three cities in Norway have...

... Q. President Obama has talked about his desire to wean Americans off automobiles. A. What we’ve talked about is getting to a concept that we call livable communities, where people don’t have to get in a car every day. You can use light rail, you can use buses, you can use walking paths, you can use your bike. Q. The conservative columnist George Will recently denounced you as the “secretary of behavior modification,” in reference to your plan to have Americans give up cars. A. When George came over here for lunch, I could tell from the tone of...

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood defended the pro-mass transit policies of the Obama administration today, and fired back at conservative writer George Will, who devoted an entire column to attacking LaHood earlier this week. "We have to create opportunities for people who want to ride a bike or walk or take a streetcar," he said. "The only person that I've heard of who objects to this is George Will." Will wrote a column in Newsweek magazine criticizing the secretary, whom he dubbed "Secretary of Behavior Modification," for supporting measures to wean commuters off automobiles. LaHood, a former Republican congressman from Illinois,...

Note: The following text is a quote: YOU ARE HERE: Home > Reports > Consular Affairs Bulletins > Report Warden Message: Colombia High Threat Environment for Terrorism & Crime CONSULAR AFFAIRS BULLETINS Americas - Colombia 22 May 2009 RELATED REPORTS 14 May 2009 WARDEN MESSAGE: COLOMBIA CONFIRMS H1N1 2009 INFLUENZA CASES 20 Apr 2009 FARC CONTINUES TO TARGET COMMERCE IN EXTORTION CAMPAIGN 25 Mar 2009 TRAVEL WARNING: COLOMBIA 20 Mar 2009 WARDEN MESSAGE: COLOMBIA BLACK MARCH ADVISORY 27 Jan 2009 WARDEN MESSAGE: BOGOTA, COLOMBIA, EXPLOSION; REPORTS OF TWO FATALITIES The U.S. Embassy Bogotá issued the following Warden Message on May...

Gov. David A. Paterson called on Saturday for the Legislature to vote early this week on a financial rescue plan for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority despite being unsure if there were enough votes to pass the measure in the Senate. ... The authority rescue plan centers on a payroll tax to be paid by employers in the 12 counties served by the transportation authority. The tax would generate about $1.5 billion a year. But four suburban Democratic senators have blocked the plan, saying the tax would burden school districts, nonprofit groups and businesses. Every Democratic vote is needed to pass...

Unless the state intervenes, in five weeks New Yorkers will face steep fare hikes on buses, subways and commuter rail lines. They'll also face deep cuts in train and bus service. ... Five years ago, the MTA's labor costs were $5 billion. Now they are nearly $7 billion. The big drivers have been pension and health-care costs, up 42%. MTA employees, even those who perform what might be called retail jobs, like station clerks, can retire as early as 55 with generous pension and health benefits. This is not compensation for a lifetime of low wages. Average pay for the...

LOS ANGELES — Suppose the federal government gave you and your neighbor $500 each to buy a new bike, but what you really wanted was a $250 shopping spree for running gear instead. So you offered to sell your $500 federal check to your neighbor for $250 in cash so everyone’s dreams could be realized. That is essentially what several cities in Los Angeles County planned to do with federal stimulus money, until the local transportation authority, its face slightly reddened, pulled the plug on the plans. A spokeswoman in Washington for the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure said...

Hopping on a streetcar to get to work has a 1930s vibe to it. While streetcars continue to ride the rails in many European cities, they have largely vanished from American cities, and they have a nostalgic aura. But in spite of this, and spurred by the current economic downturn, Americans continue to use public transportation at record levels. More than 2.8 billion trips were taken on public transportation in the third quarter of 2008 -- a surge of 6.5 percent over the third quarter of 2007 and the largest year-to-year increase in 25 years. Light rail had the highest...

The Greater Toronto Area needs a gazillion dollars to fund Metrolinx, a mega mega transportation system of light rail, commuter trains, subways, highways, roads, and bicycle paths designed to reach every ward in an 8,000 square kilometre operating region approaching six million people. It will cost more than governments can afford, say its government backers. The answer, the backers say, is a toll road system that extends across the GTA and finances the transit megaproject. I have a better idea. Install the GTA-wide toll road system and scrap Metrolinx. Once roads are tolled, the population growth that is now projected...

A state commission appointed by Gov. David A. Paterson is expected next week to propose a rescue package for the financially imperiled Metropolitan Transportation Authority that includes a new tax on corporate payrolls and tolls on the East River and Harlem River bridges, several people informed of the plan said on Wednesday. The commission, led by Richard Ravitch, a former chairman of the authority, will also recommend an increase next year in fares on subways, buses and commuter railroads, as well as in tolls on the bridges and tunnels it currently controls. But those increases would be much smaller than...

Nov 26, 2008 5:00 pm US/Eastern "Feds Warn Of Terror Plot Against NYC Subways Homeland Security: Expect Larger Police Presence In NYC And In Major Cities Across U.S. During Holidays" ARTICLE SNIPPET: "NEW YORK (CBS/AP) ― Federal authorities are warning police of a possible terror plot against the New York City subway and train systems during the holiday season, prompting local officials to beef up security at stations. An internal memo obtained by The Associated Press says the FBI has received a "plausible but unsubstantiated" report that al-Qaida terrorists in late September may have discussed attacking the subway system. A...

Click on the link to view the Beijing to Tianjin High Speed Rail link The Chinese are really up to something.

At a time when public transportation systems around the country are struggling with soaring fuel costs and pinched budgets, the bus system in Rochester has done something that few others would contemplate: This month, it lowered its single-ride fare. Rochester’s Regional Transit Service is no behemoth. It carries 15 million riders a year, as many as the New York City transit system carries in two days. But as economic hard times have reduced tax revenues and increased demand for government transit subsidies, its experiences may provide valuable lessons for larger cities that are planning fare increases, like New York, Minneapolis...

Mass transit is not a greener form of transportation. Some transit systems take twice as much energy per passenger than private cars do and are highly dependent on fossil fuels, according to studies from the Department of Energy (DoE). But how can this be? A full bus or trainload of people is more efficient than private cars, sometimes quite a bit more so, says Brad Templeton, founder of ClariNet Communication Corporation. However: Transit systems never consist of full vehicles, but in order to encourage riders, systems offer frequent service which results in emptier vehicles outside of rush hour. Transit vehicles...

Dust storms that fouled Kern County’s air in May could mean months of delay for two major Kern County freeway projects. A project to widen Highway 46 from Holloway Road west to Highway 33 at Blackwells Corner will almost certainly be delayed for five months or more, said Ron Brummett, executive director of the Kern Council of Governments. And the Westside Parkway in Bakersfield, a freeway that’s to run west from a point near Highway 99 to Heath Road, might also be delayed if dickering over air quality standards goes on too long. The Environmental Protection Agency, Brummett said, is...

Think there's no such thing as too much parking? Take a look at Tysons Corner, where there's more parking than jobs, more parking than office space, more parking than in downtown Washington. That must change, said advocates and politicians seeking to transform Virginia's largest business hub from suburb to city. Reducing parking, charging for parking and finding new uses for the acres of parking that separate Tysons' buildings and the people inside is at the heart of plans to remake the area.... "Who wants parking spaces to be the hallmark of a development?" said Clark Tyler, chairman of a Fairfax...

While watching CSpan yesterday they were debating a bill to pour more dollars into mass transit. I got to wondering how the majority of CongressCritters and their staff get to work. Do you think they utilize DC's mass transit system?

A group of teenagers on a MAX train robbed some recent high school graduates from Boise who were on a road trip to Portland, police said. Police arrested Alan Jamerson, a 17-year-old described in court papers as the ringleader in the Wednesday robbery. He was charged with four counts of second-degree robbery and appeared in court today. Three other suspects, ages 13, 15 and 16, were taken to juvenile detention on robbery charges. The teenagers from Boise were waiting at the Overlook Park platform in North Portland and told police that 10 to 15 young men started to harass them....

HARRISBURG -- With a section of a Pittsburgh bridge dropping 8 inches and an Interstate 95 support pillar cracking in Philadelphia, Gov. Ed Rendell is turning up the heat under the Legislature to provide infrastructure repair funds more quickly. Mr. Rendell sent a letter to all 253 legislators yesterday urging quick passage of a $240 million "supplemental debt authorization." His program of borrowing would enable state officials to fast-track repairs on some of the state's 6,000 bridges classified as structurally deficient, along with fixing ailing highways, repairing "state-owned, high-hazard dams" and beginning flood mitigation projects. Also yesterday, Mr. Rendell called...

Driving down to Austin lately has become a real trip. I-35 is usually packed for most of the 185 miles, and what used to take three or four hours now can take five or six. Flying down can take almost as long, when you figure in airline security delays, more flight delays, and the time it takes getting into and out of crowded airports. But what if it took 45 minutes to travel from the Metroplex to Austin by train or an hour to make a trip to Houston? Advocates of high-speed rail lines are floating these ideas once again...

n a bulletin released Friday to U.S. law enforcement officials, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is warning of “continued strong terrorist interest” in targeting mass transit systems in the U.S. The 10-page threat assessment, labeled “Unclassified/For Official Use Only” and obtained by NBC News, cautions that the “U.S. mass transit and passenger rail systems are vulnerable to terrorist attacks because they are accessible to large numbers of the public and are notoriously difficult to secure.” Previous rail attacks in Madrid, London and Mumbai “could inspire terrorists to conduct similar attacks in the United States,” the report adds. However, the authors...

n what may have been the first hint of victory for opponents of the Trans Texas Corridor, a high-ranking Texas Department of Transportation official said Thursday he regretted his agency's communication failures and said one proposed version of the corridor, a 10-lane super highway with rail and utility pathways, will "probably not" be built in East Texas, based on the overwhelming resistance to the idea expressed at public hearings on the project this month. Phillip Russell, assistant executive director for innovative project development at TxDOT, was the keynote speaker at the Lone Star Legislative Summit at SFA Thursday, where he...

FORT WORTH, Texas, Jan 3. -- Just before New Year's Eve, a Fort Worth mother was kicked off the public bus for reading the Bible aloud to her children on the way to church. "What kind of person pulls over public transportation and kicks out a mother and her children for reading their Bible on the way to church?" said Kelly Shackelford, Chief Counsel for Liberty Legal Institute, the legal organization representing Christine Lutz. "Freedom of religion exists on public transportation just like anywhere else." Christine Lutz was reading the Bible to her children while on the way to church...

Governor favors linking rate to cost of road work Maryland's gasoline tax would go up in 18 months -- and possibly sooner -- if Gov. Martin O'Malley's plan to add $400 million a year in transportation funding is approved by the General Assembly. Although an immediate increase in the gas tax is not part of the $2 billion revenue plan the Democratic governor has been rolling out over the past week, he said Monday that he will push to tie future increases to the rising cost of road and bridge construction materials. At present rates of inflation, that would average...

FReep This Poll! What is the best way to reduce traffic congestion? * Widen and/or build more freeways. * Add more carpool only lanes. * Improve mass transit options. * Encourage working from home. * Limit new housing development. Go to the North County Times/The Californian link provided. Scroll down a bit and look for the poll on the right hand side. Vote your choice. Poll should remain active until Thursday (09/20/07) evening.

After conducting business as though it were a private entity rather than a public trust, the Texas Department of Transportation is now trying to turn the tide of public opinion in its favor. The Keep Texas Moving campaign is a $7 million to $9 million effort designed to promote various transportation projects in the state. According to the campaign site, www.keeptexasmoving.com, Texans can learn more about such projects as the vast Trans-Texas Corridor and "its promise for Texas." Unfortunately, TxDOT has a history of not being entirely forthcoming about transportation plans. Last year, agency officials and the road-building consortium Cintra-Zachry...

The plan to convert the 311-mile-long Interstate-80 into a toll road is part of Act 44 in Pennsylvania. Overall, the legislation generates a huge amount of money to accomplish a wide range of bridge and road improvements, including those on Pennsylvania's interstates, the turnpike and secondary highways. Those projects will be funded with borrowed money that will be repaid by tolls on I-80 and the turnpike. Tolls on the 530-mile long turnpike will be increased by 25 percent in 2009 and 3 percent each successive year. The same tolls charged on the turnpike will be charged on I-80. Specifically, Act...

Colorado Department of Transportation Director Russ George wants to see an “absolute, irrevocable” start to a mass transit system along Interstate 70 to come out of an ongoing transportation needs study. George told a seminar Friday he hopes a blue-ribbon panel on which he sits will ask lawmakers to allow his department to use mass transportation to confront the state’s transportation needs. “They will likely say (the department) can do highways, but it can do other things, too,” he said. “Yes, we need to have rail, we need more trails and transit. There’s no question in my mind that we...

We are exactly one month away from the second annual Texas Transportation Forum to be held July 18–20 in Austin at the Hilton Austin located at 500 East 4th Street, one block north of the Austin Convention Center. Local, regional and state leaders will join national experts in exploring the solutions to "Keep Texas Moving." The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), the Associated General Contractors of Texas, the Texas Good Roads Transportation Association, and the Texas Transportation Institute are co-hosts for the event. The keynote speaker for the opening session on July 19 will be Alan E. Pisarski, author of...

Report says that more than $45 billion of the estimate is either in error or undocumented. The State Auditor's Office this morning released a report challenging the validity of almost half of a purported $86 billion shortfall in Texas transportation funding over the next generation, and cautioning that the gap estimate "may not be reliable for making policy or funding decisions." That $86 billion figure has been cited repeatedly by Texas Department of Transportation officials and some legislators as a major reason for the state's increasing need for new toll roads. The number is a compilation of estimates from local...

A few weeks ago I noticed a startling story in the “Money� section of USA TODAY. The main head announced purportedly good news: RIDERS CROWD PUBLIC TRANSIT SYSTEMS, and then came that surprising subhead: HIGHEST USE SINCE THE 1950's AT MORE THAN 10 BILLION TRIPS. Sure enough, the body of the article explained that the American Public Transportation Association reported that ridership rose in 2006 some 2.9%, to reach the highest levels since 1957. Did you know that there were more people using mass transit during the '40's and early '50's than there are today? I most certainly did not....

Mystery cat takes regular bus to the shops Last updated at 17:08pm on 9th April 2007 Bus drivers have nicknamed a white cat Macavity after it has started using the No 331 several mornings a week. The feline, which has a purple collar, gets onto the busy Walsall to Wolverhampton bus at the same stop most mornings - he then jumps off at the next stop 400m down the road, near a fish and chip shop. The cat was nicknamed Macavity after the mystery cat in T.S Elliot's poem. He gets on the bus in front of a row of...

Over the decades of watching the Legislature, no issue has so inflamed passions — and unified such disparate groups — as the current toll-road proposals winding through state government. Texas Department of Transportation officials have argued that the state's highway needs greatly exceed what fuel taxes will generate, and the only way to catch up with the traffic congestion is to sell some planned and existing roads to private operators and use the cash to build other roads. Clearly, the proposal that has most inflamed opponents has been the Trans-Texas Corridor, a massive 50-year project for which the state would...

Toll-road financing (SB 256): The growing practice of contracting with private entities to build and operate toll roads calls for hefty upfront payments. For example, the State Highway 121 project, under way in Collin and Denton counties, should produce about $2 billion in advance money that local governments can use for other vital improvements that the state can't fund anytime soon. This bill would outlaw up-front payments, thus inhibiting the ability to start separate projects immediately. It would also put up a roadblock to the proposed, privately operated Trans-Texas Corridor, a reliever turnpike for the overburdened I-35. Neither would be...

Elected officials, business leaders and environmental watchdogs, invited by the editorial board, recently met at The Dallas Morning News to discuss clean air issues. This is the first of three excerpted transcripts from the roundtable. The speakers quoted: Colleen McCain Nelson, editorial writer; Margaret Keliher, Dallas County judge through 2006; Richard Greene, regional administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency; Tom "Smitty" Smith, director of Public Citizen's Texas office; Jim Schermbeck, Downwinders at Risk board member; Todd Campbell, director of public policy for Clean Energy and mayor of Burbank, Calif.; Al Armendariz, assistant professor, SMU School of Engineering; Robert Cluck, Arlington...

Excerpt - Intelligence agencies have been warned that al Qaeda may be planning to attack air and rail travel in Europe in actions that may occur during the busy holiday travel season, CBS News has learned exclusively. In separate interviews with Arab and other intelligence sources, CBS News has been told that the warnings come from interrogations of al Qaeda suspects who recently left Afghanistan and Pakistan. "One suspect said plans for repeating the Heathrow attempt (a reference to the failed 'liquid bomb' plot interrupted in August) were all prepared. It is now a matter of taking action," said one...

(English-language translation) Over one year after its inauguration, and after a decade’s worth of planning, the Urban Train appears to have been abandoned by the government without any of the necessary support systems becoming a reality to make the project a viable alternative to the daily, large-scale traffic jams. At this moment, with the exception of the buses from the Metropolitan Bus Authority, there is no other mass-transit system that supports the train, whose limited route is not by itself an alternative for most people. The [train-]station concession stands have not been opened, and neither have the construction projects to...

Representative Tom Davis (R-VA) is requesting the House of Representatives to consider an amendment (H.R. 3496, as revised) to the Deep Water Energy Resources Act (H.R. 4761) that would divert $1.5 billion of federal revenues earned through offshore drilling to subsidize the deeply troubled Metro transit system serving the nation’s capital and his congressional district. If enacted, this earmark would be one of the largest ever passed—seven times larger than Alaska’s “Bridge to Nowhere” and twice as large as Mississippi’s “Train to Nowhere.” This earmark would reward Metro’s poor performance with an astounding sum of money while enabling the system...

Passenger counts down nearly 30 percent in aftermath of fare increase in January A rider goes through the turnstile Wednesday at the Sahara station of the Las Vegas Monorail. Ridership is down significantly this year. By OMAR SOFRADZIJA The good news is that Las Vegas Monorail riders have found roomier trains as of late. The bad news is that's because there are far fewer riders on board than last year. Ridership in the first half of 2006 plunged nearly 30 percent from already weak passenger counts last year, with the sustained turnstile slowdown following a fare hike at the start...

Breaking...

Three years after the extension opened, ridership is nowhere near what BART officials had hoped. The route is losing money, and BART is embroiled in a funding fight with another Peninsula transit agency. Prior to construction, BART projected there would be 17,800 average daily boardings to and from the airport by the year 2010. During the first year of operation that began in 2003, there were 5,864 daily boardings, the second year 6,675, and the third year 7,116. Likewise, ridership to and from the three other stations on the airport extension route -- in South San Francisco, San Bruno and...

WASHINGTON — U.S. mass transit systems should remain alert against possible terror attacks, the Homeland Security Department said in a new warning that highlighted suspicious activity at unnamed European subway stations last fall. Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said Wednesday there is no specific or credible intelligence to indicate U.S. transit systems are being targeted, and he described the notice, sent Tuesday, as a routine reminder for transit authority operators, state security advisers and police to remain on guard. In Chicago, transit authority spokeswoman Sheila Gregory said the nation's second largest transit system had not received any information or warning...

ABC News has learned that the Department of Homeland Security has alerted U.S. mass transit officials to "suspicious videotaping" of European rail systems that point to a continuing terrorist interest in targeting mass transit and "possible surveillance or pre-operational planning." According to a short unclassified infrastructure security "private sector note" released Tuesday, May 2nd, DHS says a 17 minute hand held videotape by one foreign national detained in November in a major European city included footage of several stations, two routes and the interior of one "subway car." None of the footage was of tourist attractions. Information from a second...

Double-decker bus takes riders up and down Strip An old-fashioned bus could be sucking riders away from the high-tech Las Vegas Monorail, which carried far fewer riders but made about as much money last month as in March 2005, according to monorail data released Thursday. Citizens Area Transit's "The Deuce" double-decker bus service, which launched on the Strip earlier this year, is believed to have played a role in the monorail drawing just 21,204 daily passengers last month. That's well short of the 32,324 people who took trains every day in March 2005. "We're estimating a few thousand (people) who...

In the next few decades, the ever-growing Dallas-Fort Worth area could experience striking changes in the way that people and goods move. North Central Texas' population has been ballooning faster than the transportation infrastructure -- a situation akin to that of a growing middle-schooler whose old jeans don't quite fit anymore. With the Metroplex expected to add about 4 million people by 2030, it's hard to imagine the hellish traffic jams that we'll face in the future unless we take giant steps to reverse course. New transportation projects and strategies are being hashed out now that might someday save us...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Construction work will begin on the Palm Monorail at The Palm Jumeirah following a joint ground-breaking ceremony held by Nakheel and Japanese contractors the Marubeni Corporation. The ceremony, held at the site of Atlantis, The Palm, was attended by His Highness Sheikh Hasher Bin Maktoum Al Maktoum; Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, Executive Chairman, Nakheel; His Excellency Hajime Tsujimoto, Ambassador of Japan; and Shigeki Kuwahara, Executive Deputy President, Marubeni Corporation. The Palm Monorail, which will take three years to complete, will serve as an efficient transit system between the Gateway Station at...

A New York subway tale: That bag needs a ticket, lady NEW YORK – A ride home on an F Line subway train doubled the cost of Samantha Hoover's groceries after a cop wrote her a $50 ticket for putting the plastic bag on the seat next to her, according to a story in the New York Post. Sitting on the "mostly empty" Brooklyn-bound train Friday evening, Hoover, 33, said she tried to read a magazine, but her thoughts wandered between her day at work and the steak dinner she and her fiancé were going to prepare when she got...

Bleak outlook puts bond sale at risk The Las Vegas Monorail had its worst ridership month ever in January, sinking the troubled $650 million rapid transit line's bond rating further into "junk" status Friday. Ridership slid to just 18,187 daily riders last month -- roughly half of what it was in July -- while Fitch Rating, a credit rating firm, dropped the monorail's rating to "BB," two notches into "junk" territory. That poor showing imperils plans to extend the monorail to McCarran International Airport, which would rely on a multimillion-dollar bond sale to cover the cost.