Norfolk Southern wants to build a $35.5 million intermodal facility in Montgomery County to transfer shipping containers from trucks to rail in an initiative that could remove 150,000 trucks a year from Virginia’s highways. Not only that, but the project could create as many as 2,900 jobs over a 14-locality area from Radford to Lynchburg, generate hundreds of millions of dollars in economic activity, and plunk down between $17 million and $71 million in taxes.
Wow, sounds like a winner. The project relieves traffic congestion. It’s good for the environment. It creates jobs in a section of the state where unemployment is still a problem. And it adds to the tax base. What’s not to like?
Well, apparently residents of the Elliston area, where the transfer center would be located, are worried that the project will adversely impact their quality of life by increasing traffic and noise, and degrading air and water quality. Now, Montgomery County, which endorsed the project in 2006, opposes it. (See coverage in the Roanoke Times and Times-Dispatch.)
There are two ways to approach problems like this. One way is to fight bitterly, refusing to yield an inch. The other way is to seek reasonable compromises in pursuit of the common good. I don’t know which path the people of Elliston will follow, but the situation does not look positive. Maybe Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, who is trying to organize a regional meeting, can pull off a deal that makes everyone happy.
The residents of Montgomery County would do well to talk to the Piedmont Environmental Council, which backs the construction of new railroad sidings in Fauquier County. The rail link between Manassas and Front Royal is “the major chokepoint” on Norfolk Southern’s New York-to-Texas corridor, according to an article in the Spring 2008 Piedmont View. The residents of Fauquier are just as concerned about the impact of increased rail traffic as the residents of Montgomery County — this is the region, remember, where citizens are fighting a proposed high-voltage transmission line tooth and nail — but they are displaying a very different attitude.
The PEC acknowledges the public benefits of shifting container traffic from truck to rail. A train can haul one ton of freight up to five times further than a truck on the same amount of fuel, while emitting only a third as much carbon dioxide. Additionally, as the Piedmont View quotes The Plains resident Megan Gallagher, rail yards are “so much less destructive than a 500-foot roadbed with hundreds of thousands of vehicles.”
Accordingly, PEC has chosen to work with Norfolk Southern to craft an outcome acceptable to piedmont residents. Priorities include:
- Helping landowners get a fair deal in negotiations with the railroad
- Reducing noise by adding gates at road crossings so that trains don’t have to blow their whistles
- Diverting construction away from land under conservation easement, where possible
- Offsetting the loss of conserved land through the protection of nearby properties of comparable size
Let us all hope that the residents of Elliston take such a constructive approach.
Update: The Roanoke Times reports that the state might have to contribute more money than originally thought to the project: an additional $10 million to $15 million to build the “Ironto Connector” between the rail yard and Interstate 81.
(Map credit: Adapted from “Answers.com.” Blue dots show approximate location of proposed Montgomery County and Fauquier Count facilities.)