USA - railways, public transport, services and incidents (merged posts)

[whole diary]

[grahame]

From NPR

Amtrak Asks Two People Who Use Wheelchairs To Pay $25,000 For A Ride

It costs just $16 to buy a one-way ticket on the Amtrak train from Chicago to Bloomington, Ill., unless you're the two people who use wheelchairs and tried to buy tickets recently. They were told their tickets will cost not $16 — but $25,000.

When Adam Ballard saw what Amtrak wanted to charge, he couldn't believe it.

"I thought it was a mistake. That's the price of a car," Ballard says. "How can that be possible? I was sure it was a mistake. But I've seen it in writing. So I know it's not."

Ballard works for a disability service and advocacy center in Chicago called Access Living. He is its housing and transportation policy analyst, and a group from his office is headed to Bloomington next Wednesday for a work retreat.

There are 10 of them, and five — including Ballard — use wheelchairs. Their train has three cars. Each car has one space for a wheelchair. That makes three spaces for five people in wheelchairs. In the past, when Access Living gave advance notice that it was sending a large group, Amtrak took out more seats to fit more wheelchairs. Once, it took out seats in the dining car and charged a few hundred dollars extra.

[snip]

On Dec. 30, an Amtrak agent for group sales based in Philadelphia wrote: "I received a cost regarding the removal of seats and I've been advised this will be over $25 K. Would you like for me to proceed with the request?"

Someone from the group wrote back: "Am I reading this correctly?"

The answer came back on Jan. 2. "The cost is correct," the agent wrote, citing a new policy for taking out those seats. The agent explained that it's expensive to take out extra seats and that it means taking a car out of service.

"With removal of seats, it can be quite costly," the agent wrote. "In previous years, the removal of seats from the coach cars incurred fees that Amtrak absorbed ... We understand and appreciate your loyalty with Amtrak. Going forward, we cannot continue to absorb these fees. These polices have changed nationwide as of 2019."

[Article continues]

[rogerw]

Bad as that is, I wonder what the response would have been in this country as few, if any, trains have space for 5 wheelchairs

[TaplowGreen]

Bad as that is, I wonder what the response would have been in this country as few, if any, trains have space for 5 wheelchairs

I guess the question is, does it constitute a "reasonable adjustment"?

[PhilWakely]

Bad as that is, I wonder what the response would have been in this country as few, if any, trains have space for 5 wheelchairs

A couple of years back, my nephew and several friends wanted to cycle the Devon 'Coast to Coast' path, starting at Plymouth. They were obviously unable to book all their bikes on the same service. It was suggested - and accepted - that they booked their bikes on following services and meet up at Plymouth. Not quite the same as a group of wheelchair users, but probably the best way forward depending upon the occasion.

[Richard Fairhurst]

A less frequent service between Chicago and Bloomington than between Barnstaple and Plymouth, though!

https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/public/documents/timetables/Illinois-Missouri-Services-Schedule-091317.pdf

[grahame]

From the Daily Mail

POMPANO BEACH, Fla. (AP) - One person died Tuesday morning when a car was hit by a high speed train in South Florida, officials said.

The Brightline train, which operates between Miami and West Palm Beach, struck the car at an intersection in Pompano Beach about 10:12 a.m. Tuesday, said sheriff's spokeswoman Gerdy St. Louis. One person was confirmed dead.

Witnesses to the crash said the vehicle went around the guard rails, a Brightline spokesman told The Associated Press.

More than 40 people have been killed by the train, which travels at speeds up to 79 mph (127 kph) through some of Florida's most densely populated cities, according to records. An analysis of data by The Associated Press in December found the death rate is about one for every 29,000 miles (47,000 kilometers) the trains have traveled, which is the worst per-mile death rate of the nation's 821 railroads.

A sobering statistic ... has me wondering what the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) figure is.  Noting the figure quoted relates to all deaths and not just passenger deaths which are minuscule in the overall total.

[eightf48544]

Does it include staff deaths?

[TonyK]

I've had a look at ORR^» (Office of Rail and Road formerly Office of Rail Regulation - about)'s statistics for 2018-19. From these, we see that:

• the total number of kilometres travelled by trains (national rail network and London Underground) was 150,500,000. This represented 142m Km passenger and 8.5m Km freight.
• the total number of fatalities was 331. This represented 2 workforce, 17 passengers (13 national rail, 4 London Underground, none as a result of an accident on a train as a passenger), 10 accidents to other members of the public and 302 suicides or apparent suicides.

To give the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) equivalent of the Florida statistic, there is one fatality on average every 454,683 Km (282,527 miles) travelled by a train. Taking suicides from the calculation, there is one death every 5,189,655 Km (3,224,702 miles). That makes the incidence around a tenth of the Florida number if suicides are included or less than one percent if they are not.

2018/19 was the 12th successive year without a single fatality of a passenger on a train on the national rail network or London Underground, the last being the Pendolino accident at Grayrigg.

[JayMac]

Solari boards have also largely disappeared from airports too. One survivor, at Singapore Changhi Airport, is being decommissioned today, 26th February 2020.

News report, including video footage of the board on operation:

BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) News - Solari boards: The disappearing sound of airports
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-51470599

[grahame]

A view from City Lab - posted to The Coffee Shop because there are many global lessons and suggests.    What will work for Sacramento may work for Bristol.  What will work for Baton Rouge may work for Bath.

Subway and bus systems in the U.S. face financial peril as ridership collapses due to lockdowns. To keep transit alive, here’s a playbook for immediate and long-term fixes.

Public transportation has been in a state of crisis since the coronavirus pandemic began. Ridership in major cities in the U.S., Europe and China is down by 50-90% from pre-crisis levels. ...

[snip]

But there is a way forward. We offer these pathways for saving transit, immediately and into the future.

What to do now

[snip]

What to plan over the next year

[snip]

Short-term cuts deployed to save transit agencies money during a crisis should not become permanent once the crisis is over.

[snip]

Big, structural change is needed

[snip]

As transit agencies struggle to find their footing in an uncertain future with dramatically less revenue from the usual sources, it’s time to rethink how transit agencies operate and are funded. If agencies reassess their priorities and push forward ambitious plans to reorient cities around their systems, with the assistance of the federal government, buses and subways can thrive when the country is ready to return to regular service.

[grahame]

From Reuters

DERAILED. Amtrak, America’s perennially beleaguered passenger-rail operator, is asking for an extra $1.5 billion of government support to get it through Covid-19. The provider of lucrative Washington-New York-Boston services also runs a network of often slow and money-sucking routes elsewhere. As recently as February, Amtrak was on course for its first-ever breakeven year, boss Bill Flynn told officials in a letter on Monday.

Even then, he was asking Congress for $2 billion based on the rail group’s annual assessment of its needs. Faced with empty trains in the short term and a projected 50% decline in ridership for the coming fiscal year, Amtrak now needs more. The administration of President Donald Trump has previously suggested breaking it up; on the other hand, given sufficient resources, trains might be better placed than planes to offer travel with social distancing. Amtrak’s always cloudy future is more uncertain than ever. (By Richard Beales)

[Red Squirrel]

...but they didn't only vote for which old white man was going to try to run the country for the next few years!

It's a feature of US elections that people also get to vote on a raft of other things too. Last night:

Austin, Texas voted for a USD7.5 billion property tax plan, including new light rail lines a downtown tunnel, BRT^▸ (Bus Rapid Transit), and park and rides.

Denver, Colorado voted for 1/4-cent 'climate change' sales tax to fund climate-focused initiatives, including potential transit investments.

Fairfax, Virginia voted for $160 m in bonds to support local funding for Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority - the DC^▸ (Direct Current) metro.

[grahame]

Denver, Colorado voted for 1/4-cent 'climate change' sales tax to fund climate-focused initiatives, including potential transit investments.

However ...

To reduce the burden of the tax, the measure would not apply to purchases of food, water, fuel, medical supplies and feminine hygiene products.

... which strikes me as something of a mixed message ...

[ellendune]

Meanwhile over here local authorities cannot even raise the one tax central government allow them to levy by more than a small percentage and must rely on ever decreasing grants from central government. 

What a very different world. 

[Western Pathfinder]

Trump. 215
Byden . 254
Intercity. 125.