(The following article by Lisa Rein was posted on the Washington Post website on January 2.)
WASHINGTON — As the General Assembly prepares to take up Gov. Mark R. Warner’s plan to boost transportation spending in Virginia, rail advocates are pushing for a bigger investment in the state’s high-speed train system.
Virginia needs more fast trains to connect its suburbs, cities and rural areas, a commission of rail experts concluded in a report released this month. Freight service in the Old Dominion also needs beefing up, the report said, to get more trucks off the road and allow more passenger trains to travel faster and farther along freight lines.
“The notion that rail should play a role in addressing Virginia’s major transportation challenges comes from the premise that Washington and Hampton Roads are essentially built out in terms of asphalt,” said John Mason, the former Fairfax City mayor, who, with Fairfax County Supervisor Sharon S. Bulova (D-Braddock), was chosen from Northern Virginia to serve on the Commission on Rail Enhancement for the 21st Century. “If you realize we can’t build our way out of congestion, what you have to look for much more is a multimodal solution.”
From 1970 to 2003, the number of miles of long-distance railroad in Virginia dropped by about half, either disappearing or turning into short-line railroads. Highway miles grew dramatically, but — as every driver knows — not fast enough to handle all of the traffic on them.
Existing rail service does not connect every corner of the state and is not always fast or dependable, especially when passenger lines share freight tracks, with choke points that slow trains.
“There’s no system that connects all the pieces,” said Bulova, the commission chairman and a founding member of the Virginia Railway Express board.
The rail commission, appointed by Warner (D), grew out of debate over the ill-fated transportation sales tax measures that voters in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads defeated in 2001.
“What you heard from a lot of people was, this is too heavily focused on highways, and there needs to be more investment in rail,” Bulova said. A bill to create a permanent stream of state revenue for high-speed rail projects failed in the legislature last session. But Warner and several lawmakers decided that the issue warranted more study, and the eight-member commission was born.
Among its recommendations to the Department of Rail and Public Transportation:
o Virginia needs more freight and passenger rail capacity in the corridors of Interstates 81, 64 and 95 and Routes 460 and 29.
o A high-speed rail line between Washington and Richmond, with connections to Hampton Roads and Raleigh, N.C., is critical.
o A TransDominion Express passenger line should link Southwest Virginia to Richmond via Lynchburg, and Southwest Virginia to Washington through Lynchburg and Charlottesville.
o State revenue dedicated to rail projects must grow dramatically, with the goal of leveraging additional money from private rail companies.
Right now, $5 million a year in state money flows to VRE and other rail lines, Bulova said.
Warner has proposed increasing that fund to $23 million annually as part of his $824 million plan to boost road and transit spending. The $23 million would be dedicated from the personal property tax on rental cars.
“We see that as seed money to encourage the state to partner with rail companies, to encourage them to do something they wouldn’t have done otherwise,” Bulova said.
Amtrak has service from Washington to Richmond, but it can be slow. VRE, which travels along tracks owned by freight companies CSX and Norfolk Southern corporations, is so popular that new spurs to Gainesville and Spotsylvania County could serve thousand of new riders.
But there is no money to pay for the service.