A 1 km section of tramway along Ulitsa Revolyutsiyi in Perm opened on January 16, with Route 11 being diverted along the new tracks. Mayor Alexey Demkin said this was the first new line in Perm since the 1970s. Construction was financed through the Regional infrastructure fund (75%) and the city budget (25%).
The US Federal Transit Administration has announced a $174·1m grant for the Kansas City Streetcar Main Street Extension Project. This will expand the 3·2 km line with a 5·6 km, nine-stop extension running from Union Station south to the University of Missouri–Kansas City.
The Roads & Transport Authority’s Rail Maintenance Department and operator Serco have completed rail grinding on 300 track-km of the Dubai Metro using technology customised to suit the local climate and to support a switch from corrective to preventive maintenance.
Nizhny Novgorod has become the fourth Russian city to announce the adoption of Moscow’s Troika ticketing platform, with the first phase to be rolled out this year before expansion to the wider city region. ‘It is yet another step to develop a single system for all regions of Russia, where a single card would be used on different types of transport’, said Moscow’s Deputy Mayor for Transport Maxim Liksutov. Troika was introduced to Tula in November, Ulyanovsk has signed an agreement to adopt it, and the Moscow city government is negotiating with more than 25 other regions.
The City of Inglewood in California has released the Draft Environmental Impact Report for the Inglewood Transit Connector project to build a 2·6 km three-station elevated automated peoplemover between Los Angeles MTA’s Crenshaw/LAX Line and event and entertainment facilities in Inglewood, including SoFi stadium, home to the LA Rams and LA Chargers gridiron franchises. Opening is planned for 2026, with projected ridership of 3 098 passengers on non-event days and 25 056 passengers on National Football League game days.
Penang’s state government will push on with the Bayan Lepas light rail project despite the Malaysian government declining to provide funding. ‘We need to find a suitable method to proceed with the projects and are planning to continue the cable car and LRT projects with an alternative form of financing’, Penang Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow told local media. There is controversy over the exact status of the project, with the state government still to deliver the final social and environmental impact assessments to the national government.
