Harrisonburg senator criticizes VDOT for wasteful spending on train service

A Virginia legislator is railing against the state for spending money on passenger train service in Lynchburg and Richmond while slicing other transportation funding.

Sen. Mark Obenshain, R-Harrisonburg, has started an online forum to point out wasteful spending by the Virginia Department of Transportation. Although VDOT is not paying for the new rail transportation, Obenshain has called the service a “pet project” that reveals misplaced priorities in the state’s transportation funding.

A Lynchburg-area lawmaker and a business leader countered that the new service, which includes another train between Lynchburg and Washington, is necessary to link multiple cities in the state to rail service for less than the cost of building a road.

They said it is the first piece of a statewide rail system that would be vital to the economy of the regions it serves, helping people and companies call Central and Southwest Virginia home.

In February the Commonwealth Transportation Board approved a $25.2 million pilot project to pay Amtrak to add new daily train service from Lynchburg and Richmond to Washington, D.C., for three years. This is the state’s first foray into paying for intercity train service.

Obenshain criticized the spending on a discussion board on his “Help Expose VDOT Waste” group on Facebook, a social networking Web site. “At a time when VDOT says it can’t afford to plow, repair or maintain roads, this is an outrage,” Obenshain wrote.

He suggested that the state could instead spend money on rest areas — VDOT has proposed closing 25 of them to save $12 million per year.

“When will VDOT and the Commonwealth Transportation Board learn that the safety of our citizens comes first — that new public transportation pilot programs are not appropriate when you’re closing rest areas, eviscerating road maintenance standards, and altogether eliminating snow and ice removal on most rural roads?” he wrote.

Obenshain repeated his distaste for the project in an interview published by a WHSV, a television station in Harrisonburg.

He did not return phone calls or e-mails asking further questions on his comments.

Del. Shannon Valentine, D-Lynchburg, said Obenshain’s criticism takes the project out of its real context. She said Virginia’s economic challenges should move the state to try out “transportation solutions outside our normal perspective.”

“It gives Virginians an option of knowing there are other solutions to our transportation troubles,” she said. “Many people don’t realize what the cost of roads is, and that we are never going to build enough highways to solve all of our transportation and economic needs.”

Valentine said that a one-mile stretch of road costs $20 million to design and build.

For about the same price, the state will get trains running from Lynchburg and Richmond to Washington, D.C., every day for three years, she said. The trains would serve other cities along the way.

Valentine said the region needs to tie in to a passenger rail system for economic reasons.

“There’s a whole new highway of rail being developed in this country, and we need to be in a position to contribute to the 21st- century economy,” she said. “We need to make sure that we’re connected to this vital economic system that’s being developed.”

She said Obenshain has valid concerns about the closure of rest areas, but that she has not studied that problem. She doesn’t think the train service precludes keeping the rest areas open.

The new train from Lynchburg, slated to start running in October, would supplement the current train route that has more inconvenient hours and few available seats.

Business leaders in Southwest Virginia have lobbied for the train for years to provide better access to the nation’s capital and create more opportunities for people to live in the region, and for businesses to locate there.

Rex Hammond, president of the Lynchburg Regional Chamber of Commerce and a vocal supporter of passenger rail, said that Obenshain is entitled to his opinion. “He has many worthy projects in his district. I hope he looks at the needs of other parts of the state and realizes that our needs are as great,” he said.

“It’s essential that we diversify our transportation portfolio in Virginia,” Hammond said. “Passenger rail is an excellent way to move forward. It’s not the solution to Virginia’s transportation problem, but it’s part of the solution.”