High Speed Rail: A Future On the Main Line*
Louis L. Guy, Jr., P.E.**
Mr. Chairman and Members of the HRTPO:
My name is Louis Guy, a citizen of Hampton Roads and one of your constituents from Norfolk. I am a licensed professional engineer, retired after more than forty years experience in civil engineering practice. My focus has been on solving long term regional problems. I challenge you all to use your finest VISION in guiding the direction for America’s First Region during this crucial planning period.
This is a period of progressive change. Over the past year, you have revitalized this regional MPO organization and with that, you have revitalized our hopes for the future. Now, with more confidence, you have a new opportunity will revisit old decisions, and old plans, and allow us to reconsider in 2009 what will be best for our 1.7 million people. We have state-level problems and implementation problems but, as the HRTPO, your targeted responsibility is to “plan and program” for our “transportation” future.
High Speed Rail is an urgent issue, of paramount importance to our future... Last weekend the Commonwealth applied for $1.5 Billion of the new $8 Billion available from Washington for High Speed Rail. After decades of moving at a snail’s pace with no funding, now the plans are being locked down as construction begins on our future Atlantic Coast passenger rail system.
HRTPO needs to stand up and place us on the Main Line on South East High Speed Rail (SEHSR). This is in the highest interests of the nation and the state as well as our own region, but the current plans relegate Hampton Roads to being served by a “spur line” instead of being on the “Main Line”. In the East Coast this would make us the ONLY metro area this large without a station on the Main Line! (refer to the first map to the right) This must be fixed now.
For many years Virginia and North Carolina together in Richmond have developed draft plans for High Speed Rail, quietly. Hampton Roads has been asleep. Only two of the ten public hearings were conducted in Hampton Roads, and almost no one remembers those events. Before 1995 the Virginia powers somehow decided that this major metropolitan community should be served only by a spur from Richmond. In 2002 they tentatively approved the Main Line to bypass us along existing rail lines through Petersburg to Raleigh. The second map shows the currently approved Main Line. Except for a little letter to the PILOT in March 2002, no one challenged that BIG mistake.
Virginia and North Carolina jointly considered two alternate routes from Petersburg to Raleigh, via South Hill (I-85) or Emporia (I-95). A Main Line route along existing rail lines through Suffolk to Raleigh was never even mentioned! Suffolk is the fasting growing city in Hampton Roads and uniquely central to most other communities.
North Carolina also evaluated two routes from Raleigh to Charlotte: one direct route through rural NC - or an alternative route with a “bend” in the line for service up to Durham and over to the Greensboro/Winston Salem metro area.
Click HERE to see Attachment #3 for the nine routes evaluated.
Click HERE to see the table in Attachment #4 for how they compared.
Clearly the NC leaders planned their portion of the nation’s South East High Speed Rail Corridor to serve the most people rather than adopting the shortest line.
The current Virginia application is for federal funds to improve the rail corridor from Washington through Richmond to Petersburg. That makes sense. But the rest of the Virginia Main Line route is deadly for us. Virginia and North Carolina have approved draft plans to take the Main Line to NC at South Hill, VA and on to Raleigh.
To serve America’s First Region and its vital port, its massive military complex, its substantial tourist industry, and its 1.7 million Virginians, our State has selected the concept of a spur from Richmond to Hampton Roads. It is studying five alternatives varying from 3 trains per day up to 9 trains per day to meet in Richmond. The “poison pill” is to make us choose between a spur to Newport News vs. a spur to Norfolk. Forget the wishful thinking about two spurs. As recently as July 1, DRPT’s Kevin Page told your Technical Advisory Committee that only one spur route to us “will be accepted” for “Enhanced Passenger Rail” by the State and Federal Government. But we have a knee jerk tradition of competing against each other and Richmond knows that. As long as we are fighting over which spur, all the money will go elsewhere.
More importantly, as long as we are fighting for any spur, the Main Line will pass us by! The answer is not a spur – not even a 110 mph spur, much less a 90 mph spur or a 79 mph spur. This is the wrong question. From my long career in addressing infrastructure issues for public agencies, I learned that there is no good answer until you define the right question. We have allowed others to define this question as “Which is the best spur from Hampton Roads to High Speed Rail at Richmond?” The correct question should be “How does Hampton Roads get the best service it deserves on the Main Line for the South East High Speed Rail corridor?” This demands attention from HRTPO urgently, before it is too late.
How can we obtain frequent reliable, “one-seat” travel, 110mph rail service to Washington, New York and Atlanta? Our future depends on a positive answer! The answer is not a spur. A Main Line station in Suffolk could serve all of Hampton Roads by Light Rail or other transportation alternatives. From this station, HSR travel at 110 mph can put us at the Pentagon in less than two hours. If this Alternative 10 was ever studied, it would boost the customers for the High Speed Rail Line by attracting many more of us due to the reliability and convenience. That added revenue for Alternative 10 will make it the obvious best choice. Second class rail and changing trains on the way is not adequate service for Hampton Roads, which by any measure is one of the nation’s most important regions.
.
Some Board members here have started asking good questions about HSR. The HRTPO is the right place for this discussion and action. The HRTPO needs to stand up for us. I assure you that it is not too late, but before the wrong plan turns into concrete and steel, give us a chance to study a train stop in Hampton Roads on the Main Line. How about bending the Main Line from Petersburg to a station in Suffolk and then on an existing CSX line to Weldon, NC, on the way to Raleigh. I have drawn this route on Attachment 2. Hampton Roads needs first class, one-seat, separated grade, quality rail service on the Main Line. The nation needs this, and - as the metro area with the largest population between Washington and Atlanta - we deserve it. You can do it.In Ecclesiastes the Bible says, “To every thing there is a season, and a time for every purpose.” Then the Byrds echoed the message by singing “Turn, turn, turn.” This is your time, and it is our purpose. Show us your vision.
Thank you.
* Presented to the Hampton Roads Transportation Planning Organization, July 15, 2009
Sign up to receive news and notices by email!
Copyright © 2009 Hampton Roads Center for Civic Engagement
Site management by 