View SEHSR alternatives in a larger map

The state Department of Transportation says it will hold a public meeting at the North Raleigh Hilton from 4 to 7 p.m. Tuesday, May 15, to air new revisions to its proposals for closing rail crossings, building bridges and routing trains through northern Wake County as part of a planned fast-train shortcut between Raleigh and Richmond.

These are changes from the plans that were discussed in 2010 at public meetings for the Southeast High Speed Rail Corridor.

Under the new DOT recommendations, the preferred train route would wipe out the $5.9 million Thales Academy K-5 campus in Wake Forest,  a private nonprofit school that serves 400 students (see today's story with reader comments).  Other changes include building a rail underpass for Elm Avenue in Wake Forest, instead of closing it where it crosses the tracks now.

The SEHSR website includes an April 2012 report with updated info on the preferred route from Raleigh to Richmond.  Detailed maps with the northern Wake changes will be posted online in advance of Tuesday's public meeting.

A new bridge to carry passenger trains across Capital Boulevard is part of the  alignment recommended this week by North Carolina and Virginia transportation officials for a proposed 162-mile track that would run trains as fast as 110 miles per hour between Raleigh and Richmond, Va.

The favored path for the proposed new track between the state capitals is described in a new 114-page draft recommendation report issued for the planned Southeast High Speed Rail Corridor from Charlotte to Washington, D.C.  The report explains the two states' recommendations for the entire path, which passes through Norlina, Henderson, Franklinton, Youngsville and Wake Forest on its way south from Virginia to join an existing Amtrak route in downtown Raleigh.

But no one knows whether the project will ever be built. [5pm update: Pay no attention to the misplaced star on DOT's map, above. There are no plans to bring trains onto the Governor Morehead School campus.] ... [MORE]

Georgia received $4.1 million and the District of Columbia received $2.9 million in federal grants to advance work on the Southeast High Speed Rail Corridor through Virginia and North Carolina, the U.S. Department of Transportation said today.

Georgia will use the money for a service development plan and environmental study on a 250-mile passenger rail corridor between Atlanta and Charlotte. The District of Columbia will use its grant to study renovating or replacing the 100-year-old Long Bridge over the Potomac River, which carries 90 passenger and freight trains daily.

Nearly $581 million in federal grants have been awarded, mostly in North Carolina, for work on the corridor.  North Carolina recently received a $4 million grant to complete environmental and design work on a new track between Raleigh and Richmond that could cut travel times by 90 minutes.

The Raleigh City Council has endorsed a new proposal from the state Department of Transportation to route passenger trains through downtown Raleigh on a path that would include a 700-foot-long bridge over West Street and Capital Boulevard.

The council had asked DOT last year to find a new path after Five Points residents and Norfolk Southern Railway objected to a route that would send trains through Norfolk Southern's freight yard along the west side of Capital Boulevard.

The new idea was adapted from a Five Points resident's suggestion for a bridge that would elevate the trains diagonally over Capital, going from the west to the east side as the trains move north from a planned rail depot downtown. (See my story from a Sept. 28 public meeting at which residents commented on the new route.) ... [MORE]

A proposed bridge over Capital Boulevard would cost more than other options for routing passenger trains through downtown Raleigh, but state engineers say it would cause fewer problems for businesses, neighborhoods, streams and historic sites.

Raleigh residents will have a chance to learn about the new approach, and to compare it with options aired a year ago, at a public meeting 4-7 p.m. today at the Raleigh Convention Center. [9/28/11 update: see today's story from last night's meeting.]

It's part of the state Department of Transportation’s work on a proposed 162-mile track for trains that would run as fast as 110 mph between Raleigh and Richmond, Va. The new line would be 35 miles shorter than the route now used by Amtrak, and DOT says it would cut two hours of travel time for journeys from Raleigh to Washington and the Northeast.

The new downtown path devised by DOT engineers, called NC5, would be the most expensive option for a 3.4-mile segment of the rail route from a planned station near Hargett Street north to Whitaker Mill Road: a total estimated cost of $158.4 million. ... [MORE]

NCDOT has scheduled a public meeting 4-7 p.m. Sept. 27 at the Raleigh Convention Center to hear citizen views on a new idea for routing high-speed passenger trains through downtown Raleigh: a 700-foot bridge to carry northbound trains diagonally over automobile traffic on Capital, just south of the Wade Avenue interchange.

Maps have been posted on the Southeast High Speed Rail Corridor site to show the new option, called NC5, along with new modifications to three alternatives that were aired last year.   All options are still on the table. [Update: see 9/10/11 story "Rail plan looks to pass over boulevard."]

NCDOT ran into heavy opposition when Norfolk Southern Railway and residents of neighborhoods near Five Points objected to its originally favored NC3 proposal, which would have run the new trains north along the west side of Capital, disrupting Norfolk Southern's freight yard.

Lawyer Ben Kuhn and other downtown residents suggested taking the trains across Capital near where it crosses Peace Street.  The new NCDOT approach adapts that idea but moves it farther north, bridging the busy boulevard at a lower elevation just south of the Wade Avenue interchange. ... [MORE]

North Carolina is in a league apart from the states that won the largest shares of the Obama administration’s money for high-speed and intercity rail.

From a political and fiscal perspective, that might not be a bad thing.  (See today’s story, "With funds in jeopardy, N.C. pushes rail projects," with reader comments.)

California and Florida have ambitious plans for trains that will be faster than North Carolina’s – and much more expensive. ... [MORE]

North Carolina will get just $1.5 million of the high-speed rail money recently spurned by new Republican leaders in Ohio and Wisconsin, Ray LaHood, the U.S. transportation secretary, said today.

Most of the $1.195 billion originally designated for the two midwestern states will be spent instead on the nation's three most ambitious passenger rail projects -- two in California ($624 million) and one in Florida ($342 million).  The remaining 11 states receiving shares range from Washington state ($162 million) and Illinois ($42 million) to Indiana ($365,000), with North Carolina third from the bottom.

LaHood, a Republican serving in the administration of Democratic President Barack Obama, had generated higher hopes when he told a Charlotte audience Nov. 17 that North Carolina could expect good news when DOT redistributed the Ohio and Wisconsin money. "You all are going to be in the high-speed rail business," he said then. ... [MORE]

North Carolina was practically shut out when the Federal Railroad Administration handed out $2.5 billion in high-speed rail money last month, but there's a new light at the end of that tunnel:

"You all are going to be in the high-speed rail business," Ray LaHood, the U.S. transportation secretary, told a Charlotte audience today. [Update: 11/18 story.]

The new governors-elect of Ohio and Wisconsin have said they won't accept a combined $1.2 billion in federal high speed rail grants. The feds have said the money will be distributed to other states if Ohio and Wisconsin formally reject it.

LaHood indicated that North Carolina would be in line for a share of that money. He didn't say how much, or how soon the decision would be made.

North Carolina and Virginia have been awarded a combined $691 million so far -- $623 million last January, and $68 million in October -- for a 475-mile fast-train route between Charlotte and Washington, D.C.

Triangle Transit still likes the idea, but there aren’t many cheerleaders left for a proposal to run high-speed passenger trains through the Norfolk Southern freight yard along the west side of Capital Boulevard.

Norfolk Southern Railway blasted that notion this week in a 17-page letter to the state Department of Transportation.

(Below are links to the full comments from Raleigh, Norfolk Southern, and the town of Wake Forest.  Here are comments from Triangle Transit.)

Raleigh city leaders originally floated the Norfolk Southern option two years ago – but lately they’ve had second thoughts. The city’s formal comment Friday on DOT’s high-speed rail project was a 34-page package of mixed messages. ... [MORE]