The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority's Exposition Line Phase I (pictured) from downtown L.A. to Culver City will open this spring.

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority's Exposition Line Phase I (pictured) from downtown L.A. to Culver City will open this spring.

For several years now and accelerating through the Great Recession, transit rail projects have been forced to scale back or make longer their delivery timelines due to unforeseen funding pressures. This has been true even as the federal government effectively doubled its annual funding in the 2009 stimulus legislation. In many cases, however, the additional funds were used to "back-fill" reduced local matches as sales tax and other local revenues declined in the wake of the worst economic downturn since the 1930s.

Moreover, because local revenues were hit hard, many projects had no operating funds to count on even if enough capital dollars were scraped together to build the projects.

Now, however, even as the additional federal funding has been tapering off, the slide in local revenues appears finally to be hitting the bottom. The easing of the fiscal crisis has produced a situation where many deferred or stretched-out projects are now scheduled for service openings in the next two years.

States, cities begin recovery
According to the Pew Center for the States' most recent report issued this past fall, only four states — California, Missouri, New York and Washington — report budget gaps since the fiscal year began in July 2011; the year before, 15 states faced the situation. Put another way, the cumulative state budget gap for the current fiscal year is $4.4 billion, compared with $26.7 billion for the year before.

Although the state budgets fared badly in this period, local and regional budgets and their earmarked receipts for public transportation investments (where voters have approved such measures) fared even more poorly, according to analysis of American Public Transit Association and FTA data.

Those revenues also appear to be coming back, though more slowly than state budgets, primarily because these tax sources are more susceptible to the swings of the economic cycle than income or fuel taxes.

Canadian governments have also boosted spending on rail transit projects, also as a means to stimulate the economy during the downturn, though not as severe as it was in the U.S. The programs include the $33 billion Building Canada Plan, with public transportation identified as one of five national priorities under the $8.8 billion Building Canada Fund. Like some of the new programs introduced in the U.S., transit projects are also being funded through a new $4 billion Infrastructure Stimulus Fund, as part of Canada's national Economic Action Plan. In another act of following the lead of its neighbor to the south, in 2008, for the first time ever, Canada made its Gas Tax Fund (its motor fuels trust fund) permanent, which provides further stability to an already significant support for local public infrastructure throughout the country, including transit.

Below is a list of the new rail project revenue openings scheduled for 2012 in the U.S. and Canada, as well as the new rail projects that will break ground this year.

Openings this spring include:

  • Boston Fitchburg Line extension to Wachusett (4.5 miles of commuter rail).
  • Los Angeles Exposition Line Phase I (6.5 miles of light rail), from downtown L.A. to Culver City.
  • Miami Airport Link (2.4 miles of heavy rail), from Earlington Heights to Miami Intermodal Center Station at Miami International Airport.
  • Sacramento Green Line (1 mile of light rail), from downtown into the River District.
  • Seattle Sounder Lakewood Extension (8 miles of commuter rail), from the Tacoma Dome to Lakewood.
  • New Orleans UPT/Loyola Avenue Corridor (1 mile of streetcar), from Union Passenger Terminal to Canal Street.
  • Pittsburgh North Shore Connector (1.2 miles of light rail), from Gateway Center downtown to Allegheny Station.

In July, the Dallas' Orange Line's first phase, comprising 5.4 miles of light rail, will open from Bachmann Station to the Irving Convention Center in Dallas' sprawling suburbs.

The debut schedule pace accelerates throughout the rest of the year as six more are expected to start up, two in Dallas alone:

  • Calgary Northeast Line Extension (1.8 miles of light rail), from McKnight-Westwinds to Saddletowne Circle.
  • Dallas Blue Line Extension (4.5 miles of light rail), from Downtown Garland to Downtown Rowlett.
  • Dallas Orange Line Phase II (3.9 miles of light rail), from Irving Convention Center to Belt Line.
  • Portland, Ore.'s Eastside Streetcar Loop extends the city's famous streetcar 3.3 miles more, from the Pearl District to the Riverfront District.
  • Montreal Train de l'Est (32-mile commuter rail line), from Downtown Montreal to Mascouche in the city's eastern suburbs.
  • Providence Rail to Wickford Junction (commuter rail), from Warwick to Wickford Junction.[PAGEBREAK]

The North Shore Connector will extend the Port Authority of Allegheny County's light rail system, the T, from Downtown Pittsburgh into the city's thriving North Shore area.

The North Shore Connector will extend the Port Authority of Allegheny County's light rail system, the T, from Downtown Pittsburgh into the city's thriving North Shore area.

New Construction Starts
Some of these projects also owe their 2012 construction starts to some new funding programs that began with the federal stimulus legislation in the U.S., particularly the Transportation Investments Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) program, which has given roughly one-third of its total funding over the past three fiscal years to rail transit projects, including streetcars, that often do not fare well under the FTA's evaluation criteria. Two illustrative examples include Atlanta's 2.3-mile Downtown Streetcar, from the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site to Centennial Olympic Park, and Cincinnati's Downtown Streetcar (2 miles), from the Over-the-Rhine district to the Riverfront area. Both are scheduled for revenue openings next year.
Three other streetcar projects that benefited from TIGER grants are Tucson's 3.9-mile Modern Streetcar from the University of Arizona's campus to Downtown Tucson; Salt Lake City Sugar House Streetcar (2-mile streetcar); and the 2.5-mile French Quarter Expansion Project in New Orleans, from Canal Street to Esplanade Avenue. The Tucson and this New Orleans project are also expected to open next year, while the Sugar House streetcar is slated for a 2014 debut.

The Urban Circulator Program, started by the FTA using the exempt projects section of the Major Capital Investment Program, has also benefited streetcar projects that require no more than $25 million in discretionary capital assistance. One such beneficiary is the aforementioned Cincinnati streetcar project, which was rated the highest project of any infrastructure project in Ohio by the state government's independent evaluation board. However, the new governor, long an opponent of rail transit projects from the days he was a member of Congress, killed the state government support for the project, and thus, had to be scaled back to the starter loop mentioned. In addition, the project had to successfully defeat this past November — for the second time in two years — a ban on further development of the streetcar.

The St. Louis Loop Trolley, which will start construction this year, is another Urban Circulator grant recipient. Project officials expect it to open in 2014.

Another streetcar breaking ground in 2012 and opening next year is Seattle's second line, the 2.2-mile First Hill Streetcar, from the increasingly popular Capitol Hill neighborhood to downtown at King Street. This line is funded with local funds, however, as part of the ST2 referendum that voters approved in 2008.

Streetcars are not the only rail projects schedule to break ground this year in North America. Others include an automated guideway transit project, three commuter rail lines, two conventional heavy rail projects and two light rail extensions.

Orlando, Fla.'s SunRail, a 31-mile commuter rail line, scheduled to open in 2014 from DeLand to DeBary. A second phase will extend the project by another 30 miles two years later. It, too, had a rocky history, with the state legislature almost killing it and the new conservative governor appearing to put the final nail in the coffin. However, after reviewing it — and some say, bowing to political pressure after he returned the federal money that killed the high-speed rail line from Orlando to Tampa — he reversed his earlier public statements and allowed the project to go forward.

In Vancouver, B.C., the $1.4 billion automated Evergreen Line will begin utilities and railroad relocation and other early civil construction. When completed in 2016, it will run as part of the city's Skytrain network, connecting with the Millennium Line and running to Coquitlum.

In California, the first 37 miles of the Sonoma-Marin Area Regional Train (SMART) commuter rail project will break ground, with opening scheduled for 2014. The first phase will go from Santa Rosa to downtown San Rafael, and the remaining 33 miles will open in the latter part of the decade. Originally estimated to open earlier, the economic downturn and ensuing drop in the voter-approved two-county sales tax revenues dedicated to the project caused a revised schedule. However, the downturn also contributed to the first phase coming in well below the $695 million budget.

Another commuter rail project, though this one with potentially national implications, that breaks ground this year is Denver Northwest Rail Segment. Part of the three-line Eagle Public Private Partnership concession, the first of its kind in the U.S., this first segment, a two-mile electrified line, is slated for a 2016 opening.

Two heavy rail extensions will break ground in 2012. They include Washington, D.C.'s Dulles Metrorail Extension Phase 2, from Wiehle Avenue to Route 772, via Dulles Airport. In San Francisco, the first (10-mile) phase of the Bay Area Rapid Transit District's extension to Silicon Valley Phase I (10-mile metro rail) begins construction, running from Warm Springs in South San Francisco to Berryessa Road in San Jose. The Dulles project is expected to open in 2016, with the Silicon Valley project following two years later. Meanwhile, the first phase of the Dulles project, running 11.6 miles from Falls Church, Va., to Wiehle Avenue, is already well under construction and scheduled to open next year.

Two Seattle light rail projects will begin construction this year. They include the South Link, which will progress the Link LRT just over a mile and a half from SeaTac Airport to Renton. The North Link will extend the system 4.3 miles to Northgate. The South Link is schedule for a 2016 opening and the North Link in 2021.

[PAGEBREAK]

Pittsburgh's 1.2-mile North Shore Connector extension included the construction of three new stations in Downtown Pittsburgh and on the North Shore.

Pittsburgh's 1.2-mile North Shore Connector extension included the construction of three new stations in Downtown Pittsburgh and on the North Shore.

Next year
The drumbeat continues into next year with more projects that have already begun construction having scheduled openings in 2013. They include a commuter rail project (in Boston), three light rail jobs (in Calgary, Denver and Salt Lake City) and redevelopment of Denver's Union Station as the region's intermodal hub designed to attract billions of dollars more of real estate development. Last but certainly not least is the 1.7-mile New York City Line 7 extension, the first extension of Big Apple's subway system since the 1950s.

As planned, the District of Columbia Department of Transportation had planned for its Anacostia and H Street Streetcars to open in 2013. However, the department just cancelled its $8.9 million streetcar order with United Streetcar, which it awarded roughly a month before. It thus remains to be seen whether the city can open both lines totaling 3.7 miles, or only one with the Czech-built Innekon cars it purchased several years ago from options on Portland's contract.

Trends continue...
It is assured rail project construction and scheduled openings will continue into this decade, given the money already programmed at all levels of government; at least in the near future, this pace will likely continue. At press time, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee was said to be crafting a five-year $260 billion bill ($52 billion per year, roughly matching the Senate's proposal, though the latter is only for two years).

Meanwhile, the FTA issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) that would revise the process for the New Starts/Small Starts program. In developing this NPRM, FTA says it wants to balance two broad goals: measuring a wider range of transit project benefits, such as the livability benefits outlined in the Urban Circulator program, and process streamlining, such as it did for the Very Small Starts program.

For those looking for the federal interest in rail-based public transportation, they need to look no further than the local officials and citizens who are demanding continued federal investment. The openings and construction on such projects are the tangible result of their popularity.

 

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