By Ashley McLeod, Staff Writer
Sep 25, 2015, 14:01
PETERSBURG — With plans for a high-speed rail system shaping up, four locations in the Tri-Cities area have been identified as a possible location for the Tri-Cities Multimodal Station.
The rail, which will span from Richmond all the way to Raleigh, N.C., has been in planning for a few years. With the building of the high-speed rail, larger stations must be built in order to accommodate the number of travelers riding the new rail system.
At a meeting on Sept. 16, Ken Mobley, project manager with Michael Baker International, introduced each location and explained why each one was looked at, as well as the issues with each location.
“We looked up and down the rail corridor in the region and looked at 13 individual potential locations that a station could go. Where we are now, we have four primary stations that we’re looking at,” said Mobley.
The four possible sites announced at the meeting as possible locations for the station include two in Colonial Heights, one at Branders Bridge and one on the Boulevard, one in Petersburg at Collier Yard, and one at the existing Amtrak train station in Ettrick.
According to Mobley, the Branders Bridge station is the most unlikely to be considered a home for the new station. There are concerns about the amount of residential area around the station, and the area used to be a quarry, which is also home to a federally threatened species.
The Boulevard station would be located off of Boulevard near where the Rent-E-Quip is located. The stations would be built on a part of the Rent-E-Quip parking lot, and land for the station would have to be acquired from a private owner.
The Collier South station would be the largest and most expensive station to build. The site is near where the existing Norfolk line is located, so an access road would have to be built over the existing station. The land for this potential station is already owned by the City of Petersburg so no land acquisition would be necessary.
The existing Ettrick station is the last of the recommended areas for the new, improved station. Because the land is already owned by CSX and Amtrak, it would be the least expensive option for a new station. There is a lot of residential properties around this station, which would make it more difficult to bring what Mobley called a “transit-oriented development” around the station.
“We’re looking at also constructing a transit-oriented development, and that is the concept of sort of creating a village around the transit station,” said Mobley.
Mobley explained that the types of buildings in this sort of development include small medical centers, restaurants, health and beauty facilities and also office space. The idea is that when people get on and off the train, there will be several places to visit close to the station, which will create a positive fiscal impact on the locality.
“There are tradeoffs for each one of them, so there are reasons for someone to like or not like each one of them. That’s why we’re here,” said Mobley.
Public comments gathered at last week’s meeting will be considered in the formal decision-making process.
Online comments or comments by mail are being accepted through Sept. 30. More information can be found at craterpdc.org/transportation/mpo.htm.
