U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works
Testimony of
Matthew T. Sternberg
Executive Director, Rutland Redevelopment Authority
Rutland, Vermont
August 20, 2002
I.
Introduction
Tucked in the mountainous terrain of northern New England, Vermont has traditionally been home to rugged family farms, quarrying and manufacturing. And railroads. A principal corridor connecting Boston, Montreal and Chicago, the western side of Vermont saw significant freight and passenger service from the mid 19th to mid 20th century. This traffic was channeled through major switching yards in the cities of Rutland and Burlington.
Vermont has seen its manufacturing base gradually replaced by service businesses, notably in tourism. This is logical but risky; tourism can fall prey to economic shifts, changes in customer preferences and, in the case of ski resorts, even the weather. The regional economy is healthier and more stable if it is not overly dependent on any single business sector, especially one as volatile as tourism. It is good policy to balance tourism jobs with industrial and commercial jobs.
Industrial development requires good transportation infrastructure. As is the case in many rural states, Vermont faces the challenges of access and mobility. A key issue for western Vermont is lack of an interstate highway. Truck traffic is forced to use small state and NHS highways, which in Vermont still have cattle crossings. Small towns along the way – the very towns so important to tourism – suffer the congestion. Travel times and permit restrictions discourage many shippers from serving the state. As these problems grow, the state is rethinking the role of rail in the transportation mix.
Western Vermont will never have an interstate highway. Instead, the economic future of the region depends on the creative enhancement of two existing transportation modes: the National Highway System (US Route 7) and rail. The two run parallel for 150 miles from Bennington in the south to the Canadian border in the north. The rights-of-way for both rail and highway have existed for many generations. Towns and cities along the routes have developed in response to this infrastructure, so enhancement of the corridor for redevelopment purposes will naturally focus economic activity in these traditional business centers. This forms the basis for an effective smart growth strategy.
II.
Statement of Objective
This testimony considers designation of National Highway System (NHS)/Railway Corridors as a tool to address transportation access and smart growth in rural areas not served by interstate highways.
NHS/Railway Corridors are a cost effective, environmentally and socially responsible alternative to new highway construction in areas where such construction is not feasible.
III. Rationale
In rural areas, the NHS/Railway Corridor concept provides a model that accommodates smaller scale, local improvements that, in the aggregate, will add up to a system that works. The NHS/Railway Corridor helps define the big picture for a region while allowing each community to pursue the individual projects that are right for their situation.
In their position on smart growth adopted in 2000[1], the American Economic Development Council states:
“Although Smart Growth is a national movement, in practice its implementation occurs only in local communities and jurisdictions. Local communities not only consist of a single jurisdiction, but include regions as well.”
The transportation needs in western Vermont demonstrate the wisdom of this view.
IV. The Western Vermont Corridor
The US Route 7 highway/ rail corridor in western Vermont traverses Bennington, Rutland, Addison, Chittenden, Franklin and Grand Isle Counties, serving 334,257 Vermonters, 55 percent of the state’s population[2]. Both of the state’s largest incorporated cities – Burlington and Rutland – are situated along the route.
Initially, the Western Corridor is configured around several key projects:
· Amtrak service from Albany, NY to Burlington via Bennington and Rutland.
· Relocation of the Rutland and Burlington switching yards to allow expanded downtown development.
· A series of highway improvements along US Rt. 7, including major projects in Brandon and Pittsford, and in Rutland City and Rutland Town.
· Construction of a rail siding in Middlebury to serve the calcium carbonate quarry and reduce truck traffic in Brandon and Pittsford.
While these were initially pursued as individual projects, all share common themes and serve each other’s purposes. Specifically, all are located along the corridor defined by US Rt. 7 and the Vermont Railway line. All seek to improve existing infrastructure to offset the lack of interstate highway access. All seek to maximize creative redevelopment of traditional town centers and established industrial districts, serving the objectives of smart growth.
By treating these projects as part of an integrated corridor instead of as competing “stand alone” improvements, we can better understand the contributions of each to the whole and more efficiently allocate resources.
IV. Transportation Goals: Access and Mobility
The corridor strategy encompasses two transportation modes with different but overlapping issues.
Highways:
· Roadway alignments that do not support the volume of traffic.
· Heavy traffic in pedestrian-oriented downtowns.
· Commercial access that is not competitive with other markets in the region.
Railways:
· Haz-mats shipped through and switched near population centers.
· Grade crossings.
· Old bridges with insufficient weight capacity and underpasses with insufficient clearance.
· Difficulty in limiting pedestrian and vehicular flow near switching
operations located in population centers.
· Difficulty in guaranteeing speedy, reliable delivery times because of poor track conditions and inefficient switching.
The following sections discuss how a corridor strategy could improve these
conditions.
Highways
The course followed by US Rt. 7 has been the main north-south highway corridor for the west side of the state since the area was first settled in the 18th century. Running along the valley floor west of the Green Mountains, the highway was the natural site for towns where mills could be established or east-west highways could cross through mountain passes.
These towns remain the heart of Vermont’s communities, and they are at risk from the increased use of the highway. The size of trucks passing through has become a contentious subject for smaller towns whose stock in trade is selling tourists a piece of Old Vermont.
Local trucking is not the only concern. Interstate and international trucking from New York and Quebec place a heavy burden on Vermont highways while contributing little to the region’s economy. As crossing the border has become more time consuming since the September 11 terrorist attacks, Canadian trucks are detouring through Vermont’s smaller border crossings and traveling south on US Rts. 7 and 22. These interstate trucks are damaging foundations of historic buildings along the route and putting more wear on the highways that the State can afford to repair.
Highway issues addressed by NHS/Railway Corridors include:
· Decreasing volumes of freight traffic through small towns and villages by transferring capacity to rail.
· Establishing convenient, cost effective opportunities to transfer freight from truck to rail by developing localized intermodal facilities.
· Improving safety by reducing congestion.
· Reducing the levels of nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds and diesel particulates emitted during the transport of commercial goods.
Railways
The railways of western Vermont operate on rights-of-way established in the mid-19th century and have been used continuously since. While the routes exist, maintenance was deferred for decades as society debated whether or not it was worth investing in the future of rail. Today, concerns ranging from the cost of construction to containing sprawl lend new credence to the use of rail.
Vermont showed an early commitment to this potential by purchasing the main rail line when the original private operator went out of business. With both the NHS highway and the rail line under state ownership, there is a clear channel for an integrated transportation plan.
Rail issues addressed by the NHS/Railway Corridor include:
· Deteriorated rail beds and substandard rail will be upgraded.
· Bridges, some more than 100 years old, will be improved to bear the weight of modern freight cars.
· Low clearances on a handful of bridges and tunnels will be raised to accommodate double-stacked rail cars.
· Commercial and industrial customers along the line will build sidings.
· Obsolete switching facilities such as the Burlington and Rutland railyards will be moved and expanded to increase capacity and operating efficiencies.
· Inferior rail to truck intermodal facilities must be improved.
V. Environmental Benefits and Energy Conservation
The preceding sections have described the commercial benefits of nimbleness in the transportation system. However, there are also significant environmental and energy benefits to be drawn from increased use of rail. A report by Worldwatch Institute of Washington, DC cites two advantages of particular interest:[3]
· An intercity passenger train is three times as energy-efficient as commercial air and six times as efficient as a car with one occupant.
· For every ton of goods moved one kilometer, freight rail emits one-third the nitrogen oxide and carbon monoxide, and one-tenth the volatile organic compounds and diesel particulates emitted by heavy trucks.
This proposal does not suggest that all freight can or should be moved to rail; that is not a realistic proposition. However, we do have multiple instances – individual localized needs – that point to an enhanced role for rail.
In the near-term there will be no big multimodal facilities in this rural area of Vermont, just individual businesses and groups of businesses making localized use of the system. However, with the infrastructure available, the potential exists for future intermodal development. Improved switching yards in Burlington and Rutland will ensure that the corridor has sufficient capacity for growth.
As a practical matter, policy makers must recognize that investing in rail infrastructure complements investments made in highways. Where no interstate highway exists, the combined improvement of both railways and highways in NHS/Railway Corridors is required to serve many rural areas with a competitive transportation system. This policy also emphasizes maximum use of the existing infrastructure in a way that generates significant environmental and energy conservation benefits.
VI. Economic Development Goals
A central mission of the transportation system is to facilitate trade. Tourism will certainly benefit from better accessibility by passenger rail, but the greatest potential for rail is in manufacturing and distribution. Many of Vermont’s towns and cities grew up along rail lines, and their traditional commercial districts are oriented toward the tracks. Many of these parcels went fallow when rail declined in the mid 20th century, and are prime candidates for redevelopment as the NHS/Railway Corridors improve their access.
Rail improvements serve two important statewide economic development objectives: industrial clustering and downtown revitalization. The rail lines provide an opportunity to tie together businesses located in traditional business districts while moderating the growth of traffic on the highway system. Since many of the region’s commodities move by rail, it is practical to cluster related businesses along the same rail corridor. This is not intended to replace trucks but rather to reduce their impact by balancing the load between multiple modes.
In the case of the quarry operation discussed above, purchasers of their product – crushed calcium carbonate – will be able to locate close to the source of the raw material, reducing shipping costs and highway congestion. Without proper transportation infrastructure, the value added benefit of the resource will be lost when the product leaves the state for further processing.
In order to succeed in capturing the inherent value of native resources, economic developers must revitalize an infrastructure that has become materially obsolete. But it is not functionally obsolete. With proper upgrades and enhancements it can continue to serve the districts it was originally designed to serve.
Public Benefit
We must recognize that the corridor concept addresses both passenger and freight traffic. Historically we have been reluctant to invest public funds in freight railroads owned by private interests. The fact that the improvement would help the commercial concern was interpreted as a private benefit and not a public benefit. In considering the objectives of smart growth, we must look beyond traditional definitions of benefit.
A striking example is found along our corridor, where stone quarried in Middlebury is trucked to a processing plant in Florence. Because trucks carrying the stone pass through downtown Brandon, the State has limited the number of trucks that can pass through that downtown each day. As a result, the company has an artificially imposed cap on its production capacity, and more than a hundred million dollars in capital investment that would have created jobs in Vermont has gone to plants in other states and Canada.
An initiative is under way through a public/private partnership to build a siding from the quarry to the rail line, enabling the rock to be shipped by rail. This will reduce truck traffic in Brandon while allowing the company to grow at its natural pace, creating jobs as it does so. Providing the transportation alternative for the company improves the quality of life in Brandon. This constitutes a bona fide community benefit.
VIII. Cost Benefits of NHS/Railway Corridors
Transportation is expensive. Drawing exact comparisons between projects is difficult because unit costs vary greatly according to engineering requirements, acquisition and relocation costs, and a host of other factors.
In Western Vermont figures do exist for two projects in the Bennington to Rutland NHS/Railway Corridor that indicate a significant cost benefit to upgrading the existing NHS and rail lines. A 1997 DEIS (Draft Environmental Impact Statement) evaluating the cost of building a bypass around Rutland City studied several alternate routes[4]. These ranged in cost from $49 million to $183.5 million. The alternative preferred by the City cost $61.5 million to construct 8.1 miles of highway for an average cost of $7.59 million per mile, exclusive of right-of-way acquisition and relocation costs.
The recent Amtrak analysis of upgrading the rail line from Glenville Jct., NY to Winooski, VT estimated the cost at $76.5 million dollars for approximately 166 miles of track, an average cost of $460,000 per mile[5]. As the rail right-of-way is already assembled, the cost estimates may be compared with the bypass estimates that do not include right-of-way acquisition.
Additional corridor costs will be incurred for the Rutland railyard relocation and Middlebury spur (estimated $120 million) and other upgrades to US Rt. 7 (say $50 million over time). Even with these added to the Amtrak estimate the corridor improvements would average $1.49 million per mile, compared with $7.59 million per mile to bypass a single community.
While the DEIS indicated a high number of automobiles to be served by the bypass, it says nothing of how that traffic would get to the bypass – i.e. using the existing NHS highways. The improvement would reduce travel times in one segment of the corridor but would not serve to balance traffic between locations along the length of the corridor. It would not improve intermodal connectivity.
IX. Examples of Corridor Projects in Action
Rutland Railyard Relocation
A 1999 study by the Vermont Agency of Transportation assessed possible relocation sites for both the Burlington and Rutland switching yards. In both cities, prime downtown properties are occupied by tracks, impeding development in the traditional growth centers. Also, the projected growth in freight traffic will soon surpass the capacity of the existing yards. A suitable site was identified in Rutland.
Since 2000, conceptual design work and environmental assessments have been under way in Rutland. The new site promises many benefits: switching capacity will increase, the switching function will be removed from an older mixed use neighborhood near downtown, a new access road will reduce congestion on US Route 7, a major gateway corridor into downtown Rutland will be improved, and multiple redevelopment sites will become available in the traditional business districts adjacent to downtown. Relocating the railyard will eliminate a major grade crossing that would limit Amtrak service. All in all, this is smart growth at its best.
Passenger Rail Service
While the interstate highways serve the eastern side of Vermont, most of the population centers are located in the west. Amtrak recently completed a study of the western corridor[6] and recommended a route from Schenectady, NY serving Bennington, Manchester, Rutland, Middlebury and Burlington.
The population centers and tourist destinations in Western Vermont are particularly vulnerable to competitive challenges from areas served by interstate highways. As the state’s economy becomes increasingly dependent on tourism, ease of access becomes even more important. A skier in New York City can board an airplane and be in Utah in five hours. Unless that customer can reach Vermont resorts in a comparable timeframe, the business will go to Utah. As the state works to attract high tech, communication-driven businesses, travel time to the major regional markets becomes a key competitive issue.
Amtrak service to New York will serve both purposes. With its potential for further connections into Canada, Vermont is, in actuality, a logical northern anchor for the northeast rail corridor.
Highway Improvements
The increased flow of interstate truck traffic is exacerbating already congested conditions in several smaller towns along the Rt. 7 corridor, most notably Brandon, Pittsford and Middlebury. Accident – and fatality – rates are high in this area. A coalition of citizens, local elected officials, state legislators and the state transportation agency has proposed a program to upgrade selected sections of the highway and study the feasibility of local bypasses.
Further south, Rutland City and Rutland Town have teamed up with the state to propose a series of upgrades to the Route 4 and 7 corridors in the Rutland area. This project was undertaken when the state canceled a bypass proposal for cost and environmental considerations.
In both projects the emphasis is on improving the existing highway in an area not served by an interstate. In Rutland the proposal highlights the relationship between the highway project and the rail improvement: the access road proposed to serve the new railyard will also divert significant truck traffic from the most congested segment of US Rt. 7.
Middlebury Spur
This project clearly illustrates the intermodal potential of the corridor. In Middlebury, a major commercial shipper is stymied in achieving full production capacity because stone quarried at a site north of Brandon must be moved through the town by truck to reach the plant that processes it into calcium carbonate slurry. Citing aesthetics, state permits limit the shipper to 116 trucks per day on US Rt. 7 through the town; the company’s capacity is 175 trucks. Thus a significant amount of production – and the investment and jobs that go along with it – are lost to the community because of the condition of the highway.
As a condition of the land use permit the parties formed a task force to work out a solution. Vermont Railway, the Vermont Agencies of Transportation and Natural Resources, the private corporation, and the Conservation Law Foundation, a leading environmental assess a proposed rail siding to be built by Vermont Railway (VTR) from the quarry to the main rail line that runs parallel to Rt. 7. This will allow VTR to accept shipments of stone for transfer to the processing plant while reducing the need to move 25,000 to 30,000 trucks per year through Brandon. Intermodal facilities installed at the processing plant will complete the connection. The private company has pledged to pay for intermodal facilities required to handle their project by rail. This is estimated at about one third of the total project cost.
The success of this interdisciplinary planning effort illustrates the caliber of problem solving possible if the transportation system is viewed as a unified corridor.