Rail line idea still on table

Talk about what used to be called a “bullet train” connecting Columbus and Atlanta (and, in some versions, points beyond) has been around at least since the late state Sen. Floyd Hudgins was pushing the idea in the mid-1980s.

The basic questions have always been the same: (a) How much would it cost? (b) How reliably could it be counted on to pay for itself? And (c), which is really a corollary to (b): How many people would use this service, and how often, and at what price?

Oh, and presuming all the above questions are answered to the satisfaction of the powers that be, how do said powers go about acquiring the necessary properties and rights of way, and making sure the project passes environmental muster?

Obviously, people don’t yet need to be setting aside ticket money for the Atlanta Express.

But the project isn’t just pipe-dream stuff, either. A $300,000 Georgia Department of Transportation grant and some $50,000 in private donations have funded an almost year-long feasibility study by HNTB Corp., which gave Columbus Council an progress report this week. Not surprisingly, representatives from the DOT, Fort Benning, the Greater Columbus Chamber of Commerce and the Columbus Airport Authority were among the interested parties on hand.

Given the suggested route, there are some historic echoes for those old enough to remember. It wasn’t all that long ago that Columbus had the dubious distinction of being the most significant American city left off the Interstate Highway System, at least until leaders succeeded in getting I-185 built to connect with I-85 at LaGrange. Now, according to the HNTB study, a rail line along the 185-85 corridor is considered the most feasible route, with the Columbus and Atlanta airports being the two end points.

Projected numbers involve more than a million one-way trips annually by 2030, with revenues exceeding expenses by $5 million for express rail or by about $3 million for regional rail.

But “projected” figures are not actual ones. More analysis to come.

From rail to port

The Columbus-Atlanta train project might still be an unrealized and unfunded project, but the Savannah Harbor expansion project is neither.

Thanks to a bill approved last week in Congress, Uncle Sam is sending millions more to Georgia for the harbor deepening at the Port of Savannah, a necessary operation for accommodating the larger cargo ships that can now come through the recently widened Panama Canal. Completion of the work is expected by 2020.

Washington will now cover 75 percent of the construction cost, as opposed to the 50 percent share Congress had committed to it before.

This is a savings of millions for Georgia taxpayers, who have already paid $266 million for a project essential to the state’s economic future. An Atlantic Coast state without state-of-the-art port facilities is wasting perhaps its most valuable geographic advantages.

The bill is “an acknowledgment of how our industry operates today,” said Jamie McCurry of the Georgia Ports Authority. “If you’re going to be capable of handling ships today, you need to be in that range.”

This story was originally published December 14, 2016 at 2:44 PM with the headline "Rail line idea still on table."