UTU News Digest - Thursday, October 15, 1998

UTU Daily News Digest

Information of interest to operating railroad and transportation employees

Thursday, October 15, 1998

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BNSF, UP agree to user-fee for ports of L.A. and Long Beach

LOS ANGELES -- The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have finalized a user-fee arrangement with the Union Pacific (UP) and Burlington Northern and Santa Fe (BNSF) railroads that will assure funding for the $2.4 billion Alameda Corridor.

The UP and BNSF have agreed to pay a user fee of $30 per loaded 40-foot container, $8 per empty FEU and $8 for other railcars, such as coal cars. The fees will increase each year in line with the consumer price index, with a floor of a 1.5-% increase per year and a cap of 3% per year.

The agreement is significant because it means that construction on the nation's costliest intermodal project can proceed full-throttle until its expected completion in February 2002.

The Alameda Corridor is representative of what major container ports will need to do to accommodate the intermodal cargo that is flooding the United States. It is a 20-mile rail and roadway corridor that will expedite the movement of containers between the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, and rail transfer yards in downtown Los Angeles.

Train movements to and from the ports will be consolidated into a single corridor, eliminating 200 grade crossings in the congested urban area. A 10-mile stretch of the corridor will be 30 feet below street level.

Port and highway engineers say that, without the corridor, train movements would create unbearable gridlock and unacceptable air pollution in Southern California. Train movements to and from the ports are projected to increase from about 32 per day to 100 per day by the year 2020. In its first phase, which will cost $355 million, the FAST Corridor will eliminate 12 choke points that slow intermodal traffic from the ports of Seattle and Tacoma.

At those container ports, the choke points are not in the harbors, but rather in the cities and in outlying communities. The need to move intermodal traffic through congested urban areas is driving construction of projects such as the Alameda Corridor and FAST Corridor.

It was the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority's approval of those user fees on Wednesday that assures funding for the corridor and opens the door for rapid progress. Construction on smaller portions of the corridor has been under way for a year, but now the corridor authority can proceed with major contracts, such as the 10-mile, $731-million depressed rail portion. The user fees also were crucial in selling the bonds, which will hit the market in January 1999.

Getting the railroads to agree to the $30 per-FEU user fees was one of the major challenges. The railroads agreed in principle to the concept in 1994, but it was not until this week that the structure was finalized.

Both the UP and BNSF continue to experience growth at their rail transfer yards in downtown Los Angeles. The BNSF is doubling the size of Hobart railyard. The Hobart yard, which is handling more than 700,000 lifts per year, will be handling 1.4 million lifts at the turn of the decade.

Container traffic through the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex has increased 95% since 1991, and this year will exceed 6.5 million 20-foot container units. More than half of those containers move by rail to the eastern half of the country.

Money set aside for Maglev planning

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Transportation Secretary Rodney E. Slater today announced that grant funds will be available for pre-construction planning of a Magnetic Levitation (Maglev) transportation system at an U.S. location.

"President Clinton is committed to harnessing technology that improves the quality of life for Americans and the economic strength of the nation," Secretary Slater said. "With this demonstration of high speed technology, Maglev will help ensure an efficient transportation system that offers flexibility of choices."

Maglev technology uses magnetic fields to safely and comfortably propel a vehicle at speeds of 240 mph or more on a specially designed guideway. Maglev trains can travel at speeds estimated to be at least 30 percent faster than Japanese bullet trains and almost twice the speed of any train currently operating in the U.S. In Germany, there are plans to break ground shortly on the construction of a system using this technology to link Berlin and Hamburg, a distance of 180 miles, with travel time of one hour.

"The purpose of the Maglev deployment program is to demonstrate this promising 21st century technology to the American people," FRA Administrator Jolene M. Molitoris said.

The award of planning grants will enable the U.S. Secretary of Transportation to choose the best site for this demonstration through a competition among interested states and their private partners, she said.

The interim final rule in today's Federal Register sets a deadline of Dec. 31, 1998, for interested states and designated authorities to submit applications for planning grants. The FRA will accept proposals from interested organizations or authorities designated by one or more states. Grant funds of $15 million are available in fiscal year 1999 to carry out pre-construction planning activities. Several states have already indicated an interest in applying.

Portland clears hurdle in light-rail airport extension

PORTLAND -- Portland faces a big potential problem with its light-rail airport extension funding -- but officials think they've got a way around it.

Last week, the Port of Portland Commission, which owns and operates Portland International Airport, cleared a $180 million plan to connect Metro Area Express (Max) trains to the airport.

The problem: Port officials plan to ask the Federal Aviation Administration to help pay for the project, from a pool of "passenger facilities charges" -- basically, federal taxes -- tacked on to the price of airplane tickets. And the 1990 law that created the ticket tax says the collections can be used only for additions or improvements "within the boundaries of the airport." Projects similar to Portland's have been denied funding by the FAA -- or had their funding challenged by the airline industry -- for not meeting that guideline.

Portland's solution: Use the tax receipts to pay for rail facilities inside the airport -- and find other sources to pay for the rest of the extension.

In the application to the FAA, which port officials say they hope to file in December, the city will ask for $40 million for only that portion of Max that will run from the airport terminal 1.2 miles east to 82nd Avenue. Then three other backers will pony up the $140 million needed to finish the extension, from 82nd Avenue to the Gateway Transit Center.

The investors are Tri-Met, the transit authority for the three counties that make up Portland; the Portland Development Commission, the city's redevelopment agency; and a private concern called Cascades Station Development LLC, whose partners are Bechtel Enterprises of San Francisco and Trammel Crow Co. of Dallas. (In return, Cascades will receive an 85-year lease on 120 acres in the Portland International Center industrial park, which it will develop and lease.)

German railworkers get job protection plan

BERLIN -- The German railway, Deutsche Bahn, and the railworkers union agreed Wednesday to extend for four years a job protection plan for the 260,000 railworkers.

The agreement protecting workers jobs was to expire at the end of the year. Despite the continuing job protection, the railway expects to cut back some 20,000 jobs this year through voluntary severance agreements.

The railworkers union has been negotiating to extend the protection agreement for more than a year, and the union vice president, Norbert Hansen, credited the election of a new center-left government for the deal.

"This is a signal for political change in Germany," Hansen said.