An Article from the Piedmont View, PEC's Membership Newsletter

Norfolk Southern has plans to nearly double train traffic on the Piedmont rail line through Albemarle, Orange, Culpeper, Fauquier and Prince William -- from fourteen trains a day to approximately twenty-six. They also plan to widen the line running east and west through Fauquier, building sidings along the single track so that trains traveling between Manassas and Front Royal can pass. These sidings would be built on or adjacent to private conservation land along a route that closely follows the meanderings of Goose Creek, a Virginia Scenic River. Still, if done sensitively, expansion of rail capacity along this line could be worthwhile. Unlike the high voltage transmission line proposed through much the same area -- which would tie northeastern cities to outdated, coal-fired power plants -- these rail improvements offer public benefits.

Norfolk Southern estimates that by improving rail infrastructure from New York to Texas so that trains insteadof trucks can carry long distance freight, it could take one million trucks off the highways every year, including 750,000 trucks in Virginia. That could mean that drivers in Virginia won't have to cope with highways choked by eighteen wheelers, that we can avoid widening I-81 to eight lanes at a cost to Virginia taxpayers of $11 billion, and that we can dramatically reduce fuel use, air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

The railroad estimates that its rail upgrade could reduce through truck traffic along I-81 by 10-25% -- 10% in urban areas and 25% along rural stretches. "That's huge," says Megan Gallagher, director of the Shenandoah Valley Network (SVN), which is a partner of PEC. A state-mandated study due this spring is even more ambitious, examining ways to divert up to 60 percent of through trucks from the I-81 corridor. Gallagher says that multi-state rail improvements, combined with targeted road improvements on I-81 offer a much less costly and destructive alternative to "VDOT's plan to create a highway much like the New Jersey Turnpike in the historic Shenandoah Valley."

VDOT plans to rely on tolls to raise the $11 billion it needs to double the width of I-81 in Virginia -- an average of $33 million per mile. Norfolk Southern estimates that its rail improvements throughout the I-81 corridor will cost an average of just $833,333 per mile. On top of that, Virginians have to consider the exorbitant costs of maintaining 1-81 as an eight-lane thoroughfare for heavy trucks. This choice has serious implications for Rte. 29 as well as I-81, since the tolls required to offset such staggering expenses would divert truckers from the Valley onto the parallel arterial through the Piedmont.

Trains are a cleaner, as well as less expensive, option. A train can haul one ton of freight up to five times further than a truck on the same amount of fuel, while emitting only a third as much carbon dioxide. For all of these reasons, PEC has long advocated upgrading Virginia's existing rail lines. Capitalizing on the state's underused rail infrastructure was a key recommendation in Reconnecting Virginia, a platform for sensible transportation investments that PEC and other partners launched in 2004. "We've been promoting this for years," says Todd Benson, PEC's Land Use Officer for Fauquier County, "but we're also working to minimize the impacts as much as possible. We need to make sure this takes place in an environmentally friendly and fair way." PEC is working with Norfolk Southern and affected landowners to:
- Ensure that landowners are aware of the plans and prepared to obtain a fair deal in their negotiations with the railroad
- Lessen noise impacts by upgrading road-crossings, adding gates so that trains don't have to blow their whistles
- Divert construction from land under conservation easement whenever possible
- Ensure that any impacts on conservation land are compensated through the protection of nearby properties of comparable size and conservation value, in accordance with the law

"I am deeply sensitive to what landowners are facing in Fauquier," says Gallagher, a Fauquier resident. "I grew up near The Plains. I've seen the rail line go from one train a day to fourteen. Now it's going up to twenty-six. But if you compare these two plans, the sidings are so much less destructive than a 500-foot roadbed with hundreds of thousands of vehicles." Because of the congestion that trains encounter in Gainesville, Norfolk Southern calls the link between Manassas and Front Royal "THE major chokepoint" along the entire New York to Texas corridor. Beyond sidings, it has floated plans for a more dramatic solution: avoiding that chokepoint altogether by building a new track through Culpeper and Rappahannock Counties. "I would be much more alarmed about that, because it's a brand new piece of infrastructure going through virgin countryside," Gallagher says.

PEC President Chris Miller says, "A new line through Rappahannock and Culpeper is not an idea that PEC has ever advocated, and we'd have to carefully weigh the benefits to our transportation infrastructure and to air quality and global warming versus the impacts a new line would have on that rural landscape and the people who live there. We'd need to evaluate whether it makes sense to focus on that route or on rail lines in the Valley. And we'd need to account for any investments in conservation that Norfolk Southern might undertake -- both to offset its impact on the land and to protect its own interest in a clear, unobstructed rail line. As we learn more, we'll want to work with all involved toward a good strategy for rail."