Web posted
Monday, August 25, 2008
Amtrak extension getting traction with state officials
By FOSS FARRAR
Traveler Staff Writer
reporter@arkcity.net
NEWTON -- Four dollar gasoline prices are spurring on a nationwide phenomenon of increased passenger rail service, and Kansas should join in, speakers at an Amtrak expansion planning meeting said Saturday.
The state already has taken the first steps toward reestablishing north-south service between Kansas City and Oklahoma City, to join up with existing service in Oklahoma.
An Amtrak study on the Kansas link in a 606-mile passenger rail corridor between Kansas City and Fort Worth is set to begin next month, speakers said. The study should take six to nine months to complete and be finished sometime between April and June.
About 25 people attended Saturday's meeting including a representative from the Kansas Department of Transportation and city and state officials from Newton, Mulvane, Wichita Old Town and Bel Aire.
Leading the discussion were leaders of the Northern Flyer Alliance, a passenger rail advocacy group. The alliance is an outgrowth of a similar organization in Oklahoma that supports the existing Heartland Flyer Amtrak service between Oklahoma City and Fort Worth.
Sen. Greta Goodwin, D-Winfield, a supporter of the Amtrak expansion, spoke at the meeting.
"I think this would be a great help to our state," Goodwin said. "The economy of Kansas has kind of gone south on us. But I'm an optimist and I think we're going to work out of this economic situation and we're going to be okay."
Goodwin, a member of the State Senate transportation committee, noted that Kansas is about to start work on a 10-year transportation plan, to replace the current plan that expires in 2009. But the state doesn't have the transportation dollars now that it did 10 years ago, she said.
The T-2000 transportation plan was a $13 billion package that included federal as well as state funding, she said.
"We can't go into a bankruptcy state to do as big a plan as the last one," Goodwin said. "But we can go ahead, incrementally."
Goodwin said at Saturday's meeting that she had been appointed recently to a statewide transportation committee that will do preliminary work for the next 10-year state plan. That committee has its first meeting Wednesday in Topeka.
If the State Legislature approves an Amtrak expansion plan it could have plenty of help from the federal government, speakers said.
The Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2007 provides up to 80 percent funding of development of new passenger rail routes, said Mark Corriston, Northern Flyer Alliance director for Kansas City.
"It provides grants for states to create compacts for new routes," Corriston said. "We have to be ready as a state to apply for and seek it."
Another bill signed by President Bush in December 2007 makes key reforms to transition Amtrak into a purely operating company, creating a federal-state partnership to support passenger rail and introduce market-based competition to the system. H.R. 2764 Omnibus Appropriations Act funds this act.
Corriston said initial costs for the proposed new route in Kansas would include $10 million for a train set and roughly $2 million for track improvements. Annual operating cost is estimated at about $8 million, based on the operating cost of a similar train route in Missouri, he said.
Ron Kauffman, of KDOT, said Saturday's meeting was "kind of a reality check."
"In spite of all the support for passenger rail we have in Kansas, it still has many challenges," Kauffman said referring to funding and other issues including proposed train stop cities getting their depots ready for Amtrak.
Northern Flyer Alliance speaker Matt Zimmerman said that the planned hub stops between Kansas City and Oklahoma City include Lawrence, Topeka, Emporia, Newton, Wichita (Old Town) and Arkansas City.
Now that Mulvane has been determined to be the site for a new casino, that city also will be considered to be a stop on the proposed route, Zimmerman said.
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