(The following story by Julia Anderson appeared on The Columbian website on July 9.)
VANCOUVER, Wash. — Lost in the hubbub about the Port of Vancouver’s plans for a six-year port district property tax increase is where some of the money will go: rail projects.
The port sits at a unique spot on the West Coast, where major north-south and east-west rail lines converge and the mighty Columbia River provides shipping access to the Pacific.
By 2025, the number of rail cars traveling into port property is expected to triple, from 40,000 to 120,000 a year. Experts say it is critical that the port prepare for that growth not only for new employer-tenants but existing tenants.
Take Great Western Malting Co., for example.
Great Western has been a port tenant since the 1930s. It takes in barley and wheat by rail car, processes the grains into malt for beermakers all over the world, and ships it out by rail or barge.
About 75 people work at Great Western. The operation handles some three shuttle trains of grain a day. The company’s growth projections call for 11 trains a day. That translates into more jobs and more commerce.
Jay Hamachek, Great Western director of business operations, minces no words in describing the Vancouver port’s West Vancouver Freight Access Project as very important to his company’s future. “What we have now is a choke point for commerce,” Hamachek said during a recent interview. “The rail aspect of the port’s planning is critical to the city, the state and the region.”
Choke point
The port’s planned south rail access line would alleviate an existing main line freight and passenger train choke point for all east-west and north-south traffic. The south line project would come off the BNSF line somewhere around Seventh Street in west Vancouver, swing south, then go west along the waterfront into the port. Plans calls for realignment of several roads and a couple of underpasses to avoid vehicle crossings and streamline rail movement.
The new line would eliminate the wait that trains now regularly endure getting in and out of the port, and eliminate tie-ups in the BNSF rail yard and inconvenient holdups for passenger trains.
Price tag?
Construction of new rail access as well as construction of a new Northwest 26th Avenue roadway is estimated to cost $95 million.
The port has requested $4 million in federal grant money to begin studying and designing the project. The port and the city of Vancouver are putting up $350,000 and $250,000, respectively, to fund the planning.
Construction is set to start next year and be completed by 2010.
About $30 million of $78 million expected from the port tax increase is earmarked for rail improvements, said Nelson Holmberg, port communication manager.
“This work not only gives us access to our new Gateway development, but would enable us to fully serve our current tenants (such as Great Western). Holmberg said 70 percent of the port’s cargo movement is rail-dependent.
That figure is expected to increase to 80 percent in the not-too-distant future.