this issue: increasing capacity -...

®

The Resource for Public Transportation Professionals | Winter 2017

THIS ISSUE:

Increasing Capacity

3 Mining momentum How the Foothill Gold Line Construction Authority is delivering the 38-mile, 25-station program on time and on budget Habib F. Balian

Chief Executive Officer Foothill Gold Line Construction Authority

6 Extending BART to Silicon Valley VTA prepares to deliver Phase 1 ahead of schedule and trending $100 million under budget Carolyn M. Gonot

Director, Engineering and Transportation Infrastructure Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority

9 Broadening the view Holistic planning and partnerships can enhance transit capacity — and preserve budgets Diana Mendes, AICP

Leader transit/rail market sector HNTB Corporation

11 Converting skeptics to streetcar lovers How M-1 RAIL is increasing Detroit’s appetite for premium transit service Sommer Woods

Vice President of External Relations, Marketing & Communications

M-1 RAIL

HNTB | InTransit | Winter 2017 3

When Phase 1 of the Metro Gold Line from Los Angeles’ Union Station to Pasadena, California, went into service in 2003, it marked the first passenger service to the San Gabriel Valley in 100 years. Phase 2 of the Gold Line Foothill Extension takes the light rail commuter line 12 miles farther east from Pasadena to Azusa. That phase opened in March 2016.

Metro officials initially projected ridership would grow to 20,000 rides per day by 2023, but the Gold Line has exceeded those estimates. Since phase 2 opened, ridership has increased to historic levels, attracting 50,000 people each weekday. Nearly 1.4 million rides are taking place on the line each month. Metro has added trains and reduced headways to meet demand.

With the successful passage of L.A.’s Measure M in November 2016, plans are in full swing to execute phase 3 of the extension from Glendora to Montclair, adding another 12.3 miles. After the groundbreaking in late 2017, the project is expected to take about six years to complete.

The Foothill Gold Line Construction Authority is a separate public agency from Los Angeles Metro created by the California State Assembly to plan, design and build the light rail line, using Metro’s design guidelines and specifications. Metro operates and maintains the line following construction.

InTransit had an opportunity to talk with Construction Authority CEO Habib F. Balian about how the agency is keeping the three-segment program moving forward on time and on budget.

InTransit: This program has a long history. How has the Construction Authority kept the project top of mind with stakeholders and the community?

Balian: We had a lot of champions with this project. Elected officials at every level knew a light rail project would be transformative, and they have been uniformly in support of it for all these years — even as the project moved geographically and the lines of certain jurisdictions changed.

Keeping the communities along the alignment informed and educated about the project and how it will impact them, not only during construction but long term, is another way we have sustained momen-tum. But you also have to capture their imaginations.

We were fortunate to have time and a substantial amount of seed money, which allowed us to get to know the project, to “wear it” and to give the cities an opportunity to become comfortable with what we were building and put their fingerprints on it.

We partnered with each city to research pedestrian access to stations, parking, kiss-n-rides, landscaping and walkways. Under our Station Design and Art Re-view Committees, each city put together a committee and selected an artist from a nationwide search. We worked with each committee and its respective artist to develop design elements and color palettes that would make their station unique.

Once everyone saw the same vision, it snowballed. Cities began looking at their general plans and master plans and the types of development that might be encouraged by the presence of transit.

You can’t ambush your partners. They must be informed at every level. We have a joint powers authority of elected official representatives appointed by each corridor city and a technical advisory committee of city managers or their staff appointees.

We also established memorandums of understand-ing with each city. The MOUs outlined how our work

Mining momentumHow the Foothill Gold Line Construction Authority is delivering the 38-mile, 25-station program on time and on budget

InTransit® is published by HNTB Corporation. HNTB is an infrastructure solutions firm providing award-winning planning, design, program management and construction management services. Please direct all questions or comments about InTransit to [email protected].

Habib F. Balian Chief Executive Officer Foothill Gold Line Construction Authority

You can’t ambush your partners. They must be informed at every level. @HNTBCorp

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HNTB | InTransit | Winter 2017 54 HNTB | InTransit | Winter 2017

would be organized, how we would communicate with them, what we were going to be building, what we would need their comment on and the number of days they would have for concurrence or comment — things that are so rudimentary to a project but, if not communicated, also can ruin it.

InTransit: The Construction Authority has elected to deliver all three phases of the extension via design-build. The first two phases have been delivered on time and on budget. How have you made it work?

Balian: We squeeze as much risk out of the project as possible before we award a contract. The seed money I mentioned earlier allowed us to understand the project and solicit participation. It helped us generate buy-in and complete 30-percent design — some places less, some places more — which put us in a very strong position when we bid the project.

Design-build works very well when everyone on the team is in synch. It takes a strong stomach to freeze design. You must be willing to say, “This is it,” early on, so the design-builder can do its job. And we are getting to that point now with phase 3. In the past two years, we have completed $15 million in conceptual design and engineering.

InTransit: Would you like to tell us about phase 3 extension?

Balian: Phase 3 is really two massive projects in one. It calls for building 12.3 miles of Gold Line track in addition to relocating the freight/Metrolink track that runs alongside our alignment for the entire length of the segment from Glendora to Montclair.

Our current plan is to let two design-build pack-ages. The first contract will focus on utility relocation. Our goal is to complete that work before we bring in the big design-builder under the second contract, which will cover everything else.

InTransit: The Gold Line is very successful with year-over-year ridership growth. To what do you attribute its popularity?

Balian: Cities planned their developments around the Gold Line. Pasadena will build single-family and multifamily housing, medical offices, grocery stores and theaters within a half mile of the Gold Line. People are coming there because they want to be near transit.

You also have to understand the L.A. region. We border San Bernardino, which is experiencing a housing boom. People are raising their families there and commuting to L.A. for their jobs. The Gold

Line provides a reliable alternative to getting on the congested freeway. Metro is running seven-minute headways at peak with two-car trains. The trains are clean and the stations look like new, which adds to the satisfying experience.

InTransit: You mentioned transit-oriented development. Did cities buy into the concept of TOD from the start?

Balian: For 10 or 15 years, we fought the myth that transit brings down property values. Now, we have proof it does not. We just completed two studies — one that focuses on the regional impact of TOD and one that focuses on TOD around each station in Pasadena. The studies prove TOD is not conjecture anymore, it’s fact. Cities now see transit as a gold mine. You can see the swell of development from Pasadena eastward.

InTransit: You’ve overseen the successful delivery of two phases of the Gold Line extension. What have you learned from this experience?

Balian: You can’t overestimate how important good planning is to success. When everyone shares the same vision, you can do tremendous things. ■

… we fought the myth that transit brings down property values. Now, we have proof it does not.

Courtesy Foothill Gold Line

READ MORE ON THE STUDIES REFERENCED HERE:

Gold Line Transit Oriented Development Update http://foothillgoldline.org/images/uploads/Maxima_Group_-_Foothill_Gold_Line_TOD_web.pdf

Economic and Fiscal Impacts of Transit Oriented Development at Gold Line Foothill Extension Pasadena Stations http://foothillgoldline.org/images/uploads/Beacon_Economics_-_Foothill_Gold_Line_TOD.pdf

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Habib F. Balian is the chief executive officer of the Foothill Gold Line Construction Authority, overseeing planning, funding and construction of the light rail line from Los Angeles to Montclair. During his 16-year tenure with the Construction Authority, he has overseen construction of the nearly 14-mile Los Angeles-to-Pasadena segment and the 11.5-mile Pasadena-to-Azusa segment. Balian also is overseeing the necessary planning studies and advanced engineering to ready the segment from Glendora to Montclair for construction starting late 2017. Contact him at (626) 471-9050 or [email protected].

FUNDING HISTORY

All three phases of the Foothill Gold Line have been locally funded. Phase 1, the Los Angeles-to- Pasadena segment, was funded through Propositions A and C. These funds were in place when the Construction Authority was established and took over construction of the project in 1998.

Phases 2 and 3, Pasadena-to-Azusa and Glendora-to-Montclair, cost nearly $1 billion and $1.2 billion respectively. Phase 2 was fully funded through Measure R, a half-cent sales tax for Los Angeles County to finance new transportation projects and programs. The tax took effect in July 2009.

Most of the $1.2 billion needed to build phase 3 will come from the Los Angeles County Traffic Improvement Plan, a half-cent sales tax measure (Measure M) from Los Angeles County Metro that was approved by voters in the November 2016 election and will take effect in July 2017.

“There is a huge opportunity to optimize the public investment we have made in the Gold Line, as well as the future investment in extending the Gold Line to increase ridership even more,” said John Fasana, Chairman, L.A. County Metro, during a 2016 State of the Project update.

Measure M includes construction funds to build the Foothill Gold Line to the county line in Claremont and fulfills Los Angeles County Metro’s commitment to complete the line as a top priority.

The Foothill Gold Line from Glendora to the county line in Claremont has been earmarked just over $1 billion in Measure M and will add stations in Glendora, San Dimas, La Verne, Pomona and Claremont.

The extension from Claremont to Montclair will need to be funded separately by San Bernardino County.


Extending BART to Silicon Valley VTA prepares to deliver Phase 1 ahead of schedule and trending $100 million under budget

Bay Area Rapid Transit provides high-capacity, heavy-rail service to four counties in the San Francisco Bay Area and soon will add a fifth: Santa Clara County. The BART to Silicon Valley extension, a 16-mile, grade-separated corridor, will connect Santa Clara County residents to the 109-mile BART system. At $7 billion, it is one of the largest transportation projects in California.

As the congestion management agency and transit operator for Santa Clara County, the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) is responsible for designing and constructing the BART Silicon Valley extension. Once it is completed, BART will operate and maintain the system. The project includes six stations, a new BART maintenance and storage facility in Santa Clara and rail cars.

Next year, VTA will complete the first phase — a $2.4 billion, 10-mile segment, extending BART service from Fremont, California, to north San José, California. It’s a project that, among other challenges, weathered the dot-com bust in the early 2000s and recession in 2008 and 2009.

The $7 billion BART Silicon Valley extension is funded largely by local sales tax revenues. The economic crisis might have derailed the project had we not constructed a safety net of best practices intended to mitigate the risks associated with an urban greenfield transit project:

1. We emphasized its importance to the region. VTA’s Board of Directors promoted the great significance of this project to the San Francisco Bay Area region and the continued economic growth of Silicon Valley. The extension will complete a regional rail network. It connects the heavily urbanized East Bay with the largest county in the Bay Area and then links to Caltrain on the West Bay, forming a loop around San Francisco Bay.

Regional connectivity is important to the future of the San Francisco Bay Area and to Silicon

Valley, the high-technology center of the nation. Both Santa Clara County and the project corridor are anticipated to continue their remarkable growth well into the future. The BART extension will offer a frequent, reliable option to destinations throughout the Bay Area and an alternative to congested freeways.

2. We had the business community’s full support. One of the project’s biggest champions has been the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, a public policy business trade organization representing more than 400 respected employers. They realize the intrinsic connection between mobility and economic growth and have aggressively supported every sales tax measure to fund the extension.

3. We focused on quality-of-life benefits. Nearly every freeway in and out of Santa Clara County operates at capacity from 6 to 10:30 a.m. and from 2:30 to 7:30 p.m., severely restricting mobility.

BART Silicon Valley will offer a reliable alternative to freeway commute times, which can vary greatly. It will improve access to employment, education, medical and retail centers in the region.

4. We had a dedicated funding source. Once voters understood the benefits of BART Silicon Valley, they made certain the project had a dedicated funding source — approving three separate VTA sales tax measures, each requiring a two-thirds majority.

Measure A in 2000 was a 30-year, 1/2-cent sales tax. It was approved by 70.3 percent of voters. In 2008, we asked for a 1/8-cent sales tax increase for 30 years to operate and maintain the extension. We won that vote in the middle of a recession with a 66.78 percent majority. In 2016, we added to the November ballot another 1/2-cent, 30-year sales tax for various BART projects, and voters

Carolyn M. Gonot Director, Engineering and

Transportation InfrastructureSanta Clara Valley

Transportation Authority

approved it by a 70.9 percent margin. One of the projects in that measure is the completion of the BART Silicon Valley extension.

Achieving a two-thirds majority is extremely difficult. To hit that mark three times is indicative of how much people believe in this project and its potential to improve the quality of life in Santa Clara County.

5. We had a plan if sales tax revenues fluctuated. The extension enjoyed a strong life until the economy faltered in the mid-2000s. During the economic recession, revenues from our first sales tax measure dropped by more than 40 percent than the projections made when Measure A passed in 2000. The unexpected loss in revenues meant we were no longer able to deliver the extension in its entirety through Measure A by 2015.

To maintain voter and stakeholder support, we worked with the federal government to phase the project, which gave us the ability to keep the project moving forward based on the funding we did have.

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BART Silicon Valley Berryessa ExtensionBART Silicon Valley Extension (Future Phase)BART Warm Springs ExtensionCaltrainACE/Capitol CorridorVTA LightrailBART StationParking

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Opening day ridership for the Phase 1 Berryessa Extension is estimated at

23,000

That number is projected to double after 15 years.

BART SILICON VALLEY BENEFITS:

• Improve mobility

• Fast travel times to passenger destinations

• Access to jobs, educational facilities, medical centers, retail outlets and entertainment venues

• Congestion relief

• Regional connectivity with no trans-fers to the existing BART system

• Opportunities for transit-oriented development in conjunction with local land-use planning efforts

www.vta.org


Broadening the View Holistic planning and partnerships can enhance transit capacity — and preserve budgets

Transit agencies across the nation are experiencing two trends that, taken together, present both great opportunities and profound challenges. On the one hand, demand for public transportation has been rising: according to HNTB’s America THINKS 2015 public transit survey, 158 million Americans use public transportation, and four out of five survey respondents indicated they could be motivated to use it even more. Yet, on the other hand, transit systems nationally face a daunting maintenance backlog — as much as $86 billion, says the American Public Transportation Association — to achieve a state of good repair.

Increasingly, agencies are reconciling these trends to incrementally improve capacity and enhance the customer experience without significant investments. A key strategy is to step beyond traditional operational boundaries — and the desire to “own the customer’s trip” in its entirety — and successfully partner with others to pursue mutual goals.

Pursuing common goalsAt the highest level, this strategy entails broadening the view beyond transportation to understand the overarching goals and challenges facing the region or municipality in which the transit system operates. Local leaders — of public, private and nonprofit organizations alike — have goals for their constituencies that often overlap. Some examples of these goals might be boosting economic opportunity, promoting healthier lifestyles or improving safety. By initiating conversations with a diverse set of local leaders, transit leaders can identify specific shared goals and brainstorm ideas for mutually beneficial solutions.

What might this kind of collaboration look like? Every case will be different. But, envision a mayor and commuter-rail operator collaborating to

co-fund bike lane and bike-sharing initiatives, pursuing the mayor’s goal of combating obesity while helping to reduce parking demands at the transit system. Similarly, imagine a large local business collaborating with a transit station manager to co-fund pathway and lighting upgrades nearby, meeting their shared desire to enhance security and the travel experience for hundreds of local workers. Such collaborations, beyond reducing the transit agency’s estimated costs for such improvements, may create opportunities to compete for supplementary grants from government or nonprofit agencies.

One example of such a broad-based collaboration is taking place in Dallas, Texas, with the Texas Department of Transportation’s Dallas City Center Master Assessment Process — better known as CityMAP. HNTB led the CityMAP team through more than eighty one-on-one listening sessions with hundreds of stakeholders, including transit agencies, municipal and county leaders, non-profits, private companies and organized community groups. They discussed ways to address more than thirty miles of TxDOT’s urban transportation and freeway network as it relates to improved mobility, livability and quality of life needs, and economic opportunities both in and outside of the corridor ROW.

Although the process is ongoing, the final CityMAP document, which included research, stakeholder analysis and conceptual designs, provided TxDOT and its partner agencies an important foundation for moving forward. It has received unanimous support from stakeholders involved. With the momentum CityMAP has established, partnering agencies now are encouraged to work together with TxDOT to prioritize projects and to define the sequencing and funding packages supportive of stakeholder needs and desires.

Diana Mendes, AICP Senior Vice President and Leader transit/rail market sectorHNTB Corporation

The unexpected loss in revenues meant we were no longer able to deliver the extension in its entirety through Measure A by 2015.

6. We remain open to new approaches. Phasing the project presented an opportunity to revisit our contracting strategy. An analysis of alternative delivery methods showed we would have more confidence in the actual project cost, see an $80 million cost savings and deliver Phase 1 eight months ahead of schedule if we implemented it via design-build.

Phase 1 will be completed fall 2017 — about six months ahead of schedule — and is trending $100 million under budget.

Moving into Phase 2Phase 2 is estimated to cost $4.7 billion and anticipated to be funded with sales tax revenues and federal New Starts funding and state funding. The proposed project begins ground level at the Berryessa Extension terminus south of the Berryessa Station in San José, descends into an approximately 5-mile-long subway tunnel, continues through downtown San José and terminates at-grade near the existing Caltrain station in Santa Clara.

We anticipate receiving a record of decision in early 2017, signaling the start of engineering and pre-construction. Passenger service is tentatively set for 2025.

To deliver Phase 2, we plan to carry forward our best practices from the first phase and protect and fortify our partnerships with BART, the Federal Transit Administration, local stakeholders as well as the business community.

Beyond that, one best practice I personally will carry with me is “always think forward.” Work towards the end goals. The voters want this project, and we intend to deliver it. ■

ABOUT THE AUTHORCarolyn Gonot is director, engineering and transportation infrastructure for the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority. Responsible for the development and implementation of the BART Silicon Valley Program, Gonot oversees all planning, development and construction activities for the $7 billion program. She has been instrumental in securing all approvals and funding required to move Phase 1 forward into final design and construction. Contact her at (408) 321-5623 or [email protected].


Focus on mobility managementAs a complement to this higher-level strategy, transportation leaders are collaborating among themselves to integrate modes in ways that boost system capacity while enhancing the customer experience. This focus on integration, broadly called mobility management, starts with the premise that when fixed-route operators synchronize their offerings, they can offer improved, more efficient service. It can be achieved through a number of methods:

1. Consider ‘complete streets.’ We see mobility management at work when transit authorities work with departments of transportation and local officials to transform streets to accommodate more diverse traffic. For example, when road lanes are narrowed from 12 feet to 10 feet, it creates more space for sidewalks, bus lanes, bike lanes and transit stations. Users have more choices, transfers between modes are more seamless, and overall system capacity is increased.

2. Look at systems from the perspectives of a broad range of potential users. This requires answering tough questions about the ease with which people can gain access to, and interlink, various mobility options. For example:

• Are there unbroken routes that bicyclists can use to get to and from transit options? Local groups may be ready allies for establishing well-marked, connecting routes.

• Are bike-sharing options readily available? Public-private partnerships are putting bikes within reach of more people every year. One example of this is the Capital Bikeshare system in Washington, D.C., which is approaching its ninth year. Adoption has been impressive: the system began with 120 rentable bikes at 10 stations in the District and now offers 3,700 bikes, available to riders at about 400 stations across the Metropolitan area.

• Are pedestrian pathways within a mile of transit stations clearly marked, well-lighted and safe to walk? If people perceive walks to transit options as perilous and maze-like, they are less likely to walk from their homes or use remote parking facilities that could reduce station-lot congestion.

• Are rideshare companies being treated as symbiotic allies, or sworn enemies? Millions of commuters are adopting ridesharing as an alternative to driving to transit stations and parking. Is it easy for people to be picked up and dropped off at stations — or are rideshare drivers excluded from certain transfer lanes? Similarly, are rideshare company managers at the table at discussions regarding transportation strategy? They should be.

3. Take a different approach. All of us in the public transportation sector understand that we cannot address the dual trends of rising demand and tighter budgets without doing things differently. As a first step, this means broadening our view beyond transportation — learning about the goals of other local and regional leaders and looking for potential synergies to meet common goals while sharing the cost burden. As a second step, this means working with all the players in the transportation sector — from non-profits and public agencies to for-profit rideshare providers — who can all build transit’s success while meeting their own unique goals.

Ultimately, by pursuing our specific goals while helping others achieve theirs, we can ensure that transit remains a vital, responsive and efficient asset for our communities. ■

Converting skeptics to streetcar loversHow M-1 RAIL is increasing Detroit’s appetite for premium transit service

Transit can be a tough sell in Detroit. We’re an auto town, after all. But Detroit is about to add its first streetcar to the transit system — the result of opening minds, eyes and ears to this new idea.

The M-1 RAIL Woodward Avenue Streetcar is a 3.3-mile line stretching from the Riverfront to the New Center and North End neighborhoods. The system features a fleet of five modern streetcars operating on a fixed track commingled with vehicular traffic. It was built with $140 million in public and private funds and funding has been secured to operate the system for the next 10 years.

Quicken Loans purchased naming rights, and in spring 2017 the QLINE will make its debut, offering clean, safe and reliable service made possible by a modern fleet, state-of-the-art security, transit police, ample lighting and heated stations. A mobile app will be available along with ticket vending machines and Wi-Fi available at each stop.

Premium transit service comes at a price, however, which is often measured in more than dollars and cents. Our biggest obstacle in turning this vision into a reality required public acceptance in addition to funding. We faced city-wide skepticism about this new system, which can be more intimidating than feedback from any industry group.

To date, Detroit’s appetite for mass transit — and tolerance of public funding of it — could be described as modest. Public sentiment and timing have worked at odds with acceptance of the streetcar. At the same time QLINE proponents were ramping up stakeholder outreach, the campaign for a regional transportation tax was being waged across the four-county metro area — a tax that would ultimately be defeated at the polls in November 2016.

Another major obstacle was lack of information and misinformation. Experience has shown that most residents don’t understand how transit funding works unless you explain it to them. They expect to pay for it once, which they believe should be enough

Sommer Woods Vice President of External Relations, Marketing & CommunicationsM-1 RAIL

When we pursue our goals while helping others achieve theirs, we can ensure that transit remains a vital community asset.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Diana Mendes, AICP, is senior vice president and leader transit/rail market sector for HNTB. With 30 years of comprehensive experience in transportation and public transit, Mendes is responsible for strategic planning and implementation, business development and delivery of various high-profile transit projects. Contact her at (703) 253-5885 or [email protected].

www.hntb.com www.apta.com/mediacenter/pressreleases/2016/Pages/MTI-Report.aspx www.capitalbikeshare.com/Press-Kit

ADDITIONAL SOURCES

Courtesy M-1 RAIL


to build and operate the entire system. Early on, we realized our success would be largely determined by our ability to help people understand that the downtown streetcar is just one part of the transit puzzle.

Encouraging dialogueM-1 RAIL’s constituents include everyone who works, lives and plays along the Woodward Avenue corridor, which originates in Detroit’s downtown area.

Our guiding principle was to encourage dialogue among these constituents, to make sure they knew our team was eager to have conversations, amenable to suggestions and willing to roll up our sleeves and come up with solutions. The questions they’ve raised most often have been, “Is this project only for corporate entities and their stakeholders?” And, “How will it affect my business, my livelihood?”

Facilitating meetings, outreachIt would take a good ground game to anticipate and answer questions. The M-1 RAIL Community Advisory Council and Business Advisory Council served as sounding boards, holding monthly meetings and providing feedback on construction, road closures, parking and ongoing development of the streetcar line.

In addition, M-1 RAIL staff held weekly meetings with business owners along the corridor to keep them updated on construction and address their concerns. As a group, we were sensitive to their point of view and walked the corridor with advocates for people with disabilities. All of those interactions had a profound impact on the way the project played out. Without a commitment to inclusion, the QLINE would have faced obstacles and recovering goodwill would have been difficult, if not impossible.

Knowing the project would gain acceptance only if residents were informed every step of the way, we launched a comprehensive direct mail and digital outreach strategy, sending newsletters, emails and texts to a database we built expressly for the campaign.

Our success would be largely determined by our ability to help people understand that the downtown

streetcar is just one part of the transit puzzle.

Maintaining two-way communicationM-1 RAIL external affairs staff attended all maintenance, traffic and construction meetings. This served two purposes: we’d always know what was going on and we could raise issues in real time. For example, when we received a complaint that vibrations from a drill were affecting a resident we would contact the person to verify the information and, if true, share it with the project leads in the interest of mitigating disruption and inconvenience.

We also worked proactively to circumvent issues. Using the project schedule as our guide, we contacted affected businesses in advance to let them know lanes would be closed or work would soon take place on their block so they could prepare for it.

Managing public expectations during construction — arguably the most difficult step of the process — is a challenge. Yet, by every measure, the public is not only showing its acceptance but an eagerness to sample premium transit service.

M-1 RAIL’s goal is to board 5-6,000 riders a day, but that’s more than a number to us. Strategic, coordinated stakeholder engagement will convert

skeptics into satisfied riders whose lives are enhanced by the QLINE, while nearby residents and businesses can point to the streetcar with a sense of pride and ownership. ■

ABOUT THE AUTHORSommer Woods is the vice president of external relations & marketing for M-1 RAIL. Her responsibilities include workforce development, community engagement/inclusion, governmental relations and minority/Detroit based business procurement. Contact her at (313) 587-4528 or at [email protected].

14 HNTB | InTransit | Winter 2017

Other helpful websites:

American Public Transportation Associationapta.comAPTA is a leading organization in advancing public transportation.

Federal Railroad Administrationfra.dot.govThe FRA promulgates and enforces rail safety regulations; administers railroad assistance programs; conducts research and development in support of improved railroad safety and national rail transportation policy; provides for the rehabilitation of Northeast Corridor rail passenger service; and consolidates government support of rail transportation activities.

Federal Transit Administrationtransit.dot.govThe FTA is an agency within the United States Department of Transportation that provides financial and technical assistance to local public transit systems.

US High Speed Rail Associationushsr.comUSHSR is the only organization in America focusing entirely on advancing a state-of-the-art national high-speed rail network across the country. USHSR is an independent, nonprofit 501(c)(6) trade association chartered to organize and mobilize the industry with a shared vision for a 21st century, 17,000-mile national high-speed rail system built in phases for completion by 2030.

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