Charlotte to Atlanta at up to 220 mph? High-speed rail is among NC transit proposals.
A federal program is on track to potentially provide high-speed train travel connecting Charlotte to Atlanta, as well as other cities.
A $500,000 study has just been approved to examine the feasibility of such a plan.
It’s part of $3.5 million in federal grant money that the North Carolina Department of Transportation secured last week to identify and develop seven corridors for potential rail lines across the state, which includes the Charlotte to Atlanta plan.
Each corridor will receive up to $500,000 to create a service development plan from the U.S. Department of Transportation to identify potential new rail routes or improvements.
“We’re making a massive leap in transforming how Charlotteans and North Carolinians travel,” Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles said last week on X, formerly Twitter. “This is more than funding, it’s an investment in our future mobility.”
Charlotte proposals awarded
Three of the seven corridors are in Charlotte, according to a news release last week from U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-NC. The local proposals are:
▪ High-speed rail connecting Charlotte to Atlanta. It could have stops at Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport in South Carolina, as well as Augusta and Athens, Georgia. The line would end at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta.
The trip would take just over two hours with the train reaching speeds of 125 mph up to 220 mph, The Charlotte Observer previously reported. The over 250-mile car drive from Gateway Center in Charlotte to the airport in Atlanta takes about 4 1/2 hours, depending on traffic.
▪ Charlotte to Kings Mountain, with a new service west of Charlotte Gateway Station on West Trade Street.
▪ The third project is along the Washington, D.C., corridor. It would improve Amtrak’s Carolinian daily service connecting Charlotte to New York. Improvements would include rehabilitating a partially abandoned line between Raleigh and Petersburg, Virginia, that’s more direct than the existing route through Rocky Mount. This could cut travel time by more than one hour, according to NCDOT.
Other proposed corridor changes
The other corridors in NCDOT’s 12 Rail Division corridors program that received approval are: Fayetteville, Winston-Salem and Wilmington connecting to Raleigh, and reopening a passenger line from Salisbury to Asheville. That passenger train line ended in 1975, according to the news release.
The federal funding will be used to study the scope, schedule and cost estimate for the potential new corridors, according to the news release.
More rail trail improvements in NC
In addition to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, Gov. Roy Cooper met Monday with U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg to highlight a historic $1.09 billion S-Line passenger rail grant announced last week.
The project will build a high-speed train line north of Raleigh. The first leg would be to Richmond, Virginia.
It’s part of $8.2 billion in new funding in the Biden administration’s “Investing in America Agenda” to build “world class-infrastructure across the country.”
NC wins big federal grant to begin building high-speed rail line north of Raleigh
