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]

A Republican push to reject $461 million in federal railroad improvement grants for North Carolina appears to have collapsed. [4/10/11 update: more details in today's story.]

The high-speed rail kill bill championed by state Rep. Ric Killian of Charlotte was pulled Friday from the agenda of the House Transportation Committee, which had been scheduled to vote on the measure next week. Killian's bill was attacked at this week's committee meeting by Democrats, mayors and business advocates.

The Charlotte Business Journal reports that another Mecklenburg County Republican, Sen. Bob Rucho of Matthews, said at a Charlotte business meeting Friday that GOP leaders agreed that North Carolina should keep the $545 million in high-speed and intercity passenger rail grants awarded in early 2010 by the Obama administration. ... [MORE]

In a 36-14 vote, the Senate gave preliminary approval today to a bill that would kill red-light cameras in the last remaining North Carolina cities that use them: Wilmington, Knightdale, Cary and Raleigh. [4/8/11 update: see today's story with reader comments.]

The bill sponsor, Republican Sen. Don East of Pilot Mountain, is a former Winston-Salem police officer who argues that drivers should be able to cross-examine the officer to gives them a traffic ticket.

“You ought to be able to say, ‘Officer, are you right sure that light was red?’” East said during floor debate. His Senate Bill 187 will move to the House if it passes a final Senate vote next week.

Sen. Josh Stein, a Raleigh Democrat, argued that local officials should be allowed to decide whether to use the cameras. He cited crash statistics that credit red-light cameras with reducing right-angle collisions, caused when a driver runs a red light, at two busy corners in downtown Raleigh. ... [MORE]

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]

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.

As the administration of Democrat Gov. Bev Perdue prepares to start spending $461 million in federal fast-train grants (see today’s story with reader comments),  Republicans in the General Assembly want North Carolina to give the money back. All of it. [1:20pm update: See announcement from USDOT secretary and (3:20 p.m.) NCDOT.]

Reps. Ric Killian of Charlotte and Phillip Frye of Spruce Pine, Republican co-chairs of a House subcommittee that oversees transportation spending, filed legislation Monday that would order Perdue’s Department of Transportation not to ..

apply for, accept, or expend any grant funding from the federal government for any high-speed rail project unless the project has been approved through an act of the General Assembly.

DOT would face penalties, losing Highway Fund money, if it disobeys the ban.

The Federal Railroad Administration is expected in the next day or so to formally commit $461 million in federal stimulus grants -- so NCDOT can start accepting bids -- for 24 projects to build more tracks and bridges and make other rail improvements between Raleigh and Charlotte. ... [MORE]

The House moved quickly today (Thursday) to enact legislation barring the N.C. Turnpike Authority from building or even studying the unpopular Red Route option for a Wake County toll road that would bulldoze neighborhoods and split Garner in half. [Update Friday 4 p.m.:  Gov. Bev Perdue signed the measure into law this afternoon.]

Gov. Bev Perdue is expected early next week to sign the measure, The legislation was sought by Garner officials who had worried they were about to lose a major new employer.  An unidentified health services company has an option on 10 acres in a business park that would have been threatened by the Red Route, with plans for 225 jobs at salaries averaging $50,000 a year, town officials said.

"This is a jobs bill," said Rep. Nelson Dollar, a Wake County Republican, as the House approved the Red Route kill bill by 115 to 1.

"You can build this expressway -- just don't do it to Garner," said Rep. Darren Jackson, a Wake County Democrat.  The Senate had approved the bill last week in a 50-0 vote.

“I think we can announce to the world now that we’re open for business,” Garner Mayor Ronnie Williams said later.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reaffirmed warnings that had been sounded earlier by turnpike officials.  ... [MORE]

In 2007 when gas prices were climbing this high, this fast, the General Assembly put a cap on the state tax paid on every gallon, to stop it from rising above 29.9 cents.  Then in 2009 this tax ceiling was converted to a floor, a tax minimum -- and since then the tax rate has risen to 32.5 cents.

Now there's legislation to convert the current rate to a ceiling again, to keep the tax from rising further. Republican Reps. Pat McElraft of Emerald Isle, Mike Stone of Sanford, Ric Killian of Charlotte and Mike Hager of Rutherfordton introduced House Bill 399 this week.

It would put a 15-cent cap on the variable portion of the tax rate, which is readjusted every six months as a percentage of the changing wholesale gas price. ... [MORE]

The House will surely pass Senate Bill 165 today, and the governor will surely sign it as quickly as possible. So the N.C. Turnpike Authority will surely be barred by law from building or even studying the reviled Red Route option for a toll road that would cut Garner in half.

Turnpike officials concede defeat and  promise to find some other way to get permission from federal environmental regulators to build the TriEx Southeast Extension across southern Wake County. They favor the Orange Route, which would muddy sensitive streams that harbor an endangered mollusk, the dwarf wedge mussel. Environmental regulators are still not ready to forget about the Red Route.

And Garner Mayor Ronnie Williams, still in a combative mood, is not ready to concede victory and lay down his weapons. ... [MORE]