Rail Service Enjoying a Renaissance in the U.S.

By Jeff Jones

Albuquerque Journal

Sunday, February 8, 2004

More than 20 commuter rail systems are now in service across North America.

There was once a large network of such trains, said Hank Dittmar, president of Reconnecting America, a nonprofit transportation think tank with offices in California, Washington, D.C., and Las Vegas, N.M. They included the "Doodle Bug," a popular commuter line that ran between Albuquerque and Belen in the 1940s.

However, Dittmar said, the federal government from the 1950s to the early 1990s provided far more money for road construction than it did for commuter rail. And many such services faded into history.

As traffic congestion has increased during the past decade, more cities have turned to alternatives such as commuter rail, Dittmar said. The Federal Transit Administration in recent years provided up to 80 percent of the money to build new systems. But more and more cities are coming to the FTA with their hands out, and Dittmar said the federal government is now limiting its share to 50 or 60 percent.

"That's forced a lot of local communities to really shoulder more of the cost themselves," Dittmar said.

He said Phoenix will soon open its light rail system, while Denver is pursuing both light rail and commuter rail.

A few other commuter trains and their costs include:

The 30-mile Sound Transit line runs between Seattle and Tacoma on Burlington Northern and Santa Fe tracks. Discussions over the right to use that line began in the late 1980s. The service began its first routes in September 2000, four years after voters there approved sales tax and vehicle registration fee increases to pay for it.

Sound Transit paid the railway about $350 million to lease and improve the tracks, and it recently completed another $250 million negotiation with the railway to expand its service in that region.

The Trinity Railway Express between Dallas and Fort Worth cost $255 million to start— an average of $7.5 million a mile— plus the $34 million purchase of the tracks from a bankrupt freight service. Its first 10-mile phase opened seven years after formal planning for the project began.

Voters in the Dallas/Fort Worth area approved sales tax increases in the early 1980s that help pay for TRE's operation.

Tri-Rail, a 72-mile Florida commuter train service that links Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and Miami, began train service about 21/2 years after planning began. But those planners had their backs against the wall: The train was to be used to help ease traffic congestion for a major freeway reconstruction project there.

The Florida Department of Transportation bought the track corridor for about $270 million, with much of the money coming from the Federal Transit Administration, said Dennis Lyzniak, a consultant to Tri-Rail. Building that commuter service and operating it for five years cost another $84 million.