Mr. Killian, do you not understand how grants work? This grant is directed to only high speed rail spending. What the state is getting, assuming you are correct, is a heavily discounted set of rail upgrades. You attempt to make the claim that this money could be better used for alternative projects? Where would the money come from for these alternative projects? It wouldn’t come from this grant, it would have to come from the state budget. Stop passing up opportunities to make the state’s infrastructure better.

Additionally, I don’t believe, nor should anyone else, believe the line about threatening the nations security, nor extending the federal budget.

If you were truely concerned about these things, you should have threaten to remove public support for the military bases that NC suppports, during or before the Iraq conflict. [Wars cause great increases in the national debt].

Lastly, you attempt to make the claim that it is a lot of money. Well, rail, with the state of the existing lines from Raleigh to Charlotte, are very complicated. There are traffic crossings that cause a lot of incidients at the current speeds (mebane), and there are massive bridges that have to be adjusted. (parallel to 85, and below 85 [near kannapolis]). Private or public jobs, a job is a job. Private industry is interested in outsourcing because it is cheaper, and they do not have to consider cost of living in other countries.

You are only screwing over the people that elected you, and the citizens that pay your salary.

Additionally, I have yet to receive a response from you.
http://theexceptioncatcher.com/blog/?p=70

The $545 million will:
1) Double freight capacity and increase freight speed
2) Improve safety by removing road crossings
3) Provide the foundation for a 32 minute reduction in travel time
4) Enable the construction of a new multi-modal station in downtown Charlotte
5) Enable the construction of the North Commuter rail line to Davidson (by removing a rail bottleneck in downtown Charlotte)
6) Provide new equipment for additional passenger trains
7) Upgrade stations along the line.

I would add that the state is currently spending $2 billion on a new Yadkin river bridge for I-85. The net travel time improvement for that project: ZERO minutes. Is that project also unacceptable?

First, improving the NCRR is one of the few truly sustainable projects the NCDOT is perusing. The NCRR (owned by the state) currently operates at a profit and the passenger service running on its lines is subsidies far less than the subsidies currently paid to drivers (gas taxes and other user fees only cover 51% of capital and maintenance costs of roads http://subsidyscope.org/transportation/highways/funding/). The NCRR corridor is projected to operate profitable passenger rail service once speed upgrades are complete. There is currently no plan to make roads less cash-flow negative.

Second, Rep Killian’s concerns about freight capacity on the line are also misleading. The federal funding that the NCDOT has obtained will double the capacity of the Charlotte-Greensboro route (the only portion of CLT-RGH that has heavy freight traffic), passenger capacity will only absorb a tiny fraction of that new capacity. The NCRR will be left with far more freight capacity than it can currently offer to Norfolk Southern (the current freight operator on the line).

Finally his desire to conserve the 200 ft right of way owned by the NCRR is also unnecessary. This right of way currently accommodates a single track (with some passing sidings), 200ft will ultimately accommodate four separate tracks — doubling freight capacity from what is currently proposed. A four track ROW will accommodate more rail traffic than is seen on the busiest rail routes in the world — the currently funded project will not reduce that potential in any way.

In short, while I appreciate rep Killian’s fiscal concerns I feel that his sponsorship of this bill is misplaced. Far more money will be saved by the state DOT by revisiting poorly planed road projects such as the Monroe bypass toll road (which will still cost the state more in annual maintenance than this rail project despite a private company collecting tolls). North Carolina passengers and freight will greatly benefit from this project. It would be foolish to give the funds to another state.