The new rail corridor plan should include greenway, as has already been done for the Petersburg to Raleigh segment. We’ve submitted our comments. Please submit your comments before next Tuesday, November 7.
The Virginia Bicycling Federation supports this project to increase travel options including high speed rail from Richmond to Washington, DC. However, we believe that this project is not fully vetted by not looking at all of the multimodal options for the corridor and the benefits could be vastly increased with the inclusion of a parallel greenway similar to that recommended on the Southern High Speed Rail segment from Petersburg to Raleigh, NC.
Billions of taxpayer dollars will be spent on this project. Once completed, this corridor upgrade will likely be unchanged for the next hundred years or more. We have only one chance to get this project right for many generations to come and it is imperative that our limited tax-dollars be used most effectively.
Providing a greenway along this corridor increases access to train stations, gives citizens more local transportation choices, decreases car parking demands at the train stations, reduces air pollution and provides health, recreation and tourism benefits for all of the communities it passes through.
In addition, providing a separated greenway provides a safe, off-road travel option for bikes and pedestrians and could save the lives of countless citizens over decades to come. More importantly, more citizens would likely use the greenway on a daily basis – particularly in Northern Virginia – than would use the high-speed trains, thus reducing transportation demands on local roads and highways.
Please add a parallel greenway to this project.
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