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Relieving
Interstate 81
A
$2 billion upgrade to Norfolk Southern rail lines
would take one million trucks a year off U.S.
highways. The railroad wants Virginia to kick in
$40 million to help pay for it.
by
Peter Galuszka
Switching
freight loads from trucks on jam-packed Interstate
81 to railroad trains would seem like a
no-brainer. It would be an easy, efficient way to
ease congestion and boost safety on the critical
northeast-to-southwest artery that follows
Virginia’s craggy Blue Ridge Mountains.
Tidewater-based
Norfolk Southern Corp. proposed to do just that on
June 6 when it announced a $2 billion capital
improvement program that would upgrade rail lines
from New Orleans and Memphis to the port of
Bayonne, N.J. So doing, NS would boost its
competitive position in snaring container-based
global trade while taking up to one million truck
shipments every year off major highways
system-wide when the upgrade is finished in 2013.
As
part of the plan, NS plans to apply for $40
million in public-private funding from the
Virginia Department of Rail and Public
Transportation to boost its rail improvements in
Virginia, which are a critically important part of
its north-south shipments. “We see a public
purpose here, that’s why we think the money is
appropriate,” says NS spokesman Robin Chapman.
Norfolk
Southern's goal of reducing traffic on the
congested interstate is certainly in sync with
Virginia's public policy objectives. But is the
expenditure of $40 million in scarce state
transportation dollars a good investment? The
evidence is unclear. While removing one million
truck shipments annually may sound like a lot, no
numbers are available for how many trucks will be
removed from Virginia highways, nor how long it
would take before organic growth in truck traffic
would fill up the Interstate again.
Everyone
agrees that someone needs to do something about
the worsening congestion along I-81, caused largely by
trucks. The problem is that the conventional
solutions are incredibly expensive. Two multi-billion
dollar proposals submitted by private consortia to add new lanes
and pay for them with tolls have yet to
gain much political traction.
Due to funding shortages, the state has taken only
baby steps to addressing the I-81 morass. The only
concrete proposals at the moment are to spend $140
million to build truck-only lanes on hilly parts
of I-81 northbound near Daphine near Lexington and
southbound in Montgomery County near
Christiansburg,
says VDOT spokeswoman Laura Southard.
“We don’t have any further direction from the
[Commonwealth Transportation Board], no funding
and no timetable."
VDOT
recently completed a “tier one” Draft
Environmental Impact Statement regarding the
private-sector proposals to widen lanes on I-81. In it, two
watershed decisions were made. One was to push for
charging trucks tolls for using I-81, a measure
not popular with the state trucking industry but a
relief to residents of Western Virginia who use
the Interstate as a local transportation artery. The
other decision was to to nix widely discussed “truck only
lanes," Southard
says, because they would create too much room for
trucks in the future and not enough for cars.
The
only other policy option pursued by the
Commonwealth -- an idea championed by Gov. Timothy
M. Kaine during his gubernatorial campaign -- is
to divert freight from I-81 to rail.
The
NS proposal would advance that aim. The $2 billion
in improvements would add extra railroad track and more modern and efficient
signaling and controls to two key lines that run
parallel to I-81. One of those lines runs from Manassas
in Northern Virginia just east of the Blue Ridge
all the way to Atlanta, following the route of the
famed green and cream-colored passenger liner, the
“Southern Crescent,” that whisked well-heeled
travelers from Washington, D.C. to New Orleans.
The improvement project is nicknamed the
“Crescent Corridor” after the streamliner that
was operated by Southern Railway, an NS
predecessor.
The
other line runs west of I-81 from Pennsylvania and
the Northeast through Harrisonburg and on to
Knoxville, Tenn. From there, the line splits at
Chattanooga, heading either south to Atlanta and
New Orleans or west to Memphis.
Both
lines are well-positioned to handle a flood of
containerized imports, many from China, expected
in coming years as global trade grows. “We are
anticipating a growth in trade,” says NS’s
Chapman. “What this is also aimed at is
relieving the highways systems of existing and
projected congestion.”
The
improved lines should add about 28 trains daily
throughout the affected area. Each train could
handle about 300 containers apiece. With the new
digitized signals that would be added to extra rail
lines, NS hopes to rush goods to market faster
than ever. All three endpoints in the project are
major ports – New Orleans on the Gulf of Mexico,
Memphis on the Mississippi River and Bayonne and
other New York City-area ports on the Atlantic. In
Virginia, for instance, new foreign trade
opportunities, especially in consumer good imports
from Asian nations, have created a large new
network of huge warehouses and distribution
centers to handle foreign consumer goods for
Wal-Mart, Target and QVC, among others.
Chapman
says that the $2 billion improvement plan has the
approval of the trucking industry. One major
teamster firm, J.B. Hunt, has publicly backed the
project. Chapman says there are other trucking
firms that support it but he can’t name them
yet.
“Truckers
will help them (the railroads), provided the rails
can provide timely, reliable service,” says Dale
Bennett, executive director of the Virginia
Trucking Association. “If the service is not
provided, they’ll put them on the road.”
All
together, NS expects that the improvements will
take one million truck deliveries off the highways
each year. However, Norfolk Southern has no
concrete numbers on how many of
those trucks would come off the Virginia segment
of I-81. Whatever the figures, it compares
to about 400,000 trucks currently using the
highway each month, as measured by VDOT at its
Troutville weighing station near Roanoke, or about
five million annually.
Removing
one million truck trips annually “is not as much
as its sounds," says Bennett. "When you
look at the big picture, as a percentage, it is
very small.”
VDOT
estimates a 2.8 percent average annual growth rate
in truck trips, Bennett says. At that rate, within
five to six years of completing the
NS improvements, he adds, the number of truck trips could well
grow back to the number NS says will be removed.
Besides
adding two climbing lanes for trucks, the only
concrete proposal that CTB has supported is
seeking federal permission to charge truckers
tolls on I-81 to help fund improvements. The tolls
might be in the range of about 30 cents or so per
mile. The proposal has the trucking industry in
arms. Bennett notes that trucking is already a
thin-margin business where truckers gross only
about $1.30 to $1.40 per mile. Taking away 30
cents or more would really hurt, he says.
“Obviously, we are opposed to tolling on free
and existing interstate highways that truckers and
others have paid for with their taxes.”
Even
the two climbing lanes are a stop-gap measure.
Southard
of VDOT says that the state has identified at
least a dozen places where extra, short lanes can
be added to let passenger traffic pass as trucks
lumber more slowly up a mountain. Problem is, it
would cost $366 million to add all the lanes and
the state just doesn’t have the money. That’s
seems a consistent refrain in the sorrowful
“Ballad of Interstate 81.”
-- June 19,
2007
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