Amtrak might actually get a new NPN station

[Anderson]

As always, there's a lengthy backstory here. For a long time, there was a federal earmark to add an interchange between I-64 and Bland Blvd. Well, highway standards changed and the interchange wound up being too close to the Jefferson Ave. interchange.

The local government got a go-ahead to repurpose the grant for a new train station at Bland Blvd (since it was transportation spending at the same location), but all of the information on that sort of dropped off the radar after the initial announcement (as such things are wont to do).

I stumbled onto a Transportation Planning Organization document this evening (aren't sleepless nights wonderful?) that indicates the following:

-$2 million was allocated back in August for the preliminary engineering.

-$18 million is set aside for construction in FY15.

-The project includes two stations ("Downtown" at 35th Street or thereabouts and "Bland Blvd" several blocks east of PHF).

Link to the PDF: http://www.hrtpotip.org/PDFs/FY%202012-2015%20TIP%20Report.pdf

The relevant paperwork is on page 58 (of over 500).

 

[The Davy Crockett]

Very OT, but I noticed on page 62 the over $6 million funding (running 10/1/12 - 9/30/15) for the 'Transit Extension Study' for extending The Tide (which is in NFK) to Virginia Beach.

 

[Anderson]

I'll actually call that relevant. What's interesting on that front is that the funding is there...but I don't want to think of what happens if the referendum fails.

 

[afigg]

As always, there's a lengthy backstory here. For a long time, there was a federal earmark to add an interchange between I-64 and Bland Blvd. Well, highway standards changed and the interchange wound up being too close to the Jefferson Ave. interchange.

The local government got a go-ahead to repurpose the grant for a new train station at Bland Blvd (since it was transportation spending at the same location), but all of the information on that sort of dropped off the radar after the initial announcement (as such things are wont to do).

I stumbled onto a Transportation Planning Organization document this evening (aren't sleepless nights wonderful?) that indicates the following:

-$2 million was allocated back in August for the preliminary engineering.

-$18 million is set aside for construction in FY15.

-The project includes two stations ("Downtown" at 35th Street or thereabouts and "Bland Blvd" several blocks east of PHF).

Thanks for the update. Interesting that they were authorized to re-purpose the earmark from a highway project to a transit project, but I guess the language of the earmark and the myriad related bills passed by Congress has enough flexibly to allow US DOT to say, sure, spend the money on a train station.

That Transportation planning 2011 document has a $1.6 billion Midtown tunnel project and $100s of million for other road projects to put the cost of the Tide and the millions to build a passenger train station into perspective. If the project is in the initial PE and NEPA stages, the 2015 date for start of construction and 2017 for completion are little more than placeholders. We will see when a new NPN station is actually built.

As for the Tide, the study for an extension to Virginia Beach is relevant to Amtrak. The presence of direct Amtrak service to DC and the NEC at a Tide station stop provides a selling point for the Tide extension. It provides a clear reason for the the hotels and tourist related businesses along the proposed Tide route to publicly support the extension and provide campaign contributions to the politicians to get their support. A Tide LRT line that someday runs from the Naval station to Virginia Beach provides an incentive to take the train to Norfolk from DC or Philly over driving or flying.

 

[NE933]

As always, there's a lengthy backstory here.

Doesn't anything valuable or worth its salt have one? ;-)

Anyway, it's nice to see some positive news on rail, for a change, including the common theme that Virginia is giving a one-two to all the naysayers. That bodes well for all trains traversing the RF&P section of the Atlantic routes, including long distance.

 

[Anderson]

more to the location than to the project. Basically, it was "$26 million for an improvement HERE" (and yes, if I'm not mistaken, the interchange appropriation was larger than the train station improvement is) rather than for an interchange per se. The other part of the explanation might well be that there was a little bit of discretion brought about by the changed interchange rules.

As to the point about Virginia Beach, I agree there...and I think that's probably happening. I would be shocked if the folks who invested in Virginia Beach Town Center, for example, aren't lobbying hard on this one. The one problem with the beachfront is that there's no clear indication of where the line would actually terminate (or if it might actually run part of the way down Pacific and back up Atlantic, for example), and that would have a decent impact on who'd be willing to lobby for it. As a quick example, a hotel at the south end of Atlantic might be for a project that runs all the way down Atlantic to 9th or so, but against one that terminates up near Laskin Road since it would drive traffic further up the beach.

(And if it's not exceedingly obvious, I like the idea of using this to replace the beachfront trolley in the long run, especially since doing so would remove a mode shift and since you could easily double up service within the beachfront with a simple switch where the line along the oceanfront intersects the line coming in)