NC: Triad state senators revive commuter rail study legislation

Three Triad Democrat state senators are trying again to gain legislative approval to study the feasibility of connecting the region's three largest cities with passenger rail service.

Senate Bill 243 — also known as the “Commuter Rail Study Piedmont Triad“ — is sponsored by Sens. Michael Garrett and Gladys Robinson of Guilford County and Paul Lowe of Forsyth County.

The same legislation was introduced during the 2024 session, but was not heard in committee.

The bill would require the N.C. Department of Transportation to study the cost and potential economic benefits of a commuter rail service linking Winston-Salem, Greensboro and High Point. The study also would measure potential population growth through 2050.

“We are very interested in developing rail connections with our sister cities in the Triad and state,” Winston-Salem Mayor Allen Joines said. “Certainly, having good data and strategy will be important.”

When Winston-Salem finished a $12 million renovation of Union Station off Martin Luther King Jr. Drive in 2019, the city was aiming for a front door to future passenger rail service. The last train with passengers stopped at Union Station in 1970 during a route from Greensboro to Asheville.

In December 2021, Winston-Salem leaders unveiled plans to encourage the revival of passenger rail service to the city. They acknowledged at the time it wouldn’t be easy to accomplish.

However, their confidence was stoked by the congressional passage in 2021 of a $1 trillion infrastructure bill that earmarks $66 billion for Amtrak, the nation’s passenger rail operator.

Amtrak’s “corridor vision” includes additions to the passenger rail system in North Carolina that would extend service to both Asheville and Wilmington, and give Raleigh a connection to points north through Richmond, Va.

However, the plan calls for no train station in Winston-Salem.

Similarly, a state plan for rail unveiled in 2015 shows potential lines connecting Asheville to the existing passenger rail service through Salisbury and Wilmington through Selma and Raleigh.

Winston-Salem would keep its Amtrak Connector bus service through the Piedmont Authority for Regional Transportation with potential extensions — but no train to Wilkesboro, Boone and Statesville.

Joines has said the city’s biggest challenge is “convincing the railroad that it makes sense for them.”

“What I have been told is that the railroads have not included us on the list because of their concerns about the marketability of it.”

Amtrak and the state Department of Transportation are not the only elements in the equation: Norfolk Southern owns the rail line to Winston-Salem and would have to approve allowing a passenger train to use it.

“They indicated a few years ago that they did not want to share the existing freight line with passenger rail,” said Pat Ivey, a division engineer for the Transportation Department. “There would have to be a new corridor for passenger traffic if the Norfolk Southern stance did not change.”

Council Member D.D. Adams said during a December 2021 discussion that passenger rail is vital to the city’s economic future, citing business expansion in the Triad and Triangle.

“You can’t move people and goods in the world we live in if you don’t have rail,” Adams said. “Nobody looks at you.”

The federal investment in Amtrak, in turn, spurred the March 6 announcement from Siemens Mobility that it was building a $220 million plant in Lexington Industrial Park as its first East Coast operations. The manufacturer plans to begin production in 2024 of passenger rail cars with a projected workforce of roughly 500 employees.

The plant’s creation is intended to meet increasing domestic demand for passenger trains, particularly in metro areas along the East Coast.

Keith Debbage, a UNC Greensboro professor who specializes in regional economic development issues, questions whether trains as a mode of transit is as feasible in small- to mid-sized cities.

“Commuter rail service in the Triad is always a tough sell because of the multi-centered and dispersed nature of the urban system,” Debbage said. “It is not a surprise that in North Carolina light rail only exists in Charlotte. Unlike the Triad, all roads (and rail lines) lead to Charlotte since it is a concentrated hub and spoke system with one dominant city.

“The end result is we historically have not had the type of density needed to generate high rail transit passenger demand.”

However, Debbage cited the planned creation of between 1,750 and 2,400 jobs at Piedmont Triad International Airport by Boom Supersonic and about 5,100 jobs at the Toyota North Carolina electric vehicle battery plant in Randolph County.

Those economic development projects could be enough reason to “take another look to see if it is more feasible now, and into the future, as our city centers and major corporate suburban sites continue to densify," Debbage said.

© 2025 the News & Record (Greensboro, N.C.).
Visit www.news-record.com.
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.