Lawmakers on Thursday approved the necessary money to begin construction of the state’s Western Rail Corridor project designed to connect Rutland to Burlington.
Vermont intends to rebuild 20 miles of state-owned Vermont Railway track between Rutland and Leicester, which will link Burlington to Rutland. The upgrades and rail extensions will allow freight trains to move larger loads faster and enhance the passenger capacity of Amtrak’s Ethan Allen Service along the corridor, Agency of Transportation officials say.
Thursday, the Joint Fiscal Committee and the chairs of the Joint Transportation Oversight Committee approved the agency’s recommendation of $50,000 for engineering and material costs to begin work on the first nine miles of the project in fiscal year 2014.
Gov. Peter Shumlin has said connecting the western corridor with rail is an important component of the state’s economic success.
In September, the state secured a $9 million grant from the Department of Transportation’s freight grant program, the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant, which will partly cover the cost of the project for two years.
The $50,000 approved Thursday will be used for next year’s acquisition of materials, such as welded rail, and engineering designs before construction is anticipated to begin in spring 2014, said Costa Pappis, modal planner for the Agency of Transportation. The first nine-mile installment of the project – which will include replacing jointed rail with continuous rail, installing about 10,000 cross-ties and gating 11 farm crossings – will cost a total of $18.5 million with the state matching $2 million.
This leaves another 11 miles of rail left to complete the connection between Rutland and Burlington, which will bring the project’s total cost to about $23 million. The state has not received a TIGER grant for this portion nor has the Legislature approved any state match.
Without this follow-up grant, the project’s completion would be delayed, Pappis said.
“We have a very small budget for rail capital improvements, so it will be difficult to complete that without federal funding,” he said. “For big projects like this, we rely heavily on federal funding.”
Pappis is confident that the Federal Railroad Administration, which signed off on the most recent TIGER grant, will see the state’s proven track record as a reason to continue to invest in the state’s rail system.
The first phase of this rail connection is expected to create 120 short-term jobs and 22 permanent jobs, said Brian Searles, secretary of the Agency of Transportation, during the meeting.
The section of rail upgrades in only part of the state’s long-term plan to have a continuous rail line all the way down the its western corridor, capable of 70 mph passenger travel speeds and freight loads up to 286,000 pounds. Searles said to be competitive with automobile transportation along U.S. 7, the train would need to travel at average speeds of at least 59 miles per hour.
With the connection between Burlington and Rutland incomplete, plans are already looking south.
“Going from Rutland to Burlington doesn’t get you to Bennington. Is there a plan afoot to get us there?” asked Sen. Dick Sears, D-Bennington.
“The best thing for Bennington, would be for us to get this train to Burlington,” Searles replied. “If we can show significant operational improvement as a result of these investments, we believe those [federal] investments will continue and we will get to Bennington, which is, of course, the goal.”
Pappis said the agency will continue to apply for subsequent rounds of the highly competitive TIGER grant program, which has an approximately 5 percent application approval rate. He said it is very likely the state will receive another grant, which would be used to connect Rutland to Bennington.
By connecting to Bennington, the state could become part of the Federal Railroad Administration’s plan to build a regional rail network between Vermont and New York, which is a central component for why Vermont is currently receiving federal funding for its western corridor rail line, Pappas said.
The total cost of connecting with Albany, N.Y., is estimated at $130 million, he said.
This story was corrected at 11:30 p.m. on Nov. 23. Costa Pappis’ name was incorrectly spelled in the original version.
