GREENSBORO, N.C. — Picture trips into and out of Greensboro on sleek, new-age trains such as Amtrak’s Acela Express. Lean and serpentine, the Acela can reach a top speed of 110 miles per hour, according to an editorial in the Greensboro News & Record.
Picture an electrical outlet at your seat, adjustable lighting and a tray table large enough for your laptop computer. Picture a business meeting on the train while the world whisks by.
And picture yourself boarding such a train at a thriving transportation center at the renovated Southern Railway terminal in downtown Greensboro.
It may sound like science fiction, but it isn’t. Greensboro, High Point and Winston-Salem all were designated Thursday as stops on the Southeast High Speed Rail Corridor. The corridor lays a template for a network of fast, efficient rail lines from Washington to Charlotte.
What’s more, the Acela is hardly some Hollywood special effect; it exists today, and it already provides a new level of passenger service on some Northeast Amtrak routes.
The reinvented Southern Railway station will exist soon. Work is proceeding on the building in downtown Greensboro, which construction crews are transforming into a transportation center for bus, taxi and train service. Similar renovations have begun in the historic downtown depot in High Point.
The benefits of all of this progress are numerous.
As highways become increasingly clogged with traffic, high-speed rail would offer a viable, competitive alternative that does not now exist. For instance, the projected rail trip from Charlotte to Washington would take six hours as opposed to the current 10.
Further, rail travel is 45 percent more energy-efficient than commercial airline travel. High Point, Greensboro and Winston-Salem residents are driving, on average, between 31 and 36 miles each day. If rail travel effectively attracts more of us to let someone else do the driving, fewer cars would clog the highways; the area’s nationally ranked smog levels would decrease.
There are economic rewards as well. High-speed rail could produce as many as 31,000 new one-year jobs and 800 permanent jobs. It also could generate $700 million in new tax revenues and 19,000 additional jobs from related economic development, say proponents.
No, this is not an inexpensive undertaking. It will cost $2.6 billion in federal funds to build the route, which calls for land purchases, additional track and upgrades to existing track.
But it is a bargain when compared to the spiraling costs of highway construction. One mile of rail construction costs one-third the cost of a mile of highway construction.
Like most opportunities for progress in the Triad, this one is not a panacea. It alone won’t fix an ailing economy or eliminate the region’s dirty air.
Yet, in concert with better land use and upgraded mass transit — including plans for inter-city bus and light-rail routes in the Triad — it will take this region much closer to where it needs to be.