From The Metro Times

Despite all the hype and hope for light rail along Detroit’s Woodward corridor, there are major questions of funding. And there is also the daunting legacy of decades of mass transit hopes that haven’t left the station.

The current plans are moving forward for a light rail train, the first leg to be constructed largely with private funds and running from downtown to New Center with connections to the downtown People Mover, the Amtrak station and city and suburban bus lines.

No formal plan for funding the new light rail system’s operation has been put forward — yet — and more questions concern the track’s second leg, which would continue to Eight Mile Road.

While transit advocates are hosting public informational meetings this month, the Bing administration is quietly, behind the scenes, shaping plans for funding both construction of the second leg and then operating the entire line with a combination of a local bond issue and hoped-for but as-yet-unsecured state and federal grants.

Read much more at: http://metrotimes.com/news/might-rail-1.1109031

From the Birmingham Eccentric

The Federal Railroad Administration is about to give away nearly $8.5 million in federal stimulus money on a project that is knee-deep in question marks.

That’s the implication of court depositions in the lawsuit being waged over the Troy-Birmingham Transit Center.

Grand Sakwa Properties is suing the city of Troy to stop the center from being built, with concerns about parking, security, maintenance and other related issues that could crop up from allowing an unmanned facility directly adjacent to its Midtown Square property at Coolidge and Maple.

Read more: http://www.hometownlife.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2011102040315

From MLive

Transportation Riders United, Michigan Environmental Council along with neighborhood associations, the NAACP, and other groups, began a series of community engagement forums on the proposed M1 Woodward light rail line last night in Palmer Park. Here’s what you need to know about the proposed transit project.

The Plan: The M1 light rail line will begin with two phases. The first phase will go from Hart Plaza to Grand Boulevard. It’s expected to open in 2013. The second phase will extend the line from New Center to the State Fairgrounds transit center by 2016. Transit planners expect further expansions to take the M1 into Oakland County, perhaps as far as Pontiac.

Some detail remain in the planning stages. For instance, planners haven’t decided where trains will stop along the route or if they’ll run in the middle of the street or in the right lanes.

Read more: http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2011/02/everything_you_always_wanted_t.html

Englewood flyover project part of $6.8 billion in transportation spending reductions proposed in Congress

From The Chicago Tribune

Funding is in jeopardy for construction of a major rail-bridge system to ease at least some of the freight and passenger train congestion in the Chicago region, officials warned Thursday.

The argument against building the Englewood flyover bridges on Chicago’s South Side at one of the nation’s busiest railroad junctions has nothing to do with the merits of the project.

Instead, the long-planned bridge is among billions of dollars worth of infrastructure improvements that are being threatened by the battle playing out in Congress over the soaring national debt.

Democratic Illinois lawmakers said Thursday they will fight a move by Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives that scrapped funding for the Englewood bridges, which are designed to increase rail capacity and eliminate a bottleneck that officials say causes thousands of hours of delays each year for Metra and Amtrak riders as well as bogging down freight traffic. Republicans contend the cuts must be made to slow the growth of the national debt.

“This mindless cut is a clear signal that the House-passed bill is not the product of a thoughtful effort,” U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said after touring the bridge site with U.S. Reps. Dan Lipinski and Bobby Rush, both Chicago Democrats.

“Yes, we need to cut spending. … (But) we shouldn’t abandon our commitments to creating jobs and economic development in the midst of this recession,” Durbin said.

Last year the Federal Railroad Administration awarded Illinois $133 million to help construct the bridges. The rail-to-rail flyover would be built from 57th Place to 69th Street to carry north-south Metra Rock Island District trains on three tracks over the four-track east-west Norfolk Southern line that is also used by Amtrak.

The project design includes a possible fifth track for higher-speed Amtrak trains. 

Seventy-eight Metra Rock Island trains, 14 Amtrak trains and about 46 Norfolk Southern freight trains inch through the pinch point each day. Separating the tracks is also a step toward reducing delays on Metra’s SouthWest Service line, officials said.

The Englewood flyover would create about 1,450 jobs, the lawmakers said.

But in House legislation, Republicans killed funding for the project, as part of $6.8 billion in transportation spending reductions hitting the states — money that the Obama administration has already promised, according to lawmakers from Illinois.

Source: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-02-24/news/ct-met-englewood-flyover-20110224_1_amtrak-trains-national-debt-bridge-site