(The Associated Press circulated the following article on September 13.)
ATLANTA – State officials, who have been hoping to have commuter train service going south of Atlanta by 2006, say another route to Athens could be next.
Negotiations began this year with Norfolk Southern Corp. to use the company’s railroads for passenger trains that will travel the 26 miles between Atlanta and Lovejoy in Clayton County.
And officials are now looking at the possibility of a commuter rail line that would travel the 72 miles between Atlanta and Athens.
A capacity study will begin this year on the Athens line. The study will allow officials to better understand how passenger trains would fit on CSX Corp.’s freight lines along the route, said Hal Wilson, administrator of the Georgia Department of Transportation’s Intermodal Programs.
The route is estimated to cost $388 million but would carry enough passengers on its six daily runs to equal the capacity of adding an extra lane in both directions of Interstate 85, the Georgia Department of Transportation says.
About $115 million in federal money has been earmarked for the project, along with $2 million in state money.
Wilson said the connection from downtown Atlanta, where a terminal station is being proposed, to points including Emory University, Lawrenceville, Bogart and Athens is high on the priority list because of studies that looked at numbers of likely riders and the potential to help ease traffic congestion.
But some rail proponents are cautious after years of seeing weak state support for paying for the rail network.
“We’ve been talking about these things well over 10 years,” said Steve Vogel, president of the Georgia Association of Railroad Passengers, an advocacy group for alternative transportation. “I think it’s very important for that (Lovejoy) line to be successful so that the other lines, the Athens one in particular, can get more attention.”
But he said support from most state legislators outside the traffic-choked Atlanta area and from recent governors has been lukewarm.
It is estimated the program will cost $2.1 billion in construction costs for the Atlanta station and the commuter lines, which would be eligible for partial federal funding. But the intercity routes would cost $1.3 billion, a cost that would be shouldered by state and local taxpayers.
“The problem is money,” said Rep. Paul Smith, D-Rome, who is chairman of the House Transportation Committee. “I don’t see a lot of money available for rails anytime soon unless we were to change our tax structure that would bring in more money and allow rails and rapid transit to be included in the transportation budget to a larger degree.”
But with the state cutting funding of other state agencies, legislators are unwilling to call for a large investment in the rail program.
“We’ve got to do some alternative things, I think, in the future to relieve congestion,” said Sen. Brian Kemp, R-Athens. “How we pay for them is going to be another matter that we have to look at in the state. The funding part is what’s so tough.”