(The following story by Peter Bacque appeared on the Richmond Times-Dispatch website on June 5, 2010.)
RICHMOND, Va. — Richmond regional officials are concerned that a proposed state-subsidized Amtrak train between Norfolk and the Richmond region will bypass Main Street Station in downtown Richmond.
“It’s the mayor’s top priority. It’s the region’s top priority,” said Suzette P. Denslow, Richmond Mayor Dwight C. Jones’s chief of staff. “We want Main Street Station as part of the route.”
Local leaders worry that bypassing Main Street Station could set a pattern imperiling future high-speed rail service through the metropolitan region’s urban heart.
Planned to start operating three years from now, the Richmond-Norfolk passenger train would run from South Hampton Roads through Petersburg and then up CSX tracks — called the A Line — to Amtrak’s Staples Mill Station in Henrico County.
Regional officials want the once-daily train service to run up from the south on another set of CSX tracks, directly into downtown and Main Street Station before rolling north to Staples Mill, Washington and beyond.
But, said CSX spokesman Bob Sullivan, the tracks directly into downtown — called the S Line — have “very limited capacity” and would require “significant investments” to be made capable of carrying passenger trains.
“It’s a much faster, much more efficient ride to go to Staples Mill Station,” said Thelma Drake, the director of the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation and a former congresswoman from the Hampton Roads area.
Drake, who discussed rail issues yesterday with the Capital Region Collaborative, made up of government and business leaders, noted it will cost $600 million for the operationally complex improvements to allow high-speed rail through the Richmond area. More that half of that would go toward making the improvements to allow passenger trains through Main Street Station to points south.
Providing the capital improvements for the Norfolk train demonstration project, as planned directly to Staples Mill Station, will cost $93 million during 2010-13, state officials said.
“That’s taking the path of least resistance and least cost,” said Charles E. Gates Jr., spokesman for the Richmond Regional Planning District Commission, “but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily the best for the Richmond region.”
Drake said using the A Line for the Hampton Roads demonstration project will not keep future rail service, including long-sought high-speed rail, from running through Main Street Station.
The alignment through the downtown station has been locked into a federal record of decision for the Southeast high-speed rail corridor, officials said.
South Hampton Roads is the state’s highest-density population area without passenger rail service.
Richmond has sought to develop Main Street Station as a multimodal transportation hub.
All of the Richmond area’s passenger trains pass through the Staples Mill Station, while only the two round-trip trains to and from Newport News also use Main Street Station.
Main Street Station handled 23,576 Amtrak passengers in 2009. Staples Mill saw 256,006 passengers that year, making it the busiest Amtrak stop in the state.
“We just want to make sure this is on everybody’s radar and stays on everybody’s radar,” said Richmond City Council President Kathy C. Graziano said yesterday. “It’s important.”