OPINIONS

Virginia Railway Express commuter trains are much like conventional passenger trains because they share the tracks with freight trains as well as Amtrak's intercity passenger trains. Some refer to such service as "heavy rail" in contrast to "light rail" trains like those now in service in Charlotte (see photo below).

Why not via "commuter rail"?

I like trains. Always have. Always will.

So I'll admit up front that I've got a bias toward railroads as a solution to traffic congestion in the Triangle region.

It all started in my boyhood. My maternal grandfather was a long-time agent for the Railway Express Agency, in Raleigh during my mother's youth, then in Fayetteville where I knew him, mostly during his retirement years. REA, for many of you who've never heard of it, was a predecessor to today's UPS and FedEx delivery services. The difference is that REA relied on trains, passenger trains, to ship the goods.

What a coincidence that my introduction to "commuter rail" was with suburban Washington, D.C.'s service operated as "Virginia Railway Express" (even the logo is inspired by the Railway Express Agency I once knew).

I made the trip to Alexandria, Va. with a delegation of North Carolina pro-rail leaders back in the early 2000s to get a first-hand look at northern Virginia's commuter rail system, which extends from Washington to Fredericksburg and beyond on one line and to Manassas and beyond on another. Of course, northern Virginia is more thickly populated than our Triangle region and thereby enjoys greater demand for commuter rail than our folks. Still, Raleigh's suburban growth is coming at us pretty fast, and our highways aren't keeping up with the increased traffic, with little prospect that commuting will get any better by roads alone despite a bunch of widening projects and new "expressways" presently on the drawing board.

The thing that makes commuter rail especially attractive here is that we, the taxpayers of North Caroilna, own the existing railroad that runs eastward from Raleigh to Clayton, Wilson's Mills, Selma, Pine Level, Princeton, and Goldsboro. The North Carolina Railroad Company, the state-owned corporation that built that railroad just before the Civil War, leases use of the line to the Norfolk Southern Railroad for freight service and that, in turn, allows Amtrak to operate passenger trains over the segment between Selma and Raleigh.

But there's room for more trains on that line. The North Carolina Railroad over the past decade has invested millions received from Norfolk Southern lease payments to upgrade the track, install traffic-control signals, and construct passing sidings to allow trains to move more efficiently at higher speeds than before. That might not be enough to add commuter rail to the mix but it's a significant start.

Our neighbors to the northwest are already planning for commuter-rail service on the N.C. Railroad from west of Durham to Garner, but not eastward beyond the Johnston County line because we're not yet a player in the game. Wake County has joined Durham and Orange counties in winning voter approval of a modest sales-tax increase to fund non-highway transportation in the years just ahead. Will our County Commissioners take the lead in convincing a majority of Johnston voters to do the same?

Charlotte has a "light rail" system that operates electric-powered, streetcar-like trains over tracks that are built exclusively for the service. This is similar to what's proposed between Durham and Chapel Hill, where there's no existing railroad connecting those cities.

It's too bad we don't have a railroad paralleling I-40 into western Johnston County to Benson. And it's unfortunate that the North Carolina Railroad bypassed Smithfield when it was built in the 1850s from Goldsboro westward. Even so, commuter rail has benefits for those of us not directly served by the tracks in place. For one thing, taking a portion of the automobiles off the southeastern approaches to Raleigh could lessen road congestion. For another, commuter rail would encourage residential development near the line's stations, as we saw in northern Virginia. If folks see reliable rail transit as a better option than tediously driving to and from their jobs in Raleigh and beyond, they will prefer living closer to that service than finding a place in the countryside near an I-40 interchange.

For Smithfield residents who commute to Wake County, it would be a relatively easy drive to the railway station in Selma or perhaps a new one at Wilson's Mills.

A better solution than commuter rail?
That would be providing more job opportunities closer to home and thereby eliminating the need for long commutes to work in the first place. Smithfield had that going pretty good back in the 1970s with major industrial development close by. But most of it went away because of the "global economy" and consolidations among big corporations that left us high and dry.

Wouldn't we rather be a thriving "small town" where folks live and work in neighborhoods of home and office than a suburban "bedroom community" that may not be much of a "community" at all?

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Getting around in the future:

Why not via "commuter rail"?

This is a place to express your opinions