A Rail Corridor That Makes Sense?

Interesting details from St. Paul's pursuit of high speed rail by way of the Midwest High Speed Rail Association:

A faster train on a 'shovel-ready' route from St. Paul to Chicago
By Jim McDonough, Chris Coleman and Kristofer Johnson

Ramsey County, the city of St. Paul and our local business community are strongly united behind the St. Paul-to-Chicago high-speed rail link that will cut travel time to Chicago by more than 25 percent, add 1,570 permanent jobs in Minnesota and result in $2.3 billion in economic benefit to the state.

We are pleased that Gov. Tim Pawlenty shares our goal of creating a comprehensive statewide freight and passenger rail plan for Minnesota, as he announced on Friday. It is important to study all of the potential rail corridors to take strategic advantage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to create new transportation infrastructure and economic opportunities.

We are confident that this comprehensive evaluation process will identify the St. Paul-to-Chicago route as Minnesota's most "shovel-ready" project. The 15 years of study and planning for this route have made it possible for our project to help lead the way for other rail investment in Minnesota and our entire region.

According to a study commissioned by Minnesota, Wisconsin and other partners in the Midwest Regional Rail Initiative, the high-speed rail link between Union Depot in St. Paul and Chicago will mean:

# Increased mobility for business and leisure travelers in the Upper Midwest.

# Shorter travel times, additional train frequencies and connections between urban, suburban and rural communities.

# Seamless integration with the regional transit system, including Central Corridor light rail, at the Union Depot in St. Paul.

# Increased energy efficiency. Passenger rail is three to six times more fuel-efficient than cars or planes and reduces greenhouse gas emissions.

# 1,570 permanent jobs in Minnesota.

# Up to $2.3 billion in economic benefit for Minnesota businesses and rail users.

# Six new daily round trips to Chicago.

# Up to $180 million in joint development potential at stations in Minnesota.

The Midwest Regional Rail System is an ongoing effort to develop an improved and expanded intercity passenger rail system throughout the Midwest. It is focused on the implementation of multiple high-speed rail corridors connecting population centers. The 400-mile St. Paul-to-Chicago Corridor enters Minnesota at La Crescent and travels north along the Mississippi River for 150 miles through Winona and Red Wing before reaching the Union Depot in downtown St. Paul.

Ramsey County Regional Rail has been working in close collaboration with Amtrak to develop a state-of-the-art interstate passenger rail station at the Union Depot multimodal hub. Amtrak has committed in writing to moving its Twin Cities passenger station to Union Depot when that facility opens.

In addition, Ramsey County, the city of St. Paul and the St. Paul Area Chamber of Commerce have been working behind the scenes with business groups and officials at every level of government - federal, state, tribal, eight counties and 22 cities along the high-speed rail corridor in Minnesota, as well as our counterparts in Wisconsin - to move this project forward.

The total project cost for the Chicago to St. Paul line will be about $1.2 billion. The Minnesota portion of the line is expected to cost a little less than half of that. We have asked the federal government for $500 million out of the $8 billion set aside nationally for high speed rail and the state government for $10 million to pay for the necessary environmental, engineering and construction work.

There are tremendous benefits to this project, not just for the east metro area and Twin Cities, but for the communities along the line that will see grade-crossing safety improvements and better connections to the interstate passenger rail system. This project also benefits freight rail and the Red Rock commuter rail corridor.

We are ready to move forward now and strongly believe that we should, focusing on the corridors already included in the federal rail plan. That said, we do not oppose the study of other corridors, such as connections to Rochester and Minneapolis.

As with the rest of the stimulus package, the focus is on rapid deployment. As examples, the Madison to Milwaukee route already has completed its environmental work and could begin to make improvements very quickly; renovation of the Union Depot will begin next year. Other regions will be looking at options for new alignments that can be used for higher speed services.

We stand ready to work with MnDOT, the governor, our congressional delegation and other supporters to make sure that Minnesota takes full advantage of a new federal commitment to rail travel to advance Minnesota's future.

Jim McDonough is a Ramsey County commissioner and chair of the Ramsey County Regional Railroad Authority. Chris Coleman is mayor of St. Paul. Kristofer Johnson is president of the St. Paul Area Chamber of Commerce.

  

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