A proposal to expand the amount of freight chugging through the District is gaining steam, offering a promise of clearing tractor-trailers off the region’s congested highways and improving commuter train service.
It also would mean rebuilding some railroad bridges around the region, including the Virginia Avenue tunnel just south of the Capitol.
CSX is proposing an $842 million plan to raise roofs on bridges and lower some railroad tracks across the mid-Atlantic so that it could carry double-stacked cargo containers on its trains.
Locally, that would mean millions of dollars in construction work. The Washington region has some of the worst railroad bottlenecks along the East Coast, including the Virginia Avenue tunnel.
CSX’s local projects
CSX is proposing projects at the following locations that would replace bridges, raise roofs of tunnels, or lower tracks into the ground so double-stacked freight trains could travel the route.
D.C.
» Virginia Avenue Tunnel
» New Jersey Avenue
» 10th Street
» Interstate 395 ramps
» 12th Street Southwest
» Potomac River Swing Bridge
Montgomery
» Germantown Road North
» Deer Park Drive in Washington Grove
Prince George’s
» Baltimore-Washington Parkway/Route 295
» Kenilworth Avenue
Prince William
» Railroad Avenue in Woodbridge
Frederick
» Catoctin Tunnel
» Point of Rocks Tunnel
Raising the roof of that tunnel alone would cost an estimated $140 million. The 12 other local projects proposed, including replacing the bridge on Deer Park Drive in Montgomery County’s historic Washington Grove, would add millions more. The freight company would pay about $393 million of the National Gateway initiative, while state and federal dollars would pay the rest. The project is seeking stimulus dollars for some of the costs.
Governors in Maryland, Virginia and other states already have backed the plan. It also has won support from the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board, a key regional group of local officials and planners.
Governors in Maryland, Virginia and other states already have backed the plan. It also has won support from the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board, a key regional group of local officials and planners.
“We support the project even though it wouldn’t benefit the District,” said District Department of Transportation spokesman John Lisle. “We recognize there are regional and national benefits from it.”
The plan would add traffic, congestion and headaches during construction, but local officials are hoping it could mean fewer trucks on the roads, plus better commuter and passenger train service.
Officials estimate the proposal could shift 70,000 trucks off Washington-area roads as one train can carry the load of more than 280 trucks, according to CSX. The trains are also more fuel-efficient per pound, they say, getting some 436 miles to the gallon for each ton of cargo.
A 2007 feasibility study by the National Capital Planning Commission that proposed alternatives for a seven-mile stretch of railroad foundered when it estimated that burying the tracks underground would cost about $5.3 billion. Marylanders also balked at rerouting the tracks through their state.
The railroad company hopes to complete the initiative in time for the Panama Canal expansion due in 2015 that will bring more cargo to the East Coast, CSX spokesman Bob Sullivan said.
