New River Valley Passenger Rail Station Feasibility Study Public Meeting - February 28, 2022   2/28/2022

Thank you, everyone, for your patience.

I'm going to hand it over to Kate.

Wayne?

So with that, Kate, I'll turn it back to you.

Amanda?

And then from there, we will get into the live Q&A.

A Q&A will be like.

Michael had asked, would Norfolk Southern still use this rail section from Christiansburg to Salem for freight operations?

I should note that with all of our rail deals, as I mentioned very early on, the freight rails will still be the operators for freight rail on these segments and they will be the operator as deemed by the Surface Transportation Board.

May I suggest, given these passenger operations to private companies such as Brightline in Florida, companies like these can receive more funding from private funders and can therefore increase levels of quality.

Roanoke and New River Valley, and we'll be working with the public, such as Brightline or others, if you're interested, we'll put out a public procurement to see who will be running that daily commute, if you will, daily round trip between Roanoke and New River Valley.

Is Corning amenable to this project and sharing the tracks?

from north of the Corning tracks to the station so there will be minimal impacts to Corning and they understood that in a call with us.

Freight trains can be diverted onto a separate set of rails within the right of way, which are placed further from the platform.

But we're looking at a side platform track, and it does reduce costs when you have a side platform versus a island platform.

If Norfolk Southern continues to use the line, will they pay the state for the usage?

of Virginia Line Tracks.

The next question asks, any financial numbers for the passenger station itself?

So we do have the, as part of our work, we did examine the cost.

And Amanda, did you say financial numbers or passenger numbers?

That could have been a typo on the individual's end, but it does say any financial numbers for the passenger station, perhaps maybe construction cost.

Are there differing numbers for each of the options?

Yeah, it really ranges from about the mid 50 million to 170 plus.

And the mall options were in the $50-$60 million range, if I recall.

And that individual did just clarify, they were curious what the station itself would cost, not the, I guess, the whole package with infrastructure and everything.

We took the approach of the station site and the requirements that was, we did not carve out the station building part of that.

The two mall sites are near existing routes, but the other two are not and are outside current transit service areas.

We did not consider cost of transit service, only the station siting and the infrastructure work that would be required to support the transit services that would come to and from the station.

Susan was asking who pays for the pedestrian bridge?

And there is more development to come, we've been told.

And the last pedestrian bridge question is asking, what type of noise will the train produce when entering and leaving the station?

So we will be doing a much more intensive technical study regarding that noise and vibration and other externalities and impacts that these stations at the mall would create.

Will they have the opportunity for the public to ask questions?

Could you repeat the first part of that question?

Will the NEPA study and results be made public and be transparent with the opportunity for the public to ask questions?

Before that, we will have several meetings and be very involved with stakeholders in the community regarding how the progress of that design and complementary impact analysis and mitigations are developing.

Have you conducted or do you plan to engage the youth in the community in this process?

We're happy to go meet with people virtually or in person as it allows.

Will it be open and usable continuously?

will use it in the permanent solution, but you'll also be able to get to the same place in a temporary location.

Does that mean that there will be a detour?

Do you have something to add?

I know those of us in the room have gone on the Huckleberry Trail many times and Kate actually went to the University in the area, knows it very well, we know how loved it is, been out there at different times of day and night, so that's a high priority for us to keep that open as much as possible and there'll be minimal disruption for those who use the trail.

So users in all instances would have notification prior notification regarding that outage or impact.

Do you have any concerns with the grading and topography for the turnout coming from the Virginia line toward the NRV mall alternatives?

Get to the mall sites if those are indeed the ones chosen.

um, you know, regarding the impact bubbles on the maps to be part of this conversation moving forward.

Absolutely, we plan a robust community outreach program as part of this now that we've narrowed down the feasible station locations and that that'll include a wider swath regarding the impacts as we move them forward through the NEPA work.

Okay, and the following question from a different individual was regards the, they live in the community where the footbridge connects to and they were just curious, has the HOA been made aware of this footbridge or will they plan to be made aware in future meetings moving forward?

And then once we were in NEPA, we can really narrow down the communities we're impacting, the people we're impacting, the businesses and the like to be able to do some direct outreach to places like the HOA and surrounding businesses and users of the trail and the like.

The first question is, has there been any consideration of adding a storage track at the station site to accommodate privately owned passenger rail cars?

I'm sorry, Amanda.

So providing a storage track.

At this point, we were again, just looking at the feasible station locations and how we could access the station itself.

And the other planning question is in regards to, is there any future study work on extending the line further to the southwest following the I-81 corridor to Radford and possibly Bristol and even Knoxville in the future?

So if it was further to extend to Abington, Bristol, so on and so forth, that would need the approval of Norfolk Southern, and we do not yet have that.

The first question asks, will there be a service area to prepare the train for the return trip?

Say that one more time, Amanda.

Will there be a service area to prepare the train for the return trip?

Okay, thank you, Keith.

And that is something that I believe should be available on their website.

I can never say this, I guess a Y or Y-E to turn around the train or will it be bi-directional with an engine on both sides?

So there's a lot of benefits coming with the new Amtrak steam and strains, one of which being push-pulls so that negates the need for a wide turnaround track.

But so the question comes down to is has VPRA considered any other passenger rail routes for this project?

Okay.

There will be a lot of rock breaking and digging to make this possible and how will this impact construction moving forward?

I couldn't tell you the details, and I'm also not an engineer, so you wouldn't want me to do that, but you would want Wayne Hyatt, who is on the team, to do that, and he has looked at this at a very high level and has identified that it is feasible to excavate here.

So the question is, as far as permanently, will the Huckleberry Trail go over the tracks when the station is complete?

But we'll have more details about that as part of the NEPA examination.

So that's a distinct possibility.

And the question is, does the locomotive typically sound the whistle when entering and leaving the station?

When I say grade crossings, highway crossings across the tracks, and we don't foresee any in the area from the Mall North.

So that could just be, you know, we'll obviously look into that and get clarification, as Michael said.

All right.

So if there's no other questions or comments, I will kick it back over to Kate and the team to close this out for this evening.

So that would be our plan to continue with that procedure.

And again, what general advantages did they show?

So, were there any other questions, Amanda, that you wanted to address tonight?

So everyone's saying thank you so much.

Take care everyone.

Thank you all.