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Rail is making a comeback. Although most transporation spending still goes to roads, rail's advantages have sparked a resurgence of interest, investments, and planning for rail.
By Trip Pollard
Rail is making a comeback. Higher fuel prices, growing traffic congestion and air quality problems are among the factors spurring greater public and political support for both freight and passenger projects.
For decades, transportation policies have slighted rail. Billions of taxpayer dollars spent each year in the Southeast on transportation have gone almost solely to road projects. The environmental, economic and health costs of this approach are mounting, as the region now has some of the country’s highest driving rates and congestion is rapidly growing worse. People drive an average of over 1.8 billion miles each day in the Southeast – the equivalent of driving to the sun 20 times daily.
Although most transportation spending still goes to roads, rail’s advantages have sparked a resurgence of interest, investments and planning for rail.
RAIL BENEFITS
Rail offers significant potential benefits, including:
• providing greater choices for personal travel and goods movement;
• reducing congestion by getting trucks (freight rail projects) or cars (passenger rail projects) off of the roads;
• deferring or eliminating costly, destructive road improvements;
• increasing fuel savings;
• lowering pollution;
• reducing greenhouse gas emissions; and reducing sprawl, if passenger rail is well-located and linked with supportive land use measures.
In short, enhanced rail is an essential component of a more sustainable transportation system. For rail to be more competitive, though, speeds and reliability will need to be increased and services expanded.
FREIGHT RAIL PROJECTS
Freight volumes have risen rapidly and are projected to triple in the East Coast by 2020. Most freight will continue to go by truck in the foreseeable future, although rail could absorb much of this growth.
States are increasingly working with private freight railroads to upgrade existing infrastructure and build new track. In 2005, Virginia created the first dedicated rail fund in the state, designed to provide $23 million annually for freight and passenger rail improvements. Partnering with federal and state governments, including Virginia, Norfolk Southern has launched the Heartland Corridor project to raise the height of 28 tunnels to allow double-stacked freight cars to travel from the Norfolk, Virginia port to Chicago by 2009. This project is estimated to cut at least a half-day and over 200 miles from the trip, with each train replacing approximately 300 trucks.
Truck traffic on Interstate 81 in Virginia is increasing, and already exceeds by several times the number of trucks expected when the highway was built. The state has been evaluating a $13 billion proposal to double the size of the highway, yet a railroad parallels I-81 from Pennsylvania to Tennessee. Virginia’s transportation board recently recommended rejecting the proposed doubling of the highway, calling for short-term rail and highway improvements and for analyzing multi-state rail improvements to determine the maximum feasible diversion of trucks to rail.
PASSENGER RAIL
Different types of passenger rail make sense for different purposes. In recent years, new services have begun or are under construction in Charlotte, Memphis, Miami, Nashville and northern Virginia, including light rail, commuter rail, high-speed rail and streetcar systems. Projects are being planned in many other places.
The State of North Carolina, for example, has invested over $30 million in a series of upgrades to rail connecting Charlotte, Greensboro and Raleigh, shaving roughly 30 minutes off of the trip between Charlotte and Raleigh since 2001.
The most comprehensive proposal in the region is Charlotte’s 2025 Integrated Transit/Land Use Plan, which includes developing 11 miles of streetcars, 21 miles of light rail and 30 miles of commuter rail in five corridors. The plan also includes land use changes to concentrate development around stations. The first light rail segment is under construction and scheduled to open later this year.
There also are proposals for high-speed rail, running up to 110 miles per hour and linking cities in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Florida. The goal is to be competitive with air travel for trips between 100 and 500 miles. The Southeast corridor was ranked the most economically viable high-speed corridor in the country by the U.S. Department of Transportation, and additional studies are underway.
BARRIERS AND CHALLENGES
A lack of funding is the most serious barrier to a significantly expanded role for rail. Rail currently is forced to compete on an unlevel playing field with highways, aviation and ports. There is no continuous, dedicated federal source of funds for rail–in contrast to other transportation modes–and state spending is heavily weighted in favor of roads.
Other barriers include a lack of cooperation between states and between localities, opposition to the location of some projects and opposition by rail companies to passenger rail service operating on their tracks because of concern it would interfere with their business.
MOVING FORWARD
Despite these hurdles, rail is on the rise. Projects and proposals are increasing in the region, although steps thus far have been relatively modest. Vastly improved service is needed, but this will require a clear vision of the role rail can play, federal and state policy reforms and funding, greater political and public support and more cooperation from rail companies, in general.
We must develop a more sustainable transportation system, and rail has a critical role to play in our transportation future. The Southeast needs to get on board.
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