Wake Forest Gazette

          North Carolina came out a winner when the Federal Railroad Administration distributed stimulus and recovery funds last week, receiving $545 million for high-speed rail projects in the state and northward. Bruce Siceloff with The News & Observer noted that our state received more money than the entire northeast, where $485 million was distributed among at least seven states.
            Of the $545 million, $520 million will go to improve the existing rail line between Raleigh and Charlotte, being used to improve the top speed of the trains to 90 miles an hour and double the daily round trips.
            For Wake Forest, Youngsville and other towns and residents along the existing CSX freight line, it means the state will receive $25 million for “congestion mitigation work on the Raleigh to Richmond route, a baby step forward. North Carolina’s Department of Transportation wants the feds to help with $3.7 billion to build a 110-mile-per-hour rail service that will link Charlotte to Washington, D.C., and on to New York City with later extensions to New Orleans and other Southern cities. But there also was $75 million in last week’s package for Virginia to fund a third track north of Richmond.
            But the week also brought an announcement that a real milestone has been reached. The Southeast High Speed Rail compact or coalition – North Carolina, Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia – was formed in 1992 after the U.S. Department of Transportation identified the Southeast High Speed Rail corridor from Washington to Charlotte. The states have been working since 1998 on plans, beginning with environmental impact statements, for that route with several additions through the years.
            The draft EIS – more than 1,000 pages – is complete and is ready for signing by the FRA. After that, the N.C. DOT Rail Division will print a limited number of copies, prepare DVD for distribution and set the dates for local hearings, four in Virginia and four in North Carolina.
            David Foster, project manager for the N.C. DOT Rail Division, said in an e-mail this week that the public hearings will be held in May. When similar hearings were held in 2003 for an earlier version of the EIS, one was in Wake Forest.
            “Based on input from the public and the regulatory/resource agencies, a ‘recommendation report,’ which will recommend the preferred corridor in each of the 26 sections, will be prepared this summer, followed by final design and the final Environmental Impact Statement, which will continue through 2010 and into 2011,” Foster wrote.
            You can find information about the routes for the sections at www.sehsr.org. The information about the recovery funds was not available early this week.