HOUSE TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE COMMITTEE
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April 1, 1998
10:30 a.m.
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Presented by
Shirley A. DeLibero
Executive Director
New Jersey Transit Corporation
American Public Transit Association
1201 New York Avenue, N. W.
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 898-4000
APTA is a nonprofit international association of over 1,100 member organizations including transit systems; planning, design, construction and finance firms; product and service providers; academic institutions, and state associations and departments of transportation. APTA members serve the public interest by providing safe, efficient and economical transit services and products. Over ninety percent of persons using public transportation in the United States and Canada are served by APTA members.
Good Morning Chairman Franks and Members of the Subcommittee. My name
is Shirley A. DeLibero and I serve as Executive Director of New Jersey Transit
Corporation. I am also the First Vice Chair of the American Public Transit Association and
I am here today testifying on behalf of APTA.
Let me start off my testimony by congratulating you, Congressman
Franks, on your selection to serve as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Railroads. As
Executive Director of NJ TRANSIT I am personally delighted by your appointment, but from
the Association’s perspective we are very pleased that the Subcommittee is chaired by
someone who fully appreciates the critical role that commuter rail service plays in the
U.S. economy and in mobility in the nation’s dense urban centers.
As you know, over 1 million people a day and 370 million annually ride
the nation’s 15 commuter railroads. In fact, commuter rail ridership is growing by
over 3% a year. New systems in California and Vermont, that will start operations during
the next twelve months, will bring additional growth in commuter rail ridership.
Safety, even more than expanding ridership and the bottom line,
however, is most important to the nation’s commuter railroads. While we are pleased
with our current safety record, we are constantly seeking to do better. As FRA
Administrator Molitoris has said in the past, commuter railroads carry the nation’s
most precious cargo, and because of that we work hard to have the safest operations
possible.
In my testimony I want to bring you up to date on what we are doing to
improve the safety of commuter rail operations. I want to focus on three areas in
particular – our passenger rail equipment safety standards effort -- known as PRESS,
our activities in the area of grade crossing and trespasser safety, and positive train
control.
It is important to note from the outset that much of what we are doing,
we are doing in partnership with the Federal Railroad Administration and rail labor. Under
the leadership of Administrator Molitoris, the FRA has established a consensus-based
rulemaking effort, leading to the successful development of new rules and standards that
will work from an operational standpoint and will enhance the safety of the nation’s
railroads.
The first issue I want to talk about – PRESS – is a good
example of the cooperative effort that is reflected in our work to improve safety. About
two years ago, in response to requests from the FRA, the nation’s commuter railroads
set out to update and revise the physical standards and inspection and maintenance
practices established for passenger railroad cars and locomotives. For many years, neither
the Federal government nor the rail passenger industry has maintained formal safety
standards specific to our equipment.
To help fill this void, our members elected to take on the
responsibility for developing and maintaining passenger rail equipment safety standards.
APTA’s commuter rail members and Amtrak initially contributed over $1.2 million to
fund the PRESS effort. More than 100 people, representing passenger railroads, equipment
builders and suppliers, labor organizations, government agencies and consultants to the
rail industry are participating in the PRESS effort.
The Task Force committees identified a need for over 60 safety
standards and recommended practices pertaining to passenger rail equipment. Approximately
one half of these documents have been completed and the remainder are in progress for
completion by the end of 1998. APTA believes that the PRESS effort has become a model for
how rule making and standards setting should be accomplished.
Trespasser and grade crossing safety is another important area where
the nation’s commuter railroads are working to enhance safety. As you know, over 90%
of the fatalities associated with railroad operations are the result of trespasser and
grade crossing accidents – accidents which railroads can not, in large part, control.
APTA’s commuter railroad members are continually working to
improve grade crossing and trespasser safety, and every commuter railroad has aggressively
undertaken public education programs to warn the public about the hazards of walking on
the tracks or ignoring grade crossing warning devices. At NJ TRANSIT we know that the
profile of our average trespass fatality is a 44-year-old male and that in 1997 more than
half of our 24 fatalities were confirmed or suspected suicides. Recognizing the importance
of requiring trespassers to take responsibility for their actions, earlier this year the
New Jersey Legislature passed and Governor Whitman signed legislation that makes railroads
immune from liability in trespasser accidents. Each year our safety education program
reaches over 100,000 school students and last year we completed a new safety video –
this one aimed at the older teen and young adult market. Last summer we produced a
railroad public service announcement that ran for two months in 20 movie theatres located
in areas with high accident rates.
APTA feels that there are four major ways to address the grade crossing
and trespasser problem: elimination of unnecessary grade crossings, installation of safety
devices, increased enforcement of highway traffic laws, and increased public education. We
need to eliminate or improve grade crossings to be particularly effective. APTA is pleased
that both the House and Senate ISTEA Reauthorization bills continue to direct states to
use a percentage of the funding available through the Surface Transportation Program (STP)
for the Section 130 Grade Crossing Program.
While many people have suggested fencing as a panacea for these
accidents, it isn’t. As you know Mr. Chairman, when we fence areas where trespassing
frequently occurs, those fences are continually cut and we end up spending excessive time
and resources struggling to keep them maintained. And the presence of fencing along
railroad rights-of-way has raised a number of issues regarding liability in the courts.
The final area I want to talk about is positive train control –
known as PTC, another area where FRA’s consensus-based rulemaking process is working.
Since last fall, rail management and labor and the FRA have been
working to understand the capabilities of PTC; the feasibility of implementing PTC,
including its cost; and strategies for its implementation, including the necessary rules
and standards. This is not something that can be done over night and it needs to be done
carefully – carefully because it involves a significant investment of
funds and it constitutes the next level of rail safety improvements that will be
protecting our grandchildren decades from now.
There are a number of PTC systems and technologies in the marketplace
and while that diversity is an asset, it also creates a problem with implementation.
Because we have a national railroad system, we must have a design for PTC that every
railroad can use – the technical term for it is interoperability. NJ TRANSIT operates
on tracks that we own but we also run on Amtrak right-of-way, Conrail right-of-way and
Metro North right-of-way. And NJ TRANSIT’s right-of-way is used by a number of
freight railroads. This joint use makes it imperative that PTC systems are interoperable
and that they also meet the needs of each individual railroad.
NJ TRANSIT is undertaking a program that will cost an estimated $150
million to upgrade all 550 miles in the system with both a nine aspect automatic train
control system (ATC) and a positive train control system that will accommodate civil speed
restrictions and insure that our trains will not be able to go through a stop signal at
any speed. However, not all railroads need that level of protection, and one-size-does-
not-fit all in this instance. NJ TRANSIT is incurring this extra cost to insure that its
railroad is the safest it can be.
The nation’s commuter railroads have demonstrated a strong
commitment to enhancing the safety of their passengers, employees and the American public,
a commitment that continues to be a top priority. We urge the House to reauthorize the
Rail Safety Act as it is currently written, building on and strengthening the successful
consensus-based rulemaking efforts that the FRA has established. We feel this may be the
ideal time to move towards a more performance or experience-based process already embraced
by other transportation modes.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify. I would be happy to answer
any questions or provide any additional information that may be useful to the
Subcommittee.
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