Federally Mandated, Locally Operated
Posted by Fred Jandt
Mass Transit magazine editor
With rail fever sweeping across the nation, is it any surprise that there is likely a price to be associated with it? This week the current administration proposed federal oversight on subway and light-rail safety regulations. What does this mean? It means that if you have light rail or subways in your system, you’d better hope you’ve been doing your job.
As Secretary LaHood states in this article the federal government already oversees safety when it comes to plains, trains and automobiles. It does make sense for them to extend this purview to light rail and subway lines. That said, how the feds regulate it is the sticking point.
I’ve been railing (no pun intended) against cell phones being in operators’ hands for a while here and now it seems that issue has come home to roost. Simply telling operators not to use their cell phones while working isn’t working, and I figure it is only going to be a matter of time before we see that even threatening to immediately fire an operator caught using his or her cell phone doesn’t work. Plain and simple, the phones need to go and it looks like since the transit authorities didn’t step in quickly and forcefully enough the federal government is going to step in and lay the proverbial smack down.
On the one hand, this is arguably a good thing for transit agencies. Now they can throw up their hands if the operators’ union cries foul to new restrictions. It wasn’t their doing. They were just following federally mandated rules. Of course, there is likely going to be extra costs associated with this. Leave it to Bill Millar to be the first one to point that out. And he’s right.
If the federal government is going to come down with new regulations that agencies will have to implement, then they should pony up the money to implement them. To do any less is at minimum putting an extra burden on transit agencies already struggling with operating funding deficits and most asking for the new regulations to be skirted or outright ignored in order to keep the trains running.
As the former head of the NTSB, Mark Rosenker, is quoted as saying, how cheap do you get in safety?
Transit agencies were put on notice that safety policies needed to change after the Metrolink crash. Now it looks like the federal government has had enough waiting for change to happen and is instead going to make changes unilaterally across all agencies. Let’s hope agencies with rail systems or looking to add them are ready and willing to make these changes, because they soon will no longer be able to make that choice on their own.
Thanks for reading the MT Position updated every Friday,
Fred
fred.jandt@cygnusb2b.com
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November 20th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
If transit workers unions balk and won’t accept reasonable safety regulations (such as a prohibition on using cell phones while driving), then just de-unionize transit.
At one dysfuctional transit agency (like many others) here in California, the driver’s union seems to be running the whole show and it’s a classic example of the “Tail wagging the dog” syndrome.
If mass transit is going to be a workable alternative to private auto, the industry must adopt a market oriented approach and this means that the transit workers unions must cater to the needs of the riders and management -not the other way around.
If bus and train operators are routinely disregarding the safety rules against using cell phones while operating a vehicle, then install a camera right in the operator’s cab and promptly follow up with disciplinary action if a violation is observed.
If the transit worker’s unions refuse to abide by these rules, then just decertify like what happened with the air traffic controller’s union.
November 20th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
Safety always sounds good, but Federal regualtion after the fact on operating authorities might be very distruptive. The only set of regulations FTA has at this time is FRA. Transit does many things that would never fit with FRA practices, ie street running, nearside grade crossing scenarios, many different types of warning signs and aspects, much abreviated procedures for authorizing a train to proceed through a failed track circuit or signal, etc. These are essential to transit in general and there are many site specific differences between authorities that were necessary for them, but may not be understood by an outsider who has spent a career using an FRA rulebook.
November 20th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
We should be concerned about what those federal regulations are going to be. Right now, one of the large limitations on getting economical railroad passenger equipment in the USA is that our safety standards are radically different than that used anywhere else in the world - even across the border in Canada, where train weight and length is pretty much the same as it is in the USA.
We don’t want to see FRA style structural regulations for light rail trains or subways. Implementing rail transit would suddenly become far more expensive than it already is.
In the name of “safety” these radically different federal regulations have caused commuter and intercity train service to be extremely expensive to implement here, which means that more people drive. Since driving is a whole lot less safe than taking the train, these “safety” regulations have resulted in a much higher overall transport death rate than would be if less expensive but worldwide standard equipment were available.
November 20th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Way baqck in the late 60’s, when rulemaking for the new track safety act, the DOT and FRA announced that they woulc not regulate transit “at this time.” They admitted that they barely had the resources for the railroads.
So now what? Obviously the FTA does not have the resources now.
In 1984, when the president of NYCT demanded that the FTA audit the safety of the track system, they refused, and then, under great pressure, they prevailed on the FRA to do it.
In addition, most transit systems will not meet the track geometry condition.
Charles Stanford