TITLE. Planning and Design for Commuter Rail on a Busy Branchline. By Train to Perris, Not Paris

Transcription

1 TITLE Planning and Design for Commuter Rail on a Busy Branchline By Train to Perris, Not Paris The Riverside County Transportation Commission's Perris Valley Line AUTHOR Tyler Bonstead STV Incorporated 1055 West Seventh Street, Suite 3150 Los Angeles, CA, p. (213) f. (213) Word Count: 3,450

2 ABSTRACT Commuter rail service in Southern California has been operated by the Southern California Regional Rail Authority (SCRRA) since This Metrolink system has now grown to 388 miles of track serving approximately 45,000 passengers per day on 7 lines. The Riverside County Transportation Authority (RCTC) purchased the 24-mile long San Jacinto Branchline (now called the Perris Valley Line or PVL) from the Santa Fe Railway in This paper describes the process currently underway to implement commuter rail service on the PVL, and the planning and design challenges that have been encountered. The PVL will be funded through the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) Small Starts program. As one of the first Small Starts projects, and one of few commuter rail projects seeking FTA funding, the PVL has faced many unique planning issues, including ridership modeling, financial planning, and joint operations with freight trains. The PVL currently carries a steady volume of freight service, and the main track is occupied most of the day by local switching operations. To avoid conflicts with freight operations, the PVL project will include approximately nine miles of new parallel track to separate freight and passenger service. Other major design issues include the addition of a new connecting track to avoid the need for a turnback movement, upgrading the existing low-speed freight line for higher speed passenger operations, and several unique designs at the PVL s four stations. The lessons learned from these issues and others will inform other agencies looking to upgrade existing freight lines for commuter rail service.

3 BODY Introduction The Riverside County Transportation Commission (RCTC) Perris Valley Line (PVL) is a 24-mile extension of the Southern California Regional Rail Authority (SCRRA or Metrolink) commuter rail system southeast from the existing terminus in the City of Riverside to the cities of Perris and Moreno Valley. The PVL runs along the San Jacinto Branchline (SJBL), a railroad line purchased by RCTC from the Santa Fe Railway in the early 1990s and currently used for limited freight service. The project started initial planning and environmental activities in the early 2000s, and entered Program Development in the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) Small Starts program in December The PVL project has now completed preliminary engineering activities (Spring 2009). This paper focuses on several unique aspects of the PVL that can inform the planning and design of other projects across the country. These include the issues the PVL has faced as one of the first projects to enter the FTA s Small Starts Program, such as those having to do with ridership modeling, financial planning, and joint operations. The paper also examines several unique engineering issues, including new infrastructure needed along the corridor to allow for the introduction of passenger service, track upgrades necessary to implement high-speed passenger train operations, and the introduction of four stations along the line at opening day. Project / Corridor Overview The PVL is an extension of the existing Metrolink commuter rail system deeper into Riverside County. Metrolink is a nearly 400 mile system which initiated service in 1992, serving six counties in Southern California. The City of Riverside is located 50 miles to the east of downtown Los Angeles and 30 miles to the northeast of Central Orange County, the primary employment centers in the region. Riverside is one of two principal eastern terminals for Metrolink, and is served by three Metrolink lines: the Riverside Line

4 to Los Angeles Union Station via Pomona, the 91 Line to Los Angeles Union Station via Fullerton in northern Orange County, and the Inland Empire Orange County Line to Central and Southern Orange County. An overview of the current and future Metrolink system is shown in Figure 1. The PVL will serve as a southeast extension of the existing Metrolink 91 Line paralleling the Interstate 215 corridor through the cities of Riverside, Moreno Valley, and Perris. Seven new stations are planned along the line (4 at opening day, 3 to be implemented in the future), including a station in the vicinity of the University of California at Riverside and a station in the heart of Downtown Perris. The southernmost station at South Perris is situated near I-215 to serve the large communities of Hemet and San Jacinto to the east and Menifee, Murrieta, and Temecula to the south. An overview of the PVL is shown in Figure 2. Riverside County has been one of the fastest growing areas in the country, and the population of the Perris Valley is currently approaching 450,000 residents (with an additional 450,000 residents living to the east and south of the study area in the cities described above). Although the area has experienced difficulties caused by the recent mortgage and financial crisis, it still is one of the most affordable areas in the Greater Los Angeles region. Implementation Overview The planning of the PVL was initiated in the early 1990s when California voters passed several bonds authorizing the purchase of rail corridors from freight operators for the implementation of passenger service. The San Jacinto Branchline, along which the PVL will run, was purchased by RCTC in 1993 from the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (now the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway). Several initial studies were carried out in the 1990s, with an Alternatives Analysis started in 2002 and completed in RCTC requested permission to enter Project Development from the FTA in Fall 2007, and was approved for entry into Project Development in December The project is currently undergoing engineering

5 and environmental reviews, with 15% Design completed in Fall 2008 and 30% Design completed in Spring It is expected that RCTC will apply for a Project Construction Grant Agreement (PCGA, similar to a New Starts Full Funding Grant Agreement) in 2010, with revenue service commencing in Planning Issues encountered in FTA Small Starts Program A major portion of the PVL s funding is provided by the FTA Small Starts Program. This program is intended for smaller projects, and has only recently been introduced. The PVL is one of the first projects to go through the Small Starts processes (it started originally in the pipeline for larger projects, the New Starts program), and has encountered several issues since its entry into Project Development in December Small Starts Program Overview The Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU) was passed by Congress in It has served as the main funding mechanism for FTA projects from 2005 to present, and in addition to funding the New Starts program for larger projects (with budgets greater than $250 million) it also introduced a new funding category for smaller projects: the Small Starts program. Many smaller scale projects (such as the PVL) can get lost in a New Starts landscape filled with multi-billion dollar projects in the country's biggest cities. Projects with an overall cost under $250 million and requiring less than $75 million of New Starts funding are eligible for the Small Starts program, which has less rigorous reporting requirements and is geared to get small projects built quickly. As of Fiscal Year 2009, there are 16 projects in the Project Development phase of the Small Starts process (a combination of Preliminary Engineering and Final Design), with most being Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) projects. The entry into Project Development is a major milestone for a Small Starts project that signals it is ready to move forward into detailed engineering work.

6 Cost Effectiveness For the FTA New Starts and Small Starts programs, multi-billion dollar projects carrying nearly 100,000 riders per day must compete against multi-million dollar projects carrying several thousand. To allow for a fair judgment of a project's viability, cost and ridership measures are combined to determine its costeffectiveness. Cost Effectiveness is a measure of the annual capital and operating costs of a project divided by the number of hours it's users save compared to their transit choices otherwise (such as driving or taking a slower form of transit). This measure is heavily dependent on ridership modeling, which is used to estimate User Benefits. Projects with high cost effectiveness (meaning that they move large numbers of riders at a low cost) are extremely well placed to enter Project Development and advance through the Small Starts pipeline. In the New Starts program, User Benefits from the ridership model are estimated for a forecast year of approximately 25 years in the future. But in the Small Starts program, ridership modeling and User Benefits are calculated for the Opening Year of operations. In most cases, transit ridership takes several years (or decades) to build to its full levels as the public becomes aware of the new line and its benefits. The Small Starts program acknowledges this by allowing for an additional factor to be applied to the Opening Day User Benefits (an extra 50%). The transition from a Forecast Year (2030) focus for the User Benefits to an Opening Year (2012) focus was a difficult transition for the PVL. This is due to the fast-growing nature of the Perris Valley, where many of the User Benefits for the project were forecast to emerge in ten to twenty years instead of at opening day. For example, train and auto travel times along the corridor are roughly equal today (between 30 and 40 minutes between Perris and Riverside during rush hour), but traffic conditions on the parallel I-215 freeway are forecast to deteriorate significantly in the future as the area continues to grow. The consistent 40 minute travel time for the PVL has a difficult time competing with a 35 minute drive time in the opening year, but has obvious benefits compared to the 67 minute auto travel times forecast for In general, projects such as the PVL that are justified based on future congestion levels will tend to

7 have a more difficult time meeting User Benefit thresholds in the Opening Year as part of the Small Starts process. Small Starts Funding Caps The Small Starts program has two funding caps that have major implications for the PVL and other projects: a maximum $250 million overall project cost and a maximum Small Starts FTA contribution of $75 million. The cost cap with the bigger implications for the PVL is the $75 million in Small Starts funding. As a New Starts project, the PVL was pursuing approximately $100 million in funding from the program. But when the project transitioned to Small Starts, this number had to be cut to $75 million to meet the funding cap and additional local money had to be found. Along with the opening day User Benefit change, the project went from being comfortably cost effective in the New Starts program to barely cost effective in the Small Starts program. Cuts had to be made in several areas and phasing options for stations examined to get the project in the cost effective range. The transition between programs ultimately required a major reexamination of the project and its components to ensure that it could perform well in the new program. Engineering Issues The PVL project consists of a relatively straight-forward rehabilitation / replacement of the infrastructure in the existing freight rail corridor to support higher-speed passenger rail operation. Major components of this upgrade include replacing much of the rail and ties throughout the corridor, installing a modern train signaling system (the corridor currently is without signals), upgrading the existing grade crossings, addressing freight / passenger train interaction issues, and adding stations. But while straightforward, the upgrade of the SJBL tracks to allow for passenger operations has several unique aspects that are

8 discussed in this chapter. Signals The San Jacinto Branchline today is unsignaled, due to its age and the low volumes of rail traffic it carries. But implementing high-speed passenger train operations as part of the PVL project will require that a new signaling system be installed and integrated with the existing Metrolink and BNSF signaling systems. The new system is currently designed to use Computerized Train Control (CTC), and will be dispatched out of the main Metrolink center in Pomona (where the existing Metrolink lines are dispatched). Another feature of note will be the ability of the system to use Positive Train Control (PTC) technologies in the future. After the Chatsworth Metrolink crash of 2008, it is the goal of Metrolink to have PTC implemented its system by While the exact configuration of the new Metrolink PTC system is not yet finalized, the PVL signaling system is being designed to allow for easy implementation of PTC in the future. Grade Crossings The grade crossings along the existing SJBL are suitable for low-speed freight operations, but will need to be significantly upgraded to allow for high-speed passenger rail operations. Many of the features that are currently designed for the upgraded PVL crossings are drawn from a new set of grade crossing design criteria that are in the process of being implemented across the Metrolink system. New features to be implemented include pre-signals, linkage to adjacent traffic signals, pedestrian crossing gates at highpedestrian-volume crossings, and measures to restrict access to the railroad corridor at crossings. The PVL grade crossings are also being designed to easily allow for future upgrade to more extensive safety measures that would be needed to implement quiet zones or other mitigation measures. Freight Operations The SJBL currently carries several freight trains per day, providing local switching service mainly

9 concentrated in the area between Moreno Valley and Perris. These switching trains occupy the existing single mainline track much of the day along the I-215 corridor, and would hinder passenger operations (especially midday service). As originally envisioned, the PVL project would have upgraded the switches on the existing mainline for this nine mile section and mainly provided temporal separation between freight and passenger trains. But to allow for more operational flexibility and to reduce conflicts between the different services, the design is now for nine miles of second mainline track to be installed. This will allow for the freight switching trains to run throughout the day without interfering with passenger trains on the adjacent tracks. Plus, the many existing switches for freight sidings and spurs in the area will not need to be upgraded, offsetting much of the cost of implementing a second main track. Stations One of the major aspects of the project that will not be an upgrade of existing infrastructure is the implementation of seven new stations along the corridor. Four of these stations, at South Perris, Perris, Moreno Valley, and Hunter Park are slated to be constructed by opening day. An additional three stations, including a station at UC Riverside, are slated to be added as ridership increases. These stations are mainly focused on auto access, with large park-and-ride lots (except at UCR), kiss-and-ride drop-off and waiting areas, and facilities for feeder bus service. Riverside County is also planning for additional development around the stations in future years, which would allow for higher percentages of passengers that can access stations by foot. The Perris Station, located in the heart of downtown Perris, which is currently under construction to initially serve as a bus-only facility, is key to development plans in the downtown Perris area. The Moreno Valley / March Field station is located in the heart of a new business development, and will be able to provide reliable transit service to an area that is currently heavily autofocused. A typical PVL station (in this case the Hunter Park station) is shown in Figure 3.

10 Conclusions / Lessons Learned Project Scope / Cost The Small Starts program is tailored for a specific type of transit project given its various funding constraints. Many of the projects currently in Project Development are BRT projects in the $100 million to $150 million dollar project cost range. At this cost, projects can seek federal funding to cover 50% to 80% of the capital costs, and implement high-quality transit services at relatively low costs. More expensive and complex projects are much tougher to fit within the Small Starts funding caps, as evidenced by the low number of rail projects currently in Project Development (two commuter rail lines and one streetcar line). Even relatively simple rehabilitation projects such as the PVL can cost up to $10 million dollars per mile to construct, so it will likely continue be difficult to fund rail projects through Small Starts. Another issue is the area of project costs between $150 million and $250 million. In this range, local agencies have to take on an increasing share of project costs, from 50% at a $150 million cost to 70% at $250 million. This makes projects in the $150 to $250 million range very difficult to implement through the Small Starts process, and is why the lower cost BRT projects are such a major part of the current program. Overall, the experience of the PVL suggests that the projects best suited for the Small Starts program are upgrades to existing lines through robust markets in the $100 million to $200 million project cost range. These types of projects should have competitive cost effectiveness measures, and be able to receive a large share of funding from the Small Starts program. Importance of Ridership Forecasting The most crucial aspect of the PVL s application to enter Preliminary Engineering and Project Development has been the ridership and user benefit modeling task. Issues with the ridership model

11 were the main cause in the delay of the project between roughly 2004 and 2007, and have continued to require attention through Project Development. While the Small Starts program is supposed to require less rigorous user benefit modeling than the New Starts program, experience has shown that the two programs have very similar requirements for the sophistication and accuracy of the ridership model. It is likely that the ridership modeling process will continue to be one of the main sticking points for projects seeking to enter Project Development, and agencies should coordinate with the FTA early and often in the Alternatives Analysis process to ensure that the model is ready to go when the permission to enter Project Development is requested. Design for Safety Many of the most difficult design issues for the PVL are safety related. Given several recent crashes in the Southern California area, Metrolink has introduced a number of robust new safety features into the design of the PVL and the rest of the Metrolink system. These include accommodations for positive train control, enhanced grade crossing safety measures, additional pedestrian warning devices in station areas, and the addition of a second track to separate freight and passenger trains along a large portion of the PVL. Many of these safety measures were not foreseen during the planning process in the early 2000s, but are now being implemented throughout the Metrolink system and around the country. Planning and design of new projects should assume the addition of many of these safety measures to all projects, even those with lower train volumes. Conclusions This paper has highlighted several issues encountered during the planning and design of the PVL that can assist in the planning of other smaller commuter rail projects across the country. Major issues related to acquiring federal funding through the Small Starts program mainly focus on ridership modeling and cost constraints. On the engineering side, most issues for the PVL were fairly straightforward and are encountered on most upgrades of existing railroads. But, several safety issues having to do with train

12 control, grade crossings and mixed operations were especially important to the PVL project. As the project progresses into final design, more of these issues are expected to arise and will need to be addressed before PVL trains can start operation in Hopefully, the lessons learned while designing the PVL can be applied on other projects to ensure a smooth planning, design, and implementation process. ACRONYMS BRT... Bus Rapid Transit CTC... Computerized Train Control FTA... Federal Transit Administration PCGA... Project Construction Grant Agreement PTC... Positive Train Control PVL... Perris Valley Line RCTC... Riverside County Transportation Commission SCRRA... Southern California Regional Rail Authority (Metrolink) SJBL... San Jacinto Branchline ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author would like to acknowledge assistance from the following members of the Perris Valley Line Team: Sheldon Peterson, RCTC Edda Rosso, RCTC Bryan Payne, Metrolink Michael McGinley, STV Incorporated Anthony Venturato, STV Incorporated Eugene Kim, STV Incorporated

13 FIGURES Figure 1. Overview Map Metrolink System Figure 2. Overview Map Perris Valley Line Figure 3. Typical Station Design Perris Valley Line

14 Figure 1. Overview Map Metrolink System

15 Figure 2. Overview Map Perris Valley Line

16 Figure 3. Typical Station Design Perris Valley Line