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RLBA: What's New

PASSENGER SERVICE FEASIBILITY; CEDAR RAPIDS AND IOWA CITY, IOWA

At the request of Five Seasons Transportation and Parking in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, RLBA is studying the feasibility of restoring passenger rail services between Cedar Rapids, Iowa City and the Amana Colonies (Iowa’s biggest tourist attraction). RLBA is evaluating the potential market for movement between the two cities as well as for recreational services on any or all of the three legs of the rail triangle. In addition, RLBA is assessing infrastructure condition and improvements, service planning, passenger/freight track sharing and various equipment options including vintage self-propelled railcars. The firm is working closely with the Cedar Rapids and Iowa City Railway Company and the Iowa Interstate Railroad Ltd. as well as the study sponsors and online communities.

CHARLOTTE: NEW INTERMODAL FACILITY AND LOGISTICS PARK
The City of Charlotte, North Carolina selected RLBA to provide solutions to various issues associated with proposed construction of a new intermodal freight facility at the Charlotte Douglass International Airport. The City envisions closing the present Norfolk Southern intermodal facility whose hemmed-in downtown location constrains both its functionality as a freight facility as well as urban redevelopment objectives and replacing it with a new facility with sufficient room to accommodate future expansion. The first task in the study includes conceptual design of the proposed new intermodal facility, estimation of costs to construct the facility and an independent estimate of the capacity of the existing NS intermodal facility. Follow-on tasks include analyzing redevelopment options in the vicinity of the existing NS intermodal facility including land use options and potential uses, cost estimates of recommended capital improvements, calculation of economic benefits, evaluating development of a logistics park – an intermodal, transportation and distribution hub, all at the airport based on the proposed new intermodal facility. The latter task includes review and evaluation of existing planning, a land use plan, infrastructure requirements and a strategy to market the new logistics park.

GRADE CROSSING QUIET ZONE: CITY OF KINGSTON & TOWN OF ULSTER AND CITY OF KINGSTON PEDESTRIAN SAFETY AND MOBILITY ANALYSIS

The County of Ulster, New York, selected RLBA to perform a CSX rail corridor Quiet Zone implementation plan and to propose pedestrian safety and mobility improvements at City of Kingston grade crossings. Coming as it does soon after publication of the Federal Railroad Administration’s Final Rule with regard to creation of quiet zones – in which locomotive horns are not sounded -- the study was founded upon years of development of federal Quiet Zone regulations. The study investigated the feasibility and cost of implementing Supplementary Safety Measures, which provide a degree of protection sufficient to replace the sounding of locomotive horns, at twelve crossings in the city and county. Public involvement was utilized to inform and to obtain public input. A diagnostic team was organized, inspected all twelve crossings and made recommendations in regard to each. Because trains sometime block street crossings in the City of Kingston, a range of measures was examined to provide protection and a means of safely crossing blocked intersections.


Archived News Items:
  • Powder River Basin Coal Rate Case Before the Surface Transportation Board
  • Vermont State Rail Plan Update
  • Benefits to Montana of Intercity Passenger Rail Service
  • RLBA Completes Pennsylvania's Comphrehensive Rail Freight Study and State Rail Plan
  • RLBA Wraps up California Intercity Passenger Rail Competitive Bidding and Service Options Study


    • ECONOMICS - ENGINEERING - SERVICE PLANNING
    R.L. Banks & Associates, Inc. 2107 Wilson Blvd. Suite 750 Arlington, VA 22201 703.276.7522