Wednesday, September 30, 2009
FBI at Capital Metro
The FBI showed up at Capital Metro today in two vans. They proceeded to look through papers and get statements from people in the Sun Room. They later took boxes and computers. Apparently the local media are under a gag by the FBI
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Transit Tyrant - Leaving with his Golden Parachute?
Read post from Chronicle below: We can only hope that this well baked incompetent GM of Capital Metro Fred Gilliam IS really leaving. We can hardly think of any one person who has done more to entirely fuck up everything at Capital Metro more than this used up old guy. Yet, he is still collecting an enormous check every month, and drives a nice Buick on our dime. O and also please recall that he will walk out of CMTA with a 30 year retirement with a monthly income way-way higher than the average working Austin-ite. You are not supposed to figure out that he has been there like 7 years, but walks out with 30 years of retirement. How dumb are we Austin? So far the Board and all over there have duped us pretty darn well.
HOME: SEPTEMBER 25, 2009: NEWS
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Metrorail Watch
How long will we wait for the train?
Capital Metro’s monthly MetroRail progress report lists several accomplishments, such as “relocation of train detection equipment” and “initiated compilation of system integration documentation.” It also mentioned the “vital logic” setback reported a few weeks ago. None of it sounds like major progress. The arm doesn’t move. Off-track: Insistent street buzz says CEO Fred Gilliam is on his way out.
HOME: SEPTEMBER 25, 2009: NEWS
text size
Metrorail Watch
How long will we wait for the train?
Capital Metro’s monthly MetroRail progress report lists several accomplishments, such as “relocation of train detection equipment” and “initiated compilation of system integration documentation.” It also mentioned the “vital logic” setback reported a few weeks ago. None of it sounds like major progress. The arm doesn’t move. Off-track: Insistent street buzz says CEO Fred Gilliam is on his way out.
New Posts from Austin Chronicle
Another good article from the Chronicle, giving us more information that the Statesman did in the long articles they present sometime. Again, another reminder that this Board of Directors at CMTA is totally witless and worthless. You would thing that they all would have gotten a drift after the problems that have been found at CMTA Finance this year, and the spending spree on the METRO Red Line. But alas, the Board of Directors sounds as witless and ignorant as ever. They all need a reminder that when they seek re-election in whatever offices they are in we will all be there reminding them with out vote that they are some careless public servants. Wow, more green stamps for Rail spending, and cutting bus services and disabled services. I am not sure you could come across any worse CMTA Board.
From the Austin Chronicle:
HOME: SEPTEMBER 25, 2009: NEWS
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Cap Metro Not Budging on Budget
BY LEE NICHOLS
Monday's public hearing on Capital Metro's proposed FY 2010 budget boiled down to two issues: accessibility for people with disabilities and, to a lesser extent, how to spend federal stimulus money.
Numerous speakers with some form of disability lined up to lambaste the Capital Metro board of directors for the agency's bus stops, which they say are insufficiently accessible to riders in wheelchairs. "Capital Metro, by their own internal surveys by their own staff, have identified that two out of three bus stops continue to have issues with accessibility," David Witte of Adapt of Texas, a disability rights organization, complained to the board. "That's over 2,000 bus stops that have problems. ... Access to the bus stop is not an amenity, it's a necessity.
"The American-Statesman yesterday identified over $40,000 a day being spent on rail projects that are not even running," Witte continued. "If we were spending $40,000 a day for bus stop access improvements ... I wouldn't even be up here talking to you."
On the rail side, representatives of the Downtown Austin Alliance and the Downtown Austin Neighborhood Association were on hand to vouch for the Leander-to-Downtown commuter line. Both oppose shifting $2.6 million in federal stimulus money from rail improvements to regular operating expenses in order to push back a fare increase from January to August.
"We think it's an unwise choice," said the DAA's Tom Stacy, urging that the money be used for the long-term investment of rail. "Currently, in 2007, before the first fare increase [when single-ride fares went from 50 cents to 75 cents], the national average of fare recovery was 17½ percent. After the second phase of the fare increase goes into effect [75 cents to $1], Capital Metro's fare recovery will still be only 8 percent. ... We think it's really important that we not use long-term capital money for a short-term fix for seven months."
Board member and Austin Mayor Pro Tem Mike Martinez said he hears the concerns about the stimulus fund shift but compared it to the Domain subsidies: "What we agreed to was a phased approach, with the second [increase] coming in August of 2010," he said. "For me, our word is our word, whether we make an agreement with a multibillion dollar corporation or with some of the poorest folks in this community."
After the meeting, conversations with some board members indicated that little had been said to move them to request major changes to the budget. Board members said inaccessible stops concerned them, but Martinez said in the current economic climate, there wasn't much more that could be done in this budget cycle. "Let's say, for example, Adapt of Texas goes out and sues. And what if a judge says, 'You have to spend $50 million upgrading your stops tomorrow'? [Then] we're bankrupt. We're shut down. What is the point proven ... if you're going to crush the agency? We're committed to improving those stops, but it's going to be a shared burden moving forward."
From the Austin Chronicle:
HOME: SEPTEMBER 25, 2009: NEWS
text size
Cap Metro Not Budging on Budget
BY LEE NICHOLS
Monday's public hearing on Capital Metro's proposed FY 2010 budget boiled down to two issues: accessibility for people with disabilities and, to a lesser extent, how to spend federal stimulus money.
Numerous speakers with some form of disability lined up to lambaste the Capital Metro board of directors for the agency's bus stops, which they say are insufficiently accessible to riders in wheelchairs. "Capital Metro, by their own internal surveys by their own staff, have identified that two out of three bus stops continue to have issues with accessibility," David Witte of Adapt of Texas, a disability rights organization, complained to the board. "That's over 2,000 bus stops that have problems. ... Access to the bus stop is not an amenity, it's a necessity.
"The American-Statesman yesterday identified over $40,000 a day being spent on rail projects that are not even running," Witte continued. "If we were spending $40,000 a day for bus stop access improvements ... I wouldn't even be up here talking to you."
On the rail side, representatives of the Downtown Austin Alliance and the Downtown Austin Neighborhood Association were on hand to vouch for the Leander-to-Downtown commuter line. Both oppose shifting $2.6 million in federal stimulus money from rail improvements to regular operating expenses in order to push back a fare increase from January to August.
"We think it's an unwise choice," said the DAA's Tom Stacy, urging that the money be used for the long-term investment of rail. "Currently, in 2007, before the first fare increase [when single-ride fares went from 50 cents to 75 cents], the national average of fare recovery was 17½ percent. After the second phase of the fare increase goes into effect [75 cents to $1], Capital Metro's fare recovery will still be only 8 percent. ... We think it's really important that we not use long-term capital money for a short-term fix for seven months."
Board member and Austin Mayor Pro Tem Mike Martinez said he hears the concerns about the stimulus fund shift but compared it to the Domain subsidies: "What we agreed to was a phased approach, with the second [increase] coming in August of 2010," he said. "For me, our word is our word, whether we make an agreement with a multibillion dollar corporation or with some of the poorest folks in this community."
After the meeting, conversations with some board members indicated that little had been said to move them to request major changes to the budget. Board members said inaccessible stops concerned them, but Martinez said in the current economic climate, there wasn't much more that could be done in this budget cycle. "Let's say, for example, Adapt of Texas goes out and sues. And what if a judge says, 'You have to spend $50 million upgrading your stops tomorrow'? [Then] we're bankrupt. We're shut down. What is the point proven ... if you're going to crush the agency? We're committed to improving those stops, but it's going to be a shared burden moving forward."
Monday, September 21, 2009
Statement of Randall Hume
Here is some typical corporate brainwashing and ass covering from CMTA CFO after being humiliated by the KXAN reporter Nanci Wilson last week. Put your boots on when you read this!
In response to recent media stories regarding the FY2010 budget document, I would like to share the following information with staff:
· In March, Capital Metro began using a revised FY2009 budget. This revised budget was in response to dramatic reductions in the sales tax that Capital Metro receives which provides the greatest part of our funding.
· The budget process used is consistent with the “Best Practices in Public Budgeting” from the Government Finance Officers Association.
· The revised budget numbers reduced operating expenses to meet reduced revenue projections. Capital Metro has operated the remainder of the fiscal year with these reduced budget numbers. The monthly reports provided to the Board of Directors include a budget variance comparison to both the adopted FY2009 budget and the revised FY2009 budget figures.
· The Texas Transportation Code is specific about the budget requirements for transportation authorities. This is the budget section in its entirety:
Sec. 451.102. BUDGET. (a) A board shall adopt an annual operating budget of all major expenditures by type and amount. The board shall adopt the budget before the beginning of the fiscal year to which the budget applies and before the authority may conduct any business in the fiscal year.
(b) The board shall hold a public hearing on a proposed annual operating budget before adopting the budget and shall, at least 14 days before the date of the hearing, make the proposed budget available to the public.
(c) The board after public notice and a hearing may by order amend an annual operating budget.
Acts 1995, 74th Leg., ch. 165, Sec. 1, eff. Sept. 1, 1995.
Sec. 451.103. OPERATING EXPENDITURES. An authority may not spend for operations money in excess of the total amount specified for operating expenses in the annual operating budget.
· The Authority is only required to amend the budget if the operating expenses are higher than the adopted budget.
· The projected operating expenses for FY 2009 are well under the expenses in the officially adopted budget so no amendment is required.
· The FY2009 revised budget reduced operating expenses.
· The FY2010 budget document published on September 4, 2009 is a working document. It includes comparisons to the revised FY2009 budget. This illustrates a better comparison between the revised FY2009 budget, the FY2009 forecast based on actual expenses and the FY2010 proposed budget.
· Based on feedback received up to and including the September 21st public hearing, the current FY 2010 budget document maybe adjusted prior to being presented for final adoption at the Board meeting on September 28.
Please feel free to call me if you have further questions.
Thank you for all your efforts to assist us in this very difficult year.
Randy Hume
Executive Vice President, Finance and Administration
Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority
Austin, TX 78702
In response to recent media stories regarding the FY2010 budget document, I would like to share the following information with staff:
· In March, Capital Metro began using a revised FY2009 budget. This revised budget was in response to dramatic reductions in the sales tax that Capital Metro receives which provides the greatest part of our funding.
· The budget process used is consistent with the “Best Practices in Public Budgeting” from the Government Finance Officers Association.
· The revised budget numbers reduced operating expenses to meet reduced revenue projections. Capital Metro has operated the remainder of the fiscal year with these reduced budget numbers. The monthly reports provided to the Board of Directors include a budget variance comparison to both the adopted FY2009 budget and the revised FY2009 budget figures.
· The Texas Transportation Code is specific about the budget requirements for transportation authorities. This is the budget section in its entirety:
Sec. 451.102. BUDGET. (a) A board shall adopt an annual operating budget of all major expenditures by type and amount. The board shall adopt the budget before the beginning of the fiscal year to which the budget applies and before the authority may conduct any business in the fiscal year.
(b) The board shall hold a public hearing on a proposed annual operating budget before adopting the budget and shall, at least 14 days before the date of the hearing, make the proposed budget available to the public.
(c) The board after public notice and a hearing may by order amend an annual operating budget.
Acts 1995, 74th Leg., ch. 165, Sec. 1, eff. Sept. 1, 1995.
Sec. 451.103. OPERATING EXPENDITURES. An authority may not spend for operations money in excess of the total amount specified for operating expenses in the annual operating budget.
· The Authority is only required to amend the budget if the operating expenses are higher than the adopted budget.
· The projected operating expenses for FY 2009 are well under the expenses in the officially adopted budget so no amendment is required.
· The FY2009 revised budget reduced operating expenses.
· The FY2010 budget document published on September 4, 2009 is a working document. It includes comparisons to the revised FY2009 budget. This illustrates a better comparison between the revised FY2009 budget, the FY2009 forecast based on actual expenses and the FY2010 proposed budget.
· Based on feedback received up to and including the September 21st public hearing, the current FY 2010 budget document maybe adjusted prior to being presented for final adoption at the Board meeting on September 28.
Please feel free to call me if you have further questions.
Thank you for all your efforts to assist us in this very difficult year.
Randy Hume
Executive Vice President, Finance and Administration
Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority
Austin, TX 78702
Text of Stateman Article
Read the complete text of the article on Rail from the Austin American Stateman on Sunday September 20. Apparently CMTA has finally decided that they do not have clue what they were doing with RAIL. I am also not impressed how both CMTA and the Statesman continue to use fake figures for the Rail costs of $105 million. They used this figure like a year ago, so they want you to think that all the delays and experts and contractors they have brought on are not adding to the costs. Is anyone in Austin really this stupid?
COMMUTER RAIL
Why commuters are still waiting on Cap Metro's train
Transit agency says it didn't realize how daunting a task planning, building and operating a rail line could be.
By Ben Wear
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Capital Metro didn't know what it was getting itself into.
That might sound like a shot from one of the transit agency's critics. Instead, it is in effect the agency's explanation for why its MetroRail commuter line from Leander to downtown Austin is now 15 to 18 months late in opening. And still counting.
Capital Metro, by its own admission, didn't know when it asked voters in 2004 for permission to build the 32-mile line how complex an undertaking it faced, or the full scope of the project, or the work and time required to fix glitches and malfunctions that would arise along the way.
The agency didn't know that:
• It would need a computerized track control system to coordinate train traffic rather than a much simpler approach based on engineers and dispatchers talking on radios. The decision was made in mid-2006 to install that network of trackside signals connected to a central dispatch center.
• Buying components of the track system from two suppliers, to get the lowest bids possible, would lead to communication trouble between the equipment.
• Final installation of the track control equipment would take as long as it did.
• The operation of crossing gates at 65 junctions with roads would be hampered by a variety of factors, among them rain, rusted track and electronic interference in the steel track caused by having multiple intersections in a short interval.
And when it put the project on indefinite hold 16 days before the March 30 opening date — the third launch date — the agency did not know how long it would take to analyze and repair those control systems and crossing gate glitches.
"We had anticipated that as the construction got done and the various systems got installed and turned on, that they would work as intended," said Doug Allen, Capital Metro's executive vice president and chief development officer. "Ultimately, it became obvious that wasn't going to happen."
Lowering expectations
The agency says that if the line were to open soon, about five years after the referendum that authorized it, start of service would still be earlier than for comparable projects. The New Jersey River Line from Camden to Trenton, for instance, was approved by its transit board in November 1996 and opened in March 2004. That 34-mile line, which Capital Metro cited as a model before the 2004 vote, uses diesel-propelled, light-rail-style cars similar to Capital Metro's, shares a line with freight service — and has centralized track control.
Capital Metro officials say the MetroRail project will come in around $105 million, about 17 percent above the original $90 million spending estimate. That final figure, however, does not include the cost of several items closely connected to the project, including a park-and-ride lot built at the Leander station and money spent on "transit-oriented development" near the stations.
The agency is losing about $40,000 in projected fare income every month that the line stays dormant.
"The lesson to be learned is that before we get involved with any future rail activities, we have to be much more deliberate and careful to vet it, to make sure we get good information so we don't have any surprises," said Terry Bray, an Austin lawyer who serves on a transit working group created by state Sen. Kirk Watson and former Austin Mayor Will Wynn in 2007 to review passenger rail proposals.
It remains unclear when the MetroRail line will open. This year, agency executives adopted a policy of making no predictions.
In the latest of what have become monthly status updates, Capital Metro said Thursday that it was developing a timeline for remaining work and would provide another progress report in October.
Capital Metro, responding to the series of problems and at the request of its rail contractor Veolia Transportation, recently began a "hazard analysis/risk assessment," a rigorous last look at the systemthat involves a top-to-bottom examination of the system and its components.
That work, which officials said has already identified about 20 problems, continues. The agency is also working to fix "vital logic" signalization software that failed to trigger the correct track signals when Federal Railroad Administration inspectors tested the line in late August.
Allen said the agency will ask federal regulators to take another look when Capital Metro believes the opening is a month away. But that "final" review could, of course, cause another delay, should regulators find more problems.
"The reason we're here now is, we set some expectations," Allen said of the delay. "And we don't want to (set a new opening date) until we're confident that we're going to be able to open."
Officials with Veolia advised against setting the March 30 opening date. The agency had told voters before the referendum that it could open MetroRail in spring 2008, then later changed that to fall 2008.
Veolia's Austin rail general manager, Gord Ryan, said he told Capital Metro at the time that "what I need is a fully functional railway to train engineers and dispatchers. I also made it very clear that here we have a major freight line (operating on the same track) and we have to construct around it. And you have to expect some of those anomalies are actually going to surface.
"It's the old adage: You don't know what you don't know."
Voting before planning
Capital Metro officials blame the delay in part on a 1997 state law requiring Capital Metro to hold a referendum before building a passenger rail line. It is the only transit agency in Texas with that requirement, although in practice most agencies put bonds before voters to borrow money to build light rail or commuter rail.
The agency says that it did not sufficiently plan the project before the 2004 vote — and then faced time-consuming surprises later — because early planning would have cost $5 million to $10 million. That would have opened the agency to criticism for spending that much money on a project that voters might not authorize, which could have threatened the success of the rail referendum.
Officials could have delayed the vote by two years — the law at that time said Capital Metro rail referendums could occur only in November of even-numbered years — something that agency leaders didn't want to do.
The "agency now has a more comprehensive knowledge regarding costs and scheduling of the project that were not fully known in 2004," the transit authority wrote in a "self-evaluation report" it recently submitted to the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission as part of a legislatively mandated review of Capital Metro. "Had more time and funds been available to adequately analyze various options, certain unknown costs and environmental factors might have been worked out earlier."
Weeks before the scheduled March grand opening celebration, Capital Metro was still completing construction on the last two of the line's nine stations and on siding track in East Austin. Since calling off that opening, it has been fixing a multitude of problems. Among them:
Centralized track control: After the system was installed in early May, the agency discovered problems of various kinds at the 12 control points along the line. Signals, bought from two companies and installed by one contractor, were not communicating properly with the control system at the operations center, built by yet another contractor.
"We didn't realize how daunting and how many issues we had to work through on system integration," Allen said.
That task is not yet complete. The Federal Railroad Administration has been concerned that Capital Metro have fail-safe systems to assure that freight trains, which will run at night on the track between Manor and the Burnet area, don't find their way into the passenger corridor during daylight hours when the commuter trains will be running.
"The system is functioning for the most part very well," said John Almond, Capital Metro's commuter rail project manager, who said he recently rode the entire line and observed no glitches. "Day in and day out, it's not always like that. We want that higher degree of reliability before we put people on that line."
• Crossing gates: For much of the summer, many gates either did not come down when a train approached, came down too slowly or stayed down much longer than necessary.
To combat that, the agency hired equipment to grind rust off the tracks that was corrupting the electronic pulses that activate the gates. It changed the location of "termination shunts" critical to those electronic messages and tinkered with gate equipment and even the rock underlying the tracks to adjust for the electrical conductivity of rain. And it made adjustments for gates that are near stations, such as at Lamar Boulevard, where a train approaching the Crestview station would trigger lowered gates but then stop at the station for 45 seconds or more.
• Missing gates: At federal regulators' behest, the agency in July installed crossing gates at two quarry roads on the Robinson Ranch in Northwest Austin.
• Signal house fire: Faulty wiring caused a signal installation on East Seventh Street to go up in flames in early May. It was replaced by late May.
• Cracked railcar shells: Inspection of the six railcars showed small cracks in the Fiberglas front of the vehicles, which were delivered on schedule less than two years ago and have been undergoing on-track testing for more than a year. Stadler Bussnang, the Swiss manufacturer of the cars, repaired the cracks at its expense, and Capital Metro says now that the work is guaranteed for the life of each of the $6 million cars.
• Damaged track: Capital Metro spent over $200,000 this summer fixing track damaged by years of passing cars and trucks where the line crosses Parmer Lane and the U.S. 183 frontage roads.
• Signal pre-emption: The agency completed work at several crossings that are near traffic lights to make those lights go green and allow waiting vehicles to clear the railroad tracks. This included doing the work twice at MoPac Boulevard, where because of inaccurate engineering plans, the pre-emption equipment was installed on the wrong frontage road.
The Federal Railroad Administration has had six people allocated full time to the Capital Metro project since August 2006, said Rob Castiglione, the deputy regional administrator. In March, in particular, he said, "we did have some extra vigilance to make sure all the loops were closed.
"But they weren't ready for prime time, and here we are."
bwear@statesman.com; 445-3698
COMMUTER RAIL
Why commuters are still waiting on Cap Metro's train
Transit agency says it didn't realize how daunting a task planning, building and operating a rail line could be.
By Ben Wear
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Capital Metro didn't know what it was getting itself into.
That might sound like a shot from one of the transit agency's critics. Instead, it is in effect the agency's explanation for why its MetroRail commuter line from Leander to downtown Austin is now 15 to 18 months late in opening. And still counting.
Capital Metro, by its own admission, didn't know when it asked voters in 2004 for permission to build the 32-mile line how complex an undertaking it faced, or the full scope of the project, or the work and time required to fix glitches and malfunctions that would arise along the way.
The agency didn't know that:
• It would need a computerized track control system to coordinate train traffic rather than a much simpler approach based on engineers and dispatchers talking on radios. The decision was made in mid-2006 to install that network of trackside signals connected to a central dispatch center.
• Buying components of the track system from two suppliers, to get the lowest bids possible, would lead to communication trouble between the equipment.
• Final installation of the track control equipment would take as long as it did.
• The operation of crossing gates at 65 junctions with roads would be hampered by a variety of factors, among them rain, rusted track and electronic interference in the steel track caused by having multiple intersections in a short interval.
And when it put the project on indefinite hold 16 days before the March 30 opening date — the third launch date — the agency did not know how long it would take to analyze and repair those control systems and crossing gate glitches.
"We had anticipated that as the construction got done and the various systems got installed and turned on, that they would work as intended," said Doug Allen, Capital Metro's executive vice president and chief development officer. "Ultimately, it became obvious that wasn't going to happen."
Lowering expectations
The agency says that if the line were to open soon, about five years after the referendum that authorized it, start of service would still be earlier than for comparable projects. The New Jersey River Line from Camden to Trenton, for instance, was approved by its transit board in November 1996 and opened in March 2004. That 34-mile line, which Capital Metro cited as a model before the 2004 vote, uses diesel-propelled, light-rail-style cars similar to Capital Metro's, shares a line with freight service — and has centralized track control.
Capital Metro officials say the MetroRail project will come in around $105 million, about 17 percent above the original $90 million spending estimate. That final figure, however, does not include the cost of several items closely connected to the project, including a park-and-ride lot built at the Leander station and money spent on "transit-oriented development" near the stations.
The agency is losing about $40,000 in projected fare income every month that the line stays dormant.
"The lesson to be learned is that before we get involved with any future rail activities, we have to be much more deliberate and careful to vet it, to make sure we get good information so we don't have any surprises," said Terry Bray, an Austin lawyer who serves on a transit working group created by state Sen. Kirk Watson and former Austin Mayor Will Wynn in 2007 to review passenger rail proposals.
It remains unclear when the MetroRail line will open. This year, agency executives adopted a policy of making no predictions.
In the latest of what have become monthly status updates, Capital Metro said Thursday that it was developing a timeline for remaining work and would provide another progress report in October.
Capital Metro, responding to the series of problems and at the request of its rail contractor Veolia Transportation, recently began a "hazard analysis/risk assessment," a rigorous last look at the systemthat involves a top-to-bottom examination of the system and its components.
That work, which officials said has already identified about 20 problems, continues. The agency is also working to fix "vital logic" signalization software that failed to trigger the correct track signals when Federal Railroad Administration inspectors tested the line in late August.
Allen said the agency will ask federal regulators to take another look when Capital Metro believes the opening is a month away. But that "final" review could, of course, cause another delay, should regulators find more problems.
"The reason we're here now is, we set some expectations," Allen said of the delay. "And we don't want to (set a new opening date) until we're confident that we're going to be able to open."
Officials with Veolia advised against setting the March 30 opening date. The agency had told voters before the referendum that it could open MetroRail in spring 2008, then later changed that to fall 2008.
Veolia's Austin rail general manager, Gord Ryan, said he told Capital Metro at the time that "what I need is a fully functional railway to train engineers and dispatchers. I also made it very clear that here we have a major freight line (operating on the same track) and we have to construct around it. And you have to expect some of those anomalies are actually going to surface.
"It's the old adage: You don't know what you don't know."
Voting before planning
Capital Metro officials blame the delay in part on a 1997 state law requiring Capital Metro to hold a referendum before building a passenger rail line. It is the only transit agency in Texas with that requirement, although in practice most agencies put bonds before voters to borrow money to build light rail or commuter rail.
The agency says that it did not sufficiently plan the project before the 2004 vote — and then faced time-consuming surprises later — because early planning would have cost $5 million to $10 million. That would have opened the agency to criticism for spending that much money on a project that voters might not authorize, which could have threatened the success of the rail referendum.
Officials could have delayed the vote by two years — the law at that time said Capital Metro rail referendums could occur only in November of even-numbered years — something that agency leaders didn't want to do.
The "agency now has a more comprehensive knowledge regarding costs and scheduling of the project that were not fully known in 2004," the transit authority wrote in a "self-evaluation report" it recently submitted to the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission as part of a legislatively mandated review of Capital Metro. "Had more time and funds been available to adequately analyze various options, certain unknown costs and environmental factors might have been worked out earlier."
Weeks before the scheduled March grand opening celebration, Capital Metro was still completing construction on the last two of the line's nine stations and on siding track in East Austin. Since calling off that opening, it has been fixing a multitude of problems. Among them:
Centralized track control: After the system was installed in early May, the agency discovered problems of various kinds at the 12 control points along the line. Signals, bought from two companies and installed by one contractor, were not communicating properly with the control system at the operations center, built by yet another contractor.
"We didn't realize how daunting and how many issues we had to work through on system integration," Allen said.
That task is not yet complete. The Federal Railroad Administration has been concerned that Capital Metro have fail-safe systems to assure that freight trains, which will run at night on the track between Manor and the Burnet area, don't find their way into the passenger corridor during daylight hours when the commuter trains will be running.
"The system is functioning for the most part very well," said John Almond, Capital Metro's commuter rail project manager, who said he recently rode the entire line and observed no glitches. "Day in and day out, it's not always like that. We want that higher degree of reliability before we put people on that line."
• Crossing gates: For much of the summer, many gates either did not come down when a train approached, came down too slowly or stayed down much longer than necessary.
To combat that, the agency hired equipment to grind rust off the tracks that was corrupting the electronic pulses that activate the gates. It changed the location of "termination shunts" critical to those electronic messages and tinkered with gate equipment and even the rock underlying the tracks to adjust for the electrical conductivity of rain. And it made adjustments for gates that are near stations, such as at Lamar Boulevard, where a train approaching the Crestview station would trigger lowered gates but then stop at the station for 45 seconds or more.
• Missing gates: At federal regulators' behest, the agency in July installed crossing gates at two quarry roads on the Robinson Ranch in Northwest Austin.
• Signal house fire: Faulty wiring caused a signal installation on East Seventh Street to go up in flames in early May. It was replaced by late May.
• Cracked railcar shells: Inspection of the six railcars showed small cracks in the Fiberglas front of the vehicles, which were delivered on schedule less than two years ago and have been undergoing on-track testing for more than a year. Stadler Bussnang, the Swiss manufacturer of the cars, repaired the cracks at its expense, and Capital Metro says now that the work is guaranteed for the life of each of the $6 million cars.
• Damaged track: Capital Metro spent over $200,000 this summer fixing track damaged by years of passing cars and trucks where the line crosses Parmer Lane and the U.S. 183 frontage roads.
• Signal pre-emption: The agency completed work at several crossings that are near traffic lights to make those lights go green and allow waiting vehicles to clear the railroad tracks. This included doing the work twice at MoPac Boulevard, where because of inaccurate engineering plans, the pre-emption equipment was installed on the wrong frontage road.
The Federal Railroad Administration has had six people allocated full time to the Capital Metro project since August 2006, said Rob Castiglione, the deputy regional administrator. In March, in particular, he said, "we did have some extra vigilance to make sure all the loops were closed.
"But they weren't ready for prime time, and here we are."
bwear@statesman.com; 445-3698
Friday, September 18, 2009
Reminder on Accountability
Just want to remind all out there about that A word. We have not seen any of it at Capital Metro. Who do you blame? Who do you write to or complain? Well the Capital Metro Board members.
Once again, stating the obvious what they have done; they ruined the agency, promised the voters a price tag on rail and exceeded it by millions. They have cut bus service and they will continue to cut it for the boutique rail line to the northern burbs. Now they are laying off employees and taking money back from their own people to pay even more for even more rail project delays. How much will Metro Rail really cost? Do you really believe it is $90 million?
The list of Capital Metro Board members is available at Capmetro.org
Once again, stating the obvious what they have done; they ruined the agency, promised the voters a price tag on rail and exceeded it by millions. They have cut bus service and they will continue to cut it for the boutique rail line to the northern burbs. Now they are laying off employees and taking money back from their own people to pay even more for even more rail project delays. How much will Metro Rail really cost? Do you really believe it is $90 million?
The list of Capital Metro Board members is available at Capmetro.org
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Reporters
I am waiting for a reporter to print a real story on the actual cost of rail. By this I mean that we need a report that shows the cost of rail from the when CMTA started doing studies and marketing to the present day. If anyone thinks that the root of the financial issues at Metro have much to do with the erosion of the tax revenue I am here to tell you that you have been duped.
Chronicle and Local News Coverage of Cap Metro
Excellent article on the Austin Chronicle today. The Chronicle has entirely taken the lead away from the Statesman on reporting on Capital Metro in Austin. The last editorial / Q and A from The Statesman was - in a word, very odd, sounding like an endorsement of the failed transit king Fred Gilliam and his failed agency.
Ironically, KXAN presented a scathing two night report on Capital Metro in the same week, the best of which showed the Chief Financial Officer Randy Hume stumped and stuttering and flushed when Nanci Wilson challenged him that the reported 2009 budget numbers being used in the 2010 budget proposals were never approved per Texas Law.
But as little actual accountability as we have seen for anyone in the upper management I am pretty sure that Randy and Fred will be there still, entrenched and encircled by a seemingly powerless Board. Anyone as incompetent as these guys in the public sector would have been thrown out months ago.
Ironically, KXAN presented a scathing two night report on Capital Metro in the same week, the best of which showed the Chief Financial Officer Randy Hume stumped and stuttering and flushed when Nanci Wilson challenged him that the reported 2009 budget numbers being used in the 2010 budget proposals were never approved per Texas Law.
But as little actual accountability as we have seen for anyone in the upper management I am pretty sure that Randy and Fred will be there still, entrenched and encircled by a seemingly powerless Board. Anyone as incompetent as these guys in the public sector would have been thrown out months ago.
Reappearing
I am reappearing to give cudos to KXAN for presenting some real tough questions to Cap Metro. Nancy Wilson had the CFO of Cap Metro stuttering and stammering without an answer for why the numbers on the budget to not match up, and why there was not a public hearing on changing the 2009 budget. Now the next step for them is to investigate all the money put into rail.
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