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Virginia
Expert Foresees Strong Ridership and Returns from Investment in High-Speed Rail
Little known outside the region, the 180-mile Washington-Richmond-Hampton Roads corridor is one of the best nationwide for 200-mph high-speed rail, with the potential for 4 million riders and a roughly $1.5 billion operational surplus in 2025. ''This is a very buildable corridor,'' pointed out Frederick, Maryland-based Transportation Economics & Management Systems Inc. (TEMS) President Alex Metcalf at a meeting of the Hampton Roads Transportation Planning Organization (HRTPO). Metcalf said he's surprised both by results of his Preliminary Vision Plan and by the fact that ''nobody’s done anything'' about the corridor in the past.
Commissioned by HRTPO to supplement Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation assessments of a prospective high-speed Hampton Roads rail, the highly optimistic vision of ridership and financial returns from the rail intrigued officials but also made them somewhat incredulous.
Promising peer review ''with a healthy skeptical eye,'' HRTPO Executive Director Dwight Farmer said, ''There's a lot of questions about the numbers, the assumptions, the policies.'' Having helped build high-speed rails across the world for 40 years, with 150 of his forecasts accurate within 20 percent, the TEMS president was confident of the vision plan. ''We'd be the first to say, 'No, guys, don't waste time on this,'' he stressed, noting that's what he told another region's officials after a similar study of Kansas City-Denver corridor.
He also called the Washington-Richmond-Hampton Roads corridor as economically strong as those in Florida and Ohio that won millions of dollars in federal stimulus funds this year. Considering an extension for his contract to explore specifics, several HRTPO members emphasized that their initial skepticism shouldn't be interpreted as opposition to high-speed rail. ''It's important we support this,' said Portsmouth Councilwoman Elizabeth Psimas. ''High–speed rail has garnered more support than any other transportation project in the region.'' 7/22/2010
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