Hopping the Local: Moving Right Along (Part 1)

Written By Malcolm Kenton

This occasional NARP Blog feature brings you a roundup of local passenger train news from around the country, as reported in the newsletters and blogs of our partners, the state and regional passenger train advocacy groups. This is part 1 of a 3-part series this week.

New Mexico’s Rails Inc. has a good multi-pronged argument for maintaining the current route of Amtrak’sSouthwest Chief, and not just for the Chief but for future intercity passenger or tourist train service. The states of New Mexico, Colorado and Kansas have a limited time to come up with the funding necessary to bring the tracks between Newton, KS and Albuquerque back up to passenger train standards, or else BNSF (which hardly runs any freight on the route) will force Amtrak to reroute the train. The Southwest Chief Coalition, an alliance of local rail advocates and community leaders, is doing great work defending the current route, and NARP stands behind the effort.

The Midwest High Speed Rail Association’s Blog asks readers to urge Amtrak to devote a similar planning effort to readying Chicago Union Station for the 21st Century as it is for Washington Union Station. Both stations face similar capacity constraints as ridership—commuter and intercity rail, as well as intercity bus—has far outgrown what the stations were designed to handle when they were last renovated.

The Rail Users Network’s RUN Newsletter (Summer 2012) has a report on the organization’s Annual Conference, held in Washington, DC on April 20. Speakers who are active in passenger advocacy in many corners had mostly good news to share.Hampton Roads Transit Chief Operating Officer James Price reported that ridership on the 2-year-old Tide light rail line has exceeded predictions by 50% and served its millionth rider on April 7, with plans in place to extend the line east to Virginia Beach. Gene Kirkland of the Carolinas Association for Passenger Trains said that his hometown of Raleigh is likely to get a new Amtrak station within two years (replacing the current 1950s facility that is way too small for its current patronage), and said to expect fourth and fifth daily Raleigh-Charlotte Piedmont frequencies to be inaugurated in 2017 and 2018, respectively, after federally-funded track and signal improvements are completed.

Meredith Richards, President of Virginia’s Piedmont Rail Coalition, commented on the smashing success of the daily Amtrak Northeast Regional round-trip to Lynchburg, whose 2011 ridership was 253% of what it was in fiscal 2006. Carl Palmer, General Manager of the Greater Roanoke (VA) Transit Company, said that his agency started running SmartWay Connector buses between Roanoke and Lynchburg timed to connect with the Regionals, in hopes of demonstrating that the demand is there for the train to be extended to Roanoke. So far, ridership has borne out his assumptions.

Also in the RUN Newsletter, New York City Transit Riders Council Chairman Andrew Albert describes former NYC Traffic Commissioner “Gridlock Sam” Schwartz’s “Fair Plan”to fund the massive capital needs of the nation’s busiest transit system. Instead of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s idea of congestion pricing (charging a fee to most private motor vehicles entering lower Manhattan), which failed to pass muster with the state legislature, Schwartz proposes making all bridges and tunnels into Manhattan toll bridges, while reducing tolls on bridges in areas that are poorly served by transit. His plan also calls for ending the parking tax rebate for Manhattanites living south of 86thStreet. He says this will ease traffic congestion while providing the subway, bus and commuter rail network with badly-needed funds to restore and add new service and bring facilities into a state of good repair, while minimizing future fare increases.