Sunday, October 15, 2006
Rail Solution recognized
The latest from The Ticker blog
They're an example of democracy in action, say members of a group that wants to keep influencing decisions about how people and freight move through the Interstate 81 corridor.
Rail Solution started four years ago as a few rail advocates in Southwest Virginia who opposed adding truck-only lanes to Interstate 81.
Today, Rail Solution is known from Bristol to Winchester for persistent efforts to persuade counties and towns to oppose the truck-lanes concept advanced by the builders' consortium Star Solutions.
Rail Solution is recognized in Richmond, too.
One member, Michael Testerman, led its lobbying effort for legislation that requires state officials to study how much I-81 freight can be shifted from truck to rail.
In meetings last summer with Gov. Tim Kaine and the state's top transportation officials, the group learned the legislated study will be done jointly by Norfolk Southern Corp. and the state Department of Rail and Public Transportation.
They also heard Kaine instruct state officials to find quicker ways to fix I-81's safety problems and to get the most benefit possible out of rail routes in the corridor.
Their state and local efforts converged on Wednesday when the Commonwealth Transportation Board, meeting in Roanoke, adopted a resolution that will include the rail study's findings in future decisons about I-81. They hope it will mean more freight will move by rail and fewer lanes will be added to the highway.
"This is an historic landmark of cooperation" between NS and the state, said Dave Foster of Salem, Rail Solution's executive director.
"That a citizens' advocacy group has gotten this far is nothing short of amazing," Foster said, recounting endless hours of work by its members against state- and federal-level lobbying and publicity conducted by Star Solutions.
Star's biggest backers were Halliburton Corp. and Koch Industries, two of the nation's largest corporations.
"Skeptics told us we could never stop Star," Foster said.
Rail Solution alone may not have stopped Star; Congress appropriated only $100,000 of the $800,000 the consortium lobbied for as startup money toward its $13 billion I-81 concept.
In addition, the federally required environmental study for widening I-81 discovered in its early stages that truck-only lanes wouldn't work nearly as well as predicted.
Opposition was strong, too, from truckers and manufacturers who said the tolls Star wanted on truck lanes would hurt their business.
Many local governments wanted more rail improvements in an I-81 package. Rail Solution volunteers led by Rees Shearer of Emory worked that angle hard by writing letters to editors and appearing at meetings to describe the negative environmental impacts Rail Solution saw in the Star Solutions plan.
Rail Solution adopted the environmental arguments from other activist groups it has allied itself with in the I-81 corridor, including historic preservations groups, Civil War battlefields preservers and smart-growth advocates.
Rail Solution claims to have 1,300 participants, and it accepts tax-deductible donations through a Richmond-based human rights group, the Virginia Organizing Project.
"We have over 20 associated groups that we are allied with in the corridor and work closely with," Foster said.
More than 40 towns and counties passed resolutions that favored moving freight by rail.
According to state officials, the publicity angle is where Rail Solution succeeded.
Although Foster said Rail Solution had a big role in getting NS and state officials to work together in studying ways to upgrade rail along I-81, state and NS officials see it differently.
"Since we have been working with the commonwealth for quite some time on I-81 and rail's involvement, it would not be accurate to say that Rail Solution was the catalyst for getting Virginia and NS together," said Robin Chapman, spokesman for the railroad.
"While we have been working quietly on our proposals, we have appreciated that Rail Solution has been keeping the public debate going," Chapman said.
When the General Assembly passed its bill ordering the I-81 study last spring, "we had already begun a study to update our numbers on the I-81 study we had performed a couple of years ago," Chapman said.
The Department of Rail and Public Transportation agreed with the NS view. Although the agency met with Rail Solution "to let them know how the commonwealth would proceed on this study," an agency spokeswoman said, "the agreement to undertake the study was developed between the commonwealth and Norfolk Southern."
Regardless of the details about Rail Solution's role, state officials acknowledge its presence.
"They're getting information and supplying information," said Laura Bullock of the Virginia Department of Transportation. "We continue to work with them."
