Well, here comes the money for the trail at least. And, not just any train but a high-speed train.
I’m telling you, Charlotte, once you get used to train travel, you’ll wonder what the hell took us so long to embrace it … because it rocks.
After months of wrangling with a reluctant freight railroad, the N.C. Department of Transportation says it has won the agreement it needed to secure $461 million in federal grants that will put faster, more frequent and more reliable passenger trains on the tracks between Charlotte and Raleigh.Gene Conti, the state transportation secretary, said N.C. DOT will start seeking bids over the next two weeks for contracts to lay tracks, build bridges and buy trains.
The construction is expected to create 4,800 jobs over the next two years and cut the train time from Raleigh to Charlotte below three hours, including seven stops on the way.
Read the rest of this Charlotte Observer article, by Bruce Siceloff, here.
This article appears in Mar 22-28, 2011.
I can already hear the money sliding down the rat hole. Even incredibly congested places like Tokyo break even at best on trains for mass transit. If you like riding in trains fine but be under no illusion that it will solve any of our congestion problems or crazy global warming fears. If it was such a great idea why hasnt a private company already done this since they are so greedy for money?
Absurd and completely uninformed comment! A private company hasn’t done it because ALL public transportation must be subsidized if is is truly going to serve the public. That’s true for airlines and it’s true all the way through the transportation spectrum to sidewalks. If you’re opposed to all subsidies, we should be putting up toll booths on bike paths?
I wish they would stop calling this “high speed train”. It will be faster than the current train, which is already faster than it was 10 years ago, but 90MPH is not a high speed train.
This project is about increasing the capacity of the right of way which, incidentally, is owned by North Carolina, and improvingng safety by eliminating RR crossings. With the increase in capacity they will be able to add more trains. It also includes money for the new Gateway Station at Trade and Graham which will put Amtrak, CATS, and Greyhound in one place in city center. It will also be the terminus for the Red Line commuter that will run up Lake Norman.
It is one of the steps toward the new Southeast Corridor between Charlotte and DC.
Don’t worry about Frank. He is a Conservative so he is against everything.
Wow, an ‘absurd and completely uninformed comment’ from the Frankenweiner? Who’d have ever thought?