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Full Text of NARP President Op-Ed in Charlotte Observer
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Why no national train grid?
Federal government inaction blocks creation of nationwide rail service
FOR THE RECORD (Op-Ed)
The Charlotte Observer
Posted on Wed, Oct. 24, 2007
http://www.charlotte.com/409/story/331575.html
From George Chilson, president of the National Association of Railroad Passengers:
The opening of Charlotte’s south light rail transit line next month is one of the nation’s most impressive municipal efforts to give people travel choices that conserve energy, combat congestion and address global warming.
Combined with commuter rail services planned for Charlotte, a strong commitment to pedestrian- and transit-friendly real estate development, and existing and planned intercity train services, the new light rail service symbolizes Charlotte’s emergence as one of the nation’s most livable areas.
Every American city should have a system as comprehensive and coordinated as the one Charlotte will have. Gasoline is approaching $3 per gallon and likely to rise further in the long run. Runways and roadways are more clogged than ever, and getting worse. Study after study predicts crippling gridlock at airports and in the skies, and the American Association of State and Highway Transportation Officials anticipates that, by 2020, 90 percent of urban interstates will be at or above capacity. Beyond the local and national concerns are the increasing worries that all those idling cars and planes are hurtling us toward irreversible climate change.
Department of Energy figures show that planes burn 20.5 percent more energy per passenger-mile than Amtrak (a passenger-mile is one passenger carried one mile). And, due to high altitude emissions, planes’ climate change impact is double or triple that of Amtrak’s, depending on length of trip.
The National Association of Railroad Passengers, whose board is meeting in Charlotte beginning Thursday, has laid out a vision for change that would connect Asheville, Hickory and Wilmington to a “grid and gateway” passenger train system networking across America, vastly expanding service between Raleigh, Charlotte and points beyond (including a direct Charlotte-Charleston connection). The major terminals would connect long-distance, commuter and high-speed train services, creating a networked grid connecting the Triad, Triangle and other major cities across the southeast and mid-Atlantic.
The beauty of NARP’s vision is that it is achievable. Almost all the rail lines or rights of way in our vision are already in place. Routes were chosen based on demonstrated demand—either from Bureau of Transportation Statistics data or from demand indications in the establishment of new air routes or roadways.
In fact, not only is NARP’s vision achievable, work has begun in North Carolina and across the country to provide multiple options for short-, medium- and long-distance travelers. Other states with notable intercity passenger train programs include California, Washington, Illinois, Wisconsin and Maine.
What’s keeping the network from happening everywhere? The federal government has failed to demonstrate leadership and commitment to funding an integrated national passenger train system. This shortsightedness has left us with too few passenger trains, serving too few destinations—almost two-thirds less service than America had in 1971 before Amtrak started.
North Carolina and some other states have tried to fill the void, but have been hampered because the federal government provides no matching funds for intercity passenger trains, unlike for highways, urban transit and aviation. It will take federal leadership and funding, in partnership with states and railroads, to create a national passenger train grid. What if President Eisenhower 50 years ago had left interstate highway planning and funding to the states?
For The Record offers commentaries from various sources. The views are the writer’s, and not necessarily those of the Observer editorial board.
Posted by NARP
Tags: charlotte, chilson, federal match, narp vision,Southern Cities Discovering that Trains Mean Business
Friday, July 30, 2010
For the past few decades, city boosters in Charlotte, NC, have wanted the Queen City to become more like Atlanta—taking advantage of its location to become one of the Southeast’s premier business hubs. Now, when it comes to modern transportation, it’s Atlanta that is looking enviously towards Charlotte.
Both locales, like all medium- and large-sized US cities, had streetcar networks early in the 20th century. But while Atlanta does have the 30-year-old MARTA heavy rail transit system, it lacks modern streetcar or light rail lines. Charlotte, meanwhile, opened its first light rail line in 2007 and has plans to greatly expand the system. Just this week, Charlotte’s City Council agreed to accept a $25 million federal grant to build an east-west streetcar line to connect with the north-south LYNX light rail line. There are some plans afoot to build new rail transit lines in Atlanta, and a funding application was made in February for a streetcar on Peachtree Street, but Georgia has yet to receive any federal grants for transit.
And it’s not just transit—intercity passenger rail has a lot to do with it as well. Charlotte is connected to Greensboro and Raleigh by six daily Amtrak round-trips, with two daily round-trips linking it to the Northeast Corridor—a link that the Southeast High-Speed Rail Corridor aims to solidify. Credit for this can be given to the state of North Carolina’s decades of planning and investment, while Georgia has spent next to nothing on trains, the result being that Atlanta is served by only one daily Amtrak train in each direction and high(er)-speed rail is a much longer ways off.
This has Atlanta business leaders worried that the metro area, which is suffering from worsening traffic congestion and deteriorating transit service, may be losing jobs to cities like Charlotte. MARTA and its connecting suburban bus systems have the dubious distinction of being the only urban transit system not to receive state funds—they are funded primarily by a 1% sales tax levied only in the counties they serve. This left these systems particularly vulnerable to the effects of the recession on sales tax revenue, resulting major service cutbacks. Yet the Atlanta area remains far behind in the competition for federal transit dollars because its planning process is not as far along as those of Charlotte and other cities.
Hopefully the success of Charlotte’s rail transit investments in catalyzing smarter development—aided by better intercity train connections—will finally persuade Georgia’s political leaders to get serious about passenger rail. Not only are trains (and buses) an essential lifeline for those without access to cars, but they are the most proven way to combat crippling congestion while creating jobs and desirable places to live and work—places centered on people, not cars.
—Malcolm Kenton
Posted by Malcolm Kenton
Tags: atlanta, business, charlotte, economic development, georgia, jobs, light rail, metropolitan, north carolina, passenger trains, rail transit, southeast, streetcars, transit, transportation,Demonstrated Economic Benefits Draw Strong Backing for Rail Transit Expansion in North Carolina
Monday, October 31, 2011
Charlotte, NC’s growing LYNX light rail system—currently one operating line, with an extension in the pre-construction stages and two others proposed—has already drawn an additional $1.4 billion in private-sector business development in the city, Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx reported last week.
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| Photo by NARP member Matt Johnson (tracktwentynine on Flickr) |
Rail transit’s success in the state’s largest metro area has bolstered the resolve of transit supporters in the state’s second largest metro—the Research Triangle area anchored by Durham, Raleigh and Chapel Hill—to press for an additional half-cent salex tax in Durham County (the heart of the Triangle) to fund an initial rail transit line there, as well as improvements to bus service. Durham County voters will decide next Tuesday, Nov. 8, whether to raise their own sales taxes for this purpose. Early voting there is already underway.
A voter-approved half-cent sales tax in Charlotte’s home county of Mecklenburg, in place since 1998, is what allowed the city’s light rail system to be built. It took until 2007 for the first line to open—which it did just 20 days after county voters flatly rejected an attempt to repeal the additional sales tax.
The identical Durham County ballot measure has one the backing of three influential community groups: the Durham People’s Alliance, the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People, and the Friends of Durham (the latter has traditionally opposed tax increases). A host of statewide transportation, environmental and public interest groups have also backed a “For” vote on the measure.
The referendum’s passage would give momentum to similar efforts elsewhere in the state. The counties of Wake and Orange (both also in the Triangle, home to Raleigh and Chapel Hill, respectively) and Guilford and Forsyth (the heard of the Piedmont Triad, the state’s third largest metro area, and home to Greensboro, High Point and Winston-Salem) are also eligible to consider half-cent sales tax increase referenda for transit under a new state law enacted last year.
The development of rail transit networks in these three metros (re-creating ones that existed in the early 20th Century), in tandem with the intercity passenger rail service improvements and expansions the North Carolina DOT continues to pursue, would provide a major boost to job growth and allow the state to accommodate its growing population without resulting in gridlocked roads and the worsening maleffects of urban sprawl caused by new highway construction.
—Malcolm Kenton
Posted by Malcolm Kenton
Tags: charlotte, durham, elections, light rail, north carolina, referenda, research triangle, sales tax, transit,©2010 National Association of Railroad Passengers | » NARP website
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