Today, NPR reported that House Democrats will be traveling to a retreat in Williamsburg. Congressman DeFazio of Oregon commented on the long delays they endured last trip due to a 19th century rail system. They’ll be provided an express train this time. But it will still be slowed by an aging infrastructure.
Based on personal experience when House Republicans traveled to their own retreat by special express to the Greenbrier and my own and many other Amtrak and VRE trains were delayed up to an hour or more to clear the way, commuters may be waiting again. More problematically, regular travelers between Washington, Fredericksburg, Richmond, Williamsburg and Newport News, as well as those traveling further south to the Carolinas, endure frequent delays due to inadequate track and switches and waits for CSX freight trains. MARC commuters suffer a similar fate in Maryland.
Governor Kaine, the new Chair of the DNC, has supported rail since he was Mayor of Richmond and secured funding to restore and reopen the city’s Main Street Station. The state also funded CSX for a recently completed $60 million update to the tracks- mainly between Fredericksburg and DC- with real results in terms of improved speeds and time performance for Amtrak and VRE.
Yet the additional investments needed along the route to Fredericksburg and between Richmond and Newport News (once estimated at about $400 million total) has been too long delayed.
While spending nearly $700 million on the Springfield Interchange, $2.4 billion on the Wilson Bridge, starting more widening of I-95, and building unneeded highway bypasses around Richmond (which undermine investment in the city and older suburbs), Virginia still has not invested much in what could be a premier high speed rail corridor.
The I-95 and the I-64 corridors lie within Virginia’s “urban cresecent,” holding 60% of the state’s population, generating over 60% of the gross state product, and producing over 60% of the state’s population growth. Upgrades to the track and rail service should be one of Virginia’s top transportation priorities. After years of spending vast sums on our highway systems, we are long overdue for investment in our rail systems, particularly given a future of higher energy costs and the need to fight climate change.
Virginia’s congressional delegation should make fixing our existing infrastructure and investing in transit and intercity rail the top priorities for the transportation portion of the stimulus. With good planning, these investments will also support more efficient patterns of development, including transit-oriented development at the stations.
Stewart Schwartz is Executive Director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth
Leave a Reply