Light-Rail in Louisville: Assessing the Financial Feasibility of Mass Transit

The Louisville-Jefferson County area encompasses a vast area and large population of citizens. To meet the transportation needs of this growing city, the Transit Authority of River City or TARC undertook a study in 1996 to determine potential transportation solutions to traffic congestion in the area. Based on their analysis, TARC determined that a 15-mile light rail transit system would best service their needs. This light rail system would run from the downtown central business district to a park-and-ride facility at the Gene Snyder Freeway. Prior to undertaking this project, TARC and all those parties involved should ask the fundamental question: Can we afford the high cost of this project? This capstone sought the answer to that very question. A thorough and exhaustive financial condition analysis was performed on a focus group of US cities that currently have light rail systems in existence. Local municipal governments were examined across this focus group to best ascertain the financial condition of the community at large. This financial condition analysis incorporated various financial factors. These financial factors included measures relating to revenues, expenditures, debt capacity, and operations. Based on the results of this study, we can conclude that the community of Louisville can justify the construction of a light rail transit system. This means that the project would be financially feasible. This does not mean that a light rail transit system in Louisville would enjoy great success with the community (i.e.- high ridership rates). Currently, funding for this project has been put on indefinite hold due to the allocation of several billion dollars to the Louisville Two Bridges project. Despite this setback, the light rail project issue may gain traction again in the future as the political winds change. If this happens, the extreme magnitude and scale of light rail transit would impose a large financial toll on TARC. As such, the second phase of this capstone comes up with a list of comparable cities to Louisville. Those seven cities included the communities of Boston, Buffalo, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Portland, and St Louis. The transit authorities from those respective cities were then evaluated one by one to determine likely financial scenarios for TARC. Specifically, the capstone sought to determine viable revenue and expenditure scenarios should this project become a reality. For example, what might TARC expect to pay in terms of operating and capital expenses? From the revenue perspective, where are these sources of funds going to come from? Each transit authority, acting as an independent body in charge of local transit, provides reasonable comparisons for projecting expenditures and providing possible revenue models. Pertinent information obtained from the Federal Transit Administration’s (FTA) National Transit Database is used in conjunction with financial statements from the various transit authorities. On the expenditure side, it initially appears TARC has underestimated what it expects to pay in annual operating costs. On the revenue side, there are many options for source funding but a sales tax model and a municipal payroll tax model remain the most likely choices for TARC

Short Term Mission as the Undiscovered Country:

https://place.asburyseminary.edu/firstfruitspapers/1063/thumbnail.jp

They Call Me Joy: Philippine Protestantism as Local Culture

In this paper, we use the narrative of an award-winning Filipino film from 1998 as a window into contemporary Filipino spirituality and religious consciousness. Giving narrative details and literary content, with a particular focus on those aspects we feel are most salient for our discussion here, we argue that the commercially and critically successful film suggests important cultural themes. Specifically, this paper draws on the medium of film as a window into the contemporary ethos of Philippine spirituality and thought, and applies that insight to an analysis of ethnographic data on Philippine Baptist Christianity. Through conversion narratives as they were shared with us, we offer analogies to the messages of popular culture and the streams of thought they represent. In the end we argue that this is fruitful in interpreting contemporary non-Western Protestantism as, at least potentially, a locally meaningful phenomenon

Optimizing Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Investments and Activities to Improve Safety and Increase Revenue Collections

The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) owns and maintains 14 fixed weigh stations for commercial vehicle enforcement. The Kentucky State Police (KSP) is responsible for staffing these facilities to conduct enforcement, while KYTC is responsible for constructing and maintaining these facilities. Like many states, Kentucky has experienced a decline of enforcement personnel to operate weigh stations limiting its ability to conduct inspections for safety enforcement and revenue collection. This study analyzes three CMV facilities for their impact on safety enforcement and revenue collection and determines their viability for potential replacement. All three existing weigh stations in Hardin, Fulton, and Henderson counties will be bypassed or removed due to future interstate and interchange construction plans. These weigh stations were assessed for the amount of revenue collected against operating expenses, the ratio of citations issued per violations, and the impact each weigh station had on overall safety. Researchers developed guidelines decision makers and stakeholders can use to determine the outcome for each of the three weigh stations: permanently close, replace with a new facility, or convert to remote monitoring. This guidance can be applied beyond the three facilities in the study, to help make future decisions on weigh stations across Kentucky

In-Cab Alert System for Commercial Motor Vehicle Drivers

In-cab telematic devices use an increasingly robust data platform and can be used to share safety alerts with other commercial vehicle drivers (CMV) drivers. Real-time alert data can come from state transportation agencies as well as from private companies. To address common quality and coordination issues among differing data sources, the Kentucky Transportation Center (KTC) partnered with the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) and a private vendor, PrePass, to share its App used to send information to CMV drivers. The project demonstrated a proof of concept for the delivery of timely in-cab alerts to warn CMV drivers of approaching roadway hazards. The KTC research team convened a body of experts as a study advisory committee (SAC); surveyed the CMV community for their preferences; coordinated with KYTC, PrePass, and other organizations to develop the pilot study; conducted a proof of concept; and analyzed and assessed the results. Evaluating CMV survey findings and determining study feasibility led the committee to include the data categories of traffic congestion, real-time incidents, and work zones in the pilot study. The study confirmed that safety benefits are realized when transportation agencies share roadway hazard alerts through CMV in-cab devices. Findings reveal an overall need for consistency among DOTS in data collection and how data is processed. Recommendations focused on prioritizing the types of information delivered via in-cab alerts and standardizing the collection and reporting of traffic data

Long-Term Maintenance Needs Planning

This research contributes to Kentucky’s knowledge base of long-term maintenance needs in two parts. Part 1 presents an estimate of the average revenue needed to maintain four categories of highway in the first fifteen years after each is built or resurfaced. Total maintenance costs per mile for four types of facilities in five AADT volume categories were estimated. The results suggest that Kentucky is not resurfacing all its roads in a timely manner. Part II presents background information on preventive maintenance programs in the states. A review of the states found two recurring themes. The first was the widespread adoption of two types of preventive measures: thin overlays and crack sealing. The second theme was the adoption of maintenance schedules to ensure timely maintenance. The report recommends the development of a routine pavement maintenance program with three elements: (1) more timely resurfacing, (2) scheduled inspections of drainage and ditching, and (3) crack sealing. It is also recommended that the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet adopt ASSHTO’s recommended performance criteria and targets for sub-drainage assets

Experiences of Veterans Transitioning to Postsecondary Education

An increasing number of U.S. military veterans are entering postsecondary education with problems attributed to deployed military service. The primary objective of this research was to describe the lived experiences of student veterans transitioning from active military service to postsecondary education. Phenomenological interviews were performed with 13 student veterans who had transitioned from military deployment to postsecondary education. An overall essential meaning of “emerging in college culture” was manifested from three themes, supported by rich textural and structural descriptions of student veterans’ experiences: (1) repurposing military experiences for life as a student veteran, (2) reconstructing civilian identity, and (3) navigating postsecondary context and interactions. These findings highlight implications that may facilitate occupational therapists’ efforts in supporting the needs of student veterans

Large-format 3D printing enabled by dual-curing urethane elastomers

Direct-ink-writing (DIW) is an Additive Manufacturing (AM) technique that provides a versatile approach to fabricating arbitrarily shaped objects by exploiting the shear-thinning properties of polymeric-based inks. One major drawback of DIW is that shear-thinning inks are limited to a maximum height before the combined weight of additionally deposited layers exceeds the yield stress of the underlying layers and causes the material to flow. Previous methods to combat this drawback have included intermittent or continuous exposure of the process to ultra-violet (UV) radiation to cure the material in place. However, these approaches require specific parameters that limit the UV-curable inks to specific applications and do not address the challenges associated with printing high-aspect-ratio objects. Here, we report a stepwise UV and heat curing process that facilitates DIW of a range of inks with varying rheological properties and that is no longer dimensionally limited by a yield stress. This stepwise curing process is enabled by small amounts of acrylates that cure to the back of the functionalized urethane prepolymers to promote rapid gelation in the object during extrusion, and a post thermal-curing step of the major urethane components once printing is complete. This method of fabrication effectively eliminates dimensional constraints of objects during fabrication, as well as expands the rheological range of printable inks. This work was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344. LLNL-ABS-795840