WILMINGTON, N.C. — The N.C. Department of Transportation is near a deal with CSX to buy an abandoned rail spur that could one day carry passenger trains back to downtown Wilmington, the Wilmington Morning Star reports.
The below-grade rail corridor, between Fourth and McRae streets, has been abandoned for years and is now largely overgrown with kudzu and littered with trash.
But the corridor is considered the favored route to run tracks to a transportation center proposed for the current site of the Wilmington Police headquarters on Red Cross Street. The center would be a hub for buses, taxis and possibly trains.
“You’re making lemonade out of lemons,” Pat Simmons, head of the DOT’s rail division, said of the now unsightly corridor.
The purchase price of the five-block-long spur, which was at one time Atlantic Coastline Railroad’s main track into Wilmington, is around $100,000.
“The corridor is valuable because it is below ground, which helps absorb vibrations and noise from rail service, so that makes it unusual and doubly desirable,” said Wilmington traffic planner Bill Austin.
In a move sure to please nearby residents, many of whom have expressed concerns about the reintroduction of rail service along the corridor, Mr. Simmons said that the state intends to clean up the property.
“We don’t have plans to turn it into a park or a showplace, but we certainly realize there is a nuisance we can address,” he said.
But while a route into town is close to being saved, there are still plenty of hurdles to clear – including securing the necessary state and federal funding – before passengers can ride the rails to the Port City.
A state study released in April found enough interest to warrant a more detailed look into reintroducing passenger service between Wilmington and Raleigh.
But the study shied away from picking a favored rail route – whether via Fayetteville or through Pender County and Goldsboro – or getting into the specifics of how much it would cost to upgrade track and build stations.
The N.C. Board of Transportation is expected to approve $650,000 next month for a study to determine the best route between the cities. A recommendation is expected in early 2003.
Wilmington and Cape Fear Community College officials also are squabbling over the school’s plans to expand its parking lot between Third and Fourth streets onto the old rail bed.
Cape Fear, which owns the property, says it needs more parking slots to meet the needs of its students.
“Parking is a problem downtown for our students, and we just have that land which we have already modified to a certain extent,” said Carl Brown, the school’s director of institutional services.
The proposed expansion would add about 30 spots.
But Wilmington officials said any expansion would require paving over the rail bed – in the process adding another obstacle to the proposed transportation center.
Mr. Brown doesn’t deny that expanding the parking lot could complicate the process of turning the police headquarters site into a transportation hub – an idea the community college doesn’t support, but which has been endorsed by the city.
“We would ideally prefer that building does not house that transportation center because it is right in the middle of our campus,” Mr. Brown said, adding that the school still sees the area around Fourth Street as a better location for the proposed facility.
City officials bristle at that suggestion.
“It’s been looked at, but the decision has been made,” said Assistant City Manager Ted Voorheis.
He added that the city thought it had hammered out a deal with the school in 2000 for the police department site to be the home of the transportation center in return for involving the community college in the design process. The agreement also called for the new building to include office space for the school.