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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,Can a lost rail connection be regained?
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
The following was written for Greater Greater Washington, a blog focused on smart growth, transit, and enhancing livability in the national capital region—and is reprinted here. The original is here.
Have you ever wondered why the H Street/Benning Road NE corridor is wider, flatter and straighter than most surrounding streets? The answer lies in a little-known chapter of mid-Atlantic railroad history that may also point a way towards a better transportation future for our region.
The Washington, Baltimore and Annapolis Electric Railway (WB&A) provided passenger and freight service on an electrified route between its namesake cities from 1908 to 1935. The line provided a third rail route between Washington and Baltimore, complementing (and competing with) the Pennsylvania Railroad (which is now Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor) and the Baltimore and Ohio (B&O, now the MARC Camden Line).
Long-gone WB&A station at the “starburst” intersection in Northeast DC. Image from rockcreek on Flickr.
The WB&A entered Washington from Seat Pleasant, MD, via Benning Road NE, which was widened and graded to accommodate the trains. It originally terminated at its own station (misnamed “White House Station”) at the “starburst” intersection of Bladensburg, H & 15th Streets and Maryland and Florida Avenues. Hechinger Mall on Benning Rd. NE in Carver/Langston was built on the site of the WB&A’s rail yard and maintenance shop.
Eventually, the line was extended west on H Street all the way to 15th Street NW at the Treasury building, sharing infrastructure with Capital Transit streetcars. At one point, the current site of the Greyhound/Peter Pan bus depot in NoMa was also a WB&A station.
The WB&A also offered direct train service from Baltimore to Annapolis, and riders from DC could disembark at Naval Academy Junction, near Odenton, and connect to Annapolis-bound trains (which also connected with the Pennsylvania at Odenton, and with the B&O at Annapolis Junction, the station for which is now called Savage).
Despite that a trip from downtown DC to Baltimore took an hour and 20 minutes on the WB&A, versus 50 minutes on the B&O, the WB&A remained popular for its cleanliness, lower fares, half-hourly service and better downtown terminal locations than the other two railroads. Imagine being able to hop on an electrified train in the heart of downtown DC and ride directly into the heart of downtown Baltimore.
The former WB&A right-of-way northeast from Seat Pleasant is mostly intact. It roughly paralleled what is now Martin Luther King Jr. Highway through Glenadren. Electric Avenue and Railroad Avenue in Glenn Dale are named for the former rail line over which they were paved, as is WB&A Road in Severn, near BWI Airport. Parts have been retained as a bike trail, with plans to extend the trail along the entire right-of-way from Lanham to Odenton.
The federally-funded construction of Defense Highway (U.S. 50) in the early 1950s, combined with improved service on the competing railroads, doomed WB&A’s service to DC, though the Baltimore-Annapolis section continued passenger service up to 1950, and freight service into the 1970s, as the Baltimore & Annapolis Railway (B&A). This right-of-way is now used by Maryland MTA light-rail trains as far south as Glen Burnie, and exists as a bike trail from there to Arnold, across the Severn River from Annapolis.
Today, by contrast, downtown-to-downtown service between the capital city and Charm City is offered only at weekday rush hours, while faster, more frequent daily Amtrak trains serve Penn Station, a fair hike from Baltimore’s downtown core (though now connected to it by light rail). If you want to take a train from either city to Annapolis, you’re out of luck.
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From Baltimore, you can take light rail as far as Glen Burnie, then change for the number 14 bus, running on a roughly half-hourly schedule, with hour-and-a-half headways on Sundays.
But Washington’s only connection to the Maryland capital’s walkable downtown, universities and state government buildings — aside from changing at Baltimore or BWI Airport — are rush hour-only Maryland MTA commuter buses 922 & 950, and two daily Greyhound round-trips (one direct, one via Baltimore) that continue to Ocean City.
The Odenton-Annapolis WB&A line, which passed through the middle of what is now Westfield Mall on its way into Annapolis, is mostly lost. Restoring light rail service along either this right-of-way, or the old B&A south of Glen Burnie, would be less expensive than building a new one, but is likely to encounter significant NIMBY opposition.
Other options are to put rail in the median of U.S. 50 (not so conducive to walkability, but less likely to face the ire of NIMBYs), or to extend the Blue Line east from Largo, paralleling Central Avenue and Riva Road or Solomons Island Road. Via this alignment, the rail distance from Metro Center to Annapolis is only 5 miles greater than the rail distance from Metro Center to Dulles Airport via the Orange and Silver Lines.
The Maryland DOT should seek federal assistance to study options for rail service roughly paralleling heavily-congested U.S. 50, which would better connect the Annapolis area with the job centers on the Washington-Baltimore corridor. Some form of rail transit serving these communities would be a wise investment in a future where rising travel demand and more expensive gasoline will lead people along this corridor to seek a better travel alternative — and the walkable communities that would come with it.
Special thanks to NARP Director Ken Briers for his research assistance.
Posted by Malcolm Kenton
Tags: annapolis, baltimore, bike trail, electrification, interurban rail, light rail, maryland, rail history, rail transit, washington dc,Act to Preserve Commuter Benefits Parity & Save the Wisconsin Train
Friday, November 19, 2010
Here are three quick petitions you can sign to bolster support for better train and transit service:
Enjoy the weekend!
—Malcolm Kenton
Posted by Malcolm Kenton
Tags: commuter benefits, higher-speed rail, milwaukee-madison train, rail transit, scott walker, t4america, transit parity, wisconsin,Could the Third Time Be the Charm for Honolulu Rail?
Wednesday, January 04, 2012
Jim Loomis, Hawaii’s Representative on NARP’s Council, penned the following in response to the New York Times’ coverage yesterday of the controversy surrounding Honolulu’s first rail transit line, whose construction will start this spring:
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| Dignitaries break ground for the rail transit line on Feb. 22, 2011. [Image: Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation] |
Honolulu nearly had its transit system twice before. The first time was back in the 1970s when the federal government was not just willing, but eager to pick up 90 percent of the cost. On both occasions, however, the project died, falling just one vote short on the City Council.
It does indeed look as though we will finally get our transiit system this time, but we’re still trying to deal with the same kind of hysterical opposition that is battering the high-speed rail project in California. It’s been coming from the anti-government ideologues, from out-of-power politicians using the issue to attack incumbents, from shockingly misguided environmentalists, and various others.
As diverse as these groups and individuals may be, they do have one thing in common: none has offered any serious alternative transportation solutions for moving an expanding population in the decades ahead. Still, it does appear that the third time will be the charm and Honolulu will finally break ground for the rail project sometime in the next several months.
Posted by Malcolm Kenton
Tags: hawaii, honolulu, new york times, rail controversy, rail transit, transit critics,©2010 National Association of Railroad Passengers | » NARP website
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