Transportation News

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Mid-January national negotiations update

Following an eighth negotiating session in mid-January with the National Carriers’ Conference Committee (NCCC), UTU International President Mike Futhey said, “We continue to make progress through interest-based bargaining toward developing a common framework recog [...]

GOP Senator Hutchison to retire in 2012

WASHINGTON — Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, the senior Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee, announced she will retire at the end of 2012, when her third six-year term ends. The Senate Commerce Committee has oversight of many rail, transit, air and bus issue [...]

Rail traffic continues torrid growth pace

Rail traffic continued its torrid growth the first week of 2011, with the Association of American Railroads (AAR) reporting freight carloadings were up more than 20 percent versus the same week in 2010, and intermodal (trailers and containers on flat cars) were up almost 9 pe [...]

A time to bind and recall Dr. King’s words

In the wake of the horror of Tucson, which reawakened among Americans of all races, religions and cultures the knowledge that there is more that binds us in our hopes and dreams than divides us in our politics, the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in his “I Have a D [...]

Transit, HSR on thin ice with new Congress

(The following article, written by Ken Orski, editor and publisher of Innovation Briefs, is reproduced with permission of Mr. Orski.) WASHINGTON — Congressional action on transportation this year, including the shape of the next surface transportation bill, will be inev [...]

Better appeals route urged for conductor certification

WASHINGTON — As the Jan. 1, 2012, effective date for conductor certification approaches, the UTU and Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen are urging the Federal Railroad Administration to revise certain portions of the proposed certification rules. Chief amo [...]

LACMTA retiring last of diesel buses

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, whose drivers are represented by the UTU, is phasing out its last diesel engine bus, becoming the nation’s first major urban bus fleet equipped entirely with alternative-fuel technology, which includes compressed n [...]

Republican T&I Committee members named

WASHINGTON — Republicans have finalized appointments to the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, which will be chaired in the upcoming Congress by John Mica (R-Fla.). Members include Minnesota’s Chip Cravaack, who defeated Democrat Jim Oberstar in [...]

When Parks refused to move, we were raised higher

By Calvin Studivant, Alternate vice president, Bus Department December marked 55 years since Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Ala., bus — “an act that challenged the moral conscience of an entire nation,” said President Obama in honori [...]

Treasurers’ payroll tax update

Railroad Retirement, Social Security, Medicare and Railroad Unemployment Insurance payroll taxes have changed for 2011. Following are the tax rates:  Railroad Retirement Tier I: Paid by employer: 6.20% on wages up to $106,800. Paid by employee: 4.2% on wages up to $106,800. S [...]