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WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 15, , 2014
VOLUME 107 • ISSUE 75
Streetcar increases testing BY STEPHANIE CASANOVA
The Daily Wildcat With the Sun Link Tucson Streetcar going through full testing and driver training, the UA community will see streetcar vehicles run through campus more often this semester. The Sun Link Tucson Streetcar project was approved by voters in 2006 and construction started in April 2012. While revenue service was initially intended to start in late 2013, delays in vehicle manufacturing from Portland, Ore., company Oregon Iron Works caused that date to be pushed back to the summer of 2014. The streetcar will run along with traffic for 3.9 miles from the University of Arizona Medical Center to the west end of Interstate 10, stopping at 18 points near the UA, Main Gate Square, Fourth Avenue and downtown Tucson. All eight vehicles will be delivered by May, according to Shellie Ginn, Sun Link Tucson Streetcar project manager. This will give the management team enough time for pre-revenue service, the final testing process where the management team has to run through simulation rides before allowing passengers on board. Testing before revenue service allows management to ensure the scheduled stops are accurate, and helps the community get used to walking, bicycling and driving with a new kind of vehicle on the road, Ginn said. “We want to make sure that as the system is in testing that folks understand how to function safely along the line,” she said. Three of eight streetcar vehicles have been delivered to Tucson and will be running up and down the corridor during its future hours of operation in order to go through full testing through all kinds of traffic, Ginn said. The city hired a streetcar management team, RATP Dev McDonald Transit, whose staff has been working with the initial Tucson Department of Transportation employees and will be in charge of operations, maintenance, safety and customer service once Sun Link is open for revenue service. Steve Bethel, general manager
Q &A ASUA president talks new semester BY BRITTNY MEJIA
The Daily Wildcat
Although the semester just started, ASUA President Morgan Abraham has been preparing for most of winter break. With elections, Spring Fling and senate reform coming up, ASUA is in for a busy few months. The Daily Wildcat sat down with Abraham on Tuesday to catch up. DW: What do you have on the agenda for this semester? Abraham: So this is going to be a really productive semester for ASUA. There are two major things my office is working on. The first is senate reform, the way they interact and the way they represent the student body. I’ve always been frustrated by the way it works. … We have such a diverse school with so many different clubs and cultural centers that have no representation on senate. We’re trying to make the senate more representative of the population. We’re hoping to get something hammered out in the next couple of weeks. We’re going to be doing … strategic planning for ASUA. There’s never been a long-term strategic plan for ASUA. There’s never been something we can actually accomplish five years, 10 years down the line. I think that if you have a goal
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We’re trying to make the senate more representative of the population.
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— Morgan Abraham, ASUA president
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KA’DEEM CAREY LEAVES EARLY FOR NFL DRAFT
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FILMMAKER PROMOTES PLAYING ROUGH
REBECCA MARIE SASNETT/THE DAILY WILDCAT
THE CITY OF TUCSON tests the three new streetcars on University Boulevard on Tuesday. Five more streetcars are due to be delivered by May.
of Sun Link Tucson Streetcar, can answer the public’s questions said management has started to about safety and the streetcar. Some of these safety tips hire and train supervisors and will soon start hiring streetcar include for pedestrians to be operators as more vehicles arrive. aware of their surroundings, as “We’re getting the folks here the streetcar travels quietly, and in Tucson and in the university for bicyclists to cross the track area very familiar with us,” Bethel at as close to a 90 degree angle as possible said. “I think to avoid it’ll become Streetcar Celebration: getting tires very seamless Destination Main Gate stuck. Drivers after we Square should keep become more Near University Boulevard in mind that pronounced and Tyndall Avenue stop the streetcar in the area.” Today, 4 to 7 p.m. will be T h e following management regular traffic team will also continue to promote its safety rules, and they shouldn’t try to campaign, Streetcar Street- drive around it. A group called Friends of the Smart, and reach out to students and other community members Tucson Streetcar will also be with tips on how to be safe while hosting events to spread the traveling with the streetcar. The word in the community about campaign teaches safe practices, the local businesses along the using videos on tucsonstreetcar. streetcar’s route. The group’s com, brochures and posters. The mission is to promote the management team will also try economic and social benefits of to attend special events where it the streetcar.
Friends of the Tucson Streetcar will host an event near the University Boulevard and Tyndall Avenue streetcar stop today, to promote the businesses at Main Gate Square. Besides an information table where community members can sign up to become part of the friends group, there will also be performers and information about discounts at some of the businesses. “I want people who are seeing the streetcar maybe for the first time getting excited about it,” said Donovan Durband, a founding member of Friends of the Tucson Streetcar. “We’d like to see as many people as possible who … decided to come down and hopefully spend some money at the businesses and learn something about the streetcar at the same time.” — Follow Stephanie Casanova @_scasanova_
UA set to partner with Brazilian universities BY ETHAN MCSWEENEY
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The Daily Wildcat The UA will be teaming up with Brazil this year as part of an international program aimed to boost cooperation with higher education institutions in the country. The International Academic Partnership Program, created by the Institute of International Education, helps facilitate partnerships between U.S. universities and higher education institutions in emerging countries such as Brazil, India and China. The UA is one of 16 U.S. institutions chosen for the Brazil program. The UA applied for the Brazil program because of its past collaborations and activities with the country, according to Mike Proctor, vice president of UA Global Initiatives. These activities include studying climate change, regional development and a study abroad program. Proctor said the past programs haven’t developed as constructively as they could have. “[The past collaborations] have evolved over time, somewhat haphazardly,” Proctor said, “and not always leveraged to the highest strategic benefit.” Proctor said the UA was drawn to the IAPP for Brazil because it could provide the opportunity to do more work in the South American country than the university is doing now. IAPP plays the role of matchmaker in partnering institutions with similar goals and capacities, Proctor said. IAPP will work with each institution, including the UA, to develop a customized strategy for how to engage with Brazil. The program contains a number of core components, according to Daniel Obst, deputy vice president at IIE for International Partnerships in Higher Education. This includes the development
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VICE PRESIDENT of UA Global Initiatives Mike Proctor stands beside various cultural gifts that international organizations have sent the UA over the years. Proctor has been working in the administration department at the UA for 20 years.
of a task force by the UA for a strategic planning process, a study tour to Brazil in the spring and the appointment of a mentor to advise the UA through the process. Proctor said there would not be a significant increase in activity by the UA this year. A great deal of the work this year will revolve around becoming familiar with the proposal process for working with institutions in Brazil, Proctor said. The program will give the UA a chance to better understand how to work with funding agencies for Brazilian higher education so the proposals can be submitted. “The goal of it [IAPP] is to create a substantive, binational partnership that goes beyond the traditional signing of an agreement where everyone takes pictures and then you don’t do anything,” Proctor said. With funding from the Department of Education, Obst said, IAPP was launched five years
ago as a yearly program with a focus on developing partnerships with China and India. The success of these two programs led to its expansion into other emerging countries. The IIE looks for certain criteria in its IAPP applicants, Obst said. The program looks to select institutions that show a commitment to engaging with the partner country and a capacity to develop strong partnership programs with institutions in the country. “We’re not looking for institutions that already have a tremendous amount of activity [with the country] but actually where there’s not so much yet going on,” Obst added. The Brazil program began two years, and demand has been high among U.S. institutions in partnering with the country, Obst
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Female consumers should be able to flip through catalogues or turn on the TV and see women who look like them, whatever size they are.” OPINIONS — 4