Texting While Driving Ban Proposed in Senate

Senate Democrats introduced a bill on Wednesday that would ban texting on a cell phone or other personal electronic device while driving. If passed, the bill would force states to enact laws against texting while driving, or risk losing federal highway funds.
"iPhones, Sidekicks and Blackberries are ingenious, indispensable devices," Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) said in a statement. "But while they make our lives so much easier, they make driving that much harder."
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The bill would apply to anyone operating a personal car, truck, bus and most other mass transit systems, including light rail (but not to texting when the car is stopped nor to passengers.) Currently, 14 states and the District of Columbia ban texting while driving, and 11 states have a modified ban."Texting while driving should be illegal on every road, every railway, in every state," said Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) in a press release. "Anything we can do at every level of government to raise awareness and stop texting while driving will save lives."The Avoiding Life-Endangering and Reckless Texting by Drivers Act ("ALERT Drivers" Act) is sponsored by Sens. Schumer, Menendez, Mary Landrieu (D-La.), and Kay Hagan (D-N.C.).If the bill is signed into law, states will have two years to pass compliant bans or risk losing up to 25 percent of their annual federal highway funding, as enforced by the Department of Transportation. States that comply after the two-year deadline can retroactively recover lost highway funds.The ALERT Drivers Act came a day after a study by Virginia Tech researchers revealed that drivers are 23 times more likely to get into an accident when texting on their phones. Another study, published in June by Car and Driver magazine, indicated that texting while driving is more dangerous than driving intoxicated.Researching this story was the first time I heard that D.C. already has a law against texting. If you want to know if your state has already banned texting and driving, the Governors Highway Safety Association has a handy state-by-state guide.
As a D.C. resident who often types these posts on my Blackberry while driving, I'm not sure how to give up email, BlackBerry Messenger, Google Talk, Google Maps, UberTwitter or Facebook while in the car. Admittedly, I have several rear-ender accidents on my driving record, but what am I supposed to do while driving -- pay attention? Nah. Follow Emily Miller on Twitter (only when she's not driving of course!)

Newer New York City Buses with BAE Systems Hybrid Propulsion Cost Less to Own and Operate

A new government report says New York City’s newer hybrid-powered buses cost 40 percent less to maintain and 24 percent less to operate than earlier-generation hybrids. Those buses, the second-generation Orion VII from Daimler Buses North America, are powered by BAE Systems’ HybriDrive diesel-electric propulsion system.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) evaluated the performance of New York’s second-generation Orion VII buses from February 2006 to January 2007. The buses studied were compared to the city’s first-generation Orion VII buses. (Click here to view the report.)
“The NREL study shows that our commitment to continually improving the HybriDrive system is paying off for our customers,” said Rich Hopf, vice president of vehicle systems for BAE Systems in Johnson City, N.Y. “We have improved reliability, simplified maintenance and reduced the cost of keeping the buses on the road. We expect even better results with the addition of lithium-ion energy storage in 2008.”
BAE Systems is offering lithium-ion energy storage on Daimler’s Orion VII Next Generation transit buses. Lithium-ion technology is more efficient, lasts longer, and weighs less than the lead-acid batteries in use today. The Orion VII Next Generation buses were introduced to the North American market in 2007.
“The gains in operating and maintenance costs as referenced in the latest NREL report are a clear indication of the benefits of hybrid buses in public transit applications,” said Patrick Scully, chief commercial officer for Daimler Buses North America. “These results are proof positive for not only New York City but for all of our other customers that are operating Orion hybrid buses. Further, for cities looking to adopt hybrid buses, the NREL report provides excellent empirical data for their decision-making process.”
More than 1,000 Daimler buses with BAE Systems drive systems are in service in cities such as New York, San Francisco, and Toronto, and 1,500 more are on order for cities including New York, Houston and Ottawa. The New York City fleet is the largest hybrid bus fleet in the world.
The buses in the study incorporated several improvements to the hybrid electric propulsion system, in use in New York since 1998. Factors contributing to the performance improvements included a simplified cooling-system design, improved battery diagnostics and better training of mechanics.
NREL is the Department of Energy’s primary lab for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development.

TA, OA, MTA Bus Contract Update

All Arbitration hearings for the next contracts between Local 100 and the MTA, covering the TA/OA and MTA Bus for 2009-2011, have been completed. Further, both sides have submitted post hearing briefs to the Arbitration Panel.
These hearings began this past May after both sides reached an “impasse” in their negotiations some months earlier. At that point the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) certified the impasse and appointed a three person panel to decide the dispute. The panel is made up of a representative from the Union, one from Management and a Neutral third panel member.
The conclusion of the hearings and submission of briefs means that an award is just a matter of time. It will follow shortly.
Local 100 has made its case for fairness and equity. Given what we do for this City and State, it would be unconscionable for transit workers to be granted lesser wage increases. Our case was for Justice!

TA, OA, MTA Bus Contract Update

All Arbitration hearings for the next contracts between Local 100 and the MTA, covering the TA/OA and MTA Bus for 2009-2011, have been completed. Further, both sides have submitted post hearing briefs to the Arbitration Panel.
These hearings began this past May after both sides reached an “impasse” in their negotiations some months earlier. At that point the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) certified the impasse and appointed a three person panel to decide the dispute. The panel is made up of a representative from the Union, one from Management and a Neutral third panel member.
The conclusion of the hearings and submission of briefs means that an award is just a matter of time. It will follow shortly.
Local 100 has made its case for fairness and equity. Given what we do for this City and State, it would be unconscionable for transit workers to be granted lesser wage increases. Our case was for Justice!

ELECTION NOTICE

In response to protests filed after the Monday,
June 22 automated count of the ballots in the
election of Convention delegates, the Elections
Committee has instructed AAA to recount
by hand the ballots in several divisions.
AAA will undertake the recount, but reports that
it is unable to do so for several days.
AAA certification of the election results must wait
until the recount is complete.$is is necessary to
guarantee that every vote counts.
We thank members for their patience.

CVS reimburses MTA almost $1M after overcharging transit workers, retirees

Drugstore giant CVS overcharged the MTA for prescription drugs provided to transit workers and retirees - and has reimbursed the agency nearly one million dollars, transit officials said Monday.
Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials say that figure could rise as the MTA auditor general continues to pore over records pertaining to CVS Caremark and its contract with NYC Transit, the bus and subway division.
MTA Inspector General Barry Kluger's office has launched a "second and independent" probe, according to a letter from Kluger to a confederation of seven labor unions
The group has been very critical of the company's management of worker benefit programs around the country.
"Certainly, the issues involved are very serious," Kluger wrote.
CVS Caremark is the largest drugstore chain in the country. It also manages pharmaceutical benefits provided by employers like NYC Transit.
MTA spokesman Jeremy Soffin said CVS Caremark had provided generic drugs to transit workers, retirees and their families as part of the health plans with the unionized workforce - but didn't apply the proper discount for the cheaper medications.
The auditor general discovered discrepancies in 2007 and issued an internal report about possible over billing, Soffin said.
As a result, the MTA hired an outside auditing and consulting firm to scrutinize the books for a two-year period ending in March of last year, the first two years of the contract with CVS Caremark.
The company paid the MTA $710,000 last year and reimbursed the agency for another 231,000 earlier this month, he said.
The contract between CVS and the MTA expires in August abd the agency Monday approved replacing CVS and two other drug plan providers with new contractor.
"This is good for riders, for Transit Authority finances and for MTA employees," Ahmer Qadeer of Change to Win.
"The MTA's actions show they are serious about saving money and achieving accountability on prescription drug costs." Change to Win includes the Service Employees International Union, the Teamsters and United Farm Workers.http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/06/22/2009-06-22_cvs_reimburses_mta.html#ixzz0K9Jtq5WO&D

MTA New York City Transit Chooses Nova Bus Articulated Vehicles

MTA New York City Transit has purchased 90 Nova LFS articulated buses, with delivery slated for the first half of 2010. The vehicles are to be assembled at Nova Bus’ newest plant located in Plattsburgh, New York.

The order of the vehicles follows a successful six-week in-revenue service run of a Nova LFS Artic bus on the Bx12 route in the Bronx and the M15 route in Manhattan.
MTA New York City Transit owns and operates a fleet of over 4,500 buses, the largest bus fleet in North America. It serves five boroughs of New York City.
Nova Bus is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Volvo Bus Corporation, a major motorcoach and transit bus manufacturing group.

Pooch Sparks Fight Between City Bus Driver, Passenger

A city bus driver and passenger were both arrested Wednesday after they get into a dispute aboard an MTA bus in Brooklyn.
Transit officials say it all started when there was a problem with a passenger who brought a dog onto the B-36 bus. The driver stopped the bus and was waiting for help when another passenger got mad.
Police say the woman demanded her money back, but the driver declined. They say that's when the woman started to hit the driver repeatedly with her jacket.Witnesses say the driver then began to hit the woman on her neck.Both the passenger and the driver were arrested for assault.
The incident happened at the intersection of 37th Street and Surf Avenue in Sea Gate.

Bus Rapid Transit program may roll out in nine locations in Queens

www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/queens/2009/06/07/2009-06-07_... BY John Lauinger DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER


BRT was established in New York for the first time last year as a pilot program on the BX12 line along Fordham Road in the Bronx.
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Bus Rapid Transit - a system that allows buses to function more like a subway - is key to expanding the city's mass transit, some advocates and transportation officials argue.
BRT was established in New York for the first time last year as a pilot program on the BX12 line along Fordham Road in the Bronx. By providing a separate right-of-way for buses and allowing for curbside fare payment, among other features, travel time dropped by 11 minutes - or 19% - from one end of the line to the other, city records show.
"This is the brave new frontier of public transportation in New York City," said Wiley Norvell of the advocacy group Transportation Alternatives.
The city is now pushing BRT plans in Manhattan, Brooklyn and on Staten Island, but not in Queens, where local merchants previously opposed a Merrick Blvd. pilot, fearing it would remove on-street parking and hurt business.
But the city is proposing a second wave of BRT lines over the next decade. Whether this transit frontier will run through Queens - and if so, where - will depend on various factors, including input received at two public meetings in Jackson Heights and Jamaica last week, officials said.
The city Transportation Department has identified 31 potential BRT corridors, focusing largely on areas underserved by mass transit or targeted for growth.
Nine of those are in Queens, including southeastern Queens; Utopia/Fresh Meadows; Middle Village; the Long Island Expressway; the Long Island City waterfront and the Queens-Manhattan connections, where subways are jam-packed.
Joe Barr, director of transit development for the DOT, said eight to 12 corridors across the city will be selected this summer for further study. Projects that are ultimately selected will be built over the next decade.
The Bronx pilot was built in about a year, Barr noted. "If people are looking for short-term improvements to their transit service," he said, "this is really a good way to deliver that."
Norvell said BRT projects should be prioritized when lawmakers carve out the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's five-year capital plan this fall.
BRT is a much more effective way to add mass transit capacity than building new subways, he noted. BRT costs about $10 million per mile. The Second Ave. subway, by contrast, is projected to cost $1 billion to $2 billion per mile.
Ted Orosz, director of long-range bus planning for New York City Transit, said areas that lack subways, such as southeastern Queens, should get first dibs.
"You want to expand the reach of the transit system," he said, noting that areas where the subways are overcrowded should also be high on the list.
City Councilman John Liu (D-Flushing), who chairs the Council's transportation committee, thinks BRT can provide a quicker link between the borough's major transit hubs.
"It's really ridiculous and maddening that you could travel by mass transit faster between Flushing and Manhattan as opposed to Flushing and Forest Hills," he said.
Councilman Eric Gioia (D-Sunnyside) pointed to BRT as a way to handle the growth in Long Island City.
All told, about 100 people attended last week's meetings in Queens. In Jamaica on Wednesday, it seemed as if city officials outnumbered the public.
"There should be a lot more people out here," said Bruce Pulling, a truck driver and regular bus rider from Oakland Gardens.
He wants to see a BRT line running along the Horace Harding Expressway, from the Queens-Nassau border to Jamaica.
"Anything to get more buses out there," he said.
jlauinger@nydailynews.comhttp://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/queens/2009/06/07/2009-06-07_brt_program_which_works_like_subway__speeds_travel_time_may_roll_out_in_n.html#ixzz0K9DUSOMP&D

Health Care for America Now!

A busload of Local 100 members traveled to Washington on June 25 to join ten thousand other union members for a rally demanding health care reform.Capitol Hill was a rainbow of t-shirted union members – Local 100’s dark blue, CWA’s red, SEIU’s purple, IBEW’s electric green, UFCW’s yellow, AFSCME’s green, along with hundreds of white-coated physicians and other health care workers.The crowd of union members and health-care activists stood in the bright sun to hear members of Congress and union leaders deliver a clear message: “We demand affordable, high-quality health care for all, and we aren’t waiting any longer.” Among those who gave short speeches were Senators Charles Schumer Kirsten Gillibrand and Representatives Charles Rangel and Anthony Weiner, all from New York.Rangel, who is chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, told the enthusiastic crowd: “we have to have a health care system that works for everyone, not just the politically connected, not just the moneyed. Congress must expand health care to the 45 million individuals who still lack coverage. We must do the same for our nation’s children and working population.”After the rally, Local 100 members fanned out to the offices of members of Congress from the New York region, carrying each of them the message that the Union and its members can’t wait for health-care reform. As Stephan Thomas put it while dropping off literature in the office of Rep. Nydia Velasquez, “We have to get real reform in 2009. We simply cannot fix our economy without fixing our broken health-care system.”

Defending Seniority And Pay

Some of the issues that led the Unions charge for an Arbitrators decision Stemed back to the day after Thanksgiving agreement that secured pay and extras for operators who opted to stay for them. But as time moved forward Management in the Department of Buses tried to implement a special schedule for all other holidays.
In as early as May 2009 the Management team for the Department of Buses met with the Union From the OA and TA to discuss the issues of the elimination of the M6 route, due to the reroute of Broadway instituted by Mayor Bloomburge, transfers of operators to fill shortages and making July 3rd a Saturday print.
The Unions position was to save the M6 in which we did through our friends in Albany but the issue of transfers was a all together a different animal because the Department of buses was going to violate seniority to fill their shortages. The Union requested that things be left alone or give us a General Pick The MTA refused.
On June 1,2009 the summer pick was originally scheduled to begin, but 2 issues prevented that from happening.
Management wanted to transfer operators where they needed them and make Friday July 3rd a Saturday print to reduce the cost to the Agency. The TWU Local 100 took the issue before the Arbitrator who ruled that the Authority is not permitted by contract to change weekday pay to Saturday pay but can use the changed print just as long as weekday pay is preserved. Also the issue of transferring was decided in favor of the Union where a mini consolidated pick would be conducted in full seniority order that was to effect about 482 operators This issue turned out to be a win for our Union because we defended the issue of Seniority

Election Results

The results of the TWU Local 100 convention are in, TBOU has taken 8 divisions, while United Invincible has taken 6. So far there are no clear winners regarding the top 4 officers. So far TBOU has taken RTO, Power, Track, Line Equipment Signals of MOW Private Bus Ops, MTA Bus and Stations. United Invincible has taken MaBstoa Division1, MaBstoa division2, MaBstoa maintenance, Structure of MOW, School Bus Para Transit and Car Equipment.

These results are not official. The Local will post the official results on the Locals website at twulocal100.org