Another step: The city-parish will hold the second public meeting on the TramLinkBR project from 5 to 7:30 p.m. on June 21 in meeting rooms 9 and 10 of the River Center. TramLinkBR is a proposed modern streetcar system that would connect downtown, LSU and Old South Baton Rouge. The project is a part of East Baton Rouge’s comprehensive master plan, FuturEBR, to boost redevelopment along the Nicholson Drive corridor. The meeting is being held to obtain comments on the project’s Environmental Assessment, which assesses its potential economic, environmental, social and cultural impacts. The results will be presented at the meeting. The entire Environmental Assessment can be viewed online.
One for the other: Royal Dutch Shell will build a multibillion-dollar petrochemical complex near Pittsburgh to make base chemicals and plastics from the natural gas produced within the Marcellus and Utica shale basins. But Fuelfix.com reports the project announcement comes as Shell is cutting costs and jobs during the oil downturn, which analysts say puts some of Shell’s other pending projects at risk, including the $12.3 billion Lake Charles LNG natural gas export project in Louisiana and the Vito deepwater project in the Gulf of Mexico. It’s unlikely that more than one, if any, of those two projects will move forward because Shell can only afford so many mega-projects, Houston-based investment banking firm Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. says. As such, Pennsylvania’s win could come at the expense of the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast. Read the full story.
Going up: U.S. airlines’ efforts to increase fares are being met with more success this year than during the previous three years, JPMorgan Chase & Co says. Bloomberg reports that airline fares have risen the most in eight months. JetBlue Airways Corp. raised domestic fares $3 one way Monday excluding its premium product, JPMorgan analyst Jamie Baker says. American, Delta, United, Southwest, Alaska and Virgin America airlines matched the change on routes where their services overlap with JetBlue’s, Baker says. Carriers typically roll back attempted price increases within a day or two if other airlines don’t follow suit. Read the full story.
