Samuel B. Robinson - Comment

Gentlemen: For context, I have the following years of rail transit-related work experience; 5+ as an assistant trainmaster/ops supervisor for a busy Pittsburgh freight railroad; 7+ with the main consulting engineering JV on the Pittsburgh Stage 1 Light Rail Project, (2+ in ops planning and 5 in systems construction management/coordination); 1+ in contract admin and track subcontractor coordination on the first civil contract portion of SEPTA's Frankford Elevated Reconstruction Project; and 12.5 in project management, systems engineering, project planning, proposals, risk management and estimating for a major train control firm. My comments are: in my experience, with few exceptions when relatively new rail transit systems apply for FTA funding for new project starts/line extensions, how these entities will OPERATE AND MAINTAIN their new lines/extensions is seldom discussed in detail. Project specifications almost never include important details of line operations and maintenance either. As a result, in looking at several hundred track plans for these new lines or extensions over the years, train length/capacity/station platform length is routinely too low, crossovers are routinely put in the wrong places or omitted, 2-track stations are side platform where center platform would improve transfers, turnback locations' track arrangement is poorly designed and/or of inadequate length, central city midday train storage space is omitted, parking at the ends of lines is inadequate, etc. To avoid condemning transit properties to long-term higher-than-necessary operations and maintenance costs FTA should MANDATE that grant applications contain detailed track plans and operations schema so FTA can take each applicant's operations plans & arrangements into account when deciding to grant funding. Also, there are so many 'consultants' involved in these FTA-funded contracts that the grant $$ spent on consultants approaches the $$ spent on physical construction.