(The Associated Press distributed the following article on December 18.)
RICHMOND, Va. — With significant improvements to Virginia’s rail system, 500,000 trucks a year could be taken off Interstate 81, a study released Thursday said.
The study, commissioned by the state Department of Rail and Public Transportation, suggested that $492 million in improvements could reduce tractor-trailer traffic on the highway by 5 percent by the year 2020.
I-81 has become a major East Coast commercial route through the western Virginia mountains, now handling more than twice the truck volume it was built to handle.
The findings also showed that a regional rail upgrade involving up to 14 Eastern states could reduce truck congestion on I-81 considerably more than Virginia-only improvements would.
If 12 of those states in the Northeast, Southeast and Midwest increased capacity along their rails, the highway could see a 30 percent reduction in truck traffic by 2020. However, that would require an estimated $7.9 billion in funding, the study said.
The Rail and Public Transportation Department study examined intermodal rail shipping, in which trucks pick up and deliver shipments, but the containers are taken between cities on rails.
Sixty percent of the truck volume on I-81 is through-traffic _ haulers who originate from outside Virginia carrying cargo destined for another state. Without the cooperation of other states along the corridor, Virginia could only divert about 10 percent of I-81 truck traffic to rail, said Karen J. Rae, the department’s executive director.
At that level, Rae said, “There would only be a few things we could do with our private-sector partners to grow that number.”
The Virginia Department of Transportation is considering two competing private proposals for improving I-81. Both plans propose to charge tolls to car or truck drivers.
The trucking industry is willing to go along with some rail improvements as long as the upgrades don’t use highway taxes, said Dale Bennett of the Virginia Trucking Association. Truckers pay a substantial percentage of that tax, he said.
“We don’t feel like that tax money should be used to fund our competitors,” said Bennett, the association’s executive vice president. He had not seen the study.