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March 24, 2007 - Roanoke Times

Intermodal site map ambiguous

By Tim Thornton

DIXIE CAVERNS -- Mapping errors and ambiguity have obscured apparent advantages of a potential Roanoke County site for Norfolk Southern's controversial intermodal rail yard.

What Norfolk Southern maps call the Horn site, on West River Road, is shown on the wrong rail line for an intermodal yard serving the Heartland Corridor, which the new yard is to do. And it is shown as about half the size of the actual property. If drawn to the property lines, it would take in more land and border a tract that lies along the Heartland Corridor.

"There seems to be a problem" with the map of the Horn site, Norfolk Southern spokesman Robin Chapman said Tuesday.

If the Horn site were combined with the neighboring Ashworth property -- which at times has seemed to be included in Norfolk Southern's plans -- it would seem to offer a new site with advantages over the Elliston location that the railroad has named as its preference.

The Elliston site has generated a widespread outcry among Montgomery County residents, and county supervisors have voted to oppose the project.

An expanded Horn site that took in the Ashworth property would cover 80 acres, 15 acres more than Norfolk Southern's criteria call for. It would sit one mile from Interstate 81's Exit 132 at Dixie Caverns, about two miles closer than the Elliston site. Roanoke County's long-range plans call for industrial development on and around the Horn and Ashworth properties. The Western Virginia Regional Jail is being built on adjacent land. Montgomery County's comprehensive plan does not envision the railroad's first choice in Elliston becoming industrial land.

Also, the Horn-Ashworth site would be downstream from where the Western Virginia Water Authority draws drinking water from the Roanoke River to supply most of the Roanoke Valley. The Elliston site is upstream, raising concerns about runoff. There would be five landowners to deal with instead of the 10 landowners at the Elliston site.

But a combined Horn-Ashworth site is not on the railroad's list of potential sites.

"I don't think it would be appropriate to answer any questions about why we didn't or did consider a particular site," Chapman said last week.
Ruth Ashworth began asking questions in December. The company's description of what it called the Singer site sounded like her place. She e-mailed the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation to ask about it.

Jennifer Pickett, the rail department's public information officer, replied: "Norfolk Southern has indicated that this address would be within the footprint of both the Singer and Garman Road Virginian sites."

That didn't make sense to Ashworth. The Garman Road site is miles from her place.

Ashworth wrote back to Pickett, saying she wanted a better answer. Pickett gave her Chapman's phone number. Ashworth never called him.
"I'm just trying to put it out of my head," Ashworth said. No one has contacted her about making her land part of the intermodal site, and she's hoping no one will.

"The Singer site does go on the Ashworth property," Chapman said Wednesday. "It does not encompass the whole site."

Chapman couldn't say how much it encompasses. "The exact boundary of the Singer site is fluid," he said.

The narrow, sickle-shaped Singer site, at least as it's drawn on the railroad's map, clearly does not meet Norfolk Southern's criteria for a rail yard. It is far too small, for one thing.

"Why on earth would they be looking at sites that don't meet their criteria?" Ashworth said. And why, she wondered, aren't they looking at her place?

Chapman said such questions are academic because the facility probably won't be built on the Horn, Singer or Ashworth properties. In Norfolk Southern's view, they are all "pretty far down the list in order of suitability," he wrote Wednesday in an e-mail.

Kevin Page, the state's director of rail, said he wouldn't comment on the standing of any site on the list because the ranking isn't finished.
The West River Road properties have "serious issues regarding topography," Chapman wrote. However, the railroad's description of the land posted on the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation Web site is the same as the Elliston site's: "relatively flat."

Chapman also said there are problems with the length of railroad frontage and the difference in elevation between the land and the existing track at the Horn and nearby sites.

Elevation differences also exist at Elliston.

Mickey Apgar, an Elliston resident who opposes the railroad's plan for his community, said he's not sure how much better it would be to have the site on West River Road, but the idea has come up.

"I've had several people tell me that's where it ought to go," Apgar said.
Not that he expects the railroad to give the idea much consideration.
"I just feel like they're dead set on putting it up here," Apgar said.

"What's the use of telling them that's where it ought to go when they're dead set on putting it here?"

Sidebar: WHAT’S NEXT?
The Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation is giving presentations about the site selection process.
• MONTGOMERY COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS: 7:15 p.m. Monday, Montgomery County Government Center, 755 Roanoke St., Christiansburg
• ROANOKE COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS: 7 p.m. Tuesday; Roanoke County Administration Center, 5204 Bernard Drive, Roanoke
Fuzzy numbers
• Montgomery County Supervisor Gary Creed said in July that Norfolk Southern officials told him the project would probably never handle more than 50 trucks in a day. That’s 13,000 per year — 2,000 fewer than the railroad’s agreement with the state requires by 2015. More recently, VDOT estimated the facility would handle 87 trucks per day — 22,620 per year. |||

March 24, 2007 - Roanoke Times

State using Norfolk Southern data to review sites for new rail yard

By Tim Thornton (381-1669)

The state is conducting what Director of Rail Kevin Page calls an independent review of potential sites for an intermodal rail yard.

The Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation is using criteria Norfolk Southern helped create, maps Norfolk Southern drew and descriptions Norfolk Southern wrote to review a list of potential sites Norfolk Southern provided.

And Norfolk Southern is participating in the review, Page said.

Norfolk Southern has already reviewed the list and rejected nine of the 10 sites, announcing last year that Elliston was its preferred location and continuing a process to try to purchase land there.
"I think it's fair to say we looked at all 10 of those sites," Norfolk Southern spokesman Robin Chapman said last week.

And 67 acres in the eastern Montgomery County community of Elliston remains the railroad's first choice.

"That's not to say none of the other sites met our criteria," Chapman said. "Elliston met them best."

Norfolk Southern plans to build what state documents call "the Roanoke regional intermodal facility" as part of the Heartland Corridor project, which is meant to speed the movement of goods between Hampton Roads ports and the Midwest. The Roanoke-area intermodal rail yard is one of three planned along the corridor to transfer cargo containers among rail cars and tractor-trailers. The state has committed to pay more than $22.3 million for the intermodal operation and related tunnel projects.

The state's investment in the Heartland Corridor will be much greater than that. About $46 million from the state's rail enhancement fund will go toward the intermodal yard and five other projects along the corridor. But money will come from other state funds, too.

Gov. Tim Kaine's budget amendment calls for one of those projects, a plan to move rail lines between Suffolk and Norfolk into highway medians, to get up to $40 million in state money.

Last June, Norfolk Southern began trying to buy land in Elliston. That sparked widespread resistance, with county supervisors voting twice to oppose the project and a citizens group pushing for a new law to restrict the power of corporations.

Months after the railroad acquired options on some Elliston property, the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation invited governments along the corridor to nominate alternative sites. None did.

Roanoke County Administrator Elmer Hodge responded with a letter saying county officials understood the railroad had already rejected every potential site in the county.

Page said Thursday he didn't know about that.

Four of the 10 sites Norfolk Southern came up with were in Roanoke County.

Page described the review process, saying he's trying to be as open as possible, but there are some things he can't talk about.
"It is a confidential negotiation process," he said.

The first step is to look for fatal flaws based on the criteria. The attorney general checks for legal problems. The Virginia Department of Transportation examines road needs and effects. The Virginia Port Authority and the Virginia Economic Development Partnership look for developable land in the general area of each site.

Page said he couldn't define "general area."

After all that, Norfolk Southern looks at the remaining sites to consider how practical it would be to operate a rail yard there.

State rail and public transportation director Matthew Tucker is scheduled to announce in late April where the state is willing to spend its money.

"We're being as flexible as possible in evaluating these sites," Page said.

Opponents of the Elliston site are convinced the list is a sham. Each site, except Elliston, has at least one fatal flaw. Only one site besides Elliston, a Roanoke County location near Salem called the Garman Road Virginian site, meets the railroad's size requirements. That one is in a flood plain and on the wrong rail line.

There are questions about the size requirements. The railroad says it needs at least 65 acres, but 20 acres of the Elliston site would be devoted to rerouting Cove Hollow Road. The facility itself would cover 47 acres.

"I could go out and pick out all kinds of places that won't work if that's what I wanted to do," said Elliston resident Mickey Apgar, a member of Citizens for the Preservation of Our Countryside, a group opposed to Norfolk Southern's plan.

Chapman said the railroad made a list of every site that might have some value so the state would have a range of places to consider.
Clearly, he said, some are better than others. |||

March 8, 2007 - Charlottesville Daily Progress

Just shifting the problem

Shift traffic from trucks to trains, from roads to rails. Reduce all that congestion on our highways.

That’s a solution favored by many people, and a preferred solution for congested Interstate 81, among others.

But a reality check is in order. As this newspaper has pointed out in the past, tracks are crowded, too.

Shifting more freight onto trains may be an efficient solution compared to trucking, but it has its own problems.

Richmond and Washington are going to have to invest in infrastructure one way or the other. If they put more traffic onto rails, then they are also at some point going to have to improve existing rails or add more track - probably both.

Meanwhile, governments cannot es-cape the need to improve roads. Moving traffic onto trains will alleviate highway congestion, not eliminate it.

Although proposals getting the most attention these days call for transferring freight from trucks to trains, passenger service must not be forgotten. Moving motorists - not just freight - from roads to rails should be part of a comprehensive approach.

And there’s where the friction arises.

Amtrak, the national rail passenger service, typically must use rails owned by private freight companies. Its needs are understandably second priority.

“It is an intersection of a subsidized structure with a truly private-sector structure,” said Alex Kummant, Amtrak’s new president, “so how do you coexist?”

Mr. Kummant should know. He used to be an executive for a freight carrier.

Train service for passengers underwent a major transformation in 1970 when Congress agreed that rail companies - which previously had been required to provide passenger service as necessary to the public interest - were allowed to drop the unprofitable service.

Instead, a nationalized passenger program would be developed - Amtrak - and the freight companies would be required only to give passenger trains priority over their tracks. Amtrak pays a modest rental fee.

The deal hasn’t worked out too well. The hybrid nature of Amtrak’s structure - part government, part private enterprise - has been tough to implement.

And, critics say, the freight companies haven’t lived up to their agreement to give passenger trains priority. Instead, passenger trains frequently get stuck behind freight trains or are sidelined to give priority to freight.

The result: late-arrival statistics for Amtrak that almost make the airlines look good.

And the statistics tell the story. On tracks where Amtrak must share space with freight, the passenger service’s on-time performance is 61 percent, down from 74 percent in 2003. But add into the mix the routes where Amtrak owns the rails, and the on-time performance of those few routes is so high that it boosts the overall rate to 68 percent.

Clearly, Amtrak does much better where it does not have to compete with freight traffic - even though, according to its deal with freight lines, it should not have to compete.

By all means, let’s shift more freight traffic from highways to railways to relieve congestion on our roads.

But let’s understand, too, that this is no free ride.

We will have to upgrade rail, too. |||

February 11, 2007 - Roanoke Times

Critics of rail yard prepare for battle
In Elliston, a group is ready to take on Norfolk Southern and try to restrict corporate rights.

By Tim Thornton (381-1669)

Mickey Apgar doesn't like to speak to crowds, but the Elliston resident hopes he'll be talking in front of a big group at Monday evening's Montgomery County Board of Supervisors meeting.

Apgar, a lifelong county resident who worked at his family's store on U.S. 460, has been appointed spokesman for Citizens for Preservation of Our Countryside, a group opposed to Norfolk Southern's plan to build an intermodal rail freight yard in Eastern Montgomery County.

The new group wants the supervisors to pass an ordinance that would be highly unusual for a local government in Virginia -- or elsewhere. It could join the county to what some call a national movement to restrict corporate power. In this case, the ordinance would strip corporations of certain rights within the borders of Montgomery County -- including the right to force people to sell their land. Norfolk Southern has threatened to use its state-granted power of eminent domain to acquire land for an intermodal yard.

"I'll be there just to voice the concerns to the board about the intermodal thing and to try to convince them to look at this proposal and pass it," Apgar said.

The ordinance was created by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, a Pennsylvania-based group that's waging a nationwide battle against the established legal convention that corporations have the same rights as people. In Virginia, legal defense fund executive director Thomas Linzey argues, the state has gone even further, giving some corporations the right of eminent domain, a power most Virginians don't have.

That, Linzey says, violates the state constitution, which prohibits giving any person special privileges. University of Virginia law professor A.E. Dick Howard, who helped write the state's constitution and is a nationally recognized constitutional scholar, called Linzey's argument an interesting question. But Howard said last week that he didn't see how an ordinance could address that.

"The ordinance seems to be beside the point, somehow," Howard said.
The state can't simply turn its power and authority over to a private concern, Howard said. But it can delegate authority as long as the state maintains some control or oversight.

"That would be a legitimate question of whether the state has abdicated its power" by allowing Norfolk Southern to use eminent domain, Howard said. "I think you'd have to go to court to challenge that."

Linzey's approach is almost the opposite. He wants localities to pass ordinances, then wait for corporations to challenge them. Though he builds his arguments on the Declaration of Independence and state and federal constitutions, Linzey said he doesn't really expect to win many legal battles. In Pennsylvania, where dozens of localities have adopted ordinances similar to the one the citizens group is advocating for Montgomery County, a federal judge's opinion pointed out Linzey's disregard for "established constitutional law" and called it a close question as to whether Linzey should be sanctioned for some of the arguments he brought to the court.

Linzey's goal is to win in the court of public opinion -- through a change of philosophical venue. He wants to move arguments about corporations and communities from legalities to bedrock principles.

Should a corporation headquartered in Norfolk decide what Elliston is like, he asked at one of the citizens group's first meetings last month. Or should people who live in Elliston decide?

Gov. Tim Kaine and Norfolk Southern officials announced in May that an intermodal freight terminal would be built near Roanoke. Virginia has committed to pay more than $22 million toward the facility's construction and toward the railroad's Heartland Corridor that it would serve. Norfolk Southern is expected to contribute $9.6 million.

It became clear in June that the company had settled on a site in Elliston.
After Montgomery County residents and officials opposed the plan, the state asked the railroad and local governments from Montgomery County to Botetourt County to propose alternative sites.

Norfolk Southern made 10 suggestions. No governments submitted any proposals.

The Heartland Corridor is meant to cut travel time for trains carrying double-stacked containers between Hampton Roads ports and the Midwest.

Although state officials have said the corridor could take 200,000 trucks off the road, Norfolk Southern has said the project won't reduce truck traffic on Interstate 81. It could even add a few trucks to the highway's load.
Montgomery County's supervisors have voted twice to oppose the Elliston site. Botetourt County supervisors oppose the two potential sites in their county. But the railroad can take land through eminent domain, and federal law exempts the company from local land-use ordinances.
That is why many eastern Montgomery County residents think Linzey's ordinance is worth a try.

Apgar said he's been trying to build support among his neighbors.
"I tell them this thing's not a silver bullet," he said. "It might not do any good. It might help."

Gary Creed, who represents Elliston on the board of supervisors, said he doesn't know because he hasn't seen the ordinance. Linzey, Shireen Parson, who is the legal defense fund's Virginia organizer, and members of the citizens group have refused to show the ordinance to anyone before Monday's meeting. Rich Rittenhouse, a leader of the local group, said last week that he hadn't seen the ordinance yet. He's seen a summary and said he trusts Linzey to get the legalese right.

A similar ordinance presented to Campbell County supervisors last month needed a little work.

J.D. Puckett, chairman of the Campbell County board, said Friday it didn't look like any ordinance he was accustomed to reading.

Campbell County Administrator David Laurrell agreed. "It is much more of a statement of rights than an ordinance," he said.

But the county's lawyer and the attorney for Citizens Against Toxic Sludge, a Campbell group, are redrafting it. Laurrell said the board plans to hold a public hearing on the ordinance in April.

A similar ordinance is under review by the Bedford County planning commission.

The Campbell and Bedford ordinances are aimed at stopping the spreading of sewage sludge, but they share a core element with the Montgomery County proposal: They all seek to limit corporate rights.

Apgar said he understands the ordinance he'll speak for Monday seems a long shot. But he thinks it's a shot worth taking. Everyone rooted in Elliston is against the rail yard being built there, he said. And they appreciate the supervisors' support.

"We're thanking them for backing us," Apgar said. "And we're backing them, too." |||

January 7, 2007 – The Roanoke Times

Big rigs dig 81
Based on a survey of truck drivers, the interstate is the fifth-best U.S. road.

By Ray Reed (981-3351)

Most of the complaints about Interstate 81 apparently come from drivers in cars. People who drive trucks seem to like Virginia's stretch of I-81.
And those truck drivers actually give a passing grade to their fellow motorists in cars.

Overdrive magazine, a publication for independent truck drivers, rated I-81 the fifth-best road in the United States, based on a survey of drivers' opinions in its December issue.

Virginia highways overall got fifth place in the survey, too.
"Apparently, they know how to build" roads, Tennessee truck driver Joseph Marshall said during a recent break at the Travel Centers of America truck stop beside Exit 150 at Troutville.

Virginia's car drivers avoided a mention in the magazine survey; they weren't listed among Overdrive's ratings of the best five states or worst five for four-wheelers, the trucking-industry term for other drivers.

Although motorists' complaints about trucks on I-81 turn up frequently among letters to the editor of newspapers, many people appear to have developed some share-the-road skills to avoid conflicts.

"They seem to know that trucks have to do things like hold back going downhill, and they're pretty courteous about it," Marshall said.

Perhaps to the consternation of Virginia motorists, drivers of the big rigs compare I-81 favorably with Tennessee, Florida and Texas -- all of which got high ratings for their roads.

People who think I-81 has problems haven't seen how bad roads can be in other states, said Linnie Gregory of Fleetmaster Express in Roanoke.
Big-rig drivers like I-81 because "these guys have driven so many other roads, and they are far worse than around here," Gregory said.

Louisiana, where swampy land undermines pavement, has the worst roads, and its Interstate 10 was the worst, truckers said in the Overdrive survey. Rough roads mean wear and tear for trucks, drivers said.

Motorists, perhaps taking smooth roads for granted, may tend to focus on other aspects of highway driving.

Ben Richardson of Roanoke said he'd like to see no-passing zones that would restrict trucks to the right lane in certain areas.

"You pull out to pass one, he sees a hill ahead and he doesn't want to give up his momentum, so he will race you to the top of the hill and when he starts down he's gone, 80 mph," Richardson said.

Bobby Crawford of Boones Mill, who complained in a letter to the editor of The Roanoke Times in June about the hazards from broken chunks of truck tires, said I-81 between Roanoke and Christiansburg is the worst piece of interstate highway he sees because it is congested.

"Maybe truckers rate I-81 in the top five, but I've been across the country on Interstate 70 and Interstate 40, and I rate 81 in the bottom five," Crawford said.

Truckers notice other characteristics of highways too, including both congestion and speed.

In some states, "the roads are not maintained or serviced, they are crowded, and there is no speed limit," Gregory said.

"Everybody around here does 5 or 10 mph over the limit, but in Jacksonville, Fla., everybody is 20 over the limit," Gregory said.
"The drivers are worse and nobody has respect for law and order," he added.

Marshall and Terry Campbell, a driver from Wildwood, Fla., who also was taking a break at the Troutville truck stop, backed up Gregory's comments about Florida -- which rated No. 1 for its roads' overall quality.
But the Sunshine State's four-wheelers were at the other end of the
spectrum, No. 5 among the nation's worst, according to the Overdrive survey.

"The worst four-wheelers are in Florida," Marshall said. "There are so many young four-wheelers, and so many old ones who will brake or stop for the least little thing."

Virginia is different, in Marshall's opinion. "Virginia people are pretty smart about knowing when a truck needs to be in the left lane to deal with hills," Marshall said.

Campbell agreed, saying, "There are not too many cars ducking in and out" between trucks that follow close together on I-81. "You get more of that on flat roads like Interstate 95 than you do on I-81."

(On the Net: www.etrucker.com/apps/news/article.asp?id=56766) |||

NEXT MEETING:
June 7th at 10am
Salem, VA