Expert says Hampton Roads-to-DC rail would run at $1 billion surplus

A railroad consultant predicts that high-speed trains between Hampton Roads, Va., and Washington, D.C., would not only be popular, but also highly profitable - operating at surpluses of up to $1 billion a year, The Virginian-Pilot reports.

Local transportation
officials, however, are highly skeptical.

Alex Metcalf, president
of Transportation Economics & Management Systems Inc., said the preliminary
results of his study surprised even him, generating double the ridership that
he’d expected.

"Like most people, I’d
never heard of the Hampton Roads -Washington rail corridor – it has no profile
outside of Virginia," said Metcalf, whose business is in Frederick, Md. He said
his projections show it’s as economically strong as the main rail corridors
planned in Florida and Ohio, both of which won millions of dollars in federal
stimulus money this year. He said it’s one of the top 200-mile high-speed rail
corridors in the country, with the potential for four million riders in 2025.

The corridor, with trains
running to both South Hampton Roads and the Peninsula, could cost between $3
billion and $6 billion to develop and would generate an operating surplus of
$500 million on the Peninsula and nearly $1 billion in South Hampton Roads in
2025.

Those numbers are based on
trains running at 150 mph on the Southside and 110 mph on the Peninsula. The
trip to Washington would take two hours from Norfolk and two hours, 22 minutes
from Newport News, he said.

Slower trains, at 79 mph,
would lose money and higher-speed trains, starting at 90 mph, would yield
smaller profits, he concluded.

Metcalf presented his
findings July 21 to the Hampton Roads Transportation Planning Organization,
which paid him $167,000 to develop a Preliminary Vision Plan for high-speed
rail. The organization is considering extending Metcalf’s contract to more
fully develop his findings.

"I see a pot but not the
roast," Del. Glenn Oder of Newport News said, questioning how Metcalf arrived
at his findings. "How are we making these quantum leaps without meat on the
bones? "

Del. John Cosgrove of
Chesapeake said: "It’s an awfully happy presentation, but a lot of us are
thinking how in the world did they come to those conclusions."

Metcalf’s work is meant
to supplement some of the studies the Virginia Department of Rail and Public
Transportation is doing on high-speed rail from Hampton Roads.

"We are very concerned
about the assumptions we’re finding in this study," said Amy Inman, state
transit planning manager. She said some of the assumptions are "very aggressive."

Metcalf said he’s been
building high-speed rails for 40 years across the world and he’s confident in
his findings. He said he’s developed 150 train forecasts and they’ve been
accurate within 20 percent.

"We’d be the first to
say, ‘No, guys, don’t waste your time on this,’ " he said, as he did to
officials after studying a Kansas City-to-Denver corridor. "But this is a very
buildable corridor. I’m surprised nobody’s done anything about it in the past."

Dwight Farmer, planning
organization executive director, said the board would conduct a peer review of
Metcalf’s work "with a healthy skeptical eye."

"There’s a lot of
questions about the numbers, the assumptions, the policies," he said.

Several planning
organization board members said they don’t want their skepticism of Metcalf’s
findings to be interpreted as opposition to high-speed rail.

"It’s important we
support this," said Portsmouth Councilwoman Elizabeth Psimas. "High-speed rail
has garnered more support than any other transportation project in the region."

Hampton Roads Transit
President and CEO Philip Shucet urged the group not to let the long-term
prospect of high-speed rail overshadow the more attainable conventional
passenger train that the state is working to bring to Norfolk within three
years. That train would be the first passenger service in South Hampton Roads
in more than three decades and would connect to Norfolk’s light-rail line at
Harbor Park.