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Putting commuter rail on fast track is Riley’s hope
By Molly Parker
Staff Writer
The phrase “commuter rail” has been hot on Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr.’s lips recently, but with so many policy decisions up in the air, most notably about who would foot the multimillion-dollar bill, it seems that train is still a long time a-comin’.
“We must do it now,” Riley said last month during his ninth swearing-in ceremony in downtown Charleston.
“That’s one of those things that we can’t just put off as something that will be way down the road in the future,” he said a few days earlier during a speech to about 150 area business leaders at a Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce event.
For years, local political and business leaders have discussed the possibility of commuter rail as a transportation option that could help thin traffic congestion on Interstate 26.
Still, the reality is that commuter rail has yet to move beyond the study phase.
In a June 2006 report commissioned by the Charleston Area Regional Transportation Authority, the price for rail service between Summerville and downtown Charleston was pegged at $45.8 million. That amount did not include the cost of utility modifications, land acquisition or construction.
The same company that wrote the report, North Charleston-based Wilbur Smith Associates, is now conducting a second study examining the feasibility of extending service to Moncks Corner on behalf of the Berkeley-Charleston-Dorchester Council of Governments. There are no available cost estimates for the service.
A ‘multi-year process’
It’s a “multi-year process,” CARTA Board Chairman Patterson Smith said, though he added that Riley’s enthusiasm will “certainly be very helpful” in pushing the political locomotive. Establishing such a service will also require the cooperation of political leaders in Dorchester and Berkeley counties, he said.
“It’s what you have to do. You have to hire competent engineers to study it first,” said Smith, a local commercial real estate agent. “As with any improvements you have to start off figuring out what you’re going to do, and we are in the process of doing that.”
Riley’s office referred requests for comment to the COG.
A commuter rail service in the Charleston area would likely run on existing freight rail lines, specifically the Norfolk Southern Corp. line that runs parallel to I-26 from near Summerville to downtown and the CSX Corp. rail line that runs along U.S. Highway 52 to Moncks Corner.
“One of the challenges is to work out an operating schedule with the freight operator,” said Jeffrey Burns, senior planner with COG.
Robin Chapman, spokesman for Norfolk, Va.-based Norfolk Southern, said the company successfully shares its lines with commuter trains in other parts of the country, and is interested in working with the region. But first, he said, Norfolk Southern would need to study its freight traffic volume on that line to ensure that passenger service would not interfere with traditional business.
“We have to make sure that we can not only handle the existing volume, but that we would have the capacity to handle the traffic we anticipate in the future,” Chapman said, noting that expansion of Charleston’s port is likely to increase freight traffic on that line.
Linking the region
None of the studies has looked at the possibility of rail service connecting to Mount Pleasant, but the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge was designed in such a way that a rail line could be added beneath the bridge for light-rail service, Smith said.
Additionally, Burns said, COG is about to kick off another study funded through a $450,000 federal grant that will examine ridership interest in the tri-county area. The firm selected to administer the study will interview regular CARTA bus riders and also conduct phone polls
to gauge interest in commuter rail service.
The intensive study phase is necessary, Burns said, because there is relatively stiff competition among cities for Federal Transportation Authority funds to implement commuter rail service. The federal government generally funds about 80% of capital construction costs, but on a discretionary basis, Burns said.
“We’re on course,” he said. “I think this is a huge step in our region’s development.”
Molly Parker is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail her directly at mparker@setcommedia.com.
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