NJ-NYC PATH set for $1B fleet and operations improvements
Before the pandemic turned commuting upside down, PATH embarked on a $1 billion improvement program in June 2019. This year, riders will start to see the results, starting with longer platforms to ease overcrowding by allowing use of longer nine-car trains. The end of 2022 will see the arrival of the first of 72 brand new railcars and in 2023, the rest of those cars will be delivered. PATH will embark on a pilot after that to test a new tap-and-go fare system to pay by chip embedded credit or debit card or smartphone. [nj.com]
Aging Pittsburgh light rail fleet due for $4.5M upgrade
Pittsburgh’s Port Authority knows many of the trains on its light rail system are near the end of their useful life, but since replacing them could take eight or more years and upward of $500 million, the agency has to keep the current trains running. That’s why it is poised to spend $4.5 million to overhaul the controls for the propulsion systems on dozens of its 81 trains. The authority is in the unenviable position of having to spend money on the old trains to keep them running until it can get the money to replace them. [post-gazette]
MBTA’s Green Line Extension Opens With 2 New Stations
The first phase of MBTA’s Green Line Extension is now open for riders. Union Square station in Somerville and a brand new Lechmere station in Cambridge both opened early Monday morning. They’re two of seven new stations in the $2.3 billion project that began back in 2018. It will add more than four-and-a-half miles of track north of Boston that will extend all the way to College Avenue in Medford. The other stations are expected to open later this year. [boston.cbslocal.com]
Montreal’s metro network to get five new stations along Blue Line in east end
The Montreal metro’s Blue Line is getting five new stations in the city’s east end, at a cost of $6.4 billion, a project that has been in talks for three decades. Government officials have confirmed that excavation work will begin in 2023 for a planned opening by 2029. Most of the funding will come from the Quebec government, with $1.3 billion from the federal government. The five new metro stations would be located along Jean-Talon Street at the intersections with Pie-IX, Viau, Lacordaire, and Langelier Boulevards, and at Bélanger Street, for the Anjou terminal station. [ctvnews.ca]
Study on creating passenger train system across Tennessee gains Senate support
A bill calling for a study on train transportation across Tennessee has passed unanimously in the state Senate. The study, to be completed by the Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (TACIR), would be due to the Legislature’s transportation committees by July 1, 2023. The bill came about after Amtrak announced its planned 2023 map, which included a route from Atlanta to Nashville through Chattanooga and a route from Chicago to New Orleans through Memphis but no connection through Tennessee or between Nashville and Louisville. [murfreesboropost.com]
