Support for rail service coalescing

By Rachana Dixit

Published: July 3, 2008

The Piedmont Rail Coalition thinks local residents’ ability to ride the rails needs a boost, and now more than 21 local governing bodies from Orange to Amherst have unanimously declared their support as well.That’s why the coalition is pushing the state to partner with Amtrak to give residents a new passenger line, going from Virginia’s heartland to Washington, D.C., and the Northeast.

The Thomas Jefferson Planning District, the Charlottesville City Council and the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors were some of the first to sign a resolution, all within the first week of May, showing their support. The most recent body to back the resolution was the Rappahannock-Rapidan Planning District, on June 25.

City Councilor Satyendra Huja said he believes there is a huge demand for residents to use trains to go to Washington.

“The current train system cannot accommodate it,” he said.

Huja used to ride the trains much more often, both to Washington and New York, but now “they’re always late.”

The new passenger train proposed by Amtrak would provide direct connections between Lynchburg and Washington before shooting up to New York, with stops in Charlottesville, Culpeper, Manassas and Alexandria. In Amtrak’s report to the state, initial estimates said the line would cost an additional $1.9 million per year.

Coalition Chairman Meredith Richards said the U.S. 29 corridor should be a top priority in the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation’s state plan, a draft of which will be released later this month.

Courtney Ware, manager of policy and communication for the department, said the plan will look at all of the state’s transportation corridors to see what types of improvements are needed. But an Amtrak short-term action plan completed in January noted that the Lynchburg-to-Washington line is one of two that stand out to improve passenger service. “We believe it’s entirely reasonable that the state rail plan will include service in these two corridors as a top priority,” Richards said.

Currently, Amtrak makes 20 passenger trips through Charlottesville per week, compared with Lynchburg’s 14 and Richmond’s 126. The new line would add an extra trip through Charlottesville in each direction per day.

The existing trips include one daily roundtrip Amtrak train, the Crescent, that runs the corridor from New Orleans to New York.

Of the train’s total trips, it is on time for 68 percent. Another train that goes from Chicago to New York stops three times per week at stations north of Charlottesville and is on time roughly 18 percent of the time.

In 2007, there were nearly 42,000 boardings — riders getting on and off trains — from Charlottesville’s West Main Street station.

“Amtrak is painfully aware that there’s a demand not being served here,” Richards said.

The biggest problem, Richards added, is that local residents find it increasingly difficult to obtain tickets. According to Amtrak’s Web site, the next time a ticket is available for the Crescent’s run from New Orleans to New York is July 17.

“The chances are very slim that you’ll actually get a seat on those trains,” she said. “There’s just no capacity for more ridership unless we add more trains.” escing