The ��claims��that the fees and penalties levied against drivers not paying the toll on the 495 and 95 Express Lanes violates the ban on excessive fines found in the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.�� Lead attorney James Pizzirusso of Hausfeld LLP argues that the fees and penalties constitute an “excessive and unreasonable” fine when the figures escalate into the thousands.

Pizzirusso suggests even the $12.50 administrative fee per trip after five days is also too much.�� When a regular commuter has an E-ZPass balance in the negative, it can often take up to five business days to alert the individual about the problem, which can result in up to 10��unpaid toll trips and a first bill of nearly $150.

Transurban counters that it is following on the matter and is more lenient than the statute.

As the Virginia Department of Transportation aims to begin tolling I-66 inside the Beltway during rush hours, Pizzirusso wants to make sure that lessons are learned.

“I think the Virginia Department of Transportation needs to a close look at what has happened here with Transurban.�� It should do everything it can to prevent from any operator of toll lanes from abusing the process or hurting consumers and drivers,” says Pizzirusso.

While Transurban operates and collects the tolls on the 495 and 95 Express Lanes, VDOT will operate and collect the tolls on I-66 inside the Beltway in 2017.

“The benefit of the doubt should be given to the consumer with the option to pay the original toll. If they pay, then I think it’s good policy not to go after these fees,” says Virginia Transportation Secretary Aubrey Layne.

Layne would not discuss Transurban or the class-action suit, restricting his comments to what he would like to see happen when VDOT tolls on I-66.

“If there is a reasonable opportunity given and the person wants to pay the toll and corrects the oversight, then I think you want to provide good customer service so that the person wants to use the facility again,” adds Layne.

E-ZPass users such as and are two examples of people who were��willing to pay the original toll, but were taken to court when they objected to paying the administrative fees and penalties.

Transurban has since instituted a First-Time Forgiveness Program, which lets customers get��the fees waived if they agree to pay the original toll and rectify the problem with E-ZPass. Transurban also caps the amount it pursues in court against first-time offenders to $2,200 plus court costs.�� Transurban says 24,000 drivers have used the program in the past year.

“The problem with the program is that while it’s a good idea, it’s also voluntary. Transurban can stop offering forgiveness to first-time offenders at any time without any consequence,” says Pizzirusso.

Layne would not commit to a formal policy in writing similar to Transurban’s, but he agreed there should be common sense in the process.�� He says it is easy enough to distinguish between those owning an E-ZPass with a track record of successful toll payments and those without an E-ZPass or any history of paying tolls. Layne adds that toll scofflaws deserve to be held accountable for cheating the system, but those who made an innocent mistake should not be treated in the same manner.

Source

The suit seeks damages from Transurban USA Operations, Faneuil Inc. and Law Enforcement Systems Inc. (LES). ��

operates the 495 and 95 Express Lanes, which offer a quicker trip on the two interstates for those willing to pay a toll.

is a Wisconsin-based company that Transurban contracts to collect unpaid debts that are past due.

is a company that Transurban and the Virginia Department of Transportation contracts to process violations and prepare for court cases against toll violators on the 495 Express Lanes, Dulles Toll Road and the 95 Express Lanes.

U.S. District Court Judge James C. Cacheris that six claims against Transurban, LES and Faneuil can proceed forward, while two others will be summarily dismissed.

“The court held that Transurban was a state actor, or acting on behalf of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and that we can sue them under the Constitution of the United States and Virginia,” said James J. Pizzirusso, lead attorney for the class at . “We can also bring claims against them for violations of the Virginia Consumer Protection Act and the Maryland Consumer Protection Act. We can also sue the collections agency for violation of the Fair Debt Collection Act.”

The issue is the Eighth Amendment’s ban on excessive fines: “We don’t think there will be any argument that it’s not a violation of the Eighth Amendment to charge somebody tens of thousands of dollars in fines for a five- or 10-dollar toll,” says Pizzirusso.

“We look forward to the next phase of this process where we can showcase the actual facts of our toll enforcement program,” McGurk says in a statement. “We are confident the process will demonstrate that Transurban’s enforcement policy ensures customers are informed, provides significant opportunities for customers to avoid escalating fees, and is far more lenient than what is prescribed by Virginia law.”

If the lawsuit proceeds to trial, it��could affect��thousands of drivers from Maryland, D.C. and Virginia.

“People who use the Express Lanes will want to be able to understand that there is a class action that is pending against Transurban,” Pizzirusso says. “We’re going to be seeking recoveries for anybody who has paid any money to Transurban, as a result of a notice or being sent to court for unpaid tolls.”

Transurban argued that it is a private company and therefore not subject to the Eighth Amendment.

But Cacheris ruled that, for now, the allegation can move forward because there is a basis to argue that Transurban acts on behalf of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Transurban says it’s implemented a robust First-Time Forgiveness program that has helped more than 24,000 drivers in the past year. Transurban also caps the amount it seeks from the court to $2,200 plus court costs under the program. Transurban also adds that 96 percent of the trips on the 495 and 95 express lanes are paid in full on the road with an E-ZPass.

Pizzirusso counters that the program is a great idea, but it is also a voluntary idea that Transurban can rescind at any time without consequence.

“It’s very rare in any class action for all the claims to be dismissed,” McGurk says. “While the other claims were allowed to move forward, it’s critical to remember that at this stage, the judge is forced to assume the plaintiffs’ account is true until the facts shake out.”

“In the next stage,” McGurk says, “we’ll be able to provide evidence of what actually happened in some of these customers’ cases and detail our unpaid toll notification process as well.”

The lawsuit now moves into the discovery phase for the next three months. In February, the U.S. District Court will rule whether to certify the drivers suing as a “class” with a legitimate claim to sue. If the court allows the case to proceed to trial, then it could be heard in March or April.

Source

D.C. Councilman Jack Evans says the Board of Directors should know Wednesday whether it will have a new candidate willing to accept the position.

Sources told ������Ƶapp last week that the name could be Paul Wiedefeld, the former head of Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport.

Evans adds that Neal Cohen decided against taking the job because it was bigger than he thought it would be.

He also expressed frustration at the media leaks and the press scrutiny with the job.

Source

“My vision would be to have a series of village centers, serving the community, that people can walk to, bike to, take your kids to and where seniors can age in place,” said Ginger Brown, co-founder of. “Right now it’s very difficult to walk along Lee Highway.”

The Lee Highway Alliance will hold what is known as a next weekend��to discuss the future of the corridor. A charette is an event where a group of designers come together to solve a problem.

“We have architects, engineers and planners coming together to work with the community to sketch out, draw and create what the vision is for the community,” Brown said.

One goal is to make the corridor more friendly to pedestrians and bicyclists. It wants Arlington to develop a , in which all users of the roadway are considered.

It also must address the transit challenge. Lee Highway does not have access to Metrorail like other parts of Arlington, although it has robust Metrobus and Arlington Transit service.

“There is certainly going to be development pressure in the coming years, so we just want to make sure that we have a cohesive plan versus it being developed piecemeal,” Brown said.

Arlington County staffers will help assist in the event and the overall planning process to develop the corridor.

“There has been a lot of planning for Columbia Pike, but not as much for Lee Highway,” said Jay Fisette, member of the Arlington County Board. “There is now increased attention to look ahead because redevelopment is happening. Residents are excited, hopeful and fearful at the same time because they want to get ahead with good planning.”

The charette runs from Friday Nov. 6 to Monday Nov. 9 at the Langston-Brown Community Center.

Source

Part of the��problem is the location of the circle.��Since some of the circle is in Silver Spring and some in Washington, the solution requires the two jurisdictions to come together.��In this case, it requires the D.C. Department of Transportation (DDOT) to work with the Maryland State Highway Administration (SHA), because it is considered a state road, not a local one, in Maryland.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser held numerous public meetings about the problem with her Montgomery County counterparts when she was the Ward 4 Councilwoman, but not much was done during her tenure on the City Council��or so far��during her tenure as mayor.

SHA officials insist that they are committed to a long-term solution to the problem.

“SHA has invested approximately $100,000 in engineering studies concerning the 16th Street traffic circle.��We have gone as far as we can go with our independent efforts.��When DDOT is at a point to move the project forward, we will be ready and willing to partner on the next steps,” says SHA spokesman Charlie Gischlar.

DDOT appears ready to act on the problem, too.

“DDOT has recently developed a set of short-term measures, which include signs and marking improvements, pedestrian signal head adjustments, signal timing modifications and trimming of trees to improve sight distance.��These measures will be completed in November 2015,” says DDOT spokesman Terry Owens.

He adds that DDOT and the D.C. police��are discussing whether to add speed or red-light cameras in and around the circle.��Placement��would be key to any plan to do so, especially for speed cameras.��A��D.C. speed camera on land that belongs to Maryland could raise legal issues around the tickets.��

When ������Ƶapp reported on a D.C. speed camera placed feet over the border into Prince George’s County, multiple lawyers from both D.C. and Maryland suggested legal problems surrounding��jurisdiction.�� D.C. police eventually moved the speed camera back onto D.C. property.

“DDOT and SHA will coordinate to advance the selection of a preferred alternative in close coordination with the community.��Once the preferred alternative is selected, DDOT will work with SHA to develop a plan for design and implementation,” says Owens.

But when DDOT will begin coordinating with SHA, when it will coordinate with the community and when it’ll work to develop a plan for design and implement, are all��unclear.

Source

Metro Board Chairman Mortimer Downey went to Philadelphia on Thursday morning to discuss the final details of the contract with Cohen. A conference call was held on Thursday afternoon with board members, but sources say that the formal process will not be completed before Monday.

Cohen has spent more than 20 years in the airline and aerospace industries. He worked in the 1990s and 2000s for Northwest Airlines and US Airways, leading both airlines through Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganizations. He was an executive vice president and chief financial officer for each, and��holds the titles at contracting company, Orbital ATK.

“WMATA has made a wise choice to select a change agent as it’s next general manager. With extensive experience in the private sector, I expect Mr. Cohen to shake things up,” says Montgomery County Councilman Roger Berliner, chair of the Committee on Transportation and the Environment on the council.

But local leaders also recognize that the most immediate concerns are about safety and reliability for passengers.

“Whatever else is going on, if people continue to have the sense that money is not invested wisely in a system that cannot perform reliably and safely, then none of this other restructuring matters,” says Dave Snyder, chairman of the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission.

Since Cohen does not have a transit background, there is a general feeling that he will need to have a second-in-command with that on the resume. Whether or not he keeps Robert Troup in the post or hires someone new remains to be seen.

“Leadership is knowing what your strengths are. There are so many skills required of a person at the top of an organization as complicated as Metro. The main thing is that they have a serious set of skills and where they don’t have the skills, they know where to find it and fill in the gaps to make the organization work,” says Jay Fisette of the Arlington County Board.

Cohen will inherit a long list of safety directives when he assumes the job. The National Transportation Safety Board issued findings in the 2009 crash at Ft. Totten that are still incomplete. It will likely issue many new findings when the investigation is complete into the January smoke incident at L’Enfant Plaza.

The Federal Transit Administration, which now has direct oversight powers, issued 91 recommendations in a June audit into the safety and financial culture at Metro. Also, the transit agency is on a restricted drawdown list for federal grants from the FTA because of past misuse of the money.

In December, Cohen will inherit a new budget negotiation cycle in which tough choices will have to be made.

Ridership has dropped over the last five years. Revenues remain relatively flat, while expenses are skyrocketing. But it appears that fare hikes are off the table in 2016. If so, it would mean Cohen having to convince the local jurisdictions to increase subsidies again. Maryland balked at the level of the subsidy increase this year.

Another issue is the contract between the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689, representing employees, and Metro management, which expires next summer.

But there is hope that Cohen provides the resume to be able to solve these financial issues.

“There are certainly long-term financial issues. If this person brings confidence to the funding agencies, then this will be a positive decision, assuming he hires people under him that know how to run a world-class transit system,” says Snyder.

“The biggest challenge the new GM will have is restoring the public’s confidence in WMATA. Riders, regulators, all stakeholders have to understand that he will shake things up and it will be a different WMATA going forward,” says Berliner.

Source

On Wednesday, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe that the agency is conducting final interviews of its top two candidates. Metro’s Board of Directors met privately for several hours Tuesday to discuss the best choice.

“I think we’re very close,” McAuliffe said. “They’re circling around one. I think in the next couple days, we will have a new general manager.”

Sources told ������Ƶapp there’s a consensus to hire one of the candidates, but the decision hasn’t been finalized yet. The agency is vetting that person. Sources said both candidates have managerial, transportation and financial experience.

A final decision is expected to come early next week, possibly Monday or Tuesday.

“I’ve been told by my Secretary of Transportation, who’s in consultation, that it is imminent,” McAuliffe said. “The white smoke will be imminent.”

The new general manager will face several problems right away.

Metro still needs to complete safety directives from the 2009 crash outside Ft. Totten, including replacing the 1000 series railcars with the new 7000 series. The Federal Transit Administration issued 91 safety recommendations from an audit released in June.

Metro will have a new list of directives when the National Transportation Safety Board completes an investigation into January’s deadly smoke incident at L’Enfant Plaza.

Financially, the FTA put the agency on a restricted drawdown list for federal grants after it found Metro misused the money in past years. Revenue is stagnant, labor costs are rising, and ridership has declined over the past five years.

As a result, Metro is facing tough choices as the budget season ramps up in December. D.C. Councilman Jack Evans has said he won’t support any fare hikes in 2016 as a way to solve the problems.

After the smoke incident, the derailment near Smithsonian, and the transformer fire at Stadium-Armory, Evans said passengers are frustrated with Metro and restoring trust is the primary goal.

Source

Arlington has begun a Transit Development Plan to address key challenges ahead, as population and jobs countywide are expected to increase about 10 percent over the next 10��years.�� The growth will be most acute in Columbia Pike and Crystal City-Pentagon City.

Columbia Pike is a key focus of the study, because it already has 17,000 people��using Metrobus and Arlington Transit (ART) buses each weekday. Population in the Columbia Pike corridor is expected to rise 21 percent over the next 10��years.

“With the elimination of the streetcar project, the Arlington Board wanted us to do a special effort to look at what kind of transit improvements should be implemented to address congestion,” says Mary Chevalier, Arlington’s interim transit chief.

Buses serving Columbia Pike are already at or near capacity during rush hours. Buses tend to bunch along the corridor with buses stopping and waiting for everyone to pay the fare before departing.

The transit plan will study several strategies to enhance bus service on Columbia Pike, including adding larger articulator buses, re-timing traffic lights to give buses more green lights and establishing off-board fare collection to get people onto��buses more quickly.

“People want to get to their destinations faster. When a bus is at the curb at a bus stop and people are taking time to put change in the fare box or reload their SmarTrip, it wastes time.�� If we can get that activity off the bus, hopefully it speeds the service along,” says Chevalier.

Crystal City-Pentagon City is expected to see a 42 percent jump in employment in the next 10��years, because of its proximity to the Pentagon. It’ll also see a 34 percent jump in population. Fifteen Metrobus routes and four ART routes service the Pentagon City-Crystal City area.

The area is home to a transitway which allows��buses to travel in dedicated lanes between Potomac Yard and the Crystal City Metro station.

“In the study we’re looking at an extension from the Crystal City Metro to the Pentagon City Metro. We’re looking at that connection. Where should it go? How should the route operate? The lanes and the station��— that is an important part of the study,” says Chevalier.

Surveys from the county show that most residents want more frequent service and more evening and weekend service in both corridors.�� Residents also want more connections to get people from Columbia Pike to Crystal City-Pentagon City and back.

You can attend public meetings on the transit plan:

Wednesday, Oct. 28

Aurora Hills Community Center

735 18th St. South

7 — 9 p.m.

��Monday, Nov. 2

Arlington Mill Community and Senior Center

909 S Dinwiddie��St.

7 — 9 p.m.

Wednesday, Nov.��4

George Mason University

Founders Hall

3351 Fairfax��Drive

6:30 — 8:30 p.m.

You can also for the next month. The final plan will be presented to lawmakers next spring.

Source

������Ƶapp has learned that two finalists for the job were presented to the full Board of Directors Tuesday afternoon.

Sources say Metro met in a closed door meeting for several hours today to discuss the two candidates.

An announcement on who will get the job is likely to come early to middle of next week.

Source

Jackie Jeter, , said on Thursday that she understood��why riders are frustrated with Metro.

“We need something to change about what we do and how we do it. The union is always here, even though I question and wonder sometimes whether you really want our suggestions because they’re not taken, and I don’t feel that it’s taken seriously,” Jeter said.

She told the board that it was frustrating to offer suggestions and have them not taken, adding that she felt like no one was listening.

The statement did not sit well with several board members.

“The most troubling for me was when you said you felt as though it was falling on deaf ears. I will tell you it doesn’t fall on deaf ears with me,” said Malcom Augustine, a board member from Maryland.

Other board members agreed with concerns Jeter expressed about Metro management.

“I’m becoming frustrated with this organization myself, in terms of an inability to follow up on things and take care of things. All we do is provide lip service, and we get report after report,” said Corbett Price, a board member from D.C. “Now is time for us to take some steps to truly bring about some improvements. The new general manager will not be the panacea for anything.”

Jeter said Metro was too bureaucratic and that it took too long for things to be accomplished. In the background, Metro Interim General Manager Jack Requa nodded his head in agreement.

Jeter also complained that supervisors and employees were not sufficiently trained in their respective fields. She said there was a lack of organized classroom training. Jeter also wanted more employees to get continual training, rather than be��targeted when��something goes wrong.

On Metro safety issues, she said too many frontline employees still don’t feel comfortable expressing their concerns without supervisors retaliating against them. Metro has been working on an anonymous reporting system for employees, but Jeter said employees were skeptical of it.

The biggest safety issue that Jeter addressed was assaults on Metrobus drivers. Metro reports that assaults on operators have increased 37 percent over the past two years.��About half of all operator assaults result from passengers disputing or evading the fare.

Metro wrote about 4,500 tickets for fare evasion last year, while many other riders received warnings.

“I think being spat upon is something that probably brings out anger in everybody. I don’t think there are going to be too many people that turn the other check, although that is what bus operators are expected to do,” said Jeter.

In February 2014, Metro Transit Police said a . In January 2015, with a stun gun. In June,, whom they alleged.

“Many of the operators acknowledge that it’s a normal part of life. It’s become, unfortunately, so normal that some of them don’t even report it anymore. They should never feel like they should not or cannot be in a position to report it because nobody is going to do anything,” said Jeter, who added there will never be enough police to cover every bus route.

Source

found that the papal visit resulted in a relatively non-existent rush hour. The National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board used traffic speed data from INRIX to determine how fast people were travelling on Sept. 23 and Sept. 24, when the pope was in town.

During the papal visit, it took Interstate 395 motorists��12 minutes to get from the Springfield Interchange in Fairfax County, Virginia to the Potomac River. That tip that typically takes 44 minutes during the morning rush.

In Maryland, what’s usually a 38-minute��trip on Interstate 270, from��the Intercounty Connector to the Capital Beltway in Montgomery County, only took��11 minutes.

“I was really quite surprised by that,” says Ben Hampton, a transportation planner with the Transportation Planning Board. “Huge changes. This was a pretty extraordinary event.”

Unfortunately, as one lawmaker noted on Wednesday, the pope will not be permanently relocating to D.C. Nevertheless, Hampton says that some very valuable lessons could be learned from the papal visit.

Hampton said there was a 4 percent reduction in the number of people on the road and a 10 percent decrease in congestion.��“Talking about what it will take to accomplish congestion reduction in the future, it might not take as much as people think in terms of how many cars we have to get off the road.��A small reduction in traffic volume can result in a significant decrease in traffic congestion,”��Hampton says.

There was an even greater impact between 8 and 9 a.m., the study found.��During that time frame, the number of vehicles on local highways dropped by 2 percent; traffic congestion declined 27 percent.

The study’s author, Wenjing Pu, cautions against extrapolating long-term��trends from the pope’s short visit.

“This is a very extraordinary event because the pope doesn’t visit us every month,” says Pu , a transportation engineer with the Transportation Planning Board. “People can only adjust their schedules to a certain degree. You cannot postpone your doctor appointments forever. In the long-term, the percentage reduction will not be that extreme. But there could be some good improvements if we expand telework or flexible hour policies for employees.”

The report recommends that more employers consider offering employees a four-day work week at 10 hours per day or staggering work schedules to allow a small percentage of employees to work shifts other than 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Source

The proposal would have added $4 million to a trust for retirement benefits for the coming decades. Maryland objected to the proposal on Oct. 8, but the measure passed on a committee vote. Board member Keturah D. Harley said at the time that Maryland would use a special veto if the measure went to the Board of Directors.

Known as a jurisdictional veto, it allows any of the three jurisdictions to throw out any proposal, even if the majority of the board supports it.

Michael Goldman, a board member from Maryland, exercised the jurisdiction veto on Thursday. It is the first time that a jurisdiction vetoed a proposal before Metro in more than five years.

“The Board would have made a commitment to keep funding this over the next 10 years. So what may be $4 million today would, in ten years, be $275 million. That is a lot of money. That could pay for a lot of people in the Rail Operations Control Center. That could pay for a lot of improved maintenance. That could pay for an improved safety program at WMATA. So we don’t want to put that money away in a lockbox right now,” says Goldman.

Lawmakers from the District and Virginia urged Maryland to reconsider the move for about 30 minutes on Thursday, but those efforts failed.

“I am totally frustrated about this. This is an insane vote on Maryland’s part. When I was here from 1992 to 2000, you didn’t use a jurisdictional veto unless it is critical,” says D.C. Councilman Jack Evans, who calls the $4 million for the retirement fund a minor issue.

Corbett Price added that the money was earmarked for retirement benefits and could not be spent elsewhere. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser appointed Price to the Metro board earlier this year.

Other board members echoed the objections to a jurisdictional veto.

“I recognize what my colleague from Maryland is saying in terms of the concern about safety,” says Fairfax County Supervisor Cathy Hudgins. “It’s unfortunate because we have become divided over this because it does provide a clear understanding to our employees what our commitments are. I would hate to send the message that we are incapable of doing more than one thing well. I hate to see the divide.”

There could be some important ripple effects from Thursday’s veto. Evans admitted to reporters that he might consider using a jurisdictional veto on Maryland proposals to Metro in the coming year, adding “there’s always that chance”.

“I have to look at every proposal individually. But I’ve got to tell you that when Maryland came forward with us taking over that crazy Silver Spring white elephant, I went along, even though I had my doubts about it. I don’t know that I would go along with that today given their actions,” says Evans.

Reporters asked Goldman whether he worried about a jurisdictional veto from Evans. Maryland recently recommended to the Board of Directors to eliminate the 5A Metrobus route to Dulles International Airport, which Evans opposes.

“I hope not. I hope people act like adults as we go forward on this,” says Goldman.

Metro staff will make recommendations on the Dulles bus route on Nov. 5.

Metro has come under increasing pressure to improve safety, reliability and maintenance since smoke filled a Yellow Line tunnel, killing one passenger and sending dozens of other riders to the hospital in January.

Maintenance problems have caused repeated service disruptions throughout the year and recently the U.S. of the beleaguered transit system to the Federal Transit Administration.

In the meantime, the board has general manager. Nine months have passed since Richard Sarles retired in January.

Source

Metro reached a deal in principle with the wireless carrier networks to upgrade the fiber optic cables in tunnels to enhance coverage. The system currently runs on a legacy Verizon system that falters and does not work for riders with AT&T or other wireless networks.

“All that is left is to cross the T’s and dot the I’s,” says Metro Interim General Manager Jack Requa, who believes the contract will be signed within day or weeks at most.

Tests conducted earlier this year found that only 27 percent of phone calls to 911 from Metro tunnels are received, compared with��more than 95 percent from platforms.

“There is a huge amount of the Metrorail system [in which]��basically 911 service is very, very, very limited,” says Steve Souder, director of Fairfax County 911 communications.

Work is expected to begin in January to install the new cables to upgrade wireless capabilities in the tunnel, but Metro says the work could take five years to complete.

“What is currently proposed is unacceptable to us. Pressuring them for a more aggressive implementation is going to be at the top of our priority list in meetings coming forward,” says Prince George’s County Fire Chief Marc Bashoor.

Metro says the problem has to do with access to the tunnels and how to balance this work with all the other necessary track maintenance.

“We all think that is too long. We’ll do everything we can to move it up, but we have to have the system shut down to allow the work to be done in the tunnels. We’ll do everything we can to speed it up,” says Requa. He later added that single-tracking during the day and weekend station closures could also be an option to install cables.

The Federal Communications Commission asking the Federal Transit Administration to lean on Metro to speed up the timeline.

“The troubling timeline for the entire project — reportedly scheduled to take��until 2020 — should inspire FTA to examine ways to expedite the work,” wrote FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly.

Metro’s previous attempt to upgrade cellular service in the system failed when the company behind the project went bankrupt.

Metro workers will likely install the fiber optic cables while they’re already in the tunnels also installing coaxial cables to improve the radio coverage. First responders during the L’Enfant Plaza smoke incident on Jan. 12 had trouble communicating over radio and had to use line-of-sight communication.

Still, interim work has been done to improve radio coverage until more permanent upgrades are made. Bashoor says they��will not rest until 99.9 percent of the Metro system passes tests for radio reliability.

“When it was measured in the March time frame, it was around 90 percent,” says Stuart Freudberg, deputy executive director at the Council of Governments. “It’s probably in the low 90s now, based on all the testing and corrective actions. It has been improved, but it’s not 99.9 percent,” .

However, the timeline to get the radio coverage up to the goal will also take several years to complete.

“Getting WMATA’s emergency radio system in place is also critical. They have that budgeted and they’re in the process. But again, it’s a multiyear project and it won’t be fixed right away,” says Bashoor.

He adds that many steps have been taken since the L’Enfant Plaza incident to improve communications. Bashoor says are now being used to boost the signal to assist during rescues, in addition to formalizing the line-of-sight communication as a backup.�� These amplifiers are portable units that can be brought to the scene of an��incident and deployed if necessary.

Source

Jackie Jeter, of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689, says she’s frustrated by Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority employee schedules that don’t allow enough time for meal or bathroom breaks.

She says also she’s troubled by a 37 percent increase in assaults on bus drivers. Some include passengers spitting on drivers while skipping out on fares.

Jeter adds that assaults are becoming so common that drivers are not reporting them anymore.

Source

Dunn Loring citizens came out to protest the plans to widen and add tolls on I-66 outside the Capital Beltway during a prolonged and somewhat unexpected 45 minute public hearing at the Transportation Planning Board.�� Five homes in the Fairfax County town will be taken as part of the project.�� Three of those five testified before the TPB, telling lawmakers that they were being punished for going car-free near a Metro station along I-66, and that the tolls won’t do anything to relieve congestion.

The project to add tolls on I-66 both inside and outside the Capital Beltway are on the Constrained Long Range Plan (CLRP), which is necessary in order to receive federal funding for construction.

But lawmakers from D.C. and Maryland expressed frustration about voting on a CLRP without there being a final agreement between Northern Virginia jurisdictions on the inside the Beltway portion.

A framework agreement between the Virginia Department of Transportation, the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission, Arlington, Falls Church and Fairfax County has not yet been approved by all the parties and will not be approved before December.

“It’s clear there is some disagreement within the Northern Virginia jurisdiction with the provisions that are in the CLRP.�� It has to do with I-66 both inside and outside the Beltway.�� Ordinarily these issues get worked out before folks come to the Transportation Planning Board for a vote.�� The TPB did move forward, but with the understanding that VDOT is coming back in January with further refinements about what is being proposal,” says D.C. Council Chairman and TPB Chairman Phil Mendelson.

Lawmakers from Maryland and D.C. suggested that the TPB wait another 30 days to see what happens with the I-66 framework agreement before voting on the CLRP, but ultimately a vote was taken after nearly an hour of debate.

The vote was not unanimous.�� Nine people voted against the CLRP, making it a much closer vote than in past years.

Regional lawmakers also debated about whether the CLRP will do anything to solve traffic congestion in the region.�� Jay Fisette of the Arlington County Board introduced an amendment that would have established a working group to rate projects on the CLRP in 2016 to address the larger picture of traffic congestion.�� But the amendment was met with stiff resistance and narrowly lost on a voice vote.

“The main thing I’m looking for is greater consensus among the jurisdictions in Virginia.�� One of those is the framework agreement that would reflect what is happening with the toll revenues and how much is going to be put in transit.�� It would be nice to see that this agreement is fleshed out,” says Mendelson.

Other projects that advance with the CLRP vote include more dedicated bike lanes added to the existing network in D.C. and a bus-rapid transit system between the Huntington Metro and the VRE station in Woodbridge.

Source