Big boost for Atlanta-Chattanooga rail

By Ariel Hart ahart@ajc.com

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A proposed high-speed rail line northwest from Atlanta has just won a place in the running in a national network, a Tennessee congressman said Friday.

The line, from Atlanta to Chattanooga and possibly beyond, was not included in the Obama administration’s map of proposed routes issued this spring. But U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood said the line will receive a $14.2 million study grant, and that puts the route on the map, said Rep. Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.). Wamp said LaHood gave him the news Thursday, and Wamp announced it Friday.

It is not part of the Obama administration’s large stimulus fund for high-speed rail, but rather part of $90 million that was set aside a couple of years ago for such projects.

Although the line was not on the original map, local officials like Georgia Transportation Board member David Doss of Rome and Sen. Jeff Mullis (R-Chickamauga) were big boosters and continued to push for the line. Local governments along the route will have to provide matching funds to the federal money, and they have agreed to do so, Wamp said.

This study will decide such issues as the best route the line could take, and where stations could go along the way. The next step would be design.

The big remaining question is funds for construction. Such projects are enormously expensive to build. Wamp said though he opposed the stimulus, this type of project is the kind of thing it should fund, since it creates jobs and provides infrastructure. He pointed to President Eisenhower’s creation of the highway interstate system as a similar initiative.

“It paid huge dividends,” Wamp said.