Republicans on the House Transportation Committee helped Democrats turn back a GOP proposal today that would give the legislature veto power over the state’s ability to accept federal railroad improvement grants – but rail foes will have another chance in a transportation budget vote Wednesday.

GOP Rep. Ric Killian of Mecklenburg County abandoned his push to make the state Department of Transportation send $461 million in rail improvement grants back to Washington. He changed tactics with an approach that could squelch chances for more money, including $624 million requested by DOT two weeks ago.

The committee voted 17-15 to weaken Killian's bill, and then approved language that only requires DOT to consult the legislature before accepting rail grants. ... [MOVE]

A big chunk of Earth Day events are on tap for the weekend. NCSU is having its Earth Day celebration today (Friday), and Raleigh has a Shred & Recycle It! event along with the Planet Earth Celebration downtown on Saturday.

Garner has two events: the Spring Eggstravaganza and the Technology Spring Clean on Saturday. The N.C. Department of Transportation's Spring Litter Sweep kicks off on Saturday as well.

See a full list of upcoming Earth Day events here.

While Senate Republican leaders have said they won’t go along with legislation to block the state from spending $461 million in federal railroad improvement grants, some House Republicans have redoubled their effort to kill the rail projects and return the money to Washington.

Rep. Ric Killian, a Mecklenburg County Republican who had pulled his kill bill from the House Transportation Committee agenda last week, said Thursday that the committee would resume debate on his proposal next week.

“That bill is still alive and well, and it is going to be heard in some way, shape or form next Tuesday,” Killian said at a meeting of the House Appropriations Transportation Subcommittee, which is debating the transportation section of the House budget plan.

Meanwhile, Killian and other House members have drafted a special budget provision that would take a different approach by subjecting the state Department of Transportation Rail Division to new, unusual layers of legislative oversight.  ... [MORE]

House Republicans say there should be no more free rides on state ferries.

The budget proposal released Tuesday by GOP House leaders would require the state Ferry Division to collect tolls on all ferries that are free now and to charge higher rates on ferries where riders already pay – enough to increase toll collections by $2.5 million next year and $5 million the year after.

The Ferry Division would determine the new rates for individual trips and for multiple-trip passes.  No decisions have been made, but state Department of Transportation officials have said they would consider a $10 toll on North Carolina’s busiest ferry – the 40-minute ride from Hatteras to Ocracoke, now free – and a doubling of the $15 toll collected on the longer Pamlico Sound ferries that link Ocracoke to the mainland at Cedar Island and Swan Quarter.

The budget proposal also would cut jobs elsewhere in DOT and in the Highway Patrol, and it would subject state rail programs to special new layers of legislative oversight.

It would authorize local schools to charge new fees for driver education classes, up to $75 per student, to make up for an $8.7 million cut in state funding. ... [MORE]

The season of spring cleaning is in full swing, which means it's also time for North Carolina's bi-annual roadside cleanup campaign.

As a House committee prepares today to debate a Republican proposal to have the Perdue administration return $461 million in rail stimulus funds to Washington, Perdue's Department of Transportation is asking Washington for $624 million more. [4/6/11 update: see today's story with reader comments.]

North Carolina would use the new funds to:

- replace outmoded train stations in Charlotte and Raleigh,
- build new ones in Hillsborough and Lexington,
- add more freight and passenger service between Raleigh and Charlotte,
- complete the environmental studies and purchase an abandoned CSX rail corridor for a new high-speed shortcut from Raleigh to Richmond, for trains that would travel at speeds up to 110mph, and
- make rail safety improvements between Raleigh and Charlotte.

The new application (documents attached below) seeks a share of $2.4 billion in funds that became available after Florida's governor killed a high-speed rail project between Tampa and Orlando, and sent the money back.

The application was filed as the House Transportation Committee prepared today to debate a bill by Rep. Ric Killian and 12 other House Republicans to kill North Carolina's high-speed rail program, and to join Ohio and Florida in sending the money back to Washington. ... [MORE]

A person or persons unknown committed an act of engineering. That's essentially what the N.C. Board of Examiners for Engineers and Surveyors concluded after examining an eight-page traffic analysis submitted by a North Raleigh neighborhood group to the state DOT (see today's Road Worrier with reader comments).

Since the board could not identify the author / culprit, it dismissed a charge that David N. Cox was practicing engineering without a license.

Cox distributed the report, titled "Analysis of Traffic Signal Warrants for Selected Intersections of Falls of Neuse Road," by email. (See document copy at the end of this blog post.)

But it didn't have his name, or anybody's name, as author. (It said, "Submitted by the Residents of North Raleigh," a silly stretch.)

The board doesn't know whether Cox was the author because he refused to answer its questions. ... [MORE]

Rep. Ric Killian of Charlotte is not alone in pushing legislation to kill federally funded railroad projects worth tens of millions of dollars in his home county.

Killian has signed up a dozen fellow Republicans to help sponsor a bill that would have the state Department of Transportation give back $461 million in federal railroad improvement funds, and bar it from seeking federal high-speed rail money for any project that has not been approved by the legislature.

The $461 million includes money that would be spent in counties represented by Killian and four of his co-sponsors from Cabarrus, Rowan and Davidson counties. [3/30/11 update: see today's story from a House committee meeting.]

The House Transportation Committee will consider Killian's kill bill today. ... [MORE]

Mecklenburg County will receive the lion’s share of $461 million in federal railroad funds -- unless one of its legislators, Rep. Ric Killian of Charlotte, succeeds in his campaign to kill the deal.

NCDOT provided a county-by-county breakdown of rail projects worth $520 million. It combines the $461 million in ARRA (stimulus) funds committed by the Federal Railroad Administration this week, plus $59 million North Carolina received previously.

Mecklenburg gets projects worth nearly $152 million, and it shares a $92 million project with neighboring Cabarrus County.  (Killian contends, below, that Charlotte folks would suffer more than anyone else in the state because of this federal investment.)

ARRA Funding for Projects Covered by Agreement by County

Alamance   $11,703,156
Cabarrus   $344,715
Davidson   $44,545,437
Davidson and Rowan*   $1,444,659
Durham    $18,130,644
Guilford   $13,925,453
Cabarrus and Mecklenburg*   $92,116,212
Mecklenburg    $151,711,401
Rowan   $98,657,349
Wake   $47,822,797
Wake, Durham, Alamance, Guilford, Davidson, Rowan, Cabarrus, Mecklenburg   $39,598,176
Total:   $520,000,000
* Projects crossing county lines

Double tracks, straightened curves and other improvements will qualify tracks for a top speed boost from the current 79 mph to 90 mph a few years from now, after the railroads install positive-train control safety technology.

The biggest single project, in Charlotte, involves $128 million to grade-separate CSX and Norfolk Southern tracks that now meet in a four-way stop.  The work will send CSX trains burrowing beneath Norfolk Southern tracks. It will prepare the way for Charlotte's next big transportation project: a multimodal station downtown for Amtrak and local transit trains and buses.

Killian contends that the deal will saddle North Carolina taxpayers with future operation and maintenance costs as high as $50 million a year. 

In an interview this week I asked him whether the federal funding he wants to kill would benefit his constituents in Charlotte.

"My concern is for the citizens of this state," he replied. 

Asked again about whether Charlotte in particular would benefit, Killian said:

I think the answer probably could be no, knowing the citizens of Charlotte pay such a great amount of taxes. And any potential liability is going to be borne by the taxpayers; therefore, I think it could hurt the citizens of Charlotte even more than other areas of the state.

The House Transportation Committee is expected to take up Killian's kill bill next week.

City transportation Director Mark Ahrendsen and colleagues from City Hall, Triangle Transit and NCDOT gave the InterNeighborhood Council a Transportation 101 class Tuesday night.

"The smell of asphalt is going to be in the atmosphere pretty soon," Ahrendsen said to start, referring to $20 million worth of street repaving voters approved in last fall's bond referendum.

State-owned streets are in for more repaving, too, as DOT continues playing catchup on overdue maintenance.

"There is a lot more coming downtown," said District Engineer Joey Hopkins, along with Duke and Gregson streets through the Trinity Park neighborhood between I-85 and Main Street.