NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — The fast trains are coming to Virginia. But will they come to a train station near you?
As Amtrak’s super-fast high-speed rail service, the Acela Express, wends its way southward to Florida, two big questions loom: First, will the Hampton Roads area be connected? And, if so, where will it connect in Hampton Roads?
Will it be by way of Suffolk and Norfolk — making it more convenient for South Hampton Roads residents? Or will it be through Williamsburg and Newport News, bringing it closer to Peninsula residents?
Most of the high-speed rail discussion in Virginia in recent years has focused on improving the Washington, D.C., to Richmond line. The goal: to cut the D.C. to Richmond trip to two hours, from today’s 2 1/2-hour trip, the Newport News Daily Press reported.
About $100 million, most of it state money, is being spent on the route to begin to improve or bypass railroad crossings, replace or add track, and reduce the sharpness of turns. State officials are looking for $280 million more, hoping that the federal government will kick in much of it.
But all the talk of upgrading the Washington-Richmond route has ignored the follow-up: Where to next?
If Hampton Roads is selected, the region might soon have another funding source — aside from the federal government. Part of the Nov. 5 bond proposal, which asks local taxpayers if they want their sales tax raised in return for new road and transportation projects, includes $200 million to be spent on public transit. That money could be spent on high-speed rail projects.
A separate $600 million, which also would be raised through the proposal, would add a form of public transit — either light or heavy railway or bus — through a “third crossing” tunnel system. That crossing also could be tied in with a high-speed train system.
But whether Hampton Roads is next in line to get high-speed rail service remains to be seen.
Planners must decide between building out the main southern high-speed spine — which follows the path of Interstate 95 southward to Petersburg, and then turns southwest toward Raleigh and Charlotte, N.C. — and building out an offshoot to the spine, a high-speed route heading southeast toward Hampton Roads.
State officials are throwing their weight behind the Hampton Roads idea, largely because of the region’s burgeoning 1.6-million population and the heavy military presence here.
“If we’re looking at serving the population of Virginia, the Hampton Roads route is more important than going to North Carolina,” said Alan Tobias, the rail passenger project manager at the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation.
Willard Andrews agrees. He’s executive director of the Virginia High Speed Rail Committee, a Richmond-based advocacy group pushing high-speed rail development in the state. He says the Hampton Roads offshoot is second only to the Washington-to-Richmond route in terms of importance.
But Patrick Simmons, chief of the rail division for the North Carolina Department of Public Transportation, pointed out that an environmental impact study, paid for by North Carolina, already has been done for the route toward Raleigh, making the planning further along than the route to Hampton Roads.
He also pointed out that a team of states — Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia — are involved in a project, dubbed the Southeast High Speed Rail Corridor project, to get service south as fast as possible.
Yet he struck a conciliatory tone, and stopped short of saying that the North Carolina leg should take priority over Hampton Roads.
“We know that that region is a very strong economic growth center for Virginia,” Simmons said. “We need to worry less about which piece gets developed first, second or third, and instead focus on making the whole system work together in a coordinated fashion.”
Andrews, of the Virginia High Speed Rail Committee, said that as Congress doles out millions of dollars for high-speed rail in the coming years, things could get heated. “A lot of pressure is going to be brought to bear,” he said. “And politicians will probably decide it in the end.”
Assuming the choice is Hampton Roads, the question becomes: How best to get here?
A high-speed line could run southwest from Richmond, down through Williamsburg and into Newport News. It would be on the same CSX Corp.-owned right-of-way that Amtrak already uses for its slower trains. An analyst’s report said upgrading that line — fixing the track, the stations, and doubling the track in some areas — would cost between $250 million to $300 million.
That would be the best alternative for Peninsula residents, since they wouldn’t have to trek to Norfolk to get on the high-speed rail.
Or a high-speed line could run southwest from Richmond, through Petersburg, following the path of Route 460 to Suffolk, and then turning east toward Norfolk. That line, now used by Norfolk Southern Corp. to carry cargo and coal, also can be upgraded for fast passenger service. Developing that line likely also will cost between $250 million to $300 million. That route would be the better choice for South Hampton Roads residents.
The Hampton Roads Planning District Commission, a group of local government leaders from both sides of the water, said it doesn’t know which would be the better alternative for the region as a whole. Both they and state officials say more study — especially on passenger usage — is necessary.
Andrews maintains that both high-speed routes are essential.
The Peninsula route is needed not only for the people who live here, but for the huge crowds expected to attend the Jamestown 2007 event, the celebration of the 400th anniversary of the settlement. But he added that more than a million residents live in South Hampton Roads and points south of the James River, compared to about 535,000 on the Peninsula.
If it were up to him, Andrews said, he’d build out the Peninsula route first, and the South Hampton Roads route close behind.
“For Jamestown 2007, we’re going to have one million visitors, people from France, Germany and Japan and all over the world,” Andrews said. “Without high-speed rail, we’re going to have a colossal traffic jam like we’ve never seen on route 64. But the 1.1 million people in South Hampton Roads cannot live without high-speed rail, either. So we’re pushing for both corridors to be built.”
But if state and local planners hope for federal funding for the path to Hampton Roads, they likely will have to select only one of the two alternatives, said Warren Flatau, a spokesman for the Federal Railway Administration, part of the federal Department of Transportation.
“There’s a finite amount of funding, and this will force some discipline into the process,” Flatau said.
For the planning for the Richmond route, state officials are talking with CSX Corp., the Richmond company that owns the railway, on allowing faster service. Although CSX must, under law, allow Amtrak to use its lines, it’s CSX that actually runs the lines and decides how fast the trains can go.
The trains in Virginia might never get as fast as Acela’s trains in the Northeast corridor, where Amtrak owns the lines and where trains can rip along at 140 miles an hour in some places. One of the problems: Trains in Virginia run on diesel fuel rather than electrical power. Electricity allows faster acceleration and deceleration, train experts say.
There’s no talk of reconfiguring trains in Virginia for electric power. But still, state officials say, improvements can be made that can allow trains in Virginia to travel up to 110 mph, vs. the 79 mph speed that CSX allows on its tracks today. But the average speed is what’s important: If the average speed can improve to 75 mph, rather than the 50 mph average crawl of today, train service will improve substantially, state officials say.
Another positive change would be if a dedicated line could be built so that passenger trains wouldn’t get backed up behind slow-moving freight cars. When it comes to the high-speed rail, there’s lots of promise for passengers.
The system, which allows people to avoid the hassle of airports and roads and still get to where they’re going relatively quickly, scores positive reviews with the public when it’s working right.
But the many questions remain.
Will the federal government come through with funding, as everyone expects now? Will Amtrak, which is having a problem making ends meet, survive?
Will some of the technical glitches found in the Northeast corridor be worked out?
Will Southern states, where Amtrak doesn’t own the lines, be able to work out railway agreements with companies like CSX and Norfolk Southern, who have to answer to shareholders not on how many passengers they serve but on whether they’re able to turn a profit on hauling freight?
“Our first priority is the safe and efficient transportation of freight traffic,” said Robert W. Shinn, vice president of CSX and executive assistant to the chairman.
But if the federal government doesn’t come through with the full amount of money needed, Tobias said, track and stations still might improve with partial funding, in turn bettering travel times.
If only one route to Hampton Roads gets funding for the higher-speed trains, Amtrak could still run one route at high speeds and one at lower speeds.
If the state doesn’t get all the concessions that it wants from Norfolk Southern and CSX, it will take what it can get.
“This can be all be done incrementally,” Tobias said.
“We don’t have to make the whole investment before we see any benefit from it. “And we can target the improvements to where they’re needed most.”
And in the end, he predicted, trains will, indeed, get faster in Virginia.