February 7, 2020 - TRA Newswire -
A recently released study of potential passenger rail service from Texarkana, Texas through Arkansas to Memphis, Tennessee may be flawed, according to one rail advocate. The $900,000 state-commissioned rail study that involved the Arkansas Department of Highways, AECOM and the Federal Railroad Administration apparently only looked at expected ridership within Arkansas and did not take into account connecting passengers from other routes.
"The capital costs, ranging from $171 million to $402 million, far outweigh the benefits," an Arkansas state-commissioned study concluded. "Without a dedicated funding source, creating a high-speed passenger rail service from Texarkana through Little Rock to Memphis is cost-prohibitive at this time."
"There's not enough benefit both from a time-saving standpoint for people who would use passenger rail or from a reduction in traffic on existing highways to outweigh the cost of implementing, which just means it's not cost effective," said Scott Bennett, the director of the Arkansas Department of Highways, which commissioned the study. The study found that even topping out at 110mph, the proposed extension to Memphis would attract no more than 130,000 passengers per year, or about 356 people per day, by 2040.
Not so fast, according to Bill Pollard, a long-time rail advocate and Chairman of TEMPO (Texas Eagle Marketing and Performance Organization) a grassroots organization dedicated to promoting ridership on the Texas Eagle. Pollard expressed disappointment with the study.
Pollard said it appeared the study looked only at ridership within the state of Arkansas when the segment under study would have allowed connections to hundreds of other towns and cities on the Amtrak national network. Those cities would include current service to Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, other Texas cities to the south and west and to St. Louis and Chicago to the north on the Amtrak national network. In addition, Memphis-bound trains would also allow passengers to transit to cities in Illinois to the north and down to New Orleans on existing services.
"I fear that the ridership projections are largely intrastate ridership, which is the smallest component," Pollard said. "That is a flaw in the study." Pollard also said that the study limited trips to twice a day in each direction and on a short corridor "you would need a minimum of three trips a day. The frequency, as well as the speed, determines ridership."
Pollard also indicated that using Texas Eagle ridership numbers skewed the numbers negative. "Texas Eagle ridership within Arkansas is paltry at best", according to the rail advocate. "Because the current timing of trains now hit population centers in the wee hours of the morning I don't think that Texas Eagle ridership numbers have any bearing on the study. It's comparing apples and oranges."
The segments in the study are part of the South-Central High Speed Rail Corridor, one of 10 high-speed rail corridors established by the U.S. Department of Transportation. The study called current passenger rail service between Texarkana and Little Rock, part of the Amtrak Texas Eagle route, "slow, inconvenient and relatively unreliable."
A recently released study of potential passenger rail service from Texarkana, Texas through Arkansas to Memphis, Tennessee may be flawed, according to one rail advocate. The $900,000 state-commissioned rail study that involved the Arkansas Department of Highways, AECOM and the Federal Railroad Administration apparently only looked at expected ridership within Arkansas and did not take into account connecting passengers from other routes.
"The capital costs, ranging from $171 million to $402 million, far outweigh the benefits," an Arkansas state-commissioned study concluded. "Without a dedicated funding source, creating a high-speed passenger rail service from Texarkana through Little Rock to Memphis is cost-prohibitive at this time."
"There's not enough benefit both from a time-saving standpoint for people who would use passenger rail or from a reduction in traffic on existing highways to outweigh the cost of implementing, which just means it's not cost effective," said Scott Bennett, the director of the Arkansas Department of Highways, which commissioned the study. The study found that even topping out at 110mph, the proposed extension to Memphis would attract no more than 130,000 passengers per year, or about 356 people per day, by 2040.
Not so fast, according to Bill Pollard, a long-time rail advocate and Chairman of TEMPO (Texas Eagle Marketing and Performance Organization) a grassroots organization dedicated to promoting ridership on the Texas Eagle. Pollard expressed disappointment with the study.
Pollard said it appeared the study looked only at ridership within the state of Arkansas when the segment under study would have allowed connections to hundreds of other towns and cities on the Amtrak national network. Those cities would include current service to Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, other Texas cities to the south and west and to St. Louis and Chicago to the north on the Amtrak national network. In addition, Memphis-bound trains would also allow passengers to transit to cities in Illinois to the north and down to New Orleans on existing services.
"I fear that the ridership projections are largely intrastate ridership, which is the smallest component," Pollard said. "That is a flaw in the study." Pollard also said that the study limited trips to twice a day in each direction and on a short corridor "you would need a minimum of three trips a day. The frequency, as well as the speed, determines ridership."
Pollard also indicated that using Texas Eagle ridership numbers skewed the numbers negative. "Texas Eagle ridership within Arkansas is paltry at best", according to the rail advocate. "Because the current timing of trains now hit population centers in the wee hours of the morning I don't think that Texas Eagle ridership numbers have any bearing on the study. It's comparing apples and oranges."
The segments in the study are part of the South-Central High Speed Rail Corridor, one of 10 high-speed rail corridors established by the U.S. Department of Transportation. The study called current passenger rail service between Texarkana and Little Rock, part of the Amtrak Texas Eagle route, "slow, inconvenient and relatively unreliable."